It is well-known that minimal compact complex surfaces with $b_2\>0$ containing global spherical shells are in the class VII${}_0$ of Kodaira. In fact, there are no other known examples. In this paper we prove that all surfaces with global spherical shells admit a singular holomorphic foliation. The existence of a numerically anticanonical divisor is a necessary condition for the existence of a global holomorphic vector field. Conversely, given the existence of a numerically anticanonical divisor, surfaces...

We prove that a singular complex surface that admits a complete holomorphic vector field that has no invariant curve through a singular point of the surface is obtained from a Kato surface by contracting some divisor (in particular, it is compact). We also prove that, in a singular Stein surface endowed with a complete holomorphic vector field, a singular point of the surface where the zeros of the vector field do not accumulate is either a quasihomogeneous or a cyclic quotient singularity. We give...