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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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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Killing two vices with one stone
PATTAYA: Police officers broke into a gambling den in Pattaya and found seven men gambling, not for money but for drugs. Apparently unaware that it is “open season” on drug offenders, the men were doubling up on their pleasure by combining the twin national vices into one fun activity. All was going well, until their uninvited guests arrived. All seven…
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Trigger cocked over fighting cock
SURAT THANI: Boys will be boys, and brothers will be brothers. When it comes to sibling rivalry, anything can happen, and usually does. If your brother’s dog savaged your favorite fighting cock, you’d probably have a few words to say, which is just what Somjit Kongtee did. Regrettably, they were some of the last words the 45-year-old uttered. Ten minutes…
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Diamond dazzler’s winning ways
CHIANG RAI: The owner of seven diamond-eyed cats has refused to sell her precious felines, despite offers as high as 35,000 baht for a kitten. The owner, 53-year-old Suk Namwong, has been breeding cats out of her small mom-and-pop store in Chiang Rai’s Muang district for 20 years. But she had never seen anything quite like Jao Yok, a regal,…
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In vino stupiditas
BANGKOK: Most drunks will stop imbibing when they have spent their last baht on the devil’s brew, but not 41-year-old Kiat Sommee. Kiat was out drinking with friends one day when he ran out of cash. A bank, he reasoned, is a place where a lot of money is kept. There was only one possible course of action, so Kiat…
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Bottom’s up for Okker shockers
PATONG: Many Australians have been known to have a drink or two every now and again and perhaps a lie-in as a result. The three young Aussies who performed a strange show for bystanders in front of the souvenir shops in Patong’s Thaweewong Rd earlier this month probably wished they’d stayed in bed. The scene was quite remarkable, even by…
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A job for ghost busters
SAKHON NAKHON : Old beliefs die hard in the villages of the Kusumal district, where a wave of ghost stories spread panic this month. Villagers said that four monks, on a walking pilgrimage, awakened ghosts and took magic oil from dead bodies. The monks, however, were not well-practiced in black magic, so they couldn’t control the awakened spirits. Among the…
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Is there a real doctor in the house?
UDON THANI: Laborers Samrit Rattanawong, 38, and Prayad Ubolkrut, 29, knew that doctors’ bills could be expensive, but they didn’t realize that a routine check-up would end up costing them 60,000 baht each. The two went to Panyavej Hospital for a medical certificate they needed to apply for work in Singapore. A doctor, who introduced himself as Dr Charnwit Sattayaprasert,…
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And for my next trick…
CHIANG RAI: A monk who claimed he used his magic powers to make a pickup disappear from a showroom had some trouble persuading police about his vanishing act. There were no witnesses, but the vehicle was discovered 27 kilometers away from the Mazda showroom in Chiang Rai, with an empty gas tank. Suspicion fell on the monk, Ekachai Pattanaeakwong, who…
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Exorcist undone by demon drink
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: Black magic pratictioner Nuad Tongbua, 57, was well-respected for his effectiveness in treating the supernatural ails of villagers at Baan Pa Yang Kluay, in Tambon Khao Phra. After 30 years of successfully plying the dark arts, he was more commonly known as “Ajarn Niow”. However, on October 8, after an early morning session treating four “patients” followed…
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It’s an Ultraman world
ROI ET: Tough gangs are always causing trouble in Roi Et but no one expected the toughest of them all to be all female. The 50 members of the Ultraman Gang are aged 17 to 24 and by night they threaten people in pubs, karaoke bars and restaurants. Some of them are still at school and meet after class. The…
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A fatal frog in the throat
SURAT THANI: Somjai Jansong, 61, was looking forward to visiting his relatives in Thachana district, where his nephew Manit Disdetch, 46, was throwing a party. When K. Somjai arrived, K. Manit explained that he had prepared a special dish for the party, which he called “wild frog”. The frog, he boasted, weighed about one kilogram and he had caught it…
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Car stripper
NONTHABURI: A thief out to strip a car of valuables stripped himself naked in a bid to persuade police he was mad and deserving of sympathy. But his ploy failed. His ability as a performer was duly noted because the car he chose to break into belonged to Ploy Jaroenpura, 37, the elder sister of the singer Mai Jaroenpura, and…
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Get away from my pig, you swine
UDON THANI: Sunthorn Sornyoo couldn’t say why, but when he spotted the pregnant, but still very slinky, sow in Sompetch Samsibai’s pigsty, he felt the juices flow. “I climbed up into the pigsty and raped her until I had an orgasm,” he explained later. Passing the cage a week later, 42-year-old Sunthorn again felt an urge to consort with the…
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Pet roaches face ban
BANGKOK: Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyurapan has warned that cockroaches imported from Madagascar could face an import ban if research finds that they are dangerous to human beings. K. Sudarat’s warning follows the discovery that many vendors at the famed Chatuchak Market recently started selling the cockroches as pets. The imported cockroaches are unusually large, certainly bigger than any cockroaches…
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Caught dead to rights
SAMUT PRAKAN: A 51-year-old undertaker at Wat Thongkung was arrested recently after he confessed to having sex with a dead woman. Filled with remorse, Sakchai Thumaseeda wrote a letter to the dead woman’s mother, spilling the beans on his nocturnal necrophiliac exploits with “Bee”, a 31-year-old woman who had recently died of Aids. Mum was not impressed and called the…
