Thailand's authorities warned Sunday that opposition efforts to hand power to an unelected regime risked unleashing new violence, as rival protesters prepared for a showdown over the fate of the crippled government. Opposition demonstrators have delivered an ultimatum for a new leader to be appointed by Monday or they will step up efforts to topple a government clinging to power after premier Yingluck Shinawatra was ousted by the courts. \"Forming an unelected government is illegitimate and will bring more conflict and violence,\" warned Tarit Pengdith, head of the Ministry of Justice's Department of Special Investigation (DSI). The kingdom's long-running crisis broadly pits the Shinawatra family and its supporters -- mostly from northern Thailand -- against a royalist establishment with backing in Bangkok and the south. Source: AFP