A general strike gripped Greece on Tuesday for the fourth time this year as unions railed at fresh austerity measures the government is imposing in order to keep receiving EU-IMF loans.

The strike halted trains and shut down public services across the country, kept hospital services to a minimum and disrupted a dozen domestic flights.

McDonald's said Tuesday it would launch its first restaurant in communist Vietnam next year after granting a franchise to the son-in-law of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The American fast food giant said it planned to open in the southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City in early 2014 after making businessman Henry Nguyen its "developmental licensee".

The Gulf state of Kuwait has discovered a new oil and gas field in Kabed area close to the well-known Manageesh oilfield, Hashem Sayed Hashem, CEO of state-owned Kuwait Oil Co said on Monday.

Hashem gave no estimates of the reserves in the field located in western Kuwait but told the official KUNA news agency that more details would be released at a later date.

Credit rating agency Moody's on Monday downgraded the outlook of Singapore's three main banks to "negative" from "stable" amid rising property prices and mounting household debt in the city-state.

"The two main drivers underpinning our opinion are the recent period of rapid loan growth and rising real estate prices in Singapore and in regional markets where Singapore banks are active," it said in a statement.

Holocaust survivors and victims' heirs have received $1.24 billion from a Swiss fund set up after a scandal over dormant accounts of Jews killed in World War II, a magazine said Monday.

The Swiss-Jewish weekly Tachles said the figure was contained in a report by New York judge Edward Korman, who oversees the management of the fund.

Greece's prime minister faces protests this week over a bill that must pass for the country to receive a fresh tranche of EU-IMF aid.

"Stress test in the parliament and on the streets" said the front page To Vima weekly on Sunday, while left-leaning Eleftherotypia discussed a "political heatwave."

President Francois Hollande vowed Sunday to fight French "pessimism" in the face of a struggling economy, and acknowledged that the country's rail network needed better maintenance, after a deadly derailment.

In an interview with leading television channels to mark Bastille Day, Hollande insisted the recovery had already started. France entered recession this year and has a record-high 3.26 million unemployed.

President Francois Hollande vowed Sunday to fight France's deep-rooted "pessimism" in the face of a struggling economy, while admitting the country's rail network should be better maintained after a deadly derailment.

In an interview with leading television channels to mark Bastille Day, Hollande insisted that recovery had already started in the French economy, which entered a recession this year and has record-high unemployment.

Egypt's shattered economy was boosted this week by Gulf allies pledging billions of dollars in aid, but analysts say this simply buys time as political turmoil deepens its economic malaise.

The millions of ordinary Egyptians angered by record high unemployment, soaring inflation and chronic fuel shortages who took to the streets two weeks ago demanding Mohamed Morsi's resignation blamed him for letting the economy nosedive.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is proposing that Dell shareholders get a chance to own a bigger stake in the struggling computer maker in hopes of thwarting an attempt by the company's founder to buy it for $24.4 billion and take it private.

Icahn, who owns a nearly 9 percent stake in Dell, now wants shareholders to receive warrants in addition to the cash he previously recommended be given to shareholders.