Shares of the retail division of Dubai's Emaar Properties surged in first trading Thursday after an initial public offering that highlighted a return of investor confidence in the Gulf market.

The IPO of Emaar Malls Group -- which owns one the world's largest shopping centers, the Dubai Mall -- was aimed at raising $1.58 billion (1.25 billion euros) but was 30 times oversubscribed.

Spain's jobless queue rose slightly in September for the second month running as a hiring boom for the summer tourist season trailed off, official data showed Thursday against a background of chronically high unemployment.

The number of people in Spain registered as unemployed crept up by 19,720 in September from the August level to 4,447,650 in September, the figures from the employment ministry showed.

The World Bank has given bonuses to senior officials as it pursues a cost-cutting restructuring, raising employees' concerns about management demands on them for belt-tightening, documents seen by AFP showed Wednesday.

"We question the timing of such payments given the sacrifices the rest of us are being asked to make," the Bank's staff association said in an internal memo obtained Wednesday by AFP.

Argentina's central bank governor resigned Wednesday, the president's office said, as the country grapples with an economic slowdown, a debt default and a damaging row with the United States.

Juan Carlos Fabrega's decision to quit after less than a year in the post comes a day after an emotional President Cristina Kirchner alleged in a televised address that domestic and U.S. interests were pushing to devalue the peso, topple her center-left government -- and even kill her.

Persistent and dangerously low eurozone inflation will keep the heat on the European Central Bank headed by Mario Draghi to inject more stimulus at its monthly policy meeting on Thursday, analysts said.

But despite this pressure, and in view of a surprise rate cut last month, the ECB is not expected to announce any new policy moves.

Central European heavyweight Poland needs a stronger eurozone and stability for its own economy to join the single European currency, the country's prime minister-designate said on Wednesday.

"A stronger eurozone and stable Polish economy are the pre-conditions for entry into the eurozone," Ewa Kopacz told parliament ahead of a confidence vote that her new cabinet is expected to win later in the day.

France's finance minister on Wednesday forecast that the country's budget deficit would scrape below the European Union ceiling by 2017, as he unveiled his annual budget.

Michel Sapin told reporters that the deficit would be 2.8 percent of gross domestic output in 2017, just below the EU's three-percent ceiling.

China's former richest man Wang Jianlin once bet Alibaba founder Jack Ma 100 million yuan ($16.3 million) that online purchases in the country would not eclipse bricks-and-mortar buys in the next decade.

But while Wang says he laid the wager "for fun" two years ago, the billionaires' business interests are increasingly converging as Chinese consumers' spending habits undergo a seismic shift -- and much larger sums are at stake.

Royal Bank of Scotland will book lower bad debt charges than expected this year, helped by Ireland's improving economy, the state-rescued lender announced on Tuesday.

RBS shares jumped 3.76 percent to 375 pence at the start of trading.

France's public debt topped the symbolic level of 2.0 trillion for the first time, in the second quarter of the year, the national statistics agency INSEE said Tuesday.

The total national debt amounted to 2.023 trillion euros ($2.57 trillion), INSEE said, which represents 95.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). European Union rules limit debt to 60 percent of GDP.