Gold is traditionally bought by investors to protect against inflation, which erodes the value of cash investments.

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But investors are now expecting central banks around the world to tighten monetary policy in an effort to curb price rises.

Last week, Cyprus undermined confidence when it said it was selling off gold.

The price of gold has had a remarkable run in recent years, hitting a record high of $1,800.

The US central bank, the Federal Reserve, is expected to stop its quantitative easing (QE) programme this year.

Gold

Dominic Schnider, an analyst at UBS Wealth Management, said this had tipped market sentiment and sparked a mass flight out of the commodity: “What we now see is panic selling, perhaps triggered by the Fed’s stimulus view. The Fed has given the signal that there’s a possibility to reduce QE and that took a lot of trust out of gold.

“And people recognise that an environment where you have no inflation is a powerful driver to get out of the metal.”

Another drag on prices come from India, the world’s biggest buyer of gold bullion, which introduced a 50% import tax that has triggered a 24% fall in the amount of gold brought into the country in the first quarter of this year.

Mohit Kamboj, president of the Bombay Bullion Association, suggested prices may have further to fall: “With more and more countries reducing stocks, the future of gold seems bleak.”

The fall means Cyprus is likely to raise less than the 400m euros ($525m) it hoped for when it announced it was selling the bulk of its gold reserve.

Gold mining company shares fell sharply as a result, with Randgold down 10% on the London stock exchange and Fresnillo down by 14% at noon.

bbc.co.uk

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Research by International Data Corp showed a shocking 14 per cent plummet in sales to 76.3 million worldwide for the first three months of the year, far exceeding the 7.7 per cent forecast.

Marking the fourth straight quarter of declines, the latest figure shows the biggest drop since IDC began recording data in 1994.

Rival research firm Gartner Inc put the decline at 11.2 per cent, which it called the worst since the first quarter of 2001.

PC sales

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest PC maker, suffered the steepest drop in global shipments with a 24 per cent decline, according to IDC figures, while Dell posted an 11 per cent drop.

Gartner blamed the rise of tablets and smartphones for the drop in demand, while IDC said Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system exacerbated the slowdown by confusing consumers with features that compromise the traditional PC experience.

Jay Chou, a senior research analyst at IDC, told Sky News: “Users are finding Windows 8 to offer a compromised experience that doesn’t excel either as a new mobile interface or in a classic desktop interface.

“As a result, many users find a decline in the traditional PC experience without gaining much from new features like touch. The result is that many consumers are worried about upgrading to Windows 8, to say nothing of business users who are still just getting into Windows 7.”

Only today industry insiders said that Microsoft would be putting out a smaller, 7-inch version of its Windows 8-powered Surface laptop/tablet crossover to rival the iPad Mini and Google Nexus.

independent.co.uk

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More than five million households, 20 per cent, are in debt to their energy suppliers, up from just below four million or 14 per cent last year.

The long, cold winter means that households are using more energy at a time of year when they would normally be turning the thermostats down.

Research from uSwitch reveals that collectively energy customers owe a combined £637 million to energy suppliers, up from £478 million this time last year as the UK emerges from the coldest March for 60 years.

The average household is £123 behind in utility bill payments because of disputes over estimated readings or due to falling behind on payments.

41 per cent of those in debt say that they owe more than they did at this point last year, with just nine per cent owing less.

The research reveals the astronomical price increases UK households have suffered in energy prices over the past nine years.

Debt

The average dual fuel annual energy bill has gone up from £522 at the start of 2004 to £1,353 less than 10 years later, an increase of £831 a year. There has been a rise of £100 in the last 12 months.

Ann Robinson, consumer policy director for uSwitch, said: “The soaring number of households in debt to energy suppliers is a clear indication of the pressure people are coming under just to meet the cost of their basic bills.

“The fact that a million more households have fallen behind in the last year so that over five million are now in debt to suppliers, tells us everything we need to know about the impact of sky-high energy prices.”

Ms Robinson is urging customers to review the tariff they are on and see if they can find a cheaper deal. Paying by direct debit and operating an online account can save customers around five per cent on the cost of standard tariffs.

She said: “Consumers should also make sure that they or their supplier are talking regular meter readings, as relying on estimated bills can be a shortcut to debt.”

