The European Commission will set out on Wednesday plans for universal access to current accounts with banks -- seeking to remedy an exclusion that Brussels calculates affects nearly 60 million adults across the European Union.

Legislative proposals on payment accounts also aim to make it easier to switch banks, similar to EU measures to open up utility markets in recent years.

Australia's central bank cut interest rates to a record low 2.75 percent Tuesday as investment in the Asia-driven mining sector hits its peak and the persistently high dollar squeezes local industry.

The Reserve Bank of Australia's shock decision to slash 25 basis points takes the official cash rate to never-before-seen lows, and is aimed at priming those areas struggling as the economy transforms away from mining.

South Africa's embattled state airline has borrowed about $170 million to cover operating costs amid crippling financial trouble, a spokesman said on Monday.

National carrier South African Airways (SAA) raised the 1.5 billion rand ($167 million, 128 million euro), a company spokesman told AFP.

The masses of people registered at unemployment offices in Spain shrank slightly in April to fewer than five million, raw data showed Monday, a result hailed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government.

The number of job seekers registered as unemployed in April fell from the previous month by 46,050 people, or 0.91 percent, dipping below the five-million mark to 4.989 million, according to raw figures released in a monthly report by the Labor Ministry.

South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries said Monday it had won a $700 million deal to build the world's largest container ships for China Shipping Container Lines.

Under the deal signed with China's number two shipper, the world's largest shipbuilder will build five vessels, each capable of carrying 18,400 TEU (20-foot equivalent unit) container boxes, Hyundai said in a statement.

Cachaca -- a national treasure in Brazil and the world's fourth most-produced distilled spirit -- is little known abroad, except as an ingredient in popular cocktails like caipirinhas.

But that could soon change now that the United States recognizes the sugar cane liquor as a distinctive Brazilian product, a move that has raised hopes of a major increase in sales to the world's biggest spirits market.

U.S. President Barack Obama turned the spotlight on economic ties with Latin America on Saturday as he wrapped up a three-day trip to a region roiled by drug violence.

Obama sought to shift the narrative away from the drug war during visits to Mexico and Costa Rica this week, praising trade as a path to fighting poverty and creating jobs that turn young people away from a life of crime.

A solid job creation report for April and a fall in the jobless rate to 7.5 percent sweetened the picture for the U.S. economy Friday, amid worries that it has tumbled into a "spring swoon."

The Labor Department said the economy added a firm 165,000 jobs last month, and revised sharply upward the numbers for February and March, adding 114,000 net new positions to the previously reported data.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso on Saturday defended German Chancellor Angela Merkel against criticism that she is to blame for harsh austerity measures being implemented across Europe.

"What is happening in France or in Portugal is not the fault of Mrs Merkel or of Germany," he is quoted as saying in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Portugal's prime minister said late Friday that the government aimed to slash 30,000 public sector jobs as part of a sweeping package of spending cuts to satisfy international creditors.

In a speech to the nation, Pedro Passos Coelho also said that the full pension age would be pushed back from 65 to 66 years old and civil servants would be expected to work 40 hours per week instead of 35.