Town Hall News

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia coach Graham Arnold said his youthful team were taught a valuable lesson after being outmuscled by Ecuador in a 2-1 friendly loss in Melbourne. The Socceroos beat the South Americans 3-1 in the first match of the double-header in Sydney last week but two second-half goals from the visitors at Docklands Stadium on Tuesday put paid to their hopes of sweeping the series. “If there’s one […]

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China’s commercial capital Shanghai saw its population fall in 2022 in the first decline in five years, official data showed, after authorities imposed draconian COVID-19 lockdowns and more than 250,000 migrant workers departed. The data, published by Shanghai’s statistics bureau on Tuesday, showed the densely-packed hub had 24.76 million people last year, compared with 24.89 million people in 2021. Shanghai’s figures came after Beijing also posted […]

By Bernard Orr and Ben Blanchard BEIJING/TAIPEI (Reuters) – China threatened to retaliate on Wednesday if U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen during her planned transit of the United States next month, saying any such move would be a “provocation”. China, which claims democratically-ruled Taiwan as its own territory, has repeatedly warned U.S. officials not to meet Tsai, viewing it as support for the island’s desire […]

(Reuters) -Shares in Alibaba Group and other leading Chinese tech firms jumped on Wednesday, as investors cheered an unprecedented revamp of the Jack Ma-founded company as heralding the beginning of the end to Beijing’s crackdown on the sector. Alibaba said on Tuesday it was planning to split into six units and explore fundraisings or listings for most of them, in the biggest restructuring of the technology conglomerate in its 24-year […]

(Reuters) – China threatened to retaliate on Wednesday if U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen during her planned transit of the United States, saying any such move would be a “provocation”. Tsai is due to depart on Wednesday for a trip to Guatemala and Belize that will see her transit through New York and Los Angeles. Sources have said she plans to meet McCarthy during the […]

By Jose Luis Gonzalez CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) -At least 38 migrants from Central and South America died after a fire broke out late on Monday at a migrant detention center in the Mexican northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, apparently caused by a protest over deportations, officials said Tuesday. Mexico’s National Migration Institute lowered the death toll on Tuesday evening to 38 from 40, saying a visit to the […]

(Reuters) -Shares in Alibaba Group and other leading Chinese tech firms jumped on Wednesday, as investors cheered an unprecedented revamp of the Jack Ma-founded company as heralding the beginning of the end to Beijing’s crackdown on the sector. Alibaba said on Tuesday it was planning to split into six units and explore fundraisings or listings for most of them, in the biggest restructuring of the technology conglomerate in its 24-year […]

By Jose Luis Gonzalez CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) -At least 38 migrants from Central and South America died after a fire broke out late on Monday at a migrant detention center in the Mexican northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, apparently caused by a protest over deportations, officials said Tuesday. Mexico’s National Migration Institute lowered the death toll on Tuesday evening to 38 from 40, saying a visit to the […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge has ruled that former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with former President Donald Trump leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a source familiar with the ruling said on Tuesday. In a ruling that remains under seal, the judge also said that Pence can still decline to answer questions related […]