Bangkok  - Thailand's government has decided to return to Cambodia seven artifacts smuggled into the kingdom almost 10 years ago, media reports said Wednesday.

The Thai cabinet approved the diplomatic gesture at its weekly meeting Tuesday, days before Thailand hosts the 14th Summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, which will be attended by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Bangkok - Some 1,307 companies went bankrupt last month in Thailand, up 53.7 per cent from the same period of 2008, the Department of Business Development announced Tuesday.

Most of the bankrupt firms were in the construction sector, real estate and services, while almost half of them were in Bangkok, the department revealed.

Like most export-oriented Asian economies, Thailand has already been hard-hit by the global financial crisis that has reduced demand in major importing countries such as the US, Europe and Japan.

Bangkok  - Thousands of Thai protestors marched on Government House in Bangkok Tuesday in an effort to highlight the alleged illegitimacy of the current administration days before it hosts a South-East Asian summit.

An estimated 15,000 followers of the United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) - also called the Red Shirts - joined a march from Sanam Luang (The Royal Grounds) to Government House, the seat of the administration, about 3 kilometres away.

Chiang Mai  - The elephant that chose the site of Doi Suthep temple must have been a truly far-sighted creature. Legend has it that King Kuna wanted to build a temple to house a relic of the holy Buddha. He ordered that the precious artefact be strapped to the back of a white elephant which was let loose into the jungle.

The elephant stormed through the undergrowth and stopped just short of the summit of Suthep mountain. The monarch took this to be a sign and in 1388 he ordered that a spectacular golden temple be erected on the site. The building still clings to the slope of the peak today. Northern Thailand is hillier, cooler and compared with the south of the country, it calls for more effort on behalf of the tourists intent on discovering its charms.

Bangkok - Thai police were searching Monday for the body and identity of a foreigner whose head was found hanging by a rope off a Bangkok bridge over the weekend.

Pattani, Thailand  - Suspected separatists on Sunday shot dead and beheaded a couple working on a rubber plantation in Yala province, part of Thailand's troubled deep south where an estimated 3,300 people have died violently over the past five years.

Assailants gunned down Khomphet Janyalert, 39, and his wife Yinjai, 38, at 7 am as they were driving their motorcycle to work at a plantation in Raman district of Yala province, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, police said.