European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said Friday that there are still too few women in top jobs, and that the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the problem.

After Friday's first round of eliminations, here are penpics of the five candidates still in the running to become the next director-general of the World Trade Organization.

Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt), Jesus Seade (Mexico) and Tudor Ulianovschi (Moldova) were all eliminated from the race to replace Brazilian career diplomat Roberto Azevedo, who stepped down at the end of August.

The chiefs of majors U.S. airlines converged on the White House Thursday to advocate for another round of federal support to avert thousands of impending layoffs.

Saudi Arabia's energy minister on Thursday pressed oil cartel OPEC and its allies to comply fully with production cuts amid falling crude prices, insisting that doing so was "not an act of charity".

The chief negotiators for EU-UK trade talks met in Brussels on Thursday to try to avoid a breakdown after London said it would backtrack on Brexit divorce terms.

Syria's oil minister claimed the severe fuel crisis that has hit his country is the result of Western sanctions, and also allegedly because oil fields in eastern regions have fallen under control of American troops and U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters.

The minister, Bassam Tomeh told state TV in an interview aired late Wednesday that oil supplies have been delayed because of the situation. "We have stocks that we are trying to manage in a rational way," he said, without elaborating.

New Zealand plunged into recession for the first time in a decade Thursday, as data confirmed a record-breaking economic collapse that forced Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to defend her pandemic response ahead of next month's general election.

It was the arrest heard around the world: when Japanese prosecutors detained then-Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn in November 2018, it made global headlines, as did his audacious escape almost a year later.

Chinese retail sales rose in August for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic struck, data showed Tuesday, as officials try to kickstart the crucial domestic consumer sector to fuel recovery in the world's number-two economy.

The National Bank of Dubai, the largest banking group in the emirate, signed a memorandum of understanding Monday with Israel's Bank Hapoalim, on the eve of the UAE-Israel normalization accord signing.

"It is a great honor to be the first bank to sign such an agreement that will contribute to the establishment of the relationship between the two countries," Bank Hapoalim’s CEO, Dov Kotler, said in a statement issued by NBD.