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.
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Today is Lung Health Day, the perfect reminder to pay attention to your respiratory system, an often-overlooked but essential part of your overall well-being. While we’re all aware that smoking is bad for our lungs, there are many less obvious...
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Guns, drugs and an empty casket
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: When a funeral goes on for several weeks and is protected by a gang of armed men, you can usually bet that it’s for someone important. But a funeral in Thung Yai held for a fictitious money-spinning witch doctor left villagers confused when the funeral’s organizers started selling “lucky” lottery tickets. The funeral was reported to the…
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Conman captured at local cockfight
KAMALA: After a two-month search, a local trickster who conned a 55-year-old woman out of a million baht in a land scam was finally arrested – at an illegal cockfight in Nakhon Sri Thammarat. Lt Col Monsak Srisuwan from Kamala Police Station said that Phuket City Resident Benja Wongdara had been trying to sell a plot of land. K. Benja…
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Electrified fence at forest temple
LOPBURI: More than 200 people from Baan Nong Kam in Lopburi’s Muang District held a protest June 27 to drive out a local abbot, whom they accused of setting up an electrified fence to keep villagers away from his forest temple.One of the protest leaders, 58-year-old Charoen Wongpao, told reporters that Phra Khru Palatwiroj Ophaso, Abbot of Wat Suwanahong Forest,…
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Pistol penisectomy
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT (Gazette, Kom Chad Luek): A Buddhist ordination ceremony in Phraphrom District took a turn for the worse on July 6 after an outbreak of violence led to a firearms incident which left one unlucky follower of the Middle Way with a serious pain in his crotch. The evening began jovially at the ceremony held in Na Phru…
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It’s no yolk! Egg theft ring cracked
NAKHON RATCHASIMA: Accounts of police breaking up rings of drug dealers, armed robbers and teenage motorcycle thieves are a fairly common occurrence in Thailand these days. Officers from Chalermprakiat District Police had a more unusual task at hand on June 20, however, when they managed to crack a ring of egg thieves who had been terrorizing chicken coops across Khorat.…
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Brownnose bloodsucker
NAKHON RATCHASIMA: A man was admitted to Bua Yai Hospital on June 7 with complaints of abdominal pains, which he said were caused by a leech that crawled up inside his anus while he was trying to catch fish for his wife’s dinner. Nong Chingpho, 43, told doctors that he had intermittent stomach pains for about a month, ever since…
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Cat burglar crash
PHUKET: Being a keen breeder of songbirds, 34-year-old Chalong resident Warathep Udomsap would have been used to being woken up by the dawn chorus coming from the bird cages he kept at the back of his house. At dawn on May 28, however, he was awoken by some much less appealing noises: a loud crash followed by anguished wailing. As…
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Talisman tales
CHIANG MAI: With the craze for Jatukam Ramathep amulets still going strong, stories of miraculous survivals from shootings, stabbings, car crashes and other seemingly-dangerous events are a fixture in the Thai press at the moment. On June 1, one lucky 14-year-old in Rayong appeared in the pages of Thai Rath newspaper after he was left with only a small bruise…
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Miniature elephant or mammoth scam?
TAK: Taking a break from bashing his cousins in the Karen National Union, a sergeant major from the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) reportedly crossed the Thai border recently with an unusual piece of merchandise, one he came to hawking at an extraordinary price. Sgt Maj Tinai, from the DKBA 999 Division, claimed to be in possession of none other…
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Man bites dog
“When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.” PATHUM THANI: The above quote, often attributed to 19th-century New York Sun editor John B Bogart, is the standard maxim given to young journalists to remind them what is newsworthy and what is not. It…
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Thieving teens
PHUKET CITY: A gang of young thieves was collared by Phuket’s finest recently as they carried away vehicle parts from a city parking lot. While wayward teenagers pilfering spare parts from parking lots hardly constitutes news these days, in this case the choice of venue chosen by the young hoods was noteworthy: the vehicle impound lot of the Phuket City…
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From nuptials to nightmare
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: A wedding celebration turned to hasty funeral preparations when a respected guest accidentally shot himself in the head while trying to fire a shot into the air to welcome the groom’s procession to the bride’s home. Pol Lt Col Worote Sukger, Deputy Superintendent for Investigations of the Pakpanang District Police, received a report of the incident at…
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A professional disagreement
PETCHABUN: In any profession, accepting the rise of a younger generation can be difficult; no one likes to see their skills being surpassed by up-and-coming youngsters. Going by a recent incident in Phetchabun, the world of hired killers is no different, apart, perhaps, from being a bit more dangerous. In the early hours of April 14 Maj Kittiphong Phromsuwan, an…
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All a-bout love
RAYONG: Many Thais are fond of a wager and high stakes betting on muay Thai bouts is certainly nothing unusual. The organizers of a charity Thai boxing night in Rayong, however, claimed to have a world first when two Assistant Village Chiefs went head to head in the ring to fight – not for a large sum of cash, but…
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Hitman hit
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: A gunman-for-hire listed on the Police Region 8 most-wanted list was whacked, not by zealous cops or victims’ relatives out for revenge, but by his long-suffering companion as he lay asleep in bed. At 10 am on March 30, Chawang District Police Inspector Lt Col Sompong Prohmreuangchart received a report of a shooting at house number 134…
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Holed up
SRISAKET: When the stresses of life and the pressure to be polite become too much, the idea of retreating into a little place to get away from it all can be quite tempting. This is exactly what one man in Srisaket province has done – for the past 20 years. While out visiting his charges in the province’s Nam Kliang…
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Pot luck with the spirits
UDON THANI: When two clay pots covered by a white sheet were found by the side of the road in Ban Pon Sawan village bear Udon Thani city on February 19, villagers nervously began to hypothesize what could be inside. The sheets, tightly tied around the pots, were covered in cryptic inscriptions, so no one dared to open the pots…
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Of monks and munitions
KALASIN: Police arrested 38-year-old monk Phra Phornphanom Sommai February 26 after villagers reported seeing him shouldering a gun while sitting pillion on a motorbike speeding through Nong Hua Ling village, Kuchinarai district. When police caught up with him, they found that he was drunk, said Maj Somchai Phukongchana, Investigating Inspector at Kuchinarai District Police Station. Police then went to search…
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Invincible amulets?
