Schools, rubbish collections and ferry crossings have been disrupted as council workers staged a 24-hour walkout over pay.

BAE Systems signs a 15-year deal with the Ministry of Defence to supply ammunition for UK armed forces.

Asda has extended the supermarket price wars to mobile phones by halving its pay-as-you-go charges while traditional rivals, including Vodafone, are raising theirs.

At last, a bureaucratic body staffed by unknown and unelected members of the new Labour quangocracy, has done something absolutely right. The Competition Commission's proposal forcibly to split ownership of London's three main airports, all at present owned by BAA, was one of the bravest and most sensible decisions by an official body in living memory. That it will cause fury in the business Establishment, consternation in the City and confusion among ministers and their Tory shadows, shows just how wise and brave it was.

Rarely will a report from the Competition Commission have brought so much joy to the hearts of so many. The thousands of passengers who were parted from their luggage during the disastrous opening of Heathrow's Terminal 5 in March got sweet revenge yesterday when the commission ordered BAA to be broken up.

BAA could be forced to sell three of its airports after the Competition Commission criticised the company for what it said was decades of poor service to airlines and passengers.

Iceland is to join the growing rush of countries aiming to tap into the potentially vast oil and gas reserves of the Arctic. Reykjavik is hoping to attract investment from some of the world's biggest oil companies as it finalises the terms for its first offshore licences.

Hopes that industry can take up some of the slack in Britain's faltering economy were undercut yesterday as the CBI reported that manufacturers' expectations of their future output fell to a seven-year low this month. The growing gloom among manufacturing groups came as order books declined for a second month in a row and by more than they had expected.

No medal for guessing Jeff Immelt's favourite Olympian. General Electric's next set of quarterly accounts should contain a line noting the Michael Phelps special dividend, so great has the 23-year-old's impact been on its fortunes at the Beijing Olympics.

Council chiefs have called for extra powers to allow them to offer competitive mortgages in an attempt to rescue the housing market.

Wholesale gas prices in Britain jumped by nearly 15 per cent yesterday after a leak from a North Sea pipeline triggered concerns about possible supply problems this winter.

Wall Street is bracing itself for surging losses and another $3 billion ($£1.6 billion) worth of writedowns at Lehman Brothers when the American investment bank publishes its third-quarter figures next month.

Economics

Mecom is the European newspaper group run on the theory that it is possible to turn titles on the Continent into a mirror of those managed by Johnston Press. Run by David Montgomery, the idea is to strip out inefficient practices and boost margins, from single digits in some countries to more like 20 per cent. But unlike Johnston Press (perhaps not the best role model, given this year’s travails), the mix of titles owned across five countries includes both national and regional and the group as a whole is not so dependent on highly cyclical advertising. This accounts for just over half of revenues, whereas it amounts to more like 80 per cent at Johnston, or any other British regional publisher.

Shares in US mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plunge again amid new talk of a government bail-out.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England mulled the case for both a cut and hike in interest rates this month before a majority of policymakers held rates at 5 percent, but bleak economic signals continue to swing the balance towards a cut.

Wall Street is bracing itself for surging losses and another $3 billion worth of write-downs at Lehman Brothers, when the US investment bank publishes its third quarter figures next month.$

Thousands of pensioners are set to lose hundreds of pounds in benefits when changes are introduced in October.

Shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, America's biggest mortgage groups, slumped to their lowest levels for two decades as traders speculated that Washington will be forced to bail out both of them.

Germany has moved to protect its industrial assets from the financial power of sovereign wealth funds with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approving a bill that would enable the government to bar non-EU investments greater than 25 per cent in German companies.