The people of Greece are now having to pay the price of past official financial mismanagement, as the government takes drastic steps to try to avert a euro debt default. Paul Mason went to Athens to report on the human cost of political hubris.
Broadcast on Wednesday 28 September 2011.
The company behind the Superdry brand said the problems had seen a "reduction both in the amount of stock and range of sizes reaching its UK stores".
The firm said the problems centred on an upgrade to its Gloucester warehouse.
Supergroup's shares ended the day 30% lower at ￡7.07.
In a management statement, the firm said it estimated "the total cost of this isolated event, including the additional temporary warehousing capability and resulting lost sales will impact the current year's profitability by between ￡6m and ￡9m".
Supergroup, which is based in Cheltenham, also said its stock levels would increase by ￡2m.
Analysts believe the problem will add to a range of difficult factors facing the firm, including the tough consumer climate, a weak August and the unseasonably warm September weather discouraging the purchase of autumn clothes.
In July, Supergroup said that profits for the year to May had jumped by 110% to ￡47.3m.
Supergroup floated its shares on the London Stock Exchange in March 2010, at a price of ￡5 per share.
Stocks in France and Germany have fallen in value by more than 25% since the end of June.
Shares in London's FTSE are down 13.7%, the worst quarterly performance since 2002.
Friday's falls follow an unexpectedly sharp rise in the eurozone inflation rate for September to 3%.
Investors had hoped the European Central Bank would move to lower interest rates in the eurozone, after raising them in July to 1.5% to limit inflation.
However, the latest inflation figures may make such a move less likely.
Wall Street's main Dow Jones index ended Friday trading down 2.2% to record its worst quarterly performance since 2008.
Eurozone worriesBut Friday's falls were just the latest bout of volatility in European markets, which have failed to regain ground since crashing towards the end of July.
Continue reading the main story
Jamie Robertson Presenter, BBC World News Following all the violent swings in equity markets since the sharp falls at the beginning of August, the main markets have not really moved outside fairly narrow ranges: the FTSE between 5,000 and 5,400 and the Dow between 10,800 and 11,600.
The Nikkei, the Dax and the Cac 40 have been gradually trending downwards by about 6-10% over the past two months. This is almost entirely due to uncertainty over the debt crisis and the fate of the eurozone.
However, even if there is no further bad news on that front, things are likely to get very active for individual companies.
Many of them, particularly ones that move in tandem with the economic cycle such as those in mining, retail, the auto sector and manufacturing, are trading on values that imply double digit growth.
October's results season could upset a lot of earnings forecasts, as markets come to terms with the prospect of near-zero growth in Europe and the US, and companies undergoing what are politely called price adjustments.
Economists say worries over the ability of eurozone countries to pay their debts are sparking concerns of a new banking and credit crisis."The euro area debt crisis has potential ramifications to euro area banking sectors in particular," said Grant Lewis, head of research at Daiwa capital markets.
"You've got concerns that a Greek default going wider into something more serious in terms of an Italian default, for example, that would leave banking sectors under-capitalised as well as having a calamitous effect on the economic outlook."
Shares in Germany's Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank both lost more than 30% in value since the end of June.
Stocks in French banks fared even worse. Societe Generale saw its stock fall more than 50%, while BNP Paribas saw its share price fall more than 40%.
The share falls have therefore been most pronounced in eurozone countries, with the FTSE falling less than benchmark German and French exchanges.
Brent crude was also set for the biggest quarterly fall since the financial crisis of 2008.
Oil for delivery in one month's time fell just over 8% to $103 a barrel in London as investors worried about a slowdown in the global economy.
Worries ahead Global markets have been hit by a 'toxic cocktail' of factors, says one economistDespite the record quarterly falls, markets remain up on the levels they reached after the 2008 financial crisis.
"There are certainly widespread indications of pretty serious financial stress, but they are not by and large as dramatic as they were in 2007 and 2008," George Magnus, European economist at UBS, told the BBC.
