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Thailand’s Alcohol Control Laws: Debate Intensifies as Parliament Faces Four Drafts

Thailand's Alcohol Control Laws Debate Intensifies as Parliament Faces Four Drafts

(CTN News) — Four draft alcohol restriction measures will shortly be introduced in Parliament, but none appear to offer a compromise to satisfy everyone.

Two drafts, one presented by the Public Health Ministry’s Disease Control Department (DCD) and the other by an anti-alcohol group, call for stricter controls, ostensibly due to concerns about the health and other consequences of drinking.

Current Alcohol Control Measures in Thailand

The two other proposals, one produced by a pro-alcohol group and the other by Move Forward MP and craft-beer champion Taopiphop Limjittrakorn, aim to shatter the industry’s monopolistic conditions, which are dominated by a small number of brewing behemoths.

Along with these, the government’s eight-point recommendation will enter the debate.

Thailand has been one of the countries with strong limits on the promotion, sale, and consumption of alcohol since the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act was passed in 2008.

This Act prohibits advertising that directly or indirectly promotes an alcoholic beverage’s brand or trademark.

Displaying even a photograph of a glass of beer might result in a large fine.

“I’ve heard that one restaurant was fined close to 1 million baht once,” said Asst Prof Dr. Charoen Charoenchai, a lecturer at the Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi’s Faculty of Agricultural Technology.

Charoen, who leads the organization behind one of the proposed alcohol liberalization bills, feels authorities have tightened control to the point that there is almost no room to breathe.

“I don’t think this Alcohol Beverage Control Law is normal since it authorizes the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to add new stipulations.”

“Normally, legal changes should come from the legislature,” the lecturer stated.

Rumors say that the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board intends to label packages with images highlighting the risks of alcohol consumption.

Charoen claimed that authorities and officials would be given inappropriate powers if the DCD’s plan became law.

For example, officials could inspect brewers and merchants selling alcohol without a search warrant.

There are concerns that this would lead to corruption and harassment by unscrupulous officials.

“After reviewing the versions submitted by the DCD and the anti-alcohol group, I can conclude that their content is extreme. “It’s as if they want to prohibit any public mention of alcohol,” Charoen stated.

The DCD draft would also increase the maximum penalty for an offending manufacturer or importer from Bt500,000 to Bt1 million, plus up to one year in jail, or both.

According to Charoen, such a rigid approach would limit many people’s freedom and ability to earn a living.

Businesses that rely on tourists, for example, were concerned about disturbing images appearing on the packaging of alcoholic beverages, he stated.

He stated that the severe regulation also affects his field of education; while teaching about the creation of alcoholic beverages, the law prevents him from openly sharing his knowledge with his students.

“I can’t talk about content that can be useful, even though as a lecturer, I should be serving the public with my academic knowledge,” he told the audience.

“Similarly, manufacturers can’t communicate about their products with consumers either.”

Supapong Puenglampu, who represents small-scale liquor manufacturers, lamented that, despite having a liquor license and satisfying all manufacturing and sanitary criteria, alcohol producers like him continue to confront several issues under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.

“If we attempt to offer product information, our actions are interpreted as encouraging drinking. How can we promote our goods without describing what distinguishes it from competitors?”

He stated that while small and local producers must express their local identity, displaying a trademark or emblem can be difficult.

“Small manufacturers like ourselves are summoned to court.” If we cannot afford a legal battle, we will have to pay a fine at the Office of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.”

The Charoen-led group’s proposed bill aims to allow alcoholic beverages to be sold from vending machines, in businesses near campuses, and through round-the-clock promotional activities.

The draft offered by the Move Forward MP follows the same lines.

For example, it would remove restrictions on selling alcohol during specific hours, allowing people to drink wherever they wish, including public parks and educational institutions.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, seeing that all four drafts reflect opposite sides of the discussion, entrusted PM’s Secretary-General Prommin Lertsuridej with developing suggestions for Parliament to consider alongside the foursome.

The eight-point suggestion, already approved by the Cabinet, aims to loosen Thailand’s strict alcohol consumption restrictions.

For example, it supports the selling of alcohol in hotels or venues near schoolchildren, as well as stadiums and concert halls.

It also advises repealing the prohibition on selling alcohol through vending machines and permitting marketing and discounts.

The era Watcharapranee, director of Stop-Drink Network Thailand, stated that the eight-point recommendation would weaken the country’s alcohol laws and benefit alcohol-related companies such as pubs and bars.

“The people will pay the price if you only please investors and businesses,” he said.

“If the consumption of alcohol rises, you will see more fatal road accidents from drunk driving.”

According to the National Statistical Office, the number of alcohol drinkers in Thailand has decreased by 2% since the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act was implemented in 2008.

The percentage of overall road-accident casualties hospitalized due to drunk driving during Thailand’s infamous “7 dangerous days” around the Songkran and New Year holidays has also decreased from 40% to 26 percent.

Before it was implemented, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act received 13 million signatures of support, including Theera’s.

According to Associate Professor, Dr. Udomsak Saengow of Walailak University, the alcohol-control law is indeed useful, but those in authority are too consumed with the idea of liberalizing the sector to realize its merits.

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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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