News
Drug Surge Clouds Myanmar Reform
Thai soldier during annual search and destroy opium eradication operation,
CHIANGRAI TIMES -Drug manufacturing is thriving in the area known as the Golden Triangle, led by armed minority ethnic groups. The news coming out of Myanmar these days is of hope and reconciliation as the country moves from military dictatorship to fledgling democracy. But what is One of Myanmar’s biggest businesses—heroin and methamphetamine manufacturing —is thriving in the area along the Thai border known as the Golden Triangle, led by members of well-armed minority ethnic groups.
“They are pushing out a vast amount of pills,” said Maj. Gen. Somsak Nilbanjerdkul, director of a command centre set up by the Thai government to coordinate anti-drug efforts. “Democracy is flourishing in Burma, but illegal activities are moving to areas where there is a lack of law and order.”
Narcotics trail: A file photo of a Thai army official watching Myanmar from his side of the border in Chiang Rai, Thailand.
The drug increase underlines the depth of the challenges facing Myanmar, also known as Burma, as President Thein Sein pushes ahead with his reform agenda. Impoverished areas where the central government has little control remain the largest base of drug production in South-East Asia. If he cracks down on drug syndicates, Thein Sein, who was previously a military commander in the Golden Triangle region, risks alienating the very ethnic groups he is trying to woo for his programme of national reconciliation.
In the dark underworld of illicit drugs, no one can say for sure what is causing the current upswing in trafficking, but Thai officials describe it as a kind of perverse peace dividend. Thein Sein, who has been in power for 13 months, has pushed hard, and in many cases succeeded, in signing cease-fire agreements with rebel groups.
“They don’t need to fight anymore,” Thanut Choommanoo, the head of a Thai police investigative unit, said about the ethnic groups, “so they’ve deployed their soldiers into drug production”. Gen. Somsak offers another explanation for the increase.
He says there is a continued mistrust between the Myanmar government and ethnic groups and a feeling among traffickers that they better make money from illegal activities while they can.
4 million methamphetamine tablets seized in the northern province of Chiang Rai
“They are unsure about reconciliation means for them,” Gen. Somsak said. “They need to sell their illegal stuff—as much as possible.” Anti-narcotics officials on the Thai side of the border used to be able to impress their bosses when they announced seizures of tens of thousands of methamphetamine pills. That has become routine.
“Now we only get excited when we find hundreds of thousands—or millions,” said Thanut, who is based in Mae Sai, a city that is a main crossing point for traffickers from Myanmar.
The Thai authorities seized 31.3 million methamphetamine pills from October through March—an increase of 45% over the same period a year earlier, when 21.6 million pills were seized, according to a recently published Thai government report. Part of this increase is from more aggressive policing, Thanut said. But it is “undeniable”, he says, that more drugs are crossing the border.
Traffickers are using a variety of methods to get their drugs through. Often armed with grenades, they travel down small paths that cut through jungle-covered mountains. Some hide drugs in trucks carrying produce. Last year, the police found two million methamphetamine pills hidden under a pile of pumpkins. Smaller drug deliveries are simply tossed across the border. The Sai River, which separates the two countries, is so narrow that traffickers throw bags of pills to the Thai side, where accomplices pick up the drugs.
Over the past three years, corrupt officials in Thai hospitals have been complicit in the drug business, selling to Myanmar-based gangs millions of cold tablets made from pseudoephedrine, which is used in the production of methamphetamines, according to the authorities leading an ongoing investigation in Thailand. The cold pills were sent into Myanmar, processed into methamphetamines and then smuggled back across the border into Thailand, investigators say.
The cold pills were sent into Myanmar, processed into methamphetamines and then smuggled back across the border into Thailand,
An estimated 48 million cold pills have been seized or gone missing from public hospitals since 2008, according to Thailand’s Narcotics Control Board.
For decades, opium and its derivative, heroin, were the main specialities of drug gangs in the Golden Triangle, which is defined by the area where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet.
Drug syndicates began focusing more on methamphetamines in the 1990s, when Afghanistan ramped up opium production. But over the past five years, opium farming, which is the main source of income for many villages in northern Myanmar, has rebounded, according to an annual survey released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Last year, as the reforms of Thein Sein were taking hold, opium poppy cultivation increased 14% in Myanmar, the fifth consecutive annual increase, according to the survey, which is conducted using satellite imagery and helicopter surveillance.
Much of northern Myanmar is mountainous and ill-served by roads, making it relatively easy to conceal illicit activity. But the large area dedicated to growing opium poppies—43,600 hectares according to the United Nations—suggests that the local authorities are at best turning a blind eye to drug production.
Gen. Somsak said Myanmar officials along the border are “absolutely” implicated in the drug trade. Myanmar officials often drive cars that cost the equivalent of $100,000, he said.
Jason Eligh (C) of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and other representatives meet farmers in the village of War Taw, in the mountains of Shan
“Their salaries are actually lower than our sergeants’,” Gen. Somsak said. “Where do they get the money from?”
The relationship between the Myanmar government and drug trafficking is complex and intertwined in the delicate politics between the ethnic Bamar majority in Myanmar and the myriad other ethnic groups, who have fought the Myanmar military on and off for the past five decades.
Government-allied militias in the north, officially called People’s Militia Forces, are big players in the drug business. The government has supported these groups for years as a way to counterbalance the power of the largest ethnic minority groups, including the Wa, Kachin and Shan, all of which have large private armies.
Wichai Chaimongkhon, the director of the northern office of Thailand’s Narcotics Control Board, a civilian agency that oversees the anti-drug efforts along the border with Myanmar, says drug trafficking will be curtailed only if more parts of the country come under government control.
“Most of the drug production factories are in special zones,” he said, referring to areas controlled by ethnic groups. “It’s beyond the ability of its government to enforce the law there.” Wichai says there is an internal debate within ethnic groups between those who want to continue drug trafficking and those who “want to run legal businesses”.
Thailand, which is economically better developed than Myanmar, serves as both a major market for drugs from Myanmar—the government estimates Thailand has 1.2 million methamphetamine addicts—and a transit point to other countries.
Traffickers are taking advantage of Thailand’s good roads and telecommunications, using Mae Sai as a hub for drug money transactions, said Thanut, the head of the police investigative unit. Businessmen in the Myanmar border city of Tachilek cross to the Thai side to use the banking system and use Thai mobile phones to conduct their business. In a region bustling with cross-border trade, it is often difficult to distinguish legitimate businessmen from the traffickers, Thanut said.
In response to the increase in trafficking, Thailand has put in place coils of razor wire along some parts of the border, a move that seems hardly effective given the countless dirt tracks that traverse the mountainous, jungle-clad frontier.
Myanmar has vowed to make the country drug-free by 2014, a promise that is not taken literally by foreign diplomats in the country because of the enormity of the task and the deeply entrenched criminal gangs producing the drugs.
Jason Eligh, the head of Myanmar operations for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, says the Myanmar authorities have destroyed about one-third of the poppy crops this year but that the country needs longer-term solutions to eradicate illicit drugs.
During a recent visit to a poppy-growing region where the United Nations is sponsoring a programme to encourage alternative crops, Eligh offered a long list of changes needed to tackle drug production: reform the police force; build “an environment governed by rule of law”; ensure long-term peace with ethnic groups; and give the impoverished residents of northern Myanmar opportunities to make a good living beyond drug production and trafficking.
Gen. Somsak said many members of ethnic minority groups have known nothing but trafficking their entire lives. He emphasized the need to steer the younger generation toward other businesses.
“We need to create an atmosphere where they can make money other ways,” he said.
By Thomas Fuller
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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