China’s President Hu Jintao has warned of the effects of the global financial crisis on his country. Mr Hu gave his warning at a meeting of the Politburo and his words have been made public by the state media. As growth slows, Mr Hu said that in the coming period China would starkly confront the [...]
Doctors will decide on Tuesday whether to operate and separate a pair of newly-born conjoined twins. Laura Williams, 18, from Shrewsbury, Shropshire, gave birth to the girls, named Faith and Hope, at University College Hospital, London on Wednesday. They are joined from their breastbone to their navel, so share a liver but have separate hearts. [...]
US stores have opened early and offered steep discounts to encourage consumers to part with their cash as the Christmas shopping season kicks off. Crowds of shoppers turned up at dawn to snare the best deals. A worker died and at least three people were injured after being trampled by a crowd of shoppers at [...]
European telecoms chiefs have backed plans to make it cheaper to access data while on a mobile phone abroad. The measures will slash the cost of sending a text while abroad and reform the way phone operators charge for data calls made when customers roam. The changes to charges are due to come in to [...]
Britney Spears has performed at an awards ceremony in Germany, where she was named best international pop star. The 26-year-old wore hot pants, fishnet tights and a black top hat as she took to the stage with new single Womanizer. She then collected her Bambi award from designer Karl Lagerfeld, who said she had come [...]
The U.S. government will need a variety of programs to deal with troubled credit markets and is open to feedback from the incoming Obama administration in developing them, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Wednesday. "There’s going to be a number of things we need to do. We’re going to have to have targeted [...]
Indian commandos battled to regain control of buildings and hotels in the commercial capital of Mumbai on Thursday after attacks by armed militants blamed by the prime minister on a "terrorist" group outside the country. "The situation is still not under control and we are trying to flush out any more terrorists hiding inside the [...]
An Apple iPhone advert has been banned by the advertising standards watchdog for exaggerating the phone’s speed. The advert boasted the new 3G model was "really fast" and showed it loading internet pages in under a second. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld complaints by 17 people who said the TV advert had misled them [...]
The future of NHS care does not lie in bricks-and-mortar hospitals, according to policy expert Nick Bosanquet. In this week’s Scrubbing Up Professor Bosanquet, a director of the centre-right think-tank Reform – predicts we could one day be texting in test results day and night to doctors who could give an instant verdict. The NHS [...]
Investors picking stock market winners and losers during hard economic times will find the ability to win orders during a global downturn more critical than how much companies profit from falling input costs. Analysts say that food and some cement shares are set to outperform, while oil-intensive sectors like chemicals slide despite crude falling to [...]
US singer Britney Spears is to play two concerts at the O2 arena in London next June – the only European shows on her forthcoming world tour. Tickets for the dates on 3 and 4 June will go on general sale on 5 December – although fans who register with her website can buy them [...]
Want to optimize your looks without radically altering them? An Israeli team of computer scientists may have the answer. They have developed a computer software model based on the innate preferences that studies show we have for human faces. "This technology could become a product where for example there’s a web service where people upload [...]