Argentine officials and holdout bondholders met separately with a US court-appointed mediator Friday in New York but failed to clinch a deal to resolve a dispute that could trigger a default by Buenos Aires.

With the clock ticking toward a July 30 deadline, Argentina needs to reach an agreement on paying more than $1.3 billion claimed by hedge funds, mainly NML Capital and Aurelius Management, which refused to join other bondholders in the 2005-2010 restructuring of the country's defaulted debt.

The BRICS group of emerging powers will launch its own development bank at a summit next week, using its growing influence to establish a counterweight to Western-dominated financial organizations.

Fresh from the World Cup final, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff hosts the leaders of Russia, India, China and South Africa in Fortaleza on Tuesday before an unprecedented meeting with South American leaders the next day in Brasilia.

Japan's SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom of Germany have reached a basic agreement for a merger between their U.S. affiliates Sprint and T-Mobile U.S., the business daily Nikkei reported Saturday.

Eight financial institutions, including Japan's top three megabanks Mizuho, Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui, will provide a credit line of around four trillion yen ($39 billion) for SoftBank's purchase of T-Mobile through Sprint, according to the report.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he hopes to increase Russian investments in and trade with Latin America.

During a tour in Cuba that will also take him to Argentina and Brazil, the Russian leader said he was focusing on enhancing technological cooperation and investment, especially in the sectors of energy, nuclear power and machinery.

Inflation in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, edged fractionally higher in June after reaching its lowest rate in four years the previous month, final data showed on Friday. 

According to data calculated by the federal statistics office Destatis, German inflation rose to 1.0 percent this month from 0.9 percent in May, its lowest level since February 2010.

Indian engineers are toiling in the Himalayas to build the world's highest railway bridge which is expected to be 35 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower when completed by 2016.

The arch-shaped steel structure is being constructed over the Chenab River to link sections of the spectacular mountainous region of India's northern Jammu and Kashmir state.

Investors shifted out of the euro Friday and into the safety of the dollar and yen as a crisis at Portugal's largest listed bank revived fears about European debt.

The euro fetched $1.3600 in Tokyo morning trade Friday, slightly down from $1.3609 late in New York and well down from 1.3640 earlier Thursday

Aviation giant Boeing on Thursday raised its forecast for aircraft demand, saying it now expects to deliver 36,770 planes over the next two decades in deals worth $5.2 trillion (3.8 trillion euros).

Boeing's latest forecast is up 4.2 percent from last year's, with about a third of the total demand expected to come from the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. and China discussed trade and business concerns Thursday -- with currencies and property rights among the thorny issues on the agenda -- as the world's two biggest economies held wide-ranging annual talks.

"China and the United represent the greatest economic alliance trading partnership in the history of humankind and it is only going to grow," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a meeting of bosses from top Chinese and American companies.

Singapore's central bank said Thursday it would stop issuing Sg$10,000 ($8,000) notes to help deter money laundering, with critics complaining the note is the bill of choice for bribe-payers in neighboring Indonesia. 

A spokeswoman for the Monetary Authority of Singapore said the decision was "a pre-emptive move to mitigate the higher money laundering risks associated with large value cash transactions".