Global Trade & Economy

Rep. Lamar Smith will introduce a bill allocating up to 55,000 green cards yearly to foreign-born graduates with high-skill doctorates.

The World Bank, citing a 10 percent hike in food prices in July, urged world governments on Thursday to burnish their support programs for the poor.

With stark droughts in both the U.S. and Eastern Europe, the bank said that the prices of wheat and maize both jumped by a quarter from June to July, while soybean prices rose by about a sixth.

In all, the bank’s food price index said world prices had grown by 6 percent since last July.

Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president, said that his organization was giving its most support to world agriculture in two decades, spending more than $9 billion in the fiscal year that finished at the end of June. 

Kim added that residents of Africa and the Middle East were most vulnerable, and that the World Bank is ready to go further, if necessary. But he also said governments needed to ensure their own safety nets were strong enough.

The International Energy Agency reportedly changed its position after the Obama administration insisted on tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Your morning global affairs speed-read

German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets with the president of France, Francois Hollande, today to hash out a joint message to Greece that it must stick to the terms of its March 2012 bailout. The meeting comes as Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is set to visit the two countries Friday to ask for more time to meet austerity targets amid fresh concern that a Greek exit from the euro could cause the single currency to collapse. [Reuters]

Trust issues: The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief played down hopes of a breakthrough in talks with Iran over its nuclear program when those discussions resume Friday. [Reuters]

A divided SEC approved regulations Wednesday that will force oil and mining companies to disclose payments to other countries.

Companies will be required to disclose whether they rely on minerals from the militia-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Senate Republicans are demanding that the State and Homeland Security secretaries answer questions about the number of immigrants on welfare rolls. Read more...

While the U.S. devotes about 40 percent of its corn crop to biofuels, other countries worry about global food supplies.

"Standard Chartered operated as a rogue institution," says a report that found the bank helped Iran hide $250 billion.

Geithner will warn lawmakers the financial system still faces "a challenging and uncertain overall economic environment."