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วันศุกร์ที่ 4 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2554

Halifax: U.K House Prices Rise

LONDON—U.K. house prices posted a surprise gain in January compared with December, mortgage lender Halifax said Friday, attributing the rise to a monthly fluctuation rather than a significant change in market conditions.

The Halifax house price index rose 0.8% in January from the previous month to an average price of £164,173 ($265,041), partly making up for a 1.3% drop in December.

Martin Ellis, Halifax housing economist, said it is likely there will be further price fluctuations in monthly terms, but overall, property values shouldn't move significantly this year. "We expect limited movement in house prices overall this year. There are however, likely to be some monthly fluctuations with the risks on the downside."

Prices were down an average 2.4% in the three months to January from the corresponding period a year earlier, deeper than the 1.6% year-to-year fall in December and the predicted 2.1% decline.

The Halifax focuses on the quarterly year-to-year comparison because it says it smooths out short-term fluctuations and provides a better picture of underlying trends in the market. Other surveys of house prices have shown different monthly movements of late, but the picture of a year-to-year decline is consistent. On Monday, rival lender Nationwide said prices slipped 0.1% on a monthly basis, contrasting with Halifax's rise—but it also said prices were down in annual terms, for the first time in 17 months.

The market has been dampened by a mix of negative factors. Record-low Bank of England interest rates have failed to keep prices rising as potential buyers are put off by tight lending conditions, fear of unemployment, and high inflation—which has eroded many people's income in real terms, and left them wary of taking on the burden of a large mortgage.

"The prospects for the market in 2011 are closely aligned with the performance of the wider economy," said Halifax's Mr. Ellis. "Consumer confidence has fallen recently, partly as a result of nervousness about the economic outlook."

Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight, said the property market also faces a threat from the possibility that the BOE raises interest rates from their all-time low of 0.5% to counter persistently high inflation.

"Any early interest rate hike would be bad news for the housing market and likely to weigh down on prices—not just the rate rise itself but also the impact on potential house buyers' psychology resulting from the fact that they would be facing rising interest rates," he said.

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Online.wsj.com

A romantic date-night dinner for less than $10

The last time my husband and I ate at our favorite French bistro, our post-meal bliss was slightly dampened by the arrival of the bill: costing almost $100 once we counted the tip. $100 for two people! I do love eating out at restaurants, but sometimes I wonder: are those few hours of indulgence really worth the cost?

Well, yes, sometimes for a really amazing meal—and if you can afford it—it is nice to just get away. But my husband and I are trying to be more careful with our spending this year. So lately on date night, we opt to save a little moolah by cooking together at home.

Recipes to Try: Romantic Date-Night Dinner Recipes
Delicious Desserts for Two
Perfect Side-Dishes for Pairs
Chicken Breasts with Mushroom Cream Sauce and more Recipes for Two

“Cooking at home is almost always cheaper than if you eat out,” says Jessie Price, EatingWell’s Deputy Food Editor and author of EatingWell on a Budget. “It’s almost always healthier too. Home-cooked meals are more likely to have reasonable serving sizes. Plus you can limit unhealthy ingredients like butter, salt and cream that are always big players in restaurant meals.”

One less-tangible benefit I’ve also discovered is that cooking (and yes, even washing the dishes) together with your husband can actually be quite romantic. So for Valentine’s Day we’ll pick a menu we’re both excited about, set the iPod to Charles Aznavour, light a few candles and presto! A lovey-dovey, delicious dinner at home.

More Recipes to Try: Valentine’s Day Dinner Recipes

Here is a favorite bistro-style dinner menu, perfect for Valentine’s Day, that clocks in at less than $10:

Quick Chicken Cordon Bleu for Two
Active time: 35 minutes | Total: 35 minutes
Cost per serving: under $2.50 | Cost per recipe: under $4.50

To make traditional cordon bleu, you layer prosciutto (or other ham) and cheese in between thin slices of chicken or veal, then bread and saut the whole stack. This quick, easy version keeps the flavors the same, but skips the fussy layering and breading steps.

