India's new finance minister Arun Jaitley said restoring growth and containing inflation are the key challenges facing the country's government, shortly after being handed the critical portfolio on Tuesday.

Jaitley, a top corporate lawyer, said the government was given a strong mandate for reforming the slumping economy, which has been growing at below five percent, its slowest pace in a decade. 

General Motors' Australian subsidiary Holden recalled more than 45,000 Commodores Monday over a potential seatbelt fault, following withdrawals by rivals Toyota and Hyundai due to various issues last week.

The recall, which affects 41,933 cars in Australia and another 3,744 in New Zealand -- almost all of the new model Commodores that went on sale last year -- was precautionary, Holden said.

France's prime minister on Monday called for Europe to boost support for growth and employment policies after euroskeptic far-right parties triumphed in EU parliament elections.

"I am convinced that Europe could be re-oriented to increase support for growth and employment, which it hasn't done in years," Manuel Valls told French radio.

The first shipment of liquefied natural gas from a landmark U.S.$19 billion project in Papua New Guinea has left for Japan, U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil said Monday.

The project is the largest development ever undertaken in the Pacific country and ExxonMobil managing director Peter Graham called the shipment, which comes four years after construction began, "an historic moment".

South Korea's top messaging service provider, Kakao Corp., and its second largest Internet portal, Daum, announced a merger Monday to create a one of the country's largest IT companies worth around $3 billion.

Daum Communications, the operator of portal Daum.net, said the merger with Kakao, which runs the hugely popular mobile chat app Kakao Talk, would be completed in October through share swaps.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday called on the European Union to back efforts for new gas pipelines bypassing Ukraine, warning against "radicals" in Kiev blocking supplies.

Speaking at an economic forum in his hometown Saint Petersburg, Putin said Moscow has been a reliable gas supplier to Europe but could not count on transit countries like Ukraine.

The S&P 500 Friday closed above 1,900 for the first time as a positive report on new-home sales helped to push U.S. stocks broadly higher.

The S&P 500 advanced 8.04 points (0.42 percent) to 1,900.53, besting by more than three points the index's record close earlier this month.

A poor read on the IFO business climate index for Germany for May sent the euro tumbling Friday to its lowest level against the US dollar in three months.

The index dropped back to 110.4 from 111.2, after a gain the previous month, underscoring continuing concerns about the strength of German and European growth.

French economist Thomas Piketty's best-selling book on income inequality is flawed by errors in his data, the Financial Times newspaper said Saturday.

An investigation by the British broadsheet found there was little evidence in the 43-year-old's original sources to underpin his argument that an increasing share of total wealth is in the hands of the richest.

Turkey has begun exporting oil supplies from Iraqi Kurdistan to international markets, its energy minister said on Friday.

"The oil shipment started at 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) yesterday from the Ceyhan port" in southern Turkey, Taner Yildiz told reporters on Friday.