A weekend attack on an Italian diplomat in Libya caused no casualties but dealt a body blow to the government's efforts to woo foreign investors to rebuild the war-ravaged North African country.

The assault on consul Guido De Sanctis, which Rome denounced as a "vile act of terrorism," came four months after militants torched the US mission in Benghazi and killed four Americans, including the ambassador.

Chinese leaders have given final approval for a long-awaited new $11.2 billion international airport in Beijing to ease crushing congestion at the existing facility, state media said on Monday.

The state-run China Daily newspaper reported the decision, made Sunday, citing a spokesman for the country's State Council, or cabinet.

The Bank of Japan and the nation's new government will jointly set a two percent inflation target in a bid to fight deflation, news reports said on Monday.

The two sides are to finalize a joint statement on monetary measures in time for the central bank's upcoming policy meeting scheduled for January 21 and 22, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

The Obama administration on Saturday ruled out calls for minting a $1 trillion platinum coin to avert a crisis over the U.S. debt ceiling amid partisan bickering.

The U.S. Treasury officially killed the idea, leaving Congress with the responsibility to increase the government's borrowing limit.

KLM says the company will cancel its flights to Iran as of April, leaving Germany's Lufthansa as the sole Western European-based carrier offering services to Tehran.

Turkish Airlines, which has its headquarters in Istanbul on the European side of The Bosphorus, also flies to Iran.

Japanese telecommunications firm Softbank has decided to sell a two-thirds stake in eAccess, a smaller mobile service provider, to Samsung Electronics and 10 other companies reports said Saturday.

Softbank, which last year signed a $20 billion takeover of U.S. firm Sprint Nextel, is in talks with 11 possible buyers, including Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks as well as Japanese firms, the Nikkei newspaper said.

Greece's parliament early Saturday approved a new tax bill, part of the latest batch of fiscal reforms tied to the country's next slice of EU loans.

The legislation, criticized by the opposition as another serious blow to middle-class incomes in the midst of a recession, was supported by 162 deputies from the governing three-party coalition in a vote held after midnight in the 300-strong parliament.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Cyprus on Friday to follow economic reforms, two days after saying the eurozone bailout candidate will not see any special terms as it seeks an aid package.

Merkel, who attended an extraordinary summit of the center-right European People's Party in the port city of Limassol, also said the reportedly 17 billion euro ($22 billion) bailout package will not be decided "now."

Iran has denied U.S. media reports it carried out cyber attacks on U.S. banks, the official IRNA news agency said Friday, quoting a statement from Tehran's U.N. mission.

"The Islamic republic of Iran categorically denies any involvement in cyber attacks on American banks and denounces such methods which are a violation of the sovereignty of nations," the statement said.

China's inflation rate slowed sharply in 2012, official data showed Friday, but analysts warned of increasing price risks this year that may limit scope for measures to boost economic growth.

The country's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 2.6 percent in 2012, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, down from 5.4 percent the year before.