The head of the European Central Bank underlined the bank's determination to fight rampant inflation with more interest rate increases on top of record hikes, saying Friday that "our job is far from being completed" and that even a mild recession would not be enough to bring rising prices back under control.

ECB President Christine Lagarde said in a lecture at the central bank of Estonia that "we will not let high inflation become entrenched" by allowing expectations of higher prices to become baked into wages and costs, creating a spiral of ever-higher inflation.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on a group of individuals, firms and vessels connected to an oil smuggling outfit said to benefit Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

More than a dozen companies, six individuals and 11 vessels flagged from around the world — from Djibouti to Panama — are included in the sanctions package, for allegedly participating in a scheme that included blending and exporting sanctioned Iranian oil.

Lebanon is unable to put its new exchange rate into effect after its outgoing president declared the state budget unconstitutional and refused to sign off on it, officials said.

The Finance Ministry in late September announced that Lebanon would change its pegged exchange rate to the dollar from 1,500 pounds to 15,000 starting Nov. 1, which they called a "necessary corrective action." Parliament passed the cash-strapped country's 2022 national budget in September, which included the amended rate. However, it took at least another week of bureaucracy before reaching President Michel Aoun's office.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Chinese leaders in Beijing on Friday that Berlin expected equal treatment on trade as he tried to drum up greater economic cooperation despite growing distrust of the Asian superpower in the West.

Scholz is under pressure to push Beijing to get tough on Russia over the war in Ukraine, and he said Friday that Germany and China had agreed they both opposed any use of nuclear weapons in the conflict.

Pope Francis Thursday demanded "safe and dignified" conditions for workers after arriving in Bahrain, where rights for migrant laborers have been in the spotlight ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.

Security forces arrested at dawn Thursday the three depositors Ibrahim Baydoun, Ali al-Saheli and Catherine al-Ali as well as prominent lawyer and activist Rami Ollaik for their storming Wednesday of Credit Libanais bank in Hazmieh, the National News Agency said.

Security forces also safely evacuated the bank employees who had been held as hostages.

U.S. mediators tried for more than a decade to broker a maritime border agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Finally, the elements fell into place for a landmark deal between two countries officially — and sometimes actively — at war since 1948.

Russia's war in Ukraine this year and Europe's resulting energy crisis have increased demand for natural gas, which the deal will enable Lebanon and Israel to extract from the Mediterranean Sea.

The European Central Bank is warning that many of the financial institutions it oversees are moving too slowly to shield themselves and Europe's banking system from the impact of climate change, and it is setting new deadlines to meet those requirements.

The ECB said some progress had been made but that a review of 186 banks published Wednesday showed change was uneven and that "the glass remains half full," top ECB official Frank Elderson said in a blog post on the central bank's website.

Diplomatic efforts salvaged a wartime agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain and other commodities to reach world markets, with Russia saying Wednesday it would stick to the deal after Ukraine pledged not to use a designated Black Sea corridor to attack Russian forces.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine formally committed to use the established safe shipping corridor between southern Ukraine and Turkey "exclusively in accordance with the stipulations" of the agreement.

Two depositors, one of them armed with a gun and a gasoline bottle and the other wheelchair-bound, on Wednesday stormed Credit Libanais bank in Hazmieh, demanding their trapped U.S. dollar savings.

The wheelchair-bound depositor, Ibrahim Baydoun, later told al-Jadeed TV that the bank had agreed to give them both a sum of $55,000.