earmarked for potholes and for planting
trees. Belfast would get a spare £2 million
to help it recover from a fire at Primark.
Japanese people would be able to use
e-passport gates at airports. Relief on
business rates would apply to lavatories
available for public use. Budget documents
confirmed that a 50p coin would mark
Brexit next spring, though the Chancellor
did not care to mention it in his speech.S
even men of British Pakistani
background were convicted of sexual
crimes in Rotherham between 1998 and
2005 against girls, including one who gave
evidence of being sexually abused by ‘at
least 100 Asian men’ before the age of- A helicopter crashed on taking off
from Leicester City Football Club, killing
five, including the club’s owner, Vichai
Srivaddhanaprabha. Evans Cycles, sold to
Sports Direct International after being put
into administration, will see half its 62 shops
closed. Nine refurbished high-speed trains
coming into service for ScotRail were found
to dump human excrement onto the track.
Abroad
A
fter 11 worshippers were shot dead
at the Tree of Life Synagogue in
Pittsburgh, police shot and wounded
Robert Bowers, 46, who was charged with
murder. After 14 mail bombs were posted
to Democrats including Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama, and sympathisers such as
George Soros, police charged a 56-year-old
bodybuilder and disc-jockey, Cesar Sayoc,
of Aventura, Florida. The Pentagon sent
5,200 troops to the border with Mexicoin Operation Faithful Patriot, as thousands
of Central American migrants approached
on foot through Mexico in a caravan
still 1,000 miles from the United States;
‘Many Gang Members and some very
bad people are mixed into the Caravan,’
tweeted President Donald Trump. A judge
in Ecuador ruled that requiring Julian
Assange to clear up after his cat while he
stayed in the embassy in London did not
breach his human rights.J
air Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old retired army
officer, was elected President of Brazil.
He leads the Social Liberal Party and wants
to widen gun ownership to combat crime.
The Supreme Court in Pakistan overturned
the death sentence on Asia Bibi, a Christian
woman convicted of blasphemy, who had
been on death row since 2010. In eastern
Syria, Islamic State resisted the advance of
the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces,
killing 70. China said that rhinoceros horn
and tiger parts from captive creatures could
be authorised for medical use.A
ngela Merkel said she would resign as
Chancellor of Germany in 2021 and
would not seek re-election next month
as leader of the CDU party, which she
has headed since 2000. The CDU had lost
ground in elections this week in the state
of Hesse. Niels Högel, 41, a nurse serving a
prison sentence for murdering six people,
pleaded guilty to murdering another 100.
Economic growth in the eurozone fell to
0.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2018.
Venice was badly flooded when acqua alta
reached 156cm (61in), the fourth highest
level ever recorded. CSHHome
A
usterity was ‘finally coming to an end’,
Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, said in the Budget. He was
helped by what he did not call a magic
money sapling, in the form of revised
estimates of public borrowing in 2018,
£11.6 billion lower than forecast. Debt as
a share of GDP, from a peak of 85.2 per
cent in 2016-17, would still be 74.1 per cent
by 2024. Mr Hammond repeated a pledge
of an extra £20.5 billion for the NHS over
the next five years, with an extra £2 billion
a year for mental health services. Councils
would get £700 million more for care. The
personal tax allowance would rise from
£11,850 to £12,500, a year earlier than
announced, benefiting 31 million employed
people by at least £130 a year. Higher rates
would start at £50,000 instead of £46,350.
Allowances would in future rise by the
rate of inflation. The National Living Wage
would rise from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour.
A
lcohol duties were frozen, except for
wine, up by 7p a bottle, which a trade
spokesman curiously described as
a ‘hammer blow’. Cigarettes went up by
33p, and would rise in future by inflation
plus 2 per cent a year. The Housing
Infrastructure Fund would get £500 million,
towards the building of 650,000 houses,
it was said. Universal Credit was ‘here to
stay’, Mr Hammond declared, allocating
£1.7 billion to in-work benefits and a billion
to tide over new recipients. A tax on UK
revenues of technology companies with
more than £500 million global revenues
would be imposed from 2020. Money was