2025-12-02 20:28
CAIRO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met delegations from U.S. oil major Chevron and the Syrian Petroleum Company to discuss cooperation in oil and gas exploration fields on Syrian shores, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday. The state news agency did not provide further details on the discussions. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sign up here. The meeting was also attended by representatives from Qatar's UCC Holding, the state news agency said. The company recently led a consortium of international companies that signed a memorandum of understanding to develop major power generation projects with a foreign investment valued at about $7 billion. Due to the destruction of energy infrastructure during its 14-year civil war, Syria today produces just a fraction of the electricity it needs, though the supply of power has improved notably in recent months thanks to gas from Azerbaijan and Qatar. Damascus has recently pledged to ramp up power supply. Syria's domestic natural gas production is estimated to have declined to 3 billion cubic metres in 2023 from 8.7 bcm in 2011 due to the war. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syrian-president-chevron-discuss-cooperation-oil-gas-exploration-state-news-2025-12-02/
2025-12-02 20:12
LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Balyasny Asset Management posted a 2.5% return in November and is up 15.3% this year so far, a source told Reuters on Tuesday. The $31 billion multi-strategy hedge fund had led many of its peers in its over-all performance to October. Sign up here. Citadel's flagship fund Wellington posted a 1.4% return in November, boosting the fund's performance for the year to 8.3%, according to two people familiar told Reuters on Monday. Man Group's (EMG.L) , opens new tab 1783 multi-strategy has returned around 12.5%, the firm's website showed. November returns numbers for other big multi-strategy funds was not yet available to Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/balyasny-asset-management-up-over-15-so-far-2025-says-source-2025-12-02/
2025-12-02 19:28
LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The financial system risks undermining global trade if it fails to adapt to the economy's needs, with developing countries likely to suffer the most, the UN Trade and Development Agency said on Tuesday. Shifts in financial markets now drive global trade almost as much as real economic activity, with financial conditions increasingly determining global trade flows and shaping development prospects worldwide, the UNCTAD report, which was presented in London, said. Sign up here. "Trade is not just a chain of suppliers. It is also a chain of credit lines, payment systems, currency markets and capital flows," UNCTAD's secretary-general, Rebeca Grynspan, said in a statement. Grynspan told Reuters in an interview that the financial and trade systems are so closely synchronised that any rise in market volatility or uncertainty will have a significant impact on global trade. UNCTAD said global growth was expected to slow from 2.9% in 2024 to 2.6% in 2025 due to rising financial volatility and geopolitical tensions. More than 90% of global trade relies on bank financing, with dollar liquidity and cross-border payment systems remaining essential to international commerce. "This deep reliance on financial channels makes trade closely linked to global financial and monetary conditions," the report said. "A shift in interest rates or investor sentiment in a major financial centre can affect trade volumes worldwide." The report said although developing economies are expected to grow faster than advanced ones, they face higher financing costs, volatile capital flows, and rising climate-related risks, factors that constrain the fiscal and investment space needed to sustain growth. The dollar remains central to global finance. That offers stability in uncertain times, but it also ties developing economies to financial cycles they have little power to influence, the agency said. "We need to find ways in which the instruments of the payment system, of the insurance, of the capacity of these countries to lend or do things in their own currency will be part of the resilience of the system for the future," Grynspan said. UNCTAD called for reforms to align trade and finance and ensure long-term stability, including modernising trade rules, reforming the international monetary system to limit damaging currency and capital-flow volatility, and strengthening capital markets to expand affordable long-term finance. "What does genuine resilience require? Integrated policy frameworks that recognise links between trade, finance and sustainability," Grynspan said. "Fundamentally, we cannot understand trade isolated from finance." https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/global-financial-system-must-adapt-better-serve-economy-un-trade-agency-says-2025-12-02/
2025-12-02 19:17
Trump criticizes Dulles, plans new design for airport Dulles serves 27 million passengers annually Located in Virginia, it is a major United Airlines hub WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his administration intends to overhaul federally owned Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, the primary international airport for the U.S. capital area, calling it a bad facility. The airport, which is located about 25 miles (40 km) from the U.S. capital and opened in 1962, serves approximately 27 million passengers annually. Trump's motorcade made an unscheduled drive through the airport property in October to assess future projects. Sign up here. "We're also going to rebuild Dulles airport because it's not a good airport. It should be a great airport. It's not a good airport at all," Trump said on Tuesday during a cabinet meeting at the White House. "They have a great building and a bad airport." The Republican president said he has a new design for Dulles. Finnish architect Eero Saarinen designed the airport's Terminal Building, a distinctive structure with a sloping roof that sweeps up toward the sky on opposite sides. It is considered a leading example of Mid-Century Modern architecture. The U.S. Transportation Department said in a notice it was seeking proposals to completely overhaul Dulles, including potentially tearing down the