International
Facebook owner Meta to lay off 11,000 staff
| By AFP | Juliette Michel with Joseph Boyle in Paris |
Facebook owner Meta will lay off more than 11,000 of its staff in “the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” boss Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.
He said the cuts represented 13 percent of the social media titan’s workforce and would affect its research lab focusing on the metaverse as well as its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The tech industry is in a serious slump and several major firms have announced mass layoffs — Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk fired half its staff last week.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Zuckerberg said in a note to staff.
“I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”
Ad-supported platforms such as Facebook and Google are suffering with advertisers looking to cut costs as they struggle with inflation and rising interest rates.
Zuckerberg told his 87,000-strong staff he had expected the boost in e-commerce and online activity during the Covid pandemic to continue, but added: “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.”
The measures were also a message to Wall Street, where the company’s poor performance has sent the Meta share price plummeting by 70 percent since the start of the year.
The move on Wednesday was welcomed by investors with Meta shares showing major gains for the day of nearly six percent just ahead of the closing bell in New York.
The downturn has affected companies across the sector, with Apple and Amazon also recently announcing results that disappointed investors.
But Meta also faces some unique problems of its own.
The California-based company is being squeezed by Zuckerberg’s decision to devote billions of dollars to developing the metaverse, an immersive version of the web accessed via virtual reality headsets.
Zuckerberg renamed the company Meta a year ago to reflect the commitment to the project, but the division working on metaverse technology has since made losses of more than $3.5 billion.
Facebook is also struggling to fend off Chinese-owned TikTok, the now dominant social media for younger users to the detriment of Meta’s Instagram.
‘Last resort’
Mike Proulx, a research director at Forrester, said “Meta is amidst an identity crises” and that severe cost-cutting was “inevitable.”
“The company has one foot in a risky long-term metaverse bet and another foot failing to compete with TikTok,” he added.
Zuckerberg has hinted several times this year that belt-tightening measures were just around the corner and said in his letter on Wednesday that staff layoffs were a “last resort.”
Meta would also keep a hiring freeze going into next year, he said, and other spending cuts were envisaged.
“Fundamentally, we’re making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently,” Zuckerberg wrote.
In the US, terminated Meta employees will receive four months severance pay and two additional weeks of pay for each year of service.
Last month, Meta announced profits of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, a 52 percent decrease year-on-year.
The slump in profits comes despite its platforms dominating the world in terms of users — Facebook alone claims to have around two billion people who log on daily.
International
Pope Leo XIV to skip COP30 in Brazil but plans future visit, Lula confirms
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that Pope Leo XIV will not attend the COP30 climate summit in Belém, but will visit Brazil “at the right moment,” following their meeting on Monday at the Vatican.
“I invited him to come to COP30, considering the historic importance of hosting a Climate Conference for the first time in the heart of the Amazon. Due to the Jubilee, the Pope told us he will not be able to attend,” Lula wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Although the pontiff will not be present at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, he assured that the Vatican will be represented and confirmed his intention to visit Brazil in the near future.
“We were very happy to hear that His Holiness intends to visit Brazil when the time is right. He will be warmly welcomed with the affection, hospitality, and faith of the Brazilian people,” the president said.
Lula also congratulated the Pope on his first exhortation, Dilexi Te, which focuses on poverty, and emphasized that “faith cannot be separated from love for the poor.”
“I told him we need to build a broad movement of indignation against inequality, and I see this document as a reference that should be read and practiced by everyone,” Lula added.
International
Venezuela calls for continued global pressure to secure ‘just peace’ for Palestine
The Venezuelan government stated on Monday that international pressure “must continue” until a “just peace” is achieved for Palestine, as the official end of the war in Gaza is expected to be signed later today—an agreement that follows the release of surviving Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
In an official statement, President Nicolás Maduro’s administration emphasized that “the global popular mobilization, along with political and diplomatic pressure from the international community—including Arab and Muslim nations—has been decisive in paving the way for this peace process.”
The statement further urged that “such mobilization must continue until the full implementation of international law, particularly the United Nations Security Council resolutions that call for the withdrawal of occupying forces from territories invaded in 1967 and the establishment of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The Venezuelan government noted that the agreement comes “after the near-total destruction of the Gaza Strip, where more than 65,000 people—mostly children, women, and defenseless civilians—were killed by the criminal bombings of Zionist occupying forces, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”
“Venezuela maintains that true peace can only be achieved through the application of international justice, which must include the investigation and prosecution of war criminals and human rights violators responsible for the atrocities committed against the Palestinian people,” the statement concluded.
The peace accord is expected to be signed Monday in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian group Hamas will attend the ceremony, which will be attended by around thirty heads of state, government leaders, and representatives of international organizations.
International
Mexico reports 64 dead, 65 missing after devastating central region floods
The Mexican government reported on Monday that 64 people have died and 65 remain missing following the heavy rains that struck five central states between October 6 and 9. The storms left thousands affected and caused severe damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure across 111 municipalities.
According to Laura Velázquez, head of the National Civil Protection Coordination (CNPC), the fatalities were distributed as follows: Veracruz (29), Hidalgo (21), Puebla (13), and Querétaro (1). The figures were confirmed during President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily press briefing.
Velázquez also stated that 65 individuals are still unaccounted for in the states of Veracruz (18), Hidalgo (43), and Puebla (4). “We understand the population’s anguish and concern. Everyone will receive assistance. Cleanup operations will be carried out in full, with no resources spared,” President Sheinbaum assured.
The Civil Protection chief explained that the rainfall report from October 6 to 9 showed maximum precipitation levels on October 8 — 280 millimeters in Veracruz and 286 millimeters in Puebla — causing rivers and streams to overflow in surrounding areas.
The updated report also detailed 111 municipalities affected: Veracruz (40), Hidalgo (28), Puebla (23), Querétaro (8), and San Luis Potosí (12).
Since October 10, the Mexican government has been holding continuous emergency sessions in coordination with state authorities to address the crisis and provide relief to affected populations.
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