After dropping 1.9% in July, house prices in the United Kingdom are now falling at the fastest rate since 1990, according to Nationwide Building Society.
Residential homes in Oldham, England.Image: Jeremy Sutcliffe.
The average price of a home has dropped by £20,000 down to £164,654, losing 10.5% of its value in 2008. Property values fell by 1.9% in the past month, and 1.5% in July. In another study, it was revealed that house prices have been steadily falling since October last year.
Nationwide’s chief economist, Fionnuala Earley said that activities in the housing market had recently been “very subdued”, although there are signs of increased interests in home sales, possibly due to the appeal of lower house prices.
The Bank of England stated there has been an increase in the number of people taking out a fixed rate mortgage as opposed to a variable rate loan. Further research by Nationwide has concluded that mortgage approvals also fell by 65% last month.
An English lawyer has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. He faked a legal judgment and sent it to a father who was pleading in Taunton family court to be able to remain involved in his child’s upbringing. The lawyer, London barrister Bruce Hyman, now awaits his sentence. The judge indicated that he could receive a prison sentence. Bruce Hyman is well-known in media circles, having produced The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on BBC Radio. He also produced a series with Clive Anderson, at Above the Title Productions, called Unreliable Evidence.
The father, a former City financier, had attended a series of court hearings in order to make suitable arrangements to see his child following an acrimoniousdivorce. Shortly before one of these hearings he received an email, ostensibly from a self-help group to which he belonged, which had attached a Court of Appeal case that appeared favourable to an application he had made for the judge to stand down from the case. The father, who was representing himself, duly showed the case to the judge. At this point, Bruce Hyman, the lawyer representing the former wife, claimed to the judge that the case was a forgery, which indeed it turned out to be.
After confirming that the self-help group had not sent him the email, the father then embarked on some detective work his own. The fraudulent email was traced via its header to a dial-up internet connection and a phone number belonging to a shop in London. The shop was able to recover CCTV footage which showed a man sending the email from an Apple laptop. The man turned out to be Bruce Hyman.
The damaged portion of the apartment blocks. One witness, who lives near the building, said she was “terrified” when she saw the flames.
An apartment complex in Tyler, Smith County, Texas, incurred substantial damage during a major fire on Wednesday evening. Fire authorities were forced to close Shiloh Road, a busy street which runs adjacent to the complex, for several hours while multiple city units fought to douse the blaze. Eye witnesses report that screams of animals and people were heard. A local news source described the blaze as “massive”, adding that while no-one was injured during the blaze, one cat was killed. One witness told a local news agency: “It engulfed it pretty quick. It’s amazing to see how quick a fire can go like that. It just started on one end and took over.”
8 apartment units were reportedly totally destroyed in the incident. Initial reports indicate that the fire started in an upstairs apartment and spread rapidly. Local medical personnel were alerted to expect a large number of casualties. A woman, who lives in the neighboring apartment complex and was present during much of the event, spoke to Wikinews on the condition of anonymity. “It was unbelievable,” she said. “There were firetrucks and police cars everywhere. It was the biggest fire I’ve ever seen.”
Fire officials have stated that they believe the cause of the fire may have been faulty wiring, adding that there was no evidence to suggest arson. On Thursday morning, local news outlet KLTV reported that many residents of the complex praised the fast and aggressive response of local firefighters. 61-year-old Cecile Hughston said that she was in her home about one block from the fire when she saw the flames. She said: “I was inside my house and I could see the flames, they were stretching up toward the sky. I was terrified.” Multiple clean-up workers were present at the complex on Thursday morning and the damaged building was cordoned off with police tape.
On Saturday, Argentine forward Lionel Messi signed a contract extension with Spanish football club FC Barcelona, the club announced via their official website. The new contract runs until 2021.
30-year-old Messi joined Blaugrana from Argentine club Newell’s Old Boys in 2000 at the age of thirteen and made his professional debut at the age of seventeen. In his tenure at Camp Nou, the Argentine international has won four UEFA Champions League titles, eight Spanish LaLiga titles, five Copa del Rey trophies, seven Supercopa de España (Spanish Super Cups), three European Super Cups, and three FIFA Club World Cups. Along with Barcelona’s midfielder Andrés Iniesta, Messi has won 30 trophies with the Catalans, the most in the club’s history.
Messi has played 603 games in the Catalan jersey, scoring 523 goals in all competitions including 361 goals in LaLiga. All time top-scorer in LaLiga and FC Barcelona’s history, Messi won his fourth European Golden Shoe on Friday for finishing as the top-scorer in all European leagues, scoring 37 goals in LaLiga last season.
Per the previous contract, Messi was tied to FC Barcelona until June 2018. Per the new contract, the Argentinian’s buy-out clause is set to €700 million which was previously set to €300 million. After penning the three-year extension, Messi said, “I’m happy to continue with the club, which is my home. My dream was to finish my career at Barca and we are moving down that path.”
