WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Close to half of American adults support a ban on the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos survey that also asked questions about national security concerns and China.
The survey also revealed deep worries among Americans about China’s global influence at a time when U.S.-China relations have fallen to their lowest point in decades.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said in March that China’s government could use TikTok to control software on millions of devices and drive narratives to divide Americans, adding that the app “screams” of national security concerns.
Other top U.S. intelligence officials, including CIA Director William Burns, also have said TikTok poses a threat.
Former President Donald Trump in 2020 sought to bar new downloads of TikTok but a series of court decisions blocked the ban from taking effect.
Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has said he favors some form of national ban on the app.
Sure, it’s been a while since China had to protect its currency from negative pressure, and it’s in reuters because it’s a clear market signal. However a softening economy isn’t unusual generally, just a first in decades for China.
It’s as much a sign that as a country they’re maturing past the developing country growth wave they’ve been on, and hitting the cycles that developed nations need to manage. Couple that with a trade war with the US slowing down key parts of the economy and it’s notable but not surprising.
Those predicting a wholesale economic collapse will however be just as disappointed as they were 12months ago when predicting a real estate lead crash.
During recent weeks, market watchers say the Chinese authorities have sought to slow the yuan’s decline, with the PBOC persistently setting a stronger-than-expected fixing, and state banks repeatedly selling dollars.
The recent steepening in the yuan’s decline is a result of China’s widening yield differential with the U.S., and investors’ mounting concerns over China’s weak economic growth and rising default risks in its property and shadow banking sectors.
The government’s slow delivery of stimulus measures to bolster growth has disappointed investors. Meantime, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has eased monetary policy to support the economy, though the price paid for lowering interest rates is more pressure on the yuan.
STOCKHOLM, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Sweden’s national security service raised its terrorist alert to the second highest level on Thursday and warned that the threat of attack could persist for a long time after burnings and other acts against the Koran outraged Muslims.
Denmark and Sweden have tightened border controls in fear of revenge attacks after anti-Islam activists damaged several copies of the Muslim holy book in recent months.
She said the attack threat posed by “violent Islamist actors” has increased in the past year but that the hiking of the alert level was not down to any knowledge of a specific plan.
Britain and the United States have warned nationals against going to Sweden due to possible terrorist attacks amid protests there and in neighbouring Denmark over the Koran burnings.
But many Muslims view desecrating the Koran, which they consider to be the literal word of God, as a grave offence worthy of severe punishment.
Sweden’s biggest terrorist attack in recent history occurred in 2017, when an Uzbek immigrant who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State mowed down pedestrians on a busy Stockholm street with a truck, killing five people.
He doesn’t want to come back and the US has zero leverage with DPRK. He’s not a hostage, he’s an asylum seeker. And better than that, he’s a US military member who has a personal grievance with not just the USA but also South Korea. This man is staying in Pyongyang and will be treated quite well.
Why, what do you think will happen? They’ll torture him? Imprison him for life? Make him eat gross foods? Work him to death? Like, what’s your orientalist fantasy here?
What kind of work will he eventually get there that will provide him with a decent quality of life? You think he will have the same level of freedom to move and say what he feels? Do you think he will get any justice if he is racially profiled or mistreated by any authority? Do you think he will have unrestricted access to even three internet?
Come on, this is fucking laughable. What kind of work will he get for a decent quality of life? What do you think NK is like? That some people live under bridges and pick garbage while others are doctors that drive Maseratis? That’s a USA thing. DPRK, like all socialist movements, is focused on raising up the bottom of society first and foremost. He will easily have a decent quality of life even as just an English teacher or as military staff.
Do you think he will get any justice if he is racially profiled or mistreated by any authority in the USA?! That’s one of his principle reasons for defecting! Are you aware of how much racial profiling happens daily in the USA and how very very little gets done about? Did the USA not just have a racial reckoning with the high profile lynching of dozens of individual black people? The Chauvin trial was one of the first ever where the cops suffered a consequebce and the cops on trial for lynchings after Floyd didn’t suffer consequences. You are projecting American anti-blackness into North Korea, but the anti-Blackness in South Korea comes from America, not from Korea. I’m sure he will suffer far and away less individual and structural racism in the DPRK than any black person will experience in the USA in the next 100 years.
Do you think you have unrestricted and free access to the internet? Do you know how many NSLs the USA has issued? Do you know how many DNS take overs have been executed? Do you know the history of COINTELPRO and how thoroughly it infiltrated black communities and likely still does to this day?
You are comparing your orientalist fantasy about the evil Korean commies against the propaganda narrative about the enlightened and virtuous West. None of your beliefs match reality.
Why do you think he will want to come back eventually? A bunch of soldiers have defected to the DPRK since the beginning of the Korean War. Some regret it, some don’t, some died. Why are you so sure he will want to come back when he knows that being black in the West will never change in his lifetime?
