Thailand's capital was breathing easier yesterday as barriers protecting Bangkok from the country's worst floods in half a century held together and the Government said floodwaters ravaging provinces just north of the capital had begun receding for the first time.
Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of an ousted Thai leader, vowed on Monday to work for national reconciliation as she formally became the country's first female prime minister.
The sister of Thailand's fugitive former prime minister has led his loyalists to a landslide election victory, a stunning rout of the military-backed government that last year crushed protests by his supporters with a bloody crackdown that left the capital in flames.
Southern Thailand faced more torrential rain after heavy downpours caused at least 15 deaths and forced the Thai navy to help evacuate hundreds of tourists stranded on some of the country's famous resort islands.
The mother and brother of a young New Zealand woman who died while on holiday in Thailand will bring her body home.
Suspected Muslim insurgents opened fire on a grocery store in Thailand's insurgency-plagued south today, killing five Buddhist bystanders, police said.
Getting more Bangkok for your buck is fraught with pitfalls for rookie Westerners.
Thailand is a deeply divided society, and is likely to remain a powder keg until key problems are resolved, a visiting lecturer says.
The Red Shirt anti-government protesters have gone home, but Thailand's tourism industry is still seeing red.
Downtown Bangkok has become a flaming battleground after an army assault forced anti-government protest leaders to surrender, enraging followers who shot grenades and set fire to landmark buildings, cloaking the skyline in black smoke.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) is investigating a media report a New Zealander was wounded in a clash between the Thai Army and protesters in the capital Bangkok.
Thai soldiers with armoured vehicles have stormed into a fortified encampment occupied by anti-government protesters, breaking through bamboo-and-tire barricades in a major military offensive in the heart of Bangkok.
The Thai government said today it would accept a cease-fire offer from a "Red Shirt" protest leader if their fighters end raging street battles and return to their main camp in central Bangkok, as the death toll from five days of violence rose to 37.
Anti-government unrest boiling over in downtown Bangkok spread to other areas of the capital and Thailand as the military defended its use of force in a crackdown that has left 30 civilians dead in four days.
A renegade army general accused of leading a paramilitary force among Thailand's Red Shirt protesters has been shot in the head while speaking with foreign reporters as the government prepared to blockade the protesters' camp in downtown Bangkok.
Both government and protesters mourned their dead last night after a night of savage street fighting that left 21 dead, but neither side appeared ready to compromise to end the political stalemate that has bedeviled Thailand for five years and threatens more violence.
Protesters in Thailand announced a full weekend of anti-government activities starting with a massive procession through Bangkok followed by "blood painting," their latest shock tactic aimed at forcing new elections.
Protest leaders in Bangkok vowed to collect blood from tens of thousands of anti-government activists and splash it onto the Thai government headquarters in a symbolic sacrifice to press their demands for new elections.