The research shows that 22 per cent of people in debt are turning a blind eye to it, hoping that the amount will fall naturally, whilst 22 per cent intend to pay it off with a lump sum. 45 per cent of respondents say that they will increase their monthly payments.

uSwitch predicted in February that prices could double again by the end of the decade which would make energy prices unaffordable for millions of UK households.

Ms Robinson added: “The important thing for households is to try to keep a lid on energy costs. There are two simple ways to do this – use less energy by making our homes more energy efficient, perhaps by taking advantage of the Green Deal, and paying less for the energy we do use by switching to the most competitive tariff for our needs.”

myfinances.co.uk

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Her spokesman, Lord Bell, said on Monday: “It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning.

“A further statement will be made later.”

Downing Street announced that she would receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul’s Cathedral.

David Cameron, who is cutting short his trip to Europe to return to London following the news, said: “It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.”

He told the BBC: “As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.”

Buckingham Palace said the Queen was sad to hear the news and that she would be sending a private message of sympathy to the family.

The first woman elected to lead a major western state, Lady Thatcher, as she became after the longest premiership since 1827, served 11 unbroken years at No 10. She was only overthrown by an internal Tory party coup in 1990 after her reckless promotion of the poll tax led to rioting in Trafalgar Square.

Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher, who was 87, had been in declining health for some years, suffering from dementia. The death of Sir Denis Thatcher, her husband of 50 years and closest confidante, intensified her isolation in what had proved a frustrating retirement, despite energetic worldwide activity in the early years.

After a series of mini-strokes in 2002 Thatcher withdrew from public life, no longer able to make the kind of waspish pronouncements that had been her forte in office – and beyond.

Her death was greeted with tributes from across the political spectrum.

As Labour sources announced the party would suspend campaigning in the local election as a mark of respect, its leader, Ed Miliband, said: “She will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain’s first woman prime minister. She moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage.

“The Labour party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.”

The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the defining figures in modern British politics.

“Whatever side of the political debate you stand on, no one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served. She may have divided opinion during her time in politics but everyone will be united today in acknowledging the strength of her personality and the radicalism of her politics.”

The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, said: “Watching her set out to change Britain for the better in 1979 made me believe there was, at last, real purpose and real leadership in politics once again. She bestrode the political world like a colossus.”

The former prime minister Tony Blair said: “Margaret Thatcher was a towering political figure. Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast. And some of the changes she made in Britain were, in certain respects at least, retained by the 1997 Labour government, and came to be implemented by governments around the world.”

Blair’s successor as prime minister, Gordon Brown, said: “She will be remembered not only for being Britain’s first female prime minister and holding the office for 11 years, but also for the determination and resilience with which she carried out all her duties throughout her public life. Even those who disagreed with her never doubted the strength of her convictions and her unwavering belief in Britain’s destiny in the world.”

Describing her as a political phenomenon, the former prime minister Sir John Major said: “Her outstanding characteristics will always be remembered by those who worked closely with her: courage and determination in politics, and humanity and generosity of spirit in private.”

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “Her memory will live long after the world has forgotten the grey suits of today’s politics.”

The “Iron Lady” proved a significant cold war ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final showdown with the Soviet Union, which broke up under reformist pressures led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a Kremlin leader with whom Thatcher famously declared she could “do business”.

As a result, many ordinary voters in ex-Soviet bloc states saw her as a bold champion of their liberty, a view widely shared across the spectrum of mainstream US opinion – though not at home or among key EU partners.

Thatcher was an unremarkable mid-ranking Conservative politician – known chiefly for being a “milk-snatching” education secretary under Edward Heath (1970-74) – until she unexpectedly overthrew her twice-defeated boss to become party leader in 1975.

Within a decade Thatcher had become known around the world – both admired and detested – for her pro-market domestic reforms and her implacable attitudes in foreign policy, including her long-running battle with the IRA, which almost managed to murder her when it placed a bomb in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in 1984.

At home the emerging doctrine of Thatcherism meant denationalisation of state-owned industry – the new word “privatisation” came into widespread use in many countries – and defeat of militant trade unionists, notably the National Union of Miners, whose year-long strike (1984-85) was bitter and traumatic.

Boosted by the newly arrived revenues from Britain’s North Sea oil fields, Thatcher had room to manoeuvre and reform the ageing industrial economy in ways denied to postwar predecessors, and she used the opportunity to quell her enemies – including moderate “wets” in her own party and cabinet.

