While the country is a constitutional monarchy that holds regular elections, analysts say it is beholden to an unelected old guard.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra became the third member of her family to be removed from the job, as the nation plunged into fresh political instability.

But the reprieve for Thaksin Shinawatra, who remains a political force, did not mean that the legal troubles for him and his family were over.

President Trump has cast himself as a global peacemaker. His interventions have calmed some conflicts, while in others his role is less clear.

American demand for tropical wood that is used in motor homes, conservationists say, is accelerating the disappearance of some of the world’s largest forests.

There is no viable alternative to a tropical hardwood that grows in Southeast Asia, according to the American R.V. industry.

A series of border skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia escalated into a military conflict in July that killed dozens of people and rattled the region. As negotiations take place, Sui-Lee Wee, The New York Times’s Southeast Asia bureau chief, talks to Katrin Bennhold, a senior writer on the International desk, about the context behind the evolving dispute.

A figurehead leader, he had little real power but did endorse measures that allowed the country’s generals to extend their rule after a 2021 coup.