Qatar said on Tuesday it will increase its financial aid to Egypt by $2.5 billion to a total of $5 billion, comprising an outright grant of $1 billion and $4 billion in bank deposits.

The financial lifeline comes as Egypt battles a currency crisis and seeks an IMF cash injection into its teetering economy of an almost equivalent amount.

Spain on Tuesday defended a 1.7-billion-euro ($2.2-billion) bid to host the Olympics in Madrid in 2020 even as the country battles a recession and high unemployment while slashing spending.

Spain's delegation submitted the 360-page bid document to the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Monday.

A consortium led by Dubai-based Arabtec Holding will build the Louvre Abu Dhabi art gallery for $654 million, the developers of the much-delayed project announced on Tuesday.

Abu Dhabi Tourism Development and Investment Company said construction would start immediately with the aim of opening the museum in 2015, three years later than originally planned.

Greece raised 2.6 billion euros ($3.4 billion) on Tuesday in a double sale of short-term treasury bills that once again saw its cost of borrowing drop slightly.

The Greek state debt management agency said it had raised 1.625 billion euros with six-month bills and another 975 million euros with one-month bills.

The unemployment rate across the troubled eurozone rose to a record 11.8 percent in November, official data showed on Tuesday.

Up from 11.7 percent in October, the number of people out of work in the 17-nation single currency area, home to some 330 million people, is now nudging 19 million -- an increase of more than two million on the dole compared to a year ago.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it expected to post a record operating profit of 8.8 trillion won ($8.3 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The predicted operating profit for October-December represents an 89 percent rise from a year earlier, and would beat the record of 8.1 trillion won set in the previous quarter.

Japan's new finance minister said Tuesday that Tokyo would buy bonds issued by Europe's permanent bailout fund to help soothe the eurozone's debt problems and stabilize the yen.

Taro Aso told reporters the new government would tap foreign exchange reserves to pay for the bonds, but declined to say how much it planned to buy.

A rising budget deficit, falling foreign exchange reserves and a sliding currency are adding to the woes of Egypt's fragile government even as it battles a raft of political and social problems.

It is against this background that Cairo is to resume talks on Monday with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan, which many see as a prerequisite for the country's recovery.

Congressional leaders showed no signs of giving ground to resolve the next step in the financial crisis, with Democrats still talking about higher taxes on the wealthy and the Senate's top Republican suggesting that a crippling default on U.S. loans was possible unless there were significant cuts in government spending.

"It's a shame we have to use whatever leverage we have in Congress to get the president to deal with the biggest problem confronting our future, and that's our excessive spending," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday.

Toshiba has boosted its stake in U.S. nuclear power plant builder Westinghouse Electric to 87 percent, the company said Monday, as it eyes atomic opportunities outside disaster-struck Japan.

The Japanese technology conglomerate said it paid about 125 billion yen ($1.42 billion) for a 20 percent holding in Westinghouse held by U.S.-based engineering firm The Shaw Group.