Article,ID
"Many of us know we don’t get enough sleep but imagine if there was a simple solution: getting up later. In a speech at the British Science Festival, Dr Paul Kelley from Oxford University said schools should stagger their starting times to work with the natural rhythms of their students. This would improve exam results and students’ health (lack of sleep can cause diabetes, depression, obesity and other health problems).
Dr Kelley said that, when children are around ten, their natural wake-up time is about 6.30am; at 16, this rises to 8am; and, at 18, a person’s natural waking hour is 9am, although you may think they are just a lazy teenager. The normal school starting time works for 10-year-olds but not for 16- to 18-year-olds. For the older teenagers, it might be better to start the school day at 11am or even later. “A 7am wake-up time for older teenagers,” says Kelley, “is the same as a 4.30am start for a teacher in their 50s.”
He says the solution is not to tell teenagers to go to bed earlier. “The body’s natural rhythm is controlled by a particular kind of light,” says Kelley. “The eye has cells that report to a part of the brain that controls our sleep rhythms over a 24-hour cycle. It’s the light that controls it.”
But it isn’t just students who would benefit from a later start. Kelley says the working day should be more linked to our natural rhythms. Describing the average sleep loss per night for different age groups, he says: “Between 14 and 24, people lose more than two hours. For people aged between 24 and about 30 or 35, they lose about an hour and a half. That can continue up until you’re about 55 when it’s in balance again. The 10-year-old and 55-year-old wake and sleep naturally at the same time.”
So, should workplaces have staggered starting times, too? Should people in their 50s and above come in at 8am, people in their 30s start at 10am and the teenage apprentice at 11am? Kelley says that synchronized hours could have “many positive effects. The positive side is that people’s performance, mood and health will improve. It’s very positive because it’s a solution that will make people less ill, and happier and better at what they do.”
There would probably be fewer accidents because drivers would be more awake, he says. It could mean the end of rush hour because people would stagger their work times and the times of their school run. A later start to the day for many, says Kelley, “is something that would benefit all people, particularly families. Parents go and try to wake up teenagers who are waking up three hours too early. It creates problems for everybody.”
So, what time does Kelley start work? “I am 67 so that means I’m like a 10-year-old and I get up just after six. I wake naturally.” And, yes, he says he finds the start of his working day much easier now than when he was younger.",50
"An international agreement to improve safety in Bangladesh’s clothes factories could face legal action. This is because factory owners are asking for compensation for the cost of closures and repair work. Some repairs may take months and factory owners say they cannot pay workers while factories are closed. Also, they cannot pay for big works to make buildings safe. The building repairs are happening after the Rana Plaza building in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, collapsed in 2013 and 1,138 people died. 
The problems come as hundreds of Bangladeshi clothes factories are inspected every month for fire-safety and structural problems under the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. The Accord is supported by over 170 international companies, including Primark and Marks & Spencer, and international trade unions, including IndustriALL. 
The owner of one Dhaka factory, Softex Cotton, said he will take legal action against the Accord because his factory was closed down as a result of structural problems. He wants around $100 million in compensation. 
Another factory owner said that, when a factory closed, even for a few months, it would lose orders and close permanently: “There is no such thing as temporary closure,” he said. The factory owner said it was not clear in the Accord agreement who would pay for factory closures. 
Jenny Holdcroft, policy director for IndustriALL, which has been closely involved in the Accord, said that the agreement made sure that factories would not lose orders during closure because companies agreed to continue orders with suppliers for two years. 
The Accord has found12 factories that need a lot of work, but Holdcroft said many of those only needed partial closure and production could continue on other floors. The Accord also asks companies to make sure that workers receive pay during factory closures. She said that factory owners who could afford to pay for repairs and compensation for workers should make the payments. 
“Companies don’t want to pay so that rich factory owners can continue to just take the profits and not spend on their factories for years. It is not surprising that there is disruption. If there was no disruption, there would be no change,” she said. A spokesman for the Accord said negotiations over payments and even legal action would not delay its work to improve safety in factories. 
But there is now more pressure on the Accord to help pay workers when their factories close. A rival factory-safety group, supported by US retailers including Walmart and Gap, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, has given $5 million to help pay factory workers for up to two months while buildings are improved. 
“The Alliance is sharing the workers’ salary with factory owners so now there is a big confusion. We had a big meeting with the Accord to make them understand they have to help or how will we help our workers?” said Shaidullah Azim, a director of the Bangladeshi Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.",51
"An international agreement to improve safety in Bangladesh’s clothing factories could face legal action because factory owners are demanding compensation for the cost of closures and repair work. Some repair programmes are expected to take months and factory owners say they cannot pay staff while factories are closed, as well as paying for major works needed to ensure that buildings are safe. The building repairs are happening in the wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, in 2013, in which 1,138 people were killed.
The problems come as hundreds of Bangladeshi clothing factories per month are inspected for firesafety and structural problems under the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is supported by over 170 international brands, including Primark and Marks & Spencer, and international trade unions, including IndustriALL.
The owner of one Dhaka-based factory, Softex Cotton, has said he will take legal action against the Accord because his factory was closed down due to structural problems. He is demanding $100m in compensation.
Another factory owner said that, once a factory closed its doors, even for a few months, it would lose orders and close permanently: “There is no such thing as temporary closure,” he said. The factory owner said that the Accord agreement had “pussyfooted” around the issue of who paid for factory closures because they just wanted to get as many brands as possible to sign up to a deal in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster. He said there was no clear process in place to pay the costs involved.
Jenny Holdcroft, policy director for IndustriALL, which has been closely involved in the Accord, said that the agreement ensured that factories would not lose orders during closure because brands had committed to maintain orders with suppliers for two years.
Twelve factories have been identified by the Accord as needing significant work so far, but Holdcroft said many of those only needed partial closure and production could continue on other floors. The Accord also legally requires brands to ensure that workers are paid during factory closures. She said the detail on who would make payments had been left open in order to ensure that all those factory owners who could afford to pay for repairs and compensation for workers made the necessary payments.
“This was always going to be a topic of negotiation. Brands don’t want to commit to paying so that rich factory owners who have just pocketed the profits and not been spending on their factories for years continue to do so. There was obviously going to be disruption. If there was no disruption, there would be no change,” she said. A spokesman for the Accord said negotiations over payments and even legal action would not hold up its work to improve safety in factories.
However, pressure on the Accord to contribute to the payment of displaced workers has increased after a rival factory-safety group, backed by US retailers including Walmart and Gap, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, set aside $5m to help pay factory workers for up to two months while buildings are improved. It has, so far, identified five factories in four buildings where production needed to be suspended.
“The Alliance is sharing the workers’ salary along with entrepreneurs so now there is a big confusion. We had a big meeting with the Accord to make them understand they have to come forward or how will we help our workers?” said Shaidullah Azim, a director of the Bangladeshi Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.",52
"Maria is sitting on a black plastic chair in a community centre on a cold Tuesday afternoon waiting for her number to be called. She is number 34. 
When it’s her turn, Maria is called forward to pick up a brown paper bag filled with essentials including pasta, eggs and cornflakes, and is invited to choose between butternut squash or carrots as this week’s vegetables. 
Maria is the 34th “client” so far today at East Hampton Food Pantry, a community initiative set up just streets away from some of the most expensive and exclusive properties in the world. By the end of the day, the food pantry’s organizers expect more than 400 families to have followed Maria through the doors to collect their weekly food parcel to help them get through the cold, dark Long Island winter. 
In the summertime, the Hamptons, a collection of historic oceanfront towns and villages 100 miles from Manhattan, is a billionaires’ playground. But, come Labor Day in early September, when the rich and famous shut up their mansions and head back to Manhattan or Beverly Hills, the glitz gives way to the gritty reality of life for the mostly immigrant community who live here all year. “The people who come here are rich and famous but we who live here are not,” says Maria, who works 14-hour days in the summer cleaning mansions but goes months without any work at all in the winter. 
Maria laughs when asked if she has enough money. “There is no work in the winter, only in the summertime,” says Maria, who, like many of the workers in the Hamptons, is from Latin America. “Here, lots of people live in a single room because they can’t pay the rent.” 
She says some families with up to five children are crammed into basements and still pay more than $1,000 a month in rent. “People come here looking for work but, in the winter, there is nothing.” 
Lots of her friends can’t pay for heating or medication and many would go hungry if it were not for the East Hampton Food Pantry, she says, which is just one of several food pantries in the town. 
Vicki Littman, chairperson of the East Hampton Food Pantry, which provided more than 31,000 food parcels in 2015, says the number of people seeking out the food pantry is ever increasing. “Once Labor Day comes and the season is over and people’s hours start to be cut back, our numbers go up to about 400 families a week,” she says. “When they come to us on Tuesday, they get two to three days’ worth of food. Without us, they would struggle that much more.” Littman says it can be hard for outsiders to realize that there are people struggling to get by in a place known the world over for its excess. 
“When I discuss with the summer community that comes out here about the food pantries, they’re always shocked because there is that glamorous side of the Hamptons where there are galas and the beaches and the mansions that are here. “But, what people don’t realize is that there is that service industry. It’s the landscapers, the nannies, the waitresses – they are all relying on that summer income to get them through the winter but people don’t see that when they’re coming out on holiday. 
“There are seniors who have to sometimes pick between whether they are going to pay for their medications or pay their bills or buy food, and that shouldn’t be the case.” 
Littman says the town has lost too many people working key jobs – such as teachers, police officers and even doctors and dentists – because they can’t afford to live in the community and the food pantry board is determined to do more to ensure people have a better shot at staying put. Housing is, by far, the biggest cost in the Hamptons. At $147m, the nation’s most expensive property is hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein’s 18-acre beachfront estate at 67 Further Lane, a stone’s throw from Maidstone Golf Club, which is considered “the most elite, prestigious and difficult to get into” of all the Hamptons clubs. 
Larry Cantwell, East Hampton’s town supervisor and lifelong resident, says homes regularly change hands at more than $25m and the rapid price inflation at the top end has trickled down to even the town’s most modest flats. 
“Finding your first home is a challenge in an area like this,” Cantwell says. “Not just people who you would characterize as poor – working- and middle-class families are also having a hard time. If you can find a home to buy anywhere in East Hampton for $500,000, you’re very lucky.” Cantwell says more than half the town’s homes are empty for most of the year, which causes the population to dwindle to as little as 10,000 in the winter months compared with 80,000 in August. “It’s kind of the tale of two cities. There’s certainly a lot of wealth here but almost all of that wealth is in second homes only used in the summer,” says Cantwell, the son of a fisherman father and a house-cleaner mother. “But, the rest of us live here year round. 
“There are famous and very wealthy people but then you have hard-working and poor people struggling to get by. You’ve got to remember that this community was founded as a farming and fishing community of people who lived off the land and the water – a real working-class community.” 
Cantwell says saving up enough money to buy your first house while working as a farmer or fisherman is near-impossible in East Hampton today “and it’s not just the poor – police officers, teachers, young professionals and others all struggle to find a place to live here and many of them cannot afford to own their own home.” 
Being homeless in the Hamptons means spending a lot of time on a bus. Various houses of worship have joined together to ensure there is somewhere for the homeless to spend the night over the winter. Churches up and down the north and south fork of Long Island take on the burden one night at a time and roughly 50 homeless people are bussed between them every day. Eddie Vallone, 22, is one of those on the bus every night. “People look at the Hamptons as some sort of rich town and there’s no problems going on. But there are a lot of problems here, especially drugs. 
“It’s hard to really grasp –'OK, the summer is coming to an end. What am I going to do for the winter?'” Vallone says at Maureen’s Haven, a charity that coordinates the homeless shelter programme. “I want to work but there’s no work to be done.” 
Vallone, who works cleaning pools and doing odd jobs on luxury estates, says that, if he saves well and doesn’t impulse-buy, he can make his summer earnings stretch out until November. “But, work doesn’t start again until May or the beginning of June.”",53
"Until the last, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, was still capable of springing surprises. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January 2016 and proved that his gift for making dramatic statements as well as challenging, disturbing music hadn’t deserted him. 
Throughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. Having been a late-60s mime and cabaret entertainer, he evolved into a singer-songwriter, a pioneer of glam-rock, then veered into what he called “plastic soul”, before moving to Berlin to create innovative electronic music. His capacity for mixing brilliant changes of sound and image underpinned by a genuine intellectual curiosity is rivalled by few in pop history. 
Bowie was born David Robert Jones in south London. In 1953, the family moved to Kent, where David showed aptitude in singing and playing the recorder. Later, he studied art, music and design. In 1961, David’s mother bought him a plastic saxophone, introducing him to an instrument which would become a recurring ingredient in his music. 
At 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads. It was clear that David’s talents and ambition dictated that he should go solo. David adopted the name Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees. 
Bowie’s first album, released in June 1967, was titled simply David Bowie . In July 1969, Bowie released Space Oddity, the song that would give him his initial commercial breakthrough. Timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a top five UK hit. 
In March 1970, Bowie married art student, Angela Barnett. Artistically, Bowie was powering ahead. The Man Who Sold the World was released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the following year, and with its daring songwriting and broody, hard-rock sound, it was the first album to do full justice to his writing and performing gifts. The album’s themes included immortality, insanity, murder and mysticism, evidence that Bowie was a songwriter who was thinking way beyond pop’s usual boundaries. 
He followed it with 1972’s Hunky Dory, a mix of wordy, elaborate songwriting. It was an excellent collection that met with only moderate success but that all changed with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later that year. 
This time, Bowie emerged as a fully fledged science-fiction character – an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting a doomed planet Earth – and the album effectively wrote the script for his own stardom. The hit single Starman brought instant success for the album, while Bowie’s ravishing stage costumes and provocative performances triggered fan enthusiasm unseen since Beatlemania. 
Everything Bowie touched turned to gold. He had his first UK number 1 album with Aladdin Sane (1973), which generated the hit singles The Jean Genie and Drive-in Saturday . But Bowie was already planning fresh career moves. 
His increasing interest in funk and soul music came to the fore on the deliciously listenable Young Americans (1975), which gave him a US chart-topper with Fame (featuring John Lennon as a guest vocalist). 
Station to Station (1976) introduced a new persona, the Thin White Duke, which Bowie had carried over from his headlining performance as a melancholy space traveller in Nicolas Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell to Earth. 
Bowie’s relationship with his wife had been disintegrating under the pressures of success and the couple divorced in 1980. This was a year of further creative triumph, bringing a fine album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and its spin- off chart-topping single, Ashes to Ashes, followed by Bowie’s well-received stint as John Merrick in The Elephant Man on the Broadway stage. He achieved a number 1 single with his 1981 partnership with Queen, Under Pressure while becoming increasingly involved in crossovers between different media. He appeared in the German movie Christiane F (1981) and wrote music for the soundtrack. He had another chart hit with Cat People (Putting Out Fire) from Paul Schrader’s movie Cat People (1982). Bowie continued to make progress as a screen actor with appearances in The Hunger and the second world war drama Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, both released in 1983. 
Musically, this was the year in which he put his energy into an all-out commercial onslaught with the album Let’s Dance and follow-up concerts. Let’s Dance moulded Bowie into a crowd-friendly global rock star, with the album and its singles Let’s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all becoming huge international hits. 
This was the heyday of MTV and Bowie’s knack for eye-catching videos fuelled this commercial splurge, while the six-month Serious Moonlight tour drew massive crowds. It was to be the most commercially successful period of his career. His profile gained another boost from his appearance at the 1985 Live Aid famine relief concert at Wembley Stadium, where he was one of the standout performers. In addition, he teamed up with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single Dancing in the Street, which sped to number 1. A few days after his appearance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model Iman and the couple bought a home in New York. This new start in his private life coincided with a search for fresh musical inspiration. 
For the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he sprinkled elements of soul, electronica and hip hop into the mix. It topped the UK album chart and yielded a top 10 single, Jump They Say . New media and technology influenced his recordings, too. His 1999 album Hours … was based around music he had written for a computer game called Omikron, in which Bowie and Iman appeared as characters. The birth of Bowie and Iman’s daughter, Alexandria, followed in August 2000. 
As an adopted New Yorker, Bowie was the opening act at the Concert for New York City in October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John in a benefit show six weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Bowie was back in the studio the following year for Reality . However, in the midst of his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie was stricken with chest pains while performing in Germany and underwent emergency surgery in Hamburg to clear a blocked artery. 
He took the medical emergency as a warning and reduced the pace of his activities. In 2006, he announced he would be taking a year off from touring and recording. In February that year, he was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award, having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. 
The Next Day (2013) was his first album of new material in a decade. It contained the single Where Are We Now?, which gave him his first UK top 10 hit since 1993. The album topped charts in Britain and around the world. In 2014, Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British Male, making him the oldest British recipient in the awards’ history. He is survived by Iman, their daughter, Alexandria, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his son, Duncan, from his first marriage.",54
"An octopus has escaped from the National Aquarium in New Zealand. It escaped from its tank, slid down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappeared into the sea. Inky – a common New Zealand octopus – escaped after someone left the lid of his tank open. Staff at the aquarium believe that, in the middle of the night, when there was no-one in the building, Inky climbed down the side of the tank and travelled across the floor. 
Rob Yarrell, national manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, said: “Octopuses are famous for their ability to escape. I don’t think he was unhappy with us, or lonely, because octopuses like to live alone. But, he is such a curious boy. He would want to know what’s happening on the outside. That’s his personality.” 
One idea is that Inky crossed the aquarium floor – a journey of three or four metres – and then, he realized that freedom was very near so he entered a drainpipe that led directly to the sea. The drainpipe was 50 metres long and opened into Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. 
It is also possible that Inky escaped through an open pipe at the top of his tank, which led under the floor to the drain. “When we came in the next morning and his tank was empty, I was really surprised,” said Yarrell, who has not started looking for Inky. “The staff and I have been sad. But then, this is Inky and he’s always been a bit of a surprise octopus.” 
Reiss Jenkinson, a keeper at the National Aquarium, said he was absolutely certain Inky was not stolen. “I understand octopus behaviour very well,” he said. “I have seen octopuses on boats escape through waste pumps. And, the security here is too good for anyone to take Inky and why would they?” 
Because octopuses have no bones, they can fit into very small spaces and can squeeze through gaps the size of coins. They are also very intelligent and able to use tools. At the Island Bay Marine Education Centre in Wellington, an octopus visited another tank every night to steal crabs, then return to its own tank. Another octopus at the centre, Ozymandias, broke a world record for opening a jar. 
Inky was brought to the National Aquarium several years ago by a local fisherman who found him in a fishing pot. Yarrell said, “He lived on the reef and fought with fish so he was quite ill.” According to Yarrell, Inky – who is about the size of a rugby ball – was an “unusually intelligent” octopus. “He was very friendly and a popular attraction here. We have another octopus, Blotchy, but he is smaller than Inky and Inky had the personality.” 
The aquarium has no plans to increase security as a result of the escape but the staff now know “what octopuses can do” so they will be more careful. The aquarium is not looking for another octopus but, if a fisherman brought in another octopus, the aquarium might take it. “You never know,” said Yarrell. “There’s always a chance Inky will come home to us.”",55
"36-year-old Junior Smart knows a lot about gangs. When he was a teenager, after his mother died, he joined a south London gang. At the time, it helped fill a big gap in his life. “They became my new support group,” he says. “At first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious and we got involved in crime.” After he left college, he got a full-time job but he was also making money illegally as part of the gang. 
Eventually he was arrested for serious drug crimes and was sent to prison for 12 years. “The first night after I was arrested was the biggest shock of my life,” he says. “I had been living a double life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers’ enemies.” 
Today, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, working to help young criminals and gang members to stop committing crimes. Most of the team are ex-criminals like Smart. A few are still in prison but are allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help members of the violent criminal gangs of London. 
Smart’s extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he was in prison. “I couldn’t believe that people kept coming back in and nobody did anything about it. I was talking to the prisoners and they knew what was wrong in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the crime.” 
“One guy spent £300 a week on cocaine and burgled houses to get the money. He told me how he walked into houses, even when he knew people were there. So he had a drug addiction, but that problem was never solved.” 
Smart started working as a prison “listener” – a prisoner who helps new arrivals during their first days inside. Then he had an idea to run his own scheme when he left prison – using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject crime. He left prison after five years and started his scheme. 
So what does he think now? Does he believe that things are getting better? He says the police have done some good work in arresting gang members. But he criticizes the government because they believe that, when the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He believes the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. 
“When you arrest the leader, people in the gang start fighting. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a violent family. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has no long-term effect.” 
Can it make the streets more dangerous? “Yes, it can. If one gang knows that an elder [leader] has been arrested, then they suddenly think that gang’s weak ... And so we have fights between different gangs. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He makes friends with other gang members, or when he comes out of prison he tries to take control back. That is when violence happens.” 
Smart says gangs are now recruiting members in primary schools. The youngest members are called “tinies”. “Over the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be just eight to eleven years old.” The youngest members protect their seniors from risk. They often sell drugs or even stab people, he says. 
Smart says that the challenges are very big, particularly because the economy is so bad. “I try to help a young person who has been earning £300 a week illegally. It was difficult before but, with lots of unemployment, it’s even more difficult now.” But his project, which has more than 1,000 clients, is bringing results. Fewer than 20% of the people he helps reoffend. Smart believes that everyone should get a second chance.",56
"lonely old man living in a crater on the moon is the unlikely focus of John Lewis’s Christmas 2015 advert, as the department store puts a charitable spin on its latest multi-million pound campaign. 
Amid increasing hype around John Lewis’s seasonal ad, which has come to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season for many, the department store will aim to use its profile to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for Age UK. It will also encourage staff and customers to join up with their local branch of the charity to care for elderly people who might otherwise be alone over the holiday. 
The retailer has spent £7m on a campaign that ranges from the slick TV ad to a smartphone game and merchandise, including glow-in-the- dark pyjamas, as well as areas decked out like the surface of the moon in 11 stores. 
After two years of successful ads featuring cuddly animals – a bear and hare, then a penguin – this time, the retailer is tugging at the heartstrings with a story of a young girl, Lily, who spots an old man living in a shack on the moon through her telescope. The determined child tries sending him a letter and firing a note via bow and arrow, before floating him a present of a telescope tied to balloons, which finally enables them to make contact. 
The ad’s strapline is: “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas”, which echoes Age UK’s own campaign: “No one should have no one at Christmas”. Profits from three products – a mug, gift tag and card – will go to the charity. 
“The charity really resonates with people at this time of year and the ad lends itself to thinking about someone who lives on your street that might not see anybody,” said Rachel Swift, head of marketing at John Lewis. 
The campaign features the Oasis track Half the World Away reinterpreted by little-known Norwegian artist Aurora. 
The ad cost £1m to make. The moon scenes were shot at the Warner Bros Studios, where the Harry Potter films were made, and the specially built set was created by one of the team behind the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. 
As in the last few years, John Lewis has drummed up interest in their most recent ad with a teaser campaign on TV and social media using the hashtag #OnTheMoon. There will be a full moon on Christmas Day 2015 – a complete coincidence, according to Swift. 
In 2014, the retailer also spent £7m on a campaign featuring a realistic animated penguin and a young boy playing together to the tune of John Lennon’s Real Love, sung by British singer-songwriter Tom Odell. It had drummed up 22m views on YouTube by the first week of January, ahead of the 16.6m clocked by Sainsbury’s ad featuring First World War soldiers sharing a bar of chocolate, the UK’s next most popular ad of 2014. 
Swift said that, despite the hype, John Lewis had stuck to the same strategy for the last five years. “It’s all about thoughtful gifting and going the extra mile for someone you love at Christmas,” she said. “We don’t go into it thinking, 'This is going to be huge,' just getting something right for the brand at this time of year and something we hope customers really love.” 
Sarah Vizard, news editor of trade journal Marketing Week, said John Lewis appeared to have reined in its efforts this time, with a lower- key presence in stores despite a growing army of competitors. “There are definitely a lot more brands doing Christmas ads this year but I think a lot of those brands who tried to compete with John Lewis by doing something emotional and creative have gone back to what you can buy in store,” she said. “John Lewis still does the emotional piece the best. This campaign is another great way of putting that across in a way that will resonate with customers. I think people will think it is really cute.” 
Among those fighting for attention in the flurry of Christmas ads was sister chain, Waitrose, which launched its Christmas ad online on social media ahead of a TV debut during The X Factor . It used the agency which has created John Lewis’s Christmas ads for years. 
Burberry has launched what is only its second festive film, featuring Romeo Beckham and Elton John, while electrical chain Currys drafted in Jeff Goldblum for its first ever dedicated Christmas ad. Asda, Lidl and Morrisons also launched their campaigns at the beginning of November. 
Marc Bolland, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, which also launched its Christmas ad at the beginning of November, said that, in the first week of September, the most searched term on its website was Christmas. 
Boots, another retailer launching its festive campaign in early November, is going back to a more traditional approach after a critically acclaimed ad in 2014, which featured a family going to great lengths to get together at Christmas.",57
"One day, drones could deliver packages to your home. When will this happen? If you believe Amazon, it will be soon. Other people are not so sure. They have to invent the right technology but, also, they have to consider public safety.
Amazon say that they will be ready as soon as the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) introduce rules for using drones. The FAA will finally introduce rules for using unmanned aircraft by June 2016. But the technology has a long way to go before then and larger machines aren’t legal yet – only drones up to 25kg will be legal. And the FAA says in the rules they want to introduce that drones will all have to use different radio frequencies that nobody can block or hijack.
Professor Sajiv Singh, who works for delivery company NearEarth, said that flying drones is quite simple – you just give it some basic instructions: go to this height, do this short task, go back home. But even short flights from a mobile landing place could cause serious problems, he said.
“They’re not planning to deliver in areas where nobody lives; they’re planning to deliver from a warehouse to the consumer, which will probably be in a town or city,” he said. “The drone will have to see hazards. Maybe there will be things that the map doesn’t know about. Maybe there will be construction equipment that wasn’t there but is there now. Maybe GPS signals will be blocked so it’s going to have an incorrect idea about where it is.” All this can be solved, he said – but it’s difficult.
One big problem is keeping radio contact with a drone and planning for what happens if that contact breaks. “If a drone loses radio contact, it will keep going and crash into the ground,” said robot expert Daniel Huber.
“We already have most of the technology we need,” said Huber. He is working on a program that will use drones to check telephone lines, bridges and so on. “We can make drones fly around a certain area and look at every surface.”
Huber said about Amazon: “They say that many packages are light – a drone can carry a kilogram for 15 minutes. If you have a vehicle that can go into a neighbourhood, it can deliver from that vehicle. You need a 15-minute distance, and typical drones have about that distance.” It’s one way, he said, to make sure people are safe. “The larger the distance, the more dangerous it becomes.”
Of course, safety is still a big worry – Singh points out that for a passenger aeroplane to be allowed to fly, it can only have one serious failure every one million hours. Drones, he said, are much less safe. “The Reaper drone, for example, has one failure in 10,000 hours,” Singh said.
Part of the reason for this is simply that air travel is dangerous so standards are much higher. “If you fly a passenger aeroplane, often they will say, ‘Oh, a small part isn’t working; we have to go back,’” Singh said. “And people have been flying passanger aeroplanes for 60 years! I hate to think that a drone might come down on a busy road.” Part of the solution, Singh said, is planning for every situation: “If things fail, the drone has to do something sensible.”",58
"Governments in Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the poorest parts of the EU, unemployment continues to rise.
Now, in Sardinia, Italy, a mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town’s unemployment problem. Valter Piscedda, the mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The town will pay for ten unemployed local people to take English lessons, get on a cheap flight and look for jobs in other parts of Europe.
“This idea comes from common sense and experience, ” he told the Guardian. “In the past year and a half – especially in the past few months – I have seen young people, almost every day, who have lost hope that they will find work. Some ask for help in finding work here. Others have tried everything and, now, they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too.”
So he decided to help people who want to gain experience abroad.
Sardinia, and also much of southern and central Italy, is struggling with high unemployment. Unemployment was at 17.7% in the second quarter of 2014, according to Italy’s National Institute of Statistics. More than 54% of people under 25 are out of work. 
For the Adesso Parto (Now I’m leaving) programme, Elmas will give €12,000 to the first ten applicants aged between 18 and 50. The applicants must be out of work and have lived in the town for three years. They do not have to be university educated and they must not earn more than €15,000.
The idea of helping people to leave is sensitive at a time when many Italians – many of them clever young graduates – are leaving their country every year. But Piscedda believes that the people he is sending away might return “and give me back 100 times what we gave them”. More importantly, he wants the scheme to help the people most in need.
In Elmas, the scheme has got mixed reactions. “There is little work here,” said Alessandro Macis. “The opportunity to go abroad to learn about the workplace and experience other cultures can be very worthwhile. The son of a friend of mine who didn’t study much is in London and he’s doing very well. He started as a waiter. Now, he’s a cook and he’s learning English.”
Others were not sure. “I heard about it but I thought it was strange. If you have that money to pay for people to go away, why don’t you use that money to keep them here?” said Consuelo Melis, who works in a local café.
But Piscedda says, “The work I can create, as mayor, is temporary. I can ask someone to clean a piazza. I can ask them to clean it again. I can ask someone to clean the streets. But these are all temporary things that give nothing more than a little bit of money for a few months.”",59
"Like a typical bad boyfriend, Dan Sullivan arrived late to breakfast with the Guardian because the police stopped him on his motorcycle. 
Sullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents. 
And so, like many others in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old has started a business: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70. 
Sullivan is testing the service and has about 350 boyfriends as his clients. Most clients, he says, are his friends from university and other friends who are founders of start-ups or work for companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. The girlfriends of these men get presents from Sullivan. 
Each month, Sullivan’s clients choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, etc). Then, Sullivan sends the gift to the boyfriend. 
For Sullivan, the surprise was the real relationships that he has formed with his clients. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends. 
Sullivan says he’s made mistakes. In the beginning, the gifts he sent included receipts with his name on, Dan Sullivan. “One of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, 'She’s not mad but Cynthia found out'.” 
Of all the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to, about 50% know that Sullivan chooses the presents they receive: “It’s connected with age. I think, after you’ve been married for a longer time, you don’t keep many secrets.” 
And over the year, the young founder says he’s got to know the boyfriends really well. They’ve even sent a package to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend. 
When he first started his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and went to the Mission District in San Francisco. 
“I looked for couples and gave the flowers to the girl but the boyfriends didn’t like that. Not at all,” he said. “So I changed my idea and gave the flowers to the boyfriends.”",60
"Music subscription services, like Spotify and Deezer, have made more than $1bn worldwide, as fans choose to pay for music online.
Income from music streaming and subscription rose by more than 50% in 2013 to reach $1.1bn. And, sales of recorded music in Europe grew for the first time in 12 years.
Many people still listen for free, but many others are willing to pay money to get a better choice of music. In three years, the number of paying subscribers rose from 8 million to 28 million, according to the 2014 digital music report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
Subscription services are easily accessible from smartphones and tablets, so they are popular with people who want to try out new music without buying a download or a CD. People like this cheap, user-friendly and legal alternative to pirated downloads.
In Britain and America, streaming may soon make more money for the music industry than downloads from online stores such as Apple’s iTunes. A third of all digital sales globally now come from subscription services and the other two thirds come from downloads.
In the US, the percentage of people using subscription services and streaming rose from 19% in 2012 to 23%. At the same time, the percentage of people downloading fell from 28% to 27%.
In Britain, the number of people downloading music stayed the same at exactly one third, but subscribers grew from 19% to 22%. In Sweden, France and Italy, streaming is already more popular than downloading.
Thirty-nine per cent of all music sales are now digital. Sales of CDs and vinyl reduced a lot in 2013, but they still make just over half the music industry’s income.
Vinyl continued to make a comeback in some places. Sales increased by 32% in America and by 101% in the UK in 2013.",61
"Why do people want to be a football referee? The top referees of the future smile when you ask them this question. This season, more people are criticizing referees. For this reason, some former referees have started to complain about standards. That is quite significant because, when you talk to referees, it is obvious that they always support each other.
So why do they do want to be referees? Why do referees spend hundreds of hours driving around the country? Why do they work so hard to get the chance to make decisions on television in front of millions of people who criticize them and their ability with the help of many cameras and slow-motion replays? 
You might get an answer from Lee Swabey’s face. He looks really happy after he blows the final whistle of a 2–1 win for Grimsby against Woking, a match at level 5 of the English league system. He gets what all referees want every time they referee a match. “Twenty-two handshakes, ” he explains afterwards, proudly. “The buzz,” as he calls it, of a game that goes well, is something he loves. “I wouldn’t spend so much time away from my family if this wasn’t so important to me.”
Swabey is one of a group of new referees that the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) thinks is really good. So Swabey knew they were watching him at that match. PGMOL’s chief, Mike Riley, was there, and also his colleague Steve Dunn, watching every move the officials made.
A few weeks earlier, Riley, Dunn and another former referee, Peter Jones, went to another level-5 match to check another young referee – John Brooks. “I hope to have the opportunity to work in the Premier League and referee at some of the top games in this country,” Brooks says.
Unfortunately, the PGMOL only saw Brooks cancelling the match because of a frozen pitch. It is all part of the experience Brooks needs to have before he can referee at more important games. Brooks phoned his coach for advice and made the difficult but correct decision. A little later, the football club secretary arrived to pay the officials for their time – the match fee at level 5 is £95 so it is clear that these men do not do it for the money.
Brooks, like Swabey, has clear ambitions to progress. He knows lots of people will criticize him. How does he feel when he watches football on TV and a referee is attacked? “Erm … I don’t feel great,” he admits. “I do sometimes wish people understood the time and effort we put in. It is very easy to criticize a decision but we do everything to try to get these decisions right. In certain situations, you are going to be unpopular but, if you are uncomfortable with that, you are probably in the wrong job.”
The former referees agree that the backup, education and tools that today’s referees have is very different from what they experienced in the past. Riley, as a young referee, bought himself books on psychology and nutrition because there was no information on offer to him at all.
Things are very different for Brooks – he has his own coach. They talk every week, discuss how his games have gone, study film of key decisions and discuss how to improve. He also has the support of a sports psychologist and an exercise regime to help him run 11km during a game.
The three former referees all agree that new technology in the sport is great. “It makes the referee’s job better and makes them more effective on the field of play,” says Riley. A bad decision can stay with you for a while. “The rest of your life,” says Jones with a laugh.",62
"The continual relegation of women to the sidelines of football was given a good kicking when France appointed its first female professional team manager. It did not matter that it was a second-division club. It did not matter if it was, as some bad sports – male, of course – suggested, just a cynical stunt to drum up publicity for a minor team, Clermont Foot 63, currently ranking a lowly 14th out of 20 in its league. 
What mattered was that Helena Costa had been given the top job, a move that saw her make football history by becoming the first female manager to be appointed in the highest two divisions of any professional European league. “As a woman, it’s made me happy,” Véronique Soulier, president of the club’s supporters’ association, told journalists. “When I first heard the news, I was rather surprised, but, once that passed, we were pretty unanimous that it’s good news. We all agree that a woman at the head of a group of men is no bad thing.” 
The new manager of Clermont Foot 63, whose average home crowd at the stadium at Clermont- Ferrand in the Auvergne region of south-central France is around 3,800, is a former talent spotter for the Scottish Premiership side Celtic. Costa, 36, was born in Alhandra on the River Tagus in southeast Portugal and graduated with a master’s degree in sports science. She is also a UEFA-licensed coach. She previously coached Benfica’s male youth teams, the Qatar women’s team, which she led to its first international victory in 2012, and, more recently, the Iranian women’s national side, which she left in September 2013. 
Costa was appointed on a two-year contract by the president of Clermont Foot 63, Claude Michy, who is a champion at grabbing the headlines for his club. In 2013, he announced the team had signed Messi. They had. Not the Argentinian and FC Barcelona record-breaking striker Lionel Messi, but Junior Messi Enguene, a 20-year-old midfielder from Cameroon. 
France’s women’s minister, Najat Vallaud- Belkacem, tweeted: “Bravo to Clermont Foot for understanding that giving women a place is the future of professional football.” 
Carolina Morace, an Italian who was the only previous woman coach of a men’s professional team, said: “I don’t know Helena, but, if she has been hired by a team, then it means that she knows how to do her job. I hope that, one day, this can become normal.” Morace was an outstanding player in the women’s game. She was the top scorer for 12 seasons in Italy’s Serie A and played for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she was named as the coach of Viterbese in the men’s Serie C1. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job following a clash with the club’s mercurial proprietor, Luciano Gaucci, who at the time was also the owner of a Serie A side, Perugia. 
Morace was quoted as saying that she had refused Gaucci’s demand that she fire her deputy and the side’s trainer. “He let me know that I could carry on working with whomever I wanted. But, by then, mutual trust was lacking and I didn’t fancy carrying on in that climate of uncertainty,” she said. Morace works today as a lawyer in Rome and as expert soccer commentator on television and in the pages of the daily Gazzetta dello Sport. 
She said: “For the time being, I see too many men, even in the women’s game, who are working, despite not having the same expertise as women, who, by contrast, are not working.” Raymond Domenech, former manager of the French national team, said: “Women know how to play football and how to manage and are good at doing it. Why shouldn’t they manage men’s teams? The opposite happens and doesn’t cause any problems. It’s a natural choice and reflects our society in which women are equal to men. I say well done to President Michy. I told myself that, if I took charge of a club again, I’d hire a woman as my number two. He beat me to it.” 
A statement on Clermont Foot 63’s website said Costa’s appointment would allow the club to enter “a new era”. On the club supporters’ website, reaction to Costa’s appointment was a mix of surprise and a certain cynicism. “In my opinion, it’s just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club and she won’t last the season. I find it hard to believe she’ll be able to get the players’ respect, above all when she’s the same age as the oldest,” wrote one fan. “Her CV isn’t bad, but now the question is: will she be good enough?” added another. A third wrote: “I wish her welcome and success but I think it’ll be hard for her to make her mark as a woman in such a macho business. Has our president pulled off a media coup?” 
But Soulier was hopeful: “Hopefully, with the new manager, the club can find the motivation they’re lacking at the moment,” she said. “The boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in charge, maybe they’ll be less demanding.” 
If Costa’s reputation is anything to go by, she will be the one making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during her compatriot José Mourinho’s first stint as manager of the club between 2004 and 2007, she was reportedly described as “Mourinho in a skirt”. Costa quickly kicked the sexist remark into touch. “Like Mourinho, I always want to win. As far as that’s concerned, yes, I’m happy to be compared with him,” she said.",63
"Fit in four minutes. It sounds like a headline from a health magazine; an unattainable promise on late-night satellite TV. Then you attempt Dr Izumi Tabata’s training protocol – 20 seconds of all-out effort, 10 seconds of rest, repeat eight times – and between sounding like Darth Vader as you desperately suck in oxygen and collapsing in a messy bundle of sweat and defeat, you realize just how wrong you were. 
Tabata has seen it all before. “They were dead!” he chuckles as he recalls the first time he inflicted the system that bears his name on his university students in the early 1990s. “After four minutes’ hard exercise they were wiped out. But after six weeks they saw the results and were surprised. We all were.” 
His research followed extensive monitoring of Japan’s speed skating team in the early 1990s when he – along with the team’s coach Irisawa Koichi – noticed that short bursts of brutally hard exercise seemed to be at least as effective as hours of moderate training. Tabata set out to show this with a simple experiment. One group of moderately trained students performed an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week. The other group did a ten-minute warm-up on the bike, followed by four minutes of Tabata intervals, four times a week – plus one 30-minute session of steady exercise with two minutes of intervals. 
The results were startling. After six weeks of testing, the group following Tabata’s plan – exercising for just 88 minutes a week – had increased their anaerobic capacity by 28% and their VO 2 max, a key indicator of cardiovascular health and maximal aerobic power, by 15%. The control group, who trained for five hours every week, also improved their VO 2 max, but by 10% – and their training had no effect on anaerobic capacity. “We have also measured increases in heart size after three weeks of doing the protocol,” says Tabata. “And there is also forthcoming research that shows that it lowers the risk of diabetes in humans, something we have already shown in rats.” 
But there are no half-measures here. You can’t go steady on a cross trainer, chewing gum and reading the latest issue of HELLO! The regimen demands head-down bursts on a stationary bike or rowing machine; explosive bodyweight exercises, sprints or suchlike. Remember how you felt after doing a 100m sprint at school? Imagine doing eight of them with only a ten- second break to recover. 
“All-out effort at 170% of your VO 2 max is the criterion of the protocol,” says Tabata. “If you feel OK afterwards you’ve not done it properly. The first three repetitions will feel easy but the last two will feel impossibly hard. In the original plan the aim was to get to eight, but some only lasted six or seven.” 
As one commenter on the popular exercise forum T-Nation puts it: “When done correctly you should meet God. Most people are incapable of doing it correctly and shouldn’t even try.” 
Tabata doesn’t completely agree. “Everyone can do it but beginners should start with educated trainers so that they can work at the correct intensity for them,” he explains. He says that he will soon publish research showing that doing the programme just twice a week, less than half the volume in the original research, still provides significant health benefits. 
Another soon-to-be-published finding, which Tabata describes as “rather significant ”, shows that the Tabata protocol burns an extra 150 calories in the 12 hours after exercise, even at rest, due to the effect of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. So while it is used by most people to get fit – or by fit people to get even fitter – it also burns fat. 
It’s slightly surprising, therefore, that the plan is still the preserve of the serious athlete and musclehead crowd – although that may change now that Tabata has agreed a deal with Universal Studios that will lead to a network of instructors and a DVD range released towards the end of the year. “I decided to do this because I often go on YouTube and, while I am honoured that people are doing it, some are doing it wrong because they don’t realize the intensity you need to work at,” says Tabata. 
So should we all start incorporating this plan into our fitness regimens? Richard Scrivener, a former Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at Northampton Saints Rugby Club, says that while the benefits are clear, Tabatas are an addition, not a replacement, to a favoured sport or training method. “Runners, for instance, need a high level of running economy, which comes from skill acquisition and putting in the miles,” says Scrivener, “But they could effectively ease off the long runs and reduce the overall mileage by introducing Tabata training. This will unload the skeleton and give joints the chance to rest and recover, especially if one is prone to niggles or has a history of injuries – and you would probably therefore get more out of the long runs when you do undertake them.” 
Gym rats can benefit by doing three strength sessions and three Tabatas a week. And the rest of us can build up session by session, week by week, all the time knowing that it will never get easier because every session calls for maximum effort. That’s the cruel genius of the protocol: it is unrelenting – and effective.",64
"We do not yet live in an age of flying cars, as predicted in the 1985 film Back to the Future II, but smartphones and other new technologies are creating exciting possibilities. Experts agree that economic and population changes, new technology, and environmental concerns are having a big effect on transportation.
With an ageing transport infrastructure, cities in the US have to change and improve their transportation. Experts and scientists now realize that old ways of reducing traffic congestion aren’t enough to solve the problems of population growth and carbon emissions, and transportation is now an environmental problem.
Big US cities like Los Angeles and Chicago are adding more bus lanes and pedestrian walkways, and expanding rail networks. At the same time, they are creating advanced technologies that will allow a vehicle to drive itself and communicate with other vehicles and its environment.
Here are three of the key ideas that experts predict will change transportation in the future.
Taxi-sharing services like Uber and apps like Waze, which finds the quickest routes for drivers, are completely changing how people move around and affecting the way traffic moves through a city. Communication between riders and drivers, between different vehicles and between cars and infrastructure is bringing transportation into a new era.
According to a recent study, people born in the 1990s are using cars less than older generations. According to the study, people born in the 1990s are making 4% fewer car trips and travelling 18% fewer miles per year, on average, than older generations did at the same time in their lives. And, people who still drive cars are experiencing less traffic thanks to Waze. 
Traffic congestion is improving in other ways, too. At the moment, a traffic light knows when a car is getting close but that’s all. Companies are developing technology that allows a vehicle to tell traffic control systems not only that it is present but also where it is going and how fast it is travelling.
We have known about driverless cars ever since Google began testing the vehicles in 2012 but no-one really knows when driverless cars will become commonplace. But, there is already some automation of cars. Automation will probably happen in stages: first, there might be automated buses with their own lanes, then perhaps lorries in ports or mining towns: vehicles that are connected electronically and travel one behind another.
The idea of a fully automated transportation system is interesting because it could improve safety – people’s mistakes won’t cause accidents any more. It could also help reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion. But, it will take a long time to get fully automated because the average age of cars on the road is 11.5 years old.
To see what driverless cars might look like on the road, go to the video at: vimeo.com/37751380 .
The world is trying to slow down climate change and countries and cities are trying to reduce emissions. These things could have a big effect on the future of transportation and lead to zero- and low-emission vehicles and apps that encourage more walking, cycling and carpooling.
When thinking about the future of transportation, it’s also important to think about why people travel: they may be going to work, to meet friends or family, or to do the shopping. Technologies that reduce the need for those trips – for example, online meetings or online work – could also have a big effect on transportation.",65
"James Bond films are one of the world’s oldest and most successful film series. Twenty-three Bond films have been made so far. They have earned more than $6 billion at cinemas around the world. James Bond is not slowing down. In fact, the films are more popular than ever – Skyfall, which broke all records and became the biggest ever film at UK cinemas in 2012, earned a total of $1.1 billion.
So, there was a lot of interest when they announced more details about the 24th Bond film – especially its title, Spectre. The number one question is: can Spectre be as successful as Skyfall?
Charles Gant, film editor for Heat magazine, thinks it can. “They were very clever when they made Skyfall,” he says. “It was both modern and retro. Daniel Craig fans liked it and, also, older, more nostalgic Bond fans, who lost interest over the previous few films. With the new title,” he adds, “it is certain to be a success.”
Eon Productions is the company, started in 1961, that made Dr No and all the “official” Bond films. The company really wants the next film to be successful so it is using the same people that worked on Skyfall in the new film. Daniel Craig will play Bond and the same people have written the script. Most importantly, Sam Mendes will again be the director. According to Gant, Mendes is the best Bond director. Gant says: “Mendes attracted top actors like Ralph Fiennes. Actors like Fiennes will only be in a film if they like the director.”
The Bond series was not in trouble before the arrival of Mendes – and Craig – but the films were becoming a bit boring towards the end of Pierce Brosnan’s time as Bond. There were no longer any more original Bond stories to adapt and the films no longer had enough energy. 
This was nothing new: the history of the Bond series has been one of constant change, especially of the lead actor: first, Sean Connery; then, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, now, Craig. Each new actor has been different and some have been better than others.
Lazenby only did one Bond film. Dalton’s two films, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, were during a period in the late 80s when more aggressive Hollywood action movies were more popular. According to Gant, “the period of Roger Moore’s last films and Dalton’s films didn’t excite audiences. Brosnan was more successful but Craig is the best. On the other hand, the early Bond films were sexy and exciting.”
Skyfall made more money than all the other Bond films. But some of the 1960s Bond films were almost as successful. With figures adjusted for inflation, the 1965 film Thunderball is only a little bit below Skyfall. And Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice both did better than the other Craig films. Licence to Kill made the least money of all Bond films and Moore’s final film, A View to a Kill, the second least.
Martin Campbell is an experienced British director and he planned one of the most elaborate stunts in Bond history. In the famous first scene of Goldeneye (released in 1995), Bond falls into a light aeroplane without a pilot. This scene helped to make the Bond series more modern and popular. Also, a very successful Goldeneye video game created new, younger fans of Bond and made people think that the Bond film was no longer boring and old-fashioned.",66
"Back in 2005, when BlackBerry brought instant messaging to the mobile phone, the company was just entering its boom times. While the iPhone was still a gleam in Steve Jobs’s eye, BlackBerry’s innovations ensured its smartphone was one of Canada’s biggest exports. 
Six years later, in the summer of 2011, as violence engulfed London and spread to Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester, so effective was BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) at mobilizing the rioters that politicians called for the service to be temporarily shut down. But two years later, it is the users themselves who are pulling the plug. As demand for BlackBerry handsets fades, the once noisy BBM grapevine is falling silent. Dozens of alternatives have sprung up to take its place, from Facebook’s and Apple’s own-brand instant messaging applications to independent start-ups such as WhatsApp and Kik (which is also Canadian). Free to download and use, they use the internet to swap text messages, pictures, voice clips,’stickers’, and even videos in WhatsApp’s case, between most types of phones. 
In an attempt to retain its following, BBM has been released on Android and Apple phones. Despite the competition, the response has been overwhelming, with an announcement that there have been more than 20 million downloads. But, despite the initial interest, many believe BBM’s wider release will do little to save the service. 
“The move to bring BlackBerry to the iPhone is four or five years too late,” says James Gooderson, an 18-year-old student who blogs on technology. “WhatsApp has removed the reason why young people would use a BlackBerry.” BBM claims 80 million monthly users after its upgrade, but WhatsApp has 300 million. Other services expose BBM’s limitations: unlike Skype and Viber, it does not yet offer video or voice calls; unlike Path, it does not do location sharing; there is no video sharing, as on iMessage; and the stickers (a more sophisticated version of the smiley face), adored by kids the world over, are also unforgivably absent. Even the contacts and calendar sharing that BBM made possible on BlackBerry handsets have not migrated to the Apple and Android versions. 
Messaging is moving from verbal to visual. Photos uploaded to Instagram trigger a wave of comments and Snapchat’s pictures, which self-delete after ten seconds, have opened a world of other possibilities. Like BBM, all of these services are free for any phone with an internet connection. Yet as recently as 2011, BBM was so powerful it was credited with starting a revolution in Egypt; and, at the time of the London riots, it was a more urgent source of news than the television screen. 
“We could see on our BlackBerry messages where the rioters were going next; TV news would catch up four hours later,” said Jean- Pierre Moore, 28. He manages a youth club in Stockwell, south London, an area with some of the highest levels of crime and economic deprivation in Britain. Moore mainly communicates on an iPad now. He dismisses the notion that the BBM curfew urged by some MPs would have stopped the looting. “The social networking wasn’t the reason,” he says. “I know a lot of people who were out rioting. People had been angry for a long time. Mention the words 'stop and search' around here and you immediately have a room full of angry young men.” 
Nearly 80% of young smartphone owners regularly use a social networking application, says the research firm Enders Analysis, but two-thirds use more than one. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, 60% use Facebook every day but 46% use alternatives. “It’s a much more complex, multifaceted environment,” says Benedict Evans, a digital media specialist at Enders. “The smartphone itself has become the platform. All of these apps plug into your phone book and your photo library. Apps rise and fall like fireworks. Some, like Instagram, last; others disappear into thin air.” 
Thirteen-year-old Bennett has three devices, all hand-me-downs from family members. He keeps his BlackBerry for messaging, uses an iPhone over wi-fi to play games and makes phone calls on an HTC-branded Android phone. His friends are still on BBM – the four phone thefts at his school so far this term were all BlackBerrys. At the touch of a few buttons, a single BlackBerry message can be sent to the phone owner’s entire contacts book – several hundred people in some cases; on WhatsApp, the limit for a broadcast message is 50. But, for Bennett, Instagram is now a major social network. “Instagram is Facebook without parents,” he says. “Facebook has been taken over by the older generation. Once I saw my mum on Facebook, I deleted my account.” 
For families that may struggle to pay their heating bills this winter, the low price tag attached to buying and communicating on a BlackBerry retains its appeal. Unlimited BBM messages are available to anyone with a second-hand device and a £7-a-month deal from T-Mobile. But trust in the privacy of BBM’s system has been eroded. Part of the attraction to business people, revolutionaries, demonstrators and rioters was a belief that encrypted words sent over the company’s secure servers could not be traced back to their writers. Prosecutions after the riots put an end to that belief. 
Across town from Stockwell, outside the gates of a private school in well-heeled South Kensington, the older pupils all have Apple logos on their handsets. They all use WhatsApp. For many, BBM is a distant memory. “I still have a Blackberry, but I’m the only one,” says a teenager standing with a circle of friends. And how does that make him feel? “Isolated,” he replies.",67
"Two scientists at Stanford University, in the USA, used metadata on people’s telephone calls and texts to find out people’s names, where they lived and the names of their partners. The metadata told them what number people called, when and for how long but it didn’t tell them what people said. 
But, that was not all. With the same metadata, they could find out private information about some people. They discovered that one man had a gun and that another man had a heart problem. Other data told them that someone was having a baby and someone had a serious illness. 
The results show the extraordinary power of telephone metadata. It is particularly powerful when you use it together with information from Google, Yelp and Facebook. 
Then, the scientists used a simple computer program to analyse people’s calls and this helped them to see who was in a relationship. Once they knew the owner of a particular phone number had a partner, it was easy to find out who the partner was, they said. 
For the final part of the study, the researchers looked even deeper to see what private information they could get from telephone metadata. They collected details on calls made to and from places such as hospitals, pharmacies, religious groups, legal services and gun shops. From these, they produced interesting pictures of people’s lives. 
Mutchler said the study showed how easy it is to find out private information about people. He says that the results should make governments think twice before they record this information. “Metadata programmes, like the NSA’s, will show very private information about ordinary people,” the scientists said. 
Stewart Baker, who worked at the US National Security Agency (NSA), said “Metadata tells you everything about somebody’s life.” 
Patrick Mutchler, a researcher at Stanford, said that people who collect the information understand the power of metadata but that the public was in the dark. 
For the study, 823 people agreed for researchers to collect metadata from their phones using an app. The app also received information from their Facebook pages, which the scientists used to check their results. The scientists collected metadata on more than 250,000 calls and over 1.2 million texts. 
With very little money, Mutchler and Jonathan Mayer found out a lot of personal information about the people in the study. Some of the information was private. They found out 82% of people’s names. The same method gave them the names of businesses the people called. When they marked these on a map, they showed groups of local businesses, which the scientists guessed were near the person’s home address. In this way, they named the city people lived in 57% of the time and were nearly 90% correct in guessing, within 50 miles, where people lived.",68
"The forests – and suburbs – of Europe are echoing with the growls and howls of large predators according to a new study. The study shows that brown bears, wolves and lynx are thriving on the crowded continent. Rising human populations and overconsumption make many people believe that such animals will soon become extinct. But the study has found that large-predator populations are stable or rising in Europe.
Brown bears, wolves and the Eurasian lynx are found in nearly one-third of mainland Europe (excluding Belarus, Ukraine and Russia), with most living outside nature reserves. This indicates that changing attitudes and conservation measures are successfully protecting species that have suffered massive persecution throughout human history.
Bears are the most abundant large carnivore in Europe – there are around 17,000 of them. There are 12,000 wolves and 9,000 Eurasian lynx. Only Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in mainland Europe – like Britain – have no breeding populations of at least one large carnivore species. But the study’s main author and other conservationists said that these animals now live in well-populated regions of Europe, so even the British countryside could support big predators.
Guillaume Chapron from Sweden’s University of Agricultural Sciences and researchers across Europe found wolves, in some cases, living in suburban areas alongside up to 3,050 people per square kilometre. On average in Europe, wolves live on land with a population density of 37 people per sq km, lynx in areas with a population density of 21 people per sq km and bears among 19 people per sq km. The population density of the Scottish Highlands is just nine people per sq km.
“In order to have wolves, we don’t need to remove people from the landscape,” said Chapron. He adds that the big-carnivore revival shows the success of a “land-sharing” model of conservation – unlike the policy of keeping predators and people apart by fencing off “wilderness” areas, as occurs in North America and Africa.
“I’m not saying it’s a peace-and-love story – coexistence often means conflict – but it’s important to manage that conflict and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours,” said Chapron. “We shouldn’t be talking about people-predator conflict; we have conflict between people about predators. These animals are symbolic of difficult questions about how we should use the land.”
According to the researchers, this “land-sharing” approach could be applied elsewhere in the world. The reasons for its success in Europe include political stability, growing populations of prey species such as wild deer, and financial support for nonlethal livestock protection such as electric fences, which mean that farmers do not have to shoot wild predators. Most crucial, said Chapron, has been the EU Habitats Directive, which has forced member states to protect and revive rare species.
“Without the Habitats Directive, I don’t think we would have had this recovery,” he said. “It shows that, if people are willing to protect nature and if politicians introduce strong legislation, it’s possible to achieve results in wildlife protection.” The revival was welcomed by author George Monbiot, who is launching Rewilding Britain, a new charity to encourage the return of wild landscape and extinct species.
“It is great to see this trend continuing but Britain is completely anomalous – we’ve lost more of our large mammals than any country except for Ireland,” he said. “Apart from the accidental reintroduction of wild boar, we’ve done almost nothing, whereas in much of the rest of Europe we’ve got bears, lynx and wolves coming back.”
The survey found that the Eurasian lynx lives permanently in 11 population groups in 23 European countries and only five of these were native populations. This indicates the success of reintroduction efforts. According to Monbiot, support for the reintroduction of the lynx into the Scottish mountains is growing.
“If it works in the rest of Europe, there’s absolutely no reason why it can’t work in the UK,” he said. He points out that bears and wolves live within an hour of Rome. “There’s no reason why we can’t have a similar return of wildlife in the UK.”",69
"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the USA to sort out its finances after the US avoided a debt default and hundreds of thousands of federal employees returned to work after a 16-day government shutdown.
As the US President, Barack Obama, warned, “We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” the IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, asked for more stability.
The Senate wrote a peace deal that included almost no concessions to the conservatives who had driven the country to the precipice of a new financial crisis. The deal was passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives at the last minute.
The World Bank, too, expressed its relief that the global economy had “avoided a catastrophe”. Its president, Jim Yong Kim, told politicians in all countries that they should continue to focus on making policies that encourage economic growth and give jobs and opportunity for everyone.
Stock markets in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea first showed relief after the Republicans finally capitulated in their failed attempt to undermine Obama’s healthcare reforms. But, in Asia and Europe, stock markets generally did not show much reaction, because traders apparently expect another fight in Washington early in 2014.
The shutdown cost the US $24bn. China’s official Xinhua News Agency accused the US of jeopardizing other countries’ dollar assets. China is the US government’s largest creditor.
Obama signed the legislation just after midnight on Thursday. The bill had passed easily with support from all parties in the Senate. It offers a temporary solution, funding the government until 15 January and raising the debt limit until 7 February.
But the president made clear that he did not expect another serious budget fight and shutdown in 2014.
At the White House, Obama said he hoped the deal would “lift the cloud of uncertainty” that had hung over the country in recent weeks.
“When this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,” he said. “Hopefully, next time, it won’t be in the eleventh hour. We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis.”
The president was asked by a journalist whether the crisis would happen again in a few months. Obama replied: “No.”
Earlier, the Republican senator Mike Lee said there may be more trouble ahead: “The media keeps asking: ‘Was it worth it?’ My answer is, it is always worth it to do the right thing.” He added: “This is not over.”
However, the political deal was one of the worst of all possible results for Republicans. None of their goals was achieved and polls showed that voters blamed them for the crisis.",70
"Scientists have created an “atlas of the brain” that shows how the meanings of words are arranged across different regions of the brain. The atlas shows in rainbow colours how individual words and their meanings can be grouped together in areas of the brain.
“Our goal was to build a giant atlas that shows how one specific aspect of language is represented in the brain, in this case semantics (the meanings of words),” said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
No single brain region holds one word or concept. A single brain spot is associated with a number of related words. And, each single word lights up many different brain spots. Together, they make up networks that represent the meanings of each word we use: life and love, death and taxes. All light up their own networks.
The atlas was described as a great achievement by one researcher who was not involved in the study. The atlas shows how modern imaging can transform our knowledge of how the brain does some of its most important tasks. If scientists make further advances, the technology could have an enormous impact on medicine and other areas of study.
“It is possible that this approach could be used to decode information about what words a person is hearing, reading or possibly even thinking,” said Alexander Huth, the main author of the study. One possible use would be a language decoder that could allow people who can’t talk, because they have a serious illness, to speak through a computer.
To create the atlas, the scientists recorded people’s brain activity while they listened to stories. Then, they matched the transcripts of the stories with the brain activity data to show how groups of related words produced brain responses in 50,000 to 80,000 pea-sized spots all over the cerebral cortex.
Huth used short, compelling stories. The stories had to be interesting so that the people in the experiment would focus on the words and not drift off. Seven people listened to two hours of stories each. Per person, that was a total of about 25,000 words – and more than 3,000 different words – as they lay in the scanner.
The atlas shows how words and related terms light up the same regions of the brain. For example, on the left-hand side of the brain, above the ear, is one of the tiny regions that represents the word “victim”. The same region responds to “killed”, “convicted”, “murdered” and “confessed”. On the brain’s right-hand side, near the top of the head, is one of the brain spots activated by family terms: “wife”, “husband”, “children”, “parents”.
Each word is represented by more than one spot because words often have several meanings. One part of the brain, for example, responds to the word “top”, as well as other words that describe clothing. But, the word “top” lights up many other regions. One of them responds to numbers and measurements, another to buildings and places. The scientists have created an interactive website where the public can explore the brain atlas.
Interestingly, the brain atlases were similar for all the people in the experiment. This suggests that their brains organized the meanings of words in the same way. The scientists only scanned five men and two women, however. All are native English speakers. It is highly possible that people from different backgrounds and cultures will have different semantic brain atlases.
Using the atlas, researchers can now piece together the brain networks that represent very different concepts, from numbers to murder and religion. “The idea of murder is represented a lot in the brain,” Gallant said.
Uri Hasson, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, said the work was great. He said that many studies just looked at brain activity when a single word or sentence was spoken but Gallant’s team had shed light on how the brain worked in a real-world scenario. The next step, he said, was to create a more complete and precise semantic brain atlas. In the future, Hasson believes it will be possible to reconstruct the words a person is thinking from their brain activity. The ethical implications are enormous. 
Lorraine Tyler, a neuroscientist and head of the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at Cambridge University, said the research was a great achievement. But, the brain atlas in its current form does not show small differences in word meanings. “This research is ground-breaking but there is still a lot to learn about how semantics is represented in the brain.”",71
"Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, has likened the problem of antibiotic resistance to the risks presented by international terrorism. While this might sound like an exaggeration, the threat was actually, if anything, understated. Each year, the global number of deaths to which bacterial resistance contributes far outstrips those caused by terrorist attacks. 
While it is difficult to track the global impact of antibiotic resistance across all bacterial species, the World Health Organization estimates that for tuberculosis alone multi-drug resistance accounts for more than 150,000 deaths each year. Antibiotic resistance is no longer an abstract risk: this is now a war. 
In the past hundred years, our expectations of life and survival have changed beyond all recognition. At the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy in the UK stood at around 47 years of age for a man and 50 for a woman, a number heavily affected by the very high rate of infant mortality in those days. Around a third of all deaths occurred in children under the age of five, largely because of infectious disease. 
In contrast, a child born in Britain today has a better than one in four chance of reaching their 100th birthday. For this we have public health systems, vaccination and antibiotics to thank. It is by these means – the prevention and treatment of illnesses caused by microorganisms – that the real war against disease is principally won. 
Elsewhere, we have pushed the limits of survival, notably in intensive care. This, the specialism in which I chose to train, is where antibiotic resistant organisms are most prevalent. Here, powerful antibiotics, essential in the treatment of life-threatening illness, are used routinely. These drugs decimate ordinary bacteria. But what they leave behind are hardy species that have begun to learn tricks that allow them to evade antibiotic drugs. 
As a newly qualified doctor in the late 1990s, I learnt about Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus – the infamous MRSA – a bacterial species resistant to methicillin and all other penicillins. In the fight against it, there were a handful of exotic-sounding drugs – vancomycin and teicoplanin among them. These were supposed to be our last lines of defence, but antibiotic resistant bacteria became more and more common; as did species with new patterns of resistance. Drugs we had previously barely heard of became commonplace. New last-line drugs emerged to replace the old. We got used to this state of affairs; a steady escalation in the arms race between us and the bacteria. 
But the balance has been shifting steadily. In our hospitals and our GP surgeries we have abused the drugs that gave us such a huge advantage over infectious disease, using them too often and too indiscriminately. And some of the worst abuses have occurred outside of healthcare, with antibiotics introduced into the food chain, through agriculture and the lacing of livestock feed with anti-bacterial drugs. We assumed that antibiotic therapy was an advantage we could enjoy forever. We became complacent that the pharmaceutical industry would continue to stay ahead of the game. 
But this is no longer the case. New, more resistant species have been identified. The vancomycin that we used to rely on to treat MRSA infection was defeated. Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (VRSA) emerged in our hospitals. And other bacterial species were learning the same trick. Enterobacteria, organisms usually found in the gut, had also acquired vancomycin resistance. Today, infections with formidable, highly resistant organisms are commonplace and the pharmaceutical industry is not keeping pace. Fewer and fewer new anti-microbial drugs are emerging from their production lines. It is becoming increasingly difficult to develop new drugs active against resistant strains. For every method of attack the pharmaceutical companies invent, bacteria rapidly evolve a defence. All of the simple approaches to the problem have been exhausted. 
Antibiotics have become drugs that are expensive to develop, that are only used in short courses and that quickly become ineffective due to the evolution of bacterial resistance. Consequently, the pharmaceutical industry’s incentive to manufacture new drugs that can fight them is low. 
Almost as soon as antibiotic use became widespread in the 1940s, the first evidence of bacteria resistance to antimicrobial therapy emerged. Initially, these were little more than curiosities. When they did infect patients, the numbers were so small that at first they were not enough to warrant much attention. But today, they have become a fact of medical life. Less than a century after the discovery of penicillin, we are beginning to lose the fight. 
Since the first MRSA deaths in otherwise healthy children in the US in 1998, the number of deaths from MRSA infection in the US each year has risen to tens of thousands – outstripping the number of deaths caused by AIDS. Bacterial resistance in hospitals is everywhere you look. This is a war like no other. There needs to be cultural change in our prescribing behaviours and more restraint in the use of antibiotics in farming and agriculture. And somehow, the pharmaceutical companies have to be convinced to chase the development of these less profitable drugs. 
Within my working lifetime, the pattern of antibiotic resistance in healthcare has transformed from a rare but notable event to a problem of epidemic proportion. If we are to avoid a return to the pre-antibiotic time with all its excess mortality, we must be bold. To squander the advantage we have so recently gained against microorganisms in the fight for life would be unthinkable.",72
"“I got a Dyson vacuum cleaner but I don’t even know if I want it. I just picked it up,” Louise Haggerty, a 56-year-old hairdresser and waitress, said at the end of her trip to the Black Friday sales at one o’clock in the morning. “It was mental in there. It was crazy. It was absolutely disgusting, disgusting.”
Haggerty went to a 24-hour Sainsbury’s supermarket in north-east London with a friend. She hoped to buy a bargain flat-screen TV. “But so many people pushed in the queue that we didn’t have a chance,” she said. “The poor woman who was second in the queue was pushed out by a crowd of youths. She didn’t get anything. People were behaving like animals – it was horrible,” she said. “I only saw two security guards.”
Frustrated when she was unable to buy a 40” TV reduced from £299.99 to £149.99, Haggerty rushed to pick up a vacuum cleaner, reduced from £319.99 to £159.99. “I don’t even know how much it costs; I don’t know even know if I’m going to buy it. I just wanted something,” she said. “There are lads in there with three, four, five tellies. It’s not fair.”
One of those lads was Andy Blackett, 30, who had two trolleys full of bargains. “I got two coffee makers, two tablets, two TVs and a stereo,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you the prices but I know they’re bargains.” But his friend Henry Fischer wasn’t as successful. “Someone snatched my telly from me – it’s because I’m the smaller one.”
Blackett, Fischer and some friends had driven to Sainsbury’s at 12.45am after leaving the “bedlam” of a Tesco 24-hour supermarket, where the Black Friday sale started at midnight. “Tesco was scary so we came here instead,” Blackett said.
More than a dozen police officers went to another Tesco store because scuffles began between eager and frustrated shoppers. Customers removed cardboard hoardings that were holding back sale items until midnight. Tesco delayed the sale of its most popular sale items – TVs – for almost an hour until police brought the situation under control. One officer criticized the manager for not providing enough security and suggested the sale should be stopped altogether.
Police intervened at several other stores just before the doors opened at midnight. Meanwhile, Manchester Police said that at least two people had been arrested at Black Friday sales events. South Wales Police also received a number of calls from staff at Tesco stores after they became “concerned due to the number of people who had turned up to sale events”.
TV sales at the Tesco store began just before 1am. One of the first purchasers of a flat-screen TV was James Alled. He bought two and was already trying to sell one of them to someone further down the queue. “I bought them for £250. I’ll sell it to you for £350, £300 cash,” he said. Further back in the queue, Christine Ball, 62, wasn’t impressed. “I got here at 10.15pm and I’m further back now than when I got here,” she said. “These people don’t know what a queue is.”
Ball had not heard of the US-inspired Black Friday sales until now, like most of the shoppers. She said she had come out especially to buy her grandson a TV for Christmas. “Not one of those massive ones; just a normal one at £100 or so,” she said. In her basket was a pint of milk and a loaf of bread. “Telly, milk and bread – the necessities,” she said.
Mel Mehmet, 23, had been to Black Friday sales in 2013 and had expected queues but she said the atmosphere in Tesco scared her this time. “It’s crazy having the sale at midnight – the police must have more important things to do at night than come to sales. We’re going to PC World first thing – their sale starts at 8am.”",73
"Police and intelligence agencies around the world have, for almost 100 years, relied on lie detectors to help convict criminals or unearth spies and traitors. 
The polygraph is beloved of the movies, with countless dramatic moments showing the guilty sweating profusely as they are hooked up. 
But the invention could soon be defunct. Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have made a breakthrough, developing a method with a success rate in tests of over 70% that could be in use in police stations around the world within a decade. Rather than relying on facial tics, talking too much or waving of arms – all seen as tell-tale signs of lying – the new method involves monitoring full-body motions to provide an indicator of signs of guilty feelings. 
The polygraph is widely used in the US in criminal and other cases and for security clearance for the FBI and CIA but is much less popular in Europe. There has been a lot of scepticism in the scientific and legal communities about its reliability. By contrast, the new method developed by the researchers has performed well in experiments. 
The basic premise is that liars fidget more and so the use of an all-body motion suit – the kind used in films to create computer-generated characters – will pick this up. The suit contains 17 sensors that register movement up to 120 times per second in three dimensions for 23 joints. 
One of the research team, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said: “Decades of deception research show that the interviewer will tell truth from lies only slightly better than random, about 55 out of 100. 
“The polygraph has been around since the 1920s and, by measuring physiological stress induced by anxiety, you can get to 60. However, it can easily be abused as an interrogation prop and many people are anxious anyway facing a polygraph on which their job or liberty depends.” 
He said the new method, by contrast, achieved a reliability rating of over 70% and he was confident they would be able to do better. In some tests, the team has already achieved more than 80%. Anderson said: “The takeaway message is that guilty people fidget more and we can measure this robustly.” 
Anderson added that the research had a special significance at this time, against the background of the US Senate report on torture by the CIA. Apart from the moral case against torture, Anderson pointed out that it was a very unreliable way of gathering accurate information. “We have known for a long time that torture does not work,” he said. The new method offers a pragmatic, scientifically backed alternative to conducting interviews. The research paper was written by Dr Sophie van der Zee of Cambridge University, Professor Ronald Poppe of Utrecht University, Professor Paul Taylor of Lancaster University and Anderson. 
The polygraph was created in 1921 by policeman John Larson, based on research by the psychologist William Marston. It records changes in pulse, blood pressure, sweating and breathing to ascertain whether a subject is lying. 
While cinema depictions suggest the device is near-infallible, the US Supreme Court ruled, in 1998, that there was no consensus that the polygraph was reliable, a finding supported by the US National Academy of Scientists in 2003. The experiment carried out by Anderson and his colleagues involved 180 students and employees at Lancaster University, of which half were told to tell the truth and half to lie. They were each paid £7.50 for their participation in the 70-minute experiment, involving two tests. 
Some were interviewed about a computer game Never End , which they played for seven minutes, while others lied about playing it, having only been shown notes about it. 
The second test involved a lost wallet containing £5. Some were asked to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box while others hid it and lied about it. 
“Overall, we correctly classified 82.2% (truths: 88.9%; lies: 75.6%) of the interviewees as either being truthful or deceptive based on the combined movement in their individual limbs,” the report says. Anderson said: “Our first attempt looked at the extent to which different body parts and body signals indicated deception. It turned out that liars wave their arms more but, again, this is only at the 60% level that you can get from a conventional polygraph. 
“The pay dirt was when we considered total body motion. That turns out to tell truth from lies over 70% of the time and we believe it can be improved still further by combining it with optimal questioning techniques.” 
Another advantage is that total body motion is relatively unaffected by cultural background, anxiety and cognitive load (how much you are thinking), which confound other lie-detection technologies, Anderson said. 
The use of all-body suits is expensive – they cost about £30,000 – and can be uncomfortable, and Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at low-cost alternatives. These include using motion-sensing technology from computer games, such as the Kinect devices developed by Microsoft for the Xbox console. 
Anderson acknowledges that agencies such as the CIA could teach agents how to counter the full-body motion method by freezing their bodies but he said that in itself would be a giveaway.",74
"Do you want your child to be good at sport, play for the school team and, maybe one day, even compete in international competitions? Well, try to make sure that your future Olympian or World Cup winner is born in November or October. A study by one of the UK’s leading experts on children’s physical activity has found that school pupils born in those months are fitter than everyone else in their class.
November- and October-born children were fitter, stronger and more powerful than those born in the other ten months of the year, especially those whose birthdays were in April or June. Dr Gavin Sandercock of Essex University and colleagues found that autumn-born children had “a clear physical advantage” over their classmates.
The research involved 8,550 boys and girls aged between ten and 16 from 26 state schools in Essex. All were tested between 2007 and 2010 on three different measures of fitness: stamina, handgrip strength and lower-body power. The results revealed that a child’s month of birth could make “significant” differences to their levels of cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength and ability to accelerate, all of which predict how good someone is at sport.
November-born children were the fittest overall as they had the most stamina and power and were the second strongest. Those born in October were almost as fit, scoring highest for strength and coming third for power, with December children close behind.
The gap in physical ability between children in the same class but born in different months was sometimes very wide. “For example, we found that a boy born in November can run at least 10% faster, jump 12% higher and is 15% more powerful than a child of the same age born in April. This is, potentially, a huge physical advantage,” said Sandercock. Such gaps could decide who became a top-level athlete because, as the paper says, “selection into elite sports may often depend on very small margins or differences in an individual’s physical performance”.
The study, which has been published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, found that, when scores for the three kinds of fitness were combined, those born in April were the least fit, then those in June. That could see those children excluded from school teams and becoming sporting underachievers, Sandercock said.
The findings seem to show that children born in the early months of the school year enjoy a double “autumn advantage” – they are already known to have an academic advantage and, now, they also appear to be better equipped for sport, too. The results show that something other than “the relative-age effect” – the greater maturity of those born early in the school year – is the cause, especially as the fittest children were not the tallest or heaviest, he added.
The authors believe that autumn-born children’s greater exposure over the summer months, towards the end of pregnancy, to vitamin D is the most likely explanation. “Seasonal differences in vitamin D concentrations in the womb seem most plausible,” they say. John Steele, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, said the quality of a young person’s introduction to sport at school can be “a major factor” in their sporting development. “Children that get a high-quality first experience are those that will have greater agility, balance and coordination, and are more likely to develop an enjoyment of physical activity and excel in sport as they grow up”, he said.
UK Sport could not say if a disproportionate majority of the 1,300 athletes across 47 sports it funds were born in November and October. Natalie Dunman, its head of performance, said that while the differences highlighted in the new findings were borne out by teenagers competing in junior-level competitions, they had disappeared by the time sportspeople were taking part in adult competitions. She said: “With elite, senior athletes, there are many factors that make a champion and our work hasn’t uncovered anything to suggest that month of birth is one of the key ingredients.”",75
"The world shares him and London claims him but Stratford-upon-Avon is going to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man. He was born in the Warwickshire market town in 1564 and died there 400 years ago.
Stratford was important to Shakespeare all his life, says Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. “People often think Shakespeare left Stratford and his family, went to London to earn his fortune and only came back to die,” he said. “But Stratford is where he bought land and houses, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.” The anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford, the most famous and the most performed playwright in the world, will be celebrated across Britain and the world. There will be performances of Macbeth in Singapore and Romeo and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeare’s Globe is completing the first world tour in the history of theatre. During the tour, it has taken Hamlet to every country except North Korea. In London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to show each of Shakespeare’s plays.
The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and almost every other theatre production company in the country will celebrate the anniversary. There will be traditional and experimental performances of the plays. There will also be hundreds of lectures, international conferences, films, concerts, operas and major exhibitions.
Shakespeare was famous in his own lifetime but there is little documentary evidence about Shakespeare’s life and times. His plays survived because his friends and actors collected together every bit of every play they could find and made the First Folio, published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death.
The actor Mark Rylance has called the First Folio his favourite book in the world and most of the surviving First Folios will be on display – including those that belong to the British and Bodleian libraries, and a copy recently discovered in France. Some of the most precious documents will be shown in an exhibition in London. 
The exhibition, By Me, William Shakespeare, will include his will, documents from the time when Shakespeare and other actors dismantled a theatre on the north side of the Thames and rebuilt it as the Globe on the South Bank, and details of payments for performances for James I and Queen Anne. The director of the Globe Theatre recently said as a joke that Shakespeare was a true London man. But people in Stratford believe that the town made and educated Shakespeare. They are rebuilding his old school room and will open it as a visitor attraction. Shakespeare bought New Place, the second best house in the town, where he died in 1616 on 23 April, the same day as his birth. “You don’t buy a house like New Place and not live there,” Paul Edmondson said. “The general public and many academics have underestimated the importance of Stratford to Shakespeare. ”
Edmondson believes that, after Shakespeare bought the house in 1597, all his thinking time was spent there. He says the late plays were planned in his library and probably written there.
Shakespeare’s house was demolished 300 years ago. Another house was built in the same place. That house was destroyed in 1759 by a bad- tempered priest, Francis Gastrell, in an argument about taxes. He also cut down Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, under which the writer sat and worked, because he didn’t like all the tourists looking into his garden.
The house has never been rebuilt but they have found Shakespeare’s kitchen in the cellars. The area where the house was will be on display for the anniversary, with the foundations marked and the garden restored. “Without Stratford,” Edmondson said, “there would have been no Shakespeare. ”",76
"Felix Baumgartner stood at the edge of space above New Mexico and paused for a moment. It was a small step away from the capsule, but a 24-mile drop back down to Earth. “Our guardian angel will take care of you,” said mission control, and Baumgartner jumped. 
Ten frightening minutes later, the Austrian landed back on Earth. He fell at speeds of up to 725 miles per hour, and he broke three world records. He became the world’s first supersonic skydiver when he broke the sound barrier. “We love you Felix,” shouted his team in the control room. 
He was wearing a special suit to protect him against the very big pressure changes during the jump. Without the suit, a man’s blood would boil and his lungs would explode. Baumgartner later said that all he could think about was getting back alive, but he also said: “Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.” 
His other two records were for the highest altitude manned balloon flight and the highest altitude skydive. The jump was on a sunny morning in good weather. Baumgartner went up into clear skies in an enormous balloon – it was 30 million square cubic feet and its skin was one-tenth the thickness of a sandwich bag. At the bottom of the balloon was a capsule, where Baumgartner sat in his suit. 
At the correct height, Baumgartner went through a checklist of 40 things with his helper Joe Kittinger. Kittinger held the record for the highest altitude manned balloon flight before Baumgartner. Baumgartner had a problem with his visor. “This is very serious, Joe,” he told Kitttinger. “I can’t see when I breathe out.” But they decided to continue, and a record 8 million people watched live on YouTube. 
The ascent, during which the skies slowly turned black, took two and a half hours. But the descent was much quicker. 
Three cameras, which were attached to Baumgartner’s suit, recorded his free-fall of just over four minutes and then the parachute opening. 
Baumgartner has done lots of dangerous things before. He has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. He did two practice free-falls to prepare for this jump – one from 71,000 feet and a second from 97,000 feet. But nothing can compare with his jump above the town of Roswell, a place famous for its UFO sightings. 
He was trying to break five different records: the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; the highest free-fall altitude jump; the highest manned balloon flight; the longest free-fall; and his jump platform is probably the largest manned balloon in history. The jump beat two of Kittinger’s records: before, the retired US air force colonel held the high altitude and speed records for parachuting. Kittinger jumped from a balloon 19 miles above the Earth in 1960 and gave advice to Baumgartner during the ascent. 
Someone asked him, “What do you want to do next?” Baumgartner said: “I want to inspire young people. I’d like to sit in the same place in the next four years as Joe Kittinger. If there is a young guy who wants to break my record, I want to give him advice.” He said the most exciting moment for him was when he was standing outside the capsule “on top of the world”. He added: “The most beautiful moment was when I was standing on the landing area and Mike Todd [the man who dressed Baumgartner in his suit] came and he had a smile on his face like a little kid.” 
Baumgartner said that he felt like Todd’s son. He said: “Todd was so happy that I was alive.” Earlier, Todd said: “The world needs a hero right now, and they have got one in Felix Baumgartner.” This will be the last jump, Baumgartner said. He has promised to settle down with his girlfriend, and fly helicopters on rescue missions in the US and Austria.",77
"Thousands of people protested on Australia’s beaches against a shark cull in Western Australia. They asked the state’s prime minister to stop the cull, and RSPCA Australia and Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson criticized it. Catching and killing sharks longer than three metres began after a number of shark attacks on Western Australia’s coast. A 35-year-old surfer, who was killed in November 2013, was the sixth person to die from a shark attack in two years.
But the whole of Australia has had, on average, just one shark-related death a year for the last 50 years. Kate Faehrmann, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said, from a protest in Perth, the state capital of Western Australia: “We’ve always said that this idea won’t work. Drumlines, which they use to catch the sharks, kill sharks if they’re one, two, three metres or more, and also dolphins, turtles and other things. That’s why we don’t want the cull.”
Thousands of people protested on beaches in the cities of Perth, Sydney and Adelaide, and at beaches in Victoria and Queensland. Faehrmann said the protests showed that Australians wanted sharks to be protected: “What’s amazing is that so many people in Australia love sharks. This has shown that people are scared but thousands of people are coming out across the country to say, ‘That’s the sharks’ ocean. We respect them, we love them and we don’t want you to kill them.’ Anthony Joyce, a surfer who once had his foot caught in a shark’s mouth, said: “The number of sharks they are going to kill is going to make no difference.”
The state government will not say how many sharks they have killed, but some people say that sharks smaller than three metres were released after they were caught on drumlines, floating drums fixed to the sea bed with bait on hooks underneath them. Conservationists say there is no evidence the cull will reduce the number of shark attacks on humans, because no other cull has only used drumlines. Researchers at the University of Western Australia say the increased number of shark attacks in the state may be because Western Australia has the fastest-growing population in Australia, not because of a rising number of sharks.
Richard Peirce, of the UK-based conservation charity, the Shark Trust, said that the cull would not work and could bring more predators towards the coast. “The activity in Western Australia is adding to the human tragedy of shark attacks. It is very sad that a government has ignored the best advice and chosen a method that is ineffective and counterproductive,” he said, “and, even if they monitor drumlines through the day, leaving the lines in at night could attract other predators to the area, attracted by those sharks and other species hooked and injured.”
Worldwide, in 2012, there were 80 attacks by sharks. Seven of the attacks were fatal. This is compared to nearly 100 million sharks killed by humans each year. RSPCA Australia says it believes the cull is wrong. “There is no evidence that the increase in attacks is a result of increasing shark numbers. We think it is the result of a changing population and changing human behaviour; that is, there are more people in the water,” it said.
Richard Branson said the idea was not working. “I’m sure one of the reasons Western Australia Premier, Colin Barnett, did it was because he was thinking it would encourage tourism. It’s going to do the opposite, I think. You’re advertising a problem that doesn’t exist in a big way and you’re going to stop people from wanting to come to Perth and your beautiful countryside around it. All you’re going to achieve, I think, is to worry people.”",78
"To a master traditional navigator like Tua Pittman from Raratonga in the Cook Islands, a canoe is much more than just a means of transport. “The canoe is our island, the crew members are the community and the navigator is the leader,” Pittman says. He continues, explaining that the converse is also true. “An island is our canoe, the community are the crew members and the politicians and leaders are the navigators. On a canoe, you are not just going from one destination to another using the stars, the moon, the sun and the birds. Navigation is using the philosophies of being a leader to show your crew members the light of life.” 
It has been a whirlwind week for the crews of the flotilla of four sailing canoes since arriving in Sydney for the start of the World Parks Congress. Tua’s journey began at the Cook Islands on 25 September. The first leg took the islanders to Samoa, then Fiji, Vanuatu and onto the Gold Coast, before heading south to Sydney. Around 100 crew members were involved in the various stages of the voyage and they aimed to travel using only traditional navigation techniques. Unfortunately, said Tua, the crews were forced to rely on modern navigation equipment on some occasions to reach Australia in time for the Congress. 
The official title of the expedition is the Mua Voyage and it is a partnership between the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oceania Regional Office and five Pacific Island countries: Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The main goal of the 6,000-nautical-mile (11,000km) trip was to deliver a special message to the World Parks Congress. 
In part, the message said: “We see the signs of overexploitation. We no longer see the fish and other marine creatures in the size, diversity or abundance of the past. We witness the change as foreign fishing fleets ply our waters in a race to strip our resources. Our coral reefs, the greatest in the world, and our mangrove and wetland spawning grounds are disappearing. Our ocean is vast but not limitless. Growing global populations and the relentless pursuit of unsustainable development are reducing the ability of our ocean to sustain life.” 
In spite of the effort and urgency behind the Pacific Islanders’ message to the delegates of the Congress, much of the final days of the marine part of the Congress were taken up with trying to set a revised target for the amount of the ocean that needs to be protected in marine sanctuaries. According to the IUCN, as of 2013, the amount of the world’s oceans in marine protected areas was not even three per cent and less than one per cent of that is ’no take’. This was despite a target of 20-30% no-take areas set by the last World Parks Congress held in South Africa in 2003. 
World-leading marine scientist Professor Callum Roberts from the University of York was one of the scientists who helped set the 20-30% target in 2003. But he said it was not enough. “The IUCN should now lift its target from 30 to 33%. New research strengthens the case for the 30% target set previously to now be raised. Any reduction in efforts at this stage and moment in history would be disastrous for our oceans.” 
After difficult negotiations, the World Parks Congress delegates passed a motion that will dramatically shift the goals for global marine management. Instead of the 20-30% aspirational target, the IUCN’s new official position is to “urgently increase the ocean area that is effectively and equitably managed in ecologically representative and well-connected systems of MPAs [marine protected areas] or other effective conservation measures by 2030; these should include strictly protected areas that amount to at least 30% of each marine habitat and address both biodiversity and ecosystem services.” 
Tua Pittman was delighted with the news that a strong resolution on the planet’s oceans had passed the Congress. “It’s just like a huge reward for all the effort that we made to be here and to be heard. To hear they made that resolution is fantastic. It’s a step in the right direction.” He says that, while much of the traditional navigational aids were things such as the sun, moon and stars that never changed and would, at least on a human scale, always be there, other impacts of environmental degradation were becoming clearer when voyaging across the Pacific. 
He said he was 55 and, in his lifetime, he was already beginning to see that it was much harder to catch fish on the open ocean. He also said that pollution was worsening, particularly as the canoes approached big cities such as Sydney. And the effects of climate change were already beginning to impact seriously on Pacific Islanders. “The decisions of the big countries have twice, thrice, four times the impact on the small countries than on developed, large nations. Many times, people don’t even know where our islands are and, from the eyes of a traditional navigator, our people have a very, very deep concern because we are talking about decisions made far away that impact on our homes.” 
The Mua Voyage had been a massive logistical undertaking, said Tua. Years of preparation and navigational planning went into such a trip and it was critical to the voyagers that the world listened to their message and acted. The leaders of wealthy countries, he went on, need to start to think more like traditional navigators who recognize their vessels are mere specks in an enormous sea. Most importantly, and spoken like a true navigator, Tua says politicians must seek a different route to avoid the pending ecological crises that are beginning to befall the small island nations. “The world needs to find a different path.”",79
"They call him the Robin Hood of the banks, a man who took out dozens of loans, worth almost half a million euros, with no intention of ever paying them back. Instead, Enric Duran handed the money out to projects that created and promoted alternatives to capitalism. 
After 14 months in hiding, Duran is unapologetic, even though his activities could land him in jail. “I’m proud of what I did,” he said in an interview by Skype from an undisclosed location. The money, he said, had created opportunities. “It generated a movement that allowed us to push forward with the construction of alternatives. And it allowed us to build a powerful network that groups together these initiatives.” 
From 2006 to 2008, Duran took out 68 commercial and personal loans from 39 banks in Spain. He farmed the money out to social activists, funding speaking tours against capitalism and TV cameras for a media network. “I saw that, on one side, these social movements were building alternatives but that they lacked resources and communication capacities,” he said. “Meanwhile, our reliance on perpetual growth was creating a system that created money out of nothing.” 
The loans he swindled from banks were his way of regulating and denouncing this situation, he said. He started slowly. “I filled out a few credit applications with my real details. They denied me, but I just wanted to get a feel for what they were asking for.” 
From there, the former table-tennis coach began to weave an intricate web of accounts, payments and transfers. “I was learning constantly.” By the summer of 2007, he had discovered how to make the system work, applying for loans under the name of a false television production company. “Then, I managed to get a lot.” €492,000, to be exact. 
Duran was arrested in Spain in 2009, on charges brought against him by six of the 39 banks that had lent him money. He spent two months in prison before being bailed for €50,000. In February 2013, facing up to eight years in prison, he decided to flee rather than stand trial. “I don’t see legitimacy in a judicial system based on authority, because I don’t recognize its authority,” he said. 
His actions, he said, were in the vanguard of a worldwide debate on the economic crisis. The timing pushed the anti-capitalist movement into the light, just as many Spaniards were seeking alternatives to a system that had wreaked havoc on their lives. 
While the same actions would probably be better understood in today’s Spain, he said that they would not be needed. The anti-capitalist movement has grown from a fringe movement to one supported by thousands of Spaniards, he said, evidenced by the widely supported movements such as the Indignados. 
Success has helped the movement become self- sufficient. “We now have the capacity to generate resources,” said Duran, adding somewhat ironically that this was exactly what banks issue credit for – “to advance and generate a situation that allows you to be independent”. Duran is widening his focus to include Spain’s justice system, by promoting restorative justice. “The people in Spain who believe that banks don’t work, they think that I don’t owe anything. I’ve already done my work,” he said. “But there is a part of a population that is not in agreement with us and I think I should respond to that.” 
In his case, he said, the element of reciprocity he could offer to banks might lie in the insight he gleaned from years of obtaining bank loans fraudulently. He could share his thoughts on “which best practices work and the bad ones that don’t,” he suggested, “for the general population and for bank workers”.",80
"The small space is set up to look like a classroom. Its corrugated iron walls are hung with educational charts – illustrated letters of the alphabet and a map of Bangladesh. 
But, the constant sound of hammering and the chemicals in the air that catch in the back of the throat and irritate the eyes make it hard to concentrate. The children who learn in this three-square-metre room are the lucky ones, however. They have escaped working in the factories opposite. 
For 14 years, SOHAY, a grassroots non- governmental organization (NGO) funded by the Global Fund for Children and Comic Relief, has been working in slum areas of Dhaka to get child labourers into school. It focuses on children working in hazardous conditions – in aluminium and plastic factories, and tanneries. 
The classroom is one of 23 urban development centres that SOHAY has set up across the capital. The centres prepare children for primary school with classes that help them catch up on their education. Once they are in primary school, the children can do homework at the centres, with help from their peers. 
Alamin, ten, who used to work in a plastic factory, attends one of the centres. His father is a street seller and his mother a part-time domestic worker. They are all happy that he’s now in school and away from hazardous work. His friend Rabi says he wants to forget his past in the factory. “I like school,” he says. 
“The urban development centres aim to create an education-friendly environment in the communities and change their cultural mindset towards the children,” says SOHAY’s programme manager, Mohammed Abdullah al-Mamun. SOHAY also runs sessions for parents and employers to discourage child labour and offers skills training to increase family income. 
“Getting working children into formal education is really very challenging,” says Mamun. “Their psychological and physical condition is not like other children in society. After they leave work, they sometimes find it difficult to make friends and adapt to school. It is also very challenging to ensure they stay in school – the dropout rate is very high for these children. In this context, it’s important to work with schools so they have more sensitivity and care about them.” 
Seven-year-old Zhorna Akter Sumayya has two older brothers, both of whom are in work (one at a restaurant, one at a local club). But, after being introduced to education at one of SOHAY’s centres, she now goes to a state primary school. Her family live in the slum and her parents can’t survive without the income their sons bring home. Her father works in a rickshaw garage and her mother is a domestic worker, but they were keen for their daughter to go to school. 
In 2015, SOHAY helped 1,540 children to leave hazardous work and 2,125 vulnerable children – those in danger of entering work – into school. About 780 more children are preparing to enter school in 2017. The organization is also helping 635 children who are working in hazardous conditions to know their rights under Bangladesh’s 2010 child labour elimination code of conduct. The policy aimed to eradicate all forms of child labour by 2015 but that target was missed. 
The Labour Law of Bangladesh 2006 bans children under the age of 14 from working but, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, 4.7 million children under that age are employed in the informal sector and 1.3 million aged five to 17 work in hazardous industries. 
“It was difficult to get them into school without any compensation for their time,” says Sadia Nasrin, who runs Sonjag, another Dhaka grassroots NGO. “To overcome this challenge, Sonjag started working closely with the community in the slums where the children live.” 
The organization talked to community members about why it was important to get children into school. They selected community volunteers who were motivated to change children’s lives and formed groups with social workers, community leaders, mothers, young volunteers and the local government. 
“The groups play a vital role in motivating employers to let children leave for two to three hours a day to attend school and to ensure a safe workplace for the children. The ultimate change-makers are the community people,” says Nasrin. 
She adds that people living in slums face threats of eviction, police raids and displacement. “The national plan of action for children does not recognize the needs of street children,” says Nasrin. “Legislative measures are limited.” 
When the children have missed starting school at five years old, it is a race against time to prevent them from growing up without an education. “After they cross their school age, it is really very difficult to admit them into school,” says Mamun. “Children are just passing their time without education and waiting to become involved in hazardous work. We are working to block the child labour flow.”",81
"Serial dater Emmanuel Limal was tired of meeting women who weren’t ready to start a family, or at least wouldn’t admit that they were. The 43-year-old actor, originally from France, had spent 20 years living in Copenhagen and looking for love in the hope of raising children. He recently took his quest online but was dismayed by the results. 
“I got frustrated with everyone trying to sell themselves as really active, always travelling or with a long list of hobbies, but no mention of children,” Limal said. “On some sites, there was an option to click, saying: 'I’d like kids someday,' but you would read the person’s profile and think: 'You will never have time!' If someone’s going to the gym eight times a week and travelling every month, they are not putting a family first.” 
Limal has a six-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, but coming from a big family – his father is one of 11 – he has always wanted more children. “I couldn’t seem to meet anyone willing to prioritize starting a family and struggled with when to mention wanting kids any time I met someone new. It’s the ultimate dating taboo,” he said. “Then one day I read a profile from a 38-year-old who said she knew it was 'really bad to admit' but she wanted children. And I just thought: 'You shouldn’t be ashamed of this.'” 
Limal remortgaged his apartment to fund the setting up of Babyklar.nu – or 'baby-ready now' in English. It functions like a normal dating site but every potential dater is asked to be honest about their wish to start a family soon. “We ask people if they are OK with someone who already has children as well as wanting another baby,” Limal said. “But we don’t make them specify how many children they’d like. That would be a bit too much like grocery shopping online.” 
The response to the site has been overwhelming, he said. “We had 50 sign-ups an hour when we launched in June and we are already hearing from couples who have met through the site and are now together. I’m fully expecting the first Babyklar.nu baby by next summer.” More men have signed up than women (53% to 47%), with testimonials such as “It’s so lovely to be able to say this out loud” and “I finally dare to be honest about what I want.” 
The site has come at an opportune time for the country of five million people. Danes are not having enough babies, according to a report from the Copenhagen hospital Rigshospitalet, and the current rate of 1.7 children per family is not enough to maintain Denmark’s population. The usual suspects are being blamed for the new low – women leaving it “too late” and couples cohabiting and waiting to start families. 
“Now, I hope, men and women who want to start a family but haven’t met the right person yet will have another option,” says Limal. He’s keen to point out that this isn’t just about baby farming: “I want this to be about children and love. My goal is to pair up people who really want a family and a partner – and who’ll stay together. I’m a romantic at heart.” 
There are plans to roll out the site in France and the UK later in 2013, but for now it is the Danes who are reaping the benefits. “Danes have no problem having children before marriage so things can move fast and, because the country’s so small, a Jutlander can date a Copenhagener without too much travel,” Limal said. What’s more, Limal has finally found love. “I’ve met a nice woman and she wants a baby too – so we shall see.”",82
"The brand and logo of Apple are the most valuable in the world. They are worth nearly $119 billion – that is more than the economies of Morocco, Ecuador or Oman. 
The brand value of Apple, the world’s biggest company, has increased by 21% in 12 months, the Interbrand Best Global Brands report said. 
People all around the world recognize Apple by its simple “Apple with a bite missing” logo. Other technology companies have also done very well in the 2014 report. The technology companies pushed more traditional brands – such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Gillette – down the table. 
Google’s brand value rose by 15% to $107 billion to take second place. Coca-Cola, in third place, is up 3% to $81.5 billion. IBM’s value is $72.2 billion and Microsoft’s $45.5 billion. They are in fourth and fifth places. 
Facebook’s value has increased the most in the table. Its brand value increased by 86% to $14.3 billion. It is at 29th place in the table, ahead of older global companies such as Volkswagen, Kellogg’s and Ford. 
Apple was started by Steve Jobs in his Los Altos garage in 1976. It only appeared in the top ten of the Interbrand annual study in 2011. 
Its logo was created by advertising executive Rob Janoff in 1977. It was designed with a bite taken out of it so that it would not look like a cherry. 
Graham Hayles, Interbrand’s chief marketing officer, said, “Apple makes a lot of money because it has a very strong brand. If you have a strong brand, you make more money.” 
Many technology companies rose up the chart but some fell, too. Finnish mobile-phone company Nokia dropped 41 places to 98th at $4.1 billion, just ahead of Nintendo in 100th place (down 33). 
A Chinese company has appeared in the top 100 for the first time, with mobile-phone and broadband company Huawei at 94th place. It has a brand value of $4.3 billion. 
Most of the brands in the top 100 are American. The most valuable non-American brands are South Korea’s Samsung (6th), Japan’s Toyota (8th) and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz (10th). The most valuable British brands are HSBC (33rd), Shell (65th) and Burberry (73rd). 
Other fashion brands in the top 100 include Boss, Prada and Ralph Lauren. Designer label Louis Vuitton is the top fashion name, in 19th position with a value of $23 billion, just ahead of clothing chain H&M, with a brand value of $21 billion in place 21. 
Sports brand Nike is at place 22 with a brand value of nearly $20 billion, ahead of its rival Adidas at place 59 with a value of $7 billion. 
Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, said that customers now have more control than ever over a brand’s reputation. This is because they can make comments about a brand on social media, such as Twitter. 
“Customers expect interaction, 24/7 accessibility, customization options and high levels of personalization,” he said.",83
"Health warnings that cover nearly two-thirds of cigarette packs and a ban on menthol cigarettes in the EU have come a step nearer after a vote in the European Parliament.
Menthol and other flavours will be banned from 2022, and MEPs also decided that most electronic cigarettes, which are increasingly popular as alternatives to tobacco products, do not need to be regulated in the same way as medicines.
Health officials and the e-cigarette industry in Britain want to clarify what this means – for instance, whether e-cigarette companies will have the same bans on sponsorship and promotion at sports events as tobacco firms.
The Department of Health would not comment on the advertising issue until officials had studied the MEPs’ decisions. But, in a statement, the DH said: “We are very pleased to see tougher action on tobacco, with European controls banning flavoured cigarettes and the introduction of stricter rules on front-of-pack health warnings.
“However, we are disappointed with the decision not to regulate nicotine-containing products (NCPs), including e-cigarettes, as medicines. We believe these products need to be regulated as medicines and will continue to make this point during further negotiations.
“Smoking levels in England are at their lowest since records began – 19.5 per cent – but we are determined to further reduce rates of smoking and believe this important step will help.”
The UK e-cigarette industry, which welcomed the parliament’s vote, said it was already in talks with the Advertising Standards Authority but added that it would not be “sensible, reasonable or useful” to ban all advertising.
MEPs decided e-cigarettes should only be regulated as medical products if manufacturers claimed they could prevent the smoking of tobacco – a decision criticized by the government’s main medicines regulator.
They want to put the e-cigarettes, used by an estimated 1.3 million people in Britain, on the same legal basis as gums, patches and mouth sprays, which help smokers to quit, but the industry says that licensing is expensive and this would force alternatives to tobacco off the shelves.
The MEPs voted to put health warnings on 65% of each cigarette pack. At present, the warnings cover at least 30% on the front and 40% on the back. The UK government has delayed a decision on whether to follow Australia by introducing standardized packaging until there is evidence that this will reduce tobacco use.
The MEPs’ decision, which could become law in 2014, will be followed by negotiations with the EU Council of Ministers.
“The UK continues to believe that medicinal regulation of NCPs is the best way to improve public health,” said a spokesman for the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority.
Linda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber and spokesperson on tobacco issues for the parliament’s Socialists & Democrats group, said: “We know that it is children, not adults, who start smoking. And, although there are fewer and fewer adult smokers in most member states, the World Health Organization figures show an increase in a number of our member states of young smokers.
“We need to stop tobacco companies targeting young people with gimmicky products and we need to make sure that cigarette packs have effective warnings.”
Martin Callanan, the Conservative MEP for North East England, said: “Forcing e-cigarettes off the shelves would have been totally crazy. These are products that have helped many people stop smoking more harmful cigarettes and yet some MEPs wanted to make them harder to manufacture than ordinary tobacco.”
British American Tobacco said the larger health warnings demanded by MEPs were not necessary and that a ban on mentholated cigarettes would increase demand for black-market products.",84
"Coal will probably rival oil as the world’s biggest source of energy in the next five years. This might be a disaster for the climate. 
One of the biggest reasons behind the rise in coal use is the big increase in the use of shale gas in the US. 
New research from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that all over the world people are using more coal, except in the US, where shale gas is now more popular than coal. Because the US is using less coal, coal prices across the world have reduced. This has made coal more attractive, even in Europe. 
Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the IEA, said that the amount of coal we use “continues to grow each year and, if no changes are made, coal will catch oil within ten years.” 
Coal is available in large amounts and it can be found in most regions of the world, unlike oil and gas, and it is cheap to extract. The IEA says that China and India will drive world coal use in the next five years, and India will probably overtake the US as the world’s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia is the biggest coal exporter. 
According to the IEA’s Medium-Term Coal Market Report, the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today. 
With the highest carbon emissions, coal makes climate change a lot worse, especially when it is burned in old-fashioned, inefficient power stations. Coal can also produce sulphur emissions – these lead to acid rain – and mercury and soot-particle pollution. 
Van der Hoeven says that we should make coal more expensive so that people prefer to use cleaner technologies such as renewable power. Providing cheaper gas is the only way to reduce demand for coal. This has happened in the US because of the big increase in the production of shale gas there in the past five years. 
She said: “The US experience suggests that a more efficient gas market can reduce coal use, carbon dioxide emissions and electricity bills. Europe, China and other regions should take note.” 
If something isn’t done soon there will be more climate change.",85
"The problem with Google Glasses, says Takahito Iguchi, is that they’re not cool. He has a point. There’s already a website dedicated to people wearing them looking either ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. It possibly wasn’t Google’s smartest move to release the first 10,000 pairs to software developers rather than, say, supermodels or Scarlett Johansson. Search Google Images and one of the first hits is a picture of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. And it’s this that Iguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, hopes may be Google’s Achilles’ heel. He is launching a competitor that is a bit more stylized. A bit more Blade Runner. A bit more Japanese. 
Iguchi’s augmented reality glasses, which aren’t really glasses so much as a single piece of metal with a camera and a micro-projector, are called Telepathy One, and, after unveiling them at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, they have attracted $5m of venture capital. Like Glass, Telepathy One is due to launch in 2014. 
It’s a stripped-down, simplified version of Google Glass. Whereas Glass is, he says, “an egotistical device” with a range of uses – you can surf the net, read emails, take photographs, do unspecified things with as yet unspecified apps – Telepathy will be “more of a communication device”. Connected via Bluetooth to your phone, it will focus on real- time visual and audio sharing. You’ll be able to post photos and videos from your line of vision on Facebook or send them as an email. Or see and speak to a floating video image of a friend. 
“It will help bring you close to your friends and family. We are very focused on the communication and sharing possibilities,” says Iguchi, who has worked in the Japanese tech industry for 20 years, most recently developing a location-based phone app called Sekai Camera. 
Of course, not everyone wants to get closer to the man in the futuristic headset, I point out. Iguchi shakes his head. “I’m a visionary. I have a dream that people will understand other people. When I go to London, I am a stranger. Sometimes I feel fear. But I believe that everyone wants to be understood and to understand each other. And, with this device, you can know more information about people before you even speak to them.” 
Compared to the likes of Google, of course, Telepathy is a minnow. Not that this seems to daunt Takahito Iguchi. In his shared office space in San Francisco – a cool, converted warehouse in the heart of startup land, filled with twentysomethings – he quotes Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and points out that even tiny armies can sometimes beat mighty forces. When he was growing up, Japanese technology ruled the world: the Sony Walkman was the iPhone of its day. Now, to compete, he’s had to quit Tokyo for Silicon Valley. 
“Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture but it’s still an island. It’s isolated. There is not any way to expand. Whereas, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. It’s where you come to connect globally.” The hardware will be made in Japan, while he is putting together a team of software engineers in the US to develop its applications. On the day I meet him, he’s being shadowed by a news crew from Japan who are interested in the new wave of Japanese entrepreneurs being forced to leave their homeland. 
“We are losing our confidence,” the correspondent, Takashi Yanagisawa, tells me. “And we need to find a way to regain our power. Iguchi is kind of like the new frontier. We hope he might be a new solution.” Building the prototype of Telepathy One was easy, Iguchi says. “We have every sort of technology in Tokyo. It is presenting it to the world that is the challenge.” The leading manufacturers are lining up to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just struggle to sell it. “There needs to be a story to the product. Like Apple did with the iPod – 1,000 songs in your pocket. And the way they positioned themselves against Microsoft and IBM, it was like the story of David and Goliath. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.” 
Maybe. He certainly has the confidence of Jobs, although, with a thick Japanese accent, he sometimes struggles to make himself understood, a fact that may have contributed to Telepathy One’s conception. When he went to London to present the headset at the prestigious Founders Forum, he stayed in an Airbnb. “The house owner was not my friend but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that shorter. If you are getting info from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily. And this man is involved in getting investment from UK to Africa, and he was very excited about Telepathy, that it would be a way of educating people about Africa, of showing them other people’s point of view.” 
This is Iguchi’s fondest hope – that seeing somebody else’s literal point of view will help you to see their metaphorical point of view. As a student, he explains, he studied philosophy by day and taught himself how to code by night. “And, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and I suddenly realized that everything is code. That was my enlightenment. Everything is coded and is shareable between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code is exchangeable between humans, that will end all war against each other.”",86
"Although much of his work, and arguably nearly all the best of it, was firmly within the discipline of the blues, BB King was always open-minded and interested when he found himself in other settings, bridging musical and cultural differences with affability and skill. Perhaps it is premature to speak of “the last of the bluesmen” but it is hard to imagine any future blues artist matching King’s influence over musicians by the thousand and audiences by the million in a career spanning 65 years. 
Riley B King (the B did not seem to stand for a name) was born near Itta Bena, Mississippi and grew up with the limited prospects of an African-American agricultural worker, a barrier he gradually worked to overcome as he learnt the basics of guitar from a family friend and honed his singing with a quartet of gospel singers. In his early 20s, he moved to Memphis. 
Within a couple of years, he was playing regularly at a bar in West Memphis, Arkansas. He also became a disc jockey, presenting a show on a Memphis radio station. His billing, “The Beale Street Blues Boy”, was shortened to “Blues Boy King” and thence to “BB”. After a single session in 1949 for a Nashville label, King began recording for the West Coast-based Modern Records in 1950. 
He had his first hit in 1952, with a dramatic rearrangement of Three O’Clock Blues, which topped the R&B chart for 15 weeks; it was the first of a list of successes such as Please Love Me, You Upset Me Baby and Sweet Sixteen . On these and his dozens of other recordings, most of them his own compositions, King developed a style that was both innovative and rooted in blues history. He was always ready to praise the musicians who had influenced him and would usually mention T-Bone Walker first. 
“I’ve tried my best to get that sound,” he told the Guitar Player magazine. “I came pretty close but never quite got it.” In an interview in 2001, he said: “If T-Bone Walker had been a woman I would have asked him to marry me.” But he would also cite the earlier blues guitarists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson and the jazz players Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. 
He once explained that his guitar technique was partly based on his lack of skill: “I started to bend notes because I could never play in the bottleneck style, like Elmore James and Booker White. I loved that sound but just couldn’t do it.” He was similarly self-deprecating about his singing, a sumptuous blend of honey and lemon, mixed half-and-half from crooners such as Nat King Cole and blues shouters such as Joe Turner and Dr Clayton. Probably his favourite composer and singer was Louis Jordan, whose music he commemorated in the 1999 album Let the Good Times Roll. 
Throughout the 1950s, King was the leading blues artist on the circuit of black-patronized theatres and clubs on an interminable series of one-nighters. In 1956, he is supposed to have filled 342 engagements. In 1962, he tried to change that working pattern by signing with a major label, ABC, but the first records under that contract, which tried to reshape him as a mainstream pop singer, were as unsatisfactory to his admirers as they were to ABC’s accountants. 
The 1965 album Live at the Regal, however, proved the durability of King’s blues repertoire and has become iconic, a turning point in the early listening of many younger musicians. He had further R&B hits with blues numbers including How Blue Can You Get and Paying the Cost to Be the Boss , and, in 1969, he hit the upper reaches of the pop charts – where no blues artist had been for many years – with The Thrill Is Gone . 
It took him a while to establish himself with a rock audience, for whom the blues was largely defined by the Chicago school of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf but he was brought to their attention by musicians who admired him. “About a year and a half ago,” he said in 1969, “all of a sudden, kids started coming up to me saying, 'You’re the greatest blues guitarist in the world.' And I’d say, 'Who told you that?' And they’d say, 'Mike Bloomfield' or 'Eric Clapton'. It’s to these youngsters that I owe my new popularity.” He acquired further rock credibility with the 1970 album Indianola Mississippi Seeds, on which he collaborated with Carole King and Joe Walsh. 
From then on, King was firmly established as “the chairman of the board of blues singers”. Guided by his manager, Sidney Seidenberg, he embarked on international concert tours that took him to Japan, Australia, China and Russia. He also gave concerts to prisoners at the Cook County jail in Chicago and at San Quentin, experiences that led to his long involvement in rehabilitation programmes. 
In 1990, King was diagnosed with diabetes and cut back his touring but not so much that his followers outside the US could not catch up with him every year or two. Though he would now deliver most of his act seated, the strength of his singing and the fluency of his playing were only very gradually diminished. The celebrations for his 80th birthday, in 2005, included an award-winning album of collaborations with Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Roger Daltrey, Gloria Estefan and others, tributes from musicians as diverse as Bono, Amadou Bagayoko and Elton John, and a “farewell tour” that proved not to be a farewell at all. 
In 2009, King received a Grammy award, for best traditional blues album, for One Kind Favor. In 2012, he performed at a concert at the White House, where the US President, Barack Obama, joined him to sing Sweet Home Chicago. King was twice married and twice divorced. He is survived by 11 children by various partners; four others predeceased him.",87
"At Addis Ababa airport, visitors are greeted by pictures of golden grains, tiny red seeds and a group of men around a giant pancake. The words say: “Teff: the ultimate gluten-free crop!”
Ethiopia is one of the world’s poorest countries, well known for its difficult food situation. But it is also the home of teff, a highly nutritious ancient grain that is now being sold in health-food shops and supermarkets in Europe and America.
Teff’s tiny seeds – the size of poppy seeds – are high in calcium, iron and protein, and also amino acids. Naturally gluten free, the grain can be used instead of wheat flour in anything from bread and pasta to waffles and pizza bases. Like quinoa, the Andean grain, teff’s superb nutritional profile offers the promise of new and lucrative markets in the west.
In Ethiopia, teff is a national obsession. Grown by around 6.3 million farmers, fields of the crop cover more than 20% of all farmland. It is ground into flour and used to make injera, the flatbread that is basic to Ethiopian cooking. The grain is also central to many religious and cultural ceremonies. Across the country, and in neighbouring Eritrea, people gather around large pieces of injera, which is also used as cutlery, scooping up stews and feeding one another as a sign of loyalty or friendship – a tradition known as gursha.
The growing appetite for traditional crops and the booming health-food and gluten-free markets are breathing new life into the grain, which is increasingly being called Ethiopia’s “second gift to the world”, after coffee.
Sophie Kebede, a London-based businesswoman who owns a UK company specializing in the grain, says she was “flabbergasted” when she discovered its nutritional value. “I didn’t know it was so sought after. I am of Ethiopian origin; I’ve been eating injera all my life.”
Growing demand for so-called ancient grains has not always been a simple positive for poor communities. In Bolivia and Peru, there are reports of rising incomes from the now-global quinoa trade, but also malnutrition and conflicts over land, as farmers sell their entire crop to meet western demand.
Ethiopia’s growing middle class is also increasing demand for teff and rising prices have made the grain too expensive for the poorest people. Today, most small farmers sell most of what they grow to people in the city.
This may have helped boost incomes in some rural areas but it has had nutritional consequences, says the government, as teff is the most nutritionally valuable grain in the country. In urban areas, people eat up to 61kg of teff a year. In rural areas, the figure is 20kg. The type of teff people eat is different, too: the rich eat the more expensive magna and white teff varieties; poorer people usually eat less-valuable red and mixed teff and more than half combine it with cheaper cereals such as sorghum and maize.
The Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015. It says that the grain could play an important role in school meals and emergency aid programmes, and help reduce malnutrition – particularly among children and adolescents.
Though Ethiopia has a fast-growing economy, it remains on the UN’s list of least-developed countries. An estimated 20% of under-fives are malnourished.
The government’s Agricultural Transformation Agency aims to boost crops by developing improved varieties of the grain and introducing new planting techniques and tools.
The government does not allow the export of raw teff grain, only of injera and other processed products. But this could change: the goal is to produce enough teff for Ethiopia and for export.
Mama Fresh is a family company that has been selling injera to top restaurants and hotels in the Ethiopian capital for years. It also exports the flatbread to Finland, Germany, Sweden and the US, mostly for Ethiopians who live there. But, the company wants to double exports to America in 2014 and will soon start producing teff-based pizzas, bread and cookies.
Regassa Feyissa, an Ethiopian agricultural scientist and former head of the National Institute for Biodiversity, warns that, without careful planning, increased teff production for export may mean that farmers do not grow other important crops.
With not much Ethiopian teff on the international market, farmers in the US have started planting the crop. Farmers in Europe, Israel and Australia have also experimented with it.",88
"Up to a billion people will remain in extreme poverty by 2030 unless countries focus on inequalities and confront social, economic and cultural forces that block their escape or pull them back into impoverishment, a major report warns. The report by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) asserts that many people may rise above the poverty line of $1.25 a day, only to tumble back when they are hit by a combination or sequence of shocks such as drought, illness and insecurity or conflict. 
Drawing on household panel surveys, the report found that, in parts of rural Kenya and in South Africa, 30 to 40% of those who escaped from poverty fell back, rising to 60% in some areas of Ethiopia between 1999 and 2009. Even in successful countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the proportion has been 20%. Individual cases highlight the ease with which people can slip back into poverty. 
Amin, 61, from rural Bangladesh, has seen his livelihood gradually decline, due to his own and his wife’s illnesses, the cost of his son’s marriage, the death of his father and loss of goods such as fishing nets. Lovemore, 74, from Zimbabwe, has become one of the poorest people in his village. He recently lost his job as a car-park attendant due to ill health and had to take in his five grandchildren after the death of his daughters. 
“We need to ensure that people lifted out of poverty remain above the poverty line permanently. Too many families are experiencing 'two steps forward, one step back', where they struggle to recover from personal or bigger setbacks. Governments shouldn’t assume that, just because somebody’s income hits $1.25, that means job done,” said Andrew Shepherd, research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, a partner of CPAN, and lead author of the report. 
A UN high-level panel considering a new development framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals after 2015 said the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 was within reach. The report, however, argues that “more of the same” will not get to zero. 
Despite a drop in extreme poverty from 1.9bn in 1990 to 1.2bn in 2010, the report says that progress in the next 15 years will be much harder. The big gains in China are unlikely to be matched by similar progress elsewhere, while climate-related shocks and deep poverty in parts of sub-Saharan Africa will slow momentum. The report calls for a shift in thinking about poverty to focus on the chronically poor – those who are poor for many years or their entire lives – and for more emphasis on stopping impoverishment, the descent into poverty. “Governments have been quite good at moving people over the poverty line because that is relatively easy – there is a tendency to pick the low-hanging fruit, but they have shied away from the more difficult job of tackling chronic poverty,” said Shepherd. 
The report says progress on poverty reduction, while impressive to date, has had less of an impact on the chronically poor than on those who were already closer to the poverty line. It will not be possible to get to zero unless development policies prioritize those living in chronic poverty, it adds. Policymakers must aim for a “zero tripod” of separate but interdependent objectives: tackle chronic poverty; stop impoverishment; sustain poverty escapes. They put forward a trio of policies, all of which require massive global investment. 
The first is social assistance – a safety net – to bring the poorest people closer to a decent standard of living. An example of such a scheme is Ethiopia’s productive safety net programme that allowed thousands of vulnerable households to withstand drought without having to curtail education spending. The second is education, from early childhood to the start of work, to enable people to escape and stay out of poverty. Education also has the advantage of being a “portable” asset. The third is pro-poorest economic growth policies to ensure that the benefits of increasing national prosperity reach the very poorest people. 
“Economic growth really is critical, but not just any old growth,” Shepherd said. “It has to generate not just employment but decent jobs, not just insecure low-paying jobs. There are ways of doing this, like India’s rural employment guarantees scheme, which has boosted urban not just rural wages.” Another example cited by the report is South Africa’s extension of the minimum wage to groups such as domestic workers. 
All this will take money and the report says one obvious implication is that stronger domestic tax systems and greater tax revenues will be required. Aid will also be needed for the start-up costs for social assistance, universal health coverage and to finance education, including scholarships for the poorest children. “There remains a huge role for aid in the next 20 years, as many developing countries spend less than $500 on each of their citizens a year. Even Nigeria, with its oil wealth, spends only $650 per capita,” Shepherd said. 
Against a backdrop of crises in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, conflict and environmental disasters have to be addressed, and the report says it is essential that governments work to reduce the risk of conflict and to establish inclusive peace settlements. 
Choose the best answer according to the text. 1. Who are the 'chronically poor'? 
Incorporating “reducing (income) inequality” as a post-2015 goal would steer the international agenda in the right direction, given that lessening or containing inequality speeds up the impact of economic growth on poverty reduction. The report argues that if the inequalities that affect the poorest people – such as access to land, labour markets and the power relationships between men and women – are addressed, this would tackle two goals at the same time: reducing chronic poverty and inequality. 
The authors urge governments to develop an inclusive national development plan and to work with civil society to ensure the poorest people are represented politically as well as tackling difficult social norms such as dowries and witchcraft that contribute to extreme poverty: “This often means challenging and, perhaps, sweeping away aspects of the status quo and represents the most marked departure from 'business as usual'.”",89
"Organic food has more of the antioxidant compounds linked to better health than regular food, and lower levels of toxic metals and pesticides, according to the most comprehensive scientific analysis to date. The international team behind the work suggests that switching to organic fruit and vegetables could give the same benefits as adding one or two portions of the recommended 'five a day'. 
The team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert at Newcastle University, concludes that there are “statistically significant, meaningful” differences, with a range of antioxidants being “substantially higher” – between 19% and 69% – in organic food. It is the first study to demonstrate clear and wide-ranging differences between organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and cereals. 
The researchers say the increased levels of antioxidants are equivalent to “one to two of the five portions of fruits and vegetables recommended to be consumed daily and would therefore be significant and meaningful in terms of human nutrition, if information linking these compounds to the health benefits associated with increased fruit, vegetable and wholegrain consumption is confirmed”. 
The findings will add to the controversy over organic food and whether it is better for people, with one expert saying that the findings were exaggerated. Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King’s College London, said the research did show some differences. “But the question is are they within natural variation? And are they nutritionally relevant? I am not convinced.” He said Leifert’s work had caused controversy in the past. “Leifert has had a lot of disagreements with a lot of people.” Sanders added the research showed organic cereals have less protein than conventional crops. 
The results of the research are based on an analysis of 343 peer-reviewed studies from around the world – more than ever before – which examine differences between organic and conventional fruit, vegetables and cereals. “The crucially important thing about this research is that it shatters the myth that how we farm does not affect the quality of the food we eat,” said Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming. 
Plants produce many of their antioxidant compounds to fight back against pest attacks, so the higher levels in organic crops may result from their lack of protection by chemical sprays. But, the scientists say other reasons may be important, such as organic varieties being bred for toughness and not being overfed with artificial fertilizers. 
Leifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants “have previously been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers”. But, they also note that no long-term studies showing health benefits from a broad organic diet have yet been conducted. The researchers found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in conventional crops. Pesticide residues were found on conventional crops four times more often than on organic food. The research was funded by the EU and an organic farming charity. 
The research is certain to be criticized: the inclusion of so many studies in the analysis could mean poor-quality work skews the results, although the team did “sensitivity analyses” and found that excluding weaker work did not significantly change the outcome. Also, the higher levels of cadmium and pesticides in conventional produce were still well below regulatory limits. But, the researchers say cadmium accumulates over time in the body and that some people may wish to avoid this, and that pesticide limits are set individually, not for the cocktail of chemicals used on crops. 
A further criticism is that the differences seen may result from different climates, soil types and crop varieties, and not from organic farming, though the researchers argue that combining many studies should average out these other differences. The greatest criticism, however, will be over the suggestions of potential health benefits. The most recent major analysis, which took in 223 studies in 2012, found little evidence. “The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods,” it found. 
This was also the conclusion of earlier, smaller studies published in 2009 in a scientific journal and by the UK Food Standards Agency, though the latter considered just 11 studies. The 2012 study did note that eating organic food might help people avoid pesticide residues. Sanders said he was not persuaded by the new work. “You are not going to be better nourished if you eat organic food,” he said. “What is most important is what you eat, not whether it’s organic or conventional. It’s whether you eat fruit and vegetables at all. People are buying into a lifestyle system. They get an assurance it is not being grown with chemicals and is not grown by big business.” 
Opinion polls show healthy eating (55%) and avoiding chemical residues (53%) are key reasons cited by shoppers for buying organic produce. But, many also say care for the environment (44%) and animal welfare (31%) are important, as is taste (35%). Browning said: “This research backs up what people think about organic food. In other countries, there have long been much higher levels of support and acceptance of the benefits of organic food and farming. We hope these findings will bring the UK into line with the rest of Europe.”",90
"Lego’s profits rose strongly in the first half of 2014, helped by the success of its Lego Movie in the US and UK.
The Danish toy company sold a lot more products in Europe, North and South America, and Asiaas children bought products linked to the film.
The film took more than $250 million in the US and £31 million in the UK between February and April 2014.
The movie cost about $60 million to make. It is entertaining and aimed at people who are likely to buy the company’s products.
Lego’s finance director, John Goodwin, said that the Lego Movie products had a positive effect on profits during the first half of 2014. They are now waiting to see what will happen after the movie comes out on DVD in the second half of 2014.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego’s chief executive, said that Lego were very happy that they have sold more products in the first half of 2014. He said this was a result of Lego’s ability to develop, launch and distribute Lego products, which children all over the world put at the top of their wishlists.
Lego, based in the small town of Billund in Denmark, started producing its plastic bricks in 1949 and became a popular and well-known children’s toy around the world by the 1970s.
In 2003, the company nearly collapsed. Then, Knudstrop became Lego’s new chief executive. He got rid of hundreds of products and, then, refocused the business on its bricks.
The company opened its first factory in China in April 2014.",91
"Cathal Redmond was swimming off the Greek coast and he was sure he had taken some great photos of colourful fish with his first underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results later, the photos were brown and murky. He took the pictures while holding his breath underwater and blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, he thought, was a little more time to photograph the fish in their natural environment.
He decided to invent something to make that little extra time a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive – a refillable air storage device, which is held in the mouth and lets people swim underwater for two minutes. It bridges the gap between snorkelling, with its limitations, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but requires heavy and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention looks like a combination of a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.
“I wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just go underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted people to do a little bit more,” says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe fish in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, was all the equipment he needed.
“I was very aware of the fact that I had about 50kg of equipment on me and going under the water felt strange when you are used to trying to keep yourself at the surface. It was a very surreal experience,” he says. “The real problem is that scuba diving is very limiting. Although it allows you to stay underwater for longer, you have to plan your whole day around it. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you – you can’t be walking on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it.”
It was during a final-year project for his product design degree that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the unit sucks in air through a vent in the mouthpiece. The air is compressed through valves and stored in the tank. The tank has a light that flashes green when it is full. When air is no longer being taken in, the vent shuts off and, as the person dives, air is fed back via the mouthpiece.
The light turns from green to red when the air start to run out. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to refill. “When you put the compressor into the unit with all of the rest of the stuff, the batteries and the electronics, the difficult thing was to make it small enough so that people could hold it in their mouths,” Redmond says.
Redmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He compares it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. “It is an extension of the body’s ability to store air,” he says. The prototype has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes’ worth of air into the unit and that the design can be held in the diver’s mouth.
What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is confident he can get a fully working device that will not endanger swimmers underwater. The device will probably cost £280, he says, and it is likely to weigh from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed.
To anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a very small improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make a big difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. “Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,” he says.",92
"Barack Obama has told young people to reject pessimism and meet people who have different political beliefs if they want to change the world. 
On the last day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a meeting in London: “Reject the idea that there are things we can’t control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.” 
“You’ve never had better tools to make a difference,” he told the students at the question-and-answer session. “Reject pessimism and know that progress is possible.” 
But Obama said he knew that young people had many challenges. He said it was a time of great change, with 9/11, 7/7, and with so much information and bad news, for example on Twitter. 
The president told the audience to meet and talk with people who have different political beliefs: “Look for people who don’t agree with you and it will also help you to compromise.” 
Obama said he was proud of his healthcare reforms and talked about the 2008 financial crisis: “I saved the world from depression – that was quite good.” 
He also said that his talks with Iran and the response to the Ebola crisis were some of the best things about his presidency. 
Tanya Williams, a community officer, said: “I like Barack Obama and it’s exciting to hear someone who has changed so much.” 
Oliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: “Everyone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say.” 
Furqan Naeem, from Manchester, said: “I recently visited the United States and I saw some really important work the president did – the work brought different people together.” 
Later, Obama met Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who said they had an “excellent” 90-minute discussion. They also talked about Britain’s membership of the EU. 
After the meeting, Obama played golf with British Prime Minister, David Cameron. Obama had dinner with Cameron and the US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, and, then, travelled to Germany.",93
"A few months before he died, Carl Sagan recorded a message of hope to would-be Mars explorers, telling them: “Whatever the reason you’re on Mars is, I’m glad you’re there. And I wish I was with you.” 
Seventeen years after the pioneering astronomer set out his hopeful vision of the future in 1996, a company from the Netherlands is proposing to turn Sagan’s dreams of reaching Mars into reality. The company, Mars One, plans to send four astronauts on a trip to the Red Planet to set up a human colony in 2023. But there are a couple of serious snags. 
Firstly, when on Mars their bodies will have to adapt to surface gravity that is 38% of that on Earth. It is thought that this would cause such a total physiological change in their bone density, muscle strength and circulation that voyagers would no longer be able to survive in Earth’s conditions. Secondly, and directly related to the first, they will have to say goodbye to all their family and friends, as the deal doesn’t include a return ticket. 
The Mars One website states that a return “cannot be anticipated nor expected”. To return, they would need a fully assembled and fuelled rocket capable of escaping the gravitational field of Mars, on-board life support systems capable of up to a seven-month voyage and the capacity either to dock with a space station orbiting Earth or perform a safe re-entry and landing. “Not one of these is a small endeavour,” the site notes, requiring “substantial technical capacity, weight and cost”. 
Nevertheless, the project has already had 10,000 applicants, according to the company’s Medical Director, Norbert Kraft. He told The Guardian that the applicants so far ranged in age from 18 to at least 62 and, though they include women, they tended to be men. 
The reasons they gave for wanting to go were varied, he said. An American woman called Cynthia, who gave her age as 32, told the company that it was a “childhood imagining” of hers to go to Mars. She described a trip her mother had taken her on in the early 1990s to a lecture at the University of Wisconsin. 
She said the lecturer had been Sagan and she had asked him if he thought humans would land on Mars in her lifetime. Cynthia said: “He in turn asked me if I wanted to be trapped in a ’tin can spacecraft’ for the two years it would take to get there. I told him 'yes', he smiled, and told me in all seriousness, that yes, he absolutely believed that humans would reach Mars in my lifetime.” 
She told the project: “When I first heard about the Mars One project I thought, this is my chance – that childhood dream could become a reality. I could be one of the pioneers, building the first settlement on Mars and teaching people back home that there are still uncharted territories that humans can reach for.” 
The prime attributes Mars One is looking for in astronaut-settlers are resilience, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust and resourcefulness, according to Kraft. They must also be over 18. 
Founded in 2010 by Bas Lansdorp, an engineer, Mars One says it has developed a realistic road map and financing plan for the project based on existing technologies and that the mission is perfectly feasible. The website states that the basic elements required for life are already present on the planet. For instance, water can be extracted from ice in the soil and Mars has sources of nitrogen, the primary element in the air we breathe. The colony will be powered by specially adapted solar panels, it says. 
Mars One said it had signed a contract with the American firm Paragon Space Development Corporation to take the first steps in developing the life support system and spacesuits fit for the mission. 
The project will cost a reported $6bn, a sum Lansdorp has said he hopes will be met partly by selling broadcasting rights. “The broadcasting revenue from the London Olympics was almost enough to finance a mission to Mars,” Lansdorp said, in an interview with ABC News. 
Another ambassador to the project is Paul Römer, the co-creator of Big Brother, one of the first, and most successful, reality TV shows. 
On the website, Römer gave an indication of how the broadcasting of the project might proceed: “This mission to Mars could be the biggest media event in the world,” said Römer. “Reality meets talent show with no ending and the whole world watching.” 
The aim is to establish a permanent human colony, according to the company’s website. The first team would land on the surface of Mars in 2023 to begin constructing the colony, with a team of four astronauts every two years after that. 
The project is not without its sceptics, however, and concerns have been raised about how astronauts might get to the planet and establish a colony with all the life support and other requirements needed. 
Professor Gerard’t Hooft, winner of the Nobel Prize for theoretical physics in 1999, is an ambassador for the project.’ T Hooft admits there are unknown health risks. The radiation is “of quite a different nature” from anything that has been tested on Earth, he said. 
The mission hopes to inspire generations to “believe that all things are possible, that anything can be achieved,” much like the Apollo Moon landings. 
“Mars One believes it is not only possible, but imperative that we establish a permanent settlement on Mars in order to accelerate our understanding of the formation of the solar system, the origins of life and, of equal importance, our place in the universe,” it says.",94
"The government is bracing itself for thousands of legal claims from people who were imprisoned and allegedly mistreated during the final days of the British Empire after the High Court in London ruled that three elderly Kenyans detained and tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion have the right to sue for damages. 
The court on Friday rejected claims from the government’s lawyers that too much time had elapsed since the seven-year insurgency in the 1950s, and it was no longer possible to hold a fair trial. In 2011 the same High Court judge, Mr Justice McCombe, rejected the government’s claim that the three claimants should be suing the Kenyan government as it had inherited Britain’s legal responsibilities on independence in 1963. 
Human rights activists in Kenya estimate more than 5,000 of the 70,000-plus people detained by the British colonial authorities are still alive. Many may bring claims against the British government. The ruling may also make it possible for victims of colonial atrocities in other parts of the world to sue. 
But many more men and women around the world who were imprisoned and allegedly mistreated during the conflicts that often accompanied the British retreat from empire may also be considering claims: cases that could bring to light evidence of brutal mistreatment of colonial subjects and result in a new and uncomfortable understanding of recent British history. 
The Foreign Office acknowledged that the ruling had “potentially significant and far-reaching legal implications ”, and said it was planning to appeal. “The normal time limit for bringing a civil action is three to six years,” a spokesman said. “In this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years despite the fact that the key decision makers are dead and unable to give their account of what happened.” 
Friday’s historic victory for Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, was the result of a three-year battle through the courts. They had suffered what their lawyers describe as “unspeakable acts of brutality” including castration, beatings and severe sexual assaults. A fourth claimant dropped out while a fifth, Susan Ciong’ombe Ngondi, died two years ago, aged 71. 
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the news from London was relayed to two of the complainants, Nyingi and Mara, by mobile phone. They had been sitting silently with their supporters in a sun-scorched garden and reacted with joy when the word came, hugging, dancing and eventually raising their hands to the sky to pray. 
Nyingi, who was detained for about nine years, beaten unconscious and bears the marks from leg manacles, whipping and caning, said: “For me … I just wanted the truth to be out. Even the children of my children should know what happened. What should happen is that people should be compensated so they can begin to forgive the British government.” Mara said: “I’m very happy and my heart is clean.” Asked what she would tell her four children, she said simply: “I will tell them I won.” 
McCombe said in 2011 that there was “ample evidence … that there may have been systematic torture of detainees ”. On Friday he ruled that a fair trial was possible, and highlighted the fact that thousands of documents came to light in 2011 after the Foreign Office admitted to a secret archive of colonial-era files. 
During the course of their attempts to have the claims struck out – efforts that the claimants’ lawyer, Martyn Day, described as “morally repugnant” – the British government’s lawyers accepted that all three of the elderly Kenyans were tortured by the colonial authorities. 
Day said: “The British government has admitted that these three Kenyans were brutally tortured by the British colony and yet they have been hiding behind technical legal defences for three years in order to avoid any legal responsibility. There will undoubtedly be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be reading this judgment with great care.” 
Among those who are known to have been watching the case closely are a number of veterans of the Eoka insurgency in Cyprus in the 1950s. One has already met the Mau Mau claimants’ lawyers. Any Cypriot claimants would be able to rely not only on British documentation, but upon the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Those files are kept secret for 40 years, and then opened to public scrutiny. The Red Cross documented hundreds of torture cases in Cyprus, where reporters covering the conflict referred to British interrogators as HMTs – Her Majesty’s Torturers. 
There may also be claims from Malaysia, where large numbers of people were detained during the 12-year war with communist insurgents and their supporters that began in 1948. Relatives of 24 unarmed rubber plantation workers massacred by British troops are currently fighting through the British courts for a public inquiry. Many former prisoners of the British in Aden may also have claims against the British government, although, as Aden is now part of Yemen, British lawyers may have difficulty making contact with potential clients there.",95
"Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for €50,000. She says that he wrote things about her personal life that are not true.
La premiere chose qu’on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Grégoire Delacourt is the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book’s main male character thinks she is Johansson. In the novel, the model’s beauty means that men see her only as a sex object and women are jealous of her. She has many adventures as Johansson and, in the end, dies in a car crash.
Johansson does not feel flattered by the best- seller. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourt ’s novel illegally used Ms Johansson’s name. He has now gone to court because Johansson does not want the book to be translated or to become a film.
Delacourt said that he chose to mention  Johansson because she is famous for her beauty. He said: “I wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson. ”
On French radio, the author recently said the legal action was “sad.”
Delacourt is one of France’s best-loved authors; his last novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and they are making a film of it. But he said he was “speechless” when he found out Johansson was suing him.
“I thought she would ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn’t write a novel about a celebrity,” he said. “I wrote a real love story about women’s beauty, especially interior beauty.
“If an author can no longer write about the things that surround us – a brand of beer, a monument,  an actor – it’s going to be difficult to write fiction.
“I’m not sure she’s read the novel because it hasn’t been translated yet.”
Emmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Lattès, said taking legal action was “crazy”. “We have never known anything like it. It is very surprising because the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johansson’s double.”
The author ’s legal situation would be easier if he had published the book in the USA and not in France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York lawyer, said that the case would probably not go to court in the United States.
“I thought she might send me flowers because the book was a declaration of love for her, but she didn’t understand,” Delacourt said.",96
"He is not the first person to express scepticism about Mars One, a vastly ambitious private mission aiming to settle humans on Mars from 2025. But Joseph Roche is different from most critics: he’s on the shortlist of astronauts. 
Roche, an astrophysicist at Trinity College Dublin who was announced in February as among the 100 people in line for the mission, has written for the Guardian expressing his grave doubts about the viability of Mars One. 
The selection process, Roche writes, “was not rigorous enough to reach the requisite standard of more traditional astronaut selection programmes”. He also says the Dutch Mars One team have displayed “a certain naivety” in believing they can succeed alone in the supposed $6bn mission and should now accept it is very unlikely to happen. 
He writes: “More openness and transparency would benefit Mars One greatly but I think that the shortcomings of the selection process, coupled with their unwillingness to engage and collaborate with the scientific community mean that the time might have come for Mars One to acknowledge the implausibility of this particular venture and turn their efforts towards supporting other exciting and more viable upcoming space missions.” 
Roche also expressed worries about the way the mission organizers publicized a so-called top-ten candidates. The ranking, he said, didn’t mean these were the most likely potential astronauts but was, instead, based on how many “supporter points” each had earned through acts such as buying official merchandise. 
He writes: “These points are Mars One’s supporter points which 'represent the degree of your support to Mars One’s mission'.” These points play no role in the selection process and serve only to show how much each supporter has donated to Mars One.” 
The official timeline for the mission says the group plans to dispatch a stationary lander and satellite to Mars in 2018, followed by a rover in 2020 and cargo missions starting in 2022. Humans would start arriving in 2025 and crews of four would be sent every two years to add to the settlement. They would not return to Earth. 
In February, a prominent supporter of the project, Gerard’t Hooft, a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics, said he did not believe this timetable was realistic. He said: “It will take quite a bit longer and be quite a bit more expensive. When they first asked me to be involved, I told them: 'You have to put a zero after everything'.” 
Roche also spoke to Medium, a US blogging platform that has previously expressed grave sceptism about Mars One, reporting among other things that the supposed 200,000 applications to be astronauts in fact totalled 2,761. 
He told Medium about the selection process in more detail: “I have not met anyone from Mars One in person. Initially, they’d said there were going to be regional interviews; we would travel there, we’d be interviewed, we’d be tested over several days and, in my mind, that sounded at least like something that approached a legitimate astronaut selection process. 
“But then they made us sign a non-disclosure agreement if we wanted to be interviewed and then, all of a sudden, it changed from being a proper regional interview over several days to being a ten-minute Skype call.” 
Roche told the Guardian he did not want to give more interviews as he was wary about being negative about the idea of space travel. 
In his comment piece he writes: “I am passionate about pushing the boundaries of scientific endeavour and that is why the ambitiousness of the Mars One plan appealed to me. Although Mars One were never likely to overcome the financial and technical barriers during their proposed timeline, it was refreshing to hear a new idea that challenges us to think about our own role in the future of space exploration. 
“Being part of the subsequent public debate over the ethics and morality of future missions has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of my candidacy with Mars One. If a one-way mission to Mars ever became possible, then I would always volunteer. For an astrophysicist, that is not a difficult decision to make but it is also a moot point because I do not think we will see a one-way mission in my lifetime.”",97
"The US Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a bill that would make the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of US phone records more transparent but allow it to continue. Introduced by Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, the bill lets the NSA continue to collect phone metadata of millions of Americans and allows the government to keep the data. The bill passed the committee by an 11-4 vote and will now be voted on by the full Senate.
The bill allows analysts to search through the data if they think there is a ‘reasonable suspicion’ that someone is associated with international terrorism. The bill also allows the NSA to continue surveillance that is begun on foreigners outside the US if they enter the country, for a period of up to 72 hours.
The bill is a direct challenge to another bill introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy that would end domestic phone-records collection. It was also opposed by leading Intelligence Committee member Mark Udall, who said it did not go far enough. “The NSA’s surveillance of Americans’ private information does not respect our constitutional values and needs fundamental reform,” Udall said.
Feinstein defended the NSA bulk collection programme, but said there was a need to rebuild public trust. “The NSA call-records programme is legal, and I believe it contributes to our national security,” she said in a statement. “But more can, and should, be done to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections in place.”
Feinstein said the bill would also make a number of improvements to transparency and checks on the NSA – for example, someone who accesses data acquired under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the United States without permission could spend up to ten years in prison. There would also be a limit on the number of contacts an analyst can receive in response to a request for bulk communication records.
After the committee’s hearing had ended, Feinstein strongly supported the NSA’s main domestic programme. “I think there’s huge misunderstanding about this NSA database programme, and how vital it is to protecting this country,” she said.
Concern over the Intelligence Committee’s bill was expressed by independent legal experts. Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said: “The Intelligence Committee bill and the USA Freedom Act present two opposing visions of the relationship between law-abiding Americans and the national security state. The fundamental question is: should the government have some reason to suspect wrongdoing before collecting Americans’ most personal information to feed into its databases? Leahy says yes; Feinstein says no.”
Democratic committee member Ron Wyden suggested that recent concern about NSA spying on foreign leaders had taken attention away from the real focus on mass surveillance in the US. “The statements that American intelligence officials have made about collecting data from foreign leaders is consistent with the understanding I’ve had for years, as a member of the Intelligence Committee,” he said. “That has implications for foreign policy. My top priority is ending the mass surveillance, digital surveillance, on millions and millions of lawabiding Americans.”
To everyone’s surprise, Feinstein announced that she was “totally opposed” to the foreign leader spying of the sort the NSA conducts on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Feinstein has been a strong supporter of the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.
“Americans are making it clear, that they never – repeat, never – agreed to give up their constitutional liberties for the appearance of security,” Wyden said. “We’re just going to keep fighting this battle. It’s going to be a long one.”
Feinstein’s strong support for domestic phone records collection shows that she is not yet ready to expand the criticism of the NSA that she gave when she “totally opposed” its surveillance of foreign allied leaders – a more traditional intelligence activity than bulk phone metadata surveillance.
“Decades ago, countries had their own kinds of communication systems. Now that you’ve had the merger of global communications, I think you’re going to have a lot more challenges spying on foreigners with implications for US citizens,” Wyden said.",98
"From all across Rwanda, and even from Burundi, people are coming to the southern town of Butare to a little shop called Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams). They come for a taste of something new, something most of them have never tasted before – sweet, cold ice cream. 
Here, at the central African country’s first ice-cream shop, customers can buy ice cream in sweet cream, passion fruit, strawberry and pineapple flavours. Toppings include fresh fruit, honey, chocolate chips and granola. They can also buy black tea and coffee.
The shop, which has “ice cream, coffee, dreams” written on its signs, is taking advantage of local people’s curiosity about ice cream – and the shop is also “changing lives”, says Inzozi Nziza’s manager, Louise Ingabire.
“Ice cream is important,” she says between mouthfuls of honey-flavoured ice cream. “Some Rwandans like ice cream, but it’s a new thing. We still have some work to do, to tell others that they’ll enjoy it.”
The shop can certainly make dreams come true. “I didn’t have a job before: I just stayed at home. Now, I have a vision for the future. I am making money and I can give some of it to my family,” says the 27-year-old.
Butare has 89,600 residents and is 135km south of the capital, Kigali. It is the home of the National University of Rwanda. Inzozi Nziza has become a meeting place for students who want to treat themselves to something cool and different.
“The shop is uniting people here,” Kalisa Migendo, a 24-year-old student, says. “If you need to go out and talk to a friend, a girl or a boy, you come to Inzozi Nziza for an ice cream.” 
Inzozi Nziza was opened by Odile Gakire Katese. She met Alexis Miesen and Jennie Dundas, co- founders of Blue Marble Ice Cream in Brooklyn, New York. The three women formed a partnership to open the shop in 2010.
At the start, Miesen and Dundas owned the shop in partnership with its employees and had shares in the business, which is a cooperative. After 18 months, they gave their shares to the women employees, who by then could control the business by themselves.
Ice cream is new to Rwanda. Selling and eating ice cream is not part of the Rwandan culture.
The Butare shop employs nine women. They spend their free time practising with Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda’s first and only female drumming group.
The musicians are Hutu and Tutsi women. Some are survivors of the 1994 genocide, when almost a million Tutsis and Hutus were killed. Some members of Ingoma Nshya are widows, some orphans.
Ingabire’s father, two siblings and many cousins were killed in the genocide. “When I’m drumming, it gives me power because we’re still alive and survivors,” she says.
The ice-cream shop is in a documentary by film-makers Rob and Lisa Fruchtman. Sweet Dreams, which tells the story of how the women have made a positive future after the genocide, also includes the female drummers.
The film has been shown in many countries, including the US, UK and several African states. “We feel the film is about hope, bravery and the ability to change your life,” says Lisa Fruchtman.",99
"In an attempt to reduce air pollution, Europe will become the first part of the world to force car makers to use ‘real-world’ emissions tests. New regulations will introduce the tests to reveal what cars’ emissions are like when driving on roads and in traffic, not in ideal, laboratory-like conditions, which is what happens at the moment.
The tests, which have been approved by the European Commission, are designed to enforce a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre, a level that only one car in 16 meets. Other countries, such as China and Korea, which are also considering real-world emissions tests, will be watching what happens closely.
Pollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and particulates are believed to be responsible for at least one quarter of the 29,000 annual pollution-related deaths in the UK alone.
The current ‘New European Drive Cycle’ laboratory test for measuring emissions is a quarter of a century old. Technological developments in the car industry mean that the test is no longer good enough. Studies have shown that the results of lab techniques to measure car emissions can easily be fixed – car makers fix the results by using techniques such as taping up doors and windows to minimize air resistance, driving on unrealistically smooth roads and testing at very high temperatures.
“The Commission wants to introduce a new emissions testing procedure that will allow proper assessment of the vehicles in real driving,” said Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson.
“One key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 citizens each year is that car makers cheat the tests for diesel cars, causing much more pollution on the road,” said Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. “The development of a new, real-world driving emission test is an important step forward in tackling urban air pollution. European Union (EU) states should now support the Commission’s proposals and ignore the whingeing from car makers that the rules are too strict.”
According to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014, actual nitrogen oxide emissions from cars are seven times higher than the 80mg per kilometre standard, with some types of cars 22 times above the recommended limit. Only one car out of 16 met the 80mg target. Around one third of all nitrogen oxide pollution comes from road transport – mostly diesel – and in cities concentrations can be as high as 64%, according to European Environment Agency data.
Campaigners say that the car industry has tried to delay reforms to car test cycles. But industry groups deny this – they argue that a five-year delay is necessary for technical and economic reasons. “Real Driving Emissions (RDE) is a totally new regulation that will force significant changes to cars,” said Cara McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). “However, ACEA fully accepts that RDE will apply to new types of cars from September 2017.”
ACEA sent the European Commission their own draft regulation for consideration, after EU representatives finally agreed a regulation to implement the nitrogen oxide limits with strengthened road trials and strict monitoring of exhaust fumes. ACEA’s draft regulation would have covered fewer pollutants and delayed the regulation’s introduction until 2020. Test distances would have been shortened from 1,300m to below 700m, minimum temperatures would have been raised from -7C to -3C and more rural roads would have been used.
The ACEA draft was rejected by the Commission. The new regulation will now pass to commissioners for approval before an expected introduction in September. By 2017, the first realworld CO2 emissions tests are expected to begin in earnest. The introduction of the EU’s new emission tests will be watched closely around the world.",100
"The Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai in October 2012 as she went home on a bus after school. They wanted to silence the teenager and end her campaign for girls’ education. 
Nine months and many operations later, she stood up at the United Nations on her 16th birthday. “They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed,” she said. 
It was an unusual 16th birthday. Malala didn’t blow out candles on a cake; she sat at the United Nation in the central seat where world leaders usually sit. 
She listened quietly as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, described her as “our hero, our champion”; and as the ex-British prime minister and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, said “the words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy 16th birthday, Malala ”. 
The event was named Malala Day after the girl from Mingora in Pakistan. She became famous after she wrote a blog for the BBC Urdu service – in the blog, she described her difficult experiences of trying to get an education under the power of the Taliban. 
When she was 11, she asked the US special representative to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to help in her campaign against the Taliban, who wanted to stop education for girls. By 14, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, suggested her for the International Children’s Peace Prize, and, by 15, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize nominee in history. 
Then she got death threats, and, on 9 October 2012, after a meeting of Pakistani Taliban leaders, the gunman came to kill her. 
She has had many operations in Pakistan and the UK after the shooting on the bus. She now lives with her family in Birmingham, England, and does what the Taliban tried to stop her doing: she goes to school every day. “I am not against anyone,” she said. 
And she doesn’t want “personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group.” 
Malala replied to the violence of the Taliban with words against bullets. “I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he stood in front of me, I would not shoot him.” 
“The extremists are afraid of books and pens,” the teenager continued. “The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.” 
She talked about the attack in June on a hospital in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, and killings of female teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “That is why they are blasting schools every day – because they were and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring to our society.” The “Stand with Malala” petition, that is asking for education for the 57 million children around the world who do not go to school, has got more than four million signatures – more than a million were added after Malala’s speech. 
At the start of her speech, Malala said: “I don’t know where to begin my speech. I don’t know what people are expecting me to say.” She did not have to worry.",101
"When it comes to climate change, we have the bad habit of focusing on the first part of the story, the part about the problem, and forgetting the second part about the many available solutions. These solutions are speeding up recycling, slowing down emissions and providing sustainable alternatives to plastic, air conditioning, smartphones and fast fashion. 
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently gathered in Copenhagen to present its latest report on the impacts and pace of climate change. Climate change is now measured on all continents and our efforts to lower emissions must be intensified to avoid it escalating out of control. Along with outlining the risks and challenges, Copenhagen also embraced and focused on the solutions. 
In the spirit of focusing on what can be done, Sustainia Award, chaired by Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrated ten leading sustainability solutions deployed in 84 countries. From food to fashion, energy to transportation, education to health, the awards showcased an alternative to the grim-future scenarios we are so often presented with and made sustainability tangible to the innovators, investors, consumers and policy makers across sectors and regions. 
From California, we saw how we can now produce plastics from greenhouse gases that are competitive with normal oil-based plastics in price and quality. From Switzerland, we learned how we can recycle and reuse old clothes and shoes more effectively in a recycle system currently deployed in over 60 countries. And from Canada, we learned how smartphones can make bike- sharing more convenient. 
The ten projects presented each offered unique solutions to sustainability challenges but it was the Nigerian initiative, Wecyclers, that won Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, and the rest of jury’s, vote and took the Sustainia Award 2014. 
Wecyclers enables low-income communities to make money on waste piling up in their streets. By deploying a fleet of cargo bicycles to collect and recycle unmanaged waste in Lagos, Wecyclers lets families exchange garbage for consumer goods via an SMS-based point system. 
Recycling companies purchase Wecyclers’ sorted waste for reprocessing into products – they turn it into mattresses, pillows and trash bags. Wecyclers is a response to local waste issues, where it’s estimated that only 40% of the city’s rubbish is collected. According to the World Bank, only 46% of municipal solid waste in Africa is collected. More than 5,000 households have signed up so far and there are plans to extend the initiative to other cities throughout Nigeria. 
Solutions to combat climate change are often perceived as hi-tech innovations focused on cutting emissions, creating infrastructure or efficiency. However, to successfully solve the variety of challenges, we need variety in our solutions as well. Sustainability is not solely a matter of bringing down emissions; it is also a question of using our natural resources more intelligently and creating healthier lives for ourselves. Initiatives might be low-tech in innovation but high-impact when it comes to creating sustainable change for entire communities. 
With a wide range of solutions addressing the equally wide range of challenges, we must focus more on the important part of the story that creates enthusiasm and momentum, and spurs action for much-needed change.",102
"When the Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai in October 2012 as she rode home on a bus after school, they knew what they wanted: to silence the teenager and kill off her campaign for girls’ education.
Nine months and countless surgical operations later, she stood up at the United Nations on her 16th birthday on Friday to give a defiant reply. “They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed,” she said.
It was an unusual 16th birthday. Instead of blowing out candles on a cake, Malala sat in one of the main council chambers at the United Nations in the central seat usually reserved for world leaders.
She listened quietly as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, described her as “our hero, our champion”; and as the former British prime minister and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, said what he called “the words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy 16th birthday, Malala”.
The event, named Malala Day, was the culmination of an extraordinary four years for the girl from Mingora in Pakistan. She was thrust into the public glare after she wrote a blog for the BBC Urdu service describing her experiences of struggling to get an education under the rising power of Taliban militants.
By 11, she was showing exceptional determination, calling personally on the US special representative to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to use his influence against the Taliban’s efforts to stop education for girls. By 14, she was on the radar of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who suggested her for the International Children’s Peace Prize, and, by 15, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize nominee in history.
But all this global attention came at a price. Death threats followed, and, on 9 October 2012, following a meeting of Pakistani Taliban leaders, the gunman was sent to silence her.
Multiple operations in Pakistan and the UK followed the attack on the bus, including the fitting of a titanium plate on her left forehead and a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. She now lives with her family in Birmingham and does what the Taliban tried to stop her doing: she goes to school every day. “I am not against anyone,” she said in the UN chamber, having taken this day out from the classroom. “Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group.”
Malala responded to the violence of the Taliban with words against bullets. “I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he stood in front of me, I would not shoot him.”
She spoke confidently, with only an injured eye and a slightly drooping left side of her face to hint at such fresh traumas. There was one other allusion to the horror of her past: she wore a white shawl belonging to a woman who was also targeted by extremists but who, unlike Malala, did not survive: Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan.
“The extremists are afraid of books and pens,” the teenager continued. “The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.”
She talked about the attack in June on a hospital in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, and killings of female teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “That is why they are blasting schools every day – because they were and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring to our society.”
And she gave her own opposing interpretation of Islam to the Taliban’s. “They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to hell just because they go to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each child’s right to get education but their duty and responsibility.”
Such ability to say what normally remains unsaid – to give voice to young people who are normally silenced – has created its own response. The “Stand with Malala” petition, demanding education for the 57 million children around the world who do not go to school, has attracted more than four million signatures – more than a million were added after Malala’s speech.",103
"The business idea is to produce a cheap light that gets free power from gravity and could end the use of dangerous kerosene lamps in Africa and India.
But when British designer, Patrick Hunt, tried to get money from banks or venture capitalists to launch his invention, he hit a problem. “We tried to get funding to make it happen, but it’s slow and complex and it’s unproven and nobody wants to take a risk,” he said.
So he tried crowdfunding on a US website, Indiegogo, which has recently opened in the UK. Within five days, he hit his target and raised £36,200. His campaign to get donations from the public was so popular that within 40 days he had raised £400,000.
The LED light is powered by a dynamo driven by a 10kg bag of rocks. The weight is attached to the light, lifted to a height of about 2m, and while it slowly falls to the ground it will generate enough power for half an hour of light.
Hunt is preparing for production in China and will test the market again by sending 1,000 of the lights to Africa before the full mass production of millions of units.
He is one of a new wave of entrepreneurs who are turning to the fast-growing crowdfunding industry for money. Another new site is InvestingZone, which matches wealthy people with start-up entrepreneurs.
Indiegogo does not offer shares but allows users to offer “perks” for different levels of investment – people who helped to fund Hunt’s light felt good about helping the less rich, but also got their own light.
For Danae Ringelmann, co-founder of Indiegogo, the “gravity light” is a perfect example of how meritocratic crowdfunding can be and how it can test an entrepreneur’s idea. 
“It is the first time that getting money has been fast, efficient and meritocratic, because it is not about ‘How do I get access to the decision makers in that bank?’ or ‘Who do I know in that venture capital company?’ This is all about proving your worth to your customers and fans, getting them to agree your idea will work and fund it.
“Even ideas that don’t get funding are worth testing, because you will have saved yourself a lot of time finding out it wasn’t a good idea and getting smarter faster,” she says.
Ringelmann, who is based in the US, started her career as a Wall Street analyst. In 2008, she decided to quit and use her skills to try and help friends who worked in the arts to raise money.
Five years on and the site is raising about $2m a week for new businesses in start-up and growth stages. In December 2012, it launched a euro and a sterling service to get a foothold on this side of the Atlantic and says Britain is its third biggest market. International activity is up 41% since December.
There is no shortage of competitors, be it Kickstarter, Seedrs or Funding Circle, but Indiegogo is the only crowdfunder where anyone can launch a campaign. No project is thought too wacky.
The site charges a 4% fee for successful campaigns. For those that fail to raise their target amount, users can either refund all money to their contributors at no charge or keep all money raised but pay a 9% fee.
A British woman raised £100,000 to open a “cat café” in London through the site. Called Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, it is not open yet but is advertised as somewhere people can “come in from the cold to a comfortable chair, a hot cup of tea, a book and a cat”.
“We’ve seen campaigns that go to venture capitalists get rejected because the venture capitalists say ‘great idea but no idea if the market actually wants it; it could be something that no one cares about,’” said Ringelmann.
“The entrepreneurs do an Indiegogo campaign and this can be enough market proof for venture capitalists to say there is a market for this. 17 “It allows you to test your market, test your pricing, test your features, discover new ways of getting money, get vital feedback,” says Ringelmann. 18 With her Wall Street background and the experience of helping 100,000 businesses and services raise money, Ringelmann has useful advice for budding entrepreneurs. 19 “Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s all about the execution and, if you are afraid that your idea will be stolen by someone who could execute it better and faster than you, then you are not the right person to execute that idea. It’s all about confidence to move fast and to learn,” she says. 20 While crowdfunding as an alternative to banks has grown, it is not very attractive to big-bucks investors who want a stake in a promising business. That could start to change in the UK with the launch of InvestingZone.",104
"The Virunga National Park is home to rare mountain gorillas but is targeted for oil exploration by a British company. The park could earn DR Congo $400m a year from tourism, hydropower and carbon credits, said a WWF report.
But if the UNESCO World Heritage Site that crosses the equator is exploited for oil, as the Congolese government and exploration firm SOCO International are hoping, it could lead to devastating pollution and permanent conflict in the region, says the WWF.
SOCO International is the only company that wants to explore inside the boundaries of the Virunga park. SOCO insist that their operations in Congo would be kept to an area in the park known as Block V, and would not affect the gorillas.
SOCO Chairman Rui de Sousa said: “Despite the views of WWF, SOCO is extremely sensitive to the environmental significance of the Virunga National Park. Oil companies still have a central role in today’s global energy supply and a successful oil project has the potential to transform the economic and social well-being of a whole country.’’
However, Raymond Lumbuenamo, country director for WWF Democratic Republic of the Congo, based in Kinshassa, said that security in and around the park would get worse if SOCO went ahead with its exploration plans.
“The security situation is already bad. The UN is involved with fighting units and the M23 rebel force is inside the park. Oil would be a curse. It always increases conflict. The park might become like the Niger Delta. Developing Virunga for oil will not make anything better.
“The population there is already very dense, with over 350 people per square kilometre. When you take part of the land (for oil), you put more pressure on the rest. Oil would not provide many jobs; people would flood in looking for work,” he said.
One fear is that the area is seismically active and another eruption of one of the volcanoes in the park could damage oil company infrastructure and lead to oil spills in the lakes. “Virunga’s rich natural resources are for the benefit of the Congolese people, not for foreign oil prospectors. Our country’s future depends on sustainable economic development,” said Lumbuenamo.
“For me, choosing the conservation option is the best option. Once you have started drilling for oil, there’s no turning back,” he said.
But Lumbuenamo accepted that, while the gorillas were safe now, the chances of the park making $400m a year were small. “It would be difficult to make the kind of money that the report talks of. Virunga used to be a very peaceful place and can be again. The security situation right now is bad. The UN is involved with fighting units. It’s not as quiet as it used to be.”
According to the WWF report, ecosystems in the park could support hydropower generation, fishing and ecotourism, and play an important role in providing secure water supplies, regulating climate and preventing soil erosion.
The park, Africa’s oldest and most diverse, is home to over 3,000 different kinds of animals, but is now heavily populated with desperately poor people, many of whom went there after the Rwanda massacre in 1994.
“In all, the park could support around 45,000 permanent jobs. In addition, people around the world could know that the park is well managed and is safe for future generations,” says the report.
“Virunga represents a valuable asset to DR Congo and contributes to Africa’s heritage as the oldest and most biodiverse park on the continent,” the report continues. “Plans to explore for oil and exploit oil reserves put Virunga’s potential value at risk,” it says.",105
"Our new international survey across 33 countries shows just how wrong the world is about a range of key social realities. 
British people think the top 1% wealthiest households own 59% of their country’s wealth, when they actually “only” own 23%. Americans think that 33% of their population are immigrants, when in fact it is only 14%. 
Brazilians think the average age in their country is 56, when it is only 31. Russians think that 31% of their politicians are women, when it is only 14%. 
In Britain, people think that an extraordinary 43% of young adults aged 25-34 still live at home with their parents, rather than the actual 14%. In India, the online population think 60% of the whole country also has internet access, when in fact only 19% do. 
Why are people across the world so often so clueless about these realities? 
It is partly that we just struggle with basic maths and some of us clearly misunderstand the questions or interpret them differently. For example, most countries hugely overestimate how many people do not affiliate themselves with a religion: across the 33 countries, 37% do not, according to respondents, but the average is actually just 18%. This will be partly because we will be thinking of how many people practise their religion, rather than what they put on census forms. 
People also take mental shortcuts, where they grab for easily available information even if it doesn’t quite fit the question. Our huge overestimates of the rural populations in most countries will be affected by how much of the physical landmass rural areas make up, rather than a careful calculation of how unoccupied it generally is. In Daniel Kahneman’s terms, answers to these sorts of questions are classic examples of “fast” thinking, rather than “slow”. 
We are tied to our own perspective and struggle to imagine the variety in our countries, as highlighted by our Indian sample’s massively overestimating their population’s access to the internet. Our study was mostly carried out through an online survey – and, in developing countries, this will be representative of a more affluent, connected group rather than the population as a whole. In some ways, we may have expected this more educated sample to get closer to reality – those with higher education levels tend to be more accurate on these types of questions. But what we find, throughout the study, is that people grossly generalize from their own situations, forgetting how unrepresentative they are. 
We suffer from what social psychologists call “emotional innumeracy” when estimating realities: this means we are sending a message about what is worrying us as much as trying to get the right answers. Cause and effect run both ways, with our concern leading to our misperceptions as much as our misperceptions creating our concern. 
For Britain, this is likely to be part of the explanation for people’s huge overestimates of how much the wealthiest own, how many young people are still living at home and what proportion of the population are immigrants (the guess is 25%, when it is really only 13%, according to official estimates). People are worried about the concentration of wealth, the housing pressures facing young people and immigration levels, and this is reflected in them overstating the scale of the issues. 
But, the survey suggests there are also some issues where people are not as worried as they should be. For example, most countries hugely underestimate how much of their population is overweight or obese. The worst case is Saudi Arabia, where people think only 28% are, when 71% are. Britons think it is 44%, when it is actually nearly half as much again – 62% are either overweight or obese. 
And, in many ways, it is not our misperceptions but these realities across different countries that are the most interesting and important aspects of the study. The top 1% in Russia own 70% of the nation’s wealth, while the top 1% in New Zealand only own 18%. Half of Italians aged 25-34 still live with their parents, when it is only 4% in Norway. 
The average age in India is 27; it is 47 in Japan. Only 10% of politicians are women in Brazil, Hungary and Japan, when 44% are in Sweden. 
When the reality is so strange and varied, it is no wonder we’re so wrong.",106
"That millennials rely heavily on technology is no secret. More than eight in ten say they sleep with a mobile phone by their bed, almost two thirds admit to texting while driving, one in five has posted a video of themselves online and three quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. 
Compared to other generations, millennials are the most active on social media, according to a 2010 report, with 75% of them having created at least one social media account. In contrast, only 50% of Generation X, 30% of baby boomers and 6% of those aged 65 and older use social media. But there is a small percentage of millennials who don’t use social media at all. Meet the millennials bucking the trend. 
Celan Beausoleil, 31, Oakland, California Beausoleil is a social worker and has had an “on and off, more off than on” relationship with Facebook. 
She last deactivated her account in December 2015 after finding the amount of personal information shared by others “too heavy” to deal with on top of her work demands. 
“A lot of my job is listening to people’s lives all day, every day and it started to feel so overwhelming to go on social media and see every single detail of everybody’s life, including people that I don’t really have a relationship with,” she said. “It feels almost like intimacy overload.” She added: “I’m holding a lot in my work life for people and sometimes it felt like it was too heavy to do in my personal life also.” 
But Beausoleil does love the way social media connects the world in a truly unique way, citing it as one of her only reasons for staying on Facebook for as long as she did. “One thing I really liked about Facebook was that I could sit for hours and click on a friend and then click on one of their friends and one of their friends and one of their friends and literally end up on someone’s Facebook page from the other side of the world,” she said. “I used to do that all the time.” 
“One day, I realized I’m spending so much time doing this. These little seconds add up. I wonder what it would be like if I didn’t spend these seconds here and spent them doing something else. What if I was doing other things with these seconds? What would they become? Would I enjoy it?” 
Mathias, who works for the Baltimore City government, had Facebook and Twitter accounts for years before deleting them both in November 2012. But he “quickly forgot that Facebook existed” after his impromptu decision to end his social media presence. He can still appreciate the benefits that come with having social media accounts, like when he met his girlfriend’s friends for the first time and realized “humanizing 20 people you’re meeting at a party” is much easier if you can connect their faces, hometowns and jobs to a photo later on. Or how easy it is to organize large events online. Mathias relies on friends for party invites and is sure there are times he “slips through the cracks”. 
But, now, he relishes the time that’s freed up. He spends his lift rides and spare moments at work reading news articles and books rather than scrolling through a newsfeed. And with no friends’ accounts to follow online, he has to “pick up the phone and call them”, something he’s come to “definitely enjoy”. 
Lauren Raskauskas, 22, Naples, Florida Raskauskas describes herself as a “pretty private” person. So social media, which can open you up to the scrutiny and analysis of others, is not that appealing to her. “I’m more privacy-minded and have concerns about giving out my data,” said Raskauskas, who is currently looking for a job. 
She recently deleted her Twitter account and deactivated her Facebook account two years ago after realizing she “didn’t like everyone knowing what I was doing”. But Raskauskas, who was late to the Facebook game because her “parents were really strict with technology”, can see the positive sides of social media. When a friend of hers that she’d lost track of moved to Naples for a month, Raskauskas didn’t even realize she was there until after she’d left, which the 22-year-old said “was a bummer”. 
But in the end, her privacy concerns outweighed any benefits social media could provide and she saw a definite upside when she went through a recent break-up. The last time a relationship of hers ended and she was online, it was not pleasant. 
“One time, I did break up with somebody while I was on Facebook and I was like ’Oh my gosh, should I change my profile photo? Should I change my status?’ And, this time, I don’t have to worry about any of that because that kind of stuff is pretty hard,” she said. 
Rajagopalan, a student at Boston College, doesn’t see any drawbacks to abstaining from social media. 
He claims that he “hasn’t seen any effect at this point”. Even though classmates post about parties and events on Facebook, they make sure to send him a text message, too, he said. “Since I was young, I was always a step behind on that kind of thing so it never really mattered to me,” he said. 
In fact, the only time Rajagopalan made use of social media was when it was unavoidable: it was the only way to reach his new roommate at college. Before starting his first year at college, he signed up for his first, and only, social media account. He joined Facebook in order to contact his future roommate and talk about their plans for that year. 
Months later, he still has the account but he admits: “I don’t use it. I don’t check it or anything like that.” The most activity it sees is when his two sisters tag him in family photos. He has avoided social media accounts in all other situations, though he has felt the draw of Twitter. As a sports fan, he acknowledged that “it’s where most of the news breaks out”. But he refused to get an account, stating: “I don’t really need one to read tweets”.",107
"They call it the Richie Rich Club and it is about to get even richer. India’s wealthiest will quadruple their net worth between now and 2018, a report says, with hundreds of thousands of new entrepreneurs and inheritors becoming multimillionaires. The survey, based on interviews with 150 ultra-high-net-worth individuals, comes amid signs of returning business confidence in the world’s biggest democracy. 
Recent years have seen lacklustre growth, rising prices of basic foodstuffs and a weakening currency. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in May 2014 on a pledge to reinvigorate the ailing economy. Despite the slowdown, there are nearly a sixth more Indians worth in excess of $3.75m than in 2013, the report for the Kotak Mahindra Bank notes. “Cities are mushrooming, the middle class population growing, opportunities have increased manyfold and the political environment has improved greatly in recent months,” according to Murali Balaraman, a co-author. 
Between them, India’s rich hold assets worth a trillion dollars, which is around a fifth of the total wealth in the country. By 2018, that total is likely to reach $4tn, the report says, making three times as many people multimillionaires. 
Serving the new rich – and the old money – is a booming luxury market. “They really want to show or talk about their wealth in a really subtle way and consumption of luxury goods is a nice way to do it,” Balaraman said. Abhay Gupta, the CEO of brand consultancy Luxury Connect, said the market for top-end goods and experiences would “only get bigger”. “There is a huge aspirational class who look up to what the very wealthy are doing and then copy it,” he said. 
Cars are among the most popular items bought, the report says. Whereas, in 2009, locally made SUVs were shown off by the wealthy, now only foreign cars will turn heads. Mercedes saw a 47% surge in sales in India in 2013. BMW has launched a new $200,000 model in Delhi. India’s appalling infrastructure restricts demand, however. Lamborghini’s Chief Executive, Stephan Winkelmann, admitted, in 2013, that the traffic and roads in India “are not so suitable” for the $450,000 sports cars. In India, Lamborghini sells two models: the Gallardo and the Aventador, which has a top speed of 217mph. Winkelmann said Lamborghini’s Indian customers were much younger than those in Europe, with a typical buyer being in his 30s. However, the most popular investments remain real estate – mainly within India – and jewellery. 
India’s super-rich have long raised eyebrows around the world with their spectacular spending. Mukesh Ambani, the country’s wealthiest man, has built the world’s most valuable home in Mumbai, the commercial capital. The 27-storey tower, complete with helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and a staff of more than 600, is worth an estimated $1bn. 
The three-day wedding of the niece of Lakshmi Mittal, the UK-based steel tycoon who is worth an estimated $16bn, was reported to have cost $80m. Hundreds of guests were flown to Barcelona for the ceremony and party, which took place in a museum in the city. 
But buyers of luxury goods searching for the psychological satisfaction of exclusivity are becoming increasingly demanding, the Kotak Mahindra report says. One ordered nine cases of Japanese whisky costing over $750 a bottle for a wedding reception. The attraction of the imported whisky was that no one who attended the wedding would find out how to source the same drink in India, the report adds. Another big spender systematically bought identical pairs of Louis Vuitton bags, then cut up half of them to make clothes that would match her accessories. Even the traditional wedding is evolving fast. Presents such as silver plates, dried fruit or sweets once sent with wedding invitations are being replaced by gifts by top western designer brands. “These days, it’s Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags,” says Gupta. 
Almost half new ultra-high-net-worth individuals live in smaller provincial cities. A high proportion give substantial amounts to charity, though the report notes that the “growth of philanthropic spends in India has not been proportional to overall growth in ultra-high-net-worth individual wealth”. 
