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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 […]

September 23, 2021 By Aditya Kalra NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google on Thursday said it was suing the Competition Commission of India (CCI) following the leak of a confidential CCI report into an antitrust investigation of the U.S. tech giant. The Times of India newspaper, and then Reuters, reported on Saturday that a […]

September 23, 2021 PARIS (Reuters) – French fashion company SMCP, whose brands include Sandro and Maje, said on Thursday that European TopSoho – a unit of its majority shareholder – had failed to redeem 250 million euros ($293 million) of bonds exchangeable into SMCP shares. “European TopSoho has until September 30 (inclusive) to remedy this […]

September 23, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) -Deutsche Bank sees the logic that there should be consolidation in the European banking sector and the task in hand is to prepare for that outcome, Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke said on Thursday. Hewing closely to the German bank’s standard line on potential mergers, von Moltke told a […]

September 23, 2021 By Marc Jones LONDON (Reuters) – World markets rallied on Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve confirmed plans to start reeling in stimulus, Norway became the first rich economy to raise rates since COVID struck and China Evergrande shares leapt ahead of a crucial debt payment. European stocks were up 1% in […]

September 23, 2021 ROME (Reuters) – Energy transition could cost Italy in excess of 650 billion euros ($760 billion) over the next decade and the government must do more to help businesses bear the cost, the head of the employers’ federation said on Thursday. “The national recovery plan provides only 6% of the investment needed […]

September 23, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. equity index futures kicked higher and the U.S. dollar’s losses widened against its rivals after a Bloomberg news report that financial regulators in Beijing told embattled property developer China Evergrande to avoid a near-term default on its dollar bonds. Versus a basket of its rivals, the greenback fell […]