A 26-year-old woman identified as Beer was found walking naked through the Nong Sai community in Nong Na Kham subdistrict, Muang district, Udon Thani on the evening of 19 August. She told officers and residents she was looking for a man named Keng Noi and asked them to take her to him. Police and local residents provided her with clothes and took her home to the Nong Tu area, with authorities noting she appeared to be experiencing abnormal behaviour requiring close supervision.

According to a friend named Joe, the woman had recently returned from working at a bar in Pattaya, where she had earned good income and accumulated money and gold jewellery. Since her return, her behaviour changed significantly, with Joe suspecting possible involvement with illegal drugs as a contributing factor. He reported that she had previously behaved erratically, including removing her clothes and wandering around the city.

Police initially allowed her family to monitor her condition at home. Authorities said the circumstances surrounding her behaviour and its possible causes would require further investigation, though police have not confirmed drug use as the cause.

A viral internet sensation known as the 'bitter melon boy' received a surprise award during a concert taping. Namo, who became famous for selling bitter melons and vegetables to help support his family, was invited as a special guest to the GLO Miracle Music Season 3 programme 'Chumtang Dao Thong', hosted by presenter Nok Bripun Chaiyphumi. During the taping, producer Pichet Sriratcha from Channel 7HD made an unexpected appearance to present Namo with a special award, leaving the young man moved by the gesture and the recognition of his inspiring story.

The programme features country music artist Rerai performing live alongside Namo, showcasing her signature entertainment style and traditional country music repertoire. This week's episode also includes a competitive singing round featuring three contestants from Ranong, Si Sa Ket, and Suratthani provinces, all competing for a chance to advance in the GLO Miracle Music Season 3 competition.

The broadcast airs Thursday, 20 August and Friday, 21 August 2025 at 13:10 on Channel 7HD, with reruns available on bugaboo.tv, YouTube Channel 7 Star Studio, and the Facebook page Chumtang Dao Thong.

Somebody at the Swedish school on Koh Lanta kept a diary. It is a spiral notebook, written by hand, and it belongs to the school's very first pupil, who was seven when it starts.

She organised it by season rather than by year, the way an island does. It begins the year the school begins and stops in 2007. Her opening line is the whole story in one sentence: Lanta Sanuk School has not always been the way it is now. In the beginning there was only a single pupil, and then it grew and grew.

Season 00/01: a maths book made of A4 paper

The first entry describes a school with one pupil, one teacher and nothing else.

"The school was in my bungalow. Mum was the teacher and there was absolutely no material. We made a maths book out of A4 paper!"

That is the beginning of what people now call Little Sweden. A child, her mother, a bungalow, and a maths book they stapled together themselves.

Season 01/02: the Palm School

Another Swedish family arrived, and the mother happened to be a secondary school teacher. She taught her own two daughters, aged eight and six, plus the diarist, then seven. Lessons moved to their bungalow, and the children gave it a name: Palmskolan, the Palm School.

Then, in a detail that could only come from a real diary, the whole thing decamped to Greece for a few months and carried on there.

The following season has the shortest entry in the book. "No school. We were in Sweden."

Season 03/04: cockroaches and road dust

By now enough families wanted in that the diarist's parents hired an actual teacher, and it was she who named it Lanta Sanuk School. Usually six pupils turned up. At most nine.

The description of the premises is the least romantic thing you will read about this island:

"Two rooms with a fan and a filthy hole in the floor as a toilet. The tables were rickety, there were several cockroaches and the floor was always dirty with road dust."

And then, immediately after: "There were lots of different ages and everyone hung out with each other." Which is the part the children evidently remembered.

Season 04/05: the tsunami

The autumn term opened with 25 pupils and three teachers. By January sixty children were enrolled. It was the school's best year yet.

Then one line, written plainly, the way a teenager writes down something enormous:

"The school was closed after the tsunami because everyone went home."

It stayed shut through January 2005 and opened again at the beginning of February with two new teachers. That same season the first pupil enrolled through the Swedish distance-learning programme, and the school got its first computers.

Season 05/06: upstairs at the conference centre

The school took over the entire upper floor of a conference centre, twelve air-conditioned rooms. There were 119 pupils and ten teachers.

Her list of what existed for the first time that year tells you what had been missing before it: a head teacher, a library, a preschool, school lunch.

Season 06/07: two schools

The last entry counts 220 pupils and 20 teachers across two sites, plus 19 children in preschool.

The old building became the Holiday School, for families staying one to four months. A new school went up at Long Beach for families staying longer than four months. They called it the Long-term School.

