Guardian News

Developers would share their planning gains with local people under Policy Exchange proposals for building more houses Britain needs a massive house-building programme to stabilise property prices – which could be promoted by allowing villages to share in developers’ profits if they approve plans and by ending the right to a council house on the [...]

The not-for-profit trust behind the world’s biggest on-line encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is none too thrilled at a constant assumption that it has something to do with the controversial whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Just for the record, it does not. Sue Gardner, a former journalist for Canada’s CBC broadcasting network, is executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation which [...]

• Countries fear US heading for a double-dip recession • Poor US employment figures expected on Friday Financial markets around the globe fell today as investors faced a crucial week of data on the US economy. The prospect of poor employment figures on Friday and a snapshot of the state of manufacturing on Wednesday has [...]

More than 20,000 American mortgagees to hit Palm Beach as Naca’s five-day mortgage modification marathon gets under way In the pre-dawn darkness of a steamy night of sub-tropical rain, a queue of anxious, soggy people snakes around the palm trees outside a cavernous Florida convention centre. Some have erected camp beds or makeshift tents. All [...]

US biotechnology specialist derides ‘opportunistic’ bid from world’s fourth largest pharmaceutical company The US biotechnology company Genzyme, which specialises in ultra-expensive treatments for unusual diseases, firmly rebuffed an $18.5bn (£12bn) takeover approach from France’s Sanofi-Aventis today, paving the way for a potentially contentious transatlantic bid battle. Genzyme, which has a promising treatment for multiple sclerosis, [...]

Legal dispute intensifies as Robert Tchenguiz files counter-claim against Vivian Imerman over disputed £555,980 rental charge Vivian Imerman, the businessman whose divorce from Lisa Tchenguiz has escalated into a bitter legal row with her financier brothers Robert and Vincent, is battling Robert in a separate case in the commercial courts. Court documents show Robert Tchenguiz [...]

33 men entombed in collapsed San Jose mine are given just 30 seconds each to speak to their wives, children and parents The 33 Chilean miners trapped deep underground have spoken for the first time to family members waiting for them on the surface. The brief phone conversations late yesterday brought a measure of reassurance [...]

Only 7% of air passengers are funding green energy projects and offsetting the carbon emissions of their flights, a Civil Aviation Authority survey at Stansted airport has found Only 7% of flyers are funding green energy projects to offset the carbon emitted on their flights, according to a survey. A study of passengers at Stansted [...]

Services are not less technologically progressive or less vital Economists long ago put to rest the error that Adam Smith made when he argued that manufacturing should be given primacy in a country’s economy. In the second volume of The Wealth of Nations, Smith condemned as unproductive the labours of “churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of [...]

• BCC revises 2010 forecast from 1.3% growth to 1.7%• Threat of double-dip recession remains as cuts bite, says BCC The UK economy will grow faster than first thought this year, the British Chambers of Commerce predicts today, but the threat of double-dip recession remains as government cuts bite and unemployment rises. Following news last [...]