PHUKET: For the first time, more than 30 museums from across Southern Thailand will be collaborating to create a single event: the Southern Thai Museum Festival 2012, to be held in Phuket next week. “Visitors will be able to experience the exhibition which will include precious antique objects.
PHUKET: There will be no official memorial service this Sunday, September 16, to remember the 89 people who died in the crash landing of One-Two-Go Flight OG269 five years ago. “It is not a day to remember. It was a tragedy and we do not want to perpetuate horrible memories of the incident,” Phuket Airport Director Prathuang Sornkham told the Phuket Gazette.
PHUKET: Phuket Immigration officers are scouring the island for fugitive Filipino brothers Mario Joel Tolentino Reyes and Mario Tolentino Reyes Jr, despite not yet receiving any formal request to apprehend the pair. The news comes as Phuket Immigration Superintendent Panuwat Ruamrak told the Phuket Gazette this afternoon, “Even though we have yet to receive any formal requests, we are searching for the two.” Col Panuwat confirmed that his office had yet to receive any requests from the Philippines embassy in Bangkok or authorities in Manila.
PHUKET: Sirinath National Park chief Cheewapap Cheewatham has denied claims that he or any other officers investigating alleged encroachment onto national park land have received death threats. “Since I started my work here, I have not received any death threats from anyone. I have not heard any reports of any other officers receiving death threats, either,” chief Cheewapap said.
PHUKET: A Mexican national died early this morning when the car he was driving, on the wrong side of one of Phuket’s most dangerous roads, struck an oncoming vehicle, injuring the three occupants. Thalang Police received a report at 2:45am of a dead man in a new white Toyota Vios at a u-turn on Thepkrasattri Road in Srisoonthorn, about two kilometers north of the
UPDATE: Since this story was posted online, the Gazette has learned that car accident victim Christian Roth was the Operations Manager at the Xana Beach Club, operated by Angsana Laguna Phuket and Attica. Kampanat Mataramanee, Associate Relations Manager of Angsana Laguna Phuket, confirmed that the Mexican Embassy in Bangkok has been notified of the incident and that Mr Roth’s family will arrive in Phuket on Sunday to make arrangements for Mr Roth’s funeral in his native Mexico.
PHUKET: Phuket jewelry shops that overcharge tourists and tour companies that hire illegal guides are to be targeted by the latest campaign by provincial authorities to preserve a “billion baht” business, officials were told this week. “I want tour companies to follow the law. Their main tour guides must be Thai.
PHUKET: More than 50 representatives from taxi organizations across Phuket have agreed to a schedule of standard fares to be charged island-wide. The benchmark agreement, which is expected to resolve many of the issues – and violent conflicts – related to fares charged, was forged at a meeting at Phuket Provincial Hall on Wednesday.
PHUKET: Officials in Krabi province, across Phang Nga Bay from Phuket, are ramping up security ahead of a lightning visit by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Saturday, when she will head a meeting of provincial governors from the five provinces of the “Andaman cluster” to discuss “disaster preparedness”.
PHUKET: Yet another female