Rising food prices that have been pushed even higher by Russia's invasion of Ukraine could force upwards of 10 million people into poverty, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Tuesday reassured that authorities have no plans to “eliminate depositors’ rights or undermine the banking sector.”

“The government’s priority in its economic approach is to preserve depositors’ rights and not to waste them,” Miqati told a delegation from the Association of Banks in Lebanon.

Lebanon is ready to work with Cyprus to exploit potential gas deposits in waters between the two east Mediterranean countries, Lebanon's top diplomat said, even though a deal on offshore rights hasn't been formally finalized.

Cyprus and Lebanon signed an agreement delineating their respective offshore exclusive economic zones in 2007, but the Lebanese parliament has yet to ratify it amid the country's ongoing maritime border dispute with Israel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called for diversification of energy exports towards Asia, while accusing European countries of destabilizing the market by moving to cut out Russian deliveries.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has said that he is willing to meet with Swiss prosecutors over a money-laundering investigation.

"I have already informed the Swiss justice that I am ready to go," he told Swiss television SRF.

British consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in 30 years last month, fueled by soaring costs for household energy and motor fuels — the latest grim figures as inflation surges around the world.

Inflation in the United Kingdom accelerated to 7% in the 12 months through March, the highest annual rate since March 1992, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday.

Swiss prosecutors are concluding without any charges a decade-long investigation into alleged money laundering and organized crime linked to late former President Hosni Mubarak's circles in Egypt, and will release some 400 million Swiss francs ($430 million) frozen in Swiss banks.

The office of the Swiss attorney general said Wednesday that information received as part of cooperation with Egyptian authorities wasn't sufficient to back up the claims that emerged in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 that felled Mubarak's three-decade rule.

The Mount Lebanon accusatory body led by Judge Pierre Francis on Tuesday approved a ruling to release Raja Salameh from jail, dismissing an appeal filed by Mt. Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun.

The accusatory body also agreed to slash the bail value from LBP 500 billion to LBP 200 billion.

Some vendors on Etsy say they are halting sales of their items on the site for a week to protest a hike in the fees the crafts e-commerce marketplace charges them.

Starting Monday, Etsy sellers must pay a 6.5% commission on each transaction, up from the 5% in place since 2018.

Sri Lanka is suspending its repayment of foreign debt, including bonds and government-to-government borrowings, pending the completion of a loan restructuring program with the International Monetary Fund to deal with the island nation's worst economic crisis in decades, the government said Tuesday.

Sri Lankans for the past months have been enduring shortages of fuel, food and other essentials and daily power outages. Most of those items are paid for in hard currency, but Sri Lanka is on the brink of bankruptcy, saddled with dwindling foreign reserves and $25 billion in foreign debt. Nearly $7 billion is due this year.