UNITED KINGDOM

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn in as Iran's president on Wednesday after a disputed re-election that has exposed a deep schism in the clerical establishment.

Britain is aiming to replace short-haul aviation with high-speed rail travel and plans for such a network are well advanced, Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis told the Guardian newspaper.

Leading global automakers reported forecast-beating quarterly results on Tuesday, but continued to give cautious outlooks for the industry, which remains hard hit by weak demand and a lack of consumer credit.

Leading global automakers reported forecast-beating quarterly results on Tuesday, but continued to give cautious outlooks for the industry, which remains hard hit by weak demand and a lack of consumer credit.

Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered unveiled a surprise 1 billion pound ($1.7 billion) fundraising on Tuesday as it beat expectations with a record mid-year pretax profit.

Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday.

A growing number of British teenagers are swapping sexually explicit images of themselves on mobile phones leaving them open to bullying and victimization by their peers, police and a children's charity said on Tuesday.

Prominent defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi on Tuesday vowed to keep up pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whose re-election sparked off Iran's worst unrest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Rob Newbiggin, a British boxer, has decided to undergo a sex change operation to become a woman.

HSBC and Barclays on Monday reported a surge in bad debts to a combined $21 billion as recession took its toll on borrowers, but Britain's two biggest banks offered encouragement they could be through the worst.

The Australian Dollar opens higher on Monday at 0.8355 after signs emerged on Friday night that the economic decline in the United States is moderating therefore reducing the allure of the greenback as a safe haven.

A roadside bomb attack claimed by the Taliban killed at least 12 people in a key commercial city in western Afghanistan Monday, officials said, amid worsening security before a presidential poll this month.

Barclays Plc fell short of expectations with an 8 percent rise in half-year profit as bad debts at Britain's second biggest bank almost doubled to offset buoyant earnings from its enlarged investment bank.

Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Monday, tracking gains in Asia and Europe on mounting hopes that the global recession is abating.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is concerned that excessive use of emails and mobile phone text messaging is creating shallow friendships and undermining community life, according to an interview published on Sunday.

Corrects newspaper in paragraph 3 to Sunday Telegraph from Sunday Times

HSBC's Bill Maldonado is a man who loves to mix science with art -- be that in running Halbis's hedge fund business, riding his high-power Ducati motorbike on a race track or piloting a light aircraft.

The trials began on Saturday of 100 prominent moderates arrested shortly after Iran's disputed June presidential election and charged with trying to overthrow the clerical establishment, Iranian media reported.

The pension deficit of Britain's biggest 200 companies could leap to an unprecedented 110 billion pounds ($182 billion) in the next few months, consultant Aon said on Saturday.

Tottenham Hotspur are investigating whether criticism of the Premier League club's chairman on Darren Bent's Twitter page were posted by the England forward, a spokesman for the club said Friday.

Unity Media, Germany's No. 2 cable operator, is preparing for an initial public offering toward the end of this year, raising as much as 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion), people familiar with the matter said.