Ukraine's deteriorating position

Plus, Chinese firms 'go underground' on Russian payments.

Sign up for Reuters newsletters Daily Briefing Senior US officials are in the Middle East seeking to ease the Gaza war with a diplomatic push, Ukraine pulls back on the eastern front, and China firms go 'underground' on Russia payments.   Plus, here's what polling can and can't tell you.   By Kate Turton Today's Top News Blinken attends a Joint Ministerial Meeting of the GCC-US Strategic Partnership. Saudi Arabia, April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool MIDDLE EAST French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said talks on a ceasefire in Gaza were progressing as he joined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Saudi Arabia on a diplomatic push to ease the war between Israel and Hamas. As international pressure on Israel to stop the fighting in Gaza grows, James Mackenzie speaks to the Reuters World News podcast about the latest developments on ceasefire talks and Israel's plans for an all-out assault on Rafah. IN OTHER NEWS Ukraine's top commander said Kyiv's outnumbered troops had fallen back to new positions west of three villages on the eastern front where Russia has concentrated significant forces in several locations.  Ukraine said the Telegram messaging app had restored access to a number of chatbots used by Ukraine's security agencies to collect information about Russia's war effort after the services were briefly suspended. Scotland's first minister Humza Yousaf has resigned. The crisis in his Scottish National Party opens the door to the opposition Labour Party regaining ground in its former Scottish heartlands before a national election. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he had decided to continue in office, days after abruptly announcing he was considering his future following the launch of a corruption investigation against his wife. At least 42 people have been killed in floods in central Kenya's Mai Mahiu area and police warned the number of deaths could rise after a dam burst, Citizen Television reported. Business & Markets As China's big banks pull back from financing Russia-related transactions, some Chinese companies are turning to small banks on the border and underground financing channels such as money brokers - even banned cryptocurrency - sources told Reuters. Tesla has cleared some key regulatory hurdles that have long hindered it from rolling out its self-driving software in China, paving the way for a favorable result from Elon Musk's surprise visit. What is Tesla's Full Self-Driving and why its China rollout matters. The yen jumped suddenly against the dollar on Monday, with traders citing yen-buying intervention by Japanese authorities to try to underpin a currency languishing at levels last seen over three decades ago. Financial Industry and Financial Markets Editor Paritosh Bansal writes about how a bond market anomaly that has reliably predicted a US recession in the past may normalize this year in a highly unusual manner. It's a worry for markets. Financial details of Shell's vast oil and gas trading business are some of the company's closest-held secrets. Documents in a lawsuit filed by a former employee, however, revealed its US crude trading regularly earns around $1 billion every year. Philip Morris International's goals for heated tobacco in the US are reachable, analysts and investors say, even though rivals see limited potential in a market where vaping dominates. 'Making predictions is hard, especially about the future' On Nov. 5, election officials across America will count more than 150 million ballots to answer a burning political question: Who will be president of the United States? Until then, the best signals we can get will mostly come from public opinion polls, which will be the fuel of endless debate on who has the lead, Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Donald Trump. But what do polls really tell us? Like a picture from a weather satellite, a poll can be pretty good at telling you what people think right now. It's much harder to tell what people will be doing weeks or months from now. See our interactive graphic. And Finally... The far side of the moon is shown in this image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from 2010. REUTERS/NASA/Goddard/Handout China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on a round trip to the moon's far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole. Read more about the high-stakes mission to the moon's 'hidden' side. Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters.com Reuters Daily Briefing is sent 5 days a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here.   Want to stop receiving this email? Unsubscribe here. To manage which newsletters you're signed up for, click here. Reuters Terms & Conditions and Privacy Statement © 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. 3 Times Square, New York, NY 10036

Dr Mark Adabraka

I am Mark Adabraka and work for Republic of Ghana Department of Mineral Resources as Project Implementation Director. And I am also a member debt/contract evaluation committee.The mandate of the committee of which I sat as a member was charged with inspection, evaluation and recommendation where necessary, contract jobs executed by contractors both local and foreign and to approve as well recommend to the appropriate payment office of government to pay contractors or otherwise.
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Dr. Mark Adabraka

