Iraq on Monday signed a five-year deal with Pakistan Petroleum for the company to explore a massive tract of land believed to contain gas, the latest step in Baghdad's efforts to boost energy output.

Under the contract, the firm must invest at least $100 million to explore the 6,000 square-kilometer (2,300 square-mile) block covering the provinces of Wasit and volatile Diyala.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's fractious coalition struck a hard-fought deal Monday on disputed government benefits, trying to present a united front with less than a year until elections.

After more than seven hours of negotiations between Merkel's conservatives and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) stretching into the early morning hours, the parties agreed to axe an unpopular doctor's office fee from January.

OPEC member Kuwait plans to spend some $100 billion on oil projects inside and outside the Gulf state over the next five years, a top oil executive said Monday.

"Around $100 billion has been earmarked for oil projects ... 60 percent of it on upstream projects inside and outside Kuwait," CEO of national oil conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Faruq al-Zanki told reporters.

The Labor Ministry says the number of people registered as unemployed in Spain jumped by 128,242 people in October as the country's recession continues to take its toll.

The ministry said in a statement Monday that a little over 4.83 million were registered as jobless at the end of last month, an increase of 2.7 percent on September.

Abu Dhabi has signed a long-term contract with the world's biggest producer Guinea for the supply of bauxite ore for the United Arab Emirates aluminium industry, state media reported on Saturday.

The deal between Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala and Guinean firm Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee will give the UAE "a strategic resource" for its aluminium industry and will help CBG to further increase its bauxite production, the official WAM news agency reported.

Turkey warned Saturday it would shun international companies involved in oil and gas drilling off the shores of the divided island of Cyprus.

"As it was repeated several times ... the companies which will cooperate with the Greek Cypriot Administration will be excluded from new energy projects in Turkey in the future," the foreign ministry said in a written statement.

Europe must support debt-riddled Greece as it struggles to undertake tough reforms under an international bailout program, a senior Treasury official said Friday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration has been following the discussions between Greece and the so-called "troika" of international lenders -- the IMF, the EU and the ECB -- "very closely."

With the world's largest oil reserves and the cheapest gas anywhere, you'd think Venezuela is a driver's paradise. Wrong. New cars are scarce and sellers of used ones -- even clunkers -- make a killing.

The counter-intuitive economics stem from rules imposed in 2003 by populist President Hugo Chavez that make it difficult for businesses to obtain hard currency and thus wildly expensive to import new cars and spare parts.

Japan's Sharp was dealt another blow Friday as Fitch slashed its credit rating to junk after the embattled electronics giant warned of a massive annual loss, and expressed doubts about its own survival.

The six-notch downgrade was in response to Osaka-based Sharp saying on Thursday it would post a whopping $5.6 billion yearly loss while admitting for the first time it had doubts about carrying on as a viable company.

State-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland on Friday posted a third-quarter net loss of £1.384 billion on massive accounting charges and warned it would likely face fines over the Libor rate-rigging scandal.

The shortfall for the July-September period, equivalent to $2.28 billion or 1.726 billion euros, compared with a net profit of £1.226 billion in the same part of the previous year, the bank said in a results statement.