PHUKET: A Phuket public bus driver saved the day for a Finnish tourist who left behind an important bag in a songtaew this morning. Kamala bus driver Kiattisak Hoksad found tourist Sami Oskari Lyytinen’s bag – containing a passport, a plane ticket to Finland and some cash – in the back of his songtaew at about 11:30am today.
PHUKET: The main highway linking Bangkok to Phuket and the rest of Southern Thailand has been closed by rice farmers protesting the government’s failure to pay for rice produced and delivered under the controversial rice-pledging scheme. The blockade is in effect on Petchkasem Road in Ratchaburi, about 100km west of Bangkok.
PHUKET: A 9-year-old boy died after being pulled unconscious from the sea in northern Phuket yesterday.
PHUKET: The body of a mentally-handicapped man who was knocked off a Phuket longtail boat by a large wave on Friday was found washed ashore yesterday.
Anita Somaini, 51, is the owner of Baan Tschuai Duu Lää, a nursing facility in Rawai. She has degrees in nursing, emergency nursing and pharmacology and worked for 20 years in hospitals, geriatric institutes and pharmaceutical companies in her native Switzerland
PHUKET: Protesters successfully shut down Phuket polling stations by 8:30 this morning. “Phuket elections have been terminated for today,“ Phuket Election Commission Director Kittipong Thiengkunakrit told the Phuket Gazette
PHUKET: It is hard to imagine that only two countries in the world have more deadly roads than Thailand. Yes, Phuket Land Transport officials should take a measure of pride in the reduction of road accident deaths in recent years, but the island obviously has far to go before conditions on the roadways can be considered anything close to acceptably safe. The “culture of carelessness” that pervades Phuket roads, and Thai roads in general, has been addressed numerous times in this space; yet, it remains the most fundamental and intractable factor in road deaths.
PHUKET: Phuket is an international tourist destination – few can argue differently. Islanders may whine that it isn’t what it used to be, but even they are likely to admit that one of the benefits of progress is having an international airport, with international standards.
PHUKET: Uncertainty looms over Phuket polls as hurdles multiply for a successful national election tomorrow. Perhaps the most significant obstacle to be jumped is getting the party list ballots for Phuket out of Chumphon Province and distributed throughout the island. Protesters in Chumphon are preventing staffers at a post office housing the ballots from distributing them to other southern provinces, said Phuket Election Commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn.
PHUKET: The yachting and marine industry in Phuket has launched a petition calling for Customs officials to repeal the new regulation limiting boat stays in Thailand to a maximum of two months during any one visit.