The traditional roast Christmas dinner could have nearly a quarter of a million pieces of microplastic in it, according to researchers at the University of Portsmouth.
Do you know how much plastic is really in your Christmas dinner?
Researchers in England tried to find out
by cooking two different roast chicken dinners.
One with all the ingredients wrapped in plastic packaging
and the other with no plastic packaging at all.
‘’We found seven times more microplastics in the wrapped dinner than the non-wrapped dinner.”
Dr Fay Couceiro is an environmental pollution researcher at the University of Portsmouth.
“So we found about 55,000 particles in the non-wrapped dinner and about 230,000 in the wrapped dinner.’’
She says eating a similar plastic packaged meal every day for a year, would see you consume approximately 10 grammes of plastic.
”That’s equivalent to two plastic bags a year.”
Couceiro also says food is usually analyzed raw for microplastics under laboratory conditions
but this study looked at what was actually on your plate after the food had been cooked in a normal kitchen.
“Unfortunately there’s no such thing as microplastic-free food now I think. That’s because there’s so many microplastics in the air and in the soil. So as we’re speaking now there are likely to be some microplastics that are falling on here, onto the food that we’ll be eating.’’
Global plastic production is projected to double within 20 years,
while the amount of plastic waste flowing into the world’s oceans is forecast to triple in the same period.
Couceiro says there are actually higher concentrations of microplastics in our soils than in our oceans.
“I have heard people say ‘I don’t have to worry about microplastics. I don’t eat fish’ and that always worries me slightly that there’s that misunderstanding, that disconnect. Microplastics are everywhere. If you’re eating anything and drinking anything, you will be ingesting a certain number of microplastics.”
Microplastics have been found in our blood, gut and various organs…
but experts have not yet been able to say what, if any, harm it is doing to us.
“We don’t want to scare people with this. There are microplastics everywhere and we don’t know what the impacts are on human health but it’s a sensible suggestion to try to reduce them as much as possible to avert any possible negative impacts going forward. There are simple ways, as you can see from this study, we can reduce the types of plastic we have in our packaging and we can start to think about it going forward in the farming community about how we reduce the amount of plastic there too.”
Liberator Securities has released its app for commission-free stock trading and plans to fully launch the service on January 3, the company said.
The app is available for both iOS and Android devices. It allows users to trade on the SET and the Thailand Futures Exchange without any commission on trades, and will add gold and currency trading in the second quarter of 2023.
The company said the app makes trading more convenient as it saves users from having to visit branches.
“We believe that technology will facilitate the next generation of securities companies to fully operate on digital channels,” it said on its website, adding that the transition will reduce costs.
Investors can also get news and gain knowledge from updates and chats through the company’s website and social media channels.
The Securities and Exchange Commission gave the green light in March for News Network Corp to establish Liberator Securities.
Liberator charges a fee of 200 baht to open an account.
As 2022 draws to a close, it’s time to look ahead to what’s next for the IT monitoring industry. Here are some key forecasts from Paessler, the monitoring experts for IT infrastructures and networks, for the IT landscape in 2023:
Digitalization will continue to create new responsibilities for IT
Whether it is in factory floors, hospitals, energy sources or data centres, previously analogue devices and systems that were isolated from the IT world are now generating data compatible with digital systems, expanding the limits to which we can analyze and interpret data.
While industries are clamouring to address all the challenges that have come up with the rising convergence of IT and OT (operational technology), it is also equally important to consider the monitoring of the ecosystem. A major challenge here is to bring these multiple metrics and their different monitoring systems into a single view. There will be an increased focus on IT monitoring tools that will enable organizations to keep track of the changes in the ecosystem and provide a consolidated view of the data collected, simplifying the data analysis and decision-making process. As we stretch the limits of IT/OT convergence, we will need solutions that can monitor these devices and infrastructures.
Monitoring solutions will keep playing a vital role in the data centre sector
As multinationals continue to relocate their data centres to Southeast Asia (SEA), there is little doubt that the region has become a hotspot for data centre investment. In the second half of this year, Singapore’s government lifted its moratorium on data centre construction. With the Satu Data Indonesia (SDI) 2022-2024 action plan, the Indonesian government is also focusing on expanding the implementation of data structures such as data centres. While the Thailand data centre market is expected to reach US$1.03 billion by 2027.
