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Thai school students pose with Thai soldiers on an armored vehicle manning a street in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai, the hometown of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted from a coup Friday, Sept. 22, 2006. Family members of deposed Thaksin are still in Thailand amid speculation that they stayed behind to protect his vast assets against possible confiscation by the country's new military rulers, officials and local media said Saturday. (AP Photo/Wichai Taprieu)

THAILAND’S new military leaders yesterday moved to tighten their grip on power, restricting political activities and taking over legislative powers as former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra broke his silence on his ousting, saying that he would be taking a “deserved rest”. With Thaksin laying low in London after his Tuesday night overthrow, the coup leaders moved to place the tycoon-turned-politician’s vast assets under scrutiny, amid mounting calls for his prosecution for alleged corruption. In Bangkok, a spokesman for the coup group — which yesterday released the official English translation of its name, the Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy...

Thai PM begins new regime in exile Richard Lloyd Parry, David Brown and Richard Beeston September 21, 2006 THAILAND'S deposed Prime Minister began a new life as a political refugee in London last night, where he started to rally supporters and took the first steps towards establishing a government in exile. As the leader of the military coup tightened his grip over the country and announced that a new Prime Minister would be appointed in two weeks’ time, Thaksin Shinawatra touched down at Gatwick from New York. He was accompanied by several aides and was expected to be joined by...

BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai military launched a coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday night, circling his offices with tanks, seizing control of TV stations and declaring a provisional authority pledging loyalty to the king. The army commander took over the government and declared martial law. An announcement on Thai television declared that a "Council of Administrative Reform" with King Bhumibol Adulyadej as head of state had seized power in Bangkok and nearby provinces without any resistance. "The armed forces commander and the national police commander have successfully taken over Bangkok and the surrounding area in order to...

CHARLOTTE -- A University-area restaurant employee was treated for minor injuries following an explosion Wednesday night. An employee of the Thai House, in the Grand Promenade shopping center, stayed after hours to do some cleaning and the explosion was triggered when the employee set off 20 aerosol pesticide defoggers too close to the pilot light of a gas stove. “When it was contacted by the pilot lights on the gas equipment, it caused sort of a spontaneous explosion,” said property manager Mark Hanna. Firefighters at Station 27, which is within walking distance of the restaurant, say they felt the explosion....

Thailand's far south is caught up in a separatist insurgency that has claimed the lives of 1,300 people in less than three years. In the first of a series of articles from the region, the BBC's Kate McGeown looks at how the violence is affecting local people. Every day Maikhao Maungrong and Dayoh Daeyo sell their produce side-by-side in Narathiwat market. Over the years they have got to know each other well, whiling away the time by gossiping about their lives. They also share a common concern about the attacks going on around them - the bombings, shootings and other...

Nakhon Ratchasima _ Police raided an isolated hut in a national park yesterday seizing a large cache of weapons and ammunition and arresting a man accused of supplying arms to separatists in the deep South. The operation in Tab Lan National Park, in Khon Buri district, followed a tip-off that firearms were being smuggled into the country from Cambodia, police said. The weapons were said to have been shipped through Sa Kaeo's Ta Phraya and Aranyaprathet districts and were about to be sent to the restive South. Police said they arrested Somsak Thawornrat as he attemped to flee and seized...

The Karen Women's Organization is investigating allegations that a 14-year-old Burmese Karen girl was raped by a Thai soldier on Monday, one day after Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had visited her refugee camp. KWO officer Ler Pwe, who has taken responsibility for the case, told The Irrawaddy that the rape occurred near the Mae La refugee camp on the Thai/Burmese border, when the girl, who had only been at the camp for one month, was out herding goats with her 7-year-old brother. A Thai soldier is believed to have approached the pair, raped the girl twice and offered 30...

N Korea 'kidnapped Thai woman' Anocha Panjoy's family have not seen her for nearly 30 years Thailand's government is investigating claims that a Thai woman missing since 1978 was kidnapped by North Korean agents and is now living there. Relatives of the woman, Anocha Panjoy, were alerted to her possible fate by an article written by a US man who recently left North Korea. Pyongyang has already "informally denied" abducting the woman, said Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkon. North Korea has previously admitted kidnapping Japanese and South Koreans. The missing Thai woman, Anocha Panjoy, 51, lived in Sankampaeng district in...

THAILAND & INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC FRONT by B.Raman Indicators available since March, 2002, that the International Islamic Front (IIF) formed by Osama bin Laden in 1998 has been trying to extend its activities to southern Thailand have now been strengthened by the recent recrudescence of acts of violence in southern Thailand. 2. These indicators spoke of a surprisingly large number of Muslims from Thailand studying in the madrasas of Pakistan, some of them run by the five Pakistani components of the IIF. These components are the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which has now been co-ordinating the activities of the IIF due to the...

