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.
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Arson attack on Phuket guesthouse
PHUKET: Police are seeking a foreign tourist who threw a Molotov cocktail into the office of a guesthouse on Nanai Road in Patong yesterday. According to the Siangtai Daily website, the attack shattered a large window and caused a deafening explosion at the Jaraan Guesthouse on Nanai Soi 7 shortly before 1am yesterday. The incident was reported by 65-year-old Krissana…
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Phuket Property: Vikings wary; Phuket Fitness Fiesta; Cops slammed, loved; Phuket villas
Phuket NEWS Hound – A daily digest of news about Thailand from around the world, compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community. Phuket property: Scandinavians scared Scandinavians are planning to sell their properties in Phuket ‘en masse’ after the political riots in Thailand badly shook their confidence, says Thanan Tanpaiboon, president of the Phuket Real Estate Association. “In the…
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Revered Phuket monk to turn 114
PHUKET: Hundreds of well-wishers are expected to help revered Phuket monk Luang Pu Supha celebrate his 114th birthday next month. The secret to the aged monk’s longevity is to “eat less, speak less and always speak the truth”. Last year the Gazette broke the story about Luang Pu Supha’s reputed age on September 4. For previous reports click here. Having…
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Goose torched near Phuket pizza joint
PHUKET: Diners at the popular P Pizza House restaurant in the Samkong area of Phuket Town got a fright recently when a man in an adjacent lot fired up a blowtorch and began searing the flesh of what appeared to be a strange new creature with enormous front claws. Closer inspection revealed that the animal was in fact a goose…
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German man found dead in Phuket home
PATONG: A German man passed away at his rented home in Patong over the weekend. Kathu police Pol Maj Jongserm Preecha identified the deceased as Josef Stefan Distler, age 68. The body of the late Mr Distler was discovered at 9pm Sunday by the owner of the Ban Dok Din rental homes on Soi Veerakit, off Nanai Road. The deceased…
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Lucky numbers take root
An obscenely shaped tree at a police station in the northern province of Phayao has reportedly predicted the winning lottery numbers. The talented tamarind tree is in the yard of Phayao Muang Police Station. The tree has an approximately two-foot-long gash in its trunk with a fist-sized sparkling lump at one end. Villagers say the combination makes the tree look…
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Phuket musician in charity drive for son
PHUKET: Rino Mangon Vogt, 10, is a boy who knows he could die before the end of this year. Rino is suffering from a rare and congenital heart condition known as Ebstein’s Anomaly. Usually present at birth, this life threatening anomaly can show itself at any time, even into adulthood. The cause lies within one of Rino’s heart valves, which…
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Radio Thailand Phuket announces contest winner
PHUKET: Radio Thailand Phuket has announced a photograph by Sakorn Jarasbusarakam as winner of its Mothers’ Day Photo Contest. The contest, under the theme “The bond between mother and child”, was held in celebration of national Mothers’ Day on August 12, also the 78th birthday of HM Queen Sirikit. The winning entry shows a young mother blowing on a spoonful…
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Phuket Police seek high-tech solution to ya bah problem
PHUKET: With no end in sight to the battle against the illegal trade in ya bah (methamphetamine), Phuket Provincial Police hope to buy high-tech drug detection technology in order to better check vehicles entering the province at the Tah Chat Chai checkpoint. Phuket Police Commander Pekad Tantipong made the announcement at a press conference at Phuket City Police Station this…
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FC Phuket clinch Division 2 South title
PHUKET: FC Phuket clinched the AIS Regional League Division 2 South title with a 2-1 win at Ranong FC on Saturday. Ranong FC went into the match with 34 points, fighting to keep their second place standing and a chance for the promotional playoff spot that goes with it, but like many second-place teams before them, they were no match…
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New building code affects Phuket hillside projects
PHUKET: Phuket Natural Resources and Environmental officer Natthaporn Jarunkiatkhajorn has confirmed that tighter controls on building on hillside land in Phuket came into force on July 31, some two months earlier than expected. “After we receive an official letter from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Policy and Planning Division in Bangkok, we will immediately send letters informing related…
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TAT announces Thai Travel Mart 2010
PHUKET: The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has confirmed that the Thailand Travel Mart Plus Amazing Gateway to the Greater Mekong Sub-region will be held from September 8 to 10 at the IMPACT Convention Center in Muang Thong Thani. The Thailand Travel Mart Plus (TTM+) is the country’s premier annual trade event designed to promote travel and tourism to Thailand…
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Phuket ‘killer Brit’ has reputation for violence
PHUKET: It has emerged that Lee Aldhouse, the British man being hunted by police in connection with the murder of American Dashawn Longfellow, is “extremely violent” and has threatened to kill in the past. Sources said Mr Aldhouse first came to Phuket in 2006 to train in Muay Thai. He told people he was from Birmingham, England and had been…
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Where’s Juthamas?; Cambodia’s complaint; floods; hot info
Phuket NEWS Hound – A daily digest of news about Thailand from around the world, compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community. Juthamas back in lions’ den PHUKET: The Nation reports this morning that the national anti-graft agency is likely to seek legal indictment of former Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) governor Juthamas Siriwan in connection with a bribery…
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Phuket ‘Killer Brit’ suspect named
PHUKET: Chalong police have confirmed the identity of the prime suspect in the brutal stabbing death of American Muay Thai trainee Dashawn Longfellow in the early hours this morning. Case Officer Anukul Nookate confirmed to the Gazette that British Muay Thai fighter Lee Aldhouse, 28, is being sought for arrest in the murder of Mr Longfellow at his room at…
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Now you see him: Famed magician to open venue in Phuket
