Archive for February 2017

City news: Greggs, Meggitt, BT, Dyson

Add Comment
City news: Greggs, Meggitt, BT, Dyson


GREGGS served up a 10 per cent rise in annual profit to £80.3million as customers showed a growing appetite for breakfast meal deals and healthier food options.

Source: Daily Express :: Finance Feed http://ift.tt/2lwg6ky

Taylor Wimpey sales jump 18%

Add Comment
Taylor Wimpey sales jump 18%


TAYLOR Wimpey has started the year on a strong footing as would-be buyers encouraged by cheap mortgage deals, low interest rates and the Government’s Help to Buy scheme snap up homes at an increasing rate.

Source: Daily Express :: Finance Feed http://ift.tt/2mqh99F

Battling traders spell out the deadly cost of business rates hike

Add Comment
Battling traders spell out the deadly cost of business rates hike


SMALL firms facing colossal hikes in their rates together with business groups are predicting a bleak future for the independence and individuality of England’s high streets unless radical action is taken to reduce the burden.

Source: Daily Express :: Finance Feed http://ift.tt/2lTBKQI

An innovative cure for broken water pumps in Africa

Add Comment
An innovative cure for broken water pumps in Africa

IN THE mid-2000s Playpumps International, a charity, hit on a photogenic way of providing clean water to rural African villages: a pump powered by children playing on a merry-go-round. International donors and celebrities pledged more than $16m. But the system was more expensive than alternatives and needed so much “playing” it was effectively dependent on child labour. It became a byword for wasteful Western aid, but it is far from the only example.

At any time around a third of the water infrastructure in rural sub-Saharan Africa, from simple hand pumps to pricey solar-powered systems, is broken. Even after spending billions of dollars most international donors still cannot ensure the pumps they pay for are maintained (just 5% of rural sub-Saharan Africa has access to piped water). Many of the village committees responsible for collecting the fees that should cover repairs are dogged by nepotism and corruption. More often, though, villagers simply struggle to gather money, find a mechanic and source spare parts, says Johanna Koehler of Oxford University. Kerr Lien, a village in central Gambia, reverted to using a manual well for nine years...Continue reading

Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2m9IsEW

Israel’s justice minister imposes four new Supreme Court justices

Add Comment
Israel’s justice minister imposes four new Supreme Court justices

WITH the parliamentary opposition in Israel hopelessly splintered, demoralised and without an agreed leader, it has fallen mainly to Israel’s fiercely independent Supreme Court and its combative media to hold the government of Binyamin Netanyahu to account. No wonder both institutions have been in its crosshairs for years. With four justices reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 this year, it has had a rare opportunity to influence the court’s make-up.

On February 22nd the justice minister, Ayelet Shaked (pictured), took full advantage of this opportunity. A former aide of Mr Netanyahu and now one of the leaders of the right-wing Jewish Home party, she has been spearheading the campaign for a more conservative Supreme Court. The Judicial Appointments Committee, which she chairs, approved the four new Supreme Court justices. Two of them are religious Orthodox Jews (one of whom lives in a West Bank settlement); another has close ties with right-wing politicians; and the fourth, a Christian who fills the court’s Arab seat, is known for usually siding with the state prosecution.

The appointments came after months of deadlock...Continue reading

Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2kV6m7i

Donald Trump’s military budget plan is less impressive than he claims

Add Comment
Donald Trump’s military budget plan is less impressive than he claims

THE budget proposal that Donald Trump will send to Congress, proposing to boost the Pentagon’s spending by $54bn next year, is less transformative than the president appears to believe. As Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate armed services committee, swiftly pointed out, the 10% increase is only $19bn more than that forecast by the outgoing Obama administration (out of a total annual spend of close to $600bn).

Mr Trump’s conviction that this will ensure America wins its future wars, in contrast to the unsatisfactory outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan, suggests a limited understanding of those conflicts. Few would argue that a lack of aircraft and ships were the problem. Moreover, in seeking ways to pay for a 350-ship navy, additional fighter planes and more troops for both the army and the marines, Mr Trump wants to slash spending on soft power. Cuts to the State Department’s budget and foreign-aid programmes would probably reduce America’s influence in the world and undermine attempts to make the world stable. The defence secretary, Jim Mattis, while giving testimony to Congress in 2013, warned: “If you don’t fund the State...Continue reading

Source: United States http://ift.tt/2m9ndTw

America’s Supreme Court hints it may keep a closer eye on the executive branch

Add Comment
America’s Supreme Court hints it may keep a closer eye on the executive branch

ON FEBRUARY 27th, in the midst of a fresh crack-down on undocumented migrants and a pending revision of the president’s travel ban, the Supreme Court heard an immigration case with potentially wide-ranging implications. Esquivel-Quintana v Jefferson Sessions is the first Supreme Court case naming Donald Trump’s new attorney general as a party—though it concerns a matter that took place well before he joined the cabinet. Depending on how the justices rule, immigration authorities may soon either enjoy a freer hand to deport non-citizens or find themselves judicially constrained in these efforts.

Juan Esquivel-Quintana arrived in America from Mexico with his parents at the age of 12 and became a lawful permanent resident. In 2009, Mr Esquivel-Quintana served 90 days in jail and five years on probation for statutory rape. He was found to have violated California’s penal code by having sex, at the age of 20, with his 16-year-old girlfriend. (The law criminalises sexual relations between an adult and “a minor who is more than three years younger than the perpetrator”.) Later, after moving from California to Michigan, Mr Esquivel-Quintana became subject to...Continue reading

Source: United States http://ift.tt/2m3QJJR

100 years old and still collecting wicked women

Add Comment
100 years old and still collecting wicked women


DISTRAUGHT at the idea of calling a vicious storm “Doris”, our loyal correspondent Lady Clamydia Featherlight-Plume rang me last week to register her disapproval and “To kill two birds with one stone,” as she put it, to suggest a remedy.

Source: Daily Express :: Comment Feed http://ift.tt/2lsC5sI
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)