With the clock ticking toward a New Year's time bomb of huge tax increases and spending cuts, U.S. lawmakers worked feverishly Saturday to keep America from tumbling off that so-called fiscal cliff.

The stakes in the game of holiday-interrupting brinkmanship are huge. Economists agree the $500 billion in fiscal pain due to kick in as soon as the new year starts will stifle the gathering U.S. economic recovery and send the United States back into recession, spelling bad news for the global economy as well.

Saudi Arabia's council of ministers on Saturday agreed a record consolidated budget for 2013 with revenues expected to hit $221 billion (167 billion euros), state television Al-Ekhbariyah said.

Revenues in the oil-rich Gulf state are projected to reach 829 billion riyals ($221.06 billion), while expenditure is planned at 820 billion riyals ($218.7 billion), the news channel reported.

An Iranian cargo ship sank in UAE waters due to rough weather, while its crew of six was airlifted to safety by a rescue helicopter, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

The Al-Jasourah went down on Friday some 10 nautical miles off the coast of the northern emirate of Umm Al-Quwain soon after it had left the neighboring emirate of Sharjah, said Gulf News.

The U.S. gave strong support to Argentina on Friday in the Latin American country's legal battle with hedge funds over the repayment of $1.3 billion to holders of defaulted bonds.

Shortly before a court-imposed deadline, the U.S. filed a "friend of the court" brief backing Argentina's attempt to overturn a ruling ordering it to make good on the bonds held by U.S. hedge funds.

The head of Japan's central bank has vowed to work with the nation's new government to tackle deflation, according to an interview published Saturday.

"The Bank of Japan, not just the government, will support efforts to strengthen growth potential," Masaaki Shirakawa told the Nikkei business daily.

The Saudi aviation authority has awarded Qatar Airways and Bahrain's Gulf Air licenses to operate domestic flights in the vast desert kingdom.

The national carriers of the two neighboring Gulf states will be the first foreign airlines to operate domestic flights in the oil-rich nation, competing mainly with the government-owned Saudia and budget carrier NAS.

The European Commission approved Friday the latest, 90-billion-euros restructuring plan for Dexia, the Franco-Belgian bank bailed out at the height of the financial crisis and struggling ever since.

The Commission said the plan will allow the core banking business to be wound up while the remaining assets -- a development agency in France and the Belfius unit in Belgium -- will be put on a sound base.

Japanese factories slowed in November, spelling out the daunting task that lies ahead for a new conservative government in reviving the world's third-largest economy.

The 1.7 percent drop in output from a month earlier -- worse than a 0.5 percent decline expected by the market -- came as the Liberal Democratic Party took power this week on a campaign that pledged to inject new life into the limp economy, after it won a landslide election earlier this month.

Taiwan plans to start exploring for oil and gas in the South China Sea from next year, an official and local media said Friday, in a development that could increase tensions in the contested waters.

The Bureau of Mines and state-run oil supplier CPC Corp are expected to kick off exploration in 2013 in the sea around Taiping, the biggest islet in the Spratly archipelago, the United Daily News website and other media reported.

Bailed-out Belgian banking and insurance company KBC is pulling out of Slovenia's Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) and will sell its 22-percent stake back to the state, Slovenia's finance ministry said Friday.

"KBC and Slovenia have agreed the sale of KBC's 22-percent stake in NLB," the ministry said in a statement.