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Young Muay Thai Fighters Exposed to Exploitation

For many Thai children, Muay Thai is a means of escaping a poverty-stricken life. – Nicolas Asfouri

CHIANG RAI – Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand, with a 700-year-old history, and as with most sports, a yin and yang.

Known as the “science of eight limbs,” muay Thai allows striking by fists, elbows, knees and feet, in bouts of five three-minute rounds. As described by the Dictionary of Martial Arts: “… fights are often brutal and contestants are frequently injured. … Particularly devastating are the full-power kicks permitted to the legs, knees and thighs.”

For years, human rights advocates have condemned fights between children in Thailand.-Nicolas Asfouri

Muay Thai comes with fierce action, and more. As an ESPN investigation shows, it brings entertainment, pride and hope to working class Thais, especially in the impoverished countryside. Yet E:60 discovered that it also comes with troubling questions about child labor and exploitation in its country of origin.

After years of global expansion, Muay Thai is knocking on the door of the International Olympic Committee, seeking permission into Olympic competition. The International Federation of Muaythai Amateur (IMFA) has mounted a campaign to sell the sport to the IOC. Even the prime minister of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra, has joined the effort.

“Muay Thai is an integral part of the ancient Thai cultural heritage, dating back to the kingdoms of Ayudhya and Sukhothai,” Shinawatra wrote on the IMFA website. “A unique form of martial arts for self-defense, the art of muay Thai has been passed down from generation to generation, giving rise to heroes in unarmed combat during times of war and legends of the sport in times of peace. It combines fitness and strength with artistry and culture.”

What she carefully omits is that Thailand embraces two cultures of muay Thai. One is amateur, bound by the IMFA’s pristine code of conduct, which requires fighters to be 16 and older for international competition. The other is professional, thick with gamblers — and likely gangsters — at its epicenter in the capital of Bangkok. Its greasy texture mirrors that of professional boxing around the world, except for one crucial difference.

Professional muay Thai bouts feature boys and girls under the age of 15, and sometimes as young as 7 or 8, who war without protective headgear. A 2009 study put the number of fighters under 15 at 20,000, though some estimates peg it as high as 30,000. In the rural countryside, they bang away, at temple fairs and fundraisers, for purses of $25 to $50, and a chance for a future beyond the rice fields.

“For some who show talent, or who come from boxing families, they may move to a boxing camp, where they then live and train in earnest,” said Peter Vail, a professor at National University of Singapore who has studied muay Thai. “That’s when things get more serious, and the bouts that such children fight in can be pretty intense.”

The best child fighters make their way to Bangkok, where their purses rise into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

The phenomenon of child pros took root in the 1960s and 1970s, when the sport “professionalized and rationalized,” Vail said.

By the early 1990s it was a concern of human rights advocates, who claimed it exploited children and ran afoul of international child labor guidelines. In 1992, Thailand signed the treaty of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was supposed to curtail child labor and exploitation. Thailand muay Thai community resisted change, however.

In 1999, the Foundation for Child Rights Protection Centre in Bangkok petitioned the Thai government to ban child boxing. The motion failed when farmers argued that the rural economy would collapse without the purses their children brought home. A watered-down law — the Boxing Act of 1999 — required only a parental letter of permission for children under 15 to fight. Language to prohibit children from boxing for pay was put into the Child Protection Act of 2003, but the government continued to recognize the 1999 law. The push-and-pull over child pros has continued over the past decade.

Opponents argue that fighting impedes education, exposes children to unsavory people and conditions, and encourages parents to rely on their child’s income. Their primary argument, however, is that it violates the rights of children.

Proponents say muay Thai provides children a process of acculturation, and teaches them values of perseverance and self-reliance — not to mention that the money they earn can be the sole income for impoverished rural families during the wet season.

As Vail points out, “Children from poor backgrounds don’t have many opportunities, and the countryside is rife with problems — everything from drug abuse, hooliganism, to having to work in potentially dangerous and underpaid jobs. Conversely, children who box are often admired in school — which many can afford to go to only because of the money they earn boxing — and they have a strict training regimen that keeps many of them out of trouble.

“None of this is to advocate children’s boxing, mind you, or deny its very real dangers. But again I think it has to be seen in context.”

Context can be found in research of the late Dr. Pattana Kitiarsa, assistant professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Kitiarsa, the son of an avid boxer, wrote a 2003 paper titled “Thai Boxers as National Heroes.”

In it, Kitiarsa connects muay Thai to Thai concepts of manhood and masculinity:

“For every muay Thai boxer and for many ordinary Thais, muay Thai rings are culturally sacred domains, traditionally reserved for men and their fight for masculine dignity. Fierce, full-contact strikes in muay Thai, which are considered brutal or devastating by many foreigners, are highly valued as the core symbols of the ‘true game of true men with dignity and pride’ by the Thais …”

At temple fairs, where muay Thai is a staple, “the ring announcer repeatedly reminds people that boxing is a sport by men and for men. On many occasions, the audience hears similar phrases over the ring’s public address system, that only men can box and fight so bravely,” Kitiarsa wrote.

Yet Kitiarsa cautions that muay Thai be seen for its “ironic and self-contradictory elements.”

“As the national pastime ‘by men and for men’ from different classes and socioeconomic backgrounds, muay Thai is a place where poor young men, dutiful trainers, managers, promoters and sport gamblers earn their easy, quick money by trying to outwit, outsmart or out-hustle other men in the name of fundraising for civic projects in their community. This is the place where people talk about the dignity and pride of Thai [gentle]men and the Thai nation, while they enjoy the violence, the gambling, and the masculine entertainment. This is the place where human cockfights and the large-scale gambling take place within the same compounds as Buddhist temples and the compassionate teachings of Buddha.”

More context comes from Phunyanuch Pattanotai, a researcher at Waseda University of Tokyo. In his 2009 paper, “Child Boxing in Thailand: Preserving National Heritage vs. Exploiting National Future,” Pattanotai writes that “cultural relativism holds that the existence and scope of human rights in a particular society are determined by the local culture traditions and values. Since culture is specific in nature and may vary from society to society, it is inaccurate to hold that human rights, as a product of western philosophical ideologies, are universally applicable.”

Many Thais believe that child fighters are integral to the preservation of national heritage, Pattanotai writes.

Yet the author recommends that the Boxing Act of 1999 be amended to provide children under 15 a separate section under the law, which would focus on their safety and welfare, require headgear, and prohibit them from fighting “for the purpose of business or gambling.”

In early October, Thai media reported on an ongoing medical study that mapped the brains of 13 fighters under the age of 16 and the brains of 200 non-fighters of similar ages. The study, conducted at Ramathibodi Hospital in Bangkok, showed abnormalities as well as inferior memory response among the fighters. Damage in the fighters’ brains resembled that caused by auto accidents, falls and assaults.

In mid-October, muay Thai was one of 15 martial arts represented at the second World Combat Games in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thailand had seven of the 86 muay Thai fighters entered in the amateur competition. Far removed from the controversy of professional muay Thai, IMFA president Sakchye Tapsuwan sounded a hopeful note.

“Speaking about the Olympic perspectives of muay Thai,” he said, “I can say that we are working toward recognition … we are doing our best and we have already done our best.”

Steve Marantz is an ESPN researcher and author, Lindos Suenos.” Joseph Svinth contributed to this report.

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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

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.

(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

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.

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.

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