Saudi Arabia Monday cut the salaries of cabinet ministers by 20 percent and froze the wages of lower-ranking civil servants in an intensified austerity drive to cope with lower oil revenues.

While ministers will have lower salaries, the 160 members of the Shura Council will see a 15-percent drop in their annual allowances for housing, furniture and cars, a royal decree said.

Oil prices edged down in Asia Tuesday amid continued speculation over whether producers will agree to limit output at talks in Algeria this week, analysts said.

Oil prices have been recovering but are still weak, the head of Gulf giant Saudi Aramco said on Monday, warning that market volatility could persist in the near future.

Former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato went on trial Monday accused of overseeing a "corrupt system" that helped him and other executives misuse millions when he was the boss of a major Spanish bank.

Iranian banks have begun issuing credit cards for the first time in decades, local media reported on Monday.

The report by several newspapers, including the daily Donya-e-Eqtesad or World of Economy in Farsi, said the cards will be for domestic use only and do not involve any sort of partnership with a major international credit card company.

World markets dropped on Monday, picking up where they left off after last week's Fed-inspired rally ran out of steam.

After a burst of enthusiasm on the back of the US central bank's decision to keep interest rates on hold for a little longer, screens were red across the world -- with the pace of decline sharply quickened.

Oil prices rose modestly in Asia on Monday ahead of a producers' meeting this week that might agree to cap supplies.

But analysts warned that optimism should be tempered by experience of two years of gluts and disagreement among members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

French tax authorities have asked Switzerland to hand over client information for some 45,000 bank accounts as part of a probe into alleged tax fraud, Le Parisien daily said Monday.

Swiss banking giant UBS said in July that the Swiss authorities had asked it to provide client information following a French request for international administrative assistance in May.

The scandal was complex but its outcome potentially simple -- Ukraine tried to fiddle with its murky gas sector and upset its EU partners enough to freeze huge sums of financial help.

China has given the green light to controversial credit default swap trading for the first time, signalling that Beijing is willing to let indebted companies fail to stop economic slowdown.

In a country where the government usually helps firms facing problems, the move will allow the market to absorb the shock of defaults, which will happen much more frequently.