Rush for safe havens as euro fears rise

US benchmark borrowing costs plunged to levels last seen in 1946 and those for Germany and the UK hit all-time lows as investors took fright at what they see as a disjointed policy response to the debt crisis in Spain and Italy. In a striking sign of the flight to haven assets, German two-year bond yields fell to zero for the first time, below the equivalent rate for Japan, meaning investors are willing to lend to Berlin for no return. US 10-year yields fell as low as 1.62 per cent, a level last reached in March 1946, according to Global Financial Data. German benchmark yields reached 1.26 per cent while Denmark's came close to breaching the 1 per cent level, hitting 1.09 per cent. UK rates fell to 1.64 per cent, the lowest since records for benchmark borrowing costs began in 1703. "They are...

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Euro break-up 'could wipe 50pc off London house prices'

Property prices in the capital’s most sought-after postcodes have been driven up by investors moving funds out of assets held in euros to buy into what is seen as a “safe haven” alternative. Foreign money seeking a refuge from the wider economic turmoil accounted for 60pc of acquisitions of prime central London property between 2007 and 2011, according to a report by Fathom Consulting for Development Securities. If the shared currency broke up completely, London property would initially be boosted by the continued flight towards a safe haven, the report predicts. But, once the break-up had taken place, demand for these assets as an insurance against this event would start to ebb. “Although fears about a messy end to the euro debt crisis may account for much of the gain in prime central London...

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Gibraltar Chief Minister challeges Spain to go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea

The Gibraltar Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, has challenged Spain to take it to the international courts. Appearing before a panel of questioners on Tele 5 TV, he described the argument over fishing as ‘blackmail’. Picardo said that the reality is that the waters close to the Rock belong to Gibraltar, and so what has to be done is to ‘search solutions’ as blackmail won’t work. ‘Does Spain want to complicate life for its own people?’, he said. He challenged Spain to take Gibraltar to go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and make their arguments there. ‘But why doesn’t Spain do that?, asked Picardo, ‘Could it be that they are not that sure of their position?’. The Chief Minister noted that the Spanish fishermen used certain fishing techniques which were prohibited under...

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Gibraltar's jubilee party sends signal to Madrid

In Gibraltar, said chief minister Fabian Picardo, children learn history fast. "They can say 'the treaty of Utrecht' when they are around a year old," laughed Picardo, an Oxford-educated socialist with a picture of the Queen in his office. "We start them young." It was that agreement, signed in 1713, that granted the 426m-high rock jutting out where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic to the British "in perpetuity". And as Gibraltar swathes itself in red, white and blue to celebrate the Queen's jubilee, it is revelling in its reputation for being "more British than the British". "It's about the symbolism, really," said taxi driver Eddie Castle. "We do like to irritate the Spanish when we can. But they get their own back: whenever there is a row, they get their own back by making things...

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Gibraltar tensions nearing flashpoint

A DISAGREEMENT between Britain and Spain over fishing rights has escalated into a diplomatic row involving the two royal houses that could trigger a military clash in the waters off Gibraltar. Spain's government has asked its Civil Guard patrols to escort Spanish fishing vessels into the disputed waters off the Rock. Gibraltar refused to allow Spanish fishermen access to the waters after talks over fishing rights broke down last weeke...

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Spain’s banking crisis reached Britain’s high streets last night when the credit rating of Santander UK was cut.

In a sweeping reassessment, ratings agency Moody’s announced in Madrid that it is downgrading 16 Spanish banks because it could not be sure of the ability of the country’s government to provide the necessary support.Santander UK was among the banks highlighted after the ratings agency took aim at its parent Banco Santander, based in Spain. The Spanish banking crisis has hit the British high street, with the news that Santander has had its credit rating cutSantander is one of the biggest players in UK retail banking, having taken over the former Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester, Bradford & Bingley and most recently the English...

