The British government and former BP boss Tony Hayward yesterday waded into the legal battle over control of the oil in Kurdistan, calling on Baghdad to stop obstructing the development of the region's hydrocarbon reserves. The calls came as Baghdad renewed its threat to throw Exxon Mobil out of the country after the US giant cut a deal to explore for oil and gas in the rocks of its arch resources rival, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, according to The Independent.

The Bank of England will reveal its latest verdict on how badly the UK economy is being affected by the Eurozone crisis this week. When it publishes its quarterly inflation report on Tuesday, the Bank is expected to slash its forecasts for growth as a raft of key indicators all point towards the economy heading into reverse. Weak manufacturing, trade and services data all point to very low growth in the final quarter of the year, while the problems in the Eurozone have taken a dramatic turn for the worse in recent weeks. Alan Clarke, UK economist at Scotia Capital, said the Bank is likely to revise its growth forecasts sharply lower - but will remain slightly more optimistic than the City's consensus 0.9% growth for 2011 and 1.3% for next year, The Daily Mail reports.

Nearly half of Britain's businesses plan to hire more staff over the next year, as the private sector job recovery continues, Britain's leading business group will say today. The results of a survey by the CBI and recruitment consultancy Harvey Nash will be welcomed by ministers, who need businesses to step in and create jobs as the public sector faces cuts. The report found 47% of employers are predicting that their workforces will be larger in a year, with only 19% predicting they will be smaller, giving a balance of plus 28%, the CBI reports, according to the Independent.

Privatisation of Royal Mail will not begin until at least 2013 and might not even be complete before the end of the Government's present term, well-placed sources have confirmed. The state-owned national postal service faces months of regulatory issues, all but ruling out any sale, partial or otherwise, next year. There is, however, growing speculation in the City and in Whitehall that Royal Mail privatisation could follow the template of Qinetiq, the controversial Labour sell-off, reports The Times.

The private sector jobs market is nursing itself back to health but serious risks remain, according to a survey from the CBI and recruiter Harvey Nash. Small-and-medium-sized businesses led a growing wave of job creation between August and September, the report said. CBI deputy director-general Dr Neil Bentley tempered the encouraging data with a warning that the recovery in employment could be 'blown off course by fast-moving economic events at home and abroad', according to The Daily Mail.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, compared France to Italy, Greece and Portugal, which have already been hit by the financial turmoil, and warned that it was having to make tough decisions about public spending. Mr Osborne disclosed that his European counterparts were "terrified" by their debt situation but insisted that Britain was in a relatively strong position as plans to cut Government spending were already well advanced. Last week, French debt prices rose sharply and Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, warned that the country risked being "picked off" in the coming weeks, The Telegraph says.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of easyJet, has claimed that his war with the budget airline's management is not personal but is being waged on behalf of other disgruntled shareholders. In a short-tempered email to the board last week, copied to the company's leading investors, Sir Stelios stepped up his attacks by warning he will vote against directors' reappointment unless they approve a big increase in the dividend. (...) His latest list of demands are for the airline to double the dividend payment to 50% of earnings; allow shareholders a vote on all new aircraft orders; publish the contribution of each aircraft; and pledge that the next bid would be a three-way bid between Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier. If the conditions are not met, Sir Stelios said he will vote to dump directors, The Telegraph informs readers.

Kofax, the document-management software maker, is preparing for talks with shareholders after its executive share plan was defeated at the recent annual general meeting. The majority of votes at the AGM were cast against the share plan, forcing the board to bow to shareholders and go back to the drawing board. Unlike votes on remuneration reports, which are backward-looking, ballots to approve incentive plans are binding and cannot be dismissed by the company. (...) Pirc, the corporate governance consultancy, advised shareholders to reject the share plan ahead of the AGM, held on 3 November. It criticised Kofax for failing to disclose maximum award levels and for having unclear performance targets, writesThe Independent.

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