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Today’s headlines look pretty horrible.

House prices have suffered their biggest annual fall since the early 1990s, says the Nationwide. UK consumer confidence has now plunged to its lowest point since Margaret Thatcher was ousted from office, according to GfK. And the CBI Distributive trades survey reports that retailing is suffering a severe squeeze.

Not only this, but bank shares are plumbing new depths, with Royal Bank of Scotland yesterday falling to its lowest level in eight years and Bradford & Bingley hitting an all-time nadir.

But at least some people in Britain still have big smiles on their faces. Tucked away in the Bank Holiday news last weekend was yet another City bonus bombshell…
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Radiocarbon dating of cremated bodies excavated from Britain’s Stonehenge appears to have solved part of the ancient mystery surrounding the 5,000-year-old site: It was a burial ground for what may have been the country’s first royal dynasty.

The new dates indicate burials began at least 500 years before the first massive stones were erected at the site and continued after it was completed, British archaeologists said Thursday . for more click here

They thrust a piece of paper with a warning into your hand when you enter the latest photo exhibition at the Paris Historical Library. It tells you not to be fooled by the 270 images on display.

They are issuing the notice on the mayor’s orders because the show has upset some visitors and media. No sex, violence or religion is involved. Its offence is showing Paris in world war two as a sunny place, where people got on happily with life along with their sympathique Nazi occupiers. for more click here

(Dublin, May 28, 2008) – US efforts to undermine a new treaty banning cluster munitions met with significant defeat today at the final negotiations in Dublin, Human Rights Watch said. for more click here

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will never vacate his office for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai even if he loses a run-off election next month, his wife said.

Grace Mugabe told followers of her husband’s ZANU-PF party that Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would not be allowed to take power under any circumstances. for more click here

BIG guns were wheeled out yesterday in the battle over independence: their ammunition – oil and taxes. It is a battle that has been building for 21 years, ever since two Scots, then aged 33 and 32, entered the House of Commons as young and inexperienced MPs on the same day in June 1987. Yesterday, they clashed, not just as Scottish MPs from rival parties but as politicians at the height of their powers. for more click here

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office today changed its Travel Advice for Guinea. Due to reports of serious disturbances and instability in the capital Conakry we now advise against all but essential travel to Guinea. The relevant summary point now reads:

‘We advise against all but essential travel to Guinea. This is because of heightened tension following the sacking of the Prime Minister on 20 May. There were serious disturbances on 27 May involving soldiers in the centre of Conakry looting shops and firing shots in the air. On 28 May soldiers converged on Conakry international airport in the evening, which subsequently closed, forcing an Air France flight to divert to Dakar, Senegal. The airport is currently open but further disturbances may occur. You should exercise extreme caution in all areas near military camps.’

We advise against all but essential travel to Guinea until the situation is clearer.

source-The Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The government will compromise to avoid defeat over plans to extend pre-charge detention for terror suspects from 28 days to 42 days, the BBC understands.

It comes as rebel Labour MPs threaten to vote against the proposed extension. for more click here

It’s the European Central Bank’s 10th birthday party. But not everyone is celebrating…

It’s set to be a bubbly few hours in Frankfurt this Monday. The European Central Bank (ECB) is ten years old this weekend, and the bureaucrats at its German HQ have planned quite a party. After the various eurozone finance ministers gather for the traditional ‘family photo shoot’, “there will be some speeches, the cutting of a 10th birthday cake and then a closing concert”, says Raphael Anspach, a spokesperson for the ECB, rather enthusiastically. Sounds fun.

But before the string section pipes up…
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The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday.

It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum.

In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of ‘endless self-indulgence’ that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking. for more click here