China Construction Bank, one of the country's top four lenders, said its net profit rose 14.1 percent year-on-year in 2012, lifted by growth in net interest income.

Net profit was 193.2 billion yuan ($31.2 billion) last year, rising from 169.3 billion yuan in 2011, the bank said in a statement over the weekend.

Japan and the European Union launched talks on a free trade agreement Monday with a telephone summit held between their leaders, a Japanese minister said.

The telephone talks were in place of a face to face meeting between EU Council and Commission heads Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso, and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which were shelved while Europe grappled with debt problems in Cyprus.

The eurozone struck a deadline-day deal with Cyprus Monday to resurrect a bailout for its government, but only after a radical downsizing of the island's financial sector.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades battled for 12 hours with his euorzone partners and the IMF.

Negotiations among Eurogroup finance ministers on Cyprus were put back by two hours Sunday as Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades dragged out talks with key leaders about a bailout in a fight to protect his island, a eurozone source said.

The eurozone meeting is now slated to begin at 1900 GMT because of "ongoing" discussions with European Central Bank head Mario Draghi, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, European Union heads Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso plus Eurogroup chair Jeroen Dijsselbloem and EU Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn.

Leaders from the BRICS emerging nations are expected to launch a joint development bank to rival western-dominated institutions at a summit beginning Tuesday.

The grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and hosts South Africa will meet in Durban to set up an infrastructure-focused lender that would challenge seven decades of dominance by the World Bank.

Iraq plans to hold an auction of gas exploration blocks open to international energy companies later this year, the fifth of its kind since 2009, a spokesman said on Sunday.

Baghdad will offer 10 exploration blocks in the auction, the date of which has yet to be finalized, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told Agence France Presse.

The head of the powerful Orthodox Church in Cyprus said in an interview published on Saturday that he favored the debt-ridden island nation leaving the euro.

"It's not easy, but we should devote to this as much time as was spent on entering the eurozone," Archbishop Chrysostomos II said in an interview with the Greek daily Realnews.

The U.S. Senate reached a milestone early Saturday when it overcame partisan gridlock to approve its first budget resolution in four years, setting up a political duel with the Republican-held House.

The sweeping plan for fiscal year 2014, the first budget blueprint passed by the Democrat-led Senate under President Barack Obama since 2009, squeaked by by the narrowest of margins, 50-49.

Toyota Motor plans to raise domestic production during the April-September period by about 10 percent from its earlier estimate thanks to the recent weak yen, it was reported Saturday.

Toyota has already revised up planned output for April and May by 10 percent to between 13,000 and 13,500 vehicles a day and it now intends to keep production at that level through to September, the Nikkei business daily said.

Central Japan Railway Co. plans to provide Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. with technology for the running of its bullet train operations, including earthquake response measures, it was reported Saturday.

The companies will sign a contract within several months, Kyodo News said, quoting sources close to the matter.