That distinction is quietly the most revealing thing in the diary. By 2007 there were enough Swedish families living on Koh Lanta for a whole year that they needed their own school, separate from the ones passing through.

Why this matters beyond one school

The usual account has Swedes discovering Koh Lanta in the mid-2000s, and the 2006/07 season is the one always quoted. The diary ends exactly there, and that is the point the school wanted to make when they shared it: the season everyone remembers was not the start of anything. It was the moment something that had been growing quietly for seven years became too big to miss.

It started in a bungalow, with one child and a maths book made of A4 paper.

The diary is kept at Sanuk, the Swedish school on Koh Lanta, and was shared with us by the school. Its author, the school's first pupil, also designed the yellow sun that is still the school's logo. Translations from the Swedish are ours. The school asked us to be clear that they speak for Sanuk alone and not for anything else on the island.

SME D Bank has launched emergency measures to help small and medium enterprises in Nan province affected by flooding, offering debt repayment suspension of up to 12 months and emergency capital for business recovery. Managing Director Phichit Mitravongse said the flooding has severely impacted SME operations across multiple areas in Nan province, both directly and indirectly. The bank is rolling out urgent relief measures to ease financial burden and help entrepreneurs restart their businesses quickly.

Key assistance measures include a principal and interest repayment suspension for affected customers for up to 12 months on term loans, revolving credit agreements, and factoring facilities, with promissory note repayment extended up to 180 days. The bank is also offering emergency capital loans of 10% of the customer's existing credit limit (minimum 30,000 baht, maximum 200,000 baht for individuals and 200,000 baht for businesses) at the prevailing rate for three years with a 12-month principal grace period and no collateral required except fees.

Additionally, SME D Bank is offering supplementary business development loans with a special fixed rate of just 3% per annum for the first three years, repayable over up to 10 years with up to 12 months' principal grace period. These include the SME Green Productivity loan (up to 30 million baht), Power Up SME loan (up to 1 million baht), and Beyond Wings SME loan (up to 30 million baht). The relief measures are voluntary and entrepreneurs can apply immediately through any SME D Bank branch nationwide, the bank's LINE Official Account, or its website at www.smebank.co.th. The Call Center number is 1357.

On the evening of August 19, authorities in Nong Na Kham Subdistrict, Udon Thani received reports of a naked woman walking through streets, causing alarm among residents and drivers. Police and locals assisted her by providing clothes and speaking calmly to her before taking her home to prevent harm while she displayed abnormal behavior.

When questioned, the woman, identified as Beer, age 26, said she was looking for her boyfriend named Keng Noi and asked officers to help her find him. Her condition appeared serious. After being clothed, officers took her back to her residence. Initial reports indicate her relatives may be unwilling to take her in.

A close school friend, who requested anonymity as Joe, revealed that Beer previously came from a financially comfortable family. She had worked at a bar in Pattaya with decent income and was known to wear gold jewelry as a sign of her status. In recent months after returning from Pattaya, her behavior changed noticeably, suggesting possible drug use, which resulted in behavioral abnormalities and occasional episodes of apparent unconsciousness followed by public indecency.

Police have taken her home pending close family supervision while investigations into the cause of her condition continue.

At approximately 02:30 on August 20, 2025, Lieutenant Oros Buddhako, head of Mukdahan River Station under the Mekong River peacekeeping unit in Nakhon Phanom province, received a tip that smugglers would attempt to illegally transport duty-free goods from Savannakhet province in Laos across the Mekong River into Thailand, targeting the area behind Indochinese Market in Mukdahan municipality. Following the alert, Lieutenant Oros coordinated with Mukdahan River Police and other relevant agencies to inspect the riverbank area behind Indochinese Market in Sri Sumang community. The incident was discovered approximately 1.2 kilometers from Mukdahan River Station.

During the inspection, officers found three Laotian nationals with one steel-hulled boat equipped with an outboard motor. Authorities seized approximately 250 crates of avocados weighing about six tons that had not cleared customs procedures. All three individuals were taken into custody and the goods were confiscated for investigation and legal proceedings.

The seized items include approximately 250 crates of avocados weighing about six tons and one steel boat with an outboard motor. The suspects and all evidence were brought to Mukdahan River Station for processing under relevant laws, particularly customs regulations, and for further investigation into the cross-border goods smuggling operation.

This operation represents an integrated effort by security agencies and law enforcement units in the border area to monitor and intercept illegal goods smuggling that bypasses customs procedures, particularly along the Mekong River, which is a critical border area of Mukdahan province.