President Trump backed down on his tariffs increase on Chinese goods as the stock markets plunged. As the treasury yields turned negative, stock markets witnessed strong selling. Investors panicked and this led President Trump to have a conversation with banking leaders on the issue.

Washington  - The United States urged North Korea to stop issuing threats and instead to return to negotiations following a warning from Pyongyang that it would test a nuclear device and ballistic missiles.

North Korea said it wanted an immediate apology from the UN Security Council in return for standing down on the plans to conduct the tests.

State Department acting spokesman Robert Wood said North Korea's threats would only result in further isolation, and said Pyongyang should come back to the six-nation disarmament negotiations it abandoned after the Security Council statement.

Bern - Switzerland sent a letter of complaint to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, posted on a government Website Wednesday, saying the think-tank did not receive its permission to publish a grey list of so called tax havens.

The OECD, which is supported a group of developed economies of which the Alpine nation is a member, placed Switzerland and several other countries on a grey list around the G20 meeting held in London at the beginning of this month.

Berlin  - A group of ten former African presidents agreed Wednesday to a communique calling for land reform, at an event in Berlin marking 125 years since Europe's colonial powers set off the "scramble for Africa".

Former presidents of Tanzania, Ghana, Cape Verde, Mauritius, Benin and Botswana signed the statement at the end of a two-day conference at Berlin's Humboldt University, more than a century after Africa had been carved up at a meeting convened by then-chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1884.

Prague  - Czech President Vaclav Klaus, whose country chairs the European Union until June 30, Wednesday backed Turkey's aspirations to join the 27-member bloc.

"I would like to repeat and resolutely and loudly say that the Czech Republic is on the side of those who support Turkey's entry to the EU," Klaus said after meeting his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in Prague.

Riyadh  - Dennis Ross, US President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Gulf and Southwestern Asia, on Wednesday arrived in Saudi Arabia at the start of his first tour of the region since taking office, the Saudi official news agency reported.

The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said that Ross met with the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, and that the two discussed "bilateral relations and regional issues of mutual concern."