September 15, 2021 By Farah Master and Donny Kwok HONG KONG (Reuters) -Shares of Macau casino operators plummeted as much as a third on Wednesday, losing about $18 billion in value, as the government kicked off a regulatory overhaul that could see its officials supervising companies in the world’s largest gambling hub. With Macau’s lucrative […]
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Factbox-Kosovo Tribunal: the suspects, allegations and history
September 15, 2021 THE HAGUE (Reuters) – The first trial opened on Wednesday at a special court dealing with crimes during the 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict. Here are some key facts about the tribunal: * The Kosovo Specialist Chambers tribunal was created in 2015 to handle crimes not tried by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal […]
Russia’s Vladimir Putin self-isolates after COVID-19 infects inner circle
September 15, 2021 By Andrew Osborn and Maxim Rodionov MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he was self-isolating after several members of his entourage fell ill with COVID-19, including someone he worked with in close proximity and had been in close contact with all of the previous day. Putin, who has had […]
UK PM Johnson to reshuffle his ministers on Wednesday – source
September 15, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will reshuffle his team of ministers on Wednesday, a source in his Downing Street office said. Since winning the 2019 election with a big parliamentary majority, Johnson’s agenda has been eclipsed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The PM will be appointing ministers this afternoon with a […]
Bulgarian president calls Nov 14 snap election
September 15, 2021 SOFIA (Reuters) -President Rumen Radev has called Bulgaria’s third parliamentary election this year for Nov. 14 after inconclusive polls in April and July failed to produce a government, the president’s media office said on Wednesday. Radev, who is running for re-election in a presidential vote which will be held on the same […]
Kapor Capital, Square co-founder Sam Wen back TomoCredit in its $10M Series A funding round
Building credit history can be difficult if you are a consumer that is having trouble getting access to credit in the first place. Enter TomoCredit, which has developed a credit card focused on building credit history for first-time borrowers. The San Francisco-based startup is announcing today that it has raised $10 million in a Series […]
EnerVenue raises $100M to accelerate clean energy using nickel-hydrogen batteries
In order to support a buildout of renewable energy, which tends to over-generate electricity at certain times of day and under-generate at others, the grid is going to need a lot of batteries. While lithium-ion works fine for consumer electronics and even electric vehicles, battery startup EnerVenue says it developed a breakthrough technology to revolutionize […]
Futures tick higher, but tax uncertainty, weak recovery weigh
September 15, 2021 By Ambar Warrick (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Wednesday on easing fears of an earlier-than-expected cut to monetary stimulus, even though a slowing economic recovery and uncertainty over higher corporate taxes weighed on sentiment. The S&P 500 had sunk to a more than three-week low on Tuesday, while […]
Europe plans a Chips Act to boost semiconductor sovereignty
The EU will use legislation to push for greater resilience and sovereignty in regional semiconductor supply chains. The bloc’s president trailed a forthcoming ‘European Chips Act’ in a state of the union speech today. Ursula von der Leyen suggested that gaining greater autonomy in chipmaking is now a key component of the EU’s overarching digital […]
Sendcloud nabs $177M led by SoftBank to double down on SaaS — shipping as a service
E-commerce has undoubtedly seen a huge boost in growth in the last year and a half of Covid-19 living, with people turning to the web and apps to shop for essentials and not-so-essentials to keep their social distance, and using delivery services to receive their goods rather than picking things up in person. Today, a […]
Ex-rebel denies war crimes as Kosovo tribunal opens first trial
September 15, 2021 By Stephanie van den Berg THE HAGUE (Reuters) – A special tribunal in The Hague investigating allegations of atrocities committed by Kosovo pro-independence fighters opened its first case on Wednesday, against a commander accused of torturing prisoners during the 1998-1999 conflict with Serbia. At the start of his trial, Salih Mustafa, 50, […]
Zonos banks $69M to develop APIs for democratizing cross-border commerce
Cross-border commerce company Zonos raised $69 million in a Series A, led by Silversmith Capital Partners, to continue building its APIs that auto classify goods and calculate an accurate total landed cost on international transactions. St. George, Utah-based Zonos is classifying the round as a minority investment that also included individual investors Eric Rea, CEO […]
Walmart to launch autonomous delivery service with Ford and Argo AI
Walmart has tapped Argo AI and Ford to launch an autonomous vehicle delivery service in Austin, Miami and Washington D.C., the companies said Wednesday. The service will allow customers to place online orders for groceries and other items using Walmart’s ordering platform. Argo’s cloud-based infrastructure will be integrated with Walmart’s online platform, routing the orders […]
German conservatives drag ECB’s monetary policy into election campaign
September 15, 2021 STUTTGART (Reuters) – Germany’s conservatives, trailing in polls less than two weeks before a national election, launched a stinging attack on Wednesday on the European Central Bank’s loose monetary policy. Friedrich Merz, the expert for fiscal and economic policies in the team of conservative top candidate Armin Laschet, said that, in contrast […]
Patient monitoring startup Doccla secures $3.3M Seed funding for ‘virtual wards’ platform
Doccla, a healthtech startup with a platform that can monitor patients on hospital wards and in the home, has secured a $3.3 million Seed funding round, led by Giant Ventures and Speedinvest. The company allows hospitals to predict when beds will be freed up by monitoring patients remotely via wearable medical devices, thus helping to […]
EU draws inspiration from female Paralympic champion
September 15, 2021 By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) -“If it seems impossible – then it can be done.” The European Union’s chief executive quoted the motto of Italy’s Paralympic champion Beatrice Vio on Wednesday as inspiration for challenges from climate change to COVID. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived at her annual policy […]
Swedish finance minister tipped to become country’s first female PM
September 15, 2021 By Simon Johnson STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Magdalena Andersson is favourite to become Sweden’s prime minister when her Social Democrat colleague Stefan Lofven steps down in November, but major challenges face the current finance minister if she is to keep the top job longer than a few months. If Andersson is picked to […]
Italy to forecast GDP growth around 6% this year, above 4% in 2022, sources say
September 15, 2021 By Giuseppe Fonte ROME (Reuters) – Italy’s Treasury expects the economy to grow by around 6% this year and by more than 4% in 2022, two sources close to the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, taking gross domestic product back above its pre-pandemic level by the end of next year. The 2021 […]
Analysis: ECB sees a new inflation ‘hump’ as prices surge
September 15, 2021 By Francesco Canepa FRANKFURT (Reuters) – A spike in euro zone inflation to above the European Central Bank’s target is a temporary “hump”, the ECB says – dusting off a metaphor used a decade ago by its then-president Jean-Claude Trichet. In 2011, the ECB hiked interest rates twice in four months, with […]
Yellen, Harris to argue that investment in child care benefits overall economy
September 15, 2021 By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Vice President Kamala Harris will urge Congress on Wednesday to back proposed spending on affordable child care, armed with a new Treasury report that maps out big benefits such care offers the economy. Congress is considering a $3.5 trillion package […]