Bangkok - Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country, has revived ceremonial worship of the Rice Goddess to commemorate the queen's upcoming birthday and boost the morale of the country's 3.7 million rice-farming families, news reports said Sunday.

The Ministry of Agriculture on Saturday held a ritual to worship Mae Phosop, or the Rice Goddess, at a demonstration farm in Ang Thong province, the Bangkok Post reported.

The ceremony was presided over by Queen Sirikit, the royal consort of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who will celebrate her 76th birthday on Tuesday.

Pattani, Thailand - Suspected separatists decapitated a 60-year-old Thai-Muslim man in Thailand's violence-wracked province of Pattani, police said Saturday.

Madu Ramae, a rubber plantation labourer, was stabbed to death and then decapitated Friday night in the Yarang district of Pattani, about 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, police said.

His head was found 5 metres away from his body.

Bangkok - Thailand's first major outcome from the Beijing Olympics is expected this weekend when it will be clear whether the kingdom will lose former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his wife to self-exile, media reports said Saturday.

Thaksin, whose 2001-2006 premiership was terminated by a coup, was granted court permission to fly to Beijing to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday. But he must return by Monday to stand trial in an abuse-of-power case.

Bangkok - Hundreds of Myanmar activists protested outside the Chinese and Myanmar embassies in Bangkok Friday, marking the 20th anniversary of a brutal army crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Yangon that left thousands dead.

The protestors, mindful that Friday also marks the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Beijing, used the anniversary of the 8-8-88 uprising to highlight China's role in supporting Myanmar's notoriously brutish military regime.

On August 8, 1988, thousands of pro-democracy protestors took to the streets in Yangon demanding the end of 26 years of military rule. Their demands were met with bullets and a bloodbath that left an estimated 3,000 dead.

Bangkok - Thailand's rice exports were expected to fall from an estimated 10 million tons this year to 8 million to 8.5 million in 2009 as India returns to the international market, media reports said Friday.

Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter for the past four decades, has benefited this year from India's and Vietnam's temporary bans on rice exports to assure a sufficient supply for their domestic markets.

London, Aug. 7 : Thailand’s former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has dismissed reports that he wants to sell the Manchester City football club due to financial difficulties.

Expressing his dismay over the way talks with potential commercial and business partners have been interpreted, Shinawatra, who has been charged with corruption back in Thailand, said that there was no truth to rumour that he was engaged in a sell out.