Roberto Mancini warned Manchester City's title rivals that Sergio Aguero will get even better after the Argentina striker marked his debut in spectacular style.

City's £38 million signing from Atletico Madrid scored twice and set up another after climbing off the bench in the 4-0 defeat of Swansea on Monday.

Cesc Fabregas' long awaited return to his boyhood club finally was finalized Monday when he signed a five-year contract with European champion Barcelona.

"It took a lot of years, months, days to get here ... it's nice to be home after eight years," the former Arsenal captain said in Catalan during his presentation to fans at Camp Nou, where he repeatedly kissed the Barcelona crest on his new No. 4 jersey.

Thousands of Catholic pilgrims descended on Madrid Monday for a spectacular youth festival expected to draw more than million people for cultural events and an open-air mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

The World Youth Day festival, which lasts from Tuesday to Sunday, has drawn criticism over the costs of welcoming the head of the Roman Catholic Church as Spain battles an economic crisis.

A man was killed after being gored by a bull known to be dangerous during a bull run in an arena in Xativa, eastern Spain, local authorities said Sunday.

The bull, nicknamed "Mouse", ran at the man, who has not been named but is said to be around 30, during the run on Saturday night.

Spain sent a special envoy to Damascus last month to convince President Bashar Assad to accept a plan to end months of violence in the country, a Spanish news report said Monday.

The government was also "ready to offer asylum to Assad and his family in Spain," the country's leading daily El Pais said.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick on Saturday warned of a "new and more dangerous" time in the global economy, with little breathing space in most developed countries as a debt crisis hits Europe.

Zoellick said the Eurozone's sovereign debt issues were more troubling than the "medium and long-term" problems which saw the United States downgraded by Standard and Poor's last week, sending global markets into panic.

European stock markets were holding onto gains Friday after another rollercoaster ride as nervous investors tried to get ahead of the curve and a short-selling ban in Europe helped the under-fire banks.

France, Italy, Spain and Belgium banned short-selling in bank stocks after rumors about their financial health saw them suffer massive losses in recent days and then Germany upped the ante by calling for a Europe-wide bar.

Bank stocks recovered their poise Friday and helped European stock markets push higher as investors assessed the impact of a short-selling ban on financial shares in four eurozone countries.

The advance in Europe follows big gains on Wall Street Thursday, which helped support most markets in Asia.

Barcelona winger Pedro Rodriguez believes Real Madrid will be "even more dangerous" this season, ahead of Sunday's first 'clasico' between the bitter rivals.

"What we want is to win the SuperCup," for a third consecutive year, the 24-year-old told the Barcelona-based sports daily El Mundo Deportivo published Wednesday.

Renova, one of Europe's biggest producers of household paper products, has launched toilet paper in the colors of the Vatican flag in honor of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Spain next week.

Each pack contains two perfumed rolls of toilet paper, one yellow and the other white, which the company says on its online store can be used as giant streamers to welcome the 84-year-old pontiff to Madrid.