Month: September 2023

The lawsuit says that Amazon crossed the line by punishing sellers with anti-discounting measures if they sold their products for less on other platforms. The FTC also said sellers have had no option but to pay for the company’s logistics service if they want their products to show up in Amazon Prime, the subscription service that boasts expedited shipping and video streaming.  

Merchants have felt forced into purchasing more services from Amazon than necessary, including advertising packages, the suit alleges. 

Compelling merchants to enroll in logistics and advertising programs, “Amazon now takes one of every $2 that a seller makes,” Lina Khan, the FTC chair, said Tuesday in a news briefing.  

Amazon has denied the accusations. 

“Today’s suit makes clear the FTC’s focus has radically departed from its mission of protecting consumers and competition,” Amazon’s general counsel, David Zapolsky, said in a statement. 

“The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon’s store,” he said.

Zapolsky went on to say the suit is wrong on the facts and the law. 

Amazon tries to get Khan recused

When Khan was in law school in 2017, she wrote a paper for the Yale Law Journal on Amazon’s dominance in e-commerce. The Associated Press reports that in 2021, Amazon sought to have Khan recused from agency investigations of the company because of her earlier criticism. 

The sprawling lawsuit represents one of the most significant legal challenges Amazon has come up against in its 30-year history. According to CBS News, Khan dodged questions over whether the FTC will try to force the site’s breakup.  

“At this stage, the focus is more on liability,” she said.  

Most sellers independent

More than 60% of sales in Amazon’s store come from independent sellers — most of which are small and medium-sized businesses, according to the retail giant’s official data. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, the company is worth $1.3 trillion. 

Some advocates in Thailand warn that banning the leisure use of marijuana could be chaotic and costly, while others say it could help bring order to the rapidly expanding industry.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin had this blunt response when asked about the future of cannabis in Thailand.

“For medical reasons only,” he told Bloomberg. “We need the law. We need to rewrite. We have an agreement among all the 11 parties that this will be this government’s policy, because the problem about drugs has been widespread lately. It will be regulated for medical use.”

When asked if cannabis could be regulated for leisure use, the prime minister sharply responded, “No.”

Srettha heads the Pheu Thai party and an 11-party coalition that leads Thailand’s government. He says the coalition will introduce legislation within the next six months.

The prime minister is not the only one who has voiced concern. The Center for Addiction Studies also recently called for recreational cannabis to be banned, The Bangkok Post reported.

Plans to restrict the use of cannabis have prompted a mixed reaction in Thailand.

Kitty Chopaka, a cannabis activist in Thailand, owns a small cannabis shop in Bangkok called Chopaka. Her store sells more than 50 cannabis strains that have different potencies and effects and caters to both Thai and foreign customers.

She said she’s hopeful the prime minister’s comments are not to be taken literally.

“What I hope it meant was that he will get rid of all those places that don’t have any licenses or get rid of all illegal cannabis … coming in from over the borders. Rather than focusing on preying on the poor and starting a war on cannabis just as much as the war on drugs,” she told VOA.

Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize cannabis for medical use in 2018. But it wasn’t until June 2022 that Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration officially delisted cannabis that does not exceed 0.2% of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, from the country’s narcotics list, legalizing possession, cultivation, distribution, consumption and sales.

Since then, more than 1 million people have registered with the Thai government to grow the plant. Earlier this year, the Thai Chamber of Commerce estimated the cannabis sector could be worth $1.2 billion by 2025.

Now, with the cannabis market in limbo, the economic potential for Thailand may be significantly reduced.

But Jayne MacDougall, the executive director of the Phuket Hotels Association, says the regulation of cannabis will benefit tourism.

“As an association, we believe to regulate the use of cannabis for medical purposes will strengthen tourism for health and wellness and support Phuket’s place as a wellness hub. The availability of cannabis without regulation undermines this objective,” she told VOA.

