As Scottish minsters played down the significance of the YouGov poll that found yes had a narrow lead in the independence campaign, Edinburgh-registered Lloyds Banking Group – which owns Bank of Scotland – was the worst hit, with shares falling by £1.7bn, or 3.3% by lunchtime.
He said the fact that the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, was leading a taskforce on mental health, which had its first meeting this month and was attended by several cabinet minsters, showed that mental health had moved up the political agenda.
The survival of a safety-net fund to support vulnerable people in a crisis has provoked a cabinet split amid signs that some minsters are feeling intense pressure over the unpopularity of welfare cuts and the rising use of food banks.
In Italy, it's the final day of voting in a referendum on restarting the country's nuclear-power programme.Tuesday 14thRoll up your sleeves; it's world blood donor day.Wednesday 15thRussia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, and Switzerland's president, Micheline Calmy-Rey, hold talks in Geneva.Thursday 16thThe prime minsters of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia meet in Bratislava.
The three minsters played an important role in negotiating an end to the violence on Kiev's Maidan, the square at the centre of the recent upheaval.Back in Warsaw, Mr Sikorski said Ukraine's leaders had appealed to him to get the European Union to press Russia over its refusal to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine and its continued military support for pro-Russian separatists.
This has increased political tensions within the government, as minsters recoil from the prospect of another unpopular cost-cutting budget due to be unveiled on May 12th.While the fall in mining investment has long been expected, a rebound in the services sector, which still makes up two-thirds of the economy, has failed to materialise.
He said the government's top priority would now be tackling Colombia's social problems.Mr Pastrana left unchanged his defence and foreign minsters, who are close political friends and who were involved in negotiating $1.3 billion in (mainly) military aid from the United States.
After all, they are abbots of two different minsters.
Since the army seized power in January 2007 and installed a technocratic interim government, it has tried and failed to end an era of dominance by Bangladesh's two squabbling former prime minsters, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League.Yet, after a year in jail on charges of corruption, Bangladesh's battling begums are back.
Accompanied by a large delegation of cabinet minsters and businesspeople, President Zuma visited India in June and China in August, his first trips to Asia as president.
