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Taliban’s Recent Measures Draw Backlash For Curbing Afghan Women’s Education And Freedom
(CTN NEWS) – Human rights organizations have criticized the recent measures imposed by the Taliban, which limit the educational opportunities and freedom of movement for Afghan women.
These restrictions include a ban on their access to a prominent national park within Afghanistan and preventing them from pursuing academic scholarships in the United Arab Emirates.
Amnesty International Condemns Taliban’s Blockade on Female Students’ Educational Journey to Dubai
Amnesty International has expressed strong disapproval of the Taliban’s recent decision to prevent female students from embarking on their journey to Dubai for the purpose of commencing their university education.
“This outrageous decision blatantly disregards the fundamental rights to education and freedom of movement, highlighting the ongoing gender-based oppression faced by women and girls in Afghanistan,” stated the human rights organization in a message on X, previously known as Twitter.
“The de-facto authorities of the Taliban must promptly reverse their verdict and permit these young women to proceed with their travel plans and educational pursuits.”
I am unable to express the disappointment I feel now as The Afghan female students, whom I had provided an educational scholarship in collaboration with the @uniofdubai presented by Dr. Eesa Al Bastaki @ebastaki, were unfortunately unable to reach #DubaiAirport this morning to… pic.twitter.com/gJK9dB2yTf
— Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor (@KhalafAlHabtoor) August 23, 2023
According to Khalaf Ahmad al-Habtoor, the founding chairman of Al Habtoor Group and based in Dubai, the Taliban authorities have intervened to prevent approximately 100 women from embarking on their journey to the United Arab Emirates.
These women were set to receive educational sponsorship from him.
In a video shared on X, al-Habtoor conveyed, “The Taliban government has declined to grant permission for the girls who were poised to come here for educational purposes.
These 100 girls, sponsored by me, were denied boarding onto the plane, despite us having covered the aircraft’s expenses. We have meticulously organized their accommodations, education, transportation, and security arrangements here.”
Afghan Students Express Disappointment as Scholarships for Abroad Are Revoked
Al Habtoor shared audio footage in which one of the Afghan students recounted her experience of being accompanied by a male chaperone, yet facing obstruction from airport authorities in Kabul, ultimately preventing them from boarding their scheduled flight.
Expressing their deep disappointment, the students lamented the loss of a valuable opportunity. Laila conveyed that their scholarships held the significance of being their “sole means to pursue education abroad.”
She shared her sentiments with the Agence France-Presse news agency, stating, “This was an extraordinary chance for us, but regrettably, like numerous other prospects, this one was also snatched away from us.”
Laila, aged 22, had anticipated commencing a law degree in Dubai, having been compelled to abandon her pursuit of journalism due to a prohibition imposed by the Taliban government.
Detailing the incident, Laila explained that she and her fellow women students had successfully reached their departure gate, only to be denied passage at the eleventh hour by individuals donning airport uniforms.
These officials cited an order that prohibited individuals with student visas from exiting the country.
The Taliban administration has enforced the closure of universities and high schools for female students in Afghanistan.
In a video shared on X, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called upon the international community to apply pressure on the Taliban, urging them to cease their infringement upon women’s rights.
Band-e-Amir National Park Closed to Women by Taliban Government, Igniting Gender-Based Criticism
The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice under the Taliban government announced the closure of the Band-e-Amir national park to women on Sunday, citing inadequate adherence to dress codes.
This decision has sparked criticism due to its gender-based implications.
Situated approximately 175km (110 miles) west of Kabul, the Band-e-Amir national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its picturesque blue lakes encompassed by expansive cliffs.
The park, located in Bamyan province, has been a popular destination for domestic tourism, where Afghans often gather to unwind along the shore or engage in boating activities on the serene waters.
Heather Barr, Associate Director for Women’s Rights at Human Rights Watch (HRW), expressed her disapproval, characterizing the prohibition of women’s entry as a deliberately cruel act. In her statement to AFP, she conveyed,
“In addition to depriving girls and women of education, employment, and freedom of movement, the Taliban are now attempting to restrict their access to parks, sports, and even nature itself.
This incremental constriction is transforming every household into a confinement.”
Can someone please explain why this restriction on women visiting Bande Amir is necessary to comply with Sharia and Afghan culture? #womensrightsarenotnegotiable https://t.co/QbC6azYbmm
— UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett (@SR_Afghanistan) August 27, 2023
Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the minister overseeing virtue and vice promotion, rationalized the ban by emphasizing women’s supposed non-compliance with wearing hijabs appropriately.
During his visit to Bamyan, he asserted, “Immediate action is essential. We must curtail the instances of improper hijab.”
Akef Muhajir, a spokesperson for the ministry, informed AFP that local religious leaders had advocated for the temporary closure due to perceived violations of the hijab dress code by women from outside the province.
Notably, other national parks in Afghanistan continue to remain accessible to all individuals.
Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, voiced his inquiry on social media, questioning the necessity of such restrictions in alignment with Sharia law and Afghan culture.
Since the Taliban’s resurgence to power two years ago, women have encountered numerous restrictions, including being barred from parks, public events, and gyms, and being compelled to adhere to modest attire.
Furthermore, they have been largely hindered from participating in employment with UN agencies or non-governmental organizations. Thousands have lost government positions or have been incentivized to remain at home.
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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
News
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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