European stock markets rose slightly Thursday in quiet end-of-year trading as the Omicron variant dominates sentiment. 

Aviation giant Emirates said Thursday it expects business to grow next year despite the surge in global coronavirus cases fuelled by the Omicron variant.

The Dubai-based carrier said in November it was already on the path to recovery as six-month losses dropped by more than half from a year earlier.

Israel's Environment Minister said Thursday a clandestine oil deal that would have turned a scuba divers' paradise into a waypoint for Emirati oil headed for Western markets has effectively been blocked.

Tamar Zandberg told Israeli Army Radio that following a Justice Ministry opinion that her office had the authority to limit the activities of the Israeli government-owned corporation signed onto the deal, "the agreement cannot be realized."

The dozens of Type 90, or "Kyumaru," tanks rumbling through recent shooting drills on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido exemplify the challenge its arms makers face both at home and overseas as the country fortifies its defenses against strategic threats.

The Self Defense Force needs the more advanced aircraft and weaponry sold by U.S. arms manufacturers as Japan's strategic focus shifts from Russia in the north to the south, where it faces incursions by Chinese fighter jets and naval vessels and North Korean missile launches.

China is calling on the United States to protect a Chinese space station and its three-member crew after Beijing complained that satellites launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX nearly struck the station.

A foreign ministry spokesman accused Washington on Tuesday of ignoring its treaty obligations to protect the safety of the Tiangong station's three-member crew following the July 1 and Oct. 21 incidents.

Indonesia said Wednesday it is lifting its ban on Boeing's 737 Max aircraft, three years after one crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff killing all 189 people on board.

The Transportation Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the aircraft will be permitted to fly in Indonesia, but only after airlines carry out airworthiness directives.

European benchmarks opened mixed, with London's FTSE 100 at nearly a two-year high, after Asian shares mostly finished lower Wednesday.

France's CAC 40 edged up 0.1% in early trading to 7,190.22, while Germany's DAX slipped 0.2% to 15,935.45. Britain's FTSE 100 rose 1.1% to 7,449.16 — its highest level since February 2020, amid optimism that the omicron coronavirus variant may prove to be milder than earlier versions of the virus.

Lebanon is mired in an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern times, but officials are yet to strike an international bailout deal.

The financial meltdown began in 2019, and Lebanon defaulted on its debt last year.

Stock markets rose on Tuesday as investors appeared confident that the Omicron coronavirus variant will not derail the global economic recovery.

To help make China a self-reliant "technology superpower," the ruling Communist Party is pushing the world's biggest e-commerce company to take on the tricky, expensive business of designing its own processor chips — a business unlike anything Alibaba Group has done before.

Its 3-year-old chip unit, T-Head, unveiled its third processor in October, the Yitian 710 for Alibaba's cloud computing business. Alibaba says for now, it has no plans to sell the chip to outsiders.