Japan's finance minister said late Saturday the recent sharp rise in the yen is "extremely worrying", adding Tokyo will take action when necessary.

The remarks, which suggest Tokyo's possible market intervention, came after the Japanese unit surged to an 18-month high against the dollar in New York Friday.

While petro-states reel from plunging oil prices and gas producers brace for American exports to hit the market, two west African nations are forging ahead with potentially massive extraction projects others might fear to touch.

Energy firms say Senegal and Mauritania's current oil and gas ventures will transform them into net exporters by 2020, betting on long-term demand and the eventual recovery of the slumped market, as well as their proximity to Europe.

A year into a political crisis which has claimed about 500 lives, driven a quarter of a million into exile and prompted Western donors to suspend government aid, Burundi's economy is on the ropes.

The central African country had only just begun to recover from a 1993-2006 ethnic-based civil war when it became sucked back into violence after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced a year ago that he would seek a third term in office.

Sales are falling off a cliff. Its reputation is in tatters. And even its top executive is talking about whether the automaker will survive.

Mitsubishi Motors' future is hanging in the balance for the second time in a decade after a bombshell admission that it has been cheating on fuel-economy tests for years.

Gretel de la Rosa, a budding Cuban businesswoman, had been in Mexico City for just a few hours, but she already had stuffed three bags with fabric for her shop back home.

While Cuba's communist regime has implemented modest economic reforms, allowing some private ventures, running a business on the island remains a challenge for trailblazers like de la Rosa.

Growth in the eurozone strengthened far beyond expectations in the first quarter of 2016, but inflation remained very low and a source of concern.

Britain's state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland on Friday said net losses more than doubled in the first quarter owing to an exceptional payment back to the government.

Oil prices eased slightly in Asia Friday after hitting a series of new highs this week, bolstered by a weak dollar.

Brazil's central bank on Wednesday opted to hold its benchmark interest rate at 14.25 percent for a sixth consecutive time, amid stubbornly high inflation and political uncertainty.

The bank, which makes rate decisions eight times a year, has held its key Selic rate steady since the last of seven consecutive hikes in July 2015.

The speaker of Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly said Wednesday the legislature cannot pay lawmakers or employees because the government has failed to allocate its budget.

Leading opposition figure Henry Ramos Allup told journalists the legislature has run out of money, the latest victim of the crisis gripping the recession-racked country.