UPDATING All Day, Every Day
xinhua Thai military junta is considering lifting a curfew midnight in some tourism hotspots like Phuket and Pattaya to avoid inconveniences for tourists and the business sector.
bbc.com Thailand's army says it has now released 124 people, including politicians and activists, who were taken into custody after the coup. An army spokesman said a total of 253 people had been summoned. Fifty-three did not report and 76 were in custody.
Thai PBS Sixteen senior police officers in Red Shirt provinces of Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Chonburi, Chiang Mai, Khon Khaen, Udon Thani, and Bangkok were transferred to inactive posts at the Royal Thai Police head office.
bangkokpost.com The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) banned all financial and asset transactions by Prasit Chaisrisa, former Pheu Thai MP for Surin, and red-shirt activist Sombat Boonngam-anong after they both failed to turn themselves in.
prachatai.com Headline: Thai authority to build state-owned Internet gateway for more efficeint censorship.
news.ninemsn.com.au Going on a tip-off, police arrested Australian Mark Robert Coutelas, 53, in a Phuket apartment where he allegedly had a 9mm pistol, ammunition and 0.53g of methamphetamine.
thephuketnews.com Police also found hundreds of knives - Coutelas told police he was selling knives over the Internet. [Australian Ambassador James Wise has asked authorities to make Phuket free of guns and knives.]
wsj.com Thailand's army chief has a reputation as a tough-guy, no-nonsense leader, but his lieutenants are asking reporters to go easy on General Prayuth Chan-ocha at press conferences.
nytimes.com A fire broke out at a hospital annex in southwestern South Korea, killing 21 people and injuring seven others and further rattling a country still traumatized by a recent ferry disaster.
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 coup makers have appointed a 10-man advisory board under retired General Prawit Wongsuwan to run national affairs such as security and the economy, but have not yet appointed an interim prime minister.
wsj.com Thailand's ruling military eased its curfew to midnight-4am to minimise the impact on the public and tourism as some industry groups and foreign investors expressed optimism the junta will work quickly to reverse the Thai economy's slide after months of political gridlock.
nationmultimedia.com The arrival of foreign tourists has dropped by 20 percent following the imposition of martial law, said Permanent Secretary for Sports and Tourism Suwat Sidthilaw. Complaints had come from tourism operators in key destinations, such as Pattaya and Phuket.
aap Meanwhile, the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association reports overseas visitors to Bali have grown about 10 percent this year.
theguardian.com A Thai cabinet minister who emerged from hiding to make the first public appearance by any member of the ousted government since a military coup last week was detained by soldiers after he urged a return to civilian rule.
AP From beaches to Bangkok, tourists ask 'What coup?'
bangkokpost.com Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said there is no Thai government-in-exile in Cambodia, and he will not let one be established. A rumor by Thaksin Shinawatra's Canadian lawyer Robert Amsterdam said a government-in-exile might be set up.
nytimes.com In what it described as one of its first priorities, Thailand's military ordered that 92 billion baht ($2.8 billion) be disbursed to rice farmers, a huge sum that is more than the entire annual budget for the national police force. The payouts, meant to lift rural incomes, were twice the market price for the farmers' rice.
Phuket World of People
thephuketinsider.com The Imperial Adamas Hotel Phuket in Naiyang will close on on July 1 for a major upgrade. Once completed in 2016 the property will be rebranded as the Phuket Marriott Resort and Spa, Nai Yang Beach. The 116 rooms will be increased to 183.
nytimes.com A pregnant Pakistani woman was beaten to death by her family outside a courthouse in the eastern city of Lahore because she had defied their wishes and married the man of her choice, police officials said. A crowd of about 30 men watched, but did nothing.
dailymail.co.uk Rolf Harris has told a London court he was flattered and his heart started ''thumping like mad'' when an 18-year-old friend of his daughter came on to him in the 1980s. Harris said any suggestion he'd had sexual relations with the alleged victim when she was underage was ''ludicrous''.
hollywoodreporter.com Taylor Swift has canceled her upcoming concert in Thailand following a military coup in the country last Thursday.
theguardian.com Cyprus had the cleanest bathing water in Europe, with all of its sites rated excellent, closely followed by Malta, while Croatia had 95 percent and Greece had 93 percent of sites at the highest standard. Ireland, France and Spain came in near the bottom of the league table,
foxnews.com The USS Bataan, with about 1000 Marines aboard, has sailed into the Mediterranean Sea to assist in evacuating Americans if deadly fighting in Libya worsens, US military officials said.
