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Thailand’s Sex Industry Surviving Junta Graft Crackdown

A police officer standing outside a bar in the Soi Cowboy nighttime entertainment area on Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok
BANGKOK – Fern’s illegal cocktail bar which appears each night on a sidewalk between a group of scantily-clad women from a go-go bar and a noodle stall near one of Bangkok’s infamous red-light districts, that by morning it has vanished.
The bar, the prostitution, even the food stall are illegal, part of a shadow economy that one economist estimates is worth more than two-fifths of the nation’s gross domestic product. The ruling military junta says it has cracked down on corruption, and that is the reason why the country has the slowest economic growth among developing nations in East Asia. Yet on the streets of Bangkok, there is little sign of any difference.
Payments to bribe officials and mafia are higher now, so everyone is earning less, said Ms Fern, who uses an alias because the bar she has been running for almost five years is illegal. She said it has become more expensive since the army took over because the people she pays said they also have to pay more.
“Thailand’s shadow economy ranks globally among the highest,” said Professor Friedrich Schneider, an economist at Johannes Kepler University of Linz in Austria and author of Hiding in the Shadows: The Growth of the Underground Economy. He estimates Thailand’s shadow economy was 40.9 per cent of real GDP last year, including some illegal sectors such as gambling and small weapons, but largely excluding drugs.
On the streets of Bangkok, there are undocumented and untaxed businesses everywhere, from food stalls to jewelry vendors and pop-up bars like Ms Fern’s. Inside the buildings and away from the capital are darker corners of the illicit market: Sex workers, gambling dens, drug smuggling and human trafficking.
THREE PAYMENTS
Ms Fern says she makes three cash payments each night, one for a local official, the second to a fixer who oversees the street stalls in the area, and the third and largest to someone who claims to represent the police. That last bribe has risen about 75 per cent since the junta crackdown began, she says.
The junta, which seized control of the country in a May 2014 coup, has spoken frequently of the need for a corruption cleanse, not only among the nation’s politicians but society at large. While there have been a handful of high-profile arrests of those accused of corruption or human trafficking, the junta has largely focused on small-scale public order issues such as banning sunbed rentals on public beaches or clearing vendors from some Bangkok sidewalks.
“Today the economy is slowing down because previously everybody had money to spend,” junta leader-turned-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said June 5 in a nationally televised speech. “But now we have a problem, which we all know. It’s because some people spend money from illegal businesses and money from fraud. Now the government has come to set things right, causing that money to disappear.”
The Thai economy grew 3 per cent in the first quarter as exports and prices declined. Last year, growth was the slowest in four years.
CORRUPTION RHETORIC
“There is little evidence on the policy front that the army government has made much progress in making state enterprises or the civil service more accountable to the public,” said Ms Ambika Ahuja, a London-based analyst at Eurasia Group, a political-risk adviser. “What the army has done, however, is ramp up on anti-corruption rhetoric, and part of that is to explain away why the economy has been performing below potential.”
The real problems facing the economy are demographics, lab or costs, over-reliance on raw material exports and a loss of competitiveness, Ms Ambika said.
Thailand has been losing its export competitiveness in electronics in the last three years, while investment in research and development has lagged behind Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, the central bank has said. Nearly a third of Thais will be older than 60 by 2020, compared with less than a sixth in the Philippines and a fifth in Malaysia, according to the United Nations.
Blaming corruption is standard practice for Thailand’s military takeovers, Ms Ambika said. “Every army government uses it as one of the reasons, if not the main reason, for launching a coup. It justifies a takeover.”
Thailand has had at least a dozen coups since 1932.
NEW COMMITTEE
Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said they are serious about tackling corruption. He points to a government committee against graft, chaired by Mr Prayuth, which oversees anti-corruption policy, and the launch of a project against bid rigging. He said several sub-committees have been formed, including one to cultivate good morals among children.
Mr Sansern said more than 300 government officials who are suspected of being involved in corruption cases have been transferred to inactive positions to ensure they will not influence the process of gathering evidence.
“Tackling corruption in the public sector is the government’s top priority,” he said. “We can’t guarantee we will solve this problem 100 per cent, but we will do our best.”
So far, the current campaign to stamp out graft is no different than past efforts, said Mr Chuwit Kamolvisit, a former massage-parlor owner turned politician and anti-corruption crusader. Mr Chuwit, a self-described former “super pimp” and “corruption addict” who regularly paid police bribes, said the army has focused on the wrong areas.
CORRUPTION CANCER
“Getting vendors off the streets” is not going to remove corruption, he said. “Corruption is a cancer. It is inside the body. General Prayuth can’t take care of the disease in one year because the problem is inside” the government.
No one knows how big the gray economy is or how much money has vanished from it due to the crackdown, Deputy Prime Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula said. “Hundreds of billions” of baht could have been affected, based on the amount of drugs seized by the police, he said.
“It’s the right thing to do, but it affects the economy, making it slow down for possibly a year before it can adjust,” Mr Pridiyathorn told reporters on June 5. “The crackdown on corruption also has some impact, but the most serious one is drugs, followed by gambling.”
There have been a few high-profile arrests, including local officials and an army general, all accused of profiting from human trafficking. Those arrests came after an international outcry following the discovery of mass graves at jungle camps in southern Thailand used by smugglers.
BIGGEST ARRESTS
The biggest catch came in November, with the arrest of Central Investigation Bureau chief Pongpat Chayapan and several associates on accusations of citing the monarchy to profit from illegal activities, including gambling and oil smuggling. Police seized some 2 billion baht (S$79.6 million) in assets including antiquities, ivory, jewelry, artworks and cash stashed in vaults. Mr Pongpat was found guilty by the criminal court and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.
Few details were released about the investigation. Several of those arrested are relatives of former Princess Srirasm, then consort to Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Weeks after the arrests, Ms Srirasm asked to give up her royal title and her family was stripped of a surname that is bestowed by the monarchy, according to official announcements.
Discussion of the monarchy in Thailand is severely restricted by a lese-majeste law that can carry punishments as high as 15 years in prison for insulting the institution.
FEWER CUSTOMERS
In her street bar, which seats a handful of people around a makeshift counter, Ms Fern serves a group of foreigners whisky mixers with ice from a cool box. She said she tries to send 10,000-12,000 baht home to her family in the northeast of the country, but there are fewer foreign visitors now.
Thailand gets 10 per cent of its GDP from tourism. Visitor numbers are recovering from a year ago, when the streets were full of protesters calling for the previous government’s ouster. Tourist numbers fell 6.7 per cent last year.
Mr Chuwit said he regularly paid police in his massage parlour days to turn a blind eye. If there was an anti-corruption sweep, he would just lay low for a few weeks until it passed.
“This is just a show,” Mr Chuwit said. “It’s hard to crack down on corruption in Thailand. I don’t think we can handle it in our generation.
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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