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.

Singapore police say they have uncovered more luxury watches, gold bars and other assets from a massive money laundering scheme that was busted last month, bringing the total amount of assets seized or frozen to 2.4 billion Singapore dollars ($1.75 billion).

The police had launched further operations related to a group of foreign nationals suspected to be involved in laundering the proceeds of their organized criminal activities, including scams and online gambling, police said in a statement on Wednesday.

Poland has said it will no longer arm Ukraine and instead focus on its own defense, as the two allies clashed at a key moment in Kyiv's fightback against invasion by Russia.

In a mounting row over grain exports from Ukraine, Poland summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to protest remarks at the U.N. by President Volodymyr Zelensky.