Co-author Balaraman says that growth in the number of rich people would not result in social tensions as a wide gap in incomes and wealth is an “accepted norm” in India. “People know that someone is rich and someone is poor and they carry on with their lives,” he explains.",108
"On one day in August, one in seven people on Earth, 1 billion people, used Facebook, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. In a decade, the social network has transformed people’s relationships, privacy, their businesses, news media, helped topple regimes and even changed the meanings of everyday words. 
“A more open and connected world is a better world. 
It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities and a stronger society that reflects all of our values,” wrote Zuckerberg in the post announcing the numbers. These are just some of the ways his company changed everything – for better or worse. 
1 Facebook has changed the definition of “friend”
“To friend” is now a verb. And, unlike in real life, when the ending of a friendship can be deeply traumatic, it is easy to “unfriend”, a word invented to describe ditching a casual acquaintance when they are no longer enhancing your Facebook newsfeed. Although the meanings of the words “share” and “like” are essentially the same, Facebook has brought an entirely new weight to the terms. School and university reunions have become redundant – you already know whose career is going well, whether the perfect pair have split and you’ve seen endless pictures of your schoolmates’ babies. You won’t be surprised by an ex in the street with a new girlfriend or boyfriend: you already know they’re dating someone else from the romantic selfies. 
But, unlike in real life, Facebook has no hierarchy of friendships. A classmate from one project at university who you haven’t seen in 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a stag do or a colleague you’ve never actually spoken to in person – they are all Facebook friends in the same way as your closest mate or your spouse or your mum. 
It doesn’t necessarily mean we see them the same way. Professor Robin Dunbar is famous for his research that suggests a person can only have roughly 150 people as a social group. Facebook hasn’t changed that yet, he believes, but, in an interview with the New Yorker, Dunbar said he feared it was so easy simply to end friendships on Facebook that, eventually, there may no longer be any need to learn to get along. 
2 We care less about privacy 
There’s a wise saying: if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product. Facebook embodies that philosophy and created an entire industry from it. The astonishing thing is that users know that and they willingly hand over that information. 
Pew Research Center found that most young people are more than willing to hand over their details. 
An overwhelming majority of 91% post a photo of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, up from 61%, more than half give email addresses and a fifth give their phone number. But, as so much of a person’s life is shared online, Facebook gives a platform for everyone to cultivate an image and a fanbase. In an article for the journal Frontiers in Psychology, academics described a new phenomenon, the emergence of the “Facebook self ”. More than 80% list their interests, allowing brands to target them most effectively. But most younger users do restrict their profiles, with 60% allowing friends only. 
3 Facebook has created millions of jobs – but not in its own offices 
Facebook has essentially created an entire sector, including indirect employment for people whose job it is to make the platform work for their brand. 
“It is a tool like no other,” said Michael Tinmouth, a social media strategist who has worked with brands such as Vodafone and Microsoft. “Marketers have an understanding of a brand’s consumers like they have never had before. The data and analytics available to you are extraordinary. You know who your customers are, who they are friends with and how they engage with your brand.” 
And advertisers pay a lot for that. Facebook reported ad revenue was up 46%, reaching $3.32bn. Facebook is also a minefield for brands. Suddenly, rather than complaint conversations taking place over the phone with a customer service representative or on a small specialist internet forum, angry customers can post their complaints for hundreds of their friends to see or even on the page where all loyal fans of the brand have been carefully cultivated. And an injustice can go viral. 
4 Facebook has been the tool to organize revolutions 
Though the Arab Spring was dubbed the Twitter revolution, organizing demonstrations and direct action has been revolutionized by Facebook. Manchester University’s Olga Onuch found Facebook had been the key medium for reaching half of all the Euromaidan protesters in Ukraine. Facebook posts signalled the start of the Maidan protests during the hours after it was announced that Ukraine would not sign a free trade and association agreement with the EU, Onuch found. The posts organized live action, not just online anger. Mustafa Nayyem, the Ukraine activist, posted: “If you really want to do something, don’t just 'like' this post. Let’s meet near the monument to independence in the middle of the Maidan.” 
Many of those interviewed in Onuch’s research said they relied on Facebook for the truth about what was happening – unable to trust traditional media. 
5 Facebook makes news, breaks news and decides what is news 
Roughly 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds say the internet is their main news source and 63% of users overall, according to the Pew Research Center. About a third of Facebook users post about politics and government. 
Most people will first encounter a piece of journalism or an item of breaking news via Facebook or other social media, and most of those encounters will be on mobiles. 
Users might never have to leave the site to get their news: Instant Articles will see stories run within Facebook. It allows news companies to sell ads around their articles, gaining them 100% of that revenue, while Facebook can also sell ads around that article, with 70% of the revenue from the social network’s advertising also going to the news companies. 
Facebook has also changed the ways journalists write stories. It is a resource many reporters cannot now live without. For better or (often) worse, it is a directory to find, contact and glean information for almost any ordinary person, who might suddenly find themselves at the centre of the day’s biggest news story. Facebook has its own newswire, sharing the most useful user reaction to breaking stories, including pictures and videos. 
6 Users are changing Facebook 
It used to be a site to get students connected, with only elite US universities allowed access. 
In 2014, a decade after its launch, 56% of internet users aged 65 and older have a Facebook account. And 39% are connected to people they have never met in person. 
Groups have given way to pages, writing on each other’s walls is passé and carefully curated albums have given way to instant mobile uploads. More than ever, the site is a gateway not just to your friends but to the rest of the internet. 
We may as well get used to it, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect . “It might very well go away further down the road but something this big takes a long time to disappear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Facebook has proven its ability to change and it will continue to be a very, very major player.”",109
"Every morning, before the temperatures in India’s capital start to rise, a handful of old friends gather. On the dry grass not far from the India Gate monument at the centre of Delhi, they stretch, breathe and meditate.
“It is the only healthy way to start the day. Much better than an egg or a sandwich or a cup of tea,” said Arvind Singh at 6.15am as he did his breathing exercises on a bench.
Singh, a 42-year-old salesman, and his friends are not alone. All across India, in the overcrowded cities, on whatever green space is left, you can see similar scenes.
On 21 June – the new International Day of Yoga – Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, hopes the world will join in. On the grass near India Gate, up to 45,000 people will take part in a 35-minute class – they hope it will be the biggest yoga session ever.
The participants will include 64-year-old Modi, most of his government and, they hope, a range of celebrities.
Encouraging Indians, and others, to stretch has become a focus for Modi, who led his Bharatiya Janata Party to a landslide election victory in 2014. In May 2015, schools were told to make sure students attended yoga events at the same time as the big demonstration in Delhi, even though it is on a Sunday.
India’s police officers are well known for being out of shape. So, the government has said they want to introduce compulsory yoga for them. They have said, too, that daily yoga lessons will be offered free to three million civil servants and their families. Air India, the national airline, has also said it will introduce yoga for trainee pilots.
Modi, an ascetic who is a vegetarian and an enthusiastic yoga practitioner, suggested an international yoga day when he was speaking to the United Nations on a visit to New York in 2014.
Modi said that yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. He said that it encourages unity of mind and body, thought and action, harmony between man and nature, and a holistic approach to health and wellbeing. He added, “It is not about exercise but discovering the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature.”
Yoga is between 3,000 and 6,000 years old. It came from somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, possibly from among religious ascetics. Its meditative practices, as well as its physical exercises, have long been associated with local religious traditions including Buddhism and Jainism, as well as Hinduism, which is practised by 80% of Indians.
Modi has been criticized before for creating a view of Indian culture that has little place for other traditions. One person called the event on 21 June “a mix of cultural nationalism and commercialization”.
Others, however, talk about a recent US court ruling that said yoga was not always linked to religion. A court in California ruled that: “The practice of yoga may be religious in some contexts but yoga classes as taught in the [San Diego] district are not religious, mystical or spiritual.” This ruling came after two Christian parents said they believed that yoga in schools was a Hindu exercise.
Amish Tripathi, the author of best-selling novels set 4,000 years ago in India that retell stories from Hindu mythology, said characters in his books practise yoga.
“In ancient India, yoga was part of daily life, both the physical and the mental aspects. Every culture has gifted something to the world and this is our gift,” Tripathi said.
Suneel Singh, a guru in south Delhi, agreed that yoga did not belong to any one religion: “Is t’ai chi just Chinese? Is football just English? It is the same with yoga – yoga is for everybody. It is a cheap way to stay healthy.”",110
"The last time she took to the stage, the prototype of the mobile phone was undergoing its first trials. Thirty-five years later, as she performs once again, singer Kate Bush is faced with a different world. 
While most concerts are now aglow with phones and tablets, Bush is taking a stand against fans watching her shows through the digital veil of a screen. 
Prior to her highly anticipated series of concerts at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, Bush released a statement appealing to her fans to put down their mobile phones at her gigs. 
Bush wrote on her website: “I have a request for all of you who are coming to the shows. We have purposefully chosen an intimate theatre setting rather than a large venue or stadium. It would mean a great deal to me if you would please refrain from taking photos or filming during the shows. 
“I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras. I know it’s a lot to ask but it would allow us to all share in the experience together.” 
With her love of theatrics and opulent costumes, Bush’s keenness to stop fans uploading grainy footage to YouTube could also be an attempt to keep the show a surprise for the thousands of fans who have purchased tickets for the 22 dates she is playing. 
Bush is not the first to speak out against the detrimental effect of the presence of phones at concerts, with numerous artists berating their fans for experiencing live music through the filter of a screen. 
The Who front man, Roger Daltrey, recently said it was “weird” that people did not have their mind on the show when they had gone to a performance and were concentrating on staring at the screen rather than the artist on stage. 
He said: “I feel sorry for them, I really feel sorry for them. Looking at life through a screen and not being in the moment totally – if you’re doing that, you’re 50% there, right? It’s weird. I find it weird.” 
In 2013, Beyoncé berated one of her fans at a gig for filming. “You can’t even sing because you’re too busy taping,” Beyoncé told him. “I’m right in your face, baby. You gotta seize this moment. Put that damn camera down!” 
The debate around the presence of phones at live events is not restricted to music, with sport fans equally vocal on the subject. Recently, Dutch fans at PSV Eindhoven launched a vehement protest against the introduction of wi-fi in their stadium, holding up banners with messages like “No wi-fi. Support the team,” “You can sit at home,” and “Stand united ”, while Manchester United have also told fans to leave their “large electronic devices” at home, prohibiting filming on tablets this season. 
Jarvis Cocker has previously criticized phone- wielders in the audience for driving him “insane at concerts”, adding: “It seems stupid to have something happening in front of you and look at it on a screen that’s smaller than the size of a cigarette packet.” 
Johnny Marr said in 2013 that it meant that fans missed out on the sensory experience of live music in their desperation to document the event for later. 
“To stand and just be looking at it through your phone is a completely wasted opportunity. You know, I don’t mean to be unkind but I think you should put your phone down because you’re just being an idiot, really. Just enjoy the gig,” he said. 
“That’s one of the things about gigs – it’s taking in what’s going on with the people around you and, watching it on a little screen, it’s a waste of time.” 
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs resorted to putting up a sign at one of their venues, pleading with fans to pocket their technology. It read: “Please do not watch the show through a screen on your smart device/camera. Put it away as a courtesy to the person behind you, and to the band.” 
It has even filtered into the world of classical music, with one of the world’s leading pianists surprising concert-goers in June 2013 when he stormed off stage because a fan was filming his performance on a smartphone. Krystian Zimerman returned moments later and declared: “The destruction of music because of YouTube is enormous.” 
But Sam Watt of Vyclone, a phone app that encourages audiences to film at concerts and then brings together the footage to create a crowd-sourced video of the event, said that such artists were fighting a losing battle and that filming at concerts enhanced rather than detracted from the experience. 
“Fans filming is now part of the concert experience – that is a just a fact – so we take that footage that people are filming at concerts through the app, they upload it onto the app, and then it comes back to them mixed together with everybody else who was filming. You end up with really fantastic content,” he said. 
“Our overall thinking is that filming at concerts adds to the experience, rather than taking away from it and I think, if Kate Bush came round for a cup of tea, we could have a really interesting discussion about this and we might be able to win her round,” he added. “Knowing that people are going to film and want those memories is really important because it is probably going to hit them on the head in the future if they say to everyone they can’t film. You’ve got to embrace it.”",111
"A British court has decided that three old Kenyans, who were put in prison and tortured during the fighting in Kenya in the 1950s, can sue the British government. There are thousands of other people who were put in prison and say they were treated badly during the final days of the British Empire, and now they may also try to sue. 
British government lawyers said that too much time had passed since the seven- year fight in the 1950s, and it was no longer possible to have a fair trial. The court did not accept this. In 2011 the government said that the three claimants should sue the Kenyan government because it became legally responsible after independence in 1963. But the judge did not accept this either. 
70,000 people were put in prison by the British in Kenya, and more than 5,000 of them are still alive. Many of them may sue the British government. The court decision may also make it possible for victims in other parts of the world to sue. 
The Foreign Office said it will appeal against the decision. “The normal time limit for a civil action is three to six years,” they said. “In this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years, but the people who made the decisions are dead and they can’t give their view of what happened.” 
The victory for Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, was the result of a three-year battle in the courts. Their lawyers said they had suffered terrible brutality. In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Nyingi and Mara heard the news by mobile phone. They reacted with joy when they heard, hugging, dancing and praying. 
Nyingi, who was put in prison and beaten, said: “For me … I just wanted everyone to know the truth. Even the children of my children should know what happened. What should happen is that people should be compensated so they can begin to forgive the British government.” Mara said: “I’m very happy and my heart is clean.” 
The judge said in 2011 that there was a lot of evidence to show that prisoners were perhaps tortured. He decided that a fair trial was possible, especially because thousands of secret documents from the colonial era were found in 2011. 
The British government’s lawyers accepted that all three of the old Kenyans were tortured. The claimants’ lawyer said: “The British government has admitted that these three Kenyans were brutally tortured but they have tried not to take any legal responsibility. There will be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be very interested in this case.” 
People who fought in Cyprus in the 1950s are interested in the Mau Mau case. One has already met the Kenyan claimants’ lawyers. Cypriot claimants could use British documents, and also the documents of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Those documents are kept secret for 40 years, and then opened to the public. The Red Cross recorded hundreds of torture cases in Cyprus. 
There may also be claims from Malaysia, where large numbers of people were put in prison during the 12-year war with communist fighters and their supporters that began in 1948. 24 farm workers, who were without weapons, were killed by British troops – their families are now fighting for a public inquiry. Many ex-prisoners of the British in Aden may also have claims against the British government. But Aden is now part of Yemen, and British lawyers may have problems making contact with possible claimants there.",112
"We asked five people who do some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work.
1. Dog-food taster
The job: Tasting dog food to make sure it meets a top brand’s quality standards
What it involves: Opening sample tins of each batch of dog (or cat) food, smelling it and eating it. “Although dogs’ sense of taste is different from ours, tasting is an important quality check to ensure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced in just the right way,” says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lily’s Kitchen pet food.
Typical salary: £20,000 for an entry-level job in the quality department. However, Wells says an experienced technical director can easily earn £50,000 or more.
Worst part of the job: The deadlines, for Wells, who admits he quite likes the food. The meat used in pet food has to come from animals that are fit for human consumption, under the Animal Feed Regulations 2010. He adds: “There are some pretty terrible pet foods out there and, although I don’t taste them, the smell is enough to turn the stomach.”
Job satisfaction: “No two days are ever the same.” Wells finds it rewarding that a project he has worked on will “help pets to become happier and healthier”. However, he acknowledges that some of the credit must go to another “key member” of the tasting team: Lily, the border terrier.
2. Hygiene technician
The job: Disinfecting areas that might have been exposed to bio-hazardous situations
What it involves: Cleaning up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clearing houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement … among other things. “The job is about keeping people safe,” says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. “We deal with some extremely dirty sites.”
Typical salary: The entry-level salary is usually around £14,500 and a top salary can be up to £22,000.
Worst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. “You get used to the job being disgusting but the emotional side of it is still hard,” he says. “You also need to have a sense of humour because some days can be difficult.”
Job satisfaction: Lewis finds the variety of tasks exciting. “One day, I’m cleaning up after a dead body; another day, I’m in a prison cell or high in the air being lowered down into a silo to clean it.” He also takes pride in the changes he makes: “It’s satisfying to make a hazardous site safe again. And it benefits society.”
3. Biogas engineer
The job: Setting up biogas plants in developing countries
What it involves: Linking a system – which can be filled with human excrement, animal dung and other waste products – to toilets to produce a biogas that can be used for cooking and lighting. “You have to know what size and shape the mixing pit needs to be, how to create the best temperature for the process and where to build the biogas plant,” says Baburam Paudel, chief technical officer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World.
Typical salary: An entry-level salary is around £10,000, while a typical salary for a chief technical officer is £30,000.
Worst part of the job: For Paudel, it’s seeing people struggling to survive on very little income. “You have to be willing to get your hands dirty during the build process and inspections. Unsurprisingly, the anaerobic digestion (the process that takes place when bacteria eat the waste and produce methane) smells like rotten eggs. It can be disgusting and there is no room for mistakes.”
Job satisfaction: “I find it very satisfying to know that I am helping people to increase their incomes and allowing girls to go to school by replacing the need to collect firewood,” says Paudel. “My work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.”
4. Eel ecologist
The job: Conserving the critically endangered European eel
What it involves: To monitor the size of the endangered eels, ecologists walk into the Thames and other London rivers full of eels, sometimes up to their armpits, and reach into a net filled with up to 20 adult eels to take one out with their bare hands. “Adult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. They’re not at all dangerous but they are almost pure muscle and they can be a little bit slimy,” says Stephen Mowat, an eel conservationist and ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. “We have to weigh and measure them, and they wriggle … a lot. It’s difficult to look professional while crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.”
Worst part of the job: “Eels are really tricky creatures to work with” says Mowat. “You also have to be ready to jump from one project to the next. I once had to cut up some dead eels to examine parasites living in them, moments before putting on a suit for a meeting.” But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is definitely not handling the eels – he believes baby eels (known as elvers) are “as cute as pandas”: “The worst thing about the job is regularly learning how much damage we are doing to the environment.”
Job satisfaction: “Working outdoors and seeing British wildlife up close is the best part of the job,” says Mowat. “Eels are beautiful creatures and working with eels doesn’t just benefit the eel – it helps rivers and coastal areas. That is something worth doing.”
5. Shopping channel presenter
The job: Selling and demonstrating a wide range of products on live TV
What it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous TV, while, at the same time, demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that you’re selling. “I prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand,” says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV.
Typical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of £30,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over £55,000.
Worst part of the job: “The unsociable hours,” says Ryan. “An experienced presenter like me generally has to work weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus, occasionally, a 5am shift.”
Job satisfaction: “I love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second,” says Ryan. “I also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.”",113
"The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, will retire at the end of the season after 27 years as the most successful manager in British football. He will become a director of the club and someone will have to replace a man who has won 13 English Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, the Cup Winners’ Cup, five FA Cups and four League Cups.
Talking about his decision, Ferguson said: “The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about. It is the right time. It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible condition and I believe I have done so. The quality of this squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level. The structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one.
“Our training facilities are amongst the best in world sport and our home, Old Trafford, is regarded as one of the leading venues in the world. I am delighted to take on the roles of both director and ambassador for the club. With these activities, along with my many other interests, I am looking forward to the future. I must pay tribute to my family; their love and support has been essential.
“As for my players and staff, past and present, I would like to thank them all for a staggering level of professional conduct and dedication that has helped to deliver so many memorable triumphs. Without their contribution, the history of this great club would not be as rich. In my early years, the support of the board of directors gave me the confidence and time to build a football club, not just a football team.
“Over the past ten years, the Glazer family have made it possible for me to manage Manchester United to the best of my ability and I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with a talented and trustworthy chief executive, David Gill. I am truly grateful to all of them. To the fans, thank you. It has been an honour and an enormous privilege to have had the opportunity to lead your club and I have treasured my time as manager of Manchester United.”
The suddenness of Ferguson’s departure is exactly how he said he would leave the job. He first mentioned the possibility of retiring during the 2001/2 season but then performed a U-turn. It is understood that he gathered the players in the first-team changing room shortly after they arrived for training. In an emotional speech, he announced he was retiring.
Joel Glazer, joint owner of Manchester United, said: “Alex has proven time and time again what a fantastic manager he is but he’s also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and dedication to the club have been truly remarkable. I will never forget the wonderful memories he has given us, like that magical night in Moscow.”
Avie Glazer, his brother, said: “I am delighted to announce that Alex has agreed to stay with the club as a director. His contributions to Manchester United over the last 27 years have been extraordinary and, like all United fans, I want him to be a part of its future.”
David Gill added: “I’ve had the tremendous pleasure of working very closely with Alex for 16 unforgettable years – we have had countless wins and numerous signings. We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it by ensuring the quality of the team and club structures are in first-class condition. Alex’s vision, energy and ability have built teams that are among the best and most loyal in world sport.
“The way he cares for this club, his staff and for the football family in general is something that I admire. What he has done for this club and for the game in general will never be forgotten. It has been the greatest experience of my working life being with Alex and a great honour to be able to call him a friend.”
First-team coach René Meulensteen revealed how Ferguson broke the news to his backroom staff. “I found out this morning when I came to the club,” he said. “He called us into his office and told us his decision. He’s obviously a man who thinks very, very hard so I’m sure he’s put a lot of thought into making this decision. I wish him well. He’s been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give the new manager the same support that he gets.”",114
"When the Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai in October 2012 as she rode home on a bus after school, they made clear their intention: to silence the teenager and kill off her campaign for girls’ education. 
Nine months and countless surgical operations later, she stood up at the United Nations on her 16th birthday on Friday to deliver a defiant riposte. “They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed,” she said. 
As 16th birthdays go, it was among the more unusual. Instead of blowing out candles on a cake, Malala sat in one of the main council chambers at the United Nations in the central seat usually reserved for world leaders. 
She listened quietly as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, described her as “our hero, our champion”; and as the former British prime minister and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, uttered what he called “the words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy 16th birthday, Malala ”. 
The event, dubbed Malala Day, was the culmination of an extraordinary four years for the girl from Mingora, in the troubled Swat valley of Pakistan. She was thrust into the public glare after she wrote a blog for the BBC Urdu service describing her experiences struggling to get an education under the rising power of Taliban militants. 
By 11, she was showing exceptional determination, calling personally on the US special representative to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to use his influence to combat the Taliban’s drive against education for girls. By 14, she was on the radar of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who put her forward for the International Children’s Peace Prize, and, by 15, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize nominee in history. 
But such dizzying global attention came at a price. Death threats followed her growing recognition, and, on 9 October 2012, following a meeting of Pakistani Taliban leaders, the gunman was dispatched to remove what they called the “symbol of infidels and obscenity ”. 
Multiple operations in Pakistan and the UK followed the attack on the bus, including the fitting of a titanium plate on her left forehead and a cochlear implant to restore her hearing. She now lives with her family in Birmingham and does what the Taliban tried to stop her doing: goes to school every day. “I am not against anyone,” she said in the UN chamber, having taken this day out from the classroom. “Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group.” 
Malala responded to the violence of the Taliban with her own countervailing force: words against bullets. “I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me, I would not shoot him.” 
She spoke confidently, with only an injured eye and a slightly drooping left side of her face to hint at such fresh traumas. There was one other unstated allusion to the horror of her past: she wore a white shawl belonging to a woman who was also targeted by extremists but who, unlike Malala, did not survive to tell the tale: Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan. 
“The extremists are afraid of books and pens,” the teenager continued. “The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.” 
She cited the attack in June on a hospital in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, and killings of female teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “That is why they are blasting schools every day – because they were and they are afraid of change, afraid of the equality that we will bring to our society.” 
And she gave her own opposing interpretation of Islam to the Taliban’s. “They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to hell just because of going to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each child’s right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility.” 
Such ability to articulate what normally remains unarticulated – to give voice to young people normally silenced – has generated its own response. The “Stand with Malala” petition, calling for education for the 57 million children around the world who do not go to school, has attracted more than four million signatures – more than a million having been added shortly after Malala’s speech. 
At the start of her speech, Malala said: “I don’t know where to begin my speech. I don’t know what people would be expecting me to say.” She need not have worried.",115
"Kenton Cool can hardly speak. All the physical effort at high altitude has affected his voice. He is now in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal – he flew down from Everest base camp that morning. Cool is talking about a startling sequence of climbs completed the previous weekend. Early on Saturday morning, he reached the summit of Nuptse, the first and lowest of the three main summits in the Everest “horseshoe” that surrounds the glaciated valley called the Western Cwm.
That same day, he climbed up to the summit of Everest itself, reaching the top in complete darkness early on Sunday. He and his climbing partner then continued on to the summit of Lhotse, the third of this spectacular three-peaks challenge, on Monday morning.
He says he took advantage of a rare opportunity. “For the first time since the late 1990s, there were fixed ropes on all three mountains,” he says. “That doesn’t take away the physical achievement of what I did. I’ve set the bar at a certain level. But whoever comes along next will move the bar further and do it without ropes or bottled oxygen.”
Sixty years after Everest was first climbed, many of the media reports are looking back to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and their age of innocence from the modern era of commercialism and environmental damage. I’ve asked Cool to look forward and imagine what top climbers might be doing 60 years from now.
“I hate to think,” he says, but mentions the Swiss climber, Ueli Steck, who fled the mountain in April after an argument with a crowd of Sherpas at Camp 2. Steck, he says, was planning to climb Everest’s west ridge, first done in 1963, descend to the South Col and then immediately climb Lhotse via a new route, all without fixed ropes. “Ueli had been training like a machine,” Cool says. “He’s a fantastic climber. He’s technically brilliant but he had also taken his physical condition to the highest possible level. It would have been amazing to see what he could have done.”
What will tourism look like in the Everest region in the future? One clue is in the stunning helicopter rescue by Simone Moro, Steck’s climbing partner, whose rude language caused the argument at Camp 2. Moro flew back to Everest on Tuesday at the controls of a high-powered helicopter to rescue a climber at an altitude of 7,800 metres.
It was the highest rescue ever performed on Everest and highlights the huge rise in helicopter flights in recent years. By 2073, the infrastructure on the mountain might include a helipad on the South Col that would bring tourists. In the meantime, helicopters are making it easier to rescue both climbers and the far more numerous trekkers who go as far as base camp.
It is not certain that the Everest region can continue to cope with a booming tourism sector, according to mountain geographer and environmentalist, Alton Byers. The combination of climate change and tourism, he says, is creating new stresses on the Sherpa homeland. The retreat, and in some cases disappearance, of glaciers in the Everest region is having a major impact already. “Everywhere you go, people are talking about how there’s less water. There’s less water for agriculture and less water for all the new lodges that are getting built.”
In the Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar, he says, a new five-mile pipeline is being laid to bring water to service the growing tourist demand for showers and flush toilets. The local stream has become contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough water for a place that, in high season, is bursting at the seams. “Every village is digging a pit just beyond the houses for garbage. Khumbu has the highest landfill sites in the world,” he says. Human waste at base camp is now managed well and removed in plastic barrels. But, according to Byers, these barrels are emptied into a huge pit a few hours down the valley that could leak into the region’s watercourses.
“These problems can be solved, but we need to get serious about it,” he says. “One climber can spend $85,000 climbing Everest. And that’s fine. But at some point we’re going to have to look at these other priorities. For half a million dollars a year, you could solve most of them.” 
Climate change is another issue. Byers works with local conservation committees to identify and plan for the impacts of climate change, most usually finding new water sources or introducing rainwater harvesting. The rapid build-up of glacial lakes is a constant threat – they threaten to burst and flood the Sherpa homeland. “At some point in the future, people are going to have to get out of their way.”
Changing weather patterns are also having an impact on tourism. Increased cloud cover in periods of normally clear weather is closing Lukla Airport, the gateway to the Everest region, more often. A new road for 4x4s is being built to Lukla to guarantee the flow of tourists and their money, but Byers is worried that the rapid spread of the road network in Nepal is being done too cheaply, with disastrous consequences in terms of soil erosion and landslides.
“Everest is the icon everyone knows,” he says. “It’s the perfect laboratory for figuring out how to solve some of these problems, like the impacts of climate change and tourism.”",116
"Why do it? The elite football referees of the future smile when you ask them this question. This season, criticism of referees has increased so much that some former referees have started to complain about standards. That is quite significant because, when you talk to referees, it is obvious that supporting each other through thick and thin is fundamental.
So why do they do it? Why spend hundreds of hours driving up and down the country? Why enforce rules, some of which inevitably upset people? Why try to climb the ladder until you get the chance to make decisions on television in front of millions of people who scrutinize you and your ability helped by many different camera angles and slow-motion replays?
You might get an answer from the face of Lee Swabey moments after he blows the final whistle of a 2–1 win for Grimsby over Woking, a match at level 5 of the English league system. He gets what all referees hope for every time they referee a match. “Twenty-two handshakes,” he explains afterwards, proudly. Symbolically, a full set of handshakes, plus a “well done” from both managers, represents maximum satisfaction. “The buzz,” as he calls it, of a game that passes smoothly, is something he loves. “I wouldn’t spend so much time away from my family if this didn’t mean the world to me.”
Swabey is one of a group of referees that is highly regarded by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL). So he knew he was being watched at that match. PGMOL’s chief, Mike Riley, was in attendance, along with his colleague Steve Dunn, watching every significant move the officials make.
A few weeks earlier, Riley, Dunn and another former referee, Peter Jones, made their way to another level-5 match to watch another young referee – John Brooks. “I hope to have the opportunity to get promoted to the Premier League and officiate some of the top games in this country,” Brooks says.
Unfortunately, all the PGMOL delegation saw was the way Brooks handled the difficult situation of cancelling the match because of a frozen pitch. It is all part of the experience Brooks needs to acquire before he is trusted with more important games, the different problems that need dealing with – often, clubs are very reluctant to have a late postponement, particularly when they have to pay all the staff who have come but will not receive any gate money.
Brooks phoned his coach for advice and made the difficult but correct decision. A little later, the football club secretary arrived with envelopes to pay the officials for their time – the match fee at level 5 is £95 so it is clear that these men do not do it for the money.
Brooks, like Swabey, has clear ambitions to progress. He knows that dealing with disappointments is a big part of that. How does he feel watching football on TV when a referee gets vilified? “Erm … not great,” he admits. “I do sometimes wish people understood the time and effort we put in. It is very easy to criticize a decision but we do everything to try to get these decisions right. In certain situations, you are going to be unpopular but, if you are uncomfortable with that, you are probably in the wrong job.”
The former referees agree that the backup, education and tools that today’s referees have is very different from what they experienced in their own days. Riley, as a young referee, bought himself books on psychology and nutrition as there was no information on offer to him at all.
Contrast this with Brooks, who has a coach he can call. They consult weekly, discuss how his games have gone, study footage of key decisions and work out how to improve. He also has the support of a sports psychologist, Liam Slack, for regular guidance and an exercise regime to help him handle the 11km he runs during a game.
Brooks says psychology is vital in his development. “One of the things we have talked about is forgetting decisions and moving on,” he explains. “There may be a big decision to make in the first 30 seconds of the game. Once you have made that, you need to stay focused for the next 89 minutes and not be wondering whether that was correct or worrying about that decision. Liam has taught us some techniques for forgetting that decision. Working with the sports psychologist is really important for mental toughness.” 
On the subject of technology, the three former referees are unanimous in their support of it. “We are all in favour of anything that makes the referee’s job better and makes them more effective on the pitch,” says Riley. Minimizing mistakes is the aim. After all, a bad decision can stick with you for a while. “The rest of your life,” adds Jones with a chuckle.",117
"1 Race engineer 
A race engineer liaises between the driver and the mechanics. 
Typical salary: New graduates start at £25,000 to £30,000 and quickly progress to junior engineer roles, earning more than £40,000 with just a few years’ experience. Senior race engineers earn £50,000 to £90,000 and promotion often leads to six-figure salaries. 
What the job involves: “A race engineer acts as the interpreter between the race-car mechanics and the driver,” says race engineer Jamie Muir. “The engineer takes feedback from the driver, analyses the data available and makes decisions about the set-up needed for maximum performance, then relays this to the mechanics to instigate.” 
Qualifications: A university degree, typically in automotive/mechanical engineering or motorsport technology. Hands-on experience is essential. 
To succeed as a race engineer, you need … to be able to deal with pressure. 
Worst thing about the job: The long hours. “Race engineers work 24/7,” says Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association. 
2 Ethical hacker 
Typical salary: £60,000 to £90,000 at team- leader level, while a newly qualified hacker can expect a minimum salary of £35,000 to £50,000. 
What the job involves: A company will pay an ethical hacker to hack into its computer system to see how well it might stand up to a real attack. 
Qualifications: You don’t necessarily need a degree in computer science. The industry accepts individuals with a very wide range of academic qualifications and skills. 
To succeed as an ethical hacker, you need … a passion for technology and detail. You should also have a very good analytical mind and enjoy solving difficult problems. 
Worst thing about the job: When you are called in to test the security of a new customer’s network only to discover that they have already been the victim of a data breach. 
3 Bomb-disposal diver 
Typical salary: In the private sector, you can earn up to £100,000 working just two months out of every three. 
What the job involves: Descending to the sea bed and searching for unexploded ordnance (bombs, shells, grenades and landmines), then either safely recovering and collecting the weapons or securely disposing of them. 
Qualifications: To dive offshore, you must have diving-inspection and medical-technician qualifications. To be able to dispose of the bombs safely, you’ll also need an explosive ordnance disposal qualification and years of experience. 
To succeed as a bomb-disposal diver, you need … to stay calm in stressful situations. You work on your own at depth, with nil visibility and, if you don’t like living in small confined spaces with lots of other people, forget it. 
Worst thing about the job: Expect to be away from home at least six months of the year. 
4 Social engineer 
Typical salary: Between £50,000 and £80,000, on average. Graduates start on £25,000 but salaries increase rapidly with qualifications and experience. 
The job: A social engineer is paid by a company to try to trick its employees into divulging confidential information that allows the engineer to access sensitive company data or the company’s computer network. 
Qualifications: Typically, social engineers have a degree in IT, although an understanding of psychology is useful, as is a background in marketing, teaching and customer service. 
To succeed as a social engineer, you need … the confidence to lie convincingly and the ability to fit in almost anywhere without looking too out of place. You also need a strong sense of personal ethics and an understanding of the law. 
Worst thing about the job: Other people may misunderstand your job: social engineers are not spies but most people think they are. 
5 Power-line helicopter pilot 
Typical salary: £65,000 
The job: To fly close to high-voltage power lines in a helicopter so that the lines can be inspected with a camera and any potential faults and issues can be identified by the power company. 
Qualifications: A private-helicopter-pilot licence, a commercial pilot’s licence and around 2,000 hours of experience flying at low levels in the type of helicopter the company usually uses. 
To succeed as a power-line helicopter pilot, you need … a steady hand and a cool head. Typically, pilots must fly beside the power line, sometimes as little as 20 feet away and just 30 feet off the ground. 
Worst thing about the job: “There are no negatives,” says Robin Tutcher, chief helicopter pilot for Western Power Distribution overhead- power network. 
6 Private butler 
Typical salary: £60,000 to £90,000 
The job: A private butler can be called on by his or her employer to do anything from wardrobe management to chauffeuring and pet care. Typical duties include managing other staff, serving at every meal, running errands, looking after guests, booking restaurants, house security, housekeeping, cooking and anything else the household needs. 
Qualifications: You don’t need any specific qualifications but can do a course at the British Butler Academy or the British Butler Institute. 
To succeed as a butler, you need … the mindset of someone who genuinely thrives on looking after others. 
Worst thing about the job: Long hours and an unpredictable work schedule mean it’s difficult to have a family life. Butlers also suffer from isolation, cultural differences with their employer and “having to work for people who aren’t always nice”, says Sara Vestin, director of the British Butler Academy.",118
"Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the US presidential campaign helped Scott Kelly stay sane during his 340 days in space, the astronaut told journalists after he landed back on Earth from a record-breaking mission. “It seemed like I lived there forever,” Kelly said. He had been on several previous missions but said that his biggest surprise was simply how long this one felt. “Maybe, occasionally, you do go bananas,” he said.
Kelly and a Russian colleague, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS) in order to study the effects of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped conditions of spaceflight on humans. NASA considers this research essential for a future mission to Mars.
Kelly said the length of the mission was its biggest challenge and that he felt much more sore when he returned to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about how the body copes with the severe strains of spaceflight.
He said the discomfort of returning to gravity took nothing from the sense of wonder he felt after he landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened on to the cool air of Kazakhstan, Kelly said, he smelled “a fragrance like a plant was blooming in that area”. It was the fresh air mixed with the charred, “kind of sweet” smell of a spacecraft that had survived re-entry through the atmosphere.
As he left the spacecraft, he said, the importance of the mission began to sink in: 340 days on a 15-yearold space station which is “a million pounds, the size of a football field, the internal volume, some say, of a six-bedroom house”. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and was built with the help of an international team.
“There are things we’re going to discover about our experience in space in the space station that we don’t even know now,” Kelly said, comparing the research of more than 450 missions there to the work done by computer scientists at NASA in the 1960s and 1970s. He added: “The view is great, too.”
Kelly made the most of that view – he posted spectacular photos on social media of the Earth’s cities, landscapes, oceans and atmosphere. “The Earth is a beautiful planet,” he said, describing the beautiful waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow colours of the lakes of the northern Himalayas. He said he would like to visit that region, though he would first need to learn “what country actually owns them”. But, “mainly, you just notice how thin the atmosphere is,” Kelly added. “That, together with these large areas of pollution, is kind of alarming.”
The astronaut said he could see entire systems of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires that covered parts of the US, sections of Asia with continuous, visible pollution nearly all year round. He said the message “we need to save the planet” wasn’t completely correct: “The planet will get better; it’s us that won’t be here because we’ll destroy the environment.” The world’s thin shield of atmosphere “makes you more of an environmentalist after spending so much time looking down”, he said.
“It’s for us to take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I do believe we have an impact on that and we do have the ability to change it, if we make the decision to.” Kelly was very active on social media, which made many people follow him online. But he said he was unaware of it. Instead, he watched the drama of the 2016 US presidential election.
Besides the news, he said, steady work helped keep him sane: “I tried to have milestones that were close, like when is the next crew arriving, the next spacewalk, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me – it kept my sanity.” Being back on Earth with the rest of humanity had not quite sunk in, he added. He recalled how shocked he had been to see a crowd of people after a previous mission. “I’ll soon start feeling that kind of culture shock,” he said.
Kelly predicted that he would not fly again with NASA. “But I don’t think I would ever say I’m absolutely, 100% finished,” he added, because of the sudden successes of private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX. “They might need a guy like me someday,” he said. “Maybe, in the next 20 years, you’ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.”",119
"Japanese entrepreneur Takahito Iguchi thinks Google Glasses are not cool. He may be right. There’s already a website with pictures of people wearing them – the people look ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. If you search Google Images for Google Glasses, one of the first pictures is of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. Iguchi hopes that this is Google’s weak point. He has designed some glasses that are a bit more stylish and a bit more Japanese. 
Iguchi’s glasses aren’t really glasses – they are a piece of metal with a camera and a very small projector. The glasses are called Telepathy One. Since he first presented them to the public in Texas, they have attracted $5 million from investors. Like Glass, you will be able to buy Telepathy One in 2014. 
It’s a more simple version of Google Glass. Glass has many uses – you can surf the internet, read emails, take photographs – but Telepathy will be “more of a communication machine”. Connected to your phone, it will allow real-time visual and audio sharing. You’ll be able to post photos and videos of what you see on Facebook or send them as an email. Or see and speak to a video image of a friend. 
“It will help bring you close to your friends and family. We are very focused on the communication and sharing possibilities,” says Iguchi, who has worked in the Japanese technology industry for 20 years. “I’m a visionary,” he says. “I have a dream that people will understand other people. When I go to London, I am a stranger. But I believe that everyone wants people to understand them and to understand other people. And, with the glasses, you can know more information about people before you even speak to them.” 
When Iguchi was growing up, Japanese technology ruled the world: they had the Sony Walkman, which was as popular as the iPhone. Now, to compete, he has had to leave Tokyo and go to Silicon Valley. “Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture, but it’s still an island. It’s isolated. There is no way to expand. But, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. It’s where you come to connect with the world.” They will make the glasses in Japan and the software in the US. 
It was easy to build the prototype of Telepathy One, Iguchi says. “We have every sort of technology in Tokyo. The problem is presenting it to the world.” The top manufacturers all want to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just find it difficult to sell it. “There needs to be a story to the product. Apple had a story with the iPod – 1,000 songs in your pocket. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.” 
Like Steve Jobs, Iguchi is a confident man, but his strong Japanese accent makes it difficult to understand him. It is possible that this fact helped him to find the idea for Telepathy One. When he visited London, he stayed with someone he didn’t know. “He was not my friend, but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that quicker. If you are getting information from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily.” 
Iguchi hopes that Telepathy One will help people see other people’s point of view. 
As a student, he explains, he studied philosophy during the day and taught himself how to code at night. “And, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and I suddenly realized that everything is code. Everything is coded and can be shared between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code can be exchanged between humans, that will end all war.”",120
"The Virunga National Park, home to rare mountain gorillas but targeted for oil exploration by a British company, could earn trouble-torn DR Congo $400m a year from tourism, hydropower and carbon credits, said a WWF report. 
But, if the UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the equator is exploited for oil, as the Congolese government and exploration firm SOCO International are hoping, it could lead to devastating pollution and permanent conflict in an already unstable region, says the conservation body. 
SOCO International is the only company seeking to explore inside the boundaries of the Virunga park. SOCO insist that their operations in Congo would be confined to an area in the park known as Block V, and would not affect the gorillas. 
SOCO Chairman Rui de Sousa said: “Despite the views of WWF, SOCO is extremely sensitive to the environmental significance of the Virunga National Park. It is irrefutable that oil companies still have a central role in today’s global energy supply and a successful oil project has the potential to transform the economic and social well-being of a whole country.”
He added: “The park has sadly been in decline for many years, officially falling below the standards required for a World Heritage Site. The potential for development just might be the catalyst that reverses this trend.” 
However, Raymond Lumbuenamo, country director for WWF Democratic Republic of the Congo, based in Kinshassa, said that security in and around the park would deteriorate further if SOCO went ahead with its exploration plans. 
“The security situation is already bad. The UN is involved with fighting units and the M23 rebel force is inside the park. Oil would be a curse. It always increases conflict. It would attract human sabotage. The park might become like the Niger Delta. Developing Virunga for oil will not make anything better. 
“The population there is already very dense, with over 350 people per square kilometre. When you take part of the land (for oil), you put more pressure on the rest. Oil would not provide many jobs; people would flood in looking for work,” he said. 
One fear is that the area is seismically active and another eruption of one of the volcanoes in the park could damage oil company infrastructure and lead to oil spills in the lakes. “Virunga’s rich natural resources are for the benefit of the Congolese people, not for foreign oil prospectors to drain away. Our country’s future depends on sustainable economic development,” said Lumbuenamo. 
“For me, choosing the conservation option is the best option. Once you have started drilling for oil, there’s no turning back,” he said. 
But Lumbuenamo accepted that, while the gorillas were safe at present, the chances of the park generating its potential of $400m a year were remote. “It would be difficult to make the kind of money that the report talks of. Virunga used to be a very peaceful place and can be again. The security situation right now is bad. The UN is involved with fighting units. It’s not as quiet as it used to be.” 
According to the WWF report, ecosystems in the park could support hydropower generation, fishing and ecotourism, and play an important role in providing secure water supplies, regulating climate and preventing soil erosion. 
The park, Africa’s oldest and most diverse, is home to over 3,000 different kinds of animals, but is now heavily populated with desperately poor people, many of whom fled there after the Rwanda massacre in 1994. 
“In all, the park could support in the region of 45,000 permanent jobs. In addition, people around the world could get an immense value from simply knowing that the park is well managed and is safe for future generations,” says the report. 
“Virunga represents a valuable asset to DR Congo and contributes to Africa’s heritage as the oldest and most biodiverse park on the continent,” the report continues. “Plans to explore for oil and exploit oil reserves put Virunga’s potential value at risk,” it says. 
“This is where we draw the line. Oil companies are standing on the doorstep of one of the world’s most precious and fragile places, but we will not rest until Virunga is safe from this potential environmental disaster,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of WWF International. “Virunga has snow fields and lava fields, but it should not have oil fields.” 
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee called for the cancellation of all Virunga oil permits and appealed to concession holders Total SA and SOCO International plc not to undertake exploration in World Heritage Sites. Total has committed to respecting Virunga’s current boundary, leaving UK-based SOCO as the only oil company with plans to explore inside the park.",121
"It was not so much how hard people found the challenge but how far they would go to avoid it that left researchers gobsmacked. The task? To sit in a chair and do nothing but think. 
So unbearable did some find it that they took up the safe but alarming opportunity to give themselves mild electric shocks in an attempt to break the tedium. 
Two-thirds of men pressed a button to deliver a painful jolt during a 15-minute spell of solitude. 
Under the same conditions, a quarter of women pressed the shock button. The difference, scientists suspect, is that men tend to be more sensation-seeking than women. 
The report from psychologists at Virginia and Harvard Universities is one of a surprising few to tackle the question of why most of us find it so hard to do nothing. 
In more than 11 separate studies, the researchers showed that people hated being left to think, regardless of their age, education, income or the amount of time they spent using smartphones or social media. 
Timothy Wilson, who led the work, said the findings were not necessarily a reflection of the pace of modern life or the spread of mobile devices and social media. Instead, those things might be popular because of our constant urge to do something rather than nothing. 
The first run of experiments began with students being ushered – alone, without phones, books or anything to write with – into an unadorned room and told to think. The only rules were they had to stay seated and not fall asleep. They were informed – specifically or vaguely – that they would have six to 15 minutes alone. 
The students were questioned when the time was up. On average, they did not enjoy the experience. They struggled to concentrate. Their minds wandered even with nothing to distract them. Even giving them time to think about what to think about did not help. 
In case the unfamiliar setting hampered the ability to think, the researchers ran the experiment again with people at home. 
They got much the same results, only people found the experience even more miserable and cheated by getting up from their chair or checking their phones. 
To see if the effect was found only in students, the scientists recruited more than 100 people, aged 18 to 77, from a church and a farmers’ market. They, too, disliked being left to their thoughts. 
But, the most staggering result was yet to come. To check whether people might actually prefer something bad to nothing at all, the students were given the option of administering a mild electric shock. 
They had been asked earlier to rate how unpleasant the shocks were, alongside other options, such as looking at pictures of cockroaches or hearing the sound of a knife rubbing against a bottle. 
All the students picked for the test said they would pay to avoid mild electric shocks after receiving a demonstration. 
To the researchers’ surprise, 12 of 18 men gave themselves up to four electric shocks, as did six of 24 women. 
“What is striking is that simply being alone with their thoughts was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid,” the scientists write in Science  
Jessica Andrews-Hanna at the University of Colorado said many students would probably zap themselves to cheer up a tedious lecture. But, she says more needs to be known about the motivation of the shockers in Wilson’s study. 
“Imagine the setup – a person is told to sit in a chair with wires attached to their skin and a button that will deliver a harmless but uncomfortable shock, and they are told to just sit there and entertain themselves with their thoughts,” she said. 
“As they sit there, strapped to this machine, their mind starts to wander and it naturally goes to that shock – was it really that bad? 
“What are the experimenters really interested in? Perhaps this is a case where curiosity killed the cat.”",122
"Former president of the Royal Institute of Navigation Roger McKinlay says that our use of GPS (global positioning system) technology could be damaging our innate ability to find our way. “If we do not look after them, our natural navigation abilities will deteriorate as we rely more and more on technology,” he wrote.
McKinlay believes we need huge investment before navigation systems will be good enough for technologies such as autonomous vehicles to take off. In the meantime, he says, we need better research into systems for navigation. Also, children should be encouraged to learn how to find their way around by more traditional means. “Schools should teach navigation and map reading as life skills,” he wrote.
According to Ofcom (the Office of Communications), around 66% of adults in the UK owned a smartphone in 2015, up from 39% in 2012 – so GPS technology is widely available. But McKinlay, a satellite communication and navigation consultant, believes that we should be careful not to leave our navigational needs to our devices. “If we don’t practise using our navigation skills, we’ll lose them” he wrote.
Not many scientific studies have explored the issue, but research from 2009 supports his ideas. “We looked at a group of current London taxi drivers and a group of London taxi drivers that had been retired for about four years,” said neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers of University College London, who is an author of the study. The results showed that the retired taxi drivers performed worse on navigation tests than the current taxi drivers. “We were able to show that their abilities dropped away if they weren’t using their knowledge.”
Spiers also believes there is a danger in relying on technologies like GPS but he points out that the biggest problem is that technologies can lead drivers into dangerous situations. One of the deaths caused by satnavs (satellite navigation devices) was of a driver whose car plunged into a lake in Spain in 2010. “There is a genuine potential danger in relying on a satnav,” said Spiers. “But the health risk of not using your brain effectively is not known.”
The way in which navigational technology is used could also affect its impact on our own abilities, says Spiers. Audio instructions to drivers remove the need to think about navigation, he says, but the use of smartphone apps as digital maps is very different. “When you use a digital map, you have to think hard about where you are going and interact with this device,” he said. “The modern technology isn’t just dumbing us down completely.”
McKinlay believes there have to be big improvements in navigation technologies before futuristic scenarios of driverless cars and smart cities become a reality. “For really important jobs – like landing aircraft or navigating aircraft – GPS is still not good enough,” he said.
Spiers believes the development of artificial intelligence based on machine learning could lead to a new wave of navigational aids, but McKinlay is sceptical. “We will see ever-smarter machines which are very, very task specific, but the big breakthrough will be when they understand what we are thinking and what we want to achieve,” he said.
Ultimately, McKinlay believes, it’s essential that humans remain able to take control of their navigation. “Do you really want to encourage people to a point where, when it disappears or when the battery goes flat, they are in total shock and can do nothing?” he said. “Technology isn’t magic – it is just a tool.”",123
"The threatened extinction of the tiger in India, the perilous existence of the orangutan in Indonesia, the plight of the panda: these are wildlife emergencies with which we have become familiar. They are well-loved animals that no one wants to see disappear. But, now, scientists fear the real impact of declining wildlife could be closer to home, with the threat to creatures such as ladybirds posing the gravest danger to biodiversity. 
Climate change, declining numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and the rapid rate of species extinction mean a growing number of scientists now declare us to be in the Anthropocene – the geological age of extinction when humans finally dominate the ecosystems. 
WWF’s Living Planet Index (LPI) 2014 seemed to confirm that grim picture, with statistics on the world’s wildlife population that showed a dramatic reduction in numbers across countless species. The LPI showed the number of vertebrates had declined by 52% over four decades. Biodiversity loss has now reached “critical levels ”. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have suffered even bigger losses, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. 
But it’s the creatures that provide the most “natural capital” or “ecosystem services” that are getting many scientists really worried. Three quarters of the world’s food production is thought to depend on bees and other pollinators such as hoverflies. Never mind how cute a panda is or how stunning a tiger – it’s worms that are grinding up our waste and taking it deep into the soil to turn into nutrients, and bats that are catching mosquitoes and keeping malaria rates down. A study in North America has valued the loss of pestcontrol from ongoing bat declines at more than $22bn in lost agricultural productivity. 
“It’s the loss of the common species that will impact on people, not so much the rarer creatures because, by the very nature of their rarity, we’re not reliant on them in such an obvious way,” said Dr Nick Isaac, a macroecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Oxfordshire. He says that recent work he and colleagues have been doing suggests that Britain’s insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates, with “serious consequences for humanity”. “The really interesting thing about this work is that we are learning that it’s not just about the numbers of species going extinct, but the actual numbers in a population; that’s the beginning of a fundamental shift in our understanding,” he says. 
He pointed to the fact that between 23 and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians used for food or medicine are now threatened with extinction. In many parts of the world, wild- animal food sources are a critical part of the diet, particularly for the poor. 
The blame, most agree, sits with unsustainable human consumption damaging ecosystems, creating climate change and destroying habitats at a far faster rate than previously thought. But, this time, it’s not just the “big, cuddly mammals” we have to worry about losing but the smaller, less visible creatures upon which we depend – insects, creepy- crawlies and even worms. They might not be facing immediate extinction but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. “We are going to feel the impact of those losses. With the UK species, the pattern is much the same with invertebrates as it is with vertebrates. It’s not as simplistic as 'fish die and people starve' – it’s more complex,” said Isaac. 
Humans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a “plague on earth”, but WWF claims there is still time to stop the rot. Its UK Chief Executive, David Nussbaum, said: “The scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should act as a wake-up call for us all. We all – politicians, business and people – have an interest, and a responsibility, to act to ensure we protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature. 
“Humans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can regrow, harvesting more fish than the oceans can restock, pumping water from our rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb,” he said.",124
"JMW Turner, one of Britain’s greatest painters, will appear on the new £20 note, after a nationwide vote.
It will be the first time an artist has appeared on a British banknote, after the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, asked the public to choose a deceased cultural figure they felt deserved to be on the banknote.
Turner, who is famous for his dramatic seascapes, beat off competition from 590 painters, sculptors, fashion designers, photographers, film-makers and actors put forward by 30,000 members of the public.
The list included Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander McQueen, Derek Jarman, Laura Ashley, William Morris and Vanessa Bell. This list was narrowed down to a final choice of five by a panel of artists, critics and historians.
The final five – Barbara Hepworth, Charlie Chaplin, Josiah Wedgwood, William Hogarth and Turner – were chosen because of their “unquestioned” contribution to both the visual arts and British society, as well as their enduring influence.
The announcement of the new banknote was made at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate. The announcement was made jointly by Carney and the artist Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town.
Carney said it had been “so important to get this right and have a proper process that involved the public.” He added that banknotes are not only a practical necessity – they “can be a piece of art in everyone’s pocket”.
“The fact that we will have Turner on the £20 note shows that the British people are a nation of people who appreciate creativity and appreciate the arts,” said Emin.
The note will show Turner’s 1799 self-portrait, as well as one of his most famous works, The Fighting Temeraire, the ship that played an important role in Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
The note will also contain a quote from the artist – “light is therefore colour” – as well as his signature. The signature is from his will, in which he left many of his paintings to the nation.
Historical figures were first shown on banknotes in 1970. Turner joins Winston Churchill and Jane Austen as the significant figures who will feature on the new polymer notes – a plastic-type material – Churchill on the £5 and Austen on the £10 note. The new £20 note will be available by 2020.
Turner was born in 1775 in London, the son of a barber, and he entered the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 14. In 1786, when he was sent to Margate, his love of painting and drawing the north-east Kent coast began. He returned to that coast throughout his life and it was where he painted some of his most dramatic oils and watercolours. He described its skies as “the loveliest in all Europe”.
Turner was a very prolific artist – he produced more than 550 oil paintings and 2,000 watercolours in his lifetime. His life was also the subject of a film, in 2014, by Mike Leigh, with Timothy Spall as the artist.
Victoria Pomery, the director of Turner Contemporary, said: “The decision to celebrate JMW Turner, one of the greatest technical pioneers in the history of British art, is extraordinary. It has proven that Turner is the nation’s favourite artist.”",125
"During a momentous day at Liverpool Cathedral for the families of the 96 people who died so needlessly at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough football ground, you could hear one phrase again and again: the truth. These were the words used in a headline in The Sun newspaper. We now know that the story in the newspaper was given to the paper by the South Yorkshire Police to move the blame for the disaster onto the innocent victims.
Margaret Aspinall’s son James, then 18, died at the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. She said the families had had to fight for 23 years for the truth. Aspinall, Chairperson of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said that the families’ loss would never go away, but she was “delighted” that the Prime Minister gave a “profound” apology for Hillsborough.
An independent panel studied 450,000 documents created by the police, Sheffield Wednesday and all other bodies responsible. Then it produced a 395-page report, criticizing official mistakes and highlighting the fact that the victims and other fans were not responsible. Some of the causes of the disaster have been exposed before but the depth of the cover-up was still shocking, in particular the police campaign to falsely blame the supporters.
The panel found that the South Yorkshire Police, led by the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, told their story that drunken supporters or those without tickets had caused the disaster. The victims’ blood was tested for alcohol levels. This was “an exceptional decision”, the panel said, and it found “no rationale” for it. When victims had alcohol in their blood, the police then checked to find if they had criminal records. The report found there was “no evidence … to prove the serious allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans”.
The report found that Wright met his police federation in a Sheffield restaurant to prepare “a defence” and “a rock-solid story”. The meeting was held just four days after the disaster. It was the day that The Sun newspaper published its headline “The Truth” over lies told to it by four senior South Yorkshire police officers.
The panel found that officers’ statements were changed to delete criticism of the police and emphasize misbehaviour by supporters. The panel found that 116 of 164 statements were changed to remove or change negative comments about South Yorkshire police. The police had claimed they changed statements only to remove “opinion”, but the panel had no doubt they did more than that. “It was done to remove criticism of the police,” the report said.
This propaganda did not convince the original inquiry. It found in August 1989 that the police stories of fan drunkenness and misbehaviour were false, and criticized the police for making the claims. It revealed that Sheffield Wednesday’s football ground was unsafe, that the Football Association had chosen it as the stadium for the match without even checking if it had a valid safety certificate (it did not).
But it was the mismanagement of the crowd by the police, led by an inexperienced Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, that was “the main cause” of the disaster. The police lost control outside the ground, where 24,000 Liverpool fans had to go through just 23 turnstiles, so Duckenfield ordered a large exit gate to be opened and a large number of people to be allowed in. His mistake, according to the inquiry, was the failure to close the tunnel that led to the central section behind the goal, which was already overcrowded.
But the police still repeated their claims at the inquest. The coroner decided not to take evidence of what happened after 3.15pm on the day of the disaster, so the chaotic emergency response was not examined. The panel found that 41 of the 96 who died could possibly have been saved if the police and ambulance service had done their jobs properly.
Following the panel’s report, the Attorney General will now decide whether to have a new inquest. There may be prosecutions too, after all these years, of Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council, which failed in its duty to oversee safety of the football ground. Trevor Hicks, President of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose two teenage daughters died in the disaster, said: “The truth is out today. Tomorrow is for justice.”",126
"David Cameron, Barack Obama and Pamela Anderson have refused. George W Bush, Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Hawking have taken part. As the Ice Bucket Challenge notched up $100m for a US motor-neurone- disease charity and £4.5m for a British one, as well as thousands more for charities in Hong Kong and Australia, the bracing cold water of a backlash has quickly followed. 
Narcissistic celebrities showing off toned bodies, people having all the fun without donating, complaints about the waste of water – the attacks have come from commentators, animal-rights groups and environmentalists. And the US Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association – which is not related to Britain’s MND Association – also came under fire for the six-figure salaries being paid to its top staff. 
Meanwhile, the challenge continues to grow. For anyone unaware of how it works, someone gives a short speech to camera about the charity, then dumps a bucket of ice cubes in water over their head, or gets a friend to do it, before nominating three people to either do the same or donate. 
It began in the US in July, although whether it was on a golf course or a baseball field depends on which version you prefer, and first appeared on mainstream American television on 15 July. But the ALS Association has now been forced to withdraw an attempt to patent the phrase “Ice Bucket Challenge” after criticism. “We understand the public’s concern and are withdrawing the trademark applications,” spokeswoman Carrie Munk said. The ALS has yet to respond to criticism of its high overheads and wage bills. 
The unfortunate coincidence that 31 August to 5 September was World Water Week, with international delegates arriving in Stockholm to discuss the planet’s water crisis, has not been lost on some. The charity WaterAid is asking people to use recycled water from bathtubs or garden butts or to douse people with sea water. 
Douglas Graham, the MND Association’s fundraising director, said: “The backlash is to be expected but, really, this is just a wonderful windfall and we’re so grateful. We didn’t see it coming but, suddenly, the donations just started.” The boost is an enormous help to a small charity looking after sufferers of a debilitating, little- understood disease that has no cure and kills five people a day in the UK. 
Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, a longstanding animal-rights activist, wrote an open letter to the ALS Association, saying she could not support its record on animal experimentation. A few US stars have rejected the challenge because of California’s drought. Actor Matt Damon got around the problem by pulling up water from his toilets – pointing out that much of the world had less clean drinking water available. Actor Verne Troyer used milk, again citing environmental reasons. And the challenge has been blamed for causing a water shortage on the Scottish island of Colonsay after its 135 inhabitants picked up on the craze. 
In Australia, a TV anchorman apologized over his robust “no, thanks” response to being nominated. Lincoln Humphries had said: “Instead of pouring fresh water over your own head and wasting ice, here is a list of charities helping communities in desperate need of money across the world. I’d like to nominate everyone, everywhere, who has more than they need, to donate what they can to the people who need it most … because that is what charity is about, not putting yourself through mild discomfort with a bucket of icy water.” 
Another criticism has been that small charities won’t be able to cope with the extra cash, but the MND Association rejected this. “Oh, we can cope here,” said Graham. “We fund world-class research into the causes and, ultimately, to find a treatment or cure. We provide care and support for 3,500 people and they need it because this is such a rapidly progressing disease and it’s a costly one to manage. Over 50% die within two years of diagnosis. It’s heartbreaking to see the decline in people we work with over just a few months.” 
But, for many people with a connection to the disease, the awareness that the challenge has created is as valuable as the cash. Graham says it is priceless. Normally, the MND Association gets around 300,000 hits a year on its website. On a single day recently, it had 330,000. 
“We couldn’t have created this if we’d tried. Charities are all worthwhile causes and I understand even that some people might want to donate to a different one. In 2013, British people gave £62bn to charity – we should be proud of that. It’s fabulous for us to get this windfall. We’ll be sitting down over the next few weeks to work out how to spend it in the best way but, I assure you, every penny will count for good.”",127
"Valdevaqueros is one of the last unspoilt beaches in southern Spain. The road to the beach is filled with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain. The camper vans bring windsurfers and kitesurfers who are attracted by strong winds in the area. 
Valdevaqueros beach is very different from the beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella, which are full of hotels and concrete, but earlier in 2012 the local council in Tarifa said’yes’ to plans to build a tourist complex next to the beach. Environmental groups are angry. They say that the project will harm the habitats of protected animals and plants, but most of the council just want to create more jobs. 18,000 people live in Tarifa and 2,600 of them have no work. Spain is having its worst economic crisis for fifty years. 
“Traditional jobs like fishing are finishing so tourism is the only solution,” said Sebastián Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist party. Galindo says the complex does not break the law. There is a law to stop more ugly developments like those that spoilt a lot of Spain’s beaches in the 1960s and 1970s. This law says that the complex must be at least 200 metres from the coast; it will be much farther than that – it will be 800 metres. 
Some people say more houses are not needed in Spain because the country already has a million empty houses. Galindo says it is unfair to migrant workers who came to Spain when the economy was good. Many of the workers are from Morocco, which is just 14km away, across the sea. You can see it from Tarifa. 
Surfers fear that new buildings in Valdevaqueros would make the famous local wind less strong but would not attract people who want a traditional beach holiday. “It’s not really a place for families. The wind is too strong!” said Henning Mayer from Germany. “Ten years ago they said they would build a new highway here. It didn’t happen, so I think it will be impossible to build new hotels.” 
Tarifa is at the most southern point of Spain. It is where Africa and Europe meet, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. It is also a very important place for animals. 
Hours after the Tarifa council voted for the project, a campaign started to save the beach. The campaign has a Facebook page and is supported by groups including Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The Andalusian College of Geographers is also against the project – they say that the complex would disturb two wildlife conservation areas and cross the border of a national park. 
“They think money is more important than laws,” said Raúl Romeva, a member of the European Parliament. Romeva believes the project is wrong because the site has too little water. The town already has too little water in the hot summer weather of Andalusía. 
Many local people also want to know why they want to built a complex 10km away. They think it would be better near Tarifa’s beautiful old centre. “We agree with the complex if it creates jobs in the town,” said Cristóbal Lobato, who has worked at the same beach bar in Tarifa for 30 years. “If they put it in the centre of Tarifa, where there is space, then tourists could visit shops, bars and restaurants.” 
Standing in the green fields where they want to build the complex, biologist Aitor Galán said, “In other countries, they would protect this place, but here they want to build lots of buildings. They want this place to become Benidorm. But what attracts people here is wild animals and the wind.”",128
"A new report has warned that up to a billion people will remain in extreme poverty by 2030 unless countries confront the social, economic and cultural forces that keep them in poverty. The report by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network says that many people may rise above the poverty line of $1.25 a day, but slip back again when they experience problems such as drought or illness and insecurity or conflict.
The report found that, in parts of rural Kenya and in South Africa, 30 to 40% of people who escaped from poverty fell back again, rising to 60% in some areas of Ethiopia between 1999 and 2009. Even in successful countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the proportion was 20%.
Individual examples show how easy it is for people to slip back into poverty. Amin, from rural Bangladesh, has seen his livelihood gradually decline, due to his own and his wife’s illnesses, the cost of his son’s marriage, the death of his father and loss of goods such as fishing nets. Lovemore, from Zimbabwe, has become one of the poorest people in his village. He recently lost his job due to bad health and had to take in his five grandchildren after the death of his daughters.
“We need to ensure that people who are lifted out of poverty remain above the poverty line permanently. Too many families are slipping back into poverty because they struggle to recover from personal or bigger setbacks. Governments shouldn’t assume that, just because somebody’s income reaches $1.25, that means job done,” said Andrew Shepherd, lead author of the report.
A UN high-level panel said it was possible to achieve the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030. The report, however, argues that “more of the same” will not get to zero. Despite a drop in extreme poverty from 1.9bn in 1990 to 1.2bn in 2010, the report says that progress in the next 15 years will be much harder. The big gains in China are unlikely to be matched by similar progress elsewhere, while climate-related shocks and deep poverty in parts of sub-Saharan Africa will slow down progress.
The report says the focus should be on the chronically poor – those who are poor for many years or their entire lives – and on stopping the descent into poverty. “Governments have been quite good at moving people over the poverty line because that is relatively easy. But they have shied away from the more difficult job of trying to solve chronic poverty,” said Shepherd.
The report says progress on poverty reduction has had less of an impact on the chronically poor than on those who were already closer to the poverty line. It will not be possible to get to zero unless development policies focus on the chronically poor, it adds. The report suggests three policies, all of which require massive global investment.
The first is social assistance – to bring the poorest people closer to a decent standard of living. The second is education, from early childhood to the start of work, to enable people to escape and stay out of poverty. The third is economic growth policies that ensure that the benefits of increasing national prosperity reach the very poorest people.
All this will cost money and the report says one obvious implication is that countries will need greater tax revenues. Aid will also be needed for the start-up costs for social assistance, universal health coverage and to finance education, including scholarships for the poorest children. “There remains a huge role for aid in the next 20 years, as many developing countries spend less than $500 on each of their citizens a year. Even Nigeria, with its oil wealth, spends only $650 per person,” Shepherd said.
With the current crises in Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, the report says it is essential that governments try to reduce the risk of conflict and to create peace.
The report also argues that, if the inequalities which affect the poorest people – such as access to land, labour markets and the power relationships between men and women – are addressed, this would tackle two goals at the same time: reducing chronic poverty and inequality.
The authors urge governments to develop an inclusive national development plan and to work with civil society to ensure that the poorest people are represented politically as well as trying to stop difficult social norms, such as dowries and witchcraft, that contribute to extreme poverty: “This often means challenging parts of the status quo.”",129
"Governments across Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the hardest-hit parts of the EU, joblessness rates continue to creep up and the rhetoric does little to shorten the dole queue. 
Now, in a struggling corner of Italy, one mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town’s chronic lack of work – although, rather than a solution, it appears to some to be more of an admission of defeat. Valter Piscedda, the centre- left mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The council will pay for ten unemployed locals to take intensive English lessons, board a cheap flight and look for jobs elsewhere in Europe. 
“This is, above all, an idea born of common sense and experience,” he told the Guardian. “Over the past year and a half – especially in the past few months – I have been receiving young people, almost every day, who are despairing about their search for work. Some are looking here and ask for a hand in finding it here. Others have tried everything and are so discouraged that they no longer want to stay and wait. And they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too. 
“So, my reasoning was this: put everything in place that the council administration can put in place so that those who want to gain experience abroad are able to,” he said. 
As the national economy continues to falter, Sardinia, along with much of southern and central Italy, is grappling with high unemployment, with the overall joblessness rate at 17.7% in the second quarter of 2014, according to Italy’s National Institute of Statistics, Istat. More than 54% of people under 25 are out of work. 
For the Adesso Parto (Now I’m leaving) programme, Elmas’s council has allocated €12,000 on a first-come, first-served basis to applicants aged between 18 and 50. As long as they are out of work and have lived in the town for three years, they are eligible. They do not have to be university educated and their annual income must be no more than €15,000. 
The idea of encouraging people to up sticks is sensitive at a time when floods of Italians – many of them bright young graduates – are leaving their country every year. But Piscedda, who belongs to the Democratic Party of the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, denies he is facilitating a brain drain and believes that the people he is sending away may well return “and give me back 100 times what they were given”. More importantly, he wants the scheme to give a leg-up to those most in need. 
“It’s a programme for those with no other resource; it’s the last-chance saloon. It’s about allowing them the dignity of not having to ask a friend for money or place burdens on families that cannot do it,” he said. 
Earlier in 2014, he added, the council launched a scheme whereby businesses were given financial incentives to hire young workers from Elmas. “We advertised 20 of these positions,” he said. “We got 120 applications.” 
In Elmas, the scheme has provoked mixed reactions. “The reality is that there is little work here,” said Alessandro Macis. “The opportunity to go abroad to learn about the workplace and experience other cultures can be very worthwhile. The son of a friend of mine who didn’t study much has ended up in London and he’s really finding his way. He started as a waiter. Now, he’s a cook and he’s learning English.” 
Others were perplexed. “I heard about it but I thought it was strange. If you have that money to pay for people to go away, why don’t you use that money to keep them here?” said Consuelo Melis, who works behind the bar in a local café. On Twitter, one of many reactions was disbelief. “The state’s admission of defeat,” commented Marco Patavino. “Institutions are raising the white flag,” remarked Carlo Mazzaggio. 
Piscedda, however, is undeterred, remarking of his online critics: “Probably, they are people that aren’t in need ... Every day, I deal with people’s problems and I have to do something to try to solve them. These people, if they had an alternative, they wouldn’t be asking for help. 
“The work I can create, as mayor, is temporary. I can have a piazza cleaned. I can have it cleaned again. I can have the streets cleaned. But these are all temporary things that give nothing beyond that little bit of money for a few months. I want to go beyond that.”",130
"A long time ago, cinema audiences were transported to a galaxy far, far away.
That was 1977 but, in 2015, as the franchise plans to release its seventh film, interest in Star Wars shows no sign of slowing down. Now, there is news of a new film about Han Solo and of a reappearance for Darth Vader.
“Many fans around the world are constantly waiting for the release of new poster art, new trailers and other information,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst. “It’s hard to imagine any other movie franchise that could cause this much enthusiasm and excitement.”
The latest Star Wars mania started after Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm from the film’s creator, George Lucas, in 2012. Disney paid $4bn for Lucasfilm and very soon announced that there would be three more Star Wars “episodes” – VII, VIII and IX – plus plans for spin-off movies and “standalones”.
Details of the second spin-off have now been made public. It is a story about Han Solo, the intergalactic smuggler played by Harrison Ford in the first three films. This second new film will be released in May 2018.
It will follow the release in December 2015 of Episode VII, directed by JJ Abrams and titled Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The unnamed Episode VIII is due out in 2017 and a spin-off, Rogue One, will arrive in cinemas in 2016.
That movie will outline a rebel mission to steal the plans of the Death Star, a key part of the story in the first film in 1977. There was lots of interest in the rumour that Darth Vader, the black-clad villain of the original series, will reappear in Rogue One. The interest confirms the power of Star Wars nostalgia.
In creating a multi-storyline, multi-character cinema “universe” around Star Wars, Lucasfilm-Disney are copying the phenomenally successful series of films produced by Marvel Studios, which Disney also bought, in 2009.
Disney has increased the level of marketing savvy to a product that was already popular: Dergarabedian says the decision to make all six existing Star Wars films available on streaming services is “a brilliant way to build the excitement for the new film and reinvigorate the idea of Star Wars in the minds of the fans”.
But, it is not certain that it needs reinvigorating. The level of enthusiasm that has surrounded Star Wars for at least the last twenty years is shown by the huge number of novels, comic books, video games and merchandising that Lucasfilm has created over the years.
Michael Rosser, news editor for Screen International, suggests that it is this “shared universe” of nostalgia that makes Star Wars the top film franchise. “The great thing about the original films was that they created a huge universe of characters and possibility that sparked the imagination of viewers,” he said.
“For years, people have been wondering how the different parts of the story fit together. This new film goes back to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker so we hope it will reconnect with the original Star Wars films. The prequels failed to do that.”
Rosser is referring to the three films Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005 – The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – which were about the life of Luke Skywalker’s father, Anakin, who becomes Darth Vader. Despite quite bad reviews, the prequels took $2.5bn at the worldwide box office.
“It shows the power of Star Wars that, although they were disappointing, the prequels still made a lot of money,” said Rosser.
In the world of film, branding and a successful franchise are very important. Is there a risk that movie studios will simply become branding machines and lose their interest in cinema?
Rosser thinks not. “They are desperate to keep the franchise going and make sure new films are of good quality. They also want people to go to the cinema at a time when lots are staying home for entertainment. But you don’t want to watch Star Wars on your iPhone.”
Meanwhile, Dergarabedian expects massive business when The Force Awakens reaches cinemas in December 2015. “We certainly expect a record opening for December and the film should make at least a billion dollars worldwide. Truly, Star Wars is the ultimate movie brand.”",131
"There are many quirky solutions to help make our cities more livable, such as glow-in-the-dark trees, underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins.
City living has many upsides but a sustainable lifestyle is not always one of them. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily problems that city-dwellers have to deal with. 
We look at ten quirky solutions to making our cities better places to live.
1 Pop-up parks
Today’s cities sometimes look like they’re built more for cars than people. The pop-up park is a simple idea. Take an empty car park, a small amount of money and a pot plant or two, and make yourself your own private park. The PARK(ing) project started as an arts experiment in San Francisco. It has since spread across the world. Temporary urban farms and ecology demonstrations are just some of the ideas that have come out of the project, which celebrates a day of action every September.
2 Subterranean storage
Not all urban dwellers have cars. Bikes are becoming more and more fashionable. The question is: where to keep them safe? Tokyo-based engineering
company Giken has a solution: an underground bicycle park. Just seven metres wide, the cylindrical storage facility buries deep into the ground and can hold 204 bikes. Owners can retrieve their bike at the touch of a button – the automated system delivers it back above ground in around 13 seconds.
3 Glow-in-the-dark trees
When most people think of trees that glow in the dark, Christmas trees usually come to mind. Not Daan Roosegaarde. The Dutch designer-artist has invented a “bioluminescent” plant. The experimental technology joins DNA from luminescent marine bacteria with the chloroplast genome of a plant to create a glow like a jellyfish. They are trying to create a version of the technology that Roosegaarde hopes could one day replace normal street lighting.
4 Footfall harvesting
Every day, hundreds of commuters and shoppers in the east London neighbourhood of West Ham cross the elevated pedestrian walkway close to the underground station. Few people probably notice the springiness beneath their feet. Even fewer realize that the springy rubber surface powers the streetlights above. The floor has smart tiles that capture the energy from pedestrians’ footsteps and convert it into electricity. Pavegen, the UK company who had the idea, has installed a similar system at London’s Heathrow Airport and other international locations.
5 Supertrees
It had to happen eventually: man-made trees. Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay has a group of them. Up to 50 metres high, these steel-framed ‘supertrees’ not only have flowers growing up them – their metallic canopies absorb and disperse heat, too. And they collect rainwater, as well as provide air ventilation for two large conservatories below. Eleven of the 18 trees also have solar panels on their ‘branches’.",132
"An international agreement to improve safety in Bangladesh’s clothing factories is facing the threat of legal action as factory owners demand compensation for the cost of closures and repair work. With some repair programmes expected to take months, factory owners say they cannot shoulder the costs of paying staff while factories are closed, alongside the expense of some major works needed to ensure buildings are safe. The building overhauls are being carried out in the wake of the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, in 2013, in which 1,138 people were killed. 
The problems come as hundreds of Bangladeshi clothing factories per month are inspected for fire- safety and structural problems under the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is backed by over 170 international brands, including Primark and Marks & Spencer, and international trade unions, including IndustriALL. 
The owner of one Dhaka-based factory, Softex Cotton, has threatened legal action against the Accord after his factory was closed down due to structural problems, prompting a demand for a reported $100m in compensation. 
Another factory owner, who declined to be named, said that once a factory closed its doors, even for a few months, it would lose orders and close permanently: “There is no such thing as temporary closure,” he said. The factory owner said that the Accord agreement had “pussyfooted” around the issue of who paid for factory closures amid efforts to get as many brands as possible to sign up to a deal in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster. He said there was no clear process in place to handle the costs involved. 
Jenny Holdcroft, policy director for IndustriALL, which has been closely involved in the Accord, said that the agreement ensured that factories would not lose orders during closure because brands had committed to maintain orders with suppliers for two years. 
While 12 factories have been identified so far by the Accord as needing significant work, Holdcroft said many of those only needed partial closure in order to reduce stress on the building so production could continue on other floors. The Accord also legally binds brands to ensure that workers are paid during factory closures. She said the detail on who would make payments had been left open in order to ensure that all those factory owners who could afford to pay for repairs and compensation for workers made the necessary contribution. 
“This was always going to be a topic of negotiation. Brands don’t want to commit to paying so that rich factory owners who have just pocketed the profits and not been spending on their factories for years continue to do so. There was obviously going to be disruption. If there was no disruption, there would be no change,” she said. A spokesman for the Accord said negotiations over payments and even legal action would not hold up its work to improve safety in factories. 
However, pressure on the Accord to contribute to the payment of displaced workers has ratcheted up after a rival factory-safety group backed by US retailers including Walmart and Gap, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, set aside $5m to help pay factory workers for up to two months while work is carried out on the buildings it has identified as needing improvement. It has, so far, identified five factories in four buildings where production needed to be suspended. 
“The Alliance is sharing the workers’ salary along with entrepreneurs so now there is a big confusion. We had a big meeting with the Accord to make them understand they have to come forward or how will we help our workers?” said Shaidullah Azim, a director of the Bangladeshi Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.",133
"When two people from the Marshall Islands saw a small fibreglass boat washed up on the beach of a remote Pacific island, they decided to take a closer look. Inside the boat, they found an emaciated man with long hair and a beard, who said he had been drifting for 16 months after setting out from Mexico, more than 12,500km away.
The man, dressed only in a pair of underpants, told his rescuers that he had been adrift in the 7.3-metre fibreglass boat, whose engines were missing their propellers, since he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012. A companion had died at sea several months before, he said.
“His condition isn’t good, but he’s getting better,” said Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on Ebon Island, one of the Marshall Islands. The man said his name was José Ivan and that he survived by catching turtles and birds with his bare hands. There was no fishing equipment on the boat, but a turtle was inside when it washed up. “The boat looks like it has been in the water for a long time,” Fjeldstad told reporters.
According to Fjeldstad, the islanders who found the man took him to a nearby island – which is so remote it has only one phone line and no internet – to meet the mayor, Ione de Brum. The mayor contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Majuro, the Marshall Islands capital. Officials at the ministry said that they were waiting for more details and expected the man to be taken to the capital.
Officials are considering sending a boat to pick up the castaway. “He’s staying at the local council house and a family is feeding him,” said Fjeldstad, who added that the man had a basic health check and was found to have low blood pressure, but did not appear to have any life-threatening conditions and was able to walk. “We’ve been giving him a lot of water and he’s gaining strength.”
Fraser Christian, who teaches maritime survival courses, said the man’s story, if true, would be remarkable but not unique. It was possible to catch turtles or small fish by hand, he said, since “they are inquisitive and they will approach a small boat to shelter underneath it”. Christian advises people who are forced to eat turtles to start with their eyes – “lots of fluid” – then move on to the blood.
The major dangers castaways experience are exposure and dehydration. “The basic rule is: no water, no food. You need water to digest protein. If you have no fresh water and it doesn’t rain for a few days, so you can’t collect rainwater, you have basically had it.” Individual physiology was also important, with some people more able to survive than others.
Stories of survival in the vast Pacific Ocean are not uncommon. In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were discovered drifting, also in a small fibreglass boat near the Marshall Islands. They said they had survived for nine months at sea on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds. But Cliff Downing, who teaches sea survival to sailors, said he was sceptical about the latest tale. “It just doesn’t sound right to me. There are 1,001 hazards that would make his survival for so long very unlikely. “
More castaways: Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor from a British ship sunk by a German submarine in 1942, survived 133 days on a wooden raft floating in the South Atlantic before being rescued by Brazilian fishermen. In 1971, Scottish sailor Dougal Robertson and his family were sailing to the Galápagos Islands from Panama when their boat was sunk by killer whales. They survived 38 days on a lifeboat before being rescued by a fishing boat. In 2006, three Mexican fishermen were found drifting in a small boat near the Marshall Islands, nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing expedition. In 2011, two fishermen, aged 26 and 53, from the Republic of Kiribati, drifted for 33 days before being rescued by the US coastguard. A Panamanian fisherman sued Princess Cruises in 2012 after one of their ships ignored cries for help from him and two companions in their broken boat. He survived 28 days adrift, but his friends both died of thirst.",134
"All six numbers match, so now you can buy that Audi, book the holiday in the US and look for a new house. That’s what most lottery millionaires do, says a study of what jackpot winners do with their money. 
Since it started in 1994, the UK national lottery has created 3,000 millionaires. The 3,000 winners have won an average of £2.8 million each. That’s more than £8.5 billion in total. Together, they have created 3,780 more millionaires among their children, family and friends, according to the writers of the study, Oxford Economics. 
Most winners (59%) give up work straight away, but 19% carry on working and 31% do unpaid voluntary work. The good news for the British economy is that 98% of the money that the winners spent stayed in the UK. Through their spending on property, vehicles and holidays, it is estimated that each winner keeps six people in a full-time job for a year. 
Winners have contributed almost £750 million to the economy. Most of their money was spent on property, with £2.72 billion spent on winners’ main properties, and £170 million in paying off existing debt and mortgages. 
£2.125 billion was spent on investments. £1.17 billion was given to family and friends, and £680 million was spent on cars and holidays. 
It found that in total the 3,000 winners have bought 7,958 houses or flats in the UK, or 2.7 each, spending £3.3 billion. Most winners (82%) bought a new house, spending an average £900,000. 
The new home is likely to have a hot tub, with almost a third (29%) putting that on their shopping list. 28% bought a walk-in wardrobe, almost a quarter (24%) bought a property behind electric gates, and 22% had a games room, with 7% installing a snooker table. 
30% of winners employed a cleaner and 24% a gardener for their new houses. A small proportion (5%) employed a beautician. 
Audis were the favourite cars of 16% of winners, with Range Rovers and BMWs also popular (11% each), as well as Mercedes (10%) and Land Rovers (5%). Winners spent £463 million on 17,190 cars. 
Holidays were also important. Most (68%) choose five-star hotels overseas. The US was the preferred destination for 27%, followed by the Caribbean (9%). Over the past 18 years, 10% of millionaires have bought a caravan. 
Some winners (15%) have started their own businesses, 9% have helped others to start a business, and 6% have invested in or bought other people’s businesses. Businesses started or supported by lottery winners employ 3,195 people, according to the study.",135
"Scientists have taken DNA from the tooth of a European hunter-gatherer and have found out what modern humans looked like before they started farming. The Mesolithic man, who lived in Spain about 7,000 years ago, had an unusual mix of blue eyes, black or brown hair and dark skin.
He was probably lactose intolerant and could not digest starchy foods easily.
The invention of farming brought humans and animals much closer and humans probably developed stronger immune systems to fight infections from the animals. But the change to humans’ immue systems may not be as big as scientists thought – tests on the hunter-gatherer ’s DNA found that he already had genes that made his immune system strong. Some of these genes still exist in modern Europeans today. “Before we started this work, I had some ideas of what we were going to find,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox, who led the study at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona. “Most of those ideas turned out to be completely wrong.”
The Spanish team started their work after a group of cave explorers found two skeletons in a deep cave high up in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwest Spain in 2006. The skeletons, which belonged to two men in their early 30s, had been very well preserved in the cool cave.
Carbon dating showed the skeletons are around 7,000 years old, from the time before farming arrived in Europe from the Middle East. Other things were found in the cave, including reindeer teeth that were hung from the people’s clothing.
The DNA brought some surprises. When Lalueza-Fox looked at it, he found that the man had genes for dark skin. “This guy was darker than any modern European, but we don’t know how dark,” the scientist said. Another surprise was that the man had blue eyes. The results suggest that blue eyes came first in Europe and that the change to lighter skin happened later in Mesolithic times.
This discovery is important for science. It is also important to artists who will have to draw Mesolithic people in a new way. “You see a lot of pictures of these people hunting and gathering and they look like modern Europeans with light skin. You never see a picture of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer with dark skin and blue eyes,” Lalueza-Fox said.
The Spanish team compared the hunter-gatherer to modern Europeans from different regions to see how they might be related. They found that the ancient DNA was most closely related to the DNA of people living in northern Europe, in particular Sweden and Finland.",136
"Wales will become the first country in the UK that will presume people have consented to donate their organs unless they opt out.
The Welsh Assembly has voted to adopt the opt-out policy, which will allow hospitals to act on the assumption that people who die want to donate unless they have specifically registered an objection.
The policy was passed by 43 votes to eight, with two abstentions, in spite of objections from religious groups for moral reasons and worries that the scheme could add to the unhappiness of grieving families.
“This is a huge day for Wales and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.
“I am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. As a society, we have shown we are prepared to take action to increase organ donation and to provide hope to those people waiting every week for a transplant.
“Family refusal is a major factor that affects the numbers of organ donations and the main reason for refusal is lack of knowledge of their loved one’s wishes.
“The aim of the scheme has always been to respect the wishes of the deceased; however, relatives or friends may object to consent.
“When family members know that organ donation is what the deceased wanted, they usually agree to the donation. The new law will work by making clearer people’s wishes around the issue of organ donation and it will increase the rate of consent to donation.”
The issue is controversial – opponents are worried that the urgent need for more kidneys and hearts will lead to hospitals overruling the wishes of those who have died and their family. But the government insists their wishes will be protected.
Relatives will have a “clear right of objection”, giving them the chance to show that the deceased would not have wanted to be an organ donor.
Wales has acted because of an acute shortage of organs. “We have the problem of not having enough organs for people who need them,” said Drakeford. “About one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list.
“Around a third of the Welsh population is on the organ donor register, but well over two-thirds in surveys say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t find the time to put their names on the register.”
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK.
Doctors are delighted at the new policy. The British Medical Association has campaigned for a long time for an opt-out system because it is worried about the growing number of people who need transplants.
Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a good deal of success. Hospitals have also introduced improved systems for coordinating transplants, including the important discussions with relatives when no one really knows what the wishes of the deceased were. But the increase in numbers of organs that are donated is still not enough.
Some religious groups, on the other hand, strongly disagree with the new law – they argue that it would cause further unhappiness to relatives. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council have expressed worries, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”",137
"Rebecka Singerer is often told that the beer she wants is too dark and too strong for her. Men often tell her to “have something sweeter”.
“No, I don’t want a fruit beer. Women can drink whatever they want,” she says.
Now Singerer, a childminder, has joined FemAle, a group of female drinkers in Gothenburg, to make and sell beer. It is Sweden’s first beer that is made by women.
People in Sweden can now buy We Can Do It, a bottled pale ale. Its label is similar to Rosie the Riveter, created as part of a US Second World War poster. The poster became a symbol of women’s power at work.
The person who started the group is Elin Carlsson, 25. She paints cars at the Volvo factory outside the city. “We Can Do It is not a female beer. It is a beer brewed by women that anyone can drink,” she says. “It’s nothing to do with feminism; it’s about equality – we wanted to show we can do it.”
There is a lot of prejudice in the beer world. Carlsberg and other big brewers have spent millions trying to sell beer to women. Carlsberg’s Eve and Copenhagen beers, Foster ’s Radler and Coors’s Animée are some of the beers they tried to sell to women – they were lighter, flavoured beers – but they were unsuccessful.
FemAle’s way of making beer is different. They invite women to tastings that allow women to try flavours and styles of beer that they may not normally try. These tastings are the way to “get more girls into the beer world”, the group says. “Bring your mother, sister, girlfriend, aunt and grandmother so we all can learn more about beer.”
We Can Do It was Felicia Nordström’s idea. She is a bar worker who says she was fed up with male beer snobs telling her: “What do you know about beer?”
She talked to FemAle and they joined Ocean, a local independent micro-brewery. One weekend they created the recipe; the next weekend they brewed 1,600 litres.
This beer is not aimed at women,” says Thomas Bingebo, the head brewer at Ocean. “When the big breweries target women, it usually fails. This is something completely different.”
The first bottles of We Can Do It were sold out straight away. Other breweries have already asked FemAle if they can brew new beers with them.
“Women choose a glass of wine because they don’t know about beer. They don’t know what to order,” says Carlsson. “We open up new worlds to them.”",138
"If the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25%, there would be enough food to feed all the people who are malnourished, according to the UN. Each year, 1.3bn tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted, including about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. Meanwhile, 795 million people suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition. 
Well-publicized attempts to combat the loss of food – such as recent laws in France that require supermarkets to distribute unsold food to charities – have highlighted the issue of food waste, identified by the UN as one of the great challenges to achieving food security. Estimates suggest that, by 2050, food production will need to have increased by 60% on 2005 levels to feed a growing global population. 
Reducing food wastage would ease the burden on resources as the world attempts to meet future demand. The problem is global but manifests itself in very different ways. In developing countries, there are high levels of what is known as “food loss”, which is unintentional wastage, often due to poor equipment, transportation and infrastructure. 
In wealthy countries, there are low levels of unintentional losses but high levels of “food waste ”, which involves food being thrown away by consumers because they have purchased too much or by retailers who reject food because of strict aesthetic standards. 
In developed countries, consumers and retailers throw away between 30% and 40% of all food purchased, whereas in poorer countries only 5% to 16% of food is thrown away. According to a 2011 report, in Europe and North America, each person wasted 95 to 115kg of otherwise edible food annually, whereas, in sub-Saharan Africa and south and south-east Asia, the equivalent waste was just 6 to 11kg. 
“In the developing world, food waste is virtually non-existent,” says Robert van Otterdijk, coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Save Food programme. “Food waste is happening in countries where people can afford to throw away food. One statistic is that the amount of food wasted by consumers in industrialized countries [222m tonnes a year] is almost the same as the total net food production of sub-Saharan Africa [230m tonnes]. But food losses, on the other hand, are really rampant in developing countries because of the underdeveloped conditions they have, from management of production to transportation and distribution.” 
The environmental impact of food loss and waste is high. The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2, meaning that, if food waste were a country, it would rank as the third highest national emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. About 1.4bn hectares, or close to 30% of available agricultural land, is used to grow or farm food that is subsequently wasted. And more surface and groundwater, or “blue water”, is used to produce wasted food around the globe than is used for agriculture by any single country, including India and China. 
“The whole issue of climate change has to do with our economy of production and consumption being out of balance with what the Earth can provide,” says van Otterdijk. “Production of food is one of the biggest production sectors in the world and, if one-third of all this is just produced in vain, you can imagine what a huge impact this has on the natural resources – on land, water, energy and greenhouse gas emissions.” The worst food waste offenders are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where consumers waste 39% of all food purchased, followed by Europe, where about 31% of all food purchased by consumers is thrown away. In the UK, 15m tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year. British consumers throw away 4.2m tonnes of edible food each year. This means that 11.7% of all food purchased is avoidably wasted, at an estimated cost to each family of £700 a year or almost £60 a month. 
The foods most commonly found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk. According to a nationwide analysis of food waste in UK households, the most wasted food in the UK by weight is bread, with consumers throwing away 414,000 tonnes (22.4%) of all bread purchased. By percentage, the most wasted food is lettuce and leafy salads, of which consumers throw away 38% (64,000 tonnes) of all they buy. 
The most wasted meat, by both percentage and weight, is poultry, of which 13% of all edible parts (not including bones) is wasted and the most wasted fruit by percentage is melon, with the equivalent of more than a quarter of each melon thrown in the bin. 
The UK has made progress in the past ten years, after a concerted campaign to reduce wastage. It is singled out by van Otterdijk as “one of the great successes” in combating food waste. Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of avoidable food waste produced by UK households decreased by 21%, from 5.3m tonnes to 4.2m tonnes, largely due to greater awareness. Of the food that is not eaten, less is ending up in landfill. In 2000 –01, only 14% of household waste was recycled or composted but, by 2011-12, the amount of composted food had risen to 43%. 
Van Otterdijk says there has been a “very encouraging, unexpected, continuing interest” in the subject of food waste, enabling grass-roots campaigns around the world to gain momentum. “We have to do much more and it needs the participation of public and private sectors,” he says. “But if it continues like this, with the same momentum, maybe, after ten years, we’ll have globally significant results.”",139
"Lego’s profits rose strongly in the first half of 2014, helped by the success of its Lego Movie, which has stormed box offices in the US and UK.
The Danish toy firm’s sales rose across Europe, the Americas and Asia as children bought products linked to the film. The film, released in February 2014, took more than $250m in the US and £31m in the UK by the first weekend in April.
The movie cost about $60m to make and has been described as an almost perfect piece of marketing. It is entertaining and aimed at consumers who are likely to go out and buy the company’s products.
Lego’s finance director, John Goodwin, said that the Lego Movie products had a positive effect on profits during the first half of 2014. They are now waiting to see how the products will continue to develop after the launch of the movie on DVD in the second half of 2014.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego’s chief executive, said: “It is a very satisfactory result that shows our significant growth in recent years in a tough economic environment. The result for the first half of 2014 is an outcome of our ability to develop, launch and distribute Lego products, which children all over the world put at the top of their wishlists.”
Lego, based in the small town of Billund, started producing its plastic bricks in 1949 and became a popular and well-known children’s toy around the world by the 1970s. But the group lost its way and was on the brink of collapse in 2003. Knudstrop took over as chief executive, ending 70 years of family rule, and got rid of hundreds of surplus products. He then refocused the business on its bricks.
The company opened its first factory in China in April and opened an office in Shanghai to start expansion into the world’s second-biggest economy.",140
"The view from the visitors’ centre at the southern edge of Doñana National Park in southern Spain is striking, to say the least. This is an ornithologist’s dream: 200,000 hectares of salt marsh of unrivalled importance to the birdlife of western Europe. Dozens of Britain’s most loved migratory birds, including house martins, swallows, cuckoos and warblers, rest here on their annual migrations from Africa. Doñana, a UN World Heritage Site, is also home to some of Europe’s rarest birds, including the Spanish imperial eagle, while its mammalian inhabitants include the highly endangered Iberian lynx. 
It is a glorious, vibrant landscape. Yet it exists on a knife-edge, a point illustrated dramatically in 1998 when almost two billion gallons of contaminated, highly acidic water, mixed with waste metals, poured into the park from a dam that had burst its bank at Los Frailes mine 45km to the north. A toxic tsunami of waste poured down the Guadiamar river and over its banks, leaving a thick metallic crust over a vast stretch of parkland. More than 25,000 kilos of dead fish were collected in the aftermath and nearly 2,000 adult birds, chicks, eggs and nests were killed or destroyed. 
It was Spain’s worst environmental disaster and the clean-up cost €90m. Suddenly aware of Doñana’s status as the nation’s most important natural site, Spain decided to spend a further €360m, some of it EU money, on restoring the landscape, which, in the 1950s and 60s, had been drained in places to create rice and cotton fields. Some of this farmland is now being returned to its original wetland state. 
It has been a costly but encouraging process. Yet the fate of Doñana still hangs in the balance thanks to the increasing pressures of modern life. Plans have been outlined to build an oil pipeline through Doñana, while other developers have announced proposals to expand local tourist resorts whose new hotels and golf courses would demand water supplies that would further erode the local table. Silt washed from nearby farms is also choking the channels that criss-cross Doñana. 
However, the real body blow for conservationists has been the recent decision of the Andalucían government to reopen the Frailes mine that so very nearly destroyed Doñana in 1998. “This is Europe’s most precious bird sanctuary, both in terms of indigenous species and also as a resting place for birds that migrate between Africa and Britain and other parts of north-west Europe,” says Laurence Rose of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). “Doñana already faces a great number of threats, but now they want to bring back the very cause of its near-undoing 16 years ago. It is extremely worrying.” 
Having spent so much restoring Doñana to its past glories, it might seem strange that the local government should choose to announce that it wants mining companies to tender bids to rework Los Frailes. However, a brief examination of the state of the local economy provides an explanation. The crash of Spain’s banks in 2008 hit the region catastrophically and unemployment in some parts of Andalucía is now more than 30%. Reopening the mine would provide more than 1,000 precious jobs. 
“There are riches here, riches that are badly needed by local inhabitants,” said Vicente Fernández Guerrero, secretary-general of Innovation, Industry and Energy for Andalucía. “We think mining is a good way to make it possible to allow local people to continue to live in the area. This is a mining area. People have been digging metals and ores here since Roman times, after all.” 
More to the point, added Fernández, the mine licence would stipulate that only modern mining techniques, which avoid the creation of poisonous wet waste, would be allowed. (It has also stipulated that the Canadian company that ran Los Frailes cannot bid for the contract. Sixteen years after the accident, the two sides remained locked over compensation claims.) “The best technology in the world will be used here,” Fernández insisted. “Liquid will not be used. We are going to insist on that. Our tender makes that clear.” 
The proposal has some support in the area, but it also has a lot of opposition. One road sign I passed was liberally daubed with obscenities about the workers’ union UGT, which supports the mine’s reopening. For his part, Carlos Dávila, who works for the Spanish Ornithological Society in Doñana, was also alarmed at the proposal. “This is a very, very bad idea indeed,” he told me. “They say the new mine will be safe, but they said it was safe in 1998 and look what happened. We got the worst ecological disaster in the history of Spain.” 
What alarms people such as Dávila is the threat that a new mine poses to the intense investment in eco-tourism that has been made in Doñana in recent years. An example is provided at the restaurant Dehesa de Abajo, where you can have a drink or a meal surrounded by trees in which storks and black kites are nesting. 
Virtually every visitor was equipped with a camera and telescopic lens or a pair of binoculars. There is a clear tourist trade to be made from the birdlife of Doñana. Nor should this be surprising, for this is a truly special place. A vast hemisphere of sky hangs over this utterly flat but certainly not featureless landscape. Birds of every shape and size fill the air and sometimes the road. At one point on my visit, a stork calmly stood in front of our car until it felt ready to fly off. 
“The trouble is that Spain does not have the public resources it possessed 16 years ago. A repeat of the toxin spill today would have a much, much more damaging impact,” said Rose. This point is backed by Dávila. “After the disaster, Spain woke up to the fact that it possessed a place of real ecological importance and did a lot to clean it up and protect it,” he added. “Now, we seem to be forgetting that lesson. It is very depressing.”",141
"Prince Harry has flown out of Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour, during which he admitted killing insurgents while piloting his Apache helicopter and spoke in rare depth about the tensions and frustrations of being a royal who craved life out of the spotlight. 
He also revealed his disdain for and distrust of some sections of the media and described how his father constantly reminded him to behave more like a member of the royal family. 
A commander of the army’s most sophisticated attack helicopter, the prince said he had fired on the Taliban during operations to support ground troops and rescue injured Afghan and NATO personnel. His remarks may be seized upon by insurgents to stir anti-British sentiment, but the prince said he was only doing his job. Most of the time the helicopter acted more as a deterrent, he said. 
In a series of interviews during his time based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, he hinted at the difficulty of reconciling the different roles in his life. The prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, explained his 'three mes'. “One in the army, one socially in my own private time and then one with the family and stuff like that. So there is a switch and I flick it when necessary.” 
He admitted he sometimes 'let himself down' with his laddish behaviour, which he put down to “probably being too much army and not enough prince”, but he said he was entitled to privacy, too. 
In another unusually frank exchange, he aimed biting criticism at the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, three of the royal family’s most ardent supporters in Fleet Street. He said he was particularly annoyed by articles comparing his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews waiting to scramble during the second world war. “No, it’s not like that at all,” he said. 
The prince said his suspicion of the media was rooted in the treatment of his family when “I was very small”, but that he couldn’t help monitoring the stories written about him. “Of course I read them,” the prince said. “If there’s a story and something’s been written about me, I want to know what’s being said. But all it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do; not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, 'Don’t read it'. Everyone says, 'Don’t read it, because it’s always rubbish'.” 
The prince was posted to Afghanistan last September to command a £45m Apache helicopter – one of the military’s most sophisticated and well-armed aircraft. During his tour, the Apaches flew missions supporting NATO troops fighting the Taliban and accompanied British Chinook and US Black Hawk medical helicopters during casualty evacuations. 
Four years ago, the prince had to be spirited out of Afghanistan during his first tour after a media embargo was broken by mistake by an Australian magazine. This time, the Ministry of Defence chose to publicize his deployment on the understanding that newspapers and broadcasters would not give a running commentary on his life out there to allow him to get on with his job. Two-man crews from the BBC, Sky and ITN were sent once each to report on his visit, while a photographer and a reporter from the Press Association were embedded on all three visits. 
Asked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was one of the most revealing he has given about his relationship with Prince Charles. “Definitely. I’ve always been like that. My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.” 
Shortly before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was caught in another media furore, when pictures emerged of him frolicking naked in Las Vegas during a private party. Harry said he had let himself down, but also blamed the media. “I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But, at the end of the day, I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect. It was probably a classic example of me probably being too much army, and not enough prince. It’s a simple case of that. 
“The papers knew that I was going out to Afghanistan anyway, so the way I was treated from them I don’t think is acceptable.” He added, “Certain people remind me, 'Remember who you are, so don’t always drop your guard'.” 
Asked where he and his brother’s fascination with helicopters came from, he said, “Probably the fact that you can only fit a certain amount of people in a helicopter, therefore no one can follow us, like you guys.”",142
"From all across Rwanda, and even parts of neighbouring Burundi, people flock to the southern town of Butare to a little shop called Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams). They come for a taste of the unknown, something most have never tasted – the sweet, cold, velvety embrace of ice cream. 
Here, at the central African country’s first ice- cream parlour, customers can buy scoops in sweet cream, passion fruit, strawberry and pineapple flavours. Toppings include fresh fruit, honey, chocolate chips and granola. Black tea and coffee are also on sale. 
The shop, which has “ice cream, coffee, dreams” across its signage, is milking local curiosity about the dessert – and “changing lives” in the process, says Inzozi Nziza’s manager, Louise Ingabire. 
“Ice cream is important,” she says between mouthfuls of a honey-flavoured offering. “Some Rwandans like ice cream, but it’s a new thing. We still have some work to do, to tell others that they’ll enjoy it.” 
True to Inzozi Nziza’s motto, the shop can certainly make dreams come true. “I didn’t have a job before: I just stayed at home. Now, I have a vision for the future. I am making money and I can give some of it to my family,” says the 27-year-old. 
Butare, which has 89,600 residents and is located 135km south of the capital, Kigali, is the home of the National University of Rwanda. Inzozi Nziza has become a hub for tired students looking to treat themselves to something cool and different. 
“It’s something uniting people here,” Kalisa Migendo, a 24-year-old agriculture student, says. “If you need to go out and talk to a friend, a girl or a boy, you come to Inzozi Nziza for an ice cream.” 
Most of the ingredients are sourced locally and the milk comes from a depot in nearby Nyanza. The vanilla beans and cocoa are imported. 
Inzozi Nziza was opened by the theatre director Odile Gakire Katese. She met Alexis Miesen and Jennie Dundas, co-founders of Blue Marble Ice Cream in Brooklyn, New York, and formed a partnership to open the shop in 2010. 
“An ice-cream shop, Katese proposed, might help to put the human pieces back together by rebuilding spirits, hopes and family traditions,” Miesen says. 
At the start, Miesen and Dundas owned the shop in partnership with its staff and had shares in the business, which is a cooperative and non-profit. They did not set financial targets, but waited for 18 months before they transferred their shares to the women, who had by then proved their business credentials. 
The shop’s success is no exception, says Fatuma Ndangiza, deputy chief executive of the Rwanda Governance Board. “Small businesses are mostly managed by women but when it comes to big business where you have to compete for big tenders, very few women are there. Women are newcomers to big business,” she points out. “We have more women entrepreneurs. It’s an area where women are taking an interest, both in and outside Kigali.” 
Though ice cream is somewhat new to Rwanda, Ndangiza is enthused by the idea of the shop. “I think it’s great. It requires a lot of skills and changing people’s mindsets because selling and eating ice cream is not part of our culture. I think being able to innovate and introduce this on the market, and the process of making it, is quite interesting.” 
The Butare shop employs nine women, who spend their spare time practising with Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda’s first and only female drumming troupe, which was established by Katese ten years ago. 
The musicians are Hutu and Tutsi women, some survivors of the 1994 genocide, during which almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. 
Some members of Ingoma Nshya are widows, some orphans. Others have been affected by the massacre in different ways. 
Historically, says Ingabire, Rwandan women were forbidden to drum and many people considered the drums too heavy for women to carry. “But it’s something which brings unity.” 
Ingabire’s father, two siblings and many cousins were killed in the genocide. “Some of us are survivors; some know someone who was killed,” she says. “When I’m drumming with them, it gives me power because we’re still alive and survivors.” 
The popular eatery features in a documentary by Rob and Lisa Fruchtman, sibling film-makers. Sweet Dreams, which tells the story of how the women have forged a promising post-genocide future, also includes the female drummers. 
The film, which has been screened in more than a dozen countries, including the US, UK and several African states, premieres in Rwanda in 2014. “We feel the film is about resilience, hope, bravery, resourcefulness and the ability to change the course of your own life,” says Lisa Fruchtman, who won an Academy Award for film- editing in 1984.",143
"Piles of digitized material – from blogs, tweets, pictures and videos to official documents such as court rulings and emails – may be lost forever because the programs needed to view them will become defunct, Google’s vice-president has warned. Humanity’s first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians, Vint Cerf told the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in San Jose, California, warning that we faced a “forgotten generation or even a forgotten century” through what he called “bit rot”, where old computer files become useless junk. 
Cerf called for the development of “digital vellum” to preserve old software and hardware so that out-of-date files could be recovered no matter how old they are. “When you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives that is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets and all of the world wide web, it’s clear that we stand to lose an awful lot of our history,” he said. “We don’t want our digital lives to fade away. If we want to preserve them, we need to make sure that the digital objects we create today can still be rendered far into the future,” he added. 
What is 'bit rot' and is Vint Cerf right to be worried? Being able to access digital content in the coming decades could be less of an issue than one of the 'fathers of the internet' has implied. The warning highlights an irony at the heart of modern technology, where music, photos, letters and other documents are digitized in the hope of ensuring their long-term survival. But, while researchers are making progress in storing digital files for centuries, the programs and hardware needed to make sense of the files are continually falling out of use. 
“We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it. We digitize things because we think we will preserve them but what we don’t understand is that, unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse, than the artefacts that we digitized,” Cerf says. “If there are photos you really care about, print them out.” 
Ancient civilizations suffered no such problems because histories written in cuneiform on baked clay tablets or rolled papyrus scrolls needed only eyes to read them. To study today’s culture, future scholars would be faced with PDFs, Word documents and hundreds of other file types that can only be interpreted with dedicated software and sometimes hardware, too. 
The problem is already here. In the 1980s, it was routine to save documents on floppy disks, upload Jet Set Willy from cassette to the ZX spectrum, slaughter aliens with a Quickfire II joystick and have Atari games cartridges in the attic. Even if the disks and cassettes are in good condition, the equipment needed to run them is now mostly found only in museums. 
The rise of gaming has its own place in the story of digital culture but Cerf warns that important political and historical documents will also be lost to bit rot. In 2005, American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, describing how Lincoln hired those who ran against him for presidency. She went to libraries around the US, found the physical letters of the people involved and reconstructed their conversations. “In today’s world, those letters would be emails and the chances of finding them will be vanishingly small one hundred years from now,” said Cerf. 
He concedes that historians will take steps to preserve material considered important by today’s standards but argues that the significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later. Historians have learned how the greatest mathematician of antiquity considered the concept of infinity and anticipated calculus in 3BC after the Archimedes palimpsest was found hidden under the words of a Byzantine prayer book from the thirteenth century. “We’ve been surprised by what we’ve learned from objects that have been preserved purely by chance that give us insights into an earlier civilization,” he said. 
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh have made headway towards a solution to bit rot, or at least a partial one. There, Mahadev Satyanarayanan takes digital snapshots of computer hard drives while they run different software programs. These can then be uploaded to a computer that mimics the one the software ran on. The result is a computer that can read otherwise defunct files. Under a project called Olive, the researchers have archived Mystery House, the original 1982 graphic adventure game for the Apple II, an early version of WordPerfect, and Doom, the original 1993 first person shooter game. 
Inventing new technology is only half the battle, though. More difficult still could be navigating the legal permissions to copy and store software before it dies. When IT companies go out of business, or stop supporting their products, they may sell the rights on, making it a nightmarish task to get approval. “To do this properly, the rights of preservation might need to be incorporated into our thinking about things like copyright and patents and licensing. We’re talking about preserving them for hundreds to thousands of years,” said Cerf.",144
"The Canadian tennis player Frank Dancevic slammed Australian Open organizers for forcing players to compete in “inhumane” conditions. He collapsed on court as temperatures rose to 41C.
Dancevic collapsed during the second set of his fi rst-round match against France’s Benoît Paire on the uncovered court six at Melbourne Park and passed out for a minute. He said conditions were dangerous for the players. He also said the heat had caused him to hallucinate: “I was dizzy from the middle of the fi rst set and then I saw Snoopy and I thought, ‘Wow, Snoopy – that’s weird.’”
“I think it’s inhumane. I don’t think it’s fair to anybody – to the players, to the fans, to the sport – when you see players pulling out of matches, passing out,” he added. “I’ve played fi ve set matches all my life and being out there for a set and a half and passing out with heat stroke, it’s not normal.
“Having players with so many problems and complaining to the tournament that it’s too hot to play; I, personally, don’t think it’s fair and I know a lot of players don’t think it’s fair.”
Other players agreed. The British number one, Andy Murray, said: “It’s defi nitely something that you have to look at. As much as it’s easy to say the conditions are safe, it only takes one bad thing to happen. And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people in the stands are collapsing. That’s not great.
“I know when I went out before the match, the conditions at 2.30–3pm were very, very tough. Whether it’s safe or not, I don’t know. There have been some problems in other sports with players having heart attacks.”
Caroline Wozniacki said: “I put the water bottle down on the court and it started melting a little bit underneath the plastic. So, you know it was warm.”
John Isner said: “It was like an oven when I open the oven and the potatoes are done. That’s what it’s like.”
The defending champion Victoria Azarenka said, “It felt pretty hot, like you’re dancing in a frying pan or something like that.”
Under a change to the rules for 2014, the decision on whether to stop matches at the tournament is now at the discretion of the tournament director, Wayne McKewen.
Organizers said temperatures peaked at 42.2C in the early evening on Tuesday and conditions had never reached the point where the matches would be stopped.
“While conditions were hot and uncomfortable, the relatively low level of humidity ensured play would continue,” McKewen said in a statement.
Dancevic, who said he had felt dizzy from the middle of the second set, started playing again after medical attention but, unsurprisingly, lost 7–6, 6–3, 6–4. “I was really close to stopping completely,” he said. “I wasn’t really running too much towards the end. I wasn’t tired; I just felt my body temperature was too high.”
A ball boy had earlier required medical attention after collapsing during Milos Raonic’s 7–6, 6–1, 4–6, 6–2 victory over Daniel Gimeno-Traver on the equally exposed court eight and the tournament started only allowing the ball boys to work for 45 minute periods. China’s Peng Shuai also said the heat had made her cramp up and vomit, and she had to be helped from the court after her 7–5, 4–6, 6–3 defeat to Japan’s Kurumi Nara.
Offi cials played down health risks – they said the majority of matches were completed without anyone needing medical attention.
“Of course, there were a few players who experienced heat-related illness or discomfort, but none required signifi cant medical treatment after they had completed their match,” Tim Wood, the tournament’s chief medical offi cer, said.
Roger Federer said that, although conditions were tough, they were the same for both players. “It’s just a mental thing,” the Swiss said. “If you’ve trained hard enough your entire life, or the last few weeks, and you believe you can do it and come through it, there’s no reason. If you can’t deal with it, you throw in the towel.”
Dancevic disagreed. “Some players are used to the heat – their bodies can genetically handle the heat and others’ can’t,” he said. “It’s dangerous. It’s an hour and a half since my match and I still can’t pee.”",145
"Male bosses are being paid bonuses double the size of those given to female colleagues in identical jobs – a disparity that means men enjoy salary top-ups of £141,500 more than women over the course of a working lifetime. 
The figures, released by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), reveal that men in UK management roles earned average bonuses of £6,442 in 2012 compared with £3,029 for women. In the most senior roles, female directors received bonuses of £36,270 over the past 12 months, compared with £63,700 awarded to male directors. 
The latest figures highlighting the inequitable nature of pay in British business led to calls for action from campaigners on workplace equality. Ann Francke, the CMI’s chief executive, said: “It’s time to move this issue into the mainstream management agenda. 
“This is about changing our approach to management to allow for greater flexibility, less masculine cultures, more emphasis on outcomes rather than time in the office and greater transparency around performance and rewards. “In solving this issue, we would actually raise the performance of organizations and the well-being of individuals at work. What are we waiting for?” Dr Ruth Sealy, a senior research fellow at Cranfield School of Management, added: “It is not surprising. Bonuses are a method of payment that can be used with discretion. As to what should be done about it, these things should be made more transparent.” 
While statisticians warned that some of the data may be skewed by factors such as women entering occupations where there is less of a culture of bonus payments, the discrepancies in the sizes of awards do appear to be aggravating Britain’s pay gap, which the government says is closing but still sees full-time male employees earn 10% more than women. 
Maria Miller, the Minister for Women and Equalities, said: “The CMI figures are yet another damaging example highlighting that, in the world of work, women still lose out to their male counterparts and that the playing field is far from level. “Changes in the workplace are happening and it’s good that the pay gap is closing – but there is still more to do before we see full equality in the workplace. 
“The government is playing its part: we have made pay secrecy clauses illegal, given tribunals the power to force employers who break equal pay laws to carry out equal pay audits and signed 120 companies up to our Think, Act, Report scheme, which encourages companies to improve the way they recruit, promote and pay women. “We’ve also looked at other pay gap causes, such as having to juggle work and family responsibilities, by introducing shared parental leave and the right to request flexible working to all employees.” 
Large companies such as Tesco, BT, Unilever and the international law firm Eversheds are among those signed up to Think, Act, Report. The scheme has only attracted 120 supporters in nearly two years of existence, having risen from 54 participants in November 2012. However, the CMI’s data did provide some evidence to support Miller’s contention that the overall pay gap is narrowing: the difference between the average salaries earned by male and female bosses has appeared to shrink, decreasing from an average of £10,060 in 2012 to £8,502 in the CMI’s most recent figures. However, the institute cautioned against direct comparisons between the 2012 and 2013 samples – which both polled around 40,000 managers – as they are not identical. 
A sub-set of 17,000 individual managers, whose salaries and bonuses have been tracked over a number of years, showed that male managers’ earnings are rising faster than women’s for the first time in five years, with men enjoying total increases of 3.2% compared with 2.8% for women, when salaries and bonuses are combined. 
At the most senior level, male directors’ earnings rose by 5.3% over the past 12 months, compared with just 1.1% for female directors.",146
"Our new international survey across 33 countries shows how wrong people around the world are about key social realities.
British people think the top 1% wealthiest households own 59% of their country’s wealth, when they actually “only” own 23%. Americans think that 33% of their population are immigrants, when in fact it is only 14%.
Brazilians think the average age in their country is 56, when it is only 31. Russians think that 31% of their politicians are women, when it is only 14%.
In Britain, people think that 43% of young adults aged 25-34 still live at home with their parents, rather than the actual 14%. In India, the online population think 60% of the whole country also has internet access, when in fact only 19% do.
Why are people across the world so often clueless about these realities?
It is partly that we just struggle with basic maths and some of us clearly misunderstand the questions or interpret them differently. For example, most countries hugely overestimate how many people are not religious: across the 33 countries, respondents think that 37% are not religious but the average is actually just 18%. This is because we are thinking of how many people practise their religion, rather than how many people see themselves as having a religion.
People also take mental shortcuts, where they take easily available information even if it doesn’t quite fit the question. Our huge overestimates of the rural populations in most countries will be affected by how large rural areas are, rather than a careful calculation of how many people live in them. In Daniel Kahneman’s terms, answers to these sorts of questions are classic examples of “fast” thinking, rather than “slow”.
We see things from our own perspective and struggle to imagine the variety in our countries. This was highlighted by our Indian respondents who massively overestimated their population’s access to the internet. Our study was mostly carried out through an online survey – and, in developing countries, this will be representative of a more wealthy, connected group rather than the general population. What we find throughout the study is that people generalize from their own situations and forget how unrepresentative they are.
We suffer from what social psychologists call “emotional innumeracy” when we are estimating realities: this means we are sending a message about what is worrying us as much as trying to get the right answers.
For Britain, worries are part of the explanation for people’s huge overestimates of how much the wealthiest own, how many young people are still living at home and what proportion of the population are immigrants (the guess is 25%, when it is really only 13%). People are worried about these things and, because of this, they overestimate how big the problems are.
But, the survey suggests there are also some issues where people are not as worried as they should be. For example, most countries hugely underestimate how much of their population is overweight or obese. The worst case is Saudi Arabia, where people think only 28% are, when 71% are. Britons think it is 44% when it is actually nearly half as much again – 62% are either overweight or obese.
And, in many ways, it is not our misperceptions but these realities across different countries that are the most interesting and important aspects of the study. The top 1% in Russia own 70% of the nation’s wealth while the top 1% in New Zealand only own 18%. Half of Italians aged 25-34 still live with their parents, when it is only 4% in Norway. The average age in India is 27; it is 47 in Japan. Only 10% of politicians are women in Brazil, Hungary and Japan, when 44% are in Sweden.
When the reality is so strange and varied, it is no wonder we’re so wrong.",147
"Our new international survey, including 33 countries, shows how wrong people around the world are about some important things.
British people think the richest 1% own 59% of their country’s wealth, when they actually “only” own 23%. Americans think that 33% of their population are immigrants but it is really only 14%.
Brazilians think the average age in their country is 56, when it is only 31. Russians think that 31% of their politicians are women, when it is only 14%.
In Britain, people think that 43% of young adults aged 25-34 still live at home with their parents, rather than the actual 14%. In India, people who did the online survey think 60% of the whole country also has internet access, when really only 19% do.
So, why do people across the world know so little about these things?
Some of us don’t understand the questions. For example, most countries overestimate how many people are not religious: in the 33 countries, people thought 37% are not religious but the real number is actually just 18%. This is because we are thinking of how many people practise their religion, rather than how many people say they have a religion.
Rural areas are large so that is why people overestimate how many people live in the countryside.
We see things from our own perspective and find it difficult to imagine that there is a lot of variety in our countries. For example, the people from India who did the survey really overestimated their population’s access to the internet. Most people did the study online – and, in developing countries, this means the people who did the survey were probably wealthy. What we found from the survey is that people generalize from their own situations and forget that other people’s situations might be different.
In Britain, this is probably the reason why people overestimated how much the richest people own, how many young people are still living at home and what proportion of the population are immigrants (the guess is 25%, when it is really only 13%). People are worried about these things and, because of this, they overestimate.
But, the survey suggests there are also some problems that people are not very worried about but they should be more worried. For example, most countries really underestimate how much of their population is overweight. The worst case is Saudi Arabia, where people think only 28% are overweight, when 71% are. Britons think it is 44%, when actually 62% are overweight.
In many ways, it is the differences between countries that are the most interesting and important aspects of the study. The top 1% in Russia own 70% of the nation’s wealth, while the top 1% in New Zealand only own 18%. Half of Italians aged 25-34 still live with their parents but only 4% in Norway. The average age in India is 27; it is 47 in Japan. Only 10% of politicians are women in Brazil, Hungary and Japan, when 44% are in Sweden.
When the reality is so strange and varied, it is not surprising that we’re often so wrong.",148
"Volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes can make a city totally disappear. But there are two other things that can make it disappear, too – water and sand.
One hundred years ago, Venice – one of the most beautiful and low-lying cities in the world – used to flood about ten times a year. Now, its lowest point, Piazza San Marco (only three feet above sea level) floods approximately 100 times a year.
But rising sea levels are not the only cause. In many parts of the world, the land is also sinking. In Venice, the city sank by 20cm between 1950 and 1970. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is also sinking by about 2cm a year – but the situation in Jakarta is much worse – it is sinking 10 to 20cm every year. In the past three decades, the city has sunk four metres.
The Indonesian capital has pumped out so much water to support its population that the land above is too dry. This is creating a bowl.
There are many plans to save Venice, and Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta are taking the problem seriously. But it is not same in Miami where politicians will not accept that the city has a serious problem.
There are three main problems in Miami. It is less than ten feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are flooding the city; and it is built on porous rock, which absorbs the rising seawater. This water then fills the city’s foundations and comes up through drains and pipes. This forces sewage upwards and pollutes the city’s fresh water. It is possible that it may, one day, be impossible to live in Miami.
In the Maldives, the populations of whole islands may leave their homes. The capital is Malé. It has a population of 153,379 and is only four feet above sea level. Malé has built a ten-foot sea wall, which cost $63 million. But, in the long term, Malé and the rest of the islands will only be safe if sea levels stop rising.
In Africa, the Sahara is getting bigger – it is moving south at a rate of 30 miles per year. This is a problem for people who live in northern Mauritania.
People may have to leave the Californian resort of Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, in the next decade. The problem in California is not caused by global warming – the problem is that there are too many people there. In 1870, the total population was only half a million but, now, the state is home to 38 million people. And these people have 32 million cars.
Every person in Rancho Mirage uses more than 200 gallons of water every day. This is causing a man-made drought. They have reduced water use by 25% but this will probably not make much difference. The long-term answer in California’s desert is for people to leave some cities.
Fire is a growing problem to towns and cities in America – in fact, forest fires cause the most damage after bad storms. There were 800 major fire disasters there between 1953 and 2014. A new report by the USDA Forest Service shows the increasing number of towns and cities that are particularly vulnerable to wildfire.
Many cities are fighting a losing battle against nature but is it possible to choose the world’s most vulnerable city? Natural disasters are very difficult to predict – but the future for Malé does look very bad. Its new sea wall might continue to work but the islands around the Maldives capital are going to disappear soon. And, if they disappear, Malé’s reason for existing disappears, too.",149
"oogle has made maps of the world’s highest mountains, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even shown us a bit of North Korea. They want to make maps of the whole world, but they have mostly stayed away from the Arctic.
Now, however, Google is starting a very important update to hundreds of years of polar map making – and it hopes that the map will help give a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. A small Google team has flown to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. They have taken their warmest winter clothes, many laptop computers and an 18kg telescopic camera that they can fix to their backpacks.
The team spent four days collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on Baffin Island something that people across the world who live in cities now take for granted. An Inuit mapping expert helped the Google team and curious locals followed them around.
The town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google’s popular Street View application in July 2013.
When Google made maps of other parts of the world it used a special camera on a car roof. In Iqaluit that was not possible, so Google’s map makers walked the town’s snowy roads and trails. Some roads are made of ice and disappear in the short summer months.
The team also walked along part of a 15km road known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about meeting polar bears.
The online map that Google had already created using satellite images was mostly correct, but one road was missing that had been built in the last year.
One difficulty was how to place on the map many businesses and homes that have mail sent to the local post office and not delivered to their address. Putting the PO box addresses on the map would mean the new map would show all the companies, banks and schools in the same place, around the Canada Post building in the centre of town.
About 30 Inuit elders, business people and high-school pupils helped Google to correct this problem. They were given a laptop computer and told how to make sure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up correctly on the map.
The project is more than a novelty. Arif Sayani, the town’s Director of Planning, said that people who are thinking of visiting or moving to the area would be able to use the maps to see the area. It may also help planning decisions in Iqaluit happen more quickly.
The project leader for Google said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns. But moving people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory is very expensive. So, in the future, Google might send equipment to the area and ask volunteers to complete the map.",150
"Some people call it ‘the hotel of mum and dad’. A fifth of young adults are staying in the family home until they are at least 26 and the same proportion are not paying a penny towards their keep. A recent survey found that the proportion of adults living at home varied around the country, from just under 9% in the East Midlands to more than double that in London, where house prices and rents are highest. While many around the country contributed financially, it found that 20% were paying nothing at all.
Young adults are squeezed by low wages and high rents, while those who want to buy a property are finding the monthly cost of renting is preventing them from saving enough to get on the housing ladder. Recent research showed half of tenants were unable to save a penny towards a deposit, while a quarter could only save £100 or less each month. Mortgages are cheaper than ever before thanks to record low interest rates but the best deals are still only given to people with large deposits.
As a result of this, young adults are increasingly returning to the family home to save money and parents who cannot afford to offer their children a large sum of money seem happy to help. The survey found that 28% of adults were living at home because they were trying to save for a deposit. However, it also found that 30% were not saving any money.
Michael Day, 30, who lives with his parents in Bristol, says he has been caught between paying high rents and saving for a mortgage deposit. Rents for a one-bedroom home in the city are between £500 and £800 a month, while buying a similar property would cost about £130,000. “I don’t really want to move out to rent as it’s more than a mortgage but you need such a big deposit to get a mortgage so it’s a vicious circle.”
He does not want to share with strangers so his options are limited. At home, he pays a nominal rent to cover bills and is able to keep the rest of his earnings from his job. He admits that, instead of saving, he spends his spare money on golf and holidays. “You need so much money that I will have to save for the foreseeable future,” he said. “Because it’s been so difficult, I’ve been going on holiday and enjoying it.”
Sue Green, of Saga, a business that sells insurance to people over 50, said the majority of parents may not have planned to have their children living with them in their 20s or 30s. “Most will be more than happy to have them in the family home rent-free because it might help their kids get on the property ladder sooner,” she said. “Children who don’t pay rent may contribute in other ways like buying groceries, family takeaways or doing odd jobs around the home.”
Angus Hanton, of the Intergenerational Foundation thinktank, said older generations were “the architects of the housing crisis” and children should not be blamed for staying at home. “The under-30s have suffered a reduction in average incomes of about 20% since the 2008 downturn. Rents and car insurance have never been so high and mortgage lending rules are now stricter for the young but not for older buy-to-let investors, who squeeze out the young,” he said. “Many jobs on offer – zero-hour and short-term contracts – are turning younger workers into second-class citizens. Rather than blaming the young, we should help them so they can afford to build lives of their own.”
Jenna Gavin, 29, lives in Southport, Merseyside, in the family home where she grew up. She works as a medical receptionist nearby so she wants to stay in the area. But renting a one-bedroom flat would cost more than £420 a month not including bills, which would use a lot of her earnings. “I don’t want to rent – I don’t want to spend all that money and have nothing at the end,” she said. “I’ve looked at buying and seen mortgage advisers but I just can’t borrow enough to get on the property ladder.”
Gavin is trying to save for a deposit. “It’s difficult to save enough money – even a 5% deposit is such a lot of money and I would like to have a bigger deposit,” she said. Her parents are happy not to charge her rent. “They want me to try to save up and I contribute in other ways – I buy food and I do things around the house.”
Gavin gets on with her parents and has her own space in a room that she moved into when she was
but she said she had always imagined she would have her own place by the time she was 30. “I don’t see that happening, as it’s next year. But, hopefully, in a couple of years, I’ll move out.”",151
"Chemists have waited a long time to find a new element and, now, researchers in Japan, Russia and the US have discovered four. The four new elements will be added to the periodic table. They are the first elements to be added since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were included. The new elements, all very radioactive, complete the seventh row of the periodic table. 
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is the global organization that controls chemical names. IUPAC confirmed the new elements on 30 December, 2015. The scientists who found them must now think of formal names for the elements, which have the atomic numbers, 113, 115, 117, and 118. The atomic number is the number of protons in an element’s atomic nucleus. 
IUPAC said that a Russian-American team of scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had discovered elements 115, 117 and 118. The organization said a team of scientists from the RIKEN Institute in Japan discovered element 113. The decision means Japan becomes the first Asian country to name an element. Under IUPAC rules, new elements can be named after mythological concepts, minerals, a place or country, or a scientist. 
In 2012, scientists chose the formal name flerovium for element 114, after the Flerov Lab at Dubna’s Joint Institute of Research. And they chose the formal name livermorium for element 116, after the Lawrence Livermore Lab in the US. 
The elements were discovered there. Kosuke Morita, who led the research at RIKEN, said his team now planned to “look to element 119 and beyond”. Jan Reedijk of IUPAC said: “Chemists want to see the periodic table finally completed down to the seventh row.” 
The Japanese team is considering three names for element 113: japonium, rikenium and nishinarium, after the Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, where they found the element. Polly Arnold, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh University, said, “This is very difficult and slow work. The work helps us understand radioactive decay. If we understand it better, hopefully we can find a better way to deal with nuclear waste and things that are important in the real world. And, when they build the equipment to make these discoveries, it also leads to fantastic improvements in technology.” 
Scientists must find new names for the elements but, also, they must suggest two-letter symbols for the elements. When IUPAC has received the researchers’ suggestions, they will tell the public so that people can comment on the names. That allows scientists and others to find any problems with the names. In 1996, someone suggested the symbol Cp for copernicium, or element 112, but it was changed to Cn, when scientists complained that Cp was already the symbol for another substance. 
To discover the elements, researchers at the three labs crashed lighter nuclei into one another and looked for the radioactive decays that should come from the new elements. 113 and 115 are probably metals. 117 could be a metalloid – a material with some metallic characteristics. The fourth element, 118, may be a gas. 
Paul Karol, chair of the IUPAC panel that checked the elements, said: “It will be a long time before we can find practical uses for the new elements.”",152
"Do you want your child to be good at sport, make the school team and, maybe one day, even compete on the world stage? Well, try to ensure that your would-be Olympian or World Cup winner is born in November or, failing that, in October. A study led by one of the UK’s leading experts on children’s physical activity has found that school pupils born in those months are fitter than everyone else in their class. 
November- and October-born children emerged as fitter, stronger and more powerful than their peers born in the other ten months of the year, especially those whose birthdays fell in April or June. Dr Gavin Sandercock, from the Centre for Sports and Exercise Science at Essex University, and colleagues found that autumn-born children enjoyed “a clear physical advantage” over their classmates. 
The research involved 8,550 boys and girls aged between ten and 16 from 26 state schools in Essex. All were tested between 2007 and 2010 on three different measures of fitness: stamina, handgrip strength and lower-body power. The results revealed that a child’s month of birth could make “significant” differences to their levels of cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength and ability to accelerate, all of which predict how good someone is at sport, in which such attributes are vital. Performances at school sports days in the weeks ahead may bear out the findings. 
November-born children were the fittest overall as they had the most stamina and power and were the second strongest. Those born in October were almost as fit, scoring highest for strength and coming third for power, with December children close behind. 
The gap in physical prowess between children in the same class but born in different months was sometimes very wide. “For example, we found that a boy born in November can run at least 10% faster, jump 12% higher and is 15% more powerful than a child of the same age born in April. This is, potentially, a huge physical advantage,” said Sandercock. Such gaps could ultimately decide who became a top-level athlete because, as the paper says, “selection into elite sports may often depend on very small margins or differences in an individual’s physical performance”. 
The study, which has been published in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, found that, when scores for the three kinds of fitness were combined, those born in April were the least fit, then those in June. That could see those children excluded from school teams and becoming sporting underachievers, Sandercock said. 
The findings seem to show that children born in the early months of the school year enjoy a double “autumn advantage” – they are already known to have an academic advantage and, now, they also appear to be better equipped for sport, too. The results show that something other than “the relative-age effect” – the greater maturity of those born early in the school year – is at work, especially as the fittest children were not the tallest or heaviest, he added. 
The authors believe that autumn-born children’s greater exposure over the summer months, towards the end of pregnancy, to vitamin D – the “sunshine vitamin” linked to a range of health benefits – is the most likely explanation. “Seasonal differences in intrauterine vitamin D concentrations seem most plausible,” they say. John Steele, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, said the quality of a young person’s introduction to PE and sport at school can be “a major factor” in their sporting development. “Children that get a high-quality first experience, which develops their physical literacy, are those that will have greater agility, balance and coordination, and are more likely to develop an enjoyment of physical activity and excel in sport as they grow up”, he said. 
UK Sport could not say if a disproportionately high number of the 1,300 athletes across 47 sports it funds were born in November and October. Natalie Dunman, its head of performance pathways, said that, while the differences highlighted in the new findings were borne out by teenagers competing in junior-level competitions, they had disappeared by the time sportspeople were taking part in adult competitions. She said: “Looking at elite, senior athletes, there are many factors that go into making a champion and our work hasn’t uncovered anything to suggest that month of birth is one of the key ingredients.”",153
"How long can you hold your breath? I’m trying it right now. The first 30 seconds are easy. I’m ready to give up at 45 seconds but I continue and it seems to get easier for a while. But, as the second hand ticks past a minute, my heart is pounding. I let out a tiny breath and this helps. Eventually, I give up, releasing the air in my lungs and taking a huge breath. I manage one minute and 12 seconds. I’m quite impressed with myself.
The ability to hold your breath is extremely important in some sports, particularly freediving. In 2006, I was filming a programme about the anatomy and physiology of the lungs for a BBC series. I was lucky to meet Sam Amps, who was captain of the UK freedive team. At a pool in Bristol, she taught me some simple exercises to help me hold my breath for longer while swimming underwater. By the end of the session, I’d managed 90 seconds of breath-holding, enough to let me swim a width. Sam swam three widths easily. She could hold her breath for five minutes, while swimming. Five!
I asked how she did it: very slow breathing for several minutes before each dive, then a big, deep breath before diving in. She also said that training helped her resist the urge to breathe for far longer than most people.
Some have suggested that the ability to voluntarily hold your breath is evidence that, at some point during our evolution, we lived in water. Some even say that humans have an ability to lower their heart rate in order to breath-hold for even longer. Other facts – our hairlessness, the distribution of our subcutaneous fat and even that we walk on two legs – have been linked to an aquatic phase of our evolutionary development. But, unfortunately, the “aquatic ape hypothesis” is not true.
Looking at voluntary breath-holding, we are, in fact, not the only non-aquatic mammals that are able to hold their breath. (But it’s a difficult thing to investigate in other mammals because, unlike humans, it’s difficult to get them to hold their breath.) And evidence shows that our heart rate doesn’t drop during breath-holding. At least, it doesn’t if you’re breath-holding on land. When you’re in cold water, it’s different: this leads to a slower heart rate in most people. But, once again, this isn’t evidence of an aquatic ape ancestry. This reduction in heart rate is just one of the physiological responses that are sometimes called the “mammalian diving reflex”. But physiological responses that are useful in diving are also – and, perhaps, even more importantly – useful for not drowning.
While our ability to breath-hold may not be special, when we compare ourselves with other animals, it’s now becoming very useful in one particular area of medicine. Radiotherapy for breast cancer involves pointing radiation, very precisely, at the tumour. This may require several minutes of radiation and, so, it’s usually done in short periods, between breaths. But, if the patient can keep her chest perfectly still for several minutes, it means that the entire dose can be given, in the right place, in one go. The problem, of course, is that most people, just like me, cannot hold their breath for much longer than a minute. But doctors at University Hospital Birmingham have shown that, if patients are given oxygen-rich air before holding their breath, they can hold it for five-and-a-half minutes.
Surprisingly, the trick seems to be the ability to fool the diaphragm. When you breathe in, you’re pulling the muscle of your diaphragm flat so that the volume of your chest increases – and air is pulled into your lungs. When you hold your breath, you keep your diaphragm like that. If you artificially raise oxygen levels and reduce carbon dioxide levels before a breath-hold, as in the Birmingham radiotherapy experiments, you may be able to delay tiredness in the diaphragm. So, it’s your diaphragm, the main muscle of breathing, that is in charge when it comes to holding your breath. Eventually, even if you’ve fooled it for a while, the signals from the diaphragm are just too strong and you have to give up – and take a breath.",154
"Not sleeping very much used to be a sign that you were busy and important. Sleep was for wimps. But now, Arianna Huffington’s The Sleep Revolution, a book that says we need to sleep more and promises to change your life, is a New York Times best-seller. 
Businesses have realized that they can make money from the sleep revolution. A whole range of businesses are interested in where, when and how we sleep and, also, how much we will pay for it. Luxury hotels give people “sleep retreats”; more than $1,000 gets you dinner and a movie about sleep. And, if you’re staying home, you can improve your bedroom with a mattress cover with a sensor that monitors your sleep ($249) or a sleeping mask that monitors your brainwaves and lets you sleep more efficiently ($299). 
Sleep has not only become big business – it has also changed companies. Many companies already have sleeping areas and Huffington says that nap rooms in offices will become “as common as conference rooms” in the next two years. So, how did this happen? How did sleep suddenly become so fashionable? 
Many people these days find it normal to pay $10 for green juice and $34 for an indoor cycle class. And these people have made getting enough sleep a part of their lifestyle. Our bodies have become machines that we monitor for better efficiency and sleep is now another set of data for us to follow. 
Huffington does not say that sleep rests you; she says it restores you. Sleep is now an important status symbol for some people. But, it is not always easy to get enough sleep; you have to go to bed in the right neighbourhood and in the right body. Many studies show that you’re more likely to sleep badly if you’re poor. It’s hard to sleep if you’re worried about your safety or haven’t had enough to eat. It’s hard to sleep if you’re one of the 15 million Americans who work irregular hours. Research has also found that there’s a black/white sleep gap. One study shows that white people sleep an average of 6.85 hours but African Americans only sleep an average of 6.05 hours. They also have a lower quality of sleep. 
Do you know who gets the most sleep and the best quality of sleep in America? Rich white women. And, they are probably the people Huffington wrote her book for. Huffington describes her ideas about sleep as a “revolution” but, in fact, it’s a rebranding. The real problem with sleep isn’t that a few rich people think it’s a waste of time; the problem is that 99% can’t afford to spend time sleeping. 
Sleep may make you perform better but it’s an inefficient way to improve your performance. The real prize is finding a way that humans can work on less sleep. It is no surprise that the US military is researching this. In 2008, the Pentagon published a report called “Human Performance” which examined the possibility of a future in which soldiers could perform at their best with only a couple of hours’ sleep. “Imagine that you could make a human who slept for the same amount of time as a giraffe (1.9 hours per night). This would reduce the number of deaths and injuries. An enemy would need 40% more soldiers to be able to fight us.” 
One day, humans will find a way to remove the need to sleep completely. Spending a third of your life asleep won’t be a luxury anymore; it will be something only the poor will have to do. Then, we may need a whole new sort of sleep revolution.",155
"As soon as the children at a primary school in Stirling, Scotland, hear the words “daily mile”, they leave the classroom and start running around the school field. For three-and-a-half years, all the pupils at St Ninian’s Primary School have walked or run a mile each day. They do it at different times during the day. There has been an increase in obesity in children in the UK but none of the children at this school are overweight.
The daily mile has done a lot to improve these children’s fitness, behaviour and concentration in lessons so many other British schools are doing the same. Their children also get up from their desks and take 15 minutes to walk or run round the school or local park.
Elaine Wyllie, headteacher of St Ninian ’s, said: “I get at least two emails a day from other schools and local authorities asking how we do it. The thought of children across the country running every day because of something we’ve done is amazing.”
One in ten children are obese when they start school at the age of four or five, say the Health & Social Care Information Centre. And, in the summer of 2015, a study found that schoolchildren in England are more unfit than they have ever been. For this reason, primary schools can see the benefits of the daily mile. It has been introduced in schools in various parts of the UK and other schools are planning to introduce it soon. Just in Stirling, 30 schools have already started or are going to start the daily mile.
“Running is a good way to improve children’s fitness, and it’s free and easy. The most important thing is that the children really enjoy it. If they didn ’t enjoy it, you couldn’t continue with it. 
They come back inside with bright eyes and rosy cheeks. It’s how children used to look,” said Wyllie. At St Ninian’s, teachers take their pupils out of lessons to the school’s playing field for their daily mile at a time that suits that day’s timetable. Only ice or very heavy rain stop them. Researchers from Stirling University have begun a study to look for evidence of the physical, cognitive and emotional benefits of the daily mile. Dr Colin Moran, who is leading the study, said: “The children don’t seem to have problems with obesity; they seem happier and teachers say they learn better. So we designed a study that tests all of these things.” They will compare St Ninian’s pupils with children from another school in Stirling where children haven’t started running yet.
Kevin Clelland, a primary school teacher from Leeds, visited St Ninian’s. Then, he convinced the other teachers in his school that it was a great idea. He said: “It’s such a simple thing to do but seems to have such an amazing impact. We really want to improve the fitness of our pupils.” His school is now building a running track.
Paralympian, Tanni Grey-Thompson, chair of ukactive, a health organization for physical activity, said: “All children need to achieve 60 active minutes every day – this can be in a lesson, on the walk to school or in the playground. It’s fantastic to see ideas like the daily mile. It shows that schools want to improve children’s fitness and their cognitive behaviour, and make a real difference to schools, teachers, parents and young people’s lives. We know sitting still kills; not sitting still helps children build skills that will help them for the rest of their lives.”
The Scottish government also supports the idea. A spokesperson said: “Learning in PE is improved by ideas like the daily mile, which can help parents keep their children healthy. We are pleased to see that so many Scottish schools are taking part or want to.”",156
"Barack Obama has urged young people to reject pessimism and interact with those who have different beliefs if they want to make changes in the world. 
On the final day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a town hall meeting in London: “I’m here to ask you to reject the notion there are forces we can’t control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.” 
“You’ve never had better tools to make a difference,” he told the A-level and UK –US exchange students at the Q&A session. “Reject pessimism, cynicism and know that progress is possible. Progress is not inevitable; it requires struggle, discipline and faith.” 
But Obama acknowledged the challenges faced by young people: “Not to say your generation has had it easy, in a time of breathtaking change, from 9/11, 7/7 … and during an age of information and Twitter where there’s a steady stream of bad news.” 
The audience cheered as the president was introduced and went on to speak about his policies, including healthcare and education. 
He urged the audience to interact with people with different political beliefs: “Seek out people who don’t agree with you and it will also help you to compromise.” 
Obama also said: “You should feel encouraged social attitudes are changing. That doesn’t mean it’s fast enough but you should keep pushing and it’s in part due to the courageous acts of young people like yourself.” 
When asked about his presidential legacy, Obama said he was proud of the healthcare reforms, which received huge cheers from the audience, and said of the US response to the 2008 financial crisis: “Saving the world from great depression – that was quite good.” 
He also listed diplomatic deals with Iran and the response to the Ebola crisis as highlights of his presidency. “I’m proud; I think I’ve been true to myself during this process.” 
But he added: “Don’t give up and succumb to cynics if, after five years, poverty hasn’t been eradicated … It’s OK. Dr Martin Luther King says the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice.” 
Questioned on the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), he said: “The answer to globalization is not to pull up the drawbridge and shut off,” though it was crucial to pay attention to workers’ rights. 
Before Obama arrived, Tanya Williams, a community engagement officer, told the Guardian: “I love Michelle but I like Obama and it’s exciting to have the chance to hear someone who has changed so much and galvanized so many people who didn’t vote before.” 
Oliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: “Everyone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say. I’m going to ask him about electoral rights and try to ask him if he would join our campaign to ask David Cameron for automatic registration.” 
Obama ended the session by taking a question from a young Sikh Londoner, who asked about the issue of racial profiling at airports and being mistaken for a Muslim. 
Obama said that, although there were people with “crazy ideology”, pluralism was important. “I visited a mosque a few months ago and said our greatest allies are American Muslims who are most integrated and economically well off,” he said. 
Furqan Naeem, a campaigner from Manchester, said: “I recently visited the States through the US embassy on the community leaders programme and saw first hand some really important work the president did in celebrating America’s diversity and bringing communities together.” 
Kenny Imafidon, the managing director of the youth organization ClearView Research, said afterwards: “It was a great opportunity and what will stick with me is what he said about meeting with people who have different politics from you and having to make compromises. Also, the thing he said about being a good leader and finding great talent.” 
Later, Obama met Jeremy Corbyn, who said they had an “excellent” 90-minute discussion. 
The Labour leader said they talked about “the challenges facing postindustrial societies and the power of global corporations, and the increasing use of technology around the world and the effect that it has.”
Asked if they talked about the president’s intervention in the debate on Britain’s membership of the EU, Corbyn said it was discussed briefly. 
After the meeting, Obama joined Cameron to play golf at the Grove in Chandlers Cross, Hertfordshire. Obama ended the day at a dinner with the prime minister and the US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, at the ambassador’s residence, before travelling on to Germany.",157
"When you enter a department store, cameras are watching you. If you pick something up, a camera will make sure you don’t put it into your bag. Cameras will follow you around the store. But new technology is less focused on shoplifting and more interested in your age, gender and shopping habits.
A few months ago, IT company Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) wrote a report that said around 30% of stores use facial recognition technology to track customers in shops. Facial recognition is a technology that can identify people – it analyses and compares people’s faces. Shops use special cameras for this, like the Intel RealSense camera. 
Joe Jensen, who works for Intel, says that the aim of using RealSense technology in shops is not to get information about specific people’s lives but to understand, in general, people’s lifestyles and shopping habits. “We don’t need to know a particular shopper. We need to know what characteristics this shopper has and that, when those characteristics are present, this is what a person usually does.”
This technology makes it possible to predict what a person may or may not do in a shop. If, for example, a woman is walking quickly towards the sock section, a store can automatically put ads on screens specifically for that person. If she looks like the type of person who wants to buy socks, they will show her adverts for socks. 
If it sounds familiar, it’s because the internet has been using techniques like these for years. If you search for something on Amazon, you’ll get ads for similar products on other sites. But it’s not easy to use these systems in shops. People do not react to cameras in the same way as they do to cookies on websites.
One company, Hoxton Analytics, has developed a technology that puts people into categories based on the shoes they are wearing. By analysing the style and size of people’s shoes, the system can identify a customer ’s gender with 75-80% accuracy.
Owen McCormack, Hoxton Analytics CEO, says that they wanted the system to be different from facial recognition. “I thought, why don’t we simply look at the clothes someone’s wearing? ” he said. “If I just showed you a photo of someone’s body, you could probably tell me what gender they are. But pointing a camera at someone’s body feels just as creepy as facial recognition. The idea was – what about people’s shoes?”
People use the word “creepy” a lot during discussions of tracking in stores. Stores need to find a way of getting information without seeming intrusive.
McCormack says, “Right now, shops are doing lots of intrusive things but we just don’t know about it. We tell the shops that, if you know someone’s a male or a female, your advertising will work better. If you know that everyone in your shop right now is a male, you’ll advertise PlayStations not hairdryers.”
It is easy to understand that stores want some of the information online stores collect. We allow this to happen online so why not in shops? But shopping centres are different from websites – you walk from one shop to another without a computer asking you if it’s ok to collect information about you.
But young people who are growing up with online shopping do not think online advertising is invasive. In the CSC report, a survey showed that 72% of people aged 55 or more said they were very uncomfortable with these types of technologies in real shops. But only 51% of 16-24 year olds said they were uncomfortable. In any case, there are more and more eyes watching you and they care a lot about what you’re wearing.",158
"The bestselling title on Amazon in the US is not Harper Lee’s hugely anticipated second novel, Go Set a Watchman, nor George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, nor even Zoella’s much-mocked but much-bought young adult hit, Girl Online . Instead, Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford is topping the charts with her colouring books for adults, taking top spots on Amazon.com’s bestseller lists. 
Basford’s intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4 million copies worldwide to date, with the newly released follow-up Enchanted Forest selling just under 226,000 copies already. They have drawn fans from Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, to the South Korean pop star Kim Ki-Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers. 
“It’s been crazy. The last few weeks since Enchanted Forest came out have been utter madness, but fantastic madness,” said Eleanor Blatherwick, head of sales and marketing at the books’ publisher, small British press Laurence King. “We knew the books would be beautiful but we didn’t realize it would be such a phenomenal success.” 
And it is not just Basford who is reaping the benefits of the hordes of adults who, it turns out, just wanted something to colour in. In the UK, Richard Merritt’s Art Therapy Colouring Book sits in fourth spot on Amazon’s bestseller lists, Millie Marotta’s Animal Kingdom – detailed pictures of animals to colour – sits in seventh and a mindfulness colouring book sits in ninth. Basford’s titles are in second and eighth place – that’s half of Amazon.co.uk’s top ten taken up by colouring books for adults. 
At independent UK publisher Michael O’Mara, which has sold almost 340,000 adult colouring books to date, Head of Publicity, Marketing and Online, Ana McLaughlin, attributes the craze to the way the category has been reimagined as a means of relaxation. “The first one we did was in 2012, Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups . It sold strongly and reprinted but it was in 2014 that it all really mushroomed with Art Therapy . It really took off for us – selling the anti-stress angle gave people permission to enjoy something they might have felt was quite childish,” she said. 
The Mindfulness Colouring Book pushes this perspective particularly strongly, with its publisher telling readers that it is “filled with templates for exquisite scenes and intricate, sophisticated patterns, prompting you to meditate on your artwork as you mindfully and creatively fill these pages with colour ”, and urging potential colourers to “take a few minutes out of your day, wherever you are, and colour your way to peace and calm ”. 
“I think it is really relaxing to do something analogue, to unplug,” said Basford. “And it’s creative. For many people, a blank sheet is very daunting; with a colouring book, you just need to bring the colour. Also, there’s a bit of nostalgia there. So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed. Now, it is socially acceptable; it’s a category of its own. These are books for adults. The art in my books is super intricate.” 
The illustrator, who lives in Aberdeenshire, has been astonished at the reaction since she released Secret Garden in 2013. “I had a kids’ book commissioned and I told them I would like to do one for grown-ups. It really wasn’t a trend then. I drew up the first story and they thought, ‘Let’s go for it’. I was thinking simply that people like me would like to do it. My intention was just to make a book I would like to have. So it’s been a real surprise to see the category bloom.” 
She is currently working on a third book and Michael O’Mara, which already has 17 adult colouring books in circulation, will increase this to 22 by May, with forthcoming titles including The Classic Comic Colouring Book and The Typography Colouring Book. “It’s just an enormous trend and shows no signs of slowing down,” said McLaughlin, adding that those who buy the titles are keen to display their ability to stay within the lines to the world at large. 
“The pictures are all over Twitter and Instagram. People are really proud of them – they are so intricate,” she said. “You don’t have to have any artistic talent but what you create is unique. People send us pictures of them, framed and laminated. The appetite is simply enormous. I reckon people are taking their kids’ pictures off the fridge and replacing them with their own.”",159
"A Canadian man became famous because he gave a free round-the-world trip to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend. The man has now returned from the trip with the woman he chose. Unfortunately, people who followed the story were disappointed because the pair did not fall in love. Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old from Toronto who started a charity, arrived back in Canada with Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher and said the pair were like brother and sister. 
Axani became famous in 2014 when he offered an air ticket to any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher. He reserved a three-week holiday with his girlfriend but they split up and he was unable to change the name on the tickets. 
Axani’s new travelling companion, was, of course, called Elizabeth Gallagher. She was a 23-year-old student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. This Elizabeth Gallagher, who calls herself Quinn, replied to an online posting from Axani and he chose her. Before the trip, she already had a boyfriend. But people still hoped that the globetrotters might fall in love. Unfortunately, they didn’t. 
“I’m going to be very clear,” Axani said, soon after the pair returned to Toronto. “The trip was never a romantic idea. It was completely platonic. I do not think of Quinn in a romantic way at all. She is a good friend. I think of her as a little sister – that is all.” 
But it was difficult to create that brother-sister relationship. “It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t immediate. It took us about a week to really understand each other,” Axani said. They made some mistakes as the pair got to know each other. “At the end of the trip, we’d developed a really great rhythm – one second, we had really funny jokes and, the next second, we knew when the other person needed time alone.” 
The pair did not fall in love, but Axani said the trip was “fantastic”. They visited Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Khao Lak (in Thailand) and Hong Kong. A favourite place was Prague, Axani said, where they met more people than anywhere else on the trip. “During two and a half days, I think we met about 24 people. So that’s a lot of stories, that’s a lot of people and that’s a lot of love for their home city of Prague.” 
People followed the pair on Twitter and Instagram, Axani said. And they were even recognized in the street in Hong Kong. “It was an adventure. We had a great time. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other.” 
Axani arrived back in Toronto at 3am and went directly to a meeting at his charity, A Ticket Forward. Axani started the charity after his online posting went viral – he plans to offer round-the-world-trips to victims of abuse, cancer and war. 
Axani also wants to turn his story into a television show or film, he said. “There’s been lots of interest from many production companies.” Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher yet. “I’m not looking for anything. But we’ll see,” he said. “As always, life is a journey.”",160
"Police and intelligence agencies around the world have, for almost 100 years, used lie detectors to help convict criminals or find spies and traitors.
But the polygraph could soon be defunct. Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have developed a new method that has a success rate, in tests, of over 70%. This new method could be in use in police stations around the world within a decade. It doesn’t monitor facial tics, talking too much or waving of arms, which are all signs that someone is lying. The new method monitors full-body motion, which can show that the person is feeling guilty.
The polygraph is widely used in the US in criminal cases and for security clearance for the FBI and CIA but is much less popular in Europe. Many people in the scientific and legal communities do not believe that it is reliable. By contrast, the new method has performed well in experiments.
The basic thought is that liars fidget more and so the use of an all-body motion suit – the kind used in films to create computer-generated characters – will record this. The suit has 17 sensors that register movement up to 120 times per second in three dimensions for 23 joints.
One of the research team, Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said that years of research show that an interviewer will know whether someone is telling the truth, and not lies, in only about 55 times out of 100.
He said the new method, by contrast, was right over 70% of the time. And he was confident they would be able to do better. In some tests, the team has already achieved more than 80%.
Anderson said: “Guilty people fidget more and we can measure this.”
Anderson added that the research had a special significance at this time because of a recent US Senate report on torture by the CIA. There are problems with torture from a moral point of view but it is also a very unreliable way of getting accurate information. “We have known for a long time that torture does not work,” Anderson said. The new method offers a good alternative to interviews.
The research paper was written by Dr Sophie van der Zee of Cambridge University, Professor Ronald Poppe of Utrecht University, Professor Paul Taylor of Lancaster University and Anderson.
The polygraph was created in 1921 by policeman John Larson. It records changes in pulse, blood pressure, sweating and breathing to find out whether someone is lying.
In movies, the polygraph is always right, But, in 1998, the US Supreme Court ruled that there was no consensus that the polygraph was reliable. This conclusion was supported by the US National Academy of Scientists in 2003.
The experiment carried out by Anderson and his colleagues involved 180 students and employees at Lancaster University – half of the people were told to tell the truth and half to lie. They were each paid £7.50 for their participation in the 70-minute experiment, involving two tests.
Some were interviewed about a computer game Never End, which they played for seven minutes. Others lied about playing the game – they had only seen notes about it.
The second test involved a lost wallet containing £5. Some were asked to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box. Others hid it and lied about it.
“Overall, we correctly guessed whether 82.2% (truths: 88.9%; lies: 75.6%) of the interviewees were telling the truth or lying based on the movements in their individual limbs,” the report says.
Anderson said: “First, we looked at how much different body parts showed that someone was lying. We found that liars wave their arms more, but this is only at the 60% level that you can get from a polygraph.
“The success came when we looked at total body motion. That tells truth from lies over 70% of the time and we believe we can improve it even more by combining it with optimal questioning techniques.”
Another advantage is that total body motion is mostly the same in people who have different cultural backgrounds and different levels of anxiety – these things confuse other lie-detection technologies, Anderson said.
The use of all-body suits is expensive – they cost about £30,000 – and they can be uncomfortable, so Anderson and his colleagues are now studying low-cost alternatives. These include using motion-sensing technology from computer games, such as the Kinect devices developed by Microsoft for the Xbox.
Anderson admits that intelligence agencies such as the CIA could teach agents how to trick the full-body motion method by keeping their bodies completely still. But he said that in itself would be a giveaway.",161
"Lots of us know we are sleep-deprived but imagine if we could fix it with a fairly simple solution: getting up later. In a speech at the British Science Festival, Dr Paul Kelley, clinical research associate at the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University, called for schools to stagger their starting times to work with the natural biological rhythms of their students. It would improve cognitive performance, exam results and students’ health (sleep deprivation has been linked with diabetes, depression, obesity and an impaired immune system). 
It follows a paper, published in 2014, in which he noted that, when children are around ten, their biological wake-up time is about 6.30am; at 16, this rises to 8am; and, at 18, someone you may think of as a lazy teenager actually has a natural waking hour of 9am. The conventional school starting time works for 10-year-olds but not 16- to 18-year-olds. For the older teenagers, it might be more sensible to start the school day at 11am or even later. “A 7am alarm call for older adolescents,” Kelley and his colleagues pointed out in the paper, “is the equivalent of a 4.30am start for a teacher in their 50s.” 
He says it’s not as simple as persuading teenagers to go to bed earlier. “The body’s natural rhythm is controlled by a particular kind of light,” says Kelley. “The eye doesn’t just contain rods and cones; it contains cells that then report to the suprachiasmatic nuclei in the hypothalamus.” This part of the brain controls our circadian rhythms over a 24-hour cycle. “It’s the light that controls it. It’s like saying: 'Why can’t you control your heartbeat?'” 
But it isn’t just students who would benefit from a later start. Kelley says the working day should be more forgiving of our natural rhythms. Describing the average sleep loss per night for different age groups, he says: “Between 14 and 24, it’s more than two hours. For people aged between 24 and about 30 or 35, it’s about an hour and a half. That can continue up until you’re about 55 when it’s in balance again. The 10-year-old and 55-year-old wake and sleep naturally at the same time.” 
This might be why, he adds, the traditional nine to five is so ingrained; it is maintained by bosses, many of them in their mid-50s and upwards because “it is best for them”. So, should workplaces have staggered starting times, too? Should those in their 50s and above come in at 8am, while those in their 30s start at 10am and the teenage intern or apprentice be encouraged to turn up at 11am? Kelley says that synchronized hours could have “many positive consequences. The positive side of this is people’s performance, mood and health will improve. It’s very uplifting in a way because it’s a solution that will make people less ill, and happier and better at what they do.” 
There would probably be fewer accidents as drivers would be more alert, he says. It could spell the end of rush hour as people stagger their work and school-run times. A later start to the day for many, says Kelley, “is something that would benefit everyone, particularly families. Parents go and try to wake up teenagers who are waking up three hours too early. It creates tensions for everybody.” 
So, what time does Kelley start work? “I am 67 so that means I’m back to being ten years old and I get up just after six. I wake naturally.” And, yes, he says he finds the start of his working day much easier now than he did when he was younger.",162
"For 85 years, it was little more than a featureless grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system, but, on 15 July, Pluto was seen in high resolution for the first time, revealing dramatic mountain ranges made from solid water ice on a scale to rival the Alps or the Rockies. 
The extraordinary images of the former ninth planet and its large moon, Charon, beamed 4bn miles back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft, mark the climax of a mission that has been quietly underway for nearly a decade. 
Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator, described the images as a “home run” for the team. “New Horizons is returning amazing results already. The data look absolutely gorgeous, and Pluto and Charon are just mind-blowing.” 
One of the biggest surprises was the discovery that “there are mountains in the Kuiper belt ”, the solar system’s mysterious “third zone” where Pluto sits amid around 100,000 smaller icy objects. John Spencer, a mission scientist, said the mountains appear to be around 11,000ft high and several hundred miles across. “These are pretty significant mountains.” 
The detailed image of one edge of the dwarf planet showed not a single crater, hinting that the surface has been recently “paved over” by geological activity, which could include dramatic geysers blasting plumes of ice into the atmosphere or cryo-volcanoes that erupt in explosions of ice rather than molten rock. 
In a nod to Pluto’s former status as the ninth planet, until it was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, the NASA press conference began with a rundown of spectacular images of the sun and the eight official planets. “We’ve brought what was previously a blurred point of light into focus,” said Dwayne Brown, NASA spokesman, as scientists and journalists waited for the image to be unveiled. 
Stern described the images as “just skimming the surface” of what would be learnt about the planet during the coming year. They have already produced some surprises. Scientists believe the mountains are made from water ice with just a thin veneer of “exotic” ices, methane and nitrogen. “You can’t make mountains out of methane and nitrogen,” said Spencer. 
“Water ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains and that’s what we think we’re seeing here. This is the first time we’ve seen this. The methane and nitrogen are just a coating.” The mountains on Pluto are likely to have formed no more than 100m years ago – extremely recently given the 4.56bn-year-old solar system. This suggests the close-up region, which covers about 1% of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active. The images are the first to show ice mountains outside of the moons of giant planets and raises the question of what kind of geological process could be generating the mountainous landscape. 
The structures, together with the smoothness of Pluto’s surface, suggest that geological activity is taking place and smoothing over depressions caused by asteroid impacts. Scientists believe this “paving” process could be the result of internal heat that softens rock and ice or from snowfalls that cover the surface. For scale, the images are so detailed that, if the craft were flying over London, we would be able to pick out the runways at Heathrow airport. 
The distance to Pluto – 5bn km – means it takes New Horizons hours to send back a single picture and it will take 16 months to send all the data it has accumulated during the fly-by. The team also announced that the heart-shaped feature visible on Pluto will now be known as the Tombaugh Regio, in honour of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930. 
The new view of Charon reveals a varied, complex terrain. An area of cliffs and troughs stretching about 1,000km suggests widespread fracturing of Charon’s surface, which could also be the result of geological activity. The image also shows a dramatic canyon estimated to be 7 to 9km deep. 
Cathy Olkin, a mission scientist, said: “Charon just blew our socks off when we had the new image today. The team has just been abuzz. 
There is so much interesting science in this one image alone.” Pluto is thought to be composed of about two thirds rock encased in a lot of ice, with surface temperatures of about minus 230C. As the £460m mission travels onwards into the Kuiper belt, scientists hope that it will open up a window on the ancient solar system and the origins of planets, potentially helping to explain the formation of the Earth itself. 
Andrew Coates, head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: “These Kuiper belt objects are the building blocks of the outer solar system. They’re all very cold – it’s like a cosmic deep freeze. It’s the best way of preserving solar system history. That is what is so fascinating about this. It’s a really thrilling time for solar system exploration.” 
In August 2015, mission scientists will choose which of two objects to visit next. NASA estimates that the spacecraft will be able to keep recording and transmitting until the mid-2030s. Then, its plutonium power source will run out and it will shut down, drifting outwards towards the edge of the solar system and deep space beyond. 
New Horizons also observed the smaller members of the Pluto system, which includes four other moons: Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos. A new sneak-peek image of Hydra is the first to reveal its apparent irregular shape and its size, estimated to be about 43 by 33km. “New Horizons is a true mission of exploration, showing us why basic scientific research is so important,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. 
“The mission has had nine years to build expectations about what we would see during closest approach to Pluto and Charon. Today, we get the first sampling of the scientific treasure collected during those critical moments and I can tell you it dramatically surpasses those high expectations.” 
The observations also indicate Hydra’s surface is probably coated with water ice. Future images will reveal more clues about the formation of this, and the other moon, billions of years ago.",163
"It is no longer legal to smoke a cigarette inside a bar in the world ’s drinking capital, New Orleans, Louisiana. Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans city government has begun trying to reduce noise problems. The city is now stricter on noise in bars and nightclubs – and, at the same time, it has introduced new rules on noise.
“It is the wrong time for this,” complains bar-owner William Walker. He hates the anti-smoking law. “If they force people outside the bar to smoke, it is going to increase the tension that’s already there.”
Many of New Orleans’s best bars are in quiet neighbourhoods. Martha Wood lives beside a loud bar that has live music. “The bar was one reason I bought the house so I won’t ever complain about the noise,” says Wood. She also manages a live-music bar.
The Maple Leaf club became smoke-free in 2014. Another club also became smoke-free because performers asked for smoke-free nights. “A lot of the performance venues were already starting to show that consideration to performers. I wish the city had just let that happen, not force the ban into every bar that doesn’t have music,” says Zalia BeVille, manager of the All Ways Lounge. 
Luckily, All Ways has an outdoor patio. Another bar, Lost Love Lounge, doesn’t have a patio. The owner, Geoff Douville, loves the ban – before, he felt forced to live with smoke to keep his bar popular. “I couldn’t ban smoking in my bar without a ban in the whole city,” says Douville. “People think I have that choice. But, if I make a no-smoking rule, they will choose another bar with smoking.”
Many small business owners also fear that the smoke-free rule will make them lose money. Neil Timms owns an English pub and saw a smoking ban before, in England. “Back home in England, every pub I knew closed because of the smoking ban,” remembers Timms of England’s ban, which began in 2007. To avoid the same problems, he’s spending money to build a patio.
But Douville feels the ban could be a great business opportunity. “There are lots of people who would enjoy coming to our bar but they never came because they didn’t want to smell like smoke for the next seven days – now, those people can come.” Douville isn’t worried about noise complaints: “No court is going to say a bar is a ‘nuisance’ after the city has introduced a smoking ban that forces you to go outside!” he says.
Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced the ban, disagrees: “The responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their customers respectful outside as well,” she says. “The owners need to tell them to go and have a smoke but be respectful to their communities. The idea that we can’t have clean air because it will cause noise problems is ridiculous. We can have clean air without noise problems – I think it’s about communication and creating partnerships between the communities and the businesses.”
Many people were worried that the police would not have time to give bars warnings and fines. So the health department will do it. Bar customers must “fill out a form or call 311 and include photographs of illegal smoking”.
Geoff Douville says that he’s used to noise complaints. “You will see: the neighbours who complain about the noise now are going to be the same ones who wanted the smoking ban. Of course they’re going to complain, ” he adds. “But it doesn’t mean they’re going to win.”",164
"Until the end, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, was still full of surprises. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January 2016 and proved that he hadn’t lost his gift for making dramatic statements as well as challenging, disturbing music.
Throughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. He became a singer-songwriter, a pioneer of glam-rock, then got into what he called “plastic soul”, before moving to Berlin to create innovative electronic music. His ability to mix brilliant changes of sound and image is unique in pop history.
Bowie was born David Robert Jones in south London. In 1953, the family moved to Kent, where David showed talent for singing and playing the recorder. Later, he studied art, music and design.
At 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads. It was clear that David’s talents and ambition meant that he should go solo. David took the name Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
Bowie’s first album, released in June 1967, was titled simply David Bowie. In July 1969, Bowie released Space Oddity, the song that would give him his first commercial breakthrough. Timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a top five UK hit.
In March 1970, Bowie married art student, Angela Barnett. The Man Who Sold the World was released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the following year. With its daring songwriting and broody, hard-rock sound, it was the first album to really show his writing and performing gifts. The album’s themes included immortality, insanity, murder and mysticism, which showed that Bowie was a songwriter who was thinking outside of pop’s usual boundaries.
He followed it with 1972’s Hunky Dory, a mix of wordy, elaborate songwriting. It was an excellent collection that met with only moderate success but that all changed with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later that year.
This time, Bowie appeared as a science-fiction character – an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting planet Earth. The hit single Starman brought instant success for the album.
Everything Bowie touched turned to gold. He had his first UK number 1 album with Aladdin Sane (1973), which included the hit singles The Jean Genie and Drive-in Saturday. But Bowie was already planning his next career moves.
His increasing interest in funk and soul music could be heard on the album Young Americans (1975), which gave him a US chart-topper with Fame (with John Lennon as a guest vocalist).
With the album Station to Station (1976), Bowie introduced a new persona, the Thin White Duke. This persona was the same as his role as a sad space traveller in Nicolas Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Bowie’s relationship with his wife had been suffering under the pressures of success and the couple divorced in 1980. This was a year of further creative triumph, bringing a fine album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and its chart-topping single, Ashes to Ashes, followed by a period playing the title role in The Elephant Man on the Broadway stage.
He achieved a number 1 single with his 1981 partnership with Queen, Under Pressure, and became increasingly involved with different media. He appeared in the German movie Christiane F (1981) and wrote music for the soundtrack. He had another chart hit with Cat People (Putting Out Fire) from Paul Schrader’s movie Cat People (1982).
1983 was the year in which he put his energy into the album Let’s Dance and follow-up concerts. Let’s Dance turned Bowie into a crowd-friendly global rock star, with the album and its singles Let’s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all becoming huge international hits.
This was the heyday of MTV and Bowie’s talent for eye-catching videos increased his popularity, while the six-month Serious Moonlight tour drew massive crowds. It was to be the most commercially successful period of his career.
At the 1985 Live Aid famine relief concert at Wembley Stadium, Bowie was one of the best performers. In addition, that year, he teamed up with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single Dancing in the Street, which quickly went to number 1.
A few days after his appearance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model Iman and the couple bought a home in New York.
For the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he included elements of soul, electronica and hip hop. It topped the UK album chart and gave him a top 10 single, Jump They Say.
New media and technology influenced his recordings, too. His 1999 album Hours… was based around music he had written for a computer game called Omikron, in which Bowie and Iman appeared as characters. The birth of Bowie and Iman’s daughter, Alexandria, followed in August 2000.
As an adopted New Yorker, Bowie was the opening act at the Concert for New York City in October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John in a benefit show six weeks after the 9/11 attacks.
During his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie had chest pains while performing in Germany and needed emergency surgery in Hamburg.
He saw the medical emergency as a warning and started to slow down. In February 2006, he was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award. He was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
The Next Day (2013) was his first album of new material in a decade. It included the single Where Are We Now?, which gave him his first UK top 10 hit since 1993. The album went to the top of the charts in Britain and around the world. In 2014, Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British Male, making him the oldest person to get the award.
He is survived by Iman, their daughter, Alexandria, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his son, Duncan, from his first marriage.",165
"Ever since he was diagnosed HIV positive, Moses King, 48, has had one major problem. He has been able to cope with the stigma of being HIV positive – widespread in Liberia – and he was able to access antiretroviral medication, distributed by the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children could not get the right food to eat. A subsistence farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. But he could not afford meat and fish – expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein.
Pate K Chon, a counsellor who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, provided a surprising solution. Since watching a documentary about a fish farm in Thailand several years earlier, she had thought of setting up a similar project in Liberia, allowing HIV sufferers to have work and also access a stable source of protein.
“I saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea,” said Chon, herself diagnosed with HIV in 1992. “So many of the people I work with don’t have the money to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein – it doesn’t cause health problems like other sources, and it is something we can farm.”
Chon began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, Chon met John Sheehy, a philanthropist. Sheehy raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, and set about learning about fish farming, doing an online course through Cornell University and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa.
“I raised the money and built the farm, learned the proper tank layout and water flow system,” said Sheehy. “A lot of my knowledge was self-taught, and now I would love to be able to write a manual and share it with other people,” he added.
The project has now grown into the Grow2Feed Liberia Fish Farm, with 12 tanks, which, when full, will each have 5,000 fish – providing up to 200,000 fish per year, serving a community of 1,200 mainly HIV-positive people, including King and his family.
In addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to irrigate crops, also providing food and money for the community.
“The members of the community live near the farm, and have agreed to be part of the co-operative,” said Sheehy. “Many work on the farm and what they get in return is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other essential items. The fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society – now they are trading with people in the market every week.”
According to Liberia’s health survey,1.5% of Liberia’s 3.5 million people are HIV positive, with 60% of those women or girls. Stigma and discrimination still surround the illness, and around half of all people with HIV in the country are untreated.
