Monday's papers

Supertaxes are the theme of the day as the papers speculate over this week's fiscal statement.

The Telegraph says that High earners have been warned by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, that they will be expected to "bear the greatest burden" of economic recovery in this week's pre-Budget report.

Alistair Darling is preparing to introduce a punitive new tax on bankers’ bonuses in a Pre-Budget Report that will draw the battle lines for the next general election

.says the Times adding that

The Chancellor is expected to argue that, because billions of pounds of public cash was used to bail out the financial sector, taxpayers have a right to a larger share of bankers’ payouts.

City insiders said they were braced for a 60 per cent super-tax rate and predicted an exodus of high earners from Britain.says the Mail

Another possibility is an increase in the employer's National Insurance charge on banks that pay big bonuses.

The Independent leads with the story that Britain's middle classes and the rich will face the biggest squeeze on their living standards in decades,

According to a report commissioned by the paper by Pwc

The best-off will see their spending power cut by as much as 9 per cent, almost £5,000 a year, the most vicious assault on their living standards in three decades. The impact of swingeing income tax and national insurance hikes, VAT increases, expected moves back to more normal mortgage rates and higher petrol and transport costs, thanks to the latest boom in world oil prices, will all conspire to devastate the household budgets of the better-off.

This week's other theme is climate change and the Guardian's fron page is totally devoted to it.

'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'is its headline reporting that

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Meanwhile the Independent asks Was the Russian secret service behind leak of climate-change emails?

The leaked emails, which claimed to provide evidence that the unit's head, Professor Phil Jones, colluded with colleagues to manipulate data and hide "unhelpful" research from critics of climate change science, were originally posted on a server in the Siberian city of Tomsk, at a firm called Tomcity, an internet security business.

The Times reports on the latest problems for the church

The future of the worldwide Anglican Communion was in jeopardy last night after the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the election of a lesbian bishop in the United States raised “very serious questions”

The Telegraph adds that

Dr Rowan Williams warned Episcopal Church leaders that they risk breaking "our bonds of mutual affection" if they ordain the openly gay reverend as an assistant bishop.

It meanwhile carries an interview with Senator John McCain who tells the paper that

President Barack Obama's attempt to clarify his July 2011 deadline for a US departure from Afghanistan has resulted in more confusion and will dilute Pakistan's commitment to fighting the Taliban

The Independent

accompanied a force of around 1,500 – two-thirds US marines, the rest British, Danish and Afghan – as it launched Operation Khareh Cobra, "Cobra's Rage" in Pashto. Their target was Nawzad, once the second largest town in the province, which passed into Taliban hands two years ago. Since then, the town had become an important arms and opium storing centre for the insurgency, as well as a "blooding ground" where young jihadists cut their teeth.

As the Sun reports that Hillary Clinton is to meet supporters of jailed Amanda Knox amid claims of anti-American bias in the Meredith Kercher murder trial

The Mirror carries an interview with the victims family who tell the paper-'We are living a nightmare'


The Mail reports that an increasing number of savers are hoarding cash at home because they have lost confidence in the banking system, it emerged yesterday.

T

he Bank of England said the total value of its notes in circulation has soared while their use in transactions is falling.
There are 40million more £50 notes alone in circulation than two years ago.

Finally the Guardian reports that France is in mourning today for one of its oldest and best-loved lotharios, a giant tortoise named Kiki, who died at the age of 146.

Staff at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris announced that its veteran resident had succumbed last week to an infection.
They paid tribute to the zoo's "doyen", whose distinctive personality and "demonstrative lovemaking" had made him a favourite with the French public.