The EU unveiled plans on Wednesday that would by 2017 allow travelers to get their Netflix film fix or listen to Spotify when abroad, something currently blocked by complex copyright rules.

Europeans spend about one billion nights in other EU countries every year but are confronted with a frustrating inability to enjoy watching many of their favorite films or TV shows on an iPad or laptop computer when they travel outside their home country.

U.S. banking giant Morgan Stanley on Wednesday said it had appointed former British finance minister Alistair Darling, who steered Britain through the financial crisis, to its board of directors.

Darling, 62, who served as finance chief in ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government from 2007 to 2010, will start work at Morgan Stanley on January 1.

Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright has been identified by tech publications as possibly the mysterious founder of online cryptocurrency Bitcoin, shortly before his Sydney home was reportedly raided in a tax probe Wednesday.

There has long been speculation about who was behind the software written in 2009 under the Japanese-sounding name Satoshi Nakamoto, with various media outlets unsuccessfully trying to find out.

Myanmar officially launched its first modern stock exchange Wednesday, but without a single stock to trade until next year, as the nation's latest drive for economic revitalization struggles to take flight.

Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party swept elections last month, boosting confidence in the former junta-run nation's reforms, which have also creaked open the door to its reclusive economy.

A modest recovery in oil prices provided some respite for Asian energy firms Wednesday but stock markets extended losses while China's ongoing economic woes cast a pall over the region's trading floors. 

The cost of the black gold has plunged by almost a 10th since Friday's refusal by the OPEC oil exporters' group to agree a ceiling on output despite oversupply and anaemic demand across the globe.

Syria will export more than 700,000 tons of citrus fruits to Russia to "fill the gap" left by Moscow's ban on Turkish agricultural products, officials said Tuesday. 

"We are preparing some 700,000 tons of citrus, mostly oranges, to send to Russian markets," Fares Chehabi, head of Syria's Chambers of Industry, told AFP.

Air France said Tuesday it is to resume flights from its Paris hub to Tehran, a route suspended in 2008 after Iran was hit with international sanctions over its nuclear ambitions.

"Air France is showing its ambition to develop its business in a country with dynamic growth, the European Union being Iran's fourth-biggest economic partner," the company said in a statement in revealing it would start three flights a week starting in April.

Eurozone nations Tuesday failed to secure a deal on a controversial financial transactions tax but said they aimed for an agreement in mid-2016 despite the furious opposition of Britain.

The plan was first proposed in 2011 to force banks and investment houses to pay for the excesses which led to the 2008 financial crash and the eurozone debt crisis but has been mired in disagreements since.

The yen picked up Tuesday after better-than-expected Japanese growth data eased worries about the economy, and lowered expectations of more Bank of Japan stimulus in the near term.

Japan sidestepped its second recession in as many years after the revised figures published Tuesday showed that the gross domestic product (GDP) actually expanded by 0.3 percent in July-September.

Australian energy giant Woodside Petroleum on Tuesday dropped its estimated Aus$11.6 billion (U.S.$8.4 billion) bid for Oil Search, as energy stocks crashed in Australia on plunging oil prices caused by a global supply glut.

Woodside, Australia's largest oil company, said it informed the board of Oil Search it had "withdrawn its proposal to merge the businesses", without elaborating on the reasons why.