Government officials are working on a proposed bankruptcy law designed to lower costs for businesses seeking to raise capital for start-ups or for expanding in the UAE, legal experts say, The National reported. Observers following developments generally agree the country's economy would benefit from more entrepreneurial risk-taking and a boost to the number of new businesses. But some also say it would help to lower the cost of funds needed to launch or grow a company.

The collapse of the latest in a string of failed redevelopment plans for London's Battersea Power Station could delay the creation of an estimated 25,000 jobs against a worsening British economic backdrop, Reuters reported. Lloyds Banking Group and Ireland's National Asset Management Agency are seeking to have the site's owner, a vehicle controlled by AIM-listed Real Estate Opportunities , placed into administration after it was unable to meet repayments on 325 million pounds of debt against the famous London landmark.

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, laid the groundwork Thursday for a more aggressive response to the euro zone debt crisis, suggesting that the bank could increase its support for the European economy if political leaders took more radical steps to enforce spending discipline among members, the International Herald Tribune reported. Mr. Draghi stopped well short of offering a European version of the huge securities purchases that the Federal Reserve has used to try to stimulate the U.S. economy. But he seemed to be saying that the E.C.B.

The world's major central banks acted jointly on Wednesday to provide cheaper dollar funding to European banks facing a credit crunch as the euro zone's debt crisis drove EU ministers to urge more IMF help to avert financial disaster, Reuters reported. The emergency move by the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the central banks of Japan, Britain, Canada and Switzerland recalled coordinated action to stabilise global markets in the 2008 financial crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Seat Pagine Gialle, the indebted Italian directories group that publishes the country’s Yellow Pages, saw its shares fall by more than 16 per cent after it secured a further 14 day extension to agree the terms of its financial restructuring with its debt and equity holders to avoid administration, the Financial Times reported. The publisher’s bondholders and shareholders last month agreed to convert €1.2bn ($1.6bn) of the company’s debt into equity but talks have stumbled over the conversion price.

Battersea Power Station is going into receivership, with its £5.5bn development scheme in tatters, two days after George Osborne and Boris Johnson posed in hardhats to announce an enterprise zone and tube extension to the listed building, The Guardian reported. In one of the highest-profile property collapses since the credit crunch, Battersea's creditors have secured a high court hearing on 12 December to confirm Ernst & Young as administrators.

Teachers, doctors, court reporters, border-control agents, ambulance drivers and other public-sector workers walked off the job across Britain on Wednesday in a massive protest against the government's plans to overhaul their pensions, the Los Angeles Times reported. Unions estimated that as many as 2 million state employees went on strike, which would make it the biggest mass industrial action this nation has seen in at least a generation.

George Osborne on Tuesday steered Britain towards another five years of austerity as he mapped out a bleak course of stalling growth, public sector pay restraint, painful cuts and rising borrowing stretching into the next parliament, the Financial Times reported. Admitting that even this dark outlook could turn out to be optimistic if the eurozone crisis worsened, the chancellor warned that political failure in Europe could result in “a much worse outcome” for Britain.

The euro zone is discussing the option of financing emergency help for Italy or Spain by using money from national central banks to boost International Monetary Fund resources - but only as a last resort, euro zone officials said, Reuters reported. Italy battled to raise funds by selling 3-year bonds on Tuesday, having to offer a euro life-time high interest rate of nearly 7.89 percent to sell the 7.5 billion euros ($10 billion) on offer.

China is more interested in investing directly in Europe than buying European Union debt with its colossal foreign currency reserves, a senior civil servant said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal Real Time Brussels blog reported. Wang Yiming, a vice director at the National Development and Reform Commission’s macroeconomic research institute, said at the EU-China forum in Brussels that internal discussions about how to invest the country’s $3.2 trillion of reserves are leaning in this direction.