Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil giant Aramco will invest billions of dollars in China's downstream petrochemicals industry, including the construction of a new refinery, the company said in deals announced Sunday and Monday.

The announcements came as the company posted a record profit of more than $160 billion in 2022 and as Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally, has developed closer ties with Beijing in recent years.

Trains, planes and public transit systems stood still across much of Germany on Monday as labor unions called a major one-day strike over salaries in an effort to win inflation-busting raises for their members.

The 24-hour walkout also affected cargo transport by rail and ship, as workers at the country's ports and waterways joined the strike.

The Lebanese government's last-minute decision to delay the start of daylight savings time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in mass confusion Sunday.

With some institutions implementing the change while others refused, many Lebanese have found themselves in the position of juggling work and school schedules in different time zones — in the same tiny country.

Lebanon’s Audit Bureau on Friday sent a memo to caretaker Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, asking him for information about a project to construct a new terminal at the Rafik Hariri International Airport, following an uproar in the country over the issue.

Stocks are falling on Wall Street Friday as more worries about banks on both sides of the Atlantic tug markets lower.

The S&P 500 was 0.8% lower in early trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 239 points, or 0.7%, at 31,865, as of 9:42 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.8% lower.

Shares in Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest lender, fell sharply on Friday, dragging down major European banks as fears about weaknesses in the global financial system send fresh shudders through the markets.

Deutsche Bank shares were off 14% in early afternoon trading on the German stock exchange. The drop follows a steep rise in the cost of financial derivatives, known as credit default swaps, that insure bondholders against the bank defaulting on its debts.

Scandal-embattled Japanese electronics and technology manufacturer Toshiba has accepted a 2 trillion yen ($15 billion) tender offer from Japan Industrial Partners, a buyout fund made up of major banks and companies.

If the proposal succeeds, it will be a major step in Toshiba's yearslong turnaround effort, allowing it to go private and delist from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. But overseas activist investors own a significant part of Toshiba's shares, and it's unclear if they will be happy with the latest bid.

European Union leaders gathered Friday to gauge the risk of a banking crisis developing from recent global financial turbulence and hitting the economy even harder than the energy crunch tied to Russia's war in Ukraine.

The deliberations by EU government heads in Brussels follow U.S. regulators shutting down two U.S. banks, including Silicon Valley Bank, and a Swiss-orchestrated takeover of troubled lender Credit Suisse by rival UBS.

The Swiss central bank hiked its key interest rate Thursday and declared that a government-orchestrated takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by rival bank UBS ended the financial turmoil.

In a statement, the Swiss National Bank said it is providing large amounts of support for the deal to merge Switzerland's biggest banks and that the late Sunday announcement by the federal government, financial regulators and the central bank "put a halt to the crisis."

German unions are calling on thousands of workers across the country's transport system to stage a one-day strike on Monday that is expected to bring widespread disruption to planes, trains and local transit.

The ver.di service workers' union and the EVG union, which represents many railway workers, announced the 24-hour walkout in a joint appearance Thursday that come as employees in many sectors have been seeking hefty raises to reflect persistently high inflation.