Bailed-out Belgian banking and insurance company KBC is pulling out of Slovenia's Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB) and will sell its 22-percent stake back to the state, Slovenia's finance ministry said Friday.

"KBC and Slovenia have agreed the sale of KBC's 22-percent stake in NLB," the ministry said in a statement.

Greece's four biggest banks need 27.5 billion euros ($36.4 billion) in recapitalization funds by the end of April, the national central bank said in a report released Thursday.

"Capital needs for all Greek commercial banks were estimated in May 2012 at 40.5 billion euros, of which the 27.5 billion euros corresponded to the four core banks," it said.

Endless supplies of cigarettes, a BMW or Mercedes for between $4,000 and $6,000 but fuel at vastly inflated prices -- the black market is thriving on the Syria-Turkey border.

"It is all legal," insists Abu Ahmad, once a grocer in Syria's war-ravaged city of Aleppo who is now dealing in motor vehicles in the rebel-held town of Aazaz near the frontier.

Europe's main stock markets rose Thursday following the festive break and a rally in Tokyo, as traders focused on whether the United States would avert the 2013 "fiscal cliff" of sharp tax hikes and spending cuts.

In afternoon deals, London's FTSE 100 index of top companies was up 0.30 percent at 5,972.17 points compared with the close on Monday, its previous trading session.

U.S. auto giant Ford said Thursday it will invest $773 million to expand factories across its home state of Michigan, generating 2,350 new jobs, part of a plan to add 12,000 jobs by 2015.

The investment will help save an additional 3,240 jobs, it said.

Bailed-out Ireland hopes to use the momentum of its presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2013 to push through measures to boost growth and create jobs.

Ireland is the first country to take on the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation bloc while being propped up by money from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Spain revealed Wednesday an ocean of red ink in its bailed-out Bankia group at the heart of the nation's banking crisis.

The lender Bankia had a negative value of 4.148 billion euros ($5.5 billion) and its parent group BFA 10.444 billion euros, the state-backed Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, or FROB, said in a statement.

At Egypt's Pyramids, the desperation of vendors to sell can be a little frightening for some tourists.

Young men descend on any car with foreigners in it blocks before it reaches the more than 4,500 year-old Wonder of the World. They bang on car doors and hoods, some waving the sticks and whips they use for driving camels, demanding the tourists come to their shop or ride their camel or just give money.

Starbucks stirred the political pot Wednesday by urging its baristas to write "come together" on its cups as a way to pressure U.S. lawmakers to compromise on a deal to avert a year-end fiscal crisis.

Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz said the American coffee giant was recommending its first-ever message on the side of tall, grande and venti (small, medium and large) drinks sold at its Washington stores as a way to help break the capital's gridlock on the so-called "fiscal cliff."

Turkey will keep buying natural gas from neighboring Iran as Western allies raise pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Wednesday.

"It is out of question for us to take a step backward," Yildiz was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. "Furthermore, we have not been asked to take such a step."