bbc.com Australia captain Michael Clarke broke down in tears as he paid tribute to friend and former team-mate Phillip Hughes at the batsman's funeral. Hughes, 25, died after being hit by a ball during a match in Sydney.

thephuketinsider.com The New Phuket: For those who haven't visited the island in a while, the changes are nothing short of breathtaking.
http://www.thephuketinsider.com/gazette/the-new-phuket.php

sbs.com.au Australia will pare back consular services to travellers who repeatedly get into trouble overseas and may eventually also introduce a cost-recovery fee: ''Our consular staff are not there to pay for the repairs to your jet ski.''

smh.com.au The Australian dollar plummeted to fresh four-and-a-half-year lows as the country entered a technical income recession and gross domestic product expanded just 0.3 percent in the September quarter.


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



bangkokpost.com Thai authorities have asked Malaysia to check the movements of 250 people holding Thai and Malaysian citizenship in an effort to bring peace to southern border provinces.

nationmultimedia.com In a suggestion seen as an attempt to prevent ''parliamentary dictatorship,'' a German-style parliamentary and electoral system proposed by a charter drafter has been welcomed as an ''interesting'' proposal. Nevertheless, it is difficult for those proposing the idea to deny that such a proposal was not aimed at limiting the power of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

bangkokpost.com Thirteen people, 11 tourists and two Thais, were injured when a public songtaew pickup truck was rammed from behind at a traffic light in Pattaya township, Chon Buri. The songtaew was carrying 11 Russian tourists and was hit by a Chevrolet pickup truck. The driver of the pickup fled.



smh.com.au Several members of the Royal Australian Navy have spoken of arriving at ghastly scenes of bodies in the water and the lack of support they received from the navy following the rescue missions as asylum-seeker boats made their way to Australian shores.
http://www.watoday.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/sailors-talk-of-torment-of-pulling-asylum-seeker-bodies-from-ocean-20141202-11yqag.html

abc.net.au All the RAN personnel the ABC spoke to said they believe the secrecy surrounding border security operations exacerbated the trauma they suffered.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-02/navy-personnel-open-up-about-border-protection/5933260



bangkokpost.com Public prosecutors are expected this week to indict two Myanmar suspects accused of killing two British tourists on Koh Tao early on September 15. Thawatchai Saengjaew, chief of the Public Prosecution's Region 8 Office, said a decision is likely in days after officials met to review police investigation reports into the murder of David Miller, 24, and the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, 23, on the Surat Thani island.

bbc.com Friends of two British tourists killed in Thailand earlier this year are being urged to come forward as witnesses. Nakhon Chompuchat, who is representing two Burmese men accused of the murder, said the victims' friends ''should know many things'' about what happened.



news.com.au Brazil's Tourism Ministry has removed from its Instagram feed a photomontage that pictures the Rio de Janeiro bay where Olympic sailing events will take place as a tropical paradise of crystalline waters - a far cry from the reality of its brackish, sewage-filled waters.

bangkokpost.com Beauty is only skin deep for the 25,000 ''antiques'' accumulated by the big fish in the police scandal - with experts saying around half are fakes.

nationmultimedia.com Aetas, A luxury 24-storey hotel in Soi Ruamrudee, faces demolition within 60 days on the orders of the Supreme Administrative Court, which upheld an earlier ruling that the construction violated building laws. The hotel, which has a connected 18-storey serviced apartment, has 214 rooms in Soi Ruamrudee and is already in service.

4hoteliers.com Elias Pertoft has been named General Manager of the Maikhao Dream Villa Resort and Spa in Phuket. He is the former Director of Food and Beverage at the Turtle Inn in Belize.

bangkokpost.com Transport regulators will meet executives from Uber, GrabTaxi and Easy Taxi next week to discuss how they can comply with taxi regulations.

nationmultimedia.com Thai Airways is to serve hot dishes to customers travelling in Business Class on domestic route across Thailand. The new menu is being introduced on Friday on the Bangkok-Chiang Mai and Bangkok-Phuket routes.

scmp.com The three co-founders of Hong Kong's Occupy Central uprising will today hand themselves in to police, as a police source revealed that more than 200 people had been identified for investigation over the civil disobedience movement.

bbc.com Israel's prime minister has sacked his finance and justice ministers and declared he wants parliament dissolved, triggering an early general election.

scmp.com Somali al-Shabaab militants killed at least 36 non-Muslim workers at a quarry in northeast Kenya, beheading at least two of them in the same area that they hijacked a bus and killed 28 passengers just over a week ago.

nytimes.com The killings, which followed a similar sequence on a passenger bus less than two weeks earlier, unnerved the Kenyan public and led to the ouster of Kenya's top security chiefs.

dailymail.co.uk An Egyptian court has condemned 188 people to death in the country's latest mass death sentence to be ordered in the face of widespread international criticism. The 188 were charged over the killing of 11 policemen last year in Kerdasa, a restive town west of Cairo considered a militant stronghold.

independent.co.uk A Google-backed company that offers a personal genetic screening to test for risk factors associated with diseases such as cancer and Parkinson's will be available in the UK from today despite deep public health concerns in the US.



AP A Canadian teacher and a teaching assistant went on trial in Indonesia accused of sexually abusing a kindergarten student at an international school. Neil Bantleman and Ferdinant Tjiong maintain their innocence as do fellow teachers and the principal at the Jakarta International School.

irrawaddy.org The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced that Burma will remain on its list of least-developed countries, frustrating official efforts to shed the ignominious title as soon as next year.



Phuket Update Following Day One's extremely close racing, Day Two of the King's Cup Regatta off Phuket served up a trickier challenge to crews in the form of very light wind conditions. All of the classes were fought in close-quarters positions, reflecting well on this year's revised class structure which was designed to encourage really tight and visually impressive action throughout.

skysports.com Manchester United made it four straight Premier League wins with a 2-1 victory over Stoke City.

telegraph.co.uk Scoring his first goal since September 27, and leading Liverpool to their first away success in the Premier League since Oct 19, Gerrard delivered a timely reminder of his enduring influence when refreshed and deployed to maximum effect, namely in an advanced position in midfield. Leicester 1-3 Liverpool.

dailymail.co.uk A businessman injured so badly in a terrorist attack that nurses thought he had been killed, has now become a pro golfer despite losing both of his legs. Ben Tullipan, 38, was the closest person to the one-tonne car bomb that exploded outside a nightclub in Bali in 2002, in which 202 people died, including 88 Australians and 27 Britons, and 240 were injured.



Until December 6 King's Cup Regatta

December 5 King's Birthday

December 10 Constitution Day

December 25 Christmas Day

December 26 10th Anniversary, 2004 Tsunami

December 31 New Year's Eve



February 13-15 Phuket Yacht Show