LONDON (ShareCast) - Prime minister Gordon Brown denounced the “unacceptable” behaviour of the Icelandic authorities, who froze the accounts of hundreds of thousands of British savers, accusing them of taking illegal action. For his part, an angry Geir Haarde, his Icelandic counterpart, accused Britain of performing an “unfriendly act” against his country by using antiterrorist legislation to seize Icelandic accounts, reports the Times.

Icelandic bank Kaupthing has blamed Britain for its collapse, claiming the Treasury's refusal to allow it to participate in the £500bn rescue package for UK lenders triggered its downfall, writes the Telegraph.

As panic over the danger of financial and economic meltdown swept Wall Street once more, the latest 7% plunge in the value of America’s blue-chip businesses piled pressure on world financial leaders gathering in Washington today to take yet more drastic measures to avert disaster, writes the Times.

Tony McNulty, the new Work and Pensions minister, yesterday became the first government minister to acknowledge that Britain was heading for recession. He said the success of moves to shore up Britain's banks "will be the precursor to how deep and how long the recession will be", according to the Independent.

HSBC raised the stakes surrounding the Government's £500bn banks recapitalisation programme yesterday by announcing that it had injected £750mn into its UK business. HSBC's speedy compliance with the Government's demand on Wednesday that all banks bolster their Tier 1 capital - a measure of financial strength - heightens the pressure on its rivals to respond, writes the Times.

Vodafone yesterday moved closer to securing control of South Africa’s leading mobile phone operator in a deal that will cost the British group 22.5bn rand (£1.4bn). Vodafone’s partner, Telkom, indicated it was willing to sell 15% of its mobile arm Vodacom, which would take Vodafone’s holding to 65% in a business with 34.6m subscribers, according to the Times.

Citigroup has called off its battle for control of Wachovia as the US government appeared to be extending plans to buy shares in ailing financial institutions. Citigroup's talks with Wells Fargo have fallen through Photo: AFP Talks between Citigroup and Wells Fargo fell through after the two banks failed to come to an agreement over how to carve up Wachovia, the Telegraph reports.

Sir Alan Sugar, the millionaire founder of Amstrad computers, has acquired a near-4% stake in Woolworths, the troubled retailer. The stake building is tentative evidence of bottom fishing, following weeks of stock market turmoil which has wiped billions of pounds off the value of quoted companies, writes the Telegraph.

The Belgian government Thursday offered to guarantee all new bank financing for one year after it joined forces with France and Luxembourg for the second time in a fortnight to come to the aid of Dexia, the Franco-Belgian bank, reports the Financial Times.

Consumers are being hit by excessively high gas and electricity prices, Tesco has said, as it criticised Ofgem, the regulator, for not going far enough with the inquiry into energy markets it published this week. Tesco feels that companies are paying too much for their energy, and is trying to drive its costs down as it and other retailers compete to cut prices, according to the Financial Times.

Asset manager Henderson Group is understood to be looking at a fresh round of cost cuts and a further round of redundancies after cutting 30 jobs earlier this year, writes the Independent.

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