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Northern Thailand’s Tourism Sector Fears Disaster Zones Designation Over PM2.5 Air Quality

haze Chiang Mai, northern thailand

Year after year, inhabitants of northern Thailand, particularly Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Mae Hong Son, have braced themselves for suffocating PM2.5 air pollution. Thailand’s northern provinces have consistently been named the world’s worst PM2.5 air quality zones.

Chiang Mai had the world’s most dangerous PM2.5 hazardous dust particles number one spot in 2023 and 2024.

The effect has had a significant impact on the public healthcare system, while residents have purchased air purifiers and face masks to protect themselves. Those with resources can obtain private health insurance, but the majority of the province’s population cannot.

Opposition political parties, doctors, and civic groups are pressing the government to consider declaring the affected provinces as disaster zones.

Though the haze could have serious long-term consequences for tourism if tourists become aware of the problem and choose alternative sites with better air, the administration has stated that it does not want to declare these regions disaster zones.

With the fiscal budget allocation postponed until next month, opposition political parties requested the government on Saturday to declare Chiang Mai a disaster region, claiming that this status would allow the province to spend an additional budget to assist manage forest fires.

However, the government and some people objected to the announcement, claiming that it would cause insurance companies to deny claims for occurrences that occurred within the disaster region.

haze Chiang Mai

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin stated that the government needed to defend the tourism industry. He stated that the decision to postpone the disaster designation was the product of careful consideration with authorities, since such a step could dissuade tourists from visiting Thailand.

Punlop Saejew, president of the Chiang Mai Tourism Council, said a disaster declaration would undoubtedly reduce visitor traffic, even if the sources of the haze have yet to be determined.

He stated that from March 1 to 16, Chiang Mai had direct flights with over 52,000 tourist arrivals, producing at least 1 billion baht for the province, particularly in tourism supply chains.

Mr Punlop warned that without tourists, tourism firms could run up debts, resulting in an avalanche of non-performing loans.

He previously stated that a framework such as the Clean Air Act is critical for dealing with PM2.5 haze.

According to Mr Punlop, the solution to the air pollution problem requires all parties to work together to enact suitable legislation, including harsh penalties for rulebreakers and rich rewards for those who follow the rules.

For example, he believes that farmers who avoid slash-and-burn farming should be rewarded by the government by providing agricultural subsidies.

air quality northern thailand

Mr Punlop urged the government to set up a fund to decrease air pollution through a fundraising plan in exchange for investor incentives such as tax cuts. He suggested that the fund may be utilized to help improve local communities that burn fields by providing more ecologically friendly occupations.

Other methods include providing adequate tool and equipment to prevent burning and smog, such as assisting communities with air purifiers and firebreaks when burning.

Mr Punlop said that operators were concerned about the impact a filthy Chiang Mai might have on long-term visitors and digital nomads. These groups typically return to their home countries in March and April, when smog is at its highest, he said.

Meanwhile, commentators on the prime minister’s X account urged him to prioritize the health of Chiang Mai residents over concerns about the tourism industry.

According to Kamonsan Srivirach, chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce of Phayao, naming Chiang Mai a disaster zone due to high levels of PM2.5 dust must be carefully considered because it may harm the tourism industry.

haze northern thailand

However, a declaration would result in increased financing for disaster relief and healthcare. According to Thomas Wilson, president and CEO of Allianz Ayudhya Assurance, pollution is an issue in Thailand.

He claimed that pollution in the northern region is caused by forest fires and burning crop fields, but Bangkok is plagued by traffic congestion, manufacturing, construction, and the effects of northern provincial fires.

According to a recent article, the Public Health Ministry is concerned about the high levels of air pollution, and has lately alerted public hospitals across the country to prepare for an increase in respiratory disorders due to atmospheric conditions, according to Mr Wilson.

“Higher levels of pollution pose a health risk. According to the Respiratory Health Association, air pollution causes irritation, shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, asthma attacks, and chest pain,” he told the Bangkok Post.

“Extended exposure to air pollution increases the risk of lung cancer, heart attacks, and stroke, with a greater potential impact on people with higher respiratory rates, such as children and the elderly, outdoor workers, and those with pre-existing heart and lung conditions.

PM2.5 Dust Particles in Thailand

“An air quality index of between 150-200 potentially affects everyone, especially more sensitive groups.”

Because of differences in insurance penetration rates between the North and Bangkok, the potential impact on the private insurance industry has been mitigated in comparison to the public health consequences.

In general, Bangkok has higher health insurance penetration rates due to higher levels of money and industry education.

As a result, the impact on respiratory disease claims is expected to be greater in Bangkok than in the North, but “lower than the impact on the general population in both areas,” said Mr Wilson.

He stated that there are numerous potential government and private sector answers to this issue, including stricter enforcement of forest burning prohibitions, increased incentives to work from home and commute less wherever possible, and lower electricity consumption.

“These public and private measures should be investigated and implemented before more drastic measures,” Mr. Wilson added.

Northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai Struggles to Combat Wildfires

Northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai Struggles to Combat Wildfires

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

Google

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

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.

google

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

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.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

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.

trump

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

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.

musk trump

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.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(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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Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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