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The Greek government and its creditors return to the negotiating table this week to revive stalled talks on a debt swap as German Chancellor Angela Merkel places pressure on both sides to forge a deal.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said two days ago that talks with the Institute of International Finance will resume on Jan. 18. The Washington-based IIF, which represents banks holding the bonds, said on Jan. 14 there is a

fast cash loan is fast becoming a viable financial option for consumers who need a few extra dollars.

Service industries in the U.K. grew at the fastest pace in five months in December and strengthened in the U.S., suggesting their economies are partly withstanding the euro-area debt crisis.

A gauge of U.K. services activity based on the survey of purchasing managers (PMITSUK) rose to 54 from 52.1 in November, Markit Economics and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply said today in London. A U.S. services index rose to 52.6 in December from 52 the previous month.

The data suggest the U.K. economy strengthened in December after surveys earlier this week showed construction and manufacturing improved. Still, the euro-area crisis is clouding the outlook for the global recovery. The Bank of England said today banks may toughen loan terms because of the debt turmoil, hampering growth, while some Federal Reserve officials have said prospective economic conditions may warrant

Declaring Japan has turned a corner in the battle to stabilize its tsunami-damaged nuclear plant, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced Friday the facility has achieved a stable state of “cold shutdown,” a crucial step toward lifting evacuation orders and closing the plant.

Noda’s announcement was intended to reassure the nation that significant progress has been made in the nine months since the March 11 tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant into meltdowns in the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

But the plant 140 miles (230 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo remains vulnerable to problems, its surroundings are contaminated by radiation and closing the plant safely will take 30 or more years.

“The reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant have reached a state of cold shutdown,” Noda said. “Now that we have achieved stability in the reactors, a major concern for the nation has been resolved.”

Noda said he hopes conditions will improve quickly so that the people who have been displaced by the crisis can return home “even a day sooner.”

“There are many issues that remain,” Noda said. “Our battle is not over.”

The government’s official endorsement of the claim by Tokyo Electric Power Co. that the reactors have reached cold shutdown status is a necessary step toward revising evacuation zones around the plant and focusing efforts from simply stabilizing the facility to actually starting the arduous process of shutting it down.

But Noda acknowledged the assessment has some important caveats.

The government says Fukushima Dai-ichi has reached cold shutdown “conditions”_ a cautious phrasing reflecting the fact that TEPCO cannot measure temperatures of melted fuel in the damaged reactors in the same way as with normally functioning ones.

Even so, the announcement marks the end of the second phase of the government’s lengthy roadmap to completely decommission the plant.

Officials can now start discussing whether to allow some evacuees to return to less-contaminated areas _ although a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the plant is expected to remain off limits for years to come. The crisis displaced some 100,000 people.

Noda said the government will step up decontamination efforts and will ready 1 trillion yen ($12.8 billion) for urgently needed projects next year. He also said 30,000 workers will be trained.

A cold shutdown normally means a nuclear reactor’s coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and its reactor core is at a temperature below 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), making it impossible for a chain reaction to take place.

According to TEPCO, temperature gauges inside the Fukushima reactors show the pressure vessel is at around 70 C (158 F). The government also says the amount of radiation now being released around the plant is at or below 1 millisievert per year _ equivalent to the annual legal exposure limit for ordinary citizens before the crisis began.

Akira Yamaguchi, a nuclear physicist at Osaka University, said that the government’s definition of cold shutdown is disputable.

“But what’s most important right now is that there aren’t any massive radiation leaks any more,” he said.

Putting longer-term issues aside, he warned that much of the backup equipment installed at the plant since the crisis began is makeshift and may break down. He said winter cold could test their strength.

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Premier Mario Monti said Sunday his government of technocrats has approved a package of austerity and growth measures worth euro30 billion ($40.53 billion) to “reawaken” the Italian economy and help save the euro common currency from collapse.

The measures include immediate cuts to the costs of maintaining Italy’s bulky political class as well as significant measures to fight tax evasion, Monti told a news conference following a three-hour Cabinet meeting.

As part of the political cost cuts, Monti said he would forego his salaries as premier and finance minister _ a move he said was a personal decision and not meant as an example for other ministers in the government, which was formed 2 1/2 weeks ago after Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation under market and political pressure.

The package also includes measures to spur growth and competition, while aiming to stamp out rampant nepotism. But it also raises the retirment age and the number of years of service to qualify for a full pension, steps strongly opposed by unions, and imposes new taxes on Italians’ private wealth, including their homes, boats and luxury cars, measures that conservatives have protested.

“We gave a lot of weight to fairness, we had to distribute some of the sacrifices but we took a lot of care to distribute them in a fair way,” Monti said.

Monti will outline the measures on Monday in addresses to both houses of Parliament, which must approve them. Monti said he will appeal to lawmakers’ sense of responsibility.

The Berlusconi government stepped down due to its failure to get tough measures through a fractious Parliament, which remains intact, meaning fault lines could easily reopen.

