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UN Officials Refuse to Help 48 Uyghur Muslim Detained in Thailand

The Unite Nations refugee agency has turned down pleas from the Thai government to assist 48 Uyghur Muslim asylum seekers from China who have been held in Bangkok for nearly a decade. The UN Officials were concerned over angering China, according to human rights groups.
Internal records obtained by The New Humanitarian demonstrate that the Thai government began unofficially asking the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to assist in resolving the Uyghurs’ indefinite detention nearly five years ago, despite agency staff in Bangkok advising against it.
Five of the asylum seekers are serving jail sentences for attempting to flee in 2020, while the rest 43 are being kept without trial in the capital’s Suan Phlu immigration detention center, which is hot, foul-smelling, and overcrowded. They cannot communicate with their relatives, lawyers, or even other detainees.
According to the National Human Rights Commission’s 2023 report, Thai authorities have no plans to free the Uyghurs. Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Thai legislation classifies the Uyghurs’ arrest as a national security issue. This places them under the jurisdiction of the National Security Council (NSC), not immigration authorities. It also prevents them from using the country’s National Screening Mechanism, which allows refugees to live in the country and receive public services.
The UNHCR has long claimed that the Thai government has prevented it from accessing the Uyghurs Muslims in order to collect the information required to grant them refugee status and facilitate their resettlement in a third country, according to The New Humanitarian, which was founded by the UN in 1995 but is now an independent, non-profit organization.
The UNHCR has provided life-saving assistance to millions of asylum seekers around the world, but the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) reports that China’s growing influence over some host countries undermines “any political or humanitarian will to recognise and duly protect Uyghur refugees” in 2023.
The internal records reveal that China’s influence extends to the refugee agency, according to rights groups who studied them.
“The documents show that UNHCR has failed to uphold its mandate to protect Uyghur refugees,” Fortify Rights head John Quinley stated. “UNHCR leadership does not seem to be proactively trying to find solutions for the Uyghur refugees who are spending years in detention.”
UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch, who reviewed excerpts from the documents, told The New Humanitarian that the agency is still raising the Uyghur Muslim issue with Thai authorities, but “at no stage have we been permitted to access the group or engage with the caseload for the purpose of facilitating solutions.” To argue otherwise would be a misunderstanding of what has happened.”
He declined to elaborate, citing confidentiality concerns.
Uyghur Muslim evading oppression
Thailand became a favorite route for Uyghurs fleeing rising authoritarianism in China to Turkey, which has traditionally accommodated Uyghur asylum applicants. The majority of those apprehended in Bangkok were part of a bigger group of approximately 350 people captured by immigration police near the Malaysian border in March 2014.
In July 2015, approximately 170 women and children from the group were liberated in Turkey. About a week later, 109 people were deported to China, the most of whom were men. Their current location are unknown.
The remainder were held in immigration custody in Thailand. At least a dozen people have escaped, and five have died in custody, including two children.
According to one UNHCR document, “there have been increased attempts by [the Thai government] to seek that UNHCR find a solution to the issue” since 2019, with the chance that “Thailand may provide access to UNHCR” to the Uyghur inmates.
However, the agency’s Thailand branch viewed the Thai government’s informal offer with mistrust.
“The [country office] view is that this is so that Thailand may use UNHCR as a shield to deflect the ire of China,” according to a separate memo.
In late 2020, country office personnel decided that “taking pro-active steps before the Thai authorities engage UNHCR officially is not advised”.
UNHCR in China
One document warns of the “risk of negative repercussions on UNHCR’s operation in China” as well as “funding/support to UNHCR”, which includes 10 junior staff posts and $7.7 million in projects.
According to the records, in February 2020, the UNHCR regional bureau for Asia Pacific, the Thailand office, and others explored methods to help the Uyghur Muslims despite “national security” constraints in Thailand.
One option was to “gather information from others,” such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, another UN body.
However, the Thailand country office warned against “the gathering of information in order to explore solutions” without an official request from the Thai government and the approval of relevant UNHCR offices.
“One of the shocking aspects of these memos is that Thailand was apparently pressuring UNHCR to become more involved, and UNHCR balked because they feared Beijing would become enraged and reduce cooperation or donations to the agency,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, told The New Humanitarian after reviewing the documents.
“UNHCR must refocus on its mandate to protect refugees, and arguably no one in Thailand is more in need of that protection than these Uyghurs,” he told reporters.

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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
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
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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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