THE NEWS WRAP: Markets jittery on carbon tax plan

The release of the carbon tax details slashed the value of leading Australian shares yesterday, with warnings that airlines, manufacturers, retailers and energy companies will introduce large price rises due to the tax.

Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person and executive chairman at Hancock Prospecting, warned that international investors will be deterred from Australia due to its changing tax status. 

BSkyB bid to be probed

The British government has referred News Corporation’s bid for pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB to regulators following ongoing reports of widespread phone hacking within the media group.

Amid fresh allegations that former UK prime minister Gordon Brown had his personal data accessed by News Corp media watchdog Ofcom will decide whether the company’s board passes the “fit and proper person” test.

A lawsuit filed in the US by News Corp shareholders has accused the company’s boss, Rupert Murdoch, of “egregious” behaviour over the phone hacking affair, alleging that he used the business as a “family candy jar”.

Twitter hits one million apps

Twitter now has more than one million registered third-party applications, the micro blogging site has revealed.

Twitter has grown its application base from 150,000 in little over a year. There are now 750,000 developers across the world creating apps for the site. 

Overnight

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 151.44 points to 12,505.76. The Australian dollar fell to 107.00 US cents.