Author: ALJAZEERA

US president says Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and Cardano will be included in ‘Crypto Strategic Reserve’.United States President Donald Trump has named five cryptocurrencies for his proposed reserve of digital assets, sending prices of the tokens soaring. Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, and Cardano will be included in a “Crypto Strategic Reserve”, Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday. Trump, who in January signed an executive order to examine the creation of a “strategic national digital assets stockpile”, said the move would “elevate” the industry after years of “corrupt attacks” by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.…

US State Department says overseas development and aid programmes to be cut by $54bn.The United States has dramatically cut the budgets of overseas development and aid programmes, with multiyear contracts pared down by 92 percent, or $54bn, the State Department has said. After his inauguration on January 20, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid for 90 days, during which time it would undergo a review by senior political leadership to cut spending on programmes that did not align with his “America First” agenda. The review in part targeted multiyear foreign…

China is experiencing a prolonged economic slowdown, which has led to a youth unemployment crisis. In 2023, the rate of 16 to 24-year-olds unable to find jobs reached a record high of 21.3 percent. Following the release of those figures, the government suspended reporting before revising its methodology to exclude university students. According to the latest figures, the rate is now 15.7 percent. Young people say they are having to settle for low-paying jobs, if they can find one at all. 101 East follows young jobseekers as they navigate China’s challenging labour market.

Trump’s comments Thursday clarified confusion he sowed on Wednesday when he seemed to suggest tariffs would be pushed back to April.United States President Donald Trump has said that his proposed 25-percent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will go into effect on March 4 and threatened an extra 10-percent duty on Chinese imports because, he claims, deadly drugs are still pouring into the US from those countries. Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site on Thursday that he would impose the additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods on March 4. This would come on top of the…

United States President Donald Trump has cancelled oil production concessions granted to Venezuela under his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump said that the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has not made improvements in areas such as election reform and immigration enforcement. “We are hereby reversing the concessions that Crooked Joe Biden gave to Nicolas Maduro, of Venezuela, on the oil transaction agreement, dated November 26, 2022, and also having to do with Electoral conditions within Venezuela, which have not been met by the Maduro regime,” the post reads. In 2022, the Biden…

The proposal urged Apple to follow a litany of high-profile companies that have recently rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Apple shareholders have rebuffed an attempt to pressure the technology trendsetter into joining President Donald Trump’s push to scrub corporate programmes designed to diversify the workforce. The proposal drafted by the National Center for Public Policy Research — a self-described conservative think tank — urged Apple to follow a litany of high-profile companies that have retreated from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives currently in the Trump administration’s crosshairs. After a brief presentation about the anti-DEI proposal, Apple announced shareholders had rejected…

The move comes on the heels of threats by US President Donald Trump to impose tariffs that would make iPhones made overseas more expensive.Apple has said that it plans to invest more than $500bn in the United States over the next four years, including plans to hire 20,000 people and build a new server factory in Texas. The move, announced on Monday, comes just days after US President Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook promised him that the tech giant’s manufacturing would shift from Mexico to the US. Trump noted the company was doing so to avoid paying tariffs.…

The Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation filed the landmark case against Western Australia’s state government.An Aboriginal group is seeking 1.8 billion Australian dollars ($1.15bn) in damages from Western Australia’s state government after it allowed a mining firm to establish an iron ore project on its ancestral land without a land use deal, according to court filings. The Federal Court of Australia filings, revealed on Wednesday, showed that the Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation (YNAC) claimed that activity at the Solomon hub, run by global mining firm Fortescue, has severely damaged its land and people. The case could prove a landmark one in…

Elon Musk has pledged to “fix” X’s fact-checking tool following the release of polling contradicting United States President Donald Trump’s claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is deeply unpopular in his country. Rowing in behind Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy on Thursday, Musk claimed that his social media platform’s “community notes” feature was being “gamed” by governments and traditional media. Musk made the claim while amplifying an anonymous right-wing X account that questioned the credibility of a widely cited Ukrainian polling outfit because of its work with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being effectively dismantled under the…

The move comes after UK security officials demanded backdoor access to the encrypted material, Washington Post said.Apple has said it will stop offering an advanced data security option for British users after the government reportedly demanded that the company provide backdoor access for any data those users have stored in the cloud. The iPhone maker said on Friday its Advanced Data Protection encryption feature is no longer available for new users in the United Kingdom and will eventually be disabled for existing users. Advanced Data Protection, which Apple started rolling out at the end of 2022, is an opt-in feature…