News
Thailand news, politics, business, crime, lifestyle, and tourism—stay updated with breaking news and in-depth analysis from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond. The Thaiger delivers the latest national news that matters.
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Laguna Phuket International Marathon sees fun and fund-raising
PHUKET: Michael Page of the UK won the eighth Laguna Phuket International Marathon (LPIM) when the annual running festival took to the island’s roads over the weekend. More than 4,000 entrants of all ages and abilities from 45 countries competed on a variety of distance courses in an atmosphere of community fun and charity fund-raising. Page finished the 42 kilometer…
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Drunk looking German busted for meth in Phuket
PHUKET: A German national whose inebriated driving style caught police attention on Saturday was arrested in Patong after he failed a drug test and confessed to having drugs in his hotel room. The 44 year old was stopped by Phuket Immigration officer Capt Angkarn Yasanop at about 1:30am. “We were on patrol as usual,” said Capt Angkarn. “When we arrived…
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V for Thailand unmasks Phuket unrest
PHUKET: Thousands of Phuket residents donned white Guy Fawkes masks and joined anti-government group “V for Thailand” to protest the current administration’s running of the country. “We are not a mob, we have gathered to let the government know that their management of Thailand has failed,” said a statement issued under the name of V-Phuket to the media during the…
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Rainstorm drowns out Phuket FC
PHUKET: The rainstorm that swept over the island last night forced officials to abandon the football match between Phuket FC and PTT Rayong; the decision was made more than halfway through the 0-0 deadlock at Surakul Stadium. Attending the half-match last night were several VIP guests of Phuket FC President Pamuke Achiriyachai, including Phuket Governor Maitri Inthusut, Mr Pedro Moreira,…
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Phuket Gazette World News: NSA leak Snowden seeks refuge in Hong Kong; Germany evacuates as Elbe floods; Nazi diary undusted; Tanks in Beirut
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Ex-CIA man says exposed U.S. spy scheme for better world Reuters / Phuket GazettePHUKET: A former CIA employee working as a contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency revealed in an interview published on Sunday it was he who leaked details of a top secret U.S. surveillance…
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Phuket Gazette Thailand News: DSI seizes 20 luxury cars; Anti-Thaksin tycoon feared abducted; Deep South peace talks hit YouTube
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community More luxury cars snared in tax scam raids in and near Bangkok The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: The Department of Special Investigation yesterday impounded 20 luxury cars on suspicion their owners had not paid proper import taxes. The high-end cars were seized pending tax clarification…
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UK’s Page wins Laguna Phuket Marathon
PHUKET: Michael Page of Great Britain won the Laguna Phuket International Marathon 2013 this morning, completing the 42km circuit in 2 hours 41 minutes and 2 seconds. Officials have yet to confirm the results, but according to the preliminary times posted by official timekeeper Championchip Thailand (click here), Page crossed the finish line 10 minutes ahead of Yasuhiro Saito of…
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Laguna International Marathon: 4,100 runners to conquer Phuket tomorrow
PHUKET: A total of 4,100 runners – aged 13 to 80 years old and representing 45 countries – have registered to compete in the five races of the 8th Laguna Phuket International Marathon (LPIM), with runners set to take their marks as early as 4am tomorrow. Speaking to the Gazette this afternoon, shortly after marathon registration closed, Roman Floesser of…
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Hundreds of Phuket residents come together for World Ocean Day 2013
PHUKET: Nearly 500 local students and other participants joined together at the Phuket Aquarium in celebration of World Ocean Day 2013 this morning. “For this special day we encourage people to become more aware of the problems facing our oceans, and the need for them to take action,” Sombat Poovachiranon of the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) said. The United…
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Phuket hotel manager, truck take 50-meter fall
