Author: BBC

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is advising people with a peanut allergy to avoid consuming foods that may contain mustard, because they could be contaminated with peanuts.Mustard ingredients – including mustard powder or flour – can be found in dips, sauces, salads and pre-packed sandwiches, the FSA said.It is trying to identify how many products may be affected – around 50 have already been recalled.Parents of children with a peanut allergy should check the labels of food they are buying and ask restaurants and take-away outlets about foods that might contain mustard, the agency says.Some of the products being recalled,…

A British businessman, who was a former contractor for South Africa’s ailing power utility Eskom, has been extradited from the UK to face 65 counts of corruption. Michael Lomas is accused of taking kickbacks on contracts between his firm, Tubular Construction, and Eskom for work at the Kusile power station, which were worth in excess of 1.4bn rand ($80m; £60m).”He allegedly manipulated contracts. He was previously arrested, got bail and fled the country to the UK,” national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe told AFP. He has not yet commented on the allegations against him.Eskom has been beset with corruption allegations…

Hundreds of Sky Glass television and Sky streaming service customers have reported issues with their devices. Users first reported technical glitches seemingly preventing some Sky Glass TVs from working properly or even turning on Thursday evening.Reports to platform outage monitor Downdetector were in the hundreds shortly before 21:00 BST on Thursday.But many customers were still flagging issues with their devices on Friday morning.”We are sorry that some Sky Glass and Stream customers are currently experiencing issues when trying to switch on their devices,” a Sky Spokesperson said.It said customers should try to manually restart their TVs and devices, by following…

Getty ImagesThe longest-running measure of consumer confidence fell sharply in September, raising concerns about whether government rhetoric about Budget “pain” has spooked people.GfK’s Consumer Confidence Index had been recovering after years of rolling crises, higher interest rates and inflation gradually creeping up.But since the end of August, it fell by seven points to -20 overall, which GfK has said does not provide “encouraging news” for the UK’s new government.Some economists have linked the drop to officials’ warnings of a “painful” Budget at the end of August.There were “major corrections” – or double digit falls – for consumers’ perception of the…

The Taiwanese government has said none of the components in thousands of pagers used by the armed group Hezbollah that exploded in Lebanon earlier this week were made on the island.Fragments of the pagers that blew up had labels which pointed to Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo. But the firm denied making the devices used in the attack. The Lebanese government says 12 people, including two children, were killed and nearly 3,000 injured in the explosions on Tuesday.The incident, along with another attack involving exploding walkie-talkies, was blamed on Israel and marked a major escalation in the conflict between the two…

First Born FilmsNeil Harbisson, who sees in black and white, says his antenna lets him “hear” colourFor the past 20 years, self-declared “cyborg artist” Neil Harbisson has provoked debate with his “eyeborg” – a surgically attached antenna.Harbisson, who grew up in Barcelona, is colour blind, having been born with the rare condition achromatopsia, which affects one in 33,000 people. This means he sees in what he calls “greyscale” – only black, white and shades of grey.But he decided to have surgery in 2004 which changed his life – and his senses – attaching an antenna to the back of his…

ReutersMore than a thousand workers are participating in the strikeFor the past 11 days, about 1,500 workers of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics have been striking work in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, leading to major disruptions in production.The plant in Chennai city, one of Samsung’s two factories in India, employs nearly 2,000 workers and produces home appliances, contributing about a third to the company’s annual $12bn (£9bn) revenue in India.The striking workers gather at a plot of land near the 17-year-old factory daily, demanding that Samsung recognise their newly-formed labour union – the Samsung India Labour…

Nintendo and its partner The Pokémon Company have filed a legal case against the maker of the hit survival adventure game Palworld over alleged patent infringement.Palworld quickly earned the nickname “Pokémon with guns” when its first trailer was unveiled in 2021.Just days after the game’s release in January this year, The Pokémon Company said it would investigate the copycat claims.Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair Inc, acknowledged the lawsuit in a statement on Thursday and apologised to fans for “any worry or discomfort” caused.Pocketpair’s boss previously said the game had passed legal checks.Palworld “infringes multiple patent rights”, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company said…

Next said a sharp rise in overseas sales has been helped by the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime and TikTok “exposing” people to international fashion trends.The High Street retailer reported that overseas revenue jumped by 23% in the first half of its financial year compared to 1% growth in the UK.Next said it performed better in more affluent countries geographically closer to the UK, but said it was expanding further afield to India and targeting customers in Japan, China and Australia among others.”Global entertainment is exposing people to international fashion trends in a way they never have been before -…

Some X users in Brazil were once again able to access the social media platform on Wednesday despite a ban imposed by the nation’s judiciary last month.Brazilian users swarmed the site after X, which is owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, updated how its servers within the country are accessed.The platform’s restoration in Brazil was unintended, an X spokesperson said in a statement late on Wednesday. “To continue providing optimal service to our users, we changed network providers. This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users.”“While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in…