Pakistan's parliament has approved amendments to an anti-money laundering law to make it more effective in targeting the financing of extremists and bring it into line with global standards, officials said Thursday.

The National Assembly, the lower chamber of the federal parliament, unanimously approved the amendments on Wednesday, two weeks after the Senate passed it, parliamentary officials said.

Britain's Labor has been accused of lurching left since Jeremy Corbyn became leader, so when one of his key allies quoted Mao Zedong's Little Red Book in parliament Wednesday, Conservative opponents were delighted.

John McDonnell, the main opposition's finance spokesman, was giving his party's response to finance minister George Osborne's budget update in the House of Commons when he pulled out a copy of the Chinese revolutionary leader's book of quotations.

Brazilian police on Wednesday arrested a senior ruling party senator and a billionaire investment banker in the intensifying probe of a huge corruption network centered on state oil giant Petrobras.

Senator Delcidio Amaral, who leads President Dilma Rousseff's Workers' Party in the upper house, was the first sitting legislator to be arrested in the widening corruption scandal.

Europe is facing the specter of attacks by Islamic State (IS) jihadists with police numbers in some countries hit by austerity cuts, raising questions about whether this is making it easier for assailants to slip through the net.

Following this month's Paris attacks in which 130 people died, other EU nations are on high alert.

Britain took the ax to spending Wednesday, fleshing out plans to slash welfare and eliminate the deficit, but dropped a controversial plan to cut tax credits for the poorest.

Finance minister George Osborne spelled out his proposals for £12 billion (17 billion euros, $18 billion) of cuts to welfare spending and £20 billion of reductions to public expenditure, while raising £5.0 billion via a crackdown on tax avoidance.

U.S. rating agency Standard and Poor's said Wednesday a budding eurozone recovery was gathering steam thanks to consumers loosening their purse strings.

In a report entitled "Hangin' In There Despite Weak Foreign Demand", it said domestic demand had emerged as a main driver for growth, offsetting export weakness.

Cabin staff at Lufthansa said Wednesday they would cancel a planned strike against the German airline this week to allow for negotiations to resolve a protracted contract dispute.

Two weeks after mounting the longest strike in the company's history, the UFO flight attendants' union said it would call off industrial action scheduled for Thursday and Friday to hold further talks with management.

Faced with heavy losses from low oil prices, Gulf states have embarked on belt-tightening measures to cut spending and boost non-crude revenues, but analysts warn much more needs to be done.

After more than a decade of abundant surpluses thanks to high oil prices, the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are projected to post a combined record shortfall of $180 billion in 2015 and the draught is expected to continue for years. 

The yen and euro got a boost Wednesday as the Turkish downing of a Russian fighter jet sent investors into safer assets on fears about the broader implications of the incident.

Global financial markets were rattled by the shooting on the Syrian border, with European bourses tumbling and oil prices surging on supply fears.

Oil prices turned higher in Asia Wednesday as diplomats tried to ease geopolitical tensions sparked by Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border.

But the global crude supply glut capped gains ahead of a U.S. Department of Energy report expected to show another build in commercial crude stockpiles, indicating slower demand in the world's top oil consuming nation.