David Barret

September 28, 2021 By John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed NASSIRIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Elections in Iraq next month are being held early in response to mass protests against the government in 2019, but there is scant evidence the vote will improve matters in a country where powerful armed groups still hold sway. Iraqis crave drastic […]

September 28, 2021 BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungary’s foreign minister summoned Ukraine’s ambassador on Tuesday over what he said were Ukraine’s attempts to block Hungary’s new long-term gas supply deal with Russia, which was signed on Monday. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a statement that this amounted to a “violation of Hungary’s sovereignty”. Hungary accused […]

September 28, 2021 STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -About 25 people were taken to hospital after an explosion damaged a residential building in the Swedish city of Gothenburg early on Tuesday, public service radio SR reported. Police said they had opened an investigation. The Sahlgrenska University Hospital spokesperson said three women were seriously injured among the people taken […]

September 28, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Social Democrats, who narrowly won Sunday’s national election ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, said on Tuesday they hoped to talk to the Greens and Free Democrats later this week about forming a three-way government. The Greens and the liberal FDP, who are far apart on many issues, […]

September 28, 2021 (Corrects paragraph 4 to remove reference to Boris Johnson as a Quad leader. Clarifies in paragraph 7 that the Quad comprises Australia, the United States, Japan and India.) By Colin Packham CANBERRA (Reuters) -Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday departed for Washington to meet with leaders of the Quad grouping amid […]

In the summer of 2019, Timilehin Ajiboye became intrigued with the idea of building a travel app after conversations with a circle of friends. One friend reached out to Ajiboye asking if he knew of any platform where she could find new, aesthetically pleasing places to dine in, visit and take pictures. And then, during a […]

September 28, 2021 PARIS (Reuters) – France’s TotalEnergies said on Tuesday it has signed an agreement with China Three Gorges Corporation to establish a joint venture in electric mobility in China. The venture will develop electric vehicle (EV) high-power charging infrastructure and services, TotalEnergies said. “The joint venture’s growth perspectives are supported by China’s ambition […]

September 28, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) -British airline easyJet said it had received acceptances from investors for 93% of the new shares it sold as part of a 1.2 billion pound ($1.64 billion) fully underwritten rights issue designed to help fund its recovery from the pandemic. The airline announced the cash call, its second during 18 […]

September 28, 2021 By Alun John HONG KONG (Reuters) – Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can slash the time needed for cross border payments to seconds from days and cut costs, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) said, citing a pilot scheme to test the digital forms of fiat currencies. The trial showed cross border […]

September 28, 2021 By Nikolaj Skydsgaard COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Toymaker Lego doubled its earnings in the first six months of the year as customers flocked to its reopened stores to buy Star Wars building sets and flower bouquets made from its colourful plastic bricks. While parts of the global retail industry are still reeling from […]

September 28, 2021 By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) -Britain put the army on standby to deliver fuel from Tuesday after an acute shortage of truckers triggered panic buying that left fuel pumps dry across the land and raised fears that hospitals would be left without doctors and nurses. Queues of drivers snaked back from those […]

September 28, 2021 (Reuters) – Greek Maria Sakkari has climbed to fifth spot in the race to qualify for the season-ending WTA Finals in Mexico on the back of her consistent results, the women’s tour has said. The 26-year-old made five semi-finals during the 2021 season, including the French and the U.S. Open majors, before […]

French startup Qovery has raised a $4 million seed funding round. The company integrates directly with your git repository and lets you deploy your code to a public cloud without having to manage the infrastructure yourself. Qovery isn’t a hosting platform. It’s a service that deploys your application to Amazon Web Services, DigitalOcean or Scaleway. […]

French startup Swan has raised an $18.7 million Series A funding round (€16 million) led by Accel. The company provides a banking-as-a-service platform for other products and services. Embedded finance has been an important trend for the past few years in fintech. Companies that operate in this space provide financial services to other companies. Those […]

September 28, 2021 TOKYO (Reuters) – China is likely to resume moderate growth from 2022, Asian Development Bank President Masatsugu Asakawa said on Tuesday, adding that mounting debt and structural woes were likely to weigh on its economy. “From 2022 onward, China will tread a moderate long-term growth trend. It won’t return to the 7-8% […]

September 28, 2021 SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s antitrust regulator said on Tuesday it needed more powers to combat significant competition concerns in advertising technology, a market dominated by Alphabet Inc unit Google. The stance could set up another clash between policymakers and the U.S. search engine leader after the same regulator helped design reforms implemented […]

September 28, 2021 HONG KONG (Reuters) – The risks to Hong Kong banks from heavily indebted Chinese property developers are manageable, a top executive at the city’s banking regulator said on Tuesday. The debt crisis engulfing China Evergrande Group has begun to dent homebuyer sentiment in China and force developers to cut prices. With liabilities […]

September 28, 2021 By Yoruk Bahceli and Dhara Ranasinghe (Reuters) -The purse strings have been loosened and will stay that way, no matter who heads Germany’s new government. That’s the verdict from investors who see potential gains for segments such as green finance alongside modestly higher bond yields. After Finance Minister Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social […]

September 28, 2021 ALMATY (Reuters) – A consortium led by Turkey’s TAV Airports has raised $300 million in loans to finance upgrades at the airport of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has said. The EBRD and the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, have contributed $150 […]

September 28, 2021 By David Stanway SHANGHAI (Reuters) – As a severe power crunch roils China’s northeastern industrial heartland, senior officials face mounting pressure from alarmed citizens to ramp up coal imports thick and fast in order to keep lights on, factories open and even water supplies flowing. With electricity shortages sparked by scant coal […]