So it is mixed news for the retailers over Christmas.

So it is mixed news for the retailers over Christmas.

In the UK it has been a mixed bag of news coming from the retailers with some having a gloomy Christmas and others having a cheery Christmas. A number of retailers in the gaming section reported like-for-like sales down by up to 5.6% for the same period the previous year. However the food retailers are reporting a growth in like-for-like sales over the Christmas period, with online sales also increasing.

According to a survey by Intersperience 4 out of 10 shoppers said that they had spent less this Christmas than in previous years due to the economic situation and not the cold weather climate we had just before Christmas. The bad weather did encourage more people to shop online, but they had already decided to spend less as they were concerned about the future. An amazing 70% of those surveyed who said that they had created a budget for their Christmas spending actually stuck to it, normally people spend far more than they had planned.


A man has been charged with murder over the stabbing of another man in Bedford on Christmas day.

In Iran 70 Christians have been rounded since Christmas in a crackdown on what the state calls hard liners and as such are considered a threat to the Islamic state. Iran is generally tolerant of other faiths and it’s constitution gives protected status to Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians. However there is a feeling of more pressure being exerted on some of these minorities as more hard edged elements in Iran are exerting more pressure.