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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Metropole Makes Room For Beauty
PHUKET TOWN: Sixty of Thailand’s most beautiful women will be visiting Phuket from March 20-24 in a warm-up for the Miss Thailand beauty pageant. The girls will be taking part in rehearsals for the pageant, which will be held in Bangkok on March 27. The contestants also visited Phuket last year. The trip is sponsored by the Phuket Chamber of…
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Valentine’s Day Puts People in Marriage Mode
PHUKET TOWN: Phuket’s marriage registries were working overtime yesterday when 143 couples decided to tie the knot on Valentine’s Day. Muang District office registered the marriages of 118 couples, compared with 88 couples on Valentine’s Day last year. Kathu united 15 couples, up from 10 last year, while Talang had 10 couples completing their nuptials, the same number as Valentine’s…
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Phuket Airport To Add Personal Touch
PHUKET TOWN: Government departments and tourism businesses have launched a program to improve the quality of service at Phuket International Airport. Plans for a “Living Room of the Nation” project were thrashed out during a seminar attended by over 250 people at The Metropole hotel on February 11. The project aims to train staff at the airport to provide high-level…
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Santi Ho Withdraws From Sunshine
PHUKET TOWN: Phuket’s latest entry into the local radio market has lost one of its founders to an internal dispute. Sunshine Radio (95 FM) took to the air late last year, and was immediately dogged with technical and personnel problems. Though enthusiastic about its mission and ambitious in its goals, the station was plagued by frequent shutdowns, halting segues and…
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Phuket Rugby Sevens Date Announced
PHUKET TOWN: The Phuket International Rugby Sevens tournament has now been confirmed for July 24-25. The tournament, which will bring to Phuket 24 Thai and international teams, has been delayed because of imminent changes in the administration of the Thai Rugby Union (TRU). The TRU will meet next month to form a new committee which will then be responsible for…
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Jennings Murder Trial Adjourned
PHUKET TOWN: Suspect Nongnut Tungkaburi failed to appear in court yesterday as the result of an illness which, according to a letter from her doctor, required that she remain at home for two days, February 9-10. Her representative also told the court that she has retained a new, Bangkok-based lawyer who would be able to attend court in Phuket next…
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Police Go Hi-Tech – At a Price
PATONG BEACH: The Kathu Police Station is asking for donations to complete a hi-tech, 930,000 baht Control and Operations Centre. Pol Col Kokiat Wongvorachart, superintendent of Kathu Police, said local businesses had already donated 415,000 baht, but police need another 515,000 baht to complete the centre. He said the project was not eligible for government funding. The Control and Operations…
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Gloomy Forecast For Tourist Spending
PHUKET TOWN: In the Gazette Poll for the week ended yesterday, local residents, Thai and foreign alike, expressed considerable pessimism about the outlook for tourist spending in 1999. An overwhelming 79% of them saw visitor spending dropping from 1998, with 10% predicting that it would remain unchanged from last year’s apparently depressed level. Only 1% of the 290 Phuketians participating…
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Australian Post Graduate Studies Offered In Phuket
PHUKET TOWN: The Rajabhat Phuket Institute has teamed up with Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, to offer post graduate degrees. The institute currently has 25 students studying for Masters Degrees and PhDs through distance learning programs with the Australian university, according to Wannee Wannapruk, Vice President for General Affairs. A total of 16 of students are Rajabhat Phuket…
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Officials Report 30 New AIDS Cases
PHUKET TOWN: Government health officials recorded 30 new cases of AIDS in Phuket province and two deaths from AIDS-related complications during the one-month reporting period ending January 20. Seven of 240 pregnant women tested during the period were found to be HIV positive. The Phuket Provincial Health Department has recorded 864 cases of AIDS since it began keeping records in…
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Andaman Sea Kayak Marathon – 1999
PHUKET TOWN: A series of four grueling marathon races by sea kayak will take place in Phang Nga Bay March 4 through 6. The event, sponsored by the Southern Office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, has attracted participants from more than ten countries. The four categories of competition are as follows: · International Sea Kayak Ultra Marathon/Open Men. Distance:…
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Foreign Biker Killed On Patong-Kamala Rd
KAMALA BEACH: Alexander Payne, a 24-year-old Englishman living in Kamala and working in Patong, died late Friday night or early Saturday morning when the motorcycle he was driving flew off an embankment and into a deep ditch near Nakaburi at the crest of the Patong-Kamala Road. He was alone at the time of the accident. The wreckage was spotted by…
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New Stadium For Karon
KARON BEACH: Construction started earlier this month on Phase I of a 10 million baht football stadium and grandstand at Karon. Located on 10 rai of land on Bang Ngueg Road (the ‘Beach Road’) at the south end of the beach near the Ruam Thep Inn, the 1,000-seat, 117-meter-long facility is slated for completion in September. Tawee Thongchaem, head of…
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Local Internet Services Receive Poor Rating
PHUKET: Internet services available in Phuket are perceived as offering very substantial opportunities for growth in terms of quality, according to the weekly Gazette Poll which closed on January 22. From the four available answers to the question, “How would you rate the quality of Internet service in Phuket?”, 41.5% of the internet poll’s 680 participants clicked on “unsatisfactory,” with…
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Rugby Tournament Postponed
PHUKET TOWN: Phuket’s first international rugby tournament, scheduled to take place at Sapan Hin Stadium February 27-28, has been postponed until May. The event, under the Patronage of His Majesty The King, is being organized by the Thai Rugby Union in cooperation with Phuket municipality. Phuket Mayor Phumisak Hongyok told the Gazette yesterday that the head of the Thai Rugby…
