News

September 13, 2021 By Yilei Sun and Brenda Goh BEIJING (Reuters) – Volkswagen is in talks to tighten its grip on a majority-owned joint venture in China, sparking tensions with the German automaker’s other Chinese partners who fear they could be sidelined, sources familiar with the matter said. The world’s second-biggest carmaker secured a controlling […]

September 13, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s biggest supermarket group Tesco launched a trial on Monday that allows customers to buy food, drink, household and beauty products in reusable packaging, part of its strategy to cut plastic waste. Britons have become increasingly aware of the amount of plastic they use in recent years, with television […]

September 13, 2021 WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s largest city Auckland will remain in lockdown to beat the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday. Auckland will remain in the strict Alert level 4 lockdown until midnight on Sept. 21, after which it will move to alert […]

September 13, 2021 GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ human rights chief criticised on Monday the Taliban’s human rights record since seizing power in Afghanistan, noting that stated commitments did not match realities on the ground such as the status of women. “Importantly, and in contradiction to assurances that the Taliban would uphold women’s rights, […]

As Chinese tech companies come under regulatory scrutiny at home, concerns and pressures are escalating among investors and domestic tech companies including China’s four big cloud companies, BATH (Baidu AI, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and Huawei Cloud), according to an analyst report. Despite a series of antitrust and internet-related regulation crackdowns, the four leading cloud […]

September 13, 2021 ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece will pump an additional 4.4 billion euros into its economy in the second half of the year to prop up businesses and households battered by the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said on Monday. Staikouras said Greece will spend a total of 42.7 billion euros in state […]

September 13, 2021 A look at the day ahead from Sujata Rao. After seven straight months of gains, world stocks are enduring a dismal September, touching a 2-1/2-week low on Monday. Wall Street futures are higher but the S&P 500 witnessed its first five-day decline since February last week and Treasury yields posted their third […]

September 13, 2021 (Reuters) -Beijing wants to break up Alipay, the hugely popular payments app owned by Jack Ma’s Ant Group, and create a separate app for the company’s highly profitable loans business, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The plan will also see Ant turn over the user data that underpins its lending decisions […]

September 13, 2021 GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ rights chief lamented on Monday that efforts to gain access to China’s Xinjiang region to probe reports of serious violations against Muslim Uyghurs have not succeeded, adding that she was finalising a report on the situation. “I regret that I am not able to report progress […]

September 13, 2021 By Renju Jose SYDNEY (Reuters) – The government of the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) said on Monday the pace of COVID-19 vaccinations had slowed as first-dose coverage neared 80% and urged the unvaccinated to get shots soon or risk missing out on freedoms when curbs ease. Premier Gladys Berejiklian […]

September 13, 2021 AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Uber drivers are employees rather than independent contractors and are entitled to greater workers’ rights, a Dutch court ruled on Monday. It was the latest court victory for unions fighting for the rights of workers in the gig economy after a similar decision in Britain in March. The Amsterdam District […]

September 13, 2021 AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Uber will appeal a Dutch court ruling that drivers are employees of the company and not independent contractors that make use of its platform, the company said on Monday. “We are disappointed with this decision because we know that the overwhelming majority of drivers wish to remain independent,” the […]

September 13, 2021 A look at the day ahead from Sujata Rao. After seven straight months of gains, world stocks are enduring a dismal September, touching a 2-1/2-week low on Monday. Wall Street futures are higher but the S&P 500 witnessed its first five-day decline since February last week and Treasury yields posted their third […]

Payments made a huge shift to digital platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic — purchasing moved online for many consumers and businesses; and a large proportion of those continuing to buy and sell in-person went cash-free. Today a startup that has been focusing on one specific aspect of payments — recurring billing — is announcing a […]

September 13, 2021 By Alan Baldwin (Reuters) – Daniel Ricciardo will get to drive the 1984 NASCAR Chevrolet Monte Carlo of his late idol Dale Earnhardt Sr after winning Sunday’s Italian Formula One Grand Prix but the smiling Australian can sense a better deal. McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown, who has the original number three […]

September 13, 2021 SHANGHAI (Reuters) – As elite snowboarder Liu Jiayu trains for the 2022 Winter Olympics, it’s not just her platinum blond-streaked ponytail that stands out – she also has a colourful, personal and public social media presence, a relative rarity for Chinese athletes. Instagram pictures show her performing tricks in midair, or even […]

September 13, 2021 ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish industrial output rose 8.7% year-on-year in July, much less than forecast after rebounding strongly in previous months, while the current account deficit was wider than expected, data showed on Monday. The disappointing data came after a strong run in which rebounds in consumption, exports and tourism set the […]

September 13, 2021 ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s current account is expected to record a relatively small deficit of $570 million in July due largely to a partial recovery in tourism revenues, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday. For the full year, the median estimate of 11 economists was a $20 billion deficit, with responses ranging […]

September 13, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) – The German economy will pick up steam in the third quarter but business activity will cool again in the final three months of the year, the economy ministry said on Monday. Europe’s largest economy grew by 1.6% on the quarter from April to June, a weaker rebound than in […]

September 13, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) – The Bank of England’s balance sheet is likely to remain large even after it starts to unwind its 895 billion pounds of asset purchases, and to vary over the course of the economic cycle, BoE executive director for markets Andrew Hauser said on Monday. “We expect to adopt a […]