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Thailand Facing a Drug Epidemic
CHIANG RAI – Thailand is facing an epidemic of drug smuggling in a complex international racket that appears too massive and entrenched for authorities to stop.
Police said on May 2 that they had seized 1 million illicit methamphetamine pills; weeks after discovering nearly 50 million legal tablets to treat common ailments had been stolen from Thailand’s hospitals, to make powerful speed drugs to sell to addicts. An additional 2 billion similar tablets to treat common colds have been smuggled in from Taiwan and South Korea, also to make illegal drugs, authorities said.
Routes to India being more numerous and varied than to Thailand or China, drug flow estimates are tough. Stronger controls on the Thai side are also deflecting trade IndiawardsCorrupt chemists and drug dealers have been extracting ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from legal cold remedies and similar medicines in Thailand and secretly shipping it across the border into Laos and Myanmar, also known as Burma, where gangs use the ingredients to create a range of amphetamine-based drugs.
Myanmar’s drug gangs work among heavily armed minority ethnic insurgents including the Shan, Wa, and other tribes in the lawless, mountainous jungles near the border where the two countries meet.
Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are used to widen bronchial passages and relieve asthma, hay fever, nasal congestion, allergies and the common cold but can also be a precursor chemical to manufacture methamphetamines.
Officials estimate one legal cold tablet’s ephedrine or pseudoephedrine can be cooked to make three or four methamphetamine pills, enabling gangs to rapidly multiply their output. The speed-like pills they make are then illegally smuggled back into Thailand and sold to users, or distributed to other countries.
Investigators say they achieved a major breakthrough in February when they found big piles of empty wrappers for cold remedies — but no pills. Many of the empty packets were shredded and dumped in a northern forest near Chiang Mai city. The packets could have contained up to five million tablets from 10 different remedies, police said.
Investigators traced the labels to several hospitals, where staff were suspected of siphoning off huge amounts of medicine from legal stocks in their pharmacies to sell to smugglers. The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) — Thailand’s version of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation — joined police to question hospital staff, government officials, and others and were reportedly inspecting more than 875 hospitals.
Here a Thai gentleman is apparently under the influence of methamphetamines. Having cut himself in a rage, he has now taken a hostage.The numbers of pills — legal and illegal — are staggering.
“Up to 48.3 million cold pills are thought to have been stolen from [Thailand’s] state hospitals and smuggled across the border to make methamphetamines,” the Bangkok Post reported on March 29.
A medicine purchasing staffer at one northern hospital allegedly confessed to forging his director’s signature to order more than 210,000 tablets, the DSI said in April.
In the latest case, Bangkok police searched a townhouse on Wednesday (May 2), discovered one million methamphetamine pills, and arrested two people, according to the Narcotics Suppression Bureau’s Commander, Police Lt-Gen Chaiwat Chotima.
The building was a secret storeroom for pills brought to the capital from northern Thailand, Lt-Gen Chaiwat said, but it was not immediately clear if the drugs were made from pilfered ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.
Police meanwhile said they seized more than 200,000 speed pills in a truck at a supermarket’s parking lot near Bangkok on April 13, just before the drugs were to be delivered to a dealer.
Bigger discoveries in April came when the DSI said two Thai companies allegedly forged documents to smuggle at least 2 billion pseudoephedrine-based cold tablets to Bangkok from Taiwan in 2009, amid plans to bring in an additional 8 billion pills. The DSI said the two companies also bought 85 million cold tablets from South Korea, smuggling the medicine on nine separate flights to Bangkok, starting in 2010.
False air cargo manifests allegedly deceived customs agents by describing the shipments as equipment for Thai companies which supplied electronics and automobile parts. One of the companies, which legally imports electronics, said it was innocent and blamed criminals for stealing its logo and company name to buy the tablets.
“After we appeared in headlines about pseudoephedrine smuggling, we have faced damage from intensive inspections of our products by customs officials,” said UTAC Thai Co. Ltd.’s deputy managing director, Thanakhom Chawasiri.
“We have to keep on probing the case because the company’s name appears in drug purchases from South Korea and Taiwan,” DSI Chief Tarit Pengdith told reporters on Friday (April 27), apparently correcting earlier reports which pointed to China as a major source.
Tarit said he obtained evidence from drug officials in the two east Asian countries, and acknowledged that the company’s name may have been misused by criminals.
To strangle the supply of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, Thailand in April announced a ban on the public sale of medicine containing the inexpensive chemicals — but the ban created a problem for hospitals and pharmacies trying to treat patients.
The Public Health Ministry ordered all drug stores and clinics to surrender medicines containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to health authorities by Thursday (May 3), and said about 6 million such tablets had already been turned in during April.
Future purchases of such remedies, including liquids such as expectorants, will need clearance from the Narcotics Control Division, it said.
Traffickers from Iran and elsewhere are meanwhile muscling in on the gangs by importing speed pills into Thailand and offering them for much cheaper prices, police said.
“There are very real fears the cheap drugs from Iranian gangs will be sold to customers in the lower end of the market,” Narong Rattananukul, deputy secretary-general of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, said on April 15.
Several Iranian men and women have been busted during the past several months while arriving at Bangkok’s international airport, allegedly bringing in large supplies of methamphetamines and similar drugs.
Methamphetamines are more popular than any other illegal drug in Thailand, which is burdened with an estimated 1.2 million addicts who also include consumers of opium, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, according to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board. Thailand’s meth users include thrill-seekers at nightclubs, concerts and parties, alongside students cramming to pass exams.
The pills are also swallowed by exploited workers at construction sites, fisheries and other industrial zones.
Slum-dwellers, transport drivers, diet-obsessed people and others are also buying the roughly produced pills which sell for about $6 each and are swallowed or smoked.
Methamphetamines abuse is so widespread that elephants are sometimes force-fed the stimulants to make them work longer hours while hauling logs, entertaining tourists, or performing other tasks.
Thailand’s government, media and public popularly describe methamphetamines as “yaa baa” or “crazy medicine” because users sometimes exhibit bizarre or psychotic behavior.
Occasionally, a frenzied addict will seize a victim in public, and hold a knife to the person’s throat, while screaming demands before being subdued, arrested and imprisoned.
Richard S. Ehrlich

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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