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (10-12 ounces), trimmed and tenders removed (see Tip)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, divided
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons shredded Gruyre or Swiss cheese
1 tablespoon reduced-fat cream cheese
2 tablespoons coarse dry whole-wheat breadcrumbs (see Tip)
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley or thyme
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons chopped ham (about 1/2 ounce)

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Sprinkle chicken with 1/8 teaspoon pepper and salt. Combine cheese and cream cheese in a bowl. Combine the remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper with breadcrumbs, parsley (or thyme) and 1 teaspoon oil in another bowl.
3. Heat the remaining 1 teaspoon oil in a medium, ovenproof nonstick skillet over medium heat. Cook the chicken until browned on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Move the chicken to the center so the pieces are touching. Spread with the cheese mixture, sprinkle with ham, then top with the breadcrumb mixture.
4. Bake until the chicken is no longer pink in the center and an instant-read thermometer registers 165°F, 5 to 7 minutes.

Makes 2 servings.

Per serving: 280 calories; 13 g fat (4 g sat, 6 g mono); 98 mg cholesterol; 4 g carbohydrate; 34 g protein; 1 g fiber; 331 mg sodium; 260 mg potassium.

Tip: It can be difficult to find small chicken breasts. Remove the strip of meat from the underside of a 5- to 6-ounce breast—the “tender,” about 1 ounce of meat—to yield a perfect individual portion. Freeze the tenders and use them in a stir-fry.

Note: We like Ian’s brand of coarse dry whole-wheat breadcrumbs, labeled “Panko breadcrumbs.” Find them in the natural-foods section of large supermarkets. To make your own breadcrumbs, trim crusts from firm sandwich bread. Tear the bread into pieces and process in a food processor until coarse crumbs form. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 250°F until dry, about 15 minutes. One slice of bread makes about 1/3 cup dry breadcrumbs.

Buttermilk-Herb Mashed Potatoes
Active time: 5 minutes | Total: 20 minutes
Cost per serving: under $0.25 | Cost per recipe: under $0.50

Simmering a garlic clove with the potato infuses it with flavor. Use whatever fresh herbs you have in your refrigerator.

1 large Yukon Gold potato, peeled and cut into chunks
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon butter
2 tablespoons nonfat buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh herbs
Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

Place potato in a small saucepan and cover with water. Add garlic. Bring to a boil; cook until the potato is tender. Drain; add butter and buttermilk, and mash with a potato masher to the desired consistency. Stir in herbs. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Makes 2 servings.

Per serving: 85 calories; 2 g fat (1 g sat, 0 g mono); 5 mg cholesterol; 14 g carbohydrate; 2 g protein; 1 g fiber; 87 mg sodium; 416 mg potassium.

Mary’s Zucchini with Parmesan for Two
Active time: 35 minutes | Total: 35 minutes
Cost per serving: under $1.50 / Cost per recipe: under $2.50

This is how our Test Kitchen Manager’s mom prepares her just-picked zucchini. Simple and delicious, the almost caramelized zucchini are topped with a Parmesan crust.

1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound zucchini (about 2 medium), sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/8 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add zucchini and cook, stirring every 2 to 3 minutes, until tender and most of the slices are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low, sprinkle with salt and pepper; stir to combine. Sprinkle with cheese, cover and cook until the cheese is melted, 1 to 2 minutes more. Serve warm.

Makes 2 servings, 3/4 cup each.

Per serving: 101 calories; 6 g fat (2 g sat, 3 g mono); 7 mg cholesterol; 7 g carbohydrate; 0 g added sugars; 7 g protein; 2 g fiber; 333 mg sodium; 603 mg potassium. Nutrition bonus: Vitamin C (68% daily value), Potassium (17%), Calcium (16%).

What do you cook when you want to make a romantic meal at home?

