Author: admin@primenews

When the world’s top finance officials and central bankers gather for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank later this year, the future of Africa may take center stage. Due to be held in Marrakech, Morocco, in October, it will be the first IMF-World Bank meeting that has taken place on the continent in 50 years. The timing is ripe as African countries grapple with sluggish growth, food insecurity and debt distress. But, according to Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, the continent’s youthful demographic also makes it an area rich in opportunity. Ahead of…

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued a North Carolina Hooters restaurant for allegedly discriminating against Black or darker-skinned “Hooters Girls,” the federal agency announced Thursday. In March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Greensboro, North Carolina, Hooters temporarily laid off around 43 employees, dubbed “Hooters Girls” by the restaurant chain. The EEOC said in a lawsuit that the restaurant laid off a class of Black and dark-skinned women and recalled mostly white or light-skinned employees by May 2020. There was a “marked shift in the racial composition of the restaurant’s Hooters Girls workforce,” when employees were called back in,…

The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against SpaceX, the Elon Musk-run rocket and spacecraft company with extensive government contracts, for allegedly discriminating against refugees in its hiring practices. The suit claims that “from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA),” according to an August 24 DOJ news release. It goes on to allege SpaceX falsely claimed in its job listings that only green card holders and United States citizens…

One year after catastrophic floods devastated swathes of Pakistan, some 4 million children in the South Asian nation remain without access to safe water, the United Nations children’s agency has warned. In a news release Friday, UNICEF said it estimates that there are 8 million people in the country, around half of whom are children, who continue to live in flood-affected areas without clean water. “Vulnerable children living in flood-affected areas have endured a horrific year,” Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan, said in the statement. “They lost their loved ones, their homes and schools. As the monsoon rains return, the…

Vladimir Putin has broken his silence over Yevgeny Prigozhin’s reported death – some 24 hours after the Wagner chief’s private jet crashed. Russia’s president said the head of the mercenary group was a “talented person” who “made serious mistakes in life”. Mr Putin also sent condolences to the families of all 10 people said to be on board the plane that went down north-west of Moscow on Wednesday evening. However, he stopped short of explicitly confirming Prigozhin’s death. From the moment the plane came down, there has been frenzied speculation about what caused the deadly crash and whether Prigozhin was…

A catastrophic die-off of emperor penguin chicks has been observed in the Antarctic, with up to 10,000 young birds estimated to have been killed. The sea-ice underneath the chicks melted and broke apart before they could develop the waterproof feathers needed to swim in the ocean. The birds most likely drowned or froze to death. The event, in late 2022, occurred in the west of the continent in an area fronting on to the Bellingshausen Sea. It was recorded by satellites. Dr Peter Fretwell, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said the wipeout was a harbinger of things to come.…

The owner of OnlyFans, the online platform used by sex workers, musicians, celebrities and more, has been paid $338m (£268.5m) in dividends. Its parent company, Fenix International, says annual profits jumped to over half a billion dollars. The platform says it now hosts more than three million creators, serving almost 240 million users, or “Fans”. UK-based Fenix’s sole shareholder, Leonid Radvinsky, has a personal fortune estimated at more than $2bn. In accounts filed at the UK corporate registry Companies House, the firm said more than $5.5bn was spent on the OnlyFans platform in the year to the end of November…

It’s been nearly two decades since Germany shrugged off its “sick man of Europe” label with a series of labor market reforms that ushered in years of economic outperformance. Unfortunately for Berlin, the phrase is making a comeback. Sticky inflation and three straight quarters of falling or stagnating output have put Europe’s biggest economy in the doldrums. So much so the International Monetary Fund expects the country to be the only advanced economy to shrink this year — with a forecast contraction of 0.3% compared with an average rise of 0.9% for the 20 countries, including Germany, that use the euro currency. A prolonged recession would…

The calendar says August, which means it’s officially time for everything pumpkin spice once again. Too soon? Starbucks doesn’t think so — it’s putting its PSL back on the menu starting August 24. So if you catch a whiff of sugary spices in the air, it’s not your imagination, It’s just the smell of manufactured autumnal nostalgia. And since “pumpkin spice latte” isn’t a flavor found in nature anyway, maybe this is a sign to step away from the processed drinks and turn over a new leaf. (Because you know that pumpkin is a squash and doesn’t really taste like cinnamon and syrup on…

T-Mobile on Thursday announced it plans to lay off 5,000 employees, or around 7% of its total staff, over the next five weeks. The reductions will largely affect corporate and back-office jobs that are “primarily duplicative” to other roles and will reduce the company’s middle management layers, CEO Mike Sievert said in a letter to employees Thursday. The company also plans to reduce its spending on “external workers and resources,” but its retail and “consumer care” staff who work directly with customers will not be affected, he said. “What it takes to attract and retain customers is materially more expensive than it…