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

bangkokpost.com Tourism operators hope a new government will pay more serious attention to the industry with a clear vision and continue policies to support its sustainable development. ''Everyone comes to power and sets higher numbers of tourist arrivals because they can claim an achievement to the public,'' said Chanin Donavanik, CEO of Dusit International. ''They don't mention visitor quality, how to improve tourist destinations or new tourism products."

indiatimes.com Flying to Seychelles [where British royals the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are honeymooning] is going to be more expensive by at least 50 percent as Air Seychelles withdraws its weekly flight from Chennai from June 1. "A couple travelled today to Seychelles on honeymoon. After the flight is withdrawn, travellers will have to fly via Dubai or Singapore. This will push up the cost by over 50 percent," said M K Ajith Kumar, president, Asia Pacific Tours.

Phuket Update Phuket's Sainamyen School in Rat-U-Tit 200 Pi Road is to be rebuilt in a 320 million baht upgrade that will require the students being accommodated elsewhere in Patong for as long as two years, Patong Mayor Pian Keesin revealed at a council meeting. The move is still at the planning stage.

nytimes.com The military casts a long shadow in Thailand, where disgruntled generals have undertaken 18 coups, including a takeover five years ago. Now, senior generals are flexing their muscles again. In addition to lodging charges against Jeamteerasakul Somsak, a professor at Thammasat University, the army is leading a multimillion-dollar campaign, provided for in the most recent Thai government budget, to quash what it perceives as threats to the king and his family.

todayonline.com The [July 3] elections will be Thailand's second since the 2006 coup. In recent weeks, rumors of another military intervention have been rife, underscoring the armed forces' immense influence in politics. It is evident that Thais are still confused about their own political identity: Some are royalist but were disappointed by the Abhisit government; some are pro-democracy but detest politics a la Thaksin.

nationmultimedia.com Yingluck Shinawatra, the younger sister of former prime minister Thaksin, will fill the No 1 spot on Pheu Thai's party list, a party source confirmed.

bangkokpost.com Lax law enforcement has resulted in various forms of corruption among local and international companies and subsidiaries to artificially boost share prices and evade taxes, resulting in severe damage to the economic system, say experts.

Phuket Update Two Phuket men who offered to install a new battery in a friend's car, copied the car's key then stole the vehicle have been arrested after an alert police officer spotted the vehicle not far from where it was stolen in Patong. One of the thieves told police that he planned to sell the vehicle on the Malaysian border then put his younger brother through school with the proceeds.

telegraph.co.uk Fifa has demanded that Britain's Football Association provide evidence to support allegations of corruption and ''unethical'' behavior against six executive committee members, with Sepp Blatter vowing to complete the inquiry before next month's presidential election.

nationmultimedia.com The governor of Chiang Mai confirmed that public health authorities and the police were continuing to investigate the mysterious deaths of seven tourists at the northern city's Downtown Inn [ed: inaccurate, not true] and planned a press conference for the international media today on the probe.

digitaljournal.com Pesticide poisoning in Thailand has claimed the lives of seven tourists including a British couple, an investigation has revealed. [Nonsense, no investigation has suggested that.]

bangkokpost.com The manager of the Downtown Inn Hotel in Chiang Mai denied the hotel has been using a bedbug killer containing chlorpyrifos. His comments followed reports in the New Zealand media that an independent investigation had found traces of chlorpyrifos, a potentially lethal toxin used to kill bedbugs, in samples from hotel rooms where guests had developed fatal illnesses and some died either right in their hotel rooms or elsewhere.

3news.co.nz Tony Pandola, husband of American victim Soraya Vorster Pandola, said that Soraya was not staying at the Downtown Inn, but across Chiang Mai in a small guest house. He questioned both the theory that seven travellers died from exposure to chlorpyrifos, and the assertion by Thai authorities that all deaths were a coincidence.

plos.org Now it seems that a misguided, reckless attempt to exterminate bed bugs might have killed at least one person: 23-year-old Sarah Carter of New Zealand, who died last February while touring in Thailand. Tragic and needless. Bed bugs are bad, but poison is still worse.

channelnewsasia.com Indonesia rejected calls for Chinese-made planes operated by state-owned Merpati Nusantara Airlines to be grounded following a fatal crash. An MA-60 turbo-prop plane manufactured by China's Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Corporation crashed into the sea in eastern Indonesia, killing all 25 passengers and crew on board.

afp Rome had an empty feeling on Wednesday with some 20 percent of its somewhat superstitious residents failing to show up for work or going to school because of a prophecy predicting a devastating earthquake.

cnn.com Thousands of residents of the southeastern Spanish city of Lorca slept outside Wednesday night, hours after the town of about 80,000 residents was struck by an earthquake that killed eight people.

guardian.co.uk After the 2004 tsunami, the ''cluster system'' was born in which NGOs worked together, chaired by the UN, on particular problems such as water or education. But a speaker pointed out that the cluster system becomes unwieldy: 200 people in a shack at the airport who can't speak the same language and then it starts raining so they can't even hear each other. Chaos.

irrawaddy.org Thank goodness, then, for Burma, with its new government eager to do its part to divert attention away from Asean's deep divisions by introducing a controversial non-issue that matters only to itself: its bid to chair the grouping in 2014.

Associated Press Designer Catherine Malandrino leaves extra space because she likes to bring home novelty hats, which she collects. One of her favorite souvenirs, however, is from Phuket, where she bought a 300-pound elephant sculpture. Try fitting that in the carry-on compartment.

worldental.org If you have been planning to grab some good dental tourism deal, then now is the right time for you. Try traveling in Phuket for receiving dental care that you have been waiting for. Amazingly, the dentists are largely located at main tourist spots.

smh.com.au Britons are abandoning Australia as a tourist destination due to the weakness of their country's economy, and the strong Australian dollar making holidays here more expensive. The number of visitors from Britain - Australia's second-biggest source of tourists - fell 22 percent to 60,100 in March.

smh.com.au My Thailand-going friends paid $A800 each for their flights to Phuket, then they stayed at a pretty fancy hotel for $A97 a night each. Basic cost for them was $A1190 - $A300 more than us going on holidays to Perth.

Associate Press An unidentified man jumped to his death from the 147th floor of Dubai's Burj Khalifa - the first case of suicide by leaping from the world's tallest building.


IBAP meets at IndoChine on May 13 to hear Robert Mather on 'Phang Nga bay ecology, mangroves & sustainability.' Mr Mather is responsible for developing the International Union for Conservation of Nature's presence and program in Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, as well as managing a new project on Building Coastal Resilience to Climate Change in eight provinces of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

May 13-22 Phuket's village fair of local products, food and entertainment, Saphan Hin
May 13 Royal Ploughing Day public holiday
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