The International Monetary Fund, deadlocked with Greece over further financial aid, approved a new loan installment for Cyprus on Friday, now the only other eurozone country receiving its bailout support.

As with Greece, the negotiations between Cyprus and the so-called troika -- the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank -- had bogged down over the economic reforms demanded by the creditors in exchange for the financing.

EU president Donald Tusk told Greece to accept a debt deal with its international creditors or face defaulting as he prepared an emergency summit Monday on Athens's future in the eurozone.

"The situation of Greece is getting critical," Tusk said in a video message Friday.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker voiced frustration with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in a media report Friday amid the deepening debt crisis.

"I don't understand Tsipras," Juncker told German news weekly Der Spiegel after he and Tsipras recently fell out a number of times.

Russia and Greece agreed Friday to sign a preliminary agreement to build a gas pipeline, with the two countries coming together amid a raging debt crisis in Athens and new Western actions against Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin was set to meet Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras later Friday on the sidelines of an investment forum overshadowed by Russia's economic crisis and standoff with the West.

Indonesia announced Friday it will grant a 30 percent stake of the Mahakam gas block to be shared between French Total and Japanese Inpex, while giving the majority stake to state-owned oil firm Pertamina in 2018.

Oil giant Total, along with Inpex, has been running Mahakam, a huge natural gas block offshore of East Kalimantan province, since 1967. Total has expressed it wanted to continue operating the block when the contract expires at the end of 2017.

The European Central Bank's decision-making governing council will hold an emergency session Friday to discuss a request from the Bank of Greece for an increase in liquidity to Greek banks, sources familiar with the matter told Agence France Presse. 

The council will hold a teleconference at around midday (1000 GMT) to discuss a possible increase in the Emergency Liquidity Assistance facility, as deposit withdrawals from Greek banks have accelerated in recent days, sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

The London Stock Exchange is considering forging a link with the Shanghai bourse like that between Hong Kong and the Chinese financial hub, state media reported Friday.

"We are working on it and trying to understand what might be involved," Nicolas Bertrand, head of equity and derivative markets for the London Stock Exchange Group (LSE), said in Beijing, according to the China Daily.

Crunch European talks to end the standoff over Greece's debt ended without a deal on Thursday, as the IMF warned Athens it would get no leeway to meet a payment at the end of the month and avoid default.

The clock ticked closer to midnight on the crisis after eurozone finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg failed to reach a breakthrough  on a reform deal that could avert  a catastrophic Greek exit from the euro.

U.S. lawmakers voted Thursday to give President Barack Obama fast-track authority to negotiate a major trans-Pacific trade accord, moving it closer to his desk after a dramatic defeat last week.

Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) narrowly passed the House of Representatives by 218 votes to 208 as a stand-alone bill, after congressional leaders uncoupled it from a worker-assistance program that crashed to defeat Friday when most Democrats voted against it in order to block the trade package.

Five years of austerity cuts may have saved Greece from financial collapse, but the life of ordinary Greeks took a decided turn for the worse.

Savagely slashing spending managed to reduce the state budget deficit and the public debt dynamic improved, but at the cost of soaring unemployment and poverty.