The Libramont agricultural show is the highlight of the year for Belgium's proud beef industry, but this year even the sunny skies of western Europe's record heatwave couldn't chase one looming shadow away. 

Air France will this week announce plans to purchase between 50 and 70 Canadian-made Airbus A220 medium-haul jetliners, part of a keenly-awaited revamp of its fleet, France's Journal du Dimanche newspaper reported Sunday.

Two Iranian ships stranded off the coast of Brazil for weeks were setting sail Saturday, officials said, after a court ordered state oil giant Petrobras to fuel up the vessels.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday vowed "substantial" retaliation against France for a tax hitting U.S. tech giants, accusing his counterpart Emmanuel Macron of "foolishness" and issuing a veiled threat to impose tariffs on French wine.

Messaging giant WhatsApp plans to launch its first payment service this year in India, its biggest market with 400 million users, the company said Friday.

The American economy hit the brakes in the second quarter, as activity declined in an increasingly skittish industrial sector and exports fell, but the U.S. continues to outperform other advanced economies, according to government data released Friday.

Europe's stock markets rebounded Friday on bargain-hunting and the euro stabilised after striking a two-year dollar low, as dealers dwelled once more on the European Central Bank's interest rate outlook.

Frankfurt stocks won 0.3 percent and Paris added 0.4 percent, while London added 0.5 percent in value. The euro held steady at $1.1143.

Japanese internet company SoftBank Group Corp. has set up a new fund for investing in technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Tokyo-based SoftBank said Friday its $108 billion Vision Fund 2 includes $38 billion from SoftBank. The rest is from Apple, FoxConn Technology Group, Microsoft Corp., Japanese banks and other companies.

The euro slid to a two-year low on Thursday after the ECB signaled it could undertake new stimulus measures and cut rates to boost flagging growth and inflation in Europe.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Thursday gave a gloomy outlook for the single currency area, underlining factors such as a hard Brexit and trade conflict as risks for growth.