2025-07-10 18:11
NEW YORK, July 10 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Thursday stablecoins will bolster competition in the payments system, and that that was a good thing. The rise of stablecoins will make many types of payments cheaper and faster, Waller said at an event at the Dallas Fed. “And that's the goal for me, as a free-market capitalist economist, is that I want competition in payments to drive down the cost for households and consumers and businesses. That's it,” Waller said. Sign up here. He also said stablecoins may depress demand for U.S. paper currency while bolstering demand for the dollar in general. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/feds-waller-says-stablecoins-could-lower-payment-prices-2025-07-10/
2025-07-10 12:45
Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders meet in Abu Dhabi First formal meeting since draft peace deal agreed Baku wants Yerevan to change constitution TBILISI/BAKU, July 10 (Reuters) - The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan held substantive talks in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, their governments said, in what amounted to the most serious direct negotiations yet in a fitful process to end almost four decades of conflict. The two sides said in March they had agreed on the text of a draft peace agreement, but progress since then has been sporadic and slow. Sign up here. The talks between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in the capital of the United Arab Emirates were the leaders' first formal meeting since they approved the draft. In statements, the countries' two foreign ministries said Pashinyan and Aliyev had discussed items including the delimitation of their shared 1,000-km (621-mile) border and agreed to continue dialogue at various levels. A senior Azerbaijani government source said the talks took place in a "highly constructive atmosphere." Armenia said the sides had agreed to continue talks on a bilateral basis and that the dialogue had been "result-oriented". A peace deal could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighbouring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran that is criss-crossed by oil and gas pipelines but riven by closed borders and longstanding ethnic conflicts. Armenia and Azerbaijan, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh - an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population - broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict. Some issues, including Azerbaijan's demand that Armenia change its constitution to remove an indirect reference to Karabakh, are yet to be resolved. Russia, which previously deployed peacekeepers in Karabakh, said it fully supported the diplomatic process and hoped it would bring "predictability, stability and peace to the region." https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/armenia-azerbaijan-hold-substantive-talks-no-big-breakthrough-2025-07-10/
2025-07-10 12:42
SANTIAGO, July 10 (Reuters) - Chile's central bank is expected to lower its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.75% at its monetary policy meeting on July 28, a poll of analysts released by the bank showed on Thursday. According to the poll, traders estimate the benchmark rate will continue its downward trend and reach 4.5% within five months. Sign up here. The analysts also estimated consumer prices in the Andean country would rise 0.6% in July compared to the previous month. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-central-bank-likely-cut-interest-rate-by-25-bps-next-meeting-poll-shows-2025-07-10/
2025-07-10 12:36
FRANKFURT, July 10 (Reuters) - Germany's SEFE has agreed a three-year deal to receive about 700,000 metric tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United Arab Emirates' ADNOC, with deliveries due to begin in summer of 2025, both companies said on Thursday. State-owned SEFE, or Securing Energy For Europe, is seeking long-term supply deals after losing most of its Russian pipeline gas imports in 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sign up here. Valued at $400 million and drawing on Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's (ADNOC) Das Island liquefaction facility, the agreement is aimed at both companies' ambitions to expand their long-term relationships with key energy partners, they said in a joint statement. Under the terms, SEFE may decide on delivery destinations at its discretion. SEFE's chief commercial officer Frederic Barnaud said that the contract was building on a long-term supply agreement with ADNOC signed last year. As a former division of Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM) , opens new tab that was nationalised by Germany during Europe's energy crisis, SEFE has delivery obligations over some 200 terawatt hours of gas per year to industry and onward distributors mainly in Germany, Britain and other European markets. Last month, SEFE agreed a 10-year deal over gas deliveries by Azerbaijan state oil company SOCAR. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-sefe-agrees-3-year-lng-supply-deal-with-adnoc-2025-07-10/
2025-07-10 12:29
July 10 (Reuters) - Yemen's Houthis sank two cargo ships in the Red Sea this week, the first flare-up in seven months in the Iran-backed group's years-long campaign to choke global shipping in protest over the war in Gaza and the plight of the Palestinians. Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted more than 100 merchant ships travelling through the Red Sea, sinking four vessels, seizing another and killing at least eight sailors. Sign up here. Here are details on some of the attacks: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/houthi-attacks-merchant-ships-red-sea-2025-01-16/
2025-07-10 12:23
Overseas offers to Chinese buyers pick up, traders say Traders seek home for cargoes at risk of missing August 1 US tariff deadline Yangshan premium eases amid rising offers BEIJING, July 10 (Reuters) - Global copper traders are offering cargoes to Chinese buyers as they look to offload metal no longer able to reach the U.S. before President Donald Trump's 50% copper tariff deadline. Trump said late on Wednesday he would impose the new tariff from August 1 to promote domestic production of everything from semiconductors to ammunition. He didn't specify which copper products would be hit or whether exceptions would be considered. Sign up here. China is the world's largest copper consumer, and the number of offers by overseas sellers has been picking up since late June and is now at the highest in months, according to a Chinese copper trader who spoke on condition of anonymity. A second China-based trader said they had received an offer for a 1,500 metric ton cargo from South America for delivery in late July or early August from a buyer "eager to find a home." The step up in offers to China reflects how traders, who have spent months shipping copper to the United States in anticipation of the tariff, must now begin to find alternative destinations for cargoes unable to cross the U.S. border before the tariff comes into effect. Only copper from Latin America that is being loaded or already en route is likely to make the deadline, and even then it is likely to be close, according to logistics sources. "If Chilean material is being freed up to make its way to Europe because less is going to the U.S., that means it's being freed up for everyone and you might see some of that in Asia and elsewhere," Albert Mackenzie, a copper analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said. The Yangshan Copper Premium (bill of lading), a benchmark for what Chinese buyers will pay above LME for copper still outside the country, fell 5% to $62 on Thursday, reflecting the offers now on the table, according to a Singapore-based copper trader. Major international trading houses are offering thousands of tons of cargo originally destined for the U.S. for delivery in late July and August to Chinese buyers, they added. The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell for the fifth day on Thursday, down 0.4% to 78,600 yuan ($10,952.87) per ton after touching its lowest since June 23. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/copper-traders-look-chinese-buyers-post-trump-tariff-world-2025-07-10/
