Cha-am, Thailand  - Greenpeace activists on Friday urged South-East Asian leaders to put global warming on the agenda of a summit being held this weekend in Thailand when discussing the region's efforts to deal with the global economic crisis.

Activists unfurled a banner reading, "Ten Nations - One Vision, Climate Action Now," on the back of a billboard across the street from the hotel in Cha-am, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, where the 14th summit of the 10-nation Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is being held.

Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Thursday he might ask China to extradite fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The controversial former premier is scheduled to give a speech in Hong Kong Monday. He has kept clear of Thailand after being given a jail sentence last year for breaching corruption rules when his wife successfully bid for government land while he was in office.

Thaksin, who won all three general elections he fought since forming his own political party a decade ago, remains deeply distrusted by much of the military, as well urban elites and the palace.

Bangkok - Protest leaders camping outside Government House in Bangkok vowed Thursday to extend their demonstration until the government is dissolved.

The leaders of the so-called Red Shirts said since none of their demands had been answered they had no choice but to increase pressure on the government.

Bangkok  - Thai police on Wednesday identified a foreigner whose head was found at the weekend hanging by a rope off a Bangkok bridge as an Italian tourist who committed suicide after being evicted from his guesthouse for not paying the rent.

General Jongrak Chuthanont, deputy police commissioner, identified the decapitated man as Maurizio Tosadori, 54, an architect from Verona, Italy.

Bangkok  - Germany on Wednesday launched a "climate initiative" with Thailand, providing 9 million euros (410 million baht) to projects designed to assist the South-East Asian country to combat global warming.

The budget, to be spaced out over the next three years, was being provided by the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety to six projects in Thailand that aim to reduce carbon emissions or cope with the effects of climate change.

Deputy Minister Michael Mueller said at a ceremony marking the launch of the German-Thai initiative that Germany funds climate change projects at home and worldwide through the sale of carbon-dioxide certificates through an emissions-trading system in Germany.

Bangkok  - Thousands of protestors surrounded Government House in Bangkok for the second day Wednesday as others demonstrated outside the foreign ministry calling for the resignation of Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.

The protests organized by the United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) were designed to embarrass the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva before its hosts the 14th Summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Friday to Sunday in Cha-am, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok.

But they did not prevent Abhisit from entering Government House Wednesday morning, although the weekly cabinet meeting was moved to Cha-am Tuesday.