London Metropolitan University students 'have until December'

Non-EU students at LMU are being helped to make other university arrangements, the UKBA says

Some 2,600 foreign students affected by the London Metropolitan University visa ban have been given until at least 1 December to find a new course.

The UK Border Agency says it will write to students after 1 October and "will ensure you have 60 days" to make a new student application or leave the UK.
On Thursday, the UKBA revoked LMU's licence to authorise non-EU visas. Ministers said it was failing to monitor student attendance.
LMU said it would challenge the claims.
'Systemic failings' In Home Office guidance issued to foreign students on Friday, the UKBA said: "You do not need to do anything immediately. We will write to you after 1 October.
"We will ensure that you have 60 days to make a new student application or to arrange to leave the UK. This 60 days will start from the date we write to you."
On Thursday, the government had said it wanted to assess how many students will be successfully reallocated to alternative institutions before the UKBA sent out the 60-day notices.
The UKBA said London Metropolitan University had "failed to address serious and systemic failings" identified six months ago.
It said many foreign students at the university had no right to be in the UK.
Immigration Minister Damian Green said London Metropolitan University had failed in three particular areas:

• More than a quarter of the 101 students sampled were studying at the university when they had no leave to remain in this country
• Some 20 of 50 checked files found "no proper evidence" that the students' mandatory English levels had been reached
• And some 142 of 250 (57%) sampled records had attendance monitoring issues, which meant it was impossible for the university to know whether students were turning up for classes or not.

Professor Malcolm Gillies, the university's vice chancellor, described the claims made against the institution as "not particularly cogent" and said it would be disputing them.
"I would go so far as to say that UKBA has been rewriting its own guidelines on this issue and this is something which should cause concern to all universities in the UK," he said.
Although there have been other suspensions, no other UK university has been fully stripped of its ability to recruit overseas students.

Vitamin B3 'helps kill superbugs'

                                          Antibiotic resistance is increasing

Vitamin B3 could be the new weapon in the fight against superbugs such as MRSA, researchers have suggested.

US experts found B3, also known as nicotinamide, boosts the ability of immune cells to kill Staphylococcusbacteria.

B3 increases the numbers and efficacy of neutrophils, white blood cells that can kill and eat harmful bugs.

The study, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could lead to a "major change in treatment", a UK expert said.

B3 was tested on Staphylococcal infections, such as the potentially fatal MRSA (Methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus).

Such infections are found in hospitals and nursing homes, but are also on the rise in prisons, the military and among athletes.

'Turn on'

The scientists used extremely high doses of B3 - far higher than that obtained from dietary sources - in their tests, carried out both on animals and on human blood.

And the researchers say there is as yet no evidence that dietary B3 or supplements could prevent or treat bacterial infections.

The researchers say B3 appears to be able to "turn on" certain antimicrobial genes, boosting the immune cells' killing power.

Prof Adrian Gombart, of Oregon State University's Linus Pauling Institute, who worked on the research, said: "This is potentially very significant, although we still need to do human studies.

"Antibiotics are wonder drugs, but they face increasing problems with resistance by various types of bacteria, especially Staphylococcus aureus.

"This could give us a new way to treat Staph infections that can be deadly, and might be used in combination with current antibiotics.

"It's a way to tap into the power of the innate immune system and stimulate it to provide a more powerful and natural immune response."

Prof Mark Enright, of the University of Bath, said: "Neutrophils are really the front line against infections in the blood and the use of nicotinamide seems safe at this dose to use in patients as it is already licensed for use.

"This could cause a major change in treatment for infections alongside conventional antibiotics to help bolster patients immune system.

"I would like to see in patient clinical trials but cannot see why this couldn't be used straight away in infected patients."

Mastercard's digital-wallet deal with Everything Everywhere

               Mastercard already powers contactless payments made with Barclaycards

Mastercard has secured a deal with the UK's biggest mobile telecoms operator to promote its digital wallet services.

