News
Nearly 60,000 Chinese Tourists Cancel Thailand Visit After Siam Paragon Mall Shooting

After the shooting at Siam Paragon on October 3, which shook the confidence of Chinese tourists in Thailand, hoteliers and tourism businesses in Chiang Mai are urging the government to tighten gun laws to safeguard the safety of the tourism sector.
After the shooting at Siam Paragon, which left three dead (including a Chinese tourist) and four injured, almost 60,000 Chinese visitors have cancelled their travels to Thailand. After the incident, the number of Chinese tourists arriving in Thailand dropped by 9.2 percent, from 650,000 to 590,000.
Prior to the pandemic, China was Thailand’s most important foreign market, with an expected 11 million Chinese visitors this year.
Officials in the tourism industry estimate that only roughly 5 million people will visit the country this year. Since there are so many Chinese visitors, five Chinese airlines have established service to the province of Chiang Mai.
The list includes companies including Air China, Juneyao Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, and Spring Airlines.
After the shooting in the northern province, the Bangkok Post reached out to hoteliers, tourism businesses, and tourism officials in Chiang Mai to get their take on the issue and suggestions for how the government might secure the safety of tourists from all over the world.
Assistant manager Chutidech Promkaewngarm of Standard Tour Co Ltd, a prominent northern region tour operator, told the Bangkok Post that the shooting death of a Chinese woman during the spree will momentarily impair confidence among tourists.
Although he acknowledged that some Chinese tour groups had kept their reservations, many others had delayed their trips to Thailand.
Witnesses at the site posted their accounts on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, saying that their first trip to Thailand would be their last. He also added that many Chinese netizens had posted that they would never visit a place where gun possession is not forbidden.
“The number of Chinese tourists is now less than 50% of that in 2019 or before Covid-19,” said Mr. Chutidech.
According to him, Standard Tour handled all 20,000 Chinese tourists every month in 2019. His company currently brings between 8,000 and 9,000 Chinese visitors to every month, with over 70% of them being family groups.
Mr. Chutidech speculated that a number of factors, beyond the incident in Bangkok, may have contributed to the decline in Chinese tourists.
Many Chinese sectors still aren’t back to full health. “If we want Chinese tourists to come back, we need to keep an eye out during the high season and major holidays like Loy Krathong, New Year’s Day, and Songkran,” he said.
Mr. Chutidech, however, expressed optimism, stating that he thinks the tourism industry in the North should have a positive outlook.
Chiang Mai Airport will begin operating around the clock in November so that it can accommodate the greatest number of planes possible.
The vice president of the Chiang Mai Chamber of Commerce and managing director of Pacific World Chiangmai, Somrit Haikum, told the Bangkok Post that the shooting was not a usual incident that would likely shake the confidence of tourists.
To prevent a recurrence, however, the government must take preventative action, such as tightening restrictions on access to firearms.
To lessen its reliance on tourists from a single country, Mr. Somrit said Thailand should repair its reputation and explore new markets in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. He suggested that northern area hotels adopt a greener strategy in light of the growing number of eco-conscious travellers who care about issues like carbon neutrality.
“We at the Chiang Mai Chamber of Commerce are keeping a careful eye on developments. Thailand and the North stand to lose a lot of money in tourism if the shooting incident has any lasting effects. We won’t know for sure if tourism is suffering for a few months,” Mr. Somrit remarked.
President of the Northern Thai Hotel Association Paisarn Sukcharoen expressed concern for those whose livelihoods depend on tourism.
Over thirty percent of immediate hotel bookings were cancelled, he added, and while there may be no long-term damage to the country’s tourism industry, the number of Chinese visitors during peak season needs to be reevaluated.
According to Mr Paisarn, hotel occupancy would undoubtedly fall in the months of October and November.
Tour operators in Thailand’s south have reported that Malaysian tourists have cancelled trips to the country, adding to the decline in Chinese visitors.
“Gun control measures will restore a certain amount of confidence, but what matters is how [the government] executes them.”
To address calls for incentives to increase tourism, the government has recently changed the Building Control Act to permit independent hoteliers with less than ten rooms to register their establishments as hotels.
Mr. Paisarn warned that the country’s tourism industry, which is still struggling to recover from the effects of the pandemic, would suffer if travellers’ faith in the safety of the country was not restored.
Patthara-anong Travellers from China and Kazakhstan are flocking to Thailand thanks to the country’s new visa-free policy, according to Na Chiang Mai, head of TAT’s Northern Region. This policy will remain in effect until February of next year, or for the duration of the peak season.
She noted that the TAT’s estimate of five million Chinese visitors had proven to be too high.
The numbers suggest that in 2023, more than 4.2 million people from China will go abroad.
About 1.8 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand during the third quarter, staying for an average of four to ten days and shelling out between 30,000 and 100,000 baht.
According to Ms. Patthara-anong, there were 156,102 Chinese tourists who flew in directly from China, 62,626 from Taiwan, 38,457 from Hong Kong, and 37,000 from Malaysia between January and September.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has stated that he will meet with Chinese officials to negotiate a resolution to the dispute over the Chinese submarine Thailand has commissioned.
Delivery of the S26T Yuan-class submarine to Thailand was expected last month but has been pushed back to April 2019 because of the epidemic.
Submarine manufacturer China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Co (CSOC) offered a CHD620 diesel engine after Germany declined to sell its MTU 396 diesel engine to China due to its classification as a military-defence component.
Mr. Srettha, before leaving for China on Monday, said that he and a German cabinet member discussed the issue during his attendance at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, but that they were unable to come to a resolution.
This is a delicate situation that needs careful handling, therefore I don’t want to raise false hopes. But I feel that a transparent answer is essential. I’ll attempt to have negotiations and come up with a compromise that works for everyone,” he promised.
If you’re going to buy a submarine, make sure it can actually do its job. Could this purchase be for a surface ship instead of a submarine? But it has to accommodate the requirements of the navy and the capabilities of the sea,” Mr. Srettha remarked.
Finance Minister Mr. Srettha will be attending the 3rd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) at President Xi Jinping’s invitation, according to government spokeswoman Chai Wacharonke on Monday. The trip will last for four days.
Mr. Srettha will use his time at the BRF to promote economic connectivity, digital infrastructure, and sustainable development in Thailand to Chinese and international investors.
During his time in China, Mr. Srettha will meet with President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Qiang, and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Zhao Leji to discuss furthering the Thailand-China comprehensive strategic partnership and enhancing cooperation in trade and investment, connectivity, and people-to-people exchanges.
On Friday, following his trip to China, the prime minister will go to Saudi Arabia for the inaugural Asean-GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) Summit.

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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