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

qmi Thai police are looking for a Portuguese man in their investigation of the mysterious deaths of Quebec sisters Noemie and Audrey Belanger, QMI Agency has learned. A source in the Asian country says surveillance video at a hotel on Phi Phi island shows a man leading the women to a room.

bangkokpost.com Police are looking for two Portuguese men last seen with the two holidaying Canadian sisters. Security canera footage, recorded between 1.10am and 1.14am on June 13, captured a male foreigner escorting the sisters back to their room. A source said one man was Luciano Tinto, 30, and the men checked out for Phuket on the day the sisters died.

sbs.com.au Federation of Australian Travel Agents chief executive Jayson Westbury said bag snatching happened in every city and was not particularly common in Phuket. "The tragedy here is there's been a fatality," he told AAP. "The people of Thailand generally are beautiful, loving, caring, religious people. They would be horrified with this. I don't think that people should go into panic mode and start making dramatic (travel) plan changes as a result of the random nature of this act."

westaustralian Michelle Smith, mother of three who loved to travel, tragically lost her life when an armed bandit lashed out with a knife close to her hotel in an exclusive part of Phuket.

smh.com.au 'The Age' has also been contacted by another tourist who said she was robbed on the same stretch of road outside the Katathani Phuket Beach Resort by men on motorbikes in November. "Luckily there was no knife," she said.

thephuketinsider.com There is little doubt this incident should prompt a more immediate action from local government on the issue of declining public safety.

afp An Indonesian air force plane crashed into a military housing complex in Jakarta, killing all seven crew on board and two children and an elderly woman on the ground, officials said.

smh.com.au Qantas management is warning the airline could ''go under'' if the state-owned Etihad is allowed to buy enough of a share of Virgin Australia to allow it to start undercutting Qantas on its profitable domestic routes.

bloomberg Singapore's Foreign Affairs Ministry suspended its Chief of Protocol Lim Cheng Hoe over allegations of improper claims for expenses incurred during overseas trips.

theaustralian.com.au Three asylum-seekers have died and up to 90 are feared drowned as Australian authorities and merchant vessels conduct a major rescue operation after a boat capsized on the way to Christmas Island. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said 110 people had been rescued.

guardian.co.uk In a historic speech within the 11th-century walls of Westminster Hall, Aung San Suu Kyi has implored Britain and "the world beyond" to reach out to help Burma at "the moment of our greatest need".

telegraph.co.uk More than 80 people have been killed in a wave of communal violence in western Burma this month, a government official said. Muslim Rohingya leaders say the real number of dead could be much higher.

asiancorrespondent.com If there is any silver lining to this deeply problematic crisis, it is that a rare light has been shed on the situation faced by the Rohingya in Arakan state, described by some as Asia's most persecuted minority. The New York Times last week noted the irony with which numbers of Burmese have embraced a new era of media freedom, with censor-free internet forums quickly becoming a medium through which hateful comments towards the Rohingya are aired.

ukpa Indonesian militant Umar Patek of the al-Qaida-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, accused of helping to build a massive car bomb used in the deadly 2002 Bali nightclub attacks.

pa Broadcaster Clive James says he is "getting near the end" of his health battle, admitting he is now too ill to travel back to his Australian homeland.

fairfax new zealand news Passengers have spoken of their horror after their JetBlue Flight 194 to New York from Las Vegas was turned into a "vomitorium" following a hydraulic failure. Passenger Travis McGhie said: "It was four hours of hell."



agencies Cristiano Ronaldo scored 11 minutes from time to break the hearts of the Czechs and lead Portugal on to the semi-finals of Euro 2012 with a 1-0 win. Portugal play the winners of Germany and Greece in next week's semi-final.



Until June 22 Southern Prisons Fair, Saphan Hin, Phuket City

July 1 US Independence Day picnic, Headstart International School of Phuket, from 11am

July 18-22 Phuket Raceweek

July 21-22 Toyota motor racing at Saphan Hin, Phuket City



November 14-21 Fourth Asia Beach Games, Phuket