Alms offering to Buddhist monks in Thai deep South

SONGKHLA, May 18 (TNA) - Senior officials and Buddhists on Saturday presented alms to monks in 323 temples in Thailand’s four southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla, as well as cash to school teachers in the violence-plagued Thai far South. The ceremony was held at the conference room of the Hat Yai Municipality. Similar activities are held on a monthly basis to assist monks and teachersliving in the restive southern border region. More than 5,000 people, including students and teachers, have been killed in the Thai deep since January 2004. In another development on Saturday, a bomb exploded on the second floor of the Asia Hotel in Narathiwat’s Sungai Kolok District, wounding a man and five women. The hotel was hit by a carbomb on July 20, 2012. (TNA)