Business

Conde Nast staff stage walkout against layoffs

NEW YORK, Jan 23, 2024 (AFP) – Hundreds of unionized staffers at Conde Nast, the parent company behind legacy publications including Vogue and Vanity Fair, walked out Tuesday in protest of looming layoffs. As part of the NewsGuild action, 400 employees walked off the job on the news-heavy day, which saw the announcement of Academy Award nominations and voting in a presidential primary. The union urged people not to cross the digital picket line by […]

League of Legends maker Riot Games to slash 530 jobs

LOS ANGELES, Jan 23, 2024 (AFP) – League of Legends maker Riot Games said Monday it will cut around 530 jobs worldwide, describing the layoffs as “a necessity.” The layoffs at Riot — owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent — follow a turbulent year for the gaming industry, with job cuts at major firms including Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Riot has developed global hits including League of Legends and Valorant, but said it had launched […]

LA Times slashes a fifth of its newsroom jobs

By Huw GRIFFITH LOS ANGELES, Jan 23, 2024 (AFP) – The Los Angeles Times said Tuesday it laying off more than a fifth of its journalists, in another example of how news media in the United States and around the world are struggling to cope with the disruptions of the internet age. The announcement came as staff at the Conde Nast group, which publishes Vanity Fair and Vogue, took strike action over looming job cuts, […]

Sony ‘terminates’ Indian merger with Zee

By Simon Sturdee with Anuj Srivas in Mumbai TOKYO, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Sony “terminated” on Monday the $10-billion merger of its Indian operations with local rival Zee Entertainment that would have created a new streaming giant in the world’s most populous nation. The joint entity with mooted annual revenue of $2 billion would have helped both firms better compete with Disney, Amazon and Netflix in the entertainment market of 1.4 billion people. But […]

Wanted crypto boss Do Kwon’s Terraform files for US bankruptcy

SINGAPORE, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – South Korean entrepreneur Do Kwon’s Terraform Labs, whose cryptocurrencies crashed dramatically in 2022, is seeking bankruptcy protection in the United States, according to court documents filed Sunday. The collapse of the Singapore-based firm’s TerraUSD and Luna wiped out around $40 billion in investments and caused wider losses in the global crypto market estimated at more than $400 billion. Kwon, who co-founded Terraform in 2018, was arrested last year in […]

German train drivers’ union calls six-day strike

FRANKFURT, Germany, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – German train drivers will hold a six-day strike this week, the GDL union said, the longest walkout yet in an escalating row with Deutsche Bahn over pay and working hours. The strike is due to start at 2:00 am (0100 GMT) on Wednesday and last until 1700 GMT on Monday. For freight services, the stoppage is due to begin at 1700 GMT on Tuesday, GDL said in a […]

Thailand backtracks on scope of discovered lithium deposits

BANGKOK, Jan 22, 2024 (AFP) – Thailand has backtracked on an announcement that it found millions of tonnes of lithium deposits last week, with the government downgrading the scope of its discovery. On Friday, Bangkok announced it had found nearly 15 tonnes of lithium deposits at two sites in the southern province of Phang Nga, which would have ranked its reserves third in the world. But officials had instead discovered 14.8 million tonnes of mineral […]

US lawmakers avert damaging government shutdown

By Frankie TAGGART WASHINGTON, Jan 18, 2024 (AFP) – The US Congress green-lit temporary funding Thursday to thwart a partial government shutdown that threatened the functions of multiple key federal agencies and could have seen thousands of employees sent home without pay. With large sections of the government due to close at the end of Friday, the House of Representatives voted to keep the lights for at least another six weeks, approving a measure that […]

Schwarzenegger watch fetches $290,000

VIENNA, Jan 19, 2024 (AFP) – The Swiss watch that got Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger in trouble with German custom officials has been sold for 270,000 euros ($290,000), the actor’s charity said Friday. The action hero-turned-environmental campaigner was held at Munich airport Wednesday for failing to declare the bespoke Audemars Piguet timepiece that was being auctioned for his climate charity. Schwarzenegger called his brush with the law a “wild experience” at the charity dinner Thursday […]

Heavy snow, freezing rain hobble European travel

By Deborah COLE BERLIN, Jan 17, 2024 (AFP) – Severe winter weather in northern Europe prompted the cancellation of hundreds of flights Wednesday at Frankfurt airport, Germany’s busiest, while heavy snow in Scandinavia shut down air travel in Oslo for several hours. A Frankfurt airport spokeswoman said 570 of 1,047 flights had been axed by late morning as Germany’s business capital prepared for dramatic weather conditions. By early afternoon, all remaining departures were temporarily struck […]

Mitsuko Tottori named as first woman president of JAL

TOKYO, Jan 17, 2024 (AFP) – Japan Airlines on Wednesday named former cabin attendant Mitsuko Tottori as its new president, becoming the first woman to head the carrier and a rare female leader at a major Japanese firm. Tottori, a senior managing executive officer who joined the airline in 1985, will take the helm from April 1, joining a tiny group of women leaders at Japan Inc. In a survey taken a year ago, only […]

UK inflation in shock rise, dashing rate cut hopes

By Roland JACKSON LONDON, Jan 17, 2024 (AFP) – British annual inflation unexpectedly picked up in December, data showed Wednesday, dashing hopes of an early cut to UK interest rates and prolonging a cost-of-living squeeze before an election. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) accelerated slightly to 4.0 percent from 3.9 percent in November, the Office for National Statistics said, confounding expectations for a modest slowdown. The news dented hopes the Bank of England would cut […]