Spanish factories cut production for the 20th straight month in April, official data showed Friday, sharply braking output of durable goods such as cars or washing machines in the midst of a recession.

Spain's factories and utilities lowered overall output by 1.8 percent over the year to April, after correcting for seasonal variations such as the number of working days in the month, the National Statistics Institute said in a preliminary report.

Qatar Rail has awarded four contracts to design and build railway lines worth $8.2 billion in the first phase of construction for the Doha Metro, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

"These four D&B contracts for the first phase of Qatar's ambitious metro rail include Red Line North, Red Line South, Green Line and Major Stations," said the Peninsula, an English-language daily.

Chinese state media Thursday welcomed Beijing's probe into wines from the European Union, warning of further action as the trade dispute intensified.

Fears of an EU-China trade war mounted after the Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday said it would investigate the alleged dumping of European wines "in a strict way".

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday admitted to significant failures in the first Greek rescue that forced a second, larger bailout and left the country in a deep recession.

However, the global lender placed much of the blame on its Greek and European partners, saying they were unprepared for the crisis and the harsh choices -- including a deep debt restructuring -- that may have made the first bailout work better.

France's rising unemployment reached 10.8 percent in the first quarter of 2013, the highest it has been since 1998, according to data released Thursday from the national statistics institute Insee.

The jobless rate in the eurozone's second-largest economy rose by 0.3 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2012, it said.

The European Union's executive arm has given tiny Latvia the go-ahead to become the 18th country to join the troubled euro currency union next year.

EU officials say that Latvia's desire to join is a vote of confidence in the shared currency and disproves predictions that the eurozone might break up. The current 17-country group has struggled since 2009 with too much government debt, compounded now by a slack economy.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will outline the "third arrow" of his economic growth plan Wednesday, which will include plans to boost per-capita income by more than a third in 10 years, media said.

Abe is expected to unveil his target of increasing per-capita gross national income (GNI) by more than 1.5 million yen (about $15,000) over the next decade, major papers reported.

Europe's economy badly needs a push. The European Central Bank says it stands ready to help.

But how?

While many people scrimp and save to buy their first modest home and others rent for life, New York is seeing a boom in housing construction for the fabulously rich.

Buyers are snapping up high-rise luxury condos before they are even completed, with money gushing in from places like South America, the Middle East, China and Russia, as well as from New York.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday downgraded its forecast for the French economy in 2013 and 2014, adding that it would be "hard" to reverse the unemployment trend by the end of the year.

The Washington-based organisation said France's GDP would contract by 0.2 percent this year and grow by 0.8 percent in 2014, compared to previous predictions of a 0.1 percent contraction in 2013 and 0.9 percent growth next year.