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

smh.com.au A director of the '''I still call Australia home'' advertising campaign for Qantas was killed when his motorcycle crashed on Phuket this week. Wayne Maule, a 56-year-old British advertising director who made Sydney home before moving to Phuket, died when his Honda Click motorcycle crossed to the wrong side of the road and smashed into a six-wheel truck in Cherng Talay on Tuesday.
Mr Maule was behind several successful television commercials, including the 2004 global Qantas campaign and the controversial ''Where the bloody hell are you?''' campaign for Tourism Australia. He had lived in Sydney and Thailand with his second wife, Belinda Moore, and had five children from two previous relationships.
His death followed that of another expat, Simon Grant, a well-known marina manager, the previous week, also in a motorcycle crash.

thelocal.se A woman from Thailand lured five Swedish men into paying for plane tickets to Sweden. The men all realised they had been tricked at the arrivals gate at Arlanda Airport when the woman failed to show up. Each of the men had sent 13,000 kronor for her ticket. Two of the men have filed a police report.

The Nation President Barack Obama plans to invite all 10 Asean leaders to the US next year in a move to further strengthen Asean-US relations at the highest level. Kurt Campbell, the assistant state secretary for East Asia and Pacific, revealed during an informal talk with international participants attending a conference in Washington on Burma that Obama would make an official announcement during the coming Asean-US summit in Singapore.

sfgate.com Public health and AIDS experts hailed President Obama's announcement to end a two-decade ban on people with HIV from entering the country, a restriction they described as archaic and discriminatory. The US is among just a handful of countries, including Yemen, Qatar and Sudan, that bar HIV-visitors from entry.

mizzima.com Two drug smugglers were shot dead by Thai security forces in gun battles in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai even as the Thai government expressed worry that more drugs would be smuggled into the country. An army spokesman said the clashes occurred on Saturday, when border patrols from the task force found armed men trying to cross into Thailand. The gun battle lasted more than 10 minutes. They found two bodies and 50,000 methamphetamines in a bag.

theaustralian.news.com Australia has been provided with leverage to convince Indonesia to take back Sri Lankan asylum-seekers. In written messages thrown off the Oceanic Viking, the Australian customs ship that has been home to the 78 ethnic Tamils for the past two weeks, the asylum seekers said they had been living in Indonesia for as long as five years and had been accepted by the UN office in Jakarta as genuine refugees.

nytimes.com Ground zero for Singapore's new breed of night life is the Dempsey Hill neighborhood. Where army barracks once stood surrounded by tropical jungle, bars and restaurants have been sprouting at a breakneck pace. The result combines a laid-back atmosphere with alfresco settings, all just a few miles from downtown. The most unlikely setting of all may be at KPO in downtown Singapore, where a bar and lounge share space with an operating post office.

sify.com Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has said that the Home Ministry has approved citizenship for 2220 out of the 3335 applications by the Indian community. Addressing a function organised by the Malaysian Associated Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Razak said the applications were approved since the applicants ''had been loyal to this country and some had been waiting many years to become Malaysian citizens.''

thenews.com.pk Detained opposition leader Aung San SuuKyi is aware of a coming visit by two American officials and supports the new US policy of engaging with Burma's military rulers, her lawyer said Saturday. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and a deputy will be in Burma for a two-day visit beginning Tuesday and are scheduled to meet with the government and the opposition, including Suu Kyi.

stuff.co.nz Samoa faces a medical crisis in the wake of the tsunami with the discovery of dangerous levels of drug resistant organisms which could lead to hundreds of amputations, a medical expert warns. The September 29 disaster killed 303. Multi-resistant organisms are resistant to common antibiotics and when they are found in Western countries, hospital wards are usually closed down until they can be cleared.

jakartapost.com Like Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi, we all share the same concern about the messy condition of the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, especially since there have been many complaints by visitors about the airport. Freddy also needs to facilitate the development of a railway line from Manggarai Station in South Jakarta to the airport, to try to help smooth the flow of people from the airport to the inner city. The project, originally scheduled for completion this year, still faces financial problems that Freddy needs to resolve.

bbc.co.uk Six bodies have been found at the home of a convicted rapist in the US city of Cleveland, Ohio, authorities say. Police discovered the first two bodies on Thursday when they came to arrest Anthony Sowell, 50, on a rape charge.

usmagazine.com Transparency on visitors to the White House reveals that Brad Pitt had an audience with the President of the US at the official Washington residence in 2009. Also paying White House calls since Obama's inauguration: Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, and Serena Williams (not to mention scores of business, civic and political leaders, including Microsoft's Bill Gates and former Vice President Al Gore).