BT customers can sign up in time for the start of the Premier League season
BT and Sky have signed a deal that will allow BT Vision customers to watch Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2.
Customers will be able to view the channels from 1 August, in time for the start of the domestic football season.
In March, Ofcom ruled that Sky would have to cut the price it charged rivals to show its premium sports channels.
BT is yet to reveal its pricing. In the past it said it would charge about £15 a month for Sky Sports 1, but Ofcom's charges were higher than it expected.
The regulator said that Sky would have to sell Sky Sports 1 and 2 for £10.63 a month each to rival broadcasters - 23.4% less than previously.
If the two channels were sold together, Ofcom set a price of £17.14 - a discount of 10.5% on previous wholesale charges.
But Sky appealed against the ruling and the difference between its original wholesale prices and the new prices is currently being held in an escrow account, to be released to either Sky or its rivals once the appeal is decided.
Ofcom's ruling followed a three-year inquiry after BT, Virgin, Top Up TV and the now defunct Setanta expressed concerns about Sky's dominance of the pay-TV industry. Sky has an estimated 85% of the market.
Michael Phillips of Digitalchoices.co.uk said: "This is another exciting development for football fans which has also recently seen Virgin Media lower the pricing of its Sky Sports packages ahead of the new season.
"Once BT's pricing is announced we would urge football fans to compare the Sky Sports options available in their area, ahead of the new season."
More companies could go bust if they fail to plug the gap in their pension funds.
That is the warning from a firm of leading pensions experts, which comes just over a week after the UK arm of magazine Reader's Digest went into administration under a large pension burden.
Readers Digest UK, which was founded in 1938, was for decades a successful magazine with readers all over the world.
But the group's pension deficit hit £125m and a deal could not be reached to pay it off.
Around 1,000 members on the firm's pension plan are still waiting to hear how they will fund their retirement.
Not alone
The Reader's Digest story has reignited fears about the safety of pensions for millions of employees relying on schemes with big deficits.
And pensions consultants Lane, Clarke and Peacock say it is a real possibility that the same thing could happen to other firms.
"They're struggling in the aftermath of the credit crunch and the financial crisis with their ongoing business and at the same time the pension trustees are saying we need more money," warns senior partner Bob Scott.
"This is going to have an impact on company balance sheets, on their profits and their cash flow.
"I'm sure there'll be some companies who as a result will go the same way as Reader's Digest, with members getting lower pensions."
Unclear future
Mark Walsh, from Cardiff, told the BBC about how he lost his job and his pension last year when the company he worked for went bust, which he believes was partly due to its huge pension deficit.
He had been paying into his final salary pension for 15 years but is now unsure about how he'll fund his retirement.
"You plan for your future, you plan for your retirement and luckily I've got a few more years to try and save for that but I'm going to lose a lot of money in the 15 years I paid into it," says Mr Walsh.
"I know the pension we had was a very good pension."
There are a number of big-name firms who have been in the news because their pension fund deficits are too high.
British Airways, Nortel, BT and BAE Systems are all known to have large pension shortfalls and though none of these firms are about to fail, experts believe the coming years will be difficult.
"Companies are having problems with their final salary pension schemes because profits have got squeezed as the economy's turned down and we've moved into recession," says Tom McPhail from Hargreaves Landsdown.
"They're also finding that because of accounting standards, improved life expectancy, falling investment returns, all of these factors have created holes in the pension schemes and these companies don't have the money to fill those holes."
'Once bitten'
Mr Walsh has now found another job but is unsure about investing in a pension again.
"No way am I going to pay into a pension again. I've been bitten once and I wouldn't want that to happen again," he says.
"In these difficult times I'm going to have to look at alternatives for my future.
"I don't know what I'm going to get out of this pension when I retire, I know I'm probably going to have to work longer."
With around 90% of final salary pension schemes now in deficit, the worry is that the era of generous retirement plans for employees is over.
Barclays is to defer paying bonuses earned this year to its directors and senior staff for up to three years.
The BBC understands the payments for last year have not been set, but when they are will be paid out mostly in shares in staggered form up to 2013.
Two days ago President Barack Obama proposed significant curbs on the size and scope of banks operating in the US.
Barclays did not receive any money directly from UK taxpayers during the financial crisis.
However it did sell a notable share of its business to the government of Abu Dhabi.
