Thailand

A new shopping mall scheduled to open in Bangkok next year will feature a ”Gay Avenue” manned by retail outlets owned by gay people, news reports said on Thursday. ”Gay Avenue”, billed as the country’s first ”gay shopping zone”, will take up 2 400 square metres of retail space in the Tawana Centre Park.

A daily buffet of giraffe, zebra and crocodile will be offered to visitors at a zoo in northern Thailand, an environment minister said on Thursday, announcing plans that have left conservationists outraged. The zoo will officially open New Year’s Day and will feature five restaurants, including the Vareekunchorn where diners can have a taste of the exotic.

Thai transvestites are often pretty enough to fool tourists into taking them home for the night, but the unwary visitor risks losing his wallet as well as his pride. Members of a transvestite gang have confessed to concealing strong sedative pills under their tongues and spitting them down the throats of their victims while kissing.

The identification of one of the three suicide bombers in October’s Bali restaurant blasts led authorities to the hideout of one of Asia’s most wanted terrorist suspects, the Australian police commissioner said on Thursday. Mick Keelty said Indonesian police identified the suicide bomber from East Java province about 10 days ago.

Suspected insurgents set off 14 bombs in the southern Thai town of Narathiwat, throwing the provincial capital into darkness for several hours on Wednesday night and leaving one person dead, media reports said on Thursday. The initial explosions were followed by attempted attacks on 11 public places.

Thailand has confirmed a new case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu among chickens in a northeastern province, amid rising fears over the virus following the kingdom’s 13th fatality, officials said on Monday. The Avian Influenza Control Operating Centre in Bangkok said it confirmed the virus last week in one district in the northeastern province of Kalasin, about 500km northeast of Bangkok.

Roger Federer polished his game at the expense of an outsider while Lleyton Hewitt was made to struggle into the quarterfinals of the  000 Thailand Open on Thursday. Top seed Federer put a bumpy start 24 hours earlier behind him, rushing past German unknown Denis Gremelmayr 6-3, 6-2.

A back problem which resurfaced during training has forced Tim Henman to pull out of next week’s  000 Thailand Open, the British number one confirmed on his website. Henman had been due to make his first appearance on court since losing in the first round of the US Open last month to Fernando Vedasco of Spain, a match where he suffered with a stiff back.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has long complained of press criticism. But he sought to turn the tables on Thursday with a new tactic — sounding a buzzer every time reporters ask questions he deems ”not constructive”. On several occasions in the past, Thaksin has been angered by critical questions.

Thailand’s prime minister is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement operation, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet’s reputation, a news report said on Wednesday. ”Who did it? Tell me,” Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra asked his ministers at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.

If it tastes good it must be good for you, seems to be one of those natural assumptions that often prove incorrect, unfortunately. Thai cuisine, which has made rapid strides in international popularity over the past decade, is apparently no exception to this gloomy gastronomical rule, although the good news is that it’s certainly a lot healthier than junk food.

The remains of four more people believed to have been killed in December’s tsunami have been found in Thailand, including one that appeared to be a Caucasian woman, an official said on Thursday. A body believed to be that of a foreign woman was found on Tuesday in the basement of a devastated French hotel.

Doctors in northern Thailand have removed almost three dozen fly maggots from a woman’s nose, where they were eating their way towards her brain, a report said on Tuesday. The 38-year-old pig farmer from the north-western city of Chiang Mai is believed to be the first reported case in Thailand of maggots nesting in a human’s nose.

Thailand’s first pet resort was launched this weekend at Cha-am, a beach destination popular among wealthy Thais and foreigners who can now check in with their beloved furry friends, news reports said on Sunday. The Regent Cha-am Beach Resort hotel on Saturday officially opened its pets-only wing.

Thailand on Tuesday began a cloud-seeding campaign overseen by the king to alleviate a severe drought that has dried up reservoirs and baked rice paddies across the world’s number-one rice exporter, senior officials said. The rain-making operation is to focus first on the country’s impoverished north-east.

Forty-six Thai students have been banned from the military for life after they tried to cheat in an army entrance examination by concealing cellphones in their shoes, an official said on Monday. Army spokesperson Colonel Acar Tiproch said the students were found with phones in the soles of their shoes and pagers under their clothes.

A bomb exploded on Thursday outside a hotel in southern Thailand, killing four people and wounding up to 40 just two hours after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra cut short a trip to the restive region, police said. The blast is believed to be the deadliest bombing in a campaign of violence that has gripped the Muslim-dominated deep south.

A disgruntled Thai customer on Friday smashed up his allegedly defective Toyota pickup truck with a sledgehammer after failing to get the company to replace the offending vehicle with a deluxe Lexus sports car. Noraset Roonpraphan took a sledgehammer to his two-year-old Toyota Hilux Tiger pickup truck.

Wild elephants in Thailand stumbled upon a feast when they found a tapioca delivery truck with a flat tire, officials said on Monday. The driver, Somkuan Sirisat, said he had gone for help to repair the tire on Sunday night — and when he returned, he found five or six elephants surrounding his truck and devouring its contents.

Former anti-apartheid activist Valli Moosa of South Africa was elected the new president of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) on Wednesday. IUCN is deemed the world’s largest conservation network. Moosa, (47) born in Johannesburg, has served on the United Nations Environment Programme governing council, the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, and the South African Business Trust.