U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sits down with her Chinese counterpart Wednesday in the highest-ranking contact between the two countries since their presidents agreed to look for ways to improve relations that have grown increasingly strained in recent years.

Yellen's first face-to-face meeting with Vice Premier Liu He comes as the U.S. and Chinese economies grapple with differing but intertwined challenges on trade, technology and more.

Weary parents in China say the difficulties of juggling work and childcare in a costly and ultra-competitive society with little help from the state are at the root of the country's dwindling birth rate.

Spain's income from tourism activity surged in 2022, surpassing levels last seen before the pandemic, the Exceltur tourism association said Tuesday. 

German investor confidence soared in January to its highest level since the start of the war in Ukraine, a key survey said Tuesday, as lower energy prices and cooling inflation boost the economic outlook.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen took China to task over clean-technology industries on Tuesday, threatening investigations over Beijing's subsidies in the sector.

Ukraine's first lady will give a rare international address as the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in the snowy Swiss town of Davos gets into full swing on Tuesday, part of a push by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government to acquire more foreign weapons to defend against Russia's invasion.

Security teams fanned out and snowplows cleared streets as Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska and hundreds of government officials, corporate titans, academics and activists from around the world descended on the town billed as Europe's highest for the traditional winter gathering in Davos. The COVID-19 pandemic torpedoed the snow-covered event each of the last two years, but a springtime iteration was held eight months ago.

World equities mainly rose Monday on growing global optimism as inflation slows and China reopens, while gas prices hit an 18-month low on receding supply fears.

The Joint Parliamentary Committees on Monday approved the capital control draft law and referred it to parliament for a final vote, Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab said.

“The discussion was beneficial and a final format of the law was adopted,” Bou Saab said after the session.

European investigators began questioning high-profile witnesses in Lebanon as part of a probe into Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh's wealth, a judicial official told AFP Monday.

France, Germany and Luxembourg in March seized assets worth 120 million euros ($130 million) in a move linked to a probe by French investigators into 72-year-old Salameh's personal wealth.

Bank of America's fourth-quarter profits rose slightly from a year ago, as higher credit costs and potentially bad loans more than offset the bank's sharp rise in interest revenue.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said Friday that it earned a profit of $7.13 billion, or 85 cents a share in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared to a profit of $7.01 billion, or 82 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. The results were better than analysts' forecast of a profit of roughly 77 cents per share, according to FactSet.