Minutes show two of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee wanted more money pumped into the economy, sending sterling down on the currency markets.
Global slowdown in financial sector not enough to prevent recruitment company's overall profits rising 24% to £60m
The recruitment squeeze in banking, along with cuts in the public sector, have pushed recruitment company Hays's UK division to a £3m loss.
Some bankers are still leaving the UK and heading overseas, but the job situation in the financial sector has also worsened sharply around the world, from Singapore and Hong Kong to Sao Paulo, according to Hays's chief executive, Alistair Cox.
"A year ago we said that a lot of bankers were looking for jobs out in Asia. We still see that, but the banking sector has slowed down globally," he said. "Banking started to get worse four to five months ago. I don't think it will get any better soon."
The recruitment situation in Britain's public sector, meanwhile, has stabilised, he reported. "Monthly fees have been flat since April 2011, which gives us confidence that the worst is behind us," Cox said. With 5.5 million staff, the public sector remains the UK's biggest employer.
Since 2008, Hays has laid off about 1,000 of its staff in Britain, where it now employs 2,100 consultants out of a total UK headcount of 3,500. Each of its 113 offices is now profitable, but there is still scope to cut back office and other costs by up to £12m, Cox said.
Collins Stewart analyst James Gilbert said: "It is clear that in the absence of a pick-up in demand, there is no magic bullet for the UK."
The German and Australian recruitment markets, by contrast, are booming. Hays, which employs 8,000 people across 31 countries and will open up in Chile and Malaysia in the next few weeks, now generates nearly 70% of its fees outside the UK. It is sending engineers to Australia, Canada, the US, the Middle East and east Asia, while IT and pharmaceuticals professionals are also in demand.
Hays posted a 24% rise in pre-tax profit to £60m for the six months to the end of December, but, like many of its rivals, has seen growth slow rapidly as confidence among clients to hire, and candidates to consider moving jobs, is dampened by economic uncertainty.
Hays's half-year dividend to shareholders will be cut by 55% to 83p.
5.46pm: In the absence of any other major developments, time to call it a day. Pensioners are marching in Athens, fears of a eurozone recession have intensified after some disappointing economic numbers and Greece has been downgraded by Fitch from CCC to C - the level that indicates default is inevitable. Good night - we'll be back tomorrow.
5.11pm: In France, the Socialists' abstention in a parliamentary vote on Europe's future bailout fund has fuelled concerns about how a possible left-wing presidential election victory would affect the eurozone crisis.
The Socialist Party, whose candidate François Hollande leads opinion polls for the April-May election, sat out Tuesday's lower house vote to create a permanent fund called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in protest at austerity measures across Europe. This did not stop the the bill passing in the conservative-led National Assembly, though.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government called the move a "historic error" and berated the Socialists. Even the left-leaning newspaper Liberation was critical in an editorial, comparing them to ostriches.
Some of them quibbled, most found the most pressing thing to do was not decide and others stepped up their vindictive jibes. If the left wins power, it needs to do better. And know what it wants.
Government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse told Reuters:
A vote today against the ESM is a vote against Europe, a vote against the euro and a vote against European solidarity, and it's not behaviour fitting to the gravity of the situation.
Prime Minister François Fillon accused the Socialists of bringing election campaign tactics into parliament. Hollande has pledged to seek to amend an EU fiscal compact agreed last month to add clauses on growth and investment. While he is staunchly pro-European and advocates fiscal discipline, his stance raised questions about the compatibility of his views with Germany's in resolving the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.
George Magnus, senior economic advisor at UBS, told Reuters:
I don't think this is a game changer. But it can be interpreted as revealing a part of the Socialist platform - that to be European we have to be very pro-growth - which is at odds with the Germanic view on what solidarity means.
If we see more instances like this in the run-up to the election, they could be perceived as marking out a political and negotiating position vis-a-vis Germany which would be seen as quite different and potentially capable of causing uncertainty about how the process would evolve.
5.03pm: The Greek parliament finance committee has approved the debt swap bill, news aggregation service RANsquawk reported.
European stock markets have closed. The FTSE 100 in London edged down 0.2%, or 11.65 points, to 5916.55. Germany's Dax lost 0.9% and France's CAC shed 0.5%.
4.42pm: If you're interested in footage from the streets of Athens, there's a live feed on Stop Cartel.
And I'm now handing this blog over to Julia Kollewe for the final push. Thanks all.
4.35pm: In the currency markets the pound hit a 10-week low against the euro, of €1.1825, which means one euro buys 84.56p.
William Poole of FC Exchange blamed this morning's Bank of England minutes, which showed that two policymakers wanted an even larger injection of quantitative easing:
Everyone is well aware that the UK economy is in dire straits, and today's central bank report only serves to reinforce this view. A disparity in opinion, in those charged with dictating policy to help the UK economy grow, merely highlights the struggles faced by the UK.
4.23pm: In the bond markets, Greece's five-year bond yield has passed 56% today - a sign that the bailout has lost yet more credibility, says economist Shaun Richards.
