BBC News with Stewart Macintosh.
The Spanish cabinet has unveiled new spending cuts which it hopes will reduce the budget deficit by a total of 50 billion dollars, but at the same time officials said pensions will rise using money drawn from reserves. Tom Burridge reports from Madrid.
The Spanish government says the economy here is expected to remain in recession throughout next year, and it predicts unemployment will keep rising. It's in that context that three senior government ministers announced Spain's budget for next year. It includes a cut to government department budgets of 12% and a freeze on public sector’s salaries for a third consecutive year. The Spanish finance minister said this budget would make Spain's debt more sustainable. But the figures and the reforms published today made the chances of a second Spanish bailout all the more likely.
Burma’s reformist President Thein Sein has praised the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a speech at the United Nations. In front of the U.N. General Assembly he referred to Aung San Suu Kyi for the first time as a Nobel laureate, and congratulated her on the honours she recently received in the United States. She was detained for 15 years by the previous military government. Barbara Plett has more from New York.
The president told the U.N. that Burma had left behind its system of authoritarian government, but he said the democratic transformation would be a complex and delicate task that requires patience. He paid tribute to the longtime dissident Aung San Suu Kyi for her efforts to promote democracy. And he said the government placed high priority on ending armed conflicts with its ethnic minorities through peace talks and confidence-building measures.