The parent group of British Airways cut its long-term profits outlook Friday, blaming the downgrade mainly on a plunging pound following the shock Brexit vote.

A sharp fall in Tokyo led losses in most major Asian stock markets Friday as traders fret over next week's US election, with the dollar weakening further and safe-haven gold maintaining its lustre.

The pound held on to Thursday's gains to sit at one-month highs after judges told Britain's government it must approve June's referendum to leave the European Union.

Air France-KLM said Thursday it will launch an assault on the competition with the creation of a long and medium-haul subsidiary, aimed at taking business from Gulf-based rivals.

Egypt floated the country's pound Thursday as part of a raft of reforms, after a dollar crunch and exorbitant black market trade threatened to grind some imports to a halt.

The government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is rolling out an austerity program and seeking billions in support from abroad in order to meet conditions for a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

A French prosecutor has called for British banking giant HSBC to stand trial for enabling French clients to hide more than 180 billion euros from the taxman, a source close to the probe said Thursday.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-biggest bank, said Thursday it defied market expectations by posting a profit amid a vast cost cutting program.

Net earnings came in at 41 million Swiss francs (38 million euros, $42 million), a massive decline of 95 percent from the same quarter last year.  

Pakistani business leaders complained Wednesday of losing millions of dollars to the government's novel way of containing protesters: by confiscating thousands of shipping containers, many still full of goods, to block roads.

With less than one week to go until Election Day, a national poll showing Donald Trump with a narrow lead over Hillary Clinton sent global financial markets tumbling Wednesday, as both candidates focused on scrapping for votes in battleground states.

Iran boosted its oil exports to 2.44 million barrels per day in late October as it regains market share lost during years of international sanctions, its oil minister said Wednesday.

"Oil exports reached 2.44 million bpd in late October, one of the highest levels ever," the Mehr news agency quoted Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying.

Qatar said it expects "100 percent compliance" from businesses by the end of 2016 on a labor reform introduced to ensure the country's vast migrant workforce receive their salaries on time.

Government figures released in Doha on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Wage Protection System (WPS) show that 1.8 million -- around 85 percent -- of Qatar's 2.1 million workforce are now paid electronically.