PHUKET: A hotel manager lost control of his truck at the Khao Khad Viewpoint (map here), plummeting 50 meters down the treacherous hillside yesterday afternoon. Police received a report of the incident at about 4:50pm and rushed to the scene with Kusuldham Rescue workers to find Korean national Don Yeol Seo alive, but trapped in the overturned vehicle. “Mr Yeol…
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Video Report: Phuket slams the brakes on tour bus neglect
PHUKET: The dramatic crash of a tour bus that plowed into a home in Patong on Tuesday night has prompted the Phuket Land Transportation Office (PLTO) to warn that under new measures tour bus companies found to repeatedly fail safety requirements stand to have their commercial passenger permits revoked permanently. “This includes tour companies and independent operators hired by tour…
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Team Phuket Today to take on LPIM
PHUKET: Avid viewers of the Phuket Today show will no doubt be aware that, for the past several weeks, the TV show’s presenters have been training for this year’s Laguna Phuket International Marathon (LPIM). Isaac Stone Simonelli, who also has the challenging job of running the editorial news department of the Phuket Gazette you are currently reading; Tara Sudlow, lifestyle…
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Phuket Football: Islanders face uphill battle
PHUKET: Phuket FC’s inconsistent start to the season continued after they beat their Phang Nga Bay rivals Krabi 2-0 on May 29 in front of a raucous crowd: The team then traveled to Saraburi and lost 1-0 after Mario Neto scored a late winner. The Islanders are in fifth place, three points behind Bangkok FC in the last automatic promotion…
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Phuket Health: Exploring island fitness
PHUKET: Thousands of long-distance runners are starting to get the butterflies ahead of the eighth annual Laguna Phuket International Marathon (LPIM), which takes place early tomorrow morning (click here for story) To help prepare, if not calm some nerves, fitness contributor, Hayden Rhodes, has provided some more training tips and advice in this article, which will elaborate on last week’s…
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Special Report: Breaching walls for Phuket tsunami safety
SPECIAL REPORT: Tsunami evacuation drills have become part of Phuket life since the devastating waves struck our shores in 2004. But has familiarity bred contempt for safety in the west coast village of Kamala? The Phuket Gazette reports. PHUKET: Phuket recently hosted a full-scale tsunami drill (story here), with rescue workers practicing the actions they would take should a wall…
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Phuket Opinion: Stop the tour bus insanity
PHUKET: The latest crash of a tour bus descending into Patong highlights yet again the need for tour bus operators – and drivers in particular – to take personal responsibility for the safety of passengers under their care. If it can be considered as such, the only good fortune in this latest tragedy is that no lives were lost and…
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Phuket bank stabbing witnesses confirm murder-suicide
PHUKET: The two women present in the Bank of Ayudhya meeting room yesterday watched when Phonthakorn Teerabenjakul, 51, pulled out a knife and stabbed Piboon Vachwanichsanong, 71, to death, and then killed himself, police say (story here). “The women saw the whole thing,” Phuket City Police Inspector Yongyuth Kongmalai told the Phuket Gazette today. “They said there was no fight…
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Mass Phuket protest demands Deputy PM step down
PHUKET: Ahead of the white-mask protest set for Sunday, hundreds of members of the “We Preserve Phuket Club” stormed Phuket Provincial Hall this morning demanding that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra relieve Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi of his position after he issued a thinly veiled threat to the people of Phuket concerning the cancelled International Convention and Exhibition Center project…
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Phuket Opinion: The heart in darkness
PHUKET: The island’s streets, along with those in the other 13 Southern provinces, were plunged into darkness for a couple of hours on the evening of May 21, due to the Kingdom’s biggest power outage in three decades (story here) The blackout sparked Thai netizens into a conspiracy theory frenzy, with rumors of everything from a terrorist attack to a…
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Phuket Police: Mixed up shoes offer only lead to Cinderella snatch thief
PHUKET: Police barely have their shoe in the door for a case against a pair of snatch thieves after a botched attempt to grab an Irish woman’s purse led to a motorbike crash and a lost flip flop.Hannah Louise O’Hagan, 27, was driving a motorbike to her boyfriend’s place at Baan Term Fun Housing Estate yesterday evening after a trip…
