Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
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Every day since fleeing her home in Dahiyeh under a hail of Israeli missiles last Friday, Dareen Tabbara has risked coming back to feed the 25 cats she was forced to leave behind.
The cats are crammed into the small pet shop she opened just four years ago with all her savings, some still shivering from the relentless sound of air strikes.
There are possibly more cats than people left in Dahiyeh now. In just two weeks, Israel has dramatically escalated its campaign against Hizbollah, launching regular devastating strikes in the densely populated area where the Iran-backed militant group has a controlling presence but where – up until the past few days – hundreds of thousands of civilians lived. Most have fled.
“There’s not another soul around,” said Tabbara, her tattooed hands gently clutching the cats as she stood in the doorway of her once-meticulous shop, now a dust-covered mess of litter boxes and cat food. “I have to come and check in on them. They’re just as scared as we are.”
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Beirut’s southern suburbs, which include Dahiyeh, are often characterised as a “Hizbollah stronghold”, a term that belies the area’s history and diverse social fabric. While the predominantly Shia area is home to many of the militant group’s members, supporters and offices — including those of its social welfare and civil institutions — it is also home to those who have no love for them either.
On a visit to Dahiyeh this week organised by Hizbollah, which typically tightly controls journalists’ movements in the area, the Financial Times saw a community changed: once bustling with the hum of traffic, its shops and cafés perennially full, Dahiyeh’s warren of side streets are now deserted.
It was clear many residents had left in a hurry: newly washed laundry hung across balconies while produce rotted outside corner stores. Dahiyeh’s streets were littered with shattered glass, corrugated iron and debris, the Lebanese army and Hizbollah checkpoints abandoned. Treadmills hung out of pane glass windows of a gym, recently blown out by the impact of a nearby strike.
“I left everything when they started bombing, so I came back to finish packing up,” said one man who stood alone on his street, stacking boxes of condensed milk, instant coffee and dried goods to take with him. “I don’t know when I’ll see our homes again.”
The area has been a particular focus of Israel’s relentless air strikes in the past two weeks: an estimated 380 buildings have been damaged or destroyed since September 20, according to satellite-based radar measurements.
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Over the past week, Israel’s army has issued 15 evacuation orders in Beirut — akin to those issued in Gaza, ahead of major offensives — telling residents to leave the 500-metre radius of places they claim are adjacent to Hizbollah facilities.
The first of these, last Friday, sent residents fleeing in panic as Israeli bombs flattened at least six residential buildings and killed Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Last night it carried out one of its heaviest bombardments so far, targeting Nasrallah’s heir apparent Hashem Safieddine.
Madi Ghosn, who was at home close to where the 2,000lb bombs landed, remembers a thud so intense that he initially thought the strikes had hit his building. He scrambled to his car, which he had already filled with items for his family “just in case”.
“As soon as they hit on Friday night, I turned on the car and we left immediately,” Ghosn said, who had come to check on his home and pick up toys for his children. With nowhere else to go, Ghosn moved his family to a shelter nearer the outskirts of Dahiyeh that he considers “safer”.
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The IDF said it is targeting missile depots that Hizbollah, which started firing rockets into Israel after Hamas’s October 7 attack last year, hides among civilians. Hizbollah denies this, as do residents of the area the FT spoke to on Wednesday. To prove its point, the militant group took dozens of journalists on a tour of four areas that had been hit by Israeli strikes.
All of the targeted buildings the FT saw were in residential neighbourhoods, some on commercial streets. One was an office building of a Hizbollah-allied TV station Al Sirat, which Israel said was being used to store weapons — a claim Hizbollah denies.
Enormous craters were filled with the debris of apartment blocks decimated in recent strikes. One block was still on fire.
“There are no missiles here, there isn’t anything here,” Ghosn said, adding that he doubted that Hizbollah would risk killing its own people by storing weapons inside apartment complexes. “We’re civilians, we have nothing to do with anything. If there are missiles, come and show us where they are.”
Speaking near one of the mounds of rubble, Hizbollah’s media chief Mohammad Afif said the war with Israel would be fought “in rounds”. “If you have defeated us in this round, it is only the first,” he said to cheers.
Around him, party operatives and supporters broke out into cries of “Labbayk ya Nasrallah”, a vow of fealty to their martyred leader. Those men are typical of the Hizbollah base that lives and works in Dahiyeh.
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But they are not the only demographic. Before Lebanon’s civil war started in 1975, the area — once known for its tree-lined streets and forests — was home to Christians and Muslims, Lebanese as well as Palestinian refugees forced to flee their homes in 1948.
