UPDATING All Day, Every Day
aap A Russian crime boss who led a gang blamed for the murder of around 60 people during the lawless period following the fall of the Soviet Union has been captured in Thailand. Alexander Matusov, who arrived in Thailand in 2009, was paraded in front of the media.
theguardian.com Police in Malaysia say Sydney-based environmental activist Natalie Lowrey faces up to two years in jail after being arrested at a protest against an Australian-owned rare earth mining company.
bangkokpost.com Former prime minister Anand Panyarachund told a seminar that he sees a good opportunity for Thailand to reduce the deep-rooted corruption in the government sector that has caused great damage to the country.
centreforaviation.com Data from Singapore's Changi airport shows that passenger traffic between Singapore and Thailand was down 17 percent in May 2014, including a 24pc drop on the Singapore-Bangkok route and a seven pc drop on the Singapore-Phuket route.
traveldailynews.asia Thailand's magnificent beaches were the focus of a documentary broadcast by National Geographic TV channel worldwide on June 20. The program marks the start of marketing campaigns to be launched by the TAT to speed recovery from recent political unrest.
PhuketWATCH Daily Media Wrap
PHUKET: The daily wrap of Thailand news, with a Phuket perspective, plus relevant reports from national and international media. Beware of inconsistent imitations.
Today's Top News Items
bangkokpost.com The former ruling Pheu Thai party denied connections with with its ex leader who has launched a campaign against the military coup. The whereabouts of Charupong Ruangsuwan are not known.
afp The US said it has suspended more assistance to Thailand in response to a military coup and was considering moving a major regional exercise out of Thailand. [It is not clear yet whether US warship liberty leave visits to Phuket will be affected.]
bangkokpost.com Give us 60 days, says the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), and we'll give Bangkok and Suvarnabhumi airport an orderly, regulated taxi system, free of the intimidating ''taxi mafia'' meddling with taxi operators.
wsj.com Some embarrassing cracks are beginning to emerge among the main players in Thailand's military coup after a pro-army protest leader said he had been conspiring with the army for years.
ap US officials said that Thailand's recent military takeover is more repressive and will likely endure longer than the last military coup did just eight years ago.
The Mystery of Lost Flight MH370
nbcnews.com A Malaysia Airlines boss said he thinks it will take ''decades'' to find the missing Flight MH370. Commercial director Hugh Dunleavy told the London Evening Standard that he believes the Boeing 777 is ''somewhere in the south Indian Ocean.''
World Cup 2014
dailymail.co.uk Luis Suarez has appeared to bite an opponent once again in a key World Cup clash - sparking a Fifa investigation that could earn him the longest ban in the tournament's history.
cnn.com Uruguay made it through with a 1-0 win over 10-man Italy, but is the World Cup over for striker Luis Suarez, after he was accused of biting opponent Giorgio Chiellini?
bbc.com Georgios Samaras scored from the penalty spot to secure a 2-1 victory over Ivory Coast, confirming Greece's place in the last 16 and elimination for their opponents.
theguardian.com Costa Rica have won Group D and their manager, Jorge Luis Pinto, could be seen punching the air and bellowing to the skies. For England, it was the strange feeling of being at someone else's party. Costa Rica 0-0 England.
skysports.com Jackson Martinez helped fire Colombia into the last 16 of the World Cup as Group C winners after a 4-1 victory over Japan in Cuiaba.
Cup Games Tonight
Nigeria v Argentina; Bosnia v Iran; Honduras v Switzerland; Ecuador v France.
Phuket World of People
andrew-drummond.com Why would a military government now at last offering fair treatment for migrant workers want to allow the defamation case against activist Andy Hall to continue - after all Hall is looking after the interests of migrant workers, just as Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian of Phuketwan were trying to look after the interests of the Rohingya?
smh.com.au Former News CEO Rebekah Brooks has been found not guilty in London of being part of an illegal conspiracy to hack into phones and make illegal payments. But her successor, British Prime Minister David Cameron's one-time media chief Andy Coulson, was found guilty of phone hacking.
watoday.com.au Egypt's President has delivered a blow to Australian journalist Peter Greste's hopes for a quick release from a seven-year jail sentence, insisting he will ''not interfere in judicial rulings''.
