(Reuters) – Walmart Inc (WMT.N) has partnered with Canadian e-commerce firm Shopify Inc (SHOP.TO) (SHOP.N), as the world’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer ramps up its efforts to capture a bigger slice of the coronavirus-driven surge in online shopping. U.S.... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Three Russian cities on Monday joined a growing list of places that are cancelling June 24 military parades over coronavirus fears despite a decision by President Vladimir Putin to press ahead with the main event in Moscow. Penza, Pyatigorsk... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Democratic senators on Monday asked U.S. Defense Secretary Mike Esper what happened to $1 billion in aid for Afghanistan the Trump administration said it would cut nearly three months ago, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters. S... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s capital is fast running out of hospital beds amid a surge in coronavirus cases and is struggling to contain the pandemic, after critics said it did too little to prepare and reopened shopping malls and temples too soon. Some famil... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Filming the sequel of James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar” will bring hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars to New Zealand after it ended its coronavirus outbreak, the film’s producer told media as production resumed on Monday.... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) has received approval from the Shanghai government to resume flights from June 18, a company spokeswoman said on Monday, paving the way for the carrier to resume services to China after months of suspension due to CO... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp messaging service rolled out a system across Brazil on Monday that will allow users to send money to individuals or local businesses within a chat, attaching payment as they would a photo or video. WhatsApp tested t... More »
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese gaming giant NetEase on Monday announced a strategic partnership with Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment to develop a new “Lord of the Rings” mobile game, bolstering its pipeline following its secondary listing in Hong Kong. Th... More »
MUMBAI (Reuters) – Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who won acclaim for his role in the 2016 biopic of then Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, was found dead at his home in Mumbai on Sunday, police said. He was 34 years old. “It pains us to shar... More »
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Researchers in Thailand began collecting samples from horseshoe bats to test them for coronavirus amid concerns they may pose a threat to local residents, a government statement said on Saturday. They plan to collect 300 bats over three day... More »
(Reuters) – Protests against racism triggered by the death of African American George Floyd have inspired art around the world, from murals in Syria and Pakistan to graffiti in Nairobi. At the Berlin Wall, a large portrait of Floyd is seen alongside yellow blo... More »
HANOI (Reuters) – Stuck at home with school suspended, Nguyen Doi Chung Anh made the most of a lockdown in Vietnam by using art to demonstrate tragedy, resilience and chaos in the world’s battle against the coronavirus. The work of 10-year-old Chung Anh shows ... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – The Chinese Beidou navigation network will be complete this month when its final satellite goes into orbit, giving China greater independence from U.S.-owned GPS and heating up competition in a sector long dominated by the United States. Th... More »
KABUL (Reuters) – A group of artists climbed ladders up one of the many blast walls snaking through the Afghan capital Kabul this week to paint a mural of George Floyd in solidarity with the anti-racism protests kindled by his death in police custody. Floyd, a... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A tiny statuette of a bird carved from burnt bone about 13,500 years ago reveals the origins of Chinese art, embodying a style different from prehistoric three-dimensional artwork by people in other parts of the world, researchers said o... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – The world’s largest population of nesting green turtles is nearly twice as big as previously thought, scientists said on Wednesday, after drones enabled better surveys of the animals. Australian scientists determined that there were about 64... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Americans should show more respect for Russia’s space program after relying on it for nine years as the only way to send U.S. astronauts into orbit, the head of Russia’s space agency said. The United States launched the first astronauts from... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – A United Nations human rights expert voiced alarm on Tuesday at what he called “widespread food shortages and malnutrition” in North Korea, made worse by a nearly five-month border closure with China and strict quarantine measures against CO... More »
SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong will lead a $5 billion rescue of Cathay Pacific Airways (0293.HK), which like other airlines has been hit by a global travel slump triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The government’s involvement in the recapitalisatio... More »
