Bangkok - Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej has approved the appointment of a respected career diplomat as the country's next foreign minister amid a deepening political crisis in the country, the government announced Monday. 

Saroj Chavamaviraj, 66, was named the new foreign minister after royal approval was granted Sunday, a government announcement broadcast on Thai television said.

Saroj rose to be permanent secretary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry for four years before his final posting as ambassador to France. He retired from the ministry in 2002.

Bangkok - Embattled Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej on Monday denied charges that he had broken the constitution by hosting a television cooking show while holding the premiership, claiming the programme had been done on a freelance basis.

In May, a group of Thai senators charged Samak with violating the constitution by continuing his job as a TV presenter on his personal cooking show, Chim pai, bon pai 
(Tasting and Complaining), after he had been appointed prime minister on February 6.

Bangkok - Embattled Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej claimed Sunday he would attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month to explain the country's political situation to the international community.

In his weekly "Talking Samak Style" Sunday television programme, the prime minister said he was not worried about a military coup occurring while he is in New York at UN annual meeting which starts on September 23.

Bangkok - A flash flood killed one woman in Thailand's northern province of

Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has chosen a respected career diplomat to become the country's next foreign minister at a time of heightening political crisis for his government, official sources said Saturday.

Samak has named Saroj Chavamaviraj, 66, the new foreign minister and on Friday submitted the appointment to Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej for approval, a foreign ministry source confirmed.

Saroj retired in 2002 as ambassador to France. Prior to his Paris posting he was permanent secretary of the foreign ministry for four years.

Bangkok - Nattahan Sirichotphaisal, a Bangkok landlord, is an angry woman. She is one of thousands of die-hard members of the People's Alliance for Democracy 
(PAD) who seized Government House on August 26 and have been there since, transforming the once immaculate office compound of the state executive into a smelly public park.

The PAD, a Bangkok-based movement born three years ago out of the growing public frustration with the self-serving rule of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, returned to the capital's streets on May 25 with a new goal - the resignation of current Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej.