Asian markets fluctuated on Friday as record Chinese economic growth figures struggled to add fuel to a Wall Street surge that came on the back of blockbuster reports on US consumer spending and jobless claims.

A drip-feed of revelations over the collapse of an opaque financial firm is raising serious questions about cosy ties between UK politicians, civil servants and big business as the government spends lavishly on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Caretaker Energy Minister Raymond Ghajar announced Thursday that smuggling to Syria is behind Lebanon’s gasoline shortage crisis.

“We demonstrated the reasons of the gasoline crisis, and it turned out to us that the main reason for the current scarcity is the smuggling to outside Lebanon due to the difference in prices between Lebanon and Syria,” Ghajar said after a meeting on the crisis that was chaired by Caretaker PM Hassan Diab.

European and U.S. stock markets rose on Thursday, supported by buoyant economic data and a strong start to the U.S. earnings season, while traders shrugged off news of weaker growth expectations in Europe's biggest economy Germany.

New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, reaching the lowest level since the Covid-19 pandemic caused mass unemployment, according to government data released Thursday.

Turkey's central bank on Thursday held its main interest rate at 19 percent in the first decision since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sacked its market-friendly governor and replaced him with a party loyalist.

The bank said it had "decided to maintain the tight monetary policy stance by keeping the policy rate unchanged," adding that it intended to keep it above the annual rate of inflation, which came in at 16.2 percent last month.

Syria's central bank devalued the pound on Thursday, bringing the currency's official exchange rate closer to the black market rate, two days after the government sacked its governor.

The arrival Wednesday of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on Nasdaq is one of the most anticipated events of the year on Wall Street, where enthusiasm for record-breaking bitcoin is in full swing, despite questions about the sustainability of the market.

China's economy grew at a record pace during the first quarter as it rebounded from a historic contraction caused by Covid-19, and boosted by exports and domestic demand, an AFP poll of analysts found.

Muslims in many parts of the world marked the start of Ramadan on Tuesday, but a spike in coronavirus cases in several countries has once again put curbs on the holy month's signature feasts and lengthy prayers in mosques.

In Lebanon, most Muslims began Ramadan on Tuesday amid soaring inflation. The small country is in the grips of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, with the Lebanese currency losing some 80% of its value against the U.S. dollar in past months.