By Penelope Wall

Penelope is a web producer and writer for EatingWell.com. When she's not busy geeking out at the computer, she loves cooking and trying new recipes on her friends. Some of her favorite foods are dark chocolate, coffee, apples, sweet potatoes and cheese.

วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 3 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2554

kolka

Government to launch Ј400 million drive to tackle mental health treatment

Government to launch #400 million drive to tackle mental health treatment

Ministers are to launch a major £400 million drive to tackle the way mental health is treated on the NHS – including the ambitious target of "curing" up to a million sufferers in the next four years.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg Photo: PA

By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor 7:30AM GMT 30 Jan 2011

Comments

The move, designed to put mental health treatment on the same footing as physical illness or injury and to end the stigma attached to depression and other conditions, is to be unveiled in the next few days by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Ministers want the doctors to stop simply prescribing pills to patients with a range of conditions including eating disorders, self harm, addictions, attention disorders and post-natal depression – a practice which has led to claims the NHS is turning Britain into a "Prozac nation".

Instead they are targeting a massive take-up of "personalised" services, including one-to-one counselling and group therapy. The coalition believes at least one million people will take up these options over the next few years.

In addition, ministers want the NHS to "cure" up to one million sufferers by the next general election, expected in May 2015, by which time they hope that more than 70,000 people currently out of work with mental health problems will be back in employment, the Telegraph has learnt.

Mental health problems are estimated to cost the economy £77 billion a year – with sufferers dying, on average, 10 years earlier than the rest of the population.

As a symbol of the drive to "normalise" treatment, the ancient law that sees an MP automatically losing their seat if they have spent at least six months in a mental hospital is to be scrapped.

Patients will have new rights effectively to force their GPs to refer them to a mental health specialist – or simply to book appointments themselves.

The government also wants a new focus on the "neglected areas" of mental health – particularly among the elderly, whose conditions are often simply put down to the effects of retirement, and children, who are told their problems are just "part of growing up."

The £400 million to fund Mr Clegg's drive is a significant "capture of funding from The Treasury at a time when Whitehall budgets are suffering 25 per cent cutbacks. Spending on the Department of Health, however, has been ring fenced until 2014-15.

A coalition source said: "We've got to get away from the Prozac nation, Valium culture sort of approach where GPs just prescribe antidepressant drugs to people rather than trying to treat them and to cure the underlying problem.

"Much much more can be done, more usefully, using personal services including counselling and group therapy."

The mental health drive is billed as a key part of the coalition's highly ambitious programme of NHS reforms – which include scrapping primary care trusts (PCTs) and handing effective control of the large majority of the health budget to GPs by 2013.

"Any willing provider" – including private companies – will be able to offer NHS services if they can supply them at NHS prices, while 10 regional health authorities will be scrapped.

The plans have attracted criticism – not least because they were not spelt out in the coalition agreement, the detailed statement of policy put out by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the weeks following the formation of the new government last May.

The agreement did, however, specifically address mental health issues – with ministers promising to increase access to talking therapies, and to explore alternative forms of secure, treatment-based accommodation for the mentally ill.

The treatment of dementia, meanwhile, was "prioritised" within the NHS research and development budget.

The decision to scrap the law that forces an MP to stand down from their seat if they are sectioned under the Mental Health Act for more than six months follows criticism from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health.

A recent published by the committee found that one in five MPs had personal experience of a mental health problem. The group said that it was inconceivable that any MP who was physically incapable of working for six months due to a serious illness would be forced to stand down.

Parliament last considered the law, section 141 of the Mental Health Act, as recently as 2007, and voted to keep it. Since then campaigners, including Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street communications director, have lobbied hard to scrap it.

Labour had a patchy record on mental health during its 13 years in power, according to charities and campaigning groups.

The King’s Fund, the health think tank, reported last year that suicide had fallen to historically low levels and said specialist services for people with severe mental health problems, introduced under the 1999 National Service Framework, had enjoyed some success.

