PHUKET: Two foreign tourists, one Australian and one Swedish national, died in separate accidents in Phuket last night.

PHUKET: Construction workers this morning began work to remove the median strip in front of Phuket Bus Terminal 2 on Thepkrasattri Road in Rassada, raising hopes the long-dormant facility might go into operation soon. Workers were at the site at 8am, putting up warning signs to alert motorists of the work, which will close two lanes to traffic during work hours.

PHUKET: Friday nights don’t get much better. A superb venue and organization matched with a range of music that voiced soulful lyrics and pumped out thumping rock rifts helped kickstart the 2012 Phuket International Blues Rock festival at Laguna Beach Resort last night. A slightly later than scheduled opening allowed visitors to drift in to the Festival Marquee having not missed the first acts of Australian Jack Derwin and the emotive Moscowfish from Canada.

PHUKET: A Phuket teenager returning from school was killed yesterday when he lost control of his motorbike and hit the back of a pickup truck parked by the side of the road in Srisoonthorn. Thalang Police were notified of the accident at 5:20pm.

PHUKET: The lives of nine disabled people from Phuket and Phang Nga took a turn for the better on Thursday when they took possession of high-tech wheelchair “pullers” donated by local and international chapters of Rotary International. The handover ceremony, at Queen Sirkit Park on Thalang Road, was presided over by Sanguan Kunaporn, head of the Rotary Club of Tongkah and a nominee for the governorship of Rotary District 3300, which covers Phuket and Phang Nga.

PHUKET: Tourists to Phuket's neighboring Krabi Province are impressed by a new two million baht network of bus stops that feature a striking monkey design, the province’s transport chief says.

PHUKET: Only hours away, this year's Phuket International Blues Rock Festival is set to bring the canvas roof down at its new venue in the Festival Marquee at the Laguna Beach Resort's Y-Junction. It is the place to be today and tomorrow for a sublime celebration of blues rock music with some of the finest musicians ever to appear on Phuket. Chris Thomas King from the US is simply a blues legend with a literally record-breaking music background.

PHUKET: A two-vehicle collision in Thalang last night was likely the result of one pickup braking for a red light, only to be slammed from behind by a second pickup whose driver expected him to run through it, Phuket Police said. Each of the vehicles had two passengers, none of whom were injured in the crash

PHUKET: Four days of hard pedaling has taken its toll, but the 2012 Bangers on Bikes Bangkok to Phuket Charity Bike Ride is nearing the final leg while the hardy cyclists are on their last legs with only 140km to go. On Monday, 11 riders and five support crew left Bangkok on a 916km saddle mission to raise 500,000 baht for the Asia Center Foundation (ACF) in Phuket and the Nak Suu Tigers program in Bangkok. The group will leave Takuapa tomorrow morning for the stretch home and plan to cross Sarasin Bridge at about 11:30am and on to the ACF in Kathu for a reception at 3.

PHUKET: A taxi driver from Khao Lak, the coastal tourist town in Phang Nga to the north of Phuket, this morning found his chicken and sticky rice too tasty to remember to put his handbrake on. The result being his Honda Civic plunging into the reservoir behind Phuket Rajabhat University.

PHUKET: A depressed theater worker took his life by hanging in a rented room in Phuket last night, leaving behind a farewell note and money for his parents. Phuket City Police were called to a rented room on Soi Samkong 1, Rassada, just before dusk.

PHUKET: The Royal Thai Navy Third Naval Area, based at Cape Panwa on the east coast of Phuket, is coordinating with other armed forces from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in a joint exercise to combat pirates in the Strait of Malacca.

PHUKET: Faced with thousands of unresolved cases, Phuket Provincial Court on Tuesday launched a “night court” service in an effort to reduce the backlog. Phuket Court Acting Chief Justice Audthakarn Foojaroen and fellow justices yesterday held a press conference at the courthouse to announce the night court hours, which run Monday to Friday from 4:30pm to 8:30pm.

PHUKET: The white-sand beaches and stunning limestone karsts of Krabi Province have some competition in the beauty stakes this week following the arrival of 23 contestants from the Miss Indian Princess 2012 pageant. The beauty queens received a warm welcome when they touched down on Thai Airways flight TG241 at Krabi Airport on Tuesday. The guests seemed impressed when they were greeted in the arrivals lounge by a costumed dance performance to the beat of tom-tom drums.

PHUKET: A pregnant Australian teenager was beaten and robbed by four Thai ladyboys in Patong early yesterday morning. The victim, 19-year-old “Bonnie May”, asked that the Phuket Gazette use only her nickname out of fear or reprisal by the gang of ladyboys, who she said attacked her for no reason after she asked them for directions.

PHUKET: An electrical fire caused a panicked evacuation from a cinema complex in the heart of Phuket Town last night, but no injuries were reported. Staff at the Coliseum Paradise Mutliplex cinemas at Ocean Shopping Mall noticed smoke billowing from two electrical transformers on a fourth-floor control room at about 7pm.

PHUKET: Foreign diplomats representing at least six countries are to meet Tourism and Sports Minister Chumpol Silpa-archa to address the growing problem of cheats and swindlers targeting Phuket tourists. The news was reported through state news agency the National News Bureau of Thailand. Tourism and Sports Ministry Spokesperson Watchara Kannika announced that EU Ambassador David Lipman, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Thailand, and the ambassadors of six countries, including Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Finland and the Netherlands, are to meet Mr Chumpol to brainstorm a solution to the increasing problem of tourists being cheated and swindled in Phuket.

PHUKET: A Dutch tourist is out 5,000 baht and a mobile phone after her bag was snatched by a thief in Phuket yesterday. Monika Van Rossum told Chalong Police the theft occurred in the early evening while she and her husband were walking near the PTT service station on Patak Road. “We went out to have dinner.

PHUKET: Phuket Police are investigating the mysterious death of a 27-year-old Nakhon Sri Thammarat man found dead in his pickup truck parked by the side of a road yesterday. The body, identified by police as that of Phumin “Min” Inthongkham, was found at about 6pm in his Nissan NV pickup parked along Rassadanusorn Road, near the entrance to the National Housing Authority project off Soi Kingkaew

PHUKET: Phuket City Police last night raided an apartment building in Chalong, arresting 16 people for gambling on the popular “shrimp-fish” board game and seizing over 400,000 baht in cash. The raid, led by Phuket City Police Deputy Superintendent Serm Kwannimit, caught gamblers off-guard at a makeshift gambling den set up in an eighth-floor room at the Santiphap apartment complex in Chalong Village 1. Raids on gambling dens in Phuket often end with many of the punters scrambling to freedom through pre-planned escape routes, many of them remarkable for their complexity and creativity of design.

PHUKET: A boulder weighing at least one tonne plummeted off a roadside karst near the tourist-popular Ao Nang beach in Krabi this afternoon.

PHUKET: A Thai man accused of stabbing a young British tourist on Phi Phi Island last year pleaded “not guilty” to charges of attempted murder before Krabi Court yesterday. The suspect, 23-year-old Hamed Poonyung, has been