The bustling, cosmopolitan business hub of Hong Kong may be losing its shine among foreign companies and expatriates with its stringent anti-pandemic rules requiring up to 21 days of quarantine for new arrivals.

The restrictions are discouraging both visitors and business travelers and add to other challenges the semi-autonomous Chinese territory faces as Beijing exerts ever more control over the former British colony.

A major outage in Amazon's cloud computing network Tuesday severely disrupted services at a wide range of U.S. companies for more than five hours, the latest sign of just how concentrated the business of keeping the internet running has become.

The incident at Amazon Web Services mostly affected the eastern U.S., but still impacted everything from airline reservations and auto dealerships to payment apps and video streaming services to Amazon's own massive e-commerce operation. That included The Associated Press, whose publishing system was inoperable for much of the day, greatly limiting its ability to publish its news report..

The share of global wealth of the world's richest people soared at a record pace during the Covid pandemic, a report on inequality showed Tuesday.

Global stock markets rallied Tuesday on fading fears over dangers arising from the new Omicron Covid variant.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered oil giant Rosneft to present a proposal to deliver natural gas to Europe, a move that would end Gazprom's monopoly on piped gas exports.

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin began a high-stakes video summit Tuesday in which the U.S. president was set to warn of painful sanctions and increased military support for Eastern Europe if Russia invades Ukraine.

President Michel Aoun on Tuesday told an International Monetary Fund delegation that Lebanon is “committed to devising a feasible reformist plan” and to “cooperating with IMF to approve it quickly.”

Aoun also said that “the priority should be given to the social and health issues, and to confronting poverty and moving forward in repairing infrastructure in the country, such as electricity, telecommunications and the Beirut port.”

Saudi Arabia signed deals with Oman valued at $30 billion, state media said Tuesday, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began a tour of Gulf Arab countries, including former rival Qatar.

The United Arab Emirates said Tuesday its official workweek will move to Monday to Friday, a significant change that brings the Islamic nation that is home to major financial institutions in line with Western schedules.

The decision, which is to take effect next month, makes the Gulf Arab federation one of the few countries in the Middle East to operate on Western hours instead of on a Sunday through Thursday week.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Monday presided over a broad meeting aimed at following up on the issue of tightening border control and resolving the latest disputes with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries.

The meeting was attended by the ministers of defense, interior, foreign affairs, agriculture and industry, and the heads of Customs, Economic Committees, Association of Lebanese Industrialists, Beirut Traders Association, Union of Lebanese-Gulf Businessmen Councils.