Connect with us

News

Thailand Proposes Study with China, Neighbors on Mekong Drought

Mekong River Drought

Thailand has called for a joint study with China and neighboring Mekong countries to determine what caused a devastating drought in the Lower Mekong Basin last year. After a U.S.-funded report indicated that Chinese dams had restricted the flow of water downstream.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC), said Wednesday that the study released earlier this week by American firm Eyes on Earth did not prove that the withholding of water from 11 Chinese dams upstream had caused the drought.

The Thai government’s water-resources chief said investigations were needed to find out what caused the drought.

“At the moment we don’t know the clear cause of the drought,” Somkiat Prajamwong, director of Thailand’s Office of Natural Water Resources, told BenarNews when asked about the study funded by the U.S. government. “We have to exchange information and co-study it with China and Lower Mekong countries.”

MRC, which describes itself as an organization that works directly with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, manages the shared water resources of the Lower Mekong basin. China is not member of the group, but a dialogue partner.

“Initial causes are climate change,” Somkiat said, as he emphasized that China had attributed the dry spell to unpredictable weather patterns, including less rainfall, and test-runs of two hydropower dams in Laos.

“However, the main cause has not been identified yet. We need to jointly study [it],” he said.

China Dismisses Mekong River Study

China's drain on Mekong

China, which has no formal water treaties with the four Lower Mekong countries, dismissed the U.S. study, describing it as “unreasonable.”

A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing told Reporters that China had “continued to do its utmost to guarantee reasonable discharge volumes” to countries downstream, even though Yunnan province also experienced serious drought in 2019.

Somkiat said MRC member met with a Chinese delegation in February but did not reach an agreement on what caused the drought. He said the next MRC meeting had not been scheduled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

MRC’s secretariat told Reuters that it had sought more information from China as well as a more formal working relationship, but only received water-level and rainfall data during flood season, from only two of the Chinese dams.

“The MRC has attempted to acquire dry season data from China, but no agreement has yet been reached,” the news service quoted the MRC secretariat as saying.

During his meeting with his Southeast Asian counterparts in the Lao capital, Vientiane, also in February, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would consider sharing hydrology information to assist its neighbors in the future.

Wang made the remarks in response to a critical economic report, which said that rampant damming on the Mekong would transform the economies of five countries through which the river flows, and contribute to long-term inflation and dependence on China.

Eleven Dams and more coming in China

Eleven Dams and more coming in China for mekong river

Critics and NGOs fault China’s 11 dams along the upper stretches of the Mekong for contributing to a drought that severely damaged agriculture and fisheries downriver.

“China has overcome its own difficulty and increased water outflow … to help Mekong countries mitigate the drought,” Wang told the meeting.

But the Eyes on Earth study, which was released Monday and based on satellite data, said the Chinese dams had compounded the drought by restricting the flow of huge amounts of water downstream.

Alan Basist, lead author of the report, which was backed by the U.S. State Department, told BenarNews that satellite measurements of “surface wetness” indicated that the Chinese dams had “above-average” water levels when last year’s drought took place.

He emphasized that there was a major drought occurring in the lower basin, which mainly caused parts of the river to dry up, leaving cracked riverbeds even during a rainy season when fishing should have been plentiful.

Reports said the Lower Mekong’s water level last year was at its lowest during the past 50 years.

“The primary cause was from a severe drought in the Lower Mekong. The lack of water from China only amplified the drought,” Basist said.

One river, six countries

Chinese dams held back Mekong waters

The Mekong, the world’s 12th-longest river, runs 4,350 kilometers (2,703 miles) from the Tibetan Plateau and stretches through six nations before draining into the South China Sea. Its waters are vital to Southeast Asia, affecting more than 60 million people who depend on its tributaries for food, transport and water.

Pianporn Deetes, the Thailand and Myanmar campaign director for the NGO International Rivers, agreed with the research company’s findings, saying the harnessing of water in Chinese dams had been witnessed by people living along the Mekong.

“The key point is irregular tides and fluctuation – drought in rainy season, flooding in dry season,” she said. “In fact, we have learnt such information but this research contains statistics and figures, which are credible … good research.”

Chainarong Setcheu, a lecturer at Maha Sarakham University in central northeastern Thailand, said the Eyes on Earth report showed that “the vast drought was partially caused by China’s [move to] harness water.”

“That is not right because the Mekong is an international river,” Chainarong told BenarNews. “It is clear that China is one of the causes of drought.”

By Nontarat Phaicharoen

News

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.

google

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

Continue Reading

News

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

SEE ALSO:

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.

Continue Reading

News

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

shkreli

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.

shkreli

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.

shkreli

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

Continue Reading

Trending