And finally, the European Central Bank is poised to start its stimulus program on Monday.
It's estimated to be worth over 1 trillion dollars for the euzozone economy.
Speaking in Cyprus on Thursday,... ECB President... Mario Draghi announced... the so-called quantitative easing policy will purchase 60 billion euros per month... through September of next year.
The central bank also upgraded its growth outlook by half a percentage point... to 1-point-five percent this year.


''The ECB's action is going to go the full 18 months that they laid out, and is probably likely to continue after that, because the situation is that a huge amount of slack in the economy exists and it's going to take a while for both the policy action and the market moves you've already seen to use that up.''

In response, European and U.S. bonds closed higher in Thursday's trading.
The euro fell to an 11-and-a-half year low against the greenback... before settling slightly higher... above 1-dollar-and-ten-cents.
Meanwhile, Germany's main stock market hit a new all-time high... of over 11-thousand-500 points.

And that wraps up our look at international stories for now. I'll see you back here next week.