A major Japanese credit company said Wednesday it had lent money to yakuza gangsters in a widening scandal that is sweeping through the country's banking system.

The admission by JACCS, a unit of Japan's largest lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, is the latest in a growing line and comes as a government agency says it will buy shady loans to help companies keep their balance sheets clean.

The parent company of Indonesia's Lion Air said Wednesday it hopes to strike a deal for at least 50 Bombardier passenger jets next year, a purchase with a list price of more than $3 billion.

It would be the latest huge bet on Indonesia's booming aviation sector by Lion Group, which has in recent years struck two of the world's largest plane orders, worth $46 billion.

America will need to scale back the size of its armed forces in the face of deep budget cuts and rely less on military power alone, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel said Tuesday.

Fiscal pressures coupled with new strategic realities will require a reorganization of the force that enjoyed massive budgets in the years after the attacks September 11, 2001, the U.S. defense secretary said.

British lawmakers called Tuesday for an investigation into the tax paid by Prince Charles's estate, arguing that it may have an "unfair advantage" over commercial competitors because it is exempt from some taxes.

The heir to the throne's estate, the Duchy of Cornwall, owns more than 53,000 hectares (131,000 acres) of land and has a financial portfolio.

The severely weakened Syrian pound has surged against the dollar in recent days, a trader said Tuesday, with experts pointing to central bank intervention and developments favorable to the regime.

"The dollar was being exchanged on Tuesday at 115 to 123 Syrian pounds, while it was worth more than 160 pounds last week," the trader told Agence France Presse.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday urged European leaders not to allow a row over alleged U.S. spying to disrupt talks with the EU to create the world's largest free trade zone.

And he renewed calls for U.S. partners to voice their concerns with Washington in order to strengthen "intelligence relationships" in the future.

Hungary's parliament approved on Tuesday a new relief plan for homeowners in distress because of foreign currency loans, its latest effort to ease chronic household debt levels.

The bill tweaks an existing 'exchange rate cap' scheme allowing Hungarians to repay at preferential rates the foreign-currency mortgages they took out en masse before the forint crashed.

Renault-Nissan and Japanese firm Mitsubishi are to share the production of vehicles, technology and factory capacity, the two groups announced on Tuesday, highlighting the development of electric cars.

A statement on the terms of the deal said: "As a consequence, it has been agreed that the strategic cooperation between Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors could be expanded across the broader Renault-Nissan Alliance."

The Philippines said Tuesday it had deployed teams to check on reports of abuse in Saudi Arabia's crackdown on illegal workers, after one woman complained they were treated "like animals".

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said Filipino diplomats were in touch with the oil-rich kingdom's human rights council to ensure the protection of Filipino workers there.

Irish no-frills airline Ryanair on Monday slashed its annual profits forecast for the second time since September owing to lower-priced fares, triggering a 14-percent slump in its share price.

The Dublin-based carrier expects annual profit after tax of not more than 520 million euros ($701 million), it said in a results statement, which compared with a forecast at the lower end of a 570-600 million euros range given just two months ago.