cnn.com A series of new reports are raising concerns about the damage plastic waste is doing to oceans - harming marine animals, destroying sensitive ecosystems, and contaminating the fish we eat.
jaunted.com A few weeks ago, we told you what you needed to know about the military curfew in Thailand. Well, worry no more, because the restriction is officially gone and nightlife is back to normal across the country.
theguardian.com Ministers will seek ways to raise concerns with Thailand about the use of slaves to produce prawns supplied to UK supermarkets following an investigation by the Guardian, Baroness Warsi, a Foreign Office minister, has said.
voanews.com Leaders of Thailand's shrimp and tuna suppliers say they are being unfairly maligned, causing damage to their businesses which employ hundreds of thousands of people. Thailand's fishing industry relies on migrant labor.
cnn.com Pilots are blamed for the crash of Asiana Flight 214 in San Francisco, and one of them accidentally switched off an automated speed control system, the US National Transportation Safety Board says.
theglobeandmail.com Authorities were looking for a gunman who opened fire at a plane just as it was landing in Pakistan's volatile northwest, killing one person and wounding two others, officials said, casting fresh doubts about security at the country's airports.
huffingtonpost.com Some real places look so unreal. That's certainly the case with Koh Yao Noi, one of the few undeveloped islands still left in Thailand. Such spots pose a problem: do you visit, leaving the setting a little more spoilt than when you came, or never step foot there out of conscientiousness?
smh.com.au US dentist Edward Gamson is suing British Airways after he booked first-class tickets to Granada in Spain, but ended up in Grenada, the Caribbean island.
bangkokpost.com The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has changed its domestic tourism goal by focusing on policy and marketing directions rather than promotional activities as it did in the past. It will aim to boost tourism to less well-known destinations.
What's Happening Around Asean Nations
afp Singapore is mounting a drive in China to market itself as a standalone tourism destination after a drop in Chinese arrivals to neighboring countries affected the city-state. The Straits Times newspaper reported that Singapore tourism was being hurt by Chinese travellers' reluctance to visit Malaysia due to the Flight MH370 mystery, and Thailand because of its political crisis.
commdiginews.com Following months of anti-Shia vitriol in Malaysia, news sources have confirmed that dozens of Malaysians, including young children, have been recruited by ISIS as suicide bombers.
ap Prostitutes, pimps and business owners in Surabay's 'Dolly' district are protesting the city's efforts to shutter its brothels and clean up the area. The government is offering the estimated 1500 sex workers $425 each to leave the profession, but they say that isn't enough.
thediplomat.com Myanmar will purchase the Sino-Pakistan jointly produced JF-17 Thunder multirole fighter aircraft, according to local news reports.
scmp.com China will act assertively at a regional meeting to discuss a code of conduct for the South China Sea amid rising tensions with its Southeast Asian neighbors over disputed waters, observers said. The US Navy has dispatched numerous ships to Hawaii as it prepares for Rim of the Pacific 2014, the world's largest international maritime exercise.
Phuket World of Sport
abc.net.au Rafael Nadal led a parade of former champions into the Wimbledon second round. Nadal was forced to fend off big-hitting Slovakian Martin Klizan in a ferocious Centre Court duel.
afp French police have opened a criminal probe into the alleged theft of medical records related to Michael Schumacher's treatment after a ski crash in December.
Coming Events on Phuket
July 11 Arsanha Bucha Day
July 16-20 Phuket Race Week yachting, Cape Panwa
August 12 Queen's Birthday
September 24-October 2 Vegetarian Festival, Phuket
October 23 Chulalongkorn Memorial Day
November 6 Loy Kratong
November 14-21 Fourth Asia Beach Games, Phuket
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
Is it lack of intelligence or twisted thinking? The seafood industry near the consumer end says it is maligned by unfair reports about abuse of labour, when in fact it is its suppliers, the fishing industry that is the cause to the accusations as the fishingboats are using slave labour. Why does Thailand lack an honest intellectual elite that will clamp down on such outright misuse of facts. You starts to think there are links in ownership and hidden profits, even? Again this defamation thinking is a hydra based on the thought that nobody is responsible for anything anymore, always somebody else. The industry should simply clarify, this and that we are and will be doing to ensure that you, the consumer, are not eating cheap because the fishermen are slaves.
Posted by Anonymous on June 25, 2014 20:36