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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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    Why retirees in Thailand are choosing long-term health insurance over quick fixes

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  • Bangkok taxi fare increase effective today | Thaiger

    Bangkok taxi fare increase effective today

    Bangkok taxi fares will increase to a minimum fare of 40 baht today after staying at 35 baht for 30 years. The increased fare, which applies to Bangkok registered taxis with no more than seven seats, is effective today according to its announcement in the Royal Gazette yesterday. However, passengers may not notice a rise in fares straight away as…

  • Thai NGO reports highest number of missing children in 4 years | Thaiger

    Thai NGO reports highest number of missing children in 4 years

    A Thai NGO reports that the country’s number of missing children last year was the highest it had been in four years. The Mirror Foundation, which works to help families find missing children, reports some disturbing numbers. Last year, 252 children went missing from home in Thailand. This was a 25% increase from 202 children in 2021, the foundation said. …

  • Russian man attacked in Pattaya bar after refusing to pay 60 baht bill | Thaiger

    Russian man attacked in Pattaya bar after refusing to pay 60 baht bill

    A Russian man was assaulted by a female bar owner in Pattaya after he refused to pay a 60-baht bill. The owner claimed she acted in self-defence as the man was drunk, refused to pay the bill, and slapped her in the face first. A rescue team was notified that a Russian man, later identified as Michael, was injured in…

  • Jeep plunges down mountainside in Thailand, driver dies, 5 Israeli tourists survive | Thaiger

    Jeep plunges down mountainside in Thailand, driver dies, 5 Israeli tourists survive

    A jeep tumbled 30 metres down a mountainside and into a river yesterday in Chiang Rai province in northern Thailand. The Thai driver died in the accident and five Israeli tourists survived with injuries. At 2pm yesterday, officers at Mueang Chiang Rai Police Station were informed that a fatal car crash occurred near the entrance of an Akha Pang Klang…

  • Another black life taken in US police custody | Thaiger

    Another black life taken in US police custody

    Three things are certain in life in the United States: day follows night, innocent people become fatal victims of random gunman attacks, and black people die in police custody. Already this year, three black men have lost their lives while in the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The latest black life to be lost while in LAPD…

  • Cops swoop on 360 million baht gambling den in Pattaya | Thaiger

    Cops swoop on 360 million baht gambling den in Pattaya

    Cops swooped on a gambling den in Pattaya on Wednesday that had accounts with about 360 million baht in its circulation.  Officers from the Police Cyber Taskforce raided a luxury condominium in Chon Buri’s Bang Lamung district and arrested four suspects, one man and three women. The police confiscated two laptops, four screens, three smartphones, and other appliances worth 100,000…

  • Thai police bust nine YouTube scammers that allegedly contributed to middle schooler’s suicide | Thaiger

    Thai police bust nine YouTube scammers that allegedly contributed to middle schooler’s suicide

    Thai police busted nine YouTube scammers that allegedly contributed to a Nonthaburi middle schooler’s suicide. Police say they arrested two suspects yesterday, 38 year old Ratchanon Saijind, and 34 year old Chaiyawat Virasorn, after they were suspected of purchasing cryptocurrency using a now deceased middle schooler’s money. After police interrogated the two suspects, they said they learned the identities of…

  • 3 million baht raised for British woman who fell from balcony in Thailand | Thaiger

    3 million baht raised for British woman who fell from balcony in Thailand

    A GoFundMe appeal raised nearly 3 million baht (£73,500) to cover the medical costs of a 21 year old British woman who sustained serious injuries after falling from a low balcony in Koh Pha Ngan in southern Thailand on New Year’s Eve. Maddi Neale-Shankster, a beauty therapist from Coventry in England, suffered a broken back, two collapsed lungs, and her…

  • Officials panic Thailand hits lowest birth rate in 7 decades | Thaiger

    Officials panic Thailand hits lowest birth rate in 7 decades

    Officials are panicking after Thailand hit its lowest birth rate in seven decades last year. The Social Development and Human Security Ministry announced today that the kingdom hit a 71-year low.  Last year, Thailand’s target birth rate was 700,000, however, only 502,000 babies were born. The birth rate was therefore about 30% below the target.  The ministry’s permanent secretary Anukul…

  • Motorists seek compensation after electric transformer explosion damages 4 vehicles | Thaiger

    Motorists seek compensation after electric transformer explosion damages 4 vehicles

    Motorists are seeking compensation after an electric transformer exploded and destroyed three cars and a motorcycle in front of a garage in the Song Phi Nong district of Suphan Buri. The deputy superintendent of the Tungkok Police Station, Taksin Khanthongdee, told Khaosod that the police and firefighters were notified of the fire in front of the U Chai Service garage…

