Japan is to pledge at least $10 billion in aid to Africa for the next five years, reports said Friday, as Tokyo prepared to host a major development conference for the resource-rich continent.

Coupled with expected corporate investments, Japan's public and private sectors look set to pour around three trillion yen ($30 billion) into Africa by 2018, as Japan Inc. rushes for a piece of the promising African market, the Nikkei said.

Workers at the Lisbon metro went on strike Thursday and businesses came to a standstill across Portugal to protest government austerity measures aimed at slashing the deficit and meeting the terms of an international bailout.

"We anticipate strong participation by workers who will also show their availability for a more general struggle," said Armenio Carlos, the secretary general of the country's largest trade union, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), which organised the day of protest.

The European Commission laid down its economic targets Wednesday for EU nations desperately seeking growth and jobs in the fallout from the debt crisis but gave France and Spain extra time in return for deeper reforms.

The debt crisis has seen Brussels gain additional powers to ensure EU member states toe the line to avoid future trouble -- just as well, when 20 of the 27 were under surveillance for breaching the bloc's public deficit and debt limits, respectively at three percent and 60 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, stung by criticism she is cracking the whip of fiscal discipline in Europe, has shown a more caring approach by pledging to fight record youth unemployment on the crisis-hit continent.

The declared new enemy in Berlin, aside from sloppy budgets and bloated bureaucracies, is the threat of a "lost generation" of young people without jobs, skills or hope, especially in hard-hit Greece and Spain.

Fewer Europeans are planning to go away for a summer holiday as economic austerity bites, a new study shows, with levels of foreign vacation travel at their lowest for eight years.

No more than 54 percent of Europeans are planning to get away for summer holiday this year, according to the Ipsos-Europ Assistance "holiday barometer" published Thursday.

Syria's oil production has crashed to 20,000 barrels per day, or five percent of its pre-war output, Oil Minister Sleiman Abbas said, quoted on Wednesday in the ruling party's Al-Baath daily.

"The terrorism of armed groups (rebels) and the unjust (Western) embargo imposed on Syria" were to blame for the collapse, he told a session of parliament.

Swiss banks could be forced to hand over the names of their employees under a prospective deal between Switzerland and Washington that aims to end a dispute over alleged tax evasion, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

"All the banks with significant business in the United States could be required to submit their correspondence to American authorities, as well as the names of their employees," the daily Tages Anzeiger said.

The European Commission is ready to end its special budget deficit surveillance of Italy after Rome brought the shortfall back within EU rules, a senior official said Wednesday.

EU Industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani said in a tweeted message that the Commission had recommended "abrogating (the) decision on the existence of an excessive deficit in Italy," thereby removing the country from the EU's so-called Excessive Deficit Procedure program.

The European Union will make country-specific economic policy recommendations that are likely to ease the focus on budget austerity to help the economy recover.

The EU Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive arm, is expected on Monday to grant France, Spain and other nations more time to slash their deficits amid high unemployment and a protracted recession in many member states.

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday cut its growth forecast for China in 2013 to "around 7.75 percent", down from its earlier forecast of 8.0 percent, citing a sluggish global recovery which hurt exports.

"The Chinese economy is expected to grow at around 7.75% this year and at about the same pace next year," David Lipton, IMF first deputy managing director, told reporters in Beijing.