War Financial News

The Nikkei stock index recorded last week its first new high in 34 years, a fitting tribute to Japan’s re-emergence as a genuinely exciting economy. It also comes amid mounting evidence that Japan has finally broken the hold of deflation. Inflation in January was 2.2%, the 22nd month above 2%.

Officials in Moldova’s Russia-backed breakaway region of Transnistria have appealed to Moscow for protection as tensions escalate with the pro-Western government

Vladimir Putin warned Western countries on Thursday that there was a genuine risk of nuclear war if they sent their own troops to fight in Ukraine, and he said Moscow had the weapons to strike targets in the West. Addressing parliament and other members of the country's elite, Putin, 71, repeated his accusation that the West is bent on weakening Russia, and he suggested Western leaders did not understand how dangerous their meddling could be in what he cast as Russia's own internal affairs. He prefaced his warning with a specific reference to an idea, floated by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, of European NATO members sending ground troops to Ukraine — a suggestion that was quickly rejected by the United States, Germany, Britain and others.

Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state-of-the-nation address on Thursday to Russia's elite, updating them on the war in Ukraine, Moscow's nuclear capabilities, and its relationship with the West. The speech comes two weeks ahead of a presidential election in which Putin is expected to win another six-year term in a landslide. Here are highlights from his speech, which was delivered to members of both houses of parliament, state officials, military commanders and soldiers.

By Marc Jones and Olena Harmash

South Sudan’s government is blaming the country’s economic crisis in part on fighting in neighboring Sudan and the instability in the Red Sea, where Yemen's Houthi rebels have been attacking international shipping

By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt

By Marcela Ayres and Christian Kraemer

ALSO READ: Vikramaditya Singh's resignation deepens Congress crisis in Himachal Pradesh The Punjab leader also called for his party to get rid of those leaders “who prioritise personal gain over the collective good". “The loss is not @DrAMSinghvi Sahb’s but larger….. It is essential to purge the party of those who prioritize personal gain over the collective good, for their actions inflict profound wounds on the party’s very existence…..

Giridhar Aramane and German Ministry of Defence State Secretary Benedikt Zimmer chaired the India-Germany High Defence Committee (HDC) meeting in Berlin on Tuesday. The two sides discussed a range of bilateral security and defence issues, with a focus on developing the defence cooperation as a key pillar of the Strategic Partnership between India and Germany. Giridhar Aramane and Benedikt Zimmer held talks on the regional situation and discussed on potential defence industrial projects and proposals, according to Ministry of Defence press release. The two sides stressed on the need for a closer defence partnership and connecting defence industries of India and Germany. In a press release, Ministry of Defence stated, «They exchanged views on the regional security situation, discussed likely joint exercises with Germany in the Indo-Pacific, and deliberated on potential defence industrial projects and proposals.»

Joe Biden cruised to an easy victory in Michigan's presidential primary on Tuesday — but was bracing for a substantial rebuke from an Arab American-led protest over his handling of the war in Gaza. There was little suspense over the outcome for both parties, with Biden almost unopposed in the Democratic nominating contest and Donald Trump declared the early victor in a two-part Republican vote that doesn't even conclude until the weekend.

G20 finance ministers will meet Wednesday in Brazil, seeking ways to shore up a global economy whose nascent recovery is threatened by a raft of conflicts and crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The Ukraine war could take center stage at the meeting, with G7 countries due to meet on the sidelines to discuss shoring up Western support against Russia's invasion — including what US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called an «urgent» proposal to use frozen Russian assets to increase aid for Kyiv.

nuclear weapons against each other or make a political statement in this regard, the Chinese foreign ministry's arms control department said. Director general of the department, Sun Xiaobo, called on nuclear states to fulfil their «special and priority responsibilities» on nuclear disarmament according to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, which seeks to prevent nuclear war, official news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday. During the forum's weekly meeting in Geneva on Monday, Sun said the body should define a roadmap or timetable for an international legal instrument that would protect non-nuclear-weapon states from the threat of nuclear weapons.

Germany and Poland affirmed Tuesday that they would not be sending troops to Ukraine, after reports that some Western countries may be considering doing so as the war with Russia enters its third year. The head of NATO also said the U.S.-led military alliance has no plans to send troops to Ukraine, after other central European leaders confirmed that they too would not be providing soldiers. The Kremlin, meanwhile, warned that a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable if the alliance sends combat troops. «In this case, we need to talk not about probability, but about the inevitability (of conflict),» Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has arrived to Saudi Arabia and met the kingdom’s powerful crown prince to push for a peace plan and the return of prisoners of war from Russia

Starbucks and the union organizing its U.S. workers say they have agreed to begin talks with the aim of reaching labor agreements

The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia says the four Central European countries are deeply divided over Russia's war against Ukraine and how to resolve the conflict

Latvia’s government has extended restrictions on the entry of Russian citizens into the Baltic country until next year

Thousands of farmers are marching in Poland’s capital to protest European Union agricultural policies and imports of cheap food from neighboring Ukraine

froze hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian foreign holdings in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Those billions have been sitting untapped as the war grinds on, now in its third year, while officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of sending the money to Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Russia’s immobilized central bank funds are located in the EU.

By Nandita Bose and Tim Reid