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Myanmar’s Return to the Opium Poppy Fields
Lahu hill-tribe girl holds a bunch of opium poppies as she joined her tribe in eradicating of illegal opium poppy at Lwe San Sone in Myanmar’s Shan State
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BANG LAEM – Nearly a decade ago, Myanmar seemed on course to wipe out the opium fields and heroin jungle labs along its eastern border, the notorious Golden Triangle.
Today, valley after valley in these mist-shrouded mountains is covered with resplendent opium poppies, tended by farmers who perch on steep hillsides to harvest the plant’s sticky, intoxicating sap.
Poppy cultivation in Myanmar has nearly tripled since 2006, reaching close to 150,000 acres, according to surveys carried out by the United Nations. Yet even that steep rise fails to capture the full extent of Myanmar’s resurgence as a major player in the global heroin business. Over the last few years, an increasing number of farmers here have produced two opium crops a year, experts say; the second crop is not included in the United Nations surveys.
A young child stays close to his mother as she gathers opium resin from one of the many poppy fields in Phekon Township, southern Shan State
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Growing opium poppies is illegal in Myanmar, but farmers in this remote and desperately poor region say they have few viable options.
“We don’t want to grow poppy our whole lives,” said Sang Phae, 36, a farmer who spent nearly a decade in Thailand and returned with knowledge of modern cultivation techniques. “We know this is not good for society, and other countries don’t like it. But there’s no other way for us now.”
Myanmar remains a distant second to Afghanistan in global production of opium, the key ingredient in heroin. The United Nations estimates 550,000 acres in Afghanistan were dedicated to growing poppy last year, more than three times the area farmed in Myanmar. But Golden Triangle heroin has a reputation for superior quality and fetches much higher prices, especially in China, which appears to be the primary market.
Until the 1980s, Myanmar was the world’s largest supplier of heroin. Afghan production surged around the turn of the century, and supplies from the Golden Triangle plummeted when China pressured Myanmar ethnic groups along its border to stop growing poppy.
But instead of disappearing, opium production migrated south, away from the Chinese border, into areas of Myanmar controlled by a patchwork of ethnic groups, some of them allied with the government, some of them hostile. Although the government controls the big towns, upland areas are the fiefs of militias and ethnic armies, and the new center of the opium-growing business.
United States officials have long maintained that the Shan State Army South is involved in the drug trade
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Myanmar’s return to drug trafficking, which also includes a thriving trade in methamphetamine, comes as the country opens up to the world and sheds the shackles of five decades of isolation and dictatorship. With the government preoccupied with the challenges of a budding democracy, opium money is lining the pockets of officials charged with cracking down on the illegal trade.
“The government turns a blind eye,” said John M. Whalen, the director of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration office in Myanmar until he retired in June. Even local government officials and military officers not directly involved in the trade are “paid to look the other way,” he said.
The Myanmar military, which is battling a number of ethnic armies even as the government professes peace, is wary of cracking down on drugs, fearing it could jeopardize tenuous alliances it has built with other militias, he said.
“You have various militia groups that are allowed to carry on because the government needs them,” said Mr. Whalen, who is now a director at Search, a Singapore-based consultancy.
Here in Bang Laem, poppies are grown in the mountainous backcountry controlled by longtime adversaries of the central government, the southern faction of the Shan State Army, a group that like many other upland ethnic groups has been fighting for autonomy from the central government.
Known as a “black zone,” the area is beyond government control and generally off-limits to foreigners. When a team of United Nations officials and journalists entered recently, the anti-narcotic police officers escorting them stayed behind. In early December, a week before the visit, a policeman was shot in a clash with rebels, United Nations officials said.
United States officials have long maintained that the Shan State Army South is involved in the drug trade, but a spokesman for the group, Sai Hla, said it was a “priority to eliminate the drug trade as much as we can.”
Those who accuse the group of being involved in the drug trade are “aiming to discredit the S.S.A. and our struggle,” he said.
Farmers tend to an opium crop in southern Shan State.
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Opium poppies have been used medicinally in this part of Myanmar for as long as anyone can remember. Small amounts of raw opium are used to treat fevers and stomach ailments, as a salve for snake bites and to treat ailing farm animals. But it was less than a decade ago that farmers took on opium as their main cash crop, abandoning cheroot tobacco, which is used for cigars.
Opium is not only more profitable, but the traffickers also help finance the cultivation. The opium boom drew farmers from other parts of Myanmar, and each year migrants have cleared swaths of hillside jungle to plant more poppies.
For farmers inured to conflict — almost everyone has a tale of being forced to flee the area when rival armies and militias battled — poppy has been a low-risk cash crop. It takes only four months from planting to harvest, and the bounty is portable: A year’s harvest for a typical farmer would fit inside a pillowcase.
“For many people in this country opium is not a problem, it’s the solution — a way for small-scale farmers to increase incomes to buy salt, rice, medicines and other essentials,” said Tom Kramer, a researcher with the Transnational Institute, an organization based in the Netherlands that tracks illicit drugs.
Villagers here say they find themselves locked into a treacherous opium economy. Brokers come to buy the raw opium as soon as it is harvested, but villagers must also reckon with the thuggish elements of the underground economy, including countless requests for payoffs, often at gunpoint.
“You can get double or triple from poppy, but you have to pay taxes to so many people,” said Ba Sang Jyan, 73, a grandmother who owns a small grocery store and has an opium field in her backyard.
Ms. Jyan and other villagers offer a long list of people they pay off: the police, the national army, the Shan State Army and military intelligence officers.