The bank will tell its 130,000 staff over the next few weeks that while they will be getting a bonus, almost all of it will be deferred over the next three years - and this will be the new ongoing policy.
Barclays will publish exactly what bonuses are to be allocated in March for senior executives.
Deferred bonuses are expected to be ongoing and built into staff pay deals rather than simply a one-off measure.
Public anger
In response to mounting public anger over enormous profits enjoyed barely a year after the near collapse of the entire banking system, Britain's third largest bank is going further than any rules imposed on it by either the UK government or the G20.
This move by Barclays - whilst going further than FSA or G20 rules - may not go far enough to appease those who object to any bonuses being paid to bankers at all.
Eighteen months after being saved by taxpayers, many people find it obscene that banks should be making near record profits and bonus pay-outs - however long they are deferred for.
This pressure by voters will almost certainly mean that radical change to how banks operate is unavoidable - the opening salvo of which came when President Obama said last week that he was "ready for a fight" with banks.
President Obama announced plans to limit the size of banks and impose restrictions on risky trading on Thursday.
His proposals may mean that some of the biggest US banks have to be broken up.
They also include a ban on retail banks using their own money in investments - known as proprietary trading. Instead, banks would be limited to investing their customers' funds.
His plans led to a major sell-off in banking shares on Friday, with Barclays' shares sliding by four per cent.
Britain imposed a one-off super-tax on bankers' bonuses in the pre-Budget report in December 2009 and all UK-based banks will still have to pay the 50% windfall tax.
The tax applies to any individual discretionary bonus paid above £25,000 until April 2010, and was designed to discourage banks from awarding large bonuses.
Treasury officials told the BBC the decision made by Barclays to defer bonuses was "'in line with the commitments that banks [had] already made with regards to remuneration and pay" and "no bank would be around today without taxpayer support".
State-controlled bank RBS has already said none of its board members would receive their entire bonus this year and it too would be paid in staggered form up to 2013.
Asda hopes to add the Netto shops to its small stores portfolio
Supermarket giant Asda has announced plans to buy the UK stores of Danish discount retailer Netto for £778m.
Asda said that, pending approval from the Office of Fair Trading, it hoped to finalise the deal later in the summer.
Netto has 193 stores in the UK which will continue to trade under the Netto name for the time being but will come under the Asda brand by mid-2011.
Asda plans to integrate the stores into its new supermarkets division for shops smaller than 25,000 square feet.
Netto, currently owned by Dansk Supermarked, has operated in the UK since 1990.
"Customers will benefit from low prices on a significantly broader range of quality products, complemented by the wide range of services we offer in all our smaller stores," Asda chief executive Andy Clarke said.
Dansk Supermarked chief executive Erling Jensen said in a statement: "We have substantial opportunities for growth in Scandinavia and Northern Europe and believe that the time has come to focus our efforts on the development of our business in these countries."
House prices are still rising, but at a slower rate
House prices rose again in June but only by 0.1%, according to the Nationwide building society.
The rise follows a 0.5% increase in May, with the average property in the UK now costing more than £170,000.
Prices have risen by 3% since the start of the year, the Nationwide's house price index showed.
However, the rate of annual house price inflation fell again to 8.7%, with prices rising more slowly than they did this time last year.
Commenting on the figures, Nationwide's chief economist Martin Gahbauer said the slowdown may be due to an increase in the number of properties up for sale.
"Recent indicators point to an increase in the supply of property coming to the market for sale, perhaps in response to the abolition of Hips (Home Information Packs) in the opening days of the new coalition government," he said.
"With the level of demand remaining broadly stable, this would in part help to explain the recent slowdown observed in the rate of house price inflation."
The coalition government confirmed that Hips would be abolished following the election in May.
Future prices
Mr Gahbauer added that he expected the annual rate of house price inflation to keep falling over the coming months as a result of the very strong house price increases seen in the summer of 2009.
Various house price surveys have suggested that property values have remained relatively static in 2010. This is the first survey that covers prices in June.
Mr Gahbauer said that the change in the top rate of capital gains tax to 28%, to be paid when people sell, give away or dispose of shares or property, is unlikely to have a major effect on the supply of properties on the market.
David Smith, of property consultants Carter Jonas, said: "Where house prices go from here is difficult to predict because there are so many factors at work at the moment.
"The fallout from the Budget will certainly have a major role to play in the coming months, with uncertainty surrounding impending public sector cuts and higher taxes, and of course we still have the ever-present threat of interest rate rises in the mix.
