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The Health and Social Care Bill, which changes the organisation of the National Health Service, passed its second reading by 321 votes to 235. Lawyers opined that the European Court of Human Rights required the government to give prisoners in Scotland and Wales the right to vote in May’s elections or risk claims for compensation; the government had already faced a demand to give prisoners votes in Westminster and European parliamentary elections. BP announced a loss of £3.1 billion for 2010, its first annual loss since 1992, because of the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, but said it would restore dividends for shareholders. The Mexican ambassador to London complained about a remark on Top Gear that ‘Mexican cars are just going to be lazy’.
The United States issued a safety warning for passengers visiting Britain. Woolwich Crown Court heard that a Bangladeshi British Airways employee living in Newcastle conspired with a radical preacher to blow up a US-bound aeroplane. The number of rail journeys rose to 1.32 billion last year, 37 per cent more than in 2000 and the highest since 1923. Norman Baker, the Transport Minister, said that councils, not Whitehall, should designate A and B roads in order to lessen the effects of satellite navigation devices sending traffic on unsuitable routes. A new Home Office site mapping crime incidents in England and Wales street by street crashed under the weight of five million hits an hour; Glovers Court in Preston was named as the most crime-ridden.
Net mortgage lending fell to £8.15 billion last year, the lowest since such records began to be kept in 1987. The British manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose to a record high in January. The drug company Pfizer said it was closing its plant in Sandwich, Kent, which employs 2,400. Chelsea football club, which lost £70 million in the year to June 2010, was said to have paid £50 million for Liverpool’s Fernando Torres; Liverpool paid £35 for Newcastle’s Andy Carroll. ‘The Football Match’, painted by L.S. Lowry in 1949, is to be auctioned by Christie’s and is expected to fetch between £3.5 million and £4.5 million.
Abroad
The resignation of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, aged 82, after 30 years in power, was demanded by street protests in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, which went on for more than a week despite curfews imposed by the government. Internet connections were disabled, but Twitter set up a message system via an international telephone number. Mohamed El Baradei was active as a protest leader. Mr Mubarak dismissed the Cabinet, but that was not enough. It was hard to discover casualty figures; perhaps 300 had died, by a UN estimate. After a few days the police disappeared from the streets. People organised neighbourhood watches to try to prevent looting. Cairo airport was overwhelmed with foreigners trying to leave. The army said on 31 January that it would ‘not resort to use of force against our great people’. After a week, Mr Mubarak said in a broadcast that he would not stand for re-election in September, but US President Barack Obama broadcast shortly afterwards, saying: ‘An orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now.’ The price of Brent crude oil rose above $100 a barrel.
A United Nations team reported that 219 had died (including 72 during prison riots) during the unrest that ousted Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali as president of Tunisia in January. King Abdullah of Jordan dismissed his Cabinet and appointed a new prime minister amid large street protests against unemployment and in favour the right to elect a prime minister. President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen said he would not seek re-election; but elections were not due until 2013. Some Iranian newspapers retouched photographs of Baroness Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, to raise the neckline of her blouse.
Brian Cowen, the Prime Minister of Ireland, said he would not stand for parliament in the general election announced for 25 February. Belarus released some political prisoners, including Vladimir Neklyayev, a poet, but the European Union reinstated a visa ban on its president, Alexander Lukashenko. President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan called a surprise election. Thousands of people were evacuated from Cairns as a cyclone swept over Queensland. A Buddhist monk in Bhutan, which has made smoking illegal, faced five years in jail after being found in possession of 72 packets of chewing-tobacco. CSH
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