Finmeccanica boss Orsi steps down amid corruption probe

The chairman and chief executive of the Italian defence firm Finmeccanica, has formally resigned . Giuseppe Orsi was arrested in Italy this week as part of a corruption investigation involving the sale of helicopters to the Indian government. India has started the process of cancelling the $750m (485m) contract. Finmeccanica has already handed the running of the firm to another director, Alessandro Pansa, while it deals with the allegations. Mr Orsi announced his decision to resign in a letter, in which he denied any wrongdoing and said he had always worked "for the exclusive interest of Finmeccanica and its subsidiaries". He said he wanted to "help to calm the atmosphere" at Finmeccanica by resigning. Mr Orsi is facing allegations that the Italian group's AgustaWestland unit used bribes in order to win the India contract for 12 helicopters in 2010. He denies any wrongdoing. On Thursday, India's defence ministry said it was freezing payments to Finmeccanica while the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) carried out its investigation into the aircraft deal. According to the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi, the ministry has now issued a legal notice to Finmeccanica seeking to cancel the contract for the aircraft, which were to be used to transport the country's top politicians, including the president and the prime minister. Three of them have already been delivered , but the ministry said the contract was now on hold and no more payments would be made . A separate inquiry has been ordered into allegations that top Indian officials may have received kickbacks to help secure the order. Former Indian Air Force chief SP Tyagi has denied allegations that he or any of his relatives were paid bribes.

In South Korea, Valentine's Day is all about the men

Unlike most harried men in many other countries around this time each year, Korean men don't have to worry about shopping for jewelry or flowers or writing nice cards to give to their significant other on February 14. Instead, for South Koreans Valentine's Day is when women shower men with chocolates. It's also just one romantic day in a whole series of calendardictated romantic days. Next up is March 14 known as White Day, on this occasion men gift women with candy. Fact: Chupa Chups is the most sold candy. Next is Black Day on April 14, when downbeat singles who didn't receive any goodies head to local Chinese restaurants to commiserate over their loneliness while eating jjajyangmyeon, or "black noodles." Surprisingly, one of the most popular gift-giving days of the year is November 11, or Pepero Day, so named in honor of a favorite Korean stick-shaped snack. Throughout the country, stores selling confectionery prepare for months leading up to February for one of their best-selling days of the year. As February 14 nears, visitors to the country will notice lines and lines of women at such stores. Naturally, retailers need to cater to the female shopper's eye. "Valentine's Day is one of our top five days of the year," Chul-hyun Yoo, the public relations representative for CU convenience stores, told CNN. With 7,900 stores throughout the country, CU is the number one convenience store chain in South Korea, recording almost 3 trillion (US$2.8 billion) in total sales last year. "You can tell what concerns women and men is different by comparing the sales of Valentine's Day and White Day," said Yoo. "Women tend to go for value for money, while men buy big, flashy baskets." One translation: women are comparatively stingy, while men like to show off. Some of the best-selling items on Valentine's Day are the
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Ferrero Rocher chocolates sold in packets of three or five. Fellas, don't eat all at once. At the more upscale Jubilee Chocolatier dessert cafe in Seoul, women line up on the days up to Valentine's Day to buy handmade chocolates that can be customized with their loved one's initials. "Our Valentine's Day sales make up 20 percent of our entire sales," said Gae-ra Lee, public relations representative for the cafe. Although the series of romantic days used to cater more towards couples, or those wanting to confess their secret loves using a romantic day as an excuse, in recent years, goodie-gifting on Valentine's Day and White Day has expanded to include family, co-workers and pretty much anyone you come into contact with on those days. "I'm buying chocolates for my father. I feel like Valentine's Day should about confessing romantic love," said Jin-hee Oh, 28, an office worker shopping at Lotte Department store. "Nowadays, you don't give chocolates on Valentine's Day because you really like that person," said Chun Kyung-woo, a culture reporter for a local newspaper. "The custom has evolved so that now you have to give small crappy candy that no one actually wants to all your friends and everyone at the office down to your security guard as a show of goodwill," said Chun. "It's unhealthy." So what did I do? Along with the other female members of the Seoul office, we each gave the Turner Korea boss some chocolate. Not that he needs it.

Russia sends clean-up team to meteorite-hit Urals

A 20,000-strong team has been sent to the Ural mountains as part of a rescue and clean-up operation after Friday's meteor strike, Russia's emergency, ministry says. President Vladimir Putin ordered the operation to help some 1,200 people who were injured , including 200 children, mostly by shattered glass. The shockwave blew out windows and rocked buildings around Chelyabinsk. A fireball streaked through the clear morning sky, followed by loud bangs. A large meteorite landed in a lake near Chebarkul, a town in Chelyabinsk region, and Friday morning's dramatic passage was witnessed hundreds of kilometres away. Mr Putin said he thanked God that no big fragments of the 10tonne meteor - which was thought to be made of iron and travelling at some 30 km (19 miles) per second had fallen in populated areas. It had entered the Earth's atmosphere and broke apart 30-50 km (20-30 miles) above ground, according to Russia's Academy of Sciences, releasing several kilotonnes of energy - the equivalent of a small atomic weapon. The Emergencies Ministry urged calm, saying background radiation levels were normal after what it described as a "meteorite shower in the form of fireballs". "The explosion was so strong that some windows in our building and in the buildings that are across the road and in the city in general, the windows broke," Chelyabinsk resident Polina Zolotarevskaya told BBC News. The Chelyabinsk region, about 1,500km east of Moscow, is home to many factories, a nuclear power plant and the Mayak atomic waste storage and treatment centre. Video posted online showed frightened, screaming youngsters at one Chelyabinsk school, where corridors were littered with broken glass. Chelyabinsk resident Sergei Serskov told BBC News the city had felt like a "war zone" for 20 to 30 minutes. "I was in the office when suddenly I saw a really bright flash in the window in front of me," he said . "Then I smelt fumes. I looked out the window and saw a huge line of smoke, like you get from a plane but many times bigger." "A few minutes later the window suddenly came open and there was a huge explosion, followed by lots of little explosions." Debris also reportedly fell on the west Siberian region of Tyumen. Governor Yurevich reported that a meteorite had landed in a lake 1km outside Chebarkul,
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which has a population of 46,000. A Russian army spokesman said a crater 6m (20ft) wide had been found on the shore of the lake. Scientists have played down suggestions that there is any link between the event in the Urals and 2012 DA14, an asteroid which raced past the Earth later on Friday at a distance of just 27,700km (17,200 miles) - the closest ever for an object of that size. Such meteor strikes are rare in Russia but one is thought to have devastated an area of more than 2,000 sq km (770 sq m) in Siberia in 1908.

High times at the Toronto auto show

Now, for the Utility Vehicle of the Year award, he said at the outset of press previews for the Toronto auto show on 14 February. It used to be Truck of the Year but, well, we dont have any trucks, he added just before the award in question, decided by 80 Canadian automotive journalists, was presented to Hyundai for its Santa Fe 2.0T Sport crossover. At the Geneva, New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo or Detroit auto shows, industry figures go off book as often as Lexus SUVs go off road. This, however, was the Toronto auto show, where things are decidedly different. Given the proximity, both geographically and temporally, of the Detroit (January) and Chicago (February) auto shows, in addition to the Geneva salon in early March, Toronto is the red-headed stepchild of the winter show season, with few global vehicle debuts to tout. This year, the shows 40th, was no exception, with just one North American introduction that of the Kia Rondo and no global unveilings to speak of. Why, then, was the mood so carefree within the labyrinthine Metro Toronto Convention Centre? In a word, profits. Like their contemporaries in the United States, the Canadian divisions of major automakers recently concluded their most profitable fiscal year since the most recent US recession. Kia Motors Canada leapfrogged Mazda and Nissan in annual sales for the first time, en route to posting its largest profit in company history. Chrysler noted that 25% of all worldwide group production was now taking place on Canadian soil. And a Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman noted simply that 2012 had been very, very good for the brand. The unguarded mood was infectious. Taro Ueda, vice president of Nissan Design America, spoke freely about design elements of the Infiniti Q60 coupe, a car more than two years away from being shown anywhere. Mercedes-Benz Canada, meanwhile, openly acknowledged a lamentable truth that the brands US contemporaries only tapdance around: Americans are just not that into hatchbacks. For all the plain talk and oftenrepeated strong profit forecasts, Canada, like the US, is not an island. The nagging sales slump in western Europe forces automakers to make difficult product-planning decisions every day, and the reverberations from a territorial dispute between China and Japan continues to erode sales positions in Asia. By 18:30 local time, nattily dressed car dealers, some in black tie, were arriving at the convention centre for a VIP preview. Vehicles inside received another polish. Across the street, flower vendors hawked Valentines Day bouquets to passing couples. Overseeing it all was the CN Tower, Torontos most recognisable building, whose illuminated red spire disappeared into low cloud.

