Town Hall News

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) -One of Russia’s most active volcanoes erupted on Tuesday shooting a vast cloud of ash far up into the sky and smothering villages in drifts of grey volcanic dust, triggering an aviation warning around Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The Shiveluch volcano erupted just after midnight reaching a crescendo about six hours later, spewing out a ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square kilometres, according to […]

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) -One of Russia’s most active volcanoes erupted on Tuesday shooting a vast cloud of ash far up into the sky and smothering villages in drifts of grey volcanic dust, triggering an aviation warning around Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The Shiveluch volcano erupted just after midnight reaching a crescendo about six hours later, spewing out a ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square kilometres, according to […]

ZURICH (Reuters) -Credit Suisse and UBS must freeze any job cuts planned as part of their emergency merger, the Swiss Bank Employees’ Association (SBPV) said on Tuesday, in an open letter to the country’s parliament. SBPV managing director Natalia Ferrara has written to lawmakers to demand they consider staff affected by the collapse of Credit Suisse and halt any job losses until the end of 2023. “We … call on […]

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australian surfer Ethan Ewing followed in his late mother’s footsteps by winning the Bells Beach title in front of home fans at Winkipop on Tuesday. Ewing’s mother Helen, a champion surfer in the 1970s and 80s, won the longest running event in competitive surfing in 1983. Forty years on, 24-year-old Queenslander Ewing dominated an all-Australian final against Newcastle surfer Ryan Callinan in choppy conditions to savour an […]

MANILA (Reuters) – More than 17,000 Philippine and U.S. soldiers began their largest ever joint military drills on Tuesday, as ties between the long-term allies warm over shared concerns about China’s assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region. The expanded annual exercises underscore improved defence ties under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr after his predecessor scaled back drills to pursue closer ties with Beijing. For the first time, the Philippines and the United […]

By Pavel Polityuk KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces pounded frontline cities in eastern Ukraine with air strikes and artillery attacks, while U.S. officials stepped up efforts to locate the source of a leak of classified U.S. documents, including those on Ukrainian counter-offensive plans. The Russians pressed on with their offensive in the eastern Donetsk region where several cities and towns came under heavy bombardment, Ukraine’s general staff said on Tuesday. Ukrainian […]

(Reuters) – Cineworld, the world’s second-largest cinema chain operator, said on Tuesday it had filed a plan of reorganisation with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division. The company had placed a majority of its business under U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September. The development comes a week after the operator dropped plans to sell its businesses in the United States, the UK, and […]

By Rocky Swift TOKYO (Reuters) – Second-quarter results from Japan’s Fast Retailing Co, owner of clothing brand Uniqlo, will on Thursday offer a window into how rapidly demand in China is recovering after the lifting of pandemic curbs. The company, Japan’s biggest retailer, reported a 2% dip in operating profit in the first quarter, partly due to lingering effects of COVID-19 restrictions in China, its biggest overseas market. China scrapped […]

JAKARTA (Reuters) – An Indonesian court on Tuesday overturned a lower court’s controversial order to delay the 2024 presidential and general elections by two years, arguing it had overstepped its jurisdiction and had no authority to make the decision. The Jakarta High Court’s decision, after an appeal by Indonesia’s election commission, will ease political uncertainty in the world’s third-largest democracy, and means the February 2024 elections should be able to […]