Britannia Radio

UK: Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones: Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Barack Obama bets the farm in $4 trillion poker game: The President believes he can change US politics for a generation. If he's wrong he could bankrupt the whole country

GM says it will go bust in days without new US bail-out: General Motors today warned it would go bust within 30 days unless the US treasury gives it a further multi-billion dollar loan.

US unemployment hits 25-year high: US unemployment has risen to 8.1 per cent, the highest level since December 1983, according to a US government report.

Record 31.8 million on food stamps: Government shows increase of 700,000 food stamp recipients in a single month.

One in 8 US homeowners late paying or in foreclosure: : About one in eight U.S. homeowners with mortgages, a record share, ended 2008 behind on their loan payments or in the foreclosure process as job losses intensified a housing crisis spawned by lax lending practices, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday.

Mortgage woes break records again in 4Q: Delinquencies, foreclosures rise to almost 12 percent of US home loans in 4th quarter

Pictured: The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America: Today, tents are once again springing up in the city of Sacramento. But this time it is for people with no hope and no prospects.

Ten Things You Can Do to Stay in Your Home: Every thirteen seconds, an American loses his/her home. In 2008, more than 2.3 million families faced foreclosure. If the government doesn't intervene in a muscular way, an estimated 6 million owners will lose their homes in the next three years.