Air France is offering a massive bonus of up to six months' salary to pilots who agree to move to its new low-cost Transavia unit, a spokesman said Thursday.

A company source said that the sums being offered to pilots were as much as 60,000 euros ($74,000).

Moody's on Thursday downgraded the credit rating for the Italian region of Sicily to within one notch of junk status as the finances of regional governments in Italy and Spain rattle investors.

Moody's said it was cutting the rating for the autonomous region to Baa3 from Baa2 with a warning of a possible further downgrade due to "heightened budgetary pressures" that would increase due to the recession this year.

The United States is bracing for growth figures that will set the tone for the last 100 days of the race to the White House and help decide if the Fed pulls the trigger on more economic stimulus.

Early Friday in Washington, the Commerce Department will release its first estimate of how much the world's largest economy grew in the second quarter of this year, from April to June.

Eurozone bank loans to the private sector contracted last month, new data showed Thursday, even as growth in Eurozone money supply, a key indicator of demand in the economy, picked up unexpectedly.

The European Central Bank, in its regular monthly money supply data, calculated that growth in Eurozone bank loans contracted by 0.2 percent in June after shrinking by 0.1 percent in May.

Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said Thursday that microfinance could help disaster-struck Japan rebuild, even though the concept he pioneered is usually associated with poor and developing nations.

Yunus, seen as one of the world's leading anti-poverty activists, said extending small loans could help people in regions devastated by last year's quake-tsunami disaster, despite Japan being one of Asia's richest countries.

Santander, the biggest Eurozone bank by capitalization, said Thursday that its 2012 second quarter profit plunged by an annualized 92.8 percent owing to provisions ordered by Spanish regulators.

The bank's net profit for the three months from April through June fell to 100 million euros ($121 million) a statement said.

Embattled Qantas said Thursday it was in talks with carriers including Emirates to revive its struggling international arm, an alliance that could see its Europe-bound flights routed through Dubai.

The revelation, which saw Qantas's share price soar almost 10 percent, is part of the Australian airline's drive to turn around its fortunes after an 83 percent slump in first-half net profit in the six months to December.

Turkey said Wednesday it will keep supplying energy to Syria despite previously threatening to halt exports to its conflict-wracked neighbor.

"The Syrian people need electricity now more than ever. We will continue to provide it," Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Beleaguered Spain was to seek French support in the face of its soaring borrowing costs Wednesday as Europe's economic crisis deepened with a slump in German confidence and worsening British recession.

After talks in Berlin Tuesday, Spanish Finance Minister Luis de Guindos was to meet French counterpart Pierre Moscovici in Paris as the Eurozone tries to contain fears Spain may be headed for a full bailout.

France will boost support for environmentally friendly cars as part of a recovery plan to be unveiled Wednesday amid growing concern for the country's crisis-hit auto industry and top carmaker Peugeot.

Highlighting the difficulties facing the French auto sector, PSA Peugeot Citroen announced Wednesday it had suffered a first half net loss of 819 million euros ($989 million), more than reversing a year-earlier net profit of 806 million euros.