Misterwhisper

"If we find that any shop or manufacturing facility is involved in the use of illegally-trafficked ivory, we will revoke their business licence..."This is not good for Thailand's image," Theerapat added."

Then this move will eradicate the ivory business just as making prostitution illegal eliminated that trade. This will be great for Thailand's image. I can see the new tourist ad campaign: "Thailand. We make Disneyland look like Sodom and Gomorrah" .

Huh? Only revoke their business license when they are using illegal ivory? Why not revoke their license AND fine them heavily AND imprison them? Oh, I forgot, we're in Thailand...

Just ban ivory trading altogether, as well as the manufacturing of items from ivory. There exists not one single product that depends on the use of natural ivory.

The OP shows a photo of religious statuettes, including one of a revered monk. How is it compatible with Buddhism to know that an elephant probably had to be killed to carve these items? It's even worse for purely decorative dust collectors such as the pictured tusk carved out as a line of - ironically - elephants. Use plastic and no-one apart from an expert will be able to tell the difference anyway.

Calm down, everybody! We all know how bans are handled in this country. "Ban" is only one of those words that get thrown around a lot. Just like "hub".

Certainly neither a friend of the current, corrupt government nor the morally-depleted Shinawatra clan, I nevertheless had to notice that The Nation newspaper had to "adjust" this list to serve its agenda. While the "other newspaper" listed positions 1 through 12 consecutively in its graphic, The Nation was compelled to skip it at position 6 and instead commence with positions 47, 53 and even way, way down to position 2,213 just to bring its point across.

I'm wondering if there also might be a Ms A and Ms D involved somehow.

I think this would be a non-issue if T had not once again abused a public event to serve his own interests. Instead of restricting his opening speech to praising HM the King on the occasion of His birthday and strictly sticking to remarks concerning the Thai boxing tournament as such, he veered off into ramblings about himself and how he's being treated oh so unjustly. It all too often seems T simply doesn't have any sense of judging what is and what is not appropriate and decent in any given situation. Oh, that ego and despicable hypocrisy!

Merde! Zend 'im too ze guillotine!

Since when does blood matching take 1 month? Or did they mean DNA matching?

What that tiger allegedly did is nothing compared to what all those supposedly peace-loving Thais are doing to eachother on a daily basis. All you need to do is read the front page headlines of any local newspaper on any given day, especially the tabloids like "Khao Sod", "Daily News" or "Thai Rath".

As per me, I am siding with the tiger.

I'd say: Transfer already paid through the agent >> no tip required.

"He denied the protest leaders incited their followers to cause violence."

...except of course their well-documented repeated calls for each protester to bring bottles of petrol and setting Bangkok ablaze and other similar shenanigans.

I am flabbergasted how they can still deny this when one can find literally dozens of videos on the Internet that show them on stage and calling for such mayhem; videos, which hopefully the prosecution will use as evidence. Claiming now that none of them incited their followers to use violence is either a case of shutting one's eyes to reality or being completely delusional. Probably both.

Sure Thailand could be the hub for e-learning.

Bring up some more of these screens

And what have we e-learned today from these screens? Well, that you should NEVER EVER contact "for more information" any of the mentioned phone numbers and complain that you were unable to access a certain webpage. That is, unless you want to risk an unannounced visit by computer crime police, including a thorough screening of your hard disk and Internet browsing history. Class dismissed!

"In order to become a hub or center for something, it has to be recognised as such BY OTHERS... not by the ones setting it up and just naming it that way."

HEAR HEAR! Well said!

Roughly 1 police officer to be deployed for every 3 protesters, plus 23,000 civilian volunteers on stand-by 'just in case'. My oh my, those Siam Pitak guys must be really really dangerous.

Here are a "few" more pics, both landscape and portrait format. Mouse-over any pic for short description. These are only thumbnails at low resolution, but the originals are: Landscape shots 4000x3000 pxels, portrait shots 3000x4000 pixels. Enjoy!

It was mentioned that Thai restaurants pay up to 30% commission on food sales. Wow, thats not bad

No, those restaurants don't pay. The customer/diner effectively pays those commissions - unknowingly, of course.

Here is a random selection from my photo album (original images are all 4000x3000 pixels; jpg format):

Happy street children in Bangkok

Thai-Muslim boys in Narathiwat province

Thai-Muslim school children in Narathiwat province

Ramadan evening prayers at Narathiwat's main mosque (image 1)

Ramadan evening prayers at Narathiwat's main mosque (image 2)

My renewable 1-year visa costs me 1,900 Baht each year, and I pay 3,900 Baht for a multiple re-entry permit. Why would I want to shell out 2 million PLUS 20,000 Baht in annual membership fees? What's the incentive? Can I own land? No. Do I get tax benefits? No. Can I enter national parks free of charge? No. Do I get permanent residency? No. Will the silly 9-day reporting be scrapped? No. Oh yes, they're saying that scam card will entitle me to meet with one or another high-ranking official once a year. To discuss what? As if I would care...

I could feel offended during that festival when complete strangers, pissed as newts, flash gigantic phalluses in my face... but I say nothing, because I understand it's a time-honoured tradition.

Now go figure how many German or Italian or Swedish or Irish newspaper will waste their valuable news spaces with headlines like "German-American elected...", "Italian-American elected...", etc.

Has anyone else noticed that The Nation calls her "Thai-American", while at least one poster labelled her "American Thai"? What's "truer"?

"But for the rule of law to be effective, the Prime Minister pointed out that it must be based on a number of factors. One of the most important is equality before the law and equal treatment under the law."

If she feels so strongly about it, why doesn't she insist that the law must apply to her fugitive brother as well? Oh, hold it...

"People must truly feel that they are being treated equally and fairly."

...that's why. After all, her brother feels that he is not being treated equally and fairly, because of course all cases against him have been, and are, and always will be 'politically motivated', or so he chooses to believe in his delusional mind.

What are they going to do once they have "promoted" [to destructive mass tourism] every last square inch of the preciously few unspoilt islands and coastal ares this country still has left? Koh Chang and the other islands in the eastern Gulf already have been so busily "promoted" that they're slowly turning into another Phuket, Samui, Phang Ngan and Samet, the shining examples of how to "invigorate an already flourishing tourism industry" (just to quote the OP). I visited Koh Chang a few weeks ago and the entire place has turned into one huge construction site, with once scenic Whitesand Beach steadily developing into just yet another raunchy "beach resort" with all the negative aspects that come with that sort of "promotion": garbage everywhere, noisy bars and clubs, over-priced restaurants, motorcycles roaring up and down the main drag, a 7-Eleven every 100 metres or so and - yes - mafia types lingering on every street corner; not to forget all those "quality tourists" hanging out there, wearing 'I love Singha beer' t-shirts, Jesus sandals and WHITE TENNIS SOCKS. "Promoting" is one thing, but one also can "over-promote", or in other words, "promote the hell out of places until they've been promoted so excessively that they can be promoted no more" and have turned into shitholes. Sorry for my rambling, I just couldn't help it