Antibiotics search to focus on sea bed

Researchers are embarking on an 8m project to discover new antibiotics at the bottom of the ocean. A team, led by scientists at Aberdeen University, is hunting for undiscovered chemicals among life that has evolved in deep sea trenches. Prof Marcel Jaspars said the team hoped to find "the next generation" of infection-fighting drugs. England's chief
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medical officer has warned of an "antibiotic apocalypse" with too few new drugs in the pipeline. Few samples have ever been collected from ocean trenches - deep, narrow valleys in the sea floor which can plunge down to almost 6.8 miles (11km). Yet researchers believe there is great potential for discovering antibiotics in these extreme conditions. Life in these incredibly hostile environments is effectively cut off and has evolved differently in each trench. The international team will use fishing vessels to drop sampling equipment on a reel of cables to the trench bed to collect sediment. Scientists will then attempt to grow unique bacteria and fungi from the sediment that can be extracted and refined to discover new antibiotics. Starting in the autumn with the Atacama Trench in the eastern Pacific Ocean - about 100 miles (161km) off the coast of Chile and Peru - the EU-funded research will also search deep trenches off New Zealand as well waters off Antarctica. Arctic waters off Norway will also be explored . The inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics - and an over-reliance on the drugs - has led to a rapid increase in resistant bugs and medical experts fear effective antibiotics might soon run out completely. In January, Chief Medical Officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, compared the threat to global warming and said going for a routine operation could become deadly due to the risk of untreatable infection. Project leader Marcel Jaspars, professor of chemistry at the University of Aberdeen, said: "If nothing's done to combat this problem, we're going to be back to a 'pre-antibiotic era' in around 10 or 20 years, where bugs and infections that are currently quite simple to treat could be fatal." He said there had not been a "completely new" antibiotic registered since 2003 "partially because of a lack of interest by drugs companies as antibiotics are not particularly profitable". "The average person uses an antibiotic for only a few weeks and the drug itself only has around a five to 10-year lifespan, so the firms don't see much return on their investment." He said he expected scientists to be working on samples in the laboratory within 18 months and added that, if new treatments were discovered , they could be available within a decade. Project co-ordinator Dr Camila Esguerra, from the University of Leuven in Belgium, said: "We'll be testing many unique chemical compounds from these marine samples that have literally never seen the light of day. "We're quite hopeful that we'll find a number of exciting new drug leads."

Mercury shows off its colourful side

Scientists working on Nasa's Messenger probe to Mercury have shown off a stunning new colour map of the planet. It comprises thousands of images acquired by the spacecraft during its first year in orbit. This is not how we would see Mercury, which would look like a dull, brownish-grey globe to our eyes. Rather, the map represents an exaggerated view of the planet that is intended to highlight variations in the composition of its rock. "Messenger's camera has filters that go from the blue to the near-infrared of the spectrum, and we are able to use computer processing to enhance the very subtle but real colour differences that are present on Mercury's surface," explained Dr David Blewett from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. "The areas that you see that are orange - those are volcanic plains. There are some areas that are deep blue that are richer in an opaque mineral which is somewhat mysterious - we don't really know what that is yet. "And then you see beautiful light-blue streaks across Mercury's surface. Those are crater rays formed in impacts when fresh, ground-up rock is strewn across the surface of the planet," the mission scientist told BBC News. Dr Blewett displayed the map here in Boston at the
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annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He was giving a sneak preview of the data that is about to be deposited in Nasa's planetary archive. This will include a black-and-white, or monochrome, map of the entire surface of Mercury at a resolution of 200m per pixel (the colour map has a resolution of 1km per pixel and is just short of 100% coverage). The mission so far has been a triumph, which ought to make the current request to Nasa management for an operational extension a very easy case to make. Messenger's observations have thrown up many surprises and challenged a lot of assumptions. The probe has revealed Mercury's rich volcanic history. It has confirmed the existence of great lava plains, but also uncovered evidence for explosive volcanism. We know now, too, that the planet has ice in shadowed craters. "It's got polar ice caps. Who'd have thought that?" said Dr Blewett. In addition, the probe's instruments have detected relatively high abundances of sulphur and potassium in surface materials. These are volatile elements that should not really be present on such a scale on a planet that orbits so close to the Sun with its searing heat. But these elements may help explain many puzzles, like the nature of those opaque terrains. These could get their dark hue from the presence of sulphides. The compounds could also lie behind the intriguing "hollows" that pockmark great swathes of Mercury's surface. Shallow with irregular shapes, the depressions often have bright halos and bright interiors. When scientists look around the Solar System for similar phenomena, the best comparison would appear to be the depressions that form in the carbon dioxide ice at the poles of Mars. Those features are thought to arise when the CO2 ice sublimates away - that is, when it transforms directly from a solid state to a gaseous state. "Well, Mercury's surface isn't made of ice - it's scorching hot next to the Sun. But it seems that there is some sort of sublimation-like loss in the solid, silicate rocks that is causing these hollows to initiate and enlarge. "It may be that a combination of high temperatures and what's called severe space weathering destroys sulphide minerals in the rocks, causing them to crumble and open up a depression." Messenger is in great shape should Nasa management agree to a mission extension. The probe is thought to have enough fuel to operate until 2015. And by then, new spacecraft will be on their way to Mercury. Under a joint venture known as BepiColombo, Europe and Japan are sending two satellites that should arrive at the innermost world in 2022.

For the first time in his public life, no one was paying attention to Oscar Pistorius below the knees
All rise. He walked into a hot and expectant courtroom, and for the first time in his public life, no one was paying attention to Oscar Pistorius below the knees. His shoes were shined , his jaw clean-shaven. He was dressed in an expensive-looking navy suit, immaculate but for a pulled thread on the right knee, and a tie that looked too tight. As he turned to face the chief magistrate, he clenched his fists and tried to keep his lip from trembling. Case C13/255/2013, announced the prosecutor in clipped Afrikaans tones. The State versus Oscar Leonard Pistorius, arrested on one count of murder. As soon as he heard the word, Mr Pistorius buried his face in his hands, and shook uncontrollably. There was no one more disbelieving than he, that the same blade-running superstar who only seven months ago was slicing round the track, making Olympic history in green and gold Lycra in London, was now standing in the dock of a cramped red-brick courtroom, being referred to as the accused . He looked petrified. Prosecutors will argue that the 26-year-old athlete is guilty of the pre-meditated murder of his
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glamorous new girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, who was shot dead in his home in the early hours of Valentines Day. South African media has reported that the shots that killed the law graduate-turned-FHM cover girl were fired through the bathroom door. There were three bullets, but four wounds: to her head, arm, waist and fingers. In morbid defiance of rescheduling, Tropika Island of Treasure, the reality television show she had just completed , will be broadcast this weekend as planned , after producers decided that it would be an injustice to keep [her beauty and intelligence] unknown. In court yesterday, Miss Steenkamps name was barely mentioned . But every now and then, ugly words like murder drifted up through the legalese, prompting the shaking Mr Pistorius to crumple in his seat, and hide his face with his hands. Later reports would say that he was weeping. He wasnt. He seemed too shell-shocked to cry. Instead, he ground his jaw, and heaved with the sound of sobs, but there were no tears while he was in the dock. His eyes were dry. We could have reached out and touched him, so tightly packed were the crowds around the dock. Oscar Pistorius, South African national hero and cocky bad boy on cheetah blades, had never looked so lost and lonely. Hundreds of people journalists, court staff and relatives had been clamouring all morning for a space in Courtroom C on the first floor of Pretoria Magistrates Court. When the chief magistrate, Desmond Nair, appeared , one of his first edicts was to order all the staff from other courtrooms, to return to their work stations. No one volunteered . His second request for silence I want to hear a pin drop was equally pointless. The doors continued to burst open, with crowds desperate to catch a glimpse of a hero in freefall. Police officers tried to keep them at bay but the people blocking the corridors had numbers on their side. Mr Pistorius spoke only one or two mumbled words to confirm that he understood English. He seemed unsteady. Take it easy, the magistrate said . Come, take a seat. The charge sheet kept it short. On the 14th February, at the Silver Lake Golf Estate, you unlawfully and intentionally shot and killed a female person, Reeva Steenkamp a charge he denied . Sitting in the row immediately behind Mr Pistorius was his brother, Carl, and father, Henk, with whom has a difficult relationship. He did not look back at them. When his father placed a comforting hand on his sons back, and held it there for a few moments, Mr Pistorius did not move. His brother squeezed his shoulder. Still he didnt turn. He made eye contact with no one, looking ahead at the magistrates bench when he had the strength, staring at his shoes when he did not. Mr Pistoriuss defence counsel, Barry Roux, spoke of the extremely traumatized state of mind of the accused and asked for special treatment of sorts. He was granted his wish. It was agreed that his client could be remanded in custody in the relative comfort of the Brooklyn Police Station, Pretoria, rather than the local prison. Prison ... is not as comfortable an environment as the police cells, by virtue of the smaller number of people there, agreed Mr Nair. Then the magistrate thought about another murder suspect without the spotlight of celebrity who had been remanded into prison from one of the other courts that morning. Is there some level of unfairness there? Mr Nair asked . The prosecutor, Gerrie Nel, said that he had no objections to sparing Mr Pistorius the rigours of jail for this weekend, at least. Mr Nel is a celebrated advocate whose most famous scalp is that of Jackie Selebi, the South African police chief and former president of Interpol, who was jailed for taking bribes from a drug dealer. Mr Pistoriuss legal team includes both Mr Roux and Kenny Oldwage, who counts among his former clients Sizwe Mankazana, the driver in the crash that killed Nelson Mandelas 13-year-old great-grandchild, Zenani, on
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the eve of the 2010 World Cup. Mankazana was acquitted . After 40 minutes, it was over. The bail application would be postponed until Tuesday. As Mr Pistorius got up to leave, his father and brother moved forward to embrace him. But as he turned round to face them both for the first time, he flinched . Instead of grabbing a moment with his family, he grimaced , turned , and joined police officers leading him back to his cell. Father and brother walked out of the courtroom, grim-faced , pursued by cables of TV crews and reporters, some of whom risked limbs in the revolving doors to follow them. A few hours later, a statement was released . Firstly, and most importantly, all our thoughts today must be with the family and friends of Reeva Steenkamp. The alleged murder is disputed in the strongest terms.

