President Barack Obama and his Republican foe Mitt Romney offered sharply differing visions of how to fix the rocky U.S. economy Thursday, in dueling speeches in swing state Ohio.

Obama hoped to create momentum behind his reelection bid, which has been complicated by a rise in the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent and undermined by his own mistaken statement last week that the private sector is doing "fine."

Mexico's Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, has acquired an 8.4 percent stake in YPF, the recently nationalized Argentine subsidiary of Spanish oil firm Repsol, filings showed Thursday.

Ratings agency Moody's had on Tuesday downgraded YPF another notch a month after Buenos Aires seized control of the country's largest oil firm -- it accounts for a third of domestic production -- citing concerns over its debt.

Microsoft has reached a deal to purchase the Yammer business software company for $1 billion in an apparent bid to shore up its widely-used Office software, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The Journal said it was unclear when the acquisition would be completed, and neither Microsoft nor Yammer could immediately be reached for comment.

Looming EU oil sanctions against Iran will result in a higher cost for Europe, Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi warned on Thursday ahead of the OPEC cartel's latest output meeting in Vienna.

"Of course we might face some problems, but for sure ... the European citizens will pay more costs," Qasemi told reporters in Vienna, when asked about the sanctions which will apply from July 1.

Finland's Nokia, one of the world's biggest mobile phone makers, announced Thursday that it planned to cut up to 10,000 jobs by the end of next year due to massive additional cost-savings measures.

"These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia's long-term competitive strength," company chief executive Stephen Elop said in a statement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the Eurozone crisis would dominate next week's G20 summit but warned world leaders that her powers to act were limited.

In a speech to lawmakers ahead of the meeting of G20 leaders in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18-19, Merkel warned Europe could not take the easy way out with solutions based on "mediocrity" that failed to address core problems.

Moody's on Wednesday cut the credit rating of Cyprus by two notches, citing the nation's close links to Greece and the rising likelihood that Athens will exit the Eurozone.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Cyprus's government bond ratings to Ba3 from Ba1, and placed the ratings on review for further possible downgrade.

The euro was steady in Asian trade Thursday despite a credit rating downgrade of Spain as markets look to weekend Greek elections seen as pivotal to the country's future in the Eurozone.

The single currency bought $1.2569 in Tokyo morning trade, compared with $1.2557 in New York late Wednesday, while it was little changed at 99.74 yen, from 99.78 yen.

The United States is seeing a dramatic surge in oil and gas production and could overtake the world's biggest producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in another decade, a U.S. official said here Tuesday.

"Some of the numbers are eye-popping," Daniel Sullivan, commissioner in Alaska's department of natural resources, told a panel of experts at the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal.

The world's number one clothing group, Inditex, owner of the Zara brand, said on Wednesday it had leveraged its expanding international operations to boost sales and net profit.

Sales for the Spanish group, now present in 85 countries, climbed 15 percent from the figure for the same period a year earlier to 3.416 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in the three months to the end of April.