The Cyprus Central Bank said on Saturday that a study into how much the country's Greek-exposed banking system needs as part of an EU bailout package has yet to be finalized.

The bank said in a statement that the due diligence review of the banking system -- expected to be completed on January 18 -- was not yet finalized.

Turkmenistan on Saturday indicated for the first time an intention to join the World Trade Organization, in a surprising move by a country with an economy still dominated by Soviet-style five year plans.

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered Deputy Prime Minister Annamukhammet Gochiyev to "examine the issue of Turkmenistan's joining the WTO," the state newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan said.

A two-day economic summit that opens Monday in Saudi Arabia must break with tradition and tackle people's aspirations in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, the Saudi foreign minister said.

"Our meeting should not be mired in routine," Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a meeting Saturday to prepare for the third Arab Economic and Social Development Summit.

It's likely that burning lithium ion batteries on two Boeing 787 Dreamliners were caused by overcharging, aviation safety and battery experts said, pointing to developments in the investigation of the Boeing incidents as well as a battery fire in a business jet more than a year ago.

An investigator in Japan, where a 787 made an emergency landing earlier this week, said Friday the charred insides of the plane's lithium ion battery show the battery received voltage in excess of its design limits.

U.S. markets turned in their third straight week of gains Friday with the S&P 500 and the Dow clawing up to their best closing levels in five years.

Activity was hedged by a mixed batch of earnings, but the heavyweight banks -- with the exception of Citigroup -- underpinned the week's gains with their steady-or-better earnings.

Tucked behind a tidy souvenir shop storefront on the ground floor of an office building one block from the White House, t-shirts, sweatshirts, buttons and a vast assortment of inauguration paraphernalia is staged for an onslaught of purchasing.

Over the course of the weekend, which culminates on Monday on the grassy, park-like National Mall when U.S. President Barack Obama will be sworn in for a second time, Washington businesses that cater to tourists are girding for a deluge of customers.

The mountain of bad loans held by Spain's banks grew to a new record in November, with more than one in nine at risk of not being repaid, central bank figures showed on Friday.

The level of doubtful loans -- mostly real estate credits -- reached 11.38 percent of total loans, up from 11.23 percent in October, the Bank of Spain said in a report.

Price pressures on the global oil market have suddenly tightened, and the deadly hostage drama at a gas field in Algeria puts a "dark cloud" over the country's entire energy sector, the International Energy Agency warned on Friday.

The IEA said that a dominant factor in the global energy market now "has a lot to do with political risk writ large, and not just in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya or Venezuela", and including regulatory risks.

China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 13 years in 2012, the government said Friday, but an uptick in the final quarter pointed to better news ahead for a prime driver of the tepid global recovery.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in the world's second-largest economy expanded 7.8 percent last year in the face of weakness at home and in key overseas markets, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced.

U.S. and Japanese experts on Friday joined forces to investigate an ANA Dreamliner whose emergency landing has provoked the grounding of the world's entire 787 fleet and embroiled Boeing in crisis.

The risk of fire from overheating batteries has emerged as a major concern for Boeing's cutting-edge new planes since the incident on the domestic flight in Japan, prompting airlines to ground all 50 of the world's operational 787s.