Will Thaksin Shinawatra be back in power as PPP party that supports him wins the general elections in Thailand.

Last year's coup which ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra some 45 million Thais are eligible to cast their ballots as polls opened at 8 a.m. (0100 GMT), today on Sunday, 23 December 2007, with unofficial results expected by midnight,few expect the country's third election in two years will solve the country's problems.

The unrest in Thailand's Muslim-majority south has shown no signs of abating, with 10 people killed in a series of attacks and 27 wounded in a market bombing.

A single disease-causing clone of the bacterium Leptospira interrogans was behind the recent sustained outbreak of leptospirosis in Thailand, according to a new collaborative investigation by researchers in Thailand, Australia, and the UK.

Preliminary data from black box recorders has revealed bad weather caused the crash of a budget airline in the Thai resort town of Phuket last month which killed 90 people, including one Australian.

Thailand will send 800 peacekeepers to Sudan's western province of Darfur where they will join United Nations and African Union peacekeeping units at the end of the year, Thai media said Wednesday.

Communities along Thailand's border with Burma are closely watching for signs of a new wave of refugees following violence in Rangoon over the past week. At the tightly controlled Mae Sot Boundary Post, pedestrians and trucks cross the long bridge connecting Thailand and Burma.

Thailand sent the black boxes containing flight data from a plane that crashed in Phuket last weekend to the United States, where experts hope to discover what caused the accident.

Thai authorities are to set up a commission to investigate Sunday's air crash in Phuket in southern Thailand in which at least 90 people were killed, Australia's ABC radio said Monday.

At least 88 people are confirmed dead and 42 were injured after a budget airliner crashed on the Thai resort of Phuket in driving rain on Sunday.

Thailand's military-installed government has agreed to consider a European Union offer to monitor upcoming parliamentary elections.

Thailand's interim government has lifted a ban on the YouTube Internet video-sharing service, after it agreed to censor content. The service was blocked five months ago after posting what authorities said were images offensive to the Thai king.