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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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Sponsored Digital nomading in Chiang Mai? What US$1,000 a month really gets you
Chiang Mai has become a popular destination for digital nomads due to its low living costs, rich culture, and active remote work community. The city offers affordable housing, tasty food, reliable internet, and many co-working spaces, making it a great...
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Sunday Covid Update: 180 deaths 14,029 new cases
180 coronavirus-related deaths and 14,029 new Covid-19 cases were reported today by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration. In the past 24-hours since the last count, the CCSA has recorded 15,742 recoveries. There are now 135,966 people in Thailand currently receiving treatment for the coronavirus. In the latest and most severe wave of Covid-19, first recorded on April 1, the…
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Italy: Palermo puts migrant children center stage
When the Rainbow Choir reunited for its first rehearsals after the pandemic last summer, the sense of excitement was palpable. “Louder,” bellowed the ensemble’s maestro, snapping his fingers as he paced around the room. The young singers needed little encouragement — grinning in unison, they soared through another verse of an Italian movie soundtrack. Run by the Teatro Massimo, Palermo’s…
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48 arrested at Covid-19 violating luxury Koh Samui birthday party
Yet another illegal gathering, a party on Koh Samui, was busted by police for breaking the Covid-19 emergency restrictions. Early this morning, police raided Maithy Pool Lounge & Restaurant at a luxury resort in the hills behind Bangrak on the northeast corner of the island and arrested 48 people having a birthday party in defiance of Covid-19 rules. 27 foreigners…
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Super Typhoon Chanthu and Tropical Storm Conson hit SE Asia
Thailand is not alone in the massive storms and flooding it has experienced over the past week or two. Southeast Asia is looking down the barrel of two major storm systems, Super Typhoon Chanthu lumbering towards Taiwan and Tropical Storm Conson advancing on Vietnam, both expected to make landfall this weekend. Super Typhoon Chanthu The super typhoon will batter…
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Covid-19 AFTERNOON UPDATE Saturday: provincial totals
Covid-19 infections and deaths have been fairly consistent over the past week but today’s 253 deaths reported over the last 24 hours is a disappointing jump from the 189 deaths reported yesterday. The number of daily Covid-19 infections remained steadily around the 15,000 mark for more than a week, with the past 24 hours seeing 15,191 infections. 726 of those…
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Police launch mobile Covid-19 testing for officers and families
Considered high-risk for contracting Covid-19 due to their frequent close interaction with the public, the Royal Thai Police launched a proactive screening campaign for officers and their family members to be tested for Covid-19. Mobile testing units have been dispatched from police headquarters to provide antigen tests to stations, starting with Bangkok. The national police force has created 10 mobile…
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Kidnapped baby Nong Gina was not sexually assaulted
After the bizarre excuse given for Nong Gina’s kidnapping, that the 2 year old was left at a cave as a sacrifice to the nature spirits, police and missing persons groups suspected more sinister motivations. Police are looking into the possibility that a human trafficking network had targeted Nong Gina, and questioned 3 additional suspects. Now after a physical examination,…
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Hua Hin reopening could hurt bigger domestic tourism market
With Covid-19 restrictions being eased a bit and allowing for some domestic movement, Hua Hin has seen an influx of Thai domestic travellers coming for a much-needed holiday. The seaside town in Prachuap Khiri Khan province is seeing a boom but the Vice President of the Thai Hotels Association is advising that the planned reopening for foreigners may do more…
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Covid-19 UPDATE Saturday: 253 deaths, rate of infections steady
Covid-19 infections and deaths have been fairly consistent over the past week but today’s 253 deaths reported over the last 24 hours is a disappointing jump from the 189 deaths reported yesterday. The number of daily Covid-19 infections remained steadily around the 15,000 mark for more than a week, with the past 24 hours seeing 15,191 infections. 726 of those…
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Is Africa ready to produce a malaria vaccine?
There’s a ray of hope in the fight against tropical diseases: German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said it wants to develop vaccines against malaria and tuberculosis. Clinical trials are expected to start by the end of 2022. The vaccines will use use BioNTech’s messenger RNA technology that’s already proven effective against COVID-19. BioNTech also said it wants to produce the vaccines…
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Angela Merkel in Poland: Bidding good-bye to a difficult partner
After Angela Merkel was elected chancellor of Germany in the fall of 2005, Warsaw was one of the first capitals she visited, along with Paris and Brussels. Poland had joined the European Union a year earlier. Germany was full of hope as it eyed its new partner on the right bank of the Oder River. Sixteen years later as Merkel…
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9/11, the ‘war on terror’ and the consequences for the world
Twenty years have passed since the September 11 attacks. At Ground Zero in New York, the towers of a new World Trade Center rise above the skyline, and there is a memorial to the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks. The city has bounced back and now has more residents than in 2001. Until the pandemic, the economy was booming. …
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9/11 through African eyes
Kenya Zainab Aziz I knew about the attack immediately because I was a journalist, working for the national broadcaster in the capital, Nairobi. In my heart and mind I was thinking of the people inside those buildings. I was shocked, even before I knew the details. The attack gave me flashbacks to the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania…
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Officials expect 400,000+ Covid-19 infections from free ATK plan
The Chinese-made Lepu Medical Technology antigen test kits at the centre of a controversial importing deal are now scheduled to be distributed free across Thailand from September 16. Health officials are anticipating a spike of several hundred thousand new Covid-19 cases as a result of ATK distribution. The National Health Security Office expects that as a result of the influx…
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Indian farmers vow to turn up the heat on Modi’s government
