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Reasons Behind Students Pro-Democracy Protests in Thailand

In a string of protests staged across Thailand this week, thousands of students revived the country’s youth-led pro-democracy movement. All amidst the coronavirus pandemic and demanded the resignation of Thai Army-backed Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.
Wearing uniform black T-shirts and face masks, demonstrators were seen at different protest sites holding up the iconic three finger salute from the ‘Hunger Games’ film franchise, which became a symbol of liberation in Thailand soon after the military coup in 2014.
Anti-government rap songs and chants of “Get Out” echoed outside Thai schools and universities. As protestors called for the dissolution of the parliament and the rewriting of the constitution.
The demonstrations first began on Saturday, when around 3,000 young people — led by the student coalition group Free Youth — assembled at Bangkok’s historic Democracy Monument. In the days that followed, smaller protests broke out in cities and towns across the country.
Thai Army Chief General Apirat Kongsompong on Friday alleged that the spate of youth-led protests were most likely part of a larger political conspiracy. While he vowed to allow protests to continue without military interference, Kongsompong claimed that security forces would still need to closely monitor these movements, Bloomberg reported.
Why are young people protesting against the Thai government?
With the government yet to address the protestors’ grievances, Thailand’s recent ‘youthquake’ shows no signs of weakening. According to Free Youth, several more demonstrations are planned over the weekend.
The Free Youth protestors first outlined their three big demands at the Democracy Monument last Saturday — first, they called for the resignation of Chan-ocha and the dissolution of the parliament; second, they demanded the rewriting of the constitution; and third, they urged authorities to stop intimidating activists for exercising their freedom of expression.
Another factor that has fuelled the recent youth-led anti-government movement is the economic impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has also brought the country’s otherwise thriving tourism industry to a complete standstill. According to the Bank of Thailand, the country’s economy is expected to contract by a minimum of 8% this year, Reuters reported.
A Thai police officer stands next to demonstrators, who hold up three finger salute, a sign of protest. (Reuters Photo: Jorge Silva)
Due to a coronavirus-induced recession, thousands have been rendered jobless. Students, particularly graduates, find themselves especially vulnerable as they have few to no jobs to choose from. Many denounced the country’s leadership for failing to reverse the economic damage caused by the pandemic.
The situation is made worse by the emergency decree imposed by the countries’ prime minister. The decree strictly prohibits public assembly, stops people from leaving their homes, and also includes a clause to prevent the spread of misinformation that may cause public fear.
Thailand government using decree to silence critics
According to reports, another month-long extension is expected despite the fact that Thailand is one of the few countries that has successfully been able to contain the spread of the virus.
Critics have accused the Thai government of using the decree as a tool to prevent dissent and public protests such as these. Ever since the military coup in 2014, which brought Chan-ocha to power, the government has aggressively cracked down on pro-democracy protestors. Over the last few years the government has even been accused of abducting critics and activists.
In June, the disappearance of 37-year-old Wanchalearm Satsaksit — a member of the pro-democracy social movement ‘Red Shirts — sparked outrage amongst the country’s youth. Several other exiled Thai critics have allegedly been snatched off the streets in neighbouring countries in recent years. In 2018, the bodies of two missing activists were found floating in the Mekong river.
Many young people protesting today claim they are frustrated by the lack of pro-people reforms and years of economic stagnation. The countries’ stringent lèse majesté laws, which make defaming or insulting the king an illegal offence, have also shrunk the space for dissent considerably.
Thailand’s political scene has been wrecked by years of crises and coups. The coup in 2014 was one among over 12 that have been staged by the Thai army since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. The last military take-over took place in 2006, when the government led by Thaksin Shinawatra was toppled by the army. His sister Yingluck Shinawatra was Prime Minister during the 2014 coup.
Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha’s rise to power in Thailand
On May 22, 2014, then-army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha announced that after months of political turmoil in the country, the military had seized power of the government and had suspended the constitution. He promised to restore order, before suspending TV broadcasting and banning political gatherings. A nationwide curfew was enforced.
The crises first began earlier that year, when Shinawatra ordered the dissolution of the lower house of parliament. In May, a court ordered her removal for alleged abuse of power. Chan-ocha quickly replaced Shinawatra and declared himself Thailand’s premier. Despite curfews and overwhelming military presence on the streets, protests led by ordinary citizens spontaneously broke out across the country.
Following the coup, a hand-picked legislature was set in place, comprising mostly military and police officials. An interim constitution, issued in July, gave the military sweeping powers. Under Chan-ocha’s leadership, the army and the royalist elite have joined forces and consolidated power.
Last year, the country witnessed its first elections since the army coup. Young people turned up in overwhelming numbers to vote for change — they wanted a political revamp led by a progressive pro-democracy party. But a military-drafted constitution kept this from happening.
What’s the History of pro-democracy protests in Thailand?
Despite winning more seats than anyone else in parliament, Thailand’s main opposition — Pheu Thai — didn’t get to choose the country’s next leader. The 250-seat senate was chosen entirely by the military, which unsurprisingly voted to keep junta leader Chan-ocha in office.
The country’s youth was dismayed when he was re-elected in 2019. The hashtags #RIPTHAILAND and #NotMyPM trended on Twitter for days after the results were announced. Despite his unpopularity among sections of Thai youth, the 65-year-old former general has become one the countries’ longest-serving leaders in history.
A demonstrator shows a sign which reads, ‘We need democracy, no more dictatorship’. (Reuters Photo: Jorge Silva)
The pro-democracy rallies seen this week did not emerge out of thin air, the protestors merely picked up where they left off earlier this year, before public assemblies were abruptly halted due to the pandemic.
In February this year, thousands took to the streets after Thailand’s popular pro-democracy opposition party Future Forward, led by billionaire tycoon Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, was disbanded for allegedly violating election laws.
Students gathered on college campuses across the country to express their anger and frustration at the Thai government’s decision. They accused the country’s leadership of being undemocratic and demanded Chan-ocha’s resignation.
Student protests take their protests online
The young pro-democracy demonstrators who stormed the streets this year, are vastly different from the ‘Red Shirt’ protestors that preceded them. The Red Shirts, formally known as the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), was a political movement formed after the 2006 coup.
The group mostly consisted of rural workers who demanded the reinstatement of the then-deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra. They also protested against the harsh living conditions in Thailand’s countryside.
In contrast, today’s young protestors come from relatively privileged backgrounds and reside in some of the countries’ biggest cities and towns. Their methods are similar to those of protestors in the 1960s, who are considered Thailand’s first generation of student demonstrators.
Protests in the 60s were launched by young people who were disillusioned with the rampant corruption and elitism that dominated politics and instead desired democratic and progressive leadership.
The student movements that followed were better organised and have been a permanent fixture in Thailand’s political scene. Student unions in universities and groups like the National Student Center of Thailand (NSCT, 1968-1976) and the Student Federation of Thailand (SFT, 1984-early 2000) left an indelible mark in Thai politics.
Unable to gather in public during the Covid-19 pandemic, student protests took their revolt online. Thai youth used Twitter as a platform to voice their dissent and even forge an alliance with pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong. Hashtags like #nnevy and #MilkTea alliance were used by protestors from both countries to counter Chinese nationalist trolls.

