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North Korea Threatens ‘overwhelming nuclear force’ Against The U.S.

North Korea Threatens 'overwhelming nuclear force' Against The U.S.

(CTN NEWS) – SEOUL –  North Korea warned that the increase in military drills between the U.S. and South Korea is driving tensions to an “extreme red line” and that it is ready to respond to any military action by the United States with the “most overwhelming nuclear power.”

In response to remarks made by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday in Seoul, Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry released a statement.

Austin said that the United States would increase the deployment of cutting-edge military equipment to the Korean Peninsula, including fighter jets and aircraft carriers.

As it bolsters joint operational and training planning with South Korea.

A TV screen shows a file image of North Korean missiles in a military parade during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Feb. 2. 2023.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Since North Korea tested numerous missiles in 2022, including possibly nuclear-capable ones intended to strike targets in South Korea and the U.S. mainland, South Korea’s security concerns have increased.

North Korea said that the extension of the allies’ drills threatens to transform the Korean Peninsula into a “huge war arsenal and a more critical war zone” in a statement attributed to an unnamed official of its Foreign Ministry.

The North is ready to confront any immediate or long-term military confrontation with the “most overwhelming nuclear force,” according to the statement.

The spokeswoman added that the aggressive military confrontational maneuvers and hostile acts of the U.S.

And its vassal forces have caused the military and political situation on the Korean Peninsula and in the region to reach an extraordinary red line.

Although the allies have characterized such drills as defensive, North Korea has for decades claimed that joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea are practice for an impending invasion.

According to the South Korean Defense Ministry, on Wednesday, the United States participated in a drill with South Korean fighters over South Korea’s western waters, flying B-1B bombers and F-22 and F-35 fighter jets.

This month, the US and South Korea will also participate in a combined exercise to practice their response if North Korea employs nuclear weapons.

According to the North Korean statement, provocative weapon displays would begin in 2023, much like how the North increased its missile launches in 2022 as the partners resumed their extensive training.

Several missile and artillery launches by North Korea were described as “simulated nuclear assaults” against South Korea and the United States targets.

Invoking the nation’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

/ AP

The North Korean spokesperson declared, “DPRK will take the strongest retaliation to any military attempt by the U.S. based on “nuke for nuke and an all-out confrontation for an all-out confrontation!”

The spokesperson warned that if the United States kept sending strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula and its surroundings, the DPRK would unavoidably reveal its deterrent measures in line with their nature.

Austin responded that the United States is “extremely serious” about its commitment to defending South Korea and will continue cooperating with its partners and “train and guarantee that we maintain credible and ready forces” .

When questioned about the North Korean declaration on Thursday in the Philippines.

The growth of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and vocal threats of preemptive nuclear assaults, according to Ahn Eunju, spokesperson for the South Korean Foreign Ministry.

Have prompted Seoul to take firm action to secure the safety of its citizens.

She urged Pyongyang to resume disarmament negotiations, saying that North Korea was the one who was ,

“elevating tensions on the Korean Peninsula by rejecting dialogue overtures from South Korea and the United States and making nuclear and rocket belligerence and threats.”

The latest aerial exercises between the allies were intended to show the legitimacy of the United States’ “extended deterrence,” which refers to a pledge to use all of its military resources.

Including nuclear ones to defend South Korea, according to Jeon Ha Gyu, spokesperson for the South Korean Defense Ministry. He opted not to disclose the precise number of American and South Korean planes participating in the exercise.

After their meeting on Tuesday, Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-Sup held a news conference where they announced their agreement to increase their joint military drills and include additional live-fire displays.

They promised to keep sending “timely and coordinated” American strategic assets to the area.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to make room for negotiations with North Korea during the Trump administration, the allies have previously scaled up their training in recent years.

A TV screen shows a file image of North Korea’s missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Feb. 2. 2023.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Along with enhancing their security cooperation with Japan, South Korea and the US have also lately engaged in trilateral missile defense and anti-submarine warfare drills during a provocative run of North Korean nuclear tests.

“We sent a carrier strike group with fifth-generation aircraft, F-22s and F-35s, to visit the peninsula. Going forward, you can expect more of that kind of behavior,” according to Austin.

As North Korean leader Kim Jong Un intensifies his nuclear goals, tensions may worsen.

Kim demanded an “exponential increase” in nuclear warheads, the mass manufacturing of battlefield nuclear weapons aimed at South Korea.

And the creation of more potent long-range missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland during a political meeting in December.

Next week, Kim could display his expanding collection of nuclear-capable missiles as preparations are being made for a massive military parade in Pyongyang capital.

/ AP

Possibly in honor of the army’s 75th founding anniversary, which falls on February 8.

According to experts, Kim’s nuclear push is intended to persuade the US to recognize North Korea as a nuclear state so that it can negotiate desperately needed economic concessions from a position of strength.

2019 saw the end of nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea due to disputes on easing economic sanctions against the North in exchange for North Korea taking steps to scale back its nuclear and missile programs.

The North Korean official claimed that as long as Washington upholds its “hostile policy and confrontational posture,” Pyongyang will not engage in communication or negotiation with it and will attempt to “disarm itself unilaterally.”

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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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