AFP

Employees are leaving a vast Foxconn iPhone factory in central China over working conditions and Covid restrictions, relieved to be taking pay-offs home after angry protests at the Taiwanese tech giant’s plant.

The workers are leaving the plant in Zhengzhou in the wake of bloody clashes with police, in which more than a dozen protesters were hurt, furious about Foxconn’s failure to deliver promised bonuses, employees  told AFP. 

“The contract suddenly changed and everyone was unhappy, in addition the previous incidents at Foxconn made everyone lose trust, so the protests happened,” one female worker who wished to remain anonymous told AFP.

Foxconn has been desperate to keep operations ticking along at the factory, the world’s biggest manufacturer of iPhones, after a handful of Covid cases forced it to lock down the facility.

Now the firm is offering payouts to those that leave, with employees taking to social media Thursday to show they had received bonuses of 10,000 yuan ($1,400) in return for terminating their contracts.

Several coaches are parked outside dormitories in the background of several videos, supposedly there to take staff home. 

“Everyone’s got their money and are about to leave,” the female worker said.

“I’m pretty satisfied, workers who still want this or that should not be too greedy,” she said.

Foxconn also appears keen to placate those who were beaten by police, with another worker telling AFP that injured colleagues received an additional 500 yuan on top of their leaving bonus.

Foxconn did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

However, screenshots of a company notice circulating online Thursday show that new employees who wished to leave would be offered 10,000 yuan to cover lost salary, quarantine and transport costs. 

The notice said employees who registered to end their contracts would be paid 8,000 yuan and given another 2,000 yuan upon boarding buses arranged by the company back to their hometowns.

– Protesters beaten –

Footage of the protests shared with AFP and captured by a factory worker showed one person lying motionless on the ground next to a man in a blood-spattered jacket having his head bound in an effort to staunch a wound.

Another clip shows dozens of hazmat-clad personnel wielding batons and chasing employees, one of whom is knocked to the ground before appearing to be kicked in the head.

The worker who shared the videos and who was present at the protests estimated that around 20 people were wounded in the clashes, some of whom were taken to hospital. He requested anonymity to protect his safety.

He told AFP the confrontations broke out after new employees who signed an agreement with the factory to work at least 30 days in return for a one-time payment of 3,000 yuan ($420) suddenly saw the figure slashed to just 30 yuan.

Foxconn has blamed a “technical error” in its payment systems for the non-payment, and promised employees that all salaries would be paid in line with company policies.

The unrest now seems to have cooled down, one worker told AFP.

“The new recruits should have all left, now everything is normal,” the worker said.

One video published Thursday on the short-video platform Kuaishou shows hundreds of workers waiting to leave the dormitory quarters carrying suitcases.

“Get money and return home,” read the caption, punctuated with a smiley emoji.

EU energy ministers met Thursday to debate measures to mitigate the energy crunch in Europe but were divided over a gas price cap proposal slammed by many as a “joke”.

They were to discuss a proposal by the European Commission, unveiled just two days earlier, that would set a cap on gas prices at 275 euros per megawatt hour.

But many members complained that the plan comes with such conditions attached that it was designed never to be used.

“The gas price cap, which is in the document, currently it doesn’t satisfy any single country,” Polish Climate Minister Anna Moskwa said as she arrived at the meeting.

“It’s a kind of joke for us after so many amounts of discussions and proposals” to arrive at the price cap put forward, she said.

France, Spain and Greece have also come out criticising the commission proposal.

The price cap plan — which the commission was never keen on — was seen as neutered under pressure from members including Germany and the Netherlands, which had feared it could divert gas supplies to more lucrative markets, especially Asia.

Yet at least 15 EU countries — more than half the bloc — want some form of workable ceiling on wholesale gas prices to tackle a crunch in supply forced by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

While the European Union hasn’t banned Russian gas, the Kremlin has been turning off the taps in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Brussels in the wake of Moscow’s invasion. 

Before the war, Russian gas supplies accounted for more than 40 percent of all imported gas into the European Union, with export powerhouse Germany particularly needy.

Now, that has dropped to less than 10 percent. 

But alternative sources — such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipped from the United States and the Gulf — cannot make up the shortfall, and Europe faces a pricey heating bill for winter.

