Town Hall News

(Reuters) -Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is planning to split its business into six main units covering e-commerce, media and the cloud, the company said on Tuesday, adding that each of the units will explore fundraising or initial public offerings. U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba rose 3.5% in trading before the bell. The six units will include Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao Tmall Commerce Group, Local Services Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Group, Global […]

WARSAW (Reuters) – Russian and Belarusian athletes should be banned from the 2024 Olympics in Paris unless Moscow pulls its forces out of Ukraine, according to Poland, Britain and the Baltic states, despite the IOC saying it plans to let them compete as neutrals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned Russia and Belarus after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but is now reluctant to exclude their athletes from […]

By Renee Maltezou and Karolina Tagaris ATHENS (Reuters) -Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called parliamentary elections for May 21, saying he wanted a clean slate to push through further reforms after four years at the helm. Mitsotakis’s New Democracy Party has held a comfortable lead over opposition leftist Syriza since it came to power in 2019, but a Feb. 28 rail disaster which killed 57 people has stirred public […]

By Pete Schroeder and Hannah Lang WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers are expected to put top U.S. bank regulators on the defensive over the unexpected failures of regional lenders Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank when they testify before Congress on Tuesday. Top regulatory officials for the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Treasury Department are testifying before congressional committees on the swift collapse of the two banks earlier […]

PARIS (Reuters) -French police are on the lookout for more protesters bent on violence joining marches against planned pension reform, the chief of police in Paris said on Tuesday, hours before a new round of country-wide demonstrations and strikes. Millions of people have been demonstrating, largely peacefully, and joining strike action since mid-January to vent their opposition to President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to make most of them work an extra […]

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov gave Britain the thumbs up as he took a ride in what he said was the first British Challenger 2 main battle tank to arrive in Ukraine. Britain said in January it would send 14 of the tanks to Ukraine, which is preparing for a possible counter-offensive against Russian forces that invaded 13 months ago. Reznikov wrote on Twitter that the tanks […]

By Rachel Savage JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building “Belt and Road” infrastructure, a study published on Tuesday showed. Almost 80% of the lending was made between 2016 and 2021, mainly to middle-income countries including Argentina, Mongolia and Pakistan, according to the report by researchers […]

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania and Poland are in talks with the European Commission over export tracing mechanisms for Ukrainian grains to ensure local farmers are not hurt by a flood of cheap imports, the Polish and Romanian prime ministers said on Tuesday. Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has seen its Black Sea ports blocked since Russia invaded more than a year ago and has been forced to […]

WARSAW (Reuters) – Russian and Belarusian athletes should be banned from the 2024 Olympics in Paris unless Moscow pulls its forces out of Ukraine, according to Poland, Britain and the Baltic states, despite the IOC saying it plans to let them compete as neutrals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctioned Russia and Belarus after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 but is now reluctant to exclude their athletes from […]