News
Trudeau’s Gun Grab Could Cost Taxpayers a Whopping $7 Billion

A recent report indicates that since Trudeau’s announcement of his gun buyback program four years ago, almost none of the banned firearms have been surrendered.
The federal government plans to purchase 2,063 firearm models from retailers following the enactment of Bill C-21, which amends various Acts and introduces certain consequential changes related to firearms. It was granted royal assent on December 15 of last year.
This ban immediately criminalized the actions of federally-licensed firearms owners regarding the purchase, sale, transportation, importation, exportation, or use of hundreds of thousands of rifles and shotguns that were previously legal.
The gun ban focused on what it termed ‘assault-style weapons,’ which are, in reality, traditional semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have enjoyed popularity among hunters and sport shooters for over a century.
In May 2020, the federal government enacted an Order-in-Council that prohibited 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms and outlined specific components of the newly banned firearms. Property owners must adhere to the law by October 2023.
Trudeau’s Buyback Hasn’t Happened
“In the announcement regarding the ban, the prime minister stated that the government would seize the prohibited firearms, assuring that their lawful owners would be ‘grandfathered’ or compensated fairly.” “That hasn’t happened,” criminologist Gary Mauser told Rebel News.
Mauser projected expenses ranging from $2.6 billion to $6.7 billion. The figure reflects the compensation costs amounting to $756 million, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
“The projected expenses for gathering the illegal firearms are estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $7 billion.” “This range estimate increases to between $2.647 billion and $7 billion when compensation costs to owners are factored in,” Mauser stated.
Figures requested by Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs concerning firearms prohibited due to the May 1, 2020 Order In Council reveal that $72 million has been allocated to the firearm “buyback” program, yet not a single firearm has been confiscated to date.
In a recent revelation, Public Safety Canada disclosed that the federal government allocated a staggering $41,094,556, as prompted by an order paper question from Conservative Senator Don Plett last September, yet yielded no tangible outcomes.
An internal memo from late 2019 revealed that the Liberals projected their politically motivated harassment would incur a cost of $1.8 billion.
Enforcement efforts Questioned
By December 2023, estimates from TheGunBlog.ca indicate that the Liberals and RCMP had incurred or were responsible for approximately $30 million in personnel expenses related to the enforcement efforts. The union representing the police service previously stated that the effort to confiscate firearms is a “misdirected effort” aimed at ensuring public safety.
“This action diverts crucial personnel, resources, and funding from tackling the more pressing and escalating issue of criminal use of illegal firearms,” stated the National Police Federation (NPF).
The Canadian Sporting Arms & Ammunition Association (CSAAA), representing firearms retailers, has stated it will have “zero involvement” in the confiscation of these firearms. Even Canada Post held back from providing assistance due to safety concerns.
The consultant previously assessed that retailers are sitting on almost $1 billion worth of inventory that cannot be sold or returned to suppliers because of the Order-In-Council.
“Despite the ongoing confusion surrounding the ban, after four years, we ought to be able to address one crucial question.” Has the prohibition enhanced safety for Canadians? Mauser asks.
Illegally Obtained Firearms are the Problem
Statistics Canada reports a 10% increase in firearm-related violent crime between 2020 and 2022, rising from 12,614 incidents to 13,937 incidents. In that timeframe, the incidence of firearm-related violent crime increased from 33.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021 to 36.7 incidents the subsequent year.
“This marks the highest rate documented since the collection of comparable data began in 2009,” the criminologist explains.
Supplementary DataData indicates that firearm homicides have risen since 2020. “The issue lies not with lawfully-held firearms,” Mauser stated.
Firearms that have been banned under the Order-in-Council continue to be securely stored in the safes of their lawful owners. The individuals underwent a thorough vetting process by the RCMP and are subject to nightly monitoring to ensure there are no infractions that could pose a risk to public safety.
“The firearms involved in homicides were seldom legally owned weapons wielded by their rightful owners,” Mauser continues. The number of offenses linked to organized crime has surged from 4,810 in 2016 to a staggering 13,056 in 2020.
“If those in power … aim to diminish crime and enhance public safety, they ought to implement strategies that effectively focus on offenders and utilize our limited tax resources judiciously to reach these objectives,” he stated.
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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 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
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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