News

Myanmar’s Ethnic Groups Unite to Fight Military Dictatorship

Young fighters with the “Chinland Defense Forces” in Myanmar pack the floor of a tarpaulin-walled room at their mountain base on a Saturday evening, chanting over Buddhist texts illuminated by candles and smartphones.

This is the headquarters of the Chinland Defense Force – Kalay, Kabaw, Gangaw (CDF-KKG) Battalion 4. And for the Buddhists in this resistance group, Saturdays are for praying.

The CDF-KKG is fighting Myanmar’s military junta, which in recent months has been losing ground across the country to a armed ethnic militias who have launched an offensive. The junta took power in a coup in 2021, and the conflict between the military and resistance groups has not ceased since.

Battalion 4’s base in the northeastern part of Chin State is cut into a mountain that overlooks townships in the bordering Sagaing Region.

The military overran its previous base in the valley. The mountainside’s thick tree cover provides cover from attacks by the junta’s jets and drones. The Chinland Defense Force groups tied to geographic areas in Chin State, overwhelmingly consist of Chin Christians.

Myanmar

However, the CDF-KKG has more mixed membership and also includes Bamar Buddhists — the majority ethnic and religious group in Myanmar. Fighters from different backgrounds defend the ideas of equality they want for their country.

Sin Bout, 23, is from a Buddhist family in Sagaing Region’s Kale Township. He left university after the 2021 coup, joining the CDF-KKG in March 2022.

He told DW that he had learned in state-run schools that the various ethnic armies fighting Myanmar’s military were terrorists. That included the Chin National Army, which supports defense force groups like his.

“After the coup, I know they are not terrorists. They are fighting for their freedom,” he said, explaining that was why he had joined the fight.

On Sundays, there’s a Christian service. The resistance fighters play the guitar and sing gospel songs.

Sang Nu, a Chin Christian, left medical school to join the CDF-KKG. The 23-year-old told DW that she believed her knowledge of medicine might come in useful, especially for the other young women in the group.

She experienced various degrees of religious discrimination when she was growing up, she said. She explained that new Christian churches couldn’t get permits while Buddhist temples multiplied. Ethnic minorities such as the Chin seemed to be passed over for government jobs.

This is part of the reason why she joined the resistance, she said, explaining that she wanted more independence for her community but was happy to work alongside others, such as the Bamars, who are her compatriots.

Myanmar’s Military Generals trying to exploit religious division

Since the coup, the junta has leaned into religious divisions in Myanmar for legitimacy.

A report by the United States Institute of Peace said that the junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, had tried to position himself as a protector of Buddhism, making frequent public appearances with Buddhist leaders.

At 25 meters tall, the world’s largest sculpture of a sitting Buddha was completed in July in the capital, Naypyidaw.

Sang Nu said that there was no tension between the different ethnic and religious fighters in Battalion 4. “We feel like we are one family. Our enemy is only the military,” she said.

The more important issues they faced were a lack of medical supplies and weapons, she added. However, she did also point out that the resistance could do more to include women, who make up at least 10% of her battallion but are rarely sent to the frontline. She said that women could contribute more than providing medical care in the rear.

In the valley below CDF-KKG’s mountain base, near the junta-controlled city of Kale, a former boarding school made of wood no longer welcomes students, but a steady stream of resistance fighters.

Equal treatment of all ethnic and religious groups

Austin Mon, 51, was once the principal. He has lived through two prior uprisings against the military — in 1988 and 1996. He supported the democracy movement then, but didn’t involve himself in activism. His parents had told him it was too dangerous.

Now that he has a family of his own, he sees this conflict as his last chance to fight for democracy. After closing his school, he became vice-president of the CDF-KKG.

Austin Mon said that around a fifth of his former students had also joined the resistance group — youths from diverse ethnic, religious and economic backgrounds.

“When I saw my former students join the CDF, I felt proud. But when they go to the frontline I worry. They are always on my mind when they go. I can’t eat or sleep,” he said.

Despite this, he said that he would fight to the end. This revolution could not be missed, he said.

Sin Bout from Battalion 4 also said that there would be no returning home for him until the war was over. “I miss my family and friends. But we don’t have a choice. We feel like it is our duty,” he said.

He explained his ideal Myanmar would be a country where there is equal treatment of all ethnic and religious groups, freedom of speech and economic opportunity.

He said that the military had stolen these things from his generation — as it had already done to others who came before.

In the cool mountain air of the camp, Sin Bout strummed his acoustic guitar and sang songs he wrote about revolution and the struggle for a free Myanmar.

Source: Deutsche Welle

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

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

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

News

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