Thailand's next king, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, carries a son's burden of living up to a great father. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha put such talk to rest Thursday when he said, without specifically naming the crown prince, that the king had designated his successor on Dec. 28, 1972. All five of the children with the woman who became his second wife were born years before he was divorced from his first spouse. In 2001, he married another commoner, Srirasmi Koet-amphaeng, with whom he had a son, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, in 2005. Asked about the crown prince in an interview published online in 2009 by the Times of London, Thaksin said: "He's not the king yet.

Source: New Zealand Herald October 13, 2016 13:41 UTC