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.

Crude prices rose in Asia Tuesday after the United States, Britain, France and Germany moved to apply more restrictions and sanctions on Iran over its controversial nuclear program, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November rose 31 cents to $92.24 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for November delivery gained 29 cents to $110.10.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in an interview aired Sunday that he was in favour of giving Greece more time to pull through the eurozone crisis as long as it was sincere in taking on reforms.

He said in the interview with the French Mediapart website that "the solution cannot be Greece's exit from the eurozone," adding that "We can already give it more time to pull through."

Israel has held new talks with the Palestinians over the development of a gas field off the coast of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli foreign ministry said in a new report released on Sunday.

The report, prepared for submission to a New York gathering of donors to the Palestinian Authority, describes meetings and initial negotiations between the two sides on the thorny subject of the development of the Gaza Marine gas field.