Free Republic

Brussels (AFP) - The European Union has faced and survived a series of existential threats over the years but the coronavirus epidemic has exposed old wounds that could yet prove fatal. A debt crisis in Mediterranean countries, a series of refugee influxes and the ongoing saga on Brexit all rattled the European project but did not sink it. They may, however, have left it vulnerable to a new disease. "The germ is back," former European Commission president and one of the modern union's chief architects, Jacques Delors, told AFP on Saturday. "The climate that seems to hang over the heads...

Tech-industry juggernauts Apple, Samsung and Huawei each have their own unique and strategic (yet often hilarious) way of taunting one another’s flagship devices. But amid recent events like the uncertain state of U.S. China Trade relations and arrest of the firm’s Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, the riff between China’s Huawei Technologies Co. and U.S.-based Apple, Inc. has escalated far beyond their typical friendly-fire. Some 20+ Chinese firms have already urged their employees to boycott Apple products and, in retaliation, encourage them to buy from Huawei instead. Most firms partaking of these anti-Apple boycotts are reportedly offering their employees up...

Parliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs’ questions. The cache of documents is alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is claimed they include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg. Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company,...

YINCHUAN, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's top political advisor Yu Zhengsheng met on Sunday with King of Jordan Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein on the sidelines of a China-Arab State Expo in Yinchuan in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Yu, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), spoke highly of the long-term friendship between China and Jordan. He said the king has visited China seven times, which showcased the high importance he attached to relationship with China. He added the China visit of the king will promote further development of the bilateral ties. Yu...