Phuket Flights Hint; Resorts Face Park Crunch; Thai Going for Gold; Phuket Events

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

nationmultimedia.com Competition between Bangkok and Jakarta as travel hubs intensified after new low-cost carrier Mandala Airlines landed for the first time at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Jakarta-based director Devin Wirawan said Phuket was also an attractive destination and the company was studying the feasibility of adding it to its network.

bangkokpost.com The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation will ask the Central Administrative Court to suspend construction of 10 luxurious resorts for allegedly encroaching on a national park in Phuket province. Department chief Damrong Pidech said an initial probe had found the resorts, some completed and others under construction, were believed to be within Sirinat Marine National Park's boundary. Mr Damrong said he would invite Department of Special Investigation investigators to jointly inspect the area with around 200 forestry officials on Wednesday and Thursday next week.

nationmultimedia.com Victims of car accidents will be treated by hospitals automatically whether they have insurance or not, the Finance Ministry said. Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong said the Office of the Insurance Commission and insurance firms had launched E-Claim, an emergency payment plan to cover medical bills of the victims of road accidents regardless of their insurance coverage.

smh.com.au A public backlash has prompted Virgin Australia to announce it will review its policy barring men from sitting beside unaccompanied children on flights. The company was today widely criticised after a Sydney fireman reported his experience of being asked to swap seats because he was sat beside two unaccompanied boys.

bangkokpost.com Thailand could face tens of billions of baht in losses as the government moves to sell off some of its rice stocks to India and China with warehouses and silos across the country overloaded with rice purchased under the state pledging scheme.

afp The fear of crime is soaring in Malaysia as personal tales of abduction, assault and robbery go viral online, upping pressure on authorities to respond and triggering scrutiny of official claims that offences are down. Scepticism over the figures is rife, given that nearly every resident of Kuala Lumpur has been a victim - or knows at least one - of bag-snatching or ''smash'' thefts.

bernama Malaysia has managed to build an impressive modern civilisation at a time when many countries are on the verge of recession, said Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin. According to Muhyiddin, many countries, especially Islamic ones wished to make Malaysia a role model due to its achievements in various fields.

bangkokpost.com The Tourism Authority of Thailand kicked off its Amazing Weekday campaign aimed at boosting tourism during the low season. The two-month campaign is expected to generate revenue of more than 500 million baht.

nationmultimedia.com New Delhi will host an India-Asean summit in December this year to mark the 20th anniversary of India's relations with the 10-country regional grouping. With the summit comes a road rally in November and December, passing through Phuket and Bangkok, where India will stage an Indian food festival and other cultural events.

wsj.com Singapore's annual National Day Parade - celebrated August 9 to mark the country's independence - was unusually newsworthy this year. It wasn't the fireworks, military flyovers or marching parades that riveted the nation, but rather former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's arrival at the event, following speculation throughout the week that he was in poor health and had died.

afp A Vietnamese airline has been fined for hosting a mid-flight dance by bikini-clad beauty pageant contestants without first gaining permission.
Low-cost carrier VietJet Air was fined $US1000.

thejakartaglobe.com New York-based Human Rights Watch said that more Rohingya refugees were expected to arrive in Indonesia over the next few months as the situation worsens in Burma. ''The situation in Arakan is not getting any better, it's getting any worse,'' Phil Robertson, deputy director of HRW's Asia division, said at the University of Indonesia.

thenews.com.pk Thousands of men protested outside Burma's embassy in the Indonesian capital, demanding the ambassador be expelled over treatment of Muslim Rohingya. The men wore white headbands with ''Save the Rohingya'' scrawled in red and carried banners reading ''Stop the Violence''.

radioaustralia.net.au Asean secretary general Surin Pitsuwan said the regional grouping should be ''part of solution to the problem'' that escalated in June, after a bloody clash that displaced around 60,000 people, mostly Rohingya. But while the plan has been welcomed by Rohingya rights advocates, they say it's critical that Asean apply political pressure on Burma to stop the violence.

Phuket World Sports Wrap


bangkokpost.com Cheered on from Khampaeng Phet by his mother Mali, Kaew Pongprayoon dispatched his Russian opponent handily to win an Olympic silver medal for sure - and now will fight a very tough Chinese boxer at 2:30 Sunday morning Thailand time for gold.

cnn.com Psychologists, coaches, therapists and image consultants agree that athletes don't deserve to be lambasted for crying tears in moments of success or failure. They're human, after all, and after years of hard work they've earned the right.

telegraph.co.uk Manager Brendan Rodgers says Liverpool's new 15-million-pound signing Joe Allen is so good he could be mistaken for being Spanish.

Sourced: phuketwan