PRESS DIGEST - Thai newspapers - July 17
BANGKOK, July 17 (Reuters) - These are some of the leading stories in Thai newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
TOP STORIES
- Thailand and Cambodia will hold an urgent meeting of the General Border Committee (GBC) to defuse tensions over the listing of Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site (BANGKOK POST)
- The Foreign Ministry has guaranteed that Deputy Prime Minister Sahas Banditkul will not face legal problems by leading the Thai delegation and signing documents at the ASEAN meeting in Singapore (THE NATION)
- The government's attempt to rewrite the constitution will widen social divisions, say army and air force chiefs who were behind the Sept. 19, 2006 coup (BANGKOK POST)
- The Election Commission (EC) will appoint two fact-finding panels to probe allegations that 61 MPs and senators violated the constitution by holding shares in the media and companies that operate state concessions (THE NATION)
BUSINESS
- The policy rate was hiked by 0.25 percentage points to 3.5 percent as the Bank of Thailand fought to protect depositors from the squeeze of rising inflation and a minus 6.6 percent return on their savings (THE NATION)
- TMB Bank TMB.BK, the country's sixth-largest bank, announced a second-quarter net profit of 1.21 billion baht, a sharp turnaround from a loss of 18.3 billion last year (BANGKOK POST)
- Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co, Japan's second-biggest life insurer, agreed to buy a 24 percent stake in privately owned Ocean Life Insurance in order to expand operations in the growing Asian market outside Japan (BANGKOK POST)
- Experts warned that the latest government measures to ease the financial burdens of low-income people could spoil consumers who will expect the subsidies to continue (BANGKOK POST) ($1=33.47 Baht) ** Looking for more information from local sources? Factiva.com has eight Thai sources including the Bangkok Post and The Nation.
