DPA Police arrested International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn aboard a flight departing for Paris, on suspicion of an alleged sexual assault against a hotel maid. The arrest took place on an Air France flight 10 minutes before takeoff. Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexual assault against a maid at the Sofitel New York.

nytimes.com Colombians who entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

abc.net.au Thailand says it would be interested in striking the same asylum seeker deal with Australia as the one proposed with Malaysia. Australia is in negotiations with Malaysia to swap 800 asylum seekers for 4000 refugees currently living in Malaysia.


A daily wrap of Thailand news, with a Phuket perspective, plus relevant reports from national and international media.

scotsman.com A British woman has been beheaded in front of horrified tourists in a supermarket on the Spanish holiday island of Tenerife.

independent.co.uk Witnesses said a main entered a Chinese supermarket in a shopping centre in the popular resort town of Los Cristianos and stabbed then beheaded the 62-year-old woman, believed to be an expatriate living on the island.

herald-sun.com.au The suspect, believed to be a homeless Bulgarian man with a police record, was detained by security guards after he ran out of the supermarket with the blood-soaked head in his hands.

businessweek.com Qantas Airways is planning to create a new airline in Singapore as part of a strategy to increase Asian business and cut costs, a newspaper reported. Qantas was considering the Singapore-based full-service subsidiary as a way of bypassing the high cost base and geographic isolation of Australia, said The Australian Financial Review, citing unnamed sources.

eturbonews.com Union officials have warned that any move by Qantas to shift operations offshore and set up a premium airline in Asia will provoke a ''community backlash.''

bangkokpost.com Thai Airways International said its first-quarter net profit plunged 94 percent from a year earlier as it was hit hard by spiking fuel prices and foreign-exchange losses.

nationmultimedia.com The World Health Organisation is fully backing Thailand's investigation into the mysterious death of a young New Zealander in a Chiang Mai hotel, a senior health official said.

channel4.com An elderly British couple are among eight tourists to have died from a mystery illness while staying in Chiang Mai, a northern province of Thailand. [Another media outlet that cannot count.]

aap Qantas will have to raise international airfares to Europe from January next year after the European Union penalised the airline because Australia does not have a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

heraldsun.com.au A 5.2-magnitude earthquake has struck beneath the sea between Australia's Christmas Island and the Indonesian island of Java, US seismologists say, but no tsunami warning was immediately issued.

ft.com The European Commission has struck back at Denmark's plans to reintroduce border controls, threatening to ''take all necessary steps'' to enforce existing European Union law on the free movement of people.

businessweek.com A senior provincial official has been sentenced to 19 years in prison, becoming the first person convicted under Cambodia's anti-corruption law. Tob Chan Sereivuth, a former prosecutor in Pursat province, was convicted of extortion and accepting bribes to release timber smugglers.

property-abroad.com All the signs are that the Cambodian construction industry is thriving as the value of projects approved by the Cambodian government has more than doubled during the first quarter of this year when compared to the same time period last year.

afp Scientists from Conservation International have discovered eight new fish and one new coral species off Indonesia's Bali island. The new species include eels and damsels, the colourful little fish that dart among coral branches and help give reefs their dazzling appearance while playing a key role in reef ecology.

holidayhypermarket.co.uk If you're thinking of taking summer Malaysia holidays, then your timing couldn't be better as Malaysia Airlines have started selling tickets at rock-bottom prices this week. There are tickets for 10,000 return cheap flights to Kuala Lumpur from London Heathrow Airport available at hugely reduced rates.

smh.com.au 35 years after north and south Vietnam were reunified, one of Asia's most unlikely tourism locations is becoming its newest drawcard. Danang, gateway to the Unesco World Heritage sites of Hoi An and Hue, is gearing up and sprucing up for a new era that is bringing tourists, not soldiers, to its shores.



Until May 22 Phuket's village fair of local products, food and entertainment, Saphan Hin
May 17 Visakha Bucha Day public holiday
May 31 New PPAO Hospital to open, Phuket City
June 12 Laguna Phuket International Marathon
June 17 Phuket Property Dot Com Pro Am Invitational, Laguna
June 23-26 Phuket Fun Fly paragliding, Nai Harn
July 3 Phuket Navy League US Independence Day fair at Headstart International School
July 15 Asarnha Bucha Day public holiday
July 20-24 Six Senses Phuket Raceweek
August 12 HM The Queen's Birthday public holiday
October Vegetarian Festival, Phuket
November 26-27 9th Phuket International Soccer 7s
November 27 Laguna Phuket Triathlon
December 3-4 6th Andaman International Soccer 7s
December 4 Ironman 70.3 Asia-Pacific Championship, Laguna


March 18-28 National Youth Games, Phuket

November 14-21 Fourth Asia Beach Games, Phuket