Irish voters have backed the EU fiscal pact by a large majority, final referendum results showed Friday, in what Prime Minister Enda Kenny hailed as a "powerful signal to the world".

Sixty percent of voters were in favor of Ireland ratifying the pact, which is designed to shore up the turmoil-hit Eurozone by penalizing countries that fail to keep their deficits in check.

Spain's debt risk premium shattered euro-era records Friday as the government scrambled to find the money to rescue crisis-torn regions as well as the banks.

Investors fearing imminent financial breakdown sent the interest rate on Spanish 10-year government bonds spiking to 6.621 percent -- a rate considered unsustainable for Madrid over the longer term.

India's central bank warned Friday economic growth could fall further after the country's worst quarterly figures in nine years, as business leaders and newspapers blasted the government over the slump.

Data for the January-March quarter released on Thursday showed growth in gross domestic product of just 5.3 percent, high by the standards of developed countries but a severe disappointment in once-booming India.

Brent oil prices sank under $100 a barrel on Friday for the first time in eight months, hit by weak Chinese and U.S. data and Eurozone debt tensions centered on Spain.

At about 0910 GMT, Brent North Sea crude for July delivery tumbled $2.27 to strike $99.60 a barrel, which was the lowest level since October 4, 2011.

China and Japan started direct currency trading on Friday as Beijing marked another stage on its journey to foster the yuan's use internationally in line with its growing economic clout.

Market participants can now swap Japanese yen for Chinese yuan without having to use the U.S. dollar as an intermediary currency, making foreign trade settlement more convenient and cutting transaction costs.

Headline unemployment in Germany declined further in May, shrugging off the eurozone debt crisis, although there are signs the downward trend is slowing, official data showed on Thursday.

The German jobless rate, which measures the proportion of people registered as unemployed against the working population as a whole, fell to 6.7 percent in May from 7.0 percent in April.

Moody's downgraded the credit rating of nine Danish banks Wednesday, citing the impact of the rolling Eurozone crisis on bank loan quality and on their fund-raising ability.

The nine, along with the Finnish subsidiary of one of the banks, saw their ratings cut one to three notches, with one of them, DLR Kredit, pushed three steps down into the junk-bond realm at Ba1.

The euro plumbed two-year lows in Asia on Thursday as nervous traders ditched the single currency for safer units, including the yen and dollar, amid worries over Spain's faltering bank sector.

The euro changed hands at $1.2363 in Tokyo morning trade, against $1.2366 in New York late Wednesday, while it bought 97.54 yen, down from 97.76 yen.

Iraq will hold the second and final day of an auction for a dozen oil and gas exploration blocks on Thursday, after hopes for the sale were dampened when just one deal was made on the first day.

The bid round, the fourth such auction to be organized by Iraq since mid-2009, comes amid progress in ramping up oil exports, which account for the vast majority of government income, and as Baghdad eyes higher gas production to increase woefully inadequate power supplies.

South Korea expects to receive an exemption from new U.S. sanctions against Iran after significantly cutting its imports of Iranian crude oil, a senior foreign ministry official said Wednesday.

As part of efforts to pressurise Tehran over its nuclear programme, a U.S. law taking effect next month will impose sanctions on nations buying Iranian oil unless they can show such reductions.