Frustrated lingerie retailers in France are protesting their closure during lockdown by sending underwear to Prime Minister Jean Castex along with requests they be classed as essential businesses.

Credit Suisse racked up more than $20 billion in exposure to Archegos-related investments, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday, and the Swiss bank's executives were only told days before the US hedge fund's implosion.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday publicly defended himself for the first time against charges that he oversaw the illegal depletion of the country's central bank reserves.

President Bashar al-Assad appointed a new central bank chief on Tuesday, a week after the former governor was sacked amid Syria's spiraling economic crisis.

For three decades Abu Ali planted potatoes to provide for his family, but Lebanon's economic crisis has driven up production costs and forced him to swap the crop for cannabis.

"It's not for the love of hashish," the 57-year-old told AFP in the eastern Baalbek region, the heart of Lebanon's illicit cannabis industry.

Asian markets rose on Monday after recovery hopes for the coronavirus-battered US economy fuelled another round of record highs on Wall Street to close last week's trade.

The Netherlands' third-largest bank ABN Amro is to pay a 480 million euro ($575 million) settlement to prosecutors following a money-laundering probe, the bank announced on Monday.

China's economy expanded at a record pace in the first quarter as the country continued its rapid recovery from last year's pandemic-fuelled slump, official data showed Friday.

Asian markets fluctuated on Friday as record Chinese economic growth figures struggled to add fuel to a Wall Street surge that came on the back of blockbuster reports on US consumer spending and jobless claims.

A drip-feed of revelations over the collapse of an opaque financial firm is raising serious questions about cosy ties between UK politicians, civil servants and big business as the government spends lavishly on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.