Train operators have hit passengers with 'astronomical' fare rises after extending peak-time hours.
Police in the United States have been plunged into a race row over a video showing two officers attacking and racially abusing an innocent. more...
Smack in the midst of an election that will likely cost Prime Minister Gordan Brown his job, British taxpayers ordered to bail out euro. more...
For decades, we have known that heavy metals and chemicals can cause grave physical harm. Going back to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” we have known and been amply warned of the serious consequences of using or being exposed to these poisons in our daily activities. more...
When you look at our current political and economic situation, you find that the issues dominating both are essentially interlinked. They are a consequence of the negative behaviour of political parties and the dysfunctional aspects of our UK constitution. more...
Chancellor Alastair Darling is to oppose any new bail-out plan for the single currency that exposes Britain to the risk of massive hand-outs to debt defaulters.
He is attending emergency talks in Brussels designed to agree a new "European stabilisation mechanism" in another desperate bid to convince world markets that the euro is a stable and credible currency.
One plan, would allow the European Commission to borrow on behalf of a member state in financial trouble, using the EU budget as collateral.
The other, more controversial scheme would involve setting up an EU version of the International Monetary Fund, with all member states exposed to risk from national coffers if a member state defaults on loans backed by its EU partners.
The second option is opposed by the UK - but Mr Darling needs to consult his current Tory shadow George Osborne and his Lib-Dem counterpart Vince Cable under the courtesies of hung parliament etiquette.
More....The Bank of England is expected to keep interest rates on hold on Monday amid uncertain political weather.
Policymakers, who delayed their meeting from last week due to the election, are expected to keep the cost of borrowing at the record low of 0.5%.
Efforts to boost the money supply are also likely to stay at their £200 billion level of quantitative easing (QE).
But the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will have much to consider as they conclude their two-day meeting - not least the affect of a hung Parliament on the outlook for the UK economy. More……..
Hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs are likely to go. In the 1990s, when the public sector was squeezed, 700,000 jobs were lost.
The £200 billion welfare bill will also come under attack, with some payments frozen and others, such as housing benefit, cut back. Planned cuts in child tax credits are likely to be followed by more draconian reductions.
The hospital and school-building programme will grind to a halt as infrastructure spending is more than halved. more...
ANIMAL and plant species are being killed off faster than ever before as human populations surge and people consume more, a United Nations report is expected to say this week.
It will warn that the expansion of countries such as China, India and Brazil is adding hugely to the environmental threats already generated by developed western nations, and that a third of species could face extinction this century. more...
British soldiers have marched on Red Square in Moscow for the first time to mark the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Seventy-six soldiers from 2 Company 1st Battalion Welsh Guards were representing the UK at the invitation of the Russian Government.
They marched alongside more than 10,500 Russian troops and others from the US and France.
More....
We still don't know what the details will be of the "bazooka" EU leaders will fire off tomorrow evening before currency trading gets started (or if they'll have any details to offer at all), but a Reuters report gives what sounds like a good hint.
Euro zone sources said late on Friday that the mechanism could be funded by bonds issued by the European Commission with guarantees from euro zone states.
In other words, as Jamie Coleman at ForexLive observes, the EU is about go beyond being a monetary regime and begin the establishment of a common treasury.
Once that happens, it really would be silly to see the various European countries as anything other than states in the United States of Europe, or actually the United States of Germany. more...
Each time following an eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, it’s mighty neighbor, Katla, has erupted shortly afterward. Eyjafjallajokull and Katla are separated by 27 km (17 mi) and are thought to have interconnecting magma channels. Eyjafjallajokull erupted on April 14, 2010.
Katla (named after an Icelandic witch) is known to have erupted 16 times since 930, the last time during 1918. Since then, Katla has been quiet for the longest duration on record. It is overdue, and now that it’s little sister Eyjafjallajokull has erupted, it’s just a matter of time. more...
Britain faces paying out billions of pounds under a European Union deal intended to prevent another financial crisis like the one in Greece.
All 27 EU finance ministers have been summoned to Brussels on Sunday to sign up to a “European stabilisation mechanism. Britain will be unable to veto this as it will be put through under the “qualified majority voting” system.
The deal, effectively to shore up the euro, was denounced as a “stitch-up” last night after it emerged Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, had devised it behind closed doors and were attempting to push it through at a time when there is no clear government in Britain. more...
“HEALTHY” low-fat snacks sold by Britain’s supermarkets contain up to 69% sugar — more than three times the amount found in chocolate ice cream.
A range of products — bought as healthy options for children’s lunchboxes and office snacks — are being sweetened with extra sugar and glucose syrup. Many low-fat options have a sugar content significantly higher than in the conventional products.
Health experts are now demanding the food industry reduce its reliance on sugar in many popular processed foods. They warn new research shows too much sugar not only makes you fat and causes tooth decay, but might increase the risk of heart disease. more...
The climate of fear, created out of the well exaggerated Times Square incident last week has allowed Joe Lieberman and fellow establishment lawmakers to introduce a bill that would drive the final nail into the coffin of the Bill of Rights. Lieberman says the bill is design to “close loopholes” that allow individuals on the FBI’s terror watch list purchase firearms, explosives and to have basic rights of due process if and when they are tried for a crime. more...
There are numerous definitions of global governance. In the economic and financial sphere I will propose that global governance comprehends not only the constellation of supranational institutions – including the international financial institutions – but also the informal groupings that have progressively emerged at the global level. Those informal forums (G7, G10, G20, etc.) are key in improving global coordination in all the areas where decision making processes remain national – whether in helping to work out agreed prudential standards and codes or to facilitate where appropriate, the coordination of economic macro-policies. more...
Fatal Difference - Fatal Indifference - We need only to recap the experience of the 1970s and 1980s to understand why massive public national deficit financing of Keynesian-type spending to restore global economic growth will almost surely end with a 1970s style oil shock. That is oil price explosion, falling consumer confidence and corporate investment, falling economic growth, finance sector panic, competitive devaluation of world moneys and a catastrophic slump back into recession. Like the 1970s experience, the recession will be very inflationary. more...
The Sunday Telegraph understands that the former state-owned telecoms giant will tell investors it has exceeded its headcount reduction target by about 5,000.
The company had pledged to cut 15,000 jobs in the year to April on top of the 15,000 cut in 2008. It is understood the majority of the jobs were cut in the UK, although many were agency and temporary staff rather than full-time BT employees. more...
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