In a falafel joint in south Lebanon, Hussein Murtada prepared flat-bread snacks for his few remaining customers as an Israeli surveillance drone buzzed above the border village of Kfar Kila.

"We work under the bombs. A few days ago, a shell fell 200 meters from here. Shrapnel hit the shopfront and the wall," said Murtada, 60, pointing to the damage.

Turkey's central bank hiked its key interest rate by 2.5 percentage points on Thursday as part of its efforts to combat high inflation that has left many households struggling to afford rent and essential items.

The bank's Monetary Policy Committee raised its benchmark rate to 42.5%, delivering its seventh interest rate hike in a row to tame inflation, which rose to 61.98% last month.

The impacts of the Israel-Hamas war are set to push crisis-hit Lebanon's economy back into recession, the World Bank said Thursday, blaming mainly a "shock to tourism spending".

Lebanon's southern border has seen regular exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, since the Gaza conflict erupted on October 7.

Tesla has found itself locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with union workers in Sweden and neighboring countries. The showdown pits the electric car maker's CEO Elon Musk, who's staunchly anti-union, against the strongly held labor ideals of Scandinavian countries.

None of Tesla's workers anywhere in the world are unionized, raising questions about whether strikes could spread to other parts of Europe where employees commonly have collective bargaining rights — notably in Germany, Tesla's most important market.

The tide turned against inflation.

Artificial intelligence went mainstream — for good or ill.

Inflation in the U.K. as measured by the consumer prices index eased back to its lowest level in more than two years, official figures showed Wednesday, in a development that stoked speculation that the Bank of England may start cutting interest rates sooner than expected.

The Office for National Statistics said inflation dropped to 3.9% in the year to November, its lowest level since September 2021, from 4.6% the previous month. That decline was bigger than anticipated in financial markets.

Last weekend, Starbucks got a report that a New York store had been spray-painted with pro-Palestinian graffiti. A few hours later, at a store eight blocks away, a customer berated employees, accusing the brand of being anti-Israel.

It's been a tough few weeks for the world's largest coffee company. At a time when it hoped to be spreading holiday cheer and peppermint mochas, it's juggling boycotts over the war in the Middle East and a unionization effort at home.

The attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Yemen's Houthi rebels have scared off some of the world's top shipping companies and oil giants, effectively rerouting global trade away from a crucial artery for consumer goods and energy supplies that is expected to trigger delays and rising prices.

BP said Monday that it has "decided to temporarily pause all transits through the Red Sea," including shipments of oil, liquid natural gas and other energy supplies. Describing it as a "precautionary pause," the London-based oil and gas corporation said the decision faces ongoing review but crew safety was the priority.

Kenya and the European Union on Monday signed a long-negotiated trade agreement to increase the flow of goods between the two markets, as Brussels pursues stronger economic ties with Africa.

German farmers gathered in Berlin on Monday to protest against planned cuts to tax breaks for diesel used in agriculture, part of a deal reached by the government to plug a hole in the country's budget.

Leaders of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition last week agreed on measures to fill a 17 billion-euro ($18.5 billion) hole in next year's budget, saying they would achieve that by reducing climate-damaging subsidies and slightly reducing some ministries' spending, among other measures.