Thailand News
Discover the most recent and relevant news from across Thailand on The Thaiger’s National News page. Covering a wide range of topics, including politics, business, crime, and lifestyle, our dedicated team brings you breaking news, in-depth analysis, and exclusive stories from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond.
Stay informed about the latest developments in Thai society, economy, and culture, as well as updates on travel, tourism, and expat life. With The Thaiger, you’ll never miss out on the essential news that matters to you.
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With approximately 106,000 people in Thailand succumbing to smoking-related illnesses annually, people are exploring alternatives in pursuit of a safer option. And for many, the answer is Swedish snus (pronounced snoose and rhymes with goose), a traditional Scandinavian tobacco product...
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Fearsome ghost or black magic clear-out?
CHACHOENGSAO: Residents of Nong Patong village are puzzling over the source of strange red lights that have been seen floating near the village pond almost every night for the past month. Some say the lights are a phi kraseu – a fearsome ghost that appears as the head of a beautiful woman with her internal organs hanging from her neck.…
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Worn out woman opts for penal retreat
KHON KAEN: A woman caught shoplifting from a 7-Eleven told police she committed the crime because she was bored with her life and wanted to go to jail. Wipha Chanachuen, 53, said she was tired of working for a living and wanted to rest in an old people’s home – but jail was the next best option. Khon Kaen City…
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Gruesome offering for pig-headed spirits
PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN: Villagers tried an usual rain-making method last week after two years of drought ruined their coconut harvests. Instead of appealing for the cloud-seeding techniques famous across the land, they instead decided what was needed was an offering of 249 severed pig heads to the spirits of the land. Despite parts of the country experiencing the worst floods…
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Lucky lizard finds loving home
RATCHABURI: Do huge monitor lizards make strange bedfellows? One family in Ratchaburi doesn’t seem to think so. Bunchoo Rotchum, 75, his wife Somya, 65, and their two-year-old granddaughter Donlaya are sharing their bed with a 2.5-meter water monitor, causing a sensation in their village in tambon Pikunthong. The creature, which the family named “Jaothong”, wandered into their home on November…
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Phantom of the ape paw
PHUKET: A bizarre dream has convinced a woman in Phrae province that a pile of stones her husband dug out of a mung bean field are the fossilized hands of prehistoric apes. In typical Thai fashion, residents of the village in Tambon Naphoon in Wangchin District are now queuing up to see the “hands” in order to divine winning lottery…
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Lucky ladyboy in marriage-a-trois
NAKHON SAWAN: A lucky 42-year-old ladyboy is set to marry not one, but two young men in a lavish wedding ceremony in this central Thai province. Somjit Songjaeng has lived with her first husband-to-be, 22-year-old Anurut “Jack” Kraisa, for six years. Not content with one lover, she met her second fiancé, 27-year-old Sathit “Bank” Rawtyoo, at the end of last…
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Grave guidance solves missing person mystery
PHITSANULOKE: In an eerie tale just in time for Halloween, a man was arrested in this northern province after being fingered for murdering his young wife by an unlikely source: her ghost. Four months after her disappearance, the spirit of 21-year-old Ratree Thongdee reportedly appeared to her mother, Somjit Jitprajak, in a dream. The apparition told her that she had…
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Thick thieves, easy investigation
CHONBURI: Bungling thieves abandoned a stolen pickup and their own car after being unable to find the way out of a housing estate in Chonburi October 2. They were soon arrested – after returning to the scene and asking police officers if they could have their car back. Sombat Maithong, 45, reported the theft of his Toyota Vigo pickup to…
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Phantom pickup: Lost soul lends lottery luck
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: A homeowner in Thung Song District is thanking a “phantom” emergency rescue vehicle for her luck in winning over 500,000 baht in the underground lottery. The bizarre tale began shortly after midnight on September 3. Pracha Ruamjai Foundation coordinator Akhom Phumiwetphong said that as rescue workers were relaxing at the station that night, one of their Isuzu…
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Doubts raised over “eggspecting mother’
LOEI: Villagers in Nong Hin District have been rushing to see a woman who had reportedly given birth to an egg. At last report Chawee Chinchaiphum and her husband, Prayut, both 40, have not let anyone see the egg, but enterprising locals have been selling photos of the recently-arrived object for 10 baht each. Demand has been so strong that…
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Goose torched near Phuket pizza joint
PHUKET: Diners at the popular P Pizza House restaurant in the Samkong area of Phuket Town got a fright recently when a man in an adjacent lot fired up a blowtorch and began searing the flesh of what appeared to be a strange new creature with enormous front claws. Closer inspection revealed that the animal was in fact a goose…
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Lucky numbers take root
An obscenely shaped tree at a police station in the northern province of Phayao has reportedly predicted the winning lottery numbers. The talented tamarind tree is in the yard of Phayao Muang Police Station. The tree has an approximately two-foot-long gash in its trunk with a fist-sized sparkling lump at one end. Villagers say the combination makes the tree look…
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Singaporean Ho fails quest for “lucky nuts’
NAKHON PATHOM: Singaporean businessman Ho Kee Wong, 52, made the journey to Wat Sawang Arom in Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand hoping to rent a lucky peanut with five nuts inside the same pod – but was turned away empty-handed. Ho was hoping to emulate fellow Singaporean construction material trader Lee Yern Wai, 55, who struck it rich after acquiring…
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Don’t coax crocs, Thai tourists told
NAKHON RACHASIMA: Authorities at Khao Yai National Park have given a stern warning to tourists, ordering them to stop taunting the park’s pair of two-meter-long crocodiles. The warning came after officials spotted visitors tempting the beasts with their feet. The reptiles first hit the headlines last year when they were seen swimming around a waterhole in the park, which is…
