Phuket Latest News

PHUKET: This years edition of the Phuket International Boat Show (Pimex) is already on track to be to be the grandest edition since the marine exhibitions induction, preliminary turnout and turnover figures from the first of four days suggest.

Latest Doctors on Phuket are fighting to save a woman pulled from the sea at a beach on an island near Phi Phi. She has been transferred from Krabi to Phuket.

Latest Opposition democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged becoming president of Burma is beyond her because of laws that prevent her from standing.

RUGBY UNION: Utility back Kurtley Beale has been rewarded with a one-year contract extension by Australian Rugby to take him through the 2015 World Cup despite a chequered history.

FOOTBALL: The Football Association of Thailand (FAT) is in talks with Malaysia, South Africa and Uzbekistan for one of them to replace Croatia at next months Kings Cup.

The head of British spy agency MI5 yesterday (January 8) warned that militant Islamists in Syria were planning “mass casualty attacks” in the West and that intelligence services may be powerless to stop them.“We know… that a group of core al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass casualty attacks against the West,” Andrew Parker told journalists in London a day after an Islamist attack in Paris claimed 12 lives. “Although we and our partners try our utmost, we know that we cannot hope to stop everything,” he added. Parker said that fighters returning to the West from the civil war in Syria were in danger of bringing with them a “twisted ideology” that could lead them to carry out attacks on famous landmarks at home. Although Islamic State (IS) presented the most obvious threat, fighters aligned with the core of al-Qaeda were also a danger. “We still face more complex and ambitious plots that follow the now sadly well-established approach of al-Qaeda and its imitators – attempts to cause large-scale loss of life, often by attacking transport systems or iconic targets,” he said. The MI5 director general earlier said the attack against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was a “terrible reminder” of the threat facing Western nations, revealing that his agency had helped stop three terror plots “in recent months alone”. Parker called for wider powers to identify and monitor suspects, following a backlash against the security services after the extent of their snooping was exposed by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.

Ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra faces her impeachment hearing today (January 9), proceedings that could see her banned from politics for five years and possibly reignite the countrys bitter divisions.

Britain is keen to invest in infrastructure including the double-rail track project and Suvarnabhumi airport expansion, the Transport Ministry says.

News Analysis Murders do not count as Thailand continues to declare boatpeople as illegal immigrants rather than investigate claims of human trafficking.