Sri Lanka is suspending its repayment of foreign debt, including bonds and government-to-government borrowings, pending the completion of a loan restructuring program with the International Monetary Fund to deal with the island nation's worst economic crisis in decades, the government said Tuesday.

Sri Lankans for the past months have been enduring shortages of fuel, food and other essentials and daily power outages. Most of those items are paid for in hard currency, but Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with dwindling foreign reserves and $25 billion in foreign debt. Nearly $7 billion is due this year.

Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn't bad weather, pests or blight — the traditional agricultural curses — but fertilizer: It costs too much.

Despite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion. The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer.

Dubai's Water and Electricity Authority, known as DEWA, began trading for the first time on Tuesday, after raising just over $6 billion during its initial public offering, making it the second largest offering ever in the Middle East.

While that figure still trails far below the record $29.4 billion raised by Saudi oil giant Aramco, it marks an inflection point for Dubai at a time when high oil prices are buoying the economies and spending power of energy-producing Gulf Arab states.

Some bakeries had already closed their doors when others threatened of closing on Monday night, as bakeries announced they do not have sufficient quantities of wheat to produce bread, urging officials for a fast solution.

General Confederation of Lebanese Workers head Bechara al-Asmar warned Tuesday that there is a scarce quantity of wheat in the bakeries that can barely last for 10 days, urging officials to act swiftly and not to lift subsidies on wheat.

Oil sank Monday on Chinese demand fears, the recent release of strategic reserves, and dimming hope of a European embargo on Russian supplies in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Moscow will start legal proceedings if it is declared in default by the West, finance minister Anton Siluanov said Monday, after Russia was declared in "selective" default over the weekend.

The World Bank says Ukraine's economy will shrink by 45.1% this year because of Russia's invasion, which has shut down half of the country's businesses, choked off imports and exports, and damaged a vast amount of critical infrastructure.

Unprecedented sanctions imposed by Western allies in response to the war, meanwhile, are plunging Russia into a deep recession, lopping off more than a tenth of its economic growth, the World Bank said in a report Sunday.

Twitter's largest investor, billionaire Elon Musk, is reversing course and will no longer join the company's board of directors less than a week after being awarded a seat.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the news, which followed a weekend of Musk tweets suggesting changes to Twitter, including making the site ad-free. Nearly 90% of Twitter's 2021 revenue came from ads.

Italian Premier Mario Draghi travels to Algeria on Monday to sign a deal for additional natural gas, the latest push by a European Union country to acquire alternative energy sources to reduce dependence on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is Italy's biggest supplier, representing 40% of total imports, followed by Algeria, which provides some 21 billion cubic meters of gas via the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline. The new deal would add an extra 9 billion cubic meters of gas from Algeria, just eclipsing Russia's 29 billion cubic meters a year.

Japan announced Friday it is expelling eight Russian diplomats and trade officials and will phase out imports of Russian coal and oil, with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida saying Moscow must be held accountable for "war crimes" in Ukraine.

Kishida said Japan will also ban imports of Russian lumber, vodka and other goods, and will prohibit new Japanese investment in Russia.