Lenders will pledge $1 billion for Myanmar when they huddle in Tokyo next month, a report said Thursday, as the one-time pariah nation is increasingly welcomed back into the world community.

The report came as the United States said it was lifting the last major sanctions on the country, which is rapidly opening up following years of isolation.

The United States and other G8 nations are expanding a program to lift 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty and hunger within the next decade, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

More than 60 companies pledging some $4 billion in private business commitments to help build seed, fertilizer or small-scale irrigation firms have joined the Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.

The United States shrugged off on Wednesday European Union plans to take the U.S. back to the World Trade Organization over illegal subsidies to aerospace giant Boeing, accusing the EU of far greater handouts.

"On the one side we have $90 billion (70 billion euros) of illegal financing of Airbus by the EU and on the other side we have $3.0-$4.0 billion for Boeing," said Michael Punke, U.S. representative at the trade arbiter.

Greece faced a paralysing general strike Wednesday as unions take to the streets to protest at a new round of sweeping austerity cuts to be brought in next month to unlock vital EU-IMF loans.

The strike action is expected to bring the country to a standstill, disrupting flights, confining ferries to port, halting train services and shutting down the Greek public sector, including museums.

Squeezed by financial markets and denounced in the streets, Spain's government will adopt on Thursday a 2013 austerity budget which could be a precursor to a full-blown bailout.

The final step before a rescue is likely to come a day later, analysts say, when Madrid unveils an independent audit of its limping banks to determine how much capital they need.

An expenses scandal that forced the resignation of an Italian regional governor from Silvio Berlusconi's party this week is not only a blow for the ex-premier but a sign of wider discontent, experts said.

"No political party should have any illusions. Even if not everyone acted in the same way, there is an anger against them that could become dangerous," said Giacomo Marramao, a professor of political philosophy at Rome III University.

France, facing a 30-billion-euro gap in public finances, announced its latest austerity move Tuesday with the parliamentary budget frozen for five years and lawmakers' expenses cut by 10 percent.

National Assembly president Claude Bartolone from President Francois Hollande's Socialist party said he wanted a parliament that was "more exemplary, more open and more useful" as he announced the budget freeze.

German consumers are beginning to feel the pinch, a poll showed on Tuesday, the second danger sign for Europe's top economy in two days after a surprise monthly slump in business confidence.

Consumer confidence in Germany is stagnating, market research company GfK said, hard on the heels of data showing the eurozone crisis had pushed down business confidence, sparking recession alarm bells to ring.

Vogue's fashion-loving fans will soon have a chance to drink in the magazine's aura at a new cafe in Dubai.

The glossy's publisher, Conde Nast International, said Tuesday that it expects to open the Vogue Cafe in the glitzy Gulf emirate's largest shopping mall by the end of the year.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Tuesday lowered its long-term credit ratings on Sony by one notch, citing a slow recovery of its mainstay consumer electronics businesses.

The agency downgraded its long-term corporate credit ratings on the Japanese electronics giant and its subsidiaries from 'BBB+' to BBB. The move keeps them two steps above junk status.