IMF warns of more market chaos says the Times
The world is on the brink of financial meltdown, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last night. His bleak warning came as finance ministers tried to calm the frenzy in markets that saw share prices crash by more than 20% last week.
Separately, the IMF’s chief economist predicted that shares could slump by another 20% before stabilising. G7 finance ministers pledged to take all necessary steps to support the banking system and stave off an economic slump.
The Observer has the words of Gordon Brown-Now we are facing our moment of truth,it reports that
Gordon Brown will try to broker a Europe-wide bail-out of banks today modelled on Britain's £500bn intervention, warning that the 'stakes could not be higher' for jobs, mortgages and the future of the economy.
The Prime Minister told The Observer that within days he would reveal how the bail-out would protect livelihoods in the UK by forcing the banks that accept government help to make money available to businesses and homeowners. One option is understood to be for the government to take seats on bank boards in return for taxpayers' cash.
The Telegraph reports that
The Treasury is prepared to take controlling stakes in Britain's biggest banks and to put government representatives on their boards to halt the financial crisis,adding that
The radical proposals go significantly further than Gordon Brown's original bail-out unveiled last week. It will spark suspicions that the Prime Minister may have to take more drastic action, even going so far as to nationalise the entire banking system
The Independent leads with Council salaries hit by bank collapses
Hundreds of thousands of council workers may not be paid this month because their earnings are frozen by the Icelandic bank collapse, it emerged last night.
The Local Government Association has just eight days to avert a catastrophe, senior sources warned. The LGA has urged the Treasury not to insist on prompt payment of nearly £1bn in business taxes owed by councils, and due on 20 October, to free up cash and allow staff to be paid.
Meanwhile the Mail paints an even worse picture,its front page reporting that
The spectre of the Winter of Discontent threatened to return to haunt Labour last night after funeral directors revealed that the burial of 'hundreds' of bodies is being delayed for financial reasons.
In a bleak new sign of the growing economic crisis, hard-up families are having to wait more than two months before receiving Government money for funerals.
Organisations representing undertakers accused the Government of putting them in an 'impossible' position by dragging their feet over burial costs for poor families.
Previously, undertakers would pay for the cost of funerals and wait to be reimbursed by the State, but the lack of credit in the banking system means many firms can no longer afford to do so.
Will anything end the panic asks the Observer,it reports that
For the past decade, World Bank and IMF meetings have been dominated by the problems of the world's poorest countries. The crash of 2008 has followed the longest sustained boom in the global economy since the late 1960s and early 1970s, breeding the complacent belief that the only real issue was how to help poverty-stricken countries in Africa catch up. This year, the mood had changed: Africa barely merited a mention, as the West concentrated exclusively on preventing its home-grown crisis dragging the entire world into a slump
The Independent meanwhile reports on the £516 trillion derivatives 'time-bomb'
Last week the beginning of the end started for many hedge funds with the combination of diving market values and worried investors pulling out their cash for safer climes.
Some of the world's biggest hedge funds – SAC Capital, Lone Pine and Tiger Global – all revealed they were sitting on double-digit losses this year. September's falls wiped out any profits made in the rest of the year. Polygon, once a darling of the London hedge fund circuit, last week said it was capping the basic salaries of its managers to £100,000 each. Not bad for the average punter but some way off the tens of millions plundered by these hotshots during the good times. But few will be shedding any tears.
The Observer meanwhile says that
More than a million Britons will be out of work and on the dole by next month as the toxic fallout from Black October filters down to ordinary families, economists are warning.
A bleak Christmas lies ahead for many as the City turmoil spreads into the so-called real economy. Companies are now being squeezed on two vital fronts, with shoppers abandoning the high street and bank lending drying up, making it almost impossible for smaller businesses to get credit to stay afloat.
Away from finance and the Times reports that
Peter Mandelson joins richest Russian on his superyacht
Peter Mandelson gave trade concessions worth up to £50m a year to Russia’s richest man who has entertained him on his superyacht.
The encounter on the 238ft yacht, Queen K, in Corfu this summer was the latest in a series of social meetings between Mandelson and Oleg Deripaska — known as the “king of aluminium” — during the politician’s term as European Union trade commissioner.
