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Thailand’s Wildlife Officials Crackdown on Private Ownership of Lions

Thailand's Wildlife Officials Crackdown on Private Ownership of Lions

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation has expressed concern about private ownership of wild animals, including lions, in Thailand. The issue arose as a result of many sightings of privately owned lions in public settings in recent weeks and months.

In January, a lion cub was seen riding in the back of a luxury convertible in Pattaya. During the same time period, another lion cub was spotted exploring a residential street in Chon Buri’s Bang Lamung district.

A further inquiry into the second occurrence revealed the presence of two 10-month-old lion cubs in a residence. A few days later, two more lion cubs were discovered in horrible conditions at a Bangkok cafe.

Wildlife authorities seized the lions and filed charges against their owners. The allegations included illegally having wild animals, harbouring protected wild creatures without authority, and transferring wild animals without the required documentation.

The Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation lists 67 restricted wild creatures under the Preserved and Protected Wildlife Law. Lions are one of ten hazardous, controlled creatures, along with the Bornean orangutan, green anaconda, chimp, Sumatran orangutan, jaguar, cheetah, gorilla, mountain gorilla, and dwarf chimp. Only licenced farms can buy and sell these animals.

Thailand's Wildlife Officials Crackdown on Private Ownership of Lions

According to the law, private persons and zoos may import or own dangerous animals if they follow the laws governing the trade of controlled and/or protected species. However, all owners of restricted animals must notify authorities and receive permission.

Officials give permits only after ensuring that the holders can offer suitable living circumstances for the animals in accordance with animal welfare norms and maintain public safety. Some are used in wild lion videos.

Prasert Sornsathapornkul, director of the Wild Fauna and Flora Protection Division, told the Bangkok Post that many wild animal owners lack a thorough understanding of the law.

Although the law enables people to own hazardous animals, they must obey the laws. The animal’s environment must be safe and not cause harm or annoyance to the community.

“Lions are deadly animals that should not be kept in homes. However, we cannot stop people who respect the rules from maintaining such animals,” he stated.

Observers have noticed that his reaction exemplifies the department’s ambiguous stance on individual possession of dangerous animals, with some assuming the government is attempting to determine whether dangerous animals possessed by private individuals are properly registered.

Thailand's Wildlife Officials Crackdown on Private Ownership of Lions

According to the department’s records, 37 people own 223 lions nationwide. The screening method is expected to be completed by March, which will provide a better understanding of how to deal with the problem.

He stated that owning lions has become a trend among the wealthy due to the high costs the creatures command. They can sell for more than 100,000 baht. However, many owners eventually lost interest in the animals, and others decided to sell them to other people or even zoos, he noted.

Edwin Wiek, founder of the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT), believes the department made the correct decision by not allowing individual lion ownership.

“The situation might get worse in the next few years; we might see lion owners leaving the animals with the department when they realise they no longer have the capacity to take care of them,” he went on to say. “In the end, it is a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

He urged that the government prohibit individual possession of dangerous and controlled animals, stating that expanding the number of lions in private captivity is not the best way to ensure the animal’s survival.

Mr Wiek also expressed fears that owning individual lions could lead to wildlife crimes such as the selling of their skin, sex organs, and teeth. He said his team recently discovered a pig farm in Chachoengsao province that housed more than ten lions.

They thought that the cubs were being transported somewhere, most likely to Laos, for further commerce.

Thailand's Wildlife Officials Crackdown on Private Ownership of Lions

Meanwhile, the Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation (DNP) has dispatched a team of authorities and veterinarians to apprehend a wild tiger that has been roaming through a village in Kamphaeng Phet, causing concern among people.

On Saturday, DNP director-general Atthapol Charoenchansa stated that the DNP’s team is monitoring the tiger in the forest near to Kariang Namtok village in tambon Khlong Lan Pattana of Khlong Lan district.

Officials alerted to the sighting searched the area on Friday evening and discovered the tiger as it was fleeing into the forest behind the village. Its footsteps were likewise all over the place.

Mr Atthapol stated that it is difficult to tell where the tiger came from because the area is connected to the Thung Yai and Huay Kha Khaeng forests. The wild tiger will be trapped, evaluated, treated for injuries, and released back into the wild, he said.

Surachai Photkhamanee, chief of Khlong Lan National Park, said on Saturday that based on the tracks, the tiger is roughly 1.5 metres long and 70-80 centimetres tall.

The baby animal, estimated to be approximately two years old, is said to have walked away from Khun Nam Yen in Mae Wong National Park, he said, adding that park officials are actively monitoring the community to ensure inhabitants’ safety.

On Saturday, some 50 individuals were mobilised to track the tiger and aid with the capture operation. Local locals claimed the tiger had killed one of their pigs, causing alarm in the neighbourhood.

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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.

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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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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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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

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