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Three arrested for using fake passports
PHUKET TOWN: Three Indian nationals have been arrested by Phuket’s Immigration Police for using fake passports. The three, who were named as Vijay Kumar, 30, Rajeep Uma Mahajak, 31, and Narendar Agarwal, 26, were charged with using forged papers and with entering the country illegally. The arrests came as part of the continuing national drive to inspect foreign residents in…
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Road injuries up in 1999, but deaths down
PHUKET TOWN: The number of people injured in road accidents in Phuket in 1999 was 3% higher than in 1998, but the death toll fell by 6%. A total of 10,553 people were hurt in road accidents, 94% of whom were on motorcycles, up from 10,250 in the previous year. Motorcycles were also by far the biggest cause of road…
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Swede’s death “probably suicide’
KARON: A 36-year-old Swedish tourist was found dead yesterday evening in Karon in what appears to have been a suicide. Pol Lt Teerawat Liumsuwan of the Chalong Police Station said the body of the tourist, whom he named as Kauhava Jauko Tapio, was found in the bathroom of his rented house in the soi opposite Karon Post office. He was…
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Ten rebels die as commandos end hospital siege
RATCHABURI (AFP): Thai commandos launched a daring pre-dawn raid today to end a 24-hour hospital siege, killing 10 Burmese rebels and freeing their 500 hostages unharmed, officials said. “We were able to save all the hostages; we had to save them because they were patients,” the commander of the raid, Lt Gen Thaveep Suwannasingh, said. He said nine rebels were…
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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…
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German tourist caught with marijuana
NAI HARN: Police arrested a 41-year-old German tourist here on Saturday for possession of marijuana. The German, whom police named as Udo Euler, 41, was arrested shortly after midnight, when Chalong police received a report that there was a foreigner who “looked like a drug addict” walking on Nai Harn beach. The police went to the beach, where they stopped…
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“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…
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Green Peace gets “up close and personal’ at Patong Beach
PATONG: Greenpeace (International) staged another rally today, but this time right on the beach in Patong. The event took place just two hours before the group left Phuket aboard the Rainbow Warrior at 1:00 pm. Others participating in the rally were Greenpeace (Thailand), the Phuket Environmental Protection Group, and the Federation of Southern Fisherfolk. Unlike the demonstration at the incinerator…
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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…
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Fishermen arrested for illegal trawling
RAWAI: Chalong Police yesterday stopped four fishing boats and arrested their 16 crew members for fishing illegally in inshore waters. Yootthana Malakarn of the Phuket Fishery Department received an early-morning call from an informant to say that four fishing boats, thought to be dual-trawling, had been seen in the area between Maiton Island and Aow Island, to the south of…
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Boffins identify source of “yellow rain”
PHUKET: The Provincial Health Office today confirmed that the “yellow rain” that has fallen on a small area along Chao Fah Nok Rd over the past 10 days or so is pollen. Dr Boonrieng Chuchaisangrat, chief of the Health Office, told the Gazette that samples of the “rain” were passed to the Phuket branch of the Songkhla Regional Medical Science…
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German tourist found dead in hotel room
NAI HARN: A German tourist was yesterday found dead, sitting in front of the dressing table in his hotel room. Pol Capt Sanae Panmee, Inspector of the Chalong Police Station, named the dead man as Jürgen Roland Preiss, 40. He had arrived in Phuket on January 11 for a two-week holiday and was staying at the Jungle Beach Resort in…
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Campaigning for provincial council heats up
PHUKET: Elections for 24 seats on the Provincial Administrative Council (OrBorJor) will take place across Phuket on February 5. With all seats being contested by at least two candidates, sound trucks have been out in force throughout the island, with campaign teams putting up posters and handing out candidate biographies and manifestoes to as many voters as possible. In Muang…
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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…
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German manager held for theft of 5m baht
BANGKOK: Dirk Krebber, the 38-year-old German manager of Aqua Master (Thailand), a dive supply company in Patong, surrendered to police in Bangkok on Thursday to answer questions over the disappearance of five million baht from Aqua Master’s bank account. Sirikate Narin, the company’s assistant managing director, told the Gazette that shortly after a photograph of Krebber was shown on a…
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Two arrested for selling ya bah
