Britain is prepared to press ahead alone with a tax on banks to insure against future collapses, new Business Secretary Vince Cable has said.
He was speaking in Brussels on Tuesday on the eve of the launch of European Commission proposals for an EU-wide levy to form a multibillion-pound bailout fund.
Mr Cable said support for such a scheme was already part of the coalition Government agreement, adding: "The more countries that join, the better."
More...
A Briton arrested in Thailand after being filmed inciting people to burn down a shopping centre during the Red Shirt protests has claimed he is “being stitched up”.
Jeff Savage, 48, from Tonbridge in Kent, was captured on video exhorting protesters to set fire to the Central World shopping centre in central Bangkok, days before it was torched and destroyed.
More....The Commons expenses watchdog is to hand MPs up to £4,000 more cash up front in a bid to calm complaints about the new system.
And the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) has also abandoned plans to automatically treat 15% of phone calls as private and refuse to reimburse them.
Ipsa is in charge of a tougher new system introduced in the wake of the pay and perks scandal which rocked Westminster and provoked public anger last year.
More....
David Cameron faces a serious test of Conservative backbench opinion of the coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats when his MPs choose a new "shop steward".
The vote for the chairmanship of the influential 1922 Committee is expected to be close.
And the Prime Minister's retreat on surprise moves that could have given ministers and whips a vote may favour a candidate seen as a potential focal point for dissent.
More.....Investigations are continuing into the cause of a crash which killed two schoolchildren and a pensioner.
Kieran Goulding, 15, and Chloe Walker, who was celebrating her 16th birthday, died when the bus taking them home from school hit a car on the A66 near Keswick, Cumbria.
Both youngsters were studying at Keswick School in the Lake District and were on their way home on a 49-seater coach on Monday afternoon.
The smash also claimed the life of Patrick Short, 68, from Braithwaite, who was behind the wheel of the only other vehicle involved.
More....Donations of money to British universities have exceeded £500 million for the first time as more graduates and philanthropists respond to campus fundraising campaigns.
Despite the decline in charitable giving during the recession, the number of people and organisations donating to universities rose by 12 per cent to exceed 163,000 in 2008-09, according to research by the Ross Group of university fund-raisers and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
More....More than one in three social workers and police officers have felt powerless to intervene in cases of suspected child neglect, a survey has found.
Half said earlier intervention was needed to ensure cases of possible neglect are dealt with more effectively, according to research for the charity Action for Children.
Some 41% of the professionals said they were under greater pressure now to intervene when children are being neglected than five years ago and 16% reported encountering more cases than last year.
More....A large collection of Predictions from many financial and geo-political analysts compiled by Rense. Sit down, prepare yourself and click here
Burning Our Money:
"My Government’s legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility...
The tax and benefits system will be made fairer and simpler... People will be supported into work with sanctions for those who refuse available jobs and the timetable for increasing the State Pension Age will be reviewed."
Belfast Telegraph: Organisers of a weekly protest against Government cut-backs have vowed to fight on despite a drop in turnout.
Around 400 people joined the demonstration in Dublin city centre - less than half the number of supporters last Tuesday night.
But campaigners insisted they would keep holding the rallies at the gates of the Dail until the politicians inside changed their ways. More...
Dr Wakefield, the doctor who was struck off this week, for condemning the MMR vaccine, vows make public all the documentation he has uncovered during his legal battle with the British government.
He says that now that he is not constrained by legal processes, he can expose the government's shenanigans and its criminal links with British Big Pharma.
Dr Wakefield makes his entry at about 2.5 minutes in.
Cross-posted by Fausty
Solar Cycle: CHICAGO – A new "Little Ice Age" could begin in just four years, predicted Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia.
Abdussamatov was speaking yesterday at the Heartland Institute's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago, which began Sunday and ends today.
The Little Ice Age, which occurred after an era known in scientific circles as the Medieval Warm Period, is typically defined as a period of about 200 years, beginning around 1650 and extending through 1850. More...
Link via Barking Spider.
The Register: Each and every member of the European Parliament (MEP) may soon receive a brand-spanking new, "magical and revolutionary" Apple iPad.
And no, they wouldn't pay for them out of their own pockets. According to The Times, the 736 MEPs would each receive an iPad as part of a £4.3m ($6.2m) taxpayer-funded "IT mobility project".
