Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose 4.9 percent year-on-year during the first half of 2013, official data showed Wednesday, despite slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Outbound investment from China leapt 29.0 percent to $45.6 billion, the commerce ministry announced, with major increases in the crucial U.S. and Australian markets.

Cyprus Finance Minister Haris Georgiades on Tuesday expressed confidence that Nicosia will pass a first review of its bailout targets from the troika of international lenders.

A 30-strong delegation from the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the IMF is on the island to assess whether the recession-hit country is meeting its troika-set targets as agreed in a memorandum of understanding with international lenders in March.

The Syrian government approved on Tuesday a law imposing penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment for people caught hoarding food in the war-torn country, state television reported.

"A draft law penalizing those who raise food prices or hoard food has been approved" by the cabinet, said the broadcaster.

Young people in many European countries will continue to struggle for jobs as unemployment in the eurozone is set to hit a record 12.3 percent in 2014, the OECD said on Tuesday.

The poor and low-skilled sections of the workforce are also in the front line of unemployment.

A general strike gripped Greece on Tuesday for the fourth time this year as unions railed at fresh austerity measures the government is imposing in order to keep receiving EU-IMF loans.

The strike halted trains and shut down public services across the country, kept hospital services to a minimum and disrupted a dozen domestic flights.

McDonald's said Tuesday it would launch its first restaurant in communist Vietnam next year after granting a franchise to the son-in-law of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The American fast food giant said it planned to open in the southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City in early 2014 after making businessman Henry Nguyen its "developmental licensee".

The Gulf state of Kuwait has discovered a new oil and gas field in Kabed area close to the well-known Manageesh oilfield, Hashem Sayed Hashem, CEO of state-owned Kuwait Oil Co said on Monday.

Hashem gave no estimates of the reserves in the field located in western Kuwait but told the official KUNA news agency that more details would be released at a later date.

Credit rating agency Moody's on Monday downgraded the outlook of Singapore's three main banks to "negative" from "stable" amid rising property prices and mounting household debt in the city-state.

"The two main drivers underpinning our opinion are the recent period of rapid loan growth and rising real estate prices in Singapore and in regional markets where Singapore banks are active," it said in a statement.

Holocaust survivors and victims' heirs have received $1.24 billion from a Swiss fund set up after a scandal over dormant accounts of Jews killed in World War II, a magazine said Monday.

The Swiss-Jewish weekly Tachles said the figure was contained in a report by New York judge Edward Korman, who oversees the management of the fund.

Greece's prime minister faces protests this week over a bill that must pass for the country to receive a fresh tranche of EU-IMF aid.

"Stress test in the parliament and on the streets" said the front page To Vima weekly on Sunday, while left-leaning Eleftherotypia discussed a "political heatwave."