The US-based payments company will co-develop services with Everything Everywhere (EE), which runs Orange and T-Mobile branded services.
Mastercard said the move would support the "accelerated adoption" of payments made with mobile devices thanks to EE's 27-million-strong customer base.
O2, Barclays, Visa and Paypal are among those developing rival services.
Mastercard said one of the first products would be a service in which users pre-pay money into an account before being able to spend it via handsets equipped with near-field communication (NFC) technology.
It added that more than 100,000 retailers in the country would be able to accept the contactless payments.
Over the course of a five-year partnership, the two firms said they planned to add other features, including in-store payments made via mobiles that would take funds straight from users' bank accounts, and person-to-person money transfers.
Mastercard said it also intended to take steps to help small-business owners accept payments. Many have been discouraged from fitting NFC equipment because of the costs involved.
The news builds on an existing relationship between the two companies. Mastercard provides the technology behind Orange's existing Quick Tap platform, which allows Barclaycard customers to make payments by tapping their card on an NFC-reader.

                 Barclays already offers money transfers via its Pingit smartphone app

Wallet wars
Many companies are competing for a slice of the digital-wallet market, betting that customers will prefer the convenience of not having to handle cash.
In the UK, Barclays has launched Pingit - a smartphone app that lets users transfer up to £750 a day to family, friends and small businesses.
The O2 Wallet is a rival app that allows "money messages" to be sent, and automatically fills in address and payment details for online purchases.
Later this year Visa will launch V.me, an app that allows user to store the details of several payment cards in their phone and then use them to make NFC payments.
In the US, Google already runs a similar service, Google Wallet, while Microsoft has unveiled plans for its own NFC-based Wallet Hub for Windows Phone handsets.
Ebay's PayPal unit has also teamed up with local payments firm Discover Financial Services to offer an alternative to NFC. It allows smartphone owners to make in-store purchases by typing in a telephone number and personal ID code at the cash register.
Benjamin Ensor, research director at tech specialists Forrester Research, said we were seeing the emergence of "digital-wallet wars" as telecoms, banking services and technology companies all sought to carve out a share of the nascent market. But he added they all faced the problem of low-level adoption.
"The key thing for any new payment system is finding a trigger to get people to use it in the first place," he told the BBC.
"The challenge for mobile payments for the past decade - and possibly the coming one - is that in theory you can use mobile payments for almost any payment you want, but there are very few that you can only do using mobile.
"People need to see clear benefits if they are going to want to overcome the barriers involved in learning and using a new system. So, deals like this bring more horses to the water, but the challenge is still getting them to drink."

Apple seeks to ban sale of eight Samsung phones in US

Apple Inc.

LAST UPDATED AT 27 AUG 2012, 21:00*CHART SHOWS LOCAL TIME

		price change % 675.68 + +12.46 + +1.88 Frost and Sullivan says investors are worried the verdict could undermine the Android technology used in smartphones

Apple has asked a court to ban eight Samsung mobile phones in the US.

The phones include the Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 AT&T model, Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, Galaxy S2 T-Mobile model, Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail.

It comes in the wake of Apple's US court victory over its rival, which saw the South Korean company ordered to pay $1.05bn (£655m) for copying patents.

Apple shares rose 1.88% to $675.68 in Monday trading on Wall Street.

The company has asked the US District Court in San Jose, California, for a preliminary injunction on the Samsung products, while a permanent injunction is sought.

At the same time, Samsung has also asked the court to delete an injunction on its Galaxy Tab 10.1, after the jury in the recent court case found it did not infringe Apple's design patent for the iPad tablet.

Judge Lucy Koh had issued an injunction on the tablet on 26 June.

Earlier on Monday, Samsung sent a memo to staff hitting out at what it called the "abuse of patent law".

Shares in Samsung fell 7% in Seoul trading, their biggest one-day fall in almost four years.

On 24 August, a US court ruled that Samsung had infringed Apple patents for mobile devices in one of the most significant rulings in a global intellectual property battle.

Samsung said it would be appealing against the verdict.

"We initially proposed to negotiate with Apple instead of going to court, as they had been one of our most important customers," the company said its memo to staff.

"However, Apple pressed on with a lawsuit, and we have had little choice but to counter sue, so that we can protect our company."

It said that the US court's verdict contrasted "starkly" with decisions made in other countries, including the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.

