A United Nations appeal for Yemen Wednesday is aiming at raising $4.27 billion to alleviate what it describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 161,000 people likely to experience famine there in 2022.

The virtual pledging conference is co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will address donors on the dire needs of the Arab world's poorest country.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Wednesday with the de facto rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in efforts to ease skyrocketing gasoline prices, as the West grapples with economic headwinds from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Johnson was seeking greater investments in the U.K.'s renewable energy transition and ways to secure more oil to lessen British dependence on Russian energy supplies.

Lebanese authorities on Wednesday seized the assets of Fransabank, one of the country’s biggest banks, based on an order issued by Judge Mariana Anani, the head of the Enforcement Department in Beirut.

The order followed a lawsuit filed by the depositor Ayyad Gherbawi Ibrahim who requested that he be paid his money in banknotes and not through a check.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to visit Saudi Arabia and meet with its crown prince for talks on oil supplies, as he stressed that the West must end its dependence on Russian energy.

Johnson will also use the trip to press Saudi Arabia to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a Foreign Office official said Tuesday.

The negotiations with the International Monetary Fund have not stopped and "things are going well," Deputy Prime Minister Saadeh Shami's office said.

Shami's office negated, in a statement Tuesday, media reports that said the negotiations had stopped and that no results have been reached.

Stocks are ticking higher on Wall Street Tuesday as inflation worries ebb a bit and oil prices slide sharply for a second day.

The S&P 500 was 0.7% higher in early trading after a report showed inflation's rapid acceleration took a pause at the wholesale level last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 166 points, or 0.5%, at 33,111, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% higher.

It can be hard to measure the ways that Russia's war in Ukraine has disrupted the global supply of parts and raw materials needed to complete a variety of products – from cars to computer chips.

But cutting off one of those supply links brought a "depressing feeling" to Andrey Bibik, head of the Interpipe steel plant in Dnipro, Ukraine. He spent the first hours of the war winding down his bustling 24-hour operation and sending almost everyone home.

The European Union's foreign policy chief on Tuesday said the bloc would support the Western Balkan countries to overcome the economic crisis caused by Russia's war on Ukraine.

Josep Borrell was in Tirana, the Albanian capital, in the second stop of his regional tour that took him to North Macedonia on Monday and to Bosnia after Albania, where he met with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and other officials.

Dubai's state-owned utility announced Tuesday it will list a sliver of its worth on the emirate's stock exchange, hoping to ride a recent wave of initial public offerings in the Gulf Arab states while avoiding the stumbles of past IPOs.

The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority's offering involves 3.25 billion shares that will be placed on the Dubai Financial Market exchange, which the utility put at 6.5% over its overall worth.

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun has frozen the assets of five of Lebanon's largest banks and those of their board of directors as she investigates possible transfers of billions of dollars aboard during the country's economic meltdown.

The state-run National News Agency said the decision covers real estate, vehicles and shares that the five banks or their directors own in other companies.