Italy on Monday was winding up landmark elections watched warily by eurozone neighbours fearful that no clear winner will emerge, while a lacklustre turnout reflected widespread frustration among voters fed up with austerity cuts and a grinding recession.

Italians hit by austerity and recession on Saturday prepared to take to the polls for an election that is being watched around Europe, a day after a mass rally in Rome showed rising social discontent.

Moody's Investors Service has stripped Britain of its triple-A debt rating, saying government debt is still mounting and that growth is too weak to reverse the trend before 2016.

Moody's stripped Britain of its triple-A debt rating, saying government debt was still mounting and that growth was too weak to reverse the trend before 2016.

The eurozone is staring at another full year of recession in 2013 with unemployment likely to surge above the 20-million mark and France in particular overshooting key fiscal targets, the EU warned on Friday.

European stock markets rebounded while the euro slid against the dollar on Friday as traders welcomed improving economic fortunes in Germany and looked ahead to weekend elections in indebted eurozone nation Italy.

The eurozone is staring at another full year of recession in 2013 with unemployment likely to surge above the 20-million mark with France in particular overshooting fiscal targets, the EU warned on Friday.

The Greek-exposed banking system of Cyprus needs up to nine billion euros as part of an EU bailout to save the island from bankruptcy, a report said Friday.

The eurozone faces another full year of recession in 2013 with unemployment likely to surge above the 20-million mark and French and Spanish state spending badly overshooting targets, the EU said on Friday.

Locksmiths and firemen in Spain are rebelling against a wave of evictions in the economic crisis by refusing to help bailiffs open ruined homeowners' doors to throw them out.

US stocks closed lower Thursday, hit by weak data on US manufacturing and a glum turn downward in the much-watched Markit purchasing managers index that suggested more recession in the eurozone.

European stock markets joined a global sell-off Thursday over concern about a possible end to US stimulus measures and as data showed slumping business activity across the eurozone, with London coming sharply off five-year highs.

Europe releases its latest economic forecasts Friday -- with a weak growth outlook likely to push France into overshooting EU budgetary targets and possibly triggering an intensification of the eurozone debt crisis.

Thousands of striking workers of Spanish flag-carrier Iberia protested noisily in Madrid Wednesday, furious at management's plans to cut 3,800 jobs following its merger with British Airways.

Organisers of the annual beauty contest Miss Spain have filed for bankruptcy in the midst of a deep recession, disrupting a competition that has reigned for more than 50 years.

Britain's economy, at risk of a third recession in five years despite record employment, could see a fresh injection of cash stimulus, according to minutes of a Bank of England meeting published on Wednesday.

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy declared Wednesday he had saved the country from economic disaster and vowed to crack down on corruption, in his first state of the nation address as he fended off a party slush-fund scandal.

Spanish property firm Reyal Urbis, which is drowning under a debt pile of over 3.6 billion euros, filed Tuesday for insolvency, the latest in a string of collapses of real estate firms since a property bubble burst in 2008.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, will avoid the recession that has engulfed many of its partners in the region and return to growth in the first quarter of 2013, the Bundesbank said on Monday.

Thousands of Spanish doctors, nurses and other health care workers, many wearing white lab coats, demonstrated Sunday in 16 cities against budget cuts and plans to partly privatise medical services.