CANBERRA -- The Australian government will spend more than half a billion dollars on new clean energy projects to drive down the country's carbon emissions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Wednesday that the federal budget for the financial year 2021-22 will include 539.2 million Australian dollars (416.1 million U.S. dollars) for new hydrogen production hubs and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. (Australia-Clean energy-Climate Change)

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SEOUL -- South Korea's export grew in double figures in the first 20 days of this month, showing signs of recovery from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, customs office data showed Wednesday.

Export, which accounts for about half of the South Korean economy, came in at 30.99 billion U.S. dollars in the April 1-20 period, up 45.4 percent from the same period of last year, according to Korea Customs Service. (South Korea-Export)

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HOUSTON -- The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday reported an increase of 436,000 barrels of crude oil in the U.S. crude oil inventories for the week ending April 16.

API reported a decrease of 3.608 million barrels of crude oil inventories for the previous week ending April 9 while the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a fall of 5.9 million barrels. (US-oil inventories)

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FRANKFURT -- German shares lost on Tuesday, with the benchmark DAX index down 238.88 points, or 1.55 percent, to close at 15,129.51 points.

Deutsche Bank lost the most among the blue chips, down by 4.15 percent, followed by semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies and aircraft engine manufacturer MTU Aero, which shed 4.11 percent and 3.85 percent respectively. (Germany-stocks)

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NICOSIA -- International Investors made offers totaling 1.15 billion euros (1.38 billion U.S. dollars) for a Bank of Cyprus (BOC) Tier 2 Bond, government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said on Tuesday, expressing satisfaction for what he called a vote of confidence in Cyprus' economy.

Koushos said institutional investors made offers totaling almost four times the amount of the 300 million euros bond issued by Bank of Cyprus, one of the two systemic lenders of the eastern Mediterranean island. (Cyprus-Bank-Bond Issue)

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LONDON -- Britain's unemployment rate was estimated at 4.9 percent in the three months to February as lockdown restrictions were still in place, according to figures released Tuesday by the British Office for National Statistics (ONS).

From December 2020 to February 2021, an estimated 1.67 million people were unemployed, 0.9 percentage points higher than a year earlier but 0.1 percentage points lower than the previous quarter, marking the first quarterly decrease since October to December 2019, the ONS figures showed. (UK-Unemployment Rate-COVID) Enditem

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