“This will not be a significant factor in the rebound of tourism, nor will it be reflected in hotel bookings. We believe tourists will see this as a responsible move on the part of the Thai government that will benefit both tourism and a large community,” she said.

Tourism is one of the pillars of Thailand’s economy. In 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, it contributed 11.5% to Thailand’s GDP. Thailand expects 28 million international arrivals by the end of this year.

But Rattapon Sanrak, founder and president of Highland Network, a cannabis organization in Thailand, says regulating cannabis this way will disrupt Thai livelihoods.

“How many lives would be disrupted? How many people would face legal consequences? How many jobs would be lost? The subsequent criminal activity resulting from these impacts would be significant,” he told VOA.

The Highland group runs the Highland Café in Bangkok. It is one of nearly 6,000 weed establishments that have opened throughout the country in the past year, with over 1,200 in the Thai capital alone.

“Everything has progressed so far that it’s become a rapidly expanding industry with a lot of people and investment involved. It’s hard to imagine what would happen if the government were to put cannabis back on the controlled substances list today. Doing something like this doesn’t solve any problems, it just pushes cannabis back underground, leading to one word: chaos.”

Tanaset Chodchinnapath and Kittichot Vasana co-manage Jackson Farm, a small cannabis farm in the Bangkok suburbs. They sell their product to licensed cannabis stores in the city, and Chopaka is one of their customers.

Although Kittichot says there is concern about a cannabis ban, he says selling their homegrown cannabis for medical use will still benefit them.

“We worry a bit. If cannabis becomes illegal, the underground growers will maybe have more profit,” he told VOA.

“Legal cannabis in Thailand has imported products from the USA, and Europe, and that product cuts our price down. It’s not good. If we legalize cannabis, but if we have to improve [our cannabis] for medical purposes, [I think] it will be better. We can grow to sell our products to doctors, for the medical use,” he added.

Activist Kitty Chopaka says she wants cannabis to be viewed differently.

“I like the idea of cannabis being in the realm of self-care. It’s not recreational. It’s not medical. It can be something that can be consumed depending on what kind of ailments or what uncomfortableness you have,” she said.

But if a ban does come into effect, she admits her suppliers and her own family will take a hit financially.

“For the shop we have eight employees that are on our social security. I support over 50 farms in my shop, and one farm usually equates to a minimum of one to five families,” she said. “For just one shop, we already have 100 lives that this will involve. And I will have to rethink where I send my children to school. Because right now, cannabis is the thing that is paying my kids’ tuition.”

Three Jewish writers of young-adult fiction are among the 10 most-banned authors on a new list of every book banned in the U.S. 

The list also includes Maus and a graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary, along with stories from the Old Testament and nonfiction books about the Holocaust.

“People often say ‘Good for you!’ when they hear one (or several) of my books have been banned,” said Elana K. Arnold, who is one of the Jewish writers on the most-banned list, along with Sarah J. Maas and Jesse Andrews. “I always reply: No. Not good for me. Shame on them, those fear mongers, those haters of liberty, those who seek to ban books.”

The list was compiled by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free expression, for a report called Banned in the USA: The Mounting Pressure to Censor. The report documented 3,362 instances of book bans in U.S. public school classrooms and libraries in the 2022-23 school year, an increase of 33% from the previous year.

The latest bans took 1,557 titles off the shelves. Many of the targeted books feature content related to race or racism, LGBTQ+ themes or characters, physical abuse, health, grief or death. Work by the three Jewish writers on the top-10 list is not explicitly Jewish in theme or content, but Arnold described her next book, The Blood Years, due out in October, as her “most overtly Jewish book,” historical fiction inspired by her grandmother’s teenage years in Romania.

Anne Frank and ‘Maus’

While the classic text edition of Anne Frank’s diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, does not appear on the list, Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, does. That adaptation, by David Polonsky and Ari Folman, has been criticized for panels that show Anne walking in a park looking at nude statues and suggesting to a friend that they look at each other’s breasts.

