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September 24, 2021 SINGAPORE/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Some of China Evergrande Group’s offshore bondholders have not received interest payment by a Thursday deadline U.S. time, two people familiar with the matter said, as worries about the fate of the property developer mount. A deadline for paying $83.5 million in bond interest ended on Thursday without […]

September 24, 2021 PARIS (Reuters) – French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian held “thorough and confident” talks with Iraq’s President Barham Salih late on Thursday, wrote Le Drian on his Twitter page. “Following on from the Baghdad conference of August 28 and the ministerial meeting in New York on September 21, I reaffirmed the support […]

September 24, 2021 By Noel Randewich (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell remains favored for renomination by the White House, and if recent history repeats itself a decision may come at any time before the central bank meets again in early November. Wall Street expects Powell, who was nominated for the role by President […]

September 24, 2021 FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Many of the drivers of the recent spike in euro zone inflation are temporary and due to fade in the next year, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said in an interview aired on CNBC on Friday. “We think that there will be a return to much more stability […]

September 24, 2021 SHANGHAI (Reuters) – An investment arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, targeted in a regulatory crackdown, will divest its entire stake of 5.01% in broadcaster Mango Excellent Media Co Ltd, the media firm said. The sale comes less than a year after the investment in December last year, as […]

September 23, 2021 By Arathy S Nair and Marianna Parraga HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. oil refiners hunting to replace storm-lost U.S. Gulf of Mexico crude have been turning to Iraqi and Canadian oil, while Asian buyers have been pursuing Middle Eastern and Russian grades, analysts and traders said. Royal Dutch Shell, the largest producer in […]

September 24, 2021 TOKYO (Reuters) – SBI Holdings said on Friday it would extend the deadline for its $1.1 billion unsolicited tender offer to Nov. 24 from Oct. 25 for Shinsei Bank if Shinsei agrees to meet certain conditions. SBI – which owns Japan’s largest online brokerage, operates an online bank and has stakes in […]

September 24, 2021 TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan’s TSMC said on Friday it is actively supporting and working with all stakeholders to overcome a global semiconductor shortage, after its participation at a White House meeting on the issue. “TSMC has been a strong partner in this effort, taking unprecedented actions to address this challenge,” it said […]

September 24, 2021 HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam has pushed back a plan to re-open the resort island of Phu Quoc to foreign tourists until November, after failing to meet targets for inoculating residents due to insufficient vaccine supplies, state media reported. The Southeast Asian nation, which is currently shut to all visitors apart from returning […]

Startups have spent the last decade trying to offer every variation of Airbnb that they can imagine. But Ukio thinks it has found a way through the ever-growing tangle of housing rental competitors — and regulators — right as remote work becomes the norm. It offers rentals of one month or longer, featuring a turnkey […]

September 24, 2021 MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The congress of the Mexican state of Sonora voted on Thursday to legalize same-sex marriage, meaning that about three quarters of the country’s regions have now made the practice legal. Lawmakers in the legislature of Sonora, a large northern state that borders Arizona and New Mexico in the […]

September 24, 2021 By Leika Kihara TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s widening wealth gap has emerged as a key issue in a ruling party leadership contest that will decide who becomes the next prime minister, with candidates forced to reassess the legacy of former premier Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” policies. Under Abenomics, a mix of expansionary fiscal […]

September 24, 2021 By Sankalp Phartiyal and Shilpa Jamkhandikar NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc launched in India on Friday a bundling option on its video platform for global and local streaming services, in a move aimed at boosting subscriptions. The launch comes at a time of increasing competition from global and domestic rivals in […]

September 24, 2021 By Andrew Galbraith SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The crisis at property giant China Evergrande Group poses a $305 billion conundrum for President Xi Jinping: how to impose financial discipline without fuelling social unrest. With one year before the Chinese president is poised to secure an unprecedented third five-year term, the stakes are high […]

September 24, 2021 WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The CIA has removed its Vienna station chief following criticism of his management, including what some considered an inadequate response to reports of “Havana syndrome” incidents at the U.S. Embassy there, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The Post, which cited unnamed current and former U.S. officials, reported the action […]

September 24, 2021 SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s central bank warned on Thursday that the debt repayment burden among vulnerable households could increase sharply as interest rates rise, underlining the growing negative impact of the debt binge in Asia’s fourth largest economy. Debt-to-disposable income at South Korean households was at 172.4% in the second quarter, […]

September 24, 2021 By Alun John HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares were on edge on Friday hurt by persistent uncertainty around the fate of debt-ridden China Evergrande, even as more risk appetite drove gains for Wall Street and U.S. benchmark Treasury yields. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.1% and was […]

September 24, 2021 TOKYO (Reuters) – Oil prices rose for a fourth day on Friday, taking Brent towards three-year highs, as investors focused on tighter supplies amid strong appetite for riskier assets like crude and high hopes for recovery from the pandemic. Brent crude was up 40 cents, or 0.5% at $77.65 a barrel, by […]

September 24, 2021 TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said he welcomed Taiwan’s application to join a trans-Pacific trade pact this week, citing shared democratic values with the island, which China claims as its own. Taiwan applied on Wednesday to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which Japan is […]

SoftBank is gaga for startups in Latin America. Since first announcing it was planting a stake in the ground in the region in early 2019, the Japanese conglomerate  — from its own balance sheet, it says — has plugged more than $5 billion into the region, and it expects that number to top $8 billion […]