European leaders and Tunisia's president have announced progress in the building of hoped-for closer economic and trade relations and on measures to combat the often lethal smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.

The leaders of Italy, the Netherlands and the European Commission made their second visit to Tunis in just over a month. They expressed hope that a memorandum newly signed with Tunisia during the trip would pave the way for a comprehensive partnership.

Iraq's prime minister has held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus during the first trip of its kind to the war-torn country since the 12-year conflict began.

The two leaders told reporters that they discussed fighting drugs, the return of Syrian refugees and the imperative of lifting Western sanctions imposed in Syria. They also talked about Israel's strikes on the war-torn country and water shortages in the Euphrates River that cuts through both countries because of projects in Turkey.

Russia has suspended a wartime deal designed to move grain from Ukraine to parts of the world where millions are going hungry.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the U.N. and Turkey, has allowed 32.9 million metric tons (36.2 million tons) of food to be exported from Ukraine since August, more than half to developing countries, according to the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul.

Russia halted a breakthrough wartime deal on Monday that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would suspend the Black Sea Grain Initiative until its demands to get its own food and fertilizer to the world are met. While Russia has complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance have hampered its agricultural exports, it has shipped record amounts of wheat.

Central Bank Third Vice Governor Salim Chahine has confirmed that there will be no “mass resignation” of the bank’s four vice governors.

In remarks to Annahar newspaper published Monday, Chahine also said that the vice governors will not accept to “keep using depositors’ funds to cover the expenses of the state and the Sayrafa platform.”

A Lebanese depositor broke into Mawarid bank in Antelias on Monday to demand his trapped savings.

Edgard Awwad stormed the bank with his thirteen years old son and left after he received his entire savings, a sum of $15000.

Among meandering alleyways in the historic market of Lebanon's southern city of Sidon, cobblers and menders are doing brisk business, as an economic crisis revives demand for once-fading trades.

The founder and former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network was freed on $40 million bail Thursday after pleading not guilty to federal fraud charges alleging that he schemed to defraud customers by misleading them about key aspects of the business.

Alexander Mashinsky, 57, of Manhattan, was charged with securities, commodities and wire fraud in an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court. He was also charged with illegally manipulating the price of Celsius's proprietary crypto token while secretly selling his own tokens at inflated prices.

Nigeria's new President Bola Tinubu has announced his government's plan to pay $10 a month to poor households to ease the growing hardship caused by the scrapping of subsidies on gasoline.

In a letter to the Nigerian Senate, which was read during Thursday's sitting, Tinubu said 12 million households will benefit from the handout for a period of six months. The government plans to fund it through an $800 million World Bank loan for which Tinubu is seeking legislators' approval.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday launched the construction of a 1,200-megawatt Chinese-designed nuclear energy project, which will be built at a cost of $3.5 billion as part of the government efforts to generate more clean energy in the Islamic nation.

The ceremony marking the start of the project comes less than a month after Pakistan signed an agreement with China's National Nuclear Corporation Overseas in the capital, Islamabad, to construct a Hualong One reactor — a third-generation nuclear reactor and is considered safer because of the latest security features.