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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“Guns at the ready’ over Phuket jet-ski dispute
PHUKET: Officials in Phuket are stepping in to stave off a potentially lethal situation brewing over three unregistered jet-skis being rented out to tourists at Bang Tao Beach, on Phuket’s west coast. Adding to the fury of the other jet-ski operators at the popular tourist beach, all of whom are members of the “Phuket Jet-ski Club”, is the claim that…
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Phuket Police recover human body off Coral Island
PHUKET: Chalong Police are trying to identify the badly decomposed body of a man discovered offshore at a popular Phuket dive site this afternoon. The police were informed of the discovery at about 4:30pm, duty officer Atthawat Suwanarat told the Phuket Gazette. The crew of a fishing boat discovered the body floating face down about 20 meters offshore from Koh…
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Alarm raised over dog-snatching in Phuket
PHUKET: A Phuket expat who lost his dog at Nai Harn Beach last Sunday has raised concerns over dog-snatching at the popular tourist area. Frank Lamine wrote to the Phuket Gazette earlier today reporting that he had heard of one local dog owner paying 3,000 baht to get his dog back. Mr Lamine lost his 10-year-old white Maltese terrier “Micky”…
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Weird World News: Botched buildings with Big Ben’s tilt, the billion-euro home made from old money and the shady solar project
Big Ben is leaning, parliament slipping into River Thames DESPITE London’s iconic Big Ben clock tower’s unexplained tilt, an MP committee has ruled that no renovation work will happen before 2020. Surveyors recently discovered that the 96-meter clock tower at the Palace of Westminster leans 46cm to the left of its peak. But surveyors aren’t too worried, as they guess…
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Phuket TAT launches 9 Temples Tour
PHUKET: The Phuket “9 Temples Tour” began today as a way to round out the Chinese New Year festivities and to usher in the Phuket Old Town Festival, which gets underway on Sunday. The tour departs the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Phuket office on Thalang Road in Phuket Town each day at 9:30am and 10:30am, taking visitors to nine…
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Phuket crowds flock to Chalong Temple Fair
PHUKET: Despite traffic chaos, Phuket residents have been flocking to the annual Chalong Temple Fair that runs through to Sunday. The vibrant fair each year attracts thousands of visitors who come to sample the wide range of food, browse the market stalls and enjoy the variety of activities on offer. Besides the many famous singers and celebrities taking turns on…
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Two rushed to hospital after separate accidents in Phuket
PHUKET: A Phuket Airport employee returning home from work was seriously injured when her motorbike was hit by a passenger van full of tourists returning from a trip to Phang Nga yesterday afternoon. Thalang Police were notified of the accident at 3:35pm. Arriving at the scene, the turnoff to the airport on Thepkrasattri Road, police found 48-year-old Lamphong Losing lying…
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Phuket “spider men’ suspect brown widow in fruit vendor’s death
PHUKET: A team of officers from Phuket’s Khao Phra Thaeo Wildlife Sanctuary in Thalang today collected 10 different types of spiders from around the home of Wanchai Wonglakorn, who died on Monday of a suspected spider bite. The officers, led by Awat Nitikul, chief of the Environmental Conservation Division unit based at Khao Phra Thaeo, rummaged through the undergrowth around…
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Man shot, dumped, left for dead – but survives in Phuket
PHUKET: A young Cambodian man who was shot in the chest and claims to have been tossed into the ocean afterwards, is being treated at Vachira Phuket Hospital. Doctors are unable to identify him or contact family members due to a language barrier. A source visiting the hospital yesterday told the Phuket Gazette that the the man was a 23-year-old…
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Phuket gets cooking with Local Food Festival
PHUKET: The 4th annual Phuket Local Food Festival kicked off at Saphan Hin in Phuket Town last night with the preparation of what is purported to have been the world’s largest pot of tom som (sweet and sour soup). The event was officially opened by Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha, who joined together with Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) President Paiboon…
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FC Phuket face extinction
PHUKET: FC Phuket Director Soranan Sanae has sent out a distress call to all wealthy football fans in Phuket to come to the rescue of the team, which is in urgent need of sponsorship, yet again. “If any football-loving foreigners or expat millionaires would like to support the team, they are more than welcome to step up,” he told the…
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Phuket likely to get Administrative Court
PHUKET: The Thai Parliament yesterday approved draft legislation to establish Administrative Court regional branches in Phuket, Petchaburi and Nakhon Sawan, Matichon has reported. Attached to the bills was a remark that the Administrative Court and all related agencies should expedite processing of all funding and legal issues so that all three courts would be up and running within three years…
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Phuket hit-and-run driver surrenders, victim still in hospital
PHUKET: The driver of a white sedan that struck a motorbike on Thepkrasattri Road then failed to stop has handed himself in to police, while the victim in the accident remains at Vachira Phuket Hosiptal recovering from serious injury. Motorbike rider Suriya Thathamlay was rushed to hospital by emergency workers after he was thrown to the ground when a car…
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Phuket Local Food Fair starts today
PHUKET: The Phuket Local Food Festival 2012 starts today at the central stage area at Saphan Hin Public Park in Phuket Town. The event, funded and organized by the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (PPAO), runs through Sunday night with a wide variety of staged entertainment, games and shopping opportunities. Most of the staged entertainment will be by children in schools…
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Work underway on Phuket’s newest police headquarters
PHUKET: Work is underway on the headquarters of Phuket’s newest police station, with some officers already taking up residence in barracks near what will eventually be the Wichit Police Station. The work follows an announcement by Phuket Provincial Police in early 2009 that it planned to establish two new independent police precincts in the south of the island. The move…
