The IMF announced Thursday that after months of negotiations it reached a staff-level agreement to provide Lebanon with $3 billion in aid to help it emerge from a severe economic crisis.

The country has been battered by triple digit inflation, soaring poverty rates, and the collapse of its currency since a 2020 debt default, and officials in Beirut applauded the announcement as it will open the door to additional financial support.

Lebanon’s central bank, also known as Banque du Liban (BDL), is “counting its gold reserves for the first time in at least three decades,” as the international community “pressures the cash-strapped country to evaluate its assets to qualify for a bail-out,” English-language Emirati newspaper The National reported on Thursday.

“About 20 per cent of the time-consuming exercise has been completed in the past two years,” two senior civil servants told The National.

EU leaders on Wednesday said the bloc will soon have to sanction all of Russia's hydrocarbon exports as they blamed Moscow for "war crimes" discovered in Ukraine, especially in the town of Bucha.

New car sales sank almost 63 percent in Russia in March year-on-year, industry data showed Wednesday, as the West pummels the country with sanctions over Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine.

Russia said Wednesday it had made foreign debt payments on dollar-denominated bonds in rubles, in a new blow to efforts to avoid a sovereign default amid Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine.

Global equities sank Wednesday on bets the Federal Reserve will act more aggressively to bring inflation under control, while oil prices rebounded.

India and Australia's trade ministers say a shared security partnership with the United States and Japan has helped them strike a trade deal that Australia hopes will reduce its dependence on exports to China.

Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is heading a business mission to the Australian cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Perth to explore new opportunities created by the interim deal signed virtually on Saturday.

A session for the joint parliamentary committees was postponed Wednesday due to lack of quorum, Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli announced.

U.S. ambassador Dorothy Shea has been reportedly quoted as saying that "some parties" have been obstructing the transfer of gas and electricity from Egypt and Jordan to Lebanon, al-Akhbar newspaper said.

Informed sources have told al-Akhbar, in remarks published Wednesday, that they suspect that KSA might be the party obstructing the deal.

The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union were set Wednesday to impose new punishing sanctions targeting Russia, including a ban on all new investment in the country and an EU embargo on coal, after evidence of torture and killings emerged in recent days from a town outside of Kyiv.

Videos and images of bodies in the streets of Bucha after it was recaptured from Russian forces have unleashed a wave of indignation among Western allies, who have drawn up new sanctions as a response.