But she also deployed her notorious “handbaggings” in the European Union to obtain a British rebate – “my money” as she called it. She was less successful in fending off the centralising ambitions of the “Belgian empire”, her description of the European commission, especially in the years when it was headed by the French socialist Jacques Delors.

A further sign of her losing her grip came when Thatcher, long a sympathiser with the apartheid regime in South Africa against the liberation movement, dismissed Nelson Mandela as a terrorist.

Her allies in the tabloid press, notably Rupert Murdoch’s Sun, egged her on. And, as the British economy recovered from the severe recession that her monetarist medicine had inflicted on it – to tame the unions and cure inflation – she briefly seemed invincible.

But untrammelled power, with the defeat or retirement of allies who had kept her in check, led to mistakes and growing unpopularity. When Sir Geoffrey Howe, nominally her deputy, finally fell out with Thatcher – chiefly over Europe – his devastating resignation speech triggered Michael Heseltine’s leadership challenge.

It had been expected since he resigned as defence secretary over the Westland helicopter affair in 1986, Thatcher’s closest previous brush with political death.

Heseltine denied her outright victory in the first round of voting – then confined only to MPs – and she made way for John Major rather than risk losing to him in the second ballot.

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In retirement she wrote highly successful memoirs in two volumes and campaigned energetically on behalf of the Thatcher Foundation, which sought to promote her values – free markets and Anglo-Saxon liberties – around the world. Speaking engagements made her moderately wealthy and she made her final home in London’s Belgravia.

guardian.co.uk

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Cisco will hand over cash and “retention-based incentives” to persuade key staff at the Brit biz to stay on. The deal should be done and dusted by September, putting Cisco into the vanguard of mobile infrastructure deployments and another US-owned UK innovator looking for a foothold in the industry.

The last one was Picochip, which was based in Bath and not a million miles from the Ubiquisys headquarters. Picochip designed processors for femtocells, which are low-power phone masts that extend mobile network coverage into homes and offices. Picochip was bought by Californian outfit Mindspeed Technologies 15 months ago for $52m.

While Picochip focusses on the silicon, Ubiquisys makes complete devices and thus competes against Mindspeed’s networking gear. Both British businesses offer entry to a field critical to the future of mobile networks.

Cisco

Femtocells, as they were initially known, are self-configuring boxes designed to be mailed out to customers lacking mobile network coverage. Once switched on, and plugged into a broadband connection, the femtocell finds a licensed frequency that is empty and backhauls voice calls and mobile data over the public internet. When launched they were expected to revolutionise portable communications and make Wi-Fi redundant.

But that didn’t happen because the little boxes weren’t cheap enough and being locked to one licensed operator was a problem for users. Other than a few launches, such as Vodafone’s Sure Signal, the industry lost interest. But the technology designed for femtocells can be used in bigger base stations, which is where things got really interesting.

The Femtocell Forum, a non-profit formed to promote the tiny cellular gear, rapidly rebranded itself as The Small Cell Forum. Its members, including Ubiquisys, now punt out self-configuring cells to network operators all over the world. The number of base stations providing phone connectivity could soar if these small cells are used: most of them just need CAT5 cabling and sometimes power-over-Ethernet to keep the logistics really simple; there’s no need to map out the reception as the coverage radius per cell is small and the effects of buildings and pavements minimal; and the need for skilled engineers to install the kit is dramatic reduced.

It’s not hard to imagine that the business is exploding.

The supply of network infrastructure has always been limited to a handful of players. Operators usually just pick one or two suppliers from Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson, Alcatel Lucent and Huawei – all of which together own about a third of the global market. Getting onto that list of suppliers is really tough, which is why small cells are of such interest to Cisco, which dominates in so many other areas of data networking.

Cisco has already invested in UK small-cell biz IP.Access, which boasted last month that its tech has been deployed in a million homes. Cisco’s announcement of the Ubiquisys acquisition talks of “doubling down on its small cell business to accelerate strong momentum and growth in the mobility market”, and taking advantage of the intelligence built into the Ubiquisys platform.

