Monday - December 08, 2008

STORIES MAKING TODAYS HEADLINES.  THE BRITS, THE IRISH AND THE TALIBAN.

STORIES MAKING THE HEADLINES TODAY:

Ah yes. The Irish vote. AGAIN! And didn’t some of us say it would come to this, AGAIN, after they voted NO once. But apparently in the democratic EU, people must be made to see their error and vote AGAIN.  And again until the EU gets the exact vote it wants.  With money talk in today’s rather bungled financial world, they just might cave in and indeed vote yes if it will put cash into their economy.  Step up and place yer bets gents and ladies always welcome too of course.  For the Brits, the entire story is ALL in the large headline.  You hardly need to read the whole article but for those who wish to do so, catch the link IRISH VOTE AGAIN?

Irish will vote on EU’s Lisbon Treaty for a second time next year
Irish voters who rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June will be asked to vote again on the issue next year, paving the way for controversial EU laws to be introduced in Britain.

All 27 member states must ratify the Treaty before it comes into force. Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic are the only nations that have not yet agreed to do so.

British voters were initially promised a referendum on whether to adopt the EU Constitution, but the Government decided against allowing it after the document was rebranded as the Lisbon Treaty.

On Thursday the Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen will confirm that a new vote will be held in 2009.

Mr Cowen said he believed that the economic crisis could help persuade some of those who voted against the Treaty to change their minds.

IRISH VOTE AGAIN ?

Taliban raids Nato convoys for second night
Pakistani Taliban fighters attacked Nato supply routes for a second consecutive night, torching 50 containers needed to supply troops in Afghanistan during an audacious raid near Peshawar.

Last Updated: 12:06PM GMT 08 Dec 2008

The attack came barely 24 hours after 200 militants destroyed more than 100 lorries in a Nato base barely a mile away. The trucks are needed to ferry vital equipment and supplies through the perilous Khyber Pass - the narrow mountain trail leading from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

“The militants came just past midnight, firing in the air, sprinkled petrol on containers and then set them on fire,” said Mohammad Zaman, a security guard at the site quoted by Reuters.

“They told us they would not harm us, but they asked us not to work for the Americans.”

The early Monday assault provided new evidence that the Taliban is resurrecting an age-old local strategy of hitting supply routes through the Hindu Kush mountain range.

TALIBAN RAIDS

Britain’s economy overtaken by France, new figures show
Britain’s economy has been overtaken by France and could fall behind Italy’s next year, according to leading economists.

By Ben Leach
Last Updated: 6:38AM GMT 08 Dec 2008
The UK is now the sixth largest economy in the world, behind America, Japan, China, Germany and France.

Economists said the fall reflected the pound’s slump to record lows against the euro.

A year ago the UK economy was 8 per cent bigger than that of France, measured by gross domestic product (GDP).

Now it is 14 per cent smaller, according to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

“An overvalued sterling has inflated the UK’s claims to be among the top five world economies,” said Ben Read, an economist with the CEBR.

“The drastic reduction in sterling’s value has accelerated the inevitable process of the UK falling down the league table of world economies, as India and Brazil catch up and overtake the UK’s national output.

“Where the UK’s comparative output ‘benefited’ from sterling’s rapid rise up to 2007, we now see the UK overtaken by France, despite both countries seeing a fairly similar economic performance over the past year.”

At present Britain’s GDP is 6 per cent bigger than that of Italy. But according to CEBR, it will drop below Italy’s next year.

Britain became a bigger economy than Italy in the final months of John Major’s government in 1997 and two years later became a bigger economy than France, thanks to strong British growth and a high pound.

For most of Tony Blair’s time as prime minister, Britain’s was the fourth largest economy in the world, before China overtook it in 2006.

UK FALLS TO FRANCE. AND ITALY?

Posted by peiper     on 12/08/2008 at 10:52 AM   
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