NBC News reporter Ben Collins posted a short video about the Anne Frank controversy called “How Anne Frank’s diary became porn in Texas.” Collins said the graphic adaptation was banned at a Texas school because it described “a 13-year-old girl’s desire to kiss someone” and used the word “penis.” Collins’ video has been viewed 1 million times.

Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust, The Complete Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, has been repeatedly targeted in recent years for including an image of a naked woman and using the phrase “God damn.”

A number of books on the list tell stories from both the Old and New Testaments, including books about Moses, Noah, Jonah, Job, Daniel, Miriam, Joseph, Jesus, Mary, Easter, Exodus and Christmas. The bases for those bans were unclear. 

The banned nonfiction books included Life in a Nazi Concentration Camp by Don Nardo and Hitler’s Final Solution by John Allen. 

Who’s banning books?

The report attributed the bans to “coordinated campaigns by a vocal minority of groups and individual actors and, increasingly, as a result of pressure from state legislation.” PEN cited three national advocacy groups as among the most active in seeking book bans: Moms for Liberty, Citizens Defending Freedom and Parents’ Rights in Education.

More than 40% of all book bans occurred in school districts in Florida, followed by Texas, Missouri, Utah and Pennsylvania. The Daily Beast reported that one individual, Bruce Friedman, is responsible for hundreds of book challenges in Clay County, Florida, including a complaint about a children’s book featuring Arthur the Aardvark. (The school ultimately rejected his concerns about Arthur.) The Jerusalem Post identified Friedman as Jewish.

Friedman, a former New Yorker, declined an interview request from the Forward in a cellphone text.

The post Jewish writers, Bible stories and Holocaust history are on new list of every banned book in the US appeared first on The Forward.

Newly acquitted on election-related offenses, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton blamed George Soros, the Jewish liberal billionaire, for his recent troubles. 

Soros, a Hungarian-born Democratic megadonor and Holocaust survivor, has long been the subject of antisemitic attacks from the far right. 

In a series of interviews on conservative media outlets, Paxton said Soros attempted to rig the judicial system by backing Democratic candidates in local district attorney races, and tried to influence Republican justices in his state. 

A frustrated AG

Paxton has been investigating alleged election-related misconduct since assuming office in 2015. In recent years, his office initiated over 300 inquiries into potential incidents by voters and election officials, according to ProPublica, an investigative news site. They have resulted in only a handful of convictions.

He also failed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Last year, the all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that the state’s Constitution forbids the attorney general — an elected member of the executive branch — to unilaterally pursue cases of election law violations without permission from local county prosecutors. 

In a video interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Twitter, now rebranded as X, Paxton — without evidence — said the justices were “put there by George Soros” to restrict his powers, calling it a “genius move.” 

He repeated the claim in a radio interview the following day. “I am convinced that this was an effort by George Soros who got his DAs in all these counties, who now it’s up to them to prosecute,” Paxton said on the Michael Berry Show. 

‘Scapegoating the Jewish people‘

Republicans have repeatedly blamed rising crime on local district attorneys to whom Soros has donated.  According to the Anti-Defamation League, casting a Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates politics for malign purposes is a common antisemitic trope. 

Philip Shulman, a spokesperson for American Bridge, a Democratic Party-funded research group, said Paxton should support the values and laws he swore to uphold as the state’s top law enforcement officer “instead of scapegoating the Jewish people for all of his problems.”

Paxton, an ally of former President Donald Trump, has faced criminal investigations in recent years and was charged in 2015 with felony securities fraud. He was recently acquitted by the Texas Senate on 16 impeachment articles that accused him of misconduct, bribery and corruption, after a trial that divided Republicans.

The embattled attorney general said in another interview that the refusal of his fellow Republicans to overturn the court ruling and the efforts to impeach him are all tied to Soros. “The third strategy was, get rid of me,” Paxton told conservative radio host Glenn Beck. “And then there’s no hope. There’s nowhere to go. So that was the goal. They didn’t get rid of me.” 

