Pressure mounted on top managers of Swiss banking giant UBS on Saturday, after it lost $2 billion due to rogue trading.

The bank's honorary chairman Nikolaus Senn told Swiss German television late Friday that he doubted that chief executive Oswald Gruebel could stay after the debacle.

European Union finance ministers are debating a tax on financial transactions that could raise money for the EU as well as make banks share bailout burdens with taxpayers.

But European internal markets Commissioner Michel Barnier said after a meeting Saturday "there's no consensus" on the tax, which would take a tiny fraction from a wide range of financial dealings.

President Barack Obama signed into law Friday a major overhaul of the U.S. patent system, a measure designed to ease the way for inventors to bring their products to market. "We can't afford to drag our feet any longer," the president said.

Passed in a rare display of congressional bipartisanship, the America Invents Act is the first significant change in patent law since 1952. It has been hailed as a milestone that would spur innovation and create jobs.

German auto giant Volkswagen said Friday it would boost investment sharply over the next five years as part of its ambitions to become the world's biggest car maker by 2018.

VW said in a statement it had earmarked 62.4 billion euros ($86.1 billion) for investment between 2012 and 2016, representing an increase of almost 21 percent over the preceding five-year investment plan for the period from 2011 until 2015.

Deep austerity measures adopted by Italy this week are not enough to win market confidence according to economic experts who are calling for urgent action to boost growth.

The government hopes that its budget cuts and reforms will reassure markets about its public finances, and will also win approval from Moody's credit rating agency.

ENI and Gazprom have signed an agreement confirming the handover to the Russian giant of a Libyan oil field the Italian firm held before Moammar Gadhafi's fall, an ENI spokesman said on Friday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi oversaw the signing of the framework Elephant deal in February just weeks before the NATO-led offensive began against Gadhafi's forces.

World trade is slowing more sharply than expected this year because of the sovereign debt crisis and an economic slowdown, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy said on Friday.

The head of the international trade body said that forecasts for world trade for 2011 would be revised downward although he did not say by how much.

The U.S. Embassy hosted on Thursday a round table meeting with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East Hady Amr.

Of Lebanese origin, Amr briefly explained about the projects which the U.S. is currently funding to further promote agricultural and educational growth.

Oil prices will likely rise to about $130 a barrel in the next 12 months as demand in emerging markets such as China and India make up for weak developed world growth, Goldman Sachs said Thursday.

Despite concerns about the U.S. economy and Eurozone sovereign debt, which have hit crude prices due to an expected fall in demand, the Wall Street giant forecast commodity prices to remain buoyant.

Hong Kong said Thursday it had no plans to get rid of its currency's peg to the U.S. dollar, despite growing calls to end the 28-year link as the world's largest economy falters.

The southern Chinese city has come under pressure in recent weeks to allow the Hong Kong dollar to appreciate against the greenback, against the backdrop of rising inflation in the city of seven million.