EY Item Club: UK economic growth to accelerate to fastest rate in seven years in 2015 January 19, 2015 Economic growth in the UK could reach its fastest rate since 2008 this year, driven by falling oil prices and delayed interest rate rises. The prediction was made by the EY Item Club, which has increased its forecast for UK growth in 2015 from 2.5 per cent to 2.9 per cent. With growth [...]
Christmas wasn’t so bad for Thorntons after all, with retail sales up in the second quarter January 19, 2015 The figures Shares in chocolate retailer Thorntons opened almost two per cent higher after it posted figures showing like-for-like retail sales went up by five per cent in the second quarter of 2014 – a turnaround from the 3.7 per cent decline in its first quarter. In the 14 weeks to 10 January, the [...]
German DAX index hits new all time high January 16, 2015 The German DAX index hit a record high of 10,068 points at 3pm today – 35.6 points higher since yesterday's close. The rise indicates that investors are still confident about Germany's stock, despite yesterday's surprise announcement by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) that it was removing the currency cap on the Swiss franc. Market analyst Michael Hewson [...]
Beagle 2 on Mars: Five things you should know about the mission everyone thought had failed January 16, 2015 WHAT IS BEAGLE 2? Beagle2 is a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that was sent to Mars on Christmas Day 11 years ago. The purpose of the UK-led project was to search for signs of life on the red planet, but a lack of communication from the space craft led researchers to believe that [...]
The lion, the wallabies and the scorpion: Some of the strangest animals to have roamed the streets (and motorways) of London January 16, 2015 In the US, deer have been giving up woodland life for urban environments at an unprecedented rate. In fact, the number of deer moving to New York has increased by an estimated 3,304 per cent in the last six years. Why are they going there? No one really knows, but they are turning [...]
Terror threat in Europe: Belgium put on high alert following deaths of two Islamic extremists January 16, 2015 Belgium has raised its terror threat level to three – the second highest – after two suspected Islamic extremists were killed in an anti-terror raid yesterday evening. The men were shot dead in the eastern town of Viviers when they opened fire on police with automatic weapons. According to officials, they had recently returned [...]
Ebola in the UK: Suspected case in Edinburgh while Australian woman airlifted to UK January 16, 2015 A woman in Edinburgh is being tested for Ebola, having recently returned from west Africa. After developing a fever on Thursday, she was admitted to the Western General Hospital in the Scottish capital and is now being kept there in an isolation unit. Melanie Johnson, Director of Unscheduled Care at NHS Lothian, said: [...]
Three quarters of UK’s small and medium sized businesses grew or stayed the same last year January 15, 2015 Last year was a good year for most small and medium sized businesses in the UK, with 75 per cent of them either maintaining or improving their turnover compared to 2013. Broken down, 41 per cent of British small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) experienced an increase in turnover during the 12 month period, [...]
Charlie Hebdo: 19,000 French websites hit by cyberattacks after Paris shooting January 15, 2015 19,000 French websites have been hit by cyberattacks since the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, according to the country's cyberdefense chief. Arnaud Coustilliere told reporters there had been an unprecedented increase and that many of the attacks were carried out by "more or less structured" groups, including some established Islamic hacker groups. [...]
David Cameron wants Twitter and Facebook to help intelligence agencies track down dangerous people January 15, 2015 Later today, Prime Minister David Cameron will try to persuade US President Barack Obama of the need for more cooperation between intelligence agencies and US tech firms like Twitter and Facebook. He will say that public safety is at stake, and that new laws regarding communication via social media platforms should be imposed [...]