He blogged yesterday about how the economic accumptions behind the bailout are flawed (and worthy of Alice in Wonderland) here:
3.52pm: One of Finland's lawmakers has told Dow Jones this afternoon that he expects the Finnish parliament to approve the new Greek package.
That comes a few hours after a German MP, Wolfgang Bosbach said he would oppose it when the Bundestag votes next week.
Many Greeks, of course, would welcome the idea of the package being voted down by the German parliament. There's some dark humour out there.
Here's how regular reader James Wilkins of Kalamaria responded to the new plan, and the news the new bailout fund would be placed in an escrow account and dolled out to Greece by troika officials:
A deal of such mind-boggling complexity can never work. The people who made it should be kept in a special escrow account in Brussels and released in stages, but only when ordinary, hard-working Greeks are sure their lives are improving.
3.33pm:Makis Sinodinos, a journalist in Athens, reports that 10 people have been temporarily detained by police in Athens so far today.
People on the streets are also talking of a stronger than usual presence of undercover police on the streets,
#Greece#rbnews Witness on phone from #Syntagma: "Very weird vibe here today, undercover cops on every corner, no one looks normal" #22fgr
PS - we thought we has a picture of an undercover policeman in Athens, but at second glance it probably wasn't, so we've deleted it.
3.25pm: Now hearing from Athens that the marches are well underway, but the turnout is (as feared at 3.15pm) poor.
3.11pm: Developments from Athens where our correspondent Helena Smith says unionists have just told her that – contrary to earlier expectations – they are not expecting a great turnout today.
Helena reports:
Organisers of the demonstrations planned outside the Greek parliament now say they are not anticipating a mass turn out, partly because of the weather (the rain has stopped but its still damp and very wet) and partly, I sense, because of protest fatigue. Earlier today there were several spontaneous protests outside the ministries of labour and health.
Helena continues:
"We expect it to be very small mostly because it's raining and people spent most of the morning protesting," said Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of the civil servants' union Adedy. But while today's demonstrations were likely to end up being symbolic, Iliopoulos said this would not be the case in future.
"At first we were demonstrating about cuts but now they want to take away everything. People are literally hungry and the number of homeless is growing every day " he said. Greek authorities, he claimed, now had one tactic when dealing with crowds: stun grenades and tear gas.
"As we have seen the tactic whenever crowds gather is 'disperse them with chemicals, tear gas. The demonstration Sunday before last was outrageous. It had hardly began when police started toxic chemicals into the crowd. Well, you can do that once or twice but with people so angry that tactic is soon not going to work. Honestly I don't rule out a popular revolt."
Iliopoulos also explained that trade unions were in the process of joining up with other "forces and movements" to make "more of an impact."....
2.57pm: There's a rumour this afternoon that Greece's general elections might be postponed, rather than being held in April.
Environment minister George Papaconstantinou set the hare running by telling Die Zeit that a delay would give PM Papademos "a bit more time" to implement economic reform plans.
Papaconstantinou said:
It would be good if the government of Lucas Papademos got a bit more time. People must feel that things have changed. But that depends on our partners.
The comments have been seized on by Greek media today. A few thoughts:
1) Any delay would infuriate those already angry that an unelected prime minister is running Greece. When Papademos was installed, the agreement was that the former ECB vice-president would only run the show until April.
2) "A bit more time" probably won't make any difference, when people are facing austerity for at least the next five years
3) George Papaconstantinou is a member of Pasok, who are on track to be routed at the polls. A delay would give them a chance to rebuild their popularity. [But 2) also applies]
UPDATE: Our correspondent Helena Smith points out that Papaconstantinou is echoing the views of his boss and close friend George Papandreou:
Papandreou, whose leadership of the socialist Pasok party is not expected to last long (elections for the post are expected to take place in March) has made it very plain he would like to see Papademos, for whom Papandreou stepped aside last November, stay in the position until October 2013 when his own tenure would have run out. That would indeed give the Pasok party time to improve its dismal ratings in the polls -- at last take hovering aroud 12%. Not since the creation of the party by Papandreou's own father, Andreas, has its popularity been so low.
Speaking of George Papandreou...he has given an interview to the BBC in which he demands "more respect" from Greece's critics.
Papandreou sad:
Speculation over whether Greece will stay in the euro has created 'great pain' and even contribued to the recession by deterring people from investing.
2.39pm: Prime minister Lucas Papademos met with the Greek president today to discuss the country's second rescue package. He issued a statement after the talks (see it here in Greek)
The statement doesn't include much new (so don't start swotting up on your Greek specially). Papademos basically said Greece now needs to pass legislation approving the programme, and complete the PSI agreement.
He added that the decisions taken will create conditions that are
conducive to growth and the recovery of the Greek economy.
Regular readers might remember that Greek president Karolos Papoulias surrended his €286k salary a week ago, in solidarity with the workers. They might also recall that we reported his salary as €400k (bigger than Barack Obama's). That was a mistake, I'm afraid, which was later corrected. Sorry about that.
