Government spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalarp said Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont and Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar agreed at a meeting in Bangkok that Malaysia would sponsor 4,000 students from the South to receive vocational training in Malaysia as part of a programme to help improve education in the area.  He said the two governments would also work together to boost employment opportunities and the economy in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, which are among the country's poorest.

Surayud told reporters that he was still open to holding talks with the southern insurgents. He said the government had yet to receive any proposal or demand from the separatists, but insisted that there would be no conditions for holding talks.

The ongoing violence in the region yesterday claimed five more lives and left three soldiers injured. The bodies of two young Muslim men, aged 16 and 20, were found lying beside a motorcycle on a bridge in Yala's Yaha district, said Pol Major Prasom Luangphun. Both had been shot in the head.

In Tambon Lamai of Yala's Muang district, a gunman walked up to a takraw court and opened fire on Oh Sengsoh, 28, killing him on the spot.

In Songkhla's Saba Yoi district, village defence volunteer Adul Banyareh, 51, was killed in a drive-by shooting and two guns were stolen from him, police said.

A roadside bomb in Tambon Moh Mawee in Pattani's Yarang district injured three soldiers on patrol, two seriously.

Natcha Khanthong, 13, who was injured in the blast at an evening market in Yala on Wednesday, succumbed to her injuries yesterday, taking the death toll in the attack to three.

In Yala's Raman district, arsonists set fire to the Tambon Dern-ngam Administrative Organisation office at about 2:30am yesterday.

Three people were detained for questioning in a security sweep of Narathiwat's Tambon Bangosto yesterday.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League yesterday called on ethnic Malays to reconcile their differences with the Thai state and work for peaceful coexistence.

Dr Abdullah bin Abdul Mohsin Al-Turki made the call for better understanding from all sides in a speech titled "Muslim duties in a multicultural society" at the Yala Islamic University, Pattani campus, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in Islamic law and humanitarian work.

The Nation, AP