Authorities at Rizhao port in China's Shandong province have announced a halt to all imports of Russian anthracite on concerns that banned North Korean supplies were being mixed with Russian cargoes.

Venezuelan state-owned PdV squeaked past a catastrophic debt default this year thanks to an expanding financial lifeline from Russian state-controlled Rosneft.

On August 5, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a loan agreement with the Government of the Republic of Iraq in Baghdad to provide a Japanese ODA loan of up to 21.556 billion yen for the Hartha Thermal Power Station Rehabilitation Project.