PHOTO: Guy (Charlie) LIDUREAU The Thai PM is heading to Phuket to officiate at the opening of the long-awaited Chalong Underpass next week, as well as attend some other meetings during the day. PM Prayut Chan-o-cha will open the Chalong Underpass on Monday, July 8.
A Burmese worker has been arrested shortly after allegedly stabbing another Burmese man to death during an alleged drinking argument in Surat Thani’s Tha Chang district, north of Surat Thani city, police said. 26 year old Hern Gogo was arrested inside an oil palm plantation in a village in Tambon Sawiad where he was hired to work with the victim, 41 year old ‘Showin’, according to police
PHOTO: South East Asia Backpacker Magazine The Thai Office of the Insurance Commission says they expect to introduce compulsory travel insurance for visitors to Thailand by the end of 2019. It would be charged to tourists who arrive without travel insurance and go into a ‘fund’ to be used to pay for repatriation costs in the event of misadventure
According to a survey, the ‘Travel Smart Insurance Index’ recently released by the UK Post Office, more British travellers to Thailand made insurance claims for medical costs of repatriation after visiting Thailand than any other country.
Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwan has expressed regret over the brutal attack on political activist Sirawith Seritiwat, or Ja New, and ordered the national police chief, Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda, to hold an urgent meeting with the metropolitan police commissioner to discuss the incident and to intensify efforts to track down the perpetrators, as well as the mastermind behind the assault, if there is one. Thai PBS reports that a Defence Ministry spokesman Lt-Gen Kongcheep Tantrawanich says security authorities have not been idle since the attack, as has been claimed. He maintained that both the military and the police do not tolerate or sanction the use of violence, especially violence directed against those who share opposing political views.
by Gregers Møller Website ScandAsia.com and writer Gregers Møller reports that nordic expats – business people, on retirement or family-based Thai visas, renewing their visas this year – has dropped by around 10% this year. He reports “This is the first decline in 12 years.
A male teacher in the Loei province, near the Laos border, has been accused of sexually harassing teenagers at the Loeipittayakom School, one of the best-known educational institutions in the northeastern province. The teacher, named by the parents but whose identity has been withheld at this stage, has not yet directly responded to the allegations, but locals allege he has settled such complaints out of court several times before.
Thai-Canadian Paweensuda ‘Fahsai’ Drouin has been crowned Miss Thailand Universe 2019. Judges chose 26 year old Paweensuda, 26 from more than 50 other contestants in the pageant’s final round at the Thunder Dome in Bangkok last night (Saturday). Miriam Sornprommas was first runner-up and Thanatchaphon Boonsang second runner-up. Paweensuda is 180 centimetres tall, was born and raised in Canada and her father is Canadian (which makes her Canadian?)
b y Santiparp Ramasutra Songkhla Police, in Thailand’s deep south, have rescued 20 scared and hungry Burmese, victims of traffickers who’d locked them inside a warehouse on the Thai-Malaysian border. Residents say they heard the sound of children crying for several days in the usually deserted warehouse in the Sadao district. Pol General Suchart Thirasawat, an inspector-general in charge of an anti-trafficking unit, led the rescue operation last night (Saturday). “We found the building heavily locked from outside and could we hear women and children crying inside,” he said
A local north-east rocket festival entry has made an unexpected landing, into trees hanging over a road, then dropping straight into the passenger seat of a passing pick-up. The rocket, part of the annual Bun Bang Fai rocket festival in Suwannaphum district of Roi-Et, was a wayward entry that ended up in a tree after being launched. Over the two days of this years festival some 30 home-made rockets are fired into the skies to encourage the ‘water gods’ to start dropping rain on the north-easter rice-growing plains