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Foreign state-backed or state-owned companies seeking to acquire European companies may be investigated to see if they are benefiting from unfair subsidies, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said on Tuesday. “They (foreign subsidies) c... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Mira Robotics developed its “ugo” robot to reinforce greying Japan’s shrinking workforce, but as the coronavirus threat persists, the Japanese startup is offering its machine as a tool in the fight against the outbreak, the company’s CEO said... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – G7 government bonds? Check. Gold? Check. But that may not be enough as the coronavirus crisis accelerates a hunt for a wider pool of assets to better balance investment portfolios during stressful times. Corporate and Chinese government debt... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Australian dollar fell nearly 2% on Tuesday after China’s education ministry warned students to carefully consider studying there amid tension between the trading partners. The dollar found some footing, rising against tearaway commodity... More »
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia will ask Bangladesh to take back about 300 Rohingya refugees detained after a boat carrying them entered its waters this week, the southeast Asian nation’s defence minister said on Tuesday. Malaysia does not recognise refugee ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan and the United Kingdom agreed to start negotiations for a swift agreement on an economic partnership to secure business continuity for both nations, Japan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi welcomed i... More »
(Reuters) – S&P Global Ratings said it has revised Japan’s outlook to stable on increased uncertainty around debt stabilization. The ratings agency said stable outlook reflects its view that until fiscal 2023, relatively large fiscal deficits will continue in ... More »
MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine health ministry on Tuesday recorded six new coronavirus deaths and 518 additional infections. The ministry said total deaths have increased to 1,017 while confirmed cases have reached 22,992. (Paragraph 2 of this story shows t... More »
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia has resumed domestic flights for all passengers provided airlines operate at 70% capacity and follow strict rules brought into force on Tuesday, when the country announced its biggest daily rise in cases of the novel coronavirus. ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Stock market bulls were forced to a halt on Tuesday and high-flying currencies like the euro and Australian dollar lost altitude, as a weeks-long risk rally ran into some turbulence. It all seemed so sudden. Asian equities had scored their n... More »
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s health ministry reported 1,043 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, its biggest daily rise in cases, taking the total number of infections to 33,076. There were also 40 new deaths, bringing total fatalities to 1,923, said Achm... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The coronavirus might have been spreading in China as early as August last year, according to Harvard Medical School research based on satellite images of hospital travel patterns and search engine data, but China dismissed the report as “ri... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – While some potential vaccines have emerged in the global race to find a way to stop the spread of COVID-19, many scientists and researchers believe antibody based therapies hold great promise for treating people already infected with the d... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese investors have clipped the wings of a resurgent U.S. dollar as they position for the likelihood that the U.S. Federal Reserve will take steps to flatten the Treasury yield curve. Ahead of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting that ends on... More »
(Reuters) – Im Sung-jae has enjoyed a longer run at the top of the Fedex Cup standings than many better-known players but the South Korean is taking nothing for granted as he plots his return to PGA Tour action in Texas this week. The hardworking world number ... More »
HSINCHU, Taiwan (Reuters) – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) (2330.TW) could quickly fill any order gap should U.S. restrictions against Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] prevent sales to the Chinese firm, the company’s chairman said on Tuesd... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – As Australia moves ahead with relaxing a lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a state government gave the all clear for more than 2,000 fans to attend an Australian Rules Football game at a stadium in Adelaide this weekend. “Footb... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – A South Korean court on Tuesday denied an arrest warrant request for Samsung Group heir Jay Y. Lee after prosecutors accused him of accounting fraud and stock manipulation. The ruling provided temporary relief for the vice chairman of Samsung... More »
HSINCHU, Taiwan (Reuters) – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) (2330.TW) is still in talks with the U.S. government about subsidies for its new plant in Arizona, chairman Mark Liu said on Tuesday. “We hope federal and state governments could make... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. units of China Telecom Corp’s (0728.HK) and China Unicom (0762.HK) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to revoke the company’s nearly two-decade old authorization to provide international telecommunications ser... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Alibaba Group said its cloud unit aims to recruit 5,000 staff globally from now until the end of this financial year, in areas including network, database, servers, chips and artificial intelligence, it said in a statement on Tuesday. “The... More »