2.20pm: Bank shares in Athens have fallen sharply today, after rallying strongly in recent days. National Bank of Greece is down 10%, while Piraeus Bank's lost 11%.
The selloff is driven by the expectation that the recapitalisation of Greece's banking sector will cost even more than previously feared, which would leave existing shareholders owning even less.
2.10pm: Another photo from the first protests of the day:
....Here, protesters shout slogans during an anti-austerity rally by employees of the Workers Housing Organisation in front of the Athens parliament.
1.47pm: Apologies if you're having trouble accessing the blog. We are experiencing technical issues on our website at the moment.
I"m assured that we're looking into it urgently.
Update: The best bit of the blog has vanished. Hopefully your comments will be back very soon.
1.24pm: We have news on Greece's debt swap, which is meant to cut its total borrowings by €107bn.
Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos has told the Athens parliament that the formal offer to bondholders will begin on February 24 at the latest (so perhaps not today after all), with the exchange occuring on March 12.
However, Greek bonds that were issued under British law (which make up a small proportion of the total debt pile) will not be swapped until early April.
The main difference between those British-law securities, and those issued locally, are that they contain "Collective Action Clauses" allowing the government to automatically declare a default if creditors don't take part in a voluntary restructuring.
12.56pm: A reminder that we have a flickr account that covers protests in Greece (click here).
Also, if you are there, we'd be grateful for any contributions from the streets today - it really complement's Helena's reporting from the ground. My email address is graeme.wearden@guardian.co.uk, and/or you could post in the comments below.
12.47pm: Athens is gearing up for this afternoon's protest marches (details here)
Several subway stations were due to close at 3pm local time (or 1pm GMT)
And on the streets, employees from the state-run Workers' Housing Organization have marched, peacefully, in Athens.
As you can deduce, it's still raining in Athens.
12.09pm: The European Commission is withholding €495m of EU development funds from Hungary after the country failed to reduce its deficit.
These funds are means to support the EU's poorer regions. It is the first time the European Commission has proposed to suspend development funds from one of its members over an excessive deficit.
David Gow reports from Brussels:
The EC flexed its new fiscal surveillance muscles by threatening to suspend almost €0.5bn in structural aid to Hungary for persistently breaching budget deficit rules.
Olli Rehn, EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, said: "Today's decision has to be regarded as a incentive to correct a deviation (from fiscal prudence) and not as a punishment."
He told reporters that Hungary had been in "excessive deficit" – breaching the 3% of GDP ceiling – since it joined the EU in 2004 despite repeated warnings to get its fiscal house in order.
Rehn was also dismissive of Budapest's argument that it brought its deficit below the 3% ceiling in 2011, arguing it was due to one-off factors.
11.38am: Just in. Fitch has cut its credit rating on Greece from CCC to C, the level that indicates default *is inevitable*.
It explained that the debt-swap deal will constitute a "distressed debt exchange". Once the swap is completed, it will lower Greece's rating to RD (for restrictive default), and then re-rate the country "at a level consistent with the agency's assessment of its post-default structure and credit profile".
What's not clear, though, is whether this move means that insurance policies on Greek bonds will pay out, as Chris Adams of the FT was quick to point out:
In summary, Fitch move on Greece is technical, as with S&P, part of the bond swap process. More interesting is whether CDS will be triggered
11.22am: The German government has insisted that it will not support an expansion of Europe's bailout fund, despite growing pressure from other countries.
Speaking in Berlin, Angela Merkel's press spokesman Steffen Seibert said that Germany saw no need to increase the upper limit of the European Stability Fund beyond €500bn.
The move puts Germany on a collision course with other countries, including the Netherlands, whose finance minister today said he favoured an expansion to €750bn.
Seibert said:
The German government's position has not changed -- that means no, it is not necessary....What was agreed with partners was that in March there would be an examination of the size.
As we reported this morning, European diplomats believe that next week's EU summit would be asked to endorse proposals to merge the lending capacity of the existing eurozone bailout fund, the EFSF, with that of the new European Stabilisation Mechanism – giving a firewall of between €650bn and €750bn.
Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told Le Monde today that his government is ready to combine the two funds, to create a pool worth €750bn.
Seibert also insisted that Portugal and Ireland will not be offered more generous terms on the back of Greece's new deal (under which the interest payment on its first package are cut).
11.09am: One demonstration has already taken place in Greece today.
Pensioners marched outside the Athens parliament this morning, as the photo above shows. Pensions have already been hit by previous austerity measures, and many face further cuts as the price of the deal agreed on Monday.
10.45am: There are also reports this morning that the IMF is planning to contribute as little as a tenth of the new Greek package.
Süddeutsche Zeitung reports from New York that Christine Lagarde is playing hardball, proposing that the IMF should contribution at most €13bn or a tenth compared with 27% of the first €109bn package. The IMF's managing director, moreover, won't press the release button for this - as the Guardian reported today - until the EU/Eurogroup agree to combine the two bailout funds, the current EFSF and pending ESM, to produce a firewall against contagion of up to €750bn.