Good nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. Research has shown they need much higher levels of protein to stop their health deteriorating and to allow healthy growth. “Nutrition is one of the key things if you are taking antiretroviral drugs,” said Chon. “The drugs are toxic and, if you don’t have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive imported rice, even though we should be growing it ourselves and fish is difficult for most people to afford.”
“Fish farming is absolutely possible in Africa,” said Paul White, owner of the HydroFish fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. “A lot of the fish on the market comes from China and is imported frozen. It is of a quality that could never enter Europe or America.” He said there had been a lack of investment in fish production but that things were changing now.
Some critics are sceptical of farmed fish, saying fish can be inbred and have high levels of toxins. But Sheehy said good practice can reduce these problems. “A lot of farmed fish is inbred, which does cause problems, but we are using a process with local fish from Liberia, not fish from another region,” said Sheehy. “And we are not using lakes that are cornered off, where the fish absorb all the toxins in the lake. We can control the environment using the tanks and we test the water and monitor it constantly.”
Sheehy hopes to open more fish farms throughout Liberia and the region. “A rice-growing co-op in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America,” said Sheehy. “But we operate 100% non-profit and we always will.”",166
"Coal will probably rival oil as the world’s biggest source of energy in the next five years, with possible disastrous consequences for the climate, says the world’s leading authority on energy economics.
One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the US.
New research from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that coal consumption is increasing all over the world – even in countries and regions with carbon-cutting targets – except in the US, where shale gas is now more popular than coal. The decline of coal consumption in the US has helped to cut prices for coal globally. This has made it more attractive, even in Europe where coal use was supposed to be discouraged by the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the IEA, said that coal consumption “continues to grow each year and, if no changes are made, coal will catch oil within a decade.”
Coal is available in large amounts and found in most regions of the world, unlike conventional oil and gas, and can be cheaply extracted. According to the IEA, China and India will drive world coal use in the coming five years, with India likely to overtake the US as the world’s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter.
According to the IEA’s Medium-Term Coal Market Report the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today.
With the highest carbon emissions of any major fossil fuel, coal is a huge contributor to climate change, particularly when burned in old-fashioned, inefficient power stations. When these are not equipped with special “scrubbing” equipment to remove chemicals, coal can also produce sulphur emissions – the leading cause of acid rain – and mercury and soot-particle pollution.
Van der Hoeven said that, without a high carbon price to discourage the growth in coal use and encourage cleaner technologies such as renewable power, only competition from lower-priced gas could reduce demand for coal. This has happened in the US, due to the extraordinary increase in the production of shale gas in that market in the past five years.
She said: “The US experience suggests that a more efficient gas market can reduce coal use, carbon dioxide emissions and consumers’ electricity bills. Europe, China and other regions should take note.”
If something isn’t done, the world faces an increased risk of climate change as a result of this fast-increasing consumption of the highest carbon fossil fuel.",167
"Mountain climber, Kenton Cool, has just flown down from Everest base camp to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Cool is talking about the three amazing climbs he completed the previous weekend. Early on Saturday morning, he reached the summit of Nuptse, the first of the three main summits in the Everest “horseshoe”. Later that day, he climbed to the summit of Everest, and reached the top in complete darkness early on Sunday. He then continued to the summit of Lhotse, the third of the three peaks, on Monday morning. 
He says he took advantage of a rare opportunity. “For the first time since the late 1990s, there were fixed ropes on all three mountains. What I did was still a great physical achievement. But the person who does it next will do it without ropes or bottled oxygen.” 
Everest was first climbed 60 years ago. I asked Cool to look forward and imagine what top climbers might do 60 years from now. “I hate to think,” he says, but he mentions the Swiss climber, Ueli Steck, who fled the mountain in April after an argument with a group of Sherpas. Steck was planning to climb Everest’s west ridge and then immediately climb Lhotse via a new route without fixed ropes. “Ueli trained like a machine,” Cool says. “He’s a fantastic climber. It would have been amazing.” 
What will tourism look like in the Everest region in the future? One clue is in the amazing helicopter rescue by Simone Moro, Steck’s climbing partner. Moro flew back to Everest on Tuesday in a powerful helicopter to rescue a climber at 7,800 metres. 
It was the highest rescue ever on Everest and highlights the increase in helicopter flights in recent years. By 2073, there might be a helipad on the mountain that would bring tourists. At the moment, they use helicopters to rescue both climbers and trekkers who walk to Everest base camp. 
Mountain geographer and environmentalist, Alton Byers, thinks it is not certain that Everest can take more tourists. The combination of climate change and tourism, he says, is putting new pressure on the area. Glaciers in the Everest region are getting smaller, and even disappearing, and this is having a big effect already. “Everywhere you go, people are talking about how there’s less water. There’s less water for agriculture and less water for all the new lodges that they are building.” 
In the Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar they are building a new pipeline to bring water for the tourists. The local stream is contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough water for a place that is full of tourists. “Every village is digging a pit for garbage. Khumbu has the highest landfill sites in the world,” he says. Human waste is now taken away in plastic barrels but then, according to Byers, these barrels are emptied into a huge pit down the valley – it could contaminate the region’s streams and rivers. 
“We can solve these problems, but we need to be serious about it,” he says. “One climber can spend $85,000 to climb Everest. And that’s fine. But we’re going to have to look at these other problems. For half a million dollars a year, you could solve most of them.” 
Climate change is another problem. Weather patterns are changing and this is also having an effect on tourism. Cloudy weather is closing Lukla Airport, the entrance to the Everest region, more often. They are building a new road for 4x4s to Lukla, to make sure tourists and their money can reach Everest. But Byers is worried that these new roads, which they are building very quickly, could cause soil erosion and landslides. He says that Everest is the perfect place to study some of these problems, like the effects of climate change and tourism.",168
"People are talking a lot about loneliness at the moment. The Office for National Statistics says that Britain is the loneliest place in Europe. British people have fewer strong friendships than other Europeans and they know their neighbours less well. Research at the University of Chicago has found that loneliness is twice as bad for older people’s health as obesity. They also found that loneliness causes almost as many deaths as poverty.
This is shocking but these studies do not talk about loneliness in younger adults. In 2010, a Mental Health Foundation survey found that loneliness was a bigger worry for young people than for the elderly. The 18- to 34-year-olds in the survey felt lonely more often, worried more about feeling alone and felt more depressed because of loneliness than people over 55.
“We know that loneliness is a problem for the elderly and there are day centres and charities to help them,” says Sam Challis, of the mental health charity Mind, “but, young people over 21 are too old for youth services.” This is not good because loneliness can cause mental health problems – loneliness causes stress, depression, paranoia, anxiety, addiction and it can cause suicide.
But what can young people do to prevent loneliness? One researcher says that social media and the internet can be both a good thing and a problem. They are a good thing when they allow us to communicate with friends and family far away but not when they replace face-to-face contact. “People present ‘perfect’ versions of themselves online and we expect to have social lives like the lives we see in the media,” says Challis. If we compare the ‘perfect’ lives of our friends with our own lives, this can make us want to stay at home alone.
A study of social media at the University of Michigan in 2013 found that using technology to help you meet new people can be a good thing. And, if you can’t go out, the internet can help you.
For example, Mumsnet, an online network for parents, can help you feel less alone when you are at home with young children.
Helplines can also reduce loneliness, at least in the short term. One in four of men who call the emotional support charity Samaritans say they are lonely. Get Connected is a free helpline for young people, where they can get help with emotional and mental health problems caused by loneliness.
At work, it can be a good idea to tell your employer how you’re feeling. Talking to your colleagues may seem like a waste of time but it can help to protect us from the emotional and psychological problems caused by working too hard.
According to recent research, loneliness is killing the elderly and, with an ageing population, we should try to reduce our isolation before it is too late. “Getting older doesn’t have to mean getting lonelier,” says Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive of the relationship counselling service Relate. “But it is very important to create good- quality relationships earlier in life.”",169
"Behind the bright lights and mirrored panels, cameras are watching you. If you pick up a boot, a camera will make sure you don’t put it into your bag. Enter a department store and you will be watched. But new technology is less focused on shoplifting and more interested in your age, sex and shopping habits.
A few months ago, IT company Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) wrote a report that said around 30% of stores use facial recognition technology to track customers in-store. Facial recognition is a technology that can identify people by analysing and comparing facial features from a database. It uses devices such as Intel RealSense cameras, which are able to analyse everything from particular expressions to the clothing brands someone is wearing.
Intel spokesman Joe Jensen says that the aim of using RealSense technology in shops is not to create databases of specific people’s lives but to build generalized models of people’s lifestyles and shopping habits. “We don’t need to know a particular customer. We need to know that this shopper has these characteristics and that, when those characteristics are present, this is what a person tends to do.”
If you combine recognition technology with databases of previous customer patterns, you can start to predict a lot about what a person may or may not do in a shop. If, for example, there’s a woman walking quickly towards the sock section, you can use that data to predict she wants to buy socks. That could allow a store to automatically put targeted ads on screens aimed specifically at that person. If she looks like the type of person who wants to buy socks, they will show her adverts for socks.
If it sounds familiar, it’s because the online world has been using techniques like these for years. If you search for something on Amazon, you’ll get targeted ads for similar products on other sites. But it’s not easy to bring these systems into the physical world. People do not react to cameras in the same way as they do to browser cookies.
Hoxton Analytics, a team of data scientists in London, has developed a technology that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to categorize people based on the shoes they are wearing. By analysing the style and size of people’s footwear as they walk past the sensor, the system can identify a customer’s gender with 75-80% accuracy.
Owen McCormack, Hoxton Analytics CEO, says that the focus of the system was partly a reaction to facial recognition. “My idea was, why don’t we simply consider the clothes someone’s wearing?” he said. “If I just showed you a photo of someone’s body, you could probably tell me what gender they are. However, pointing a camera at someone’s chest or hips feels just as creepy as facial recognition. The idea was – what about people’s shoes?”
People use the word “creepy” a lot during discussions of in-store tracking. For stores and data scientists, the aim is to find a way of getting information without seeming intrusive.
For McCormack, the argument is based on the fact that personal information isn’t collected. “Right now, shops are doing lots of incredibly invasive things but we just don’t know about it. What we say is that, if you know someone’s a male or a female, then your advertising will be much more efficient. If you know that everyone in your shop right now is a male, you’ll be advertising PlayStations not hairdryers.”
From the perspective of stores, it’s understandable that physical shops want some of the information online shops collect. We allow this to happen online so why not offline? Online, you get a pop-up asking you to accept cookies. But you can’t ask for people’s consent in the same way when they move from one physical shop to another.
But it’s also true that the generation that is growing up with online shopping does not see online advertising as so invasive. In the CSC report, a survey showed that 72% of people aged 55 or more said they were very uncomfortable with these types of technologies in physical shops. But only 51% of 16-24 year olds said they were uncomfortable.
Are younger people more open because they are more familiar with digital technology or do they believe in the honesty of organizations offering free services? Is this kind of technology always creepy or does it depend? In any case, there are a growing number of eyes between the shelves and they care a lot about what you’re wearing.",170
"Not many exercise classes have a tea break in the middle. But Margaret Allen’s class has one. After a gentle warm-up and a few quick exercises, the 93-year-old great-grandmother lets her group sit down and relax with a cup of tea. Some of the eight people in the class look like they need a break, but Allen is not even sweating. 
The general rule is that eating just before doing sport is not a good idea and especially not halfway through the class. But, on the afternoon I visit Allen’s class in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, they eat fruitcake during the break. The cake was made for Allen’s recent birthday by her 89-year-old sister, Joan. 
The ladies have just finished their cake when Allen gets up again. She plays a lively Scottish song and there is lots of toe pointing and leg kicking. Forty-five minutes later, the class is finally over. 
Allen has been leading classes in the north-east town for 45 years. She wasn’t very sporty at school, but she started playing the piano for a keep-fit class during the second world war and started leading the class in her 40s when the old instructor retired. 
At one time, Allen’s class had more than 18 regulars, each paying £1 a time. But, these days, the group is getting smaller. During the tea break, the ladies discuss a funeral that most of them went to that week for one of the younger people in the group who died recently, aged 68. 
Allen, who loves dancing, has never done any formal training to be a fitness instructor. Instead, she got ideas for her own moves from five fitness videos from the BBC. Allen thinks she is healthy because she keeps busy, especially since her husband died in 1997. She started writing poetry when she was 80. 
Allen is the oldest, her sister the second oldest. The baby of the group is 60-year-old Jean Cunion, who is a bit embarrassed to say that she is perhaps the least fit of the group. “I remember, the first time I came, Margaret said, 'Who’s that breathing heavily?' and I had to say it was me.” Ruth Steere, 76, says Allen always has her back to the class, but she always knows what’s happening: “She always shouts at us if we go wrong. She’s very good at knowing what we are doing.” 
“I write poems about everything. I just can’t stop,” she says, when she phones me a few days after the interview to read out a poem she has written about the joys of exercise. She still plays the piano and gives speeches. She also did a computer course when she was 88. 
Ageing is no fun, she says. She reads me a few lines from a poem she has written called ’That Beast Called Age’. She happily remembers a doctor who saw her for the first time a few years ago, who said he didn’t believe she was more than 78: “I said, 'Thank you, doctor. You can go now.'” She also has a practical idea for people who are overweight: “I just think people shouldn’t eat too much. When I hear someone say, 'Oh, I can’t lose weight', I say: 'Sellotape.'” She mimes taping her mouth shut. “I said this the other day to a big fat man. Everything in moderation is my motto.” Earlier in 2013, Allen was watching the news and saw a woman get the British Empire Medal. “The woman said: 'I’m 80 and I’m the oldest fitness instructor in the country!' I thought: 'No, you’re not.'” But Allen won’t write to the Queen to complain.",171
"A team at Leicester University has told the world that the body they found under a local car park is the body of King Richard III. There were cheers when Richard Buckley, leader of the team of archaeologists, finally said that they were certain they had found the body of the king. 
The evidence is very strong. The scientists who did the DNA tests, the people who created the computer-imaging technology to look at the bones in extraordinary detail, the genealogists who found a distant descendant with matching DNA, and the academics who read old texts looking for accounts of the king’s death and burial all gave their findings. 
Work has started on designing a new tomb in Leicester Cathedral, only 100 yards from the excavation site. There will be a ceremony to lay him into his new grave there, probably next year. Leicester’s Museums’ Service is working on plans for a new visitor centre in an old school building next to the site. 
Richard died at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485, the last English king to die in battle. The researchers revealed how he died for the first time. One picture showed the bottom of his skull cut off by one terrible hit, probably from a razor-sharp iron axe. The axe probably went several centimetres into his brain and, experts say, he would have been unconscious at once and dead very soon. 
The injury confirms the story that he died in the middle of the battle without his horse. In Shakespeare’s play, he cries: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Another hit with a sword, which also went through the bone and into the brain, would also have killed him. But many of the other injuries were after death, which suggests that the king’s naked body was mutilated as it was brought back to Leicester. 
One terrible injury was certainly after death and could not have happened when his lower body was protected by armour. It suggests the story that his naked corpse was brought back on a horse and mutilated is true. Bob Savage, a medieval weapons expert, said it was probably not a war weapon. It was probably the sort of sharp knife a workman normally carried. 
Michael Ibsen, identified as the descendant of Richard’s sister, was shocked when he heard the confirmation on Sunday. “My head is still not clear now,” he said. “Many, many hundreds of people died on that field that day. He was a king, but just one of the dead. He lived in very violent times and these deaths would not have been pretty or quick.” 
It was Mathew Morris who first found the body, in the first hour of the first day of the excavation. At first, he did not believe it was the king. He was digging in the car park, a place that local historians and the Richard III Society said was probably the site of the lost church of Grey Friars. The priests of Grey Friars were brave – they took the body of the king and buried him in their church. 
Ten days later, on 5 September, when more excavation proved Morris had found the right place, he returned with Lin Foxhall, head of the archaeology department, to excavate the body. “We did it the usual way, lifting the arms, legs and skull first, and then we lifted the torso – so it was only when we finally saw the twisted spine that I thought: 'My word, I think we’ve found him.'” 
For Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society, Richard was the true king, the last king of the north, a worthy and brave leader who was a victim of Shakespeare’s negative propaganda. Many people still believe he killed the little princes in the tower: the child Edward V and his brother Richard, were kept as prisoners in the Tower of London when Richard III became king and they were never seen alive again. Some bones were found at the tower centuries later, but it is not certain they are the princes’. There may be a need for more DNA detective work there.",172
"It could be the best thing since Trevor Baylis’s wind-up radio in the pre-internet 1990s – a cheap light that draws free power from gravity and could end the use of dangerous kerosene-fuelled lamps in Africa and India.
But when British designer, Patrick Hunt, went down the conventional route of bank or venture capital finance to get his invention kickstarted commercially, he hit a problem. “We tried to get funding to make it happen, but it’s slow and complex and it’s unproven and nobody wants to take a risk,” he said.
So he tried crowdfunding on a US website, Indiegogo, which had recently opened up in the UK. Within five days, he had hit his target and raised £36,200. So popular was his campaign at the end of 2012 to entice donations from the public that within 40 days he had raised a colossal £400,000.
The LED light is powered by a dynamo driven by the descent of a 10kg bag of rocks. The weight is attached to the light, lifted to a height of about 2m, and while it is allowed to slowly fall to the ground it will generate enough power for half an hour of light.
Hunt is preparing for production in China and will test the market again by delivering 1,000 of the lights to Africa before the full mass production of what he hopes will be millions of units.
He is one of a new wave of entrepreneurs turning to the fast-growing crowdfunding industry for finance. Another new site is InvestingZone, which matches wealthy individuals with start-up entrepreneurs.
Indiegogo does not offer shares but allows users to offer “perks” for different levels of donation – those helping to fund Hunt’s innovative light not only got to feel good about helping the less well off but also got their own light.
For Danae Ringelmann, co-founder of Indiegogo, the “gravity light” is a perfect example of how meritocratic crowdfunding can be and how it can test an entrepreneur’s idea. “It is the first time that finance has been fast, efficient and meritocratic, because it is not about 'How do I get access to the decision makers in that bank?' or 'Who do I know in that venture capital outfit?' This is all about proving your worth to your customers and fans, getting them to validateyour idea and fund it.
“Even ideas that aren’t deemed worthy to get funding are worth testing, because you will have saved yourself a whole bunch of time finding out it wasn’t a good idea and getting smarter faster,” she says.
Ringelmann, who is based in the US, started her career as a Wall Street analyst. In 2008, she decided to quit and use her skills to try and help friends who worked in the arts to raise money.
The site was originally focused on the film business and launched at the Sundance Film Festival that year.
Five years on and it is raising about $2m a week for new businesses in start-up and growth stages. In December 2012, it launched a euro and a sterling service to get a foothold this side of the Atlantic and says Britain is its third biggest market. International activity is up 41% since December.
There is no shortage of competitors, be it Kickstarter, Seedrs or Funding Circle, but, unlike rivals, says Ringelmann, Indiegogo is the only crowdfunder where anyone can launch a campaign. No project is deemed too wacky.
The site levies a 4% fee for successful campaigns. For those that fail to raise their target amount, users have the option of either refunding all money to their contributors at no charge or keeping all money raised but with a 9% fee.
A British woman, Lauren Pears, raised £100,000 to open a “cat café” in London through the site.
Known as Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, it is yet to open but is billed as somewhere people can “come in from the cold to a comfortable wingback chair, a hot cup of tea, a book and a cat”.
“We’ve seen campaigns that go to venture capitalists get rejected because the venture guys say, 'Great idea but no idea if the market actually wants it; it could be a gadget that no one cares about,'” said Ringelmann.
“The entrepreneurs do an Indiegogo campaign – they don’t even actually launch the project, but the campaign itself is enough market proof for venture capitalists to say there is a market for this. 
“It allows you to test your market, test your pricing, test your features, discover new revenue streams, get vital feedback,” says Ringelmann. 
With her Wall Street background and the experience of helping 100,000 businesses and services raise finance, Ringelmann has fine-tuned her advice for the budding entrepreneur. 
“Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s all about the execution and, if you are afraid that your idea will be stolen by someone who could execute it better and faster than you, then you are not the right person to execute that idea. It’s all about confidence to move fast and to learn,” she says. 
For Ringelmann, the expansion into Europe and a deal with a web transaction provider, which will allow payments to be made through local card services like Maestro in the UK and Carte Bleue in France, as well as PayPal, are part of a dream to democratize finance. More than 7,000 campaigns for finance are live on the site. 
While crowdfunding as an alternative to banks has grown, it has limited appeal to big-bucks investors, who don’t settle for anything less than a stake in a promising business. That could start to change in the UK with the launch of InvestingZone.",173
"Setting aside epic disaster-movie moments such as volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes, there are two key natural factors that can make a city vulnerable to gradual disintegration or even total disappearance – water and sand. 
Were climate change making the planet colder rather than hotter, we could add ice to the list – for nothing obliterates a city like a billion-tonne glacier grinding its way down a valley. The impact of a rare “ice tsunami” in 2013 on the Canadian municipality of Ochre Beach was just a taster: a wall of melting iceberg on Dauphin Lake was blown by winds on to the shore, splintering every house in its path. 
But Ochre Beach was an anomaly. Elsewhere, the planet’s melting ice is making cities vulnerable by the less dramatic route of raising sea levels. A century ago, Venice – one of the most beautiful and low-lying cities in the world – used to flood around ten times a year. Nowadays, its lowest point, Piazza San Marco (only three feet above sea level) is inundated with water approximately 100 times annually. 
But rising sea levels are not entirely to blame. In many parts of the world, the land is also sinking – in Venice’s case, subsoil compaction (a result of industrial exploitation of the surrounding area) lowered the city by 20cm between 1950 and 1970. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is also sinking by about 2cm a year – but that’s nothing compared to Jakarta, which is dropping 10 to 20cm annually. In the past three decades, the city has sunk roughly four metres, rendering its 40-year-old seawall ever less effective. Unfortunately for the Indonesian capital, it has pumped out so much groundwater to support its population that the land above is drying out and compacting, thereby creating a bowl. Rivers that used to flow through the city down to the sea have had to be diverted because they cannot drain uphill. 
While there are many plans to save Venice – and Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta are taking the problem seriously – the same cannot be said for Miami, where politicians refuse to admit the city has a severe environmental problem. 
Miami’s difficulties are threefold. The Florida resort lies less than ten feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are inundating the city; and it is built on porous limestone, which is absorbing the rising seawater. This water then fills the city’s foundations and bubbles up through drains and pipes, forcing sewage upwards and polluting its fresh water. There is every chance Miami may one day become uninhabitable. 
In the Maldives, the populations of whole islands are now looking to abandon their homes. The capital, Malé, population 153,379 and only four feet above sea level, has used Japanese investment to build a ten-foot sea wall at a cost of $63 million – but, long term, only a stabilization of rising sea levels will save it and the rest of the islands. 
And it’s not just the sea – rainfall is also endangering cities across the world. Recently, an entire summer’s worth of rain fell in one morning on Detroit, overwhelming its outdated sewerage systems. Impoverished by the collapse of America’s car industry, the city is struggling to build a system to cope. Drinking water is also affected because Detroit is particularly vulnerable to water-borne pathogens. 
In Africa, desertification is causing the Sahara to spread south at a rate of 30 miles per year, threatening settlements in northern Mauritania. Over the past 20 years, for example, the desert has grown by more than 260 acres around the trading and religious centre of Chinguetti, which has seen its population decline from 20,000 people in the mid-twentieth century to just a few thousand now. Trading has all but ceased as sand piles up in the streets. 
Likewise, the Californian resort of Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, may have to be abandoned in the next decade. This city is just one example of a problem caused not so much by global warming as human over-expansion in the face of finite resources. California’s dream of farming the desert made sense while its total population remained around half a million (in 1870) – but, now, the state is home to 38 million people, who, between them, own 32 million vehicles and expect to be surrounded by lawns and golf courses. 
The daily water use in Rancho Mirage is more than 200 gallons per person, which is giving rise to a man-made drought. A 25% cut in water consumption has been implemented but this is unlikely to stabilize the resort, which is surrounded by sand and dust. The long-term answer in California’s desert is likely to be the abandonment of some cities while consolidating the populations of others. 
Human flight is the final proof of a city’s disintegration. Once we stop maintaining a city, nature takes over very quickly. Japan’s Hashima Island was turned into a concrete city in 1887 to exploit undersea coal reserves – but, in 1974, with coal supplies nearing depletion, the mine was closed and Hashima was abandoned. Now, the sea spray is causing its concrete walls to collapse. 
Fire is a growing threat to urban settlements in America – in fact, forest fires cause the most damage after severe storms, with 800 major fire disasters having been declared there between 1953 and 2014. A newly released report by the USDA Forest Service maps the increasing number of urban locations that are particularly vulnerable to wildfire. 
Similarly, in Australia, some of Victoria’s resorts and several Melbourne suburbs have been placed on a list of the state’s 52 most vulnerable bushfire spots because long-term droughts are making trees highly combustible. It’s unlikely that a forest fire will ever destroy an entire city but a succession of fires could render it uninhabitable – and abandonment remains one of the most powerful causes of urban collapse. 
Many cities are fighting a losing battle against the ravages of nature but is it possible to identify the world’s most vulnerable metropolis? Natural events are notoriously hard to predict but the prospects for Malé do look particularly grim for, even if its new sea wall continues to be effective, the islands around the Maldives capital are going to disappear before too long. And, if they disappear, so does Malé’s raison d’être.",174
"On an average day its outlets host everything from business meetings to reading groups. All these people are looking for that important morning coffee. But Starbucks should be careful what it wishes for.
The direct action group UK Uncut plans to turn dozens of the coffee empire’s UK outlets into crèches, refuges and homeless shelters to highlight Starbucks’ tax avoidance tactics.
They announced the action as Starbucks were questioned by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. They asked why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years, despite the company’s profitable business in Britain.
When he appears before the committee, Starbucks’ Chief Financial Officer, Troy Alstead, will attempt to repair the company’s reputation.
MPs accused the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the UK’s tax department, of having cosy relationships with big businesses. Speaking about the arrangements with Starbucks, the Conservative MP Richard Bacon said: “It smells. And it doesn’t smell of coffee – it smells bad.”
The campaign group UK Uncut wants to show a connection between government cuts, in particular those that affect women, and tax avoidance by multinational businesses.
Sarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said funding for refuges and rape crisis centres would be reduced unless companies paid the fair amount of tax. HMRC estimates around £32bn was lost due to tax avoidance in 2011.
Greene said the government could easily collect billions that could help pay for necessary services if they were stricter on tax avoidance.
The group, which became known because of its protests at Vodafone stores, Topshop and Fortnum & Mason, turned its attentions to Starbucks beause an investigation discovered the company had paid only £8.6m in corporation tax since launching in the UK in 1998, despite cumulative sales of £3bn.
Uncut campaigner Anna Walker said “We’ve chosen to really highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So we’re going to focus on transforming Starbucks into those services that the government are cutting, such as refuges and crèches.
“Starbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street across the country and that’s what UK Uncut finds really important: people can take action in their local areas,” she said.
Several international organizations have been criticized over their UK accounts. Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and Ikea all pay little or no corporation tax.
The coffee store chain, Starbucks, insists it pays the correct level of taxes. The group Chief Executive, Howard Schultz, has said in a statement: “Starbucks has always paid taxes in the UK.
“Over the last three years alone, our company has paid more than £160m in various taxes, including National Insurance, VAT and business rates.”
Margaret Hodge, who leads the Public Accounts Committee, told parliament last month that Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks had avoided nearly £900m of tax. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, responded to the claim by saying: “I’m not happy with the current situation. I think [HMRC] needs to look at it very carefully. We do need to make sure we continue to encourage these businesses to invest in our country, but they should be paying fair taxes as well.”
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said: “While the subject of tax law can be extremely complex, Starbucks respects and obeys tax laws and accounting rules in each of the 61 countries where we do business, including the UK. We’ve posted the facts about our tax practices in the UK on our website.
“Starbucks’ economic impact in the UK goes far beyond our stores and partners [employees]. We spend hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and renovations. When you consider the indirect employment created by Starbucks’ investments in the UK, the company’s extended economic impact to the UK economy is more than £80m a year”.",175
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge won the first round in their battle for privacy on Tuesday when a French magazine was banned from selling or reusing images taken of the couple at a private chateau in Provence. 
But the war is far from over as French prosecutors must now decide if criminal proceedings are to be brought against the magazine editor and the photographer or photographers responsible for taking pictures of the duchess sunbathing topless while on holiday in the south of France. 
The Tribunal de Grande Instance in Nanterre, Paris granted an injunction ordering the gossip magazine Closer to hand over digital files of the pictures within 24 hours and preventing it disseminating them any further, including on its website and tablet app. 
The four-page ruling, which only affects Mondadori Magazines France, Closer’s publisher, also ordered it to pay €2,000 in legal costs. The magazine faces a €10,000 fine for every day it fails to comply with the order. No damages were sought by the couple. 
“These snapshots, which showed the intimacy of a couple, partially naked on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred metres from a public road, and being able to legitimately assume that they are protected from passersby, are by nature particularly intrusive,” it said. 
The magistrates ruled that every photograph published in France by Mondadori, the publishing company owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in future would carry a fine, also of €10,000 per breach. 
But the ruling refers only to the 14 pictures that have already been published. Closer’s editor has hinted she has other, more intimate pictures. 
St James’s Palace said the couple “welcome the judge’s ruling”. A source said: “They always believed the law was broken and that they were entitled to their privacy.” Maud Sobel, a lawyer for the royal couple in Paris, described it as “a wonderful decision,” adding: “We’ve been vindicated.” 
Though pleased their civil action has succeeded, the couple have taken the rare step of seeking to have a much more public criminal prosecution for breach of privacy brought against the magazine and photographer or photographers responsible. 
The prosecutor will have to decide the targets for any criminal proceedings and the complaint cites “persons unknown”. But it is understood the couple want proceedings brought against the editor of Closer, which published the photos on Friday, and whoever took the images of the couple sunbathing at the chateau, which belongs to Lord Linley, son of the late Princess Margaret. 
A preliminary investigation was launched on Tuesday by the Paris police. Under French law breach of privacy carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a fine of €45,000. 
This is the legal action that will truly lay down a marker, and by pursuing it the couple indicate a determination to convey a wider message to the world and, they hope, deter paparazzi in the future. 
Their lawyers had not asked for copies of Closer magazine to be removed from shelves. 
On Saturday the Irish Daily Star published the photos, leading to the editor being suspended on Monday night pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Also on Monday, the Mondadori-owned Italian celebrity magazine Chi rushed out a special edition with 26 pages devoted to the candid photos of the future queen. 
The couple’s lawyer, Aurélien Hamelle, had told the Paris court it was necessary to block the “highly intimate” images of the duchess without her bikini top as she was a “young woman, not an object”. 
But Delphine Pando, defending Closer, said the action was a “disproportionate response” to publication of the photographs. She added that the magazine could not control their resale as it did not own the original images. 
Copies of Closer magazine were doing brisk business on online auction site eBay, with one selling for £31.01, until the site removed all listings following “strong feedback” from its community.",176
"Scientists have made an “atlas of the brain”. It shows how the meanings of words are organized in different regions of the brain. The atlas uses rainbow colours to show how words and their meanings are grouped together in areas of the brain.
“We wanted to build a giant atlas that shows how the meanings of words are represented in the brain,” said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
No single brain region contains one word or idea. A single brain spot contains a number of related words. And, each single word appears in many different brain spots. Together, they form networks that represent the meanings of each word we use: life and love, death and taxes. All have their own networks. 
The atlas shows how modern imaging can completely change what we know about how the brain does some of its most important tasks. With further work, the technology could have an enormous effect on medicine and other areas of study.
“It is possible that we could use this technology to decode information about what words a person is hearing, reading or possibly even thinking,” said Alexander Huth, the main author of the study. One possible use would be a language decoder that could allow people who can’t talk, because they have a serious illness, to speak through a computer.
To make the atlas, the scientists recorded people’s brain activity while they listened to stories. Then, they matched the transcripts of the stories with the brain activity data to show how groups of related words produced 50,000 to 80,000 responses all over the brain. Huth used short, interesting stories. The stories had to be interesting so that the people in the experiment would listen to the words and not fall asleep. Seven people listened to two hours of stories each. Each person heard about 25,000 words – and more than 3,000 different words – as they lay in the scanner.
The atlas shows how words and related terms use the same regions of the brain. For example, on the left-hand side of the brain, above the ear, is one of the tiny regions that represents the word “victim”. The same region responds to “killed” and “murdered ”. On the brain’s right-hand side, near the top of the head, is one of the brain spots used for family terms: “wife”, “husband”, “children”, “parents”.
Each word is represented by more than one spot because words often have many meanings. One part of the brain, for example, is used for the word “top” and also for other words that describe clothes. But, the word “top” also uses many other regions. One of them is for numbers and measurements, another for buildings and places. Interestingly, the brain atlases were similar for all the people in the experiment. This suggests that their brains organized the meanings of words in the same way. But, the scientists only scanned five men and two women. All are native English speakers. It is highly possible that people from different backgrounds and cultures will have different brain atlases.
Lorraine Tyler, a neuroscientist and head of the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at Cambridge University, said the research was a great achievement. But, at the moment, the brain atlas does not show small differences in word meanings. “This research is amazing and new, there is still a lot to learn about how the meaning of words is represented in the brain.”",177
"Unusually for someone who likes to chat, Kenton Cool can barely speak. Exerting himself at high altitude has left his voice a throaty growl. He is now in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, having flown down from Everest base camp that morning. Cool is reflecting on a startling sequence of climbs completed over the course of the previous weekend. Early on Saturday morning, he reached the summit of Nuptse, the first and lowest of the three main summits in the Everest “horseshoe” that surrounds the glaciated valley called the Western Cwm. 
That same day, he climbed up to the summit of Everest itself, reaching the top in complete darkness early on Sunday. He and his climbing partner then continued on to the summit of Lhotse, the third of this spectacular three-peaks challenge, on Monday morning. 
“It was a snatched opportunity,” he says. “For the first time since the late 1990s, there were fixed ropes on all three mountains. That doesn’t take away the physical achievement of what I did. I’ve set the bar at a certain level. But whoever comes along next will move the bar further and do it without ropes or bottled oxygen.” 
Sixty years after Everest was first climbed, much of the coverage is looking back to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and their age of innocence from the modern era of commercialism and environmental degradation. I’ve asked Cool to look forward and imagine what top climbers might be doing 60 years from now. 
“I hate to think,” he says, but mentions the Swiss climber, Ueli Steck, who fled the mountain in April following what Cool terms “an altercation” with a crowd of Sherpas at Camp 2. Steck, he says, was planning to climb Everest’s west ridge, first done in 1963, descend to the South Col and then immediately climb Lhotse via a new route, all without fixed ropes. “Ueli had been training like a machine,” Cool says. “He’s a climber in a class all his own. He’s technically brilliant but he had also taken his physical condition to an astronomic level. It would have been amazing to see what he could have done.” 
What tourism will look like is another matter. One clue is in the stunning helicopter rescue performed by Simone Moro, Steck’s climbing partner, whose intemperate language provoked the confrontation at Camp 2. Moro flew back to Everest on Tuesday at the controls of a high- powered helicopter to rescue a stricken climber at an altitude of 7,800 metres. 
It was the highest rescue yet performed on Everest and highlights the exponential rise in helicopter flights in recent years. By 2073, the infrastructure on the mountain could include a helipad on the South Col, bringing tourists breathing bottled oxygen. In the meantime, they are transforming the potential for rescuing both climbers and the far more numerous trekkers heading as far as base camp. 
Whether the Everest region can continue to cope with a booming tourism sector remains to be seen, according to mountain geographer and environmentalist, Alton Byers. The combination of climate change and tourism, he says, is creating new stresses on the Sherpa homeland. The retreat, and in some cases disappearance, of glaciers in the Everest region are having a major impact already. “Everywhere you go, people are talking about how there’s less water. There’s less water for agriculture and less water for all the new lodges that are getting built.” 
In the Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar, he says, a new five-mile pipeline is being laid to bring water to service the growing tourist demand for showers and flush toilets. The local stream has become contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough water for a place that, in high season, is bursting at the seams. “Every village is digging a pit just beyond the houses for garbage. Khumbu has the highest landfill sites in the world,” he says. Human waste at base camp is now managed well and removed in plastic barrels. But, according to Byers, these barrels are emptied into a huge pit a few hours down the valley that could leak into the region’s watercourses. 
“These problems can be solved, but we need to get serious about it,” he says. “One climber can spend $85,000 climbing Everest. And that’s fine. But at some point we’re going to have to address these other priorities. For half a million dollars a year, you could solve most of them.” 
Climate change is another matter. Byers works with local conservation committees to identify and plan for the impacts of climate change, most usually finding new water sources or introducing rainwater harvesting. The rapid build-up of glacial lakes that threaten to burst and flood the Sherpa homeland is a constant threat. “There’s going to come a time when people are going to have to get out of their way.” 
Changing weather patterns are also having an impact on tourism. Increased cloud cover in periods of normally clear weather is closing Lukla Airport, the gateway to the Everest region, more often. A new road for 4x4s is being built to Lukla to guarantee the flow of tourists and their money, but Byers is concerned that the rapid spread of the road network in Nepal is being done on the cheap, with disastrous consequences in terms of soil erosion and landslides. 
“Everest is the icon everyone knows,” he says. “It’s the canary in the coalmine that everyone understands. It’s the perfect laboratory for figuring out how to address some of these problems, like the impacts of climate change and tourism.”",178
"A mirror that sends heat into the frigid expanse of space has been designed by scientists to replace air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth. 
Researchers believe the mirror could slash the amount of energy used to control air temperatures in business premises and shopping centres by doing away with power-hungry cooling systems. 
Around 15% of the energy used by buildings in the US goes on air conditioning, but the researchers’ calculations suggest that, in some cases, the mirror could completely offset the need for extra cooling. 
In a rooftop comparison of the device in Stanford, California, scientists found that, while a surface painted black reached 60C more than ambient temperature in sunlight and bare aluminium reached 40C more, the mirror was up to 5C cooler than the surrounding air temperature. 
“If you cover significant parts of the roof with this mirror, you can see how much power it can save. 
You can significantly offset the electricity used for air conditioning,” said Shanhui Fan, an expert in photonics at Stanford University, who led the development of the mirror. “In some situations, the computations say you can completely offset the air conditioning.” 
Buildings warm up in a number of different ways. Hot-water boilers and cooking facilities release heat into their immediate surroundings. In hot countries, warm air comes in through doors and windows. Then, there is visible light and infrared radiation from the sun, which also heat up buildings. 
The Stanford mirror was designed in such a way that it reflects 97% of the visible light that falls on it. But, more importantly, it works as a thermal radiator. When the mirror is warmed up, it releases heat at a specific wavelength of infrared light that passes easily through the atmosphere and out into space. 
To make anything cool requires what engineers call a heat sink: somewhere to dump unwanted heat. The heat sink has to be cooler than the object that needs cooling or it will not do its job. For example, a bucket of ice will cool a bottle of wine because it becomes a sink for heat in the liquid. The Stanford mirror relies on the ultimate heat sink: the universe itself. 
The mirror is built from several layers of wafer-thin materials. The first layer is reflective silver. On top of this are alternating layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide. These layers improve the reflectivity but, also, turn the mirror into a thermal radiator. When silicon dioxide heats up, it radiates the heat as infrared light at a wavelength of around ten micrometres. Since there is very little in the atmosphere that absorbs at that wavelength, the heat passes straight out to space. The total thickness of the mirror is around two micrometres or two thousandths of a millimetre. 
“The cold darkness of the universe can be used as a renewable thermodynamic resource, even during the hottest hours of the day,” the scientists write in Nature. In tests, the mirror had a cooling power of 40 watts per square metre at ambient temperature. 
Writing in the journal, Fan puts the installed cost of mirrors at between $20 and $70 per square metre and calculates an annual electricity saving of 100MWh on a three-storey building. 
Fan said that the mirror could cool buildings – or other objects – simply by putting it in direct contact with them. Coating the roof of a building with the mirror would prevent heating from sunlight but do little to remove heat from its interior. More likely, the mirror would be used to cool water or some other fluid that would then be pumped around the building. 
He ruled out the idea of using the mirrors to slow down global warming. “Roof space accounts for only a small portion of the Earth’s surface so, at this point, we don’t think this would be a geoengineering solution. Rather, our contribution on the greenhouse-gas-emission issue is simply to reduce electricity consumption,” he said. 
“I’m really excited by the potential it has and the applications for cooling,” said Marin Soljačić, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “You could use this on buildings so you have to spend much less on air conditioning or maybe you wouldn’t need it at all. You could put it on top of shopping malls. With a large enough surface, you could get substantial cooling.”",179
"A menu scandal at some of Japan’s top hotels and department stores is damaging the international reputation of Japanese food. 
One luxury hotel group admitted that it lied about ingredients on its menus. Since then, there have been similar stories from restaurants run by famous hotels and department stores in Japan. 
The story began when the Hankyu-Hanshin hotel group admitted that it gave false descriptions of menu items at some of its restaurants between 2006 and October 2013. 
For example, the red salmon 'caviar' that customers ordered was in fact the eggs of the flying fish. 
The hotel group’s president, Hiroshi Desaki, went on television to announce a 20% pay cut for himself and 10% for other executives. But this did not make customers less angry. 
Days later, Desaki resigned – he said that the hotel group had betrayed their customers.  
So far, the company has refunded 20 million yen to more than 10,000 consumers. In total, they will refund 110 million yen. 
Customers who believed they ate expensive kuruma shrimps were told they in fact ate much cheaper black tiger shrimps. 
The scandal started when a customer complained in a blogpost that a 'scallop' dish he ordered at the Prince Hotel in Tokyo contained a similar, but cheaper, type of shellfish. 
The hotel investigated the complaint and as a result corrected more than 50 menu items at dozens of its restaurants. Its report scared Hankyu-Hanshin and other hoteliers into admitting that they, too, lied to customers who believed they were paying high prices for top ingredients. 
The Hotel Okura group – where Barack Obama has stayed – said they also injected beef with fat to make it juicier and incorrectly described tomatoes as organic. “We apologize for lying to our clients,” it said. 
The list of fraudulent ingredients gets bigger: orange juice from cartons that was sold as freshly squeezed; Mont Blanc desserts with Korean chestnuts instead of the French ones on the menu; shop-bought chocolate cream that the menu said was home-made; imported beef sold as expensive wagyu beef. 
The menu scandal has come at the wrong time. Japan is trying to persuade South Korea and other countries to start to buy Japanese food again after the Fukushima nuclear accident. 
Food industry experts said the global financial crisis in 2008 forced luxury hotels to save money. 
“Menu descriptions were created to sound good to the customers, and, when hotels couldn’t get the ingredients on the menu, they just used food from different places,” Hiroshi Tomozawa, a hotel and restaurant consultant, told Kyodo News.",180
"Low-income countries will remain on the front line of human-induced climate change over the next century, experiencing gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to the most thorough assessment of the issue yet. 
The last major United Nations (UN) assessment, in 2007, predicted runaway temperature rises of 6°C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4°C above present levels – enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot. 
As temperatures climb and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will face sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September. 
East Africa can expect to experience increased short rains, while west Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, heavier summer rains are anticipated. Indonesia may receive less rainfall between July and October, but the coastal regions around the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand can expect increased rainfall extremes when cyclones hit land. 
“It is virtually certain that, in the long term, global precipitation will change. High latitude countries, such as in Europe or North America, are expected to receive more rainfall, but many subtropical arid and semi-arid regions will likely experience less precipitation. Over wet tropical regions, extreme precipitation events will very likely be more intense and more frequent in a warmer world,” said the report’s authors. 
They added: “Monsoon onset dates are likely to become earlier or not to change much while monsoon withdrawal rates are very likely to delay, resulting in a lengthening of the season.” 
Scientists in developing countries and commentators have welcomed the report, which they said backed their own observations. 
“The IPCC makes the case that climate change is real and happening much more strongly than before. We are already seeing the effects of climate change in Bangladesh and across south Asia. It’s not news to us. Most developing countries are facing climate change now. They do not need the IPCC to tell them that the weather is changing,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, based in Dhaka. 
Scientists have also lowered projections of sea-level rises. Depending on future greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will rise an average of 40 –62 cm by 2100. Nevertheless, there will be significant geographical variations; many millions of people living in the developing world’s great cities, including Lagos and Calcutta, are threatened. 
Weather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report suggests. Although the global frequency of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease or remain essentially unchanged, they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall. 
Life in many developing-country cities could become practically unbearable, given that urban temperatures are already well above those in surrounding countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said. 
Dr Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, says: “Climate models are not yet robust enough to predict impacts at local and regional scales, but it is clear that everybody is vulnerable in some way.” 
The charity Oxfam predicted that world hunger would worsen as climate changes inevitably hurt crop production and disrupt incomes. They suggested the number of people at risk of hunger might climb by 10% to 20% by 2050, with daily per-capita calorie availability falling across the world. 
“The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fight against hunger, and it looks set to worsen,” said Oxfam. “A hot world is a hungry world. If the remainder of the 21st century unfolds like its first decade, we will soon experience climate extremes well outside the boundaries of human experience.”",181
"The controversial auction of a Banksy mural that disappeared from the wall of a north London shop was dramatically stopped just moments before it was going to be sold.
Slave Labour is a spray-painted artwork showing a child making British flags and is seen as a critical social commentary on last year’s diamond jubilee. It was expected to sell for about $700,000 in a sale of street and contemporary art in Florida.
But auctioneer Frederic Thut, the owner of the Fine Arts Auction Miami art house, who had refused all week to give the name of the seller, announced that Slave Labour, together with a second work by the secretive British street artist, had been removed from sale at the auction.
He would not give a reason, but community leaders in Haringey, London, who led a campaign to stop the sale of the artwork that was removed from the wall of a Poundland shop in Wood Green, were extremely happy.
“One of our two demands was that it doesn’t sell and the other was that we get it back again, so we’re halfway there,” said Alan Strickland, a Haringey councillor.
“I will be writing to the auction house to clarify what happened and what will happen next, but for now we are really pleased that a community campaign in London has had an impact in the US. It’s a real victory for the people.”
Claire Kober, Leader of Haringey Council, wrote to Arts Council England and the Mayor of Miami, Tomás Regalado, to ask them to stop the sale, but it appears the decision to remove the item from sale came from the gallery owners.
Several hours after the auction, the auction house said it had persuaded the owners of the two Banksys to remove them from the sale. “Although there are no legal issues whatsoever regarding the sale of lots six and seven by Banksy, FAAM convinced its sellers to remove these lots from the auction.”
Critics have accused the auction house of buying and selling stolen property but Thut said that the seller, who he described as a “well known collector”, was the rightful owner and that the sale was legal.
He added that his gallery had received many emails and phone calls from the UK, but said he supported selling the two pieces of artwork because it would preserve them.
The second Banksy to be auctioned, a 2007 artwork called Wet Dog that was removed from a Bethlehem wall and is estimated to be worth up to $800,000, was removed from the auction house’s online catalogue, but Slave Labour was still listed for sale right up to the 3pm start time.
Thut said the two pieces, supplied to him by separate owners, neither of them British, were important works in the street art scene and deserved buyers “whose first interest is in art and its preservation”.
A spokesperson for Poundland said it had no idea who removed the 4ft x 5ft mural from the side of one of its shops in London.
Banksy himself has not commented on the Slave Labour controversy, but he has previously condemned people who have tried to sell his artwork. He spoke out before five of his pieces were going to be sold at a 2011 auction in New York. None found a buyer.
Stephan Keszler, the dealer at that auction, believes selling Banksy’s works without his permission is legitimate.
“He does something on other people’s property without asking. The owner of the property can do whatever they want with it,” Keszler said.",182
"Will we soon live in a world where drones deliver packages? If you believe Amazon, the answer is “yes”. Others are not so sure: we need to make more technical progress in this area but there is also the problem of public safety.
Amazon spokesman Paul Misener told a US congress hearing recently that his company would be ready as soon as all the rules were in place. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) will finally have regulations on the commercial use of unmanned aircraft by June 2016. But the technology has a long way to go before then and larger machines aren’t legal yet – only drones up to 25kg will be legal. And the FAA says that, if you’re going to crowd the skies with radiocontrolled flying robots, they must all use different radio frequencies that nobody can jam or hijack.
Professor Sajiv Singh, who runs a cargo delivery company called NearEarth, said that, to pilot a state-of-the-art drone, you simply give it some basic instructions: go to this altitude, perform this short task, go back home. But even short flights from a mobile landing pad could cause serious logistical problems, he said.
“They’re not going to deliver from one uninhabited place to another uninhabited place; they’re going to deliver from a warehouse to the consumer, which will probably be an urban area or a suburban area,” he said. “In those particular cases, there are going to be hazards that the vehicle is going to have to see. Maybe there will be terrain that the map doesn’t know about. Then, maybe there’s construction equipment that wasn’t there before but is there now. Maybe GPS signals are blocked, in which case it’s going to have an incorrect idea about where it is.” All these problems can be solved, he said – but it’s difficult.
One major problem is maintaining radio contact with a drone and planning for what happens if that contact breaks. “If you have an off-the-shelf UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], it’ll just keep going and crash into the ground,” said roboticist Daniel Huber.
Furthermore, “you can’t do everything with a 25kg aircraft”, said Jay McConville, director of business development for unmanned systems at Lockheed Martin. “People in the aircraft business have to remind ourselves that the operator doesn’t really care about every little thing about the aircraft and wants instead to focus on the end result,” he said. “Operators want to see vehicle status information; they want to see video on their handheld device or their laptop.”
“Technologically, most of the things that we need for this are in place,” said Huber. He is working on a program to allow drones to inspect infrastructure – pipelines, telephone lines, bridges and so on. “We’ve developed an exploration algorithm where you draw a box around an area and it will fly around that area and look at every surface and then report back.”
Huber, who works on 3D systems imagery, said about Amazon: “I have heard them say that many packages are lightweight – a drone can carry a kilogram for 15 minutes. If you have a vehicle that can go into a neighbourhood, it can deliver from that base. You need a 15-minute distance and typical off-the-shelf drones have that distance.” It’s one way, he said, of making sure the surrounding population is relatively safe. “The larger you get, the more dangerous you get.”
Problems with the use of drones can be solved in some very dramatic ways, Huber said. At a recent conference, he said, a disaster relief drone company demonstrated a robot that could take off and, when it got tired, land on its own charging station and exchange its batteries.
Of course, safety is still a major concern – Singh says that, for a commercial aircraft to be allowed to fly, it has to prove a rate of one serious failure every one million hours. Drones, he said, are a long way from that. “The Reaper drone has one failure in 10,000 hours,” Singh said. But they don’t consider an oil leak a catastrophic failure – something has to fall out of the sky.
Part of the reason for this is that air travel is dangerous so standards are much higher. “If you fly commercial airlines, they often say, ‘Oh, a component has failed – we have to go back to the gate,’” Singh said. “And that’s an established industry with 60 years of legacy! I hate to think that a drone might come down on a busy road.” Part of the solution, Singh said, is planning for every situation: “If things fail, the vehicle has to do something reasonable.”",183
"The business idea is to produce a cheap light that gets free power from gravity and could end the use of dangerous kerosene lamps in Africa and India. 
But when British designer, Patrick Hunt, tried to get money from banks or venture capitalists to help start his business, he hit a problem. “We tried to get funding, but it’s slow and difficult and nobody wants to take a risk,” he said. 
So he tried crowdfunding on a US website, Indiegogo, which has recently opened up in the UK. Within five days, he made £36,200. His campaign was so popular that within 40 days he had made £400,000 from the public. 
A 10kg bag of rocks is attached to the light, lifted to a height of about two metres, and while it slowly falls to the ground it makes enough power for half an hour of light. 
Hunt is one of a new group of entrepreneurs who are trying to get money from the fast-growing crowdfunding industry to start their businesses. Another new crowdfunding site is InvestingZone. It matches wealthy people with entrepreneurs. 
On Indiegogo, users can offer “perks” for different levels of investment – for example, people who helped to fund Hunt’s light could feel good about helping someone who is less rich, but they also got one of his lights as a present. 
For Danae Ringelmann, who started Indiegogo, the “gravity light” is a perfect example of how crowdfunding can work and how it can test an entrepreneur’s idea. a European service. It says it is very popular in Britain. International activity has increased by 41% since December. 
There are other crowdfunding sites, such as Kickstarter, Seedrs and Funding Circle, but Indiegogo is the only crowdfunding site where anyone can start a campaign. No project is too crazy for Indiegogo. 
The site charges a 4% fee for successful campaigns. Entrepreneurs who do not find the amount of money they wanted to find can either pay back all the money or keep all the money but pay a 9% fee. 
A British woman made £100,000 to open a “cat café” in London through the site. It will be called Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium, but it is not open yet. It will be somewhere people can “come in from the cold to a comfortable chair, a hot cup of tea, a book and a cat”. 
With her Wall Street background and the experience of helping 100,000 businesses and services find money, Ringelmann has good advice for entrepreneurs. 
“Ideas are a dime a dozen. What is important is how you make your idea happen. If you are afraid that someone will steal your idea, and that that person will make your idea happen better and faster than you, then you are not the right person to make the idea happen. It’s all about confidence to move fast and to learn,” she says. 
Crowdfunding as an alternative to banks has grown, but, at the moment, big-bucks investors with lots of money are not very interested. That could start to change in the UK when people start using InvestingZone.",184
"In 2010, the police would only enter the old city in Srinagar wearing body armour. It was at the centre of uprisings by violent separatists, who were fighting for an independent Kashmir. More than 100 people died.
How quickly things change. The same streets are now full of tourists. The Nowhatta mosque is where young people would meet to throw stones at the security forces. Now the mosque will be part of an official walking tour focused on heritage, crafts and markets. Visitors can have their picture taken in the beautiful gardens by the lake. Until the snow melted, the ski resorts nearby were packed with rich Russians, too.
In 2002, only just over 27,000 tourists dared to visit the Kashmir Valley. People were frightened by the anti-Indian insurgency, in which almost 70,000 people have died. So far in 2012, the area has received almost one million tourists – more than 23,000 of them from outside India. But there were fewer than 150 Britons – mainly because the UK’s Foreign Office advice deters most travellers by giving a list of recent security problems in the region.
Omar Abdullah, the UK-born Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has asked the British High Commission in Delhi to change its guidelines, but without success. “It’s frustrating,” admitted Abdullah, who has been in charge of India’s most sensitive state since early 2009. “Today, unfortunately, as a result of that travel advice, people’s insurance isn’t valid when they visit here.” 1995 was the last time foreign tourists were murdered in J&K. Six westerners, including two Britons, were kidnapped by Al-Faran, a Kashmiri militant Islamist group. Only one survived.
“British citizens have been killed more recently in countries that you still haven’t stopped people from visiting. I mean, how many British citizens did you lose in 9/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? You’ve lost them in Spain, in Bali,” said Abdullah. “We’ve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid, but we haven’t stopped Indians from travelling to London. There is no reason to say Jammu and Kashmir, or even Srinagar, is an unsafe destination.”
Germany relaxed its guidelines for travellers to the region in 2011. “Foreigners are usually not direct targets,” said Germany’s amended advice. At the time, many thought it was a bold thing to say, less than a year after the 2010 disturbances finally calmed down. There was a national holiday on 15 August to celebrate 65 years of Indian independence – in the past, a day fraught with danger in a state where many do not feel part of India. But there was no trouble at the independence celebrations.
Abdullah is confident that tourists are safe in the state, “if you take the normal sort of precautions”. In other words, do not go trekking near the border that separates the Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of Kasmir. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the pro-Kashmiri independence party, disagrees with Abdullah’s politics. But the two men agree about tourism. At the start of the summer season, Geelani wrote an open letter to tourists that said: “Whatever your faith, whatever language you speak and to whatever region you belong … you are our honoured guest, and respecting and protecting guests is not only our moral obligation but an article of faith.”
Some visitors may worry about the ethics of having fun in a place where the local people are suffering from record levels of anxiety and mental health problems. But the locals in Srinagar seem to be in favour of tourism. Amjid Gulzar, 26, said Abdullah could search for truth and reconciliation as well as encouraging foreign visitors. “He must do both; but without tourism, our economy will be in chaos,” he said.
“We need better infrastructure, better roads, reliable electricity. We need more for tourists to do in the evening – we don’t even have one cinema in this city,” he said. But will tourists feel welcome? In June, a local Islamic group created a “dress code” for foreign tourists. Abdullah sighs when I mention this. “Nobody wants tourists to come here and cover their faces. I think their basic point was: be sensitive to our cultural identity and dress appropriately. I think that’s common sense.” 
Abdullah said tourism would help the economy. J&K’s economy is in a dire state after more than two decades of conflict. The state receives just £72 million each year in taxes but £155 million is paid in salaries to 500,000 public employees. It is clear why he needs to find more money, fast. But, at the moment, he is just pleased to see tourists back. “I’m not suggesting that one million tourists here is a sign that everything is back to normal,” he said. “But it gives me some satisfaction that people can come, have a nice time, and go back.”",185
"According to a new census, there are more tigers in Nepal than at any time since the 1970s. This has given conservationists hope that the big cats, whose numbers have been dropping across south Asia for 100 years, can be saved.
The number of wild royal bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198 – a 63.6% rise in five years – the government survey showed. “This is very good news,” said Maheshwar Dhakal, an ecologist with Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.
The census is based on the examination of pictures from more than 500 cameras in five protected areas and three wildlife corridors. More than 250 conservationists and wildlife experts worked on the survey, which cost about £250,000. Dhakal said that a similar survey was done in India and the results from both countries will be published later in 2013. “It will take a few more months for India, which now has 1,300 big cats in several huge protected areas, to finish the survey,” he added. Nepal has promised to double the population of tigers by the year 2022 from 121 in 2009 when the last systematic tiger count took place.
Increasing wealth in Asia has led to higher prices for tiger skins and the body parts used in traditional Chinese medicines. International gangs pay poor local Nepali large amounts of money to kill the cats. The skin and bones are given to middlemen, who pass easily through the border with India, where the major dealers are based.
One major problem is that some senior officials help mafia networks involved in the trade. Conservation experts believe that the increase in tiger numbers is the result of better policing of national parks and better management of tiger habitats in Nepal, where forests cover 29% of the land. But they say Nepal needs to do more to protect the habitat and animals on which tigers feed so the big cats have enough space to roam and food to eat.
As the number of tigers has increased over the years, conflict with villagers has increased, too. Seven people were killed in attacks by tigers around national parks in 2012 compared to four in 2011, park officials said. Villagers also want better protection. “The government is making conservation plans for tigers. But it should also produce plans to protect people from tigers,” Krishna Bhurtel, a village headman, told a Nepali newspaper. Wildlife authorities captured a tiger after it killed two people, including a villager who was pulled from his bed in May.
Thousands of tigers once roamed the forests in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have dropped to about 3,000, a 95% drop over a century. Chitwan National Park in central Nepal has the highest number of adult tigers, with 120, followed by Bardiya National Park (50) and Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve (17).
Diwakar Chapagain, head of a World Wildlife Fund Nepal unit that monitors wildlife trade, said tiger skins were in demand in Tibet, where rich people use them as festival costumes.
In Nepal, kings used to stand on tiger skins for special occasions. Some wealthy Nepali have tiger heads on the walls of their living rooms. Tiger bones are used in traditional Chinese medicines. “The trade in tiger parts is lucrative and fetches thousands of dollars in illegal markets,” Chapagain said.",186
"Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world’s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet by 2050 to avoid catastrophic shortages. 
Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra two billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world’s leading water scientists. 
“There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected nine-billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,” the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said. 
“There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a reliable system of food trade.” 
Dire warnings of water scarcity limiting food production come as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for staples such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June, triggered by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel. 
Oxfam has forecast that the price spike will have a devastating impact in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages in 2008 led to civil unrest in 28 countries. 
Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in an increasingly climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to ten times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world’s arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include eliminating waste and increasing trade between countries in food surplus and those in deficit. 
“Nine hundred million people already go hungry and two billion people are malnourished in spite of the fact that per-capita food production continues to increase,” they said. “With 70% of all available water being in agriculture, growing more food to feed an additional two billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on available water and land.” 
The report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN bodies, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to address global water supply problems. 
Competition for water between food production and other uses will intensify pressure on essential resources, the scientists said. “The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will place additional pressure on our already stressed water resources, at a time when we also need to allocate more water to satisfy global energy demand – which is expected to rise by 60% over the coming 30 years – and to generate electricity for the 1.3 billion people currently without it,” said the report. 
Overeating, undernourishment and waste are all on the rise and increased food production may face future constraints from water scarcity. 
“We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,” said the report’s editor, Anders Jägerskog. 
A separate report from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) said the best way for countries to protect millions of farmers from food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia was to help them invest in small pumps and simple technology, rather than to develop expensive, large-scale irrigation projects. 
“We’ve witnessed again and again what happens to the world’s poor – the majority of whom depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and already suffer from water scarcity – when they are at the mercy of our fragile global food system,” said Dr Colin Chartres, the Director General. 
“Farmers across the developing world are increasingly relying on and benefiting from small-scale, locally-relevant water solutions. [These] techniques could increase yields up to 300% and add tens of billions of US dollars to household revenues across sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.”",187
"There comes a time in some men’s lives when the days seem darker, death more certain, and the only sensible response is to blow the life savings on a sportscar.
Radical and often ill-advised changes in lifestyle are typical for the midlife crisis but, if it is more than a myth, then humans may not be the only animals to experience it.
Now an international team of scientists claims it has found evidence for a slump in well-being among middle-aged chimpanzees and orangutans. The lull in happiness in the middle years, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis.
The findings of the study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the midlife crisis may have its roots in the biology humans share with our closest evolutionary cousins.
“There’s a common understanding that there’s a dip in well-being in middle age,” Alex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian.
He said that they took a step back and asked whether it’s possible that the midlife crisis is not just something human.
The team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals.
The forms included questions about each ape’s mood, the enjoyment they got from socializing, and their success at achieving certain goals. The final question asked how zookeepers would feel about being the ape for a week. They scored their answers from one to seven.
More than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, with the third made up of orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore.
When the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes fell in middle age and climbed again as the animals moved into old age. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The animals’ well-being was at its lowest, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans.
“In all three groups we find evidence that well-being is lowest in chimpanzees and orangutans at an age that corresponds more or less to midlife in humans,” Weiss said. “On average, well-being scores are lowest when animals are around 30 years old.”
Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was sceptical about the findings. “What can produce a sense of well-being that varies across their lifetimes like this? It’s hard to see anything in an ape’s life that would have that sort of pattern. They’re not particularly good at seeing far ahead into the future; that’s one of the big differences between them and us.”
Alexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said, “In my opinion, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis.”
But Weiss believes the findings could point to a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. “If we want to find the answer to the question of what’s going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans,” he said.",188
"Glastonbury Festival is to combat the scourge of the plastic water bottle as part of a long- term strategy to become the world’s most environmentally friendly outdoor music event. 
Festival organizers are targeting the disposable bottle, one of the most conspicuous symbols of the throwaway culture, that each year leaves the 900-acre Somerset site wreathed in plastic, with an estimated one million plastic bottles being used during the festival. 
Stainless-steel reusable bottles will be given to 2,000 road crew and band members, with thousands more on sale to festival-goers, to stop them relying on plastic bottles. The 140,000 ticket-holders are also being urged to bring reusable bottles that they can fill at 400 drinking- water taps dotted across the site. 
Lucy Smith, Glastonbury’s green issues organizer, said: “We have amazing water quality in the UK but everyone is obsessed with drinking bottled water.” 
She said the initiative precedes a plan for Glastonbury 2015 to replace all plastic beer glasses and cutlery with reusable items in an attempt to eradicate the legacy of plastic waste from the huge rural site. 
Environmentalists estimate that 150 million tonnes of plastic waste currently litters the planet and oceans, poisoning ecosystems and killing wildlife. 
Ultimately, festival organizers hope to make Glastonbury the world’s greenest greenfield festival, emulating America’s Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, which is a “leave-no-trace” event, where people have to take away all that they bring. 
Glastonbury revellers are also being urged to travel to the site on public transport or try car-sharing with friends. “We want to be as sustainable as we can. We do everything we can, but coping with the litter of 140,000 people is a challenge. We can’t put bins everywhere,” added Smith. 
Campaigners say that plastic water bottles can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely biodegrade, with their manufacture exacerbating their negative ecological impact. Millions of barrels of oil are used in the manufacture of plastic bottles and the transportation of mineral water across the planet produces even more carbon emissions. 
Overall, an estimated 13 billion plastic water bottles are sold in the UK every year, yet just one in five is said to be recycled. 
Smith said that, instead of buying bottled water, festival-goers should take advantage of the water on tap, which is being drawn from huge underground reservoirs, instead of old-fashioned water tanks that provided heavily chlorinated drinking water. The charity WaterAid will also set up water kiosks around the site, stocking reusable bottles and cups, and offering free refills. In 2015, the kiosks – modelled on those found in Africa – will double as DJ booths at night. 
Organizers say that almost half of all the rubbish left on site was recycled in 2013 and add that there will be 15,000 bins for recycling across the festival grounds in 2014. 
Despite its growing eco-credentials, critics continue to snipe at Glastonbury, accusing it of becoming increasingly corporate in tone. The latest critic, Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, has vowed never to bring his band to Glastonbury Festival after dismissing it as “the most bourgeois thing on the planet”. 
The weather forecast for Glastonbury was positive, with the festival due to be sunny and dry, experts ruling out a repeat of 1985, the festival’s windiest year; 1997, its muddiest; and 2005, known as the “year of thunder”.",189
"A subway system has billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, plague and human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to study the bacteria in a city’s subway – and they have found many interesting results.
Dr Christopher Mason, a scientist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that tested the New York City subway system for 18 months. His team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on a train carriage and bacteria that cause plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.
The team said the findings of plague and anthrax are not serious. They said that there was only a very small trace of anthrax, that rats probably carried the plague and that no one has become ill with plague in New York for years.
“The results do not show that people in New York are at risk,” the study says. In fact, most of the bacteria the team found are harmless to humans.
Some of the results were not a surprise. They showed that people “should wash their hands”, Mason said. He also said that they found many bacteria that are helpful, like the bacteria used for making cheese.
All around the subway, there were bacteria from cheeses – brie, cheddar, parmesan and the mozzarella found on New York pizza. The bacteria of Swiss cheese were found in midtown Manhattan and the financial district, and the bacteria used to make kimchi and sauerkraut  showed up in the financial district and Bay Ridge.
Bacteria that can cause illness and infections were very common. Bacteria that cause diarrhoea and nausea, as well as E.coli, and the bacteria that can cause skin infections and urinary-tract infections were common all over the city. The scientists found bacteria that cause tetanus in Soho and bacteria that cause dysentery at a station in the Bronx and in Harlem.
Mason and his team collected more than 1,000 samples from all of New York’s 466 open subway stations. They found 15,152 different species, nearly half of which were bacteria.
The good news, they said, is that these bacteria are not spreading sickness or disease in New York and that the subway and city are as safe as everyone thought.
“In fact,” Mason added, “I’ve become much more confident riding the subway.”
Many findings made sense: stations like Grand Central and Times Square, where there are more people, had more bacteria. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest diversity of bacteria.
The researchers found sea and fish bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy.
The next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, São Paolo and Shanghai. They also want to do more studies of New York. He said he hoped the research would help health officials to prevent and track diseases.",190
"arack Obama flew back to Washington and his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday, hours after he gave an election victory speech in Chicago. In the speech, he asked the country to join together. 
Both the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and the Democratic Leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, think that everyone needs to work together to solve the economic crisis. But it could become one of the biggest fights ever between the White House and Congress during Obama’s presidency. 
Obama easily beat his Republican opponent Mitt Romney (Obama kept lots of swing states), but the election showed again how divided America is. 
Obama disappointed many of his supporters in his first four years, so now he wants to become a great President. 
He wants to work on many issues; for example, continued economic recovery, immigration, education, climate change, Iran and Israel-Palestine. 
Boehner talked about “the need for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt”. 
Reid said: “I look at the challenges that we have ahead of us and I reach out to my Republican colleagues in the Senate and the House. Let’s come together. We know what the issues are; let’s solve them.” 
The trouble will come when talks move to detail. The Republicans want to keep military spending the same, but the Democrats want to reduce military spending. Obama wants more taxes for families that earn more than $250,000; Boehner does not want more taxes. 
In his victory speech in Chicago, Obama talked about the long queues to vote and said there was a need for changes. 
He spoke in an impressive and emotional way in his speech. He was famous for this way of speaking during the 2008 election, but he stopped in 2012. 
But now that he has won, he returned to famous lines from earlier speeches, and he talked again about “hope”. 
Obama told the happy crowd of supporters: “Tonight in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back. And we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.” 
In a speech that lasted more than 25 minutes, Obama said 'thank you' to his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha – and also to his Vice-President, Joe Biden. Then he returned to the message that first made him popular. 
“We are not as divided as our politics suggests,” he said. “We remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America.”",191
"A company from the Netherlands is trying to turn dreams of reaching Mars into reality. The company, Mars One, plans to send four astronauts on a trip to the Red Planet to set up a human colony in 2023. But there are a couple of serious problems.
Firstly, when on Mars the astronauts’ bodies will have to adapt to surface gravity that is 38% of that on Earth. It is thought that this would cause such a total change in their bone density, muscle strength and circulation that the astronauts would no longer be able to survive in Earth’s conditions. Secondly, and directly related to the first, they will have to say goodbye to all their family and friends, as there is no return ticket.
The Mars One website states that a return “cannot be anticipated nor expected”. To return, they would need a fully built rocket with enough fuel for the return journey, which is able to escape the gravitational field of Mars, and has on-board life support systems for a seven-month trip. And they must be able to link up with a space station orbiting Earth or perform a safe re-entry and landing.
Nevertheless, the project has already had 10,000 applicants, according to the company’s Medical Director, Norbert Kraft. He told The Guardian that the applicants so far ranged in age from 18 to at least 62 and, though they include women, they were mostly men.
The reasons they gave for wanting to go were varied, he said. An American woman called Cynthia, who gave her age as 32, said that it was a childhood dream of hers to go to Mars.
She told the project: “When I first heard about the Mars One project I thought, this is my chance – that childhood dream could become a reality. I could be one of the pioneers, building the first colony on Mars and teaching people back home that there are still uncharted territories that humans can reach for.”
The main attributes Mars One is looking for in astronaut-settlers are resilience, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust and resourcefulness, according to Kraft. They must also be over 18.
Mars One says that the basic things required for life are already present on the planet. For instance, water can be taken from ice in the soil and Mars has sources of nitrogen, the primary element in the air we breathe. The colony will be powered by specially adapted solar panels, it says.
The project will cost a reported $6bn, and Bas Lansdorp, the founder of Mars One, has said he hopes this money will be collected partly by selling broadcasting rights. “The broadcasting revenue from the London Olympics was almost enough to finance a mission to Mars,” Lansdorp said.
Another ambassador to the project is Paul Römer, the co-creator of Big Brother, one of the first, and most successful, reality TV shows. “This mission to Mars could be the biggest media event in the world,” said Römer. “Reality meets talent show with no ending and the whole world watching.”
The aim is to establish a permanent human colony, according to Mars One’s website. The first team would land on Mars in 2023 to begin building the colony, with a team of four astronauts every two years after that.
The project has its sceptics, however, and people are worried about how astronauts might get to the planet and build a colony with all the life support and other requirements needed.
The mission hopes to inspire generations to “believe that all things are possible, that anything can be achieved,” like the Apollo moon landings.
“Mars One believes it is not only possible but necessary that we establish a permanent colony on Mars in order to speed up our understanding of the formation of the solar system, the origins of life and, of equal importance, our place in the universe,” it says.",192
"Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures or gallinazos. They circle in groups overhead and perch on the city’s most emblematic buildings – the decrepit, colonial-era churches and crumbling eighteenth-century piles in the city centre. 
In many ways, with their wrinkly heads and beady eyes, they remind Lima residents of the side of their city they would rather ignore: the neglect, poverty and filth. But these carrion-eaters’ natural affinity for dead and decaying things is being turned into a virtue. Environmental authorities are giving these much- maligned birds a PR makeover, kitting them out with GoPro action video cameras and GPS trackers, and giving them a new mission in the fight against fly-tipping and illegal dumping. Samuel is one of the project’s ten certified disease- free Coragyps atratus that have been charged with doing what they do best: sniffing out rubbish. Fitted with his tracker, he is set free above the city, where he identifies clandestine dumps and records the GPS coordinates ona live map. 
His trainer at Lima’s Huachipa Zoo, Alfredo Correa, beams with admiration. “They can eat dead animals because their metabolism protects them from viruses and bacteria,” he says. “They’ve got some of the strongest gut flora in the natural world.” The effort is a collaboration between USAID and the Peruvian Environment Ministry to tackle Lima’s rubbish problem. 
Samuel’s other airborne companions have been given more evocative names: Capitan Huggin, Capitan Fenix (named after the mythological creature that rises from the ashes) and Capitana Aella ( “Whirlwind”). A tongue- in-cheek video adds a melodramatic voiceover, in which the noble” carthatidae lineage – the vultures” are pitted against pestilence and disease, while “humanity is placidly ignoring the danger”. The project makes a serious point. With just four landfills in a city of nearly ten million inhabitants, there are countless illegal dumps. A fifth of the rubbish ends up there, according to the Environment Ministry. Run-off from the waste contaminates Lima’s main water source, the Rimac river, as well as the Chillon and Lurin rivers, which flow into the Bay of Lima. 
The environmental supervision agency, OEFA, says that three poorer neighbourhoods, despite having only 12% of Lima’s population, have by far the most fly-tipped rubbish: Villa Maria del Triunfo (39.4%), Villa El Salvador (25.3%) and El Agustino (18.3%). The problem, in part, is unpaid taxes. Many residents, especially in the barrios , just don’t pay. That means some of the 43 district municipalities lack the resources for basic services such as rubbish collection. 
It also means nobody is necessarily going to clean up where the vultures identify illegal rubbish. “We share the vulture’s GPS coordinates with the municipalities,” says Javier Hernandez, the project director. “It’s their job to collect the rubbish and to try and change the habits of their residents.” 
The project aims to encourage citizens to be “vultures on the ground ”: to report fly-tipping, cut back on their own waste and recycle. Some residents are responding, posting photos of illicit dumps on the Twitter feed and Facebook page. The idea was hatched at the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference, hosted in Lima. “We were looking for ways to involve not just the authorities but also citizens to generate environmental awareness,” Hernandez says. Artist Cristina Planas had placed huge, sculpted vulture heads on top of 25 dead palm trees in a wetland reserve in the south of the city. Rich residents hated it as an ugly imposition but Planas invited citizens to “adopt a vulture” in support of conservation and recycling. 
“We are a little scared of the vulture’s appearance,” she said. “But in reality, he is out there sacrificing himself for us. He is out there recycling, in the last place we threw out our rubbish.”",193
"Swiss police recently entered the Baur Au Lac hotel in Zurich at dawn and arrested 16 football officials, including five current or former FIFA executives. They were later charged with corruption in the US. The officials included the former Brazilian federation chief Ricardo Teixeira and his successor, Marco Polo Del Nero. 
They were among 16 individuals accused of fraud and other crimes by the US Department of Justice. The US has now charged 27 defendants, including former FIFA executives. “The level of corruption is completely unacceptable,” said the US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch. 
Swiss police arrested the president of the South American football confederation, the Paraguayan Juan Ángel Napout, and Alfredo Hawit, the head of the North and Central American and Caribbean governing body. Hawit started his job after Jeffrey Webb left the job in May 2015 because he was arrested. This was part of the US operation that led to a crisis at FIFA and caused Sepp Blatter to lose his job and reputation. 
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said of the latest arrests: “They are in custody before their extradition. The US believes they accepted bribes of millions of dollars”. Webb and the Colombian former executive Luis Bedoya entered guilty pleas in the US. 
Eleven current and former FIFA executives have now been charged in the investigation, which alleges $200m in bribes, mainly from TV and marketing contracts but also FIFA’s development programmes. 
“The message from this announcement should be clear to everyone who hopes to escape our investigation: you will not escape,” said Lynch. Teixeira, the former son-in-law of the FIFA ex-president João Havelange, was charged together with Del Nero and his predecessor José Maria Marin, who was charged in May 2015. 
Fourteen men were charged in May 2015. Days later, Blatter won a fifth term as president but then agreed to leave his job as the crisis grew. He was then suspended together with the UEFA President, Michel Platini, because of an alleged £1.3m payment to the Frenchman. Both men might get life bans when the FIFA ethics committee hears their case in December if they are found guilty. 
Among those also charged on Thursday were Rafael Salguero, a Guatemalan who left the executive committee in May; the former South American confederation secretary general Eduardo Deluca; former Peruvian football federation president Manuel Burga; and Bolivia’s football president, Carlos Chaves, already jailed in his own country. 
Lynch said: “The Department of Justice really wants to end the corruption in the leadership of international football – not only because there is such a lot of corruption but also because the corruption is an insult to international principles.” 
The acting FIFA President, Issa Hayatou, refused to comment on the detail of the latest arrests. But he said neither he nor the organization was corrupt. Hayatou appeared for the first time before the media since he started the job in September, when Blatter was suspended, and said the current crisis was the fault of a few bad people. 
“FIFA is not corrupt. We have some people that have shown negative behaviour. But not everyone in FIFA is corrupt,” said Hayatou, president of the Confederation of African Football for more than 25 years. “There are lots of people who have been in FIFA for more than 20 or 30 years that have not been accused of anything.”",194
"You probably know a vaper – someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the figures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.
E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published figures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
But figures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and ex- smokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the figures as statistically important.
Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. “The number of people who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke is going down,” West said. “We’ve only been studying vaping for just over a year, so it’s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or ‘never ’ smokers using e-cigarettes. The number of people vaping might change but, at the moment, it looks like it’s staying the same.” 
Experts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers.  Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. “The figures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the figures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
“E-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.”
The European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
West suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn’t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. “Some local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes – they ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.",195
"Governments across Europe dream of finding a magic solution to rising unemployment. But, in the hardest-hit parts of the EU, unemployment continues to rise and the talk does little to reduce the number of people without work.
Now, in a corner of Italy, one mayor thinks he has found an answer to his town’s serious lack of work. Valter Piscedda, the mayor of Elmas, a small town near Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari, wants to pay residents to leave. The council will pay for ten unemployed locals to take intensive English lessons, get on a cheap flight and look for jobs elsewhere in Europe.
“This idea is a result of common sense and experience,” the mayor told the Guardian. “Over the past year and a half – especially in the past few months – I have been seeing young people, almost every day, who are despairing about their search for work. Some ask for help in finding it here. Others have tried everything and are so discouraged that they no longer want to stay and wait. And they want to go and gain work experience abroad; life experience, too.
“So, my idea was this: put everything in place so that those who want to gain experience abroad are able to,” he said.
As the national economy continues to falter, Sardinia, along with much of southern and central Italy, is struggling with high unemployment. Unemployment was at 17.7% in the second quarter of 2014, according to Italy’s National Institute of Statistics, Istat. More than 54% of people under 25 are out of work.
For the Adesso Parto (Now I’m leaving) programme, Elmas’s council will give €12,000 on a first-come, first-served basis to applicants aged between 18 and 50. They just have to be out of work and have lived in the town for three years. They do not have to be university educated and their annual income must be no more than €15,000.
The idea of encouraging people to leave is sensitive at a time when huge numbers of Italians – many of them bright young graduates – are leaving their country every year. But Piscedda, who belongs to the Democratic Party of the Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, believes that the people he is sending away might return “and give me back 100 times what they were given”. More importantly, he wants the scheme to help those most in need.
“It’s a programme for those with no other resource; it’s the last-chance saloon. It will allow them the dignity of not having to ask a friend for money or put burdens on families,” he said.
Earlier in 2014, he added, the council launched a scheme for businesses – they were given financial incentives to hire young workers from Elmas. “We advertised 20 of these positions,” he said. “We got 120 applications.”
In Elmas, the scheme has got mixed reactions. “The reality is that there is little work here,” said Alessandro Macis. “The opportunity to go abroad to learn about the workplace and experience other cultures can be very worthwhile. The son of a friend of mine who didn’t study much is in London and he’s really finding his way. He started as a waiter. Now, he’s a cook and he’s learning English.”
Others were perplexed. “I heard about it but I thought it was strange. If you have that money to pay for people to go away, why don’t you use that money to keep them here?” said Consuelo Melis, who works behind the bar in a local café. On Twitter, one of many reactions was disbelief. “The state’s admission of defeat,” commented Marco Patavino. “Institutions are raising the white flag,” remarked Carlo Mazzaggio.
Piscedda, however, says of his online critics: “Probably, they are people that aren’t in need ... Every day, I deal with people’s problems and I have to do something to try to solve them. These people, if they had an alternative, they wouldn’t be asking for help.
“The work I can create, as mayor, is temporary. I can have a piazza cleaned. I can have it cleaned again. I can have the streets cleaned. But these are all temporary things that give nothing beyond that little bit of money for a few months. I want to go beyond that.”",196
"For 85 years, it was just a grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system. But, on 15 July, we saw Pluto in high resolution for the first time. The images show dramatic mountains made from solid water ice as big as the Alps or the Rockies. 
The extraordinary images of the former ninth planet and its large moon, Charon, were sent four billion miles back to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft. 
Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator, said “New Horizons is returning amazing results. The data look absolutely gorgeous, and Pluto and Charon are just mind-blowing.” 
John Spencer, a mission scientist, said that one of the biggest surprises was the discovery that “there are mountains in the Kuiper belt”. The Kuiper belt is the solar system’s mysterious “third zone” where Pluto is, with about 100,000 smaller icy objects. He said the mountains are around 3,000 metres high and several hundred miles across. 
Pluto used to be the ninth planet but, since 2006, it has been a dwarf planet. The NASA press conference began with spectacular images of the sun and the eight official planets. 
Stern said the images from New Horizons were just the beginning and that we would learn more about the planet soon. Scientists believe the mountains on Pluto are made from water ice with just a thin cover of methane and nitrogen. 
“Water ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains.” The images are the first to show ice mountains, except those found on the moons of giant planets. 
The images are so detailed that, if the spacecraft flew over London, we would be able to see the runways at Heathrow airport. 
It is five billion kilometres to Pluto. This means it takes New Horizons hours to send back a picture and it will take 16 months to send back all the data. The team also said that the heart-shaped area on Pluto will be called the Tombaugh Regio, after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930. 
The image of Charon shows an area of cliffs about 1,000km long. The image also shows a dramatic canyon 7 to 9km deep. 
Cathy Olkin, a mission scientist, said: “Charon just blew our socks off when we saw the new image. The team is so excited.” 
Pluto is two thirds rock surrounded by a lot of ice. The temperature is about minus 230C. 
The £460m spacecraft is continuing its journey into the Kuiper belt. Scientists hope that it will help us to see and understand more of the ancient solar system and the origins of planets. It may even help to explain how the Earth was made. 
Andrew Coates, the head of planetary science at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said: “It’s a really thrilling time for solar system exploration.” 
NASA says that the spacecraft will be able to keep recording and sending images until the mid- 2030s. Then its plutonium power source will run out and it will drift outwards towards the edge of the solar system and deep space beyond.”",197
"The view from the visitors’ centre at the southern edge of Doñana National Park in southern Spain is an ornithologist’s dream: 200,000 hectares of wetlands vital for the birdlife of western Europe. Dozens of Britain’s most loved migratory birds rest here every year on their migrations from Africa. Doñana is also home to some of Europe’s rarest birds, including the Spanish imperial eagle.
It is a glorious, vibrant landscape but it exists on a knife-edge. In 1998, almost two billion gallons of acidic water, mixed with waste metals, poured into the park from the Los Frailes mine 45km away. A toxic tsunami of waste poured down the Guadiamar river into the park. More than 25,000 kilos of dead fish were collected afterwards and nearly 2,000 adult birds, chicks, eggs and nests were killed or destroyed.
It was Spain’s worst environmental disaster and the clean-up cost €90m. Suddenly aware of Doñana’s status as the nation’s most important natural site, Spain decided to spend a further €360m, some of it EU money, on restoring the landscape. In the 1950s and 60s, some parts of this landscape had been drained to create rice and cotton fields. Some of this farmland is now being returned to its original wetland state.
It has been a costly but positive process. But Doñana is still in trouble thanks to the increasing pressures of modern life. There are plans to build an oil pipeline through Doñana and other developers want to build new hotels and golf courses, which would need enormous water supplies. Sand and soil washed from nearby farms is also blocking the channels that cross Doñana.
However, the real body blow for conservationists has been the recent decision of the Andalucían government to reopen the Frailes mine that nearly destroyed Doñana in 1998. “This is Europe’s most precious bird sanctuary, for indigenous species and also as a resting place for birds that migrate between Africa and Britain and other parts of north-west Europe,” says Laurence Rose of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). “Doñana already faces a large number of threats, but now they want to bring back the very cause of the disaster 16 years ago. It is extremely worrying.”
The state of the local economy provides an explanation for the government’s decision. The crash of Spain’s banks in 2008 had a catastrophic effect on the region and unemployment in some parts of Andalucía is now more than 30%. Reopening the mine would provide more than 1,000 jobs.
“There are riches here, riches that are badly needed by local inhabitants,” said energy spokesman Vicente Fernández Guerrero. “We think mining is a good way to make it possible to allow local people to continue to live in the area. This is a mining area. People have been digging metals here since Roman times.”
Fernández said that the mine licence would only allow modern mining techniques, which avoid the creation of poisonous wet waste. Also, the Canadian company that ran Los Frailes when the disaster happened cannot run it again. “The best technology in the world will be used here,” Fernández insisted. “Liquid will not be used. We are going to insist on that.”
The plan has some support in the area, but it also has a lot of opposition. Carlos Dávila, who works for the Spanish Ornithological Society in Doñana, was also alarmed at the plan. “This is a very, very bad idea,” he said. “They say the new mine will be safe, but they said it was safe in 1998 and look what happened. We got the worst ecological disaster in the history of Spain.”
Almost every visitor at a local restaurant had a camera and telescopic lens or a pair of binoculars. There is a big tourist trade because of the birdlife of Doñana. This is not surprising because this is a very special place. A huge sky hangs over this flat but certainly not boring landscape. Birds of every shape and size fill the air and sometimes the road. At one point on my visit, a stork calmly stood in front of our car until it felt ready to fly off.
“The trouble is that Spain does not have the public resources it had 16 years ago. A repeat of the toxin spill today would have a much, much more damaging impact,” said Rose. This point is supported by Dávila. “After the disaster, Spain realized that it had a place of real ecological importance and did a lot to clean it up and protect it,” he added. “Now, we seem to be forgetting that lesson. It is very depressing.”",198
"The brand and logo of Apple have been named the most valuable in the world – worth nearly $119bn, or more than the entire gross domestic product of Morocco, Ecuador or Oman. 
The Silicon Valley firm, already the world’s biggest company – with a stock market valuation of $591bn – has seen its brand value increase by 21% in 12 months, according to the closely followed Interbrand Best Global Brands annual report. 
Apple, which is recognized the world over by its simple “Apple with a bite missing” emblem, led a surge of technology companies in the 2014 report, which has pushed more traditionally valuable brands – such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Gillette – down the table. 
Google’s brand value rose by 15% to $107bn to take second place, followed by Coca-Cola, up 3% to $81.5bn, IBM ($72.2bn) and Microsoft ($45.5bn). 
Facebook is the biggest riser in the chart, increasing its brand value by 86% to $14.3bn and taking 29th place in the table, ahead of longstanding global corporate names such as Volkswagen, Kellogg’s and Ford. 
Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, which is part of global advertising group Omnicom, said: “Benefitting immensely from the rise of digital and, later, mobile technology, savvy brands like Apple grew stronger. New category- killers like Google, Amazon and Facebook have reset customer expectations and significantly raised the bar for brand experiences.” 
Apple, which former Chief Executive Steve Jobs founded in his Los Altos garage in 1976, only appeared in the top ten of the Interbrand annual study in 2011. 
Its logo, created by advertising executive Rob Janoff in 1977, was designed with a bite taken out of it to avoid confusion with a cherry. “One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colours of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope and anarchy,” Janoff said. 
Graham Hayles, Interbrand’s chief marketing officer, said it was “not out of kilter” that Apple’s brand could account for a fifth of the company’s entire market value. “Apple makes a lot of money because it has a very strong brand,” he said. “There is a very strong correlation between branding and profitability.” 
Hayles said Interbrand, which has been carrying out the annual study since 2000, calculates brand value by examining companies’ financial performance, consumers’ “brand allegiance” and “brand-strength analysis ”. 
While many technology companies rose up the chart, there were big fallers, too. Finnish mobile- phone company Nokia dropped 41 places to 98th at $4.1bn, just ahead of Nintendo in 100th place (down 33). “They’re both only just in the chart now,” Hayles said. “It shows the importance of getting innovation right. If you don’t keep pace, it is very penalizing.” 
A Chinese company has made it into the top 100 for the first time, with mobile-phone and broadband firm Huawei entering the rankings in 94th place with a brand value of $4.3bn. Huawei has been partly banned by the US and Australian governments due to fears that its equipment could be used by the Chinese for cyber-espionage. 
Most of the brands in the top 100 are US-owned, the highest-placed non-US brands being South Korea’s Samsung (6th), Japan’s Toyota (8th) and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz (10th). The highest- placed British brands are HSBC (33rd), Shell (65th) and Burberry (73rd). 
Other fashion brands in the top 100 include Boss, Prada and Ralph Lauren. Designer label Louis Vuitton is the top-ranked fashion name, in 19th position, with a value of $23bn, just ahead of high-street clothing chain H&M, with a brand value of $21bn and ranked 21. 
Sports brand Nike, ranked 22 with a brand valued at nearly $20bn, is rated way ahead of rival Adidas, at 59 in the top 100 with a value of $7bn. 
Frampton said consumers’ ability to interact with and criticize brands on Twitter and other social media means companies must react faster to retain and improve their brands’ reputations. 
“The customer, empowered by social media in the 'age of experience', now has more control than ever,” he said. “In this world of two-way conversations, advocacy, influence and engagement are the new rules for brand-building. 
“Customers expect seamless interactions, responsiveness, 24/7 accessibility, customization options and high levels of personalization,” he said. “In a sense, they increasingly expect brands to know them.”",199
"In homes and cafes across the country, a cup of tea, baked beans on toast and fish and chips have long played a key role in the British dining experience. But, the extent of a change in tastes over the generations has been captured in a dataset published recently in the National Food Survey, which was set up in 1940 by the government after concerns about health and access to food. 
Despite the apparent British love of tea, consumption has more than halved since the 1970s, falling from 68g of tea per person per week to only 25g. With a teabag or portion of loose tea weighing around 3g, that means Britons are drinking on average only eight cups of tea a week today, down from 23 cups in 1974. And, while tea remains the most drunk hot drink in the UK, households now spend more on coffee. 
The data, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as part of its “open data” scheme, is from 150,000 households who took part in the survey between 1974 and 2000, combined with information from 2000 to 2014. It shows some moves towards healthier diets in recent decades, with shifts to low-calorie soft drinks, from whole to skimmed milk and increasing consumption of fresh fruit. But, weekly consumption of chips, pizza, crisps and ready meals has soared. 
There has also been a dramatic shift from white to brown, wholemeal and other bread but the figures suggest the amount people are eating has fallen from 25 to 15 slices a week over the past four decades, based on a 40g slice from a medium sliced loaf. The consumption of baked beans in sauce has dropped by a fifth despite a rise in other types of convenience food, particularly Italian dishes. Adults in the UK now eat an average of 75g of pizza every week compared with none in 1974, while the consumption of pasta has almost tripled over the same period. 
Fresh potatoes are also becoming less essential with a 67% decrease from 1974, when adults ate the equivalent of 188g every day. Other vegetables such as cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and mushrooms have gained space on the table. Consumption of takeaway food has almost doubled since 1974, from 80g per person per week to 150g. Around 33g of this amount is chips and 56g is meat, with kebabs (10g), chicken (7g), burgers (5g) and “meat-based meals” (32g) particularly popular. 
Some trends suggest that British people are becoming more prudent in what they put on their plates, with the average consumption of fruit, both fresh and processed, increasing by 50% since 1974. In 2014, UK adults ate an average of 157g of fruit per day, equivalent to almost two portions of the five-a-day recommendation from the government. Bananas have been the most popular fruit in the UK since 1996, reaching 221g per adult per week in 2014, well above apples (131g) and oranges (48g). Low-calorie soft drinks represented half of all soft drinks consumed in 2014 for the first time. 
Other social changes emerge from the survey, with questions about owning chickens and getting your own eggs being dropped in 1991 and a somewhat belated end in the same year to asking the “housewife” to fill out the questionnaire. Britons are spending a smaller proportion of pay on food today – 11%, compared with 24% in 1974. 
The UK Environment Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, said: “Food is the heart and soul of our society and this data not only shows what we were eating 40 years ago but how a change in culture has led to a food revolution. Shoppers are more plugged in to where their food comes from than ever before, the internet has brought quality produce to our doorsteps at the click of a button, pop-up restaurants are showcasing the latest trends and exciting global cuisines are now as common as fish and chips.” 
“By opening up this data, we can look beyond what, where or how previous generations were eating and pinpoint the moments that changed our habits for good. We’ve only scraped the surface of what the National Food Survey can tell us and, from local food maps and school projects to predicting new food trends, I look forward to seeing how this data can be used to learn more about our past and grow our world-leading food and farming industry in the future.”",200
"James Hamblin, senior editor of The Atlantic magazine, recently did an experiment. As part of his series, ‘If Our Bodies Could Talk’, Hamblin took on a no-showering challenge to examine the effect of over-cleansing the body. He reduced the number of showers he had and did not use shampoo or soap when he had a shower.
He discovered what thousands of others have: the more we try to clean ourselves with soaps and body washes, the harder our skin works to restore its balance and this encourages us to begin the whole process again. Showering removes oil and bacteria from the skin. Many would say “That is the reason I shower!” But, apparently, this sometimes works a little too well, especially when you add hot water and cleansing products.
You know that feeling after a shower when you feel like your skin is tight? That’s because much of your skin’s natural moisture has been washed down the drain. Also, our skin, like our gut, has millions of beneficial bacteria. Showering destroys these bacterial colonies; they’re completely destroyed by all our frequent rubbing and scrubbing. And, when the bacteria washed off by soap return, they usually favour microbes which produce an odour – yes, showering too often may actually make you smell more. However, when you stop showering and using soap, your skin goes through an initial (probably gross) adjustment period and, then, after that, the skin typically restores balance, oil production slows and healthy bacteria flourish.
By doing the challenge, Hamblin realized what other no-soap/no-shower fans have known for years: that the human body, working on its own, is actually quite lovely. And, it’s not just scent and aesthetics – although skin experts suggest that using less soap can improve skin conditions like eczema. Reducing the frequency of showers (and the number of cleansing products used) has implications for our environment. The average shower lasts seven minutes and uses 65 litres of water. That’s 65 litres of clean, drinkable water that we’re filling with soap and washing down the drain each day – sometimes more than once.
The vital importance of clean water is becoming harder and harder to ignore, as California enters another summer of drought. It’s becoming clear that clean water is one of the most valuable things in the world and we soon won’t have enough. Add the environmental effect of all those body wash bottles and you have a number of very good reasons to let your body be a bit more natural.
If the idea of showering less and using less soap is giving you the heebie-jeebies as you remember the last time you were close to people who already don’t shower enough, relax. Many people who have decided to shower less still use deodorant if they find it necessary (everyone’s natural scent varies in intensity and it can be affected by a number of things including diet, hydration and exercise). And, hand-washing with soap is still recommended as a vital way to reduce the spread of infectious diseases.
You don’t need to give up completely, as Hamblin did, but you don’t need to shower three times a day either. There is something in the middle. Our familiar, simple advice is: reduce. Skip a few showers, put down the soap and let those lovely little bacteria flourish a little.",201
"In the Arctic regions of Canada, the summer sun shines for more than 20 hours a day. For some, it’s a welcome change from the constant darkness of winter. But, for the small but growing Muslim community of Iqaluit, Nunavut, life in the land of the midnight sun is a real challenge during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims typically fast from sunrise to sunset.
“I haven’t fainted once,” said 29-year-old Abdul Karim, one of the few in the area who has carefully timed his Ramadan fast to the Arctic sun since moving from Ottawa in 2011. This year, that means eating at about 1.30am before the sun rises and breaking his fast at about 11pm when the sun sets. “The only reason to stop would be if it hurts my health,” Karim said.
It is nearly the end of Ramadan for Muslims around the world. Fasting is important but, during the holy month, in every Muslim community, there is also a focus on community work, prayer and reflection. But, in Iqaluit and the other Muslim communities in the Arctic, the long days have forced a change in how they fast.
Most Muslims in Iqaluit follow the timetable followed by Muslims in Ottawa, about 1,300 miles south – this follows the advice of Muslim scholars who have said Muslims in the far north should observe Ramadan using the timetable of Mecca or the nearest Muslim city. It still means fasting for around 18 hours a day, said Atif Jilani, who moved to Iqaluit from Toronto. “The days are long, but it’s more manageable.”
Many in the community of 100 people break their fast together – they gather in the city’s brand new mosque for nightly suppers. As they tuck into traditional food such as dates and goat or lamb curries, the sun shines brightly through the windows.
It’s a similar situation across Canada’s most northern mosques during Ramadan, as Muslims deal with the country’s unique geography. In recent years, much of the community has chosen to follow the Ramadan timetable of Edmonton, in Alberta. Some follow the timings of Mecca, for example Awan, a father of two young children, including a 12-year-old who recently started fasting. He hopes to encourage his son with the more manageable timetable of about 15 hours of fasting compared with about 18 hours in Edmonton. “If I fast Edmonton times, my son might say, ‘Papa, you are really insane. What are you doing?’” he said.
For the 100 or so Muslims in Inuvik, a small town 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it is impossible to follow the local movements of the sun. They have also been following Edmonton’s timetable. “We currently have 24 hours a day of sun,” said Ahmad Alkhalaf. “There’s no sunrise or sunset.”
They were already following the Edmonton schedule in 2001 when he moved from Toronto to the small northern community of 3,500 people. “My first Ramadan here was in December. There’s no sun at that time; it’s dark all day and night. So we used Edmonton time.”
At times, it can be difficult to follow the clock rather than what is happening outside, Alkhalaf said. “You’re supposed to break your fast when it’s dusk but we eat when the sun is up. It’s not usual to have iftar [the meal that breaks the fast] when the sun is up,” he said.
In Inuvik, where most of the population is Inuit, the Muslim community has tried to strike a balance between Ramadan and the local culture and traditions. The iftar meal includes dates and curries – as well as local game such as reindeer. “We make a soup or curry, but instead of using beef, we use reindeer.”
In Iqaluit, as the Muslim community prepares to mark the end of Ramadan, some reflect that 2016’s timing – stretching across some of the longest days of the year – has made it one of the more difficult of recent years. It’s particularly true for those like Karim who have followed the local sunrise and sunset carefully. But, his efforts will be rewarded in future years, said Karim, thanks to the lunar calendar. Ramadan will eventually fall during winter and, in Iqaluit, the sun will rise and set within a few hours each day. “I’ll follow those hours, too,” he said with a laugh. “Oh yes, definitely.”",202
"More than one million British workers might be employed on zero-hours contracts. This number comes from a poll of more than 1,000 employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Recently, some UK organizations – from shops to Buckingham Palace – have been criticized for employing staff without a guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before looking for extra work with another company.
The CIPD found that 38% of zero-hours contract workers describe themselves as employed full-time. They say they typically work 30 hours or more a week. One-third of voluntary sector employers use the contracts and one in four public sector organizations.
The retail company Sports Direct employs around 20,000 of its 23,000 staff on zero-hours contracts. Other companies using the contracts include cinema chain Cineworld and Buckingham Palace, which uses the contracts for its 350 summer workers. Pub group J D Wetherspoon has 24,000 of its staff – 80% of its workforce – on zero-hours contracts.
Vidhya Alakeson, from the Resolution Foundation, said: “If it’s true that there are around one million people on zero-hours contracts, then that would be a big part of the workforce.”
Unions say that employers put pressure on staff to sign the contracts. In this way, the employers can avoid their responsibilities to employees and reduce staff benefits.
Dave Prentis, of the trade union Unison, said: “The majority of workers are only on these contracts because they have no choice.”
Workers on zero-hours contracts are often only told how many hours they will work when weekly or monthly rotas are created. But they have to be available for extra work at short notice. They may get holiday pay, but they do not get sick pay.
The charity National Trust, which employs many of its seasonal workers on zero-hours contracts, said it gives the same pay and benefits to workers on zero-hours contracts as to full-time staff.
“We believe zero-hours contracts are essential in our organization, because we are very weather-dependent,” the National Trust said. “It’s important to be able to reorganize staff rotas quickly to respond to the weather and zero-hours contracts allow us to do this.”
Politician Chuka Umunna said, “While some employees welcome the flexibility of zero-hours contracts, for many, zero-hours contracts leave them insecure and unsure of when work will come,” he said.
The poll shows that 17% of employers in the private sector use zero-hours contracts, lower than the 34% of organizations in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector.
Industries where employers were most likely to have at least one person on a zero-hours contract were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).",203
"A degree in Spanish got me my first job as a journalist, with an international press agency in Mexico City, but it didn’t prevent me blundering badly as a rookie reporter. 
I had just arrived in the Mexican capital after a Greyhound bus journey all the way from New York and the job interview was a test of my language skills. In my new role, day shifts were spent on the streets in political rallies and nights were spent alone in the office, coordinating the coverage from strife- torn El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the rest of Central America. But, I also had to report on occasional disasters: fires, floods and explosions at fi rework factories. 
It was as a reporter that I soon found out that I was as bad at understanding numbers in Spanish as I was at calculating them in English. Phone calls meant for the police got Mexican grandmothers out of bed at 2am because I had misunderstood a number and dialled a dodgy digit. Even worse, victims were piled too high in my stories – almost 83 dead in a fi re at 6pm turned out to be as few as 38 by 7pm; 12 people injured in a coach crash soon became two and so it went on. Finally, I got a call from the main office in Washington. “I don’t know what training you have had,” an editor yelled, “but has no one ever told you a death toll can’t go down?!” 
Why are numbers in another language such a conundrum? It may have to do with different numbering systems. If we consider that, in German, for example, which belongs to the same Indo-European language family as English, 2.30pm becomes halb drei (half of three) and 21 becomes einundzwanzig (one and twenty), clearly different numeral systems can cause confusion and that’s without even considering indigenous languages with numeral systems so rare they are in danger of dying out. 
Some experts believe there is a link between dyscalculia – the difficulty in comprehending arithmetic – and problems learning foreign languages, particularly if languages are learnt by rote, since this involves the sequential processes that students with dyscalculia struggle with. But, some students who struggle to learn languages with a grammar textbook may thrive in a foreign-language setting, where learning is more natural and less reliant on sequences of adjectives, prepositions and so on. In my case, I have always found languages easy enough, apart from the numbers. 
But, perhaps it’s also because numbers in a non-native language are often heard out of context or in isolation, when the listener might have switched off from the foreign language and be unable to suddenly tune in. A straw poll of multilingual friends found that many can be florid in French or Italian when ordering from a restaurant menu, for example, but freeze if they have to relay numbers, especially over the phone. Numbers seem to be taxing, but no one could really say why. 
In my case, being numerically challenged in a foreign tongue followed me from Mexico to other countries and from Spanish to German and Portuguese. But, in that first journalism job, getting the numbers wrong didn’t always add up to failure. 
One night, a Mexican colleague learnt that the American consul in the port city of Veracruz was being held hostage at gunpoint in his office. With no senior English-speaking reporter in the office, it was left to me to try to reach the consulate by phone. Having got the number wrong, I was put through to an extension elsewhere in the building and the identity of the person who took my call was unmistakable: I chatted for 15 minutes to the gunman. I may not have persuaded him to put away his gun – but my reputation as a rookie reporter still rose overnight.",204
"When you see the word Amazon, what’s the first thing that springs to mind – the world’s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer – and which do you consider most important? 
These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have lodged objections to a bid made by the US e-commerce giant for a prime new piece of cyberspace: “.amazon”. 
The Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently “.com”), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses. 
Along with dozens of other disputed claims to names, including “.patagonia” and “.shangrila ”, the issue cuts to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet. 
Until now, the differences between commercial, governmental and other types of identity were easily distinguished in every internet address by “.com”, “.gov” and 20 other categories. 
But these categories – or generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as they are technically known – are about to undergo the biggest expansion since the start of the worldwide web. 
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – a US-based non-profit organization that plays a key role in cyberspace governance – has received bids (each reportedly worth almost $200,000) for hundreds of new gTLDs to add to the existing 22. 
Amazon has applied for dozens of new domains, including “.shop ”, “.song”, “.book” and “.kindle . But its most contentious application is for its own brand. 
Brazil and Peru have called for the “.amazon” application to be withdrawn, saying a private company should not be assigned a name that denotes an important geographical area that spans their territories and is also used for certain regions and cross-border organizations. “Allowing private companies to register geographical names as gTLDs to reinforce their brand strategy or to profit from the meaning of these names does not serve, in our view, the public interest,” the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said. 
Brazil said its views were endorsed last month by other members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela). 
Dozens of other protests have also been registered over proposed top-level domains that take geographical, cultural or contested brand names. 
Argentina has lodged an expression of its unhappiness that the US outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, is claiming a domain name that has been known far longer as a region of spectacular beauty that also has its own parliament. “Argentina rejects the “.patagonia” request for a new generic top-level domain,” the government notes in an appeal. “Patagonia is a relevant region for the country’s economy because it has oil, fishing, mining and agriculture resources. It is also a region with a vibrant local community and it is a major tourist destination.” 
Less convincingly, China has disputed the domain “.shangrila”, which is proposed by a hotel group of the same name. The authorities in Beijing say the “shangri-la” label belongs to a region in Yunnan province, although it was only renamed as such in 2001 (long after the hotel group was formed) so that the local community could cash in on the fame of the fictional paradise depicted in the novel, Lost Horizon, by British author James Hilton. 
At a conference in April in Beijing, ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee – the primary voice of national governments within the institution – recommended a freeze on disputed proposals. They are expected to be discussed again at a meeting in Durban in July. The first approved domain names should be in use before the end of 2013.",205
"It began with a bogus scallop, but a menu scandal that has engulfed some of Japan’s most prestigious hotels and department stores now threatens to undermine the international reputation of the country’s vaunted cuisine. 
Since one luxury hotel chain admitted lying about the provenance of ingredients on its menus, Japanese media have served up almost daily revelations of similar transgressions by restaurants run by well-known hotels and department stores. 
The frenzy began when the Hankyu-Hanshin hotel chain, based in Osaka, admitted it had given false descriptions of dozens of menu items at some of its restaurants between 2006 and October 2013, affecting an estimated 78,000 diners. 
Among the chief menu misdemeanours was a red salmon 'caviar' dish that turned out to be the less sumptuous eggs of the flying fish. 
A televised attempt by the hotel group’s president, Hiroshi Desaki, to limit the damage by announcing a 20% pay cut for himself and 10% for other executives, failed to mollify angry consumers. 
Days later, Desaki resigned, conceding that the hotel group had “betrayed our customers”, although he added: “We never had the intention to deceive them.” One of the hotel’s head chefs later declined a medal of honour he was due to receive from the government. 
The company has so far refunded more than 10,000 consumers to the tune of 20m yen; the eventual bill is expected to reach 110m yen. 
Japan’s version of the UK horsemeat scandal has since spread to several household names in catering. While, as in the UK, no one has fallen ill from eating mislabelled produce, the outbreak of anger shows no sign of abating. Consumers who believed they had eaten prized kuruma shrimps, for example, were told they had in fact dined on the much cheaper black tiger version. 
The first incident went almost unnoticed. The Prince Hotel in Tokyo was forced to come clean after a diner complained in a blogpost that a 'scallop' dish he had ordered contained a similar, but cheaper, type of shellfish. 
The hotel launched an investigation and went on to correct more than 50 menu items at dozens of its restaurants. Its report scared Hankyu-Hanshin and other hoteliers into admitting that they, too, had hoodwinked diners who believed they were paying high prices for premium ingredients. 
The Hotel Okura chain – whose guests have included Barack Obama – confessed myriad sins, including injecting beef with fat to make it juicier and incorrectly describing tomatoes as organic. 
“We deeply apologize for betraying the expectations and confidence of our clients,” it said in a statement. 
The list of fraudulent ingredients continues to grow: orange juice from cartons sold as freshly squeezed; Mont Blanc desserts topped with Korean chestnuts instead of the promised French ones; bought-in chocolate cream masquerading as home-made; imported beef sold as high-end wagyu. 
Even the government’s top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, was moved to comment on the scandal. “These incidents have surfaced one after the other and this inappropriate labelling has resulted in the loss of trust among consumers,” he told reporters. “These are clearly cover-ups.” 
The fraudulent menu scandal has exploded at just the wrong time. Japan is trying to persuade South Korea and other countries to lift bans on food imports imposed in response to the Fukushima nuclear accident, while UNESCO is considering a request to add Japanese cuisine to its intangible cultural heritage list. 
One local newspaper ran the headline, “Japan’s proud food culture in tears,” while the mass circulation Yomiuri Shimbun said it was “astonished by the industry’s lack of morals.” 
The newspaper voiced concerns that the scandal could “harm the credibility of brand Japan, products and services, which are praised by foreign countries and tourists for their safety and security.” 
Industry experts said the global financial crisis in 2008 had forced luxury hotels to cut costs while attempting to woo diners with detailed menu descriptions. 
“Menu descriptions were created to meet consumers’ preference for brand products, and, when they couldn’t obtain the ingredients stated on the menu, hotels just used food from different places of origin,” Hiroshi Tomozawa, a hotel and restaurant consultant, told Kyodo News. 
While they count the cost to their reputations, the hotels and restaurants involved are unlikely to face legal action. Menus are not covered by the agricultural standards law or by a new food labelling law due to go into effect in 2015. The authorities’ only legal weapon is a law banning misleading representations of goods and services. 
The industry’s biggest nemesis will be Japan’s discerning and demanding consumers. In a 2009 poll conducted by an online restaurant guide, 72% of respondents said provenance was the most important factor in selecting dishes from a menu, followed by calorific and nutritional details.",206
"Glastonbury Festival wants to fight a war against plastic water bottles. They plan to become the world’s most environmentally friendly outdoor music event. 
Each year, disposable bottles leave the Somerset festival site covered in plastic. About one million plastic bottles are used during the festival. 
The festival organizers will give stainless-steel reusable bottles to all band members. Thousands more bottles will go on sale to festival-goers to stop them using plastic bottles. Organizers have asked the 140,000 festival-goers to bring reusable bottles that they can fill at 400 drinking water taps across the site. 
Lucy Smith, Glastonbury’s green issues organizer, said: “We have amazing water quality in the UK but everyone drinks bottled water.” 
There is currently 150 million tonnes of plastic rubbish around the planet and oceans, poisoning ecosystems and killing wildlife. 
The festival organizers hope to make Glastonbury the world’s greenest music festival. They want to be like America’s Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, where people have to take away everything that they take to the festival. 
Organizers have also asked Glastonbury festival-goers to travel to the site on public transport or to share a car with friends. “We want to be as environmentally friendly as we can,” said Smith. 
Plastic water bottles can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely biodegrade. Millions of barrels of oil are used to make plastic bottles and transporting mineral water across the planet produces even more carbon emissions. 
Around 13 billion plastic water bottles are sold in the UK every year, but only one in five is recycled. 
Smith said that festival-goers should not buy bottled water; they should use the water on tap, which comes from big underground reservoirs. The charity WaterAid will also set up water kiosks around the site. They will sell reusable bottles and cups and offer free refills. 
Organizers say that almost half of all the rubbish left at the site was recycled in 2013. They also say that there will be 15,000 bins for recycling across the festival site in 2014.",207
"Europe is to become the first place in the world to force 'real-world' emissions tests on car makers, opening up a new front in the fight to tackle air pollution. New regulations will introduce the tests to reveal what cars’ emissions are like when driving on roads and in traffic rather than in ideal, laboratory-like conditions, as is currently the case. 
Green lit by European Commission Vice President, Frans Timmermans, the tests are designed to enforce a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre, a level met by only one car out of 16, according to researchers. Other countries, such as China and Korea, which are also considering real-world emissions tests, will be watching what happens next closely. 
Pollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and particulates are thought to be responsible for at least one quarter of the 29,000 annual pollution-related deaths in the UK alone. That figure is likely to rise, when the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants publishes what it calls “strengthening evidence” of damage to public health from nitrogen oxide emissions later in 2015. 
But the current 'New European Drive Cycle' laboratory test for measuring these emissions is a quarter of a century old and has been outpaced by technological developments in the car industry. Studies have shown that the results of lab techniques to measure car emissions can easily be fixed by using techniques such as taping up doors and windows to minimize air resistance, driving on unrealistically smooth roads and testing at improbably high temperatures. Campaigners say that car makers also use tricks such as programming vehicles to go into a low emissions mode when their front wheels are spinning and their back wheels are stationary, as happens in such lab experiments. 
“The Commission is finalizing a proposal to introduce a new emissions testing procedure that will allow proper assessment of the vehicles in real driving,” said Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson. The proposal still needs approval from other commissioners and a technical committee but “we don’t expect any major internal hurdles,” a European Union (EU) source added. 
“One key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 citizens annually is that car makers cheat the tests for diesel cars, causing many times more pollution on the road,” said Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. “The development of a new, real-world driving emission test is an important step forward in tackling urban air pollution. EU states should now support the Commission’s proposals and ignore the whingeing from car makers that the rules are too tough.” 
According to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014, actual nitrogen oxide emissions from cars are seven times higher than the 80mg/km standard, with some models running at 22 times above the recommended limit. Only one car out of 16 met the 80g target. Around one third of all nitrogen oxide pollution comes from road transport – mostly diesel – and, in urban areas, concentrations can rise as high as 64%, European Environment Agency figures indicate. 
Campaigners say that the car industry has tried to delay reforms to car test cycles but industry groups deny this, arguing that a five-year lead-time is necessary for technical and economic reasons. “Real Driving Emissions (RDE) is a totally new regulation that will force significant emission control hardware changes that may be demanded in the middle of a vehicle’s production lifetime,” said Cara McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). “However, ACEA fully accepts that RDE will apply to new types of cars from September 2017.” 
In an unusual move, the car association sent Timmermans a draft regulation of their own for him to consider, after EU representatives finally agreed a regulation to implement the nitrogen oxide limits with beefed-up road trials and strict monitoring of exhaust fumes. ACEA’s draft regulation would have covered fewer pollutants and further delayed the regulation’s phased introduction until 2020. Test distances would have been shortened from 1,300m to below 700m, minimum temperatures would have been raised from -7C to -3C and more rural roads would have been used. “The lobbyists were all over this,” Archer said. “This was a real attempt at subversion of the legislative process.” 
After Timmerman’s apparent rejection of the ACEA proposal, the regulation will now pass to commissioners for a rubber stamp, and member states for final amendments, before an expected introduction in September. By 2017, the first real-world car emissions tests are expected to begin in earnest. With a similar battle already looming over the testing of CO 2 emissions for cars at the end of 2015 – and with comparable debates in other countries – the introduction of the EU’s new emissions tests will be watched closely.",208
"Women have traditionally played a minor role in professional football, but this may be changing. France has just appointed its first female professional team manager. It did not matter that it was a second-division club. It did not matter if it was, as some people suggested, just a publicity stunt for a minor team, Clermont Foot 63, which is currently 14th out of the 20 teams in its league.
What mattered was that Helena Costa had been given the top job – an act that saw her make football history by becoming the first female manager to be appointed in the highest two divisions of any professional European league. “As a woman, it’s made me happy,” Véronique Soulier, president of the club’s supporters’ association, told journalists. “When I first heard the news, I was rather surprised, but, once that passed, we were pretty unanimous that it’s good news. We all agree that a woman at the head of a group of men is no bad thing.”
The new manager of Clermont Foot 63, whose average home crowd is around 3,800, was born in Alhandra, Portugal and graduated with a master’s degree in sports science. She is also a UEFAlicensed coach. She previously coached Benfica’s male youth teams, the Qatar women’s team and, more recently, the Iranian women’s national side, which she left in September 2013.
Costa, 36, was appointed on a two-year contract by the president of Clermont Foot 63, Claude Michy, who is a champion at grabbing the headlines for his club. In 2013, he announced the team had signed Messi. They had. Not the Argentinian and FC Barcelona record-breaking striker Lionel Messi, but Junior Messi Enguene, a 20-year-old midfielder from Cameroon. France’s women’s minister, Najat Vallaud- Belkacem, tweeted: “Bravo to Clermont Foot for understanding that giving women a place is the future of professional football.”
Carolina Morace, an Italian who was the only previous woman coach of a men’s professional team, said: “I don’t know Helena, but if she has been hired by a team then it means that she knows how to do her job. I hope that, one day, this can become normal.” Morace was an outstanding player in the women’s game, playing for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she was named as the coach of the men’s team Viterbese. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job because of a disagreement with the club’s proprietor. She added: “For the time being, I see too many men, even in the women’s game, who are working despite not having the same expertise as women, who, by contrast, are not working.”
Raymond Domenech, former manager of the French national team, said: “Women know how to play football and how to manage and are good at doing it. Why shouldn’t they manage men’s teams? The opposite happens and doesn’t cause any problems. It’s a natural choice and reflects our society in which women are equal to men. I say well done to President Michy. I told myself that, if I took charge of a club again, I’d hire a woman as my number two. He beat me to it.”
A statement on Clermont Foot 63’s website said Costa’s appointment would allow the club to enter “a new era”. On the club supporters’ website, reaction to Costa’s appointment was a mix of surprise and a certain cynicism. “In my opinion, it’s just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club and she won’t last the season. I find it hard to believe she’ll be able to get the players’ respect, above all when she’s the same age as the oldest,” wrote one fan. “Her CV isn’t bad, but now the question is: will she be good enough?” added another. A third wrote: “I wish her welcome and success but I think it’ll be hard for her to make her mark as a woman in such a macho business.”
But Soulier was hopeful: “Hopefully, with the new manager, the club can find the motivation they’re lacking at the moment,” she said. “The boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in charge, maybe they’ll be less demanding.”
If Costa’s reputation is anything to go by, she will be the one making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during her compatriot José Mourinho’s first time as manager of the club between 2004 and 2007, she was described as “Mourinho in a skirt”. Costa quickly dismissed the description. “Like Mourinho, I always want to win. As far as that’s concerned, yes, I’m happy to be compared with him,” she said.",209
"Europe is trying to reduce air pollution. Europe will become the first part of the world to force car makers to use 'real-world' emissions tests. New regulations will introduce tests that will demonstrate clearly what cars’ emissions are like when they are driving on roads and in traffic, not in ideal conditions, similar to a laboratory. 
The European Commission has approved the tests. The tests will make sure all cars meet a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre. At present, only one car in 16 meets this limit. Other countries, such as China and Korea, are also considering real-world emissions tests. They will watch what happens next closely. 
In the UK, 29,000 people die every year because of pollution. Pollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide are responsible for at least one quarter of those deaths. 
The current laboratory test for measuring emissions is 25 years old and it needs to change. Car makers can cheat during the tests on their cars using various techniques. For example, they can tape up doors and windows to reduce air resistance, drive on really smooth roads and test at very high temperatures. 
“The Commission will introduce a new emissions test that will properly check the cars in real driving,” said Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson. 
“One key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 European citizens each year is that car makers cheat the tests for diesel cars – this causes much more pollution on the road,” said Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. “The development of a new, real-world driving emission test is an important step towards reducing air pollution in cities. European Union (EU) states should now support the Commission’s idea. They should ignore the complaints from car makers, who say that the rules are too tough.” 
According to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation in 2014, actual nitrogen oxide emissions from cars are seven times higher than the 80mg per kilometre standard and some cars are 22 times above the recommended limit. About one third of all nitrogen oxide pollution comes from road transport – mostly diesel – and, in cities, concentrations can be as high as 64%, according to European Environment Agency data. 
Campaigners say that car makers have tried to delay reforms to car tests. But car makers do not agree – they say that they need five years to introduce the changes for technical and economic reasons. “Real Driving Emissions is a totally new regulation that will force significant changes,” said Cara McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA). “But ACEA fully accepts that the regulation will apply to new types of cars from September 2017.” 
When EU representatives finally agreed a regulation for nitrogen oxide limits – with stricter road trials and monitoring of exhaust fumes – ACEA sent the European Commission their own draft regulation. ACEA’s draft regulation covered fewer pollutants and they wanted to introduce the regulation only in 2020. It included shorter test distances (from 1,300 metres to below 700 metres), raised minimum temperatures from -7C to -3C and wanted to use more country roads for the tests. 
The Commission rejected ACEA’s draft regulation. The new regulation will now probably be introduced in September. By 2017, the first real-world car emissions tests should begin. Countries around the world will watch the introduction of the EU’s new emissions tests carefully.",210
"Junior Smart knows a lot about gangs. He is now 36 and his life can be divided into two distinct phases. He tells how in his late teens, after his mother died, he became drawn into a south London gang, which, at the time, helped fill a huge vacuum. 
“They became my new support group,” he says. “At first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious, more and more about making money. They got involved in criminality. That is how it was.” At school Smart failed his GCSEs, then retook them at college and passed the lot. He secured a full-time job in administration and worked as a DJ. But, on the side, he was making money illegally as part of the gang. 
Eventually he was arrested for serious drug-related offences and was sent to prison for 12 years. Instantly, he says, his sense of invincibility was shattered. “The first night after I was arrested was the biggest wake-up call of my life,” he says. “I had been living a dual life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers’ enemies. I spent a long time sorting myself out.” 
Today, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, which aims to turn young criminals and gang members away from crime. Most of those working there are, like Smart himself, ex-offenders. A few are still serving their sentences but are regarded as having reformed enough to be allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help those who feel trapped and frightened in the violent criminal gangs that operate across London. 
For Smart, the extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he witnessed, from within, a prison system that was so obviously failing its inmates. He recalls a drug addict he befriended who, to his dismay, kept returning. “I was touched by the people who kept coming back in,” he says. “I couldn’t believe that nothing was being done about it. I was talking to the inmates and they knew what needed to be changed in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the 'index' offence.” 
“One guy had a £300-a-week cocaine habit, which he funded through burglary. He would tell me stuff about how he would walk into a house, even when he knew people were there. So although he had a drug addiction, it never got dealt with. The thing that got me about that is that it is simply a revolving door.” 
That case and scores of others persuaded Smart to start working as a prison “listener” – an inmate who helps reassure new arrivals and talks them through their first days inside. From there he developed what he calls his own “little plan” to run his own scheme once out of prison – using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject the revolving door of prison life. He was released early, after five years. “At the end of my sentence I got an opportunity to put my little model into practice,” he says. 
So what does he think now? Does he believe that, after the riots of last August, and the government’s promise to crack down on gangs, things are getting better? He is careful to offer some praise to the police and says much of their work in hauling in gang members has been good. But overall he is highly critical of a disjointed government approach that believes that, once the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He agrees with the findings of a report that says the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. He says the effect of removing the leader is often to destabilize the entire gang. 
He draws a diagram of the hierarchy on a pad. “When you arrest the top guy, people start fighting for position all the way up. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a family. They are more likely to act out, through violence. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has been nullified because it has not had a long-term effect. They have not even given the community a respite.” 
Can it actually make the streets more dangerous? “It can do, because in the vacuum the recruitment and manipulation of young people becomes even more prevalent, creating new lower levels all the way down ... People take sides. If one gang or another territorial street network knows that an elder [leader] has been taken out, then they suddenly think that gang’s weak ... And so we have inter-estate disputes going on. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He forms alliances with other gang members, or when he gets released he then tries to retake control. That is when violence happens.” 
In order to spread risk down to the lowest levels, he says gangs are now recruiting far more in primary schools. The youngest members are called “tinies”. “Over the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be as young as eight to eleven years old.” The young are brought in to shield their seniors from risk. It is often they who are charged with doing the street dealing or even the stabbing, he says. 
Smart says that, with a lack of government funding and commitment to long-term rehabilitation, the challenges are immense, particularly in the current economic climate. “I try to engage a young person who has been earning £300 a week through illegal methods. It was hard before, to try to convince him. But with unemployment high and cuts to benefits, it makes things tougher.” 
That said, his project, which has well over 1,000 clients, is delivering results. Fewer than 20% of those who come in for help reoffend. From personal experience, Smart refuses to write off a single individual as beyond redemption and that is what drives him on. “I don’t think that about anybody,” he says.",211
"Sleep deprivation used to be a sign that you were busy and important and very much in demand. Sleep was for wimps. Now, however, Arianna Huffington’s The Sleep Revolution, a book that promises to completely change your life “one night at a time”, is a New York Times best-seller.
Meanwhile, businesses have realized that they can make money from the sleep revolution. A whole range of businesses are reinventing where, when and how we sleep, as well as how much we’re prepared to pay for it. Luxury hotels are offering “sleep retreats”; more than $1,000 gets you dinner and a movie about sleep. And, if you’re staying home, you can upgrade your bedroom with everything from a mattress cover with a sensor that monitors your sleep ($249) to a sleeping mask that monitors your brainwaves and lets you nap more efficiently ($299).
Sleep has not only become big business – it has made its way into corporations. A number of companies already have sleeping areas and Huffington predicts that nap rooms in offices are going to become “as common as conference rooms” in the next two years. So, how did this happen? How did sleep, something humans have done since long before Huffington, suddenly become so fashionable?
Many people these days find it normal to pay $10 for green juice and $34 for an indoor cycle class. And getting enough sleep fits into this kind of lifestyle. Then, there’s wearable technology. Our bodies have become machines that we monitor and optimize for greater efficiency and sleep has become another data set to be monitored. What Huffington emphasizes about sleep, after all, is not that it rests you but that it restores you. Sleep, she says, is the ultimate performance enhancer and getting eight hours of rest has become the ultimate status symbol.
You know how Arianna Huffington gets her eight hours? Well, she has “nine or so” assistants. Huffington calls them her “A-Team”. They do everything for her. They run her errands, plan her travel and load The Huffington Post on her computer in the morning. According to the New York Times, most of the A-Team can only survive about 12 months in the job because it’s so taxing. The low pay also means many of them take second jobs. Basically, they don’t sleep so that Huffington can … and can sell books about it.
Getting enough sleep isn’t just a question of valuing sleep enough to go to bed at the right time; it’s a question of going to bed in the right neighbourhood and in the right body. Numerous studies show that you’re more likely to sleep badly if you’re poor. It’s hard to sleep if you’re worried about your safety or haven’t had enough to eat. It’s hard to sleep if you’re one of the 15 million American shift workers who work irregular hours. Research has also found that there’s a black/white sleep gap. One study shows that white people sleep an average of 6.85 hours but African Americans sleep an average of 6.05 hours. They also have a lower quality of sleep. Researchers say this is partly due to the stress of racism.
Do you know who gets the most sleep and the best quality of sleep in America? Rich white women. Who are probably the same people Huffington wrote her book for. Huffington describes her promotion of sleep as a “revolution” but, really, it’s a rebranding. The very real sleep crisis isn’t that a few rich people think it’s a waste of time; the problem is the 99% who can’t afford to spend time sleeping.
Sleep may be a performance enhancer but it’s an inefficient one. The real prize is finding a way to negate sleep deprivation so humans can work on less sleep. Unsurprisingly, the military is at the forefront of this research. In 2008, the Pentagon published a report called “Human Performance”. It examined the possibility of a future in which soldiers could perform at their peak with only a couple of hours’ sleep. “Imagine that you could make a human who slept for the same amount of time as a giraffe (1.9 hours per night). This would lead to a twofold decrease in the casualty rate. An enemy would need approximately 40% more soldiers to compensate for this advantage.”
Eventually, humans will find a way to remove the need for sleep completely. Spending a third of your life unconscious won’t be a luxury anymore; it’ll be something only the poor will be forced to do. At that point, we may need a whole new sort of sleep revolution.",212
"Young Cubans are flocking to use the first known free, open-access internet service in the communist island nation, which has been made possible by one of Cuba’s most famous artists. A modest cultural centre in the capital city, Havana, has suddenly become a rare source of free wi-fi. The internationally renowned Cuban artist Kcho is providing the service. Perhaps more surprisingly, his spokesman said the move had been approved by the state-owned telecommunications utility, Etecsa. 
The service is reportedly very slow, especially when the centre gets crowded. But, in a country where only an estimated 5% of the population has unrestricted access to the internet, a facility that is both free of charge and free of restrictions is being hailed as an unprecedented boon. 
The chance to click on international news websites, communicate with friends and family overseas and use sites like Facebook and Twitter has created a massive buzz. “I come as often as I can,” said Adonis Ortiz, 20, while video-chatting with his father, who lives in the US and whom he has not seen in nine years. 
The gradual loosening of the long diplomatic and trade freeze between the US and Cuba is expected to bring American tech giants such as Google and Apple into the Cuban market as soon as they are permitted. In the meantime, Cuba has installed a high-speed, fibre-optic cable under the sea from Venezuela and internet users have some access to Chinese equipment. 
Another estimate, that a quarter of Cubans have access to the internet – still one of the lowest penetration rates in the Western Hemisphere – in fact measures residents who use a restricted domestic intranet featuring only certain websites and limited email. 
Kcho has offered the public admission to his own personal internet connection. But, instead of this being the counter-revolutionary, or post-revolutionary, move of a free-market rebel, Kcho may have been selected as the acceptable face of a regime acquiescing to the inevitable lure of the internet. 
Kcho, who has close ties to the Cuban government, announced that his actions had been approved by the Ministry of Culture. The artist said he wanted to encourage Cubans to familiarize themselves with the internet. “It’s only possible through the will to do it and absorb the costs,” Kcho told the Associated Press. “It is expensive but the benefit is tremendous. I have something that is great and powerful. I can share it and I am doing so.” 
Kcho’s real name is Alexis Leiva Machado. 
He gained international fame for his painting, sculpture and drawings after winning the grand prize at a prominent art biennial in South Korea. He is currently preparing for the Havana biennial in May. Born on one of Cuba’s outlying islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery. 
In the centre’s courtyard, tech-savvy millennials lounge throughout the day in wicker chairs beneath a white canopy or just outside when it’s packed, tapping away on laptops and tablets or glued to their smartphones. 
Cuba has some of the lowest connectivity rates on the planet, with dial-up accounts closely restricted and at-home broadband almost unheard of except in the case of foreigners who pay hundreds of dollars a month for the service in a country where the average salary is between $17 and $20 a month. Kcho is estimated to be paying $900 a month to provide the free wi-fi. 
Since 2013, Cuban authorities have opened hundreds of internet salons, where an hour online costs $4.50, at speeds far lower than those at Kcho’s studio of around 2mbps. A 2014 report by Akamai Technologies found average internet connectivity speeds to be around 10.5mbps in the US and 23.6mbps in world-leading South Korea. Globally, the average was about 3.9mbps. 
With dozens of users at any given time, the signal strength of Kcho’s wi-fi gets diluted. One user said he sometimes swings by in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around, and finds it to be unbelievably fast.",213
"In typical bad-boyfriend style, Dan Sullivan was late to breakfast with the Guardian because he got pulled over on his motorcycle. 
Sullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents. 
And so, like seemingly everyone in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old venture capitalist has come up with a start-up to fix it: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70. 
Sullivan, who works in finance, has been quietly testing the program and has signed up about 350 boyfriends generating about $17,000 revenue every month. Most members, he says, are from his collection of Harvard and investor friends: venture capitalists, founders and employees of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, whose girlfriends have been getting presents from Sullivan for the last year. 
Each month, Sullivan’s members choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, manicures). The package is sent to the boyfriend unbranded and unlabelled. 
He tests his ideas by buying Facebook ads just to see what kind of traction they get. BetterBoyfriend.me took off. “BetterBoyfriend hit something,” Sullivan said. “It’s a pain point everyone has.” 
BetterBoyfriend.me was not Sullivan’s first idea. For a couple of days, he thought about a dog-sharing pitch: “I see all these rich guys looking just miserable walking dogs and I realized: a dog is only valuable 5% of the time,” he said. “So, what if we got a guy who would babysit the dogs and other people could rent them out?” 
Another start-up, called InvisibleBoyfriend, allows users “to design and build a believable social partner who is everything you want and is always available to talk, whenever you want”. The end result is a “boyfriend” who can text with you all day. 
Founder Kyle Tabor launched it to give users a faux boyfriend to deter unwanted advances but has found people have grown attached to their algorithmic partners: “Many more users are seeking companionship through conversation rather than external 'proof' of a relationship to get people off their back.” 
For Sullivan and Tabor, the surprise was the real relationships that have formed with their customers. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends. 
Sullivan admits he’s made mistakes. Early on, the packages included receipts that had his name on them, Dan Sullivan. “One of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, 'Listen, dude, she’s not mad but Cynthia found out'.” 
About 50% of the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to know about his involvement in their relationships: “It’s correlated with age. I think, after you’ve been married a while, you don’t keep many secrets.” 
And over the year, the young founder says he’s got to know the boyfriends really well. They’ve even done a delivery to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend. 
When he first launched his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and set off for Dolores Park, a popular lounging spot in the tech- and youth-heavy Mission District. 
“I looked for couples and gave the bouquet to the girl but that didn’t go down well with the boyfriend. Like, not at all. It made sense, though. It was cool,” he said. “So, I reconsidered and started handing them out to the boyfriends.”",214
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge won the first part of their battle for privacy when a French magazine was banned from selling or reusing photos of the couple at a private chateau in Provence.
French prosecutors must now decide if there should be criminal proceedings against the magazine editor and the photographer or photographers who took the pictures of the duchess sunbathing topless while on holiday in the south of France.
The Tribunal de Grande Instance in Nanterre, Paris ordered the gossip magazine Closer to give the couple the digital files of the pictures within 24 hours. The magazine will have to pay €10,000 for every day it does not give the couple the files.
The court also ordered Mondadori Magazines France, Closer’s publisher, to pay €2,000 of legal costs.
“These photos, which showed the couple, partly naked on the terrace of a private home, surrounded by a park several hundred metres from a public road, are particularly intrusive,” the court said.
The court decided that every time Mondadori – the publishing company owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – publishes a photograph in the future in France, they will be fined €10,000.
But the decision refers only to the 14 pictures that have already been published. Closer’s editor has hinted she has other, more intimate pictures.
The couple welcome the judge’s decision. A source said: “They always believed the law was broken and that they had a right to their privacy.” Maud Sobel, a lawyer for the royal couple in Paris, described it as “a wonderful decision.”
The royal couple are pleased with the decision, but they want there to be a much more public criminal prosecution for invasion of privacy against the magazine and photographer or photographers.
Paris police began an investigation on Tuesday. Under French law, if you invade someone’s privacy, you may have to spend a maximum of one year in prison and pay a fine of €45,000.
This punishment would send a message to the world and, the couple hope, stop paparazzi from invading their privacy in the future.
The Irish Daily Star has also published the photos. And the Mondadori-owned Italian celebrity magazine Chi published a special edition of 26 pages with the photos of the future queen.",215
"The mass collection of telephone records by government surveillance programmes poses a clear threat to the personal privacy of ordinary citizens, according to US researchers who used basic phone logs to identify people and uncover confidential information about their lives. 
Armed with anonymous “metadata” on people’s calls and texts, but not the content of the communications, two scientists at Stanford University worked out individuals’ names, where they lived and the names of their partners. But that was not all. 
The same data led them to uncover potentially sensitive information about some individuals. One man was found to own a rifle, while another had recently been diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. Other data pointed to a new pregnancy and a person with multiple sclerosis. 
The results highlight the extraordinary power of telephone metadata – the number called, when and for how long – particularly when it is paired with public information available from services such as Google, Yelp and Facebook. The value of the data, which is not subject to the same legal protections as the content of people’s communications, has long been recognized by the security services. As Stewart Baker, the former general counsel at the US National Security Agency (NSA), put it in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s revelations: “Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life.” 
Patrick Mutchler, a computer security researcher at Stanford, said that while the power of metadata was understood by those gathering the information, the public was largely in the dark because so few published studies have revealed how rich the data is. “That makes it difficult for people with strong opinions about these programmes to fight them. Now, we have hard evidence we can point to that didn’t exist in the past,” he said. 
For the study, the researchers signed up 823 people who agreed to have metadata collected from their phones through an Android app. The app also received information from their Facebook accounts, which the scientists used to check the accuracy of their results. In all, the researchers gathered metadata on more than 250,000 calls and over 1.2m texts. 
Analysts who logged into the NSA’s metadata-gathering system were initially allowed to examine data up to three hops away from an individual. A call from the target individual’s phone to another number was one hop. From that phone to another was two hops. And so on. The records available to analysts stretched back for five years. The collection window has now been restricted to two hops and 18 months at most. 
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mutchler describes how, on a shoestring budget, he and fellow graduate student, Jonathan Mayer, uncovered a wealth of personal information, some of it sensitive, about people who took part in the study. Through automatic and manual searches, they identified 82% of people’s names. The same technique gave them the names of businesses the people had called. When these were plotted on a map, they revealed clusters of local businesses, which the scientists speculated surrounded the person’s home address. In this way, they named the city people lived in 57% of the time, and were nearly 90% accurate in placing people within 50 miles of their home. Mutchler believes some of the misses came from people not updating their Facebook page when they moved out of their parents’ home, for example, to go to college. 
The scientists next delved into more personal territory. Using a simple computer program to analyse people’s call patterns, they inferred who among the study volunteers was in a relationship. Once they knew the owner of a particular number had a partner, identifying the significant other was easy, they report. 
For the final part of the study, the researchers delved even deeper, to see what sensitive information they could glean from telephone metadata. They gathered details on calls made to and from a list of organizations, including hospitals, pharmacies, religious groups, legal services, firearms retailers and repair firms. From these, they pieced together some extraordinary vignettes from people’s lives. 
The metadata from one person in the study showed they had a long call from a cardiology centre, spoke briefly with a medical laboratory, answered a number of short calls from a local pharmacy and then made calls to a hotline for abnormal heart-rate monitoring devices. Another participant made frequent calls to a local gun supplier that specialized in semi- automatic rifles and later placed a number of long calls to the customer support hotline run by a major gun manufacturer that produced the rifles. The metadata from two others suggested one had multiple sclerosis and the other had just become pregnant. 
“All of this should be taken as an indication of what is possible with two graduate students and limited resources,” said Mutchler, who argues that the findings should make policymakers think twice before authorizing mass surveillance programmes. “Large-scale metadata surveillance programmes, like the NSA’s, will necessarily expose highly confidential information about ordinary citizens,” the scientists write, adding: “To strike an appropriate balance between national security and civil liberties, future policymaking must be informed by input from relevant sciences.” 
Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said the study provided numbers that discussions can now be based on. “With the right analytics running over nation- scale communications data, you can infer huge amounts of sensitive information on everyone. We always suspected that, of course, but here’s the data.”",216
"Facebook has lost millions of users every month in its biggest markets. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9 million monthly visitors in the US and 2 million in the UK. 
It has stopped growing in the US, UK and other major European countries. In the last month, the world’s largest social network lost 6 million US visitors, a 4% fall. In the UK, 1.4 million fewer users went on Facebook last month, a fall of 4.5%. 
People are also using Facebook less in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan. 
“The problem is that, in the US and UK, most people who want to join Facebook have already done it,” said new media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis. 
People get bored, he says, and they “like to try something new”. 
Other social networks are also very popular with younger people. Instagram, the photo-sharing site, got 30 million new users in the 18 months before Facebook bought the business. 
Path, the mobile phone-based social network started by ex-Facebook employee Dave Morin, is gaining 1 million users a week. It now has more than 9 million users. 500,000 Venezuelans downloaded the app in just one weekend. 
Facebook is still growing fast in South America. The number of users in Brazil increased by 6% in the last month to 70 million, according to Socialbakers, whose information is used by Facebook advertisers. And there has been a 4% rise in India to 64 million users – still only a small part of the country’s population, so there is the possibility for more growth. 
Global numbers of visitors to Facebook reached 1.05 billion a month in January, but they fell by 20 million in February. Numbers rose again in April. The social network has now lost nearly 2 million visitors in the UK since December, with its 27 million total the same as a year ago. 
The number of minutes Americans spend on Facebook is falling, too. The total was 121 billion minutes in December 2012, but that fell to 115 billion minutes in February. 
As Facebook has already said, we spend less time using Facebook on our personal computers because we now prefer to use our smartphones and tablets. 
Wall Street expects Facebook’s income this quarter to be $1.44 billion, an increase from $1.06 billion a year ago. 
The company said that it might be losing “younger users” because they now prefer to use “other products and services similar to, or as an alternative to, Facebook”. 
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has created some new initiatives for smartphone users in the last year. One initiative, Facebook Home, is software that you can download onto Android phones to feed news and photos from friends – and advertising – directly to your home screen.",217
"Swedish prisons have a reputation around the world for being liberal and modern. But are the country’s prisons too soft? 
The head of Sweden’s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, said in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons will close because of an “out of the ordinary” drop in the number of prisoner. 
There has been no fall in crime rates, but, between 2011 and 2012, there was a 6% drop in the number of people in Sweden’s prisons, now a little over 4,500. Oberg said he was confused by the drop in numbers, but hoped that the reason was to do with how his prisons are managed. “We certainly hope that the efforts we put into rehabilitation and into stopping criminals from reoffending has made a difference,” he said. 
“The modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978,” says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Sweden’s most secure jail. “When I joined, prisoners were treated well – maybe too well. But, after high- profile escapes in 2004, we had to make the prisons more secure.” 
In Sweden, prison sentences are not usually for more than ten years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of criminals and it continues to keep prison sentences short when possible by using community-based punishments. These have stopped many criminals from reoffending. 
The reoffending rate in Sweden is between 30 and 40% – to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One thing that has kept reoffending down and the number of prisoners in Sweden below 70 per 100,000 people is that anyone under 15 cannot be responsible for their crime. 
Also, in Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life – this is not the same in many other countries – and they try to keep young offenders out of prison. 
One reason for the drop in prison numbers might be the amount of post-prison support available in Sweden. A government-run probation service gives treatment programmes to offenders with drug, alcohol or violence problems. Around 4,500 Swedes help the service – they volunteer to make friends with and support offenders. 
“In Sweden, we believe very much in the idea of rehabilitation,” says Gustafsson. “Of course, there are some people who will not or cannot change. But, in my experience, most prisoners want to change and we must do what we can to help them.”",218
"The day began with more police dawn raids on the Baur Au Lac hotel in Zurich and ended with 16 football officials being charged with corruption in the US, including five current or former members of FIFA’s executive committee. They included the former Brazilian federation chief Ricardo Teixeira and his successor, Marco Polo Del Nero, who recently stepped down from the FIFA executive committee.
They were among 16 individuals accused of fraud and other offences by the US Department of Justice as it gave details of a series of kickback schemes in a new 240-page indictment. Twentyseven defendants have now been charged by the US, including former FIFA executive committee members. “The betrayal of trust here is outrageous,” the US Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, said. “The scale of corruption is completely unacceptable.”
Swiss police arrested the president of the South American football confederation, the Paraguayan Juan Ángel Napout, and Alfredo Hawit, the head of the North and Central American and Caribbean governing body. Hawit only succeeded Jeffrey Webb in May 2015, after Webb was arrested as part of the US operation that threw FIFA into crisis and led to the downfall of Sepp Blatter. Webb’s predecessor, the controversial Jack Warner, was also arrested in May.
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said of the latest arrests: “They are in custody pending their extradition. According to the US arrest requests, they are suspected of accepting bribes of millions of dollars”. Webb and the Colombian former executive committee member Luis Bedoya were among those whose guilty pleas were entered in the US.
Eleven current and former members of FIFA’s executive committee have now been charged in the investigation, which alleges $200m in bribes, mainly as kickbacks from TV and marketing contracts but also FIFA’s development programmes.
“The message from this announcement should be clear to every individual who remains in the shadows, hoping to evade our investigation: you will not escape our focus,” said Lynch. Teixeira, the former son-in-law of the FIFA ex-president João Havelange, was charged alongside Del Nero and his predecessor José Maria Marin, who was charged in May.
Fourteen men had been charged in May 2015. Days later, Blatter won a fifth term as president but then agreed to step down as the crisis grew. He was then provisionally suspended together with the UEFA President, Michel Platini, over an alleged £1.3m payment to the Frenchman. Both men face possible life bans when their case is heard by the FIFA ethics committee in December if they are found guilty.
Among those also charged on Thursday were Rafael Salguero, a Guatemalan who left the executive committee in May; the former South American confederation Secretary General, Eduardo Deluca; the former Peruvian football federation president, Manuel Burga; and Bolivia’s football president, Carlos Chaves, already jailed in his own country.
Lynch said: “The Department of Justice is committed to ending the rampant corruption we have described in the leadership of international football – not only because of the scale of the schemes alleged earlier and today or the breadth of the operation required to sustain such corruption, but also because of the insult to international principles that this behaviour represents.”
The acting FIFA President, Issa Hayatou, refused to comment on the detail of the latest arrests. But he said neither he nor the organization was corrupt. Appearing for the first time before the media since taking the role in September 2015, when Blatter was suspended, Hayatou responded in a similar way to his predecessor when he claimed the current crisis was the fault of a few bad individuals.
“FIFA is not corrupt. We have individuals that have shown negative behaviour. Do not generalize the situation,” said Hayatou, president of the Confederation of African Football for more than 25 years. “There are lots of people who have been in FIFA for more than 20 or 30 years that have not been accused of anything.”",219
"Noise from ships may disturb animals such as killer whales and dolphins much more than we thought before. New research shows that underwater noise could stop these animals communicating and make it more difficult for them to find food. It is well known that noise from ships disturbs large whales. But, US researchers have found noise also disturbs smaller sea creatures such as killer whales, also known as orcas. Dolphins and porpoises may have the same problems. 
“The main problem is that even a small increase in sound may make it more difficult for whales to find food using echo,” said Scott Veirs, who led the research. “That’s worrying because their food, a kind of salmon, is already quite scarce. Hearing a salmon’s click is probably one of the most difficult things a killer whale does. It is harder to hear that click if there’s a lot of noise around you.”
The researchers used underwater microphones to measure the noise made by about 1,600 ships as they passed through Haro Strait, in Washington State, USA. The two-year study recorded the sound made by 12 different types of ship, including cruise ships, container ships and military ships, that passed through the strait about 20 times a day.
Some ships are quieter than others but the average noise next to all the ships was 173 underwater decibels, the same as 111 decibels through the air – about the sound of a loud rock concert. Whales are not usually right next to ships and so would hear noise of about 60 to 90 decibels – around the level of a vacuum cleaner.
Veirs said scientists already knew about the effect of underwater noise on large whales. But, the new research shows the danger to smaller whales, dolphins and porpoises. “We think that ships make low-frequency noise, like the sound of lorries or trains,” he said. “Most noise is at that low frequency but there is more background noise in the high frequencies, too. This might be causing a big problem that we need to study more.”
Lots of underwater noise can cause many problems. Whales may have to stay closer together to hear each other. And, if they cannot find food easily, they will need to use their extra blubber. This is a problem because this blubber often contains manmade pollutants that are poisonous to whales if they get into their bodies.
Veirs said ships that pass near whales need to be quieter. “It should be easy to reduce noise pollution,” he said. “Military ships are much quieter and there could be simple ways of using that technology on normal ships. Another way to reduce noise is to slow down. Reducing speed by six knots could decrease noise by half.”
Some whale species are safer now because there is less whaling but other types of whale are still in danger for many different reasons. The US has recently protected nearly 40,000 square miles of the Atlantic to save a species of whale with just 500 individuals left.
In Europe, killer whales have dangerously high levels of illegal chemicals in their blubber. Scientists are still trying to find out if pollutants caused the deaths of five whales that were found on beaches on the east coast of Britain in January 2016. And, around the coast of Australia, whales are in danger from oil and gas drilling, as well as Japan’s recent decision to start whaling again in the seas of Antarctica.",220
"McDonald’s is the world’s biggest burger chain and a symbol of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald’s are not looking so golden. The company has got much bigger since 2003 but, now, the numbers of customers are falling. McDonald’s says that its worldwide sales have fallen by 3.3%.
The company has problems almost everywhere. In China, sales fell by 23%. In Europe, sales fell by 4%, mostly because of problems in Ukraine and the anti-western mood in Russia. Health inspectors have investigated around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia and they have closed ten restaurants.
But the worst crisis is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.
Sales have fallen every month for 12 months in the US. Many younger diners are eating at rival companies such as Chipotle Mexican Grill. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds who visit McDonald’s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011.
Another problem is that McDonald’s hamburgers were recently named the worst in America in a poll of more than 32,000 American diners – they said they would rather eat a burger at Five Guys, Smashburger or Fuddruckers. Many people also believe that McDonald’s is less healthy than most of its rivals, especially Chipotle. Chipotle uses antibiotic-free meat and “locally sourced, seasonal” ingredients.
McDonald’s asked customers for their opinions in the US in October. Someone asked “Have you ever used pink slime in your burgers?” – ‘pink slime’ is the beef filler that is used for dog food. McDonald’s stopped using this meat product in 2012 but McDonald’s Chief Executive Don Thompson said the company still had to improve people’s opinions about the freshness and quality of its ingredients.
McDonald’s has always had a reputation for fast service at low prices. But, since it introduced $2 items on its dollar menu, people think it is more expensive than its rivals and many consumers complain that service is slower.
But Mary Chapman at food analysts Technomic said that it wasn’t fair to say that McDonald’s was more expensive than its rivals. “Prices have gone up but they haven’t gone up as quickly as the rest of the fast-food chains in the US.” Prices at McDonald’s have increased by 4.8% since 2009, much less than the fast-food average (up 19.4%).
But people are right when they complain that the queues are longer. McDonald’s has a bigger menu than some other restaurants, with more complicated items – its chicken McWrap takes 60 seconds to make. “I think it is worth waiting but the guy behind me who wants his double cheeseburger for a dollar might not,” said Chapman.
McDonald managers are promising to improve people’s opinions about its food in the US. Thompson has promised more organic food and “build your own burgers”. But, to reduce queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. How can the company have simpler menus and, at the same time, a larger selection of fillings? “They want to simplify the menu but also offer ‘build your own burgers’ – that sounds tricky,” said consumer expert Mark Kalinowski. Only four out of McDonald’s 14,000 US restaurants have tested “build your own burger”, he said. “Right now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.”
Sales are falling but McDonald’s continues to expand around the world: by the end of 2014, it expects to open 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski thinks that McDonald’s sales will continue to fall but he thinks it will be number one for many years.",221
"Vienna is the world’s best city to live in, Baghdad is the worst and London, Paris and New York are not in the top 35, says an international study on quality of life.
German-speaking cities do well in the 18th Mercer Quality of Life study, with Vienna, Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt in the top seven.
Paris fell ten places to 37th. This was mostly because of the terrorist attacks on the city. Paris was just above London in 39th place.
The study looked at the economy, health, education, housing and the environment. Big companies use the results of the study to decide where they should open offices and factories and how much they should pay their employees.
Helena Hartlauer, 32, is from Vienna. She said she was not surprised about her city’s top position. For many years, Vienna’s government has spent money on good social housing. This makes Vienna a cheap place to live compared to other big cities.
“I live in a 100 square-metre apartment in a good area about 20 minutes’ walk from the city centre.
But my rent is just €800 (£625) a month.” A similar apartment in London costs over £2,000 and even more in New York, which came 44th in the study.
US cities do badly in the study, mostly because of worries about personal safety and crime. The US city in top position is San Francisco, in 28th position; Boston is 34th.
“You don’t realize how safe Vienna is until you go abroad,” said Hartlauer. “We also have terrific public transport – the underground trains run 24 hours at weekends and it only costs €1 per trip.”
“Vienna’s location is very special,” said Martin Eichtinger, Austrian ambassador to London, who lived in Vienna for 20 years. “The fall of the Berlin Wall helped make Vienna a centre for companies who want to do business in Central Europe.”
Mercer says Zurich in Switzerland has the world’s second highest quality of life but the Viennese say their city is far more fun. “There are more students in Vienna than any other German-speaking city,” said Hartlauer. “It’s a very young and lively city,” she added.",222
"I got a degree in Spanish and this helped me get my first job as a journalist, with an international press agency in Mexico City. But, the degree didn’t stop me from making mistakes. 
I arrived in the Mexican capital after a bus journey all the way from New York. In my new job, I spent my days on the streets in political rallies and my nights alone in the office, where I coordinated the news from areas of fighting in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the rest of Central America. But, I also had to report on disasters: fires, floods and explosions at fi rework factories. 
While I was working as a reporter, I found out that I was bad at understanding numbers in Spanish. Once, when I wanted to phone the police, I got a Mexican grandmother out of bed at 2am because I had misunderstood a phone number. Even worse, there were too many victims in my stories – 83 dead in a fi re at 6pm become 38 dead by 7pm; 12 people injured in a coach crash soon became two and so it went on. Finally, I got a call from the main office in Washington. “I don’t know what training you have had,” an editor shouted, “but has no one ever told you a death toll can’t go down?!” 
Why are numbers in another language such a problem? Perhaps it is because of different numbering systems. In German, for example, 2.30pm is halb drei (half of three) and 21 is einundzwanzig (one and twenty). Different number systems can clearly cause confusion. 
Some experts believe there is a link between dyscalculia – the difficulty in understanding arithmetic – and problems learning foreign languages, particularly if you learn languages by rote. But, some students who find it hard to learn languages with a grammar textbook may learn more easily in a foreign country, where learning is more natural. In my case, I have always found languages quite easy, apart from the numbers. 
But, perhaps it’s also because we often hear numbers in a non-native language out of context. You may stop listening to the foreign language and suddenly be unable to understand. I talked to multilingual friends and they said that they are fluent in French or Italian when ordering from a restaurant menu, for example, but freeze if they have to say numbers, especially over the phone. Numbers seem to be difficult, but no one could say why. 
In my case, my problems with numbers in a foreign language followed me from Mexico to other countries and from Spanish to German and Portuguese. But, in that first journalism job, getting the numbers wrong didn’t always mean failure. 
One night, a Mexican colleague told me that a gunman was holding the American consul hostage in his office in the port city of Veracruz. There was no senior English-speaking reporter in the office, so they asked me to try to call the consulate. I got the phone number wrong and I was put through to another phone somewhere else in the building. I knew straight away who the person was: I talked for 15 minutes to the gunman. He didn’t put away his gun as a result of his conversation with me – but my reputation as a reporter rose instantly.",223
"In the West, people do not usually eat insects. But in some parts of the world, insects are an important food and in spring 2013 there will be an effort to show people that eating insects is not disgusting. And we may soon be able to buy insects in supermarkets. 
In April, there will be a festival in London, Pestival 2013, where there will be a discussion about the question of eating insects. The festival will include a restaurant by the Nordic Food Lab, the Scandinavian team behind the Danish restaurant Noma, which brought extremely popular insect dishes to Claridge’s hotel in London in 2013. Noma has been named the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine for three years. Its chef, René Redzepi, says that ants taste like lemon, and a mixture of grasshoppers and moth larvae tastes like a strong fish sauce. Bee larvae make a sweet mayonnaise used instead of eggs and scientists find new ways to use insects all the time. 
In March, a BBC documentary will show a food writer eating deep-fried locusts and barbecued spiders. But, behind all the jokes there is a very serious message. Many experts believe that if humans eat insects, it will be very good for the environment. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) gives money to projects that show people they can eat and farm insects in south-east Asia and Africa. In these places about two billion people already eat insects and larvae as a normal part of their diet. In 2012, the FAO published a list of 1,909 edible species of insect and plans a major international conference on “this valuable food source” in 2013. 
There are lots of insects – there are 40 tonnes of insects for every person in the world – so they will not become endangered. “I know it’s taboo to eat bugs in the West, but why not?”, Redzepi said. “You go to south-east Asia and this is a common thing. You read about it from all over the world, that people are eating insects. We eat honey, and honey is the vomit of a bee. Think of that next time you put it into your tea.” 
He said that the basic idea behind Nordic Food Lab is that you can eat everything. 
Insects are very important to life on Earth and they are the most diverse group of animals on the planet: there are more than a million species. But most people hate them and often kill them. 
In the next 30 years, the planet’s human population will increase to nine billion. Already one billion people do not get enough food. The increase will put more pressure on agricultural land, water, forests, fisheries and resources, and also food and energy supplies. 
The cost of meat is increasing – it costs more money now, but also people have to destroy a lot of rainforest to make fields or to grow food for cows. Cows also make methane. The farming of cows, pigs and sheep makes very big amounts of greenhouse gases – 35% of the planet’s methane, 65% of its nitrous oxide and 9% of the carbon dioxide. 
Edible insects make fewer gases, contain high-quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, and only need a quarter of the food that sheep need to make the same amount of protein. You can grow them on organic waste. China is already building huge maggot farms. Zimbabwe is growing caterpillars and Laos is developing an insect-harvesting project. One study says that eating crickets and locusts, and not eating pork and beef, could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95%.",224
"The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son on Monday, 22 July. Third in line to the throne, the baby is destined to be the 43rd monarch since William the Conqueror obtained the English crown in 1066. 
Kensington Palace announced at 8.30pm that the baby was born at 4.24pm in the exclusive Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London. “We could not be happier,” the Duke of Cambridge said. 
In a statement, Kensington Palace said: “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. The baby weighs 8lbs 6oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.” The duchess experienced at least ten and a half hours’ labour, which Kensington Palace said had “progressed as normal”. 
The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families were informed and were delighted with the news that Her Royal Highness and her child were both doing well. 
It is understood that the couple delayed making the announcement immediately so that they could enjoy some private time with their newborn. William telephoned his family to tell them the good news, speaking to the Queen, his father, Charles and younger brother, Prince Harry. 
The birth of the baby prince means the monarchy has three generations of heirs to the throne for the first time since 1894. 
The baby is the first Prince of Cambridge to be born for more than 190 years since Prince George of Cambridge, a grandson of George III and the only son of Prince Adolphus Frederick, the 1st Duke of Cambridge. 
In a statement, Prince Charles said: “Both my wife and I are overjoyed at the arrival of my first grandchild. It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy. 
“Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone’s life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future.” 
The newest royal will be called HRH Prince George of Cambridge. When Kate was three months pregnant, a decree issued by the Queen said: “All the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of Royal Highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour.” 
Following tradition, a formal notice was posted on an ornate rococo-style easel – the same used to announce Prince William’s birth in 1982 – in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace shortly before 9pm. Within an hour, the numbers had swelled from hundreds to thousands outside the palace, with locals and tourists alike keen to share in the historic moment. 
New Yorker, Sharon Surloff, was delighted with her phone picture of the royal bulletin, snapped after she and her niece and mother had squeezed through crowds to take a photograph of the easel. 
“The police were just saying to everyone: 'OK, 20 seconds and then the next person'. It’s just great to be here, though. We arrived this morning, at nine in the morning, so it has all worked out beautifully.” 
The palace announced the birth in a press release. Minutes later, as crowds of well- wishers outside cheered, “It’s a boy”, the formal medical bulletin was taken from the hospital to a waiting car by Ed Perkins, Prince William’s press secretary. He handed it to a soldier, who then took the notice, which was signed by Marcus Setchell, the Queen’s gynaecologist, to Buckingham Palace under police escort. 
The prime minister was one of the first to offer his congratulations. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, David Cameron said: “It is wonderful news from St Mary’s, Paddington, and I am sure that, right across the country, and, indeed, right across the Commonwealth, people will be celebrating and wishing the royal couple well. 
“It is an important moment in the life of our nation but, I suppose, above all, it is a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who have got a brand new baby boy. It has been a remarkable few years for our royal family: a royal wedding that captured people’s hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent jubilee and now this royal birth – all from a family that has given this nation so much incredible service.” 
Congratulations came from the White House, too, from Barack Obama and his wife. The president said: “Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings.” 
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, tweeted: “Delighted for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. May God bless them all with love, health and happiness.” 
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “Many congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I wish them and their son all happiness and good health.” 
The campaign group, Republic, which launched its Born Equal initiative calling for every child to be born equal in political status and rights, said the royal birth raised questions about Britain and democratic values. Chief Executive Graham Smith said the baby should be able to grow up without “constant interference and intrusion”. He said: “Here is a new baby whose career, religion, even personal relationships have already been mapped out. Meanwhile, this is an opportunity for the rest of us to consider whether this circus is the best way to run things.”",225
"A nasal spray laced with the 'Love hormone' oxytocin could help children with autism learn to handle social situations better, US researchers claim. Scans of children with autistic spectrum disorder showed that a single dose of the chemical improved brain responses to facial expressions, a shift that could make social interactions feel more natural and rewarding for them. 
The scientists behind the research said a course of oxytocin might boost the success of behavioural therapies that are already used to help people with autism learn to cope with social situations. “Over time, what you would expect to see is more appropriate social responding, being more interested in interacting with other people, more eye contact and more conversational ability,” said Kevin Pelphrey, director of the Child Neuroscience Lab at Yale University. 
Autism is a developmental disorder seen in more than one in 100 people. The condition affects individuals in different ways, but is characterized by difficulties in social interaction and communication. So far, there is no established treatment for the social problems caused by autism. Researchers at Yale have studied the brain chemical oxytocin as a potential treatment for the social impairments caused by autism because it plays a crucial role in bonding and trust. Results have been mixed, though: one recent study found no significant benefit for youths given the chemical over several days. But Pelphrey said oxytocin might help the brain learn from social interactions; it would work best when used with therapies that encourage people with autism to engage more socially, he said. 
“Our study shows that oxytocin affects the brain and opens up the possibility that, when combined with behavioural treatments, it works like a social enhancer,” he said. The scientists used a technique called functional MRI to scan the brains of 17 youths aged eight to 16 with autism while they looked at images of cars or the eyes of people expressing various emotions. The scans were given 45 minutes after the participants inhaled a placebo or oxytocin through a nasal spray. 
The scans showed that reward circuitry in the children’s brains behaved more normally after a snort of oxytocin, being more active when the person was looking at faces and less active when viewing the inanimate cars. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. “If this is replicated, it suggests that oxytocin might treat something for which we don’t have a treatment in autism, and that’s the core social motivation,” Pelphrey told the Guardian. 
He warned that it was too early to use oxytocin as a treatment for the social difficulties caused by autism and cautioned against buying oxytocin from suppliers online. “We don’t want them running out on the basis of this study or any other and trying oxytocin at home. There is no telling what they are buying. We are nowhere near thinking this is a ready treatment. It needs more follow-up,” he said. “This is an important new study in identifying changes in brain activity in key regions of the brain involved in social cognition in autism following oxytocin administration,” said Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. A surprising finding, however, is that oxytocin nasal spray did not change performance on the social cognitive task. Nor is it clear yet if oxytocin only has benefits for people with autism or has any unwanted side effects. 
Finally, oxytocin effects only last about 45 minutes, so there may be practical considerations as to whether this could be used as a treatment. 
“From a scientific perspective, this study has a lot of evidence from animal and human work to justify serious attention, but more research is needed. Doctors should be cautious about the clinical potential of this hormone until we know much more about its benefits and risks, in much larger studies.” Said Simon Baron-Cohen. 
Uta Frith, who studies autism at University College London, said: “According to this study, oxytocin may have the effect of making faces more interesting as assessed by greater activity in brain structures concerned with reward evaluation. Disappointingly, this effect is seen only in brain activity and not in behaviour. Demonstrating an effect on behaviour will be critical if nasal spray treatment is to be of any value.”",226
"Male bosses are paid bonuses double the size of those given to female colleagues in identical jobs. This means that men get salary top-ups of £141,500 more than women over their working lives.
The figures, released by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), reveal that men in UK management roles earned average bonuses of £6,442 in 2012 compared with £3,029 for women.
In the most senior roles, female directors received bonuses of £36,270 over the past 12 months, compared with £63,700 awarded to male directors.
The latest figures show that pay in British business is still not equal. This has led to calls for action from campaigners on workplace equality.
Ann Francke, the CMI’s chief executive said: “It’s time to move this issue into the mainstream management agenda.
“This is about changing our approach to management. There should be greater flexibility, less masculine cultures, more emphasis on outcomes rather than time in the office and greater transparency around performance and rewards.
“In solving this issue, we would actually raise the performance of organizations and the well-being of individuals at work. What are we waiting for?”
While some of the data may be affected by factors such as women doing jobs where there is less of a culture of bonus payments, the differences in the sizes of bonuses do appear to make Britain’s pay gap worse. The government says the pay gap is closing but that full-time male employees still earn 10% more than women.
Maria Miller, the Minister for Women and Equalities, said: “The CMI figures are another example from the world of work showing that women still lose out to their male counterparts.
“Changes in the workplace are happening and it’s good that the pay gap is closing – but there is still more to do before we see full equality in the workplace.
“The government is playing its part. We have signed up 120 companies to our Think, Act, Report scheme, which encourages companies to improve the way they recruit, promote and pay women.
“We’ve also looked at other pay gap causes, such as having to juggle work and family responsibilities. We have introduced shared parental leave and the right to request flexible working to all employees.”
Large companies such as Tesco, BT, Unilever and the international law firm Eversheds are among those signed up to Think, Act, Report. The scheme has only attracted 120 supporters in nearly two years of existence.
However, the CMI’s data did provide some evidence to support Miller’s statement that the overall pay gap is narrowing: the difference between the average salaries earned by male and female bosses appeared to shrink from 2012.
A sub-set of 17,000 individual managers, whose salaries and bonuses have been followed over a number of years, showed that male managers’ earnings are rising faster than women’s for the first time in five years. Men’s earnings increased by 3.2% compared with a 2.8% increase for women, when salaries and bonuses are combined.
At the most senior level, male directors’ earnings rose by 5.3% over the past 12 months, compared with just 1.1% for female directors.",227
"The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is drawing to a close, according to the leading rock promoter and manager Harvey Goldsmith. 
The man who has produced and worked with most of the western world’s biggest music stars, from the Who, the Rolling Stones and Queen to Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti, said the biggest problem was a dire lack of major new bands to succeed the old ones. 
“The festival circuit has peaked,” he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Powys, Wales. “It really peaked about two years ago. There’s too many of them and there are not enough big acts to headline them. That is a big, big problem in our industry. And, we are not producing a new generation of these kind of acts – the likes of the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys – that can headline.” 
There were about 900 music festival events in the UK between May and September 2014, he said, and there is no way they can all continue. “Music festivals have probably run their course. What is going to happen is a growth in events where it isn’t just music but, like this one, with poetry or books or magic shows. There will be lots of small combination festivals that give something extra – not people standing around in a massive great field unable to go to the toilet because they might miss the band.” 
Clearly, the way music is being delivered has changed, he said. “People don’t seem to want to listen to a body of work, an album, any more. And, most rock bands built a reputation on a body of work – they might take three albums to really hone their art, to become great, but young people don’t want that. They home in on a track, a sound, then, ping, off again to the next one. Pop pervades, not that there’s anything wrong with pop. I think it will come round again but it will take time.” 
Goldsmith, 69, also revealed that he has teamed up with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Who’s 1970s rock musical Tommy, at a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, which is due to be finished in time for the first stage adaptation of the phenomenally successful teen book and movie series The Hunger Games in June 2016. 
De Levita would, said Goldsmith, be bringing his experimental SceneAround concept to London – theatre that puts the audience seating on a turntable that rotates round a series of scenes built around its circumference, accompanied by projections on panel screens. The concept was pioneered in an aircraft hangar outside Amsterdam and has proved hugely successful. 
Goldsmith, who is already planning to bring a production of the Anne Frank story to the as-yet-unnamed venue, said: “It’s a whole completely different way of producing shows.” 
During his Hay appearance, the impresario also revealed some of the “access-all-areas” secrets from his long career in the music industry, talking about Keith Moon putting dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet in an effort to unblock it and witnessing the paralysing stage fright that gripped John Lennon just before an appearance at Madison Square Garden in 1974 and led to him being dragged, vomiting, out of his dressing room and shoved out on stage. “It’s the most bizarre thing, really, how common that is among artists. It’s odd how stricken with fear they’ll get but, as soon as the first chord is hit, they’re fine,” he said. 
He also laid to rest a long-running rock’n’ roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presley’s long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker, admitted to him over tea, he said, that the real reason why Goldsmith’s attempts to bring the singer to London had failed was Parker’s own uncertain immigration status. 
“He explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didn’t want to risk leaving the US – it was him, not Elvis,” said Goldsmith. 
And, his ultimate rock’n’ roll performer? “Freddie Mercury had to be our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer we’ve ever had. At Live Aid, he went out and saw that audience and just grabbed it.” 
But, the next Queen was still far from being formed, he said. “We’re not producing a new generation of this kind of act. Coldplay is probably the last one to come up and that was ten years ago. There isn’t much out there that looks like it is forming the next generation of heritage artists. 
“So, with no big acts to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury has got to the point where it can’t find any more big acts and that’s the pinnacle of the festivals. They are really over.”",228
"David Cameron has declared a “clear result” in the Scottish independence referendum after Scotland voted by a 10.6-point margin against ending the 307-year-old union with England and Wales. The prime minister promised a devolution revolution across Great Britain, including votes on English issues by English MPs at Westminster, as he welcomed Scotland’s decision to remain inside the UK. “There can be no disputes, no reruns – we have heard the settled will of the Scottish people,” Cameron said in a statement 
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, remained defiant at a downbeat Scottish National Party rally in Edinburgh, saying he accepted Scotland had not, “at this stage”, decided to vote for independence. He paid tribute to what he called a “triumph for democratic politics” and said he would work with Westminster in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK – warning the leaders of the three main parties to make good on their promises of enhanced devolution for Scotland. “We have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics,” he said. 
The yes campaign scored four big successes, winning 53% of the vote in Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire. However, the no camp was victorious in 28 authorities. It won overwhelmingly in areas where it was expected to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders, but also in areas that could have gone to the yes campaign, including the Western Isles. In the final count, the no camp won 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) to 1,617,989 for yes (44.7%). 
In his speech, Cameron made clear that the constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, would not be delivered until after the general election, and that Scottish measures would proceed in tandem with changes in England. “We have heard the voice of Scotland and, now, the millions of voices of England must be heard,” he said. 
Cameron added: “The people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. They have kept our country of four nations together and, like millions of other people, I am delighted. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end. And I know that sentiment was shared by people not just across our country but around the world because of what we have achieved together in the past and what we can do together in the future. So, now, it is time for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward. A vital part of that will be a balanced settlement, fair to people in Scotland and, importantly, to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well.” 
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said the referendum was a vote from the Scottish people for change. “We know our country needs to change in the way it is governed and we know our country needs to change in who it is governed for. We will deliver on stronger powers for a stronger Scottish parliament, a strong Scotland.” But he said that would go beyond Scotland. “We will also meet the desire for change across England, across Wales, across the whole of the United Kingdom.” 
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the referendum “marks not only a new chapter for Scotland within the UK but also wider constitutional reform across the union”. Echoing the SNP’s argument, he said a vote against independence was “clearly not a vote against change”. “We must now deliver on time and in full the radical package of newly devolved powers to Scotland,” he added. 
Yet that result raises the risk of further turmoil, with MPs from Cameron’s Conservative Party threatening to revolt against the prime minister’s late and potentially vital promise to quickly increase the Scottish parliament’s powers while protecting its spending. 
The UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, said Cameron’s offer of more devolution for England did not go far enough. “The English are 86% by population of this union. They’ve been left out of all of this for the last 18 years. We still have a situation where Scottish MPs can vote in the House of Commons on English-only issues. I think what most English people want is a fair settlement,” he said. 
Cameron and the Queen will both move to calm tensions when they deliver statements on the result. The prime minister will try, in the words of one cabinet minister, to “cement in” the no vote by outlining how he will deliver the deepening of Scotland’s devolution settlement, including handing greater powers over tax and welfare to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. 
