United Kingdom 01 (Dec 10 to Jan 12)

[iam802]

Lloyds Posts Pretax Loss of 3.47 Billion Pounds on Claims

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-0 ... laims.html

[winston]

Hi K, In case you are going to be in the area. Take care, Winston

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UK police warned of bomb in central London

LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Monday they had received a warning of a bomb in central London, a day before Queen Elizabeth makes a historic visit to Ireland.

Sky News said the warning came from Irish republican dissidents.

"A bomb threat warning has been received relating to central London today. The threat is not specific in relation to location or time," London police said in a statement.

"The threat level from Irish-related terrorism has not increased and remains at substantial..."

Source: Reuters US Online Report World News

[kennynah]

thanks W... saw the news this morning and decided to stay in...

police cordoned off various key tourist spots... from The Mall (road leading directly to Buckingham Palace) to Trafalgar Square...

in the end, this was no hoax, it was a real bomb threat and BBC reported that it was safely detonated... it appears the threat is diffused (528pm Sunday GMT)

not much reporting from BBC for obvious reasons...

dissidents of the irish republic said they were responsible for this coded bomb attack...

[kennynah]

UK bank spring holiday this monday... market close

[kennynah]

BoE rate stays at 0.5%, unchanged for past 27 months

[kennynah]

UK treasury announced the privatisation of Northern Rock, which was bailed out by people's taxes a few years ago..

They have also announced today the implementation of ring fencing, similar to Volker rule on their banks..ie, investment banking must be separate from their more traditional banking functions..

also, their are increasing their minimum bank reserves which stands at 7% currently..

[kennynah]

my goodness, i thought i'd never say this....

it's hot here...

21C now at 1225am...and we expect the day temp to hit 32C...

[iam802]

my goodness, i thought i'd never say this....

it's hot here...

21C now at 1225am...and we expect the day temp to hit 32C...

It's raining here again (maybe because we have the Singapore Water Week coming up again).

So, expecting weather to be cool (like 28C to 32C)

[kennynah]

some 750K workers are on a nation wide today... these are teachers, border agency staff, civil servants, etc...

up to 12,000 schools are shut as a result

they are on strike bcos they accused their uk govt of unilaterally imposing higher pension payment, lowering the pension and increasing their pension age...

this is so serious that BBC has been reporting just this event for the last 60mins continuously....without once shifting to another news...

[kennynah]

to put this in perspective, 25% of schools in UK are closed today as a result of this general strike all over the country. luckily, it's summer holidays now. but imagine the huge negative impact if this was conducted during school term. and this is what the protestors are signalling the government, that they are capable of causing serious damage if the government refuses to listen and unilaterally pushes ahead with changes to pension policies.

i should go take some pictures

on BBC news, i'm seeing some pickets showing david cameron picture and the words "He's Got To Go".

this is by far the largest protest i've seen in the last 7 months or so. in all, i recall there have been 3 large scale strikes.

cameron's coalition government looks precarious... i won't be surprised if cameron gets booted out of office before he completes his term as PM. this is people's power in action...

we Singaporeans must consider carefully if we lobby for free speech and right to protests... we have to understand that there's always a price to pay for full democracy... it is not easy to strike a balance on this issue. individually, we must maturely ponder how we want to shape our society before we choose a system we want.