Author: Steven Sahiounie

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told company executives that major layoffs at the tech giant will begin on Wednesday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon. Meta declined to comment to CNN on the report, which said Zuckerberg told the executives at Facebook (FB)’s parent company that he is accountable for the job cuts, after his over-optimism about growth had led to excessive hiring. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the Journal reported that the upcoming job cuts will likely impact many thousands of employees and mark the first broad headcount reductions in the company’s history. Meta had more than 87,000…

China’s annual International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in the Pearl River Delta city of Zhuhai is often used to showcase the country’s rapidly advancing aerospace capabilities. Past debuts have included the FC-31 and J-20 stealth aircraft and the first-ever quantum radar, and the city welcomes elite acrobatics teams from around the globe. As the 14th Zhuhai Air Show kicked off on Tuesday, attendees got their first look at several new items in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) arsenal, including new hypersonic missiles, anti-drone technology, and the first passenger airliner designed and made in China. More than 740 domestic and overseas…

New Delhi is looking for stable energy ties with Moscow and will continue buying Russian oil to India’s advantage, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Tuesday at a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. “It is our fundamental obligation to ensure that the Indian consumer has the best possible access on most advantageous terms to international [energy] markets,” Jaishankar said. The world’s third-largest oil importer, India has started to ramp up purchases of Russian crude after Western sanctions forced Moscow to offer discounts on its exports in an effort to find new buyers. In October, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia…

Historians may have to review the history of the relationship between the Etruscan civilization and the Roman Empire, after Italy’s Culture Ministry on Tuesday announced the discovery of several dozen bronze statues believed to be over 2,000 years old in an ancient Tuscan thermal spring. Massimo Osanna, the ministry’s director of museums, hailed the discovery as one of the most significant ever in the Mediterranean region. He explained that the bronze figurines – which depict humans, gods, and individual body parts – were found perfectly preserved thanks to them being covered in mud. Alongside the statues, archeologists also reportedly found…

Earlier this year, in a letter of congratulations following the inauguration of the Chinese History Research Institute, President Xi Jinping said that history, properly understood, performs two important functions: helping people reflect and making them wiser. In fact, President Xi has publicly emphasized the importance of history to the country’s development on a number of occasions, urging people to pay closer attention to history and to draw practical conclusions from it. In doing so, President Xi is following in the footsteps of the great tradition of Chinese historiography, a tradition which has recently taken shape in the form of a televisual…

Asian powerhouse China signed off their 2022 World Gymnastics Championships campaign with a bang as Zou Jingyuan delivered a show-stopping performance to clinch a well-deserved gold medal in men’s parallel bars on the final day of the showpiece event in Liverpool, England on Sunday night.The 24-year-old Zou, who also bagged the Olympic gold in the same event last year, dominated from start to finish and posted the highest score of the meet in any final with a stunning 16.166 points. Germany’s two-time Olympian Lukas Dauser finished a distant second with 15.500, while Philippines’ sensation Carlos Yulo took bronze with 15.366.The…

The C919 jetliner made by Chinese planemaker Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) debuted on Tuesday at the country’s biggest airshow, securing orders for 300 planes for the company. The large passenger plane, the first homegrown one for China, got its airworthiness permit from Chinese regulators in September. The first C919 is expected to be delivered to China Eastern Airlines in December. The orders for the 300 C919 planes came from seven leasing companies backed by banks in China, multiple local media outlets reported. COMAC also displayed a medical jet model derived from its ARJ21 jetliner with intensive care unit (ICU) capabilities, securing…

Inside the red walls of Changsha’s Fiery Palace in central China’s Hunan Province is one of the unique dishes I’ve ever tasted or seen made – stinky tofu.The dish dates back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when a local woman began frying discarded tofu in tea oil and stumbled upon a dish that would become a pillar of Hunan’s thriving street food culture. Zhou Houmu, the fourth-generation inheritor of the craft of making Fiery Palace stinky tofu, keeps the tradition near and dear. I met him in the kitchen of the dining area, frying the signature dish.But before dipping the…

Bayern Munich will play against Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Liverpool will meet Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 competitions while Manchester United are competing with Barcelona for a spot in the UEFA Europa League Round of 16, according to the draw results on Monday. The following is the Champions League Round of 16 matchups: Red Bull Leipzig vs. Manchester City; Club Brugge vs. Benfica; Liverpool vs. Real Madrid; AC Milan vs, Tottenham Hotspur; Eintracht Frankfurt vs. Napoli; Borussia Dortmund vs. Chelsea; Inter Milan vs. Porto; PSG vs. Bayern Munich The No. 1 teams from the group…

Germany wants dialogue with Washington rather than tit-for-tat measures to ease trade tensions triggered by the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which could harm European businesses and industries, Germany’s finance minister said on Monday. According to Christian Lindner, a task force set up between the U.S. and the European Union should address the issue urgently. “The correct path now is to seek dialogue with the U.S. administration in order to exchange concerns and find common ways in which our economic interests can be combined,” Lindner said ahead of talks with his Eurogroup counterparts in Brussels. “I have not been assured that…