  • Thailand is the happiest of 7 regional APAC countries, survey says | Thaiger

    Thailand is the happiest of 7 regional APAC countries, survey says

    The people of Thailand are the happiest out of seven regional Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries, according to a survey of 85,000 adult respondents via the polling app Votee. Stats were collected from respondents in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines between October 2021 and December 2022. Respondents were routinely asked to score their happiness level out of…

  • Thai beauty queen wears dress inspired by her background in Miss Universe 2022 | Thaiger

    Thai beauty queen wears dress inspired by her background in Miss Universe 2022

    Miss Universe Thailand 2022 dazzled fans today at a preliminary round of Miss Universe 2022 in the United States with a dress inspired by her life as the daughter of garbage collectors Anna Sueangam-iam was crowned Miss Universe Thailand in August last year but to many Thais, the 24 year old is fondly known as the “beauty garbage queen” because of…

  • Central Fraud Registry, coming soon to clean up Thai banking | Thaiger

    Central Fraud Registry, coming soon to clean up Thai banking

    Thailand‘s forthcoming Central Fraud Registry will be a new investigative authority, working alongside the Computer Emergency Response Team, a group of financial institutions focused on cybercrime in the banking industry. The new fraud registry will concentrate on financial fraud in the industry. Thai Banking Association (TBA) chairman Payong Srivanich did not set a time frame for setting up the registry.…

  • International school teacher accused of molesting kindergarten pupil in Koh Samui | Thaiger

    International school teacher accused of molesting kindergarten pupil in Koh Samui

    A teacher at an international school in Koh Samui in Surat Thani province, southern Thailand, has been accused of molesting a kindergarten pupil. Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police Pol. Maj. Gen. Surchate “Big Joke” Hakparn travelled to the island yesterday to attend a meeting about the progress of the case so far. The parents of a kindergarten student…

  • Twitter staff in Singapore fired, more job losses in Asia predicted | Thaiger

    Twitter staff in Singapore fired, more job losses in Asia predicted

    Staff at Twitter‘s Singapore office were fired yesterday. Employees were told via email that they had to evacuate the CapitaGreen building premises by 5pm. An anonymous staff member informed the press that Singapore-based employees at Twitter have been temporarily reassigned to work remotely within the company’s internal system. According to a tweet by Casey Newton, the operator of the technology-focused…

  • Green comet to be visible after 50,000 years | Thaiger

    Green comet to be visible after 50,000 years

    A green comet is expected to be visible in the night sky for the first time in 50,000 years. Astronomers discovered the comet, named C/2022 E3 (ZTF), in March 2022 at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California. Today (January 12), the comet will reach perihelion, its closest point to the sun, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. According…

  • Thailand Tourism Ministry strives for 80 million international tourists in 2027 | Thaiger

    Thailand Tourism Ministry strives for 80 million international tourists in 2027

    Thailand‘s Ministry of Tourism and Sports set a sky-high target of 80 million international tourists in the kingdom by 2027. The target exceeds Thailand’s current total population of 69 million. To frame the ambitious figure, pre-pandemic Thailand welcomed an average of 40 million international tourists per year. In 2022, Thailand welcomed 11.5 million international arrivals, exceeding the Tourism Authority of…

  • Thaiger Unfiltered | Ask Us Anything | Thaiger

    Thaiger Unfiltered | Ask Us Anything

    Click the link to watch the video: https://youtu.be/OldX0msS1jI Here’s a chance for our viewers to ask Natty, and Sara any questions they have, and they will answer you with their honest responses unfiltered! Please be kind and appropriate.

  • Thai police collar slippery Singaporean scammer | Thaiger

    Thai police collar slippery Singaporean scammer

    Thai police finally caught up with a slippery Singaporean hacker in Bangkok yesterday and placed him, and his girlfriend, under arrest. Ong Jian Zhen allegedly scammed hundreds of social media accounts in Singapore and fled to the safe haven of Thailand last year to escape the wrath of his own country’s courts. Zhen was already on the Thai wanted list…

  • Myanmar strongman’s kids’ assets found in Bangkok drugs raid | Thaiger

    Myanmar strongman’s kids’ assets found in Bangkok drugs raid

    Assets belonging to the children of Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing have been found in a Bangkok condominium. Documents were discovered during a September raid on the apartment of a Myanmar arms dealer charged with drug trafficking and money laundering. According to Bangkok Post, the assets found in Bangkok at the home of Tun Min Latt when he was…

