BBC news 2011-11-01
BBC News with Gaenor Howells
Banking shares have fallen in a number of markets amid continuing fears about the impact of the eurozone debt crisis. In London, shares in two partly state-owned banks fell over 7%. Across the Atlantic, shares in Bank of America lost nearly 5%, and a large American investment fund, MF Global, filed for bankruptcy protection. Michelle Fleury reports from New York.
The collapse of MF Global isn't seen as a serious risk to the financial system so much as a cautionary tale. MF Global's problems stemmed from its $6.3bn investment in sovereign bonds issued by European countries, including Portugal, Italy and Spain. The medium-sized broker didn't have enough capital if its bet on Europe turned bad. Given that so many people think that's a real possibility, investors took fright. Last week, shares in MF Global fell more than 60% after the financial firm reported a big loss.
Earlier, a report by the International Labour Organisation warned that the global economy was on the verge of what it called a new and deeper jobs recession.
The Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou says Greece will hold a referendum on the bailout deal agreed at the European summit last week. Mr Papandreou gave no details of the proposed referendum in an address to Socialist MPs, but said he'd also seek a vote of confidence in the Greek parliament. The deal agreed by eurozone members was designed to cut Greece's debt by about $140bn.
The United States is stopping its financial contributions to the United Nations cultural agency Unesco after the Palestinians were admitted to the organisation as a full member. A US State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said a $60m payment to Unesco due to be made in November would not go ahead. From Washington, Paul Adams reports.
Washington is in a bind. It regards Unesco as a valuable UN agency and gives it around $70m a year, or a fifth of its annual budget, but it's also bound by strict laws passed in the 1990s by an overwhelmingly pro-Israel Congress. Looking uncomfortable, Victoria Nuland said the administration wanted to continue working with the agency but recognised that its membership would be compromised if it failed to pay its contributions. She expressed concern over the loss of US influence and the possibility that the same scenario might unfold with other UN agencies.
The interim leadership in Libya has named a new prime minister. Abdul Raheem al-Keeb, a businessman from Tripoli, beat four other candidates in a poll held by the National Transitional Council. He's expected to appoint a cabinet in the coming days which will govern Libya and prepare the ground for general elections. Earlier, the Secretary General of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, took part in events in Tripoli to mark the formal cessation of the bombing campaign that helped topple Colonel Gaddafi.
World News from the BBC
In the United States, the trial has begun of an American soldier accused of leading a renegade army unit that deliberately targeted and killed unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs pleaded not guilty to 16 charges at the opening of his court-martial. He's accused of leading what's been termed a "kill team" in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in 2010. Three other soldiers have agreed to testify against Staff Sergeant Gibbs.
The former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has started his chemotherapy treatment for throat cancer. His doctors say his chances of being cured are very good. The cancer is in its early stages and hasn't spread to other parts of his body. The treatment is expected to last four months and will cause Lula to lose his hair and trademark beard.
A court in Russia has awarded two families $100,000 each in compensation after their daughters were accidentally switched at birth. The two families - one of which is Muslim, the other Russian Orthodox Christian - are considering buying properties close to each other as the children, who are now 12, have said they don't want to change families. Daniel Sandford reports from Moscow.
The two girls were born 15 minutes apart in December 1998 in the same hospital in the small town of Kopeysk. But unknown to their parents, they were swapped at birth accidentally. This only emerged when the woman who thought she was Irina's mother arranged a DNA test because her former husband was refusing to pay maintenance. The test showed that neither of them was her parent, and further research uncovered the hospital's mistake.
The dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London has become the second senior cleric to resign since anti-capitalist protesters set up camp at the cathedral two weeks ago. The Dean Graeme Knowles says that mounting criticism of how the situation had been handled had made his position untenable.
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