Struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry has fired 250 employees in a new product testing division at its Canadian headquarters, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

"BlackBerry on Tuesday informed 250 employees of their termination" in Waterloo, Ontario, spokeswoman Lisette Kwong told Agence France Presse.

Spanish unemployment has fallen for the first time in two years, official data showed on Thursday, a day after the central bank said the recession-hit country seemed close to a recovery.

The positive figures add to a series of good news from the eurozone, where business data suggests that the region was finally on the way out of a long-drawn recession.

Loans to businesses in the debt-mired eurozone tumbled in June, the European Central Bank said Thursday, weakening a key component of any economic recovery.

Private sector loans dropped 1.6 percent last month in a year-on-year comparison, the ECB said, after a 1.1 percent decline in May.

Britain's economy grew at an accelerated pace of 0.6 percent in the second quarter compared with output in the first three months of the year, building on the country's recovery, official data showed on Thursday.

"Gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 0.6 percent in quarter 2 2013 compared with Q1 2013" when output climbed by 0.3 percent, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

Turkey sent a new signal of pressures squeezing its economy on Wednesday, warning it may cut the growth outlook a day after a juggling act with interest rates to shore up the lira.

The moves came just a week after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to reassure investors that their capital was safe in Turkey, where weeks of deadly protests had posed the biggest challenge faced by the Islamic-rooted government during its decade-long rule.

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has dropped a plan to back Argentina in a legal battle over bond repayments because of U.S. opposition, an IMF spokesman said Wednesday.

"The IMF's managing Director has withdrawn her recommendation that the IMF Executive Board file an amicus curiae brief in the Argentina case, following the U.S. authorities' decision to no longer support the filing at this stage," the spokesman said.

Apple beat Wall Street earnings expectations on Tuesday with help from strong sales of iPhones, boosting a share price weighed down by concerns the company was losing its game-changing cutting edge.

Quarterly profit of $6.9 billion was down 22 percent from a year ago but translated to $7.47 per share, well ahead of analysts' forecasts.

U.S. President Barack Obama hits the road this week to drum up support for his economic program as rival Republicans warn of a new showdown over the government's debt ceiling.

Stymied by hostile Republicans in Congress and faced with the danger of his Democratic Party losing control of the Senate in next year's mid-term elections, Obama has returned to the core of his domestic agenda.

China's manufacturing activity contracted to a 11-month low in July, an HSBC survey showed Wednesday, the first evidence of the Asian economic giant losing further momentum in the third quarter.

The British banking giant said its preliminary purchasing managers' index (PMI) hit 47.7 this month, down from a final 48.2 in June and the lowest since August.

Australian inflation came in short of expectations for a third consecutive quarter on Wednesday, boosting the case for an August interest rate cut as mining investment peaks.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said consumer prices rose 0.4 percent in April-June compared with the previous quarter, while they were up 2.4 percent year on year as the economy transitions away from a decade-long commodities spending boom.