Search Results for: bangkok
- Phuket News
Tourist killed by boat propeller
KURABURI: A 40-year-old German tourist was killed by a boat propeller while snorkeling off Koh Tachai, Phang Nga Province, on Thursday. Pol Lt Col Narongyot Aunhabandit, deputy superintendent of Kuraburi District Police Station, told the Gazette that the tourist, whom he named as Beatrix Hannelore Miczuga, was on holiday in Phuket when she and friends decided to take a day…
- Phuket News
Death sparks “dangerous road’ warning
KATA: Police have warned about the dangers of the road outside the Marine Cottage resort after a 22-year-old motorcyclist, Supit Kaminkaew, died there on Sunday afternoon, after she was run over by a bus. Supit is the fifth person to die on that stretch of road in the past few months. Pol Capt Chana Sootthimat of Chalong Police Station said…
- Phuket News
THAI domestic fares to rise 13pc
PHUKET: Thai Airways International (THAI) is to raise fares for all domestic flights by about 13% on April 20. The one-way airfare for the Phuket-Bangkok service will be raised by 13.5% from 2,000 baht to 2,270 Baht for economy class, and by 10.8% from 2,770 baht to 3,070 baht for business class. The hike was originally approved by THAI’s Board…
- Phuket News
12 die in bus crash
KANCHANABURI (AFP) – Twelve Thais were killed and eight seriously hurt when a tour bus traveling to a Buddhist temple near the border with Burma plunged into a deep ravine, police said today. The bus, carrying 45 mainly elderly people from Bangkok, left the road and plunged 50 meters before coming to a stop in Kanchanaburi province’s Sangkla district early…
- Phuket News
Chinese cadres head for Phuket
PHUKET: After the brief holiday enjoyed by China’s President, Jiang Zemin, in Phuket last year, it seems that the island is becoming a vacation choice for senior communist cadres from the People’s Republic. Tomorrow sees the arrival of 17 communist officials, led by the president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Li Tieying, who is also a member of…
- Phuket News
Japanese tourist stabbed four times
PHUKET TOWN: A Japanese tourist who wanted to call his family – to tell them he had arrived safely in Phuket – was robbed and stabbed four times just after midnight yesterday, on his way to make the call. Pol Maj Adul Nirapai of Phuket Town Police Station said that Terai Osamu, 27, came to Phuket with friends and was…
- Phuket News
Two men seriously ill in radiation alert
BANGKOK (AFP) – Two Thai men are seriously ill in hospital with radiation sickness after being exposed to a highly radioactive substance in a Bangkok shop, health officials said this afternoon. “These two people are suffering seriously from burns to the hands. They are losing their hair and have very low white blood cell counts,” a public health ministry spokesman…
- Phuket News
Parliament acts to drive out evil spirits
BANGKOK (AFP) – Authorities held a multi-faith exorcism in parliament today to drive out evil spirits believed to be responsible for a recent spate of deaths among members of parliament. Since elections in November 1996, eight of the 393 MPs have died in accidents or of natural causes while 11 more have resigned. Yesterday, an MP from the ruling Democrats…
- Phuket News
Fire razes 40 shanty homes in Pathumwan
BANGKOK (Gazette exclusive): Fifty firemen and 30 fire trucks battled for five hours this morning to put out a blaze in a shanty neighborhood behind Wat Pathum Wanararm and the World Trade Center in Pathumwan. Although no deaths or injuries have yet been reported, the fire left 40 homes gutted over an area of about two rai. One witness told…
- Chiang Mai News
Australian tourists shot dead, injured in Chiang Mai
BANGKOK (AFP): An Australian man was shot dead and his companion injured when ambushed by a gang of thieves in northern Thailand, police and embassy officials said today. The 24-year-old man died instantly when four armed men pounced on the couple in the mountain-top Aung Kha National Park in Chiang Mai province, 700 kilometers (450 miles) north of Bangkok, late…
- Phuket News
Former mayor still sought on murder charge
PHUKET: The former mayor of Patong, Dr Anan Ananthanawat, is still being sought by police three months after a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of involvement in the murder of an ex-policeman. On October 21 last year, five men were arrested for their part in the killing of ex-Pol Sub-Lt Weerapol Panrod, who was shot dead in…
- Phuket News
PM opens Board of Investment Fair
BANGKOK (AFP): Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai was today due to open the two-week Board of Investment Fair 2000, designed to convince the world that the Thai economy has turned the corner and to lure foreign investors to bolster the recovery. The government is touting the fair, which opens to the public tomorrow and is expected to draw between three million…
- Phuket News
Myanmar dissidents seize Thai hospital
RATCHABURI (AFP): Heavily armed guerrillas from Myanmar dissident group God’s Army stormed a Thai hospital early this morning and took around 700 patients and staff hostage. Up to 20 fighters from the ethnic-Karen militia, which is led by two twin boys, stormed the hospital in the town of Ratchaburi, 123 kilometres (70 miles) west of Bangkok. Seven hours into the…
- Phuket News
“The Beach”: Paradise lost or a tourism godsend?
