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New French cabinet takes pay cut (Al Jazeera) Fri May 18 15:30:15 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 15:30:15 +0100 2012

Newly elected president orders 30 per cent pay cut for his ministers amid calls to renegotiate EU fiscal pact.

Costs of youth unemployment rise by �2bn in three months – David Miliband (Guardian) Sat May 19 00:35:28 +0100 2012

Sat May 19 00:35:28 +0100 2012

Former foreign secretary highlights costs of youth unemployment as he attacks George Osborne's austerity measures

The Labour party is stirring. The appointment of Jon Cruddas as the party's policy co-ordinator has been widely welcomed while Tony Blair is letting it be known that he supports Labour's call for a renewed focus on growth.

And now David Miliband has popped up with a highly significant intervention. In a speech on the Queen's speech in the House of Commons on Thursday, the former foreign secretary gave a stark warning of the dramatically escalating costs of youth unemployment.

Miliband said this will cost £30bn over the next ten years. This is a particularly startling figure because it represents a £2bn rise on the estimated cost of youth unemployment announced by Miliband just three months ago when he launched the Association of Chief Executive and Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) commission on youth unemployment in February.

This is what Miliband told MPs on Thursday:

We costed the levels of youth unemployment on the basis of the figures for the first quarter of 2011, which showed a net present value cost of some £28bn. I asked the university of Bristol to rerun the figures for the last quarter of 2011, which it has done, and the calculation now stands at £30bn. In the space of 2011, the net present value cost has gone up by £2bn. That seems to me to be two billion reasons for a greater degree of urgency and effectiveness in government policy.

George Osborne had the grace to remain in the chamber for the speech by Miliband in which he outlined the massive problem of long term youth unemployment. He said that 260,000 young people have been unemployed for more than a year. A further 200,000 have been unemployed for more than six months – a situation that is getting worse.

Miliband, who said the government's Work Programme is only helping one in 50 of the young unemployed find a job, called on the chancellor to take three steps:

• Require all public contracts over £1m to offer apprenticeships to young people.

• Bring forward from 2014 money to raise the size of the wage subsidy or the number of people helped. This was introduced last April and its impact is at best unproven, Miliband said.

• Bite the bullet and introduce a part-time job guarantee because every study shows that without this one year's unemployment will become three, four or five years' unemployment.

Miliband then used his speech to launch a powerful assault on the government's claim that Britain has entered a double dip recession as a result of the troubles in the eurozone. The former foreign secretary said Europe cannot be the alibi for the collapse of our economy over the last 18 months. Britain has experienced worse growth than the following EU countries since Osborne announced his spending review in the autumn of 2010 – Germany, France, Poland, Sweden, Austria and Slovakia.

Miliband, who told the Guardian Open Weekend in March that the coalition was following a masochistic strangulation strategy, told MPs:

The chancellor's claim about the problem that the eurozone mess is causing for our economy is actually undermining his own promise to rotate our economy from domestic demand to external demand. The question is: what should we do about that? He says that the lesson is to stay the course.
I say that when the external environment changes, we should change course. The storm in Europe is not a reason for us to stick to plan A; it is a reason to shift to plan B. There is a warning in the travails of the eurozone, but not the one that the government claim there is. Debts are rising today in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland because fiscal policy is exacerbating the downturn in the economic cycle. The prime minister said in his speech today that we are 'on track', but Conservative austerity is not working at home and collective austerity is not working in Europe.

Miliband's attack on the coalition show the Labour party is uniting around a message that the coalition's strategy of austerity is choking off demand, as Ed Balls and Peter Mandelson wrote in the Guardian earlier this week.

Osborne had always thought that the divisions in the Labour party, in which Blairites felt that Balls was failing to place enough emphasis on deficit reduction, was a great strength for the coalition. But as Britain slips back into recession, and as voters in Europe tire of austerity, Labour is uniting around a message that the coalition's deficit reduction plan is fast becoming a liability.

If the Master, as Osborne calls Blair, chooses to speak out the chancellor will be genuinely nervous.

Nicholas Watt

Obama calls for action to tackle European crisis (Sydney MH) Fri May 18 23:35:20 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 23:35:20 +0100 2012

Barack Obama to pressure Germany to ease the pain of austerity with policies to boost growth, as he uses two days of talks with the G8 industrial nations to warn Europe it needs to act swiftly to spare the world economy from a second deep recession in four years.

