What the other papers say this morning
FINANCIAL TIMES
INVESTORS WARN OVER DEEP WATER DRILLING RISKS
Oil companies operating in deep water must do much more to reassure shareholders that they are not taking excessive risks that could put them out of business, representatives of investors with $2,500bn under management have warned. US and European share holders, including state employees’ pension funds from California, New York, Florida and the UK, have joined an effort to push oil company boards to improve safety performance and disclosure, following last year’s BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
SMALLER STORES TO PROPEL TESCO US EXPANSION
Tesco, the supermarket group, is planning to extend its Fresh & Easy store chain into smaller locations, as it pushes to acquire the scale envisioned by its large upfront investment in US expansion.
NOKIA GIVEN SECOND RATING CUT WARNING
Nokia is facing a possible credit downgrade after Standard & Poor’s joined Moody’s in putting the mobile phone maker’s rating under review. S&P said yesterday that a one-notch downgrade was “likely” because of mounting competitive pressure from the Apple iPhone and a growing range of devices using Google’s Android operating system.
HEAD OF GAP IN N AMERICA TO STEP DOWN
Gap, the US clothing retailer, said yesterday that Marka Hansen, head of its namesake brand in North America, would step down amid signs of trouble in the drive to return the company’s core business to growth. The retailer said an internal replacement for Ms Hansen would be named today and she would leave on Friday.
THE TIMES
FINANCIAL TERRORISTS’ POSE GRAVE RISK TO US
The US financial system remains vulnerable to a co-ordinated act of “financial terrorism” that risks taking down the US economy and collapsing the dollar, according to a confidential report commissioned by the Department of Defence in Washington. The document warns that forces hostile to the US could mount a “focused effort to collapse the dollar by dumping Treasury bonds” and urges the security services to conduct a further risk assessment “outside of traditional Washington and Wall Street circles”.
CHANNEL 6, FIRST IN THE QUEUE TO BRING YOU LOCAL TV
The Government’s plan to launch a network of local television stations has attracted the first bidder hoping to run the new channel.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
IMF RAISES SPECTRE OF CIVIL WARS AS GLOBAL INEQUALITIES WORSEN
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that “dangerous” imbalances have emerged that threaten to derail global recovery and stoke tensions that may ultimately set off civil wars in deeply unequal countries. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF’s chief, said the economic rebound across the world is built on unstable foundations, with many rich nations still strapped in job slumps while the rising powers of China, India and Brazil already facing the threat of overheating.
BEST BUY EUROPE BOSS SCOTT WHEWAY QUITS
Scott Wheway, the chief executive of Best Buy Europe, has given up running the electricals retailer just nine months after the UK’s first Best Buy store opened.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
EUROPEAN EMISSIONS MARKETS TO REOPEN GRADUALLY
European markets for permits to emit carbon dioxide will start reopening in the next week after a shutdown following the dramatic cybertheft of permits valued at tens of millions of euros two weeks ago, EU officials said yesterday. The theft, by a ring of hackers who phoned in a bomb threat to the Czech carbon exchange and stole permits during the ensuing confusion, was the latest in a series of security breaches in the market, which has turnover of $100 bn a year.
WEB RUNNING OUT OF ADDRESSES
The Internet is about to run out of new addresses, a milestone that is spurring Web giants like Facebook and Google to develop new versions of their sites and prompting carriers like AT&T to upgrade networks.