Daily View 2×2: 10 January 2010 – New Karzai cabinet snubs warlords

It’s Sunday. It’s 7am. It’s time for an exclusive peak at the next Conservative Party election poster, but first the news.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here’s are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

• Some Good News for Nick Clegg: Nick Thornsby mulls over some new poll findings on what attributes the public associate with each of the three main party leaders.
• Community spirit alive and well in Bandon Rise: Jayne McCoy on how one group of residents took action rather than bemoaning what others have or haven’t done.

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

2 Big Stories

New Karzai cabinet snubs warlords

President Hamid Karzai proposed new names on Saturday to replace an Afghan cabinet lineup rejected by parliament, omitting controversial ex-guerrilla commanders and their allies but still disappointing diplomats and lawmakers.

The absence of powerful figures such as former guerrilla chief Ismail Khan and the allies of Uzbek militia boss Abdul Rashid Dostum was described as a positive sign by those who want to curb the influence of ex-warlords…

But the overall reaction to the new list, mainly composed of little-known figures with some former ministers long out of favor, was guarded at best.

“It looks like Karzai has picked them up from the street,” parliament member Sayed Dawood Hashimi told Reuters, predicting that only four or five would be approved.

“One could hardly describe the new list as an improvement over the last list,” said an international diplomat who asked not to be named while giving a frank assessment of the line-up.

“Many of them are completely unknown. Some of them are known politicians who were removed in the past for corruption.” [Reuters]

Bankers to face £1m bonus trap

BANKERS earning more than £1m a year are to be hit by a new bonus clampdown launched by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Up to 5,000 City bankers are expected to be caught by the new restrictions, which expand on the regulator’s existing code on pay…

Under the FSA’s new proposals, any employee of a UK bank who earns a seven-figure sum will be forced to defer 60% of his or her bonus for three years.

In its previous guidance, the regulator had said it would impose such restrictions only on individuals with a direct involvement in the running of a firm. This would have affected bank bosses earning more than £500,000 but did not include traders and other high-earning executives. [Sunday Times]

Sunday Bonus

In homage to the Conservative Party’s commitment to cutting taxes for the rich and evasiveness on cutting taxes for everyone else:

Thanks for the template to MyDavidCameron.com.