The United Arab Emirates' move to a Western-style Saturday-Sunday weekend is an attempt to maintain its edge over rising regional competitors, particularly Saudi Arabia, experts said.

Stocks advanced Wednesday in Asia after another broad rally on Wall Street as investors wagered that the new variant of the COVID-19 virus won't pose a big threat to the economy.

Shares rose in Paris, London, Tokyo and Shanghai but fell in Frankfurt as Germany's parliament elected Olaf Scholz as the country's ninth post-World War II chancellor, opening a new era for the European Union's largest economy after Angela Merkel's 16-year tenure.

Energy Minister Walid Fayyad affirmed, after meeting President Michel Aoun Wednesday, that he will visit France to discuss issues related to electricity and gas exploration.

“I am invited to an official visit to France to discuss gas exploration with (French multinational oil and gas company) Total (Energies) and other firms,” Fayyad said in a press conference.

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.”