Asian equities were mixed Thursday following another blow-out session on Wall Street, with new vaccine hopes and central bank largesse offset by a well-below-forecast US jobs reading and tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Lebanon's Bisri Valley lies on a green fertile bed, a spot that has cradled civilizations dating as far back as the Bronze Age. Its expansive lands of pine, citrus trees and ancient ruins are threatened with being submerged by a controversial mega dam funded by the World Bank.

For years, activists and locals have voiced their opposition to it, describing it as an environmental crime and a project that mirrors Lebanon's patronage system and bad governance.

Australia has fallen into recession for the first time in three decades and Brazil's economy shrank by almost 10 percent because of the coronavirus, leaving China as the only major nation still recording economic growth during the pandemic.

The massive explosion in Beirut earlier this month that killed and injured thousands of people has caused up to $4.6 billion in physical damage, the World Bank said in a report released Monday.

The Aug. 4 blast was caused by the explosion of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut since 2014. The blast killed 190 people, injured more than 6,000, left nearly 300,000 people homeless, destroyed much of the port and damaged entire neighborhoods.

China's "big four" banks have suffered a rare profit decline in the first half of the year, joining a growing body of financial institutions worldwide that have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

A lawyer for two American men urged a judge Friday to block their extradition to Japan, where they are wanted on charges that they smuggled former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of the country in a box last year.

Attorneys for Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, have not denied that the men helped Ghosn flee while he was awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges in December, but say their actions don't fit under the law with which Japan is trying to convict them.

The World Trade Organization agreed Friday to establish a panel to help settle a row between Turkey and the EU over tariffs which the bloc has slapped on certain steel products.

Coca-Cola announced Friday it will cut 4,000 jobs in North America as part of a reorganization following a rough second quarter in which Covid-19 slashed profits.

Wall Street indices advanced at the open on Friday, on track for a healthy finish to a week that saw several record highs and a major Federal Reserve policy shift.

Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei index reversed earlier gains and closed down more than 1.4 percent Friday after reports said Japanese Prime Minister Shizo Abe was to resign for health reasons.