Unemployment in Germany fell for a 23rd straight month in May the Federal Labour Agency in Nuremberg said on Tuesday.  The decline in unemployment is said to be largely due to increased spending by consumers and businesses and export driven growth according to the agency.   Numbers fell to 2.96 million or 7 percent from April’s 7.3 percent, reflecting a drop of 118.000, to reach the lowest since records began for a reunified Germany in 1991.

Japanese car manufacturers Honda and Toyota reported on Friday a global production drop of around half for April compared to figures the same period last year. Toyota reported a 47.8 percent slump in April to 308.555 vehicles while Honda announced a 52.9 percent drop year-on-year. The car manufacturers said the production decrease was due to a shortage of parts which was triggered by the supply chain disruption following the March earthquake and tsunami. According to Honda, production volume in Asia and Oceania is likely to start picking up in July as the supply of parts from Japan gradually increases.

French finance minister Christine Lagarde late on Wednesday formerly launched her bid to lead the IMF as managing director. Lagarde, a former corporate lawyer, is the favourite to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn who resigned following sexual assault allegations.  Augustine Carstens, the governor of the Mexican central bank, is another key contender for the position. The IMF executive directors representing BRICS on Tuesday called for a “transparent, merit-based and competitive process”, saying that selecting a European as managing director undermined the legitimacy of the IMF. Australia’s largest pay-TV provider Foxtel has made a $2.02bn cash takeover offer for regional operator Austar United Communications, the company said on Thursday. Following months of negotiations Foxtel offered $1.52 for each Austar share. Austar, which offers subscription TV in non-metropolitan areas, considered the offer price by Foxtel ‘appropriate’ for a change of control transaction. Foxtel said: “A successful transaction would bring together two of Australia’s major subscription TV service providers, creating one of Australia’s largest media businesses.”  “Austar intends to work with Foxtel over the coming weeks to satisfy the conditions upon which the proposal has been made so the parties can enter into a definitive transaction,” Austar said in a statement.

The head of Greece’s conservative party, Antonis Samaras, announced late on Tuesday that he would not back a further €6bn austerity measure to reduce the country’s deficit. The political stalemate over austerity measures is threatening to jeopardise the country’s next tranche of a €110bn bailout worth €12bn, which is due in June. Greece announced on Monday the immediate sale of state assets including the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki, and shares in OTE, Greece’s telecom operator.  Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou pledged to go ahead with the drastic privatisation plan in an attempt to reduce its elevated debt level. In a televised speech to his ministers, Papandreou said: “Through our decisions and the sacrifices of the Greek people we avoided bankruptcy last year. We now need to take the necessary decisions to avoid the danger once and for all, and to change the country.”

Electronics giant Sony announced late on Monday a revised surprise $3.18bn net loss for the fiscal year that ended in March. It originally posted a profitable projection of $857m in February. The company said the loss was triggered by the production disruptions due to the March earthquake and tsunami and the cyber attack on its online gaming service.  Sony estimates the April hacker attack, which forced the site to stay offline for 23 days and involved the theft of personal data from over 100 million users, will cost around $171m to fix. The electronics company was not scheduled to report final earnings until Thursday but a rule imposed by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which requires companies to inform investors of missed earnings targets of 30 percent or above, meant it had to announce preliminary results three days early.