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


Bangkok Post About 90 percent of beach land in Phuket is controlled by foreigners through Thai nominees, a leading research body has found. A similar situation exists in other prime tourism destinations. Local officials and legal experts have helped clear the way for foreign investors to take control of the country's rice farms and property in resort provinces, according to research on foreign land ownership by the Thailand Research Fund.

channelnewsasia.com A reported terrorist plot to attack the Apec Summit in Singapore is an unverified rumor, said Law Minister K Shanmugam. Mr Shanmugam said that just like other major summits Singapore has previously hosted, the country will ensure that the necessary security measures will be taken. The plot involving the summit, which US President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit in November, had allegedly been hatched in Indonesia last year.

smh.com.au Developers have lodged an application to build a nightclub and restaurant on the site of the Sari Club in Bali where scores of Australians lost their lives in the terrorist atrocity of 2002. Victims of the blasts say patrons would be dancing on their mates' graves. The determination of the man who controls the land, the Balinese nightclub impresario Kadek Wiranatha, to proceed with the development bodes ill for the Bali Peace Park Association, an Australian-Indonesian group which wants a garden and place of remembrance on the site.

nst.com.my There could be 1700 fewer motorcyclist deaths every year if all roads in Malaysia have dedicated motorcycle lanes. Every year, about 4000 motorcyclists die in road accidents and the Road Safety Department conservatively says there could be a 39 per cent reduction in fatalities if the lanes are built.

ftnnews.com Despite the current climate of negative visitor numbers and declining demand for Thailand's resorts, Centara Hotels and Resorts remains upbeat about business and in particular Phuket. Quarter 2 and the forecast for Quarter 3 are extremely encouraging, said Mr.Jean Marc Garret, Senior Vice President of Centara's development company Centara International Management. All three properties are enjoying above industry average occupancy and expect to finish the summer ahead of 2008. in both occupancy and revenue. The Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket on Karon beach is due to open in 2010.

Reuters A leaking Australian oil well is likely to pour oil into the Timor Sea for nearly two months before it can be stopped, the operator said on Sunday, as environmentalists expressed grave fears for rare wildlife. Rig operator PTTEP Australasia said it planned to drill a relief well and pour mud to stop the leak, which began on Friday with a blow-out more than three kilometers (two miles) deep. Environmentalists have expressed concern about the giant slick.

eturbonews.com Tourism affects how Egypt interacts with the world because over the past five years it has become the nation's No. 1 industry. Projecting an image of safety and stability is also paramount because even the hint of danger can devastate the tourist trade. That's why an American family group of six was assigned their own bodyguard from Egypt's tourist police. Paid for by the Egyptian government, their guard - a man in a neat business suit carrying a machine gun - traveled with them everywhere they went for three days.

AFP France, the world's most popular tourist destination, with 79.3 million visitors last year, has been hit hard by a drop in the number of foreign travellers. The number of international visitors to France in the heat of the summer - July and August - has fallen by nearly one-third, after sinking by 15.5 percent in the first five months of the year, government figures show. Spain, the third most popular destination last year, has suffered a 10 percent drop and Italy is forecasting an 8.3 percent drop in foreign visitors between May and October.

wsj.com Some time in the next few days, Malaysian Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno will be caned under Islamic laws for drinking beer in a hotel bar, and a number of political analysts say the country's increasingly fractious politics are partly to blame. Her punishment comes amid a time of heightened political tension in Malaysia. The ruling National Front and the Islamist component of an opposition alliance are competing to place themselves as the guardians of a faith that has taken an increasingly political face in Malaysia over the last 20 years.

Associated Press A group of thieves killed an endangered tiger in an Indonesian zoo and stole most of its body, zoo officials say, a theft police suspect was motivated by the animal's valuable fur and bones. The remains of the female Sumatran tiger were found by staff Saturday at the Taman Rimba Zoo on Sumatra. The killers left only its intestines in the cage.

cnn.com CIA interrogators threatened an al Qaeda prisoner with a gun and an electric drill to try to scare him into giving up information, according to a long-concealed inspector-general's report due to be made public on Monday, sources familiar with the report confirmed to CNN. Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate a CIA interrogation program.

