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China hopes to Enhance Cooperation with Thailand

China hopes to Enhance Cooperation with Thailand

(CTN News) – In a recent meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Thai Deputy Prime Minister Don Pramudwinai, both nations expressed their mutual commitment to expanding cooperation across various sectors, focusing on regional stability, economic growth, and infrastructure development.

China-Thailand Collaboration Gains Momentum

Amidst global shifts and domestic dynamics, Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized that bilateral ties between China and Thailand would remain resilient. Wang’s confidence in Thailand’s enduring stability and growth set a positive tone for their cooperation.

Advancing Infrastructure and Combating Transnational Crime

Wang Yi underlined China’s dedication to deepening collaboration with Thailand, specifically urging the swift progress of vital projects such as the China-Thailand railway and the interlinking China-Laos-Thailand railway connections. Moreover, the call for joint action against transnational criminal activities, including telecom fraud, highlights their commitment to ensuring security and mutual prosperity.

China’s Pledge to ASEAN Development and South China Sea Peace

China reiterated its unwavering support for the ASEAN community and the importance of ASEAN centrality. The commitment to expedite consultations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea showcases China’s dedication to creating comprehensive and effective regional regulations.

Wang Yi’s vision of transforming the South China Sea into a zone of amity and cooperation highlights the nation’s commitment to peaceful regional dynamics.

Highlighting the need for regional unity, Wang Yi cautioned against external actors provoking camp-based confrontations and promoting Cold War mentalities. This call to vigilance against disruptive forces aligns with the shared goal of preserving hard-won peace and stability in the region.

Thailand’s Resolve Amidst Global Uncertainties

Deputy Prime Minister Don Pramudwinai acknowledged the current global and regional uncertainties. In response, Thailand was willing to foster greater dialogue and exchanges with China.

The shared commitment to strengthen multifaceted cooperation and facilitate projects like the China-Laos-Thailand railway connection underscores Thailand’s dedication to mutual development.

In conclusion, the recent high-level meeting between China and Thailand exemplifies their shared determination to elevate collaboration across diverse spheres. By prioritizing infrastructure, security, and regional harmony, both nations are set to contribute significantly to the stability and prosperity of the wider region.

ORIGINAL STORY:  Thailand Inks Mini-Free Trade Deal With China’s Yunnan Province To Enhance Collaboration

Thailand and China’s Yunnan province have forged a strategic mini-free trade agreement, poised to catalyze collaboration across key sectors including logistics and cross-border e-commerce.

This accord stands as a testament to their commitment towards enhancing bilateral economic ties.

Strategic Geographical Role of Yunnan Province in Strengthening Regional Trade Ties

Geographically proximate to Thailand, Yunnan province plays an instrumental role in bridging western China with the dynamic regions of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

The fruition of this agreement holds promising outcomes for Thailand, poised to amplify exports of agricultural commodities and processed fruits to the expansive Chinese market.

This remarkable accord signifies Thailand’s establishment of its eighth mini-FTA, solidifying connections with diverse zones in China, Japan, India, and South Korea.

The interlinking of Thai private sector entities with their Yunnan counterparts underscores the shared enthusiasm for collaborative endeavors between both nations’ corporate domains.

Central to the objectives of this mini-FTA is the facilitation of seamless trade interactions between Thailand and China. Impressively, the trade volume between Thailand and Yunnan soared to $2.34 billion in 2022, reflecting an impressive 17.9% surge from the preceding year.

Beyond trade augmentation, this agreement opens avenues for Thai goods to penetrate the vast Chinese market through the avenue of cross-border e-commerce.

Additionally, the cooperation agreement inked between Udon Thani Industrial City Co and Yunnan Tengjin Logistics Co ushers in enhanced logistics coordination.

Notably, the collaboration focuses on linking Thailand and China through the strategic conduit of the China-Laos high-speed railway route.

Fostering Economic Growth and Trade: Thailand-Yunnan Mini-Free Trade Accord Unveils Opportunities

The mini-free trade accord forged between Thailand and China’s Yunnan province holds substantial promise in fortifying economic bonds and amplifying trade across diverse sectors.

Among the pivotal realms of concentration, the logistics domain emerges as a linchpin, deftly facilitating the seamless movement of goods between these two spheres.

Yunnan province’s strategic adjacency to Thailand confers it a pivotal role, effectively bridging western China with the expansive landscapes of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

This geographical advantage crystallizes prospects for both nations to elevate their trade dynamics and cultivate an atmosphere of robust cooperation.

A cornerstone benefit of this accord is the positive reverberation it is poised to exert on Thailand’s agricultural sector.

The envisaged augmentation of access to the Chinese market bestows a fertile ground upon Thai agricultural exports, particularly in the domain of fruits and processed produce.

This juncture offers a momentous opportunity for Thai farmers and enterprises, allowing them to stretch their market outreach and subsequently bolster their revenue streams.

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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.

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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.

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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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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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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

shkreli

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

shkreli

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

shkreli

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP

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