Town Hall News

By Aziz El Yaakoubi and Maya Gebeily RIYADH/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is planning to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to an Arab League summit that Riyadh is hosting in May, three sources familiar with the plans said, a move that would formally end Syria’s regional isolation. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will travel to Damascus in coming weeks to hand Assad a formal invitation to attend the […]

(Reuters) – Switzerland’s Federal Prosecutor has opened an investigation into the state-backed takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS Group, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The Bern-based prosecutor is looking into potential breaches of Swiss criminal law by government officials, regulators and executives at the two banks, which agreed on an emergency merger last month, the report said citing the authority. There were “numerous aspects of events around Credit Suisse” […]

DUBAI (Reuters) – The Iranian navy said it identified and warned off a U.S. reconnaissance plane near the Gulf of Oman on Sunday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. While the opening line of the Tasnim report said the U.S. Navy EP-3E aircraft had crossed into Iranian airspace, it later said the aircraft had not entered Iranian skies and had left after the warning. “After the warning,the plane was prevented […]

ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s deputy prime minister on Sunday criticised a decision by the government’s Data Protection Authority to temporarily ban chatbot ChatGPT, saying the block over privacy concerns seemed excessive. Microsoft-backed OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy on Friday after the national data agency raised concerns over possible privacy violations and for failing to verify that users were aged 13 or above, as it had requested. The move by […]

DUBAI (Reuters) – The Iranian navy said it identified and warned off a U.S. reconnaissance plane near the Gulf of Oman on Sunday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. While the opening line of the Tasnim report said the U.S. Navy EP-3E aircraft had crossed into Iranian airspace, it later said the aircraft had not entered Iranian skies and had left after the warning. “After the warning,the plane was prevented […]

(Reuters) – President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that the hijab was the law in Iran after a viral video showed a man throwing yoghurt at two unveiled women in a shop near a holy Shi’ite Muslim city. Growing numbers of women have defied authorities by discarding their veils after nationwide protests that followed the death in September of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality […]

By Crispian Balmer VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis led a Palm Sunday service the day after he was discharged from hospital following a bout of bronchitis, and urged the world to take better care of the poor, the lonely and the infirm. Thousands of people waved palm and olive branches as Francis was driven into St. Peter’s Square sitting in the back of a white, open-topped vehicle before the […]

By Aziz El Yaakoubi and Maya Gebeily RIYADH/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia is planning to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to an Arab League summit that Riyadh is hosting in May, three sources familiar with the plans said, a move that would formally end Syria’s regional isolation. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will travel to Damascus in coming weeks to hand Assad a formal invitation to attend the […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China should accelerate legislation of the Financial Stability Law and improve other legal arrangements designed to prevent and dispose of financial risks, three officials from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) wrote in China Finance, a publication affiliated to the central bank. Financial authorities should strengthen supervision of financial institutions’ date accuracy to prevent risks, the article said, saying if any enlightment should be drawn from the […]