The U.S. has slapped sanctions on three companies and one person in Lebanon and Turkey, accusing them of funneling funds to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.

The U.S. Treasury announced sanctions on Turkish company Mira Ihracat Ithalat Petrol (Mira), which it said "purchases, transports, and sells Iranian commodities on the global market;" on its chief executive, Ibrahim Talal al-Uwayr; and on Lebanon-based Yara Offshore SAL and Hydro Company for Drilling Equipment Rental, both of which it said have sold large quantities of Iranian goods to Syria.

Farmers blocked more traffic arteries across Belgium, France and Italy on Wednesday, as they sought to disrupt trade at major ports and other economic lifelines. They also moved closer to Brussels on the eve of a major European Union summit, in a continued push for better prices for their produce and less bureaucracy in their work.

The protests had an immediate impact on Wednesday, as the EU's executive commission announced plans to shield farmers from cheap exports from wartime Ukraine and allow farmers to use some land that had been forced to lie fallow for environmental reasons.

Lebanon’s gasoline, diesel and gas importing companies announced overnight that they would be suspending the delivery of fuel to distributors as of Wednesday morning as well as importation operations, in protest at parliament’s decision to impose an extraordinary tax on the companies that “imported subsidized goods in 2020 and 2021.”

Urging “solutions,” the importers said they would be willing to reopen and supply the market with fuel, even on Sundays, when the issue gets resolved.

Europe's economy failed to expand at the end of 2023, with the stagnation now lasting for more than a year amid higher energy prices, costlier credit and lagging growth in powerhouse Germany.

Zero economic growth for the October-to-December period of last year follows a 0.1% contraction in the three months before that, according to figures released Tuesday by EU statistics agency Eurostat.

With protesting farmers camped out at barricades around Paris, France's government hoped to calm their anger with more concessions Tuesday to their complaints that growing and rearing food has become too difficult and not sufficiently lucrative.

Attention was focusing on an address that new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal was to give in the afternoon to France's lower house of parliament, laying out his government's priorities.

Saudi Arabia's oil giant Saudi Aramco said Tuesday it will not try to increase its maximum daily oil production to 13 million barrels a day after receiving an order from the country's Energy Ministry.

The firm, known formally as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., said it would maintain its maximum output at 12 million barrels a day.

European Union nations have decided to approve an outline deal that would keep in reserve the profits from hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian central bank assets that have been frozen in retaliation for Moscow's war in Ukraine, an EU official said.

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, still needs formal approval but is seen as a first step toward using some of the 200 billion euros ($216 billion) in Russian central bank assets in the EU to help Ukraine rebuild from Russian destruction.

Almost two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war has ground to a virtual stalemate. Ukraine desperately needs support to keep its economy afloat, but political infighting in the European Union and the United States are depriving it of the financial lifeline it needs.

As Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban continues to oppose a 50 billion-euro ($54 billion) support package for Ukraine, other EU leaders are losing patience.

The U.N. trade body has sounded an alarm that global trade is being disrupted by attacks in the Red Sea, the war in Ukraine, and low water levels in the Panama Canal.

Jan Hoffmann, a trade expert at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development known as UNCTAD, warned that shipping costs have already surged and energy and food costs are being affected, raising inflation risks.

Protesting farmers shut down long stretches of some of France's major highways again on Friday, using their tractors to block and slow traffic and squeeze the government ever more tightly to cede to their demands that growing and rearing food should be made easier and more lucrative.

Their spreading movement for better renumeration for their produce, less red tape and lower costs, and protection against cheap imports is increasingly becoming a major crisis for the government, with echoes of the 2018-2019 yellow vest demonstrations against economic injustice that rocked the first term of President Emmanuel Macron and lastingly dented his popularity.