Thousands of farmers gathered at a grain market outside the Indian capital New Delhi this week in protest against new market-friendly agriculture laws that they say threaten their livelihoods. It came after another rally on Sunday involving tens of thousands of farmers vowing to remain defiant against the government over the controversial measures. These rallies proved some of the biggest…
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Phuket meeting urges national government on Covid-19 changes
A Phuket Provincial Hall meeting chaired by 3 advisors to Deputy Prime Minister Supattanapong Punmeechaow focused on 5 main issues of paramount importance to the people of Phuket and the tourism industry. The 3 advisors listened to the issues and are tasked with delivering details to key federal government officials back in Bangkok including the Deputy Prime Minister to report…
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COVID: How the delta variant has shattered Vietnam’s success
Through the first four months of this year, Diep Nguyen was enjoying Vietnam’s impressive containment of COVID-19. Her cafe in an upscale area of Ho Chi Minh City was becoming more popular, and she had begun experimenting with serving cocktails. On May 31, she stopped in-person service as several of her employees lived in neighborhoods that were turning into infection…
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Young Slovenian Obama scholar spearheads the fight for water and equal rights
Sunday, July 11, was a typical summer’s day in Slovenia, with temperatures hovering just below 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit). In the evening, as a storm brewed over the capital, Ljubljana, Nika Kovac, the leader of the campaign against the Water Act, was listening to the first unofficial results of the referendum. “The most important thing we have done with…
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“Dark red” zone curfew, other rules remain until the end of the month
The nightly curfew for the 29 provinces classified as “dark red” zones for high Covid-19 infection rates will remain in place, at least until the end of the month. Those in Bangkok and other “dark red” provinces must stay home from 9pm to 4am, unless travel is essential. In a Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration meeting today chaired by PM Prayut…
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Egypt: New ruling on hymen repair stirs up controversy
During a recent live Facebook broadcast in Arabic, Dr Ahmed Mamdouh, director of the Sharia Research Department of Egypt’s highest religious authority, the Dar al-Ifta, said that “in some cases, patching is required and legitimate for a girl who has been raped or deceived and wants to repent and turn a new page.” This new fatwa — the name given…
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Ministry of Public Health rules AstraZeneca vaccine cause of blood clot death
The Ministry of Public Health has determined a person whose death came from a blood clot and thrombocytopenia ultimately died as a result of one shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine. This instance was the only one out of 628 cases that have been studied by the committee on Adverse Events Following Immunisation that concluded that a vaccine from AstraZeneca was…
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DW correspondents able to leave Afghanistan
Just over a week after international coalition forces pulled out of Afghanistan, DW’s correspondents and their families have managed to leave the country via Pakistan. DW had asked all employees in Afghanistan to go to Kabul as soon as possible when it became clear that the Taliban would take control over the country. The situation for journalists in Afghanistan had…
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Friday Covid Update: 14,403 new cases; provincial totals
189 coronavirus-related deaths were reported today by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, raising the pandemic’s death toll in Thailand to 13,920. Of that number, 13,826 fatalities were during the country’s latest and most severe wave of the virus, which was first recorded on April 1. In the past 24-hours since the last count, the CCSA has recorded 14,403 new Covid-19…
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Island of rubbish: Koh Samui’s pollution problem remains unsolved
No one can argue with the appeal of visiting Thailand’s exotic, tropical islands. With their glistening palm trees, crystal-clear waters, and powdery, white sands, a trip down south is what many yearn to cross off their bucket lists. One of Thailand’s most iconic islands is that of Koh Samui. As the largest and most developed island in the Gulf of…
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3 arrested in Nong Gina abduction, trafficking suspected
New developments bring a twist in the strange case of Nong Gina, the 2 year old girl abducted by a Burmese man who claimed he left her in a cave as a sacrifice to nature spirits. As reported yesterday, the Mirror Foundation suspected more sinister trafficking reasons for the abduction, and police have now taken three people into custody for…
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Phuket: 2 deaths, 1 Sandbox infection, bed occupancy passes 80%
In the last week, Phuket has seen 13 fatalities due to Covid-19 with 2 new deaths reported today, as well as one new Phuket Sandbox international traveller infected. The daily infection numbers have declined for the third day in a row to 211, and the rolling 7-day infection numbers also fell slightly despite the island marking its 11th day in…
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Koh Phi Phi self-isolating for a week after new Covid-19 infections reported
The picturesque Phi Phi island, in Krabi province, usually hugely popular with tourists, is self-isolating for the next week, following the detection of 7 confirmed Covid-19 infections. Officials have introduced temporary restrictions to limit traffic on and off the island, in a bid to curtail the spread of the virus. The Bangkok Post reports that 2 police officers on Koh…
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Friday Covid Update: 189 deaths and 14,403 new cases
189 coronavirus-related deaths and 14,403 new Covid-19 cases were reported today by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration. In the past 24-hours since the last count, the CCSA has recorded 15,610 recoveries. There are now 141,642 people in Thailand currently receiving treatment for the coronavirus. In the latest and most severe wave of Covid-19, first recorded on April 1, the…
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Vietnam to trial sandbox re-opening to foreign tourists on Phu Quoc island
Vietnam will trial a sandbox project on Phu Quoc, re-opening the island to vaccinated foreign tourists by the end of the year. The plan has been confirmed by the Vietnamese PM, Pham Minh Chinh, according to a TTR Weekly report. The government hopes to attract 2 – 3 million foreign tourists through the Phu Quoc sandbox, although officials have not…
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Bangkok police to ramp up counter-protest measures
Police in Bangkok say they’ll get tougher on anti-government protest action, but without resorting to violence, according to a Bangkok Post report. Piya Tawichai from the Metropolitan Police Bureau says there is a need to control activists rallying at the Din Daeng intersection in order to keep law and order. However, he adds that the capital’s residents will not be…
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