ASEAN+6 meeting cancelled by protests

The "red shirt" protesters in the employ of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have broken into the conference building, forcing the government of Thailand to cancel the ASEAN+6 meeting scheduled to begin this weekend. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the current Prime Minister has declared the entire area of Pattaya to be under a state of emergency.

The cancellation is a huge embarrassment for Abhisit's government, which came to power in December via parliamentary defections the opposition says were engineered by the military.

The weekend's events will raise questions about how enduring his government can be after four prime ministers over the last 15 months have failed to resolve Thailand's deep political rifts.

That almost underplays the seriousness of the problem.

The government has been reduced to evacuating by helicopter those leaders that arrived early.