Nick Clegg faces fresh pressure over Lord Rennard amid new claims
Nick Clegg faces fresh questions over what he knew about claims of inappropriate behaviour towards women by Lord Rennard, the Liberal Democrat partys former chief executive, as new allegations have emerged . Aides to the Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader insist he only learnt of a series of complaints against the peer when Channel 4 News uncovered details this week. However last night the crisis threatened to engulf Mr Clegg after reports that he may have known about the allegations as long as four years ago. The Mail on Sunday published a Facebook discussion of the claims from January 2009 in which one party worker wrote : I just dont know how nick can know and not do anything. In other developments, the current Lib Dem chief executive Tim Gordon admitted it appeared the party did not fully live up to our political ideals in dealing with complaints about the peer. His comments came as the party launched two inquiries into the alleged sexual impropriety involving Lib Dem politicians which will be broadened to include former MPs, peers and other senior party staff. It has also been revealed that Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem minister for women, suggested she had reported the complaints against Lord Rennard to party executives. Lord Rennard - a key party strategist and adviser to a succession of Lib Dem leaders before standing down due to ill health in 2009 has said he is deeply shocked by the allegations of sexual impropriety. The married peer denies wrongdoing and said he strongly disputes the allegations which he regards as a total distortion of his character. Channel 4 News reported on Thursday that two women had claimed Lord Rennard touched them inappropriately. One of them, Alison Smith, a Lib Dem activist who is now a lecturer at Oxford University, said she had spoken to both the then Lib Dem chief whip Paul Burstow and Ms Swinson, then the partys spokeswoman for women and equality, about her claims, but claimed no action was taken. A fresh report by the programme on Friday said more women had come forward with similar stories. One woman claimed that she had been molested at a party for Mr Cleggs victory as leader in 2007. There were also claims that MPs knew women were being harassed . Yesterday Ms Smith made a series of new allegations, claiming that 100 young women had been invited to a residential weekend by Lord Rennard, where they were expected to appear on a casting couch. Pressure is now mounting on Ms Swinson to explain fully her part in investigating Lord Rennards conduct. Ms Swinson last night released a statement in which she said: I took action and ensured that others took action. My focus throughout has been to protect the women who confided in me and, our shared objective, to prevent other women experiencing this kind of behaviour.
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All the time I was careful to respect their wish for privacy and, for that matter, their right not to be harassed by the press. The Mail on Sunday reported that one of the women who came forward to the programme discussed the allegations with a friend on Facebook in January 2009. I just dont know how nick can know and not do anything.. :-( makes me very sad, she is said to have written . The friend apparently replied : Unless women come forward and go through a formal process, rather than a bit of a chat with Jo, there isnt much Nick can do. The newspaper also suggested that several years ago Mr Cleggs political adviser Matthew Hanney had asked one of the alleged victims: Do you mind if I speak to Nick about it? A Lib Dem spokesman said they had no idea why the Facebook comment had been made. Nick Clegg only knew of these allegations when we were contacted by Channel 4 News, he added . A spokesman said: Nick categorically did not know about these allegations. Mr Clegg has been on holiday on Spain since the story broke , but is likely to face cameras today to give his response. The Lib Dems have launched an internal investigation into the specific allegations against Lord Rennard under the partys disciplinary procedures. Party president Tim Farron is also conducting a review into the way the party dealt with such allegations. Last night Mr Gordon told party workers: It appears that we did not fully live up to our political ideals, and I regret that.

Nascar fans hurt by flying debris after fiery crash at Daytona

At least 28 spectators and one driver were injured , some seriously, when large chunks of debris flew into the stands after a 10-car pile-up during the last lap of the Nationwide Series race at Daytona speedway in Florida yesterday. The crash sent rookie racer Kyle Larsons car airborne into the fence that separates the track from the spectator area where hundreds of fans were watching the race, about 200 feet from the start-finish line. Large chunks of Larsons car including a wheel, a tire and suspension parts landed in the grandstands as race fans and officials ducked for cover from the melee on the track just metres in front of them. His car was left with its entire front end sheared off, and the burning engine was wedged in a gaping hole in the fence. Remarkably, Larson climbed out of the wreckage and walked away unhurt. Some race fans, however, were not so lucky. There were chaotic scenes where some spectators were treated by medical staff in the stands and others taken away on stretchers. A fan who identified himself only as Tyler described the frightening scene. I saw a tire about 10 feet from me, just a row above me with a man under it and people yelling for help, he told the US sports network ESPN. Officials said 14 spectators were sent to nearby hospitals, with another 14 being treated at the Florida speedway, which will host the prestigious Daytona 500 race later today. Driver Michael Annett of the Richard Petty Motorsports team was also being treated at a nearby medical centre in Daytona Beach and would be kept for observation, his team said. The crash, which occurred almost as Tony Stewart was taking the chequered flag for victory, began when Regan Smith turned sideways and a dozen cars bunched behind him during the final moments of the 120-lap race. Mr Smith later admitted : My fault. I threw a block. Stewart was in no mood to celebrate despite his victory. I looked in the mirror and thats the worst image Ive ever seen in a race in my life, a subdued Stewart said afterwards. Weve always known since racing started this is a dangerous sport. As much as we want to celebrate, Im more concerned about the fans and the drivers right now. The Nationwide Series race is traditionally the curtain-raiser for the Daytona 500, American stock car racings biggest
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event, which is expected to go ahead today despite yesterdays incident on the track. It will feature Danica Patrick as the first woman to start on the pole position. Joie Chitwood, president of the Daytona International Speedway, said he was confident the track would be repaired in time for todays Daytona 500. First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with our race fans, Mr Chitwood said. Following the incident, we responded appropriately according to our safety protocols and had emergency medical personnel at the incident immediately. We transported 14 people off property and 14 were treated at our on-track care centre. We are in the process of repairing the facility, and we will be ready to go racing tomorrow. NASCARs vice president of race operations, Steve ODonnell, said that the fencing, which was ripped through by the flying debris, was being replaced and the incident would be reviewed.

Pistorius brother faces trial over fatal car accident

The brother of Oscar Pistorius is due to stand trial over the death of another woman, it emerged today. The latest twist in the case involves Carl Pistorius, a dominant presence throughout Oscars bail hearing last week, who has been charged with culpable homicide over a car accident in 2010. He is accused of killing a female motorcyclist while driving outside Johannesburg. His trial was due to begin on Friday - the same day his athlete brother was released on bail. The charges were confirmed this morning by Carl Pistoriuss lawyer Kenny Oldwage, who also represents Oscar. Carl Pistorius declined to comment on his forthcoming trial when he arrived at his Uncle Arnolds mansion house this morning. Wearing shorts and a baseball cap, and carrying a hold-all, he simply shook his head as he waited for the gates to open to the expansive red-brick mansion in Waterkloof. The rich suburb, on the hills overlooking Pretoria, is the citys answer to Beverly Hills, with gold convertible Jaguars and silver Porsches cruising the grid of Jacaranda-lined streets. Security guards sit on almost every corner and the blue and yellow ADT alarm signs, warning of armed response, are visible from the high walls of every mansion. Both Pistorius brothers and the family are in talks with two women from the reputation management company which the family has hired to do its PR. It is understood that Carls case is unrelated to the charges against Oscar Pistorius over the shooting death of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The charges against Carl Pistorius stem from an accident involving his car in which a woman on a motorcycle died . The charges date back to 2010 but have only just emerged. Prosecutors accused Carl Pistorius of driving recklessly in the accident, which occurred in the town of Vanderbijlpark, an hours drive south of Johannesburg. However Mr Oldwage denies the charges and told South Africas eNews Africa Channel and Eyewitness News that Carl Pistorius was not drunk. Mr Oldwage said the woman died because she drove into Carl Pistoriuss car, according to the New York Post. Carl Pistorius is charged with culpable homicide, a lesser charge than the premeditated murder allegation against his brother. The charge carries a possible 15-year prison term. Carls trial was supposed to begin last Friday, the same day that his Olympian brother was freed on bail in a sensational court hearing that was broadcast around the world. Carls case was postponed until next month. Carl Pistorius is now due in court at the end of March, which means that his trial may end before his younger brother Oscars is due to begin on 4 June. Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic and Paralympian known as the Blade Runner, is charged with the Valentines Day killing of Ms Steenkamp, a 29-year-old South African model and reality TV star. He claims that
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he shot her in error having mistaken her for a burglar. The 26-year-old track star yesterday spent his first day out on bail with his family, having spent the night at his uncles house in Pretoria. He was released on one million rand (73,000) bail after an emotionally-charged fourday bail hearing and eight nights in police cells when a magistrate decided that he was not a flight risk and posed no danger to the public. The lead detective on Oscars case, Hilton Botha, was stood down after it was revealed he faced seven charges of attempted murder. Mr Botha and two other officers were accused of firing at a taxi carrying seven passengers during an allegedly drunken incident in 2011.

