Artikel posted in 2014

  • Phuket tour boat owners fight illegal boat operators with new club

    Phuket tour boat owners fight illegal boat operators with new club

    PHUKET: Island tour boat operators met in Phuket on Friday to discuss forming a club to help combat what they say is customer-poaching by illegally operated, foreign-owned companies. The group’s ire is focused mainly on Chinese and Russian companies that they claim are set up using a Thai nominee

  • Phuket stolen passports may unravel missing Malaysian flight mystery

    Phuket stolen passports may unravel missing Malaysian flight mystery

    PHUKET: Police are investigating how two passports reported stolen in Phuket were used by persons unknown to board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which disappeared over the South China Sea on Saturday (story

  • Phuket Opinion: Marketing failing airport bus service

    Phuket Opinion: Marketing failing airport bus service

    PHUKET: The operators of the airport bus service linking Phuket International Airport with Patong need to improve their marketing approach as quickly as possible if they hope to turn around the service’s slow start before the high season draws to a close. It came as somewhat of a surprise that the service, launched with considerable fanfare in July last year, has not turned out to be as popular as expected, especially given the widespread dissatisfaction with the woeful public transport options on the island. Unfortunately, and despite perhaps legitimate claims by the operator that Airports of Thailand (AoT) and other forces with vested interests at the airport are largely to blame, the sad fact remains that nine months after starting, the service still has no discernible English-language presence on the internet to inform would-be riders that it even exists.

  • Special Report: Trafficking abuse of Myanmar Rohingya spreads to Malaysia

    Special Report: Trafficking abuse of Myanmar Rohingya spreads to Malaysia

    SPECIAL REPORT PHUKET: Human traffickers have kept hundreds of Rohingya Muslims captive in houses in northern Malaysia, beating them, depriving them of food, and demanding a ransom from their families, according to detailed accounts by the victims. The accounts given to Reuters suggest that trafficking gangs are shifting their operations into Malaysia as Thai authorities crack down on jungle camps near the border that have become a prison for the Muslim asylum seekers fleeing persecution in Myanmar. Police in the northern Malaysian states of Penang and Kedah have conducted several raids on the houses in recent months, including an operation in February that discovered four Rohingya men bound together with metal chains in an apartment.

  • Phuket Opinion: Changing the way we see with photos

    Phuket Opinion: Changing the way we see with photos

    PHUKET: My friends abroad have been writing to urge me to be careful and take care in light of the anti-government protests. If they thought for a moment, they might remember that Phuket is quite far from Bangkok

  • Phuket Opinion: Road safety: what we’re doing wrong

    Phuket Opinion: Road safety: what we’re doing wrong

    Thanapong Jinvong, 50, is Director of the Academy of Road Safety at the National Health Foundation and also works at the Department of Disease Control. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University with a specialization in epidemiology. Here, he talks about three ways to improve road safety in Thailand, which ranks third in the world for road deaths.

  • Phuket expat volunteers back on beat after misunderstanding, says Patong’s new top cop

    Phuket expat volunteers back on beat after misunderstanding, says Patong’s new top cop

    PHUKET: Striking Region 8 International Volunteers are back to work after negotiations with police, announced Acting Patong Police Superintendent Sakchai Limcharoen.

  • Video Report: Uninsured Phuket ship sunk by fire, owners estimate 5mn in losses

    Video Report: Uninsured Phuket ship sunk by fire, owners estimate 5mn in losses

    PHUKET: The wooden cargo ship that caught fire yesterday off Phuket’s east coast in Phang Nga Bay was not insured and represents a 5-million-baht loss, its owners said. One of the owners, Sompong Maikhaew, and three other men were on the ship when it caught fire, but jumped overboard and were safely rescued by a passing speedboat. “We left Koh Yao Noi at 2:30pm and were headed for Bang Rong Port on Phuket,” Mr Sompong said.

  • Frenchman steals testosterone from Phuket pharmacy in his underpants

    Frenchman steals testosterone from Phuket pharmacy in his underpants

    PHUKET: Phuket Police arrested two French nationals Wednesday night after one shoplifted 9,000 baht worth of testosterone injections in his underwear while the other created a diversion. Patong Police were informed of the theft at the Health and Herb pharmacy on Soi Bangla at about 4:50pm and rushed to the scene. “A man and a woman came into the shop,” said store owner Ratthaya Sawatraksa.

  • Murder investigation launched after discovery of body in Phuket drainpipe

    Murder investigation launched after discovery of body in Phuket drainpipe

    PHUKET: Police launched a murder investigation after the decomposed body of a woman was found yesterday by a medical worker who stopped by the side of the road to urinate. Police believe the body is that of Kanya Yoongnoo, 47, who was reported missing in Cherng Talay in January, but are waiting for DNA test results