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An exchange of fire between Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the armed forces in northern Israel signal that the conflict in Gaza could spread regionally.

With an Israeli ground incursion potentially imminent in the north of the Gaza Strip, the conflict could grow to involve other regional actors, including Hezbollah and potentially Iran, analysts say.

Riad Salameh’s tenure as governor of Lebanon’s central bank on Monday came to an end after 30 years, with many sharply critical of the legacy he now leaves behind.

“The loss of savings for several generations of Lebanese” is all part of Salameh’s legacy, Nasser Saidi, a former vice governor of the Banque du Liban, told CNBC.

Lebanon has failed to find an official successor to Salameh, who has been governor of the central bank since 1993 and has worked under 12 prime ministers and recurring political instability.

The International Rescue Committee anticipates “a secondary humanitarian crisis” as refugees pour into neighboring countries escaping the escalating conflict in Sudan.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) entered its 24th day on Monday as yet another cease-fire fell by the wayside earlier in the week.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled opposition leader of Belarus, told CNBC she “wasn’t surprised” by the court’s verdict after she was handed a 15-year sentence in a prison camp.

The Minsk court on Monday, which convicted Tsikhanouskaya in absentia, found her guilty of treason and conspiracy to seize power.

 “It was predictable that Lukashenko would try to take revenge on me,” Tsikhanouskaya told CNBC after the verdict.

Pakistan’s foreign minister made an urgent call for international aid, with the death toll from historic flooding across the country expected to rise in the coming days.

Already reeling from an economic crisis, flood waters have submerged over one third of the country in water, killing over 1,000 and impacting 33 million people.

Lebanon has voted in the country’s first parliamentary elections since its economic meltdown in 2019 and the Beirut port blast the following year.

Dealing a major blow to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, preliminary results from Sunday show the party lost seats in areas long held by their allies in the south of the small Mediterranean nation.

“People have spoken, and they said: ‘We are against Hezbollah, against the establishment, and this is what we want’.” Laury Haytayan, the leader of opposition party Taqaddom, told CNBC.

Donald Trump’s former energy secretary on Sunday attacked the Biden administration’s energy policies, linking them to inflation and claiming that restrictions on the U.S. oil industry and rising costs at home could lead to “disaster.”

Energy prices have leaped globally in the last three months. Natural gas has soared almost 600% this year, and international oil benchmark Brent crude is up more than 60% year to date. Currently, crude is hovering around $82 per barrel.

Lebanon’s economic situation is facing “immediate catastrophe,” according to a top U.S. diplomat, who said the country’s leaders need to demonstrate the will to reform before any external assistance can take place.

David Hale, who most recently served as the undersecretary of state for political affairs and is now on detail from the State Department at policy institute the Wilson Center, said that Lebanon’s collapse is imminent.

The current mismanagement of Lebanon has put it on “train to hell” which is “about to reach the last station,” Henri Chaoul, a former advisor to the country’s finance ministry, told CNBC.

Chaoul, who had advised the government in its talks with the International Monetary Fund, resigned in June last year after Lebanon failed to make the reforms necessary to qualify for IMF assistance. 

One of Silicon Valley’s most valuable private fintech companies has chosen Dubai for its first expansion into the Middle East and North Africa.

Online payments company Stripe is expanding into the Middle East, just weeks after its latest funding round, which pushed the company’s value to $95 billion, making it one of the most valuable private fintech firms in the world.

Nearly half of the 200 million young Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have considered leaving their country, as the Covid-19 pandemic cripples economies and fuels unrest across the region, according to a new survey. 

Frustrated with struggling economies and government corruption, 42% of young Arabs have considered emigrating to another country — a worrying trend for a region where 60% of the population are under the age of 30.