SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia does not know why Chinese authorities have detained Australian citizen and television anchor Cheng Lei, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said on Tuesday, adding to the mystery why the journalist has been taken into custody. The Aust... More »
(Reuters) – Angelique Kerber has not won a title since 2018 but the former world number one is hoping better days lie ahead after rehiring compatriot Torben Beltz as her coach and restoring a partnership that helped the German win two of her three Grand Slam t... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s trade minister, Simon Birmingham, said Canberra didn’t know why Chinese authorities had detained Australian citizen Cheng Lei, as he warned that the risks for Australian businesses engaged with China had changed. The Australian g... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Facebook Inc (FB.O) on Tuesday said it would stop Australians sharing news content on its platforms if a proposal to make it pay local media outlets for their content becomes law, escalating tension with the Australian government. Under Aust... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Facebook Inc (FB.O) said it will block news sharing on its platforms in Australia if the government goes ahead with a law to force it, and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google, to pay local media outlets for featuring their content on its platfor... More »
NEW YORK(Reuters) – Highlights of the first day at the U.S. Open on Monday (times ET- GMT-4). The Grand Slam, the second this year after Wimbledon was cancelled and the French Open was postponed, is being played without spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic:... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s second-most populous state Victoria, the epicentre for COVID-19 infections in the country, on Tuesday reported its lowest rise in virus-related deaths in two weeks as a second-wave outbreak eases. Victoria said five people died f... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The gunman who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand’s worst mass shooting faces a life prison term, possibly without parole, with multi-day sentencing hearings taking place this week. Brenton Tarrant, an Australian, has pleaded gu... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s prime minister postponed the country’s general election on Monday by a month to Oct. 17 as the city of Auckland remains in lockdown due to a growing coronavirus outbreak. Jacinda Ardern bowed to pressure to delay the polls ... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Asian shares crept back toward recent peaks on Monday as Chinese markets swung higher, while investors waited to see if the recent sell-off in longer-dated U.S. Treasuries would extend and maybe take some pressure off the beleaguered dollar.... More »
1/WALL STREET WATCHES WASHINGTON U.S. lawmakers negotiating a fresh dose of stimulus have reached an impasse. Trillions of dollars injected by the Federal Reserve and huge government spending increases have stemmed coronavirus-linked economic damage, fuelling ... More »
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The dollar slipped marginally and commodity currencies inched higher on Monday as investors were relieved by a delay in the review of the U.S.-China trade pact which left the deal intact. The moves in the Asia session were modest, as weak... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – The leader of Australia’s New South Wales state apologised on Monday for failing to stop people carrying the novel coronavirus from disembarking from a cruise ship in Sydney in March, triggering what was at the time Australia’s worst outbrea... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google on Monday said a proposed antitrust law in Australia forcing tech firms to pay for news that appears on their social media websites would adversely impact individual content creators and channel operators. Goo... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s Finance Minister Grant Robertson said on Monday that the new wage subsidy scheme is forecast to cost about NZ$510 million ($333.80 million) and cover 470,000 jobs. The scheme was announced last week after New Zealand locked... More »
(Reuters) – British Trade Secretary Liz Truss pledged to fight U.S tariffs on Scotch whisky, calling them “unacceptable and unfair” in an op-ed in the Telegraph on Sunday. “I will fight to consign these unfair tariffs to the bin of history”, she wrote (AIR.PA)... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks fell on Friday as data out of China, the euro zone and the United States put a lid on expectations for a sustained global rebound, with traders already worried about a delay in U.S. fiscal stimulus. A review of the U.S.-China trade ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have identified a chemical compound released by locusts that causes them to swarm, opening the door to possible new ways to prevent these insects from devouring crops vital to human sustenance as they have for millennia. Resea... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The dollar rose in early London trading on Monday, including versus the euro and Swiss franc, with investors focusing on fiscal stimulus in the United States and U.S.-China tensions ahead of key trade talks on August 15. After talks in Washi... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia recorded its biggest one-day rise in COVID-19 deaths on Monday although a slowdown in new cases gave hope that a second wave of new infections in the state of Victoria may have peaked. Nineteen people had died from the virus, all i... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian companies are likely to deliver smaller dividends in what is forecast to be the country’s worst earnings season in a decade because of the coronavirus pandemic, with even firms that benefited from the upheaval expected to show cau... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British broadcaster ITV will this year hold its reality TV show “I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here” in a ruined English castle in winter instead of the heat of the Australian jungle, as COVID-19 restrictions make global travel all but imp... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – As countries scramble to test for the novel coronavirus, a Chinese company has become a go-to name around the world. BGI Group, described in one 2015 study as “Goliath” in the fast-growing field of genomics research, is using an opening crea... More »
