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[WATCH] Iran Experiences Unprecedented Protests On 1st Anniversary Of Mahsa Amini’s Tragic Death

(CTN NEWS) – Hundreds congregated in central London over the weekend to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the passing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who tragically lost her life while in police custody in Iran.

Her untimely demise sparked a global outcry against the conservative Islamic theocracy of Iran.

Chanting the rallying cry of “Women! Life! Freedom!” and clutching her portrait, the assembled masses paid tribute to the memory of this young woman, whose life was cut short on September 16, 2022, following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s compulsory headscarf law.

Similar demonstrations unfolded in Italy, Germany, and France.

“We implore everyone to not only remember those we’ve lost but to persist in the struggle, for this battle must reach its culmination.

Mahsa Jina Amini and the numerous others cannot have perished in vain,” articulated Maryam Namazie, an Iranian human rights advocate in the United Kingdom.

“Our relentless endeavor should yield a more just society. This arduous battle must bear fruit.”

Iran’s Efforts to Suppress Resurgence of Protests and Commemoration of Mahsa Amini

Within Iran, authorities worked to preempt any resurgence of the protests that had gripped the nation the previous year.

The father of Mahsa Amini was apprehended outside his residence, following the family’s intention to convene at her gravesite for a customary commemorative service, according to the Kurdish rights group Hengaw.

In downtown Tehran, residents reported a substantial security presence, and security forces were spotted in western Iran, where the Kurdish minority had staged significant protests the preceding year.

Hengaw, a monitoring organization, reported a widespread general strike in Kurdish areas on Saturday, sharing videos and photos depicting largely deserted streets and closed shops.

Human Rights Activists in Iran, another group closely monitoring events within the country, also confirmed the occurrence of the general strike. However, there was no acknowledgment of the strike in state media.

According to Hengaw, a man was critically injured after being shot by security forces near Saqqez, in the Kurdish region. The semi-official Fars news agency claimed that he was shot for failing to obey orders to stop at a checkpoint, and his condition was reported as stable.

Social media videos purported to show tear gas being deployed in Mashhad and Karaj, a satellite city of Tehran. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran also reported the use of tear gas. Iranian state media did not acknowledge these incidents.

Mahsa Amini’s Controversial Death and the Subsequent Unrest in Iran: A Quest for Justice and Freedom

Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman from the western region, passed away three days after her arrest by morality police, allegedly for violating laws that require women to cover their hair in public.

While authorities claimed she suffered a heart attack, Amini’s supporters asserted that she was subjected to police brutality, resulting in her demise.

Her death triggered protests that spread across the country and quickly escalated into demands for the overthrow of Iran’s four-decade-old Islamic theocracy.

Authorities responded with a violent crackdown, resulting in the deaths of over 500 people and the detention of more than 22,000 others, according to human rights groups.

Although the demonstrations largely subsided early this year, there are still widespread signs of discontent. For several months, women openly defied the headscarf rule in Tehran and other cities, leading to a renewed crackdown over the summer.

Activists worldwide sought to reignite the protests on the anniversary of Amini’s death. In Rome, around 100 protesters gathered in front of the Iranian Embassy under the banner “Women, life, freedom.”

“Now it is important that all the world start again to demonstrate in the streets, because what we want is to isolate this regime and in particular we want to push all the states not to have political and economic agreements with Iran,” protester Lucia Massi said.

In Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that a garden in the French capital now bears Amini’s name, honoring her as an Iranian resistance hero. The Villemin Garden in Paris’ 10th district, next to a canal with popular boat tours for tourists, has been dedicated to her memory.

Iran’s Attribution of Protests to Foreign Powers and Ongoing Economic Hardships: A Look at Recent Development

Iran previously attributed last year’s protests to the United States and other foreign powers, without providing evidence, and has since attempted to downplay the unrest while taking measures to prevent any resurgence.

The protests were partly fueled by the widespread economic hardships Iranians have endured since then-President Donald Trump withdrew from a nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

However, these economic challenges may have also made it difficult to sustain prolonged demonstrations, as many Iranians struggle to make ends meet.

President Joe Biden issued a comprehensive statement on Friday acknowledging the anniversary of Amini’s death, and the United States imposed new sanctions on Iranian officials and entities.

U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also noted the anniversary and imposed new sanctions on Iranian officials.

Soheila Sokhanvari, an Iranian-British artist, moved to the U.K. a year before the 1979 revolution that brought Iran’s conservative Islamic leaders to power. She was in London preparing for a solo exhibition on pre-revolutionary feminist icons last year when she learned of Amini’s death.

The protests that ensued marked the first instance of “a revolution instigated by women” globally, she told The Associated Press earlier this month.

She also emphasized the significance of Iranian men standing in solidarity with women during these protests, a departure from Iran’s historical norms. “That’s very original and it’s never happened in the history of Iran,” she remarked.

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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.

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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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