Bangkok - Thailand's tax collections fell 29.1 per cent last month, to 82.43 billion baht (2.3 billion dollars), government sources said Tuesday.

Fiscal Policy Office director-general Somchai Sujjapongse said the government had collected 451.52 billion baht (12.54 billion dollars) in tax revenues between October and February, the first five months of the fiscal year.

That amount was 16.4 per cent below projections, the Bangkok Post online news service reported.

Bangkok  - Marine police launched a sea surface search Tuesday near the Similan Islands for six missing foreign tourists and a Thai national whose scuba diving boat sank after being hit by a sudden storm.

"We are conducting a surface search in the area today," Marine Police Lieutenant Colonel Wanlop Phuangbaka said. "If the bodies are not in the boat they should float to the surface within 24 hours," he said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Bangkok - Thai shares were down nearly 2 per cent Monday on Hong Kong jitters and global worries, analysts said.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) ended at 411.27, down 8.24 points, or 1.97 per cent.

"It's the same story, people are worried about the world economy," Atkinson Securities analyst Chaiyot Jetwankul said.

He said the 5-per-cent fall on the Hong Kong stock market Monday had added to the regional jitters.

Bangkok - Thai marine police on Monday were searching for six foreigners and one Thai who went missing after their speed boat sunk near the Similan Islands, a popular scuba-diving destination in the Andaman Sea.

"We're still searching for the missing," Marine Police Lieutenant Colonel Wanlop Phuangbaka said.

Among the missing were two Australians, two Swiss, one German, one Japanese and one Thai, Wanlop said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Bangkok  - The Thai military blocked food supplies over the weekend to a Hmong refugee camp in an apparent effort to force the 5,400 "illegal immigrants" to return to Laos, media reports and aid agencies said Monday.

On Friday the military prevented Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) from delivering food supplies to Ban Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun province, 250 kilometres north-east of Bangkok.

Bangkok- A six-wheel modified truck packed with passengers heading for a wedding party plunged into a construction hole early Sunday, killing at least ten people and injuring 25 others.

The truck, transporting friends and relatives of the bridegroom from Yasothon province to his wedding in Chaiyaphum province, drove into a construction hole on the Kalasin-Roit highway at 2:30 am, The Nation online news service reported