International

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:14 UTC

  Right wing British National Party wins several county council seats

  

  Right wing British National Party has won its first county council seats in Lancashire and Leicestershire as Labour was humiliated in local elections across England. Elsewhere, Peter Davies of the English Democrats celebrated victory in Doncaster's mayoral election and Labour lost its four remaining county councils to the Tories.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:07 UTC

  Chinalco “disappointed” with Rio Tinto’s decision to scrap deal

  

  Aluminium Corp. of China, or Chinalco, confirmed Friday that Australian mining firm Rio Tinto has scrapped the proposed 19.5 billion US dollars of investment by Chinalco, and Rio Tinto would pay a break fee of 195 million U.S. dollars to the Chinese aluminium maker.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:01 UTC

  Rio Tinto decision was not “political” Australia assures Beijing

  

  The Australian government reassured China on Saturday that miner Rio Tinto's decision to walk away from a 19.5 billion US dollars by investment by Beijing was not a political move.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 13:52 UTC

  PM Brown and reshuffled cabinet cling on

  

  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled Friday a reshuffled cabinet and vowed to “fight on” with his “resilient” team to rescue the economy and clean up politics. He admitted Labour had suffered “a painful defeat” in Thursday's polls but added: “I will not waver. I will not walk away. I will get on with the job.” And he unveiled Glenys Kinnock as Europe minister in a surprise move.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:35 UTC

  Air France crash mystery deepens

  

  The mystery surrounding the crash of an Air France plane off the coast of Brazil deepened after Brazilian officials said items they had pulled from the sea were not in fact debris from the downed Airbus.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:13 UTC

  ECB anticipates steep GDP fall and “stabilization phase” in 2010

  

  In a move which was widely expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) elected to keep interest rates for the euro zone on hold at 1% and announced that the planned purchase of 60 billion Euros in company bonds will commence in July.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:11 UTC

  Bank of England keep rates and quantitative easing unchanged

  

  The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee voted Thursday to maintain the official rate unchanged at 0.5% for the third month in a row, but no fresh measures to stimulate the economy were announced.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 08:21 UTC

  The noose tightens: another ministerial shove for PM Brown to step down

  

  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been put under further pressure to step down as Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell dramatically announced he was quitting the Cabinet as polls closed in crunch elections.

• Thursday, June 4th 2009 - 16:46 UTC

  Air France crash: Brazil navy arrives in ocean zone

  

  Search crews flying over the Atlantic have found debris from the crashed Air France jet spread over more than 90km of ocean. Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim said the existence of large fuel stains in the water could rule out an explosion.

• Thursday, June 4th 2009 - 16:07 UTC

  Calls for a “Global Jobs Pact” to combat employment recovery lag

  

  Warning of a possible six to eight year employment and social protection crisis due to the economic downturn, International Labour Organization (ILO) Director- General Juan Somavia called Wednesday on delegates to the 98th International Labour Conference to adopt a “Global Jobs Pact.”