Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on Thursday ordered the detention of the businessman Raja Salameh, the brother of Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, after questioning him for several hours.

"Raja Salameh was detained during his interrogation at the Justice Palace and Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh will be summoned," the lawyers of the People Want to Reform the Regime group told al-Jadeed TV.

President Joe Biden set out to finally complete the "pivot to Asia," a long sought adjustment of U.S. foreign policy to better reflect the rise of America's most significant military and economic competitor: China.

But Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine has made that vexing move even more complicated. China's government has vacillated between full embrace and more measured responses as Russian President Vladimir Putin prosecutes his war, making the decisions for Biden far more layered.

A senior banking official has warned that Lebanon will likely plunge into a dire LBP liquidity crisis, amid the current unusual escalation between banks and some judges that has involved the freezing and seizure of assets belonging to some banks.

This might push banks’ administrations to “hold emergency meetings amid calls for escalating the confrontation, all the way to taking a decision to shut down collectively as a warning move, and demanding that the government and the central bank intervene in an urgent manner to address the growing crises in a fair way,” the official told Ashraq al-Awsat newspaper in remarks published Thursday.

Judge Ghada Aoun froze on Thursday the assets of the Creditbank and its director Tarek Khalifeh.

She also imposed a travel ban on Khalifeh, al-Jadeed TV said, after having imposed last week travel bans on the directors of five other banks as auditors look into transfers by the banks worth $5 billion.

The assets of Fransabank were seized and all monetary operations were suspended and safes and registers were sealed with red wax, after a depositor filed a lawsuit against the bank.

Earlier this week, Judge Ghada Aoun had also frozen the assets of five of Lebanon’s largest banks and those of their board of directors as she investigates possible transfers of billions of dollars aboard during the country’s economic meltdown.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Germany of putting its economy before his country’s security in the run-up to the Russian invasion.

In an address to Germany’s parliament Thursday, Zelenskyy criticized the German government’s support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project meant to bring natural gas from Russia. Ukraine and others had opposed the project, warning that it endangered Ukrainian and European security.

A United Nations appeal for Yemen Wednesday is aiming at raising $4.27 billion to alleviate what it describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 161,000 people likely to experience famine there in 2022.

The virtual pledging conference is co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will address donors on the dire needs of the Arab world's poorest country.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Wednesday with the de facto rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in efforts to ease skyrocketing gasoline prices, as the West grapples with economic headwinds from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Johnson was seeking greater investments in the U.K.'s renewable energy transition and ways to secure more oil to lessen British dependence on Russian energy supplies.

Lebanese authorities on Wednesday seized the assets of Fransabank, one of the country’s biggest banks, based on an order issued by Judge Mariana Anani, the head of the Enforcement Department in Beirut.

The order followed a lawsuit filed by the depositor Ayyad Gherbawi Ibrahim who requested that he be paid his money in banknotes and not through a check.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to visit Saudi Arabia and meet with its crown prince for talks on oil supplies, as he stressed that the West must end its dependence on Russian energy.

Johnson will also use the trip to press Saudi Arabia to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a Foreign Office official said Tuesday.