Saturday papers: other news items - Strikers in "British jobs for British workers" backlash

From Wall Street

* The Dow Jones closed down 148.15-points at 8000.86, the Nasdaq fell 31.42-points to 1476, while the S&P closed at 825.88, down 19.26-points, leading the market to its worst January performance on record

War, Strife, Conflict and Terrorism

* A Great British soldier has died from injuries sustained during an exchange of fire while on a joint Great British and Afghan National Army patrol north of Musa Qala, in Helmand Province, a Ministry of Defence spokesman has said.

* Iraqis are electing new provincial councils in the first nationwide vote in four years, with the Sunni minority expected to turn out in strength. Sunnis largely boycotted the last ballot. Correspondents said voting started slowly, as a ban on vehicles means voters have to travel by foot. The vote is seen as a test of Iraq's stability ahead of the next general election later this year. Security is tight and thousands of observers are monitoring the polls.

* In an interview in The Times, Tony Blair, who is the Middle East envoy for the Quartet group of the US, UN, Russia and the European Union, says that Hamas must somehow be brought into the Middle East peace process, because the policy of isolating Gaza in the quest for a settlement will not work.

Credit Crisis Fallout

* Dawn of new age of industrial unrest as wildcat strikes spread across UK, with strikes spreading to 19 sites over “British jobs for British workers”

* The Financial Times reports that the Obama administration is gearing up for a “big bang” announcement next week, which will combine a bank clean-up, with measures to reduce home foreclosures and probably steps to kick-start credit markets. The plan will involve an overhaul of the troubled asset relief programme, the $700-billion bail-out fund, including strict curbs on compensation at banks receiving public aid.

* It seems likely that the toxic assets of troubled German banks will be spun off into separate “bad banks” under a new government plan and instead of setting up a national “bad bank”, the German government wants banks to set up individual vehicles to hold their illiquid assets.