German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts European leaders on Wednesday in a bid to tackle sky-high youth unemployment which has left more than half of under 25-year-olds out of work in several southern countries of the eurozone.

Merkel, who faces elections this year, has repeatedly warned of the threat of a "lost generation" in Greece, Spain, Italy and elsewhere even as her critics at home and abroad charge that it is her push for austerity that worsened the crisis.

Oil prices rose sharply in Asian trade Wednesday on growing concerns that the escalating political crisis in Egypt could affect the rest of the Middle East and disrupt world crude supplies, analysts said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light sweet crude for delivery in August, was up $2.25 at $101.85 a barrel in afternoon trade, while Brent North Sea crude for August gained $1.13 to $105.13.

U.S. home prices jumped 12.2 percent in May from a year ago, the most in seven years. The increase suggests the housing recovery is strengthening.

Real estate data provider CoreLogic says prices rose from a year ago in 48 states and fell in only Delaware and Alabama. And all but three of the 100 largest cities reported price gains.

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.