"History has shown there has yet to be a company that has won the hearts and minds of consumers and achieved continuous growth, when its primary means to competition has been the outright abuse of patent law, not the pursuit of innovation," the memo said.

"We trust that the consumers and the market will side with those who prioritise innovation over litigation, and we will prove this beyond doubt."

Sales worries

Analysts said investors were worried that the ruling could see certain products taken off the market.

"An adjustment in the next few days is unavoidable as the damage amount was much bigger than market expectations, and there are further uncertainties, such as the possibility of a sales ban," said John Park, from Daishin Securities.

In a separate move, the giant chipmaker ASML said Samsung would be investing $975m in its research programme into next-generation chipmaking technology and in buying a 3% share in the company.

Intel Corp and TSMC have both recently signed similar investment deals into the co-investment programme, whose aim is to tie in ASML's customers and develop new technology designed to lead to cheaper products.

Jury ruling

A nine-member jury in San Jose, California ruled on 24 August that Samsung had infringed Apple patents for mobile devices.

It was the the most closely-watched of many similar patent disputes being contested in courts around the world between electronics manufacturers.

In recent weeks, a court in South Korea ruled that both Apple and Samsung had copied each other, while a British court dismissed claims by the American company that Samsung had infringed its copyrights.

INTERNET NEWS: 'Clot nets' help stroke recovery

INTERNET NEWS: 'Clot nets' help stroke recovery:                   Parts of the brain die when clots stop blood delivering oxygen Using small nets to extract blood clots from patients...

'Clot nets' help stroke recovery

                  Parts of the brain die when clots stop blood delivering oxygen

Using small nets to extract blood clots from patients' brains may be the future of stroke care, according to two studies.

Clots block blood vessels, starving parts of the brain of oxygen, which leads to symptoms such as paralysis and loss of speech.

Two studies, presented in the Lancet medical journal, suggest extracting clots with nets could improve recovery.

The Stroke Association said it was very excited by the treatment's potential.

There are already techniques for reopening blocked blood vessels in people's brains.

Some patients will be given "clot-busting" drugs, but this needs to be in the hours just after the stroke and is not suitable for everyone.

Clot extraction

Other techniques have been developed to extract the clot. Some procedures pass a tube up through the groin to the brain. There the wire passes through the clot, forming a coil on the far side and then pulling the clot out. However, this is far from routine practice.

The latest methods involve a tiny wire cage instead of a coil. This pushes the clot up against the walls of the artery and enmeshes the clot in the wires, allowing doctors to pull the clot back out of the groin.

Two similar devices were compared with the current coil methods. One trial of 113 patients showed 58% had good brain function after three months, compared with 33% of those treated with the coil method, as well as a lower death rate.

Another study in 178 patients showed almost double the chance of living independently after treatment.

One of the researchers involved, Prof Jeffrey Saver from the University of California, Los Angeles, told the BBC that these techniques would become more common, as they are more likely to clear clots than drugs.

"Clot-busting drugs only partially reopen 40% of large blocked arteries. These devices partially reopen 70-90% of large blocked arteries.

"Second, these devices can be used in patients in whom it is not safe to give 'clot busting' drugs, such as patients taking anticoagulant medications, patients who had recent surgery, and patients who are between 4.5 to eight hours after stroke onset."

In the long term he can see drugs being used as a first option and then clot removal if the drugs fail or cannot be used.

'Major steps forward'

Responding to the research, the Stoke Association's Dr Clare Walton said clot-busters did not work for all patients so new techniques could help many patients.

She added: "Clot retrieval devices have the potential to be used with more stroke patients and are better at removing blood clots than clot-busting drugs.

"We are very excited about this potential new treatment and look forward to further developments."

Dr Philip Gorelick, from Michigan State University, said the studies were "major steps forward in the successful treatment of acute ischaemic stroke, and pave the way for new treatment options".

The research was published to coincide with a European Society of Cardiology meeting in Munich.

Forensic test can predict hair and eye colour from DNA

The test can predict both hair and eye colour from samples left at a crime scene

Scientists have developed a forensic test that can predict both the hair and eye colour of a possible suspect using DNA left at a crime scene.

