Oil producers rounded on UK PM Gordon Brown on Friday for complaining about prices while raking in huge fuel taxes. A senior OPEC figure branded the Prime Minister confused for demanding the cartel maintained output levels to control prices rather than reducing domestic duty.
The global economy likely will contract next year for the first time in decades as the credit crunch bites, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), a Washington-based association representing more than 375 of the world's major banks and financial institutions.

U.S. crude hovered near $40 a barrel on Thursday, around its lowest price since July 2004, amid doubts in OPEC's ability to curb output quickly after the group announced record production cuts.
The Royal Navy's first-of-class of the new Type 45 Destroyers HMS Daring has now completed a range of stringent trials and tests and is due to sail to her home port of Portsmouth in January 2009. The 7,500-ton ship is scheduled to undertake several months more of exhaustive trials and training before she is declared ready for operational service.

European Union fisheries ministers have begun an annual round of talks to decide the quantities of fish which can be caught from Europe's seas in 2009. The ministers, under pressure from environmentalists, are considering changes that could limit discards - the practice of throwing fish overboard.

The United Kingdom Government's chief adviser on the human form of mad cow disease has warned of a possible new wave of the illness that could kill as many as 350 people in the UK.

British car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover is in discussions with the government over a state bail out, Peter Mandelson has announced.
Gibraltar Government hailed on Thursday the comprehensive victory in the European Union tax case as huge for Gibraltar, economically, socially, politically and constitutionally.

Thousands of Iraqis have demanded the release of a local TV reporter who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference. Crowds gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City district, calling for hero Muntadar al-Zaidi to be freed from custody.

Governments around the globe need to take widespread interventionist action to stimulate stock markets and prevent further economic declines, the International Monetary Fund has said.