World News
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Sponsored Do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?
Thailand’s healthcare system is well-regarded across Southeast Asia, with options ranging from public hospitals to world-class private facilities. But when it comes to foreign residents or tourists, healthcare access isn’t as straightforward. So, do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?...
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Death sentence handed down via video call in Singapore
A prisoner in Singapore has been sentenced to death via a Zoom video call, the first time the city state has delivered capital punishment remotely. Thai PBS World reports that 37 year old Malaysian citizen Punithan Genasan was handed the death penalty as punishment for a 2011 heroin smuggling operation. Like Thailand, Singapore operates a zero-tolerance policy for drug trafficking…
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Cyclone Amphan: Crossed the coast and now saturating India and Bangladesh
Cyclone Amphan made reached the coastline late yesterday afternoon near the Indian town of Digha, on India’s eastern coast, near the border with Bangladesh. As the storm marched up the Bay of Bengal since the weekend, strengthening, thousands of people were evacuated as a precaution for the major storm system. Millions of other have taken shelter or made their way…
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Thailand scores highest for mask-wearing in survey of ASEAN nations
A survey carried out by internet-based market research firm YouGov reveals that Thais are the most likely to wear face masks and to use hand sanitiser. Khaosod English reports that the survey examined the habits of citizens from 6 ASEAN member-states and found that 95% of Thais always wear a face mask in public. (It’s currently still law to wear…
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12 Rohingya arrested for illegal entry in Tak province
Police in the western Thai province of Tak, near the Burmese border, say 12 Rohingya were arrested in the Mae Sot district and charged with illegal entry. The Rohingya are an ethnic group in Myanmar. Most live in Rakhine State on Myanmar’s western coast. Myanmar is a majority Buddhist state, but the Rohingya are primarily Muslim, though a small number…
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New drug has potential to stop Covid-19 without a vaccine
Scientists at China’s prestigious Peking University say a drug being tested at a Chinese laboratory could not only shorten recovery time for those infected with Covid-19, but perhaps even offer short-term immunity. They believe it could “bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt”. The director of the university’s Beijing Advanced Innovation Centre for Genomics told AFP that the drug has…
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Trial Covid-19 vaccine shows promising results – VIDEO
US biotech firm Moderna announced yesterday that its trial vaccine, the first to be tested on humans, appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response against Covid-19 infection, offering a glimmer of hope in the ongoing battle to contain the pandemic. (Interview with trial patient below) The initial findings, from the first 8 people to receive 2…
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Global recovery unlikely to happen next year – IMF
The head of the International Monetary Fund says the global economy is going to take longer than initially thought to recover fully from the shock caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus. She’s also warning against the danger of protectionism. Kristalina Georgieva says the Fund is likely to revise its forecast for a 3% contraction in GDP in 2020 downward, but gave…
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“Off the charts” – biggest drug seizure in decades
“Truly off-the-charts.” That was the assessment of Jeremy Douglas from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime talking about a major drug seizure in Myanmar’s northern Shan state. How off the charts? Authorities seized 200 million methamphetamine tablets (yaba), more than 500 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine (ice), and 35.5 tonnes and 163,000 thousand litres of precursor chemicals used to manufacture…
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New Zealand social distancing rules see PM turned away from café
New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern has been turned away from a café due to restrictions she put in place as part of the country’s response to the Covid-19 virus. When the café, in the capital city of Wellington, reached the maximum number of customers permitted under social distancing rules, it was forced to turn away the PM, who had arrived with…
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Cambodia discharges last Covid-19 patient, no new cases in a month
Thailand’s neighbour Cambodia has had no new Covid-19 cases for a month and its last patient has recovered and left hospital, leaving the country with 0 cases. But no easing of restrictions related to the virus, including school closures and border entry checks and quarantines, was mentioned in the statement from the Cambodian Ministry of Health. Cambodia’s last reported new…
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Synthetic drugs growing in east, Southeast Asia: UN report
The synthetic drugs market in East and Southeast Asia continues to expand and diversify, and the price of methamphetamine “yaba” tablets has dropped to the lowest level in a decade as the supply has surged. A report released yesterday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime titled “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Developments and Challenges”, warns…
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Nearly 100 million baht of methamphetamine seized in Nong Khai
General Suchart Theerasawat, Deputy Director of the Nong Khai Police station (northeastern Thailand), has put the results of a massive drug haul on display for the media. Police had confiscated 28 sacks containing illicit drugs – 5,600,000 methamphetamine tablets (yaba) and 2 sacks of crystal methamphetamine (ice) weighing 33 kilograms. The drugs had an estimated street value of 93,900,000 baht.…
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US ramps up presence in South China Sea along with coronavirus rhetoric
Over recent weeks US Navy ships and Air Force bombers have undertaken high profile missions aimed at telegraphic a clear message to China that the US military intends to maintain a presence in the region. The US is ramping up military pressure on China and tensions in the South China Sea. It’s accusing Beijing of leveraging the Covid-19 pandemic to extend…
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Vongfong, aka. Ambo, barrels into Philippines’ east coast
Typhoon Vongfong (aka. ‘Ambo’ in the Philippines) has made landfall, forcing tens of thousands of people to quickly evacuate whilst in the middle of lockdown amid their local Covid-19 outbreak. The typhoon struck the Phillipines east coast islands around Samar at around noon yesterday. Around 200,000 people living in the coastal areas near Samar have been affected. Vongfong packed winds of…
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Alleged Burmese poachers arrested with carcasses of protected species
