By Amy Sawitta Lefevre BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand's military seized power last year with a promise to eventually restore democracy. On Sunday, a student was taken from hospital by plainclothes agents and charged with defaming Thailand's widely revered royalty. On Monday, it emerged that a factory worker was charged with sedition and mocking King Bhumibol Adulyadej's dog.
Read moreBy Paul Carsten WUZHEN, China (Reuters) – China's President Xi Jinping laid out his vision for the Internet on Wednesday, calling for a new status quo where Internet sovereignty rests in the hands of nations controlling the flow of information. “Each country should join hands and together curb the abuse of information technology, oppose network surveillance and hacking, and fight against a cyberspace arms race,” Xi told China's second World Internet Conference. Since Xi took China's helm in early 2013, he has presided over a centralization of domestic Internet governance and broader efforts to control, and often censor, the flow of information online, experts say.
Read moreBy Tova Cohen TEL AVIV (Reuters) – A five-minute chat with an executive from Israeli start-up MyCheck was enough to spark the interest of Mariano Belinky, managing partner at Banco Santander's venture capital division. After more formal follow-up meetings, the Spanish bank made its first foray into Israel, investing an undisclosed sum in MyCheck, which develops customized mobile payment apps for restaurant chains such as The Cheesecake Factory. With many clients in the hospitality sector, Santander was intrigued by the possibility of providing “a new and better solution for our clients,” Belinky told Reuters at a financial technology (fintech) event hosted by Santander in Tel Aviv last month.
Read moreBy Khettiya Jittapong BANGKOK, (Reuters) – Unfazed by Thailand’s faltering economy, businesses are penciling in bigger budgets for digital advertising as they target Thai consumers via smartphone apps, social networking forums and video-sharing websites. Digital advertising spending this year is forecast to jump by two-thirds to a record 9.9 billion baht ($277.47 million) in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, according to the Digital Advertising Association (Thailand) (DAAT)
Read more