<p>Human-rights lawyer Somchai Homlaor warned yesterday that any crackdown on criticism of the monarchy is essentially futile and will have a negative impact on the institution itself. </p>

<p>Royalist intellectuals have cried foul over an idea to apply the political discourse of &#39;Rajprachasamasai&#39; in support of requests for a royal pardon by His Majesty the King for deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. </p>

<p>WANTED: &quot;neutral&quot; person to help negotiate for Thailand&#39;s political reconciliation and peace. Lucrative benefits in term of fame if successful, but apply at your own risk. </p>

<p>A court has held that police and civilian officials who killed 19 young men in the far south of Thailand early on April 28, 2004, were acting in self-defense. The defendants said they shot the men because they had been under attack, and the Songkhla provincial court ruled in September that the policemen&rsquo;s testimonies were consistent and believable. </p>

<p><span class="apple-style-span"><span>With military takeovers enjoying a certain popularity, Thailand could easily be called &lsquo;&rsquo;the land of coups&rsquo;&rsquo;. But anti-coup sentiments, now building up, may work to thwart the country&rsquo;s 19th putsch since becoming a constitutional monarchy in 1932.</span></span><span><br /></span></p>

<p>The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plans to spend about 100 million to 500 million baht to build a gateway to block websites with contents defaming the royal institution. </p>

<p> It&#39;s film festival time in the Thai capital, but many movie enthusiasts still feel, well, left in the dark by the recent banning of the Japanese-Thai film &#39;Children of the Dark&#39;, which was deemed too sensitive by the authorities.</p>

<p>Any hope that Tuesday&#39;s Supreme Court ruling on the Ratchadaphisek land deal, that handed Thaksin Shinawatra a two-year jail term, will put an end to the on-going political strife has quickly evaporated with the anti-Thaksin People&#39;s Alliance for Democracy declaring it will continue its marathon protest and Thaksin remarking from London that the verdict was &quot;politically motivated&quot;.</p>

<p>Ousted former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Thursday that a two-year corruption sentence against him was politically motivated. Thaksin said in a statement that after hearing the judgement, &quot;I am still confused; there is no evidence of fraud, corruption nor abuse of power.&quot;</p>

<p> Thailand&rsquo;s political crisis is deepening divisions at all levels of society, especially since a violent police crackdown on anti-government protesters on October 7, according to academics, activists and others who have watched events unfold in recent months.</p>

<pre><span class="Apple-style-span">Now in this game of smoke and mirrors every side paints their own picture of what happened on&nbsp;7 October 2008.</span></pre>

<p>Amid all the reporting about the latest chaos in Bangkok was a remark from a very dangerous man who usually knows something about who is pulling the strings and why. </p>