The Queen, who has monitored the referendum with interest, will make a written statement. It is understood that her remarks will focus on reconciliation. The prime minister wants to move fast to show that the three main UK party leaders will live up to their commitments made during the referendum campaign to deliver what the former prime minister Gordon Brown called “home rule” within the UK. 
Ministers believe it is important to move quickly to avoid a repeat of the 1980 referendum in Québec. The triumphalist behaviour of Ontario fuelled the separatist cause that nearly succeeded in a second referendum in 1995. 
For the no campaign, there was relief: a spate of authoritative polls in the final days of the campaign had said the vote was on a knife-edge, bringing Yes Scotland within touching distance of victory after a dramatic surge in support.",229
"The average six-year-old child understands more about digital technology than a 45-year-old adult, a new report says.
The arrival of broadband in the year 2000 has created a generation of digital natives, Ofcom (which checks standards in the UK communications industries) says in its report. These children, who were born in the new millennium, are learning how to use smartphones and tablets before they can talk.
Jane Rumble from Ofcom said that, because they are growing up in the digital age, children’s communication habits are different from older generations, even from the 16-to-24 age group.
800 children and 2,000 adults took Ofcom’s “digital quotient”, or DQ, test. The test finds out how much people know about tablets, smart watches, superfast internet, 4G mobile-phone networks and mobile apps. It also tries to find out how happy they feel about using them.
In 6- to 7-year-olds, who have grown up with YouTube, Spotify music streaming and online television, the average DQ score was 98. Adults aged between 45 and 49 scored an average of 96. Digital understanding is highest between 14 and 15 years old – this age group have an average DQ of 113.
People can now test their digital knowledge with a short version of the questionnaire. It will give anyone a DQ score. The website also gives people advice on how to improve their understanding and protect themselves and their families online.
The ways in which children contact each other are very different from older generations.
The biggest change is in time spent talking on the phone. Twenty years ago, teenagers spent their evenings on the home telephone line, talking about love and friendships in conversations that lasted for hours.
But, now, for children aged 12 to 15, phone calls make up just 3% of time spent communicating  through any device. For all adults, this rises to 20% and, for young adults, it is 9%. Today’s children communicate most by sending written messages or through sharing photographs and videos.
Over 90% of the time they spend using devices is spent sending messages: chatting on social networks like Facebook, sending instant messages through services like WhatsApp or even sending traditional mobile-phone text messages. Just 2% of children’s time using devices is spent emailing. Adults spent 33% of their time using devices emailing.
When they are not using their phones, 12- to 15-year-olds have a very different relationship with other media, too. A digital seven-day diary shows that only half of their viewing time is spent watching live television, compared to nearly 70% for all adults. They spend 20% of their time watching short video clips, for example on YouTube, or news clips on Facebook and other social sites. The rest of their viewing time is spent watching DVDs, streamed content through Netflix or iTunes and recorded television programmes.",230
"Barack Obama flew back to Washington and his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday, hours after delivering an election victory speech in Chicago in which he asked the country to unite behind him.
Unlike after his election in 2008, the President is unlikely to get a honeymoon period.
Both the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and the Democratic Leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, spoke about a need to work together to resolve the economic crisis. But it could become one of the biggest battles yet between the White House and Congress under Obama’s presidency.
While Obama easily beat his Republican opponent Mitt Romney, holding swing state after swing state, the election showed again how divided America remains.
While the inauguration is not until January, in effect Obama started his second term on Wednesday. Having disappointed many supporters in his first term, he now wants to establish a legacy that will transform him from a middling president into a great one.
As well as overseeing what he hopes will be continued economic recovery, he hopes to address issues from immigration reform to investment in education and climate change, and, in foreign policy, from Iran to Israel-Palestine.
He comfortably won more than the required 270 electoral college votes, and he also won a higher share of the popular vote.
Boehner, in a statement, sounded conciliatory. He talked about “the need for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt”.
Reid, also sounded conciliatory, saying: “I look at the challenges that we have ahead of us and I reach out to my Republican colleagues in the Senate and the House. Let’s come together. We know what the issues are; let’s solve them.”
The trouble will come when talks move to detail: the Republicans want to protect military spending while the Democrats want cuts. Obama wants tax increases on households earning more than $250,000; Boehner has rejected any tax increases.
In the presidential race, Romney won only one of the swing states, North Carolina, while Obama held New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado.
In his victory speech in Chicago, Obama referred to the long queues to vote and said there was a need for electoral reform.
He returned to the soaring rhetoric that was his trademark during the 2008 election but which was not seen in 2012 because his campaign team decided it was inappropriate.
But now that he has won, he returned to famous lines from earlier speeches, such as his 2008 slogan about “hope”.
Obama told the ecstatic crowd of supporters: “Tonight in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back. And we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.” In a speech that lasted more than 25 minutes, Obama paid emotional tribute to his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha – as well as to his Vice-President, Joe Biden. Then he returned to the message that first brought him to national attention.
“We are not as divided as our politics suggests,” he said. “We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America.”
Obama made clear he had an agenda in mind for his second term. He mentioned changes in the tax code, immigration reform and, as he put it, an America “that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet”.
Just before, Romney had phoned the President to concede. He said, “This is a time for great challenges for America and I pray the President will be successful in guiding our nation.”
The campaign almost throughout has been a referendum on Obama. Despite the slow economy recovery and a high unemployment level, Americans decided not to change presidents.
Historically, it would have been a disappointment for African Americans and many white liberals if the first black presidency had ended in failure.",231
"It was a beautiful summer evening and I decided to go for a swim from Doolin Pier in County Clare, Ireland, where I moved in 2012. There was a woman in the water with Dusty, a dolphin who has a great relationship with a group of people she regularly swims with. Dusty arrived in Doolin in about 2008. Hundreds of people have swum with her, so everyone thinks that she’s totally tame. 
That evening, the woman was tickling Dusty’s tummy and it looked so nice in the water. There were about 20 tourists and locals on the pier. They were looking at this lovely sight. Just after I got into the water, Dusty left the woman she was with and went crazy – I found out afterwards that she’s very territorial when she is with somebody. Her tail was flapping wildly and, at first, I thought it was a display but, then, I realized she was angry. I knew I had to get out of the water so I swam towards the pier. But, within seconds, Dusty crashed into me with her nose. It was very powerful and painful, and the speed was amazing. 
All the people on the pier were staring at me with their mouths open. Dusty was still in the water beside me, her tail flapping crazily. That was the most frightening thing: I thought, if she hits me with her tail, I could go under the water and drown. 
I was at the pier but I couldn’t get out because of my injuries. I was terrified. I shouted for help and a man put his arm in and pulled me out of the water. Then, another man appeared and said he was a doctor. I was so cold and very worried – I didn’t know how bad my injuries were and my biggest fear was internal bleeding. The doctor said he didn’t think I had internal bleeding but he thought I probably had broken bones. I found out later that I had six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung. 
I was in hospital for five days and I couldn’t work for five months. I couldn’t move normally and I was in pain. Then, doctors told me I had post- traumatic stress. My near-death experience made me anxious about everything. I felt that people were looking at me in the wrong way, I began to have problems with loud noises and I suffered from memory loss. I could no longer work. 
It was the hardest year ever but, now, things are better. I had therapy, osteopathy and massage. I work as an osteopath now. I understand how the patients feel because I have been a patient myself. 
I am grateful that I am healthy. I really want to prevent other people being injured. We think dolphins are lovely and we have faith in them – who would think a dolphin would ever attack a person? If you see a dangerous animal coming towards you with big teeth, it’s scary, but dolphins have this lovely, wide smile. 
I don’t have any anger towards Dusty. I respect her. But I was in her territory and she’s a wild, unpredictable animal. People need to know that. So many people come here to swim with her and they don’t understand how dangerous it can be. Several other people were injured that summer. 
After the man pulled me out of the water, Dusty swam away but, then, she came back and looked at me. Our eyes met and I felt she was sorry for what she did to me. She was a totally different dolphin; the anger was gone. The people on the pier were amazed. When she had that little moment with me, that was the end of the terror. I forgave her.",232
"They may not know who Steve Jobs was or even how to tie their own shoelaces, but the average six-year-old child understands more about digital technology than a 45-year-old adult, according to an authoritative new report. 
The advent of broadband in the year 2000 has created a generation of digital natives, Ofcom (which checks standards in the UK communications industries) says in its annual study of British consumers. Born in the new millennium, these children have never known the dark ages of dial-up internet and the youngest are learning how to operate smartphones or tablets before they are able to talk. 
“These younger people are shaping communications,” said Jane Rumble, Ofcom’s media research head. “As a result of growing up in the digital age, they are developing fundamentally different communication habits from older generations, even compared to what we call the early adopters, the 16-to-24 age group.” 
Ofcom devised a “digital quotient”, or DQ, test to put 800 children and 2,000 adults through their paces, which, rather than measuring intelligence, as an IQ test would, attempts to gauge awareness of and self-confidence around gadgets from tablets to smart watches, knowledge of superfast internet, 4G mobile- phone networks and mobile apps. 
Among 6- to 7-year-olds, who have grown up with YouTube, Spotify music streaming and online television, the average DQ score was 98, higher than for those aged between 45 and 49, who scored an average of 96. Digital understanding peaks between 14 and 15 years of age, when the average is a DQ of 113, and then drops gradually throughout adulthood, before falling rapidly in old age. 
People are now being invited to test their digital knowledge with an abbreviated version of the questionnaire that will give any member of the public a DQ score, along with advice on how to improve their understanding and protect themselves and their families online. 
The ways in which millennial children contact each other and consume entertainment are so different from previous generations that forecasters now consider their preferences a better indication of the future than those of trendsetting young adults. 
The most remarkable change is in time spent talking on the phone. Two decades ago, teenagers devoted their evenings to monopolizing the home telephone line, dissecting love affairs and friendships in conversations that lasted for hours. 
For those aged 12 to 15, phone calls account for just 3% of time spent communicating through any device. For all adults, this rises to 20% and, for young adults, it is still three times as high at 9%. Today’s children do the majority of their remote socializing by sending written messages or through shared photographs and videos. “The millennium generation is losing its voice,” Ofcom claims. 
Over 90% of their device-time is message based, chatting on social networks like Facebook, sending instant messages through services like WhatsApp or even firing off traditional mobile- phone text messages. Just 2% of children’s time is spent emailing, compared to 33% for adults. 
Away from their phones, 12- to 15-year-olds have a very different relationship with other media, too. A digital seven-day diary shows live television accounts for just half of viewing for this age group, compared to nearly 70% for all adults. They spend 20% of their time viewing short video clips, for example on YouTube, or news clips distributed via Facebook and other social sites. The rest of their viewing is shared between DVDs, streamed content through Netflix or iTunes and recorded television programmes. 
Young adults aged 16 to 24 are voracious consumers of almost all media. However, live radio and print-based media have all but disappeared from their daily diet. 
Younger people are moving away from live television and moving to streaming and catch- up services. Even among adults, television is becoming less important. Television viewing among 16- to 24-year-olds has been dipping each year since 2010, but 2013 was the first year where researchers found viewing fell across all age groups. The theory is that tablet computers – among the most popular Christmas presents in 2012 and 2013 – have brought many older people online for longer. With large screens and simple, touch-based interfaces, tablets are being credited with a jump in internet access among the over-65s. 
“For years, there has been a very stubborn resistance by the over-65s to accessing the internet,” said James Thickett, Research Director at Ofcom. “In the last three years, we have seen that change and we think that’s down to tablets.” 
Britain is embracing internet-enabled devices across the generations, to the extent that the balance between sleep and screen-based activities has now tipped. The typical adult spends eight hours and 41 minutes each day communicating or consuming media, including old-fashioned books and newspapers, and just eight hours and 21 minutes asleep.",233
"ot just the identity of the man in the car park with the twisted spine, but the appalling last moments and humiliating treatment of the naked body of Richard III in the hours after his death have been revealed at an extraordinary press conference at Leicester University. 
There were cheers when Richard Buckley, Lead Archaeologist on the hunt for the king’s body, finally announced that the university team was convinced “beyond reasonable doubt” that it had found the last Plantagenet king, bent by scoliosis of the spine, and twisted further to fit into a hastily dug hole in Grey Friars church, which was slightly too small to hold his body. 
But, by then, it was clear the evidence was overwhelming, as the scientists who carried out the DNA tests, those who created the computer-imaging technology to peer onto and into the bones in extraordinary detail, the genealogists who found a distant descendant with matching DNA, and the academics who scoured contemporary texts for accounts of the king’s death and burial outlined their findings. 
“What a morning. What a story,” said Philippa Langley, of the Richard III Society. She had been driving on the project for years, in the face of incredulity from many people, and finding funds from all over the world when it looked as if the money would run out before the excavation had even begun. 
Work has started on designing a new tomb in Leicester Cathedral, only 100 yards from the excavation site, and a ceremony will be held to lay him into his new grave there, probably next year. Leicester’s Museums’ Service is working on plans for a new visitor centre in an old school building overlooking the site. 
Richard died at Bosworth on 22 August 1485, the last English king to fall in battle, and the researchers revealed how for the first time. There was an audible intake of breath as a slide came up showing the base of his skull sliced off by one terrible blow, believed to be from a halberd, a fearsome medieval battle weapon with a razor-sharp iron axe blade weighing about two kilos, mounted on a wooden pole, which was swung at Richard at very close range. The blade probably penetrated several centimetres into his brain and, said the human bones expert Jo Appleby, he would have been unconscious at once and dead almost as soon. 
The injury appears to confirm contemporary accounts that he died in close combat in the thick of the battle and unhorsed – as in the great despairing cry Shakespeare gives him: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Another sword slash, which also went through the bone and into the brain, would also have proved fatal. But many of the other injuries were after death, suggesting a gruesome ritual on the battlefield and as the king’s body was brought back to Leicester, as he was stripped, mocked and mutilated. 
One terrible injury, a stab through the right buttock and into his pelvis, was certainly after death and could not have happened when his lower body was protected by armour. It suggests the story that his naked corpse was brought back slung over a horse, mocked and abused all the way, is true. Bob Savage, a medieval arms expert from the Royal Armouries who helped identify the wounds, said it was probably not a war weapon but the sort of sharp knife or dagger any workman might have carried. 
Michael Ibsen, the Canadian-born furniture maker proved to be the descendant of Richard’s sister, heard the confirmation on Sunday and listened to the unfolding evidence in shocked silence. “My head is no clearer now than when I first heard the news,” he said. “Many, many hundreds of people died on that field that day. He was a king, but just one of the dead. He lived in very violent times and these deaths would not have been pretty or quick.” 
It was Mathew Morris who first uncovered the body, in the first hour of the first day of the excavation. He did not believe he had found the king. The mechanical digger was still chewing the tarmac off the council car park, identified by years of research by local historians and the Richard III Society as the probable site of the lost church of Grey Friars, whose priests bravely claimed the body of the king and buried him in a hastily dug grave, probably still naked, but in a position of honour near the high altar of their church. The leg bones just showing through the soil were covered up again. 
Ten days later, on 5 September, when further excavation proved Morris had hit the crucial spot, he returned with Lin Foxhall, head of the archaeology department, to excavate the body. “We did it the usual way, lifting the arms, legs and skull first, and proceeding gradually towards the torso – so it was only when we finally saw the twisted spine that I thought: 'My word, I think we’ve got him.'” 
As far as Langley is concerned, Richard was the true king, the last king of the north, a worthy and brave leader who became a victim of some of the most brilliant propaganda in history, in the hands of the Tudors’ image- maker, Shakespeare. There remains the dark shadow of the little princes in the tower, an infamous story even in Richard’s day: the child Edward V and his brother Richard were declared illegitimate when Richard III claimed the throne, imprisoned in the Tower of London and never seen alive again. Although it is by no means certain that the bones found at the tower centuries later are theirs, there may be more DNA detective work to be done there.",234
"What is it like to look at the very last of something? To contemplate the passing of a unique wonder that will soon vanish from the face of the earth? Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, there will be no more of their kind, male or female, born anywhere. And it seems a slim chance, as Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed. Apart from these three animals, there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female. 
It seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand vigilantly and caringly with him. But, of course, it is an image of brutality. Even at this last desperate stage in the fate of the northern white rhino, Sudan is under threat from poachers who kill rhinos and hack off their horns to sell them on the Asian medicine market – despite the fact that he has had his horn cut off to deter them. 
Sudan doesn’t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery flesh, a head that expresses pure strength. How terrible that such a mighty head can, in reality, be so vulnerable. It is lowered melancholically beneath the sinister sky, as if weighed down by fate. This is the noble head of an old warrior, his armour battered, his appetite for struggle fading. 
Under his immense looming shoulder, his legs protrude like squat columns from the tough tank of his body. The way his foreleg emerges from his thick coat of skin reminds us how long human beings have been wondering at the natural spectacle that is the rhino. For Sudan does not look so different from the rhinoceros that Albrecht Dürer portrayed in 1515. They have the same little legs stuck out of a majestic body and they even lower their heads in the same contemplative way. Dürer was a Renaissance artist picturing an exotic beast from the exotic lands that Europe was starting to see more and more of. In 1515, a live Indian rhinoceros was sent by the ruler of Gujarat in India to the king of Portugal: he in turn sent it to the Pope but, on the way, it died in a shipwreck. 
Human beings – we always kill the things we love. We have been doing so since the Ice Age. There are beautiful pictures of European woolly rhinos in caves in France that were painted up to 30,000 years ago. These ancient relatives of Sudan share his heroic bulk, mighty power and paradoxical air of gentleness. A woolly rhino in Chauvet Cave seems agile and young, a creature full of life. But the same people who painted such sensitive portraits of Ice Age rhinos helped to kill them off. As climate turned against the woolly megafauna with the end of the last Ice Age, human spears probably delivered the coup de grâce. 
Today, immense love is invested in rhinos, yet they are being slaughtered in ever greater numbers. The northern white rhino is the rarest species of African rhino. There are far greater numbers of southern white rhinos and black rhinos. But the demand in some countries for rhino horn as a traditional medicine believed to cure everything from flu to cancer is fuelling a boom in poaching. From 2007, when just 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa, the killings have grown horrifically. In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were slaughtered for their horns in South Africa. 2015 already looks certain to beat that dreadful record. 
The vulnerable northern white rhino has been hunted virtually to extinction – in spite of every precaution, in spite of the guards and their guns – and other varieties of African rhino are under a sustained attack from poachers that is totally out of control. The Javan rhinoceros is also on the verge of extinction. India has successfully protected the Indian rhinoceros after it was almost wiped out by British hunters in colonial times but here, too, poaching is a menace. What a majestic creature and what futile human destructiveness. Have we learned nothing since the Ice Age?",235
"Tea, baked beans on toast and fish and chips have long been part of the British food tradition. But, there has been a change in tastes over the generations. This has been clearly shown in data published recently in the National Food Survey, which was set up in 1940 by the government because of concerns about health and access to food.
Everyone knows the British love tea but consumption has more than halved since the 1970s, falling from 68g of tea per person per week to only 25g. Britons are now drinking on average only eight cups of tea a week, down from 23 cups in 1974. And, while tea remains the most popular hot drink in the UK, people now spend more money on coffee.
The data is from 150,000 households who took part in the survey between 1974 and 2000, combined with information from 2000 to 2014. It shows a move towards healthier diets in recent decades, with shifts to low-calorie soft drinks, from whole to skimmed milk and increasing consumption of fresh fruit. But, weekly consumption of chips, pizza, crisps and ready meals has soared.
There has also been a dramatic shift from white to brown bread but the figures suggest the amount of bread people are eating has fallen from 25 to 15 slices a week over the past four decades. The consumption of baked beans has dropped by a fifth despite a rise in other types of convenience food, particularly Italian dishes. Adults in the UK now eat an average of 75g of pizza every week compared with none in 1974, while the consumption of pasta has almost tripled over the same period.
Fresh potatoes are also becoming less essential with a 67% decrease from 1974, when adults ate the equivalent of 188g every day. Sales of other vegetables such as cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and mushrooms have increased. Consumption of takeaway food has almost doubled since 1974, from 80g per person per week to 150g. Around 33g of this amount is chips and 56g is meat, with kebabs (10g), chicken (7g), burgers (5g) and “meat-based meals” (32g) particularly popular.
Some trends suggest that British people are becoming more careful about what they put on their plates, with the average consumption of fruit increasing by 50% since 1974. In 2014, UK adults ate an average of 157g of fruit per day. Bananas have been the most popular fruit in the UK since 1996, reaching 221g per adult per week in 2014, well above apples (131g) and oranges (48g). Lowcalorie soft drinks represented half of all soft drinks consumed in 2014 for the first time. Britons are also spending a smaller proportion of their salaries on food today – 11%, compared with 24% in 1974.
The UK Environment Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, said: “Food is the heart of our society and this data not only shows what we were eating 40 years ago but how a change in culture has led to a food revolution. Shoppers care more about where their food comes from than ever before, the internet has brought quality food to our doors at the click of a button, fashionable restaurants are showcasing the latest trends and exciting global cuisines are now as common as fish and chips.”
“By studying this data, we can look beyond what, where or how previous generations were eating and pinpoint the moments that changed our habits forever. We’ve only scratched the surface of what the National Food Survey can tell us. From local food maps and school projects to predicting new food trends, I look forward to seeing how this data can be used to learn more about our past and grow our world-leading food and farming industry in the future.”",236
"The atmosphere at the beginning of the final series of Downton Abbey is one of melancholy and changing times. The year is 1925. The neighbours are selling up their own stately home, while Lord Grantham wants to cut back on servants.
But, at the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George “Geordie” Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon – they have more money than before. According to Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the huge global success of Downton has paid for building repairs that are needed to save Highclere for the next generation.
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “It’s given us free marketing and an international profile. I’m hugely grateful. My husband and I love Highclere Castle. Now, it is loved by millions of other people.”
Currently, only the ground and first floors of Highclere, on the borders of Hampshire, are used. But, a restoration project of tower rooms has begun that will eventually allow visitors to climb up into the tower to an exhibition showing the work of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry, who rebuilt the house between 1839 and 1842.
When the Downton Abbey producers first approached Highclere in 2009, the family had £12 million of repairs to do – £1.8 million of that work was urgent. But, by 2012, Downton Abbey was having a positive effect. Lord Carnarvon said then: “It was just after the banking crisis and we were worried. Then, Downton began and Highclere became a major tourist attraction.”
Visitor numbers doubled, to 1,200 a day, as Downton Abbey, written by Julian Fellowes, was shown around the world after becoming a hit in the UK in 2010 and, then, in the US. It is now broadcast in 250 countries.
There is now a computerized advance booking system, which helps foreign visitors to buy tickets. Highclere’s current assets have almost trebled to around £1 million since 2012. Gareth Neame, the executive producer for the series, said: “I think Downton Abbey secured Highclere’s future.”
Peter Fincham, ITV’s director of television, remembers the moment when Highclere was booked. “I thought, ‘So what?’, because I had never heard of Highclere Castle. I thought, ‘Every stately home looks the same.’ But I was wrong. The castle has been an enormous character as well.”
The Downton tourists are part of a growing phenomenon. VisitBritain estimates that nearly 30% of foreign visitors, or nearly nine million people, visit castles and historic houses. Almost half of visitors to Britain now say they want to visit places from films or TV.
More than a million take a tour of historic buildings each year, spending more than £1 billion. Fifty-one per cent of Brazilians, 42% of Russians and Chinese, and 35% of Indian visitors are likely to include a visit to a site of interest in their trips.
VisitBritain’s director, Patricia Yates, said: “The links between tourism, films and TV are strong.” She added that period dramas have also increased the popularity of places outside of London.
“Downton Abbey expresses a certain view of Britain. It is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. It’s the first TV period drama that has really become part of popular culture.”
Lady Carnarvon says that the long-term future of Highclere is not necessarily secure. But, she says, “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings.”
Highclere Castle plans a Tutankhamun event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb with Howard Carter. Another opportunity to keep Highclere in the public mind is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds.
“Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “You have to invest in all these great houses. And, there has been a deficit since the 1930s. In the past, an estate and house supported the family and their lifestyle but, today, it is quite the reverse: the challenge is how Geordie and I can support Highclere.
“I’ve tried to persuade people it is fun. We have specific events they can engage with, not just a walk around a dusty house. We have to compete with attractions like the London Dungeon.”",237
"Scientists have implanted a false memory in the brains of mice in an experiment that they hope will help to explain why people ‘remember’ events or experiences that have never happened.
False memories are a major problem with witness statements in courts of law. Evidence that eyewitnesses give often leads to guilty verdicts, but later the convictions are overturned when DNA or some other evidence is used.
Susumu Tonagawa, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and his team wanted to study how these false memories might form in the human brain, so they encoded memories in the brains of mice by manipulating individual neurons. Memories of experiences we have had are made from several elements including records of objects, space and time. These records are encoded in physical and chemical changes in brain cells and the connections between them. According to Tonagawa, both false and genuine memories seem to use the same brain mechanisms.
In the experiment, Tonagawa’s team put the mice in a box and allowed them to explore it. As they did so, their brain cells were producing a memory protein. The next day, the same mice were put in a second box and given a small electric shock, to encode a fear response. At the same time, the researchers shone light into the mouse brains to activate their memories of the first box. That way, the mice learned to associate fear of the electric shock with the memory of the first box.
In the final part of the experiment, the team put the mice back in the first box. The mice froze, showing a typical fear response, even though they had never been shocked in that box.
A similar process may happen when powerful false memories are created in humans. “Humans are very imaginative animals,” said Tonagawa. “ So, just like our mouse, it is quite possible we can associate what we happen to have in our mind with bad or good events. In other words, there could be a false association of what you have in your mind rather than what is happening to you.”
He added: “Our study showed that the false memory and the genuine memory are based on similar, almost identical, brain mechanisms. It is difficult for the person with false memories to distinguish between them. We hope our future findings along this line will show legal experts how unreliable memory can be.”
Chris French, of the University of London, is a leading researcher in false memories in people. He said that the latest results were an important first step in understanding them. “Memory researchers have always recognized that memory does not work like a video camera, recording all the details of anything we experience. Instead, it is a reconstructive process, which involves building a specific memory from fragments of real memory traces of the original event, but also possibly including information from other sources.”
He warned that the false memories created in the mice in the experiments were far simpler than the complex false memories that have caused controversy within psychology and psychiatry – for example, false memories of childhood sexual abuse, abduction by aliens, or “past lives”. “Such rich false memories will clearly involve many brain systems and we are still a long way from understanding the processes involved in their formation at the neuronal level,” he said.
Mark Stokes, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, said the experiments were a great achievement but that it was important to put them into perspective. “Although the results seem to show that new memories were formed by the artificial stimulation (rather than the actual environment), this kind of phenomenon is still a long way from most people’s idea of memory,” he said.
The mouse models created by the MIT team will help scientists ask more and more complex questions about memories in people. “Now that we can change the contents of memories in the brain, we can begin asking questions that were once the realm of philosophy,” said Steve Ramirez, a colleague of Tonagawa’s at MIT. “Are there multiple conditions that lead to the formation of false memories? Can false memories be artificially created? What about false memories for more than just contexts – false memories for objects, food or other mice? These are the seemingly sci-fi questions that can now be experimentally tackled in the lab.”
As the technology develops, said French, scientists need to think about its uses carefully. “In whatever way we implant false memories, we need to be very aware of the ethical issues raised by such procedures – the potential for abuse of such techniques cannot be overstated.”",238
"We may not yet be living in an age of flying cars, as predicted in the 1985 film Back to the Future II, but the rise of smartphones and other new technologies is creating a reality that is just as exciting and almost as far-fetched. Experts agree that economic and demographic changes, technological advances, and environmental concerns are fundamentally changing transportation. “It’s a very dynamic time,” said transport expert Robert Puentes. “There’s a tighter connection between transportation and the economic health of cities and its impact on people.”
As the transport infrastructure grows old, cities across the US are forced to redefine what transportation is. Urban planners, transportation experts and scientists are now realizing that old methods focused on reducing traffic congestion aren’t enough to solve problems like population growth and carbon emissions, and transportation is now a key part of protecting the environment.
Big US cities like Los Angeles and Chicago are working to make better use of their streets by adding more bus lanes and pedestrian walkways, and expanding rail networks. At the same time, they are working on advanced technologies that will allow a vehicle to drive itself and communicate with other vehicles and its environment. “The most sustainable places to live are places that have multi-modal transport systems,” Puentes said.
Here are three key ideas that experts predict will influence transportation in the coming years. 
Ride-sharing services like Uber – taxis booked via smartphone – and apps like Waze, which uses real-time traffic data to find the quickest routes for drivers, are dramatically changing how people move around and affecting the way traffic moves through a city. Communication between riders and drivers, between different vehicles and between cars and infrastructure is bringing transportation into a new era, according to Allan Clelland, an expert on transportation technology.
According to a recent study, car travel has reduced among people born in the 1990s compared to previous generations. According to the study, people born in the 1990s are making 4% fewer car trips and travelling 18% fewer miles per year, on average, than members of previous generations did at the same stage in their lives.
People still driving cars are dealing with less traffic thanks to Waze. Experts say the traffic app has reduced congestion on motorways and reduced travel times for drivers. But it has also led to a problematic rise in cars moving through residential neighbourhoods.
This trend could continue as vehicle-to-vehicle data communication, as well as communication between vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure, grows. Currently, a traffic light knows when a car is getting close but that’s all. Companies are working to develop technology that will allow a vehicle to tell traffic control systems not only that it is present but also where it is going and how fast it is travelling. 
Driverless cars have been in the headlines ever since Google began road testing the vehicles back in 2012 but no-one really knows when driverless cars will become commonplace. However, the partial automation of cars is already underway. Automation will probably happen in stages: first, there might be automated buses with their own lanes, then perhaps lorries in ports or mining towns: that is, vehicles that are connected electronically and travel in single file.
The idea of a fully automated transportation system is intriguing because it could improve safety by removing human error. It could also help reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion, and allow more people access to cars. But, even if driverless technology were ready to use now, it would take a long time to get fully automated because the average age of cars on the road is 11.5 years old.
To see what driverless cars might look like in action, go to the video at: vimeo.com/37751380. 
As the world races to avoid catastrophic climate change and countries and cities work to meet ambitious emissions goals, these policies could also have a big effect on the future of transportation. Concern about the environment could lead to everything from zero- and low-emission vehicles to apps that encourage more walking, biking and carpooling.
When considering the future of transportation, it’s also important to keep in mind why people travel: they may be going to work, to meet friends or family, or to do the shopping. Technologies that reduce the need for those trips – for example, virtual meetings or telecommuting – could also have a big effect on transportation.
In the past, the idea of a flying car represented the best in innovation but the technologies that people are imagining and developing now are possibly even more sophisticated – and more useful in solving the social and environmental problems that we face in the coming decades.",239
"Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the presidential primaries helped Scott Kelly keep his wits over 340 days in space, the astronaut told journalists, after he landed back on Earth from a record-setting mission. “It seemed like I lived there forever,” Kelly said. The veteran of past missions said that his biggest surprise was simply how long this one felt. “Maybe, occasionally, you do go bananas,” he said. 
Kelly and a Russian counterpart, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS) in order to study the effects of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped quarters of spaceflight on humans – research NASA considers essential for an eventual mission to Mars. 
Kelly said the length of the mission was its biggest challenge and that he felt significantly more sore on returning to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about how the body copes with the severe strains of spaceflight. 
Kelly said he felt aches and had extremely sensitive skin but, so far, his balance has felt mostly decent. However, he said, “the first thing I tried to throw on a table I missed” because “you tend to underestimate the effects of gravity”. 
He said the discomfort of returning to gravity – which shrank him back down to normal height after he stretched by 1.5 inches in orbit – took nothing away from the awe he felt after his capsule landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened on to the cool air of Kazakhstan, Kelly said, he smelled “a fragrance like a plant was blooming in that area”. It was the fresh air mingled with the charred, “kind of sweet” smell of a spacecraft that had survived re-entry through the atmosphere. 
Backing away from the vessel, he said, the scope of the mission began to sink in: 340 days on a 15-year-old space station which is “a million pounds, the size of a football field, the internal volume, some say, of a six-bedroom house ”. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and was built with the help of an international team and millions of taxpayers. 
“There are things we’re going to discover about our experience in space in the space station that we don’t even know now,” Kelly said, comparing the research of more than 450 missions there to the work done by computer scientists at NASA in the 1960s and 1970s. He added: “The view is great, too.” 
Kelly made the most of that view, posting spectacular photos on social media of the Earth’s cities, landscapes, oceans and atmosphere. “The Earth is a beautiful planet,” he said, describing the striking colours of the waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow hues of lakes that dot the northern Himalayas. He said he would like to visit that region, though he would first need to learn “what country actually owns them”. But, “predominantly, you just notice how thin the atmosphere is, how fragile it looks,” Kelly added. “That, combined with these large swathes of pollution, is kind of alarming.” 
The astronaut said he could see entire systems of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires that covered parts of the US, sections of Asia with continuous, visible pollution nearly all year round. He said the message “we need to save the planet” slightly missed the point: “The planet will get better; it’s us that won’t be here because we’ll destroy the environment.” The world’s thin shield of atmosphere “makes you more of an environmentalist after spending so much time looking down”, he said. 
“It’s for us to take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I do believe we have an impact on that and we do have the ability to change it, if we make the decision to.” Kelly’s active social- media life, which he said was a joint effort with his girlfriend, earned him a huge online following. But he said he was unaware of it, instead he was watching the chaotic drama of the 2016 presidential election. One of the first questions he asked the crew who lifted him out of a space capsule was “How did Super Tuesday go?” 
But the astronaut demurred when asked for his thoughts on the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. “I would say that, as a government employee, I am subject to the Hatch Act,” he said, referring to a law that prohibits some political activity for federal employees. “So I can’t say how I think of all the news stories of all the year.” 
Besides the news, he said, steady work helped keep him sane: “I tried to have milestones that were close, like when is the next crew arriving, the next spacewalk, the next robotics, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me, keeping my sanity.” Being back on Earth with the rest of humanity had not quite sunk in, he added, recalling how shocked he had been to see a crowd of people after a previous mission. “There’ll be a point here pretty soon where I’ll start feeling that kind of culture shock,” he said. 
Although a NASA scientist said Kelly embodied the qualities needed for a mission to Mars, the astronaut himself predicted that he would not fly again with the space agency. “But I don’t think I would ever say I’m absolutely, 100% done,” he added, noting the sudden successes of private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX. “They might need a guy like me someday,” he said. “Maybe, in the next 20 years, you’ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.”",240
"Nobody knows which came first: the economic crisis tearing Greece apart or shisha, the drug now known as the “cocaine of the poor”. What everyone does accept is that shisha is a killer; and at €2 or less a hit, it is one that has come to stalk Greece, the country long on the frontline of Europe’s financial meltdown. 
“As drugs go, it is the worst. It burns your insides, it makes you aggressive and ensures that you go totally mad,” said Maria, a former heroin addict. “But it is cheap and it is easy to get, and it is what everyone is doing.” 
This drug crisis has put Athens’s health authorities, already overwhelmed by draconian cuts, under further strain. 
The drug of preference for thousands of homeless Greeks forced on to the streets by poverty and despair, shisha is described by both addicts and officials as a variant of crystal meth, whose potential to send users into a state of mindless violence is underpinned by the substances with which the synthetic drug is frequently mixed: battery acid, engine oil and even shampoo. 
Worse still, it is not only readily available but easy to make – tailor-made for a society that sees little light at the end of the tunnel. 
“It is a killer, but it also makes you want to kill,” said Konstantinos, a drug addict. “You can kill without understanding that you have done it. And it is spreading faster than death. A lot of users have died.” 
For Charalampos Poulopoulos, the head of Kethea, Greece’s pre-eminent anti-drug centre, shisha symbolizes the depredations of a crisis that has led to record levels of destitution and unemployment. It is, he said, an “austerity drug” – the response of dealers who have become ever more adept at producing synthetic drugs designed for those who can no longer afford more expensive highs from such drugs as heroin and cocaine. 
“The crisis has given dealers the possibility to promote a new, cheap drug, a cocaine for the poor,” said Poulopoulos at a centre run for addicts in Exarcheia, the anarchist stronghold in Athens. “Shisha can be sniffed or injected and it can be made in home laboratories – you don’t need any specialized knowledge. It is extremely dangerous.” 
Across Greece, the byproducts of six straight years of recession have been brutal and cruel. Depression, along with drug and alcohol abuse, has risen dramatically. Delinquency and crime have soared as Greek society has unravelled under the weight of austerity measures that have cut the income of ordinary Greeks by 40%. Prostitution – the easiest way of financing drug addiction – has similarly skyrocketed. 
“Desperation is such that many women agree to engage in unprotected sex because that way they’ll make more money,” said Eleni Marini, a British-trained psychologist with Kethea. “Shisha has been linked to a very intense sexual drive but it attacks your ability to think straight and we’re seeing a lot more pregnancies among drug addicts who engage in prostitution.” In 2012, two sex workers gave birth on the streets of Athens. 
At a time when suicides have also shot up and the spread of HIV infections has assumed epidemic proportions, drug addicts (a population believed to be around 25,000 strong) have become increasingly self-destructive. And, experts say, young Greeks marginalized by record rates of unemployment – at 64% Greece has the highest youth unemployment in the EU – are leading the way. 
“The crisis has created a widespread sense of pessimism,” said Poulopoulos. “For those who might have quit drugs, there is now no incentive. Instead, there’s an atmosphere of misery, where people knowing they won’t find work are becoming a lot more self-destructive. In Athens, where the economic crisis has hit hardest, shisha is part of that.” 
Greece’s conservative-dominated coalition government has tried to deal with the problem by driving drug users and other homeless people out of the city centre – a series of controversial police operations has swept central streets, clearing crowded doorways and malls. 
“But with such actions, authorities are only sweeping the problem under the carpet,” said Poulopoulos. “What, in reality, they are really doing is marginalizing these people even more by pushing them into the arms of drug dealers who offer them protection.” 
Just when the demand for help has never been greater, state-funded organizations such as Kethea have had their budgets slashed by a third at the request of the “troika” – the EC, ECB and IMF – keeping the debt-stricken Greek economy afloat. 
Since the outbreak of the crisis in 2009, Kethea has lost 70 of its 500 staff. The cuts come despite studies showing that, for every euro invested in programmes such as Kethea, the state saves about €6 in costs to the criminal justice and healthcare systems. “The cuts we have witnessed are a false economy, a huge mistake,” said Poulopoulos. 
On the streets of Athens, the breeding ground of shisha, there is rising fear that austerity not only doesn’t work – it kills.",241
"Organic food has more of the antioxidants linked to better health than regular food, and lower levels of toxic metals and pesticides, according to the most comprehensive scientific analysis so far. The international team behind the work suggests that switching to organic fruit and vegetables could give the same benefits as adding one or two portions of the recommended ‘five a day’ fruit and vegetables.
The team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert, concludes that there are “statistically significant” differences, with a range of antioxidants being “substantially higher” – between 19% and 69% – in organic food. It is the first study to demonstrate clear differences between organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and cereals.
The researchers say the increased levels of antioxidants are equivalent to “one to two of the five portions of fruits and vegetables recommended to be consumed daily and would therefore be significant in terms of human nutrition”.
The findings will add to the controversy over organic food and whether it is better for people. Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King’s College London, said the research did show some differences. “But the question is are they within natural variation? And are they nutritionally relevant? I am not convinced.” He added, “Leifert has had a lot of disagreements with a lot of people.” He also said that research showed organic cereals have less protein than conventional crops.
The results of the research are based on an analysis of 343 studies from around the world – more than ever before – which examine differences between organic and conventional fruit, vegetables and cereals. “The important thing about this research is that it shatters the myth that how we farm does not affect the quality of the food we eat,” said Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming.
Leifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants “have previously been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers”. The researchers also found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in conventional crops. Pesticide residues were found on conventional crops four times more often than on organic food.
The research is certain to be criticized: the inclusion of so many studies in the analysis could mean poor-quality work makes the results unreliable. Also, the higher levels of cadmium and pesticides in conventional produce were still far below recommended limits. But, the researchers say cadmium accumulates over time in the body and that some people may wish to avoid this, and that pesticide limits are set individually, not for the cocktail of chemicals used on crops.
A further criticism of the research is that the differences seen may result from different climates, soil types and crop varieties, and not from organic farming. The greatest criticism, however, will be over the suggestions of possible health benefits. The most recent major analysis, which included 223 studies in 2012, found little evidence. “The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods,” it found.
This was also the conclusion of earlier, smaller studies published in 2009 in a scientific journal and by the UK Food Standards Agency. The 2012 study did note that eating organic food might help people avoid pesticide residues. Sanders said he was not persuaded by the new work. “You are not going to be healthier if you eat organic food,” he said. “What is most important is what you eat, not whether it’s organic or conventional. It’s whether you eat fruit and vegetables at all.”
Opinion polls show healthy eating (55%) and avoiding chemical residues (53%) are key reasons given by shoppers for buying organic produce. But, many also say care for the environment (44%) and animal welfare (31%) are important, and also taste (35%). Browning said: “This research confirms what people think about organic food. In other countries, there have, for a long time, been much higher levels of support and acceptance of the benefits of organic food and farming. We hope these findings will bring the UK into line with the rest of Europe.”",242
"Anitta, a music star from Brazil, has millions of fans, but she is at the centre of a debate about skin colour. 
Some people are saying that Anitta had to give up her black skin to be a success in the mostly white middle-class market. 
The debate was started by photographs that show that Anitta’s skin has got much lighter since she signed a music deal with Warner. 
In the first photo, before she was famous, she looked darker. In the second photo – a marketing photo after she became famous – she seems lighter. The difference has started a discussion about whether you need to have light skin to be a success in Brazil. 
Born Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood. In her teens, she made a name for herself in Rio de Janeiro’s baile funk scene as a dancer and singer. 
She now has an album and a huge hit single, Show das Poderosas, which was number one in the charts and attracted 52 million YouTube views. 
Many people love her because she is a pop idol with a strong message and some good pop songs. Her marketing team want people to see her as a cultural bridge between the poor people living in the mostly black and mixed-race shanty towns on Rio’s hills and the richer and whiter parts below. 
But now people are asking if she – or her marketing team – have gone too far and changed her too much. 
This is a sensitive topic in this mixed-raced country. Brazil has the largest population of African descent outside Africa, but race and where your family come from are less important there than colour. There is a clear link between skin colour and inequality. 
In Brazilian cities, white workers earn twice as much as workers of African descent. Up until 2011, black or mixed-race students also spent two years less at school on average. 
Most business and government executives are white, but black and mixed-race workers do most of the boring or dirty jobs. 
Brazil did a census in 2010. Among the 197 million population, 82 million said they were “pardu” (mixed race), 15 million black, two million Asian and 0.5% indigenous. 
Maycon de Mattos Batista, a financial analyst who used to work with Anitta, said there has been a huge change in Anitta’s image, but not of her colour. 
“I don’t believe she is whiter; it’s more the makeup, hairstylists and the way she dresses,” he said. “I don’t think that was because of pressure they put on her. She always liked to show off, sing and dance. That was a natural thing for her. I believe that it is because of this naturalness that she has become a success.”",243
"Facebook has lost millions of users per month in its biggest markets, independent data suggests, as alternative social networks attract the attention of those looking for fresh online playgrounds. 
As Facebook prepares to update investors on its performance in the first three months of the year, with analysts forecasting revenues up 36% on last year, studies suggest that its expansion in the US, UK and other major European countries has peaked. In the last month, the world’s largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm Socialbakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users checked in in March, a fall of 4.5%. The declines are sustained. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK. 
Users are also switching off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook has some of its biggest followings. A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment. 
“The problem is that, in the US and UK, most people who want to sign up for Facebook have already done it,” said new media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis. “There is a boredom factor where people like to try something new. Is Facebook going to go the way of MySpace? The risk is relatively small, but that is not to say it isn’t there.” Alternative social networks such as Instagram, the photo-sharing site that won 30m users in 18 months before Facebook acquired the business, have seen surges in popularity with younger age groups. 
Path, the mobile phone-based social network founded by former Facebook employee Dave Morin, which restricts its users to 150 friends, is gaining 1m users a week. It has recently topped 9m users, with 500,000 Venezuelans downloading the app in a single weekend. 
Facebook is still growing fast in South America. Monthly visitors in Brazil were up 6% in the last month to 70m, according to Socialbakers, whose information is used by Facebook advertisers. India has seen a 4% rise to 64m – still a fraction of the country’s population, leaving room for further growth. 
But in developed markets, other Facebook trackers are reporting declines. Analysts at Jefferies bank have developed an algorithm that interfaces directly with Facebook software and it “suggests user levels in [the first quarter] may have declined from peak”. 
Jefferies saw global numbers peak at 1.05bn a month in January, before falling by 20m in February. Numbers rose again in April. The network has now lost nearly 2m visitors in the UK since December, according to research firm Nielsen, with its 27m total flat on a year before. 
The number of minutes Americans spend on Facebook appears to be falling, too. The total was 121 billion minutes in December 2012, but that fell to 115 billion minutes in February, according to comScore. 
As Facebook itself has warned, the time spent on its pages from those sitting in front of personal computers is declining rapidly because we are switching our screen time to smartphones and tablets. 
While smartphone minutes have doubled in a year, to 69 a month, that growth is not guaranteed to compensate for dwindling desktop usage. 
Facebook is the most authoritative source on its own user numbers, and the firm will update investors on its performance for the quarter. Wall Street expects revenues of about $1.44bn, up from $1.06bn in 2012. 
Shareholders will be particularly keen to learn how fast Facebook’s mobile user base is growing, and whether advertising revenues are increasing at the same rate. 
Mobile usage represented nearly a quarter of Facebook’s advertising income at the end of 2012, and the network had 680m mobile users a month in December. 
The company warned in recent stockmarket filings that it might be losing “younger users” to “other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook”. 
Wary of competition from services that were invented for the mobile phone rather than the PC, founder Mark Zuckerberg has recently driven through a series of new initiatives designed to appeal to smartphone users. The most significant is Facebook Home, software that can be downloaded onto certain Android phones to feed news and photos from friends – and advertising – directly to the owner’s locked home screen.",244
"An octopus has escaped from the National Aquarium in New Zealand by leaving its tank, sliding down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappearing into the sea. Inky – a common New Zealand octopus – escaped after the lid of his tank was accidentally left a bit ajar. Staff believe that in the middle of the night, while the aquarium was deserted, Inky climbed to the top of his glass enclosure, down the side of the tank and travelled across the floor of the aquarium.
Rob Yarrell, national manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, said: “Octopuses are famous for their ability to escape. I don’t think he was unhappy with us, or lonely, because octopuses are solitary creatures. But, he is such a curious boy. He wanted to know what was happening on the outside. That’s just his personality.”
One theory is that Inky slid across the aquarium floor – a journey of three or four metres – and, then, into a drainpipe that led directly to the sea. The drainpipe was 50 metres long and led to the waters of Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
It is also possible that Inky escaped by squeezing into an open pipe at the top of his tank, which led under the floor to the drain. “When we came in the next morning and his tank was empty, I was really surprised,” said Yarrell, who has not launched a search for Inky. “The staff and I have been pretty sad. But then, this is Inky and he’s always been a bit of a surprise octopus.”
Reiss Jenkinson, exhibits keeper at the National Aquarium, said he was absolutely certain Inky was not stolen. “I understand octopus behaviour very well,” he said. “I have seen octopuses on boats escape through bilge pumps. And, the security here is too tight for anyone to take Inky and why would they?”
Because octopuses have no bones, they are able to fit into extremely small spaces and can squeeze through gaps the size of coins. They are also extremely intelligent and can use tools. At the Island Bay Marine Education Centre in Wellington, an octopus used to visit another tank during the night to steal crabs, then return to its own tank. Another at the centre, Ozymandias, broke a world record for opening a jar.
Inky was brought to the National Aquarium several years ago by a local fisherman who found him caught in a fishing pot. He was “rough looking”, with very short arms, said Yarrell. “He had been living on the reef and fighting with fish so he wasn’t in the best shape.” According to Yarrell, Inky – who is about the size of a rugby ball – was an “unusually intelligent” octopus. “He was very friendly and a popular attraction here. We have another octopus, Blotchy, but he is smaller than Inky and Inky had the personality.”
The aquarium has no plans to step up security as a result of the escape because they don’t think it will happen again. But, the staff are “more and more aware of what octopuses can do”. Although the aquarium is not looking for a replacement for Inky, if a fisherman brought in another octopus, it might accept it. “You never know,” said Yarrell. “There’s always a chance Inky could come home to us.”",245
"We talked to five people who do some unusual jobs about how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work. 
1. Dog-food taster 
The job: To taste dog food to make sure it is good quality 
What this person does: Opens tins of dog (or cat) food, smells it and eats it. “Tasting is an important quality check to make sure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced,” says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lily’s Kitchen pet food. 
Typical salary: £20,000 for a job in the quality department 
Worst part of the job: The deadlines. Wells says he likes the food. The meat in pet food must come from animals that humans can safely eat. He also says: “There are some terrible pet foods. I don’t taste them but just the smell makes you feel sick.” 
Job satisfaction: “Every day is different.” Wells likes knowing that he “helps pets to become happier and healthier”. But he says that someone else in the tasting team is also a very important member: Lily, the dog. 
2. Hygiene technician 
The job: To clean areas that might be dangerous to humans 
What this person does: Cleans up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clears houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement … and other things, too. “The job is to keep people safe,” says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. “We work in some very, very dirty places.” 
Typical salary: When you start, the salary is usually around £14,500. A top salary can be up to £22,000. 
Worst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. “You get used to the job being disgusting. But the emotional side of the job is still hard,” he says. “You also need to have a sense of humour because some days can be difficult.” 
Job satisfaction: Lewis finds the variety of tasks exciting. “One day, I’m cleaning up after a dead body; another day, I’m in a prison cell. It’s satisfying to make a dangerous place safe again.” he says. 
3. Biogas engineer 
The job: To set up biogas plants in developing countries What this person does: Helps poor people produce biogas from their excrement and other waste products. This is done by linking a system to toilets. Poor people can use the gas for cooking and lighting. 
Typical salary: When you start, the salary is around £10,000. A typical salary for a chief technical officer is £30,000. 
Worst part of the job: For Baburam Paudel, chief technical officer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World, the worst part is seeing people struggling to survive on very little money. “Unsurprisingly, the smell of the waste products can be disgusting. It smells like rotten eggs.” 
Job satisfaction: “I find it very satisfying to know that I am helping people to earn more money and also allowing girls to go to school because they don’t need to collect firewood,” says Paudel. “My work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.” 
4. Eel ecologist 
The job: To help the critically endangered European eel to survive 
What this person does: Checks the size of the endangered eels. They do this by walking into the Thames and other London rivers, which are full of eels. In the rivers, they put their hands into a net filled with up to 20 adult eels and pull an eel out. “Adult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. They’re not dangerous but they are almost 100% muscle and they can be a little bit slimy,” says Stephen Mowat, an eel ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. “We have to weigh and measure them and they wriggle … a lot. I look silly when I’m crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.” 
Worst part of the job: “Eels are really difficult animals to work with” says Mowat. But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is not the eels – he believes baby eels are “as cute as pandas”: “The worst thing about the job is seeing how much damage humans do to the environment.” 
Job satisfaction: “Working outside and seeing British wildlife really close is the best part of the job,” says Mowat. “Eels are beautiful animals and working with eels helps whole river systems. That is a great thing to do.” 
5. Shopping channel presenter 
The job: To sell and demonstrate lots of different products on live TV 
What this person does: Presents hours and hours of boring TV and, at the same time, demonstrates the products and looks enthusiastic about everything that they are selling. “I prepare and research as much information as possible on every product,” says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV. Typical salary: When you start, the salary is a minimum of £30,000. An experienced presenter can get over £55,000. 
Worst part of the job: “Working at unusual hours of the day,” says Ryan. “An experienced presenter like me has to work weekends and very late evenings. And, sometimes, I have to start work at five in the morning.” 
Job satisfaction: “I love presenting live TV and having to think quickly,” says Ryan. “I also love knowing that, at times, thousands of people are buying the product that I have just presented.”",246
"Galina Zaglumyonova was woken in her flat in central Chelyabinsk by an enormous explosion that blew in the balcony windows and shattered clay pots containing her few houseplants. When she jumped out of bed she could see a huge vapour trail hanging in the morning sky and hear the wail of car alarms from the street below. “I didn’t understand what was going on,” said Zaglumyonova. “There was a big explosion and then a series of little explosions. My first thought was that it was a plane crash.” 
What she had actually witnessed were the death throes of a ten-tonne meteorite that plunged to Earth in a series of fireballs just after sunrise. Officials put the number of people injured at almost 1,200, with more than 40 taken to hospital – most as a result of flying glass shattered by the sonic boom created by the meteorite’s descent. There were no reported deaths. 
The meteorite entered the atmosphere travelling at a speed of at least 33,000mph and broke up into chunks between 18 and 32 miles above the ground, according to a statement from the Russian Academy of Sciences. 
The event caused panic in Chelyabinsk, a city of more than one million people to the south of Russia’s Ural mountains, as mobile phone networks swiftly became jammed by the volume of calls. Amateur video footage from the area, often peppered with the obscene language of frightened observers, showed the chunks of meteorite glowing more brightly as they approached the moment of impact. 
The vapour trail was visible for hundreds of miles around, including in neighbouring Kazakhstan. Tatyana Bets was at work in the reception area of a hospital clinic in the centre of the city when the meteorite struck. “First we noticed the wind, and then the room was filled with a very bright light and we could see a cloud of some unspecified smoke in the sky,” she said. Then, after a few minutes, came the explosions. At least three craters were subsequently discovered, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and were being monitored by the military. One crater was more than six metres wide, while another lump of meteorite was reported to have slammed through the thick ice of a nearby lake. Radiation levels at the impact sites were normal, according to local military officials. 
In Chelyabinsk itself, schools and universities were closed and many other staff told to go home early. About 200 children were among the injured. 
A steady stream of lightly injured people, most suffering cuts from flying glass, came into the clinic where Bets works. She said a nearby dormitory building for college students was particularly badly affected and many of the students were brought in suffering from fright. “There were a lot of girls in shock. Some were very pale and many of them fainted,” she said. 
Early estimates suggested more than 100,000 square metres of glass had been broken and 3,000 buildings hit. The total cost of the damage in the city was being valued at in excess of one billion roubles (£20m). 
The meteorite over Chelyabinsk arrived less than a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 was expected to make the closest pass to Earth (about 17,510 miles) of any recorded cosmic body. But experts said the two events were linked by nothing more than coincidence. 
Rumours and conspiracy theories, however, swirled in the first few hours after the incident. Reports on Russian state television and in local media suggested that the meteorite was engaged by local air defence units and blown apart at an altitude of more than 15 miles. 
The ultranationalist leader of Russia’s Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said it was not a meteorite but military action by the United States, echoing much of the speculation voiced on amateur film footage. “It’s not a meteorite falling – it’s a test of new American weapons,” Zhirinovsky said. 
Some were quick to take advantage of the confusion. Enterprising people were offering lumps of meteorite for sale through internet sites within a few hours of the impact. 
President Vladimir Putin and the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, were informed about the incident, and Putin convened a meeting with the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry. “It’s proof that not only are economies vulnerable but the whole planet,” Medvedev said at an economic forum in Siberia. 
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and former Ambassador to NATO, took to Twitter to call for an international push to create a warning system for all “objects of an alien origin”. Neither the US nor Russia had the capability to bring down such objects, he added.",247
"Chemists have waited a long time for a new element to turn up and, now, four have been discovered by researchers in Japan, Russia and the US. The four new elements are the first to be added to the periodic table since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were included. The new elements, all highly radioactive, complete seventh row of the periodic table and mean that science textbooks around the world are now out of date.
The US-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the global organization that controls chemical names, terminology and measurement, verified the elements on 30 December, 2015 after examining studies dating back to 2004. The scientists who found them must now come up with formal names to replace the Latin-based temporary names – ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium – which reflect their atomic numbers, 113, 115, 117, and 118. The atomic number is the number of protons found in an element’s atomic nucleus.
IUPAC announced that a Russian-American team of scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had produced enough evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118. The organization gave credit for the discovery of element 113, which had also been claimed by the Russians and Americans, to a team of scientists from the RIKEN Institute in Japan. The decision means Japan becomes the first Asian country to name an element. Under IUPAC rules, new elements can be named after mythological concepts, minerals, a place or country, or a scientist.
When elements 114 and 116 were given formal names in 2012, scientists chose flerovium and livermorium respectively, after the Flerov Lab at Dubna’s Joint Institute of Research and the Lawrence Livermore Lab in the US, where the elements were discovered. Kosuke Morita, who led the research at RIKEN, said his team now planned to “look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond”. Jan Reedijk of IUPAC, said: “The chemistry community is eager to see the table finally completed down to the seventh row.”
The Japanese team is considering three names for ununtrium: japonium, rikenium and nishinarium, after the Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, where the element was found. “They have been thinking about it for a while already,” said Polly Arnold, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh University. “This is painstaking work. The work helps us with our models and with understanding radioactive decay. If we understand it better, hopefully we can improve how we deal with nuclear waste and things that are important in the real world. It also leads to fantastic technological advances in building the kit to make these observations.”
Along with new names, the scientists must suggest two-letter symbols for the elements. When IUPAC has received the researchers’ suggestions, they will go to public review for five months. That allows scientists and others to raise any objections. In 1996, the symbol Cp was suggested for copernicium, or element 112, but it was changed to Cn when scientists complained that Cp referred to another substance.
To discover the elements, researchers at the three labs slammed lighter nuclei into one another and looked for radioactive decays that should come from the new elements. Ununtrium and ununpentium are thought to be metals. Ununseptium could be a metalloid. The fourth element, ununoctium, may be a gas, like other elements, helium, neon and argon. It is hard to know for sure because so few atoms of each element have ever been made.
Paul Karol, chair of the IUPAC panel that verified the elements, said: “It will be a long time before we can find practical uses for the new elements.”",248
"If we reduced the amount of food we wasted around the world by just 25%, there would be enough food to feed all the hungry people in the world. Each year, we waste 1.3 billion tonnes of food, about one third of all the food we produce. This includes about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. We waste food like this, when, at the same time, 795 million people suffer from hunger.
The problem is global but is different in different parts of the world. In developing countries, there is a lot of “food loss” – this is when food is lost because of poor equipment, transportation and so on. In rich countries, there are low levels of “food loss” but high levels of “food waste”, which means people throw away food because they have bought too much or shops reject food because it doesn’t look good.
In developed countries, people and shops throw away between 30% and 40% of all food bought but, in poorer countries, people throw away only 5% to 16%.
“In the developing world, there is almost no food waste,” says Robert van Otterdijk, coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Save Food programme. “Food waste is happening in countries where people have more money, so they can throw away food. But there is a lot of food loss in developing countries because of the poor conditions they have.”
The environmental impact of food loss and waste is high. The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2. This means that, if food waste were a country, it would produce more greenhouse gases than any country, except the US and China.
“We cause the problem of climate change because we produce and use too much – we are not in balance with what the Earth can provide,” says van Otterdijk. “Production of food is one of the biggest production sectors in the world. If we waste one-third of all this, you can imagine what a huge effect this has on the natural resources – on land, water, energy and greenhouse gases.”
The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand produce the most food waste. People in those countries waste 39% of all the food they buy. The next is Europe, where people throw away about 31% of all the food they buy. In the UK, 15 million tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year. British people throw away 4.2 million tonnes of edible food each year. This means that 11.7% of all food people buy is wasted, which costs each family £700 a year.
The foods most often found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk. The most wasted food in the UK by weight is bread – people throw away 414,000 tonnes (22.4%) of all the bread they buy. By percentage, the most wasted food is lettuce and leafy salads – people throw away 38% (64,000 tonnes) of all they buy.
The UK has improved in the past ten years, thanks to a campaign to reduce waste. Van Otterdijk says the UK has been very successful in reducing food waste. Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of food waste produced by UK households decreased by 21%, from 5.3 million tonnes to 4.2 million tonnes.
Van Otterdijk says that more and more people are interested in food waste and this is great. “We have to do much more, and companies and governments also need to help,” he says. “But, if it continues like this, maybe, after ten years, the situation around the world will be better.”",249
"When Larry Pizzi first heard about electric bikes nearly 20 years ago, he asked: “Why would anyone want to spoil a bike by putting a motor and batteries on it?” 
It’s a question that some people still ask. Many bicycle shops in the US do not sell e-bikes. 
Pizzi is CEO of Currie Technologies, the number one seller of e-bikes in the US. He believes that things will change very soon. Other people who sell bikes agree. Familiar brands including Trek, Raleigh and Specialized all offer electric bikes and they believe that the market is going to grow. 
The US is different from other countries when it comes to electric bikes. Nearly 32 million e-bikes were sold in 2014, most of them in China, where people mostly use them for transportation. They are popular in many parts of Europe, too. They’re common in the Netherlands and Switzerland; German postal workers use them and BMW sells one for about $3,000. 
Electric bikes are different from motorcycles or mopeds, which use motors; you pedal an electric bike with – or without – help from an electric motor. Riding an e-bike feels like riding a normal bike with a strong wind behind you; the motor just helps you go faster or climb hills. You can usually ride e-bicycles on bike lanes and they can’t travel faster than 20mph. 
E-bikes are banned in some states in the US, including New York. Some bike shops don’t like putting motors on bicycles because it makes them too heavy. Some e-bikes weigh nearly 30kg. 
E-bikes are also expensive. While cheap bikes sell for just $700, you will pay at least $1,500 for a quality e-bike with a good battery. The best bikes cost more than $3,000. 
But e-bike technology, particularly the batteries, is improving. “Batteries are getting smaller, they’re getting lighter, they’re getting more reliable and they are lasting longer,” says Don DiCostanza, the CEO of Pedego, an electric bikemaker and retailer. 
Perhaps most importantly, more cities are building bike lanes so bicycle commuting has become more popular. Electric bikes make commuting more practical – and fun – because people don’t have to worry about hills, strong winds, tiredness and sweat. 
Most of our customers are “baby boomers who want to have the cycling experience they had as a kid,” says Pedego’s Don DiCostanza. “The main reason they stopped riding bikes was because of hills.” Pedego has opened nearly 60 stores in the US. 
ElectroBike has 30 stores in Mexico. It opened its first American store in Venice Beach, California in 2014 and hopes to have 25 US stores in a year. CEO Craig Anderson says: “We want to help reduce traffic, help reduce our carbon footprint and encourage a healthy lifestyle.” He tells customers: “Ride this bike once and try not to smile.” 
Currie’s Larry Pizzi thinks that e-bikes will become popular in North America. “A lot of young people are using e-bikes for transportation, instead of cars.” 
There is even a cargo bike with a stronger motor and rack at the back. “You can carry two children,” says Pizzi. “You can carry 45kg of shopping. It’s a minivan alternative.”",250
"Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for €50,000 in damages, alleging that his work of fiction makes fraudulent claims about her personal life. 
La Premiere chose qu’on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Grégoire Delacourt tells the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book’s lead male character thinks it is Johansson herself. In the novel, the model’s looks mean that men see her only as a sex object, while women are jealous of her. She has a series of adventures as Johansson until she is eventually found out and, in the end, dies in a car crash. 
Johansson herself is not flattered by the best- selling literary work. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourt’s novel constituted a “violation and fraudulent and illegal exploitation of her name, her reputation and her image.” He said the novel contains “defamatory claims about her private life” and has now gone to court to try to stop the book being translated or adapted for cinema. The court case began in Paris on Wednesday afternoon, though neither Johansson nor Delacourt was present. 
“The freedom of expression that she defends as an artist is not in question,” Toledano said. “Such activities for purely mercantile ends have nothing to do with creativity.” 
Delacourt has tried explaining that he chose to reference Johansson because she is “the archetype of beauty today.” He said: “I wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.” 
The author recently hit out against the actor on French radio, saying the legal action was “rather sad”. He said: “It freaks me out to think that, when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.” 
Delacourt has become one of France’s best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a film. But he said he was “speechless” when he found out Johansson was suing him. 
“I thought she’d get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn’t write a novel about a celebrity,” he said. “I wrote a real love story and a homage to feminine beauty, especially interior beauty. 
“If an author can no longer mention the things that surround us – a brand of beer, a monument, an actor – it’s going to be complicated to produce fiction. 
“It’s stupefying, especially as I’m not sure she’s even read the novel, since it hasn’t been translated yet.” 
Emmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Lattès, said taking legal action was “crazy”. “We have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising for the fact that the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johansson’s double.” 
Delacourt’s lawyer, Anne Veil, who is also representing publisher JC Lattès, said the allegations were “totally scandalous”. “This is a literary, not commercial, approach. She has not been used as a product,” she said. “Grégoire Delacourt is not a paparazzo; he’s a writer!” 
Ironically, the author’s legal situation would be far easier had he published the book in Johansson’s home country, rather than France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York intellectual property lawyer, told Time that the case would be unlikely to be considered in the United States because the book would be protected by the First Amendment. 
“The First Amendment doesn’t look at most books as commercial uses or commercial propositions,” he said. “If her name or likeness is relevant, literarily, if there’s significance and literary merit to using her name between the covers, the First Amendment steps in.” However, in France, the legal position is more complicated and personality rights are taken “much more seriously,” Jassin says. 
“I thought she might send me flowers as it was a declaration of love for her, but she didn’t understand,” Delacourt said. “It’s a strange paradox – but a very American one.”",251
"In 2010, it was too dangerous for the police to enter the old part of the city of Srinagar in India. Violent separatists were fighting for an independent Kashmir and they had killed more than 100 people there. 
But things change very quickly. The same streets are now full of tourists. The mosque where young people threw stones at the security forces will soon be part of an official walking tour. Visitors can take photos in the beautiful gardens by the lake. During the winter, the nearby ski resorts were full of rich Russians. 
In 2002, only 27,000 tourists came to visit the Kashmir Valley. Others were scared because of the anti-Indian fighting – almost 70,000 people have died during the fighting. So far in 2012, almost one million people have visited the area – this includes more than 23,000 from outside India. But fewer than 150 Britons visited – mainly because the UK government’s advice is that the area is too dangerous to visit. 
Omar Abdullah, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has asked the British government to change its advice, but they haven’t changed it. “It’s frustrating,” says Abdullah. “Today, because of that travel advice, people’s insurance isn’t valid when they visit here.” 1995 was the last time foreign tourists were murdered in Kashmir, when an Islamist group kidnapped six westerners and killed five of them. 
“British citizens have been killed more recently in other countries. I mean, how many British citizens were killed on 9/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? You’ve lost them in Spain, in Bali,” said Abdullah. “We’ve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid, but we haven’t stopped Indians from travelling to London. There is no reason to say Kashmir, or even Srinagar, is a dangerous destination.” 
Germany changed its guidelines for travellers to the region in 2011. “Foreigners are usually not direct targets,” the new guidelines said, less than a year after the fighting in 2010. A national holiday on 15 August celebrated 65 years of Indian independence – in the past, this was a dangerous day because many people in the state do not feel part of India. But there was no trouble at the independence celebrations on Wednesday. 
Abdullah says tourists are safe in Kashmir, if they are careful. In other words, do not go trekking near the border that separates the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir. 
Some visitors may feel it is not right to have fun in a place where local people have very high levels of anxiety and lots of mental health problems. But the local people in Srinagar like tourism. Amjid Gulzar, 26, said Abdullah should encourage foreign visitors. “Without tourism, our economy will be in chaos,” he said. 
“We need better roads, reliable electricity. We need more things for tourists to do in the evening – we don’t even have one cinema in this city,” he said. But will tourists feel welcome? In June, a local Islamic group wrote a “dress code” for foreign tourists. Abdullah says: “Nobody wants tourists to come here and cover their faces. But they should be sensitive to our cultural identity and dress appropriately. I think that’s common sense.” 
Abdullah said tourism would help the economy. Kashmir’s economy is weak after more than twenty years of fighting. The state receives just £72 million each year in taxes but it pays £155 million in salaries to 500,000 public employees. It is clear why he needs to find more money. He is pleased to see tourists back. “I’m not saying that one million tourists here shows that everything is normal again,” he said. “But it gives me some satisfaction that people can come, have a nice time, and go back.”",252
"When you see the word Amazon, what’s the first thing you think of – the world’s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet shop – and which do you think is most important?
These are questions in a debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have made objections to a bid made by the huge US e-commerce company for a prime new piece of cyberspace: “.amazon”.
The Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently “.com”), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses.
Together with many other disputed claims to names, including “.patagonia”, the issue goes directly to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet.
Until now, the differences between commercial, governmental and other types of identity were easy to see in every internet address by the use of “.com”, “.gov” and 20 other categories.
But these categories – or generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as they are technically known – are about to see the biggest expansion since the start of the worldwide web.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – a US-based non-profit organization that plays a key role in cyberspace governance – has received bids (each worth almost $200,000) for hundreds of new gTLDs to add to the existing 22.
Amazon has applied for many new domains, including “.shop”, “.song”, “.book” and “.kindle”. But the one that has caused most discussion is its application is for its own brand.
Brazil and Peru have asked for the “.amazon” application to be withdrawn. They say a private company should not be given a name that is also the name of an important geographical area, an area that runs through and across their territories and is also used for certain regions and cross-border organizations.
“Allowing private companies to register geographical names as gTLDs to strengthen their brand or to profit from the meaning of these names is not, in our view, in the public interest,” the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said.
Brazil said its views were supported by other members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela).
There have been other objections over proposed top-level domains that take geographical, cultural or contested brand names.
Argentina is unhappy that the US outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, is claiming a domain name that has been known far longer as a region of spectacular beauty that also has its own parliament. “Argentina rejects the ‘.patagonia’ request for a new generic top-level domain. Patagonia is an important region for the country’s economy because it has oil, fishing, mining and agriculture resources. It is also a region with a vibrant local community and it is a major tourist destination.”
The contested proposals are expected to be discussed again at a meeting of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee in Durban in July. The first approved domain names will probably be in use before the end of 2013.",253
"JMW Turner, one of Britain’s greatest painters, is to be the face of the new £20 note, following a nationwide vote. 
It will be the first time an artist has appeared on a British banknote, after the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, asked the public to nominate a deceased cultural figure they felt deserved the high honour. 
Turner, renowned for his dramatic seascapes, beat off competition from 590 painters, sculptors, fashion designers, photographers, film-makers and actors put forward by 30,000 members of the public. 
The list included Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander McQueen, Derek Jarman, Laura Ashley, William Morris and Vanessa Bell, which was then narrowed down by a panel of artists, critics and historians to a final choice of five. 
The final five – Barbara Hepworth, Charlie Chaplin, Josiah Wedgwood, William Hogarth and Turner – were selected on the basis of their “unquestioned” contribution to both the visual arts and British society as a whole, as well as their enduring influence. 
Fittingly, the announcement of the new banknote was made at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate, which stands on the former site of Mrs Booth’s lodging house, where Turner would always stay when he visited. The announcement was made jointly by Carney and the artist Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town. 
Carney said it had been “so important to get this right and have a proper process that involved the public,” adding that, far from banknotes being purely a practical necessity, “if done properly, they can be a piece of art in everyone’s pocket”. 
“Money is memory for a country and its people,” said the Bank of England governor. “Banknotes of the Bank of England are a celebration of the UK’s heritage, a salute to its culture, a testament to its great achievements, including those of its most notable citizens. In short, money has not just economic value, it has cultural value as well. 
“Turner is arguably the single most influential British artist of all time. His work was transformative and endures today. And his work will now feature on another 2bn works of art – our new £20 notes.” 
“The fact that we will have Turner on the £20 note shows now that the British people are a nation of people who appreciate creativity and appreciate the arts,” said Emin. 
The note will feature Turner’s 1799 self-portrait, which currently hangs in Tate Britain, as well as one of his most recognizable works, The Fighting Temeraire, a tribute to the ship that played a distinguished role in Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. 
Emblazoned on the note will also be a quote from the artist – “light is therefore colour” – as well as his signature, taken from his will, in which he bequeathed many of his works to the nation. 
The new £20 note, which replaces the one featuring social philosopher and economic theorist Adam Smith, will enter circulation by 2020. This is the first time the public have been given a say over whose face appears on a British banknote.",254
"How long can you hold your breath? I’m trying it right now. The first 30 seconds are easy. I want to give up at 45 seconds but I continue and it gets easier for a while. But, as I go past one minute, my heart is pounding. I breathe out a tiny bit and this helps. One minute and 12 seconds. I’m quite impressed with myself.
In some sports, it is very important to be able to hold your breath, particularly in freediving. In 2006, I met Sam Amps, who was captain of the UK freedive team. At a swimming pool in Bristol, she taught me some simple ways to help me hold my breath for longer while swimming underwater. By the end of the session, I could hold my breath for 90 seconds, long enough to let me swim across the pool. Sam swam across the pool three times easily. She could hold her breath for five minutes, while swimming. Five minutes!
I asked how she did it: very slow breathing for several minutes before each dive, then a big, deep breath before diving in.
Our heart rate doesn’t slow down when we hold our breath. At least, it doesn’t if you’re doing it on land. When you’re under cold water, the heart rate slows down in most people. This change in our bodies is useful in diving – but it is even more useful for not drowning.
Holding our breath is becoming very useful in one particular area of medicine. Radiotherapy for breast cancer involves pointing radiation exactly at the tumour. It’s usually done in short periods, between breaths. But, if the patient can hold their breath for several minutes, it means that doctors can give the complete radiation dose, in the right place, all at the same time. The problem, of course, is that most people cannot hold their breath for several minutes. But doctors at University Hospital Birmingham have shown that, if patients are given air with extra oxygen before holding their breath, they can hold it for five-and-a-half minutes.
Surprisingly, to achieve this you have to fool the diaphragm. When you breathe in, you’re pulling the muscle of your diaphragm flat so that the volume of your chest increases – this pulls the air into your lungs. 
When you hold your breath, you keep your diaphragm like that. If you breathe extra oxygen before a breath-hold, as in the Birmingham radiotherapy experiments, you may be able to stop the diaphragm from becoming tired too quickly. So, it’s your diaphragm, the main muscle of breathing, that is in charge when you are holding your breath. But, in the end, even if you’ve fooled it for a while, the signals from the diaphragm become too strong and you have to give up – and take a breath.",255
"After being told again that the beer she wanted would be “too dark and too strong for you – have something sweeter”, Rebecka Singerer was really annoyed.
“No, I don’t want a fruit beer. Women can drink whatever they want,” she says.
Now Singerer, a childminder, has joined FemAle, a group of like-minded drinkers in Gothenburg, to make and sell Sweden’s first beer made by women.
We Can Do It, a bottled pale ale, has just gone on sale in stores across Sweden. Its label is similar to Rosie the Riveter, the creation of a US Second World War propaganda campaign that became a symbol of women’s power at work.
The group’s founder is Elin Carlsson, 25, who paints cars at the Volvo factory outside the city. “We Can Do It is not a female beer but a beer brewed by women that anyone can drink,” she says. “It’s nothing to do with feminism; it’s about equality – we wanted to show we can do it.”
FemAle is up against decades of prejudice in the beer world. Carlsberg and other big brewers have spent millions in recent years trying to sell beer to women, attempting to appeal to what the companies believe women want. Carlsberg’s Eve and Copenhagen beers, Foster’s Radler and Coors’s Animée were some of the lighter, flavoured and even “bloat-resistant” beers that were unsuccessful.
FemAle’s approach is different. They have women-only tastings that allow potential customers to experiment with flavours and styles of beer that they may not normally try. This education process is the way to “get more girls into the beer world”, the group says. “Bring your mother, sister, girlfriend, aunt and grandmother so we all can learn more about beer.”
The idea for FemAle came after the women kept seeing each other at beer festivals.
We Can Do It was the brainchild of Felicia Nordström, a bar worker who says she was fed up with male beer snobs telling her: “What do you know about beer, sweetie?” She talked to FemAle, and they teamed up with Ocean, a local independent micro-brewery. One weekend they came up with the recipe and the next weekend they brewed 1,600 litres.
“This is not a beer that is aimed at women – it’s our hoppiest brew,” says Thomas Bingebo, the head brewer at Ocean. “When the big breweries target women, it usually fails. This is something completely different.”
The first bottles of We Can Do It were sold out almost before they were brewed. FemAle has already been approached by other breweries who want to brew new beers with them.
“Women choose a glass of wine because they don’t know what beer is all about; they don’t know what to order,” says Carlsson. “We open up new worlds to them.”
The women are part of a brewing explosion in Sweden, which is developing a passion for “craft” beers. The standard stor stark (large strong) lager is now “almost extinct” in Gothenburg, the women say, as pubs and bars replace the big brands with a choice of specialist beers.
“All the girls are different – there is no typical woman beer-lover. Anyone can do it,” says Emma Henriksson, 22, a group member who works in a garden equipment company.
“Every pub wants to learn how to reach women,” adds Singerer. “And Elin has found the way. It’s awesome. We feel so proud.”",256
"A thick crust of bird droppings is piled on the gilded balustrade of one of Britain’s most expensive properties. Pigeon skeletons lie among shattered mirrors and water streams through broken cornicing. This is The Towers, a £30m palace in “Billionaires’ Row” in north London, whose spectacular ruin has been kept secret until now. 
It is one of ten mansions in the middle of The Bishops Avenue – the heart of London’s spiralling property market – that have stood almost entirely vacant since they were bought a quarter of a century ago, it is believed on behalf of members of the Saudi Arabian royal family. Their Grecian columns are cracking into pieces and mosaic-tiled swimming pools are filled with rubble. Nature has taken over to the extent that owls have moved in. 
It is a desolate scene repeated up and down the supposedly prestigious avenue that Lloyds Bank has calculated is the second most expensive street in Britain. While more and more people struggle to get on to London’s property ladder as house prices rise at 11.2% a year, 16 mansions on the most expensive stretch of The Bishops Avenue are sitting empty, many behind padlocked gates, with their windows shuttered with steel grilles and overgrown grounds patrolled by guard dogs. 
Across the street stands another derelict mansion, worth £18m, with smashed windows and walls coated in anti-climb paint. Metal grilles block the windows of another, which has been sold for £20m. 
But that doesn’t stop the prices going up. Dryades, a mansion until recently owned by a Pakistani politician, sold for £12m in 2007 and is believed to be worth about £30m today. Heath Lodge, the scene of the 1984 murder, by silver bullet, of fashion tycoon Aristos Constantinou, is worth £13m today, after having been sold in the late 1970s for £400,000. 
The dereliction can be agonizing for people struggling to keep a roof above their heads in one of the world’s most expensive cities. One security guard working on the avenue said it was exasperating to see so many tens of thousands of square feet of property – enough to house dozens of people – falling apart. 
Royals flushed with oil wealth from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia were among the first to come to this curving road near Hampstead Heath. Iranians fled here after the fall of the shah. Now, Chinese house hunters are following Russians and Kazakhs who have spent millions securing an address estate agents tell them is as world famous as the Champs Elysées and Rodeo Drive. Recently, two mansions have been on sale for £65m and £38m, promising endless Italian marble, leather-padded lifts and luxury panic rooms. 
However, in the grounds of the empty mansions, stone fountains crumble and lawns have become bogs. Inside one, water drips through a huge crystal chandelier onto a thick carpet rotting under sections of collapsed ceiling. Moss grows through shattered bricks and mirrored tiles are scattered across a bathroom. The swimming pool is filled with a foot of brackish water and has flowers growing through its tiles. Wooden slats bulge away from the sauna. 
But it is the wreck of The Towers, a grand mansion set among acres of hornbeams, oaks and limes, that is most dramatic, with its huge, high-ceiling halls occupied by pigeons and its walls turned bright green by algae as water pours through three storeys and plinks into a vast, empty, basement swimming pool. Unopened wooden crates marked “bullet- proof glass” reveal the security fears of the previous owners. 
Today, very few people live on The Bishops Avenue full time. A security guard patrolling the pavement outside one mansion said that the owners were not there. Another, outside Royal Mansion, declined to say if anyone was home, while a member of staff at another mansion simply warned the Guardian about the guard dogs. Magdy Adib Ishak-Hannah, an Egyptian-born private healthcare mogul, whose personal wealth is £45m, said he was in the minority of permanent residents. 
“It’s not a neighbourly place, where you can chat over the fence,” he said. “To be honest, I have never seen what my neighbours look like. Next door, a Saudi princess spent £35m on a new house and I’ve never seen her. There are about three houses that are lived in 24/7 and half of the properties are occupied three to six months a year. The other half, who knows if they come or not?” 
The multimillion-pound wrecks are evidence of a property culture in which the world’s richest people see British property as investments. One Hyde Park, a block of apartments in Knightsbridge, is another example where more than half the flats are registered with the council as empty or second homes. 
Nevertheless, the talk on the avenue is about building £5m apartments, instead of £50m mansions, in an effort to draw people back. 
Anil Varma, a local property developer, has decided to rebuild one of the most valuable sites on the avenue as a collection of 20 apartments with a concierge, maid service, 25-metre pool, spa and cinema. 
“If you build a big house and try and sell for £30m to £40m, it won’t sell,” he said. “Locals won’t buy and so you have to bring in overseas buyers.” 
But the prospect of the avenue’s empty property being used to help solve the housing crisis remains distant. Andrew Harper, a local Conservative councillor, laughed when asked whether some of the derelict housing could become affordable homes. He said the land price would be prohibitive. 
“Very wealthy people own property there,” he said. “Sometimes they live in them and sometimes they don’t.”",257
"There are worse things to do in life than stroll along Rio's Copacabana beach in the sunshine on the way to watch a World Cup match, so it was perhaps not surprising that England fan Anthony McDowell from Liverpool was having none of the doom and gloom that preceded some of the build-up to the tournament in Brazil. “The place is lovely. The people are great. There’s a party atmosphere,” said McDowell. “The only thing that could be better is the England team.”
He and half a dozen friends are among the multitudes of supporters from around the world who have made the beachfront into a party zone of national colours and chants. Some danced, some posed for photos, some drank, but mostly they just walked and talked football, waiting for the next game to begin on the nearby FanFest big screen. The last time there were so many people here during the daytime, the pope was visiting.
The cheerful, largely peaceful mood was far from the protests, transport chaos and stadium problems that plagued preparations for the World Cup. But, now the football is well and truly under way, visiting supporters are determined to enjoy the experience. “If I had known, when I started planning, how complicated and costly it would be, I wouldn’t have come. But, now that we’re here, it’s great,” said Brian Hill, a retired chief executive from Sunderland.
The trip has not been problem free. Hill travelled for more than 20 hours to get to Rio, then hit long delays on the road from the airport at 6.30am. His son, Andrew, had his sunglasses stolen almost as soon as he sat on the beach. And, they have been surprised that many bars are not set up with big screens for the games. But, like many fans, they said they loved the atmosphere, if not the logistics, of this tournament which has got off to a spectacular start on the pitch.
Even the surliest cynic cannot have failed to be thrilled by Robin van Persie’s extraordinary diving header for the Netherlands against Spain. Elsewhere, there has been a glut of goals: 28 in the first eight games – almost three times as many as at the same stage in South Africa in 2010. Adding to the carnival mood on the streets, where the majority of fans are from neighbouring nations, Latin-American teams won in every game they played up until the time of writing.
So far, the tournament has avoided the worst Doomsday scenarios, though it is far from trouble free. The stadiums may have been delivered late and – in some cases – not fully finished, but there have been no reports of structural problems or difficulties entering the grounds since the kick off.
As at previous World Cups, ticketing has been a problem, with many empty seats at several games, including the Netherlands against Spain. FIFA spokesman Saint-Clair Milesi confirmed that only 48,000 of the 51,900 seats at the ground were filled. FIFA is also investigating security lapses that allowed Chilean fans to let off fireworks during their victory over Australia.
The Globo newspaper listed a number of shortcomings in the 12 host cities. Almost all suffered worse traffic congestion than usual. The worst transport problems were in Natal, where bus drivers have been on strike since 12 June. In Salvador, some journey times were five times longer than usual. “Traffic was already bad but this week it is chaotic,” Jecilda Mello, president of residents’ group the Association of Friends of the Historic Centre, told the paper.
But, protests have diminished since the opening day, when small demonstrations took place in several cities, prompting police to use tear gas and pepper spray. Since then, the only security threat has been petty theft and overexcited fans. A spontaneous street party of Argentinian fans was dispersed with pepper spray after the fans blocked roads.
The huge distances have led to some sharply contrasting World Cup experiences. The tournament has made only a small mark on São Paulo, South America’s most populous city, but, far away in Manaus – the remote Amazonian city where England played Italy – visitors said World Cup fever was in full swing with brightly decorated streets and flags fluttering on many cars.
The FA chairman, Greg Dyke, said the shift in mood was palpable. “We've had a really warm welcome in Manaus. It’s a big thing for them, even if it is a bit strange to spend so much on a stadium with no one to play in it. But we were in São Paulo for four or five days in the run-up to the opening match and you wouldn’t have known until the last day that there was even a World Cup on. It was weird.”",258
"Scientists have connected the brains of two animals and allowed them to share sensory information. It is a major step towards what the researchers call the world’s first “organic computer”.
The US team fitted two rats with devices called brain-to-brain interfaces that let the animals collaborate on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water. In one important demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to connect the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles – one in North Carolina, USA, and the other in Natal, Brazil.
The researchers were led by Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer of devices that allow paralyzed people to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts. They say their latest work could make it possible for multiple brains to be connected to share information. “These experiments showed that we have established a sophisticated, direct communication connection between brains,” Nicolelis said. “Basically, we are creating what I call an organic computer.”
The scientists first demonstrated that rats can share, and act on, each other’s sensory information by electrically connecting their brains via tiny grids of electrodes that reach the part of the brain that processes movement.
The rats were taught to press a lever when a light went on above it. When they did the task correctly, they got a drink of water. To test the animals’ ability to share brain information, they put the rats in two separate compartments. Only one compartment had a light above the lever. When the rat pressed the lever, an electronic version of its brain activity was sent directly to the other rat’s brain. In tests, the second rat responded correctly to the imported brain signals and pressed the lever 70% of the time.
Incredibly, the communication between the rats was two-way. If the receiving rat failed at the task, the first rat did not get the reward of a drink, and appeared to change its behaviour to make the task easier for its partner. In further experiments, the rats collaborated on a task that required them to tell the difference between narrow and wide openings using their whiskers.
In the final test, the scientists connected rats on different continents and used the internet to send their brain activity back and forth. “Even though the animals were on different continents, they could still communicate,” said Miguel Pais-Vieira, the first author of the study. “This tells us that we could create a workable network of animal brains distributed in many different locations.”
Nicolelis said the team is now working on ways to connect several animals’ brains at once to solve more complex tasks. “We cannot even predict what might happen when animals begin interacting as part of a ‘brain-net’,” he said. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could find solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.”
Anders Sandberg, who studies the ethics of neurotechnologies at Oxford University, said the work was “very important” in helping to understand how brains encode information. But the potential future uses of the technology are much wider, said Sandberg. “The main reason we are running the planet is that we are amazingly good at communicating and coordinating. Without that, although we are very smart animals, we would not dominate the planet.”
“I don’t think there’s any risk of supersmart rats from this,” he added. “There’s a big difference between sharing sensory information and being able to plan. I’m not worried about an invasion by smart rats.”
Very little is known about how people encode thoughts and how they might be sent to another person’s brain – so that will not happen any time soon. And much of what is in our minds is a “draft”, as Sandberg calls it, of what we might do. “Often, we don’t want to reveal those drafts, because that would be embarrassing and confusing. And we change a lot of those drafts before we act. Most of the time I think we’d be very thankful not to be in someone else’s head.”",259
"Barack Obama flew back to Washington and his desk in the Oval Office on Wednesday, hours after delivering an election victory speech in Chicago in which he called for the country to unite behind him. 
“You voted for action, not politics as usual,” Obama said in his address, but there was little sign that his call would be answered, with the President facing the prospect of doing business with a hostile Republican-led House of Representatives for at least another two years and a looming showdown over spending and debt – the so-called “fiscal cliff”. 
Unlike after his election in 2008, the President is unlikely to be given a honeymoon period. 
Both the Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, and the Democratic Leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, spoke about a need to work together to resolve the crisis, but it could turn into one of the biggest clashes yet between the White House and Congress under Obama’s presidency. 
While Obama easily beat off the challenge from his Republican opponent Mitt Romney, holding swing state after swing state, the election provided yet another reminder of just how divided America remains. 
While the inauguration is not until January, in effect Obama embarked on his second term on Wednesday. Having disappointed many supporters in his first term, he is looking now to establish a legacy that will transform him from a middling president into a great one. 
As well as overseeing what he hopes will be continued economic recovery, he hopes to address issues ranging from immigration reform to investment in education and climate change, and, in foreign policy, from Iran to Israel-Palestine. 
As well as comfortably winning more than the required 270 electoral college votes, he also secured a higher share of the popular vote. 
Boehner, in a statement, sounded conciliatory. He cited “the need for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt”. Obama is reported to have phoned Boehner to begin negotiation. 
Reid, so often at odds with Boehner, also sounded conciliatory, saying: “I look at the challenges that we have ahead of us and I reach out to my Republican colleagues in the Senate and the House. Let’s come together. We know what the issues are; let’s solve them.” 
Obama, in an initially off-the-record interview during the campaign, expressed optimism of a “grand bargain” with the Republicans, one that eluded him in 2011. The trouble will come when talks move to detail, with the Republicans wanting to protect military spending while the Democrats seek cuts. Obama has called for tax increases on households earning more than $250,000; Boehner has rejected any tax increases. 
Shares dropped on the Dow in anticipation of continued gridlock. By lunchtime, all the major US markets were down over 300 points. 
The new House, which will be formed in January, will look much like the existing one, which has a huge Republican majority. The Senate too remained little changed, with the Democrats retaining their slim majority, gaining three and losing one. 
In the presidential race, Romney won only one of the swing states, North Carolina, while Obama held New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada, Iowa and Colorado. 
In his victory speech in Chicago, Obama referred to the long queues to vote and said there was a need for electoral reform. 
He returned to the soaring rhetoric that was his trademark during the 2008 election but which he dispensed with in 2012. Amid the disillusionment with his presidency and the tough economic conditions, his campaign team decided it was inappropriate. 
But having won, he returned to famous lines from earlier speeches, reprising once again his 2008 slogan about “hope”. 
Stepping up to the lectern to the upbeat sounds of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours,” Obama told the ecstatic crowd of supporters: “Tonight in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back. And we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.” In a speech that lasted more than 25 minutes, after paying emotional tribute to his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha – as well as to his Vice-President, Joe Biden – Obama returned to the message that first brought him to national attention. 
“We are not as divided as our politics suggests,” he said. “We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and forever will be, the United States of America.” 
Obama made clear he had an agenda in mind for his second term, citing changes in the tax code, immigration reform and, as he put it, an America “that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet”. 
Shortly beforehand, Romney had phoned the President to concede. In a gracious concession speech in Boston, Romney told his supporters: “The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work.” 
He continued: “This is a time for great challenges for America and I pray the President will be successful in guiding our nation.” 
The campaign almost throughout has been a referendum on Obama. Although there was widespread disillusionment with the slow pace of economy recovery and a high unemployment level, Americans decided to stick with him. 
Historically, it would have been a disappointment for African Americans and many white liberals if the first black presidency had ended in failure, halted prematurely.",260
"1 Flappy Bird 
Be careful what you wish for, especially if you want to invent something new. Recently, Dong Nguyen, the designer of the mobile game Flappy Bird, pulled it from app stores, saying its success – it had been downloaded more than 50 million times, and was making him around £30,000 in advertising revenue each day – had ruined his simple life. He took to his Twitter account to say: “I cannot take this anymore.” 
OK, so regretting making Flappy Bird isn’t quite the same as regretting making a rifle, but Nguyen is just the latest in a long line of inventors who wish they hadn’t created a monster. 
2 The labradoodle 
The labradoodle isn’t a monster – it’s adorable, obviously. But what’s monstrous is the way crossbreed dogs have been bred and marketed since the labradoodle’s inventor, Wally Conron, first created the breed in the 1980s. “I’ve done a lot of damage,” he told the Associated Press. “I’ve created a lot of problems. There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs out there.” Conron came up with the labradoodle when he was working for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia to provide a dog for a blind woman whose husband was allergic to dog hair. What he didn’t expect was that the labradoodle – and its other poodle-cross variants, many of which have health problems – would become so popular. 
3 The AK-47 
Six months before his death in December 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the assault rifle, wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church: “My spiritual torment is unbearable. One and the same question: if my ri fl e killed people, does that mean that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 93 years of age, the son of a peasant, Christian and Orthodox by faith, am responsible for people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?” 
4 Electronic tagging 
The electronic tag was originally conceived in the 1960s as a way of tracking former prisoners’ attendance at schools and workplaces, and rewarding them for good behaviour. Its inventors, Bob Gable and his brother Kirkland, were later horri fi ed that the tag had become a form of control and punishment. “It’s not pleasant,” Kirkland Gable told the Guardian in 2010, “but I’m not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.” 
5 Pepper spray 
After police sprayed peaceful protesters with pepper spray at a University of California campus in 2011, one of the scientists who helped develop it in the 80s denounced its use. “I have never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agents,” Kamran Loghman told The New York Times. 
6 The office cubicle 
In the late 60s, a new form of office was launched, designed to give workers privacy and increase productivity by providing more work space. Instead, it became a way for companies to cram employees into tighter spaces, a visual shorthand for uniformity and soulless work. Its inventor, Bob Propst, said in 1997, “the cubiclizing of people in modern corporations is monolithic insanity.”",261
"Well-known British author David Mitchell is used to the critics analysing his novels in detail. So, it’s a relief, he says, that his latest work won’t be seen by anyone until 2114. He completed it at 1am one Tuesday morning before a car arrived to take him to the airport to catch a flight to Norway.
Mitchell is the second contributor to the Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s Future Library project, for which 1,000 trees were planted in 2014 in Oslo’s Nordmarka forest. The first author, Margaret Atwood, handed over the manuscript of a text called Scribbler Moon in 2015. Each year for the next 100 years, an author will deliver a piece of writing that will only be read in 2114, when the trees are chopped down to make paper on which the 100 texts will be printed.
Each author – their names revealed year by year and chosen by a panel of experts and Paterson, while she is alive – will travel to the spot in the forest high above Oslo, where they will hand over their manuscripts in a short ceremony.
“It’s a little glimmer of hope in a season when there has been lots of very depressing news, which shows that we are in with a chance of civilization in a hundred years,” said Mitchell. “Everything is telling us that we’re doomed but the Future Library brings hope that we are more resilient than we think: that we will be here, that there will be trees, that there will be books and readers, and civilization.”
Mitchell said he found writing the book “quite liberating because I won’t be around to take the consequences of this being good or bad. But, I’m sandwiched between Margaret Atwood and no doubt some other brilliant writer. So, it had better be good. I’d look such a fool if they opened it in 2114 and it wasn’t any good.”
Mitchell says that he usually “polishes and polishes” his writing. “Actually, I over-polish. But, this was very different – I wrote till the final minute. So, the first two-thirds were polished and the final third I didn’t have time. And, it was a liberation.”
Future Library creator, Paterson, asked the writers to write on “the theme of imagination and time, which they can take in so many directions”. Mitchell revealed only the name of the manuscript, From Me Flows What You Call Time, during a ceremony in the Norwegian woods next to where Paterson’s 1,000 trees are planted. The title is taken from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. But, other than admitting that “it’s more substantial than I was expecting”, the author would say nothing more.
Handing over his text in the forest, Mitchell read his audience of children and adults a short story and William Wordsworth’s A slumber did my spirit seal. Its ending, “Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course / With rocks, and stones, and trees”, felt appropriate in this small section of forest, which will be carefully tended to for the next 98 years before it is turned into Future Library’s manuscripts.
“How vain to think that my scribblings will be of enduring interest to future generations. Yet, how low-key and understated, to slave over a manuscript that nobody will ever congratulate you for and say: ‘Nice one’ or ‘God, I loved the bit where she did that and he did this ...’” Mitchell wrote in a piece for the Future Library.
His manuscript, now delivered, will be sealed and placed alongside Atwood’s in a wood-lined room in Oslo’s new public library, which will open in 2019. Watched over by a panel of experts until it is finally printed, it is now, says the novelist, “as gone from me as a coin dropped in a river”.",262
"Water scientists have given a very strong warning about the world’s food supplies. They say that everyone may have to change to a vegetarian diet by 2050. 
We believe there will be an extra two billion people in the world by 2050. Humans get about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to decrease to just 5% to feed these extra people, say the world’s top water scientists. 
“There will not be enough water to produce food for the nine-billion population in 2050 if more people start eating like people in the West,” the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said. 
“There will be enough water if the percentage of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories.” 
There are warnings that water shortages will limit food production. At the same time, Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for food items such as corn and wheat have increased nearly 50% on international markets since June. The price increase has been caused by very bad droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people already have serious food shortages across the Sahel. 
Oxfam says that the effects of price increases will be very bad in developing countries that need to buy food from other countries, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. 
Changing to a vegetarian diet is one way to keep more water to grow food, the scientists said. 
Animal protein-rich food uses five to ten times more water than vegetarian food. One third of the world’s farmland is used to grow crops to feed animals. 
“Nine hundred million people already don’t have enough food and two million people are malnourished, even though we are producing more food,” they said. “70% of all water is used in farming, and growing more food to feed an extra two billion people by 2050 will put more pressure on water and land.” 
The report was released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN groups, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries met to discuss global water supply problems. 
Eating too much, malnourishment and waste are all increasing. “We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,” said the report’s editor, Anders Jägerskog.",263
"Brazil experienced one of its biggest nights of protest in decades as more than 100,000 people took to the streets nationwide to express their frustration at heavy-handed policing, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup. 
The major demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and elsewhere started peacefully, but several led to clashes with police and arson attacks on cars and buses. 
The large turnout and geographic spread marked a rapid escalation after previous, smaller protests against bus price increases led to complaints that police responded disproportionately with rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings. 
Coinciding with the start of the Confederations Cup – a World Cup test event – the rallies brought together a wide coalition of people frustrated with the escalating costs and persistently poor quality of public services, lavish investment in international sporting events, low standards of health care and wider unease about inequality and corruption. 
While the vast majority of demonstrations in Rio were peaceful, several police were injured in clashes at the city’s legislative assembly, at least one car was overturned and burned, and windows were smashed in the offices of banks and notary offices. 
The unrest escalated during the night as a large crowd set several fires outside the legislative assembly, smashed the building’s windows and painted graffiti on the walls proclaiming “Revolution”, “Down with Paes, down with Cabral [the mayor and state governor]” and “Hate police”. Police inside responded with pepper spray and perhaps more – the Guardian saw one protester passed out and bleeding heavily from a wound in the upper arm. 
The causes pursued by the protesters varied widely. “We are here because we hate the government. They do nothing for us,” said Oscar José Santos, a 19 year old who was with a group of hooded youths from the Rocinha favela. 
“I’m an architect but I have been unemployed for six months. There must be something wrong with this country,” said Nadia al Husin, holding up a banner calling on the government to do more for education. 
At a far smaller rally in Brasilia, demonstrators broke through police lines to enter the high-security area of the national congress. Several climbed onto the roof. 
In Belo Horizonte, police clashed with protesters who tried to break through a cordon around a football stadium hosting a Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Tahiti. 
In Porto Alegre, demonstrators set fire to a bus and, in Curitiba, protesters attempted to force their way into the office of the state governor. There were also rallies in Belem, Salvador and elsewhere. 
In São Paulo, which had seen the fiercest clashes the previous week and the main allegations of police violence, large crowds gathered once again but initial reports suggested the marches passed peacefully. 
Reflecting the importance of social networks in spreading the message about the protests, some in São Paulo – where numbers were estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000 – carried banners declaring “We come from Facebook”. 
Most protesters were young and, for many, it was their first experience of such a giant rally. “My generation has never experienced this,” said Thiago Firbida, a student. “Since the dictatorship, Brazilians never bothered to take over the streets. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil is once again in crisis, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting.” 
Comparisons have been drawn with rallies in Turkey and elsewhere. Another global link was evident in the handful of demonstrators who wore Guy Fawkes masks, associated with Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street protests. 
Brazil’s demonstrations are being referred to as the “vinegar revolution” (after police arrested people for carrying vinegar to counter tear gas), as well as the “20-cent revolution” (due to the bus price rise) and the Passe Livre (after the demand for free public transport). 
Some said the protests felt un-Brazilian but liberating. “Our politicians need to see the strength we have as one people. Brazilians tend to be too nice sometimes – they enjoy partying rather than protesting – but something is changing,” said Deli Borsari, a 53-year-old yoga instructor. 
Following widespread news coverage of the costs of new and refurbished stadiums, the Confederations Cup football tournament has been one of the focuses of the protests. Before the opening match in Brasilia, crowds of demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. Footage showed frightened Japanese supporters rushing from the area holding their children, as the sound of shots – perhaps rubber bullets or tear gas – was heard. 
Another protest march, near Rio’s Maracana Stadium, was met with a similarly heavy police response. 
Most of the rallies appeared to start peacefully until they confronted the security forces, who are largely organized at a regional level. President Dilma Rousseff condones the protests, according to her aides. “The president believes peaceful protests are legitimate and proper for a democracy, and that it is natural for young people to demonstrate,” said Helena Chagas of the president’s office. 
However, the president was booed at the opening ceremony for the Confederations Cup. With the economy in bad shape and social unrest on the rise, she faces a serious political challenge, both now and in 2014, when Brazil will not only host the World Cup but also have a presidential election.",264
"“I got a Dyson vacuum cleaner but I don’t even know if I want it,” said 56-year-old Louise Haggerty, as she left the Black Friday sales at one o’clock in the morning. “It was crazy in there. It was absolutely disgusting, disgusting.” 
Haggerty went with a friend to a 24-hour Sainsbury’s supermarket in north-east London. She hoped to buy a bargain flat-screen TV. “But so many people pushed in the queue that we didn’t have a chance,” she said. “The poor woman who was second in the queue was pushed out by a crowd of youths. She didn’t get anything. People were behaving like animals – it was horrible,” she said. “I only saw two security guards.” 
Haggerty was frustrated when she was unable to buy a TV, which was reduced from £299.99 to £149.99, so rushed to pick up a vacuum cleaner, which was reduced from £319.99 to £159.99. “I don’t even know how much it costs. I don’t know even know if I’m going to buy it. I just wanted something,” she said. “There are young men in there with three, four, five tellies. It’s not fair.” 
One of those young men was Andy Blackett, who had two trolleys full of bargains. “I got two coffee makers, two tablets, two TVs and a stereo,” he said. “I don’t know the prices but I know they’re bargains.” But his friend Henry Fischer wasn’t as successful. “Someone snatched my telly from me – it’s because I’m the smaller one.” 
More than 12 police officers attended a Tesco store in another part of London because fights started between eager and frustrated shoppers. Tesco delayed the sale of its most popular sale items – TVs – for almost an hour until police brought the situation under control. One police officer said the manager did not provide enough security and suggested the sale should be stopped completely. 
Police were called to several other stores just before the doors opened at midnight. Manchester Police said they arrested at least two people at Black Friday sales events. South Wales Police also said they received calls from staff at Tesco stores because so many people came to the sales that they became worried. 
One of the first people to buy a flat-screen TV, when TV sales began just before 1am, was James Alled. He bought two and was already trying to sell one of them to someone further down the queue. “I bought them for £250 each. I’ll sell it to you for £350, £300 cash,” he said. Further back in the queue, Christine Ball, 62, wasn’t impressed. “I got here at 10.15pm and I’m further back now than when I got here” she said. “These people don’t know what a queue is.” 
Ball had not heard of the Black Friday sales, which come from the US, until now. She came out especially to buy her grandson a TV for Christmas. “Not one of those massive ones; just a normal one at £100 or so,” she said. 
Mel Mehmet, 23, went to Black Friday sales in 2013 so she knew there would be queues. But she said the atmosphere in Tesco scared her this time. “It’s crazy to have a sale at midnight – the police have more important things to do at night than come to sales. We’re going to PC World in the morning – their sale starts at 8am.”",265
"oise from ships may disturb animals such as killer whales and dolphins much more than people previously thought. New research shows that underwater noise could disturb the animals communication and ability to find prey. The low rumble of passing ships has, for a long time, been connected to the disturbance of large whales. But, US researchers have also found noise at medium and higher frequencies, including at 20,000Hz where killer whales, also known as orcas, hear best.
These noises could be disturbing the ability of killer whales to communicate and use echo to find their prey. Dolphins and porpoises, which also hear at higher frequencies, may have the same problems. The findings suggest that the noise could affect the endangered population of killer whales that are found near the shipping lanes up the west coast of the USA.
The main concern of this is that even a slight increase in sound may make echolocation more difficult for whales, said Scott Veirs, who led the research. Echolocation is the process of using sound to bounce off objects such as prey and identify where they are. Thats worrying because their prey, chinook salmon, is already quite scarce. Hearing a salmons click is probably one of the most challenging things a killer whale does. Hearing that subtle click is harder if theres a lot of noise around you.
The researchers used underwater microphones to measure the noise created by about 1,600 ships as they passed through Haro Strait, in Washington State, USA. The two-year study recorded the sound made by 12 different types of vessel, including cruise ships, container ships and military vehicles, that passed through the strait about 20 times a day.
Some ships are quieter than others but the average intensity of noise next to all the ships was 173 underwater decibels, equivalent to 111 decibels through the air  about the sound of a loud rock concert. Whales are not usually right next to ships and so would hear noise of about 60 to 90 decibels  around the level of a lawnmower or a vacuum cleaner.
Veirs said scientists already knew about the impact of underwater noise on large whales. But, the new research shows the threat to smaller whales, dolphins and porpoises. Ships have been thought of as low-frequency sources of noise, like the rumbling of lorries or trains, he said. Most noise is at that low frequency but the background noise of the ocean is raised even in the high frequencies. This could be causing a significant problem that we need to look into more.
There are several further consequences of a noisy underwater environment. Whales may have to group together more closely in order to hear each other. And, if they fail to find prey as effectively, they will need to use up their stores of extra blubber. This is a problem because this blubber often contains manmade pollutants that are toxic to whales if they are released fully into their systems.
Veirs said more work needs to be done to identify how badly the noise is affecting whales and also to quieten the ships that pass near them. It should be easy to reduce noise pollution, he said. Military ships are quite a bit quieter and there could be simple ways of transferring that technology to commercial ships. Another way to reduce noise is to slow down. Decreasing speed by six knots could decrease noise by half.
While some whale species, such as blue whales, the largest mammal on Earth, are safer now because whaling has declined, others are still under threat from a range of factors. The US federal government has recently protected nearly 40,000 square miles of the Atlantic to try to avoid losing a species of whale with just 500 individuals left.
In Europe, killer whales are carrying dangerously high levels of banned chemicals in their blubber. Scientists are still trying to find out whether pollutants caused the deaths of five whales that were found on beaches on the east coast of Britain in January 2016. Meanwhile, around the coast of Australia, whales face an increased threat from ship strikes and oil and gas drilling, as well as Japans recent decision to start whaling again in Antarctic waters.",266
"The customer next to you in the queue looks quite normal. But, instead of a shopping list, you notice she’s carrying handwritten notes about the appearance and cleanliness of the store. She’s been timing the speed of the queue on her phone … and is that a tiny camera lens in her purse? She’s probably a mystery shopper.
There are approximately 50,000 mystery shopping trips carried out every month in the UK, according to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, and, as more and more spending takes place online, the demand for mystery shoppers is growing. “Retailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who are prepared to set foot in a physical store want a service and an experience they can’t get online,” says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers. “Our clients want to measure how well their stores are delivering of that experience.”
“We assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months,” says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. “Each day, they typically spend up to eight hours visiting five to ten stores, plus another hour or two filing detailed reports on every aspect of their visit.” For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to £155 a day. They are also reimbursed for their expenses. Mystery shoppers who film their visits with a hidden camera can earn even more – around £300 a day.
Shoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. “I’m typically given between £5 and £20 to spend at each store, to assess the service I receive at the till,” says mystery shopper Laura. “I’m always given a scenario, such as buying something from a specific department or a new product range, but I can often buy whatever I want – and keep it.”
Like most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed. Her income is around £30,000 to £40,000 a year and that doesn’t include all the freebies she gets on the job. “With the perks, it’s enough to live on.” She finds it satisfying to return to a store she has previously mystery shopped and see standards have improved. “I know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? Some of the retailers I shop at win awards for customer service and I think that is down to us mystery shoppers. I feel I’m not just doing a service for my company; I’m doing a service for all shoppers everywhere.”
It’s estimated that more than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less manage to get regular work each month. This has led to a dramatic reduction in pay. “Once you got a fee, reimbursement for your purchase and mileage, but you now often just receive a contribution towards a purchase,” say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. “I worked for 40 different mystery shopping companies for almost 20 years but I gave up entirely three years ago because I had bills to pay and very few assignments paid an acceptable rate.”
Nowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly give freebies to incentivize their workers. “Marketforce shoppers typically get a couple of pounds for a visit as a token gesture for their time and effort,” says Boydell. “At the most, we’ll pay £15 to £25 plus reimbursement for, perhaps, a meal for two or a hotel stay. We don’t directly employ any shoppers so we don’t have to pay them the minimum wage.”
“I’d go on a cruise for nothing,” says Laura. “But I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I won’t touch those jobs anymore.” There are plenty of people, however, that would. Hannah, a 41-year-old lawyer, has done nearly 500 visits for the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving pay or travel expenses. She carries out their most exclusive assignments, enjoying £200 meals at Michelin-starred restaurants and overnight stays at boutique hotels.
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, even if you work for a mystery dining company. Hannah says she typically spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to specific interactions with staff, whom she always needs to be able to name or describe. She has to memorize all these details while eating her meal because she cannot openly write anything down.
“There’s lots to remember. You’re expected to give feedback while it’s fresh, so I’ve had to get up at 5am to write a report before work. It’s a challenging thing to do; you need to be focused, articulate and detail orientated.”",267
"According to a recent scientific study, organic food has more healthy antioxidants than regular food. It also has fewer toxic metals and pesticides. The international team that did the study suggests that changing to organic fruit and vegetables could be as healthy as adding one or two portions of the recommended ‘five a day’ fruit and vegetables.
The team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert, concludes that there are big differences between organic and non-organic food. Organic food has between 19% and 69% more antioxidants. It is the first study to show clear differences between organic and regular fruits, vegetables and cereals.
The researchers say that the higher levels of antioxidants have the same effect as “one to two of the five portions of fruits and vegetables that people should eat every day”. They say this means that organic food is better for our health.
The findings will make people argue even more about whether or not organic food is better for people. Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King’s College London, said the research showed some differences. “But are the differences relevant? I am not sure.” He also said that research showed organic cereals have less protein than regular crops.
The results of the research are based on an analysis of 343 studies from around the world – more than ever before – which examine differences between organic and regular fruit, vegetables and cereals. Helen Browning, who supports organic farming, said that the research showed that how we farm affects the quality of the food we eat.
Leifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants reduce the risk of serious diseases, including diseases of the heart and certain cancers. The researchers also found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in regular crops.
They found four times more pesticides on regular crops than on organic food.
People will criticize the research: including so many studies in the analysis could make the results unreliable. Also, the higher levels of cadmium and pesticides in regular food are still below recommended limits. But, the researchers say that cadmium stays in the body and that some people may want to avoid this. They also say that recommended limits are for single pesticides and not for the mixture of chemicals that farmers use on regular crops.
Another criticism of the research is that the differences it found may be the result of different climates, different types of soil and different types of crops; they may not be the result of organic farming. But, the biggest criticism will be about possible health benefits. The most recent major analysis, which included 223 studies in 2012, found little evidence of health benefits. “Other studies did not find evidence that organic foods are much more nutritious than regular foods,” it found.
Sanders agrees. “You are not going to be healthier if you eat organic food,” he said. “What is most important is what you eat, not whether it’s organic or regular. It’s whether you eat fruit and vegetables at all.”
Shoppers say that healthy eating (55%) and avoiding chemicals (53%) are the main reasons they buy organic food. Browning said: “This research supports what people think about organic food. In other countries, there is much more support and acceptance of the benefits of organic food and farming. We hope that now the UK will accept organic food like people in the rest of Europe.",268
"The world shares him and London claims him but Stratford-upon-Avon intends to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man: the bard of Avon, born in the Warwickshire market town in 1564, who died there 400 years ago. Stratford remained hugely important throughout Shakespeare’s life, argues Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. 
“People have seen Shakespeare as someone who turns his back on Stratford and his family, goes to London to earn his fortune and only comes back to die,” he said. “But Stratford is where he bought land and property, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.” The seveneenth-century diarist, antiquarian and gossip John Aubrey, born 11 years after Shakespeare died, was at pains to point out there was nothing so very special about the bard. Aubrey, university educated, unlike Shakespeare, said that he acted “exceedingly well” and that “his Playes took well ”. The world has not agreed with Aubrey. The anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford, the most famous and the most performed playwright in the world, will be marked across Britain and the globe. 
Macbeth will open in Singapore, Romeo and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeare’s Globe is completing the first world tour in the history of theatre, in which it has taken Hamlet to almost every country – North Korea is still holding out. In London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to showcase each of Shakespeare’s plays, along the South Bank. 
The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and virtually every other theatre production company in the country will be marking the anniversary. Interpretations will range from the resolutely traditional to the Brighton-based Spymonkey’s Complete Deaths, a romp through the 74 deaths – 75 including a fly squashed in Titus 
Andronicus – by stabbing, poisoning, smothering and smashing across the plays. There will also be hundreds of lectures, recitals, international academic conferences, films, concerts, operas and major exhibitions. 
For a man famous in his own lifetime, there is little documentary evidence for Shakespeare’s life and times. The plays would scarcely have survived if his friends and fellow actors had not gathered together every scrap of every play they could find – drafts, prompt scripts, scribbled actors’ parts and 17 plays not known in any other version – into the precious First Folio published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. 
The actor Mark Rylance has called it his favourite book in the world and most of the surviving First Folios will be on display – including those belonging to the British and Bodleian libraries, and a tattered copy recently discovered in France. Some of the most precious surviving documents will be gathered together in an exhibition at Somerset House in London, jointly organized by the National Archives and King’s College London, including four of his six known signatures, which are all slightly different. 
The exhibition, By Me, William Shakespeare, will include his will, the court papers relating to the audacious move when Shakespeare and his fellow actors dismantled a theatre on the north side of the Thames and rebuilt it as the Globe on the South Bank, and accounts showing payments from the royal treasury for Boxing Day performances for James I and Queen Anne. 
The outgoing Globe director, Dominic Dromgoole, recently jokily claimed Shakespeare as a true Londoner – albeit conceding “some spurious claim” by Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford, however, will be insisting that the town made and educated Shakespeare. His old school room is being restored with a £1.4m Heritage Lottery grant and will open as a permanent visitor attraction. 
Shakespeare bought the splendid New Place, the second best house in the town, where he died, according to literary legend, on St George’s Day, 23 April, the same day as his birth. “You don’t buy a house like New Place and not live there,” Paul Edmondson said. “The general public and many academics have consistently underestimated the importance of Stratford to Shakespeare.” 
Edmondson believes that, after Shakespeare bought the house in 1597, all his thinking time was spent there and that the late plays, including The Tempest, were at least planned in his library and probably written there. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust describes New Place as “the jewel in the crown of the 400th anniversary celebrations” but, in truth, it is more of a gaping hole where the gem should be. 
Shakespeare’s house was demolished 300 years ago and the house that replaced it, probably incorporating some of the original fabric, was flattened in 1759 by an irascible clergyman, Francis Gastrell, in a row over taxes. He had already cut down Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, under which the writer is said to have sat and worked, because he was irritated by all the tourists peering into his garden. 
The gap in the Stratford streetscape has never been filled but a five-year archaeology project has peeled back the years and the news that Shakespeare’s kitchen had been found in the partly surviving cellars went round the world. The whole site is being redisplayed for the anniversary, with the foundations marked and the garden restored. “Without Stratford,” Edmondson said, “there would have been no Shakespeare.”",269
"It is no secret that millennials use technology a lot.
More than eight in ten say they sleep with a mobile phone by their bed, almost two thirds admit they text while driving, one in five has posted a video of themselves online and three quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. But there is a small percentage of millennials who don’t use social media at all. Here are four of them.
Celan Beausoleil, 31, Oakland, California
Beausoleil is a social worker and has had an “on and off” relationship with Facebook. She last deactivated her account in December 2015 because she found the amount of personal information shared by others “too heavy” to deal with in addition to her work demands.
“In my job, I spend a lot of time listening to people’s lives all day, every day and it started to feel so overwhelming to go on social media and see every single detail of everybody’s lives, including people that I don’t really have a relationship with,” she said.
“I’m involved a lot with people in my work life and sometimes it felt like it was too heavy to do in my personal life also.”
But Beausoleil loves the way social media connects the world in a truly unique way. “One thing I really liked about Facebook was that I could sit for hours and click on a friend and then click on one of their friends and one of their friends and one of their friends and end up on someone’s Facebook page from the other side of the world,” she said. “I used to do that all the time.”
Jason Mathias, 26, Baltimore, Maryland
“One day, I realized: I’m spending so much time doing this. These little seconds add up. I wonder what it would be like if I didn’t spend these seconds here and spent them doing something else. What if I was doing other things with these seconds? What would they become? Would I enjoy it?”
Mathias had Facebook and Twitter accounts for years before deleting them both in November 2012.
But he “quickly forgot that Facebook existed” after his impromptu decision to end his social media presence. He can still appreciate the benefits that come with having social media accounts, for example how easy it is to organize large events online. He now relies on friends for party invites.
But now he loves his extra free time. He spends his lift rides and spare moments at work reading news articles and books. And with no friends’ accounts to follow online, he has to “pick up the phone and call them”, something he’s come to enjoy.
Lauren Raskauskas, 22, Naples, Florida
Raskauskas describes herself as a “pretty private” person. So social media is not that appealing to her.
“My privacy is important to me and I have concerns about giving out my data,” she said. She recently deleted her Twitter account and deactivated her Facebook account two years ago when she realized that she “didn’t like everyone knowing what I was doing”. But she can see the positive sides of social media. When a friend of hers that she’d lost track of moved to Naples for a month, Raskauskas didn’t even realize she was there until after she’d left, which “was a bummer”.
But in the end, her privacy concerns outweighed any benefits social media could give her and she saw a definite upside when she went through a recent break-up. The last time a relationship of hers ended and she was online, it was not pleasant. “One time, I broke up with somebody while I was on Facebook and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, should I change my profile photo? Should I change my status?’ And, this time, I don’t have to worry about any of that,” she said.
Hariharan Rajagopalan, 18, Boston,Massachusetts
Rajagopalan, a student at Boston College, doesn’t see any problem with not using social media. He claims that he “hasn’t seen any effect at this point”.
Even though classmates post about parties and events on Facebook, they make sure to send him a text message, too, he said.
The only time Rajagopalan used social media was when it was unavoidable: it was the only way to reach his new roommate at college. Before starting his first year at college, he signed up for his first, and only, social media account. He joined Facebook in order to contact his future roommate and talk about their plans for that year. 
He still has the account but he admits: “I don’t use it.
I don’t check it or anything like that.” He has avoided other social media accounts but, as a sports fan, he acknowledged that Twitter “is where most of the news first appears”. But he refused to get an account because, he says, “I don’t really need one to read tweets”.",270
"Angela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But, on Tuesday 8th April, 2014, she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle, 101 years after he had lobbed it into the Baltic Sea. Thought to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle, it was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany. 
“It was very surprising,” Erdmann, 62, said, recalling how she found out about the bottle. “A man stood at my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. He then told me that a message in a bottle had been found and that the name that was on the card was that of my grandfather.” Her visitor was a genealogical researcher who had managed to track her down in Berlin after the letter was given to the International Maritime Museum in the northern port city of Hamburg. 
The brown beer bottle, which had been in the water for 101 years, was found in the catch of Konrad Fischer, a fisherman, who had been out in the Baltic Sea off the northern city of Kiel. Holger von Neuhoff, curator for ocean and science at the museum, said this bottled message was the oldest he had come across. “There are documents that have been found without the bottle that are older and are in the museum,” he said. “But, with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in extremely good condition.” 
Researchers believe Erdmann’s grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle in the sea while on a hike with a nature appreciation group in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time. 
Much of the postcard was indecipherable, although the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible, as was the author’s polite request that the note be sent by the finder to his home address. 
“He also included two stamps from that time that were also in the bottle, so the finder would not incur a cost,” Erdmann said. “But he did not think it would take 101 years.” 
She said she was moved by the arrival of the message, although she had not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born. 
“I knew very little about my grandfather, but I found out that he was a writer who was very open-minded, and believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other,” she said. “He did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.” 
Like her grandfather, Erdmann said, she also liked culture and travelling around the world. She described herself as open-minded, too. “What he taught his two daughters, my mother taught me and I have then given to my sons,” she said. Despite her joy at receiving the bottled message, she said that she hoped others would not repeat what her grandfather had done and throw bottles with messages into the sea. “Today, the sea is so full of so many bottles and rubbish that more shouldn’t be thrown in there,” she said. 
The message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburg’s Maritime Museum until the beginning of May 2014, after which experts will attempt to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will then happen to the bottle, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum. 
“We want to make a few photos available to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water,” she said.",271
"The bestselling book on Amazon in the US is by Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford, who is topping the charts with her colouring books for adults.
Basford’s intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna in Secret Garden have sold 1.4 million copies worldwide, with the next book, Enchanted Forest, selling just under 226,000 copies already. They have fans like Zooey Deschanel, who shared a link about the book with her Facebook followers, and the South Korean pop star Kim Ki- Bum, who posted an image on Instagram for his 1.6 million followers.
“It’s been crazy. The last few weeks have been utter madness, but fantastic madness,” said Eleanor Blatherwick, head of sales and marketing at the books’ publisher, small British press Laurence King. “We knew the books would be beautiful but we didn’t realize they would be such a phenomenal success.”
And it is not just Basford who is benefitting from the adults who just want something to colour in. In the UK, Richard Merritt’s Art Therapy Colouring Book is in fourth place on Amazon’s bestseller lists, Millie Marotta’s Animal Kingdom – detailed pictures of animals to colour – is in seventh and a mindfulness colouring book is in ninth. Basford’s books are in second and eighth place – that’s half of Amazon.co.uk’s top ten filled up by colouring books for adults.
At independent UK publisher Michael O’Mara, which has sold almost 340,000 adult colouring books, Head of Publicity, Marketing and Online, Ana McLaughlin, says the craze is due to the way the category is now sold as a way to relax. “The first one we did was in 2012, Creative Colouring for Grown-Ups. It sold well but it was in 2014 that it all really mushroomed with Art Therapy. It became really popular – selling it as an anti-stress book gave people permission to enjoy something they might have felt was quite childish,” she said.
The Mindfulness Colouring Book really emphasizes that it is anti-stress – its publisher tells readers that it is “filled with templates for exquisite scenes and intricate, sophisticated patterns, prompting you to meditate on your artwork as you mindfully and creatively fill these pages with colour”. It suggests that colourers “take a few minutes out of your day, wherever you are, and colour your way to peace and calm”.
“I think it is really relaxing to unplug,” said Basford. “And it’s creative. For many people, a blank sheet is very daunting; with a colouring book, you just need to bring the colour. Also, there’s a bit of nostalgia there. So many people have said to me that they used to do secret colouring in when their kids were in bed. Now, it is socially acceptable; it’s a category of its own. These are books for adults. The art in my books is super intricate.”
The illustrator, who lives in Aberdeenshire, has been astonished at the reaction since she released Secret Garden in 2013. “I drew a kids’ book and I told them I would like to do one for grown-ups. It really wasn’t a trend then. I drew the first story and they said, ‘Let’s go for it’. I was thinking simply that people like me would like to do it. My intention was just to make a book I would like to have. So it’s been a real surprise to see the category bloom.”
She is currently working on a third book. “It’s a major trend and it doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down,” said McLaughlin. “The pictures are all over Twitter and Instagram. People are really proud of them – they are so intricate,” she said. “You don’t have to have any artistic talent but what you create is unique. People send us pictures of them. I reckon people are taking their kids’ pictures off the fridge and replacing them with their own.”",272
"The researchers were surprised by what people would do to avoid the task. What was the task? To sit in a chair and do nothing but think.
Some people found it so unbearable that they gave themselves mild electric shocks to stop the boredom.
Two-thirds of men pressed a button that gave them a painful shock during a 15-minute period of solitude. A quarter of women also pressed the shock button.
The report from psychologists at Virginia and Harvard Universities looks at the question of why most of us find it so hard to do nothing.
In more than 11 separate studies, the researchers showed that all kinds of people hated being left alone to think – it doesn’t matter what their age, education or income is, or how often they use smartphones or social media.
Researcher Timothy Wilson said that the results were probably not because of the speed of modern life or because of mobile phones and social media. Instead, he said those things might be popular because we feel we need to do something and hate doing nothing.
During the first experiments, students were taken into a room and told to think. They were alone, without their phones, books or anything to write with. The only rules were that they had to stay sitting and not fall asleep. They were told that they would have six to 15 minutes alone.
The students were questioned at the end of the experiment. Most of them did not enjoy the experience. They found it difficult to concentrate  and their minds wandered.
The researchers did the experiment again with people at home. They got similar results. Surprisingly, people found it even more difficult and they cheated by getting up from their chair or checking their phones. 
The researchers did the study again with more than 100 people, aged 18 to 77, from a church and a farmers’ market. They also disliked just sitting and thinking.
But, there was an even more surprising result. To check if people might prefer something bad to nothing at all, the students had the possibility of giving themselves a mild electric shock.
Before the experiment, all the students said they would pay to avoid mild electric shocks.
But 12 of 18 men gave themselves electric shocks and six of 24 women gave themselves electric shocks.
The scientists were surprised. They said that being alone with their thoughts was so hard for many participants that they gave themselves an electric shock, something the participants had said they would pay not to get.
Jessica Andrews-Hanna at the University of Colorado said many students would probably give themselves an electric shock to make a boring lecture more exciting. But, she says we need to know more about Wilson’s study.
“Imagine – a person is told to sit in a chair with wires attached to their skin and a button that will give them a harmless but uncomfortable shock, and they are told to just sit there with their thoughts,” she said.
“As they sit there, their mind starts to wander and naturally they think about that shock – was it really that bad?”",273
"It has mapped the world’s highest peaks, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even shown us a bit of North Korea. But Google’s mission to map the world has mostly stayed away from the inhospitable Arctic.
Now, however, Google is starting what might be the most significant update to centuries of polar map making – and one it hopes will help provide a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. Google has flown a small team to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. They have with them their warmest winter clothes, a stack of laptop computers and an 18kg telescopic camera that they can fix to their backpacks.
Helped by an Inuit mapping expert, and followed around by curious locals, the team spent four days collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on Baffin Island what people across the globe who live in cities now take for granted.
The town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google’s popular Street View application in July 2013.
Unlike more accessible parts of the world, which have been mapped using a special camera on a car roof, for Google’s Iqaluit project mappers walked the town’s snowpacked roads and crossed little-known trails, some of which are made of ice and disappear in the short summer months.
The team also walked along part of a 15km dead-end road known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about the risk from polar bears and other wildlife.
John Graham, mayor of Iqaluit, understands the enthusiasm of the locals who followed Google’s digital map makers while they worked. The Street View project, he said, follows in the footsteps of the English explorer Martin Frobisher, who in 1576 sailed into the bay where Iqaluit now is while searching for the Northwest Passage, and the 1941 flight of Captain Elliott Roosevelt, an officer and son of the US President, which led to the site being chosen for a military airbase. His exploration led to the founding of the modern town of Iqaluit.
What Google had already created on their existing map using satellite images was quite accurate, but they were missing one road that had been created in the past year.
One difficulty was how to situate many businesses and homeowners that have mail sent to the local post office, not delivered to their address. Putting the PO box addresses on the map would mean the map would show all the companies, banks and schools in the same place, around the Canada Post building in the centre of town.
About 30 Inuit elders, business people and high-school pupils came one night to help correct such problems. They were provided with a laptop computer and shown how to make sure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up accurately on the map.
The project is more than a novelty. Arif Sayani, the town’s Director of Planning, said the town would be able to use the maps as a promotional tool for those thinking of visiting or moving to the area. It may also speed up planning decisions in Iqaluit.
The project leader for Google said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns. However, the high costs of moving people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory means they might have to use cheaper methods in the future, for example, sending equipment to the area and asking volunteers to complete the map.",274
"The sight of colleagues and acquaintances taking a drag on an e-cigarette has become commonplace. But have we reached “peak vape”? Statistics suggest that vaping among smokers and recent ex-smokers, who comprise the vast majority of vapers, may already be on the decline. The figures will be studied closely by the major e-cigarette firms, which have poured millions into promoting a technology that was thought to have been growing in popularity. 
Figures released in 2014 by the health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) reveal that usage among adults in Britain of electronic cigarettes – which do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke – tripled from an estimated 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014. 
However, figures collated by the Smoking Toolkit Study, a research body backed by the Department of Health that provides quarterly updates on smoking trends, show vaping’s appeal may be waning. Vaping rates among smokers and ex-smokers rose steadily until the end of 2013, when some 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this proportion levelled out throughout 2014 before dropping to 19% during the final quarter of 2014. Early signs suggest the decline has continued into 2015. The drop is described as “statistically significant” by Professor Robert West, of UCL’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, who collates the figures for the Toolkit. 
Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette firms because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. “Numbers who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke are going down,” West said. “We’ve only been tracking vaping for just over a year, so it’s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or 'never' smokers using e-cigarettes. That is not to say vaping rates might not change but, at this stage, it looks like they’re staying the same.” 
The levelling off in popularity of vaping in the UK would appear to be at odds with what is happening in the US, where the technology has been promoted aggressively and where recent reports suggested it was growing in popularity. However, West questioned the interpretation of US data, which made little distinction between people who had once tried an e-cigarette and those who regularly vaped. 
Fears that vaping could become fashionable among young non-smokers appear to be misplaced, according to experts. Only 1.8% of children are regular users, the ASH study found. Instead, e-cigarettes seem to be most popular among adults seeking to quit. “While the figures published this month by Smoking In England show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has levelled off, their data also shows the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, director and co-founder of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product, and technology and innovation in hardware is improving user experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.” 
“E-cigarettes are behaving like a souped-up nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches and may or may not be more effective. One-third of quit attempts use e-cigarettes, which makes them by far the most popular method of stopping.” 
Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at ASH, said it was too soon to say whether vaping had peaked. “Although there are indications that the market hasn’t grown in the UK for about a year, there doesn’t seem to be a decline in the number of people using electronic cigarettes to help them quit smoking. Using an electronic cigarette is safer than smoking; some, but not all, people find them useful to help quit smoking and there is little evidence that they are leading to an increase in young people smoking.” 
It emerged recently that the European Commission (EC) is looking at increasing taxes on e-cigarettes, something that could have an impact on their popularity. A new EC tobacco directive comes into force in 2016 that will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase their usage to obtain the same hit, again something that may make e-cigarettes more expensive. 
West suggested that policymakers should see e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid and not subject them to the same regulations as smoking. “There is a tendency among some local authorities and organizations to treat e-cigarettes as cigarettes and ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said.",275
"The tranquil sounds of the natural world might be lost to today’s generation as people screen out the noises that surround them, a senior US researcher warns.
Rising levels of background noise in some areas threaten to make people oblivious to the uplifting sounds of birdsong, trickling water and trees rustling in the wind. These sounds can often be heard even in urban centres, said Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the US National Park Service.
The problem was made worse by people listening to music through their earphones instead of tuning in to the birds and other sounds of nature that can easily be drowned out by traffic, music and others noises, he said.
“This learned deafness is a real problem,” Fristrup told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. “We are training ourselves to ignore the information coming into our ears.”
“This gift that we are born with – to hear things hundreds of metres away, all these incredible sounds – might be lost,” he said.
The danger is that we are exposed to noise for so long that we stop listening. We are also losing the ability to engage with the environment in the way we were built to, he added.
For the past ten years, the US National Park Service has recorded sound levels at more than 600 places across the US, including Yosemite in California, Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. All the places were affected by some form of noise from human activity – aircraft, motorbikes, motorboats or tour buses.
Fristrup’s team combined the sound levels recorded from national parks with similar data from urban settings to create a model of noise levels across the US. They say that noise pollution more than doubles every 30 years.
“It’s not surprising people are putting on earphones or even noise cancelling headphones to try and create a quieter environment,” he said.
“As you raise background sound levels, it has the same effect on your hearing as fog would have on your vision. Instead of having this expansive experience of all the sounds around you, you are aware of only a small area around you,” he said. Even in our cities, there are birds and things to appreciate in the environment but the ability to hear them is being lost.
People quickly become used to changes in their environments, including rising noise levels, and, over time, Fristrup fears that we will accept far worse environmental conditions than we should and forget how much quieter the world could be. “If finding peace and quiet becomes too difficult, many, many children will grow up without the experience and I think it’s a very real problem,” he said.
The warning came as other scientists reported health benefits from listening to natural sounds. Speaking at the same meeting, Derrick Taff, a social scientist at Pennsylvania State University, described preliminary experiments which suggest that listening to recordings from national parks, of waterfalls, birdsong and wind, helped people recover from stressful events.
In one experiment, Taff told people who visited his lab to give an unplanned talk that would be judged by researchers standing behind a one-way mirror. Measurements of their heart rate and the stress hormone, cortisol, before and after the speech found that people calmed down faster when they listened to nature recordings than when the same soundtracks also contained noises from road traffic, aeroplanes and even normal conversation.
“We know that natural sounds are very important to people. They are some of the main reasons people visit protected areas. They want to hear the natural quiet, the birdsong, and the wind and water,” Taff said. “We may be losing this as people are listening to their iPods all the time. My advice is to go to your protected areas and experience what you are missing.”
Why natural sounds might be calming to people is unclear but Fristrup thinks that, over millions of years of evolution, we may have come to associate the more tranquil sounds of the natural world with safety. “I suspect there’s something about these sounds that reminds our brains of a place that’s safe,” he said.",276
"A new study shows that there are more and more brown bears, wolves and lynx in the forests and suburban areas of Europe. Rising human populations and use of resources have made many people believe that these animals could soon become extinct. But the study says that numbers of large predators are stable or rising in Europe. 
Brown bears, wolves and the Eurasian lynx are found in nearly one-third of mainland Europe (excluding Belarus, Ukraine and Russia). Most live outside nature reserves – this shows that changing attitudes and conservation methods are protecting these species very well. 
Bears are the most common large carnivore in Europe – there are around 17,000 bears. There are 12,000 wolves and 9,000 Eurasian lynx. Only Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in mainland Europe have no breeding populations of at least one large carnivore species. Britain also has none. But the study said these animals live in regions of Europe where lots of people live and this shows that they could live even in the British countryside. 
Guillaume Chapron from Sweden’s University of Agricultural Sciences and researchers across Europe found wolves living in suburban areas with up to 3,050 people per square kilometre. On average in Europe, wolves live on land where there are 37 people per square kilometre, lynx in areas where there are 21 people per square kilometre and bears where there are 19 people per square kilometre. In the Scottish Highlands there are just nine people per square kilometre. 
“To have wolves, we don’t need to remove people from the landscape,” said Chapron. He also said that the big carnivore revival shows the success of a “land-sharing” method of conservation – it is different from the method in North America and Africa, where they use fences to separate these animals in “wilderness” areas. 
“I’m not saying it’s a perfect love story – living together often means conflict – but it’s important to control that conflict and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours,” said Chapron. 
According to the researchers, countries in other parts of the world could use this “land-sharing” method. Land-sharing works in Europe because there are more and more animals such as wild deer for the predators to eat and there is money for electric fences to protect livestock fences, so farmers do not have to shoot wild predators. Most important, said Chapron, is the EU Habitats Directive, which has forced member states to protect and revive rare species. 
“Without the Habitats Directive, I don’t think we would have had this revival,” he said. “It shows that we can protect animals, if people really want to help and if politicians make strong laws.” Author George Monbiot was happy about the revival. He is starting a charity called Rewilding Britain. It encourages the return of wild landscape and extinct species. 
“It is great to see more of these animals in Europe. But Britain is completely different – we’ve lost more of our large animals than any country except for Ireland,” he said. “We accidentally reintroduced wild boar but we’ve done nothing else. In much of the rest of Europe we’ve got bears, lynx and wolves coming back. If it works in the rest of Europe, there’s absolutely no reason why it can’t work in the UK,” he said. He added that bears and wolves live less than an hour away from Rome. “There’s no reason why we can’t have a similar return of wildlife in the UK.”",277
"A big international disagreement has started over the right of Bolivia’s indigenous Indian tribes to chew coca leaves, the main ingredient in cocaine. This could have a significant effect on global drugs policy. Bolivia has received a special exemption from the 1961 Convention on Drugs, the agreement that controls international drugs policy. The exemption allows Bolivia’s indigenous people to chew the leaves. 
Bolivia said that the convention was against its new constitution, which says it must “protect native and ancestral coca” as part of its cultural heritage and says that coca “in its natural state … is not a dangerous drug”. 
South American Indians have chewed coca leaves for hundreds of years. The leaves give energy and have medicinal qualities. People who support Bolivia’s position said that defending the rights of indigenous people was the right thing to do. “The Bolivian move is very important,” said Danny Kushlick, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. “It shows that any country that doesn’t want to continue the war on drugs can change its relations with the UN conventions.” 
But the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which checks global drug agreements, says Bolivia may harm international drug controls. Many countries – including the UK, the US, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Russia – do not want to give Bolivia what it is asking for. 
The UK told the UN that it “respects the cultural importance of the coca leaf in Bolivia”, but it adds: “The United Kingdom is worried that the exemption could lead to more coca production and – most importantly – more coca reaching the cocaine trade. The exemption would make it more difficult to control the illegal drugs trade.” 
The right of indigenous people in South America’s Andean region to chew coca leaf was removed in 1964 when Bolivia was under a dictatorship and it signed the convention. 
In 2011, Bolivia told the UN that it did not want to be part of the convention any more. It is now part of the convention again, but with an exemption so that its indigenous people can continue chewing coca leaves. 
The exemption is the first in the history of UN drug-control agreements. It has led to worries that other countries may also ask for exemptions. The Russian government says that the exemption will lead to more illegal cocaine and warns that “it also sets a dangerous example that could be used by other states in creating a more liberal drug-control regime”. 
The British parliament has recommended that the UK government should support Bolivia’s request. It says that it is important that countries stay in the convention. Bolivia’s return could be blocked only if a third or more of the 184 countries that have signed the convention opposed the exemption. Some people believe that the US and UK are telling other countries that they should block Bolivia’s request. 
Nancie Prud’homme, of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, said people are wrong to oppose Bolivia’s request. “These objections are not completely legal,” she said. She added that, all over the world, it has become normal to support cultural and indigenous rights, so we should support Bolivia’s efforts. 
The decision to ban coca chewing was based on a 1950 report. Some people say the report did not use any evidence. It is legal to grow coca leaves in Bolivia. As a result, cocaine production has decreased in the country and some experts see Bolivia as a model for other countries.",278
"A Canadian man who became famous because he offered a free round-the-world trip to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend has returned from the trip with his chosen namesake. Unfortunately, to the disappointment of those following the story, the two of them did not fall in love. Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old Toronto charity founder, arrived back in Canada with Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher and said the pair had “a brother-sister-like relationship”.
Axani had made headlines in 2014 because he offered an air ticket to any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher. He had booked a three-week vacation with his girlfriend but they split up and he was unable to change the name on the flight tickets.
That’s where Axani’s new travelling companion, a 23-year-old student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, enters the story. Elizabeth Gallagher, who calls herself Quinn, replied to an online posting from Axani and she was chosen. Gallagher explained before the trip that she had a “pretty serious” boyfriend. But that had not stopped journalists from hoping the globetrotters might fall for one another. Unfortunately, it did not happen.
“I’m going to be very clear,” Axani said, soon after the pair returned to Toronto. “This was never a romantic endeavour. It was strictly platonic. I do not think of Quinn in a romantic way at all. There is no future for us romantically. She is a good friend. I think of her as a little sister and that is it. And our feelings are entirely mutual.”
It took work to create that brother-sister, good-friend relationship, however. “It wasn’t easy and it certainly wasn’t immediate. It took us about a week to really figure each other out,” Axani said. There was a certain amount of stumbling around as the pair got to know each other “about the dos and don’ts of travelling together. At the end of it, we’d developed a really great rhythm – one second, we had really funny inside jokes and, the next second, we knew when the other person needed space.”
Although the pair did not fall in love, Axani said the trip, which included Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Khao Lak (in Thailand) and Hong Kong, was “fantastic”. A favourite place was Prague, Axani said, where they met more people than anywhere else on the trip.
“Over the course of two and a half days I think we met about two dozen people. So that’s a lot of stories, that’s a lot of individuals and that’s a lot of love for their home city of Prague.”
People were following the pair on Twitter and Instagram, Axani said, and they were even recognized in the street in Hong Kong. “It was a real adventure. We had a blast. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other. I can’t imagine it going much better than it did.”
Axani arrived back in Toronto at 3am and went straight into a meeting at his charity, A Ticket Forward. Axani started the non-profit organization after his internet post went viral. He wants to offer round-the-world-trips to survivors of abuse, cancer and war.
Apart from that, Axani is also discussing making his story into a television show or film, he said. But he would not comment on what form those productions might take. “I’ll only say that there’s been lots of interest from many production companies. We’re well advanced.” In terms of his love life, Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher yet. “I’m not looking for anything but life happens and we’ll see,” he said. “As always, life’s a journey.”",279
"“There are certainly MOOC junkies, who take them for no other reason than they’re free and they like hanging out,” grins Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University, whose massive open online course in vampire fiction is one of only two accredited MOOCs currently on offer in the UK. Brabon isn’t denigrating people who enrol on MOOC courses: he’s simply pointing out the motivation that prompts certain individuals to sign up. When a course is open entry – MOOCs have no enrolment criteria and no fees to pay – then participants are going to behave very differently from students in a traditional higher education setting. 
MOOCs are the newest big thing in the quest to enable higher education for all. A great deal of venture capital money is being invested in the emerging online platforms, which enable the delivery of increasingly sophisticated and interactive course content to participants who can number in the hundreds to the tens of thousands. For these investors, the Holy Grail is to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable – so far, courses have depended on universities being prepared to bankroll their star lecturers’ curriculum design and online teaching time. Mining the data captured about how, why and when millions of participants opt to sign up, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and drop out of the course may be one way of getting a return on the investment. 
Part of the dilemma around which future direction MOOCs will take, however, is that nobody can yet define whom exactly they are meant to benefit. Universities keen to entice fee- paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing off their best programmes online? Students in developing countries hungry for access to first-world universities? Employees wishing to develop their professional knowledge? People lacking qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who are keen to learn about a subject area in which they have an interest? 
Though they may be popular to start off with, MOOCs have dire completion rates, observes Brabon. For his vampire fiction course, that meant 1,000 enrolments and 31 completions. “And almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level,” he says. “So the MOOCs trend may not be opening up HE to sectors of the population it hasn’t reached to date.” 
“Learning online is a different thing, needs quite advanced learning skills,” confirms David Kernohan, progamme manager for eLearning Innovation at Jisc, a charity that champions the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. “With MOOCs, there’s very little support available: the student is dropped in and tends not to get any individual attention. This is, instead, approximated by peer support such as online discussion forums.” While this may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, it does, he says, suggest that MOOCs could be “a really good tool for continuing education.” 
At a time when the number of part-time students has fallen sharply as the price of a degree rises, could this type of open and free-to-access course provide a new path to university-level education? Could an entire degree be taught via MOOCs? “I don’t think that’s how MOOCs work,” says Brabon. Instead, he suggests “a blended approach that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.” 
But that’s a little way into the future: for now, no prospective employer will care much if you come waving your MOOC completion certificate, without any quality assurance on either the course content or its assessment standards. Accreditation is therefore now the central challenge that MOOCs must grapple with to gain credibility with academics and employers, says Brabon, who is on a Quality Assurance Agency working group, aiming to develop an agreed approach to standards and marking. 
There is idealism around the concept of MOOCs bringing the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. But there’s cynicism, too, with the suggestion that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their on-campus wares to greater numbers of lucrative – though certainly not always wealthy – students from outside the EU. 
Mike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesn’t buy into that cynicism. MOOCs are viewed primarily as a way to showcase and share universities’ best teaching talent, as well as encouraging interaction and soliciting feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that recruiting international students onto university courses is only a secondary objective of running MOOCs – though they could certainly be a very canny marketing move, as he observes that “if 20,000 people sign up to a MOOC – well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to run a master’s.” 
Meanwhile, any politically correct qualms about whether UK academic institutions are patronizing developing countries by exporting small snippets of elitist education may soon be entirely irrelevant, warns Matthew Poyiadgi, managing director at Pearson VUE. “I believe we may get to a situation in the future where universities maybe won’t have a choice, and where British universities are saying, 'if we don’t have a presence in China, then we’ll get left behind,'” he says. 
“In South America, China, countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the world’s best courses are being offered online,” adds Sharples. “If people are genuinely fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to consume and study MOOCs, but also to create them.”",280
"From all across Rwanda, and even parts of neighbouring Burundi, people are coming to the southern town of Butare to a little shop called Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams). They come for a taste of the unknown, something most have never tasted before – sweet, cold ice cream.
Here, at the central African country’s first icecream parlour, customers can buy scoops in sweet cream, passion fruit, strawberry and pineapple flavours. Toppings include fresh fruit, honey, chocolate chips and granola. Black tea and coffee are also on sale.
The shop, which has “ice cream, coffee, dreams” written on its signs, is taking advantage of local curiosity about the dessert – and “changing lives” in the process, says Inzozi Nziza’s manager, Louise Ingabire.
“Ice cream is important,” she says between mouthfuls of a honey-flavoured offering. “Some Rwandans like ice cream, but it’s a new thing. We still have some work to do, to tell others that they’ll enjoy it.”
The shop can certainly make dreams come true. “I didn’t have a job before: I just stayed at home. Now, I have a vision for the future. I am making money and I can give some of it to my family,” says the 27-year-old.
Butare, which has 89,600 residents and is located 135km south of the capital, Kigali, is the home of the National University of Rwanda. Inzozi Nziza has become a meeting place for tired students looking to treat themselves to something cool and different.
“It’s something uniting people here,” Kalisa Migendo, a 24-year-old agriculture student, says. “If you need to go out and talk to a friend, a girl or a boy, you come to Inzozi Nziza for an ice cream.”
Most of the ingredients are from local sources and the milk comes from nearby Nyanza. The vanilla beans and cocoa are imported.
Inzozi Nziza was opened by the theatre director Odile Gakire Katese. She met Alexis Miesen and Jennie Dundas, co-founders of Blue Marble Ice Cream in Brooklyn, New York, and formed a partnership to open the shop in 2010.
“An ice-cream shop, Katese said, might help to put the human pieces back together by rebuilding spirits, hopes and family traditions,” Miesen says.
At the start, Miesen and Dundas owned the shop in partnership with its staff and had shares in the business, which is a cooperative and non-profit. After 18 months, they transferred their shares to the women, who had by then proved they could run the business.
Ice cream is new to Rwanda. Making the business successful requires a lot of skills and changing people’s way of thinking because selling and eating ice cream is not part of Rwandan culture.
The Butare shop employs nine women, who spend their spare time practising with Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda’s first and only female drumming group, which was established by Katese ten years ago.
The musicians are Hutu and Tutsi women. Some are survivors of the 1994 genocide, during which almost a million Tutsis and Hutus were killed. Some members of Ingoma Nshya are widows, some orphans.
Historically, says Ingabire, Rwandan women were forbidden to drum and many people considered the drums too heavy for women to carry. “But it’s something which brings unity.”
Ingabire’s father, two siblings and many cousins were killed in the genocide. “When I’m drumming, it gives me power because we’re still alive and survivors,” she says.
The ice-cream parlour is in a documentary by film-makers Rob and Lisa Fruchtman. Sweet Dreams, which tells the story of how the women have made a promising post-genocide future, also includes the female drummers.
The film has been shown in more than a dozen countries, including the US, UK and several African states. “We feel the film is about resilience, hope, bravery, resourcefulness and the ability to change the course of your own life,” says Lisa Fruchtman.",281
"Lego’s profits rose strongly in the first half of 2014, helped by the success of its Lego Movie , which has stormed box offices in the US and UK. 
The Danish toy firm’s sales rose across Europe, the Americas and Asia as children snapped up products linked to the film. The film, released in February, took more than $250m in the US and £31m in the UK by the first weekend in April. 
The movie cost about $60m to make and has been described as a near-flawless piece of content marketing by creating entertaining content aimed at consumers who are likely to go out and buy the company’s products. 
Lego’s finance director, John Goodwin, said: “The strong performance of the Lego Movie products had a positive effect during the first half of 2014, and it remains to be seen how the line will continue to develop behind the highly anticipated launch of the movie on DVD in the second half of 2014.” 
Operating profit for the first six months of Lego’s financial year increased by 12% to $630m. Sales rose by 11% to more than three times the figure six years before. 
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, Lego’s chief executive, said: “It is a very satisfactory result that shows our significant growth in recent years in a tough economic environment. The result for the first half of 2014 is an outcome of our ability to develop, launch and distribute Lego products, which children all over the world put at the top of their wishlists.” 
Lego, based in the small town of Billund, started producing its plastic bricks in 1949 and became a staple children’s toy around the world by the 1970s. But the group lost its way and was on the brink of collapse in 2003. Knudstrop took over as chief executive, ending 70 years of family rule, and ditched hundreds of surplus products to refocus the business on its trademark bricks. 
The company opened its first factory in China in April and opened an office in Shanghai to spearhead expansion in the world’s second- biggest economy.",282
"According to a recent report, the wealthiest people in India will become four times richer by 2018, with hundreds of thousands of new entrepreneurs and inheritors becoming multimillionaires. The survey, based on interviews with 150 wealthy individuals, comes at a time when there are signs of returning business confidence in the world’s biggest democracy.
Recent years have seen weak economic growth, rising prices of basic foods and a fall in the value of the Indian currency. But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide victory in May 2014 with its promise to improve the economy. Despite the economic slowdown, there are now nearly a sixth more Indians worth more than $3.75m than in 2013, the report says. “Cities are mushrooming, the middle class population growing, opportunities have increased many times over and the political environment has improved greatly in recent months,” says Murali Balaraman, a co-author.
Between them, India’s rich hold assets worth a trillion dollars, which is around a fifth of the total wealth in the country. By 2018, that total is likely to reach $4tn, the report says, making three times as many people multimillionaires.
A booming luxury market is serving the new rich. “They really want to show or talk about their wealth in a really subtle way and buying luxury goods is a nice way to do it,” Balaraman said. Abhay Gupta, the CEO of brand consultancy Luxury Connect, said the market for luxury goods and experiences would “only get bigger”. “There is a huge aspirational class who look up to what the very wealthy are doing and then copy it,” he said.
Cars are among the most popular items bought, the report says. Whereas, in 2009, locally made SUVs were shown off by the wealthy, now only foreign cars will impress people. Mercedes saw a 47% growth in sales in India in 2013. BMW has launched a new $200,000 model in Delhi.
India’s appalling infrastructure limits demand for luxury cars, however. Lamborghini’s Chief Executive, Stephan Winkelmann, admitted, in 2013, that the traffic and roads in India “are not so suitable” for the $450,000 sports cars. In India, Lamborghini sells two models: the Gallardo and the Aventador, which has a top speed of 217mph. Winkelmann said Lamborghini’s Indian customers were much younger than those in Europe, with a typical buyer being in his 30s. However, the most popular investments are still real estate – mainly within India – and jewellery.
India’s super-rich have often surprised people around the world with their spectacular spending. Mukesh Ambani, the country’s wealthiest man, has built the world’s most valuable home in Mumbai, the commercial capital. The 27-storey tower, complete with helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and a staff of more than 600, is worth $1bn.
The three-day wedding of the niece of Lakshmi Mittal, the UK-based steel tycoon who is worth $16bn, was reported to have cost $80m. Hundreds of guests were flown to Barcelona for the ceremony and party, which took place in a museum in the city.
But buyers of exclusive luxury goods are becoming more and more demanding, the report says. One buyer ordered nine cases of Japanese whisky costing over $750 a bottle for a wedding reception. The attraction of the imported whisky was that no one who attended the wedding would know how to find the same drink in India. Another big spender bought identical pairs of Louis Vuitton bags, then cut up half of them to make clothes that would match her accessories.
Even the traditional wedding is changing. Traditionally, presents such as silver plates, dried fruit or sweets are sent with wedding invitations. But, now, these presents are being replaced by gifts by top western designer brands. “These days, it’s Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags,” says Gupta.
Almost half the new multimillionaires live in smaller cities and a high proportion give large amounts to charity. Co-author Balaraman says that growth in the number of rich people would not result in social tensions because a wide gap in incomes and wealth is an “accepted norm” in India. “People know that someone is rich and someone is poor and they carry on with their lives,” he explains.",283
"Benjamin Carle is 96.9% made in France, even his underpants and socks. Six Ikea forks, a Chinese guitar and some wall paint stopped him being called 100% French, but nobody is perfect.
Carle, 26, decided, in 2013, to see if it was possible to live using only French-made products for ten months as part of a television documentary. 
He got the idea after the Minister for Economic Renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, asked the French people to buy French products.
For the experiment, Carle had to give up his smartphone, television, refrigerator (all made in China); his glasses (Italian); his morning coffee (Guatemalan) and his favourite David Bowie music (British).
It is lucky that his girlfriend, Anaïs, and cat, Loon, are both French, so he didn’t have to give them up.
“I wanted to see if it was possible to do what the minister was asking us to do,” Carle said.
He had just three rules: eat only food made in France, not have any contact with foreign-made products and to do it all on €1,800 a month (above the minimum wage of €1,430 to cover the extra cost of living in Paris).
The journalist was shocked to find out at the start of the experiment that only 4.5% of the things in his flat were made in France. Everything not made in France had to go, including the lightbulbs (China) and green beans (Kenya).
Without a refrigerator (none are made in France), he had to chill his food on the window ledge.
His foreign-made clothes, including his underwear, were replaced with more expensive alternatives: French-produced underpants (€26), socks (€9), polo shirt (€75), espadrille sandals (€26), but no jeans because none are produced in France.
Going out with friends was a problem – no American films, no Belgian beer, no sushi or pizza. When he stayed home, with no sofa for the first few months and no television, he listened to French singer Michel Sardou and read French novels. French wine was, of course, allowed and French-Canadian singer Céline Dion, but not French bands such as Daft Punk, who sing in English.
He could not use his British-made bicycle or even a French car because he discovered that the only affordable Peugeot, Renault and Citroën cars are not made in France. So, he bought an orange Mobylette moped.
His computer was replaced by a Qooq, a tablet that connects – slowly – to the internet and the iPhone, which he swapped for an old Sagem mobile.
Carle said his aim was to “save the French economy”. He said the experiment was part serious and part fun. He even asked a French language expert to check if he should use the word “cool” and other English words – the expert told him swap it for the nearest French alternative: “chouette”.
At the end of the experiment, a special “auditor” said Carle was 96.9% “made in France” and Montebourg gave him a medal.
Carle’s conclusion: “It’s not entirely possible to live 100% ‘made in France’, particularly in terms of new technology.
“This wasn’t about French nationalism or patriotism. It was trying to show that we should think about the way we buy and make different choices, and that is the same in all countries. If we want to save jobs and industries, we should support them.
“A T-shirt is more expensive in France but I can be sure it has been made by workers who are correctly paid and have good working conditions. I cannot be sure about a cheaper T-shirt produced in Asia or Morocco. People could do more as consumers.”",284
"fter being told for the umpteenth time that the beer she wanted would be “too dark and too strong for you, love – have something sweeter”, Rebecka Singerer had had enough. 
“No, I don’t want a fruit beer. Women can drink whatever we want,” she says. 
Now Singerer, a childminder, has joined FemAle, a group of like-minded drinkers in Gothenburg, to launch Sweden’s first beer made by women. 
We Can Do It, a bottled pale ale, has just gone on sale in stores across Sweden. Its label is a take on Rosie the Riveter, the creation of a US Second World War propaganda campaign that went on to become a symbol of women’s power in the workplace. 
The group’s founder is Elin Carlsson, 25, who paints cars at the Volvo factory outside the city. “We Can Do It is not a female beer but a beer brewed by women that anyone can drink,” she says. “It’s nothing to do with feminism; it’s about equality – we wanted to show we can do it.” 
FemAle is up against decades of prejudice in the beer world. In an irony not lost on FemAle, Carlsberg and other big brewers have spent millions in recent years trying to sell beer to women, attempting to “pink it and shrink it” to appeal to perceived feminine tastes. Carlsberg’s Eve and Copenhagen offerings, Foster’s Radler and Coors’s Animée were among lighter, flavoured and even “bloat-resistant” beers that failed to find a market. 
FemAle’s approach is different, with women- only tastings that allow potential customers to experiment with flavours and styles of beer that they may not normally try. This education process is the way to “get more girls into the beer world”, the group says. “Bring your mother, sister, girlfriend, aunt and grandmother so we can all learn more about beer.” 
The idea for FemAle arose after the women kept bumping into each other at beer festivals. 
We Can Do It was the brainchild of Felicia Nordström, a bar worker who says she was fed up with bearded beer snobs telling her: “What do you know about beer, sweetie?” She approached FemAle and they teamed up with Ocean, a local independent micro-brewery. One weekend they concocted the recipe and the next they brewed 1,600 litres. 
“This is not a beer that is aimed at women – it’s our hoppiest brew,” says Thomas Bingebo, the head brewer at Ocean. “When the big breweries target women, it usually fails. This is something completely different.” 
The first batch of We Can Do It was sold out almost before it was brewed. FemAle has already been approached by other breweries asking if they can brew new beers with them. 
We Can Do It uses three malts – Maris Otter, Amber and a Thomas Fawcett wheat malt – and the hop varieties Galaxy and Cascade. Its IBU, or bitterness level, is 65 and its alcohol content is 4.6%. 
“Women opt for a glass of wine because they don’t know what beer is all about; they don’t know what to order,” says Carlsson. “We open up new worlds to them.” 
“I used not to like stout but, back then, I only drank Pripps [a light, Swedish lager],” says Singerer, 38. “Guinness tastes like water to me now. There are imperial stouts that are like drinking biscotti dipped in espresso.” 
The women are part of a brewing explosion in Sweden, which is developing a passion for “craft” ales, bottled and on draught. The standard stor stark (large strong) lager is now “almost extinct” in Gothenburg, the women say, as pubs and bars replace the big brands with a choice of specialist beers. 
“All the girls are different – there is no typical woman beer-lover. Anyone can do it,” says Emma Henriksson, 22, a group member who works in a garden equipment company. 
“Every pub wants to learn how to reach women,” adds Singerer. “And Elin has found the way. It’s awesome. We feel so proud.”",285
"Tea, baked beans on toast and fish and chips have always been popular in Britain. But, things are changing, according to data published recently in the National Food Survey. 
Everyone knows that the British love tea but they drink more than 50% less tea than in the 1970s – 68g of tea per person per week compared to only 25g. Britons are now drinking on average only eight cups of tea a week – they drank 23 cups in 1974. Tea is still the most popular hot drink in the UK but people now spend more money on coffee. 
The data comes from 150,000 families who took part in the survey between 1974 and 2000, combined with information from 2000 to 2014. It shows a move towards healthier food in recent years – people have changed to low-calorie soft drinks, from whole to skimmed milk and they eat more fresh fruit. But, the amount of chips, pizza, crisps and ready meals they eat each week has increased a lot. 
There has also been an enormous change from white to brown bread. The survey also shows the amount of bread people eat has fallen from 25 to 15 slices a week over the past forty years. The amount of baked beans people eat has reduced by 20%. But, there has been an increase in other types of convenience food, particularly Italian dishes. Adults in the UK now eat an average of 75g of pizza every week compared with none in 1974. The amount of pasta they eat has almost tripled over the same period. 
Fresh potatoes are also becoming less popular with a 67% decrease from 1974, when adults ate around 188g every day. People eat more of other vegetables such as cucumbers, courgettes, aubergines and mushrooms. The amount of takeaway food they eat has almost doubled since 1974, from 80g per person per week to 150g. Around 33g of this amount is chips and 56g is meat, with kebabs (10g), chicken (7g), burgers (5g) and “meat-based meals” (32g) particularly popular. 
It seems that British people are now more careful about what they eat – the amount of fruit has increased by 50% since 1974. In 2014, UK adults ate an average of 157g of fruit per day. Bananas have been the most popular fruit in the UK since 1996 – adults ate 221g per adult per week in 2014, much more than apples (131g) and oranges (48g). Half of all soft drinks British people drink are now low-calorie soft drinks. Britons also spend a smaller percentage of their salaries on food today – 11%, compared with 24% in 1974. 
The UK Environment Secretary, Elizabeth Truss, said: “Food is the heart of our society. This data shows what we were eating 40 years ago but, also, how a change in culture has led to a food revolution. People care more about where their food comes from than before, we can order quality food on the internet, fashionable restaurants give us the latest trends and exciting global cuisines are now as common as fish and chips.” 
She added that this data can show us more than what, where or how older generations ate. It can also show us when our habits changed. The National Food Survey can tell us a lot and help us to predict new food trends. “I look forward to seeing how we can use this data to learn more about our past and grow our world-leading food and farming industry in the future,” she said.",286
"The mass collection of telephone records by government surveillance programmes poses a threat to the personal privacy of ordinary people, say US researchers. They used basic phone logs to identify people and find out confidential information about their lives.
With “metadata” on people’s calls and texts, but not the content of the communications, two scientists at Stanford University worked out people’s names, where they lived and the names of their partners. But, that was not all.
The same metadata led them to discover confidential information about some people. They discovered that one man had a gun and that another man had a heart problem. Other data told them about a new pregnancy and a person with multiple sclerosis.
The results show the extraordinary power of telephone metadata – that is, the number called, when and for how long – particularly when you use it together with public information from services such as Google, Yelp and Facebook. Security services know how important this data is. Stewart Baker, the former general counsel at the US National Security Agency (NSA), said “Metadata tells you everything about somebody’s life.”
Patrick Mutchler, a computer security researcher at Stanford, said that the power of metadata was understood by people who collect the information but the public was in the dark. “That made it difficult for people to fight these programmes. Now, we have hard evidence we can point to that we didn’t have in the past,” he said.
For the study, 823 people agreed to have metadata collected from their phones through an Android app. The app also received information from their Facebook accounts, which the scientists used to check the accuracy of their results. In total, the researchers collected metadata on more than 250,000 calls and over 1.2m texts.
Mutchler describes how, with very little money, he and Jonathan Mayer, discovered a lot of personal information, some of it confidential, about people who took part in the study. They could find out 82% of people’s names. The same technique gave them the names of businesses the people had called. When these were marked on a map, they showed groups of local businesses, which the scientists speculated surrounded the person’s home address. In this way, they named the city people lived in 57% of the time and were nearly 90% accurate in placing people within 50 miles of their home.
Then, using a simple computer program to analyse people’s call patterns, the scientists could see who was in a relationship. Once they knew the owner of a particular number had a partner, it was easy to find out who the partner was, they said.
For the final part of the study, the researchers looked even deeper, to see what private information they could find out from telephone metadata. They collected details on calls made to and from a list of organizations, including hospitals, pharmacies, religious groups and legal services. From these, they put together some extraordinary pictures of people’s lives.
One person in the study made frequent calls to a local gun shop and later made long calls to the customer support hotline of a major gun manufacturer. The metadata from two others suggested one had multiple sclerosis and the other had just become pregnant.
“All of this shows what is possible with two graduate students and limited resources,” said Mutchler. He says that the results should make policymakers think twice before allowing mass surveillance programmes. “Metadata surveillance programmes, like the NSA’s, will reveal highly confidential information about ordinary people,” the scientists said.",287
"Clay Cockrell is sitting in his office opposite the Trump International Hotel and Tower. In front of the tower is Central Park, where Cockrell holds his popular walk and talk therapy sessions.
Cockrell is a former Wall Street worker who is now a therapist. He spends large parts of his days walking in Central Park or the Battery Park in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street, talking to some of New York’s wealthiest people.
“Many of the very wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are,” he says.
So, what problems do America’s 1% have? “There is guilt that they are rich,” he said. “There is the feeling that they have to hide that they are rich. And, then, there is the isolation – being in the 1% can be lonely.”
Counsellors say that things have become worse since the financial crisis in 2008. People now talk about the gap between rich and poor more because of groups like Occupy Wall Street.
“Occupy Wall Street had some important things to say about the gap between rich and poor but it was negative about the 1%,” said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist. The media, she said, makes the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”.
“Sometimes, I am shocked by things that people say. You would never talk about another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to talk about wealthy people.”
“It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. People’s reaction to you can be scary,” said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. “We are all taught not to talk about money. It’s not polite to talk about money. But it’s harder to talk about being rich than it is to talk about being poor. People don’t mind if you say ‘I am broke. Things are hard.’ You can’t say ‘I have a ton of money.’ You have to keep a lot of your life private.”
As a result, Cockrell says, the rich hang out with other rich Americans who understand them and their problems.
In the US, over the last 30 years, the number of very wealthy people has grown. In 2014, the number of US households with $1m or more – excluding the value of their main home – was 10.1 million. There were 1.3 million households worth $5 million and 142,000 worth $25 million or more.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown and the situation “has gotten worse for the wealthy”, Cockrell said. The main reason? Not knowing if your friends are friends with you or with your money.
“Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don’t want anything from you. Never being able to trust your friendships with other people, I think that is difficult,” said Cockrell.
“Wealth can stop you from connecting with other people,” said the wife of a man who made about $80 million. Some Americans keep their wealth secret.
“There are a lot of people hiding their wealth because they are worried about negative judgment,” said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy Americans talk about their problems, people don’t have a lot of sympathy,” she said.
Cockrell said that there is a common mistake that many of his wealthy clients make – they let their money be the most important thing in their lives.
“If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems. There are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing,” he said. “Your problems are real.”",288
"Women have traditionally had a minor role in professional football but this may be changing. France has just employed its first female professional team manager. It did not matter that it was a second-division club. It did not matter if it was, as some people suggested, just a publicity stunt for a minor team, Clermont Foot 63. Clermont is 14th out of the 20 teams in its league at the moment. 
What mattered was that they gave Helena Costa the top job. This has made football history because she is the first female manager in the top two divisions of any professional European league. “As a woman, it’s made me happy,” said Véronique Soulier, president of the club’s supporters’ association. “When I first heard the news, I was surprised, but, then, we all agreed that it’s good news. We all agree that a woman at the head of a group of men is no bad thing.” 
The new manager of Clermont Foot 63 was born in Alhandra, Portugal and has a master’s degree in sports science. She is also a UEFA-licensed coach. She previously coached Benfica’s male youth teams, the Qatar women’s team and, more recently, the Iranian women’s national team. 
The president of Clermont Foot 63, Claude Michy, gave Costa, 36, a two-year contract. Michy is very good at keeping his club in the news. In 2013, he told everyone the team had signed Messi. They had. Not the Argentinian and Barcelona striker Lionel Messi, but Junior Messi Enguene, a 20-year-old midfielder from Cameroon. 
Carolina Morace, an Italian who was the only previous woman coach of a men’s professional team, said: “I don’t know Helena, but, if she has been hired by a team, then it means that she knows how to do her job. I hope that, one day, this can become normal.” Morace played for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she became coach of the men’s team Viterbese. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job because of a disagreement with the club’s owner. She added: “I see too many men, even in the women’s game, who do not have the same expertise as women but are working. And the women are not working.” 
Raymond Domenech, former manager of the French national team, said: “Women know how to play football and how to manage and are good at doing it. Why shouldn’t they manage men’s teams? The opposite happens and doesn’t cause any problems. It’s a natural choice and reflects our society in which women are equal to men. I say well done to President Michy. I told myself that, if I took control of a club again, I’d hire a woman as my number two. Michy did it first.” 
Clermont Foot 63 says that Costa’s becoming the team’s manager will allow the club to enter “a new era”. On the club supporters’ website, reaction to Costa’s becoming the manager was mixed. “In my opinion, it’s just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club. I find it hard to believe she’ll be able to get the players’ respect, above all when she’s the same age as the oldest,” wrote one fan. “Her CV isn’t bad, but now the question is: will she be good enough?” added another. A third wrote: “I wish her welcome and success but I think it’ll be hard for her to do well as a woman in such a macho business.” 
But Soulier was hopeful: “Hopefully, with the new manager, the club can find the motivation they don’t have at the moment,” she said. “The boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in control, maybe they will be less demanding.” 
If we believe Costa’s reputation, she will be the person making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during José Mourinho’s first time as manager of the club between 2004 and 2007, people described her as “Mourinho in a skirt”. Costa’s comment on that description was: “Like Mourinho, I always want to win. In that way, yes, I’m happy to be compared with him.”",289
"On the market square in Rjukan stands a statue of the town’s founder, a respected Norwegian engineer and businessman called Sam Eyde. The great man looks north across the square at a mountainside in front of him.
Behind him, to the south, rises the 1,800-metre peak known as Gaustatoppen. Between the mountains, along the narrow Vestfjord valley, lies the small, but once powerful, town that Eyde built at the beginning of the last century, so the workers in his factories could live there.
Eyde used the power of the 100-metre Rjukanfossen waterfall to make hydroelectricity in what was, at the time, the world’s biggest power plant.
But one thing he couldn’t do was change the sun. Deep in its east–west valley, surrounded by high mountains, Rjukan and its 3,400 inhabitants are in shadow for half the year. During the day, from late September to mid-March, the town, three hours north-west of Oslo, is not completely dark, but it’s certainly not bright, either.
Now, high on the mountain opposite Eyde’s statue, 450 metres above the town, three large, solar-powered, computer-controlled mirrors slowly track the movement of the sun across the sky. They reflect the sunshine down on to the square and fill it with bright sunlight.
“It’s the sun!” grins Ingrid Sparbo, lifting her face to the light and closing her eyes. A retired secretary, Sparbo has lived all her life in Rjukan and says people “do sort of get used to the shade. You end up not thinking about it, really. But this ... this is so warming. Not just physically, but mentally. It’s mentally warming.”
Two young mothers bring their children into the square and stand in the sun. On a freezing day, an elderly couple sit on one of the new benches smiling at the warmth on their faces. Children smile. Lots of people take photographs. A shop assistant, Silje Johansen, says it’s “awesome. Just awesome.”
Electrical engineer Eivind Toreid is more cautious. “It’s a funny thing,” he says. “Not real sunlight, but very similar. Like a spotlight.”
Heidi Fieldheim says she heard all about it on the radio. “But it’s far more than I expected,” she says. “This will bring much happiness.”
Across the road, in the Nye Tider café, sits the man who created this unexpected happiness. Martin Andersen is a 40-year-old artist who moved to Rjukan in the summer of 2001.
The idea of an artwork Andersen called the Solspeil, or Sun mirror, came to him at the end of one September: “Every day, we would take our young child for a walk,” he says, “and, every day, I realized we were having to go a little further down the valley to find the sun.” By 28 September, the sun completely disappears from Rjukan’s market square. It doesn’t reappear until 12 March.
In the months between September and March, Andersen says, “We’d look up and see blue sky above, and the sun high on the mountain slopes, but the only way we could get to it was to go out of town. It’s sad, a town that people have to leave in order to feel the sun.”
Twelve years after he first dreamed of his Solspeil, a German company specializing in CSP – concentrated solar power – brought in, by helicopter, the three 17-sq-m glass mirrors that now stand high above the market square in Rjukan. “It took,” he says, “a bit longer than we’d imagined.”
