Google has taken a stake in a Chinese artificial intelligence startup which is aiming to develop smart wearable technologies, the companies said Tuesday.

The amount on investment in Mobvoi was not disclosed.

Oil prices dipped in Asia on Wednesday as traders anticipated an increase in U.S. crude inventories when weekly data from the Energy Information Agency is released later in the day.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in December, a new contract, eased 42 cents to $45.87 at around 0700 GMT.

The European Union is expected Wednesday to decide against Fiat and Starbucks in a landmark tax avoidance case for the 28-nation bloc, sources close to the matter told AFP.

The decision, if confirmed, could mean that Fiat's financial arm, based in Luxembourg, and the European unit of U.S. coffee-shop outlet Starbucks in the Netherlands, have to repay millions of euros in back taxes.

Europe's battered financial sector is showing further signs of mending and banks are increasingly competing for custom by easing credit standards, a key European Central Bank survey showed on Tuesday.

The ECB said its quarterly bank lending survey (BLS) showed  banks are easing credit standards for loans to enterprises, an encouraging sign, since the chronic weakness of credit activity in the euro area has previously been blamed for the absence of any noticeable recovery in the 19 countries that share the single currency. 

A projected long-term drop in oil prices will drive fiscal reforms in energy-dependent Gulf states and spur public borrowing, Moody's Investor Service said on Tuesday.

The ratings agency also revised downward its projections for oil prices from $65 a barrel to average $55 this year and $53 dollars in 2016.

Nervous investors dumped high-yielding, risky assets Tuesday on fears about the global economy, with the Indonesian rupiah and Malaysian ringgit taking a hit and most Asian stock markets retreating.

Comments from a top Federal Reserve official suggesting a U.S. rate hike could come this year also dented confidence.

Oil prices rebounded in Asia Tuesday on bargain hunting ahead of a report on U.S. crude inventories, but the market remained weighed down by the slowing Chinese economy and a global oversupply.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in November climbed 24 cents to $46.13 and Brent crude for December advanced 24 cents to $48.85 a barrel at around 0530 GMT.

Senior negotiators on a huge transatlantic trade treaty opened new talks in Miami Monday aiming to close some differences on key issues between the United States and the European Union.

The 11th round of talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, were under new pressure to advance two weeks after Washington scored a major triumph with the agreement to set up a Pacific free-trade group with Japan, Canada and nine other countries.

Oil giant Saudi Arabia, which is trying to diversify its energy sources, signed an agreement Monday with Hungary to cooperate in the peaceful use of atomic energy.

It is the latest pact of its kind signed by the world's largest oil exporter, which earlier this year reached similar agreements with Russia and South Korea.

The opening of Istanbul's third airport, a controversial multi-billion-dollar project expected to become one of the world's busiest air hubs, has been delayed until 2018, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

The facility had been scheduled to open on October 29, 2017 -- the 94th anniversary of the founding of modern Turkey.