KALASIN: Hubris often comes before a fall, but the demise of one superstitious man in Kalasin province perhaps came more predictably than most. The body of the man in question was found in a small shack in a forest of this northeastern province. Maj Phabun Titiyan, an Inspector at Kalasin Muang District Police station, said that the victim had been…
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Free willy at the wat
CHALONG: A naked Slovenian man who ran short of medication for a nervous condition was found wandering around naked at Wat Lathiwanaram shortly after midday on Saturday. His stroll came to an abrupt end, however, when he was confronted by a white-robed temple nun. According to Lt Col Anek Mongkol of Chalong Police, the Slovenian, 38, rode his motorbike from…
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Centipede on steroids
RAWAI: Villagers in Rawai were dumbfounded when a huge centipede, reportedly half a meter in length, was spotted near a public waterhole in Village 2. At 1 pm on February 6, villagers in the area of Baan Thai Mai (New Thais Village, or “Sea Gypsy” village) on Wiset Rd were seen crowding around a 20-meter-tall sugar palm tree. All were…
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Members only
RAWAI, PHUKET: Outraged residents of Village 2 are demanding the immediate removal of numerous Sivaleung (Shiva’s member, or lingam) statues that decorate a newly-built spa, claiming that the phalluses will embarrass tourists and other passers-by. On January 20 Aroon Solos, President of the Rawai Tambon Administration Organization, paid a visit to the Suppaya Spa (Suppaya means “Assets of the Supreme…
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A really dumbo idea
PHITSANULOKE: A drunk was left with critical head injuries after being slammed into a tree by an elephant he was teasing. The unfortunate event transpired on the morning of January 17. A crowd of curious villagers had gathered near the entrance to Wat Muang Hawm (“Temple of the Fragrant Mango”) in Tambon Kaengsopha, Wangthong District, to see an elephant that…
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Brown nectar of the gods
PHRAE: Scores of villagers in Phrae were given a gut-wrenching shock when a “holy” spring they had prayed to and drunk from turned out to be the result of faulty plumbing rather than a gift from the gods. The font was discovered on January 4 by Anong Kwanphetch, 52, in the middle of her lawn in Tambon Mae Jua, Denchai…
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Chick or cheat?
PATONG: A front-page headline in the December 30 edition of a daily Thai-language newspaper shocked readers with the horrific news that a mother had murdered her newborn child and left its lifeless corpse to rot in a field behind a row of low-rent apartments. The headline for the initial report, roughly translated, read: “Wicked brutality: Mother kills child, stuffs in…
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Deviantly deceived
Living life as a “woman of the second kind” is bound to hone a one’s skills of impersonation. To make the act convincing, many effeminate men walk, talk and act like a lady to fill their preferred gender role. After being fired from his job as an assistant nurse at Khon Kaen Central Hospital for pilfering medical equipment, aging ladyboy…
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Monkey biz
When, in the early hours of December 9 Pol Maj Narongwet Ohn-sungnen, an Inspector with the Amnat Charoen Highway Police, received a tip-off that a pickup truck with a cargo of illegally obtained wildlife was heading his way, he acted swiftly. He ordered road blocks to be set up and at 3:30 am an old bronze Mazda pickup – exactly…
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Going bananas
KOH SIREH: For almost the past month, fortune seekers from as far away as Phattalung, Phang Nga and Krabi have been traveling to Koh Sireh in the hope that a uniquely-shaped banana tree will somehow convey to them the winning digits in the upcoming lottery draws. Word of the tree’s miraculous ability to predict winning lottery numbers began about a…
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The root of suffering
“Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering.” – The Dalai Lama at Harvard University, 1988 A devout monk in Phattalung’s Kongra District took the quest for non-attachment to an unprecedented level recently, when he cut off his erect penis, which was was distracting him during a meditation session. News of the story…
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Full-House Fiasco
CHON BURI: Three unlucky vacationers from the Islamic Republic of Iran were taught a lesson on November 15, when they learned the hard way that pleasures of the flesh rarely come cheap – even in the steamy sois off south Pattya’s infamous Walking Street. The three men, Sedaghat Heiydari, 30, Saber Mobanazade, 31, and Nohsen Nadsill, 32, came to the…
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