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Thailand’s Political Tensions Are Rekindling Ethnic and Regional Divisions
In the northern provinces, government supporters called the red shirts gathered in protest.
LAMPHUN – Each time Muean Chimoon leaves his wooden house in northern Thailand, he pays homage to a portrait of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a father figure and long a symbol of national unity.
“We have a king who loves everyone,” said Mr. Muean, a retired bus driver who exudes the renowned cheerful insouciance of rural Thailand.
On one side are the royalist Yellow Shirts, an intransigent coalition of the elite made up of the Thai bourgeoisie, top military brass, urban professionals
But when the conversation turns to politics, Mr. Muean’s smile disappears. He lashes out at the “arrogance” of protesters in Bangkok who want to overthrow the government, which has overwhelming support in the north and northeast.
“Bangkok has always wanted to choose their own prime minister,” Mr. Muean said. “They don’t care what northern people think — they just care about themselves.”
Thailand is the land of the Thais, of course — but also of the Lanna, Lao, Mon, Malay, Khmer and Chinese, among other ethnic groups subsumed into the country over the centuries. Eight years into Thailand’s political crisis over the influence of the prime minister’s family, some of those ethnic identities are resurfacing. The country’s political divisions roughly follow the outlines of ancient kingdoms and principalities, rekindling bygone impulses for greater autonomy from Bangkok.
“I’ve never seen the country this divided,” said Ponganand Srisai, a member of the local council in Baan Nong Tun, a rice-farming northeastern village.
Banners strung across roads in the north calling for secession have been among the most extreme expressions of the north’s bitterness toward Bangkok. The northern Lanna kingdom, including Lamphun, was annexed by Bangkok in 1899, and for decades its people have spoken a dialect distinct from the Thai officially recognized and promoted by the central government. At the time of annexation, the region had its own written language, which used a different alphabet from Thai.
Less radical have been proposals for devolution of the centralized powers of the government.
A group of local government associations and scholars, the People’s Network for a Self-Governing Administration, submitted a bill to Parliament last year calling for greater self-administration of provinces.
Prof. Dr. Thanet Charoenmuang
“We propose that power be restructured,” the group said in a statement last month. Among the proposals, which have not yet been taken up by Parliament: Provincial governors would be directly elected and more taxes would be collected and spent locally. The group says Bangkok “lacks knowledge or neglects the differences of local identities.”
Tanet Charoenmuang, a prominent commentator and proponent of greater autonomy for northern Thailand, says northerners perceive government institutions as favoring the capital at the expense of the provinces.
“Injustice has helped fertilize localization,” Mr. Tanet said. “Thailand has been an overcentralized state, and a sense of localism is quietly re-emerging.”
Much of the appeal of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her family for the north is that they have been trying to refocus government resources and attention toward rural areas in recent years, cementing the loyalty of villagers. That push started under the leadership of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a prime minister who was ousted in a coup supported by the Bangkok elites, the antecedent to the current standoff.
Government supporters say secessionist talk is a measure of their feelings of frustration, but very few are taking it seriously at this point. Yet the notion of secession appears to have been taken very seriously by the army, which vowed to investigate and bring legal action against anyone advocating leaving Thailand.
Building modern Thailand has been a painstaking and sometimes bloody process that took centuries but accelerated over the past century.
Local languages and dialects were banned from schools. Authoritarian leaders changed the country’s name from Siam to Thailand and created what today are icons as a sort of nationalist glue for the country. Pad thai, the stir-fried noodles so common in Thai restaurants, was introduced by the authorities as a national dish. The government also promoted the use of a greeting, “sawasdee,” that is used nationwide. Decisions about everything from the appointment of Buddhist clergy to the architecture of Thai temples were transferred from the provinces to Bangkok.
The Red Shirts’ core of support is in northern Thailand
Three governments supported by northern and northeastern voters have been removed from power since 2006, one — Mr. Thaksin’s — by a military coup and two in highly politicized court judgments. For the last five months, protesters in Bangkok have demanded the overthrow of the government and a reduction in the influence of the Shinawatra clan, which is from the northern city of Chiang Mai.
The prospect that a fourth democratically elected government could be removed by the courts in coming weeks has been met by seething anger in villages across the north and northeast. Protest leaders call government supporters “buffaloes,” an insult connoting upcountry ignorance.
Mr. Ponganand, the local council member from the northeast, describes southerners, who on some days make up the bulk of protesters in Bangkok, as “Elite Extremists.”
Boontham Kaewkard, a wood carver here, said he was ready to confront the antigovernment forces if they removed the prime minister. But he laughed at talk of secession. “It’s a crazy idea,” he said. “Thailand must remain Thailand.”
Yet from a political standpoint, the Thai electoral map already shows two Thailands: The north has consistently voted for the governing party in recent elections, while the south has either voted against the party or obstructed elections, as protesters did in February. Both sides warn of civil war if tensions escalate.
Government supporters say a sense of solidarity has emerged between northern Thailand and the vast northeastern Isaan plateau, where the maternal tongue, a form of Lao, is similar to the Lanna language of the north.
Chalida Chusirithanakit, a pharmacist in the northeast, says the current round of protests has kindled “a real sense of pride in being Isaan people,” especially among the government supporters, called the red shirts.
“They feel they have struggled and have been oppressed for a long time,” said Ms. Chalida, who moved to Isaan from northern Thailand nearly 40 years ago.
Support for Ms. Yingluck and her party is so strong in Maha Sarakham Province that “even a dog in a red shirt could run in an election and win,” she said.
The red shirts have staged a number of demonstrations in recent weeks in what they say is a message to the Bangkok establishment showing the strength of their numbers — and their readiness to fight back if the government is toppled.
At a meeting in Chiang Mai last month, a leader of the red shirts, Nisit Sinthupai, spoke about a Buddhist monk who is considered the patron saint of northern Thailand, Kru Ba Srivichai. The monk, who died eight decades ago, is lionized for his piety and devotion to his followers.
But Mr. Nisit emphasized a facet of the monk’s life not covered in Thai textbooks: his long and defiant struggle to use the northern Lanna language and his refusal to bow to the authorities in Bangkok who sought to curtail his autonomy — and arrested him four times.
This defiance was his “mightiness,” Mr. Nisit said, adding that the north and the northeast had new strength together.
“These two regions are the key power bases of democracy,” he said. “We are the majority.” –
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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue
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
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
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.
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 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.
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.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.
(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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