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Gibraltar Seeks To Solidify US Gambling Contacts

 Gibraltar government, which already licenses a number of major UK gambling operators, is now seeking to solidify relationships with its US counterparts, ahead of changes in the US e-gambling market. A delegation, headed by the island's gambling overseer, Minister Gilbert Licudi, visited San Francisco last week to attend the GIGse Totally Gaming Conference. The delegation met a number of important players in the US gambling market, including the Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval and the Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, Mark Liparelli. Licudi commented on Gibraltar's objectives in developing relationships with US gambling bodies and Gibraltar seeking US gambling contacts. "The US market is slowly opening up to e-gaming," he said. "Nevada is the first US state to legislate...

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Spanish fishermen have returned to fishing in Gibraltar waters

Spanish fishermen have returned to fishing in Gibraltar waters - despite the recent agreement that they would not fish pending the dialogue that has its next encounter next week. To begin with, four fishing boats from La Atunara decided to go out fishing, later reporting that there had been no people with the Royal Gibraltar Police. There were also reports from Algeciras that there had been no problem with Gibraltar's police. The return to fishing was being described as a 'spontaneous' move by some. However, there were conflicting reports later that more boats were poised to take the risk of going out fishing. As wwent to press it was not known if the RGP would be doing something about it, or if they would be applying their 'common sense policy', which means doing nothing about it. We...

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Digital broadcasting network in Gibraltar.

The Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA) has signed a one million pound contract with Arqiva in the United Kingdom, to provide a digital broadcasting network in Gibraltar. In lay person terms this means that a greater choice of programmes can be made available and additional broadcasters licenses could be obtained from Government.   In more technical terms, the network will comprise two digital television multiplexes and two digital radio multiplexes. On each television multiplex Gibraltar will be able to transmit up to 6 distinct programmes. Similarly with digital radio, each multiplex allows for 4 distinct programmes. In 2006, during a digital planning conference organised by the International Telecommunication Union, the GRA successfully co-ordinated with Spain, Morocco, Algeria...

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Casablanca’s colonial architecture is crumbling

When the French seized Casablanca in the early 1900s, they turned the historic Morrocan port into a classic of colonial architecture that would be immortalised in the 1942 namesake film. In the decades since the release of "Casablanca", real-estate development and property speculation have reshaped the city into one bearing little resemblance to its movie depiction and preservationists are increasingly fretting about what will become of the crumbling French colonial facades, neo-Moorish details and Art Deco hotels. "We've got to act fast," said Karim Rouissi, vice-president of Casamemoire, an association to protect the city's old buildings. "There are buildings that are in a state of advanced disrepair." The old Lincoln Hotel is a case in point. Created in 1916 by the French architect Hubert...

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Phoenicia Cruises into Gibraltar’s Ocean Village and Makes a Special Collection

Last time 21 metre Phoenicia came to Ocean Village in Gibraltar she was in the final throes of an epic 20,000 mile circumnavigation of Africa. This month, almost two years later, the traditionally built 600BC Phoenician cargo ship replica stopped at the marina for some deserved R&R en-route from Sardinia to London and to collect “stranded” crew member – Len Helfrich. Len, a 73-year-old hailing from KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, flew into Gibraltar on Tuesday 17 April expecting to disembark the aircraft and immediately board Phoenicia to crew the last leg back to the UK. However, high winds and equally high waves hampered Phoenicia’s traverse across the Mediterranean and she only made the Rock on Thursday 3 May – some 16 days behind schedule. Confined to Gibraltar by virtue of visa regulations,...

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Spain has formally complained to Britain over Prince Edward’s forthcoming trip to Gibraltar.

British Ambassador Giles Paxman was told officials are ‘upset and unhappy’ about next month’s visit to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, has taken a tough stance over the peninsula but Andrew Rosindell, chairman of the Overseas Territories All-Party Parliamentary Group, said: ‘Gibraltar may be close to Spain, but it is not Spanish and its people do not want to be Spanish. Formal complaint: Spanish officials are unhappy about Prince Edward and wife Sophie's forthcoming visit to Gibraltar No laughing matter: Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo has spearheaded his nation's...

