Marking a truce after years of fiscal feuding in Washington, Congress passed a $1.1 trillion spending package Thursday that effectively ended the threat of an election-year government shutdown.

The Senate voted 72 to 26 to approve the massive bill, in a show of bipartisanship after the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday for the measure to fund the federal government through September.

China Mobile, the country's biggest services provider, on Friday started selling Apple's iPhone to its millions of customers nationwide, ending a six-year wait in a key market for the U.S. technology giant.

The combination of China Mobile's existing base of 760 million customers and its plans to roll out the world's largest 4G (fourth generation) network have the firm and Apple forecasting a fruitful union -- after a long engagement.

A Japanese government report Friday said the economy was "recovering", its first use of the word since the 2008 global financial crisis, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe works to revive years of tepid growth.

Tokyo's monthly checkup on the world's third-largest economy used some of its most upbeat language in years as it pointed to a pick-up in consumer and capital spending.

The Turkish currency plunged further on Thursday as the government grappled with its worst crisis in years, hitting a new low of 2.20 lira to the dollar.

In late morning trading, the lira was changing hands at 2.2047 to the dollar and 3.0058 to the euro. The Istanbul stock exchange was also down 1.0 percent at 67,452.75 points.

The growing gulf between the rich and the poor represents the biggest global risk this year, the World Economic Forum declared Thursday ahead of this month's Davos summit.

The institution issued the gloomy warning in its annual Global Risks survey, published before its annual get-together of decision-makers at the Swiss mountain resort of Davos from January 22-25.

Singapore Airlines (SIA) and Air New Zealand on Thursday announced an alliance to expand services to both countries and boost their global reach as they look to capitalize on growing tourism traffic.

The alliance will enable SIA to operate its Airbus A380 superjumbos to New Zealand for the first time, progressively replacing daily services using the smaller Boeing 777-300ER, the firms said in a joint statement.

The French state has raised 451 million euros ($614 million) by selling a one percent stake in European aircaft and defense corporation Airbus Group, the economy minister said Thursday.

The divestment, of around 8 million shares to institutional buyers, brings France's stake in the publicly traded group to 11 percent -- the same as Airbus Group partner Germany.

Europe took a key step towards tighter regulation of financial markets late Tuesday when the European Parliament and negotiators for the 28 member states agreed a deal in principle after two years of talks.

The new rules for markets in financial instruments, known as MiFID II, aim to close loopholes in existing legislation to curb speculative trading in commodities and regulate high-frequency trading so as better to protect investors and make markets safer.

The German economy, Europe's biggest, saw growth nearly halved last year as the sluggish global economy and recession in its European neighbors weighed on activity, official data showed on Wednesday.

German gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 0.4 percent in 2013, down from 0.7 percent a year earlier, the federal statistics office Destatis calculated in preliminary data.

The world's biggest mobile network is ready to offer Apple's iPhone, but while the U.S. technology giant has declared China its biggest future market, it faces an uphill battle to unseat Samsung and homegrown competitors.

Majority state-owned China Mobile has more than 760 million customers but for years it has declined to provide the iPhone as the two companies argued over commercial terms.