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China And Russian And Delegation To Attend North Korea’s Korean War 70th Armistice Anniversary
(CTN NEWS) – Amidst the perplexing intricacies of international diplomacy, a rare convergence of events sees both China and Russia dispatching distinguished delegations to the reclusive nation of North Korea.
This flurry of diplomatic activity comes as North Korea prepares to commemorate the momentous 70th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the Korean War.
Having already withdrawn into isolation during the relentless tides of the coronavirus pandemic, North Korea‘s insularity finds itself further magnified in this instance, making it one of the most sequestered locations on the planet.
And yet, in a historic turn of events, the closest allies of this secluded nation are about to grace its borders with their presence, bestowing a moment of great significance.
Li Hongzhong’s Historic Visit to North Korea Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the Armistice Agreement
From the eminent Chinese Communist Party emerges a notable figure, Li Hongzhong, whose stature is augmented by his pivotal role within the party’s central policymaking committee, coupled with a leadership position in the esteemed rubber stamp Parliament.
This distinguished individual shall lead an eminent delegation to the heart of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, marking an extraordinary occasion – the highest-level visit from China since the onset of the pandemic.
The raison d’être behind Li Hongzhong’s sojourn is rooted in the 70th anniversary of the armistice agreement that brought an end to the tumultuous Korean War.
North Korea itself extended the invitation, solidifying the significance of the event and laying the groundwork for an occasion of paramount importance.
Undoubtedly, this momentous visit bears profound implications for two crucial aspects. Firstly, it speaks volumes about Beijing’s unwavering support of North Korea, an affirmation of their longstanding alliance.
Secondly, it manifests Pyongyang’s willingness to ease the pandemic-induced border restrictions, welcoming foreign dignitaries with open arms.
Acclaimed scholar of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Leif-Eric Easley, aptly points out the profound ramifications of this visit, underlining its symbolic significance and its potential to foster closer ties between the two nations.
As the wheels of diplomacy turn and historical undertones reverberate, the world watches with bated breath as this unusual chapter in North Korea’s hermitic history unfolds before our eyes.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Visits North Korea to Celebrate 70th Anniversary
In a synchrony of commemorative events, North Korea braces itself for yet another distinguished visitor from a faraway land.
A Russian delegation, spearheaded by none other than Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, is set to grace the nation’s soil from July 25th to 27th, in honor of the momentous 70th anniversary.
This significant announcement emanates from the esteemed corridors of the Russian Defense Ministry.
In their official statement, the Russian Defense Ministry articulated the paramount importance of this visit, as it aims to fortify the longstanding military ties between Russia and North Korea.
The visit is seen as a pivotal juncture in furthering the cooperation and collaboration between these two nations.
Notably, North Korea’s state newspaper, KCNA, echoed the impending arrival of the Russian delegation for the “celebratory visit” on July 27th. For North Korea, this date holds immense significance, aptly referred to as “Victory Day.”
Both Russia and China have remained steadfast allies of Pyongyang over the years, cementing a bond that has withstood the test of time and geopolitics.
As the diplomatic tableau unfolds, the world observes the unfolding narratives of international relations, shaped by historical ties and the pursuit of cooperation.
The convergence of these distinguished delegations further enriches the annals of North Korea’s history and offers glimpses into the complexities of global interconnections.
China’s Momentous Intervention: 70th Armistice Anniversary and Regional Tensions in Korea
During the autumn of 1950, a defining moment in history unfolded as China dispatched a formidable force of 250,000 troops to the Korean Peninsula.
Driven by allegiance to its North Korean ally, China’s intervention resulted in a remarkable pushback against the combined forces of South Korea, the United States, and other nations united under the banner of the United Nations Command.
The price of such military intervention was steep, with more than 180,000 Chinese soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice during the Korean War. Beijing, in describing this momentous conflict, terms it the “War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.”
Not to be left behind, the Soviet Union also extended its support to North Korea during this time of upheaval. Over the decades, Moscow has stood as a stalwart ally for North Korea, with their common animosity towards the West serving as a binding force between the two nations.
Nevertheless, it is evident that South Korea’s armistice anniversary commemorations have garnered a larger display of international solidarity.
As representatives from 22 countries prepare to partake in the solemn ceremonies, the global stage bears witness to the complexities of history and the shifting tides of international relations.
In the midst of simmering tensions between North Korea and its allies, South Korea and the United States, the Chinese delegation’s visit and the commemorative ceremonies for the 70th anniversary of the 1953 armistice assume a heightened significance.
Amidst the backdrop of frequent missile tests, which contravene United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea has been a subject of concern for the international community.
In response, the US and South Korea have taken measures, deploying military assets such as nuclear-capable submarines and bombers, further adding to the complexity of the regional dynamics.
North Korea Conducts Missile Tests Amidst Regional Tensions and US Navy’s Port Call to South Korea
On a recent occasion, North Korea continued its unabated missile testing, launching two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) late Monday.
These missiles were fired from the Pyongyang area, traversing a distance of approximately 400 kilometers (248 miles) over the course of about five minutes before ultimately landing in the waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, as reported by South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).
The precarious situation in the region underscores the delicate balance between historical commemorations and contemporary geopolitical challenges.
As events unfold, the eyes of the world remain fixed on the Korean Peninsula, hoping for measures that will promote stability and peace in the region.
Earlier on Monday, the US Navy attack submarine USS Annapolis made a notable port call at Jeju Naval Base, situated on an island off South Korea’s southern coast.
The visit was part of its operational mission, where the submarine halted to replenish military supplies, as confirmed by South Korean Navy spokesperson Jang Do-young.
This visit came in the wake of a more provocative incident involving the nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine USS Kentucky, which docked at the southern South Korean port of Busan the previous week.
North Korea reacted strongly to this development, labeling the submarine, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine capable of carrying up to 20 missiles and 80 nuclear warheads, a “boomer.” They perceived this visit as crossing a “red line” and warned of potential drastic responses.
North Korea Warns of Escalating Visibility of US Strategic Assets Amidst Soldier’s Crossing Incident
North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam’s statement, relayed through state media, reminded the US military about the escalating visibility of deploying strategic nuclear submarines and other assets, cautioning that it might trigger conditions for the use of nuclear weapons as specified in the DPRK law on nuclear force policy.
Adding further complexity to the situation, a US soldier, Pvt Travis King, crossed the border between North and South Korea last week in the demilitarized zone dividing the two nations. This incident has complicated relations between the countries.
Gen. Andrew Harrison, the deputy commander of the United Nations Command (UNC), disclosed that a conversation had begun with North Korea regarding King’s case.
However, North Korea has not responded directly to Washington’s messages, and the soldier’s status and condition remain unknown.
Ewha Womans University professor, Leif-Eric Easley, asserted that North Korea is unlikely to address King’s case promptly, as they may want to complete his interrogation and quarantine.
Moreover, their focus is currently on celebrating “Victory Day,” which adds to the delay in any potential response.
The situation remains tense and enigmatic, with both regional and international stakeholders closely monitoring the developments unfolding in the Korean Peninsula.
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Trudeau’s Gun Grab Could Cost Taxpayers a Whopping $7 Billion
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’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.
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
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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
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