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Thailand Vice Minister Foresees Strengthened Partnership with India

Thailand Vice Minister Foresees Strengthened Partnership with IndiaThailand Vice Minister Foresees Strengthened Partnership with India

(CTN News) – Thailand’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sihasak Phuangketkeow, has expressed confidence that bilateral ties with India will strengthen and evolve into a strategic partnership, bolstering the two nations’ regional and global partnerships.

Evolution of India-Thailand Relations: From Look East to Act East Policy

During a lecture on “How Can Thailand and India be Strategic Partners?” organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs, the visiting dignitary stated that there had been a lot of foreign policy redirection since the Cold War period when the distance between the two countries grew.

Phuangketkeow stated, “The truth is that there was some gap in our connection due to the Cold War. So the view from Bangkok was not the same as the one from New Delhi. Of course, with the end of the Cold War, much has changed. And I believe we have seen a lot of realignment of relations.”

“The Cold War prompted a significant shift in foreign policy. Also, I believe it has a lot to do with internal changes in India, such as reforms and opening up. And a lot of it is due to developments in my region, specifically East Asia. As a result, India and ASEAN, as well as India and East Asia, have developed stronger ties,” he said.

Phuangketkeow stated that efforts to establish a strategic relationship between Thailand and India, initially discussed 12 years ago, needed to be accelerated.
“And I believe this began in 1991, when your Prime Minister at the time, Prime Minister (Narasimha) Rao, unveiled the Look East Policy.

Following that, we’ve seen India move closer to the region. India became a full conversation participant in 1995. And then, I believe, in 2002, we elevated our conversation relations to the summit level. I need to ask my deputy permanent secretary here, no. 2005.”

India-Thailand relations

He described 2012 as a key year for India-Thailand relations: “And then the year 2012 was significant because India became our strategic partner.” And, if you recall, in 2014, Prime Minister Modi proclaimed the continuation of the Look East, Act East programme. 2002, India became comprehensive, and we established a comprehensive strategic alliance with ASEAN.

So the evolution of the relationship, the advancements, and the broader dynamics of the area have all positively impacted Thailand-India’s partnership.”

Phuangketkeow remarked that India and Thailand would form strategic cooperation due to the profound development of the world system. He also discussed the rise of the Indo-Pacific.

He stated, “Looking ahead, I am confident that our alliance will grow stronger and will not be limited to bilateral relations. It will be a regional relationship, with hopes of expanding to a global partnership in the future.”

“I am convinced that our collaboration will grow and, hopefully, become a strategic alliance because of the expansion of the Indo-Pacific area, which you have mentioned as a significant change in the international system. When I joined the foreign ministry 40 years ago, the name Indo-Pacific did not exist. “We only had South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia,” he explained.

During Thailand’s Prime Minister’s visit to India in January 2012, which coincided with the 65th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations, the two countries signed six agreements in areas ranging from defence, security, and trade to combating terrorism and piracy, as well as an agreement on a Free Trade Area (FTA) in goods, services, and investment, FDI, and a legal framework to deal with non-state actors and subversive elements that pose a common problem for both countries. Thus, the process of forming a more comprehensive collaboration began.

Phuangketkeow stated, “And then, as the economies of East Asia began to move, we discussed the East Asian economy. Then the US sought to be a part of East Asia’s expanding economies. We had cooperation spread across both sides of the Pacific Rim, resulting in Asia-Pacific cooperation.

The Indo-Pacific region is already a commonly used word. Indo-Pacific will significantly impact our collaboration today and in the future. But what is the Indo-Pacific? I don’t think it’s a geographical region per se.

I believe it is a geopolitical and geoeconomic construct. What does it reflect? It symbolises the great transformational changes that have occurred throughout the planet.”

India and Thailand are major regional partners connecting South and Southeast Asia. They work closely with the ASEAN, East Asia Summit (EAS), and Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) groups.

The visiting Thai minister highlighted the world’s revolutionary shifts, stating that the balance of power had shifted from the West to the East, and people were even talking about the Asian century.

He claimed that the Indo-Pacific community demonstrates two major developments, namely the emergence of India and China.

“First, the balance of power shifted from the West to the East. And now we’re all talking about the Asian century.

We are in the Asian century, but will we be able to sustain it? That depends on our ability to meet the upcoming difficulties. But the Indo-Pacific community, which is not yet a community but maybe a community with a tiny sea, symbolises, in my opinion, two important developments. First, let us consider China’s rise. Second, the growth of India.”

The Indo-Pacific’s Growing Economic and Strategic Significance

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar praised India’s foreign policy, saying that people talk about India’s rising role and the extraordinary way it has been able to carve out its “special brand of foreign policy,” which he described as “independent and constructive.”

“Talking about India’s ascent is quite fashionable these days. Certainly, especially under your current foreign minister, people talk about India’s expanding role, growing influence, and the remarkable way India has been able to carve out its own brand of foreign policy, a brand that is independent but also constructive, a brand that maintains India’s strategic autonomy in the face of growing geopolitical competition,” he said.

He stated that the Indo-Pacific region is becoming increasingly economically and strategically important. He remarked that ASEAN’s rise will have an impact on India-Thailand relations.

He stated, “I believe the term Indo-Pacific also reflects the connections between the two oceans in terms of the important sea lanes of transport and communication that connect the region.”

As a result, the Indian and Pacific Oceans have combined to form a single strategic space or domain. As a result, freedom of navigation, sea lane security, and maritime security are critical issues for everyone in the Indo-Pacific.

And now we have an Indo-Pacific region that is becoming increasingly important economically and strategically. And this has a significant impact on the direction of our collaboration.”

And I forgot to emphasise that our alliance will be shaped by another significant development: the rise of ASEAN, which consists of ten nations. Our combined economy is currently the world’s fifth largest. Of course, India alone is the world’s fifth-largest economy.

We hope that if we get things right by 2030, we will be the world’s fourth-largest economy. And we also take pride in that, while in Germany a few days ago, I informed my German colleagues that we believe ourselves to be the second most successful regional organisation after the EU,” he said. (ANI)

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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.

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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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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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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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