Why the Media Loves Writing About Facebook's IPO (or any IPO, scandal or lawsuit) (Forbes) Fri May 18 23:25:21 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 23:25:21 +0100 2012

You may be curious about the rash of hugely popular, negative pre-IPO stories about in the last few days. If you weren?t, think about them: withdrawing his US citizenship. NPR?s Facebook stunt with a pizza company. My story about Facebook advertising was the top read story on Forbes and did more than 65,000 views in ...

The euro's survival 'requires political union' (BBC) Thu May 17 16:25:58 +0100 2012

Thu May 17 16:25:58 +0100 2012

The day the ECB saved the eurozone's banks

JPMorgan's Whale Trade Reportedly Sinks By Another $1 Billion (Forbes) Thu May 17 15:10:07 +0100 2012

Thu May 17 15:10:07 +0100 2012

The trading debacle at JPMorgan appears to be getting worse.

Facebook poised for market debut (BBC) Fri May 18 21:05:01 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 21:05:01 +0100 2012

Facebook shares are to start trading in one of the highest-profile flotations of recent years, making co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's stake worth about $20bn.

U of S Team Wins Award of Innovation for iUSask Mobile App (NewsWise) Fri May 18 20:15:03 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 20:15:03 +0100 2012

A team of University of Saskatchewan computer scientists has been awarded the 2012 Award of Innovation for creating an iPhone application (app) - the first in Canada to offer university students broader, exceptionally secure access to confidential information such as grades.

Annual Family Healthcare Costs Surge Past $20,000 (Forbes) Fri May 18 19:50:05 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 19:50:05 +0100 2012

Earlier this week and somewhere??between the non-stop coverage of Facebook?s pending IPO, Milliman Inc. released their annual Medical Index ? simply called the Milliman Medical Index (MMI). My first reaction when I saw it was yikes! Just like Steve Martin in the movie Roxanne ? I wanted to put another quarter into the vending machine ...

Firefox 13 Gets "Reset" Button (Forbes) Fri May 18 19:50:04 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 19:50:04 +0100 2012

Mozilla has introduced a new feature into the Firefox 13 betas called Reset Firefox which allows users to reset browser settings while retaining personal data. The new feature is available in the Firefox 13 beta for Windows, Mac and the Linux platforms. By resetting the browser, it creates a new user profile and migrate any ...

As Facebook Debuts, Yahoo May Finally Have A Deal (Forbes) Fri May 18 19:50:02 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 19:50:02 +0100 2012

Stop me if you think that you?ve heard this before. No, not Facebook?s IPO (did you hear about that?). Yahoo is about to unveil a deal to unwind its stake in China?s Alibaba. Yes, amid all the management churn and shareholding grumbles, Yahoo may have finally unlocked the value of its most valuable asset. Reports ...

Bank warns of euro crisis 'storm' (BBC) Thu May 17 12:50:22 +0100 2012

Thu May 17 12:50:22 +0100 2012

The Bank of England warns that the eurozone is tearing itself apart with the storm threatening the UK recovery, as it cuts its forecast for growth this year.

Will UK.gov crack down on itself for missing Cookie Law deadline? (The Register) Fri May 18 19:10:09 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 19:10:09 +0100 2012

In other news - Pope actually Jewish

Most government websites will fail to comply with new laws on cookies when the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) begins formally enforcing them next week, the Cabinet Office has said, according to reports.…

UN probes 'arms sales from N Korea to Syria' (Al Jazeera) Fri May 18 19:05:09 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 19:05:09 +0100 2012

Panel's report says N Korea continues to defy UN sanctions on selling of arms and related technology to other nations.

Football blog – live! (Guardian) Fri May 18 18:30:04 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 18:30:04 +0100 2012

• Turn on our auto-refresh tool for the latest updates
• Email jacob.steinberg.casual@guardian.co.uk for a chat
• Or follow him on The Twitters

10.15am: What team do you think Robbie will go with tomorrow? says Jake Joynson. Or what team would you go with? Either I'm just an anxious Chelsea fan trying to kill time so tomorrow night comes quicker..