(Reuters) – Brazil has withdrawn its candidacy to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup, with the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) saying the government did not consider it wise to offer financial guarantees in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Because of t... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Eleven years ago, environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel dreamed aloud in a commencement speech: What if scientists could record the sounds of the ocean in the days before propeller-driven ships and boats spanned the globe? They would liste... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – Fans of the popular South Korean boy band BTS matched its $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter (BLM) in support of U.S. protests against police brutality, an organisation that runs fundraisers for the fans said on Monday. The K-pop group... More »
(Reuters) – Actress Cate Blanchett suffered an accident with a chainsaw during the coronavirus lockdown with her family, she revealed during a podcast. The Oscar-winning star of films like “Blue Jasmine” and “Aviator” gave no details about the mishap but said ... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – An art gallery in Paris has sought inspiration in ancient China to help it enforce social distancing, by providing hats with winged extensions for visitors. The colourful papier-mâché hats are modelled on headgear from the Song dynasty, which... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will promote the resumption of the tourism, culture and sports sectors, a top-level meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang said on Thursday, state radio reported. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china/chin... More »
(Reuters) – The following is a brief roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. Convalescent plasma disappoints in Chinese trial Infusions... More »
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Indian police have released a pigeon belonging to a Pakistani fisherman after a probe found that the bird, which had flown across the contentious border between the nuclear-armed nations, was not a spy, two officials said on Friday.... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The dollar steadied against the euro on Wednesday even as the common currency remained supported by news of a proposal for an economic recovery package to help the euro zone region recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The euro EUR=EBS wa... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The coronavirus crisis may have dealt a lethal blow to the idea that the euro could one day replace the dollar as the world’s preferred currency, by exposing euro zone frailties and cementing the U.S. Fed’s role as global lender of last reso... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin is back at work after being diagnosed with the new coronavirus, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree cancelling a temporary transfer of Mi... More »
KABUL (Reuters) – The United Nations said Afghan civilian casualties jumped to 380 in April, expressing alarm about a “striking deterioration” in respect for international humanitarian law as the United States withdraws troops and attempts to usher in a peace ... More »
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia reported on Tuesday 486 new coronavirus infections, taking the total in the Southeast Asian country to 18,496, the country’s COVID-19 task force reported on its official website. The task force also recorded 30 more deaths, taking... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Mitsubishi Motors Corp (7211.T) on Tuesday posted an 89% drop in annual operating profit in the year ended March as the Japanese automaker took a hit from falling vehicle sales as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on global demand for c... More »
MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine health ministry on Tuesday reported six new coronavirus deaths and 224 more infections, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 12,942. The number of deaths was the lowest in just over two weeks, with the total now at 83... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan may lift its state of emergency in more regions this week as new coronavirus infections drop, the Asahi newspaper said on Tuesday, moving to resume sorely needed activity in the world’s third-largest economy, battered by containment mea... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Investors are bearish on stocks, especially riskier assets, and expect a slower economic recovery as the risk of a second wave of infections from the novel coronavirus persists, a BofA fund manager survey showed. World stocks have bounced ba... More »
