Brown worried about plunged retail sales in UK

Another front in his war against the crisis worries PM Gordon Brown, as British retail sales plunged in November at their joint-fastest pace since records began 25 years ago while a growing number of Britons predicted prices would fall, not rise, next year.
Lending rates on dollar loans between banks rose for the second day running yesterday amid ongoing funding concerns despite the rescue of Citigroup Inc. earlier in the week. The rate on three-month loans in dollars — known as the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor — rose over 0.01 percentage points to 2.22 percent, according to the British Bankers’ Association.