"Although these figures suggest house prices are starting to flatten out at their current level, the top end of the market is still performing remarkably well, with double-digit price growth since the start of the year, and a stronger than ever demand for properties in desirable locations."
Over the second quarter of the year, the South West of England saw the strongest house price growth with prices rising by 3%, followed by the North West at 2.6% and London at 2.5%, the Nationwide said.
The average cost of a home is continuing to fall in Northern Ireland, with prices dropping by 5.7% during the second quarter, while growth was slowest in the East Midlands at 1.2%.
George Osborne: "Unless we take determined and concerted action, we will find our country on the road to ruin"
Britain is "on the road to ruin" unless action is taken in the Budget on Tuesday to cut the deficit, Chancellor George Osborne has told the BBC.
Mr Osborne said the coalition had inherited "a truly awful financial situation" and he would set out a four-year plan to deal with it.
Tough action was "unavoidable" but he aimed to provide "prosperity for all".
He also announced ex-Labour minister John Hutton would head a commission into public sector pensions.
Mr Osborne told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that Mr Hutton's involvement would mean the commission into future pensions would be independent and have cross-party input.
'Decisive action'
The chancellor refused to give more details of the coming Budget, although the BBC understands it will include Conservative election proposals to ease National Insurance for new businesses.
It is expected the employers' threshold for NI will rise slightly - by £21 and Universities Minister David Willetts confirmed on the BBC's Politics Show there would be measures to boost firms outside the South East of England.
This is expected to take the form of a three-year scheme to exempt start-up firms elsewhere in the UK from paying NI for the first 10 people employed.
Mr Osborne did not comment when asked about that suggestion, but did confirm there would be a levy on banks and an increase in non-business capital gains tax.
Asked about the "badness" of the Budget, he said: "I don't see it as badness, I see it as decisive action to deal with Britain's record budget deficit.
"We sit here as the country in Europe with the largest budget deficit of any major economy at a time when markets and investors and business are looking around the world at countries that can't control their debts.
"And so we've got to deal with that. In that sense it's an unavoidable budget, but what I'm determined to do is to make sure that the measures are tough but they're also fair and that we're all in this together and that, as a country, we take the steps necessary to actually provide the prosperity for the future."
But amid continuing speculation about large scale spending cuts, Labour leadership hopeful Ed Balls warned that the government was on course to "repeat the mistakes of the 1930s".
He said the cuts and tax rises set to be announced in Tuesday's Budget - which he expected to include VAT increases - showed the "unfairness" of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government's policies.
Fellow Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham said the Lib Dems had "sold their souls" for jobs in government.
Shadow chancellor Alistair Darling said the Conservatives were "using the current circumstances" as an excuse to make "ideologically driven" cuts they had planned anyway and were "using" the Lib Dems "as cover".
While Mr Osborne declined to set out more detail of what would be in Tuesday's Budget, Prime Minister David Cameron has already suggested public sector pay and pensions will have to be restrained.
He said the budget deficit could not be dealt with by "just hitting either the rich or the welfare scrounger" and the Budget would be when "the rubber really hits the road".
Senior Tories and Lib Dems signed off the Budget on Friday with Mr Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander all present.
Forecaster's warning
The involvement of so many high level figures from the two parties is being seen as an attempt to show the coalition is fully on board with the decisions to be announced in Mr Osborne's first Budget, on Tuesday.
One area of possible unhappiness among Lib Dems might be raising VAT - deputy leader Simon Hughes said "all" Lib Dems have been against it "because it's what's called a regressive tax, everyone pays it irrespective of the wealth you have".
Alistair Darling: "In concentrating on the deficit they're ignoring that you've got to have growth"
Asked if it would be acceptable for the Budget to include an increase VAT, he said: "It won't be the most desirable outcome."
There have been suggestions some state benefits could be frozen and a survey by ComRes for the Independent on Sunday found 53% of the public backed stripping child benefit from wealthier families - including 47% of Labour voters - with 42% opposed to the idea.
But the government's poverty adviser, Labour MP Frank Field, said he was opposed to means-testing child benefit, which costs taxpayers about £11bn a year.
Meanwhile, the influential economic forecaster the Ernst and Young Item Club, which uses the Treasury's own models to make its predictions, said £48bn worth of spending cuts and tax rises were needed to eradicate the part of the deficit which would not melt away with economic recovery.
