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Thailand news, politics, business, crime, lifestyle, and tourism—stay updated with breaking news and in-depth analysis from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond.
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UPDATE: Sri Lanka’s exiled president allowed temporary Thailand stay, with conditions
UPDATE Sri Lanka’s exiled president Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be allowed to stay in Thailand for 90 days, according to Thailand’s Deputy PM Don Pramudwinai. Don is also Thailand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. Don told Thai media that he understands Sri Lankans are angry at their former president, and he stressed that Gotabaya will only be allowed to stay for a…
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UPDATE: Thailand introduces fine for not wearing seat belt in the back seat
UPDATE: The Royal Thai Police will go easy on people who break the new seat belt law “in the early phase” according to Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau Pol. Maj. Gen. Jirasan Kaewsaeng-ek. The officer confirmed yesterday that from September 5, the driver and all passengers – including those in the back seat – are required by law…
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Another new virus found in China reportedly spread from shrews
After the global disaster of Covid-19, another new virus has been reported in China, known as the “Langya” virus. On Tuesday, 35 people were reported to be infected with Langya in eastern China. The virus is believed to have spread from shrews, and tests have detected it in 71 out of 262 shrews, 27% of the shrews tested. Symptoms of…
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Modernform opens up a space of inspiration at its new home on Soi Sukhumvit 49
Press Release Modernform Group Public Company Limited, Thailand’s leading office and home furniture brand, invites everyone to find inspiration to fulfil their lifestyle needs at its new showroom, which is unlike anything you have seen. To create its new showroom, the brand has turned a heritage house into a lifestyle community right in the heart of Bangkok. Based on a design…
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Robots now serving people at Thai restaurant chain
Robots are now serving people at a Thai restaurant chain. S&P, the bakery and restaurant chain, is using robots as a way to cope with skyrocketing costs while keeping its prices down. Each restaurant usually employs 10 staff. S&P’s operator company, SET-listed S&P Syndicate Plc, currently operates 460 production hubs around the country. Its goal is to operate 480 by…
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Patiphan explains to police: It was my twin brother Patiphat!
In what seems like a scene from a movie with a lazy plot, a man in Nakhon Ratchasima says his upstanding life has been ruined by his criminal twin brother. Patiphan and Patiphat Kaeowaem were split up when they were babies and their lives took radically different directions. Born to a poor family, when they were just two months old,…
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Woman faces jail for trafficking girls after karaoke raid in Thailand
A Thai woman faces a ten-year prison term and a heavy fine after police raided a karaoke bar and found scantily-clad underage girls serving alcohol in the Lat Yao district of central Thailand. Acting on complaints from residents nearby, officers from the Department of Provincial Administration (DPA) law enforcement team burst into the Ran Theederm karaoke bar at Moo 11…
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South Korea’s capital sees record rainfall, at least 9 killed
South Korea’s capital city of Seoul is witnessing record rainfall this week, and at least 9 people have been killed so far. Three of those were killed when they were trapped in a flooded semi-basement. About 17 other people were injured, and at least seven are still missing, according to the country’s Interior and Safety Ministry. Since heavy rain began…
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Chon Buri police couldn’t find victim of car crash on back seat
Chon Buri Highway Police rescue team has been slammed by Thai netizens for their slapstick approach because they couldn’t find the dead body of a man who crashed his car. The dead body of the driver lay in the car’s wreckage for 12 hours after the accident before he was found. The body of 68 year old Pattarachai Auttaporn was…
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Phuket expects recent India road show to bring in even more tourists, and revenue
Phuket officials are excited to see the payoff of a recent roadshow in India. The Tourism Authority of Thailand, along with the Phuket Tourism Association, went to a roadshow tourism marketing event in India from August 1-6. The event celebrated the 75th anniversary of Thai and Indian relations. Now, the PPAO’s vice president expects another 150,000 Indian tourists to arrive…
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Jungceylon undergoes renovation to become a one-stop shopping paradise
Press Release “Jungceylon Shopping Center is renovating the shopping mall’s basement by allocating space and introducing new exciting shops to meet the lifestyles of Thai and foreign customers,” stated Mr Prawit Janyasittikul, Chief Executive Officer of Jungceylon Shopping Center Patong Phuket. The ‘Jungle Building’ inside Jungceylon has a total basement area is over 7,000 sqm. The food bazaar located in…
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Pakistani Taliban commander reportedly killed in Afghanistan
Another terrorist leader has reportedly met his maker. A senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban has reportedly been killed in Afghanistan. The commander, Abdul Wali, was killed in an improvised explosive device attack on a car on July 7, according to two sources within the Taliban’s leadership. The sources told CNN that the attack happened in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, which…
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Mountain B fire death toll rises to 16
The Mountain B tragedy continues as another person injured in the fire dies in hospital. A 23 year old man identified as Sittichai Ouilert died at Chon Buri hospital at 10.21pm yesterday, after he was caught in the fire which swept through a Chon Buri nightclub on Thursday night. A total of 13 people died at the scene in the…
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MRT says Bangkok won’t suffer any Seoul-type metro flooding
The Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRT) insists passengers don’t have to worry about any South Korea-type flooding because each station is designed to cope with floods and emergencies. Seoul, and its surrounding areas, suffered the heaviest rainfall in 80 years on Monday, August 8. Several roads and metro stations in the capital were under water causing multiple power cuts…
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Exiled Sri Lanka president expected to arrive in Thailand tomorrow
After angry mobs of protesters drove him out of Sri Lanka and into exile, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is now planning to seek safe harbor in Thailand. According to two sources, he’s expected to arrive tomorrow after taking up temporary residence in Singapore for the past few weeks. Last month, party leaders in Sri Lanka met and agreed to ask both…
