THAILAND NEWS

The Thai government on Tuesday decided to make Chinese New Year a public holiday in the country's majority-Muslim southern provinces in a bid to ease sectarian tensions.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will pay an official visit to India from Jan 24 to Jan 26, Thai Trade Representative Nalinee Thaweesin said on Tuesday.

This year will see political conflict boil over with fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as the "death trap" for the Yingluck Shinawatra administration, while the soaring cost of living could also spell trouble, deputy Democrat Party leader Korn Chatikavanij warned yesterday.

The Thai government is considering reviving the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the kingdom’s maritime border signed with Cambodia in 2001 but which was revoked by the previous government, according to Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Saturday said she believed that foreign investors still have confidence in Thailand's economy and that many companies would not move their production bases out of Thailand.

Meteorologists on Sunday warned people living on the eastern coastline of the Gulf of Thailand to prepare for heavy rains and possible floods.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has ordered 64 governors whose provinces were recently hit by floods to speed up paying a 5,000-baht (nearly US$160) official assistance to each flooded household in their respective areas, improving people's post-flood livelihood and repairing basic infrastructures urgently.

Thousands of volunteers from both the private and public sectors of the tourism industry joined the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) for ‘Ayutthaya Cleaning Day’ on Sunday. The clear-up of the UNESCO-listed former Thai capital was part of TAT’s efforts to restore areas hit by the recent floods.

Thailand's flood-related death toll rose to 675 on Monday with three persons remaining missing, the Emergency Operations Center for Flood, Storm and Landslide reported.