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Buddhist Clergy in Myanmar Push for Gen Min Aung Hlaing Step Aside

Buddhist Clergy in Myanmar Push for Gen Min Aung Hlaing Step Aside

An ultra-nationalist fringe of the Buddhist clergy in Myanmar is demanding that Min Aung Hlaing, the country’s military dictator, stand down and his deputy, General Soe Win, should take over.

The man who organised the 2021 coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, resulting in a devastating civil war, has received widespread worldwide condemnation and is despised by the majority of Myanmar’s people.

This, however, was criticism from an uncommon quarter. The monk, Pauk Ko Taw, is a member of the Buddhist clergy’s ultra-nationalist fringe, which has previously supported the military junta.

However, a succession of severe setbacks suffered by the army at the hands of ethnic militants in recent weeks has caused Min Aung Hlaing’s former supporters to reconsider, the BBC reports.

“Look at Soe Win’s face,” Pauk Ko Taw remarked to the audience. “That is the face of a real soldier. Min Aung Hlaing is not coping. He should transition to a civilian position.”

It is unclear what kind of support Pauk Ko Taw has in the military. His remarks, however, echo those of other junta loyalists, who are growing increasingly unhappy with Myanmar’s military authorities’ apparent inability to turn the tide against their opponents. Pauk Ko Taw declined an interview with BBC Burmese.

Buddhist Clergy in Myanmar Push for Gen Min Aung Hlaing Step Aside

The fact that he opted to deliver his speech in Pyin Oo Lwin will add to its impact. The famed Defence Services Academy trains the army’s senior leadership and now calls the former British colonial hill outpost home. They couldn’t ignore the carefully veiled warning: they ran out of pals.

Burmese monks have a long history of political activism, typically against the authorities, ranging from anti-colonial activities in the 1930s to uprisings against the military government in 1988 and 2007. Many people protested the 2021 coup, with some even removing their robes to fight the junta.

However, some have collaborated with the generals, believing that Buddhism and Burmese culture require protection from outside influences.

Following deadly battles between local Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in Rakhine State in 2012, one militant monk, Wirathu, helped establish the Ma Ba Tha movement, also known as the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion.

It promoted a boycott of Muslim-owned companies, stating that Muslims were threatening to eradicate Burmese Buddhism. However, they make up only 8% of Myanmar’s population. The movement was officially abolished in 2017 but continues to get military assistance.

Wirathu, who had previously been imprisoned for instigating ethnic violence, was arrested again in 2020. But less than a year later, he was released by the military, and Min Aung Hlaing lavished him with medals and money.

Assets of Myanmar’s Junta Chiefs Children Discovered in Bangkok Drug Raid

Min Aung Hlaing’s coup in February 2021 sparked widespread popular outrage, with major rallies seeking a return to democratic rule that was brutally suppressed. The 67-year-old general has now attempted to boost his credibility by portraying himself as a Buddhist champion.

State media broadcasts a steady stream of images of the small tyrant bestowing presents on temples and serving as a pallbearer at senior abbots’ funerals.

He was also seen laying the groundwork for the world’s largest seated Buddha monument in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, funded by his military regime.

Myanmar’s leading religious group, the governing Buddhist council or State Sangha, has made few public statements concerning the coup. Some members are said to have privately advised the generals to exercise restraint. However, one senior monk in the Sangha, Sitagu Sayadaw, has publicly supported the military, even accompanying Min Aung Hlaing on an arms-buying mission to Russia.

Other monks went even further. Wathawa, one of Wirathu’s disciples, has been assisting in forming armed militia organisations in his native state of Sagaing to compete with the volunteer People’s Defence Forces that have cropped up around the state to combat the junta.

Pauk Ko Taw’s outspoken criticism from last week’s stage has touched a nerve. The military then held and questioned him before being immediately freed, implying that he had considerable backing. While official media covered his rally, his statements against Min Aung Hlaing were not.

Min Aung Hlaing's coup

Gen Soe Win, the man Pauk Ko Taw was encouraging to take charge of the army, is said to be dissatisfied with his troops’ poor performance.

However, he has not indicated his intention to take over his boss’s position. At the time, it didn’t appear certain that this would alter.

Min Aung Hlaing has also demonstrated an ability to promote and marginalise potential competitors. Last September, Moe Myint Tun, the general regarded to be his most likely successor, was caught and sentenced to life in prison for corruption.

Despite the junta’s most fervent supporters’ hopes for a knight in shining armour to come and restore morale in the ranks, no replacement is in sight.

Even after stunning war defeats, Min Aung Hlaing has continued to preside over ceremonial occasions, more like a monarch than a military commander.

Myanmar’s Ethnic Groups Unite to Fight Military Dictatorship

Myanmar’s Ethnic Groups Unite to Fight Military Dictatorship

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

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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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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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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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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.

trump

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

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.

musk trump

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.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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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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