Headlines

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.

Oilsands Quest Inc. filed for protection from creditors under Canadian law after an unidentified buyer backed out of an agreement to acquire some of its assets, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The court granted protection under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act until Dec. 21 to allow the company to reorganize its financial affairs while continuing operations, Calgary-based Oilsands Quest said in a statement.

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.

Vitro SAB, the Mexican glassmaker that defaulted on $1.5 billion of bonds, probably won’t conclude its debt restructuring by year-end as the company anticipates, the court-appointed arbitrator in the proceedings said, Bloomberg reported. External creditors, who oppose Vitro’s restructuring proposal, will raise more legal challenges with the judge in the case, arbitrator Javier Navarro-Velasco said by telephone from Monterrey, Mexico. He will present the proposal to the judge by Dec.

Italian directory firm Seat Pagine Gialle will not pay a 52 million euro coupon on its 1.3 billion euro subordinated Lighthouse bond on Wednesday, it said late on Tuesday, Reuters reported on an International Financing Review story. The company's board is now asking Lighthouse bondholders to agree to postpone the coupon until mid December, after discussions between stakeholders failed to result in a consensual restructuring, Seat PG said in a statement.

ANZ National Bank, the country's biggest lender, is seeking to recover $25.2 million from the sale of bankrupt Wellington property developer Terry Serepisos' former headquarters, The New Zealand Herald reported. Receivers for Century City Investments, Barry Jordan and David Vance, who were appointed by the bank on Sept. 30, have put ASB Bank Tower up for sale in a public tender being jointly managed by Colliers International and CBRE.

Euro-zone leaders are negotiating a potentially groundbreaking fiscal pact aimed at preventing the currency bloc from fracturing by tethering its members even closer together, The Wall Street Journal reported. The proposal, which hasn't yet been agreed to, would make budget discipline legally binding and enforceable by European authorities. Officials regard the moves as a first step toward closer fiscal and economic coordination within the currency area. That would mark a seminal shift in the governance of the 17-nation euro zone.

A consortium of 26 lenders to Air India Ltd. has broadly approved a plan to restructure 180 billion rupees ($3.45 billion) debt for the loss-making carrier, an aviation ministry official said Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The turnaround plan includes converting some loans into equity, restructuring some at lower interest rates and elongating the repayment tenure for the rest. It was prepared by the state-run carrier in consultation with the government and its consultant SBI Capital Markets Ltd. and recently got approval from the country's central bank.