Paxton has in the past invoked Soros to blast decisions he disliked. Earlier this year he lashed out at a “Soros-backed” prosecutor in Travis County after a jury found Daniel Perry, a U.S. Army sergeant, guilty in the deadly shooting of an armed protester in Austin, Texas, during demonstrations in 2020 in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He also joined other backers of Trump in accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of orchestrating a campaign backed by Soros to undermine the former president. 

A spokesperson for Paxton didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The post Newly acquitted Texas attorney general blames George Soros for his troubles appeared first on The Forward.

Federal authorities arrested a 22-year-old convicted gang member Tuesday in connection with a pair of shootings in Brooklyn and Queens last month. 

Prosecutors with the Eastern District of New York charged Abel Mora, a member of the violent Trinitarios gang, with being in possession of ammunition—as a felon, stemming from his alleged involvement in both shootings on Aug. 13. 

“Gang members like Mora continue to plague our city with his blatant disregard for the safety of our community and his reckless indifference to human life,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge James Smith.

Unrelated to the pair of alleged shootings, Mora had been previously convicted of assault for a 2020 shooting in Queens, and stands accused of a robbery by the Kings County District Attorney for an alleged carjacking last June. 

According to the investigation into the Aug. 13 shootings, Mora was inside a vehicle near New Haven Avenue and Beach 13th Street in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, when an argument broke out between the passengers of the car and pedestrian associates at around 1 p.m. 

The dueling groups then began firing guns at one another, with surveillance video showing neighbors scrambling for cover from the hailstorm of bullets, according to prosecutors. 

Just hours later, Mora allegedly shot a man outside of a busy convenience store filled with customers at  3441 Fulton St. in East New York, Brooklyn at around 9:18 p.m.

The victim, who survived the attack, said Mora stole his backpack during the incident. Surveillance video shows the suspect fleeing towards Etna Street, before being picked up by a scooter-riding associate, according to the EDNY. 

On Tuesday morning, federal authorities arrested Mora and recovered a loaded 9mm firearm with a 17-round magazine that matched the gun used in both shootings. 

Authorities accuse Mora of participating in both shootings, but arrested him only on charges of being a convicted felon in possession of ammunition. 

He was arraigned on Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy in Downtown Brooklyn. 

“As alleged, this defendant was a one-man crime wave, who engaged in a broad daylight gunfight in Queens, then robbed and shot someone in Brooklyn later that same day,” stated U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “This Office will continue working tirelessly to dismantle gangs and reduce gun violence by prosecuting violent offenders who put the safety of communities in our district at extreme risk.”

Today’s talks with Armenia Security Council secretary were quite constructive, says Azerbaijan presidential aide

posted at 19:11:31 UTC via news.am

Today’s talks were quite constructive. This was stated by Hikmet Hajiyev, the assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, following his meeting Tuesday with the secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, Reuters reports.

Now there are more opportunities to move towards the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, added the Azerbaijani official.

The Grigoryan-Hajiyev talks were held in Brussels—and with the mediation of the EU.

Armenia News – NEWS.am 

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Nagorno-Karabakh crisis forces western rethink on Azerbaijan

posted at 17:56:01 UTC via theguardian.com

As the dramatic images emerge of thousands of Karabakh Armenians forced away from their homes in a mass exodus, some in the west are beginning to rethink their relationship with Azerbaijan.

Through a mixture of skilled diplomacy and lobbying, the resource-rich country has for years promoted itself in the UK and EU as a reliable security partner and vital transport hub.

But by launching a military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and triggering a humanitarian catastrophe as refugees pour out of the region, the Azerbaijanpresident, Ilham Aliyev, has drawn the ire of the EU and the US.

“The crisis and human suffering could and should have been prevented,” said a senior western diplomat in Baku, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It will be trickier for us to continue as usual with Azerbaijan.”

