News
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This Christmas, give the gift of health: essential options for expats in Thailand
The holiday season is here, bringing warmth, joy, and a chance to reflect on the year gone by. As an expat in Thailand, this Christmas is a great time to invest in something that truly matters: health. Whether for you...
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Phuket officials probe sewage pipeline project
PHUKET: About 20 disgruntled Koh Sireh residents filed a complaint with Damrongtham Center on Monday urging Governor Nisit Jansomwong to investigate a sewage pipeline project in Rassada. The villagers argued that the construction has narrowed a local road, thus substantially increasing traffic congestion and accident risks. “We knew that this is a Rassada Municipality project and we fully cooperated the…
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International media flock to PhuketWan Computer Crimes Act trial
PHUKET: Members of the international media, including Reporters Without Borders, crammed into the Phuket courthouse today as the trial of Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian, of local news blog PhuketWan, began. The suspects, as well as Big Island Media (PhuketWan), face charges of criminal defamation and violations of the Computer Crimes Act. The four prosecution witnesses that gave their testimony…
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Expat runs to help fight HIV in Phuket
PHUKET: A local English lecturer at Prince of Songkla University (PSU) raised more than 150,000 baht for the Phuket Loves You Club (PLU) during the Laguna International Marathon last month. Colin Gallagher had originally hoped to raise 50,000 baht for PLU, which organizes Phuket Pride Week and raises funds to fight HIV on the island. However, as the campaign picked…
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Myanmar man held in drug bust
PHUKET: A Myanmar national was arrested on a Hat Yai-Phuket minibus in possession of 2,178 pills of ya bah (methamphetamine) early this morning. The 30-year-old man, who police named as Kyaw Soe Miw, was nabbed after Tah Chat Chai Police set up a checkpoint at about 4:15am today to screen passengers coming to Phuket from other provinces. “We suspected that…
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Dolphin washes ashore in Phang Nga
PHUKET: A female spinner dolphin has been taken to the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) after it was found beached in Phang Nga yesterday morning. At about 8:30am, officers from the PMBC Endangered Species Unit received a call from locals that the marine mammal washed ashore at Ban Tha Noon Beach. When officers arrived, they found villagers holding the dolphin…
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Cape Panwa Hotel Raceweek kicks off tomorrow
PHUKET: The first event of the 2015 Cape Panwa Hotel Phuket Raceweek is set to take place tomorrow. The kick-off event falls in the middle of Phuket’s southwest monsoon season – a time when some of the best sailing and racing conditions can be expected – and will welcome a competitive line-up of IRC racers, cruisers, multihulls and a growing…
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Police consider foul play, reward offered for missing American diver
PHUKET: Police have yet to rule out foul play as the family of an American scuba diver who vanished from a Similans-bound, liveaboard boat in April offers a 170,000-baht reward for any information that will lead to the discovery of his whereabouts. Joshua Michael Devine, 36, a civilian IT operative working at a United States military base in Kuwait, was…
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Handsy ladyboy nabbed for digging into Indian pocket
PHUKET: Police promptly arrested a ‘friendly’ ladyboy after she picked the pocket of an Indian tourist in front of Soi Paradise in Patong last night. “Montree Srichantra, 24, had gone up to Amit Mahendra Shah, 34, and given him a big hug pretending to greet him. However, she had swiped his wallet,” Lt Col Sutthichai Thianpho of the Patong Police…
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Statutory rape fugitive arrested in Thalang
PHUKET: A statuary rape fugitive was arrested after Thalang Police were called to investigate an assault at his family home on Saturday evening. Trirong Dejpongha, 24, was arrested after hitting his stepfather, Veera Bunnarak, 56, multiple times in the head with a brick, Lt Preecha Rakjan of the Thalang Police confirmed. “Mr Trirong was asleep in the house when he…
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Rotary Club of Patong Beach elects new president
PHUKET: Swiss national Walter Wyler was elected president of the Rotary Club of Patong Beach (RCoPB), Phuket’s only English speaking Rotary club, earlier this month. The former Swiss Air Force colonel, and 15-year Rotarian, has set a number of goals for the club for the 2015-2016 year, including attracting more women members and continuing to support the club’s projects, such…
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Breaking News: Unidentified body thought to be last missing crew member
PHUKET: Officers believe that they have found the body of the final missing crew member from the 30-meter barge that sank between Koh Racha and Koh Phi Phi on July 7. The unidentified body was discovered in Trang, the same province that the body of the barge’s captain was discovered Saturday evening (story here). “It looks like the person died…
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Captain of sunken barge discovered dead
PHUKET: The captain of the 30-meter barge that sank between Koh Racha and Koh Phi Phi on July 7 was found dead by local fishermen in Trang Saturday evening. The heavily tattooed body of Visanu Thongbai, 50, was taken to Prince of Songkla Hopsital in Trang and then transported to Phuket for a funeral ceremony. “Doctors were able to confirm…
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Opinion: The lay of the land
Dr Sangdao Wongsai, 35, from Bangkok, is a professor at Prince of Songkhla University’s Phuket campus. She graduated with a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the King Mongkut University of Techonology in Thonburi, before earning a Doctorate in Applied Statistics from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She now teaches statistics and researches geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing.…
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Meth smuggler packs vagina
PHUKET: A woman was arrested in Phang Nga, north of Phuket, following the discovery of 760 pills of ya bah (methamphetamine) hidden inside her vagina. “The pills were packed into three plastic bags before being nestled into two condoms and inserted into the suspect’s vagina,” Takua Pa Police Deputy Superintendent Worawit Yamaree revealed today. The 33-year-old Laos national named by…
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Phuket police arrest member of Navy for drug running
