(8 Oct 2008) SHOTLIST
1. Various of street sweepers cleaning up streets
2. Various of protesters retrieving water bottles from debris
3. Various of line of riot police guarding road leading to Metropolitan Police headquarters
4. Wide of barbed wire, pan to debris scattered on ground in front of riot police
5. Wide of stage set up by protesters inside government house
6. Protesters talking on stage
7. Various of protesters making noise with clappers
8. SOUNDBITE: (Thai) Sunee Pantasaeng, protester:
"We are all hoping and dreaming of a new way of politics. I don't know if it's just a hope and dream, but we will try to get there."
9. SOUNDBITE: (Thai) Kanit Tantisirivit, protester:
"At this moment, the government should just resign or dissolve the parliament, because of what happened, and because of the attack carried out on its people. No other government in the world does that."
10. Wide of newspaper headlines
11. Close-up of Bangkok Post newspaper headline reading: (English) "Bloodshed"
12. Close-up of Daily Xpress headline reading: (English) "Black October"
13. Pan of headline reading: (English) "Bloodbath in Bangkok"
STORYLINE:
There was an uneasy calm on the streets of Bangkok on Wednesday morning, one day after police battled protesters who besieged the Parliament in their ongoing struggle to change Thailand's system of democracy.
Street sweepers were clearing away debris from Tuesday's clashes in the area around parliament.
Some protesters were seen at the site retrieving water bottles.
Riot police blocked the road leading to the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police.
The army moved into the streets of the capital while most of the protesters eventually left the area around Parliament and regrouped on the grounds of the prime minister's office, which they have occupied since August 26.
Tuesday's violent clashes between police and pro-democracy demonstrators was viewed as the worst political violence the country has suffered in more than 16 years.
One woman died and more than 400 people were injured.
The violence heightened the political uncertainty that has bedevilled Thailand since early 2006, when large protests called for Thaksin Shinawatra, the tycoon-turned-prime minister, to step down for alleged corruption and abuse of power.
A September 2006 coup ousted Thaksin, but a military-appointed interim government proved incompetent and scared away foreign investors.
Thaksin's political allies were restored to power by a December 2007 election, serving only to deepen the split between his rural majority supporters and urban-based opponents, who have made it difficult for the government to function.
The problems stayed at a boil when Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law, became prime minister.
The protesters, calling themselves the People's Alliance for Democracy, include royalists, wealthy and middle-class urban residents and union activists, all of whom feel threatened by political and social change.
The alliance claims Thailand's electoral system is susceptible to vote-buying, and that the rural majority, the Thaksin camp's power base, is not sophisticated enough to cast ballots responsibly.
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