The network titan wants to muscle into the world of mobile infrastructure and buying Ubiquisys is another way of integrating phone network technology into an existing hardware portfolio – the idea being to turn cellular coverage into just another tick box on a product sheet.

theregister.co.uk

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The US-owned firm plans to spend £40m on the expansion drive. It will also spend a further £40m on a makeover of 160 existing eateries to “create a more modern, welcoming environment for customers”. The expansion drive will be co-funded by franchisees.

This year’s openings will boost its total number of UK and Ireland restaurants to nearly 900. The group says it could eventually have a total of 1,200 in the two countries.

KFC

KFC, which employs about 24,000 people, has been adding at least 30 new restaurants in the UK a year and says it has seen seven years of same-store sales growth in a row.

Low-cost fast food restaurants have been prospering, despite the economic slowdown. McDonalds has reported improving sales in the UK and Domino’s pizza delivery service recently reported a 10% improvement in annual profits despite sales growth slowing due to January store closures caused by bad weather.

KFC UK, which is a subsidiary of Pizza Hut parent company Yum! Brands, came to Britain in 1965. The first store opened in Preston, Lancashire.

The brand was founded in the US by Colonel Harland Sanders in the 1950s.

guardian.co.uk

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The Fuel uses a microUSB charger, which is standard on all smartphones except the iPhone. An Apple-compatible version is however planned for the future.

Devotec is aiming to raise $20,000, and after launching last week are already approaching $18,000. The device would sell for around $25, and the makers claim it would be “Perfect for when you have had an unexpected delay, or haven’t been able to fully charge your phone, and you need to make a few calls, send a work email or use your GPS and maps function to find your way home.”

Fuel Micro Charger

The charger, made from lacquered aluminium, measures 1.3 by 0.9 by 0.5 inches, and is able to keep its charge for up to three months. It is recharged by microUSB and also features lights to display its charging status.

Devotec is best known for its solar-powered Bluetooth speakers and solar chargers. Although Kickstarter is increasingly being used to garner publicity for projects from major businesses, Devotec claims “We need to buy the aluminium toolings, pay for the first production run, and pay for all the certification like CE, RoHS, and WEEE.” Early backers will be offered a substantial discount.

telegraph.co.uk

The acquisition, confirmed to the BBC by Apple, could allow the company to offer maps within buildings with an accuracy of 8ft (2.5m).

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Rival Google has stepped up its efforts to add indoor locations to its already huge Street View product.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple paid $20m (£13m) for Wifislam.

In a statement, the iPad-maker batted away speculation about its plans, saying: “Apple invests in smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans.”

WifiSlam

Pinpointing

Indoor coverage is seen as the next battleground for mapping technology.

Google, which leads the pack, has invested time and money in accepting more than 10,000 floor plans from businesses who want to be featured.

Its service also draws data from nearby wifi hotspots and signal towers to pinpoint location in a way which is more accurate than satellite positioning.

According to its website, Wifislam’s technology works by using smartphones to “pinpoint its location (and the location of your friends) in real-time to 2.5m accuracy using only ambient WiFi signals that are already present in buildings”.

Elsewhere in the market, Microsoft’s Bing maps has acquired up to 3,000 indoor locations, while Nokia’s Destination Maps product has more than 4,000 locations in 38 countries.

Apple’s map product was strongly criticised by much of the technology community when it launched last year, forcing chief executive Tim Cook to apologise to users.

Complaints centred on missing or moved locations as well as confusing, irrelevant search results.

In his apology, Mr Cook said: “With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment.

“We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.”

bbc.co.uk

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The BBC Weather, Arabic and Radio Ulster feeds were taken over by the group, calling itself Syrian Electronic Army, on Thursday afternoon.

The tweets included fake statements about the weather conditions in Middle Eastern countries and messages in support of Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad. One of the tweets appeared to have an anti-semitic intent.

The BBC said that it now has control of all three accounts and all inappropriate content has been deleted. BBC staff were alerted to a “phishing” email that had been sent to some BBC email accounts. It was not clear if the two incidents were related.

A BBC spokeswoman said: “We apologise to our audiences that this unacceptable material appeared under the BBC’s name.”

Bizarre posts began to appear on the BBC weather Twitter feed, which has 60,000 followers.

BBC Twitter accounts hacked

The first tweet after the hack stated: “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here via @Official_SEA #SEA #Syria.” The next said: “Long Live #Syria Al-Assad #SEA.”