As David Gow reports, this idea is not popular in Berlin:
The Munich-based left-liberal daily suggests that Lagarde favours eurobonds - more anathema for the Fatherland - and is unimpressed by austerity at all costs. It detects the influence of David Lipton, her deputy and ex-director for international economic questions in the White House which is sharply critical of the EU's dilatoriness and, well, stinginess in solving the euro crisis.
Lipton wants a growth strategy rather than "a downward spiral of loss of confidence, stagnation and fewer jobs" in one of the richest regions of the world.
10.33am: It's not only in Greece that the protests against the second Greek bailout are mounting: Spiegel-Online reports that the chairman of the Bundestag's home affairs committee, Wolfgang Bosbach, will vote against when the package comes up for approval - probably on February 27.
Bosbach says it's a huge step towards a mutual liability union "burdening future generations with risks" that are "intolerable."
The German taxpayers' federation is calling on deputies to reject the package, claiming German taxpayers are liable for up to €320bn - "and an exit of Greece from the euro should not be taboo". Werner Hoyer, former Liberal (FDP minister, now president of the European Investment Bank, says Greece needs a new Marshall Plan as well as a savings programme.
10.17am: Union leaders are expecting a large turnout at this afternoon's demonstrations (details here), even though it's raining in Athens.
Adedy spokeswoman Tania Karayiannis told Helena that:
If the weather doesn't prevent people from coming we expect the demonstration to be big.
Karayiannis added that this afternoon's protests, which will converge on the Athens parliament, will be followed by many more.
This is just the beginning. There will be lots of strikes and protests and we are in the process of deciding exactly when they will take place.
10.12am: After this morning's disappointing PM data, some better news on the eurozone industrial sector.
New industrial orders across the region jumped by 1.8% in December, reversing November's 1.1% fall. Capital goods orders (which includes heavy duty machinery) jumped by 4.2%, while the only big fall was for 'durable consumer goods', which dropped by 2.7%.
I don't believe there's a country-by-country breakdown, though.
9.55am: News in from Athens where Helena Smith, our correspondent, says unions have gone on the war path barely a day after Greece's new rescue programme was announced.
Mass protests are planned for 4pm (2pm GMT) local time outside the Greek parliament – around the time it will vote on controversial legislation that will further erode wages and pensions (we blogged the timings here).
Helena explains:
The Greek Federation of workers (GSEE), which represents the country's largest work force and Adedy, the civil serrvants' union, have announced demonstrations in what is set to be a new wave of protests against a new wave of austerity measures that are the trade off for yet aid more for debt-straddled Greece. Pame, the communist-aligned unionist, will stage a separate protest rally at 5pm. The legislation has been submitted as an emergency bill - part of a barrage of reforms that technocrat prime minister Lucas Papademos has pledged to fast track before the next EU summit on March 1.
In a statement, the unions attacked:
The demolishment of labour law, the new cuts in principle and supplementary pensions, the demolishment of the welfare state, the eradication of public services … and new lay offs in the public sector constitute the new barbaric measures which the coalition government is hastily voting through to win favour with the troika [EC, ECB and IMF] and lenders.
Helena continues:
Commentators this morning say the "big bet is on" with the passage of a barrage of reforms the prelude to overhauling the way Europe's weakest link works.
"We will live in a very different Greece from now. The country is changing. It's a new reality, new era, we all have to change," said news anchor Nikos Evangelatos.
The big question was not so much whether the country would meet its debt repayments, now that it had secured emergency funds, but whether with the internal devaluation it was going through Greeks would be "saved" by prices also going down.
9.34am: Breaking – two members of the Bank of England's MPC wanted a bigger quantitative easing injection this month.
Minutes from the meeting, just released, showed that the committee was split 7-2. Adam Posen and David Miles wanted the electonic money-creating programme increased by £75bn, but the rest of the committee voted for a £50bn increase.
The news has sent the pound falling 0.7 of a cent, to $1.5705.
My colleague Simon Goodley explains:
The news is likely to re-open the debate about whether the central bank will add further QE in May, especially as the minutes showed that other MPC members saw a case for doing no further stimulus at all this month.
Miles and Posen argued there was a risk of a prolonged period of depressed demand causing inflation to fall materially below target in the medium term. Moreover, extra QE now would reduce the risk of a spiral of increasing unemployment and scrapping of capacity by firms.
However, most MPC members argued a bigger increase than £50bn "risked sending a signal that the committee thought the economic situation was weaker than it was".
The MPC members who voted for 50 billion more QE were not wholly united. "For some members ... a case could be made for maintaining the stance of policy at this meeting," the minutes said.
9.16am: The latest economic data from the eurozone is a disappointment.
The Composite PMI (a survey of purchasing manager conducted by Markit) came in at 49.7, down from the 50.4 recorded in January. That covers the region's manufacturing and services sectors.
A figure below 50 shows a contraction, and will fuel fears that the eurozone will officially fall into recession this quarter.
Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, commented:
A retreat back below the 50.0 no-change level for the euro-zone PMI is a disappointment, and highlights the ongoing risk that the region may be sliding back into recession.
