The central bank has extended the implementation of Circular 161 until the end of July, allowing banks to continue to purchase dollars via the Sayrafa platform, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh announced on Wednesday.

The circular, which has been in place since January, allows commercial banks to buy U.S. dollars from the central bank with the Lebanese pounds that they or their clients have, based on an exchange rate specified by the Sayrafa platform, which is usually lower than that of the black market.

Elon Musk's ties to China through his role as electric car brand Tesla's biggest shareholder could add complexity to his bid to buy Twitter.

Other companies that want access to China give in to pressure to follow Beijing's positions on Taiwan and other issues. But Twitter is shut out by internet barriers that block most Chinese users from seeing global social media, which gives Beijing no leverage over the company, though the ruling Communist Party uses it to spread propaganda abroad.

Japan's government announced Tuesday it will begin allowing small package tours from four countries later this month before gradually opening up to foreign tourism for the first time since it imposed tight border restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said the tours will be allowed from Australia, Singapore, Thailand and the United States as an experiment.

The land borders between Spain and Morocco at Ceuta and Melilla, Spain's North African enclave cities, have begun to reopen after being closed for just over two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic and later a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Crowds gathered at the first border to reopen — Tarajal, in Ceuta, and Beni Enzar in Melilla — to witness the reopening at midnight Monday.

The British government dramatically escalated a fight with the European Union on Tuesday by saying it will pass a law to change the trade treaty signed by the two sides less than two years ago.

Britain says its move to scrap parts of the legally binding treaty is an insurance policy in case it can't reach agreement with the bloc to end a long-running dispute over post-Brexit trade rules.

As Lebanon awaits the final results of its parliamentary elections, enormous difficulties lie ahead.

The value of the Lebanese pound dropped on Tuesday, reaching 29,500 to the U.S. dollar.

The European Union has slashed its forecasts for economic growth in the 27-nation bloc amid the prospect of a drawn-out Russian war in Ukraine and disruptions to energy supplies.

The EU's gross domestic product will expand 2.7% this year and 2.3% in 2023, the bloc's executive arm said Monday — its first economic predictions since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

India on Sunday said it would keep a window open to export wheat to food-deficit countries at the government level despite restrictions announced two days earlier.

India's Commerce Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam told reporters the government will also allow private companies to meet previous commitments to export nearly 4.3 million tons of wheat until July. India exported 1 million tons of wheat in April.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco said Sunday its profits soared more than 80% in the first three months of the year, as the state-backed company cashes in on the volatility in global energy markets and surging oil prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The bumper first-quarter earnings by the firm formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., which overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company last week, show a record net income of $39.5 billion, up from $21.7 billion during the same period last year.

Lebanese activists Friday rolled out mock banknotes featuring paintings of a gutted central bank or the Beirut port explosion to denounce high-level corruption that has helped to wreck the country.

The collapse of the Lebanese pound and frozen bank accounts have left Lebanon with a confusing currency system, with a multitude of exchange rates applying to various situations in daily life.