The team that developed the test says it could provide valuable leads in cases where perpetrators cannot be identified through DNA profiling.

The Hirisplex system could allow investigators to narrow down a large group of possible suspects.

Details appear in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.

Predicting phenotypes - outward traits such as hair colour or eye colour - from DNA information is an emerging field in forensics.

An important current approach, known as genetic profiling, involves comparing crime scene DNA with that from a suspect or with a profile stored in a database.

But this relies on the person either being among a pool of suspects identified by the police or having their profile in a DNA database.

Tools such as Hirisplex could be useful in those cases where the perpetrator is completely unknown to the authorities, said Prof Manfred Kayser, who led the study.

He said the test "includes the 24 currently best eye and hair colour predictive DNA markers. In its design we took care that the test can cope with the challenges of forensic DNA analysis such as low amounts of material."

Prof Kayser, from Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, added: "The test is very sensitive and produces complete results on even smaller DNA amounts than usually used for forensic DNA profiling."

He told BBC News that the journal article described everything needed to establish the test in a forensic lab, but that the team was also in touch with industry regarding their knowledge about hair and eye colour prediction.

The test system includes the six DNA markers previously used in a test for eye colour known as Irisplex, combining them with predictive markers for hair.

In the study, the authors used Hirisplex to predict hair colour phenotypes in a sample drawn from three European populations.

On average, their prediction accuracy was 69.5% for blonde hair, 78.5% for brown, 80% for red and 87.5% for black hair colour.

Analysis on worldwide DNA samples suggested the results were similar regardless of a person's geographic ancestry.

The team was also able to determine, with a prediction accuracy of about 86%, whether a brown-eyed, black haired person was of non-European versus European origin (excluding some nearby areas such as the Middle East).

The findings were also outlined at the sixth European Academy of Forensic Science conference in The Hague this week.

Mortgages: How to get the best deal

            Buying a home is the biggest purchase most people make during their lives

Qualifying for a mortgage can be a complicated affair and some first-time buyers may find it daunting. It is important to choose the correct lender and not to pay a higher rate than necessary.

That means that for some buyers, waiting to save more for a deposit can ultimately save many thousands of pounds on the annual mortgage bill.

By getting to know the process of how a mortgage works and what is required by the lenders, it is possible both to secure a lower interest rate and to increase the chances of being accepted for an appropriately sized loan.

A major difficulty with banks today is that they constantly change their lending criteria. To get a mortgage, applicants will need a good deposit, a clean credit history and a decent income.

For many first-time buyers the support of their parents may make the difference between getting a mortgage or not.

Deposits

The size of your deposit determines your monthly mortgage payments and the interest rate that you pay. Virtually all lenders use a loan-to-value banding system which means you pay much more if you have a smaller deposit.

We are consistently advising our clients in a position to save a bigger deposit to put down another 5% of the property value. This may be a lot to ask at a time when money is tight, but there are usually big savings to be made with another 5% added to the deposit.

Looking at the Post Office's mortgage rates, for example, the lowest two-year fixed rate they offer if you have a 10% deposit is 5.75%. Yet, with another 5% deposit, the mortgage rate drops to 4.29%.

So, over two years on a £200,000 interest-only mortgage, you would pay £5,840 less if you are able to save the extra 5% deposit.

Interest rate savings are more substantial with a longer term mortgage.

Northern Rock's lowest two-year fixed rate for those with a 30% deposit is 3.39%, but if you have a 10% deposit the rate increases to 5.88%.

Borrowers able to access the lowest Northern Rock rates will save £8,965 (including arrangement fees) over two years on a £200,000 mortgage compared with those able to take a fixed-rate with the smallest deposit available.

'Clamping down'

Before a bank will offer a mortgage, they will want you to know what your monthly expenses are and how much you have left in your bank account at the end of the month.

           Keeping on top of personal finances can make getting a mortgage easier

Virtually all unsecured debt is taken into consideration and any credit card or loan payments will reduce the amount that you can borrow.