9.05am: Three seperate rallies are scheduled to take place in Athens today. Here's the details, via Living In Greece.
• The ADEDY and GSEE unions (the two biggest in Greece) have called a rally set for 16:00 EET (2pm GMT) outside Parliament in Athens. • Insurance Fund employees to rally at 12:00 EET (10am GMT) outside OEK Patission and Solomou in Athens. • PAME Communist workers group will begin a rally at 17:00 EET (3pm GMT), starting from Omonia and converging with union protest outside Parliament in Athens • A second rally is being organised in Thessaloniki begins at 18:30 EET (4.30pm GMT) at the Venizelos statue.
Kolodko, who now teaches at Kozminski University in Warsaw, is the latest senior politician to argue that Greeces's economy cannot return to strong growth in the face the measures that are being piled on. Society is being pushed to its limits:
In three years of austerity Greece's debt has risen from 113 per cent of gross domestic product to 163 per cent. Homelessness has jumped by 25 per cent. Unemployment has risen to 21 per cent, among the highest in the industrialised world, with 48 per cent of young people out of work. It is naïve to think they will watch TV, not demonstrate or fight in the streets. This policy is senseless.
Kolodko advocates wiping out 80% of Greece's external debt, plus an EU loan at zero interest rate.:
The easiest solution would be for the European Central Bank to buy new issues of Greek government bonds, but its hyper-liberal statutes and German ethos will not allow it to do so. The ECB has off-balance sheet resources of €3.3tn, equivalent to the current value of its seigniorage. If it is only used properly, the issue of eurozone sovereign debt can be resolved.
8.41am: Europe's stock markets opened flatly this morning, with the FTSE 100 down 9 points at 5919 in London. Other markets are more or less flat.
Traders say that the uncertainty over whether the Greek pacakge will a) be agreed, and b) work, means shares aren't heading higher (despite the Dow Jones index hitting its highest level since 2008 last night)
Chris Weston of IG Index explained:
The sights of the market are firmly fixed on the level of private sector involvement and how the market will take the prospect of hedge funds or investment banks claiming insurance from their credit-default swaps held over Greek debt if they aren't one of the potential 66% that are going to participate on a 'voluntary' basis.
We actually feel that the use of the CAC (collective action clauses) and subsequent triggering of CDS (credit default swaps) would not be that negative, and would show the system actually works.
8.27am: "Whatever eurozone finance ministers were smoking in their all-night marathon talks it must have been something strong".
It is all so simple: for a new wonder economy to arise in the Aegean what has to happen is for Greece's recession to end immediately, for the economy to have six consecutive years of strong growth from 2014 onwards; for the Greeks to submit to their eurozone partners' humiliating terms; for the bailout to be given the thumbs-up by the sceptical parliaments in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, and for the assorted hedge funds, banks and insurers that make up Greece's private-sector creditors to accept a 53% "haircut" on their investments.
And if that happens.... Greece will still have a debt-to-GDP ratio of 120%, the equivalent of Italy today.
Larry concludes that Greece will ultimately leave the euro. But, as IfigEusLannuon points out below, he doesn't give a date. Any predictions?
Elsewhere, the Daily Telegraph's Jeremy Warner is scathing about the Charles Dellara (or Doolally, as he dubs him), for suggesting that Greece will return to growth despite official forecasts showing that the country faces five years of austerity.
Unfortunately, growth is one of the many things the Greeks don't have, and, according to the eurozone's own analysis, are most unlikely to get – in large part as a direct result of the eurozone's own policy prescription of never-ending austerity.
Mr Dallara must surely know that the plan is based on completely unrealistic economic assumptions, and therefore cannot succeed on the terms proposed.
8.15am: Greece's two largest unions have organised demonstrations in Athens this afternoon, beginning at 4pm local time. I'll blog more details in a moment.
On the economics front, we're getting new data showing how the eurozone's services and manufacturing sectors performed in January. France's data is already out, showing a surprise upturn. Industrial orders data is also due.
In the UK, the Bank of England minutes will also show whether its Monetary Policy Committee was unanimous in expanding its quantitative easing programme by another £50bn this month.
Here's today's agenda:
• Bank of England minutes - 9.30am • Eurozone manufacturing+services PMI data - 9am GMT / 10am CET • Eurozone industrial New Orders - 10am GMT / 11am CET • Demonstrations in Athens - from 2pm GMT / 4pm EET
8.00am: Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone debt crisis.
Protests are expected on the streets of Athens today, at a demonstration organised by trade unions. That should show the depth of public anger over the plan, which will mean years of IMF-directed austerity for Greece.
With just nine days to secure the new package, Greece may also open its bond swap with private creditors today.
Sunderland is best-known in business circles for its Japanese links via Nissan, but it's also renewing its own version of the special relationship
Northern England's links with the United States, which include the gift to the world of Wrigley's chewing gum, have been mightily emphasised today in Sunderland.
The city on the Wear has its own special Friendship Agreement with Washington DC, the only non-capital city in the world to do so. An uneven match? Not at all. Without Sunderland and area, there might never have been George Washington.
