ACCRA: Ghana suspended payments on part of its foreign debt on Monday as the country undertakes debt restructuring in line with a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

TAIPEI: TikTok’s Chinese owner denied on Monday setting up a subsidiary company in Taiwan after the island’s authorities said they were investigating the social media app for running “illegal operations”.

BRUSSELS: EU energy ministers sought a breakthrough Monday on plans to cap natural gas prices, weighing the danger of allowing prices to soar against the fear of driving exporters elsewhere.

PARIS: French economic growth will slow considerably in 2023 due to the energy crisis and inflation, before bouncing back in 2024 and 2025, the central bank forecast on Saturday.

BRUSEELS: EU member states and parliamentarians on Sunday announced an agreement for a major reform to the bloc’s carbon market, the central plank of its ambitions to reduce emissions and invest in climate-friendly technologies.

DAMASCUS: Syrian student Ziad al-Ezz can no longer get to university as severe fuel shortages cripple the capital Damascus, pushing residents to seek alternatives for heating and shuttering businesses.

By Majd Othman

KUWAIT: Minister of Finance and Minister of State for Economic Affairs and Investment Abdulwahab Al-Rushaid issued a new decision to introduce amendments to the list of commissions for usufruct of state real estate property, allowing the ministry to collect 30 percent of the contracts concluded by subcontractors of state-owned plots.

BRUSELS: EU leaders tasked the European Commission with coming up with ways to vie with huge US subsidies on greener tech such as electric vehicles to protect the bloc’s industrial base.

WASHINGTON: The US Energy Department announced Friday a plan to add oil back to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) after a historically large release undertaken by the Biden administration.