The Trade and Investment Facilitation (TIF) Project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), on Tuesday launched an energy audit program in partnership with the Michel Daher Social Foundation (MDSF) for industrial facilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa region.

The 16-month long program will support 17 Bekaa manufacturers to optimize efficiency of energy consumption through conservation measures and renewable energy solutions. The partnership will include training on renewable energy technologies, along with an extensive on-site and off-site energy audit program that will identify three types of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs). USAID, through TIF, will then support industrialists in implementing appropriate solutions to identify energy inefficiencies including the installation of renewable energy solutions.

President Michel Aoun on Tuesday told a delegation from French oil giant TotalEnergies that exploration for gas in Lebanon’s offshort Block 9 “should start quickly to make up for the time that was lost during the indirect negotiations for the demarcation of the southern maritime border.”

According to the state-run National News Agency, the delegation briefed Aoun on the procedural and administrative preparations that TotalEnergies is carrying out in Lebanon ahead of the start of exploration in Block 9.

An Iraqi investigative judge has questioned five senior tax officials over $2.5 billion in public funds that have gone missing, and more arrest warrants have been issued, authorities said Tuesday.

Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $495 million as part of a settlement with the U.S. over a yearslong dispute tied to mortgage-backed securities, an investment vehicle that played a central role in the 2008 financial crisis.

The Swiss bank said that some of the transactions were prior to 2008.

The U.K.'s new Treasury chief ripped up the government's economic plan on Monday, dramatically reversing most of the tax cuts and spending plans that Prime Minister Liz Truss announced less than a month ago and raising new questions about how long the beleaguered British leader can stay in office.

In a televised address, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said he was scrapping "almost all" of Truss' tax cuts, along with her flagship energy policy and her promise — repeated just last week — that there will be no public spending cuts.

The Lebanese pound's market value hit a record low against the dollar Monday, as the cash-strapped country plunges further into financial and political turmoil three years after its economy collapsed.

The pound sank further as the country, led by a caretaker government, heads into presidential elections next month with a divided parliament that has repeatedly failed to reach a consensus on a new leader.

Saudi Arabia has rejected US accusations of aligning itself with Russia amid the Ukraine war by making oil production cuts to drive up crude prices, insisting it was purely a business decision.

"We are astonished by the accusations that the kingdom is standing with Russia in its war with Ukraine," the Saudi defense minister, Prince Khaled bin Salman, tweeted late Sunday.

Continuing strikes at TotalEnergies group refineries in France seriously disrupted fuel supplies Friday after the left-wing CGT union rejected a deal over a pay increase that two other unions had agreed to.

The CFDT and CFE-CGC unions, which together represent a majority of the group's French workers, agreed overnight to a 7% pay rise and a financial bonus. But The CGT rejected the deal, holding out for a 10% pay rise.

Twenty entrepreneurs, mainly women and young people, have won an International Labor Organization competition and cash prize to assist them in developing their local businesses in disadvantaged areas in northern Lebanon.

British media say Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng has left the government, ahead of an announcement by Prime Minister Liz Truss on changes to an economic package that sparked market turmoil.

The BBC and Sky News reported Kwarteng's departure on Friday. It comes after a month in the job — and three weeks after he announced a tax-cutting "mini budget" that sent the pound plunging to record lows against the dollar.