"Songkran Gathering"
Pheu Thai meets for Thaksin Skype address
April 7, 2016
BANGKOK - Ex-MPs from Thailand's toppled government met Thursday for the first time since a 2014 coup for a Skype address by Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled former premier who sits at the crux of the country's political rupture.
Applause erupted among the party faithful as the 67-year-old cop-turned-telecoms magnate appeared on a sketchy Skype link from an undisclosed country.
Thaksin and his affiliated parties have won every election since 2001, even though he has lived overseas for eight years to avoid jail on a graft conviction.
He is accused of toxifying the country with corruption by the Bangkok-centric royalist elite who have skewered his governments with coups and legal cases, plunging the kingdom into a decade-long political crisis.... (read more)... http://www.nationmultimedia.com/brea...-30283486.html