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

dailytimes.com.pk Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered his troops Monday to shoot any trespassers in a simmering border dispute with Thailand and angrily blasted the neighboring nation's territorial claims. His remarks came a little over a week after Thai protesters rallied at the disputed border area near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple, the site of clashes that have killed seven soldiers since tensions flared last year.

phnompenhpost.com Siem Reap Airways will resume international flights and the domestic Phnom Penh-Siem Reap route when it relaunches, most likely next month, a government aviation official says. The Cambodian government chose not to renew the licence for Bangkok Airways to fly the Phnom Penh-Siem Reap route from October 25. New national carrier Cambodia Angkor Air started the same domestic route at the end of July, with two domestic carriers on the Siem Reap-Phnom Penh route from next month.

Bangkok Post People living near Suvarnabhumi airport are threatening to occupy the passenger terminal if the compensation they were promised by the Airports of Thailand does not arrive soon. Doctors from Chulalongkorn Hospital found that 80 percent of people in one housing estate under the aircraft flight path had developed hearing difficulties. Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban had promised to solve residents' problems within two months of taking office, but nine months had now passed.

nytimes.com when it comes to Thursday's National Day celebration in Beijing, the government appears fully in control. As many as 800,000 volunteers have also been enlisted to help maintain security. Knife sales have been banned in at least some stores. Beijing's international airport will be closed Thursday for three hours.

smh.com.au China is in advanced state of developing a new weapon which analyst Randy Schriver describes as ''a huge game-changer''. It is a ballistic missile designed to strike ships at sea. The US Navy Institute's headline in March: ''Chinese Develop Special 'Kill Weapon' to Destroy US Aircraft Carriers.'' The Dong Feng missile is thought to have a range of about 2000 kilometres and a speed of Mach 10: ''The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a US supercarrier in one strike.''

scmp.com Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie sparked fresh debate in a rare interview posted on the ministry's website last week. The mainland's military, he said, now possessed most of the sophisticated weapons systems found in Western arsenals. ''This is an extraordinary achievement that speaks to the level of our military's modernisation and the huge change in our country's technological strength,'' he said.

usatoday.com A Malaysian religious court appeals panel on Monday upheld a caning sentence for a woman who was caught drinking beer at a resort, Reuters reports, quoting the state news agency Bernama. The ruling means that Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 32-year-old mother of two, will become the first woman to be caned under the country's religious laws that apply only to Muslims.

reuters.com A Singapore Airlines A380 was forced to turn round mid-flight and head back to Paris on Sunday after one of its four engines failed. The doubledecker A380 with 444 passengers aboard had to turn round after 2 hours 45 minutes. The giant jet is designed to continue flying with three engines, but came back to Paris as a precaution.

allafrica.com News that scientists working out of Thailand have successfully developed an experimental HIV/Aids vaccine, which reduces possibility of infections by about 30 per cent is fairly soothing but could be misleading, too. The findings have shown that some people who got the vaccine became infected anyway, had just as much virus in their blood and just as much damage done to their immune systems as HIV patients who went unvaccinated.

smh.com.au In a little more than two months, Oasis of the Seas will be cruising the waters of the Caribbean on its maiden voyage. For now, however, it is in a shipyard in Turku, on the south-west coast of Finland, with 2000 workers on board, busy putting the finishing touches to what is said to be the largest cruise ship in the world. Sea trials began in May and next month the liner is due to be handed over to its owners, Royal Caribbean.

etravelblackboardasia.com Accor, the largest operator of hotels and resorts in Asia Pacific, is expanding its Mercure brand, with 5 new hotels in China, Thailand, South Korea and India.The five new Mercure hotels will be Mercure Beijing Downtown, Grand Mercure HNA Beijing Central Apartments, Mecure Lavasa in India, Mercure Ambassador Seoul Dongdaemun and Mercure Krabi Ao Nang.