"Then, the whole edifice of the Western banking system was about to implode. At that point, I think it was far more dramatic than it is now."
But investors and economists fear the situation may deteriorate further.
Markets are likely to look to forthcoming company results and quarterly economic data for their next move.
In the longer term, economists say they are seeking reassurance from politicians.
"I think markets are expecting something of substance to be revealed by the G20 [group of leading nations] in November and if it isn't, we could be in a lot of trouble," Mr Magnus added.
Foreign domestic helpers are required to leave the country within two weeks if dismissed by employers Hong Kong's High Court has ruled that a domestic helper from the Philippines should be allowed to apply for permanent residency in the city. The case was brought by Evangeline Banao Vallejos, who has lived in Hong Kong since 1986.
The ruling follows a landmark judicial review and could lead to more than 100,000 other foreign maids winning rights to residency.
The case has sparked widespread debate on equal treatment for foreign maids.
Mark Daly, the lawyer acting on behalf of Ms Vallejos, said that she was very pleased by the ruling, which meant that all domestic helpers now were able to apply for permanent residency.
"When we told her she said 'thank God'," he said, adding that it was a normal working day for her.
"It's a good day for the rule of law," he added.
Mr Daly pointed out that the government had 28 days to appeal.
A spokesman said the government was analysing the judgement and would issue a formal response later in the day.
Public resources
Some critics have said granting residency to domestic helpers would strain the provision of health care, education and public housing.
Continue reading the main storyWe hope it will pave the way for Hong Kong to open its doors to equal treatment for migrant workers”End Quote Norman Carnay Mission for Migrant Workers While other non-Chinese nationals can obtain residency after working in Hong Kong for seven years, immigration rules exclude domestic helpers from seeking permanent residency.
Human rights lawyers and many domestic helpers argue that this is discriminatory.
Permanent residency means that a person can remain in Hong Kong indefinitely, vote and stand in elections.
But some politicians and commentators warned that allowing foreign domestic helpers to have permanent residency would allow them to bring their children and other relatives to the city, who would require education and housing.
Equal treatment
Norman Carnay, programme officer at the Mission for Migrant Workers said that he welcomed the decision.
"We hope it will pave the way for Hong Kong to open its doors to equal treatment for migrant workers," he said.
But he added that right of abode was not necessarily a priority for many domestic helpers.
"From surveys of our community, the more pressing concerns are wages and working conditions," he said.
There are more than 300,000 foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong, mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines. It is thought that around 120,000 have lived here for more than seven years.
They are required to live with their employers and cannot accept other jobs.
Without the right to permanent residency, if a maid is dismissed by her employer, she must find another job as a domestic helper or leave Hong Kong within two weeks.
Hong Kong's domestic workers have a guaranteed minimum wage of 3,740 Hong Kong dollars ($480; ￡308) a month and day off each week, meaning their working conditions are better than other countries in Asia with large numbers of domestic helpers, such as Singapore.
This is higher than the 1% growth it reported in its second estimate, but the same as its first calculation for the three month period.
Consumer spending and exports were both stronger than previously estimated.
Last week, the Federal Reserve unveiled a new plan to try to help the economy.
Under a scheme dubbed Operation Twist, the US central bank is selling about $400bn (￡260bn) worth of bonds maturing within three years and buying longer-term debt.
The sluggish growth in the US economy has not been sufficient to reduce high levels of unemployment, with the jobless rate in August at 9.1%.
For the first six months of 2011 the US economy expanded by 0.9%, the lowest rate of growth in more than two years.
Joe Manimbo, analyst at Travelex Global Payments in Washington, welcomed the latest economic growth figures.
"The final print of second-quarter GDP came out a little bit faster than expected and that suggests the US economy entered the third quarter on a slightly better footing," he said.
Most economists expect the economy to improve in the third quarter, with predictions that it will grow at an annualised pace of about 2%.