Well… If they remove it is to stay on the same price and avoid an increase or reduce the amount of increase. It cannot get cheaper…
They needed to increase it and this was to avoid it or to avoid a bigger increase.
To be cheaper that would require that the prices of the raw materials stayed the same which isn’t the case or I guess but I doubt it’s the case that they increased the prices of their products aka burgers but they saw the low sells and removed the tomato and reduced prices to increase sells.
They can reduce margins but that has nothing to do with the tomato removal and if needed they probably did reduce them up to certain point.
This is Burger King… This is not a bare necessity, they know of it gets expensive people simply won’t go. This is not like increasing the price of the raw food or monopoly product…were there is no alternative
Firstly, It has to be noted Sunak is doing nothing to tackle inflation. He is actively giving his donors free reign to fleece the population in many areas, energy being the most egregious. So the cost to the benefits system is firmly at the door of the Tories and their practises over the last 14 years.
My personal belief is that all benefits should be triple locked. We should not be arguing for the lowest possible denominator, we should be looking at what is needed. Some pensioners need that payment as much as people need wages. Don’t buy into Tory rhetoric that another group should be suffering as much as you are. Get a proper and fair tax system up and running. Stop the Tory donations from corrupting our politicians. Rejoin the EU so businesses can function again. Give us voting reform so we can stop this ever happening again.
The triple lock is unsustainable. After a 10% boost because of inflation they’re about to get an 8% boost due to wage rises at a cost of 2.2b to workers. During a decade of stagnation they got the 2.5% boost creating an unsustainable debt.
We give more money to old people than defence, policing and education combined. You get less than 50% return on your taxes handed over.
It’s just not sustainable. These are exactly the people who should be paying tax in a fair society. Rejoining the EU and taxing a few companies won’t suddenly reduce the problems we have, it’s stupid to even suggest it given the gravity of our situation. We have the highest taxes in 75 years, a student loan puts your tax rate to 63%. Boomers got paid to go to uni. Our debt obligation is practically where it was after the Second World War.
People need wage rises to pay for housing that’s tripled in price since the 90s. Old people don’t have mortgages and they got help with their gas bills through other schemes… so why are you defending giving them 18% uplift when workers had to strike for just 6%?
Nothing in my post is pro Tory. Tories are for the Triple lock and I’m against it. You didn’t read my post, you didn’t understand my post. You just typed some rude shit in like a dumb fuck.
We cannot afford to give people what they need is a constant Tory theme. We cannot afford the NHS, social benefits, care for the disabled.
You still cannot deny that 10% inflation should mean 10% extra taxes returned. And as such we can afford it. We could afford it even more if the well off paid a fair amount of tax or may be we stopped giving money to oil companies instead of actually taxing them.
I think they just don’t have beef and more vegetarian options. They’d be pretty stupid to open a restaurant in India and exclude nearly 80% of the population.
Nope, its for everybody. McDonalds too. You can get a Maharaja Mac for one notable example. Localized menus exist for all the big chains that expand out.
To piggy-back on what others have said, the big franchises absolutely do regionalize their menus. A BK/McDonalds/KFC here in Romania always has a strong garlic sauce as an option, because that’s a normal part of our cuisine. You won’t find that in the UK, for example.
Sometimes the differences are small, sometimes they’re large. All depends on how different the local cuisine is from US cuisine.
Even in the US: You can get green chilies in New Mexico. I do not like McDonalds burgers, but the green chili cheese burger was better than anticipated.
LONDON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was committed to the government’s mechanism for increasing state pensions even though it is likely to cost billions of pounds more than usual given high inflation.
“Of course the government is committed to its policy on the triple lock,” Sunak told ITV News on Wednesday when asked whether he would stick to the pledge despite the rate of inflation.
“Now there is a statutory, a legal, process for determining the increase in pensions and benefits that happens in the autumn and that’s where those final decisions are made.”
Data published earlier on Wednesday showed Britain’s headline rate of inflation dropped sharply to 6.8% in July but remained more than three times the Bank of England’s target.
At the start of 2023 Sunak set himself a target of halving inflation this year, something which remains in the balance as price growth has proven more persistent than forecast.
Last November, with inflation in double-digits, finance minister Jeremy Hunt decided to raise state retirement and welfare benefits payments in line with price growth at a cost of about 11 billion pounds ($14.02 billion).
Pretty sure all of India knows why. Tomatoes have been fucked for a while now over there. Does everyone need to have a constant reminder than things suck? Like who cares if they’re having fun with it. Do you want an exact “we will not offer tomatoes until the price drops from 7¢ to 3¢ a tomato or lower.”? Like, lol. Plus saying Vacation means they’re coming back eventually also, so it’s not even bad messaging.
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