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Chiang Mai cops see red
CHIANG MAI: Police responding to reports of a gathering of hundreds of armed red-shirt demonstrators on June 12 were relieved when the group turned out to be South Korean soccer fans cheering on their team. Residents told police that a group of around 300 people, many wearing red, had gathered in Manna Rim Mae Ping restaurant on the banks of…
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Thai police see red in Chiang Mai
CHIANG MAI: Police responding to reports of a gathering of hundreds of armed red-shirt demonstrators on June 12 were relieved when the group turned out to be South Korean soccer fans cheering on their team. Residents told police that a group of around 300 people, many wearing red, had gathered in Manna Rim Mae Ping restaurant on the banks of…
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An inconvenient curfew
UBON RATCHATHANI: Two young drunks arrested for allegedly smashing up a 7-Eleven convenience store told police the attack was motivated by hunger. Suspects Kasemsan Saiwong, 19, and Sorayut Saithong, 20, said they launched the attack in anger at the store closing early because of the curfew in place in Ubon and other provinces. Police received a report in the early…
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Costly clip job
SAMUT PRAKAN: A woman in Samut Prakan is suing a beauty salon for 100,000 baht in damages over a haircut. On April 24, Naphasason Angkuramaethisak, 49, went to the salon to have her long hair cut into a more fashionable short style she saw in a magazine. When 29-year-old Narathip Thaiphat finished the cut, Ms Naphasason was shocked at how…
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Fake gun, real crime in Phuket
PHUKET: Two young men carried out at least 10 muggings using a gun-shaped cigarette lighter before their arrest in Phuket on the morning of April 25, according to Phuket Police. Chaiyut ‘Daeng’ Sangthong and Umpon ‘Bao’ Meelert, both 21, were picked up by Phuket City Police officers after allegedly robbing a couple the night before. The suspects allegedly attacked Chitpon…
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Police babysat booze over Songkran
THAILAND: In a bid to cut the number of accidents during this year’s Songkran Festival, Thailand’s highway cops launched an innovative scheme: ‘Entrust Your Liquor With The Police’. Drinkers who couldn’t trust themselves to stay off the wheel were invited to leave their booze collections at any of 227 Highway Police offices around the country. The service was free, with…
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Peeping Tom’s tricks exposed
UDON THANI: Police are questioning the owner of a woman’s dormitory after residents found CCTV cameras hidden in their bedrooms and bathrooms. The cameras were first spotted by 24-year-old Phornphat Kimsee as she was taking a shower in the early hours of February 28. Miss Phornphat, who manages a branch of fast food chain Chester’s Grill, said she looked up…
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Souped up spirit house
RAYONG: A police officer worried about keeping up with today’s criminals gave his guardian spirit a boost by donating a high-powered motorbike to his spirit house. Sen Sgt Maj Adisak Buphachat, who serves at Rayong Provincial Police Headquarters, spent more than 50,000 baht on a 400cc Honda CBR 400 sports bike to offer the spirit house at his home. He…
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Diligent dog keeps cascade clean
NAKHON RATCHASIMA: Rain or shine, Kalong the dog unflaggingly continues her mission to guard the cleanness of Wang Nen Waterfall in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Sung Noen district. The drought, seasonal heat and stress from heated political turmoil have sent Nakhon Ratchasima residents to seek refuge in natural attractions like the Wang Nen cascade. There they have a chance to admire this…
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Tiger pelts gone to the dogs
NAKHON RATCHASIMA: More than 200 tiger skins seized near Khao Yai National Park recently weren’t quite what they first seemed: examination revealed that the majority actually came from dogs and cows and had been painted with stripes. The 204 animal pelts were seized from a temple in Pak Chong District by officers from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and…
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Cell phone fears grip the North
CHIANG MAI: People in Northern Thailand have been afraid to answer their cellphones in recent weeks, following claims that calls from certain numbers cause instant brain haemorrhages. People are warning each other to watch out for numbers containing the sequence 3333. If the gossip is to be believed, when calls from the numbers are answered the phones send out a…
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Pad Thai feast turns fatal
PHETCHABURI: A pensioner died on stage after choking on a clump of noodles while participating in a pad thai eating contest. Until his collapse, sixty-six-year-old Hing Laichan was leading the competition on his second plate of the famous fried noodle dish, nationalistically named by prime minister Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram during the World War II era. Onlookers took Mr Hing…
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Naked intruder gets painful lesson
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: A would-be rapist got his comeuppance on January 7, when he climbed naked through the wrong window and met his intended victim’s mother – meat cleaver in hand. Twenty-eight-year-old villager Phongphetch Bunyadisak climbed through the window of a home in his village in Muang District, allegedly after the prize-winning teenage schoolgirl who lived there. When he crawled…
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Friendly frogs draw tourists to temple
AYUDHAYA: Tourists have been flocking to a temple in the old capital district to get close to a group of tame frogs that have taken up residence in a lotus pond. The frogs sit happily on lotus leaves, allowing tourists to stroke and play with them. They even allow photos to be taken, free-of-charge. Phrakhrupradit Kijjarak, 46, the abbot of…
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Domestic dispute turns explosive
TRAT: A quarry worker and his wife were blown up after the man apparently detonated a quantity of C-4 plastic explosive during a domestic dispute on November 19. The blast, heard for up to 50km away, had villagers fearfing an invasion by the Cambodian army. Police and rescue workers found the house of Phen Buntham, 42, and his wife Saijai…
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Fear of girlfriend leads to death plunge
BANGKOK: A man fell to his death November 15 as he tried to lower himself onto the balcony of his fifth floor flat – rather than go in through the front door and meet his angry girlfriend. The body of 29-year-old Surasak Kasan was found lying on the ground under the balcony of his apartment in Din Daeng. He had…
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