Thursday Papers: Osborne heralds fresh onslaught on welfare bill - other news

Financial Times

* George Osborne has heralded a fresh onslaught on Britain’s £200bn welfare bill; £4bn in subsidies for elderly under threat.

* The S&P 500 index was 0.3 per cent lower, after paring back losses on weak US housing figures; the FTSE All-World stock index was down 0.5 per cent; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.2 per cent, while in Tokyo the Nikkei 225 Average dropped 1.9 per cent to 9,923.7.

* Wolfgang Schäuble has launched a forthright defence of his country’s economic policy on the eve of the Toronto G20 summit.

* New York pension fund to sue BP over spill.

* The Federal Reserve kept US monetary policy unchanged and holds interest rates.

* Banks in Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain account for more than two-thirds of the European Central Bank’s increase in lending to eurozone financial institutions since the summer of 2008.

* Belarus has threatened to shut off all Russian oil and gas flows to Europe today as Lithuania reported the first disruption to gas flows.

* The newly appointed administrator of the $20bn BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill fund will not only have to convince victims it can pay out more quickly than a court but also has to get them to sign away their rights to sue the British oil group.

* China to overtake Japan as largest importer of thermal coal.

* Argentina ended its “sad” chapter of default with a debt swap.

* EU has fined 17 bathroom fittings companies €622m for running cartel.