“A lot depends on how well or not we explain to the citizens what we are trying to do,” Monti said.

The premier, an economist who once was an EU commissioner, has been under extreme pressure to come up with speedy and credible measures that will persuade markets to stop betting against the common currency. Italian borrowing costs have spiked, which could spell disaster if Italy is unable to keep up on payments to service its enormous debt of euro1.9 trillion ($2.57 trillion), or 120 percent of its GDP.

Unlike Greece, Portugal and Ireland, which got bailouts after their borrowing rates skyrocketed, the eurozone’s third-largest economy is considered to be too big to bail out. An Italian default would be disastrous for the 17-member eurozone and reverberate throughout the global economy.

Deputy Economic Minister Vittorio Grilli said the measures passed will ensure that Italy’s budget will be balanced by 2013 through a 2 percent increase in value-added tax from the second half of 2012. Berlusconi’s now-defunct government already raised the value-added tax from 20 percent to 21 percent as part of earlier measures.

In addition, the government adopted austerity measures worth euro20 billion and euro10 billion in measures aimed at boosting anemic Italian growth. They include pension reform, local government spending cuts, the reestablishment of a tax on a first house that was annulled by Berlusconi and new taxes on boats over 10 meters (30 feet) in length and on luxury cars, Grilli said payday loans no teletrack.

At the same time, the measures will reduce the tax on the cost of employment, give fiscal breaks to companies that invest to grow their businesses and increase investments in local public transport.

Monti denied an impression that the measures mostly comprised new taxes.

“There are certainly taxes, we know that in Italy it is easier to reduce the deficit through new taxes than through cutting costs,” Monti said. “But what we did, for example, in terms of rebalancing the pension goes in the right structural direction.”

The government “made a particular effort to make sure that higher taxes did not affect the usual suspects,” Monti said.

The premier spent the weekend briefing political parties, unions, business groups, consumer lobbies and others. Unions were particularly critical of the measures to reform the pension system, saying certain classes of workers, including those who do physical labor, shouldn’t be forced to work extra years, and that women who enter the work force after raising children would have to work well into old age to meet seniority requirements.

The measures raise the pension age to 66 years for men in 2012 and for women by 2018, and also increases to 42 years and one month the years of service for a man to retire with full benefits, 41 years and one month for a woman. Labor Minister Elsa Fornero said it would be possible to retire earlier, “with a small penalty.”

Fornero wiped away a tear when she said that the pension reform would require sacrifices, including a hold on inflation adjustments for larger pensions.

On the fight against tax evasion, Monti said there would be no more tax amnesties, a mechanism used frequently in the past to recover lost revenues. In addition, the measures imposed a 1.5 percent penalty on money that was repatriated in a recent scheme that allowed Italians who had concealed money abroad to repatriate it for a negligible 5 percent penalty.

The measures also limit cash transactions to payments under euro1,000 _ down from euro2,500. In Italy, paying in cash is common as a way to conceal transactions from the government and avoid paying the value-added tax.

After meeting with Monti earlier Sunday, the head of Italy’s industrial lobby said that the survival of the common euro currency depends on Italy’s coming up with very strong austerity and growth measures _ followed by a concerted effort at the European level so that Italian sacrifices are not in vain.

Confindustria President Emma Marcegaglia described the measures as “very heavy.”

The coming days “will decided if the euro will survive or not. The first move to save the euro is in Italian hands, with a very strong measures,” Marcegaglia said. The measures will be “fundamental to saving Italy and to saving the euro.”

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Italy’s borrowing rates spiked early Tuesday to their highest level since the euro was established in 1999 ahead of a budget vote in Parliament that could force the resignation of Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

With speculation over Berlusconi’s future swirling, the markets are focused in on developments in Rome, which has become the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis. Berlusconi’s government is under market pressure to enact quick reforms to protect Italy from the growing sovereign debt crisis, but has been hobbled by a weak coalition and political gridlock.

What happens in Italy is a particular worry as it’s the eurozone’s third-largest economy. With debts of around euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion), Italy’s debts are thought to be too big for Europe to bail out.

Higher rates would make it more difficult for Italy to rollover its debts and will mean they consume more and more of national income. Italy has over euro300 billion ($412 billion) to raise in 2012 alone.

By mid-morning, the yield on Italy’s ten-year bonds was up 0.12 percentage point at 6.66 percent, down from an earlier high of 6.74 percent. A rate of over 7 percent is considered unsustainable and proved to be the trigger point that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal into accepting the need for financial bailouts.

The vote later looks like it’s on a knife-edge, with Berlusconi’s coalition showing signs of fracture. Italian news agency ANSA reported that Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti hurriedly departed from a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels to return to Rome payday loan lenders in states.

