TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan is drafting an economic growth measure taking climate action into account and aims to release a preliminary estimate by the end of March, economy minister Daishiro Yamagiwa said on Monday. Asked about so-called “Green GDP” in a parliament session, Yamagiwa also said, “The Cabinet Office has been working on it this fiscal year as a commissioned project, given trends in global society,” such as initiatives by the United Nations and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Christopher Cushing) Source link

By Lizbeth Diaz MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -A Mexican journalist was shot dead in the northern border city of Tijuana on Sunday, the state government said, becoming the second killed in the area within a week. Lourdes Mandonado, a journalist with decades of experience, was shot dead in her car in the Santa Fe neighborhood of Tijuana, the attorney general’s office of Baja California said in a statement. The killing came less than a week after officials reported that Mexican photojournalist Margarito Martinez, 49, died after being shot in the head outside his home in Tijuana. A source with knowledge of the case said Maldonado had been registered in the state’s protection program for journalists, ...

Crude oil prices, a major driver for Gulf economies, climbed to their highest since 2014 on Wednesday, driven by escalating global political tensions involving major producers including United Arab Emirates and Russia, which could worsen already tight supplies. That is bullish news for the six wealthy oil-exporting countries in the region. The Jan. 11-19 poll of 25 economists forecast all six economies in the Gulf Cooperation Council would grow faster this year than was expected three months ago. Saudi Arabia was predicted to top the list with growth of 5.7%, followed by Kuwait and UAE with 5.3% and 4.8% respectively. Economic growth in Qatar, Oman and Bahrain was expected to average ...

By Twinnie Siu and Farah Master HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong will take steps from Tuesday to cut the number of civil servants working in their offices, as it battles a spate of COVID-19 infections in the run-up to the busy Lunar New Year holiday. Daily cases hit an 18-month high of 140 on Sunday, as a weekend surge in infections linked to a congested public housing estate sent authorities in the Asian financial hub scrambling to rein in the virus. Some employees would “work from home as much as possible,” the government said in a statement on Monday, adding that individual departments might temporarily cut back on some public services as a result. Ahead of next week’s Lunar New Year ...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has agreed to buy Element Materials Technology for about $7 billion, as it sees an opportunity to boost growth at the testing and inspection services provider, two sources familiar with the matter said. Temasek, which acquired a significant minority stake in Element in 2019, is buying the company from London-listed buyout firm Bridgepoint Group and an announcement could be made as early as Monday, one of the sources said. The sources declined to be identified as details of the deal have not been made public. Temasek declined to comment, while there was no immediate response from Bridgepoint and Element Materials to a Reuters query sent ...

Amid growing diplomatic tensions with China, Australia’s two major political parties have used the social media platform, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, to communicate with Australian voters of Chinese ethnicity in tightly fought electorates since 2019. With a national election due by May, the government would have aimed to use the Morrison account to promote its policies during the Chinese New Year celebrations starting Feb. 1. The prime minister’s office has made multiple fruitless requests to WeChat to regain access to the account, most recently on Jan. 10, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. ...

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House is set to hold the second meeting of its Competition Council on Monday, federal agencies said on Sunday. Officials from two federal agencies told Reuters about the meeting and that their departments planned to attend. The White House did not confirm the meeting would take place but said President Joe Biden would meet on Monday “with members of his administration on efforts to lower prices for working families.” Biden signed in July a sweeping executive order to promote more competition in the U.S. economy, asking agencies to crack down on anti-competitive practices in sectors from agriculture to drugs and labor. That order ...

DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Gulf country on Monday with no casualties, its defence ministry said, following a deadly attack a week earlier. For more than six years, the Houthis have been battling a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE, repeatedly carrying out cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, launching an unprecedented assault on the UAE on Jan. 17. “The remnants of the intercepted ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was taking the necessary protective measures against all attacks. Monday’s attack was ...

The DEX has been touted as a “gasless Automated Market Maker (AMM)” whereby users can add new tokens and create new pairings as they do with Uniswap. There are no network fees, but users will pay a 0.3% swap fee for transactions, part of which will go to liquidity providers. The fixed set of pairs are temporary, the team explained, adding that to start with, the team will handle additional tokens. “This is not an effort to gatekeep, but rather to vet for malicious tokens until we have an automated system in place to do so.” Sonic, the first DEX to launch on the Internet Computer, is now live.@sonic_ooo offers a suite of DeFi products for the #InternetComputer blockchain, operating on a ...

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia recorded another surge of COVID-19 deaths on Monday as an outbreak of the highly contagious Omicron variant peaked, and authorities warned numbers could rise further when schools return from end-of-year holidays next week. The world No. 13 economy is trying to strike a balance between reopening after two years of movement restrictions and coping with the highest numbers of deaths and cases of the pandemic. Authorities say a rollout of a vaccine booster will reduce deaths, and point to a stabilisation in hospitalisation numbers as a sign the flare-up has reached its worst. The country on Monday reported 56 deaths, most of them in its three most populous ...

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shares of embattled China Evergrande Group jumped nearly 12% early on Monday after a report said the Guangdong provincial government is aiming to release a framework debt restructuring plan by March that could also wipe out the 60% stake of the group’s chairman. Financial intelligence provider REDD said on Friday the provincial government planned to separate the company’s offshore assets and sell them to pay off foreign debt. Evergrande is based in Guangdong. (Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Kim Coghill) Source link

TORONTO (Reuters) – A convoy of truckers started their march from Vancouver on Sunday to the Canadian capital city of Ottawa protesting the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for truckers, which the industry says would create driver shortages and fuel inflation. Truckers under the banner Freedom Convoy 2022 had raised C$2.7 million ($2.2 million) by Sunday through a gofundme campaign to fight the mandate. The funds raised would be used to help with the costs of fuel, food and lodgings, the gofundme page said. The convoy is expected to reach Ottawa on Jan. 29. The trucking industry is vital to ensure smooth flow of goods since more than two-thirds of the C$650 billion ($521 billion) ...