The United Nations has persuaded families here to dedicate part of their fields to coffee plants, a pilot project led by Jochen Wiese
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There is no electricity in the village, no government office or police station nearby, and before this year, when the United Nations carved out a dirt road that winds up a mountainside, the only access to the village was a rutted dirt footpath.
The United Nations has persuaded families here to dedicate part of their fields to coffee plants, a pilot project led by Jochen Wiese, an official with the United Nations anti-narcotics office who spent nearly three decades in Peru and started a successful crop substitution program there for farmers of coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine.
Crop substitution programs have failed numerous times before in Myanmar, notably with buckwheat and sugar cane, both of which were difficult to carry over dilapidated roads. Mr. Wiese says he is confident that he can make a name for Myanmar coffee and leverage his connections to make sure the coffee makes it to market.
Farmers say they are willing to try cultivating coffee, which takes three years to produce beans, but are not yet ready to abandon their poppy fields.
“We’d love to stop producing opium as soon as possible,” said Nang Wan, 23, who watched over her toddler as her husband harvested opium sap. “But if you only plant coffee, you’ll have nothing to eat.”
In December, Mr. Wiese spent three days answering a barrage of skeptical questions from opium farmers about coffee prices and whether he had the funds and the commitment of international donors who are helping finance the coffee program.
“We won’t overcome the drug problem here,” Mr. Wiese said in an interview. “But you have to show people that there is a possibility to change from an illegal economy. What we are doing here is just a first step.”
Harvesting for Heroin in Myammar
A recent report indicates that since Trudeau’s announcement of his gun buyback program four years ago, almost none of the banned firearms have been surrendered.
The federal government plans to purchase 2,063 firearm models from retailers following the enactment of Bill C-21, which amends various Acts and introduces certain consequential changes related to firearms. It was granted royal assent on December 15 of last year.
This ban immediately criminalized the actions of federally-licensed firearms owners regarding the purchase, sale, transportation, importation, exportation, or use of hundreds of thousands of rifles and shotguns that were previously legal.
The gun ban focused on what it termed ‘assault-style weapons,’ which are, in reality, traditional semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have enjoyed popularity among hunters and sport shooters for over a century.
In May 2020, the federal government enacted an Order-in-Council that prohibited 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms and outlined specific components of the newly banned firearms. Property owners must adhere to the law by October 2023.
Trudeau’s Buyback Hasn’t Happened
“In the announcement regarding the ban, the prime minister stated that the government would seize the prohibited firearms, assuring that their lawful owners would be ‘grandfathered’ or compensated fairly.” “That hasn’t happened,” criminologist Gary Mauser told Rebel News.
Mauser projected expenses ranging from $2.6 billion to $6.7 billion. The figure reflects the compensation costs amounting to $756 million, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
“The projected expenses for gathering the illegal firearms are estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $7 billion.” “This range estimate increases to between $2.647 billion and $7 billion when compensation costs to owners are factored in,” Mauser stated.
Figures requested by Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs concerning firearms prohibited due to the May 1, 2020 Order In Council reveal that $72 million has been allocated to the firearm “buyback” program, yet not a single firearm has been confiscated to date.
In a recent revelation, Public Safety Canada disclosed that the federal government allocated a staggering $41,094,556, as prompted by an order paper question from Conservative Senator Don Plett last September, yet yielded no tangible outcomes.
An internal memo from late 2019 revealed that the Liberals projected their politically motivated harassment would incur a cost of $1.8 billion.
Enforcement efforts Questioned
By December 2023, estimates from TheGunBlog.ca indicate that the Liberals and RCMP had incurred or were responsible for approximately $30 million in personnel expenses related to the enforcement efforts. The union representing the police service previously stated that the effort to confiscate firearms is a “misdirected effort” aimed at ensuring public safety.
“This action diverts crucial personnel, resources, and funding from tackling the more pressing and escalating issue of criminal use of illegal firearms,” stated the National Police Federation (NPF).
The Canadian Sporting Arms & Ammunition Association (CSAAA), representing firearms retailers, has stated it will have “zero involvement” in the confiscation of these firearms. Even Canada Post held back from providing assistance due to safety concerns.
The consultant previously assessed that retailers are sitting on almost $1 billion worth of inventory that cannot be sold or returned to suppliers because of the Order-In-Council.
“Despite the ongoing confusion surrounding the ban, after four years, we ought to be able to address one crucial question.” Has the prohibition enhanced safety for Canadians? Mauser asks.
Illegally Obtained Firearms are the Problem
Statistics Canada reports a 10% increase in firearm-related violent crime between 2020 and 2022, rising from 12,614 incidents to 13,937 incidents. In that timeframe, the incidence of firearm-related violent crime increased from 33.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021 to 36.7 incidents the subsequent year.
“This marks the highest rate documented since the collection of comparable data began in 2009,” the criminologist explains.
Supplementary DataData indicates that firearm homicides have risen since 2020. “The issue lies not with lawfully-held firearms,” Mauser stated.
Firearms that have been banned under the Order-in-Council continue to be securely stored in the safes of their lawful owners. The individuals underwent a thorough vetting process by the RCMP and are subject to nightly monitoring to ensure there are no infractions that could pose a risk to public safety.
“The firearms involved in homicides were seldom legally owned weapons wielded by their rightful owners,” Mauser continues. The number of offenses linked to organized crime has surged from 4,810 in 2016 to a staggering 13,056 in 2020.
“If those in power … aim to diminish crime and enhance public safety, they ought to implement strategies that effectively focus on offenders and utilize our limited tax resources judiciously to reach these objectives,” he stated.
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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’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.
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 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.
SOURCE | CNN
(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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