Leaders of the BRICS group of emerging powers hold a summit Wednesday with South American presidents, bringing together nations seeking alternatives to U.S. influence in the region.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will hold talks in the Brazilian capital with counterparts from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and other Latin American nations.

The price of oil paused Tuesday after tumbling last week as a deteriorating security situation in Libya raised questions over the restoration of exports following an agreement between the government and a regional militia.

Prices fell sharply last week as worries about supply disruptions from Iraq eased and on the prospect of more supplies from Libya. Weaker than expected economic data for the first half of the year prompted the International Energy Agency and other experts to trim their forecasts for short and medium term demand.

China's bank lending picked up in June from May, the central bank said Tuesday, as authorities accelerated infrastructure investment to boost the flagging economy, but analysts warned of a possible debt bubble.

Domestic banks granted 1.08 trillion yuan ($174 billion) in new loans for June, up from 870.8 billion yuan a month earlier, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement.

As Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba expands beyond online retail, it is shaking up staid state banks -- and drawing regulators' attentions -- after 100 million customers poured more than $90 billion into its investment product.

Alibaba, which is preparing for a multi-billion-dollar stock offer on the New York Stock Exchange that could rival Facebook's flotation, has already transformed the retail and logistics sectors in China.

Leaders of the BRICS group of emerging powers meet Tuesday to launch a new development bank and a reserve fund seen as counterweights to Western-led financial institutions.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hosts the leaders of Russia, India, China and South Africa in Fortaleza on Tuesday before talks with South American leaders the next day in Brasilia.

Qatar plans to buy U.S. Patriot missile batteries and Apache attack helicopters in a major arms deal worth about $11 billion, senior Pentagon officials said Monday.

The sale would provide Qatar with roughly ten batteries for Patriot systems designed to knock out incoming missiles, as well as 24 Apache helicopters and 500 Javelin anti-tank missiles, officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Agence France Presse.

The price of oil edged lower Monday after its biggest one-day drop since April on expectations Libyan oil will soon return to the market.

Benchmark U.S. crude for August delivery was down 39 cents to $100.44 per barrel at 0535 GMT in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell 3.1 percent last week and is down 4.3 percent so far in July.

Portugal's central bank held an extraordinary meeting on Sunday with the board of directors of Banco Espirito Santo (BES) to begin the formation of a new management team, it said in a statement.

Financial authorities are seeking to fill the power vacuum at the head of Portugal's biggest listed bank, which is being hammered by its parent group's debt troubles. 

Singapore's trade-reliant economy unexpectedly contracted in the second quarter, the government said Monday, as weak global demand weighed on the key manufacturing sector.

Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank an annualized 0.8 percent on-quarter in the three months to June, according to advance trade ministry estimates that were below market expectations.

Ratings agency Fitch warned on Monday that a merger plan by Malaysia's second largest bank CIMB Group with RHB Capital and Malaysia Building Society to create the country's biggest lender was fraught with risk.

"The proposed merger of CIMB, RHB and Malaysia Building Society (MBSB) is ambitious, and will bring inherent challenges and risks for the new banking group amid a complex integration process," Fitch Ratings said in a statement.