Headlines

Ireland’s Prime Minister Brian Cowen on Tuesday signalled that cuts in public pay and pensions are being considered in the preparation of Budget 2010, which will be presented in December, Finfacts reported. Also on Tuesday, IBEC, the business group, said that while immediate and major cuts in public expenditure were necessary, the Government must also take decisive action to support employment and get the economy going. IBEC said that the absence of such a move would prolong the crisis and add to long-term unemployment. It called for a substantive Irish jobs stimulus package.

General Motors Co. Tuesday appeared close to finalizing the sale of its European operations to Magna International Inc. after the European Commission said it doesn't want to block the deal, but the plan hit another bump when Spanish labor unions turned down Magna's offer and scheduled a four-day strike, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spanish union official Ana Sanchez said that unions are calling strikes for Oct. 28 and 30 and Nov. 3 and 5, at the GM plant in Spain, after failing to reach an agreement with Magna on job cuts.

Russia's AvtoVAZ could face bankruptcy if it is unable to reach a debt restructuring deal with its banks, despite support from its 25 percent stakeholder Renault, Reuters reported. Speaking during a presentation at AvtoVAZ headquarters in Togliatti, a company official said the future of the Lada-maker remained on the line and said the company has 22,000 extra staff on its payroll that are not anticipated to have any work before 2012.

A whistleblower who warned of bankruptcy and blackouts at Manitoba Hydro says she was fired less than 24 hours after alerting Hydro CEO Bob Brennan to mismanagement she says cost the power company $1-billion, the Financial Post reported. "It's just the nature of risk-management work that you are sometimes at odds or loggerheads with the business findings of the front office," she said. "Instead of communicating, we're having our risk discussions in the local newspaper.

France is considering levying a new charge on its banks, in the latest effort by a government to recoup money spent over the past year to bail out the financial sector, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to the Finance Ministry, the government plans to introduce a fee on banks and insurers registered in France to help pay for the cost of financial supervision. A Finance Ministry spokesman said the amount and form of the new fee hadn't been set.

The Kenya Planters Co-operative Union has been placed under receivership over a Sh700 million debt and its operations taken over by Consultancy firm, Deloitte on behalf of the debenture holder, the Kenya Commercial Bank, Business Daily reported. KPCU managing director Gerald Masila termed the action un-procedural, adding: “We were not informed about the move but we will be responding through the legal channels.

Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz, battered by higher gas import prices and the country's deep recession, said on Monday investors in its $500 million Eurobond had agreed to its restructuring terms, Reuters reported. The company, often at the centre of energy rows with Russia that have previously led to supply cuts to Europe, wants to swap its entire foreign debt -- including the Eurobond -- for a new 5-year issue worth $1.65 billion. Bondholders gathered in London in Monday after weeks of consideration and overwhelmingly approved the new terms.

Canadian provinces, seeking more than C$80 billion ($76 billion) from tobacco companies for treatment of smoking-related illnesses, are attempting to improperly use the bankruptcy process to force Japan Tobacco Inc.’s JTI-MacDonald unit to settle, a company lawyer said. JTI-MacDonald, the maker of Export A cigarettes in Canada, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004, after a Quebec judge ordered the company to pay C$1.4 billion that the province claims it lost in taxes when tobacco companies exported cigarettes to the U.S.

Attempts to rescue Quelle, the German mail order company founded in 1927, have failed and it now looks set to be liquidated, causing the loss of thousands of jobs, Spiegel Online reported. No investor could be found after parent company Arcandor filed for insolvency in June. The news has shocked the retailer's workforce. Quelle's parent company, Arcandor, filed for insolvency in June after its request for state aid was rejected.

Shares in Japan Airlines rallied sharply on Monday after it emerged that the government would push for quick adoption of a recovery plan for the ailing carrier, the Financial Times reported. JAL’s shares jumped 12 per cent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to close at Y113. That was still less than half the price they fetched a year ago, however, and significantly below their value at the start of last week, before a flurry of selling drove them to historic lows.