Banks have clamped down on borrowers if they are attempting to take out an interest-only mortgage and it is likely that you will now require a 25% deposit to qualify for interest-only. Customers of HSBC and First Direct must earn a minimum of £30,000 a year to qualify for an interest-only mortgage

Interest-only mortgages offer a more affordable way of getting on the property ladder and the difference in the cost of the monthly payments is as much as £360 a month. This is on a £200,000 mortgage with a 25-year term on a typical interest rate.

Key tips for getting a mortgage include:

• Ensuring you are on the electoral roll
• Making sure you do not miss any financial commitments. Missing a credit card or loan payment will count against you
• Reducing your personal debt will enable you to borrow more
• Ensuring you do not apply for credit while a mortgage application is going through
• Keeping pay-slips and P60s
• Checking your credit rating to make sure that you know what your credit score is
• Doing your homework to find out what the lender requires from you.

There are some good options for borrowers looking to remortgage, but rates are more expensive than they were three months ago.

Whether you should remortgage really does depend on the lender that you are with and the type of rate you are on.

If you are on your lender's standard variable rate then there is a danger your bank will raise your rate by more than any Bank of England base rate change.

I would advise you to call your lender to see what they will offer you to stay with them and then research the best rate available to you in the market.

It is still possible to remortgage on to a competitive rate which is lower than the average standard variable rate. Two-year base rate trackers are available from 2.28% and two-year fixed-rate deals start at 3%. Five-year fixed-rate deals are more expensive as they start at 4.39%.

Everything Everywhere gets 4G go-ahead from Ofcom

                                     4G will provide super-fast broadband to mobiles

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has allowed Everything Everywhere, the company behind Orange and T-Mobile in the UK, to use its existing bandwidth to launch fourth-generation (4G) mobile services.

The move means 4G, which allows much faster downloads, could launch in the UK earlier than previously planned.

Ofcom said the move would deliver "significant benefits" to consumers that outweigh any competition concerns.

But Vodafone and O2 expressed surprise and disappointment at the decision.

Ofcom plans to auction 4G bandwidth to other providers next year.

Everything Everywhere will be allowed to offer 4G services from 11 September.

But, as the regulator pointed out, the timing will be a commercial decision for the company itself. The operator has been trialling 4G services at a number of local businesses in Cumbria in the north of England since the end of June.

Ofcom said delaying the mobile operator from launching 4G would be "to the detriment of consumers".

'Hugely disappointed'

Everything Everywhere itself said the regulator's decision was "great news for the UK".

"4G will drive investment, employment and innovation and we look forward to making it available later this year, delivering superfast mobile broadband to the UK," the company said.

The firm's two main competitors in the UK mobile market were less than pleased with the ruling.

They claim that they are disadvantaged as only Everything's spectrum can be reconfigured to handle 4G, while they will have to wait to buy spectrum at an auction next year.

"We are hugely disappointed with today's announcement, which will mean the majority of customers will be excluded from the first wave of digital services," said a spokesperson for O2.

Vodafone was more forthright, saying it was "shocked" at Ofcom's decision.

"The regulator has shown a careless disregard for the best interests of consumers, businesses and the wider economy through its refusal to properly regard the competitive distortion created by allowing one operator to run services before the ground has been laid for a fully competitive 4G market," a company spokesperson said.

Analysts said the two companies were right to be concerned, with the examples of other countries suggesting those network providers that got a head start on their rivals were often able to build successful 4G networks.

"Everything now has a golden opportunity to establish an early lead in the UK's 4G market, but it will only be able to exploit this window if it is able to build a successful launch strategy," said Thomas Wehmeier at Informa Telecoms & Media.

He said much would now depend on the company'

s ability to persuade mobile phone manufacturers to build smartphones capable of working on its 4G network.

Faster downloads

Everything Everywhere has also announced that it will sell some of its 4G spectrum to rival Three.

This was a condition of the European Commission allowing the 2010 merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK.

Three's chief executive Dave Dyson said this deal would "more than double the capacity available to customers".

As Everything is not obliged to make the spectrum available until September 2013, this deal will not give Three a head start in launching its own 4G services, however.