Britain loses Triple A rating

Britains economic credibility suffered a humiliating blow last night when the one of the worlds top ratings agencies announced that it was downgrading the countrys triple-A credit rating. Moodys said last night that it would cut its assessment of Britains creditworthiness from AAA to AA1, marking the first time in the UKs history that it has had a less-than-perfect rating. The Bank of England will suffer the same fate as a consequence. The move marks a blow not only for the UKs prestige among international investors but for the Chancellor, George Osborne, himself who has set huge store by his ability to maintain an unblemished rating. The Chancellor is already under intense pressure from his backbenchers to find new ways of galvanising growth, which has persistently lagged behind the Treasury and Bank of Englands expectations. Damagingly for Mr Osborne, Moodys said that it had decided to lower the rating because of the UKs consistently disappointing economic performance, which has dragged down tax revenues and pushed up welfare spending, making it harder to bring down borrowing. Sterling fell to around $1.5160 after the downgrade from about $1.5240, just off Thursdays fresh 2-1/2-year low. However, a defiant Chancellor last night vowed to stick to his existing course. Tonight we have a stark reminder of the debt problems facing our country and the clearest possible warning to anyone who thinks we can run away from dealing with those problems. Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it, he said. We will go on delivering the plan that has cut the deficit by a quarter, and given us record low interest rates and record numbers of jobs. The agency warned that Britains current economic performance will continue to remain significantly slower than after previous recessions such as those of the 1970s, early 1980s and early 1990s. As a result, Moodys now fears that the national debt will peak at above 96 per cent of GDP, a level that some academics have argued has hazardous implications for a countrys economic health. Moodys pointed out that the coalition had originally intended to put the national debt on a declining trajectory by the final fiscal year of the current Parliament, but that the deficit-reduction plan now extends well into the second half of the decade . The European Commission predicted in forecasts yesterday that the UK will have the highest budget deficit of any member of the European Union this year. The UK is by no means the only big nation to have suffered a downgrade and many financial analysts had warned that it was a matter of time before one of the ratings agencies acted . In the past two years the US and France have both been stripped of their prime ratings. But with the pound tumbling in recent days amid concerns about low growth and high inflation, the move will put added pressure on Britain in the eyes of investors deciding which governments to lend to. The Chancellor is likely to face growing pressure from Conservative MPs after he made maintaining Britains rating a test of his own credibility in
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2010, after Standards & Poors put Britain on negative watch in May 2009. Speaking in February 2010, Mr Osborne told an audience of Tory activists: What investor is going to come to the UK when they fear a downgrade of our credit-rating and a collapse of confidence? In the Conservative manifesto, published weeks later, he said: We will safeguard Britains credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over a Parliament. A source close to Mr Osborne said last night that he would not retract his earlier comments, and stood by his belief in the need for a credible strategy. Some Conservative MPs in recent months have discussed whether Mr Osborne should resign in the event of the loss of the AAA rating, but David Cameron has ruled out moving his Chancellor. Labour has consistently argued that Mr Osbornes deficit reduction plan would harm growth because it cut spending too fast. Chuka Umunna, the Shadow Business Secretary, said last night: George Osborne was clear judge him by what the credit agencies say. Moodys point to what weve said all along: his plan isnt working. Ed Balls MP, the Shadow Chancellor, said: This credit rating downgrade is a humiliating blow to a Prime Minister and Chancellor who said keeping our AAA rating was the test of their economic and political credibility. It would be a big mistake to get carried away with what Moodys or any other credit rating agency says. Tonights verdict does not change the fact that the credit rating agencies have made major misjudgments over recent years, not least in giving top ratings to US sub-prime mortgages before the global financial crash. But what matters is the economic reality that the credit rating agencies are responding to. Moodys themselves say the main driver of their decision is the weak growth in Britains economy. Their judgment is in response to nearly three years of stagnation, a doubledip recession, billions more borrowing as confirmed this week and broken fiscal rules. This is why the Chancellor is fast running out of credibility.

Inflation the danger now, says Barclays assets study

Investors need to beware the dangers of big central banks including the Federal Reserve and Bank of England going soft on inflation, a report by Barclays has warned . The closely followed Equity Gilt Study found that the risk of a fresh financial explosion has diminished , but that investors should brace themselves for weak returns over the coming half-decade, especially if they stow their money in assets that offer no shelter from high inflation. Shares will continue to offer the best chances of positive returns, while savers sticking to ultra-safe government bonds or stowing their money in savings accounts will fare poorly, its outlook suggested . Equities are likely to deliver annual inflation-adjusted returns of 3 per cent to 4 per cent over the next five years, Barclays estimates, while notionally safe haven government bonds will see returns of minus 2 per cent. Cash will deliver minus 1.5 per cent a year after inflation. The study, which has been published since 1956, found that UK equities had outperformed gilts and cash last year and over the past ten. Last year shares returned 8.7 per cent, against 1.6 per cent by gilts and minus 2.7 per cent by savings accounts. While equities were beaten by gilts over the past two decades, in the long run they emerged as the champion asset class. Over the 113 years span of Barclays data, shares delivered real returns of 5 per cent a year, compared with 1.3 per cent by gilts and 0.9 per cent by cash. An investor who put 100 into UK shares in 1899 and reinvested the income would now be sitting on equities worth 24,184 adjusted for inflation, the study showed . By contrast, 100 of gilts would now be worth 434, and cash would be worth 267.
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Worse to come, households warned

Inflation set to keep rising, despite Banks efforts Britons were warned to brace themselves for a new rise in inflation this summer as rising energy prices and costlier imports impose a fresh clampdown on family budgets. The Bank of England is expected to predict today that inflation will remain above its target until halfway through the decade, while yesterday City economists forecast a near-term jump in inflation to 3 per cent or more over the coming months. The toll taken by the rising cost of living will be highlighted by research this morning showing that the ten million people on low to middle incomes face another decade before their living standards get back to where they were before the financial crisis. The Resolution Foundations study shows that it may be 2023 before typical earnings for such families return to 22,000 a year, equivalent to where they stood in 2008. Yesterday, official figures showed that inflation as measured by the consumer prices index held at 2.7 per cent for the fourth straight month in January. Inflation has now hung persistently above the Banks 2 per cent target level since the end of 2009. The Banks interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee admitted last week that inflation would remain above target for another two years. However, given the weak health of the economy, the MPC added that it planned to look through the protracted period of above-target inflation rather than attempting to rein it in a message that is likely to be reiterated by Sir Mervyn King today as the Governor presents the Banks quarterly Inflation report. Three chief factors lie behind the outlook for accelerating inflation: increases in university tuition fees and utility bills; the depreciation of the pound, which pushes up the cost of imports; and the renewed surge in the price of oil, with Brent Crude hovering around $118 a barrel yesterday. The Office for National Statistics said that the biggest upward pressures on the CPI in January had come from alcohol, with prices bouncing back after Christmas sales, while clothing costs were the most significant downward influence. Food prices inflation accelerated to 4.5 per cent, the quickest pace since March of last year. Further gains could be in the pipeline because of poor harvests in the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Analysts also said that the costs of some meat products might be set to rise as products are yanked from supermarket shelves because of the horsemeat scandal, but added that this was likely to be a marginal influence on overall inflation. Inflation measured by the retail prices index, which is used in many wage negotiations, rose to 3.3 per cent, from 3.1 per cent, leaving it at the highest level since April 2012. Brian Hilliard, UK economist at Socit Gnrale, said that the most worrying feature of yesterdays data was the stubbornly stable rate of services inflation, which is largely domestically driven and might have been expected to retreat instead of rising to 3.7 per cent, given the UKs economic weakness. The research from the Resolution Foundation showed that earnings of low and middle-income households might now be expected to stand at 27,500, if it had not been for the damage wrought by the financial crisis of 2008. Matthew Whittaker, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: There is a long road to travel just to get back to where living standards stood before the crisis and the prospects of actually recovering the ground lost over recent years appear vanishingly thin. Every extra month of falling household incomes is harder to take than the last as household budgets get closer to the edge. Nearly 60 per cent of low to middle-income households are struggling to keep up with paying their bills, according to research for the Resolution Foundation conducted
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by Ipsos Mori. Low to middle-income households find it hard to save because daily living costs eat up nearly all of their monthly income. Just over half have no savings at all and two thirds have less than a months income in savings. This leaves them vulnerable to even small shocks, such as an unexpectedly large bill, the report said.

Battle may be over, but the war of words goes on at Bumi

The dust had barely settled yesterday over Nat Rothschilds bruising defeat at Bumi plc before yet another fight had broken out over just what support each side had boasted during the battle. The financiers failure to win control of the board of the Indonesian coalmining venture on Thursday was followed by further bickering over which shareholders should be deemed independent. Mr Rothschild accused the board of Bumi of [choosing] to insult these shareholders by claiming that they have substantial support. Shares in Bumi sank by almost 8 per cent yesterday to 360p after several weeks rally, but some analysts suggested that the decision by Mr Rothschild and his cousin Tom Daniel to increase their stakes from a combined 11 per cent to 20 per cent could have helped to drive the price rise. Mr Rothschild, a billionaire scion of the Rothschild banking dynasty, is feuding with both the board of Bumi and its billionaire Indonesian shareholders over corporate governance at the company and had tried to wrest control from them by calling a shareholder vote on the board, which he lost. It is understood that Mr Rothschild had secured the support of Schroders, Artemis, Henderson and Generali in his attempt to oust 12 of 14 directors of Bumi. But 24 other traditional funds, such as Scottish Widows, Legal & General and BlackRock, were supportive of the companys present leadership. Richard Knights, an analyst at Liberum Capital, said: The board now has a firm mandate we estimate Nick von Schirnding [Bumis chief executive] received approval from circa 75 to 80 per cent of the independent shareholders, as determined by the takeover panel. Top figures on Bumis board also secured the backing of Norges Bank, manager of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, and Abu Dhabi Investment Council, the sovereign wealth fund, which has more than 4 per cent of the votes. ADIC, one of Mr Rothschilds original backers, voted against his appointment to the board and in favour of keeping the companys chief executive and deputy chairman, whom Mr Rothschild has sworn to depose. It voted against the boards other proposals to keep the rest of the directors.

Novartis investors give departing chief a bloody nose

The chairman of Novartis was accused of worshipping Mammon yesterday as shareholders attacked him for negotiating an aborted payoff of SwFr72 million. Investors at the Swiss pharmaceuticals groups annual meeting vented their anger at Daniel Vasella, 59, the outgoing boss, who bowed to public pressure this week and surrendered a lucrative so-called golden gag of about 50 million intended to stop him from working elsewhere. He was presented as our superman, our hero, said one investor, addressing a meeting attended by 2,600 people at St Jakobshalle, a concert hall in Basel. But you lost touch with the ground. Mr Vasella has become a lightning rod in a political row over boardroom pay in Switzerland. The country is holding a referendum on March 3 to decide whether to introduce a veto for shareholders over executive pay packages. He admitted
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yesterday that he had erred . I made two avoidable mistakes, he said. The first was to even negotiate this contract. And the second to believe that giving up this individual payment to charities would be considered as something positive by society. Nevertheless, one shareholder told him: You had one god the god of money. Dominique Biedermann, director of Ethos, a shareholder action group, said: We have the impression that no one had the courage to challenge the chairman who, in the course of ten years as chairman and CEO, increasingly became an autocrat. Despite the row, investors passed all resolutions put forward by Novartis.