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Ties between Malaysia and Thailand soured further this week over mounting unrest in southern Thailand, and the Thai foreign minister said on Tuesday the row needed to be quickly resolved. The neighbours are both founder members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and have long had friendly relations, but an insurgency by Muslims in southern Thailand, which borders Muslim-majority Malaysia, has become a cause for concern. More than 900 people have died in 21 months of unrest in the Buddhist kingdom's south. Rebels killed a monk and two teenagers in a...

Some 3,000 "core militants" received military training in Libya before joining the Islamic insurgency in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, a top general said Wednesday. "The militants have advanced over the last 20 years, as the core members went to receive military training in Libya for four years, just like our soldiers train," General Panlop Pinmanee told a seminar of 100 security officials. "When they returned they became the chief operators in the south. Those militants have (the) same capacity as our commandos. There are 1,000 of them in each province and all together there are 30,000 sympathisers across three provinces," he...

Five rangers were killed and one seriously wounded at a checkpoint in Narathiwat's Cho Airong district late yesterday. The attack occurred about 6pm when a group of about 10 men arrived in a pick-up truck at a checkpoint on the Yaning-Cho Airong road, police said. When rangers manning the checkpoint walked up to the vehicle, the men opened fire, killing five and seriously wounding one of them. The assailants then fled. In Yala's Krong Pinang district, the decapitated body of an elderly unidentified man was found yesterday by the side of a road. He was apparently the victim of a...

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has long complained of press criticism. But he sought to turn the tables Thursday with a new tactic - sounding a buzzer every time reporters ask questions he deems "not constructive." To the surprise of journalists and colleagues alike, Thaksin raised a handheld buzzer - which displayed an "X" sign - from behind the podium to indicate his disapproval of some questions asked at the first in a new series of weekly news conferences. The button-pushing Thaksin sounded the alarm when a Thai newspaperman asked why the government had failed to seek...

Thailand's prime minister is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement operation, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet's reputation, a news report said on Wednesday. "Who did it? Tell me," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra asked his ministers at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, triggering a round of banter and causing some to squirm in their chairs, The Nation newspaper said. Last week, a woman -- being sued for defamation by a clinic after she claimed it gave her

BANGKOK, Thailand - Farmer Amphol Wangboon was hesitant to give up his beloved Thong Khaow for marriage until he found her the perfect match and a dowry he couldn't refuse: truckloads of fresh grass, hay, maize and $2,400. So Thong Khaow and her new mate, Thong Kham — a pair of rare dwarf Brahman cattle — were married Sunday morning in a traditional Thai ceremony featuring a banquet for more than 2,000 human guests in central Sa Kaew province. The animals wore silk outfits and jasmine garlands. Other beasts, including goats, also attended the wedding. Amphol said Thong Kham's owner,...

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Attackers in southern Thailand slashed the necks of a couple, almost severing their heads in the latest killings attributed to Islamic separatists in the region, police said Friday. The couple, Jad Suwanchatri, 52, and his wife, Serm, 51, had stopped their motorcycle to clear a log from a road in Yala province when assailants shot Jad and then cut the throats of the couple, police Lt. Somporn Ritthirat said Friday. The couple's dog, which was in a sidecar, also was slashed to death, he said. The couple were rubber plantation workers, Buddhists and members of a...

Beheadings 'aim to force out Thai Buddhists' By Sebastien Berger in Bangkok (Filed: 24/06/2005) Islamist militants in southern Thailand are trying to terrify Buddhist residents into fleeing, its prime minister said yesterday after a man was publicly beheaded. The murder of Lek Pongpla, 34, in Narathiwat province was the fifth beheading in a fortnight and the first to be carried out before a witness. Two men arrived on a motorcycle at the teashop in Cho-Ai-Rong, and one shot the victim in the back before decapitating him and putting the head into a fertiliser sack. The men fled and the sack...

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - A lawmaker from Thailand's ruling party fell to his death Wednesday from his 10th floor apartment, followed a few hours later by a woman with whom he had been quarreling, police said. The body of Attapol Sanitwongchai, a 39-year-old member of the Thai Rak Thai Party, was found on the ground outside his Bangkok condominium, police Lt. Col. Sompatara Thongkomol said. Police are investigating whether Attapol jumped or was pushed, he said. The lawmaker from northeastern Udon Thani province had quarreled with a woman in the apartment before plunging to his death, police said. After Attapol's...