It really works. Even the people who were against it at first agree that it works.
“I was strongly against it,” admits Nils Eggerud. Like many others, he felt that the money should have been spent on other things – on extra carers to look after Rjukan’s old people, perhaps, or improved school facilities, cycle paths and roads.
“And I still don’t know about the continued maintenance costs,” he says. “What will they be, who will pay them? But ... well, it does feel nice, standing here. And, really, you just have to look at the people’s faces.”
In his office overlooking the square, Rjukan’s young mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is interested not so much in the cost but in the benefits the mirrors might bring to the town.
Already, Bergsland says, visitor numbers are higher than usual for the time of year and Rjukan’s shopkeepers have reported that they are earning more money than usual. A hi-tech company is interested in moving to Rjukan, attracted by the cutting-edge technology at the top of the mountain and the publicity it has attracted.
“This is a powerful symbol for Rjukan,” Bergsland says, and, helped by government grants and a donation from a local business, the town needed to find just 1m krone – £100,000 – of the mirrors’ total 5m-krone cost. “And”, he says, “just look out of the window. Look at those happy faces. Now it’s here, people love it.”",290
"The last time she went on stage, the mobile phone was having its first trials. Thirty-five years later, as she performs once again, singer Kate Bush is faced with a different world.
While most concerts are now aglow with phones and tablets, Bush does not want her fans watching her shows through a screen.
Before her highly anticipated series of concerts at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, Bush released a statement asking her fans to put down their mobile phones at her gigs.
Bush wrote on her website: “I have a request for all of you who are coming to the shows. We have purposefully chosen an intimate theatre setting rather than a large venue or stadium. It would mean a great deal to me if you would please refrain from taking photos or filming during the shows.
“I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras. I know it’s a lot to ask but it would allow us to all share in the experience together.”
With her love of theatrics and opulent costumes, Bush’s keenness to stop fans uploading footage to YouTube could also be an attempt to keep the show a surprise for the thousands of fans who have bought tickets for the 22 dates she is playing.
Bush is not the first singer or musician to speak out against the effect of phones at concerts. The Who front man Roger Daltrey recently said it was “weird” that people did not have their mind on the show when they had gone to a performance and were concentrating on staring at the screen rather than the artist on stage.
He said: “I feel sorry for them, I really feel sorry for them. Looking at life through a screen and not being in the moment totally – if you’re doing that, you’re 50% there, right? It’s weird. I find it weird.”
In 2013, Beyoncé berated one her fans at a gig for filming. “You can’t even sing because you’re too busy filming,” Beyoncé told him. “You gotta seize this moment. Put that damn camera down!”
The debate around phones at live events is not restricted to music. Recently, Dutch football fans at PSV Eindhoven protested against the introduction of wi-fi in their stadium, holding up banners with messages like “No wi-fi. Support the team,” “You can sit at home,” and “Stand united”, while Manchester United have also told fans to leave their “large electronic devices” at home.
Jarvis Cocker has also criticized fans with phones in the audience – he says they drive him “insane at concerts”, adding: “It seems stupid to have something happening in front of you and look at it on a screen that’s smaller than a cigarette packet.”
Johnny Marr said in 2013 that it meant that fans missed out on the sensory experience of live music in their desperation to film the event for later.
”To stand and just be looking at it through your phone is a completely wasted opportunity. You know, I don’t mean to be unkind but I think you should put your phone down because you’re just being an idiot, really. Just enjoy the gig,” he said.
Even in the world of classical music, one of the world’s leading pianists surprised concertgoers in June 2013 when he stormed off stage because a fan was filming his performance on a smartphone. Krystian Zimerman returned moments later and said: “The destruction of music because of YouTube is enormous.”
But Sam Watt of Vyclone, a phone app that encourages audiences to film at concerts and then brings together the footage to create a crowd-sourced video of the event, said that filming at concerts enhanced the experience.
“Fans filming is now part of the concert experience – that is a just a fact – so we take the footage that people are filming at concerts and then it comes back to them mixed together with everybody else who was filming. You end up with really fantastic content,” he said.
“Our thinking is that filming at concerts adds to the experience, rather than taking away from it and I think, if Kate Bush came round for a cup of tea, we could have a really interesting discussion about this,” he added. “Knowing that people are going to film and want those memories is really important. You’ve got to embrace it.”",291
"He had the tastes of a typical millionaire. He owned a gold and silver Rolex and lots of expensive cars. He liked to buy modern art. But, although this Chinese businessman had several companies and a large villa in Madrid, he had almost no money in the bank. This detail interested the Spanish authorities.
Gao Ping supplied 4,000 Chinese bazaars across Spain. But, authorities suspected he was not paying taxes on the clothes, furniture and other goods he was importing from China.
When police searched his warehouses in 2012 they found piles of cash: €100, €200 and €500 notes were wrapped in elastic bands. Around €12m was taken away, the largest amount of cash ever found by Spanish police. Gao’s gang is accused of laundering up to €300m a year, as well as selling counterfeit goods and toys with fake safety marks.
Law enforcement officials have been worried about €500 notes for a long time. Small and easy to transport relative to their value, they are the payment method that tax dodgers, money launderers and drug barons prefer to use. The sum of €1m in €500 notes fits easily into a small laptop bag. The same amount in €50 notes would need a small suitcase.
The UK stopped distribution of the €500 note in 2010 because it was used “almost entirely by criminals”. In 2009, Italy’s central bank warned that the notes were widely used by mafia money launderers and terrorists. Other countries have limited their own high-denomination notes due to links to organized crime – Canada got rid of its $1,000 note in 2000 on the advice of law enforcement officers.
Now, with electronic payment systems and contactless cards, people are asking whether we should print these notes. Peter Sands, the former head of Standard Chartered Bank, said we should get rid of high-denomination notes, including the €500, the $100, the 1,000 Swiss Franc note and the £50. In a report for the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Sands said it was time to get rid of high-value notes that make life easier for “bad guys”. Criminals would instead use smaller-denomination bills, or gold or diamonds, but these are too big to be carried easily and more traceable. This makes it more likely they will get caught, he said.
At a conference on terrorist financing in London, the Head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, asked the European Central Bank to look at whether it “should continue to produce these notes that make it easier for criminals and terrorists to hide their business and to provide money for illegal activities”. According to Europol, the purple €500 note makes up 30% of the value of all the euro notes, although most people have never seen one.
The €500 note was introduced in 2002 when the euro was born: it replaced the 1,000 Deutschmark, the 10,000 Belgian franc and the 500,000 Italian lira. In Germany and Austria, more than half of all transactions are still made with paper money and coins.
Europol would like to see central banks take more responsibility for what happens with €500 notes. Luxembourg, for example, issued more than twice its annual GDP in banknotes in 2013 alone. Europol asked Luxembourg’s central bank to explain. The reply from Luxembourg was that they simply issue the notes that are asked for and do not ask or know why people want them, said Jennifer MacLeod, a specialist in Europol’s financial intelligence group. “I find it surprising that a central bank does not consider itself to have a responsibility in this area.”
This could be changing. EU finance ministers have asked policymakers to think about “appropriate limits” on high-value notes and report back by 1 May 2016.",292
"A new computer-assisted autopsy system is becoming more and more popular in European hospitals. Its inventor says that the system could mean that now there will be no such thing as a 'perfect murder'. 
The method, called 'Virtopsy', is being used at some forensic medical institutes in Europe. It was invented by a group of scientists at the University of Zurich. Instead of cutting the chest, like in a traditional autopsy, pathologists are now able to examine the dead body in 3-D via computer screens. 
Michael Thali, the Director of Zurich’s Institute for Forensic Medicine in Europe, and one of the inventors of Virtopsy, said it could completely change criminal investigations. “Basically there will be no such thing as the perfect murder any more because a virtual autopsy allows you to find every piece of evidence,” he said. 
“In order to analyze the colour of the blood, the thickness of body fluids or smells, we’ll need to use traditional autopsy methods,” said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, which is using a version of the Virtopsy. 
Virtopsies use powerful machines. Together, the machines are called a 'Virtobot'. Virtopsies can find injuries that are not seen during a traditional autopsy, as well as air pockets, heart attacks and even cancer. 
“The Virtopsy could replace the autopsy one day,” said Richard Dirndorfer, one of the first people to use DNA analysis in criminology. “I think we’ll see it happen slowly, just like DNA analysis slowly replaced blood group analysis”. 
The method allows doctors to see deep inside dead bodies. It can see things that cannot be found during traditional autopsies. 
Criminologists from around the world have been travelling to Switzerland over the past few years to see the new method. Forensic scientists and pathologists think the method can be used together with the traditional autopsy. 
He added that the new method was very helpful in re-examining cases where the cause of death was unclear. “It means that investigations can be re-examined and we can try again to find the murderer,” he said. 
Scientists said that relatives of the dead prefer the Virtopsy method because, during a traditional autopsy, scientists have to cut and damage the dead body.",293
"The UK prime minister, David Cameron, has declared a “clear result” in the Scottish independence referendum – Scotland voted by a 10.6-point margin against ending the 307-yearold union with England and Wales. The prime minister promised a devolution revolution in Great Britain, as he welcomed Scotland’s decision to remain inside the UK. “There can be no disputes, no reruns – we have heard the will of the Scottish people,” he said in a statement.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, remained defiant at a Scottish National Party rally in Edinburgh – he said he accepted Scotland had not, “at this stage”, decided to vote for independence. He said the referendum was a “triumph for democratic politics” and he would work with the government in London in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK. “We have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics,” he said.
The yes campaign won four big successes – it won 53% of the vote in Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire. However, the no campaign was victorious in 28 authorities. It won easily in areas where it was expected to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders, but also in areas that could have gone to the yes campaign, including the Western Isles. In the final count, the no camp won 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) and the yes camp won 1,617,989 votes (44.7%).
In his speech, Cameron made clear that there would be constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, but not until after the general election. He also said that Scottish measures would happen in tandem with changes in England. “We have heard the voice of Scotland and, now, the millions of voices of England must be heard,” he said.
Cameron added: “The people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. They have kept our country of four nations together and, like millions of other people, I am delighted. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end. And I know that feeling was shared by people not just across our country but around the world because of what we have achieved together in the past and what we can do together in the future. So, now, it is time for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward. A vital part of that will be a balanced settlement, fair to people in Scotland and, importantly, to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well.”
Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, said the referendum was a vote from the Scottish people for change. “We know our country needs to change. We will deliver stronger powers for a stronger Scottish parliament, a strong Scotland.” But he said that would go beyond Scotland. “We will also meet the desire for change across England, across Wales, across the whole of the United Kingdom.”
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said the referendum was “not only a new chapter for Scotland within the UK but also wider constitutional reform across the union”. He said a vote against independence was “not a vote against change”. “We must now deliver on time and in full the radical package of newly devolved powers to Scotland,” he added.
Yet that result raises the risk of further problems – MPs from Cameron’s Conservative Party are threatening to vote against the prime minister’s promise to quickly increase the Scottish parliament’s powers and protect its spending.
The UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, said Cameron’s offer of more devolution for England did not go far enough. “The English are 86% by population of this union. They’ve been left out of all of this for the last 18 years. We still have a situation where Scottish MPs can vote in the House of Commons on English-only issues. I think what most English people want is a fair settlement,” he said.
Cameron will try to calm tensions when he makes another statement on the result. The prime minister will explain how he will deliver further devolution to Scotland, including giving greater powers over tax and welfare to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The prime minister wants to move fast to show that the three main UK party leaders will meet the commitments they made during the referendum campaign.
For the no campaign, there was relief: a number of opinion polls in the final days of the campaign had said the vote was on a knife-edge. This brought Yes Scotland within touching distance of victory after a dramatic surge in support.",294
"Amsterdam still looks liberal to tourists, who were recently assured by the Labour Mayor that the city’s marijuana-selling coffee shops would stay open despite a new national law tackling drug tourism. But the Dutch capital may lose its reputation for tolerance over plans to dispatch nuisance neighbours to “scum villages” made from shipping containers. 
The Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, insists his controversial new £810,000 policy to tackle antisocial behaviour is to protect victims of abuse and homophobia from harassment. The camps where antisocial tenants will be rehoused for three to six months have been called “scum villages” because the policy echoes proposals from Geert Wilders, the far-right populist, who last year demanded that “repeat offenders” be “sent to a village for scum”. 
But Bartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, denies that the plans are illiberal. “We want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam,” he says. “We want everyone to be who he and she is – whether they are gay and lesbian or stand up to violence and are then victims of harassment. We as a society want to defend them.” According to Boer, the villages are not for “the regular nuisance between two neighbours where one has the stereo too loud on Saturday night” but “people who are extremely violent and intimidating, and in a clear situation where a victim is being repeatedly harassed”. 
Those deemed guilty of causing “extreme havoc” will be evicted and placed in temporary homes of a “basic” nature, including converted shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. “We call it a living container,” says Boer. Housing antisocial tenants in these units, which have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation, will ensure that they are not “rewarded” by being relocated to better accommodation. 
Dutch newspaper the Parool has pointed out that in the 19th century troublemakers were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which rapidly became slums. But Boer insists that the administration has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to house the antisocial together. 
It would be more accurate to call them “scum houses” than scum villages, says Boer, “because we don’t want to put more than one of these families in the same area”. After up to six months in these houses, scattered around the city, the tenants will be found permanent homes. The city government anticipates moving around ten families a year into this programme, which starts in 2013. 
The temporary dwellings will be heavily policed, but antisocial tenants will also have access to doctors, social workers and parole officers. “They are taken care of so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in,” says Boer.",295
"Loneliness has finally become a hot topic – the Office for National Statistics has found Britain to be the loneliest country in Europe. British people are less likely to have strong friendships or know their neighbours than residents anywhere else in the EU and a relatively high proportion of them have no one to rely on in a crisis. Meanwhile, research by Professor John Cacioppo at the University of Chicago has found loneliness to be twice as bad for older people’s health as obesity and almost as great a cause of death as poverty. 
But, shocking as this is, such studies overlook the loneliness epidemic among younger adults. In 2010, the Mental Health Foundation found loneliness to be a greater concern among young people than the elderly. The 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed were more likely to feel lonely often, to worry about feeling alone and to feel depressed because of loneliness than the over-55s. 
“Loneliness is a recognized problem among the elderly – there are day centres and charities to help them,” says Sam Challis, an information manager at the mental health charity Mind, “but, when young people reach 21, they’re too old for youth services.” This is problematic because of the close relationship between loneliness and mental health – it is linked to increased stress, depression, paranoia, anxiety, addiction, cognitive decline and is a known factor in suicide. In a new essay, Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind, and Jenny Edwards, the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, say it can be both a cause and effect of mental health problems. 
But what can young people do to combat loneliness? Dr Grant Blank, a survey research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, points out that social media and the internet can be a boon and a problem. They are beneficial when they enable us to communicate with distant loved ones, but not when they replace face-to-face contact. “People present an idealized version of themselves online and we expect to have social lives like those portrayed in the media,” says Challis. Comparing friends’ seemingly perfect lives with ours can lead us to withdraw socially. 
While meditation techniques and apps such as Headspace are trendy solutions frequently recommended for a range of mental health problems, they’re not necessarily helpful for loneliness, as they actively encourage us to dwell alone on our thoughts. “You’d be better off addressing the underlying causes of being lonely first – what’s stopping you going out and seeing people?” asks Challis. 
Indeed, a study of social media at the University of Michigan in 2013 found that, while Facebook reduces life satisfaction, using technology to help you meet new people can be beneficial. And, if for whatever reason, you are unable to venture outside, the internet can bring solace. Mumsnet has been “an absolute godsend” for Maddy Matthews, 19, a student with a two-month-old daughter. Since the birth, she rarely sees her university friends and her partner works most evenings. “In the first few days, I was up late at night feeding her and I was worried I was doing something wrong. Being able to post on Mumsnet has helped me feel less alone.” 
Helplines can also reduce loneliness, at least in the short term. One in four men who call the emotional support charity Samaritans mention loneliness or isolation and Get Connected is a free confidential helpline for young people, where they can seek help with emotional and mental health issues often linked to loneliness. There are also support services on websites such as Mind’s that can remind you you’re not alone. 
At work, it can be beneficial to tell your employer how you’re feeling. John Binns, who advises businesses on mental health and well-being, was admitted to hospital for stress-related depression in 2007 and took two months off work. He felt as if there was no one to talk to and he wasn’t close enough to colleagues for them to notice the changes in his behaviour. Greater openness with his employer and colleagues made his return to work easier. “Often people find that colleagues are more supportive than they’d expected. Mine started to reach out, asking me to lunch and reassuring me that the world hadn’t moved on that much since I’d left.” 
Office chit-chat may seem like a waste of time, but it helps to cushion us from the emotional and psychological effects of work strain. “If you form connections with your team, you might be stressed but not isolated,” says Rick Hughes, 
the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy’s (BACP) lead adviser for the workplace. 
“We treat the networks we have as incidental but they’re fundamental to our well-being,” says Nicky Forsythe, a psychotherapist and the founder of Talk for Health, a social enterprise that trains people to give and receive peer support in groups. “The most important thing is to have a regular time and place to reflect on your life and to have an empathetic listener.” 
For developing personal skills such as empathy, counselling can help. The BACP website allows you to search for counsellors in your area. “A problem aired is a problem shared and sometimes you need to talk to someone impartial and independent of your friends and family,” says Hughes. Most universities offer students such counselling and many run group sessions that specifically address loneliness. 
If recent research is to be believed, loneliness is killing the elderly and, with an ageing population, we should aim to reduce our isolation before it is too late. “Getting older doesn’t have to mean getting lonelier,” says Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive of the relationship counselling service Relate, in a new report. “But much of this rests on laying the foundations to good-quality relationships earlier in life.”",296
"Introduction
Did you know that, in the UK, there is no legal requirement for restaurants to pass on tips to staff?
For a new government report, workers, employers and customers were asked about their views on tipping. After reading the report, government ministers said they wanted to change the rules and make sure low-paid workers get the money left for them by happy customers.
The report said that some waiters are charged up to a 15% administration fee on tips that are left when customers pay by credit or debit cards. The government said it would consider not allowing employers to charge workers an administration fee.
The government also said that it wanted customers to know that tips are voluntary and they want the system to be more transparent, with restaurants clearly displaying their tips policy.
We asked waiters around the UK what they think of the tipping process (including how much they take home from tips and whether it’s fair) and what would improve it for them.
1. Rodri, 37, London: ‘Around 50% of a waiter’s income is tips’
Average tips: £60 per eight-hour shift
I think they treat waiters best in ... the US
Everything has got fairer since the tipping scandal was exposed in the summer of 2015. This is when dozens of restaurants were exposed for taking money from tips for administration fees. However, you still hear horror stories from new employees at some chains. Some restaurants take 4% of all sales to pay the chefs and as an admin fee. It doesn’t matter how much you make in tips. This means that, if a table has a £100 bill and doesn’t tip, the waiter has to pay £4 of their own money. This leads to bad service. If a table doesn’t tip, the waiter feels as if the company is stealing their money and resents the customers.
I get an average of around £60 of tips per shift. On a good night, this can go up to over £100 and, on a poor night, it’s around £40. Around 50% of a waiter’s income is tips. All restaurants should have to publicly state their exact tipping policy. America has it pretty good – everyone tips.
2. Elle, 22, Edinburgh: ‘We never know whether it’s fair’
Average tips: £20 per eight-hour shift
I think they treat waiters best in ... France
I have three part-time catering jobs. My main day job is in a café where the small number of staff work both in the café and in the kitchen so all our tips go in a pot and they are shared equally. My main evening job is at a restaurant where we don’t get our tips but our wages are minimum wage plus an extra £2.50 per hour. My third job is events catering and nobody ever tips.
In restaurants, because a lot of customers add tips through card payments, the staff never see how much the tip is – so we don’t know whether what we get is fair or not. The system seems better in France, where they don’t tip much but being a waiter is seen as a proper job, with job security and a decent income.
3. Ashley, 22, London: ‘Tips go towards customer breakages’
Average tips: £10-15 per eight-hour shift
I think they treat waiters best in ... Australia
I work in a London pub in the evenings and I do day shifts at a local restaurant. In both places, all the tips are collected and shared out at the end of the night. Money is also taken from the tips to pay for breakages by either staff or customers.
It is incredibly unfair that our tips are shared out, especially when one member of the team doesn’t work hard enough. Or, when a member of the team does incredibly well, they don’t get what they’ve earned. It’s really unfair that tips go towards breakages made by customers. The managers should have ways to pay for broken glasses and plates without taking our tips. I make around £20 a shift in tips but often I only get £10-15 of that money.
I really rely on tips because I am only paid £7 an hour. I’d rather we earned a good basic wage (like in Australia) and didn’t have to rely on tips.
4. Tom, Manchester: ‘A big night of tips can help pay the rent’
Average tips: £40 per eight-hour shift 
I think they treat waiters best in ... Italy 
Where I used to work, waiters kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The other 20% of cash went into a pot for the commis waiters and bar staff. The 60% from the card tips went to the kitchen staff.
It’s hard to say how much I earned a shift; maybe around £40. It can make a massive change to your weekly finances. Sometimes, the waiters needed a good night to pay their rent.
They have got tipping right in Italy, where customers don’t add a service charge but usually round up their bill so, if their meal is €19, they leave a €20 note and don’t ask for change. They respect the staff. In Italy, people often make a career as a waiter and the experience these waiters have shows in the service the customers get.",297
"The Greek island of Agios Efstratios is so remote, so forgotten by the banks, the government and most of the modern world that there isn’t a single ATM or credit-card machine on the island. Before the economic crisis in Greece, residents of this tranquil island in the northern Aegean managed quite well. They did their banking at the post office and the few dozen rooms to rent were fully booked every summer with people who had heard – by word of mouth – of its spectacular empty beaches, clear seas and fresh seafood.
But, because the island still uses only cash, the closure of the Greek banks has been devastating. Residents have to make nine-hour round trips to the nearest big island to get cash and Greek visitors say they can’t get hold of enough money to come. “Tourist numbers have reduced by 80% this year,” said Mayor Maria Kakali, in an office in the village where she grew up, with a population of around 200 people. “Even people born here and living in Athens, who have their own places on the island, aren’t coming.”
Kakali has badgered the government and a major Greek bank into promising an ATM within weeks but she still feels it may be too late for this season on an island where tourism is the main source of income: “We have almost no reservations in August, when usually we have people calling us up asking to find a room and we can’t help them.” A hard winter ahead may be slightly improved because 50 workers will live and work in the village to expand the harbour. But there is an even bigger crisis ahead because the government has said it will end a tax break for islands.
The tax break was created to help island communities survive the problem of mass emigration. The lower sales tax reduced the costs of living on the islands, where everything had to be imported and it made tourism more affordable. Tourist favourites such as Mykonos fear that losing the tax breaks will make it hard for them to compete with Turkey. But, for Agios Efstratios, it is a far greater problem. “If we have to pay a tax of 23%, I’m sorry to say it but we will all die on the island,” says Kakali.
Food and fuel are already more expensive than on the mainland. Even in summer the island has only three shops, two restaurants and not a single official hotel. “This is an expensive island. Everything, even milk or bread, has been bought and sold three or four times before it gets to us and everyone has to take a profit,” said Provatas Costas, a 58-year-old fisherman.
For Agios Efstratios and its closest large neighbour, Lemnos, the timing of the crisis is particularly cruel. They were seen as remote for years partly because you could only reach the islands by slow and unreliable ferries. In 2015, the government had finally given the contract to a new, efficient company and this has brought many new visitors to explore the islands’ charms. But, then, the bank controls hit. “It started as the best season in 30 years and, in one week, it became the worst,” said Atzamis Konstantinos, a travel agent in Lemnos.
Lemnos has dozens of wild beaches, where you can swim and sunbathe virtually alone, a small nightlife scene and many cultural sites. It is the eighth largest island in Greece so it is in line for the first round of tax increases in autumn 2015 but it is far less wealthy than many smaller islands. It has just over 3,000 beds for visitors, compared with tens of thousands on an island such as Rhodes. “We have been suffering economically in recent years and now we will suffer more,” said Lemnos Mayor, Dimitris Marinakis. “When there is not enough money, you reduce your consumption and the whole economy gets worse.”
If taxes go up, even more young people will leave, warns Mayor Kakali, who has worked to improve education on the island to help keep it an attractive place for families. Because it is one of the smallest islands, Agios Efstratios has until 2017 before the tax rise comes in. Kakali hopes that, because things change very fast in Greek politics, the island might still avoid the tax. If not, though, she plans to travel to Athens to remind the distant government what the tax rise would cost.
“The truth is the government doesn’t pay much attention to the islands of the north Aegean,” she said, “so I would take all the kids from our school to the gates of parliament, to tell them: ‘There is still life in these islands’.”",298
"It was a beautiful summer evening and I decided to go for a swim off Doolin Pier in County Clare, Ireland, where I moved in 2012. There was a woman in the water with Dusty, a dolphin who has a great relationship with a group of people she regularly swims with. 
Dusty arrived in Doolin in about 2008 and hundreds of people have swum with her since, giving the impression that she’s totally tame. She has even starred in an Irish tourist-board ad campaign in which a girl says she would like to touch a dolphin. 
That evening, this woman was tickling Dusty’s tummy and it just looked so inviting. There were about 20 tourists and locals on the pier, looking at this lovely spectacle. Just after I got into the water, Dusty left the woman she was with and went ballistic – I found out afterwards that she’s very territorial when she is with somebody. Her tail was flapping wildly and, at first, I thought it was a display but, then, I twigged: maybe she’s angry. I knew I had to get out of the water so I swam towards the pier but, within microseconds, Dusty had ploughed into me with her snout. It was very powerful and painful, and the speed was amazing. I went hurtling forwards. 
All these people on the pier were staring down at me open-mouthed. Dusty was still in the water beside me, her tail flapping crazily. That was more frightening than anything: I thought, if she hits me with her tail, I could go under; I’m gone. 
I was at the pier but couldn’t get out because of my injuries. I felt pure terror. I shouted for help and a guy put his arm in and pulled me out on to the steps. Then, another man appeared and said he was an orthopaedic surgeon who specialized in marine trauma. He had been driving into Doolin when he saw what was happening on the pier. I was so cold and very worried – I didn’t know how bad my injuries were and my biggest fear was internal bleeding. He checked me over and was very reassuring, saying he couldn’t feel any evidence of it but that I probably had broken bones. I found out later that I had six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung. 
I was in hospital for five days, in a back brace for several weeks and off work for five months with limited mobility, stiffness and pain. Then, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. My near-death experience had left me anxious about everything and overreacting in a way I had never done before. I felt that people were looking at me in the wrong way, I began to struggle with loud noises and I suffered from memory loss. Three months before the accident, I had opened a health-food shop but I had to let it go because I could no longer work. It was the toughest year ever but, now, it’s all behind me. I had craniosacral therapy, osteopathy and massage, and am building up my own osteopathy practice now. I have a new empathy with patients because I have been one. 
I am grateful that I am healthy and I really want to prevent other people being injured. We have this lovely idea about dolphins and have faith in them – who would think a dolphin would ever attack a person? If you see a ferocious animal coming at you with its teeth bared, it’s scary, but dolphins have this lovely, wide smile. 
I don’t have any anger towards Dusty. I respect her. But I was in her territory and she’s a wild, unpredictable animal. People need to know that. So many come here to swim with her and they don’t understand how dangerous it can be. Mine were reportedly among several injuries that summer. 
After the man pulled me out of the water, Dusty swam away but, then, she came back and was bobbing vertically next to me, looking at me. We locked eyes and I felt there was complete remorse in her. She was a totally different dolphin; the anger had gone. The people on the pier were in awe. When she had that little moment with me, that was the end of the terror. I made my peace with her.",299
"Indignant waiters are calling for public support in a battle to hold on to their tips. PizzaExpress branches are to be targeted by protesters as part of an attempt to get the restaurant chain to stop creaming off a proportion of tips for staff that have been paid on credit and debit cards. Campaigners have also started an online petition in the hope that restaurant-goers will back their demands. 
In a policy that has outraged some employees, PizzaExpress keeps, as an admin fee, 8p out of every £1 paid when tips are given by card. The chain, which has 430 branches around the UK and is particularly popular with families, makes an estimated £1m a year from the practice, according to the union Unite. 
“We believe this 8% fee is unfair and that, if the chain values its staff, it should be paying them the total tips they are given by customers,” said Chantal Chegrinec, campaigns officer at Unite. “We are starting with PizzaExpress but they are by no means the only offender and we will be turning our attention to other companies after this.” 
The protests are being organized by local branches of Unite, with the first taking place at the British Museum branch of PizzaExpress in London. The union has also written to the restaurant chain’s CEO, Richard Hodgson. Unite began the campaign following a survey of its PizzaExpress members after the chain was sold to a Chinese private equity firm, Hony Capital, in 2014. One of the top issues was the 8% deduction from their tips. 
One disgruntled PizzaExpress employee, who wants to remain anonymous, said that the admin fee was costing her £3 a night. “I have worked at PizzaExpress for 15 years,” she said in a letter to Unite. “After all this time, I’m still only paid the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. So you see my colleagues and I are heavily reliant on customer tips to top up our low wages. I work hard and am good at my job but, when PizzaExpress thinks it can get away with taking a percentage of our hard-earned tips left on a card, I get upset.” 
PizzaExpress joins restaurant chains Ask and Zizzi in siphoning off 8% of the tips paid by card but other chains deduct even more. Café Rouge, Bella Italia and Belgo deduct 10%, as do Strada and Giraffe, which is owned by Tesco. 
A spokesperson for PizzaExpress said that its admin charge was to cover the cost of running a “tronc” – a standard pay arrangement used to distribute tips among staff. “We went to great lengths to set up this tronc system, which is chaired by a troncmaster and run by a committee of waiters and pizzaiolos who independently decide how tips made by electronic card payment are subsequently distributed between front- and back-of-house restaurant teams; a system run by employees for the employees,” she said. 
The chain, which sells 29m pizzas a year through its UK restaurants, denied that it profits from the admin fee. But other restaurant groups do not deduct an admin fee from tips. Wagamama, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday all take nothing. The Restaurant Group, which owns Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquitos and Garfunkels, used to charge 10% but dropped this policy several years ago. 
Unite recently targeted ten PizzaExpress restaurants in south London, distributing leaflets to customers who were “shocked and disgusted” by the practice. PizzaExpress says the charge is mentioned in small print at the bottom of its menus but the employee who wrote to Unite said that, when she mentioned the charge to customers, it always came as a surprise. Most would then pay the tip in cash. Almost 6,000 people have so far signed Unite’s online petition. 
One waiter, who doesn’t work for PizzaExpress but has worked for 11 years for another restaurant chain, said that at least a third of his income is from tips. He doesn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals. “I work in a busy London branch and, on an average night, I’ll serve 150 people and take home £40 to £50 in tips,” he says. “That might sound like a lot but that money is crucial to me as my basic pay is only £6.50 an hour.” 
Conservative MP Andrew Percy, who has called for a change in the law that would give restaurant staff more control over tips, said he plans to raise the issue in parliament after the summer recess.”",300
"1 Race engineer
A race engineer liaises between the driver and the mechanics.
Typical salary: New graduates start at £25,000 to £30,000 and quickly progress to junior engineer roles, earning more than £40,000 with just a few years’ experience. Senior race engineers earn £50,000 to £90,000.
What the job involves: “A race engineer is the interpreter between the race-car mechanics and the driver,” says race engineer Jamie Muir. “The engineer takes feedback from the driver, analyses the data and makes decisions about the set-up needed for maximum performance, then passes this on to the mechanics.”
Qualifications: A university degree, typically in automotive/mechanical engineering or motorsport technology. Hands-on experience is essential. 
To succeed as a race engineer, you need … to be able to deal with pressure.
Worst thing about the job: The long hours. “Race engineers work 24/7,” says Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association.
2 Ethical hacker
Typical salary: A newly qualified hacker can expect a minimum salary of £35,000 to £50,000. This rises to £60,000 to £90,000 at team-leader level.
What the job involves: A company will pay an ethical hacker to hack into its computer system to see how well it might resist a real attack.
Qualifications: You don’t necessarily need a degree in computer science. The industry accepts individuals with a very wide range of academic qualifications and skills.
To succeed as an ethical hacker, you need … a passion for technology and detail. You should also enjoy solving difficult problems.
Worst thing about the job: When you are called in to test the security of a new customer’s network and you discover that they have already been hacked.
3 Bomb-disposal diver
Typical salary: In the private sector, you can earn up to £100,000 working just two months out of every three.
What the job involves: Descending to the sea bed and searching for unexploded bombs, shells, grenades and landmines, then either safely recovering and collecting the weapons or securely disposing of them.
Qualifications: To dive offshore, you must have diving qualifications. To be able to dispose of the bombs safely, you’ll also need an explosivedisposal qualification and years of experience.
To succeed as a bomb-disposal diver, you need … to stay calm in stressful situations. You work alone under water, with zero visibility and, if you don’t like living in small confined spaces with lots of other people, forget it.
Worst thing about the job: Expect to be away from home at least six months of the year.
4 Social engineer
Typical salary: Graduates start on £25,000 but salaries increase rapidly with qualifications and experience, rising to between £50,000 and £80,000, on average.
The job: Companies pay a social engineer to try to trick employees into giving them confidential information that allows the engineer to access sensitive company data or the company’s computer network.
Qualifications: Typically, social engineers have a degree in IT, although an understanding of psychology is useful.
To succeed as a social engineer, you need … the confidence to lie convincingly and the ability to fit in almost anywhere without looking too out of place. You also need a strong sense of personal ethics and an understanding of the law.
Worst thing about the job: Other people may misunderstand your job: social engineers are not spies but most people think they are.
5 Power-line helicopter pilot
Typical salary: £65,000
The job: To fly close to high-voltage power lines in a helicopter so that the lines can be inspected with a camera and any potential faults and issues can be identified by the power company.
Qualifications: A private-helicopter-pilot licence, a commercial pilot’s licence and around 2,000 hours of experience flying at low levels.
To succeed as a power line helicopter pilot, you need … a steady hand and a cool head.
Typically, pilots must fly beside the power line, sometimes as little as 20 feet away and just 30 feet off the ground. Worst thing about the job: “There are no negatives,” says helicopter pilot Robin Tutcher.
6 Private butler
Typical salary: £60,000 to £90,000
The job: A private butler can be called on by his or her employer to do anything from wardrobe management to chauffeuring and pet care.
Typical duties include managing other staff, serving at every meal, running errands, looking after guests, booking restaurants, house security, housekeeping, cooking and anything else the household needs.
Qualifications: You don’t need any specific qualifications but you can do a special course.
To succeed as a butler, you need … to enjoy looking after other people.
Worst thing about the job: Long hours and an unpredictable work schedule mean it’s difficult to have a family life. Butlers also suffer from isolation, cultural differences with their employer and having to work for people who aren’t always nice.",301
"The Greek island of Agios Efstratios is very remote. It has been forgotten by the banks, the government and most of the modern world. It doesn’t have a single ATM or credit-card machine. Before the economic crisis in Greece, the people of this peaceful island in the northern Aegean lived quite well. The few rooms to rent were fully booked every summer with people enjoying its empty beaches, clear seas and fresh seafood.
But the island still uses only cash so the closure of the Greek banks has had a serious effect. Local people have to make nine-hour round trips to the nearest big island to get cash. Greek visitors say they don’t have enough cash to come. “Tourist numbers have reduced by 80% this year,” said Mayor Maria Kakali, in an office in the village where she grew up. The village has about 200 people. “Even people born here and living in Athens, who have their own places on the island, aren’t coming.”
Kakali has asked the government and a major Greek bank to install an ATM and this should arrive soon. But tourism is the main business on the island and she feels the ATM may come too late for this season. “We have almost no reservations in August, when usually we are full.” But there is an even bigger crisis ahead – the government has said it will end a tax break for islands.
The tax break was created to help people on islands survive when lots of people were emigrating. Islands that are popular with tourists, such as Mykonos, fear that losing the tax break will make things very hard for them. But, for Agios Efstratios, it is a much bigger problem. “If we have to pay a tax of 23%, we will all die on the island,” says Kakali.
Food and fuel are already more expensive than on mainland Greece. Even in summer, the island has only three shops, two restaurants and not one official hotel. “This is an expensive island. Everything, even milk or bread, takes a long time to reach us and so is very expensive,” said Provatas Costas, a 58-year-old fisherman.6 Things are also difficult for the island of Lemnos, the closest large neighbour of Agios Efstratios. People saw the islands as remote for years partly because the only way to get there was by slow and unreliable ferries. In 2015, they finally had new, efficient ferries and this brought many new visitors to explore these islands. But, then, the bank controls began. “It started as the best season in 30 years and, in one week, it became the worst,” said Atzamis Konstantinos, a travel agent in Lemnos.
Lemnos has wild beaches, where you can swim and sunbathe almost alone, a small nightlife scene and many cultural sites. It is the eighth largest island in Greece so it will have to pay the tax increases in autumn 2015. But Lemnos is far less wealthy than many smaller islands. It has just over 3,000 beds for visitors – Rhodes, for example, has tens of thousands of beds. “We have been suffering economically in recent years and now we will suffer more,” said Lemnos Mayor, Dimitris Marinakis.
If taxes go up, more young people will leave, warns Mayor Kakali. Because it is one of the smallest islands, Agios Efstratios will not have to pay the tax increase until 2017. And Kakali hopes the situation in Greece will change before then. But, if not, she plans to travel to Athens to remind the distant government what the tax rise would cost.
“The government doesn’t pay much attention to the islands of the north Aegean,” she said, “so I would take all the kids from our school to the gates of parliament, to tell them: ‘There is still life in these islands’.”",302
"Clay Cockrell is sitting in his office across the street from 1 Central Park West, the address of the Trump International Hotel and Tower. In front of the tower is Central Park, where Cockrell holds his popular walk and talk therapy sessions.
Cockrell, a former Wall Street worker who is now a therapist, spends large parts of his days walking through Central Park or the Battery Park in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street, as a confidant and counsellor to some of New York’s wealthiest people.
“Many of the extremely wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are,” he says.
So, what issues do America’s 1% have? “There is guilt because they are rich,” he said. “There is the feeling that they have to hide the fact that they are rich. And, then, there is the isolation – being in the 1% can be lonely.”
Counsellors argue that things have become worse since the financial crisis and the discussion about income inequality brought on by movements like Occupy Wall Street.
“The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one and had some important things to say about income inequality but it singled out the 1% as something negative,” said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder of the Wealth Legacy Group. The media, she said, is partly to blame for making the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”.
Traeger-Muney runs a global business and specializes in working with inheritors, who often get a bad reputation in the press. “Sometimes, I am shocked by things that people say. You would never refer to another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to refer to wealthy people.”
“It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. People’s reactions to you can be scary,” said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. “We are all taught not to talk about money. It’s not polite to talk about money. But it’s harder to talk about having money than it is to talk about not having money. It’s much more socially acceptable to say ‘I am broke. Things are hard.’ You can’t say ‘I have a ton of money.’ You have to keep a lot of your life private.”
As a result, Cockrell says, the rich usually hang out with other rich Americans who understand them and their problems.
In the US, over the last three decades, the number of extremely wealthy people has been increasing. According to research from Spectrem Group, in 2014, the number of US households with $1m or more – excluding the value of their main home – increased by 500,000 to 10.1m. Households worth $5m or more reached 1.3m and 142,000 households are now worth $25m or more.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the income gap has grown and the situation “has gotten worse for the wealthy”, Cockrell said. The main reason? Not knowing if your friends are friends with you or with your money.
“Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don’t want anything from you. Never being able to trust your friendships with other people, I think that is difficult,” said Cockrell. “As the gap has widened, the rich have become more and more isolated.”
These are real fears of the richest of the rich. In 2007, the Gates Foundation and Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy started to document what it felt like to be in America’s 1%. For the next four years, researchers surveyed 165 of America’s richest households – 120 of those households have at least $25m. The report, The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth, was 500 pages long and seemed to prove the old saying that money can’t buy happiness.
“Wealth can stop you from connecting with other people,” said the wife of a tech entrepreneur who made about $80m. Some Americans keep their wealth secret. “We talk about it as stealth wealth. There are a lot of people that hide their wealth because they are worried about negative judgment,” said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy Americans talk about the problems that come with their wealth, people often say ‘Oh, poor you.’ There is not a lot of sympathy there,” she said.
Speaking in his soft, soothing voice that makes you want to tell him all your worries, Cockrell said that a common mistake that many of his wealthy clients make is letting their money define them. 
“If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems and they are real to you. Even when you say, ‘I don’t have to struggle for money’, there are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing that defines you,” he said. “Your problems are real.”",303
"1 Flappy Bird 
Dong Nguyen, the inventor of the mobile game Flappy Bird, removed it from app stores. It was downloaded more than 50 million times and was making him around £30,000 each day. He said its success ruined his simple life. On Twitter, he said: “I cannot live like this anymore.” 
Nguyen is the latest inventor who wishes he hadn’t created a monster: 
2 The labradoodle 
The labradoodle isn’t a monster – it’s lovely. But what’s monstrous is the way people sell crossbreed dogs since the labradoodle’s inventor, Wally Conron, first created the dog in the 1980s. “I’ve created a lot of problems”, he said. “There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs now.” Conron invented the labradoodle when he was working for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia. He invented it as a dog for a blind woman. Her husband was allergic to dog hair. He didn’t know that the labradoodle would become so popular. 
3 The AK-47 
Six months before his death in December 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the assault rifle, wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and asked: “If my rifle killed people, am I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 93 years old, the son of a poor farmer, Christian and Orthodox, responsible for people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?” 
4 Electronic tagging 
The electronic tag was first made in the 1960s to check if ex-prisoners went to school or work, and to reward them for good behaviour. Its inventors, Bob Gable and his brother Kirkland, were later horrified that the tag became a form of control and punishment. “It’s not pleasant,” Kirkland Gable said in 2010, “but I’m not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.” 
5 Pepper spray 
After police sprayed peaceful protesters with pepper spray at a University of California campus in 2011, Kamran Loghman, one of the scientists who helped develop the spray in the 80s said, “I have never seen such an inappropriate use of chemicals.” 
6 The office cubicle 
In the late 60s, a new kind of office was made to give workers privacy and increase how well and how quickly people work by giving more work space. But the cubicle became a way for companies to put employees into smaller spaces. The inventor, Bob Propst, said, in 1997, “the use of cubicles in modern companies is crazy.”",304
"Sweden is the best country for older people, Afghanistan the worst – but the general wealth of a country does not always mean better conditions for the over-60s, according to the first global index on ageing. Sweden’s top ranking – followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada – is predictable, but the Global AgeWatch index provides some surprising results.
The US, the world’s richest country, is only in eighth place, while the UK is 13th. Sri Lanka is 36th, far above Pakistan at 89th, despite similar levels of gross domestic product (GDP). Bolivia and Mauritius score higher than the size of their economies may suggest and, while Brazil and China are relatively high on the index, India and Russia are much lower.
“This survey shows that history counts,” said Mark Gorman, director of HelpAge International. “The top-ranked countries are what you would expect, but Scandinavian countries were not wealthy when they introduced pensions for everyone. The older population in Sri Lanka today is benefiting from good basic education and health care – those countries made certain policy choices. Everybody has scarce resources, but they should not forget that, when they make investment decisions, they should also consider issues of old age.”
The index, developed with the UN Fund for Population and Development, covers 91 countries and 89% of the world’s older people. The survey comes during a major demographic change: by 2050, there are expected to be two billion people aged 60 and over, making up more than a fifth of the world’s population.
Population ageing – when older people form an increasingly large proportion of people – is happening fastest in developing countries. More than two-thirds of older people live in poor countries; by 2050, this proportion is expected to be about four-fifths. The fastest ageing countries – Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam – are in the lower half of the ranking, which suggests that politicians there need to look at the question of ageing if they are to provide enough support to their populations.
There are gender differences among ageing populations, with women generally living longer than men. In 2012, for every 84 men aged 60 and over, there were 100 women. Many women face disadvantages in old age because of lack of paid work (and therefore also savings), less decision-making power in the family and the fact that they are vulnerable to violence.
However, population ageing does not always lead to significantly higher health care spending, according to the report, which highlights the importance of long-term investments in education and health care for older people. Bolivia, ranked 46, despite being one of the poorest countries, has introduced good policies for older people, with a national plan on ageing, free health care and a noncontributory pension for everyone.
Good basic health care introduced decades ago in Chile and Costa Rica has helped the ageing populations of those countries. A good education system is of great benefit later in life – basic literacy is crucial for older people as they deal with the pensions paperwork. In the Philippines, older people have benefited from the educational reforms introduced after independence in 1946, which made elementary and high school education compulsory. The same is true for Armenia, which, like other countries of the former Soviet Union, benefited from a strong education system. South Korea came a surprisingly low 67 on the ageing index, partly because it introduced a pension only recently.
The ageing index is calculated using 13 indicators under four headings: income security, health care, employment and education, and a positive environment. All indicators have equal weight, except for pension income coverage, life expectancy at 60, healthy life expectancy at 60 and psychological well-being. These categories have increased importance because of better data quality and countries were included only if there was enough data.
Professor Sir Richard Jolly, creator of the human development index, said: “This groundbreaking index helps us to better understand the needs and opportunities of older people thanks to its pioneering application of human development methodology. It challenges countries in every part of the world to raise their sights as to what is possible.”",305
"Illegal downloading is a kind of “moral squalor” and theft, as much as reaching in to someone’s pocket and stealing their wallet is theft, says author Philip Pullman. In an article for Index on Censorship, Pullman, who is president of the Society of Authors, makes a robust defence of copyright laws. He is highly critical of internet users who think it is OK to download music or books without paying for them. 
“The technical brilliance is so dazzling that people can’t see the moral squalor of what they’re doing,” he writes. “It is outrageous that anyone can steal an artist’s work and get away with it. It is theft, as surely as reaching into someone’s pocket and taking their wallet is theft.” 
His article comes after music industry leaders met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street, where the issue of web piracy was discussed. 
Pullman, writer of the His Dark Materials trilogy, says authors and musicians work in poverty and obscurity for years to bring their work to the level “that gives delight to their audiences and, as soon as they achieve that, the possibility of making a living from it is taken away from them”. He concludes: “The principle is simple, and unaltered by technology, science or magic: if we want to enjoy the work that someone does, we should pay for it.” 
Pullman is writing in the next issue of the campaign group’s magazine in a dialogue with Cathy Casserly, chief executive of Creative Commons, which offers open content licences “that lets creators take copyright into their own hands”. Casserly argues that there is much wrong with copyright, which was created “in an analogue age”. She writes: “By default, copyright closes the door on countless ways that people can share, build upon and remix each other’s work, possibilities that were unimaginable when those laws were established.” 
She says artists need to think creatively about how they distribute and monetize their work, quoting the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, who said: “My problem is not piracy, it’s obscurity.” 
Index on Censorship agrees. The magazine’s editor, Rachael Jolley, said: “Existing copyright laws don’t work in the digital age and risk criminalizing consumers. We need new models for how artists, writers and musicians earn a living from their work.” 
The debate is a lively one and the scale of illegal downloading vast. Data collected by Ofcom (the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) suggests that, between November 2012 and January 2013 in the UK, 280 million music tracks were digitally pirated, along with 52 million TV shows, 29 million films, 18 million ebooks and 7 million software or games files. 
Ofcom has said 18% of internet users aged over 12 admit to having recently pirated content, and 9% say they fear getting caught. Pullman writes in his article: “The ease and swiftness with which music can be acquired in the form of MP3 downloads is still astonishing to those of us who have been building up our iTunes list for some time.” 
One thing to emerge from the Downing Street meeting was Cameron’s appointment of the Conservative MP Mike Weatherley to be his adviser on the subject. A spokesman for the BPI, the record industry trade body, said: “Mike Weatherley is a strong champion of copyright and the artists and creative producers it’s there to protect. We hope his influence and the prime minister’s endorsement of copyright will be brought to bear on the approach of the UK’s intellectual property office.”",306
"Brazil’s latest funk sensation, Anitta, has won millions of fans by making the favela sound popular, but she is at the centre of a debate about skin colour.
Anti-discrimination campaigners and social commentators say the music industry’s fastest rising star has had to give up her blackness to be a success in the predominantly white middle-class market.
The controversy began with the publication of then-and-now photographs that show a dramatic lightening of Anitta’s skin tone since she signed a deal with Warner.
In the first photo, when she was quite unknown, she looked darker. In the second – a marketing photo after she became famous – she seems lighter. The contrast has restarted discussion about whether you need to have light skin to get ahead in Brazil.
Jarid Arraes, a psychology student and blogger, wrote a post criticizing the discrimination in media and marketing that she felt Anitta’s image change represented. “People refuse to accept that they are racist and they think they live in a multiracial democracy, but the statistics show that is far from the case. White is the image of the rich, the nice, the successful, the good, while people see black as the opposite of all that.”
Born Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood. In her teens, she made a name for herself in Rio de Janeiro’s baile funk scene as a dancer and singer.
She now has an album and a huge hit single, Show das Poderosas, which topped the charts and attracted 52 million YouTube views.
Many people love her because she is a pop idol with a strong message and some catchy tunes. Her marketing team want people to see her as a cultural bridge between the predominantly black and mixed-race shanty towns on Rio’s hillsides and the wealthier and whiter communities below.
about whether she – or her marketing team – have gone too far in changing her. Arraes says that if pop stars have curly hair, they will want to straighten it. If they have a big nose, they will want to make it smaller. It creates a vicious cycle for how you feel about yourself.
This is a sensitive topic in this largely mixed-raced nation. Brazil – one of the last big countries in the world to ban slavery – has the largest population of African descent outside Africa, but race and where your family come from are less important there than colour. There is a clear link between skin tone and inequality.
In Brazilian cities, white workers earn roughly twice as much as those of African descent. Up until 2011, black or mixed-race students also spent two years less at school on average.
Most business and government executives are white, while most menial jobs are done by black and mixed-race workers. If you walk through Ipanema, Gávea or other rich districts, you are far more likely to see black nannies pushing strollers with white children than a white nanny pushing a black child.
Defining colour is complex. People who define themselves as white were in the minority for the first time in the most recent census in 2010. Among the 197 million population, 82 million said they were “pardu” (mixed race), 15 million black, two million Asian and 0.5% indigenous.
Sylvio Ferreira, a psychology lecturer at the Federal University of Pernambuco, believes Anitta has won the hearts of the middle class by taking a rebellious sound and making it more acceptable to everyone.
Maycon de Mattos Batista, a financial analyst who worked with Anitta while she was an intern, said there had been a huge change in Anitta’s image, but not of her colour.
“I don’t believe it’s whitening; it’s more the way they are producing her with makeup, hairstylists and the way she dresses,” he said. “I don’t think that was because of pressure they put on her. She always liked to show off, sing and dance. That was a natural thing for her. I believe that it is because of this naturalness that she is where she is today.”",307
"Sweden is the best country for older people; Afghanistan is the worst – but rich countries are not always better for people over 60 years old, says the first global study on ageing. Sweden’s top ranking – followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada – is not a surprise, but the Global AgeWatch study gives some surprising results. 
The US, the world’s richest country, is only in eighth place, and the UK is in 13th place. Sri Lanka is 36th, far above Pakistan at 89th, although the countries have similar economies. Bolivia and Mauritius are in higher positions than the size of their economies suggests. Brazil and China are quite high, but India and Russia are much lower. 
“This study shows that history is important,” said Mark Gorman, director of HelpAge International. “The top countries are what you would expect, but Scandinavian countries were not rich when they introduced pensions for everyone. Older people in Sri Lanka today have good basic education and health care – those countries decided to help older people. No country has enough money but, when they decide how to spend their money, they should not forget older people.” 
The study includes 91 countries and 89% of the world’s older people. The study comes at a time of big population changes: by 2050, there will probably be two billion people aged 60 and over, which will be more than a fifth of the world’s population. 
Population ageing – when older people are a larger and larger percentage of the population – is happening fastest in developing countries. More than two-thirds of older people live in poor countries; by 2050, this proportion will probably be about four-fifths. The fastest ageing countries – Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam – are in the lower half of the ranking, which suggests that politicians there need to look at the problem of ageing so that they can give enough support to their populations. There are also differences between men and women in ageing populations – women generally live longer than men. In 2012, for every 84 men aged 60 and over, there were 100 women. 
However, population ageing does not always mean more health care spending, according to the report, which shows the importance of long-term investments in education and health care for older people. Bolivia, ranked 46, is one of the poorest countries but it has introduced good policies for older people – a national plan on ageing, free health care and a pension for everyone. 
Chile and Costa Rica introduced good basic health care many years ago and this has helped the ageing populations of those countries. A good education system is very useful later in life – basic literacy is very important for older people when they have to read and complete pensions documents. In the Philippines, the educational reforms introduced after independence in 1946 have helped older people – elementary and high school education became compulsory. The same is true for Armenia, which, like other countries of the ex-Soviet Union, had a strong education system. South Korea is a surprisingly low 67 in the ageing study, partly because it introduced a pension only recently. 
It is clear that countries all over the world should do more to help their ageing populations.",308
"Throughout a momentous day at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral for the families of the 96 people who died so needlessly at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough football ground, one phrase dominated above all else: the truth. These were the words most infamously abused by a headline in The Sun newspaper, above stories which we now know, in extraordinarily shocking detail, were fed by the South Yorkshire Police to deflect their own culpability for the disaster on to the innocent victims. 
Margaret Aspinall, whose son James, then 18, died at what should have been a joyful day out, an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, said the families had been forced to fight, for 23 years, for just that: the truth. Aspinall, Chair of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said that, although the families’ loss would never fade, she was “delighted” at the unequivocal, “profound” apology given for Hillsborough’s savage failings by David Cameron. 
The Hillsborough Independent Panel had inspected 450,000 documents generated by the police, Sheffield Wednesday and all other bodies responsible, and delivered its remarkable 395- page report indicting official failings and vindicating the victims and football supporters. 
Some of what happened to cause the disaster, and the police’s subsequent blame-shifting, has been exposed before. But the depth of what the families call a cover-up, in particular the deliberate police campaign to avoid its own responsibilities and falsely blame the supporters, was still startling. 
In a concerted campaign – led, the panel found, by the Chief Constable, Peter Wright – the South Yorkshire Police put out their story that drunken supporters or those without tickets had caused the disaster. The victims had their blood tested for alcohol levels. This was “an exceptional decision ”, the panel said, for which it found “no rationale ”. When victims had alcohol in their blood, the police then checked to find if they had criminal records. 
The report, substantially authored by Professor Phil Scraton of Queen’s University, Belfast, and unanimously agreed by the panel of eight experts, found there was “no evidence … to verify the serious allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans ”. 
The report found that even as the nightmare began for the families of the victims, Wright was meeting his police federation in a Sheffield restaurant to prepare “a defence” and “a rock- solid story ”. The Secretary of the South Yorkshire Police Federation branch, Constable Paul Middup, told the restaurant meeting before Wright turned up: “The Chief Constable had said the truth could not come from him, but had given the secretary a totally free hand and supported him,” as had many senior officers. 
The meeting was held just four days after the disaster. It was the day that The Sun splashed its headline “The Truth” over lies fed to it by four senior South Yorkshire police officers. Middup was encouraged to continue this police campaign of defaming Liverpool supporters for supposed drunkenness and misbehaviour and “to get the message – togetherness – across to the force ”. 
The panel’s report sustained the allegation made in parliament that the orchestrated changing of junior officers’ statements by senior South Yorkshire police officers amounted to a “black propaganda unit ”. The officers’ statements, presented as official police accounts to the subsequent inquiry, were changed to delete criticism of the police themselves on the day, and, largely, emphasize misbehaviour by supporters. The panel found that 116 of 164 statements were amended “to remove or alter comments unfavourable to South Yorkshire police ”. 
The police had claimed this was done only to remove “conjecture” and “opinion” from the statements, but the panel had no doubt the operation, to craft a case rather than deliver truthful police accounts, went further. “It was done to remove criticism of the police,” Scraton said. 
This propaganda did not convince the original inquiry, which ruled as quickly as August 1989 that the police stories of fan drunkenness and misbehaviour were false, and criticized the police for making the claims. The report revealed that Sheffield Wednesday’s football ground was unsafe in crucial respects, that the Football Association had selected it as the venue for the match without even checking if Hillsborough had a valid safety certificate, which it did not. 
In that landscape of neglect, it was the mismanagement of the crowd by the police, commanded by an inexperienced Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield, that was “the prime cause” of the disaster. The police lost control outside the ground, where 24,000 Liverpool fans had to be funnelled through just 23 turnstiles, so Duckenfield ordered a large exit gate to be opened and a large number of people to be allowed in. His “blunder of the first magnitude ”, according to the inquiry, was the failure to close off the tunnel that led to the already overcrowded central section of the Leppings Lane terrace. 
The inquiry report established this but the police, undaunted, repeated their claims to the subsequent inquest. Its procedure was marked by the coroner’s decision not to take evidence of what happened after 3.15pm on the day of the disaster, thereby excluding an emergency response the panel found to have been chaotic. The finding that 41 of the 96 who died could possibly have been saved had the police and ambulance service done their jobs decently is damning of those bodies and, Aspinall said, difficult for the families to contemplate. 
In the light of the panel’s report, the Attorney General will now consider whether to apply to the High Court for the inquest verdict of accidental death to be quashed and a new inquest held. There may be prosecutions too, after all these years, of Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council, which failed in its duty to oversee the safety of the football ground. Trevor Hicks, the President of the HFSG, both of whose teenage daughters, Sarah and Victoria, died in the crush, said: “The truth is out today. Tomorrow is for justice.”",309
"A recent report says that the wealthiest people in India will become four times richer by 2018 – hundreds of thousands of new entrepreneurs and inheritors will become multimillionaires. In India, at the moment, business people are beginning to be confident again in the world’s biggest democracy. 
Economic growth has been weak in recent years in India. The cost of basic foods has risen and the value of the Indian currency has fallen. The economy has not been good but there are now nearly a sixth more Indians with more than $3.75 million than in 2013, the report says. “Cities are mushrooming, the middle class is growing, there are lots more opportunities and Indian politics have improved a lot in recent months,” according to Murali Balaraman, a co-author of the report. 
The richest people in India have money and houses that are worth a trillion dollars. This is about a fifth of the total wealth in the country. By 2018, that total will probably reach $4 trillion, the report says, and there will be three times more multimillionaires. 
New rich people are buying lots of luxury things. “They really want to show or talk about their wealth and buying luxury things is a nice way to do it,” Balaraman said. Abhay Gupta, who works for the company Luxury Connect, said that more and more people will want to buy luxury things and experiences. “There is a huge class of people who want to copy very wealthy people,” he said. 
Cars are very popular things to buy, the report says. In 2009, wealthy Indians bought Indian SUVs to impress their friends but now they buy foreign cars. Mercedes sold 47% more cars in India in 2013. BMW has launched a new $200,000 model in Delhi. 
But companies sell fewer luxury cars because of India’s terrible transport system. Lamborghini’s Chief Executive, Stephan Winkelmann, said, in 2013, that the traffic and roads in India “are not so suitable” for the $450,000 sports cars. In India, Lamborghini sells two models: the Gallardo and the Aventador, which has a maximum speed of 217 miles per hour. Winkelmann said Lamborghini’s Indian customers were much younger than European customers. In India, a normal buyer is in his 30s. But the most popular investments are still houses – mainly in India – and jewellery. 
India’s super-rich have often surprised people around the world with their very high spending. Mukesh Ambani, India’s wealthiest man, has built the world’s most expensive home in Mumbai, the business capital. The 27-storey tower has helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and more than 600 people who work there. It is worth $1 billion. 
The three-day wedding of the niece of Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon who lives in the UK and has $16 billion, cost $80 million. Hundreds of guests flew to Barcelona for the wedding and party, which was in a museum in the city. 
But people who buy luxury things are becoming more and more difficult to satisfy, the report says. One super-rich person bought nine boxes of Japanese whisky that cost more than over $750 a bottle for a wedding party. The attraction of the imported whisky was that no one who came to the wedding would be able to find the same drink in India. Another super-rich person bought identical pairs of Louis Vuitton bags, then cut up half of them to make clothes that would match her bags. 
Even the traditional Indian wedding is changing. Traditionally, people send presents such as silver plates, dried fruit or sweets with wedding invitations. But, now, rich people prefer to send gifts by top western designers. “These days, it’s Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags,” says Gupta. 
Almost half the new multimillionaires live in small cities and many of them give a lot of money to charity. Co-author Balaraman says that more rich people will not create more social problems because a wide gap in wealth is an “accepted norm” in India. “People know that someone is rich and someone is poor and they carry on with their lives,” he explains.",310
"Emmanuel Limal used online dating sites a lot but he was tired of meeting women who weren’t ready to start a family, or at least wouldn’t admit that they were. The 43-yearold actor, originally from France, had spent 20 years living in Copenhagen and looking for love in the hope of raising children. He tried to find someone online but was dismayed by the results.
“I got frustrated with everyone saying they were really active, always travelling or with a long list of hobbies, but no mention of children,” Limal said. “On some sites, there was an option to click saying: ‘I’d like kids someday,’ but you would read the person’s profile and think: ‘You will never have time!’ If someone’s going to the gym eight times a week and travelling every month, they are not putting a family first.”
Limal has a six-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, but coming from a big family – his father is one of 11 – he has always wanted more children. “I couldn’t seem to meet anyone willing to prioritize starting a family”. He said it was difficult to know when to mention wanting kids when he met someone new. “It’s the ultimate dating taboo,” he said. “Then one day I read a profile from a 38-year-old who said she knew it was ‘really bad to admit’ but she wanted children. And I just thought: ‘You shouldn’t be ashamed of this.’”
Limal borrowed money to pay for the setting up of Babyklar.nu – or ‘baby-ready now’ in English. It works like a normal dating site but everyone is asked to be honest about their wish to start a family soon. “We ask people if they are OK with someone who already has children and if they want another baby,” Limal said. “But we don’t make them say how many children they’d like. That would be a bit too much like grocery shopping online.”
He has had a very positive response to the site. “We had 50 sign-ups an hour when we started in June and we are already hearing from couples who have met through the site and are now together. I’m fully expecting the first Babyklar.nu baby by next summer.” More men have signed up than women (53% to 47%), with comments such as “It’s so lovely to be able to say this out loud” and “I finally dare to be honest about what I want.”
The site has come at the right time for the country of five million people. Danes are not having enough babies, according to a report from the Copenhagen hospital Rigshospitalet, and the current rate of 1.7 children per family is not enough to maintain Denmark’s population. The usual reasons are given – women are leaving it “too late” and couples are living together without getting married and waiting to start families.
“Now, I hope, men and women who want to start a family but haven’t met the right person yet will have another option,” says Limal. He says that this isn’t just about baby farming: “I want this to be about children and love. My goal is to pair up people who really want a family and a partner – and who’ll stay together. I’m a romantic at heart.”
There are plans to launch the site in France and the UK later in 2013, but for now it is the Danes who are benefitting from it. “Danes have no problem having children before marriage so things can move fast and, because the country’s so small, a Jutlander can date a Copenhagener without too much travel,” Limal said. What’s more, Limal has finally found love. “I’ve met a nice woman and she wants a baby too – so we shall see.”",311
"More than one million British workers might be employed on zero-hours contracts, a new poll shows. This suggests that British businesses are using the controversial employment contracts far more than previously thought.
After the results – which come from a poll of more than 1,000 employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) – people began asking the government to launch a full inquiry into the use of the contracts. Recently, many organizations – from retail chains to Buckingham Palace – have been criticized for hiring staff but offering no guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before looking for additional work elsewhere.
The CIPD found that 38% of zero-hours contract workers describe themselves as employed full-time, typically working 30 hours or more a week. One-third of voluntary sector employers use the contracts and one in four public sector organizations.
Peter Cheese, from the CIPD, said: “There does need to be a closer look at what is meant by a zero-hours contract. And this needs to consider both the advantages and disadvantages for businesses and employees.”
Retailer Sports Direct recently became the focus of controversy on zero-hours when it was reported that the company employs around 20,000 of its 23,000 staff on the contracts. The retailer’s use of the contracts was followed by details of many other companies using the contracts, including cinema chain Cineworld and Buckingham Palace, which uses them for its 350 summer workers. Pub group J D Wetherspoon has 24,000 of its staff – 80% of its workforce – on zero-hours contracts.
Vidhya Alakeson, from the Resolution Foundation, added: “If it’s true that there are around one million people on zero-hours contracts, then that would be a substantial portion of the workforce – this could no longer be dismissed as an issue affecting only a tiny minority.”
Unions and poverty campaign groups have accused employers of pressuring staff into signing the contracts so that they can avoid their responsibilities and reduce staff benefits.
Dave Prentis, of the trade union Unison, said: “The vast majority of workers are only on these contracts because they have no choice. They may give flexibility to a few, but the contracts favour the employers and make it hard for workers to complain.”
Workers on zero-hours contracts are often only told how many hours they will work when weekly or monthly rotas are created, but are expected to be on call for extra work at short notice. They should get holiday pay, but they do not get sick pay.
The charity National Trust, which employs many of its seasonal workers on zero-hours contracts, said it offered the same pay and benefits to those workers, pro rata, as full-time staff, but needed some workers to be on more flexible contracts.
“We believe zero-hours contracts are essential in our organization, as we are very weather-dependent,” a spokeswoman said. “It’s important to be able to reorganize staff rotas quickly to respond to the weather and zero-hours contracts allow us to do this.”
Politician Chuka Umunna said the contracts should be the exception to the rule. “While some employees welcome the flexibility of such contracts, for many, zero-hours contracts leave them insecure and unsure of when work will come,” he said.
Some people have argued that the flexibility of zero-hours contracts may have allowed the UK to avoid higher levels of unemployment during the economic crisis.
Figures from the poll suggest that 17% of employers in the private sector use zero-hours contracts, considerably lower than the 34% of organizations in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector.
Industries where employers were most likely to have at least one person on a zero-hours contract were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).",312
"A lonely old man living on the moon is the unusual focus of John Lewis’s 2015 Christmas advert.
There is increasing hype around John Lewis’s seasonal ad, which has come to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season for many. The department store will aim to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for Age UK. It will also encourage staff and customers to join up with their local branch of the charity to care for elderly people who might be alone over the holiday.
The department store has spent £7m on a campaign that ranges from the TV ad to a smartphone game and merchandise, including glow-in-the-dark pyjamas, as well as making areas that look like the surface of the moon in 11 of their stores.
After two years of successful ads with cuddly animals – a bear and hare, then a penguin – this time, the store is tugging at the heartstrings with a story of a young girl, Lily, who spots an old man living in a shack on the moon through her telescope. The determined child tries sending him a letter and firing a note via bow and arrow, before floating him a present of a telescope tied to balloons, which finally allows them to make contact.
The ad’s message is: “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas”, which echoes Age UK’s own campaign: “No one should have no one at Christmas”. Profits from three products – a mug, gift tag and card – will go to the charity.
Rachel Swift, head of marketing at John Lewis, said that people talk about the charity at this time of year and the ad makes you think about someone who lives on your street that might not see anybody.
The campaign features the Oasis track Half the World Away reinterpreted by Norwegian artist Aurora.
The ad cost £1m to make. The moon scenes were shot at the Warner Bros Studios, where the Harry Potter films were made, and the specially built set was created by one of the team behind the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.
As in the last few years, John Lewis has drummed up interest in their most recent ad with a teaser campaign on TV and social media using the hashtag #OnTheMoon. A full moon will fall on Christmas Day 2015 – a complete coincidence, according to Swift.
In 2014, the retailer also spent £7m on a campaign with a realistic animated penguin and a young boy playing together to the tune of John Lennon’s Real Love, sung by British singer-songwriter Tom Odell. It had drummed up 22m views on YouTube by the first week of January – more than the 16.6m views of Sainsbury’s ad with First World War soldiers sharing a bar of chocolate, the UK’s second most popular ad of 2014.
Swift said that, despite the hype, John Lewis had kept the same strategy for the last five years. “It’s all about thoughtful gifting and going the extra mile for someone you love at Christmas,” she said. “We don’t go into it thinking, ‘This is going to be huge,’ just getting something right for the brand at this time of year and something we hope customers really love.”
Sarah Vizard, news editor of trade journal Marketing Week, said John Lewis appeared to have simplified efforts this time, with a lower-key presence in stores despite a growing number of competitors. “There are definitely a lot more brands doing Christmas ads this year but I think a lot of those brands who tried to compete with John Lewis by doing something emotional and creative have gone back to what you can buy in store,” she said. “John Lewis still does the emotional piece the best. This campaign is another great way of communicating that in a way that customers can relate to. I think people will think it is really cute.”",313
"Sir Alex Ferguson will retire as Manchester United manager at the end of the season in the 27th year of a tenure that has made him the most successful manager in British football. While he will become a United director and ambassador, the club will now have to find someone to replace a man who has won 13 English Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, the Cup Winners’ Cup, five FA Cups and four League Cups. 
Regarding his decision, Ferguson said: “The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time. It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so. The quality of this league-winning squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level whilst the structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one. 
“Our training facilities are amongst the finest in global sport and our home, Old Trafford, is rightfully regarded as one of the leading venues in the world. Going forward, I am delighted to take on the roles of both director and ambassador for the club. With these activities, along with my many other interests, I am looking forward to the future. I must pay tribute to my family; their love and support has been essential. My wife, Cathy, has been the key figure throughout my career, providing a bedrock of both stability and encouragement. Words are not enough to express what this has meant to me. 
“As for my players and staff, past and present, I would like to thank them all for a staggering level of professional conduct and dedication that has helped to deliver so many memorable triumphs. Without their contribution, the history of this great club would not be as rich. In my early years, the backing of the board, and Sir Bobby Charlton in particular, gave me the confidence and time to build a football club, rather than just a football team. 
“Over the past decade, the Glazer family have provided me with the platform to manage Manchester United to the best of my ability and 
I have been extremely fortunate to have worked with a talented and trustworthy chief executive in David Gill. I am truly grateful to all of them. To the fans, thank you. The support you have provided over the years has been truly humbling. It has been an honour and an enormous privilege to have had the opportunity to lead your club and I have treasured my time as manager of Manchester United.” 
The sudden nature of Ferguson’s departure is in keeping with how the Scot stated he would leave the post after he mentioned a first retirement during the 2001/2 season before performing a U-turn. It is understood he gathered the players in the first-team changing room shortly after they arrived for training on Wednesday morning. In an emotional speech, he announced he was to step down. He then took his backroom staff aside before finally addressing the rest of the staff in the canteen. 
Joel Glazer, joint owner of Manchester United, said: “Alex has proven time and time again what a fantastic manager he is but he’s also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and dedication to the club have been truly remarkable. I will always cherish the wonderful memories he has given us, like that magical night in Moscow.” 
Avie Glazer, his brother, said: “I am delighted to announce that Alex has agreed to stay with the club as a director. His contributions to Manchester United over the last 27 years have been extraordinary and, like all United fans, I want him to be a part of its future.” 
David Gill, the outgoing chief executive, said: “I’ve had the tremendous pleasure of working very closely with Alex for 16 unforgettable years – through the treble, the double, countless trophy wins and numerous signings. We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it by ensuring the quality of the squad and club structures are in first-class condition. Alex’s vision, energy and ability have built teams – both on and off the pitch – that his successor can count on as among the best and most loyal in world sport. 
“The way he cares for this club, his staff and for the football family in general is something that I admire. It is a side to him that is often hidden from public view but it is something that I have been privileged to witness in the last 16 years. 
What he has done for this club and for the game in general will never be forgotten. It has been the greatest experience of my working life being alongside Alex and a great honour to be able to call him a friend.” 
First-team coach René Meulensteen revealed how Ferguson broke the news to his backroom staff on Wednesday morning. “I found out this morning when I came to the club,” he said. “He called us into his office and told us what decision he had taken. It’s always been on the cards – there’s speculation every season. I think the manager kept his cards close to his chest. I think he felt the time was right now and he made a decision. 
“He’s obviously a man who thinks very, very hard so I’m sure he’s put a lot of thought into making this decision. I wish him well. He’s been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give whoever’s going to come in the same support that he gets.”",314
"More than 100,000 people went onto the streets in Brazil to show their anger at violent police, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup. 
The demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte and Salvador started peacefully, but there were some clashes with police and people set fire to cars and buses. 
People complained that police used rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings. Happening at the start of the football Confederations Cup, the rallies brought together people who are angry with the high costs and poor quality of public services, the large amounts of money spent on international sporting events, low standards of health care, inequality and corruption. 
Most of the demonstrations were peaceful, but several police were hurt, at least one car was burned and windows were broken. 
People were demonstrating for different reasons. “We are here because we hate the government. They do nothing for us,” said Oscar José Santos, 19 years old. 
“I’m an architect but I have been unemployed for six months. There must be something wrong with this country,” said Nadia al Husin. 
At a smaller rally in Brasilia, demonstrators entered the high-security area of the national congress. Several climbed onto the roof. 
In Belo Horizonte, police clashed with protesters who tried to get into a football stadium, where there was a Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Tahiti. 
In Porto Alegre, demonstrators set fire to a bus and, in Curitiba, protesters tried to enter the office of the state governor. There were also rallies in Belem, Salvador and other places. 
In São Paulo, there were large groups of people but the marches were peaceful. 
Most protesters were young and, for many, it was their first experience of such a giant rally. “My generation has never experienced this,” said Thiago Firbida, a student. “Since the dictatorship, Brazilians have never demonstrated like this. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil once again has problems, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting.” 
Brazil’s demonstrations have been given special names – the “vinegar revolution” (because police arrested people for carrying vinegar to stop the effects of tear gas), the “20-cent revolution” (because of the bus price rise) and the Passe Livre (because of the demand for free public transport). 
Some said the protests did not feel Brazilian but they were liberating. “Our politicians need to see the strength we have as one people. Brazilians are usually too nice; they enjoy partying, not protesting, but something is changing,” said Deli Borsar, a 53-year-old yoga teacher. 
After people heard about the costs of new and improved stadiums on the news, the Confederations Cup football tournament has been one of the reasons for the protests. Before Saturday’s match in Brasilia, groups of demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. Frightened Japanese supporters ran from the area holding their children, when they heard shots – perhaps rubber bullets or tear gas. 
Another protest march, near Rio’s Maracana Stadium, also had a heavy police response. 
President Dilma Rousseff “believes peaceful protests are correct and proper for a democracy and that it is natural for young people to demonstrate.” 
But people booed the president at the opening ceremony for the Confederations Cup. She will have serious political problems, both now and in 2014, when Brazil will host the World Cup and also have an election.",315
"Every morning, before the temperatures in India’s capital start to rise, a handful of old friends gather. On the parched grass not far from the India Gate monument at the centre of Delhi, they stretch, breathe and meditate. 
“It is the only healthy way to start the day. Much better than an egg or a sandwich or a cup of tea,” said Arvind Singh at 6.15am as he did his breathing exercises on a bench. 
Singh, a 42-year-old salesman, and his friends are far from alone. All across India, in the overcrowded cities, on whatever green space is left, similar scenes are being played out. 
On 21 June – the new International Day of Yoga – Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, hopes the world will join in. The grass near India Gate will be transformed into the venue for what, it is hoped, will be the biggest single yoga session ever held, with up to 45,000 people running through a 35-minute routine. 
The participants will include 64-year-old Modi, most of his government and, they hope, a range of celebrities. Officials have been sent to round up volunteers from scores of countries to reinforce the international credentials of the ancient Indian practice. 
Getting Indians, and others, stretching has emerged as something of a focus for Modi, who led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a landslide election victory in 2014. In May 2015, schools were directed to make sure students attended yoga events timed to coincide with the big demonstration in Delhi, even though it is being held on a Sunday. 
Officials have already signalled the introduction of compulsory yoga for India’s famously out-of-shape police officers and said that daily yoga lessons would be offered free to three million civil servants and their families. Air India, the national carrier, has also said it will introduce yoga for trainee pilots. More controversially, senior politicians in India have suggested more widespread practice of yoga could bring down soaring levels of sexual violence in the country. 
Modi, an ascetic who is a committed vegetarian and an enthusiastic yoga practitioner himself, suggested an international yoga day when speaking to the United Nations on a visit to New York in 2014. 
“Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body, thought and action, restraint and fulfilment, harmony between man and nature, a holistic approach to health and wellbeing. It is not about exercise but discovering the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature,” Modi said at the time, adding that yoga could help in tackling climate change. 
The discipline is between 3,000 and 6,000 years old and originated somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, possibly among religious ascetics. Its meditative practices, as well as its physical exercises, have long been associated with local religious traditions including Buddhism and Jainism, as well as the Hinduism practised by 80% of Indians. 
Modi, who started his career as an organizer for a hardline Hindu nationalist organization, has been previously criticized for promoting a view of Indian culture that has little place for other traditions. One commentator called the event on 21 June “a mix of cultural nationalism, commercialization and subtle coercion”. 
Novelist Ajaz Ashraf wrote on India’s Scroll website: “Underlying it is the hope of bringing into the BJP tent the modern-day gurus and their teeming followers, who largely constitute the urban middle classes.” 
Others, however, point to a recent US court ruling that said yoga was not inevitably linked to faith. A court in California ruled that: “While the practice of yoga may be religious in some contexts, yoga classes as taught in the [San Diego] district are, as the trial court determined, 'devoid of any religious, mystical or spiritual trappings.'” This came after two parents claimed yoga in schools promoted Hinduism and inhibited Christianity. 
Amish Tripathi, the author of best-selling novels set 4,000 years ago in India that retell stories from Hindu mythology, said characters in his books practise yoga. 
“In ancient India, it was part of daily life, both the physical and the mental aspects. Every culture has gifted something to the world and this is our gift,” Tripathi said. 
Suneel Singh, a guru in south Delhi, agreed that yoga did not belong to any one religion: “Is t’ai chi just Chinese? Is football just English? Same with yoga. It is a complete package for everybody’s body and a cheap way to keep you hale and hearty.”",316
"Galina Zaglumyonova was woken in her flat in central Chelyabinsk by an enormous explosion that blew in the balcony windows and shattered pots containing her houseplants. When she jumped out of bed, she could see a huge vapour trail hanging in the morning sky and hear car alarms from the street below.
“I didn’t understand what was going on,” said Zaglumyonova. “There was a big explosion and then a series of little explosions. My first thought was that it was a plane crash.”
What she had actually witnessed was a ten-tonne meteorite that fell to Earth in a series of fireballs just after sunrise.
Officials said almost 1,200 people had been injured, with more than 40 taken to hospital – most as a result of flying glass shattered by the sonic boom created by the meteorite’s fall. There were no reported deaths.
The meteorite entered the atmosphere travelling at a speed of at least 33,000mph and broke up into pieces between 18 and 32 miles above the ground, according to a statement from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The event caused panic in Chelyabinsk, a city of more than one million people to the south of Russia’s Ural mountains. A video showed the pieces of meteorite glowing more brightly as they approached the moment of impact. The vapour trail was visible for hundreds of miles around, including in neighbouring Kazakhstan.
Tatyana Bets was at work in the reception area of a hospital clinic in the centre of the city when the meteorite hit. “First we noticed the wind, and then the room was filled with a very bright light and we could see a cloud of smoke in the sky,” she said. Then, after a few minutes, the explosions came.
At least three craters were discovered, according to the Ministry of the Interior. One crater was more than six metres wide and another piece of the meteorite broke through the thick ice of a nearby lake.
In Chelyabinsk itself, schools and universities were closed and many other staff told to go home early. About 200 children were among the injured.
A steady stream of lightly injured people, most suffering cuts from flying glass, came into the clinic where Bets works. She said a nearby building for college students was particularly badly affected and many of the students were brought in. “There were a lot of girls in shock. Some were very pale and many of them fainted,” she said.
Early estimates suggested more than 100,000 square metres of glass had been broken and 3,000 buildings hit. The total cost of the damage in the city was being valued at more than one billion roubles (£20m).
The meteorite over Chelyabinsk arrived less than a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 was expected to pass Earth very closely (about 17,510 miles). But experts said the two events were not connected.
There were lots of rumours and conspiracy theories, however, in the first few hours after the incident. Reports on Russian state television and in local media suggested that the meteorite was blown apart by local air defence units at an altitude of more than 15 miles.
The ultra-nationalist leader of Russia’s Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said it was not a meteorite but military action by the United States. “It’s not a meteorite falling – it’s a test of new American weapons,” Zhirinovsky said.
Some were quick to take advantage. Enterprising people were offering pieces of meteorite for sale through internet sites within a few hours of the impact.
President Vladimir Putin and the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, were informed about the incident, and Putin called a meeting with the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry. “It’s proof that not only are economies vulnerable but the whole planet,” Medvedev said at an economic forum in Siberia.",317
"The direct action group UK Uncut plans to make many Starbucks cafés into crèches, refuges and homeless shelters to make people notice that Starbucks does not pay enough tax. 
The House of Commons questioned Starbucks. They asked why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years. 
UK Uncut wants to show a connection between government cuts, especially the cuts that affect women, and multinational businesses who do not pay enough tax. 
Sarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said money for refuges would be cut if companies did not pay the fair amount of tax. The government lost about £32 billion in 2011 because multinational businesses did not pay enough tax. 
Greene said the government could easily collect billions of pounds that could help pay for important services, if they were stricter when they collect taxes. 
UK Uncut turned its attentions to Starbucks after an investigation found that the company had paid only £8.6 million in corporation tax since opening its cafés in the UK in 1998 despite sales worth £3 billion. 
Uncut campaigner Anna Walker said “We’ve chosen to highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So we’re going to focus on changing Starbucks into the services that the government are cutting, for example refuges and crèches. 
“Starbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street in the country so people can take action in their local areas,” she said. 
Starbucks says it pays the correct level of taxes. The group Chief Executive, Howard Schultz, said: “Starbucks has always paid taxes in the UK. 
“Over the last three years alone, our company has paid more than £160 million in various taxes, including national insurance*, VAT and business rates.” 
Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks have avoided nearly £900 million of tax. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said: “I’m not happy with the current situation. We need to make sure we continue to encourage these businesses to invest in our country, but they should pay fair taxes as well.” 
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said: “Tax law can be extremely complex, but Starbucks respects tax laws and accounting rules. 
“Starbucks spends hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and improvements. When you consider the indirect employment created by Starbucks, the company’s economic impact to the UK economy is more than £80 million every year.”",318
"You can no longer legally smoke a cigarette inside a bar in the world’s drinking capital, New Orleans, Louisiana. City after city has banned indoor smoking but that’s different because other cities don’t attract tourist dollars by aggressively advertising a “let the good times roll” attitude, as New Orleans does. An indoor smoking ban here will have consequences as unique as New Orleans’s cultural ecosystem itself. 
As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, New Orleans city government has, since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, begun trying to turn down the volume a bit. With the support of neighbourhood groups, the city has begun policing bars and nightclubs more strictly, while, at the same time, fighting to implement a new “noise ordinance” (read: music ordinance). 
“This is just the wrong time for them to have pursued something like this,” complains bar- owner William Walker, who, for reasons of personal choice, hates the anti-smoking law. “Forcing people outside the bar to smoke is going to exacerbate the tension that’s already there.” 
Many of New Orleans’s best bars and some of its live music spots are in relatively quiet residential neighbourhoods. This neighbourly coexistence is a big part of what makes New Orleans different and charming. Recently, though, this unique social contract has become unacceptable for some people and the fate of New Orleans’s musical personality feels at stake. 
Martha Wood lives beside a loud bar that hosts live music. “The bar was one of the deciding factors in me buying the house so I won’t ever complain about the noise,” says Wood, who also manages a live-music bar which, following a series of noise issues in 2013 (including complaints about the loud smokers outside), became one of New Orleans’s first ever bars legally disallowed from serving drinks to go. “Now, any small infraction could get us shut down,” says Wood. “We recently installed a smoke eater to help with the smoke because we can’t open the doors at night because of the 'noise'.” 
The Maple Leaf club went smoke-free voluntarily in 2014 as did another club where artists had been demanding smoke-free nights. “A lot of the performance venues were already starting to show that consideration to performers so I wish the city would have just let that happen instead of forcing the ban into every corner bar that doesn’t host music,” says Zalia BeVille, manager of the All Ways Lounge, which went smoke-free in 2013 because, she says, “The horn players and the singers, they asked us for it.” 
Luckily, All Ways has an outdoor patio, unlike Lost Love Lounge, whose owner, Geoff Douville, loves the ban – he’d previously felt forced to live with smoke to keep his bar financially viable. “There’s no way I could have banned smoking in my bar without it being a rule throughout the whole city,” says Douville. “People act like I have that choice, as a business owner. But, if I make that rule, they walk down the block to a bar with smoking. So I need it to be uniformed across the board for everybody.” 
Many small business owners also fear smoke- free revenue loss. Smoker Neil Timms owns an English pub and met the smoking ban before, in England. “Back home in Coventry, every pub where I was a regular closed within a year of the smoking ban,” remembers Timms of the UK’s ban, begun in 2007. To avoid the same fate, he’s spending money to build a patio. 
Lost Love’s Douville, though, feels the ban to be a great business opportunity. “The number of people who would enjoy coming out to our bar, with our food, but would never come because they didn’t want to smell like smoke for the next seven days – we’re now an option for all those people.” Nor does Douville worry about noise complaints like Walker does: “No court is gonna label a bar a 'nuisance' after the city has ratified a smoking ban that requires you to go outside!” he says. “I want to see a judge reconcile 'no loitering' with 'no smoking inside'.” 
Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced and pushed the ban, disagrees: “The responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their clientele respectful outside their establishment as well,” she says. “The owners and bartenders need to tell them to go have a smoke but be respectful to their communities. The idea that we can’t have clean air because it will cause noise problems is ridiculous. It can be a win-win. I think it’s about communication and creating partnerships between the communities and the businesses.” 
Cantrell does acknowledge the city’s uniqueness in terms of a smoking ban. “How is New Orleans different from the rest of the country? New Orleans is known as 'the City that Care Forgot',” she says. “New Orleans needs to stand up and say 'We care about our people'. The most vulnerable people who are working in smoky conditions, these citizens are the backbone of our hospitality industry, which drives the economy in the state of Louisiana.” She adds, “New Orleans is also unlike other places because you do have the option of taking your drink outside with you when you go out to smoke.” 
Many worried that the already strained New Orleans Police Department didn’t need any part in policing smokers. So the health department will handle bar warnings and fines. Bar customers are encouraged to “come fill out a form or call 311 and to include date-and-time-stamped photographs documenting illegal smoking”. For this reason alone, Neil Timms says he’ll comply with the ban: “I don’t want someone to be sitting in the corner smoking and someone takes a photo of ’em and gets beaten up.” 
Unworried, Geoff Douville says that he’s used to noise complaints by now so bring on the ban. “Watch: the nosy neighbours who complain about the noise now are gonna be the same ones who wanted the smoking ban to begin with.” In the end, Douville shares Cantrell’s win-win optimism. “Of course they’re gonna complain,” he accepts. “But it doesn’t mean they’re gonna win.”",319
"There is a time in some men’s lives when the days seem darker, death is more certain, and the only thing they want to do is spend all their money on a sportscar. 
Radical changes in lifestyle are normal for the midlife crisis. If the midlife crisis is real, then humans may not be the only animals to get it. 
Now an international team of scientists say they have found evidence that chimpanzees and orangutans are less happy in their middle years. This, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis. 
The study says that the midlife crisis may come from the biology humans share with apes. 
Alex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian that most people agree that our level of well-being reduces in middle age. 
He said that in the study they asked if it’s possible that the midlife crisis is not just something human. 
The team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals. 
The questionnaires included questions about each ape’s mood, the enjoyment they got from being with other apes and people, and their success in doing things. The final question asked if the keepers would like to be the ape for one week. 
More than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, and the third were orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore. 
When the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes decreased in middle age and increased again as the animals became old. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The animals felt the most unhappy, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans. 
“In all three groups we find that chimpanzees and orangutans are most unhappy at an age that is roughly equal to midlife in humans,” Weiss said. 
Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was sceptical about the study. “It’s hard to see anything in an ape’s life that would give a sense of well-being over such a long time.” 
Alexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said “In my opinion, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis.” 
But Weiss believes the study could give us a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. “If we want to find what’s going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans,” he said.",320
"Such is the lot of the modern-day chemist: you wait ages for a new element to turn up and then four come along at once. Discovered by researchers in Japan, Russia and the US, the four new elements are the first to be added to the periodic table since 2011, when elements 114 and 116 were included. The new elements, all spectacularly short-lived and highly radioactive, complete the periodic table’s seventh row and render science textbooks around the world out of date. 
The US-based International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the global organization that governs chemical nomenclature, terminology and measurement, verified the elements on 30 December, 2015 after poring over studies dating back to 2004. The scientists who found them must now come up with formal names to replace the clunky Latin- based placeholders – ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium – which reflect their atomic numbers, 113, 115, 117, and 118. The atomic number is the number of protons found in an element’s atomic nucleus. 
IUPAC announced that a Russian-American team of scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California had produced sufficient evidence to claim the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118. The body awarded credit for the discovery of element 113, which had also been claimed by the Russians and Americans, to a team of scientists from the RIKEN Institute in Japan. The decision means Japan becomes the first Asian country to name an element. Under IUPAC rules, new elements can be named after mythological concepts, minerals, a place or country, or a scientist. 
When elements 114 and 116 were assigned formal names in 2012, scientists chose flerovium and livermorium respectively, after the Flerov Lab at Dubna’s Joint Institute of Research and the Lawrence Livermore Lab in the US, where the elements were discovered. Kosuke Morita, who led the research at RIKEN, said his team now planned to “look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond.” Jan Reedijk, president of the Inorganic Chemistry Division of IUPAC, said: “The chemistry community is eager to see its most cherished table finally being completed down to the seventh row.” 
The Japanese team is believed to be considering three names for ununtrium: japonium, rikenium and nishinarium, after the Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, where the element was found. “They will have been thinking about it for a while already,” said Polly Arnold, professor of chemistry at Edinburgh University. “This is painstaking work. All this trying to understand Mother Nature helps us with our models and with understanding radioactive decay. If we understand it better, hopefully we can do better at dealing with nuclear waste and things that are important in the real world. It also leads to fantastic technological advances in building the kit to make these observations.” 
Along with new names, the scientists must propose two-letter symbols for the elements. When IUPAC has received the researchers’ suggestions, they will be put up for public review for five months. That allows scientists and others to raise any objections. In 1996, the symbol Cp was proposed for copernicium, or element 112, but it was swapped to Cn when scientists complained that Cp referred to another substance. 
To discover the elements, researchers at the three labs slammed lighter nuclei into one another and looked for signature radioactive decays that should come from the new elements. Ununtrium and ununpentium are thought to be metals, while ununseptium could be a metalloid – a material bearing some metallic properties. The fourth element, ununoctium, may be a noble gas, like other group-18 elements, helium, neon and argon. It is hard to know for sure because so few atoms of each element have ever been made. 
Paul Karol, chair of the IUPAC panel that verified the elements, said: “For now, most of the successes will be used by nuclear theorists to improve their understanding of the structure and stability of these very heavy nuclei as experimenters seek the alleged but highly probable 'island of stability' at or near element 120 or perhaps 126. It might be that those elements have long enough lifetimes for their detailed chemistry to be explored. Practical applications of the new elements, if any, are a long way off because of the difficulty in synthesis.”",321
"There comes a time in some men’s lives when the days seem darker, mortality more certain, and the only sensible response is to blow the life savings on a sportscar. 
Radical and often ill-advised changes in lifestyle have become the calling cards of the midlife crisis but, if it is more than a myth, then humans may not be the only animals to experience it. 
Now an international team of scientists claims to have found evidence for a slump in well- being among middle-aged chimpanzees and orangutans. The lull in happiness in the middle years, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis. 
The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has raised eyebrows among some scientists but, according to the authors, the findings suggest that the midlife crisis may have its roots in the biology humans share with our closest evolutionary cousins. 
“There’s a common understanding that there’s a dip in well-being in middle age,” Alex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian. 
“We took a step back and asked whether it’s possible that instead of the midlife crisis being human-specific, and driven only by social factors, it reflects some evolved tendency for middle-aged individuals to have lower well-being,” he said. 
The team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers, carers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals. 
The forms included questions about each ape’s mood, the enjoyment they gained from socializing, and their success at achieving certain goals. The final question asked how carers would feel about being the ape for a week. They scored their answers from one to seven. 
More than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, with the third made up of orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore. 
When the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes fell in middle age and climbed again as the animals moved into old age. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The nadir in the animals’ well-being occurred, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans. 
“In all three groups we find evidence that well-being is lowest in chimpanzees and orangutans at an age that roughly corresponds to midlife in humans,” Weiss said. “On average, well-being scores are lowest when animals are around 30 years old.” 
The team explains that the temporary fall in ape well-being may result from watching depressed apes dying younger, or through age-related changes in the brain that are mirrored in humans. Weiss conceded that, unlike men, apes are not known to pursue radical and often disastrous lifestyle changes in middle age. 
Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was dubious about the findings. “What can produce a sense of well-being or contentedness that varies across the lifespan like this? It’s hard to see anything in an ape’s life that would have that sort of pattern, that they would think about. They’re not particularly good at seeing far ahead into the future; that’s one of the big differences between them and us.” Alexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said the concept of a midlife crisis was shaky even in humans. “In my reading of the literature, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis. If there’s any indication of decline in emotional or subjective well-being it is very small and, in many studies, it’s not there at all.” 
But Weiss believes the findings could point to a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. “If we want to find the answer as to what’s going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans,” he said.",322
"Nelson Mandela, the towering figure of Africa’s struggle for freedom and a hero to millions around the world, has died at the age of 95.
South Africa’s first black president died with his family beside him at home in Johannesburg after years of illness, which had caused him to stop taking part in public life.
The news was announced to the country by the current president, Jacob Zuma. He said Mandela had “departed” around 8.50pm local time and was at peace.
“This is the moment of our deepest sorrow,” Zuma said. “Our nation has lost its greatest son. What made Nelson Mandela great was exactly what made him human. We saw in him what we look for in ourselves.
“Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.”
Zuma announced that Mandela would receive a state funeral and ordered that flags fly at half-mast.
Barack Obama led tributes from world leaders, referring to Mandela by his clan name – Madiba. The US president said: “Through his fierce dignity and strong will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa – and moved all of us.”
UK prime minister David Cameron said: “A great light has gone out in the world” and described Mandela as “a hero of our time”.
FW de Klerk – the South African president who freed Mandela and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993 – said the news was deeply sad for South Africa and the world.
“He lived reconciliation. He was a great unifier,” de Klerk said.
People gathered in the streets of South Africa to celebrate Mandela’s life.
In Soweto, people gathered to sing and dance near the house where he once lived. They sang songs from the anti-apartheid struggle. Some people were wrapped in South African flags and the green, yellow and black colours of Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC).
Mandela’s death sends South Africa deep into mourning and self-reflection, nearly 20 years after he led the country from racial apartheid to democracy for all.
But his passing will also be felt by people around the world who considered Mandela to be one of history’s last great statesmen, comparable with Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
It was his act of forgiveness, after spending 27 years in prison, 18 of them on Robben Island, that will assure his place in history. With South Africa facing possible civil war, Mandela chose reconciliation with the white minority to build a new democracy.
He led the ANC to victory in the country’s first multiracial election in 1994. He then voluntarily stepped down after one term.
Born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga in a small village in the Eastern Cape on 18 July, 1918, Mandela was given his English name, Nelson, by a teacher at his school.
He joined the ANC in 1943 and became a co-founder of its youth league. In 1952, he started South Africa’s first black law firm with his partner, Oliver Tambo.
Mandela was a charming, charismatic figure with a passion for boxing and an eye for women. He once said: “I can’t help it if the ladies notice me. I am not going to protest.”
When the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went underground. After the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 black protesters were shot dead by police, he took the difficult decision to begin an armed struggle. He was arrested and eventually charged with sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government.
Conducting his own defence in the Rivonia trial in 1964, he said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society, in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if necessary, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
He was not given the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison.
Finally, in 1990, FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and Mandela was released from prison, to scenes of great happiness that were seen around the world.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said: “ He restored others’ faith in Africa and Africans.”
Mandela’s 91st birthday was marked by the first annual “Mandela Day” in his honour. Married three times, he had six children, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.",323
"Hundreds of young Cubans are using the first known free, open-access internet service in the communist island nation. It has been made possible by one of Cuba’s most famous artists. A small cultural centre in the capital city, Havana, has suddenly become a rare source of free wi-fi. The internationally known Cuban artist Kcho is providing the service. Perhaps more surprisingly, the service has been approved by the state-owned telecommunications company, Etecsa.
People say the service is very slow, especially when the centre gets crowded. But, in a country where only about 5% of the population has unrestricted access to the internet, a facility that is both free of charge and free of restrictions is being welcomed.
The chance to click on international news websites, communicate with friends and family overseas and use sites like Facebook and Twitter has created a lot of excitement. “I come as often as I can,” said Adonis Ortiz, 20, while video-chatting with his father, who lives in the US and whom he has not seen in nine years.
As diplomatic and trade relations between the US and Cuba improve, American tech giants such as Google and Apple are expected to enter the Cuban market as soon as they are permitted. In the meantime, Cuba has installed a high-speed fibre-optic cable under the sea from Venezuela and internet users have some access to Chinese equipment.
Another estimate, that a quarter of Cubans have access to the internet – still one of the lowest rates in the Western Hemisphere – in fact measures residents who use a restricted domestic intranet that only features certain websites and has limited email.
Kcho has offered the public admission to his own personal internet connection. But this is not the action of a counter-revolutionary or free-market rebel. Kcho was probably chosen as the acceptable face of a government recognizing the inevitable attractions of the internet.
Kcho, who has close ties to the Cuban government, announced that his actions had been approved by the Ministry of Culture. The artist said he wanted to encourage Cubans to familiarize themselves with the internet. “It’s only possible if you are determined and if you absorb the costs,” Kcho told the Associated Press. “It is expensive but the benefit is tremendous. I have something that is great and powerful. I can share it and I am doing so.”
Kcho’s real name is Alexis Leiva Machado. He became famous internationally for his painting, sculpture and drawings after winning the grand prize at a prominent art biennial in South Korea. He is currently preparing for the Havana biennial in May. Born on one of Cuba’s islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery.
In the centre’s courtyard, tech-savvy young people lounge throughout the day or just sit outside when it’s crowded, tapping away on laptops and tablets or glued to their smartphones.
Cuba has some of the lowest connectivity rates on the planet, with dial-up accounts closely restricted and at-home broadband almost unheard of except in the case of foreigners – they pay hundreds of dollars a month for the service in a country where the average salary is between $17 and $20 a month. Kcho is believed to be paying $900 a month to provide the free wi-fi.
Since 2013, Cuban authorities have opened hundreds of internet salons, where an hour online costs $4.50, at speeds far lower than those at Kcho’s studio of around 2mbps. A 2014 report found average internet connectivity speeds to be around 10.5mbps in the US and 23.6mbps in world-leading South Korea. Globally, the average was about 3.9mbps.
With dozens of users at one time, the signal strength of Kcho’s wi-fi is diluted. One user said he sometimes visits in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around, and finds it to be unbelievably fast.",324
"The customer next to you in the queue looks innocent enough. But, instead of a shopping list, you notice she’s carrying handwritten notes about the appearance and cleanliness of the store. She’s been timing the progression of the queue on her phone … and is that a tiny camera lens peeking out from her purse? The odds are you’ve just spotted a mystery shopper. 
There are approximately 50,000 mystery shopping trips carried out every month in the UK, according to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, and, as more and more spending takes place online, the demand for mystery shoppers is growing. “Retailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who are prepared to set foot in a physical store want a service and an experience they can’t get online,” says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers on its books. “Our clients want to measure how well their stores are delivering on that experience.” 
“We assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months,” says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. “Each day, they typically spend up to eight hours visiting five to ten stores, plus another hour or two filing detailed reports on every aspect of their visit.” For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to £155 a day. They are also reimbursed for their petrol and hotel stays, and compensated for their car depreciation (the shoppers can be expected to drive as many as 20,000 miles a year). Meanwhile, video mystery shoppers, who film their visits with a hidden camera planted in a buttonhole or handbag, can earn even more – around £300 a day. 
Shoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. “I’m typically given between £5 and £20 to spend at each store, to assess the service I receive at the till,” says Laura, a 50-year-old mystery shopper from Devon, who has been paid to visit around 7,000 shops since 2001. The purchase usually has to be related to a service or a type of product that the retailer wants her to check. “I’m always given a scenario, such as buying something from a specific department or a new product range, but, within that framework, I can often buy whatever I want – and keep it.” 
Like most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed, taking jobs from ABa and other mystery shopping companies as and when they come up. Her income is typically £30,000 to £40,000 a year and that doesn’t include all the freebies she gets on the job. “With the perks, it’s enough to live on. But I don’t do it because I love shopping. In fact, I hate shopping now. When I’m not working, it pains me to have to go out and buy a pint of milk.” She does, however, find it satisfying to return to a store she has previously mystery shopped and see standards have improved. “I know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? Some of the retailers I shop at win awards for customer service and I think that is down to us mystery shoppers. I feel I’m not just doing a service to my company; I’m doing a service to all shoppers everywhere.” 
Sadly, regular mystery shopping assignments that pay like Laura’s are few and far between. In fact, competition is so fierce, she keeps her job a closely guarded secret and even her friends and family don’t know who she works for (Laura is not her real name). 
It’s estimated that more than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less manage to get regular work each month and this has led to a dramatic reduction in compensation. “Where once you got a fee, reimbursement for your purchase and mileage, you now often just receive a contribution towards a purchase,” say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. “I worked for 40 different mystery shopping companies for almost 20 years but I gave up entirely three years ago because I had bills to pay and very few assignments paid what I considered to be an acceptable rate.” 
Nowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly rely on the promise of freebies to incentivize their workers. “Marketforce shoppers typically get a couple of pounds for a visit as a token gesture for their time and effort,” says Boydell. “At the most, we’ll pay £15 to £25 plus reimbursement for, say, a meal for two or a hotel stay. We don’t directly employ any shoppers so we don’t have to pay them the minimum wage.” 
“I’d go on a cruise for nothing,” says Laura. “But I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I won’t touch those jobs anymore.” There are plenty of people, however, that would. Hannah, a 41-year-old City lawyer, has conducted nearly 500 visits for the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving remuneration or travel expenses. As a prestigious “platinum diner”, she is regularly hand-picked by the Mystery Dining Company to carry out their most exclusive assignments, enjoying £200 meals at Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurants, five-star hospitality at Ascot and overnight stays at boutique hotels. 
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch, even if you work for a mystery dining company. Hannah says she typically spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to specific interactions with staff, whom she always needs to be able to name or “subtly” describe. Trickiest of all, she must memorize all these details while eating her meal – unable, of course, to openly write anything down. 
“There’s lots to remember and sometimes it can detract from the experience. You’re expected to give feedback while it’s fresh, so I’ve had to get up at 5am to write a report before work. It’s a challenging thing to do; you need to be focused, articulate and detail orientated.”",325
"1 Passing clouds
One of the pleasures of flying is seeing clouds close up. Even though they seem to be light, they carry a lot of water – around 500 tonnes in a small cloud. And water is heavier than air. So why don’t clouds fall out of the sky like rain? They do, but they take a very long time. An average cloud would take a year to fall one metre.
2 On cloud nine
Most of us are happy to call clouds “fluffy ones” or “nasty black ones”, but meteorologists identify more than 50 cloud types. These fit into categories given the numbers one to nine. Cloud nine is the vast, tall cumulonimbus, so to be “on cloud nine” means that you are on top of the world.
3 Around the rainbow
There’s no better place to see a rainbow than from a plane. Rainbows are produced when sunlight hits raindrops. We see a bow because the Earth gets in the way, but, from a plane, a rainbow is a complete circle.
4 Mr blue sky
Sunlight is white, containing all the colours of the spectrum, but, as it passes through air, some of the light is scattered when it interacts with the gas molecules. Blue light scatters more than the lowerenergy colours, so the blue looks like it comes from the sky.
5 There’s life out there
Apart from clouds and other planes, we don’t expect to see much directly outside a flying aircraft’s window, but the air is full of bacterial life – as many as 1,800 different types of bacteria have been detected over cities and they can reach twice the cruising height of a plane.
6 Turbulence terror
Turbulence can make even the most experienced flyer turn green. The violent movements of air can cause anything from repeated bumping to sudden, dramatic plunges. The good news for nervous flyers is that no modern airliner has ever been brought down by turbulence. People have been injured and occasionally killed when they are not strapped in, or get hit by falling luggage – but the plane is not going to fall out of the sky.
7 In-flight radiation
When body scanners were introduced at airports, there were radiation scares, but the level produced by the scanners is the same as passengers receive in one minute of flight. The Earth is constantly hit by cosmic rays, natural radiation from space that is stronger at altitude.
8 You can’t cure jet lag
The world is divided into time zones. The result is that long-haul travel results in a difference between local time and your body’s time, causing jet lag. However, its effects can be reduced by keeping food bland for 24 hours before travel, drinking plenty of fluids and living on your destination time from the moment you reach the aircraft.
9 Supersonic 747s
Many of us have travelled faster than sound. There are a number of jet streams in the upper atmosphere, especially on the journey from the US to Europe, where a temperature inversion causes a stream of air to move as fast as 250 miles per hour. If an airliner with an airspeed of 550mph enters a jet stream, the result can be that it flies at 800mph, faster than the speed of sound.
10 Flying through time
Time zones provide an artificial journey through time – but special relativity means that a flight involves actual time travel. However, it’s so minimal that crossing the Atlantic weekly for 40 years would only move you 1/1,000th of a second into the future.
11 Terrible tea
Don’t blame the cabin attendant if your tea isn’t great. Water should be just under 100°C when it is poured on to tea leaves – but that isn’t possible on a plane. It’s impossible to get water beyond 90°C during flight – so choose coffee.
12 I can’t hear my food
Airline food is often said to be bland and tasteless.
Some of the problem may not be poor catering, though. A plane is a noisy place and food loses some of its taste when we are surrounded by loud noises.
13 Needle in a haystack
With modern technology, it seems strange that Malaysian flight MH370 could disappear – but finding a missing aircraft is a needle-in-a-haystack problem. The plane knows where it is but this information is not sent elsewhere in real time. That would be possible. Ships have had tracking since the 1980s – the problem is not technology but that there is no law saying that it is required.
14 Volcanic fallout
Air travel can be cancelled by volcanic activity. Glass-like ash particles melt in the heat of the engine, then solidify on the rotors. Cancelling all flights in an ash cloud may be inconvenient – but the risks of ignoring the ash are clear.
15 The wing myth
For many years, we taught the wrong explanation for the way wings keep planes in the air. In fact, almost all a plane’s lift comes from Newton’s Third Law of Motion. The wing is shaped to push air downwards. As the air is pushed down, the wing gets an equal and opposite push upwards, lifting the plane.",326
"“If we don’t win, it doesn’t mean anything,” said billionaire Donald Trump in South Carolina. He hopes to be the Republican presidential nominee. He is worried he might not win but he shouldn’t be worried because he has been at the top of the opinion polls for four months. “I want to pick my date for the election. I want it next Tuesday,” he told a crowd of 11,000 people. He needs their support to continue until March 2016 so he is chosen as the presidential candidate in November 2016’s general election.
Strangely, recent controversy has only made him more popular.
First, he shocked prisoners of war when he said that he didn’t believe Vietnam veteran John McCain was a hero because he allowed the enemy to capture him. Then, in the first television debate, he was rude to a woman who asked him difficult questions.
Trump has also insulted Mexican immigrants to the US and said that a Black Lives Matter protester who was violently thrown out of a political meeting deserved to be attacked. He seemed to laugh at a New York Times journalist for his disability and said Muslim Americans supported the 9/11 attackers.
Some people still hope that, eventually, even Trump’s supporters will get tired of his attacks on minorities. One poll shows his support among Republicans has reduced by 12 points – although, at 31%, he is still winning.
“He’s not a conservative, he’s not a liberal – he believes in himself,” former presidential rival, Bobby Jindal, told the Guardian.
Trump tells his supporters that the three things that he is most against – immigration reform, freetrade deals and Barack Obama’s national security policy – have become the most important issues of the election.
He believes that every undocumented immigrant in the US should be sent back to their country and he wants to ask Mexico to pay for a border wall – “A real wall. A very tall wall, taller than that ceiling.” This might not sound possible but these ideas have possibly destroyed the campaign hopes of Jeb Bush, who wants immigration reform.
So what can stop Trump? Often, polls this far away from election day can be incorrect because most people have not made up their minds. Among Americans who say they are Republicans, current polls say that he has 25-30% of the vote.
Steve Deace, an Iowa conservative, said that Trump’s behaviour is “both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it creates loyal supporters who love Trump’s personality. On the other hand, it means he cannot change that personality.”
Republican Frank Luntz believes Trump speaks for voters who, for the first time, feel as if they have a mouthpiece and like the fact that they feel like they are heard. He says, “Trump says what they’re thinking and, the more outrageous he is, the more they agree with him. He’s saying what no politician would say and that’s another reason they like him.”
That is certainly the feeling among ordinary supporters who go to his very crowded campaign events.
“I like the way he speaks,” says Sandra Murray of Dubuque, Iowa. “This country is a big mess and he could be the man to help us.”
Other supporters offer a simpler explanation. “He’s not afraid of anybody or anything. That’s cool.”",327
"A new, high-tech computer-assisted autopsy system is becoming more and more popular in European hospitals. Its inventor has said the technique could eventually mean there is no such thing as a ‘perfect murder’.
The method, called ‘Virtopsy’, is now being used at some forensic medical institutes in Europe, after it was pioneered by a group of scientists at the University of Zurich. A traditional autopsy begins by using a knife to make a Y-shaped cut in the chest. But now pathologists are able to examine the dead body in 3-D via computer screens.
Michael Thali, the Director of Zurich’s Institute for Forensic Medicine in Europe, and one of the inventors of Virtopsy, said it had the potential to revolutionize criminal investigations. “Basically there will be no such thing as the perfect murder any more because a virtual autopsy allows you to find every piece of evidence,” he said.
Virtopsies combine the images from high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and surface scans of dead bodies. Combined, the machines are referred to as a ‘Virtobot’. The technique allows you to find injuries that are not seen during a traditional autopsy, as well as air pockets, heart attacks and even cancer.
“The Virtopsy might replace the autopsy one day,” Richard Dirndorfer, one of the pioneers of DNA analysis in criminology, and a developer of Virtopsy, told the German science magazine PM. “I think we’ll see it happen gradually, just like DNA analysis gradually replaced blood group analysis,” he said.
The computer imaging techniques allow doctors to see deep inside dead bodies. The method has already allowed the discovery of injuries that were not picked up during traditional autopsies. At first, the aim is to use the new method to complement the traditional autopsy.
“It will allow forensic scientists to plan their autopsies far more efficiently,” Dominic Wichmann, an internal medicine specialist at Hamburg’s University Hospital, told Spiegel. Criminologists from around the world have been travelling to Switzerland over the past few years to see the new method.
The method had been under development for decades. Then a donation from a rich ophthalmologist allowed the project to take off. The new generation of forensic scientists and pathologists don’t see it as a threat. They see it as something that will complement traditional methods and possibly even one day replace them, though probably not entirely.
“In order to analyze the colour of the blood, the consistencies (of body fluids) or smells, we’ll need to keep on with the traditional cut,” said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, which is using a version of the Virtopsy.
He added that the new method was particularly helpful in re-examining cases where the cause of death was unclear. “It means that third opinions can be gathered, investigations can be re-examined and cases can be reopened,” he said.
Scientists using the new method said that relatives of the dead often don’t like the idea of autopsies because of the disfigurement they cause. They are much happier with the non-invasive method.",328
"Google has made maps of the world’s highest mountains, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even shown us a bit of North Korea. They want to make maps of the whole world, but they have mostly stayed away from the Arctic. 
Now, however, Google is starting a very important update to hundreds of years of polar map making – and it hopes that the map will help give a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. A small Google team has flown to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. They have taken their warmest winter clothes, many laptop computers and an 18kg telescopic camera that they can fix to their backpacks. The team spent four days collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on Baffin Island something that people across the world who live in cities now take for granted. An Inuit mapping expert helped the Google team and curious locals followed them around. The town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google’s popular Street View application in July 2013. 
When Google made maps of other parts of the world it used a special camera on a car roof. In Iqaluit that was not possible, so Google’s map makers walked the town’s snowy roads and trails. Some roads are made of ice and disappear in the short summer months. 
The team also walked along part of a 15km road known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about meeting polar bears. The online map that Google had already created using satellite images was mostly correct, but one road was missing that had been built in the last year. 
One difficulty was how to place on the map many businesses and homes that have mail sent to the local post office and not delivered to their address. Putting the PO box addresses on the map would mean the new map would show all the companies, banks and schools in the same place, around the Canada Post building in the centre of town. 
About 30 Inuit elders, business people and high-school pupils helped Google to correct this problem. They were given a laptop computer and told how to make sure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up correctly on the map. 
The project is more than a novelty. Arif Sayani, the town’s Director of Planning, said that people who are thinking of visiting or moving to the area would be able to use the maps to see the area. It may also help planning decisions in Iqaluit happen more quickly. 
The project leader for Google said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns. But moving people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory is very expensive. So, in the future, Google might send equipment to the area and ask volunteers to complete the map.",329
"Unveiling a car with a top speed of 25mph, two seats and no pedals or steering wheel might not make much of an impression at a motor show. But Google, in the US, sent a minor earthquake through the car and taxi industries as it unveiled the latest version of its driverless car. 
The electrically powered vehicle, which Google has begun testing around its headquarters in Mountain View, California, dispenses with all the normal controls, including foot pedals. Instead, it has a smartphone app that summons it and tells it the destination, and a single STOP button mounted between the two front-facing seats in case the occupants need to override the computer. 
The car, in fact, takes over all the tasks of navigation, steering, acceleration and braking. 
The company is building about 100 prototypes for a two-year test. The company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, told a conference in California that the vehicle was “still in the prototype stage” but that the project was “about changing the world for people who are not well served by transportation today ”. 
He said of the car: “You’re just sitting there; no steering wheel, no pedals. For me, it was very relaxing. About ten seconds after getting in, I forgot I was there. It reminded me of catching a chairlift by yourself – a bit of solitude I found really enjoyable.” 
Google says that the principal aim of the project is to improve safety and that, because the car is constructed with impact-absorbing foam at the front and a plastic windscreen, “it should be far safer than any other car for pedestrians”. 
The cars, which have been built specially by a company (as yet unnamed) in Detroit, will be used to investigate further how best to make driverless vehicles work. Google will run a pilot programme using the cars, which are not yet for sale. 
One challenge is creating high-definition scans of the roads and surroundings before the cars can drive along them because they cannot gather and process enough information in real time. 
So far, there are high-detail maps of about 2,000 miles of California’s roads, but the state has more than 170,000 miles of public roads. 
Google says it is interested in licensing the technology to traditional vehicle manufacturers once it has refined it sufficiently. Members of the team had been working on the project even before joining Google, for more than a decade. 
But the prospect of driverless cars replacing human-driven taxis has been the cause of some alarm. 
“If you get rid of the driver, then they’re unemployed,” said Dennis Conyon, the south- east director for the UK National Taxi Association. “It would have a major impact on the labour force.” 
London has about 22,000 licensed black cabs and Conyon estimates that the total number of people who drive taxis for hire in the UK is about 100,000. 
However, Steve McNamara, general secretary of the 10,500-strong London Taxi Drivers’ Association, said: “You won’t get these driverless cars in London for 20 or 25 years. Maybe, by then, they’ll have a charge point – because there isn’t a single one in London now.” 
Other car makers, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes, are working on driver-assisted vehicles, which, unlike Google’s version, do not dispense with the driver controls. 
But Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project at Google, said that the new prototypes dispensed with the steering wheel and brakes because there was no guarantee that a human occupant would be able to take over in an emergency, and that it was simpler just to have an emergency stop button. 
Urmson said: “The vehicles will be very basic. We want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible. But they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And, that’s an important step towards improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people.” 
So far, the Google versions of the self-driving cars have covered 700,000 miles without an accident caused by the computer. The company points out that thousands of people die each year on the roads and that about 80% of crashes can be ascribed to human error. 
But, they could have some way to go to match Conyon at the National Taxi Association. Aged 79, he has been driving a taxi for 50 years and claims never to have had an accident.",330
"More than a third of all women worldwide – 35.6% – will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner, according to the first comprehensive study of its kind from the World Health Organization (WHO). The report reveals the shocking extent of attacks on women from the men with whom they share their lives, with 30% of women being attacked by partners. It also finds that a large proportion of murders of women – 38% – are carried out by intimate partners. 
“These findings send a powerful message that violence against women is a global health problem of epidemic proportions,” said Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO. “We also see that the world’s health systems can and must do more for women who experience violence.” 
The highest levels of violence against women are in Africa, where nearly half of all women – 45.6% – will suffer physical or sexual violence. In low- and middle-income Europe, the proportion is 27.2%. Yet, wealthier nations are not necessarily always safer for women – a third of women in high-income countries (32.7%) will experience violence at some stage in their lives. Of the women who suffer violence, 42% sustain injuries, which can bring them to the attention of healthcare staff. That, says the report, is often the first opportunity for violence in the home to be detected and for the woman to be offered help. Violence has a profound effect on women’s health. Some arrive at hospital with broken bones, while others suffer pregnancy-related complications and mental illness. 
The two reports from the WHO – one on the prevalence of violence, the other offering guidelines to healthcare staff on helping women – are the work of Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, lead specialist in gender, reproductive rights, sexual health and adolescence at WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, an epidemiologist who specializes in gender, violence and health, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. 
“For the first time, we have compared data from all over the world on the magnitude of partner violence and sexual violence by non-partners and the impact of these sorts of violence on health,” said Garcia-Moreno. These included HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, depression, women turning to alcohol, unwanted pregnancies and low-birthweight babies. 
There were variations in the rates of violence against women in different regions of the world but, said Garcia-Moreno, “in whatever region we looked at, it is unacceptably high”. Even in high-income countries, 23.2% of women will suffer physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in their lives, their data from 81 countries shows. The global figure for women attacked by partners was 30%. 
More sexual assaults and rapes by acquaintances or strangers are reported in high-income countries than elsewhere – the report says that 12.6% of women in wealthy countries will be sexually attacked by a non-partner in their lives, which is higher than the African rate of 11.9%. But, the data on such crimes is not well collected in all regions. 
The authors say that their previous research shows that better-educated women are less likely to suffer violence, as are those who have jobs, although not in all regions. There is a need to tackle social norms, said Watts. “What is society’s attitude concerning the acceptability of certain forms of violence against women?” she asked. “In some societies, it is not OK – but not all.” 
“I think the numbers are a wake-up call for all of us to pay more attention to this issue,” said Garcia-Moreno. Over the past decade, there has been increasing recognition of the problem, she said, but “one has to recognize that it is a complex problem. We don’t have a vaccine or a pill ”. 
The new WHO clinical and policy guidelines recommend training for healthcare staff in recognizing the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault, but they rule out general screening – there is not a case for asking every woman who arrives in a clinic whether she has been subjected to violence. 
“But, if you see a woman coming back several times with undisclosed injuries, you should be asking about domestic violence,” said Garcia-Moreno. “When I was training in medical school, it wasn’t something you learned or knew about. Years later, I was sometimes in a situation where I could tell there was something else going on in the woman I was interviewing, but didn’t have any sense that domestic violence was the issue. Now, I think I would handle the interview very differently.”",331
"The small space is set up to look like a classroom. On its corrugated iron walls are educational charts – letters of the alphabet and a map of Bangladesh.
But, it is hard to concentrate – there is the constant sound of hammering and chemicals in the air that stick in the back of the throat and irritate the eyes. However, the children who learn in this three-square-metre room are the lucky ones. They have escaped working in the factories opposite.
For 14 years, SOHAY, a grassroots nongovernmental organization (NGO) funded by the Global Fund for Children and Comic Relief, has been working in slum areas of Dhaka to get child labourers into school. It focuses on children working in hazardous conditions.
The classroom is one of 23 urban development centres that SOHAY has set up in the capital. The centres prepare children for primary school with classes that help them catch up on their education. Once they are in primary school, the children get help with their homework at the centres.
Alamin, ten, who used to work in a plastic factory, attends one of the centres. His father is a street seller and his mother a part-time domestic worker. They are all happy that he’s now in school and away from hazardous work. His friend Rabi says he wants to forget his past in the factory. “I like school,” he says.
“The urban development centres aim to make the communities more positive about education and change their cultural mindset towards the children,” says SOHAY’s programme manager, Mohammed Abdullah al-Mamun. SOHAY also has sessions for parents and employers to discourage child labour and offers skills training to increase family income.
“Getting working children into formal education is really very difficult,” says Mamun. “They are not like other children. After they leave work, they sometimes find it difficult to make friends and adapt to school. It is also very difficult to make sure they stay in school – lots of these children don’t finish school.”
Seven-year-old Zhorna Akter Sumayya has two older brothers – they are both in work (one at a restaurant, one at a local club). But, after her introduction to education at one of SOHAY’s centres, she now goes to a state primary school. Her family live in the slum and her parents can’t survive without the money their sons earn. Her father works in a rickshaw garage and her mother is a domestic worker, but they wanted their daughter to go to school.
In 2015, SOHAY helped 1,540 children to leave hazardous work and 2,125 more children – those in danger of starting work – into school. About 780 more children are preparing to enter school in 2017. The organization is also helping 635 children who are working in hazardous conditions to know their rights.
The Labour Law of Bangladesh 2006 does not allow children under the age of 14 to work but, according to the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, 4.7 million children under that age are employed and 1.3 million aged five to 17 work in hazardous industries.
“It was difficult to get them into school without any compensation for their time,” says Sadia Nasrin, who runs Sonjag, another Dhaka grassroots NGO. “To solve this problem, Sonjag started working closely with the community in the slums where the children live.”
The organization talked to the community about why it was important for children to go to school. They chose community volunteers who wanted to change children’s lives and formed groups with social workers, community leaders, mothers, young volunteers and the local government.
“The groups play a very important role – they motivate employers to let children leave for two to three hours a day to attend school and to make sure the workplace is safe for the children,” says Nasrin.
When the children have missed starting school at five years old, it is a race against time to prevent them from growing up without an education. “When they are older, it is really very difficult to get them to go to school,” says Mamun. “Children are just passing their time without education and waiting to do hazardous work. We are working to stop child labour.”",332
"Not many exercise classes have a tea break halfway through. But Margaret Allen’s does. After a gentle warm-up and a few quick exercises, the 93-year-old great-grandmother lets her group relax with a cup of tea and a quick rest.
Some of the class of eight look as if they need to rest more than others. Allen herself, wearing a thick shirt, knitted waistcoat, slacks and sensible shoes, is not even sweating. Despite an extremely painful trapped nerve in one leg and a knee in need of replacement, she looks like she could go on for hours.
The general rule is that eating just before doing sport is not a good idea and especially not halfway through the class. But, on the afternoon I visit Allen’s class in Saltburn-by-the-Sea near Middlesbrough, slices of fruitcake are being passed around during the break. The cake has been baked to celebrate Allen’s recent birthday by her 89-year-old sister, Joan.
The ladies have just finished their cake when Allen is up again, leading the group through a lively Scottish tune with lots of toe pointing and leg kicking. Forty-five minutes later, the class is finally over.
Allen, a former volunteer with the charity Red Cross, has been leading classes in the north-east town for 45 years. She wasn’t particularly sporty at school, but she started playing the piano for a keep-fit class during the second world war and eventually took over in her 40s when the previous instructor retired.
At one time, Allen’s class had more than 18 regulars, each paying £1 a time. But, these days, the group is getting smaller – during the tea break, the ladies discuss a funeral that most of them had attended that week for one of the younger members of the group who had just died, aged 68.
Allen is the oldest, followed by her sister. The baby of the group is 60-year-old Jean Cunion, who is a bit embarrassed to admit that she is perhaps the least fit of the group. “I remember, the first time I came, Margaret said, ‘Who’s that huffing and panting?’ and I had to admit it was me.” Ruth Steere, 76, says Allen always knows what’s going on, although her back is always to the class: “She always shouts at us if we go wrong. She’s remarkably good at knowing what we are doing.”
Allen, a keen dancer, has never done any formal training to be a fitness instructor. Instead, she choreographs her own moves based on five tapes from the BBC’s first ever fitness guru, Eileen Fowler. Allen thinks her good health is largely a result of keeping busy, especially since her husband died in 1997. She started writing poetry when she was 80.
“I write poems about everything. I’m a prolific writer. I just can’t stop,” she says, when she phones me a few days after the interview to read out a poem she has written about the joys of exercise. One of the class, 84-year-old former teacher Winnie Robertson, thinks the secret to staying fit is never letting yourself go: “Use it or lose it, that’s what I say.”
Allen still plays the piano and gives speeches. She did a computer course when she was 88. Ageing is no fun, she admits, reading me a few lines from a poem she has written called ‘That Beast Called Age’. She happily remembers a doctor who saw her for the first time a few years ago, who said she couldn’t possibly be more than 78: “I said, ‘Thank you, doctor. You can go now.’”
She also has a no-nonsense attitude to weight gain: “I just think people shouldn’t eat too much. Whenever I hear someone saying, ‘Oh, I can’t lose weight’, I say: ‘Sellotape.’” She mimes taping her mouth shut. “I said this just the other day to a big fat man. Everything in moderation is my motto.”
Earlier in 2013, Allen was watching the news and saw a woman being given the British Empire Medal. “She was saying: ‘I’m 80 and I’m the oldest fitness instructor in the country!’ I was thinking: ‘No, you’re not.’ But I shan’t be writing to Buckingham Palace.”",333
"The Chief Medical Officer for England has compared the problem of antibiotic resistance to the risks of international terrorism. But, in fact, each year the global number of deaths caused by bacterial resistance is far more than the number of deaths caused by terrorist attacks.
The World Health Organization estimates that, just for tuberculosis, multi-drug resistance kills more than 150,000 people each year. Antibiotic resistance is now a real risk: this is now a war.
In the past hundred years, our expectations of life and survival have changed beyond all recognition. At the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy in the UK was around 47 years of age for a man and 50 for a woman, a number heavily affected by the very high rate of infant mortality in those days. Around a third of all deaths were in children under the age of five, mostly because of infectious disease.
However, a child born in Britain today has more than a one in four chance of reaching their 100th birthday. For this we have public health systems, vaccination and antibiotics to thank. It is thanks to this – the prevention and treatment of illnesses caused by microorganisms – that the real war against disease is mainly won.
It is in intensive care, my specialist area, that antibiotic resistant organisms are most common. Here, powerful antibiotics, essential in the treatment of life-threatening illness, are used routinely. These drugs kill ordinary bacteria. But they leave behind strong bacteria that have begun to learn how to survive antibiotic drugs.
As a newly qualified doctor in the late 1990s, I learnt about Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus – the infamous MRSA – a bacterial species resistant to methicillin and all other penicillins. In the fight against it, there were a small number of drugs, like vancomycin and teicoplanin. These were supposed to be our defence, but antibiotic resistant bacteria became more and more common; bacteria with new kinds of resistance became more common too. Drugs we had previously hardly heard of became common. We got used to this; a slow increase in the arms race between us and the bacteria.
But the balance has been slowly moving. In our hospitals and our GP surgeries, we have abused the drugs that gave us such a huge advantage over infectious disease – we use them too often. And some of the worst abuses have happened outside of healthcare, with antibiotics introduced into the food chain, through agriculture and by putting antibacterial drugs into food for farm animals. We thought that antibiotic therapy was an advantage we could enjoy forever. We became complacent that the pharmaceutical industry would continue to stay ahead of the game.
But this is no longer the case. New, more resistant species have been found. The vancomycin that we used to treat MRSA infection no longer worked. Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (VRSA) appeared in our hospitals. And other bacteria were learning resistance. Enterobacteria also became resistant to vancomycin. Today, infections with highly resistant organisms are common and the pharmaceutical industry is not keeping up. Fewer and fewer new antimicrobial drugs are produced. It is becoming more and more difficult to develop new drugs that work against resistant bacteria. For every method of attack the pharmaceutical companies invent, bacteria quickly form a defence. We have tried all of the simple approaches to the problem. Antibiotics have become drugs that are expensive to develop, that are only used in short courses and that quickly become ineffective due to the changes in bacterial resistance. As a result, the pharmaceutical industry’s incentive to create new drugs that can fight them is low.
Antibiotics became common in the 1940s, and almost straight away we saw the first evidence of bacteria resistance. Today, this has become a normal part of medical life. Less than a century after the discovery of penicillin, we are beginning to lose the fight.
Since the first MRSA deaths in healthy children in the US in 1998, the number of deaths from MRSA infection in the US each year has increased to tens of thousands – far more than the number of deaths caused by AIDS. Bacterial resistance in hospitals is everywhere. This is a war different from any other. There needs to be change in the way doctors prescribe antibiotics and fewer antibiotics used in farming and agriculture. And we have to find a way to convince the pharmaceutical companies to develop these less profitable drugs.
If we are going to avoid a return to the pre-antibiotic time with all its excess mortality, we must make some big changes. To lose the advantage we have against microorganisms in the fight for life would be unthinkable.",334
"Junior Smart knows a lot about gangs. He is now 36 and his life can be divided into two phases. When he was a teenager, after his mother died, he joined a south London gang. At the time, it helped fill a big gap in his life.
“They became my new support group,” he says. “At first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious, more and more about making money. They got involved in crime. That is how it was.” After leaving college, he got a full-time job in administration and worked as a DJ. But, on the side, he was making money illegally as part of the gang.
Eventually he was arrested for serious drug crimes and was sent to prison for 12 years. “The first night after I was arrested was the biggest wake-up call of my life,” he says. “I had been living a double life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers’ enemies. I spent a long time sorting myself out.”
Today, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, which aims to turn young criminals and gang members away from crime. Most of the team are ex-criminals like Smart. A few are still in prison but they are allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help people who feel trapped and frightened in the violent criminal gangs of London.
For Smart, the extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he was in prison. “I was touched by the people who kept coming back in,” he says. “I couldn’t believe that nothing was done about it. I was talking to the prisoners and they knew what changes they needed in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the ‘index’ offence.”
“One guy had a £300-a-week cocaine habit, which he paid for through burglary. He told me how he would walk into a house, even when he knew people were there. So although he had a drug addiction, that problem was never solved. The thing that shocked me is that it is simply a revolving door.”
Smart started working as a prison “listener” – a prisoner who helps new arrivals during their first days in prison. Then he developed an idea to run his own scheme when he was out of prison – using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject the revolving door of prison life. He was released early, after five years, and got the opportunity to put his idea into practice.
So what does he think now? Does he believe that things are getting better? He is careful to say positive things about the police; he says much of their work in arresting gang members has been good. But in general he is highly critical of a disjointed government approach that believes that, once the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He agrees with a report that says the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. He says the effect of removing the leader is often to destabilize the entire gang.
“When you arrest the top guy, everyone starts fighting for position. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a family. They are more likely to be violent. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has been nullified because it has not had a long-term effect.”
Can it actually make the streets more dangerous? “It can. People take sides. If one gang knows that an elder [leader] has been arrested, then they suddenly think that gang’s weak ... And so there are gang disputes. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He forms alliances with other gang members, or when he is released he then tries to retake control. That is when violence happens.”
In order to spread risk down to the lowest levels, he says gangs are now recruiting far more in primary schools. The youngest members are called “tinies”. “Over the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be just eight to eleven years old.” The young protect their seniors from risk. They often do the street dealing or even the stabbing, he says.
Smart says that the challenges are immense, particularly with the current economic problems. “I try to help a young person who has been earning £300 a week through illegal methods. It was hard before, to try to convince him. But with unemployment high and cuts to benefits, it makes things more difficult.” However, his project, which has over 1,000 clients, is producing results. Fewer than 20% of those who come in for help reoffend. Smart believes that everyone deserves a second chance.",335
"1 Is this the moment when streaming goes truly mainstream?
According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), there were only 41m subscribers using music streaming services around the world in 2014. It might be the area with the biggest revenue growth for the record business but it is still quite small. Not only that, but many of those subscribers have streaming as part of a mobile phone package so it is uncertain exactly how “active” its users are. Some sources suggest that Apple is aiming to reach 100m subscribers, which, based on a subscription fee of $120 per year, would generate $12bn annually.
To put that in context, the entire global worth of recorded music in 2014 was just under $15bn. Apple is good at making products go mainstream but it’s not that good.
2 Is this the end of downloading?
The iTunes Store arrived in 2003 (2004 in Europe) at a time when piracy was widespread. Apple managed to persuade consumers to pay for downloads and grew a huge business with an estimated 70% market share. Downloads were still 52% of the total digital income in 2014, according to IFPI. Apple holds the lion’s share of this – it is biggest music retailer in the world. But download revenue reached a peak in 2013 in the UK at £283m and fell to £249m in 2014.
The decline in download sales hit the US in 2013 so Apple bought Beats in 2014 for $3bn in order to get into the premium headphone market and, also, to make the transition from music ownership (downloads) to music access (subscription streaming). Apple, and the record industry, cannot afford to get rid of the download market just yet – so streaming and downloading will have to coexist under the Apple brand. The vast majority of people like music but don’t love it enough to pay $120 a year to listen to it. The average spend of a music buyer in the UK in 2014, for example, was just £39.52. Even Apple will find it very difficult to make most of those people triple their annual spend on recorded music.
3 Has Apple Connect made Apple the most artist-friendly service?
Apple have previously tried to be artist-friendly via iTunes. It didn’t work. Apple Connect is something very different, somewhere in the middle of YouTube, Facebook and SoundCloud.
It lets artists post music, videos, photos and more to their profile pages. Apple has generally had strong relations with the music industry and, also, artists themselves and, generally, it has a good reputation among artists. Compare that to Spotify, which has been criticized by artists from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to Taylor Swift. There is the smell of revolution in the air and Apple is making sure it’s on the right side of the battle.
4 Where are the artist exclusives?
This is going to be the interesting bit when the service goes live. Getting exclusives for big albums will be crucial to streaming. Spotify paid a lot of money to get Led Zeppelin and Metallica exclusively. Apple was watching this carefully and making notes. It already has AC/DC and the Beatles’ catalogues for download on iTunes. But can it persuade these two to enter the world of streaming? It also managed to get the surprise Beyoncé album in 2013 before anyone else so it is inevitable that it will want more like that. It was an easy decision for artists to give iTunes the download exclusive on an album because iTunes controls so much of the download market.
But trying to do that in streaming is not the same thing. It is also important to remember that streaming now counts towards the album chart in markets like the UK and US and artists, who still want to succeed in the charts, will not want to limit their audience by limiting themselves to one service.
5 Is this going to kill Spotify?
Some people are already saying that Apple Music will destroy rivals like Spotify. However, it’s not that simple. Apple is entering a market where others have been working and gaining experience for many years. It has a lot of catching up to do. The winner of this battle will not be the company with the best service; it will be the company with the most money. Apple’s competitors have a head start in the market but they are losing huge amounts of money. Spotify, for example, lost €93.1m in 2013. Apple, on the other hand, started 2015 by becoming the most profitable company in corporate history, with $178bn in the bank. If Apple Music loses Apple money, the company will not continue it for long but it will not stop investment without at least trying to beat the competition.",336
"n the top of a hill, above Northumberland’s beautiful Kielder Water lake, a group of people are waiting in a car park next to a strange wooden building. They are here because of the darkness and this is Kielder Observatory, the centre of Britain’s latest industry – astrotourism. The people who are waiting outside are lucky. Many more people apply for a night of stargazing at the observatory but not everyone can come because numbers are strictly limited. 
Inside, the observatory’s founder and lead astronomer, Gary Fildes, speaks to his colleagues and volunteers. The team discusses that they might see the northern lights but Fildes doesn’t think they will. Instead, they decide to use their powerful telescopes to look at Jupiter and Venus and, later, to find stars such as Capella and Betelgeuse. An extra attraction is the appearance of the International Space Station. 
Fildes is a leading figure in the UK’s growing astrotourism industry. The key moment for Northumberland came in 2013 when the entire national park, about 1,500 square kilometres in area, got Dark Sky Park status. It is the only one in England. Dark Sky Parks are rare. Research in 2013 showed that only 5% of the UK population can see more than 31 stars on a clear night. 
The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) gives the status of Dark Sky Park only to places that take big steps to prevent light pollution. The areas must also prove their night skies are very dark. In Northumberland Dark Sky Park, it is so dark that Venus casts a shadow on the Earth. 
Duncan Wise, visitor development officer for the Northumberland National Park, helped to lead the campaign for dark-sky status. “We usually think that 'landscape' is everything up to the horizon,” Wise said. “But what about what’s above the horizon?” Wise and others spent years preparing their application to the IDA – they collected thousands of light readings. 
Because of their hard work, many of the 1.5 million tourists who visit Northumberland each year are now aware of its Dark Sky status. “A lot of people come here to see the sky now,” says a man who works for a local car-hire company. “They come in autumn and winter, when it’s darkest. It’s good for the local hotels because tourists come all year round now.” 
Wise agrees that Northumberland needs to do more to take advantage of its dark skies, which are very rare. He believes the region needs more observatories to make sure that visitors will see what they came for. A new £14-million national landscape discovery centre will have an observatory when it is completed in a couple of years. 
Fildes has big ambitions. He is planning Britain’s first “astrovillage” – it would have the largest public observatory in the world, a 100-seat auditorium, a 100-seat planetarium, and radiomagnetic and solar telescopes. The multimillion-pound project would also have a hotel and attract 100,000 visitors a year – that is four times the number that are currently able to use the observatory. 
However, Northumberland has competition. Galloway Forest Park in Scotland also has Dark Sky Park status. Exmoor in south-west England became Europe’s first International Dark Sky Reserve – one level below Dark Sky Park – in 2011. A number of local businesses there now offer stargazing holidays. The UK is not as good as northern Chile, which has more than ten tourist observatories and some of the clearest skies in the world. 
So, why do people want to look at the night sky? The media have helped. TV programmes about astronomy have attracted a new generation of stargazers. Technology has also made astronomy more popular. Apps such as Stellarium now turn smartphones into pocket-size planetariums. But Fildes believes that, most importantly, people are starting to appreciate the sky. “If you had to build a visitor attraction from the beginning, what could be better than the universe?”",337
"A top-secret document shows that the US National Security Agency (NSA) now has direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other major US internet companies. The NSA access is part of a program called PRISM, which allows the government to collect search history, the content of emails, file transfers, live chats and more, the document says. 
The document says that the NSA can now get information “directly from the servers” of major US internet companies. It says the companies help them run the program, but all the companies that commented said they have not heard of the program. 
Google said: “Google cares very much about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government legally and, when the government asks us for data, we think about it carefully first. Sometimes, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.” 
Several senior tech executives said that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar program. They said they would never be involved in a program like that. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one executive said. An Apple spokesman said he has “never heard” of PRISM. 
Changes to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012, made it possible for the NSA to access the information. The program allows a large amount of in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows the NSA to watch customers of companies who live outside the US or Americans who communicate with people outside the US. 
The document says that some of the world’s largest internet companies have been part of the information-sharing program sinceits introduction in 2007. Microsoft – whose advertising slogan is “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. 
Under US law, if the government asks for users’ communications, companies must give that information, but the PRISM program allows the government direct access to the companies’ servers. 
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was changed in December 2012. At the time, several US senators were worried that the law might increase the amount of surveillance and they could see problems with some of the safeguards in the law. When the change in the law was first introduced, its supporters said that one safeguard would be that the NSA could not get electronic communications without the permission of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program makes that permission unnecessary, because it allows the government to take directly from the companies’ servers communications that include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, file transfers and social networking details. 
A senior administration official said: “Section 702 of the FISA does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person who is within the United States. It targets only non- US persons outside the US. 
“Information that is collected under this program is some of the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and we use it to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.”",338
"The last time she performed, we did not have mobile phones. Now, 35 years later, as she performs again, singer Kate Bush sees a very different world. 
These days, most concerts are now lit up with phones and tablets, but Bush does not want her fans to watch her shows through a screen. 
In August, before her concerts at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, Bush asked her fans to put down their mobile phones at her gigs. 
Bush wrote on her website: “I have a request for all of you who are coming to the shows. We have chosen a theatre, not a large venue or stadium. Please do not take photos or videos during the shows. 
“I very much want to have contact with you as an audience, not with iPhones, iPads or cameras.” 
Bush is not the first singer or musician to say she doesn’t like phones at concerts. Roger Daltrey from The Who recently said it was “weird” that people looked at their screen and not the artist on stage. 
He said: “I feel sorry for them, I really feel sorry for them. Looking at life through a screen and not being in the moment totally – if you’re doing that, you’re 50% there, right? It’s weird.” 
In 2013, Beyoncé told a fan, “You can’t even sing because you’re too busy filming. Put that damn camera down!” 
Recently, Dutch football fans at PSV Eindhoven protested against the introduction of wi-fi in their stadium. They held up banners that said “No wi-fi. Support the team,” and “You can sit at home.” Manchester United have also told fans to leave their “large electronic devices” at home. 
Singer Jarvis Cocker said, “It seems stupid to have something happening in front of you and look at it on a screen that’s smaller than a cigarette packet.” 
Even in the world of classical music, one of the world’s top pianists surprised the audience in June 2013 when he left the stage because a fan was filming his performance on a smartphone. Krystian Zimerman returned moments later and said: “The destruction of music because of YouTube is enormous.” 
But Sam Watt says that filming at concerts makes the experience even better. He works for Vyclone, a phone app that puts together many videos uploaded by fans to create one long video of a show. 
“Fans filming is now part of the concert experience – that is a just a fact. We take the videos that people are filming at concerts and mix them together with everybody else who was filming. The result is a really fantastic video,” he said. 
“We think that filming at concerts adds to the experience, and I think that, if Kate Bush came round for a cup of tea, we could have a really interesting discussion about this,” he added. “People are going to film and they want those memories – you’ve got to accept it.”",339
"Opposition to Western Australia’s shark cull has intensified as thousands of people took to beaches across the continent to call on the state’s premier to end the policy, and RSPCA Australia and Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson spoke out against it. The controversial catching and killing of sharks longer than three metres began after what the state government called an “unprecedented” number of shark attacks on Western Australia’s coast, which saw a 35-year-old surfer killed in November 2013. He was the sixth person to die from a shark attack in two years. 
However, according to the Shark Attack File, Australia as a whole has averaged one shark- related fatality a year for the last 50 years. Kate Faehrmann, a board member at the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said from a protest in Perth: “We’ve been saying all along that this policy won’t work. Drumlines, used to catch the sharks, are indiscriminate killers. They’ll kill sharks whether they’re one, two, three metres or more, as well as dolphins, turtles and other things. That’s why the community doesn’t want it.” 
Thousands of people protested on Perth’s Cottesloe Beach and Sydney’s Manly Beach, as well as hundreds at Glenelg, in south- west Adelaide, and at beaches in Victoria and Queensland. Faehrmann said the protests had shown Australians wanted sharks protected: “What’s amazing is so many people in Australia love sharks. This has demonstrated something about the national psyche, that, despite Jaws, despite all the fear, people are coming out in their thousands across the country to say, 'That’s their ocean. We respect them, we love them and we don’t want them killed.'” Anthony Joyce, a surfer who once had his foot caught in a shark’s mouth, said: “The number of sharks they are going to kill is going to make no difference in the scheme of things.” 
The state government has refused to provide a running tally of sharks killed, though there have been reports of sharks smaller than three metres being released after getting caught on drumlines, floating drums anchored to the sea bed with bait hanging on hooks beneath them. Conservationists argue there is no evidence the cull will reduce the number of shark attacks on humans, as no previous cull has solely used drumlines. Researchers at the University of Western Australia say the recent spate of shark attacks in the state may have more to do with the state having the fastest-growing population in Australia, rather than a rising number of sharks. 
Richard Peirce, chairman of the UK-based conservation charity, the Shark Trust, said that the cull would be ineffective and potentially lure more predators towards the coast. “The activity in Western Australia is compounding the human tragedy of shark attacks. It is very sad that a government that could be seen to take positive initiatives with regards to shark – human interactions by trialling alternatives to indiscriminate killing has ignored the best advice and opted for an approach that is ineffective and counterproductive,” he said. “The indiscriminate nature of drumlines is often overlooked – even if monitored through the day, leaving the lines in overnight has the potential to attract other predators into the area, attracted by those sharks and other species hooked and injured.” 
Globally, in 2012, there were 80 unprovoked attacks by sharks, seven of which proved fatal, compared to nearly 100m sharks killed by humans each year. RSPCA Australia released a statement saying it believes the cull is unjustified. “There is no evidence that the increase in attacks is a result of increasing shark numbers. Rather, it is consistent with a changing population and human behaviour; that is, there are greater numbers of people in the water,” it said. 
Richard Branson told Fairfax Radio the policy was backfiring. “I’m sure one of the reasons Western Australia Premier, Colin Barnett, did it was because he was thinking it would encourage tourism. It’s going to do quite the reverse, I think. You’re advertising a problem that doesn’t exist in a major way and you’re deterring people from wanting to come to Perth and your beautiful countryside around it. All you’re going to achieve, I think, is to worry people unnecessarily.”",340
"The vast fortunes made by the world’s richest 100 billionaires are driving up inequality and hindering the world’s ability to tackle poverty, according to Oxfam. 
The charity said the accumulation of wealth and income on an unprecedented scale, often at the expense of secure jobs and decent wages for the poorest, undermined the ability of people who survive on aid or low wages to improve their situation and escape poverty. 
Oxfam said the world’s poorest could be lifted out of poverty several times over if the richest 100 billionaires would give away the money they made in 2012. 
Without pointing a finger at individuals, the charity argued that the $240bn net income amassed in 2012 by the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to make extreme poverty history four times over. 
It is rare for charities to attack the wealthy, who are usually regarded as a source of funding. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among a group of 40 US billionaires who have pledged much of their wealth to aid projects, but there is little detail about the level of their annual donations. Their actions have also not been matched by Russian, Middle Eastern or Chinese billionaires. 
In the report, The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All , published just before the World Economic Forum in Davos, the charity calls on world leaders to curb income extremes and commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels. 
The report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years, with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process. 
Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s Chief Executive, said extreme wealth was “economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive”. 
She said studies show that countries suffer low levels of investment and growth as workers are forced to survive on a smaller share of total incomes. 
She said: “We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true.” 
The report said the issue affected all parts of the world. “In the UK, inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens [the nineteenth-century novelist]. In China, the top 10% now take home nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth and significantly more unequal than at the end of apartheid.” 
In the US, the share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20%, the report says. For the top 0.01% the share of national income is above levels last seen in the 1920s. 
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have argued that extreme income inequality undermines growth and both organizations have attempted to tie their loans to programmes that limit the growth of inequality. 
Members of the richest 1% are estimated to use as much as 10,000 times more carbon than the average US citizen. 
Oxfam said world leaders should learn from countries such as Brazil, which has grown rapidly while reducing inequality. 
Stocking said: “We need a global new deal to reverse decades of increasing inequality. As a first step, world leaders should formally commit themselves to reducing inequality to the levels seen in 1990.” 
She said closing tax havens, which the Tax Justice Network says hold as much as $31 trillion, or as much as a third of all global wealth, could yield $189bn in additional tax revenues.",341
"Barack Obama has urged young people to reject pessimism and interact with people who have different beliefs if they want to make changes in the world.
On the final day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a meeting in London: “I’m here to ask you to reject the idea that there are forces we can’t control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.”
“You’ve never had better tools to make a difference,” he told the students at the question-and-answer session. “Reject pessimism, cynicism and know that progress is possible. Progress is not inevitable; it requires struggle, discipline and faith.”
But Obama said he knew that young people had many challenges. He said it was “a time of breathtaking change, from 9/11, 7/7 … and during an age of information and Twitter where there’s a steady stream of bad news.”
The audience cheered as the president was introduced. He spoke about his policies, including healthcare and education.
He urged the audience to interact with people with different political beliefs: “Seek out people who don’t agree with you and it will also help you to compromise.”
Obama said he was proud of his healthcare reforms, which received huge cheers from the audience, and said of the US response to the 2008 financial crisis: “Saving the world from great depression – that was quite good.”
He also listed diplomatic deals with Iran and the response to the Ebola crisis as highlights of his presidency. “I’m proud; I think I’ve been true to myself.”
Questioned on the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), he said: “The answer to globalization is not to pull up the drawbridge,” though he said it is crucial to pay attention to workers’ rights.
Before Obama arrived, Tanya Williams, a community officer, told the Guardian: “I love Michelle but I like Barack Obama and it’s exciting to have the chance to hear someone who has changed so much and encouraged so many people who didn’t vote before to vote for the first time.”
Oliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: “Everyone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say. I’m going to ask him about electoral rights.”
Obama ended the session by taking a question from a young Sikh Londoner, who asked about the problem of racial profiling at airports and being mistaken for a Muslim.
Obama said that, although there were people with “crazy ideology”, living together peacefully was important. “I visited a mosque a few months ago and said our greatest allies are American Muslims who are integrated,” he said.
Furqan Naeem, a campaigner from Manchester, said: “I recently visited the United States and I saw some really important work the president did – the work celebrated America’s diversity and brought communities together.”
Kenny Imafidon, the managing director of a youth organization, said afterwards: “What I will remember is what he said about meeting with people who have different politics from you and having to make compromises. Also, the thing he said about being a good leader and finding great talent.”
Later, Obama met Jeremy Corbyn, who said they had an “excellent” 90-minute discussion.
When he was asked if they talked about the debate on Britain’s membership of the EU, Corbyn said they discussed it briefly.
After the meeting, Obama joined David Cameron to play golf. Obama ended the day at a dinner with the British prime minister and the US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, before travelling to Germany.",342
"As soon as the children at one primary school in Stirling, Scotland, hear the words “daily mile”, they put down their pencils and leave the classroom to start running around the school field. For three-and-a-half years, all the pupils at St Ninian’s Primary School have walked or run a mile each day. They do it at different times during the day and, despite the rise in childhood obesity across the UK, none of the children at the school are overweight.
The daily mile has done so much to improve these children’s fitness, behaviour and concentration in lessons that many other British schools are doing the same. They are getting pupils to get up from their desks and take 15 minutes to walk or run round the school or local park.
Elaine Wyllie, headteacher of St Ninian’s, said: “I get at least two emails a day from other schools and local authorities asking how we do it. The thought of children across the country running every day because of something we’ve done is phenomenal.”
One in ten children are obese when they start school at the age of four or five, according to the Health & Social Care Information Centre, and, in the summer of 2015, a study found that schoolchildren in England are the least fit they have ever been. Primary schools therefore accept the benefits of the daily mile. It has been introduced in schools in various parts of the UK and other schools are planning to launch the initiative during the 2015-16 academic year. In Stirling alone, 30 schools have already started or will soon start the daily mile.
“It’s a common-sense approach to children’s fitness, which is free and easy. The most important thing is that the children really enjoy it; otherwise, you couldn’t sustain it. They come back inside bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, how children used to look,” said Wyllie. At St Ninian’s, teachers take their pupils out of lessons to a specially built circuit around the school’s playing field for their daily mile whenever it best suits that day’s timetable. Only ice or very heavy rain stop them.
The extent of the benefits isn’t known yet but researchers from Stirling University have launched a comparative study to look for evidence of the physical, cognitive and emotional benefits of the daily mile. Dr Colin Moran, who is leading the study, said: “The children don’t seem to have problems with obesity; they seem happier and staff say they settle into lessons faster so we designed a study that would test all of these things.” St Ninian’s pupils will be compared with children from another school in Stirling that hasn’t yet started the scheme.
Kevin Clelland, a primary school teacher from Leeds, visited St Ninian’s and, then, convinced his colleagues it was a great idea. He said: “It’s such a simple thing to do but seems to have such an amazing impact. We’re really committed to improving the fitness of our pupils.” His school is now building a track.
Active Cheshire, a sports and fitness organization in Cheshire, is taking a group of senior people from the local authority up to Scotland to assess the results of the daily mile. The hope is to introduce it across the 450 schools in their region if a pilot programme is successful.
Paralympian, Tanni Grey-Thompson, chair of ukactive, a health organization for physical activity, said: “All children need to achieve 60 active minutes every day, whether in a lesson, on the walk to school or in the playground. It’s fantastic to see initiatives like the daily mile, showing real leadership from the education sector to improve children’s fitness levels and their cognitive behaviour, and make a real difference to schools, teachers, parents and young people’s lives. We know sitting still kills; not sitting still helps children build skills that will stay with them for life.”
The Scottish government also supports the initiative. A spokesperson said: “Learning in PE is enhanced by initiatives like the daily mile, which can encourage and support parents in fostering healthy habits with their children from a young age. We are pleased to see so many Scottish schools are taking part or planning to do so.”",343
"A girl born today in the UK can expect to live nearly to the age of 82 on average and her brother will live to 78. They would have a longer life in Andorra (85 and 79 respectively) but will live a little longer than in the US (81 and 76). If they lived in the Central African Republic, they would die in middle age (49 and 44). However, almost everywhere in the world, with the exception of countries such as Lesotho, which have experienced HIV and violence, lifespans are lengthening. And the best news is that small children are much less likely to die than they were forty years ago. There has been a drop in deaths in under-fives of nearly 60%, from 16.4 million in 1970 to 6.8 million in 2010.
This last statistic provides justification for the enormous project that the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle has led over the past five years, involving nearly 500 researchers, to assess the global effects of disease. Knowing how many children die and from what cause allows the world to focus its efforts and resources on keeping them alive. There are many lessons to be learnt from the enormous database they have put together, which will help global organizations and individual governments to better care for us all.
The project was a big task and is not without controversy. IHME has been very radical in some of its methods. Where they did not have death registries or medical records, for instance, they have taken evidence from verbal autopsies – deciding the cause of death by an interview with the family. The most surprising result has been the malaria figure. IHME said 1.2 million die of the disease every year – twice as many as previously thought. The big increase is in adult deaths. It is commonly believed that malaria kills mostly children under five.
“The way I was taught as a doctor and everybody else is taught is that, in malarial areas, you become semi-immune as an adult,” said Dr Christopher Murray, IHME Director. “We originally went with that opinion but there has been a change as we have become more empirical, following the data. African doctors write on hospital records that adults are dying of malaria a lot.” But, he adds, their fever could be something else. The findings have led to further studies.
Although Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization, gave the IHME study a warm official welcome, some of the staff are cautious. “We need to be very careful in assessing the validity [of the figures],” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist. “We need to wait to be persuaded by evidence.” His colleague Dr Tiers Boerma, Director of one WHO department, added: “People should understand that some of the numbers are very different and the WHO can’t go with any academic publication that states a different number.” However, said Mathers, “IHME has pushed the envelope with some of these analyses and that is stimulating”. One of the main themes, said Murray, was “incredibly rapid change in the main causes of death and the speed of that change is a lot faster than we expected it to be”.
Reduced fertility and longer life have led to a rise in the average age of the world’s population in a decade from 26 years old to almost 30. The change has been dramatic in Latin America, for instance, where countries like Brazil and Paraguay had life expectancy of below 30 in 1970 and almost 64 in 2010. That is a 35-year increase in the average age of death over four decades. “In a place like Brazil, the speed of change is so fast that most institutions are not able to deal with it,” Murray said.
A second factor is the move outside Africa from communicable diseases and the common causes of mother and baby deaths to what are sometimes termed “lifestyle” diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer – some of which have significant genetic triggers. That change has been particularly marked in Latin America, the Middle East and south-east and even south Asia, he said.
The third big finding was, Murray said, “a surprise to us”. There is a lot of disability and it has a big effect on people who are living longer but not healthier lives. “The main causes of disability are different from the ones that kill you,” he said. They were mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, and disorders, such as arthritis and lower back pain, anaemia, sight and hearing loss and skin disease. In addition, there was substance abuse. “The numbers for these are not going down over time,” he said. “We are making no progress in reducing these conditions.”",344
"A fifth of young adults in the UK are staying in the family home until they are at least 26 and a fifth are not paying any rent. A recent survey found that the percentage of adults who live at home was different in different parts of the country – it was less than 9% in the East Midlands and more than double that in London, where house prices and rents are highest. Many young people pay their parents some money to live at home but 20% pay nothing at all. 
Young adults are suffering from low wages and high rents. The cost of renting is too much so young people who want to buy a house can’t save enough to get on the property ladder. Recent research showed half of tenants were unable to save any money for a deposit and a quarter could only save £100 or less each month. Mortgages are cheaper than ever before but people who have large deposits still get the best mortgages. 
As a result of this, more and more young adults are returning to the family home to save money. And, parents who cannot afford to give their children money for a deposit seem happy to let them live at home again. The survey found that 28% of adults live at home because they are trying to save for a deposit. But it also found that 30% are not saving any money. 
Michael Day, 30, who lives with his parents in Bristol, says it’s difficult to save for a mortgage deposit when rents are so high. Rents for a one- bedroom home in the city are between £500 and £800 a month. Buying a similar flat would cost about £130,000. “I don’t really want to move out to rent because it’s more than a mortgage but you need such a big deposit to get a mortgage.” 
Sue Green, who works for Saga, a business that sells insurance to people over 50, said most parents did not think their children would live with them in their 20s or 30s. “Most will be more than happy to have them in the family home rent-free because it might help their kids get on the property ladder sooner,” she said. “Children who don’t pay rent may pay for other things like groceries or they may do odd jobs around the home.” 
Angus Hanton, of the Intergenerational Foundation, said older people caused the housing crisis and we should not blame younger people for staying at home. “The under-30s earn, on average, 20% less since the 2008 downturn. Rents and car insurance have never been so high,” he said, “and many jobs – zero-hour and short-term contracts – turn younger workers into second-class citizens.” 
Jenna Gavin, 29, lives in the family home where she grew up. She works as a medical receptionist nearby so she wants to stay in the area. But renting a one-bedroom flat would cost more than £420 a month not including bills, which would use a lot of her earnings. “I don’t want to rent – I don’t want to spend all that money and have nothing at the end,” she said. “I’ve thought about buying and seen mortgage advisers but I just can’t borrow enough to get on the property ladder.” 
She is trying to save for a deposit. “It’s difficult to save enough money – even a 5% deposit is such a lot of money,” she said. Her parents are happy not to ask her to pay rent. “They want me to try to save and I do other things – I buy food and I do things around the house.” She gets on with her parents and has the same room that she had when she was 14 but she said she had always imagined she would have her own home before she was 30.",345
"The huge fortunes made by the world’s richest 100 billionaires are increasing inequality and hindering the world’s ability to tackle poverty, according to Oxfam.
The charity said the accumulation of wealth and income often led to a reduction in secure jobs and decent wages for the poorest people. This made it more difficult for people who survive on aid or low wages to improve their situation and escape poverty.
Oxfam said the world’s poorest could be taken out of poverty several times over if the richest 100 billionaires would give away the money they made in 2012.
Without naming anyone, the charity argued that the $240bn made in 2012 by the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to end extreme poverty four times over.
It is unusual for charities to attack the wealthy, because they are usually seen as a source of money. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are among a group of 40 US billionaires who have said they will give much of their wealth to aid projects, but there is little detail about the level of their annual donations. Russian, Middle Eastern or Chinese billionaires have not promised to do the same.
In the report, The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All, published just before the World Economic Forum in Davos, the charity asks world leaders to commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels.
The report found that the richest 1% had increased their incomes by 60% in the past 20 years. And the financial crisis has sped up, not slowed, the process.
Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s Chief Executive, said studies show that countries suffer low levels of investment and growth as workers are forced to survive on a smaller share of total incomes.
She said: “We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will benefit the many – too often the reverse is true.”
The report said the issue affected all parts of the world. “In the UK, inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the nineteenth century. In China, the top 10% now earn nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth.”
In the US, the share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20%, the report says.
Members of the richest 1% are estimated to cause as much as 10,000 times more pollution than the average US citizen.
Oxfam said world leaders should learn from countries such as Brazil, which has grown rapidly while reducing inequality.
Stocking said: “We need to reverse decades of increasing inequality. As a first step, world leaders should formally agree to reduce inequality to the levels seen in 1990.”
She said closing tax havens, which hold as much as $31 trillion, or as much as a third of all global wealth, could collect $189bn in additional taxes.",346
"lay Cockrell is sitting in his office at Columbus Circle, across the street from 1 Central Park West, which houses Trump International Hotel and Tower. In front of the tower is Central Park, where Cockrell holds his popular walk and talk therapy sessions. 
Cockrell, a former Wall Street worker turned therapist, spends large parts of his days walking through Central Park or the Battery Park in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street, as a confidant and counsellor to some of New York’s wealthiest people. 
“I shifted towards it naturally,” he said of his becoming an expert in wealth therapy. “Many of the extremely wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are. A lot of therapists do not give enough weight to their issues.” 
So, what issues are America’s 1% struggling with? “There is guilt over being rich in the first place,” he said. “There is the feeling that they have to hide the fact that they are rich. And, then, there is the isolation – being in the 1%, it turns out, can be lonely.” It seems F Scott Fitzgerald was right: the very rich “are different from you and me”. 
Counsellors argue things have become worse since the financial crisis and the debate over income inequality that has been spurred on by movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 fair wage campaign. 
“The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one and had some important things to say about income inequality but it singled out the 1% and painted them globally as something negative,” said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder of the Wealth Legacy Group. The media, she said, is partly to blame for making the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”. 
“Sometimes, I am shocked by things that people say. You would never refer to another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to refer to wealth holders.” 
“It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. People’s reactions to you can be scary,” said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. “We are all taught not to talk about money. It’s not polite to talk about money. Ironically, it’s harder to talk about having money than it is to talk about not having money. It’s much more socially acceptable to say 'I am broke. Things are hard.' You can’t say 'I have a ton of money.' You have to keep a lot of your life private.” 
As a result, Cockrell points out, the rich tend to hang out with other rich Americans, not out of snobbery but in order to be around those who understand them and their problems. 
The growing gap between the rich and poor is a global phenomenon. According to Oxfam, the richest 1% have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014 and are on track to own more than the other 99% by 2016. 
In the US, over the last three decades, the wealth owned by the top 0.1% households increased from 7% to 22% even as the wealth of the bottom 90% of households declined. 
The number of extremely wealthy people has also been climbing. According to research from Spectrem Group, in 2014, the number of US households with $1m or more in assets – excluding the value of their primary home – increased by 500,000 to 10.1m. In 2007, that number was 9.2m. Households worth $5m or more reached 1.3m and 142,000 households are now worth $25m or more. 
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the income gap has expanded and the situation “has gotten worse for the wealthy”, Cockrell said. The main reason? Not knowing if your friends are friends with you or your money. 
“Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don’t want anything from you. Never being able to trust your friendships with people of different means, I think that is difficult,” said Cockrell. “As the gap has widened, the rich have become more and more isolated.” 
These are real fears faced by the richest of the rich. In 2007, the Gates Foundation teamed up with Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy to document what it felt like to be in America’s 1%. For the next four years, researchers surveyed 165 of America’s richest households – 120 of those households have at least $25m in assets. The average net worth of those surveyed was $78m. The resulting study, The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth, was 500 pages long and seemed to prove the old adage that money can’t buy happiness. 
“Wealth can be a barrier to connecting with other people,” confessed a spouse of a tech entrepreneur who made about $80m. Some Americans have taken to keeping their wealth secret. “We talk about it as stealth wealth. There are a lot of people that are hiding their wealth because they are concerned about negative judgment,” said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy Americans talk about the unique challenges that come with their wealth, people often dismiss their experience. 
“People say 'Oh, poor you.' There is not a lot of sympathy there,” she said. “Wealth is still one of our last taboos.” 
Speaking in his soft, soothing voice that makes you want to spill all your worries, Cockrell said that a common mistake that many of his wealthy clients make is letting their money define them. 
“I don’t think it’s healthy to discount your problems. If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems and they are legitimate to you. Even when you say, 'I don’t have to struggle for money', there are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing that defines you,” he said. “Your problems are legitimate.”",347
"The UK prime minister, David Cameron, says he is happy about the result of the Scottish referendum. 55% of people in Scotland voted to keep the 307-year-old union with England and Wales, and 45% voted against it. The prime minister promised more devolution in Great Britain.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister, Alex Salmond, said he accepted Scotland had not decided to vote for independence this time. He said the referendum was a “triumph for democratic politics” and he said he would work with the government in London in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK. “We have touched sections of the community who have never before been touched by politics,” he said.
The yes campaign had four big successes – it won 53% of the vote in Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, 57% in Dundee and 51% in North Lanarkshire. But the no campaign won in 28 areas. It won easily in areas where people expected it to do well, including Edinburgh, Aberdeenshire and Borders. But it also did well in areas that people said might go to the yes campaign, including the Western Isles. In total, the no campaign won 2,001,926 votes (55.3%) and the yes campaign won 1,617,989 votes (44.7%). 
In his speech, Cameron said that there would be constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, but not until after the general election. And he said that there would be changes in England, too. “We have heard the voice of Scotland and, now, we must hear the millions of voices of England,” he said.
Cameron added: “The people of Scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. They have kept our country of four nations together and, like millions of other people, I am delighted. As I said during the campaign, it would have broken my heart to see our United Kingdom come to an end. So, now, it is time for our United Kingdom to come together and to move forward with a balanced settlement, fair to people in Scotland and, importantly, to everyone in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well.”
Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, said the referendum was a vote from the Scottish people for change. “We know our country needs to change. We will deliver stronger powers for a stronger Scottish parliament, a strong Scotland.” But he said that would go beyond Scotland. “We will also make changes in England, Wales, and the whole of the United Kingdom.”
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, said a vote against independence was “not a vote against change”. “We must now deliver the radical new powers to Scotland,” he added.
The UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, said Cameron’s offer of more devolution for England did not go far enough. “The English are 86% by population of this union. They’ve not been a part of this for the last 18 years. We still have a situation where Scottish MPs can vote in the House of Commons on English-only issues. I think what most English people want is a fair settlement,” he said.
Cameron will try to calm tensions when he makes another statement on the result. The prime minister will explain how he will give more powers to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The prime minister wants to move fast to show that the three main UK party leaders will keep the promises they made during the referendum campaign.",348
"According to a top-secret document, the National Security Agency (NSA) has got direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other major US internet companies. The NSA access is part of a program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
The document claims “collection directly from the servers” of major US service providers. Although the document claims that the program is run with the help of the companies, all the companies who responded to a request for comment denied knowledge of any such program.
In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”
Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one said. An Apple spokesman said he had “never heard” of PRISM.
The NSA access became possible because of changes to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012. The program facilitates a large amount of in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating companies who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.
The revelation of the PRISM program follows a leak of a top-secret court order that forced telecoms provider Verizon to give the telephone records of millions of US customers to the US government. The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate about the level of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records from Verizon, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.
It is claimed that some of the world’s largest internet companies are part of the information-sharing program, which was introduced in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012.
Under US law, companies must comply with requests for users’ communications, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies’ servers. The NSA document notes that the operations have “the help of communications providers in the US”.
During the renewal of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in December 2012, several US senators warned about the high level of surveillance the law might allow and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces. When the FAA was first introduced, its supporters argued that one safeguard would be the fact that the NSA could not get electronic communications without the permission of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program makes that permission unnecessary, because it allows the agency to take the communications directly off the companies’ servers, communications that include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers and social networking details.
The PRISM program allows the NSA, the world’s largest surveillance organization, to get targeted communications without requesting them from the service providers and without needing individual court orders. With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the companies and get both stored communications and live communications.
A senior administration official said in a statement: “The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person who is within the United States. The program is overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch and Congress. Only non-US persons outside the US are targeted.” The program must limit the information it gets, keeps and disseminates about US citizens.
“This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after a lot of debate. Information that is collected under this program is some of the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and it is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.”",349
"We all know about wildlife emergencies such as the possible extinction of the tiger in India, the orangutan in Indonesia and the panda. Everybody loves these animals and no one wants to see them disappear. But, now, scientists are worried that the threat to creatures such as ladybirds is a much greater danger to biodiversity. 
Climate change, falling numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and extinction mean that more and more scientists now believe that we are in the Anthropocene age – the age of extinction. 
A recent report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirms that worrying idea – statistics from the report show a very big reduction in the numbers of many species. The number of vertebrates has declined by 52% over the last forty years. We are losing too many species. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have reduced even more, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. But it’s the creatures that help us the most that are worrying many scientists. Three quarters of the world’s food production depends on bees and other insects. Pandas are cute and tigers are beautiful but other animals are more useful – it’s worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down. 
“It’s the loss of the common species that will affect people. The loss of the rarer creatures will not affect us much because we’re not reliant on them in such an obvious way,” said Dr Nick Isaac, who studies the environment. He says that Britain’s insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates. He says that this will cause serious problems for humans. 
He said that between 23% and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians that we use for food or medicine might become extinct. In many parts of the world, wild animals are an important part of the diet, particularly for the poor. 
Most people also blame humans – humans damage ecosystems, create climate change and destroy habitats. But, this time, it’s not just the “big, cuddly mammals” we have to worry about losing but the smaller creatures that are less easy to see. We depend on insects, creepy-crawlies and even worms. They might not become extinct very soon, but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. “We are going to feel the effect of those losses. The numbers of both invertebrates and vertebrates are declining. It’s not so simple as 'fish die and people starve' – it’s more complex,” said Isaac. 
Humans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a “plague on earth”. But the WWF claims there is still time to stop the decline. Its UK Chief Executive David Nussbaum said: “The amount of destruction shown in this report should make us all change our behaviour. We all – politicians, business and people – have a responsibility to protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature. 
“Humans are cutting down too many trees too quickly, fishing too many fish, taking too much water from our rivers and producing too much carbon,” he said.",350
"Scientists have designed a mirror that sends heat into cold space. If you use the mirror, you don’t need to use air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth.
The scientists believe that the mirror could reduce by a lot the amount of energy we use to control air temperatures in offices and shopping centres.
Around 15% of the energy used by buildings in the US goes on air conditioning. The researchers say that the mirror could mean that we no longer need air conditioning.
Scientists in Stanford, California, found that a roof painted black was 60C hotter than the air temperature in sunlight. They found that aluminium was 40C hotter. But the mirror was 5C cooler than the air temperature.
“If you cover large parts of the roof with this mirror, you can save a lot of power,” said Shanhui Fan, an expert in the study of light at Stanford University. He led the development of the mirror.
Buildings warm up in different ways. Hot-water boilers and cooking areas release heat. In hot countries, warm air comes in through doors and windows. Then, there is visible light and infrared radiation from the sun, which also heat up buildings.
The Stanford mirror reflects 97% of the visible light that falls on it. But, more importantly, it releases heat. When the mirror is warmed up, it releases heat at a specific wavelength of infrared light that goes easily through the atmosphere and out into space.
The mirror is made from several layers of very thin materials. These layers help the mirror to release heat. The mirror sends the heat as infrared light out to space.
“The mirror can use the cold darkness of the universe, even during the hottest hours of the day,” the scientists say.
Shanhui Fan says the mirrors costs between $20 and $70 per square metre. He says that a mirror on a three-storey building could save 100MWh of electricity per year.
Fan also said that the mirror could cool buildings but it would not slow down global warming. But it would reduce the amount of electricity that businesses use.
“I’m really excited by this,” said Marin Soljačić, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “You could use the mirrors on buildings and spend much less money on air conditioning or maybe you wouldn’t need it at all. You could put the mirrors on top of shopping malls.”",351
"Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures. They fly in groups overhead and sit on the city’s buildings. In many ways, with their wrinkly heads and beady eyes, they remind Lima residents of the side of their city they would rather ignore: the poverty and filth.
But these birds’ taste for dead and decaying things has become a virtue. Environmental authorities are kitting the birds out with GoPro video cameras and GPS trackers – the birds have a new mission in the fight against fly-tipping and illegal dumping.
