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BY JASON DOUGLAS AND AINSLEY THOMSON

LONDON—U.K. households made a record repayment of personal loans and credit card bills in December, Bank of England data showed Tuesday, underscoring households’ limited appetite for spending and heightening fears the U.K. may slip back into recession.

BOE figures showed U.K. consumers made a net repayment on unsecured loans of £377 million ($592.3 million) in December, the highest figure since records began in 1993. Britons repaid £16 million of outstanding credit card debt and £361 million of other loans, the data showed.

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Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204652904577194583493118936.html?mod=rss_economy

BY ILONA BILLINGTON

LONDON—New economic data brought more signs that the euro zone could be verging on a mild recession, with December consumer spending in the currency area’s two largest economies dropping significantly and unemployment rising in the region as a whole.

Retail sales in the last month of 2011 dropped unexpectedly in Germany and France, the two economies expected to support weaker countries along the region’s southern fringe. The outcome supported other recent data that reflect an erosion in household spending power as governments struggled to reduce debt levels with tough austerity plans.

The data set up the announcement of preliminary gross …

Article source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577194442237686180.html?mod=rss_economy

David Cameron is facing a fresh clash with Tory Eurosceptics after dropping Britain’s objections to the use of the European court of justice (ECJ) to enforce a new fiscal compact for the eurozone.

Tory backbenchers met last night to prepare tactics ahead of a statement to parliament in which the prime minister will explain that Britain does not want to stand in the way of action to solve the eurozone crisis.

Cameron told EU leaders at their summit in Brussels that Britain was unlikely to raise any objections to the use of the ECJ to police tough new fiscal rules for eurozone members.

But he pledged to watch eurozone leaders “like a hawk” and to take legal action if they seek to use the court, or any other EU institution, to rewrite the rules of the single market.

Britain will officially reserve its position until a new eurozone treaty is formally ratified after 25 members of the EU, bar the UK and the Czech Republic, endorsed the new measure last night.

Speaking after the summit broke up, Cameron said: “We don’t want to hold up the eurozone doing whatever is necessary to solve the crisis, as long as it doesn’t damage our national interests.”

The prime minister said he would monitor the implementation of the new treaty. “It is in our national interest that the new treaty, outside the EU, does not encroach on the single market. We will be watching like a hawk. If there is any sign that they are going to encroach on the single market, then clearly we would take the appropriate action.”

Tory Eurosceptics accused the prime minister of annulling his vetoing of a revision of the Lisbon treaty last December, which prevented eurozone leaders from embedding the compact in the architecture of the EU.

Bernard Jenkin, the veteran Eurosceptic, said: “This nullifies the effect of the UK’s veto in December and demonstrates how a subset of EU member states can hijack the EU institutions for their own purposes, bypassing any dissenting state … The government cannot retreat from that now, or they will refuel demands for a referendum on the UK’s present terms of membership of the EU.”

The prime minister dismissed Jenkin’s criticism as bizarre. “There isn’t a Brussels EU treaty because I vetoed it. They [eurozone leaders] have had to make a treaty outside the EU. Obviously they’d prefer to have it inside the EU, which is why they are already talking about trying to bring it back inside the EU. So to argue that the veto doesn’t matter seems bizarre.”

Cameron added that eurozone leaders need to step up their efforts to rescue the euro. “Our national interest is that these countries get on and sort out the mess that is the euro.”

Conservative MEPs, who met the prime minister in Brussels before the start of yesterday’s summit, blamed Nick Clegg for forcing Cameron to change his mind.

Martin Callanan, the group’s leader, said: “I blame a combination of appeasing Nick Clegg, who is desperate to sign anything the EU puts in front of him, and the practical reality that this pact is actually quite hard to prevent.”

The Liberal Democrats will say they have achieved an important victory. The deputy prime minister, who was alarmed by Cameron’s use of the veto, made clear in December that the EU’s institutions would have to be put at the disposal of eurozone leaders.

As recently as 6 January the prime minister voiced doubts about the ECJ when he said that it “tends to come down on the side of whatever ‘more Europe‘ involves”.

Labour added to the pressure on the prime minister by saying that his change of heart on the use of EU institutions showed that his actions in December had amounted to a “phantom veto”.

Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “The unanswered question after this summit remains what exactly David Cameron achieved by walking out of the EU negotiations last month? With the EU institutions now involved, it seems clear that all his earlier phantom veto achieved was to undermine British influence, and make it harder for Britain to protect its own interests in Europe and push for an effective solution to the eurozone’s problems.”

The prime minister sought to maintain the focus on the formal agenda of yesterday’s summit – how to promote growth across the EU. He was given a taste of the challenge when José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, said Britain had the same number of young unemployed people as Spain, where almost one in two young people who are available for work is unemployed.

In a slide presentation, Barroso told the summit: “You can also see that the number of young unemployed is close to 1 million in Spain and in the UK. While the UK percentage is lower, 1 million unemployed young people is a big problem.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/30/eu-summit-david-cameron-eurosceptics

In his interview with Andy Sparrow, Ken Livingstone says that if he wins the mayoralty in May, Green Party London Assembly members will again be part of his administration as they were during his 2004-2008 term. He also said that he would “like to bring the Liberals in.”

None of this is a surprise. The Green Party link, as Ken says, has a precedent and he’s already said nice things in public about Caroline Pidgeon, who is the Lib Dem transport spokesperson on the assembly and also the running mate of their mayoral candidate Brian Paddick. Ken constructed a big red, green and yellow tent during his 2008 campaign too, and invited anyone who wasn’t a Tory or a Nazi to come in.

Don’t expect Lib Dem politicians to blush and succumb to this flirtation. A while back I teasingly suggested to a Lib Dem AM outside City Hall that a Lib-Lab pact would be a good idea if Boris Johnson were to be removed. This produced a recoil of such force I feared the individual concerned would fly clear across the Thames. And after a Ken win? Well, who knows?

But we should probably spend less time pondering campaign positioning and more on what the Lib Dem and Green mayoral candidates are offering in terms of policy ideas. To reprise the theme of my most recent newsletter (archived here; sign up for the next one here), they’ve already shown that they could be the ones who offer the freshest ideas.

In terms of the main areas of mayoral power I prefer Ken to Boris on transport and on planning and housing. I also think he’ll offer a more coherent and imaginative big picture of London’s future than his Tory rival, and would bring more energy to a job he probably wants more than Boris does.

But, as yet, I’m not enthused by either of the two front runners on crime and policing. And Ken’s big moves so far have been aimed at paring down Londoners’ living costs (fares, rents) rather than proposing big innovations. His is, in its way, an austerity agenda – one pitched as protecting “ordinary Londoners” from the effects of the recession and the government’s response to it.

That’s making sense for him so far – it’s helped to get him right back in the running – but at this stage it leaves a gap where bolder and perhaps more radical propositions might otherwise be. That’s where the outsider candidates can refresh what looks like being a pretty ugly, gruelling contest between the favourites. Yes, being outsiders means they can afford to be riskier, but that doesn’t mean their ideas should be ignored.

Four years ago I thought Brian Paddick the best main party candidate on policing policy and he’s again saying things I want to hear: proposing closer ties between officers and communities; taking issue with the Met’s use of stop and search.

For the Green Party, Jenny Jones too has dared to challenge the orthodoxy – to which both Boris and Ken subscribe – that stop and search is a vital policing tool rather than the cause of more problems than it solves. She’s also the only candidate of the four minded to advocate an expansion of road pricing, the one road management measure that would cut the economic cost of congestion, generate much-needed income and improve our city’s air quality in the process.

My ideal mayoral candidate would draw from red, yellow and green parts of the political spectrum and from those blue parts that overlap with the green and yellow. I’m not yet sure how I’d mix them to avoid ending up with a rather disobliging shade of brown instead of a beguiling policy rainbow. I’m working on it, though.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/davehillblog/2012/jan/30/london-mayoral-race-needs-fresh-policy-ideas

Thousands of tax office workers will stage a 24-hour strike on Tuesday in a row over privatisation, leading to a delay in the deadline for filing tax returns.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) across the UK will mount picket lines in protest at plans to trial the use of private firms at two centres.

