Town Hall News

PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron offered a mea culpa to eastern European nations on Wednesday in saying France should have paid more attention to them amid their warnings about a belligerant Russia before its invasion of Ukraine. In a speech in Bratislava, Macron told the GLOBSEC forum there should be no division between “Old Europe” and “New Europe”, referring to enduring divergences between eastern and western European Union […]

(Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Wednesday Chief Executive Jamie Dimon never had discussions with Jes Staley, a former top executive at the bank, about the lender’s business with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “There is no evidence that any such communications ever occurred — nothing in the voluminous number of documents reviewed and nothing in the nearly dozen depositions taken, including that of our own CEO,” the […]

(This May 17 story has been corrected to say Marathon Petroleum, not Marathon Oil, in paragraph 8) By Trixie Yap and Florence Tan SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Finnish refiner Neste expects renewable fuels from its new facilities in Singapore and the U.S. to drive its growth this year despite expectations of lower oil product margins in the second quarter, its chief executive said on Wednesday. “The macroeconomic situation is something that […]

By Emma-Victoria Farr FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s Schmid Group, a technology firm specialising in electronics, said on Wednesday it plans to list in New York via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The family-owned business would become a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange in the fourth quarter of this year, with the deal estimated to give Schmid a valuation of $640 million. The transaction will be […]

By Shreyashi Sanyal (Reuters) – U.S. stock indexes were set to open lower on Wednesday as a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling headed for a pivotal vote by lawmakers, while another round of earnings highlighted the pinch of higher prices being felt by corporate America. A bill to lift the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt ceiling and achieve new federal spending cuts made its way to the House of […]

By Stephanie van den Berg THE HAGUE (Reuters) – U.N. judges on Wednesday sentenced two former Serbian spymasters who worked for Yugoslav ex-President Slobodan Milosevic to 15 years in jail as it beefed up their initial convictions in the last case before The Hague tribunal dating from the Balkan wars. Appeals judges ruled that Jovica Stanisic, former head of Serbia’s state security service, and his subordinate Franko “Frenki” Simatovic were […]

By Shrivathsa Sridhar PARIS (Reuters) – Stefanos Tsitsipas enjoyed an incident-free path into the third round of the French Open with a win over Roberto Carballes Baena on Wednesday but all eyes will be on Novak Djokovoic later as a political row sparked by the two-times champion intensified. Tsitsipas is chasing his first Grand Slam title and made a sluggish start to his campaign against Jiri Vesely but the fifth […]

By Emma-Victoria Farr FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s Schmid Group, a technology firm specialising in electronics, said on Wednesday it plans to list in New York via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The family-owned business would become a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange in the fourth quarter of this year, with the deal estimated to give Schmid a valuation of $640 million. The transaction will be […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – Visa applications by Chinese citizens remain well below pre-pandemic levels following the lifting of travel restrictions in January, data from a specialist visa firm revealed, as the number of international flights remained limited. VFS Global, a visa application outsourcing and technology services firm, said in a statement visa application volumes from China reached 35% of pre-COVID levels by May compared with the same period of 2019 (January […]