Although the country's Communist leader, Fidel Castro, declared his government atheist soon after his Marxist guerrillas ousted Fulgencio Batista 40 years ago, he only abolished the paid Christmas holiday in 1969, because, he said, he needed everyone to work on the sugar harvest.

Under pressure from the Pope, who visited Havana in January, President Castro finally agreed to make Christmas a permanent public holiday. Cubans, most of whom are Catholic, rushed out to buy Christmas trees, decorations ( Read more... )
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The star performers were shops selling children's and women's clothes, footwear, furniture and homewares, but grocery sales slowed again as food price inflation fell.

Like-for-like sales jumped by 3.8 per cent and total sales were up by 5.9 per cent over the month, the latest British Retail Consortium-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor found.

Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said the data was "encouraging" but it compared to "dreadful figures last year when the final three ( Read more... )
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The FBI will investigate any leads in the case against Anthony Sowell, 50, who served in the Marines from 1978 to 1985, said Scott Wilson, an FBI spokesman in Cleveland.

FBI behavioral specialists visited the Sowell property during the weekend and will try to develop a profile of the killings that could help determine whether investigations need to be opened or reopened elsewhere, Wilson said.

Sowell was stationed at various times at South Carolina; ( Read more... )
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The maker of Dairy Milk swiftly delivered its verdict after Kraft, the world's second-largest food group, made its formal cash-and-shares offer yesterday, as widely expected ahead of a 5pm "put up or shut up" deadline by the Takeover Panel.

Cadbury pointed out that the bid was about 5 per cent lower than the £10.2bn, or 745p a share, indicative offer its board rejected on 7 September, even though the terms of the offer were unchanged, because of the fall in Kraft's share price since then. ( Read more... )
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The conundrum is this. Unemployment is close to 2.5 million and will go higher. Pay rises are rare. People fear debt. The credit crunch has hardly gone away, meaning that mortgage finance, especially for first-time buyers with slim deposits, and movers with little equity, is expensive, if available at all. Mortgage approvals may be up on last year, but the new money going into the market isn't sufficient to secure rising prices. Values are steep by long-term historical standards in relation to ( Read more... )
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After initial arguments, the trial was adjourned to tomorrow by High Court Judge Muchineripi Bhunu to allow time to consider applications made by the state and defence.

Bennett, whom Tsvangirai wants to bring into the government, was arrested in February and charged with illegally possessing arms to commit acts of terrorism, banditry and insurgency, charges that carry a possible death penalty.

The state brought several cases of ammunition and rifles to be presented as evidence into ( Read more... )
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There are 19 stations across North Korea exclusively for Mr Kim's trains, which have a total of some 90 carriages, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, citing an analysis by South Korean and US intelligence authorities.

Mr Kim reportedly uses the trains when he makes inspection visits to army units and factories or travels abroad. His train travels with two others: one runs ahead to check the safety of railway lines, while the second carries security agents and follows behind. Mr Kim's ( Read more... )
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The syndicate of seven or eight staff were unaware they had won when they turned up for work at BT's Royal House centre in Wood Street this morning.

They held one of two tickets that scooped a share of Friday night's £91 million jackpot.

A company source said: "The lucky people do work in our Wood Street centre in Liverpool.

"They are employed by Hewlett Packard or by Manpower to do internal IT work, computer support.

"Some of them went ( Read more... )
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Pirates in two skiffs fired at the Hong Kong-flagged BW Lion about 1,000 miles east of the Somali coast, the European Union Naval Force said.

The tanker's captain increased speed and took evasive maneuvers, avoiding the attack, the force said. No casualties were reported. The naval force sent a plane from the Seychelles islands to investigate.

Pirates have launched increasingly bold attacks against vessels in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden in hopes of capturing a ship and crew ( Read more... )
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The defendants were the first to be put to death for their roles in the violence on 5 July, when members of the Uighur minority rampaged through the streets of Urumqi, in Xinjiang province, attacking members of the majority Han Chinese community. Two days later, mobs of Han Chinese took to the streets in revenge.

The verdicts against the nine were reviewed by the Supreme People's Court as required under Chinese law, and the sentences have been carried out. State media gave no details as ( Read more... )
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French investigators, though, take a different view. To them, he is a vulgar ? and violent ? con-artist, who has used brain-washing techniques and even torture to rob three generations of a wealthy French family.

