South Africa urged G20 countries to show global and cooperative leadership to tackle challenges including rising trade barriers, as the club's finance chiefs met on Thursday under the shadow of President Donald Trump's tariff threats.

Group of 20 finance officials meet in South Africa from Thursday amid trade tensions, a global economic slowdown and Washington's threat to withdraw from multilateral organisations. President Cyril Ramaphosa has sought to leverage Africa's first G20 presidency to promote an African agenda,

South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said the Group of 20 advanced economies are nearing a deal on a communiqué.

South Korea's top court has upheld an appeals court ruling to dismiss all charges in a long-running fraud case against Samsung chairman Jay Y. Lee. The accounting fraud and stock manipulation charges stemmed from a merger of two Samsung subsidiaries in 2015.

Samsung’s lawyers said in a statement that they “sincerely thank” the Supreme Court for “wisely” ruling on the case. They said the ruling confirmed the 2015 merger was legitimate.

South Korea on Thursday won its latest appeal in its dispute with U.S. hedge fund Elliott over the 2015 merger of two affiliates of Samsung, shortly after the electronics group's Chairman Jay Y. Lee was cleared by South Korea's top court.