United Kingdom

    The Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain was praised by the viewers of The Chronicles of Nadiya for her beautiful explanation of her religious garment, after returning to Bangladesh for the first time in a decade. Mrs. Hussain has opened up about why she wears a hijab in the opening episode of her new BBC One series. While shopping for an outfit for a Bangladeshi "hen party", the 31-year-old told fans: "I have been wearing my hijab since I was 14, so 17 years now. "It's not specifically because I came from a religious family, in fact I came from quite the opposite, it was something I found myself." Nadiya continued: "It's a sign of being a muslim and practising Islam. A sign of modesty. Hair is seen as something beautiful, you preserve that for specific people. The...

    NHS services in England are facing radical cuts as administrators seek to plug a £22bn funding shortfall. NHS England has divided the country into 44 areas and asked each to submit a cost-cutting sustainability and transformation plan (STP). Measures taken to reduce the deficit could include the closure of some accident and emergency departments, the merger of neighbouring hospitals and a reduction in face-to-face consultations, according to an investigation by The Guardian and campaign group 38 Degrees. The NHS would need to make the savings by 2020-21 in order to meet the targets set by former Chancellor George Osborne and the chief executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens. Laura Townshend, director of 38 Degrees, commented: These proposed cuts aren't the fault of local N...

    The British siblings said they were interrogated on the tarmac at a London airport after a passenger saw Arabic text on their phones. Sakina Dharas, a Muslim woman in the UK, claimed that she, along with her brother and sister, were kicked off a plane in London and interrogated by armed officials on the tarmac, after a passenger accused them of being ISIS members. In a Facebook post on Monday detailing the incident, Dharas, who is a pharmacist in London, said that the siblings were on their way to Europe for a holiday when they were hauled off their flight and interrogated for an hour after a passenger saw Arabic or “Praise be to Allah” on their phones and claimed they were members of ISIS. Dharas, 24, told Al Jazeera that she, her sister Maryam, 19, and their brother Ali,...

    Much has been made of the Brexit vote, with both Remain and Leave supporters jumping on resultant business dealings as a sign of things to come. James Moore provides his analysis Two months on from Britain’s EU referendum and economists are still assessing the damage from what has variously been described as an act of self harm a tragic split and the most stupid idea of the century. The initial panic that saw property funds shutting down and businesses wondering whether they’d have to shut up shop, is over. But it has become very clear that a decision of breathtaking recklessness and stupidity has cost UK companies billions if not trillions of pounds. And the price will continue to be paid for years to come. Here, then, is an overview of what we know so far and what we can...

    Jeremy Corbyn's team has insisted the Labour leader could not find an unreserved seat when he got on a train - amid a row with Virgin Trains. The rail company took issue with Mr Corbyn after he complained in a video he had to sit on the floor because of completely ram-packed carriages on a service between London and Newcastle. The politician was travelling on the three-hour Virgin Trains service on 11 August for a leadership hustings in Gateshead. A video then emerged which showed him sitting on the floor, reading a newspaper, and saying "this is a problem that many passengers face every day", before calling for public ownership of the railways. But Virgin Trains has released CCTV images which appear to show him and his team walking past several empty unreserved seats in c...

    Investors pulled £5.7 billion out of UK-based stock market funds, preferring to put their cash into safe havens due to concerns over Britain’s vote to leave the EU. Figures from data company Morningstar showed worries over the referendum results prompted investors to withdraw £5.7 billion from UK equity funds last month, while property funds suffered from a further outflow of £438 million. Investors had already pulled more than £3 billion out of all UK funds in June. Brexit: Three more property funds forced to suspend withdrawals The total outflow from UK-domiciled funds was nearly £5 billion, the heaviest level of redemption in three years. Some of the money might have been redeployed into assets seen less risky such as government bonds. By contrast, investors returned to...

    As Royal Bank of Scotland started charging some clients to hold their cash, its chairman has questioned the effectiveness of ultra-low interest rates and called for a rethink of monetary policy. From Monday, RBS will charge interest to about 70 customers, such as banks and pension funds, on the cash they place with the state-controlled bank as collateral for trading complex financial products. It is the first time a bank has imposed charges for sterling holdings since the BoE halved interest rates to a new record low of 0.25% on 4 August and restarted its quantitative easing (QE) programme of government bond purchases. The BoE relaxed monetary policy in an effort to support the economy following the vote to leave the EU by discouraging banks from hoarding cash. RBS’s chair...

    The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has issued a dramatic call to his party’s members to dump Jeremy Corbyn, saying he has been a disastrous leader who must share a large part of the blame for Britain’s forthcoming exit from the EU. Khan, who secured the biggest win by any Labour politician against the Conservative party in more than a decade when he beat Zac Goldsmith to the mayoralty in May, throws his support behind the challenger Owen Smith, arguing that Labour faces all-but-certain defeat at the next general election without a change at the top. The brutal intervention by Khan in an article for the Observer will give a huge boost to Smith’s camp, and comes as the party prepares to send out ballot papers this week to more than half a million members who are eligibl...

    Thae Yong Ho, North Korea's deputy ambassador in London who has defected with his family, speaks on a podium in London, Britain in a still image taken on 17 August, 2016. North Korea has branded its senior diplomat who defected to South Korea as human scum, claiming he is responsible for a series of crimes. Thae Yong Ho became the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat to defect to the South, Seoul confirmed on Wednesday. North Korean State media said Mr Thae had been ordered to return home in June to be investigated for a series of crimes, including embezzling government funds, leaking confidential secrets and sexually assaulting a child. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) also denounced the British government for rejecting its demands to extradite Mr Thae back to the N...

    Unemployment is down, prices are steady, shoppers are confident and the government ran a budget surplus in July. The first economic data for July – the month following the Brexit referendum – was published this week, and shows no signs of an immediate economic collapse. It is early days and a slowdown is still expected, but the data are reassuring so far. Campaigners such as former Chancellor George Osborne warned that a vote to leave the EU would cause “a profound economic shock”, and stock markets dived following the result. But since then share prices have risen back above their pre-vote levels and fears of a recession are falling. Here are the latest figures showing the UK’s performance since the vote. Unemployment: down The number of people claiming unemployment-relat...