Japan has protested to Moscow after Russia placed four subsidiaries belonging to Japan Tobacco Inc. under the temporary management of a Russian company and demanded that the measure be withdrawn immediately, Japanese officials said Friday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told reporters that the Japanese government is aware of Russian President Vladimir Putin's order imposed on the Japanese cigarette maker's subsidiaries that operate in Russia.

The Suliman S. Olayan School of Business (OSB) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Anghami are bringing students closer to the realities of the regional digital and entertainment industry through a live business case focused on one of the most relevant audiences for brands today: Gen Z.

The collaboration reflects OSB’s commitment to fostering experiential learning, enabling students to apply classroom concepts to real business challenges and critically reflect on their application in practice. The Anghami live case brings this learning orientation to life by engaging students in an open-ended challenge where they must interpret consumer needs, assess business opportunities, and develop recommendations that respond to an industry partner’s priorities and constraints.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by state media Friday that two oil tankers caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz, a day after Tehran claimed five other tankers had similar fates.

Since the outbreak of the Middle East war on February 28, Tehran has sought to limit traffic through the strategic waterway, which normally carries about one-fifth of global oil consumption.

World shares were mostly higher Thursday, though heavy selling of artificial intelligence-related stocks offset gains for some markets following the U.S. midterm elections.

South Korea's Kospi sank more than 5% and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost nearly 2%. Oil prices were mixed after the Dow industrials jumped more than 3% on Wednesday following the Republicans' loss of control of the U.S. Congress.

Natural gas deposits off the southern coastline of Cyprus are an opportunity for the European Union to bolster its own energy security by diversifying its supply, the island nation's president said Thursday.

President Nikos Christodoulides told The Associated Press in an exclusive statement that the first of a number of natural gas fields discovered off Cyprus, dubbed Cronos, is expected to start production in the first half of 2028.

The Bank of England raised its benchmark interest rate to four percent on Thursday, the first increase in more than three years, as soaring energy costs push up global inflation.

"There is now enough inflationary pressure in the pipeline caused by the rise in energy prices, that an increase in Bank Rate is warranted," BoE governor Andrew Bailey said in a statement.

President Donald Trump was publicly humbled by inflation in Tuesday's midterm elections, as rising prices provoked a blistering set of losses for Republicans in House, Senate and gubernatorial races.

Most voters said that Trump's own policies had smothered growth and drove costs even higher, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. The president's message that the fault lay with his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, didn't land. Americans saw prices start to climb with Trump's chaotic rash of tariffs last year, and energy costs spiked after he launched a war with Iran in February.

Mysterious cyberattacks on European supermarket fridges have sent officials around the continent scrambling to figure out the cold, hard facts.

Supermarkets in a number of European countries reported this week that their fridges and freezers warmed up after they were remotely taken over, resulting in tons of spoiled food at a total cost of millions of dollars (euros).

President Donald Trump says the U.S. will stop providing $4 billion in aid each year to Israel in 2027 but will sell arms to its closest ally in the Middle East.

The Republican president told Fox News Channel during a phone call on Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approached him about the idea and that they have been talking about it for a couple years.

Majority state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco on Tuesday reported a 35% increase in third-quarter net profit as earnings were boosted by higher oil prices and the sale of its stake in a Malaysian refining and petrochemical company.

Net profit rose to $36.3 billion from $26.9 billion in the year-earlier quarter. Adjusted net profit, which leaves out the sale of a stake in PRefChem to Malaysian state oil company Petronas, rose 9% to $31.2 billion.