Thousands of supporters of ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra held their first anti-government rally Saturday since their protests earlier this month turned violent and were forcibly stopped by the army.
Meanwhile, one of Thaksin’s chief critics was released from a hospital Saturday under tight security, eight days after a brazen assassination attempt left bullet shards in his skull.

Votes have been held in Thailand for 29 parliamentary seats, seen as the first test of support for the new coalition government of PM Abhisit Vejjajiva.
His Democrat Party-led coalition came to power in December and only has a narrow majority in parliament.
The previous leadership was forced out by a court ruling and months of anti-government protests.
The court ruling also banned 29 MPs from politics, triggering by-elections across 22 states.
The previous governing party, allied to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is hoping to pick up enough seats to weaken the new …

(CNN) — At 44-years-old Abhisit Vejjajiva is Thailand’s youngest prime minister in more than 60 years. But perhaps more immediately significantly, he is the country’s third prime minister in four months after a period of immense upheaval in Thailand.
Thailand’s recent political turmoil, which included national demonstrations and the forced closures of international airports, dates back to the 2006 coup that overthrew former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the former People’s Power Party leader.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Abhisit Vejjajiva — a patrician 44-year-old with an Oxford education — became Thailand’s prime minister on Monday amid hopes that he can calm the political storms that have battered the country for the past three years.
But untested at the pinnacle of power and said to lack decisiveness, he could face one of the roughest rides in modern Thai history.

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Victorious anti-government protesters lifted their siege of Bangkok’s two airports Wednesday while leaders of the ousted government named a caretaker prime minister to lead the politically chaotic kingdom.
The country’s immediate crisis, which virtually severed Thailand’s air links to the outside world for a week, appeared to be over and the People’s Alliance for Democracy said it was ending six months of daily anti-government protests. But the alliance warned it would be on the streets again if a new government tried to return to its past …

Thailand’s constitutional court has dissolved the governing People Power Party (PPP) saying there had been vote fraud during the last election.
The party’s leaders, including Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, were also banned from politics for five years.
But, under the constitution most of its MPs can keep their seats under another party name, and should be able to form another government, correspondents say.

BANGKOK (AFP) — A grenade attack killed an anti-government protester at a besieged Bangkok airport Tuesday, as further unrest forced a key hearing on the possible dissolution of the ruling party to move.
The incidents raised tensions in an increasingly bloody political stand-off that began a week ago, stranding about 350,000 frustrated travellers and causing massive damage to Thailand’s economy.

Thai protesters are leaving the prime minister’s office after a three-month sit-in, moving instead to reinforce a paralysing anti-government blockade of the country’s two airports.
Leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) trying to force Somchai Wongsawat, the prime minister, to resign said on Monday they were worried by recent grenade attacks.
The attacks have killed two protesters and wounded dozens more at Government House, the prime minister’s office, in the capital Bangkok.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Protesters laying siege to Bangkok’s two airports braced for a battle with security forces on Friday after Thailand’s prime minister declared a state of emergency to end a blockade threatening to cripple the economy.
People’s Alliance of Democracy (PAD) “security guards,” armed with sticks and metal bars, manned makeshift fortified roadblocks on the expressway leading to the capital’s $4 billion Suvarnabhumi airport, shut since Tuesday.

Thai riot police fled their checkpoint outside Bangkok’s besieged international airport today when they were attacked by several hundred armed anti-government protesters.
Some 150 officers stationed half a mile down the expressway leading to Suvarnabhumi airport’s terminal piled into their vehicles and left as a convoy of demonstrators drove towards them.
As the police vehicles passed, the protesters hurled firecrackers at them and took swings at their windscreens with iron bars.