Oil prices soared more than 5% on Monday after Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers said they will cut production by 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year. Shares in Asia were mixed.

U.S. benchmark crude oil rose $3.91 to $79.58 per barrel, or 5.1%, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose $1.30 to $75.67 per barrel on Friday, ahead of the weekend meeting where members of the so-called OPEC+ group of oil exporting countries decided on the cuts, which are in addition to a reduction announced last October that infuriated the Biden administration.

Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers on Sunday announced surprise cuts totaling up to 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year, a move that could raise prices worldwide.

Higher oil prices would help fill Russian President Vladimir Putin's coffers as his country wages war on Ukraine and force Americans and others to pay even more at the pump amid worldwide inflation.

A European Union official visiting Lebanon said Friday that the international body will increase its humanitarian assistance to the crisis-struck country, but that more significant long-term aid depends on reforms and a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said at a press conference following his two-day visit that the EU will provide 60 million euros (more than $65 million) in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon in 2023, a 20% increase from last year.

Global stocks and Wall Street futures rose Friday ahead of a United States inflation update that traders hope might prompt the Federal Reserve to ease plans for more interest rate hikes.

London and Frankfurt opened higher. Shanghai and Tokyo advanced. Oil prices declined.

Egypt's Central Bank said it has raised interest rates as the embattled Middle Eastern country continues to battle surging inflation and a depreciating currency.

In an online statement, the bank's monetary policy committee said the most basic lending rate, the overnight deposit rate, has increased from 16.25% to 18.25%.

One startup lists as its address a small home in a working-class district in Venezuela's capital whose owner has never heard of the firm. Another is a Hong Kong-based shell company created in 2020. Yet another belongs to a Spanish commodities trader indicted in the U.S. for allegedly helping Russian oligarchs launder ill-gotten profits.

They are among the dozens of obscure middlemen and go-betweens at the center of a new crackdown in Venezuela on corruption in the state-run oil industry that has government insiders scurrying for cover. At the same time, regular Venezuelans are asking how more than $20 billion in proceeds from oil shipments seemingly vanished.

One of the world's highest inflation rates is making it more difficult to make ends meet in Argentina, where at the end of last year nearly four of every 10 people were poor, official figures revealed Thursday.

Poverty increased to 39.2% of the population in the second half of 2022, a three percentage point increase from the first six months of the year, said Argentina's national statistics agency, INDEC. Among children under age 15, the poverty rate increased more than three percentage points to 54.2%.

Alibaba plans to spin off some of its sprawling e-commerce and finance empire as independent businesses to make them more flexible and maximize their value, its top executives said Thursday, as the company emerges from regulatory crackdowns that rattled Chinese tech industries.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang outlined details of a plan announced earlier this week to split Alibaba into six main groups as a prelude toward stock listings of some of its companies. The restructuring marks a new stage in Alibaba's growth after a series of setbacks as regulators tightened oversight of the industry.

Four former bankers with the Swiss affiliate of a key Russian bank were found guilty Thursday of failing to properly check accounts opened in the name of a Russian cellist with longtime ties to President Vladimir Putin.

The defendants were handed suspended sentences in Zurich district court that, if violated, could lead collectively to hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs in fines.

The European Union must be prepared to develop measures to protect trade and investment that China might exploit for its own security and military purposes, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Thursday.

Speaking before a trip to China planned for next week, von der Leyen said that it's important to stop "sensitive technologies" that could be used in security crackdowns or to restrict human rights from falling into Beijing's hands.