Crime Crackdown; iPad Mini Surprises; Jobs Unfilled; Man U Comeback; Phuket Events

A THIRD person has died after a spectacular high-speed single-vehicle smash north of Phuket. The car hit a tree in the median strip on a straight stretch of road near Phang Nga Town. Three survivors, all from the same family, have been transferred to Surat Thani Hospital.

PhuketWATCH Daily Media Wrap

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

bangkokpost.com More help for tourists is on the way as police prepare to roll out measures, including the creation of ''safety zones'' [pioneered on Phuket] to mark the advent of the Asean Economic Community in 2015. Tourists currently face four types of problems in Thailand - crimes, deception, disasters and degraded tourist attractions, said Pol Gen Wuthi Liptapallop, adviser to the Royal Thai Police.

AP Apple debuted the iPad Mini, with a screen two-thirds smaller than the full model, and half the weight. In a surprise, Apple also revamped its flagship, full-sized iPad just six months after the launch of the latest model.

bangkokpost.com Budget airlines boosted their share of passenger traffic through Thailand in the fiscal year ending Sept 30 to nearly 40 percent as major airlines saw their volumes dwindle.

thephuketinsider.com The Thai Hotels Association will go live with an online booking site this November.

travelerstoday.com It just got one step easier for travelers to get to the debaucherous Full Moon Party on Thailand's Koh Phangan island. Kan Air, which is a regional flight operator based in Bangkok will be building a 700 million baht airport on the island next year.

bbc.co.uk South East Asia's second biggest economy is facing the challenge of a slowdown in Asia, Europe and the US, causing a drop in demand for products made in the country. According to the Thailand Development Research Institute exports of rice have dropped 44 percent since January, another blow for the economy.

travelmole.com Pan Pacific Hotels chief executive Patrick Imbardelli has said that keeping hold of skilled employees is the Asian hospitality industry's greatest challenge. He told Bloomberg News that the loss of workers was especially critical in Bali, Burma (Myanmar) and Manila.

metro.co.uk Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where Sir Jimmy Savile worked as a volunteer, has launched an investigation into his unaccompanied mortuary visits.

thestar.com The scientific community reacted with shock and derision after an Italian court convicted six scientists of manslaughter and sentenced them to jail for failing to give proper warning of a deadly earthquake. ''We cannot predict earthquakes, we can only predict probabilities,'' one US scientist said. The quake killed 308 people.

afp Authorities in Aceh, Indonesia's only province that uses Islamic sharia laws, said they had closed nine Christian places of worship and six Buddhist temples following pressure from hardliners. Indonesia's constitution explicitly guarantees freedom of religion.

cnn.com Fresh sectarian clashes in Burma's western state of Rakhine killed three people and left more than 400 houses, a monastery and a mosque burned to the ground, authorities said.

guardian.co.uk Manganese Bronze, which has been making London's black cabs since 1948, said talks with various parties to secure last-minute rescue funds had ended in failure. The company - which manufactures the cabs in China - employs 288 people in Coventry.

editorandpublisher.com Newspapers need to stir the pot. Simply put, today's newspapers are too bland. And only when they can overcome that blandness will they become relevant again.

crikey.com.au Australians use Facebook more frequently than newspapers and other traditional media websites, and large numbers engage in online activism of various forms, a major survey of social media habits has revealed.

afp Indonesian police fired rubber bullets on students at a pro-independence rally in the restive region of Papua on Tuesday, in clashes that injured at least eight protesters, witnesses said.

scmp.com Hong Kong remains the second-best place in the world to do business, pipped again by Singapore, which for the seventh consecutive year topped a global survey of business-friendly economies.

Phuket World Sports Wrap

bbc.co.uk Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson admits Javier Hernandez has handed him a selection dilemma after his match-winning display in the Champions League against SC Braga. He scored twice as United came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 and move closer to qualification for the knockout stage.

dailymail.co.uk Chelsea finally got what the detractors believe has been coming to them in Europe. Outplayed by the better side, they lost 2-1 to Shakhtar Donetsk.

cnn.com Were we to treat athletes as mature adults capable of making informed decisions based on scientific information, we could permit the use of performance enhancing substances, monitor the results and make the whole process transparent. Reader: Sure, I'll go ahead and start doping my kid up now so he can compete. And years later, when his body is a mess, I'll just say, ''hey, but those trophies sure look good huh?''

Sourced: phuketwan