THAI.NEWS - Thailand Breaking News

The Bangkok authorities have waved a yellow flag — figuratively speaking — as the capital heads into its busiest holiday stretch. The Bangkok Air Quality Information Centre has released an updated outlook spanning December 26, 2025 to January 3, 2026, warning that PM2.5 levels could climb as air ventilation weakens across the city during the New Year celebrations. Translation: if you’re planning rooftop toasts, midnight fireworks, or long drives home, keep one eye on the skies and the other on your lungs. Good news first: ventilation on December 26 and 27 is expected to be “fair to good,” which will help disperse fine particulate matter and keep PM2.5 concentrations relatively manageable for most areas of Bangkok. Those two days are your best bet for outdoor activities without the extra worry of heavy haze. Enjoy the markets, the parks, and the last-minute shopping — just don’t forget basic common-sense precautions. Things…

After 65 years missing, a beloved bronze Buddha has come home — and the return to Phayao felt less like news and more like a communal, long-awaited celebration. Phra Chao Tong Song Khruang, a historically important statue once housed at Wat Ban Tom in Mueang district, was ceremoniously brought back to its original place, stirring pride, relief and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a flurry of lottery fever. A statue with stories to spare Phra Chao Tong Song Khruang is no ordinary find. Cast in bronze and posed in the Maravijaya posture — the classic seated, cross-legged pose signifying the Buddha’s triumph over Mara — the statue’s restrained decoration and classical lines point to a refined aesthetic. Art historians classify it within the Phayao (or Pa Daeng) style, with clear influences from southern Buddhist traditions and Ayutthaya-era art. Believed to have been created in the 22nd Buddhist century, it was unearthed at an…

The clang of cymbals, the swell of age-old melodies, and the measured pace of rhythmic chanting returned to Yaowarat — Bangkok’s legendary Chinatown — as Chinese opera reclaimed its place on the neighborhood’s bustling streets. For three luminous nights around Wat Mangkon Station, BEM Happy Journey 2025: Yaowarat turned the area into a living stage, where past and present rubbed shoulders under lantern light. Organized by Bangkok Expressway and Metro Public Company Limited (BEM) together with the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA), the festival did more than offer entertainment. It invited people to step back into memories of a Yaowarat where glowing lanterns, crowded alleys and the commanding presence of Chinese opera were as ordinary as street food stalls and long conversations on the curb. For many elderly Thai-Chinese residents, the sound of opera was the soundtrack of life before smartphones and streaming replaced neighborhood theatres. Costumes shimmered…

In the quiet hours before dawn on December 28, 2025, work at one of Bangkok’s most important flood-control projects turned tragic when a 59-year-old construction worker lost his life after slipping and falling into a drainage tunnel excavation. The accident occurred at the Klong Prem Prachakorn drainage tunnel site in Bang Sue district — a major artery intended to link Klong Bang Bua with the Chao Phraya River and help shield parts of the city from seasonal flooding. Police Lieutenant Nitipol Changradom, Deputy Investigator at Bang Pho Police Station, said officers were alerted by an emergency call at about 4:30 a.m. Rescue volunteers, forensic teams and police rushed to the scene near Wat Soi Thong on Pracha Rat Sai 1 Road, where they found the worker’s body at the bottom of the construction area adjacent to the tunnel. The deceased was later identified as Mr. Samai, 59. He was found…

When faith and fraud collide, the headlines get a lot more interesting — and a lot more troubling. On December 27, a long-running scam that read like a criminal thriller finally reached its last chapter when officers from Thailand’s Crime Suppression Division arrested 54-year-old Manop in Moo 1, Thung Krapang Hom subdistrict, Kamphaeng Saen district, Nakhon Pathom province. The arrest — carried out under Criminal Court warrant No. 1472/2019 dated September 24, 2019 — uncovers how a criminal ring exploited religious trust for cold, calculated theft. The disguise that emptied bank accounts According to police reports, the scheme was audacious in its simplicity. A gang allegedly hired Manop to literally become a monk on paper. He shaved his head and eyebrows, slipped into monk’s robes and allowed himself to be photographed as “proof” for fake monk identification documents. Those counterfeit IDs were then used to open replacement bank accounts for…