Pro-Palestinian campus protests spread

And Trump appears to get some immunity support

Sign up for Reuters newsletters Weekend Briefing From Reuters Daily Briefing By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor Thanks for reading the Weekend Briefing. We have an excellent story out today on solar panels and how the renewable-energy boom puts some of the most valuable U.S. agricultural soil at risk. Reporter PJ Huffstutter joins our World News podcast to talk about solar's expansion into America's farming heartland. Students protest on Columbia University campus, New York City. REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs Faculty panel rebukes Columbia leadership for police crackdown on protesters What's going on: While Columbia University in Manhattan remains the epicenter of the student movement protesting Israel's war in Gaza, campus demonstrations have spread across the United States, including to the University of Southern California, which canceled its main graduation ceremony. Read our "explainer" about the origins of the protests. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the protests were a hallmark of American democracy, while criticizing demonstrator silence on Hamas. Middle East latest: An Egyptian delegation met Israeli counterparts to seek a way to restart talks to end the Gaza war and release Israeli hostages, the U.N. closed one case and suspended three more in its investigation of reports that UNRWA staff took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said any decisions the World Court makes will not stop its Gaza assault. Trump election-subversion case bogs down Delay of play: Donald Trump got another break when the Supreme Court signaled some support for his immunity claim, even as more of his allies faced prosecution for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss. And former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified at Trump's hush-money trial that he suppressed a story about an alleged affair to help the former president's 2016 White House bid, even though it would have boosted newspaper sales. I also recommend this story on Trump's testing of the limits of the old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Pennsylvania post-mortem: Voting in the battleground state highlighted weaknesses for President Biden and Trump in their White House bids. Biden struggled with voter turnout and the Palestinian protest movement, and plenty of Republicans threw their support behind former presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. The state represents 19 Electoral College votes toward the 270 needed to win, and is a toss-up between the two candidates. Oil, chemical-industry lobbyists have thoughts on plastics pollution Showing up: Nearly 200 fossil-fuel and chemical-industry lobbyists joined U.N. talks in Ottawa on the first global treaty to curb plastic pollution. Negotiators need to get agreement on a final draft by the end of the year, and as you might expect, some of these groups oppose strict production caps and product phase-outs. Copper and gold: Google's parent Alphabet announced its first stock dividend and Microsoft added about $54 billion to its market value after both companies reported quarterly results showing the results of their investments in artificial intelligence. For investors who prefer more tangible assets, mining company Anglo American rejected a $39 billion offer from BHP as undervalued. A takeover would create the world's largest miner of copper, a metal central to the clean-energy shift. Narendra Modi and the Muslim 'infiltrators' What did he say? The Indian prime minister in a speech last weekend said the rival Congress Party could confiscate and redistribute Indian wealth to "infiltrators" who have "more children." The comments refer to Muslims, India's largest religious minority. The BJP and its affiliates often criticize Muslims for high birth rates and invoke fears that its population could overtake that of the majority Hindus. Talk about a big job: As India's massive election continues and the rhetorical heat rises, groups like this one in Bengaluru are monitoring the spread of misinformation in coordination with the country's election commission. Before I forget…   King Charles will return to public duties for the first time since he was diagnosed with cancer. He is making progress following treatment and recuperation, Buckingham Palace said.   Portugal was responsible for crimes committed during transatlantic slavery and the colonial era, its president said, suggesting there was a need for reparations. This comes after Haiti demanded reparations from France and support grows among African and Caribbean nations for a tribunal on slavery atrocities.   The UK's plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is official. That nation's president said it would take as many migrants as Britain sends and urged "shouting" critics to let the plan proceed.   Wall Street banks and brokerages often publish notes by equity analysts about publicly traded companies. Why are they staying away from the Trump Media & Technology Group?   Don't look now*: Venice's new tourist fee was meant to keep the storied city's most picturesque districts from being overrun, but some locals say they don't like it. (My cousin paid the fee, then some seagulls stole his pistachio cannoli. He didn't have to pay extra for that privilege.)   If you read only one snooker story in your life, make it this one about the fabled Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, which an Iranian player said "smells really bad."   * Julie Christie, are you reading this? Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters.com Weekend Briefing is sent once a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here. Want to stop receiving this newsletter? Unsubscribe here. To manage which newsletters you're signed up for, click here. Reuters Terms & Conditions and Privacy Statement © 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. 3 Times Square, New York, NY 10036