Town Hall News

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – BHP Group’s programme to support promising minerals explorers will expand beyond copper and nickel to prospective uranium and lithium projects from September, the head of its Xplor program said on Wednesday. The Xplor accelerator program chose seven projects around the world to support for six months from January in its first year this year that fit with BHP’s portfolio – copper and nickel – and are key […]

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected shortly in neighbouring Poland, a close ally that has played a big role in galvanising Western military and political support for Kyiv against Russia’s full-scale invasion.    The visit, which was announced this week by Poland but has not been officially confirmed by Kyiv, comes with Ukraine planning to conduct a counter-offensive in the coming weeks or months to recapture occupied […]

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday he would accept an invitation to visit China but has yet to receive one, in a response to speculation that planning for a visit to Beijing was well advanced. South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources, that Beijing had issued an “in principle” invitation to Albanese and his trade minister Don Farrell to visit China. The visit […]

By Joseph Ax and Daniel Trotta (Reuters) – Wisconsin voters on Tuesday elected liberal Janet Protasiewicz to the state Supreme Court, flipping control to a liberal majority ahead of rulings on an abortion ban and other matters that could play a role in the 2024 presidential election. Protasiewicz defeated conservative candidate Daniel Kelly in what New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice called the most expensive judicial election in U.S. […]

By Nathan Layne and Rich McKay PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) -A subdued former President Donald Trump lashed out on Tuesday at New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg for bringing criminal charges against him and declared himself the victim of election interference without offering evidence. “I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump told supporters gathered at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida. “The only crime that I’ve […]

(Reuters) – Rescue teams made final checks on Wednesday for anyone still trapped in an avalanche that swept down on a road in the Indian Himalayan state of Sikkim the day before, killing seven people. Rescue teams pulled 20 survivors from the snow that engulfed the road to the Nathu La pass, between Sikkim and the Chinese region of Tibet, before calling off their search as bad weather closed in […]

By Neil Jerome Morales and Enrico Dela Cruz MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine annual inflation eased for a second consecutive month in March on slower rises in food and transport costs, data showed on Wednesday, supporting the case for the central bank to consider a pause in its monetary tightening cycle. The consumer price index rose 7.6% in March, the statistics agency said, below an 8.0% forecast in a Reuters poll […]

By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s central bank unexpectedly raised its cash rate by 50 basis points to a more than 14-year high of 5.25% on Wednesday, saying inflation was still too high and persistent and kept the door open to further tightening. Twenty-two of 24 economists in a Reuters poll had forecast the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) would raise rates by just 25 basis points. […]

By Ankur Banerjee SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar was stuck near two-month lows on Wednesday as weak economic data bolstered views that the Federal Reserve is near the end of its tightening cycle, while the New Zealand dollar jumped after a larger-than expected interest rate hike. New Zealand’s central bank raised interest by 50 basis points (bps) to a more than 14-year high of 5.25% on Wednesday in a […]