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Finnish tourists unharmed in Phuket bus fire
PHUKET: A group of Finnish tourists on a tour to Laem Phromthep had a sudden change of itinerary this morning when their Phuket tour bus burst into flames on a hilly stretch of road in Karon. The incident occurred at about 8:30am near to the entrance to Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket on Wiset Road, a curvy coastal road that…
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House fire leaves Phuket poor homeless
PHUKET: A young girl and her mother lost what few possession they owned to a house fire yesterday, leaving them without money for their monthly motorbike rent or for the girl’s school fees. Prapha Pongkunchorn, 52, and her daughter Mookrin Pongkunchorn, 16, had been living rent-free in the house, which had been converted from a garage and had no address,…
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Phuket fruit vendor died of spider bite: wife
PHUKET: A Phuket fruit vendor died yesterday from a severe allergic reaction to a spider bite, his pregnant wife believes.Mrs Piyanan Boonsri, 30, took her husband Wanchai Wonglakorn from their home in Mai Khao to Thalang Hospital on Sunday evening after he complained of soreness in his arm. Eight month’s pregnant, the young wife said her husband returned from work…
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Henan Acrobatic Troupe dazzles Phuket
PHUKET: Thousands of people who attended a Chinese New Year celebration in Phuket Town last night were spellbound by a performance by one of the world’s top acrobatic troupes. The fun began in the late afternoon, as scores of Thai and foreign tourists dined on a huge variety of local dishes on offer by vendors lined up under a walkway…
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Phuket Business: Now is the time to structure your financial investments
PHUKET: Now that 2012 is in full swing and no doubt many of the New Year’s resolutions have been thrown out of the window, it’s time to get a hold of the purse strings and have a set plan for the forthcoming year. I have already given my views on what I believe we can expect from the year ahead.…
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Myanmar Concert 2012 touted in Phuket
PHUKET: Many Burmese residents of Phuket are expected to head north to Phang Nga on Sunday for the first-ever Myanmar Concert 2012, part of the annual Phang Nga Red Cross Festival. Performers will include R Zar Ni, Zaw Paing, Wai Su Khine Thein, Yae Lay, Yae Bakar Win and Chan Chan. Posters publicizing the event have been put up at…
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Phuket Media Watch: British Airways resume flights; New Zealand plane crash
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community British Airways to resume flights to Libyan capital in May Phuket Gazette / News WiresPHUKET: British Airways plans to reinstate flights to the Libyan capital of Tripoli later this year, the airline announced yesterday. Flights were suspended in February 2011 as a result of the country’s civil…
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Phuket Media Watch: Chinese New Year fuels flight record at Hong Kong Airport
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Hong Kong airport sees single-day record of 1,057 flights Phuket Gazette PHUKET: Hong Kong International Airport, one of the world’s busiest airports, handled a single-day record of 1,057 incoming and outbound flights late last week, aviation authorities announced on yesterday. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation…
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Phuket’s ‘Coconut Island’ gets new pier
PHUKET: The new 10-million-baht pier on Koh Maphrao in Phuket was officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony presided over by the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) President Paiboon Upatising on Friday. The new concrete pier, 170 meters long and three meters wide, replaces a dilapidated wooden structure, making passage to the island safer and more convenient for residents and tourists.…
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Fire breaks out at Phuket official’s residence
PHUKET: Phuket firefighters extinguished a fire at the Thalang District Office compound in the early hours of this morning. The fire was reported to Thalang Police at about 2:15am. Thepkrasattri Municipality firefighters took about half an hour to extinguish the blaze, which gutted a room on the second floor of a wooden home used as the residence of a government…
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Phuket ATM scams: Even professionals get caught out
Special Report: Patong Police report at least four people recently being ripped off by gangs scanning their ATM cards and stealing money from their accounts. The Phuket Gazette reports. PHUKET: Alan Robinson, 71, has been living in Phuket for 17 years. As he is a former vice-president of a Swiss bank’s national branch in Japan, one can only imagine his…
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Phuket land probe: witness found hanged
PHUKET: A security guard questioned by government officials about the ownership of land at Freedom Beach in Patong has died of what appears to be a suicide, a local Phuket newspaper has reported. A report in today’s edition of Siangtai Daily newspaper identified the deceased as 54-year-old Narong Piromrak, a native of Nakhon Sri Thammarat province. The death was reported…
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Phuket Police nab exchange booth robbery duo
PHUKET: Chalong Police last night arrested two suspects for the armed robbery of a currency exchange booth in Phuket in late November, which has now been revealed as an “inside job”. The first suspect, 25-year-old Kriangsak ‘Jae’ Jintaphakul, was arrested at his home at the Chao Fa Village residential estate on Chao Fa East Road in Wichit at about 9:30pm…
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Phuket Business: Hotel leaders to confer at Thailand Tourism Forum
PHUKET: Thailand’s hotel leaders and international experts will discuss the state of the hospitality sector at the Thailand Tourism Forum (TTF) 2012, to be held on February 2 at the InterContinental Bangkok. Key event participants include Chanin Donavanik, chief executive officer of Dusit Hotels and Resorts, Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of the Minor Hotel Group, and Peter Henley, CEO and president…
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Phuket Projects: ‘Benefits’ at odds with people’s choice
PHUKET: The results of the most recent Phuket Gazette readers’ poll reveal that a clear majority want “airport bus” services to Phuket’s west coast resort towns as the tourism development project to move ahead above all others this year. [See page 11, current issue of the Gazette. Digital subscribers click here to download the full newspaper.] The results indicate that…
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