India faces at least "a one-in-three" chance of losing its prized sovereign grade rating, global ratings agency Standard and Poor's has warned, in another blow to the scandal-tainted Congress government.

The announcement late Friday comes after finance ministry officials have been arguing for a ratings upgrade, saying the government has been taking strong steps to curb India's financial deficit and promote investment.

Engineering a financial bailout for Cyprus in March was such a chaotic process that top European officials say it is time to rethink how the region manages its crisis — and who should be involved.

Officials say the International Monetary Fund, which has contributed financial expertise and billions in emergency loans, may no longer be needed as a key decision-making partner. And they say that the eurozone would be able to make decisions and take action more quickly if it wasn't bound by the need for unanimous agreement among its 17 member countries.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday he had not known about abuses by tax officials who targeted conservative groups until a report into the affair was leaked to the press last week.

"I promise you this. The minute I found out about it, then my focus has been about making sure we get the thing fixed," Obama told reporters.

Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has bought a 40-percent stake in a new 290,000-square meter skyscraper project near the center of Milan with a commercial value of 2.0 billion euros ($2.6 billion), the companies said on Friday.

The project has already involved the construction of the skyscraper headquarters of Italy's biggest bank UniCredit by Argentine architect Cesar Pelli.

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday said it was sending a team to Spain next week in preparation for a new report on the country's banking sector reform.

The IMF staff team will start discussions Tuesday in Madrid with the authorities and private-sector representatives to produce the Fund's third independent monitoring report of Spain's banking sector, IMF spokeswoman Angela Gaviria said in a statement.

Moody's has raised Turkey's bond rating to investment grade, the rating agency said Thursday, citing improved economic and public finance measures and progress on reforms.

The government-bond ratings went up a notch to Baa3, the first step into investment grade, from Ba1, with outlook considered stable.

Japan's premier will Friday unveil the next stage of his plan to reboot the economy, reports said, as he seeks to capitalise on the feel-good mood of a soaraway stock market and a plunging yen.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is set to announce broadbrush outlines of the third of his "three arrows" of a plan dubbed "Abenomics", which is intended to turn around years of deflation in the world's third-largest economy.

State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland axed 1,400 more positions on Thursday, taking the total number of job losses close to 40,000 since its vast state bailout at the height of the global financial crisis.

"RBS has announced plans to restructure its retail head office functions in the UK. The changes will result in 1,400 job losses over the next two years," said in a statement.

Japan said Thursday that its economy grew again in the quarter to March, pointing to a recovery as Tokyo and its hand-picked central bank team set about stoking the world's third-largest economy.

The 0.9 percent on-quarter growth -- or 3.5 percent on an annualized basis if the data were stretched over a year -- confirmed Japan's exit from recession as consumers spent more, although the nation's cautious firms did not follow suit.

State owned Kuwait Airways Co has chosen Airbus over the Boeing Co on the purchase or lease of new airplanes, Kuwaiti Communications Minister Salem al-Othaina said on Wednesday.

"KAC received two offers from Airbus and Boeing and the board of directors approved the offer from Airbus because it is lower in cost," Othaina told the official KUNA news agency.