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China Pledges to Assist in the Rebuilding of War-Torn Syria
China has pledged to assist in the reconstruction of war-torn Syria, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad forming a strategic alliance. The declaration came on Friday, as the two had official discussions in Hangzhou, China’s southernmost city.
“In the face of an unstable and uncertain international environment, China is willing to continue working with Syria in the interests of friendly cooperation and safeguarding international fairness and justice,” Xi said to his Syrian counterpart, according to Chinese official media.
“China backs Syria’s rejection to international intervention and unilateral bullying… It will contribute to Syria’s restoration,” he added.
Xi announced a variety of programmes aimed at improving infrastructure along the ancient Silk Road and boosting China’s approach to global security.
“China is willing to deepen cooperation with Syria through the Belt and Road Initiative… to contribute positively to regional and global peace and development,” Xi added.
Syrian state television described al-Assad as thanking China for its support “during the crisis and suffering” in Syria.
The Arab leader’s unusual visit is an attempt to overcome more than a decade of diplomatic isolation due to Western sanctions, as well as to strengthen trade ties with the world’s second-largest economy.
Since a civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, the United States has imposed sanctions. It has killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Al-Assad’s regime now controls the majority of Syria’s territory and has recently re-established connections with Arab neighbours who earlier supported Syrian rebels.
Meanwhile, China has increased its diplomatic engagement in the Middle East in an effort to broaden its global influence and create an alternative to the US-led world system.
In March, Beijing assisted in bridging a seven-year diplomatic schism between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
How they War in Syria Started
A peaceful revolt against Syria’s ruler 12 years ago devolved into a full-fledged civil war. The battle has killed 500,000 people, destroyed cities, and drawn in other countries.
Many Syrians were already grumbling about high unemployment, corruption, and a lack of political freedom under President Bashar al-Assad, who took over after his father, Hafez, died in 2000.
Pro-democracy rallies occurred in the southern city of Deraa in March 2011, inspired by upheavals against harsh authorities in surrounding countries.
When the Syrian government employed lethal force to repress dissent, widespread rallies seeking the president’s resignation erupted.
The uproar spread, and the response became more severe. Opposition supporters picked up arms, first to defend themselves and then to cleanse their neighbourhoods of security troops. Mr. Assad promised to destroy “foreign-backed terrorism.”
The violence quickly became out of control, and the country slid into civil war. Hundreds of rebel groups sprang created, and it didn’t take long for the conflict to escalate beyond a battle between Syrians supporting or opposing Mr. Assad.
Foreign countries began to take sides, supplying money, weapons, and warriors, and as the instability deepened, hardline jihadist groups with their own agendas, like as the Islamic State (IS) organisation and al-Qaeda, were engaged. This heightened worry among the world community, who considered them as a huge threat.
Syria’s Kurds, who want self-government but have not battled Mr. Assad’s forces, have brought another layer of complexity to the conflict.
The conflict killed 306,887 people
The United Nations Human Rights Office estimated last year that the conflict killed 306,887 people, or 1.5% of the total pre-war population, between March 2011 and March 2021.
According to the report, 143,350 civilian deaths were personally documented by multiple sources with specific information, and an additional 163,537 deaths were calculated using statistical approaches. At least 27,126 of the estimated victims were children.
Michelle Bachelet, the then-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasised that the deaths were the “direct result of war operations,” adding, “This does not include the many, many more civilians who died due to a lack of access to healthcare, food, clean water, and other essential human rights.”
By March 2023, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group with a network of on-the-ground sources, had documented the deaths of 503,064 people. It claimed that at least 162,390 civilians had been killed, with the Syrian government and its allies to blame for 139,609 of them.
According to the group, the true death toll from the conflict was more than 613,400, with a further 55,000 civilians thought to have died as a result of torture in government-run jails.
Russia and Iran in Syria
As of March 2023, another monitoring organisation, the Violations Documentation Centre, which depends on information from activists around the country, had identified 240,215 battle-related deaths, including 145,765 civilians.
Russia and Iran have been important backers of the regime, while Turkey, Western countries, and numerous Gulf Arab states have backed the opposition to varied degrees during the conflict.
Russia, which had military bases in Syria prior to the war, initiated an air campaign in support of Mr. Assad in 2015, which was critical in shifting the tide of the battle in the government’s favour.
The Russian military claims that its strikes only target “terrorists,” but activists claim that they also murder mainstream rebels and civilians on a daily basis.
Iran is reported to have sent hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to assist Mr. Assad.
Thousands of Shia Muslim fighters armed, trained, and paid by Iran have fought alongside the Syrian army, largely from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, but also from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and France originally armed “moderate” rebel forces. However, since jihadists became the main force in the armed opposition, they have favoured non-lethal support.
Since 2014, a US-led global coalition has also carried out air attacks and deployed special forces in Syria to assist the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, in capturing area once controlled by IS militants in the north-east and preventing the jihadist organisation from rebuilding.
Turkish military and allied rebels
Turkey is a significant backer of the opposition, but it has focused on utilising rebel groupings to limit the Kurdish YPG militia, which dominates the SDF, accusing it of being an offshoot of a banned Kurdish rebel group in Turkey.
