The banks come under fire on the front pages of most of the newspapers this morning as they are accused of not passing on yesterday's interest rate cut.

Shame of the banks says the Mail

Banks were accused of profiteering last night after failing to pass on yesterday's historic 1.5 per cent interest rate cut.
Within hours of the Bank of England cutting its base rate to just 3 per cent, lending giants turned the screw by axing their best mortgage offers.
They included three banks – Halifax, RBS and Lloyds – which received £37billion of taxpayers' money in last month's bail-out. The Bank of England's base rate is now the lowest since January 1955.

Banks ordered to pass on rate cut says the Independent as it reports that

Signs of continuing weakness among Britain's banks and in the wider economy were behind both the Bank's historic decision and the IMF's forecast. Implementing one of the largest reductions in borrowing during its 314-year history, the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee warned: "Since mid-September, the global banking system has experienced its most serious disruption for almost a century. While the measures taken on bank capital, funding and liquidity... have begun to ease the situation, the availability of credit to households and businesses is likely to remain restricted for some time." The cut follows the "emergency" international co-ordinated cut of 0.5 percentage points last month.

The banks great gamble says the Guardian

Ministers and opposition politicians piled moral and political pressure on banks to pass on yesterday's stunning 1.5% cut in interest rates to borrowers, as fears over the deepening recession prompted drastic action to stimulate the economy.

The Telegraph says

After the Bank's decision –prompted by the severity of the economic downturn – Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, added to the growing political pressure on lenders to pass the reduction on to home owners and small businesses. However, by last night, all but two of Britain's biggest banks – Lloyds TSB and Abbey – had failed to say how much, if any, of the cut would be passed on.

The Express describes how

Britain's financial system was in meltdown last night after the biggest interest rate cut in decades sparked chaos throughout the banking and housing markets.

The other tabloids are less friendly,now pass it on you bankers says the Sun whilst the Mirror calls them simply rats

Meanwhile the Guardian reports that

No 10 signalled yesterday that Gordon Brown may be willing to follow the cuts in interest rates by sanctioning tax reductions in the UK, as part of an internationally coordinated effort to give world economies a boost.
The prime minister's spokesman referred to action already taken in Britain to cut personal taxes in the wake of the abolition of the 10p tax band, and appeared to suggest fresh measures are under active consideration to stave off recession.

According to the Times

There were more than 4,000 suspensions of children aged 5 and under in England last year, prompting calls for teachers to have greater powers of restraint over violent and disruptive pupils.
Of the 400 suspensions of children aged 2 and 3 from nursery last year, 310 involved accusations of physical assault or threatening behaviour against a child or an adult, government figures show. They highlight the difficulties that some schools have in controlling troubled children who, in their distress or anger, may throw chairs or bite, hit and shout abuse at teachers and classmates.

Obama chooses 'Rahmbo' as chief of staff reports the Independent

Rahm Emanuel, an aggressive member of the Democratic leadership, yesterday agreed to become President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, a key position for the success of the new administration, after struggling with family and political considerations.
The choice of Mr Emanuel, a US Congressman, was one of Mr Obama's first decisions after becoming President-elect on Tuesday. Known as "Rahmbo" to insiders, he has a reputation as one of Washington's most ferocious political operators.

The Gaurdian speculates that


will the Terminator star in Obama's next act?

Speculation is swirling that Schwarzenegger will be offered the role of energy czar in the incoming Obama administration. There has been Beltway chatter about the prospect ever since he was named as a contender for the job by the authoritative politico.com website.

Meanwhile the Mail says that

Italy's outspoken premier Silvio Berlusconi got off to a good start with the President-elect - by praising his suntan.
Media tycoon Berlusconi, 72, famous for putting his foot in his mouth, made the remark while visiting Moscow, saying Obama was 'young, handsome and tanned'.
Last night as he was condemned from all sides for his apparently racist remark, Berlusconi (right) snapped: 'What's the problem ? It was a compliment. If these people don't have a sense of humour, it's their problem.'

Rebels consolidate before Congo peace summit reports the Times

Rebel General Laurent Nkunda seized towns in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, consolidating his grip on the eve of a regional peace summit to be held in Nairobi tomorrow.
Sporadic shooting and shelling occurred for two days around the town of Kiwanja, 50 miles north of the provincial capital Goma, as General Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) rebel army fought off attacks by pro-government Mai Mai militias.

