The tiny Baltic state of Latvia received the green light from its European partners Tuesday to become the 18th member of the eurozone from next year.

In what Latvia's prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis described as a "good day for Latvia and also for Europe," the ECOFIN council -- made up of the economy and finance ministers of the EU's 28 member states -- gave formal approval to the country's euro membership.

Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim has acquired a 10.8 percent stake in Shazam, the British company behind a music recognition smartphone application that instantly identifies songs and artists.

Slim's America Movil phone company announced the capital stock deal in a statement Monday, saying that the two firms "entered into a strategic alliance for business development in the Americas."

The International Monetary Fund on Monday hailed the progress achieved by the eurozone over the past year in tackling its crisis, but said it needs to do more to sustainably boost growth and employment.

"Policy actions over the past year have addressed important tail risks and stabilized financial markets," the IMF wrote in a new report.

Oil prices eased on profit-taking Tuesday following last week's surge, but losses were limited by concerns that escalating violence in Egypt will disrupt supplies from the Middle East, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in August, fell six cents to $103.08 a barrel in afternoon trade and Brent North Sea crude for August was down 20 cents at $107.23.

The Turkish central bank ramped up its monetary conditions on Monday to shore up the local currency, the lira after it hit a record low value against the dollar.

The bank announced that it was applying immediately a "strong" tightening of monetary conditions.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Sunday signalled Sunday that her organisation would be lowering slightly its global economic growth forecasts, which are set to released in the next few days.

Lagarde noted that the International Monetary Fund, along with the World Bank, back in April said that the global economic recovery was advancing at mainly three different speeds, from an average 5.5 percent in emerging economies to 2.0 percent in advanced countries like the United States and Australia, to the essentially deadlocked economies of the eurozone.

Greece and its international creditors hope to reach a deal by Monday on reforms including thousands of job cuts needed for the debt-laden nation to unlock further aid worth 8.1 billion euros ($10.4 billion).

"We have made substantial progress," Poul Thomsen, the International Monetary Fund's representative, told reporters in Athens on Sunday.

Hiring is exploding in the one corner of the U.S. economy where few want to be hired: Temporary work.

From Wal-Mart to General Motors to PepsiCo, companies are increasingly turning to temps and to a much larger universe of freelancers, contract workers and consultants. Combined, these workers number nearly 17 million people who have only tenuous ties to the companies that pay them — about 12 percent of everyone with a job.

Virgin on Monday completed the purchase of a 60 percent stake in low-cost rival Tigerair Australia and named its chief executive John Borghetti as chairman of the new business.

Australia's competition regulator agreed to the tie-up earlier this year and Virgin, the country's second-largest carrier after Qantas, said all the formalities were now complete.

Iran's central bank on Saturday drastically devalued the national currency's fixed subsidized rate against the dollar, as the Islamic republic struggles to shore up its faltering economy.

The rial has lost more than two thirds of its value on the open market since early 2012, when the United States and the European Union imposed harsh economic sanctions curbing Iran's ability to export oil and conduct financial transactions.