Ofcom has issued Everything Everywhere with licences to launch what are called Long-Term Evolution (LTE) services. This is one of a number of broadband technologies that allow the transfer of high-bandwidth data such as video streaming and mapping services.

Other mobile phone networks will be allowed to bid for 4G bandwidth early next year.

The auction will offer the equivalent of three-quarters of the mobile spectrum currently in use - some 80% more than released in the 3G auction which took place in 2000.

Ofcom wants to see at least four wholesalers of 4G mobile services, so that consumers will benefit from better services at lower prices.

The auction will sell chunks of radio spectrum to support 4G, which will allow users to download data such as music and videos at much faster speeds.

Asia's fastest data cable links Tokyo to Singapore

The route for the new cable avoids Taiwan, where earthquakes are common

A new high-speed undersea data cable has opened to traffic in Asia.

The 7,800km Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) connects Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

It transfers data via an optical fibre system at 40 gigabits per second, and is three milliseconds faster than any other cable between Singapore and Tokyo.

The gain in speed may sound small, but could prove critical to financial trades made out of the region.

So-called "high frequency trades", controlled by computers, involve making what may be hundreds of thousands of transactions in less than a second - all determined by a program that tracks market conditions.

With banks and hedge funds competing against each other, the size of the profit or loss can come down to a matter of beating the competition by a fraction of a second, explained Ralph Silva, a strategist at Silva Research Network.

"High frequency trading is basically computer trading - you program a set of rules and as events happen - the computer decides buy or sell commands," he said.

"As all incoming data is received by all banks at the same time, and because the computers are all the same with the same speed of processors, the length of time the command takes to get to the exchange makes a big difference.

"So if all banks come to the same trading decision at the same time, the one to get the transaction to the master computer first wins.

"Three milliseconds in computer time is an hour in human time."

The route for the new cable was chosen to be as straight as possible, reducing the time to get information from one end to the other to 65 milliseconds.

The data transfer capacity of 40Gbps is the equivalent of downloading a high-resolution DVD in about two seconds.

Avoiding trouble areas

The new facility adds to a web of undersea cables in the waters around Japan.

Many undersea cables were damaged by a powerful earthquake that hit Japan in March 2011

These include ones run by Australian operator Telstra International; Taiwan's largest phone operator Chunghwa Telecom; and the global telecommunications service provider Pacnet, based in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Many were damaged by a powerful earthquake near Japan's northeast coast in March 2011.

An earlier earthquake in December 2006, off the south-west coast of Taiwan, also broke several cables, disrupting telecommunications in Asian countries.

The problems helped influence where the new cable was laid, said Japan's biggest telecommunications provider.

"We avoided the area around Taiwan, where earthquakes are common, and laid the route near the Philippines instead, making the cable very safe and reliable," said Hiroyuki Matsumoto, senior director of network services at NTT, one of the four partners involved in the project.

After 2011's earthquake and tsunami his firm reported that half a million telephone circuits and about 150,000 internet circuits went down in Japan because of subsea cable damage.

To repair the cable network, telecoms operators had to send out ships equipped with remotely controlled robots, able to dive to a depth of 2,500m (8,200ft).

The other companies involved in the project are PLDT, the Philippines' main telecom company; StarHub, the second-largest mobile phone operator in Singapore; and Telekom Malaysia.

PLDT said that the venture was the first direct cable connection between the Philippines and Japan, and "the largest-capacity international submarine cable system ever to land in the Philippines".

Ramadan fasting dilemma when sun never sets

Land of the midnight sun: the day is more than 20 hours long during summer in northern Finland 

Practising Muslims across the world are observing Ramadan. For one month, they are fasting between sunrise and sunset. But what do Muslims do in a town where the sun never really goes down?

The town of Rovaniemi in Finland lies in a land of extremes.

At 66 degrees north it straddles the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland. During midwinter it is cloaked in total darkness. But in the summer it is bathed in daylight.

The long days pose a particular problem for fasting Muslims like Shah Jalal Miah Masud.

The 28-year-old moved to Rovaniemi - 830km (515 mile) north of the capital, Helsinki - from Bangladesh five years ago to study IT. He has not had any food or water for 21 hours. And he laughs.

