Author: admin@primenews

China is behaving like a schoolyard bully toward smaller countries, the Philippine defense secretary told CNN Friday during an exclusive interview in which he warned his nation, and the wider world, had to stand up to Beijing’s territorial expansion in the South China Sea. “I cannot think of any clearer case of bullying than this,” said Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr. “It’s not the question of stealing your lunch money, but it’s really a question of stealing your lunch bag, your chair and even enrollment in school.” His comments follow increasingly assertive moves by the Philippines to protect its claim to…

There is a saying that when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. But what happens when China is unwell? The world’s second-largest economy, home to more than 1.4 billion people, is facing a host of problems – including slow growth, high youth unemployment and a property market in disarray. Now the chairman of the country’s heavily indebted real estate developer, Evergrande, has been placed under police surveillance and the company’s shares have been suspended on the stock market. While these issues add up to a major headache for Beijing, how much does it matter to the…

Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, said on Thursday that it will lay off 16% of its staff, around 830 employees, as it attempts to reverse what CEO Tim Sweeney called “unrealistic” spending. In a letter to employees Thursday, Sweeney said the video game company had been “spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic.” “I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic,” Sweeney said in the letter, which the company shared publicly. He added that Epic plans to divest…

Netflix will send out its last red envelope on Friday, marking an end to 25 years of mailing DVDs to members. The company announced earlier this year it is shutting down its DVD-by-mail service, 16 years after it gradually shifted its focus to streaming content online. Netflix will continue to accept returns of customers’ remaining DVDs until October 27. Introduced in 1998 when Netflix first launched, the DVD service promised an easier rental experience than having to drive to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. The red envelopes, which have long been synonymous with Netflix itself, littered homes and dorm rooms…

Artists across China are boycotting one of the country’s biggest social media platforms over complaints about its AI image generation tool. The controversy began in August when an illustrator who goes by the name Snow Fish accused the privately owned social media site Xiaohongshu of using her work to train its AI tool, Trik AI, without her knowledge or permission. Trik AI specializes in generating digital art in the style of traditional Chinese paintings; it is still undergoing testing and has not yet been formally launched. Snow Fish, whom CNN is identifying by her Xiaohongshu username for privacy reasons, said she first…

The United States government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Tesla Thursday alleging the automaker allowed repeated and overt displays of racism toward Black employees in its Fremont, California, factory. Racist slurs were allegedly used often by non-Black employees when speaking to Black employees at the factory, according to the suit. The suit quotes a Black Tesla worker saying that “people were using the N-Word all the time, especially men, and particularly White men.” The suit also alleges instances of racist taunts and threats, including death threats written in the bathroom and racist graffiti on “vehicles rolling off the production lines.”…

China Eastern Airlines said on Thursday it will buy another 100 C919 airplanes in a deal worth $10 billion at list prices, in what would be the largest ever order for the jet made by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). The state-owned carrier said it had received a “substantial discount” for the deal and that the planes will be delivered in batches from 2024 to 2031. The list price for the C919 is $99 million but aircraft can be sold at discounts of up to 50%, especially for new models. The deal comes five months after the Chinese passenger plane,…

Republicans are enraged that their safe space was punctured at the second GOP debate by a Univision anchor. Ilia Calderón, an Emmy Award-winning journalist who co-anchors the evening news at the Spanish language network, triggered outrage on the right by asking the candidates sharp questions on a range of important topics on Wednesday evening. After welcoming viewers in Spanish (the debate was simulcast on Univision), Calderón queried the Republicans through the night on weighty issues related to immigration, hate crimes, health care, and more. But unlike what is typical on Fox News, Calderón declined to frame her questions in a…

Thailand’s golden beaches, shopping districts and ornate temples are filling with tourists once again and Chinese vacationers are getting an especially VIP welcome under a new visa-free scheme. Vowing to revive the country’s economy, newly appointed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced a visa-free policy for Chinese and Kazakh tourists that would run from September 25 to February 24 next year, signaling that the recovery of Thailand’s tourism industry is a top priority. The policy came just in time for China’s “Golden Week” holiday period, which is centered around National Day on October 1. This year’s Golden Week coincides with the…

President Joe Biden issued blunt new warnings about ongoing existential threats to US democracy in a major address Thursday, sharpening the central argument in his potential rematch with Donald Trump and asking voters to prioritize the health of American institutions. “There’s something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said during his speech in Arizona, where he was also honoring his friend, the late Republican Sen. John McCain. “There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: The MAGA movement.” “There’s no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists,” he said, using the acronym for Trump’s political movement.…