Town Hall News

By Julie Zhu, Yew Lun Tian and Engen Tham HONG KONG/BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – As unprecedented protests against China’s zero-COVID policies escalated in November, Li Qiang, the man recently elevated to No.2 on the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, seized the moment. Top Chinese officials and medical experts had been quietly formulating plans over the preceding weeks to dismantle President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID strategy and gradually reopen the country towards […]

(Reuters) -Sweden’s Ericsson will pay a $206 million fine and plead guilty after violating a 2019 deal with U.S. prosecutors that required the telecoms firm to properly disclose information on its activities in Iraq, China and Djibouti. The plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department follows a scandal over possible payments made to the Islamic State militant group through its activities in Iraq. The Justice Department said in a statement […]

(Reuters) – Vietnamese electric vehicle maker VinFast delivered its first 45 cars to customers in California on Wednesday, its first sales outside Vietnam. The company, a subsidiary of conglomerate Vingroup JSC, had shipped 999 vehicles to California in November but faced more than two months of costly delays in preparing them for delivery. Last week, the company slashed the lease price on the VF8 electric crossover by 50%. VinFast faced […]

By Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson (Reuters) -The Biden administration on Thursday added 37 companies to a trade blacklist, including units of Chinese genetics company BGI and Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur, in a move that promises to further ratchet up tensions with Beijing. The Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, added BGI Research and BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong), over allegations that the units pose a “significant risk” to contributing […]

By Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang HONG KONG (Reuters) -About 170 people were evacuated from a Hong Kong shopping area after a fire broke out in a skyscraper late on Thursday night, the government said. Firefighters battled the blaze at a redevelopment project in the Tsim Sha Tsui district throughout the early hours of Friday, the flames visible from the other side of Victoria Harbour. Several upper floors of the […]

By Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang HONG KONG (Reuters) -About 170 people were evacuated from a Hong Kong shopping area after a fire broke out in a skyscraper late on Thursday night, the government said. Firefighters battled the blaze at a redevelopment project in the Tsim Sha Tsui district throughout the early hours of Friday, the flames visible from the other side of Victoria Harbour. Several upper floors of the […]

By Julie Zhu HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares rose on Friday after Wall Street reversed losses on signals of a measured policy tightening approach from the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as on prospects of a solid economic recovery in China. Global markets have been buffeted by a raft of strong U.S. data over recent weeks, including U.S. jobless claims overnight, that suggested the Fed will need to raise […]

By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) – The United States and South Korea will conduct more than ten days of large-scale military drills in March, including amphibious landings, officials from the two countries said on Friday. The exercises, dubbed “Freedom Shield”, will be held from March 13-23 to strengthen the allies’ combined defensive posture, the two militaries said in a statement released at a briefing in Seoul. “Freedom Shield is designed […]

By Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson (Reuters) -The Biden administration on Thursday added 37 companies to a trade blacklist, including units of Chinese genetics company BGI and Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur, in a move that promises to further ratchet up tensions with Beijing. The Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, added BGI Research and BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong), over allegations that the units pose a “significant risk” to contributing […]