Town Hall News

(Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Papua New Guinea on May 21-22, sign bilateral defense and maritime security agreements and meet with Pacific Islands Forum leaders, the State Department said on Thursday, after President Joe Biden pulled out of a planned visit. An unfolding crisis over the U.S. debt ceiling prompted Biden on Tuesday to postpone a trip to Papua New Guinea. The U.S. is trying […]

By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisia’s most popular independent radio station on Thursday said two of its top broadcasters, critics of President Kais Saied, have been summoned by police for questioning, amid fears of an escalating government campaign against the media. Radio Mosaique said its broadcasters Haythem El Mekki and Elyess Gharbi were going to be questioned by police on Friday in an investigation linked to journalistic content. Police […]

By Takahiko Wada and Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s core consumer prices rose 3.4% in April from a year earlier as price hikes broadened, data showed on Friday, casting doubt on the central bank’s view inflation will slow back below its 2% target later this year as cost pressures dissipate. The increase in the core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes fresh food but includes energy items, matched a […]

(Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Papua New Guinea on May 21-22, sign bilateral defense and maritime security agreements and meet with Pacific Islands Forum leaders, the State Department said on Thursday, after President Joe Biden pulled out of a planned visit. An unfolding crisis over the U.S. debt ceiling prompted Biden on Tuesday to postpone a trip to Papua New Guinea. The U.S. is trying […]

(Reuters) -World number three Daniil Medvedev produced a dominant performance against German qualifier Yannick Hanfmann to reach his first Italian Open semi-final, cruising to a 6-2 6-2 victory on Thursday. Medvedev, who has described himself as a “hard court specialist”, had never won a match in Rome before this year’s tournament but has produced some of his best tennis to reach the last four on clay for the first time […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s core consumer prices rose 3.4% in April from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday. The increase in the core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food but includes energy costs, matched a median market forecast and followed a 3.1% rise in March. (Reporting by Takahiko Wada and Leika Kihara; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

(Reuters) – Montana took the unusual step on Wednesday of banning Chinese-owned short video app TikTok, with lawmakers of the sparsely populated western U.S. state saying they aimed to protect residents from alleged intelligence gathering by China. TikTok, which is wildly popular with American teens and owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, is already banned on government-issued devices in around 30 U.S. states and for employees of the country’s federal […]

(Reuters) – The electric grid operator for the U.S. Midwest on Thursday drew attention to the pressing need to reform power markets in the face of a shifting generation fleet and worsening extreme weather, even as it had enough capacity to meet demand in 2023-24. The reforms are needed “to maintain reliability and send the right pricing signals to the market,” said Clair Moeller, president and CEO at Midcontinent Independent […]

By Rami Amichay JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City under heavy security on Thursday in an annual event that drew condemnation from Palestinians. The parade is the main celebration on Jerusalem Day, when Israel marks its capture of Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. The event has become a show of force for Jewish nationalists and, for […]