AFP
20199 articles published since 08 Mar 2022
20199 articles published since 08 Mar 2022
The Lo Wu arrival hall on Hong Kong's border used to throng with visitors during mainland China's "Golden Week", but as the five-day tourism bonanza kicked off on Wednesday, the queues there were modest.
British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline on Wednesday said its net profit fell 23 percent in the first quarter as the company faced higher exceptional costs compared with a year earlier. Following the update, the group's share price edged up 0.1 percent in early trading on London's top-tier FTSE 100 index, as the group also upgraded its full-year outlook for sales.
The US Federal Reserve is expected to hold interest rates steady for a sixth straight meeting Wednesday, with a summer start to cuts looking less likely owing to stubborn inflation. Analysts broadly expect an announcement on runoff to come this week or at the next interest rate meeting in June. bys/sst/dan
Foreign tourists are flocking to Japan in record numbers and thanks to a sliding yen many are living like kings, splashing out on everything from kimonos to knives and slap-up meals. "Thanks to the weak yen, foreign customers are buying a lot of handmade knives, even as prices rise," said Yuki Suzuki, 21, who works in a shop selling knives, another tourist favourite.
When Nepal suddenly announced a ban on TikTok last year, lawyer Sunil Rajan Singh was determined to fight what he said was a government effort to hide its wrongdoings. Others like Singh are determined to fight.
Asian stocks sank in holiday-thinned trade Wednesday, tracking a sharp sell-off on Wall Street after fresh US data dealt another blow to hopes the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year. That provided another hammer blow to hopes the Fed will cut rates this year, with bets already reduced to just one by January -- compared with an expected six at the start of 2024.
Starbucks reported lower profits on falling sales on Tuesday as the coffee giant pointed to weakening consumer sentiment and lackluster conditions in China as factors behind an earnings miss. Starbucks has taken note of a large number of cases where consumers begin digital orders and do not follow through with a transaction.
E-commerce titan Amazon on Tuesday said profit in the first three months of 2024 tripled as its cloud, ads, and retail businesses thrived. The embrace of AI has boosted sales of its key cloud services, such as Azure, a rival of AWS. Like most tech titans, Amazon faces increased regulatory scrutiny.
The oil industry's public relations strategy has evolved from climate science denial to "disinformation and doublespeak" to counter meaningful environmental policies, US congressional Democrats said in a report Tuesday.
AFP
Load more