Manufacturers say they are under pressure to raise prices
The UK faces a fragile economic recovery, with a worrying overall picture, a survey has suggested.
The latest quarterly survey from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said firms faced cashflow constraints.
The survey suggested that in the first quarter the economy returned to growth.
But the BCC said “the upturn in Q1 is likely to have been only slightly larger than the decline of 0.5% seen in Q4 2010”, when the severe weather caused disruptions.
That would mean output levels were only “marginally higher” than they were before the weather took its toll, the BCC said.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will release its first estimate of GDP for the first quarter on 27 April.
The survey, which questioned 6,000 businesses across the UK, said firms were being constrained by cashflow and price pressures.
Some 80% of manufacturing firms said the cost of raw materials was putting pressure on them to raise prices.
“Exporting activity remains strong, but there have been sharp declines in confidence, and cashflow is still a real concern for businesses,” director general of the BCC, David Frost said.
The BCC’s chief economist, David Kern, added that manufacturing still had the potential to drive the UK recovery, “but the international background has become riskier for Britain’s exporters, while the domestic austerity plan will intensify pressures on businesses and consumers”.
“In addition, the mediocre performance of the service sector will hinder the number of new jobs created this year,” he said.
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Police forensic officers at the scene of the stabbing
A 31-year-old man has been charged with the murder of Lynn Coburn in County Antrim.
He will appear in Antrim Magistrate Court on Tuesday morning.
Mrs Coburn, 52, was stabbed to death in the Rothburn Manor area of Connor in Ballymena on Mothering Sunday.
Her 31-year-old son was also stabbed during the incident. He is in a stable condition.
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Two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut have begun a mission to the ISS aboard a Soyuz rocket that blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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Ed Miliband is set to offer cross-party support if the government considers alternative proposals
David Cameron will be “betraying the trust” of voters if he pushes ahead with government proposals to reform the NHS in England, Ed Miliband is to say.
Labour’s leader will say contradictory briefings have led to a sense of “utter confusion” about the plans, which would give GPs new commissioning powers.
He is expected to offer cross-party co-operation to develop replacement plans.
Ministers say change is vital to secure the NHS’s future and are planning a campaign to reassure the public.
In a speech in London Mr Miliband is expected to criticise the way the government is planning to change the NHS – by scrapping primary care trusts and giving GP consortia that money to commission services.
“I believe David Cameron is betraying the trust he asked the public to put in him at the election,” he is expected to say.
The Labour leader will attack what he calls “horse trading” between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats over the Health and Social Care Bill.
“Contradictory briefings to the newspapers from Tory sources, from Treasury sources, from health department sources and – in case we forgot – from the Lib Dems,” he will say.
“The government is utterly committed to the NHS and its principles”
Downing Street spokesman
“Each one adding to the sense of utter confusion and chaos about a bill that has completed its committee stage of the House of Commons.
“It is bad government. It is not how the future of the health service should be determined.”
He will urge the coalition to rip up the bill and say: “My commitment is this: if there is a genuine attempt to address the weaknesses of this top-down reorganisation, then my party will enter into a debate about a new plan with an open mind and accepting that any NHS plan must be delivered within a tight spending settlement.”
Ministers are understood to be preparing some changes to prevent unfair competition and to potentially make the new consortia more accountable.
But the prime minister and his deputy, Nick Clegg, are also preparing ready to defend the principles of the reforms.
They will use what Number 10 is calling a natural break in the bill’s progress through the Commons to reassure voters the changes are needed so the NHS can cope with an aging population and increased costs.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “The government is utterly committed to the NHS and its principles. We are also committed to modernising the NHS. Progress on the ground continues to be impressive.
“The bill has now successfully finished committee stage in the Commons and there is a natural break before it moves to the Lords.
“We have always been prepared to listen, having already clarified that there is no question of privatisation and that competition will be based on quality, and will continue to do so.”
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World number two Lee Westwood’s private jet makes an emergency landing as he flies to Augusta after a fire breaks out in the cockpit.
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Cu Huy Ha Vu had tried to sue the prime minister over a mining project
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The US has criticised Vietnam for jailing activist Cu Huy Ha Vu, the son of a revolutionary leader convicted of spreading anti-government propaganda.
US state department spokesman Mark Toner said the “apparent lack of due process” at Vu’s trial was troubling.
He said the conviction raised serious questions about Hanoi’s commitment to the rule of law and reform.
Vu had called for an end to one-party rule and had twice tried to sue the country’s prime minister.
During his trial, he told the court he was innocent of the charges, saying: “This criminal case was invented against me. This case is completely illegal.”
But the Hanoi judges said his behaviour had been “harmful to society”.
“His writings and interviews blackened directly or indirectly the Communist Party of Vietnam,” said Judge Nguyen Huu Chinh.
Vu’s lawyers walked out of court after the judge refused to make public 10 interviews he was accused of conducting with foreign media – key parts of the case against him.
After the trial, one of his lawyers Tran Dinh Trien said there had been a “serious violation of the law” during the proceedings.
“We request the Court of Appeal to abolish this preliminary verdict and to hold a re-trial,” he said.
Foreign journalists were kept outside the main courtroom, and watched the proceedings on CCTV, the Associated Press reported.
Vu was sentenced to seven years in jail and three years of house detention.
The 53-year-old legal expert had advocated a multi-party system and called for democratic reforms in Vietnam.
