Caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayyad on Thursday announced that a reconnaissance permit has been granted to a consortium of international companies to conduct a 3D seismic survey of Lebanon’s offshore Block 8.

“Today is a historic day in a journey that had started in the year 2010,” Fayyad said at a press conference.

Turkey's central bank raised its key interest rate by an aggressive 7.5 percentage points on Thursday, in a new sign of a return to more traditional economic policies under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The bank hiked its policy rate to 25% as it continues to backtrack from a rate-cutting course set by Erdogan, which has been blamed for inflaming a cost-of-living crisis. Many households have been left struggling to afford rent and basic goods as inflation has surged.

Americans didn't let persistent inflation and lingering worries about a recession cut into summer spending on eating and drinking out.

Retails sales at restaurants and bars surged from May through July compared with a year ago, despite prices remaining relatively elevated for restaurants and bars. Sales in the sector jumped 11.8% in July and 9.5% in June from a year ago, according to the Commerce Department.

Wall Street was mixed in premarket trading early Thursday after chipmaker Nvidia reported blowout earnings, pushing Nasdaq futures higher.

Futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.6% before the bell, the Nasdaq jumped 1.3%, while Dow futures lagged, inching back 0.1%.

Carlos Ghosn, the former rock star businessman who fell from grace and fled authorities smuggled in a music instrument box, is getting what his dramatic story deserves — a multi-part documentary series.

"Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn" is the juicy real tale of how the auto executive went from attending red carpets as the head of both Nissan and Renault to fleeing to Lebanon with the help of a former U.S. Green Beret.

Germany plans to ease citizenship rules under legislation approved Wednesday by the Cabinet, a project that the government contends will bolster the integration of immigrants and help an economy that is struggling with a shortage of skilled workers.

The legislation passed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers still requires approval from the lower house of parliament, where the socially liberal three-party coalition has a comfortable majority. It could take effect in January, depending on how quickly that happens.

Four years into its historic economic meltdown, Lebanon's political elites, masters at survival, are pushing for a recovery that would sidestep tough reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund.

Economic experts and former officials involved in designing Lebanon's original IMF-approved recovery plan in 2020 say the political leadership and associates in the banking sector are deliberately implementing a "shadow plan" to torpedo the deal and place the burden of bailing out the financial system on ordinary Lebanese who are already impoverished by the crisis.

Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel, announced Tuesday it served 41.6 million passengers in the first half of this year — exceeding figures for the same period in 2019 as travelers return to the air after the lockdowns of the coronavirus pandemic.

The airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates in skyscraper-studded Dubai, long has served as a barometer for the aviation industry worldwide. The new figures at the airport known as DXB reflect figures offered by the International Air Transport Association that traffic worldwide is at 94% of pre-COVID levels.

Russia and China will look to gain more political and economic ground in the developing world at a summit in South Africa this week, when an expected joint dose of anti-West grumbling from them may take on a sharper edge with a formal move to bring Saudi Arabia closer.

Leaders from the BRICS economic bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will hold three days of meetings in Johannesburg's financial district of Sandton, with Chinese premier Xi Jinping's attendance underlining the diplomatic capital his country has invested in the bloc over the last decade-and-a-bit as an avenue for its ambitions.

The U.S. government said it is formally requesting a dispute settlement panel in its ongoing row with Mexico over its limits on genetically modified corn.

Mexico's Economy Department said it had received the notification and would defend its position. It claimed in a statement that "the measures under debate had no effect on trade," and thus do not violate the United States-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, known as the USMCA.