Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday said his government is nearing a deal with international creditors on a mammoth bailout, as his spokeswoman raised the prospect of early elections in the fall.

"We are in the final stretch to conclude an agreement with the institutions," Tsipras said in televised remarks.

Ryanair has flown more than 10 million passengers in a single month, a first for an airline, the Irish budget carrier said Wednesday.

Traffic grew 11 percent in July to 10.14 million passengers compared with the same month a year earlier, Ryanair said in a statement.

China is aiming to issue 1.0 trillion yuan ($164 billion) worth of bonds to fund construction projects to help boost the slowing economy, Bloomberg News reported, quoting unnamed sources.

Two policy banks which lend on government directives, China Development Bank and the Agricultural Development Bank of China, will issue bonds, it said, adding the Postal Savings Bank of China would be the buyer, the report said.

The battle for supremacy in India's bulging e-commerce market between Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal is rapidly heating up with multi-billion-dollar investments, trolling on Twitter and squabbling over exclusive selling rights.

Gaining ground after entering India in 2013, Amazon has been embroiled in rounds of one-upmanship with its local counterparts as competition intensifies for a greater slice of the lucrative market.

The end to a ceasefire with Kurdish rebels and political uncertainty after inconclusive June elections are compounding already mounting problems for Turkey's stuttering economy, analysts say.

The resumption of regular attacks by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels in the southeast of the country as Turkish jets bomb their positions in northern Iraq has brought back memories of the 1990s when the country was often in economic, political and security chaos.

The EU on Tuesday announced a free trade deal "in principle" with Vietnam aimed at removing nearly all tariffs on goods traded between the two countries.

"We have a deal," EU Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem announced as her office said it was "an agreement in principle" in two and a half years of "intense" negotiations for a free trade agreement.

Standard & Poor's has changed the outlook for the European Union from stable to negative after the bloc's support for Greece and following Britain's decision to vote on leaving the EU, S&P reported Monday.

The decision means the U.S. ratings agency could lower its grade of the European Union -- now at AA+ -- in the next two years.

Britain's government has begun selling its majority stake in bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to reduce state debt and kick-start the lender's full return to the private sector, the Treasury said Tuesday.

The government has sold 5.4 percent of RBS for £2.1 billion ($3.3 billion, 3.0 billion euros), a statement said.

After so much pain, Greece must now figure out how to get its economy back on its feet.

The scale of the country's financial problems is mind boggling — a full quarter of the economy evaporated in the past six years and business activity is now plummeting further. Government cuts needed to qualify for a new bailout will hurt incomes for years to come.

Waste management giant Veolia said Monday its profits in the first half of the year more than doubled to 321 million euros ($352 million), helped by a cost-cutting drive.

The French company, which specializes in water distribution, waste, recycling and energy, said its turnover also rose by 7.3 percent to 12.3 billion euros.