The United States is working with Japan and other likeminded countries to counter China's efforts to use its economic might to force political change around the world, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Rahm Emanuel, who was previously mayor of Chicago and chief of staff for President Barack Obama, is pushing what he calls "commercial diplomacy," the idea that the United States and Japan will be more eager to do business with each other and with similar secure and stable countries amid worries caused by the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine and Chinese economic coercion.

Asian and European stock markets fell Tuesday as investors dumped risky equities on spiking U.S.-China tensions over a possible visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

"Tensions ramped up on reports that Pelosi is due to visit Taiwan later this evening," noted CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.

Iran on Tuesday slammed as "destructive" new U.S. sanctions targeting its crucial energy sector and vowed a response, at a time when nuclear talks have stalled for months. 

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration "is not stopping this unproductive and destructive action even at a time when efforts are underway to resume negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal," said foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani. 

The first cargo ship to leave Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor more than five months ago has run into bad weather in the Black Sea and is set to arrive later than scheduled in Istanbul, a Turkish official said Tuesday.

The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni, which set sail from the Ukrainian port of Odesa on Monday, is now expected to reach Istanbul early Wednesday, according to Rear Admiral Ozcan Altunbulak, a coordinator at the joint center established to oversee the grain shipments.

U.U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein did not present a proposal related to offshore block 8 or other blocks in his meeting with Lebanese leaders on Monday, a media report said.

“Hochstein told the conferees, ‘the Qana field is certainly fully yours, but Israel is saying that if you want to go to Naqoura, it will not accept any Lebanese demand south of Line 23,’” senior sources told al-Jadeed TV.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said that the sailing Monday of the first grain ship since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an “important first step.”

Under the U.N.-brokered agreement, the ship, Razoni, left Ukraine’s Odessa this morning for Lebanon, traveling along a safe corridor established under the deal.

A Chinese state-owned company is negotiating to buy a forestry planation with a deep-water port and World War II airstrip in Solomon Islands amid persistent concerns that China wants to establish a naval foothold in the South Pacific country.

A delegation from China Forestry Group Corp. visited the plantation that covers most of Kolombangar Island in 2019, asking questions about the length of the wharf and depth of the water while showing little interest in the trees, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported on Monday.

Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba said Monday that it wants to keep its shares listed in both New York and Hong Kong, days after U.S. regulators included it in a list of companies that may be delisted for not complying with auditing requirements.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has said foreign companies face having their shares delisted if they don't give American regulators access to their financial statements and auditing process as required of other companies around the world.

Saudi Aramco announced a $2.65 billion agreement on Monday to acquire Valvoline's global products business, which includes motor oils, transmission fluids, coolants and other automotive maintenance products.

Valvoline said the transaction will separate its global products from its retail services businesses, transforming it into a purely automotive service provider. The more than 150-year-old company operates and franchises around 1,700 service centers, with stores across the United States offering oil changes and other quick services.

Rising concern over the impact of a potential Russian gas cutoff is fueling the debate in Germany over whether the country should switch off its last three nuclear power plants as planned at the end of this year.

The door to some kind of extension appeared to open a crack after the Economy Ministry in mid-July announced a new "stress test" on the security of electricity supplies. It's supposed to take into account a tougher scenario than a previous test, concluded in May, that found supplies were assured.