Новости за 25.09.2015

The Hajj stampede disaster has put further strains on the ruling al-Saud family. As it attempts to contain the fallout by ordering an immediate investigation and promising quick results, evidence is mounting that – despite efforts to blame crowd indiscipline – it is the authorities who are most at fault.

Grace Dent was content with our current earthly set up, where dead meant definitely dead and the only alternative to this could be seen in fictional dramas like Walking Dead Season 5

Politics, as we have seen over the past year or so, is full of surprises. No one thought that the Scottish referendum would come so close to breaking up the United Kingdom. Few thought that the Conservatives would win the general election with an overall majority (albeit a slim one). And the biggest surprise of all is the still new, still bearded leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

As as I have the concentration levels of a toddler following a Haribo lunch, I don't read a lot. Aside from the odd page or two while I am at my morning ablutions, I tend to leave any actual reading for the hours when I have to do it – namely, when I am here on level 42 of the Independent Spike (similar to the Shard but with a polished, needle-sharp tip).

Q. I had to pay a £7.20 administration fee to make a VAT payment of £6.80. Am I unreasonable to think this is outrageous?

Households with a poor credit rating can pay hundreds of pounds more each year for loans and utilities than people with healthy scores.

Is there a problem with them?

We're turning our backs on the big six energy giants and moving to a new breed of cheaper suppliers. New data from Cornwall Energy shows that independent providers now hold 13.4 per cent of the market - a 50 per cent rise from 9 per cent last year.

Railcards can save passengers a third on their train fares and from next April they'll become even easier to use. The Association of Train Operating Companies is planning a digital Railcard that will allow for quicker applications, with no need to queue at a station ticket office or to wait for a card in the post. Once downloaded, the app will be available offline to show to rail staff, meaning no more frustration because you've left your card behind. Don't wait until April to get a money-saving Railcard. Читать дальше...

The summertime stock market retreat has knocked the No Pain, No Gain portfolio from its all-time peak. With the FTSE 100 falling around 700 points since my earlier review, some suffering was inevitable. But the latest valuation of £148,000 – although down from the high above £150,000 – is a reasonable performance considering the multitude of vicissitudes that have hit investors.

At Hargreaves Lansdown our research team meets hundreds of fund managers, and this puts us in a privileged position for gaining valuable insights. Most recently, Rory Powe visited our offices to discuss the fund he took over last year: Man GLG Continental European Growth. He will be unknown to some, but many other readers will know his name well.

This weekend, dozens of women will compete for the Miss Transgender UK crown.

Teaser rates are simply a way to trick us into buying the wrong financial product. I've written that line before but here's some proof. When the consumer group Which? asked people about 0 per cent balance-transfer credit cards, seven out of 10 wrongly thought the transfer was completely free, even though they were shown that there is a fee.

Your complaints about Scottish Power continue to pour in. That's no real surprise to me, but among the emails I did get a surprise. I received the following from Andy Morley. He wrote: “There are always two sides to a story. Unfortunately you only appear to report one.”

"But if I had to guess why Etonians do so well, it’s because the whole school is a sort of dress rehearsal for real life — or the sort of life Etonians can expect to lead".

It doesn't look like a great time financially to be a young adult. Citizens Advice warned this week that today's 17 to 24-year-olds face becoming a generation mired in problem debt. Anecdotally, I've heard tales of young people slipping into money problems after being handed easy credit – but the charity's report, “Unsecured and insecure?”, provided more evidence.

How can we sell marriage? It desperately needs rebranding. The Pope has been visiting the US and extolling the virtues of family life within matrimony, but even his Holiness can’t stop the rot in the UK. Marriage has never been less fashionable here. It’s increasingly seen as an option, not a necessity for heterosexual couples, and that has profound implications for the next generation.

After Labour’s bruising general election defeat in May, the party set up a “task force” to learn the painful lessons from its loss. “Now is not the time to paper over the cracks,” declared Harriet Harman, the then acting leader.

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Nothing beats a biblical admonishment. “Judge not, that ye be not judged”, the Gospel according to St Matthew. “The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge”, Proverbs. “For we are but of yesterday and know nothing”, the Book of Job. “You need to shut the fuck up”, Penn and Teller.

It is certainly a challenging time for UK investors. Just a few weeks after billions of pounds were wiped off the value of shares on “Black Monday”, caused by panic selling in markets across Asia, they are enduring further waves of turbulence.

This week, Arash Aria marched into a city centre police station, threw his bicycle on to the floor and demanded to be deported. Born in Iran, Aria claimed to have been living illegally in the country for a decade and asked to be returned to his homeland because he had “had enough of Manchester”.

Over a century ago a woman named Margaret Travers Symons, a secretary for a Member of Parliament, became the first women to speak from the dispatch box in the House of Commons. She wasn’t invited in.

As anyone who has seen David Fincher’s 1999 film will know, the first rule of Fight Club is that “you do not talk about Fight Club”. To emphasis its importance, this was also its second, but in modern Scottish politics the reverse is true: the first rule of the post-referendum era is that you do talk about the referendum.

The best time of day for having sex with your partner depends on how old you are, according to a sleep and body expert.

This week was a significant one for progress in the arts. At the Emmys in Los Angeles, a black actress finally won the outstanding lead actress in a drama award —  for the first time since the category was created in 1952. And in her powerful acceptance speech, Viola Davis, star of How to Get Away with Murder, said: “The only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”