VENTURE CAPITAL POST

The economic development of Spain is proving that the euro zone was tackling its crisis well, according to the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday. "Spain is the best example that we've done a lot of things quite right in Europe," Schaeuble said at a business conference in Berlin, adding that he was optimistic about Spain's future development as long as Madrid stuck to its reform policies.

Puerto Rico is jacking up its sales tax in a bid to address its fiscal problems. This is considered a regressive move that could ultimately hurt the country's bottom line and its countless poor people.

Internet television service Netflix plans to expand into Italy and Portugal later this year, the company said on Saturday, as part of a bid to expand its popular streaming TV service to some 200 countries worldwide within two years.

The European Central Bank's monetary policy, aimed at raising inflation in the euro zone area, is working according to plan, ECB vice president Vitor Constancio said on Saturday, citing recent figures.

A string of reversals from sharp moves the previous day marked global financial market trading on Wednesday, with stocks and oil gaining ground and the U.S. dollar falling after its biggest rally in two years.

Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN.O) main German operating unit paid just 11.9 million euros ($16 million) in tax in 2014, despite the group recording $11.9 billion in sales to German customers last year, regulatory filings show.

Greece's financial crisis and signs of growing opposition to austerity in Spain sent the euro to its lowest level in a month on Tuesday, while shares and commodities took a knock as the dollar powered higher.

The dollar hit a one-month high against a basket of major currencies on Monday after stronger-than-expected underlying U.S. inflation bolstered the Federal Reserve's case for an interest rate hike later this year.

China overtook France last year as the world's second largest wine grower by area under cultivation as it continued to plant vast fields of mostly imported grape vines to meet growing demand.

Spain's Banco Sabadell (SABE.MC) could look to expand further in Britain after agreeing a 1.7 billion pound ($2.5 billion) takeover of TSB (TSB.L), one of the biggest cross-border banking deals since the financial crisis of 2007-09.

Once depicted as a "Blue Banana" stretching from Manchester to Milan, Europe's industrial heartland has moved eastwards just as its political center of gravity has shifted to Germany.

The European Central Bank's bond purchases will create an unsustainable stock market rally and are unlikely to boost euro zone investments, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis warned on Saturday.

EU finance ministers agreed the details of a 315 billion euro ($338 billion) investment plan on Tuesday to help revive the European economy without piling up more debt, and now aim to get the first projects going by the end of the year.

Cross-border lending is growing in the euro zone for the first time since the bloc's financial crisis prompted banks to retreat from highly indebted countries such as Spain, Greece, Ireland and Italy.

Hutchison Whampoa (0013.HK), owner of Britain's fourth-largest mobile operator Three, is in talks with Telefonica (TEF.MC) about buying its O2 network, the Sunday Times reported, citing unnamed city sources.