NEW DELHI: India plans to lease abandoned coal pits to private mining companies, a government official said Friday, in an effort to ramp up production as power outages exacerbate a sweltering heatwave.

BEIJING: From quoting the national anthem to referencing Hollywood blockbusters and George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”, Chinese web users are using creative methods to dodge censorship and voice discontent over COVID measures.

LONDON: British convenience store chain McColl’s went bust Friday in the wake of supply strains and weak consumer spending as inflation soars, putting at risk around 16,000 jobs.

KUWAIT: The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) announced Wednesday raising the discount rate from 1.75 percent to 2.00 percent effective May 5. A CBK press release said as part of the Bank’s vigilant monitoring of domestic and international economic and geopolitical developments, in addition to monetary policy trends in the global economies, the CBK Board of Directors decided to raise the discount rate by 0.25 percent to 2.00 percent effective May 5, 2022.

VIENNA: Saudi Arabia, Russia and other key oil producers agreed on Thursday to another marginal increase in output, bolstered by risks to demand amid coronavirus restrictions in China.

NEW YORK: Wall Street stocks sank Thursday morning, reversing the prior session’s gains as markets reassessed the Federal Reserve’s moves to tighten monetary policy in response to inflation.

LONDON: The pound tumbled after the Bank of England raised interest rates by just a quarter of a percentage point despite surging inflation, while oil prices jumped after OPEC+ only modestly hiked production.

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s official inflation rate spiralled to nearly 70 percent in April, data showed on Thursday, posing a huge challenge to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose unconventional economic policies are often blamed for the economic turmoil.

WASHINGTON: A surge in imports of goods and services in March drove the US trade gap to the highest level ever recorded, with huge increases in purchases of autos, computers, furniture and clothing, the government reported Wednesday.