But the iPad purchases would be just a small slice of that pie: even if the MEPs decided to gift themselves with the juiciest iPad, the 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G, 736 of those £699 magical and revolutionary devices would suck up only a bit over a half-million pounds. More...
NaturalNews: The H.J. Heinz company, most famous for producing Heinz brand ketchup, has been reprimanded by the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over an ad for its Nurture-brand infant formula.
According to the ASA, Heinz made "unsubstantiated" and "unacceptable" claims that its product could support the growth of infant brains, bodies and immune systems. More...
Guardian: The Red Cross in Afghanistan has been teaching the Taliban basic first aid and giving insurgents medical equipment so that fighters wounded during battles with Nato and Afghan government forces can be treated in the field, it was revealed today.
More than 70 members of the "armed opposition" received training in April, the Red Cross said, in a move likely to anger the government of Hamid Karzai, which is losing large numbers of police and soldiers in insurgent attacks. More...
Telegraph Blogs: I must be doing something right. In her column in today’s Guardian, Polly Toynbee takes a swipe at me in the course of attacking the coalition’s educational reforms. “Forget the things the chattering classes never knew about,” she says, referring to George Osborne’s decision to axe the Every Chid a Reader and Every Child Counts schemes, “and focus on parents creating their own little schools to suit their foibles or their faiths or the Toby Young school of ethics or whatever.” More...
Business Insider: A memo discovered by The Daily Beast shows that BP blithely chose cost over safety for workers.
The memo, which was sent in 2002, describes plant construction in terms of the Three Little Pigs fable. BP concluded that a brick home presented a better cost-value ratio than a blast resistant home.
A BP spokesperson said to The Daily Beast that the company has "fundamentally changed the culture of BP" since a rig explosion in 2005. More...
UK News Network: The former Africa Minister who has also held the role of deputy secretary-general of the UN, Lord Malloch-Brown, has taken up a role as advisor to an Ethiopian oil company.
He will be paid in shares for his latest role at the Ethiopian firm rather than a flat salary for his role at Southwest Energy.
More to come.
Big Brother Watch: As reported today by STV today, 18 police officers in Aberdeen are to wear small CCTV cameras mounted on their shoulders from next month:
Chief Inspector Nick Topping said potential offenders are more likely to behave if they know they are being filmed.
“Not only will they provide potentially crucial evidence, they will be a deterrent and make it less likely that offenders will deny their involvement in crime”, he said.
Union leaders have issued a fresh plea to resolve the bitter British Airways cabin crew dispute after claiming that a series of strikes had now cost the airline £63 million.
Tony Woodley, joint leader of Unite, also warned that BA will lose business when passengers "look elsewhere" for flights during the peak summer period.
Union members were on strike for the second day of a five-day walkout, claiming the action was being strongly supported, with shorthaul and longhaul flights being grounded.
BA countered that it had more crew than it needed to operate its contingency schedule and as a result was adding flights.
More.....A local authority has been found not guilty of breaching health and safety laws after a 14-year-old schoolboy died on a caving trip.
Joe Lister drowned when water swept through Manchester Hole Cave in the Yorkshire Dales during a school trip in November 2005.
North Yorkshire County Council, which owns and operates the outdoor education centre involved in the trip, has been cleared of two charges of failing to ensure the health and safety of its staff and others. A jury at Leeds Crown Court took around nine hours to reach the not guilty verdicts.
Common sense at last from the Judiciary.
Read the full article here
Daily Mail: A group of travellers has set up camp with 30 caravans in a school's playing field, forcing hundreds of children to stay at home.
Education bosses immediately set up an exclusion zone at Smithills School, Bolton, after the extraordinary convoy moved in on Sunday evening.
Around 300 Year 8 pupils have been told to work from home because their classrooms are next to the playing fields and it was feared the travellers' presence could cause disruption to classes. More...
Jamaican police say at least 26 civilians and four members of the security forces have died as police and soldiers battle defenders of a powerful Jamaican gang leader sought by the US.
Thousands of heavily armed forces are raiding the capital's most violent down town slums in a hunt for underworld boss Christopher Coke, known as "Dudus."
Hundreds of men suspected of beating their wives and girlfriends have been told their "card is marked" in the run up to the World Cup.
Senior police officers are bracing themselves for an increase in reports of domestic abuse during the month-long football tournament.
Research has shown major sporting events, mainly involving rugby and football, are linked to a rise in violence.
More......Apologies to regular readers for lack of posts. This is due to circumstances beyond my control as I'm having severe personal difficulties and ongoing disasters that for the moment require my full attention. Is there anybody else out there that will be willing to share the burden of searching and posting news? please email if you can help. Hopefully I will have resolved these problems by early next week and can resume posting, but there is a possiblity that I may be soon be enjoying a 3 month respite from posting at her majesties pleasure. That's life. If I'm not posting it's not because I don't want to it's because I'm unable. Best Wishes
ukws
Subrosa: Today was the State Opening of Parliament which all elected MPs should attend. Yet there was one very obvious absentee.
Gordon Brown is the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath yet he was nowhere to be seen. I'm informed he's been out and about in Fife so why couldn't he not represent the people who elected him at this traditional ceremony? More...
Guardian: Five Somali men are due to go on trial in the Netherlands today for robbery on the high seas, in what will be the first modern piracy trial in a Dutch court.
The men were held in January 2009 after allegedly trying to capture a cargo ship registered in the Dutch Antilles.
The ship's crew held off the attack off the Horn of Africa with flares until a Danish navy frigate intervened and sank the pirates' boat. More...
Telegraph Blogs: The voice of Scar in the Lion King has spoken:
“We must live more sustainably,” he growls from Pride Rock – as he probably doesn’t call a single one of his seven homes, not even the pink castle in Co Cork, because in real life he’s not a lion at all but a Sherborne-educated luvvie who takes himself very, very seriously called Jeremy Irons. (Hat tip: Brown Bess)
Irons has just announced his plans to become an eco-campaigner. He wants to be a bit like Michael Moore, he says, only not “as silly”. Sounds fun, Jezza. Tell us more. More...
Telegraph Blogs: There’s no let-up on bad spending ideas coming from the Tory-run Department for International Development (DFID). It is going to spend £2.95 million to give Uganda 45 million condoms, along with some implantable and oral contraceptives. “Who could be against that?”, the sandal-wearing do-gooders at DFID might be wondering. Well me, for a start – and no, I’m not a Catholic.
No one wants HIV/AIDS to spread, but free distribution will never work. As Professor William Easterly, the eminent development economist, has argued, there’s no shortage of Coca-Cola in Africa, and condoms should be treated in the same, for-profit way. More...
Businessweek: At least two passengers visited the cockpit of Polish President Lech Kaczynski's plane before it crashed last month, and others may have chatted on cell phones, possibly affecting navigation as the crew battled heavy fog over challenging terrain.
Those were among the details revealed Wednesday by Russian and Polish officials investigating the April 10 crash that killed Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others outside the western Russian city of Smolensk. The preliminary report drew no conclusions about what caused the crash. More...
Independent: In an attempt to take the pressure off bomb disposal officers in Afghanistan, combat engineers will now be tasked with blowing up many of the improvised devices rather than having to dismantle every one of them.
The revelation came as the most senior bomb disposal officer in the country, Colonel Bob Seddon, resigned after suggesting he needed more operatives on the ground and was concerned about the pressures being placed on his men in Afghanistan, as well as the "psychological price" they may pay, long term. More...
Daily Mail: A woman drove a man to suicide by crying rape and forced a second innocent man to consider taking his life after falsely accusing him of a similar sex attack.
Despite being exposed in court as a serial liar, legal restrictions mean the 21-year-old woman can never be identified.
A jury took only 45 minutes to clear medical student Olumide Fadayomi, 27, of rape. More...
The Cobden Centre: I offer a £1,000 reward for anyone who can tell me why this logically won’t work, practical politics, for now, being another matter.
What follows is an attempt to show you that this can be done. More...
Witterings from Witney: The 'Green Scammers' are getting worried about how their 'scam' is to be funded and more importantly, their jobs, especially bearing in mind the economic cutbacks and failing economies in Europe.
Richard North, EU Referendum, posts on the falling markets and links to an article detailing the cash black hole affecting Scotland's attempt to transform itself to a low carbon economy. Lady Susan Rice, Lloyds Banking Group - also non-exec director of Scottish & Southern Electricity, so no conflict of interests there then - complains that banks should not be expected to shoulder the burden and neither should major utilities firms be expected to get into much more debt in order to fund new renewables schemes. More...
