The U.S. Senate backed a bipartisan budget deal on Tuesday, virtually assuring passage of a bill that sets spending caps and reduces prospects of a government shutdown in 2014.

The bill, which has already won House approval, cleared a Senate procedural hurdle by 67 votes to 33 and is now expected to pass Congress Wednesday before the year-end recess.

India's central bank kept a key interest rate unchanged Wednesday, surprising financial markets which had expected a rise to battle surging inflation.

After meeting in the financial capital Mumbai, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, would remain at 7.75 percent.

The consortium developing an immense Azerbaijani natural gas field in the Caspian Sea signed on Tuesday a final investment deal that paves the way for the first deliveries to Europe.

The Shah Deniz II consortium signed off on the final decision worth about $28 billion (20 billion euros) of investment that triggers the start of construction of a major new pipeline to Europe.

The Philippine economy should grow 7.0 percent this year and between 6.5 and 7.5 percent next year despite the devastation caused by a killer typhoon and an earthquake, the government said Tuesday.

Economic planning minister Arsenio Balisacan said that while losses in agriculture caused by Super Typhoon Haiyan in November were expected to hit growth in the near term, rebuilding would likely make up for it further down the line.

Britain's banking reform bill cleared its final legislative hurdle late on Monday, paving the way for a raft of new regulations including the "ring fencing" of banks' retail and investment divisions.

A vote in the House of Lords, Britain's upper chamber, rubber-stamped the government's plans for reforming the embattled sector, ending a challenge from the opposition Labor party, which wanted a licensing system on banking standards to be included.

Australia is facing years of deficit with a Aus$17 billion (U.S.$15.2 billion) blowout since September elections as the economy struggles to deal with an unwinding mining investment boom, the treasurer said Tuesday.

Joe Hockey said the conservative government had inherited a "simply unsustainable" budget from center-left Labor and warned that without urgent action Australia would be in the red for a decade, with a deficit of Aus$47 billion this financial year.

Sudan's new cabinet on Monday approved a budget ruling out price increases, after the slashing of fuel subsidies in September led to the worst urban unrest of President Omar al-Bashir's regime.

"This budget will not include increases in taxation, nor will it raise other prices," Finance Minister Badereldien Mahmoud told reporters after ministers endorsed the 2014 budget.

Fears that the recovery in the 17-country eurozone has stalled were eased somewhat Monday after a survey showed business sentiment across the region rising for the first time in three months despite renewed weakness in the French economy.

The monthly purchasing managers' index for the eurozone from financial information company Markit rose to 52.1 in December from 51.7 in November. Anything above 50 indicates expansion.

Once the preserve of cyber geeks or of dodgy traders, the virtual currency bitcoin can now not only be used to buy goods online but also pay for a degree at the University of Nicosia.

Yet the newfound popularity of the currency, which was worth almost nothing until April 2011 and which now trades at around $1,000, may well prove its undoing.

French carmaker Renault signed a $1.3 billion joint venture agreement with China's Dongfeng Monday, finally ending a decade without a manufacturing presence in the world's biggest car market.

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn described the project as a "strategic alliance".