Egypt's annual inflation rate continues to surge amid Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine that has shaken the global economy, the country's statistics bureau announced Tuesday.

The inflation rate was up 2.8%, reaching around 14.9% in April, up from 12.1% in March, the Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics said.

Food-delivery workers across Dubai protesting meager pay and inadequate protections have walked off the job across the city, the company confirmed on Tuesday, marking the second strike in as many weeks in an emirate that outlaws dissent.

The foreign workers contracted by Talabat, the Middle East unit of Delivery Hero, began their walkout late Monday after organizing on social media, crippling the application's services.

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted.

With human-made climate change continuing, there's a 48% chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday.

Defying a nationwide curfew in Sri Lanka, several hundred protesters continued to chant slogans against the government Tuesday, a day after violent clashes saw the resignation of the prime minister who is blamed, along with his brother, the president, for leading the country into its worst economic crisis in decades.

Protesters swarmed the entrance to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office in the capital, Colombo, for the 32nd day to demand that he follow in his brother's footsteps and quit. The site outside Rajapaksa's office has seen sustained crowds of thousands for weeks, but had dropped to a few hundred on Tuesday due to a strict curfew, following clashes yesterday that left four dead.

To join or not to join? The NATO question is coming to a head this week in Finland and Sweden where Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shattered the long-held belief that remaining outside the military alliance was the best way to avoid trouble with their giant neighbor.

If Finland's president and the governing Social Democrats in both countries come out in favor of accession in the next few days, NATO could soon add two members right on Russia's doorstep.

Teams in white protective suits are entering the homes of coronavirus-infected people to spray disinfectant as Shanghai tries to root out an omicron outbreak under China's strict "zero-COVID" strategy.

City official Jin Chen said Tuesday that in older communities with shared bathrooms and kitchens, the homes of anyone else who uses those facilities will also be disinfected. He tried to address public concern about damage to clothing and valuables, saying residents can inform the teams about anything that needs protection.

President Michel Aoun welcomed Tuesday the participation of delegates from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in observing the May 15 parliamentary polls.

Last month, a delegation from the European Union election observers wrapped up a six-day visit to Lebanon during which they discussed the deployment of observers ahead of the upcoming May 15 parliamentary elections in the crisis-hit country.

A Libyan military commander who lived for decades in northern Virginia has failed to show up for a deposition in a federal lawsuit in which he is accused of war crimes.

Khalifa Hifter had been scheduled to appear for seven hours in a long-sought video deposition where he would be asked about his role in alleged extrajudicial killing and torture of Libyan civilians in the country's decade-long civil war.

Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative political neophyte, took office Tuesday as South Korea's new president with a vow to pursue a negotiated settlement of North Korea's threatening nuclear program and an offer of "an audacious plan" to improve Pyongyang's economy if it abandons its nuclear weapons.

Yoon's starts his single five-year term during one of the most challenging situations of any recent new president, facing a mix of significant security, economic and social problems that beset the world's 10th largest economy. There's widespread skepticism that an increasingly belligerent North Korea will give his offers much consideration, and South Korea's deep political and social divides, as well as a growing worry about the state of a pandemic-hit economy, are reflected in a recent poll: Yoon faces lower popularity numbers than the departing liberal president, Moon Jae-in.

Ukraine's vital Black Sea port of Odesa came under repeated missile attack, including from some hypersonic missiles, after Russia marked its biggest patriotic holiday without giving new information about the war. Also, a Ukrainian official said the bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a building destroyed by Russia in March.

The civilians were inside a five-story building that collapsed in Izyum in the Kharkiv region, said Oleh Synehubov, the head of Kharkiv's regional administration.