BE careful, there’s no panic,” Sean Baldwin says as he places the rifle in my arms and I look through the sights at a target the size of a saucer, 10m down the hall at Morton Stadium last Tuesday morning.

Thousands of supporters of exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra surrounded Thailand’s parliament today, daring MPs to pass through their ranks to deliver a speech outlining the new government’s key policies.

Hours of sustained heavy gunfire and explosions boomed across Abidjan, commercial capital of the unrest-ridden West African nation of Ivory Coast today.