Spain defied the markets by averting a sovereign bailout this year but high interest rates could yet force Madrid to its knees as the nation confronts a 207-billion-euro ($274 billion) financing headache in 2013.
King Juan Carlos called on Spaniards to unite against an economic crisis of previously unimagined intensity in a Christmas Eve message Monday that took clear aim at Catalonia's bid for nationhood.
Thousands of Spanish health workers clad in white medical garb marched in Madrid on Sunday in a fresh protest against government health cuts and privatisation plans, just days after a similar demonstration.
Crippled Spanish banks said they would cut thousands of jobs after Brussels on Wednesday gave a green light for a big slice of aid to rescue them with tough conditions.
Spain's 74-year-old King Juan Carlos had successful hip replacement surgery late Friday, the royal palace said, after two operations on the other hip caused by a fall during a controversial African elephant-hunting safari.
Spanish police fired rubber bullets at die-hard protesters hurling bottles, rocks and firecrackers late Wednesday, capping anti-austerity strikes across southern Europe that boiled over into sporadic clashes.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Madrid on Friday after a woman due to be evicted killed herself in northern Spain, the second such suicide in two weeks, which the protesters blame on predatory mortgage lenders.
"I don't want to die of hunger and cold," says Patrick, one of many sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco desperate to reach Spanish shores and start a new life in Europe as winter approaches.
Spain blocked Monday the appointment of another man to the all-male ECB's executive board but a source said Madrid's decision was motivated by a desire to regain influence at the top of the eurozone's central bank.
Singapore has opened a new cruise terminal capable of berthing the world's biggest luxury liners, in a bid to boost the city-state's position as a regional travel hub.
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld on Sunday denied having called French President Francois Hollande an "idiot", suggesting the purported remark reported in a magazine came from a mistranslation.
For 11 years, town councillor Joseba Markaida lived with a bodyguard, for fear of Basque separatists who hurled petrol bombs at his home and poisoned his dog.
Ham with brie, wild mushroom croquettes, cured-meat ravioli: gourmet cooking has put this Basque town on the gastronomic map, drawing visitors from around the world.
Seamen go on trial Tuesday over the sinking of the Prestige petrol tanker which spilt a devastating oil slick when it sank off Spain in 2002, with hundreds of plaintiffs seeking billions in damages.