Japan said Thursday it was ready to answer an International Monetary Fund call for extra cash to help Europe steer a course through its sovereign debt crisis, a report said.

"Japan is prepared to support European efforts to stabilize the market, including through lending to the IMF, based on strong efforts by European countries," Dow Jones Newswires quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying.

France and Spain gingerly return to the bond markets Thursday, testing appetite for their debt after a raft of Eurozone credit downgrades, as world powers debated boosting the IMF bail-out fund.

The key test for two of the single currency bloc's biggest economies came as its weakest, Greece, was trying to negotiate a deal with private creditors to slash 100 billion euros ($128 billion) from its debt.

Chinese ratings agency Dagong has warned that Europe's debt problems would cause a collapse of confidence in the euro, and predicted a worsening of the global financial crisis this year.

The agency said the world's economic woes would grow more severe in 2012, with the sovereign debt crisis developing into a "currency crisis" as investor confidence in the euro continued to suffer.

Photography icon Eastman Kodak has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business.

The move comes as the ailing company has failed to find a buyer for its trove of 1,100 digital imaging patents. Kodak said in November that it could run out of cash in a year if it didn't sell the patents, for which it hoped to fetch billions.

Oil prices rose Wednesday on the weaker dollar and mostly positive global data as traders ignored news that the International Energy Agency had cut its estimate for demand growth in 2012, traders said.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in February, increased 60 cents to $101.31 a barrel.

Global bank representatives are due back in Athens to restart debt talks later Wednesday with the government in negotiations that are crucial to avoid a disastrous default.

The heads of the Institute of International Finance, a global banking association, are to return after negotiations stalled last week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will headline an annual elite gathering of government and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland later this month to address the debt crisis that has gripped global markets for over two years.

Organizers said Wednesday that Merkel will deliver the opening address at the forum at which 2,600 leaders are expected to attend.

The World Bank slashed its global economic growth forecasts and warned that rich nations' debt problems may yet reap a crisis that would eclipse the tumult of 2008.

Citing weakness across the globe, the Washington-based lender projected global growth of 2.5 percent in 2012 and 3.1 percent in 2013 -- sharply lower than previous estimates of 3.6 percent for both years.

China's Sinopec clinched a "strategic" energy cooperation agreement with the UAE's state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the official WAM news agency reported Tuesday.

The agreement, inked on the sidelines of an energy conference in the United Arab Emirates capital, came two days after Saudi state oil giant Aramco inked a deal with the Chinese company to build an oil refinery in the Red Sea city of Yanbu that will process some 400,000 barrels per day.

The Eurozone will not break up despite the debt crisis sweeping the currency bloc, the chief executive of the European Union bailout fund said Tuesday.

Klaus Regling, head of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), also said that a ratings downgrade by Standard and Poor's on Monday will have limited impact on the fund.