Town Hall News

By Khalil Ashawi and Timour Azhari JANDARIS, Syria (Reuters) – Hussein Mankawi has little hope he will ever rebuild his home and food distribution businesses in the north-west Syrian city of Jandaris after they were reduced to rubble by last month’s deadly earthquake, wiping out his life’s work. “What can we do? We’ll put up a tent instead. There is nothing but tents,” he said, standing by the mangled ruins […]

By Josh Ye (Reuters) -Tencent Holdings reported a drop in annual revenue for the first time ever, as China’s economic slowdown due to the pandemic and a long-running regulatory crackdown took a toll.  The world’s largest video game company and the operator of the WeChat messaging platform posted a revenue of 554.55 billion yuan ($81 billion) for 2022, down 1% from a year earlier. Analysts on an average had expected […]

By Ian Ransom MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Wearing a buttoned-up polo shirt and diligently answering media questions, the modern-day Jason Cummings seems a world away from the wayward footballing talent who left Dundee in acrimony just over a year ago. In many ways, he is. The 27-year-old striker, now based in Australia’s sleepy Central Coast, has become a cult hero for the local Mariners side which has managed to extract his […]

By Akiko Okamoto and Chris Gallagher TOKYO (Reuters) -With cherry blossoms reaching full bloom in Tokyo, Japanese sports fans erupted in jubilation on Wednesday after their countrymen defeated Team USA to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC). Over a hundred people gathered near Shimbashi Station in the city centre to get special newspaper editions celebrating the victory. The scene quickly turned chaotic, with police officers jumping in to help hand […]

By Soo-hyang Choi SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea fired multiple cruise missiles off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of weapons tests as South Korean and the U.S. forces conduct joint military exercises. The missiles were fired at around 10:15 a.m. (0115 GMT) from the North’s South Hamgyong province, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. It was not immediately clear how […]

By Neil Jerome Morales MANILA (Reuters) – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Wednesday that four new military bases under a defense agreement with the U.S. would be located in various parts of the Philippines, including in a province facing the South China Sea. Last month, Marcos granted the U.S. access to four sites, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which comes […]

(Reuters) – Tencent Holdings reported a drop in annual revenue for the first time ever, as China’s economic slowdown due to the pandemic and a long-running regulatory crackdown took a toll.  The world’s largest video game company and the operator of the WeChat messaging platform turned in a revenue of 554.55 billion yuan for 2022, down 1% from a year earlier. Analysts on an average expected Tencent’s revenue to drop […]

By Neil Jerome Morales MANILA (Reuters) – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Wednesday that four new military bases under a defense agreement with the U.S. would be located in various parts of the Philippines, including in a province facing the South China Sea. Last month, Marcos granted the U.S. access to four sites, on top of five existing locations under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which comes […]

(Reuters) – UBS Group said on Wednesday it would buy back 2.75 billion euros ($2.96 billion) worth of debt it issued less than week ago, seeking to boost confidence among investors rattled by its $3 billion rescue of rival Credit Suisse at the weekend. The bonds in question, senior unsecured bail-in notes that were issued on March 17, include the 1.5 billion-euro 4.625% fixed rate note due March 2028 and […]