Two units of a Cayman Islands financial institution have pleaded guilty to helping U.S. clients hide money as the U.S. crackdown on tax evasion reaches beyond Switzerland, officials said Wednesday.

Cayman National Securities and Cayman National Trust, affiliates of Cayman National Corporation, admitted in a U.S. federal court to conspiring with U.S. clients to hide more than $130 million in offshore accounts from the Internal Revenue Service and to evade taxes on income earned from those accounts, authorities said.

Iran's state TV is reporting that Iran and Britain have signed an agreement to establish a total of 42 weekly passenger flights between the two countries.

Thursday's report says the Iranian and the British civil aviation authorities will allow each country to maintain 21 weekly flights to various destinations in the other nation. The TV says there will also be unlimited cargo flights

The euro ticked lower against the dollar Thursday as investors focus on a meeting of the European Central Bank that is expected to see it unveil more stimulus to shore up the stumbling eurozone economy.

ECB boss Mario Draghi has come under pressure to deliver measures that will break years of weak inflation and sagging economic growth after his last attempts were criticised as falling short.

Thousands of French high school students and workers protested against labour reforms Wednesday, heaping pressure on President Francois Hollande's already unpopular and fractured Socialist government with presidential elections looming in 14 months.

Teenagers and students threw eggs and firecrackers as they marched in Paris chanting slogans such as "El Khomri, you're beat, the youth are in the street" in reference to Labor Minister Myriam El Khomri.

Unions shut down operations at Nigeria's state oil firm Wednesday in protest at restructuring plans, a spokesman said, in a move that could worsen fuel supplies in Africa's largest producer. 

"Operations at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have been grounded nationwide," said Babatunde Oke, of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN). 

Europe's main stock markets inched upward at the start of trading on Wednesday, with London, Frankfurt and Paris each gaining around 0.1 percent.

London's benchmark FTSE 100 index opened at 6,130.03 points compared with Tuesday's close.

German power giant E.ON on Wednesday said it booked a 7.0-billion-euro ($7.7-billion) net loss in 2015 and warned that "the course ahead will be tougher and longer than anticipated."

E.ON said in a statement that "impairment charges of 8.8 billion euros... primarily on generation assets resulted in a substantial net loss of 7.0 billion euros" last year.

French prosecutors have opened a serious fraud investigation into Volkswagen over devices the German automaker fitted into cars to cheat emissions tests, a judicial source told AFP on Tuesday.

Oil prices retreated Tuesday, with Brent crude back below $40 a barrel, after Kuwait reportedly ruled out cutting output, analysts said.

Prices had strengthened earlier in the day, extending recent strong gains won largely on hopes of oil production freezes to ease a global supply glut. 

The South African government said Tuesday that exploration for shale gas will begin in the next 12 months, ending years of speculation over the project.

South Africa's semi-desert Karoo region is believed to hold at least 485 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, but drilling has been delayed by environmental and economic concerns.