Czech inflation slowed to an annual pace of 1.0 percent in September marking a three-year-low, official data showed on Wednesday, and fuelling expectations the central bank could act to weaken the koruna.

Slower growth in the cost of food and falling fuel prices meant that consumer inflation fell from an 1.3-percent annual pace in August, the Czech Statistical Office said.

President Barack Obama will nominate Janet Yellen Wednesday as the first female head of the U.S. Federal Reserve, at a time when raging political turbulence imperils a fragile American economy.

Obama will put Yellen forward for a four-year term, succeeding outgoing U.S. central bank chief Ben Bernanke, whose tenure and policies will forever be associated with tackling the global financial crisis and navigating a recovery.

In its latest economic outlook report the IMF was cautious about the perspectives for emerging markets without sliding into pessimism over the impact of U.S. monetary policy on growth.

"Medium-term prospects for emerging market economies are weaker," the IMF said Tuesday in its semi-annual World Economic Outlook report.

The Bank of England was Thursday set to maintain its record-low interest rate and level of cash stimulus pumping around an improving British economy, analyst said.

Markets widely expect the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee to keep its key lending rate at 0.50 percent and maintain its bond-buying quantitative easing (QE) scheme at £375 billion ($604 billion, 444 billion euros) at its October meeting.

Pakistan has asked Iran for $2 billion in financing to build its side of a controversial gas pipeline that has drawn threats of U.S. sanctions, Islamabad's petroleum minister said Tuesday.

The Iranian side of the $7.5-billion project is almost complete, but Pakistan has run into repeated problems paying for the 780 kilometer (485 mile) section to be built on its side of the border.

The Palestinian economy could expand by over a third if Israel were to lift its restrictions on about 60 percent of the West Bank that it controls, the World Bank said in a report published Tuesday.

"More than half the land in the West Bank, much of it agricultural and resource rich, is inaccessible to Palestinians," said the World Bank.

The United States stepped up efforts to reinforce its economic might in the Asia-Pacific at a regional leaders' summit in Indonesia on Tuesday, amid warnings from an increasingly bold China.

The two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) event at a five-star resort on the tropical island of Bali is aimed at breaking down trade barriers among all 21 member economies, but rival agendas by the world powers have overshadowed the talks.

Japan's Mizuho Financial Group has declined an award it was set to receive for transparency after getting told off by regulators for lending money to gangsters.

Mizuho Bank, Japan's third-biggest, has been under fire since it came to light that it had processed hundreds of transactions worth about 200 million yen ($2.0 million) for "anti-social forces", a common term for Japan's yakuza mobsters.

The dollar edged up against the yen in range-bound Asia trade on Tuesday as market players grew jittery over the U.S. budget impasse.

The greenback was quoted at 97.06 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade from 96.68 yen in New York Monday afternoon.

China and the Asia-Pacific region need each other to prosper, President Xi Jinping said on Monday, insisting there was space for everyone to grow despite territorial disputes and tensions with Washington.

"China cannot develop in isolation of the Asia-Pacific and the Asia-Pacific cannot prosper without China," Xi said at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Indonesia.