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Young Migrants Makes Waves with New Magazine

Young Generations’ Note members at the Best Friends Library, Mae Sot. From left, Thu Tha San, Kharomi and Nay Satkyar Naing. (Photo: Brennan O'Connor / The Irrawaddy)

CHIANGRAI TIMES – Nay Satkyar Naing, 19, is like many of the Burmese youth in the Thai border town of Mae Sot who came for a chance to get a better education in the dozens of migrant schools offering free classes.

When he first arrived in 2010, he started volunteering as an English teacher at the Best Friends Library. It was around that time that he discovered a book titled “Bar Le He Lu Nga Ye” (“Human Hell? What is Human Hell?”) by National League for Democracy (NLD) co-founder Win Tin.

In 1989, Win Tin was sentenced to 21 years in Rangoon’s Insein Prison for his writing and involvement with the NLD. He was released in September 2008 after serving nearly 20 years. While in prison, the World Association of Newspapers awarded him the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize and the Golden Pen of Freedom.

Naing was inspired by Win Tin’s resilience during his lengthy prison sentence, keeping himself sane by writing mathematical equations and poetry on the walls of his cell with a broken bottle.

“Win Tin had no pen or paper yet he found a way to write. I have all the tools I need, so I asked myself, why can’t I write for my people,” says Naing.

He discussed his ideas with a few of his classmates at the migrant school he attended. The plan was hatched. They would start their own magazine. The small group of friends started with a Facebook group, encouraging other youth to submit their own writing and ideas to their project.

During that time, Naing saved most of the pocket money required for the magazine’s start-up costs.
After six months and many late nights huddled over borrowed computers at the Best Friends Library or the Knowledge Zone migrant school, they launched The Young Generations’ Note.

The first issue was 22 pages long.

Now, half a year and six issues later, The Young Generations’ Note has grown to 48 pages. The topics that grace the pages of the journal have also expanded. There are seven pages dedicated to Burmese and international news, one long story, three short stories, several articles, a book review and even an astrology section. In the last issue of the journal’s letter section, migrant workers shared their feelings and knowledge about the often difficult task of obtaining a Thai work permit.

Initially distributed in Mae Sot’s teashops, factories and migrant schools, it now has readers much farther afield. It has a regular home in Chiang Mai’s Best Friends Library and Aung San’s Jarmoon Library in Pegu, and there are even a few overseas subscribers in countries such as Switzerland and Germany.

From the beginning, The Young Generations’ Note was going to be a literary journal, says Naing.

“There are so many political publications in Mae Sot, but people who live here have to struggle to survive, so we wanted to make something that would elevate their minds, making them feel good about themselves.”

The Young Generations’ Note encourages youth and community members to find their own voice within the pages of the magazine.

“They read it and then they want to submit their own writing to our journal,” says Naing.

It’s very important for the younger generation to formulate their own ideas, he adds.

“Burmese youth need to change the way we think. We have to learn to not be so afraid to criticize and be analytical. But in order to achieve this, we need to believe in ourselves,” says Naing.

Thu Tha San, 23, has been part of The Young Generations’ Note since it started. Before she came to Mae Sot in 2010, she didn’t read a lot of books, although she wanted to. There was library in her small village in Mon State, she says, but most of the books were destroyed by termites and it was always closed.

She had a dream to open her own library in her village “so young people wouldn’t always have to go to another country to learn.”

“It’s very important to create education opportunities for our people,” says San.

Her involvement with The Young Generations’ Note has given her the confidence and support to make that dream a reality. By the time the first issue of the journal hit the streets of Mae Sot, she opened a small library in her aunt’s home in her village.

“I started with 20 books. Now we have 350,” says San with a proud smile.

She has even designed library cards.

San’s library serves a unique role in rural areas, giving people the chance to “open their eyes” in places where the Internet is too slow to use and televisions and even radios are too expensive for many people.

Kharomi, 20, who has also been part of The Young Generations’ Note since its inception, echoes San’s concerns regarding the lack of information and education available to rural people.

In her Ta’ang (Palaung ) village in northern Shan State, people don’t know anything about NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s activities, she says.

It’s like they are “living in darkness,” says Kharomi.

“We can’t just think about our farms and rice. What if the government just confiscates our land? It’s important that rural people learn to start thinking critically about what is happening around them,” she says.

This lack of critical thinking is a direct result of the absence of media, says Kharomi.

Before she joined The Young Generations’ Note she had never written an article. Now, with new skills and an increased confidence from playing a leading role in the journal, Kharomi says she is ready to “take on the responsibility” of creating media in her homeland, where “no one is doing this.”

“Young people are responsible for the next generation. We need to create change; otherwise everything will stay the same. But for the change to happen, we have to start thinking differently. It all starts with quality education. This is not available in Burma and is the main problem,” says Kharomi.

Recently, The Young Generation’s Note has started expanding its activities, offering free media training for migrants and refugees in creative writing, photography and video production.

And to reach an even wider audience—and potential sources of support—the group has also set up a website and created a fundraising campaign on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo.com, through which they hope to raise US $8,800 to rent an office, buy a color photocopier and increase their distribution from 170 to 500 copies.

Inspired by a leader from another generation, they hope to spark an intellectual revolution among members of their own—one issue at a time. – By BRENNAN O’CONNOR / THE IRRAWADDY

News

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.

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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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

News

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.

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.

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