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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2013
Friday October 4 – Thursday October 10, 2013
Your Island - Your Paper
Since 2011 / Volume III / No 39
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NEWS
The painful truth of the Vegetarian Festival revealed
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OLD LOGO
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LOCALLY WRITTEN RIHANNA ‘LORIS LETTER’ GOES VIRAL > PAGE 4
ARMED AUSSIE ‘TAXI’ DRIVER ARRESTED IN PATONG 100 100 40 50
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s The Phuket News went to press, Australian Gary Ponting was being questioned by police over a series of bizarre incidents in front of the Phuket Graceland Resort & Spa in Patong on Tuesday (October 1). At about 9am that morning, Ponting, 44, from Brisbane, arrived at the resort in a brand new pickup truck. His partner, who declined to give the newspaper her name, arrived at the same time on a motorbike and walked into the lobby, while Ponting waited in the pickup
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truck outside. She came out some time later with five guests. The leader of the legitimate taxi group based at the resort, Suangchanok Chaiyadech, asked where she was taking the guests. “To a bar,” said Ponting’s partner. “To Tiger Kingdom,” said one of the guests. This made the taxi drivers very suspicious. They had already had past experience “on many occasions” said Mrs Suangchanok, of other foreigners picking up people they appeared not to know from the resort – in effect, acting as “black taxis”.
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Australian Gary Ponting after his arrest.