historic main terminal. It criticized the "jet fuel smell in the concourses" and the "paltry" number of gates in the main terminal, adding Dulles "is no longer an airport suitable and grand enough for the capital of the United States." The airport, a major United Airlines (UAL.O) , opens new tab hub, is operated by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority under a 50-year lease approved by Congress. United said it looked forward to working with Trump and USDOT "to continue to enhance the airport’s infrastructure and operations in a meaningful and cost-effective way." The airport authority said on Tuesday it appreciates the administration's interest in making improvements and working collaboratively. "We want to build on the existing $7 billion capital plan for Dulles, which is underway with a new concourse under construction and expected to open next fall," the authority said in a statement. Legislation has been introduced in Congress by some Republicans to rename Dulles after Trump. The airport is currently named after John Foster Dulles, who served as U.S. secretary of state under President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also wants proposals to replace the shuttle vehicles, called "mobile lounges," that transport passengers between the terminal and planes. Two separate collisions in November involving the mobile lounges drew attention to the system. The airport currently has 130 gates. In July, the airport authority approved a master plan to expand the facility to handle 38 million annual passengers in 2030 and 45 million annual passengers and 154 gates by 2045. The plan envisions expanding it to eventually to serve 90 million annual passengers with 218 gates. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-rebuild-washingtons-dulles-airport-2025-12-02/
2025-12-02 19:12
Dec 2 (Reuters) - An intensifying weather system was expected to bring heavy snow or rain to parts of the U.S. Midwest, the Appalachians and the Northeast on Tuesday, with more than 50 million Americans under a winter storm advisory. Up to a foot of snow is forecast across the Ohio Valley, Pennsylvania, upstate New York and into New England, with some areas getting up to an inch an hour, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a forecaster at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center. Sign up here. "If you don't have to be on the roads today, stay home," Cook said. "In areas of heavy snow, it's best not to travel. But if you have to go out, give yourself a lot of extra time." Between three and five inches of snow had fallen by early Tuesday afternoon across Indiana, Pennsylvania, Central New York and parts of New England, forecasters said, with snow expected to keep falling throughout the day. Hundreds of school districts from Cincinnati and western Pennsylvania to New Hampshire and Maine announced school closures or delayed openings. The snow is expected to miss some areas east of Interstate 95, a major north-south route that hugs the Atlantic Coast, but residents can expect rain and freezing rain up and down the corridor, including in Washington, Philadelphia and New York City, where temperatures will hover above the freezing point. Further north in Boston, the precipitation may toggle between snow and rain later on Tuesday, Cook said. In addition, some areas along the central and southern Appalachians will see freezing rain and slick roads. Chad Merrill, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company, said that more winter weather was on the way later this week. "We'll see an Arctic cold front coming down through Canada on Thursday that could bring some more snow showers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic," he said. Accumulations of an inch or so are expected by Friday. The bad weather will also dip farther south, bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain to the Appalachians, including the western parts of the Carolinas, he said. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/heavy-snow-expected-parts-us-midwest-northeast-2025-12-02/
2025-12-02 19:04
MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned European powers on Tuesday that if they started a war with Russia then Moscow was ready to fight and that the defeat of European powers would be so absolute that there would be no one left to even negotiate a peace deal. Almost four years into thewar in Ukraine, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, Russia has failed to conquer the country, a much smaller neighbour which has been supported by European powers and the United States. Sign up here. Ukraine and European powers have repeatedly warned that if Putin wins the Ukraine war then he could attack a NATO member, a claim which Putin has repeatedly dismissed as nonsense. Asked by a reporter about remarks in the Russian media that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto had cautioned that Europe was preparing a war against Russia, Putin said that Russia did not want a war with Europe. "If Europe suddenly wants to start a war with us and starts it," Putin said, then it would end so swiftly for Europe that Russia would have no one left to negotiate with. Putin used the Russian word for "war". He also suggested that the war in Ukraine was not a full-blown war and that Russia was acting in a "surgical" manner which would not be repeated in a direct confrontation with European powers. PUTIN SAYS EUROPE IS HINDERING TRUMP'S PEACE EFFORTS Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War. U.S. officials say more than 1.2 million Russian and Ukrainian men have been killed in the war. Neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses its losses. Putin accused European powers of hindering U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to end the war in Ukraine by putting forward proposals they knew would be "absolutely unacceptable" to Moscow so they could then accuse Russia of not wanting peace. Putin said European states had locked themselves out of peace talks on Ukraine by cutting off contacts with Russia, adding: "They are on the side of war." Putin also threatened to sever Ukraine's access to the sea in response to drone attacks on tankers of Russia's "shadow fleet" in the Black Sea. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-that-if-europe-wants-war-then-russia-is-ready-2025-12-02/
