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Mekong River Commission (CEO) Talks About Mekong Rivers Unprecedented Risks and Challenges

CHIANG RAIDr. An Pich Hatda, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Mekong River Commission in an OP-ed reports that people who live in the Mekong River basin face unprecedented risks and challenges. More extreme weather—floods, storms and droughts—are already changing the river basin we once knew.

Dr. An Pich Hatda said that our region has been deemed one of the most vulnerable to climate change impacts in the world and we still do not know the extent of impacts on the basin and the Mekong River system.

At the same time, we face difficult trade-offs between increased development in the energy, transport and agriculture sectors and adverse impacts on the environment and local livelihoods.

Fish catches are changing and are expected to decline; downstream sediment transport is reducing and threatening agricultural yields; and biodiversity is under pressure. Last year, the Mekong region also faced an unprecedented tragedy when a major dam collapsed in Laos.

Never before have we faced such complex, uncertain circumstances, and never has the need to come together to find ways to mitigate risks, share benefits and boost resilience been greater.

That’s why, during my tenure at the Mekong River Commission (MRC) Secretariat, I will work diligently to reinforce the institution’s cornerstones, continue to deliver timely scientifically sound knowledge, and propose sustainable solutions that are sensitive to diverse viewpoints and values.

In this way, the MRC will continue to serve as the Mekong basin’s only water diplomacy platform and forum for discussion and facilitating solutions to the regional challenges.

Boosting Knowledge about our Changing River Basin

Only by understanding the current state of the Mekong River basin, how it has changed, and the drivers of these changes can we manage today’s challenges more effectively.

The MRC’s forthcoming _State of River Basin_report, which we expect to publish later this year, will provide us with the latest and most comprehensive view to date of economic, social, environmental, climate change and cooperation trends in the basin.

This follows our recently completed Council Study, which outlines the potential impacts of development in the water and related sectors and opportunities to make smarter investments for the Mekong River basin now and in the coming years.

To ensure we monitor and share information about emerging risks and changes, the MRC has also taken steps to reinforce basin-wide monitoring networks and forecasting systems for floods and droughts.

Over the next few years, I hope to improve the way the 1995 Mekong Agreement and its five Procedures support the Member Countries’ efforts to manage the water resources of the basin.

This will also be reinforced through the planned Joint Environmental Monitoring Programme that will support the MRC Member Countries to monitor and report transboundary environmental impacts of Mekong mainstream hydropower projects.

The programme will be piloted on the existing dam developments, Xayaburi and Don Sahong, to enable the countries to respond when adverse impacts are identified. Following the recommendations by the MRC during the prior consultation process, the Xayaburi and Don Sahong projects have made substantial improvements to their project designs to address stakeholders’ concerns on fisheries and sediment issues.

But given the host of uncertainties around the efficacy of mitigation measures, joint monitoring and adaptive management will be critical.

Collaborating to reinforce resilience

However, procuring knowledge about current and future challenges is not enough; all stakeholders in the Mekong River basin must collaborate and make informed choices to successfully optimise the benefits and manage the risks of development.

As a first step, the MRC continues to make efforts to enhance its data and information management to verify and share information and knowledge widely and swiftly.

We are also upping our efforts to continuously bring together government representatives, private sector actors, development partners, researchers, NGOs and civil society organisations for open and constructive dialogue on sustainable development.

As demonstrated by our latest Regional Stakeholder Forum on the proposed Pak Lay hydropower project, stakeholders’ input matters and has been factored into the consultation and decision-making processes.

Finally, effectively responding to changes and risks across the basin requires wider collaboration between the MRC Member Countries and beyond, not least with our upstream neighbour China.

I have planned a visit to China this June to further our ongoing collaboration. I plan to discuss opportunities for collaboration with the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, high-level exchange visits by MRC Ministerial Council, and plans for enhanced information sharing.

Preparing for an uncertain tomorrow

While the MRC is well established and recognised as the international treaty-based river basin organization and primary water diplomacy platform in the Mekong River basin, we still have opportunities to improve basin-wide cooperation.

My priority is to further equip the MRC Secretariat with the facilitation and brokering skills needed to find solutions among countries, sectors and groups that may have conflicting views and interests.

With apologies to American Professor of Mathematics John Allen Paulos, if uncertainty is the only certainty, then our security lies in being well prepared to adapt. The MRC remains committed to achieving resilient, equitable livelihoods for the basin’s populations, while promoting and preserving development gains.

I am fully committed to applying the MRC’s motto of “Meeting the Needs, Keeping the Balance”, to social justice, poverty eradication and sustainable development.

To do this, I ask for the continued input from and cooperation between all stakeholders – only together can we ensure a resilient future for the Mekong River basin and its people.

By An Pich Hatda
(CEO) of the Mekong River Commission

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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.

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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.

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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