Turkish military and allied rebels have taken area along Syria’s northern border and intervened to prevent the government from launching an all-out attack on Idlib, the last opposition stronghold.
Saudi Arabia, eager to offset Iranian influence, first armed and funded the insurgents. It is now debating how to support Syria’s “return to the Arab fold” after refusing to interact with President Assad for more than a decade.
Meanwhile, Israel has been so concerned about Iran’s “military entrenchment” in Syria, as well as shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah and other Shia militias, that it has conducted increasingly frequent air strikes in an attempt to block them.
In addition to the violence, more than half of Syria’s pre-war population of 22 million has had to evacuate their homes. Internally displaced people number 6.8 million, with more than two million living in tented camps with limited access to essential services.
Another 6 million are refugees or asylum seekers in other countries. Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, which host 5.3 million of them, have had to cope with one of history’s greatest refugee exoduses.
At the start of 2023, the UN reported that 15.3 million people inside Syria needed humanitarian assistance, an all-time high since the war began, and 12 million did not know where their next meal would come from.
The already severe humanitarian situation in northwestern Syria, the final resistance bastion, was exacerbated by a massive earthquake that struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Syrian border, on 6 February 2023.
8.8 million people affected
According to the UN, about 5,900 people were murdered in Syria, while another 8.8 million were affected. Hundreds of thousands of homes and crucial infrastructure were destroyed, leaving many households without food, water, or shelter. Life-saving supplies was also delayed for days due to what a UN panel called “shocking” failings on the side of both the warring parties and the international community.
The calamity occurred at a time when food and fuel costs in Syria were already increasing due to runaway inflation and the collapse of the country’s currency, as well as a worldwide crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
Syria has also been one of the Middle East countries hardest hit by the Covid-19 epidemic, while the full extent is unknown due to restricted testing, and is currently dealing with a catastrophic cholera outbreak exacerbated by the earthquake.
Because only half of the country’s hospitals are completely operational, access to medical care for the sick and injured is severely limited.
Despite their protected status, Physicians for Human Rights reported 601 attacks on at least 400 different medical facilities as of February 2022, resulting in the deaths of 942 medical staff. The government and Russian military were accused for the vast majority of the attacks.
Across the country, entire neighbourhoods and key infrastructure are in ruins. According to UN satellite data, more than 35,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in Aleppo alone before the city was reclaimed by the government in late 2016.
Syria’s cultural landmarks destroyed
Much of Syria’s rich cultural legacy has been destroyed as well. IS extremists deliberately blew up parts of the historic city of Palmyra, causing major damage to all six of the country’s Unesco World Heritage sites.
According to a United Nations commission of investigation, the warring parties “have cumulatively committed almost every crime against humanity… and nearly every war crime applicable in a non-international armed conflict.”
“Syrians have suffered vast aerial bombardments of densely populated areas; they have endured chemical weapons attacks and modern-day sieges in which perpetrators deliberately starved the population along mediaeval scripts and indefensible and shameful restrictions on humanitarian aid,” according to a February 2021 report.
The government has retaken control of Syria’s major cities, but huge areas of the nation remain under the authority of rebels, jihadists, and the Kurdish-led SDF. For three years, there have been no changes on the front lines.
The last resistance bastion is in the northwestern province of Idlib, as well as sections of northern Hama and western Aleppo.
The region is dominated by the jihadist coalition Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), but there are also mainstream rebel factions supported by Turkey. There are an estimated 2.9 million displaced individuals there, including a million children, many of whom are living in deplorable conditions in camps.
SDF and Turkish-led forces
Russia and Turkey agreed a ceasefire in March 2020 to prevent the government’s attempt to reclaim Idlib. This resulted in an extended period of calm, but there are still periodic confrontations, air strikes, and shelling.
In the country’s north-east, Turkish soldiers and allied Syrian rebels launched an offensive against the SDF in October 2019 to establish a “safe zone” free of Kurdish YPG militia along the Syrian side of the border, and have since controlled a 120km (75 mile) section.
To prevent the onslaught, the SDF reached an agreement with the Syrian government, allowing the Syrian army to return to the Kurdish-controlled zone for the first time in seven years. Despite the arrival of Syrian troops, confrontations between the SDF and Turkish-led forces continue along the front line.
IS sleeper cells continue to launch frequent and lethal assaults. It does not appear to be happening anytime soon, but everyone agrees that a political solution is required.
The UN Security Council has advocated for the execution of the Geneva Communiqué of 2012, which calls for the formation of a transitional governing body “based on mutual consent.”
Nine rounds of UN-mediated peace talks, known as the Geneva II process, have failed to make progress, with President Assad apparently refusing to speak with political opposition groups insisting on his resignation as part of any settlement.
In 2017, Russia, Iran, and Turkey convened parallel political discussions known as the Astana process.
The next year, an agreement was achieved to assemble a 150-member committee to write a new constitution, leading to free and fair elections overseen by the UN. Despite eight rounds of negotiations, little progress has been made.
As the Syrian conflict entered its 13th year, UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen declared that the situation was “untenable” and that “continuing in the same manner defies humanity and logic.”
He did, however, express hope that the tragic earthquake would be a “turning point,” citing “humanitarian steps from all sides that have moved beyond previous positions, even if temporarily.”
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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