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Are Thai Schools Breeding Fraternities of Violence

Deadly clashes escalate between rival schools as police scramble to limit the spillover into society at large

BANGKOK – Yupa Prai-ngam’s body lay slumped on her bus seat like a dozing passenger. Around her, forensic police cased the scene, zipping up the corpse of her fellow victim, 21-year-old art student Wanchai Thongsaengkaew, and dragged him away.

Yupa, 48, was returning home to Bangkok’s suburbs, when at about 6:20 pm a group of students ambushed the vehicle at a bus stop and opened fire. Police believe the attack was the result of a feud between rival student gangs; in the end, the incident claimed the lives of two innocent passengers.

Weapons used in students’ fights include knives, machetes, and even guns – Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau

According to Manit Wongsomboon, deputy commissioner of the city police, there were 1,222 cases of student violence reported in Bangkok and its suburbs in 2012 – a rate of about 100 cases per month. He estimates about 20 of these resulted in death or severe injury.

Most of the clashes take place between students at vocational colleges – academies that train pupils to become machinists, electricians, and other specific trades – who carry on a longstanding tradition of fighting adversaries from rival schools to preserve institutional pride.

But increasingly the fighting is spilling over into society at large. Last month, an altercation between more than 50 vocational students at a charity concert led to rioting and reports of gunshots. The event was shut down early as more than 700 police officers struggled to restore calm.

The problem, both the police and the army warn, is getting worse.

“Before, the violence would happen more randomly. Now it is more organised. The gangs are starting to use social networks to set up places to gather, like at the charity concert,” said army spokesman Wanchana Sawasdee.

group of students will face the charges of murder

“All this has an effect on other people, who now almost schedule their lives around the violence. They think, ‘I live near this school, so I’ll take detours to not be at the wrong place at the wrong time’.”

The escalation of hostilities is having a bigger impact on students who say they are reluctant to fight. “These days, when you find weapons on students, mostly they’re carrying it for self-defence,” explained Sawasdee.

One student named Pon, who like all the students interviewed for this article asked to be identified only by his nickname, told Al Jazeera that he been “involved in some violence, but I’ve never been the instigator.

“I’ve been stabbed before,” he added.

“I commute with a pretty big group of friends from my school by bus. Often we run into kids from our rival school and a fight would ensue. It usually starts with some hateful words being thrown around and would eventually escalate into a brawl. There are always weapons or tools involved, sometimes even a gun,” Pon said.

Deputy Commissioner Manit spread out a number of casefiles from 2012, pointing out pictures of weapons confiscated from vocational students, whose education often revolves around the use of dangerous tools. The photos reveal guns, knives, machetes, hammers, hooked rods, and even homemade swords.

“Once, the police were called in by someone who spotted a big group of students ready for trouble. We searched them and found a modified pistol that shoots shotgun shells,” said Manit.

‘Almost like a war’

When asked about the cause of the clashes, most point to the historical enmity between vocational schools. “It is mainly about long rivalries between the schools,” said Pon. “It is something that is passed down to us, what we are told to do to show our loyalty.”

Wanchana and Manit said disreputable seniors and alumni, who have built up formidable reputations, pressure freshmen to emulate their actions.

‘’There’s basically a form of hazing to initiate new students, creating a culture of respecting elder students in a sort of fraternity of violence,” Manit explained. “Some of these schools have had rivalries for longer than I have been in the police force.”

“Students feel they have to fight to gain the respect of their peers or of the other schools, and it quickly becomes a cycle of revenge. They will take revenge on any student from the school that has wronged them – it doesn’t have to be the actual instigator. It’s almost like a war.”

Scrambling to find solutions, the army has set up a 10-week boot-camp-style training course. Administrators from the vocational schools select problem students and dispatch them to the camp, sometimes threatening to keep them from graduating if they do not participate.

The camp instills discipline, said Wanchana. Students are made to wake up, cook meals, and meditate together. Most of the activities are collaborative, not competitive, aiming to get the kids to see their rivals in a friendlier light.

“One mother was so overwhelmed by the changes she saw after her child’s training, she cried, saying she was able to have a meal with her entire family for the first time in years,” Wanchana noted.

Wanchana divides the 157 children who have passed through the camp into three groups: those who are unchanged, those who change completely, and those who fall somewhere in the middle. “This middle group, next time they’re in a bad situation, maybe they will hesitate. This hesitation is a very important turning point.”

Deer, another vocational student who has successfully completed the training, said he no longer goes looking for trouble. However, he noted that his troubles are not yet over. “I have to constantly be in survival mode. I have not been a part of any violence since [the camps], but if I happen to end up at the wrong place at the wrong time, I will defend myself,” he said.

The root of the problem

Wanchana recognises that the camp can only have a limited impact. “With this camp we are not addressing the root of the problem. We are only addressing the tail-end of the problem,” he said.

Institutional pride is merely an excuse, according to Montri Sintawichai, founder of the Child Protection Foundation. Behind it lie the complex forces of teenage angst and the shortcomings of Thailand’s social fabric.

“A Japanese artist said: ‘Thailand is known as the land of smiles, and yes, the Thais do smile easily. But if you look into their eyes, they are sad,” he said.

‘’These children see, on a regular basis, kids with powerful parents toss their fathers’ names around and get out of trouble. Kids learn that if they are the bully when they leave school, they will have more authority.”

Gor – a freshman at the Uthen Thawai campus of Rajamangala University of Technology, one of the capital’s most notorious trade schools – believes that vocational students, most of whom come from poor families, are stigmatised by the media.

“Most of the fighting is not because of institutional pride, it’s just normal teen angst. We feel the traditional schools have similar problems, but in the media they are glorified. Some of the more prestigious schools can cover up what goes on there better than we can,” Gor said.

Montri recommended that Thailand – where about 10 million guns are owned by civilians, most of them unregistered – needs to accept responsibility for the examples it is setting for these children.

“In Thailand, violence is everywhere: children see it in the streets every day. Not only do we need to make it harder for kids to access weapons, but also for adults. Kids think, ‘Oh, mom and dad carry guns and it makes people respect them, so I should too’.” – Maher Sattar

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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