Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou survived a confidence vote early Saturday, calming a vicious revolt in his Socialist party with an emotional pledge to step aside if necessary and seek a cross-party government lasting four months to safeguard a new European debt agreement.

Papandreou won the critical parliamentary confidence motion 153-145 after a week of drama in Athens that horrified Greece’s European partners, spooked global markets and overshadowed the Group of 20 summit in the French resort of Cannes.

The threat of a Greek default or exit from the common euro currency has worsened the continent’s debt crisis, which is already struggling under bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, who warned that the debt-ridden country still faced “mortal danger,” said the new government would last until the end of February.

But conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras demanded immediate elections.

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Any small business owner wants their business to grow. The good thing is now a good time to prepare for your small business growth because the market is full of possibilities for such a happening. However, you need to proactively observe at all times, so you can enjoy the benefits of all these possibilities.

Many companies are beginning to rise above the recession that hit everyone around the world. This particular moment in economic history has brought on some measures of cost reduction effected by a large number of these cases and included reducing budgets, expenditures and in other cases, even the employees. Full story…

Chart Source: Bespoke Group, Oct. 20, 2011

The federal government should have ended the Qantas industrial action sooner to protect the domestic tourism industry, according to the head of travel agency Flight Centre.

Flight Centre agents worked throughout the night to assist stranded passengers, and extra staff members have been asked to work at the company’s shops today.

Managing director Graham Turner, who called for government intervention early last week, said the dispute had damaged the domestic tourism industry and adversely affected travellers before it escalated yesterday.

“The need for a fast resolution did not just arise – resolving this dispute has been in the country’s interests for some time,” he said.

“Clearly, the dispute has inflicted further pain on the domestic tourism industry, which was already suffering, and has adversely affected the travelling public in Australia.

“The uncertainty that has been evident for the past few weeks has been a major problem…

“As the total number of seats available has decreased since Qantas was forced to reduce its schedule, cheap flights have become harder to secure on all domestic airlines.

“Given domestic tourism’s importance to the Australian economy, the government should have acted sooner to protect this extremely valuable asset.”

Mr Turner seemed to come out in support of comments made by Qantas CEO Alan Joyce this morning that the company could not resume flights until the threat of industrial action had passed.

“For the good of the airline, the tourism industry and for the broader economy, it is important that the threat of industrial action comes to an end as soon as possible.

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NEW YORK (AP) — A new report says more than half the Long Island Rail Road workers who retired last year claimed they were disabled on the job and were thereby entitled to a bigger pension.

The New York Times reports (http://nyti.ms/uVxqx1) that nearly all those claims were approved. That rate is much higher than in any other U.S. railroad system.

Federal prosecutors charged 11 people on Thursday with conspiracy in a decadelong fraud that authorities say poisoned the pension system used by employees of the nation’s largest commuter railroad. Authorities say some employees paid off doctors to say they couldn’t work.

The FBI says the fraud could cost more than $1 billion.

The investigation was opened after The Times reported in 2008 that almost all LIRR workers were being declared disabled upon retirement.

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Information from: The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com