The lower house of France's parliament debated a contested pension bill aimed at raising the country's retirement age from 62 to 64 during what was expected to be lawmakers' last discussion on the proposal before sending the legislation to the Senate.

President Emmanuel Macron's government has vowed to go ahead with the reform despite nationwide protests and strikes and opinion polls consistently showing a majority of French people oppose the change.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's gas processing firm said Friday it plans to sell 4% of its shares to local investors in the latest initial public offering to be made by a state-run energy company in the Middle East.

The move follows a similar IPO by the Saudi oil giant Aramco in 2019 that raised some $30 billion, and comes months before the United Arab Emirates is set to host this year's U.N. climate talks.

A Saudi sovereign wealth fund now holds 8.26% of the stock in the video game maker Nintendo, making it the largest outside investor in the Japanese gaming company, a company filing said Friday.

The investment comes as part of efforts by the kingdom's Public Investment Fund to diversify Saudi Arabia's economy away from oil, including billions already spent on video game firms. The fund has been a major component in the plans of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, himself said to be an avid gamer.

In less than a week the Lebanese pound's value against the dollar has plummeted to a new low from 66,000 to 80,000 at the black market rate, the exchange rate used for buying and selling most goods and services in the country. There are several mobile exchange rate applications that have been the reference for the black market rate for years.

Though the country’s pegged exchange rate against the dollar was officially devalued to 15,000 earlier this month, the black market rate has reflected a more realistic market rate for years, but rapidly fluctuates with no transparency.

A fifth day of nationwide strikes and protests in France Thursday tested the government's resolve on a controversial pension reform, the flagship policy of President Emmanuel Macron's second term.

This latest in a series of protests that began last month is expected to be less disruptive that on previous occasions, with the Paris Metro and most main line train services working normally and most schools unaffected. Fewer people were expected this time amid school holidays and as unions look toward March 7, when a rolling general strike has been called.

Wholesale prices in the United States surged 6% in January from a year earlier, decelerating for a seventh straight month. But on a month-to-month basis, prices reaccelerated in January, indicating that inflation pressures continue to underlie the U.S. economy.

The latest year-over-year wholesale inflation figure was down from 6.5% in December and from a recent peak of 11.7% in March. From December to January, though, the government's producer price index jumped 0.7%, driven up in part by a 5% surge in energy prices. That compared with a 0.2% drop from November to December, and it was nearly twice the increase economists were expecting.

BLOM Bank, Creditbank and Saradar Bank have agreed to cooperate with Judge Ghada Aoun in her request to lift banking secrecy off several accounts to facilitate her probe into the suspected illegal transfer of funds abroad by bankers, businessmen and politicians, a media report said on Thursday.

North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un attended groundbreaking ceremonies for new housing and farming projects, which are part of his push for domestic achievements as the country's economic isolation deepens amid his defiant pursuit of nuclear arms.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim broke ground Wednesday for the construction of a huge greenhouse farm in the outskirts of the capital, Pyongyang, where senior North Korean official Jo Yong Won in a speech said that providing Pyongyang residents with "fresh vegetables in all seasons" was a "top priority."

The internet sites of several German airports were disrupted on Thursday after what may have been a hacker attack, German news agency dpa reported.

The disruptions did not appear to have an immediate impact on the country's air traffic, the agency said.

Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim on Thursday pressed charges against 22 money changers of whom 18 are in custody.