Roche drug gets WHO backing June 11, 2009 The World Health Organisation (WHO) is to start distributing a further batch of 5.65m courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu from Swiss drug maker Roche Holding. Earlier WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan said it was raising its pandemic alert to phase 6, the top of its six-point scale, because of the outbreak of swine [...]
JPM Caz sells Ross’s shares worth 75m June 11, 2009 STRUGGLING entrepreneur David Ross raised around £75m yesterday through the sale of shares in Carphone Warehouse and Big Yellow Group. Sources said that JP Morgan Cazenove sold the vast majority of Ross’s 9.02 per cent shareholding in storage group Big Yellow for around £36m and 2.6 per cent of Carphone Warehouse, which he co-founded with [...]
Latvia to cut pensions to avert currency devaluation June 11, 2009 LATVIA’S government said it will reduce old age pensions and public sector salaries but not raise taxes as it tries to head off currency devaluation. The five-party coalition government, led by Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, agreed with unions and employers on ways to find savings of 500m lats (£602m) to win further loans from the [...]
BAE Systems rolls out first Typhoon jet for Saudi Arabia June 11, 2009 BAE Systems rolled out its first two Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft ready for the Royal Saudi Air Force yesterday, as part of the controversial $20bn “Al-Salaam” deal. The rollout marks the start of delivery of 72 aircraft to Saudi Arabia, which is part of a more than twenty-year agreement between the UK and Saudi governments to [...]
Brits expect a rise in prices June 11, 2009 THERE were further signs yesterday that Britain’s recession was at an end with data showing improvement in the housing market and rising inflation expectations for the coming year. Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) showed mortgage approvals rising 16 per cent in April to 35,600, indicating more life in the housing market. But [...]
Bernanke and Paulson to be called to testify by Congress June 11, 2009 FEDERAL Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson will be asked to testify before the US Congress on their role in Bank of America’s (BoA) acquisition of Merrill Lynch. At a congressional hearing into the US government’s role in last year’s purchase, the Democratic chairman of a key House panel said Bernanke [...]
CITY VIEWS: IS THE UK BEGINNING TO EMERGE FROM THE RECESSION? June 11, 2009 MARK WARBURTON 7FIFTYTWO SOLUTIONS“It’s a bit of a false dawn. We’re seeing an uplift but its just confidence coming from the first quarter of the year. There will still be uncertainty about jobs for instance. When the jobs market starts flowing again it will be a sign that things are improving.” ALLISTER AUGUSTIN ABN AMRO“When [...]
FIRST WOMEN GATHER AT GALA TALENT SHOW June 11, 2009 THERE’S nothing a bunch of hard-working businesswomen like better than listening to one of their own knowing how to send herself up in style. So it should come as no surprise that the star of this year’s First Women Awards, held last night in the luxurious surroundings of the Marriott Grosvenor Square, was Deloitte veteran [...]
ONE IN TEN HIT BY NEGATIVE EQUITY June 11, 2009 MORE than one in 10 British homeowners have been plunged into negative equity, with their property now worth less than the value of their mortgages, the Bank of England will warn today. Writing in its latest Quarterly Bulletin, the Bank’s analysts said that the collapse in prices since the peak of the housing market in [...]
City set for summer of discontent June 11, 2009 RMT boss Bob Crow threatened further industrial action last night, if London Underground (LU) refuses to meet union demands, as the City prepares itself for a summer of discontent. The City hit out at the union, saying further action would be a threat to the recession-hit capital. “The last thing the business community wants to [...]