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Thailand’s Retirement Visa Income Requirement in Question Due to Foreign Gangs

Thailand's Retirement Visa Income Requirement in Question Due to Foreign Gangs

The police in Thailand are now looking into five major biker gangs based in the country after arresting the leader, an Austrian national, and some members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

The arrest of gang boss “Mr Thomas” follows the June murder of Hans Peter Walter Mack, 62, a German property trader in Nong Prue district, Chon Buri, by a gang member, Olaf Thorsten Brinkmann.

Police also detained three more suspects in the murder case: Petra Christl Grundgreif, 54, Nicole Frevel, 52, and Shahrukh Karim Uddin, 27.

According to Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn, deputy national police chief, authorities are still attempting to eliminate crimes committed by foreign gangs in Thailand.

Five major gangs are on our radar, he said, listing them as the Outlaws Motorcycle Club or Outlaws MC, Hells Angels Motorcycle Club or Hells Angels, Bandidos Motorcycle Club or Bandido Nation, Mongols Motorcycle Club or Mongol Brotherhood and Vagos Motorcycle Club or Green Nation.

He added that the Outlaws had networks in Phuket and Koh Samui in Surat Thani and other parts of the country, primarily tourist spots.

Members of the gang typically ride large motorbikes such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles, have tattoos, and are involved in narcotic drug distribution as well as other criminal activities such as assault, extortion, theft, loan-sharking, fraud, money laundering, attempted murder, or murder.

He claims that most of the gangs in Thailand are run by Australians and are multinational outlaw motorcycle organizations with members from all over the world.

Some members travel to Thailand and dwell in tourist areas such as Phuket, Pattaya, and Koh Samui.

Their intended audience consists of foreigners. They demand protection costs from foreigners who wish to do business in cities where the gang is active, and they may even kidnap them for money.

“They don’t harm Thais because they know they’ll get in more trouble than foreigners who will soon fly back to their home countries,” he explained.

Changing Immigration Laws

According to Pol Gen Surachate, the gang members picked Thailand because of the lack of strict law enforcement and corrupt politicians.

As an example, he cited the Immigration Act. He claims that the 1979 law needs to be updated and revised.

For example, he said that acquiring a retirement visa is simple, adding that the law requires any foreigner over 50 to have at least 800,000 baht in their bank account or an income certificate with a monthly wage of at least 65,000 baht. That threshold needs to be higher and aid in screening qualified applications.

A lack of bank statement inspection by Immigration Bureau (IB) personnel allows some immigrants to disguise their bank accounts.

Some even receive assistance from visa firms or IB officials, like the February case in which 107 immigration officers assisted more than 3,000 Chinese nationals involved in “grey” businesses in obtaining visas, he claimed.

Stronger visa requirements could help keep gang members and individuals on international criminal blacklists out of the country.

“Foreigners do not feel safe as long as mafia gangs exist.” They might wish to avoid visiting Pattaya or investing in the Eastern Seaboard. This causes significant harm to the country,” he warned.

Safety of International Visitors in Thailand

According to Pol Gen Surachate, police must create trust among locals and visitors. They must uphold the law and safeguard the safety of international visitors.

“We will root out bad actors not only among gangs, but also among police officers and agencies dealing with foreigners.” “When foreign visitors come to Thailand, we need to make them feel safe,” he stated.

Another example he gave was the kidnapping a 22-year-old Chinese student from her Chinese family for a ransom of 500,000 yuan (2.3 million baht).

In April, the student was discovered abused and murdered, with her body thrown in a ditch in Nonthaburi. China apprehended the kidnappers.

The news of the tragedy circulated quickly, scaring off many Chinese guests who decided not to visit the kingdom. In March, police detained three Chinese nationals for kidnapping a fellow citizen in Bangkok and extorting 3.2 million baht from her.

He added that the Chinese embassy warned its nationals about scams and frauds to keep them from falling victim. The occurrences demonstrate that Chinese visitors to Thailand are concerned about their safety.

“If we cannot suppress crimes against foreigners, not only Chinese visitors will avoid the place; visitors from other countries, such as those from Europe, will also avoid the place,” he stated.

Once a new government is in place, he will request that the new cabinet alter the immigration law, particularly regarding visa extensions, through the police chief.

“We will make the law tough to screen out bad people,” he said, “but it will also be a tool to help foreigners, especially investors, who can obtain a five-year visa without having to be checked every year.”

Regarding biker gangs, he stated that the Outlaws gang had been expelled from Pattaya. The police have expanded their probe into the group to include Phuket and Koh Samui.

“There will be no such crime gangs if police strictly enforce the law.” But if we slack off or become comfortable accepting bribes, international criminal organizations will scent it and travel to Thailand to cause havoc. “We must prevent that from happening for the sake of everyone’s safety,” he stated.

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

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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.

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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

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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.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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