themalaymailonline.com Thai non-governmental organisation, Muslims for Peace Foundation, believes there is enough evidence that there is a mass grave on the Malaysian side of the border. Phuket branch committee member Yuttara Sarasit hopes Malaysian authorities will investigate a hill near the village of Taloh, and an abandoned traffickers camp.

thestringer.com.au With Australia turning back boats, and now with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia refusing boats entry and disembarkation and with thousands of refugees languishing at sea we have another cruel humanitarian crisis.

bernama Several Rohingya are the main lackeys of the human trafficking syndicates. Two, Abdul Hafis and Yasin, are believed to have fled to India.
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/anwar-and-hamdullah-among-big-agents-in-rohingya-human-trafficking

benarnews.org Newborn halal Fatonee Airlines hopes to fly from southern Thailand to Mecca and is also planning flights between the Deep South and Phuket, now only accessible via commercial flights through Bangkok.


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 Nearly a million tourists arrived in Thailand in the first part of May, earning 42.3 billion baht, Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul said. The 929,433 foreign visitors constituted a rise of 24.3 percent year-on-year. [Ed: May 2014 marked the peak of street protests in Bangkok.]
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/tourism/562811/tourism-off-to-strong-start-in-may

bangkokpost.com Long popular with honeymooners, Thailand also is a great spot for ''couples therapy,'' giving a jolt to relationships that have gone a bit stale, a new Tourism Authority of Thailand marketing campaign will pronounce. The love-remedy approach was among TAT's new tourism-promotion strategies for 2016.



reuters US Secretary of State John Kerry called the Thai foreign minister to discuss temporary shelter for the Rohingya as the Thai prime minister said more migrants may take jobs from Thais and Indonesia's military chief warned of ''social issues.''

reuters The flow of desperate migrants across the Bay of Bengal will continue unless Myanmar (Burma) ends discrimination against its Rohingya Muslim minority, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said: ''Until the Myanmar government addresses the institutional discrimination against the Rohingya population, including equal access to citizenship, this precarious migration will continue.''

theglobeandmail.com There is mounting concern that boats still out at sea will be pushed back by the region's navies, much as Vietnamese boatpeople were repulsed at the end of the 1970s as Southeast Asian nations feared a flood of refugees.

nationmultimedia.com Thailand will guide away boats with migrants on board found outside Thai waters or accept migrants after their boats enter Thai waters and repatriate them later, while sick boat people will be treated by medical personnel, the Internal Security Operations Command announced.



onegreenplanet.org When the kids Gecko Community in Phuket went out on their weekly community day to clean the beach, they came across a very sickly baby dolphin who got stranded near the shore. The encounter was serendipitous as these kids happen to be the only kids in the world appointed as Cove Monitors for Ric O'Barry's Dolphin Project in Taiji, Japan.
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/student-activists-taiji-pollution-and-dolphins/

bangkokpost.com Police imposed a 1000-baht fine on a bungee-jumping operator in Chiang Mai province for allowing a Hong Kong model to try it naked.

independent.co.uk A Boston jury has said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be put to death for his role in setting off bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.

aap An Australian-controlled gold mine in central Thailand is facing fresh charges of polluting local water supplies with villagers demanding a new probe into the mine's operations. The Akara (Chatree) mine is controlled by Sydney-based Kingsgate Consolidated Limited located 280 kilometres north of Bangkok.

cnn.com Another world wonder is on the brink of destruction as ISIS continues its rampage through the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria. This time it is the ancient oasis city of Palmyra in Syria, a UNESCO World Heritage Site dating back 2000 years.

afp The Ukraine economy shrunk 17.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the same period last year, sapped by continuing violence in its eastern industrial heartland, the national statistics agency said.

onmedica.com Thirty minutes of physical activity, irrespective of intensity, six days a week reduces the risk of death from any cause by 40 percent, Norwegian research published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has found.



abc.net.au The Indonesian navy has rescued another 200 asylum seekers from waters off Aceh. Indonesian military spokesman Major General Fuad Basya said fishermen spotted the people swimming off the coast of northern Aceh.

Try Phuketwan's Asean Today daily:
http://phuketwan.com/tourism/asean-today-brunei-shuts-midnight-singapore-china-200-swimming-aceh-22476/



theguardian.com Rafael Nadal stumbled out of the Italian Open after being defeated on clay by Stan Wawrinka at the quarter-final stage. Nadal's dominance on clay appears to be slipping ahead of the French Open.



June 20-21 Baba wedding at Old Phuket Town

July 14-16 Trial of Phuketwan journalists at Phuket Provincial Court

July 15-19 Cape Panwa Hotel Phuket Raceweek