Manchester United skipper Nemanja Vidic has confirmed he is on course for a return to action at the start of next season.

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has conceded he got it wrong in Europe this season.

Britain's banks slashed $50bn (£32bn) from their exposure to France, Italy and Spain during the summer as financial institutions ran scared from Europe's debt crisis, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Chelsea and Arsenal must both overcome tough Italian tests in the last 16 of the Champions League after today's draw in Nyon.

FC Basel's interim coach Heiko Vogel was given the job on a permanent basis today, five days after leading them into Champions League last 16 at the expense of Manchester United.

Nothing in the world of Junya Ishigami quite conforms to type. Chairs wear hats, socks and little sweaters knitted in fine-ply cream mohair; tables are paper thin and three-meters long and ripple when touched; huge metal boulders float up to the sky. Even the architecture he makes can be so immaterial as scarcely to exist. The piece he has just installed in the Barbican's Curve gallery, for example – constructed from hand-rolled carbon columns that are 0.9mm thick, and secured by crossbracing threads of just 0.2mm – is almost impossible to see. It's about as tantalisingly stealthy as architecture can be.

Germany's financial regulator has taken a swipe at European Union rule makers over the way they ignored Basel III bank capital definitions when they designed new pan-European bank stress tests.

The Chancellor has attacked the European Union's new bank capital and liquidity rules. George Osborne was one of seven European finance ministers – including Spain and Sweden but not Germany and France – who signed a letter to the European Commission demanding a rethink of the plans.

Thousands of plant lovers have flocked to the northern Swiss city of Basel to see a giant, foul-smelling flower bloom for the first time. The Basel Botanical Gardens expects 10,000 people to have filed past its Amorphophallus titanum, or corpse flower, standing in its full glory before the bloom wilts.

Babies who persistently cry and those who have difficulties with sleeping or feeding are more likely to develop behavioural problems in later life, a study suggests.

The chairman of taxpayer-owned bank RBS defended the pay deal of chief executive Stephen Hester, claiming that, in market terms, the £7.7m package was towards "the lower end".

Outlook What we won't get in next week's Budget is anything new on theregulation of the banking sector. Recognising what a toxic topic this would be, particularly given the LibDems' public pronouncements about bankers prior to the election, Mr Osborne very wisely opted to kick reform into the long grass by appointing the Independent Banking Commission. Until Sir John Vickers' inquiry comes up with proposals later this year, Mr Osborne doesn't have to address this issue in any meaningful way.