HM Revenue and Customs has decided not to issue penalty fines to anyone missing Tuesday’s deadline for self-assessment returns. Anyone filing their returns on 1 or 2 February will also not be fined.

The industrial action is in opposition to the appointment of two private companies, Sitel and Teleperformance, to run call-handling trials in HMRC tax credit contact centres in Lillyhall in Cumbria and Bathgate in Scotland.

The year-long trials are due to start next month. The union is warning they risk paving the way for privatisation in the department and come at a time when tens of thousands of civil service jobs are being cut.

The PCS general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said: “Our members in tax offices want to do a good job and provide the best possible advice and help to taxpayers, but there are fewer of them working in fewer offices as a result of misguided and damaging cuts.

“Instead of making even more cuts and throwing public money at private companies, ministers should be investing in their staff and tackling the billions in tax avoided and evaded by the super-rich.”

An HMRC spokesman said: “HMRC is not privatising existing HMRC contact centre jobs but we are determined to improve the service we provide to our customers. This means considering a variety of options including drawing on the knowledge and experience of external contact centre operators. Industrial action is unwarranted and unnecessary.

“We are doing everything possible to maintain contact centre services to the public and will continue talking to the unions to address their concerns.”

HMRC’s acting director general for personal tax, Stephen Banyard, said: “We’ve always been very clear that we want the returns – not the penalties. For that reason, we don’t want anyone who can’t get through for help and advice on 31 January to be disadvantaged in any way.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/31/hmrc-delays-tax-return-deadline-strike

Government cuts have left a “big mismatch” between the money available for flood defences and that needed to maintain protection for the 5m UK homes at risk of flooding, a powerful group of MPs has said.

“The annual cost of flood damage is at least £1.1bn and ageing defences and climate change will increase that bill,” said the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair, Margaret Hodge. “So flood protection is a national priority. The Department of Environment sees more funding coming from local sources [but] we are sceptical this will be possible when local authorities and businesses are themselves under financial pressure.”

A landmark study on the risks posed to the UK by global warming published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on 26 January showed increased flooding was by far the greatest threat, with damage forecast to rise by up to 10 times.

The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, and the prime minister, David Cameron, have both spoken of the rising risk in the past, but capital spending on flood defences fell by 27% in the first year of the coalition government. More than 1,000 schemes that had been in line for funding were left in limbo.

“The PAC has hit the nail on the head,” said Charles Tucker, chair of the National Flood Forum, which represents hundreds of local groups. “The money just isn’t there – either from government or from local sources. The government is flying on a wing and a prayer – hoping against hope that the big floods keep off until national finances improve – and gambling with the future of thousands of communities.”

Source: Richard Benyon

A Defra spokeswoman said it was improving protection: “The country is better prepared than ever before to deal with a major flood,” she said. “We’ve reformed the funding system to allow the number of flood defence schemes to be increased [by allowing communities to pay toward defences] and give local people greater choice and control over protecting their community from flooding.”

The Environment Agency (EA), which delivers flood defences in England and Wales, said in 2009 that this budget needed to rise by 9% between 2011 and 2015 to maintain current levels of protection, but the budget has been reduced by more than 10% over the four years.

The EA said efficiency savings would offset some of this loss but were unable to tell the Pac what the long-term funding gap would be. The EA also states that “every pound spent on protecting communities from flooding saves eight pounds spent repairing flood damage over the lifetime of a scheme”.

Defra’s new funding regime requires private companies, local authorities and communities to increase their contributions from £13m over the last three years to £70m over the next three. It had not secured these commitments, said the MPs.

“Expecting an increase in local authority contributions when their resources are reducing may well be over-optimistic,” concluded the committee. However, a Defra spokeswomen pointed to the example of Sandwich in Kent where Pfizer, which is closing its research facility at the site, and Kent county council, have together pledged up to £12m towards flood defences.

Mary Creagh, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, said: “The government is passing the buck to local councils, asking them to choose between repairing roads and protecting homes from flooding. The irony is that this approach may cost more in the long run, as the Environment Agency is unable to predict what schemes will proceed, which means procurement costs rise.”

The committee also criticised a lack of accountability for flood defences. “It is unclear where the buck stops and who is ultimately responsible for managing the risk of flooding,” said Hodge, a Labour MP.

