Aberdeen Group has announced findings from companies that participated in a recent study of payment card usage reporting significant benefits in three primary areas with their payment card program. A recently published report that benchmarks payment card usage within the

BRITONS prefer to hoard their unused holiday money instead of changing it back to sterling, a survey showed yesterday.

DIRECTORS of Britain's biggest companies have amassed pensions worth nearly £1 billion, with some in line for payments worth 40 times more than what most staff will get, a TUC study revealed yesterday.

TESCO last night recalled thousands of its own-brand steam irons over safety fears.

SIR Paul McCartney was named GQ man of the year last night. But the former Beatle, who has endured a torrid year after splitting with his wife, Heather Mills, did not attend the awards ceremony in London last night.

A MASS education programme should be carried out to teach the public how to spot the early signs of child sex abuse, academics said yesterday.

SCOTLAND could play a role in talks intended to break the political deadlock in Northern Ireland.

MEPs have backed a European Union-wide pollution tax for cars that would see an end to the varied national vehicle and road taxes.

BRITAIN was among the last places on Earth to be permanently colonised by humans, because of the bad weather and the English Channel.

CONSUMERS were last night warned that traces of genetically modified rice grown in China have been found in products on sale in the UK.

DAVID Cameron has called for Britain to forge a new "special relationship" with India as the gravity of power moved away from Europe and the Atlantic to the east.

A MUSLIM militant group based in Iraq yesterday praised a Jordanian gunman for shooting foreign tourists visiting a popular Roman ruin in Amman, according to a message posted in its name on the internet.

A REVIEW of the way Ian Huntley is looked after in jail was launched yesterday after the child murderer was found unconscious in his cell following a suspected overdose.

MORE than £17 million of taxpayers' money was spent last year on European Union interpreters who were not needed, according to a damning report released yesterday.

A MOTHER of six savagely beat her sister-in-law and forced her to work naked as a slave in her home, a court heard yesterday.

PLANS by military chiefs for one of the 15 remaining Nimrods to make a symbolic return to flying duty at RAF Kinloss ended in embarrassing failure at the Moray base last night.

THE Arctic Monkeys, who shot to fame on the internet and broke all records with their debut last night won the prestigious annual Mercury Music Prize, the music industry's equivalent of the literary world's Booker prize.

NEWBORN babies are more than twice as likely to die when their mothers choose to have a Caesarean section, compared with natural births, according to new research.

JUST as card-sharps hide the value of their hands behind poker faces, politicians are supposed to be masters of using body language to disguise their real intentions.

A SCOTTISH soldier killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan was awaiting the birth of his first child this Christmas, it was revealed yesterday.