The recent U.S. government shutdown and debt limit showdown bruised the nation's economy and "can never happen again," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an interview that aired Sunday.

"We took an economy that is fighting hard to get good economic growth going, to create jobs for the American people, and took it in the wrong direction," Lew said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

The approach of a new budget year in crisis-hit Greece has rekindled talk of more spending cuts, along with a renewed EU-IMF creditor push for a breakthrough in the country's clogged-up privatization program.

But after three years of effort, with paltry results, worries are growing on the wisdom of state asset sales made on the quick and on whether they will ultimately benefit Greeks themselves.

The Venezuelan government denied Friday it planned to devalue its currency, despite a shortage of dollars and euros that has fueled demand on the black market.

"A devaluation is not on the table," said Rafael Ramirez, the newly appointed vice president in charge of economic policy who has also long served as oil minister.

Shares of Internet search and advertising titan Google soared more than 13 percent to pass the $1,000 mark for the first time Friday after a strong earnings report.

The earnings demonstrated that Google was smoothly building its presence in the mobile area while advertising earnings rose all around, with particular help from Google's YouTube website.

Technical problems have hobbled the website design to sign up millions of uninsured Americans for health care, but they have largely been overshadowed by a 16-day government shutdown.

The government's healthcare.gov website launched on October 1 was supposed to spearhead President Barack Obama's sweeping health care reform, known as Obamacare.

Spain's banks reported Friday record high bad loans in August, revealing persistent balance-sheet weakness despite a eurozone-funded bailout.

Bad loans rose from the previous month by 2.0 billion euros ($2.7 billion), or 1.13 percent, to an unprecedented 180.7 billion euros ($247 billion).

Chinese computer and phone maker Lenovo is considering a counter bid to buy all of Canadian smartphone manufacturer BlackBerry, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The newspaper, citing unnamed sources close to the matter, said that Lenovo had signed a confidentiality agreement to access BlackBerry's accounts.

International tourism grew by five percent in the first eight months of 2013, a better-than-expected growth driven mostly by strong results in Europe and Asia, the World Tourism Organisation said Thursday.

International tourist arrivals reached 747 million worldwide between January and August, some 38 million more than in the same period last year, the UNWTO said in a statement.

Leafy well-heeled Luxembourg, the wealthiest European Union nation per capita, is desperately seeking a new economic model as it prepares to shed banking secrecy.

The world's 13th biggest financial center and the second international investment hub after the United States, Luxembourg harvested almost half of its fiscal revenue from the financial sector before the crisis hit in 2008.

The U.S. debt standoff has shaken confidence in Washington's fiscal management and in the dollar as a reliable global currency, but, say analysts in Asia, there is no credible alternative to the greenback.

China and Japan, the biggest holders of U.S. Treasuries, slammed the political gridlock on Capitol Hill and warned that a narrowly averted debt default would have destabilized the global economy -- threatening their vast $2.4 trillion investment in U.S. debt.