VENICE (Reuters) - Venice becomes the first city in the world on Thursday to introduce a payment system for tourists in an effort to thin the crowds that throng the canals during the peak holiday season.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia is reorganising its teams in the region as its current chief executive of Asia Chin Chou is leaving the firm, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's financial market watchdog said on Thursday it had prepared a new monitoring mechanism to detect illegal short-selling trades in the domestic stock market.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices eased in early trade on Thursday as concerns about a potential slowdown in the U.S. economy amid prospects for delayed interest rate cuts outweighed worries over the risk of expanding conflict in the Middle East.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The yen was pinned on the weaker side of 155 per dollar on Thursday as the Bank of Japan (BOJ) kicks off its two-day rate-setting meeting, leaving traders nervous as to whether Tokyo will intervene while policy deliberations are still underway.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean battery firm LG Energy Solution (LGES) posted on Thursday a 75% drop in quarterly profit, hit by weakening demand from electric vehicle (EV) sales.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet business leaders in Shanghai on Thursday as ties between Washington and Beijing stabilise, pushing to resolve a raft of issues threatening the newly gained equilibrium between the rivals.

RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - Mining company Vale expects to reach a final agreement with authorities for reparations for the collapse of the Samarco tailings dam by the end of the first half of this year, the company told Reuters in a statement on Wednesday.

LISBON (Reuters) - Thousands are expected to take to the streets to celebrate the 50th anniversary on Thursday of Portugal's "Carnation Revolution" that toppled the longest fascist dictatorship in Europe and ushered in democracy.

(Reuters) -Singapore's Keppel said on Thursday its first-quarter net profit excluding the effects of legacy offshore and marine assets was higher, boosted by strong performance in the global asset manager's infrastructure and connectivity segments.

(Reuters) -A grand jury has charged 18 people with allegedly taking part in an Arizona fake elector scheme to re-elect then-U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020, the state's attorney general said on Wednesday.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico's Becle, the world's largest tequila producer, on Wednesday posted a 18% fall in first-quarter net profit from a year earlier, still landing above analyst forecasts, as it sold fewer alcoholic drinks and was hit by foreign exchange effects.

(Reuters) -The Ukrainian government, further tightening regulations as it seeks to address a shortage of troops, approved rules temporarily barring military-age men from applying for passports abroad.

LONDON (Reuters) - Nature loss could pose a greater risk to Britain's economy than the COVID-19 pandemic and wipe 300 billion pounds ($373.83 billion) off UK economic growth if measures are not taken to slow it, the first such study shows.

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's SK Hynix Inc said it expected a full recovery in memory chips on AI demand, posting its highest profit in nearly two years on sales of advanced DRAM chips with high bandwidth memory (HBM) for use in generative AI chipsets.

SEOUL (Reuters) -The South Korean economy grew at the fastest pace in more than two years in the first quarter on robust exports, beating all estimates and fuelling market expectations that the Bank of Korea would delay cutting interest rates.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some U.S. students at Washington, D.C.'s Jackson-Reed High School filed a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging the public high school's administrators censored them by prohibiting pro-Palestinian events.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - LATAM Airlines said on Wednesday that it was no longer seeking to acquire Boeing B737 planes either from bankrupt Brazilian carrier Gol or other sources, opting to look for alternative narrowbody aircraft after talks failed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Technology firm Cisco Systems said that hackers have subverted some of its digital security devices to break in to government networks globally. In a blog post published on Wednesday, the company said its Adaptive Security Appliances - pieces of equipment that roll several different digital defense functions into one - had previously unknown vulnerabilities that had been exploited by a group of hackers they called "UAT4356."

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's government submitted proposed rules to Congress on Wednesday to carry out a historic tax overhaul approved last year, a key element of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's strategy to foster growth in Latin America's largest economy.