Shares slipped in Europe and Asia on Friday after a retreat on Wall Street that left the Nasdaq composite down 2.5%.

Germany's DAX lost 0.6% to 15,928.83 and the CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.7% to 7,145.19. Britain's FTSE 100 edged 0.1% lower to 7,556.29. On Wall Street, the future for the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 both were 0.1% higher.

The risk of recession is looming for Germany after Europe's biggest economy shrank at the end of 2021 and as it faces a bumpy start to this year, with the rapid spread of COVID-19's omicron variant deterring people from shopping and travel and supply bottlenecks holding back manufacturers.

Output in Germany fell by between 0.5% and 1% in the fourth quarter, the state statistics agency Destatis said Friday. Forecasts are also shaky for the first three months of 2022, and two straight quarters of falling output would leave Germany in recession, according to one commonly used definition.

China said Friday it gained support on issues including the treatment of Uyghur Muslims from a number of Gulf states following talks between their foreign ministers at which they agreed to upgrade relations.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the ministers and Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Nayef Falah Al-Hajraf expressed firm support for China's "legitimate positions on issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang and human rights."

The Lebanese lira made a major recovery against the dollar on Friday, after the central bank allowed commercial banks to purchase dollars from it at the Sayrafa platform exchange rate.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh on Thursday hit out at Mount Lebanon Attorney General Judge Ghada Aoun over recent actions and tweets.

The European Union on Thursday rejected the merger between South Korean shipbuilders Hyundai and Daewoo, saying a union between two of the world's biggest players in the industry would have given the combined company a global stranglehold on the production of liquified natural gas carriers.

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager says the merger "would have led to less choice, higher prices and ultimately less innovation for European customers." European companies account for almost half the orders in the $45 billion market.

Europe's natural gas crisis isn't letting up. Reserves are low. Prices are high. Utility customers are facing expensive bills. Major Russian supplier Gazprom isn't selling gas like it used to.

It all raises the question: How exactly is Europe, which imports most of its energy, going to make it through the winter without a gas disaster, especially if the season turns out to be colder or longer than usual?

U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for Britain and the European Union to rebuild their relationship, as she and bloc's top Brexit official met Thursday for talks on a thorny dispute over Northern Ireland trade.

Truss and European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic were meeting at Chevening House, the foreign secretary's official country retreat in southeast England.

India and Britain on Thursday launched talks on a free trade deal that is expected to boost bilateral trade by billions of dollars in one of the most ambitious negotiations after Brexit.

Britain's International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan met with Piyush Goyal, India's minister of commerce and industry, in New Delhi before formal talks next week.

The Gaza Strip has few jobs, little electricity and almost no natural resources. But after four bruising wars with Israel in just over a decade, it has lots of rubble.

Local businesses are now finding ways to cash in on the chunks of smashed concrete, bricks and debris left behind by years of conflict. In a territory suffering from a chronic shortage of construction materials, a bustling recycling industry has sprouted up, providing income to a lucky few but raising concerns that the refurbished rubble is substandard and unsafe.