UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Britain and the Kashmir banana skin
Memories seem to be short in the British government when it comes to Kashmir. Foreign Secretary David Miliband stirred up a diplomatic row over the region during his visit to India earlier this month. As this piece in The Times says, Miliband angered Indian officials by giving what they described as "unsolicited advice" on Kashmir, over which India has three times gone to war with Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947 and over which it is in no mood to be lectured by outsiders, let alone the former colonial power.
It was on a visit to Pakistan and India in 1997 to mark the 50th anniversary of those two countries' independence that the then British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, also got into trouble over Kashmir. Cook, who also served the Labour government, was forced to row back from suggestions that Britain might help resolve the long-running dispute. His intervention cast a serious shadow over the visit by Queen Elizabeth, who was at one point forced to cancel a long-planned speech.
The visit, during which the queen was accompanied by Cook, went downhill after that, and at one point a senior British diplomat was seen sitting, head in hands in despair, on the pavement outside Chennai airport. There were even suggestions, denied of course, that the British High Commissioner might be recalled. Tony Blair, then prime minister, had to patch up ties by assuring his Indian counterpart, Inder Kumar Gujral, that London would not meddle in Delhi's dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.
One wonders whether Miliband was reminded of all this before he went to India, and if he was, why did he walk into the Kashmir minefield once again. Or maybe he wasn't, which poses a different set of questions about competence and institutional memory at the Foreign Office.
Big Beasts in different cages
They are known as the “big beasts”, those polticians that hold, or have held, heavyweight government posts and stalk the landscape as if they own it.
The return of Ken Clarke to the Conservative front bench as business spokesman offered Westminster watchers the delicious prospect of watching an admired political performer take on
another just as adept at the stalk and kill in the form of Peter, now Lord, Mandelson.
from Global Investing:
And the next Iceland is…
If there's one thing you don't want to be, it's the next Iceland.
Since its currency, colossally indebted banking sector and economy collapsed in spectacular fashion in October, the country has become a byword for an economy that has truly hit the rocks.
Within weeks, banking problems and currency falls meant Hungary was being hyped as a "second Iceland", at least until a joint International Monetary Fund and European Union rescue package restored some stability.
from MacroScope:
A path strewn with difficulties
An old Chinese proverb states that it is better to take many small steps in the right direction than make a giant leap and fall back. Judging by the number of bank lending initiatives announced over the past three months, British policymakers are taking this to heart.
On Monday, Britain announced no fewer than eight measures to kickstart lending in its credit-starved economy. Despite pouring 37 billion pounds of public money into major banks last October and pledging hundreds of billions more in guarantees, the government had to admit it needed to take more credit risk off banks' books.
How far will central banks go in 2009?
The year 2008 has been filled with unprecedented events and all-time lows, a financial system overhaul and global turmoil. Could the New Year herald positive re-evaluation and a positive turnaround? And in what has been a year of sleepless nights for many, will a nation steeped in debt start to curb excess?
Rate cuts figured high on the news agenda as banks undertook radical measures to stabilise the economy. Within the space of one week, Britain saw the lowest base rate since the mid-1950s, the ECB took its rate to a two-and-a-half year low, the U.S. Federal Reserve aggressively slashed rates and a 175 point reduction was made by Sweden’s central bank.
The key question remains – will governments run out of weapons to boost the economy in 2009?
from Global News Journal:
Britain prepares to leave Iraq
BASRA - It may not be the end-game Britain was hoping for when it ventured into Iraq, but it's the end of the game nonetheless.
By the end of next May, almost exactly six years after 42,000 British troops joined the U.S.-led invasion and overthrew Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Britain's remaining 4,100 troops will be out of Iraq and his country's role in the war over.
from Global Investing:
To spend, or not to spend?
A day after Britain unveiled a multi-billion-pound fiscal stimulus package to spend its way out of recession, market analysts have been busy figuring out what it all means, in the context of a sharply slowing economy.
Nick Parsons, head of market strategy at nabCapital, has come to this conclusion:
from Global News Journal:
Ice cream and football on the road to Damascus
   British Foreign Secretary David Miliband hopes his Middle East trip will help nudge Syria away from supporting the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, but on a visit to Damascus he let slip that other Syrian allegiances were troubling him.
   "People on the streets wanted to talk about politics but also about football," he told reporters after a tour in which he sampled ice cream from century-old shop in the heart of the ancient capital.
Are modern cancer drugs worth the money?
What price a longer life?
Britain’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) reckons four new drugs for kidney cancer are not cost effective, even though they may extend patients’ lives by several months.
The complex calculations used by the watchdog show the drugs, which can cost over 30,000 pounds per patient a year, are just too expensive, given the limited benefits they provide.
Is Vegemite better than Marmite?
Australian athletes have asked the Chinese authorities to allow them permits so they can take, what some might say, is their secret weapon for success at this year’s summer Oympics – Vegemite.
With just under 100 days to go until the August games, a directive that the Australian Olympic team must source all food supplies within China has been dubbed the “vegemite ban” by local media.
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The Wall