– Ministers can ‘calibrate’ cap –

Asked if the ministers would agree a full package of energy support measures including the proposed gas price cap, Belgium’s energy minister, Tinne Van der Straeten, said: “I don’t think it’s achievable today.”

EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson acknowledged the divisions over the price cap and noted that the ministers have “a right to calibrate the different parameters” if they wished.

Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela, chairing the meeting under his country’s current presidency of the EU, said: “I am ready to convene as many extraordinary councils as needed in order to reach the agreement.”

The commission’s proposed cap of 275 euros per megawatt hour would only kick in when that threshold is breached for two weeks running for future contracts, and only if the LNG price went above 58 euros for 10 days within that same two-week period.

The price of wholesale gas in Europe on Thursday was around 124 euros, according to the main TTF benchmark.

The only time it has gone above the 275-euro limit was for one week in August, when the market impact of the war and EU demand to fill gas storage were at their peak. 

The price cap plan, if adopted, would start in January. It would run alongside a voluntary initiative for EU member states to cut natural gas use by 15 percent over the northern hemisphere winter.

UK police on Thursday said their biggest ever counter-fraud operation had disrupted an international criminal network targeting hundreds of thousands of victims in millions of spam phone calls.

The Metropolitan Police spearheaded the 18-month global probe into the iSpoof.cc website, working with Europol, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies worldwide.

A total of 142 people have been arrested, including one of its alleged London-based administrators. Suspects were nabbed in Australia, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, while servers were shuttered in the Netherlands and Ukraine.

UK police believe organised crime groups are linked to the website and its tens of thousands of users. The site enables users to access software tools to illicitly obtain victims’ bank account funds and commit other fraud.

Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said the investigation signalled “a different approach” to criminals exploiting technology.

“This is about starting from the organised criminals that actually drive and create the fraud that we see in the world around us,” he told reporters.

– Industrialised fraud –

The London force — the UK’s largest — said in the year to August, suspects paid to access the website and make more than 10 million fraudulent calls worldwide.

Around 40 percent were in the United States. More than a third were in the UK, targeting 200,000 potential victims there alone.

Fraud detection agencies have so far recorded £48 million ($58 million) in losses in the UK alone. Victims lost an average £10,000. The largest single theft was worth three million pounds.

Losses to victims worldwide are estimated at over £100 million.

“Because fraud is vastly under-reported, the full amount is believed to be much higher,” the Met said.

Those behind the site earned almost £3.2 million from it, the force added.

Only around 5,000 British victims have so far been identified.

However, the Met’s investigation has yielded the phone numbers of more than 70,000 potential victims, who have yet to be contacted.

The force will attempt to reach them over the next two days, sending text messages directing those contacted to its website, where details can be safely logged.   

“What we’re doing here is trying to industrialise our response to the organised criminals’ industrialisation of the problem,” Rowley added.

– ‘Operation Elaborate’ –

The iSpoof website — described as “an international one-stop spoofing shop” — was created in December 2020 and at its peak had 59,000 users paying between £150 and £5,000 for its services, according to the Met.

It enabled subscribers, who could pay in Bitcoin, to access so-called spoofing tools which made their phone numbers appear as if they were calling from banks, tax offices and other official bodies.

The mostly commonly imitated organisations include some of the UK’s biggest consumer banks — including Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds and Santander. 

Combined with customers’ bank and login details, illegally obtained elsewhere online, the criminals were then able to defraud their victims.

“They would worry them (about) fraudulent activity on their bank accounts and tricked them,” explained Detective Superintendent Helen Rance, who leads on cyber crime for the Met.

She noted that people contacted would typically be instructed to share six-digit banking passcodes allowing their accounts to be emptied. 

The Met launched “Operation Elaborate” in June 2021, partnering with Dutch police, who had already started their own probe after an iSpoof server was based there.

A subsequent server operating in Kyiv was shuttered in September and the site was permanently disabled on November 8.

The previous day the Met had charged Teejai Fletcher, 34, of east London, with fraud and organised crime group offences.

He remains in custody and will next appear in a London court on December 6.

“It’s fair to say that he was living a lavish lifestyle,” Rance said, noting that the investigation remained ongoing.

