Spanish borrowing costs on 12-month and 18-month bonds jump to 5.1% at its first debt auction since securing a 100bn euro bank bailout.

The leader of the biggest public sector union will warn on Tuesday of possible strike action to end the pay freeze.

Westlife singer Shane Filan is declared bankrupt in the UK after his Irish property development company got into difficulties.

A review of childcare is launched as an independent review calls for the nursery workforce to be strengthened.

The president of AIJ Investment Advisors and three others are arrested on fraud charges relating to $1.4bn of missing pension funds.

Signs of a two-speed UK housing market were revealed in official statistics on property prices which showed London homes rising fastest in value.

The state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut 618 jobs in response to new banking rules coming into force at the end of 2012.

Imagination Technologies, the British company behind the graphics for the iPad and iPhone, posts a 53% rise in full-year pre-tax profits.