BANGKOK (AFP): As environmentalists lament a potential paradise lost, Thailand’s tourism industry is hoping for a shot in the arm from next month’s release of Leonardo DiCaprio’s new movie “The Beach.” Despite a court battle over accusations that a beach was ruined during shooting of the film, authorities hope scenes of turquoise seas and heavenly beaches will spark a tourism…
- Phuket News
Thailand rocked by quake in Laos
BANGKOK (AFP): An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale rocked southern Laos and northern Thai provinces early today but no casualties were reported, Thai officials said. The epicentre of the quake was in a sparsely populated rural area of Laos, 160 kilometres (100 miles) to the northeast of Chiang Mai, Thailand’s northern meteorological center said. The tremor was felt…
- Phuket News
Greenpeace ship to visit Phuket
PHUKET TOWN: The fabled Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, will arrive in Phuket on Thursday to launch the environmental organization’s “Toxic Free” campaign. This will be the ship’s first visit to Phuket. Thara Buakumsri, a member of Greenpeace (Thailand), told the Gazette that the 55-meter vessel, carrying a multinational crew of 33, will arrive in the morning, tying up at…
- Phuket News
Phuket in drive to stop whale shark killings
PHUKET: A move to protect whale sharks in Thai waters has been started in Phuket after reports of whale shark killings were brought to the attention of the local office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). “TAT Phuket was informed by dive operators that they had witnessed whale sharks being hunted several times during their dive trips. The animals…
- Phuket News
Police probe missing five million baht
PATONG: Police are looking for the German manager of Aqua Master (Thailand), a dive supply company in Patong, in connection with the disappearance of five million baht belonging to the company. Police told the Gazette that on December 30, Dirk Krebber, 38, went to the Siam Commercial Bank branch in Patong and withdrew funds needed to meet the company’s year-end…
- Phuket News
Easy visas “are encouraging foreign criminals’
BANGKOK (AFP): The easing of visa restrictions as part of Thailand’s efforts to boost tourism has made the country an attractive base for international criminal gangs, officials said yesterday. Songkram Chuenpibal, deputy secretary of the National Security Council, said instituting a visa-on-arrival system for many countries allowed unwanted elements to filter through. “There are Mafia gangs, drugs-trafficking gangs and money-laundering…
- Phuket News
Thailand to consider lethal injection for executions
BANGKOK (AFP): Thailand’s cabinet will tomorrow consider whether to introduce lethal injections for executions in response to mounting claims that the current use of firing squads is barbaric. “People are horrified that convicts are currently shot to death,” Deputy Interior Minister Vattana Asavahem told reporters this afternoon. The idea of lethal injections was floated in 1996 but never reached the…
- Phuket News
Tourist dies in head-on bike crash
KARON: An Australian youth was killed and a Swedish tourist hospitalized early yesterday morning when their motorcycles collided head-on near Le Meridien Phuket resort, on the road between Patong and Karon. Pol Lt Teerawat Liumsuwan of Chalong Police Station named the dead man as Simeth Julian, 18, of Melbourne. He said the Australian was riding a red Honda Dream toward…
- Phuket News
Thai customs nab Japanese drug trafficker