Samuel is one of the project’s ten disease-free black vultures that are looking for rubbish. Fitted with his tracker, he is set free above the city, where he identifies secret or hidden dumps and records the GPS coordinates on a live map.
His trainer at Lima’s Huachipa Zoo, Alfredo Correa, is full of admiration. “They can eat dead animals because their bodies protect them from viruses and bacteria,” he says. “They’ve got some of the strongest gut flora in the natural world.”
USAID and the Peruvian Environment Ministry are working together on this project to tackle Lima’s rubbish problem. A tongue-in-cheek video adds a melodramatic voiceover, in which the noble vultures are fighting disease, while humans ignore the danger.
The project makes a serious point. With just four landfills in a city of nearly ten million inhabitants, there are many illegal dumps. A fifth of the rubbish goes into these dumps, according to the Environment Ministry. The waste contaminates Lima’s main water source, the Rimac river, as well as the Chillon and Lurin rivers, which flow into the Bay of Lima.
The environmental supervision agency, OEFA, says that three poorer neighbourhoods have only 12% of Lima’s population but have by far the most fly-tipped rubbish: Villa Maria del Triunfo (39.4%), Villa El Salvador (25.3%) and El Agustino (18.3%).
Part of the problem is unpaid taxes. Many residents just don’t pay. That means some of the 43 district municipalities don’t have enough money for basic services such as rubbish collection.
It also means nobody is necessarily going to clean up where the vultures identify illegal trash. “We share the vulture’s GPS coordinates with the municipalities,” says Javier Hernandez, the project director. “It’s their job to collect the rubbish and to try and change the habits of their residents.”
The project aims to encourage residents to be “vultures on the ground”: to report fly-tipping, cut back on their own waste and recycle. Some residents are responding, posting photos of illegal dumps on the Twitter feed and Facebook page.",352
"The auction of a Banksy painting that disappeared from the wall of a north London shop was stopped just moments before it was going to be sold. 
Slave Labour is a spray-painted artwork that shows a child making flags. The expected price was about $700,000. It was going to be in a sale of street art in Florida. 
But Frederic Thut, the owner of the Fine Arts Auction Miami art house said that Slave Labour and a second work by the secretive British street artist were removed from sale at the auction. He did not want to give the name of the seller. 
People in Haringey, London, were very happy, because they led a campaign to stop the sale of the artwork that was removed from the wall of a Poundland shop in Haringey. 
“I will write to the auction house to find out what will happen next, but for now we are really pleased that a people’s campaign in London has had an impact in the US. It’s a real victory for the people.” said Alan Strickland, a Haringey councillor. 
The auction house said it had told the owners of the two Banksys that they should remove them from the sale. “There are no legal problems with the sale of the artwork by Banksy, but FAAM told its sellers they should remove them from the auction.” 
Critics have said the auction house was buying and selling stolen property but Thut said that the seller was the real owner and that the sale was legal. 
He added that his gallery had received many emails and phone calls from the UK, but said he thought it was right to sell the two pieces of artwork because it would keep them safe. 
The second Banksy that was going to be auctioned was a 2007 artwork called Wet Dog that was removed from a Bethlehem wall. Its estimated price is up to $800,000. 
Poundland said it had no idea who removed the 4ft x 5ft mural from the side of its shop. 
Banksy himself has not commented on the sale of Slave Labour, but he has condemned people who have tried to sell his artwork in the past. 
Stephan Keszler, the dealer at a 2011 auction in New York that also planned to sell Banky’s paintings, believes selling Banksy’s works without his permission is fair. 
“He does something on other people’s walls and houses without asking. The owner of the property can do whatever they want with it,” Keszler said.",353
"A company from the Netherlands wants to turn dreams of reaching Mars into reality. The company, Mars One, plans to send four astronauts to the Red Planet to build a human colony in 2023. But there are two serious problems. 
Firstly, on Mars the astronauts’ bodies will have to adapt to gravity that is 38% of gravity on Earth. This would probably cause such a total change in their bones, muscles and circulation that the astronauts would no longer be able to survive on Earth. Secondly, they will have to say goodbye to all their family and friends, because there is no return ticket. 
The Mars One website says that the astronauts cannot expect to return. To return, they would need a rocket that can leave Mars. The rocket would need life support systems for a seven-month journey and would need to either join up with a space station or land safely on Earth. 
But the project has already had 10,000 applicants, according to the company’s Medical Director, Norbert Kraft. He told The Guardian that the applicants so far were aged 18 to at least 62 and, although they include women, they were mostly men. 
Mars One says that the astronauts must be resilient, adaptable, curious, trusting and resourceful. They must also be over 18. Mars One says that the basic things people need to live are already present on the planet. For example, they can take water from ice in the soil and Mars has sources of nitrogen, the primary element in the air we breathe. The colony will use solar panels to get power, it says. 
The project will cost around $6 billion. Some of this money could come from TV broadcasting rights. “The money made broadcasting the London Olympics was almost enough to pay for a mission to Mars,” Bas Lansdorp, the company’s founder, said. 
Another person who supports the project is Paul Römer, one of the creators of Big Brother, one of the first and most successful reality TV shows. “This mission to Mars could be the biggest media event in the world,” said Römer. “A reality show and a talent show, with no ending and the whole world watching.” 
Mars One wants to build a permanent human colony, according to its website. The first team would land on Mars in 2023 to begin building the colony, and a team of four astronauts would arrive every two years after that. 
But some people are sceptical of the project, and some people are worried about how astronauts might get to the planet and build a colony with all the life support and other things they need. 
The mission hopes to inspire people to “believe that all things are possible, that you can achieve anything,” like the Apollo moon landings. 
“Mars One believes it is not only possible but necessary that we build a permanent colony on Mars so that we can improve our understanding of the solar system, the origins of life, and our place in the universe,” it says.",354
"James Bond films are one of the world’s longest running and most successful film series, with 23 movies and more than $6bn earned at box offices around the world. But James Bond shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, Bond is more popular than ever, after the record-breaking performance of Skyfall, which became the biggest ever film at the UK box office in 2012, earning a total of $1.1bn.
For this reason, there was a lot of interest surrounding the announcement of a few more details about the 24th Bond film – especially its official title, Spectre. The number one question is: can Spectre repeat Skyfall’s success?
Charles Gant, film editor for Heat magazine, says it is heading in the right direction. “Skyfall was a brilliant strategic move,” he says. “It was simultaneously modern and retro. It appealed to fans of Daniel Craig and it also engaged the older, more nostalgic Bond fans, who may have lost interest over the previous few films. With the new title,” he adds, “it is certain to be a success.”
It seems that Eon Productions, the company originally founded in 1961 to make Dr No and that is behind all the “official” Bonds, is doing all it can to ensure another success – they are installing the key creative talent behind Skyfall on Spectre. Daniel Craig will play Bond at least until film 25 and the same writers have produced the script.
But it’s getting Sam Mendes as director again that gives Bond fans the most hope. A director mainly known for character studies such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, Mendes has taken the Bond series to new heights. Gant says: “Mendes managed to engage with both the modern and the traditional Bond audience, and he also attracted top actors like Ralph Fiennes. Actors like Fiennes will only agree to be in a film if they like the director.”
Though the Bond series was not in trouble before Mendes’s arrival – and Craig’s – there was a certain amount of staleness towards the end of Pierce Brosnan’s time as Bond. The series had survived the drying up of original Bond stories to adapt, and the movies were no longer anything like the Ian Fleming originals, but they were lacking dynamism.
This cycle, however, was nothing new: the history of the Bond series has been one of ebb and flow, revolving most obviously around the lead actor: first, Sean Connery; then, successively, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, now, Craig. Each new Bond has been a response to the state of the series, and some have been more successful than others.
Lazenby only lasted a single film and Dalton’s two efforts, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, were during a period in the late 80s when the 007 movie was eclipsed by more aggressive, slick Hollywood action movies. According to Gant, “the period of Roger Moore’s last films, and the Dalton period, didn’t really excite audiences. Brosnan was more successful commercially, but Craig has taken Bond to new levels. On the other hand, the early Bonds were incredibly commercial films, sexy and exciting, and there was very little like them.”
Skyfall made more money than all the other Bond films. However, the performance of some of the 1960s films was almost as brilliant by comparison. If you adjust the figures for inflation, the 1965 release, Thunderball, is only just below Skyfall, while Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice both did better than the other Craig films (and the 70s Bonds, The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die, did better, too). By this calculation, Licence to Kill is the worst-performing of all Bonds, with Moore’s final film, A View to a Kill, the second least successful.
Nevertheless, the Bond brand has remained very powerful over the years and Eon has had to fight off attempts by rival companies to capitalize on the popularity of the series. Through a quirk of rights ownership, adaptations of Casino Royale (in 1967) and Thunderball (as Never Say Never Again, in 1983) were released in competition with Eon productions. After legal disputes that continued for many years, Eon now has full control of both books.
Martin Campbell was another experienced British director and he was able to plan one of the most elaborate stunts in Bond history. In the famous opening scene of Goldeneye (released in 1995), Bond freefalls into a pilotless light aeroplane. This scene really helped modernize the series and increase its popularity. Moreover, a whole new generation was reached through a hugely successful Goldeneye video-game spin-off, which made a significant contribution to perceptions that the Bond film was no longer stale and old-fashioned.",355
"On one day in August, one in seven people on Earth, 1 billion people, used Facebook, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. In ten years, the social network has changed people’s relationships, privacy, their businesses, news media, helped to end unfair governments and even changed the meaning of common words. 
“A more open and connected world is a better world,” wrote Zuckerberg. 
These are just some of the ways his company changed everything – for better or worse.
1. Facebook has changed the definition of “friend” 
“To friend” is now a verb. In real life, it is difficult to end a friendship but, on Facebook, it is easy to “unfriend” someone. “To unfriend” is a word invented  to describe ending contact with a Facebook friend. The meanings of the words “share” and “like” are the same but Facebook has made the words more important to us. 
School and university reunions are unnecessary  – you already know whose job is going well and you’ve seen pictures of your schoolfriends’ babies. You won’t be surprised if you see an ex in the street with a new girlfriend or boyfriend: you already know they’re with someone else because you’ve seen the romantic selfies. 
In real life, some friends are more important than others but, on Facebook, all friends have the same importance. A classmate from university who you haven’t seen for 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a party or a colleague you’ve never spoken to – they are all Facebook friends in the same way as your best friend, or your husband or wife, or your mum. It doesn’t mean we see them the same way. Professor Robin Dunbar is famous for his research that says a person can only have about 150 people in their social group. Facebook hasn’t changed that yet, he believes. But Dunbar says he fears it is so easy to end friendships on Facebook that, one day, people may not need to learn to get on with each other.
2 We care less about privacy
Most young people are happy to give Facebook their personal details. Ninety-one per cent post a photo of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, more than half give email addresses and a fifth give their phone number.
More than 80% list their interests, which allows companies to try to sell things to them. But most young users limit who can see their profiles – 60% allow friends only.
3 Facebook has created millions of jobs – but not in its own offices
Michael Tinmouth has worked with companies such as Vodafone and Microsoft. He says, “Thanks to Facebook, companies have a better understanding of their customers than ever before. The data available is extraordinary. You know who your customers are and who they are friends with and what they think about your company.”
And advertisers pay a lot for that. Facebook earned $3.32 billion from advertising.
Facebook can also be dangerous for companies. Suddenly, customers don’t simply complain on the phone or on a small internet forum – angry customers can post their complaints for hundreds of their friends to see or even on the company’s own page. 
4 Facebook has been the tool to organize revolutions
Organizing demonstrations has been revolutionized by Facebook. Manchester University’s Olga Onuch found that half of all the Euromaidan protesters in Ukraine had got their information from Facebook.
Many people told Onuch that they needed Facebook to read the truth about what was happening – they don’t trust traditional media.
5 Facebook makes news, breaks news and decides what is news
About 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 63% of all users say they get news from the internet. About a third of Facebook users post about politics and government. 
Most people will first read an item of news on Facebook or other social media, mostly on mobiles.",356
"The critics usually analyse the novels of well-known British author David Mitchell in detail. But, he is not worried about the critics this time. He completed his latest book at 1am one Tuesday morning before a car arrived to take him to the airport to catch a flight to Norway. No one will see this novel until 2114. 
Mitchell is the second author to be part of the Future Library project. For the project, they planted 1,000 trees in 2014 in Oslo’s Nordmarka forest. The first author, Margaret Atwood, gave the manuscript of a text called Scribbler Moon to the project in 2015. Each year for the next hundred years, an author will write a novel that people will only read in 2114, when the trees are cut down to make paper to make the books. 
Each author will travel to the place in the forest high above Oslo, where they will give their manuscripts to the project in a short ceremony. 
“It’s a little bit of hope at a time when there is lots of very depressing news. It shows that we have a chance of civilization in a hundred years,” said Mitchell. “Everything is telling us that we’re doomed but the Future Library brings hope that we are stronger than we think: that we will be here, that there will be trees, that there will be books and readers, and civilization.” 
Mitchell said that writing this book made him feel free “because I won’t be around to know if people think it’s good or bad. But, before me was Margaret Atwood and next year I’m sure there will be another brilliant writer. So my book had better be good. I would look such a fool if they opened my book in 2114 and it wasn’t any good.” 
Mitchell says that he usually “polishes and polishes” his writing. “I polish too much. But, this was very different – I wrote till the final minute. So, the first two-thirds are polished and the final third I didn’t have time. And, I felt free.” 
The creator of the Future Library asked writers to write on “the theme of imagination and time”. Mitchell revealed only the name of the manuscript, From Me Flows What You Call Time , during a ceremony in the Norwegian woods next to where the 1,000 trees are planted. The title comes from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Mitchell only told us that his book is “longer than I thought it would be.” He said nothing more. 
In the forest, Mitchell read a short story and a poem. This small section of forest will be carefully managed for the next 98 years before it becomes Future Library’s manuscripts. 
“How vain to think my writing will be of interest to future generations. But, it is the opposite of vain to work hard on a manuscript that nobody will ever congratulate you for and say: 'Good job' or 'I loved the bit where she did that and he did this ...'” Mitchell wrote. 
They will seal his manuscript and put it next to Atwood’s manuscript in a room in Oslo’s new public library, which will open in 2019. The manuscript is now, says the author, “gone from me like a coin I’ve dropped in a river”.",357
"It was a beautiful summer evening and I decided to go for a swim off Doolin Pier in County Clare, Ireland, where I moved in 2012. There was a woman in the water with Dusty, a dolphin who has a great relationship with a group of people she regularly swims with. Dusty arrived in Doolin in about 2008 and hundreds of people have swum with her since, giving the impression that she’s totally tame.
That evening, the woman was tickling Dusty’s tummy and it just looked so inviting. There were about 20 tourists and locals on the pier, looking at this lovely spectacle. Just after I got into the water, Dusty left the woman she was with and went crazy – I found out afterwards that she’s very territorial when she is with somebody. Her tail was flapping wildly and, at first, I thought it was a display but, then, I realized she was angry. I knew I had to get out of the water so I swam towards the pier but, within seconds, Dusty had crashed into me with her snout. It was very powerful and painful, and the speed was amazing. I was pushed forwards violently.
All the people on the pier were staring down at me open-mouthed. Dusty was still in the water beside me, her tail flapping crazily. That was more frightening than anything: I thought, if she hits me with her tail, I could go under and drown.
I was at the pier but couldn’t get out because of my injuries. I felt pure terror. I shouted for help and a guy put his arm in and pulled me out on to the steps. Then, another man appeared and said he was an orthopaedic surgeon. He had been driving into Doolin when he saw what was happening on the pier. I was so cold and very worried – I didn’t know how bad my injuries were and my biggest fear was internal bleeding. He checked me over and said he couldn’t feel any evidence of bleeding but that I probably had broken bones. I found out later that I had six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung.
I was in hospital for five days and off work for five months with limited mobility and pain. Then, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress. My near-death experience had left me anxious about everything. I felt that people were looking at me in the wrong way, I began to struggle with loud noises and I suffered from memory loss. Three months before the accident, I had opened a health-food shop but I had to let it go because I could no longer work.
It was the hardest year ever but, now, it’s all behind me. I had therapy, osteopathy and massage, and am building up my own osteopathy practice now. I have a new empathy with patients because I have been one.
I am grateful that I am healthy and I really want to prevent other people being injured. We have this lovely idea about dolphins and have faith in them – who would think a dolphin would ever attack a person? If you see a fierce animal coming towards you with its teeth bared, it’s scary, but dolphins have this lovely, wide smile.
I don’t have any anger towards Dusty. I respect her. But I was in her territory and she’s a wild, unpredictable animal. People need to know that. So many come here to swim with her and they don’t understand how dangerous it can be. Several other people were injured that summer.
After the man pulled me out of the water, Dusty swam away but, then, she came back and was looking at me. Our eyes met and I felt there was complete remorse in her. She was a totally different dolphin; the anger had gone. The people on the pier were in awe. When she had that little moment with me, that was the end of the terror. I made my peace with her.",358
"David Mitchell, a regular contender for the Man Booker literary prize, is used to his novels being picked over by the critics. So, it’s something of a relief, says the British author, that his latest work – completed at 1am one Tuesday morning before a car arrived to take him to the airport to catch a flight to Norway – won’t be seen by anyone until 2114. 
Mitchell is the second contributor to the Scottish artist Katie Paterson’s Future Library project, for which 1,000 trees were planted in 2014 in Oslo’s Nordmarka forest. Starting with Margaret Atwood, who handed over the manuscript of a text called Scribbler Moon in 2015, each year for the next 100 years, an author will deliver a piece of writing that will only be read in 2114, when the trees are chopped down to make paper on which the 100 texts will be printed. 
Each author – their names revealed year by year and chosen by a panel of experts and Paterson, while she is alive – will make the trek to the spot in the forest high above Oslo, where they will surrender their manuscripts in a short ceremony. 
“It’s a little glimmer of hope in a season of highly depressing news cycles, which affirms we are in with a chance of civilization in a hundred years,” said Mitchell. “Everything is telling us that we’re doomed but the Future Library is a candidate on the ballot paper for possible futures. It brings hope that we are more resilient than we think: that we will be here, that there will be trees, that there will be books and readers, and civilization.” 
Mitchell said he found writing the book “quite liberating because I won’t be around to take the consequences of this being good or bad ... But, I’m sandwiched between Margaret Atwood and no doubt some other brilliant writer. So, it better be good. What a historic fool of epochal proportions I’d look if they opened it in 2114 and it wasn’t any good.” 
Usually, says Mitchell, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker for his novels number9dream and Cloud Atlas, he “polishes and polishes” his writing. “Actually, I over-polish. But, this was very different – I wrote up to the wire. So, the first two-thirds were polished and the final third I didn’t have time. And, it was a liberation.” 
Future Library creator, Paterson, whose past works have involved her mapping dead stars and compiling a slide archive of the history of darkness through the ages, asked the writers to tackle “the theme of imagination and time, which they can take in so many directions”. Mitchell revealed only the name of the manuscript, From Me Flows What You Call Time, during a ceremony in the Norwegian woods next to where Paterson’s 1,000 trees are planted. The title is taken from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu but, other than admitting that “it’s somewhat more substantial a thing than I was expecting”, the author would say nothing. 
Handing over his text in the forest, sheltered from the intermittent rain by an umbrella and amid the foot-high shoots of 1,000 pine trees, Mitchell read his damp audience of children and adults a short story and William Wordsworth’s A slumber did my spirit seal. Its ending, “Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course / With rocks, and stones, and trees”, felt appropriate in this small section of forest, carpeted with blueberry bushes, which will be carefully tended to for the next 98 years before it is turned into Future Library’s manuscripts. 
“How vain to suppose the scribblings of little old me will be of enduring interest to future generations. Yet, how low-key and understated, to slave over a manuscript that nobody will ever pat you on the back for and say: ‘Nice one’ or ‘God, I loved the bit where she did that and he did this... ’” Mitchell wrote in a piece for the Future Library. 
His manuscript, now delivered, will be sealed and placed alongside Atwood’s in a wood-lined room in Oslo’s new public library, which will open in 2019. Watched over by a trust of experts until it is finally printed, it is now, says the novelist, “as gone from me as a coin dropped in a river”.",359
"Striding on stage, Donald Trump had a surprisingly humble confession to make for someone defying all the laws of political gravity. 
“Unless we win, it doesn’t mean a damn thing,” the would-be Republican presidential nominee warned a campaign rally in South Carolina, despite finishing his fourth month in a row at the top of the opinion polls. “I want to pick my date for the election. I want it next Tuesday,” he confided to the 11,000-strong crowd – typical of the grassroots support that needs to flourish into March 2016 for him to win the nomination, let alone November’s general election. Such moments of self-doubt are fleeting, quickly replaced by the now-familiar bombast of a billionaire whose status as a “winner” has become his defining policy platform. 
Trump is not the only one beginning to wonder whether his improbable campaign can confound the pundits and go the distance, particularly after a burst of recent controversy only seemed to cement his polling lead over bewildered rivals. Conventional wisdom holds that any one of these outbursts would have sunk most politicians by now. 
First, there was the time he outraged prisoners of war by doubting the heroism of Vietnam veteran John McCain because he allowed himself to be captured. Then, there was the first television debate, where he insulted Fox News moderator, Megyn Kelly, because she asked him difficult questions. 
As if PoWs, Fox News and women were not enemies enough, Trump has also insulted Mexican immigrants to the US, claimed that a Black Lives Matter protester who was violently ejected from a rally deserved to be “roughed up”, appeared to mock a New York Times journalist for his disability and falsely accused Muslim Americans of cheering on the 9/11 attackers. 
Trump has complained that many of these incidents were exaggerated by the political media, 70% of whom, he says, are “scum”. But, he has nonetheless refused to retract any of the comments. “I could have said, 'Oh, I misspoke', but I am not big on that,” Trump told the crowd in South Carolina. Some rivals still hope that, eventually, even Trump’s supporters will tire of what critics view as his relentless attacks on minorities in particular. One poll shows his support among Republicans down by 12 points – although, at 31%, he still leads the field. 
Other opponents question whether there is much overarching political ideology to Trump. “He is an egomaniac; he’s a narcissist. He’s not a conservative, he’s not a liberal – he believes in himself,” former presidential rival, Bobby Jindal, told the Guardian, shortly before dropping out of the race. 
Liz Mair, a Republican strategist organizing an anti- Trump fundraising committee, worries that many of the comments seen as gaffes by the liberal media are, in fact, carefully designed to boost his standing with his core constituency. “I personally think it’s best that people who don’t like Trump and his policies do some work to try to actively undercut him,” she says. “And not just pray for him to commit real political suicide.” 
Yet, there is more to Trump than attention-grabbing outrage. As he delights in telling supporters, the three issues that he rails against most – immigration reform, free-trade deals and Barack Obama’s national security policy – have become perhaps the defining issues of the election. 
His policies for deporting every undocumented immigrant in the US and demanding that Mexico pays for a border wall – “A real wall. A very tall wall, taller than that ceiling.” – might sound unrealistic but they have arguably destroyed the campaign hopes of Jeb Bush, who favours immigration reform. 
So what might it take to stop Trump? One source of optimism among opponents is the strong evidence that polls this far away from election day are an average of eight percentage points out, simply because most people have not made up their minds. Among Americans who identify as Republicans, current polls suggest he has 25-30% of the vote. 
In the battle for hearts and minds, converting Trump’s passionate supporters will be hard. To blunt his lead, another candidate would need to tap into his support base without jeopardizing their own. Polling experts believe this to be unlikely, as it is hard to imagine anyone doing Trump better than Trump, let alone anyone doing Trump without sacrificing their own support. 
This scenario can be best understood by looking at responses to the question: “Are there any of these candidates you would definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president?” While 20-30% of voters say they would support Trump, another 20-30% say they definitely would not. 
Steve Deace, a prominent Iowa conservative, said that Trump’s antics are “both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it produces a loyal following that is attracted to that persona which will not leave you. On the other hand, it limits your ability to grow beyond that.” 
Top Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, believes Trump speaks for voters who, for the first time, feel as if they have a mouthpiece and like the fact that they feel like they are being heard. As the pollster notes: “Trump says what they’re thinking and, the more outrageous he is, the more they agree with him. He’s saying what no politician would say and that’s another reason they like him.” 
That is certainly the feeling among ordinary supporters who have attended his increasingly packed campaign events in recent months. 
“I like the way he speaks,” says Sandra Murray of Dubuque, Iowa. “This country is a huge mess and we need to get out of this and, honestly, he could be the man to do it.” 
Other supporters offer a simpler explanation. “He’s not afraid of anybody or anything. That’s pretty cool.”",360
"Imagine that you read a headline 'Fit in four minutes' in a health magazine. Would you believe it? Well, Dr Izumi Tabata’s training programme – 20 seconds of intensive effort, ten seconds of rest, repeat eight times – promises that it is possible to be fit with just 88 minutes of training a week. 
Tabata remembers the first time he tested his training system on his university students in the early 1990s. “After four minutes’ hard exercise they were completely exhausted. They were almost dead! But after six weeks they saw the results and were surprised. We all were surprised.” 
Tabata created his training programme after he watched Japan’s speed skating team in the early 1990s. He saw that short bursts of very hard exercise were as effective as hours of normal exercise. Tabata tried to prove this with a simple experiment. One group of students did an hour of cardiovascular exercise on an exercise bike five times a week. The other group did a ten-minute warm-up on the bike, then four minutes of Tabata training, four times a week – plus one 30-minute session of exercise with two minutes of Tabata. 
The results were very surprising. After six weeks of testing, the group who did Tabata’s plan – exercising for just 88 minutes a week – increased their anaerobic capacity by 28% and their VO 2 max by 15%. The other group, who trained for five hours every week, also improved their VO 2 max, but only by 10%. But their training had no effect on their anaerobic capacity. 
But you have to work very, very hard. You can’t sit on a machine, chewing gum and reading HELLO! magazine. You have to do intensive bursts of activity on an exercise bike or rowing machine, explosive bodyweight exercises, sprints and so on. Remember how you felt after doing a 100m sprint at school? Imagine doing eight sprints with only a ten-second break between them. 
“Full effort at 170% of your VO 2 max is the basis of the programme,” says Tabata. “If you feel OK afterwards you’ve not done it properly. The first three repetitions will feel easy but the last two will feel impossible. In the original plan, we wanted eight repetitions, but some people could only do six or seven.” 
One person on an online forum wrote: “Most people cannot do it correctly and they shouldn’t even try.” Tabata doesn’t completely agree. “Everyone can do it but beginners should start with educated trainers so that they don’t work too hard,” he explains. He also says that his programme burns an extra 150 calories in the 12 hours after exercise. Most people use it to get fit or to get even fitter, but the programme also burns fat. 
So, it’s a little surprising that at the moment only serious athletes are doing the programme. This may change because Tabata says there will soon be Tabata instructors and a series of DVDs at the end of the year. “I decided to do this because I often go on YouTube and some people are doing it wrong because they don’t understand how hard they need to work,” says Tabata. 
So, should we all start using Tabata in our fitness programmes? Richard Scrivener, a former rugby fitness coach, says that you should not stop your usual training; Tabata training is something extra. “Runners, for example, need to run a lot of miles in their training,” he says. “But they could do fewer long runs by introducing Tabata training. This will give their bodies the chance to rest and recover, especially if they have injuries.” 
Gym fans can benefit by doing three strength sessions and three Tabatas a week. And the rest of us can slowly increase the number of sessions, but we know that it will never get easier because every session needs maximum effort. That’s the programme: it is hard – but it works.",361
"Angry waiters are asking people to support their battle to keep their tips. Protesters plan to target PizzaExpress restaurants, to try to get the restaurant chain to stop taking a percentage of tips for staff that have been paid on credit and debit cards. Protesters have also started an online petition – they hope that people who go to the restaurants will support them.
Some employees are very angry because PizzaExpress keeps, as an admin fee, 8p out of every £1 paid when tips are given by card. The chain, which has 430 restaurants in the UK, earns around £1 million a year from this practice, according to the union Unite.
“We believe this 8% fee is unfair. If the chain values its staff, it should pay them the total tips from customers,” said Chantal Chegrinec of Unite. “We are starting with PizzaExpress but they are not the only company who do this. And we will target other companies after this.” 
The first protest will take place at a PizzaExpress restaurant at the British Museum in London. Unite did a survey of PizzaExpress staff after a Chinese company bought the chain in 2014. Lots of the staff complained about the 8% deduction from their tips so that’s why Unite began the campaign. 
One angry PizzaExpress employee, who does not want to give her name, said that the admin fee cost her £3 a night. “I have worked at PizzaExpress for 15 years,” she said in a letter to Unite. “After all this time, I’m still only paid the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. So you see my colleagues and I need customer tips to increase our low wages. I work hard and am good at my job but, when PizzaExpress thinks it can take a percentage of our tips, I get upset.”
Restaurant chains Ask and Zizzi also deduct 8% of the tips paid by card. But other chains deduct even more. Café Rouge, Bella Italia and Belgo deduct 10%; Strada and Giraffe do, too.
A spokesperson for PizzaExpress said that the money they take from tips pays for a system that they use to share the tips among staff. “Staff use this system to decide how to share tips made by card,” she said.
The chain sells 29 million pizzas a year in its UK restaurants. It says it does not make a profit from the admin fee. But other restaurant groups do not deduct an admin fee from tips. Wagamama, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday all take nothing. Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquitos and Garfunkels used to take 10% but stopped years ago.
Unite recently targeted ten PizzaExpress restaurants in south London. They distributed leaflets to customers – the customers were “shocked and disgusted ” by the practice. PizzaExpress says they mention the admin fee at the bottom of the menus. But the employee who wrote to Unite said that customers were always surprised by the admin fee. Most customers then paid the tip in cash. Almost 6,000 people have signed Unite’s online petition.
One waiter said that at least a third of his money is from tips. He doesn’t work for PizzaExpress but has worked for 11 years for another restaurant chain. “I work in a busy London restaurant and I usually serve 150 people every night. I earn £40 to £50 in tips,” he says. “That seems like a lot but that money is very important to me because my basic pay is only £6.50 an hour.”",362
"'The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is ending, according to the top rock manager Harvey Goldsmith. 
He has produced and worked with most of the western world’s biggest music stars, including the Who, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti. He says that the biggest problem is a serious lack of major new bands to follow on from the old ones. 
“The age of the music festival peaked about two years ago,” he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Wales. “There are too many festivals and there are not enough big bands to headline them. That is a big, big problem for us. And we are not producing new bands that can headline – like the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys.” 
There were about 900 music festivals in the UK between May and September in 2014, he said, and they cannot all continue. There will be lots of small combination festivals where it isn’t just music but also poetry or books or magic shows. 
Goldsmith, 69, said that he is working with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Who’s 1970s rock musical Tommy. They will bring the first stage adaptation of the teen book and movie series The Hunger Games to a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, London, in June 2016. 
Talking at Hay, Goldsmith also revealed some of the secrets of his long career in the music industry. He said that Keith Moon put dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet to unblock it. And, he said that John Lennon had stage fright at Madison Square Garden in 1974 – he vomited and they had to push him onto the stage. “It’s bizarre how common stage fright is among artists. It’s odd how afraid they get but, as soon as the music starts, they’re fine,” he said.'
He also gave the answer to a rock ’n’ roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told Goldsmith that the real reason why Elvis never performed in England was because Parker was an immigrant.
“He explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didn’t want to risk leaving the US,” said Goldsmith.
And his ultimate rock ’n’ roll performer? “Freddie Mercury was our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer we’ve ever had.”
But there is no group to follow Queen, he said. “We’re not producing a new generation of this kind of band. Coldplay is probably the last one and that was ten years ago.
“So, with no big bands to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury now can’t find any more big bands. The time of big music festivals is really ending.”",363
"Swedish prisons have long had a reputation around the world for being progressive. But are the country’s prisons a soft option?
The head of Sweden’s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, said in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons will close due to an “out of the ordinary” fall in prisoner numbers.
Although there has been no fall in crime rates, between 2011 and 2012 there was a 6% fall in Sweden’s prisoner population, now a little over 4,500. A similar decrease is expected in 2013 and 2014. Oberg said he was puzzled by the unexpected fall, but hoped that the reason was to do with how his prisons are run. “We certainly hope that the efforts we put into rehabilitation and preventing criminals from reoffending has made a difference,” he said.
“The modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978,” says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Sweden’s most secure jail, 130 miles west of Stockholm. However, he doesn’t think the system has gone soft. “When I joined, the focus was very much on humanity in prisons. Prisoners were treated well – maybe too well, some might say. But, after a number of escapes in 2004, we had to place more emphasis on security.”
The Swedes still have a humane approach to sentencing, even of the most serious offenders: jail sentences are not usually more than ten years. Those who receive life imprisonment can still apply to the courts after a decade to have the sentence changed to a fixed sentence, usually between 18 and 25 years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of convicted criminals and continues to keep prison sentences short wherever possible by using community-based measures. These have been effective at stopping criminals from reoffending.
The overall reoffending rate in Sweden is between 30 and 40% over three years – to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One thing that has kept reoffending down and the number of prisoners in Sweden below 70 per 100,000 people is that the age of criminal responsibility is 15. In the UK, for example, children aged ten to 17 and young people under the age of 21 have the highest reoffending rates. In Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life – this is not the case in many other countries – and they try to keep young offenders out of prison.
One strong reason for the fall in prison numbers might be the amount of post-prison support available in Sweden. A government-run probation service supervises people on probation and provides treatment programmes for offenders with drug, alcohol or violence problems. The service is helped by around 4,500 members of the public who volunteer to befriend and support offenders under supervision.
I spoke to a former prisoner who now runs a group called X-Cons Sweden. Peter Soderlund served almost three years of a four-year sentence for drug and weapons offences before he was released in 1998. He was helped by an organization run by other former prisoners called Kris (Criminals’ Return Into Society).
Both organizations work with the same goal: helping prisoners successfully fit back into society after they have been released. And what is life like for the prisoner in Sweden? “When I was inside, I was lucky.” says Soderlund. “In Osteraker Prison, where I served my sentence, we were treated well. But I knew that not all Swedish prisons were like that. I met so many people in there who needed help – after I received help from Kris, I knew I wanted to help others. With X-Cons, we meet them at the prison gate and support them into accommodation and offer a network of support.”
“In Sweden, we believe very much in the idea of rehabilitation,” says Gustafsson. “Of course, there are some people who will not or cannot change. But, in my experience, the majority of prisoners want to change and we must do what we can to help them.”",364
"Introduction 
Did you know that, in the UK, there is no legal requirement for restaurants to pass on tips to staff? It’s a fact that’s covered in a government-led review, released in May 2016, in which workers, employers and customers were asked their views on the tipping process. Off the back of it, ministers said they were keen to change rules and make sure low-paid workers get the money left for them by grateful customers. The government have announced a two-month consultation on proposals that they said would stamp out unfairness. 
Among the review’s revelations was the fact that some waiters are charged up to a 15% administration fee on tips they are left by credit or debit cards. In some restaurants, the government has seen evidence of waiters being forced to hand over their own cash, if they don’t collect enough tips, to cover these fees. The government said it would consider prohibiting employers from charging workers an admin fee or any other deductions. 
The government also said that it wanted customers to know that tips are voluntary, calling for the system to be made more transparent, with restaurants clearly displaying their tips policy. 
We asked waiters around the UK what they think of the tipping process (including how much they take home from tips and whether it’s fair) and what would improve it for them. 
1. Rodri, 37, London: 'Around 50% of a waiter’s income is tips' 
Average tips: £60 per eight-hour shift 
I think they treat waiters best in ... the US Everything has got fairer since the tipping scandal was exposed in the summer of 2015. This is when it was revealed that dozens of restaurants were exposed for skimming tips from staff for administration fees. However, you still hear horror stories from new employees at some chains. I’ve heard of restaurants not paying their chefs a share of the tronc (a payment arrangement used to distribute tips). Some restaurants will take 4% of all sales to pay the chefs and as an admin fee. So, if you sell £1,000 worth of food, the company will take £40. This is regardless of how much you make in tips. This means that if a table has a £100 bill and doesn’t tip, the waiter has to pay £4 of their own money. This leads to a money-grabbing culture and, ironically, to bad service. If a table doesn’t tip, the waiter feels as if they are being robbed by the company and ends up resenting the customers. 
I can average around £60 in tips per shift but, on a good night, this goes up to over £100 and, on a poor night, it’s around £40. Around 50% of a waiter’s income is tips. All restaurants should have to publicly state their exact tipping procedure. America has it pretty good – everyone tips. 
2. Elle, 22, Edinburgh: 'We never know whether it’s fair' 
Average tips: £20 per eight-hour shift 
I think they treat waiters best in ... France 
I work three jobs, all on part-time zero-hours contracts, in catering and hospitality. My main day job is in a café where the small number of staff work both front of house and in the kitchen so all our tips get put in a pot and shared equally. My main evening job is at a restaurant where we don’t get our tips but our wages are minimum wage plus an extra £2.50 per hour (which apparently has been worked out to account for average tips when shared with the kitchen staff). My third job is events catering and nobody ever tips. 
In restaurants, because a lot of customers add tips through card payments, the staff never actually see how much is getting tipped – so we don’t know whether we’re getting our fair share or not. The system seems better in France, where they don’t tip much but waiting tables is seen as a proper job, offering job security and a decent income. 
3. Ashley, 22, London: 'Tips go towards customer breakages' 
Average tips: £10-15 per eight-hour shift 
I think they treat waiters best in ... Australia 
I work in a south-east London pub in the evenings and I do day shifts at a local restaurant. In both places, tips are all collected and shared out at the end of the night. Money is also taken from the tip jar to cover breakages by either staff or customers. If a member of the team gets off early, they will rarely see their tips because they are shared out just before the pub closes. 
It is incredibly unfair that our tips are shared out, especially when one member of the team underperforms. Equally, when a member of the team does incredibly well, they don’t get what they’ve earned. It’s really unfair that tips go towards breakages made by customers. The managers should have ways to pay for broken glasses and plates without docking our tips. I make around £20 a shift but would only be given £10-15 of that money. When I am tipped well, the tips hugely impact on my finances. Occasionally, I will earn over £50 in one night, which almost doubles my earnings for that day. However, I never get more than £30 of that money after it has been shared out. I really rely on tips because I am only paid £7 an hour. 
I’d rather we earned a good basic wage (like in Australia) and therefore didn’t have to rely on tips to make ends meet. 
4. Tom, Manchester: 'A big night of tips can help pay the rent' 
Average tips: £40 per eight-hour shift 
I think they treat waiters best in ... Italy 
Where I used to work, floor staff kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The other 20% of cash went into a pot for the commis waiters and service bar. The 60% went into a tronc system, which helped boost kitchen salaries. I’m not actually sure if this was to help pay the agreed salary or provide bonuses. 
It’s hard to say how much I earned a shift; maybe around £40, £20 from card tips. It can make a massive change to your weekly finances. Sometimes, people needed a big night to be able to pay their rent. 
They have got tipping right in Italy, where people don’t add a service charge but usually round up their bill so, if they get a meal for €19, they leave a €20 note and don’t ask for change. They respect the staff and you often see people making a career out of waiting and the experience shows.",365
"The European Parliament have said that health warnings will cover nearly two-thirds of cigarette packs and there will be a ban on menthol cigarettes in the EU. 
The EU will ban menthol and other flavours from 2022. MEPs also decided that most electronic cigarettes, which are more and more popular as alternatives to normal cigarettes, do not to be need regulated in the same way as medicines. 
The Department of Health and e-cigarette companies in Britain want to find out exactly what this means – for example, will e-cigarette companies be banned from advertising at sports events? 
The Department of Health said: “We are very pleased to see tougher action on smoking, with European controls banning flavoured cigarettes and the introduction of stricter rules on health warnings on cigarette packs. 
“But we are disappointed with the decision not to regulate nicotine-containing products (NCPs), including e-cigarettes, as medicines. We believe these products need to be regulated as medicines. 
“Smoking levels in England are at their lowest since records began – 19.5 per cent – but we want to reduce the numbers of people smoking even more and believe this important step will help.” 
UK e-cigarette companies, who were happy with the parliament’s vote, said they were already in talks with the Advertising Standards Authority. But they said that it would not be a good idea to ban all advertising. 
MEPs decided e-cigarettes should only be regulated as medical products if the e-cigarette companies said they could stop people from smoking. 
Other groups want e-cigarettes, used by about 1.3 million people in Britain, to be regulated in the same way as gums, patches and mouth sprays, which are aimed at helping smokers to quit. 
The MEPs voted to put health warnings on 65% of each cigarette pack. At the moment, the warnings cover at least 30% on the front and 40% on the back. The UK government has not decided if they will do the same as Australia and introduce standardized packaging. First, they want to know that this will stop people from smoking. 
The MEPs’ decision about the bigger health warnings on the packaging could become law in 2014. 
“The UK continues to believe that medicinal regulation of NCPs is best for public health,” said the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority. 
Linda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “We know that it is children, not adults, who start smoking. There are fewer and fewer adult smokers in most EU countries, but there are more young smokers.” 
Martin Callanan, the Conservative MEP for North East England, said that banning e-cigarettes would have been totally crazy. “These are products that have helped many people stop smoking more harmful cigarettes.” 
British American Tobacco said the bigger health warnings were not necessary and that a ban on menthol cigarettes would make more people want to buy from the black market.",366
"Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for €50,000. She says that his work of fiction makes fraudulent claims about her personal life.
La premiere chose qu’on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Grégoire Delacourt tells the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book’s lead male character thinks it is Johansson herself. In the novel, the model’s looks mean that men see her only as a sex object, while women are jealous of her. She has a series of adventures as Johansson and, in the end, dies in a car crash.
Johansson does not feel flattered by the bestselling book. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourt’s novel illegally used Ms Johansson’s name, her reputation and her image. He said the novel contains “defamatory claims about her private life.” He has now gone to court to try to stop the book being translated or adapted for cinema.
Delacourt tried to explain that he chose to mention Johansson because she is “the archetype of beauty today.” He said: “I wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.”
On French radio, the author recently said the legal action was “rather sad”. He said: “It freaks me out to think that when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.”
Delacourt is one of France’s best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a film. But he said he was “speechless” when he found out Johansson was suing him.
“I thought she’d get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn’t write a novel about a celebrity,” he said. “I wrote a real love story about feminine beauty, especially interior beauty.
“If an author can no longer mention the things that surround us – a brand of beer, a monument, an actor – it’s going to be complicated to produce fiction.
“I’m not sure she’s even read the novel because it hasn’t been translated yet.”
Emmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Lattès, said taking legal action was “crazy”. “We have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising because the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johansson’s double.”
Ironically, the author’s legal situation would be far easier if he had published the book in Johansson’s home country, rather than France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York lawyer, said that the case would most likely not go to court in the United States because the book would be protected by the First Amendment.
He said that, if there’s significance and literary merit to using her name in the book, the First Amendment would protect the author’s right to do so. However, in France, the legal position is more complicated and personality rights are taken “much more seriously,” Jassin says.
“I thought she might send me flowers as the book was a declaration of love for her, but she didn’t understand,” Delacourt said.",367
"We have all become familiar with wildlife emergencies such as the threatened extinction of the tiger in India, the orangutan in Indonesia and the panda. They are well-loved animals that no one wants to see disappear. But, now, scientists fear the real impact of declining wildlife could be closer to home – they believe the threat to creatures such as ladybirds is a much greater danger to biodiversity.
Climate change, falling numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and the rapid rate of species extinction mean more and more scientists now believe that we are in the Anthropocene age – the geological age of extinction when humans finally dominate the ecosystems.
A recent report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirmed that worrying picture, with statistics on the world’s wildlife population that showed a dramatic reduction in numbers across numerous species. The report showed the number of vertebrates had declined by 52% over four decades. Biodiversity loss has now reached “critical levels”. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have suffered even bigger losses, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. But it’s the creatures that provide the most “ecosystem services” that are getting many scientists really worried. Three quarters of the world’s food production is thought to depend on bees and other pollinators. Pandas may be cute and tigers beautiful but it’s worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down.
“It’s the loss of the common species that will impact on people, not so much the rarer creatures – because they are so rare, we’re not reliant on them in such an obvious way,” said macroecologist Dr Nick Isaac. He says that recent work he and colleagues have been doing suggests that Britain’s insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates, with “serious consequences for humanity”. “The really interesting thing about this work is that we are learning that it’s not just about the numbers of species going extinct, but the actual numbers in a population; that’s the beginning of a fundamental shift in our understanding,” he says.
He pointed to the fact that between 23 and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians used for food or medicine are now threatened with extinction. In many parts of the world, wildanimal food sources are a critical part of the diet, particularly for the poor.
The blame, most people agree, is unsustainable human consumption damaging ecosystems, creating climate change and destroying habitats at a far faster rate than previously thought. But, this time, it’s not just the “big, cuddly mammals” we have to worry about losing but the smaller, less visible creatures upon which we depend – insects, creepy-crawlies and even worms. They might not be facing immediate extinction but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. “We are going to feel the impact of those losses. With the UK species, the pattern is much the same with invertebrates as it is with vertebrates. It’s not as simplistic as ‘fish die and people starve’ – it’s more complex,” said Isaac.
Humans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a “plague on earth”, but the WWF claims there is still time to stop the decline. Its UK Chief Executive, David Nussbaum, said: “The scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should act as a wake-up call for us all. We all – politicians, business and people – have an interest, and a responsibility, to protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature.
“Humans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can regrow, harvesting more fish than the oceans can restock, pumping water from our rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can fill them again and emitting more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb,” he said.",368
"Robert Mysłajek stops. Between two paw prints on a mountain path, the scientist finds what he is looking for. “Droppings!” he says happily. It is so rare to see a wolf that seeing droppings makes it a good day.
But it is getting easier to see a wolf. There are now about 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. The wolf, the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine are Europe’s last large predator carnivores. Scientists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are coming here to find out how the country has saved wolves who have a bad reputation even in fairy tales.
Bits of bone and hair stick out from the droppings. “It ate a red deer,” says Myslajek. “I can tell you all about this wolf – what it eats, if it’s a male or female, its sexual habits, age, health and family connections.”
DNA tests have shown that Polish wolves are travellers. “One wolf walked to the Netherlands, where it was hit by a car. They travel very far. They need space. The average territory of a Polish pack is 250 square kilometres,” said Mysłajek.
The scientist says wolves can move up to 30 kilometres during a single hunt. “The pack that he is tracking is a strong group of eight or nine animals. “This year, we have recorded five cubs, two young wolves and two adults.
“We follow them using special cameras in the forest and by following their prints in the mud and snow. In each family group, only one pair of adults has cubs each year. All the wolves in the pack look after the young.”
Mysłajek, the son of a shepherd, doesn’t understand wolves’ bad reputation. “Why did we have to have the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, with its big bad wolf?”
He is fascinated by these animals, who remained in the wild 33,000 years ago when other types of dog decided on a much more comfortable life as pets.
Mysłajek says only the need to save forests and control the wild animal population can save Europe’s wild carnivores, especially the unpopular wolf. “Natural predators balance the ecosystem. They reduce the number of herbivores, which allows trees to grow tall for birds to nest in.”
The ban on wolf hunting in the western Carpathian mountains became law in 1995 and in the whole of Poland in 1998. There are now wolf packs in nearly all the country’s major forests where the wolves exist together with humans.
The Polish government pays compensation to farmers when a wolf kills their farm animals. Mysłajek tells farmers to put up electric fences. He also tells them to use two things that wolves find scary: strings of small red flags (to keep wolves away from sheep) and the Tatra Mountain Sheepdog.
Poland didn’t have many big roads until recently and this has helped wolves. In 1989, when the communists left power, Poland had only one motorway. Big road projects began after Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and they now have to consider wild animals.
The way people think about wolves has also changed. “For many years, hunting was a part of life in Poland. In 1975, there were fewer than 100 wolves in Poland.”
Mysłajek says that Polish wolves are much safer now but they are not completely safe. Packs go into neighbouring countries – Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia – where there is still hunting.
He says Poland’s new government doesn’t like wolves. “The Environment Minister, Jan Szyszko, is a hunter. There are 120,000 hunters in Poland and they have a lot of influence.
“It’s not easy to defend wolves. You can’t say to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a very strong sense of smell.”",369
"Sweden is the best country for older people, Afghanistan the worst – but general affluence does not necessarily mean better conditions for the over-60s, according to the first global index on ageing. While Sweden’s top ranking – followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada – may be predictable, the Global AgeWatch index throws up some surprising results. 
The US, the world’s richest country, is down in eighth place, while the UK fails to make the top ten at number 13. Sri Lanka ranks 36, well above Pakistan at 89, despite similar levels of gross domestic product (GDP). Bolivia and Mauritius score higher than the size of their economies may suggest, while the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China are a mixed bag. Brazil and China rank relatively high on the index; India and Russia are much lower. 
“This survey shows that history counts,” said Mark Gorman, director of the HelpAge International advocacy group. “The top-ranked countries are what you would expect, but Scandinavian countries were not wealthy when they introduced universal pensions. The older population in Sri Lanka today is benefiting from good basic education and health care – those countries made certain policy choices. Everybody faces scarce resources, but they should not forget that, when they make investment decisions, they should also address issues of old age.” 
The index, developed with the UN Fund for Population and Development, spans 91 countries and 89% of the world’s older people. The survey comes amid a major demographic shift: by 2050, there are expected to be two billion people aged 60 and over, who will comprise more than a fifth of the world’s population. 
Population ageing – when older people account for an increasingly large proportion of people – is happening fastest in developing countries. 
More than two-thirds of older people live in poor countries; by 2050, this proportion is expected to be about four-fifths. While it took 115 years for the older population of France to double from 7% to 14% between 1865 and 1980, Brazil is likely to make the same shift between 2011 and 2032 – in just 21 years. 
The index shows that the fastest ageing countries – Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam, where the number of older people is predicted to more than triple by 2050 – fall into the lower half of the ranking, suggesting that policymakers need to tackle ageing head-on if they are to adequately support their populations. 
There are gender differences among ageing populations, with women generally outliving men. In 2012, for every 84 men aged 60 and over, there were 100 women. Lack of paid work (hence savings), less decision-making power in the family and vulnerability to violence contribute towards the disadvantage many women face in old age. 
However, if appropriate measures are implemented, population ageing does not inevitably lead to significantly higher health care spending, according to the report, which highlights the importance of long-term investments in education and health care for older people. Bolivia, ranked 46, despite being one of the poorest countries, has introduced progressive policies for older people, with a national plan on ageing, free health care and a non-contributory universal pension. Nepal, ranked 77, introduced a basic pension in 1995 for people over the age of 70 without other pension income. Though limited in value and eligibility and with uneven coverage, it is an example of how a poor country has chosen to make a start in addressing poverty in old age. 
Good basic health care introduced decades ago in Chile and Costa Rica has served the ageing populations of those countries. A good education system – basic literacy is crucial for older people as they deal with the pensions bureaucracy – is of great benefit later in life. In the Philippines, older people have benefited from the educational reforms introduced after independence in 1946, which made elementary and high school education compulsory. The same is true for Armenia, which, like other countries of the former Soviet Union, benefited from a robust education system. South Korea, a surprisingly low 67 on the ageing index, performed worse than similar countries on a GDP-per-head basis, partly because it introduced a pension only recently. 
The ageing index is calculated using 13 indicators under four headings: income security, health care, employment and education, and an enabling environment. All indicators have equal weight, except for pension income coverage, life expectancy at 60, healthy life expectancy at 60 and psychological well-being. These categories were given increased weighting because of better data quality and countries were included only if there was sufficient data. 
Professor Sir Richard Jolly, creator of the human development index, said: “This groundbreaking index broadens the way we understand the needs and opportunities of older people through its pioneering application of human development methodology. It challenges countries in every part of the world to raise their sights as to what is possible.”",370
"To tourists, Amsterdam still seems very liberal. Recently the city’s Mayor assured them that the city’s marijuana-selling coffee shops would stay open despite a new national law to prevent drug tourism. But the Dutch capital’s plans to send nuisance neighbours to “scum villages” made from shipping containers may damage its reputation for tolerance.
The Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, says his controversial new £810,000 policy to deal with antisocial behaviour is to protect victims of abuse and homophobia. The camps, where antisocial families will be rehoused for three to six months, have been called “scum villages” because the policy is similar to proposals from Geert Wilders, the far-right politician, who last year said that “repeat offenders” should be “sent to a village for scum”.
Bartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, says that the plans are not illiberal. “We want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam,” he says. “We want everyone to be who he and she is – whether they are gay and lesbian or resist violence and are then victims of harassment. We as a society want to defend them.” According to Boer, the villages are not for “a problem neighbour who has the stereo too loud on Saturday night” but “people who are extremely violent and intimidating and in a clear situation where a victim is being harassed again and again”.
People found guilty of causing “extreme havoc” will be evicted and put in “basic” temporary homes, including converted shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. “We call it a living container,” says Boer. Housing antisocial families in these units, which have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation, will mean that they are not “rewarded” for their behaviour by being put in better accommodation.
Dutch newspaper the Parool has written that in the 19th century troublemakers were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which rapidly became slums. But Boer insists that the government has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to house antisocial families together.
It would be more accurate to call them “scum houses” than scum villages, says Boer, “because we don’t want to put more than one of these families in the same area”. After a maximum of six months in these houses, in different parts of the city, the families will be found permanent homes. The city government expects to move around ten families a year into this programme, which starts in 2013.
The temporary accommodation will be heavily policed, but antisocial families will also have access to doctors, social workers and parole officers. “They are taken care of so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in,” says Boer.",371
"Brazil’s latest funk sensation, Anitta, has won millions of fans by taking the favela sound into the mainstream, but she is at the centre of a debate about skin colour. 
Anti-discrimination campaigners and social commentators say the music industry’s fastest rising star has had to sacrifice her blackness to make it into the predominantly white middle- class market. 
The controversy was prompted by the publication of then-and-now photographs that show a dramatic lightening of Anitta’s skin tone since she signed a deal with Warner. 
In the first, when she was relatively unknown, she looked darker. In the second – a marketing shot after she became famous – she seems paler. Whether this was the result of whitening products and cosmetic surgery or – more likely – Photoshop tweaks, the contrast has rekindled discussion about whether you need to be pale to get ahead in Brazil. 
Jarid Arraes, a psychology student and blogger, wrote a post criticizing the latent discrimination in media and marketing that she felt Anitta’s image change represented. “People refuse to accept that they are racist and they think they live in a multiracial democracy, but the statistics show that is far from the case. The whitening shows us a profoundly intolerant society that doesn’t support diversity. White is the image of the rich, the nice, the successful, the good, while people see black as the opposite of all that.” 
Born Larissa de Macedo Machado, the diva-to-be was a church chorister in her childhood. In her teens, she made a name for herself in Rio de Janeiro’s baile funk scene as a dancer and singer. 
She has now exploded into the public consciousness with an album and a huge hit single, Show das Poderosas , which topped the charts and attracted 52 million YouTube views. 
Though adored first and foremost as a pop idol with a strong message and some catchy tunes, her backers project her as a cultural bridge between the predominantly black and mixed-race shanty towns on Rio’s hillsides and the wealthier and whiter communities below. 
She has toned down the suggestive dancing, gangsta references and explicit lyrics of baile funk. Now, however, questions are being asked about whether she – or her marketing team – have gone too far in re-tailoring her image to attract a more lucrative demographic. “If pop stars have curly hair, they are going to feel coerced into straightening it. If they have a big nose, they will be coerced into getting rhinoplasty,” said Arraes. “It creates a vicious cycle for self-esteem.” 
This is a sensitive topic in this largely mixed-raced nation. Brazil – one of the last big countries in the world to ban slavery – has the largest population of African descent outside Africa, but race and ancestry are less important here than colour. And, despite the nation’s goal of being a multiracial democracy, there is a clear link between skin tone and inequality. 
In Brazilian cities, white workers earn roughly twice as much as those of African descent. Up until 2011, black or mixed-race students also spent two years less at school on average. 
The government says the gap is closing thanks to quota systems for university places and other forms of affirmative action. But the gulf remains glaringly apparent. The vast majority of business and government executives are white, while most menial jobs are done by black and mixed-race workers. Walk through Ipanema, Gávea or other upmarket districts and you are far more likely to see black nannies pushing strollers with white toddlers than a white nanny pushing a black child. 
Defining colour is complex. People who define themselves as white were in the minority for the first time in the most recent census in 2010. Among the 197 million population, 82 million said they were “pardu” (mixed race), 15 million black, two million Asian and 0.5% indigenous. 
Sylvio Ferreira, a psychology lecturer at the Federal University of Pernambuco, believes Anitta has won the hearts of the middle class by taking a rebellious sound and making it tamer and more palatable to everyone. 
“Was this achieved by racial whitening? No,” he said. “What happened was a change of the social space where Anitta produced her art: from the periphery to the centre.” 
Others agree that the issue of colour is overblown. Maycon de Mattos Batista, a financial analyst who worked with Anitta while she was an intern, said there had been a huge change in Anitta’s image, but not of her colour. 
“I don’t believe it’s whitening; it’s more the way they are producing her with makeup, hairstylists and the way she dresses,” he said. “I don’t think that was because of pressure being put on her. She always liked to show off, sing and dance. That was a natural thing for her. I believe that it is because of this naturalness that she is where she is today.” 
Leandro Silva de Souza, a racial equality activist in the north-eastern city of Salvador, said the prejudice lay not with society but with music producers and media executives. The public, he said, proved they were interested in music for its own sake by choosing Ellen Oléria – a black lesbian – as the recent winner of the talent show The Voice Brazil . 
The Guardian was unable to reach Anitta for comment. But, in a recent interview, she described the need for identity to be self-defined. 
“All-powerful is a woman who doesn’t need to be beautiful, but she has so much attitude that she is marvellous, she is powerful. What I try to pass on in my work for everyone is that we can be who we want.”",372
"The Moroccan city of Ouarzazate is used to big productions. It is on the edge of the Sahara Desert and at the centre of the North African country’s “Ouallywood” film industry, where scenes from movies such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy, The Living Daylights and even Game of Thrones were filmed.
Now the city, known as the “door of the desert”, is the centre for a complex of four linked solar megaplants, which, together with hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Morocco’s electricity from renewable energy by 2020. The project is a key part of Morocco’s ambitions to use its deserts to become a global solar superpower.
When the full complex is complete, it will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. The first phase, called Noor 1, will be ready in November 2015. The mirror technology it uses is less widespread and more expensive than the photovoltaic panels that you can see on roofs all over the world. But it will have the advantage of being able to continue producing power even after the sun goes down.
The potential for solar power from the desert has been known for decades. In the days after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, the German particle physicist Gerhard Knies calculated that the world’s deserts receive enough energy in a few hours to provide power for all the people in the world for a whole year. But the challenge is to capture that energy and take it to where it is needed.
As engineers finish Noor 1, its 500,000 moon-shaped solar mirrors glitter in the desert. The 800 rows follow the sun across the sky, whirring quietly every few minutes.
When they are finished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will need a space as big as Morocco’s capital city, Rabat, and generate 580 mega-watts of electricity, enough to power a million homes.
Morocco’s environment minister, Hakima el-Haite, believes that solar energy could have the same effects on the region this century that oil production had in the last century. But the $9bn project was triggered by more immediate concerns, she said.
“We import 94% of our energy as fossil fuels from other countries and that has big consequences for our state budget,” el-Haite told the Guardian. “So, when we heard about the possibilities of solar energy, we thought, ‘Why not?’”
Solar energy will make up a third of Morocco’s renewable energy supply by 2020. Wind and hydro will make up the other two-thirds.
“We are very proud of this project,” el-Haite said. “I think it is the most important solar plant in the world.”
Technicians say that the Noor 2 and 3 plants, due to open in 2017, will store energy for up to eight hours – this gives the possibility of 24/7 solar energy in the Sahara and the surrounding region.
The first part of the project is nearly completed and Morocco has bigger international ambitions. “We are already involved in transportation lines to cover the full south of Morocco and Mauritania,” says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of Société d’Investissements Energétiques, the national renewable energy investment firm. But he says the project’s effects will go further – even as far as the Middle East.
Exporting solar energy could have stabilizing effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen). Morocco is making plans with Tunisia and energy exports northwards across the Mediterranean are a key goal.
“We believe that it’s possible to export energy to Europe but, first, we have to build the interconnectors which don’t yet exist,” said Maha el-Kadiri, a Masen spokeswoman.
In the meantime, Morocco is focused on using solar to meet its own needs. This could one day include water desalination, which is very useful in a country that is having more and more droughts as the climate warms.
About $9bn has been invested in the Noor Complex, much of it from international institutions such as the European Investment Bank and World Bank and supported by Moroccan government guarantees. Energy subsidies from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI have stopped the cost from being transferred to normal people.
Over a thousand, mostly Moroccan, workers are still racing to fix electric wires, take down scaffolding and insulate steel pipelines. They hurry past in yellow and orange safety vests, working 12-hour shifts beneath the Atlas mountains. They wear hard hats, safety shoes and ear plugs.
“We’ve done the construction and, now, we will see how these projects look when they start,” says Hajar Lakhael, a 25-year-old environment and security manager from Meknes. “It is exactly like the preparation for a grand performance.”
A global audience will be watching with interest.",373
"Life isn’t fair sometimes. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and is now worth $48 billion. James Goodfellow also invented something that millions of people around the world use every day – the cash machine – but it didn’t make him rich. In fact, he earned just £10 from the patent and has not made any money from it since.
Who is the inventor of the ATM? People have argued for years over this question. In 2005, a man called John Shepherd-Barron received a UK honour as the “inventor of the automatic cash dispenser”. But, the UK government is now saying it was Goodfellow who invented the ATM.
In the mid-1960s, Goodfellow’s managers asked him to think of a way to allow customers to withdraw cash from banks on Saturdays. “Most people worked during the week and couldn’t go to the bank. They wanted a solution. The solution was a machine which would give cash to a customer,” he says. “I wanted to develop a cash machine and, to make this happen, I invented the PIN [personal identification number] and a coded token.”
Goodfellow’s first machines were installed in 1967. At around the same time, Shepherd-Barron was developing a similar machine. His machine didn’t use plastic cards – it used cheques.
Most people agree that Shepherd-Barron’s ATM was the “world’s first” to be installed and used by the public. The first one was at a bank in north London. It was opened on 27 June, 1967 – a month before Goodfellow’s ATM appeared. But, Goodfellow registered the patent for his machine on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before Shepherd-Barron’s ATM machine was first used.
Shepherd-Barron received an official honour for his invention and Goodfellow says: “My one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the honour in 2005. The Queen gave him this honour for inventing the automatic cash dispenser. That really annoyed me and I complained about it.”
Shepherd-Barron is dead now but, in a 2005 interview, he criticized Goodfellow. He said Goodfellow’s invention was a failure.
The cash machine is now used all over the world and, every year, there are more and more: there are now three million ATMs worldwide and there will be four million by 2020. The good news for Goodfellow is that people are beginning to recognize him for his invention. The website ATMInventor.com says: “Who invented the idea of an ATM? We believe it was Luther George Simjian. Who invented the ATM as we know it? It was James Goodfellow for holding a patent date of 1966.”
Even better for Goodfellow, his invention is in a 180-page guidebook called Life in the United Kingdom. In the section about “great British inventions of the twentieth century”, it says: “In the 1960s, James Goodfellow (1937-) invented the automatic teller machine (ATM) or ‘cashpoint’.”
So after all these years, Goodfellow is finally among a group of famous British inventors with John Logie Baird (the television), Alan Turing (the Turing machine), Sir Frank Whittle (the jet engine) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the World Wide Web). When he was asked what he did with the £10 he received in the 1960s, Goodfellow said he spent it on a night out. “It didn’t change my life,” he said.",374
"Sometimes life isn’t fair. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and is now worth an estimated $48bn. James Goodfellow also invented something used by millions of people around the world every day – the cash machine – but it didn’t make him rich. In fact, he earned just £10 from the patent and has not made a penny more from it since.
“You can imagine how I feel when I see bankers getting £1m bonuses. What have they contributed to the banking industry, compared to me, to merit a £1m bonus,” Goodfellow says. He invented something that generated billions of pounds and he got nothing.
There have been arguments for years over who is “the inventor of the ATM” and, in 2005, a man called John Shepherd-Barron received a UK honour as the “inventor of the automatic cash dispenser”. But, the UK government is now saying it was Goodfellow who invented the ATM – so it seems that, after all the arguments, he now has his place in history.
Back in the mid-1960s, Goodfellow was working as a development engineer and was asked to devise a way to allow customers to withdraw cash from banks on Saturdays. “Most people worked during the week and couldn’t get to the bank. They wanted a solution. The solution was a machine which would give cash to a recognized customer,” he remembers. “I wanted to develop a cash-issuing machine and, to make this a reality, I invented the PIN [personal identification number] and a coded token.”
This token was a plastic card with holes in it. The patent documents described a system with a card reader and buttons mounted in an external wall of the bank. After Goodfellow produced a model that showed how the machine would work, prototypes were built and the first machines were installed in 1967. At around the same time, Shepherd-Barron was developing a rival machine. His machine didn’t use plastic cards – instead, it used cheques containing carbon-14, a mildly radioactive substance. The machine detected the carbon-14, matched the cheque against a PIN and paid out the cash.
It is widely accepted that the Shepherd-Barron ATM was the “world’s first” to be installed and used by the public; the first one, at a bank in north London, was opened on 27 June, 1967 – a month before Goodfellow’s ATM appeared. However, the patent for Goodfellow’s machine was lodged on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before Shepherd-Barron’s ATM machine was first used.
Shepherd-Barron received an official honour for his achievement and Goodfellow says: “My one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the OBE in 2005 for inventing the automatic cash dispenser. That really stuck in my throat and I kicked up a fuss.”
Shepherd-Barron is no longer alive but, in a 2005 interview, he was quite critical of his rival: “I don’t know him but it’s clear that the difference between Goodfellow and us was that we thought through the whole system concept and that was important to the banks who bought it. His invention reminds me of the hovercraft, an elegant failure.”
The cash machine is now used all over the world and nothing – the contactless revolution, bitcoin, wearable technology, etc – is slowing its growth: there are now 3m ATMs worldwide and, by 2020, there will probably be 4m.
The good news for Goodfellow is that he is beginning to be recognized for his invention. The website ATMInventor.com says: “Who invented the idea of an ATM? We believe it was Luther George Simjian. Who invented the ATM as we know it? We have to think it was James Goodfellow for holding a patent date of 1966. Who invented the ATM design we recognize today? We think it was John D White in the US.”
Even better for Goodfellow, his achievement has been officially recognized in the latest edition of a 180-page guidebook called Life in the United Kingdom. In the section about “great British inventions of the twentieth century”, it states: “In the 1960s, James Goodfellow (1937-) invented the cash-dispensing automatic teller machine (ATM) or ‘cashpoint’.” 
So after all these years, Goodfellow is finally among a group of famous British inventors with John Logie Baird (the television), Alan Turing (the Turing machine), Sir Frank Whittle (the jet engine) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the World Wide Web). Asked what he did with the £10 he received in the 1960s, Goodfellow says he thinks he blew it on a night out. He added: “It didn’t change my life.”",375
"Two mothers in South Africa have found out that they are raising each other’s daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth in a hospital in 2010.
But, while one of the women wants to correct the error and get her biological child back, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own.
Henk Strydom, a lawyer for one of the mothers, described the swap as a travesty and tragedy that is unlikely to have a happy ending.
Both mothers gave birth at the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, on the same day in 2010. “Nobody suspected anything,” Strydom said.
But, in 2013, one of the mothers, who is 33 and unemployed, sued her ex-partner for maintenance for her daughter. Strydom said: “The man denied he was the father. A DNA test was done and it was found it was not his baby and not her baby. She was devastated. She didn’t know what to do.”
Eventually, she met the other mother and, since December 2013, they have been attending joint counselling sessions, arranged by the hospital. Here they have met their biological daughters.
Strydom said of his client: “She said there are resemblances to herself. She told me that it was traumatic. You can see it’s not easy for her. She has to care for a child that is not hers on her own while her child is with someone else.”
The woman became unhappy with the process and asked the children’s court to give her custody of her biological child, but the other mother refused.
“It’s a tragedy. She wants the baby back, but it’s four years later: you can understand that the other mother doesn’t want to give up her baby,” Strydom said.
The High Court in Pretoria has asked the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Child Law to investigate what will now be in the best interests of the children.
Strydom added: “I don’t know what the court will decide. Your guess is as good as mine. But, whatever happens, someone won’t be happy.”
He said, at this point, he and his client do not want to sue the hospital or government health department, which is helping with the case and providing counselling.
The Centre for Child Law will interview the mothers and fathers, as well as any other person with a “signifi cant relationship” with either of the girls. The children and mothers will have clinical assessments and may be seen by a psychologist.
Karabo Ngidi, a lawyer with the centre, said: “What’s going to happen must be in the best interests of the children. Biology is an important aspect but not the only one.”
The families are of Zulu ethnicity and so Zulu tradition, culture and customary law will be a factor, she added. It is also still possible the expartner of the mother who is taking legal action could be the biological father of the girl who was switched.
It is not the fi rst child-swap case in South Africa. In 1995, two mothers were awarded damages after their sons, born in 1989, were accidentally switched at the Johannesburg hospital where they were born.
In 2009, in Oregon in the United States, Dee Ann Angell and Kay Rene Reed discovered that they had been mistakenly mixed up at birth in 1953 when a nurse brought them back from bathing.
In 2013, in Japan, a 60-year-old man swapped at birth from his rich parents to a poor family was given compensation. He grew up on welfare and became a truck driver, whereas his biological brothers and sisters – and the boy brought up in his place – attended private secondary schools and universities.
Bruce Laing, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg, said the long-term effects of a baby swap could be “profound”, “terrifying” and “incredibly traumatizing”. He told The Times of South Africa: “The parents might always be thinking ‘What if?’”",376
"cientists have connected the brains of a pair of animals and allowed them to share sensory information in a major step towards what the researchers call the world’s first “organic computer”. 
The US team fitted two rats with devices called brain-to-brain interfaces that let the animals collaborate on simple tasks to earn rewards, such as a drink of water. In one radical demonstration of the technology, the scientists used the internet to link the brains of two rats separated by thousands of miles, with one in the researchers’ lab at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the other in Natal, Brazil. 
Led by Miguel Nicolelis, a pioneer of devices that allow paralyzed people to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts, the researchers say their latest work may enable multiple brains to be hooked up to share information. “These experiments showed that we have established a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between brains,” Nicolelis said in a statement. “Basically, we are creating what I call an organic computer.” 
The scientists first demonstrated that rats can share, and act on, each other’s sensory information by electrically connecting their brains via tiny grids of electrodes that reach into the motor cortex, the brain region that processes movement. 
The rats were trained to press a lever when a light went on above it. When they performed the task correctly, they got a drink of water. To test the animals’ ability to share brain information, they put the rats in two separate compartments. Only one compartment had a light that came on above the lever. When the rat pressed the lever, an electronic version of its brain activity was sent directly to the other rat’s brain. In trials, the second rat responded correctly to the imported brain signals 70% of the time by pressing the lever. 
Remarkably, the communication between the rats was two-way. If the receiving rat failed at the task, the first rat was not rewarded with a drink, and appeared to change its behaviour to make the task easier for its partner. In further experiments, the rats collaborated on a task that required them to distinguish between narrow and wide openings using their whiskers. 
In the final test, the scientists connected rats on different continents and beamed their brain activity back and forth over the internet. “Even though the animals were on different continents, with the resulting noisy transmission and signal delays, they could still communicate,” said Miguel Pais-Vieira, the first author of the study. “This tells us that we could create a workable network of animal brains distributed in many different locations.” 
Nicolelis said the team is now working on ways to link several animals’ brains at once to solve more complex tasks. “We cannot even predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a 'brain-net',” he said. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves.” The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports. 
Anders Sandberg, who studies the ethics of neurotechnologies at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, said the work was “very important” in helping to understand how brains encode information. But the implications of the technology and its potential future uses are far broader, said Sandberg. “The main reason we are running the planet is that we are amazingly good at communicating and coordinating. Without that, although we are very smart animals, we would not dominate the planet.” 
“I don’t think there’s any risk of supersmart rats from this,” he added. “There’s a big difference between sharing sensory information and being able to plan. I’m not worried about an imminent invasion of 'rat multiborgs'.”  
Very little is known about how thoughts are encoded and how they might be transmitted into another person’s brain, so that is not a realistic prospect any time soon. And much of what is in our minds is what Sandberg calls a “draft” of what we might do. “Often, we don’t want to reveal those drafts; that would be embarrassing and confusing. And a lot of those drafts are changed before we act. Most of the time I think we’d be very thankful not to be in someone else’s head.”",377
"Vienna is the world’s best city to live in, Baghdad is the worst and London, Paris and New York do not even make it into the top 35, according to international research into quality of life. 
German-speaking cities dominate the rankings in the 18th Mercer Quality of Life study, with Vienna joined by Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt in the top seven. 
Paris has tumbled down the league, falling ten places to 37th, just ahead of London at 39th, almost entirely because of the city’s vulnerability to terrorist attacks. 
The study examined social and economic conditions, health, education, housing and the environment, and is used by big companies to assess where they should locate and how much they should pay staff. 
Viennese-born Helena Hartlauer, 32, said she was not surprised at her city’s top position. The municipality’s social democratic government has a long tradition of investing in high-quality social housing, making Vienna almost uniquely affordable among major cities. 
“I live in a 100sq-metre turn-of-the-century apartment in a good area about 20 minutes’ walk from the city centre. But my rent is just €800 (£625) a month.” An equivalent apartment in London would cost upwards of £2,000 and even more in New York, ranked 44th in the table. 
US cities perform relatively poorly in the study, largely because of issues around personal safety and crime. The highest ranking city in the US is San Francisco, at 28th; Boston is 34th. Canadian cities, led by Vancouver, far outrank their US rivals in the table. 
“You don’t realize how safe Vienna is until you head abroad,” said Hartlauer. “We also have terrific public transport, with the underground working 24 hours at weekends, and it only costs €1 per trip.” 
Vienna benefited enormously from the fall of the Berlin Wall, becoming the gateway to Eastern European countries that often have historic ties to the former Austro-Hungarian empire. 
“Our big USP is our geographical location,” said Martin Eichtinger, Austrian ambassdaor to London, who lived in Vienna for 20 years. “The fall of the Berlin Wall helped define Vienna as the hub for companies wanting to do business in Central Europe.” 
According to the World Bank, Austria has one of the highest figures for GDP per head in the world, just behind the US and ahead of Germany and Britain, although quite some way below neighbouring Switzerland. 
Zurich in Switzerland is named by Mercer as having the world’s second highest quality of life but the Viennese say their city is far more fun. “There are more students in Vienna than any other German-speaking city,” said Hartlauer. “It’s a very fast growing, young and lively city,” she added – though she conceded she works for the city’s tourist board. 
Vienna has long been overlooked by British weekend city break tourists, who instead flock to Barcelona or Berlin and tend to think of Austria as somewhere for skiing, lakes and mountains. But, after an increase in budget flights from regional British cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh, Vienna is fast catching up as a popular destination. In 2015, there were 588,000 British visitors to Vienna, up 18% on the year before. The flow is both ways; Eichtinger said London has become the number one city destination for Austrian visitors. 
“Vienna has ranked top in the last seven published rankings,” said Mercer. “It scores highly in a number of categories; it provides a safe and stable environment to live in, a high level of public utilities and transport facilities and good recreational facilities.” 
The European migrant crisis, which has seen large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers pass through Vienna en route to Germany, has had little impact on the city of nearly 1.8 million people, said Eichtinger. “We have managed to accommodate 90,000 refugees in Austria but the numbers have slowed in recent months.” London has never been in the quality-of-life top ten, says Mercer, damaged by its poor scores for air pollution, traffic congestion and climate. After London, Edinburgh is the next-ranking British city, in 46th place. 
Paris has suffered the biggest fall in the most recent rankings. “Paris remained stable for several years but has, this year, dropped ten places in the overall ranking,” said Mercer. 
“The drop was essentially due to the terrorist attacks in 2015. However, it is important to highlight that safety issues are a very highly weighted factor within the ’basket’ so any small adjustments can have a big impact on the ranking.” 
Auckland in New Zealand was the highest ranking English-speaking city in the survey, in third place, followed by Vancouver in fifth. Australian cities also perform very highly in the survey, with Sydney 10th and Melbourne 15th. The Economist has consistently ranked Melbourne as the world’s most liveable city, although its survey has been criticized as too Anglocentric. 
War and political unrest are behind all the worst-ranked cities in the world. Surprisingly, Damascus is named as only the seventh worst, ranked better than not just Baghdad but also Bangui in Central African Republic, Sana’a in Yemen, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, Khartoum in Sudan and N’Djamena in Chad.",378
"Ninety-six people died at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium in 1989. During an extraordinary day 23 years later at Liverpool Cathedral, where the families of the victims met to see a report on the disaster, the most important words were: the truth. This was the headline in The Sun newspaper. We now know that the story in the newspaper was false and that the police gave them the story. 
Margaret Aspinall’s son James, then 18, died at the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. She said the families had to fight for 23 years for the truth. She said that the families’ sadness will never go away, but she is very pleased that the Prime Minister said sorry for Hillsborough. 
An independent panel looked at 450,000 documents written by the police, Sheffield Wednesday and all the other groups involved. The panel then wrote a 395-page report. In the report they criticize official mistakes and say that the victims and other fans were not to blame. We already knew the cause of the disaster but we didn’t know that the police cover-up was so big. It is shocking how the police blamed the football fans for the disaster. 
The panel found that the South Yorkshire Police, led by the Chief Constable, Peter Wright, told their story that drunken fans or those without tickets caused the disaster. They tested the victims’ blood for alcohol. When victims had alcohol in their blood, the police then checked to find if they had criminal records. The police said that many Liverpool fans were very drunk, were without tickets and were very violent, but the report found “no evidence” for this. 
The report said that Wright met with police in a Sheffield restaurant to prepare “a defence” and “a story ”. The meeting happened just four days after the disaster. It was the day that The Sun newspaper published its headline “The Truth” and the story by four senior South Yorkshire police officers.
The panel found that officers’ statements were changed to remove criticism of the police and emphasize bad behaviour by fans. The panel found that 116 of 164 statements were changed “to remove or change negative comments about South Yorkshire police”. The police said this was done only to remove “opinion” from the statements, but the panel said they did more than that. “It was done to remove criticism of the police,” the report said. 
The original inquiry did not believe this propaganda. It decided in August 1989 that the police stories of fan drunkenness and violence were false, and it criticized the police for telling lies. It said that Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium was unsafe, that the Football Association chose that stadium for the match without even checking if it had a safety certificate. It did not have a certificate. 
But “the main cause” of the disaster was the way the police controlled the crowd. The police lost control outside the stadium, where 24,000 Liverpool fans had to go through just 23 small entrance gates. So police opened a large exit gate and lots of people were allowed in. They did not close one of the tunnels and, the inquiry said, this was their big mistake. 
But the police still repeated their lies at the inquest. The coroner decided not to take evidence of what happened after 3.15pm on the day of the disaster, so he did not look at the chaotic behaviour of the police and the ambulance service. The panel found that if the police and ambulance service had done their jobs better, they could have saved 41 of the 96 lives lost. 
There may now be a new inquest. There may be prosecutions too, after all these years, of Sheffield Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council, which was responsible for the safety of the stadium. Trevor Hicks, whose two daughters died in the disaster, said: “The truth is out today,” Hicks said. “Tomorrow is for justice.”",379
"All six numbers match, so it’s time to buy that Audi, book the holiday in the US and phone the estate agent. At least, that’s what most lottery millionaires do, according to a study of spending and investment by jackpot winners.
Since it started in 1994, the UK national lottery has created 3,000 millionaires who have won more than £8.5bn in total, at an average of £2.8m each. Between them, they have created a further 3,780 millionaires among their children, family and friends, according to the authors of the study, Oxford Economics.
Most winners (59%) give up work straight away, but 19% carry on working and 31% do unpaid voluntary work. The good news for the economy is that 98% of the money the winners spent remained in the UK. Through their spending on property, vehicles and holidays, it is estimated that each winner keeps six people in a full-time job for a year.
Winners have contributed almost £750m to gross domestic product (GDP), and generated more than £500m in tax for the Exchequer. The bulk of the money went on property, with £2.72bn spent on winners’ main properties, and £170m in paying off existing debt and mortgages.
£2.125bn was spent on investments. Gifts to family and friends accounted for £1.17bn, and £680m was spent on cars and holidays.
The study was based on research from 100 £1m-plus winners. It found that in total the 3,000 winners have purchased 7,958 houses or flats in the UK, or 2.7 each, spending £3.3bn. Most winners (82%) changed their main home, spending an average £900,000.
The new home is likely to have a hot tub, with almost a third (29%) putting that on their shopping list. A walk-in wardrobe was absolutely necessary for 28%, almost a quarter (24%) chose a property behind electric gates, and 22% had a games room, with 7% installing a snooker table.
Larger properties need maintaining, and 30% of winners employed a cleaner and 24% a gardener. A small proportion (5%) employed a beautician.
Audis were the favourite cars of 16% of winners, with Range Rovers and BMWs also popular purchases (11% each), as well as Mercedes (10%) and Land Rovers (5%). Winners spent £463m on 17,190 cars, with the average price of their favourite being £46,116.
Holidays were also a priority. The majority (68%) choose five-star hotels overseas. The US was the favoured destination for 27%, followed by the Caribbean (9%). Closer to home, however, UK caravan sales have benefited. Over the past 18 years, 10% of millionaires have bought a caravan, generating sales worth about £7.4m.
Some winners (15%) have started their own businesses, 9% have helped others to do so, and 6% have invested in or bought other people’s businesses. Businesses started or supported by lottery winners employ 3,195 people, according to the study.
Andy Logan, author of the report, said: “The effect of a win spreads much further and wider than we expected. Not only does it change the lives of friends and family, but each win has an effect on the UK economy, especially with so much of it being spent in the UK.”",380
"They call him the Robin Hood of the banks, a man who took out many loans worth almost half a million euros with no intention of ever paying them back. Instead, Enric Duran gave the money to projects that created and promoted alternatives to capitalism.
After 14 months in hiding, Duran is unapologetic, even though his activities could put him in jail. “I’m proud of what I did,” he said in an interview by Skype from a secret location.
From 2006 to 2008, Duran took out 68 commercial and personal loans from 39 banks in Spain. He gave the money to social activists, who used it to pay for speaking tours against capitalism and TV cameras for a media network. He said he saw that these social movements were building alternatives but that they didn’t have enough money. “Meanwhile, constant growth was creating a system that created money out of nothing.”
The loans he swindled from banks were his way of regulating and denouncing this situation, he said. He started slowly. “I filled out a few credit applications with my real details. They said no, but I just wanted to understand what they were asking for.”
From there, the former table-tennis coach began to set up a confusing web of accounts, payments and transfers. “I was learning constantly.” By the summer of 2007, he had discovered how to make the system work – he applied for loans under the name of a false television production company. “Then, I managed to get a lot.” €492,000, to be exact.
Duran was arrested in Spain in 2009, on charges brought against him by six of the 39 banks that had lent him money. He spent two months in prison before being let out on €50,000 bail. In February 2013, threatened with up to eight years in prison, he decided to flee rather than stand trial because, he said, he doesn’t recognize the authority of the judicial system.
His actions, he said, were an important part of a worldwide debate on the economic crisis. The timing pushed the anti-capitalist movement into the light, just as many Spaniards were looking for alternatives to a system that has caused chaos in their lives.
In today’s Spain, the anti-capitalist movement, and groups such as the Indignados, are supported by thousands of Spaniards.
Duran is now widening his focus to include Spain’s justice system, by promoting restorative justice. “The people in Spain who believe that banks don’t work, they think that I don’t owe anything. I’ve already done my work,” he said. “But there is a part of a population that is not in agreement with us and I think I should respond to that.”
In his case, he said, he could offer banks the insight he got from years of obtaining bank loans fraudulently. He could share his thoughts on “which best practices work and the bad ones that don’t,” he suggested, “for the general population and for bank workers”.",381
"Roger McKinlay is the former president of the Royal Institute of Navigation. He says that our use of GPS (global positioning system) technology is damaging our ability to find our way. “If we do not look after them, we will lose our natural navigation abilities because we rely on technology more and more,” he wrote.
McKinlay believes it will take a lot of time and money before navigation systems will be good enough for technologies such as driverless cars to become successful. He says we need better research into systems for navigation. Also, children should learn to find their way using more traditional methods. “Schools should teach navigation and map reading,” he wrote.
In 2012, 39% of adults in the UK had a smartphone. In 2015, 66% of adults had a smartphone. So most people now use GPS technology. But McKinlay, a satellite communication and navigation consultant, believes that we should be careful not to only use our smartphones for navigation. “If we don’t practise using our navigation skills, we will lose them,” he wrote.
Research from 2009 supports this idea. “We studied a group of current London taxi drivers and a group of retired London taxi drivers,” said Dr Hugo Spiers of University College London, who is an author of the study. The results showed that the retired taxi drivers did worse on navigation tests than the current drivers. “We were able to show that their abilities decreased after they stopped using their knowledge.”
Spiers also believes it is dangerous to rely on technologies like GPS. But he says that the biggest problem is that technologies can lead drivers into dangerous situations. One of the deaths caused by satnavs (satellite navigation) was of a driver who, in 2010, drove into a lake in Spain. “It can be dangerous to use a satnav,” said Spiers.
The way we use navigation technology also has an impact on our own abilities, says Spiers. If drivers listen to instructions, they don’t need to think about where they are going, he says, but the use of smartphone apps as digital maps is better. When you use digital maps, “you have to think hard about where you are going,” he said.
McKinlay believes there have to be big improvements in navigation technologies before we can have futuristic things like driverless cars and smart cities. “For really important jobs – like landing aeroplanes or flying aeroplanes – GPS is still not good enough, ” he said.
McKinlay believes humans must still able to take control of their navigation. “We don’t want people to go into total shock when their smartphone disappears or the battery goes flat,” he said. “Technology isn’t magic – it is just a tool.”",382
"A new report says that almost one billion people will remain in extreme poverty by 2030 if countries don’t try to solve the social, economic and cultural problems that keep them poor. The report by the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network says that many people may rise above the poverty line of $1.25 a day, but fall back again when they have problems such as drought or illness and insecurity or conflict.
The report found that, in parts of rural Kenya and in South Africa, 30 to 40% of people who escaped from poverty fell back again. This percentage rose to 60% in some areas of Ethiopia between 1999 and 2009. Even in successful countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, the proportion was 20%.
Individual examples show how easy it is for people to fall back into poverty. Amin is from a village in Bangladesh. His income has fallen slowly, because of his illness and his wife’s illness, the cost of his son’s marriage, the death of his father and loss of goods such as fishing nets. Lovemore, from Zimbabwe, is now one of the poorest people in his village. He recently lost his job because of ill health and has to look after his five grandchildren after the death of his daughters.
“We need to make sure that people who come out of poverty remain above the poverty line permanently. Too many families return to poverty when they have personal or bigger problems. Governments shouldn’t assume that, just because somebody’s income hits $1.25, that means the problem is solved,” said Andrew Shepherd, the main author of the report.
According to the UN, the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 is still possible. But the report says that countries need to make changes to achieve zero poverty. There was a drop in extreme poverty from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.2 billion in 2010, but the report says that progress in the next 15 years will be much more difficult. There has been a lot of progress in China but there will probably not be similar progress in other parts of the world.
The report says countries should try to help the chronically poor – those who are poor for many years or their entire lives – and stop people becoming poor. “Governments have been quite good at moving people over the poverty line because that is quite easy. But they have avoided the more difficult job of trying to reduce chronic poverty,” said Shepherd.
The report says progress on poverty reduction has helped people who were already closer to the poverty line, but has helped the chronically poor much less. It will not be possible to get to zero poverty if development policies don’t focus on the chronically poor, it adds. The report suggests three ideas. They all cost a lot of money.
The first is social help – to bring the poorest people closer to a good-enough standard of living. The second is education, from early childhood to the start of work, so people can escape and stay out of poverty. The third is economic growth policies that make sure that the benefits of increasing national wealth reach the poorest people.
All this will cost money and the report says higher taxes will be necessary. Aid will also be necessary for the start-up costs for social assistance, healthcare for everyone and to finance education. “There remains a huge role for aid in the next 20 years, as many developing countries spend less than $500 on each of their citizens a year. Even Nigeria, with its oil wealth, spends only $650 per person,” Shepherd said.
The authors say governments should have a national development plan and make sure the poorest people are represented politically as well as trying to stop difficult social customs, such as dowries and witchcraft, that make extreme poverty worse.",383
"There are worse things to do in life than stroll along Rio’s Copacabana beach in the sunshine on the way to watch a World Cup match, so it was perhaps not surprising that England fan Anthony McDowell from Liverpool was in a good mood. “The place is lovely. The people are great. There’s a party atmosphere,” said McDowell. “The only thing that could be better is the England team.”
He and half a dozen friends are among the thousands of supporters from around the world who have made the beach into a party zone of national colours and chants. Some danced, some posed for photos, some drank, but mostly they just walked and talked football, waiting for the next game to begin on the nearby big screen. The last time there were so many people here during the daytime, the pope was visiting.
The cheerful, largely peaceful mood was very different from the protests, transport chaos and stadium problems during the preparations for the World Cup. But, now the football is under way, visiting supporters are determined to enjoy the experience. “If I had known, when I started planning, how complicated and costly it would be, I wouldn’t have come. But, now that we’re here, it’s great,” said Brian Hill, an England fan from Sunderland.
The trip has not been without its problems. Hill travelled for more than 20 hours to get to Rio. His son, Andrew, had his sunglasses stolen almost as soon as he sat on the beach. And, they have been surprised that many bars do not have big screens for the games. But, like many fans, they said they loved the atmosphere of this tournament, which has got off to a spectacular start on the pitch.
Everyone must have been thrilled by Robin van Persie’s extraordinary diving header for the Netherlands against Spain. And, there have been lots of goals: 28 in the first eight games – almost three times as many as at the same stage in South Africa in 2010. Adding to the carnival mood on the streets, where the majority of fans are from neighbouring nations, Latin-American teams have been very successful so far.
Up to now, the tournament has avoided the worst Doomsday scenarios, though it is far from trouble free. The stadiums may have been delivered late and – in some cases – not fully finished, but there have been no reports of structural problems or difficulties entering the grounds since the kick off.
As at previous World Cups, ticketing has been a problem, with many empty seats at several games. FIFA spokesman Saint-Clair Milesi confirmed that only 48,000 of the 51,900 seats at the Netherlands versus Spain game were filled.
The Globo newspaper listed a number of problems in the 12 host cities. Almost all suffered worse traffic congestion than usual. The worst transport problems were in Natal, where bus drivers were on strike. In Salvador, some journey times were five times longer than usual. “Traffic was already bad but this week it is chaotic,” said Jecilda Mello, a local resident.
But, protests have diminished since the opening day, when small demonstrations took place in several cities and police used tear gas and pepper spray. Since then, the only security threat has been petty theft and overexcited fans. A spontaneous street party of Argentinian fans was dispersed with pepper spray after the fans blocked roads.
The huge distances have led to some very different World Cup experiences. The tournament has made only a small mark on São Paulo, South America’s most populous city, but far away in Manaus – the remote Amazonian city where England played Italy – visitors said there was World Cup fever with brightly decorated streets and flags on many cars.
The FA chairman, Greg Dyke, said there was a big difference in atmosphere. “We’ve had a really warm welcome in Manaus. It’s a big thing for them, even if it is a bit strange to spend so much on a stadium with no one to play in it. But we were in São Paulo for four or five days before the opening match and you wouldn’t have known until the last day that there was even a World Cup on. It was weird.”",384
"The Canadian tennis player Frank Dancevic slammed Australian Open organizers for forcing players to compete in “inhumane” conditions after he collapsed on court as temperatures rose to 41C. 
Dancevic, who collapsed during the second set of his first-round match against France’s Benoît Paire on the uncovered court six at Melbourne Park and passed out for a minute, said conditions were plainly dangerous for the players. He also said the heat had caused him to hallucinate: “I was dizzy from the middle of the first set and then I saw Snoopy and I thought, 'Wow, Snoopy – that’s weird.'” 
“I think it’s inhumane. I don’t think it’s fair to anybody – to the players, to the fans, to the sport – when you see players pulling out of matches, passing out,” he added. “I’ve played five-set matches all my life and being out there for a set and a half and passing out with heat stroke, it’s not normal. 
“Having players with so many problems and complaining to the tournament that it’s too hot to play; until somebody dies, they just keep going on with it and putting matches on in this heat. I, personally, don’t think it’s fair and I know a lot of players don’t think it’s fair.” 
Other players were in broad agreement. The British number one, Andy Murray, said: “It’s definitely something that you have to look at a little bit. As much as it’s easy to say the conditions are safe, it only takes one bad thing to happen. And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people in the stands are collapsing. That’s not great. 
“I know when I went out to hit before the match, the conditions at 2.30–3pm were very, very tough. Whether it’s safe or not, I don’t know. There’s been some issues in other sports with players having heart attacks.” 
Caroline Wozniacki said: “I put the water bottle down on the court and it started melting a little bit underneath the plastic. So, you know it was warm.” 
John Isner, who retired from his first-round match with a right ankle injury, said: “It was like an oven when I open the oven and the potatoes are done. That’s what it’s like.” 
The defending champion Victoria Azarenka took the same line. “It felt pretty hot, like you’re dancing in a frying pan or something like that,” she said. 
The tournament’s “extreme heat” contingency plan was put into force for women’s matches on Tuesday, allowing an extra ten-minute break between the second and third sets. Under a change to the rules for 2014, however, the decision on whether to stop matches at the tournament is now at the discretion of the tournament director, Wayne McKewen. Rather than use the raw Celsius readings to assess the heat, organizers prefer to use the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature composite, which also gauges humidity and wind to identify the perceived conditions. Organizers said temperatures peaked at 42.2C in the early evening on Tuesday and conditions had never reached the point where play would be stopped. “We have to reach a minimum threshold and have a forecast that it will be sustained for a reasonable time,” McKewen said in a statement. “That didn’t happen. While conditions were hot and uncomfortable, the relatively low level of humidity ensured play would continue.” 
Dancevic, who said he had felt dizzy from the middle of the second set, resumed after medical attention but, unsurprisingly, ended up losing 7–6, 6–3, 6–4. “I was really close to stopping completely,” he said. “I wasn’t really running too much towards the end. I wasn’t tired; I just felt my body temperature was too high.” 
A ball boy had earlier required medical attention after collapsing during Milos Raonic’s 7–6, 6–1, 4–6, 6–2 victory over Daniel Gimeno-Traver on the equally exposed court eight and the tournament shortened rotations for the ball boys to 45-minute shifts. China’s Peng Shuai also said the heat had caused her to cramp up and vomit, and she had to be helped from the court after her 7–5, 4–6, 6–3 defeat to Japan’s Kurumi Nara. Officials played down health risks, saying the majority of matches were completed without calls for medical attention. 
“Of course, there were a few players who experienced heat-related illness or discomfort, but none required significant medical intervention after they had completed their match,” Tim Wood, the tournament’s chief medical officer, said in a statement. 
Most competitors, though, followed Roger Federer’s line that, although conditions were tough, they were the same for both players. “It’s just a mental thing,” the Swiss said, albeit before Dancevic collapsed. “If you’ve trained hard enough your entire life, or the last few weeks, and you believe you can do it and come through it, there’s no reason. If you can’t deal with it, you throw in the towel.” 
Dancevic disagreed. “I don’t think it’s much to do with the shape the players are in. Some players are used to the heat – their bodies can genetically handle the heat and others’ can’t,” he said. “It’s hazardous to be out there; it’s dangerous. It’s an hour and a half since my match and I still can’t pee.”",385
"Maria is waiting on a black plastic chair. When she is called, she picks up a brown paper bag full of food: pasta, eggs and cornflakes. She can also choose between butternut squash or carrots as this week’s vegetables.
Maria is the 34th “client” today at East Hampton Food Pantry, very close to some of the most expensive houses in the world.
Every day in the winter, more than 400 families collect their weekly food parcel from the food pantry. The food helps them get through the cold, dark Long Island winter.
The Hamptons are historic, oceanfront towns and villages 100 miles from Manhattan, New York. In the summer, it is full of billionaires. But, in early September, the rich and famous shut up their mansions and go back to Manhattan or Beverly Hills. The people who live here all year are mostly immigrants.
“The people who come here are rich and famous but we who live here are not,” says Maria. She works 14-hour days in the summer cleaning mansions. She often has no work at all in the winter.
Maria laughs when asked if she has enough money. “There is no work in the winter, only in the summer,” says Maria. She, like many of the workers in the Hamptons, is from Latin America. “Here, lots of people live in a single room because they can’t pay the rent.”
Lots of her friends can’t pay for heating or medicine and many would be hungry if they did not get food from the East Hampton Food Pantry, she says.
Vicki Littman, chairperson of the East Hampton Food Pantry, which gave more than 31,000 food parcels in 2015, says there are more and more people coming to the food pantry.
Littman says that, when she talks to the people who come for the summer about the food pantries, they are always shocked. They know only the glamorous side of the Hamptons: the big parties and the beaches and mansions.
“But, what the rich people don’t know is that the gardeners, the nannies, the waitresses, they all need their summer earnings to get them through the winter.”
Housing is the biggest cost in the Hamptons. Larry Cantwell, who has lived in East Hampton all his life, says homes often cost more than $25 million. “It is very difficult to find your first home here,” Cantwell says. “If you can find a home to buy anywhere in East Hampton for less than $500,000, you’re very lucky.”
Cantwell says more than half the town’s homes are empty for most of the year. The population goes from 80,000 in August to 10,000 in the winter months.
“There’s a lot of wealth here but almost all of that wealth is in second homes only used in the summer,” says Cantwell, the son of a fisherman father and a house-cleaner mother. “But, the rest of us live here all year.”
“There are famous and very wealthy people but also hard-working and poor people. You’ve got to remember that this used to be a farming and fishing community – a real working-class community.”
Eddie Vallone, 22, says, “People only see the Hamptons as a rich town but there are a lot of problems here, especially drugs. It’s hard to understand. You think, ‘OK, the summer is over. What am I going to do for the winter?’” Vallone says, “I want to work but there’s no work.”
Vallone works cleaning swimming pools. He says that, if he is careful, he can make his summer earnings last until November. “But, work doesn’t start again until May or the beginning of June.”",386
"“Unless we win, it doesn’t mean a damn thing,” said billionaire Donald Trump, the man who wants to be the Republican presidential nominee, at a campaign rally in South Carolina. He said this despite finishing his fourth month in a row at the top of the opinion polls. “I want to pick my date for the election. I want it next Tuesday,” he confided to the crowd of 11,000 people. He has a lot of grassroots support, which he needs to continue until March 2016 for him to win the nomination to be the presidential candidate in November’s general election.
Trump is not the only one beginning to think it possible that his surprising campaign can go the distance, particularly because recent controversy only seems to have confirmed his lead over his rivals. Usually, any one of these outbursts would have destroyed a politician by now.
First, he outraged prisoners of war by doubting the heroism of Vietnam veteran John McCain because he allowed himself to be captured. Then, there was the first television debate, where he insulted Fox News moderator, Megyn Kelly, because she asked him difficult questions.
It seems that making prisoners of war, Fox News and women angry was not enough. Trump has also insulted Mexican immigrants to the US, claimed that a Black Lives Matter protester who was violently thrown out of a rally deserved to be “roughed up”, appeared to laugh at a New York Times journalist for his disability and falsely accused Muslim Americans of supporting the 9/11 attackers.
Trump has complained that many of these incidents were exaggerated by the political media, 70% of whom, he says, are “scum”. But, he has refused to retract any of the comments.
Some rivals still hope that, eventually, even Trump’s supporters will get tired of his attacks on minorities. One poll shows his support among Republicans has reduced by 12 points – although, at 31%, he is still in the lead.
“He is an egomaniac; he’s a narcissist. He’s not a conservative, he’s not a liberal – he believes in himself,” former presidential rival, Bobby Jindal, told the Guardian, before he left the race.
But, there is more to Trump than attentiongrabbing outrage. As he is happy to tell supporters, the three things that he is most against – immigration reform, free-trade deals and Barack Obama’s national security policy – have become perhaps the most important issues of the election.
His policies for deporting every undocumented immigrant in the US and demanding that Mexico pays for a border wall – “A real wall. A very tall wall, taller than that ceiling.” – might sound unrealistic but they have destroyed the campaign hopes of Jeb Bush, who favours immigration reform.
So what can stop Trump? One reason for hope among opponents is the strong evidence that polls this far away from election day can be incorrect, simply because most people have not made up their minds how to vote yet. Among Americans who say they are Republicans, current polls suggest he has 25-30% of the vote.
In the political battle for hearts and minds, converting Trump’s passionate supporters will be hard. It is hard to imagine anyone being a better ‘Trump’ than Trump.
This scenario can be best understood by looking at responses to the question: “Which candidates would you definitely not support for the Republican nomination for president?” While 20-30% of voters say they would support Trump, another 20-30% say they definitely would not.
Steve Deace, an Iowa conservative, said that Trump’s behaviour is “both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it produces loyal fans that are attracted to his personality. On the other hand, it limits his ability to grow beyond that.”
Top Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, believes Trump speaks for voters who, for the first time, feel as if they have a mouthpiece and like the fact that they feel like they are heard. He says, “Trump says what they’re thinking and, the more outrageous he is, the more they agree with him. He’s saying what no politician would say and that’s another reason they like him.”
That is certainly the feeling among ordinary supporters who have attended his increasingly packed campaign events recently. “I like the way he speaks,” says Sandra Murray of Dubuque, Iowa. “This country is a big mess and, honestly, he could be the man to help us.”
Other supporters offer a simpler explanation. “He’s not afraid of anybody or anything. That’s pretty cool.”",387
"1 Race engineer
A race engineer takes information from the driver and gives it to the mechanics. 
Typical salary: You start at £25,000 and very soon earn more than £40,000 with just a few years’ experience. Senior race engineers earn £50,000 to £90,000.
What the job involves: “A race engineer is the interpreter between the race-car mechanics and the driver,” says race engineer Jamie Muir. “The engineer takes feedback from the driver, analyses the data and gives this to the mechanics.”
Qualifications: A university degree, usually in automotive/mechanical engineering or motorsport technology. Hands-on experience is essential.
To succeed as a race engineer, you need … to be able to work under pressure.
Worst thing about the job: The long hours. “Race engineers work 24/7,” says Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association.
2 Ethical hacker
Typical salary: A newly qualified hacker will usually have a minimum salary of £35,000 to £50,000. This rises to £60,000 to £90,000 when they become team leader.
What the job involves: A company pays an ethical hacker to hack into its computer system to see how well it might fight a real attack.
Qualifications: You don’t need a degree in computer science. The industry accepts people with a very wide range of qualifications and skills.
To succeed as an ethical hacker, you need … a passion for technology and detail. You should also enjoy solving difficult problems.
Worst thing about the job: When you are testing the security of a new customer ’s network and you find that they have already been hacked.
3 Bomb-disposal diver
Typical salary: In the private sector, you can earn up to £100,000 working just two months out of every three.
What the job involves: You descend to the sea  ed and look for unexploded bombs and mines. Then, you safely collect the weapons or safely dispose of them. 
Qualifications: To dive offshore, you must have diving qualifications. To be able to dispose of the bombs safely, you’ll also need a special qualification and years of experience. 
To succeed as a bomb-disposal diver, you need … to be calm in stressful situations. You work alone under water, with zero visibility and, if you don’t like living in small spaces with lots of other people, this job is not for you.
Worst thing about the job: You will be away from home for at least six months of the year.
4 Social engineer
Typical salary: Graduates start on £25,000. Your salary will rise to between £50,000 and £80,000.
The job: Companies pay a social engineer to try to trick their employees and make them give the engineer secret information.
Qualifications: Usually, social engineers have a degree in IT but an understanding of psychology is also useful.
To succeed as a social engineer, you need … to be a good liar. You also need to have strong personal ethics and to understand the law.
Worst thing about the job: Other people may misunderstand your job: social engineers are not spies but most people think they are.
5 Power-line helicopter pilot
Typical salary: £65,000 
The job: To fly close to power lines in a helicopter so that someone can check the lines with a camera. 
Qualifications: A private-helicopter-pilot licence, a commercial pilot’s licence and around 2,000 hours of experience flying at low levels.
To succeed as a power-line helicopter pilot, you need … a steady hand and to stay calm in difficult situations. Pilots often have to fly next to the power line, sometimes as little as 20 feet away and just 30 feet off the ground.
Worst thing about the job: “There are no negatives,” says helicopter pilot Robin Tutcher.
6 Private butler
Typical salary: £60,000 to £90,000 
The job: An employer can ask a private butler to do anything from managing other staff, serving at every meal, running errands and looking after guests to booking restaurants, house security, housekeeping and cooking.
Qualifications: You don’t need any qualifications but you can do a special course.
To succeed as a butler, you need … to enjoy looking after other people.
Worst thing about the job: Long hours and an unpredictable work schedule mean it’s difficult to have a family life.",388
"Emmanuel Limal wanted to find love on online dating sites but he was tired of meeting women who said that they weren’t ready to start a family. The 43-year-old actor, who is from France, has lived in Copenhagen for 20 years. He was looking for love and wanted to start a family. 
He tried to find someone online but without success. “Everyone said that they were really active, always travelling or with a long list of hobbies, but they didn’t talk about children,” Limal said. “On some sites, there was an option to click saying: 'I’d like kids someday,' but I read the person’s profile and thought: 'You will never have time!' If someone’s going to the gym eight times a week and travelling every month, they are not putting a family first.” 
Limal has a six-year-old daughter from an old relationship but he has always wanted more children. “I couldn’t meet anyone who wanted to start a family”. He said it was difficult to know when to talk about wanting kids when he met someone new. “It’s a difficult subject to talk about when you are on a date,” he said. “Then one day I read a profile from a 38-year-old who said she knew it was 'really bad to admit' but she wanted children. And I thought: 'You shouldn’t be ashamed of this.'” 
Limal borrowed money to start Babyklar.nu – or 'baby-ready now' in English. It works like a normal dating site but everyone is asked to be honest about their wish to start a family soon. “We ask people if they are OK with someone who already has children and if they want another baby,” Limal said. “But we don’t make them say how many children they would like. That would be like food shopping online.” 
He has had a very positive response to the site. “Fifty people signed up every hour when we started in June. There are already couples who met through the site and are now together. I think we will have the first Babyklar.nu baby by next summer.” More men have signed up than women (53% to 47%), with comments such as “I can finally be honest about what I want.” 
The site has come at the right time for the country of five million people. Danes are not having enough children and the current rate of 1.7 children per family means that the population is falling. The usual reasons are given – women are leaving it “too late” and couples are living together without getting married and waiting to start families. 
“Now, I hope, men and women who want to start a family but haven’t met the right person yet will have another choice,” says Limal. He says that this isn’t just about making babies: “I want this to be about children and love. My goal is to bring together people who really want a family and a partner – and who’ll stay together. I’m a romantic.” 
He is planning to start sites in France and the UK later in 2013, but at the moment the only site is in Denmark. “Danes have no problem having children before marriage so things can move fast and, because the country’s so small, someone from Jutland can date someone from Copenhagen without too much travel,” Limal said. And Limal has finally found love. “I’ve met a nice woman and she wants a baby too – so we shall see.”",389
"Wales will become the first country in the UK where people will be presumed to have consented for their organs to be donated unless they opt out. 
The Welsh Assembly has voted to adopt the opt-out policy, which will allow hospitals to act on the assumption that people who die want to donate unless they have specifically registered an objection. 
The final stage of a bill to adopt a system of presumed consent was passed by 43 votes to eight, with two abstentions, in spite of objections from religious groups on moral grounds and concerns that the scheme could add to the distress of grieving families. 
“This is a huge day for Wales, for devolution and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford. 
“I am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. As a society, we have shown we are prepared to take action to increase organ donation and to provide hope to those people waiting every week for a transplant. 
“Family refusal is a major factor that affects the numbers of organ donations and the main reason for refusal is lack of knowledge of their loved one’s wishes. 
“The family of the potential donor has a major role to play in organ donation. The aim of the bill has always been to respect the wishes of the deceased; however, relatives or friends may object to consent being deemed based on what they know about the views of the deceased. 
“When family members know that organ donation is what the deceased would have wanted, they usually agree to participate in the donation process. The new law will work by clarifying people’s wishes around the issue of organ donation and, in turn, increase the rate of consent to donation. 
“Today is a landmark day for Wales and I expect the rest of the UK to be watching with great interest when the legislation is implemented in 2015.” 
The issue is controversial, with opponents worried that the pressing need for more kidneys and hearts will lead to the wishes of those who have died and their family being overruled. But ministers insist there will be safeguards. 
Inevitably, some people will not get around to registering their opposition. In response to concerns, the government recently announced that families would play a bigger role. 
Relatives are to have a “clear right of objection”, giving them the chance to show that the deceased would not have wanted to be an organ donor. 
Wales has acted because of an acute shortage of organs. “We have the enduring problem of not having enough organs for people who need them,” said Drakeford. “About one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list. We have been working to improve the rate of organ donation and have had some success, but we’re looking to take the next step forward. 
“Around a third of the Welsh population is on the organ donor register, but well over two- thirds in surveys say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t get round to putting their names down. We’re hoping to make inroads into that.” 
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK. 
Doctors are delighted at the move. The British Medical Association has long campaigned for an opt-out system because of its concern over the growing number of people needing transplants – a result of medical progress in transplantation. 
The number of young donors dropped substantially when seatbelt legislation came in. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a good deal of success. Hospitals have also brought in improved systems for coordinating transplants, including the crucial discussions with relatives when there is no indication of the wishes of the deceased. But the increase in numbers of organs harvested is still not enough. 
Some religious groups, on the other hand, strongly oppose the scheme, arguing that it would cause further distress to bereaved relatives. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council have expressed reservations, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”",390
"Until the end, David Bowie, who has died of cancer, still surprised us. His latest album, Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8 January 2016. It showed that he hadn’t stopped making challenging, disturbing music. 
Throughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer of musical trends and pop fashion. He became a singer-songwriter, a pioneer of glam-rock, then became involved in “plastic soul”. 
He then moved to Berlin to create innovative electronic music. Bowie was born David Robert Jones in south London. At 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads, but it was soon clear that David should go solo. 
David took the name Bowie so people wouldn’t confuse him with Davy Jones of the Monkees. 
Bowie’s first album, released in June 1967, was titled simply David Bowie. In July 1969, Bowie released Space Oddity, the song that would give him his first big success. Timed to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a top five UK hit. The Man Who Sold the World was released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the following year. With its daring songwriting and hard-rock sound, it was the first album to really show his talents. He followed it with 1972’s Hunky Dory, a mix of wordy, elaborate songwriting. It was an excellent collection that was not a great success. But that all changed with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later that year. 
This time, Bowie appeared as Ziggy Stardust, a science-fiction character – an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting planet Earth. The hit single Starman brought instant success for the album. 
Everything Bowie touched turned to gold. He had his first UK number 1 album with Aladdin Sane (1973), which included the hit singles The Jean Genie and Drive-in Saturday. 
His interest in funk and soul music could be heard on the album Young Americans (1975), which included the single Fame (with John Lennon as a guest singer). 
With the album Station to Station (1976), Bowie turned himself into a new character, the Thin White Duke. 
Bowie and his wife divorced in 1980. This was a year of more creative success, with a good album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and its hit single, Ashes to Ashes. 
After this, he played the title role in The Elephant Man on the Broadway stage. 
He achieved a number 1 single with his 1981 partnership with Queen, Under Pressure. 1983 was the year in which he put his energy into the album Let’s Dance and his concerts. Let’s Dance turned Bowie into a global rock star – the album and its singles Let’s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all became huge international hits. 
The early 80s was the heyday of MTV. Bowie’s talent for making eye-catching videos increased his popularity and the six-month Serious Moonlight tour attracted lots of people. It was to be the most commercially successful period of his career. 
At the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium, Bowie was one of the best performers. Also, that year, he worked with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single Dancing in the Street , which quickly went to number 1. 
A few days after he performed at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model Iman and bought a home in New York. 
For the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he included elements of soul and hip hop. It went to the top of the UK album chart and gave him a top 10 single, Jump They Say . 
Bowie performed at the Concert for New York City in October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John in a benefit show six weeks after the 9/11 attacks. 
During his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie had chest pains while he was performing in Germany and needed emergency surgery in Hamburg. 
He saw the medical emergency as a warning and started to slow down. In February 2006, he was given a Grammy lifetime achievement award. He was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. 
The Next Day (2013) was his first album of new songs in ten years. It included the single Where Are We Now? The album went to the top of the charts in Britain and around the world. In 2014, Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British Male – he was the oldest person to get the award. 
He leaves behind his wife, Iman, their daughter, Alexandria, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his son, Duncan, from his first marriage.",391
"The Moroccan city of Ouarzazate is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is now the centre for four linked solar mega-plants. The plants, together with hydro and wind, will give Morocco, in north Africa, nearly half of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020. The project is a key part of Morocco ’s plans to use its deserts to become a global solar superpower.
When the full complex is complete, it will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. The first phase, called Noor 1, will be ready in November 2015. The mirror technology it uses is more expensive than the solar panels that we can see on roofs all over the world but it will be able to produce power even after the sun goes down.
People have known for many years that the desert is a useful place to produce solar energy. In 1986, the German scientist Gerhard Knies said that the world’s deserts receive enough energy in a few hours to make power for all the people in the world for a whole year. But the challenge is to capture that energy and take it to where it is needed. 
At Noor 1, there are 500,000 moon-shaped solar mirrors. The 800 rows of mirrors follow the sun across the sky. They whir quietly every few minutes. 
When they are finished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will be as big as Morocco’s capital city, Rabat, and make 580 mega-watts of electricity, enough for a million homes.
Solar energy will make up a third of Morocco’s renewable energy supply by 2020. Wind and hydro will make up the other two-thirds.
“We are very proud of this project,” Morocco’s environment minister, Hakima el-Haite said. “I think it is the most important solar plant in the world.”
The Noor 2 and 3 plants, which are planned to open in 2017, will store energy for up to eight hours. This will mean that there could be solar energy available 24/7 in the Sahara and the rest of the region.
“We are already involved in transportation lines to take energy to the south of Morocco and Mauritania,” says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of the national renewable energy investment company. But he says the project will go further – even as far as the Middle East.
Exporting solar energy could have stabilizing effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen). Morocco is making plans with Tunisia and they hope to export energy north across the Mediterranean, too.
“We believe that it ’s possible to export energy to Europe but, first, we have to build the connections, which don’t yet exist, ” said Maha el-Kadiri, a Masen spokeswoman.
Until that time, the solar energy will be used in Morocco. They might one day use solar energy to remove salt from sea water.",392
"Health warnings covering nearly two-thirds of cigarette packs and a ban on menthol cigarettes across the EU have come a step nearer following a vote in the European Parliament. Menthol and other flavours will be banned from 2022, but, in a blow to the UK government, MEPs decided that most electronic cigarettes, increasingly popular as alternatives to tobacco products, need not be regulated in the same way as medicines. 
Health officials and the e-cigarette industry in Britain are seeking to clarify what this mean – for instance, whether companies in the fast-expanding market face the same bans on sponsorship and promotion at sports events as tobacco firms. 
The Department of Health would not comment on the advertising issue until officials had studied the MEPs’ decisions. But, in a statement, the DH said: “We are very pleased to see the move towards tougher action on tobacco, with Europe-wide controls banning flavoured cigarettes and the introduction of stricter rules on front-of-pack health warnings. “However, we are disappointed with the decision to reject the proposal to regulate nicotine-containing products (NCPs), including e-cigarettes, as medicines. We believe these products need to be regulated as medicines and will continue to make this point during further negotiations. 
“Figures show smoking levels in England are at their lowest since records began – 19.5 per cent – but we are determined to further reduce rates of smoking and believe this important step will help.” 
The UK e-cigarette industry, which broadly welcomed the parliament’s vote, said it was already in talks with the Advertising Standards Authority, but added that it would not be “sensible, proportionate, reasonable or useful” to ban all advertising. 
MEPs decided e-cigarettes should only be regulated as medical products if manufacturers claimed they could prevent tobacco smoking – a decision criticized by the government’s main medicines regulator. 
They want to put the products, used by an estimated 1.3 million people in Britain by 2014, on the same legal basis as gums, patches and mouth sprays aimed at helping smokers to quit, but the industry says the expensive process of licensing would help force alternatives to tobacco off the shelves. 
The MEPs voted to put health warnings on 65% of each cigarette pack, as opposed to a proposed 75%. At present, the warnings cover at least 30% on the front and 40% on the back. The UK government has delayed a decision on whether to follow Australia by introducing standardized packaging until there is evidence that such measures cut tobacco use. 
The MEPs’ votes in the first reading of the draft tobacco directive, which could become law in 2014, will be followed by negotiations with the EU Council of Ministers. 
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority had already invited manufacturers to cooperate by opting for voluntary regulation in June 2013 in advance of what it still hopes will be compulsory across Europe. “The legislative process is still not complete and there will be further negotiation. The UK continues to believe that medicinal regulation of NCPs is the best way to deliver a benefit to public health,” said a spokesman. 
Linda McAvan, Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber and spokesperson on tobacco issues for the parliament’s Socialists & Democrats group, said: “We know that it is children, not adults, who start smoking. And, despite the downward trend in most member states of adult smokers, the World Health Organization figures show worrying upward trends in a number of our member states of young smokers. 
“We need to stop tobacco companies targeting young people with an array of gimmicky products and we need to make sure that cigarette packs carry effective warnings.” 
Martin Callanan, the Conservative MEP for North East England, said: “Forcing e-cigs off the shelves would have been totally crazy. These are products that have helped countless people stop smoking more harmful cigarettes and yet some MEPs wanted to make them harder to manufacture than ordinary tobacco.” 
Katherine Devlin, president of ECITA, the e-cigarette industry association, said “the really important” decision by MEPs not to support medicines regulation meant that was now off the table. 
British American Tobacco claimed the larger health warnings demanded by MEPs went “well beyond” what was needed to inform consumers of health risks from smoking, while a ban on mentholated cigarettes would increase demand for black-market goods.",393
"Astronaut Scott Kelly has just spent 340 days in space. He says that Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the US presidential campaign helped him to stay sane during his mission. It was the longest mission ever. “It seemed like I lived there forever,” Kelly said. He had been on several missions before but said that his biggest surprise was how long this mission felt. “Maybe, sometimes, you go bananas, ” he said.
Kelly and a Russian astronaut, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS). They studied the effects on humans of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped conditions of spaceflight. This is research that NASA thinks is very important for a future mission to Mars.
Kelly said the length of the mission was the most difficult thing. He felt more pain after he returned to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about what happens to the human body during spaceflight. Kelly described the sense of wonder he felt after he landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened, he felt the cool air of Kazakhstan and smelled “a smell like a plant was blooming in that area”. It was the fresh air mixed with the burnt, “sweet” smell of a spacecraft that had just re- entered through the Earth’s atmosphere.
When he left the spacecraft, he said, he began to understand the importance of the mission: 340 days on a 15-year-old space station which is “a million pounds, the size of a football field, with the space, some say, of a six-bedroom house”. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and an international team helped to build it. “The view is great, too,” he said.
Kelly posted amazing photos on social media of the Earth ’s cities, countryside, oceans and atmosphere. “The Earth is a beautiful planet,” he said. He described the beautiful waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow colours of the lakes of the northern Himalayas. But “the main thing you notice is how thin the atmosphere is,” Kelly said. “It is scary to see the thin atmosphere, together with large areas of pollution.”
He said he could see large areas of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires cover parts of the US, parts of Asia have pollution nearly all year. He said the message “we need to save the planet” was slightly wrong: “The planet will get better; it’s us that won’t be here because we’ll destroy the environment.” “We must take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I believe we do have a big effect on that and we have the ability to change it, if we want to.” Kelly was very active on social media so many people follow him online. But he said he didn’t know about it – instead, he watched the news and especially the 2016 US presidential campaign. The news helped keep him sane, he said, and also work: “I looked forward to the next event – for example, the next spacewalk, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me.” Being back on Earth with everyone still felt strange, he said.
Kelly said that he would probably not fly again with NASA. “But I don’t think I would ever say I’m absolutely, 100% finished,” he said. Maybe he will fly with private spaceflight companies, which are becoming more and more popular. “They might need a guy like me someday,” he said. “Maybe, in the next 20 years, you’ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.”",394
"Bogus allergy tests are convincing thousands of people to take unnecessary treatments and put themselves or their children on inadequate diets, sometimes resulting in malnutrition, a group of experts and charities has said. Allergies and food intolerances are soaring but confusion between the two, as well as the many misdiagnoses, are causing real harm, said the information organization Sense About Science, which has produced a guide in collaboration with allergy specialists and charities. 
“It’s probably the biggest mess for science communication, where myths, misinterpreted studies and quackery collide with under- and over-diagnosis,” said Tracey Brown, director of Sense About Science. “The costs are huge – unnecessary actions for some and not enough action for those whose lives depend on it.” 
Experts fear that restaurants and caterers are seeing so many people claiming they have allergies (which can be dangerous for the individual), when in fact they have a food intolerance (which is not), that they may not take all the precautions they should when serving a person who has a genuine allergy. 
“It matters very much,” said Moira Austin of the Anaphylaxis Campaign. “If a caterer thinks somebody is just avoiding a food because they don’t want to get bloated, they may be less careful. There have been a number of fatalities where people have gone to a restaurant and alerted staff that they have an allergy to a particular food and the meal has been served up containing that allergen.” 
The guide says most internet and shop-bought allergy tests have no scientific basis. They include a home-testing kit that looks for specific IgG (immunoglobulin G) antibodies against food stuffs in the blood. While these antibodies are part of the immune system’s response to infections, “the best medical evidence has shown elevated IgG levels do not suggest an allergy”, the guide says. “Results are frequently positive in individuals who do not have an allergy or a food intolerance.” 
Also debunked is a test, a mixture of acupuncture and homeopathy, which attempts to measure electronic resistance across the skin while the child or adult holds the suspect food in their hand. Hair follicle testing is also pointless, the guide says. “Hair is not involved in allergic reactions so testing hair samples cannot provide any useful information on allergic status.” Nor should people be deceived into thinking allergies are caused by an “energy blockage” that can be diagnosed by muscle testing and cured by acupuncture. 
“I commonly see children who’ve been put on to unnecessarily restricted diets because their parents assume, in good faith, that they have allergies to multiple foods on the basis of 'allergy tests' that have no scientific basis,” said Paul Seddon, a consultant paediatric allergist, on behalf of the UK Cochrane Centre, an independent organization that assesses medical evidence. “This needs to stop, which can only happen if we debunk these 'tests'.” 
Another consultant paediatric allergist, Adam Fox from Guys and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, said: “I get a number of patients, and my colleagues likewise, who will come in having sent their hair off for analysis or having excluded a whole range of foods for their children. It is very difficult to untangle that. There are two challenges. Children need to be given proper diets but more of it is the unnecessary avoidance of things that aren’t harmful, which has a huge impact on the quality of life. A child who can’t eat wheat or drink milk can’t go to parties.” 
The conviction that a child’s chronic lethargy or headaches or eczema are caused by an allergy takes a long time and many tests to prove or disprove. It is tempting to go to an alternative therapist who will do a single test and provide a quick, but inaccurate, answer. 
Allergies are on the rise across developed countries. The percentages of children diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and eczema have both trebled in the last 30 years. While there is now better diagnosis, the rise in incidence is real, leading many more people to suspect allergies are the reason for their own or their children’s health issues. The guide lists a number of myths about the sources of allergies, from the suggestion that they are caused by E numbers in food colourings to “toxic overload” and fast food.",395
"Back in 2010, the old city in Srinagar was the sort of place police would only venture into wearing body armour. A stronghold for violent separatists agitating for an independent Kashmir, it was at the centre of uprisings that left more than 100 people dead, buried along with dreams of peace in the mountainous north-Indian region. 
How quickly things change. Now carefree tourists line up in the same streets for barbecued mutton tikka and steaming plates of rogan josh. The Nowhatta mosque, where in the summer of 2010 youths would gather after Friday prayers to throw stones at the security forces, is to become part of an official walking tour focused on heritage, crafts and markets. Down by Dal Lake, houseboats have been booked out months in advance. In the stunning gardens lining the lake’s green slopes, visitors can have their picture taken against one of Asia’s prettiest backdrops. Until the snow melted, the nearby ski resorts were packed with rich Russians, too. 
In 2002, only just over 27,000 tourists dared to visit the Kashmir Valley, frightened off by the anti-Indian insurgency, which has claimed up to 70,000 lives. So far in 2012, the area has received almost one million holidaymakers – more than 23,000 of them from outside India. But fewer than 150 Britons were among them – largely because the UK’s Foreign Office refuses to amend its somewhat hair-raising advice, which deters most travellers by providing a list of recent security incidents in the region. 
Omar Abdullah, the UK-born Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has lobbied the British High Commission in Delhi to relax the guidelines, but to no avail. “It’s a source of frustration,” admitted Abdullah, who has been in charge of India’s most sensitive state since the start of 2009. “Today, unfortunately, as a result of that travel advisory, people’s insurance is null and void when they visit here.” The last publicized case of foreign tourists being murdered in J&K was in 1995, when six westerners including two Britons were kidnapped by Al-Faran, a Kashmiri militant Islamist group. Only one escaped with his life. 
“You’ve had British citizens killed more recently in countries that you still haven’t stopped people from visiting. I mean, how many British citizens did you lose in 9/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? You’ve lost them in Spain, in Bali; tell me where you haven’t lost them,” said Abdullah. “We’ve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid like they have done in the past, but we haven’t stopped Indians from travelling to London. There is no reason to single out Jammu and Kashmir, or even Srinagar, as an unsafe destination.” 
Germany relaxed its guidelines for those thinking of travelling to the region in 2011. “Foreigners are generally not direct targets of clashes,” counselled Germany’s amended advice. At the time, it was viewed by many outsiders as a bold move, coming less than a year after the 2010 disturbances finally died down. A nationwide holiday on 15 August marked 65 years of Indian independence – in the past, a day fraught with peril in a state where many do not feel part of the world’s biggest democracy. But this time at the independence celebrations there was no trouble. 
Abdullah insists tourists are safe in the state, “as long as you take the sort of precautions that one normally would ”. In other words, do not go trekking near the border that separates the Indian and Pakistani controlled parts of J&K. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the pro-Kashmiri independence party, disagrees bitterly with much of Abdullah’s politics. But on the issue of tourism, the two are united. At the start of the summer season, Geelani wrote an open letter to tourists and pilgrims that said: “Whatever your faith, whatever language you speak and to whatever region you belong, we are bound by a common bond, the bond of humanity. You are our honoured guest – respecting and protecting guests is not only our moral obligation but an article of faith.” 
Some visitors may worry about the ethics of having fun in a place with a population suffering from record levels of anxiety and mental health problems. But all the locals we spoke to in Srinagar were wholeheartedly in favour of tourism. Amjid Gulzar, 26, said Abdullah could search for truth and reconciliation as well as encouraging foreign visitors. “He must do both; but without tourism, our economy will be in chaos,” he said, adding that while he welcomed the million tourists who visited this year, Kashmir had to do more to attract big-spending visitors, especially foreigners. 
“We need better infrastructure, better roads, reliable electricity. We need more for tourists to do in the evening – we don’t even have one cinema in this city and there isn’t enough for tourists to do after dark,” he said. But will tourists feel welcome? In June, a local Islamic group issued a “dress code” for foreign tourists. Abdullah sighs at the mention of that furore. “Nobody expects tourists to come here and cover their faces. I think what they were talking about was short shorts and sleeveless vests, which even then would not be something that would attract too much attention … I think the basic point they were making was: be sensitive to our cultural identity and dress appropriately. I think that’s common sense.” 
Abdullah said he was on a tourism drive “for no other reason than the fact that I need to stimulate the econom ”. J&K’s finances are in a dire state after more than two decades of turmoil. The state receives just £72m each year in taxes, and yet the salary bill for the 500,000 public employees is £155m, he said. It is clear why he needs to find more funds, fast. For now, though, he is just cautiously pleased to see tourists back. “I’m not suggesting that because we’ve had one million tourists here that it’s a sign of normality,” he said. “But it gives me some satisfaction that people can come, have a nice time, and go back.”",396
"On the market square in Rjukan stands a statue of the town’s founder, a noted Norwegian engineer and industrialist called Sam Eyde. The great man stares northwards across the square at an almost sheer mountainside in front of him. 
Behind him, to the south, rises the equally sheer 1,800-metre peak known as Gaustatoppen. Between the mountains, along the narrow Vestfjord valley, lies the small, but once mighty, town that Eyde built in the early years of the last century, to house the workers for his factories. 
Eyde harnessed the power of the 100-metre Rjukanfossen waterfall to generate hydroelectricity in what was, at the time, the world’s biggest power plant. 
But one thing he couldn’t do was change the elevation of the sun. Deep in its east –west valley, surrounded by high mountains, Rjukan and its 3,400 inhabitants are in shadow for half the year. During the day, from late September to mid-March, the town, three hours north-west of Oslo, is not completely dark, but it’s certainly not bright, either. 
Recently, however, Eyde’s statue has gazed out upon a sight that even he might have found startling. High on the mountain opposite, 450 metres above the town, three large, solar-powered, computer-controlled mirrors steadily track the movement of the sun across the sky, reflecting its rays down on to the square and bathing it in bright sunlight. 
“It’s the sun!” grins Ingrid Sparbo, disbelievingly, lifting her face to the light and closing her eyes. A retired secretary, Sparbo has lived all her life in Rjukan and says people “do sort of get used to the shade. You end up not thinking about it, really. But this ... this is so warming. Not just physically, but mentally. It’s mentally warming.” 
Two young mothers wheel their children into the square and stand in the sun. On a freezing day, an elderly couple sit on one of the new benches, smiling at the warmth on their faces. Children beam. Lots of people take photographs. A shop assistant, Silje Johansen, says it’s “awesome. Just awesome.” 
Pushing his child’s buggy, electrical engineer Eivind Toreid is more cautious. “It’s a funny thing,” he says. “Not real sunlight, but very like it. Like a spotlight.” 
Heidi Fieldheim says she heard all about it on the radio. “But it’s far more than I expected,” she says. “This will bring much happiness.” 
Across the road, in the Nye Tider café, sits the man responsible for this unexpected access to happiness. Martin Andersen is a 40-year-old artist who moved to Rjukan in the summer of 2001. 
The first inkling of an artwork Andersen called the Solspeil , or Sun mirror , came to him as the month of September began to fade: “Every day, we would take our young child for a walk in the buggy,” he says, “and, every day, I realized we were having to go a little further down the valley to find the sun.” By 28 September, the sun completely disappears from Rjukan’s market square. It doesn’t reappear until 12 March. 
Throughout the seemingly endless intervening months, Andersen says, “We’d look up and see blue sky above, and the sun high on the mountain slopes, but the only way we could get to it was to go out of town. It’s sad, a town that people have to leave in order to feel the sun.” 
Twelve years after he first dreamed of his Solspeil, a German company specializing in so-called CSP – concentrated solar power – helicoptered in the three 17-sq-m glass mirrors that now stand high above the market square in Rjukan. “It took,” he says, “a bit longer than we’d imagined.” 
It really works. There were objectors – and plenty of them – petitions and letter-writing campaigns and a Facebook page organized against what a large number of locals saw initially as a vanity project and, above all, a waste of money. But even they now seem largely won over. 
“I was strongly against it,” admits Nils Eggerud. Like many others, he felt the money could have been better spent elsewhere – on a couple of extra carers to look after Rjukan’s old people, perhaps, or improved school facilities, cycle paths, a bit of rural road resurfacing. 
“And I still have my doubts about the ongoing maintenance costs,” he says. “What will they be, who will pay them? But ... well, it does feel nice, standing here. And, really, you just have to look at the people’s faces.” 
In his office overlooking the square, Rjukan’s energetic young mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is interested not so much in the cost but in the benefits the mirrors might bring to the town. 
Already, Bergsland says, visitor numbers are up for the time of year and Rjukan’s shopkeepers have reported their takings following suit. A hi-tech company is interested in relocating to Rjukan, attracted by the cutting-edge technology on view at the top of the mountain and the publicity it has attracted. 
“This is a powerful symbol for Rjukan,” Bergsland says, and, helped by assorted government grants and a donation from a local business, the town needed to find just 1m krone – £100,000 – of the mirrors’ total 5m-krone cost. 
And, seen against the town’s 650m krone annual budget, he points out, 1m krone really wasn’t very much to pay for something that “gives us a far, far better chance of raising the money we need for better schools and more nursing care. And just look out of the window. Look at those happy faces. Now it’s actually here, people love it.”",397
"According to American researchers, a nasal spray containing the ‘Love hormone’ oxytocin could help children with autism behave more normally in social situations. Scans of autistic children showed that a single dose of the chemical improved brain responses to facial expressions. This is something that could make social interactions feel more natural and rewarding for them.
The researchers said oxytocin might increase the success of behavioural therapies that are already used to help people with autism learn to cope with social situations. “Over time, what you would expect to see is more normal social responding, being more interested in interacting with other people, more eye contact and more conversation,” said Kevin Pelphrey, of Yale University.
Autism is a developmental disorder that more than one in 100 people have. The condition affects people in different ways, but leads to difficulties in social interaction and communication. So far, there is no established treatment for the social problems caused by autism.
Researchers at Yale have studied the brain chemical oxytocin as a possible treatment for the social problems caused by autism because it plays an important role in bonding and trust. Results have been mixed, though: one recent study found no significant benefit for young people given the chemical over several days. But Pelphrey said oxytocin might help the brain learn from social interactions; it would work best when used with therapies that encourage people with autism to interact more socially, he said.
The scientists scanned the brains of 17 young people aged eight to 16 with autism while they looked at images of cars or the eyes of people expressing different emotions. The scans were given 45 minutes after the young people inhaled a placebo or oxytocin through a nasal spray.
The scans showed that the reward circuits in the children’s brains behaved more normally after a dose of oxytocin: that is, they were more active when the person was looking at faces and less active when looking at the inanimate cars. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.
“The study suggests that oxytocin might treat something for which we don’t have a treatment in autism, and that’s the core social motivation,” said Pelphrey. He warned that it was too early to use oxytocin as a treatment for the social difficulties caused by autism and said people should not buy oxytocin online. “We don’t want them trying oxytocin at home. It’s impossible to say what they are buying. We are nowhere near thinking this is a ready treatment. It needs more follow-up,” he said. “This is an important new study in identifying changes in brain activity in key areas of the brain,” said Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.
A surprising finding, however, is that oxytocin nasal spray did not change performance in social recognition tasks. And, it is also not yet clear if oxytocin only has benefits for people with autism or has any unwanted side effects. Finally, oxytocin effects only last about 45 minutes, so there may be practical considerations as to whether this could be used as a treatment.
“From a scientific perspective, this study has a lot of evidence from animal and human work to justify serious attention, but more research is needed. Doctors should be cautious about the potential of this hormone until we know much more about its benefits and risks, in much larger studies.” Said Simon Baron-Cohen.
Uta Frith, who studies autism at University College London, said: “According to this study, oxytocin may have the effect of making faces more interesting. Disappointingly, this effect is seen only in brain activity and not in behaviour. Demonstrating an effect on behaviour will be critical if nasal spray treatment is to be of any value.”",398
"SeaWorld has suffered an 84% collapse in profits as customers have deserted the controversial aquatic theme park company following claims it mistreated orca whales. 
The company, which trains dolphins and killer whales to perform tricks in front of stadiums full of spectators, has reported declines in attendance, sales and profits because of “continued brand challenges”. 
SeaWorld has been in the headlines since the 2013 documentary Blackfish detailed claims that its treatment of orca whales provoked violent behaviour, contributing to the deaths of three people. Following the release of the documentary, attendance collapsed, the company lost more than half of its market value on Wall Street and its former CEO was forced out. 
The company has since launched a nationwide marketing campaign to combat animal rights activists claims that, among other things, captive orcas die at a younger age than their wild counterparts. 
Despite cutting ticket prices and spending $10m on the marketing blitz, which features its veterinarians caring for whales, SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby was forced to admit that the company is still struggling to convince the public that it treats its whales well. 
“We realize we have much work ahead of us to recover more of our attendance base, increase revenue and improve our performance, as returning to historical performance levels will take time and investment,” Manby said. “On the reputation side, early feedback on our campaign has been positive. However, we recognize that fully resolving our brand challenges in California will require sustained focus and commitment to correct misinformation.” 
“We will continue to fight with the facts because the facts are on our side,” he said recently on a conference call with journalists and analysts. 
Manby, who joined the company as CEO in 2015 to help the company rehabilitate itself, said he would set out his vision for the future of the company at a special event on 6 November. Already in the pipeline are plans for a new shark exhibition in Orlando and an attraction in San Antonio that will allow customers to swim with dolphins in a “naturalistic” setting. 
The company’s financial report, released on 6 August, showed net income in the second quarter dropped from $37.4m in 2014 to $5.8m in 2015, an 84% decrease. Revenue fell from $405m to $392m. Attendance dropped by more than 100,000 from 6.58 million to 6.48 million. Analysts will now be closely watching SeaWorld’s sales and attendance numbers in the third quarter, which is traditionally the company’s most profitable and covers the summer holiday season. 
Attendance may suffer from a fresh scandal in July 2015, in which a SeaWorld employee was alleged to have infiltrated animal rights protest groups against the company. Jared Goodman, director of animal law for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has been leading campaigns against SeaWorld, said: “SeaWorld is in the midst of a spying scandal, animals are dying in its tanks and tens of thousands of people have opposed its bid to build a new orca prison so it should come as no surprise that SeaWorld’s quarterly earnings have plummeted yet again in the second quarter. Families just don’t want to buy tickets to see orcas going insane inside tiny tanks and SeaWorld’s profits, like the orcas, won’t recover until the abusement park empties its tanks and builds coastal sanctuaries.” 
SeaWorld’s shares, which were worth $39 in 2013, were changing hands for just under $18 in August 2015.",399
"1 Flappy Bird
Be careful what you wish for, especially if you want to invent something new. Recently, Dong Nguyen, the designer of the mobile game Flappy Bird, removed it from app stores. He said its success – it had been downloaded more than 50 million times and was making him around £30,000 from advertising each day – had ruined his simple life. On his Twitter account, he said: “I cannot take this anymore.”
OK, so regretting making Flappy Bird isn’t quite the same as regretting making a rifl e, but Nguyen is just the latest inventor who wished he hadn’t created a monster.
2 The labradoodle
The labradoodle isn’t a monster – it’s adorable. But what’s monstrous is the way crossbreed dogs have been sold since the labradoodle’s inventor, Wally Conron, fi rst created the breed in the 1980s. “I’ve done a lot of damage,” he told the Associated Press. “I’ve created a lot of problems. There are a lot of unhealthy and abandoned dogs out there.” Conron came up with the labradoodle when he was working for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia to provide a dog for a blind woman whose husband was allergic to dog hair. What he didn’t expect was that the labradoodle – and other types of poodle-cross dogs, many of which have health problems – would become so popular.
3 The AK-47
Six months before his death in December 2013, Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the assault rifl e, wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church: “My spiritual torment is unbearable. If my rifl e killed people, does that mean that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 93 years of age, the son of a poor farmer, Christian and Orthodox by faith, am responsible for people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?”
4 Electronic tagging
The electronic tag was originally made in the 1960s as a way of tracking former prisoners’ attendance at school and work, and rewarding them for good behaviour. Its inventors, Bob Gable and his brother Kirkland, were later horrifi ed that the tag had become a form of control and punishment. “It’s not pleasant,” Kirkland Gable told the Guardian in 2010, “but I’m not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.”
5 Pepper spray
After police sprayed peaceful protesters with pepper spray at a University of California campus in 2011, one of the scientists who helped develop it in the 80s denounced its use.
“I have never seen such an inappropriate use of chemicals,” Kamran Loghman told The New York Times.
6 The offi ce cubicle
In the late 60s, a new form of offi ce was designed to give workers privacy and increase productivity by providing more work space.
Instead, it became a way for companies to put employees into tighter spaces. These days, the cubicle is often connected with uniformity and soulless work. Its inventor, Bob Propst, said, in 1997, “the use of cubicles in modern corporations is crazy.”",400
"The forests – and suburbs – of Europe are echoing with the growls, howls and silent padding of large predators, according to a new study that shows that brown bears, wolves and lynx are thriving on a crowded continent. Despite fears that large carnivores are doomed to extinction because of rising human populations and overconsumption, a study published in Science has found that large-predator populations are stable or rising in Europe. 
Brown bears, wolves, the Eurasian lynx and wolverines are found in nearly one-third of mainland Europe (excluding Belarus, Ukraine and Russia), with most individuals living outside nature reserves, indicating that changing attitudes and landscape-scale conservation measures are successfully protecting species that have suffered massive persecution throughout human history. 
Bears are the most abundant large carnivore in Europe, with around 17,000 individuals, alongside 12,000 wolves, 9,000 Eurasian lynx and 1,250 wolverines, which are restricted to northern parts of Scandinavia and Finland. Only Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in mainland Europe – like Britain – have no breeding populations of at least one large carnivore species. But the paper’s lead author and other conservationists said these animals’ surprising distribution across well-populated regions of Europe showed that even the British countryside could support big predators. 
Guillaume Chapron from Sweden’s University of Agricultural Sciences and researchers across Europe found wolves, in some cases, living in suburban areas alongside up to 3,050 people per square kilometre – higher than the population density of Cambridge or Newcastle. On average in Europe, wolves live on land with a population density of 37 people per sq km, lynx in areas with a population density of 21 people per sq km and bears among 19 people per sq km. The population density of the Scottish Highlands is nine people per sq km. 
“In order to have wolves, we don’t need to remove people from the landscape,” said Chapron. According to Chapron and his colleagues, the big-carnivore revival shows the success of a “land-sharing” model of conservation – in stark contrast to keeping predators and people apart by fencing off “wilderness” areas, as occurs in North America and Africa. 
“I’m not saying it’s a peace-and-love story – coexistence often means conflict – but it’s important to manage that conflict, keep it at a low level and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours,” said Chapron. “We shouldn’t be talking about people-predator conflict; we have conflict between people about predators. These animals are symbolic of difficult questions about how we should use the land.” 
According to the researchers, this “land-sharing” approach could be applied elsewhere in the world. The reasons for its success in Europe include political stability, burgeoning populations of prey species such as wild deer and financial support for non-lethal livestock protection such as electric fences, which mean that farmers do not resort to shooting wild predators. Most crucial, said Chapron, has been the EU Habitats Directive, which has compelled member states to protect and revive rare species. 
“Without the Habitats Directive, I don’t think we would have had this recovery,” he said. “It shows, if people are willing to protect nature and if political will is translated into strong legislation like the Habitats Directive, it’s possible to achieve results in wildlife protection.” The revival was welcomed by author and commentator George Monbiot, who is launching Rewilding Britain, a new charity to encourage the return of wild landscape and extinct species. 
“It is great to see the upward trend continuing but Britain is completely anomalous – we’ve lost more of our large mammals than any country except for Ireland,” he said. “Apart from the accidental reintroduction of boar, we’ve done almost nothing, whereas, in much of the rest of Europe, we’ve got bears, lynx and wolves coming back. It’s a massive turnaround from the centuries of persecution.” 
The survey found the Eurasian lynx living permanently in 11 population groups across 23 European countries, of which only five were native populations, indicating the success of reintroduction efforts. According to Monbiot, momentum is building for the reintroduction of the lynx into the Cairngorms in Scotland. 
“If it works in the rest of Europe, there’s absolutely no reason why it can’t work in the UK,” he said, pointing out that bears and wolves are found within an hour of Rome. “There’s no demographic reason why we can’t have a similar return of wildlife in the UK.”",401
"US shutdown: Christine Lagarde calls for stability after debt crisis is averted James Meikle, Paul Lewis and Dan Roberts 17 October, 2013 
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the USA to manage its money better. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees returned to work after the government shut down for 16 days. US President Barack Obama said that the US has to be more careful with how it manages its money. The IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, asked for more stability. 
The Senate wrote a peace deal, which included almost nothing that the conservatives asked for. The conservative Republicans nearly caused a new financial crisis because they did not agree to Obama’s healthcare reforms. The House of Representatives agreed the deal at the last minute. 
The World Bank was also pleased that the world’s economy had “avoided a catastrophe ”. Its president, Jim Yong Kim, asked politicians in all countries to continue to make policies that improve the economy and give jobs and opportunity to all. The shutdown cost the US $24 billion. Obama signed the legislation shortly after midnight on Thursday. The bill passed easily, with support from all parties in the Senate, where Democratic and Republican leaders wrote the agreement. It is a temporary solution. It gives the government money until 15 January and allows the government to borrow more money if they want to until 7 February. 
But the president made clear that he did not expect another serious budget fight and shutdown in 2014. 
At the White House, Obama said he hoped the deal would “lift the cloud of uncertainty” that had hung over the country in recent weeks. 
“When this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,” he said. “Hopefully, next time, it won’t be in the eleventh hour. We must manage our money better.” 
A journalist asked the president if the crisis would happen again in a few months. Obama replied: “No.” 
Earlier, the Republican senator Mike Lee said there would be more trouble: “The media keeps asking: 'Was it worth it?' My answer is, it is always worth it to do the right thing.” He added: “This is not over.” 
But the political deal on Wednesday was one of the worst of all possible results for Republicans. They did not achieve any of their goals and most people blamed them for the crisis.",402
"Margaret Thatcher, the most dominant British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 and a global champion of the late 20th-century free market economic revival, has died. The British government announced that she would receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul’s Cathedral. 
The British prime minister, David Cameron, who is cutting short his trip to Europe to return to London following the news, said: “It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.” He added: “As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and the real thing about Margaret Thatcher is that she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.” 
In a statement, President Barack Obama said, “Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we are not simply carried along by the currents of history – we can shape them with moral conviction, unyielding courage and iron will.” 
The first woman elected to lead a major western state, Lady Thatcher, as she became after the longest premiership since 1827, served 11 unbroken years at No 10 Downing Street. 
Thatcher, who was 87, had been in declining health for some years, suffering from dementia. After a series of mini-strokes in 2002, Thatcher withdrew from public life, no longer able to make the kind of waspish pronouncements that had been her forte in office – and beyond. 
Her death was greeted with tributes from across the political spectrum. 
As Labour sources announced the party would suspend campaigning in local elections as a mark of respect, its leader, Ed Miliband, said: “She will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain’s first woman prime minister. She moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage. The Labour Party disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.” 
The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the defining figures in modern British politics. Whatever side of the political debate you stand on, no one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served.” 
Describing her as a political phenomenon, the former Tory prime minister Sir John Major said: “Her outstanding characteristics will always be remembered by those who worked closely with her: courage and determination in politics, and humanity and generosity of spirit in private.” 
The “Iron Lady” proved a significant cold war ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final showdown with the Soviet Union, which broke up under reformist pressures led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a Kremlin leader with whom Thatcher famously declared she could “do business ”. As a result, many ordinary voters in ex-Soviet bloc states saw her as a bold champion of their liberty, a view widely shared across the spectrum of mainstream US opinion – though not at home or among key EU partners. 
Thatcher was an unremarkable mid-ranking Conservative until she unexpectedly became party leader in 1975. Within a decade, she had become known around the world – both admired and detested – for her pro-market domestic reforms and her implacable attitudes in foreign policy, including her long-running battle with the IRA, which almost managed to murder her when it placed a bomb in the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in 1984. 
At home, the emerging doctrine of Thatcherism meant denationalization of state-owned industry – the new word “privatization” came into widespread use in many countries – and defeat of militant trade unionists, notably the National Union of Miners, whose year-long strike (1984 – 85) was bitter and traumatic. 
Boosted by the newly arrived revenues from Britain’s North Sea oil fields, Thatcher had room to manoeuvre and change the ageing industrial economy and she used the opportunity to defeat her enemies – including moderate members of her own party. 
But she also deployed her notorious “handbaggings”, or verbal attacks, in the European Union to obtain a British rebate – “my money” as she called it. She was less successful in fending off the centralizing ambitions of the “Belgian Empire”, her description of the European Commission, especially in the years when it was headed by the French socialist Jacques Delors. 
Her allies in the tabloid press egged her on. And, as the British economy recovered from the severe recession that her monetarist medicine had inflicted on it – to tame the unions and cure inflation – she briefly seemed invincible. 
But untrammelled power, with the defeat or retirement of allies who had kept her in check, led to mistakes and growing unpopularity. When Sir Geoffrey Howe, nominally her deputy, finally fell out with Thatcher – chiefly over Europe – his devastating resignation speech triggered a leadership challenge. Thatcher made way for John Major rather than risk losing to him in a ballot. 
In retirement, she wrote highly successful memoirs in two volumes and campaigned energetically on behalf of the Thatcher Foundation, which sought to promote her values around the world.",403
"How far away are we from a world where drones deliver packages? If Amazon is to be believed, not far at all. Others are not so sure: technical progress past this point isn’t merely a matter of invention; it’s a matter of public safety. 
Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice-president of global public policy, told a congressional hearing recently that his company would be ready as soon as all the rules were in place – but Misener gave no hints as to what that would look like beyond joking with a congressman that there was a basket of fresh fruit on the way to his doorstep to demonstrate the technology’s viability. 
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) will finally have regulations governing the commercial use of unmanned aircraft by June 2016. But the technology has a long way to go before then and larger machines aren’t airway-legal at all yet – only drones up to 25kg will be covered and the FAA points out in the proposed rules that, if you’re going to crowd the skies with radio-controlled flying robots, they had better all be using different radio frequencies that nobody can jam or hijack. Professor Sajiv Singh of Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, who runs a “critical cargo delivery” company called NearEarth, said that piloting a state-of-the-art drone was a little more like leaving it a trail of breadcrumbs: go to this altitude, perform this short task, go back home. But even short flights from a mobile landing pad pose serious logistical problems, he said. 
“They’re not proposing to deliver from one uninhabited place to another uninhabited place; they’re proposing to deliver from a warehouse to where the consumer is, which is likely an urban area or a suburban area,” he said. “In those particular cases, there are going to be hazards along the way that the vehicle is going to have to detect. Maybe there will be terrain that the map doesn’t know about, unless you’ve mapped that exact route before. Even then, maybe there’s construction equipment that wasn’t there but is there now. Maybe GPS signals are blocked or partially blocked, in which case it’s going to have an incorrect idea about where it is.” All this is surmountable, he said – but it’s difficult. One major problem is maintaining radio contact with a drone and planning for what happens if that contact breaks. “If you have an off-the-shelf UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], it’ll just keep going and crash into the ground,” said roboticist Daniel Huber. 
That’s not a hard problem for an engineer to fix; it’s just that the fix isn’t yet an industry standard. 
Furthermore, “you can’t do everything with a 25kg aircraft”, said Jay McConville, director of business development for unmanned systems at defence and business contractor Lockheed Martin MST. Much of the focus at Lockheed Martin has been on making drone piloting interfaces less like elaborate flight simulators. “Those of us in the aircraft business have to remind ourselves that the operator doesn’t really care about every little thing about the aircraft and wants instead to focus on the end result,” he said. “Operators want to see vehicle status information; they want to see video on their handheld device or their laptop.” “Technologically, most of the things that are needed for this are in place,” said Huber. 
He is working on a program that proposes using drones to inspect infrastructure – pipelines, telephone lines, bridges and so on. “We’ve developed an exploration algorithm where you draw a box around an area and it’ll autonomously fly around that area and look at every surface and then report back.” 
Huber, a senior scientist at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, where he works on 3D systems imagery, said with respect to a program like Amazon’s: “I have heard them say that many packages are lightweight – a drone can carry a kilogram for 15 minutes. If you have a vehicle that can go into a neighbourhood, it can deliver from that base. You need a 15-minute distance and typical off-the-shelf drones have about that distance.” It’s one way, he said, of making sure the surrounding population is relatively safe. “The larger you get, the more dangerous you get.” Logistical problems are in the middle of being solved in some very dramatic ways, Huber said. At a recent conference, he said, a disaster relief drone firm, SkyCatch, demonstrated a robot that could autonomously take off and, when it got tired, land on its own charging station. “It would land and take off and, when it ran low on batteries, it would land, exchange the batteries and take off again,” he said. 
Of course, safety remains a major concern – Singh points out that, for a commercial aircraft to be considered skyworthy, it has to prove a rate of one serious failure every 1m hours. Drones, he said, are “one or two orders of magnitude away” from that benchmark. “The Reaper drone has one failure in 10,000 hours,” Singh said. An oil leak, by the way, doesn’t count as catastrophic failure – something has to fall out of the sky. “We’re closing the gap,” Singh said. “There’s a lot of interest.” 
Part of this is simply that air travel is inherently dangerous and, thus, standards are much higher. “If you fly commercial airlines, often they’ll say, ’Oh, a component has failed – we have to go back to the gate,’” Singh said. “And that’s an established industry with 60 years of legacy! I shudder to think that one of these things might come down on a crowded highway.” Part of the solution, Singh said, is simple contingency planning: “If things fail, the vehicle has to do something reasonable.”",404
"Passing clouds 
One of the pleasures of flying is seeing clouds close up. Even though they seem insubstantial they carry a considerable weight of water – around 500 tonnes in a small cumulus cloud. And water is denser than air. So why don’t clouds fall out of the sky like rain? They do. But the droplets take a long time to sink. An average cloud would take a year to fall one metre. 
2 On cloud nine 
Most of us are happy to label clouds “fluffy ones” or “nasty black ones ”, but meteorologists identify more than 50 cloud types based on shape and altitude. These fit into categories given numbers from one to nine. Cloud nine is the vast, towering cumulonimbus, so to be “on cloud nine” implies being on top of the world. 
3 Around the rainbow 
There’s no better place to see a rainbow than from a plane. Rainbows are produced when sunlight hits raindrops. We see a bow because the Earth gets in the way, but, from a plane, a rainbow is a complete circle. When passing over clouds, the plane’s shadow appears neatly in the centre of the effect. 
4 Mr blue sky 
Sunlight is white, containing all the colours of the spectrum but, as it passes through air, some of the light is scattered when it interacts with the gas molecules. Blue light scatters more than the lower-energy colours, so the blue appears to come from the sky. 
5 There’s life out there 
Apart from clouds and other planes, we don’t expect to see much directly outside a flying aircraft’s window, but the air is seething with bacterial life – as many as 1,800 different types of bacteria have been detected over cities and they can reach twice the cruising height of a plane. 
6 Turbulence terror 
Even the most experienced flyer can be turned green by turbulence. The outcome can be anything from repeated bumping to sudden, dramatic plunges. The good news for nervous flyers is that no modern airliner has ever been brought down by turbulence. People have been injured and occasionally killed when they are not strapped in, or get struck by poorly secured luggage – but the plane is not going to be knocked out of the sky. 
7 In-flight radiation 
When body scanners were introduced at airports there were radiation scares but the level produced is the same as passengers receive in one minute of flight. The Earth is constantly bombarded by cosmic rays, natural radiation from space that has more impact at altitude. 
8 You can’t cure jet lag 
The world is divided into time zones. The result is that long-haul travel results in a difference between local time and your body’s time, causing jet lag. However, its effects can be minimized by keeping food bland for 24 hours before travel, drinking plenty of fluids and living on your destination time from the moment you reach the aircraft. 
9 Supersonic 747s 
Many of us have travelled faster than sound. There are a number of jet streams in the upper atmosphere, notably on the journey from the US to Europe, where a temperature inversion causes a corridor of air to move as fast as 250mph. If an airliner with an airspeed of 550mph enters a jet stream, the result can be to fly at 800mph, above sound’s 740mph. 
10 Flying through time 
Time zones provide an artificial journey through time – but special relativity means that a flight involves actual time travel. It’s so minimal, though, that crossing the Atlantic weekly for 40 years would only move you 1/1,000th of a second into the future. 
11 Terrible tea 
Don’t blame the cabin attendant if your tea isn’t great. Water should be just under 100°C when it is poured on to tea leaves – but that isn’t possible on a plane. It’s impossible to get water beyond 90°C during flight – so choose coffee. 
12 I can’t hear my food 
Airline food has a reputation for being bland and tasteless. Some of the problem may not be poor catering, though. A plane is a noisy environment and there is evidence that food loses some of its savour when we are exposed to loud noises. 
13 Needle in a haystack 
With modern technology, it seems strange that Malaysian flight MH370 could disappear without a trace – yet, finding a missing aircraft is a needle- in-a-haystack problem. The plane knows its location, both from GPS and inertial tracking, but this information is not relayed elsewhere in real time. That would be perfectly possible. Ocean- going ships have had tracking since the 1980s – the limitation is not technology but a lack of legislation requiring it. 
14 Volcanic fallout 
Air travel can be cancelled by volcanic activity. Glass-like ash particles melt in the heat of the engine, then solidify on the rotors. A clear-skies policy in an ash cloud may be inconvenient – but the risks of ignoring the ash are clear. 
15 The wing myth 
For many years, we taught the wrong explanation for the way wings keep planes in the air. In fact, almost all a plane’s lift comes from Newton’s Third Law of Motion. The wing is shaped to push air downwards. As the air is pushed down, the wing gets an equal and opposite push upwards, lifting the plane. 
16 Forget electric planes 
When we see ultra-light, experimental, electric planes, it’s easy to assume there will soon be clean, green, electric airliners, but it won’t happen any time soon. Aircraft fuel packs in a remarkable amount of energy. Batteries are much less efficient. To provide the same energy as a tonne of fuel would take 100 tonnes of batteries – and a 747 uses 150 to 200 tonnes of fuel. Unless battery technology is made vastly more efficient, electric airliners won’t get off the ground. 
17 Beware the vortex 
Pilots often wait a long time to get clearance. This is to allow the air to settle after a previous take-off, as a plane’s wingtips generate vortices in the air, which can take two or three minutes to disperse. If the following aircraft set off immediately, the rapidly moving air would make the plane difficult to handle. The delay gives the air time to recover from the miniature whirlwinds caused by the preceding plane. 
18 The doors aren’t locked 
In practice, the doors on a plane don’t need to be locked. If you watch an aircraft door being opened, it swings in an unusual way. It first has to be opened inwards before manoeuvring it out of the way. Once the plane has taken off, a significant pressure difference soon builds up between the inside of the plane and the outside. This differential forces the door into place. To open it, you would have to pull against the air pressure, well beyond the capabilities of human muscles.",405
"Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a new scientific study. The scientist leading the research said that, unless emissions of greenhouse gases were cut, the planet would heat up by a minimum of 4C by 2100, twice the level the world’s governments deem dangerous. The research indicates that fewer clouds form as the planet warms, meaning less sunlight is reflected back into space, driving temperatures up further still. The way clouds affect global warming has been the biggest mystery surrounding future climate change. Professor Steven Sherwood, at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who led the new work, said: “This study breaks new ground twice: first, by identifying what is controlling the cloud changes and, second, by strongly discounting the lowest estimates of future global warming in favour of the higher and more damaging estimates.” 
“4C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous,” Sherwood said. “For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet”, with sea levels rising by many metres as a result. 
The research is a “big advance” that halves the uncertainty about how much warming is caused by rises in carbon emissions, according to scientists commenting on the study, published in the journal Nature. Hideo Shiogama and Tomoo Ogura, at Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies, said the explanation of how fewer clouds form as the world warms was “convincing” and agreed this indicated future climate change would be greater than expected. But they said more challenges lay ahead to narrow down further the projections of future temperatures. 
Scientists measure the sensitivity of the Earth’s climate to greenhouse gases by estimating the temperature rise that would be caused by a doubling of CO in the atmosphere compared with pre-industrial levels – as is likely to happen within 50 years, on current trends. For two decades, those estimates have run from 1.5C to 5C: a wide range. The new research narrowed that range to between 3C and 5C, by closely examining the biggest cause of uncertainty: clouds. 
The key was to ensure that the way clouds form in the real world was accurately represented in computer climate models, which are the only tool researchers have to predict future temperatures. When water evaporates from the oceans, the vapour can rise over nine miles to form rain clouds that reflect sunlight; or, it may rise just a few miles and drift back down without forming clouds. In reality, both processes occur and climate models encompassing this complexity predicted significantly higher future temperatures than those only including the nine-mile-high clouds. 
“Climate sceptics like to criticize climate models for getting things wrong and we are the first to admit they are not perfect,” said Sherwood. “But what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by the models which predict less warming, not those that predict more.” He added: “Sceptics may also point to the ’hiatus’ of temperatures since the end of the 20th century, but there is increasing evidence that this inaptly named hiatus is not seen in other measures of the climate system and is almost certainly temporary.” 
Global average air temperatures have increased relatively slowly since a high point in 1998 caused by the ocean phenomenon El Niño, but observations show that heat is continuing to be trapped in increasing amounts by greenhouse gases, with over 90% disappearing into the oceans. 
Furthermore, a study in November 2013 suggested the “pause” may be largely an illusion resulting from the lack of temperature readings from polar regions, where warming is greatest. Sherwood accepts his team’s work on the role of clouds cannot definitively rule out that future temperature rises will lie at the lower end of projections. “But,” he said, for that to be the case, “one would need to invoke some new dimension to the problem involving a major missing ingredient for which we currently have no evidence. Such a thing is not out of the question but requires a lot of faith.” He added: “Rises in global average temperatures of at least 4C by 2100 will have profound impacts on the world and the economies of many countries if we don’t urgently start to curb our emissions.”",406
"An octopus has made a brazen escape from the National Aquarium in New Zealand by breaking out of its tank, slithering down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappearing into the sea. 
In scenes reminiscent of Finding Nemo, Inky – a common New Zealand octopus – made his dash for freedom after the lid of his tank was accidentally left slightly ajar. Staff believe that in the middle of the night, while the aquarium was deserted, Inky clambered to the top of his glass enclosure, down the side of the tank and travelled across the floor of the aquarium. 
Rob Yarrell, national manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, said: “Octopuses are famous escape artists. I don’t think he was unhappy with us, or lonely, as octopuses are solitary creatures. But, he is such a curious boy. He would want to know what’s happening on the outside. That’s just his personality.” 
One theory is that Inky slid across the aquarium floor – a journey of three or four metres – and then, sensing freedom was at hand, into a drainpipe that led directly to the sea. The drainpipe was 50 metres long and opened onto the waters of Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. 
Another possible escape route could have involved Inky squeezing into an open pipe at the top of his tank, which led under the floor to the drain. “When we came in the next morning and his tank was empty, I was really surprised,” said Yarrell, who has not launched a search for Inky. “The staff and I have been pretty sad. But then, this is Inky and he’s always been a bit of a surprise octopus.” 
Reiss Jenkinson, exhibits keeper at the National Aquarium, said he was absolutely certain Inky had not been taken. “I understand the nature of octopus behaviour very well,” he said. “I have seen octopuses on boats slip through bilge pumps. And, the security here is too tight for anyone to take Inky and why would they?” 
Because octopuses have no bones, they are able to fit into extremely small spaces and have been filmed squeezing through gaps the size of coins. They are also understood to be extremely intelligent and capable of using tools. At the Island Bay Marine Education Centre in Wellington, an octopus was found to be in the habit of visiting another tank overnight to steal crabs, then returning to its own. Another at the centre, Ozymandias, was thought to have broken a world record for opening a jar before it was released into the ocean. 
Inky was brought to the National Aquarium a number of years ago by a local fisherman who found him caught in a crayfish pot. He was scarred and “rough looking”, with shortened limbs, said Yarrell. “He had been living on the reef and fighting with fish so he wasn’t in the best shape.” According to Yarrell, Inky – who is about the size of a rugby ball – was an “unusually intelligent” octopus. “He was very friendly, very inquisitive and a popular attraction here. We have another octopus, Blotchy, but he is smaller than Inky and Inky had the personality.” 
The aquarium has no plans to step up security as a result of the escape as Inky was a “one- off” but the staff are “increasingly aware of what octopuses can actually do”. Although the aquarium is not actively searching for a replacement for Inky, if a fisherman brought in another octopus, it might be willing to take it on. “You never know,” said Yarrell. “There’s always a chance Inky could come home to us.”",407
"They are the darkness seekers – and they are growing in number. On Black Fell, looking down on Northumberland’s beautiful Kielder Water reservoir, a group of people wait in a car park next to a strange wooden building with a minimalist design beamed down from the future. This is Kielder Observatory, the centre of Britain’s nascent astrotourism industry. And those waiting outside were the lucky ones. Many more had applied for a night of stargazing at the observatory but numbers are strictly limited. 
Inside, next to a woodburner and under dimmed lights, the observatory’s founder and lead astronomer, Gary Fildes, a former bricklayer with Tarzan hair, delivers a pep talk to his colleagues and volunteers. The team discusses the prospect of seeing the northern lights but Fildes is doubtful. Instead, they decide to train their powerful telescopes on Jupiter and Venus and later to pick out stars such as Capella and Betelgeuse. An additional attraction is the appearance of the International Space Station. 
“Remember,” Fildes tells his team, “it’s about interaction, it’s about entertainment, it’s about inspiring people.” He puts on some music. Pink Floyd, the Jam, the Pogues. “By 9.30, the sky is going to be sexy,” Fildes says. “It’s going to be epic.” 
Fildes, 49, is at the forefront of the UK’s burgeoning astrotourism industry. The pivotal moment for Northumberland came in 2013 when the entire national park housing Hadrian’s Wall, along with Kielder Water and Forest Park, some 1,500 sq km, was awarded Dark Sky Park status, the only one in England. Dark Sky Parks are rare. The 2013 Star Count revealed that only 5% of the UK population can see more than 31 stars on a good night. 
The Tucson, Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) confers the status only on places that take major steps to avoid light pollution. Recipients must also prove their night skies are sufficiently dark. In Northumberland Dark Sky Park, as the area was rebadged, it is so dark that Venus casts a shadow on the Earth. 
Duncan Wise, visitor development officer for the Northumberland National Park Authority, helped to spearhead the campaign for dark-sky status after the Council for the Protection of Rural England found it was one of Britain’s most tranquil places. “We tend to look at landscape as everything up to the horizon,” Wise said. “But what about what’s above it?” Wise and others spent years drawing up their submission to the IDA, collecting reams of light readings and forming an alliance of local councils, parks’ bodies and community groups to produce an exterior lighting master plan that influences the construction of new developments in the area. 
Their efforts have been vindicated. Many of the 1.5 million who visit Northumberland each year are now aware of its Dark Sky status. “We get a lot of people coming here to see the sky now,” says the man at the car-hire firm in Newcastle. “They come in autumn and winter, when it’s darkest. Good for the B&Bs as they get business all year round now.” Local hoteliers now issue guests with night-vision torches and put out deckchairs at night. Those who have acquired some knowledge of astronomy can receive a badge confirming that their hotels are “Dark Sky Friendly”. 
Wise acknowledges that Northumberland needs to do more to capitalize on its scarce resource and believes the region needs a couple more observatories to ensure that visitors will see what they came for. A £14m national landscape discovery centre, which he describes as the north’s answer to the Eden Project, will have an observatory when it is completed in a couple of years. 
Fildes has grand designs. He is planning Britain’s first “astrovillage”, one that would house the largest public observatory in the world and boast a 100-seat auditorium, a 100-seat planetarium, a one-metre aperture telescope, and radiomagnetic and solar telescopes. The multimillion-pound project would feature a hotel and draw in 100,000 people a year, four times the number currently able to use the observatory. Fildes is cryptic about his backers but believes the astrovillage will be a reality by 2018. 
However, Northumberland faces competition. Galloway Forest Park in Scotland also has Dark Sky Park status. Since Exmoor was designated Europe’s first International Dark Sky Reserve – one notch below Dark Sky Park – in 2011, a range of local businesses offering stargazing breaks and safaris has sprung up. The UK will have to go some way to eclipse northern Chile, which boasts more than a dozen tourist observatories and has some of the clearest skies in the world. The Teide National Park in Tenerife is also becoming a major astrotourism destination. 
So, what is driving the desire to look upwards? The media have helped. TV presenters like Brian Cox have attracted a new generation of stargazers. “Brian Cox has made astronomy accessible,” says Wise. “It’s no longer seen as the province of professors in studies with brass telescopes.” Technology has also played a part. Apps such as Stellarium now turn smartphones into pocket-size planetariums. Ultimately, though, Fildes believes people are starting to appreciate what lies above. “If you had to build a visitor attraction from scratch, what could be better than the universe?”",408
"Do you want your child to be good at sport, play for the school team and, maybe one day, even be in international competitions? Well, try to make sure that your child is born in November or October. A study by a top expert on children’s physical activity has found that schoolchildren born in November or October are fitter than everyone else in their class.
Children born in November or October were fitter, stronger and more powerful than children born in the other ten months of the year. They are especially fitter, stronger and more powerful than children with birthdays in April or June. Dr Gavin Sandercock of Essex University and his colleagues found that children born in the autumn had “a clear physical advantage” over their classmates.
The research involved 8,550 boys and girls aged between ten and 16 from 26 state schools in Essex. All were tested between 2007 and 2010 on three different things: stamina, handgrip strength and lower-body power. The results showed that a child’s month of birth could make big differences to their levels of fitness, muscle strength and ability to accelerate, all of which predict how good someone is at sport.
November children were the fittest because they had the most stamina and power and were the second strongest. Children born in October were almost as fit – they scored highest for strength and came third for power, with December children close behind.
The gap in physical ability between children in the same class but born in different months was sometimes very wide. “For example, we found that a boy born in November can run at least 10% faster, jump 12% higher and is 15% more powerful than a child of the same age born in April. This is a huge physical advantage,” said Sandercock. These gaps could decide who became a top-level athlete because “selection into elite sports may often depend on very small differences in a person ’s physical performance ”.
The study found that, when scores for the three kinds of fitness were put together, children born in April were the least fit, followed by children born in June. The findings seem to show that children born in the early months of the school year enjoy a double “autumn advantage” – we already know that they have an academic advantage and, now, they also seem to be better at sport, too.
The authors of the study believe that the most likely explanation is that children born in autumn get more vitamin D over the summer months towards the end of pregnancy. John Steele, chief executive of the Youth Sport Trust, said the quality of a young person ’s introduction to sport at school can be “a major factor” in their sporting development. “Children that get a high-quality first experience will have greater agility, balance and coordination, and are more likely to develop an enjoyment of physical activity and be good at sport as they grow up”, he said.
UK Sport could not say if a majority of the 1,300 athletes it gives money to were born in November and October. Natalie Dunman, its head of performance, said that the differences shown in the new study were true for teenagers in junior-level competitions, but that the differences disappear before sportspeople were in adult competitions. She said: “With adult athletes, there are many factors that make a champion and we don’t think that month of birth is one of the key ingredients.”",409
"Margaret Thatcher, the most famous British prime minister since Winston Churchill, has died at the age of 87. She was in poor health for many years, suffering from dementia. The British government says that her funeral will be at St Paul’s Cathedral. 
The British prime minister, David Cameron, said: “I was very sad when l heard of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.” He added: “She was our first woman prime minister – and she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country.” He added that he believed she would be remembered as the greatest British peacetime prime minister. 
President Barack Obama said, “Here in America, many of us will never forget her close friendship with President Reagan.” 
Margaret Thatcher was the first woman leader of an important western state. She was prime minister for 11 years until members of her own party removed her in 1990. 
When they heard of her death, politicians from all parties sent tributes. 
British Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, said: “She will be remembered as a unique person. She changed the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain’s first woman prime minister. She was a huge figure in the world. The Labour Party disagreed with a lot of what she did, but we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.” 
The former Conservative prime minister, Sir John Major, said that people who worked closely with her would always remember her courage and determination in politics and her humanity and generous spirit in private. 