  • 85% of restaurants at Suvarnabhumi Airport are ‘Clean Food, Good Taste’ certified | Thaiger

    85% of restaurants at Suvarnabhumi Airport are ‘Clean Food, Good Taste’ certified

    Thailand‘s Department of Health certified 85% of restaurants in the passenger terminal at Suvarnabhumi Airport as having “Clean Food, Good Taste,” according to the department’s director-general Suwanchai Wattana. Suwanchai congratulated the operators of 58 restaurants (85.29% of restaurants in the terminal) who passed the health and safety standard with flying colours at an award ceremony yesterday. Any hungry passengers waiting…

  • Makro expects big investment funds to move in | Thaiger

    Makro expects big investment funds to move in

    Thailand’s leading wholesale and hypermarket operator Siam Makro Plc, is waiting for big investment funds to move in as company stock heads for a one-year high. Shares are now mature enough to attract the attention of global fund managers. Makro wants to be the biggest operation of its kind in Asia. In many parts of Thailand, Makro cash and carry…

  • Woman kidnapped and left for dead in deep forest in Northern Thailand | Thaiger

    Woman kidnapped and left for dead in deep forest in Northern Thailand

    National Park rangers rescued a 65 year old woman who was kidnapped by two unidentified men yesterday and left for dead in a deep forest in the northern province of Lampang. The leader of the Wian Kosai Nation Park, Prawit Jaikam, reported to the media that he received a message from a woman, in Baan Pang Ma O in the…

  • Entrepreneur killed in motorbike crash in Thailand | Thaiger

    Entrepreneur killed in motorbike crash in Thailand

    Little is known about the death of award-winning entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Ostreicher, who was killed in a motorbike accident in Thailand, yesterday at 39 years old. Reports say the accident happened in Bangkok. Eli Ostreicher was born in London’s Hasidic community and later moved to New York City, where he ran five companies including one of his most successful…

  • Australian runs car over Thai man and kills him in Pattaya | Thaiger

    Australian runs car over Thai man and kills him in Pattaya

    An Australian woman claimed ignorance after she drove her car over a Thai man working at the entrance of a condominium in Pattaya yesterday. He died of his injuries almost instantly. A colleague found Prasit Karbphet at the entrance of Wongamat Residence Condominium at Soi Na Kluea 16 in the Bang Lamung district of Chon Buri. Prasit’s colleague, 32 year…

  • Thailand’s tour package prices bump up for Chinese visitors | Thaiger

    Thailand’s tour package prices bump up for Chinese visitors

    Thailand’s tour package prices are being bumped up for Chinese visitors to the Land of Smiles. This news comes after China lifted travel restrictions on its citizens on January 8. There are now fewer flight connections between Thailand and China, and unprepared tour agents in China, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)’s regional director for marketing in East…

  • Toronto man stabbed to death by a group of eight teenage girls | Thaiger

    Toronto man stabbed to death by a group of eight teenage girls

    Toronto police say they know the identity of a 59 year old man who was stabbed to death by eight teenage girls. The man, Ken Lee, was allegedly swarmed by a group of girls in mid-December. He was reportedly living in a homeless shelter and was attacked at around midnight in the city’s downtown. He later died in the hospital.…

  • Englishman ‘crawled for half a mile’ after moped crash in Thailand | Thaiger

    Englishman ‘crawled for half a mile’ after moped crash in Thailand

    A moped crash on Koh Yao Noi island in southern Thailand has left an Englishman in need of urgent surgery. Arron Rouse, from Worcestershire in England, sustained several broken ribs and a gaping wound on his leg when he was thrown off his moped on the night of December 16, 2022. Far away from a proper hospital, Arron couldn’t access…

  • Tourist Police prepare to protect Chinese from Pattaya’s crimes | Thaiger

    Tourist Police prepare to protect Chinese from Pattaya’s crimes

    Now that China has lifted travel restrictions on its citizens, Pattaya Tourist Police are preparing to protect Chinese tourists from the city’s crimes. The chief of Tourist Police Station 4 said yesterday that the lift on Chinese travel restrictions might result in a crime rise in the area. Tourist Police will start patrolling high-risk spots such as Walking Street, South…

  • China’s air travel regulator to allow airlines to fly more routes to US | Thaiger

    China’s air travel regulator to allow airlines to fly more routes to US

    China’s air travel regulator is gearing up to allow more routes to the United States after the country lifted its strict anti-virus travel restrictions this month. According to The Korea Times, China Central Television reported on its website that the US and Chinese airlines are among around 40 carriers that have submitted applications covering about 700 flights per week involving 34…