Greece was locked down in tough EU-IMF talks on rescue funds, and Italy was hit by a credit downgrade, dragging the eurozone ever closer towards danger on Tuesday.

The talks on rescue funds needed to avert bankruptcy for Greece and chaos in the eurozone next month dragged unexpectedly into a second day, just as Greek authorities prepared to auction more debt.

The dispute that rose between Lebanon and Israel over the maritime border after the discovery of potential offshore energy reserves drew the attention of many oil drilling companies.

“Time is gold for Lebanon and the cabinet should swiftly take the necessary measures to follow up this issue,” a global oil expert told As Safir on Tuesday.

U.S. stocks opened sharply lower Monday amid worries about the Greek sovereign debt crisis and the political battle over U.S. deficit reduction.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 171.73 points (1.49 percent) to 11,337.36 in the first five minutes of trade.

U.S. firm Noble has began exploratory drilling for gas off divided Cyprus's southern coast, ignoring Turkish warnings it would retaliate by launching its own explorations in the eastern Mediterranean.

Director of the Cypriot energy services Solon Kassinis told the semi-official Cyprus News Agency that Noble had started drilling for natural gas from its Aphrodite platform inside the island's exclusive economic zone on Sunday night.

Greece will remain in recession for all of 2012 with an annual contraction of 2.5 percent, but could return to growth by 2013, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday during a symposium on the Greek debt crisis.

The IMF representative to Greece, Bob Traa, told the conference organized by the Economist magazine that the Greek rescue program is in a "difficult moment" and that gross domestic product was likely to contract by 5.5 percent in 2011 and "an average of negative 2.5 percent in 2012".

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has been hit by cyber attacks with fears that its data on nuclear power plants or military-related products has been leaked, a newspaper reported on Monday.

The company found in mid-August that some 80 servers and computers of the nation's top heavy machinery manufacturer had been infected with computer viruses, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Indian-owned luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover is to open a factory to build low-emission engines in Britain with the creation of up to 750 jobs, the company said on Monday.

The £355 million ($410 million, 560 million Euros) facility will be based near Wolverhampton in central England, with work due to start early next year.

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse said Monday that it has reached a deal with German authorities to end a tax evasion probe, and that it would pay 150 million Euros ($205 million) to settle the case.

"Credit Suisse group and the Public Prosecutor's Office in Duesseldorf have reached an agreement regarding the proceedings against Credit Suisse employees," said the bank in a statement.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday his country planned to begin commercial shale gas production from 2014, dismissing environmental concerns while insisting the technologies involved were safe.

"Being a moderate optimistic, the commercial exploitation of shale gas will begin in 2014," the leader of Poland's governing Civic Platform (PO) liberals said while on the campaign trail ahead of an October 9 general election.

Europe is digging an ever-deeper hole as it vows to resolve the Eurozone crisis, experts said Sunday as Greece prepares for a pivotal week of international debt diplomacy.

Plagued by "parochialism, pettiness and procrastination," according to Sony Kapoor, head of the Re-define think tank, "kill the messenger seems to be the new strategy," he told Agence France Presse en route to New York and a frantic week at International Monetary Fund, World Bank and G20 gatherings.