The “Iron Lady” was a close ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Union broke up because of reforms introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev. He was the Russian leader who Thatcher liked and worked closely with. As a result, many ordinary people in ex-Communist countries still think of her as someone who supported their freedom. 
It was a surprise when Thatcher became party leader in 1975. Within ten years, she had become famous around the world – people both admired and hated her – for her reforms in the UK and her strong beliefs in foreign policy. She had a long battle with the IRA, which almost killed her with a bomb in 1984. 
In the UK, Thatcher’s main economic policy was the denationalization of state-owned industry – the new word “privatization” became used in many countries. She also defeated militant trade unions, particularly the National Union of Miners, after a long and terrible strike that lasted almost a year. With money from Britain’s North Sea oil fields, she was able to change the ageing industrial economy and she used the opportunity to defeat her enemies – including some members of her own party. 
As the British economy became healthy again after the problems that her policies caused, it seemed for a short time that no-one would ever defeat her. But, as her friends and supporters retired or were replaced, she started to make mistakes and became more and more unpopular. Finally, in 1990, after a vote among Conservative MPs failed to support her, John Major took control of the party. 
After she retired, she wrote her memoirs and continued to promote her values around the world.",410
"Nelson Mandela, the most important person in Africa’s fight for freedom and a hero to millions of people around the world, has died at the age of 95. 
South Africa’s first black president died with his family with him at home in Johannesburg after years of illness. 
The news was told to the country by the current president, Jacob Zuma, who said Mandela died around 8.50pm local time and was at peace. 
“This is the moment of our deepest sorrow,” Zuma said. “Our nation has lost its greatest son. 
“South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will say goodbye to him.” 
Zuma said that Mandela would receive a state funeral. 
Barack Obama called Mandela by his clan name – Madiba. The US president said: “Madiba transformed South Africa – and moved all of us.” 
UK prime minister David Cameron said: “A great light has gone out in the world” and he described Mandela as “a hero of our time”. 
FW de Klerk – the South African president who freed Mandela from prison and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993 – said the news was very sad for South Africa and the world. 
“He was a great unifier,” De Klerk said. 
In Soweto, people came together to sing and dance near the house where Mandela once lived. They sang songs from the anti-apartheid struggle. Some people were wearing South African flags and the green, yellow and black colours of Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC). 
Mandela’s death sends South Africa deep into mourning nearly 20 years after he led the country from racial apartheid to democracy. 
But his death will also be felt by people around the world who thought Mandela was one of history’s last great political leaders, similar to Gandhi and Martin Luther King. After spending 27 years in prison, including 18 years on Robben Island, Mandela won the country’s first multiracial election in 1994, with his party, the ANC. 
Born with the name Rolihlahla Dalibhunga in a small village in the Eastern Cape on 18 July, 1918, a teacher at Mandela’s school gave him his English name, Nelson. 
He joined the ANC in 1943. In 1952, he started South Africa’s first black law firm with his partner, Oliver Tambo. 
When the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went underground. After the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 black protesters were shot dead by police, he took the difficult decision to begin an armed struggle. He was arrested and sent to prison for life. 
Finally, in 1990, FW de Klerk ended the ban on the ANC and Mandela was released from prison. 
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said: “He made people believe in Africa and Africans again.” Mandela’s 91st birthday was celebrated by the first annual “Mandela Day” in his honour. He was married three times and he had six children, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.",411
"The roof is plastic and the desks are just old chairs, but the students inside the Chemin des Dunes school are studying hard and hoping for a new life in France.
“The French language is very difficult but we try hard. If we come every day, maybe our dreams will come true,” says Kamal, a refugee from Sudan’s Darfur district who comes to three or four hours of classes every day. “It’s a good thing to keep your brain active.”
The 29-year-old electrical engineer is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of refugees living in the “jungle” camp outside Calais who have applied for asylum in France and really want to learn the language of what they hope will be their new home.
Like many of his fellow students, he is frustrated by the media coverage of the sprawling tentvillage. He says it focuses only on those people who use the village as a place to stay while they make risky attempts every night to sneak on board cross-Channel lorries or trains.
“I want people in the UK to know that not everyone wants to go there. There are a lot of people here who want to stay in France,” Kamal said.
France is already home to more than a quarter of a million refugees, according to United Nations data – this is more than twice as many as the UK, even though the countries have similar populations.
There are also 56,000 asylum seekers waiting for permission to stay in France – the second highest number in Europe – while, in the UK, there are 36,000.
But, while the applicants wait to hear if they can stay, France does not give them any financial support or allow them to work – and the slow process can take many months. The jungle camp offers a free meal a day and a plastic roof over their heads. Many decide to live in these basic conditions for a few extra months, rather than jeopardize their chance to stay in France by working illegally.
The idea for the school was first suggested by some of the asylum seekers at the start of the summer, when they were bored with sitting around waiting and nervous about starting a new life in France totally unable to communicate. It opened within weeks, on 11 July.
“We did it so people can learn French,” said Zimarco Jones, the school’s Nigerian founder, who arrived in Calais in 2013 and is still waiting to hear if he can stay. “Now, we need to build another one,” he says with a grin.
The tiny classroom can hold 30 pupils, crammed into five rows of desks in front of a big green chalkboard and pictures of cartoon animals for each letter of the French alphabet. There are also classes in English, art and t’ai chi but the French lessons, given by volunteers from Calais and other towns, are the most popular.
“French is not as easy as English but, two weeks ago, I decided there was no way to get to the UK,” says George, another Darfur refugee and student. He wanted to cross the Channel because he speaks fluent English but, with language classes, he says he is happy to settle in France.
“Anywhere there is peace, I can stay, no problem,” he says. He is already waiting at the classroom more than half an hour before his teachers arrive.
He admits he doesn’t know much about France but says that the classes are slowly helping him understand the country as well as the language.
Many of the volunteers at the jungle school are local teachers who are giving up their summer holidays.
Jenny Flahaut, 33, who works at a children’s home, volunteered after seeing an advertisement on Facebook. “I saw these people in Calais every day and I wanted to do something for them,” she said.
She is angry about the depiction of migrants in the media and about politicians who have never visited the camp, most recently David Cameron, the British prime minister, who talked about “swarms” of people trying to reach the UK.
“They don’t know them; they are not like that,” Flahaut said as she prepared for an afternoon lesson. “Most of them are very good people. They are welcoming and friendly. They want to improve their life and make it better, and learning is part of that.”
The teachers and Zimarco are focused, now, on setting up a separate classroom for around 200 women and two dozen children. There are ten times more men than women in the Calais camp. Most feel uncomfortable going to classes with male students they don’t know, the volunteers say.
Zimarco’s work starting the school is remembered in its unofficial name – everyone in the camp just calls it “Zimarco’s school”. After setting up the new classroom, Zimarco has more dreams for making the camp a place to live, not just survive. He wants to start a football team for migrants and even dreams of changing the camp name. He hates “the jungle” because he says it implies the residents aren’t people.
“We have a discotheque, a house, a mosque, a school, shops,” he says. “We are not animals.”",412
"George W Bush, Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Hawking have done it. David Cameron, Barack Obama and Pamela Anderson have refused to do it. The Ice Bucket Challenge began in the US in July. It has raised $100 million for the ALS Association, an American motor neurone disease charity, and £4.5 million for a British charity, as well as thousands of pounds for charities in Hong Kong and Australia. 
But some people are unhappy with the Ice Bucket Challenge. Animal-rights groups and environmentalists (people who want to protect the natural world) have criticized it. Some people say it wastes water. Other people criticize it because some people enjoy the fun and then do not donate anything to charity. 
But the challenge continues to grow. If you don’t know how it works, someone gives a short speech to camera about the charity, then throws a bucket of ice cubes in water over their head or asks a friend to do it. Then, they give the names of three other people who have to do the same or donate money to the charity. 
It was an unlucky coincidence that the Ice Bucket Challenge was happening during World Water Week, when people from all over the world met in Stockholm to discuss the planet’s water crisis. The charity WaterAid is asking people to use recycled water from their baths or rainwater from their gardens, or to use sea water. 
Douglas Graham, of the UK Motor Neurone Association, said: “We are not surprised about the criticism but this is a wonderful windfall and we’re so grateful. We didn’t expect it but, suddenly, the donations just started.” The money is a very big help to a small charity that looks after sufferers of a terrible disease that has no cure and kills five people a day in the UK. 
Former Baywatch star and animal-rights activist Pamela Anderson wrote a public letter to the ALS Association. In the letter, she said that she did not like the charity’s use of animal experimentation. 
A few US stars have rejected the challenge because of California’s drought. Actor Matt Damon solved the problem by using water from his toilet. Actor Verne Troyer used milk, also for environmental reasons. And some people say the challenge caused a water shortage on the Scottish island of Colonsay. 
Another criticism is that small charities won’t know what to do with the extra money but the MND Association rejects this. “Oh, we know what to do with the extra money here,” said Graham. “We pay for research to find the causes of the disease, and a treatment or cure. We give care and support to 3,500 people and they need it because this disease is expensive to manage. More than 50% of people with the disease die within two years.” 
But, for many people with a connection to the disease, the awareness that the challenge has created is as important as the money. Normally, the MND Association gets about 300,000 hits a year on its website. On just one day recently, it had 330,000 hits. 
“It is great to donate to any charity. I understand that some people might want to donate to a different charity,” said Graham. “In 2013, British people gave £62 billion to charity – we should be proud of that. It’s fabulous for us to get this windfall. Over the next few weeks, we will decide how to spend the money in the best way.”",413
"Valdevaqueros is one of the last remaining unspoilt beaches in southern Spain, where the sky above the golden sands is filled with kites hauling surfers over the waves. Currently the beach has little more than an access road lined with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain, filled with windsurfers and kitesurfers lured by the area’s strong winds. 
For decades it has been a world apart from the concrete-lined beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella along the coast, yet on 29 May the local council in Tarifa approved plans to build a tourist complex right next to the beach, with 1,400 hotel rooms and 350 flats. Environmental and conservation groups have protested that the project will harm the habitats of protected species, but for most councillors here the issue is simple: jobs. In this town of 18,000 inhabitants, 2,600 are out of work as Spain faces its worst economic crisis in at least half a century, one that has cast doubt on the future of the euro. 
“Traditional sources of income such as fishing are dying out, now that fleets are being dismantled and fish stocks are depleted, so tourism is the only way out, as long as it is sustainable,” said Sebastián Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist Party, which is in opposition in Tarifa but voted with the governing People’s Party to give the project the green light. 
Tarifa’s Mayor, Juan Andrés Gil, declined to comment on the project, but Galindo said it complies with environmental standards. 
The complex would be 800 metres from the coast, comfortably beyond the minimum of 200 metres stipulated by a law designed to prevent more ugly developments like those that blighted much of Spain’s coastline when mass tourism first descended on its shores in the 1960s and 1970s. 
Opponents of the complex say the last thing anyone needs is more housing in a country that already has a million empty homes, although the central government last week proposed a sell-off by granting non-Spaniards residency permits in return for buying property worth at least €160,000. 
The Socialist opposition in Madrid attacked the proposal, and Galindo said it discriminated against migrant workers who flocked to Spain during the boom years, many of them from Morocco, whose coastline is just 14km away and can be seen from Tarifa. “It favours moneyed classes rather than those who came here to help Spain get ahead,” he said. Surfers fear that new buildings in Valdevaqueros would reduce the strength of the famous local Levant wind but fail to lure traditional package holidaymakers. “It’s not really a family spot. Just wait until they see what a Levant is like,” said Henning Mayer, who has regularly made the journey from Augsburg in Germany for 20 years. “Ten years ago they said they would build a new highway here. It didn’t happen, so I think it will be impossible to build new hotels.” 
At the southernmost tip of Spain, Tarifa is the strategic crossroads between Africa and Europe, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. Campaigners say it also has a vital role in the animal world as a crossroads for migrating species. 
The campaign to save the beach was launched hours after the Tarifa council voted for the project. The campaign has a Facebook page and is supported by groups including Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Spanish branch of conservation network Birdlife. “It’s the environmental equivalent of putting a shopping centre right in the middle of the Alhambra,” said Noelia Jurado, who uses her multimedia expertise to campaign against the complex. She also noted that the resort would be near the ancient Roman town of Baelo Claudia. “They could be building on top of more Roman ruins here. Nobody knows.” 
Also joining the opposition to the planned resort is the Andalusian College of Geographers, which, in a preliminary study charted on its website, concluded that “free areas ”, including car parks if not actual buildings, will overlap part of the Alcornocales National Park. The geographers also estimate that the site intrudes on two wildlife conservation areas. One of the areas in Valdevaqueros is home to two species of bat whose survival is threatened. 
“Money is once again being put before urban laws and European environmental directives,” said Raúl Romeva, a member of the European Parliament who is Vice-President of the Greens group. In Romeva’s view, the project is also at fault because the proposed site has too little water in a town that already suffers from shortages in the summer weather that scorches the southern Spanish region of Andalusía. Lack of water recently led the Andalusía Supreme Court to uphold an appeal against plans to build a complex elsewhere in the region, which would have included golf courses, hotels and luxury homes. 
Many locals are also wondering why a resort should be built 10km away, rather than on wasteland near Tarifa’s picturesque old centre, with its typically Andalusian whitewashed walls and winding streets, dominated by a 10th-century Moorish castle. “My opinion and that of catering workers is that we agree with the complex as long as it creates jobs in the town, which is what is needed, but we are against it being for the benefit of a few,” said Cristóbal Lobato, who has worked at the same beachside bar in Tarifa for 30 years. “If they put it in the centre of Tarifa, where there is space, then clients could visit shops, tapas bars and restaurants.” 
Overlooking the green fields earmarked for building, biologist Aitor Galán, who conducts environmental impact studies for a living, pointed at one of only two seaside breeding grounds for vultures in Europe. “Anywhere else in Europe, this place would have the utmost protection, but here they want to get rid of it all and cover it with buildings,” he said. “What they want to do is turn this into Benidorm, but what draws people here is wildlife and the wind. But by taking advantage of the current crisis and unemployment, builders and mayors who agree with them can justify any amount of destruction.”",414
"We may not yet be living in an age of flying cars, as predicted in the 1985 film Back to the Future II, but the rise of smartphones and other new technologies is creating a reality that is arguably as exciting and almost as far-fetched. Experts agree that economic and demographic changes, technological advances, and environmental concerns are fundamentally altering the transportation landscape. “It’s a very dynamic time,” said Robert Puentes, of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program think- tank. “There’s a focus on a tighter connection between the role of transportation and the economic health of cities and its impact on people.” 
As the average US commute lengthens and the country’s infrastructure ages badly, cities across the US are being forced to redefine what transportation is. Increasingly, urban planners, transportation experts and scientists are realizing that old auto-centric models focused on easing traffic congestion aren’t enough to tackle issues like population growth and carbon emissions, and transportation is now, more than ever, an integral component of a city’s larger sustainability efforts. 
Big US cities like Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago are working to make better use of their streets by adding more bus lanes, augmenting pedestrian walkways and expanding their rail options, while at the same time working with the private sector on advanced technologies that will allow a vehicle to drive itself and communicate with other vehicles and its environment, essentially making transportation intelligent. “The most sustainable places to live are those places that have multi-modal transport systems,” Puentes said. “You can’t be a global competitive city if you don’t have a robust transportation network.” 
Here are three of the key trends that experts predict will shape the transportation industry over the coming years. 
The rise of ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft – essentially taxis booked at the click of a smartphone button – and apps like Waze, which uses real-time traffic data to find the quickest routes for drivers, are dramatically changing how people get around and affecting the very way in which traffic moves through a city. Communication between riders and drivers, between different vehicles and between cars and infrastructure is bringing transportation into a new era, according to Allan Clelland, an expert on transportation technology. 
According to a recent study from the UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies, vehicle travel has declined among millennials – individuals born roughly between the early 1980s and early 2000s – compared to previous generations. According to the study, those born in the 1990s are making 4% fewer car trips and travelling 18% fewer miles per year, on average, than members of previous generations did at the same stage in their lives. 
Meanwhile, those still driving cars are dealing with less traffic thanks to Waze. Experts say the traffic app has eased congestion on motorways and reduced travel times for drivers but also led to a problematic rise in cars moving through residential neighbourhoods. This has angered residents, who claim the increased traffic on their quiet roads reduces their quality of life. 
This trend could continue as vehicle-to-vehicle data communication, as well as communication between vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure, grows. Currently, a traffic light can detect when a car is approaching but that’s about it. Companies are working to develop technology that will enable a vehicle to tell traffic control systems not only that it is present but also where it is going and how fast it is travelling. 
Driverless cars have been in the headlines ever since Google began road testing the vehicles back in 2012 but no-one really knows when driverless cars will become commonplace. However, the partial automation of cars is already underway. Alexandre Bayen of the University of California expects automation will progress in stages: first, there might be automated buses with their own lanes, then perhaps lorries in ports or mining towns: essentially, vehicles that are connected electronically and travel in single file. 
The idea of a fully automated transportation system is intriguing because it has the potential to improve safety by removing human error and increase the efficiency of car owners, who can get on with other tasks during a long commute. It can also help reduce carbon emissions and traffic congestion and allow more people access to cars. But, even if driverless technology were ready to hit the roads now, it would take a long time to get fully automated given the average age of cars on the road is 11.5 years old. 
To see what driverless cars might look like in action, go to the video at: vimeo.com/37751380. 
As the world races to avoid catastrophic climate change, and countries, states and cities work to meet ambitious emissions goals, these policies could also have a big impact on the future of transportation, spurring everything from zero- and low-emission vehicles to apps that encourage more walking, biking and carpooling. 
Sharon Feigon, executive director of the Shared Use Mobility Center, envisages a future where a person can use a transit pass that gives them access to numerous modes of transport in a given day. If their train is delayed, for instance, they can access a city bike, take a shuttle or rent a vehicle through a car share programme using the same pass. “We’re going to see these systems packaged together and make it as easy as possible to connect them up with each other so people can transfer seamlessly between them,” she said. 
When considering the future of transportation, it’s also important to keep in mind why people travel: they may be going to work, to meet friends or family, or to do the shopping. Technologies and trends that reduce the need for those trips – say, virtual meetings or telecommuting – could also have a big impact on transportation. 
There was a time when the idea of a flying car represented the height of innovation but the technologies being imagined and developed now could be seen as even more sophisticated – and more useful in tackling the social and environmental threats that we face over the coming decades.”",415
"Insects are not usually seen as food except in a few regions of the world – but now they are crawling closer and closer to our plates. In spring 2013 there will be an effort to show people that eating insects is not disgusting and also an attempt to put insects on supermarket shelves.
In April, there will be a festival in London, Pestival 2013, where the consumption of creepy-crawlies will be discussed. The festival will include a restaurant by the Nordic Food Lab, the Scandinavian team behind the Danish restaurant Noma, which brought dishes that included ants to Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair in 2012, an event that was mostly sold out.
Noma has been named the world’s best restaurant by Restaurant magazine for three years. Its chef, René Redzepi, says that ants taste like lemon, and a purée of fermented grasshoppers and moth larvae tastes like a strong fish sauce. Bee larvae make a sweet mayonnaise used instead of eggs and scientists are constantly finding new ways to use insects.
In March, a BBC documentary will show food writer Stefan Gates looking for and eating deep-fried locusts and barbecued spiders. But, behind all the jokes there is a very serious message. Many experts believe there is a clear environmental benefit to humans eating insects.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been funding projects since 2011 that aim to promote the eating and farming of insects in south-east Asia and Africa, where an estimated two billion people already eat insects and larvae as a regular part of their diet. In 2012, the FAO published a list of 1,909 edible species of insect and plans a major international conference on “this valuable food source” in 2013.
Insects are plentiful – globally, for every human there are 40 tonnes of insects – so there is not too much chance that they will become endangered. “I know it’s taboo to eat bugs in the western world, but why not?”, Redzepi has said. “You go to south-east Asia and this is a common thing. You read about it from all over the world, that people are eating insects. If you like mushrooms, you’ve eaten so many worms you cannot imagine. But also we eat honey, and honey is the vomit of a bee. Think of that next time you put it into your tea.”
He said that the basic idea behind Nordic Food Lab was: “Nothing is not edible.”
Insects are critical to life on Earth and, with more than a million species, are the most diverse group of creatures on the planet, but they are misunderstood, hated and often killed by humans just because they are there.
Over the next 30 years, the planet’s human population will increase to nine billion. Already one billion people do not get enough food. The increase will put more pressure on agricultural land, water, forests, fisheries and resources, as well as nutrients and energy supplies.
The cost of meat is rising, not just in terms of money but also in terms of the amount of rainforest that is destroyed for fields or to grow food for cattle. There is also the issue of methane produced by cows. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the contribution by livestock farming is enormous – 35% of the planet’s methane, 65% of its nitrous oxide and 9% of the carbon dioxide.
Edible insects produce fewer gases, contain high-quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, and need only a quarter of the food that sheep need, and half that of pigs and chickens, to produce the same amount of protein. They produce fewer greenhouse gases and less ammonia than cows and can be grown on organic waste. China is already successfully setting up huge maggot farms. Zimbabwe has a thriving caterpillar industry and Laos was given nearly $500,000 by the FAO to develop an insect-harvesting project.
A study by FoodServiceWarehouse.com suggested that giving up pork and beef and eating crickets and locusts instead could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95%. But perhaps the fairest thing about eating worms and insects comes when we are dead – then they get a chance to eat us.",416
"Every morning, before India’s capital gets too hot, some old friends meet. On the dry grass not far from the India Gate monument at the centre of Delhi, they stretch, breathe and meditate. 
“It is the only healthy way to start the day. Much better than an egg or a sandwich or a cup of tea,” said Arvind Singh at 6.15am as he did his breathing exercises. 
Singh, a 42-year-old salesman, and his friends are not alone. All across India you can see people doing yoga together. 
On 21 June – the new International Day of Yoga – Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, hopes the world will join in. On the grass near India Gate, up to 45,000 people will take part in a 35-minute class. They hope it will be the biggest yoga session ever. 
The participants will include 64-year-old Modi, most of his government and celebrities. 
Modi wants to encourage Indians, and others, to stretch. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party won the Indian election in 2014. In May 2015, he told schools to make sure students attended yoga events on the International Day of Yoga. 
Everybody in India knows that their police officers are out of shape. So, India wants to introduce compulsory yoga for them. And, three million civil servants and their families will get free daily yoga lessons. Air India, the national airline, has also said it will introduce yoga for trainee pilots. 
Modi is a vegetarian and a yoga practitioner. He suggested an international yoga day when he spoke to the United Nations on a visit to New York in 2014. 
Modi said that yoga is a gift of India’s ancient tradition. He said that, when you do yoga, you bring together mind and body, thought and action, and create harmony between man and nature. He added that “It is not about exercise – it is about feeling in harmony with yourself, the world and nature”. 
Yoga is between 3,000 and 6,000 years old. It is connected with local religious traditions including Buddhism and Jainism, as well as Hinduism, which is practised by 80% of Indians. In ancient India, yoga was part of daily life. 
Modi has been criticized for creating a view of Indian culture that doesn’t give other traditions a fair place. 
Suneel Singh, a guru in south Delhi, said that yoga does not just belong to one religion: “Is t’ai chi just Chinese? Is football just English? It is the same with yoga – yoga is for everybody. It is a cheap way to stay healthy.”",417
"According to a group of experts, bogus allergy tests are convincing thousands of people to take unnecessary treatments and put themselves or their children on inadequate diets. This can result in malnutrition. Allergies and food intolerances are increasing rapidly but confusion between the two, as well as misdiagnosis, are causing real harm, said the charity Sense About Science, which has produced a guide with the help of allergy specialists.
“It’s probably the biggest mess for science communication – there are myths, misinterpreted studies and bad medical practice. All this results in under- and over-diagnosis,” said Tracey Brown, director of Sense About Science. “The costs are huge – unnecessary actions for some and not enough action for those whose lives depend on it.”
Experts fear that restaurants and caterers hear so many people say that they have allergies (which can be dangerous for the individual), when in fact they have a food intolerance (which is not dangerous), that they may not take all the precautions they should take when serving a person who has a genuine allergy.
“It matters very much,” said Moira Austin of a charity that supports people suffering from anaphylaxis. “If a caterer thinks somebody is just avoiding a food because they don’t want to get bloated, they may be less careful. There have been a number of fatalities where people have gone to a restaurant, told staff that they have an allergy to a particular food and the meal has been served up containing that allergen.”
The guide says most internet and shop-bought allergy tests have no scientific basis. They include a home-testing kit that looks for specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies against foods in the blood. These antibodies are part of the immune system’s response to infections but “the best medical evidence has shown that high IgG levels do not suggest an allergy,” the guide says. “Results are often positive in people who do not have an allergy or a food intolerance.”
Also unscientific is another test, a mixture of acupuncture and homeopathy. It attempts to measure electronic resistance across the skin while the child or adult holds the suspect food in their hand. Hair sample testing is also pointless, the guide says. “Hair is not involved in allergic reactions so testing hair samples cannot provide any useful information on allergies.”
“I commonly see children who have been put on to unnecessarily restricted diets. Their parents assume, in good faith, that they have allergies to multiple foods because of ‘allergy tests’ that have no scientific basis,” said Paul Seddon, a paediatric allergist. “This needs to stop, which can only happen if we prove these ‘tests’ are unscientific.”
Another paediatric allergist, Adam Fox said: “I get a number of patients who come in after sending their hair off for analysis or after excluding a whole range of foods for their children. It is very difficult to deal with that. There are two challenges. Children need to be given proper diets but it is the unnecessary avoidance of things that aren’t harmful that has a huge impact on the quality of life. A child who can’t eat wheat or drink milk can’t go to parties.”
The belief that a child’s chronic lack of energy or headaches or eczema are caused by an allergy takes a long time and many tests to prove or disprove. It is tempting to go to an alternative therapist who will do one test and provide a quick, but wrong, answer.
Allergies are increasing in developed countries. The percentages of children diagnosed with allergic rhinitis and eczema have both trebled in the last 30 years. This is leading many more people to suspect allergies are the reason for their own or their children’s health problems. The guide lists a number of myths about the sources of allergies, from the suggestion that they are caused by E numbers in food colourings to “toxic overload” and fast food.",418
"People today might not hear the sounds of the natural world because they screen out the noises around them, says a US researcher.
More background noise can make people oblivious to the uplifting sounds of birdsong, water and trees in the wind. You can often hear these sounds even in cities, said Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the US National Park Service.
The problem is even worse because people listen to music through their earphones instead of listening to the birds and other sounds of nature. Natural sounds are easily drowned out by traffic, music and others noises, Fristrup said.
“This learned deafness is a real problem,” Fristrup told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. “We are training ourselves to ignore the information that comes into our ears.”
“This gift that we are born with – the ability to hear things hundreds of metres away, all these incredible sounds – might be lost,” he said.
This is the problem: we hear so many noises that we stop listening.
For the past ten years, the US National Park Service has recorded sound levels at more than 600 parks in the US, including Yosemite in California, Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. There was noise from human activity in all the parks, for example aircraft, motorbikes, motorboats and tour buses.
Fristrup’s team say that noise pollution more than doubles every 30 years. “It’s not surprising people put on earphones,” he said.
“More background noise has the same effect on your hearing as fog has on your vision – you are aware of only a small area around you,” he said. Even in our cities, there are birds and things to appreciate in the environment but we are losing the ability to hear them.
People quickly become used to changes in their environments, including more noise. Fristrup worries that we will forget how much quieter the world could be. “If finding peace and quiet becomes too difficult, many children will grow up without the experience and I think it’s a very big problem,” he said.
Other scientists reported health benefits from listening to natural sounds. Speaking at the same meeting, Derrick Taff, a social scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said that listening to recordings from national parks, of waterfalls, birdsong and wind, helped people feel less stressed.
“We know that natural sounds are very important to people. They are some of the main reasons people visit protected areas. They want to hear the natural quiet, the birdsong, and the wind and water,” Taff said. “We may be losing this as people are listening to their iPods all the time. My advice is to go to your protected areas and experience what you are missing.”",419
"Sleep deprivation used to be a badge of honour: a sign you were busy and important and very much in demand. Snoozing was losing and sleep was for wimps. Now, however, Arianna Huffington’s The Sleep Revolution, a 'call to bed' that promises to transform your life “one night at a time”, is a New York Times best-seller and Huffington is urging people to “sleep their way to the top”. Meanwhile, the sleep industry has woken up big time and a whole range of start-ups are reinventing where, when and how we sleep, as well as how much we’re prepared to pay for it. For the more upmarket snoozer, luxury hotels are offering “sleep retreats”; more than $1,000 gets you dinner and a movie about sleep. And, if you’re staying home, you can upgrade your bedroom with everything from a mattress cover with a sensor that tracks your sleep ($249) to a brainwave-monitoring sleeping mask that lets you nap more efficiently ($299). 
Sleep hasn’t just been corporatized – it has infiltrated corporations. A number of companies already have nap pods and Huffington predicts that nap rooms in offices are going to become “as common as conference rooms“ in the next two years. So, how did this happen? How did sleep, something humans have done since long before Huffington awoke to it, suddenly become so fashionable? 
Getting enough sleep is a natural fit for the sort of lifestyle in which paying $10 for green juice and $34 for a SoulCycle class is the norm. Then, there’s the rise of the quantified self through wearable technology. Our bodies have become input/output devices that we monitor and optimize for greater efficiency and sleep has become another data set to be tracked. What Huffington emphasizes about sleep, after all, is not that it rests you but that it restores you. Sleep, she says, is the ultimate performance enhancer and getting eight hours of rest has become the ultimate status symbol. 
You know how Arianna Huffington gets her eight hours? Well, for one thing, she has “nine or so” assistants, according to a recent New York Times profile. Huffington calls them her “A-Team”; they do everything from running her errands to planning her travel to loading The Huffington Post on her computer in the morning. According to the Times, most of the A-Team can only endure about 12 months of the work because it’s so taxing. The low pay also means many of them take second jobs. Basically, they don’t sleep so that Huffington can … and can sell books about it. 
Getting enough sleep isn’t just a question of valuing sleep enough to go to bed at the right time; it’s a question of going to bed in the right neighbourhood and in the right body. Numerous studies show that you’re more likely to sleep poorly if you’re poor. It’s hard to sleep if you’re worried about your safety or haven’t had enough to eat. It’s hard to sleep if you’re one of the 15 million American shift workers who work irregular hours. Research has also found that there’s a black/white sleep gap. One study shows that, while white people sleep an average of 6.85 hours, African Americans sleep an average of 6.05 hours. They also have a lower quality of sleep. Researchers have attributed this, in part, to the stress of discrimination. 
Want to know who gets the most sleep and the best quality of sleep in America? Wealthy white women. Which, if I’d hazard a guess, is probably the same demographic Huffington is targeting her book at. Huffington describes her promotion of sleep as a “revolution” but, really, it’s a rebranding. The very real sleep crisis we face isn’t down to a few rich people thinking it’s a waste of time; it’s down to the 99% not being able to afford to spend time sleeping. 
While sleep is currently enjoying a moment, it will probably be short-lived. Sleep may be a performance enhancer but it’s an inefficient one. The real prize is finding a way to negate sleep deprivation so humans can function on less sleep. Unsurprisingly, the military is at the forefront of this research. In 2008, the Pentagon published a report called “Human Performance” which examined the possibility of a future in which soldiers could perform at their peak with only a couple of hours’ sleep. “Suppose a human could be engineered who slept for the same amount of time as a giraffe (1.9 hours per night). 
This would lead to an approximately twofold decrease in the casualty rate. An adversary would need an approximately 40% increase in the troop level to compensate for this advantage.” The report goes on to look at the effects of ampakines, a class of drugs that modulate neurotransmitters in the brain, to remove the effects of sleep deprivation. 
Eventually, humans will figure out a way to get rid of sleep. Spending a third of your life unconscious won’t be a luxury anymore; it’ll be something only the poor will be forced to do. At which point, we may need a whole new sort of sleep revolution.",420
"The senior editor of The Atlantic magazine, James Hamblin, recently did an experiment. As part of his series, ‘If Our Bodies Could Talk’, Hamblin reduced the number of showers he had and did not use shampoo and soap when he had a shower.
He discovered what thousands of others have also discovered: the more we try to clean ourselves with soaps and body washes, the more our skin works to get back its balance. This means we have to begin the whole process again. Showering removes oil and bacteria from the skin. Many would say “That is the reason I shower!” But, it seems that this sometimes works too well, especially when you add hot water and soap products.
Our skin has millions of good bacteria. Showering destroys these bacteria. And when the bacteria return, they produce an odour – yes, showering too often may make you smell more. But, when you stop showering and using soap, your skin goes through a (probably gross) period of change. After this, the skin normally gets its balance back, it produces less oil and healthy bacteria flourish.
Hamblin realized that the human body, working on its own, is lovely. We will smell and look better – skin experts say that using less soap can improve skin problems. But, that’s not the only advantage – reducing the number of showers we have (and the number of cleansing products we use) can help the environment. The average shower lasts seven minutes and uses 65 litres of water. That’s 65 litres of clean, drinkable water that we fill with soap and wash down the drain each and every day – sometimes more than once.
The importance of clean water is becoming harder and harder to ignore – for example, there is another summer of drought in California. It’s becoming clear that clean water is one of the most valuable things in the world and we soon won’t have enough. There is also the environmental effect of all those body wash bottles. So, there are many very good reasons to shower less.
Perhaps you remember the last time you were close to people who already don’t shower enough but you can relax. Many people who shower less still use deodorant and hand-washing with soap is still a vital way to reduce the spread of many diseases.
You don’t need to give up showering completely, as James Hamblin did, but if you shower a lot, we have some simple advice: reduce. Shower less, put down the soap and let those lovely little bacteria flourish.",421
"How long can you hold your breath? I’m trying it right now. The first 30 seconds are easy. I’m ready to give up at 45 seconds but I push on through and it seems to get easier for a while. But, as the second hand ticks past a minute, I know I’m on borrowed time. My heart is pounding. I let out a tiny breath and this helps. Eventually, I give in, expelling the spent air in my lungs and taking a huge gasp. (And continue to gasp for a few more breaths, prompting my husband to ask what on earth I’m doing.) I manage one minute and 12 seconds. I’m quite impressed with myself. 
Breath-holding ability becomes extremely important in some sports, particularly freediving. In 2006, I was filming a programme about the anatomy and physiology of the lungs for a BBC series called, slightly oddly, Don’t Die Young. I was lucky enough to meet Sam Amps, who was captain of the UK freedive team. At a pool in Bristol, she taught me some simple exercises to help me hold my breath for longer while swimming underwater. By the end of the session, I think I’d managed a prodigious 90 seconds of breath-holding, enough to let me swim a width. Sam swam three widths with ease. She could hold her breath for five minutes, while swimming. Five! 
I asked how she did it: very slow breathing for several minutes prior to each dive, then a big, deep breath before diving in. She also said training helped her resist the urge to breathe for far longer than most people. 
Some have suggested that the ability to voluntarily hold your breath is evidence of a watery episode in human evolution. It’s even been said that humans have an ability to lower heart rate and metabolic rate in order to breath-hold for even longer. Other anatomical and physiological bits and bobs – our hairlessness, the distribution of our subcutaneous fat and even our tendency to walk on two legs – have been linked to an aquatic phase of evolutionary development. Unfortunately, the cobbled-together “aquatic ape hypothesis” fails to hold water. It’s a romantic notion that may appeal to us but, with the cold light of day falling on the scientific evidence, it’s revealed to be nothing more than a fiction. 
Looking at voluntary breath-holding, it turns out that we’re certainly not unique among non-aquatic mammals in being able to hold our breath. (Having said that, it’s a difficult thing to investigate in other mammals as, unlike humans, they tend not to comply when you ask them to breath-hold.) And experimental evidence shows that heart rate doesn’t drop during breath-holding. At least, it doesn’t if you’re breath-holding on land. When you’re submerged in cold water it’s a different story: cooling the face does lead to a slower heart rate in most people. But, once again, this isn’t evidence of an aquatic ape ancestry, as it turns out to be a very general characteristic of air-breathing vertebrates. This reduction in heart rate is just one of the physiological responses that are sometimes described together as the “mammalian diving reflex”. But physiological responses that could be useful in diving are also – and, perhaps, even more importantly – useful for not drowning. 
While our ability to breath-hold may not be all that special, when we compare ourselves with other animals, it’s now proving very useful in one particular area of medicine. Radiotherapy for breast cancer involves directing radiation, very precisely, at the tumour. This may require several minutes’ worth of radiation and, so, it’s usually done in short bursts, between breaths. But, if the patient can keep her chest perfectly still for several minutes, it means that the entire dose can be delivered, in the right place, in one go. The problem, of course, is that most people, just like me, struggle to hold their breath for much longer than a minute. But doctors at University Hospital Birmingham have recently performed careful experiments that show that, if patients are ventilated with oxygen-rich air before attempting a breath- hold, they can manage to hold their breath for an impressive five-and-a-half minutes. 
Surprisingly, the trick seems to lie not in fooling the body’s usual sensors for low oxygen or high carbon dioxide levels in the blood but in fooling the diaphragm. When you breathe in, you’re contracting the muscle of your diaphragm, pulling it flat so that the volume of your chest increases – and air is drawn into your lungs. When you hold your breath, you keep your diaphragm in this contracted state. Artificially raising oxygen levels and reducing carbon dioxide levels before a breath-hold, as in the Birmingham radiotherapy experiments, may work by delaying fatigue in the diaphragm. And – not so useful if you’re trying to keep your chest perfectly still – breathing out a little air lets the diaphragm relax a little, and helps you to prolong a breath-hold, exactly as I found when attempting my breath-hold. 
And, so, it’s your diaphragm, the main muscle of breathing, that is also in charge when it comes to reaching the breakpoint of your breath-hold. Eventually, even if you’ve fooled it for a while, the signals from the diaphragm are just too strong and you have to give in – and take a breath.",422
"When you see the word Amazon, what’s the first thing you think of – the world’s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet shop – and which do you think is most important? 
These are the questions in a debate about the internet. Brazil and Peru have made objections to a bid made by the US online shop for the domain name, “.amazon”. 
Amazon has asked for its company name to be a top-level domain name (currently “.com”), but the South American governments say this would stop the use of this internet address for environmental protection, indigenous rights and other public interest uses. 
There are many other disputed claims to names, including “.patagonia”. 
Until now, the differences between commercial, governmental and other types of identity were easy to see in every internet address by the use of “.com”, “.gov” and 20 other categories. 
But soon there are going to be more of these categories – or generic top-level domains (gTLDs) as they are technically known. 
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has had bids (each worth almost $200,000) for hundreds of new gTLDs to add to the 22 that we use already. 
Amazon has applied for many new domains, including “.shop”, “.song ”, “.book” and “.kindle ”. But the one that has caused most discussion is its application for “.amazon”. 
Brazil and Peru want the “.amazon” application to be stopped. They say that a private company should not have a name that is also the name of an important geographical area. 
“Allowing private companies to register geographical names as gTLDs to profit from the meaning of these names is not, in our view, in the public interest,” the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology said. 
Brazil said other members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty support its views (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela). 
There have also been other objections over new top-level domains that use geographical or cultural names. 
Argentina is unhappy that the US outdoor clothing retailer, Patagonia, wants a domain name that has been known far longer as a region of spectacular beauty. “Argentina rejects the '.patagonia' request for a new generic top-level domain. Patagonia is an important region for the country’s economy because it has oil, fishing, mining and agriculture resources. It is also a major tourist destination.” 
They will discuss the disputed bids again at a meeting of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee in Durban in July. The first new domain names will probably be in use before the end of 2013.",423
"Scientists have put a false memory in the brains of mice in an experiment. They hopethe results of the experiment will help to explain why people “remember” things that never happened.
False memories are sometimes a problem with eyewitness statements in courts of law.
Eyewitnesses often give evidence that leads to guilty verdicts, but later those verdicts may be changed when DNA or some other evidence is used.
Susumu Tonagawa, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and his team wanted to study how these false memories form in the human brain. They put memories in the brains of mice by changing individual neurons.
In the experiment, Tonagawa’s team put the mice in a box and allowed them to explore it.
As they explored it, their brain cells created a memory. The next day, they put the same mice in a second box and gave them a small electric shock. This scared the mice. At the same time, the researchers shone light into the mouse brains to bring back their memories of the first box. That way, the mice associated fear of the electric shock with the memory of the first box.
In the final part of the experiment, the team put the mice back in the first box. The mice froze because they were scared. However, they had not received the shock in the first box and had no reason to be afraid.
A similar thing may happen when powerful false memories are created in humans. “Humans are very imaginative animals,” said Tonagawa. “So, just like our mouse, it is quite possible we can associate what we have in our mind with bad or good events. In other words, there could be a false association of what you have in your mind rather than what is happening to you.”
He added: “Our study showed that the false memory and the real memory use very similar, almost identical, brain mechanisms. It is difficult to tell the difference between them. We hope our future experiments will show legal experts how unreliable memory can be.”
Chris French, of the University of London, is a researcher in false memories in people. He said that the results of the experiments were an important first step in understanding false memories. He added that memory researchers have always known that memory does not work like a video camera, recording all the details of anything we experience. Instead, we build a memory from small pieces of memory of the event, as well as information from other places.
He warned that the false memories created in the mice in the experiments were far simpler than the complex false memories people have, such as false memories of childhood sexual abuse, abduction by aliens, or “past lives”. These complex false memories involve many parts of the brain. French says that it will be a long time before we understand how our brains make these memories.
The mouse models created by the MIT team will help scientists ask more complex questions about memories in people. “Now that we can change the contents of memories in the brain, we can begin asking questions that used to be philosophical questions,” said Steve Ramirez, who works with Tonagawa at MIT. “Can we create false memories? What about false memories for more than just places – false memories for objects, food or other mice? These used to be sci-fi questions but we can now research them in the lab.”",424
"Fit in four minutes’ sounds like a headline from a health magazine or an impossible promise on late-night satellite TV. Then you try Dr Izumi Tabata’s training programme – 20 seconds of allout effort, ten seconds of rest, repeat eight times – and, after collapsing on the floor, you realize you were wrong.
Tabata has seen it all before. “They were dead!” he laughs as he remembers the first time he tried out his system on his university students in the early 1990s. “After four minutes’ hard exercise they were completely exhausted. But after six weeks they saw the results and were surprised. We all were.”
He began his research after he watched Japan’s speed skating team in the early 1990s – he noticed that short bursts of incredibly hard exercise seemed to be at least as effective as hours of moderate training. Tabata tried to prove this with a simple experiment. One group of moderately trained students did an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on an exercise bike five times a week. The other group did a ten-minute warm-up on the bike, followed by four minutes of Tabata training, four times a week – plus one 30-minute session of steady exercise with two minutes of Tabata.
The results were very surprising. After six weeks of testing, the group following Tabata’s plan – exercising for just 88 minutes a week – had increased their anaerobic capacity by 28% and their VO2 max, something that shows your cardiovascular health and maximal aerobic power, by 15%. The control group, who trained for five hours every week, also improved their VO2 max, but by 10% – and their training had no effect on anaerobic capacity.”We also measured increases in heart size after three weeks of doing the exercises,” says Tabata.
But you have to work very, very hard. You can’t sit on a cross trainer, chewing gum and reading the latest issue of HELLO! The programme demands intensive bursts on a stationary bike or rowing machine; explosive bodyweight exercises, sprints and so on. Remember how you felt after doing a 100m sprint at school? Imagine doing eight of them with only a tensecond break to recover.
“All-out effort at 170% of your VO2 max is the basis of the programme,” says Tabata. “If you feel OK afterwards, you’ve not done it properly. The first three repetitions will feel easy but the last two will feel impossibly hard. In the original plan the aim was to get to eight, but some only managed six or seven.”
One person on an online forum wrote: “When done correctly you should meet God. Most people are incapable of doing it correctly and shouldn’t even try.” Tabata doesn’t completely agree. “Everyone can do it but beginners should start with educated trainers so that they can work at the correct intensity for them,” he explains. He adds that his programme burns an extra 150 calories in the 12 hours after exercise, even at rest. So, although it is used by most people to get fit – or by fit people to get even fitter – it also burns fat.
It’s slightly surprising, therefore, that only serious athletes follow the programme at the moment. But that may change now that Tabata has agreed a deal that will lead to a network of instructors and a DVD range released towards the end of the year. “I decided to do this because I often go on YouTube and, while I am pleased that people are doing it, some are doing it wrong because they don’t realize how hard they need to work,” says Tabata.
So should we all start following this plan? Richard Scrivener, a former rugby fitness coach, says that while the benefits are clear, Tabatas are an addition, not a replacement, to a favoured sport or training method. “Runners, for instance, need a high level of running economy, which comes from learning the skills and running for many miles,” says Scrivener, “But they could reduce the number of long runs and the overall mileage by introducing Tabata training. This will give joints the chance to rest and recover, especially if you have a history of injuries – and you would probably therefore get more benefit from the long runs when you do them.”
Gym rats can benefit by doing three strength sessions and three Tabatas a week. And the rest of us can slowly increase the number of sessions, although we know that it will never get easier because every session needs maximum effort. That’s the cruel genius of the programme: it is hard – and effective.",425
"A long time ago, cinema audiences were taken to a galaxy far, far away.
That was 1977 but, in 2015, just before its seventh film, interest in Star Wars is not slowing down. Now, there is news of a new film about Han Solo and of a reappearance for Darth Vader.
“Fans around the world are always waiting for new poster art, new trailers and other information,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst. “I don’t think any other movie franchise could cause this much excitement.”
The latest Star Wars mania started after Disney bought Lucasfilm from Star Wars creator, George Lucas, in 2012. After Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm, it announced that there would be three more Star Wars films – VII, VIII and IX – plus plans for spin-off movies.
They have now announced details of the second spin-off. It is a story about Han Solo, the character played by Harrison Ford in the first three films. This second new film will be released in May 2018.
Before that, they will release Episode VII in December 2015, directed by JJ Abrams and called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Episode VIII will come out in 2017 and a spin-off called Rogue One will arrive in cinemas in 2016.
Lots of people are very interested in the rumour that Darth Vader, the villain from the original films, will reappear in Rogue One. This interest shows the power of Star Wars.
Lucasfilm-Disney are creating a cinema “universe” around Star Wars, with many different characters and stories. They are doing the same thing as the very successful films produced by Marvel Studios. Disney also bought them, in 2009.
Disney knows a lot about marketing: Dergarabedian says the decision to make all six existing Star Wars films available on streaming services is “a brilliant way to make people excited about the new film”.
There has been much enthusiasm for Star Wars for at least twenty years. This is shown by the huge number of novels, comic books, video games and merchandising that Lucasfilm has created.
Michael Rosser, news editor for the magazine Screen International, says this is what makes Star Wars the top film franchise. “The great thing about the first Star Wars films was that they created a huge universe of characters and stories,” he said.
“For years, people have wondered how the different parts of the story fit together. This new film goes back to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker so it will reconnect with the first Star Wars film. The prequels did not do that.”
Rosser is talking about the three films Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. They were about the life of Luke Skywalker ’s father, Anakin, who becomes Darth Vader. They got quite bad reviews but they made $2.5 billion.
“It shows the power of Star Wars – the prequels were disappointing but they still made a lot of money,” said Rosser.
“The movie studio wants to continue the franchise and make sure new films are of good quality. They also want people to go to the cinema at a time when lots of people are watching films at home. But you don’t want to watch Star Wars on your iPhone.”
Dergarabedian expects big business when The Force Awakens opens at cinemas in December 2015. “It should make at least a billion dollars. Star Wars is the ultimate movie franchise.”",426
"He is not the first person to express scepticism about Mars One, a private mission that aims to send humans to live on Mars from 2025. But Joseph Roche is different from most critics: he’s on the shortlist of astronauts.
Roche, an astrophysicist at Trinity College Dublin who was announced in February as one of the 100 people shortlisted for the mission, has written for the Guardian expressing his doubts about the viability of Mars One.
The selection process, Roche writes, “was not rigorous enough to reach the standard of more traditional astronaut selection programmes”. He also says the Dutch Mars One team have shown “a certain naivety” because they believe they can succeed alone in the $6bn mission. He says they should now accept it is very unlikely to happen.
Roche also expressed worries about the way the mission organizers publicized a ‘top-ten’ list of candidates. The ranking, he said, didn’t mean these were the best astronauts. It was based on how many “supporter points” each had earned.
He says that these points only show how much each supporter has donated to Mars One, for example by buying official merchandise.
The official timeline for the mission says the group plans to send a stationary lander and satellite to Mars in 2018, followed by a rover in 2020 and cargo missions starting in 2022. Humans would start arriving in 2025 and crews of four would be sent every two years to add to the settlement. They would not return to Earth.
In February, a supporter of the project, Gerard ’t Hooft, a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics, said he did not believe this timetable was realistic. He said: “It will take quite a bit longer and be quite a bit more expensive. When they first asked me to be involved, I told them: ‘You have to put a zero after everything’.”
Roche also said that there were not 200,000 people who applied to be astronauts, as Mars One said; there were only 2,761.
He talked about the selection process in more detail: “I have not met anyone from Mars One in person. Initially, there were going to be regional interviews; we would travel there, we’d be interviewed and we’d be tested over several days. In my mind, that sounded like a proper astronaut selection process.
“But, all of a sudden, it changed from being a proper regional interview over several days to being a ten-minute Skype call.”
Roche told the Guardian that he did not want to give more interviews because he didn’t want to sound negative about the idea of space travel.
He writes: “I am passionate about scientific endeavour and that is why the ambitiousness of the Mars One plan appealed to me. Mars One were never likely to overcome the financial and technical barriers during their proposed timeline. But it was nice to hear a new idea that challenges us to think about our own role in the future of space exploration.
He said that being part of the public debate about future missions has been one of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of his involvement with Mars One. He went on to say that, “If a one-way mission to Mars ever became possible, I would always volunteer. For an astrophysicist, that is not a difficult decision to make.” But he does not think there will be a one-way mission in his lifetime.",427
"When it comes to climate change, we usually just focus on the first part of the story, the part about the problem. We usually forget the second part of the story about the many available solutions. These solutions are speeding up recycling, slowing down emissions and providing sustainable alternatives to plastic, air conditioning, smartphones and fast fashion.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met recently in Copenhagen to present its latest report on the impacts and speed of climate change. Climate change is now measured on all continents. Our efforts to lower emissions must be intensified to avoid climate change getting out of control. Copenhagen looked at the risks and challenges but also the solutions.
Focusing on what can be done, Sustainia Award, chaired by Arnold Schwarzenegger, celebrated ten leading sustainable solutions used in 84 countries. From food to fashion, energy to transportation, education to health, the awards showed that there is an alternative to the grim-future scenarios we so often read about.
From California, we saw how we can now produce plastics from greenhouse gases that are competitive with normal oil-based plastics in price and quality. From Switzerland, we learned how we can recycle and reuse old clothes and shoes more effectively. And from Canada, we learned how smartphones can make bike-sharing more convenient.
The ten projects each offered unique solutions to sustainability challenges but it was the Nigerian initiative, Wecyclers, that won Arnold Schwarzenegger and the rest of jury’s vote. It won the Sustainia Award 2014.
Wecyclers allows poor communities to make money on waste in their streets. By using bicycles to collect and recycle waste in Lagos, Wecyclers lets families exchange garbage for consumer goods via an SMS-based point system.
Recycling companies purchase Wecyclers’ sorted waste and make it into products such as mattresses, pillows and trash bags. Wecyclers is a response to local waste problems, where it’s estimated that only 40% of the city’s rubbish is collected. According to the World Bank, only 46% of municipal waste in Africa is collected. More than 5,000 households are involved and there are plans to extend the initiative to other cities throughout Nigeria.
Solutions to deal with climate change are often hi-tech innovations focused on cutting emissions. However, to successfully solve the variety of challenges, we need variety in our solutions as well. Sustainability is not just about bringing down emissions, it is also a question of using our natural resources more intelligently and creating healthier lives for ourselves. These initiatives might be low-tech in innovation, but they are high-impact when it comes to creating sustainable change for entire communities.
With a wide range of solutions for the wide range of challenges, we must focus more on the important part of the story that creates enthusiasm, momentum and that helps to create positive change.",428
"Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University teaches a MOOC – a massive open online course. The course is one of only two accredited MOOCs in the UK at the moment. Brabon says that many students enrol on MOOCs because they are free and they enjoy communicating with other students. MOOCs have no entry tests and no fees, so MOOC students behave very differently from students on normal higher education courses. 
MOOCs are the newest idea to try to make higher education available to everyone. Companies are investing a lot of money in new websites that offer sophisticated and interactive courses to tens of thousands of students. Investors hope to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable. They could earn money by finding out why and when millions of students enrol, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and stop the course. 
Nobody can say exactly who MOOCs are for. Universities that want to attract fee-paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing them their best programmes online? Students in developing countries who really want access to first-world universities? Employees who wish to develop their professional knowledge? People without qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who want to learn about a subject they find interesting? 
MOOCs may be popular at the beginning but very few people complete them, says Dr Brabon. His literature course had 1,000 enrolments but only 31 people completed the course. “And almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level,” he says. “So it seems MOOCs do not make higher education available to people who couldn’t go into higher education before.” 
“Learning online is a different thing and needs quite advanced learning skills,” says David Kernohan, an expert in digital technology. “With MOOCs, there’s very little support: the student does not get any individual attention.” Students get support from other students in online discussions. This may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, but it suggests that MOOCs could be “a really good tool for continuing education,” he added. 
The number of part-time students has reduced as the cost of studying at university increases, so could open and free courses provide a new path to university education? Could you teach a whole degree via MOOCs? “I don’t think that’s how MOOCs work,” says Brabon. Instead, he suggests “blended learning that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.” 
But that’s in the future. At present, the course content and assessment standards of MOOCs have no quality assurance, so employers will not be impressed by them. Accreditation is now essential for MOOCs so academics and employers will believe they are of good quality, says Brabon. 
Some people hope that MOOCs will bring the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. Others believe that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their campus courses to bigger numbers of fee-paying students from outside the EU. 
Mike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesn’t agree. MOOCs are mainly a way to publicize and share universities’ best teachers. They also encourage interaction and feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that attracting international students onto university courses is not the main aim of MOOCs. But they could certainly be a very clever marketing idea, as he says that “if 20,000 people enrol on a MOOC – well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to have a master’s course.” 
“In South America, China and countries in Africa, there are many people who want to learn and some of the world’s best courses are now online,” adds Sharples. “If people are fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to study MOOCs, but also to create them. ”",429
"We often see our colleagues and friends smoking an e-cigarette. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that vaping among smokers and recent ex-smokers, who are the vast majority of vapers, may already be declining. The figures will be studied closely by the major e-cigarette companies, which have put millions of pounds into a technology that they thought was growing in popularity.
Figures released in 2014 by the health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) reveal that usage among adults in Britain of electronic cigarettes – which do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke – has tripled from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
However, figures collated by the Smoking Toolkit Study, a research organization that provides quarterly updates on smoking trends, show vaping’s appeal may be declining. Vaping rates among smokers and ex-smokers rose steadily until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this proportion stopped rising in 2014 before dropping to 19% during the final quarter of the year. The drop is described as “statistically significant” by Professor Robert West, who collates the figures for the Toolkit.
Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. “Numbers who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke are going down,” West said. “We’ve only been studying vaping for just over a year, so it’s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or ‘never’ smokers using e-cigarettes. Vaping rates might change but, at this stage, it looks like they’re staying the same.”
The fact that vaping has stopped growing in popularity in the UK seems to be at odds with what is happening in the US, where the technology has been promoted aggressively and where reports suggest it is growing in popularity. However, West questioned the interpretation of US data, which made little distinction between people who had once tried an e-cigarette and those who regularly vaped.
Experts believe it is unlikely that vaping will become fashionable among young non-smokers. Only 1.8% of children are regular users, the ASH study found. Instead, e-cigarettes seem to be most popular among adults who want to quit. “While the figures published this month by Smoking In England show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising, their data also shows the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product, and technology and innovation in hardware is improving user experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
“E-cigarettes behave like a sort of nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches and may or may not be more effective. One-third of quit attempts use e-cigarettes, which makes them by far the most popular method of stopping.”
Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at ASH, said it was too soon to say whether vaping had peaked. “Although there are indications that the market hasn’t grown in the UK for about a year, there doesn’t seem to be a decline in the number of people using electronic cigarettes to help them quit smoking.”
The European Commission (EC) is looking at increasing taxes on e-cigarettes, which could have an impact on their popularity. A new EC tobacco directive comes into force in 2016 that will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase their usage to get the same effect, again something that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
West suggested that policymakers should see e-cigarettes as an aid to stopping smoking and not have the same regulations for them as for smoking. “There is a tendency among some local authorities and organizations to treat e-cigarettes as cigarettes and ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said. “It just sounds like you’re having a go at vapers and that undermines the public health messages we’re trying to get out. We have to be careful not to stigmatize e-cigarettes.”",430
"You’ve spent eight hours in the office. You’ve finished the most important work of the day. This is the time when most workers would think about going home. 
But, for millions of Japanese employees, if they leave work and arrive home in time for dinner, people say that they are disloyal to their company. 
But now, the government is trying to do something about Japan’s culture of overwork. It wants to make workers take at least five days’ paid holiday a year. 
Japanese employees are allowed an average of 18.5 days’ paid holiday a year. Companies must allow them a minimum of ten days’ paid holiday, plus 15 one-day national holidays. But very few employees take these days. Most take only nine days of holiday, according to the labour ministry. Many British workers think that a two-week summer holiday is their right but workers in Japan think that a four-night vacation in Hawaii is a big self-indulgence. 
By 2020, the government hopes that the law will make Japanese employees follow the example of British workers, who take an average of 20 days’ paid annual leave, and workers in France, who take an average of 25. 
Japan’s employees are respected and admired in the rest of the world for their commitment to the company. But they often have no time for anything else. 
Couples don’t have time to start families. So, Japan has a low birth rate and the population is declining. More employees are falling ill from stress or even dying through overwork. 
About 22% of Japanese work more than 49 hours a week, compared with 16% of US workers and 11% in France and Germany, according to data from the Japanese government. 
“Nobody else uses their vacation days,” says Erika Sekiguchi, a 36-year-old worker. She spends 14 hours a day at work and used only eight of her 20 days of paid vacation in 2014, six of which were sick leave. 
Yuu Wakebe, who works at the health ministry, admits that he does 100 hours of overtime a month. “It is a worker’s right to take paid vacations,” Wakebe said. “But workers in Japan have to do a lot of extra work for no money.” 
Workers are scared that their colleagues will think they are not working hard enough. This is one reason for a rise in stress-related illness, early death and suicide. About 200 people die every year from heart attacks and strokes in Japan, caused by long hours and hard work.",431
"Noise emanating from passing ships may disturb animals such as killer whales and dolphins far more than previously thought, with new research showing that the animals’ communication and ability to find prey could be hampered by the underwater din. The low rumble of passing ships has long been connected to the disturbance of large whales. But, US researchers have documented persistent noise also occurring at medium and higher frequencies, including at 20,000Hz where killer whales, also known as orcas, hear best. 
These noise disturbances could be hindering the ability of killer whales to communicate and echolocate – the process of using sound to bounce off objects such as prey and identify where they are. Dolphins and porpoises, which also operate at higher frequencies, may be suffering the same problems. The findings suggest that the noise could well affect the endangered population of killer whales that are found near the shipping lanes. A population of just 84 killer whales forage up the US west coast and into Puget Sound. 
“The main concern relating to this is that even a slight increase in sound may make echolocation more difficult for whales,” said Scott Veirs of Beamreach, who led the research. “That’s worrying because their prey, chinook salmon, is already quite scarce. Hearing a click off a salmon is probably one of the most challenging things a killer whale does. Hearing that subtle click is harder if there’s a lot of noise around you.” 
The researchers used underwater microphones to measure the noise created by about 1,600 individual ships as they passed through Haro Strait, in Washington State. The two-year study captured the sounds made by 12 different types of vessel, including cruise ships, container ships and military vehicles, that passed through the strait about 20 times a day. 
Some ships are quieter than others but the average intensity of noise next to all the ships was 173 underwater decibels, equivalent to 111 decibels through the air – about the sound of a loud rock concert. Whales are not usually located right next to ships and so would be subjected to noise of about 60 to 90 decibels – around the level of a lawnmower or a vacuum cleaner. 
Veirs said scientists have already identified the impact of underwater noise upon baleen whales – a class of fauna containing the largest animals on Earth. But, the new research underlines the threat posed to smaller whales, dolphins and porpoises. “Ships have been thought of as low- frequency sources of noise, like the rumbling of lorries or trains,” he said. “Most noise is at that low frequency but the background noise of the ocean is raised even in the high frequencies. This could be causing a significant problem that we need to look into more.” 
There are several knock-on consequences of a noisy marine environment. Whales may have to group together more closely in order to hear each other. And, should they fail to find prey as effectively, they will need to use up their stores of excess blubber. This is problematic as this blubber often contains manmade pollutants that are toxic to whales if released fully into their systems. 
Veirs said more work needs to be done to identify how badly the noise is affecting whales and also to quieten the ships that pass near the cetaceans. “It should be easy to reduce noise pollution,” he said. “Military ships are quite a bit quieter and there could be straightforward ways of transferring that technology to the commercial fleet. Another way to reduce noise is to slow down. Decreasing speed by six knots could decrease noise intensity by half.” 
While the fortunes of some whale species, such as humpbacks and blue whales, the largest mammal on Earth, have improved as whaling has declined, others are still under threat from a range of factors. The US federal government has recently protected nearly 40,000 square miles of the Atlantic in an attempt to avoid losing the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, a species with just 500 individuals left. 
In Europe, killer whales are carrying dangerously high levels of banned polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) chemicals in their blubber. Scientists are still trying to determine whether pollutants caused the deaths of five sperm whales that became stranded on the east coast of Britain in January 2016. Meanwhile, around the coast of Australia, whales face an increased threat from ship strikes and oil and gas drilling, as well as Japan’s recent pledge to resume whaling in Antarctic waters.",432
"To a traditional navigator like Tua Pittman from Raratonga in the Cook Islands, a canoe is much more than just a means of transport. “The canoe is our island, the crew members are the community and the navigator is the leader,” Pittman says. He continues, “On a canoe, you are not just going from one destination to another using the stars, the moon, the sun and the birds. Navigation is using the philosophies of being a leader to show your crew members the light of life.”
It has been a busy week for the crews of four sailing canoes since arriving in Sydney for the start of the World Parks Congress. Tua’s journey began at the Cook Islands on 25 September. The islanders sailed to Samoa, then Fiji, Vanuatu and onto the Gold Coast, before sailing south to Sydney. Around 100 crew members were involved in the voyage and they aimed to travel using only traditional navigation techniques. Unfortunately, said Tua, the crews had to rely on modern navigation equipment at times to reach Australia in time for the Congress.
The official title of the expedition is the Mua Voyage. It is a partnership between the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oceania Regional Office and five Pacific Island countries: Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The main goal of the 6,000-nautical-mile (11,000km) trip was to deliver a special message to the World Parks Congress.
The message said: “We see the signs of overexploitation. We no longer see the fish and other marine creatures in the size, diversity or abundance of the past. We witness the change as foreign fishing fleets take our resources. Our coral reefs, the greatest in the world and our spawning grounds are disappearing. Our ocean is vast but not limitless. Growing global populations and unsustainable development are reducing the ability of our ocean to sustain life.”
The Pacific Islanders have put a lot of effort into their urgent message to the delegates of the Congress. But, despite this, the Congress has spent much of its time trying to set a revised target for the amount of the ocean that needs to be protected in marine sanctuaries. According to the IUCN, in 2013, the amount of the world’s oceans in marine protected areas was not even three per cent and less than one per cent of that is ‘no take’ (no fishing). This was despite a target of 20-30% no-take areas set by the last World Parks Congress in 2003.
Marine scientist Professor Callum Roberts was one of the scientists who helped set the 20-30% target in 2003. But he said it was not enough. “The IUCN should now lift its target from 30 to 33%. New research shows that we need to raise the 30% target. Any reduction in efforts at this stage and moment in history would be disastrous for our oceans.”
After difficult negotiations, the World Parks Congress delegates passed a motion that will dramatically change the goals for global marine management. Instead of the 20-30% target, the IUCN now says that each marine habitat should include strictly protected areas of at least 30%. These areas should address both biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Tua Pittman was delighted with the news that a strong resolution on the planet’s oceans had passed the Congress. “It’s a huge reward for all the effort that we made to be here and to be heard. To hear they made that resolution is fantastic. It’s a step in the right direction.”
He said he was 55 and, in his lifetime, he was already beginning to see that it was much harder to catch fish on the open ocean. He also said that pollution was getting worse, particularly as the canoes approached big cities such as Sydney. And climate change is already beginning to have a serious effect on Pacific Islanders. “The decisions of the big countries impact on the small countries twice, three times, four times more than they impact on developed, large nations.”
The Mua Voyage had been a massive logistical undertaking, said Tua. Years of preparation and navigational planning went into such a trip and it was critical to the voyagers that the world listened to their message and acted. He said that the leaders of wealthy countries need to start to think more like traditional navigators who recognize that their boats are just specks in an enormous sea. Most importantly, and spoken like a true navigator, Tua says politicians must seek a different route. “The world needs to find a different path.”",433
"Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures. They fly in groups over the city and sit on the city’s buildings. With their wrinkly heads and small, round eyes, they remind Lima residents of the poverty and filth in their city. 
But the vultures’ taste for dead and decaying things has become a good thing. Environmental authorities are putting GoPro video cameras and GPS trackers on the birds – the birds now work in the fight against fly-tipping and illegal dumping. 
Samuel is one of the project’s ten black vultures that are looking for rubbish. He wears his tracker and flies above the city, where he finds secret or hidden dumps. The exact positions of the rubbish dumps are recorded on a live map. 
His trainer at Lima’s Huachipa Zoo, Alfredo Correa, says, “They can eat dead animals because their bodies protect them from viruses and bacteria,” he says. 
USAID and the Peruvian Environment Ministry are working together on this project to try to solve Lima’s rubbish problem. The vultures are fighting disease, while most humans ignore the danger. 
Lima has nearly ten million inhabitants but just four landfills so there are many illegal dumps. A fifth of the city’s rubbish goes into the illegal dumps, according to the Environment Ministry. The rubbish makes the water of Lima’s main water source, the Rimac river, dirty. It also makes the water of the Chillon and Lurin rivers, which flow into the Bay of Lima, dirty. 
Three poorer districts have only 12% of Lima’s population but they have much more illegal rubbish than other neighbourhoods: Villa Maria del Triunfo (39.4%), Villa El Salvador (25.3%) and El Agustino (18.3%). 
Part of the problem is unpaid taxes. Many residents don’t pay their taxes. That means some of the 43 districts of the city do not have enough money for rubbish collection. 
It also means that it is possible that nobody is going to clean up where the vultures find illegal rubbish. “We tell the local governments where the vultures found illegal dumps,” says Javier Hernandez, the project director. “It’s their job to collect the rubbish and to try and change the habits of their residents.”",434
"Tua Pittman from Raratonga in the Cook Islands is a traditional navigator. To him, a canoe is more than just a form of transport. “The canoe is our island, the crew is the community and the navigator is the leader,” he says. “On a canoe, you are not just going from one place to another using the stars, the moon, the sun and the birds. Navigation is showing your crew the light of life.”
It has been a busy week for the crews of four sailing canoes – they are in Sydney for the start of the World Parks Congress. Tua’s journey began at the Cook Islands on 25 September. The islanders sailed to Samoa, then Fiji, Vanuatu and onto the Gold Coast. Then, they travelled south to Sydney. Around 100 crew were involved in the voyage and they tried to travel using only traditional navigation techniques. Sadly, said Tua, the crews had to use modern navigation equipment sometimes to reach Australia in time for the Congress.
The trip is called the Mua Voyage. It is a partnership between the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oceania Regional Office and five Pacific Island countries: Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Fiji. The main aim of the 11,000km trip was to deliver a special message to the World Parks Congress.
The message said “We see fewer fish than in the past, and they are smaller. And foreign fisherman take our fish. Our coral reefs, the greatest in the world, and our fishing grounds are disappearing. Our ocean is very big but not limitless.”
The Pacific Islanders’ message to the delegates of the Congress was urgent. But a lot of time has been spent at the Congress trying to set a new target for the amount of the ocean that needs special protection. According to the IUCN, in 2013, less than three per cent of the world’s oceans was in marine protected areas and less than one per cent of that is ‘no take’ (no fishing). But there should be a lot more ‘no-take’ areas because the last World Parks Congress in 2003 set a target of 20-30%.
After difficult talks, the World Parks Congress agreed new targets for marine protected areas. The new target is not 20-30%; it is at least 30%. And they must try to solve the problem of biodiversity.
Tua Pittman is very happy with what the Congress has decided for the world’s oceans. “It’s a huge reward for all the effort that we made to be here. To hear they made that decision is fantastic. It’s a step in the right direction.”
He is 55 and, in his lifetime, he can already see that it is much harder to catch fish. He also said that pollution is getting worse, particularly close to big cities such as Sydney. And climate change is already having a serious effect on Pacific Islanders. “The decisions of the big countries have a small effect on developed, large countries, but they have a very big effect on small countries.”
The Mua Voyage had taken years of preparation and planning. It was critical to the voyagers that the world listened to their message and took action. Pittman said that the leaders of rich countries should think more like traditional navigators who see that their boats are just tiny specks in an enormous sea. Most importantly, Tua says that politicians must change how they do things. “The world needs to find a different path.”",435
"A long time ago, cinema audiences were transported to a galaxy far, far away: one where imperial cruisers battled rebel fighters, where droids rubbed circuits with Wookiees and where a spaceship called the Millennium Falcon could make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. That was 1977 but, in 2015, as the franchise approaches its seventh big-screen instalment, interest in Star Wars shows no sign of abating – now, there is news of a new film about Han Solo and of a reappearance for Darth Vader. “Countless fans around the world are in a constant state of vigilance waiting for the release of new poster art, new trailers and other information,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at box-office monitor Rentrak. “It’s hard to imagine any other movie franchise that could evoke such a level of passion, enthusiasm and excitement.” 
The latest Star Wars mania dates from the Hollywood studio Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm from the film’s creator, George Lucas, in 2012; the $4bn acquisition was accompanied by an announcement of three more sequential “episodes” – VII, VIII and IX – plus then unspecified plans for spin-off movies and “stand-alones” to fill the gaps in the release schedule. Details of the second spin-off have now been made public: an “origins story” about Han Solo, the intergalactic smuggler played by Harrison Ford in the first three films, which is scheduled to be released in May 2018. 
It will follow the release in December 2015 of Episode VII, directed by JJ Abrams and titled Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the unnamed Episode VIII due out in 2017 and the already announced spin-off, Rogue One, which will arrive in cinemas in 2016. 
That movie will outline a rebel mission to steal the plans of the Death Star, a key plot element of the first film in 1977. Levels of interest in the rumour that Rogue One will also feature the reappearance of Darth Vader, the black-clad villain of the original series, only confirmed the power of Star Wars nostalgia. 
In creating a multi-stranded, multi-character cinema “universe” around Star Wars, Lucasfilm-Disney are taking their cue from the phenomenally successful series of films produced by Marvel Studios, which Disney also acquired, in 2009.  
Disney has brought a whole new level of marketing savvy to an already popular product: Dergarabedian cites the decision to make all six existing Star Wars films available on streaming services as “a brilliant way to build the anticipation for the new film and reinvigorate the idea of Star Wars in the minds of the fans”. 
Whether it needs reinvigorating is questionable. The level of enthusiasm that has surrounded Star Wars for at least the last two decades is evidenced by what has become known as the “Expanded Universe”: the plethora of novels, comic books, video games and merchandising that Lucasfilm has created or licensed over the years. 
This extra material began emerging as far back as 1978 but was given a massive kick by the mushrooming of the internet in the 1990s. Role-play and fan participation show no sign of slowing: in the UK, event-cinema brand Secret Cinema have found considerable commercial success with their live staging of The Empire Strikes Back. 
Michael Rosser, news editor for Screen International, suggests that it is this “shared universe” of highly infectious nostalgia that keeps Star Wars in pole position among film franchises. “The great thing about the original films was that they created a huge universe of characters and possibility that sparked the imagination of viewers,” he said. 
“For years, people have been wondering how the different strands would play out. This new film, because it’s going back to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, looks as though it will reconnect with the original Star Wars in a way that the prequels failed to.” 
Rosser is referring to the three films Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005 – The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – which chronicled the life of Luke Skywalker’s father, Anakin, who transforms into Darth Vader. Despite being greeted with less-than-stellar reviews, the prequels took $2.5bn at the worldwide box office, shortly after the release of restored and augmented “special editions” of the first trilogy had netted $469m in 1997. 
“It shows the power of Star Wars that, although they were disappointing, the prequels still managed to make a lot of money,” said Rosser. 
In a film business where branding is all and a successful franchise the answer to everybody’s prayers, is there a risk that movie studios will simply become branding machines and lose their interest in cinema for its own sake? 
Rosser thinks not. “They are desperate to ensure the longevity of the franchise and make sure the quality is kept up. They are also trying to bring people into the cinema at a time when lots are staying home for entertainment. But you don’t want to watch Star Wars on your iPhone so I don’t think it’s going to run out of steam any time soon.” 
Meanwhile, Dergarabedian is anticipating massive business when The Force Awakens reaches cinemas in December 2015. “We are certainly looking at a record opening for December and it should go on to make at least a billion dollars worldwide. Truly, Star Wars is the ultimate movie brand.”",436
"Vienna is the world’s best city to live in, Baghdad is the worst and London, Paris and New York do not even enter the top 35, according to international research into quality of life.
German-speaking cities dominate the rankings in the 18th Mercer Quality of Life study, with Vienna joined by Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt in the top seven.
Paris has dropped down the table – it has fallen ten places to 37th, just ahead of London at 39th, mostly because of the terrorist attacks on the city.
The study examined social and economic conditions, health, education, housing and the environment. It is used by big companies to decide where they should open offices and factories and how much they should pay staff.
Helena Hartlauer, 32, from Vienna, said she was not surprised at her city’s top position. The city’s social democratic government has a long tradition of investing money in high-quality social housing, which makes Vienna less expensive than other major cities.
“I live in a 100sq-metre apartment in a good area about 20 minutes’ walk from the city centre. But my rent is just €800 (£625) a month.” A similar apartment in London would cost over £2,000 and even more in New York, ranked 44th in the table.
US cities perform relatively badly in the study, mostly because of issues around personal safety and crime. The highest ranking city in the US is San Francisco, at 28th; Boston is 34th. Canadian cities, led by Vancouver, do much better than their US rivals in the table.
“You don’t realize how safe Vienna is until you go abroad,” said Hartlauer. “We also have terrific public transport, with the underground working 24 hours at weekends and it only costs €1 per trip.”
Vienna benefited enormously from the fall of the Berlin Wall, becoming the gateway to Eastern European countries that often have historic connections to the former Austro-Hungarian empire.
“Our big USP (unique selling point) is our geographical location,” said Martin Eichtinger, Austrian ambassador to London, who lived in Vienna for 20 years. “The fall of the Berlin Wall helped make Vienna a hub for companies wanting to do business in Central Europe.”
According to the World Bank, Austria has one of the highest figures for GDP (gross domestic product) per person in the world, just behind the US and ahead of Germany and Britain, although below neighbouring Switzerland.
Mercer says Zurich in Switzerland has the world’s second highest quality of life but the Viennese say their city is far more fun. “There are more students in Vienna than any other German-speaking city,” said Hartlauer. “It’s a very fast growing, young and lively city,” she added.
Vienna has long been overlooked by British weekend city break tourists, who instead go to Barcelona or Berlin and tend to think of Austria as somewhere for skiing, lakes and mountains.
But, after an increase in budget flights from British cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh, Vienna is becoming a more popular destination. In 2015, there were 588,000 British visitors to Vienna, 18% more than the year before.
“Vienna has ranked top in the last seven surveys,” said Mercer. “It scores highly in a number of categories; it provides a safe and stable environment to live in, a high standard of public transport and good recreational facilities.”
London has never been in the quality-of-life top ten, says Mercer, damaged by its poor scores for air pollution, traffic congestion and climate. After London, Edinburgh is the next-ranking British city, in 46th place.
Paris has suffered the biggest fall in the most recent rankings. “Paris has remained stable for several years but has, this year, dropped ten places,” said Mercer. “The drop was mostly due to the terrorist attacks in 2015 because safety is a very important factor in the survey.”
Auckland in New Zealand was the highest ranking English-speaking city in the survey, in third place, followed by Vancouver in fifth. Australian cities also do well in the survey, with Sydney 10th and Melbourne 15th.
War and political unrest are behind all the worstranked cities in the world. Surprisingly, Damascus is named as only the seventh worst, ranked better than Baghdad, Bangui in Central African Republic, Sana’a in Yemen, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, Khartoum in Sudan and N’Djamena in Chad.",437
"There are many quirky solutions to help make our cities better places to live, such as glow-in-the-dark trees, underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins.
City living is good in many ways but it is not always possible to lead a sustainable lifestyle in a city. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily problems that people in cities have to live with.
We look at ten quirky solutions that could make our cities better places to live.
1 Pop-up parks
Today’s cities sometimes look like they’re built for cars and not for people. The pop-up park is a simple idea. You need an empty car park, a small amount of money and a plant or two, and you can make your own private park. The PARK(ing) project started as an arts experiment in San Francisco. It has since spread across the world.
2 Underground storage 
Not everyone in a city has a car. Bikes are in fashion but there is one problem: where to keep the bike safe? An engineering company in Tokyo has a solution: an underground bicycle park. Just seven metres wide, the bicycle park goes deep enough into the ground to keep 204 bikes.
3 Glow-in-the-dark trees 
When most people think of trees that glow in the dark, they usually think of Christmas trees. Not Daan Roosegaarde. The Dutch designer-artist has invented a plant that is like a light. The technology joins DNA from glowing marine bacteria with a plant to create a glow like a jellyfish. Roosegaarde hopes that this technology could one day replace normal street lighting.
4 Pedestrian electricity
Every day, hundreds of people in the east London neighbourhood of West Ham cross a pedestrian walkway close to the underground station. They probably don’t notice the springiness of the walkway. And they probably don’t know that the springy rubber surface powers the streetlights above. The floor has tiles that capture the energy from pedestrians ’ footsteps and turn it into electricity. There is a similar system at London’s Heathrow Airport.
5 Supertrees
Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay has a group of man-made trees. Up to 50 metres high, these steel ‘supertrees’ have flowers growing up them. They collect rainwater and 11 of the 18 trees also have solar panels on their ‘branches’.",438
"It is hard to tell exactly where the noise is coming from, but impossible to miss it from anywhere in Damascus. All day and all night you can hear the sound of guns, rockets or planes attacking rebel positions – the sound of war getting closer to Syria’s capital. Just over two years after the Syrian crisis began, the people of Damascus have learnt to ignore the sound of death and destruction just a few miles away.
“Actually you do get used to it after a while,” said George, an IT technician. “But you never know exactly what they are hitting.” That usually becomes clear later from video clips posted by the opposition on YouTube.
The constant background noise is more worrying because the government tries so hard to keep an atmosphere of business as usual. “As you can see, everything here is fine but we have to hit the terrorists, these extremists,” an army officer announced. One government official said: “If I was afraid, I would just shut my door and stay inside. I have to work and I am not afraid. If I don’t defend my country, who will?”
In private conversation, ordinary people are less defiant. In the centre of town, a shopkeeper complained sadly that his baby daughter cries at the sound of explosions. Zeina, a twentysomething student, is afraid she might become desensitized to suffering – and perhaps to danger too. “In the beginning, when there started to be explosions, I used to have nightmares,” she reflected. “Now I can sleep through anything.”
And, the risks are increasing even closer to home. In Sabaa Bahrat Square, in what was supposed to be the safest part of Damascus, a car bomb exploded, leaving the front of a building black, its windows broken and also damaging the imposing structure of the Syrian Central Bank next door. The square is often used for televised pro-regime rallies, with people chanting slogans under giant banners of President Bashar al-Assad.
That bombing was not the worst Damascus has experienced as the situation has deteriorated. In February, reports say that 80 people, including schoolchildren, died near the ruling Ba’ath Party headquarters in Mazraa. You can still see the crater, marked by an enormous patch of fresh asphalt on the main road going north. “I live nearby but luckily I wasn’t there,” recalled Munir, a university lecturer.
Mortar bombs, fired from rebel-held areas now very close to the city, have become a worrying new development. The bombs killed 15 students in a university cafeteria on 28 March. The intended target was probably a government building.
There has been increased security since the bombing of the national security crisis cell in July 2012, when four of Assad’s most senior aides were killed. Concrete blast barriers – often painted in the Syrian flag’s black, red and white – now protect official buildings, not just the military or defence installations that are obvious targets. The Iranian Embassy in Mezze now looks like a fortress. “The regime did manage to set up a ring of steel round Damascus,” a foreign diplomat said. He added that there are now holes in that ring of steel and that brings home the reality of the war.
All this means that moving around has become difficult, unpredictable and time-consuming – another part of life today in an understandably nervous city. Checkpoints on main roads stop traffic for ID checks and baggage searches with handheld explosive detectors – vital to stop future bombers. Only drivers with an official security clearance can use special fast lanes to avoid the wait.
It is hard, however, to avoid the question on everyone’s mind: will there be a battle for Damascus – the world’s oldest continually inhabited city, as the guidebooks say – like the one that has so damaged Aleppo? Parts of the city already feel like a war zone: its most exclusive and expensive hotel is almost empty, although many rooms are being used as offices by international agencies with white UN vehicles parked behind the blast barriers outside. The streets empty soon after 9pm.
One view is that the fight for Syria’s capital is coming, but not quite yet – in the summer perhaps, some predict, when the rebels have made further progress in the south. Others argue that a complete victory by either side is unlikely and hope for a political solution that comes from abroad. But few people here seem to expect things to get any better.",439
"The High Court in London has ruled that three elderly Kenyans detained and tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion have the right to sue. Now the British government is afraid that thousands of legal claims may follow, from people who were imprisoned and who say they were treated badly during the final days of the British Empire.
The government’s lawyers said that too much time had passed since the seven-year insurgency in the 1950s and it was no longer possible to hold a fair trial, but the court rejected these claims. In 2011 the same judge rejected the government’s claim that the three claimants should sue the Kenyan government because it had inherited Britain’s legal responsibilities on independence in 1963.
Human rights activists in Kenya estimate more than 5,000 of the 70,000 people detained by the British colonial authorities are still alive. Many may bring claims against the British government. The ruling may also make it possible for victims of colonial atrocities in other parts of the world to sue.
The Foreign Office said that the ruling had “potentially significant legal implications”, and said it was planning to appeal. “The normal time limit for bringing a civil action is three to six years,” a spokesman said. “In this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years despite the fact that the key decision makers are dead and unable to give their view of what happened.”
The historic victory for Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, was the result of a three-year battle in the courts. Their lawyers said they had suffered “unspeakable acts of brutality”. In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Nyingi and Mara, heard the news by mobile phone. They had been sitting silently with their supporters in a garden and reacted with joy when the word came, hugging, dancing and raising their hands to the sky to pray.
Nyingi, who was detained for about nine years, beaten unconscious and still has the scars, said: “For me … I just wanted the truth to be out. Even the children of my children should know what happened. What should happen is that people should be compensated so they can begin to forgive the British government.” Mara said: “I’m very happy and my heart is clean.” When she was asked what she would tell her four children, she said simply: “I will tell them I won.”
The judge said in 2011 that there was “ample evidence … that there may have been systematic torture of detainees”. On Friday he ruled that a fair trial was possible, and highlighted the fact that thousands of secret files from the colonial era appeared in 2011.
The British government’s lawyers tried to have the claims rejected but they accepted that all three of the elderly Kenyans were tortured by the colonial authorities. The claimants’ lawyer said: “The British government has admitted that these three Kenyans were brutally tortured but they have been trying to avoid any legal responsibility. There will undoubtedly be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be reading this judgment with great care.”
A number of veterans of the insurgency in Cyprus in the 1950s watched the case closely. One has already met the Mau Mau claimants’ lawyers. Any Cypriot claimants could rely not only on British documents, but also on the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Those files are kept secret for 40 years, and then opened to public examination. The Red Cross documented hundreds of torture cases in Cyprus.
There may also be claims from Malaysia, where large numbers of people were detained during the 12-year war with communist insurgents and their supporters that began in 1948. Relatives of 24 unarmed rubber plantation workers who were killed by British troops are currently fighting through the British courts for a public inquiry. Many former prisoners of the British in Aden may also have claims against the British government, although Aden is now part of Yemen, and British lawyers may have problems making contact with possible clients there.",440
"The tranquil chorus of the natural world is in danger of being lost to today’s generation as people screen out the noises that surround them, a senior US researcher warns. 
Rising levels of background noise in some areas threaten to make people oblivious to the uplifting sounds of birdsong, trickling water and trees rustling in the wind, which can often be heard even in urban centres, said Kurt Fristrup, a senior scientist at the US National Park Service. 
The problem was exacerbated by people listening to music through their earphones instead of tuning in to the birds and other sounds of nature that can easily be drowned out by traffic, music and other noises, he said. 
“This learned deafness is a real issue,” Fristrup told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Jose. “We are conditioning ourselves to ignore the information coming into our ears.” 
“This gift that we are born with – to reach out and hear things hundreds of metres away, all these incredible sounds – is in danger of being lost through a generational amnesia,” he said. 
“There is a real danger, both of loss of auditory acuity, where we are exposed to noise for so long that we stop listening, but also a loss of listening habits, where we lose the ability to engage with the environment the way we were built to,” he added. 
For the past ten years, the US National Park Service has recorded sound levels at more than 600 sites across the US, including Yosemite in California, Yellowstone and Denali in Alaska. Not one was unaffected by some form of noise from human activity, be it over-flying aircraft, motorbikes, motorboats or tour buses. 
Fristrup’s team combined the sound levels recorded from national parks with similar data from urban settings to create a model of noise levels across the US. They predict that noise pollution is growing faster than the US population and more than doubles every 30 years. 
“It’s not surprising people are putting on earphones or even noise cancelling headphones to try and create a quieter or more congenial environment,” he said. 
“As you raise background sound levels, it has the same effect on your hearing that fog would have on your vision. Instead of having this expansive experience of all the sounds around you, you are aware of only a small area around you,” he said. “Even in most of our cities, there are birds and things to appreciate in the environment, and there can be very rich natural choruses to pay attention to. And that is being lost.” 
People quickly become accustomed to changes in their environments, including rising noise levels, and, over time, Fristrup fears that we will accept far worse environmental conditions than we should and forget how much quieter the world could be. “If finding peace and quiet becomes difficult enough, many, many children will grow up without the experience and I think it’s a very real problem,” he said. 
The warning came as other scientists reported beneficial health effects from listening to natural sounds. Speaking at the same meeting, Derrick Taff, a social scientist at Pennsylvania State University, described preliminary experiments which suggest that listening to recordings from national parks, of waterfalls, birdsong and wind, helped people recover from stressful events. 
In one experiment, Taff told participants who visited his lab to give an impromptu talk that would be judged by researchers standing behind a one-way mirror. Measurements of their heart rate and the stress hormone, cortisol, before and after the speech found that people calmed down faster when they listened to nature recordings than when the same audio tracks were interspersed with sounds from road traffic, aeroplanes and even normal conversation. 
“We know that natural sounds are very important to people. They are some of the main reasons people visit protected areas. They want to hear the natural quiet, the birdsong, and the wind and water,” Taff said. “We may be losing this as people are listening to iPods all the time but I do believe that the public is appreciative of these sounds. My advice is to go to your protected areas and experience what you are missing.” 
Why natural sounds might be calming to people is unclear but Fristrup speculates that, over millions of years of evolution, we may have come to associate the more tranquil sounds of the natural world with safety. “I suspect there’s something about these intact soundscapes that reminds our ancestral brains of a place that’s safe, where there’s no sense of a predator nearby, and that these more cluttered soundscapes are problematic for us because we know we’ve lost that surveillance capability,” he said.",441
"It has charted the world’s highest peaks, the ocean floor, the Amazon rainforest and even provided a glimpse into North Korea. But Google’s mission to map the world has largely steered clear of the inhospitable Arctic. 
Now, however, the search-engine firm is embarking on what might be the most significant update to centuries of polar cartography – and one it hopes will help provide a better understanding of life on the permafrost for millions of web users. Google has flown a small team to Iqaluit, the largest town in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, armed with their warmest winter gear, a stack of laptop computers and an 18kg backpack- mounted telescopic camera. 
Helped by an Inuit mapping expert, and stalked by curious locals, the team spent four days trudging through the terrain and collecting the images and information that will give the isolated community on the tundra of Baffin Island what urbanites across the globe now take for granted. 
The town of 7,000 people will go on display via Google’s popular Street View application in July 2013. 
Aaron Brindle, project leader, said: “I live in Toronto and I absolutely take for granted that everything is where it should be and that this map is kind of my world, but for so long that hasn’t been the case in the north.” 
Unlike more populous and accessible parts of the world, which have been mapped using a special camera mounted on a car roof, the Iqaluit project had mappers hiking the town’s snow-packed roads and traversing little-known trails, some of which are made of ice and disappear in the brief summer months. 
The team also cut a path along part of a 15km cul-de-sac known as the Road to Nowhere, despite warnings about the risk from polar bears and other wildlife. 
Mayor John Graham said the digital cartographers were, however, hunted by a herd of excited and curious locals, or Google stalkers. 
Graham understands the enthusiasm. The Street View project, he said, follows in the footsteps of the English explorer Martin Frobisher, who in 1576 sailed into the bay where Iqaluit now sits while searching for the Northwest Passage, and the 1941 flight of Captain Elliott Roosevelt, a reconnaissance officer and son of the US President, which led to the site being chosen for a military airbase. His exploration led to the founding of the modern town of Iqaluit, which is the seat of government as well as a transport and communications hub for Nunavut. 
One of the initial challenges Google faced was gathering the raw data needed to fill in their existing map. What they had created using satellite images was fairly accurate, although the rapid pace of the town’s growth, which has been fuelled by a mining boom, meant they were missing one road that had been created in the past year, said Arif Sayani, the town’s Director of Planning. 
Another difficulty was how to situate many businesses and homeowners that have mail sent to the local post office rather than delivered to their address. Plotting the PO box addresses would result in a map with firms, banks and schools clustered around the Canada Post building in the centre of town. 
About 30 Inuit elders, entrepreneurs and high-school pupils turned out one night to help correct such problems. They were provided with a laptop computer and instructed how to ensure their homes, shops and meeting places would show up accurately on the map. 
The project is more than a novelty or cultural philanthropy. Sayani, 32, said the town would be able to use the maps as a promotional tool for those thinking of visiting or moving to the area. It may also speed up planning decisions that will affect Iqaluit’s growth. 
The test run for the Iqaluit mapping exercise occurred last summer in Cambridge Bay, a much smaller Nunavut town of about 1,500 people located 1,700km and a time zone west of Iqaluit. 
The gravel roads and muddy puddles that can now be seen online, however, give little sense of life in a land usually covered in snow, which is one reason why Google selected the less- hospitable month of March to travel to Iqaluit. 
Brindle said he hoped to see the work continue in other northern towns, though the high costs of shipping and airfares to move people and equipment around the vast Arctic territory appears to be weighing on Google’s ambitions. 
The next northern site has not yet been identified but, when it is selected, Brindle said the company might simply send one of its hi-tech backpacks and rely on volunteers to literally put themselves on the map. 
“I’m hoping that three, four, five years from now we’ll look back and see a very different map of Canada’s north,” Brindle added.",442
"A mirror that sends heat into cold space has been designed by scientists to replace air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth.
Researchers believe the mirror could slash the amount of energy used to control air temperatures in business premises and shopping centres because they won’t need to use cooling systems.
Around 15% of the energy used by buildings in the US goes on air conditioning but the researchers’ say that, in some cases, the mirror could completely offset the need for extra cooling.
In a rooftop comparison in Stanford, California, scientists found that a roof that had been painted black reached 60C more than the air temperature in sunlight and aluminium reached 40C more. However, the mirror was up to 5C cooler than the surrounding air temperature.
“If you cover significant parts of the roof with this mirror, you can see how much power it can save. You can significantly offset the electricity used for air conditioning,” said Shanhui Fan, an expert in the study of light at Stanford University, who led the development of the mirror. “In some situations, you will be able to completely offset the air conditioning.”
Buildings warm up in a number of different ways. Hot-water boilers and cooking areas release heat into their immediate surroundings. In hot countries, warm air comes in through doors and windows. Then, there is visible light and infrared radiation from the sun, which also heat up buildings.
The Stanford mirror was designed to reflect 97% of the visible light that falls on it. But, more importantly, it works as a thermal radiator. When the mirror is warmed up, it releases heat at a specific wavelength of infrared light that passes easily through the atmosphere and out into space.
To make anything cool, you need what engineers call a heat sink: somewhere to put unwanted heat. The heat sink has to be cooler than the object that needs cooling or it will not do its job. For example, a bucket of ice will cool a bottle of wine because it becomes a sink for heat in the liquid. The Stanford mirror relies on the best heat sink: the universe itself.
The mirror is built from several layers of very thin materials. The first layer is reflective silver. On top of this are layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide. These layers turn the mirror into a thermal radiator. When silicon dioxide heats up, it radiates the heat as infrared light at a wavelength of around ten micrometres and the heat passes straight out to space. The total thickness of the mirror is around two micrometres or two thousandths of a millimetre.
“The cold darkness of the universe can be used as a renewable thermodynamic resource, even during the hottest hours of the day,” the scientists write in Nature. In tests, the mirror had a cooling power of 40 watts per square metre at outside temperatures.
Writing in the journal, Fan says that the cost of the mirrors is between $20 and $70 per square metre. He calculates an annual electricity saving of 100MWh on a three-storey building.
Fan said that the mirror could cool buildings but he said that the mirrors would not slow down global warming. “Roof space is only a small portion of the Earth’s surface so the mirror is not a solution to the problem of global warming. But our mirror will help limit greenhouse gas emissions by reducing electricity consumption,” he said.
“I’m really excited by the potential it has,” said Marin Soljacic, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “You could use this on buildings and spend much less money on air conditioning or maybe you wouldn’t need it at all. You could put it on top of shopping malls.”",443
"It is no longer legal to smoke a cigarette inside a bar in the world’s drinking capital, New Orleans, Louisiana. Many other cities have banned indoor smoking but New Orleans is different – it attracts tourists with a “let the good times roll” attitude. An indoor smoking ban in New Orleans could have unique consequences.
Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans city government has begun trying to turn down the volume a bit. With the support of neighbourhood groups, the city has begun policing bars and nightclubs more strictly, while, at the same time, fighting to implement a new “noise ordinance”.
“This is just the wrong time for something like this,” complains bar-owner William Walker, who hates the anti-smoking law. “Forcing people outside the bar to smoke is going to increase the tension that’s already there.”
Many of New Orleans’s best bars and live music venues are in quiet residential neighbourhoods. This neighbourly coexistence is a big part of what makes New Orleans different and charming. But, recently, this unique social contract has become unacceptable for some people and the fate of New Orleans’s musical personality feels at risk.
Martha Wood lives beside a loud bar that hosts live music. “I bought the house partly because of the bar so I won’t ever complain about the noise,” says Wood, who also manages a live-music bar. This bar became one of New Orleans’s first ever bars legally banned from serving drinks to go, after a series of noise issues in 2013 – including complaints about the loud smokers outside.
The Maple Leaf club went smoke-free voluntarily in 2014. The same happened at another club where artists had been demanding smoke-free nights. “A lot of the performance venues were already starting to show that consideration to performers so I wish the city would have just let that happen instead of forcing the ban into every corner bar that doesn’t host music,” says Zalia BeVille, manager of the All Ways Lounge.
Luckily, All Ways has an outdoor patio, unlike Lost Love Lounge, whose owner, Geoff Douville, loves the ban – he’d previously felt forced to live with smoke to keep his bar going. “There’s no way I could have banned smoking in my bar without a ban throughout the whole city,” says Douville. “People act like I have that choice, as a business owner. But, if I make that rule, customers walk down the block to a bar with smoking.”
Many small business owners also fear smokefree revenue loss. Smoker Neil Timms owns an English pub and met the smoking ban before, in England. “Back home in England, every pub I knew closed within a year of the smoking ban,” remembers Timms of the UK’s ban, begun in 2007. He doesn’t want his pub to close so he’s spending money to build a patio.
But Douville feels the ban could be a great business opportunity. “There are lots of people who would enjoy coming out to our bar, with our food, but would never come because they didn’t want to smell like smoke for the next seven days – we’re now an option for all those people.” Nor does Douville worry about noise complaints: “No court is going to say a bar is a ‘nuisance’ after the city has ratified a smoking ban that requires you to go outside!” he says.
Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced the ban, disagrees: “The responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their customers respectful outside as well,” she says. “The owners and bartenders need to tell them to go and have a smoke but be respectful to their communities. The idea that we can’t have clean air because it will cause noise problems is ridiculous. We can have clean air without noise problems – I think it’s about communication and creating partnerships between the communities and the businesses.”
Cantrell recognizes that the city is different. “How is New Orleans different from the rest of the country? New Orleans is known as a place where you can relax and have fun,” she says. “New Orleans needs to stand up and say ‘We care about our people.’ The most vulnerable people who are working in smoky conditions are the backbone of our hospitality industry, which drives the economy in the state of Louisiana.”
Many were worried that the police would not have time to enforce the ban. So the health department will handle bar warnings and fines. Bar customers are encouraged to “fill out a form or call 311 and to include photographs of illegal smoking”. For this reason alone, Neil Timms says he’ll comply with the ban: “I don’t want someone to be sitting in the corner smoking and someone takes a photo and gets beaten up.”
Unworried, Geoff Douville says that he’s used to noise complaints by now. “You will see: the nosy neighbours who complain about the noise now are going to be the same ones who wanted the smoking ban.” In the end, Douville shares Cantrell’s optimism. “Of course they’re going to complain,” he accepts. “But it doesn’t mean they’re going to win.”",444
"Ever since he was diagnosed HIV positive, Moses King, 48, has had one major problem. He has been able to cope with the stigma of being HIV positive – widespread in Liberia – and he was able to access antiretroviral medication, provided by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and distributed by the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children could not get the right food to eat. A subsistence farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. 
But meat and fish – expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein – remained elusive. “Subsistence farming allowed us to survive, but we had so many problems,” said King. “We could not get any protein, and we were not getting the nutrients we needed to sustain ourselves.” Pate K Chon, a counsellor who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, provided an unlikely solution. Since watching a documentary about a fish farm in Thailand several years earlier, she had thought of setting up a similar project in Liberia, enabling HIV sufferers to have work and also access a stable source of protein. 
“I saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea,” said Chon, herself diagnosed with HIV in 1992. “So many of the people I work with don’t have the means to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein – it doesn’t cause health problems like other sources, and it is something we can farm.” 
Chon, founder of a faith-based NGO, began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, Chon met John Sheehy, a 'strategic philanthropist' and founder of consultancy Emerging Business Lab, who raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, and set about learning aquaculture, doing an online course through Cornell University and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa. 
“I raised the money and built the farm, learned the proper tank layout and water flow system,” said Sheehy. “A lot of my knowledge was self-taught, and now I would love to be able to write a manual and share it with other people,” he added. 
The project has now grown into the Grow2Feed Liberia Fish Farm, with 12 tanks, which, when fully stocked, will each have 5,000 fish – providing up to 200,000 fish per year, serving a community of 1,200 predominantly HIV-positive people, including King and his family. 
In addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to irrigate crops, also providing food and income for the community, made up of 503 women, 206 men and 346 children. 
“The members of the community live near the farm, and have agreed to be part of the co-operative,” said Sheehy. “Many work on the farm, or tending the crops, and what they get in return – when the fish are fully grown after 90 days – is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other staple items. 
“The fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society – now they are bartering and trading with people in the market every week.” 
According to Liberia’s demographic health survey, 1.5% of Liberia’s 3.5 million people are HIV positive, with 60% of those women or girls. Stigma and discrimination still surround the illness, and have led to around half of all cases in the country going untreated. 
Good nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. Research has shown they need much higher levels of protein to prevent their health from deteriorating and to allow healthy growth. “Nutrition is one of the key things if you are taking antiretroviral drugs,” said Chon. “The drugs are toxic and, if you don’t have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive imported rice, even though we should be growing it ourselves and fish is difficult for most people to afford.” 
Sheehy says Grow2Feed is the first co-operative fish farm in Liberia to operate for the benefit of an HIV-positive community. The project has attracted the interest of the Liberian government, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which has worked with Grow2Feed to provide training, will also support teaching at the University of Liberia. 
Fish farming experts say the practice has huge potential in Africa. 
“Fish farming is absolutely viable in Africa,” said Paul White, owner of the HydroFish fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. “A lot of the fish on the market comes from China and is imported frozen. It is of a quality that could never enter Europe or America. There has been a serious lack of investment and a lack of know-how in fish production. It is all coming to the forefront now,” he added. 
Some critics are sceptical of farmed fish, citing inbred fish and high levels of toxins. But Sheehy said good practice mitigated these problems. “A lot of farmed fish is inbred, which does cause problems, but we are using a process with local fish sourced in Liberia, not fish from another region,” said Sheehy. “That means we can continue using local fish to bring in new broodstock. “And we are not using lakes that are cornered off, where the fish absorb all the toxins in the lake. We can control the environment using the tanks, and we test the water and monitor it constantly.” 
Sheehy hopes to replicate the model throughout Liberia and the region. “A rice-growing co-op in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America,” said Sheehy. “But we operate 100% non-profit and we will never lose our social justice aspect.”",445
"Scientists have implanted a false memory in the brains of mice in an experiment that they hope will shed light on the well-documented phenomenon whereby people ‘remember’ events or experiences that have never happened. False memories are a major problem with witness statements in courts of law. 
Defendants have often been convicted of offences based on eyewitness testimony only to have their convictions later overturned when DNA, or some other corroborating evidence, is brought to bear. 
In order to study how these false memories might form in the human brain, Susumu Tonagawa, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and his team encoded memories in the brains of mice by manipulating individual neurons. Memories of experiences we have had are made from several elements, including records of objects, space and time. These records, called engrams, are encoded in physical and chemical changes in brain cells and the connections between them. 
According to Tonagawa, both false and genuinememories seem to rely on the same brain mechanisms. In their work, Tonagawa’s team used a technique known as optogenetics, which allows the fine control of individual brain cells. They engineered brain cells in the mouse hippocampus, a part of the brain known to be involved in forming memories, to express the gene for a protein called channelrhodopsin. When cells that contain channelrhodopsin are exposed to blue light, they become activated. The researchers also modified the hippocampus cells so that the channelrhodopsin protein would be produced in whichever brain cells the mouse was using to encode its memory engrams. 
In the experiment, Tonagawa’s team placed the mice in a chamber and allowed them to explore it. As they did so, relevant memory-encoding brain cells were producing the channelrhodopsin protein. The next day, the same mice were placed in a second chamber and given a small electric shock, to encode a fear response. At the same time, the researchers shone light into the mouse brains to activate their memories of the first chamber. That way, the mice learned to associate fear of the electric shock with the memory of the first chamber. 
In the final part of the experiment, the team placed the mice back in the first chamber. 
The mice froze, demonstrating a typical fear response, even though they had never been shocked while there. “We call this ‘incepting’ or implanting false memories in a mouse brain,” Tonagawa told Science. 
A similar process may occur when powerful false memories are created in humans. “Humans are very imaginative animals,” said Tonagawa. “Independent of what is happening around you in the outside world, humans constantly have internal activity in the brain. So, just like our mouse, it is quite possible we can associate what we happen to have in our mind with bad or good high-variance ongoing events. In other words, there could be a false association of what you have in your mind rather than what is happening to you.” 
He added: “Our study showed that the false memory and the genuine memory are based on very similar, almost identical, brain mechanisms. It is difficult for the false memory bearer to distinguish between them. We hope our future findings along this line will further alert legislatures and legal experts to how unreliable memory can be.” 
Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London, is a leading researcher in false memories in people. He said that the latest results were an important first step in understanding their neural basis. 
“Memory researchers have always recognized that memory does not, as is often assumed, work like a video camera, faithfully recording all of the details of anything we experience. Instead, it is a reconstructive process, which involves building a specific memory from fragments of real memory traces of the original event, but also possibly including information from other sources.” He cautioned that the false memories created in the mice in the experiments were far simpler than the complex false memories that have generated controversy within psychology and psychiatry – for example, false memories of childhood sexual abuse, or even memories for bizarre ritualized satanic abuse, abduction by aliens, or “past lives ”. “Such rich false memories will clearly involve many brain systems and we are still a long way from understanding the processes involved in their formation at the neuronal level,” said Professor French. 
Mark Stokes, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, said the experiments were a “tour de force” but that it was important to put them into perspective. “Although the results seem to imply that new memories were formed by the artificial stimulation (rather than the actual environment), this kind of phenomenon is still a long way from most people’s idea of memory,” he said. Rather, he said, it was equivalent to implanting an association that perhaps someone cannot place but that makes them wary of a specific environment for no apparent reason. “It is unlikely that this kind of pairing could lead to the rich set of associations related to normal memories, although it is possible that, over time, such pairing could be integrated with other memories to construct a more elaborate false narrative.” 
The mouse models created by the MIT team will help scientists ask ever more complex questions about memories in people. “Now that we can reactivate and change the contents of memories in the brain, we can begin asking questions that were once the realm of philosophy,” said Steve Ramirez, a colleague of Tonagawa’s at MIT. “Are there multiple conditions that lead to the formation of false memories? Can false memories be artificially created? What about false memories for more than just contexts – false memories for objects, food or other mice? These are the once seemingly sci-fi questions that can now be experimentally tackled in the lab.” 
As the technology develops, said French, scientists need to think about its uses carefully. “Whatever means are used to implant false memories, we need to be very aware of the ethical issues raised by such procedures – the potential for abuse of such techniques cannot be overstated.”",446
"Not nearly enough exercise classes have a tea break halfway through. But Margaret Allen’s does. After a gentle warm-up and a few pulse-raising numbers, the 93-year-old great-grandmother lets her charges rehydrate with a cup of tea and a quick sit down. 
Some of the eight-strong class look as if they need it more than others. Allen herself, wearing a thick turquoise shirt, navy knitted waistcoat, black slacks and sensible shoes, has not broken into a sweat. Despite an “excruciating” trapped nerve in one leg and a knee in need of replacement, she looks as though she could go on for hours. 
The general rule is that eating directly before sport is not the best idea, let alone part way through. But, on the afternoon I visit Allen’s class at a church hall in Saltburn-by-the-Sea near Middlesbrough, slices of fruitcake are being passed around during the break. The cake has been baked in honour of Allen’s recent birthday by her 89-year-old sister, Joan, known locally as the “scone queen of Saltburn”. 
The ladies have barely swallowed their last crumb when Allen is up again, leading the group through a jaunty Scottish number involving lots of toe pointing and leg kicking. Forty-five minutes later, the class is finally over. 
Allen, a former volunteer with the Red Cross, has been leading classes in the north-east seaside town for 45 years. Not particularly sporty at school, she started playing the piano for a keep-fit class during the second world war – “just for something to do during the blackouts, really” – and eventually took over in her 40s when the previous instructor retired. At its peak, Allen’s class had more than 18 regulars, each paying £1 a time. But, these days, her flock is diminishing fast – during the teabreak, the ladies discuss a funeral that most of them had attended that week for one of the younger members of the group who had just died, aged 68, from motor neurone disease. 
Allen is the oldest, followed by her sister. The baby of the group is 60-year-old Jean Cunion, who credits the group with supporting her through a difficult time when her mother died. She is somewhat embarrassed to admit that she is perhaps the least fit of the group. “I remember, the first time I came, Margaret said: 'Who’s that huffing and panting?' and I had to admit it was me.” Ruth Steere, 76, marvels at how Allen never misses a trick, despite always having her back to the class: “She always shouts at us if we go wrong. She’s remarkably good at knowing what we are doing.” 
Allen, a keen dancer, has never done any formal training to be a fitness instructor. Instead, she choreographs her own moves based on five tapes from the BBC’s first ever fitness guru, Eileen Fowler, who died in 2000 when she was 93, Allen’s age now. Allen thinks her good health is largely down to keeping busy, especially since her husband Joe died in 1997. She took up writing poetry when she was 80. 
“I write poems about everything. I’m a prolific writer. I just can’t stop,” she says, phoning me a few days after the interview to read out a ditty she has written about the joys of exercise. One of the class, 84-year-old former teacher Winnie Robertson, thinks the secret to staying fit is never letting yourself go: “Use it or lose it, that’s what I say.” 
Allen still plays the piano and gives speeches. She is president of the Women’s Fellowship at the local methodist church and is one of three 90-plus year olds at the scrabble club of the University of the Third Age. She did a computer course when she was 88 and tried to get online, but it didn’t work out. 
Ageing is no fun, she admits, reading me a few lines from a poem she has written called 'That Beast Called Age'. She happily recalls a doctor who saw her for the first time a few years back, who said she couldn’t possibly be more than 78: “I said, 'Thank you, doctor. You can go now.'” 
She also has a no-nonsense attitude to weight gain: “I just think people shouldn’t eat too much. Whenever I hear someone saying, 'Oh, I can’t lose weight’, I say:’ Sellotape.'” She mimes taping her mouth shut. “I said this just the other day to a big fat man. Everything in moderation is my motto.” 
Earlier in 2013, Allen was watching the news and saw a woman being given the British Empire Medal. I think she means Margaret Chartwood from Horley, who was given the honour in January, at the age of 77. “She was saying: 'I’m 80 and I’m the oldest fitness instructor in the country!' I was thinking: 'No, you’re not.' But I shan’t be writing to Buckingham Palace.”",447
"When Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, he said he was “a simple, humble worker in God’s vineyard”. And on a grey, cold, windy Monday in February, he resigned in the same way: like an old workman with pains in his back and no more strength in his arms. The first German Pope in modern times gave an exact departure time. “From 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours”, he told a gathering of cardinals in the Vatican, “the see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and there will be an election for a new Pope.” 
One of the cardinals at the gathering was a Mexican cardinal, Monsignor Oscar Sanchéz Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome for an official meeting. “We were all in the Apostolic Palace,” he said. “The Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it. 
“We were all …” – Sanchéz Barba couldn’t find the word. The cardinals had just heard the man they believe is God’s representative on earth resign. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” Sanchéz Barba said. 
Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who probably already knew about the Pope’s decision, gave a short speech. He told the Pope that the cardinals would be loyal to him and added that he and the others present had listened to the Pope’s words with a feeling of confusion. At the end of his speech, the pope blessed the cardinals and left. “It was so simple; the simplest thing you can imagine,” said Sanchéz Barba. “Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.” 
John Thavis spent 30 years reporting on the Vatican and has a book, The Vatican Diaries, that will be published soon. He said he had a feeling before that the Pope was going to resign. Thavis said that in the long interview Benedict gave to a German journalist in 2010, he had said he would resign if he felt he could no longer do the job. “I asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects. Also, there were no dates in his calendar of events he had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February but I got it wrong.” 
Soon after the announcement, the Vatican was saying that the Pope’s decision was brave. Thavis agreed: “What I find particularly courageous is that he is going now, when he is not sick; and that he’s leaving because he’s tired and not because he’s ill.” But is that the whole story? Does the Pope know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public? 
Benedict said that he is resigning not just for physical reasons but also for psychological reasons. He said that the position of Pope needed both strength of mind and strength of body, and in the last few months he felt that he was slowly losing that strength. There will no doubt be other theories in future days and weeks, just as there were following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already people are saying that there was a secret in Benedict’s past and that somebody was going to tell everyone. The Vatican will no doubt say those stories are nonsense. But we can understand why some people think there might be a secret, because Benedict’s decision is so historic. 
At St Peter’s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, still didn’t know what the Pope’s resignation meant. “If you’re God’s chosen person, how do you choose not be chosen?” she asked. It is a question many Catholics will be asking their priests in future weeks.",448
"Much of BB King’s best work was blues but he was always open-minded about and interested in other kinds of music. He bridged musical and cultural differences with warmth and skill. Perhaps it is too early to speak of “the last of the bluesmen” but it is hard to imagine that any future blues artist will match King. He influenced thousands of musicians and millions of music fans in a career that lasted 65 years.
Riley B King (the B did not seem to stand for a name) was born in Mississippi, the son of African-American farm workers. He learnt the basics of guitar from a family friend and perfected his singing with a quartet of gospel singers. In his early 20s, he moved to Memphis.
Within a couple of years, he was playing regularly at a bar in West Memphis and he also became a disc jockey, presenting a show on a Memphis radio station. His billing, “The Beale Street Blues Boy”, was shortened to “Blues Boy King” and then to “BB”. After a single session in 1949 for a Nashville label, King began recording for the West Coast-based Modern Records in 1950.
He had his first hit in 1952, with Three O’Clock Blues, which was number one in the R&B chart for 15 weeks; it was the first of many hits. On these and his dozens of other recordings, most of them his own compositions, King developed a style that was innovative but had its roots in blues history. He was always ready to praise the musicians who had influenced him – he would usually mention T-Bone Walker first. He would also cite the earlier blues guitarists Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson and the jazz players Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt.
He once explained that his guitar technique was partly based on his lack of skill: “I started to bend notes because I could never play in the bottleneck style. I loved that sound but just couldn’t do it.” He was modest about his singing, too, a mixture of the style of ballad singers such as Nat King Cole and blues shouters such as Joe Turner and Dr Clayton. Probably his favourite composer and singer was Louis Jordan, whose music he commemorated in the 1999 album Let the Good Times Roll.
Throughout the 1950s, King was the leading blues artist on an endless series of one-nighters. In 1956, he played 342 gigs. In 1962, he tried to change that working pattern by signing with a major label, ABC, but the first records under that contract were rather unsuccessful, both with his fans and with the record company.
The 1965 album Live at the Regal, however, has become iconic, a turning point in the early listening of many younger musicians. He had further R&B hits with blues numbers including How Blue Can You Get and Paying the Cost to Be the Boss, and, in 1969, he got near the top of the pop charts – where no blues artist had been for many years – with The Thrill Is Gone.
It took him a while to establish himself with a rock audience but he was brought to their attention by musicians who admired him. “About a year and a half ago,” he said in 1969, “all of a sudden, kids started saying to me, ‘You’re the greatest blues guitarist in the world.’ And I’d say, ‘Who told you that?’ And they’d say, ‘Mike Bloomfield’ or ‘Eric Clapton’. I owe my new popularity to these youngsters.”
From then on, King was firmly established as a leading blues artist. Guided by his manager, Sidney Seidenberg, he went on international concert tours that took him to Japan, Australia, China and Russia. He also gave concerts to prisoners at the Cook County jail in Chicago and at San Quentin, which led to his long involvement in rehabilitation programmes.
In 1990, King was diagnosed with diabetes and cut back his touring but his followers outside the US could still see him every year or two. He would now deliver most of his act sitting down but the strength of his singing and the fluency of his playing were almost as good as ever. The celebrations for his 80th birthday, in 2005, included an award-winning album of collaborations with Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Roger Daltrey, Gloria Estefan and others, tributes from musicians as diverse as Bono, Amadou Bagayoko and Elton John, and a “goodbye tour” that was not a goodbye at all. 
In 2009, King received a Grammy award, for best traditional blues album, for One Kind Favor. In 2012, he performed at a concert at the White House, where the US President, Barack Obama, joined him to sing Sweet Home Chicago. King was twice married and twice divorced. He is survived by 11 children by various partners; four others died before him.",449
"Glastonbury Festival is declaring war on the plastic water bottle as part of a long-term plan to become the world’s most environmentally friendly outdoor music event.
Festival organizers are targeting the disposable bottle, one of the most obvious symbols of the throwaway culture, that each year leaves the 900-acre festival site covered in plastic. An estimated one million plastic bottles are used during the festival.
Stainless-steel reusable bottles will be given to 2,000 road crew and band members. Thousands more will go on sale to festival-goers to stop them relying on plastic bottles. The 140,000 ticketholders are also being asked to bring reusable bottles that they can fill at 400 drinking-water taps across the site.
Lucy Smith, Glastonbury’s green issues organizer, said: “We have amazing water quality in the UK but everyone is obsessed with drinking bottled water.”
She said that, in 2015, Glastonbury also plans to replace all plastic glasses and cutlery with reusable items.
Environmentalists say that there is currently 150 million tonnes of plastic waste around the planet and oceans, poisoning ecosystems and killing wildlife.
Ultimately, festival organizers hope to make Glastonbury the world’s greenest greenfield festival. They want to be like America’s Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, which is a “leave-no-trace” event, where people have to take away all that they bring.
Glastonbury festival-goers are also being asked to travel to the site on public transport or to try car-sharing with friends. “We want to be as sustainable as we can. We do everything we can, but the litter of 140,000 people is a challenge. We can’t put bins everywhere,” added Smith.
Plastic water bottles can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely biodegrade. Their manufacture makes their negative ecological impact even worse. Millions of barrels of oil are used in the manufacture of plastic bottles and the transportation of mineral water across the planet produces even more carbon emissions.
Around 13 billion plastic water bottles are sold in the UK every year, but only one in five is recycled.
Smith said that, instead of buying bottled water, festival-goers should take advantage of the water on tap, which comes from huge underground reservoirs. The charity WaterAid will also set up water kiosks around the site, which will stock reusable bottles and cups and offer free refills.
Organizers say that almost half of all the rubbish left on site was recycled in 2013 and add that there will be 15,000 bins for recycling across the festival grounds in 2014.
Even though it is becoming more environmentally friendly, critics say that Glastonbury is becoming increasingly corporate. Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson said he would never bring his band to Glastonbury Festival, which he called “the most bourgeois thing on the planet”.",450
"A subway system has billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, bubonic plague and drug-proof bugs and human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to catalogue and map the bacteria in a city’s subway – and they have found many interesting results.
Dr Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that, for 18 months, tested the New York City subway system for the microscopic life forms that cover its turnstiles, seats, ticket booths and stations. His team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on the handhold of a train carriage and bacteria that cause bubonic plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.
The team have strongly downplayed the findings of plague and anthrax. They say that there is only an extremely small trace of the latter, that rats likely carried the former and that no one has fallen ill with plague in or around New York for years.
“The results do not suggest that plague or anthrax is prevalent,” the study says. “Nor do they suggest that New York residents are at risk.”
In fact, most of the bacteria identified by the team are either harmless to humans or beneficial in the city’s thriving world of microorganisms.
Some of the results were expected and “should be a gentle reminder for people to wash their hands”, Mason said. He also said that they found many bacteria of the same sort as those “that are beneficial and helpful, like the one used for making cheese.”
Bacteria appeared to reflect the eating habits of various neighbourhoods. All around the subway, bacteria associated with cheeses – brie, cheddar, parmesan and the mozzarella found on New York pizza – appeared. The distinctive bacteria of Swiss cheese were more limited to midtown Manhattan and the financial district, and the bacteria used to ferment cabbage for kimchi and sauerkraut showed up in the financial district and Bay Ridge.
Bacteria associated with illness and infections were extremely common. Species that cause diarrhoea and nausea, as well as E.coli, and the bacteria that can cause skin infections and urinary-tract infections were common all over the city. The species that produces tetanus appeared in Soho and bacteria that cause dysentery appeared at a station in the Bronx and another in Harlem.
Mason and his team collected more than 1,000 samples at all of New York’s 466 open subway stations. They put the organic materials through a DNA sequencer and, then, through a supercomputer. They identified 15,152 distinct species, nearly half of which were bacteria.
The good news, the researchers said, is that these “potentially infectious bacteria” are not spreading sickness or disease throughout New York. They seem to be “normal co-habitants of a city”.
In short, the researchers conclude, the subway and city are about as safe as everyone thought.
Mason said people should not be concerned about getting urinary-tract infections from subway seats. “You should wash your hands,” he said, “and probably get some sleep, eat salads and go to the gym, and that’s about the same today as it was yesterday.”
“In fact,” he added, “I’ve become much more confident riding the subway.”
Many findings made sense: stations like Grand Central and Times Square, where there are more people, had more bacteria and more diversity among them. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest.
The researchers found marine bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy – but they were surprised to note the species included some normally associated with Antarctica and fish.
The next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, São Paolo and Shanghai, and continued studies of New York, for instance to see how the results change with the seasons. He said he hoped the research would provide “a baseline” of research for health officials and geneticists, and could help health officials to prevent and track diseases and pathogens.",451
"The controversial auction of a Banksy mural that disappeared from the wall of a north London shop in mysterious circumstances was dramatically halted just moments before it was due to go under the hammer. 
Slave Labour, a spray-painted artwork depicting a child making Union Flag bunting and seen as a critical social commentary on last year’s diamond jubilee, was expected to sell for about $700,000 in a sale of street and contemporary art in Florida. 
But auctioneer Frederic Thut, the owner of the Fine Arts Auction Miami art house, who had refused all week to divulge the identity of the seller or how it came to be listed for sale through his gallery, announced that the piece, along with a second work by the secretive British street artist, had been withdrawn. 
He would not give a reason, but community leaders in Haringey, who led a vocal campaign to stop the sale of the artwork that was prised from the wall of a Poundland in Wood Green, were jubilant. 
“One of our two demands was that it doesn’t sell and the other was that we get it back again, so we’re halfway there,” said Alan Strickland, a Haringey councillor. 
“I will be writing to the auction house as a matter of urgency to clarify what happened and what will happen next, but for now we are really pleased that because of the pressure and the strong views of the people of Wood Green, a community campaign in London has had an impact in the US. It’s a real victory for the people.” 
Claire Kober, Leader of Haringey Council, wrote to Arts Council England and the Mayor of Miami, Tomás Regalado, to ask them to intervene to stop the sale but it appears the decision to withdraw the item came from the gallery owners in consultation with their lawyers. The FBI refused to confirm reports they were asked to investigate. 
Several hours after the conclusion of the auction, the auction house issued a brief statement claiming it had persuaded the owners of the two Banksys to pull them from the sale. “Although there are no legal issues whatsoever regarding the sale of lots six and seven by Banksy, FAAM convinced its sellers to withdraw these lots from the auction.” 
About 30 potential buyers attended the sale of 106 lots listed in the catalogue for the modern, contemporary and street art sale in Miami’s trendy Wynwood neighbourhood. The three-hour auction continued with other early lots selling in excess of their asking prices. 
Critics have accused the auction house of dealing in stolen property but Thut insisted earlier in the week that the seller, who he described as a “well known collector ”, was the rightful owner and that the sale was legal. 
He added that his gallery had been inundated with emails and phone calls from the UK, saying that many of them were abusive or offensive, but said he supported the inclusion of the pieces in the sale because it would preserve them. 
The second Banksy due to be auctioned, a 2007 artwork entitled Wet Dog that was removed from a Bethlehem wall and is estimated to be worth up to $800,000, disappeared from the auction house’s online catalogue at lunchtime on Saturday, but Slave Labour was still listed for sale right up to the 3pm start time. 
Thut said the two pieces, supplied to him by separate owners, neither of them British, were important works in the street art scene and deserved buyers “whose first interest is in art and its preservation ”. 
He said he would maintain the privacy of the collector who put it up for sale. “We respect our clients and their confidentiality. It’s not our decision to have [the Banksy] returned. We only sell it. We do not have control of it.” 
A spokesperson for Poundland said it had no idea who removed the 4ft x 5ft slab from the side of the shop it rents in Turnpike Lane. Lawyers for the owner of the building, a company called Wood Green Investments Ltd, have refused to confirm if it had anything to do with the episode. 
Banksy himself has not commented on the Slave Labour furore, but has previously condemned those who have tried to sell his artwork, speaking out before the proposed sale of five of his pieces at a 2011 auction in New York. None found a buyer. 
Stephan Keszler, the dealer behind that auction, believes selling Banksy’s works without his permission is legitimate. 
“He does something on other people’s property without asking. The owner of the property can do whatever they want with it,” Keszler said.",452
"It is not just the world’s biggest burger chain; it is also a global emblem of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald’s are looking a little tarnished. After a decade of expansion, customers around the world don’t seem to be 'lovin’ it' any more. McDonald’s has revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% on 2013 in a set of results that were described as atrocious. 
Problems are piling up almost everywhere. In China, sales plunged by 23% after a food scare when local media showed workers apparently caught on camera at a local supplier claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in products destined for McDonald’s and KFC. In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of unrest in Ukraine and the sour anti-western mood in Russia. Around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors in apparently politically motivated food-safety checks. Ten have been closed. 
But it is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis runs deepest. Almost 60 years after Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries. 
McDonald’s has seen 12 straight months of declining sales in its massive home market, with sales down 4.1% in the latest quarter. Younger diners are deserting the restaurant in droves to eat out at rivals such as Chipotle Mexican Grill. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds visiting McDonald’s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011, according to food analysts Technomic, while the number of 22-to-37-year- olds visiting has not grown. 
To add to the company’s problems, McDonald’s hamburgers were recently named the worst in America in a poll of more than 32,000 American diners, who said they would rather eat a burger at Five Guys, Smashburger or Fuddruckers. Fast-growing US-only chain Chick-fil-A was considered to be best for chicken. McDonald’s is also widely perceived as less healthy than most of its rivals, especially Chipotle, which trumpets its antibiotic-free meat and “locally sourced, seasonal produce” – although 'local' for Chipotle can mean 350 miles away. 
The depth of consumer mistrust of McDonald’s was exposed by a consumer outreach exercise the company launched in the US in October. “Have you ever used pink slime in your burgers?” was one question on the Our Food Your Questions website – referring to the controversial beef filler (gristle and fat) used for dog food that is sprayed with ammonia to make it “fit” for human consumption. The meat product, banned in Europe since the BSE crisis, was dropped by McDonald’s in 2012. 
But pink slime has left doubts in US consumers’ minds. “Does McDonald’s beef contain worms?” asked another person (“No. Gross. End of story,” replied the company). Others wanted to know whether it uses real eggs or whether the McRib is made with the same plastic contained in yoga mats. McDonald’s Chief Executive Don Thompson acknowledged the company had a job to do in addressing misconceptions about the freshness, quality and integrity of its ingredients. 
Yet, just as McDonald’s has been losing the customers who will pay a bit more for food perceived as fresher and healthier, it has also lost its edge in fast-food essentials: speedy service at low prices. Ever since it introduced $2 items on its dollar menu, it has gained a reputation for being more expensive than its rivals, while many consumers complain that service is slower. 
The “expensive” tag was unjustified, said Mary Chapman at Technomic. “Prices have indeed gone up but they haven’t gone up as quickly as the rest of the fast-service chains in the US.” Prices at McDonald’s have increased by 4.8% since 2009, well below the “quick service” sector average (up 19.4%), while the cost of “fast casual” eating, a category that includes the much-hyped Chipotle, is up 16.9%, according to Technomic’s menu monitor. US consumer prices rose 11% over the same period. 
But critics have a point when it comes to longer queues. McDonald’s has a bigger menu than some, with more complicated items – its chicken McWrap takes 60 seconds to make. “I think it is worth waiting but the guy behind me who wants his double cheeseburger for a dollar might not,” said Chapman. 
In the UK, McDonald’s has turned around its business, making Britain a rare bright spot for the company. A competitive breakfast menu, improved coffee and free wi-fi had given McDonald’s a broad appeal in the UK, said Peter Martin of consultancy CGA Peach whose figures show that 56% of British adults have visited a McDonald’s restaurant at least once in the last six months. 
Executives are promising to tackle misconceptions about its food in its home market. Thompson has promised more organic food and custom-made burgers but, to cut down queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. Analysts are scratching their heads about how the company can square the circle of simpler menus and greater choice over fillings. 
“They want to simplify the menu but enhance its ability to customize and that sounds tricky,” said Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets. Only four out of McDonald’s 14,000 US restaurants had so far tested “build your own burger”, he said, raising questions about how it could be scaled up. “Right now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.” 
Meanwhile, despite the declining sales, the chain continues to expand globally: by the end of 2014, it expects to have opened 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski expects McDonald’s market share will continue to shrink but he, too, warned against writing off the company. “You can never really count McDonald’s out. We think it will be number one in terms of total sales for not just years but decades to come.”",453
"A new scientific study says that global warming might make temperatures rise more than people think. The scientist who led the research said that, if emissions of greenhouse gases are not reduced, the planet will be at least 4C warmer by 2100. This is twice the level the world’s governments consider to be dangerous. The research shows that fewer clouds form as the planet warms. This means that less sunlight reflects back into space and this makes temperatures even higher. The way clouds affect global warming has been the biggest mystery in the study of future climate change.
Professor Steven Sherwood, at the University of New South Wales in Australia, who led the research, said that their work was new in two ways. First, it found what controls the cloud changes and, second, it did not accept the lowest estimates of future global warming; it believed the higher, more damaging estimates.
“4C would be catastrophic, not simply dangerous,” Sherwood said. “For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics and it would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet.” And, if the ice sheets melt, sea levels will rise by many metres.
The research helps to show how much warming is caused by rises in carbon emissions, say scientists who have commented on the study, published in the journal Nature. 
Experts at Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies said the explanation of how fewer clouds form as the world warms was a good one. They also agreed that this showed future climate change would be bigger than people think. To measure the effect of greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate, scientists estimate what the rise in temperature would be with twice as much CO in the atmosphere as in the pre-industrial age – and this will probably happen within 50 years. For twenty years, those estimates have been from 1.5C to 5C: a wide range. The new research has reduced that range to between 3C and 5C, by studying the biggest cause of uncertainty: clouds.
Researchers use computer climate models to predict future temperatures and it was important to include the way clouds form in those models. When water evaporates from the oceans, the vapour can rise over nine miles to form rain clouds that reflect sunlight; or, it may rise just a few miles and fall slowly back down without forming clouds. 
In reality, both things happen and climate models that include the second possibility predict much higher future temperatures than the models that only include the nine-mile-high clouds. “Climate sceptics like to criticize climate models because they are sometimes wrong, and we know that they are not perfect,” said Sherwood. “But we are finding that the mistakes are being made by the models that predict less warming, not the models that predict more warming.” He added: “Sceptics may also point to the pause in the rise of temperatures since the end of the 20th century, but there is more and more evidence that we cannot see this pause in other measures of the climate system. 
And the pause is almost certainly temporary. ” The world’s average air temperatures have increased quite slowly since a high point in 1998, which the ocean phenomenon El Niño caused. But, greenhouse gases are trapping more and more heat and over 90% disappears into the oceans. Also, a recent study suggested that it may seem there is a “pause”, but this is only because we did not have temperature readings from polar regions, where there is the most warming. Sherwood accepts that his team’s work on the role of clouds does not mean for sure that temperature rises will be in the higher range. He added that a 4C rise in the world’s average temperatures would have a serious effect on the world and the economies of many countries if we do not reduce emissions.",454
"An extraordinary press conference at Leicester University has revealed the identity of the man in the car park with the twisted spine. It has also revealed his appalling last moments and the humiliating treatment of his body in the hours after his death. There were cheers when Richard Buckley, leader of the team of archaeologists, finally announced that they were certain they had found the body of Richard III.
The evidence was overwhelming. The scientists who carried out the DNA tests, those who created the computer-imaging technology to examine the bones in extraordinary detail, the genealogists who found a distant descendant with matching DNA, and the academics who investigated contemporary texts for accounts of the king’s death and burial all reported their findings.
Work has started on designing a new tomb in Leicester Cathedral, only 100 yards from the excavation site, and a ceremony will be held to lay him into his new grave there, probably next year. Leicester’s Museums’ Service is working on plans for a new visitor centre in an old school building overlooking the site.
Richard died at Bosworth on 22 August 1485, the last English king to die in battle, and, for the first time, the researchers revealed how. There was an intake of breath as a picture showed the base of his skull sliced off by one terrible hit, probably from a razor-sharp iron axe blade on a wooden pole. The blade probably went several centimetres into his brain and, experts say, he was certainly unconscious at once and dead almost as soon.
The injury confirms the story that he died in the middle of the battle and without his horse – as in his cry in Shakespeare’s play: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Another cut from a sword, which also went through the bone and into the brain, would also have been fatal. But many of the other injuries were after death, suggesting that the king’s naked body was mutilated as it was brought back to Leicester.
One terrible injury was certainly after death and could not have happened when his lower body was protected by armour. It suggests the story that his naked body was brought back on a horse and humiliated all the way is true. Bob Savage, a medieval weapons expert, said it was probably not a war weapon but the sort of sharp knife or dagger any workman might have carried.
Michael Ibsen, the Canadian-born furniture maker proved to be the descendant of Richard’s sister, heard the confirmation on Sunday and listened to the evidence in shocked silence. “My head is no clearer now than when I first heard the news,” he said. “Many, many hundreds of people died on that field that day. He was a king, but just one of the dead. He lived in very violent times and these deaths would not have been pretty or quick.”
It was Mathew Morris who first uncovered the body, in the first hour of the first day of the excavation. He did not believe he had found the king. The mechanical digger was still removing the tarmac from the car park, a place identified by years of research by local historians and the Richard III Society as the probable site of the lost church of Grey Friars. The priests of Grey Friars bravely took the body of the king and buried him in a hastily dug grave, probably still naked, but in a position of honour near the high altar of their church. The leg bones, which were just showing through the soil, were covered up again.
Ten days later, on 5 September, when further excavation proved Morris had hit the crucial spot, he returned with Lin Foxhall, head of the archaeology department, to excavate the body. “We did it the usual way, lifting the arms, legs and skull first, and proceeding gradually towards the torso – so it was only when we finally saw the twisted spine that I thought: ‘My word, I think we’ve got him.’”
For Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society, Richard was the true king, the last king of the north, a brave leader who became a victim of some of the most brilliant propaganda in history, in the hands of Shakespeare. There remains the dark shadow of the little princes in the tower, an infamous story even in Richard’s day: the child Edward V and his brother Richard were declared illegitimate when Richard III claimed the throne, imprisoned in the Tower of London and never seen alive again. Although it is not certain that the bones found at the tower centuries later are theirs, there may be more DNA detective work to be done there.",455
"On the top of a hill, looking down on Northumberland’s beautiful Kielder Water reservoir, a group of people wait in a car park next to a strange wooden building. They are looking for darkness and this is Kielder Observatory, the centre of Britain’s latest industry – astrotourism. The people waiting outside are the lucky ones. Many more apply for a night of stargazing at the observatory but numbers are strictly limited.
Inside, under a dim light, the observatory’s founder and lead astronomer, Gary Fildes, delivers a speech to his colleagues and volunteers. The team discusses the prospect of seeing the northern lights but Fildes is doubtful. Instead, they decide to use their powerful telescopes to observe Jupiter and Venus and, later, to pick out stars such as Capella and Betelgeuse. An additional attraction is the appearance of the International Space Station.
Fildes, 49, is at the forefront of the UK’s growing astrotourism industry. The key moment for Northumberland came in 2013 when the entire national park, about 1,500 square kilometres in area, was awarded Dark Sky Park status, the only one in England. Dark Sky Parks are rare. The 2013 Star Count revealed that only 5% of the UK population can see more than 31 stars on a clear night.
The Arizona-based International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) awards the status of Dark Sky Park only to places that take major steps to avoid light pollution. And those areas must also prove their night skies are dark enough. In Northumberland Dark Sky Park, as the area was renamed, it is so dark that Venus casts a shadow on the Earth.
Duncan Wise, visitor development officer for the Northumberland National Park Authority, helped to lead the campaign for dark-sky status. “We tend to look at landscape as everything up to the horizon,” Wise said. “But what about what’s above it?” Wise and others spent years preparing their application to the IDA, collecting thousands of light readings and producing an exterior lighting master plan that influences the construction of new developments in the area.
Their efforts have been rewarded. Many of the 1.5 million who visit Northumberland each year are now aware of its Dark Sky status. “We get a lot of people coming here to see the sky now,” says the man at the car-hire firm in Newcastle. “They come in autumn and winter, when it’s darkest. It’s good for the local hotels because they get business all year round now.” Local hotels now give guests night-vision torches and put out deckchairs at night.
Wise agrees that Northumberland needs to do more to take advantage of its scarce resource. He believes the region needs a couple more observatories to ensure that visitors will see what they came for. A new £14m national landscape discovery centre will have an observatory when it is completed in a couple of years.
Fildes has big ambitions. He is planning Britain’s first “astrovillage”, one that would contain the largest public observatory in the world and have a 100-seat auditorium, a 100-seat planetarium, a one-metre aperture telescope, and radiomagnetic and solar telescopes. The multimillion-pound project would also have a hotel and draw in 100,000 people a year, four times the number currently able to use the observatory. Fildes believes the astrovillage will be a reality by 2018.
However, Northumberland has competition. Galloway Forest Park in Scotland also has Dark Sky Park status. Since Exmoor was designated Europe’s first International Dark Sky Reserve – one level below Dark Sky Park – in 2011, a range of local businesses offering stargazing breaks and safaris has sprung up. The UK has a long way to go to rival northern Chile, which has more than a dozen tourist observatories and some of the clearest skies in the world. The Teide National Park in Tenerife is also becoming a major astrotourism destination.
So, why do people want to look up into the night sky? The media have helped. TV presenters like Brian Cox have attracted a new generation of stargazers. “Brian Cox has made astronomy accessible,” says Wise. “It’s no longer seen as something just for professors with telescopes.” Technology has also made astronomy more popular. Apps such as Stellarium now turn smartphones into pocket-size planetariums. But Fildes believes that, most importantly, people are starting to appreciate what lies above. “If you had to build a visitor attraction from scratch, what could be better than the universe?”",456
"When Larry Pizzi first heard about electric bikes nearly 20 years ago, he asked: “Why would anyone want to screw up a bike by putting a motor and batteries on it?”
It’s a question that still puzzles some people. Bicycle shops in the US do not usually sell e-bikes, even though they have been around since the late 1990s.
Pizzi, who is now CEO of Currie Technologies, the number one seller of e-bikes in the US, believes that’s about to change. Others in the bike industry agree. Familiar brands including Trek, Raleigh and Specialized all offer electric models and they believe that the market is about to take off.
The US is different from other countries when it comes to electric bikes. Nearly 32m e-bikes were sold in 2014, most of them in China, where they are mostly used for transportation. They are popular in much of Europe, too. They’re common in the Netherlands and Switzerland; German postal workers use them to get around and BMW offers one for about $3,000.
Electric bikes are different from motorcycles or mopeds, which rely on motorized power; they are bicycles that can be pedalled with – or without – help from an electric motor. Riding an e-bike feels like riding a normal bike with a strong wind behind you; the motor just helps you go faster or climb hills. Unlike mopeds, e-bicycles are usually permitted on bike paths and they can’t travel faster than 20mph.
To succeed, the electric bike business in the US must overcome legal, cultural and financial obstacles. E-bikes are banned in some states, including New York. Some people who own and work in bike shops don’t like putting motors on bicycles – one of the reasons is the extra weight. Some e-bikes weigh nearly 30kg.
E-bikes are also expensive. While cheaper models sell for as little as $700, Court Rye, the founder and editor of ElectricBikeReview.com, a popular website, says riders should expect to pay at least $1,500 for a quality e-bike with a good battery. The best models cost more than twice that.
The companies that make and sell e-bikes say they can overcome those obstacles. E-bike technology, particularly the batteries, is improving. “Batteries are getting smaller, they’re getting lighter, they’re getting more reliable and they are lasting longer,” says Don DiCostanza, the founder and CEO of Pedego, an electric bikemaker and retailer.
Companies like Bosch, the German electronics giant, and Shimano, the leading manufacturer of bicycle gears, are entering the business. This should help lower the resistance from bike shops. “This has really caught the attention and the imagination of bicycle dealers,” says Currie’s Larry Pizzi. Pedego and startup ElectroBike aren’t waiting for the shops to come around; they are building their own stores.
Perhaps most importantly, more cities are building cycling infrastructure including bike lanes so bicycle commuting has become more popular. As the US Census Bureau reported in 2014, the number of bike commuters grew from about 488,000 in 2000 to 786,000 in 2012. Electric bikes make commuting more practical – and fun – by reducing worry about hills, headwinds, tiredness and sweat.
Most of our customers are “ageing baby boomers who want to have the cycling experience they had as a kid,” says Pedego’s Don DiCostanza. “The main reason they stopped riding bikes was because of hills.” Pedego has opened nearly 60 stores in the US and it has sold bikes to tour companies in San Francisco and Washington, DC.
ElectroBike, which operates 30 stores in Mexico, opened its first American store in Venice Beach, California in the autumn of 2014 and hopes to grow to 25 US stores in a year. CEO Craig Anderson says: “We want to help reduce traffic, help reduce our carbon footprint and encourage a healthy lifestyle.” He tells customers: “Ride this once and try not to smile.”
Startups like Pedego and ElectroBike will have to compete with big companies like Trek and Currie, which, in 2012, was acquired by the Accell Group, a public company based in the Netherlands that is Europe’s market leader in e-bikes. Accell owns the Raleigh brand, as well as Haibike, an award-winning German electric bike.
“Accell has great hopes for e-bikes in North America,” Currie’s Larry Pizzi says. “While baby boomers are still very important, we’re finding that a lot of younger people are using e-bikes for transportation, instead of cars.”
Accell’s Yuba brand even sells a cargo bike with a stronger motor and rear rack. “You can carry two children,” says Pizzi. “You can carry 45kg of shopping. It’s a minivan alternative.”",457
"Angela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But, on Tuesday April 8th, 2014, she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle, 101 years after he had thrown it into the Baltic Sea. The bottle is believed to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle and it was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany.
“It was very surprising,” Erdmann, 62, said, describing how she found out about the bottle. “A man stood at my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. He then told me that a message in a bottle had been found and that the name that was on the card was that of my grandfather.” Her visitor was a genealogical researcher who had managed to find her in Berlin after the letter was given to a museum in the northern port city of Hamburg.
The brown beer bottle, which had been in the water for 101 years, was found by a fisherman, who had been out in the Baltic Sea off the northern city of Kiel. Holger von Neuhoff, a curator at the museum, said this bottled message was the oldest he had come across. “There are documents that have been found without the bottle that are older and are in the museum,” he said. “But, with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in extremely good condition.”
Researchers believe Erdmann’s grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle in the sea while on a hike in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time. A lot of the message on the postcard was impossible to read, although the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible. Also legible was the author’s polite request that the person finding it should send it to his home address.
He also included two stamps from that time that were in the bottle, so the finder would not have to pay for postage,” Erdmann said. “But he did not think it would take 101 years.”
She said she was moved by the arrival of the message, although she had not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born.
“I knew very little about my grandfather, but I found out that he was a writer who was very open-minded, and believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other,” she said. “He did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.”
Erdmann said she also liked culture and travelling around the world, just like her grandfather. She described herself as open-minded, too. “What he taught his two daughters, my mother taught me and I have then given to my sons,” she said. She was very happy to receive the bottled message, she said, but she hoped other people would not do what her grandfather had done and throw bottles with messages into the sea. “Today, the sea is so full of so many bottles and rubbish that more shouldn’t be thrown in there,” she said.
The message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburg’s Maritime Museum until the beginning of May 2014, after which experts will attempt to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will then happen to the bottle, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum.
“We want to make a few photos available to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water,” she said.",458
"A car with a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour, two seats and no pedals or steering wheel does not sound very interesting. But Google, in the US, shocked the car and taxi industries when it unveiled the latest version of its driverless car. 
Google has begun testing the electric car at its headquarters in Mountain View, California. The car does not have all the normal car controls, such as foot pedals. Instead, it has a smartphone app that calls it and tells it the destination, and a STOP button between the two seats in case the passengers need to override the computer. 
The company is building about 100 prototypes for a two-year test. The company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, said that the vehicle was still just a prototype. He says that they want to change the world for people who do not find it easy to travel around. 
Talking about the car, he said, “You’re just sitting there; no steering wheel, no pedals. For me, it was very relaxing. About ten seconds after getting into the car, I forgot I was there. I found it really fun.” 
Google says that the aim of the project is to improve safety. They say that the car is made with foam at the front and a plastic windscreen, so “it should be far safer than any other car for pedestrians”. 
The cars have been built specially by a company in Detroit. Google will now test the cars, which are not yet for sale. 
There need to be detailed scans of the roads before the cars can drive on them, because they cannot collect and process enough information in real time. 
So far, there are detailed maps of about 2,000 miles of California’s roads, but California has more than 170,000 miles of roads. 
Google says it wants to license the technology to traditional car makers when they have improved it. 
But the idea that driverless cars will replace taxis with human drivers has alarmed some people. 
Dennis Conyon from the UK National Taxi Association said that taxi drivers will become unemployed. 
London has about 22,000 black taxis and Conyon thinks that the total number of people who drive taxis in the UK is about 100,000. 
Other car makers, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes, are going to make vehicles that will be different from Google’s version because they will have driver controls. 
But Chris Urmson, director of the driverless car project at Google, said that the new prototypes do not have a steering wheel or brakes because a human passenger might not be able to take control in an emergency. He said that it was simpler just to have an emergency stop button. 
Urmson said: “The vehicles will be very basic. But they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And, that’s an important step towards improving road safety and helping millions of people travel around more easily.” 
So far, the Google versions of the driverless cars have driven 700,000 miles without an accident caused by the computer. The company says that thousands of people die each year on the roads and that about 80% of crashes are caused by human mistakes.",459
"The inventor of a state-of-the-art computer-assisted autopsy system that is increasingly being used in European hospitals has claimed the technique could eventually mean there is no such thing as a 'perfect murder'. 
The method, called 'Virtopsy', is now being used at selected forensic medical institutes in Europe, having been pioneered by a group of scientists at the University of Zurich. Instead of reaching for the scalpel and making the Y-shaped incision in the chest with which a traditional autopsy begins, pathologists are now able to examine the corpse in 3-D via computer screens. 
Michael Thali, the Director of Zurich’s Institute for Forensic Medicine in Europe, and one of the inventors of Virtopsy, said it had the potential to revolutionize criminal investigations. “Basically there will be no such thing as the perfect murder any more as a virtual autopsy allows you to find every piece of evidence,” he said. 
Virtopsies combine the images from high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and surface scans of dead bodies. Combined, the devices are referred to as a 'Virtobot'. The technique allows the detection of injuries such as lesions and blows often undetectable during a traditional autopsy, as well as air pockets, heart attacks and even cancer. 
“The Virtopsy has the potential to replace the autopsy one day,” Richard Dirndorfer, one of the pioneers of DNA analysis in criminology, and a founder developer of Virtopsy, told the German science magazine PM . “I think we’ll see it happen gradually, just like DNA analysis gradually replaced blood group analysis,” he said. 
The computer imaging techniques allow doctors to gain in-depth insights into the deepest interiors of dead bodies. The method has already allowed the discovery of haemorrhages and fractures that were not picked up during conventional autopsies. The initial aim is to use the new method to complement the traditional autopsy. 
“It will enable forensic scientists to plan their autopsies far more efficiently,” Dominic Wichmann, an internal medicine specialist at Hamburg’s University Hospital, told Spiegel. Criminologists from around the world have been travelling to Switzerland over the past few years to see the development of the new method for themselves. 
The US forensic medical drama CSI has already twice featured Virtopsies. In one, the system was able to prove that a murder victim was killed by a bullet through the cheek; in another, a Virtopsy on a murdered man meant his wish to be cryogenically frozen could still go ahead as his body remained intact. 
The method has been under development for decades, with the scientists behind it first housed in an unheated laboratory on a university campus where they were considered a bit of a laughing stock. Later, a donation from a rich ophthalmologist enabled the project to take off. Even then it was initially rejected for its potential to undermine the traditional skills of forensic scientists and pathologists. But a new generation appears to be seeing it as less of a threat and rather as something that will complement and substantiate conventional methods and possibly even one day replace them, though probably not entirely. 
“In order to analyze the colour of the blood, the consistencies (of body fluids) or smells, we’ll need to keep on with the conventional cut,” said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, which is using a version of the Virtopsy. 
He added that the new method was particularly helpful in re-examining cases where the cause of death was unclear. “It means that third opinions can be gathered, investigations can be re-examined and cases can be reopened,” he said. 
Scientists using the new method said that relatives of the dead, who are often reluctant for autopsies to be carried out because of the disfigurement they cause, were much keener on the non-invasive method.",460
"Cathal Redmond was swimming off the Greek coast. He took some photos of colourful fish with his first underwater camera and he was sure they would be great. But, when he looked at the photos later, they were brown and murky. The photos were bad because he was holding his breath underwater so he didn’t have enough time to take the pictures. He thought that all he needed was a little more time to photograph the fish in their natural environment.
To help with this problem, he has invented the Express Dive. It is a refillable air storage device, which you hold in your mouth. It lets you swim underwater for two minutes. It is somewhere between snorkelling, which is very limited, and scuba diving, which gives people the freedom to breathe underwater but needs heavy and expensive gear. The prototype of his invention looks like a combination of a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.
“I wanted to let people to do more – not just get underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath,” says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and watch fish in their natural environment. But all the equipment he needed was less enjoyable.
“I didn’t like that I had about 50kg of equipment on me. And getting into the water was quite strange when you are used to trying to stay at the surface. It was a very surreal experience,” he says. “The real problem is that scuba diving limits what you can do. It allows you to stay underwater for longer but it takes a lot of planning. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you – you can’t just walk on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it.”
It was during a final-year project for his degree that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the device takes in air through a vent in the mouthpiece. The air is compressed and stored in a tank, which has a light that flashes green when it is full. When it has finished taking in air, the vent closes and, when the person dives, air is fed back through the mouthpiece. The light turns from green to red when the air starts to runs out. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to refill.
Redmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to a snorkel. They have tested the prototype in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes of air into the device and that a person can hold the device in their mouth. 
What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, completely underwater for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is sure the device will work well and that it will not be dangerous for swimmers underwater. The device will probably cost £280, he says, and it will probably weigh from 1kg to 3kg.
Perhaps some people think two minutes of air is not enough and is not much better than snorkelling. But, Redmond says two minutes can make all the difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater. “Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,” he says.",461
"Hundreds of young Cubans are using a free, unrestricted internet service in the communist island nation. A small cultural centre in the capital city, Havana, has suddenly become a rare source of free wi-fi. The internationally known Cuban artist Kcho is providing the service. Perhaps more surprisingly, the state-owned telecommunications company, Etecsa, is allowing the service. 
People say the service is very slow, especially when the centre gets crowded. But, in a country where only about 5% of the population has open access to the internet, a facility that is both free and has no restrictions is very welcome. 
The chance to visit international news websites, communicate with friends and family overseas and use sites like Facebook and Twitter has created a lot of excitement. “I come as often as I can,” said Adonis Ortiz, 20. He is video-chatting with his father, who lives in the US and whom he has not seen in nine years. 
Diplomatic and trade relations between the US and Cuba are improving and American tech giants such as Google and Apple may soon enter the Cuban market. In the meantime, Cuba has installed a high-speed fibre-optic cable under the sea from Venezuela and internet users have some access to Chinese equipment. 
Another estimate is that a quarter of Cubans have access to the internet – still one of the lowest rates in the Western Hemisphere. But this estimate measures residents who use a restricted domestic intranet that only has certain websites and has limited email. 
Kcho, who has close relations with the Cuban government, said that his actions are allowed by the Ministry of Culture. The artist said he wanted to encourage Cubans to become familiar with the internet. “It’s only possible if you are determined and if you pay for it,” Kcho told the Associated Press. “It is expensive but the benefit is tremendous. I have something that is great and powerful. I can share it and I am doing so.” 
Kcho’s real name is Alexis Leiva Machado. He became famous internationally for his painting, sculpture and drawings when he won the grand prize at a festival in South Korea. Born on one of Cuba’s islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery. 
In the centre’s courtyard, tech-savvy young people relax throughout the day or just sit outside when it’s crowded. They use laptops and tablets or are glued to their smartphones. 
Cuba has some of the lowest internet-use rates in the world – dial-up accounts are restricted and at-home broadband is extremely rare. Only foreigners can pay for it because it costs hundreds of dollars a month for the service – in Cuba, the average salary is between $17 and $20 a month. Kcho pays $900 a month to provide the free wi-fi. 
Since 2013, Cuban authorities have opened hundreds of internet salons, where an hour online costs $4.50. The speeds are far lower than the speeds at Kcho’s studio, where they are about two megabytes per second (mbps). A 2014 report says that average internet connectivity speeds are about 10.5mbps in the US. South Korea has the fastest speeds in the world – 23.6mbps. The average speed in the world is about 3.9mbps. 
Lots of people usually use Kcho’s wi-fi at the same time so the signal strength is usually not strong. One user said he sometimes visits in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around, and, then, the speed is extremely fast.",462
"Sometimes life just isn’t fair. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook and is now worth an estimated $48bn. James Goodfellow also invented something used by millions of people around the world every day – the cash machine – but it didn’t make him rich. In fact, he earned just £10 from the patent and has not made a penny more from it since. 
“You can imagine how I feel when I see bankers getting £1m bonuses. I wonder what they contributed to the banking industry more than I did to merit a £1m bonus. It doesn’t make much sense to me but that’s the way of the world,” Goodfellow says. 
It also annoys him that he’s not seen as a good role model for inventors and engineers. He came up with a groundbreaking invention that generated billions of pounds “and I got nothing, so who’s going to want to follow in James Goodfellow’s footsteps and get £10 if they have a fantastic success?” 
There have been arguments for years over who should officially go down in history as “the inventor of the ATM” and, in 2005, a man called John Shepherd-Barron received a UK honour for services to banking as the “inventor of the automatic cash dispenser”. But, the UK government is now saying it was Goodfellow who invented the ATM – so it would seem that, after all the squabbling, his place in history is now assured. 
Back in the mid-1960s, Goodfellow was working as a development engineer and had been asked to devise a way to enable customers to withdraw cash from banks on Saturdays. “Most people working during the week couldn’t get to the bank. They wanted a solution. The solution was a machine which would issue cash on demand to a recognized customer,” he recalls. “I set out to develop a cash-issuing machine and, to make this a reality, I invented the PIN [personal identification number] and an associated coded token.” 
This token took the form of a plastic card with holes punched in it. The patent documents proposed a system incorporating a card reader and buttons mounted in an external wall of the bank and stated: “When the customer wishes to withdraw a pack of banknotes from the system, he simply inserts his punched card in the card reader of the system and operates the set of ten push-buttons in accordance with his personal identification number.” 
Aside from the cards with punched holes, that pretty much describes today’s ATM. After Goodfellow successfully demonstrated the methodology by producing a model, prototypes were built and the first machines were installed in 1967. 
At around the same time, Shepherd-Barron was developing a rival cash-dispensing device. His machine didn’t use plastic cards – instead, it used cheques impregnated with carbon-14, a mildly radioactive substance. The machine detected the carbon-14, matched the cheque against a PIN and paid out the cash. 
It is widely accepted that the Shepherd-Barron ATM was the “world’s first” when it comes to being installed and used by the public; the first one, at a bank in north London, was opened on 27 June, 1967 – a month before Goodfellow’s ATM made its public debut. However, the patent for Goodfellow’s machine was lodged on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before the London ATM machine came into service. 
The rivalry between the two men bubbled up when Shepherd-Barron received an official honour for his achievement. Goodfellow says: “My one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the OBE in 2005. This honour was granted on the basis that he was the inventor of the automatic cash dispenser. That really stuck in my throat and I kicked up a bit of a fuss.” Shepherd-Barron is no longer alive to put his case but, in a 2005 interview, he was fairly withering about his rival: “I don’t know him but it’s clear that the difference between Goodfellow and us was that we thought through the whole system concept and that was important to the banks who bought it. His invention reminds me of the hovercraft, an elegant failure.” 
The cash machine has become a world-conquering piece of technology and nothing – the contactless revolution, bitcoin, wearable technology, etc – seems to be slowing its growth: there are now 3m ATMs worldwide, with the number forecast to hit 4m by 2020. 
Goodfellow accepts he didn’t invent the concept of a cash-issuing machine “but I did invent a way of doing it. When people talk about the Wright brothers, they didn’t invent the concept of flying – everyone was trying to do it – but they did it and got the credit for inventing the aeroplane so I think I should get the credit for inventing the cash dispenser.” 
The good news for Goodfellow is that this is now starting to happen. The website ATMInventor.com concludes: “Who invented the idea of an ATM? We believe it was Luther George Simjian. Who invented the ATM as we know it? We have to think it was James Goodfellow in Scotland for holding a patent date of 1966. Who invented the ATM design we recognize today? We think it was John D White for Docutel in the US.” 
Even better for Goodfellow, his achievement has been officially recognized in the latest edition of a 180-page guidebook called Life in the United Kingdom. In the section about “great British inventions of the twentieth century ”, it states: “In the 1960s, James Goodfellow (1937-) invented the cash-dispensing automatic teller machine (ATM) or 'cashpoint'.” 
So after all these years, Goodfellow finally finds himself being talked about in the same breath as John Logie Baird (the television), Alan Turing (the Turing machine), Sir Frank Whittle (the jet engine) and Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the World Wide Web). Asked what he did with the £10 he received back in the 1960s, Goodfellow says he thinks he blew it on a wild night out, adding: “It didn’t change my life.” But, he concludes, it’s been a good working life: “I was very happy doing the job I was doing.”",463
"When Larry Pizzi, a veteran bicycle industry executive, first heard about electric bikes nearly 20 years ago, he asked: “Why would anyone want to screw up a bike by putting a motor and batteries on it?” 
It’s a question that still puzzles traditionalists. Bicycle shops have been slow to stock e-bikes, even though they have been around since the late 1990s. Sales in the US have been modest. 
Pizzi, who is now CEO of Currie Technologies, the number one seller of e-bikes in the US, believes that’s about to change. Others in the industry agree. Familiar brands including Trek, Raleigh and Specialized all offer electric models and they’re betting the market is about to take off. 
“We’re on the cusp of mainstream adoption,” Pizzi said. “There are more players entering the category, it seems, with every passing month.” 
The US is an outlier when it comes to electric bikes. Nearly 32m e-bikes were sold in 2014, the vast majority in China, where they are primarily used for transportation. They are popular in much of Europe, too. They’re common in the Netherlands and Switzerland; German postal workers use them to get around and BMW offers one for about $3,000. 
Electric bikes are different from motorcycles or mopeds, which rely on motorized power; they are bicycles that can be pedalled with – or without – assistance from an electric motor. Riding an e-bike feels like riding a conventional bike with a brisk tailwind; the motor helps you go faster or climb hills but it’s typically not the primary source of propulsion. Unlike mopeds, e-bicycles are usually permitted on bike paths and they can’t travel faster than 20mph. 
There’s debate about how many electric bikes are sold in the US and there is no official count. 
Estimates of annual sales range from about 50,000 to 175,000. That’s comparable to the number of electric cars sold in the US – 118,000 in 2014. Yet, while many people are aware of the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and Tesla, few have heard of e-bike companies Currie, Pedego or ElectroBike. 
To succeed, the electric bike business in the US must clear legal, cultural and financial hurdles. E-bikes are banned in some states, including New York, although the law isn’t strictly enforced. Traditionalists who own and staff bike shops don’t like putting motors on bicycles, citing, among other things, the added weight. Some e-bikes are close to 30kg. 
E-bikes are also pricey. While low-end models sell for as little as $700, Court Rye, the founder and editor of ElectricBikeReview.com, a popular website, says riders should expect to pay at least $1,500 for a quality e-bike with a good battery. Top-of-the-line models cost more than twice that. 
The companies that make and sell e-bikes say they can overcome those obstacles. 
E-bike technology, particularly the batteries, is improving. “Batteries are getting smaller, they’re getting lighter, they’re getting more reliable and they are lasting longer,” says Don DiCostanza, the founder and CEO of Pedego, an electric bikemaker and retailer. 
Companies like Bosch, the German electronics giant, and Shimano, the leading manufacturer of bicycle gears, are entering the business, which should help erode resistance from bike shops. “This has really caught the attention and the imagination of bicycle dealers,” says Currie’s Larry Pizzi. Pedego and startup ElectroBike aren’t waiting for the shops to come around; they are building their own stores. In the meantime, lobbying efforts are underway to permit the use of e-bikes everywhere. 
Perhaps most importantly, as more cities build cycling infrastructure, including dedicated bike lanes, bicycle commuting has become more popular. As the US Census Bureau reported in 2014, the number of bike commuters grew from about 488,000 in 2000 to 786,000 in 2012. That’s a “larger percentage increase than that of any other commuting mode,” the report notes. Electric bikes make commuting more practical – and fun – by easing worry about hills, headwinds, fatigue and sweat. 
Most of our customers are “ageing baby boomers who want to rekindle the experience they had as a kid,” says Pedego’s Don DiCostanza. “The main reason they stopped riding bikes was because of hills.” Pedego has opened nearly 60 stores in the US and it has sold bikes to tour companies in San Francisco and Washington, DC. 
ElectroBike, which operates 30 stores in Mexico, opened its first American store in Venice Beach, California in the autumn of 2014 and hopes to grow to 25 US stores in a year. CEO Craig Anderson says: “We want to help reduce traffic, help reduce our carbon footprint and promote a healthy lifestyle.” He tells customers: “Ride this once and try not to smile.” 
Startups like Pedego and ElectroBike will have to compete with big companies like Trek and Currie, which, in 2012, was acquired by the Accell Group, a public company based in the Netherlands that is Europe’s market leader in e-bikes. Accell owns the Raleigh brand, as well as Haibike, an award-winning German electric bike. 
“Accell has great expectations about e-bikes in North America,” Currie’s Larry Pizzi says. “While baby boomers are still a very important segment, we’re finding that a lot of younger people are using e-bikes for transportation, instead of cars.” 
Accell’s Yuba brand even sells a cargo bike with a stronger motor and rear rack. “You can carry two children,” says Pizzi. “You can carry 45kg of shopping. It’s a minivan alternative.”",464
"A major international row with wide-ranging implications for global drugs policy has erupted over the right of Bolivia’s indigenous Indian tribes to chew coca leaves, the principal ingredient in cocaine. Bolivia has obtained a special exemption from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the framework that governs international drugs policy, allowing its indigenous people to chew the leaves. 
Bolivia had argued that the convention was in opposition to its new constitution, adopted in 2009, which obliges it to “protect native and ancestral coca as cultural patrimony” and maintains that coca “in its natural state … is not a narcotic”. 
South American Indians have chewed coca leaves for centuries. The leaves reputedly provide energy and are said to have medicinal qualities. Supporters of Bolivia’s position praised it for standing up for the rights of indigenous people. “The Bolivian move is inspirational and groundbreaking,” said Danny Kushlick, Head of External Affairs at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which promotes drug liberalization. “It shows that any country that has had enough of the war on drugs can change the terms of its engagement with the UN conventions.” 
However, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which monitors implementation of the global drug treaties, has accused Bolivia of threatening the integrity of the international drug control regime. A number of countries – including the UK, the US, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Russia – opposed Bolivia’s demands. 
The UK’s submission to the UN, which oversees the convention, said that it “acknowledges and respects the cultural importance of the coca leaf in Bolivia”, but it adds: “The United Kingdom is … concerned that the reservation could lead to increases in coca production and – crucially – the amount of coca diverted to the cocaine trade. As such, the reservation would weaken international law as it relates to the global effort to tackle the drugs trade and could weaken the international community’s response to that trade.” 
The right of indigenous communities in South America’s Andean region to chew coca leaf was removed in 1964 when Bolivia was under a dictatorship and it signed up to the convention. But, under the terms of the agreement, Bolivia was given 25 years to implement the ban. This expired in 1989 and since then the issue has been under dispute. 
In 2011, Bolivia – whose President, Evo Morales, is a former coca producer – formally notified the UN of its withdrawal from the convention. On Friday it reacceded to the convention, but with an exemption from the prohibition on the chewing of coca leaves. 
The move is the first of its kind in the history of UN drug-control treaties and has sparked concerns that other countries may apply for amendments. The Russian government has argued that the move will lead to “an increase in illegal circulation of cocaine” and warned that “it also sets a dangerous precedent that could be used by other states in creating a more liberal drug-control regime”. 
The British parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that Bolivia’s request should be backed by the UK government, arguing that it was important that countries remained within the single convention. Bolivia’s re-accession could be blocked only if a third or more of the 184 countries that have signed up to the convention opposed its request. There are suspicions that the US and UK are frantically lobbying other countries to gain sufficient numbers to block Bolivia’s request. 
Nancie Prud’homme, Projects Director at the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, criticized the co-ordinated opposition to Bolivia’s demands. “These objections are legally questionable,” she said. “They support an arbitrary and over-broad provision and apply international drug laws in a vacuum. This is not appropriate. No state has paid any attention to decades of developing international norms on cultural and indigenous rights, which support Bolivia’s efforts.” 
The decision to ban coca chewing was based on a 1950 report produced by the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf, which proponents of drug liberalization say was not based on supporting evidence. In an interview in 1949, the head of the Commission, Howard B Fonda, signalled his opposition to the chewing of coca leaves before his inquiry had begun. Fonda told an interviewer: “We believe that the daily, inveterate use of coca leaves by chewing … is not only thoroughly noxious and therefore detrimental, but is also the cause of racial degeneration in many centres of population, and of the decadence that visibly shows in numerous Indians … Our studies will confirm the certainty of our assertions and we hope we can present a rational plan of action … to attain the absolute and sure abolition of this pernicious habit.” 
The growing of coca leaves is legal and licensed in Bolivia. The policy has been credited with a fall in cocaine production in the country, leading some experts to see the Bolivian model as a way forward for other countries.",465
"The roof is plastic held up by a crooked tree trunk and the desks just a jumble of cast-off chairs, but the students inside the Chemin des Dunes school are studying with the same intensity you would find in a seminar at Oxford University. At stake is the hope of a new life in France. 
“The French language is very difficult but we try hard. If we come every day, maybe we can touch our dreams,” says Kamal, a refugee from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur district who comes to three or four hours of classes every day. “It’s a good thing to keep your brain active.” 
The 29-year-old electrical engineer is one of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of refugees living in the “jungle” camp outside Calais who have applied for asylum in France and are eager to learn the language of what they hope will be their new home. 
Like many of his fellow students, he is frustrated that media coverage of the sprawling tent-village has focused only on those who use it as a staging post for risky nightly bids to sneak on board cross-Channel lorries or trains. 
“I need to tell people in the UK, they think that everyone wants to go there. But there are a lot of people here who want to stay in France,” Kamal said. 
France is already home to more than a quarter of a million refugees, according to United Nations data – the country has taken in more than twice as many as the UK, even though the countries have similar populations. 
There are a further 56,000 asylum seekers waiting for their claim to a French safe haven to be processed – the second highest number in Europe – while, in the UK, there are 36,000. 
While the applicants wait for an answer, though, France does not provide them with any financial support or allow them to work – and the slow process can take many months. The jungle camp offers a free meal a day and a plastic roof over their heads so many decide to endure the basic conditions for a few extra months, rather than potentially jeopardize their asylum bid by working illegally. 
The idea for the school was first touted by some of that group at the start of the summer, when they were bored with sitting around waiting and nervous about starting a new life in France totally unable to communicate. It was a reality within weeks, opening on 11 July. 
“We did it to reunite the 'brothers' and, at the same time, they can learn French,” said Zimarco Jones, the school’s Nigerian founder, who arrived in Calais in 2013 and is still waiting for his asylum claim to be processed. “Now, we need to build another one,” he says with a grin. 
At its busiest, the tiny classroom holds 30 pupils, crammed into five rows of desks in front of a big green chalkboard and pictures of cartoon animals for each letter of the French alphabet. There are also classes in English, art and t’ai chi but the biggest draw is the French lessons, provided by volunteers from Calais and beyond. 
“French is not as easy as English but, two weeks ago, I decided there was no way to get to the UK,” says George, another Darfur refugee and dedicated student. He wanted to cross the Channel because he speaks fluent English but, with language classes, he says he is happy to settle in France. 
“Anywhere there is peace, I can stay, no problem,” he says, already waiting at the classroom more than half an hour before his teachers arrive. 
He admits he doesn’t know much about France but says that the classes are slowly helping him understand the country as well as the language. 
Many of the volunteers at the jungle school are local teachers who are giving up their summer holidays. 
Jenny Flahaut, 33, who works at a children’s home, was inspired to volunteer after seeing an advertisement on Facebook. “I saw these people in Calais every day and I wanted to do something for them,” she said. 
She is particularly frustrated by the depiction of migrants in the media and by politicians who have never visited the camp, most recently David Cameron, the British prime minister, who in a much criticized speech talked about “swarms” of people trying to reach the UK. 
“They don’t know them and have a bad vision but they are not like that,” Flahaut said as she prepared for an afternoon lesson. “Most of them are very good people. They are welcoming and friendly. They want to improve their life and make it better, and learning is part of that.” 
The teachers and Zimarco are focused, now, on setting up a separate classroom to serve around 200 women and two dozen children. The women are outnumbered around ten to one by men in the Calais encampment and most feel uncomfortable attending classes with male students they don’t know, the volunteers say. 
When that is finished, the former hotel worker whose work getting the school off the ground is remembered in its unofficial name – everyone in the camp just calls it “Zimarco’s school” – has more dreams for making the camp a place to live, not just survive. He wants to set up a football team for migrants, he explains over an instant cappuccino in the immaculate tent he calls home, and even dreams of changing the camp name. He hates “the jungle” because he says it implies the residents aren’t people. 
“We have a discotheque, a house, a mosque, a school, shops,” he says. “We are not animals.”",466
"Moses King, 48, is HIV positive. HIV is common in Liberia. King gets medicine for the disease from the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children cannot get the right food to eat. A poor farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. But he could not afford meat and fish – expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein. 
Pate K Chon, who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, has found a solution. She watched a film about a fish farm in Thailand several years ago and had the idea of starting a similar project in Liberia, so that HIV sufferers could have work and also get a source of protein. 
“I saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea,” said Chon, who is also HIV positive. “So many of the people I work with don’t have the money to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein – it doesn’t cause health problems like other sources and it is something we can farm.” 
Chon began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, she met John Sheehy. He raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, and started learning about fish farming, doing an online course and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa. 
“I raised the money and built the farm, learned how to build the tanks and water flow system,” said Sheehy. “I learnt a lot on my own and now I would love to be able to write a book and share my knowledge with other people,” he said. 
The project is now a fish farm with 12 tanks, each with 5,000 fish – and will give up to 200,000 fish per year to a community of 1,200 mainly HIV-positive people, including King and his family. In addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to water crops, also giving food and money to the community. 
“Many people in the community work on the farm,” said Sheehy, “and what they get in return is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other food. The fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society – now they are buying and selling with people in the market every week.” 
1.5% of Liberia’s 3.5 million people are HIV positive. Good nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. They need much more protein to stop their health getting worse and to allow healthy growth. “Nutrition is one of the key things if you are taking drugs to treat HIV,” said Chon. “The drugs are toxic and if you don’t have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive rice from other countries and fish is difficult for most people to afford.” 
“Fish farming is absolutely possible in Africa,” said Paul White, owner of a fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. But some people criticize farmed fish – they say the fish can be inbred and have high levels of toxins. Sheehy says they do not have those problems. “A lot of farmed fish is inbred, which causes problems, but we are using a process with local fish from Liberia, not fish from another region. And we test the water and watch it all the time.” 
Sheehy hopes to open more fish farms throughout Liberia and the region. “A rice-growing co-operative in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America,” said Sheehy.",467
"A Canadian man who sprang to fame after offering a free round-the-world trip to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend has returned from the jaunt with his chosen namesake, although, to the dismay of those following the story, love did not blossom between the pair. Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old Toronto real-estate developer turned charity founder, made it back to Canada with Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher but said the pair had “forged a brother-sister-like relationship”. 
