Kate Middleton Baby Will Be Called “Princess” If Female

It's official. The Queen has decreed if William and Kate's baby is in fact a female, she will be called "Her Royal Highness" and "Princess."

The decision was made official on December 31, but Queen Elizabeth publicly announced it on Wednesday, Kate Middleton's 31st birthday. The exact language was published in the London Gazette:

"The Queen has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 31 December 2012 to declare that all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of royal highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour."

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Bank of England to Start 2013 on Sidelines As Economy Scrapes By

[caption id="attachment_163" align="aligncenter" width="450"] Reuters/Reuters - A general view shows the Bank of England in the city of London November 26, 2012. REUTERS/Olivia Harris[/caption]

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England is likely to withhold fresh monetary stimulus at the start of the new year, with economic news still not bleak enough to trump worries about stubborn inflation.

Last month the Bank voted 8-1 against extending its 375 billion pound programme of bond purchases, and none of the 60 economists polled by Reuters over the past week expect a policy change after the Monetary Policy Committee concludes its monthly meeting on Thursday.

Interest rates are also forecast to remain at their record-low 0.5 percent until at least July 2014.

"I don't think that we've seen anything to substantially change the MPC's view of the economy," said Barclays economist Chris Crowe. "We are not expecting any change in policy."

Although December surveys of purchasing managers pointed...Read the entire story

UK Statisticians Unexpectedly Reject Inflation Change

[caption id="attachment_159" align="aligncenter" width="450"] Reuters/Reuters - A generic picture of a some British sterling money in coins and bank notes. BANKG REUTERS/Catherine Benson[/caption]

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top statistician unexpectedly decided against major changes to the country's longest-running inflation index on Thursday, rejecting a move that could have significantly cut government borrowing costs.

The decision to keep the Retail Price Index in its current form is a major boost for older Britons who have company pensions linked to RPI, as well as to holders of Britain's inflation-linked government bonds.

Changes to RPI had been expected to bring it closer to the lower Consumer Price Index measure of inflation (CPI) used by the Bank of England, and prices for 10-year index-linked gilts soared on Thursday's news, taking yields to a record low.

RPI was developed after World War Two, but in recent years it has increasingly diverged from CPI and for months Britain's Office for National Statistics had been consulting economists, fund managers and other users of the data on its proposals...Read the entire story

Two Separate Bombs kill 32, hurt 100 in Pakistan Cities

QUETTA/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Bomb blasts in two Pakistani cities killed 32 people and injured more than 100, police and hospital officials said.

A bomb in Quetta, the capital of the eastern province of Balochistan, killed 11 people and injured more than 40, police officer Zubair Mehmood said. A local militant group claimed responsibility.

 

Another 21 were killed and more than 60 injured in a bombing where people had gathered to hear a religious leader speak in Mingora, the largest city in the northwestern province of Swat, police and officials at the Saidu Sharif hospital said.

"The death toll may rise as some of the injured are in critical condition and we are receiving more and more injured people," said Dr. Niaz Mohammad.

Police initially said the Swat blast was caused by an exploding gas cylinder but later police chief Akhtar Hayat said it was a bomb...

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