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Chiang Rai’s Ethnic Minorities Quit Opium Poppies for Coffee

CHIANG RAI -Ethnic minorities on Mount Doi Tung in northern Thailand have seen their lives transformed after replacing illicit opium poppy fields with profitable coffee plantations.

From the sky, Mount Doi Tung looks like a thick carpet of dark green forest. Huge trees sprawl across its misty hills, towering over coffee plantations and brilliantly colourful flowers.

Thirty years ago, perhaps no one could have imagined such a stunning landscape on Doi Tung. Its old residents would have described it as bleak and barren – a hopeless place atop the Doi Nang Non mountain range inhabited by poor ethnic minorities and forgotten by the rest of Thailand.

Generations of tribes-people with no citizenship or basic rights had struggled to survive from slash-and-burn agriculture. The result was decades of widespread deforestation that in turn deprived them of food resources. Grinding poverty and lack of career opportunities also drove countless minorities into illicit opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking, which fuelled the infamous Golden Triangle’s production of heroin.

“There were opium fields everywhere. Every family grew and sold it to Burmese traders,” said former opium farmer Somjit Wiboonkitphaisan.

“There were no police or soldiers here before. We didn’t even have monks or teachers to educate us.”

Somjit is among the ethnic minorities on Doi Tung, whose population of about 11,000 people consists of various tribes including Akha, Lahu, Tai Lue and Lawa. They also share the hills with ethnic Shan people and Chinese descendants of the 93rd Division of the Kuomintang’s Nationalist Army who fled from Yunnan in southwestern China into Myanmar in the mid-20th century.

Amid the ethnic diversity was a common life of misery. Like his parents, Somjit grew up on Doi Tung without any basic infrastructure. There was no road, electricity, running water, healthcare or education.

“I really had nothing, not even gas to cook food,” he said. “So to tell you the truth, people earned a living from selling opium. It was easy money. We could harvest every three months.”

According to Somjit, a kilogram of opium normally sold for 1,000 Thai Baht (US$32) – a valuable amount of money in remote Thailand 30 years ago.

In January 1987, Doi Tung received a special visit that would soon transform its landscape and the life of its inhabitants. Upon an invitation from her principal private secretary, the late Princess Mother Srinagarindra – who was approaching her nineties at the time – came to Doi Tung to see a potential location for her new home. Its altitude of 1,389 metres above sea level and pleasant climate was considered suitable for her health.

“The Princess Mother said ‘I will reforest Doi Tung’ and that she wouldn’t live here without a development project,” said Visitorn Rajatanarvin from the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Royal Patronage, a private non-profit organisation that works to improve the quality of life of people in poverty.

“She saw through all the problems here and realised the root cause was poverty and lack of opportunity.”

As a result, the Doi Tung Development Project was born under the royal foundation in the following year. It is a sustainable livelihood development programme designed to eradicate poverty, improve locals’ life quality and restore the environment to its pristine condition while ensuring people and nature can co-exist in harmony.

For the rest of her life, the Princess Mother dedicated her time to developing Doi Tung and its people, using her two-storey villa as her workplace. What followed was economic forestry and reforestation projects, vocational training centres and a drug treatment and rehabilitation centre

Today, Mount Doi Tung is home to a thriving economic forest. Ethnic minorities grow perennial trees whose yields command high market demands and can be turned into various products. One of them is coffee.

Coffee plantations cover an area of 15 square kilometres. There are 3.5 million coffee trees on Doi Tung which provide a stable source of income for nearly 900 families. Currently, almost half of Doi Tung’s population is in coffee farming, including Somjit.

“Growing coffee is great because we don’t need to grow it every year, unlike other plants. We just need to plant it once and can harvest it for many years,” he said, adding he earns at least US$320 every month.

For the likes of Somjit, coffee farming offers a bright and secure future. But like any business, it is not without challenges. For the people of Doi Tung, it is making sure that what they have built will be maintained and developed further by younger generations.

“They were born with everything, with very good infrastructure, very good education and forests. They didn’t have to endure the sufferings their parents or grandparents had to go through,” Visitorn said.

“So the new challenge is how we can make the younger generations realise the value of the good things they already have.”

The answer, she added, is to spark the youths’ interest in entrepreneurship as a means of economic self-development while reminding them of what it takes to transform Doi Tung into a land of economic opportunities.

“They can become entrepreneurs by building upon what their parents and grandparents have created,” Visitorn said.

“A good future is there. You already have a good background. So build upon it.”

 

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

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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.

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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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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.

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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.

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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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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

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