PHUKET: Weerasak Tantiratthanapitak, 20, and Sunipol Boonnak, 24, were arrested in Phuket Town yesterday following a sting operation when they attempted to sell methamphetamine (ya bah) to plainclothes police. According to Pol Maj Amnuoy Kraiwootthinan of the Phuket Town Police Station, the police then went to the suspects’ apartment on Surin Rd. In the apartment they found 110 tablets of…
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900 ya bah pills seized as police nab 3 dealers
PHUKET TOWN: Police revealed today that they arrested a woman and two men on January 4 on charges of possession of ya bah with intent to sell. They also seized more than 900 pills of the drug with an estimated street value of around 135,000 baht. Pol Lt Passakorn Sootthikul, of the narcotics division of the Phuket Town Police Station,…
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Police make reporting lost documents easier
PHUKET TOWN: Police here have opened three new booths to make it easier for local people and tourists to report the loss of documents. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the new booths are at the intersection of Phang Nga Rd and Phuket Rd; in front of Suan Luang Park on Chaofa Rd; and at the public…
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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…
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Patong bars raided for staying open late
PATONG: Kathu police raided several bars and nightclubs in Patong yesterday morning for staying open past the 2 am official closing time. Among the venues raided, said Pol Col Kokiat Wongwarachart, Superintendent of the Kathu Police Station, were Hollywood 99 Pub, Up-2-You Bar, Night Moves, Night Station, The Shark Club, VIP Bar, Chicago’s Fun Pub, as well as several other…
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BBAP elects new committee
PHUKET TOWN: The British Business Association of Phuket (BBAP) held its first annual general meeting last night, at the Royal Phuket City Hotel. Members reelected Andy Dowden as chairman and Damian Barratt as treasurer. Paul Spring and William Pinsent were also reelected as committee members. Founder member and secretary Alan Cooke stepped down. On the recommendation of the outgoing committee,…
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Business registrations soared in 1999
PHUKET TOWN: Business confidence soared in Phuket last year, with the number of companies registering in the province leaping by more than 50% compared with 1998, and comfortably exceeding even the pre-Asian-Crisis levels of 1996. Figures compiled by the Phuket Commercial Registration Office show 505 limited companies were registered last year, compared with 332 in the previous year, 311 in…
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Woman gets eight years for ‘enslaving’ Thais
LOS ANGELES (AFP): A Thai was sentenced today to more than eight years in prison for illegally bringing three Thai women into the United States and forcing them to work in slave-like conditions. Supawan Veerapol, the 55-year-old common law wife of Thailand’s former ambassador to Sweden, used her diplomatic connections to bring the women into the country to work in…
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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…
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1999 HIV infections likely to show increase
PHUKET: Based on preliminary figures for 1999, Phuket’s health chief believes the number of people diagnosed as HIV-positive will be significantly higher than the 283 diagnosed in 1998. If Dr Boonrieng Chuchaisangrat’s preliminary figures are accurately reflected in the final statistics, the number of HIV infections per 100,000 people in Phuket at the end of 1999 will put the island…
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Thailand launches drive to discredit Hollywood film
BANGKOK (AFP): Thailand has launched a worldwide campaign to discredit the Hollywood movie “Anna and the King”, which censors have banned as an insult to the monarchy and a distortion of history, weekend news reports said. The foreign ministry has issued guidelines to its embassies saying 20th Century Fox’s claim the film is based on historical events “was almost completely…
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Taxmen behind target for first two months
PHUKET: Two months into the tax year, the Phuket Provincial Revenue Office has reported that revenue collected is already behind budget, and down by 13% from the same period of the 1998/1999 tax year. Officials reported that tax collected had fallen from 350.3 million baht in October and November 1998 to 305.4 million baht in the same period of 1999.…
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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…
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Cook delivers special surprise aboard dive boat
BURMA BANKS: A 28-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl at sea while on a seven-day live-aboard Millennium dive trip from Phuket to the Burma Banks. While guests aboard the boat, the Ugly Duck, were having dinner on the upper deck on the evening of January 2, Chamnan (“Nang”) Srinuan, a second cook working for High Class Adventure Phuket,…
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Occupancy rates improve dramatically
PHUKET: Occupancy rates at most of Phuket’s hotels are looking much better than two weeks ago. Almost all of the hotels contacted by the Gazette today report that cancellations have dwindled and bookings are picking up. Our table illustrates what has happened over the past two weeks. Generally, at this time of year, Phuket’s hotels budget for occupancies of 75-80%.…
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