A Fiat 500L used by Pope Francis during his visit last year to the U.S. city of Philadelphia sold at auction Friday for $82,000, with the proceeds going to various Catholic charities.

Church officials in the northeastern U.S. city said the auction was the highlight of a gala black-tie event kicking off this year's Philadelphia Auto Show.

Russia's central bank on Friday warned of possible interest rate hikes ahead if inflation risks rise, as it held its key rate at 11 percent after a fresh oil price drop.

"On the backdrop of yet another oil price slump, monthly consumer price growth rates stabilised at a high level, with a higher risk of accelerated inflation," the bank said in a statement after its latest board meeting, warning that "should inflation risks amplify, the Bank of Russia cannot rule out a tightening of its monetary policy."

Eurozone inflation accelerated to 0.4 percent in January, from 0.2 percent the month before, official data showed Friday, suggesting European Central Bank efforts to boost the economy are finally bearing fruit.

Analysts said the figures, in line with expectations, would be welcome but they still remain way short of the ECB's official two-percent target.

Mid-sized Chinese lender Citic Bank has been defrauded of up to $148 million, the company and media reports said, the second such incident in the industry to come to light in a week.

China Citic Bank Corp. said it was involved in a "risk incident" at its branch in the northwestern city of Lanzhou and it could lose up to 969 million yuan ($148 million) as a result, according to a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange issued late Thursday. It gave no details.

Oil extended a recent rally in Asia Friday, boosted by weakness in the dollar and Russia saying it could meet the OPEC producers' group for talks on possible output cuts to ease a painful supply glut.

But analysts cautioned against putting too much hope on such talks, noting that similar discussions in the past had failed to end with concrete results.

Pegasus Airlines continues its expansion to meet a growing demand for its service in Lebanon with the addition of new routes and an increase in flight frequencies.

After the launch of the Istanbul route in 2010 Pegasus’ daily flights to Istanbul have doubled daily as of the January 25.

The economy minister of recession-hit Russia on Thursday pledged nearly $10 billion to tackle the country's financial crisis, as the low oil price weighs heavily on growth. 

Alexei Ulyukayev earmarked 750 billion rubles (nine billion euros, $9.8 billion) in anti-crisis measures, of which 310 billion rubles are loans to regional authorities already allocated in the 2016 budget.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades was Thursday hosting a three-way meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras focused on energy cooperation between the Mediterranean states.

With Cyprus, which lies just 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Syrian coast, on the fringes of a region wracked by conflict, the three countries say cooperation holds the key to regional stability.

Spain's unemployment rate registered a record fall last year, dropping nearly three percentage points to 20.90 percent, according to statistics published Thursday that confirm the country's economic recovery.

Spain exited recession in mid-2013 after five years of economic turbulence sparked by the collapse of a property bubble in 2008 which left millions of people out of work.

OPEC member Kuwait projected a record budget deficit for the fiscal year starting April 1 on the sliding price of oil, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

The shortfall for the 2016-2017 fiscal year is estimated at 11.5 billion dinars ($38 billion) due to a sharp decline in oil revenues, the ministry said on its Twitter account.