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Climate Change and Destructive Fishing Methods Harm the Lives of Fishermen

For some small fishermen, the catch has dropped by half.

THAILAND SOUTH – Strung along the coast of southern Thailand is a line of small fishing towns, nestled between the rugged beauty of the Tanaosri Mountains and the once-abundant waters of the Gulf of Thailand. For centuries, the people of Prachuabkirikhan [“the city in the mountains”] have enjoyed a simple lifestyle of hard work, living from the riches of the ocean and their farmlands.

But this idyllic existence – which attracts tourists looking for a laid-back beach holiday far from the bars and nightclubs of the big resort towns – may soon vanish as the province is hammered on two fronts, by climate change and rampant overfishing.

The times are changing too fast for Niwat Chaloemwong, and he fears for the future of his community. To say that fishing is encoded in his DNA would be trite; Chaloemwong joined the crew of a small local fishing boat at the age of 12 and spent the next 40 years supporting his family from the ocean.

“When I started fishing, there were so many sharks and stingrays in this bay. There were many kinds of fish that we used to catch, but now we don’t see them at all any more.” He traces the dramatic drop in the catch by ordinary fishermen to the proliferation of commercial trawlers in the Gulf.

“I first saw those trawlers come to this bay about 20 years ago. When they come, they dredge everything away; even the fish spawn, because the mesh they use is so fine. This is dangerous because it means the fish can’t breed and can become extinct.”

Niwat Chaloemwong says trawlers are destroying the seabed [Roengrit Kongmueng/Greenpeace]

Trawlers – fishing boats that pull huge nets through the water, sometimes dragging the nets across the sea floor – make up just 13 percent of the fishing vessels in Thailand, but are responsible for more than half of the country’s catch.

“For some small fishermen, the catch has dropped by half. I think this is because the trawlers take too many fish and don’t leave enough for the community,” says Chaloemwong.

Debt is a constant worry for artisan fishermen, for whom a storm or a bad season can spell financial disaster. Angsada Klanphaitoon, a small-scale fisherman from Khao Deng, says the commercial trawlers that flock the Gulf have made their lives even harder.

“These ships have big nets that drag along the sea bed and take everything,” he told Al Jazeera. “They even take the baby fish, which means there is less for us to catch, as they are taking the next generation.”

Not only do the trawlers indiscriminately suck marine life out of the ocean, they can also drag away the nets put out by small fishermen. “Last year it cost me 15,000 Thai baht ($480) to replace my nets after they got caught up by the trawl nets,” said Klanphaitoon. “This is the third time this has happened to me.”

The only way for him to replace the nets is by getting a loan. If the nets vanish again before he has paid off the loan, he is in danger of spiralling into debt he cannot get out of, particularly as there is no guarantee he will get good catches.

Ecosystem destruction

“We go out for squid at night, but my father says there is a lot less to catch than in his day,” said Klanphaitoon. “The shrimp farms release polluted water into the sea and this drives the squid away.”

The shoreline is dotted with shrimp farms, many owned by a massive Thai supermarket chain, feeding the demand for shrimp both locally and abroad. Many rice paddies have been converted into shrimp farms, and the mangroves – which are vital for the coastal ecosystem – have been destroyed, reportedly by effluent from the farms, which includes antibiotics and fertiliser.

Angsada’s mother, Thongpoon Klanphaitoon, says the loss of the mangroves also creates a physical danger. “I notice that the weather is less predictable than when I was young, and the storms are bigger and come more often,” she said. “If the storm comes from the west, where we still have our mangroves, then it won’t be so bad. But on our northeast side, the owner of the shrimp farm has removed the mangrove, so when the storm comes from that direction it hits us very hard.”

Thongpoon Klanphaitoon and her son Angsada check nets in Khao Deng [Roengrit Kongmueng/Greenpeace]

Chaloemwong points out that many fishing families have had to adapt to the declining catch by modifying their small boats and focusing on catching squid and crabs.

“They just can’t catch enough other kinds of fish anymore. If this continues, everybody will be in trouble in this community.”

He is also deeply worried about how he has seen the climate change during his own lifetime.

“In the past, the seasons were well-defined, but now there is no winter and the summers are even hotter,” he noted. Chaloemwong’s sister is a pineapple farmer – one of the staple crops of the area – and he says his family has noticed that the heat is making it harder for people to work long hours during the day.

“Now the children are getting sick from the heat, the adults are getting tired more quickly and people have to shower three times a day, just to keep going.”

The impact of global warming on the oceans is more obvious to him, a change that has happened rapidly and recently. “We have noticed that the seawater is getting much warmer,” he said. “When the water is hot, all the decaying matter on the ocean floor floats to the surface and creates a bloom of algae. This blocks the oxygen from the water and the fish can’t breathe any more, because the water is rotten. That algae is very slimy and it coats our nets, so when we try pull them in, they slip out of our hands.”

While Chaloemwong’s seafaring trips are over, he is still an integral part of the fishing community and shares their worries for the future. “Many fishermen have already had to quit because they have to take loans to pay for boats and equipment, but then when they can’t catch enough fish, they can’t repay the loans and they have to sell their boats.” – Nicole Johnston

News

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

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

News

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