Author: admin@primenews

Taiwan has told billionaire Elon Musk it is “not for sale” after he said the island was a part of China. “Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] & certainly not for sale!,” foreign minister Joseph Wu said on Mr Musk’s X. At a business summit this week, Mr Musk compared Taiwan to Hawaii, calling it an “integral part” of China. Beijing claims self-governed Taiwan and tensions between the two have ratcheted up over the past year. Just this week, China conducted air and naval drills around Taiwan, in what has become a routine show…

Former Australian star cricketer Stuart MacGill has been charged over his alleged role in a large cocaine supply plot. Police arrested the 52-year-old, who played 44 Test matches for Australia, in Sydney on Tuesday. Their investigation was sparked when MacGill was allegedly abducted and beaten in 2021. The former spinner is yet to enter a plea but has previously denied being involved in supplying drugs. MacGill made global headlines in April 2021 after telling police he was confronted and forced into a car in the Sydney suburb of Cremorne. He was allegedly driven to a remote site on the city’s…

A Bangladesh court has sentenced two prominent human rights activists to two years in jail, in what critics say is part of a crackdown ahead of elections. Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan from rights group Odhikar always denied decade-old charges that they published a report with false information. But prosecutors said their report on security force killings in 2013 “undermined” the country’s image. The two were convicted on Thursday in Dhaka after a 10-year judicial process.Dozens of international human rights groups have called for the two men’s immediate release, saying the pair were denied a fair trial. Both activists…

They strolled side by side through the gleaming space centre – stopping to peer into the pit from where rockets blast into space. At their lavish banquet, they drank Russian wines and toasted the embrace of their two pariah states. And before leaving, they swapped guns as gifts – model rifles from each others’ munitions lines. The optics of Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin’s date in eastern Russia clearly underscore a new relationship that is being forged in war. It isn’t over yet with the North Korean leader spending several days touring shipyards, aircraft factories and other military sites…

Google has reached a $93 million settlement with the state of California to resolve allegations that it was collecting consumers’ data without their consent, the state’s attorney general said in a statement Thursday. The California Department of Justice found that, after a multi-year investigation, the tech giant was “deceiving users by collecting, storing, and using their location data for consumer profiling and advertising purposes without informed consent.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta also said Google accepted taking future actions to prevent those practices. These actions would apply beyond California to other states, according to the proposed order. “Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent…

Time has run out to avert a strike at America’s unionized automakers. The United Auto Workers contracts expired at 11:59 pm ET on Thursday. The contracts covered 145,000 UAW members at the three companies: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which builds vehicles under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands for North America. With new deal reached by the contract expiration, the union said it has started targeted strikes against three facilities – one at each company. Here’s what to know now that the strike has begun: Which plants would go on strike? With less than two hours to go before the strike deadline, UAW President…

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ personal spending has increased since he was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in liabilities to Sandy Hook families, none of whom has seen a penny from the disgraced Infowars host, according to court documents. In July alone, Jones spent $93,180 — excluding legal and professional fees — including $15,184 on payments to his wife Erika Wulff Jones, $7,900 on housekeeping, $6,338 on meals and entertainment, and a separate $3,388 on groceries, an August 29 court filing from lawyers for the families shows. The payments to Jones’ wife, the lawyers alleged, were textbook “fraudulent transfers” under…

US oil prices climbed above $90 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in 10 months, threatening to push gasoline prices even higher and heat up inflation across the economy. High oil prices have already created an unusual situation where gasoline is getting more expensive even after the summer driving season has ended. Despite demand easing, gas prices are just pennies away from their highest level of the year. The national average for regular gasoline rose to $3.86 a gallon on Thursday, according to AAA. That’s six cents higher than a week ago and 16 cents higher than the same day…

Staff at three of America’s biggest carmakers have started strike action, the United Autoworkers Union says. Work has been stopped at three plants owned by General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. It came after labour contracts expired on Thursday night. The UAW said the companies had not put forward acceptable offers. The fight threatens to trigger higher prices for buyers and major disruption for the motor industry giants. “For the first time in our history we will strike all three of the Big Three,” the UAW’s president Shawn Fain said. The strike started at midnight eastern time at GM’s Wentzville mid-size…

Ukraine has ramped up missile and drone strikes on occupied Crimea in recent weeks, as it attempts to land both strategic and symbolic blows against Russian forces that annexed the peninsula in 2014. Kyiv launched an extensive assault on a Russian naval base in Sevastopol early Wednesday morning – damaging a ship and a submarine, and injuring 24 people – in what was its most ambitious strike on the port since the Moscow’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022. The next night, Russian air defenses shot down 11 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The ministry also said five…