Town Hall News

By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest space launcher appears to be a new design and most likely uses engines developed for the nuclear-armed country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), analysts said on Thursday. The rocket, dubbed the Chollima-1, failed during its first launch attempt on Wednesday. It lifted off successfully but its second stage failed to start as expected, state media reported, and it crashed into the Yellow […]

By Uditha Jayasinghe and Swati Bhat COLOMBO (Reuters) -Sri Lanka’s central bank cut its key interest rates by 250 basis points on Thursday amid easing inflationary pressures, signalling that the South Asian nation was emerging from a devastating financial crisis and ready to focus on growth. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) cut its standing deposit facility rate and standing lending facility rate to 13% and 14%, respectively, from […]

By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest space launcher appears to be a new design and most likely uses engines developed for the nuclear-armed country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), analysts said on Thursday. The rocket, dubbed the Chollima-1, failed during its first launch attempt on Wednesday. It lifted off successfully but its second stage failed to start as expected, state media reported, and it crashed into the Yellow […]

By Uditha Jayasinghe and Swati Bhat COLOMBO (Reuters) -Sri Lanka’s central bank cut its key interest rates by 250 basis points on Thursday amid easing inflationary pressures, signalling that the South Asian nation was emerging from a devastating financial crisis and ready to focus on growth. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) cut its standing deposit facility rate and standing lending facility rate to 13% and 14%, respectively, from […]

By Xinghui Kok and Greg Torode SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Tensions between the United States and China are expected to loom over Asia’s top security meeting this week, as China has declined a bilateral meeting between the superpowers’ defence chiefs. The Shangri-La Dialogue, which attracts top defence officials, senior military officers, diplomats, weapons makers and security analysts from around the globe, will take place June 2-4 in Singapore. More than 600 […]

HONG KONG (Reuters) -Casino revenues in Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, surged 366% from a year ago to total 15.6 billion patacas ($1.93 billion) in May, the highest since January 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic had still to fully grip China. The monthly take was bolstered by a five-day national holiday that saw hundreds of thousands of visitors flock to the special Chinese administrative region, which is the only […]

By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest space launcher appears to be a new design and most likely uses engines developed for the nuclear-armed country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), analysts said on Thursday. The rocket, dubbed the Chollima-1, failed during its first launch attempt on Wednesday. It lifted off successfully but its second stage failed to start as expected, state media reported, and it crashed into the Yellow […]

By Richa Naidu, Emma Pinedo and Emilio Parodi MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police raided three clandestine tobacco factories early this year, seizing nearly 40 million euros ($44 million) worth of tobacco leaf and illicit cigarettes. At one, in the northern town of Alfaro, they found 10 Ukrainian workers, five of them war refugees, who’d been put to work with no contracts and scant pay, police said. They worked all day […]

By Byron Kaye SYDNEY (Reuters) – One of Australia’s most decorated living soldiers on Thursday lost a defamation lawsuit against three newspapers which accused him of involvement in the unlawful killings of six Afghans during his deployment to Afghanistan. The newspapers successfully established that their reports were true in relation to most of the defamatory imputations that the soldier complained about, said Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko in Sydney, ending […]