“Defra tells us it is not ultimately answerable and shares the responsibility with the Environment Agency and local bodies. But Defra has no way of knowing whether local flood management systems are adequate or when it should step in. It is not acceptable that local people should be left in doubt about where responsibility and accountability lie.” The Environment Agency is largely funded by government and is responsible to Spelman.

Finally, the availability of insurance to those at risk of being flooded also concerned the MPs, as the agreement between Defra and the insurance industry to provide this ends in 2013.

“In some areas premiums appear to have risen as a result of growing uncertainty over local levels of protection,” the report found, with MPs urging the government to strike a new deal urgently to reduce the uncertainty for affected householders.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/31/flood-defences-government-cuts-mismatch

Thousands of vocational qualifications – including courses in fish husbandry and nail technology – are to be stripped out of school league tables, the government has announced.

More than 3,000 qualifications regarded as equivalent to GCSEs in current league tables – and said to be used by some schools to improve their rankings – will be reduced to 125. Just 70 will count towards the main performance measure of five A* to C grades at GCSE. The first league tables to reflect the changes will be published in January 2015, based on results from the previous summer.

The qualifications being ditched include the City and Guilds level 2 diploma in horse care, currently worth four GCSEs in the league tables.

A Btec in fish husbandry, worth two GCSEs, a level 2 certificate in nail technology and a level 2 award in travel and tourism are among those being dropped.

Schools will still be able to offer these courses, but they will no longer boost their position in league tables.

Full-course GCSEs, established iGCSEs, AS levels and music exams at grade six and above will all count towards the tables.

The announcement follows a review of vocational education carried out by Prof Alison Wolf, a public policy expert. She argues that pupils need to acquire “broad skills” to enable them to thrive over a lifetime of change.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, said: “The weaknesses in our current system were laid bare by Professor Wolf’s incisive and far-reaching review. The changes we are making will take time but will transform the lives of young people.

“For too long the system has been devalued by attempts to pretend that all qualifications are intrinsically the same. Young people have taken courses that have led nowhere.”

In an article for Education Guardian, Wolf writes that vocational qualifications should be included among the most respected school subjects, but warns that too many have no value.

“I have met students who told me they were ‘getting 15 GCSEs’ when they were doing no such thing. Colleges complained to me about growing numbers of young people applying for courses in the belief that they had the necessary entry qualifications, when they did not.

“Employers could not care less about ‘points’ and ‘equivalences’ and how many of them a young person has. Many of them have only just got used to GCSEs, as opposed to O-levels. They look instead at whether young people have got certain, specific qualifications: ones which they recognise and value.”

The government has also announced that 12 new studio schools are approved to open later this year, joining six already open.

These are small schools for 14- to 19-year-olds which are intended to act as a bridge between education and the workplace. They open all year round and the day lasts from 9 till 5. They will offer a mix of academic and vocational qualifications as well as paid work placements.

Thirteen new University Technical Colleges (UTCs) are also approved to open from this September onwards. UTCs are academies for 14- to 19-year-olds, focusing on providing technical education in partnership with businesses.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/31/vocational-qualifications-stripped-league-tables

Two prominent Libyan dissidents are suing a former senior MI6 officer in a move which could expose the role of ministers in the men’s abduction to Tripoli, where they say they were tortured by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s secret police.

Lawyers for Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi have served a claim on Sir Mark Allen, the MI6 officer at the centre of the affair. They are suing Allen, then the most senior officer in MI6 responsible for counter-terrorism, alleging “complicity in torture” and “misfeasance in public office”.

Whitehall officials have repeatedly defended MI6′s actions, saying the agency was following “ministerially authorised government policy.”

The case will be the first significant test of a little-known piece of legislation, section seven of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, which protects MI6 officers from liability for criminal acts abroad as long as their actions have been authorised by a cabinet minister.

Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, and former prime minister Tony Blair, have both sought to distance themselves from the matter. In a BBC radio interview, Straw said: “No foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence services are doing at any one time.”

Straw declined to comment on Monday but has said in the past that he was “always happy to deal with any questions relating to his time as home secretary or foreign secretary”.