BANGKOK (AFP): Thai Customs officers charged a Japanese woman with drug trafficking this afternoon after she was arrested just before boarding a Thai Airways flight to Osaka, officials said. Customs officers searched Tamaki Nagayama, 29, and found 1,300 amphetamine tablets strapped to her stomach. Nagayama confessed she was trafficking in drugs and helped by friends from Thailand and Myanmar, said…
- Phuket News
Police seize copies of banned Hollywood movie
BANGKOK (AFP): Thai undercover police arrested two men suspected of producing pirated copies of banned Hollywood movie “Anna and the King” which censors have ruled disrespectful to the monarchy, police said this morning. Rawiphat Sawatwattawong, and Phallop Yoosabai, both 24, were detained near Bangkok’s Pantip Plaza, a software and entertainment center, late yesterday. They were found in possession of 200…
- Phuket News
German tourist killed “by shark’
BANGKOK (AFP): A German tourist has died after apparently being bitten by a shark in the waters off Koh Pha Ngan, police said today. The man, identified by police as Stephan Olaf Kahl, 35, from Hamburg, bled to death from a 10-centimeter-long cut on his right arm and a 15-centimeter cut to his right calf. “He was pronounced dead before…
- Phuket News
Doctors warned on unnecessary caesarian births
BANGKOK, Dec 25 (AFP): Thai authorities have warned doctors they risk losing their licenses if they perform caesarians to insure that a baby is born on the first day of the new millennium. Some parents are pressuring doctors to undertake the operations because they want their baby born on the highly auspicious day. Supachai Khunaratanaphruek, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Public…
- Phuket News
Van Morrison band to perform in Phuket
PATONG: Van Morrison’s band, The Red Hot Pokers, and Stan Boardman, a famous British comedian, will appear at Molly Malone’s Irish Pub in Patong on Monday evening, January 3, 2000. The famous entertainers are coming to Phuket for a one night appearance after performing for a Royal audience at the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve. Stuart Montgomery,…
- Phuket News
Two boys arrested in murder of Australian tourist
PHUKET: Two boys suspected of murdering Cheree Joy Cobcroft, 24, an Australian tourist, on December 17 in Krabi were arrested on Christmas day at Rajabhat Phuket Institute. Pairoj Yoamyat, 19, and a boy of 15 were apprehended at 2 pm by police from Phuket Town and a special investigation team from Krabi. According to police, the two confessed to murdering…
- Phuket News
Woman arrested for illegal possession of fish
RAWAI: A woman has been arrested for possessing tropical fish of a protected species. Pol Lt Teerawat Liumsuwan from Chalong Station told the Gazette that police and officers from the Phuket Provincial Fisheries Office raided a house at 5/3 Wiset Rd in Rawai last Friday evening. In the house they found about 40 fish of different protected species, 55 fish…
- Phuket News
Australian woman murdered in Krabi
KRABI: Cheree Joy Cobcroft, 24, an Australian tourist, was brutally murdered in Krabi on Friday. Her body was found naked, hanging by a belt from a tree in the woods behind the Kaew Krowararam temple in Krabi Town. Her clothing and personal belongings were scattered on the ground below her. Police estimate the murder occurred between 6:00 am and 1:30…
- Phuket News
Chuan easily defeats no-confidence motion
BANGKOK (AFP): Thailand’s government survived a no-confidence vote in parliament today after a bitter five-day debate in which it faced allegations of corruption and economic mismanagement. The majority of the six-party coalition led by the Democrat Party of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai held rock-steady in the vote in the lower House of Representatives. A total of 229 members supported the…