What's Happening Around Asean
chicagotribune.com The search for wreckage of Malaysian Air Flight 370 will be suspended while investigators assemble a better map of the Indian Ocean, as satellite operator Inmarsat said it can provide no more data on the plane's flightpath.
nytimes.com Raw satellite transmission data from the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, released by the Malaysian government, provided further evidence that the plane crashed into the Indian Ocean after flying south and running out of fuel.
scmp.com Scientists have questioned the quality of raw data released by British satellite company Inmarsat that was used to determine Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 crashed into the Indian Ocean.
navytimes.com Vietnam and China traded accusations over who was the aggressor in a clash that led to the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat in the South China Sea, sharpening tensions already dangerously high after China moved an oil rig into the disputed waters.
thediplomat.com There is mounting suspicion that the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will miss their deadline to institute a single market as promised by the end of 2015. That would result in several major setbacks, especially for authorities combatting human trafficking and dealing with labor migration.
Phuket World of Sport
telegraph.co.uk Police have launched an investigation into attempts to fix a World Cup friendly between Scotland and Nigeria that is due to be played in London on Wednesday evening, the Telegraph can disclose.
afp Former champion Li Na, the second-seeded Chinese superstar and Australian Open winner, was sensationally dumped out of the French Open in the first round Tuesday, beaten by 103rd-ranked Kristina Mladenovic.
theage.com.au The bookmakers regard Australia's World Cup possibilities as something worse than a snowball's survival chances in hell. As do the world rankings, which place Australia last of the World Cup qualifiers in 59th spot (between Mali and Burkina Faso).
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
In regard of clean beaches of Cyorus, and other Mediterranean beaches, I feel so jealous about them when on Phuker beaches - if on a former every single piece of garbage, if appears at all, is removed by first person who discovered it, then on a latter amount of garbage, and incredibly low quality of everyday cleaning of beaches, persistent smell of urine on beaches like Patong - these all makes me very sad; and as corrupt system is constructed that "sun bed vendors [surely] not extracting benefits from public land - beach strip, are given chance to earn, then they will clean their maintained beach strip everyday to attract sun beds' patrons" have a result that being on a beach in Phuket looks and feels like being inside a garbage bin. There is a clear reference - Blue Flag guide - that sets a number of pieces of garbage allowed per 100m of beach strip - Phuket beaches organically detached from any hope to refer to them as Blue Flag beaches, unlike Mediterranean in question, where are so many beaches are Blue Flag certified. It does not help to have another decision similarly unintelligent - not to have garbage bins on Surin beach "as garbage bins look bad", and let tourists for this reason put garbage on a sand as "sun beds operators clean Surin beach every morning".
Another example of proper beach maintenance is the Antigua is. in Carribean - even on a nudist beach there - two persons taking a charge of everyday extremely thourough collecting of all pieces of garbage, one person looking for for it, another with garbled removing it. Yes, it feels slightly uncomfortable when you are on a nudist beach, and two persons works on a beach sand for few minutes right near your subbed, but overall it is OK.
A justification of much larger daily tide differential in Phuket, etc. that help bring more garbage to Phuket than to Mediterranean ones , is void, as a primary reason for Phuket beaches being a garbage bin is a lack of proper quality everyday cleaning.
If there would be hired 50 persons in Phuket with monthly salary 9000THB to clean beaches up to Blue Flag standard daily , it would costs 0.45M THB in salaries monthly, and ca.5M THB yearly - such figure is absolute nuts for Phuket, let's add 2M THB more for other costs , and it still negligently too small costs not to afford.
Posted by Sue on May 28, 2014 09:15