International credit rating agency Moody's said Friday that the outlook for Germany's banking system remains negative owing to intense competition, low interest rates and a weaker environment.

"The outlook for Germany's banking system remains negative," Moody's said in a new Banking System Outlook.

Buying a pair of trousers at one in the morning has never been a problem in Cairo, but a new government proposal to slash trading hours could effectively pull the plug on the city that never sleeps.

Minister of Local Development Ahmed Zaki Badr has warned that the government is considering legislation that would see shops close at 10 pm and restaurants at midnight. "Tourist establishments" with a special license such as hotels and bars, would be exempt.

The U.S. news magazine Newsweek plans to end its print publication after 80 years and will shift to an all-digital format starting in early 2013. Job cuts are expected.

Newsweek's last U.S. print edition will be its Dec. 31 issue.

Thousands of Greeks staged a general strike against a new wave of imminent austerity cuts on Thursday as EU leaders were to tackle the eurozone's ongoing economic crisis at a summit.

The fourth such strike of the year has paralyzed train and ferry traffic, disrupted flights and shut down public services as unions seek to send a message to the government that they will not tolerate a third straight year of cuts.

Crisis-hit savers in Spain are transferring their money to Switzerland for safety, the head of Geneva's 80-strong banking association said on Wednesday.

"The (Spanish) clients have deliberately chosen to place their money in Switzerland because they no longer have confidence in Spanish banks," Bernard Droux, president of Geneva Financial Center, told reporters.

The European Union and the United States should stop using biofuels as they are hampering food production, the U.N.'s special rapporteur for the right to food Olivier De Schutter told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"Europe has to do more than lower its targets for production of biofuels as it is planning. It has to have the political courage to abandon them and the United States should do the same," he said on the sidelines of talks in Rome.

Greeks opposing a new round of austerity cuts on Wednesday began a two-day round of strikes and protests timed to pressurize EU leaders ahead of a summit later this week.

Lawyers, notaries, pharmacists and doctors were told by their respective associations to walk off the job ahead of a full-blown general strike on Thursday called by the country's main unions.

Spain has won breathing space but nothing more, analysts said Wednesday, after it escaped feared downgrade of its debt to junk-bond status.

Even if Madrid secures a rescue in which the European Central Bank buys its bonds so as to lower borrowing costs, Spain will be left with deep-seated economic problems unresolved, economists said.

Nordic telecom operator TeliaSonera intends to shed 2,000 jobs, it said on Wednesday while announcing a 1.2-percent fall in quarterly profit, which was below market expectations.

In the three months ending September 30, the group's net profit fell by 1.2 percent to 4.8 billion kronor ($727.66 million, 555.85 million euros).

Mexican telecoms mogul Carlos Slim will enter the cement business in 2013 through a big stake in a new company, Cementos Fortaleza, the firm said Tuesday.

Cementos Fortaleza hopes to become "the best cement maker in Mexico," with Slim taking a 46 percent stake and business partner Antonio del Valle owning 54 percent, chief executive Antonio Tarracena told a news conference.