Thailand’s Thaksin is out of jail, but can he ‘leave politics behind’?

In Thaksin Shinawatra’s hometown outside Chiang Mai, neighbours say they hope the royal pardon gifted to the tycoon offers Thailand’s most loved – and quite possibly, most loathed – politician a chance to exit the kingdom’s bear-pit politics ahead of his 77th birthday. But after eight months in jail, a coup against his government, a battery of legal cases, threats to his family, assets – and even his life – those hitched to the Shinawatra bandwagon since Thaksin won his first election in 2001...

By Aidan Jones