BENGALURU (Reuters) – WeWork’s India franchise said on Tuesday it laid off 100 employees, or 20% of its workforce, as the office-sharing startup joins a slew of firms that are cutting costs and revamping operations as a prolonged nationwide lockdown to curb th... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) suffered a slump of 64% in car registrations in China in April on the month, data from auto consultancy LMC Automotive showed. Tesla’s China registrations, including imported cars, fell to 4,63... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The United States has overtaken China as the most attractive country in the world for renewables investment and the global clean energy sector is expected to bounce back quickly despite the coronavirus pandemic, research showed on Tuesday. I... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – After a 78-day delay, China’s parliament begins its annual session this week and is expected to unveil stimulus measures to spur an economy battered by the coronavirus as leaders grapple with problems from surging unemployment to worsening ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp (6758.T) will turn its financial arm, Sony Financial Holdings Inc (8729.T), into a wholly owned unit through a tender offer worth about 400 billion yen ($3.72 billion), the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant said on Tuesda... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China is expected to stand pat on its benchmark lending rate on Wednesday, after the central bank kept medium-term funding cost for financial institutions steady last week, a Reuters survey of traders and analysts found. Thirty-four respon... More »
PRAGUE (Reuters) – Czech car production fell 31.1% year-on-year in the January-April period to 337,497 cars, the Automotive Industry Association said on Tuesday. In April alone, when the country ground to a standstill due to measures aimed to curb the coronavi... More »
TOKYO/FRANKFURT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After years of applying plenty of stick to commercial lenders unhappy with negative interest rate policies, central bankers in the euro zone and Japan are experimenting with some carrot, too. With the coronavirus pandemic... More »
YUYAO, China/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – In the eastern Chinese city of Yuyao, a group of five face-masked workers at a Geely auto plant, stood almost shoulder to shoulder behind an SUV as they conducted paint and other quality checks. That scene would not have been ... More »
(Reuters) – China’s Li Haotong says the disruption to the golf calendar due to the COVID-19 pandemic has made him love the sport even more and he has been using the enforced break to iron out the flaws in his game. The 24-year-old, who last year became the fir... More »
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore’s health ministry said on Tuesday it confirmed 451 more coronavirus cases, taking the city-state’s tally of infections to 28,794. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-singapore/singapores-health-ministry... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – The chariots of 1959 epic “Ben Hur” and the yellow brick road of 1939 fantasy “The Wizard of Oz” are back on the big screen in Japan as cinemas begin reopening from the coronavirus crisis with a slate heavy on Hollywood classics. James Dean s... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – Rowers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Britain whose training on the water has been restricted due to the novel coronavirus pandemic have been challenged to help their countries row to the moon. Or at least the distance from the ... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – The manager of South Korea’s popular boyband BTS has apologised on behalf of one of its members who went to a bar in April, contrary to government advice, just as the country is trying to contain a recent coronavirus outbreak around Seoul’s c... More »
MUMBAI (Reuters) – The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has said it is working on additional measures, including a new relief fund, to support lower-ranked professionals who have been left in the lurch due to coronavirus-led lockdowns. The professional te... More »
HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam is aiming for double-digit annual growth in the turnover of e-commerce over the next five years, forecasting that sales in the sector could be worth $35 billion by 2025 in the Southeast Asian country. More than half of Vietnam’s 96 mi... More »
(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co’s (DIS.N) top streaming executive, Kevin Mayer, will leave the entertainment and theme parks giant to become the chief executive officer of TikTok, the popular video app owned by China’s ByteDance Technology Co, the companies said on... More »
(Reuters) – Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc forecast second-quarter revenue above expectations on Monday, as businesses reopen in the world’s second-largest economy after strict lockdowns to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Baidu’s U.S.-listed shares ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – SoftBank Group Corp is in talks to sell “a significant portion” of its T-Mobile US stake to controlling shareholder Deutsche Telekom AG, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing unidentified sources. A deal would see Deutsche Teleko... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian police on Monday charged a German student with breaking into a Sydney museum as security footage showed him allegedly taking selfies next to dinosaur exhibits. New South Wales (NSW) Police said that Paul Kuhn broke into the Austra... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA on Friday set the stage for a global debate over the basic principles governing how humans will live and work on the moon, as it released the main tenets of an international pact for moon exploration called the Artemis Accords. The ... More »
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A new work by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao in support of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters shows the image of a lone man standing in the path of a tank taken on Tiananmen Square in 1989. But in Badiucao’s version of the photograph,... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The science of sewage surveillance could be deployed in countries across the world to help monitor the spread of national epidemics of COVID-19 while reducing the need for mass testing, scientists say. Experts in the field – known as wastewa... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday that the annual budget will invest to create more jobs and get the economy going, but warned the country was about to enter a “very tough winter”. The government is seen unlea... More »
