14 June 2011 last updated at 22:50 ET Share this page Qantas said it was trying to contact all passengers affected by ash cloud cancellations Qantas airlines has cut its forecast for domestic growth as it faces various problems including the continuing disruption due to volcanic ash. Australia's national carrier said it expected domestic capacity to grow by just 5.5% this year compared with the previous estimate of 8% growth. Qantas cancelled all flights in [...]

14 June 2011 Last updated at 19:00 ET Share this page By Hugh Pym Chief economics correspondent, BBC News, Tredegar, south Wales Clinton Dix was out of work for a year but is now on a training course run by British Gas The labour market is hard to read. Employment is rising but unemployment remains high. And in some pockets of the country job creation remains elusive. All that is visible in the south Wales [...]

14 June 2011 last updated at 05:45 ET Share this page mr Graber was himself apparently taken in by the hoax "Amina" blogger One of the owners of a lesbian website who posted comments from a hoax blogger pretending to be a gay woman in Syria has himself been outed as a straight man from the US. Bill Graber, 58, a US Air Force veteran, admitted he was one of the editors of the LezGetReal [...]

13 June 2011 last updated at 04:12 ET Share this page By Saroj Pathirana BBC Sinhala Service Lack of sponsorship has forced the Sri Lanka female cricket team to join the military The majority of the Sri Lanka women's cricket squad have signed up for jobs in the armed services. The move comes after attempts by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to find a sponsor for the women's team have failed so far to create much [...]

13 June 2011 Last updated at 18:43 ET Share this page Unions have called a general strike for Wednesday Standard & Poor's has cut Greece's credit rating, making it its least credit-worthy country. The ratings agency cut Greece three notches from B to CCC and said the country was likely to default on its debts at least once by 2013. The Greek government said the downgrade ignored its efforts to secure funding. It has been [...]

14 June 2011 Last updated at 05:01 ET Share this page Venezuela is dependent on hydro-electricity for much of its power Big electricity users in Venezuela have been told to cut consumption or face increased charges. Consumers who save energy will be in line for discounts, officials said. The move comes after a series of recent power failures, the most recent last Friday and Saturday when outages affected parts of western Venezuela. Last year, Venezuela [...]

14 June 2011 last updated at 06:10 ET Share this page The market is set to remain subdued, lenders warn House prices and sales are still under pressure, surveys have suggested. The government's own house price survey says UK prices fell by 1.1% in April to leave them 0.3% down on a year ago. A survey of chartered surveyors said that potential buyers were still being put off by economic worries and continued mortgage rationing. [...]

After the bailouts, the bonuses and the multi-million pound fines for mis-selling products, Britain banks say they have cleaned house and are working hard to rebuild reputations and regain customers’ trust. As Panorama’s Penny Haslam reports, it is an uphill battle. We are used to hearing about borrowers paying high interest rates, or businesses struggling to get access to credit or overdrawn current account customers facing high fees and charges. There are around 35 million [...]

14 June 2011 Last updated at 07:26 ET Share this page Manufacturing prices have driven up inflation in India Indian inflation rose faster than expected in may, raising expectations of a further interest rate rise. The wholesale price index rose by an annual rate of 9.06%, up from the April figure of 8.66%. The rise was driven partly by an increase in the price of manufactured goods, with the rate of food and fuel inflation [...]

13 June 2011 last updated at 14:52 ET Share this page Robert Peston interviews the deputy governor of the Bank of England, Paul Tucker The Bank of England "can do a lot better job" of regulating the financial system, its deputy governor Paul Tucker has told the BBC. The Bank's new Financial Policy Committee will meet for the first time on Thursday. Its job is to take action if it decides that banks and other [...]