He also tried to sue the Vietnamese prime minister twice over a mining project he said would harm the environment.
Vu is the son of a Cu Huy Can, a celebrated poet who was also a leading revolutionary and confidant of President Ho Chi Minh.
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Khan ran off as two-month-old Mohammed Isa lay dying in the road
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A banned driver who killed a baby during a hit-and-run crash while on bail for another driving offence has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Kabir Khan, 31, ran off as two-month-old Mohammed Isa lay dying in the road after the crash in Smethwick, West Midlands, last November.
The crash happened while he was awaiting sentencing for driving at 92mph in a 30mph zone.
Khan, of Grange Road, Smethwick, admitted causing Mohammed’s death.
He had also admitted charges of driving while disqualified, failing to stop, failing to report an accident and driving with no insurance.
Khan had been disqualified from driving before the previous incident, during which he tried to evade police by turning off the lights of his Honda Civic.
A high-speed pursuit in the Washwood Heath area of Birmingham ended when his car crashed into a roundabout.
Jailing Khan at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Judge Nicholas Webb said that after the baby’s death the defendant had acted like a coward.
He told Khan: “You have shown absolutely no remorse for what you have done and this is as bad a case of causing death by careless driving as one can imagine.”
David Lees, prosecuting, told the court that forensic tests showed Khan’s Mitsubishi and the Toyota Mohammed was travelling in would not have collided if Khan had been obeying the speed limit.
Four adults travelling in the Toyota, including Mohammed’s parents and grandfather, were badly injured in the crash, while Mohammed was thrown clear of the vehicle and died of multiple injuries in hospital.
Witnesses to the fatal accident described Khan as driving like a “boy racer”, with one motorist estimating his speed at up to 80mph.
Mr Lees told the court that forensic tests established that Khan was driving the Mitsubishi at a minimum of 58mph in Grove Lane, which has a 40mph limit, when it skidded into the Toyota.
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French and UN helicopters have fired on military camps operated by Ivory Coast incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, in an effort to halt attacks on civilians.
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Ronan Kerr’s remains were taken to his mother’s house in Beragh
The body of murdered police officer Ronan Kerr has arrived at his family home in County Tyrone as preparations get underway for his funeral.
The 25-year-old Catholic police officer died when a bomb exploded under his car in Omagh on Saturday.
On Monday night his remains were taken to his mother’s house in Beragh, just outside the town.
Constable Kerr’s funeral will take place on Wednesday.
On Monday, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Archbishop Sean Brady, said the attack on a Constable Kerr was an attack on all of society.
“I call on young Catholics to actively support the PSNI and join it. We need a police force that represents all of us.
“I also appeal to the parents of children that are being recruited by these groups to get their children to resist,” he said.
“They have not lived through the dark days of the Troubles, tell them the awfulness of what we lived through.”
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson, told MPs the murder of Constable Kerr would not destabilise the peace process
Mr Paterson said his murder was “revolting and cowardly”.
Constable Ronan Kerr was killed when a booby-trap car bomb exploded
“It was carried out by those intent on defying the will of the people,” Mr Paterson told the House of Commons.
“These terrorists will not destabilise the peace process. The Omagh bomb in 1998 did not, and nor can this.”
“They failed then and they will fail now,” he added.
“The PSNI have support from right across the community.
“This was evident when the first and deputy first ministers stood shoulder to shoulder with the justice minister and the chief constable to call for active support for the PSNI.
“They now have begun the painstaking task of carrying out the murder inquiry and will not stop until those who are intent on evil are brought to justice.”
At a press conference on Monday, Detective Superintendent Raymond Murray said the bomb which killed Constable Ronan Kerr was probably up to a pound in weight.
It was inside a plastic box which had been attached under his car.
Det Supt Murray said it had been probably detonated by a tilt switch, which is set off by movement.
Analysis
Ronan Kerr symbolised the new era of policing in Northern Ireland.
He was one of nearly 2,160 Catholics in the ranks of the PSNI.
That fact made him a prime target for those who placed a bomb under his car.
Dissident republicans want to drive a wedge between the police and the nationalist community in their efforts to destabilise the political process.
At the height of the Troubles, the RUC had more than 13,000 officers – and more than 90% of them were Protestant.
Ten years after it was replaced by the PSNI, almost a third of officers now come from the Catholic community.
Despite widespread condemnation of Ronan Kerr’s murder, the police fear dissident republicans may have already identified their next target, and will continue their efforts to kill more officers.
He said police believed it was planted some time between Thursday evening and when it exploded on Saturday afternoon.
Constable Kerr, 25, was killed outside his home in the Highfield estate.
Det Supt Murray said components of the bomb had been recovered.
It also contained a timing mechanism which may have been for the safety of the bombers while they moved the device.
He would not be drawn on which group he thought was responsible, however he said there had been a number of dissident republican threats in the Omagh area recently.
Mr Kerr is the second police officer to have been murdered since the Royal Ulster Constabulary became the PSNI in 2001.
He joined the police in May 2010 and had been working in the community since December.
On Monday,
Over the weekend Tyrone Gaelic footballers held a minute’s silence before a match against Kildare.
His mother, Nuala, has since urged Catholics not to be deterred from joining the PSNI.
Police have set up a dedicated phone line for anyone with information on the murder to contact them.
The number is 028 82 256659.
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