Registered unemployment in Spain surpassed five million for the first time in February, government data showed Monday, as the euro zone's fourth-largest economy contracted and the government imposed steep spending cuts.

The number of people registering for unemployment benefits rose 59,444 or 1.19 percent from the previous month to 5,040,222 as companies in all areas of the economy continued to lay off staff, the labor ministry said in a statement.

Uncertainty about the outcome of a budget battle in Washington pushed world stock markets lower on Monday. Chinese shares dived amid moves to cool high housing prices.

President Barack Obama and his political opponents have failed so far to agree on a way to roll back automatic spending cuts that took effect Friday. Those cuts slash $85 billion from the nation's budget, which could slow down the economy.

Sony on Monday announced plans to sell its entire holding in social networking firm DeNA, as the Japanese electronics giant offloads assets to help repair its tattered balance sheet.

The company said it would log a gain of about 40.9 billion yen ($437 million) from the sale to Japan's top brokerage house Nomura Holdings. It did not immediately disclose the sale price.

Spanish airline Iberia says some 1,300 flights will be canceled this week as workers begin a second round of strikes to protest the loss-making company's plans to lay off almost a fifth of its workforce.

The government has ordered a minimum amount of services should remain, meaning 85 percent of long-haul flights, 62 percent of medium-haul and 47 percent of domestic flights are guaranteed.

China will overtake the United States as the world's biggest luxury car market as early as 2016, as rising incomes and desire for status boost premium auto brands, a consultancy said Monday.

Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company said China is already the second biggest market for "premium" cars after the United States, with sales of 1.25 million vehicles last year.

Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on Sunday accepted the resignation of his finance minister Nabil Qassis, a government statement read.

Qassis, a former president of the Bir Zeit university near Ramallah in the West Bank who joined the government in May 2012, announced on Saturday he was resigning, without giving a reason.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday that Egypt's crumbling economy must "get back on its feet," while on a visit to Cairo aimed at pressing deeply divided parties to reach a political consensus.

"It is paramount, essential, urgent that the Egyptian economy gets stronger, that it gets back on its feet," Kerry told a meeting of business leaders.

Beppe Grillo, whose anti-establishment party unexpectedly captured a quarter of the vote in Italy's inconclusive elections, wants to renegotiate his crisis-hit country's debt, according to a German report on Saturday.

"We are being crushed -- not by the euro but by our debt," the comedian-turned-populist firebrand told German weekly Focus.

A top Chinese banker said Beijing is "fully prepared" for a currency war as he urged the world to abide by a consensus reached by the G20 to avert confrontation, state media reported Saturday.

Yi Gang, deputy governor of China's central bank, issued the call after G20 finance ministers last month moved to calm fears of a looming war on the currency markets at a meeting in Moscow.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Friday blamed Canada's lower than expected economic growth on "weakness in the global recovery" as he vowed to stay the course to a balanced budget in 2015.

Canada's economy grew 1.8 percent last year, slightly less than the central bank's forecast and down from 2.6 percent in 2011, the government statistics agency announced earlier.