Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with Vladimir Putin on Monday, hoping to persuade the Russian leader to rejoin the Black Sea grain deal that Moscow broke off from in July.
Here are some key things to know and what's at stake:
Full StoryAfghanistan's ruling Taliban government said it has signed seven mining contracts amounting to $6.5 billion in investment, in the biggest such round of deals since seizing power two years ago.
The seven contracts are with locally based companies, many of whom have foreign partners in countries including China, Iran, and Turkey. They include the extraction and processing of iron ore, lead, zinc and gold in four provinces: Herat, Ghor, Logar and Takhar.
Full StoryRussian President Vladimir Putin will host Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan for talks in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday, the Kremlin announced Friday, just over six weeks after Moscow broke off a deal partly brokered by Ankara that allowed Ukrainian grain to reach world markets despite the 18-month war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced the talks Friday, ending weeks of speculation about when and where the two leaders might meet next as international efforts continue to patch up the Black Sea Grain Initiative which got grain and other food to Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat.
Full StoryAnnual inflation held steady in Europe in August as food prices raced ahead of falling fuel costs, but there was no clarity about whether the European Central Bank will pause its record series of interest rate hikes.
The consumer price index for the 20 countries that use the euro currency was unchanged at 5.3% from the July reading, supported by food, alcohol and tobacco prices that increased a painful 9.8% since last August, according to official figures Thursday from EU statistics agency Eurostat.
Full StoryJapan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sampled seafood and talked to workers at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market Thursday to assess the impact of China's ban on Japanese seafood in reaction to the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi plant to the sea.
The release of the treated wastewater began last week and is expected to continue for decades. Japanese fishing groups and neighboring countries opposed it, and China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response.
Full StoryFormer Central Bank governor Riad Salameh has filed lawsuits against the state, alleging that judges have committed errors in handling his file.
The lawsuits force the judges looking into his case to suspend their work pending a decision from the general commission of the Court of Cassation, which is currently inactive due to a dispute over the sectarian balance in the appointment of its members.
Full StoryThe Russian ruble's wobble in value has exposed a crack in President Vladimir Putin's fortress economy, a vulnerability quickly plastered over by the Kremlin's economic team in a move that allowed the currency to regain its footing, at least for now.
Yet the patch — an emergency interest rate increase — cannot hide the dilemma at the heart of the Russian economy: how to fund the military while not undermining the national currency and overheating the economy with corrosive and politically embarrassing inflation.
Full StoryAs worker actions continue from Hollywood to Detroit, and new labor unions crop up at firms like Starbucks and Amazon, the White House was highlighting its effort to bolster worker organizing throughout the U.S.
President Joe Biden is counting on critical labor support as he campaigns for a second term in office, holding his first re-election campaign rally at a Pennsylvania union hall in June, declaring: "I'm proud to be the most pro-union president in American history." The White House and Treasury on Monday issued a joint analysis on what the administration sees as the importance of unions, and also the White House efforts to safeguard and bolster them.
Full StoryThousands of protesters on cars and motorbikes took to the streets of Colombia's main cities on Monday to reject recent hikes in gasoline prices that have drastically increased the price of fuel in the South American country.
Protesters say that the monthly price hikes set by Colombia's first leftist government are making it harder for small businesses to operate, and could push up the price of food.
Full StoryAll 28 vehicle assembly lines at Toyota's 14 auto plants in Japan shut down Tuesday over a problem in its computer system that deals with incoming auto parts.
The automaker doesn't believe the problem was caused by a cyberattack but the cause is still under investigation, said spokeswoman Sawako Takeda.
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