Britain said on Tuesday it would seek a "temporary customs union" with the European Union for one or two years after Brexit in an opening gambit for negotiations that got a cold response from Brussels.

China has given those who bet against the yuan a bloody nose this year thanks to policy moves and intervention by the authorities. And yet, many traders and investors are still tipping the Chinese currency to decline against the US dollar in the next year.

Titan Co, India's biggest listed jeweller, expects its jewellery sales to rise by 20-30 percent in 2017/18 fiscal year ending March, as it plans to add more than two dozen retail stores to boost its presence in small towns, a senior company official said.

Euro zone government bond yields rose 3-4 basis points across the board on Monday, bouncing from recent lows following stronger-than-expected Japanese growth.

The Swiss franc posted its biggest daily drop against the US dollar in nearly three weeks on Monday as investor concern over geopolitical risks eased and Japan posted solid economic data.

Four Arab countries that imposed sanctions on Qatar have told the United States that US companies doing business with them would not be punished for also working with Doha, four sources with knowledge of the matter said.

India's wholesale price inflation rate picked up in July after easing for four straight months, with food prices back on the rise.

China's strong economic growth showed visible signs of fading in July as lending costs rose and the gravity-defying property market cooled, though activity levels generally remained solid, propped up by a year-long construction spree.

Japan's cautious consumers are starting to loosen up, spending more on cars and home appliances and offering hope that domestic demand - and not just exports - will be strong enough to reflate an economy that has been sluggish for many years.

US President Donald Trump will have the chance to turn a key campaign promise into reality with this week's start of official talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Saudi Arabia's budget deficit halved in the first six months of this year, the finance ministry said Sunday, following sweeping spending cuts and a stabilisation in oil prices.

Indian traders are likely to import 25 tonnes of gold from South Korea in July and August, taking advantage of a recent tax change that allows importers to ship in gold without paying a 10 percent customs duty, industry officials told Reuters.

Venezuela might look bad right now with protests, scarce food and fraught political tensions. But it could soon get a lot worse, according to analysts, because of a debt emergency raising the specter of default.

After this week's war of words between the United States and North Korea triggered the biggest fall in global stocks since the US presidential election, investors are wondering what other off-radar shocks may be waiting to rock world markets.

Ride-services company Uber is facing a divided board of directors and angry shareholders after investor Benchmark Capital filed a lawsuit against the company's ousted chief executive,

JC Penney Co Inc's stock hit a life-low as sweeping store closures and a challenging retail environment drove the embattled department store chain to report a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss and took a toll on comparable sales.

The number of international visitors to the United States has dropped for the first time since 2009, as did their spending, the US Department of Commerce said.

India's gold imports are likely to jump by a third in 2017 to 750 tonnes on restocking by jewellers and as good monsoon rainfall is expected to boost demand in rural areas during the upcoming festive season, a leading refiner told Reuters.

In a run-down mall in one of Sydney's biggest Chinese neighborhoods in 2015, 29-year-old Jizhang Lu showed up at the top-floor offices of a meat export company carrying a carrier bag stuffed with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

Brazil's troubled oil giant Petrobas on Thursday reported a 93 percent drop in profits in the second quarter of 2017 from the previous three months.