Israel and Lebanon on Thursday concluded a long-awaited deal to delimit their maritime borders, as Israel this week activated the key Karish gas field unlocked by the agreement.

The offshore field is crucial to Israel's ambitions to tap into European markets, and on Wednesday London-listed firm Energean said it had already begun producing gas from Karish ahead of the signing of the U.S.-brokered deal.

The European Central Bank piled on another outsized interest rate hike aimed at squelching out-of-control inflation, increasing rates Thursday at the fastest pace in the euro currency's history and raising questions about how far the bank intends to go with the threat of recession looming over the economy.

The 25-member governing council raised its interest rate benchmarks by three-quarters of a percentage point at a meeting in Frankfurt, matching its record increase from last month and joining the U.S. Federal Reserve in making a series of rapid hikes to tackle soaring consumer prices.

The problems have hardly gone away. Inflation, still near a 40-year high, is punishing households. Rising interest rates have derailed the housing market and threaten to inflict broader damage. And the outlook for the world economy grows bleaker the longer that Russia's war against Ukraine drags on.

But for now anyway, the U.S. economy has likely returned to growth after having shrunk in each of the first two quarters of 2022.

The International Monetary Fund reached a preliminary agreement with the Egyptian government on Thursday, paving the way for the economically troubled Arab nation to access a $3 billion loan, officials said Thursday.

IMF officials said a "staff agreement" between the Egyptian government and IMF leaders had been reached following months of talks, as Egypt struggles to combat surging inflation caused, in part, by the war in Ukraine.

Spiraling energy costs caused by various economic factors and the Ukraine war could be a turning point toward cleaner energy, the International Energy Agency said in a report Thursday. It found the global demand for fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, is set to peak or plateau in the next few decades.

The report looked at scenarios based on current policies and said that coal use will fall back within the next few years, natural gas demand will reach a plateau by the end of the decade and rising sales of electric vehicles mean that the need for oil will level off in the mid-2030s before ebbing slightly by mid-century. Total emissions are currently going up each year, but slowly.

French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to implement a pension reform that would eventually push up the retirement age by three years to 65, making younger generations work longer.

In an interview on France 2 television, Macron said the changes would start being applied next year.

Tudor Popescu swings his ax down on a log, then feeds the split wood into a stove that heats his home in the capital of Moldova. As the nights turn chilly, the stack of firewood has been growing higher around him — his provisions for the coming winter.

In the past, Popescu relied on natural gas to keep warm in the mornings and firewood in the evenings. But gas is now in shorter supply, creating a crisis in his small Eastern European country.

Lebanon and Israel were Thursday set to sign a maritime border agreement that paves the way for lucrative offshore gas extraction by the neighbors which remain technically at war.

The U.S.-brokered deal, hailed by President Joe Biden as a "historic breakthrough", comes as Western powers clamor to open up new gas production and reduce vulnerability to supply cuts from Russia. 

U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday delayed his much-anticipated economic statement until Nov. 17, giving new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a chance to weigh in on policies meant to stabilize the country's finances after his predecessor's tax-cutting plans triggered market upheaval.

The statement will now include a full budget and analysis of its impact on government debt and borrowing by the independent Office of Budget Responsibility. It was originally set to be announced on Halloween.

The United Nations has procured tens of millions of dollars in contracts with companies linked to Syrian government-backed individuals sanctioned for human rights abuses, according to a report by two non-governmental groups.

Syria's uprising turned civil war that started in 2011 has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million. More than 80% of Syrians now live in poverty, leaving much of the population dependent on humanitarian assistance.