Given that poor old Michael Essien looks shot, I would go with this team if everyone's fit:

Cech; Bosingwa, Luiz, Cahill, Cole; Lampard, Mikel; Kalou, Mata, Malouda; Drogba.

10.10am: I'm next to useless today. I'm worse than Smyth was on Sunday. One more sleep. The play-off final is the worst game to lose.

10.02am: People should be asking Ronaldo about things beyond football, says Michael Big House Casagranda. I feel like he's got a lot to teach us.

9.50am: A rival for Paul the Octopus.

9.49am: Sky are saying Brendan Rodgers has turned down Liverpool's approach. How the mighty have fallen.

9.45am: 'A man's head is always complicated'? Except in the case of Ronaldo, where the brain space is divided between self love, cash-appreciation, a simmering resentment of Messi, and a bit more self love, says Matt Dony. Oh, and the ability to welly a football. Sounds pretty simple to me...

9.44am: Why wouldn't you want to watch all 126 of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Manchester United goals?

9.29am: New Chelsea signing Marko Marin is tipping his new side to win in Munich tomorrow, pointing to Bayern's woeful defending against Dortmund.

I watched the German cup final. They made big errors. Chelsea have better players and will do well if they play offensively. I think (Chelsea) will win at the weekend. Bayern did a very good job against Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final, but they did not do well in the cup final. I think the strongest Bayern player is Franck Ribery because of his dribbling and because he's a goal threat. There's also Mario Gomez. He's scored a lot of goals in the Champions League and is a constant danger. If Chelsea can stop them then they will do well.

9.26am: Here are the provisional squads for tomorrow's Edinburgh derby. BIG BEATS IS A DOUBT FOR HEARTS!

Hibs: Brown, McPake, Kujabi, Hanlon, Doherty, Towell, Soares, Sproule, Osbourne, O'Donovan, O'Connor, Doyle, Francomb, Grant, Claros, O'Hanlon, Murray, Stevenson.

Hearts: MacDonald, McGowan, Zaliukas, Webster, Grainger, Prychynenko, Barr, Black, Santana, Driver, Skacel, Glen, Ridgers, Elliott, Mrowiec, Novikovas, Robinson, Holt, Smith, Morton, Taouil.

9.11am: FACT TIME: Only two teams have won the European Cup on their own ground: Real Madrid in 1957 and Inter in 1965. Then again, only one team have lost on home ground: Roma in 1984. So what does this all mean? Not much to be honest.

9.07am: An interesting snippet courtesy of French football writer Tom Williams:

PSG source tells today's L'Equipe that transfer of Kaka from Real Madrid is practically assured.

9.03am: Cristiano Ronaldo has said that Manchester United are still the team to beat. They're not, but it's nice of him to say so.

I saw a few days ago (City scored) two goals in the last minute, 91 and 93. I had a bet that Manchester United would win the league but I lost. I feel very disappointed because United is still in my heart. City have a fantastic team now, but I think Manchester (United) will carry on being king of England in my opinion.

Turning to his own future, Ronaldo declared himself happy at the Bernabeu but declined to make any long-term predictions.

The future? Nobody knows. I feel very happy here. It's a great club, fantastic fans...it's great. In one year or two you never know. A man's head is always complicated.

A man's head is always complicated? Deep.

8.57am: It's also the Scottish Cup final between Hibs and Hearts. Go on Big Beats!

8.48am: As for me, I'll be watching the Champions League final through a drunken haze ~~and tears~~ because I am a #lad and I'm going to the play-off final between Blackpool and West Ham at Wembley. West Ham are the favourites, not that that's meant much this season, and should win. They've beaten Blackpool 4-0 and 4-1 this season and if they play as they did against Cardiff in the semi-final, they should have too much for Ian Holloway's side. But don't write off Blackpool. They have experience of the play-off final, having beaten Cardiff 3-2 two years ago and have a number of dangerous attackers in the shape of Matt Phillips, Mark Corrigan's girlfriend Stephen Dobbie, Kevin Phillips, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Tom Ince. Ince? There's a name to haunt every West Ham fan.

