The number of Spanish jobless benefit claimants took a record plunge in June as an avalanche of summer jobs opened up, government data showed Tuesday, a rare glimmer of hope for the recession-hit economy.

But when the figures were corrected to strip out seasonal variations, the number of people registering as unemployed actually edged slightly higher, the Labor Ministry report showed.

A Japanese pension fund is joining a Canadian partner and other firms in the $2.0 billion purchase of a U.S. power plant, a company involved in the deal said Tuesday.

The Pension Fund Association, a federation of employees' pension funds, and several other Japanese firms have tied up with Canada's OMERS to buy the Midland Cogeneration Venture in Midland, Michigan.

Cyprus said on Monday it has completed a one-billion-euro ($1.3 billion) swap of government bonds for new ones with longer maturities under its bailout deal with international lenders.

Last week's announcement of the swap prompted a downgrade by ratings agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch.

The economic crisis in southern Europe may be easing, a key survey signalled on Monday, but unemployment figures showed the eurozone jobless rate hit a previous record-high of 12.1 percent in May.

The Eurostat figures offered little hope of a quick end to the social fallout from austerity seen in many countries, with the unemployment rate for the entire European Union being unchanged at 10.9 percent.

Chinese manufacturing activity contracted further in June, data showed Monday, with a closely watched survey hitting a nine-month low and adding to signs of weakness in the world's second-largest economy.

HSBC said its final purchasing managers' index (PMI) reading came in at 48.2 last month, down from 49.2 in May and the lowest since September. It was also weaker than the bank's preliminary June figure of 48.3.

British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled a massive oil and gas processing plant on the shores of the Caspian Sea on Monday during his first visit to ex-Soviet Kazakhstan.

The British leader landed in the oil capital of Atyrau on the Caspian Sea on Sunday where he was met by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Finnish telecommunications company Nokia on Monday said it had agreed to buy German engineering giant Siemens' 50 percent stake in their mobile broadband joint venture NSN for 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion).

Once the deal was concluded in the third quarter of 2013, "Nokia Siemens Networks will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia", both companies said in a statement.

In blue gloves and goggles, Maria Jesus Vicent's team of young researchers busily mix chemicals in their laboratory, where they work at improving medications for cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

Theirs is a well-equipped lab, but like researchers across Spain, they warn that steep funding cuts made during the financial and economic crisis are threatening to ground their potentially life-saving work -- and driving the country's most talented scientists away.

In his first year as president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim has tried to refocus the institution on fighting poverty and climate change -- but challenges lie ahead.

The pick of the Korean-American, an academic and doctor by training, marked a radical departure from other recent heads of the Washington-based global body.

BlackBerry on Friday posted an unexpected first quarter loss and disappointing sales figures for its new smartphones, sending its share price tumbling.

The Waterloo, Ontario firm announced an $84 million loss in the first quarter ended June 1, compared with a loss of $518 million in the same period a year earlier. Revenues topped $3.1 billion, up nine percent.