Italian political leaders began a new round of talks on Friday after leftist Pier Luigi Bersani failed to form a government following inconclusive elections in the eurozone's third-largest economy.

President Giorgio Napolitano met first with Silvio Berlusconi and his center-right coalition, as European capitals and financial markets watched warily amid renewed turbulence in the eurozone.

France's two key economic indicators for 2012 overshot government targets, with public deficit standing at 4.8 percent of gross domestic product while public debt reached a new record of 90.2 percent of output, data showed on Friday.

The government had forecast a deficit of 4.5 percent of GDP for the year and for public debt to reach 89.9 percent.

Banks in Cyprus resumed normal trading hours Friday a day after a near two-week lockdown ended, but Cypriots face a month of cash curbs intended to prevent a run on deposits after an EU-led bailout.

Small queues of people built up outside banks on the east Mediterranean island as their doors reopened for a second day under draconian capital controls which include a daily withdrawal limit of 300 euros ($385).

Cypriots stayed calm as banks reopened on Thursday after a nearly two-week lockdown, with the first capital controls of their kind in the eurozone saving the island from a catastrophic bank run.

President Nicos Anastasiades tweeted his thanks to the citizens of the bailed-out eastern Mediterranean nation for their "maturity" after they patiently formed queues at banks that had been shuttered since March 16.

Egypt is being plagued by repeated power cuts because it does not have money to buy enough fuel, the oil ministry said on Thursday.

Rolling power cuts in the country of 83 million people are due to "the electricity sector's failure to secure needed funds for buying liquefied fuel for some power stations," the state's MENA news agency quoted a ministry official as saying.

Fifty-two major global companies have submitted bids to explore for oil and gas in Lebanon's territorial waters, caretaker Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil announced on Thursday.

"Fifty-two firms have submitted bids," Bassil said at a press conference he held at the ministry, as an adviser to the minister announced the names of the companies, which include Norway's Statoil and the American multinational corporation ExxonMobil.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge approved Wednesday the merger of American Airlines and U.S. Airways, which will create the country's largest airline, the two companies said.

But the judge left undecided the $19.9 million payout planned for AMR chief executive Tom Horton, who will lose his job in the merger.

Food prices have dropped since peaking six months ago but remain near record levels, pushing the world's poorest people toward "undernutrition" and obesity, the World Bank said Thursday.

"Unhealthy food tends to be cheaper than healthy ones, like junk food in developed countries," said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group's vice president for poverty reduction and economic management.

Patient Cypriots formed orderly queues and waited in the sun for their banks to reopen after nearly two cash-starved weeks, but many expressed anger at the island's European partners.

Despite fears of a bank run that led the island to impose harsh capital controls, some Cypriots were even depositing money instead of withdrawing it following the closure of the banks on March 16.

Cyprus is to impose unprecedented money controls to avert a run on the island's shuttered banks when they reopen following a controversial international bailout, reports said Wednesday.

Newspapers said the temporary restrictions, in place for seven days, included bans on taking more than 3,000 euros ($3,900) of cash out of Mediterranean island and on cashing cheques.