Town Hall News

(Reuters) – Ukraine’s air defence systems were engaged early on Wednesday in repelling a Russian air attack on Kyiv, the capital’s military administration said on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters’ witnesses heard several blasts which sounded like air defence systems being deployed. All of Ukraine was under air raid alerts as of 0550 a.m. (0250 GMT). (Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) Brought to you by […]

By Kane Wu HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asia stocks fell on Wednesday after weak economic data in China and Europe heightened concerns over global growth, while the dollar firmed as investors weighed the outlook for U.S. interest rates. MSCI’s gauge of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan was down 0.5% at 0143GMT. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.55% even as second-quarter gross domestic product beat forecasts with a 0.4% rise. The Hang […]

By Stella Qiu SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s economy expanded by more than expected in the second quarter, driven by exports and investment, while household consumption remained weak as decade-high interest rates worked to cool demand. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed real gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.4% in the second quarter, slightly beating forecasts of 0.3%. That compared with an upwardly revised 0.4% growth in the […]

(Corrects Reuters Instrument Code of the Hang Seng Index in paragraph 4) By Kane Wu HONG KONG (Reuters) -Asia stocks fell on Wednesday after weak economic data in China and Europe heightened concerns over global growth, while the dollar firmed as investors weighed the outlook for U.S. interest rates. MSCI’s gauge of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan was down 0.5% at 0143GMT. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.55% even as second-quarter […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s exports likely contracted at a slower pace in August, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday, highlighting that manufacturers remain under pressure after outbound shipments recorded their worst performance since February 2020 last month. Data for August are expected to show a 9.2% fall in exports from a year earlier, following a drop of 14.5% in July, according to the median forecast of 33 economists in the […]

(Corrects paragraph 7 to show South Korean August shipments fell 20%, not 27.5%, and that they improved, not worsened, vs July) BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s exports likely contracted at a slower pace in August, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday, highlighting that manufacturers remain under pressure after outbound shipments recorded their worst performance since February 2020 last month. Data for August are expected to show a 9.2% fall in exports […]

By Josh Ye HONG KONG (Reuters) -China’s internet giant Tencent Holdings said that it will unveil an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on Thursday, according to a social media post it published on Wednesday. The post featured a demo conversation a user had with the AI chatbot, which helped the user write promotional materials. It comes after China started to approve AI chatbots for public release last month. Other big tech […]

(Corrects paragraph 7 to show South Korean August shipments fell 20%, not 27.5%, and that they improved, not worsened, vs July) BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s exports likely contracted at a slower pace in August, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday, highlighting that manufacturers remain under pressure after outbound shipments recorded their worst performance since February 2020 last month. Data for August are expected to show a 9.2% fall in exports from […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China wants to work with Indonesia to expand cooperation in various areas including green energy, the digital economy, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence, China’s foreign ministry reported on Wednesday, citing Premier Li Qiang. Li, in Indonesia for a regional summit, told a late Tuesday dinner with business leaders that they should be confident in cooperation, after weak economic data indicating a slowdown in China had raised doubts in […]