Hence the ceremonies at his family's old home, Washington Old Hall, which is very much worth a visit. While the British Embassy in Washington hosted a reception to mark the renewal of of the agreement, local people got together at the Wearside end to do their bit as well.
Encouragingly, for those who expect such things to be the preserve of people my age, the programme was much enlivened by young people. David Crone, chair of Sunderland youth parliament, read the American declaration of independence (the model for northern England's forthcoming breakaway), Lauren Waine of Monkwearmouth school sang the American national anthem and Martyn Foster from Broadway junior school read Martin Luther's eloquent speech, I have a dream.
Pupils from George Washington primary school joined in as well, before the Mayor of Sunderland – let's hope it becomes a Lord Mayoralty soon, now that the place is a city – Coun Norma Wright concluded proceedings.
There is a practical point to all the fun and games (and useful history). Contemporary Sunderland is famous for its links with Japan, through the Nissan plant, but are many American business connections as well.
United States firms account for one of the biggest shares of local inward investment, such as the Lear Corporation which is launching a new production plant at Rainton Bridge, creating 300 jobs. The TRW Automotive company already employs the same number at its steering systems plant, which was opened in 1989.
Looking the other way, the Sunderland firm SaleCycle, which recovers abandoned shopping trolleys online, has a sales office on the edge of Washington DC. At the small business level, Phil Vickery, one of Wearside's glass artists who cluster round the National Glass Centre, has found the Friendship Agreement more than just a twinning symbol.
He told the Old Hall get-together:
We need to keep doing this to form long-term relationships with US buyers. I have made strong contacts and captured opportunities that have led to friendships and being able to sell directly to the US market. Without this help it would be just about impossible for people like me to break into the US market.
Dominic Edmunds, founder and managing director of SaleCycle said:
We have recruited US staff, opened our office and generated sales directly into the US market. The good relationship which Sunderland has established with Washington DC was instrumental in all of this. Without the city council's connections it would have been much more difficult and taken far longer to achieve.
And Paul Willson, plant controller at TRW was happy too, that:
The Friendship Agreement builds the relationship, confidence and the possibility of investments between our two cities.
There's a way to go in the north east so far as jobs are concerned, as no one needs telling. But today has helped.
Analysts said a growing boycott of supplies from Iran, which is Opec's second largest producer, had encouraged traders to hoard oil contracts at higher prices
Oil prices reached a record high on Wednesday as jitters over a possible attack on Iran outweighed concerns that slowing export orders in China and the ongoing eurozone crisis cast could jeopardise global growth.
The cost of Brent crude in sterling reached £77.71 a barrel, beating a record set last year at the height of the Libyan war. US crude hit a nine-month high of $106 a barrel this week, though it slipped slightly in trading on Wednesday night.
Analysts said a growing boycott of supplies from Iran, which is Opec's second largest producer, had encouraged traders to hoard oil contracts at higher prices.
Prices have risen steadily over the last fortnight following a growing dispute between Iran and the United Nations over allegations that the Middle Eastern state is close to developing nuclear weapons.
The UN's nuclear watchdog was forced to quit Iran earlier this month after talks on Tehran's atomic research broke down.
Russia warned Israel not to attack Iran over its nuclear programme, saying on Wednesday that military action would have catastrophic consequences.
Unable to act through the UN in the face of Russian resistance, the US has encouraged a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil and sanctions against its banks, but has stopped short of supporting military action.
"Iran is still the main issue; it's keeping prices very well supported," said Andy Sommer, an analyst at EGL in Dietikon, Switzerland.
The spike in the oil market comes after the UK price of diesel reached a record high last week of 143p a litre. It also comes amid accusations across Europe and the US that high petrol and diesel prices are the result of a dysfunctional market.
Refiners in the UK have come under fire for pushing up the price of fuel to maintain margins squeezed by falling demand. Most of the UK's refiners are debt-laden independent operators that are currently struggling to repay debts in a period of declining sales.
Coryton, the Thames estuary refinery owned by Swiss oil group Petroplus recently went bankrupt after it was unable to run its plant at full capacity.
Coryton is expected to return to capacity after a rescue bid, but could still struggle after a sharp drop in sales across the UK.
Demand has fallen across Europe and Asia following a slowdown in economic growth last year. Figures showing China's manufacturing sector contracted in February for a fourth straight month added to the gloom in the euro area and stirred fears about fuel demand in the world's second-largest oil user.
Evidence that the poor economic situation is having a direct impact on the fuel market came from Singapore Airlines, which cut its cargo capacity by 20% as persistent weakness in demand and high jet fuel prices piled pressure on its profitability.
A high oil price was behind the sharp jump in the UK's inflation last year to above 5%. A sustained rise this year could undermine George Osborne's hopes of a recovery.
Officials in Spain, Italy and Greece are also known to be watching the oil price closely because they are major importers, especially of Iranian crude, and are vulnerable to increased costs.
Several analysts have argued the deal struck between Brussels and Athens could be endangered by a further slump in Greek economic output following a sharp rise in oil prices.
