The Thai prime minister rejected calls for his resignation by thousands of anti-government protesters who ringed his office for a second day in a boisterous rally.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved the main party in the ruling coalition and banned the prime minister and 36 party executives from politics for five years.

ATTACKERS set off explosions at anti-government protest sites yesterday, wounding 51 people and raising fears of widening confrontations in Thailand’s worst political crisis that has strangled its economy and shut down its main airports.

Government supporters from the Thai countryside converged on the capital today to counter rival protesters who seized control of Bangkok’s two airports and forced the prime minister to run the country from afar.

Thousands of stranded tourists will be flown out of Thai military bases in the next 48 hours, the country’s tourism minister promised today.