News
North Korean Underground Christian Railroad
The journey to Thailand can take months and the path is lined with informants and extortionists. Capture in neighboring China means certain deportation and quite possibly execution.
Chiangrai News Paper – In the beginning, they arrived in ones and twos across the Mekong River. They were dirty, skeleton-thin and scared to death.
Sugint Dechkul, a small-town lawyer in Thailand’s far-northern Chiang Rai province, had no idea what to make of them. They’d wander up the riverside country road near his home, sometimes begging for food or shelter in an alien tongue.
“We’d ask, ‘Where are you from?’ They couldn’t answer,” Sugint said.
Finally, through painstaking pantomime, one of the stragglers conveyed his origins. North Korea. Nearly 3,000 miles away.
That was nine years ago. Today, the so-called “underground railroad” traveled by North Korean defectors increasingly terminates in Thailand.
In recent years, North Korean defectors’ network has discovered Thailand is the gateway to their dreams: resettlement in Seoul, South Korean citizenship and thousands in cash to start life a new life. Though this tropical nation is distant from the often chilly Korean peninsula, it is the nearest reachable ally of South Korea, which maintains a policy of financially aiding and patriating its divided kin.
“The first ones looked like they hadn’t showered in a month,” Sugint said. “My children begged us, saying ‘Mommy, Daddy, you have to help them.’ Now they come in big groups with kids on their back. They know their way and they know what they’re doing.”
The journey to Thailand can take months and the path is lined with informants and extortionists. Capture in neighboring China means certain deportation and quite possibly execution. If not killed, those returned to North Korea can expect slave labor in a string of camps believed to hold 200,000 prisoners.
But for North Korean defectors such as Joseph, who grew up starving under dictator Kim Jong Il’s regime, the alternative was slowly wasting away on a family farm.
“We were starving,” said Joseph, using his English-language pseudonym. “So many people back home had died.”
Fleeing famine
Many escapees flee when the Yalu River, dividing China and North Korea, freezes over in winter. But Joseph’s family simply found a shallow bend to swim across. They hoped that border guards would not spot them and fire their Kalashnikov rifles.
Against the odds, they linked up with an underground Christian network managed in part by former defectors. Joseph, then 13, was taken aback by his first spoonfuls of pork and chicken while he was hiding out at a Chinese safe house.
“I had never really heard of these animals,” he said. A Chinese couple who sheltered his family at the risk of long prison terms also offered him a slice of birthday cake. It was spongy, sweet and somewhat repellent. “I didn’t like it at all. I had only eaten rice and vegetables that my parents grew.”
Along with cake, the family who housed them introduced Joseph and his family to another foreign concept: Jesus.
“No one in North Korea knows about Christianity,” he said. “But they told me about it and I was saved. I know now that God had helped us many times.”
Christianity, practiced by roughly one-third of South Koreans, is the de facto faith of the so-called “underground railroad” network, said a long-time activist with more than a decade’s experience on the circuit.
Despite several stints in Chinese prison, a U.S.—based South Korean native — who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of punishment by the Chinese government — said he still helps with escapes funded by donations raised in America. He also claims to have branded these routes the “underground railroad,” a nod to escape trails used by American slaves in the 1800s.
“When they first get out of North Korea, they look really shabby and skinny,” he said. “We make them stay at a church member’s house for a month, just to eat.” It usually takes a month’s worth of steady meals, he said, to put meat on their bones.
“After eating, they look more or less Chinese and we can put them on public transportation,” he said. ““We give them new clothes, new shoes, sometimes fake Chinese IDs.”
The mission, he said, is to slip them out of China, where agents actively pursue escapees and their guides. “Phone calls? 100 percent, they’re listening. Emails? 100 percent, they’re reading,” he said. “Nothing is safe in China.”
The second escape
In the 1990s, the network had luck shuttling North Koreans along a 15-hour bus route to Mongolia. This method was cheap, he said, costing the network only about $500 per refugee.
