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Southern Water has been hit with a record £126 million penalty package after a “shocking” Ofwat probe uncovered failures in the firm’s sewage treatment sites and found that it fixed wastewater samples. Customers of the utility company will now receive rebates of £61 over the next five years after Southern Water agreed to the package, which, given the size of the firm, is the largest the regulator has ever imposed. Ofwat said its large-scale investigation found that Southern Water failed to...

Figures from the royal accounts, revealed the island-hopping visit in March, which included stops in St Lucia, Grenada, Barbados and Havana among others, cost £416,576.

Campaigners fear over biotech firm's bid to harvest 1,800 acres of seabed

The cost of renovating Prince Harry and his wife Meghan's new home was 2.4 million pounds, Buckingham Palace said on Tuesday as it detailed how the royal family had spent money provided by taxpayers. The sum, part of the annual "Sovereign Grant", funded the conversion of Frogmore Cottage to a single dwelling while the royal couple, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, paid for the fittings and furnishings. "The property had not been subject of work for some years and...

Tax cuts planned by Boris Johnson, the leading candidate to become Britain's next prime minister, could cost as much as 20 billion pounds a year, according to calculations from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank. Johnson, who is vying for the votes of Conservative Party members in a run-off against foreign minister Jeremy Hunt, has proposed raising the threshold at which higher-rate income tax is payable to 80,000 pounds a year from 50,000 pounds. Cutting tax on these earnings...

The Angolan economy has enjoyed a golden period since the end of the civil war in 2002. The stabilisation of the Angolan geopolitical scene has encouraged business enterprise to reinvest heavily in the economy. With multiple burgeoning industries developing, investors understand the potential of upgrading infrastructures, communications networks, and the Internet of things. The telecommunications sector of Angola is a particularly interesting case in point. The government has encouraged competition among the industry leaders. Currently, Angola Telecom, Movicel, and Unitel...

 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed new U.S. sanctions on Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and described the White House as "mentally retarded", an insult Iran has used in the past about President Donald Trump. In a speech broadcast live on state television, Rouhani said sanctions against Khamenei would fail because he had no assets abroad. Rouhani described the latest round of sanctions as a sign of U.S. desperation. "The White House actions mean it is mentally retarded," he said "Tehran's...

It would be bizarre for the European Union to impose tariffs on British goods flowing into the bloc after Brexit rather than agree a standstill agreement on trade, Boris Johnson, the leading candidate to be Britain's next prime minister said. "I think it would be very bizarre if the EU should decide on their own ... if they decided to impose tariffs on goods coming from the UK it would be ... a return to Napoleon's continental system," Johnson told...

British fashion chain New Look reported a bigger annual pretax loss, hurt by a large charge, while Brexit woes and rainy weather kept shoppers out of its stores. New Look, owned by South African investment firm Brait, reported statutory loss before tax of 522.2 million pounds for the year ended March, compared with a loss of 190.2 million pounds a year earlier. The loss was mainly driven by a 423.3 million pound non-cash goodwill and brand impairment charge after a...