State of emergency: Simmering tensions in Thailand boiled over into violent protest this week. The confrontation flared Oct. 7 after 8,000 demonstrators from the People’s Alliance for Democracy surrounded Parliament the previous evening, forcing the prime minister to flee over a back fence. Loyalists from the staunchly monarchist and largely middle-class opposition accuse the government of rampant corruption, vote-buying, and—perhaps most damning of all—harboring republican aspirations.