News
Laos Authorities Powerless in the Lawless Golden Triangle Economic Zone
Authorities in Laos say they’re powerless to stop criminal activities in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in Bokeo province of northern Laos.
Criminal activities such as prostitution, scamming, and drug trafficking are rampant, but Lao authorities are largely powerless to stop them, according to zone workers and police.
In Bokeo province in the Golden Triangle where Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand meet, the Special Economic Zone is a gambling and tourism zone catering directly to Chinese citizens. It’s been called a de facto Chinese colony.
Lao authorities have limited access to the zone due to its unique nature, and they must obtain permission first from officials at the Kings Romans Casino, the zone’s crown jewel, owned by the Hong Kong-based Dok Ngiew Kham Group. The group owns 80% of the 3,000-hectare (11.6 square mile) zone, with the Lao government owning the remaining 20%.
“Assume workers have a problem in the zone,” one worker explained to RFA. “They must contact authorities only from the zone, and Bokeo police cannot assist them because they are not in control.”
According to a Bokeo police official, Lao and foreign workers employed in the zone who require assistance must contact authorities within the Special Economic Zone, as it is completely under their control only.
“Usually, special economic zone units deal with problems themselves. “If cases are serious, they report to higher level authorities within the zone,” said the police official.
Criminal Syndicates in the Golden Triangle
The Dok Ngiew Group and its Chairman, Zhao Wei, established the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in 2007. SEZs are business zones exempt from most national-level economic regulations, receive tax breaks, and are subject to different labour laws.
In 2018, the United States Treasury Department designated Zhao Wei’s business network as a “transnational criminal organization,” sanctioning Zhao and three other individuals and companies in Laos, Thailand, and Hong Kong.
According to the Treasury, Zhao’s company “exploits this region in northern Laos by engaging with drug traffickers, human traffickers, money launders, bribery, and wildlife traffickers, most of which is run through the Kings Romans Casino located in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.”
The Golden Triangle was named after its central role in heroin production and trafficking in Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos five decades ago.
According to Chanphonephet Khamsy, the deputy police chief of Bokeo province, the SEZ and surrounding area are still rife with drug-related crimes.
Last year, police in Bokeo province arrested 393 drug smugglers and seized 23 million methamphetamine pills, 866 kilograms of crystal meth, and 60 kilograms of heroin, according to Chanphonephet Khamsy.
During the previous year, police seized 33 million methamphetamine pills.
“Huge amounts of drugs are trafficked through the region; it’s very difficult for us,” said a Bokeo police officer who requested anonymity to speak freely with RFA.
He claims that smugglers transport their drugs into and out of the Special Economic Zone in large trucks and increasing quantities.
“They smuggle the drugs from Myanmar into Laos and then to northeastern Thailand the officer explained, adding that there are numerous routes, including through dense jungles that authorities cannot access.
A member of the Laos anti-narcotics unit confirmed that the drugs mostly come from Myanmar, from armed ethnic groups fighting the country’s military junta. According to him, Laos is a more appealing route than Thailand because Thai authorities have cracked down on drug trafficking.
Because Lao authorities have no access to the Golden Triangle SEZ, a Bokeo resident claims it is one of the main drug destinations.
Scams Run from Golden Triangle SEZ
Last week, law enforcement officials from Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar met in the northern Laos to discuss anti-drug cooperation.
Recently, companies within the zone have used a bait-and-switch scam to recruit workers from Laos, China, and other countries by promising high-paying call centre jobs.
However, once the workers arrive in the zone, they incur debt to their employers for travel and training expenses, and their bosses set unrealistically high sales quotas designed to cause the workers to fail.
Some workers caught up in the scam escaped, but at great personal risk and frequently without any assistance from authorities in Laos.
A Lao worker inside the zone says that the problem persists even though foreign governments are aware of the scam. They are doing everything possible to assist their citizens in the zone, but the problem still persists.
“There are still call centres, and they will never eliminate them.” Many companies hire Lao, Thai, and other foreign workers,” the Lao workers said. “They hire everyone. There are Indians, Malaysians, and other nationalities.”
Outside authorities not permitted
According to a third Lao worker in the zone, the call centre scam involves defrauding investors, but the Lao police are powerless to stop them. “Police cannot fine or arrest them because they are outside authorities are not permitted to enter the zone,” the worker explained. “As a result, they are unable to conduct any investigations.”
Laos residents living near the zone said they wanted authorities to deal with the rampant crime inside the zone more effectively, but doubt it is a high priority.
“Many people want the government to crack down on all the crime… but they’ve been ignoring it for years,” said a resident who lives near the zone.
The Lao government awarded Zhao, the Chinese chairman, a medal of courage on Oct. 1, citing his contributions to national defence and public security within the zone.
Another resident stated that the surrounding governments “talk and talk.” “If they truly wanted to crack down on crime, why would the Lao government award Zhao Wei a medal of courage… and publicly praise him?”
“The entire world knows [Laos] will not prosecute him.”
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 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.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
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.
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 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.
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.
SOURCE | AP
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
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