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean authorities were combing through mobile phone data, credit card statements and CCTV footage on Tuesday to identify people who visited nightclubs at the centre of one of the capital’s biggest novel coronavirus clusters. More than ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Haruki Murakami, one of Japan’s most acclaimed novelists, will host a radio special to try to lift the nation’s spirits as a state of emergency over the novel coronavirus lingers. Murakami, whose breakout novel “Norwegian Wood” debuted in 198... More »
BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he opposed renegotiating the U.S.-China “Phase 1” trade deal after a Chinese state-run newspaper reported some government advisers in Beijing were urging fresh talks and possibly invalid... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s health authority said on Tuesday that the reappearance of local clusters of coronavirus cases in recent days suggests that counter-epidemic measures cannot be relaxed yet. While prevention and control efforts have normalised, that d... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) on Tuesday said it expects profit to drop 80% to its lowest in nine years, as Japan’s biggest automaker grapples with the impact of the novel coronavirus which has sapped global demand for vehicles. Global automaker... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday he was not considering tax cuts, including a reduction in the sales tax, for the time being as a way of easing the economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic. “Japan’s fiscal condition is in... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s government will offer a wide range of funding support for the country’s automobile industry, which is facing slumping output due to the coronavirus pandemic, top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday. He also told a regu... More »
KABUL (Reuters) – Gunmen attacked a hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday where the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders runs a maternity clinic, officials said. There was no immediate information about any casualties in ... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – China has suspended imports from four of Australia’s largest meat processors, Australia’s trade minister said on Tuesday, as the trade of several key agricultural commodities suffers in the wake of souring ties. The suspension comes after Au... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – China announced on Tuesday a new list of 79 U.S. products eligible for waivers from retaliatory tariffs imposed at the height of the bilateral trade war, amid continued pressure on Beijing to boost imports from the United States. China’s fi... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – At the Tokyo elder-care home where 27-year-old Yoshimu works, the coronavirus has stretched already tight staffing, leaving residents to sometimes sit longer in soiled diapers or to steal food from one another. “Everything’s slower. If feedin... More »
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday reported 10,899 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide total past that of Britain to 232,243, the third highest total worldwide. The country’s coronavirus response centre said the d... More »
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore’s health ministry said on Tuesday it had confirmed another 884 coronavirus cases, taking the city-state’s tally of infections to 24,671. Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-singapore/singapores-health-m... More »
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Smartphone shipments from China’s factories to vendors rose 17% in April compared to the same month a year ago, according to government data released on Tuesday. The numbers suggest an early domestic rebound for smartphone makers such as A... More »
SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares tumbled on Tuesday on growing worries about a second wave of coronavirus infections after the Chinese city where the pandemic originated reported its first new cases since its lockdown was lifted. European markets were... More »
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thailand on Tuesday reported two new coronavirus cases and no new deaths, bringing the total to 3,017 cases and 56 deaths since the outbreak started in January. The two new cases are a 19-year-old woman from Bangkok and a 51-year-old woman ... More »
(Reuters) – China’s Tencent Music Entertainment (TME.N) narrowly missed market estimates for quarterly revenue on Monday as the COVID-19 crisis hurt the company’s social entertainment services business, sending its shares down 4.5% in extended trade overnight.... More »
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Tim Hortons China said Tuesday it received an investment from Chinese tech giant Tencent, as the Canadian coffee brewer seeks to expand in the Chinese market. Tim Hortons said in a statement on its Weibo it will use the funds to upgrade d... More »
(Reuters) – A special committee of WeWork board members filed a motion in Delaware on Monday to prevent it from being disbanded, as it pursues legal action against majority owner SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) over an abandoned $3 billion tender offer for the of... More »