With data centres – and the subsequent infrastructure and devices that are often spread over multiple geographic locations – comes the challenge of monitoring them. Because data centres have become an essential infrastructure for organizations across various industries, their failure means that businesses are often left inoperable. In order to ensure efficient operation, it has become paramount to keep a constant eye on the various technical equipment, operational facilities, and security, which will minimize data centre downtime. As the data centre sector continues to play a major role in multiple industries and across the SEA region, so will the monitoring solutions.
Remote monitoring from the cloud will be on the rise – but need differentiation
Today, organizations are increasingly turning to the cloud with 76% of Asia Pacific businesses planning to increase their cloud services in the next 12 months. An important aspect of cloud migration is strengthening cloud-first strategies by ensuring that various applications and IT processes can be incorporated into a cloud computing environment.
Additionally, monitoring services being offered from the cloud are increasing. And this is applicable to monitoring cloud-based components such as websites, cloud services, and cloud-based applications. When it comes to on-premises monitoring, the monitoring solutions from the cloud may face some issues as they are depending on a superfast and reliable internet connection to avoid false monitoring results due to time lags in data transmission. It’s important to take this into account and organizations will need to go with the right mix of cloud-based and on-prem monitoring tools.
A renewed focus on improving security in the IoT environment
Given the significant rise in data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber-attacks on various industries across the world, it really is no surprise that businesses across the globe are turning their attention to further strengthening their cybersecurity initiatives and strategies. However, one noticeable gap in all of this is the Internet of things (IoT) security gap.
The rapid growth of adoption and capabilities of IoT technology has skyrocketed over the past few years. By 2025, IoT spending in the Asia Pacific is predicted to reach US$437 billion. Any device that is connected to the internet is susceptible to some form of cyberattack. Apart from the fact that IoT devices inherently have very little built-in security, and that patch management can be difficult because of their physical nature, the interconnectedness of these devices, and the subsequent complex environments, pose grave security threats across the network.
Monitoring is a vital part of every security strategy, ensuring that all classic security tools like firewalls, unusual detection systems or privileged access management (PAM)-tools work flawlessly. But especially in the IoT world, monitoring has another important task. Suitable monitoring solutions can ensure physical security by integrating door-locking systems, security cameras, smoke detectors or temperature sensors into central monitoring. And businesses will look at taking these facets into consideration, going forward.
Distributed Architecture will continue to become the new normal
With concepts of hybrid working, remote offices and working from home becoming common, organizations are storing data in the cloud instead of having centralized data infrastructures, thereby moving toward networks using Software as A Service (SAAS) and Software-Defined WAN (SDWAN). With distributed architectures gaining prominence, it is critical to have the right distributed monitoring strategy in place that can be effective. Given this scenario, there will be a high demand for solutions which will provide organizations with a unified monitoring overview of multiple IT infrastructures providing benefits such as an end-user view of network performance, troubleshooting, simplifying transition to the cloud and reducing bandwidth requirements.
InnovestX reveals investment strategies for 2023 with SET Index targeted at 1,750 points
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
InnovestX believes that economic activity will continue to deteriorate in 2023 due to a gradual increase in interest rates, which increases the likelihood of a recession in developed countries such as the United States and Europe. The company anticipates that the Federal Reserve will slash interest rates in 2023 as demand is expected to decline, resulting in a dollar depreciation.
This will boost emerging markets such as the Thai stock exchange, which is anticipated to profit from capital inflows. In addition, the Thai economy is still on the path to recovery from domestic consumption with economic stimulus measures as a supporting factor, as well as positive expectations for China’s reopening in 2Q23. However, InnovestX is cautious about economic growth and earnings prospects in 2023, as well as rising risks to financial stability. The company suggests investing in top equities in 1Q23 which will gain from China’s reopening and the reviving Thai economy, namely AOT, BBL, BCP, CPALL, and MINT.
Innovest X Securities Co., Ltd. Research Group Managing Director Sukit Udomsirikul, said that during the transition period between 2022 and 2023, the world economy will exhibit three traits. To begin with, global economic growth will slow down dramatically, and the economies of developed and emerging markets will evolve differently, with the former potentially experiencing severe stagflation or at least a moderate recession. However, there is less likelihood of a severe recession in EM economies, but growth will decelerate. Second, global inflation is predicted to peak, especially in the US and EM nations, and to decline from a high base in 2023 as global demand decreases as a result of the economic slowdown. Third, Asian countries, including Thailand, are expected to continue raising their own interest rates, which means that the policy interest rate is already too high to accommodate heating inflation. Accordingly, we forecast a fundamentally driven SET Index of 1,750 points for the first quarter of 2023, with significant buying points in the zone of 1,500-1,600.
