Bangkok  - The establishment of a human rights body for the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year will be of little worth if it has no mandate to conduct independent fact-finding missions in the region, a leading civil rights group warned Thursday.

"The body should be able to conduct country visits where there are severe human rights violations and conduct fact-finding missions," said Yap Swee Seng, executive-director of the human rights group FORUM-Asia.

Bangkok - The Thai government Wednesday entered a partnership with the online marketplace giant eBay to promote the kingdom's e-commerce, which already amounted to an estimated 1 billion dollars last year.

Thailand's Department of Industrial Promotion signed an agreement under which eBay specialists will provide workshops for small to medium sized Thai companies on how to leverage e-commerce safely and sell online successfully.

The arrangement includes waivers of 25 per cent discounts for the companies' first 100 transactions on eBay.

Bangkok  - Failing US automotive giant General Motors laid off 790 of its 3,000 labour force in Thailand, where orders for its vehicles plummeted 56 per cent last month, media reports said Wednesday.

The axing of 790 jobs followed GM Thailand's closure of its local assembly plant for two months to avoid an inventory buildup as export orders fell off.

GM is one of 15 international automobile makers with assembly and manufacturing plants in Thailand to supply the domestic and export markets.

Bangkok - The state-run Export-Import Bank of Thailand on Tuesday opened a branch in Moscow to facilitate Thai-Russian trade.

The Moscow branch, the Thai EXIM International Co, is to provide Thai exporters with advance payment bonds, trade facilitation, business-matching services and act as a middleman in "arranging proper protection for undeliverable Thai export goods left unattended at a Russian port," Thai Deputy Finance Minister Pruektichai Damrongrut said in a statement.

The state-owned Export-Import Bank was set up to promote Thai trade abroad, especially in new markets.

Bangkok  - Over the past three to four years, one of Asia's fastest growing industries has been exporting workers, especially to the oil-driven, construction-crazed economies of the Middle East.

Remittances have become a major contributor to foreign exchange earnings and gross domestic products (GDPs), peaking at an estimated 116 billion dollars in 2008.

This year, the money flows were expected to slow as construction projects are shelved and other jobs dry up in Gulf nations, such Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have employed up to 13 million foreign workers, 11 million of whom hailed from Asia.