Wall Street turned lower early Thursday as concerns over interest rates, rising oil prices and a possible government shutdown hung over markets.

Futures for the Dow Jones industrials inched back about 0.1% before the bell, while the S&P 500 lost 0.2%.

Central Bank interim governor Wassim Mansouri on Thursday reassured that the bank will continue to pay the salaries of the public sector in U.S. dollars, which “provides stability to 400,000 families.”

“This is not a long-term stability but rather fragile stability, and if no president is elected the economic situations will further deteriorate,” Mansouri warned, following a meeting with the Economic and Social Council of Lebanon.

With tired faces, residents of a homeless shelter in Argentina's capital pass through the main entrance and line up to receive a hot drink and a slice of cake for an afternoon snack.

Places like the Bepo Ghezzi Social Inclusion Center in the Parque Patricios neighborhood of Buenos Aires have seen demand soar as more people are struggling to make ends meet amid an annual inflation rate above 100%.

How do you cook a meal when a staple ingredient is unaffordable?

This question is playing out in households around the world as they face shortages of essential foods like rice, cooking oil and onions. That is because countries have imposed restrictions on the food they export to protect their own supplies from the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino's threat to food production and increasing damage from climate change.

Oil prices have risen, meaning drivers are paying more for gasoline and truckers and farmers more for diesel.

The increase also complicates the global fight against inflation and feeds Russia's war chest. That poses problems for politicians as well as the people having to spend more to get to work, transport the world's goods or harvest fields.

The European Union's trade commissioner called for a more balanced economic relationship with China on Monday, noting an EU trade deficit of nearly 400 billion euros ($425 billion), while also warning that China's position on the war in Ukraine could endanger its relationship with Europe.

Valdis Dombrovskis, in a speech at China's prestigious Tsinghua University, said that the EU and China face significant political and economic headwinds that could cause them to drift apart.

The latest talks over the mega dam that Ethiopia is building on the Nile River's main tributary have broken up without an agreement.

The two-day talks between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on the disputed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam ended on Sunday night in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

European Union antitrust enforcers slapped Intel on Friday with a fresh $400 million fine in a long-running legal fight that the chipmaker appeared to have won last year.

The European Commission imposed the 376.4 million-euro fine after a court threw out an original 1.06 billion-euro penalty issued in 2009 over allegations that the Santa Clara, California-based company used illegal sales tactics to shut out smaller rival AMD.

British competition regulators gave preliminary approval Friday to Microsoft's restructured $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard, easing a final global hurdle that paves the way for one of the largest tech transactions in history to go through.

The Competition and Markets Authority said the revamped proposal "substantially addresses previous concerns" about stifling competition in the fast-growing cloud gaming market, which frees players from buying expensive consoles and gaming computers by streaming to tablets, phones and other devices.

Shares in Europe were mostly lower Friday after mixed trading in Asia following a broad retreat on Wall Street driven by worries over interest rates.