Fuel prices set to reach record levels by Easter

Motorists face unprecedented financial pain as petrol prices are driven to their highest-ever levels by market speculation and the sliding pound. The cost of filling a family car has already gone up 3.12 this year and petrol is expected to rise by at least another 3p per litre before Easter when higher wholesale prices work through to the pump. The increase has raised the pressure on George Osborne as campaigners urge him to use the Budget on March 20 to cancel a duty increase planned for September 1 and to begin cutting the Treasurys tax take. They claim that Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, is inadvertently adding to motoristss woes because policies designed to kick-start the economy are weakening the pound and making commodities denominated in dollars more expensive. All the indications are that sky-high prices are on their way up and are likely to meet record levels at the pump, said Edmund King, President of the AA. This is backfiring on the economy as more money spent on fuel means less money spent on the high street. It can also fuel inflation, so our plea to the Chancellor is No more tax increases and more fuel price transparency. Speculators greed is pushing up prices and hitting the economy. Wholesale petrol prices have risen by $120 so far this year to $1,110 a tonne. This would take prices close to the levels seen last March when petrol reached a record 142.48p and diesel set a record of 147.93p. Average petrol prices yesterday were 138.56p. Diesel was 145.33p, 5p higher than last month. Many motorists say they are cutting back on discretionary travel. Figures published yesterday showed that sales of petrol in the UK fell last month to their lowest since 1990. The impact on pump prices is exacerbated by a plunge in the value of sterling, which hit its lowest level against the dollar since 2010 this week when it emerged that Sir Mervyn had voted in favour of printing more money. Analysts calculate that 2.5p of a 10p per litre rise in wholesale prices can be attributed to the decline in sterling, with the balance resulting from traders driving market prices higher. Brian Madderson, chairman of the Petrol Retailers Association, which represents independent petrol stations, said: We are heading to new fuel records by Easter. We have written to the Chancellor strongly asking him to cancel the duty rise due on September 1 and to start cutting duty from April 1. We have had no reply. Mr Madderson was critical of the Office of Fair Trading, which decided last month to hold back from a full investigation of the fuel market.The consumer watchdog insists that the 47 billion road fuel market is working well. It cleared retailers of manipulating pump prices and pinned the blame for soaring fuel costs on rising government taxes and wholesale prices. The Treasury disputes claims that speculators are driving prices higher. It insists that Mr Osborne has eased the plight of motorists. Thanks to government action, fuel duty has not risen in two years and is now 7 per cent lower in real terms than in May 2010, it said. The Chancellor cut duty by 1p in March 2011. He cancelled a 3.02p
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increase planned for January 1 and deferred a rise due on April 1 until September. The Treasury said that cancellation of the January rise had saved drivers of a family car 40 a year. However, Mr Osborne has increased fuel VAT.

PayPal reader puts paid to fumble for change

Searching for change to pay for a chunk of cheese at the local market could become a thing of the past after PayPal launched a lightweight chip-and-pin reader that connects to a smartphone for small businesses reliant on cash and cheques. The US payment processing company owned by eBay is the latest to offer a service for companies too small to rent the bulky payment terminals used in supermarkets and bars to accept card payments. Swedens iZettle, backed by Charles Dunstone, launched a tiny credit card reader that clicks into a smartphone in Britain last year. Square, launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has also targeted the huge base of small companies in the world that still rely on cash payments. PayPal argues that its new PayPal Here system is already a step ahead of its rivals given the companys link to millions of small businesses online. Weve been the lifeblood of small businesses in the online world since we launched. This takes us from the virtual world to the real world where local businesses increasingly need to accept card payments or they miss out on business, said Cameron McLean, managing director of PayPal UK. The company already has 18 million account holders in Britain and believes that there is a lot of overlap between that base and the small business community in Britain. The company has already launched PayPal Here in a number of countries but the UK version was developed specifically for the British market. The chip-and-pin terminal, a distinctly unflashy piece of lightweight kit, has been designed to have a long battery life and to withstand the beating it will take at a market stall or in a plumbers tool kit. The lightweight terminal has no screen and links to a merchants smartphone where an app processes the transaction, e-mails a receipt and books the sale in the small companys accounts. Most of these businesses are running their companies from their phones already, said Mr McLean. PayPal will levy a small charge for the terminal and will take a cut on each transaction but will charge less than the 2.9 per cent it levies for online payments. It will reveal its UK pricing in the summer when it fully launches the service. It has already signed up cab company Green Tomatoes and a host of smaller businesses to test the service. Mark Thomas from Greedy Goat which sells goats milk ice cream at Londons Borough Market, said: Cash is king in the market, but people run out of cash very quickly, and we often lose sales because customers cant face the long weekend wait at the ATM.

How you can profit from sterlings woes

The pound plunged on currency markets this week, sparking a scramble by investors and consumers to find ways to profit from the rout. Sterling slumped to its lowest level against the dollar since 2010 after a surprise vote in favour of more money printing, or quantitative easing, by the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King. Traders took that as a sign that high inflation and low interest rates are here to stay and dumped sterling assets. The loss of the UKs safehaven status due to a hiatus in the euro crisis, low growth and fears of a credit rating downgrade, have put the pound under pressure since last summer. Sterling is down 10 per cent against the euro, from 1.28 to 1.15 since July. Against the dollar it has
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dropped 6 per cent this year, from $1.62 to $1.52. Foreign exchange movements have been dominating financial market action amid fears of an all-out global currency war. Jeremy Cook, chief economist at the foreign exchange company World First, says: A currency war is where governments or central banks try to devalue their own currency to make their exports more attractive. It is a beggar-thy-neighbour policy to try and steal growth. The raised tension has been sparked by Japan, where stimulus programmes backed by its new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have helped to devalue the yen. Since the start of the year it has been the worlds worst performing currency, raising complaints elsewhere in the world that Japans exchange rate is being massaged to make its goods cheaper overseas. But in terms of weakness the pound has not been far behind. The question is whether sterling weakness is here to stay, what that will mean for your holiday spending and investments, and whether you should be playing the forex markets. Will sterling continue to decline? Against the euro, the pound is expected to slip further by the summer, though many analysts believe it could then stabilise as fears about the single currency reassert themselves. Yesterday 1 was worth 86p. HSBC forecasts the exchange rate could be 91p by the year end. As far as the dollar goes, weakness is expected to persist, as stronger American growth makes it the safe haven of choice. Petr Krpata, of Barclays, says: The dollar should strengthen against the euro, pound and yen in the medium to long term due to more favourable fundamentals. If you are are planning a summer trip to the Continent, or a holiday in New York or on the beaches of Florida you should consider buying your euro or dollars now, as you might get more for your pound. How do I lock into todays rate? If you want to buy dollars in advance, prepaid travel cards are easy to use. Offered by the likes of International Currency Exchange, FairFX, CaxtonFX, Travelex and World First, you can load up the cards in a foreign currency when the markets are in your favour. Once abroad, they can be used like any bank card with a PIN. If lost or stolen the money remaining on the card is guaranteed and a replacement will be sent out in a few days. Many foreignexchange brokers also offer forward contracts that allow you to lock into a favourable rate, even if you dont need the money for many months. What about the stock markets? Global stock markets tumbled on Thursday on fears that the US is about to end its economic stimulus programme which has supported equities around the world. But the Bank of England is hoping that sterling weakness will give the UK economy a boost by making British goods and services cheaper abroad. That in turn will help British blue-chips. FTSE 100 companies derive more than two thirds of their revenue and profits from abroad, says Ed Salvesen, deputy head of equity research at the wealth manager Brewin Dolphin. If the cost base is in the UK and money is earned in dollars or euros then a falling pound will boost earnings. Sterling weakness is benefiting companies such as Rolls-Royce, AstraZeneca, Intercontinental Hotels, the engineering company Weir and the mobile satellite services group Inmarsat. There are risks. The Bank of England is hoping that sterling weakness will increase UK production and the job supply, though inflation is a key concern, says Peter OFlanagan, of the foreign exchange broker Clear Currency. That could force up interest rates and plunge the economy back into recession. And Japan? The weakness of the Japanese yen has already helped to push the countrys stocks to a four-year high. The Nikkei 225 has rallied 31 per cent since November. Dirk Wiedmann,
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head of investments at Rothschild Wealth Management, says: In our view, a weaker yen and negative real interest rates could trigger an upward re-rating of Japanese equities over the next 12 to 18 months. How do I trade currencies? You can trade on a spot basis through a retail forex broker, while bookmakers allow you to make spread-bet on currencies. It is highly risky, and even successful traders often lose more times than they win. In the forex market fractional movements in price called pips can leave you with crippling losses. Pip is short for percentage in point, and usually stands for 1/100th of 1 per cent of a currency. What do you trade? You trade in pairs, buying, or going long, in one currency and selling, or going short of, another. In other words, you are speculating on the chance of one currency appreciating in value in relation to the other. The first currency of a currency pair is called the base currency and always has a value of 1. The second currency is called the quote currency. You will see two figures for the quote currency, the sell or bid price on the left and the buy or offer price on the right. For example, if the pound/US dollar rate is 1.5243/1.5246 you can sell 1 at $1.5243 or buy 1 at $1.5246. Is there anything I can do to limit risk? Brokers recommend stop-losses that close your position if your bet goes wrong. Because you can make and lose money fast, most traders hold a position for no more than a few days at most. It is worth bearing in mind that you will usually be charged for holding a position overnight. Alternatively, you could buy a fund to bet against sterling. Brian Dennehy, of Fundexpert.co.uk, the investor website, recommends Threadneedle Dollar Bond.

