News

China Releases Wuhan Covid-19 Whistleblower from Prison

China has finally released Fang Bin a citizen journalist, who chronicled the initial Covid epidemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan, after three years in prison. Fang went missing after sharing videos of sights in Wuhan, the pandemic’s epicenter.

After going missing in February 2020, he was sentenced to three years in prison at a secret trial in Wuhan, according to China’s state media.

He was freed on Sunday and is said to be in good health. He returned to his hometown of Wuhan.

The video that drew the most attention was one in which he counted eight body bags outside a Covid hospital in five minutes. He stated that he was jailed that night but later freed. Then came a video with the message, “All people revolt – return government power to the people.” That was the final video he posted.

Although activists applauded his release, they are concerned about the fate of another whistleblower, Zhang Zhan, a 39-year-old former lawyer who was arrested in May 2020 and sentenced to four years in prison in December 2020.

According to the BBC, she, like Mr Fang, was convicted for “picking quarrels and causing trouble,” a vague charge that has frequently been employed against critics of China’s government. Chen Qiushi and Li Zehua, two additional citizen reporters, also went missing in Wuhan in February 2020, but reappeared months later.

Wuhan China Ground Zero

Their videos offered a rare glimpse into Wuhan in early 2020. Cases were piling up, and lockdowns were in effect, but information from officials was scant. Wuhan was severely strained during its 76-day lockdown, which inspired the country’s draconian zero-Covid approach.

After hearing about a resident’s experience, Ms Zhang, who lived in Shanghai, flew to Wuhan in February 2020 to report on the outbreak. She was active on YouTube and Twitter, both of which are prohibited in mainland China, and she continued to share videos despite allegedly receiving threats from local officials.

“Perhaps I have a rebellious spirit… I’m simply recording the truth. “How come I can’t tell the truth?” She stated this in an interview with an independent filmmaker obtained by the BBC.

According to the Free Zhang Zhan group, she went on a hunger strike shortly after her detention and was sometimes force-fed as her weight dropped to under 40kg (88lb). It’s unclear whether she’s still on hunger strike. Her family is unaware of her predicament.

Her brother posted images of a letter written by Ms Zhang in now-deleted tweets in December. He explained that she drew flowers on the letter to reassure their mother.

Ms Zhang’s message was largely concerned with her mother, who had recently undergone surgery and chemotherapy. She went on to say that she was treated kindly by the authorities.

Torturous lockdowns

Mr Fang’s release occurred quietly and without warning, as China attempts to recover from the pandemic. Years of torturous lockdowns and rigorous Covid restrictions took their toll, but their abrupt end late in 2022 triggered a disastrous Covid tsunami.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the country has reported 120,000 deaths since the outbreak began. Almost half of those were recorded between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023. However, the figures do not accurately reflect the true toll.

The Chinese Communist Party’s top authorities declared a “decisive victory” over Covid in February, boasting the world’s lowest fatality rate. They also called the country’s escape from Covid a “miracle.”

A new history textbook describes how the government “achieved major achievements in co-coordinating pandemic prevention and control.”

And, because of China’s swift and effective censorship machine, the videos and accounts shared by people like Mr Fang and Ms Zhang will likely fade from memory, if they haven’t already.

“I visited China in March, and my observations were that people there want to move forward and leave the past behind,” says Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

China’s Zero Covid Policy

“They had to put up with the draconian zero-COVID for a long time, and they now long for a return to a more normal way of life.” However, he adds, the desire to move on is also motivated by a lack of public discussion or debate.

Nobody in Wuhan has forgotten how things was in early 2020.

One 31-year-old local, who did not want to be identified, said he had never heard of Fang Bin but remembered Li Wenliang, a doctor who sought to warn the world about the coronavirus but died after contracting it. Mr Li was probed for “spreading rumours,” but he was eventually apologised to by local authorities.

He claims he frequently discusses the pandemic with his pals, even though he realises they may be in the minority.

“Society is revising the memory of this time period,” he argues. During the lockdown, he indicated he lived with his parents. His mother would be so worried that she would wash her hands so frequently that her hands cracked.

“My mother is still confused about the virus.” If the media begins to report on the virus again, she will wear a mask. She is quite terrified.”

Others, like Yang Min, lost their only child to Covid in January 2020. She believes that if officials had issued an early warning, her daughter could have been rescued.

Three years later, she is still working to hold people accountable and is attempting to sue the local government.

She is being watched, but she is not terrified, she told the BBC earlier this year.

“I’ve already lost the most valuable thing in my life.” What else is there?

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