Thai markets will react favorably to China’s policy easing in 2Q23, when it is anticipated that the country will reopen because Chinese tourists account for the majority of Thailand’s tourism income and help drive net foreign inflows. Due to the ongoing energy crises and stricter monetary policy, the Eurozone will face stagflation in 2023, with economic activity declining. It is expected that inflation will continue to be over the target rate throughout 2022 and 2023. Inflationary pressures in the Eurozone, however, are likely to rise at a faster rate than previously anticipated. Exports, investments, and government expenditures will all likely slowdown in 2023, dragging down the Thai economy relative to 2022. There will be some cushioning from the worldwide economic recession thanks to the strong performance of the tourism, service, and domestic consumption sectors.
Thailand’s GDP growth will peak in the first quarter, at roughly 4%, before decelerating in the second half of the year and ending almost at 2% in 4Q23 due to 3 main reasons. First, exports will decrease as the global economy slows even further in the second half of the year. Second, while private consumption will play a significant role in propelling the economy forward, other factors like private investment and government spending will decline, both for consumption and investment. This is because the worldwide economic downturn and the slow pace of government projects’ disbursement. Third, it is projected that the tourism sector will be a major engine of economic growth, with between 21 to 25 million foreign tourists visiting Thailand, the majority of whom will remain on short haul rather than long-haul trips, generating less revenue for the nation.
Investment strategy: Under the pressure of prolonged tight financial conditions in 1Q23, risks associated with global recession, declining earnings, and financial stability are growing. The economy is still showing indications of slowing down. However, given the robustness of the U.S. economy and greater risk aversion, the dollar will continue to appreciate before reaching its top. By the end of 1Q23 to the beginning of 2Q23, the economy will likely have stabilized. In light of China’s reopening and robust domestic demands, we see opportunities to increase our position. InnovestX recommends stocks with healthy balance sheets and cash flow, profiting from China’s reopening, with increasing and recovering earnings and high growth potential. AOT, BBL, BCP, CPALL, and MINT are the top picks for 1Q23.
Summary of investment issues of individual stocks:
AOT: It is anticipated that the company will gain from China’s reopening and government tourism incentives, which will fuel domestic market growth. In 2023, the company’s earnings outlook will experience a significant turnaround.
BBL: With a planned rate hike from 1.25% to 2% in 2023, the Thai economy is poised to resume its recovery. The banking industry stands to gain from a declining US dollar because of the resulting changes in capital flows.
BCP: With the reopening of China’s markets, an uptick in demand is anticipated, which is projected to drive up commodity prices. Furthermore, it is a passive company which pays out solid dividends, both of which assist in cushioning the blow of market fluctuations.
CPALL: Domestic consumption will expand at a rate far above market predictions. Sales will continue to improve thanks to government economic stimulus measures, and the company will see more growth during the 2023 election.
MINT: The company is anticipated benefitting from China’s reopening, reduced energy costs in Europe, and a rebounding food market, aided by government economic stimulus initiatives. In addition, MINT’s stock valuation is 15-20% below those of its peers.
Avani Sukhumvit Bangkok welcomes leading Filipino film crew and cast
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2022
Branded Content
Bangkok, December 21, 2022: Ms. Chidchanok Pasinpong (centre), a general manager of Avani Sukhumvit Bangkok, welcomes the Filipino film crew, which includes the winner of the best director award from the Cannes Film Festival and “Feast” film director Mr. Brillante Mendoza (left) and actor Mr. Roger Vincent Rillon (right).
Avani Sukhumvit Bangkok is proud to be one of the official hotel sponsors for international film actor and film crews that attend the 15th World Film Festival of Bangkok.
Samsung to focus on immersive marketing, catering to Gen MZ
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
Nongluck Ajanapanya
Thai Samsung Electronics (TSE) is planning a more intense and immersive marketing campaign aimed at Generation MZ starting next year, TSE’s corporate marketing director Paramee Thongcharoen said on Tuesday.
In an exclusive interview, Paramee said that three out four people in the Asia Pacific by 2025 would be Gen MZ. The acronym stands for Generation Y or Millennial (1981-1996) and Generation Z (born after 1996).
She believes that as Gen MZ will constitute the majority of the population, they will tend to set new social trends. They have the purchasing power to purchase a wide range of products and are willing to pay more for brands that support their life goals.
