The British government will step in to bail out a 335 million pound new hospital in the city of Liverpool, after the collapse of Carillion, which was overseeing the deal, Sky News reported on Monday. An announcement by ministers on the termination of the Royal Liverpool Hospital private finance initiative deal and taking it into full public ownership is expected to be made within days, Sky said.

Debenhams Plc is known for being constantly on sale. But if its fortunes don’t improve in the next few months, it may well have to attempt a controversial property restructuring, a Bloomberg View reported. This might set billionaire shareholder Mike Ashley up for another high street bargain. The Sunday Telegraph reported Sept. 8 that Debenhams, which warned on profit three times this year, was considering a CVA, a mechanism retailers have been using lately to obtain creditor agreement to close some stores and cut rent on others.

Streets littered with potholes and garbage. Alcohol and drug treatment centers shut down. Vulnerable adults and children left without care. That is the grim picture of Britain’s future painted by the County Councils Network, which warned on Thursday that local councils will be forced to slash more than $1 billion from their budgets next year in cuts that will very likely result in services being whittled to the bone.

Geopolitical tensions will take centre stage in London’s law courts after a legal ruling opened the door to a case that could have major implications for the sovereign debt markets, the Financial Times reported. The English Court of Appeal last week ruled that a $3bn dispute between Ukraine and Russia over the non-payment of bonds should go to a full trial.

The UK Pension Regulator is facing criticism over a 2013 deal that allowed Kodak UK to jettison it pension liabilities but now looks set to create a £600m hit to the country’s pensions bailout fund, the Financial Times reported. Kodak had sought approval from the regulator to be released from its duty to support its 15,000 member retirement plan, following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Eastman Kodak, its US parent company, in 2012.

Unemployment in the UK now stands at its lowest level in four decades. Gross domestic product growth at the start of the third quarter of 2018 also shows an economy in decent shape, having grown faster than in the prior two quarters. But we should not be complacent about those numbers. The UK faces the highest risk of recession of any of the 13 economies for which The Conference Board tracks business cycles and our leading economic index suggests the British economy may start shrinking over the course of the next year, the Financial Times reported in a commentary.

Britain will support Zimbabwe to get on to an interim IMF staff program to help the country quickly clear its foreign arrears, Britain's ambassador in Harare said on Tuesday. Clearing the $1.8 billion in arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank is seen as a major step for Zimbabwe to start accessing foreign credit, especially for the private sector as well as foreign direct investment, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

London-based emerging market fund Gemcorp Group said on Monday it had extended a $250 million loan to Zimbabwe to help the country import essential goods like electricity, fuel and medicine, the company's CEO said. The southern African nation is facing its worst shortages of cash dollars since it dumped its own currency in 2009 in favour of the U.S. currency. This has made it difficult for companies, including mines, to pay for imports, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Brazil’s Natura Cosmeticos SA recently approached Avon Products Inc. about a takeover, according to people familiar with the matter. The companies aren’t in serious talks and Avon, which has received other expressions of interest, is focused on turning itself around and reviving its shares, one of the people said. Following years of decline in its once-formidable direct-sales business, Avon had a market value as of Monday’s close of just $900 million, The Wall Street Journal reported.

With food prices rising, wages struggling to keep up and the Bank of England again raising interest rates, the number of people seeking help to manage their debt is surging—with alarming echoes of the past, Bloomberg News reported. “A large number of people are living right at the edge,” said Mark Almond, director of the Citizens Advice Bureau for the area of North Tyneside. It’s part of a network of charities with advisers across the country.