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The National Office of Buddhism has received many complaints about monks riding in luxurious cars and using brand-name items even as they are supposed to live a life of restraint and simplicity. Nopparat Benjawatananun, director-general of the National Office of Buddhism, said on Sunday that many people have complained about seeing monks living a lavish lifestyle, which is in contrast to the basic anti-materialistic teachings of the religion. Recently, a video clip of three Buddhist monks riding in a private jet was uploaded to YouTube video-sharing website. In the video, the monks were wearing brand-name ear phones and sunglasses and...

(Reuters) - Steel girders jut from the low skyline of the Thai city of Udon Thani near the Laos border as workers lay cement for a new shopping mall, one of many illustrating a boom in the Thai economy beyond the bright lights of Bangkok. The malls, factories and construction sites in Thailand's northeast are emerging alongside its farms as a potent economic fuel in one of Asia's top emerging markets. Growth in Thailand, Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy, has begun to slow, but the economy of the northeast is in the grip of a boom. The economic renaissance of "Isaan",...

NONTHABURI, Thailand - The drastic rise in haemorrhage dengue fever cases has prompted the Public Health Ministry to launch a massive nationwide campaign to cope with the situation. There have been 44 deaths among the 39,029 patients in the past five months. More than 23,000 schools nationwide have been instructed to eliminate mosquito-breeding sources such as water containers. Revealing that about 50 per cent of the patients were children under-15, the Public Health Minister's permanent secretary, Dr Narong Sahamethaphat, expressed his concern over the rising number of people suffering from dengue fever and said the situation was very critical. Only...

Cotton USA has chosen Thailand as its centre in Southeast Asia to promote and expand the use of cotton from the United States, banking on the Asean Economic Community (AEC) to drive demand for the commodity. Kraipob Pangsapa, Cotton USA's Thailand representative, said the plan was in progress and an operational budget under consideration to propose to its headquarters by the end of this month. The plan includes creating brand awareness in the region for US cotton. The opening of the AEC in 2015 will pave the way for the organisation to promote US cotton to a market of 600...

Despite a three-fold rise in Thai investment in Australia over the past two years, Australian firms are still under-invested in Thailand due to the low productivity of labour and higher logistics cost, the head of the Bangkok-based bilateral business body said. "Thailand has to get very serious about productivity, the days of cheap labour are over…Thailand has to be a lot smarter and get a lot better at training, especially vocational training" said Leigh Scott-Kemmis, president of the Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce. Australia has a very strong vocational training base and as a result Bluescope, a significant Australian steel production...