Queen Sirikit attends last rites of protester

Queen Sirikit of Thailand and her daughter Princess Chulabhorn on Monday paid tribute to Angkana Radubpanya-avut, an anti-government woman protester who was killed in last week's violence, during the cremation ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Nonthaburi province.

The unprecedented presence of the Queen and Princess at the cremation was seen by the royalist anti-government protesters as tacit royal support for their demand that Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat resign.

Last Tuesday saw the worst and most violent clashes between protesters and riot police in sixteen years in Thailand, wounding over 400 people. Investigation by forensics experts and a human rights commission have shown that the police used a cheap Chinese tear gas that contained an explosive powerful enough to rip craters in the ground.

That would explain why several protesters had limbs and feet blown off and three died in clashes last week with police, who insist they only fired tear gas into the crowd. The police more often use tear gas from the United States and Spain; but the Chinese gas, is cheaper, but contains RDX _ a chemical commonly used to make bombs and not a standard component of tear gas intended for crowd control. © GPD AP