The Independent adds that

UN peacekeepers who reached the rebel-held village of Kiwanja yesterday found burnt huts and the bodies of at least a dozen men in civilian clothes. They appeared to have been shot or blown apart by grenades. Gen Nkunda's forces had stormed Kiwanja the night before in response to what they claimed were attacks by government-backed militia. Some 30,000 people fled and many slept out in the open. Fighting flared in at least two other locations in North Kivu province, with the notoriously ineffective Congolese army once more abandoning its positions, this time in Nyanzale

Most of the papers report that

Putin could reclaim Russian presidency within months

Dropping the clearest hint yet that Mr Putin, now prime minister, plans a swift return, senior government sources told the respected newspaper Vedomosti that Dmitry Medvedev could step down next year.
Mr Medvedev is first expected to usher through constitutional changes that would allow Mr Putin to return to his old job for 12 more years.

says the Telegraph

The Guardian reports that

Dmitri Medvedev is to go to Washington next week for the first time as Russian president, with the chances of a meeting with president-elect Barack Obama clouded by his decision to station missiles in the heart of Europe.
Medvedev's military announcement, in a speech delayed by a month in order to coincide with the election of the new White House occupant, sent a hostile message towards an Obama administration, aimed to sow friction between European capitals and a new-look Washington, and sought to intimidate the Poles and the Czechs, who are to host the bases for the Pentagon's missile defence project

The Times reports that Bloody Sunday inquiry delays report again, four years after hearing evidence

The chairman of the Bloody Sunday inquiry caused a storm of anger yesterday when he said that he would not deliver his report until next year – more than a decade after it began.
Lord Saville of Newdigate faced demands for a meeting with victims’ families to explain why the tribunal, already Britain’s costliest, was taking so long.
The 14 people fatally injured on Bloody Sunday, all innocent Roman Catholic civilians, were killed in January 1972, when paratroopers opened fire during an illegal civil rights march

Your chance to be one of the first to carry an ID card says the Independent

IT IS a system familiar to anyone wanting rare tickets to see a superstar such as Madonna, or avid festival-goers hoping to bag tickets for Glastonbury, registering their interest online along with thousands of others in the hope that they will be among the lucky few to be selected. Now the Government says that popular demand has convinced it to adopt the system for one of its own schemes: ID cards.
People will be able to register their interest in having a card early by entering their details on a pre-registration website at the start of next year. A lucky few will then be issued with their cards as soon as next autumn. It will mean that some people will have an ID card in less than a year, about two years ahead of the Government's original plans.

The Telegraph reports that

Young people brought up with the internet are not used to listening for long periods and would not make good jurors, according to the most senior judge in England and Wales.In a speech, Lord Judge of Draycote, the Lord Chief Justice, said it might be better to present information for young jurors on screens because that is how they were used to digesting information.
He said: "Most are technologically proficient. Many get much information from the internet. They consult and refer to it. They are not listening. They are reading. "One potential problem is whether, learning as they do in this way, they will be accustomed, as we were, to listening for prolonged periods.

According to the Mail,Britain is now official drugs capital of Europe

Drug abuse in Britain is worse than anywhere else in Europe, a devastating analysis showed yesterday. Young people in the UK are more likely to take cocaine, Ecstasy and amphetamine than those in any other country on the Continent, it said.
They are using cocaine in quantities and with a frequency unmatched anywhere else in the world apart from the U.S., the report found.

The Sun reports that

THREE elderly British Legion poppy sellers were left humiliated after being kicked out of a shopping centre.
World War Two Royal Navy veteran Leslie Downard, 80, his wife Phyllis, 76, and former TA soldier Joan Anderson, 78, were shaken when confronted by security guards.
The guards claimed – falsely – the three only had the right to collect in the shopping centre for four days and not the 14 they intended.

The Guardian claims that

Twenty-nine per cent of teachers believe that creationism and intelligent design should be taught as science, according to an online survey of attitudes to teaching evolution in the UK. Nearly 50% of the respondents said they believed that excluding alternatives to evolution was counter-productive and would alienate pupils from science.
The survey, by the website and TV station Teachers TV, also found strong support for the views of Prof Michael Reiss, the former director of education at the Royal Society, who resigned in September over comments about including creationism in science lessons

Finally the Independent reports that

light is shed on secrets of dark matter

It is one of the biggest mysteries in science which has baffled scholars for more than 75 years, but now a team of cosmologists believes it has found a way of discovering what the universe is made of. About 85 per cent is neither stars nor planets but some form of mysterious matter. It cannot be seen or detected by conventional scientific instruments, which is why the precise nature of this "dark matter" has eluded the finest minds in science.
Now cosmologists believe the problem will be solved within two years, thanks to the results of a vast computer simulation of the Milky Way galaxy that has provided the first cosmic map of where dark matter can be found and how find it.