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/ 21 September 2006
Thailand was back to work as normal on Thursday, just 36 hours after a military coup that was condemned abroad but legitimised by the royal palace and greeted by many Thais with relief. A day after the military shut down the city, in the interests of maintaining calm, they said, Bangkok traffic was back to the familiar near-gridlock.
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/ 20 September 2006
Thailand’s army chief vowed on Wednesday to wipe the political slate clean and return ”power to the people” as soon as possible after a bloodless coup against billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Commander-in-chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin took power late on Tuesday as head of an interim ”Political Reform Council” run by the military.
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/ 19 September 2006
The Thai army seized power on Tuesday without firing a shot, dismissed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s government, revoked the Constitution and promised a swift return to democracy after political reforms. Armoured vehicles and soldiers took up position on many street corners, but life in most of Bangkok continued much as usual.
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/ 19 September 2006
The Thai army took control of Bangkok on Tuesday and announced it would set up a commission to reform the Constitution despite Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declaring a state of emergency from New York. After tanks surrounded Government House, all television channels relayed a written statement saying the armed forces and police were in control of Bangkok.
Urairat Soimee never thought she would leave her small village in northern Thailand, not even to visit Bangkok. So, she jumped at the chance when a neighbour offered to set her up with a waitressing job in Japan. Urairat, then 29 years old, arrived in Tokyo in 2000 before she was sent to the port city of Yokkaichi, only to discover that she hadn’t been hired to wait tables, but essentially as a sex slave in a brothel.
To the millions of holidaymakers who flock there every year, Thailand is the ”Land of Smiles”, a picture-postcard paradise of white-sand beaches, tropical sun and exotic eastern charm. But behind the relentlessly promoted tourist image lies a darker reality in which legendary hospitality also extends to less savoury visitors.
Partners wanting to tie the knot on the Thai paradise island of Phuket will have to wait a while or find another venue after the main city ran out of marriage certificates, officials said on Tuesday. An official from Muang Phuket registration department said it used its last certificate two weeks ago.
Once a simple fishing village, Hua Hin has evolved into one of Thailand’s bustling tourism gems thanks largely to the presence of a revered resident: King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Just a few hours drive from Bangkok, Hua Hin is an alternative to Pattaya, a nearby beach resort best known for its thriving sex tourism.
Thailand on Wednesday declared bird flu a national threat and vowed united efforts to tackle the deadly virus, which has claimed 16 lives since its first outbreak here in 2004. ”Bird flu is a national threat. If we fail to contain the outbreak of bird flu, it could spell disaster for our country,” Deputy Prime Minister Chidchai Vanasathidya told a meeting of about 260 local officials.
New outbreaks of bird flu in Thailand and Laos are fanning fears the disease is flaring up again in Asia, although concerns the virus was mutating in Indonesia have subsided. In Vietnam, which has not reported any outbreak of the H5N1 virus in poultry in the last seven months, a 35-year-old man was hospitalised in the southern province of Kien Giang.
Suspected Islamic militants staged about 40 bomb and arson attacks in Thailand’s Muslim-majority southern provinces late on Tuesday, injuring at least one, officials said. The attacks struck government and civilian targets including the homes of local officials and a train station in Thailand’s three restive provinces along the southern border with Malaysia, they said.
More than 100 volunteers have come to the aid of a stricken wild elephant who has been stuck in mud for a week in eastern Thailand, local officials said on Thursday. The elderly pachyderm, called Plai Khun Song, was unable to stand up after he took a rest in a mud hole in a sanctuary in Chanthaburi province, 245km east of Bangkok, district chief Viwat Chantanurak said.
The filming of Aftermath — a two-part miniseries produced by the BBC and United States cable channel HBO, shot along Thailand’s tsunami-battered coast — has set off a debate over the merits of bringing the tragedy to the screen so soon after the disaster.
Activists familiar with street protests outside the venues of annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are in for a different treat at this year’s gathering. Singapore, the host country of the mid-September event, is sparing little to ensure that its penchant for thought control will be evident.
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Thai police were on Thursday hunting for a gunman who shot dead two noisy World Cup fans at point-blank range after they ignored his request to be quiet, a police official said. The gunman was sitting next to 10 Thai football fans who watched Monday’s Italy-Ghana match on TV at a restaurant in the popular seaside resort of Pattaya, 70km south-east of Bangkok.
Separatist Islamic militants in southern Thailand bombed more than 40 police and government targets on Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding 21. The attacks, using crudely made, small and remote-controlled devices, shattered the relative calm of recent days as mainly Buddhist Thailand united to celebrate King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 60-year reign.
