Top Stories:
Times – Israel is poised to launch a major ground offensive into Gaza tonight after allowing hundreds of foreigners living in the devastated territory to evacuate. After a week of air strikes that have killed at least 420 Palestinians and left scores of buildings in rubble, the Israeli army was set to fling hundreds of troops and tanks into a blitz to stamp out Hamas’s military wing, The Times understands. Despite the looming onslaught, more Hamas rockets – which have so far killed four Israelis – were fired into southern Israel today. The Islamist group vowed that its attacks, which have lasted for years and which finally provoked the massive Israeli campaign, would not stop.
BBC – The government’s attempts to boost the economy by temporarily cutting VAT have been an “unbelievable and expensive failure”, David Cameron has said. The Tory leader pointed to figures suggesting shopper numbers were down in December.
Independent – Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas destined for the rest of Europe today, a day after cutting supplies to its neighbour in a contract dispute. The volumes Russian export monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM) said Ukraine was siphoning off were small, but the accusation suggested Moscow was in no mood for compromise in a re-run of a 2006 argument that led to supply shortages across the EU. Gazprom said it was responding to Ukraine’s actions by increasing exports via alternative routes, including Belarus. Energy companies in Europe said they had not felt any disruptions to their supplies since the cut-off. “The Ukrainian side openly admits it is stealing gas and is not ashamed of this,” Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said.
Sky – House prices fell by 16.2% during 2008 – the biggest drop for a calendar year on record, Halifax has said. Britain’s biggest mortgage lender added that the typical price of a property now stood at £159,799, back to August 2004 levels. Halifax’s figures were released shortly after it was revealed that the number of mortgages approved for house purchase slumped to a record low during November. Just 27,000 loans were arranged for people buying a new property during the month, only a third of the number arranged in November 2007, according to the Bank of England.
Business:
Sky – Some 200 Woolworths stores are to remain open an extra day. Administrators Deloitte said those shops that were due to close today will keep their doors open until the end of Saturday. The final closure deadline for the retailer has also been delayed by a day, with the remaining 200 stores now set to close on January 6. A spokesman said the stores still had stock remaining despite huge discount sales.
Guardian – Three million customers and still counting: the bank getting rich by helping the poor. In his 14th floor corner office overlooking the city, James Mwangi sits at the very top of Kenyan society. He got there by understanding the needs of those at the bottom. Mwangi is the CEO of Equity Bank, a homegrown company that has turned the financial services industry on its head. For decades multinationals such as Barclays and Standard Chartered dominated Kenya’s banking sector by focusing almost solely on the middle and upper classes. Equity went the opposite way. It targeted the unbanked poor – “the watchmen, tomato sellers and small-scale farmers” whom Mwangi lists as typical customers – with cheap savings accounts and microloans backed by unusual guarantees. The strategy has proved remarkably successful. In just a few years Equity has gone from being a quirky, fringe player to the third most profitable bank in the country and one of leading companies on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. It claims to have signed up its three millionth customer last month, giving it a 50% share of the Kenyan market for the first time, and is opening 4,000 new accounts a day.
Also In The News:
Sun – The oldest person in the world has died today, a family member said. Maria de Jesus passed away aged 115 years and 114 days. Mrs de Jesus was made the oldest verified living person after the death of American Edna Parker five weeks ago. Mrs Parker was 115 years and 220 days old. Mrs de Jesus only visited the hospital once in her lifetime and reportedly never drank alcohol, smoked or drank coffee and lived on a diet of fish and vegetables.
Mail – As Celebrity Big brother is set to hit our screens tonight, the Daily mail asks … Who’s REALLY a Big Brother ‘celebrity’?
STV – malfunction of some Microsoft Zune music players was caused by an error in the way the device accounts for leap years, Microsoft said. In a statement on the Zune website posted late on Wednesday, the company blamed “a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year,” adding: “The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009.”
Telegraph – A new version of the Harry Potter encyclopaedia which brought multi-millionaire author JK Rowling to the verge of tears will go on sale in the UK later this month. The 43-year-old author of the boy wizard books took Harry Potter fan and author Steve Vander Ark to court over the 400-page Lexicon which she said constituted “wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work”. A federal judge in New York ruled in Rowling’s favour over the copyright-infringement lawsuit in September, permanently blocking the publication of the reference guide, but Mr Vander Ark and RDR Books will now publish a revised edition. Mr Vander Ark, a 50-year-old former school librarian who launched The Harry Potter Lexicon web site in 2000, said he spent five or six months working on the new version, which he said meets specifications laid out in the ruling by US District Judge Robert P Patterson.
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