Japan produced a gloomy batch of economic data Monday showing shoppers growing nervous and the trade deficit ballooning, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepares to launch a controversial sales tax rise.

The government said consumer sentiment weakened in January, while the current account surplus -- the broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world -- hit a record low in 2013 as the cheap yen pushed up energy bills.

The incoming head of Europe's new single banking supervisory authority has warned that weak eurozone banks will be allowed to fail following upcoming stress tests, in an interview in Monday's Financial Times.

Frenchwoman Daniele Nouy was giving her first interview since being appointed chief of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, set up as part of attempts to stabilize the EU's banking system and shift the financial costs of failed banks away from sovereign governments

The Asia-Pacific will require almost 13,000 new airplanes worth $1.9 trillion over the next 20 years, Boeing said Monday, as booming wealth in the region fuels demand for air travel.

Ahead of the Singapore Airshow, the U.S. plane maker said 12,820 extra aircraft would be needed by 2032 and that in the same period the region would account for 36 percent of global commercial deliveries for both passenger and freight.

Portugal is preparing to issue a 10-year bond for the first time since May, in what would be a major market test for the crisis-hit country, a weekly magazine reported Saturday.

"The banks in charge of the operation have already been contacted and the issuance should take place in the coming days," the weekly Expresso wrote.

The U.S. job creation engine sputtered for the second straight month in January, raising fresh questions about the economy's momentum.

The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy pumped out a net 113,000 new jobs in January, far fewer than the 175,000 that economists had forecast and even farther off the monthly average for last year of 194,000.

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner's government was accused by a leading Republican U.S. senator Friday of risking a credit default and of failing to stand by its democratic promises.

Latin America's third-largest economy appears powerless in the face of the hemorrhage of its currency, the peso, and Argentina's central bank has said it burned through $2.1 billion in reserves in January alone.

President Barack Obama signed an agriculture bill worth more than $950 billion Friday, saying the rare product of cooperation in Washington was an example of how the gridlocked U.S. political capital should work.

Obama traveled to Michigan to highlight the measure, which he compared to a Swiss Army knife because it had so many different functions as it expands U.S. food exports, broadens conservation and safeguards water resources.

A $1.6 billion dispute over cost overruns paralyzed the Panama Canal's expansion for a second day on Thursday, with analysts warning that thousands of jobs and the economy are on the line.

Talks between the Panama Canal Authority and a consortium led by Spanish builder Sacyr broke down on Wednesday as the two sides failed to bridge their differences over who should foot the bill.

Germany's trade surplus soared to a new record high in 2013, although export momentum tailed off at the end of the year, official data showed on Friday.

Europe's biggest economy notched up a trade surplus of 198.9 billion euros ($270 billion) in 2013, the highest since foreign trade data have been compiled.

Google bought a 5.94 percent stake in Lenovo for $750 million on the same day it agreed to sell handset maker Motorola to the Chinese technology giant, a report said Friday.

The U.S. Internet firm acquired 618.3 million shares in the PC maker at $1.213 each when Lenovo bought Motorola for $2.91 billion last Thursday, according to Dow Jones Newswires.