Concerns that increased demand from Chinese manufacturers and further restrictions on Iranian supplies added will push prices higher sent despite a drop in demand across Europe following. The latest developments in the long-running stand-off between Iran and Western nations countered data that indicated the Chinese and European economies are struggling to return to robust growth.
The eurozone's service sector shrank unexpectedly this month, reviving fears that the economy could sink into recession, Markit's Eurozone Services Purchasing Managers' Index showed on Wednesday.
Rich Burlew becomes crowdfunding site Kickstarter's most successful creative project
The author of a self-published webcomic about a band of heroes in a fantasy role-playing world has raised more than $1m (£600,000) from fans on "crowdfunding" website Kickstarter to bring his stories back into print, making The Order of the Stick the richest creative work in the crowdfunding site's history.
Author and illustrator Rich Burlew launched The Order of the Stick online in 2003. Following the comic fantasy adventures of a collection of stick figures in a role-playing game world as they struggle with enemies and the rules of the game, much of the story is available online for free, but Burlew also began self-publishing parts of it in paper format in 2005. When the costs of keeping it in print proved too high, Burlew turned to Kickstarter following repeated demands from readers, launching a project in January to raise the $57,750 he needed to rerelease the books in print.
Yesterday, he closed his fundraising project with 14,952 backers and $1,254,120 raised, making The Order of the Stick Kickstarter's most funded project by a single person ever and the most funded creative work the site has ever seen.
"I'm still shocked," Burlew said. "I was tragically underprepared. I never thought we'd get anywhere near the response we've gotten, and it's been a daily struggle to keep up with the progress of the whole thing. What I was thinking when I hit the Launch Project button was something roughly analogous to, 'I hope I'm not making a terrible mistake.' As it turned out, I wasn't."
Burlew offered fans a variety of options for donations: for $10, they could receive an Order of the Stick fridge magnet and a digital PDF of the original comic story (2,256 people took him up on this). For $100, there were four magnets on offer, for $200 there were books, prints and autographs available, for $600 there was an original crayon drawing by Burlew and for $5,000, the donator's original Dungeons & Dragons character could receive a walk-on cameo in The Order of the Stick webcomic. All options were sold out.
The author, who describes Order of the Stick as "a fantasy epic that doesn't take itself too seriously while still delivering a good story", believes that the comic's success lies in offering material for free.
"Unless you have the marketing department of a large corporation behind you, you're not likely to get enough people to take a chance on your unknown property, even through Kickstarter," Burlew said. "On the other hand, if you give it away first, people will form their opinion of you and your work before you ask them for money. And readers are a lot more likely to spend money on things they know they like than things they hope they will like. People want to own what they love, so rather than selling access to the content, sell the permanent incarnation of it – be that a book or an ebook or a DVD or whatever. The best thing about giving away your content first is that when it comes time to sell the final product, you're going to have almost 100% customer satisfaction. No one is going to complain that they didn't like the story they bought, because every one of your customers knew they liked it before paying."
Embattered health secretary sidesteps questions over NHS reforms 'transition register' if tribunal orders publication
The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has refused to be drawn on whether he would publish the controversial risk assessment of his NHS reforms if a tribunal in March rules that he must do so.
The tribunal is due to meet following a dispute between the Department of Health and the information commissioner, who said last year the government should publish the "transition register", which has assessed risks to the NHS and patients during the reorganisation set out in the health and social care bill.
As the Guardian reported last week, regional NHS risk assessments suggest wide-ranging concerns, including that patient care and safety could be damaged and that costs could rise, all such risks were assessed even after attempts to reduce the threat.
Speaking in a special opposition day debate organised by Labour, reiterating the call to publish the risk register, Lansley twice refused the opportunity to tell MPs that he would accept the tribunal's judgment after it meets on 5-6 March.
In answer to a question from the deputy Liberal Democrat leader, Simon Hughes, asking if he would "respond positively to the tribunal's decision", the health secretary instead quoted from an article in the Observer by the information commissioner, Christopher Graham, in which he said he was "not infallible".
"The government has the right to appeal to the tribunal … and the tribunal is the proper place for that public interest test to be tested," he added.
Lansley cleared up some confusion about the risk register, saying the document in question was the "transition risk register", relating specifically to the reorganisation set out in the health bill, an assessment which was first drawn up in 2010 but which has been, and is being continually, "reviewed and updated". This was different to the department's "strategic" risk register of all its operations.
The debate was fronted by Labour's shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, who insisted that MPs and peers had a right to know the implications of the health reforms before they voted on the bill, which is currently in the report stage in the Lords.
Burnham had to fend off repeated charges by Conservative MPs that he had refused similar requests to publish risk registers when he was health secretary in the previous Labour government. Burnham said he had refused to publish a different document – the strategic register – and he had not been overruled by the information commissioner. Labour did release a similar policy-specific risk assessment, into Heathrow's third runway, when it was in government, said Burnham.
