The Central Bank of Lebanon launched Lebanon’s third annual international conference, “BDL Accelerate 2016” on Thursday November 3rd, 2016 at Forum de Beyrouth. The biggest and most influential conference on the Mediterranean and in the MENA region took place for three days and gathered the most important personalities and international speakers till its last day, on Saturday November 5th, 2016.

This year, 20,000 attendees from all over the world, with over 1,000 internationals, 4,000 professionals, 3,000 entrepreneurs and 2,000 students, participated in the conference and interacted in discussions, dialogues and conferences spread over 9 platforms. The first headline speaker for “Banque du Liban Accelerate 2016” was Steve "The Woz" Wozniak, the Silicon Valley icon who founded Apple with Steve Jobs. Tony Fadell, the Lebanese Founder and CEO of Nest company bought by Google for billions of dollars was also a speaker during the event, talking about his achievements in the innovation and technology world.

Kuwait will issue billions of dollars worth of bonds in international markets to finance a budget deficit resulting from low oil prices, a report said Saturday.

Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim warned on Friday that Donald Trump would destroy the US economy if he wins next week's election.

"As we say in Mexico, being a drunk is different from being a bartender," Slim told reporters at the Montevideo Circle, a meeting of business leaders and politicians.

Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail said on Friday the government did not have the luxury of postponing reforms, a day after the currency was devalued and fuel prices were raised.

Egypt floated the pound on Thursday amid a dollar crunch that threatened to grind imports to a halt, causing the pound to fall from 8.8 to the dollar to more than 14 pounds.

Turkey's embattled lira on Friday plunged to new historic lows in value against the US dollar as markets took fright at a new crackdown against its main pro-Kurdish political party.

The lira is now trading at values substantially lower than in the wake of the July 15 coup aimed at unseating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan which also rattled markets.

The parent group of British Airways cut its long-term profits outlook Friday, blaming the downgrade mainly on a plunging pound following the shock Brexit vote.

A sharp fall in Tokyo led losses in most major Asian stock markets Friday as traders fret over next week's US election, with the dollar weakening further and safe-haven gold maintaining its lustre.

The pound held on to Thursday's gains to sit at one-month highs after judges told Britain's government it must approve June's referendum to leave the European Union.

Air France-KLM said Thursday it will launch an assault on the competition with the creation of a long and medium-haul subsidiary, aimed at taking business from Gulf-based rivals.

Egypt floated the country's pound Thursday as part of a raft of reforms, after a dollar crunch and exorbitant black market trade threatened to grind some imports to a halt.

The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is rolling out an austerity program and seeking billions in support from abroad in order to meet conditions for a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

A French prosecutor has called for British banking giant HSBC to stand trial for enabling French clients to hide more than 180 billion euros from the taxman, a source close to the probe said Thursday.