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Tourists in Thailand Raise Concerns Over Taxi Scams, Garbage and Air Quality

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Thailand’s Tourism Council of Thailand, reports the most common complaint among foreign tourists is overpriced taxi services, followed by poor garbage management and air quality.

A quarterly survey, which polled 200 Western tourists in Thailand during the fourth quarter of 2022, found that satisfaction with taxi services received the lowest score of 3.5 out of 5, with tourists indicating that this is the most critical problem that needs to be addressed right away.

According to the survey of tourists in Bangkok, they are dissatisfied with what they consider unfair treatment, as taxi drivers frequently only take passengers who agree to pay a fare without using the meter, allowing drivers to arbitrarily charge higher prices for their service.

Thailand’s Tourism Council of Thailand president Chamnan Srisawat stated that the government can assist in finding solutions to this problem by collaborating with private taxi firms to offer a different type of taxi service with a distinct label or sign, such as a white-colored taxi, to ensure fares are based on the driver’s meter.

He believes that if the distinct taxis become popular among tourists, they will be able to compete with traditional taxis because tourists will only seek this service.

Tourists Complain About Garbage

Another source of concern for tourists from Europe and the United States is the airport entry process, which received a score of 3.45 out of 5.

The European and US tourists also emphasized the issues of garbage at many popular tourist destinations, as well as air pollution from hazardous PM2.5 fine particulate matter.

In response to these concerns, the the Tourism Council of Thailand urged the government on Monday to increase its budget for the ten most popular tourism provinces, strengthen natural resource preservation programs, and expand garbage disposal capacity, particularly on the islands.

To avoid overcrowding, the council suggested limiting capacity at some popular attractions, which could help maintain a positive perception of Thai tourism. According to the survey, 50% of respondents had previously visited Thailand. 98% were travelling for pleasure, with 93% choosing Bangkok and 50% Phuket as their destination.

Tourists from the United States spent an average of 2,000-3,000 baht per night on accommodation, with a stay of 14-15 days per trip. Their spending in Thailand averaged 96,269 baht per person, including other expenses.

The majority of European tourists chose a room priced between 1,000 and 2,000 baht per night, staying in Thailand for an average of 12-13 days and spending an average of 88,661 baht on their trip.

Police Officer Demands 60K From Chinese Tourist For Vaping

A police officer in Pattaya, Thailand has been transferred to an inactive post after allegedly demanding 60,000 baht from a Chinese tourist for possession of an e-cigarette. His transfer came as a result of a Channel 3 news report and accompanying photos that aired on Tuesday.

A Chinese tour guide was said to have sent a message to other guides in his group saying that a tourist in his care had been detained by a police officer who demanded a 60,000 baht fine for possessing a vape.

The amount was reduced to 30,000 baht after some haggling. In Thailand, vaping devices are illegal. The incident allegedly occurred on January 28 in Pattaya.

After learning about the report, Chon Buri police superintendent Pol Maj Gen Kampol Leelaprapakorn sent an urgent letter to Pattaya police chief requesting that the matter be investigated.

The officer mentioned in the report was identified as Pol Snr Sgt Maj Noppakrit Pornwatanathanakij, a traffic police officer at Pattaya station.

Pol Maj Gen Kampol transferred him outside Pattaya on Tuesday to help with the operations centre at Chon Buri police headquarters.

A fact-finding committee has been formed to investigate the alleged bribe solicitation. It was tasked with compiling all evidence, including examining surveillance camera recordings from the area where the alleged extortion occurred. If there is evidence against the officer, the report will be used in court.

As ordered, Pol Snr Sgt Maj Noppakrit reported to the Chon Buri police chief yesterday. He denied extorting money from the Chinese tourist over the phone.

Yesterday, the director of the Office of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission Region 2 went to Pattaya police station to monitor the case.

Taiwanese actress accuses Thai police of corruption

Last month, a Taiwanese actress made headlines in Thailand after claiming that Thai police forced her to pay a bribe during her visits to Bangkok in January. The actress advised others to exercise caution when visiting the country.

Before asking about visas, the police conducted a body search and searched their pockets, bags, and wallets, she said.

Her visa was a visa on arrival, but the police said it was unacceptable and that it had to be printed on the passport with an official emblem only, according to Charlene.

Charlene An, posted on Instagram that her taxi was stopped by police in Bangkok and she was forced out. She claims that the group recorded a video of the search but that the officers told them to delete it.

She pleaded with the officers to let them go, and the negotiation lasted about two hours before a police officer approached her and demanded 27,000 baht.

Charlene stated that after she paid the cops, the officers called a taxi for them and let them go.

She also stated that five other Korean women were stopped at the checkpoint and that she was unsure if they were also forced to pay a bribe.

“I will never return to Thailand, and I would like to warn Taiwanese people to be cautious when visiting Thailand, and not carry a lot of cash in their wallets,” she said.

This week, her story made headlines in Taiwan and went viral in Thailand.

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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.

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

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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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