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.

Another Chinese property developer said Monday it had defaulted on a major bond repayment, citing liquidity problems amid a government crackdown on the debt-laden sector.

European equities advanced Monday on hopes that the Omicron coronavirus variant might not be as damaging as initially feared, traders said.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration will announce an anti-corruption strategy Monday meant to tackle two major vehicles for money laundering in the United States -- real estate transactions and shell companies.

"We'll be releasing the first ever U.S. government strategy on countering corruption," a senior administration official said on a conference call ahead of the announcement.

EU ministers on Monday agreed measures to better protect wage levels in Europe and give workers more power to oppose low pay.

At 28, Thurayya left behind the Beirut neighborhood where she was born and moved to the family farm, not because of environmental concerns but forced there by Lebanon's bruising crises.

The plummeting Lebanese pound on Friday regained some of its value against the dollar after dropping to a record low last week, after Information Minister George Kordahi announced his resignation, in a move that could defuse a major diplomatic crisis with Gulf countries.

The pound, also known as lira, was trading at about 22,000 to the greenback, up from more than 25,000 just days earlier.

A Lebanese DJ was days away from moving to Riyadh to play for a month in one of the newest entertainment centers in Saudi Arabia's capital when a brief, polite WhatsApp message informed her that the contract won't go through.

The head of a Beirut-based communications agency had been negotiating to revive a two-year-old contract derailed by the pandemic for hundreds of thousands of dollars. After two days of silence her Saudi client, in an apologetic call, said now is not the time.