At the UN last week, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, accused Baku of “breaking its repeated assurances to refrain from the use of force, causing tremendous suffering to a population already in dire straits”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Azerbaijani authorities were “uninhibited”.

“Many in Brussels and Washington feel shocked and betrayed by Azerbaijan’s use of force,” said Thomas de Waal, senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe thinktank. He said that western officials believe the inaction of the 2,000 Russian peacekeepers deployed to the region suggests that a side deal was reached between Moscow and Baku, who both blamed the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and his pro-western pivot for the fighting.

“The west has been marginalised, despite long efforts to solve the conflict,” De Waal said. “For a long time, Azerbaijan was very skilled at projecting its value to the west. But there seems to be a revaluation going on about just how important and trustworthy Baku really is.”

Baku for years has been said to employ so-called “caviar diplomacy”: using cash and gifts to buy influence in Europe. The Guardian previously revealed how Azerbaijan funnelled about $2.9bn (£2.2bn) out of the country via a network of secret British companies to pay supporters, lobbyists and politicians in Europe, buy luxury goods and services, and launder money for the Azerbaijani elite.

Prior to the latest fighting in Karabakh, Europe appeared to be moving closer to Baku, despite the country’s poor human rights record and credible evidence that it committed atrocities in the 2020 Karabakh war.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, travelled to Baku in 2022 as the EU looked to reduce its reliance on Russian energy, hailing Azerbaijan as a “crucial” and “reliable” energy supplier. She announced an agreement to double the EU’s purchases of Azerbaijani gas by 2027, but made no mention of the country’s human rights situation or its relationship with Armenia.

Since the military operation last week, Azerbaijan has continued to promote its narratives among western stakeholders. Baku-based thinktank the Center of Analysis of International Relations hosted a roundtable discussion in Mayfair, London, on Azerbaijan’s role as a “crucial land bridge that can connect Europe to Central Asia” and “energy security in Europe”.

But some observers say Europe’s reliance on Azerbaijani energy is heavily exaggerated by Baku. “Azerbaijan massively overstates their influence on gas, which is lazily picked up among European policymakers,” said Max Hess, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

“The idea that Azerbaijan plays a key role in Europe’s energy security has been another excuse put forward by western powers to not intervene,” Hess added.

Gas supply from Azerbaijan accounted for 3% of the EU’s total imports in 2022, while Moscow still supplies up to 15% of the continent’s gas demand. “The EU gas deal is very unlikely to deliver the promised high volumes of gas – a declining asset in the green transition anyway,” said de Waal.

Some officials in the west have mulled sanctions against Azerbaijan in the aftermath of its Nagorno-Karabakh operation.

David McAllister, the chair of the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said the EU should impose serious consequences if there were attempts to remove Karabakh Armenians from their homes.

During a visit to Goris, an Armenian border town, the head of the US Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, also hinted at possible sanctions, saying that “there are a range of options under consideration” when asked what the consequences may be for Azerbaijan.

Hess said it was vital for the international community to step in to prevent further conflict and displacement in the region. “It should urgently stop hiding behind myths about energy security and belatedly make a commitment to do whatever is necessary to prevent further conflict,” he said.

How Armenophobia Fuels Azerbaijan’s Foreign Policy

posted at 17:51:40 UTC via inkstickmedia.com

Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive in blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh on Sept. 19, 2023. What Azerbaijan framed as an “anti-terrorist operation” was its final attempt to establish full and unconditional control over the contested territory at the heart of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh, an Armenian-populated mountainous region placed within the jurisdiction of Soviet Azerbaijan in 1923 as an “autonomous oblast,” has resulted in three waves of wars and intense fighting over the last three decades. The ongoing conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties, mass displacement, and ethnic hatred on a scale rarely seen in other flashpoints. 

South Caucasus News from Michael Novakhov 

 The South Caucasus News – The News And Times