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Tourist Belted By Tuk Tuk Driver
PHUKET TOWN: Kenneth James Nelson, a 51-year-old Englishman, discovered that it can be painful indeed to thwart the aspirations of a tuk-tuk driver. At 8.30 a.m. on January 25, he was walking along the street in front of the Ruangjit Cinema (opposite The Metropole hotel) in Phuket Town when a red tuk-tuk approached him. The driver asked if he needed…
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1999 Gazette Guide Now On Sale
PHUKET TOWN: The 1999 Gazette Guide, Phuket’s Business & Entertainment Directory, or ‘yellow’ pages, is now on sale. Priced at 140 baht, the 310-page book, containing 2,504 listings, is the island’s largest business database. The Guide may be purchased at the following locations: Deli Supermarket (Patong), Dokyah Bookstore (Phuket Town), Good Earth Books & Tea Room (Kata Center), Jay’s Business…
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Municipal Schools Hiring Foreign Teachers
PHUKET TOWN: In a first for Thailand, the Phuket Municipality is to enter into a contract with a private company to improve the quality of English among primary students at municipal schools. ELT Phuket will be employed to raise the standard of English among the municipality’s teachers, according to Somjai Suwansupana, a Phuket municipal counselor. “We want to improve the…
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Navy’s Third Fleet Heightens Safety Role
CAPE PANWA: Vice Admiral Somphop Bhuridej, Commander in Chief of the Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet, announced on Wednesday that the Third Fleet will assist in ensuring safety for those who travel by boat to Phuket’s outlying islands. The announcement follows a spate of fatal accidents which occurred in the region’s public ferry services last year, and which were summarized…
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Hygienic Food – An Amazing Achievement
PHUKET TOWN: Many of Phuket’s restaurants need to lift their standards of cleanliness and service, according to Cdr Dr Deja Sukaromana, the Deputy Minister of Public Health. Cdr Dr Deja is in Phuket to promote the “Amazing Hygienic Food” campaign set up by the Phuket Provincial Health Department and the Tourism Authority of Thailand. Restaurants are an intrinsic part of…
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Law, Order, And Tuk-Tuk Power
PATONG BEACH: At a time when many wonder who, if anyone, is really running the show in Patong, a new contender has emerged and demonstrated that he is a force to be reckoned with. When roughly 100 tuk-tuk drivers banned together late Friday night to block Patong’s beach road for more than three hours following a police lock-up of two…
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1998 Saw Growth In Crime, Arrests
PHUKET TOWN: The number of crimes in Phuket increased by 2.5 percent to 3,065 last year, according to figures handed to the Gazette by Phuket Provincial Police earlier this week. Arrests also increased, climbing 5.9 percent to 4,504 in 1998. Police said the increase in criminal activity on the island was due to Thailand’s economic slump, rising unemployment having forced…
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Another Thai Navy Vessel Comes Under Attack
RANONG: A Royal Thai Navy surveillance vessel has been engaged in gun battle with an unidentified fishing boat for the second time in less than a month, Vice Admiral Somphop Bhuridej, Commander of the Royal Thai Navy Third Fleet, told the Gazette earlier this week. Both incidents occurred in Thai territorial waters off Ranong province. On December 19, two officers…
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US Navy Visits Phuket
PATONG BEACH: Three US naval ships, the USS Boxer, USS Cleveland and USS Harpers Ferry, with a total of about 2,000 officers and crew, are visiting Phuket from 13 to 18 January 1999. The vessels are anchored in Patong Bay. Captain Robert C. Massey of the USS Boxer, Captain J. A. Winnefeld, Jr. of the USS Cleveland and Captain Terence…
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TAT Guides The Way
BANGKOK: The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has tightened language qualifications for the country’s army of tour guides. People now wishing to register as guides for foreign tourists must have one of the following qualifications: · A high school education with a certificate in a foreign language; · A high school education with at least 150 hours of certified training…
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Thalang Hospital Wing To Open
THALANG: Thalang Hospital will officially open its new 60-bed patient wing on February 11. The 11.5-million baht, two-story building will be opened by the Sheikhul Islam and the abbot of Wat Sa Khed. Phuket Governor Chadej Insawang will attend the ceremony. People wishing to donate money for medical equipment can contact Orapin Ratanarat at Thalang Hospital. Tel: (076) 311033-4, ext…
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The Beach Hits Phuket
Producers of the controversial movie The Beach, featuring superstar Leonardo DiCaprio, are seeking permission from authorities to film a number of scenes in Phuket. Film-makers want to shoot scenes in a shoe factory in Baan Manic from February 27 to March 17; at Cape Promthep March 3; Naithon Nui Beach on March 18; Surin Beach from March 19-22; Kata Beach…
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American Found Dead in Patong
PATONG BEACH: A 29-year-old American resident of Phuket was found dead in a Patong guest house on Sunday, according to Kathu police. Mr Korey Alan Lee, who worked for a Phuket dive company and had lived on the island for about three years, was found dead by his brother after the two had been involved in a long drinking session,…
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Police Bag Two In Chalong
CHALONG: Pol Col Decha Budnampeth, Chief of Police at Chalong, told a press conference this morning that a woman was robbed of her handbag while crossing the bridge on the road into Wat Chalong early on Saturday. The victim, Areerat Nusri, 34, reported the incident to police at Chalong station at 7:30 Saturday morning. She said the bag had been…
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Visa Criteria, Procedures Clarified
PHUKET TOWN: The superintendent of the Phuket Immigration Office, Pol Col Phirojana Praesakul, confirmed to the Gazette this morning that the financial requirements for the non-immigrant ‘O-A’ visa are as follows: 1) at least 800,000 baht in liquid funds in a Thai or overseas bank (the definition of “liquid” was not immediately available, so it was not clear whether fixed…
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