In less tense times, the vote would have meant routine approval of the 2010 state accounts, but instead it has become a crucial test of Berlusconi’s survival as head of his 3 1/2 year-old center-right government. Last month, the vote of the same measure failed by one vote. Chamber whips were meeting a few hours before the vote to map out a strategy for the vote, which is likely to take place Tuesday afternoon.

Opposition forces were considering boycotting the vote so the numbers would more clearly show just how many deputies still support the government. If Berlusconi’s forces number less than 316 deputies _ or one more than half the number of the 630-member chamber, it would be plain that the media mogul no longer can count on a majority in the lower house of Parliament.

The government could still win the vote, by commanding more than half of those showing up to vote, but a dismal showing could show Berlusconi is too weak politically to continue to govern.

If he gets through Tuesday’s hurdle, Berlusconi has indicated he would put a vote next week on the anti-crisis measures to a confidence vote. If it loses that vote, Berlusconi would have to resign.

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PARIS

NEW YORK

Advancing floodwaters in Thailand shut down commercial flights Tuesday at Bangkok’s second airport, spilling across a complex housing the country’s flood relief headquarters in one of the biggest blows yet to government attempts to prevent the sprawling capital from being swamped.

The effective closure of Don Muang airport, which is used primarily for domestic flights, was sure to further erode public confidence in the ability of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration to defend the increasingly anxious metropolis of 9 million people.

Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, the country’s main international gateway, has yet to be affected by flooding and flights there were operating normally. Most of the city has been spared inundation so far.

Don Muang has come to symbolize the gravity of the Southeast Asian nation’s deepening crisis, which has seen advancing waters drown a third of the country and kill 366 people over the last three months.

The airport houses the government’s recently established emergency Flood Relief Operations Center, and one of its terminals has been converted into an overcrowded shelter filled with tents for about 4,000 people who fled waterlogged homes.

Somboon Klinchanhom, a 43-year-old civil servant who took refuge there last week, was preparing to move after authorities said the terminal had become too overcrowded and thousands of displaced people would be relocated to other shelters.

“I thought it would be safe and well-protected,” Somboon said of the airport, as she packed her belongings again.

Outside, ankle-high water rushed over sandbagged barriers and swamped roads within the airport compound.

The two main carriers based at Don Muang announced they were suspending operations and diverting flights to Suvarnabhumi. They are Thai Orient Airlines and Nok Air, which said it was halting flights until Nov. 1.

Capt. Kantpat Mangalasiri, the airport’s director, said Don Muang’s runways _ though not currently flooded _ would be closed until Nov. 1 to ensure safe aircraft operations.

Thai air force flights carrying relief supplies were continuing on a military runway that is still open, air force spokesman Montol Suchukorn said. He said floodwaters had breached the military’s air base, but the runway remains protected by flood barriers.

Last week, the air force moved 20 planes from Don Muang as a precaution.

The flood relief command will remain at the airport for now since it is still accessible by road, spokesman Wim Rungwattanajinda said.

He said the government expects floodwaters will sweep through the main parts of Don Muang by Friday, but would not rise above 3.3 feet (one meter).

The scene at the domestic terminal was chaotic as throngs of confused passengers struggled to leave or pulled up to the departure hall with luggage, unaware their flights had been canceled.

With parts of the main road heading to downtown Bangkok flooded knee-deep, taxis were in scarce supply. Some travelers waited hours for a ride as airlines scrambled to arrange special buses.

Don Muang, located on Bangkok’s northern outskirts, is among seven of the capital’s 50 districts that the government has declared at risk. Those zones, in the north and northwest, are all experiencing some flooding.

The latest added to the list is the northwestern district of Bang Phlat. Late Monday, Gov. Suhumbhand Paribatra warned residents there to move their belongings to higher ground after water from the Chao Phraya River crept in through a subway construction site.

On Tuesday, Yingluck’s administration declared public holidays on Oct. 27-31 in affected areas, including Bangkok. The Education Ministry also ordered schools in 12 affected provinces and the capital to close until Nov. 7 due to the floods.

Last week, Yingluck ordered key floodgates opened to help drain runoff through urban canals to the sea, but there is great concern that rising tides in the Gulf of Thailand this weekend could slow critical outflows and flood the city.

Late Monday, the flood relief center said water levels in the worst-hit parts of the country _ the submerged provinces north of Bangkok _ were stable or subsiding. But the massive runoff was still bearing down on the capital as it flowed south toward the Gulf of Thailand.

While neighborhoods just across Bangkok’s boundaries are underwater, most of the city is dry and has not been directly affected by the deluge.

Anxious Bangkokians, though, have been raiding stores to stock up on emergency supplies, and many have been protecting their homes and businesses with sandbags. Some have even erected sealed cement barriers across shop fronts.

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BRUSSELS

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc., and visionary whose enduring legacy is held firmly in the hands and hearts of millions of people around the world, died Wednesday evening.

The man who will be remembered as one of the most influential entrepreneurs of the 20th century was 56 years old.

Apple confirmed Jobs