As well as trying to come up with growth-enhancing measures, British treasury chief George Osborne will be under pressure to plug a hole in the public finances after an auction of the next generation of mobile phone licenses reaped less than anticipated.

NPR: BoE Governor Backed More Stimulus For UK Economy

This past summer, Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG, the two largest European banks to continue doing business with Iran despite recent U.S. pressure, agreed to follow other foreign banks and pull the plug on Tehran.

FORBES: Magazine Article

And following the intersection of the well bore with those relief wells, they will put heavy mud down there to suppress the pressure of the oil coming up from the reservoir, put a cement plug in and effectively do what I would call a bottom kill, as opposed to the top kill, which was not successful a couple of weeks ago.

WHITEHOUSE: Daily Press Briefing

Given the two red flags that had been thrown up previously, one would have expected that as a precaution a cement plug would have been placed somewhere in the wellbore as a secondary pressure seal before this primary pressure control system (heavy mud) was evacuated from the wellbore.

WSJ: The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure