The UN and international Aids campaigners have raised concern over a sharp increase in infections among Thai housewives.

In Thailand up to 40% of the 18'000 new HIV cases found each year are housewives.

Most housewives contract the virus from their promiscuous husbands.

Same situation in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia: In Papua New Guinea 50% of all new cases are housewives, in Cambodia at least 46%.

The latest statistics show one-fith of the Asian population is HIV positiv.

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It is expected that there will be 14'000 people newly-infected HIV cases in Thailand in 2007.

About 45% of the new cases are believed to be found in female teenagers and housewives while 20% are believed to be found in homosexual men.

The average age of youths who had sex for the first time was 15, according to a report by the Public Health Ministry, a drop from 18 in previous studies.

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Two studies have found that people infected with the type of HIV in Thailand die from Aids significantly sooner than people infected and living in other parts of the world.

The shorter survival time measured in the studies suggests that HIV subtype E, which is the most common HIV subtype in Thailand, may be more virulent than other subtypes of the virus.

Women tourists are urged to wear a whistle when they stroll along a beach and not to wear a swimsuit which reveals too much, Tourist Police said.

The Tourist Police Division will distribute whistles along with some 100,000 copies of a revised version of its safety pamphlets targetting foreign female holidaymakers.

Wearing revealing bikinis, however, is not always the reason rapists attack, according to behaviour psychologist Pol Maj-Gen Pongpat Chayapan. Many attackers and rapists are psychologically abnormal and can attack even if the victim is fully clothed, he said.

Thai Police believes that all women having condoms in their handbags are prostitutes...

75% of the world's 350 million Hepatitis B carriers reside in the Asia-Pacific region. An estimated three million Thais are thought to be carrying the virus today. However only 15% are undergoing proper treatment. Hepatitis B is a major health threat for the country as millions of people have the disease. But most of the patients only learn about it when it's already too late. Most of its victims in Thailand are males. The virus can cause chronic infection in the liver. There is no cure for the disease.

On average, about 50 civilian UK nationals are murdered around the world each year (excluding terrorist attacks).

At least 17 Britons have been murdered in Thailand since 2003.

This means that almost 10 per cent of all murders of Britons abroad are committed in Thailand - a chilling figure, given that Thailand comprises only 0.6% of all foreign travel from UK shores.

The domestic murder rate in Thailand is roughly five times higher than in the UK, a fact not seen in its tourist authorities' glossy brochures...

Latest figures from the Public Health Ministry showed that about 10% of the drugs sold in the country were of low quality, said Associate Professor Wongwiwat Tassaneeyakul of Khon Kaen University's pharmaceutical sciences faculty.

They included counterfeit drugs, substandard drugs and drugs of deteriorating quality.

A large number of drugs deteriorated because of humidity and problems arising during their transport and storage, said Assoc Prof Wongwiwat.

The problem of substandard quality was commonly found among drugs frequently used by members of the general public, such as antibiotics.

The Bank of Thailand has warned ATM users to be aware of a growing number of fraud cases involving the use of electronic skimmer machines.

Criminal gangs can steal confidential data and passwords from ATM cards by using the electronic machines. When users insert a card into an ATM machine, the illegal skimmers record data taken from the card's magnetic strip.

Commercial banks and the police, are battling a new ATM theft technique in which fake keypads record pin numbers and personal information. The thieves then produce clone cards to empty bank accounts.

Thai Bankers' Association secretary-general Twatchai Yongkittikul said the fake keypads feel hard to the touch and that cardholders should immediately cancel their transaction if the keypad feels strange and notify the bank immediately.

In a TV interview broadcasted during September 2007, Twatchai said he believed it was a large-scale operation that involves computer experts and people with experience in plastic and rubber products, as the fake keypads looked very much like the real thing.

According to Twatchai, the technique also involved the use of false decoders, which record personal information of cardholders stored in the magnetic strip on ATM cards. The thieves then used two sets of information - pin numbers and cardholder's information - to produce cloned ATM cards to withdraw money.

Key-logging software are 'recorders' that stores all key-strokes made on any given machine. The administrators can then look over their records for 'user names', 'passwords' and 'bank account or credit card details'.

Do not store personal data on a memory stick or any memory card you are using at an internet café. A soon as you plug in the storage device, a program reads out all the information on it.

Before entering critical data call the 'Task Manager' (press 'Ctrl' + 'Alt' + 'Delete'). The 'Task Manager' lists the machine's inventory. If the 'Task Manager' is blocked or lists software that you don't know, do not enter any personal data on that computer.

For an even more accurate test, we recommend to install a 'Process Explorer' on your memory stick. You can get them as 'Freeware' in the internet. They list all the programs running in the background on the computer.

The DSI has found that there are currently about 100 websites operating a new form of chit fund schemes in Thailand. Internet surfers usually see pop-ups or internet ads telling the surfers that they have won alluring prizes, such as a car, a house or cash. But one condition is that prize winners are required to wire money to accounts of chit fund operators.

Chit fund operators can often make up to five billion baht through their scams, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) said.

A senior health official blamed unsafe sex by foreign tourists for a news report that many young tourists, particularly those from Britain and Germany, went home with sexually transmitted diseases (STD), including HIV. A study of male German sex tourists in Thailand showed that most were aged between 30 and 40. The study also showed that only 30%-40% used condoms.

The National Human Rights Commission is urging the government to tackle ever-increasing levels of cancer-causing dioxins in Phuket. The level of dioxin measured at the province's garbage incinerator is 40 times higher than it should be.

Ashes from Phuket's incinerator were dumped carelessly into public waterways and on public land, while wastewater from the site get discharged into the sea, hurting aquaculture along the coastline.

According to TAT, Phuket is the country's most popular tourist destination.