Town Hall News

BEIJING (Reuters) – Argentina captain Lionel Messi will lead his side against Australia in a friendly in Beijing next month with his first visit to China in six years set to spark a mass scramble for tickets. The Argentina embassy in China said on Monday that the World Cup winners would play Australia on June 15, bringing Messi to the country for the first time since 2017. It will mark […]

MELBOURNE (Reuters) -Australia has won the support of the United States for development of its critical minerals industry after the two countries reached an agreement to coordinate polices and investment to support the industry’s growth. Australia supplies around half of the world’s lithium as well as other minerals like rare earths used in batteries for electric cars and defence amid a global push to diversify supply chains away from dominant […]

(Reuters) – Russia launched an overnight air attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said early on Monday, with media reporting a series of blasts. It was not immediately known whether the blasts were air defence systems destroying their targets or Russian missiles or drones hitting their targets but the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, of which Dnipro is the administrative centre, praised defenders. “Thanks to the defence […]

(Reuters) – Russia launched an overnight air attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said early on Monday, with media reporting a series of blasts. It was not immediately known whether the blasts were air defence systems destroying their targets or Russian missiles or drones hitting their targets but the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, of which Dnipro is the administrative centre, praised defenders. “Thanks to the defence […]

BEIJING (Reuters) -China Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong has summoned the Japanese ambassador to register protests over “hype around China-related issues” at the Group of Seven (G7) summit over the weekend, a ministry statement late on Sunday said. The heads of the world’s leading democracies meeting in the Japanese city of Hiroshima expressed serious concerns about rising tensions in East and South China Seas as well as voicing concerns about […]

BEIJING (Reuters) -China has issued guidance to all provinces to build a basic elderly care system by 2025, state-run Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, in the latest step to prevent a demographic crisis. Who takes care of the elderly in China, where pensions are tiny, is one of the major headaches policymakers face as they deal with the country’s first demographic downturn since Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. The ruling […]

By David Morgan, Jeff Mason and Trevor Hunnicutt WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet to discuss the debt ceiling on Monday, after the two leaders held a phone call on Sunday as the president flew back to Washington that both sides described as positive. McCarthy, speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol following the call, said there were positive discussions on solving […]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican authorities canceled in-person classes for more than 100,000 students on Thursday in multiple towns clustered around one of the country’s most active volcanoes as its fiery activity intensified in recent days, raising health concerns. A series of relatively small but powerful eruptions from the snowcapped Popocatepetl volcano prompted Puebla state officials to suspend both public and private school classes at all levels across 22 towns […]

By Kirsty Needham (Reuters) -India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a summit with Pacific Island leaders in Papua New Guinea on Monday, with the U.S. Secretary of State scheduled to also meet the leaders later in the day and sign a defence agreement with Papua New Guinea. In his opening remarks to the summit, PNG Prime Minister James Marape said India was the leader of the Global South, a term […]