Iraq's crude output is now 2.9 million barrels per day (bpd) and the country is on track to increase production to three million bpd by the end of the year, the oil ministry said on Monday.

Oil exports, which account for the lion's share of the country's government revenues, will also rise by about 300,000 bpd by early next year, ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said.

Thousands demonstrated in Portugal Saturday against the government's austerity measures amid projections that the economic situation is far worse than expected.

Government and private sector workers rallied in Lisbon and Porto, following a call by the country's largest trade union federation to speak out against policies it says have devastated "jobs, workers, pensions and social rights."

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou met on Saturday Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and the country's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim al-Thani to plan new investments in Greece.

"We have built a very strong bond of mutual respect, and we Greeks are especially pleased that this bond leads to investments in our country," Papandreou said following the meeting with the Emir of Qatar.

Turkey has revoked a contract to purchase six billion cubic meters a year of natural gas from Russia, its main supplier, after failing to win a discount, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said Saturday.

"The contract on the western routing has been wound up because the request for a lower price has been refused," Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying.

U.S. stocks dropped on opening Friday after new data releases showed rising inflation and slower growth in Europe and falling incomes for Americans.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 146.52 points (1.31 percent) to 11,007.46 in the first minutes of trade.

Americans earned less and goods cost more in August, figures from the Commerce Department showed Friday, as incomes dropped for the first time in close to two years.

In another sign of the storm that continues to buffet the U.S. consumer -- long the keystone of the world's largest economy -- personal income decreased by $7.3 billion, around 0.1 percent, for the first drop since October 2009.

Spain sealed a 7.55-billion-euro ($10.2 billion) overhaul of its banking sector Friday, securing savings banks that nearly bankrupted the country in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Bank of Spain governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez said 568 million euros went to Unnim, 2.47 billion euros to NovaCaixaGalicia and 1.72 billion euros to CatalunyaCaixa from a state restructuring fund.

China has rejected a plan by Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries to form a joint venture with local manufacturer Chery Automobile in the world's biggest auto market, a press report said Friday.

The Chinese government had already conveyed the decision to Fuji Heavy, which produces Subaru cars, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported in its evening edition.

Mobile phone giant Nokia said Thursday it was slashing 3,500 jobs in Romania, Germany and the United States, just months after announcing 4,000 job cuts it said would be the last for the foreseeable future.

"Nokia plans to close its manufacturing facilities in Cluj, Romania, by the end of 2011 ... and plans to close its (locations and commerce development) operations in Bonn, Germany and Malvern, U.S.," by the end of next year, the Finnish company said in a statement.

Europe's rescue fund cleared a major hurdle Thursday when German lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to beef it up, boosting markets as attention turned to a key international audit of debt-mired Greece.

Stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic greeted the news with relief as Chancellor Angela Merkel survived a vote that proved a hard-fought test of her political authority as the world looks to her to defuse the euro debt crisis.