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Tourists can see rare orchids in bloom at northern Thailand waterfall this month
Tis’ the season for a rare orchid species to bloom in northern Thailand. The orchid species habenaria janellehayneiana is in full bloom at the Man Daeng Waterfall in the Hin Rong Kla National Park. The park is located in Thailand’s northern province of Phitsanulok. The flowers grow on the rocks around the waterfall, creating a colorful scenery. The unique orchid…
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Thailand to consider Chinese engines for S26T Yuan submarine
The Royal Thai Navy (RTN) yesterday revealed it is considering buying Chinese-made engines for the S26T Yuan-class submarine after complications in purchasing the said technology from Germany. Thailand originally turned down the offer of using Chinese-made engines for the Chinese submarine the Thai Government approved to buy in 2017 in favour of using German-made engines. But since the German government…
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Tropical storm ‘Mulan’ to hit several provinces of Thailand between August 11-13
Tropical storm “Mulan” which started at 4am this morning in the upper South China Sea is headed for Thailand, according to the Meteorological Department. The storm is travelling at 20 kilometres per hour and is expected to hit China’s Hainan island first, then Vietnam and then arrive in Thailand as soon as tomorrow. As a result, northern Thailand and some…
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Pattaya’s tourist buses are back at the floating market, but missing Chinese
Now that many of Thailand’s Covid-19 restrictions have eased, tourists are boarding buses to Pattaya once again. Tour buses were back at the Pattaya Floating Market earlier this week. While there were several Indian and Vietnamese tourists on the busses, the buses were missing a group that once played a major role in Thailand’s tourism market- the Chinese. One boat…
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TikTok post accuses Phuket restaurant of unfair, unlisted prices
Gourmet meal or a price-gouging steal? An angry restaurant owner is firing back at a TikTok post claiming he was overcharging after a customer racked up a bill of over 10,000 baht. The restaurant in question is Khon Boran on Ranong Road in Phuket Town, while the TikTok poster, a Thai tourist, says he paid too much for his meal,…
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Thailand introduces fine for not wearing seat belt in the back seat
Not wearing a seat belt in the back seat of a car in Thailand will soon be punishable by a 2,000 baht fine. The rule will come into effect 120 after its publication in the Royal Gazette on September 5, 2022. The Royal Gazette wrote the new rule into the Road Traffic Act (No.13) 2022, published on May 7. The…
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Baby’s birthday party turns violent in eastern Thailand
A baby’s birthday party turned violent in Thailand’s eastern province of Rayong between Monday night and Tuesday morning, in the main city district. A group of Cambodian fishery workers had reportedly thrown a party to celebrate one worker’s son turning three months old. At the party, one group of workers allegedly started drunkenly fighting the other. Two workers were stabbed…
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Thailand’s new narcotics laws offers drug offenders treatment
The Thai Cabinet yesterday introduced a new set of narcotics laws, downgrading a number of acts to give people a second chance if they have committed minor offences. Some drug offenders will be offered drug treatment instead of prosecution. Yesterday, the prime minister’s deputy spokeswoman, Traisuree Traisaranakun, reported that the Cabinet approved the new laws under the Narcotics Act. The…
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Toad travels from Thailand to Wales in student’s suitcase
A university student was toad-ally shocked when an unfamiliar amphibian jumped out of her suitcase in Cardiff, Wales, in the UK, having travelled over 6,000 miles from Thailand. Hannah Turian recently completed her second year studying psychology at Cardiff University and went to Thailand to volunteer in a school during the summer break. After travelling for 35 hours, she finally…
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US’s Chips & Science Act good news for Thailand’s car industry
The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) made it known yesterday that they feared China’s trade embargo with Taiwan would affect business in Thailand, particularly in the automobile industry. The FTI said the car industry was anxious China would deny Taiwan the raw materials Thailand needed to make semiconductors that the Thai transportation business is dependent on. Those fears remain in…
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Man caught taking drugs inside a Bangkok police booth didn’t give a crap
You might think taking drugs inside a police booth toilet was a loo-dicrous idea. But a Thai man in the Tung Kru district in Bangkok didn’t give a crap and just rolled with it. A video of the man taking drugs in the police toilet went viral on Thai social media. It was posted on a local Facebook news page…
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Wife says boss of Mountain B in Pattaya is ‘not a villain’
The wife of the owner of the Mountain B nightclub tragedy in the Pattaya suburb of Sattahip where 15 people died in a blazing inferno insists that her husband is not a villain. Ponsgsiri Panprosong, who was released on 300,000 baht bail yesterday after appearing before the court on two counts of negligently causing the death of 15 people and…
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Policeman poses as Buddhist monk to trick drug dealers in central Thailand
A policeman swapped his tight, zip-up uniform for saffron robes last week in a cunning plan to lure two drug dealers to arrest in Ratchaburi province, central Thailand – but he also broke the law in doing so. Villagers in Ban Pong district complained to police that Ya Ba, a cheap version of Methenamine, was being sold at a famous…
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Swedish Embassy hailed for giving 6-month parental leave to Thai staff
The Swedish Embassy in Bangkok was praised by Thai netizens after providing six months of parental leave with full salary to its Thai male staff. Yesterday, the Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok posted a story of a Thai embassy driver, Somchart Sucheephet, on Facebook revealing he receives the same welfare privileges as his Swedish counterparts. The embassy said… “It’s time…
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PM warns Thailand to brace itself for potential flooding
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha warned Thailand to brace itself for another deluge of water this month. The 68 year old PM ordered governors in provincial areas to prepare for potential flooding after weather forecasters predicted more heavy rainfall until the end of the month. Thailand witnessed a heavy taste of what is to come over the past 24 hours after…
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