Recently in Wales Category

UK banks will lend £190 billion to businesses while cutting their own bonuses, the government has announced.

The good news comes as many firms have struggled to raise funds and survive the financial crisis.

£76 billion of lending is to be allocated to the Business Growth Fund, which will be set aside for small or medium-sized UK businesses.

The government is to cut more than 10,000 police jobs across England and Wales, claim the Labour Party.

Labour's research findings say a 20 per cent slash to the police budget will see the loss of many thousands of police officers over the next two years.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said on the Guardian's website: "Far from protecting frontline policing as ministers promised, over 10,000 police officers are being cut in the next few years alone.

Over 135,000 individuals were declared insolvent in the UK last year, up from 2009.

The Insolvency Service released figures this week showing a rise of 0.7 per cent in individuals applying for insolvency in England and Wales.

Financial experts KPMG are quoted on the Independent website estimating creditors are losing £20 million a day from UK insolvencies.

A top UK judge has proposed changes to the law for unmarried partnerships, claiming the present situation is an "injustice".

Sir Nicholas Wall, head of the government's family law division, urged reform this week. 

The judge believes unmarried couples who break up should have the legal right to have a fair share of assets and money between them.

It caused £300,000 to develop, became the most visited UK government website ever, and then crashed after just a few hours of going live.

Police.uk is a new UK portal that hopes to track the most crime-ridden streets across England and Wales. It has been designed to provide UK citizens with information about local crime statistics.

But the new website went down after too much public interest crashed its servers. It has also come under criticism for driving down property prices in high-crime areas.

Businesses in the UK face the threat of losses and even bankruptcy in 2011 as the latest figures show the economy shrank in the last three months of last year.

Construction slumped 3.3 per cent compared with the third quarter in 2010, while services shrank 0.5 per cent.

The news sent the pound sliding and shares fell in the City.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and his wife Sarah have divorced this week, on the 9 December.

A decree nisi was granted at the High Court Family Division in London allowing the couple to file for a 'quickie' divorce.

Sarah Kennedy, 40, cited her partner's "unreasonable behaviour" as to why she was forced to petition for divorce.

A former store manager at Lidl initiated tribunal action for unfair dismissal this week claiming the supermarket chain unlawfully sacked him after he accidentally hit and damaged a co-worker's vehicle.

Amir Hamza, 24, worked at the company's store on Cartersfield Road, Waltham Abbey for four years. Lidl sacked him in mid-November for gross misconduct after he failed to report the damage.

When confronted about it, Mr Hamza denied he was involved, before finally confessing when he was shown CCTV evidence and witness statements.

"I didn't realise," he said. "I had a CD player on in the car and didn't notice hitting anything. When they told me they had witnesses, I said fair enough and took responsibility."

A senior council executive sacked during cancer therapy launched claims for libel, unfair dismissal, disability discrimination, and sex discrimination against her former employer this week.

Jeanette McGarry earned £123,000-a-year as director of housing environmental and neighbourhood services (HENS) at Stoke-on-Trent City Council.

Shortly after assuming her position in June 2009, however, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked to work part-time while she completed her treatment, but the council refused and instead put her on "gardening leave".

Then, to compound matters, on the day she returned home following surgery she received a dismissal letter. The council's chief executive, John van de Laarschot, also issued a statement questioning her performance and conduct as HNES director.

A Scottish primary school teacher looks set to be struck off the teaching register after she helped set up a website advertising 'naughty schoolgirl' uniforms for adults, reports the Press and Journal.

Linda Ross, 58, of Strangs Ley, Forfar, lost her job as deputy head teacher at Dundee's Longhaugh Primary School in October 2008 after education bosses learned about her involvement with the site -- www.lindaross.co.uk -- run by her husband Vic.

Mr Ross established the website in 2007 to help teachers deal with stress and highlight the abuse they suffer.

He allowed adverts to pop up on the site, however, selling "adult" costumes and underwear. One such ad featured a model wearing a "see-through crop-top and plaid miniskirt with a matching tie and gloves", according to the Scotsman. Other items for sale included a kinky policewoman's outfit, complete with handcuffs.

The four-year battle over the inheritance of a 287-acre parcel of farming land in North Yorkshire moved to the Court of Appeal this week. The land comprises Potto Carr Farm near Northallerton and is valued at £2.35m.

The former owner of the farm, Joyce Gill, died in August 2006, aged 82. Thirteen years before her death, she and husband John Gill -- who died in 1999 -- signed "mirror wills", which stated that if one of them died the farm and all their savings would pass to the other; and upon the death of the last surviving spouse, the farm would go to the RSPCA.

As a consequence of this arrangement, the couple's daughter Dr Christine Gill received nothing.

Dr Gill challenged her mother's will, however, and last autumn Leeds High Court ruled in her favour. The court said her "bullying" and "domineering" father had coerced her mother into changing her will to leave the farm to the RSPCA.

A giddy young banker who was dismissed for gross misconduct after she boasted on Facebook about the size of her severance payout launched a legal challenge for unfair dismissal this week.

23-year-old Katie Furlong used to work as a debt officer for Royal Bank of Scotland in Telford in Staffordshire. On September 2, following the bank's takeover by Santander Group, she received a call from her manager informing her that she was being laid off and would receive a severance payment of around £6,000 ($9,500/Ä7,000)

Moments later, at 5.58pm, Ms Furlong posted the following comments on Facebook:

Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose has launched a $20m lawsuit against Activision, the makers of the Guitar Hero video games, according to NME.

He claims the company "spun a web of lies and deception" to persuade him to licence the Roses' tune 'Welcome to the Jungle' in Guitar Hero III.

The focus of his ire centres on Activision's alleged breach of a promise to exclude all references to the band's former guitarist Slash and his new band, Velvet Revolver, in the game.

According to a report in the Daily Express newspaper, Ray Wilkins was sacked by Chelsea because of bust-ups with billionaire owner Roman Abramovich and chief executive Ron Gourlay -- and not, as previously reported in the Guardian, because first-team players were 'unconvinced by his ability'.

A former night porter at the college of Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford University appeared before an employment tribunal this week claiming he was unfairly dismissed because he 'knew too much' about student indiscretions at the college.

In a story evoking Tom Sharpe's novel Porterhouse Blue, Terence Greenwood, 65, said he enjoyed a close relationship with students at Lady Margaret Hall and made many friends during his time working at the college.

The popular porter fell out with his supervisor Lawrence Le Carre, however, for covering up student misdemeanours. In one incident, for example, a student got so drunk one night he soiled his own bed. Mr Greenwood refused to reveal the identity of the student to Mr Le Carre, which led to an argument in which he was told he was wrong to keep quiet.