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The Elephant Trade Scandal in Thailand

Dutchman Edwin Wiek, who was subsequently punished by a series of raids on the wildlife rescue centre he runs in Phetchaburi.

CHIANGRAI TIMES – They may also have undermined the position of the National Parks chief, whose judgment has been called into serious question since revelations that killings of mature elephants in Kaeng Krachan recently were orchestrated to supply babies to elephant tourist parks – with the involvement of top officials in that park, several hours south of Bangkok.

Numerous elephant camps and wildlife centres have been raided since reports emerged in January that a criminal syndicate was selling baby elephants from Burma and national parks to tourist facilities for large sums – up to 900,000 baht each.

There have been claims that up to half of the young tuskers in Thailand have been smuggled in alongside ‘fake’ surrogate mothers that already have identity papers. A loophole in the law, which does not require babies to be registered till they are eight years old, has aided this trade.

There are also concerns that the use of identity chips and papers is being manipulated and subject to abuse. Many think DNA tests, which are still fairly costly, and the possible introduction of ‘passports’ for all elephants, are the only way to eliminate this trade and guarantee the real identity of the 3,000 or so pachyderm in Thailand.

The government’s response to these allegations was to hit back at the two key accusers by raiding centres that they operate. Why? Some elephant parks are run by businesspeople with money and influence. They have a lot to lose. And tourism chiefs may also fear a backlash if tourists decide they don’t want to visit elephant parks with ‘captive’ babies made docile and compliant by a violent ‘breaking of their spirit’ by mahouts.

The man who raised the alarm initially was Dutchman Edwin Wiek, who was subsequently punished by a series of raids on the wildlife rescue centre he runs in Phetchaburi. Dozens of National Parks officials and armed border police descended on his facility for more than a week, claiming Wiek had no papers for more than 100 of the 450 animals at his centre, located on temple land and backed by a local abbot.

Videos of animals being taken from Wat Khao Luk Chang – with some harmed in the process – incensed his supporters. Wiek lodged court appeals to fight claims he kept undocumented animals at the site, and has temporarily stepped down as head of the Wildlife Friends Foundation in Thailand (WFFT).

Wiek is no stranger to Thailand. He has lived here for 20 years and speaks fluent Thai. He runs one of the best wildlife facilities in Southeast Asia but has created enemies because he has been prepared to speak out. By repeating his allegations at the Foreign Correspondents Club last month?- at an event which I hosted – he became a farang marked for revenge.

Other foreigners working in the wildlife sector believe Wiek was rash to speak publicly, saying a backlash against a ‘noisy outsider’ was inevitable. He has paid a heavy price – receiving death threats and seeing his Thai wife charged at the local police station after the initial raid last month. Channel 3 was also co-opted to air a report detailing the charges against him on the night he spoke at the FCCT.

Wiek has fought intimidation before, in a long-running battle with a large tourist facility in Bangkok, found with dozens of smuggled orang-utans, over 50 of which were eventually flown back to Borneo.

This is Lek, the founder of the Elephant Nature Park

He was publicly backed by another shining light in the local wildlife community – Sangduan “Lek” Chailert, who runs the Elephant Nature Park (ENP) in Mae Taeng, 50km north of Chiang Mai. Lek is a short but similarly feisty individual, the winner of a host of international awards for her care for elephants.

Her sanctuary, which has 35 elephants, most of them old and infirm, was also raided. But on March 1, local reporters and TV crews were on hand to challenge parks officials. Why were they harassing one of the country’s most admired wildlife activists, who operates an acclaimed facility which is just a sanctuary – a retirement home where elephants roam free?

All facilities with elephants are being checked and ENP had no papers for eight of her beasts, officials said. Privately they were told: “She stepped on someone’s toes.” Unlike Wiek, Lek opposes the use of elephants at tourist facilities. The Mae Taeng Valley has several hundred elephants and most of her neighbours operate tourist parks. None, I would guess, care for these glorious animals to the level that she does.

DNP officials were filmed in discussions with her lawyer, who requested 30 days to get the documents. They got 15 days. Lek said she feared that any old elephants confiscated might die at government facilities. She vowed to strongly oppose any confiscation.

Meanwhile, the owners of camps along the Burma border and others in Surin – some of them thought to be deeply involved in elephant smuggling – have talked about blocking highways and a petition to the Administrative Court to try to get Damrong Phidet, the National Parks chief, removed.

This comes on top of a protest outside the Thai embassy in London last week and petition signed by tens of thousands supporting Wiek and Lek Chailert. The government is now under attack from both the ‘goodies’ and the ‘baddies’. It has a PR nightmare on its hands – more than 100,000 people have viewed videos of recent raids.

And little appears to have been done to rid the problem that started this whole mess: a park chief accused of murder and possible involvement in the slaying of elephants under his oversight. Surely, he must be the first to go.

And maybe it’s time for the government and elephant camp operators to put their houses in order: Pay for a DNA identity system and eliminate the doubts surrounding their operations.

Jim Pollard is a sub-editor at The Nation and a member of the executive committee of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

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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

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.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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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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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP