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Libya’s Death Toll Surpasses 6,000 In Devastating Floods, Urgent Burial Efforts Underway

Libya

(CTN NEWS) – Libya is facing a race against time to lay to rest the deceased, as the streets of Derna, a northern coastal city, are inundated with bodies. This catastrophe follows a torrential downpour that breached two dams, causing extensive flooding and sweeping homes into the sea.

As of Wednesday morning, the death toll has climbed to more than 6,000 people, as reported by Saadeddin Abdul Wakil, the health ministry’s undersecretary for the Unity Government in Tripoli, one of the country’s two rival governments.

Hospitals are grappling with overflowing morgues and remain incapacitated, despite the urgent need to provide care to survivors of this calamity, according to hospital staff.

Tragically, around 10,000 individuals are unaccounted for, potentially either swept out to sea or buried under the debris that now litters a city that once housed over 100,000 residents, according to authorities.

The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya disclosed that over 30,000 people have been displaced by the flooding in Derna as of Wednesday.

The extensive damage to infrastructure in the region has rendered some areas inaccessible to humanitarian organizations. Currently, only two of the seven entry points to Derna are operational.

Emergency Teams Struggle Amidst Devastation and Communication Breakdown in Libya

Emergency teams are diligently sifting through heaps of debris in their quest to locate survivors and retrieve the deceased. Their efforts are guided by the Islamic principle that the deceased should be accorded burial rites within a span of three days.

Libya’s Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, Adel Juma, elucidated the establishment of the Martyrs’ Committee, which is tasked with identifying missing individuals and executing procedures for the identification and burial of the deceased in accordance with Sharia and legal regulations.

The extensive devastation caused by Storm Daniel has compounded the already Herculean task faced by rescue teams, who are tirelessly working to clear roads and remove debris in their quest to locate survivors.

The storm’s disruption of communication channels has added to the challenges, hindering rescue operations and intensifying the anxiety experienced by families outside Libya who anxiously await news about their missing loved ones.

Ayah, a Palestinian woman with relatives in Derna, expressed her profound concern as she has been unable to establish contact with her cousins in the afflicted region since the onset of the floods.

“I’m genuinely worried about them. I have two cousins residing in Derna.

It appears that all communication has been severed, and I am uncertain about their current status. The videos emerging from Derna are deeply distressing. We are all in a state of fear,” she shared with CNN.

Libya was plunged into turmoil in 2011 during the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, and it has since been torn apart by a devastating civil war.

The extent of the destruction serves as a stark reminder of the fragility of a nation that has long grappled with internal strife and disorder.

Geopolitical Divisions in Libya Amidst Unprecedented Flood Devastation

In the northwestern region of Libya, the United Nations-backed Government of National Unity (GNU), led by Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, is headquartered in Tripoli.

In stark contrast, the eastern part of the country is under the control of Commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA), which lends its support to the eastern-based parliament led by Osama Hamad.

The city of Derna, situated approximately 300 kilometers (190 miles) to the east of Benghazi, is firmly within Haftar’s sphere of influence and falls under the governance of his eastern administration.

Storm Daniel appears to have unleashed one of the most devastating floods ever witnessed in North Africa.

This exceptionally potent low-pressure system initially advanced into the Mediterranean and subsequently intensified into a tropical-like cyclone, eventually making landfall along the Libyan coast.

Notably, Daniel had already inflicted unprecedented flooding in Greece the previous week, although the loss of life there was comparatively lower.

This deadly storm adds to an extraordinary year marked by a series of climate-related disasters and unparalleled weather extremes, ranging from destructive wildfires to sweltering heatwaves.

While numerous cities across the region were affected by the floods, Derna bore the brunt of the catastrophe as two dams gave way, submerging entire neighborhoods beneath the relentless waters.

“Libya was ill-prepared for a disaster of this magnitude,” remarked Osama Aly, a spokesperson for the Emergency and Ambulance service.

International Rescue Committee Raises Alarm Amidst Unprecedented Humanitarian Crisis in Libya

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has sounded the alarm, describing the situation in the country as an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis.”

Ciaran Donelly, the IRC’s Senior Vice President for Crisis Response, stated that the committee is currently conducting a comprehensive joint needs assessment to provide assistance to those impacted by the devastating floods.

Simultaneously, they are making an earnest appeal to the international community for support.

Donelly emphasized the significance of recognizing that Libya is not just a nation grappling with a crisis but also a critical gateway for people seeking refuge in Europe.

He highlighted the IRC’s ongoing efforts since 2016 to offer essential healthcare and protection to vulnerable Libyan citizens, refugees, and migrants who have been deeply affected by the prolonged crisis.

Foreign aid is now flowing into the country in response to this dire situation. Tunisia, Libya’s western neighbor, dispatched a search and rescue team comprising approximately 52 individuals on Wednesday.

This team included four search dogs, three doctors, a diving team, and a water extraction unit, as reported by Tunisia’s state news agency, TAP.

Furthermore, eight Algerian army aircraft carrying humanitarian aid, such as food, medical supplies, clothing, and tents, have begun arriving in Libya, according to Libyan state news agency LANA.

International Aid Efforts Rally to Support Libya Amidst Devastation

Several European Union member states, including Germany, Romania, and Finland, have offered support in the form of tents, field beds, blankets, 80 generators, food supplies, hospital tents, and water tanks through the bloc’s Civil Protection Mechanism.

The EU has also allocated an initial €500,000 ($540,000) in humanitarian funding following the Libyan authorities’ appeal for international aid.

Turkish aircraft, transporting humanitarian aid, reached Libya on Tuesday, according to Turkey’s Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Turkey’s commitment to sending 168 search and rescue teams along with humanitarian aid to Benghazi, as reported by the state-run news agency Anadoulu Agency.

Italy has dispatched a civil defense team to assist with rescue operations, as confirmed by the country’s Civil Protection Department on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli made an official declaration of humanitarian need, authorizing initial funding from the United States to support relief efforts in Libya.

They are working closely with UN partners and Libyan authorities to determine the most effective way to allocate official U.S. assistance.

Additionally, the President of the United Arab Emirates, Zayed Al Nahyan, has directed the dispatch of aid and search and rescue teams while expressing condolences to those affected by the catastrophe, as reported by the state news agency.

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

Google

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.

google

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

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

trump

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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