American Airlines and U.S. Airways announced a long-expected merger Thursday that would create the largest U.S. airline, giving them more weight in an industry that has steadily consolidated in recent years.

The marriage would establish a huge carrier with more than 1,500 aircraft, able to compete head to head with powerful rivals United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

Japan's economy shrank for a third quarter at the end of 2012, data showed Thursday, leaving it mired in recession owing to weak export demand, but analysts and the central bank eyed a rosier outlook.

Tokyo saw a 0.1 percent contraction in October-December from the previous three months, underlining the work ahead for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's new government as it tries to boost growth while fending off claims it is manipulating the yen to lift exports.

The EU and the United States are to negotiate the biggest free trade agreement ever, a global "game-changer," boosting growth and providing much-needed jobs, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday.

An accord between the world's two largest trading entities would be "ground-breaking ... a game-changer," which will add 0.5 percent to the EU economy every year once it is in place, Barroso said.

Global media and financial information group Thomson Reuters said on Wednesday it would cut 2,500 jobs in its risk division by the end of the year as part of a cost-cutting drive.

Chief executive James Smith announced the cuts as he released the company's quarterly and annual financial results, saying the move "positions us for far greater improvement in 2014."

French President Francois Hollande embarked on a fresh push Thursday to clinch a $12-billion sale of Rafale fighter jets as he held talks in India on his first visit to Asia since taking office.

The Socialist president was accompanied by a high-powered delegation of five ministers including Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and the chiefs of more than 60 top French companies.

Dubai's budget carrier flydubai, which began operations in 2009, said Wednesday it posted a net profit of $41.4 million in 2012, in its first-ever announced financial results.

"Net profit for the year was 151.9 million dirhams ($41.4 million)," said the sister-firm of Emirates in a statement released at a press conference, putting total revenues in 2012 at 2.278 billion dirhams ($756 million).

Sanctions by the West on Iran succeeded in slashing Iran's oil export revenue by $40 billion in 2012, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, as production last month hit a three-decade low point.

The IEA, the oil monitoring and policy arm of the OECD, said Iranian oil output fell to 2.65 million barrels per day in January, down from the 3.7 mbd in late 2011 before the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic by the U.S. and European Union took effect.

Debt-burdened carrier Bahrain Air grounded all flights Wednesday after announcing plans to shut down operations and sell its assets amid struggles to rebound from the Gulf nation's unrest-driven downturn and competition with bigger rivals.

The small, privately run airline is among the most high-profile corporate victims from Bahrain's political crisis that erupted two years ago. The pro-democracy uprising by majority Shiites brought a sharp economic slump, but the kingdom's Sunni rulers claim growth is returning.

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.