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Thailand Spends 30 Million Dollars on Fake Bomb Detectors

Government agencies spent a total of $30 million on the similar hand-held units named GT200 and Alpha 6 despite a lack of proof that the items could function.

 

Chiangrai Times – Thailand’s military, narcotics bureau, airports and other security forces bought 1,576 fake “bomb detectors” for $30 million, investigators said, which the army currently uses against Islamist guerrillas despite a U.S. Embassy alert that the devices are “like a toy.”

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) –Thailand’s equivalent to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation — announced on July 18 that the manufacturers and distributors of the useless devices fraudulently sold them to Thailand’s security forces and other agencies.

An insertable “detection card” which supposedly makes the device sensitive to explosives or drugs, is a useless paper card, Mr. Alford said.

The DSI then sent the case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which set up 13 panels on July 24 to investigate the purchases.

About a dozen government agencies spent a total of $30 million on the similar hand-held units — named GT200 and Alpha 6 — despite a lack of proof that the items could function.

Thailand’s top generals endorse the devices.

“Do not say the GT200 used as a bomb detector in the far south does not work,” Defense Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat said in July, referring to southern Thailand where 40,000 troops are fighting Muslim separatists.

More than 5,000 people have died on all sides in the south since 2004 — including by explosives.

“It has often detected explosives. If it can detect a bomb just once, it is worth it,” Air Chief Marshal Sukumpol said.

In 2006, when he was air force chief of staff, the air force was Thailand’s first agency to buy GT200s to detect drugs and bombs at airports, Thai media reported.

Soon afterwards, the army bought more than 750 GT200s, reportedly endorsed by Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who played a role in a 2006 coup which toppled Thailand’s elected government and is now Thailand’s army chief.

Gary Bolton purveyor of the GT200 Fake Explosives Detector

“I have seen the effectiveness of GT200 detectors in finding explosives,” the military’s Supreme Commander Thanasak Patimapakorn said in July, echoing the armed forces’ closed-rank approach toward public criticism about the devices.

“For the military to admit that they were duped into buying useless bomb detectors…may invite unwanted investigation into suspected corruption,” wrote Bangkok Post’s former editor Veera Prateepchaikul on July 23.

There is no public evidence of wrongdoing by any military officials linked to the procurement contracts.

The DSI investigated only manufacturers and salesmen of the devices.

The DSI said a British company, ComsTrac (http://www.comstrac.com), produced and sold GT200s and Alpha 6s to Bangkok by creating two representative companies for distribution, and three subcontractors.

The black devices include a small rectangular plastic box topped with a plastic cylinder, which can be gripped by a person’s hand.

“Speaking as a professional, I would say that is an empty plastic case,” British explosives expert Sidney Alford told the British Broadcasting Corp. in 2010 after opening a GT200.

An insertable “detection card” which supposedly makes the device sensitive to explosives or drugs, is a useless paper card, Mr. Alford said.

A shiny, collapsible, radio-style metal antenna sticks out of the plastic cylinder and swivels, purportedly when detecting something.

During security checks, nervous troops are ordered to slowly wave the device — making its antenna randomly sway.

That has failed to detect bombs on passenger trains, roads, and in vehicles in the war-torn south.

Thailand purchased a total of 1,576 GT200s and Alpha 6s, according to the DSI.

The army is still using most of its 750 GT200s in Thailand’s three Muslim-majority southern provinces.

Ethnic Malay-Thai Islamist guerrillas are fighting to control the south, and carve it from this Southeast Asian country which is dominated by a 95 percent Buddhist population.

Fake Bomb Detectors

After 2006, hundreds more of the devices were bought by the Border Patrol Police Bureau, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, the Justice Ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science, the Customs Department and other agencies.

These include the Defense Ministry’s Royal Aide-de-Camp Department, responsible for the security of Thailand’s king, queen, crown prince and other royal family members.

Thailand is a non-NATO U.S. ally, and its military has been expensively trained by America for decades.

On Feb. 26, 2010, the American Embassy in Bangkok alerted the U.S. National Security Council, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secretary of Defense, the military’s Pacific Command in Hawaii, and U.S. embassies in Japan, China, South Korea and elsewhere about Thailand’s continued use of the GT200.

The “confidential” report, released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, was titled “GT200 Bomb Detector Failure Ignites Discussion on Civil-Mil (Civilian-Military) Relations, Human Rights, Procurement,” and said in part:

“The GT200 is used throughout Thailand by many agencies, most notably in the conflict-ridden Deep South.

“The bomb detection squad in Yala [a Muslim-majority province in southern Thailand] told us that they never thought it worked, but they were ordered to use it.

“The squad passed the GT200 to Emboff (U.S. Embassy officials) to hold; it looked and felt like a toy,” the embassy’s report said.

The U.S. Embassy noted “the questionable use of the device to detain alleged insurgents,” because the antenna wobbles toward innocent people who are then detained and interrogated.

“To most people, the GT200 appears to be a glorified dowsing rod,” the U.S. Embassy said, comparing the erratic antenna to a wooden twig which people claim detects water.

“We have done a double-blind test where the equipment was only successful in discovering [explosives] in 20 percent of the cases, when just a random choice would give you 25 percent,” then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced in 2010.

“So there is no statistical significance to having the equipment,” Mr. Abhisit said.

After that belated test, Bangkok banned additional “procurement” of both devices, but not their continued use by security forces.

As a result, the military and other security agencies have become the laughing stock of Thailand’s media and society for using the devices.

A Bangkok Post editorial cartoon on July 22 portrayed a DSI investigator using a gigantic GT200 to electronically zap a uniformed official, who stumbles after being hit.

Following the paper trail, Thai media dubbed the faulty devices as “corruption detectors.”

The DSI’s announcement came several days after an 18-month international investigation by Britain which resulted in British businessman Jim McCormick being charged in London on July 11 with fraud for allegedly selling fake bomb detectors to 20 countries.

In January 2010, Britain banned various fake bomb detectors being exported to Iraq and Afghanistan, after the Iraqi government paid $85 million for 1,500 hand-held devices named ADE651, allegedly produced by ATSC, McCormick’s company.

When that ban was announced, the British Broadcasting Corp. said it “obtained a GT200 that was sold as a bomb detector, and discovered that it was almost identical to the ADE651,” and sold in England by Global Technical, headed by Gary Bolton. – Richard S. Ehrlich

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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.

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

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

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.

trump

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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