The United Kingdom economy ground to a standstill in the second quarter of 2008 with GDP registering no growth at all according to official figures released on Friday.
The United Nations health agency is launching a new information campaign to highlight the impact of the hepatitis B virus, which is currently found in about 2 billion people worldwide despite being largely preventable by vaccine for more than 25 years.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised to deliver a package of economic measures for struggling Britons in September as he brushed off talk of challenges to his leadership and his party.
Bank of England policymakers were split three ways for the second meeting in a row at their interest rate-setting meeting earlier this month. Minutes of the meeting showed seven members of the Bank's nine-strong rate- setting body voted to hold rates at 5%.
South Korea for the third time in less than a month temporarily suspended all imports of Chilean pork following the discovery of excessive dioxin levels in a shipment of eleven tons, reported the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
The German government has approved legislation that would enable it to prevent foreign buyers from taking big stakes in key domestic companies.
A Spanair MD-82 jetliner broke up and caught fire after skidding off the runway at Madrid's Barajas International airport, killing 153 people in Spain's worst aviation accident in 25 years.
China is considering a stimulus package spending anywhere between the equivalent of 29 and 58 billion US dollars to stimulate the economy and may ease monetary policy towards the end of the year, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Russia's fifth richest man has denied reports originally from the French press that he has bought the world's most expensive home. (Nickel King) Mikhail Prokhorov worth about 22 billion US dollars said he was not the mystery buyer of the southern France property.
The Villa Leopolda in Villefranche-sur-Mer, on the CÃ'te d'Azur, sold for 496m euros ($730m; £392m).
BHP Billiton Ltd. which is the world's largest mining company has reported a record annual net profit for the year ended June 30 of 15.39 billion US dollars, up 14.7% from the 13.42 billion of the previous year.