Town Hall News

By Trevor Hunnicutt, Steve Holland and David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol held White House talks on Wednesday to deepen collaboration on deterring North Korean nuclear escalation amid anxiety about its growing arsenal of missiles and bombs. “Today we celebrate the ironclad alliance, the shared vision of our future and a deep friendship — the Republic of Korea and the […]

KYIV/BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy by telephone on Wednesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, fulfilling a longstanding goal of Kyiv which had publicly sought such talks for months. Zelenskiy immediately signalled the importance of the chance to open closer relations with Russia’s most powerful friend, naming a former cabinet minister as Ukraine’s new ambassador to Beijing. Describing the hour-long […]

By Khalid Abdelaziz and Nadine Awadalla KHARTOUM (Reuters) -Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists. Fuelling concerns about a possible rehabilitation of Bashir’s standing, the army confirmed his transfer from Khartoum’s Kober prison to a military hospital, along with […]

By Dina Kartit (Reuters) -ASM International sees more business coming from China this year compared with previous years, the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker said on Wednesday.  When asked by analysts about how much growth the company would see in its domestic China business in the current year, Chief Financial Officer Paul Verhagen said: “I think you know we will see probably more business coming in from China compared to, you […]

By Luc Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters) -A dual Lebanese-Belgian citizen accused by the United States of financing Lebanon’s Hezbollah has been extradited from Romania and faced sanctions evasion and money laundering charges on Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors said. Mohammad Bazzi, who Washington says has provided millions of dollars to Hezbollah, was arrested in February on charges of covertly selling real estate he owned in Michigan and transferring the […]

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Chrysler-parent Stellantis said Wednesday it is offering voluntary exit packages to 33,500 U.S. employees as it looks to streamline operations. The offers cover 31,000 U.S. hourly workers and about 2,500 salaried workers. Stellantis did not say how many total jobs it is looking to eliminate. It is also offering some employees in Canada voluntary buyouts. Stellantis Chief Operating Officer Mark Stewart told employees in an […]

By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A former Harvard University professor was sentenced on Wednesday to six months’ house arrest for lying about his ties to a China-run recruitment program, prosecutors said, in one of the highest-profile cases resulting from a crackdown on Chinese influence on U.S. research. Charles Lieber, a renowned nanoscientist and the former chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel in Boston […]

By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Sudan appears to be partially holding but there is no sign the warring parties are ready to seriously negotiate, the U.N. special envoy on Sudan said on Tuesday. This suggested “that both think that securing a military victory over the other is possible,” envoy Volker Perthes told the U.N. Security Council. “This is a miscalculation.” Fighting broke out between […]

Armenians Mark Genocide Amid New Threats, Fresh Skirmishes With Azerbaijan Azerbaijan has been blockading the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh for months, in what many Armenians and some US politicians call the beginnings of a new genocide   By Nicole Jansezian/The Media Line (Yerevan, Armenia) Hundreds of thousands of Armenians flocked to the nation’s capital earlier this week to commemorate the 108th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, amid fears that a new […]