Morning. They said we were done. They said we were finished, that there was no return. They said last week was the last time you could get all your breaking squad news here on a Friday. But you can't keep the banter blog down and here we are again, back for a rousing encore. That, therefore, makes this blog Chelsea, who have been written off and called too old, only now they're in the Champions League final. When Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003, it was with the very clear aim of attaining glory in Europe. Eight years on and that dream has proved elusive. There have been near misses, controversial moments and wasted opportunities, not least when John Terry slipped against Manchester United in Moscow.

Terry, of course, cannot play in tomorrow's final against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena after his dunderheaded red card against Barcelona in the semi-final. Despite that, Chelsea still managed to battle their way through without their captain and now have the chance to secure a unique double, having won the FA Cup two weeks ago. Should they win tomorrow, the job will surely be Roberto di Matteo's to turn down; it probably already is, to be fair. It will be far from easy against the attacking might of Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery though, especially as Ramires, Raul Meireles and Branislav Ivanovic are also suspended. Gary Cahill and David Luiz are expected to be fit though. Bayern aren't without problems of their own though. They were schmiced 5-2 by Borussia Dortmund in the German Cup final last Saturday, finished second in the league and are without the suspended Holger Badstuber, David Alaba and Luis Gustavo. A prediction? It's become more or less impossible to predict anything this season ... but I'm going with Bayern Munich. Just.

Jacob Steinberg

Yahoo's new boss revamps recently created division (Physorg.com) Fri May 18 18:20:08 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 18:20:08 +0100 2012

(AP) -- Yahoo's new boss is reorganizing a consumer-commerce division created by recently dispatched CEO Scott Thompson.

JPMorgan's Dimon says will testify before Congress (Reuters) Fri May 18 18:15:08 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 18:15:08 +0100 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has agreed to testify before Congress over the bank's recent trading losses, which have ignited a political debate over whether large U.S. banks need to be reined in by regulators or new laws.

Spain beset by bank crisis, downgrades, bond pressure (Reuters) Fri May 18 18:15:06 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 18:15:06 +0100 2012

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's borrowing costs shot up at a bond auction on Thursday and its troubled banks suffered a double blow, with shares in part-nationalized Bankia diving and 16 lenders - including the euro zone's biggest - having their credit ratings cut.

G8 leaders look to head off euro zone crisis (Reuters) Fri May 18 18:15:03 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 18:15:03 +0100 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders of major industrial economies meet this weekend to try to head off a full-blown crisis in Europe where fears are growing that Greece could leave the euro zone bloc, threatening the future of the common currency.

Olympic drug ruling 'ridiculous' (BBC Sports) Fri May 18 18:05:05 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 18:05:05 +0100 2012

Sir Steve Redgrave says the overturning of the BOA's lifetime bans for drug cheats is absolutely ridiculous.

European shares knocked by Spain (BBC) Fri May 18 17:30:01 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 17:30:01 +0100 2012

European stock markets open lower after a ratings agency downgrades 16 Spanish banks and uncertainty continues about the fate of Greece.

Self portrait wins People's Choice (Sydney MH) Fri May 18 17:00:04 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 17:00:04 +0100 2012

Jenny Sages’s moving self-portrait wins audience award.

The American Express Foundation: An Inside Look with President Tim McClimon (Forbes) Fri May 18 16:15:08 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 16:15:08 +0100 2012

In an interview with Tim McClimon, President of the American Express Foundation, we discussed the company's philanthropic gene since its founding, the issues they focus on today and why, broader trends in corporate social responsibility, leadership lessons, and the importance of cross-sector collaboration to achieve change. Timothy J. McClimon is President of the Foundation and ...

HP on Crash Course, More Layoffs (Forbes) Fri May 18 16:15:05 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 16:15:05 +0100 2012

Hewlett Packard, CEO, may announce a major layoff with next Wednesday's earnings call when she also details a company restructuring plan. Whitman could eliminate 30,000 workers out of a total of 325,000 or 9% of the workforce. Whitman is repositioning the company away from PCs as smartphones and tablets displace desktop computers. HP may add ...

Young goes all the wa-wa-way (Sydney MH) Fri May 18 13:25:03 +0100 2012

Fri May 18 13:25:03 +0100 2012

AC/DC's Angus Young tops list of greatest Australian guitarists.