Thailand’s long-anticipated U-Tapao airport expansion — a headline-grabbing 290-billion-baht project meant to supercharge the Eastern Economic Corridor — suddenly looks less like a runway-ready ambition and more like a plane stuck in a holding pattern. The consortium behind the development, U-Tapao International Aviation Co Ltd (UTA), has given authorities one month to show meaningful progress or risk walking away after years of delays and what it calls “government inaction.” UTA isn’t a lone adventurer. It’s a three-way partnership: Bangkok Airways owns 45%, BTS Group Holdings holds 35%, and Sino-Thai Engineering & Construction brings the remaining 20%. For a project billed as a game-changer for Eastern Thailand — including a high-speed rail link connecting Don Mueang, Suvarnabhumi and U-Tapao — the latest pause is a major plot twist. “We have waited many years without clarity. If nothing improves, we may have no choice but to withdraw.” The consortium points at a…
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Tensions along the Thai-Cambodian border flared afresh on 2 September, and the tone from the Thai military is anything but conciliatory. Major General Bunsin Padklang, commander of the 2nd Army Region, told reporters that the recent clashes were fiercer than those in 2011 and inflicted “significant losses” on Cambodian forces. The message was blunt: the lines are drawn, the fences are up, and Thailand intends to hold what it calls sovereign ground. According to Maj. Gen. Bunsin, several foreign governments urged restraint and pressed for an end to hostilities, but their appeals produced only a temporary truce after protracted negotiations. “The other side uses the same tactics, planting explosives, denying it, negotiating one way and acting another. Can they be trusted? Some can, some can’t. I’m not pointing fingers, but think carefully who you deal with,” he said, capturing the weary skepticism that has become all too familiar at this…
Phuket’s usually mellow island pace was jolted this week by a scene straight out of a melodrama: a red hatchback burning outside its owner’s home, CCTV rolling like a silent, relentless juror. The vehicle belonged to 49-year-old Thitipha Suppasamran, and within hours police had a suspect in their sights — her ex-boyfriend, identified as Sarayut — who later confessed that the whole thing was the result of “a foolish impulse.” The CCTV that cracked the case Security camera footage captured a figure in black shorts and shirt, a transparent poncho flapping in the night, and a motorcycle helmet hiding his face. The man moved deliberately: pour petrol, light the flame, walk away. The surveillance clip left little room for doubt, and Thitipha, seeing the silhouette and the clothes, suspected someone she knew. Wichit Police Station launched an urgent search and, on Tuesday, September 2, officers raided the home of the…
Kratom Juice Kingpin Busted in Maha Sarakham: 5 Million-Baht Operation Dismantled In a scene that might have come straight out of a crime drama, police in Maha Sarakham moved in yesterday, September 2, to shut down what investigators say was a well-organized operation producing and distributing illicit kratom juice and illegal cough syrup. The suspect, 30-year-old Rittikiet, was arrested at a house on the banks of the tranquil Som Thawin Canal in Mueang district — a picturesque setting that belied the bustling black-market business reportedly run from within. Officers searching the premises described the stash as both ample and neatly branded. They seized 381 one-litre bottles of kratom juice, each packed in clear plastic, alongside 193 bottles of assorted-brand cough syrup (60 millilitres per bottle). Two sales record books and a set of signage listing flavour options and prices were also taken as evidence. Local media outlet KhaoSod reported Rittikiet…
In a story that reads like a medical mystery with a bureaucratic twist, a Thai military medical officer was arrested after allegedly tricking more than 200 service members in South Sudan into receiving a fake influenza shot. The arrest — executed on a quiet patch of King Kaew Road in Racha Thewa, Bang Phli district, Samut Prakan — brings a curious and troubling chapter in Thailand’s overseas mission into sharp focus. On September 2, Police Major General Witthaya Sriprasert ordered Police Colonel Manoon Kaewgam to team up with Jarong Kraomao, director of the Bureau of Special Investigations, and Phairoj Niyomdecha, director of Investigation and Intelligence Operations Group 2 at the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). Their target: Lieutenant Chinnawat (also identified by the alias Borisut; surname withheld), a military medical officer who had been serving at a field hospital attached to the Thai/South Sudan special engineering company. The Bangkok Military Court…
