Ukraine's deteriorating position

Plus, Chinese firms 'go underground' on Russian payments.

Sign up for Reuters newsletters Daily Briefing Senior US officials are in the Middle East seeking to ease the Gaza war with a diplomatic push, Ukraine pulls back on the eastern front, and China firms go 'underground' on Russia payments.   Plus, here's what polling can and can't tell you.   By Kate Turton Today's Top News Blinken attends a Joint Ministerial Meeting of the GCC-US Strategic Partnership. Saudi Arabia, April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool MIDDLE EAST French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said talks on a ceasefire in Gaza were progressing as he joined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Saudi Arabia on a diplomatic push to ease the war between Israel and Hamas. As international pressure on Israel to stop the fighting in Gaza grows, James Mackenzie speaks to the Reuters World News podcast about the latest developments on ceasefire talks and Israel's plans for an all-out assault on Rafah. IN OTHER NEWS Ukraine's top commander said Kyiv's outnumbered troops had fallen back to new positions west of three villages on the eastern front where Russia has concentrated significant forces in several locations.  Ukraine said the Telegram messaging app had restored access to a number of chatbots used by Ukraine's security agencies to collect information about Russia's war effort after the services were briefly suspended. Scotland's first minister Humza Yousaf has resigned. The crisis in his Scottish National Party opens the door to the opposition Labour Party regaining ground in its former Scottish heartlands before a national election. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he had decided to continue in office, days after abruptly announcing he was considering his future following the launch of a corruption investigation against his wife. At least 42 people have been killed in floods in central Kenya's Mai Mahiu area and police warned the number of deaths could rise after a dam burst, Citizen Television reported. Business & Markets As China's big banks pull back from financing Russia-related transactions, some Chinese companies are turning to small banks on the border and underground financing channels such as money brokers - even banned cryptocurrency - sources told Reuters. Tesla has cleared some key regulatory hurdles that have long hindered it from rolling out its self-driving software in China, paving the way for a favorable result from Elon Musk's surprise visit. What is Tesla's Full Self-Driving and why its China rollout matters. The yen jumped suddenly against the dollar on Monday, with traders citing yen-buying intervention by Japanese authorities to try to underpin a currency languishing at levels last seen over three decades ago. Financial Industry and Financial Markets Editor Paritosh Bansal writes about how a bond market anomaly that has reliably predicted a US recession in the past may normalize this year in a highly unusual manner. It's a worry for markets. Financial details of Shell's vast oil and gas trading business are some of the company's closest-held secrets. Documents in a lawsuit filed by a former employee, however, revealed its US crude trading regularly earns around $1 billion every year. Philip Morris International's goals for heated tobacco in the US are reachable, analysts and investors say, even though rivals see limited potential in a market where vaping dominates. 'Making predictions is hard, especially about the future' On Nov. 5, election officials across America will count more than 150 million ballots to answer a burning political question: Who will be president of the United States? Until then, the best signals we can get will mostly come from public opinion polls, which will be the fuel of endless debate on who has the lead, Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Donald Trump. But what do polls really tell us? Like a picture from a weather satellite, a poll can be pretty good at telling you what people think right now. It's much harder to tell what people will be doing weeks or months from now. See our interactive graphic. And Finally... The far side of the moon is shown in this image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from 2010. REUTERS/NASA/Goddard/Handout China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on a round trip to the moon's far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole. Read more about the high-stakes mission to the moon's 'hidden' side. Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. 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