HONG KONG/SHANGHAI (Reuters) -China Evergrande Group needs to clear its debt by fully restoring construction and sales activities and not by selling off assets on the cheap, its chairman told an internal meeting, vowing to complete 50% of pre-sold homes this year. Hui Ka Yan told staff in a Sunday meeting that the firm aimed…
GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization insisted Wednesday that “COVID isn’t finished with us,” appealing for more support to fight the pandemic after his agency reported that case counts and deaths fell worldwide over the past week. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, launching a new $23 billion campaign to fund WHO’s efforts to…
By Sam Nussey TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp said on Wednesday there was no link between Alibaba registering a U.S. share facility and any specific plans to sell down its stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant. SoftBank’s shares jumped almost 6% in Tokyo, while Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares were up almost 7%. “The…
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly rose Thursday as investors tried to gauge U.S. inflation, tensions between Russia and Ukraine and the impact of the pandemic. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.4% to 27,680.91. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.1% to 7,275.70. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.1% to 2,771.88. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged down 0.1%…
By Bart H. Meijer AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -ABN Amro shares fell 4% on Wednesday morning, even though the Dutch bank reported higher-than-expected net profit for the fourth quarter and announced a 500 million euro ($570 million) share buyback. Net profit jumped to 552 million euros in the final three months of 2021 from 54 million euros…
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden has halted wide-scale testing for COVID-19 even among people showing symptoms of an infection, putting an end to the mobile city-square tent sites, drive-in swab centers and home-delivered tests that became ubiquitous during the pandemic and provided essential data for tracking its spread. The move puts the Scandinavian nation at odds…
By Florence Tan SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices slipped for a third session on Wednesday on profit taking due to concerns of a possible rise in supplies from Iran despite industry data showing a surprised drop in U.S. oil inventories. Brent crude futures edged down 8 cents, or 0.1%, to $90.70 a barrel by 0825…
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Smurfit Kappa expects to increase prices further this year to recover high costs after a mix of price hikes and bumper demand delivered record earnings amid “significant and unprecedented cost inflation” in 2021. Europe’s largest paper packaging producer predicted last July that inflation was here to stay and said on Wednesday that…
ADIIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — In the trenches of eastern Ukraine, across the lines from some of the 100,000 Russian troops amassed north and east of the country, Ivan Skuratovskyi’s calm verges on numbness — even after a sniper’s bullet recently killed one of the 50 or so men under his command. It is the sort…
TOKYO (AP) — Honda’s profit dropped 32% in the last quarter as rising material costs and a shortage of computer chips hurt the Japanese automaker. Honda Motor Co.’s profit for the three months through December totaled 192.9 billion yen ($1.7 billion), down from 284 billion yen the year before, the Tokyo-based company said Wednesday. Quarterly…
