German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Chinese leaders in Beijing on Friday that Berlin expected equal treatment on trade as he tried to drum up greater economic cooperation despite growing distrust of the Asian superpower in the West.

Scholz is under pressure to push Beijing to get tough on Russia over the war in Ukraine, and he said Friday that Germany and China had agreed they both opposed any use of nuclear weapons in the conflict.

Pope Francis Thursday demanded "safe and dignified" conditions for workers after arriving in Bahrain, where rights for migrant laborers have been in the spotlight ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.

Security forces arrested at dawn Thursday the three depositors Ibrahim Baydoun, Ali al-Saheli and Catherine al-Ali as well as prominent lawyer and activist Rami Ollaik for their storming Wednesday of Credit Libanais bank in Hazmieh, the National News Agency said.

Security forces also safely evacuated the bank employees who had been held as hostages.

U.S. mediators tried for more than a decade to broker a maritime border agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Finally, the elements fell into place for a landmark deal between two countries officially — and sometimes actively — at war since 1948.

Russia's war in Ukraine this year and Europe's resulting energy crisis have increased demand for natural gas, which the deal will enable Lebanon and Israel to extract from the Mediterranean Sea.

The European Central Bank is warning that many of the financial institutions it oversees are moving too slowly to shield themselves and Europe's banking system from the impact of climate change, and it is setting new deadlines to meet those requirements.

The ECB said some progress had been made but that a review of 186 banks published Wednesday showed change was uneven and that "the glass remains half full," top ECB official Frank Elderson said in a blog post on the central bank's website.

Diplomatic efforts salvaged a wartime agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain and other commodities to reach world markets, with Russia saying Wednesday it would stick to the deal after Ukraine pledged not to use a designated Black Sea corridor to attack Russian forces.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine formally committed to use the established safe shipping corridor between southern Ukraine and Turkey "exclusively in accordance with the stipulations" of the agreement.

Two depositors, one of them armed with a gun and a gasoline bottle and the other wheelchair-bound, on Wednesday stormed Credit Libanais bank in Hazmieh, demanding their trapped U.S. dollar savings.

The wheelchair-bound depositor, Ibrahim Baydoun, later told al-Jadeed TV that the bank had agreed to give them both a sum of $55,000.

Iran's currency dropped to its lowest value against the dollar on Tuesday, after weeks of nationwide unrest roiling the country. A stalemate in negotiations to revive Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers has also weighed heavily on the rial.

Traders in Tehran exchanged the rial at 338,000 to the dollar, up from 332,200 on Monday. Iran's currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord that lifted international sanctions in exchange for tight curbs on Tehran's nuclear program.

Ships loaded with grain departed Ukraine on Tuesday despite Russia suspending its participation in a U.N.-brokered deal that ensures safe wartime passage of critical food supplies meant for parts of the world struggling with hunger.

The U.N. said three ships carrying 84,490 metric tons of corn, wheat and sunflower meal left through a humanitarian sea corridor set up in July. The corridor, brokered by Turkey and U.N., was seen as a breakthrough that would ensure Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia would receive grain and other food from the Black Sea region during Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially authorized a wheat and fuel grant to crisis-hit Lebanon, media reports said.

The grant consists of 25,000 tons of wheat and ten tons of fuel oil.