Japan's central bank on Thursday held fire on expanding its monetary easing program, even as the world's third-largest economy slipped into its second recession in two years and monthly exports fell.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been trying since late 2012 to revitalise Japan's economy through his signature "Abenomics" policies, with aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) at its foundation.

Oil prices rose in Asian trade Thursday as Europe struck back against the Islamic State (IS) group after the Paris attacks and U.S. crude stockpiles registered a mild rise, analysts said.

The Federal Reserve's broadly upbeat summary of the U.S. economy also lifted confidence, with most markets in Asia advancing after a rally on Wall Street.

A firm owned by a Saudi prince said Wednesday it has injected 49.2 million euros ($52.37 million) into the struggling Euro Disney theme park operator under a recapitalization plan.

Riyadh-based Kingdom Holding Co, 95 percent owned by the billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, confirmed its "additional investment in Euro Disney... whereby KHC fully participated in the rights issue" offered by the company which operates Disneyland Paris.

A top Dutch advisory body Wednesday ordered the Netherlands to review extraction of natural gas from the EU's biggest gas field and cut production after a series of minor earthquakes.

The Council of State said it was cancelling decisions cutting production taken in January and June by the Economic Minister Henk Kamp, and ordering him back to the drawing board.

Thousands of Greek farmers on Wednesday protested in Athens against tax hikes planned under the country's latest economic bailout.

Police said 4,000 farmers had gathered on the central Syntagma Square.

Fresh French spending on security in response to the Paris attacks will amount to "a few hundreds of millions of euros (dollars)", a lawmaker said in remarks published  Wednesday.

Dominique Lefebvre, deputy and vice-president of parliament's finance commission, also told the L'Opinion business daily that France was still on target to meet its EU deficit targets if the new anti-terror spending was stripped out.

The dollar sat near seven-month highs against the euro and stood firm against the yen Wednesday following a pick-up in U.S. inflation, while traders await minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting for clues about its plans for interest rates.

Ongoing weakness in the eurozone and Japanese economies continues to put pressure on their central banks to increase stimulus, putting pressure on their respective currencies.

China's main search engine Baidu plans to launch an online bank with financial services group Citic, the two companies said on Wednesday, as the Internet firm seeks to compete with rivals moving into banking. 

The Baixin Bank, a venture between Baidu and China Citic Bank, will be the country's first lender formed by an Internet company and a traditional bank, Baidu said in a statement.

Investor sentiment in Germany rebounded in November after seven consecutive falls thanks to still resilient economic data from Europe's top economy, a leading survey said Tuesday.

The investor confidence index calculated by the ZEW economic institute rose to 10.4 points from just 1.9 points a month earlier, the think tank said in a statement.

Britain's annual inflation rate held in negative territory in October, official data showed Tuesday.

The 12-month Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate stood at minus 0.1 percent last month, unchanged from September, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement.