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.

Lebanon, facing skyrocketing food and fuel prices amid an unprecedented economic crisis exacerbated by the Russian war, is now seeing its breadbasket “being bombed.”

The United Nations chief has warned that the war on Ukraine is holding “a sword of Damocles” over the global economy, especially poor developing countries.

France lifted most COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, abolishing the need to wear face masks in most settings and allowing people who aren't vaccinated back into restaurants, sports arenas and other venues.

The move had been announced earlier this month by the French government based on assessments of the improving situation in hospitals and following weeks of a steady decline in infections. It comes less than a month before the first round of the presidential election scheduled on April 10.

Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald's.

It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union, reflecting the new political openness of the era. For Vlad Vexler, who as a 9-year-old waited in a two-hour line to enter the restaurant near Moscow's Pushkin Square on its opening day in January 1990, it was a gateway to the utopia he imagined the West to be.

Germany said Monday that it will replace some of its ageing Tornado bomber jets with U.S.-made F-35A Lightning II aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Announcing the decision, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Germany also will upgrade its Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets for electronic warfare — a capability that's also currently fulfilled by the Tornado jets. The Eurofighter will be replaced from 2040 with the Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, that's being jointly developed with France and Spain, she said.