Britain’s inflation rate rose to a 41-year high in October, fueling demands for the government to do more to ease the nation’s cost-of-living crisis when it releases new tax and spending plans Thursday.

Austria, Hungary and Serbia have held another top-level meeting dedicated to curbing migration, including by sending more than 100 police officers, vehicles equipped with night vision cameras and drones to the border with North Macedonia.

Britain’s domestic spy chief says the country faces major security threats from the trio of Russia, China and Iran which all use coercion, intimidation and violence to pursue their interests.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he raised with Chinese President Xi Jinping concerns about trade “blockages” but did not walk away from their first face-to-face talks with any promises that the $13 billion barriers to Australian exports would be lifted.

Chinese consumer spending contracted in October and factory activity weakened as anti-virus controls following a rise in infections weighed on the economy.

Japan’s economy has contracted at an annual rate of 1.2% in the July-September quarter, as consumption declined amid rising prices.

Indonesia has signed deals with international lenders and major economies that will bring billions of dollars in funding to help the country increase its use of renewable energy.

Poland and Germany have announced separate takeovers of natural gas companies that had links to Russian energy giant Gazprom.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on the chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the corp’s Aerospace Force and a company making drones that the bloc says have been used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Discord over Russia’s war on Ukraine and festering tensions between the U.S. and China are ominous backdrops for world leaders gathering in Indonesia’s tropical Bali island for a summit of the Group of 20 biggest economies.