Lebanon’s ex-president Michel Aoun, a Christian who became a political ally of Hizbollah, grew up in Dahiyeh’s Haret Hreik neighbourhood. A church is still standing down the street from where Nasrallah was killed.
After the outbreak of war, Christians began selling up and moving out, replaced by Shia Muslim families fleeing Israel’s occupation in south Lebanon and Christian militias in Beirut.
With them came fledgling Shia militias, including one that grew into Hizbollah. The group eventually established its headquarters in Haret Hreik and became Lebanon’s dominant political and military force.
After large parts of Dahiyeh were destroyed by Israeli bombardment in 1996 and later 2006, residents — most with Hizbollah’s help — were forced to rebuild chaotically, densely packing in more buildings than before. “Every 10 years we have to come and rebuild our homes again,” Ghosn said.
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Dahiyeh also became home to thousands of Syrian refugees who moved in after the 2011 civil war and found safety and kinship in the area and its Palestinian refugee camps — even those who come from areas in Syria where Hizbollah would commit atrocities.
Until recently the suburbs continued to reflect the full breadth of Lebanese society, from teenagers flirting on narrow rooftops and families out strolling after Sunday lunches to Palestinian Marxists debating Kafka at their favourite haunts.
This included many, among them Shia, who do not like or agree with Hizbollah’s role in Lebanon even if they have to coexist.
“People don’t have to agree with Hizbollah to live in Dahiyeh; they may just follow certain rules and otherwise live their lives,” Sarah Parkinson, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, said. “To freeze it — concretise it as a ‘Hizbollah stronghold’ — erases what is incredibly salient history.”
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As Israel continues to hit Dahiyeh, the thousands who fled have started to lose count of the attacks. They simply want to return home.
“We’re risking our lives as much as we can because there’s no alternative,” Tabbara, the pet shop owner, said. “I just want this war to end soon,” she added, showing the tattoo on her wrist with a single English word: “Hope.”
IF you receive a state pension then you’re eligible for a cash gift from the Government this winter.
The annual £10 festive bonus is paid every year to millions of people on benefits and is designed to help with the extra costs of Christmas.
While £10 doesn’t get you far these days, it’s worth having – better in your pocket than theirs after all – and with the increased cost of energy bills since October 1, it all helps.
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Plus, the bonus won’t affect your pension credit or any other benefits and it’s tax-free.
Payment is automatic and you should receive the money into your bank account just before Christmas Day.
Introduced in 1972, the festive bonus is still a welcome extra in 2024, with the cost of living being so high.
Who is eligible?
To be eligible this year you have to be in receipt of the state pension during the qualifying week of December 1-8.
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You must also live in one of the following countries:
If you don’t claim state pension or have deferred it then you will not receive the cash bonus.
How do I get the Christmas bonus?
If you’re eligible for the £10 bonus then payment is automatic and it goes directly into the same bank account as your pension payments.
It will show up as ‘DWP XB’ on your bank statement so check your statement to make sure you received it.
Simple energy saving tips
If you don’t receive a payment but believe you should have done then contact the Pension Service – the address and phone number are on the Government website gov.uk.
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Who else can get the bonus?
The £10 cash bonus is currently paid to those on a range of benefits. These are:
Adult Disability Payment
Armed Forces Independence Payment
Attendance Allowance
Carer’s Allowance
Child Disability Payment
Constant Attendance Allowance (paid under Industrial Injuries or War Pensions schemes)
Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance (once the main phase of the benefit is entered after the first 13 weeks of claim)
Severe Disablement Allowance (transitionally protected)
Unemployability Supplement or Allowance (paid under Industrial Injuries or War Pensions schemes)
War Disablement Pension at State Pension age
War Widow’s Pension
Widowed Mother’s Allowance
Widowed Parent’s Allowance
Widow’s Pension
What other help is available for pensioners this Christmas?
A winter fuel payment, which is worth up to £300, will be paid to some people receiving the state pension this winter, though not all.
The payment is now means-tested so if you receive pension credit you’re eligible for the one-off annual payment, but if you don’t then you will no longer qualify.
If you’re on pension credit and aged 75 or older, you will also be eligible for a free TV licence.
To check your eligibility for pension credit take a look at the Government website.
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Pension Credit explained
Pension Credit is a benefit which gives you extra money to help with your living costs if you’re on a low income in retirement.
It can also help with housing costs such as ground rent or service charges.
You may be able to get extra help of you’re a carer, have a disability, or are responsible for a child.