Mr Osborne confirmed that Capital Gains Tax would rise in the Budget, despite a free market think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, warning it could actually cost the government as much as £2.48bn in lost revenues.
It argues that higher tax rates will discourage individuals from selling assets, denying the government the CGT they would gain from the sale.
There is "significant interest" in Reader's Digest from potential buyers, the magazine's administrators said.
They also confirmed the magazine would be published until at least April. The 72-year-old British edition went into administration earlier this month.
Administrator Philip Sykes said he was "reasonably optimistic" and that negotiations with investors had begun.
The magazine's US parent company became unable to support it following a crisis in its pension fund.
The administrators said the Reader's Digest Association's (RDA) sales team was marketing advertising space to media agencies for the May issue.
They also said future campaigns were being reviewed and that prize draws were continuing.
Reader's Digest employs 117 staff in the UK and has a circulation of 465,028, with offices in Canary Wharf in London, and Swindon in Wiltshire.
Reader's Digest UK called in administrators after it failed to secure regulatory backing for a funding deal for its pension scheme, which has a £125m shortfall.
The US parent group, Reader's Digest Association (RDA), filed for bankruptcy protection last year after struggling with interest payments on a $2.2bn (£1.4bn) debt.
Reader's Digest publishes more than 50 editions worldwide and has offices in 44 countries.
A Deepwater Horizon rig worker has told the BBC that he identified a leak in the oil rig's safety equipment weeks before the explosion.
Tyrone Benton said the leak was not fixed at the time, but that instead the faulty device was shut down and a second one relied on.
BP said rig owners Transocean were responsible for the operation and maintenance of that piece of equipment.
Transocean said it tested the device successfully before the accident.
Meanwhile, BP has said that its costs in tackling the disaster have now risen to $2bn (£1.34bn).
'Unacceptable'
On 20 April, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded killing 11 people, the blowout preventer, as the device is known, failed.
The most critical piece of safety equipment on the rig, they are designed to avert disasters just like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The blowout preventer (BOP) has giant shears which are designed to cut and seal off the well's main pipe. The control pods are effectively the brains of the blowout preventer and contain both electronics and hydraulics. This is where Mr Benton said the problem was found.
"We saw a leak on the pod, so by seeing the leak we informed the company men," Mr Benton said of the earlier problem he had identified. "They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don't have to stop production."
Professor Tad Patzek, petroleum expert at the University of Texas, was blunt in his assessment: "That is unacceptable. If you see any evidence of the blowout preventer not functioning properly, you should fix it by whatever means possible."
Mr Benton said his supervisor e-mailed both BP and Transocean about the leaks when they were discovered.
Daily costs
He said he did not know whether the leaking pod was turned back on before the disaster or not.
He said to repair the control pod would have meant temporarily stopping drilling work on the rig at at time when it was costing BP $500,000 (£337,000) a day to operate the Deepwater Horizon.
Henry Waxman, a House of Representatives Democrat who is overseeing congressional investigations into the rig disaster, has accused BP of taking safety shortcuts to save money.
"BP appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure," Mr Waxman said.
BP chief executive Tony Hayward, giving evidence to Congress, said: "There is nothing I have seen in the evidence so far that suggests that anyone put cost ahead of safety, if there are then we will take action."
Congress has identified numerous other problems with the blowout preventer, including design problems, unexpected modifications and a flat battery.
Cement job
The other major problems on the rig, Congress has said, centred around the cement job. Cement in an oil well blocks explosive gases from escaping, and it appears the cement may not have set properly on the Deepwater Horizon.
BP said it had indications of a successful cementing operation and the company that was in charge of the cement job, Halliburton, has said it was consistent with that used in similar applications.
Several rig workers the BBC spoke to who were on the Deepwater Horizon said there was pressure in April to work fast.
Work to prepare and then seal the well was behind schedule and had to be completed before a production rig could move in and start turning profits.
"Too many jobs were being done at one time. It should have just really slowed down and just took one job at a time, to make sure everything was done the way it should have been," said Mr Benton, who is now suing BP and Transocean for negligence.
BP has responded to Mr Benton's account saying Transocean was responsible for both the maintenance and operation of the blowout preventer.
President Obama: "We want our money back and we're going to get it"
President Barack Obama has said Wall Street must repay $117bn (£72bn) to taxpayers and criticised banks for "massive profits and obscene bonuses".