But the Chinese clamped down and fortified the border with guards and spies. Networks have since shifted towards southwest China, where state control is a bit looser, and into bordering nations such as Vietnam, Laos and Burma. From there, many hope to reach Thailand.
These routes expose escapees to more than a week’s worth of bus and train rides riddled with random checkpoints. The totalitarian regime in Myanmar (Burma), and communist-ruled Laos and Vietnam, have proven largely unsympathetic to North Korean refugees.
“My family made it to Laos, but we were caught,” Joseph said. “We tried to say we were South Korean missionaries, but they didn’t believe us. We had no passports or South Korean money.”
Mercifully, they were only bounced back to China. The family was later spirited into Burma near treacherous jungles controlled by the United Wa State Army, a heavily armed ethnic militia funded largely by methamphetamine production.
Again, Joseph and his family were caught by police. But somehow, he said, a South Korean diplomat found them in a Burmese prison, paid for their release and brought the family to Thailand under the South Korean government’s care.
Joseph is now 24 and working for a Seoul-based network, Durihana, who helps fellow North Korean defectors. Born into severe malnutrition, he stands only 4’11.” “I’m still pretty skinny,” he said.
“Thailand is different from the other countries,” said the veteran U.S.-based activist. “They don’t exactly welcome them because they’re illegal entrants. But the refugees know if they surrender, they’ll be safe in a detention center and handed over to the South Korean embassy.”
Thailand’s immigration police detained only 46 North Korean illegal migrants in 2004. But last year, according to their figures, police processed nearly 2,500.
“I know it’s a human rights issue and, in my heart, I like to see them get help,” said Gen. Pansak Khasemasanda, a senior-ranking member of Thailand’s immigration police. “But whoever comes illegally, even if they’re North Korean, has to follow the law.”
“The burden lands on us,” he said, “because they sleep right in this cell over here.”
North Koreans who reach Thailand, however, are almost guaranteed support from South Korea. Once vetted, they’re released at a less intimidating Thai border — Bangkok’s chief international airport — with a light fine and a plane ticket to Seoul purchased by the South Korean government.
What follows is interrogation by South Korea’s CIA equivalent, months of rehabilitation and release into society with an initial payment of roughly $3,000, according to sources in the defectors’ network. About half of that payment is often owed to the network that funded their months-long escape.
Despite repeated enquiries, South Korea’s Bangkok embassy would not discuss their system of aiding North Koreans caught in Thailand. At Bangkok’s North Korean embassy, a man who answered the main line became irate when the subject was raised.
“Maybe you should just talk to these brokers because they’re the ones who allow these actions,” he said before hanging up.
These days, many escapees reach Thailand’s far north by hitching a ride on Chinese cargo ships that travel several hundred miles down the Mekong River, said Sugint, the lawyer in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province.
“For a little money, I think, a Chinese border guard might close one eye,” he said. The less fortunate have to take the old-school route: plodding the jungles of Laos undetected.
As they did nearly one decade ago, refugees continue to drift across the Mekong River at a port near Sugint’s home office, he said. But they are seldom as panicked and ragged as they once were.
He recalled a refugee years ago who was held at a police station for several hours until a bewildered cop, unable to communicate with the detainee, rolled back the cell doors and signaled for him to walk out. The frightened man gripped his seat and refused to budge.
“Now, they seem more relaxed, look clean and can even speak a little Chinese,” said Sugint, who has made a hobby of helping them fall into police custody safely. He’s even prodded his son to learn Korean and serve as the family’s pro bono translator.
“They’ve actually have money on them now,” Sugint said. “The first thing they want are cigarettes and a phone card to start making calls.”
Press Release: Chiangrai Times
A recent report indicates that since Trudeau’s announcement of his gun buyback program four years ago, almost none of the banned firearms have been surrendered.
The federal government plans to purchase 2,063 firearm models from retailers following the enactment of Bill C-21, which amends various Acts and introduces certain consequential changes related to firearms. It was granted royal assent on December 15 of last year.
