SWIFT, the global financial system used to move hundreds of billions of dollars a day, on Friday said highly sophisticated hackers had gained access to a bank aiming to hijack fund transfers made via the network.

The International Monetary Fund on Friday warned that Britain's potential exit from the European Union posed a "significant downside risk" to the economy.

Tokyo stocks fell Friday morning after a series of disappointing corporate earnings, but Nissan surged on news it was buying a major stake in Mitsubishi Motors.

The Japanese market got a weak lead from overseas as Wall Street and European bourses put in a lackluster session, while a pick-up in the yen also hit exporters.

Oil fell in Asia Friday as investors took a breather from a recent price rally spurred by the International Energy Agency's forecast that the crude oversupply would shrink dramatically later this year.

The uptrend is likely to continue as the IEA report shows that a rebalancing of the supply and demand situation could come in sooner rather than later, analysts said.

Tokyo stocks fell in early trade Friday, tracking a weak lead from Wall Street, but Nissan surged more than seven percent after throwing a financial lifeline to troubled Mitsubishi Motors.

Nissan on Thursday announced plans to buy a one-third stake in scandal-hit Mitsubishi for $2.2 billion, forging an alliance to challenge some of the world's biggest auto groups.

Poultry workers in the United States are routinely denied bathroom breaks to the point of being forced to wear diapers while on the production line, a new report claims.

The "vast majority" of 250,000 workers in the sector are mocked, ignored or threatened with being fired when they ask to go to the bathroom, Oxfam America said in the study.

Brazil's state oil company Petrobras reported a first-quarter loss of $318 million Thursday, extending its streak in the red after the worst year in its history.

The result, which was worse than market expectations, came on the same day President Dilma Rousseff was suspended by the Senate pending an impeachment trial.

Washington must give assurances that banks dealing with Cuba will not be punished under the U.S. trade embargo, which remains in force despite the restoration of diplomatic ties, an official said Thursday.

Cuba will make this argument Monday in Havana at a meeting of officials from the two countries to review how the process is going, said Gustavo Machin, deputy director of U.S. affairs in the Foreign Ministry.

A global oil glut that has sent prices tumbling is set to "shrink dramatically" later this year, as wildfires have disrupted Canada's output and demand in India soars, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday.

Demand for oil worldwide is set to grow at a "solid" rate in 2016, with India the "star performer" after making up nearly 30 percent of the global increase in demand in the first quarter of the year, the IEA said.

Global gold demand surged in the first quarter as investors seeking refuge from financial unrest swooped on the commodity seen as a safe haven investment, the World Gold Council said Thursday.

Total gold demand stood at 1,290 tonnes in the January-March period, an increase of 21 percent compared with the first quarter of 2015.