The tax is to recoup money US taxpayers are expected to lose from bailing out the banks during the financial crisis.
"My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed," the president said.
The move follows populist anger at banks, seen as being responsible for causing the recent economic crisis.
Average American
"My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people," the president said.
He said the aim was not to punish Wall Street firms but to stop abuses and excesses from happening again.
The BBC's Michelle Fleury said the president had made clear "in strong language" that the banks must repay the taxpayer, through what is being dubbed a "financial crisis responsibility fee".
"It may go some way to quelling the anger of the average American," our correspondent said.
The tax would apply only to financial firms with assets of more than $50bn.
There are reckoned to be about 50 of these institutions - although many did not accept any taxpayer assistance and many others have already paid back what the government lent to them.
BBC Business editor Robert Peston said that the cost may be passed on to the banks' customers.
"The cost of borrowing might go up for companies who borrow from these banks," he said.
He said there might also potentially be a "one-off" squeeze on the US economy.
'Drag on sector'
In the US, analysts said the fact that the fees levied on banks would be spread out over a decade would diminish their impact.
"It throws some sand into the gears," said Robert Albertson, chief strategist at Sandler O'Neill in New York.
"It's one more thing dragging on the sector, but it's spread over 10 years, so it's not so consequential. It's petty theft from bank balance sheets."
The levy comes ahead of the latest reporting season on Wall Street, with banks expected to report record bonuses.
The tax will claw back some of the losses from a $700bn taxpayer bail-out of American banks known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp).
It was drawn up in the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, following the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers and multi-billion dollar rescue of insurance giant American International Group (AIG).
It helped stem the crisis by injecting public capital into the biggest US banks and restoring confidence in the banking system.
A vast majority of the world's top bosses are confident their companies will grow this year, a survey suggests.
Only 18% do not expect their companies to prosper. In developing countries nearly all bosses predict good growth.
After a year of cost-cutting, nearly 40% of firms plan to start hiring again, but most firms - especially in the West - expect a jobless recovery.
The research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was published at the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"Our chief executives (CEOs) are cautiously optimistic," said Dennis Nally, global chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, during the presentation of the annual survey.
However, the predicted economic upswing will be very uneven.
The larger the company, the more bullish the chief executive. There are also stark differences between companies based in developing and industrialised countries.
While most Western firms still find their home markets suffering from the aftermath of the global recession, the bosses of firms in developing countries have reason for optimism. In India, for example, 97% of bosses polled are confident that their company will grow in 2010.
In Latin America and China about 90% of chief executives expect their firms to grow.
Still, even in the West a large majority of business leaders - four-fifths of those polled - are confident about their companies' economic prospects.
The rebound of corporate optimism comes after two years of faltering confidence. In fact, confidence levels are now back to the level of PwC's CEO survey in the year 2000. A year ago, 35% of all chief executives were pessimistic, while 64% had shown optimism for 2009.
'Post-survival mode'
A year ago in Davos, many business leaders predicted that a recovery could start in the first quarter of 2010.
The PwC survey suggests that the actual timing of the rebound depends very much on factors like geography and industry.
Two-thirds of Chinese bosses report that the recovery has already started, while two-thirds of CEOs in the West predict an upswing in the second half of 2010 - or even later, said Mr Nally.
And it could still all go wrong. Nearly two-thirds of all bosses polled worry that the global recession could drag on much longer than expected. More government regulation, protectionism and a new save-more-spend-less consumer ethic are other top concerns.
In the coming months, Mr Nally predicted, most CEOs would be in a "post-survival mode".
Where are the jobs?
Many bosses acknowledged that they failed to fully understand the risks of the economic downturn and should have responded more quickly, said Mr Nally.
This heightened risk awareness now has a direct impact on investment decisions.
Most firms plan to put more money into cost-cutting and making themselves more efficient.
That could translate into a "jobless recovery", especially in Western economies, said Mr Nally.
"The bottom line is: jobs are coming, but they are coming from developing countries; the job opportunities in developed countries are not there yet," he added.
In Europe, the UK is the exception, with many companies planning to start hiring.
The laggards are Germany and especially Spain, where there appears to be little prospect of employment growth.
The in-depth survey of nearly 1,198 chief executives in 52 countries was conducted during the last three months of 2009.
BT customers can sign up in time for the start of the Premier League season
Asda hopes to add the Netto shops to its small stores portfolio
House prices are still rising, but at a slower rate
