News
Pakistan Government Orders the Arrest of Political Opposition Leader

Police in Pakistan have arrested opposition leader Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Saturday as part of a broader crackdown on Imran Khan’s former ruling Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Qureshi, the former foreign minister of deposed Prime Minister Imran Khan, was arrested in Islamabad shortly after addressing a press conference.
The the reason for Qureshi’s arrest and incarceration was not immediately known, according to party spokesman Zulfi Bukhari.
Bukhari, on the other hand, protested his arrest on the social networking platform X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming that he was “arrested for doing a press conference and reaffirming PTI stance against all tyranny and pre-poll rigging that is currently going on in Pakistan.”
According to the Dawn newspaper, Qureshi was arrested under the Official Secrets Act in connection with a case of a missing diplomatic cable, which Khan earlier said was part of a scheme to depose him.
According to the publication, Interior Minister Sarfaraz Bugti stated that the detention had nothing to do with the press conference.
Qureshi warns of a constitutional violation
“Breaking the 90-day deadline [for the election] will be unconstitutional,” Qureshi said at the press conference. He stated that the party intended to appeal any delays to the Supreme Court.
In recent months, authorities have made several arrests targeting Khan’s party, shattering his grassroots power by collecting up thousands of his fans as well as key leaders.
Khan, a former international cricketer turned politician, was sentenced to prison earlier this month after being found guilty of graft.
The case was one of more than 200 he has faced since his ouster in a no-confidence vote in April 2022. Khan claims he has done nothing wrong.
Pakistan is scheduled to hold elections within 90 days of the dissolution of parliament last week, by November. However, there has been speculation for months that they may be postponed as the country deals with constitutional, political, and economic challenges.
The most recent national census data was finally released earlier this month, and the outgoing government stated that the election commission might take up to six months to redraw constituency borders.
The election commission announced on Thursday that new constituencies would be finalized by December 14, according to official television. Following that, the commission will set an election date. Electoral experts believe the vote might be postponed for several months, possibly until February.
Khan is forbidden from running in any election for five years, however numerous politicians, like outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his brother, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, have had convictions overturned in the past in order to make a comeback.
Sharif’s unstable coalition government, which succeeded Khan, dissolved parliament earlier this month, and a caretaker government led by little-known politician Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar was sworn in to run the country until elections.
According to political observers, if the vote does not take place within the time limit, the military may seize control of the country. In Pakistan’s 76-year history, the military has ruled for three decades.
Caretakers are typically limited to overseeing elections, but Kakar’s setup is the most powerful in Pakistani history, thanks to legislation that empowers it to make economic policy decisions. The move is apparently intended to keep a nine-month $3 billion International Monetary Fund bailout agreed in June on track.
Pakistan is “on the verge of collapse” as it grapples with political upheaval, bloodshed, and what some, including former Prime Minister Imran Khan, refer to as “undeclared martial law.”
“What is happening right now is a total dismantling of our democracy,” Khan said in an interview with MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan.
“When there is no rule of law, which is what is happening now,” he continued, “might is right.” “In Pakistan, there is an unofficial state of martial law. There will be darkness ahead. We are on the verge of darkness.”
Khan, 70, a cricketer-turned-populist politician who was deposed in a parliamentary vote of no confidence in April 2022, is at the centre of a political crisis in the 230-million-strong South Asian country.
With the help of his fans, Khan is attempting to stage a comeback in a rare public challenge to Pakistan’s massively powerful military, which has dominated the country directly or indirectly for the majority of its 75-year history.
More than 150 criminal proceedings filed against him on counts ranging from corruption to blasphemy and terrorism might jeopardise his eligibility to run for government. Khan claims the cases are politically motivated and denies any misconduct.
Khan went before a special tribunal of Pakistan’s Election panel on Tuesday, and the panel said that he would be indicted next week on allegations of openly insulting commission members last year.
He also went before another agency on charges of leaking an official secret document last year when he waved it around at a rally and claimed it was proof of a US plot to depose him. Khan has subsequently retracted his assertion, which both the White House and the Pakistani military have disputed.
The Intercept published a diplomatic cable it said it got from an unidentified source in Pakistan’s military, exposing a US State Department official encouraging the Pakistani government to use a no-confidence vote to depose the country’s then-prime leader, Imran Khan.
According to The Intercept, the cable describes the circumstances of a meeting between US State Department officials and Pakistan’s ambassador to the US on March 7, 2022.
According to the cable, during the meeting, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu told then-Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan that the US was dissatisfied with Pakistan’s neutral stance on Ukraine and that Imran Khan had visited Russia on the day it invaded Ukraine.
According to the cable, Lu then repeatedly hinted that Washington supported Imran Khan’s demise: “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Prime Minister’s decision to visit Russia is being viewed as a decision by the Prime Minister.”
Otherwise, I believe the road ahead will be difficult.” Pakistani opposition groups were apparently forming a coalition for a no-confidence move against the prime minister in the months leading up to that meeting.
Later in the cable, the Pakistani ambassador expresses hope that Imran Khan’s visit hasn’t harmed the US-Pakistani relationship, to which Lu responds, “I would argue that it has already created a dent in the relationship from our perspective.”
Let us wait a few days to see if the political environment changes, which would imply that we would not have a major disagreement on this matter and that the dent would disappear fast.
Otherwise, we’ll have to face this problem head on and figure out how to deal with it.” The ambassador concludes in his final evaluation at the end of the cable that Lu commented “out of turn on Pakistan’s internal political process.”
In a response to The Intercept, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated, “Nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be” and declined to comment on diplomatic negotiations.
In the past, the US has refuted Imran Khan’s assertions that a cable existed proving that the US pushed a vote of no-confidence.

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
SEE ALSO:
Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.
-
News4 years ago
Let’s Know About Ultra High Net Worth Individual
-
Entertainment2 years ago
Mabelle Prior: The Voice of Hope, Resilience, and Diversity Inspiring Generations
-
Health4 years ago
How Much Ivermectin Should You Take?
-
News11 years ago
Enviromental Groups Tell Mekong Leaders Lao Dam Evaluation Process Flawed
-
Tech2 years ago
Top Forex Brokers of 2023: Reviews and Analysis for Successful Trading
-
Lifestyles3 years ago
Aries Soulmate Signs
-
Entertainment3 years ago
What Should I Do If Disney Plus Keeps Logging Me Out of TV?
-
Health3 years ago
Can I Buy Ivermectin Without A Prescription in the USA?