However, although they are a body-blow they aren't quite a knock-out one.

BBC: Euro puzzle on investment

For Deloitte the threat is that this affair becomes to it what Enron was to Arthur Andersen a body-blow from which its reputation never recovers.

ECONOMIST: The bankrupt group's auditors are now in the firing line

Yet western diplomats, in particular, were quick to declare the affair a body-blow to Mr Khatami, who has worked assiduously to improve Iran's relations with the West.

ECONOMIST: Iran

The figures are a body-blow to anyone saying that the British economy can't survive outside of the eurozone and also to those who say that not being in the euro is already damaging our economy.

BBC: Euro puzzle on investment

But the real body blow for West Indies was the loss of Nash, whose four-and-a-quarter-hour innings ended disappointingly when he offered no stroke to a ball from Bollinger and lost his off stump.

BBC: Australia on brink of victory over West Indies in Perth