Town Hall News

By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Classified documents that appeared online, with details ranging from Ukraine’s air defenses to Israel’s Mossad spy agency, have U.S. officials scrambling to identify the leak’s source, with some experts saying it could be an American. Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by […]

By Florence Tan and Mohi Narayan (Reuters) -Oil prices were roughly unchanged on Monday as investors weighed the prospect of tighter supplies from OPEC+ producers from May against concerns about weakening global growth that may dampen fuel demand. Brent crude futures slipped 7 cents to $85.05 a barrel by 0630 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $80.67 a barrel, down 3 cents. Both contracts rose for a […]

BEIJING (Reuters) – Grassland fires from Mongolia on Monday threatened to spread across the border to China, spurring local Chinese authorities to dispatch teams to intercept them to avert a major blaze, Chinese state media reported. Using satellite remote sensing monitoring, officials at the Forest and Grassland Fire Prevention headquarters of Hulunbuir in China found fires outside the borders of two of the city’s counties – the New Barag Left […]

(This April 6 story has been corrected to show that the removal of 1.7 million videos was not at the government’s request, but because they did not follow TikTok’s guidelines, in paragraph 5) HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam will probe TikTok’s operations in the country from May, as “toxic” content on the short-video platform “poses a threat to the country’s youth, culture and tradition”, the Information Ministry said on Thursday. Moderating […]

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia will propose a free trade agreement for some minerals shipped to the United States so that companies in the electric vehicle battery supply chain operating in the country can benefit from U.S. tax credits, a senior minister said on Monday. Washington has issued a new guidance for EV tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), requiring a certain value of battery components to be produced […]

By Kantaro Komiya and Satoshi Sugiyama TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan will consider government adoption of artificial intelligence technology such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot if privacy and cybersecurity concerns are resolved, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday. The remarks from Matsuno, the top government spokesperson, came shortly before Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, met Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a visit to Japan, where Altman said his company […]

TOKYO (Reuters) -Senior Japanese and Chinese officials met on Monday to discuss maritime concerns in disputed waters in the East China Sea as Beijing conducted wargames around Taiwan. Part of a regular round of talks that began in 2012, the meeting comes as Chinese warplanes and warships simulated strikes against Taiwan after President Tsai Ing-wen visited the United States and met U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Ahead of the talks, […]

(This April 9 story has been refiled to clarify meaning in paragraph 6) SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea is aware of news reports about a leak of several classified U.S. military documents and it plans to discuss “issues raised” as a result of the leak with the United States, a South Korean presidential official said on Sunday. Several classified U.S. military documents have recently been posted on social media offering […]

(Corrects to clarify meaning in paragraph 6) SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea is aware of news reports about a leak of several classified U.S. military documents and it plans to discuss “issues raised” as a result of the leak with the United States, a South Korean presidential official said on Sunday. Several classified U.S. military documents have recently been posted on social media offering a partial, month-old snapshot of the war […]