“Instead of just taking down the website and arresting the administrator, we have gone after the users of iSpoof,” she added. 

Two other suspected administrators outside the UK remain at large, the Met noted. 

Asian markets rallied Thursday and the dollar weakened further after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting suggested it could slow its pace of rate hikes.

The news provided traders with a cushion against concerns about surging Covid cases in China that have fanned speculation authorities will revert to lockdowns and other economically debilitating measures to fight the outbreak.

Wednesday’s much-anticipated minutes showed most US central bank chiefs felt smaller increases would “likely soon be appropriate” as the economy shows signs of weakness following almost a year of monetary tightening.

Bets were growing on officials announcing a 50-basis-point lift at their December gathering, down from four straight 75-point hikes, with officials keeping tabs on economic data.

The latest indicators showed the manufacturing and services sectors continued to contract last month, while jobless claims picked up.

The developments allowed Wall Street traders to head off to their Thanksgiving break with a spring in their step, the S&P 500 ending at a two-month high as they finally see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel after a painful year.

And Asia followed suit, with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Manila and Jakarta all in the red.

The more risk-on environment was also reflected in a further drop in the dollar against its peers, having surged for much of the year as traders bet on ever-higher US interest rates.

“Equities are revelling in the wake of the… minutes after the Fed telegraphed a downshift from jumbo to extra-large rate hikes,” said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes.

“A commitment to moving toward restrictive monetary policy remains intact, but the (policy board) is ready to slow the path toward that destination.”

He added that a less aggressive Fed “should pave the runway for take-off in Asia, fuelled by expectations of China’s reopening by March next year”.

Investors are keeping a close watch on China after it announced a record number of new Covid cases on Thursday as authorities worked to curb the spread with snap lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions.

While officials are trying more targeted measures to contain the disease, there remains a concern that they will resort to the painful city-wide shutdowns seen in Shanghai earlier this year as part of the country’s zero-Covid strategy, which hammered the economy.

However, the concern has been tempered somewhat after China signalled fresh support measures aimed at boosting growth, with the State Council saying tools would be used to ensure liquidity in markets. 

The comments led to talk of another cut in the amount of cash banks must keep in reserve, freeing them to lend more.

– Key figures around 0230 GMT –

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.2 percent at 28,448.58 (break)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent at 17,617.28

Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.3 percent at 3,106.13

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0424 from $1.0401 on Wednesday

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 138.82 yen from 139.52 yen

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2088 from $1.2064

Euro/pound: UP at 86.23 pence from 86.18 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.2 percent at $77.77 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 0.3 percent at $85.14 per barrel

New York – Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 34,194.06 (close)

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 7,465.24 (close)

Few will lose as much as journalists if Twitter dies, having grown reliant on its endless sources and instant updates despite the dangers and distortions that come with it.

There has been fevered talk of the platform’s imminent demise since billionaire Elon Musk took over last month and began firing vast numbers of staff.

But most journalists “can’t leave,” said Nic Newman, of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. “It’s actually a really important part of their work.”

Newman was working at the BBC when Twitter started making waves in 2008 and 2009.

“It was a new Rolodex, a new way of contacting people — fantastic for case studies and… experts,” he said.

But Twitter also became a competitor, replacing newsrooms as the source of breaking news for the public when terrorist attacks, natural disasters or any fast-moving story struck.

“Journalists realised they wouldn’t always be the ones breaking the news and that their role was going to be different — more about contextualising and verifying that news,” said Newman.

It also meant journalists were tied to the platform for announcements by politicians and celebrities — most famously the dreaded late-night and early-morning tweets from Donald Trump that left hundreds of journalists sleep-deprived throughout his presidency.

– ‘Tribal melodrama’ –

The dependency has bred many problems.

New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo spoke for many in 2019 when he wrote that “Twitter is ruining American journalism” with the way it “tugs journalists deeper into the rip currents of tribal melodrama, short-circuiting our better instincts in favor of mob- and bot-driven groupthink.”

By rewarding the most vehement voices, the platform tends to drown out the majority of the population — both moderates and non-elites.

“The debates that happen on Twitter are very much the debates of the elite,” said Newman. “It has definitely been a problem in newsrooms.”

