Headlines

National Insurance will go up by a further 0.5p from 2011, Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced, the BBC reported. In his final pre-Budget report before a general election, Mr Darling announced a public sector pay freeze, bank bonus tax and a home boiler srappage scheme. He also announced an increase in the state pension and a package of measures to help the unemployed. He said the choice facing the country was "between securing the recovery or wrecking it". Read more.

The biggest risk to global economic recovery is the likely prospect that interest rates will have to rise before banks' balance sheets have been repaired, Mario Draghi, chairman of the Financial Stability Board, warned Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Several leading central banks have begun to withdraw some of the programs that were put in place to counter the most severe downturn since World War II. While officials are expected to be cautious in raising rates, the International Monetary Fund estimates that close to half of global bank losses have yet to be disclosed. Mr.

BTA, Kazakhstan's biggest bank, has agreed a deal with creditors who will write off $7.7 billion in debt and interest owed as part of a wave of restructuring in the country's banking system, the Financial Times reported. BTA and a committee of international creditors signed a term sheet on Monday setting out the principle commercial terms of its proposed financial restructuring. The creditors' committee includes A BILLION Amro, -Commerzbank, Standard Chartered, ING, KfW, and funds DE Shaw, and Fortis Investment Management.

The Rudd government will provide $15 million in taxpayer funds for a loan to help fund a charitable takeover of the nation's biggest childcare chain, the collapsed ABC Learning group, The Australian reported. A dozen philanthropists -- including Robin Crawford, a founding director of Macquarie Bank, Seek founder and BRW Young Rich-lister Matthew Rockman, and former Microsoft boss Daniel Petre -- also lent cash to the GoodStart consortium.

Dubai stocks plunged Tuesday, wiping out gains for the year on the city-state's main index, as continued uncertainty about Dubai World's repayment plans for borrowing weighed on shares. The Dubai Financial Market's benchmark index shed 6.1% Tuesday to close at 1638.05. It has lost 22% since Nov. 30, or $8.4 billion in market value. Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded the creditworthiness of a raft of Dubai government-controlled companies, citing a lack of government support over the emirate's debt obligations.

Germany's biggest aluminium smelter plant, owned by Norway's Norsk Hydro, is facing immediate shutdown due to high environmental costs, a German daily said on Tuesday. The Rheinwerk plant in Neuss will have to close down immediately if the metal industries do not receive aid in the coming days, Die Welt newspaper cited Martin Kneer, managing director of the German Metal Federation WVM, as saying in an e-mail to the German Chancellor's Office. A spokesman for WVM told the newspaper other aluminium and zinc smelter plants are facing the same risk of being shut down.

A public examination into the collapse of ABC Learning has heard the child care provider last year owed millions of dollars to the Australian Taxation Office, ABC News reported. The company collapsed more than 12 months ago with more than a billion dollars of debt. Two former employees today told the Federal Court in Brisbane that ABC Learning was being chased by the ATO in the months leading up to its voluntary administration.

A group of international and regional banks met Dubai’s struggling conglomerate, Dubai World, for the first time on Monday as talks began on the company’s request to restructure debts of $26 billion, the Financial Times reported. People familiar with the process said it was a “kick off” meeting for what is expected to be a long and drawn-out process and it included key creditors expected to form a steering committee.

Dubai’s state companies may restructure as much as $46.7 billion of obligations, Morgan Stanley said, ArabianBusiness.com reported on a Bloomberg story. Dubai Holding LLC, Dubai Holding Commercial Operations Group LLC, Borse Dubai Ltd. and Dubai Sukuk Center Ltd. may join Dubai World in restructuring debt, Morgan Stanley analysts Mohamed W. Jaber and Paolo Batori wrote in a report. Dubai needs to reach an agreement with creditors that requires a “haircut” of as much as 50 percent to improve its long-term debt outlook, the analysts said.

Nakheel PJSC creditors may win the right to seize a strip of barren waterfront land the size of Manhattan if the company defaults on the $3.5 billion bond backing the development, Bloomberg reported. Investors will be able to seek foreclosure on the property’s mortgages should the Dubai World unit fail to repay the loan, according to the bond’s prospectus. The debt is due on Dec. 14, after which Nakheel has two weeks to remedy a default. The property forms part of the Dubai Waterfront project, where Nakheel plans to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong Island.