France's year-long G20 term stumbled to a messy end at the Cannes summit, where President Nicolas Sarkozy's dreams of reforming world finance were torpedoed by the eurozone debt crisis.

The leaders of the world's most powerful economies cobbled together a list of promised measures to boost growth and reinforce the IMF, but the statement was short on detail and all eyes were fixed on Rome and Athens.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou Saturday was to start talks on forming a national crisis government to stave off bankruptcy in his debt-laden country after winning a nail-biting confidence vote.

In a dramatic late-night parliament session that began Friday evening and went well into the early hours of Saturday morning, Papandreou also hinted he would step aside in the interest of national unity.

India's prime minister returned from abroad on Saturday to face a political revolt over a petrol price increase with a key coalition ally threatening to withdraw support unless the hike is reversed.

The regional Trinamool Congress, the second-largest party in the coalition with 19 lawmakers, said it may quit the ruling alliance unless Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rolls back the price rise.

Europe will need a decade to clean up its finances and emerge from the current debt crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared Saturday.

Resolving the debt crisis "is a path which calls for much effort, and along which we will have to advance step by step," Merkel said the day after the end of a G20 summit in Cannes, France, which was dominated by the issue.

Greece announced officially Friday that it had scrapped plans to hold a referendum that had enraged EU leaders, ahead of a knife-edge confidence vote which threatened to spark yet more chaos.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said in a statement that he had informed top EU officials "of Greece's decision not to hold a referendum", the first senior Greek politician to announce it so clearly.

Asian markets rose Friday after Greece's prime minister backed away from his controversial plan for a national vote on last week's eurozone rescue package.

Investor confidence was also boosted by a surprise rate cut by the European Central Bank.

LinkedIn suffered its first quarterly loss since its initial public offering roused Wall Street a few months ago.

The setback, announced Thursday, wasn't as severe as analysts anticipated. The online professional networking service invested in an expansion aimed at changing the way people find jobs and advance their careers.

World economic powers will attempt to kickstart the global economy on Friday by boosting funds to fight the debt crisis and encouraging consumers to spend their way out of a threatened recession.

The shadow of debt-laden Greece still hung heavily over the second and final day of the Group of 20 summit in the French resort of Cannes, as Prime Minister George Papandreou faced a late-night vote of confidence in Athens.

German airline Lufthansa said Friday it has agreed in principle to sell its loss-making unit British Midland to the International Airlines Group, the holding company of British Airways.

"Deutsche Lufthansa AG and International Consolidated Airlines Group have reached an agreement in principle on the sale of British Midland to IAG," the German carrier said in a statement.

Cuba announced Thursday it will allow real estate to be bought and sold for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes under President Raul Castro.

The law, which takes effect November 10, applies to citizens living in Cuba and permanent residents only, according to a red-letter headline on the front page of Thursday's Communist Party daily Granma and details published in the government's Official Gazette.