After more than seven years of war in Afghanistan, the British and US governments openly admit that they are no closer to victory than they were when they invaded in 2001.
Mosaic Fashion owns a series of high street chains. It was dumped into administration by its main backer, the Icelandic bank Kaupthing, on Monday. Kaupthing then immediately bought back Mosaic and changed the firm’s name. By doing this they wrote off some debts and snapped up the profitable bits of the company.
A spectre from the 1990s is returning to haunt the streets of Britain—negative equity and the threat of home repossession. Only this time things could be much worse. The new Lloyds Banking Group, formed from Lloyds TSB’s rescue of HBOS last year, has said that over 543,000 customers owed more on their mortgages than the value of their homes.
If the Royal Bank of Scotland had been allowed to go bust the bank’s former boss, Sir Fred Goodwin, would be on a pension of £20,000 a year. That’s what he’d be entitled to from the Pension Protection Fund, the safety net this government was forced to put in place for when company pension schemes collapse.
You know things are getting desperate when the world’s rulers have to turn to hunting down tax havens in their search for cash.
A dangerous and violent extremist appeared in court earlier this month. He pleaded guilty to charges involving threats to plant bombs. He also admitted threatening to kidnap and behead innocent members of the public if his demands weren’t met.
The much vaunted "Brown bounce", which was supposed to see a revival of the prime minister’s fortunes, has flattened out leaving him looking like the living dead.
The global recession has claimed millions of jobs – but the business of war has never had it so good.
David Miliband, the New Labour foreign secretary, is a liar. He lied over Britain’s role in rendition flights. He lied over the torture detention centre on the British-owned island of Diego Garcia.
The right wing press has a new battle cry over the Olympics building site in east London – "East End jobs for East End workers". Labour-run Newham council wants a showdown with Olympic officials over how many of the borough’s residents are employed on the site.
The carnage in Gaza is the latest reflection of Tony Blair’s "success" in his role as Middle East peace envoy.
Recent construction walkouts have raised many arguments about who is to blame for the jobs crisis and how the left should respond to strikes that wrongly target "foreign workers".
