Supermarkets in Lebanon have started pricing items in U.S. dollars instead of the nose-diving local currency, after a government announcement allowing the practice in a country heavily reliant on imports.

Since late 2019, Lebanon has been facing a dramatic economic crisis that has seen poverty rates climb to reach more than 80 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to strengthen state control over agriculture and take a spate of other steps to increase grain production, state media reported Thursday. But experts say it won't effectively address a worsening food shortage.

Kim's measures unveiled during a recent four-day meeting were largely a repeat of his past policies. Prospects for quickly resolving its food insecurity are dim, as North Korea restricts the operation of markets and devotes much of its scarce resources to its nuclear program.

French senators will start debating President Emmanuel Macron's contested pension plan on Thursday, as the centrist government hopes to find a compromise with the conservatives at the upper house of parliament to be able to push the bill through.

Macron has vowed to go ahead with the bill, which aims to raise the country's minimum retirement age from 62 to 64, despite nationwide demonstrations and strikes and opinion polls consistently showing a majority of French people oppose the change.

When European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen visited Britain last week, some joked on social media: Can you please bring us some tomatoes?

People in the U.K. have had to ration salad staples like tomatoes and cucumbers for the past two weeks amid a shortage of fresh vegetables. Shelves of fresh produce in many stores have been bare, and most major supermarkets have imposed limits on how many salad bags or bell peppers customers are allowed to buy.

Egypt raised the price of some types of gasoline Thursday, the latest hike to beset the cash-strapped North African country amid soaring inflation.

The country's petroleum ministry said in a statement it was raising the price of three octanes of gasoline from between 0.75 to 1 Egyptian pound per liter (around 2.3 to 3.3 U.S. cents). The price hike was introduced Thursday morning, it said.

Budget carrier FlyDubai has announced record profits, benefitting from a surge in air travel following the lifting of pandemic restrictions.

The state-owned carrier, based in the business and tourism hub of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, reported $327 million in profit in 2022, up 43% from the previous year. Annual revenue for 2022 was up 72%, to $2.5 billion, it said.

Lebanon’s unofficial dollar exchange rate dropped by more than LBP 10,000 on Wednesday evening, shortly after Central Bank chief Riad Salameh announced that the bank will start buying and selling dollars at a Sayrafa platform rate of LBP 70,000.

China's factory activity accelerated in February as the economy revived following the end of anti-virus controls that kept millions of people at home and disrupted travel and trade, two surveys showed Wednesday.

Purchasing managers' indexes issued by a business magazine, Caixin, and the official China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing rebounded to levels that show activity growing. Measures of production, exports and new orders all rose.

Hungary's Prime Minister Victor Orban has thanked Egypt for its role in capping Europe-bound migration as the two countries inked a series of preliminary agreements in Cairo.

Orban's praise for Egypt, and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, came during his visit to the Egyptian capital in which the two governments signed various memorandums of understanding in nuclear cooperation, education and sports. Few further details were immediately given about the deals.

A group of women stands in front of a vegetable vendor at a street market in one of Cairo's oldest neighborhoods, yelling in frustration.

"Every day there are new prices," one said. "When will this war end?" another shouted, cradling a baby in her arms.