Earlier this month, Wikinews spoke with University of Sussex professor of economics L. Alan Winters regarding the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union (EU) in the 2016 Brexit referendum and the subsequent negotiations leading up to and following the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement of December, which he has researched extensively. In a call, a Wikinews correspondent spoke with Professor Winters about recent developments in UK trade policy to learn more about his observations.
Winters is professor of economics at the University of Sussex, as well as founding director and fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO). His career spans over 15 years, including as chief economist at the Department for International Development, director of the Development Research Group of the World Bank, CEO of the Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium and advisor for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Trade Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Three reports where Winters is listed as an author were used as reference during the interview: “COVID-19 will reinforce the Brexit shock”, “The Costs of Brexit” and “Taking stock of the new UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement: governance, state subsidies and the level playing field”.
Winters was awarded the title “Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath”, styled C.B., on June 16, 2012 as part of the 2012 Birthday Honours.
The future direction of Kelso High School has become a little clearer following an announcement by the New South Wales government that the school will be rebuilt on its former site as a year 7 to 12 secondary school.
The original school built in 1978 was destroyed by fire on August 18, 2005. The cause of the fire remains a mystery. Following the fire, students were receiving lessons at a number of locations around Bathurst, but have since returned to the Kelso High School site where they are housed in demountable buildings on the school’s oval. The ruins of the former school lay behind.
A report made following a series of community meetings into the replacement of the school earlier this month said that the community wished for Kelso High School to be rebuilt at its former site as a secondary school. The report also said that the community wished for Kelso and Bathurst High Schools to pool HSC resources by sharing subjects and allowing years 11 and 12 students to study across both campuses.
A number of models were proposed at the meetings. These included:
Rebuilding Kelso High School as a senior high school only (years 10 through 12) near Charles Sturt University and Bathurst TAFE. Under this plan Bathurst High School would cater for years 7 to 9.
Rebuilding Kelso High School as a middle school from years 6 to 9.
Rebuild Kelso High School as both a primary and secondary school, incorporating Kelso Public School.
Rebuilding Kelso High School as it was on its former site.
The proposal to rebuild Kelso High School as a secondary school and share HSC resources with Bathurst High School was made at the community meetings. Under this system, both schools will have separate principals and identities with a college director co-ordinating HSC activities between the two campuses. If one school does not offer a subject the student is interested in they will be able to take that subject at the other campus.
Logarithmic graph of the Dow from January 2000 through December 2008
US stock markets dropped to twelve-year lows on Thursday, amidst falling confidence in the financial sector and worries over whether the US automobile manufacturer General Motors will be able to keep operating.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 4.08%, or 280.52 points, at the closing bell, reaching a level of 6595.32, a new 12-year low. The Nasdaq Composite lost 54.15 points, or 4%, to 1299.59, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 plunged by 30.27 points, or 4.25%, closing at 682.60.
Every stock in the Dow Jones, other than Wal-Mart, either lost ground or remained even, and all stocks in the S&P 500 index lost ground.
General Motors’ shares lost 15.5% after the auto firm announced that its auditors had “substantial doubt” over whether it would be able to keep operating.
Shares of financial companies were lower by nine percent, with Bank of America losing 11.7% and Citigroup falling by 9.7%.
“What’s most worrisome is that we haven’t hit the crescendo yet,” said Bill Groeneveld, the head trader for vFinance Investments. “Asset-management divisions are getting calls to just liquidate everything, and we haven’t seen the big players come back in at all.”
“This is one of the worst bear markets in the last 100 years; it started out with the credit crisis and the subprime [loans], but it is like a forest fire that has raced across the clearing and ignited other parts: Autos, auto parts, the insurance companies have been hit very hard. The credit crisis is causing an unraveling of industry after industry because the banks don’t lend,” said David Dreman, the chief investment officer of Dreman Value Management.
European markets were also lower today, with the London’s FTSE index losing 3.2% and the DAX index of Germany falling by five percent.
Chinese officials have said that their country’s exports surged last December to edge out Germany as the world’s biggest exporter.
The official Xinhua news agency reported today that figures from the General Administration for Customs showed that exports jumped 17.7% in December from a year earlier. Over the whole of 2009 total Chinese exports reached US$1.2 trillion, above Germany’s forecast $1.17 trillion.
Huang Guohua, a statistics official with the customs administration, said the December exports rebound was an important turning point for China’s export sector. He commented that the jump was an indication that exporters have emerged from their downslide.
“We can say that China’s export enterprises have completely emerged from their all-time low in exports,” he said.
However, although China overtook Germany in exports, China’s total foreign trade — both exports and imports — fell 13.9% last year.
Saturday, April 23, 2005QueenslandAustralia’sSir Joh Bjelke Petersen, a controversial figure who served as the State’s Premier for 19 years and reigned over the government that later became the subject of the Fitzgerald Inquiry, has died in hospital at Kingaroy, aged 94.
