French Socialists in run-off vote

Either Ms Aubry or Ms Royal would be the first woman to lead the Socialists. France's opposition Socialists face a run-off vote for a new leader, after a first ballot did not produce a winner. The second vote on Friday, which comes amid bitter party rifts, pits former presidential candidate Segolene Royal against Lille Mayor Martine Aubry. Leftist MEP Benoit Hamon is out of the race after coming third in Thursday's vote. None of the candidates gained the 50% needed to avoid a run-off vote. The leadership issue is being decided by 233,000 party members. The voting comes after last weekend's party congress - that was meant to back a single candidate - ended in disarray. In the first round, Ms Royal gained 42.5% of the vote, Ms Aubry 34.7% and Mr Hamon 22.8%. After the count, Mr Hamon - who is seen by some as being too far-left - urged those who had backed him to vote for Ms Aubry in the second round. "For our party to remain firmly anchored to the left, I ask those who supported me to vote massively for Aubry," he said. The party has been beset by infighting since France's last Socialist President Francois Mitterrand stepped down in 1995.

Recession fears hit stock markets

Concerns are increasing over the scale of the slowdown. European and Asian markets have fallen sharply on fears that the world economy will enter a protracted downturn. The slide comes after the Dow Jones share index in New York fell to its lowest level in five years. London's FTSE 100 index fell 2.2% in morning trade, with mining shares hardest hit. French and German markets also lost ground. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei index ended 6.8% lower and Hong Kong's main index fell more than 4%. The FTSE 100 was down 88.52 points at 3,917.16 points after falling almost 5% on Wednesday. Germany's Dax index and France's Cac 40 both shed around 3.3%. People are looking for any kind of positive and there are just no positives out there On Wednesday, the Dow Jones index fell 5% to below 8000 after the US central bank slashed its economic growth forecasts for 2009. The deepening global recession is being felt in a number of ways: Mining shares were among the biggest losers on fears that demand for steel and other raw materials will be hit as the economy slows. Steel giant Arcelor-Mittal lost 6% and Vedanta Resources lost almost 10% Oil prices fell for a fifth straight day to approach $50 a barrel Japan's exports to Asia dropped in October for the first time in six years Job losses are mounting worldwide, with aerospace firm Rolls Royce, AstraZeneca and French carmaker Peugeot Citroen announcing a total of 6,100 cuts China has warned its employment outlook is "grim", amid worries that economic problems could lead to social unrest The IMF has approved a $2.1bn (£1.4bn) loan for Iceland. Turkey is set to agree to a precautionary stand-by deal with the IMF soon Retail sales fell and public sector borrowing rose in the UK.

Windpipe transplant breakthrough

Surgeons in Spain have carried out the world's first tissue-engineered whole organ transplant - using a windpipe made with the patient's own stem cells. The groundbreaking technology also means for the first time tissue transplants can be carried out without the need for anti-rejection drugs. Five months on the patient, 30-year-old mother-of-two Claudia Castillo, is in perfect health, The Lancet reports. She needed the transplant to save a lung after contracting tuberculosis. The disease had damaged her airways. Scientists from Bristol helped grow the cells for the transplant and the European team believes such tailor-made organs could become the norm. To make the new airway, the doctors took a donor windpipe, or trachea, from a patient who had recently died. WINDPIPE TRANSPLANT 1 Trachea is removed from dead donor patient 2 It is flushed with chemicals to remove all existing cells 3 Donor trachea "scaffold" coated with stem cells from the patient's hip bone marrow. Cells from the airway lining added 4 Once cells have grown (after about four days) donor trachea is inserted into patient's bronchus Then they used strong chemicals and enzymes to wash away all of the cells from the donor trachea, leaving only a tissue scaffold made of the fibrous protein collagen. This gave them a structure to repopulate with cells from Ms Castillo herself, which could then be used in an operation to repair her damaged left bronchus - a branch of the windpipe. By using Ms Castillo's own cells the doctors were able to trick her body into thinking the donated trachea was part of it, thus avoiding rejection.

Serbia 'genocide' case to proceed

Croatian sources say that 20,000 Croatians died in the conflict. Croatia's allegations against Serbia of genocide during the early 1990s will be heard at the International Court of Justice, the court has decided. Judges at the UN's highest court in The Hague voted by 10 to seven that it had the jurisdiction to hear the case. Croatian sources say that 20,000 Croatians died in the conflict, while hundreds of thousands of Serbs living there were displaced. This will be only the second genocide case to come before the court. The first was also brought against Serbia - by Bosnia. Serbia was cleared in that case. A date for hearing Croatia's complaint has yet to be set.

France holds 'Eta military head'

Txeroki is suspected by police of killing two police officers in December 2007. The suspected military chief of the Basque separatist group, Eta, has been arrested in southern France, the French interior minister has announced. Michele Alliot-Marie said Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, alias "Txeroki", was arrested overnight in the Pyrenees. She said he was suspected of the murder of two Spanish civil guard officers in the French town of Capbreton in 2007. Eta is blamed for the deaths of more than 820 people in its 40-year campaign for an independent Basque nation. The group resumed its campaign of violence in June 2007, following the failure of secret dialogue with the Spanish government. Correspondents say Mr Aspiazu Rubina was a key figure in the decision. Spain's ruling party hailed the arrest as a "very important" blow to Eta. "This is magnificent news of great importance because it is the chief of the Eta commandos, the person who was behind attacks, who gave the order to kill and who himself killed, a very blood-thirsty terrorist," the Socialist Party said in a statement. It follows the detention of Eta's political commander, Javier Lopez Pena, in a joint Spanish-French operation in the French city of Bordeaux in May. However, the BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid says that, in the past, high-profile arrests have always been followed by fresh attacks and Eta is far from defeated.