Thai king 'slightly ill', misses annual speech

Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej has a throat infection and is on a drip, his daughter said yesterday after he failed to make his traditional birthday eve address amid a crippling political crisis.

Many Thais had been looking to the influential monarch, who turns 81 today, to issue a call for unity after the political maelstrom saw Bangkok's main airport shut for a week by royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters.

"Yesterday when I saw him he looked OK. He could eat what we served him, but today he had a throat infection so he could barely eat," Crown Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn said in remarks aired on national radio from Bangkok's Chitralada Palace.