澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2009-10-24（在线收听）

Official figures show that the UK is in the grip of the longest recession since records began. Britain's economy contracted in the third quarter of this year, with the GDP falling 0.4%.This comes as a surprise to economists who were expecting a rise of about 0.2%. It’s taken longer for the UK to recover from the downturn than France, Germany and Japan, who’ve all emerged from a recession.

Australia’s multi-million-dollar tuna fishing industry is facing a drastic cut. The nations that fish bluefin tuna have voted for a 20% reduction to try to save the species. But Australia has been given a 30% cut.

And the Australian government has approved a 3.5-billion-dollar takeover of Felix Resources by the Chinese coal miner Yanzhou Coal. It’s the biggest Chinese state investment in Australia’s resources sector to date.

Let’s take a look at how markets finished up in the US. Wall Street slumped on Friday with the Dow Jones finishing below the 10,000 mark, dragged down by industrial companies. In Europe, the FTSE shrugged off the sharp fall in Britain’s GDP, closing up 0.7%.

And in early trade, the Australian dollar slipped against the greenback. It’s buying 92 US cents.

And that’s ABC Business News.