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – A potential shotgun wedding to Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) for TikTok’s U.S. operations provoked an outcry on Monday on Chinese social media as well as criticism from a prominent Chinese investor in TikTok owner ByteDance. The U.S. te... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks and the dollar rallied after a cautious European morning as thin summer trading led to sharp swings in the market, and worries about U.S. gridlock over the next round of coronavirus aid eased. In Europe, stocks were up 1.2% as t... More »
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s Sports Minister Grant Robertson has called allegations of psychological and physical abuse in gymnastics in the country “deeply concerning” and urged any athletes affected and their parents to come forward. New Zealand’s tw... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian scientists said on Wednesday they have given five fly species scientific names that pay tribute to the Marvel comic universe, including one named for wise-cracking anti-hero Deadpool and another after superhero creator Stan Lee. T... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Ardent Leisure Group Ltd (ALG.AX) entered a guilty plea in an Australian court on Wednesday to charges related to a fatal accident on a river rapids ride at its Queensland theme park in 2016, a company spokesman told Reuters. Prosecutors had... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s Victoria state on Monday reported the country’s highest daily increase in coronavirus infections, prompting the authorities to warn a six-week lockdown may last longer if people continue to go to work while feeling unwell. The se... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Gold soared to an all-time high on worsening ties between the United States and China, a sinking dollar and ultra-low interest rates on Monday, while stock markets faltered before a deluge of corporate earnings. Europe’s main stock markets w... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s competition regulator on Monday accused Alphabet’s Google of misleading consumers to get permission for use of their personal data for targeted advertising, seeking a fine “in the millions” and aiming to establish a precedent. Th... More »
SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – Huawei Technologies’ founder Ren Zhengfei’s global ambitions are marked in bricks and mortar at a new company campus in southern China, where the buildings are replicas from European cities. Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, the ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Stone tools unearthed in a cave in central Mexico and other evidence from 42 far-flung archeological sites indicate people arrived in North America – a milestone in human history – earlier than previously known, upwards of 30,000 years a... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia is scrutinising the popular Chinese-owned social media TikTok platform for any risks it may pose to users from around potential foreign interference and data privacy issues, government sources told Reuters. Owned by Bytedance, TikT... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The euro retreated after hitting a 19-week high of $1.1467 on Monday after EU summit chairman Charles Michel said a recovery fund to revive economies hit by the COVID-19 pandemic could contain 390 billion euros in grants. EU leaders have mad... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia faces an avalanche of business failures in its transport and hospitality sectors after government subsidies end in September, insolvency lawyers and economists say, while some argue that so-called ‘zombie’ firms should be allowed t... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Racing Point accused Formula One rivals Renault on Monday of making a “misconceived and poorly informed” protest against them at the Styrian Grand Prix and said they were confident of winning. Stewards said on Sunday that the protest was adm... More »
(Reuters) – The Badminton World Federation (BWF) are seeking more information from China about its decision to cancel all international sport in the country this year before they make a decision on the season-ending World Tour Finals. The World Tour Finals, sc... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will boost defence spending by nearly 40% over the next 10 years as Canberra shifts its military assets to focus on the Indo-Pacific region, Prime Minister Scott Morrison will say on Wednesday. In a speech that threatens to inflame... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – McLaren’s Formula One future was never in doubt despite a cash crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and now resolved by a fresh injection of funds, team principal Andreas Seidl said on Tuesday. The National Bank of Bahrain announced on... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A fresh batch of grim economic data kept the euro and the pound under pressure on Tuesday as sentiment faltered amid fears new COVID-19 hot spots across the world might jeopardise the swift recovery from the pandemic investors are hoping for... More »
(Reuters) – Nick Kyrgios and Boris Becker traded insults on social media on Tuesday following the Australian’s criticism of Alexander Zverev after a video appeared to show the German dancing in a crowded club despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The video was posted... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A powerfully built relative of modern wombats that was the size of a black bear roamed Australia’s woodlands about 25 million years ago, possessing shovel-shaped hands and strong forelimbs indicating it was an adept digger, scientists sa... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Famed for snapping up glitzy real estate and stakes in troubled international banks during the global financial crisis, sovereign wealth funds are investing more at home, a trend set to accelerate in the wake of the economic carnage wrought ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks reversed earlier losses and the dollar slid on Monday as investors shrugged off worries that rising coronavirus infections in parts of Europe and the United States over the weekend could scupper a quick economic rebound. Torn be... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A former High Court of Australia judge was found to have sexually harassed six female staff, the court said on Monday, one of the country’s most powerful figures to face such recriminations amid a global reset in workplace gender relations. ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan is withdrawing its bid to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Kyodo news agency quoted a source as saying on Monday, just days before football’s world governing body holds a vote to determine the successful candidate. The Japanese bid is o... More »