Quoting from local and regional risk assessments, which have been published individually by the relevant NHS organisations, Burnham cited quotes ranging from general warnings about meeting targets on waiting lists for treatment, poor patient care, and safety, to more specific concerns such as the threat of harm to women in London.
Burham also repeated his offer that if the government would "drop the bill", he would work with ministers to introduce GP-led commissioning for patients, one of the bill's key planks. Labour's chief opposition to the bill has been to claims that it will introduce more free market competition and privatisation into the NHS, along with poor accountability and more bureaucracy.
"He [Lansley] is running unacceptable risks," added Burnham. "What he's doing is wrong and needs to be stopped."
Lansley defended his decision not to publish the national risk register, saying that the prospect of publishing such assessments reduced the quality of advice given to ministers, meaning the documents would become "bland and anodyne" and "cease to be of practical value".
"To be effective, a risk register requires all those involved to be frank and open about potential risk," Lansley told MPs.
"It is their job to think the unthinkable and look at worst-case scenarios. It is vital nothing is done to inhibit that process.
"If people are in doubt about the confidentiality of their views they will inevitably think twice before committing themselves to such direct and candid language in the future."
Tory MP Mike Freer said: "The release of the risk register is seen as an opportunity by the opposition to cherry-pick doomsday scenarios the register may contain. It is simply a charter for shroud-waving."
Royal Bank of Scotland, led by £1.2m-a-year chief executive Stephen Hester (pictured) and Lloyds received a total of £65.5bn of taxpayers' money. The stake is now worth just £36bn.
Dutch government and the IMF and its managing director, Christine Lagarde, want the ESM to embrace funds still untouched within the current rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF)
Germany threatened to undermine this week's €130bn (£110bn) deal to bail out Greece by refusing to bolster the firewalls set up to prevent the eurozone debt crisis from spreading.
As markets dipped all over Europe amid fears that Greece would never be able to meet its debt obligations, Angela Merkel's chief spokesman said Berlin saw "no necessity" to enhance the planned €500bn European stability mechanism (ESM), the new bailout fund due to be in place from July.
Highlighting how unpopular aid for Greece is in Germany, opposition to the bailout deal was growing within Merkel's coalition on Wednesday. Several MPs from Merkel's conservatives and her junior partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), said they planned to oppose the package, meaning that she would be unlikely to win next week's parliamentary vote on the deal without the humiliation of relying on her socialist and green opponents .
Merkel's weakening domestic position came as her government's stance on the ESM left Germany at loggerheads with not only the Dutch government but also the IMF and its managing director, Christine Lagarde. Both want the ESM to embrace funds still untouched within the current rescue fund, the European financial stability facility (EFSF).
It has between €150bn and €250bn left, which would allow the combined funds to total €650-750bn – still well short of the €1 trillion originally forecast, let alone the €2tn demanded by market players. Lagarde favours at least €1tn being set aside – and has further ruffled Berlin by calling for eurobonds to cover not only Greek but also, for example, Spanish and Italian debt in event of a wider crisis.
The IMF managing director is refusing – before of next week's G20 meeting in Mexico – to commit the IMF to a specific share of the new €130bn bailout for Greece. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, has said it would be €13bn – plus €10bn rolled over from the first €109bn rescue.
This would amount to just 10% of the new fund compared with the 27% the IMF contributed to the first one. The Washington-based body is under pressure from the White House to resist European demands for more funds.
Jan Kees de Jager, the Dutch finance minister, who helped broker the deal on Greece, has made his support for the package dependent on an enhanced EFSF/ESM combination.
Doubts over the proposed Greek bailout spread to the markets and sent shares lower on Wednesday. The FTSE 100 edged lower for the second day running, closing down 11.65 points at 5916.55 after Tuesday's 17-point decline in the wake of the overnight Greek deal. Germany's Dax was down almost 1%, while France's Cac was 0.52% lower. The Athens market fell nearly 6%.
Lee McDarby, at Investec Corporate Treasury, said: "Serious reservations about the ability of the Greek government to push through the required fiscal cuts have hampered any positive market reaction so far."
Meanwhile the cost of insuring peripheral eurozone government debt against default rose again, with five-year Italian credit default swaps up from 380 basis points on Tuesday to 392. This means it would cost £380,000 to insure £10m worth of Italian debt. Spanish CDS contracts rose from 365 to 372 basis points, while Greece climbed from 70 to 72 basis points, according to data monitor Markit. Greece's five-year bond yield also passed 56%.
The French Socialists' abstention in a parliamentary vote on the bailout fund also showed that a possible leftwing presidential election victory in May this year could derail the EU's eurozone rescue efforts.
The Socialist party, whose candidate François Hollande leads opinion polls for the April-May election, sat out Tuesday's lower house vote on the creation of a permanent ESM in protest at austerity policies in Europe.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government called the move a "historic error" and berated the Socialists in parliament on Wednesday. Even the left-leaning newspaper Libération was critical in an editorial.
The abstention, which did not prevent the bill passing in the conservative-led National Assembly, was in line with Hollande's campaign pledge to seek to amend an EU fiscal compact agreed last month to add clauses on growth and investment.
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