PHUKET: Children playing with firecrackers before the Phuket Vegetarian Festival gets underway this evening have been named as the likely cause of a home in Thalang being gutted by fire. Two teams of firefighters arrived at the house of Rungtiwa Nuansri, 29, in Thepkrasattri, at about 8pm last night to find her modest home ablaze. The firemen took about an hour to extinguish the flames, with the help of many local residents who lent a hand.
PHUKET: Police trainees from Surat Thani saw some frontline action in Phuket this week when they received on-the-job training at a checkpoint in Baan Bang Jo, in Srisoonthorn. Thalang Police Deputy Superintendent Amnuay Kraiwootthinan and a team of officers supervised the 14 trainees assigned to the Thalang precinct, while another 43 trainees from Surat Thani were dispatched to assist in Phuket City, Chalong and Patong
PHUKET: A one-year-old boy who died at Vachira Phuket Hospital on Saturday likely died of wounds inflicted by a family member, say police.
PHUKET: A freediving expert believes that long-term Phuket expat and Russian freediver Denis Lipatov, 39, drowned off Koh Racha Noi on Saturday afternoon after diving alone and suffering a shallow-water blackout. Mr Lipatov, freediving alone, made his last descent at 3:50pm, to 25.5 meters according to his dive computer.
PHUKET: The informal network of taxi drivers operating at Central Festival Phuket shopping mall will be registered as a formal co-operative as part of the drivers’ efforts to work as part of a fully-legal entity by November 30.
PHUKET: A sounder of wild boar has settled on an 18-hole “Football Golf Course” in Chalong as their preferred dining area, but in the pigs’ quest for food, the squealers have left disturbingly large divots in the greens. “Our course is currently under attack by wild boars, which are rampaging through our course at night and ripping up our greens,” said Neil Simmons of Phuket Games Zone, located in Soi Palai (map
PHUKET: Obtaining a driver’s license on our island is a paradoxical task. It is an ostensibly simple process, all done within one building and in eight hours, driving lessons optional – which may rev your confidence up – but it’s fussiness has been known to trip up even those with decades of driving experience.
PHUKET: A recent crackdown on Westerners working illegally in the marine leisure industry has generated a great deal of comment from readers, yet the debate focused almost solely on Thailand’s notoriously vague definition of what constitutes work, while missing out on some fundamental aspects of the issue. Comments posted on the Gazette website failed to reference the fact that arrests of foreigners for labor and immigration law violations seem to cluster in the low season. Before we explore that issue further, it needs to be understood that Thai authorities have two quite different definitions – legally and linguistically – of what constitutes “foreign labor”.
PHUKET: Rubber protests in recent weeks in Southern Thailand are now paying dividends for plantation owners in Phuket and the rest of the nation. Though the direct demands of the protests, which included a government subsidy for sheets of rubber were not met, the government has allocated a total of over 21 billion baht to be paid out to households legally owning rubber plantations.
PHUKET: Much needed police boots will march onto the island in mid-November to help protect the swelling numbers of tourists and the general population of Phuket as officers ready for high season. “Our ranks will grow by 146 officers by mid-November,” said Phuket Provincial Deputy Commander Saneh Yawila