The European Central Bank will face a dilemma at its policy meeting on Thursday as the nascent recovery in the crisis-stricken euro area remains extremely vulnerable to setbacks.

The ECB is not expected to unveil any policy changes when its policy-setting governing council convenes on Thursday morning.

Oil prices rose in Asian trade Thursday as U.S. President Barack Obama cleared the first legislative hurdle in his race to win congressional backing for military strikes on Syria.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in October, gained 31 cents to $107.54 in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for October gained 23 cents to $115.14.

Overland oil shipments to NATO troops in landlocked Afghanistan resumed through Pakistan on Wednesday under tighter security after a five-month suspension due to attacks, Pakistani officials said.

Pakistani contractors had stopped driving oil supplies from the port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea to the Torkham crossing on the Afghan border due to frequent attacks on their vehicles.

New data on Wednesday confirmed that the eurozone escaped an 18-month recession in the second quarter but the outlook is difficult and the bloc still lags well behind in global terms.

Analysts welcomed the figures, which reinforce other survey findings, but were also cautious as the debt crisis continues to sap the economy and unemployment runs at record highs.

The price of oil stayed above $108 a barrel on Wednesday after President Barack Obama secured the support of key U.S. politicians for a retaliatory strike against Syria.

Benchmark oil for October delivery was down 30 cents to $108.24 per barrel at midday Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil rose above $108 a barrel Tuesday as Obama won the support of key Republicans for military action against Syria.

Britain's Serious Fraud Office will prosecute Olympus and its subsidiary over a huge loss cover-up scandal, the Japanese camera and medical equipment maker said Wednesday.

It is the latest turn in an affair that badly damaged Japan's corporate governance image and turned the company's first foreign leader into a high-profile whistleblower.

Top economist Raghuram Rajan, renowned for predicting the 2008 global financial crisis, takes over as head of India's central bank on Wednesday amid the country's worst financial storm in years.

Rajan, a high-profile former IMF chief economist, replaces Duvvuri Subbarao as governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which has been battling to halt the plummeting rupee amid a sharp economic slowdown.

The Swiss economy, already one of the soundest in struggling Europe, grew by 0.5 percent in the second quarter, official data showed on Tuesday, beating expectations.

The increase beat the expectations of analysts polled by the AWP financial agency, who expected the small, Alpine nation's gross domestic product to grow between 0.0 and 0.4 percent.

Central and eastern European countries have escaped most of the turmoil that has recently lashed emerging economies as they have been shielded by the recovery in the neighbouring eurozone.

"A number of equity markets in Emerging Europe -- Poland's in particular -- have proved relatively resilient during the recent emerging market sell-off," Capital Economics said in its August report.

Oil prices eased in Asian trade Tuesday on receding fears of an immediate U.S. intervention in Syria but upbeat global economic data capped losses, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in October, was down 93 cents at $106.72 in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for October dipped 12 cents to $114.21.