Wednesday newspaper round up: NATO, LNG, FCA

11th Nov 2014 16:57

Year-to-date North Atlantic Treaty Organisation fighters have flown over 100 interception sorties against Russian bombers and surveillance aircraft, having hit a peak over the past fortnight. The above, together with recent Russian military activity in Ukraine are increasing fears of a wider conflict. "This is about three times more than we conducted in 2013," a Nato official said.That comes as President Obama and his Russian counterpart yesterday held their first face-to-face conversations since June, according to The Times.Thanks to the construction of facilities for the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in many countries, come the early 2020´s Britain´s households may benefit from an oversupply of LNG, contrary to the findings of other research.That is according to a report from the UK Energy Research Centre which holds that Russia´s Gazprom may find itself forced to cut the costs of its supplies to Europe in response to the inreased competition, especially from the US, The Times says.UK, US and Swiss regulators have fined five financial institutions over £2bn for having failed to avoid the manipulation of the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), HSBC, Citigroup, JPMorgan and UBS were fined by the regulators in Britain and the US for "ineffective controls at the banks" which allowed traders "to put their banks' interests ahead of those of their clients".The total penalties levied by the FCA , Britain´s financial markets watch-dog, amounted to £1.1bn, the most ever. The US CFTC´s total fines reached £900m, The Daily Telegraph writes.The quality of employment since the financial crisis has been dominated by rising self-employment and part-time work, not full-time employee jobs, according to the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Thus, the share of full-time employees, not counting the self-employed, fell to 62% in 2014 from 64% in 2008.That is equivalent to a shortfall of 669,000 full-time employees. Just one out of every 40 new jobs since the recession has been for a full-time employee, The Guardian reports.The number of first-time home buyers fell 3% in September, The Independent reported.According to new figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, there were 26,800 first-time buyer loans in September, a 3% decline month-on-month, though the figure represented a 16% increase compared with the corresponding period in 2013.Lending to home movers also fell month-on-month for the second month in a row, with the number of 31,700 loans granted to movers in September, a 10% drop on the previous month.Nigel Wilson, the chief executive of Legal & General, said Britain's younger generation are being let down by the government, The Daily Telegraph reported."We need to step up and contribute ideas and the type of innovative thinking that can solve the UK's deep-rooted economic problems," Wilson said, adding that building on 1% of current brownfield sites would create an extra 250,000 homes."No government since Margaret Thatcher has had a housing policy and her big mistake was not replacing the council houses she sold off."