Australia's central bank on Tuesday reduced its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage for a second time this year, to 3.85% after inflation fell within a target range.

The Reserve Bank of Australia reduced its cash rate from 4.1%. The reduction from 4.35% at its February board meeting was Australia's first rate cut since October 2020.

The Taiwanese president said Tuesday that trade tensions between the United States and Taiwan are just "frictions between friends" in a show of optimism as tariff negotiations are underway with Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 32% tariffs on all imports from Taiwan as part of sweeping duties levied against all U.S. trading partners last month.

The EU on Tuesday formally adopted a new round of sanctions on Russia targeting its "shadow fleet" of oil tankers and threatened more punishment for Moscow not agreeing a Ukraine truce.

"The EU has approved its 17th sanctions package against Russia, targeting nearly 200 shadow fleet ships," European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X.

EU countries on Tuesday gave a green light to lifting all economic sanctions on Syria in a bid to help the war-torn country recover after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, diplomats said.

Ambassadors from the EU's 27 member states struck a preliminary agreement for the move, which should be formally unveiled by foreign ministers meeting in Brussels later in the day, diplomats said.

Spain has ordered Airbnb to block more than 65,000 holiday listings on its platform for having violated rules, the Consumer Rights Ministry said Monday.

The ministry said that many of the 65,935 Airbnb listings it had ordered to be withdrawn did not include their license number or specify whether the owner was an individual or a company. Others listed numbers that didn't match what authorities had.

For months, American consumers and businesses have been hearing that President Trump's massive import taxes – tariffs – would drive up prices and hurt the U.S. economy. But the latest economic reports don't match the doom and gloom: Inflation actually eased last month, and hiring was solid in April.

For now, the disconnect has businesses and consumers struggling to reconcile what they were told to expect, what the numbers say and what they are seeing on the ground. Trump and his supporters are quick to point out that the trade wars of his first term didn't translate into higher overall inflation across the economy.

China warned Germany on Monday against economic "de-risking" after its new chancellor sought to reduce the country's heavy dependence on Beijing, state news agency Xinhua said.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a phone call with German counterpart Johann Wadephul that the two countries should prevent the "undermining of normal bilateral cooperation in the name of so-called 'de-risking'", according to Xinhua.

The dollar slid one percent versus the euro on Monday after a downgrade to a key U.S. credit rating that triggered worries about the nation's debt pile.

Following the greenback's decline, one euro was worth $1.1276, while the U.S. currency dropped heavily against the British pound.

The Japanese economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.7% in the first quarter, according to government data released Friday, as U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war hurt exports and dented consumer confidence.

Japan's real gross domestic product, or the measure of a nation's goods and services, shrank at a greater-than-expected 0.2% in January-March compared to the previous quarter in the first contraction in a year, the Cabinet Office's seasonally adjusted preliminary data showed.

European shares advanced after a mixed session in Asia on Friday, with scant news driving trading.

Markets have calmed somewhat after the turmoil unleashed by Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs offensive, aimed at compelling companies to base manufacturing inside the United States.