Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday left behind a looming political crisis in Bangkok to go help the Group of 20 (G20) leaders fight the global economic crisis.

Abhisit, 43, was personally invited by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to attend Thursday's summit in London even through Thailand is not a member of the illustrious group of the world's 19 largest economies and the European Union.

Thailand's Oxford-educated premier is in London in his capacity as chairman of the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations.

Bangkok - Thai shares tumbled 2.54 per cent Monday on growing jitters over the fragile political scene at home and worries about the US economy abroad, analysts said.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index ended at 429.60, down 11.21 points or 2.54 per cent.

"The main factors dragging share values down were local politics and worries that the shakeup of the automobile industry in the US," Asia Plus Securities stock analyst Thachatorn Laopudormsuk said.

Bangkok - Up to 60 per cent of the real estate executives in the Asia-Pacific are willing to pay a 10 per cent premium for "sustainable space," higher than their counterparts elsewhere, a survey revealed Monday.

According to a survey conducted by CoreNet Global and Jones Lang LaSalle, an international property consultant, 60 per cent of respondents in Asia Pacific would pay up to 10 per cent more rent to occupy a sustainable building, an increase from 55 per cent in 2007.

Bangkok  - The Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry on Monday denied that a Hmong refugee was severely beaten over the weekend in a camp controlled by the Thai military as part of its efforts to forcefully repatriate 5,400 members of the ethnic minority to communist Laos.

Authorities detained Joua Va Yang, who had guided a BBC team to Laos to document the plight of the Hmong in 2004, on Saturday night in Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in Phetchabun province, the ministry's deputy spokesman Thani Thongpakdi confirmed.

Pattani, Thailand - Thai security forces fought with suspected Muslim militants in Narathiwat province Monday in a clash that left three insurgents dead and two captured, army sources said.

Insurgents killed two villagers in separate incidents in Pattani province, part of Thailand's southernmost region where 3,700 people have fallen victim to sectarian violence over the past five years.

Bangkok - Thailand's food exports to Japan rose 30 per cent last year, benefiting from the Japanese market's health concerns about Chinese imports, media reports said Sunday.

Thai exports to Japan in 2008 were valued at 100 billion baht (2.8 billion dollars) and could continue to rise this year if the Japanese market continued to be wary of chemical-contamination of Chinese food products, President of Thailand's National Food Institute Yuthasak Supasorn told the Thai News Agency (TNA).