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China’s Population Plunges For The 1st Time Since 1961 As Births Drop

(CTN NEWS) – BEIJING – Official statistics released on Tuesday revealed that China’s population decreased for the first time in decades last year due to a sharp decline in the birthrate.
Adding to the strain on the country’s authorities to maintain economic growth despite an ageing labor force and mounting tensions with the United States.
Despite the official statistics, some experts think China’s population has been declining for a while. This would be a remarkable change for a nation that once attempted to regulate population growth by enforcing a one-child policy.
Many rich nations are grappling with how to deal with aging populations, which can hinder economic growth as dwindling workforces attempt to support rising older populations.

Commuters wearing face masks walk along a street in the central business district in Beijing on Jan. 12, 2023. China has announced its first overall population decline amid an aging society and plunging birthrate in recent years. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
But a middle-income country like China, which lacks the means to care for an elderly population in the same way that a country like Japan does, would find it particularly challenging to handle the demographic transformation.
That might keep inflation higher in many developed economies over time and eventually slow its economy as well as the global one.
Yi Fuxian, a demographer and specialist in Chinese population trends at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, stated that China had aged before it had gotten wealthy.
If fewer chances fuel public unrest, a slowing economy might also be problematic politically for the Communist Party, which now holds power.
Late last year protests that sometimes demanded the resignation of leader Xi Jinping erupted out of resentment over the severe COVID-19 lockdowns, which were a drag on the economy and a rare frontal challenge to the party.

Women wearing face masks walk with their children on a street as they head to Forbidden City in Beijing, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023. China has announced its first population decline in decades as what has been the world’s most populous nation ages and its birthrate plunges. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
According to data released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics, the country had 850,000 fewer citizens by the end of 2022 than the previous year. The total population of mainland China is included; Hong Kong, Macao, and international inhabitants are not included.
According to government statistics, there were over 1 million fewer births than the previous year due to the faltering economy and widespread pandemic lockdowns. 9.56 million babies were born in 2022, according to the agency, while 10.41 million people died.
Following the relaxation of pandemic restrictions last month, it remained unclear whether a large COVID-19 outbreak impacted the population statistics.
Since early December, China has claimed 60,000 COVID-related deaths, but some experts think the authorities likely underreport this number.
The Great Leap Forward, a disastrous campaign for collective farming and industrialization started by then-leader Mao Zedong at the end of the 1950s, is thought to have caused the last population decrease in China.
Which resulted in a massive famine that killed tens of millions of people.

Travelers walk through a trains departure board at the West Railway Station in Beijing on Jan. 15, 2023. China has announced its first overall population decline in recent years amid an aging society and plunging birthrate. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
Yi, the demographer, claimed that China’s population loss has started nine to ten years earlier than official estimates and United Nations projections.
With 1.4 billion people, the country has held the title of the most populated country in the world for a while, but if it hasn’t already, India is predicted to overtake it soon.
China has worked to increase its population since the one-child ban was formally ended in 2016. Since then, with little success.
China has attempted to persuade people to have a second or even third child, following attitudes in much of east Asia where birth rates have sharply declined.
In China, the cost of raising kids in cities is frequently highlighted as a contributing factor.
Zhang Huimin lamented the “fierce rivalry” that young people nowadays face, which is a pretty normal perspective on having children among people in her age group.
The 23-year-old Beijing resident complained that it was difficult to obtain a job and that housing costs were exorbitant. “I like living alone. I like spending time with friends or having pets when I’m lonely.”
The demographic situation is “far more severe” than previously believed, according to Yi, whose own data indicates that China’s population has been dropping since 2018. According to him, only Taiwan and South Korea have lower fertility rates than the nation currently.
Yi told The Associated Press that this indicates that China is experiencing a “genuine demographic crisis that is beyond comprehension” and that all of its prior economic, social, defence, and foreign policies were founded on inaccurate demographic data.
According to Yi, the impending economic catastrophe will be worse than Japan‘s, where years of slow growth have been partially attributed to a declining population.
According to the statistics office, there were 209.78 million people 65 and older, or 14.9% of the overall population, and 875.56 million people between the ages of 16 and 59, or 62% of the working-age population.
Furthermore, it was revealed that China’s economic growth dropped to its second-lowest level in at least 4 decades last year, however, activity has picked up since the COVID-19 travel ban that kept millions of people at home was lifted.
Any slowing has broader effects. In the early 2000s, China became a major manufacturing force.
China’s seemingly limitless supply of cheap labor cut consumer prices worldwide for computers, smartphones, furniture, clothes, and toys as millions of its residents moved from the rural to its cities.
Its labour expenses have already started to climb, and shifting demographics will probably make this tendency more pronounced.
As a result, inflation may increase in nations that import goods from China, but production may already be shifting to Vietnam and other less expensive nations.
In addition to facing demographic issues, China is also facing growing economic competition from the U.S., which has restricted access to American technology for some Chinese businesses out of concern for national security and fair competition.

Children play on swings at an outdoor playground in Beijing, China January 14, 2023. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
According to Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor of social science at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, if handled properly, a shrinking population does not always result in a worse economy.
It’s a serious psychological problem. The largest, most likely,” Gietel-Basten added.
According to statistics, men outweighed women by 722.06 million to 689.69 million. The agency attributed this to the one-child policy and the customary desire for male progeny to carry on the family name.
The figures also showed a rise in urbanization in a historically predominately agrarian nation. The permanent urban population grew by 6.46 million people over 2022 to reach 920.71 million, or 65.22%.
The world’s population, according to UN estimates from the previous year, hit 8 billion on November 15 and that India will overtake China as the world’s most populated country in 2023.
In light of the pandemic, India’s most recent census, which was slated for 2022, was delayed.
Gietel-Basten cited the growth of semiconductor manufacturing and the financial services sector as examples of how China has been reacting to demographic change for years by creating policies to drive its economic activity up the value chain of innovation.
“India’s population is getting younger and is expanding. But there are a lot of factors to consider before you automatically stake your entire wealth on India, overtaking China economically shortly,” the speaker warned.
The fact that India’s female labor force participation is far lower than China’s is one of the country’s many problems, according to Gietel-Basten.
Regardless of the population, he continued, “it depends, to some extent, on what you do with it.”
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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.

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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 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
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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.
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
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