Mr Tilly, 45, is now in custody in south-western France. He is accused of using "acts of torture and barbarism" to persuade 11 members of the aristocratic Védrines clan to hand over furniture, jewellery, paintings and property worth ?3m (£2.7m) over the last eight years.

Eight ( Read more... )
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On his Facebook page, the French President said that he had dashed to Berlin on the morning of 9 November 1989, with the future prime minister, Alain Juppé, after hearing rumours that the Wall was coming down. The page carried a picture of the young Sarkozy attacking the Wall as part of what was claimed to be a large crowd assembled on the western side.

Several other websites pointed out that rumours of the Wall's fall had only started in the evening and that no crowds assembled on the ( Read more... )
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Research seen by The Independent shows that more than 50 charity chief executives received between £100,000 and £210,000 last year. In one case, a charity paid its chief executive nearly £400,000.

Unite, the union which represents 60,000 charity workers, said too many charity bosses were paying themselves more than the Prime Minister's salary of £197,000.

Rachael Maskell, Unite's national officer for the not-for-profit sector, said: "The excessive City pay culture ( Read more... )
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Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who was shot four times during Thursday's gun battle, is now breathing unaided, and is under armed guard at a military hospital in San Antonio. His condition remains critical but stable.

"He is talking. He is conversing with the medical staff," said Maria Gellegos, a spokeswoman at the Brooke Army Medical Centre. She claimed to be "unsure" whether Hasan has yet been interviewed by officials investigating last week's mass shooting.

The ( Read more... )
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Some 124 people are now confirmed dead, with another 60 missing in the disaster, which struck most severely about 30 miles from the capital of San Salvador. Soldiers and emergency workers swarmed the town of Verapaz yesterday, searching for survivors in areas that were buried by the onslaught of mud and boulders from the slopes of the nearby Chichontepec volcano.

President Mauricio Funes called the storm a "tragedy" that had caused "incalculable" damage. "The images that we have seen today ( Read more... )
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The Prime Minister telephoned Jacqui Janes to say sorry after she criticised him over the hand-written letter he sent after Guardsman Jamie Janes, 20, from Brighton, was killed in an explosion in October.

It was addressed to "Mrs James," the surname Mr Brown also mistakenly used last month when he read out a list of 37 servicemen killed in Afghanistan in the Commons.

In a video distributed by The Sun newspaper, Mrs Janes called the letter a "hastily scrawled ( Read more... )
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Winfred Letitia Borthwick was the eldest of four children of Lt-Col Algernon Malcolm Borthwick, chairman of the family meat-importing business, scion of an ancient Scottish family (whose grandfather had been elevated to the peerage, but died just before the letters patent were issued) and Edith Wylde Addison, who inherited her father's house, Wethersfield Place in Braintree, Essex, where Winifred was brought up. Her father had a good war, and having been awarded an MC, stood as an unsuccessful ( Read more... )
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The 30-minute play, Turing's Test, starring The History Boys actor Samuel Barnett, is a fictionalised account of the scientist's last moments after taking cyanide following his prosecution for homosexuality.

It is the first drama of its kind to be premiered on a newspaper website and has been widely praised since being launched last month.

Ashley Byrne, creative director of Made in Manchester which produced the drama, said: "This clearly proves that good quality audio drama can be ( Read more... )
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Fruit For The Office was ground-breaking when Ox started it through placing stickers on his father's stall in London's Piccadilly 10 years ago, and its success made him a finalist in the mobile phone company O2's recent X awards for entrepreneurs. But he feels that the new service could do even better.

Ox, 29, is not exactly following the career his parents would have chosen for him. Tom and Lesley Ox struggled to send him and his brother to a good school in the hope that ( Read more... )
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The Boots sales assistant looks fearful; maybe it's because I'm sweating. "I must have this," I repeat, now in a threatening whisper. She says they don't stock them and suggests I look through the Boots product catalogue, which I do. The hamsters aren't there (apparently I've been dealt a red herring by gogohamsters.org.uk, which says Boots stock them, though no one there seems to know about them).

So I dash down to Argos, and locate the Go Go Hamsters in their catalogue. Chuckling to myself ( Read more... )
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