Forest rangers arrested 2 alleged poachers from Myanmar in the Thong Pha Phum National Park in the western border province of Kanchanaburi province yesterday. Officers seized shotguns and the carcasses of several protected animals from the suspects. The chief of the national park said the rangers caught the suspects in Hindad subdistrict in Thong Pha Phum district, which borders with…
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WHO spokesman: Covid-19 may never be wiped out
As nations around the world begin gradually lifting lockdown restrictions enacted to stem the spread of Covid-19, the World Health Organisation is warning that the virus may never be completely wiped out. The virus was first detected in Wuhan in China in December last year and has now infected more than 4.3 million people and killed nearly 300,000 worldwide. The WHO’s…
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South Korea asks Thailand to remove it from list of “high risk” countries
South Korea is asking to be removed from Thailand’s list of “high-risk” countries. The list was drawn up in early March, when South Korea was second only to China for Covid-19 case numbers. It now ranks 40th, and is considered one of the countries most successful at managing the outbreak. To date, none of the 7,000 Thai citizens, who have…
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Fewer Chinese tour groups, more independent travellers to reboot SE Asia travel
Hoping that Chinese tourism is going to ride magically back into Thailand on the back of a gleaming red dragon and save the tattered tourism sector may be precipitous. Of course there are so, so many unknowns even the regular travel writers and consultants are scrambling to forecast a way forward. For Thailand, the ban on international flights hasn’t even…
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Typhoon Vongfong closes in on the Philippines, hits coast later today
The Philippines is bracing for the arrival of Typhoon Vongfong. During Tuesday and Wednesday, Vongfong strengthened from a modest tropical storm with winds of 95 kph to the equivalent of a major typhoon. Maximum sustained winds are now up to 195 kph and the typhoon continues to strengthen as it approaches the Philippines’ coast. The only difference between a ‘hurricane’ and…
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‘Vongfong’ heads northwest along Philippines coast
The first potential typhoon for this year’s typhoon and storm season in the western Pacific now has a name. It’s been called ‘Vongfong’ and is is quickly becoming a threat to the Philippines. While the peak of the western Pacific typhoon season is late summer, there are frequent storms in the winter or early spring due to the warm waters of…
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Australian government warns citizens not to let down their guard as restrictions ease
The Australian government is warning its citizens not to let their guard down as some restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus are lifted. The country has had 98 deaths from around 7,000 cases to date. Given the devastating figures coming from many other parts of the world, Australia (and neighbouring New Zealand) appear to…
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Thailand rescue dog from meat trade performs on Britain’s Got Talent
A dog rescued from Thailand’s illegal meat trade brought tears to those on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent. There was silence as the story of Miracle the dog played on a screen to the audience. A photo flashed on the screen of when the dog was crushed in a cage piled high with dogs. “When the dog rescuer first saw him…
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China on alert as 17 new Covid-19 cases reported, highest in two weeks
China has recorded its highest daily increase in new Covid-19 cases since April 28, with 17 new cases. Five of those are in Wuhan, where the outbreak began in late 2019, and is the highest number recorded there since March 11. A Reuters report says that 7 of the cases recorded yesterday involve arrivals from overseas, a big jump from…
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Border patrols nab 29 Thais sneaking back from Malaysia
Border patrol police arrested 29 Thai nationals for illegal entry yesterday, as they were attempting to sneak over the Malaysian border into the Sabayoi district of Thailand’s southern Songkhla province, mostly heavily wooded forest. The group – 18 men and 11 women – rode through forests on 15 motorbikes to avoid immigration checkpoints. They were intercepted by police on a…
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Containing the misinformation virus – social media platforms race to remove ‘Plandemic’
The rush is on to remove a viral video entitled ‘Plandemic’, a conspiracy theory program which has been as viral as the actual virus it spreads false information about. The world’s leading social networks are taking down the video, edited in the style of a highly-produced documentary. But new ‘infections’ keep popping up as people with copies of the 26 minute video…
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Coronavirus pandemic reaches 4 million people infected
Across the world some 4,100,000+ people are now infected with Covid-19. The actual number is much higher but, for lack of testing and diagnosis in some countries, we may never know the exact number. Still the statistics, as varied and unreliable as they may be, still provide some general trends and provide scientists with valuable data. There has never been…
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US State Department claims China and Russia conspiring to rewrite coronavirus narrative
The US yesterday accused China and Russia of cooperating to spread false claims the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming Beijing is increasingly adopting techniques perfected by Moscow. Lea Gabrielle, coordinator of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Centre, which tracks foreign propaganda, told reporters: “Even before the Covid-19 crisis we assessed a certain level of coordination between Russia and the People’s Republic…
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Bike-riding monkey attacks, drags Indonesian toddler – VIDEO
A video showing a monkey grabbing and dragging a toddler along a street in Indonesia has gone viral, leaving netizens around the world arguing over what actually happened. Was it a simian kidnap, a monkey mucking around, or a hungry monkey with evil intentions? Asiaone reports that the incident occurred in Surabaya, Indonesia last week. The clip shows the monkey…
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Singaporean visa forger sentenced, fined, awaiting deportation
A Singaporean former-embassy staff was yesterday handed a suspended 114 months sentence by a Thai court after being convicted of 38 counts of forging Thai visa documents. When arrested by police in the northern province of Chiang Rai police on Tuesday, 26 year old David Han was found to have forged employment documents, salary slips, and certificates from universities both in…
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Thousands of cruise ship crew stranded at sea
Tens of thousands of cruise ship crew members remain stranded at sea, virtual prisoners on their ships with no clear end in sight as the Covid-19 coronavirus drags on around the globe. The cruise industry has been shuttered and shattered by the crisis, with onboard outbreaks, denial of port access and no clear idea of when guest will return and…
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