The world's richest woman Gina Rinehart has boosted her stake in ailing Australian media giant Fairfax to 18.67 percent as she bids to win a board seat, it was revealed Monday.

The mining billionaire increased her holding from 12.58 percent, according to a regulatory filing.

Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan Monday urged Greece to quickly form a new government, as he hit out at Europe for failing to adequately tackle financial turmoil.

His comments come after the conservative pro-austerity New Democracy party won a knife-edge election on Sunday and its leader Antonis Samaras urged pro-euro parties to join him in a coalition.

Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker warned a radical left victory in Greece would have "unpredictable" consequences for the Eurozone as Greeks fed up with austerity prepared for Sunday's elections.

"If the radical left wins ... the consequences for monetary union are unpredictable," Juncker, who leads Eurozone finance ministers and is also Luxembourg's prime minister, said in an interview with the Austrian daily Kurier.

Europe should immediately signal its joint will to strengthen the Eurozone, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Saturday on the eve of Greek elections which are crucial for the future of the monetary union.

"In the very short term, perhaps in less than three months, it is necessary for Europeans, particularly those in the heart of the Eurozone, to give strong signals about their collective will to buttress their monetary union," she told France's Liberation newspaper.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged European leaders to take "resolute action" to tackle the financial crisis in the Eurozone as he departed Saturday to attend the G20 summit in Mexico.

Singh described the situation in Europe as one of "particular concern" to India, where the economy grew just 5.3 percent in the January-March period, its slowest quarterly expansion in nine years.

Moody's cut the credit ratings Friday of Spanish regional governments and several government-related companies, following its downgrade of the country's sovereign debt Wednesday.

Moody's lowered the ratings of eight regional and local governments and four units of the local governments, while putting all 15 Spanish regions on further warning for downgrades.

The European Union announced on Friday that caviar, cigars and leather shoes are among luxury goods that may no longer be exported to Syria, alongside laboratory viruses and gas masks.

Sanctions targeting the Assad couple's high-end lifestyle will enter force on Sunday, the EU said, as Brussels seeks to punish the regime over the relentless bloodshed that has killed over 14,000 people since March last year.

After decades of relying on carbon-emitting fossil fuels to build their cities in the desert, some oil and gas rich nations of the Gulf are now turning skywards to the sun to meet future energy demands.

Ambitious multi-billion-dollar projects to harness the power of the region's year-round blazing sun have already been announced by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

President Barack Obama and his Republican foe Mitt Romney offered sharply differing visions of how to fix the rocky U.S. economy Thursday, in dueling speeches in swing state Ohio.

Obama hoped to create momentum behind his reelection bid, which has been complicated by a rise in the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent and undermined by his own mistaken statement last week that the private sector is doing "fine."

Mexico's Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, has acquired an 8.4 percent stake in YPF, the recently nationalized Argentine subsidiary of Spanish oil firm Repsol, filings showed Thursday.

Ratings agency Moody's had on Tuesday downgraded YPF another notch a month after Buenos Aires seized control of the country's largest oil firm -- it accounts for a third of domestic production -- citing concerns over its debt.