Abu Dhabi index closed lower on Friday, slipping off its record highs in line with oil prices as weak corporate earning sapped investors’ appetite, while the Dubai index bucked the trend.

Global rating agencies S&P and Fitch on Friday lowered Ukraine’s foreign currency ratings to selective default and restricted default as they consider the country’s debt restructuring as distressed.

Hong Kong’s economy contracted 1.3 per cent in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, following a weak performance in external trade during the period.

Big Pharma spent more than any other industry to lobby Congress and federal agencies this year, a Reuters analysis shows, but still suffered a major defeat after failing to stop a bill that allows the government to negotiate prices on select drugs.

Salespeople, food servers, postal workers -- “Help Wanted” ads are proliferating across the United States, as companies struggle to deal with a worker shortage caused by the pandemic, a rash of early retirements and restrictive immigration laws.

Britain’s energy crisis will push millions into destitution this winter unless the government hands out more cash to help struggling households pay fuel bills, Rishi Sunak, the trailing candidate in the contest to become Britain’s next leader, said.

Hungary said Saturday that Russia has started delivering additional gas to the EU member following a July visit to Moscow by its foreign minister.

The Bureau of Land Management will pause oil and gas leasing on 2.2 million acres of Colorado public land after environmental groups alleged its current management plan failed to consider climate impacts, according to a settlement.

Vietnam is considering building a high-speed railway that runs along the country’s length with a possible price tag of up to $58.7 billion, the government said on Sunday.

UK finance minister Nadhim Zahawi has asked officials in the exchequer to work on a multibillion pound package that could lead to an extra 400 pound ($485.20) cut in energy bills, the Times reported on Saturday.

New bank lending in China tumbled more than expected in July while broad credit growth slowed, as fresh Covid flare-ups, worries about jobs and a deepening property crisis made companies and consumers wary of taking on more debt.

Turkey’s central bank is expected to hold its policy rate unchanged at 14 per cent for an eighth meeting next week, a Reuters poll showed on Friday, in the face of a global tightening cycle and rampant inflation at nearly 80 per cent that shows no signs of falling.

Communication and marketing enthusiasts have been awarded “Commward-2022”, an accolade for the advertising sector people in Bangladesh. 

British leadership candidate Liz Truss, the front-runner to become prime minister, said that while energy giants should be held to account their profits should not be seen as either dirty or evil.

Global equity markets rose while US Treasury yields fell on Friday as investors tempered their expectations of the scale of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate raising cycle as falling oil prices helped to cool inflation.

Battered by a near 50 per cent plunge in its shares over the last 12 months, Nexi, Europe’s biggest payments processor, has not gone unnoticed.

Kazakhstan is expected to sell some of its crude oil through Azerbaijan’s biggest oil pipeline from September, as the nation seeks alternatives to a route Russia threatened to shut, three sources familiar with the matter said.

Russia’s economy contracted by four per cent year-on-year in the second quarter, the national statistics agency said Friday, as Western sanctions take their toll in the wake of Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine.

The United States has expressed concern to India that it was being used to export fuel made from Russian crude, through high-seas transfers to hide its origin, to New York in violation of US sanctions, a top Indian central banker said on Saturday.

Oil prices plunged around 2 per cent on Friday, on expectations that supply disruptions in the US Gulf of Mexico would be short-term, while recession fears clouded the demand outlook.