This ban immediately criminalized the actions of federally-licensed firearms owners regarding the purchase, sale, transportation, importation, exportation, or use of hundreds of thousands of rifles and shotguns that were previously legal.
The gun ban focused on what it termed ‘assault-style weapons,’ which are, in reality, traditional semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have enjoyed popularity among hunters and sport shooters for over a century.
In May 2020, the federal government enacted an Order-in-Council that prohibited 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms and outlined specific components of the newly banned firearms. Property owners must adhere to the law by October 2023.
Trudeau’s Buyback Hasn’t Happened
“In the announcement regarding the ban, the prime minister stated that the government would seize the prohibited firearms, assuring that their lawful owners would be ‘grandfathered’ or compensated fairly.” “That hasn’t happened,” criminologist Gary Mauser told Rebel News.
Mauser projected expenses ranging from $2.6 billion to $6.7 billion. The figure reflects the compensation costs amounting to $756 million, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
“The projected expenses for gathering the illegal firearms are estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $7 billion.” “This range estimate increases to between $2.647 billion and $7 billion when compensation costs to owners are factored in,” Mauser stated.
Figures requested by Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs concerning firearms prohibited due to the May 1, 2020 Order In Council reveal that $72 million has been allocated to the firearm “buyback” program, yet not a single firearm has been confiscated to date.
In a recent revelation, Public Safety Canada disclosed that the federal government allocated a staggering $41,094,556, as prompted by an order paper question from Conservative Senator Don Plett last September, yet yielded no tangible outcomes.
An internal memo from late 2019 revealed that the Liberals projected their politically motivated harassment would incur a cost of $1.8 billion.
Enforcement efforts Questioned
By December 2023, estimates from TheGunBlog.ca indicate that the Liberals and RCMP had incurred or were responsible for approximately $30 million in personnel expenses related to the enforcement efforts. The union representing the police service previously stated that the effort to confiscate firearms is a “misdirected effort” aimed at ensuring public safety.
“This action diverts crucial personnel, resources, and funding from tackling the more pressing and escalating issue of criminal use of illegal firearms,” stated the National Police Federation (NPF).
The Canadian Sporting Arms & Ammunition Association (CSAAA), representing firearms retailers, has stated it will have “zero involvement” in the confiscation of these firearms. Even Canada Post held back from providing assistance due to safety concerns.
The consultant previously assessed that retailers are sitting on almost $1 billion worth of inventory that cannot be sold or returned to suppliers because of the Order-In-Council.
“Despite the ongoing confusion surrounding the ban, after four years, we ought to be able to address one crucial question.” Has the prohibition enhanced safety for Canadians? Mauser asks.
Illegally Obtained Firearms are the Problem
Statistics Canada reports a 10% increase in firearm-related violent crime between 2020 and 2022, rising from 12,614 incidents to 13,937 incidents. In that timeframe, the incidence of firearm-related violent crime increased from 33.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021 to 36.7 incidents the subsequent year.
“This marks the highest rate documented since the collection of comparable data began in 2009,” the criminologist explains.
Supplementary DataData indicates that firearm homicides have risen since 2020. “The issue lies not with lawfully-held firearms,” Mauser stated.
Firearms that have been banned under the Order-in-Council continue to be securely stored in the safes of their lawful owners. The individuals underwent a thorough vetting process by the RCMP and are subject to nightly monitoring to ensure there are no infractions that could pose a risk to public safety.
“The firearms involved in homicides were seldom legally owned weapons wielded by their rightful owners,” Mauser continues. The number of offenses linked to organized crime has surged from 4,810 in 2016 to a staggering 13,056 in 2020.
“If those in power … aim to diminish crime and enhance public safety, they ought to implement strategies that effectively focus on offenders and utilize our limited tax resources judiciously to reach these objectives,” he stated.
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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.
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
(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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