The comments included: “Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with camel.”

Another read: “Chaotic weather forecast for Lebanon as the government decides to distance itself from the Milky Way.”

One tweet advised residents in the Israeli city of Haifa to “return to Poland” to avoid a tsunami.

Chris Hamilton, BBC News social media editor, tweeted: “Account has been hacked, so we don’t control it. Working to fix it asap.”

The BBC Radio Ulster and ArabicOnline feed were also affected.

Faris Couri, BBC Arabic’s editor-in-chief said in a statement: “Today at around 11.00GMT, BBC Arabic’s twitter account @BBCArabicOnline was hacked. Since then, several pro-Assad news tweets were published by the account. We strongly condemn such action and apologise to our audiences.”

The BBC is expected to launch a full investigation into the breach of security, which is the latest in a series of high-profile hacks, following the hijacking of the official Burger King and Chrysler Twitter accounts last month.

Prof Alan Woodward, from the department of computing at the University of Surrey, told the BBC. “The BBC is an obvious place to attack as it a trusted brand and so anyone who wishes to broadcast a message can reach an audience that are likely to pay attention.

“The most likely source of the hack is via social engineering – someone managing to elicit the password by fooling the user who keeps the password.”

bbc.co.uk

The jobless total jumped by 7,000 to 2.52 million, ending a run of reductions, with all the increase caused by more 18 to 24-year-olds becoming unemployed.

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The total is still 152,000 lower than a year ago, while the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance fell in February by 1,500 to 1.54 million, the fourth consecutive monthly reduction.

There were 993,000 jobless 16 to 24-year-olds in the latest quarter to January, up by 48,000 from the three months to October, but the rise among 18 to 24-year-olds was 53,000.

The number of unemployed women increased by 5,000, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics showed.

UK unemployment

Other figures revealed that public sector employment fell for the 13th consecutive quarter, by 20,000 to 5.7 million, the lowest for over a decade.

Local government employment fell by 32,000 and civil service jobs by 4,000, but the figure increased by 11,000 in central government.

Employment in private companies increased by 151,000 to 24 million.

The number of people out of work for between six and 12 months increased by 5,000 to 447,000, but fell by 16,000 for those unemployed for over a year to 887,000.

There were 29.7 million people in work, up by 590,000 on a year ago.

There were 8.9 million people classed as economically inactive, including those looking after a relative or who had given up looking for a job, a fall of 118,000.

Total pay rose by 1.2 per cent in the year to January, down by 0.1 per cent on the previous month and less than half the rate of inflation.

The unemployment rate remained at 7.8 per cent, compared with 8.3 per cent a year ago.

Employment Minister Mark Hoban said: “It’s a credit to businesses that the private sector is employing one and a quarter million more people than when this Government took office, helping us compete in the global race.

“Today’s figures show that, against a difficult economic backdrop, we’re helping people to move off benefits and into work.

“There are still tough challenges ahead which is why we’re working hard to give jobseekers all the help and support they need to realise their aspiration of finding a job.”

The Government said today’s figures showed there were more people working in the private sector than at any time since records began, after a 700,000 increase over the last year.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of the Unison union, said: “This time five years ago there were one million fewer unemployed people in the UK. The Government has failed every single one of these people – and it has failed our country.

“Every redundancy is a personal tragedy and brings with it hardship for the whole family, and the story behind each job lost in the public sector is one of libraries closing, day care centres shutting, fewer nurses on the wards or young people losing vital careers advice and help.

“Instead of the bedroom tax or cutting child benefit, the Government could dramatically reduce the welfare bill by getting people back to work. It must start by stemming the tide of public sector job losses that are so damaging to our country.”

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: “That there is still mass unemployment, in the sixth year of recession, shows that the Government is following the wrong economic policy.

“The political stagnation in the Coalition is such that, while the OBR said that public spending cuts would deflate GDP by 2.7%, no-one seriously expects a U-turn in today’s Budget.

“Vince Cable huffs and puffs but that is about it. The young people are the ones paying the highest price for this madness.”

Martina Milburn, chief executive of The Prince’s Trust charity, said: “Youth unemployment is now back on the rise, and urgent action is needed before thousands more young people find themselves out of work.

“With help from the Government and employers, we now plan to increase our support to give hope to struggling young people across the UK.”

PA

independent.co.uk