Court orders Thai PM to resign

BANGKOK, Sept 9 (Agencies) Thailand's Constitutional Court ordered Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej to stand down Tuesday, accusing him of breaking the law by hosting cooking shows on commercial television while in office.br Lawmakers will choose a new premier and Samak will stay on in a caretaker capacity alongside his ministers. His People Power Party-led coalition, which controls 315 of 480 parliamentary seats, said earlier they will re-elect him. brThe court ruling adds to pressure on Samak, who's already been forced out of his ceremonial office compound by a group of more than 10,000, mostly middle-class Bangkok protesters demanding his resignation. Samak, elected in December with the support of poor, rural voters, has repeatedly said he wouldn't quit or call elections. br``It's quite a ridiculous issue,'' said Giles Ji Ungpakorn, a political science lecturer at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. ``It just shows how the opposition will pick up on any minutia to make an anti-democratic attack on an elected leader.''br