Town Hall News

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s opposition is making final preparations to submit a no-confidence vote against the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, NTV reported on Thursday, which could trigger the dissolution of parliament and a snap election. Speculation that Kishida would call an election intensified when his public approval ratings rose after he hosted the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima, his home base, and a recent opinion poll […]

By Lisa Baertlein and Kanjyik Ghosh (Reuters) -The Longshore union and employers of 22,000 dockworkers at U.S. West Coast ports on Wednesday said they have reached a tentative deal on a new six-year contract covering all ports, ending 13 months of talks and easing supply chain worries. The deal was reached with assistance from Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific […]

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia international Kurtley Beale has pleaded not guilty to three charges of sexual assault stemming from an alleged incident in a bar near Bondi Beach last year, local media reported on Thursday. The 34-year-old, who was suspended from all rugby after his arrest last December, has been charged with one count of sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of sexual touching. Beale, who is on bail, […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s industrial output rose 3.5% in May from a year earlier, official data showed on Thursday, slightly missing expectations, as faltering demand at home and abroad adds pressure on policymakers to shore up a shaky economic recovery. May’s expansion marked the slowest growth since February. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected output growth to cool to 3.6% from 5.6% in April. Retail sales, a key gauge of […]

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Short video app TikTok plans to invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia over the next few years, its CEO Shou Zi Chew said on Thursday. Chew said at an event held in Indonesia that TikTok’s content is becoming more diversified, as it adds more users and expands into e-commerce. He said 2 million small vendors are selling their wares on its platform. (Reporting by Stanley Widanto; […]

MANILA (Reuters) – An earthquake of magnitude 6.5 struck Mindoro island in the northern Philippines on Thursday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said. The quake was at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.21 miles), GFZ said. The tremors were felt in the capital Manila, according to Reuters witnesses, and in nearby provinces. The Philippine seismology agency said it also recorded a magnitude 6.2 earthquake, and expects damage and […]

By Siyi Liu and Dominique Patton YICHUN, China (Reuters) – Down a steep dirt road from the Baishi Huashan lithium mine in southern China, trucks laden with silvery grey ore rumble towards a cluster of smelters in the valley below that have sprung up to cash in on the electric vehicle battery boom. The city of Yichun, China’s most prospective region for lithium, is ground zero in the country’s push […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s economy stumbled in May, data showed on Thursday, with industrial output and retail sales growth both missing forecasts, adding to expectations that Beijing will have to quickly ramp up stimulus to shore up a shaky pandemic recovery. A first-quarter economic rebound has lost momentum in the second quarter, prompting China’s central bank this week to cut some key interest rates, with expectations of more to come. […]

By Rocky Swift TOKYO (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar rallied in Asian trading on Thursday after the Federal Reserve signalled rate hikes later in the year, while China’s and New Zealand’s currencies fell on signs of weakness in those economies. The market’s attention is now turning to other central bank decisions late this week, with the yen sliding to its weakest this year as the Bank of Japan begins its […]