The Swiss president says Russia's attack on Ukraine is "unacceptable" and Switzerland will adopt European Union sanctions, including asset freezes, targeting Russians – all but depriving well-heeled Russians of access to one of their favorite havens to park their money.

Ignazio Cassis told a news conference Monday that Russia's invasion was intolerable on moral and political grounds. Switzerland's government has been trying to balance its condemnation of Russia's actions with its history of neutrality and as an intermediary between opposing countries.

Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on Monday interrogated Bank of Beirut chairman Salim Sfeir and Bank Audi chairman Samir Hanna over a complaint filed by an activist group.

Media reports said Aoun would also interrogate Khalil al-Bitar, who is a member of the board of directors of Bank Audi.

The United Arab Emirates campaigned hard for a seat on the U.N. Security Council in the country's international push to highlight the 50-year anniversary of its formation. But it got more than it bargained for with Russia's war on Ukraine.

The federation of sheikhdoms, home to Dubai's skyscrapers, abstained in a Security Council vote late last week condemning Moscow's invasion. The Emirates now carefully hedges its statements to avoid angering a country crucial to its economy as it tries to shake off the coronavirus pandemic.

Russia's central bank sharply raised its key rate Monday in a desperate attempt to shore up the plummeting ruble and prevent the run of banks amid crippling Western sanctions over the Russian war in Ukraine.

The bank hiked the benchmark rate to 20% from 8.5%. That followed a Western decision Sunday to freeze Russia's hard currency reserves, an unprecedented move that could have devastating consequences for the country's financial stability.

The Cabinet on Friday approved “in principle” the electricity plan devised by Energy Minister Walid Fayyad.

Lebanon has wheat reserves sufficient for one month at the most, with Ukraine accounting for up to 60 percent of the crisis-hit country's wheat market, the economy minister said on Friday.

Concerns about wheat reflect the rippling effect of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Lebanese government is in talks with other countries like the United States, India and Canada to provide wheat amid concerns of global disruption to wheat supply during the crisis, the Minister, Amin Salam, said.

Just what a vulnerable world economy didn't need — a conflict that accelerates inflation, rattles markets and portends trouble for everyone from European consumers to indebted Chinese developers and families in Africa that face soaring food prices.

Russia's attack on Ukraine and retaliatory sanctions from the West may not portend another global recession. The two countries together account for less than 2% of the world's gross domestic product. And many regional economies remain in solid shape, having rebounded swiftly from the pandemic recession.

Lebanon's transport minister has said that Spain will finance a plan to revive the railway network that has been out of service since the start of the 1975-1990 civil war.

A deal for a "comprehensive master plan for the 407 kilometer-long railway" is expected next month, Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamiyeh told AFP in an interview.  

President Michel Aoun on Thursday held a meeting with a delegation from New York-based audit firm Alvarez & Marsal.

The firm had launched an audit of the accounts of Lebanon’s central bank in September 2020, but was forced to pull out two months later because the central bank failed to hand over necessary data. Aoun said in October that the company had resumed its work.

Oil prices broke past $100 and safe havens surged while equities tumbled Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "military operation" in Ukraine, accelerating fears of a major war.