On the same topic the Independent reveals that
Peter Mandelson will pick up a £1m "golden goodbye" package following his departure from Brussels, despite walking out after serving only four years as Britain's European Commissioner.
The new Business Secretary will receive a £104,000 salary as a minister in the House of Lords, and qualifies for a total of £234,000 in "transitional payments" over the next three years to help him readjust to life outside the European Commission.
More political scandal in the Telegraph which reports on the truth about Tony Blair's role in the Ecclestone Affair
The documents - released to The Sunday Telegraph after a two-and-a-half year Freedom of Information battle - reveal that Mr Blair personally intervened to secure Formula One's exemption from the tobacco advertising ban just hours after meeting Bernie Ecclestone, the motorsport's billionaire boss.
The same paper reports that
US to remove North Korea from terror list
The deal is a major diplomatic breakthrough for President George W Bush, backed by his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as he sought a foreign policy success in his final months in office.
But it was immediately condemned as a sell-out that rewarded a rogue state by the neo-conservative hardliners who once dominated his administration. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, also expressed strong concerns.
There are more problems in Zimbabwe this weekend,the Observer reports that
Robert Mugabe yesterday attempted an 'ambush' on the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe by claiming all the key cabinet posts and control of the state security forces for his own party.
In an open challenge to the power-sharing pact between the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the President's ruling Zanu-PF party, which have reached deadlock over the allocation of ministries, Mugabe made a typically defiant gesture by gazetting the 14 key ministries as having been allocated to Zanu-PF.
The News of the World has exclusive pictures from inside the house of the Afghan benefit claimant
WELCOME to the amazing luxury world of the Afghan benefits family in the £1.2million mansion.says the paper
And we can reveal that despite having a home groaning with state of the art goodies, they are STILL moaning—because they can't afford a trip to meet Mickey Mouse.including
CENTREPIECE of the spacious lounge is the family's pride and joy—an incredible 50-inch flatscreen PLASMA TELEVISION worth £1,500 which dominates the room. Quizzed on how they could possibly afford the TV, 20-year-old son Jawad—who has never worked—claimed: "I got it cheap off a friend a year or so ago."
The Mail has the lowdown on Newsnight's Gavin Esler who
has split from his wife and set up home with an attractive young musician known as the ‘vixen of the violin’.
The BBC journalist, one of TV’s most highly regarded newsmen, met sultry Anna Phoebe – 28 years his junior – at a conference where he was guest speaker.
‘Gavin is so astute, he has such a fascinating mind – that’s a distinct turn-on,’ explained Anna, who describes herself as a ‘rock metal gipsy’.
Meanwhile the same paper turns its focus to another BBC personality
BBC man's intriguing web of friendships behind the scoop that shocked the banking world
The BBC journalist has excellent contacts in the Square Mile and in Government, including leading City PR man Roland Rudd, who represents Lloyds TSB, and Schools Secretary Ed Balls, one of Gordon Brown’s closest confidants. Peston met both men while working at the Financial Times in the early Nineties.
Another of Peston’s old friends from the FT is John Kingman, the Treasury’s Second Permanent Secretary.
The Express leads with TV’S MOST SHOCKING DRAMA EVER
THE BBC is facing a backlash over a shocking new TV drama featuring gay sex, murder and Mother Teresa.
The six-part series about exorcism, called Apparitions, was the idea of housewives’ favourite Martin Shaw, who also stars in it as a Roman Catholic priest.
According to the Times
Bars are to be banned from offering free alcohol to women and free wine and beer tastings will be curbed under a new system of government restrictions to cut public drunkenness.
There will also be rules to limit “happy hour” offers that encourage speed drinking and soft drinks will have to be sold at the same discount during promotions. Wine in restaurants will have to be served in glasses with marked measures.
Finally the Independent reports that,As the recession begins to bite, the determined socialite will not necessarily be forced to give up on champagne and canapés
On Thursday evening, even as EU summit leaders meet in Brussels to tackle the worst banking crisis in decades, a glamorous posse will be sipping champagne and nibbling quail's-egg canapés in London, removed from the turmoil of the city below as they gaze down from the top floor of one of the city's most iconic buildings.
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