“Paying attention only to Twitter tends to distort the way that many people, including journalists, see the world,” agreed Mathew Ingram, digital media specialist at the Columbia Journalism Review.

Though he hopes they have grown savvy enough to deal with the distortions, journalists have been subjected to a “huge tide of disinformation and harassment”.

But for all the frantic talk over Musk’s volatile tenure, many believe the site will survive.

“For the record, I don’t think it’s all that likely that Twitter will shut down anytime soon,” said Stephen Barnard, a sociologist at Butler University in the United States.

But he said journalists have good reason to fear its disappearance.

“They would lose access to what is for many a very large, powerful and diverse social network… (and) also a positive source of prestige and professional identity,” Barnard said.

“There is no real heir apparent in that space, so I’m not sure where they would go,” he added.

On the plus side, Ingram said, it could spur a return to “more traditional ways of researching and reporting”.

“Perhaps that would be a good thing,” he added.

UK police on Thursday said their biggest ever counter-fraud operation had disrupted an international criminal network targeting hundreds of thousands of victims in millions of spam phone calls.

The Metropolitan Police, which spearheaded the 18-month global probe into the iSpoof.cc website, has arrested over 100 people in recent weeks, including one of its alleged London-based administrators.

Working with Europol, the FBI and other law enforcement worldwide, suspects were nabbed in the Netherlands, Australia, France and Ireland, while servers were shuttered in the Netherlands and Ukraine.

UK police believe organised crime groups are linked to the website and its tens of thousands of users, who could access software tools on it to help illicitly obtain victims’ bank account funds and commit other fraud.

Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said the investigation signalled “a different approach” to criminals exploiting technology.

“This is about starting from the organised criminals that actually drive and create the fraud that we see in the world around us,” he told reporters.

– Industrialised fraud –

The London force — the UK’s largest — said in the year to August, suspects paid to access the website and make more than 10 million fraudulent calls worldwide.

Around 40 percent were in the United States, while more than a third were in the UK targeting 200,000 potential victims there alone.

Fraud detection agencies have so far recorded £48 million ($58 million) in losses in the UK alone, with the largest single theft £3 million and the average £10,000.

“Because fraud is vastly under-reported, the full amount is believed to be much higher,” the Met said.

Those behind the site earned almost £3.2 million from it, the force added.

Only around 5,000 British victims have so far been identified.

However, the Met’s investigation has yielded the phone numbers of more than 70,000 potential victims who have yet to be contacted.

The force will attempt to reach them over the next two days, sending text messages directing those contacted to its website where details can be safely logged.   

“What we’re doing here is trying to industrialise our response to the organised criminals’ industrialisation of the problem,” Rowley added.

– ‘Operation Elaborate’ –

The iSpoof website — described as “an international one stop spoofing shop” — was created in December 2020 and at its peak had 59,000 users paying between £150 and £5,000 for its services, according to the Met.

It enabled subscribers, who could pay in Bitcoin, to access so-called spoofing tools which made their phone numbers appear as if they were calling from banks, tax offices and other official bodies.

Some of the UK’s biggest consumer banks — including Barclays, HSBC, Santander, Lloyds, Halifax — were the mostly commonly imitated.

Combined with customers’ bank and login details illegally obtained elsewhere online, the criminals were then able to defraud their victims.

“They would worry them (about) fraudulent activity on their bank accounts and tricked them,” explained Detective Superintendent Helen Rance, who leads on cyber crime for the Met.

She noted that people contacted would typically be instructed to share six-digit banking passcodes allowing their accounts to be emptied. 

The Met launched “Operation Elaborate” in June 2021, partnering with Dutch police who had already started their own probe after an iSpoof server was based there.

A subsequent server operating in Kyiv was shuttered in September, while the site was permanently disabled on November 8.

The previous day the Met had charged Teejai Fletcher, 34, of east London, with fraud and organised crime group offences.

He remains in custody and will next appear in a London court on December 6.

“It’s fair to say that he was living a lavish lifestyle,” Rance said, noting the investigation remained ongoing.

“Instead of just taking down the website and arresting the administrator, we have gone after the users of iSpoof,” she added. 

Two other suspected administrators outside the UK remain at large, the Met noted.