China relaxes visa, urban residency rules to bolster growth

BEIJING—China will allow some foreigners to obtain visas on arrival and rural residents to settle more easily in cities as part of a series of measures aimed at boosting its flagging economy.

The relaxations aim to “promote the free movement” of “people, vehicles, information and data”, an official from the Ministry of Public Security said Thursday.

China’s post-Covid recovery has run out of steam in recent months, dragged down by sluggish consumption and a real estate sector in crisis.

GDP growth increased by just 0.8 percent from the first to second quarter of the year, and youth unemployment has reached record highs at over 20 percent.

In response, the ministry announced 26 new measures on Thursday, including a new visa policy for foreign business people. Those who come to China to participate in trade negotiations, expos, conferences or to invest will be able to obtain visas on arrival, provided they present the necessary documents.

Previously, travelers had to apply for a visa at a Chinese embassy or consulate in their country of departure.

Also announced Thursday was a further relaxation of the controversial permanent residence system, or “hukou”, which for decades has classified Chinese people as either “urban” or “rural”.

Chinese citizens are entitled to settle, live and work in any location across the country.

But because of the residence system, they can only benefit from certain public services, including health insurance and education, where they are registered -generally their place of birth.

This arrangement, which is nominally aimed at avoiding unbridled urbanization, in practice causes many Chinese to give up settling in the city due to the difficulties of attaining full access to public services.

To soften these restrictions, China will “further relax registration requirements” and “encourage people from the countryside who have the ability to work and live in the cities to settle there with their family.” AFP

Amazon, Apple beat earnings forecasts, commit to investing more in AI tech

SAN FRANCISCO, United States

—Amazon and Apple on Thursday reported earnings that topped market expectations, aiming for even better days ahead with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

“Inside Amazon, every one of our teams is working on building generative AI applications that reinvent and enhance their customers’ experience,” chief executive Andy Jassy said during an earnings call.

Apple views AI and machine learning as “core fundamental technologies that are integral to virtually every product that we build,” company boss Tim Cook told analysts while discussing the iPhone maker’s quarterly earnings.

“It’s absolutely critical to us,” Cook said of AI.

He cited crash detection and other iPhone features as technologies that “wouldn’t be possible without AI and machine learning.” Crash detection presents a user with a prompt for an emergency call if a handset senses a collision.

“We’ve been doing research across a wide range of AI technologies, including generative AI for years,” Cook said.

“We’re going to continue investing and innovating and responsibly advancing our products with these technologies.”

Apple reported modestly higher profits in the recently ended quarter despite another dip in revenues, as a record performance in services offset lower iPhone sales.

Executives spotlighted increased sales in China and several key emerging markets that helped to compensate for declines in the United States where the iPhone sales have ebbed in a saturated smartphone environment.

Profits for Apple’s third fiscal quarter were $19.9 billion, up 2.3 percent from the year-ago period. Revenues again declined, this time by 1.4 percent to

$81.8 billion, the third straight quarter with a year-over-year decline.

Bright spots for the tech giant included an “all-time high” in services revenue, comprised of the App store, Apple pay and Apple TV and other subscription services.

AI for all?

Amazon reported a quarterly profit that trounced market expectations, driven by strong sales helped by its annual Prime discount event.

The e-commerce giant said it made a profit of $6.7 billion in the recently ended quarter, eclipsing earnings forecasts.

“It was another strong quarter of progress for Amazon,” the company’s chief executive Andy Jassy said in an earnings release.

The e-commerce colossus boasted of having its “biggest Prime Day event ever” in July, with subscribers to the Amazon service worldwide ordering more than 375 million items.

Order delivery speeds in the US were the fastest ever, with Amazon continuing to work on optimizing efficiency and lowering costs at fulfillment centers, according to the company.

Jassy in March laid out a plan to cut 9,000 more jobs from the online retail giant’s workforce, following the 18,000 that were axed in January.

Jassy told his workers at the time that the extra layoffs were necessary as the company seeks a way to downsize after years of sustained hiring by the Seattlebased company.

“The peso also weakened after the latest decline in the PSEi by -125.92 points or 1.6 percent to close at 6,450.84, new two-week lows since July 11, 2023…,” he said. Ricafort said another factor that contributed to the peso’s weakness was the “tail-end” of the seasonal increase in OFW remittances for tuition and other school opening-related payments, to be followed by the seasonal increase in importation in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed Friday at the end of a volatile week, with a fresh spike in US Treasury yields weighing on Wall Street and traders still concerned about the Federal Reserve’s interest rate plans. With AFP

US slaps $300m fine over huge robocall ‘scam’

NEW YORK, United States—US officials issued Thursday a record $300 million fine over a robocall scam that placed more than five billion unsolicited calls to targeted consumers over three months. Operating under different names across multiple countries including Hungary, Panama and the United States since at least 2018, the enterprise executed an extraordinary number of unsolicited calls, including to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, the Federal Communications Commission said. US officials had announced the proposed $300 million fine in December, giving the accused 30 days to response. When the FCC received no response, it announced Thursday’s action.

If the parties do not pay the fine, the case will be referred to the Justice Department for collection, the FCC said.

The operation violated federal spoofing laws by using more than one million different caller ID numbers to trick people into answering the phone.

Key players in the scheme, which involved “the false and misleading claim of selling auto warranties,” were Roy Cox, Jr. and Michael Aaron Jones, both of whom were under lifetime bans against making telemarketing calls following earlier government enforcement actions.

“We take seriously our responsibility to protect consumers and the integrity of US communications networks from the onslaught of these types of pernicious calls,” said FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal. AFP

New York couple plead guilty to bitcoin laundering

NEW YORK, United States—A married couple from New York dubbed “Bitcoin Bonnie and Crypto Clyde” pleaded guilty on Thursday to laundering billions of dollars in stolen bitcoin, prosecutors announced.

Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, and Heather Morgan, 33, were arrested in February last year after the US government seized 95,000 bitcoin then valued at $3.6 billion.

Prosecutors said the pair stole the bitcoin in 2016 using “advanced hacking tools.” Authorities recovered the funds from wallets controlled by the duo.

Since their arrests, the government has seized another approximately $475 million tied to the hack, the Southern District of New York said in a statement.

In total, the couple admitted to laundering conspiracies arising from the theft of approximately 120,000 bitcoin from Bitfinex, a global cryptocurrency exchange.

“The upturn in Amazon’s commerce business is an encouraging sign for the back half of the year,” said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Andrew Lipsman.

Revenue taken in by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing unit increased to $22 billion in a year-overyear comparison, but costs climbed as well, resulting in a lower operating income than in the same period in 2022.

“Our AWS growth stabilized as customers started shifting from cost optimization to new workload deployment,” Jassy said.

“AWS has continued to add to its meaningful leadership position in the cloud with a slew of generative AI releases.” AFP

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said that Lichtenstein, at times with Morgan’s help, “employed numerous sophisticated laundering techniques.”

That included using fictitious identities to set up online accounts and utilizing computer programs to automate transactions.

They deposited the stolen funds into accounts in a variety of darknet markets and cryptocurrency exchanges and then withdrew the money, which confuses the transaction history.

They couple also converted bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency and even exchanged a portion of the stolen funds into gold coins, which Morgan then concealed by burying them. AFP