AFP The CIA hired the private US security firm Blackwater to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to secret prisons in Asia for interrogation, the German weekly Der Spiegel says. According to a memo, the CIA hired '''Blackwater and its subsidiaries''' to secretly transfer prisoners from the US prison in Cuba to '''secret detention camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for interrogation'''.

guardian.co.uk La Paz, Bolivia, at 3900m above sea level - an altitude where even two flights of stairs makes your heart race like a hummingbird - is home to the most celebrated bar in all of South America: Route 36, the world's first cocaine lounge. This new trend of 'cocaine tourism' can be put down to a combination of Bolivia's notoriously corrupt public officials, the chaotic ''anything goes'' attitude of La Paz, and the national example of President Evo Morales, himself a coca grower.

Associated Press As Washington searches for ways to tame the country's escalating health care costs, more insurers are offering networks of surgeons and dentists in places like India and Costa Rica, where costs can be as much as 80 percent less than in America. Until recently, most Americans traveling abroad for cheaper non-emergency medical care were either uninsured or wealthy. Now they are more likely to be people covered by private insurers, looking to keep costs from spiraling out of control.

sundayszaman.com Rixos, the Turkey-based hotels chain, is aiming to expand quickly in the hotel sector to become a global brand by improving its service quality in a synthesis between hotel and resort approaches, says Rixos Grand Ankara General Manager Tansel Tercan. An investment of $150 million turned the old Grand Ankara Hotel into a member of the Rixos chain. Rixos has already gained prominence not just in Turkey but in Russia and has recently entered the Southeast Asian market with a resort near Khao Lak, north of Phuket.

news.com.au Michael Jackson acted like Dr Frankenstein to create a perfect family of test-tube children, close associates say. From 1994 to 1997, the King of Pop begged Hollywood A-list pals to donate eggs and sperm to produce what he thought would be ideal kids, Britain's News of the World reported. It said Jackson, who died in June aged 50, was not the father of Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11, or even Blanket, 7. Close associates said he worked with fertility doctors and his skin specialist, Dr Arnie Klein, to produce the children.

malaysiakini.com Hundreds of Penan tribespeople armed with spears and blowpipes have set up new blockades deep in the Borneo jungles, escalating their campaign against logging and palm oil plantations. Three new barricades, guarded by Penan men and women who challenged approaching timber trucks, have been established in recent days. There are now seven in the interior of Malaysia's Sarawak state.


Phuket Romances its Way onto Movie Screens
Latest Phuket, in real life all comedy, drama, action and romance, has finally been made into a movie. ''It's very small but it's big,'' says the leading man. Yes, that's Phuket.
Phuket Romances its Way onto Movie Screens

Pacific Blue, Jetstar Open to Australia, Singapore
Latest Two low cost flight providers produce new flights and offer bargains between Australia and Phuket and Singapore and Phuket. Could it be War in the Air? Passengers hope so.
Pacific Blue, Jetstar Open to Australia, Singapore

Phuket's Beaches Fail the Five-Star Enviro Test
Latest A new star rating system for Thailand's beaches leaves the best on Phuket lagging a little. There's one local island with a five star beach, but it's not Phuket.
Phuket's Beaches Fail the Five-Star Enviro Test

Phuket's Favorite Traffic Snarl Gaining Ground
Photo Album November remains the deadline for works in Thalang Road, Phuket City, that will see the power, telephone and water lines placed underground.
Phuket's Favorite Traffic Snarl Gaining Ground

Phuket Prepares for Just One Kind of Disaster
Latest Phuketwan goes to a tsunami drill and meets the deputy PM, a pleasant experience except for the nagging thought that it shouldn't be this easy. Not carrying an unchecked backpack . . .
Phuket Prepares for Just One Kind of Disaster


MediaWATCH: Fake Buyers Face Jail Now
News Digest Copies can lead to a cell in Europe; Viet women sex slaves in Thailand; Thailand Tourist police in TV series; Malaysia chases Indian tourists; Dubai banquets not so lavish.
MediaWATCH: Fake Buyers Face Jail Now

MediaWATCH: Thai Economy Looks Promising
News Digest Thailand outlook brightens; Lockerbie terror victims divided; Obama attack plan; US mortgage disaster; Rescued Rohingya made fresh promises; Model seeks public flogging.
MediaWATCH: Thai Economy Looks Promising