The international ratings agency Fitch said Friday it had downgraded Italy's sovereign debt rating by one notch to "BBB+" from "A-" and added that the outlook was negative.

Fitch pointed in particular to "the inconclusive results of the Italian parliamentary elections on 24-25 February" which "make it unlikely that a stable new government can be formed in the next few weeks."

The International Monetary Fund is open to changing the terms of Ireland’s bailout program to help the bailed-out eurozone nation return to long-term bond markets, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said here on Friday.

"We have an open mind about many issues, many of the terms and conditions of the exit strategy and as far as the adjustment to the loans," the managing director of the IMF told reporters at a press conference in the Irish capital.

Japan eased out of recession in the last quarter of 2012, with modest growth analysts said Friday underpins a strengthening economy, as the government and central bank up their fight against deflation.

The 0.2 percent expansion on an annualized basis in the three months to December will be welcome news for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose first few months in office have seen renewed optimism over the world's third largest economy.

All but one of 18 top U.S. banks passed tough stress tests aimed at seeing if the financial industry could weather a new deep crisis, the Federal Reserve announced Thursday.

Government-controlled Ally Financial, the rescued former finance arm of General Motors, was the only bank to fail the test of capital strength.

Google's Motorola Mobility unit will lay off some 1,200 employees, or more than 10 percent of its workforce, in a bid to return to profitability, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The Journal said Motorola employees were informed about the latest cuts -- which come on top of 4,000 layoffs announced last August -- via a company email sent this week.

Iraq's parliament approved on Thursday a $119.1 billion (91.6 billion euro) budget for 2013 after weeks of delay, but Kurdish representatives and most members of the main Sunni-backed bloc did not attend, MPs said.

Parliament has struggled to pass even key legislation such as the budget due to political disputes that have deadlocked the body.

President Barack Obama will take his charm offensive with Republicans up a notch on Thursday, having lunch with budget hawk and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan at the White House.

Hours after supping with a dozen Republican senators to start a dialogue aimed at reviving a stalled "grand bargain" on the deficit and spending, the president will welcome Ryan, a key player in the House of Representatives.

The Swiss National Bank on Thursday posted a 2012 profit of 6.9 billion Swiss francs (5.6 billion euros, $7.2 billion), nearly half of what it earned in 2011, owing to slipping income from foreign currency holdings.

In 2011, Switzerland's central bank, SNB, posted a profit of 13.5 billion Swiss francs.

France's finance minister says Europe must focus more on promoting growth and less on tightening budgets to revive the bloc's sluggish economy and avoid a deepening social crisis.

Pierre Moscovici warned Thursday in Brussels that continuing on a strict austerity course would only "nourish a social crisis that leads to populism."

Switzerland has the globe's most competitive travel and tourism sector owing to high quality transportion and hotels, skilled workers and rich natural resources, the Swiss-based World Economic Forum said Thursday.

In a biennial, 140-country ranking of competitiveness in the world's travel and tourism trade, the WEF said the Swiss had retained the top slot held in all five previous editions.