The primary care trusts (PCTs) in Kent are reassuring parents and teenage girls about the safety of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, and urging them to participate in the cervical cancer vaccination programme.

The reassurance comes after the tragic death of a 14-year-old Coventry schoolgirl, Natalie Morton, died shortly after being administered a Cervarix jab at her school on Monday.

However, Natalie's inquest revealed that the actual cause of her sudden death was a pre-existing tumour, which was, in no way, related to the vaccination.

The European Commission said Friday that it had some antitrust objections to the proposed co-operation among the American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia on transatlantic routes as it could cut competition.

The European Union's antitrust watchdog informed that it had sent a statement of objections the concerned three airlines.

German carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG said it will buy the remaining 20 per cent stake in British Midland from the Scandinavian SAS group.

Lufthansa will pay SAS a total sum of 38 million pounds for the remaining 20 per cent BMI shares.

The German carrier will make an additional payment to SAS if it sells a portion or all of BMI within the next two years.

The deal would provide the German airline access to take-off and landing slots at the Heathrow Airport in London.

Freeview has apologized to its customers who lost some channels when they tried to retune their set-top boxes.

Freeview's PR manager, Sara Jones, said that most of the Freeview viewers have retuned their set-top boxes without any major problem and claimed that less than 1 per cent set-top boxes have experienced problem.

Speaking on the issue of complaints about the retuning, Sara Jones said, "These are mostly homes with early manufactured equipment and we apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused."

BAE Systems, Europe's largest defence company, has been pushing the Serious Fraud Office to re-open settlement talks over corruption charges.

Shares in BAE Systems have plunged due to the defamed bribery case, which alleged that the arms manufacturer greased the palms of countries such as South Africa, Tanzania and Romania in order to get defence contracts.

People familiar with the issue said that BAE Systems still hoped for a settlement deal, though it had been repeatedly saying that it had not done anything wrong.

Alistair Darling, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, has said that proposals from the side of IMF for a tax on lenders to offer insurance against any financial slump in future would be considered.

But, Alistair Darling also warned that the proposed tax could be discarded in case it was not in UK’s advantage.

Alistair Darling prefers to target the lenders via higher capital requirements rather than introducing new taxes. 

Leading telecom operator O2 is set to start trials of Long Term Evolution technology (LTE) in Britain from early summer of 2010, in a bid to find the feasibility of technology in the country. LTE delivers a high speed, up to 340mbps, broadband internet connectivity that is capable of revolutionizing the mobile broadband technology.

O2 plans to test the high speed technology in the countries such as Czech Republic, Brazil, Spain, Germany and Argentina besides UK. However, no particular date has been assigned to begin test trails for the LTE technology in these countries.

Royal Bank of Scotland has introduced two non-executives in its board and has completed the boardroom overhaul of the bank. The outgoing finance director at insurer Aviva, Philip Scott, and former Coca-Cola executive, Mr. Penny Hughes, are the new faces introduced in the board to raise its strength from 10 to 12.

Mr. Scott will retire from Aviva at the end of the year and will later assume the charge of RBS's new board-level risk committee. Meanwhile, Mr. Hughes will assume his responsibilities in the remuneration committee.

A major Shanwick air traffic control failure caused unwarranted delays for several passengers, besides affecting all transatlantic flights between Britain and North America.

Aviation engineers are called to fix the problem, and all flights departing to the United States, Canada and the Caribbean are delayed till the successful resumption of air control.

The spokeswoman said, "NATS has reverted to manual systems which mean reduced capacity leading to some delay. There is no safety implication."

UK witnessed a rise of 0.9 per cent in house prices in September to an average of £162,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis.

It was the fifth consecutive rise in house prices, pushing the average price to the same level they were last year.

During the third quarter, house prices soared 3.8 per cent as compared with the previous quarter.

The Halifax index depicted an increase of 1.7 per cent in the quarter ended August, while the FT house price index showed an increase of 0.6 per cent for the same period.

The FTSE 100 Index slipped beneath the 5000 mark, signifying lack of confidence in the recovery of economy.

The Blue-chip shares dropped about 59 points to 4988.7 after stocks were rocked by worse-than-expected US unemployment claims. Rate of unemployment in US has soared to 9.8 per cent, highest in the last 26 years.

Rising rate of unemployment also dragged the US dollar down against major currencies.

In the early trading, crude for November delivery fell $1.14 per barrel at $69.68 in New York.

EDF, Europe's leading power generator, has announced that it had put on sale its electricity distribution network in the UK in order to lift €4 billion to reduce its debts.

At the end of June, EDF was burdened with a heavy debt of €36.8 billion.

EDF, which provides power to about 7.9 million homes in the UK, said a number of parties including Abu Dhabi investment fund had showed their interest in buying the network.

The London Evening Standard, which is owned by the Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev, has announced that it would become a free newspaper from October 12.

The London Evening Standard, which is presently sold for 50p, is 75.1 per cent owned by Mr. Lebedev and 24.9 per cent by Associated Newspapers.

The London Evening Standard, whose circulation will be increased from 250,000 to 600,000 copies per day, is one of the first big newspapers to drop cover price and rely on advertisements. 

Tesco has showed its resentment against the competition watchdog’s recommendation of a test that would make it harder for dominant supermarket chains to open new stores in particular areas shutting out rivals by building more stores to existing outlets.

Under the ‘competition test’, UK planning authorities will be advised by the Office of Fair Trading on the potential impact of any new development.

The investment management group Brewin Dolphin has admitted that it had inflated its financial figures overstating its profit for the financial year 2008 by £4.2 million to £36.2 million against its actual profit of £32 million. In the meantime, the broker has decided to change its accounting policy, and the subsequent financial statements would be announced in accordance with new policies.