President Barack Obama warned Tuesday that the looming budget cuts threatened by some of his opponents in Congress would jeopardize military readiness and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

"That's why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as 'the sequester', are a really bad idea," Obama said, in his annual State of the Union address.

Australia's largest lender Commonwealth Bank on Wednesday posted a one percent rise in first-half net profit to Aus$3.66 billion (U.S.$3.77 billion), sending its shares to an all-time high.

The bank's result for the six months to December 31 was up from Aus$3.62 billion in the same period the previous year.

Widespread blackouts have caused economic losses of around $22 billion for Syria nearly two years into a spiralling conflict, electricity minister Imad Khamis has said.

"Economic damage suffered as a result of power blackouts caused by acts of sabotage (by rebels) have totalled some 218 billion Syrian pounds," or $22 billion, state news agency SANA quoted Khamis as saying on Tuesday.

Sri Lanka on Tuesday dropped plans for a fresh $1.0-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund following disagreements over how the money should be spent, the central bank said.

The government announced last month that it was seeking a new cash infusion from the IMF after drawing down a previous $2.6-billion bailout loan six months ago.

French President Francois Hollande's visit to India this week is dominated by trade issues, including a $12-billion deal for Rafale fighter jets, nuclear energy and potential tie-ups for new metro lines.

Hollande will be accompanied by five ministers including Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. The chiefs of more than 60 top French companies will also join him for the two-day trip starting Thursday.

American Airlines and U.S. Airways are close to striking a merger deal that would create the largest airline in the United States in the latest bout of consolidation in the U.S. aviation industry.

Officials from the two companies declined to comment, but The Wall Street Journal reported that their boards are scheduled to meet separately on Wednesday, and a deal could be disclosed by Thursday.

Jacob Lew, nominated to replace Timothy Geithner as U.S. Treasury Secretary, will miss this week's G20 ministerial meetings in Moscow, the Treasury said Monday.

Lew, previously White House chief of staff, is still awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate for the Treasury post.

The vice president of the oil consortium in Lebanon, Dania Aoun, voiced expectations Monday that the oil prices could witness a new increase this week, media reports said.

Aoun told LBCI TV that fuel prices will spike in the next three weeks, noting that Lebanon is a country that imports fuel and is therefore affected by the rise in global markets.

Two years after being laid off from her job as a health and safety consultant, Ana Luis has found a new, quite different occupation.

The blue-eyed, blonde-haired 46-year-old stands busy in the window of her very own dress shop in Valladolid, northeastern Spain, deftly fixing clothes on a dummy.

Global technology giants Microsoft, Apple and Adobe were Monday ordered to appear before a pricing inquiry examining the often-higher cost of tech goods in Australia compared with other economies.

The lower house committee holding the probe, which was launched last May, said it had summoned the trio to appear at a public hearing next month to explain why Australian customers paid more for the same products.