Town Hall News

By Timour Azhari BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanon woke up in two time zones on Sunday amid an escalating dispute between political and religious authorities over a decision to extend winter time for a month. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati decided on Thursday to roll clocks forward an hour on April 20, instead of entering daylight savings time on the last weekend of March as is usually the case in Lebanon, Europe […]

By Amlan Chakraborty NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Algeria’s Imane Khelif was disqualified hours before her gold medal bout at the women’s world championships in New Delhi after she failed to meet the eligibility criteria, the International Boxing Association (IBA) said on Sunday. The 23-year-old was scheduled to meet Yang Liu in the 66kg division final but Thailand’s Janjaem Suwannapheng, who lost to Khelif in the semi-finals, will fight the Chinese […]

(Reuters) – A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would destabilise that country, which he said had been taken “hostage” by Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a standoff with the West. DIPLOMACY AND SANCTIONS * Russia and China are […]

By Klaus Lauer and Tom Sims BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) -A top union boss in Germany justified a massive strike planned for Monday as a “matter of survival” for many thousands of people fighting for higher wages as inflation soars, according to an interview published in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. The strike, Germany’s largest in decades, is expected to cause widespread disruption on railways and at airports in Europe’s largest economy. […]

By Jessie Pang HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong police on Sunday permitted a small protest march under tight restrictions in one of the first demonstrations to be approved since the enactment of a sweeping national security law in 2020. Several dozen demonstrators were required to wear numbered lanyards and were barred from wearing masks, as police monitored their march against a proposed land reclamation and rubbish processing project. Participants chanted […]

By Dan Peleschuk KYIV (Reuters) -A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Russian plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would destabilise that country, which he said had been taken “hostage” by Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a standoff with the West. Although the move […]

By Fernando Kallas TANGIER, Morocco (Reuters) – Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti would be an obvious choice to fill Brazil’s vacant managerial position if he becomes available at the end of the European season, Brazilian FA (CBF) president Ednaldo Rodrigues has told Reuters. Rodrigues acknowledged that the 63-year-old Italian was his main target and everyone’s favourite to be in charge of Brazil whose last coach Tite left the job after […]

By Alexander Marrow MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia and China are not creating a military alliance and the cooperation between their armed forces is “transparent”, President Vladimir Putin said in comments broadcast on Sunday, days after hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the Kremlin. Putin and Xi professed friendship and pledged closer ties, including in the military sphere, during their March 20-21 summit, as Russia struggles to make battlefield gains in what […]

By David Ljunggren (Reuters) – Russia will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a standoff with the West. Although not unexpected and while Putin said the move would not violate nuclear non-proliferation promises, it is one of the Russia’s most pronounced nuclear signals since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine […]