British man shot in Arona hold-up

 

British man, aged 58, was injured in an armed hold-up of a currency exchange shop in Arona, on the south of Tenerife, on Tuesday morning. It happened on the Paseo de Las Tosqueras in Playa de Las Américas, shortly before 9am. The injured man is named as Dennis in reports, and it’s understood that he works in the store and was shot in the right arm by the gunman. He is now under hospital treatment with an entry and exit wound in his arm from a 22 calibre weapon.

British couple arrested for holiday rentals scam on the Costa Blanca

 

British couple resident in Mojácar have been arrested by the Civil Guard for an alleged holiday rentals scam which is believed to have brought them profits of more than 150,000 €. Europa Press reports that the pair advertised properties available for short term let on the Costa Blanca which were not in fact available for rent but were occupied by their legitimate owners. The couple, who are named as John Anthony T., aged 41, and 37 year old Amanda Jane T., advertised online on several sites with photographs and descriptions of each of the properties. Their victims, which the Civil Guard said could number more than 60 in the UK, Portugal, France, Italy and Belgium, made the bookings online and were then contacted by email by the property management company. There was however no further contact once the deposit and then the remainder of the cost had been transferred into the couple’s account. Some of those affected then travelled out to the property they had rented in good faith, only to find them occupied by their owners. The Civil Guard investigation began in February after an official complaint was presented by a French woman to officers at the barracks in Pilar de la Horadada. It was followed by other denuncias from other foreign nationals with similar stories

Irishman stabbed on Ibiza

 

19 year old was attacked by two men, thought to be British, in what is thought to be a drug-related attackArchive Photo EFE A 19 year old Irish man, named as Jack McCarthy, was stabbed four times in the back and once below one of his eyes in an attack on Monday in Sant Antoni, Ibiza. It happened at 4pm in Calle Barcelona, and it’s thought that the man was ambushed by two others, thought to be British. One of the stab wounds perforated a lung, and the victim is now being treated in the Can Misses Hospital. The latest hospital statement says that he is making progress and is stable although serious. Tuesday morning the youngster wanted to discharge himself, but the doctors advised the duty Guardia and they have kept him under treatment. The Sant Antoni local police say that they found small quantities of drugs in the victim’s home, and materials indicating that he was dealing, and they presume the aggression was therefore drug-related.

PM denies Spain on verge on bailout

 

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero insists Spain will not require an international bailout, and will "survive tensions" that are sweeping the markets. "Spain, of course, will finance itself," he told a news conference in Ankara with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that was carried on Spanish television. "We will survive these tensions. They are not good for our economy, but we will survive them."We have strength. We have taken measures for that and we planned for the scenarios that we might face in the last part of this year." His remarks came a day after a union leader claimed that Zapatero told unions on August 17 that Spain was on the verge of a financial rescue. But the Labour Union chief, Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, backtracked on Tuesday, saying Zapatero did not, in fact, use those words. Madrid's IBEX-35 index of leading shares fell 1.61 per cent by the close to fall to 7936.4 points, below the symbolic 8000-point barrier. On Monday, the market closed down 4.69 per cent. Spain's biggest unions were holding an evening march in Madrid to protest against a legislative reform that will enshrine balanced budgets in the Spanish constitution. "The reform of the constitution to guarantee long-term budget stability is a reform that helps us maintain our credibility to keep up our financing capacity and reduce tensions," Zapatero said. He called for "concerted action between Europe, America, emerging countries and the IMF" in order to "regain growth momentum and support the liquidity of the financial system". Finance Minister Elena Salgado earlier also denied that Spain had been on the verge of needing a financial rescue itself. "Like other countries we suffered debt market tensions in August and that led to the ECB intervening, but since then we have been very far from a rescue," she said. Under the constitutional change, Spain must stick to a long-term deficit cap except in times of natural disaster, recession, or extraordinary emergencies and even then only with approval of the lower house of parliament. Although unions oppose the change, it easily swept through the lower house with support from both the ruling Socialists and conservative opposition Popular Party. It is expected to cruise through a Senate vote Wednesday.

Ailing Spanish bank CAM posts massive first-half loss

 

Spain's struggling Caja Mediterraneo (CAM), under state control since in July, Monday posted first-half losses of 1.136 billion euros ($1.602 billion). It also reported a non-performing loan ratio of 19 percent, far above the average of 6.416 percent for the sector in June. The Bank of Spain announced on July 22 that it would take control of the CAM through an injection of 2.8 billion euros and the opening of a 3.0 billion euro line of credit. It now plans to sell-off the ailing savings bank. On Friday, the business daily Cinco Dias said the CAM may need about 1.0 billion euros in additional public funds. The CAM was one of five Spanish banks that failed new European stress tests on July 15 to see if they can survive a major crisis. Spain's lenders, especially its regional savings banks which account for about half of all lending in the country, have been heavily exposed to bad debt since the collapse of the property sector at the end of 2008. The government and Bank of Spain have forced a wave of consolidation in the sector this year and are requiring banks to quickly increase the proportion of core capital they hold to above international norms. CAM, based in the eastern coastal region of Alicante which was one of the worst hit by the bursting of the property bubble, had been set to merge with three other savings banks but the deal fell through earlier this year.

Bosses of banks saved by taxpayer earn more now than before crisis

 

The bosses of Britain’s bailed-out banks are paid more than they were before the credit crunch struck, a damning report reveals today. The chief executives of the country’s basket-case lenders earned an average basic salary of more than £1.1million last year before bonuses or other benefits. Shockingly, this figure is an increase on the £1million average from 2007 – the year that the financial crisis struck, crippling Britain and plunging the country into recession. Despite the fact that they have the job of salvaging the banks propped up with more than £65billion of taxpayers’ money, they are among the best-paid executives in this country. Their average wage is almost more than 40 times that of the country’s average of £26,000 and it dwarfs the £142,500-a-year salary earned by our Prime Minister. When bonuses and other perks are included bank chiefs enjoyed average total earnings of £3.7million last year – The damning findings by the country’s leading pay experts are likely to anger British taxpayers, who are sitting on losses of £34billion in RBS and Lloyds – or £1,300 per household.

Share slump hammers Euro banks

 

Stocks in Europe and Italian fixed-income securities were pummelled on concern about the euro zone's debt crisis. The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index ended the day with a 4.1 per cent drop. US and Canadian financial markets were closed for the Labor Day holiday. Financial stocks led the decline in Europe as Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann said profit in the banking sector would be curtailed for years because of the sovereign debt crisis and some banks would likely fail. "Prospects for the financial sector overall ... are rather limited," the CEO of Germany's top bank said on Monday. "The outlook for the future growth of revenues is limited by both the current situation and structurally." Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse Group, Barclays, Societe Generale and Royal Bank of Scotland all shed more than 6.5 per cent, according to Bloomberg News. "Not a great start to the week. There is a lot going on for banks, especially in the light of a low-growth environment and the backdrop in the euro zone not improving," Mike Lenhoff, chief strategist at Brewin Dolphin, told Reuters. Investors also sold euros, buying gold and US dollars instead. The euro dropped 0.7 per cent against the greenback after German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union was defeated in an election in her home state, yet another indication voters are unhappy about her efforts to deal with the European debt crisis and reject plans to use more taxpayer money to help solve the problems of countries including Greece and Ireland. "Merkel's problem is that she fails to generate confidence in her policies and those of her coalition partner," Gero Neugebauer, a political science professor at the Free University in Berlin, told Bloomberg. "It's about the consistency of her statements" on bailouts for indebted euro countries. The US currency strengthened 0.66 per cent against a basket of its major counterparts. Investors are eyeing a German constitutional court ruling on Wednesday on claims that Berlin is breaking German law and European treaties by contributing to bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, according to Reuters. The court is not expected to rule against the contributions, but may add stipulations for dealing with future requests that will complicate the region's bailout plans. "People are pricing in the risk of European meltdown, rather than the likely outcome," Ian King, head of international equities at Legal & General, told Reuters. Against this backdrop, Group of Seven financial leaders are likely to agree later this week to keep monetary policy loose. The G7's finance ministers and central bankers meet on Friday in Marseilles, France to discuss potential to bolster the slowing global economy. Before then however, central bankers are meeting in Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe and may offer investors more perspective on the global outlook.

Swiss bankers demand respect for law from US tax evasion investigators

 

Swiss bankers have rejected another UBS-style tax evasion deal following an ultimatum from the United States last week to turn over the names of more tax cheats. The US has turned up the heat on Switzerland after finding evidence that Credit Suisse and other banks allegedly helped its citizens to break the law by hiding their wealth from the tax authorities. The successful prosecution of UBS two years ago led to a Swiss-US treaty that severely dented Swiss banking secrecy laws by providing the names of nearly 5,000 bank clients.   But rather than burying the problem, the success of the deal has encouraged the US to pursue yet more banks – some of whom are rumoured to have illegally given UBS clients safe haven after Switzerland’s largest bank was caught out.   The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) is desperate to avoid other banks facing a UBS situation and called on negotiators to find a solution this time that keeps secrecy intact. Law abiding SBA chairman Patrick Odier demanded a universal treaty binding on all countries rather than a raft of ad-hoc agreements between Switzerland and other states.   “The solution must be globally applicable, definitive and in line with current Swiss laws,” Odier said at the SBA’s annual conference in Zurich on Monday.   While accepting that Swiss banks must pay a penalty if they had broken foreign laws, Odier nevertheless denounced the latest demands from US deputy attorney-general James Cole as “too tough”.   “The US must recognise that legal certainty [of banking secrecy] is something that Switzerland must guarantee,” he said. “We cannot have one country refusing to respect the laws of another.”   The SBA pointed to the recent deals with Britain and Germany as a possible template. Under the terms of these treaties – yet to be rubber stamped – Swiss banks would pay withholding taxes on past and future earnings of foreign account holders.   Switzerland has also negotiated a new double taxation agreement with the US that is awaiting approval by the US authorities. UBS deal stands alone “I am very confident that we can find a common solution that would be in the interests of Swiss banks and the US,” SBA chief executive Claude-Alain Margelisch told swissinfo.ch.   “We solved the UBS case and I hope we find a definitive global solution for all Swiss banks. We must make sure that we do not have the same problem for a third time.”   Margelisch also dismissed the option of another UBS-style treaty despite that deal containing a paragraph that could force other Swiss banks to hand over client data if they were found to have broken US laws in the same way.   “The UBS case was special because it involved only one bank in a context that is not comparable with other Swiss banks,” Margelisch told swissinfo.ch. “I could not imagine that the Swiss parliament would be ready to pass another such treaty for the rest of the banking community during election year.”   But the latest signs coming from the US do not indicate that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is willing to compromise. Investigations have widened to around ten Swiss banks and Credit Suisse was recently served with official notice that it was being probed. Not bluffing Stories are also appearing in the media that the US negotiators are losing patience with their Swiss counterparts.   The fact that the second-highest ranking DoJ official, James Cole, has become publicly involved suggests to US tax lawyer Scott Michel that the US is not likely to withdraw its demands for new bank client data.   “It is a mistake to assume that when the DoJ makes a demand that they are bluffing,” Michel told swissinfo.ch. “There appears to be pent-up frustration that two years after the UBS case there is still evidence that other Swiss banks are helping US citizens hide their money away.”   He added: “The DoJ is not even asking for an exchange of information – a lengthy process involving case-by-case examination. They want a large batch of Swiss banking client information and they want it now.”   According to Michel, the US authorities appear to be building a legal basis to impose “draconian financial penalties” on Swiss banks that could dwarf UBS’s $780 million ($990 million) fine.   Swiss media are also reporting that the US would be prepared to start criminal legal proceedings against banks if they do not comply with their demands.

Eurozone woe fuels fresh market chaos as banks bear the brunt of a global stock rout

 

Britain's banks bore the brunt of a global stock market rout amid escalating concerns over the eurozone debt crisis and further signs of strain in wholesale money markets. More than £10bn was wiped off the value of Britain’s five biggest lenders as key inter-bank borrowing costs climbed to levels not seen since the height of the 2008 crash. Royal Bank of Scotland lost an eighth of its value, tumbling 3.06p to 21.78p, amid fears that it could be facing a bill of as much as £3.7bn from US sub-prime mortgage lawsuits. Plunge: More than £10bn was wiped off the value of Britain’s five big banks Lloyds slumped 2.47p or 7.5pc to 30.65p while Barclays tumbled 11.05p to 154.15p. Following yesterday’s bloodbath, taxpayers are now sitting on a £37.6bn paper loss from their 83pc and 40pc stakes in RBS and Lloyds. Josef Ackermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank, warned that the current turmoil was reminiscent of the panic triggered by the collapse of Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers.

Athens, Rome Hold Europe to Ransom

 

Europe is engaged in a high-stakes game of brinkmanship that poses grave risks to the global economy. At last weekend's Villa d'Este Forum in Italy, European policy makers didn't hide their fury at Greece's back-sliding over promised structural reforms and spending cuts. At the same time, Italian ministers undermined the remaining credibility of Silvio Berlusconi's government with a series of complacent speeches. Given such a dangerous breakdown in trust within Europe, investors are right to fear the worst. Germany and its Northern European allies believe only intense market pressure can force weak economies to cut spending and improve competitiveness. But Greece has learned that whenever the crisis in Europe's periphery threatens to overwhelm the core, Europe will ignore previous broken promises and step up with a fresh bailout. Italy now appears to be making the same calculation. The government insists it will fulfill its commitment to balance the budget by 2013, but ministers show no appreciation of the urgent need for structural reforms to address the chronic weakness of an economy that grew on average 0.3% between 2001 and 2010 and experienced a 25% increase in unit labor costs relative to Germany over the same period. Instead, they talk incessantly of euro-zone bonds as a solution to misfortunes they blame largely on external forces. But Italy's dream of euro-zone bonds is likely to remain a fantasy until trust between member states is restored. This no longer depends simply on implementing austerity budgets. Structural reforms have now taken center stage because they are a test of whether the euro zone is worth saving at all: If countries refuse to improve competitiveness, then any attempted solutions to the immediate sovereign-debt crisis will prove short-lived. So what can be done about Greece and Italy? Athens rejects accusations it is dragging its feet but has promised to use a 10-day hiatus in talks with the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund over progress toward its bailout targets to speed up reforms. If it fails to deliver again, European policy makers now talk darkly of a total loss of fiscal sovereignty. How this might work in practice isn't clear. As for Italy, some now believe its best hope lies with the ECB, which last month threw Rome a life line by agreeing to buy its bonds. If the ECB were to stop buying bonds, the subsequent rise in yields might bring down Mr. Berlusconi's administration, paving the way for President Giorgio Napolitano to appoint a technical government with the constitutional authority to make tough decisions. Then, at least, the long process of rebuilding the credibility of the euro zone's third-biggest economy could begin in earnest.

US recession fears savage world financial markets

 

World stock markets took a beating Monday over fears that the U.S. economy was heading back into a recession just as the European debt crisis was heating up and the eurozone's economic indicators were slumping. A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, Sept. 2, 2011 in New York. The jobs report was the weakest in almost a year. It renewed fears that the U.S. might slip back into recession. (AP Photo/Jin Lee) A man looks at an electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo, Monday, Sept. 5, 2011. Asia-Pacific stocks took a beating early Monday after jobs data out of the U.S. last week revived fears of a recession in the world's largest economy. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara) More business news In tough economy, multi-job holders grateful for balancing act Delta at center of FAA debate Turkish hackers hit UPS Recession over, jobs still elusive New owner for Atlanta Dream Delta Air Lines news, links Coca-Cola Co. news Health Care Reform coverage Read Henry Unger's Biz Beat blog Any troubles in the world's largest economy cast a long shadow over the markets, and a report Friday that the U.S. economy failed to add any new jobs in August caused European and Asian stock markets to sink sharply Monday. But the news from Europe was also discouraging. Wall Street, which was closed Monday due to the Labor Day holiday, braced for losses Tuesday after the yields in so-called peripheral eurozone countries — Greece, Italy and Spain — rose sharply against those of Germany, whose bonds are widely considered a safe haven. Although retail sales in the 17-nation eurozone rose unexpectedly in July, a survey of the services sector Monday showed a slowdown across the continent for the fifth consecutive month. The purchasing managers' index for the eurozone showed the services sector was still growing — unlike the manufacturing sector — but only barely. That will add pressure on the European Central Bank to keep interest rates on hold when it meets this week. "There's so much uncertainty, so much fear, that investors don't know what to do," said David Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors. "I don't remember the last time stocks were so cheap and nobody wanted them." Investors were also shaken by signs that the Italian government's commitment to its austerity program is wavering. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government has backtracked on some deficit-cutting measures, prompting EU officials to urge Italy to stick to its promised plan. The difference in interest rates between the Greek and benchmark German 10-year bonds, known as the spread, spiraled to new records on Monday, topping 17.3 percentage points. Yields on the Greek bonds were above 18 percent. Mario Draghi, the incoming chief of the European Central Bank, told a conference in Paris that among the common currency's problems was a lack of coordinated fiscal policies and that the solution was more integration. He dismissed the idea of eurobonds — debt issued jointly by the eurozone countries. Some have argued this would help weaker countries borrow more easily because they wouldn't have to pay such high interest rates. But stable countries like Germany would likely see their rates rise. Instead, Draghi suggested the eurozone should adopt rules that would require more budget discipline. Renewed jitters over the eurozone debt crisis also contributed to the slump in financial stocks amid concerns the banks would need to raise new capital. Deutsche bank closed down 8.9 percent in Frankfurt, while Societe Generale in Paris shed 8.6 percent. The U.S. unemployment crisis has prompted President Barack Obama to schedule a major speech Thursday night to propose steps to stimulate hiring. Until then, however, traders coming back from the U.S. holiday weekend will have little to hold onto. The August jobs figure was far below economists' already tepid expectations for 93,000 new U.S. jobs and renewed concerns that the U.S. recovery is not only slowing but actually unwinding. U.S. hiring figures for June and July were also revised lower, only adding to the gloom. Many traders have already pulled out of any risky investments — such as stocks, particularly financial ones, the euro and emerging market currencies — and pile into safe havens: U.S. Treasuries, the dollar, the Japanese yen and gold. With Wall Street closed, investors focused their selling in Asia and Europe, where the equity losses Monday were some of the heaviest this year. "We've got some rough riding ahead," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago, adding he was "concerned that we could see a second wave of selling when most traders are back at their desks." Dow futures were down 1.8 percent at 11,010 points while the broader S&P 500 futures were 2.0 lower at 1,145.70. After Asian indexes closed lower, with the Japan's Nikkei 225 shedding 1.9 percent, European shares booked sharp losses. Britain's FTSE 100 closed the day down 3.6 percent to 5,102.58. Germany's DAX slumped a massive 5.3 percent to 5,246.18, and France's CAC-40 tumbled 4.7 percent to 2,999.54. The health of the U.S. economy is crucial for the wider world because consumer spending there accounts for a fifth of global economic activity. The U.S. imports huge amounts from Japan and China and is closely linked at all levels with the European market. The U.S. has seen a slump in consumer and business sentiments. Traders were hoping for signs that the Federal Reserve might take action at its September meeting to support the economy — perhaps a third round of bond purchases, dubbed quantitative easing III or QE3, analysts said. "Right now the possibility has increased," said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong. "I think they have to do something. The markets are expecting QE3." Banking stocks were among the hardest hit Monday, partly because the U.S. government on Friday sued 17 financial firms for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities that turned toxic when the housing market collapsed. Among those targeted by the lawsuits were Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Large European banks including The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays Bank and Credit Suisse were also sued. In Asia, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 followed the broaden trend to close down 2.4 percent and South Korea's Kospi slid 4.4 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid 3 percent. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand and the Philippines also were down. Shanghai's benchmark Composite Index down 2 percent to 2,478.74, its lowest close in 13 months. The Shenzhen Composite Index lost 2.4 percent. In currencies, the euro weakened to $1.4100 from $1.4187 in New York late Friday. The dollar was roughly flat at 76.87 yen. Last month, the dollar fell under 76 yen, which was a new post-World War II high for the Japanese currency. Benchmark oil for October delivery was down $2.12 to $84.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude fell $2.48 to settle at $86.45 on Friday. In London, Brent crude for October delivery was down $1.63 at $110.70 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Huhne says climate change talks are at their "Munich moment" as £15m renewable heat scheme launched

DECC minister Chris Huhne has compared world leaders who obstruct a global deal to tackle climate change to politicians who tried to appease Adolf Hitler before World War Two, as his department launches a £15 million scheme for domestic renewable heat.

The energy and climate change minister was at Chatham House, endeavouring to inject new urgency into climate change negotiations.

He said that it was vital that governments redouble their efforts to find a successor to the United Nations Kyoto Protocol, which controls greenhouse gas emissions only in developed countries and expires at the end of 2012.

However, he feels that it is now unlikely that a breakthrough will be made at the main annual conference beginning late November in Durban, South Africa, because of “a damaging rhythm" into which "the annual cycle of UNFCCC meetings is in danger of slipping".

"Although the scientific evidence continues to grow, climate change is getting less political attention now than it did two years ago. There is a vacuum, and the forces of low ambition are looking to fill it," he said. "Giving in to the forces of low ambition would be an act of climate appeasement.

Huhne evoked the memory of Winston Churchill and the fight against Nazi Germany. "This is our Munich moment," he said, in a reference to the 1938 Munich Agreement that gave Hitler part of the former Czechoslovakia in a doomed attempt to persuade him to abandon further territorial ambitions. He quoted Churchill - who was both a Liberal and Conservative - who "once said that 'an appeaser is someone that feeds a crocodile, hoping that it will eat him last'."

But climate change affects everyone, and the poor suffer the most. Many developing nations seek to extend the Kyoto principles, but richer countries - Japan, Russia and Canada - want a different sort of agreement.

Poor countries say rich nations have emitted most of the greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution and so must give them more help before they can be expected to sign up to making cuts themselves. But Huhne said "We cannot wait for every country to become equal, because that would mean waiting for an eternity. At some point, we must draw a line and say: this starts now. This starts here."

In an attempt to persuade his audience he quoted the Association of British Insurers who said, in 2009, "our assessment of climate change convinces us that the threat is real and is with us now" and he referenced the letter written to the European Union by more than 70 European companies, including Ikea and Coca Cola, asking them to aim for more ambitious carbon cuts.

"This is the last Parliament with a chance to avoid catastrophic climate change," he said. “It will end in 2015. If we have not achieved a global deal by then, we will struggle to peak emissions by 2020. It will be more expensive, more divisive, and more difficult."

He said that the political tactics must include “using soft diplomacy to shift the politics and build coalitions" and "explaining the case for action...on economic and security grounds", and using “targeted financial and practical support to help developing countries build cleaner, more climate resilient economies."

He said temperatures must be kept within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst effects of climate change. They have already risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius and even if all emissions were stopped today, they would rise by a further 0.5 of a degree, he said. "Sticking to our 2 degree limit means global emissions must peak by 2020 at the latest," Huhne said. "From 2013, there will be new political leadership in the world's major economies. We hope to have put the global recession behind us. The stars may be more closely aligned in favour of a binding legal deal," he said.

The ‘Renewable Heat Premium Payment’ scheme

The RHPP scheme announced yesterday by DECC makes available £15 million of support for up to 25,000 renewable heat installations in homes, with a review to take place as the £10 million limit is approached.

It will target the four million or so households in Great Britain not heated by mains gas, who have to rely on heating such as oil and electric fires, which tend to be more expensive and emit more carbon emissions.

It is open to householders in England, Scotland and Wales, who will be able to apply for grants of up to £1,250 to install systems such as biomass boilers, air and ground source heat pumps and solar thermal panels from 1 August 2011. It will operate on a first-come-first-served basis, and will close on 31 March 2012.

Part of the purpose of the scheme is to obtain further information on the behaviour of technologies prior to the full commencement of the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI). Therefore installations will be monitored and any metering equipment will be provided free of charge.

Participants will be required to complete surveys and provide feedback on their experiences.

“Today starts a new era in home heating," announced climate change minister Greg Barker, “because we’re making it more economical for people to go green by providing discounts off the cost of eco heaters. This should be great news for people who are reliant on expensive oil or electric heating as the Premium Payment scheme is really aimed at them. “Getting money off an eco heater will not just cut carbon emissions, it will also help create a market in developing, selling and installing kit like solar thermal panels or heat pumps.”

The Premium Payment scheme is to be administered by the Energy Saving Trust, which has set up an information line, 0800 512 012 and a website.

Dwellings will have to have in place basic energy efficiency measures before householders can apply. The following technologies are eligible:

Ground Source Heat Pumps - £1250 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
Biomass boilers - £950 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
Air source heat pumps - £850 grant (for homes without mains gas heating)
Solar thermal hot water panels - £300 grant (available to all households regardless of the type of heating system used).
£3 million of the £15 million will be set aside for registered social landlords to improve their housing stock. DECC will announce details of how to apply for these funds at a later date.

The Renewable Heat Incentive

The Renewable Heat Incentive is split into two tranches. The first, for industry, business and communities will be open for applications on 30 September, subject to State Aids Approval. The tariffs will be paid for 20 years to eligible technologies that have been installed since 15 July 2009 with payments made for each kWh of renewable heat produced.

Households will be able to apply a year later. The government has confirmed that renewable heat installations installed in homes since 15 July 2009 could receive the Renewable Heat Incentive once it comes in, provided they meet the eligibility criteria.

They have also confirmed that this could include those who receive support under the RHPP scheme. The government has not yet published its proposals for how the RHI will work in the domestic sector, including eligibility criteria.

 

bail-out of the euro represents the introduction of socialism on a continental scale - with the British government's cynical endorsement.

How very appropriate that tanks should have been rolling through the streets of Brussels on the day that Europe dismantled another pillar of democracy. The military display, as it happened, was commemorating Belgium National Day, not the triumphal march toward financial union, but the coincidence was one of history’s better jokes. Europe is now galloping toward the final realisation of its great post-war dream: the abolition of independent nation states whose governments are answerable to their own people.
It is important to realise what is at stake here. When you exercise your right to vote for one party or another in national elections, you are, more often than not, doing so on the basis of its fiscal policies: that is, what it proposes to do about tax and spending. There could scarcely be a more important function of the electoral process than this. If the government is not accountable to you for what it does with your money, and how much it will take from you to do those things, then what is left of your power as a citizen? In what sense is your consent to being governed required? If responsibility for these decisions is to be removed from the elected governments of individual countries and transferred to a pan-European entity, then we are setting out on a course with the most terrifying political implications.
There is nothing accidental about this trajectory. The Greek (and Irish, and Portuguese, and Italian, and Spanish) crisis has been useful, as everyone now seems to be admitting, as an accelerant: having to scrape a whole cohort of eurozone countries off the floor has simply made the “need” for financial integration undeniable. The logical conclusion of an economically illiterate project has been reached. No more messing with the will of the people: resentful Germans and rebellious Greeks will be equally overridden in the name of – what? An international welfare state in which wealth is redistributed not just from the hard-working to the non-working classes of one’s own country, but from industrious nations to failing ones. The traditional socialist model of the wealth of the richer being taken by the state to give to the poorer is being applied on a continental scale, with the inevitable result that southern Europe will become a permanent basket case, dependent indefinitely on “support” – cheap loans and periodic bail-outs – from the north. The governments of those dependent countries will simply be ciphers, as powerless as welfare recipients are likely to be in any system.
And what of their voters? They will scarcely be electorates in the true sense at all. Which is why the Greeks were rioting in the streets: not just because they saw their early retirement age and their casual attitude to taxpaying under threat, but because they recognised that their views would now be irrelevant to their fate. Which is pretty much exactly what was intended all along. Deriding public opinion by dismissing it as populist, ignorant and inflammatory is not an incidental feature of the European project: it is essential. The will of the people is not a mere irritant or an obstacle, to be overcome under the pressure of particular circumstances. It is inherently volatile and dangerous: a threat to the benign, enlightened governance which only an apolitical bureaucratic administration can deliver.
The post-war received wisdom was that the terrible international crimes of the first half of the 20th century were directly attributable to the existence of vainglorious nation states and their rabidly xenophobic peoples. Only the abolition of their sovereignty and the disabling of their popular will could rid the world of that terrible blood-and-soil mystical relationship between countries and their own populations. It is not surprising or discreditable that it was Germany itself – the most infamous incarnation of this historical tendency – that was so determined to extinguish the possibility of it ever recurring. The question is: does undermining the fundamental principle of democracy – that the legitimacy of government requires the consent of the people – make that more or less likely to happen?

If we are going to learn from history, we might look at what dreadful things have followed when populations felt outraged and powerless, at what happens when people come to believe that their own political elites are conspiring against them in a way that deprives them of any voice or effective veto. If the democratic levers of protest are unavailable or useless, then non-democratic ones come into fashion. Deny people the ballot box as an effective outlet for their dissatisfaction, and they will take to the streets, either to replace their government by force, or worse, simply to vent their inchoate fury. As often as not, that fury is directed against some hapless victim – a racial minority, a vilified internal “public enemy” or a perceived foreign menace – which becomes a magnet for mob hatred. The glimmerings already visible of extremist politics in Europe (sometimes in countries that have been traditionally liberal and tolerant) are alarming enough: they will be as nothing to what might be on the rise if this arrogant determination to remove the democratic accessibility of national governments is pursued to the end.
That brings us to what appears to have become the official policy of the Conservative leadership, as explained by George Osborne overleaf. Bizarrely, in a reversal of what has been Tory foreign policy for a generation, the party leadership is now urging Europe on toward greater and faster financial union. The superficial (and reasonably plausible) economic case for this volte face is that, at this stage, it is only by accepting full economic integration that the eurozone can survive – and our economic fate being dependent on the survival of the euro as a currency means that it is in our interests to encourage whatever is necessary to kee it viable.
But the political argument for this stance, at which Mr Osborne hints, is that a financially unified Europe would be so clearly unacceptable to Britain that it would provide a perfect pretext for renegotiating our relationship with the EU. So, in effect, we would be prepared to betray the self-determination of the nations of Europe for our own self-serving reasons. This is a cynical form of realpolitik: that we should sell the pass on other people’s democratic rights in spite of whatever dark forces may be unleashed. That is not, as I recall, the traditional British view of our moral role in the world.

 

Disgraced former News International boss Rebekah Brooks intervened to persuade David Cameron to make ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson his spin doctor,

Disgraced former News International boss Rebekah Brooks intervened to persuade David Cameron to make ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson his spin doctor, it was claimed last night.

She is understood to have urged Mr Cameron to scrap plans to give the job to a senior BBC journalist. Mr Cameron was told it should go to someone who was ‘acceptable’ to News International.

The disclosure increases pressure on Mr Cameron over his close links to Mrs Brooks and the Murdoch empire.


Rebekah Brooks (left) is understood to have urged David Cameron to make Andy Coulson (right) his spin doctor

It follows the revelation that Mr Coulson stayed at the Prime Minister’s country residence, Chequers, two months after he was forced to quit as Downing Street’s head of communications over the phone-hacking scandal.


Cameron had intended to appoint the BBC's Guto Harri as his media chief

Mr Cameron met News International executives 26 times in 15 months.

Mr Cameron had been on the brink of appointing the BBC’s Guto Harri as his media chief when he was Opposition leader. Mr Harri and his family spent a weekend with the Camerons in 2007 to discuss the job offer.

However, it went to Mr Coulson after Mrs Brooks got involved, according to sources in the Tory party and at News International.

She is said to have told Mr Cameron that the post should go to  Mr Coulson to strengthen links between the Tories and News International. He had resigned a few months earlier as News of the World editor over the phone-hacking storm.

An individual intimately involved in Mr Coulson’s recruitment said: ‘Rebekah indicated the job should go to Andy. Cameron was told it should be someone acceptable to News International.

'The company was also desperate to find something for Andy after he took the rap when the phone hacking first became an issue. The approach was along the lines of, “If you find something for Andy we will return the favour”.’

 

Rebekah Brooks in line for £3.5m pay out as News International slaps gagging orders on chief executives (apart from that inquiry on Tuesday)
Mr Coulson, who was arrested this month over the phone-hacking furore, resigned from the News of the World in January 2007. Weeks later, the paper’s Royal correspondent Clive Goodman was jailed for phone-hacking.


Coulson got the job for Cameron after Brooks got involved

Mr Coulson’s appointment as Mr Cameron’s communications director in July 2007 came after he was close to agreeing to give the post to Welshman Mr Harri, who was then the BBC’s North America business correspondent.

When Mr Coulson moved into Downing Street after last year’s Election, Mr Cameron’s director of strategy Steve Hilton was given confidential information concerning the extent of Mr Coulson’s alleged involvement in phone-hacking. He passed it on to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn.

Mr Cameron now says the information was not passed on to him.

George Osborne, who was then Shadow Chancellor, also urged Mr Cameron to pick Mr Coulson over Mr Harri. ‘George is fixated with following how Tony Blair did everything but the decisive factor was Rebekah,’ said a Tory aide.

In 2009, the News of the World and The Sun abandoned support for Gordon Brown and switched to Mr Cameron.

Mr Harri went on to be communications director for Mr Cameron’s Tory rival, London Mayor Boris Johnson.

A Tory source said: ‘Lots of people said Andy would do a good job but it is not true that anyone from News International lobbied Mr Cameron to get him the position.’

Lithuanians among Lincolnshire blast dead

Three of the five men killed in an explosion at an industrial unit suspected of being used to produce moonshine alcohol were originally from Lithuania, police have confirmed.

Lincolnshire police said officers were still trying to establish the identity of the other men who died and a sixth victim who was injured in the blast in Boston on Wednesday night. A spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that three of the fatal casualties are believed to be Lithuanian nationals and are aged 24, 26 and 32."

The case has highlighted tensions between the local and eastern European communities in the area.

Meanwhile, a police cordon placed around the unit has been extended to include other parts of Boston's Broadfield Lane Industrial Estate, and further business units are being examined as part of the investigation.

Investigators revealed yesterday that they had discovered evidence which suggested the unit was being used as an illegal distillery when the explosion took place.

Superintendent Keith Owen, of Lincolnshire police, said: "I can confirm we have found chemicals on the premises which tend to indicate either the manufacture or production of alcohol."

Potentially dangerous fake brands of spirits were seized from six "international shops" which primarily serve east Europeans working on the area's labour-intensive fruit and vegetable farms and in packing factories.

 

Outrage at EU moves to 'auction' fish quotas

INDUSTRY leaders and fishing communities are gearing up to campaign against proposed changes to the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which could throw open Scotland's lucrative fishing grounds to foreign trawler fleets.
Until now foreign fleets, including Spanish trawlers, have been kept out of Scottish waters by access rights, where catches are allocated on the basis of historical landings under the rule of so called "relative stability".

But the disclosure that the country's fishing grounds could be available to Spanish and other foreign trawlers under proposed changes to the CFP, put forward by Maria Damanaki, the European Fisheries Commissioner, has prompted fears that Scottish fishermen could be priced out of the market.

Damanaki has unveiled plans that opponents claim could see Scottish fish quotas for key species such as haddock, cod and langoustines being sold to the highest bidder anywhere in Europe.

Richard Lochhead, Scotland's Fisheries Minister, has warned that the proposed changes represent a "huge threat" to Scotland's fishing fleets. He told Scotland on Sunday: "It's concerning that the commission's proposals could allow our historic fishing rights to be sold off. This could see them end up in the hands of faceless multi-national companies, which would be bad news for Scots fishermen who would be priced out of the market.

"I believe national governments should continue to decide on the quota rights of their fishermen and we should not hand control to Brussels. We simply cannot allow fishermen to sell their quota to other countries, to the detriment of future generations."

Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP's Westminster fisheries spokeswoman, has also voiced her concerns. The MP for Banff and Buchan, home to the white fish ports of Peterhead and Fraserburgh, said: "Selling quota to Europe's highest bidders will erode Scotland's historic rights which in turn could spell doom for our fragile fishing communities."

Damanaki is calling for a system of "transferable fishing concessions" offering a one-size-fits-all system across the EU to cut the capacity of the EU fleet.

The plan calls for an expansion in the international trading of fish quotas - stating "a member state may authorise the transfer of transferable fishing concessions to and from another member state.

 

Europe's bank stress tests as bad as 1979 Irish driving test

Seeing large numbers of his fellow citizens failing their driving tests, Mr Barrett – in a quick bid for votes – declared that anyone who had taken their test twice and not passed would automatically qualify for a licence.
The consequences were predictable. At any one time, about 40pc of the Irish population were allowed to drive on the roads without ever actually having passed a test. Traffic accidents went up and insurance costs followed.
Andrea Enria, the chairman of the European Banking Authority, may not like the comparison, but the limited bank stress test results he unveiled on Friday are born of a similar motivation that led directly to Ireland’s until only very recently dysfunctional driving test system.
Like the Irish government 32 years ago, the EBA and the European Union are under the impression that their power to pass and fail banks will translate directly into making them better at what they do.
The fallacy of this approach is as obvious as the needlessly ruined lives and extortionate insurance premiums that once-blighted Ireland will attest.

 

Senior MP's secret links to Murdoch

The MP who will lead the attack on Rebekah Brooks and Rupert and James Murdoch this week over their roles in the phone-hacking scandal has close links with the media empire, it is revealed today.

John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, admitted he was an old friend of Mr Murdoch's close aide, Les Hinton, and had been for dinner with Ms Brooks.

The Independent on Sunday has also learnt that Mr Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, seen as the future saviour of the company, has also met Mr Whittingdale a number of times. Among her 386 "friends" on Facebook, the only MP she lists is Mr Whittingdale. He is also the only MP among 93 Facebook "friends" of Mr Hinton.

 

'No trace' of E.coli at bean sprout farm suspected as German source

Health authorities were still struggling to find a source for Germany's E.coli outbreak yesterday after investigators failed to discover traces of the bacteria at a bean sprout farm strongly suspected of growing contaminated vegetables.

Health inspectors in the northern state of Lower Saxony shut down the farm in the village of Bienenbü ttel south of Hamburg on Sunday after two of its workers contracted diarrhoea and one of them became infected with E.coli. The farm was still considered to be a very likely a source of the outbreak.

Initial tests failed to provide any evidence that the farm's produce or premises were contaminated with the aggressive mutant strain of E.coli. The bacteria has so far killed 22 people and infected more than 2,000 others. Of 40 tests carried at the farm, the first 23 had revealed no trace of E.coli, officials said.

Gert Hahne, a spokesman for Lower Saxony's Agriculture Ministry, insisted that the search would continue. He said further "intensive analysis" had to be conducted on the imported seeds used to grow the bean sprouts to "establish beyond doubt" if the bacteria was or was not present.

Health officials said they remained convinced that contaminated bean sprouts from the farm were a source of the outbreak. The farm's produce had been supplied to a golfing hotel near the town of Lüneburg, where 11 Swedish tourists and a Dane had fallen ill after being infected with the bacteria. The farm was also said to be the source of bean sprouts supplied to the Kartoffel-Keller restaurant in the port city of Lübeck where 17 people became infected. One of the women died from the disease late last month. Health checks carried out at the restaurant failed to find E.coli traces.

Health officials said the farm's bean sprouts had also been delivered to several other addresses, including three works' canteens, a hotel in the city of Bochum, a pub in Lower Saxony, other canteens in Darmstadt and Frankfurt and several street markets. All of the locations cited reported people later infected with the bacteria.

Most retailers and big supermarket chains in Germany said yesterday that they had removed bean sprouts from their shelves. In Hamburg, epicentre of the epidemic, officials said the E.coli infection rate appeared to be slowing down after 200 people were reported to have fallen ill within the space of two days last week.

 

Severity of European E. coli outbreak stuns the experts

The foodborne bacterial outbreak that has hit Germany and other European nations is unlike anything Western experts have seen: 16 dead and more than 1,000 sick, including nearly 400 suffering severe and potentially fatal symptoms. But several days into the health threat, scientists remain unsure what produce — and what country — is responsible.

Investigators across Europe were frantically trying to determine the scope of the contamination by an unusual strain of the common E. coli germ — and where in the long journey from farm to grocery store the contamination occurred. German authorities pointed to a few cucumbers from Spain, but further tests showed that those vegetables, while contaminated, did not cause the outbreak.

In Germany, where the vast majority of deaths and severe illnesses have been reported, officials said that investigations including interviews with patients have shown that people were likely infected by eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes or lettuce. They are warning consumers to avoid those vegetables.