Canadian oil pipeline leader Enbridge announced Friday a $6.2 billion investment to update its North American network, promising to increase capacity and build a new pipeline to the U.S.

"This $6.2 billion investment rounds out our suite of major crude oil new market access initiatives for North American markets," said Enbridge chief Al Monaco in a statement.

The German economy, Europe's biggest, will not be able to escape the crisis and may even flirt briefly with recession early next year, but is well placed to rebound strongly, the Bundesbank said Friday.

The German central bank, in its latest updated twice-yearly forecasts, said there were "indications that economic activity may actually fall in the final quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013."

A surprise fall in the U.S. unemployment rate to 7.7 percent for November gave markets a boost in opening trade Friday, with the jobs data showing little impact from superstorm Sandy.

Minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 52.76 points (0.40 percent) at 13,126.80.

Syrian refugees wait in line for food at a Turkish refugee camp -- not crowding around an aid truck but queuing at an ordinary supermarket to pay for goods using electronic debit cards.

Under the experimental project launched by the U.N. World Food Program and the Turkish Red Crescent, thousands of refugees who have fled the conflict raging in their homeland now receive cards charged with aid credits rather than boxes of basic supplies.

Greece's economy shrank by 6.9 percent in the third quarter of the year, compared with the same period in 2011.

The national statistics agency says that the decrease was less than the 7.2 percent drop estimated in November, based on new data that wasn't available last month.

India's parliament on Friday approved the government's plans to open up the country's massive retail sector to international big-box companies such as Wal-Mart.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's beleaguered government won the vote in the upper house of parliament on Friday, two days after it had won a similar approval in the powerful lower house.

The Washington Post, one of the last top U.S. newspapers to offer its content free of charge online, will likely begin collecting fees next year, a report said Thursday.

The Post is planning to roll out a "metered paywall," meaning the subscription cost will kick in after readers access a certain number of stories for free, said The Wall Street Journal, another leading U.S. paper.

Asian markets mostly climbed Friday, following a positive lead from Wall Street, while the euro extended the losses made in New York after the ECB cut its growth forecast for the eurozone.

Seoul gained 0.4 percent, or 7.83 points, to 1,957.45 and Sydney added 0.94 percent, or 42.5 points, to close at 4,551.8 but Tokyo ended 0.19 percent, or 17.77 points, down at 9,527.39.

The U.S. Congress voted Thursday to end Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia after it joined the WTO, but provoked Moscow's ire by attaching a measure targeting human rights abusers.

Following approval by the House of Representatives last month, the Senate voted 92-4 in favor of establishing permanent normal trade relations, or PNTR, with Russia by abolishing a 1974 law that required granting normal trade ties with Moscow only on an annual basis.

Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the United States next year.

Cook made the comments in part of an interview taped for NBC's "Rock Center," but aired Thursday morning on "Today" and posted on the network's website.