Greece announced Friday it had reached a deal with its international creditors on the latest set of reforms needed to receive another tranche of one billion euros in much-needed bailout loans.

"We have reached an agreement for this cycle," the finance minister George Stathakis told reporters after a meeting with the country's quartet of creditors -- the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU's bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.

French lawmakers voted Friday to slash tax on tampons and sanitary towels in a move that had initially been opposed by the government, infuriating women's groups.

The rate will be reduced to 5.5 percent from 20 percent after the government said it had found the money in the budget to finance the measure.

Russia on Friday officially launched its own rating agency as it seeks to counterbalance the influence of Western agencies which have taken a pessimistic line on the country's crisis-hit economy. 

"Upon completion of the state registration of a legal entity, Analytical Credit Rating Agency (ACRA) starts its operating activities," an official statement said.

Pakistan's central bank said Friday that it expects an economic boost as the security situation improves, voicing confidence days ahead of the one-year anniversary of the country's deadliest ever extremist attack.

The statement came in the bank's annual report reviewing the country's economic performance for the fiscal year that ended in June 2015.

Consumer prices in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, rose modestly in November, driven by higher costs for food, services and rents, official data showed on Friday.

Confirming a preliminary flash estimate released at the end of last month, the federal statistics office Destatis calculated that Germany's national inflation yardstick, the consumer price index, inched 0.4 percent higher in November, after edging up 0.3 percent in October. 

The International Monetary Fund has been accused of giving in to political pressure in dropping a long established rule on prudential lending on Tuesday so that it can proceed with assistance for Ukraine.

That follows similar charges that the fund, the world's essential backstop in financial crises, bent its rules to support a bailout of Greece, and most recently to admit China's renminbi (or yuan) currency into the IMF's basket of elite reserve currencies.

More than four years into a grinding civil war, the Syrian government is scraping the barrel to boost its revenues with everything from taxes on shawarma sandwiches to telephone lines.

The country's economy has been ravaged by the conflict that began in March 2011, which has claimed the lives of over 250,000 people and pushed over four million to become refugees.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will look to seal a deal on building India's first bullet train after he arrived in New Delhi Friday for talks with counterpart and conservative soulmate Narendra Modi.

New Delhi and Tokyo are seeking to take advantage of a warm relationship between the two premiers that has only deepened, partly to counter China's growing rise, since Modi came to power last year.

Oil tumbled to fresh multi-year lows in Asia Friday after OPEC said output had surged, exacerbating concerns over a supply glut that is expected to persist beyond next year.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries reported its collective production rose by 230,100 barrels a day in November to 31.7 million, the highest in three and a half years and beyond its 30 million ceiling target.

An upscale Russian store chain apologized on Thursday for selling chopping boards with an image of U.S. President Barack Obama as a monkey, after the U.S. embassy reacted furiously.

The product features a family of monkeys, with an image of Obama's face superimposed onto that of the smallest primate.