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Brink's Mat the reason that Great Train Robber was shot dead in Marbella

The Brink’s-Mat curse even touched on the Great Train Robbery gang of 1963. One of them, Charlie Wilson, found himself in trouble when £3 million of Brink’s-Mat investors’ money went missing in a drug deal. In April 1990, he paid the price when a young British hood knocked on the front door of his hacienda north of Marbella and shot Wilson and his pet husky dog before coolly riding off down the hill on a yellow bicyc...

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British tourist falls to her death from hotel balcony in Magalluf

23 year old British tourist has fallen to her death from the third floor balcony of her hotel in Magalluf, Mallorca. Emergency sources said it happened at 4.25am Saturday morning at the Hotel Teix in Calle Pinada. Local police and emergency health services went to scene. After 20 minutes of an attempt to re-animate her heart, the woman was pronounced dead. Online descriptions for the Hotel say it is the best place to stay of you are looking for non-stop partying, adding it not suitable for famili...

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Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state

Four of the last reporters and photographers willing to cover crime stories have been slain in less than a week in violence-torn Veracruz state, where two Mexican drug cartels are warring over control of smuggling routes and targeting sources of independent information. The brutal campaign is bleeding the media and threatening to turn Veracruz into the latest state in Mexico where fear snuffs out reporting on the drug war. Three photojournalists who worked the perilous crime beat in the port city of Veracruz were found dismembered and dumped in plastic bags in a canal Thursday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative newsmagazine was beaten and strangled in her home in the state capital of Xalapa. Press freedom groups said all three photographers had temporarily fled the...

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Greek far-right parties could end up with as much as 20 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has intensified the xenophobic atmosphere in the country.

At night, the streets leading to Omonoia Square are empty. That wasn't always the case. The area was the premier multicultural neighborhood of Athens and one of the first quarters to be gentrified. Jazz bars and Indian restaurants lined the streets, separated by the occasional rooms-by-the-hour hotel. It was a quarter full of immigrants, drug addicts and African prostitutes, but also of journalists, ambitious young artists and teenagers from private schools. Today, the immigrants stay home once night falls. They are afraid of groups belonging to the "angry citizens," a kind of militia that beats up foreigners and claims to help the elderly withdraw money from cash machines without being robbed. Such groups are the product of an initiative started by the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi -- Golden Dawn...

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Locked Up Abroad is different.

Reality TV is, at its core, about letting viewers revel in the bad decision-making of others: those who speak without thinking, who backstab, who have sex without condoms, who cheat. Frustratingly, though, reality shows—to which I am unapologetically addicted—tend to reward bad behavior, by giving its villains notoriety, spinoffs, opportunities to endorse weight-loss products, a nice sideline in paid interviews with supermarket tabloids, and other D-list rewards.Locked Up Abroad is different. The National Geographic show, the sixth season of which premiered last week, gives its stars something they wouldn’t get on other reality shows: their comeuppance.Having debuted in the U.K. (under the title Banged Up Abroad), Locked Up Abroad showcases one person (sometimes a couple)...

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Low fare airline bmibaby to close

Low fare carrier bmibaby is set to close later this year, threatening the loss of hundreds of jobs and the ending of its flights. The carrier transferred to International Airlines Group, the owners of British Airways, last month, but consultations have now started with unions about its closure in September. The GMB union said it was "devastating" news, especially for the East Midlands, where hundreds of jobs are now threatened with the axe. With bmi Regional, bmibaby transferred to International Airlines Group ownership on completion of the purchase from Lufthansa. IAG has consistently said that bmibaby and bmi Regional are not part of its long-term plans. A statement said: "Progress has been made with a potential buyer for bmi Regional, but so far this has not been possible for bmibaby, despite...

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