Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait, Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah, has resigned in protest against the oil-rich Gulf state's steep rise in spending, local media reported on Monday.

Al-Qabas newspaper said the 61-year-old chief banker quit after "objecting to the negative developments in the state's fiscal policy and its dangerous consequences on the national economy."

Tunisian Industry Minister Mohamed Lamine Chakhari is in talks with German company Leoni to ward off the closure of a plant in Tunisia that employs some 2,700 people, the ministry said Saturday.

Chakhari went late Friday to Mateur, some 60 kilometers northwest of Tunis, to call for "dialogue ... leading to solutions that take into consideration the future of the business," the ministry said in a communique.

A five-week streak of gains on U.S. markets ended Friday after revived worries that Greece will default on its huge mountain of debt sent stocks falling.

Clear signs that Athens was close to a political deal that would enable a huge debt restructuring and new European Union bailout boosted stocks over the first four days of the week.

Latin America is experiencing a mining boom as prices rise fuelled by a hike in global demand, but the region is also being hit by a wave of violent protests, strikes and rallies by environmentalists.

"The number of conflicts is increasing, over water, over extensions of mining rights, over pollution of rivers, over the displacement of populations," said economist Jose de Echava, Peru's former vice minister of the environment.

The European debt crisis has helped Japanese banks rise in international credit standings as they remain relatively stable compared with their U.S. and European peers, a press report said Saturday.

US money market funds, which hold some $2.7 trillion of assets and invest in short-term securities, are increasing investment in Japanese banks, the business newspaper Nikkei reported.

Investors on the Tokyo stock market will be paying close attention to progress in talks to save Greece from bankruptcy next week, dealers said Friday.

At talks in Brussels between Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and his 16 Eurozone counterparts, Athens was given until Wednesday to meet three conditions in return for 130 billion euros in aid.

Oil prices fell to near $99 a barrel Friday in Asia as encouraging news about the U.S. economy was tempered by European demands for Greece to make further spending cuts before getting a new bailout.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was down 61 cents at $99.23 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.13 to settle at $99.84 on Thursday.

A year after Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak, the poor state of the once-growing economy of the Arab world's most populous nation poses a threat to its restive transition to democracy.

With an estimated growth rate of one to two percent -- compared with between five and seven percent in past years -- the government is looking to the International Monetary Fund and donors to fend off a possible social explosion.

The Lebanese economy is at risk from internal political uncertainty, spiraling violence in neighboring Syria and the Eurozone crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

These and other vulnerabilities including high government debt and an ongoing current account deficit saw gross domestic product (GDP) growth sink to an estimated 1.5 percent last year from 7.0 percent in 2010, said the IMF.

The European Central Bank held its key interest rates steady, as expected on Thursday, leaving Eurozone borrowing costs at historic low levels after cutting rates twice in recent months.

The ECB's policy-setting governing council voted to leave the rate for its main refinancing operations unchanged at 1.0 percent at its regular monthly meeting here.