SOFIA (Reuters) – CSKA Sofia’s Australian striker Tomi Juric has tested positive for COVID-19, the 31-times Bulgarian champions said in a statement late on Sunday. The 28-year-old forward, who has played 41 times for his country, has been isolated. Other CSKA ... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian officials tried to contain a fresh outbreak of the novel coronavirus on Monday, telling residents in the cluster hotspots to avoid travel outside their suburbs in Melbourne, the country’s second-largest city. Victoria state of whi... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Incoming Wallabies coach Dave Rennie is cautious about scrapping Australia’s ‘Giteau Law’, which limits selection of overseas-based players to those with 60 test caps or more, fearing it may lead to an exodus of talent and harm the domest... More »
FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will take a stake in unlisted biotech firm CureVac, which is working on a COVID-19 vaccine, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Monday, confirming an earlier Reuters report. The Berlin government will acquire a 23% stak... 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 »
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 »
(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 »
(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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
(Reuters) – Former-world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson continued to tease boxing fans about a possible return to the ring by posting another training video on Instagram on Monday that ended with the message, “I’m back”. The 53-year-old caught the attention o... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will ease social distancing restrictions in a three-step process, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday, as Canberra aims to remove most curbs by July and get nearly 1 million people back to work amid a decline in coronaviru... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Hydrogen has long been touted as a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Now, as major economies prepare green investments to kickstart growth, advocates spy a golden chance to drag the niche energy into the mainstream of a post-pandemic world.... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – BP Plc has won Australian government backing for a feasibility study into producing hydrogen using wind and solar power to split water and converting the hydrogen to ammonia in Western Australia. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency sai... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – New Zealand and Australia could soon open their borders to each other, creating what they call a “Trans-Tasman bubble” as they look to restart their economies after getting their novel coronavirus outbreaks under control. New Zealand Prime M... More »
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand and Australia are discussing the potential creation of a “travel bubble” between the two countries, even as Australia on Monday reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in two weeks. New Zealand Prime Minister ... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – Swimming’s world governing body FINA rescheduled the 2021 Fukuoka aquatics world championships to May 2022 on Monday to avoid a clash with the postponed Tokyo Olympics. The new dates for the swimming event in the Japanese city are May 13-29, ... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – The Australian government on Monday set aside A$300 million ($191 million) to jumpstart hydrogen projects with the help of low-cost financing as the country aims to build the industry by 2030, the country’s energy minister said on Monday.... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Nearly two million Australians rushed to download an app designed to help medical workers and state governments trace close contacts of COVID-19 patients, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating soared on his pandemic response. Au... More »
SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares bounced on Monday as the Bank of Japan (BOJ) announced more stimulus steps to help cushion the economic impact of the coronavirus, but the recent weak run in the global oil price showed no signs of ending. MSCI’s broad... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – The yen edged higher on Monday after the Bank of Japan expanded stimulus to help companies hit by the coronavirus crisis while the pound rose against the dollar and euro on optimism Britain may soon ease a month-long lockdown. The BOJ’s decis... More »
(Reuters) – Rafa Nadal has said he is very pessimistic about the possibility of tennis returning to normal any time soon because of the new coronavirus pandemic that shut down the sport last month. Professional tennis has been suspended until the end of July, ... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – The Australian government launched a controversial coronavirus tracing app on Sunday and promised to legislate privacy protections around it as authorities try to get the country and the economy back onto more normal footing. Australia an... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Tom Hanks has sent a letter and a Corona brand typewriter to an Australian boy who wrote to him about being bullied over his name, Corona, Australian television networks reported on Thursday. Corona De Vries, an eight-year-old from the Go... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd (VAH.AX) on Tuesday succumbed to third-party led restructuring that could lead to a sale, making Australia’s second-biggest airline the Asia-Pacific region’s biggest victim of the coronavirus crisis gripping the... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will suffer its biggest economic contraction since the 1930s in the first half of this year due to containment measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, its central bank governor said on Tuesday. Describing the contraction as... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Indigenous elders from Alaska to Australia have come together to deliver some tough love in a new film for Earth Day: the human race will only survive if we start putting our minds at the service of our hearts. Produced by Academy and Emmy a... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian life model Leigh Pitchford casually poses with a towel partly draped over his naked body, ready to be sketched by a group of art students in Sydney. Except, the class is empty, save for an art teacher and videographer. In an era o... More »
TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Global equities weakened on Monday as investors braced for more indications of economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic while oil prices rose in choppy trade following a landmark deal by OPEC and its allies to cut output. U.S. ... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have figured out how to calculate the age of whale sharks – Earth’s largest fish – with some guidance from the radioactive fallout spawned by Cold War-era atomic bomb testing. By measuring levels of carbon-14, a naturally occu... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Investor morale in the euro zone fell to an all-time low in April and the bloc’s economy is in deep recession due to the coronavirus, which is “holding the world economy in a stranglehold”, a survey showed on Monday. Sentix’s index for the e... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A powerful tropical cyclone made landfall on the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Monday, witnesses said, levelling buildings in a country already in a state of emergency due to concerns about the coronavirus. Cyclone Harold approac... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Stocks jumped on Monday as investors were encouraged by a slowdown in coronavirus-related deaths and new cases, while oil prices skidded after Saudi-Russian negotiations to cut output were delayed, keeping oversupply concerns alive. Equity i... More »
MELBOURNE/SYDNEY (Reuters) – Carnival Corp’s (CCL.N) troubled Ruby Princess cruise liner, the biggest single source of coronavirus infections in Australia, docked south of Sydney on Monday to get help for sick crew members requiring urgent medical treatment. T... More »
(Reuters) – Australian triathlete Mirinda Carfrae was cruising along in second place in a virtual bike race when she unexpectedly lost her way. The former world champion, competing from her home in Boulder, Colorado, was suddenly left facing a blank screen dur... More »
(Reuters) – Google on Thursday published reports for 131 countries showing whether visits to shops, parks and workplaces dropped in March, when many governments issued stay-at-home orders to rein in the spread of COVID-19. Here is a list of countries in alphab... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) President John Coates said on Friday he has taken a 20% cut to his “consulting fees” due to the coronavirus crisis. Coates’s fees were A$594,000 ($360,000) for 2020 but he said he would take only A$475,6... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL) has denied the struggling Illawarra Hawks club have been sold to teenage NBA prospect LaMelo Ball after the player’s manager said it was a “done deal”. Ball, seen as a potential number one pick... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have solved a longstanding mystery over the age of a landmark skull found in 1921 in Zambia – the first fossil of an extinct human species discovered in Africa – in research with big implications for deciphering the origin of ... More »
SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares slid on Monday as fears mounted that the global coronavirus shutdown could last for months although markets regained some lost ground late in the session with Australia posting a standout jump. U.S. and European future... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has said its decision to pull out of the 2020 Tokyo Games was unilateral and made without the knowledge of Canada or the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The AOC said last Monday it could not a... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson returned to Los Angeles on Friday after spending more than two weeks in quarantine in Australia after testing positive for the coronavirus. The “Forrest Gump” and “Toy Story” actor and Wilson were phot... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A worm-like creature smaller than a grain of rice that burrowed on the sea floor in search of meals like dead organic matter about 555 million years ago may be the evolutionary forerunner of most animals living today – including people. ... More »
ATHENS (Reuters) – The International Olympic Committee is stepping up its “scenario planning” for the Tokyo 2020 Games — including a possible postponement — as the coronavirus pandemic spreads, it said after an emergency meeting on Sunday. The IOC will hold di... More »
(Reuters) – Britain’s Olympic gold medal track cyclist Callum Skinner has attacked International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach’s decision to wait up to a month to make a decision on the 2020 Tokyo Games. “IOC President Thomas Bach’s stubbornness and ... More »
(Reuters) – Canada and Australia said they would not be sending athletes to the Tokyo Olympics if the Games went ahead as scheduled in July and August this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Here is a list of previous cancellations, boycotts and changes... More »
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Sydney Kings center Andrew Bogut has slammed Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL) for its handling of the coronavirus situation, saying the administration had failed to be proactive and had left players feeling like “pawns”. The N... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Inside the stout fins of a fish that prowled the shallow waters of an estuary in what is now eastern Canada about 380 million years ago, scientists have found what they call the evolutionary origins of the human hand. The researchers exa... More »
SYDNEY/CHICAGO (Reuters) – Airlines around the world said they would make more drastic cuts to their flying schedules, shed jobs and seek government aid after countries further tightened border restrictions because of the fast spreading coronavirus. The owner ... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia is considering a second round of economic stimulus, three sources familiar with the deliberations told Reuters, as Canberra accelerated efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus that has now killed five people in the country... More »
