After a long buildup that stirred waves of turbulence in global markets, the Federal Reserve finally is expected to end its seven-year crisis stance with an interest rate increase on Wednesday.

Most bets are that the Fed will increase the benchmark federal funds rate for the first time in nearly a decade, signaling confidence in U.S. economic growth even as the rest of the world sags.

Japan will build India's first bullet train under a sweeping tally of agreements made following talks in New Delhi Saturday, deepening a partnership Prime Minister Narendra Modi said would "shape the course of Asia".

The Indian premier spoke warmly of his friendship with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well as pointing to the power of their political alliance, after signing deals including the $15 billion Shinkansen train.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned Friday that the risk of Britain leaving the European Union could affect its triple-A ranking.

S&P, the only major ratings agency to rate Britain as AAA, maintained the ranking with a negative outlook due to uncertainties over a coming referendum on Britain's EU membership.

Greece announced Friday it had reached a deal with its international creditors on the latest set of reforms needed to receive another tranche of one billion euros in much-needed bailout loans.

"We have reached an agreement for this cycle," the finance minister George Stathakis told reporters after a meeting with the country's quartet of creditors -- the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU's bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.

French lawmakers voted Friday to slash tax on tampons and sanitary towels in a move that had initially been opposed by the government, infuriating women's groups.

The rate will be reduced to 5.5 percent from 20 percent after the government said it had found the money in the budget to finance the measure.

Russia on Friday officially launched its own rating agency as it seeks to counterbalance the influence of Western agencies which have taken a pessimistic line on the country's crisis-hit economy. 

"Upon completion of the state registration of a legal entity, Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA) starts its operating activities," an official statement said.

Pakistan's central bank said Friday that it expects an economic boost as the security situation improves, voicing confidence days ahead of the one-year anniversary of the country's deadliest ever extremist attack.

The statement came in the bank's annual report reviewing the country's economic performance for the fiscal year that ended in June 2015.

Consumer prices in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, rose modestly in November, driven by higher costs for food, services and rents, official data showed on Friday.

Confirming a preliminary flash estimate released at the end of last month, the federal statistics office Destatis calculated that Germany's national inflation yardstick, the consumer price index, inched 0.4 percent higher in November, after edging up 0.3 percent in October. 

The International Monetary Fund has been accused of giving in to political pressure in dropping a long established rule on prudential lending on Tuesday so that it can proceed with assistance for Ukraine.

That follows similar charges that the fund, the world's essential backstop in financial crises, bent its rules to support a bailout of Greece, and most recently to admit China's renminbi (or yuan) currency into the IMF's basket of elite reserve currencies.

More than four years into a grinding civil war, the Syrian government is scraping the barrel to boost its revenues with everything from taxes on shawarma sandwiches to telephone lines.

The country's economy has been ravaged by the conflict that began in March 2011, which has claimed the lives of over 250,000 people and pushed over four million to become refugees.