Argentina has vowed to take over a 51 percent stake in the country's biggest oil company, YPF, owned by Spain's Repsol, provoking a furious response from Madrid.

The move was announced to applause on Monday at a meeting between President Cristina Kirchner, her cabinet and Argentine governors, and came despite warnings from Madrid and EU officials.

Japan said Tuesday it would pledge $60.0 billion to the International Monetary Fund, saying it was a critical part of the organization’s bid to boost a global firewall against Europe's debt crisis.

Finance Minister Jun Azumi said he hoped the move would spur other nations to kick in funds, which he said were "crucial not only to the Eurozone but also to Asia and Japan if we are to ensure that the crisis is completely over."

Spain said Wednesday that one of its nationals, reportedly a doctor, had gone missing in southern Nigeria and was feared kidnapped.

The disappearance of the man "has all the characteristics of a kidnapping for economic reasons," said Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

Iran has cut oil exports to Spain, Iranian media outlets Al-Alam and Press TV said on Tuesday, quoting unidentified sources.

"Oil exports to Spain have been cut," the Arab-language Al-Alam network said on its website.

Spanish police said they arrested a suspected al-Qaida member Tuesday, accusing him of showing videos on the Internet that encouraged "terrorist acts.”

Officers detained the man, who was identified only as M. H. A., in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia after a probe lasting more than a year, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Spain's second largest city Barcelona on Wednesday said it would soon outlaw street prostitution, imposing fines on both prostitutes and their clients.

The city hall said the new rules were expected to come into play in May.

A Spanish court has agreed to extradite a fugitive Egyptian businessman who is on trial for corruption along with ousted president Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Friday.

Spain has informed the Egyptian ambassador in Madrid that a Spanish court "has agreed to hand Hussein Salem and his son Khaled to Egypt," spokesman Amr Roshdy said in a statement.

A Spanish village plans to rent out its fields for growing cannabis in an urgent bid to create jobs and money to pay off its debts, officials said.

The Catalonian village of Rasquera, population 900, voted late Wednesday in favor of a plan to rent land to an association that promotes the legal recreational or therapeutic use of cannabis by its 5,000 members.

Spain's Prado Museum put the earliest known copy of the "Mona Lisa" on display Tuesday for the first time since restoration work revealed it was likely painted by one of Leonardo da Vinci's apprentices as he worked on the original.

Throughout the day, a crowd gathered around the painting, which shows the same woman the Italian artist painted, backed by a landscape of hills resembling those of the original masterpiece which hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Spanish authorities announced they had arrested Tuesday two suspected members of ETA, the Basque separatist movement which called an end to its armed struggle last year, after a tip-off from France.

The interior ministry said that police had detained Juan Ignacio Otano Labaca, 51, in the Andoain area of the northern Basque country while Inaki Iguerategui Lizarribar, 42, was detained in the nearby Tolosa.