Marketing campaigns from now on should focus on them, she believes.
However, the most difficult aspect of communicating with this generation is that their tastes change quickly and constantly. So, Samsung must accelerate to keep up with the changes, Paramee noted.
According to Samsung’s research, Gen MZ will value brands that can provide innovative technology with unique design to improve their overall well-being and restore a sense of freedom, energy, and excitement.
Meanwhile, Generation MZ is not afraid to express their views on social, political, and environmental issues. Therefore, they will gravitate towards brands that are proactive and supportive of their position.
Furthermore, because Gen MZ values self-expression, they prefer to buy items that can be personalised and customised. Besides, they are loyal to the brand that consistently gives something positive back to society, such as sustainability, the environment, or work-life innovation.
Paramee said that considering the characteristics of Gen MZ, Samsung’s marketing plans must be more immersive so that the group can engage with and experience Samsung’s products.
She cited several Samsung marketing campaigns that were a huge success this year, including Flexperience, the largest event for Gen MZ at Siam Square in downtown Bangkok, Samsung’s young sports talents empowering female amateur tennis players, and Samsung Innovative Camp.
“Samsung will continue to do things like this next year, but bigger and better,” she said. “We are also in discussions with our partners to improve the efficiency of the campaigns.”
Furthermore, Samsung has promised to invest in their human capital with several supportive programme and working environment that meet the need of the Gen MZ workforce as well.
Paramee said the company would continue to improve their real-time tracking and monitoring system in order to get feedback from Gen MZ and adapt the plan to best suit them, as well as eliminate plans that will not be effective.
Residents describe moment magnitude 6.4 quake struck northern California
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2022
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake jolted the extreme northern coast of California before dawn on Tuesday, injuring at least two people, damaging roads, bridges and power lines and leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity.
The tremor, which struck at 2:30 a.m. PST ( Pacific Standard Time ) and was followed by more than three dozen aftershocks, was centred 215 miles (350 km) north of San Francisco offshore of Humboldt County, a largely rural area known for its redwood forests, local seafood, lumber industry and dairy farms.
In the town of Rio Dell, residents described the horror of the moment the quake struck.
“I was lying in bed asleep, like most people, and it just kept shaking and shaking and things were crashing. The TV was coming down, the microwave, everything, like all my little knickknacks were crashing everywhere,” said Liz Peavy, a 68-year-old local resident.
“It was too scary to go under a door jamb or anything because it just kept shaking. So, it was safest to say a bed,” she added.
Jacqui Macintosh, a 28-year-old Rio Dell resident, was in the process of trying to sell her house and had a viewing booked with a potential buyer on Tuesday. Her house suffered major foundational damage in the quake.
“Now that it’s kind of set in, I’m just kind of like, you know, we’re alive. We’ve got almost all our animals… we can’t go back to the house. I don’t think this house is going to be able to be brought back,” she said.
The region also is known for relatively frequent seismic activity, although the latest quake appeared to cause more disruption than others in recent years.
Tuesday’s temblor set off one structure fire, which was quickly extinguished, and caused two other buildings to collapse, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).
The county sheriff’s office reported two people injured near the quake’s epicentre, where damage to homes and roads was widespread. One of those victims was a child with a head injury and the other was an older person with a broken hip, according to local media reports citing the sheriff’s office.
Police closed the main bridge crossing the Eel River into Ferndale, a picturesque town notable for its gingerbread-style Victorian storefronts and homes after four large cracks were discovered in the span. The California Highway Patrol also said the roadway foundation there was at risk of sliding.
The highway patrol reported at least four other roads in Humboldt County closed due to earthquake damage, and a possible gas line rupture under investigation. One section of roadway was reportedly sinking, the agency said.
While earthquakes producing noticeable shaking are routine in California, tremors at a magnitude 6.4 are less commonplace and potentially dangerous, capable of causing substantial damage to buildings, such as a partial collapse or the shifting of structures off their foundations.
Weak shaking from Tuesday’s quake, which occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 11.1 miles (17.9 km) was felt as far away as San Francisco, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
About five earthquakes of magnitudes ranging from 6.0 to 7.0 are recorded annually in California and Nevada, according to recent data cited by the Los Angeles Times.
Some 79,000 homes and businesses were without power in Ferndale and surrounding Humboldt County, according to the electric grid tracking website PowerOutage.us.