“By any measurement, Sir Joh was an exceptional state builder who will be remembered for consistently placing Queensland first,” said the Australian Governor General, Major General Jeffery, in a statement.
Australian Prime Minister, John Howard: “He was certainly a strong political figure and I extend my condolences to his wife and his family.”
But not all voices were sympathetic, prominent Queensland Aboriginal activist Sam Watson for example: “Aboriginal people will always remember him as a racist, a thug and a dictator.”
Having suffered severe ill-health for some weeks, and declining health for years, Sir Joh passed away at around 6pm AEST. He was surrounded by his family, who had been summoned yesterday by Lady Flo, his wife and one-time Senator, for final goodbyes.
Phrases such as “Don’t you worry about that” and “Goodness gracious me” were like trademarks to the maverick leader.
Known simply as ‘Joh’ to many, he would famously describe press conferences as ‘feeding the chooks’. Today Kingaroy locals taunted waiting press with cries from “You’re chooks, you’re chooks, ha ha” to “Go home, ya vultures”, and some obscenities, reported the Courier-Mail of Brisbane.
His fall from power at the end of the 80s was surrounded in controversy, with the state embroiled in corruption findings going to the level of his deputies, and Bjelke Petersen’s claims of ignorance coming under challenge with charges of perjury. The case was never heard due to a controversial hung jury: the foreman of the jury, Luke Shaw, had been an office-bearer of the Young Nationals — an arm of Bjelke Petersen’s National Party — as well as a member of a group calling themselves ‘Friends of Joh’.
Having had his start in life as a peanut farmer in remote Kingaroy, the former Premier was fit up until the very end, but palsy was paralyzing his muscles and organs, to which he eventually succumbed.
“Throughout his life Sir Joh combined enormous energy, vision and an immense capacity for hard work, most especially during his 19-year term as Premier of Queensland,” the Governor General said.
“What looked to us to be huge risks at the time turned out to be nation building,” said Bob Katter, a former minister of Joh’s Government, who credited Sir Joh with starting the Queensland coal, aluminum and tourism industries.
He is also remembered for dismantling many of the State’s unions, and for a somewhat totalitarian and heavy handed style of keeping control.
Under Joh, street protests were banned and Special Branch monitored extensively those the authoritarian leader saw as subversives, measures prompting Queenslander, Australian Civil Liberties Council, Terry O’Gorman, to comment Sir Joh was “the most appalling premier Queensland has ever had in terms of civil liberties and human rights”.
Joh was also influential in the famous case of the Dismissal by the Governor General of then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, in 1975.
In his last years as Premier, he had taken his cause to the nation’s capital, with the “Joh for PM” campaign. But this distraction has been credited with the downfall of his government, with corruption investigations at last being conducted by his stand-in, Bill Gunn.
The body of Sir Joh, who was of Lutheran faith, is to be buried at Bethany, the family property near Kingaroy.
Unsolicited quotes from ordinary Australians, many ex-Queenslanders seeking refuge in southern states, on hearing the news:
“Outrageous bastard! Oh God! That was polite!” — “Karen”
“Guilty as Hell. And that’s where he is now.” — “Michael”
“Yay! Good riddence to bad rubbish” — “Liza”
“The dictator is gone our time 2 sing” — “John. H.”
“Yeah he took a while — about 90 f*cking years overdue!” — “Hose Man”
“The pope an joh at least somethin going right” — “Helen”
“Corrupt f*cking sh*teating Bible-bashing f*ckw*t is dead. And thank f*ck. I haven’t been so happy since September 11!” — “Greg”
“I don’t drink but I’ll be having a red whilst dancing on his grave.” — “Cellest”
“Ding dong the d*ck is dead!” — anon.
“Yeahhh!!! Fucking finally” — “Leo”
“It’s a great day today the Rednecks are silent a great victory has been won” — “Zenner”
Wikinews
This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details.
Wikinews
This article features first-hand journalism by Wikinews members. See the collaboration page for more details.
José Luis García Sabrido, the chief surgeon at Gregorio Marañón hospital in Madrid who treated 80-year-old Fidel Castro last week, announced that the intestinal bleeding which led to surgery was not caused from cancer. Rather, he had a “benign illness” with a series of complications. He is currently recovering from a serious operation. When asked if Castro had cancer, Sabrido responded, “From what I know, I absolutely deny it.”
Sabrido refuses to declare which caused Castro’s illness, keeping in the Cuban government’s wishes, however The New York Times says diverticulitis is a common, non-cancerous cause of intestinal bleeding.
Fidel Castro transferred his position to his brother Raul on July 31 due to intestinal surgery. The Cuban government has since kept his health situation relatively secret; this is the first time a medical expert outside the Cuban government has commented on his health since he dropped from the public view in July.
According to recent reports, Castro will be healthy enough to be President of Cuba again.