Russia hopes to develop North Korea's mineral resources after canceling the isolated state's debts, the minister for development of Far Eastern Russia, Alexander Galushka, said on Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in May signed a law canceling 90 percent of North Korea's $10.94 billion debt to Russia from Soviet-era loans.

Bangladesh is to unveil a new "green tax" Thursday that will force polluting factories to pay extra levies as it looks to clean up the country's increasingly dirty rivers and air, an official said Thursday.

The tax will be introduced as part of the annual budget for 2014-15, which will also see a focus on giant new infrastructure projects such as a metro in the cramped capital Dhaka and a new nuclear power plant.

Subway workers in Sao Paulo went on strike Thursday, one week before the World Cup opens in the Brazilian mega-city, where protests against government spending on the tournament erupted a year ago.

The Sao Paulo metro is the main transport link to the economic capital's World Cup host stadium, and the indefinite strike could pose a massive logistical headache for organizers.

For the second year in a row, Bader has announced the launch of its Startup Cup Business Competition, a worldwide program started by Kauffman Foundation and adopted by Bader in its Lebanese version, with the support of Bank Audi, a press release said on Wednesday.

The Bader Startup Cup is a locally driven business model competition that serves as an ideal platform for entrepreneurs to launch their ideas into the marketplace.

Major U.S. companies are pushing back against an effort to reform the global taxation system to prevent multinational businesses from exploiting differing national tax rules and loopholes.

The influential Business Roundtable, a gathering of top U.S. chief executives, said in a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew that the project to close gaps in taxation of cross-border income threatens their businesses and U.S. workers.

Greece is hoping for a new tourism record this year, with arrivals likely to exceed 20 million, in a new sign that the country is winning back foreigners as the economy gets back on its feet.

After a poor season in 2012 -- a year marked by back-to-back elections, political instability, and anti-austerity protests -- the tourism industry seems finally to be getting its swagger back.

The Bank of England is likely to keep its main interest rate at a record-low level on Thursday, but is slowly moving towards raising borrowing costs after a years-long pause.

The institution's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is odds-on to keep the rate frozen at 0.50 percent at the conclusion of a two-day meeting as low inflation in Britain offsets the country's solid economic growth and falling unemployment, according to analysts.

Oil prices edged higher in Asia Wednesday as investors await the latest U.S. supply report for clues about demand in the world's biggest crude consumer. 

The U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in July, gained 14 cents to $102.80 a barrel while Brent North Sea crude for July was up seven cents to stand at $108.89 in afternoon trade. 

China's manufacturing activity improved in May but the world's second-largest economy faces headwinds, particularly in the property sector, HSBC said Tuesday.

The HSBC final purchasing managers' index (PMI), which tracks activity in the nation's factories and workshops, came in at 49.4 in May, lower than a preliminary reading of 49.7, the British-based banking giant said in a statement.

Inflation in the eurozone sagged to an annual rate of 0.5 percent in May, adding pressure on the European Central Bank to take action to support a weak recovery and ward off the danger of a drop in consumer prices.

The figure released Tuesday by the European Union's statistics agency fell from 0.7 percent in April and was short of market analysts' forecasts for 0.6 percent. The overall figure was dragged down by an unexpectedly low 0.9 percent rate in Germany, the biggest of the 18 countries that use the euro.