The Italian economy did worse than thought in the first quarter of this year, shrinking by 0.6 percent instead of by 0.5 percent estimated previously, official data showed on Monday.

The figures paint a grim picture for the state of the Italian economy, the third-biggest in the eurozone, marking the seventh quarterly contraction in a row.

British water supplier Severn Trent rejected on Monday the latest takeover attempt by a consortium including Canadian and Kuwaiti investment companies, which in turn said it would make no further offers.

"The board of directors of Severn Trent announces that it has given careful consideration to the pre-conditional possible offer," the group said in a statement.

Chinese banks scaled back lending in May from April, the central bank said, prompting analysts to warn Monday of threats to growth in the world's second largest economy.

Banks extended 667.4 billion yuan ($108 billion) in new loans last month, less than the 792.9 billion yuan in April, the People's Bank of China said Sunday.

Spaniards are buying fewer cars, fewer clothes and even cutting back on smoking as a grinding recession and rising unemployment force them to slash spending, dealing a severe blow to manufacturers and shops.

Last week, the headlines surrounding big brands such as Spanish fashion retailer Blanco and tobacco group Altadis highlighted the fallout of the consumer slump in Spain.

Germany plans to expand a credit scheme for small and medium enterprises from crisis-hit Spain to also cover Portugal and Italy, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted as saying Sunday.

Under the Spain program, which Schaeuble recently presented to parliament, Germany's KfW public investment bank will offer 800 million euros (about $1 billion) in loans to businesses via Spain's ICO bank.

With few customers to serve, the moneychangers near Istanbul's Taksim Square jabber in annoyance behind their glass partition.

Their volume of business has dropped 70 percent since mass protests broke out against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan over a week ago.

Some 180,000 illegal foreign workers have left Saudi Arabia since April 1 under an amnesty that allowed them to try to sort out their papers or leave without paying a penalty, a report said on Sunday.

"Between the beginning of April and the start of June, 180,000 foreigners left the kingdom for good," Okaz daily quoted Badr Malek, spokesman for the passports department, as saying.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Saturday ordered a halt to the flow of oil from South Sudan, less than two months after southern crude began moving again, official radio said.

"Bashir ordered the minister of oil to stop the flow of South Sudanese oil from tomorrow, Sunday," Radio Omdurman reported in an SMS message which gave no further details.

French President Francois Hollande sought reassure Japanese business leaders Saturday that the eurozone debt crisis is over but acknowledged that steps to boost the region's growth and competitiveness need to be taken.

In a speech on the final day of his visit to Japan, Hollande said that the potentially destructive debt crisis has served to "reinforce" Europe and foster greater integration of the 17 member economies that use the euro currency.

The prime minister's chief spokesman said Friday that he doesn't expect Canada will be in a position to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union when the Canadian leader heads to Europe next week for the G-8 summit of world leaders.

Andrew MacDougall said that while the two sides have been negotiating for quite a while, Canada has not reached an agreement it is comfortable with.