Town Hall News

By Karen Freifeld and Rich McKay NEW YORK/PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is set to fly from Florida to New York City on Monday, ahead of his scheduled arraignment related to hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 election, as security tightens in Manhattan. Trump, the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, is due to be arraigned, fingerprinted and photographed […]

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron for a working lunch on Monday, said the commission, as the two prepare for a joint trip to China later in the week. Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer said in a tweet that the two leaders will discuss issues including Russia’s war on Ukraine, the energy sector and preparations for their trips to […]

By Rozanna Latiff KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia’s parliament on Monday passed sweeping legal reforms to remove the mandatory death penalty, trim the number of offences punishable by death, and abolish natural-life prison sentences. Malaysia has had a moratorium on executions since 2018, when it first promised to abolish capital punishment entirely. The government, however, faced political pressure from some parties and rowed back on the pledge a year later, […]

SEOUL (Reuters) – The navies of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will hold two days of anti-submarine exercises starting Monday to better counter North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile capabilities, South Korea’s defence ministry said. The drills will be staged in international waters off South Korea’s southern island of Jeju, involving a U.S. carrier strike group led by USS Nimitz, which had arrived in the southeastern city of Busan […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc has postponed the issuance of Additional Tier-1 (AT1) debt, a spokesperson said on Monday, making the bank one of the first to do so after Credit Suisse AT1 holders lost some $17 billion. Mitsubishi UFJ decided on the postponement taking into account investor appetite and market conditions, the spokesperson said. The transaction planned for late April is now on hold until mid-May […]

By Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s sprawling manufacturing sector, accounting for a third of the world’s second-largest economy by value, lost momentum in March amid still-weak export orders, tapping the brakes on the country’s economic recovery from restrictive COVID-19 policies. The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 50.0 in March. That followed February’s reading of 51.6, which indicated the first monthly activity expansion […]

By Ivana Sekularac THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci on Monday pleaded not guilty to 10 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity as his trial opened at a special court in The Hague. Allegations of persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearance of people stem from the 1998-99 insurgency that eventually brought independence from Serbia and made him a hero among compatriots. Thaci and three co-defendants, […]

By Nick Starkov KYIV (Reuters) – The head of the Wagner mercenary force said his troops had raised the Russian flag over the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut’s administrative building, but Ukraine’s military said its defenders were still fighting in the ruined streets. Bakhmut has been the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the war, now in its second year, with huge casualties on both sides and much of […]

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed two Palestinians during a clash in the occupied West Bank on Monday, medics said, and the military said troops shot gunmen who fired on them as they detained suspects in connection with a drive-by ambush last month. The was no word of Israeli military casualties in Nablus, a city that has been a focus of intensified raids by Israel following a spate […]