The bank that likes to say yes: Daves bank

Dave Fishwick, the star of Channel 4s Bank of Dave series, is the self-made minibus magnate from Burnley whose mission is no less than to fix this countrys economic problems by creating a revolution in banking. This involves moving from the systems of the big banks which, he believes, have lost the plot, to a community-based model that is simple, but it bloody works. The first programmes, aired last summer, followed Dave as he set up Burnley Savings and Loans, aka the Bank of Dave, in 2011. This lends to local businesses and people at flat rates of 8.9 per cent or 14.9 per cent and pays savers, whose money is lent, 5 per cent. All profits go to charity and none of the three staff (Dave volunteers) can receive a bonus. It is officially a peerto-peer lender rather than a bank, because it is too small to meet the City watchdogs criteria. Lenders money is not covered by the Governments deposit protection scheme, but is backed by insurance and guaranteed by Dave himself. Unlike faceless peer-topeer websites, the lender has a town-centre branch, and the style is what Dave calls good oldfashioned banking, Captain Mainwaring banking. He adds: Its like the bank manager 30 years ago who signed your passport and went to your daughters christening. Dave and his right-hand man, David Henshaw, who has 40 years of experience in banking and finance, meet loan applicants in person on Monday mornings and use common sense and local knowledge, plus a close look at the books, to make their decisions. There is no credit scoring. Take Rachel at Garlands Florists, he says. She had a loan agreed from Yorkshire Bank for a new shopfront. The bank had a photo taken of her for PR and she paid a deposit for the work, then head office decided not to lend after all, for whatever reason. She came to me
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and said the builders are here I need a loan. So I sat in the corner of her shop for three quarters of an hour and watched her do her work and interact with customers and could tell its a real business there is nothing wrong with her. Dave lent 7,500 to Rachel McClure and says that she hasnt missed a payment. Last week, he lent 2,000 to a Thai restaurant. In London you could spend that on a meal in some places, but up here it is enough to start something. He says that he urges all borrowers to keep in touch and ask any business questions. Someone might ask how to get more people through the door or how to get PR; or maybe how they could increase turnover. The sorts of things they would have asked their bank manager years ago. Burnley Savings and Loans has a default rate of 1 per cent, and when borrowers do have problems he says that he prefers to give them a months grace rather than make things worse with penalties, as banks routinely do. This common-sense approach goes back to the projects origins in 2008, when he started to make informal loans to longstanding customers who needed finance to buy his minibuses but could no longer get it from the banks. He says: Everyone paid it back I thought , Banking cant be that difficult. He says when he first took his idea for a community bank to City figures in London, he was rebuffed right away because he had not had the right education. One financial think-tank boss even told him that he didnt have the right father. He said I had no chance because my father didnt have the right job. My dad had two jobs and he gave me my work ethic. How was he wrong? Pompous people like him are part of the reason the country is in the state it is. Channel 4 came on board early on, and Dave says that the soap-box of TV first gave the project real momentum. The channel will air an update programme this Thursday at 10pm that follows Dave and his small team as the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which is funded by the banks, attempts to shut them down reasoning, incredibly, that the lending model does not offer customers sufficient risk. It hopefully isnt giving too much away to say that Dave fights his corner and that Burnley Savings and Loans is trading today. Along the way, he does some straight-talking (bollocks to the FSA) and picks up support from big names in all three main political parties, even receiving plaudits from Vince Cable in the House of Commons. Daves mission now is to get the Government and regulators working to lower the barriers to community banking so that something like his model can be rolled out across the country. Daves wise words Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. Focus on profit that is what you can spend at Asda. Were on track in Burnley to lend to 1,000 businesses in the next two years. There are 1,000 towns and cities in the country. If you put a Bank of Dave or a Bank of Steve or whoever in each of them, you could lend to a million businesses by 2016. It is very possible. I went for Governor of the Bank of England. I knew I wouldnt get it, but it wasnt to be funny it was to make a serious point. Look, we need change and we need somebody there with common sense and if no one else stands up to that, I will. Im now having to turn away good borrowers. That is the hardest part. On the other hand, it is encouraging when I see people queueing to put money in and think of Northern Rock when they were queueing to get out.

Singing your way to online security

Last week the picture on Burger Kings Twitter page mysteriously changed to a McDonalds golden arch mischievous hackers were to blame. A few days later Donald Trump
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had his Twitter account hacked with Lil Wayne rap lyrics posted in his name. Then there were reports that malware had wormed its way into computers at Apples HQ, though Apple customers were reassured that data security had not been breached. Whether it is companies that are hacked with their customers passwords posted online, or criminals targeting individuals to get hold of bank details, or even social media names or profiles, hacks are becoming more and more common and have the potential to be devastating. We are increasingly reliant on our e-mail accounts, and our lives are stored in virtual clouds pictures of weddings and videos of children on holiday; e-mails from loved ones, banking details and work files. Its no longer just a question of what would you save first from a burning house; if your laptop or iPhone is wiped imagine what you might lose. So how to protect yourself online? Your passwords are the most common way to prove your identity online, says Tony Neate, chief executive of the website Get Safe Online. So its really important to use strong passwords that will keep your identity as well as your bank balance safe. He adds: The best security in the world is useless if a hacker has accessed your legitimate username and password, as this effectively gives them easy access to your online accounts and your life. Research by Get Safe Online found that, worryingly, more than 60 per cent of people in Britain dont use any password to protect their PCs, mobiles, tablets or laptops, making them especially vulnerable to cyber criminals. Here are the best ways to make sure that your online identity is as safe as your offline one. 1. Dont use a common password You may think it is stating the obvious, but research has found that the most popular password is thats right password. The second most popular is 123456. All hackers need to do is Google list of most common passwords and try them out. Hey presto. 2. Dont use a dictionary word as a password There are free software programs that can generate passwords, so its a good idea to use a word that is not a real one. Make sure you also add numbers to your password, but dont just replace letters with numbers like pa55w0rd, because hackers are on to that, too. A good tip is to construct a password as an acronym of a made-up but memorable phrase, song lyric or sentence. Something like I read The Times six days a week becomes IrTT6daw, or how about a bit of Taylor Swift You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me. But we are never ever ever ever getting back together becomes Ygttyfttmfttmbwaneeegbt. Though this is not ideal for people who struggle ever to remember a song lyric. Its a good idea to capitalise certain letters. You could set up a system whereby you always capitalise the third or fourth character, and in the case of a song lyric, add a sequence of numbers for good measure. So ygTTyfttmfttmbwaneeegbt8092. Even harder to crack. The longer your password the better. Aim for eight characters minimum. 3. Do not reuse passwords When you are overloaded with places to log in to e-mail, Facebook, online shops, PayPal it can become impossible to remember so many passwords. But try not to use the same one for all of your programs or a hacker will get easy access to everything once they have one password. Also avoid similar passwords, for example, February01, March02, and so on. Once the hacker spots your pattern he has easy access, again. We are taught never to write a password down, but if you are struggling to remember all your log-ins a cryptic note to yourself on a well hidden piece of paper is better than the same password for everything. Do not ever write down your bank log-on or PIN, though, as a bank could argue you are therefore negligent if you are defrauded.
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4. Enable two-factor authentication If you use g-mail enable two-factor authentication. Your e-mail is a gateway for all other accounts you may have. For example, a hacker could search for bank in your e-mail, work out where you hold accounts, find out your address and other personal details and then request a password reset for your bank or PayPal account. Two-factor authentication will send a six digit code to your mobile phone every time your g-mail account is accessed from an unrecognised computer. You can ask for a list of back-up codes that you can carry with you in case you lose or forget your phone, or do not have mobile signal. 5. Use fake answers to questions If a hacker tries to reset your password, they might have to answer a series of questions such as whats my best friends name, what was my first school, what is my date of birth, what is my favourite holiday destination all of which can be easily ascertained from Friends Reunited or Facebook. Try to use unexpected , longer answers: so the answer to what is my favourite holiday destination becomes Id love to visit Afghanistan or Iraq. 6. Beware phishing e-mails One of the most common ways that hackers obtain passwords is through phishing or malware. Phishing e-mails are fake messages designed to look like they are from a genuine source your bank, Pay-Pal, a company with whom you are registered . Never type in or reveal your password if it is requested via e-mail or over the phone. Treat all such requests with suspicion. 7. Avoiding the perils of public wifi Another way for hackers to get access to your private information is to prey on your laptop, smartphone or tablet when you are using it in a public place on a public wireless network. Hackers are able to set up fake, unsecure internet hotspots which allow them to intercept what you are doing on screen and capture passwords or private information.

England 23 France 13: Manu Tuilagi rides luck to maintain unbeaten run
Stuart Lancaster, the England head coach, had claimed that the bench would win the war and so it proved today as somehow England maintained their unbeaten start to the RBS Six Nations championship by defeating France. For long periods it was touch and go until the reinforcements arrived to calm English nerves and keep alive hopes of a grand slam. The changes France made, such as the mystifying withdrawal of Francois Trinh-Duc for the ineffectual Frederic Michalak, weakened their side while the arrival of the likes of Mako Vunipola and Tom Youngs made a significant difference for England. Their efforts, coupled with the endeavours of Chris Robshaw, Manu Tuilagi, Tom Wood and Brad Barritt, contributed monumentally to Englands victory. Lancaster had predicted that England would peak in the last quarter and he was right. France lost their cohesion, discipline and then the match. Englands try, which swung the game after 54 minutes, was fortuitous in the extreme. From Alex Goodes kick and the ensuing melee, Wood booted the ball forward. It ricocheted off Vunipola before skewing into the grateful arms of Tuilagi. That was the only invitation the recalled centre needed as he bounded towards the try line, the French defence caught flat-footed and exposed . Owen Farrell missed the conversion, then a penalty, and looked to have pulled a hamstring. Toby Flood was an able replacement, however, kicking two penalties as France reverted to type in
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the closing stages. The only France score in the second half was a Michalak penalty. England started by winning a penalty but for the next 15 minutes they were absolutely taken to the cleaners; they were clearly second best in the set-piece and missed far too many tackles. The scrum was pressurized and the line-out struggled . England by turn were impetuous, hot-headed, then panic-struck. The pace of the France game was like nothing that England have faced this season. England looked pedestrian as they were outmuscled at the breakdown, only their scrambled defence preventing France from enjoying a healthier half-time lead. They could generate no continuity and found themselves knocked out of their usually composed stride. The one consolation was that they were still in touch at the break. Tuilagi was the only player capable of punching holes, once he brushed Mathieu Bastareaud aside, and only a tap tackle by Morgan Parra prevented the Leicester centre from crossing first. But England could not stop Wesley Fofana and the Clermont No 12 scored a fine individual try. Courtney Lawes, who had been guilty of missing his man too often, did so again. Chris Ashton - unforgivably - did so twice as Fofana worked his way down the left wing; Youngs went high as well and Fofana sauntered over the try line. Parra converted to add to his earlier penalty and it looked ominous for England. Yet the way they turned it around in the last half an hour bodes well for the tournaments denouement.