Sky News: The FTSE 100 has remained heavily in the red after losing nearly 3% of its value within seconds of opening due to further eurozone fears and concern over tensions in Korea.
The weekend rescue of Spain's CajaSur bank set European bank stocks falling, with Germany's DAX down 2.6% and the French CAC recording a drop of over 3%. More...
Retail News: Employers believe that good communication and engagement with staff has been the key to making the workforce changes needed to safeguard jobs during the recession, according to a new report by the CBI and recruitment experts Harvey Nash.
Picking up the Pace: the CBI/Harvey Nash employment trends survey 2010 offers an insight into how employers and staff worked together during the depths of the recession to keep job losses to a minimum. More...
The Register: David Laws, chief secretary to the treasury, and Francis Maude will jointly chair the "Efficiency Group" in order to help government departments renegotiate contracts with suppliers.
The group will also put a freeze on what they call "unnecessary" IT, advertising and consultancy spending over £1m. Presumably someone else will look at unnecessary spending of less than £1m. More...
Thisismoney: Britain's profitable outsourcing industry was in focus yesterday as Chancellor George Osborne and his Liberal Democrat deputy David Laws outlined plans to strip £6.2bn in spending from the public purse.
In its first major financial announcement since taking office the coalition government pledged to scrap the £320m Child Trust Fund and save £1.7bn by cancelling contracts. More...
Banditry (John Band): While there’s been a lot of commentary on the British Airways strikes, the analysis (whether pro-company or pro-union) tends to miss two major points.
The business model is unsustainable – but that’s the management’s fault, not the unions’
BA’s model before the global financial crisis was to charge a fortune for excellent service in Club World and First, while matching its competitors’ prices and service levels in World Traveller. Together with BA’s massive global coverage and its excellent connections between the financial boom centres of London, New York and Singapore, this business model allowed BA to attract a lot of passengers and make a lot of money. More...
Guardian: The White House directed BP to cut its use of chemical dispersants to break up the Louisiana oil slick by as much as 50% yesterday, reflecting concerns that the clean-up of the spill could be worsening the economic disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the Obama administration wanted the oil company to scale back its use of chemicals on the water surface. The order came amid increasing tension between the administration and the oil company about how to manage the oil on the ocean floor, more than a month after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. More...
Metro: Gunfire rang out on the streets of West Kingston and a police station was set alight by Molotov cocktails as scores of supporters of ‘don’ Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke arrived from across the island.
They sealed off Coke’s slum neighbourhood with wrecked cars and barbed wire amid moves to extradite him to the US on arms and drug- trafficking charges. More...
Daily Express: Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham has admitted his party paved the way for election defeat by ignoring voters’ concerns about immigration.
The former health secretary said the party had been “in denial” about the issue. More...
Daily Star: Sarah Ferguson still has a staff of 12 to see to her every need despite claiming she is broke, it was revealed yesterday.
The Duchess of York has blamed money problems on her decision to sell business meetings with her ex-husband Prince Andrew for £500,000. More...
Adam Smith Institute: Last week I saw Robin Hood at the cinema. It is a truly, extraordinarily bad film: long, boring and yet, at times, preposterously silly. The low point came towards the end, when a bloodied, chainmailed Robin lept out of the English Channel, and gave a dramatic, slow motion roar. The whole audience burst out laughing. But it’s a real shame the film is so terrible, because it actually has quite a libertarian message. This is the not the Robin Hood conjured up by those Tobin tax advocates, who think confiscating bank profits will solve all the world’s problems. This Robin makes speeches about liberty, battles King John’s tax collectors, and even tries to force the King to sign an early version of Magna Carta. If the film hadn’t been so utterly charmless, I’d have been cheering him on. More...
Dick Puddlecote: It's been another interesting day in the bureaucratic nightmare that is running a business in EU-led Britain.
Our attempt to book in four vehicles at the coachworks, who handle general maintenance for the larger end of our fleet, was met with laughter at the other end of the phone today. While it's never been a problem before, it turns out they're jammed to the rafters with tipper trucks, scaffolding lorries and flatbeds having new mudflaps and bumpers fitted.
