Sri Lanka's economy has begun to stabilise after securing a $1.5 billion bailout earlier this year, but the island needs to build its dwindling foreign reserves, the IMF said Saturday.

Chargé d’Affaires Danny Hall celebrated on Friday the completion of the first Table Olive Processing Facility in Jezzine District (located in Roum village).  The new facility was funded by USAID as part of the Building Alliance for Local Advancement, Development, and Investment (BALADI) program in partnership with the Union of Jezzine Municipalities. This assistance will increase fresh olive sales for 270 farmers in 28 villages of the Union and create 10 new jobs.

A summit of top world leaders was urged Friday to fight rising protectionism after Donald Trump's election victory stoked fears that free trade is under threat, and the global economy along with it.

Pakistan's "war on terror" has cost the developing country a whopping $118 billion so far, a new central bank report has said, an amount equivalent to well over one third of its gross domestic product.

France's economy is set to grow slightly less than expected this year, the finance minister said Friday, in another setback for President Francois Hollande as he weighs a re-election bid.

Michel Sapin said on Europe 1 radio that economic growth of 1.4 percent was "the figure we are working on for this year as an assumption."

Malaysia's central bank is intervening in markets to support the beleaguered ringgit, an official said on Friday, as regional authorities grapple with a surging dollar.

Bank Negara Malaysia Assistant Governor Adnan Zaylani replied "Yes" when asked by reporters on Friday whether the central back was intervening in the foreign-exchange market, Bloomberg News reported.

French authorities said Thursday they are investigating 560 taxpayers over tax evasion based on information garnered in the leaked Panama Papers.

HSBC bank on Wednesday said it had agreed to sell its business in Lebanon to Lebanese peer BLOM Bank for an undisclosed amount, ending a 70-year presence in the country.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Thursday an interest rate increase likely will be appropriate "relatively soon" as long as there is further evidence of progress in the economy.

However, in testimony prepared for delivery to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, Yellen said the Fed expects it will only have to raise rates gradually. 

On top of a long-abandoned building, 50 young Arab Israelis listen attentively to Emad Madah as smoke billows into the sky in the distance behind them.