PHUKET: Police arrested a member of the Royal Thai Navy and his companion after the two allegedly attempted to smuggle 120 kilograms of kratom leaves into Patong early this morning. Petty Officer First Class Jamnian Samorhom, 33, and Noppadol Wisetrat, 21, were moving the drugs into Phuket’s party town by using a ‘well-known’ convenience store truck, confirmed Lt Col Sutthichai…
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Maimed sea turtle treated in Phuket
PHUKET: A maimed female sea turtle was taken to the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) after it was washed ashore on an island off Ranong yesterday morning. The turtle, still too young to have laid her first eggs, was suffering from infections and exhaustion, Patcharaporn Kaewmong, a veterinarian at the PMBC explained. “We believe that the turtle lost its limbs…
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Finance: Millennium in a league of its own
PHUKET: I have been asked quite a few times by my readers for some of my advice that I actually follow myself, since I often tend to focus in my articles on warnings to stay away from certain asset classes or at least temper exposure to them. With that in mind, I have chosen to write about a few funds…
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Successful fundraiser for Kiwi in coma
PHUKET: The friends and family of 28-year-old New Zealander Paul ‘PJ’ Lupi, who was seriously injured in an accident on Patong Hill, have now received adequate donations from generous helpers willing to fund Mr Lupi’s fight back to health. Mr Lupi was driving over the notorious hill at about 12:30am on July 6 when he fell off his motorbike and…
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Lay Pang Beach getting bike lane, sidewalk
PHUKET: An ocean-view sidewalk and cycling path have been tabled to run along the once encroached-upon Lay Pang Beach, it was announced yesterday by Somchai Chanrod, chief inspector-general of the Ministry of Transport. The paths will run about three kilometers, with the bike lane being three meters wide and the sidewalk four meters wide. “If we receive positive feedback about…
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Tread carefully in budget condo market
PHUKET: Regardless of whether the Thai gross domestic product expands at the lower target of 3 to 3.8 per cent, as earlier expected this year, it would not help the Phuket budget condominium market, or that of other major provincial cities, as they have already been affected, Phanom Kanjanathiemthao, managing director of Knight Frank Chartered Company, said in an exclusive…
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Ace condo developers face more charges
PHUKET: The developers behind the unfinished Ace 1 condominium project in Phuket are facing multiple charges after dozens of buyers filed complaints seeking compensation for down payments on the project, which was scheduled to be complete in April this year. The company behind the project, Nine Property (Patong), was given two weeks from June 15 to address compensation to pre-build…
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Special Delivery: Drug network uses social media, post office
PHUKET: Enormous quantities of drugs are being shipped to Phuket through the Thai Postal system as island dealers buy in bulk through online social media platforms. “It has become more difficult catching drug dealers after they started using social media applications such as LINE and Facebook to buy and sell their products,” Director of the Narcotics Control Board (NCB) Sithisak…
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Business Buzz: Peer into the phones of others with Periscope
PHUKET: Welcome to Periscope, the latest craze to hit the online world. Periscope is an addition to the Twitter stable, with huge information sharing possibilities. This is an app that allows you to ‘discover the world through somebody else’s eyes’. Users can download it and then choose from a multitude of people and experiences that they want to be a…
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Squatters demand officials dig up mining concession
PHUKET: Officers are now searching for the exact location of an old mining concession in Chalong, after squatters refused to move from a disputed 70-rai property in the area. Sra Ton Po villagers have remained firmly rooted to the piece of land and even filed a complaint to the Damrongtham Center (ombudsman’s office) claiming that the Chanote title holders of…
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Opinion: Thailand’s embarassing ‘war on drugs’
PHUKET: The recent revelation that the Thai Postal Service is being used to transship large quantities of illicit drugs is just the latest in a long list of embarrassments in our country’s effort to combat recreational drug use. As far back as 1943, the government passed the Krathom Act in a bid to halt declining revenues from the government-taxed opium…
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Breaking News: Fourth survivor of sunken barge rescued
PHUKET: A fourth survivor from a barge that sank between Koh Racha Yai and Koh Phi Phi on Tuesday was found this morning by locals on Koh Ngai, southeast of Phuket. A naval rescue team is en route to the island in Trang province. The survivor, Myanmar national named only as Thar Hliang, 46,* is said by locals at the…
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Marine Office on lookout for boats defying warning
PHUKET: The local Marine Office chief has confirmed that captains taking boats under 12-meters long out from Phuket will be charged for disobeying the small-boat warning issued this week. The order is now for boats of 12 meters or less, down from the 24-meter-long boat order issued earlier this week (story here). However, Phuket Marine Office Chief Phuripat Theerakulpisut said…
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Body washes up on Patong beach
PHUKET: Police found the body of a man who had been reported missing by relatives on Sunday washed up on Patong Beach yesterday. Police told the Phuket Gazette yesterday that Suriya Rattanajan, 20, had been fishing on the rocks near Tri Trang Beach on Sunday when he was knocked into the water and dragged out to sea. “Mr Suriya’s relatives…
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Bungy-jump firm keeps quiet on compensation
PHUKET: World Bungy Jump in Patong has declined to confirm rumors that it has offered the family of a Kuwaiti tourist, who recently plunged to his death during a jump, compensation of up to 300,000 baht. However, the company’s representative Kullanan Samnuk revealed yesterday that negotiations are in fact being held with the family of the victim, 25-year-old Abdullah Adel…
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Three of six missing crew found alive
PHUKET: Three crew members of a barge that sank between Koh Racha Yai and Koh Phi Phi on Tuesday were found by locals and rescued from the sea off Koh Lanta yesterday and early this morning. The 30-meter barge Sintu Phuket 1 was transporting construction materials and a backhoe from Ao Makham to Koh Racha Yai when it sank in…
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