China's trade surplus widened to $26.7 billion in August as exports remained weak and imports registered a surprise fall, data showed Monday, adding to expectations of a new round of stimulus measures.

The weak trade figures highlight waning strength in the world's second-largest economy, which has struggled as a broader global slowdown and the European debt crisis drag on exports.

The Palestinian Authority has formally asked Israel for talks on changing the Paris Protocol, a key agreement governing economic ties between the two, a minister told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

"I made a request to the Israeli government through the defense ministry... that the Palestinian Authority officially requests the reopening of the Paris Protocol which is not compatible with the current economic situation," said civil affairs minister Hussein al-Sheikh.

Lufthansa services were mainly back to normal Saturday after a 24-hour staff walkout that grounded half the airline's flights in Germany ended with agreement to call in a mediator.

In a key concession in talks with unions Friday as cabin crew struck, Europe's biggest airline also agreed not to employ cheap contract workers in Berlin.

The World Bank on Friday described the problem of youth unemployment in Morocco as "very serious," with similarities to other countries in the region where youth-led protests brought about regime change.

"It is a very serious problem," Inger Andersen, the bank's vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, told Agence France Presse, speaking in Rabat at the end of a two-day visit to Morocco.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy warned Greece Friday that it needs to produce results as bailout auditors arrived on a mission that will determine whether Athens gets extra time to make spending cuts in return for badly needed loans.

Amid growing exasperation from Greeks about having to accept cuts upon cuts as they struggle through a fifth year of recession, Van Rompuy warned that Greece must deliver on promised fiscal and reform results to obtain further support.

Indonesia's leader on Saturday invited foreign investors to help fund a huge development plan that Jakarta projects will require $500 billion dollars in investments by 2025.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued the call during a speech to global business executives in the Russian port of Vladivostok ahead of an annual Asia Pacific economic summit that he will host next year.

Portugal's economy shrank by 1.2 percent in the second quarter compared to the previous quarter and 3.3 percent on a 12-month basis, final GDP data from the national statistics institute (INE) said Friday.

The data, which INE said was attributable to a decline in internal demand, were in line with gross domestic product estimates made last month.

Serbia on Friday announced a series of belt tightening measures worth around one billion euros ($1.3 billion) to reign in the budget deficit which is running almost double the target.

"Half of this sum will be saved by cutting costs and the other half by boosting income through raising certain taxes," Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement published on the government website.

Spain wants to know the conditions it must submit to before requesting any sovereign bailout, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said Friday.

"We have to know the conditions, analyse them and then it will be decided," he said in Paphos, a coastal resort in Cyprus where European Union foreign ministers are gathering.

Japan said Friday it would suspend 5.0 trillion yen ($63 billion) in spending as a political row has left the government facing a severe cash crunch that could see it run out of money within months.

Officials warned there would not be enough in its coffers to cover expenses as political gridlock ties up the passage of a bond-issuance bill needed to help pay for some 40 percent of Tokyo's spending in the fiscal year to March.