PHUKET: More than 200 Muslims planning to make the Hajj this year took advantage of free vaccinations at the Phuket Provincial Administration Organization Hospital on Saturday. “The Provincial Hospital has partnered with the Phuket Public Health Office to offer free meningococcal meningitis and influenza vaccines to people in Phuket and nearby provinces who plan to travel to Mecca for the Hajj,” said Hospital Director Anan Lohapattanabamrung. “We also gave free checkups and advised on how to protect against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome [MERS],” he added (story
PHUKET: A monk who came to Phuket to visit a friend was arrested in Rassada yesterday and charged with sniffing glue and theft. Police were alerted by villagers at about 6pm yesterday that a monk was sniffing glue in a pavilion at Pa Aram Rattanaram Temple, near Mission Hospital (map
PHUKET: On behalf of the U.S.
PHUKET: Dr Francesco Pensato has been proclaimed the Honorary Consul of Italy for Phuket and the rest of South Thailand. Dr Pensato, a lifelong patron of the arts and himself a composer of music, is also a director of the Thai-Italian Chamber of Commerce (TICC, website
PHUKET: The Dragon Club, an erection behind the Jungceylon shopping mall in Patong (map
PHUKET: The 57-year-old Swedish expat found dead in her home in Chalong earlier this month was a key witness to one of the most shocking murder trials in Sweden’s history. The body of Aino Marianne Seppala was found lying on a couch in her living room on June 10. There was no evidence of violence in the room, reported police (story
PHUKET: Two women on their way to Phuket’s famous Chalong Temple escaped from their car on Chao Fa East Road shortly before it burst into flames.
PHUKET: The long-awaited Sea Gypsy Cultural Center, slated to open at the end of 2012 at a budget that ballooned from 2 million to 5.4 million baht, has deteriorated into a derelict shell of a building that has become a shelter for the homeless. The promised library, exhibition spaces and native handiwork demonstrations highlighting the millennia-old culture of the Urak Lawoi sea gypsies now living on Koh Sireh never arrived.
PHUKET: Two men were stabbed in a fight at a live-music venue near Chalong Circle early this morning. One of the men died; the other is expected to recover from his wounds. Police have arrested one suspect and are searching for four more.
PHUKET: Representatives from Phuket’s tourism industry stepped forward this week to provide one million baht in compensation to the family of a Chinese tourist who drowned while swimming off Racha Yai Island last year. Yuan Dingrong, 56, drowned after getting into difficulties while snorkeling off La Bay at Rachai Yai Island, about 25 kilometers south of Phuket, on November 20 last year (story