News

September 6, 2021 (Reuters) – The Taliban claimed victory over opposition forces in the Panjshir valley northeast of Kabul on Monday, declaring that they had completed their takeover of Afghanistan and promising to announce a new government soon. Pictures on social media showed Taliban members standing in front of the gate of the Panjshir provincial […]

September 6, 2021 By Charlotte Bruneau and Ahmed Rasheed HALABJA, Iraq (Reuters) – “Where we are standing right now, there should be a river,” says Nabil Musa, gesturing at a dried-up riverbed in northern Iraq.     For the environmental activist, the reason the once swirling Sirwan river has dwindled to a trickle lies across the border […]

September 6, 2021 (Reuters) – Standard Chartered said on Monday that it had arranged $1.1 billion of financing to the Angolan government for a water supply project that will serve its capital Luanda. The funding is made up of two loans – a $910 million facility supported by a partial World Bank guarantee, and $165 […]

September 6, 2021 SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Former Brazil soccer great Pele has been in hospital for six days with an undisclosed health problem but the 80-year-old is not seriously ill, an advisor to the former Santos and New York Cosmos forward told Reuters on Monday. The Globo news site said Pele was undergoing routine […]

September 6, 2021 PARIS (Reuters) – Christian Dior has signed a two-year deal to design clothing for the French star-studded football team Paris St. Germain, marking its first tie-up with a sports club. The move from the prestigious French fashion label follows the recent arrival of Argentina forward Lionel Messi to PSG, a move that […]

September 6, 2021 By Nick Carey MUNICH (Reuters) – As carmakers gathered in Munich on Monday to launch almost exclusively zero- or low-emission vehicles, an ongoing semiconductor shortage cast a long shadow over the first major car show since before the pandemic began. Forced to shut down plants last year, carmakers now face increasing competition […]

September 6, 2021 By Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) called on Monday for powers to govern the online promotion of cryptoassets to combat a flood of “problematic content” which it said has no value. With some cryptoassets using social media influencers and other celebrities to promote so-called tokens, Britain’s finance […]

September 6, 2021 BEIJING (Reuters) – Reports that China’s Beijing city government is advising state-owned companies to invest in embattled ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc are untrue, the city government told Reuters in a faxed statement. Citing unidentified sources, Bloomberg News on Friday reported that China’s capital city is considering taking Didi under state control […]

September 6, 2021 By Silvia Aloisi and Alex Fraser VENICE (Reuters) – From a control room inside the police headquarters in Venice, Big Brother is watching you. To combat tourist overcrowding, officials are tracking every person who sets foot in the lagoon city. Using 468 CCTV cameras, optical sensors and a mobile phone-tracing system, they […]

September 6, 2021 By Saliou Samb (Reuters) – Guinean government officials are barred from travel until further notice, and must hand over their official vehicles to the military, special forces commander Mamady Doumbouya, who ousted President Alpha Conde on Sunday, told a government gathering on Monday. (Reporting by Saliou Samb; Writing Cooper Inveen; Editing by […]

Berlin-based Mobius Labs has closed a €5.2 million (~$6.1M) funding round off the back of increased demand for its computer vision training platform. The Series A investment is led by Ventech VC, along with Atlantic Labs, APEX Ventures, Space Capital, Lunar Ventures plus some additional angel investors. The startup offers an SDK that lets the […]

September 6, 2021 By Alan Baldwin LONDON (Reuters) – Valtteri Bottas will leave Mercedes and race for Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo in a multi-year deal from 2022, the Swiss-based Formula One team said in a statement on Monday. The Finn’s departure clears the way for George Russell, 23, to leave Williams and join seven times world […]

September 6, 2021 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has started trialing robots to patrol public areas and deter poor social behaviour in its latest effort to further augment its strong portfolio of surveillance tools. Ranked one of the safest countries in the world, Singapore has put two autonomous robots on trial to detect bad behaviour such […]

September 6, 2021 MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will start operating in the next few days, Interfax news agency reported. The $11-billion Nord Stream 2 project is expected to double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline across the Baltic Sea and […]

September 6, 2021 MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia’s prime minister suspended the intelligence chief on Monday, prompting a public rebuke from the president and highlighting growing divisions at the heart of the political elite. Analysts said the suspension – triggered by a dispute over investigations into an unsolved murder – pointed to a deeper power struggle […]

September 6, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Monday said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was assaulting the defenders of freedom by jailing two opposition figures. Protest leaders Maria Kolesnikova and Maxim Znak were sentenced to 11 years and 10 years in prison. “The sentencing of Maria Kolesnikova and Maksim Znak shows the Belarusian authorities continuing […]

September 6, 2021 BEIJING (Reuters) – China will improve domestic listing rules for overseas entities and will improve rules regulating overseas listings of Chinese companies, the securities regulator said on Monday. The regulator said it would expand the channels for foreign capital to invest in China’s securities and futures markets. It will also step up […]

September 6, 2021 LONDON (Reuters) – British households’ predictions for inflation were little changed last month, according to a survey on Monday that will likely reassure Bank of England officials that expectations of higher prices are not becoming entrenched. U.S. bank Citi and pollsters YouGov said expectations for inflation over the coming 12 months were […]

September 6, 2021 By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish supergroup ABBA announced their first new album in four decades on Thursday and said they would stage a series of virtual concerts using digital avatars of themselves in London next year. Fans piled online to celebrate the long-awaited reunion of one of the […]

September 6, 2021 (Reuters) – The European Union has called for the immediate release of Belarus protest leader Maria Kolesnikova after she was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Kolesnikova and her fellow oppositionist Maxim Znak, who got 10 years, were tried behind closed doors on unfounded charges, a spokesperson of the EU’s executive Commission […]