By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel said on Friday that a Republican plan to cut the agency’s annual budget would reduce its ability to ramp up tax collections on millionaires like it has done in recent months. Republicans on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee have proposed…
By Tom Balmforth KYIV (Reuters) – He wears a pistol to interviews with foreign journalists and discusses wartime intelligence. Weapons and military gear are strewn on the floor of his Kyiv office. He says he has “sources” close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. For an intelligence chief running Ukraine’s spy operations during war with Russia,…
CAIRO (Reuters) -Sudan’s warring factions fought heavy clashes in parts of the city of Bahri on Friday, residents said, a day after both sides welcomed a new mediation effort that seeks to end a three-month war. The fighting that broke out on April 15 has driven civilians out of the wider capital region – consisting…
NAIROBI (Reuters) – A Kenyan court on Friday sentenced a former top Venezuelan diplomat to 20 years in jail over the 2012 murder of the Latin American nation’s acting ambassador at her home in an upmarket Nairobi neighbourhood. Dwight Sagaray, who was the first secretary at the embassy, was convicted, along with three Kenyan nationals,…
BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil is to launch a debt renegotiation program for millions of lower-income individuals using state guarantees in September, fulfilling a campaign promise of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. About 71.9 million people in Latin America’s largest economy have been blacklisted, according to credit bureau Serasa, after families’ budgets were strained by…
By Kate Lamb and Stanley Widianto JAKARTA (Reuters) – Russia shows no sign of changing direction in its war on Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday, as foreign ministers from two dozen countries met in Indonesia’s capital for Southeast Asia’s annual security-focused gathering. Top diplomats from China, the United States and…
(Refiles to replace ‘attorney generals’ with ‘attorneys general’ throughout) By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) -A group of Republican U.S. state attorneys general on Thursday warned the country’s largest companies that certain workforce diversity policies could be illegal in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision effectively striking down affirmative action in higher education. The 13 officials…
By Chayut Setboonsarng and Panarat Thepgumpanat BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand’s Move Forward party filed a motion in parliament on Friday seeking to curb the power of the military-appointed Senate, a day after the body thwarted its party leader’s bid to become prime minister. The role of the 249-member Senate in deciding a prime minister along with…
PRAGUE (Reuters) – The Czech parliament’s lower house gave initial backing on Friday to the centre-right government’s package of spending cuts and tax hikes aimed at cutting the budget deficit in the next two years. The country’s public sector deficit has soared in recent years amid spending during the coronavirus pandemic, subsidies to shield the…
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s trade deficit grew to $8.97 billion in the first five months of the year compared with a deficit of about $1 billion posted in the same period a year ago, the statistics service said on Friday. It said in a statement that exports of goods were $16.45 billion from January to…