A massive crater in Antarctica may have been caused by a meteor that wiped out more than 90% of the species on Earth 250-million years ago, an American geologist said on Wednesday. The 480km-wide crater lies hidden more than 1,5km beneath a sheet of ice and was discovered by scientists using satellite data.
Rescue dogs and 1 000 soldiers searched for bodies on Thursday under a sea of mud and debris in Thailand’s flood-hit north, following flash floods this week believed to have killed more than 100 people. The public health ministry reported 51 people dead and 87 missing from the flooding that began on Monday.
More than 100 people were feared dead on Wednesday as searchers recovered corpses from a sea of mud spawned by flash floods in northern Thailand, local officials said. Among the heaviest-hit areas was Lablae district of Uttaradit province, where dozens of houses were engulfed in mud.
Inspired by a United States radio show for pets, a Thai dog lover has launched a round-the-clock online music radio programme for canines, a report said on Thursday. <i>DogRadioThailand.com</i>, which made its debut on Wednesday, offers both vocal and instrumental music for dogs, the English-daily <i>Bangkok Post</i> said.
Thailand’s top private hospital, the Bumrungrad International Hospital, and a leading Asian travel agency said on Friday they had forged a tie-up to boost medical tourism in the kingdom. Bumrungrad, one of the most popular medical tourism destinations in Asia, attracts more than 400Â 000 foreign patients each year.
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/ 25 February 2006
Thailand’s embattled prime minister warned on Saturday that ongoing political unrest may hurt the economy, as leaders of a pro-democracy movement seeking to oust him urged voters to boycott upcoming national elections. The prime minister decided on Friday to dissolve Parliament and call snap elections.
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/ 22 February 2006
Flag carrier Thai Airways International said on Wednesday it would launch direct flights from Bangkok to Johannesburg in October due to rising demand. ”Johannesburg is the hub of air travelling in Africa. It is a good connection and we can get passengers from North and East Africa,” said Wallop Bhukkanasut, Vice-President of the airline’s sales and distribution department.
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/ 22 February 2006
With their huge budgets and slick marketing machines, Hollywood movies have long cast a shadow over Asia, but filmmakers in the region believe creativity rather than protectionism is the key to boosting local fortunes. ”If you leave a lion and a mouse in the same place, what will be the result?” said Yang Gi-Hwan, spokesperson of the Screen Quota Action Alliance.
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/ 10 February 2006
A stressed-out security guard opened fire on a woman who jumped the queue at a branch of Thailand’s largest bank, police said on Friday. The 33-year-old guard was charged with attempted murder for shooting a university student on Thursday after a quarrel that erupted when a queue-ticketing machine broke down.
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/ 8 February 2006
High-flying champion skydiver BJ Worth chased a wild dream that even some of the world’s best jumpers thought impossible, but hundreds of them joined up and finally achieved a record on Wednesday. Skydivers from 31 nations broke the world free-fall formation record with a milestone 400-person spiral in the skies over Thailand.
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/ 26 January 2006
It was love at first sight for Thailand’s Scorpion Queen and Centipede King. The couple with a soft spot for creepy crawlers — and publicity stunts — are planning a Valentine’s Day’s wedding at a haunted house, and to consummate their vows in a coffin.
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/ 26 January 2006
Scientists say they have discovered the world’s smallest known fish in threatened swampland in Indonesia. A member of the carp family, the fish has a translucent body and a head unprotected by a skeleton. ”This is one of the strangest fish that I’ve seen in my whole career,” said Ralf Britz, a zoologist at London’s Natural History Museum.
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/ 24 January 2006
Myanmar’s illegal timber trade with China has picked up in recent days, after an unexplained halt of several months, a forestry watchdog said on Tuesday. Global Witness said logging trucks had been crossing to China’s southwestern Yunnan province from northern Myanmar every seven minutes when the London-based group released its previous report in October.
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/ 20 January 2006
When Brian Hauff came to visit Thailand, he decided against a resort hotel and joined the increasing number of foreigners who are staying in the homes of local villagers instead. "I came directly to Thailand to learn more intimate Thai in terms of culture," says the 58-year-old.
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/ 18 January 2006
A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced two men to death for the rape and murder of a 21-year-old British tourist, amid political pressure over fears for the country’s post-tsunami tourism industry. The judges said DNA evidence linking fishermen Bualoy Kothisit (23) and Wichai Sonkhaoyai (24) to the crime could not be disputed, describing the defendants as ”inhuman”.
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/ 23 December 2005
Few will actually admit to seeing a ghost themselves, but everyone has heard about them on the once-idyllic Thai island of Phi Phi, still rebuilding after the tsunami killed 700 people. Many Thais say they believe the souls of the nearly 5Â 400 people who were killed in the tsunami continued to haunt the Andaman coast long after the debris had been cleared away and reconstruction began.