News

September 23, 2021 MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s biggest utility, Enel, has set up a new company to offer digital grid services to power distributors round the world to help upgrade networks as the energy transition gathers pace. Gridspertise will manage all activities related to digital meters and intelligent grid services to help its clients deal […]

September 23, 2021 MILAN (Reuters) – Chinese restaurant chain Yum China and Italian coffee maker Lavazza, which formed a partnership in 2020, aim to open 1,000 Lavazza cafés in China by 2025, they said on Thursday. The two groups will inject $200 million initially into the joint venture to fund its future growth. In addition, […]

September 23, 2021 By Ambar Warrick (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday, indicating Wall Street was set to jump further from recent lows after investors largely brushed off concerns over the Federal Reserve’s plans for tapering. The Fed said on Wednesday it could begin reducing its monthly bond purchases by as soon […]

September 23, 2021 By Pete Schroeder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – While the U.S. Federal Reserve’s next top regulatory official is still in the balance, one thing is certain: whoever gets the job will have a jam-packed agenda tackling the gamut, from capital rules and fair lending to digital assets and climate change. Appointed to the Fed […]

September 23, 2021 By Stephen Nellis (Reuters) – Nearly four in five electronics manufacturers say that it has become harder to find qualified workers, compounding problems from an ongoing chip shortage and causing delays in shipping products, a trade group representing them said on Thursday. IPC, which represents contract manufacturers such Foxconn, chipmakers such as […]

September 23, 2021 By David Milliken and Andy Bruce LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank of England said inflation would rise above 4% later this year, and two policymakers called for an early end to the central bank’s quantitative easing programme due to rising price pressures. Policymakers voted 7-2 to stick with the 895 billion pound ($1.2 […]

September 23, 2021 (Reuters) – Chinese authorities are asking local governments to prepare for the potential downfall of debt-ridden China Evergrande Group, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing officials familiar with the discussions. The move has been characterised as “getting ready for the possible storm” by the officials, according to the report. The […]

September 23, 2021 ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s central bank unexpectedly cut its policy rate by 100 basis points to 18% on Thursday, delivering stimulus long sought by President Tayyip Erdogan despite high inflation, and sending the lira to near a record low. The central bank was widely expected to hold interest rates steady at 19%, […]

September 23, 2021 By Scott Murdoch and Tom Westbrook HONG KONG (Reuters) – As uncertainty looms over cash-strapped China Evergrande Group, seizing up China’s junk bond market, pressure is building on its peers to access fresh funding to repay notes worth nearly $300 billion due over the next two years. Once its top-selling developer, Evergrande […]

September 23, 2021 By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The EU aims to have a common charging port for mobile phones, tablets and headphones under a European Commission proposal presented on Thursday in a world first, with the move impacting iPhone maker Apple more than its rivals. The move has been more than 10 years […]

September 23, 2021 By Francesco Canepa and Balazs Koranyi FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European Central Bank policymakers are bracing for inflation to exceed the bank’s already raised estimates, paving the way for it to end its emergency bond purchases in March, sources involved in the discussion said. The ECB, which plans to make a decision on […]

September 23, 2021 By Siphiwe Sibeko JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Jubilant South African Airways (SAA) staff at the country’s biggest airport broke into song and dance on Thursday as the airline took to the skies for the first time in around a year. State-owned SAA’s longstanding financial woes were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and it […]

September 23, 2021 By Aftab Ahmed, Manoj Kumar and Nupur Anand NEW DELHI (Reuters) -New Delhi wants to block Chinese investors from buying shares in Indian insurance giant Life Insurance Corp (LIC) which is due to go public, four senior government officials and a banker told Reuters, underscoring tensions between the two nations. State-owned LIC […]

September 23, 2021 By Emilio Parodi and Francesco Guarascio BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Medicines Agency (EMA) expects to decide in early October on the possible use of a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. It will be the EU drugs regulator’s first decision […]

September 23, 2021 By Daina Beth Solomon CIUDAD ACUNA (Reuters) – A migrant camp in Texas near the Mexican border where as many as 14,000 Haitians amassed in recent days has shrunk to less than half that size amid expulsion flights and detentions, even as some stay, committed to trying to remain in the United […]

September 23, 2021 BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Central European leaders signed a joint declaration on Thursday saying immigration should not be the answer to the European Union’s demographic challenges, while calling on the bloc to keep family policy under national jurisdiction. “Each Member State should shape its own family policy in accordance with its own constitution, […]

September 23, 2021 KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine’s parliament passed a law on Thursday to order “oligarchs” to register and stay out of politics, a day after an attempt to kill a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which officials said could have been a response to the reform. The law, which passed at the first reading […]

September 23, 2021 By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union’s executive said on Thursday that risks to media freedom in Poland persisted despite a decision by the Polish regulator to extend a broadcasting licence for TVN24, a U.S. Discovery-owned news channel critical of Warsaw. After long delays, the regulator on Wednesday extended the license […]

Spotnana emerged from stealth Thursday with $41 million in its pocket and an open global platform targeting the $1.4 trillion business travel industry. The Bay Area company’s investment includes a $34 million Series A, co-led by ICONIQ and Madrona Venture Group with participation from Decibel and Mubadala Capital, and a previous undisclosed $7 million seed […]

Millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa and emerging markets continue to live without access to electricity. Some reports peg these numbers between 500 million and 2 billion people despite the prevalence of renewable energy providers in these regions. Zola Electric, one such provider, is announcing today that it has closed $90 million in new funding […]