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It also opens up access to lots of other benefits such as the warm home discount scheme, support for mortgage interest, council tax discounts, free TV licences once you’re over 75, and help with NHS costs.
To qualify, you need to be over state pension age and live in England, Scotland or Wales.
If you have a partner, you need to include them on your claim.
Pension Credit tops up:
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your weekly income to £218.15 if you’re single
your joint weekly income to £332.95 if you have a partner
However, even if your income is higher, you might still qualify if you have a disability or caring responsibilities.
There is also another element to Pension Credit called savings credit. To get this, you need to have saved some money towards your retirement.
You can get an extra £17.01 a week for a single person or £19.04 a week for a married couple.
If you have more than £10,000 in savings, the government uses a calculation to work out how much it adds to your income.
Every £500 over £10,000 counts as £1 income a week. For example, if you have £11,000 in savings, this counts as £2 income a week.
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Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.
A SEASIDE town in the north of England could be set to benefit from two huge investment projects.
Morecambe in Lancashire was named one of the worst coastal towns in the UK by the Telegraph.
The report, which was published last year, ranked Morecambe as the 5th worst seaside town in the country, saying it could be “so much more than it is”.
And that could very much be the case, with two huge development projects potentially on the horizon.
The Lancashire-based seaside town was already set to benefit from the arrival of the second incarnation of the Eden Project, which is due to open by 2028.
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Developers hope Eden Project Morecambe will be able to replicate the success of the Eden Project in Cornwall.
The huge £100million attraction will feature a “hyper-real forest” with large installations and immersive theatre.
It will have three huge shell-shaped pavilions that will overlook Morecambe Bay and a “Bay Glade” with a well-being landscape and a Natural Observatory for research and education.
There will also be an exhibition area and meeting point for guests named the Bay Hall as well as play areas, restaurants, cafes and a gift shop.
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Talks are also underway to regenerate Frontierland – an abandoned theme park in Morecambe that closed in 2000.
The site where Frontierland sits has been left bare for the last 24 years but the local council are hoping to bring it back to its former glory.
According to the BBC, the Frontierland site was discussed at the latest Eden community conversation event, which was hosted by the local authority.
The huge new UK attraction opening in 2025 with play areas, live shows and cafes – and it’s right on the beach
City council officer, Jonathan Noad revealed that around “35 regional and national developers” were coming to the town to discuss the abandoned theme park.
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However, Jonathan added that the developers would “need to up-their-gears and put their ideas to us” as they look to start the procurement process.
Lancaster City Council acquired the land in 2021 and invited interested parties to submit development plans for it.
The city council official added: “We’ve also got the rest of central Morecambe to look at.
“Work will also look at Morecambe environments and what the public realm needs to look like to attract visitors.”
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The authority hopes a developer will propose an “exciting idea” which can transform the site in the next 18 months.
The Eden Project and the possible redevelopment of Frontierland isn’t the only thing that’s drawing tourists to Morecambe.
Last year, one of the town’s most famous residents, heavyweight boxing champ Tyson Fury, increased the number of visitors to the town, with his Netflix series At Home With the Furys.
In episode one of the series, Fury explains why he has never moved away from the town, saying the view of the bay, where he can often be seen running, is one of the main attractions.
He said: “I’ve often tampered with the idea of living abroad and living in Monaco and America, but there’s always something that keeps me here in Morecambe Bay.
“I believe it’s probably the sea air calling to me, ‘don’t go! Stay!’
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“Every time I jog down the front, I look at the bay and the view and I think, ‘Wow, no matter where I go in the world, I will never get that anywhere else’.”
Before the regeneration takes place, visitors have plenty to see, with places like Happy Mount Park, the Eric Morecambe Statue and The Smugglers Den pub all rated highly on TripAdvisor.
The beach itself receives a lot of praise too, with one reviewer writing: “This bay is beautiful and very extensive so there is plenty of coastline to walk along.
“There were lots of people swimming out into the sea. The beach had large rocks then sand and was full of character. Well worth a visit on a nice day.”
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What are the Sun team’s favourite seaside towns?
THE Sun’s travel team share some of their favourite English seaside towns
Folkestone, Kent
With views of France (on a very clear day), the main attraction is the Harbour Arm, sitting at the edge of the converted train tracks and selling hand-crafted goods and amazing food.
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The multicoloured high street with shops and restaurants can’t be missed, my favourites being Burrito Buoy for some amazing margaritas and The Folkestone Bookshop for some novels.
You’ll need to pack your beach shoes as it has a stony beach over a sandy beach – but after a few drinks at the much loved pilot bar, you’ll hardly care.