Border patrols in Sa Kaeo province turned up more than dust and dawn mist this week — they exposed two separate groups of people whose plans for work and travel took a hard left into danger and uncertainty. At midday on September 2, officers from the Burapha Task Force and the Aranyaprathet Task Force, led by Police Colonel Chainarong Kasi, were out on a routine sweep when they stumbled upon a small band of desperate travellers. The Aranyaprathet Special Unit and the 1204th Ranger Company of the 12th Ranger Regiment were patrolling near Baan Noen Sombun, Moo 12, in Khlong Nam Sai subdistrict — roughly one kilometre from the Cambodian border — when they found seven Thai nationals hiding in the forest close to the road. The group — four men and three women — told investigators they had crossed into Cambodia in late August after being recruited with the…
A troubling allegation has shaken the monastic community in Phichit province after a forest monk visiting from Kamphaeng Phet was accused of abusing three young boys at Wat Krabangdin. The claims — now the subject of a police complaint and medical examinations — have sent ripples through the village of Thanang in Phon Thale district, prompting parents, teachers and locals to demand a full investigation and accountability. The case began to come to light when a teacher at a local school noticed changes in students’ behaviour. Conversations among pupils hinted that a monk identified as Phet, who had been staying at Wat Krabangdin at the invitation of the abbot, Phra Kittisak, had been spending time with several boys from the community. According to reports, the abbot had allowed Phet to lodge in the lower quarters of the temple while he visited to consult with the abbot. Allegations state that Phet…
It started like a scene from a low-budget crime film — bright green paint splattered across a man’s face, a crowd gathering on a sun-drenched pier, and a crowbar glinting in someone’s hand. But this wasn’t fiction. It happened at Koh Loey Pier in Chon Buri, where a confrontation between two boat drivers ended with one man badly injured and another in handcuffs. Rescuers from the Sawang Preteep Si Racha Foundation were first on the scene after a caller reported a seriously wounded man. The victim, 52-year-old boat driver Noppadon, arrived at the pier with his face and clothes smeared in startling green paint. He had suffered multiple wounds to his head and arms, and — in what witnesses described as the most alarming injury — his right ear was almost severed. Blood loss was significant, and he was rushed to Queen Savang Vadhana Memorial Hospital. Hospital staff later described…
What was supposed to be a breezy photoshoot at one of Phuket’s most picturesque lookout points turned into a viral morality play about respect, symbolism and the strange power of a 58-second video. The stage was Black Rock Viewpoint (Pha Hin Dam) in Rawai, at the southern tip of the island. The cast: a small filming team, a woman who appears to be arranging props, and a local man who stepped in and rewound the scene — literally — by unfurling the Thai flag back onto its pole. The clip that set off the internet The short clip first appeared on Facebook and quickly ricocheted across other platforms. In it, a woman believed to be part of a photography crew wraps the Thai national flag around its pole as she prepares to take a shot. For reasons that aren’t clear from the footage, the flag ends up bunched around the…
Six Decades of Classrooms, Campuses and Cross-Border Camaraderie Sixty years is a long time to perfect a handshake—and in the case of Thailand and Singapore, that handshake has been practiced in classrooms, lecture halls and cultural festivals. At the Singapore Education Fair 2025 in Bangkok, Quek Shei Ting, Deputy Chief of Mission of Singapore to Thailand, reminded attendees that education isn’t just a component of the bilateral relationship; it’s one of its brightest pillars. “Thailand and Singapore have shared a long history of friendship and collaboration, and education has always been one of the strongest areas of our cooperation,” Quek said—summing up a partnership that has evolved from student exchanges to strategic institutional alliances. What does six decades of cooperation look like in practice? Think school twinning programmes where classrooms in Bangkok and Singapore swap ideas and projects; cultural exchanges that send students home with new tastes, rhythms and perspectives;…