Japan logged its worst ever monthly trade deficit in January despite an upturn in exports as the yen's recent sharp drop pushed fuel costs higher, official data showed Wednesday.

The world's third-biggest economy is mired in recession and a mood of optimism in the stock market and among analysts has so far failed to translate into good macro-economic figures.

German luxury car maker BMW is recalling about 750,000 cars worldwide over potential electrical problems, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

The recall affects mainly about 500,000 cars in the United States, specifically various versions of its 1-Series and 3-Series cars built between March 2007 and July 2011 and its Z4 model built between March 2009 and June 2011.

The French government will reduce its forecast for growth of the economy this year from 0.8 percent, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Tuesday.

When asked by a journalist on RTL radio if the figure would be 0.2-0.3 percent, Fabius replied that "it's around this figure", having previously recalled that the forecast had first been 1.2 percent, and then 0.8 percent.

InterContinental Hotels Group said on Tuesday that annual profits jumped by almost a fifth, aided by strong expansion in China and the United States, and added it would press head with the sale of two key hotels.

Earnings after taxation rallied 18.2 percent to $544 million (407 million euros) in 2012, compared with $460 million in 2011, IHG said in a results statement.

The United Arab Emirates is mulling imposing a two-day weekend on the private sector as well as paying government supplements in a bid to lure Emiratis away from the attractive public sector, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

The National, quoting UAE Labor Minister Saqr Ghobash, said the government was considering ways to make the private sector, currently dominated by foreign workers, more attractive to Emiratis.

Turkey is defying Washington and Baghdad in developing a broad energy partnership with Iraqi Kurds as it pushes to secure affordable oil and gas supplies to fuel its rapid economic growth.

Analysts say the move could also establish the country as a regional energy hub, but risks aggravating tensions in the powderkeg region and damaging ties with the United States, its major ally.

Italy may have escaped the ferocious grip of the eurozone debt crisis under Mario Monti's rule, but the country heading for the polls is still bogged down in recession and vulnerable to political turmoil.

The buzzword on every candidate's lips is "spread" -- the differential between Italian and benchmark German bonds -- a term unknown to many here two years ago, but now used to stir up public sentiment over the state of the economy.

The UAE on Monday signed an agreement with Bahrain under which it will donate $2.5 billion to its protest-hit neighbor as part of a Gulf aid program to it and Oman, the BNA state news agency said.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed in Manama by the government of Bahrain and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, the oil-rich state will release the aid package over a period of 10 years, "$250 million annually," BNA said.

Jordan's Arab Potash Company (APC), one of the world's largest potash producers, is in talks with an Israeli firm to buy gas to power its plants and reduce production costs, the government said on Monday.

"The APC is in contact with its Israeli counterpart through the American oil and gas firm Noble Energy to examine the possibility of importing gas," the ministry of energy said in a statement.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, will avoid the recession that has engulfed many of its partners in the region and return to growth in the first quarter of 2013, the Bundesbank said on Monday.

"As it currently looks, a plus in economic output can be expected in the first quarter of this year," the German central bank said in its February monthly report.