Скачать или смотреть Protesters remain defiant despite army crackdown

(15 May 2010) SHOTLIST
1. Demonstrators crouching down in side street as a pile of tyres blazes nearby (reportedly hiding from troops further up the main road), other men run for cover, AUDIO: gunfire/small explosion
2. Two young men creep up steps of a footbridge, carrying walkie-talkies, thick black smoke rising in foreground
3. Man lights fuse on small homemade bomb then fires it using a catapult, pan to blazing tyres on main road
4. Mid of burning tyre
5. Demonstrators run about, AUDIO: explosion
6. Tilt up on men crouching in side street
7. Bullet holes in wall
8. Men pulling tyres off back of a truck in order to burn them, tilt down to tyres on ground
9. Men, some wearing crash helmets, roll the tyres towards other tyres already on fire
10. People crouching behind partitions, black smoke in the air
STORYLINE
Clashes between the Thai army and anti-government demonstrators continued in Bangkok on Saturday as night approached.
On one of the main roads through the city, protesters burned tyres and sheltered from troops as the sound of small explosions and gunfire could be heard.
In a matter of days, the centre of the Asian metropolis has turned into a
virtual war zone with protesters firing guns and throwing homemade
explosives, firecrackers and rocks.
Troops have responded with rubber bullets and live ammunition.
The fighting has left 17 people dead and nearly 160 wounded since Thursday when the violence began after a Red Shirt leader was shot and injured by a sniper's bullet.
An army spokesman on Saturday said only five-thousdan protesters now remained in the encampment, thanks to the cordon soldiers set up
a few miles (kilometers) around it to prevent Red Shirts from going in.
But fighting spread to several streets leading to the encampment, even as the army set up barricades in an attempt to seal off the area, where shops, hotels and businesses remained closed.
In a message from New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed to both sides to "do all within their power to avoid further violence and loss of life".
The Red Shirts, mostly rural poor, began camping in the capital on 12 March to try to force out Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
About 10-thousand barricaded themselves in a protest zone in Rajprasong, Bangkok's premier shopping and diplomatic enclave.
They set up a perimeter of tyres and bamboo stakes, refusing to leave until Abhisit dissolved parliament and called new elections.
The protesters claim his coalition government came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military and that it is indifferent to the poor.
In several rounds of violence since then, a total 46 people have been killed and at least 1,620 wounded, according to a government toll that includes the most recent clashes.
The spiralling violence raised concerns that Thailand - a longtime tourism magnet that promotes its easygoing culture as the "Land of Smiles" - was teetering toward instability.

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