Business briefs
By NewsPress Now
Tech firms remove social media accounts of a Russian drone factory
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
Colsen recalls nearly 90,000 tabletop fire pits
NEW YORK | Nearly 90,000 tabletop fire pits are being recalled after flames shooting out from them resulted in a handful of serious burn injuries.
The Colsen-branded fire pits, which are designed to hold fires by burning liquid alcohol, pose a “flame jetting” hazard, according to a recall notice published Thursday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The flame jetting can occur when a user is refilling the container, if fire flashes back and propels the burning alcohol.
Alcohol flames can be invisible, and the liquid may also spill or leak out of the pit during use, causing a flash fire. The recall notice warns that this can lead to injury quickly and unexpectedly, potential causing burns “in less than one second that can be serious and deadly.”
To date, the CPSC says it has received 31 reports of flame jetting or flames escaping from the fire pits, resulting in 19 burn injuries. Two of those were third-degree burns on more than 40% of the victims’ bodies, the commission said, and at least six incidents involved surgery, prolonged medical treatment, loss of function or permanent disfigurement.
The CPSC and Miami-based Colsen urge consumers to stop using the fire pits immediately and throw them away. The commission noted that it’s against the law to resell or donate the now-recalled products.
But there’s also no refunds available. According to the recall notice, the company “does not have the financial resources to offer a remedy to consumers” and stopped selling the pits a year after acquiring the product business.
The about 89,500 fire pits under recall were sold at major retailers like Amazon.com, Wayfair, Walmart and Sharper Image — as well as on social media platforms like TikTok and Meta-owned apps, from January 2020 through July 2024. That includes fire pits that were previously manufactured by another company, Thursday’s recall announcement notes, although the notice did not identify that company.
The seven models of the recalled fire pits varied in size, shape and color. Sale prices ranged from $40 to $90.
In a statement on its website, Colsen said it was launching this recall with the CPSC because “we take safety very seriously.”
Average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. continues to rise
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. rose for the third week in a row, reaching its highest level in eight weeks.
The rate rose to 6.44% from 6.32% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 7.63%.
The last time the average rate was higher was on August 22, when it was 6.46%.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has been rising since reaching its lowest level in two years — 6.08% — three weeks ago. The rate remains well below the 7.22% it hit in May, its 2024 peak.
Mortgage rates have been climbing in recent weeks following a spate of encouraging reports on the U.S. economy, including a hotter-than-expected September jobs report and a snapshot of consumer prices.
“While we expect the long-run trend in mortgage rates to be downward, recent weeks have brought volatility,” said Ralph Mclaughlin, senior economist at Realtor.com.
Generally, higher rates reflect the strength in the economy, which helps support the housing market. But as mortgage rates rise they can also add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, reducing home shoppers’ purchasing power as they navigate a housing market with prices near all-time highs.
Rising rates can also discourage homeowners who locked in a lower rate on their existing mortgage to list their home for sale if it means taking on a loan on a new home at a far higher rate.
The housing market has been in a sales slump since 2022 as elevated mortgage rates put off many would-be homebuyers. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in August even as mortgage rates began easing.
The recent uptick in mortgage rates may already be discouraging some would-be home shoppers. Mortgage applications fell 17% last week from the prior week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Applications for loans to refinance a mortgage fell 26%, though they were still more than double what they were a year ago, when rates were higher.
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners seeking to refinance their home loan to a lower rate, also increased this week. The average rate rose to 5.63% from 5.41% last week. A year ago, it averaged 6.92%, Freddie Mac said.
Economists generally expect mortgage rates to remain near their current levels, at least this year. Fannie Mae projects the rate on a 30-year mortgage will average 6.2% in the October-December quarter and decline to an average of 5.7% in the same quarter next year.
U.S. filings for jobless applications retreat back to recent ranges
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week came back down to more recent ranges after a big jump the week before due to hurricanes in the Southeast.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless claims fell by by 19,000 to 241,000 for the week of Oct. 12. That’s well below the 262,000 analysts were expecting.
Applications for jobless benefits are widely considered representative of U.S. layoffs in a given week.
The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, rose by 4,750 to 236,250.
The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits rose by 9,000 to about 1.87 million for the week of Oct. 5, the most since late July.
Last week, filings rose to their highest level since June of 2023, which economists said was likely a result of Hurricane Helene and an ongoing Boeing machinist strike.
Outside of the weather and labor strife, some recent labor market data has suggested that high interest rates may finally be taking a toll on the labor market.
In response to weakening employment data and receding consumer prices, the Federal Reserve last month cut its benchmark interest rate by a half of a percentage point as the central bank shifted its focus from taming inflation toward supporting the job market. The Fed is trying to pull off a rare “soft landing,” whereby it brings down inflation without tipping the economy into a recession.
It was the Fed’s first rate cut in four years after a series of increases starting in 2022 that pushed the federal funds rate to a two-decade high of 5.3%.
Inflation has retreated steadily, approaching the Fed’s 2% target and leading Chair Jerome Powell to declare recently that it was largely under control.
Last week, the government reported that U.S. inflation reached its lowest point since February 2021.
During the first four months of 2024, applications for jobless benefits averaged just 213,000 a week before rising in May. They hit 250,000 in late July, supporting the notion that high interest rates were finally cooling a red-hot U.S. job market.
In August, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported. The revised total was also considered evidence that the job market has been slowing steadily, compelling the Fed to start cutting interest rates.
Despite some signs of labor market slowing, America’s employers added a surprisingly strong 254,000 jobs in September, easing some concerns about a weakening job market and suggesting that the pace of hiring is still solid enough to support a growing economy.
—From AP reports