The two men are also claiming damages for “unlawful detention, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, batteries and assaults” by US, Thai, and Libyan agents.

In a claim which has been sent to government lawyers, the men’s solicitors, Leigh Day, told Allen that if he denied the claims, they would demand disclosure of documents, including MI6 communications with Gaddafi’s government, the CIA, MI5 and other British government agencies. The law firm has demanded a response within six weeks.

In a letter to former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, dated 18 March 2004, senior MI6 officer Allen said: “I congratulate you on the safe arrival of Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq [also known as Abdul Hakim Belhaj, now Tripoli's military commander]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years.”

A few days later, Blair visited Gaddafi in a highly-publicised meeting in the Libyan leader’s tent.

Saadi was detained in Hong Kong in 2004 and then forced on to a plane to Tripoli with his wife and four children in an operation that MI6 allegedly mounted in co-operation with Koussa, who was Gaddafi’s intelligence chief at the time. Saadi says he suffered years of torture.

Belhaj was detained in Bangkok along with his pregnant wife after an MI6 tipoff and was allegedly tortured by American agents for several days before being flown to Tripoli, where he says he was tortured and detained for several years. His wife was detained for several months.

Section seven of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act says British security and intelligence officers would not be “liable under the criminal or civil law of any part of the United Kingdom” as long as the authorisation has been signed by a senior minister. The clause has been described as a “licence to kill”.

When the legislation was considered by parliament, ministers made clear there could be circumstances in which it could be used to authorise what they described as “lethal force”. There were warnings at that time that it could be used to indemnify torturers against prosecution.

Allen’s involvement in the rendition of the couple was spelled out in a number of documents discovered in a Libyan government office shortly after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime last summer.

Following the discovery, Whitehall sources with knowledge of the operation made no attempt to deny MI6 involvement, but immediately said it had been part of “ministerially-authorised government policy”, a clear signal that a secretary of state had signed off on the rendition of the couple.

Earlier this month, the Metropolitan police announced it was opening a criminal investigation into the rendition of Belhaj and Saadi, who is also known as Abu Munthir al-Saadi..

There have been reports that Straw will be questioned as part of the Scotland Yard inquiry.

The case against Allen is to be followed by civil proceedings against MI6 and MI5, part of a growing number of claims against the British government and former officials alleging complicity in kidnap and murder – claims that the government wishes to see being considered in secret.

The government is proposing new legislation that would introduce greater secrecy in any cases in which ministers consider that sensitive evidence may arise.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/libyan-dissidents-sue-mi6-officer

The coalition’s NHS reforms, the biggest shakeup of the health service in 60 years, are a “damaging … unholy mess” that will need overhauling in five years’ time, the editors of three leading healthcare publications claim.

In an editorial published simultaneously by the British Medical Journal, Health Service Journal and Nursing Times, their editors say the NHS “is far too important to be left at the mercy of ideological and incompetent intervention” and argue ,”we must make sure that nothing like this ever happens again”.

The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, will attempt to soothe the anger of critics, particularly in the House of Lords where the health and social care bill will return next month, by proposing 200 amendments to the legislation later this week. However, the editorial bluntly states that the damage has already been done.

“The government’s NHS reforms have proved divisive and destructive. They have slowed the improvement of NHS services and cost the UK money that it can ill afford.”

In a second BMJ editorial published on Tuesday, Kieran Walshe, professor of health policy at Manchester Business School, says that abandoning the bill now would save just over £1bn in 2013.

He says there are three clear benefits to dispensing with the bill. First, it would put an end to the damaging period of prolonged organisational uncertainty in the NHS that started when the white paper was published 18 months ago. Second, it would allow NHS organisations to focus on what is the real and urgent problem for the NHS – finding £20bn in efficiency savings.

Finally, Walshe says the savings from the proposals have already been made. “Going ahead with the bill means setting up the NHS Commissioning Board (with an annual running costs of £492m), 260 clinical commissioning groups (with an annual running costs of £1.25bn), and the new economic regulator, Monitor (with its anticipated annual running costs of £82m). Each of these new statutory organisations will have additional set-up costs – perhaps amounting to a one-off spend of £360m. If the bill were stopped now, it would save all those set-up costs, and at least £650m in annual running costs – just over £1bn in 2013.”

