Yingluck's Promise

How come the Kingdom of Thailand has a glamorous prime minister - Yingluck Shinawatra - while Britain has a boring old public schoolboy? Oh well, beside the point really. Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is hosting delegates reviewing the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). The irony is that Thailand is the second largest importer of ivory after China. It acts as a clearing house for ivory poached in Africa and it exports tusks and artifacts made from ivory to China and India. And it is legal! Today, PM Yingluck Shinawatra promised to amend her country's laws to ban the trade in ivory (CLICK). That could be good news for elephants, which are currently being slaughtered at an alarming rate, or it could be an empty promise to impress the CITES delegates. Time will tell. Of course elephants aren't the only animals under threat. Approximately 35,000 species of animals and plants are on the endangered list (CLICK).