The main U.S. oil contract, WTI, jumped more than five percent in trading on Friday as supply concerns outweighed recession worries, and as traders began to look ahead to a meeting next week of OPEC+ nations on production.

China's leaders effectively acknowledged the struggling economy won't hit its official 5.5% growth target this year and said Thursday they will try to prop up sagging consumer demand but will stick to strict anti-COVID-19 tactics that disrupted manufacturing and trade.

The announcement after a Communist Party planning meeting reflected the high cost President Xi Jinping's government has been willing to incur to stop the virus in a politically sensitive year when Xi is widely expected to try to extend his term in power.

Inflation in the European countries using the euro currency shot up to another record in July, pushed by higher energy prices fueled by Russia's war in Ukraine, but the economy managed better-than-expected, if meager, growth in the second quarter.

Annual inflation in the eurozone's 19 countries rose to 8.9% in July, an increase from 8.6% in June, according to numbers published Friday by the European Union statistics agency.

Caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam confirmed Thursday that a Syrian ship carrying stolen Ukrainian barley and wheat is docked at Tripoli’s port, after Kyiv warned over bilateral relations.

“The Directorate General of Customs is following up with the Agriculture Ministry on the issue of the Syrian ship that is under sanctions and has docked at Tripoli’s port carrying stolen Ukrainian barley and wheat,” Salam told Annahar newspaper.

Leading international auditing firm KPMG, which is tasked by the International Monetary Fund to audit the work of Lebanon’s central bank between 2015 and 2020, has not found any violations, LBCI television reported on Thursday.

The firm has also been tasked with auditing the bank’s work between 2020 and 2021, LBCI noted.

Caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam announced Thursday that the country will witness “breakthroughs” in the bread shortage crisis in the “next two days.”

“There is an operations room at the Interior Ministry that will coordinate with the Economy Ministry to monitor all things in the market,” Salam said.

After going backward from January through March, the U.S. economy probably didn't do much better in the spring.

On Thursday morning, the government will reveal just how weak economic growth was in the April-June quarter — and perhaps offer clues about whether the United States may be approaching a recession.

The world's most influential banks need to substantially accelerate climate efforts if global temperature rise is to be kept within the targets of the Paris Agreement, an assessment released Thursday by an institutional investors group warned.

The efforts of 27 giant banks in North America, Europe and Asia to align their policies with global warming of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) are falling far short in every area measured in the pilot study, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press. The report said no major bank has committed to end financing for new oil and gas exploration, and only one has promised to cut all coal financing in line with International Energy Agency guidelines.

Japanese automaker Nissan's profit plunged in the last quarter to less than half of what it was a year earlier as the COVID-19 lockdown in China and a global semiconductor shortage slammed production.

Nissan Motor Co. reported Thursday that its April-June net profit totaled 47.1 billion yen ($349 million), down from 114.5 billion yen in the same period of 2021. That change marks a 59% drop. Quarterly sales rose 6% 2.14 trillion yen ($15.9 billion).

Head of Finance Committee MP Ibrahim Kanaan said Thursday that the committee has asked the Ministry of Finance to review the state budget for the last time and to submit clarifications before the committee's next session on Tuesday.

Kanaan accused the Cabinet and the Parliament of shifting responsibility, as he urged for "more transparency and less selectivity."