PHUKET: Joe Conrad, one of Asia’s best-known magicians, will be staging a regular magic show at his own venue in Patong come December. Billed as Asia’s Premier Magic Spectacular, the 90-minute show is being choreographed as family entertainment with initial prices set at 900 baht for adults and 600 baht for children. The show’s grand finale will feature a “disappearing”…
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Phuket tuned out; ‘High-end’ again; Dengue critical
Phuket NEWS Hound – A daily digest of news about Thailand from around the world, compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community. Phuket tuned out for $3 a night Although Phuket was to have been the first Tune hotel to open among the 24 such $3-a-night lodgings planned for Thailand, the honor, it seems, will now go to Pattaya…
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Phuket Rotary Club organizes relief for Pakistani flood victims
PHUKET: The Rotary Club of Patong Beach has launched a disaster relief drive to provide aid to some of the 14 million people in Pakistan displaced by devastating floods and in desperate need of water, food, shelter and sanitation. “As was the case with the Haiti earthquake relief, we’re working with the Canadian shelter box group, newly renamed ‘Disaster Aid…
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Phuket motorists warned over ‘red plate’ driving
PHUKET: Phuket Land Transport Office (PLTO) Chief Kanok Siripanichkorn has told the Gazette that people driving cars with red license plates have just one month to get regular “white plates” on their cars – or face the consequences. The warning for Phuket drivers follows Land Transport Department Director-General Chairat Sanguansue’s announcement of a “crackdown” on people illegally driving cars with…
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Dusit Group formally announces Phuket resort acquisition
PHUKET: Dusit International CEO Chanin Donavanik has issued the following statement regarding the group’s recent acquisition of the Dusit Thani Laguna Phuket resort: “Dusit International announces the acquisition of one of its most successful properties which it has managed for the past 23 years, and one of the best performing hotels in Phuket, Dusit Thani Laguna Phuket, previously owned by…
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Central Festival Phuket food hall now open
PHUKET: Central Festival Phuket celebrated the opening of its Central Food Hall with a ceremony on Wednesday. Chairing the ceremony was Phuket Vice Governor Nivit Aroonrat. He was joined by Central Food Retail Company President Alistair Taylor, who said the 60-million-baht investment in the project would assure the facility was be the best of its kind in Southern Thailand. The…
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Phuket Town coastal community flooded by seawater
PHUKET: About 50 households in the Haad Saen Suk community in Phuket Town are calling for help from local authorities after their neighborhood flooded with seawater during the recent monthly high tide on Tuesday. Some 200 people live in the affected area, which is built on a 200-meter-long dirt road along a canal leading to the nearby coast. The recent…
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New Phuket bridge mars local village life
PHUKET: Residents living in Tah Chat Chai, at the northernmost tip of Phuket, have been hard hit by the roadworks and the construction of the new bridge off the island. Storm drains have been filled in by earthworks, causing their village to flood every time another rainy season deluge comes. The recent redirection of northbound traffic over Thepkrasattri Bridge has…
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Phuket woman held over theft of rental cars
PHUKET: A woman arrested Tuesday for allegedly stealing cars from car rental agencies in Phuket is likely part of a car theft ring, police say. Police requested that Ms Jintawan Jarassuwimon, a 43-year-old Patong resident, report to police on Tuesday following a complaint filed the day before by Ms Monsuang Srisopa. Ms Monsuang wrote that Ms Jintawan failed to return…
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Poisonous potions land Russian tour boss in jail
A RUSSIAN tour company boss is behind bars for allegedly selling bottles of liquor containing the pickled remains of poisonous animals including king cobras, centipedes and scorpions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the concoctions themselves turned out be poisonous. Pattaya Police arrested Andrey Akulov, 40, on July 31 after receiving reports that one man died and others suffered strong allergic reactions from drinking…
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Phuket mother caught in drug run
PHUKET: Three children are spending Mother’s Day without their mom today after she was caught at Tah Chat Chai checkpoint trying to smuggle 2,000 ya bah (methamphetamine) pills onto the island by wrapping them in sanitary napkins. Phuket native Chamaiporn Khiewkaew, 30, with friend Chanjira Boonmark, also 30, riding pillion were stopped and searched by checkpoint police yesterday after the…
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Burmese man found torched in Phuket
PHUKET: Police yesterday recovered the body of a Burmese rubber tapper who had been murdered in the hills overlooking the famous Patong Beach. The upper half of his body had been set alight and his hands were tied behind his back. Wissanu Itsang, who owns a rubber plantation near where the body was found, reported the gruesome discovery to Kathu…
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Dusit Deal for Phuket; Thaksin trimmed; Phuket Fantasy flourishes; Shares soar
Phuket NEWS Hound – A daily digest of news about Thailand from around the world, compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community. Dusit Deal a plus for Phuket As reported in Phuket NEWS Hound yesterday, Dusit International has acquired the Dusit Thani Laguna Phuket for 2.6 billion baht. The seller was Laguna Resorts & Hotels, a local Phuket unit…
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383 dengue cases in Phuket
PHUKET: There have been 383 cases of dengue fever year-to-date in Phuket, but no deaths, the Ministry of Public Health says. Dr Wiwat Seetamanotch, deputy director of the Phuket Public Health Office and an expert on the disease, said the 383 cases so far this year has already surpassed the total number of cases in 2009, when 309 were recorded…
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Phuket celebrates HM The Queen’s Birthday
PHUKET: Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop on Monday presided over the opening of a project to plant 999 Yang Na trees at Rama IX Park as part of activities in honor of HM The Queen’s Birthday tomorrow. The event, which began at 9am, also included the release of 9,999 “effective micro-organism” (EM) balls into ponds at the park, also known as…
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