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Convicted Human Traffickers Flout 99% of Court Orders

Human traffickers in Thailand have ignored court orders to compensate victims in more than 99% of cases in recent years. Fueling fears that many survivors could be re-trafficked.

Thai courts have ordered traffickers to pay their victims more than $4.3 million for damages caused in about 1,335 cases since 2014, according to the latest available statistics from the Office of the Attorney General.

But the money was only paid in five cases, with survivors receiving a total of 5.6 million baht. Excluding cases settled out of court – found data from the government’s anti-trafficking department, obtained via Thailand’s freedom of information law, Reuters reports.

Although Thailand has rescued a record-breaking 1,000-plus trafficking victims this year. Campaigners are concerned that the failure to pay compensation will leave them in fresh danger.

“It’s an important issue that is unfortunately being neglected,” said Chonticha Tangworamongkon. Chonticha is a program director at the Human Rights and Development Foundation. The foundation provides free legal aid to migrant workers and trafficking victims.

“This money will enable (victims) to start a new life and prevent them from being re-trafficked. However the government’s role in assisting victims in pursuing the claims is still not clear.”

Seized Money to Pay Victims

Thailand is considering amending its 1999 anti-money laundering law to allow offenders’ assets seized by the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) to be used to compensate victims.

Four public hearings were held this year to discuss the legal amendment.Seized assets are currently state property – but it is unclear when it will be reviewed by the cabinet.

Thailand is home to about 610,000 modern slaves. About one in 113 of its 69 million people are inslaved – according to the Global Slavery Index by the rights group Walk Free Foundation.

The United States called on Thailand in June to increase compensation to victims in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Ranking Thailand as a Tier 2 country – meaning it is making significant efforts to combat the crime.

Compensation Fund

Trafficking victims are automatically compensated through a government fund – which provides living and rehabilitation expenses and lost wages. – However Chonticha says these sums of money are not sufficient for victims to rebuild their lives.

While Thai law allows victims to claim compensation from convicted traffickers. offenders have refused to pay in more than 1,000 cases – for which there is no legal punishment.

The law requires the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security to assist victims in enforcing their compensation claims, yet anti-trafficking charities and campaigners say it has failed to ensure that fines are collected from offenders.

But pursuing claims is a complex process, which involves tracing offenders’ assets and bringing in the Legal Execution Department – which enforces court orders – to seize them.

Ratchapon Maneelek, a director at Thailand’s anti-trafficking department, which falls under the social ministry, said several government agencies had been holding meetings to determine the extent of their legal powers to enforce claims.

“This is something new for us that we may not have expertise in,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

No Money to Pay Trafficked Victims

Aged nine, Bo Soe’s mother took him from Myanmar to Thailand in 2013, where he was forced by a trafficker to sell roses.

For five years, Bo Soe and about 10 other children were forced to tout to tourists in Bangkok from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. He recieved no pay and was given only one meal a day.

“It was very horrible and I was scared. Whenever I couldn’t sell all (the roses), I would be beaten,” the 15-year-old told Reuters. Bo Soe lives in Thailand’s western region of Mae Sot, with his grandmother and aunt.

In May, judges upheld a lower court ruling convicting a man and woman of trafficking, jailing them for 12 years. They were then ordered to pay 1.26 million baht in compensation to Bo Soe.

“I don’t know whether or not I will receive the money.  …But I’m happy to be back with my family,” said Bo Soe, whose name has been changed to protect his identity as a minor.

Papop Siamhan, a lawyer who has followed the case, said Bo Soe was unlikely to ever receive the money. Since his traffickers could not afford the compensation. The long prison sentence also meant they would not be able to gather money to pay.

Lawyers and charities, are often hired by trafficking victims to trace offenders’ assets. However seizures by AMLO can actually thwart survivors’ efforts to obtain restitution.

The AMLO will seize the vessels and freeze the bank accounts of offenders,” said Siamhan. “(This) means the victims’ lawyer will have to track down other assets.”

Human Trafficking Victims Lives Are Cheap

Sugunya Rattananakintr, a public prosecutor who focuses on human trafficking cases, said court rules should be amended. Offenders who were ordered to pay compensation should do so before they are released.

“The problem is the enforcement of compensation orders since the ministry doesn’t have knowledge in this area,” she said.

“If you wait until the case reaches the highest court, the offenders will transfer all their assets. There for leaving them with nothing left to pay (in compensation to victims).”

Maneelek from the anti-human trafficking division said the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and other related government agencies signed an agreement last year to help victims with their cases and track down offenders’ assets.

“We are in the process of looking for ways to cooperate (within government), which might take some time,” he said.

However, time is not a luxury that many victims can afford.

Having been trafficked at 22 and forced to work on a fishing boat for three years without pay.  Aung Aung was hopeful when the six traffickers were jailed in July and ordered to pay about Bt2 million compensation.

But Aung Aung does not know when he will receive the 65,000 baht he was awarded. He is now looking for work at sea again in southern Thailand despite knowing the risks involved.

“It was like hell, working so hard … for more than three years. Our lives are so cheap on the boat,” he said.

“I hope I will get the compensation money some day.”

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

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

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.

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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.

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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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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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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.

trump

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

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.

musk trump

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.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(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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Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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