PG&E crews were out assessing the utility’s gas and electric system for any damage and hazards, which could take several days, company spokesperson Karly Hernandez said.
Signs of Salome, apochryphal nurse to baby Jesus, unearthed in Israel
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
Fresh excavations of a cave reputed to be the burial place of Salome, apocryphal nurse to the newborn Jesus, have uncovered evidence that it was both an important Jewish tomb and a Christian pilgrimage site, archeologists say.
The Book of James, among early Christian writings not included in the Bible, describes Salome as doubting the account of the virgin birth. Stricken in the arm, she holds the baby, proclaims him “a great king … born unto Israel,” and is cured.
Work to prepare the 2,000-year-old cave for public access unearthed a 350 square-metre (3,767 square foot) forecourt whose stone slabs and mosaic floors are consistent with a family tomb for prominent Jews, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said.
Also found were inscriptions – some in Arabic – and decorated oil lamps consistent with the site having served Christian pilgrims, including through to the ninth century after the Muslim conquest of the region, the IAA said.
The site, about 35 km (22 miles) southwest of Jerusalem has been known for generations as the Cave of Salome.
Earlier excavations located Jewish relics “but the surprise was the adaptation of the cave into a Christian chapel,” the IAA said. “Judging by the crosses and the dozens of inscriptions engraved on the cave walls in the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods, the chapel was dedicated to the sacred Salome.”
South Korea mulls extra days off if Christmas, Buddha birthday fall on weekends
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2022
South Korea’s ruling party has proposed that the alternative holiday bill be applied to Christmas and Buddha’s birthday, allowing for substitute days off if the two holidays fall on weekends.
People Power Party floor leader Joo Ho-young made the formal proposal to the government on Tuesday, saying it was time to consider expanding the designation of alternative holidays in a bid to boost domestic consumption and people’s right to rest as well as requests from religious circles.
“Christmas falls on Sunday this year. Normally it’s a public holiday when [people] can take an extra day off. Unfortunately, they can’t do that this year,” Joo said.
The alternative holiday bill went into effect in July 2021, allowing substitute holidays for all national holidays that happen to fall on weekends. However, public holidays like Buddha’s birthday and Christmas were excluded.
“We have 15 [national and public] holidays a year but there are slight variations depending on whether the holidays coincide with Saturdays or Sundays,” Joo said. “There will be only 13 holidays next year because of overlapping weekends.”
Joo added that the introduction of the alternative holiday system has helped stimulate domestic demand in the logistics, travel and restaurant industries.
After two weeks of intense debate at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, delegates from around the world agreed on Monday to adopt a landmark plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
In the last three years, even as the coronavirus strangled the economy and rendered tens of thousands jobless, more than 1 million Nepalis left the country to find work in faraway lands.
China expressed its hope on Monday for ties with Australia to return to the right track and develop in a sustainable manner, a day before Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong visits China.
It was, quite frankly, the most extraordinary final in the long history of the World Cup. A nail-biting, end-to-end game, full of goals, early leads and dramatic comebacks. A cliffhanger, really, in a tournament full of cliffhangers, as the staggering intensity with which it was played stretched absorbingly into extra time, and then some more, to be finally decided through penalty shootouts.
The story is told about a little boy who looked worried when he came home from school. When asked by his Dad why, he said: “We have a Christmas play tomorrow, and I am supposed to be Joseph, and I am not good at speaking.” His Dad said: “Don’t worry son. Joseph is the silent one. He has no speaking part.”
WITH the government left with little to offer except gimmicks, the economic situation is deteriorating by the day. According to a news report published in this paper’s Friday pages, large-scale manufacturing — a bellwether for economic activity — contracted by a staggering 7.75pc in October, registering a slowdown for the second straight month.
The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) anticipates air passenger traffic in 2023 to grow between 40 % and 52 per cent year on year (y-o-y), translating to between 74.6 million and 80.8 million passengers.
Vietnam is joining the “Golden Triangle of Start-ups” in Southeast Asia with its strong, young domestic market, tremendous tech talent and continuous innovation which is expected to open up growth opportunities for the region in the near future.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on December 18 reaffirmed the five-per-cent 2022 real GDP (gross domestic product) growth forecast for Cambodia that it made in September, despite fresh rounds of downward pressure brought by undergoing geopolitical conflicts and Covid-19-related woes.
The top securities regulators in the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region said on Monday that they have agreed in principle to expand the range of stocks eligible under the Stock Connect program between the two capital markets.
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