However, The King’s Fund also expressed concern that the National Audit Office had concluded that the national dementia strategy “lacks the mechanisms to bring about large-scale improvements”.

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Telegraph.co.uk

วันพุธที่ 2 กุมภาพันธ์ พ.ศ. 2554

Jack Straw kept legal advice secret from Cabinet ahead of Iraq war to avoid leaks

Tony Blair and Jack Straw kept key information secret from the Cabinet ahead of the war in Iraq because they were afraid of leaks, the former foreign secretary has said.

Iraq inquiry: Jack Straw 'recommended regime change plan to Tony Blair'

Former foreign minister Jack Straw arrives to give evidence at a public inquiry into the Iraq War in London Photo: REUTERS

Rosa Prince

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent 2:50PM GMT 02 Feb 2011

Comments

On the final day of hearings at the Iraq Inquiry, Mr Straw admitted he advised the Cabinet that invasion would be legal without a fresh United Nations mandate days after Lord Goldsmith, the then attorney general, had said privately that the opposite was true.

In the end, Lord Goldsmith changed his mind about the legality of the war on the eve of the invasion and gave the green light to conflict without ministers ever being made aware of his earlier reservations.

Explaining the decision not to share important documents with the Cabinet, Mr Straw said that he and Mr Blair had been “depressed” after a Cabinet discussion on Iraq a year before the 2003 invasion had become public.

"Any prime minister, faced with leaks like that, is bound to take appropriate alternative action," Mr Straw said.

The inquiry has heard that Iraq was not raised at Cabinet for another six months, and that formal papers on were never shared with ministers.

Mr Straw defended the then-prime minister’s style of “sofa government,” saying that while he preferred a more formal approach, this would not have resulted in a different outcome.

"His style was much less formal than mine, but the fact he used soft furnishings rather than hard chairs does not make him a bad person," he said.

"Nor … do I believe that a more formal process would have altered either the respect in which he was held by colleagues and the influence he had, nor the outcome of the decisions.

"But equally the fact the process was – frustratingly for some – less formal than it should have been doesn't necessarily mean the decisions were of a lower quality, nor that they lacked the fullest range of opinions in the input."

Mr Straw confirmed that the Cabinet was not provided with details of the military planning ahead of the war, but said that ministers would have had to be “deaf, dumb and blind” not to be aware that 46,000 British troops were massed on Iraq’s borders.

"It was a feature of the way that the prime minister ran Cabinet that most decisions were made on the basis of oral briefings, having been pre-cooked through the process of Cabinet committees," he added.

In the run up to the war, Mr Straw said he frequently warned Mr Blair that a policy of regime change in Iraq without the involvement of the UN would be "palpably illegal".

"I made that point in quite categorical terms to the prime minister on more than one occasion," he said.

"We are different people. It is hardly a secret that I came at this issue from a different perspective to the prime minister.

“However, I ended up at the same point as the prime minister – let me make that clear – and backed the position that he and the Cabinet and the House of Commons made to take military action."

Mr Straw confirmed reports that he had suggested “a way out” of military action to Mr Blair days before the invasion began.

Making clear that he supported the decision to go to war, he added that he had suggested to the then-prime minister that Britain could follow the lead of Spain and Italy by holding back from the initial conflict, and joining peace keeping operations only once Saddam Hussein had been toppled.

"I don't think anybody was keen on military action,” he said. "It's horrible and people are going to get killed. I was anxious that we should explore all possible alternatives.

"I also felt that as I owed the prime minister my loyalty, I also owed him the best and most robust advice I could give him."

Concluding the public hearings, Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry chairman, said that he hoped the Government would declassify more secret documents to enable the panel to come to accurate findings about the events surrounding the war.

He added: "It is going to take some months to deliver the report itself. I don't want to set an artificial deadline on our work at this stage. What I can say is that my colleagues and I wish to finish our report as quickly as possible."

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