By Uditha Jayasinghe COLOMBO (Reuters) – A year after angry Sri Lankans stormed the president’s residence and forced his ouster during a meltdown of the economy, the island’s streets are calm, there are no serpentine queues at fuel stations and hours-long power cuts have ended. The central bank expects the economy to resume growth this…
By Joan Faus BARCELONA (Reuters) – The European Union’s General Court on Wednesday stripped the leader of Catalonia’s failed bid for independence from the legal immunity he had as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) as he faces legal procedures in Spain. The decision is a blow for Carles Puigdemont, who lives in self-imposed…
By Sofia Menchu GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) -International election observers will return to Guatemala to monitor a court-ordered review of ballots from the nationwide vote late last month, the Organization of American States (OAS) said on Monday, as tension over the review’s fairness mount. The Washington-based OAS took the unusual step of swiftly returning its observer…
By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks’ tendency to move in sync has plunged to near-record lows, but what might seem like a stock picker’s dream may actually be a mirage, and investors may be in for a rude awakening. S&P 500 correlation – a gauge of herd behavior, which measures how…
By Gloria Dickie Monday, July 3, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F) as heatwaves sizzled around the world. The southern U.S. has been suffering under…
(Reuters) – Fireworks being prepared for a Fourth of July spectacular ignited in a Texas warehouse on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring four and destroying the building where they were stored, officials said. The accident happened near the town of Gilmer in preparation for Independence Day fireworks in nearby Kilgore, both in rural Upshur…
By Kanishka Singh and Raphael Satter (Reuters) -Ten people were killed and 38 wounded in mass shootings in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Fort Worth ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, officials said, prompting a fresh call from President Joe Biden to pass gun control legislation. In Fort Worth, three people were killed and eight wounded…
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Leading Taiwan presidential candidate William Lai wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that he could keep the peace with China if elected, reiterating his willingness for talks without preconditions and a pledge to boost defences. Lai, Taiwan’s vice president and the candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has…
By Dan Peleschuk KYIV (Reuters) -A Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian forces has been “particularly fruitful” in the past few days and Ukraine’s troops are fulfilling their main tasks, a senior security official said on Tuesday. The comments by Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, were Kyiv’s latest positive assessment of the…
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Tuesday that there were “certain contacts” with the United States over the case of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, but that it did not want to make them public. The Kremlin made the remark a day after U.S. ambassador Lynne Tracy was allowed to visit Gershkovich in…