QPR 0 Manchester United 2: Rafael Da Silva and Ryan Giggs maintain United surge
About the only concern for Manchester United after this match will be the severity of an injury to Robin van Persie that ensured the forward was substituted four minutes before the interval. It appeared that he might have sustained a hip injury in twisting and turning to help create the opening goal as Manchester United extended their unbeaten run to 15 games and moved 15 points clear at the top of the Premier League. Manchester City, the champions, may be able to close the gap slightly when they play Chelsea on Sunday. Van Persie was largely quiet in the opening stages but created the opening goal as he wriggled along the byline and optimistically hit a hard shot at the near post. Julio Cesar parried the ball to the edge of the area where Rafael Da Silva arrived with a first-time shot that skimmed over the head of Christopher Samba and into the top corner for his third goal of the season after 24 minutes. David De Gea beat out a fierce low drive from Loic Remy on probably the only occasion that Queens Park Rangers troubled the United goalkeeper. Ryan Giggs then produced a second goal from a pass by Nani with ten minutes left. Harry Redknapp, the QPR manager, believes that 37 points will be enough to stay up, which leaves his side needing 20 points from the 11 games that are remaining. He picked Jose Bosingwa in the starting side for the first time in more than two months, the defender having refused to sit on the substitutes bench in the match against Fulham - for which he was fined 130,000, two weeks wages. QPR found no takers for Bosingwa in January. Bosingwa looked less rusty than might have been expected and was unfortunate to concede a free kick when Nani was hardly touched ; the Portuguese then flicked the resulting free kick wide. Javier Hernandez glanced a second free header straight at Cesar and then narrowly failed to meet a cross from Nani after losing Armand Traore. Van Persie probably should have doubled the lead when he met a cross
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from Rafael and cushioned a volley that Cesar put wide with his fingertips, shortly before the Dutchman was taken off. QPR went to train in Dubai last week because of the bad weather, sharing their facilities with Sunderland. Our training ground at Harlington is not the best, to say the least, Redknapp said. When it rains, the pitches flood. When it snows we cant get on it. We have no undersoil heating and it was an opportunity to get out and train on some decent surfaces. It hardly showed . Adel Taarabt twice flashed low shots wide and Sambas header was cleared off the line by Rafael. QPR were more threatening early in the second half. Bosingwa drove to the byline and delivered a dangerous cross that Rio Ferdinand cleared , but they soon faded and Giggs ensured there was no comeback and the Welshman nearly added a third with a delicate lob that hit the bar.

Brendon McCullum battling to be fit for first Test against England

New Zealand are confident that Brendon McCullum, the captain, will be fit for the first Test against England starting on March 6 despite tweaking an abdominal muscle in the final one-day international yesterday. Mike Hesson, the coach, said at the unveiling of the Test squad this morning that McCullum, New Zealands leading player, is highly unlikely to figure in domestic cricket as a precaution before the beginning of the series. Although he appeared in the field, McCullum was unable to keep wicket in the England innings at Eden Park after feeling pain early in his knock of 79 from 68 balls, his third half-century in a row. After the game, he said that there should not be any problems with time between now and the Test but Hesson admitted yesterday that the player was still a bit sore. Hesson said: I think over the next week we will be concentrating on getting him recovered as opposed to playing. If he was keeping wicket in the Test side it would be harder, but I think he will be fine. McCullum has been slated at number five come the game in Dunedin with BJ Watling taking the gloves. Peter Fulton will open alongside either Tom Latham or Hamish Rutherford, who both have an opportunity to impress for a New Zealand XI in the four-day warm-up game against England at Queenstown starting on Wednesday. There will be another personal battle within that game with either Neil Wagner or Mark Gillespie set to be added to the three seamers in the 12 named already. Ashley Giles, the England one-day coach, has flown to Sydney to look at the England Lions in their remaining two 50-over games against Australia A. The members of the successful limited overs squad itself have either begun the long trip home or joined members of the Test party already in Queenstown. Reflecting on the 3-2 series win, Giles said: It is a very proud moment for me. The Kiwis are alwa ys very difficult to beat on home soil so it is a good achievement. In the last two games of the series we played some very good cricket. New Zealand squad: Brendon McCullum (captain), Trent Boult, Doug Bracewell, Dean Brownlie, Peter Fulton, Tom Latham, Bruce Martin, Hamish Rutherford, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, BJ Watling, Kane Williamson.

Exercise: not just for burning fat

New research says aerobic exercise boosts IQ. But thats not all it can also prevent impotence and improve eyesight. Most of us exercise because it makes us look and feel better and helps us
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deal with stress. But research is now showing that the benefits of exercise are much more widespread. Researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois, for example, have reported how regular workouts can improve cognition and intelligence, especially in children and older adults. Professor Arthur Kramer, who led the study, conducted a series of trials looking at the effects of aerobic exercise such as walking, running and swimming on the brain. He discovered that the activity had a positive effect on those parts that are involved in memory and problemsolving. In older people who exercised regularly there were indications, Kramer found, that their brains processed cognitive tasks more efficiently. Increased physical activity has direct and relatively rapid effects on cognition and brain health, he says. Conversely, he warned , those who do little aerobic exercise are more at risk of brain as well as muscle degeneration. But keeping grey matter in check is not the only unexpected side-effect of regular exercise. There are many surprising reasons to pull on the trainers: Teenage IQ If you need another reason to persuade your teenagers to raise themselves off the sofa, it is that they will boost their IQ in the process. A Swedish study involving 1.2 million teenage boys found that the fitter they were the better they performed in intelligence tests. And those who improved their fitness levels between the ages of 15 and 18 significantly increased their cognitive performance in tests. By fit, the researchers at Sahlgrenska University Hospital meant aerobic capability and not muscular strength through pumping iron. Being fit in that sense means that you also have good heart and lung capacity and that your brain gets plenty of oxygen, says Professor Michael Nilsson. We see a clear link with fitness, but not with muscular strength.

Useful exercise 6 x 20m shuttle runs (repeated twice). Skipping is another option. Best done three times per week. Mental agility in middle age Even if you leave it until middle age to head to the gym for the first time, the benefits could be startling. Experts at the University of Montreal recently revealed that a group overweight men with an average age of 49 who exercised regularly for a few months discovered that their mental agility soared. The men underwent a regime of twice-weekly high-intensity interval training sessions, weightlifting, indoor cycling and circuit training. The result, suggested the experts, is that as the men got fitter the health of their arteries was boosted , enabling their brains to make better use of oxygen supplies. Four months later they performed better in tests of attention span, information processing, short-term memory and flexibility of thought. You can give someone a cholesterol-lowering pill or some blood sugar-lowering medicine, but these will have no impact on cognitive function, says Dr Anil Nigam, who led the study. Useful exercise A 30-minute circuit including ten minutes of indoor rowing, ten minutes of weight training and ten minutes of body-weight exercises, such as squats, lunges and press-ups. Best done three times per week.
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Brain shrinkage caused by ageing Our brains are prone to shrinkage as we get older, but keep exercising into your twilight years and you can offset the decline. In a study at the University of Edinburgh that was funded by the charity Age UK and published in the latest edition of Neurology, brain scans of 638 people past retirement age showed that the most physically active had the least brain shrinkage over a three-year period. The scientists had looked at the brains white matter the wiring that transmits signals and found that the exercisers (many of whom just walked each day) had fewer damaged areas. They also had more grey matter in their brains, ie, the part where signals and messages are formed . Conversely, reading a book or doing a crossword had no effect on maintaining brain size. Quite why the effects of exercise are so profound is not yet known. It could be owing to better blood flow and use of oxygen by the brain. This study shows its never too late to benefit from exercise, says Professor James Goodwin, head of research at Age UK. Be it a brisk walk to the shops or a fun-run, its crucial, for those who can, to stay active as we get older. Useful exercise A daily walk of 30-60 minutes with 30-second bursts of effort. Try walking fast between lampposts. Helps keep the blood healthy Brushing and flossing arent the only routes to healthy gums. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in the USA found that regular aerobic exercise in combination with a healthy diet led to people being 40 per cent less likely to develop periodontitis, a gum infection that can result in tooth loss and which is linked to a raised risk of heart disease and diabetes. How? Exercise is known to reduce a substance called C-reactive protein in the blood, which is associated with raised rates of inflammation linked to gum disease and other problems. In the trial, even those who just exercised and didnt change their diet were at a 16 per cent lower risk of the problem.

