Bangkok - The Thai baht hit a

Bangkok - The Thai baht hit a nine-month low against the dollar Wednesday, trading at 34.15 to the greenback, bank sources said.

The sharp decline in the currency was attributed to heavy buying of dollars by foreign banks in Thailand and importers, said the Kasikorn Research Center, a think-tank attached to Kasikorn Bank.

Like most Asian currencies, the Thai baht has steadily appreciated against the dollar, gaining almost 20 per cent over the past two years before starting to weaken in June in the wake of rising inflation, growing political instability, declines on the stock market and slowing growth projections.

Phnom Penh - Although talks with Thailand over disputed border territory achieved modest progress, the border crossing at the ancient Preah Vihear temple would remain closed indefinitely, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Wednesday.

Cambodia remained firm in its stance that Thailand had sent troops into Cambodian territory, he told a press conference at Phnom Penh International Airport upon his return from Thailand after talks there Tuesday.

Bangkok - Thailand's exports are expected to increase up to 20 per cent this year, after hitting 87.11 trillion dollars in the first six months, the Export-Import Bank of Thailand forecast Tuesday.

The bank's economic information department noted that Thailand's exports to new markets surged 31.1 per cent during the first half of 2008, the state-run Thai News Agency reported.

Exports to Africa rose 60.5 per cent, while those to Indochina, a group consisting of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, rose 57 per cent, and exports to Eastern Europe were up by 31.8 per cent.

Bangkok - Thousands of Thai protestors marched on the British embassy in Bangkok Tuesday to demand Britain refuse asylum to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife, Pojaman, who fled to London last week to escape pending corruption cases against them.

About 2,000 protestors from the People's Alliance for Democracy, a loose coalition of anti-Thaksin groups, stopped traffic on Ploenchit Road, a major artery in central Bangkok, as they marched to the embassy, where they shouted slogans and delivered a letter to the ambassador.

Cha-am, Thailand - The foreign ministers of Thailand and Cambodia began bilateral talks Tuesday on how to defuse tensions over a border temple dispute that sparked a military standoff between the two countries last month.

Thai Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag and his Cambodian counterpart, Hor Namhong, met in the Thai beach resort of Cha-am, 110 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, to discuss long-term solutions to the dispute over the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, which has been a flash point for relations between Thailand and Cambodia since the late 1950s.