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US Faces Dilemma Over Taliban Ban On Female Aid Workers

US Faces Dilemma Over Taliban Ban On Female Aid Workers

(CTN NEWS) – KABUL – A Kabul-based aid organization that helps abused Taliban women, Abaad, is receiving frightened and often tearful calls from clients and colleagues alike.

Deliveries that keep millions of Afghans alive are being halted by a Taliban proclamation issued on December 24 that bans women’s employment by relief organizations, endangering the nation’s humanitarian services.

Another impact of the ban is that hundreds of women who labor for these groups throughout the war-torn nation would lose the income they rely on to support their families.

Since the U.S. military withdrawal in August 2021 created the opportunity for the Taliban takeover, the prohibition represents one of the main policy difficulties for the United States and other nations regarding Afghanistan.

An Afghan woman receives a food ration distributed by a South Korean humanitarian aid group in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

These countries have the challenging task of formulating an international response that neither makes the situation of millions of Afghans who depend on aid worse nor gives in to the Taliban’s repression of women.

The restriction, which is the Taliban’s most recent attempt to exclude women from public life, has led to the partial or complete closure of operations by 85% of nongovernmental aid organizations in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.

One of the companies halting operations was Abaad. Women who had experienced rape, beatings, forced marriages, or other forms of domestic abuse received help and therapy from their female employees.

The Abaad employee was informed by female clients that they are concerned about ending up on Kabul’s streets if the group isn’t there to aid.

Aid experts estimate that 97% of the population of Afghanistan is currently living in poverty or at risk of doing so, and thousands of workers, much like her, rely on their earnings to survive.

A Save the Children nutrition counsellor explains to Nelab, 22, how to feed her 11-month-old daughter, Parsto, with therapeutic food, which is used to treat severe acute malnutrition, in Sar-e-Pul province of Afghanistan, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. (Save the Children via AP, File)

A coworker confided in her that she was thinking about suicide.

The relief worker expressed hope that the United States, the United Nations, and others will support them and convince the Taliban to relax the restriction, as did other people interviewed.

“We only ask for that. They ought to devise a plan to help the Afghan people,” she remarked. She spoke under the name of anonymity out of concern for her safety.

Leading international relief groups who have ceased operations are asking U.N. aid organizations to follow suit.

They request that the Biden administration utilize its clout to guarantee that the international community maintains its resolve.

The largest single humanitarian donor to Afghanistan is the United States. One of the responsibilities for which it seeks to maintain a limited partnership with the Taliban is eliminating security concerns from extremist groups in Afghanistan.

An Afghan woman waits to receive a food ration distributed by a South Korean humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

A U.S. official engaged in the deliberations expected that the eventual international response would lie between ceasing all humanitarian activities, which the person said would be cruel and ineffective, and the other extreme of fully acquiescing in the Taliban ban.

According to another U.S. official and nongovernmental officials involved in the conversation, one suggestion being considered by the administration is suspending all help to Afghans other than that necessary for their survival.

The officials spoke on anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly disclose ongoing discussions.

Analysts and representatives of aid organizations draw attention to the challenge of defining what constitutes lifesaving support. Yes, food assistance.

What about further forms of assistance, like maternal care, which has helped reduce Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate by more than halving during the 1990s?

Major nonprofit organizations claim that without female staff, it would be impossible to successfully assist the 75% of people in need who are women and children.

That is a result of the Taliban’s restrictions on inter-gender contact and the conservative traditions of Afghanistan.

A Taliban fighter stands guard as people wait to receive food rations distributed by a South Korean humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

Anastasia Moran, senior officer for the humanitarian policy of the International Rescue Committee, claimed that the suspensions were necessary for operational reasons. “It’s not meant as punishment. It is not attempting to cut off services. It’s not a strategy for negotiations.

The Taliban’s crackdown is bringing back the circumstances from when they first came to power in the middle of the 1990s when a series of edicts forced women into their homes and away from jobs, education, and humanitarian work.

Finally, Taliban officials instructed people to paint their windows black so no one outside could see the women inside. It left women and children in households headed by women with few options for getting money or assistance to survive.

The American invasion ended that initial period of Taliban control after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The Biden administration and aid organizations all refer to a commitment to prevent a repetition of the fragmented, rivalry-driven, and frequently ad hoc international reaction to Taliban abuses in the 1990s, especially the crackdown on women.

People wait to receive food rations distributed by a South Korean humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

The U.N. Security Council convened Friday in private to discuss the global reaction after 11 of the council’s 15 members restated their need for “unrestricted access for humanitarian actors regardless of gender.”

The humanitarian crisis caused by the Taliban’s embargo strikes Biden at a politically delicate time since Republicans are now in control of the House and have promised to look into the haphazard pullout from Afghanistan.

The House International Affairs Committee’s newly appointed chair, Rep. Michael McCaul, a foreign affairs veteran, termed the crackdown on women one of the “disastrous” effects of the U.S. pullout.

Texas Republican McCaul said his committee would demand answers from Obama officials over how they handled the country’s Afghanistan policy.

In a statement to The Associated Press, McCaul stated, “This administration guaranteed penalties if the Taliban reneged on its promise to defend the human rights of Afghan women and children.”

Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that the Taliban broke their word, and as a result, quick penalties are required.

Women wearing a burqa wait for free bread in front of a bakery in Kabul on January 24, 2022. (Photo by Mohd RASFAN / AFP)

Nearly everyone engaged voiced optimism that over the next weeks, discreet diplomacy spearheaded by U.N. officials may persuade the Taliban to change their stance, allowing female relief workers and assistance organisations as a whole to resume their tasks.

According to a U.S. official, U.N. and other representatives have daily meetings on the subject with the Taliban’s top leaders in Kabul, who have access to Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, and his cronies in the southern city of Kandahar.

Some others warn that the international community may spend years having little impact on the country’s leaders.

The goal of helping abandoned, battered women was evident in the interim. Masuda Sultan, an Afghan lady employed by the Abaad relief organization, said.

Sultan, speaking from Dubai, stated, “we intend to assist these women.” “They will perish if they don’t get treatment.”

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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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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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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

shkreli

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.

shkreli

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.

shkreli

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.

shkreli

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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