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Phuket Gazette Thailand News: Suu Kyi takes center stage; Rice loss touches 400bn; Beams tumble; Tax losses hit 20bn; Elephant poachers arrested
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Suu Kyi steals the limelight The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: As in Bangkok last year, Myanmar’s democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi was in the spotlight when over 900 participants gathered for the biggest international event the country has hosted in decades. Participants at the…
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Two dead in bank conference room stabbing
PHUKET: A real estate loan gone sour ended in the stabbing deaths of the borrower and the lender in the conference room of a bank in Phuket Town early this afternoon. Police arrived at the scene to find both men dead from multiple stab wounds, one with the knife stuck in his chest.Phonthakorn Teerabenjakul, 51, had borrowed 30.8 million baht…
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Mosquito virus news buzz batted down by Phuket Public Officials
PHUKET: The news buzz across the Pacific that has worked its way back to Thailand after a Canadian woman was forced to turn to the American Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to identify a mysterious malady has been batted down by Phuket Public Officials.The 45-year-old Canadian tourist, who visited Bangkok and Phuket, was bitten repeatedly by mosquitoes, reported The Canadian…
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Phuket event encourages mindful consumption for World Environment Day
PHUKET: Taking part in a global initiative to increase awareness about environmental concerns, Phuket held an event in line with the theme of World Environment Day (WED) this year: Think. Eat. Save. The event in Phuket was held at Vachira Phuket Hospital yesterday morning. “The theme this year strives to encourage people to think about how to reduce the amount…
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Thailand Super Series at Sepang: Mission Accomplished
PHUKET: The new era of Thai motor sports is already a thriving reality as the drivers, teams, support personnel and racing cars have made their way back from Sepang, which hosted the first ever round of Thailand Super Series (TSS) from May 25-26. Not just a Super Car: Toyota’s 86 has arrived in Super 2000 One new race car that…
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SPECIAL REPORT: Recycling 101 – reducing a piling burden
PHUKET: By some estimates, as much as 20 per cent of the island’s rubbish gets recycled. But this number could be higher if more consumers were made aware of a few things.The island is home to dozens of small and medium scale scrap yard operations and recycling depots that make a living, if not a decent business, by buying back…
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Phuket Police hit “abductor’ taxi-driver with two more charges
PHUKET: Two more charges have been levied against the illegal taxi driver who denies having sexually assaulted a Chinese tourist after picking her up at Phuket International Airport on May 17 (story here). Already accused of deprivation of liberty for holding the 19-year-old woman captive in his vehicle for five hours, as well as sexual assault and being under the…
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Police pin down suspect in Phuket elephant smuggling ring
PHUKET: Police have identified a prime suspect in an illegal elephant smuggling ring that led to the recent DNA testing of two baby elephants in Phuket (story here). A Kamnan in Chaiyaphum province who police have yet to name will be charged with making and using fraudulent elephant certification documents, Col Watcharin Phusit, Superintendent of the Regional Natural Resources and…
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Thailand News: Thai-Americans charged with exporting firearm parts – update; Tax loss on luxury cars; Man dies after ambulance moved
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community UPDATE: Thais arrested in US over suspicious gun-parts shipments The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: National Police Chief Pol General Adul Saengsingkaew has assigned a deputy to handle a case in which US authorities have arrested and indicted three Thais and three Thai-Americans on charges of…
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Thousands to run Laguna Phuket Marathon this weekend
PHUKET: Runners and walkers of all ages and abilities will take to the roads of Phuket on Sunday morning when the eighth annual “Run Paradise” Laguna Phuket International Marathon (LPIM) once again celebrates the joy of running and pursuit of fitness in a family-friendly carnival atmosphere. This year the line-up of more than 4,000 Thai and international participants from 45…
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