The IMF lowered its forecasts for Asian growth and warned in a report Thursday that the region faces downside risks due to worries over the Eurozone debt crisis and a slowdown in the United States.

In its twice-yearly Asia and Pacific Regional Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund warned that risks for the region are "decidedly tilted to the downside."

The U.S. Congress has approved long-stalled free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea that President Barack Obama trumpeted as engines of growth and job-creation.

The accords will "significantly boost exports that bear the proud label 'Made in America,' support tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs and protect labor rights, the environment and intellectual property," Obama cheered after the pacts were approved on Wednesday.

Police in Boston arrested 129 protesters Tuesday, a police spokesman said, in one of the biggest crackdowns so far on the Occupy Wall Street movement sweeping the United States.

Boston Police Department spokesman Eddy Chrispin said "a majority" had been arrested for unlawful assembly when police converged on the crowd in the early hours of the morning.

The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday a 2012 federal budget showing a small deficit, increased revenues and only minor adjustments in expenditures.

Spending levels are projected at 41.8 billion dirhams ($11.4 billion) while revenue is estimated at 41.4 billion dirhams ($11.3 billion), leaving a deficit of just over $100 million, according to the official WAM news agency.

The World Bank has revised economic growth in Lebanon downward to four percent from a January forecast of seven percent for 2011 and forecast a fiscal deficit of 5.5 percent of GDP.

The projected growth rate still makes Lebanon the seventh fastest growing economy in the Middle East and North Africa, which is expected to reach 4.1 percent growth in 2011, according to a World Bank report published by Lebanon's Byblos Bank this week.

Emirates NBD Bank, the largest lender in the United Arab Emirates, has taken over the troubled Islamic lender Dubai Bank on orders of the ruler of Dubai, a government statement said on Tuesday.

"Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, in his capacity as the ruler of Dubai, has given orders that Emirates NBD take over Dubai Bank," the statement said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing Tuesday for talks with Chinese leaders, a day after his gas-rich nation signed deals worth over $7 billion with the world's top energy consumer.

Putin is due to meet his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao on his two-day visit -- his first abroad since he announced plans last month to reclaim the Russian presidency.

Crude output is back to normal levels at the southern section of Iraq's biggest oilfield, a spokesman said on Monday, after being temporarily halted by two bombings at a pipeline over the weekend.

"Oil production from the Rumaila field has resumed at the rate of output before the explosions," oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

U.S. researchers Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims won the 2011 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for their work on macro-economics and government economic policymaking, the Nobel jury said.

This year's laureates "have developed methods for answering ... questions regarding the causal relationship between economic policy and different macro-economic variables, such as GDP, inflation, employment and investments," the jury said.

Egypt's stock exchange dipped 5% within minutes of opening on Monday, following deadly clashes between protesters and security forces that left 24 people dead, most of them Coptic Christians.

The main EGX-index shed 207.31 points to reach 3,821.40 -- a drop of 5.15% -- a day after the deadliest clashes since a popular uprising ousted President Hosni Mubarak in February.