Thai opposition protesters storm foreign ministry

Hundreds of Thai opposition protesters on Monday forced their way into the foreign ministry compound in Bangkok, occupying a second major government building, a ministry spokesman said. The move came hours after demonstrators stormed the finance ministry in a dramatic escalation of their efforts to topple embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. "Several hundred protesters broke down the gate and entered the compound of the foreign ministry," said the spokesman, Sek Wannamethee. "There were many civil servants working there at the time and they (the protesters) asked them to leave and not to return to work tomorrow." The demonstrators were occupying the foreign ministry compound but did not enter the buildings, he said. The mass protests against Yingluck and her brother, ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, are the biggest since 2010 when the kingdom was rocked by its worst political bloodshed in decades with more than 90 civilians killed. The turmoil has raised fears of a fresh bout of street violence in a country that has been convulsed by several episodes of political unrest since royalist generals overthrew Thaksin in a coup in 2006.