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.
-
Sponsored Top 10 reasons for expats to get a comprehensive health insurance in Thailand
Moving to Thailand offers plenty of excitement and adventure, but the local healthcare system can be complex to navigate as an expat. From unique health risks to high costs at private hospitals, having a comprehensive health insurance plan is essential....
-
Golden oldie love triangle ends in shooting
LOEI: You’re never too old to fall in love – or to take violent revenge on your cheating wife and treacherous neighbor, as events in the northeastern province of Loei recently showed. On June 22, local police received reports that two people had been shot at a house in Thali subdistrict. At the scene, they found villagers gathered around Wan…
-
“Croc-o-duo’ free to roam family home
PHITSANULOKE: Municipality Council member Awiroot Natip has shared his family home with a variety of pets over the past decade, two of which are two-meter-long freshwater crocodiles. “I’ve been raising them for almost 10 years,” Mr Awiroot, 45, told Kom Chad Luek. Mr Ariwoot purchased the pair, named Ngern (Silver) and Thong (Gold), from Nakhon Sawan MP Pinyo Nirote for…
-
Family keeping killer dog
CHON BURI: The family of Mana Thessarit, a 51-year-old man who died after being viciously attacked by his golden retriever “Peter”, says there’s no question of getting rid of the killer pooch. Mr Mana’s daughter Wassana said the family will continue to look after the dog at the family home, in Sattahip district in the Central Thailand province. Peter attacked…
-
Abhisit-loving grandmother kills herself
RAYONG: Dedicated supporters of the Democrat Party across Thailand have taken Yingluck Shinawatra’s sweeping victory over Abhisit Vejjajiva in the July 3 general elections hard, but none more so than Lamian Yusuk, an 80-year-old grandmother from Huay Yang subdistrict in Rayong province. Ms Lamian killed herself by drinking weedkiller six days after her hero Mr Abhisit’s defeat. Nantha Lap-insi, 59,…
-
Former meth addict saws own neck, dies
A MENTALLY-ill man killed himself on a building site by pushing a rotating saw into his own neck, police said. Saemdam Police were called to the scene in Bang Khun Thian district in Bangkok after the body of Ek Boonmee, 34, was found next to the saw. Mr Ek’s father, Nawi Boon-mee, 56, told police that his son suffered from…
-
Mentally ill man guards mother’s body for a week
A MENTALLY ill man in Bangkok spent five days crouched over his mother’s dead body in a Bangkok apartment before the foul smell alerted the landlady. Walisa Amnuaypon, 58, said she knocked on the door but received no response. When she opened the room with her spare key she was shocked to find Somchai Saeju, 59, sitting next to the…
-
Ayutthaya “sex lottery’ exposed, cops get tough on getting lucky
AYUTTHAYA: An underground lottery in Ayutthaya province has given new meaning to the expression “getting lucky”. Top prize in the draw, which was becoming increasingly popular with male factory workers in the central Thai province before the authorities got wind of it, was a night in bed with a young woman. Early this month Ayutthaya Police made several arrests connected…
-
Dog snatchers terrorizing Khon Kaen
KHON KAEN: A gang of dog snatchers is stealing pampered pooches in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen, leaving a string of dog owners devastated over the loss of their cherished four-legged friends. The gang, whose reign of terror has lasted two years, is targeting pedigree breeds with placid temperaments, such as golden retrievers, Siberian huskies, chihuahuas, Pomeranians and pugs.…
-
Hungry ghost feasts on villagers
PHITSANULOK: Residents of a village in Phitsanulok province believe they are being stalked by a pret – a Thai “hungry ghost” – following the mysterious deaths of three old villagers in the same week late last month. Terrified residents of Village 9 in Aranyik subdistrict believe the pret is going to kill again. Last week they performed a Buddhist ritual…
-
Man becomes dogs’ dinner
PHITSANULOK: A man who lived alone in a wooden shack on a fruit farm in Phitsanulok fell to his death and was half-eaten by the 20 dogs he kept to guard his orchards. When villagers living nearby noticed that Mai Khongthong, 66, wasn’t out watering his fruit trees as usual February 25, they called out to him but heard no…
-
Canine-crazy couple have gone to the dogs
NAKHON PATHOM: Champa Tangsombun is crazy about dogs – so much so that it’s ruining his wife’s retirement. Mr Champa, 74, has been taking stray and injured dogs into his home in Village 9 in Bangchang subdistrict for 15 years. The retired bus station master now has 61 canines to take care of and he has spent his entire life…
-
The sacred unborn baby of Village 11
SUPHAN BURI: For 10 months now, residents of a village in Suphan Buri province have been wondering when Niphawan Bunjaroen, 35, is going to give birth. Niphawan, who lives in Village 11 in Nong Makha Mong subdistrict, claims to have been pregnant with her fourth child for a rather long time: 19 months, to be precise. Doctors say the maybe-mother-to-be,…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
Don't forget to check out some other things to do in Thailand - get help starting a business or finding a job in Thailand, buy Thailand property, rent a yacht or book a medical procedure worldwide.