"It doesn't get dark. It always looks like the same, the sun is always on the horizon and it's quite difficult to get what the time is actually right now," he says.

It is 11 o'clock in the evening and the sun has only just dipped below the horizon. The sky has turned a beautiful deep, rich blue. This is as dark as it will get, then the sun will rise again in five hours.

Masud says it is difficult to fast according to Finnish time and admits he is tired. But despite the hunger and fatigue, he says it is a pleasure to observe Ramadan during the long Finnish days.

There is another option which reduces the number of fasting hours - mark its duration by the rising and setting of the sun in countries far to the south of Finland. Dr Abdul Mannan - a local Imam and president of the Islam Society of Northern Finland - says there are two schools of thought.

"The Egyptian scholars say that if the days are long - more than 18 hours - then you can follow the Mecca time or Medina time, or the nearest Muslim country time," says Dr Mannan.

"The other (point of view) from the Saudi scholars says whatever the day is - long or short - you have to follow the local time."

                                    Nafisa Yeasmin follows the Mecca timetable

Dr Mannan says the majority of Muslims in northern Finland observe either Mecca's fasting hours or Turkish time because it is the nearest Muslim country to Finland.

For Nafisa Yeasmin, a researcher at the University of Lapland, choosing when to fast has not been an easy decision. She moved from Dhaka in Bangladesh six years ago with her husband and two children.

Her spacious Scandinavian-style kitchen - full of white cupboards and wooden work surfaces - smells of frying onions, turmeric, chilli and cumin.

As she prepares her traditional iftar meal, she recalls her first Ramadan in Rovaniemi when she decided to fast according to Finnish daylight hours, going without food for up to 20 hours a day.

"It was very difficult to follow because in Bangladesh we are used to 12 hours' daytime and 12 hours' night-time," she says.

Ramadan: most sacred month in Islam

• Muslims abstain from food and drink while fasting during daylight hours
• Ramadan is intended to increase self-control
• Muslims try to give up bad habits and pray more during the holy month
• Families and friends often gather to break the fast after sunset with the iftar meal

"Then I thought, not any more. I have to follow Mecca's timetable. But I'm a little bit worried whether Allah will accept it or not."

Many Muslims come to Finland as refugees from all over the world, particularly Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2001, Finland has accepted 750 refugees a year. New arrivals are often sent to live in towns like Rovaniemi in the far north in a government resettlement programmes.

In Rovaniemi the long days are not the only obstacle that fasting Muslims face.

No shop in this town of 60,000 sells halal food, which is prepared according to Islamic law. The nearest town, Oulu, that does is 300km away. Another option is Lulea, across the border in Sweden.

Yeasmin opts for Lulea, which is a six-hour round trip journey by car, with a shopping list full of items, including black chickpeas, dates, rice crackers and lots of halal meat.

Understandably, she has stocked up for the whole month of Ramadan. To make her point, she opens her huge white fridge - covered in her children's school photos - to reveal all seven trays crammed full of frozen halal meat.

HSBC pulls ultra-low 2.99%, five-year, mortgage deal

                                HSBC won't say how many applicants were successful

HSBC has withdrawn the 2.99%, five-year, mortgage deal which it launched just a month ago.

The bank has used up all the money it had allocated to fund the record low-rate deal.

Borrowers from HSBC will still be able to apply for home loans for the same length of time, but at the slightly higher rate of interest of 3.29%.

The bank refused to say how much money it had lent at 2.99%, or how many people had applied successfully.

"There has been fantastic demand," said a spokeswoman.

"It was a very popular product."

Other lends to offer similar deals were the RBS group (including NatWest), Santander and the Nationwide.

They were encouraged to lend at such low levels by the prospect of being able to obtain cheap funds from the Bank of England, under its recently launched Funding for Lending scheme.

Typically the ultra-cheap loans required borrowers to put down a 40% deposit, which put them out of reach of most first-time buyers.

The loan from HSBC had a fee of £1,495.

Ray Boulger of mortgage broker John Charcol said: "I suspect it has been withdrawn because the cost of borrowing funds in the wholesale markets has gone up a bit in the past week or so."