The EU have decreed the old ones to be illegal, so every truck of its type in the country must be adapted by a certain date or be taken off the road. More...
Daily Mail: A toddler was ordered off a bus because the foreign driver was 'offended' by his England football T-shirt, his mother has claimed.
Sam Fardon, 27, was allegedly told to get off the service with her sons Dylan, two, and 10-week-old Adam as they made their way to a childcare group.
The unnamed driver, who had a Polish or Eastern European accent, said Dylan's white England shirt was 'offensive' and he threatened to turf the family out on the street. More...
Old Holborn: Nice to see there is to be a complete recruitment freeze in the public sector. Imagine my surprise when I checked the Grauniad this morning to find 310 open Government jobs
Yup 310.
The first page alone gives us 28 jobs and a bill of over £1m a year in salaries, plus the usual pension and benefits.
This does not include the numerous fake charities that receive massive involuntary grants from the taxpayer to remain off the books whilst in effect carrying out Labour party policy on such things as climate change of reminding us all that "some people are gay, get over it" (£350K donation from the Dept of Enterprise, ex- Mandelson). More...
Telegraph Blogs: I’ve written extensively on how the Obama administration is fervently in favour of a federal Europe, but now it seems it is happy to surrender American global leadership to the EU as well. In his recent speech to the European Parliament (hat tip: The Foundry), Vice President Joe Biden declared that Brussels can now lay claim to the title “capital of the free world” (watch the video here). More...
Dick Puddlecote: As someone who engages with many everyday working people on a daily basis, both professionally and in my spare time, THE most oft-repeated phrase I hear is "I don't do politics".
They'll all advance their thoughts about the ills of the world, though. After all, it's human nature. Van drivers, bricklayers, checkout girls, roofers, teaching assistants, spark's mates, cabbies, labourers, nursery nurses, road workers, cleaners, and the unemployed - they all have opinions. And most of them feel totally ignored.
But then again, a lot of them say they 'don't do politics'.
It's getting to be a chicken and egg scenario. Did the politicians begin ignoring them before they stopped bothering with politicians, or did they stop bothering before politicians realised they were a waste of time?
I'd argue that it was the latter. More...
Underdogs Bite Upwards: In the comments here, Mr. Wallis asked for evidence that passive smoking was not dangerous. My response was along the lines of 'it is not possible to prove that anything is not dangerous. What has not been proved is that it is dangerous'.
Thinking on it further, it is not necessary to prove anything either way concerning passive smoking in order to show that the smoking ban is simply a spite-filled oppressive bullying piece of thuggery implemented, enforced and supported by vicious filth who love nothing more than to watch someone else suffer. More...
Guardian: Opponents of Arizona's draconian immigration enforcement law are hoping that federal courts will rule the measure unconstitutional, heading off a spate of "copycat" legislation elsewhere. More...
Techcrunch: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is joining Khosla Ventures, the VC firm. He will join as a senior adviser. Khosla is putting about $1.1 billion into clean technology companies and and tech companies right now.
One of the companies is Calera, a UK company which has a process to sequestrate carbon emissions in cement, while another, Kior, turns wood chips into biofuels. More...
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS: More flexible rules and a new crisis cell are Brussels' latest moves to counter mounting criticism from airlines and some member states following last month's airspace shut-down in reaction to the volcanic ash from Iceland.
Under the fresh guidelines, member states will be able to minimise flying restrictions when confronted with volcanic ash, so as to avoid another generalised air ban in Europe. The week-long ban in mid-April left millions of passengers stranded and cost the industry billions of euros. More...
EU Referendum: The euro is becoming an engine of intra-European tribal hatred, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who is exploring the political fallout from the euro crisis. As the world "teeters on the brink of a new age of rage" and we face a "tinderbox moment", he sees the Left as a possible beneficiary of the crisis. More...
The Register: Becta, the education IT procurement quango, is to be scrapped as part of the new government's £6.2bn cuts this year, announced by George Osborne this morning.
Schools are expected to get more control over their technology purchases as a result. Becta did not buy computers and software for schools, but instead drew up framework agreements that bound local authorities to particular vendors and packages. More...
