Japan is making a sweeping shift in its monetary policy, aiming to spur inflation and get the world's third-largest economy out of a long, debilitating slump.

Bowing to demands from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for more aggressive monetary easing, the Bank of Japan announced Thursday a policy overhaul intended to double the money supply and achieve a 2 percent inflation target at the "earliest possible time, with a time horizon of about two years."

Private sector business activity in the 17-nation eurozone fell sharply in March, adding to an increasingly gloomy outlook for the economy, a key survey showed on Thursday.

The Markit Eurozone Composite Purchasing Managers Index dropped to 46.5 points in March, unchanged from the initial estimate but well short of February's 47.9 and the boom-bust line of 50 points.

Cyprus bank workers are to go on strike Thursday over fears pensions may be at risk under the country's crippling bailout, after the new finance minister vowed to do "whatever it takes" to right the economy.

Bank employees' union ETYK called a two-hour stoppage over concerns that pension funds at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus are not being protected under the island's 10-billion-euro ($12.8 billion) bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank.

President Barack Obama plans to return five percent of his $400,000 annual salary to U.S. government coffers out of sympathy for federal workers furloughed as a result of massive budget cuts.

"The salary for the President, as with members of Congress, is set by law and cannot be changed," a White House official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

Spain's recession-hit economy will return to growth and begin creating jobs again in 2014 if the government keeps up its tough austerity reforms, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Wednesday.

"In 2014, if we are able to maintain the same level of effort, the Spanish economy will grow markedly and begin to create jobs," he said during a meeting of top officials from his center-right Popular Party.

Saudi billionaire prince Alwaleed bin Talal has called for parliamentary elections in the absolute monarchy where the king names members of a toothless Shura consultative council.

Prince Alwaleed, the richest Arab businessman and a nephew of King Abdullah, said in a television interview aired late Tuesday the monarch's January decision to appoint 30 women to the council was "very important" but needed to go further.

Cash-strapped Cyprus will fully implement the terms of a 10-billion-euro EU-IMF bailout, new Finance Minister Haris Georgiades said on Wednesday.

"First of all we shall implement the MoU (memorandum of understanding) fully without any derogation; we shall meet all timeframes and meet all targets," he said as he took up his new post.

A delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for talks on a financing program needed to lift Egypt's economy out of crisis.

The delegation is expected to examine Egypt's efforts at economic reform.

The International Monetary Fund has agreed to provide approximately one billion euros to the 10-billion-euro rescue plan for cash-strapped Cyprus, managing director Christine Lagarde said on Wednesday.

This would be through a three-year 891 million Special Drawing Rights (about one billion euro) loan," Lagarde said in a statement, adding that she expects the deal to go to the IMF executive board for approval in early May.

World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim on Tuesday called for a global drive to wipe out extreme poverty by 2030, acknowledging that reaching the goal will require extraordinary efforts.

"A world free of poverty is within our grasp. It is time to help everyone across the globe secure a one-way ticket out of poverty and stay on the path toward prosperity," Kim said in a speech in Washington.