President Cristina Kirchner, in a move that marks a watershed in expanding the state's grip on the economy, said she will send a bill to Congress to nationalize Argentina's largest oil-and-gas company, YPF SA, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move fired up a battle with the company's Spanish controlling shareholder and the Madrid government. Under the proposal, which declares the petroleum industry of "national public interest," Argentina's federal and provincial governments would take 51% of the company, now majority owned by Repsol YPF SA of Spain.

Spanish debt risk climbed to a record for a second day and signalled a 37 percent chance the nation will default as its borrowing costs surged to levels that prompted its neighbors to seek bailouts, Bloomberg reported. Spain is due to sell new debt Tuesday before European officials travel to Washington later this week to seek a bigger war chest to battle the financial crisis. The nation’s 10-year bond yield soared to 6.15 percent, the highest since Dec. 1 and approaching the 7 percent level that foresaw the international rescues of Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Video games retailer Game Group's Spanish operations have been bought out of administration by investment firm OpCapita, with an eye to eventually selling them on, OpCapita said on Friday, Reuters reported. The private equity firm, owner of British electrical goods retailer Comet, has already bought the larger British operations of Game out of administration.

Spain's central government will be able to intervene within nine months in the finances of autonomous regions that do not comply with strict deficit reduction rules under a fiscal stability law passed by the lower house of Parliament on Thursday, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, of the centre-right Popular Party, hopes the law will help persuade investors and Spain's European partners that the country can crack down on overspending in Spain's 17 autonomous regions. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.

Spanish industrial production fell at an accelerated pace in February, the latest sign that the euro zone's fourth-largest economy remains mired in contraction, as Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressed renewed support for deep spending cuts, The Wall Street Journal reported. Industrial production declined 5.1% in February from a year earlier in calendar-adjusted terms after sliding 4.3% in January, because of lower activity in the construction and car-manufacturing sectors, statistics agency Instituto Nacional de Estadística, or INE, said on Wednesday.

Spain’s centre-right government, shaken by last week’s fall in Spanish sovereign bond prices and the stock market after its first budget, has signalled an immediate drive to restore confidence among investors and European leaders with further economic reforms, the Financial Times reported.

Spain continued to find itself in the market's cross hairs Thursday, as mounting concerns over the economy sparked a sharp slide in the country's bonds and led to an evaporation of the effect of the European Central Bank's generous cash injection, The Wall Street Journal reported. The rout in Spanish bonds weighed heavily on financial markets, with the euro coming under pressure, stocks falling and Italian bond yields rising sharply.

Spanish borrowing costs jumped at bond auctions on Wednesday, spreading fear in European markets of a return of the euro zone debt crisis and overshadowing a successful step back into debt markets by neighbouring Portugal. Spain sold 2.6 billion euros of debt, at the low end of its target range, with a bond maturing in 2020 yielding an average 5.338 percent, higher than a forecast 5.2 percent and up from 5.156 percent when it was last sold in September.

Spain’s government, grappling with €57bn in combined annual costs for debt servicing and jobless benefits, will tolerate “no excuses or pretexts” from wayward autonomous regions in its drive to cut the public deficit, according to the budget minister, the Financial Times reported. Cristóbal Montoro described the situation as “extreme, at the limit and exceptional” as he presented parliament on Tuesday with the harshest budget since the death of dictator General Francisco Franco, comprising central government spending cuts and tax rises worth €27.3bn.

Thousands of protesters rallied in several Spanish cities as a nationwide strike disrupted public transportation and forced factory closures across the country, highlighting popular opposition to government austerity measures, The Wall Street Journal reported. The strike, called by Spain's two largest unions to protest a sweeping overhaul of labor laws, was mostly peaceful, marred by isolated clashes between police and demonstrators in some cities.