The beleaguered Turkish lira recovered from alltime lows on Thursday after the central bank intervened in foreign exchange markets directly for the first time in two years.

The lira tumbled to 3.1061 to the euro and 2.2909 to the dollar in early trade but recovered to 3.0994 and 2.2688 by midday after the central bank action.

China's fiscal deficit came in at 1.06 trillion yuan ($175 million) last year, just 1.8 percent of the country's gross domestic product and lower than planned in the budget, official data showed Thursday.

The central government's fiscal revenue rose 10.1 percent to 12.91 trillion yuan, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement, with expenditure up 10.9 percent to 13.97 trillion yuan.

Chinese computer giant Lenovo will buy IBM's low-end server business for $2.3 billion, it said Thursday, giving it a platform to compete in that sector with U.S. giants Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

IBM will receive $2.07 billion in cash and the rest in shares for the x86 business, Lenovo said, in a deal seen as helping the Chinese firm diversify away from the slumping PC-sales sector.

Kuwait's three oil refineries, with a total production capacity of 930,000 barrels per day, halted operations on Wednesday following a power cut, a spokesman for the national refiner said.

"The three refineries have stopped operations, with the exception of the gas plants, after a power cut," said Khaled al-Asousi, spokesman for the state-owned Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) which owns the three refineries.

The Vatican bank said Wednesday it is cracking down on unsuitable clients, a day after fresh charges were laid against a former accountant at the scandal-hit financial institution.

The bank, officially known as the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), said it had screened 55 percent of its customers -- some 10,000 client records -- by the end of 2013 as part of a mammoth anti-money laundering clean-up operation.

Iraq's oil exports in 2013 declined compared with the previous year, new figures showed on Wednesday, despite the country's efforts to dramatically ramp up crude sales to fund much-needed reconstruction.

Exports in December recovered from multi-month lows earlier in the year, but were still below their peak, with overall exports and revenues for the year lower than similar figures for 2012, according to oil ministry data compiled by Agence France Presse.

Relatives of China's president and other business and political leaders are linked to offshore tax havens that "helped shroud the communist elite's wealth," a U.S.-based journalism group said Wednesday.

The report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists might fuel politically awkward attention on President Xi Jinping's family and its wealth at a time when Xi has made fighting corruption a theme of his leadership.

Australian inflation hit a stronger-than-expected 0.8 percent in October-December from the previous quarter, official figures showed on Wednesday, dampening hopes of an interest rate cut.

Economists had anticipated a quarterly rise in the consumer price index (CPI), a key measure of inflation, of about 0.5 percent after it hit 1.2 percent in the previous three months.

Myanmar's economy is on pace to grow 7.5 percent this fiscal year, the International Monetary Fund said, praising the government for working to liberalize the foreign exchange market and boost central bank reserves.

It warned, however, that inflation is expected to surpass 6 percent by March, when the current fiscal year ends, and could continue to rise.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Tuesday cut its economic growth forecast for Turkey, blaming the impact of a deep political crisis and tighter U.S. monetary policy.

The London-based EBRD also trimmed its gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for its operating zone, citing capital outflows as the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to taper its vast stimulus.