Two environmental groups said Thursday they were suing the Norwegian state for violating the country's human rights commitments and constitution by planning new oil and gas projects worth nearly $19 billion.. They also claim the state is violating its obligation to take children's best interests into account, which they say is a violation of both Norway's constitution and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Vietnam's economic growth slowed in the first half of the year as a slump in demand hit exports, authorities said Thursday.. The country earned more than $164 billion from exports in the first half, down 12 percent on-year.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has softened her once strident anti-EU views but the ratification of a reform to the eurozone's bailout fund has left her in a quandary.. Her main coalition partner, Matteo Salvini of the anti-immigration League party, is more overtly critical of the EU and is particularly opposed to the eurozone bailout fund.
French billionaire and luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault is in China this week, social media posts showed, the latest visit by a foreign executive keen to reconnect to the world's second-largest economy.. The world's second-richest man after Elon Musk and chairman of LVMH group, Arnault was seen in Beijing visiting the upscale SKP mall and the Sanlitun Taikoo Li shopping centre Tuesday, posts widely circulated on Weibo showed.
Sri Lanka's central bank on Thursday unveiled its domestic debt restructuring plan, envisaging a 30 percent haircut on dollar-denominated bonds, including international sovereign bonds.. The treatment of dollar-denominated Sri Lanka Development Bonds (SLDB) will be "comparable to external creditors", the bank said in a statement.
Most markets rose in Asia on Thursday, building on the previous day's advances, even after central bank chiefs warned that interest rates would rise further to counter persistent inflation.. His comments came after European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde said eurozone borrowing costs would continue to rise.
Virgin Galactic is set Thursday to finally begin commercial spaceflights, a major milestone for the company founded in 2004 by British billionaire Richard Branson.. But the company subsequently faced setbacks, including a brief grounding by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which found the Branson flight deviated from its assigned airspace and Virgin Galactic did not communicate the "mishap" as required.
Hollywood's summer of discontent could dramatically escalate this weekend, with actors ready to join writers in a massive "double strike" that would bring nearly all US film and television productions to a halt.. While the writers' strike has already dramatically reduced the number of movies and shows in production, an actors' walkout would shutter almost everything.
Geoffrey Hinton, one of the so-called "godfathers" of artificial intelligence, urged governments on Wednesday to step in and make sure that machines do not take control of society.. "The wealth isn't going to go to the people doing the work, it is going to go into making the rich richer and not the poorer and that's a very bad society," he added.
Drinks giant Diageo on Wednesday said it had ended its relationship with Sean "Diddy" Combs after the US rapper accused it of neglecting their business agreement and racism.. On Wednesday, a Diageo spokesperson said: "Mr Combs' bad-faith actions have clearly breached his contracts and left us no choice but to move to dismiss his baseless complaint and end our business relationship.