Useful exercise A 50-minute aerobics, salsa or Zumba class. Alternatively, put on some music at home and dance to it for 50 minutes. Best done three times per week. Male impotence There is plenty of evidence that regular workouts can prevent impotence as men get older. At Harvard University researchers found that men who exercised vigorously for 30-60 minutes two to three times a week were about half as likely to have erection problems as inactive men. In another study, this time at the University of California, 78 healthy male couch potatoes were asked to rate changes in their sex lives after they were assigned three to four 60-minute exercise sessions a week. Reports came back that the men had more reliable sexual functioning, greater satisfaction between the sheets and more sex more often. Useful exercise Outdoor boot camp circuit lasting an hour, or an interval session in the swimming pool, including a ten-minute warm up, 4 x 100m with varying strokes and a ten-minute cool down. Gradually build up the number of repetitions and intensity. Best done three times per week. Eyesight Researchers at the US Department of Energys Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tracked 41,000 runners for seven years. They found that running reduced both the risk of
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cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, a condition that causes damage to the retina, resulting in irreversible vision loss in older adults. In one study, men who ran more than 5.7 miles a day had a 35 per cent lower risk of developing cataracts than men who ran less than 1.4 miles per day. In a second, men and women who ran 2.4 miles a day were at 42-54 per cent less risk of macular degeneration than those who ran less than 1.2 miles daily or not at all. Others have shown that for every metre-per-second increment in running performance there is a 36.7 per cent reduction in the risk of glaucoma, an eye disease in which the optic nerve is damaged and which can lead to permanent vision loss. Last year, Dr Paul Foster of UCLs Institute of Ophthalmology confirmed in his own trials that aerobic workouts help to lower ocular perfusion pressure (OPP), an important risk factor for glaucoma. It appears that OPP is largely determined by cardiovascular fitness, Foster says. Useful exercise A run/walk combo for 20 minutes combining jogging for two minutes and brisk walking for one minute. Or, if you havent run in a while, try the Galloway Method, which involves jogging for a mile and walking for a minute. Aim to cover three miles, gradually eradicating the walk.Best done three times per week. Female sexual satisfaction In a study at the University of Texas, women were asked to watch a short travel film, followed by a short X-rated movie. Before the first trial they cycled vigorously for 20 minutes. Before the second viewing they did nothing. Calculating their sexual response using a device that measures bloodflow to the genital tissues, the researchers discovered that the womens vaginal responses were 169 per cent greater after exercising. Sex therapist Lisa Turner, known as the O Coach, says the stronger your core muscles, the more likely it is that you will experience orgasms. Useful exercise A spinning class or a short session on the indoor bike, including a five-minute warm-up and six minutes of one-minute fast bursts, one-minute recovery, followed by five minutes cool down. Best done three times per week.

Outside: Plant irises for an easy burst of colour in the midst of winter
Resistant to the cold and early to flower, versatile and elegant irises grow well in sunshine or in dappled shade. Any plant that will brave the cold weather and flower early enough to inject a little colour into our gardens is a welcome sight and Iris reticulata fits the bill nicely. These dwarf Iris are pretty much perfect in every way and, as a result, they are universally loved. The miniature blooms, with their sweet little standards (upright petals), and the yellow or white ridges on the falls (downward-facing petals), come in a range of shades from sky blues to deep, inky purples and add a colour shot in a sunny or partially shaded spot. They are scented too, similar to violets, but it may mean getting down on your hands and knees to get a good whiff. Their small, diminutive flowers are the key to their charm (they only reach a height of about 15 cm/6 inches) but, as a result, do need planting in quantity for a decent show. Fortunately, they are extremely versatile bulbs, which can be dotted into a front border or grown in containers, raised beds or window boxes. They are ideal in a rockery or a gravel garden
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pushing through a fine mulch. At this time of year youll see them ready potted in bud or flower, but the relatively cheap bulbs bought and planted in autumn, along with other spring bulbs, are better value for money, especially when buying in quantity. After flowering, their slender, upright foliage remains for several weeks before dying back. The name reticulate refers to the fibrous net that encases each bulb. How to grow irises They like very free draining, neutral to alkaline soil which dries out and, ideally, bakes through the summer months. Most prefer full sunlight but will cope with a little dappled shade. Incorporate plenty of grit or washed sharp sand when planting and put a small handful of pure grit at the bottom of the hole on heavier soils. Drainage is the key to getting them to flower again next year; if they sit in wet soil throughout the winter the bulbs will most likely rot away. Mulch around the plants with some fine gravel. It sets them off well visually and will deter slugs and snails. If you dont have these soil conditions at ground level they are just as happy planted into containers you should place them precisely where they can be enjoyed. Use a loam-based compost, adding some horticultural grit to the mix to improve drainage. They like relatively deep containers for their size and can be grown indoors on a sunny windowsill to encourage them to flower even earlier. Once plants have established themselves into a decent clump they can subsequently be divided , from mid-summer to autumn, by digging up the bulbs, re-spacing approximately 5 cm apart and re-planting. For a more natural look, put them in a pot, throw them in the air and plant them where they land.

Pope to act over conduct claims against Britains senior Catholic

The Pope is considering how to respond to allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Britains most senior Roman Catholic cleric. Vatican officials confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI had taken into his own hands the accusations against Cardinal Keith OBrien by three priests and a former priest. Cardinal OBrien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, missed High Mass in Edinburgh yesterday, where he had been expected to celebrate the eight-year reign of Pope Benedict, which ends at 8pm on Thursday. The cardinal is due to travel to Rome this week as the only British member of the conclave that will choose the new pope. His place was taken at St Marys Cathedral by Stephen Robson, the auxiliary bishop, who told the congregation that he had been gobsmacked by the allegations and asked them to pray for the cardinal.Cardinal OBrien contests the allegations, which date back three decades, and is taking legal advice. One of the complainants alleges that he received unwanted attention from the cardinal when he was archbishop after a late-night drinking session. Another claims he used night prayers as cover for inappropriate contact, at a time when he was meant to be counselling the priest. The first allegation is said to date back to the 1980s when one of the men was 18 and attending a seminary where the cardinal, then a priest, was his spiritual director. He said he was too frightened to report the incident and resigned when his mentor was promoted to bishop. I knew then he would always have power over me, he said. It was assumed I left the priesthood to get married . I did not. I left to preserve my integrity. One of the men said the Catholic church tended to protect the system at all costs, adding: The Church is beautiful, but it has a dark side and that has to do with accountability. If the system is to be
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improved , maybe it needs to be dismantled a bit. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-OConnor, the former Archbishop of Westminster, said he was very sad to hear of the allegations. Cardinal Murphy-OConnor, who at 80 is too old to vote in the conclave, said: There have been other cases which have been a great scandal to the C hurch over these past years. I think the Church has to face up has faced up to some of them very well. Sir Tom Farmer, the Scottish philanthropist and entrepreneur who founded Kwik Fit, said: I am surprised, I have known the Cardinal a long time. It is a great sadness. But we dont know who has made these allegations, and why they have been made at this particular time. Gudrun Smith, who has been attending the cathedral in Edinburgh for 30 years, said she shared the sense of surprise felt by the congregation. The Church has been tested recently, but these are testing times for any Christians, or faith groups, she added. Cardinal OBrien is due to retire as archbishop next month, on his 75th birthday. He has been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, and said recently that same-sex marriages would be harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of those involved and has voiced opposition to adoption by gay couples. But last week Cardinal OBrien surprised his liberal critics by suggesting that priests should be able to marry, arguing that priestly celibacy was a tradition of the Church, and not of divine origin.

Treasury ties Lloyds chiefs bonus to private share sale

The head of Lloyds Banking Group is, for the first time, set to have his bonus package linked to the lenders return to the private sector, The Times can reveal. The 40 per cent taxpayerowned bank is in discussions with the Government over a new 1.5 million incentive package for Antnio Horta-Osrio, the chief executive, which varies according to the price at which the State offloads its shareholding. Such an announcement, which could come as early as Friday, when the banks annual results are published , will dramatically raise hopes that some shares can be sold before the 2015 election. Lloyds will reveal more bad news next week, amid expectations that it will set aside an additional 700 million for payment protection insurance misselling and 200 million for interest rate swaps, according to Investec. This will translate into overall losses of 1.8 billion in 2012, according to its analyst Ian Gordon. Robert Talbut, the chief investment officer of Royal London Asset Management, said this week that the stake sale process could begin this year. Lloyds Banking Group is under-stood to be talking to UK Financial Investments, the arms-length body that manages the government stake, about a new compensation package for Mr Horta-Osrio that would reward him under two scenarios. First, he would be given his 1.5 million bonus package if the share price rises above 74p the price that the Government paid for the stake in 2008 for more than 30 days over a five-year period. Second, he could be rewarded if some of the taxpayer shareholding is returned to the private sector, with tiered rewards dependent on the price the stock sells for. George Osborne is understood to believe that the part-nationalised bank is closer to achieving the necessary target share price than commonly thought. The critical target share price for Lloyds is likely to be significantly less than 73.6p, the price that the Government paid for the stake in 2008. One often-discussed key target is 63p, the price after an adjustment to reflect the profits made by the Government from the banks participation in the Asset Protection Scheme. However The Times understands that officials have also calculated an additional, lower share price target of 61p. The value accounts for the overpayment of the stake in 2008, which was done in order to inject extra capital into the bank. This cash grant has already been
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accounted for on the government balance sheet. This means that if shares are sold below 61p, the Government must record a loss on its balance sheet and can record a profit if the sale is above this level. Lloyds Banking Group closed at 54.86p at close of trading last night, having risen steadily since the start of the year. Mr Horta-Osrio will receive a different proportion of this bonus, depending on whether the sale rises above 61p, 63p or 74p. No final decisions have been taken, however. There are growing signs of a change in mood among ministers at the Treasury. UK Financial Investments has argued publicly that the first round of share sales could be at a loss. Jim ONeil, the head of market investments at UKFI, told the Treasury Select Committee in January 2011 that were not necessarily constrained by ... the in-prices that the taxpayers paid for the shares. However, last weekend there was the first sign of a change of approach, when the Chancellor indicated that he wanted Royal Bank of Scotland to be able to return a profit on the shares. This would be possible in the current climate only if the target share price was lowered . The Government bought the controlling stake in RBS at 50p a share, or 500p a share post-consolidation. At the time of the emergency taxpayer injection, the market value of RBS shares was 41p. The Government paid a higher price because it wanted to inject 12 billion of extra capital to shore up the stricken bank. The shares closed last night at 345p. Stephen Hester, the RBS chief executive, looks likely to receive a 780,000 bonus payment deferred from 2010. The Government appears unlikely to make any attempt to claim it back, even though Libor-rigging continued through the year.

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