Bangkok - Thai police on Friday released on bail famed social critic Sulak Sivaraksa after arresting him on charges of lese majeste for a speech he made last year.

Sulak, 76, was arrested in Bangkok Thursday evening and driven to Khon Kaen, 370 kilometres north-east of the capital, where he was interrogated for three hours on charges of insulting the monarchy in a speech he delivered at Khon Kaen University on December 10,
2007.

Sulak was informed of another police charge of lese majeste on Monday for an article he had written in the Seeds of Peace magazine published several years ago.

"This is strange," said Sulak of the two charges, both based on old incidents.

Bangkok - A 23-year-old Thai man who woke up with a cockroach in his ear on a public bus has sparked a public health drive to improve sanitation on the kingdom's provincial bus routes, media reports said Friday.

Kittipong Khamdong, who had taken an overnight bus from Khon Kaen province to Chiang Mai Monday, awoke in the middle of the night with an unwanted passenger lodged in his left ear, the Bangkok Post reported.

Bangkok  - The secretary-general of Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Wednesday welcomed the election of Barack Obama as a leader more inclined to work with the world.

"I congratulate the people of the US for electing a president who is ready to work with the world," said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan. "ASEAN is ready to cooperate with the new administration."

Bangkok - Thailand has issued box jellyfish warnings for tourists visiting beach resorts on its southern coastlines where the killer invertebrates have recently been spotted, media reports said Tuesday.

The Marine and Coastal Resources Department has raised an alert for tourists that the highly venomous box jellyfish, not common in Thai waters, has been discovered off Phi Phi Island and Krabi province in southern Thailand, the Bangkok Post newspaper said.

Over the past six years, two deaths in Thailand have been attributed to box jellyfish, the first in 2002 at Phangan Island in the Gulf of Thailand and the most recent in April this year at Koh Lanta in Krabi on the Andaman Sea coast.

Bangkok - Thai shares jumped 7.84 per cent Monday on good news for banks and energy stocks and the avoidance of political violence in Bangkok over the weekend.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index ended at 449.19, up 32.66 points, on modest trade amounting to 17 billion baht (494 million dollars).

"Thai stocks were following other markets today," said Phuwadon Larpudomsuk, an analyst at Asia Plus Securities.

Bangkok - Thailand's fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra on Saturday addressed a crowd of more than 60,000 supporters in a phoned-in call in which he said only a "royal pardon" or "people's power" could bring him back to Thailand.

On October 21 the Supreme Court for Political Office Holders sentenced Thaksin to two years in jail for abusing his power as prime minister in 2003 by allowing his wife to purchase a plot of land at a government auction.