Telegraph Blogs: Tonight’s scheduled screening of an advertisement for abortion on Channel 4 by the Marie Stopes organisation marks a new low in moral sensitivity. More significantly, it removes the last argument against pro-life organisations being allowed to broadcast images demonstrating the realities of abortion. The pro-abortion lobby is pleading the need for openness about abortion: fair enough, they should be taken at their word. More...
Guardian: Popular concern about climate change has declined significantly, following this year's harsh winter and rows over statistics on global warming, a survey has found.
The numbers of those interested in where Britain's electricity comes from have also slipped back, according to a survey commissioned by the energy company EDF, demonstrating what appears to be growing consumer complacency in an era of electric-powered gadgetry. More...
Just in case you're thinking of going there.
More.....Britain, the US and Canada have issued travel alerts warning of possible unrest and violence in Jamaica amid anger over the expected arrest of a man Washington describes as one of the world's most dangerous drug lords.
The capital Kingston has been jittery since prime minister Bruce Golding this week reversed his long-standing refusal to extradite Christopher "Dudus" Coke to the US on drugs and arms-trafficking charges.
David Cameron is rejecting the advice of top security officials by insisting on walking around Whitehall, refusing police motorcycle escorts and demanding to be allowed to keep his BlackBerry smartphone.
There is increasing nervousness about the protection of the Prime Minister, who officials believe is making himself vulnerable to terrorists, lone obsessives and cyber-criminals.
Story here
My take on it
Please, don't do that Dave!!
"Until I lost 900 videos, I never actually considered there was anything unsafe about trusting a company such as Google to protect my data. After all, who keeps photos in a shoebox anymore?"
Blogger Mark Kobayashi-Hillary has had his YouTube account removed after uploading a video from a gig by British comedian Jimmy Carr.
More here
Miniature robots could be good spies, but researchers now are experimenting with insect cyborgs or "cybugs" that could work even better.
Scientists can already control the flight of real moths using implanted devices.
The military and spy world no doubt would love tiny, live camera-wielding versions of Predator drones that could fly undetected into places where no human could ever go to snoop on the enemy. Developing such robots has proven a challenge so far, with one major hurdle being inventing an energy source for the droids that is both low weight and high power. Still, evidence that such machines are possible is ample in nature in the form of insects, which convert biological energy into flight.
Full article here
ALSO
Try this for more military stuff
The prison population in England and Wales reached a record high on Friday, the Government has said.
Ministry of Justice statistics confirmed the total reached 85,201 - 192 more than last Friday.
Managing prisoner numbers was not covered in more detailed plans published by the new coalition Government on Thursday.
More.....A British marine has been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan.
The serviceman, from 40 Commando Royal Marines died in an explosion near Patrol Base Almas, in Sangin, Helmand Province on Friday morning.
He was conducting a joint foot patrol with the Afghan National Army to improve the security to the local population in the area when the incident happened, the Ministry of Defence said. Next of kin have been informed.
An Iraqi asylum seeker who was acquitted of terrorist-related offences has won his false imprisonment claim against the Government.
The 30-year-old man, who can only be identified as HXA, sued the Home Office for damages at London's High Court over his detention between January 26 and November 23 2005.
More.....The union representing cabin crew won its appeal against an injunction granted earlier in the week preventing the walkouts.
The decision paves the way for fifteen days of strikes beginning on Monday.
An internal memo at the time showed that BaFin feared write-offs might top €800bn (£688bn), twice the reserves of Germany's financial institutions. Nobody paid much attention. But the regulator's shock move on Tuesday night to stop short trading on banks, insurers, eurozone bonds – as well as a ban credit default swaps (CDS) on sovereign debt – has left markets wondering whether the slow fuse on Germany's banking system has finally detonated.
More....Shocked European ministers are preparing for emergency talks to shore up the euro after markets fell in reaction to panic measures in Germany.
Angela Merkel stunned EU capitals by warning that the euro was in danger and triggered fears of a fresh financial meltdown by announcing a ban on risky trading practices by speculators. The German Chancellor’s actions opened up new cracks in the single currency, drawing sharp criticism from France and prompting Brussels to issue an appeal for unity. More.....
Home Information Packs (HIPs) are to be scrapped with immediate effect, the coalition Government announced today.
The unpopular packs — which contained information required before a seller could put their home on the market — was “pointless red-tape” that was “strangling the housing market”, the Housing Minister Grant Shapps said.
More....
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