Labour seized on the analysis. Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said: “The chorus of protest against Andrew Lansley’s ill-conceived plans for the NHS grows louder by the day, uniting voices across the health world. This is a powerful and scathing critique of the government’s handling of its NHS re-organisation from three of the most respected voices in healthcare.

“It reflects the strength of feeling in the health professions and echoes the widely-held that this bill is unnecessary and a distraction from the financial challenge facing the NHS.”

However, it was dismissed by Lansley’s aides as “not exactly unexpected”.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “Our reforms are based on what NHS staff themselves have consistently said; they want more freedom from day to day bureaucracy and political interference so they can get on with the job of caring for patients. That is exactly what this bill achieves.

“It’s completely untrue to suggest that dropping the bill would save the NHS money. Our plans will reduce needless bureaucracy by a third and save £4.5bn over the course of this parliament and £1.5bn every year afterwards. Every penny saved will be reinvested in frontline care for patients.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/31/nhs-reforms-criticised-healthcare-publications

Six rowers have been rescued from a life raft in the North Atlantic after their boat capsized.

The crew of the Sara G, five of whom were British and the other an Irish national, were taking part in the Atlantic Odyssey challenge to row from Morocco in north Africa to Barbados in the Caribbean.

They were 27 days into their journey when the 36ft (11.1m) vessel overturned at 11am on Monday, 520 miles from their destination.

Coastguards in Falmouth, Cornwall, said the rowers were picked up from the raft, which they had lashed to the hull of their overturned boat, at 1.10am by the Nord Taipei, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship.

A coastguard spokesman added: “They are all safe and well on board and proceeding to Gibraltar, where they are due to arrive on 9 February.”

Falmouth coastguards co-ordinated the rescue with authorities in Martinique.

A second vessel, the Naparima, was due to reach the overturned boat’s location by 4.30am today but was released after the rowers’ rescue.

Earlier, a coastguard spokesman said: “The shore contact for the Sara G managed to get through to the crew of the boat via satellite phone and ascertained that the boat had capsized and they had abandoned to the life raft, which was tethered to the capsized vessel.”

The Atlantic Odyssey website names the crew as captain Matt Craughwell; Ian Rowe, a 45-year-old father of four; Aodhan Kelly, 26, from Dublin, Ireland; Simon Brown, 37, a father of three from Wiltshire; father-of-two Yaacov Mutnikas; and 29-year-old Mark Beaumont, a documentary-maker from Perthshire.

The website states that they were rowing from Tarfaya in Morocco to Port St Charles in Barbados with the aim of becoming the first crew in history to break the sub-30-day barrier, calling it “ocean rowing’s very own four-minute mile”.

Writing on their blog on Sunday, Craughwell said the boat was struggling to make headway because of “no wind and swells from every direction”.

“With the calm of the Atlantic Sara G has not only had her toughest week of the expedition, but her toughest week under my watch,” he said.

“Yesterday saw us post only 60 nautical miles with a mixed bag of no wind and swells from every direction. Despite all of this the crew have battled on to make this small total. It has now made our world record attempt become the most difficult 10 days we will spend at sea this year. Morale is high and we hope for good weather soon, but it seems everything is against us at the moment!”

He added that the weather meant their solar and wind-powered equipment had run out of electricity, meaning they had had to resort to navigating “the old fashion way like the old mariners used to”.

The Sara G is the latest boat to get into trouble attempting to cross the Atlantic this winter. In December, two transatlantic rowers, one of them British, were rescued from a life raft in the middle of the ocean after their small boat sank in rough seas.

Tom Sauer and Tom Fancett were picked up by a cruise ship after 10 hours in the raft almost 500 miles south-west of the Canary Islands, coastguards said.

Briton Fancett and Sauer, who has dual Dutch and Russian nationality according to their Team Tom website, left the Canary Islands in December to row to the Bahamas in the 2011 Atlantic Ocean Rowing Race. They finished their journey across the ocean in style after being picked up by a cruise ship.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/31/atlantic-odyssey-rowers-rescued-boat-capsizes