Kara Godfrey, Deputy Travel Editor
Mousehole, Cornwall
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The small sandy bay has retained it’s chocolate box charm, crammed with weathered fishing boats and backed by pokey cafes and airy art galleries where seaside-inspired works hang from the walls.
For impeccable views of a wild sea and homemade grub, head to Rock Pool Cafe which sits atop a craggy cliff and order a ‘make it yourself’ hot chocolate.
There are some impressive coastal walks – but be warned it can be hilly.
Sophie Swietochowski, Assistant Travel Editor
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Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire
Accessible on a spit of sand when the tide is out, this quirky little community art project is made up of driftwood, flags and mementoes from those who have visited to admire the huge swathes of golden sands and sparkling waters.
Sadly the original was destroyed in a fire in 2023 but an enthusiastic band of local volunteers are slowly re-building the landmark.
Lisa Minot, Head of Travel
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Meanwhile, this seaside town in England – with sandy beaches, donkey rides & the best B&B in the world.
Hiring in the US surged unexpectedly last month, in a rebuttal to those worried that the economy might be headed for a sudden, sharp downturn.
Employers in the US added 254,000 jobs in September, much more than expected, while the jobless rate dipped from 4.2% to 4.1%%, the Labor Department said.
That was the strongest gain since March, and was far higher than the roughly 150,000 many analysts had forecast.
The closely watched report comes a few weeks before Americans will head to the polls in an election in which the state of the economy has been cited as a top concern.
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Jobs growth has slowed significantly since last year and the unemployment rate has been ticking higher, though it remains a historically low levels.
Last month, the US central bank cut interest rates by a bigger than usual 0.5 percentage points, saying it wanted to avoid any further weakening in the labour market.
But the strength in this month’s report could raise flags for those hoping for the Federal Reserve to continue to rapidly lower rates.
While realising I am probably in the minority in this industry, I fear the Financial Conduct Authority is about to score a major own goal that will have dire consequences.
Changing the advice guidance boundary will cause a huge dilution of consumer protection.
It will make it easier for manufacturers and others to sell products without advice, avoiding the inconvenience of being responsible for the consequences of their actions.
This risks setting consumer protection back decades.
I passionately believe the advice guidance boundary is in the right place. Now is exactly the wrong time to change it.
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We will see widespread misselling, covered up as guidance, with thousands of consumers facing significant losses at a time in their lives when they have no opportunity to earn back the money they have lost.
This risks setting consumer protection back decades
This – entirely avoidable – misselling scandal could lead to compensation payouts of a similar scale to PPI, probably, again, on a non-contestable basis.
The FCA should think long and hard before it makes a serious error that could damage the wealth of millions of people.
Guidance should carry a health/wealth warning. I would suggest a statement along the following lines: “This service is only provided as financial guidance. You do not benefit from the same protection as you would if you take financial advice”.
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I anticipate the comments section below will be full of objections to this but, if the consumer is going to receive less protection, this should be made very clear to them.
As we have seen time after time, when the regulator gets it wrong, the industry pays the price
Without such a warning, consumers won’t be able to recognise the difference between advice and guidance.
We are already seeing a growing number of guidance propositions dressing themselves up to look like advice but with none of the consumer protection.
As we have seen time after time, when the regulator gets it wrong, the industry pays the price.
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Ironically, the boundary changes are being proposed at a time when technology is making it possible for firms to take a fresh approach to delivering regulated advice at far lower cost and in greater scale.
Hub Financial Solutions, for example, is now able to support as many as 1,000 clients per single highly qualified adviser by combining its bespoke automated advice technology and, in some cases, non-level 4 qualified staff.
The UK can (jointly with Australia) claim a world-leading standard of consumer protection for long-term savers
This enables it to market a service to consumers who would usually be uneconomic to support through traditional advice. The firm is even going as far as collaborating with other established advice firms to buy non-economic clients from them and even agreeing to return these clients should their needs require more sophisticated advice.
This is by no means an isolated example. I am seeing more and more innovative advice firms building high-tech services to make fully regulated advice accessible, with all the consumer protection that provides, for a fraction of traditional costs.
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In my work internationally, I see how consumers in other countries suffer from a lack of adequate protection due to limited regulation.
The UK can (jointly with Australia) claim a world-leading standard of consumer protection for long-term savers.
This has been achieved through hard work by advisers, regulators and broader industry players over several decades. Now is not the time to throw this away – especially when technology is beginning to deliver better solutions with the same high standard of consumer protection.
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