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Lottery “losers’ win
NAKHORN SRI THAMMARAT: The rules of the new-fangled underground lottery are easy: the player must pick five numbers. If none of these five numbers is the same as the last three numbers of the first prize in the government lottery, the player wins. For each 100-baht bet, the player wins 1,500 baht if his numbers don’t come up. Police, already…
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Sacred tree opts for dual gender
SURAT THANI: A 400-year-old tree with branches that resemble male and female genitals has brough villagers flocking to look. Charoen Sriyong, 60, of Tambon Pak Praek in Don Sak, took reporters to see a 20-meter Lagerstroemia tree and pointed out the two limbs, each about 50 cms long. One pointing upwards resembled a penis, while another pointing downwards resembled the…
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Bank protestor shows he has balls
BANGKOK: Chuay Kotchasit had led a group of 50 people from Kanchanaburi to the Ministry of Finance in Bangkok to hand in a petition to Deputy Finance Minister Varathep Ratanakorn against the Savings Bank. Chuay had led protestors against the Savings Bank in Kanchanaburi before, when the bank refused to return the money the people had put into a fund.…
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Bad neighbor caught brown-handed
NAKHORN SRI THAMMARAT: Neighbors Anan and Prasert had got along fine until the day they argued. That’s the day Prasert found out just how vindictive Anan could be. First, kitchen utensils started to disappear from Prasert’s kitchen. Then the situation grew worse: Prasert found excrement splashed on washing he’d hung out to dry. So Prasert installed a video camera and…
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That ole Oedipus complex
NONG KHAI: Somchai Saenkaew, 40, attacked his younger brother Kamsai, 33, with a sickle when he found Kamsai attempting to commit what anyone in their right mind would consider to be a foul crime. Kamsai suffered wounds to his back, neck, and right arm and was left to bleed to death in the dirt in front of the family home…
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Where did he stash the cash?
PATONG: Katoey Rassamee Lomviset, 27, nearly got away with one of his best “lifts” recently when he stole money out of a policemen’s wallet while being questioned at a police station. Pol Sgt Maj Kasaem Vichianboonyaporn had brought Rassamee in to the Tourist Police office on Thaweewong Rd for questioning after he and fellow officers caught the katoey soliciting sex…
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Ghastly ghosts a fatal attraction
BANGKOK: Police believe a curve called “Krok Yai Cha” on Sukhumvit Rd in Bangkok’s Rayong Town is haunted because it has been the scene of about 50 deaths since a police traffic kiosk opened there in 1995. Bodies of victims are usually placed outside the kiosk. It’s an unpopular posting and officers who spend time there talk of hair-raising experiences…
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Villagers bet on hobbling goblin
NAN: Villagers of Thung Chang flocked to the home of Thong Chanthawong in search of lucky lottery numbers after some mysterious footprints, believed to have been left behind by a supernatural being, were found on the stairs leading up to his house. On each step was one left-foot print, bewildering Thong and his wife, Phan, because they didn’t know of…
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Game over for molesting monk
NONG BUA LAMPU: Police arrested a monk who promptly confessed to molesting two boys, aged 12 and 14, after promising the boys’ parents that he would reveal to them the last three numbers in the national lottery. The monk, Phra Sa-ngiam, had stayed in one of the temples in the village and was acquainted with the boys’ parents. Having heard…
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Students “use toilets as ya bah factories’
BANGKOK: Thai students have been turning school toilets into makeshift drug factories, churning out cut-price ya bah (methamphetamine) pills that are then sold to other youngsters. One of the trademark stamps on their pills depicts a wizard riding a broomstick, intended to attract fans of the fictional schoolboy wizard Harry Potter, said a Buddhist monk involved in a drugs eradication…
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Something smuggled, something new”¦
BANGKOK: Customs agents were scratching their heads today over what should be done with a contraband cargo seized from a Taiwanese smuggler. The illegal shipment, worth about 10 million baht, was intercepted at Bangkok Port yesterday and the Taiwanese man was arrested, the Customs Department said. The haul, smuggled in from Singapore, included nine Mercedes-Benz cars and 300 white wedding…
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Late lamented delivers a bit of a shock
MUKDAHAN: Seventy-two-year-old Wan Sukhampa had been ill with lung problems for five years. On December 8, she felt particularly unwell, so her family took her to the hospital. The following morning her condition deteriorated and she was moved to the intensive care unit. The doctors were unable to help her, however, and within hours she was declared dead. Later that…
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Dr Thim’s dream ends with sting in tail
RANONG: Noodle vendor Sajee “Thim” Klong-nguern, 31, had been suffering unusual aches and pains. That was until, one night, she says, an angel came to her in a dream. The angel told her that if she ate a pig’s tail that had been boiled in palm sugar for 15 minutes, all her aches and pains would vanish. The next day,…
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A few days of stolen joy
KHON KAEN: Bualong Intarasena, 35, had a problem: after being widowed, she had a new husband, Amnart, and he wanted a child by her as soon as possible. What she didn’t dare tell him was that, after bearing her first husband two children, she had undergone sterilization. So Bualong told him she was pregnant, and as the months of her…
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Fowl play suspected
KALASIN: Porn Yeejuan knew she was a good cook and had spent the day busily preparing for her daughter’s engagement party, to which the whole village had been invited. Among the range of delicacies she had prepared for her guests was boiled chicken. Once she had finished preparing all the food, she left it in the kitchen at the back…
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