Axani had made headlines in 2014 after offering an air ticket to any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher. He had booked a three-week vacation with his ex-girlfriend but, after they split up, he was unable to change the name on the flights. 
That’s where Axani’s new travelmate, a 23-year-old student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, came in. Gallagher, who goes by the name Quinn, replied to a Reddit post Axani had submitted – along with other hopeful Elizabeth Gallaghers – and was selected. Gallagher had made it clear before the trip that she had a “pretty serious” boyfriend but that had not stopped romantics, and journalists, from hoping the globetrotters might fall for one another. Unfortunately, it was not to be. 
“It wasn’t easy and it certainly wasn’t immediate. It took us about a week to really figure each other out,” Axani said. There was a certain amount of “natural stumbling” around “the dos and don’ts of travelling together” as the pair got to know each other.
“I’m going to be explicitly clear,” Axani said, shortly after the pair returned to Toronto. “This was never a romantic endeavour. It was strictly platonic. I do not think of Quinn in a romantic light in the least. There is no future for us romantically. She is a good friend. I think of her as a little sister but that will be it. And her feelings are entirely mutual in that regard.” It took work to establish that brother-sister, good-friend, no-future-for-us-romantically relationship, however. other. “At the end of it, we’d developed a really great rhythm of, one second, having really funny inside jokes, and, the next second, knowing when the other needed space.” 
Although the pair failed to fall for one another, Axani said the trip, which took in Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Khao Lak (in Thailand) and Hong Kong, was “fantastic”. A favourite place was Prague, Axani said, where they “had the largest groundswell of people reaching out”. 
“Over the course of two and a half days, I think we met about two dozen people. So that’s a lot of stories, that’s a lot of individuals and that’s a lot of love for their home city of Prague.” 
People were following the pair on Twitter and Instagram, Axani said, and they were even recognized in the street in Hong Kong. “It was a real adventure. We had a blast. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other. I think, coming out of it, I can’t imagine it going much better than it did.” 
Axani made it back to Toronto at 3am on Monday, 12 January, when the holiday came to an abrupt halt. He went straight into a board meeting with fellow board members at his charity, A Ticket Forward. Axani started the non-profit organization after his Reddit post went viral and intends to offer round-the-world-trips to survivors of abuse, cancer and war. 
Alongside that, Axani is also in talks to spin his story into a television show or film, although he would not comment on what form those productions might take. “Suffice to say there’s been significant interest from many production companies. We’re well advanced.” In terms of his love life, Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher just yet. “I’m not looking for anything, per se, but life happens and we’ll see,” he said. “As always, life’s a journey.”",468
"You can see a thick layer of bird droppings inside one of Britain’s most expensive properties. Pigeon skeletons lie among shattered mirrors and water streams through broken walls. This is The Tower, a £30m palace in “Billionaires’ Row” in north London, whose spectacular ruin has been kept secret until now.
It is one of ten mansions in the middle of The Bishops Avenue that have stood almost completely vacant since they were bought a quarter of a century ago, it is believed for members of the Saudi Arabian royal family. Their Grecian columns are cracking into pieces and mosaic-tiled swimming pools are filled with rubble. Nature has taken over and owls have moved in.
It is a sad scene repeated up and down the avenue that Lloyds Bank has calculated is the second most expensive street in Britain. While more and more people struggle to get on to London’s property ladder as house prices rise at 11.2% a year, 16 mansions on the most expensive part of The Bishops Avenue are empty, many behind locked gates, their overgrown grounds guarded by dogs.
Across the street stands another derelict mansion, worth £18m, with smashed windows and walls painted with anti-climb paint. Metal grilles block the windows of another, which has been sold for £20m.
The sight of the derelict properties can be agonizing for people who are struggling to keep a roof above their heads in one of the world’s most expensive cities. One security guard who works on the avenue said it was exasperating to see so many properties – enough to house dozens of people – falling apart.
Oil-rich royals from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia were among the first to come to this road near Hampstead Heath. Iranians fled here after the fall of the shah. Now, Chinese house hunters are following Russians and Kazakhs who have spent millions to get an address that estate agents tell them is as world famous as the Champs Elysées and Rodeo Drive. Recently, two mansions have been on sale for £65m and £38m, promising endless Italian marble, leather-padded lifts and luxury panic rooms.
However, in the gardens of the empty mansions, stone fountains crumble. Inside one mansion, water drips through a huge crystal chandelier onto a thick carpet rotting under sections of collapsed ceiling. Moss grows through shattered bricks and mirrored tiles are lying on a bathroom floor. The swimming pool is filled with dirty water and has flowers growing through its tiles. The wood in the sauna is coming off the walls.
But it is the ruin of The Towers, a grand mansion set among acres of trees, that is most dramatic. Its huge, high-ceiling halls are occupied by pigeons and its walls have been turned bright green by algae. Unopened wooden boxes marked “bullet-proof glass” show the security fears of the previous owners.
Today, very few people live on The Bishops Avenue full time. A security guard patrolling the pavement outside one mansion said that the owners were not there. Another, outside Royal Mansion, would not say if anyone was home, while a member of staff at another mansion simply warned the Guardian about the guard dogs. Magdy Adib Ishak-Hannah, whose personal wealth is £45m, said he was in the minority of permanent residents.
“It’s not a neighbourly place, where you can chat over the fence,” he said. “To be honest, I have never seen what my neighbours look like. Next door, a Saudi princess spent £35m on a new house and I’ve never seen her. There are about three houses that are lived in 24/7 and half of the properties are occupied three to six months a year. The other half, who knows if they come or not?”
The multimillion-pound ruins are evidence of a property culture in which the world’s richest people see British property as investments.
Nevertheless, the talk on the avenue is about building £5m apartments, instead of £50m mansions, in an effort to bring people back.
Anil Varma, a local property developer, has decided to rebuild one of the most valuable sites on the avenue as a collection of 20 apartments with a concierge, maid service, 25-metre pool, spa and cinema.
“If you build a big house and try and sell for £30m to £40m, it won’t sell,” he said. “Locals won’t buy and so you have to bring in overseas buyers.”
But nobody plans to use the avenue’s empty property to help solve the housing crisis. Andrew Harper, a local Conservative politician, laughed when he was asked whether some of the derelict housing could become cheap homes. He said the price of the land is far too high.",469
"Water scientists have given one of the strongest warnings ever about global food supplies. They say that the world’s population may have to change almost completely to a vegetarian diet by 2050 to avoid catastrophic shortages.
Humans get about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now. However, this may need to decrease to just 5% to feed the extra two billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world’s top water scientists.
“There will not be enough water to produce food for the expected nine-billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations,” the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
“There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories.”
Warnings that water scarcity could limit food production come at the same time as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for items such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June. The price increase has been caused by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel.
Oxfam says that the price increase will have a devastating effect in developing countries that rely heavily on food imports, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages in 2008 led to fighting and riots in 28 countries.
Changing to a vegetarian diet is one way to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in a world where the climate is becoming increasingly erratic, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food uses five to ten times more water than a vegetarian diet. One third of the world’s arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals. Other options to feed people include stopping waste and increasing trade between countries that have a food surplus and countries that don’t have enough food.
“Nine hundred million people already go hungry and two billion people are malnourished although per-capita food production continues to increase,” they said. “Seventy per cent of all water is used in agriculture, and growing more food to feed an extra two billion people by 2050 will place greater pressure on water and land.”
The report is being released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN groups, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries meet to discuss global water supply problems.
Competition for water between food production and other uses will increase pressure on essential resources, the scientists said. “The UN predicts that we must increase food production by 70% by mid-century. This will put additional pressure on our water resources, which are already stressed, at a time when we also need more water to satisfy global energy demand and to create electricity for the 1.3 billion people who are without it,” said the report.
Overeating, malnourishment and waste are all increasing. “We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,” said the report’s editor, Anders Jägerskog.",470
"The balls have dropped down the chute and all six numbers match, so it’s time to buy that Audi, book the holiday in the US and phone the estate agent. At least, that’s what most lottery millionaires do, according to an analysis of spending and investment by jackpot winners. 
Since its launch in 1994, the lottery has created 3,000 millionaires who have won more than £8.5bn in total, at an average of £2.8m each. The trickle-down effect means that between them they have created a further 3,780 millionaires among their children, family and friends, according to the authors of the study, Oxford Economics. 
Most winners (59%) give up work straight away, but 19% carry on doing the day job and 31% do unpaid voluntary work. The good news for the economy is that 98% of winners’ spending remained in the UK. Through their spending on property, vehicles and holidays, it is estimated that each winner keeps six people in a full-time job for a year. 
Winners have contributed almost £750m to gross domestic product (GDP), and generated more than £500m in tax receipts for the Exchequer. The bulk of the money went on property, with £2.72bn spent on winners’ main properties, and £170m in paying off existing debt and mortgages. 
Maintaining income was a priority, with £2.125bn spent on investments. Gifts to family and friends accounted for £1.17bn, and £680m was spent on cars and holidays. 
The study, commissioned by Camelot, the operators of the UK National Lottery, to mark the 3,000-winners milestone, was based on research from 100 £1m-plus winners. It found that in total the 3,000 winners have purchased 7,958 houses or flats in the UK, or 2.7 each, spending £3.3bn. Most winners (82%) changed their main residence, spending an average £900,000. 
The new home is likely to come with a hot tub, with almost a third (29%) putting that on their shopping list. A walk-in wardrobe was a must for 28%, almost a quarter (24%) opted for a property behind electric gates, and 22% had a games room, with 7% installing a snooker table. 
Larger properties need maintaining, and 30% of winners employed a cleaner and 24% a gardener. A small proportion (5%) employed a beautician. 
Audis were the favourite cars of 16% of winners, with Range Rovers and BMWs also popular purchases (11% each), as well as Mercedes (10%) and Land Rovers (5%). Winners spent £463m on 17,190 cars, with the average price of their favourite being £46,116. 
Holidays were also a priority. The majority (68%) choose five-star hotels overseas. The US was the favoured destination for 27%, followed by the Caribbean (9%). Closer to home, however, UK caravan sales have benefited. Over the past 18 years, 10% of millionaires have bought a caravan, generating sales worth about £7.4m. 
Some winners (15%) have started their own businesses, 9% have helped others to do so, and 6% have invested in or bought other people’s businesses. Businesses started or supported by lottery winners employ 3,195 people, according to the study. 
Andy Logan, author of the report, said: “The effect of a win spreads much further and wider than we anticipated. Not only does it transform the lives of friends and family, but each win has a measurable effect on the UK economy, especially with so much of it being spent in the UK. The use of each win creates a ripple effect across this generation and very often the next.”",471
"Cities don’t often decide to pack their bags, get up and move down the road. But that’s exactly what Kiruna, an Arctic town in northern Sweden, has to do – to avoid being swallowed up into the earth.
“It’s a terrible choice,” says Krister Lindstedt of White, the Swedish architects company that is managing the biblical task. They have to move this city of 23,000 people away from a gigantic iron-ore mine that is fast swallowing up the ground beneath its streets. “Either the mine must stop digging, creating mass unemployment, or the city has to move.”
Founded in 1900 by the state-owned Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara mining company (LK), Kiruna has grown rich off the vast amount of iron ore that is below the town but it’s now facing destruction by exactly the thing that made it rich. “The town is here because of the mine,” says Deputy Mayor Niklas Siren. “Otherwise, no one would have built a city here.”
Located 145km inside the Arctic Circle, Kiruna has a brutal climate. It has winters with no sunlight and average temperatures below -15C. But the iron ore has kept people here. It has become the world’s largest underground iron-ore mine. It produces 90% of all the iron in Europe, enough to build more than six Eiffel Towers a day. And demand continues to grow.
In 2004, the mining company told the town that its days were numbered: digging its shafts towards the city at an angle of 60 degrees, subsidence would soon lead to buildings cracking and collapsing. Ten years later, cracks are starting to appear in the ground, and they are creeping closer and closer to the town.
“The people of Kiruna have been living in limbo for ten years,” says Viktoria Walldin, a social anthropologist who works with the architects. “They have put their lives on hold, unable to make major decisions like buying a house, redecorating, having a child or opening a business.”
After years of dithering, the city finally has a plan for how it will proceed. Lindstedt has a plan that shows the town’s streets and squares beginning to crawl eastwards along a new high street, until the whole place has moved safely away from the mine by 2033.
A new town square is already being built, 3km to the east, with a circular town hall planned by Danish architect Henning Larsen. Twenty other key buildings will be dismantled and put together piece by piece in their new home – like an Ikea flatpack on a bigger scale. Kiruna’s red wooden church, built in 1912 and once voted Sweden’s most beautiful building, will take pride of place in a new park, and the bell tower will stand once again above the town hall. But not everything will be saved.
“I spoke to an old lady who walks past the bench every day where she had her first kiss,” says Walldin. “It’s things like that – the hospital where your first child was born, for example – that are important to people and all that’s going to disappear.”
Called “the most democratic move in history”, the project will get £320m from the mining company for building new facilities, including a high school, fire station, community centre, library and swimming hall. But the biggest worry for most people is where they will actually live and how they will get a house or flat.
“People are used to very low rents and very high incomes but, in future, this will have to change” says Lindstedt. LK has agreed to compensate residents to the value of their homes plus 25% but many locals say this is not enough to afford a new-build house.
A closer look at the plan shows the new town does not look like the original Kiruna at all. The current town has winding streets and detached houses with gardens. White’s plan has multi-storey apartment blocks around shared courtyards in long straight streets.
It is an opportunity, say the architects, for Kiruna to “reinvent itself” into a town that will attract young people. There will be new cultural facilities and “visionary” things such as a cable car above the high street. But it is a vision that many of the existing residents will probably not be able to afford.",472
"On an average day its outlets are a hive of social activity, hosting everything from business meetings to reading groups looking for that all-important morning caffeine rush. But Starbucks should be careful what it wishes for. 
The direct action group UK Uncut plans to turn dozens of the coffee empire’s UK branches into crèches, refuges and homeless shelters to highlight the chain’s tax avoidance tactics. 
The announcement of the action comes on the day a Starbucks executive faces questions from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee over why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years, despite senior US management trumpeting the company’s profitable operations in Britain. 
In his appearance before the committee, Starbucks’ Chief Financial Officer, Troy Alstead, will attempt to repair the company’s reputation, which continues to suffer because of the controversy. 
MPs accused HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) officials of having cosy relationships with big businesses. Speaking about the arrangements with Starbucks, the Conservative MP Richard Bacon said: “It smells. And it doesn’t smell of coffee – it smells bad.” 
The campaign group UK Uncut is attempting to draw a link between government cuts, in particular those that affect women, and tax avoidance by multinational businesses. 
Sarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said funding for refuges and rape crisis centres faced cuts unless companies paid their fair share of tax. HMRC estimates around £32bn was lost to tax avoidance in 2011. 
Greene said the government could easily bring in billions that could fund vital services by clamping down on tax avoidance. 
The group, which rose to prominence after staging a sit-in at Vodafone stores, Topshop and Fortnum & Mason, turned its attentions to Starbucks last month after an investigation by Reuters discovered the company had paid only £8.6m in corporation tax since launching in the UK in 1998, despite cumulative sales of £3bn. 
Longstanding Uncut campaigner Anna Walker said “We’ve chosen to really highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So there is going to be a real focus on transforming Starbucks into those services that are being cut by the government … [such as] refuges and crèches. 
“Starbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street across the country and that’s what UK Uncut finds really important: people can take action in their local areas,” she said. 
Several international organizations have faced criticism over their UK accounts, with Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google and Ikea all paying little or no corporation tax despite large British operations. 
However, according to pollsters at YouGov’s BrandIndex, Starbucks has suffered the deepest damage to its image. 
The coffee store chain insists it pays the correct level of taxes. The group Chief Executive, Howard Schultz, has said in a statement: “Starbucks has always paid taxes in the UK despite recent suggestions to the contrary. 
“Over the last three years alone, our company has paid more than £160m in various taxes, including National Insurance contributions, VAT and business rates.” 
Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, told parliament last month that Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks had avoided nearly £900m of tax. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, responded to the claim by saying: “I’m not happy with the current situation. I think [HMRC] needs to look at it very carefully. We do need to make sure we are encouraging these businesses to invest in our country as they are, but they should be paying fair taxes as well.” 
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said: “While the subject of tax law can be extremely complex, Starbucks respects and complies with tax laws and accounting rules in each of the 61 countries where we do business, including the UK – a market that we remain committed to for the long term. We’ve posted the facts about our tax practices in the UK on our website. 
“Starbucks’ economic impact in the UK goes far beyond our stores and partners [employees]. We spend hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and renovations. When you take into account the indirect employment created by Starbucks’ investments in the UK, the company’s extended economic impact to the UK economy exceeds £80m annually. 
“We hope that UK Uncut will respect the wellbeing of our partners and customers, and recognize the value that we add to the economy, creating jobs and apprenticeships, as well as paying our fair share of taxes in the UK.”",473
"Nelson Mandela, the towering figure of Africa’s struggle for freedom and a hero to millions around the world, has died at the age of 95. 
South Africa’s first black president died in the company of his family at home in Johannesburg after years of declining health, which had caused him to withdraw from public life. 
The news was announced to the country by the current president, Jacob Zuma, who, in a sombre televised address, said Mandela had “departed” around 8.50pm local time and was at peace. 
“This is the moment of our deepest sorrow,” Zuma said. “Our nation has lost its greatest son. What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves. 
“Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.” 
Zuma announced that Mandela would receive a state funeral and ordered that flags fly at half-mast. 
Archbishop Desmond Tutu led a memorial service in Cape Town, where he called for South Africa to become as a nation what Mandela had been as a man. 
Barack Obama led tributes from world leaders, referring to Mandela by his clan name – Madiba. The US president said: “Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa – and moved all of us. 
“His journey from a prisoner to a president embodied the promise that human beings – and countries – can change for the better. His commitment to transfer power and reconcile with those who jailed him set an example that all humanity should aspire to, whether in the lives of nations or our own personal lives.” 
UK prime minister David Cameron said, “A great light has gone out in the world,” and described Mandela as “a hero of our time”. 
FW de Klerk – the South African president who freed Mandela, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993 and paved the way for him to become South Africa’s first post-apartheid head of state – said the news was deeply saddening for South Africa and the world. 
“He lived reconciliation. He was a great unifier,” de Klerk said. 
People gathered in the streets of South Africa to celebrate Mandela’s life. 
In Soweto, people gathered to sing and dance near the house where he once lived. They formed a circle in the middle of Vilakazi Street and sang songs from the anti-apartheid struggle. Some people were draped in South African flags and the green, yellow and black colours of Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela’s death sends South Africa deep into mourning and self-reflection, nearly 20 years after he led the country from racial apartheid to inclusive democracy. 
But his passing will also be keenly felt by people around the world, who revered Mandela as one of history’s last great statesmen, and a moral paragon comparable with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It was his act of forgiveness, after spending 27 years in prison, 18 of them on Robben Island, that will assure his place in history. With South Africa facing possible civil war, Mandela sought reconciliation with the white minority to build a new democracy. 
He led the ANC to victory in the country’s first multiracial election in 1994. He then voluntarily stepped down after one term. 
Born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga in a small village in the Eastern Cape on 18 July, 1918, Mandela was given his English name, Nelson, by a teacher at his school. 
He joined the ANC in 1943 and became a co-founder of its youth league. In 1952, he started South Africa’s first black law firm with his partner, Oliver Tambo. 
Mandela was a charming, charismatic figure with a passion for boxing and an eye for women. He once said: “I can’t help it if the ladies take note of me. I am not going to protest.” 
When the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went underground. After the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 black protesters were shot dead by police, he took the difficult decision to launch an armed struggle. He was arrested and eventually charged with sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government. 
Conducting his own defence in the Rivonia trial in 1964, he said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. 
“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” 
He escaped the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison, a huge blow to the ANC, which had to regroup to continue the struggle. But unrest grew in townships and international pressure on the apartheid regime slowly tightened. 
Finally, in 1990, FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and Mandela was released from prison amid scenes of jubilation witnessed around the world. 
His presidency rode a wave of tremendous global goodwill but was not without its difficulties. After leaving frontline politics in 1999, he admitted he should have moved sooner against the spread of HIV and Aids in South Africa. 
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed the truth and reconciliation committee after the fall of apartheid, said: “He transcended race and class in his personal actions, through his warmth and through his willingness to listen and to empathize with others. And he restored others’ faith in Africa and Africans.” 
Mandela continued to make occasional appearances at ANC events and attended the inauguration of the current president, Jacob Zuma. His 91st birthday was marked by the first annual “Mandela Day” in his honour. 
Married three times, he had six children, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.",474
"The National Security Agency (NSA) has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top-secret document. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. 
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims “collection directly from the servers” of major US service providers. Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a request for comment denied knowledge of any such program. 
In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.” 
Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one said. An Apple spokesman said he had “never heard” of PRISM. 
The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012. The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US. It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants. 
Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers. The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata. Some of the world’s largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online. Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks. The extent and nature of the data collected from each company varies. Companies are legally obliged to comply with requests for users’ communications under US law, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies’ servers. The NSA document notes the operations have the “assistance of communications providers in the US ”. The revelation also supports concerns raised by several US senators during the renewal of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in December 2012, who warned about the scale of surveillance the law might enable and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces. When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA’s inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. 
But the PRISM program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications off the companies’ servers. 
A chart prepared by the NSA, contained within the top-secret document, highlights the breadth of the data it is able to obtain: email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers, social networking details and more. The document is recent, dating to April 2013. Such a leak is extremely rare in the history of the NSA, which prides itself on maintaining a high level of secrecy. 
The PRISM program allows the NSA, the world’s largest surveillance organization, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders. With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications and perform real-time collection on targeted users. 
A senior administration official said in a statement: “The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person located within the United States. The program is subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch and Congress. It involves extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-US persons outside the US are targeted and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about US persons. 
“This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate. Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.”",475
"SeaWorld’s profits fell by 84% and customers are staying away from the water theme park company because a film claimed that it mistreated orca whales.
The company teaches dolphins and killer whales to do tricks in front of large crowds of people.
It says fewer people are going to its parks and profits have reduced.
SeaWorld has been in the news since the 2013 documentary film Blackfish, which said that SeaWorld mistreated orca whales – this made the whales act violently and caused the deaths of three people.
Animal rights organizations say that orcas kept in tanks die at a younger age than wild whales. SeaWorld started a national marketing campaign to show this isn’t true.
SeaWorld has reduced ticket prices and spent $10m on a marketing campaign. But SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby said that the company still finds it difficult to convince people that it treats its whales well.
“We realize we have much work to do,” Manby said. Talking about the company’s reputation, he said, “Early feedback on our marketing campaign has been positive.”
“We will continue to fight with the facts because the facts are on our side,” he said.
Manby joined the company as CEO in 2015 to help the company recover. He will give a presentation about his ideas for the future of the company on 6 November.
There are already plans for a new shark exhibition in Orlando and an attraction in San Antonio that will allow customers to swim with dolphins.
The company’s financial report from 6 August showed that their profit in the second quarter dropped from $37.4 million in 2014 to $5.8 million in 2015. This is an 84% decrease. At the same time, the number of visitors dropped by more than 100,000 from 6.58 million to 6.48 million.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an organization that is against SeaWorld. Jared Goodman from PETA said: “SeaWorld has lots of problems. Animals are dying in its tanks and tens of thousands of people do not want it to build a new orca prison. Families don’t want to buy tickets to see orcas going insane inside tiny tanks and SeaWorld’s profits won’t increase until it closes its parks and builds sanctuaries by the coast.”
SeaWorld’s shares, which were worth $39 in 2013, fell to just under $18 in August 2015.”",476
"James Hamblin, senior editor of American magazine The Atlantic, recently joined the unwashed masses. As part of his series, ’If Our Bodies Could Talk’, Hamblin, a relatively sane- looking man, took on a no-showering challenge to examine the effect of over-cleansing the body. He reduced the number of showers he had and eliminated shampoo and soap when he did. In doing so, he discovered what thousands of others have: the more we fervently try to clean ourselves with soaps, body washes and those silly little body polishers, the harder our skin works to restore equilibrium, encouraging us to begin the whole bewildering process again. Showering strips the skin of its own oil and bacteria – which, many would argue, is the whole point of showering – but, apparently, this sometimes works a little too well, especially when you add hot water and cleansing products to the mix. 
You know that feeling after a shower when you feel like you’re stuck in a skin suit two sizes too small? That’s because much of your skin’s natural moisture has been washed down the drain. Additionally, our skin, much like our gut, plays host to millions of beneficial bacteria. Showering destroys these happy bacterial colonies; they’re completely wiped out by all of our frequent rubbing and scrubbing. And, when the bacteria washed off by soap repopulate, they tend to favour microbes which produce an odour – yes, too-frequent showering may actually make you smell more. When you stop showering and using soap, however, your skin goes through an initial (likely gross) adjustment period, after which the skin typically restores balance, oil production slows and healthy bacteria flourish. 
After everything was said and done, Hamblin realized what other no-soap/no-shower devotees have known for years: that the human body, functioning on its own, is actually quite lovely. It’s not just scent or aesthetics, either – although dermatologists suggest that slowing down on soap use can improve acne and eczema. 
Reducing the frequency of showers (and the number of cleansing products used) has very real implications for our environment. The average shower lasts seven minutes and uses 65 litres of water. That’s 65 litres of clean, drinkable water that we’re infusing with soap and washing down the drain each and every day – sometimes more than once. 
The vital importance of clean water is becoming harder and harder to ignore, as California enters another summer of drought. It’s becoming clear that clean water is one of the world’s most valuable commodities and one that will soon be in short supply. Add in the environmental effect of all those body wash bottles and you’ve got yourself a handful of very compelling reasons to let your body go au naturel. 
If this whole thing is giving you the heebie-jeebies as you recall the last time you were cheek by jowl with those who evidently already skimp on the showers – and have clearly not reached the scent-free stage yet – relax. Many cleansing- reduction enthusiasts still use deodorant if they find it necessary (everyone’s natural scent varies in intensity and can be affected by a host of factors including diet, hydration and exercise) and hand-washing with soap is still recommended as a vital way to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. 
You don’t need to go cold turkey, as Hamblin did, but in between thrice-daily disinfecting sessions and giving up showers altogether there lies room for our familiar, simple advice. Reduce. Skip a few showers, put down the soap and let those lovely little bacteria flourish a little, would you?",477
"Galina Zaglumyonova was woken in her flat in central Chelyabinsk by a very big explosion that broke the balcony windows and broke pots containing her houseplants. When she jumped out of bed she could see a huge vapour trail in the morning sky and hear car alarms from the street below. 
“I didn’t understand what was going on,” said Zaglumyonova. “There was a big explosion and then lots of little explosions. My first thought was that it was a plane crash.” In fact, it was a ten-tonne meteorite that fell to Earth in lots of pieces. 
Almost 1,200 people were injured. More than 40 people were taken to hospital – most of them were hurt by flying glass. There were no deaths. 
The meteorite entered the atmosphere at a speed of at least 33,000 miles per hour and broke into pieces between 18 and 32 miles above the ground.
The event caused panic in Chelyabinsk, a city of more than one million people to the south of Russia’s Ural mountains. People could see the vapour trail for hundreds of miles, even from neighbouring Kazakhstan. 
Tatyana Bets was at work in the reception area of a hospital clinic in the centre of the city when the meteorite hit. “First we noticed the wind, and then the room was filled with a very bright light and we could see smoke in the sky,” she said. Then, after a few minutes, the explosions came. 
At least three craters were found. One crater was more than six metres wide. Another piece of meteorite broke through the thick ice of a lake. 
In Chelyabinsk, schools and universities were closed and people were told to go home early. About 200 children were injured. 
Many people, mostly with cuts from flying glass, came into the clinic where Bets works. She said many of the students at a nearby college came to the hospital. “There were a lot of girls in shock”, she said. 
More than 100,000 square metres of glass were broken and 3,000 buildings were hit. The total cost of the damage in the city is probably more than one billion roubles (£20 million). 
The meteorite arrived a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 passed Earth very closely (about 17,510 miles). But experts said the two events were not connected. 
There were lots of rumours in the first few hours after the incident. Reports on Russian state television and in local media suggested that the Russian military blew apart the meteorite. 
The ultra-nationalist leader of Russia’s Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said it was not a meteorite. He said it was a weapons test by the United States. 
Some people were selling pieces of meteorite through internet sites within a few hours of the impact. 
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that it shows us that the whole planet is vulnerable.",478
"Pope Benedict XVI arrived in 2005 as “a simple, humble worker in God’s vineyard”. And on a grey, cold, windy Monday in February, he resigned in the same way: like an elderly labourer who can no longer ignore the pains in his back; who can no longer rely on the strength of his arms. A traditional Pope, he made his excuses in Latin. The first German Pope in modern times gave an exact departure time. “From 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours”, he told a group of cardinals in the Vatican, “the see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a new pope will have to be elected.”
Among those present was a Mexican cardinal, Monsignor Oscar Sanchéz Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome for an official meeting. “We were all in the Sala del Concistoro … of the Apostolic Palace,” he said. “The pope took a sheet of paper and read from it.
“We were all left …” – Sanchéz Barba looked around him in St Peter’s Square, looking for the word; he was as speechless as the “princes of the church” who had just heard the man they believe to be God’s representative on earth give up the job. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” Sanchéz Barba said.
Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who must have known beforehand, gave a brief speech. Before going on to assure the Pope of the cardinals’ loyalty and devotion, he said he and the others present had “listened to you with a sense of confusion, almost completely incredulous”. At the end of his speech, the Pope blessed the people present, and left. “It was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable,” said Sanchéz Barba. “Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.”
John Thavis, who spent 30 years reporting on the Vatican and whose book, The Vatican Diaries, is soon to be published, said he had had a feeling the Pope might be about to resign and timed his return to Rome from the US accordingly. Thavis noted that in the long interview Benedict gave to a German journalist in 2010, he had made it clear he considered it would be right to go if he felt he could no longer do the job. “I asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects. What is more, there were no dates in his calendar of events he personally had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February but I got it wrong.”
Within hours of the announcement, Vatican officials were saying that the Pope’s decision was a brave one. Thavis agreed: “What I find particularly courageous is that he is prepared to say now, when he is not sick, that he is going; and that he’s doing it because he’s tired and not because he’s particularly ill.” But is that the whole story? Does he know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public?
Benedict’s own reasons make it clear that he took into account not only his physical, but also his psychological condition. He said that the position of pope required both strength of mind and strength of body, and in the last few months he felt that strength was gradually decreasing. There will no doubt be other theories in the days and weeks ahead, just as there were following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already there is speculation that some information was about to come out about Benedict’s past. The Vatican will no doubt dismiss any such stories. But they are understandable, for the transcendental importance of what Benedict has done cannot be overstated.
Coming out of St Peter’s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic, was still considering the implications of the Pope’s resignation. “If you’re God’s chosen one, how do you choose not be chosen?” she asked. It is a question many Catholics will be asking their priests in the weeks ahead.",479
"Male bosses are paid bonuses double the size of bonuses given to female colleagues in the same jobs. This means that men get bonuses of £141,500 more than women over their working lives. 
The numbers, released by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), show that men in UK management jobs earned average bonuses of £6,442 in 2012 – compared with £3,029 for women. 
Female directors received bonuses of £36,270 over the past 12 months, compared with £63,700 received by male directors. 
The numbers show that pay in British business is still not equal. Campaigners believe we must do something to improve equality at work. 
Ann Francke, the CMI’s chief executive, said that there should be more flexibility and less masculine cultures, and that the good work people do should be more important than how much time they spend in the office. 
Also, there should be more transparency around performance and bonuses. 
“If we solve this issue, we will improve the performance of organizations and the well- being of people at work,” she said. “What are we waiting for?” 
Some of the numbers may be affected by women doing jobs where there is less of a culture of bonus payments. But the differences in the sizes of bonuses do make Britain’s pay gap worse. The government says the pay gap is closing but that full-time male employees still earn 10% more than women. 
Maria Miller, the Minister for Women and Equalities, said that the CMI numbers are another example from the world of work that shows that women still earn less than men doing the same job. 
“Changes in the workplace are happening and it’s good that the pay gap is closing – but there is still more to do before we see full equality in the workplace. 
“The government is trying to help. 120 companies have joined our Think, Act, Report scheme, which encourages companies to improve the way they recruit, promote and pay women. 
“We’ve also looked at other causes of the pay gap, such as having to juggle work and family.” 
Large companies such as Tesco, BT, Unilever and the international law firm Eversheds are some of the companies that have signed up to Think, Act, Report. The scheme has only attracted 120 companies in nearly two years. 
But the CMI’s numbers also showed that the pay gap is closing: the difference between the average salaries earned by male and female bosses appeared to be smaller than in 2012.",480
"Brazil experienced one of its biggest nights of protest in decades as more than 100,000 people took to the streets to express their frustration at aggressive policing, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup.
The major demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and elsewhere started peacefully, but several led to clashes with police and arson attacks on cars and buses.
People complained, during previous, smaller protests against bus price increases, that police responded disproportionately with rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings.
The rallies came at the same time as the start of the football Confederations Cup. The rallies brought together people who are frustrated with the rising costs and poor quality of public services, large amounts of money being spent on international sporting events, low standards of health care and wider unease about inequality and corruption.
The vast majority of demonstrations were peaceful, but several police were injured, at least one car was overturned and burned, and windows were smashed.
The unrest increased during the night as a large crowd set several fires outside a government office, smashed the building’s windows and painted graffiti on the walls that said “Revolution”, “Down with Paes, down with Cabral [the mayor and state governor]” and “Hate police”. Police inside responded with pepper spray.
The reasons people were protesting varied widely. “We are here because we hate the government. They do nothing for us,” said Oscar José Santos, a 19 year old.
“I’m an architect but I have been unemployed for six months. There must be something wrong with this country,” said Nadia al Husin.
At a far smaller rally in Brasilia, demonstrators broke through police lines to enter the high-security area of the national congress. Several climbed onto the roof.
In Belo Horizonte, police clashed with protesters who tried to get into a football stadium, which was hosting a Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Tahiti.
In Porto Alegre, demonstrators set fire to a bus and, in Curitiba, protesters tried to force their way into the office of the state governor. There were also rallies in Belem, Salvador and elsewhere.
In São Paulo, large crowds gathered but reports said the marches were peaceful.
Most protesters were young and, for many, it was their first experience of such a giant rally. “My generation has never experienced this,” said Thiago Firbida, a student. “Since the dictatorship, Brazilians never bothered to demonstrate like this. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil is once again in crisis, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting.”
Comparisons have been drawn with rallies in Turkey and elsewhere. You could see another global link in the demonstrators who wore Guy Fawkes masks, associated with Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Brazil’s demonstrations are being referred to as the “vinegar revolution” (after police arrested people for carrying vinegar to fight the effects of tear gas), as well as the “20-cent revolution” (due to the bus price rise) and the Passe Livre (after the demand for free public transport).
Some said the protests felt un-Brazilian but liberating. “Our politicians need to see the strength we have as one people. Brazilians are too nice sometimes – they enjoy partying rather than protesting – but something is changing,” said Deli Borsari, a 53-year-old yoga instructor. 17 After people heard about the costs of new and refurbished stadiums on the news, the Confederations Cup football tournament has been one of the focuses of the protests. Before Saturday’s opening match in Brasilia, crowds of demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. Footage showed frightened Japanese supporters rushing from the area holding their children, as they heard the sound of shots – perhaps rubber bullets or tear gas.",481
"The regulation eight hours in the office is over. The most important work of the day is done; whatever is left can wait until the morning. This is the point many workers would think about heading for the door. 
Yet, for millions of Japanese employees, the thought of clearing away their desks and being at home in time for dinner is enough to invite accusations of disloyalty. 
But, after decades of giving companies carte blanche to milk every last drop of productivity from their workforce, a challenge to Japan’s ingrained culture of overwork has come from the government, which is considering making it a legal requirement for workers to take at least five days’ paid holiday a year. 
Japanese employees are currently entitled to an average 18.5 days’ paid holiday a year – only two fewer than the global average – with a minimum of ten days, as well as 15 one-day national holidays. In reality, few come even close to taking their full quota, typically using only nine of their 18.5-day average entitlement, according to the labour ministry. While many British workers regard a two-week summer holiday as an inalienable right, workers in Japan have come to see a four-night vacation in Hawaii as the height of self-indulgence. 
The move, to be debated in the current parliamentary session, comes after companies started encouraging employees to nap on the job to improve their performance. 
By the end of the decade, the government hopes that, if passed, the law will push Japanese employees towards following the example set by British workers, who use an average of 20 days’ paid annual leave, and those in France, who take an average of 25. 
Japan’s unforgiving work culture may have helped turn it into an economic superpower, its corporate foot soldiers revered in the rest of the world for their commitment to the company, but this has often been to the exclusion of everything else. 
Japan’s low birth rate and predictions of rapid population decline are partly blamed on the lack of time couples have to start families. More employees are falling ill from stress, or worse, succumbing to karoshi, death through overwork. 
Despite studies suggesting that longer hours in the office or workshop or on the factory floor do not necessarily make people more productive, today’s workers are still nursing a collective hangover from the bubble years of the 1980s. 
About 22% of Japanese work more than 49 hours a week, compared with 16% of US workers and 11% in France and Germany, according to data compiled by the Japanese government. At 35%, South Korea’s workaholics are even worse off. 
In spending 14 hours a day at work and giving up many of her paid holidays, Erika Sekiguchi is not even an extreme example. The 36-year-old trading company employee used eight of her 20 days of paid vacation in 2014, six of which counted as sick leave. “Nobody else uses their vacation days,” Sekiguchi said. 
She faces the dilemma shared by her peers in companies across Japan: never to take time off to recharge or to risk inviting criticism for appearing to leave more committed colleagues in the lurch. 
Yuu Wakebe, a health ministry official overseeing policy on working hours, who admits putting in 100 hours of overtime a month, blames the irresistible pressure to match one’s colleagues, hour for hour. “It is a worker’s right to take paid vacations,” Wakebe said. “But working in Japan involves quite a lot of volunteer spirit.” 
That fear of being ostracized at work is being blamed for a rise in stress-related illness, premature death and suicide. According to official data, about 200 people die every year from heart attacks, strokes and other karoshi events brought on by punishing work schedules. 
The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is not known for taking long vacations. Yet even he has spoken out against the unreasonable demands companies place on their employees as they struggle to stay afloat in a more complex globalized market. Japan’s working culture, Abe said recently, “falsely beatifies long hours”.",482
"To tourists, Amsterdam still seems very liberal. Recently the city’s Mayor told them that the coffee shops that sell marijuana would stay open, although there is a new national law to stop drug tourism. But the Dutch capital has a plan to send antisocial neighbours to “scum villages” made from shipping containers, and so maybe now people won’t think it is a liberal city any more.
The Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, says his new plan to solve the problem of antisocial behaviour will cost £810,000. The plan is hopes to protect victims of abuse and homophobia. The camps, where antisocial families will live for three to six months, have been called “scum villages” because last year Geert Wilders, the far-right politician, said that offenders should go to “a village for scum”.
Bartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, says that the plans are not illiberal. “We want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam,” he says. “We want everyone to be who he and she is – whether they are gay and lesbian or try to stop violence and are then victims of harassment. We want to defend them.” According to Boer, the villages are not for “a problem neighbour who has the stereo too loud on Saturday night” but “people who are very violent and in a clear situation where a victim is harassed again and again”.
People found guilty of violent harassment will be evicted from their homes and put in temporary homes, including shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. “We call it a living container,” says Boer. The containers have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation. They are going to use the containers because they want to show that if people are antisocial they do not get better accommodation.
One Dutch newspaper wrote that in the 19th century antisocial people were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which soon became slums. But Boer says that the government has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to put antisocial families together.
They are “scum houses” not scum villages, says Boer, “because we don’t want to put more than one of these families in the same area”. After a maximum of six months in these houses, in different parts of the city, the families will get permanent homes. The city government expects to move about ten families a year, which starts in 2013.
Police will watch the temporary accommodation, but antisocial families will also be able to see doctors and social workers. “We will take care of them so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in,” says Boer.",483
"George W Bush, Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Hawking have done it. David Cameron, Barack Obama and Pamela Anderson have refused to do it. The Ice Bucket Challenge began in the US in July and has raised $100m for the ALS Association, a US motor-neurone-disease charity, and £4.5m for a British one, as well as thousands more for charities in Hong Kong and Australia.
However, not everyone is happy with the Ice Bucket Challenge. Commentators, animal-rights groups and environmentalists have all criticized it, for reasons ranging from the waste of water to the fact that some people enjoy the fun and then do not donate anything to charity.
Meanwhile, the challenge continues to grow. For anyone who doesn’t know how it works, someone gives a short speech to camera about the charity, then dumps a bucket of ice cubes in water over their head or gets a friend to do it. Then, they nominate three other people to either do the same or donate.
It was an unfortunate coincidence that 31 August to 5 September was World Water Week, with international delegates arriving in Stockholm to discuss the planet’s water crisis. The charity WaterAid is asking people to use recycled water from bathtubs or garden butts or to use sea water.
Douglas Graham, the UK Motor Neurone Association’s fundraising director, said: “The criticism is to be expected but, really, this is just a wonderful windfall and we’re so grateful. We didn’t see it coming but, suddenly, the donations just started.” The boost is an enormous help to a small charity looking after sufferers of a debilitating, little-understood disease that has no cure and kills five people a day in the UK.
Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, an animal-rights activist, wrote an open letter to the ALS Association, saying she could not support its record on animal experimentation. A few US stars have rejected the challenge because of California’s drought. Actor Matt Damon solved the problem by using water from his toilet. Actor Verne Troyer used milk, again saying it was for environmental reasons. And the challenge has been blamed for causing a water shortage on the Scottish island of Colonsay.
In Australia, a TV anchorman apologized over his strong “no, thanks” response to being nominated. Lincoln Humphries had said: “Instead of pouring fresh water over your own head and wasting ice, here is a list of charities helping communities in desperate need of money across the world. I’d like to nominate everyone, everywhere, who has more than they need, to donate what they can to the people who need it most ... because that is what charity is about, not putting yourself through mild discomfort with a bucket of icy water.”
Another criticism has been that small charities won’t be able to cope with the extra money, but the MND Association rejected this. “Oh, we can cope here,” said Graham. “We fund world-class research into the causes of the disease to find a treatment or cure. We provide care and support for 3,500 people and they need it because this is such a rapidly progressing disease and it’s expensive to manage. Over 50% die within two years of diagnosis. It’s heartbreaking to see the decline in people we work with over just a few months.”
But, for many people with a connection to the disease, the awareness that the challenge has created is as valuable as the money. Graham says it is priceless. Normally, the MND Association gets around 300,000 hits a year on its website. On a single day recently, it had 330,000.
“We couldn’t have created this if we’d tried. Charities are all worthwhile causes and I understand that some people might want to donate to a different one. In 2013, British people gave £62bn to charity – we should be proud of that. It’s fabulous for us to get this windfall. We’ll be sitting down over the next few weeks to work out how to spend it in the best way but, I assure you, every penny will count for good.”",484
"Angry waiters are asking for public support in a battle to keep their tips. PizzaExpress branches are to be targeted by protesters, in an attempt to get the restaurant chain to stop taking a proportion of tips for staff that have been paid on credit and debit cards. Campaigners have also started an online petition in the hope that restaurant-goers will support their demands.
PizzaExpress keeps, as an admin fee, 8p out of every £1 paid when tips are given by card. This is a policy that has made some employees angry. The chain, which has 430 branches around the UK and is particularly popular with families, makes around £1m a year from the practice, according to the union Unite.
“We believe this 8% fee is unfair and that, if the chain values its staff, it should be paying them the total tips they are given by customers,” said Chantal Chegrinec of Unite. “We are starting with PizzaExpress but they are not the only ones and we will turn our attention to other companies after this.”
The protests are being organized by local branches of Unite. The first is taking place at the British Museum branch of PizzaExpress in London. The union has also written to the restaurant chain’s CEO. Unite began the campaign following a survey of its PizzaExpress members after the chain was sold to a Chinese company in 2014. One of the top issues was the 8% deduction from their tips.
One disgruntled PizzaExpress employee, who wants to remain anonymous, said that the admin fee was costing her £3 a night. “I have worked at PizzaExpress for 15 years,” she said in a letter to Unite. “After all this time, I’m still only paid the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. So you see my colleagues and I are very reliant on customer tips to top up our low wages. I work hard and am good at my job but, when PizzaExpress thinks it can get away with taking a percentage of our hard-earned tips left on a card, I get upset.”
Ask and Zizzi, two other restaurant chains, also deduct 8% of the tips paid by card. But other chains deduct even more. Café Rouge, Bella Italia and Belgo deduct 10%; so do Strada and Giraffe.
A spokesperson for PizzaExpress said that its admin charge was to cover the cost of running a “tronc” – a pay arrangement used to distribute tips among staff. “We made big efforts to set up this tronc system, which is run by staff. They independently decide how tips made by electronic card payment are distributed between the restaurant teams; it is a system run by employees for the employees,” she said.
The chain, which sells 29m pizzas a year in its UK restaurants, denied that it profits from the admin fee. But other restaurant groups do not deduct an admin fee from tips. Wagamama, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday all take nothing. Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquitos and Garfunkels used to charge 10% but they stopped doing this several years ago.
Unite recently targeted ten PizzaExpress restaurants in south London – they distributed leaflets to customers who were “shocked and disgusted” by the practice. PizzaExpress says the charge is mentioned in small print at the bottom of its menus. But the employee who wrote to Unite said that, when she mentioned the charge to customers, they were always surprised. Most customers would then pay the tip in cash. Almost 6,000 people have signed Unite’s online petition.
One waiter, who doesn’t work for PizzaExpress but has worked for 11 years for another restaurant chain, said that at least a third of his income is from tips. He doesn’t want to be identified because he is scared there will be reprisals. “I work in a busy London branch and, on an average night, I serve 150 people and earn £40 to £50 in tips,” he says. “That might sound like a lot but that money is crucial to me because my basic pay is only £6.50 an hour.”
Conservative MP Andrew Percy has asked for a change in the law that would give restaurant staff more control over tips. He said he plans to raise the issue in parliament.”",485
"Robert Myslajek stops. Between two paw prints on a muddy mountain track, the scientist finds what he is looking for. “Droppings!’’ he says happily. It is so rare to see a wolf that seeing faeces makes it a good day.
But it is getting easier. There are now about 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. Wolves are – along with the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine – Europe’s last large predator carnivores. Conservationists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are coming here to find out how the country has saved wolves who are criticized even in fairy tales.
Bits of bone and hair stick out from the black faeces. “It ate a red deer,’’ says Myslajek, the University of Warsaw biologist. “In my lab, I can tell you all about this wolf – not only its diet but its gender, sexual habits, age, state of health and family connections.’’
DNA tests have shown that Polish wolves are travellers. “One wolf reached the Netherlands, where unfortunately it was hit by a car. They have a very big range. They need space. The average territory required by a Polish pack is 250 square kilometres,’’ says Myslajek.
“Can we ever reintroduce wolves to Scotland?’’ asks student Alex Entwisle, 23, on a study trip to southern Poland from the UK. He and other animal science students have spent the day looking for droppings and paw prints in the Beskidy mountains of the Polish Carpathians.
Their hot discussion topic is whether to reintroduce wolves to the British Isles for the first time since the 18th century.
Myslajek toured the Scottish Highlands in 2015 for the Wolves and Humans Foundation and answered questions from villagers about the Polish experience. “The big difference between Scotland and Poland is that we eat pork. We do not have many sheep here.
“The similarity is that we have a lot of animals – 300,000 red deer and more than 800,000 roe deer. In Poland, we also have too many wild boar – about 200,000 – and these are eating and destroying farmers’ cereal crops. Here, wolves are part of the solution,’’ he says.
The scientist says wolves can move up to 30 kilometres during a single hunt. “The Beskidy pack is a strong unit, eight or nine animals. This year, we have recorded five cubs, two young wolves and two adults.
“We track them using motion cameras in the forest and by following their prints in the mud and snow. In each family group, only one pair of adults has cubs each year. All pack members care for the young.’’
Myslajek, the son of a shepherd, doesn’t understand wolves’ bad reputation. “Why did we have to have the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, with its big bad wolf?’’
He is fascinated by these aloof animals who remained in the wild 33,000 years ago when others decided on a much more comfortable life as domestic dogs.
Myslajek says only scientific arguments – the need to regenerate forests and control the wild animal population – can save Europe’s wild carnivores, especially the unpopular wolf. “Natural predators balance the ecosystem. They reduce the number of herbivores, which allows trees to grow tall for birds to nest in.’’
The ban on wolf hunting in the western Carpathians became law in 1995 and in the whole of Poland in 1998. There are now wolf packs in nearly all the country’s major forests where the wolves coexist with humans.
The Polish government pays compensation for farm animals killed by wolves. Myslajek advises farmers to put up electric fences. He has helped bring back the use of two deterrents that, for reasons no one understands, wolves find very scary: strings of small red flags (that you hang around sheep pens) and the Tatra Mountain Sheepdog.
Poland’s wolves have been helped by the country’s late infrastructure development. In 1989, when the communists left power, Poland had only one motorway. Major road projects began after Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and they are required to consider wild animals. Attitudes have also changed. “For many years, hunting was cultural. In 1975, there were fewer than 100 wolves in Poland. From the 1950s, hunting wolves was encouraged by the authorities. They paid a reward for killing a wolf worth a month’s salary. It was carnage.’’
Myslajek says that Polish wolves are much safer now but they are not completely safe. Packs of wolves cross country borders and hunting still happens in neighbouring Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia.
He says Poland’s new government, elected in October 2015, doesn’t like wolves. “The Environment Minister, Jan Szyszko, is a hunter. There are 120,000 licensed hunters in Poland and they have a lot of influence.
“Being a wolf advocate is not easy. You can’t argue to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a very sensitive sense of smell.’’
The 12 British animal science students leave the Polish Carpathians without seeing a wolf. Entwisle does not believe that Scotland will ever be able to match Poland’s success.
“It would be amazing for the environment to have wolves back in Scotland because of the problem of too many deer. But it would just not be possible because of the roads and sheep.
“There would be problems with farmers, too. In Britain, we like predators to be far away and to watch them on television,’’ said Entwisle.",486
"Thousands of people protested on Australia’s beaches against a shark cull that is being carried out in Western Australia. They called on the state’s prime minister to end the policy, and RSPCA Australia and Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson spoke out against it. The catching and killing of sharks longer than three metres began after what the state government called an “unprecedented” number of shark attacks on Western Australia’s coast. A 35-year-old surfer, killed in November 2013, was the sixth person to die from a shark attack in two years.
However, the whole of Australia has had an average of just one shark-related death a year for the last 50 years. Kate Faehrmann, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said from a protest in the state capital, Perth: “We’ve always said that this policy won’t work. Drumlines used to catch the sharks kill sharks whether they’re one, two, three metres or more, as well as dolphins, turtles and other things. That’s why the community doesn’t want it.”
Thousands of people protested on beaches in the cities of Perth, Sydney and Adelaide, and at beaches in Victoria and Queensland. Faehrmann said the protests had shown that Australians wanted sharks protected: “What’s amazing is so many people in Australia love sharks. This has demonstrated something about the national psyche; that, despite all the fear, thousands of people are coming out across the country to say, ‘That’s their ocean. We respect them, we love them and we don’t want them killed.’” Anthony Joyce, a surfer who once had his foot caught in a shark’s mouth, said: “The number of sharks they are going to kill is going to make no difference.”
The state government has refused to say how many sharks have been killed, though there have been reports of sharks smaller than three metres being released after getting caught on drumlines, floating drums fixed to the sea bed with bait hanging on hooks underneath them. Conservationists say there is no evidence the cull will reduce the number of shark attacks on humans, because no previous cull has only used drumlines. Researchers at the University of Western Australia say the increased number of shark attacks in the state is probably because the state has the fastest-growing population in Australia, not because of a rising number of sharks.
Richard Peirce, of the UK-based conservation charity, the Shark Trust, said that the cull would be ineffective and could bring more predators towards the coast. “The activity in Western Australia is compounding the human tragedy of shark attacks. It is very sad that a government has ignored the best advice and chosen an approach that is ineffective and counterproductive,” he said. “People often don’t consider that that drumlines are indiscriminate – even if monitored through the day, leaving the lines in at night has the potential to attract other predators into the area, attracted by those sharks and other species hooked and injured.”
Worldwide, in 2012, there were 80 attacks by sharks, seven of which were fatal, compared to nearly 100m sharks killed by humans each year. RSPCA Australia said in a statement that it believes the cull is unjustified. “There is no evidence that the increase in attacks is a result of increasing shark numbers. Instead, it is consistent with a changing population and human behaviour; that is, there are greater numbers of people in the water,” it said.
Richard Branson said the policy was not working. “I’m sure one of the reasons Western Australia Premier, Colin Barnett, did it was because he was thinking it would encourage tourism. It’s going to do quite the reverse, I think. You’re advertising a problem that doesn’t exist in a major way and you’re deterring people from coming to Perth and your beautiful countryside around it. All you’re going to achieve, I think, is to worry people unnecessarily.”",487
"Felix Baumgartner stood at the edge of space above New Mexico and paused slightly. It was a small step away from the capsule, but a 24-mile drop back down to Earth. “Our guardian angel will take care of you,” said mission control, and the man known as Fearless Felix jumped.
Ten terrifying minutes later, the Austrian landed back on Earth. He had reached speeds of up to 725 miles per hour, and broken three world records, including becoming the world’s first supersonic skydiver by breaking the sound barrier at Mach 1.24. “We love you Felix,” cheered the control room. Baumgartner raised his arms in a victory salute.
He was wearing a specially designed survival suit to protect him against the enormous pressure changes during the jump. Without it, his blood would have boiled and his lungs might have exploded. Baumgartner later told a press conference that all he could think about was getting back alive, but he added: “Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.”
His other two records were for the highest altitude manned balloon flight and the highest altitude skydive. The jump happened on a sunny morning in good weather. Baumgartner was carried up into clear skies by a gigantic balloon – it measured 30 million square cubic feet and its skin was one-tenth the thickness of a sandwich bag. At the bottom of the balloon was a capsule, where Baumgartner sat in his suit.
As he reached the correct height, Baumgartner went through a checklist of 40 things with his mentor Joe Kittinger. Kittinger was the previous holder of the highest altitude manned balloon flight.
Baumgartner had a problem with his visor. “This is very serious, Joe,” he told Kitttinger. “Sometimes it’s getting foggy when I breathe out.” But they decided to go ahead, watched by a record 8 million people live on YouTube.
After a two-and-a-half-hour journey up, during which the curvature of the Earth became visible and the skies gradually turned black, the descent was much quicker. Three cameras, which were attached to Baumgartner’s suit, recorded his free-fall of just over four minutes and then the parachute opening.
The success of the mission, and of the suit, means that astronauts might be able to survive a high-altitude disaster, like on the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, by jumping out of their craft. Baumgartner’s top medical man in the stunt was Dr Jonathan Clark, whose wife Laurel Clark died in the Columbia accident. Clark is now working to help astronauts survive high-altitude disasters.
Baumgartner has a reputation for daring stunts. The former paratrooper has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. He had already done two practice free-falls in preparation for this jump – one from 71,000 feet and a second from 97,000 feet. But nothing can compare with his jump above the town of Roswell, a place famous for its UFO sightings.
He was trying to break five different records: the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; the highest free-fall altitude jump; the highest manned balloon flight; the longest free-fall; and his jump platform is believed to be the largest manned balloon in history. The stunt was planned for seven years, was sponsored by Red Bull drinks, and beat two of Kittinger’s records: before, the retired US air force colonel held the high altitude and speed records for parachuting. Kittinger jumped from a balloon 19 miles above the planet in 1960 and gave advice to Baumgartner during the ascent.
Asked after the jump what he wanted to do next, Baumgartner said: “I want to inspire a generation. I’d like to be sitting in the same spot in the next four years as Joe Kittinger. There is a young guy asking me for advice because he wants to break my record.” He said the most exciting moment for him was when he was standing outside the capsule “on top of the world”. He added: “The most beautiful moment was when I was standing on the landing area and Mike Todd [the life support engineer who dressed Baumgartner in his suit] appeared and he had a smile on his face like a little kid.”
Baumgartner said that he felt like Todd’s son, adding: “He was so happy that I was alive.” Earlier, Todd had told the press conference: “The world needs a hero right now, and they’ve got one in Felix Baumgartner.”
This will be the last jump, Baumgartner said. He has promised to settle down and enjoy life with his girlfriend, Nicole Oetl, flying helicopters on rescue missions in the US and Austria.",488
"On average, a girl born today in the UK will live to the age of nearly 82 and her brother will live to 78. They would have a longer life in Andorra (the girl 85 and the boy 79) but will live a little longer than in the US (81 and 76). If they lived in the Central African Republic, they would die in middle age (49 and 44). Almost everywhere in the world, except countries such as Lesotho, which have problems with HIV and violence, life expectancy is increasing. The best news is that small children die much less often than forty years ago. There has been a reduction in deaths of under-fives of nearly 60%, from 16.4 million in 1970 to 6.8 million in 2010. 
Over the past five years, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle has led a very big project to look at the global effects of disease. If we know how many children die and why, the world can try to keep them alive. The big IHME database will help global organizations and governments to better care for us all. 
The project has been controversial. IHME has been very radical in some of its methods. When they didn’t have death registries or medical records they decided the cause of death by an interview with the family – called a 'verbal autopsy'. The most surprising result has been with malaria. IHME said 1.2 million die of the disease every year – this is twice as many as people believed. The big increase is in adult deaths. It is commonly believed that malaria kills mostly children under five. 
“We are taught, as doctors, that in areas with malaria, you become semi-immune as an adult,” said Dr Christopher Murray, IHME Director. But he says the evidence tells them that may not be right. “African doctors write on hospital records that adults are dying of malaria a lot.” But their fever could be something different, he adds. The results have led to more studies. 
Although the Director General of the World Health Organization was happy about the IHME study, other people are not so sure. “We need to be very careful,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist. He thinks scientists need to find out if the numbers are correct. One of the most important things in the study, said Murray, was “the very fast change in the main causes of death and the speed of that change is a lot faster than we thought”. 
Reduced fertility and longer life have led to an increase in the average age of the world’s population in ten years from 26 years old to almost 30. The change has been dramatic in Latin America, for example, where countries like Brazil and Paraguay had life expectancy of below 30 in 1970 and almost 64 in 2010. That is a 35-year increase in the average age of death in forty years. 
Also important is the change outside Africa from communicable diseases to “lifestyle” diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. That change is very obvious in Latin America, the Middle East and south-east and even south Asia, Murray said. 
The third big result was, he said, “a surprise to us”. The study showed that there are lots of people with disabilities and it has a big effect on people who are living longer but not healthier lives. “The main causes of disability are different from the ones that kill you,” he said. They were mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, disorders, such as arthritis and lower back pain, anaemia, sight and hearing loss and skin disease. Also, there was drug abuse. “The number of people with these problems is not reducing over time,” he said. “We are making no progress in reducing these problems.”",489
"Many of us know we don’t get enough sleep but imagine if we could fix it with a fairly simple solution: getting up later. In a speech at the British Science Festival, Dr Paul Kelley of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University said schools should stagger their starting times to work with the natural biological rhythms of their students. It would improve cognitive performance, exam results and students’ health (lack of sleep can cause diabetes, depression, obesity and immune system problems).
In 2014, he published a paper in which he noted that, when children are around ten, their biological wake-up time is about 6.30am; at 16, this rises to 8am; and, at 18, someone you may think is just a lazy teenager actually has a natural waking hour of 9am. The normal school starting time works for 10-year-olds but not for 16- to 18-year-olds. For the older teenagers, it might be more sensible to start the school day at 11am or even later. “A 7am alarm call for older teenagers,” Kelley and his colleagues wrote in the paper, “is the equivalent of a 4.30am start for a teacher in their 50s.”
He says the solution is not to persuade teenagers to go to bed earlier. “The body’s natural rhythm is controlled by a particular kind of light,” says Kelley. “The eye contains cells that report to a part of the brain that controls our circadian rhythms over a 24-hour cycle. It’s the light that controls it. It’s like saying: ‘Why can’t you control your heartbeat?’”
But it isn’t just students who would benefit from a later start. Kelley says the working day should be more linked to our natural rhythms. Describing the average sleep loss per night for different age groups, he says: “Between 14 and 24, it’s more than two hours. For people aged between 24 and about 30 or 35, it’s about an hour and a half. That can continue up until you’re about 55 when it’s in balance again. The 10-year-old and 55-year-old wake and sleep naturally at the same time.”
This might be why, he adds, the traditional nine to five is so ingrained; bosses control working hours and many of them are in their mid-50s and older so “it is best for them”. So, should workplaces have staggered starting times, too? Should those in their 50s and above come in at 8am, while those in their 30s start at 10am and the teenage apprentice be encouraged to start at 11am? Kelley says that synchronized hours could have “many positive consequences. The positive side of this is people’s performance, mood and health will improve. It’s very uplifting because it’s a solution that will make people less ill, and happier and better at what they do.”
There would probably be fewer accidents because drivers would be more alert, he says. It could mean the end of rush hour as people staggered their work and school-run times. A later start to the day for many, says Kelley, “is something that would benefit all people, particularly families. Parents go and try to wake up teenagers who are waking up three hours too early. It creates tensions for everybody.”
So, what time does Kelley start work? “I am 67 so that means I’m like a 10-year-old and I get up just after six. I wake naturally.” And, yes, he says he finds the start of his working day much easier now than he did when he was younger.",490
"He was a normal millionaire. He had a gold and silver Rolex watch and lots of expensive cars. He liked to buy modern art. This Chinese businessman had many companies and a large villa in Madrid. But, he had almost no money in the bank. This interested the Spanish authorities. 
Gao Ping sold goods to 4,000 Chinese markets in Spain. But, authorities suspected he was not paying taxes on the clothes, furniture and other goods he was bringing in from China. 
When police went to his warehouses in 2012, they found lots of cash: €100, €200 and €500 notes. Police took away around €12m, the most cash ever found by Spanish police. 
Police have been worried about €500 notes for a long time. Small and easy to transport, they are the favourite banknotes of criminals. The sum of €1m in €500 notes fits easily into a small laptop bag. The same amount in €50 notes would need a small suitcase. 
The UK stopped using the €500 note in 2010 because they were used “almost entirely by criminals”. In 2009, Italy’s central bank said that mafia money launderers and terrorists used the notes. Canada got rid of its $1,000 note in 2000 because the police advised them to. 
These days, we have electronic payment systems and contactless cards so people are asking why it is still necessary to have these banknotes. Peter Sands, the former head of Standard Chartered Bank, said we should get rid of large notes, including the €500, the $100, the 1,000 Swiss Franc note and the £50. Sands said it was time to get rid of high-value notes that make life easier for “bad guys”. Criminals would instead use smaller banknotes, or gold or diamonds, but these are big so criminals cannot carry them easily”, he said. 
The purple €500 note was introduced in 2002: it replaced the 1,000 Deutschmark, the 10,000 Belgian franc and the 500,000 Italian lira. In Germany and Austria, people still pay with paper money and coins more than half the time. 
Europol would like central banks to take more responsibility for what happens with €500 notes. EU finance ministers have asked banks and authorities to look at whether countries should limit high-value notes or get rid of them.",491
"Angela Erdmann never knew her grandfather. He died in 1946, six years before she was born. But, on Tuesday April 8th, 2014, she described the extraordinary moment when she received a message in a bottle, 101 years after he threw it into the Baltic Sea. The bottle is possibly the world’s oldest message in a bottle. It was presented to Erdmann by the museum that is now exhibiting it in Germany. 
“It was very surprising,” Erdmann, 62, said, when she described how she found out about the bottle. “A man came to my door and told me he had post from my grandfather. Then, he told me that someone had found a message in a bottle and that on the card was my grandfather’s name.” Her visitor was a family-tree researcher who found her in Berlin after someone gave the letter to a museum in the northern city of Hamburg. 
The brown beer bottle was in the water for 101 years. A fisherman found it. Holger von Neuhoff, a curator at the museum, said this bottled message was the oldest he had ever seen. “There are documents without the bottle that are older and they are in the museum,” he said. “But, with the bottle and the document, this is certainly the oldest at the moment. It is in very good condition.” 
Researchers believe that Erdmann’s grandfather, Richard Platz, threw the bottle into the sea when he was on a hike in 1913. He was 20 years old at the time. A lot of the message on the postcard was impossible to read, but the address in Berlin on the front of the card was legible. Platz asked the person who found it to send the postcard to his home address. 
“He also included two stamps from that time that were also in the bottle, so the finder would not have to pay for postage,” Erdmann said. “But he did not think it would take 101 years.” 
She said she was moved by the arrival of the message, but she did not known her grandfather because he died, at the age of 54, six years before she was born. 
“I knew very little about my grandfather. But I found out that he was a writer. He was very open- minded, and he believed in freedom and that everyone should respect each other,” she said. “He did a lot for the young and later travelled with his wife and two daughters. It was wonderful because I could see where my roots came from.” 
Erdmann said she also liked culture and travelling around the world, just like her grandfather. She described herself as open-minded, too. She was very happy to receive the bottled message, she said, but she hoped other people would not do what her grandfather did and throw bottles with messages into the sea. “Today, the sea is so full of bottles and rubbish that we shouldn’t throw more in there,” she said. 
The message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburg’s Maritime Museum until the beginning of May 2014. Then, experts will try to decipher the rest of the text. It is not clear what will happen to the bottle after that, but Erdmann hopes it will stay at the museum. 
“We want to find a few photos to put with the bottle and give it a face, so visitors can see the young man who threw the bottle into the water,” she said.",492
"The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, will retire at the end of the season after 27 years. He will become a director of the club. He is the most successful manager in British football. He has won 13 Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, the Cup Winners’ Cup, five FA Cups and four League Cups. 
“The decision to retire is one that I have thought a lot about,” Ferguson said. “It is the right time. It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible condition and I believe I have done so.” He said that he thinks the quality of the team will bring continued success at the highest level. They also have lots of good young players, so Ferguson thinks the club has a very good future. 
“Our training facilities are some of the best in world sport,” he added. “Our stadium, Old Trafford, is one of the most important venues in the world. I am delighted to become both director and ambassador for the club. I am looking forward to the future.” He also thanked his family for their love and support. 
“I would like to thank all my players and staff, past and present, for an incredible level of professionalism and hard work that has helped to bring so many memorable triumphs. Without them, the history of this great club would not be as rich. In my early years, the support of the board of directors gave me the confidence and time to build a football club, not just a football team. 
“Over the past ten years, the owners of the club have made it possible for me to manage Manchester United to the best of my ability. I have been very lucky to work with David Gill, a talented and trustworthy chief executive. I am grateful to all of them.” He also thanked the fans for their support and said he had really enjoyed his time as manager of Manchester United. 
Joel Glazer, one of the owners of Manchester United, said: “Alex has shown us so often what a fantastic manager he is, but he’s also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and his hard work for the club have been remarkable. I will never forget the wonderful memories he has given us, like that magical night in Moscow.” 
Avie Glazer, his brother, said: “I am very happy to tell you that Alex has agreed to stay with the club as a director. His contributions to Manchester United over the last 27 years have been extraordinary and, like all United fans, I want him to be a part of its future.” 
David Gill added: “I’ve had the great pleasure of working very closely with Alex for 16 unforgettable years. We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it. Alex’s vision, energy and ability have built teams that are some of the best and most loyal in world sport. The way he cares for this club, his staff and for the football family in general is something that I admire. We will never forget what he has done for this club and for the game in general. Working with Alex has been the greatest experience of my working life and it is a great honour to be able to call him a friend.” 
First-team coach René Meulensteen told everyone how Ferguson told his staff the news. “I found out this morning when I came to the club,” he said. “He asked us to go into his office and told us his decision. I’m sure he thought hard about it. I wish him well for the future. He’s been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give the new manager the same support.”",493
"When two people on a remote Pacific island saw a small boat washed up on the beach, they decided to take a closer look. Inside the boat, they found a very thin man with long hair and a beard, who said he drifted for 16 months after leaving Mexico, more than 12,500km away. 
The man, who was wearing only underpants, told his rescuers that he drifted in the 7.3-metre boat since he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012. A friend died at sea several months before, he said. 
“His health isn’t good, but he’s getting better,” said Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on Ebon Island, one of the Marshall Islands. The man said his name was José Ivan. He said he survived by catching turtles and birds. There was no fishing equipment on the boat, but a turtle was inside when it washed up. “The boat looks like it has been in the water for a long time,” Fjeldstad said. 
According to Fjeldstad, the people who found the man took him to a nearby island – which is so remote it has only one phone line and no internet – to meet the mayor. The mayor contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Majuro, the Marshall Islands capital. People at the ministry said that they were waiting for more details and that the man will probably go to the capital. 
“He’s staying at the local council house and a family is feeding him,” said Fjeldstad. He also said that the man had a basic health check and had low blood pressure but no serious problems and was able to walk. “We’re giving him a lot of water and he’s getting stronger.” 
Fraser Christian, who teaches people how to survive at sea, said that if the man’s story was true, it would be amazing but not unique. It was possible to catch turtles or small fish by hand, he said, because “they will come close to a small boat to shelter underneath it”. Christian advises people who have to eat turtles to start with their eyes – “lots of fluid” – then drink the blood. 
The main dangers for castaways are cold and a lack of drinking water. “The basic rule is: no water, no food. You need water to digest protein. If you have no fresh water and it doesn’t rain for a few days, so you can’t collect rainwater, you will die.” Also, some people are more able to survive than others. 
Stories of survival in the Pacific Ocean are not rare. In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were found drifting near the Marshall Islands, also in a small boat. They said they survived for nine months at sea on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds. But Cliff Downing, who teaches sea survival to sailors, said he wasn’t sure about the latest story. “It just doesn’t sound right to me. There are 1,001 hazards that would make his survival for so long very unlikely.” 
More castaways Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor from a British ship that was sunk by a German submarine in 1942, survived 133 days on a wooden boat floating in the South Atlantic. Brazilian fishermen rescued him. In 1971, Scottish sailor Dougal Robertson and his family were sailing to the Galápagos Islands from Panama when their boat was sunk by killer whales. They survived 38 days on a lifeboat. A fishing boat rescued them. In 2006, three Mexican fishermen were found drifting in a small boat near the Marshall Islands, nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing trip. In 2011, two fishermen, aged 26 and 53, from the Republic of Kiribati drifted for 33 days. The US coastguard rescued them. A Panamanian fisherman sued Princess Cruises in 2012 after one of their ships ignored cries for help from him and two other people in their broken boat. He survived 28 days at sea, but his friends both died of thirst.",494
"In typical bad-boyfriend style, Dan Sullivan was late to breakfast with the Guardian because he got pulled over on his motorcycle.
Sullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents.
And so, like many others in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old venture capitalist has come up with a start-up: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70.
Sullivan, who works in finance, has been testing the service and has signed up about 350 boyfriends. Most members, he says, are his friends from Harvard and other friends who are either venture capitalists, founders of start-ups or employees of companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. The girlfriends of these friends have been getting presents from Sullivan for the last year.
Each month, Sullivan’s members choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, manicures). The package is sent to the boyfriend unbranded and unlabelled.
He tests his ideas by buying Facebook ads to see what kind of interest they get. BetterBoyfriend.me took off. “People seemed to like BetterBoyfriend,” Sullivan said.
Another start-up, called InvisibleBoyfriend, allows users “to design and build a believable partner who is everything you want and is always available to talk, whenever you want”. The end result is a “boyfriend” who can text with you all day.
Founder Kyle Tabor launched it to give users a fake boyfriend to deter unwanted advances but has found people have grown attached to their imaginary partners: “Many more users are looking for companionship through conversation rather than external ‘proof’ of a relationship.”
For Sullivan and Tabor, the surprise was the real relationships that they have formed with their customers. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends.
Sullivan admits he’s made mistakes. Early on, the packages he sent included receipts that had his name on them, Dan Sullivan. “One of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, ‘Listen, she’s not mad but Cynthia found out’.”
Of all the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to, about 50% know about Dan Sullivan’s involvement in their relationships: “It’s connected with age. I think, after you’ve been married for a while, you don’t keep many secrets.”
And over the year, the young founder says he’s got to know the boyfriends really well. They’ve even sent a package to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend.
When he first started his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and set off for Dolores Park in Mission District, San Francisco.
“I looked for couples and gave the bouquet to the girl but the boyfriends didn’t like that. Not at all. I understood why. It was cool,” he said. “So I changed my idea and started handing out the bouquets to the boyfriends.”",495
"What is it like to look at the last of something? Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, there will be no more rhinos like them, male or female, born anywhere. And there’s not much chance because Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed. Apart from these three animals, there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female.
It seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand with him. But, of course, it is an image of brutality. Sudan is under threat from poachers who kill rhinos and cut off their horns to sell them for medicine in Asia. Sudan is still in danger even though he has had his horn cut off to deter the poachers.
Sudan doesn’t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery flesh, a head of pure strength. How terrible that such a powerful head can, in reality, be so vulnerable.
Sudan does not look so different from the rhinoceros that Albrecht Dürer portrayed in 1515. Dürer was a Renaissance artist picturing an exotic beast from exotic lands. In 1515, a live Indian rhinoceros was sent by the ruler of Gujarat in India to the king of Portugal. The king sent it to the Pope but, on the way, the ship sank and it died.
Human beings – we always kill the things we love. We have been doing so since the Ice Age. There are beautiful pictures of European woolly rhinos in caves in France that were painted up to 30,000 years ago. These ancient relatives of Sudan share his power and his gentle appearance. A woolly rhino in Chauvet Cave seems agile and young, a creature full of life. But the same people who painted such sensitive portraits of Ice Age rhinos helped to kill them off.
Today, many people really love rhinos but they are being killed in greater and greater numbers. The northern white rhino is the rarest species of African rhino. There are more southern white rhinos and black rhinos. But the demand in some countries for rhino horn as a traditional medicine is increasing the poaching. Many people believe that rhino horn can cure everything from flu to cancer. In 2007, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa.
The vulnerable northern white rhino has been hunted very nearly to extinction – in spite of every precaution, in spite of the guards and their guns. Other varieties of African rhino are being hunted by poachers – the situation is totally out of control. The Javan rhinoceros is also on the verge of extinction. India has successfully protected the Indian rhinoceros but here, too, poaching is a problem. What a majestic creature Sudan is. Have we learned nothing since the Ice Age?",496
"The right of Bolivia’s indigenous Indian tribes to chew coca leaves, the main ingredient in cocaine, has caused major international disagreement, which could have a significant effect on global drugs policy. Bolivia has received a special exemption from the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which controls international drugs policy. The exemption allows Bolivia’s indigenous people to chew the leaves.
Bolivia had argued that the convention was in opposition to its new constitution, adopted in 2009, which says it must “protect native and ancestral coca” as part of its cultural heritage and maintains that coca “in its natural state … is not a narcotic”.
South American Indians have chewed coca leaves for centuries. The leaves are said to provide energy and have medicinal qualities. Supporters of Bolivia’s position said that defending the rights of indigenous people was the right thing to do. “The Bolivian move is inspirational and groundbreaking,” said Danny Kushlick, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which supports drug liberalization. “It shows that any country that is fed up with the war on drugs can change its relations with the UN conventions.”
However, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), which checks implementation of global drug treaties, says that Bolivia is threatening international drug controls. A number of countries – including the UK, the US, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Russia – opposed Bolivia’s demands.
The UK told the UN that it “respects the cultural importance of the coca leaf in Bolivia”, but it adds: “The United Kingdom is … worried that the exemption could lead to increases in coca production and – most importantly – the amount of coca that goes into the cocaine trade. As a result, the exemption would weaken … the global effort to tackle the drugs trade.”
The right of indigenous people in South America’s Andean region to chew coca leaf was removed in 1964 when Bolivia was under a dictatorship and it signed up to the convention. But Bolivia was given 25 years to implement the ban. This arrangement came to an end in 1989 and since then the issue has been under dispute.
In 2011, Bolivia – whose President, Evo Morales, is a former coca producer – formally told the UN that it did not want to be in the convention any more. It has now signed up to the convention again, but with an exemption so that its indigenous people can continue chewing coca leaves.
The exemption is the first of its kind in the history of UN drug-control treaties and has led to concerns that other countries may apply for exemptions. The Russian government has argued that the exemption will lead to “an increase in illegal circulation of cocaine” and warned that “it also sets a dangerous precedent that could be used by other states in creating a more liberal drug-control regime”.
The British parliament has recommended that Bolivia’s request should be supported by the UK government. It argues that it is important that countries stay in the convention. Bolivia’s return could be blocked only if a third or more of the 184 countries that have signed up to the convention opposed its request. There are suspicions that the US and UK are trying to persuade other countries to block Bolivia’s request.
Nancie Prud’homme, of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, criticized the co-ordinated opposition to Bolivia’s demands. “These objections are legally questionable,” she said. “They support an arbitrary and over-broad provision and apply international drug laws in a vacuum. This is not right. No state has paid any attention to decades of developing international norms on cultural and indigenous rights, which support Bolivia’s efforts.”
The decision to ban coca chewing was based on a 1950 report produced by the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf, which supporters of drug liberalization say was not based on evidence. The growing of coca leaves is legal and licensed in Bolivia. Some believe this has led to a fall in cocaine production in the country. For this reason, some experts see Bolivia as a model for other countries.",497
"American researchers say that a nasal spray containing the ‘Love hormone’ oxytocin could help children with autism behave more normally in social situations. Scans of autistic children showed that the chemical made the brain respond better to faces. This could make social interactions easierfor them.
The researchers said oxytocin might help other treatments that are used to help people with autism in social situations. “Over time, there would be more normal social responding. Autistic people would be more interested in interacting with other people; there would be more eye contact and more conversation,” said Kevin Pelphrey, of Yale University.
Autism is a disorder that one in 100 people have. It affects people in different ways, but causes difficulties in social interaction and communication. So far, there is no effective treatment for the social problems that autism causes.
Researchers at Yale have studied the brain chemical oxytocin. They say it is a possible treatment for the social problems caused by autism because it plays an important role in bonding and trust. But not all results are positive: one recent study found no significant benefit for young people who took the chemical for several days. But Pelphrey said oxytocin might help the brain learn from social interactions; it would work best when used together with therapies that encourage people with autism to interact more socially, he said.
Scientists tested 17 young people aged eight to 16 with autism. They gave them either oxytocin or a placebo through a nose spray. Then, the scientists scanned their brains while they looked at images of cars or the eyes of people expressing different emotions.
The scans showed that some parts of the children’s brains behaved more normally after oxytocin: they were more active when the person was looking at faces and less active when the person was looking at the cars.
“The study suggests that oxytocin might treat basic social motivation. This is something for which we don’t have a treatment in autism,” said Pelphrey. He said that it was too early to use oxytocin as a treatment for the social difficulties caused by autism and said people should not buy oxytocin online. “We don’t want them to try oxytocin at home. It is impossible to say what they are buying. This is not a treatment yet. It needs more research,” he said. But, the scientists were surprised to find that oxytocin did not help the children in social recognition tasks. It is also not known yet if oxytocin only has benefits for people with autism or has any bad side effects. Finally, oxytocin effects only last about 45 minutes, so it might be difficult to use it as a treatment.
“This study has a lot of evidence from animal and human work to show that oxytocin helps, but we need more research.” Said Simon Baron-Cohen.
Uta Frith, who studies autism at University College London, said: “According to this study, oxytocin may make faces more interesting. Disappointingly, this effect is seen only in brain activity and not in behaviour.” She said that, if we want oxytocin to become an important treatment for autism, we need to show that is has an effect on behaviour.",498
"The US Senate Intelligence Committee recently agreed a bill to allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue to collect US phone records. But it would also make the NSA’s activities more transparent. 
The committee Chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, introduced the bill. It allows the NSA to continue to collect the telephone metadata of millions of Americans. It also allows the government to keep the data. Eleven people voted for the bill and four people voted against it. The full Senate will now vote on the bill. 
The bill allows analysts to search through the data if they believe that someone may be involved in international terrorism. The bill also allows the NSA to continue to watch foreigners who come to the US if they enter the country for less than 72 hours. 
Senator Patrick Leahy introduced another bill (the USA Freedom Act). This bill would stop the collection of phone records in the US. Feinstein defended the NSA phone data collection programme, but said that people didn’t trust the NSA anymore. “The NSA programme is legal and I believe it makes us safer,” she said. “But we can, and should, do more to increase transparency and build public support for privacy protections.” 
Feinstein said the bill would also make a number of improvements to transparency and checks on the NSA – for example, if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) gets some data and then somebody looks at that data without permission, they could spend up to ten years in prison. 
Feinstein says she strongly supports the NSA’s main US programme. “I think many people don’t understand this NSA database programme. It is very important and helps to protect this country,” she said. Independent legal experts said they were worried about the Intelligence Committee’s bill. 
Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice said: “The Intelligence Committee bill and the USA Freedom Act are two opposing visions of the relationship between Americans who do not break the law and the national security state. The most important question is: should the government have some reason to suspect wrongdoing before collecting Americans’ most personal information? Leahy says yes; Feinstein says no.” 
Democratic committee member Ron Wyden said that recent worries about NSA spying on foreign leaders took attention away from the more important problem of the NSA checking the data of people in the US. “My top priority is ending the collection of data on millions and millions of innocent Americans.” 
Feinstein said that she completely disagreed with the foreign leader spying that the NSA does, for example on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But Feinstein agrees with the NSA’s collection of Americans’ phone records. 
“Americans are making it clear, that they never – repeat, never – agreed to give up their freedom so that the country could appear to be safer,” Wyden said. “We’re just going to continue to fight this battle. It’s going to be a long battle.”",499
"Dr Ben Brabon of Edgehill University teaches a MOOC – a massive open online course – in literature. The course is one of only two accredited MOOCs currently on offer in the UK. According to Brabon, many students enrol on MOOCs because they are free and they enjoy communicating with other students. MOOCs have no enrolment criteria and no fees, so students behave very differently from students on traditional higher education courses.
MOOCs are the newest big idea to try to make higher education available to everyone. A lot of money is being invested in new online platforms that deliver sophisticated and interactive courses to tens of thousands of students. Investors hope to find a business model for MOOCs that will make them profitable – so far, courses have depended on universities funding their star lecturers’ course design and online teaching time. One way of making a return on the investment might be studying data about how, why and when millions of students sign up, interact with their material, submit their assignments, message each other and drop out of the course.
One of the questions about the future direction of MOOCs is that nobody can yet say who exactly they benefit. Universities who want to attract fee-paying international students onto postgraduate courses by showing off their best programmes online? Students in developing countries who want access to first-world universities? Employees who wish to develop their professional knowledge? People without qualifications who want to use MOOCs as a bridge to higher education? Or hobby learners, who want to learn about a subject area in which they have an interest?
MOOCs may be popular at the beginning, but they have very poor completion rates, says Brabon. His literature course had 1,000 enrolments and 31 completions. “And almost all of those had a first degree or had been educated to degree level,” he says. “So MOOCs may not be opening up higher education to sectors of the population it hasn’t reached yet.”
“Learning online is a different thing and needs quite advanced learning skills,” confirms David Kernohan, progamme manager for eLearning Innovation at a charity that promotes the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. “With MOOCs, there’s very little support available: the student does not get any individual attention. Instead, they get peer support, such as online discussion forums.” Although this may mean that online study is unattractive or difficult for someone without high-level qualifications, it suggests, he says, that MOOCs could be “a really good tool for continuing education.”
At a time when the number of part-time students has fallen sharply because the price of a degree is rising, could this type of open and free-to-access course provide a new path to university-level education? Could an entire degree be taught via MOOCs? “I don’t think that’s how MOOCs work,” says Brabon. Instead, he suggests “a blended approach that combines a campus experience with a MOOC; also, perhaps, using MOOCs to create a global degree, with students taking courses from across the world, might be possible.”
But that’s a little way into the future. For now, MOOC completion certificates have no quality assurance on either the course content or its assessment standards, so employers will not be impressed by them. Accreditation is now essential for MOOCs if they want to gain credibility with academics and employers, says Brabon.
Some people are idealistic about MOOCs – they want to bring the best of first-world teaching to students in less developed countries. But there’s cynicism, too, with the suggestion that universities could use MOOCs to advertise their on-campus courses to bigger numbers of lucrative students from outside the EU.
Mike Sharples, chair of Educational Technology, doesn’t agree with that cynicism. MOOCs are mainly a way to publicize and share universities’ best teaching talent, as well as encouraging interaction and getting feedback from students around the world, he says. He believes that enrolling international students onto university courses is only a secondary objective of MOOCs – but they could certainly be a very clever marketing idea, as he observes that “if 20,000 people sign up to a MOOC – well, you only need 20 of those to enrol afterwards to run a master’s.”
“In South America, China and countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the world’s best courses are now offered online,” adds Sharples. “If people are genuinely fascinated by learning, then why not? The real challenge is to allow those countries not just to study MOOCs, but also to create them.”",500
"He is the star of one of the world’s longest running and most successful film series, with 23 movies and more than $6bn amassed at the global box office, but James Bond shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the Bond brand is stronger than ever, after the record-breaking performance of Skyfall, which became the biggest ever film at the UK box office on its release in 2012 and, with its total earnings of $1.1bn, currently stands in ninth place of all-time largest earners. 
Hence the intense interest that surrounded the announcement of a few more details of the 24th Bond film – not the least its official title, Spectre. The number one question is this: can Spectre repeat the Skyfall trick? Will Skyfall remain a high water mark for the Bond movie or can Spectre extend this winning run? 
Charles Gant, film editor for Heat magazine, says the indications are it is heading in the right direction.” Skyfall was a brilliant strategic move,” he says. “It was cleverly positioned as simultaneously modern and retro. It appealed to the Daniel-Craig-era fans, who are relative newcomers to the franchise, and it also managed to engage the older, more nostalgic elements of the audience, who may have lost interest over the previous few films. With the new title,” he adds, “they are already on to a winner. My feeling is that Spectre announces that they want to hang on to the nostalgic, more age-diverse Bond fan, as well as retaining the younger audience.” 
The initial signs are that Eon Productions, the company originally founded in 1961 to make Dr No and that is behind all the “official” Bonds, is doing its utmost to ensure lightning strikes twice by installing the key creative talent behind Skyfall on Spectre. Daniel Craig has been tied down at least until Bond 25, while the same writers have produced the script. 
But it’s the recapture of director Sam Mendes that gives Bondwatchers the most hope. A director principally known for character studies such as American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, Mendes has taken the Bond series to new heights. Gant says: “Mendes managed to engage with both the modern and the traditional Bond audience, and he also pulled in high-calibre actors like Ralph Fiennes. To get actors like Fiennes in, they have to be happy with the director.” 
Among other achievements, Skyfall virtually doubled the box office of its predecessor, Quantum of Solace, which managed a worldwide figure of $586m on its release in 2008. No one is expecting anything like that this time, but Eon will not be complacent. 
Though the Bond series was not in trouble before Mendes’s arrival – and Craig’s – there was the sense of a certain amount of staleness towards the end of Pierce Brosnan’s run. The series had survived the drying up of actual Bond stories to adapt, the movies having long since departed from any resemblance to the Ian Fleming originals, but it was lacking a certain dynamism. 
This cycle, however, was nothing new: the history of the Bond series has been one of ebb and flow, stasis and renewal, revolving most obviously around the lead actor: first, Sean Connery; then, successively, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan and, now, Craig. Each appointment has been a response to the state of the series and some have worked out better than others. 
Lazenby only lasted a single film, while Dalton’s two efforts, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill coincided with a period in the late 80s when the 007 movie had been thoroughly eclipsed by more aggressive, slickly produced Hollywood action movies. According to Gant, “the period of Roger Moore’s last ones, going into Dalton, didn’t really excite audiences. Brosnan saw a bit of an upturn commercially, while Craig has taken it to new levels. On the other hand, the early Bonds were incredibly commercial films, sexy and exciting, and there was very little around like them.” 
It’s a point worth underlining that, although Skyfall’s actual receipts dwarf all the other Bond films, the performance of some of the 1960s entries in the series was almost as brilliant by comparison. With figures adjusted for inflation, the 1965 release, Thunderball , is only a hair’s breadth below Skyfall , while Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice both outperformed the other Craig films (as did the 70s Bonds, The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die ). By this reckoning, Licence to Kill is the worst-performing of all Bonds, with Moore’s final effort, A View to a Kill, in second-to-last place. 
Nevertheless, the Bond brand has remained immensely powerful over the decades, with Eon being forced to fend off attempts by rival outfits to capitalize on the series’s popularity. Through a quirk of rights ownership, adaptations of Casino Royale (in 1967) and Thunderball (as Never Say Never Again , in 1983) were released in competition with Eon productions. Although subject to legal disputes over several decades, Eon now has full control of both books. 
Casino Royale, whose rights had been individually sold off by Fleming in 1955, eventually passed to Eon in 1999 as a result of an agreement between Eon’s backers, MGM, and rival Hollywood studio Sony – thereby clearing the way for the 2006 version. Thunderball, on the other hand, owed its disputed status to writer-producer Kevin McClory, who helped Fleming outline the original story and who claimed ownership of the novel over subsequent decades, and produced Never Say Never Again as a result. After McClory’s death in 2006, his family eventually settled with MGM and Eon’s parent company in November 2013. 
If the initial surge of enthusiasm for Bond movies lasted through the 60s and into the 1970s, it’s fair to say that the series almost ground to a halt after Licence to Kill’s poor figures. Goldeneye, the first of Brosnan’s efforts, heralded a dramatic renewal: not simply because of a new actor but, more significantly, because of who was behind the camera. 
However, after a six-year break, Eon installed Martin Campbell in the chair: another experienced British director but one who was able to orchestrate one of the most elaborate stunts in Bond history. The justly renowned opening scene of Goldeneye – during which Bond freefalls into the cockpit of a pilotless light aeroplane – did much to reinvigorate and modernize the series on its own. Moreover, a whole new generation was reached through a hugely successful Goldeneye video-game spin-off, making a significant contribution to perceptions that the Bond film was no longer stale and old-fashioned.",501
"Agios Efstratios is so remote, so forgotten by the banks, the government and most of the modern world that the mobile phone network can’t process data and there isn’t a single ATM or credit-card machine on the island. Before Greece was plunged into financial chaos, residents of this tranquil outpost in the northern Aegean managed quite well. They did their banking at the post office and the few dozen rooms to rent were booked out every summer with people who had heard – by word of mouth – of its spectacular empty beaches, clear seas and fresh seafood. 
But, because the island still runs on cash, the closure of banks nationwide has been devastating. Residents have been forced to make nine-hour round trips to the nearest big island to get cash and Greek visitors say they can’t get together enough money to come. “Tourist numbers are down 80% this year,” said Mayor Maria Kakali, in an office in the village where she grew up, home to around 200 people. “Even people born here and living in Athens, who have their own places on the island, aren’t coming.” 
Kakali has badgered the government and a major Greek bank into promising an ATM within weeks but she still feels it may come too late for this season on an island where tourism dwarfs the two other sources of income: fishing and agriculture: “We have almost no reservations in August, when usually we have people calling us up asking to find a room and we can’t help them.” A hard winter ahead may be slightly improved by 50 workers billeted in the village to expand the harbour but there is an even bigger crisis looming because the government has said it will end a decades-old tax break for islands. 
Created to help island communities survive when they were suffering mass emigration, a lower sales tax contained the costs of living in places where everything had to be imported and made tourism more affordable. Tourist favourites such as Mykonos fear that losing the tax breaks will make it hard for them to compete with Turkey but, for Agios Efstratios, it poses a far greater threat. “If we have to pay a tax of 23%, I’m sorry to say it but we will all die on the island,” says Kakali. 
Food and fuel are already more expensive than on the mainland, there are no economies of scale and little economic flexibility on an island which, even in summer, has only three shops, two restaurants and not a single official hotel. “This is an expensive island. Everything, even milk or bread, has changed hands three or four times before it gets to us and each middleman has to take a profit,” said Provatas Costas, a 58-year-old fisherman. 
For Agios Efstratios and its closest large neighbour, Lemnos, the timing of the crisis is particularly cruel. They were condemned to relative obscurity for years in part because they are served by slow and unreliable ferries. In 2015, the government had finally given the contract to a new, efficient company, drawing floods of new visitors to explore the islands’ largely overlooked charms, before the bank controls hit. 
“It started out as the best season in 30 years and, in one week, became the worst,” said Atzamis Konstantinos, a travel agent in Lemnos who used to earn €15,000 a month as a captain of petroleum tankers and other large ships but came home because he missed it so much. “I always loved this island, even when I was young. I would dock in Piraeus, the port in Athens, take my pay, then get the first boat over. People would say 'You’re crazy. You can go anywhere' but I only ever wanted to come here.” 
Lemnos has dozens of wild beaches, where even at the height of summer you can swim and sunbathe virtually alone, a small nightlife scene and numerous cultural sites. It is the eighth largest island in Greece so is in line for the first round of tax increases in autumn 2015 but far less wealthy than many smaller ones. It has just over 3,000 beds for visitors, compared with tens of thousands on an island such as Rhodes. Its councillors say that they will fight the tax rise, although none can say how. “We have been suffering economically in recent years and, now, we will suffer more,” said Lemnos Mayor, Dimitris Marinakis. “When there is not enough money, you reduce your consumption and therefore the whole economy declines.” 
The crisis has been particularly hard on people under 40, who often do two or three jobs to make ends meet and still feel they can’t afford a family. Young people fear they are losing their contemporaries in an exodus to match the one that scattered their grandparents’ friends to America, Australia and Canada. “What is the future for our generation?” said Katerina Fikari, who feels she is extremely lucky to work for the local government in Lemnos. “If you work only to pay your bills, how can you have dreams for your future?” 
If taxes go up, even more young people will leave, warns Mayor Kakali, who has devoted her year in office to improving education on the island to help keep it an attractive place for families. Because it is one of the smallest islands, Agios Efstratios has until 2017 before the rise is due to come in, so Kakali hopes that the roller coaster of Greek politics means it yet may be spared. If not, though, she plans to travel to Athens to remind the distant government what the tax rise would cost. 
“The truth is the government doesn’t pay much attention to the islands of the north Aegean,” she said, “so I would take all the kids from our school to the gates of parliament, to tell them: 'There is still life in these islands'.”",502
"A car with a top speed of 25mph, two seats and no pedals or steering wheel might not make much of an impression at a motor show. But Google, in the US, sent a shock through the car and taxi industries as it unveiled the latest version of its driverless car.
The electrically powered vehicle, which Google has begun testing around its headquarters in Mountain View, California, dispenses with all the normal controls, including foot pedals. Instead, it has a smartphone app that calls it and tells it the destination, and a single STOP button between the two front-facing seats in case the passengers need to override the computer.
The car, in fact, does all the tasks of navigation, steering, acceleration and braking.
The company is building about 100 prototypes for a two-year test. The company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, told a conference in California that the vehicle was “still in the prototype stage” but that the project was about changing the world for people who do not have good transportation today.
He said of the car: “You’re just sitting there; no steering wheel, no pedals. For me, it was very relaxing. About ten seconds after getting in, I forgot I was there. I found it really enjoyable.”
Google says that the aim of the project is to improve safety and that, because the car is constructed with impact-absorbing foam at the front and a plastic windscreen, “it should be far safer than any other car for pedestrians”.
The cars, which have been built specially by an unnamed company in Detroit, will be used to find out how best to make driverless vehicles work. Google will run a pilot programme using the cars, which are not yet for sale.
One challenge is creating high-definition scans of the roads and surroundings before the cars can drive along them because they cannot collect and process enough information in real time.
So far, there are high-detail maps of about 2,000 miles of California’s roads, but the state has more than 170,000 miles of public roads.
Google says it is interested in licensing the technology to traditional vehicle manufacturers once it has been refined.
But the idea of driverless cars replacing humandriven taxis has been the cause of some alarm.
Dennis Conyon of the UK National Taxi Association says that drivers will become unemployed.
London has about 22,000 licensed black cabs and Conyon estimates that the total number of people who drive taxis for hire in the UK is about 100,000.
Other car makers, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes, are working on driver-assisted vehicles, which, unlike Google’s version, do not dispense with the driver controls.
But Chris Urmson, director of the self-driving car project at Google, said that the new prototypes dispensed with the steering wheel and brakes because a human passenger might not be able to take over in an emergency, and that it was simpler just to have an emergency stop button.
Urmson said: “The vehicles will be very basic. We want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible. But they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And, that’s an important step towards improving road safety and improving mobility for millions of people.”
So far, the Google versions of the self-driving cars have driven 700,000 miles without an accident caused by the computer. The company says that thousands of people die each year on the roads and that about 80% of crashes are caused by human error.",503
"The small room looks like a classroom. The posters on the walls show letters of the alphabet and a map of Bangladesh. 
But, it is hard to concentrate – there is the loud hammering and chemicals in the air that hurt the throat and eyes. But, the children who learn in this three-square-metre room are lucky. They have escaped working in the factories opposite. 
For 14 years, SOHAY, a non-governmental organization (NGO), has worked in slums in Dhaka to send child workers to school. It especially tries to help children who do dangerous work. 
The classroom is one of 23 centres that SOHAY has set up in Dhaka. The classes at the centres help children enter primary school. When they are in school, the children get extra help with their homework at the centres. 
Alamin, ten years old, used to work in a plastic factory. He now goes to one of the centres. His parents are happy that he’s now in school and not doing dangerous work. His friend Rabi says he wants to forget his past in the factory. “I like school,” he says. 
SOHAY also has classes for parents and managers to stop child labour. It can be very difficult for working children to go to school. They are not like other children. After they stop working, they sometimes find it difficult to make friends and adapt to school. It is also difficult to make sure they stay in school – lots of these children don’t finish school. 
Seven-year-old Zhorna Akter Sumayya has two older brothers – they both work (one at a restaurant, one at a local club). But, she went to a SOHAY centre and she now goes to school. Her family live in the slum and her parents need the money their sons make but they want their daughter to go to school. 
In 2015, SOHAY helped 1,540 children to leave dangerous work and helped 2,125 more children – those who would soon start work – to go to school. About 780 more children are preparing to start school in 2017. 
The Labour Law of Bangladesh 2006 does not allow children younger than 14 to work but UNICEF says that, in Bangladesh, 4.7 million children younger than 14 are employed and 1.3 million children aged five to 17 do dangerous work.",504
"Valdevaqueros is one of the last unspoilt beaches in southern Spain. Currently the beach just has an access road filled with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain, which bring windsurfers and kitesurfers who are attracted by the strong winds in the area.
For years it has been very different from the concrete-lined beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella along the coast, but earlier in 2012 the local council in Tarifa said ‘yes’ to plans to build a tourist complex next to the beach. Environmental and conservation groups have protested that the project will harm the habitats of protected species, but for most of the council the issue is simple: jobs. Tarifa has 18,000 inhabitants and 2,600 are unemployed as Spain experiences its worst economic crisis in at least half a century.
“Traditional jobs such as fishing are dying out so tourism is the only solution, but it must be sustainable,” said Sebastián Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist party, which is in opposition in Tarifa but voted with the governing People’s Party support the project. Galindo says the complex meets environmental standards. There is a law that was designed to stop more ugly developments like those that spoilt a lot of Spain’s beaches when mass tourism first arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. This law says that the complex must be at least 200 metres from the coast; it will be much farther than that – it will be 800 metres.
Opponents of the complex say more housing is not needed in a country that already has a million empty homes. The Socialist opposition in Madrid attacked the idea, and Galindo said it discriminated against migrant workers who came to Spain during the boom years, many of them from Morocco, whose coastline is just 14km away and can be seen from Tarifa.
Surfers fear that new buildings in Valdevaqueros would reduce the strength of the famous local wind but fail to attract traditional package holidaymakers. “It’s not really a family spot. Just wait until they see what the wind is like,” said Henning Mayer, who has come here from Germany every year for 20 years. “Ten years ago they said they would build a new highway here. It didn’t happen, so I think it will be impossible to build new hotels.”
At the southernmost point of Spain, Tarifa is where Africa and Europe meet, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. Campaigners say it also has a vital role for migrating animals.
The campaign to save the beach was launched hours after the Tarifa council voted for the project. The campaign has a Facebook page and is supported by groups including Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Spanish branch of conservation network Birdlife. Also joining the opposition to the project is the Andalusian College of Geographers, which says that the site would disturb two wildlife conservation areas and cross the border of a national park.
“Money is once again more important than urban laws and European environmental directives,” said Raúl Romeva, a member of the European Parliament. In Romeva’s view, another problem with the project is that the site has too little water in a town that already suffers from shortages in the hot summer weather of Andalusía.
Many locals are also wondering why a resort should be built 10km away, and not on wasteland near Tarifa’s picturesque old centre, with its typically Andalusian white walls and small streets, dominated by a 10th-century Moorish castle. “We agree with the complex as long as it creates jobs in the town, but we are against it if it only benefits a few,” said Cristóbal Lobato, who has worked at the same beachside bar in Tarifa for 30 years. “If they put it in the centre of Tarifa, where there is space, then clients could visit shops, tapas bars and restaurants.”
Overlooking the green fields where the resort will be built, biologist Aitor Galán said, “Anywhere else in Europe, this place would have the utmost protection, but here they want to get rid of it all and cover it with buildings. What they want to do is turn this into Benidorm, but what attracts people here is wildlife and the wind. But by taking advantage of the current crisis and unemployment, builders and mayors who agree with them can justify any amount of destruction.”",505
"According to a new survey, there are more tigers in Nepal than at any time since the 1970s. The number of big cats has been decreasing in south Asia for 100 years, but conservationists now hope that we can save them. 
The number of wild royal bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198 – a 63.6% increase in five years – the survey showed. “This is very good news,” said Maheshwar Dhakal, an ecologist with Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. 
The survey looked at pictures from more than 500 cameras in five protected areas and three wildlife corridors. More than 250 conservationists and wildlife experts worked on the survey, which cost about £250,000. Dhakal said that there was a similar survey in India and the results from both countries will be published later in 2013. “It will take a few more months for India, which now has 1,300 big cats in several huge protected areas, to finish the survey,” he added. Nepal says it will double the population of tigers by the year 2022 from 121 in 2009 to 242. 
Some rich people want tiger skins. Tiger body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine. International gangs pay poor local Nepali people large amounts of money to kill the cats. The skin and bones are taken through the border to India, where the big dealers are. 
One big problem is that some senior officials help the mafia who are involved in the illegal buying and selling. Conservation experts believe that tiger numbers have increased because the police are controlling national parks better, and because there is now better management of tiger habitats in Nepal, where forests cover 29% of the land. But they say Nepal must do more to protect the habitat and animals that tigers eat so the big cats have enough space to move around and food to eat. 
The number of tigers has increased but attacks on villagers have increased, too. Seven people were killed in attacks by tigers around national parks in 2012 compared to four in 2011, park officials said. Villagers also want better protection. “The government is making conservation plans for tigers. But it should also make plans to protect people from tigers,” Krishna Bhurtel, a village leader, told a Nepali newspaper. Recently, a tiger was captured after it killed two people, including a villager who was pulled from his bed in May. 
Thousands of tigers used to lived in the forests in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have decreased to about 3,000, a 95% decrease in one hundred years. Chitwan National Park in central Nepal has the most adult tigers, with 120, followed by Bardiya National Park (50) and Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve (17). 
Tiger skins are popular in Tibet, where rich people use them as festival costumes. In Nepal, kings used to stand on tiger skins for special occasions. Some rich Nepali have tiger heads on the walls of their living rooms. Tiger bones are in high demand for use in traditional Chinese medicine. People can make a lot of money selling tiger skins and bones illegally.",506
"They may not know who Steve Jobs was or even how to tie their own shoelaces, but the average six-year-old child understands more about digital technology than a 45-year-old adult, according to a new report.
The arrival of broadband in the year 2000 has created a generation of digital natives, Ofcom (which checks standards in the UK communications industries) says in its annual study of British consumers. Born in the new millennium, these children are learning how to operate smartphones or tablets before they are able to talk.
“These younger people are shaping communications,” said Jane Rumble, who is head of media research at Ofcom. “As a result of growing up in the digital age, they are developing completely different communication habits from older generations, even compared to the 16-to-24 age group.”
800 children and 2,000 adults took Ofcom’s “digital quotient”, or DQ, test, which attempts to gauge awareness of and self-confidence around gadgets from tablets to smart watches, knowledge of superfast internet, 4G mobilephone networks and mobile apps.
Among 6- to 7-year-olds, who have grown up with YouTube, Spotify music streaming and online television, the average DQ score was 98, higher than for those aged between 45 and 49, who scored an average of 96. Digital understanding peaks between 14 and 15 years old, with a DQ of 113, and then drops gradually throughout adulthood, before falling rapidly in old age.
People can now test their digital knowledge with a short version of the questionnaire that will give anyone a DQ score, along with advice on how to improve their understanding and protect themselves and their families online.
The ways in which millennial children contact each other and consume entertainment are so different from previous generations that forecasters now believe their preferences to be a better indication of the future than the preferences of trendsetting young adults.
The most remarkable change is in time spent talking by phone. Two decades ago, teenagers spent their evenings monopolizing the home telephone line, talking about love affairs and friendships in conversations that lasted for hours.
For those aged 12 to 15, phone calls account for just 3% of time spent communicating through any device. For all adults, this rises to 20% and, for young adults, it is still three times as high at 9%. Today’s children do the majority of their remote socializing by sending written messages or through shared photographs and videos. “The millennium generation is losing its voice,” Ofcom claims.
Over 90% of their device-time is message based, chatting on social networks like Facebook, sending instant messages through services like WhatsApp or even sending traditional mobilephone text messages. Just 2% of children’s time using devices is spent emailing, compared to 33% for adults.
Away from their phones, 12- to 15-year-olds have a very different relationship with other media, too. A digital seven-day diary shows live television accounts for just half of viewing for this age group, compared to nearly 70% for all adults. They spend 20% of their time viewing short video clips, for example on YouTube, or news clips on Facebook and other social sites. The rest of their viewing is shared between DVDs, streamed content through Netflix or iTunes and recorded television programmes.
Young adults aged 16 to 24 are big media consumers. However, they consume hardly any live radio or print-based media.
Younger people are also moving away from live television and moving to streaming and catchup services. Even among adults, television is becoming less important. Television viewing among 16- to 24-year-olds has been dipping each year since 2010, but 2013 was the first year that researchers found that viewing fell in all age groups. The theory is that easy-to-use tablet computers with large screens have brought many older people online.",507
"Apart from volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes, there are two key things that can make a city disintegrate or even totally disappear – water and sand.
A century ago, Venice – one of the most beautiful and low-lying cities in the world – used to flood around ten times a year. Nowadays, its lowest point, Piazza San Marco (only three feet above sea level) is inundated with water approximately 100 times a year.
But rising sea levels are not the only cause. In many parts of the world, the land is also sinking. In Venice, subsoil compaction (a result of industrial exploitation of the surrounding area) lowered the city by 20cm between 1950 and 1970. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is also sinking by about 2cm a year – but that’s nothing compared to Jakarta, which is dropping 10 to 20cm each year. In the past three decades, the city has sunk roughly four metres.
Unfortunately for the Indonesian capital, it has pumped out so much groundwater to support its population that the land above is drying out and compacting – this has created a bowl. Rivers that used to flow through the city down to the sea have had to be diverted because they cannot drain uphill.
While there are many plans to save Venice – and Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta are taking the problem seriously – the same cannot be said for Miami, where politicians refuse to admit the city has a serious environmental problem.
There are three problems in Miami. It is less than ten feet above sea level; an increasing number of tropical storms are inundating the city; and it is built on porous rock, which is absorbing the rising seawater. This water then fills the city’s foundations and comes up through drains and pipes, forcing sewage upwards and polluting its fresh water. It is possible that Miami may one day become uninhabitable.
In the Maldives, the populations of whole islands are now considering abandoning their homes. The capital, Malé, population 153,379 and only four feet above sea level, has built a ten-foot sea wall at a cost of $63 million – but, long term, only a stabilization of rising sea levels will save it and the rest of the islands.
In Africa, desertification is causing the Sahara to spread south at a rate of 30 miles per year, threatening settlements in northern Mauritania. Over the past 20 years, for example, the desert has grown by more than 260 acres around the trading and religious centre of Chinguetti, where the population has declined from 20,000 people in the mid-twentieth century to just a few thousand now. Trading has almost completely stopped as sand piles up in the streets.
Likewise, the Californian resort of Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, may have to be abandoned in the next decade. This city is just one example of a problem caused not so much by global warming as human over-expansion. California’s dream of farming the desert made sense while its total population remained around half a million (in 1870) – but now the state is home to 38 million people, who own 32 million vehicles.
The daily water use in Rancho Mirage is more than 200 gallons per person, which is causing a man-made drought. A 25% cut in water use has been implemented but this is unlikely to stabilize the resort, which is surrounded by sand and dust. The long-term answer in California’s desert is likely to be the abandonment of some cities.
Fire is a growing threat to urban settlements in America – in fact, forest fires cause the most damage after severe storms, with 800 major fire disasters there between 1953 and 2014. A new report by the USDA Forest Service maps the increasing number of urban locations that are particularly vulnerable to wildfire.
Similarly in Australia, some of Victoria’s resorts and several Melbourne suburbs have been placed on a list of the state’s 52 most vulnerable bushfire spots because long-term droughts are making trees highly combustible. It’s unlikely that a forest fire will ever destroy an entire city but a succession of fires could make it uninhabitable. 
Many cities are fighting a losing battle against nature but is it possible to identify the world’s most vulnerable city? Natural events are very difficult to predict – but Malé’s future looks particularly bad because, even if its new sea wall continues to be effective, the islands around the Maldives capital are going to disappear before too long. And, if they disappear, Malé’s raison d’être disappears, too.",508
"More than one million British workers might be employed on zero-hours contracts, new figures reveal, suggesting that British business is using the controversial employment terms far more widely than previously thought. 
The figure – derived from a poll of more than 1,000 employers conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) – prompted renewed calls for the government to launch a full inquiry into the use of the contracts, after a week in which a string of organizations – from retail chains to Buckingham Palace – have faced criticism for hiring staff but offering no guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before seeking additional work elsewhere. The CIPD found that 38% of zero-hours contract workers describe themselves as employed full-time, typically working 30 hours or more a week. One-third of voluntary sector employers use the contracts and one in four public sector organizations. 
The latest numbers also call into question the accuracy of official data on the topic. The Office for National Statistics has increased its estimate of the number of UK zero-hours workers by 25%, to around 250,000. 
Peter Cheese, the chief executive of the CIPD, said: “There does need to be a closer look at what is meant by a zero-hours contract, the different forms that they take and clearer guidance on what good and bad practice in their use looks like. And this needs to consider both the advantages and disadvantages in practice for businesses and employees.” 
Retailer Sports Direct recently became the focus of controversy on zero-hours when it emerged that the company employs around 20,000 of its 23,000 staff on the contracts. The retailer’s use of the contracts was followed by details of a string of other companies using the deals, including cinema chain Cineworld and Buckingham Palace, which uses them for its 350 summer workers. 
Pub group J D Wetherspoon has 24,000 of its staff – 80% of its workforce – on the terms. 
Vidhya Alakeson, from the Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank, added: “If it’s true that there are around one million people on zero-hours contracts, then that would be a substantial portion of the workforce – this could no longer be dismissed as an issue affecting only a tiny minority. 
“The new estimate underlines the urgent need for a deep and thorough review of zero-hours by the government, which takes into account not only the scale of the problem but the effect these contracts have on workers’ employment rights, earning capacity and personal well-being.” 
Unions and poverty campaign groups have accused employers of pressuring staff into signing the contracts as a way to evade their responsibilities and cut staff benefits. 
Dave Prentis, of the trade union Unison, said: “The vast majority of workers are only on these contracts because they have no choice. They may give flexibility to a few, but the balance of power favours the employers and makes it hard for workers to complain.” 
Workers on zero-hours contracts are often only told how many hours they will work when weekly or monthly rotas are worked out, but are expected to be on call for extra work at short notice. They should be entitled to holiday pay in line with the number of hours they work, but do not qualify for sick pay. 
The charity National Trust, which employs many of its seasonal workers on zero-hours contracts, said it offered the same pay and benefits to those workers, pro rata, as full-time staff, but needed some workers to be on a more flexible arrangement. 
“We believe zero-hours contracts are essential in our organization, as we are very weather- dependent,” a spokeswoman said. “Our properties have told us it’s important to be able to reorganize staff rotas quickly to respond to the weather and zero-hours contracts allow us to do this.” 
Politician Chuka Umunna said the contracts should be the exception to the rule. “While some employees welcome the flexibility of such contracts, for many, zero-hours contracts leave them insecure and unsure of when work will come,” he said. 
Some people have argued that the flexibility of zero-hours contracts may have allowed the UK to avoid higher levels of unemployment during the economic downturn, while the CIPD research suggests that only 16% of those on zero-hours contracts report that their employer frequently fails to provide them with sufficient hours each week. 
The institute’s figures also suggest that 17% of employers in the private sector made use of zero- hours contracts, considerably lower than the 34% of organizations in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector. 
Industries where employers were most likely to report at least one person on a zero-hours contract were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).",509
"DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a European hunter-gatherer has given scientists an unprecedented glimpse of modern humans before the rise of farming. The Mesolithic man, who lived in Spain around 7,000 years ago, had an unusual mix of blue eyes, black or brown hair and dark skin, according to analyses of his genetic make-up. 
He was probably lactose intolerant and had more difficulty digesting starchy foods than the farmers who transformed diets and lifestyles when they took up tools in the first agricultural revolution. The invention of farming brought humans and animals into much closer contact and humans likely evolved more robust immune systems to fend off infections that the animals passed on. But scientists may have overestimated the impact farming had in shaping the human immune system, because tests on the hunter-gatherer’s DNA found that he already carried mutations that boost the immune system to tackle various nasty bugs. Some live on in modern Europeans today. “Before we started this work, I had some ideas of what we were going to find,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox, who led the study at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona. “Most of those ideas turned out to be completely wrong.” 
The Spanish team started their work after a group of cavers stumbled upon two skeletons in a deep and complex cave system high up in the Cantabrian Mountains of northwest Spain in 2006. The human remains, which belonged to two men in their early 30s, had been extremely well preserved by the cool environment of the cave. Carbon dating put the remains at around 7,000 years old, before farming had swept into Europe from the Middle East. The timing fitted with ancient artefacts found at the site, including perforated reindeer teeth that were strung and hung from the people’s clothing. 
The scientists focused their efforts on the better preserved of the two skeletons. After several failed attempts, they managed to reconstruct the man’s entire genome from DNA found in the root of a third molar. It is the first time researchers have obtained the complete genome of a modern European who lived before the Neolithic revolution. 
The DNA threw up a series of surprises. When Lalueza-Fox looked at the genome, he found that, rather than having light skin, the man had gene variants that tend to produce much darker skin. “This guy had to be darker than any modern European, but we don’t know how dark,” the scientist said. 
Another surprise fi nding was that the man had blue eyes. That was unexpected, said Lalueza-Fox, because the mutation for blue eyes was thought to have arisen more recently than the mutations that cause lighter skin colour. The results suggest that blue eye colour came first in Europe, with the transition to lighter skin ongoing through Mesolithic times. 
On top of the scientific impact, artists might have to rethink their drawings of the people. “You see a lot of reconstructions of these people hunting and gathering and they look like modern Europeans with light skin. You never see a reconstruction of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer with dark skin and blue eye colour,” Lalueza-Fox said. 
The Spanish team went on to compare the genome of the hunter-gatherer to those of modern Europeans from different regions to see how they might be related. They found that the ancient DNA most closely matched the genetic make-up of people living in northern Europe, in particular Sweden and Finland. 
The discovery of mutations that bolstered the immune system against bacteria and viruses suggests that the shift to a farming culture in Neolithic times did not drive all of the changes in immunity genes that Europeans carry today. At least some of those genetic changes have a history that stretches further back. “One thing we don’t know is what sort of pathogens were affecting these people,” said Lalueza-Fox. 
Martin Jones, professor of archaeological science at Cambridge University, said the immunity genes were the most striking result. “There is a no doubt oversimplified grand narrative that the move from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to settled farming was initially bad for our health. A number of factors contributed, particularly living closely together with other humans and animals, shrinking the food web and crowding out water supplies. The authors are drawing attention to the role of pathogens in pre-agricultural lives and that is interesting.”",510
"There are about 50,000 mystery shopping trips every month in the UK. Mystery shoppers pretend to be a customer in a store but they are really collecting information on the store and how good or bad its service is.The demand for mystery shoppers is growing because online shopping is becoming more popular.
“Retailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who visit a physical store want a service and an experience they can’t get online,” says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers. “Our clients want to know how well their stores are delivering on that experience.”
“We assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months,” says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. “Each day, they spend up to eight hours visiting five to ten stores, plus another hour or two writing detailed reports on every part of their visit.” For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to £155 a day. Their expenses are also paid. Mystery shoppers who film their visits with a hidden camera can earn even more – around £300 a day.
Mystery shoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. “They usually give me between £5 and £20 to spend at each store, to check the service I receive at the till,” says mystery shopper Laura. “I’m always given a specific task, such as buying something from a specific department or a new product range, but I can often buy whatever I want – and keep it.”
Like most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed. She earns around £30,000 to £40,000 a year and that doesn’t include all the freebies she gets on the job. “With the perks, it’s enough to live on.” She finds it satisfying to return to a store where she has previously been a mystery shopper and see standards have improved. “I know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? I feel I’m not just doing a service for my company; I’m doing a service for all shoppers everywhere.”
More than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less get regular work each month. This has led to a dramatic reduction in payment. Before, people were paid and got travel expenses, but now “you often just receive some money towards a purchase,” say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. Nowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly give freebies as an incentive. “Marketforce shoppers usually get a couple of pounds for a visit, for their time and effort,” says Boydell. “At the most, we’ll pay £15 to £25 plus expenses for a meal for two or a hotel stay, for example. We don’t directly employ any shoppers so we don’t have to pay them the minimum wage.” “I’d go on a cruise for nothing,” says Laura. “But I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I won’t do those jobs anymore.” But there are plenty of people who want to do those jobs. 
Hannah, a 41-year-old lawyer, has made nearly 500 visits  or the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving pay or travel expenses. She has enjoyed £200 meals at Michelin- starred restaurants and overnight stays at expensive hotels.
But, it can be hard work. Hannah says she spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to specific conversations with staff. And, she always needs to be able to name or describe the staff. She has to memorize all these details while eating her meal because she cannot openly write anything down.",511
"Swedish prisons have long had a reputation around the world for being progressive. But are the country’s prisons a soft option? 
The head of Sweden’s prison and probation service, Nils Oberg, announced in November 2013 that four Swedish prisons are to be closed due to an “out of the ordinary” decline in prisoner numbers. 
Although there has been no fall in crime rates, between 2011 and 2012 there was a 6% drop in Sweden’s prisoner population, now a little over 4,500. A similar decrease is expected in 2013 and 2014. Oberg admitted to being puzzled by the unexpected dip, but expressed optimism that the reason was to do with how his prisons are run. “We certainly hope that the efforts we invest in rehabilitation and preventing relapse of crime has had an impact,” he said. 
“The modern prison service in Sweden is very different from when I joined as a young prison officer in 1978,” says Kenneth Gustafsson, governor of Kumla Prison, Sweden’s most secure jail, situated 130 miles west of Stockholm. However, he doesn’t think the system has gone soft. “When I joined, the focus was very much on humanity in prisons. Prisoners were treated well – maybe too well, some might say. But, after a number of high-profile escapes in 2004, we had to rebalance and place more emphasis on security.” 
Despite the hardening of attitudes toward prison security following the escape scandals, the Swedes still managed to maintain a broadly humane approach to sentencing, even of the most serious offenders: jail terms rarely exceed ten years; those who receive life imprisonment can still apply to the courts after a decade to have the sentence commuted to a fixed term, usually in the region of 18 to 25 years. Sweden was the first country in Europe to introduce the electronic tagging of convicted criminals and continues to strive to minimize short-term prison sentences wherever possible by using community-based measures, which have been proven to be more effective at reducing reoffending. 
The overall reoffending rate in Sweden stands at between 30 and 40% over three years – to compare that with another European country, the number is around half that of the UK. One likely reason for the relatively low reoffending rate and the low rate of incarceration in Sweden (below 70 per 100,000 head of population) is that the age of criminal responsibility is set at 15. In the UK, for example, children aged ten to 17 and young people under the age of 21 record the highest reoffending rates: almost three quarters and two thirds, respectively. A good proportion of these offenders go on to populate adult jails. In Sweden, no young person under the age of 21 can be sentenced to life – this is not the case in many other countries – and every effort is made to ensure that as few juvenile offenders as possible end up in prison. 
One strong reason for the drop in prison numbers might be the amount of post-prison support available in Sweden. A confident probation service – a government agency – is tasked not only with supervising those on probation but is also guaranteed to provide treatment programmes for offenders with drug, alcohol or violence issues. The service is assisted by around 4,500 lay supervisors – members of the public who volunteer to befriend and support offenders under supervision. 
Gustafsson talks about broader goals and objectives for the Swedish justice department: “In 2013 and 2014, the priority of our work will be with young offenders and men with convictions of violent behaviour. For many years, we have been running programmes to help those addicted to drugs. Now, we are also developing programmes to address behaviours such as aggression and violence. These are the important things for our society when these people are released.” I spoke to a former prisoner who now runs a social enterprise called X-Cons Sweden. Peter Soderlund served almost three years of a four-year sentence for drug and weapons offences before he was released in 1998. He was helped by a newly formed organization run by former prisoners called Kris (Criminals’ Return Into Society). 
“The big difference between Kris and us is that we are happy to allow people who are still taking addiction medications to join us,” he says. Both organizations work with the same goal: helping prisoners successfully reintegrate into society after they have been released. And what is life like for the prisoner in Sweden? “When I was inside, I was lucky. In Osteraker Prison, where I served my sentence, the governor was enlightened. We were treated well. But I knew that not all Swedish prisons were like that. I met so many people in there who needed help – after I received help from Kris, I knew I wanted to help others. With X-Cons, we meet them at the gate and support them into accommodation and offer a network of support.” 
“In Sweden, we believe very much in the concept of rehabilitation, without being naive of course,” says Gustafsson. “There are some people who will not or cannot change. But, in my experience, the majority of prisoners want to change, and we must do what we can to help to facilitate that. It is not always possible to achieve this in one prison sentence. 
“Also, it is not just prison that can rehabilitate – it is often a combined process, involving probation and greater society. We can give education and training, but, when they leave prison, these people need housing and jobs.”",512
"A group of experts say that thousands of people are taking unnecessary medicines and have bad diets because of bogus allergy tests. Allergies and food intolerances are increasing very quickly but people do not understand the difference between an allergy and a food intolerance – this is causing problems, says the charity Sense About Science, who have written a guide to allergies. 
“It’s a big mess,” said Tracey Brown, director of Sense About Science. “There is unnecessary action for people who don’t really have allergies and not enough action for people who have allergies.” 
Lots of people tell the waiter or waitress in a restaurant that they have an allergy. But some of these people don’t have an allergy – that have a food intolerance, which is not dangerous. Experts fear that restaurants hear so many people say that they have allergies (when maybe that is not true) that they may not be careful enough when they give food to a person who has a real allergy. 
“It matters very much,” said Moira Austin of an allergy charity. “If a restaurant thinks somebody just doesn’t want to eat a food because it makes them feel uncomfortable, the restaurant may be less careful. There have been deaths where people have gone to a restaurant, told the waiter or waitress that they have an allergy to a food and the meal has been given to them containing that food.” 
The guide says most allergy tests bought on the internet or in shops do not work. They include a test people can use at home, which looks for specific antibodies against different foods in the blood. These antibodies are part of the body’s response to infections but “the best medical evidence has shown high antibody levels do not suggest an allergy”, the guide says. The test often shows people have an allergy or a food intolerance when this is not true. 
Another test also does not work. It uses a mixture of acupuncture and homeopathy. Testing hair is also pointless, the guide says. “Hair cannot show if you are allergic or not so testing hair cannot give any useful information on allergies.” 
“I often see children who are on very limited diets – their parents believe that they have allergies because they have taken 'allergy tests' that do not work,” said Paul Seddon, an allergy doctor for children. “This needs to stop, which can only happen if we prove these 'tests' do not work.” 
Allergies can cause tiredness, headaches and eczema in children. But you need to check if they have an allergy and this takes a long time and many tests. It may seem like a good idea to do just one test and get a quick answer. But, it will be a wrong answer. 
Allergies are increasing in developed countries. There are three times more children with certain allergies now compared to 30 years ago. The Sense About Science guide lists a number of myths about the sources of allergies, for example the myths that fast food or E numbers in food colourings cause allergies.",513
"Why do it? Talking to the men earmarked to be the elite referees of the future, the question elicits a knowing smile. This season, criticism of referees has increased to the point where some former referees have felt compelled to complain about standards. That is quite striking because, the more you talk to referees, the more obvious it is that supporting each other through thick and thin is fundamental. 
So why do it? Why spend countless hours driving up and down the country to dole out rules, some of which are inevitably going to upset people, trying to climb the ladder until you get the chance to make decisions on television in front of millions who scrutinize you and your ability with the aid of umpteen different angles and slow-motion replays? 
A glimpse of an answer appears on the face of Lee Swabey moments after he blows the final whistle of a 2 –1 win for Grimsby over Woking, a match at level 5 of the English league system. He gets what all referees hope for every time they referee a match. “Twenty-two handshakes,” he explains afterwards, proudly. Symbolically, a full set of handshakes, plus a “well done” from both managers, represents maximum satisfaction. “The buzz,” as he calls it, of a game that passes smoothly, is something he loves. “I wouldn’t spend so much time away from my family if this didn’t mean the world to me.” 
As one of the group that is highly regarded by the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) for his potential, Swabey knew he was being watched at that match. PGMOL’s chief, Mike Riley, was in attendance, along with Steve Dunn, who is the coach for this level, armed with notes and stopwatch to catalogue every significant move the officials make. 
A few weeks earlier, Riley, Dunn and another former referee, Peter Jones, made their way to another level-5 match to monitor another referee tipped to progress – John Brooks. “I hope to have the opportunity to get promoted to the Premier League and officiate some of the top games in this country,” Brooks says. 
The most the PGMOL delegation got to observe, however, was the way Brooks handled the somewhat tricky situation of calling off the match because of a frozen pitch. It is all part of the experience Brooks needs to acquire before he is trusted with more high-profile games, the different problems that need dealing with – often, clubs are very reluctant to have a late postponement, particularly when they have to pay all the staff who have turned up but will not receive any gate money. 
Brooks phoned his coach for advice and made the difficult but correct decision. A little later, the football club secretary arrived with envelopes to pay the officials for their time – the match fee at level 5 is £95 so it is safe to assume these men do not do it for the cash. 
Brooks, like Swabey, has clear ambitions to progress. He is under no illusions that developing a thick skin and perfecting strategies to deal with disappointments is a big part of that. How does he feel watching football on TV when a referee gets vilified? “Erm … not great,” he admits. “I’ve been in that situation once where I have made an incorrect decision and it was a deciding goal that was just offside. Your heart sinks. You can’t stop thinking about it. 
“I do sometimes wish people understood the time and effort we put in. It is very easy to criticize a decision but we do everything to try to get these decisions right. In certain situations, you are going to be unpopular but, if you are uncomfortable with that, you are probably in the wrong job.” 
The former referees agree that the backup, education and tools that today’s referees have is a world away from what they experienced in their own days. Riley, as a young referee, went out and bought himself books on psychology and nutrition as there was no information on offer to him at all. 
Contrast this with Brooks, who has a coach at the end of the phone. They consult weekly, discuss how his games have gone, study footage of key decisions and work out how to improve. He also has the support of a sports psychologist, Liam Slack, for regular guidance and an exercise regime to help him handle the 11km he runs during a game. 
Brooks says psychology is vital in his development. “One of the things we have talked about is forgetting decisions and moving on,” he explains. “There may be a big decision to make in the first 30 seconds of the game. Once you have made that, you need to stay focused for the next 89 minutes and not be wondering whether that was correct or worrying about that decision. Liam has taught us some techniques for releasing that decision. Working with the sports psychologist is really important for mental toughness.” 
Jones believes the whole approach can only help. “I refereed in professional football but, looking back, I was an amateur,” he says. “I was going to work – I worked for British Telecom – and I might referee at Newcastle on a Wednesday evening and, 9am the next morning, I was in Leicester trying to speak to customers. I perhaps hadn’t slept. Training was ad hoc. We were amateurs in a professional environment compared to now.” 
When the subject of technology comes up, the three former refs are unanimous in their support of it. “We are all in favour of anything that makes the referee’s job better and makes them more effective on the field of play,” says Riley. Minimizing mistakes is the aim. After all, a bad decision can stick with you for a while. “The rest of your life,” notes Jones with a chuckle.",514
"The vice-president of Google has warned that piles of digitized material – blogs, tweets, pictures, videos and official documents such as court rulings and emails – could be lost forever because the programs we need to view them will become defunct. Our first steps into the digital world could be lost to future historians, Vint Cerf told the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting. He warned that we faced a “forgotten generation or even a forgotten century” because of what he called “bit rot”, where old computer files become useless junk.
Cerf says we need to develop digital methods to preserve old software and hardware so that out-of-date files can be recovered even if they are really old. “When you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives that is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets and all of the world wide web, it’s clear that we could lose an awful lot of our history,” he said. “We don’t want our digital lives to fade away. If we want to preserve them, we need to make sure that the digital objects we create today can still be viewed far into the future,” he added.
What is ‘bit rot’ and is Vint Cerf right to be worried? Accessing digital content in the future could be less of a problem than Cerf thinks. His warning highlights an irony at the heart of modern technology, where music, photos, letters and other documents are digitized in order to ensure their long-term survival. But, while researchers are making progress in storing digital files for centuries, the programs and hardware needed to read the files are continually falling out of use.
“We are throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it. We digitize things because we think we will preserve them. But what we don’t understand is that, unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse, than the artefacts that we digitized,” Cerf says. “If there are photos you really care about, print them out.”
Ancient civilizations did not have these problems because histories written on clay tablets or sheets of papyrus needed only eyes to read them. To study today’s culture, future scholars would be faced with PDFs, Word documents and hundreds of other file types that can only be interpreted with special software and sometimes hardware, too.
The problem is already here. In the 1980s, it was routine to save documents on floppy disks and buy computer games on cassettes. Even if the disks and cassettes are in good condition, the equipment needed to run them is now mostly found only in museums.
Cerf warns that important political and historical documents will also be lost to bit rot. In 2005, American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She went to libraries around the US, found the physical letters of the people involved and reconstructed their conversations. “In today’s world, those letters would be emails and the chances of finding them will be incredibly small one hundred years from now,” said Cerf.
He concedes that historians will take steps to preserve material considered important by today’s standards. But he argues that the significance of documents and correspondence is often not fully appreciated until hundreds of years later. Historians have learned how Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of antiquity, considered the concept of infinity and anticipated calculus in 3BC after his writings were found hidden under the words of a thirteenth-century prayer book. “We’ve been surprised by what we’ve learned about an earlier civilizations from objects that have been preserved only by chance,” he said.
Researchers in Pittsburgh have made progress towards finding a solution to bit rot. Digital snapshots of computer hard drives are taken while they run different software programs. These can then be uploaded to a computer that copies the one the software ran on. The result is a computer that can read defunct files.
Inventing new technology is only half the battle, though. It could be even more difficult to obtain the legal permissions to copy and store software before it dies. When IT companies go out of business, they may sell the rights to someone else, which makes it very difficult to get approval. “To do this properly, the rights of preservation might need to be incorporated into our thinking about things like copyright and patents and licensing. We’re talking about preserving them for hundreds to thousands of years,” said Cerf.",515
"There are eyes on you, behind the bright lights and mirrored panels. Pick up a boot and a camera will make sure you don’t slip it into your bag. Enter a department store and you will be watched. But new technology is leading retailers to grow a different set of eyes – less focused on shoplifting and more interested in your age, sex, size, head, shoulders, knees and toes. 
A few months ago, IT firm Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) produced a report that claimed around 30% of retailers use facial recognition technology to track customers in-store. Facial recognition is a technology that can identify people by analysing and comparing facial features from a database, using devices such as Intel RealSense cameras, which are able to analyse everything from particular expressions to the clothing brands someone is wearing. 
Joe Jensen, of Intel’s Retail Solutions Division, says that the aim of bringing RealSense technology into shops is not to create databases of specific people’s lives but rather to build generalized models of people’s lifestyles and shopping habits. “It’s not so much that you need to know a particular customer. It’s that you need to know that this shopper has these characteristics and, in the past, that when those characteristics are present, this is what a person tends to do.” 
If you combine recognition technology with databases of previous customer patterns, you can start to predict a lot about what a person may or may not do in a shop. If, say, there’s a size-10 woman wearing a gold necklace walking quickly towards the sock aisle, you can use that data to predict she wants to, well, buy socks. That could allow a retailer to automatically put targeted ads on screens aimed specifically at that person. If she looks like the type of person who wants to buy socks, they will show her adverts for socks. 
If it sounds familiar, it’s because the online world has been using techniques like these for years. 
If you search for something on Amazon, you’ll be hounded by targeted banners for similar products on other sites. Express a vague interest in canoeing and you’ll get ads for canoes wherever you go. Yet bringing these systems into the physical world isn’t a simple case of copy and paste. It turns out that people do not react to cameras in the same way as they do to browser cookies. 
Hoxton Analytics, a London-based team of data scientists, has developed a technology that makes use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to categorize people based on the shoes they are wearing. By analysing the style and size of people’s footwear as they walk past the sensor, the system can identify a customer’s gender with between 75 and 80% accuracy. 
Owen McCormack, Hoxton Analytics CEO, says that the focus of the system came about in part as a reaction to facial recognition. “My idea was, why don’t we simply consider the clothes someone’s wearing to understand demographics?” he said. “If I just showed you a shot of someone’s body you could probably tell me what gender they are. However, it turns out pointing a camera at someone’s chest or hips feels just as creepy as facial recognition. The idea was – what about people’s shoes?” 
The word “creepy” comes up a lot during discussions of in-store tracking. For retailers and data scientists, the aim is to find a way of obtaining information without coming across as intrusive. 
For Hoxton Analytics and the retailers using the technology, the answer is to look downwards. This tactic of avoiding the face and staring at shoes says a lot about how we, as physical beings, react to being watched. It suggests there are boundaries that do not exist on the internet. Set sights on our torsos and we feel invaded. But is making calculated judgments about a person based on their footwear actually any less invasive? 
For McCormack, the argument hinges on the fact that personally identifiable information isn’t being collected. “Right now, shops are doing lots of incredibly invasive things but we just don’t know about it. The angle Hoxton Analytics is taking on that whole thing is, well, if you know someone’s a male or a female, then your advertising will be much more efficient. If you know that everyone in your shop right now is a male, you’ll be advertising PlayStations not hairdryers.” 
Keep it hidden and invisible monitoring lets shops optimize their output while keeping the customer unaware. Put adaptable monitors and targeted advertising into the mix, however, and it becomes harder to hide the fact that a machine is watching you. The argument from the retailers is that they do this to provide a personal shopping experience but it remains a grey area. It still feels creepy. 
From the perspective of retailers, it’s understandable that physical shops want some of the information online outlets collect. We allow this to happen online so why not offline? The thresholds of a shopping centre are different from those between websites and, when you can wander freely from one place to another without a pop-up asking you to accept cookies, the rules of consent change. 
Then again, for a generation growing up with online first, physical shop second, the modes of online play may not be quite so invasive. In the CSC report, a survey indicated that while 72% of respondents aged 55 and over said they were very uncomfortable with these types of technologies being used in physical shops, only 51% of 16-24 year olds said the same. 
Does this relative openness stem from a greater familiarity with digital technology or a blind belief in the goodwill of omnipresent organizations offering free services? Is the creepiness of a technology an unvarying, instinctive certainty or does it ebb and flow with degrees of social acceptance? Whatever the case, there are a growing number of eyes between the shelves and they care a lot about what you’re wearing.",516
"JMW Turner, one of Britain’s greatest painters, will be on the new £20 note, after a national vote. It will be the first time an artist is on a British banknote. The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, asked the public to say which deceased cultural person they wanted to see on the new banknote. 
Turner, who is famous for his paintings of the sea, won the vote. There was a list that included 590 painters, sculptors, fashion designers, photographers, film-makers and actors. Thirty thousand members of the public suggested the people on the list. 
The list included Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander McQueen, Derek Jarman, Laura Ashley, William Morris and Vanessa Bell. 
The final five – Barbara Hepworth, Charlie Chaplin, Josiah Wedgwood, William Hogarth and Turner – were chosen because of their importance to the visual arts and British society and because of their influence. 
They made the announcement about the new banknote at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate. Carney and the artist Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town, made the announcement together. 
Carney said that banknotes are not just practical – they “can be a piece of art in everyone’s pocket”. 
The note will show Turner’s 1799 self-portrait and also one of Turner’s most famous paintings, The Fighting Temeraire , a painting of a ship that had an important role in Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. 
The note will also inlude a quote from the artist – “light is therefore colour” – and his signature. The signature is from his will, in which he left many of his paintings to Britain. 
Historical people first appeared on banknotes in 1970. Turner, and also Winston Churchill and Jane Austen, will appear on the new polymer notes – a plastic-type material. Churchill is on the £5 and Austen is on the £10 note. The new £20 note will appear by 2020. 
Turner was born in 1775 in London, the son of a barber, and he went to the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 14. In 1786, he went to Margate and there his love of painting and drawing the north-east Kent coast began. He returned to the Kent coast many times in his life and it was where he painted some of his most dramatic paintings. He said that, on the Kent coast, the skies were “the loveliest in all Europe”. 
Turner painted more than 550 oil paintings and 2,000 watercolours in his lifetime. A film about Turner was made in 2014, with Timothy Spall as the artist. 
Victoria Pomery, the director of Turner Contemporary, said: “The vote shows that Turner is Britain’s favourite artist.”",517
"They call him the Robin Hood of the banks. He is a man who took out loans for almost half a million euros and never paid the money back. Enric Duran gave the money to projects that created and supported alternatives to capitalism.
Duran has spent 14 months in hiding. He will not say he is sorry, even though he might go to prison for what he has done. “I’m proud of what I’ve done,” he said in an interview by Skype from a secret location.
From 2006 to 2008, Duran took out 68 loans from 39 banks in Spain. He gave the money to social activists. They used the money to pay for speaking tours against capitalism and TV cameras for a media network. He said that these social activists didn’t have enough money but, at the same time, constant economic growth created money from nothing.
The loans he took out dishonestly from banks were his way of showing that this situation was wrong, he said. He started slowly. He tried to take out bank loans using his real details. The banks said no.
Then, he learnt how to get money from the banks. “I was learning all the time.” By the summer of 2007, he learnt how to make the system work – he took out loans under the name of a false television production company. This way, he got a lot of money. €492,000, to be exact.
Duran was arrested in Spain in 2009. He spent two months in prison; then, they let him out on €50,000 bail. In February 2013, with the possibility of eight years in prison, he decided to run away.
His actions in 2006 to 2008 made many people notice the anti-capitalist movement for the first time. This happened at a time when many Spanish people were looking for alternatives to a system that has caused problems in their lives.
In today’s Spain, thousands of people support the anti-capitalist movement and groups such as the Indignados.
Duran says he does not want to give back the money to the banks but he can offer them something. He learnt a lot in the years when he was taking loans out dishonestly, so he can show the banks how they can improve things for people in general and for bank workers.",518
"The Chief Medical Officer for England compared the problem of antibiotic resistance to the risks of international terrorism. But, each year, the number of deaths around the world from bacterial resistance is far more than the number of deaths from terrorist attacks. 
The World Health Organization says that each year more than 150,000 people die from tuberculosis because of antibiotic resistance. This is now a war. 
A hundred years ago, life expectancy in the UK was about 47 years for a man and 50 years for a woman. Lots of young children died. About 30% of all deaths were in children under the age of five, mostly because of infectious disease. 
But a child born in Britain today has more than a 25% chance of reaching their 100th birthday. We can thank public health systems, vaccination and antibiotics for this. 
In intensive care, antibiotic resistant bacteria are most common. Here, powerful antibiotics are used very often. These drugs kill ordinary bacteria. But they cannot kill strong bacteria that have begun to learn how to survive antibiotic drugs. 
When I became a doctor in the 1990s, I learnt about Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a bacteria that is resistant to methicillin and all other penicillins. There were just a few drugs that could kill it – for example, vancomycin and teicoplanin. But antibiotic resistant bacteria became more and more common. 
In our hospitals and our doctor’s surgeries we use antiobiotics too often. 
Also, we have put antibiotics into the food chain, when we grow food and when we put anti-bacterial drugs into food for farm animals. 
We thought that antibiotics were something we could use forever. We thought that companies would continue to make more and more antibiotics. 
But this is no longer true. We have found new, more resistant bacteria. The vancomycin that we used to treat MRSA infection no longer worked. We found Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (VRSA) in our hospitals. And other bacteria were becoming resistant too. 
Today, infections with organisms that are very resistant are common, but fewer and fewer new antibiotic drugs are made. It is more and more difficult to develop new drugs that can kill resistant bacteria. Antibiotics have become drugs that are expensive to develop, that are only used in short courses and that quickly stop working because of bacterial resistance. 
This war against bacteria is different from all other wars. There needs to be change in the way doctors give antibiotics and we need to use fewer antibiotics in farming. And we have to give companies good reasons why they should make new antibiotics, which will not make them lots of money. 
Today, antibiotic resistance has become a normal part of life. Less than a hundred years after the discovery of penicillin, we are beginning to lose the fight.",519
"The world shares him and London claims him but Stratford-upon-Avon intends to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man: the bard of Avon, born in the Warwickshire market town in 1564, who died there 400 years ago.
Stratford remained hugely important during Shakespeare’s life, says Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. “People often see Shakespeare as someone who turned his back on Stratford and his family, went to London to earn his fortune and only came back to die,” he said. “But Stratford is where he bought land and property, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.”
The anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford, the most famous and the most performed playwright in the world, will be celebrated across Britain and the globe. Macbeth will open in Singapore, Romeo and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeare’s Globe is completing the first world tour in the history of theatre. It has taken Hamlet to every country except North Korea. In London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to showcase each of Shakespeare’s plays.
The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and nearly every other theatre production company in the country will celebrate the anniversary. Interpretations of the plays will range from the highly traditional to the experimental. There will also be hundreds of lectures, recitals, international academic conferences, films, concerts, operas and major exhibitions.
For a man famous in his own lifetime, there is little documentary evidence for Shakespeare’s life and times. The plays would probably not have survived if his friends and fellow actors had not gathered together every bit of every play they could find – drafts, prompt scripts, scribbled actors’ parts and 17 plays not known in any other version – into the precious First Folio published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death.
The actor Mark Rylance has called it his favourite book in the world and most of the surviving First Folios will be on display – including those belonging to the British and Bodleian libraries, and a tattered copy recently discovered in France. Some of the most precious surviving documents will be collected together in an exhibition at Somerset House in London, including four of his six known signatures, which are all slightly different.
The exhibition, By Me, William Shakespeare, will include his will, the court papers relating to the audacious move when Shakespeare and his fellow actors dismantled a theatre on the north side of the Thames and rebuilt it as the Globe on the South Bank, and accounts showing payments from the royal treasury for Boxing Day performances for James I and Queen Anne.
The director of the Globe, Dominic Dromgoole, recently jokily claimed Shakespeare was a true Londoner. Stratford, however, will be insisting that the town made and educated Shakespeare. They are restoring his old school room. It will open as a permanent visitor attraction.
Shakespeare bought the splendid New Place, the second best house in the town, where he died, according to literary legend, on St George’s Day,
April, the same day as his birth. “You don’t buy a house like New Place and not live there,” Paul Edmondson said. “The general public and many academics have consistently underestimated the importance of Stratford to Shakespeare.”
Edmondson believes that, after Shakespeare bought the house in 1597, all his thinking time was spent there and that the late plays, including The Tempest, were at least planned in his library and probably written there. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust describes New Place as “the jewel in the crown of the 400th anniversary celebrations”.
However, Shakespeare’s house was demolished 300 years ago and the house that replaced it was demolished in 1759 by a bad-tempered priest, Francis Gastrell, in an argument over taxes. He had already cut down Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, under which the writer is said to have sat and worked, because he was irritated by all the tourists peering into his garden.
The gap where the house was has never been filled. But the news that Shakespeare’s kitchen had been found in the partly surviving cellars went round the world. The whole site is being displayed for the anniversary, with the foundations marked and the garden restored. “Without Stratford,” Edmondson said, “there would have been no Shakespeare.”",520
"Coal is likely to rival oil as the world’s biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world’s leading authority on energy economics. 
One of the biggest factors behind the rise in coal use has been the massive increase in the use of shale gas in the US. 
New research from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that coal consumption is increasing all over the world – even in countries and regions with carbon-cutting targets – except in the US, where shale gas has displaced coal. The decline of coal consumption in the US has helped to cut prices for coal globally. This has made it more attractive, even in Europe where coal use was supposed to be discouraged by the Emissions Trading Scheme. 
Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the IEA, said: “Coal’s share of the global energy mix continues to grow each year and, if no changes are made to current policies, coal will catch oil within a decade.” 
Coal is abundant and found in most regions of the world, unlike conventional oil and gas, and can be cheaply extracted. As a result, coal was used to meet nearly half of the rise in demand for energy globally in the past decade. According to the IEA, demand from China and India will drive world coal use in the coming five years, with India likely to overtake the US as the world’s second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter, having temporarily overtaken Australia. 
According to the IEA’s Medium-Term Coal Market Report the world will burn 1.2bn more tonnes of coal per year by 2017 compared with today – the equivalent of the current coal consumption of Russia and the US combined. Global coal consumption is forecast to reach 4.3bn tonnes of oil equivalent by 2017, while oil consumption is forecast to reach 4.4bn tonnes by the same date. 
With the highest carbon emissions of any major fossil fuel, coal is a huge contributor to climate change, particularly when burned in old-fashioned, inefficient power stations. When these are not equipped with special “scrubbing” equipment to remove chemicals, coal can also produce sulphur emissions – the leading cause of acid rain – and other pollutants such as mercury and soot particles. 
Van der Hoeven said that, without a high carbon price to discourage the growth in coal use and encourage cleaner technologies such as renewable power generation, only competition from lower-priced gas could realistically cut demand for coal. This has happened in the US, owing to the extraordinary increase in the production of shale gas in that market in the past five years. 
She said: “The US experience suggests that a more efficient gas market, marked by flexible pricing and fuelled by indigenous unconventional resources that are produced sustainably, can reduce coal use, carbon dioxide emissions and consumers’ electricity bills. Europe, China and other regions should take note.” 
That would mean producing much more shale gas, as conventional gas resources are running down in their easily accessible locations. 
In Europe, the Emissions Trading Scheme was supposed to discourage high-carbon power generation by imposing a price on carbon dioxide emissions. This was done through issuing generators and energy-intensive companies with a set quota of emissions permits, requiring them to buy extra permits if they needed to emit more than their allowance. But an over-allocation, coupled with the effects of the financial crisis and recession, has led to a large surplus of permits on the market, which has in turn led to a plunge in permit prices. At current levels – a few euros per tonne of carbon – there is little incentive to seek out lower carbon fuels, and coal is enjoying a renaissance in Europe. 
That means one of the world’s only regulatory market mechanisms aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions is failing in its key goals. The world faces the likelihood of an increased risk of climate change as a result of this runaway consumption of the highest carbon fossil fuel.",521
"You’ve spent eight hours in the office. The most important work of the day is done; whatever is left can wait until the morning. This is the point many workers would think about heading for the door.
But, for millions of Japanese employees, the thought of leaving their desks and being at home in time for dinner is enough to make people accuse them of disloyalty.
For decades, the government has allowed companies to make sure their workforce is as productive as possible. But, now, it is challenging Japan’s culture of overwork. The government is considering making it a legal requirement for workers to take at least five days’ paid holiday a year.
Japanese employees are currently entitled to an average 18.5 days’ paid holiday a year – only two fewer than the global average – with a minimum of ten days, as well as 15 one-day national holidays. In reality, very few employees take these days. Most use only nine of their 18.5-day average entitlement, according to the labour ministry. While many British workers see a two-week summer holiday as their right, workers in Japan think that a four-night vacation in Hawaii is complete self-indulgence.
By the end of the decade, the government hopes that the law will push Japanese employees towards following the example set by British workers, who use an average of 20 days’ paid annual leave, and those in France, who take an average of 25.
Japan’s tough work culture helped turn it into an economic superpower, its employees respected and admired in the rest of the world for their commitment to the company, but they have little time to do anything except work.
Japan’s low birth rate and population decline are partly blamed on the lack of time couples have to start families. More employees are falling ill from stress, or worse, succumbing to karoshi, death through overwork.
Japanese people continue to work hard, despite studies that suggest that longer hours in the office or workshop or on the factory floor do not necessarily make people more productive.
About 22% of Japanese people work more than 49 hours a week, compared with 16% of US workers and 11% in France and Germany, according to data from the Japanese government. At 35%, South Korea’s workaholics work even more.
Erika Sekiguchi spends 14 hours a day at work and gives up many of her paid holidays. But she is not even an extreme example. The 36-year-old trading company employee used eight of her 20 days of paid vacation in 2014, six of which were sick leave. “Nobody else uses their vacation days,” Sekiguchi said.
Yuu Wakebe, a health ministry official overseeing policy on working hours, admits that he does 100 hours of overtime a month. He blames the pressure to match the number of hours your colleagues work. “It is a worker’s right to take paid vacations,” Wakebe said. “But working in Japan involves quite a lot of volunteer spirit.”
That fear of being ostracized at work is the reason for a rise in stress-related illness, premature death and suicide. According to official data, about 200 people die every year from heart attacks, strokes and other karoshi events because of tough work schedules.
The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is not known for taking long vacations. But even he has said that companies ask too much of their employees and that working hours in Japan are too long.",522
"Nobody knows which came first: the economic crisis in Greece or shisha, the drug now known as the “cocaine of the poor”. But what everyone knows is that shisha is a killer. And it costs only €2 or less a hit.
“It is the worst kind of drug. It burns your insides, it makes you aggressive and makes you go totally mad,” said Maria, a former heroin addict. “But it is cheap and it is easy to get, and it is what everyone is taking.”
This drug crisis has put Athens’s health authorities, already having to deal with large financial cuts, under further strain.
The drug of preference for thousands of homeless Greeks forced on to the streets by poverty and despair, shisha is described by both addicts and officials as a drug that is related to crystal meth. The synthetic drug is frequently mixed with battery acid, engine oil and even shampoo. It has the potential to send users into a state of mindless violence. And, even worse, it is not only easily available, but also easy to make.
“It is a killer, but it also makes you want to kill,” Konstantinos, a drug addict said. “You can kill without understanding that you have done it. And it is spreading faster than death. A lot of users have died.”
For Charalampos Poulopoulos, the head of Kethea, Greece’s anti-drug centre, shisha symbolizes the crisis that has led to record levels of destitution and unemployment. It is, he said, an “austerity drug” – it is the response of dealers who have become more and more clever at producing synthetic drugs designed for those who can no longer afford more expensive highs from such drugs as heroin and cocaine.
“The crisis has given dealers the possibility to promote a new, cheap drug, a cocaine for the poor,” said Poulopoulos at a centre for addicts in Exarcheia, in Athens. “Shisha can be sniffed or injected and it can be made in home laboratories – you don’t need any specialized knowledge. It is extremely dangerous.”
Across Greece, six years of recession have been brutal and cruel. Depression, together with drug and alcohol abuse, has risen dramatically. Crime has soared as a result of austerity measures that have cut the income of ordinary Greeks by 40%. Prostitution – the easiest way of paying for drugs – has similarly skyrocketed.
“Many women agree to have unprotected sex because that way they’ll make more money,” said Eleni Marini, a psychologist with Kethea. “Shisha has been linked to a very intense sexual drive but it attacks your ability to think clearly and we’re seeing a lot more pregnancies among drug addicts who engage in prostitution.” In 2012, two sex workers gave birth on the streets of Athens.
As the number of suicides has also increased and HIV infections are spreading, drug addicts (a population believed to be around 25,000) have become increasingly self-destructive. And, experts say, young Greeks marginalized by record rates of unemployment – at 64% Greece has the highest youth unemployment in the EU – are leading the way.
“The crisis has created a widespread sense of pessimism,” said Poulopoulos. “For those who might have stopped taking drugs, there is now no incentive. Instead, there’s an atmosphere of misery, where people who know they won’t find work are becoming a lot more self-destructive. In Athens, where the economic crisis has hit hardest, shisha is part of that.”
Just when the need for help has never been greater, state-funded organizations such as Kethea have had their money cut by a third at the request of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. These organizations are trying to stop the Greek economy from sinking.
Since the financial crisis began in 2009, Kethea has lost 70 of its 500 staff. The cuts come despite studies that show that, for every euro they spend on anti-drug programmes such as Kethea, the Greek state saves about €6 in costs to the criminal justice and healthcare systems. “The cuts we have witnessed are a false economy, a huge mistake,” said Poulopoulos.
On the streets of Athens, where shisha is growing in popularity, there is a fear that austerity not only doesn’t work – it kills.",523
"The brand and logo of Apple are the most valuable in the world. They are worth nearly $119bn, or more than the gross domestic product of Morocco, Ecuador or Oman.
The brand value of the Silicon Valley firm, already the world’s biggest company, has increased by 21% in 12 months, according to the Interbrand Best Global Brands annual report.
Apple, which is recognized all over the world by its simple “Apple with a bite missing” logo, led an increase of technology companies in the 2014 report, which has pushed more traditionally valuable brands – such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Gillette – down the table.
Google’s brand value rose by 15% to $107bn to take second place, followed by Coca-Cola, up 3% to $81.5bn, IBM ($72.2bn) and Microsoft ($45.5bn).
Facebook is the biggest riser in the chart, increasing its brand value by 86% to $14.3bn and taking 29th place in the table, ahead of longstanding global corporate names such as Volkswagen, Kellogg’s and Ford.
Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, said: “Benefitting immensely from the rise of digital and mobile technology, savvy brands like Apple grew stronger.”
Apple, which former Chief Executive Steve Jobs founded in his Los Altos garage in 1976, only appeared in the top ten of the Interbrand annual study in 2011.
Its logo, created by advertising executive Rob Janoff in 1977, was designed with a bite taken out of it to avoid confusion with a cherry. “Our logo is a symbol of lust and knowledge. It is an apple, bitten into, all crossed with the colours of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream of a more appropriate logo,” Janoff said.
Graham Hayles, Interbrand’s chief marketing officer, said it was “not out of kilter” that Apple’s brand could account for a fifth of the company’s entire market value. “Apple makes a lot of money because it has a very strong brand,” he said. “There is a very strong connection between branding and profitability.”
Many technology companies rose up the chart but some fell, too. Finnish mobile-phone company Nokia dropped 41 places to 98th at $4.1bn, just ahead of Nintendo in 100th place (down 33). “They’re both only just in the chart now,” Hayles said. “It shows the importance of getting innovation right.”
A Chinese company has got into the top 100 for the first time, with mobile-phone and broadband firm Huawei entering the table in 94th place with a brand value of $4.3bn. Huawei has been partly banned by the US and Australian governments due to fears that its equipment could be used by the Chinese for cyber-espionage.
Most of the brands in the top 100 are US-owned. The highest-placed non-US brands are South Korea’s Samsung (6th), Japan’s Toyota (8th) and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz (10th). The highest-placed British brands are HSBC (33rd), Shell (65th) and Burberry (73rd).
Other fashion brands in the top 100 include Boss, Prada and Ralph Lauren. Designer label Louis Vuitton is the top fashion name, in 19th position, with a value of $23bn, just ahead of high-street clothing chain H&M, with a brand value of $21bn and ranked 21.
Sports brand Nike is at place 22 with a brand value of nearly $20bn, ahead of its rival Adidas at place 59 with a value of $7bn.
Frampton said consumers’ ability to interact with and criticize brands on Twitter and other social media means companies must react faster to keep and improve their brands’ reputations.
“The customer, through the use of social media, now has more control than ever,” he said.
“Customers expect interaction, responsiveness, 24/7 accessibility, customization options and high levels of personalization,” he said.",524
"Cities don’t often decide to pack their bags, get up and move down the road. But that’s exactly what Kiruna, an Arctic town in northern Sweden, is having to do – to avoid being swallowed up into the earth. 
“It’s a dystopian choice,” says Krister Lindstedt of White, the Stockholm-based architects firm charged with the biblical task of moving this city of 23,000 people away from a gigantic iron-ore mine that is fast gobbling up the ground beneath its streets. “Either the mine must stop digging, creating mass unemployment, or the city has to move – or else face certain destruction. It’s an existential predicament.” 
Founded in 1900 by the state-owned Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara mining company (LK), Kiruna has grown rich off the vast seam of iron ore below the town, but it’s now facing destruction by the very phenomenon that created its wealth. “We are symbiotic: the town is here because of the mine,” says Deputy Mayor Niklas Siren. “Otherwise, no devil would have built a city here.” 
Located 145km inside the Arctic Circle, Kiruna is subject to a brutal climate, enduring winters with no sunlight and average temperatures below -15C. But the deep deposit of magnetite has proved a strong enough magnet to keep people here. Driven by the insatiable global appetite for construction, the mine has become the world’s largest underground iron-ore extraction site, producing 90% of all the iron in Europe, enough to build more than six Eiffel Towers a day. And demand continues to grow. 
In 2004, the mining company broke it to the town that its days were numbered: digging its shafts towards the city at an angle of 60 degrees, subsidence would soon lead to the widespread cracking and collapse of the town’s buildings. A decade on, fissures are starting to appear in the ground, creeping ever closer to the town. 
“The people of Kiruna have been living in limbo for ten years,” says Viktoria Walldin, a social anthropologist who works with the architects. “They have put their lives on hold, unable to make major decisions like buying a house, redecorating, having a child or opening a business.” 
After years of dithering, the city has finally unveiled a master plan for how it will proceed. “Imagine it like a walking millipede of a city,” says Lindstedt, unrolling a plan that shows the town’s streets and squares beginning to crawl eastwards along a new high street, until the whole place has moved safely out of the way of the mine by 2033. 
A new town square is already under way, 3km to the east, with a circular town hall planned by Danish architect Henning Larsen, while 20 key buildings have been identified to be dismantled and resurrected piece by piece in their new home – like an Ikea flatpack on a grand scale. Kiruna’s rust-red wooden church, built in 1912 in a form that recalls the indigenous Sami teepees, and once voted Sweden’s most beautiful building, will take pride of place in a new park, while the cast- iron bell tower will stand once again above the town hall. But not everything will be saved. 
“I spoke to an old lady who walks past the bench every day where she had her first kiss,” says Walldin. “It’s things like that – the hospital where your first child was born, for example – that are important to people’s sense of identity and all that’s going to disappear.” 
Billed as “the most democratic move in history ”, the project has been allocated the equivalent of £320m by the mining company for building new facilities, including a high school, fire station, community centre, library and swimming hall. But top of most people’s concerns is where they will actually live and what process will determine the housing allocation. 
“These details have yet to be determined,” admits Lindstedt. “People are used to very low rents and very high incomes but, in future, this will have to change.” LK has agreed to compensate residents to the value of their homes plus 25% but many locals say this is not enough to afford a new-build house at market rates. 
To aid the valuation process, the architects have monitored the housing lettings in nearby cities over a period of years, and “tagged” the homes in Kiruna with the assets they possess, from internal space and gardens to proximity to bus stops and the city centre. They have also proposed a “Kiruna Portal ”, a kind of mass salvage yard, where materials from the doomed homes can be brought and hopefully recycled in the construction of the new buildings – although, given that Sweden has no tradition of self-build, it’s hard to see this taking off. 
A closer look at the plan shows the new town bears little relation to the original Kiruna at all. The current town is a sprawling suburban network of winding streets, home to detached houses with gardens. White’s plan incorporates a much higher-density arrangement of multi-storey apartment blocks around shared courtyards, lining straight boulevards, down which the icy winds will surge. 
It is an opportunity, say the architects, for Kiruna to “reinvent itself” into a model of sustainable development, attracting young people who wouldn’t have stayed in the town before, with new cultural facilities and “visionary” things such as a cable car bobbing above the high street. But it is a vision that many of the existing residents seem unlikely to be able to afford.",525
"Facebook has lost millions of users per month in its biggest markets. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK.
Studies suggest that its expansion in the US, UK and other major European countries has peaked. In the last month, the world’s largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm Socialbakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users visited in March, a fall of 4.5%.
Users are also turning off in Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan, where Facebook is extremely popular.
“The problem is that, in the US and UK, most people who want to sign up for Facebook have already done it,” said new media specialist Ian Maude at Enders Analysis. People get bored, he says, and they “like to try something new”.
Alternative social networks have seen surges in popularity with younger people. Instagram, the photo-sharing site, got 30m new users in the 18 months before Facebook bought the business.
Path, the mobile phone-based social network founded by former Facebook employee Dave Morin, which only allows its users to have 150 friends, is gaining 1m users a week. It has recently topped 9m users, with 500,000 Venezuelans downloading the app in a single weekend.
Facebook is still growing fast in South America. Monthly visitors in Brazil were up 6% in the last month to 70m, according to Socialbakers, whose information is used by Facebook advertisers. India has seen a 4% rise to 64m – still only a fraction of the country’s population, so there is room for more growth.
But in developed markets, other people watching Facebook are reporting declines.
Analysts at Jefferies bank saw global numbers of visitors to Facebook peak at 1.05bn a month in January, before falling by 20m in February. Numbers rose again in April. The network has now lost nearly 2m visitors in the UK since December, according to research firm Nielsen, with its 27m total the same as a year ago.
The number of minutes Americans spend on Facebook appears to be falling, too. The total was 121 billion minutes in December 2012, but that fell to 115 billion minutes in February, according to comScore.
As Facebook itself has warned, the time spent on its pages from those sitting in front of personal computers is decreasing fast because people now prefer to use their smartphones and tablets.
Although smartphone minutes have doubled in a year, to 69 a month, that growth may not compensate for dwindling desktop usage.
Facebook will tell investors about its performance for the quarter. Wall Street expects revenues of about $1.44bn, an increase from $1.06bn a year ago.
Shareholders will want to know how fast the number of mobile Facebook users is growing, and whether advertising revenues are increasing at the same rate.
Mobile usage represented nearly a quarter of Facebook’s advertising income at the end of 2012, and the network had 680m mobile users a month in December.
The company said that it might be losing “younger users” to “other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook”. 17 Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has created a series of new initiatives designed to appeal to smartphone users. One initiative, Facebook Home, is software that can be downloaded onto Android phones to feed news and photos from friends – and advertising – directly to the owner’s locked home screen.",526
"It is difficult to know exactly where the noise is coming from, but you can hear it everywhere in Damascus. All day and all night you can hear the sound of guns, rockets or planes attacking rebels – the sound of war is getting closer to Syria’s capital. The Syrian war began two years ago and now the people of Damascus try not to listen to the sound of explosions just a few miles away. 
“Actually you get used to it after a while,” said George, who lives in the city. “But you never know exactly what they are hitting.” That usually becomes clear later from videos that the opposition puts on YouTube. 
The constant noise of bombs is more worrying because the government tries so hard to pretend that life is normal. “As you can see, everything here is fine but we have to hit the terrorists, these extremists,” an army officer said. One government official said: “If I was afraid, I would just shut my door and stay inside. I have to work and I am not afraid. If I don’t defend my country, who will?” 
In private conversation, ordinary people say something different. In the centre of town, a shopkeeper complained sadly that his baby daughter cries at the sound of explosions. Zeina, a student, worries that she has learnt to live with suffering and danger. “In the beginning, when there started to be explosions, I used to have nightmares,” she said. “Now I can sleep through anything.”  
And, the dangers are increasing even closer to home. Sabaa Bahrat Square was the safest part of Damascus, but recently a car bomb exploded there and damaged the Syrian Central Bank. The square is often used for pro-government rallies, with people shouting slogans under enormous pictures of President Bashar al-Assad. 
That bombing was not the worst one in Damascus in recent months. In February, reports say that 80 people, including schoolchildren, died near the ruling Ba’ath Party headquarters in Mazraa. You can still see the crater. “I live nearby but luckily I wasn’t there,” says Munir, a university lecturer. 
Rebels, who are now very close to the city, have recently started to fire mortar bombs. The bombs killed 15 students in a university cafeteria on 28 March. They probably wanted to hit a government building. 
In July 2012, a bomb killed four of Assad’s senior aides. After that, security increased. Concrete barriers – often painted in the Syrian flag’s black, red and white – now protect official buildings, not just the military or defence installations that are obvious targets. 
Moving around the city has become difficult and takes a lot of time – another part of life today in a nervous city. Checkpoints on main roads stop traffic for ID checks and bags are searched for explosives. Only drivers with official permission can use special fast lanes to avoid the wait. 
There is one question on everyone’s mind: will there be a battle for Damascus – one of the world’s oldest cities – like the one that has badly damaged Aleppo? One view is that there will be a battle for Syria’s capital, but not yet – in the summer perhaps. Others argue that there will probably not be a complete victory for either side and hope for a political solution that comes from abroad. But most people here do not expect things to get better.",527
"If the amount of food wasted around the world were reduced by just 25%, there would be enough food to feed all the people who are malnourished, according to the UN. Each year, 1.3bn tonnes of food, about a third of all that is produced, is wasted. This includes about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. Meanwhile, 795 million people suffer from severe hunger and malnutrition.
The UN identifies the problem of food waste as one of the great challenges to achieving food security. By 2050, food production will have to increase by 60%, compared to 2005 levels, to feed a growing global population. Reducing food waste would help to meet future demand.
The problem is global but appears in very different ways. In developing countries, there is a lot of “food loss”, which is unintentional waste, often due to poor equipment, transportation and infrastructure. In wealthy countries, there are low levels of “food loss” but high levels of “food waste”, which means food is thrown away by consumers because they have purchased too much or by retailers who reject food because of strict standards of appearance.
In developed countries, consumers and retailers throw away between 30% and 40% of all food purchased, whereas, in poorer countries, only 5% to 16% of food is thrown away.
“In the developing world, food waste is almost non-existent,” says Robert van Otterdijk, coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Save Food programme. “Food waste is happening in countries where people can afford to throw away food. But, on the other hand, there are a lot of food losses in developing countries because of the underdeveloped conditions they have.”
The environmental impact of food loss and waste is high. The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated at 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2 – this means that, if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. About 30% of available agricultural land is used to grow or farm food that is subsequently wasted. And more surface and groundwater is used to produce wasted food around the globe than is used for agriculture by any single country, including India and China.
“Climate change is caused by our economy of production and consumption because it is out of balance with what the Earth can provide,” says van Otterdijk. “Production of food is one of the biggest production sectors in the world and, if one-third of all this is wasted, you can imagine what a huge effect this has on the natural resources – on land, water, energy and greenhouse gas emissions.”
The places that waste the most food are the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where consumers waste 39% of all food purchased. Next is Europe, where about 31% of all food purchased by consumers is thrown away. In the UK, 15m tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year. British consumers throw away 4.2m tonnes of edible food each year. This means that 11.7% of all food purchased is wasted, which costs each family £700 a year.
The foods most commonly found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk. The most wasted food in the UK by weight is bread, with consumers throwing away 414,000 tonnes (22.4%) of all bread purchased. By percentage, the most wasted food is lettuce and leafy salads, of which consumers throw away 38% (64,000 tonnes) of all they buy.
The UK has made progress in the past ten years after a campaign to reduce waste. Van Otterdijk says the UK has been very successful in combating food waste. Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of food waste produced by UK households decreased by 21%, from 5.3m tonnes to 4.2m tonnes, largely due to greater awareness.
Van Otterdijk says there has been a “very encouraging, unexpected, continuing interest” in food waste and this enables campaigns around the world to gain momentum. “We have to do much more and it needs the participation of public and private sectors,” he says. “But, if it continues like this, maybe, after ten years, we’ll have globally significant results.”",528
"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has appealed to Washington to sort out its finances after the US pulled back from the brink of a debt default and hundreds of thousands of federal employees returned to work after a 16-day government shutdown. 
As the US President, Barack Obama, warned “We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” the IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, appealed for more stability. 
“It will be essential to reduce uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy by raising the debt limit in a more durable manner,” she said. 
“We also continue to encourage the US to approve a budget for 2014 and replace the sequester with gradually phased-in measures that would not harm the recovery, and to adopt a balanced and comprehensive medium-term fiscal plan.” 
A Senate-drafted peace deal that contained almost no concessions to the conservatives who had driven the country to the precipice of a new financial crisis was passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives just hours before a deadline to extend the US debt limit was to pass. 
The World Bank, too, expressed its relief that the global economy had “dodged a potential catastrophe ”, with its president, Jim Yong Kim, urging policymakers in all countries to “continue to focus on crafting and implementing policies that promote economic growth and boost jobs and opportunity for all ”. 
Stock markets in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea initially reflected relief after the Republicans finally capitulated in their failed attempt to undermine Obama’s healthcare reforms. But, in Asia and Europe, stock markets overall displayed a muted reaction, with traders apparently expecting another battle in Washington early in 2014. 
The shutdown is estimated to have cost the US $24bn, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. China’s official Xinhua News Agency had accused Washington of jeopardizing other countries’ dollar assets. China is the US government’s largest creditor. 
Obama signed the necessary legislation to fend off a default shortly after midnight on Thursday after a Republican split in the House of Representatives. The bill had passed easily with broad bipartisan support in the Senate, where Democratic and Republican leaders forged the agreement. It offers a temporary fix, funding the government until 15 January and raising the debt ceiling until 7 February. 
But the president made clear he did not expect another bitter budget fight and shutdown in 2014. 
In brief remarks at the White House shortly before the House vote, Obama said he hoped the deal would “lift the cloud of uncertainty” that had hung over the country in recent weeks. 
“Once this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,” he said, in a statement delivered at the White House. “Hopefully, next time it won’t be in the eleventh hour. We’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis.” 
As he left the lectern after his Wednesday night press briefing, the president was asked by a journalist whether the crisis would happen all over again in a few months. Speaking over his shoulder, Obama replied, “No.” 
Earlier, the Republican senator Mike Lee had struck a defiant tone, perhaps indicating more trouble ahead: “The media keeps asking: 'Was it worth it?' My answer is, it is always worth it to do the right thing.” He added: “This is not over.” 
However, the political deal was one of the worst of all possible outcomes for Republicans. None of their stated goals was achieved and polls showed that voters overwhelmingly blamed them for the crisis.",529
"On the market square in Rjukan stands a statue of the person who created the town, a Norwegian engineer and businessman called Sam Eyde. The great man looks north across the square at the side of a mountain in front of him. 
Behind him, to the south, is the 1,800-metre mountain known as Gaustatoppen. Between the mountains, along the narrow Vestfjord valley, is the small town that Eyde built at the beginning of the last century for his factory workers. 
Eyde used the power of the 100-metre Rjukanfossen waterfall to make hydroelectricity in what was, at that time, the world’s biggest power plant. 
But one thing he couldn’t do was change the sun. Deep in its east –west valley, with high mountains all around, Rjukan and the 3,400 people who live there are in shadow for half the year. In the daytime, from late September to mid-March, the town, three hours north-west of Oslo, is not completely dark, but it’s certainly not bright. 
Now, high on the mountain opposite Eyde’s statue, 450 metres above the town, three large, solar-powered, computer-controlled mirrors follow the movement of the sun across the sky. They reflect the sunshine down on to the square and fill it in bright sunlight. 
“It’s the sun!” says Ingrid Sparbo – she lifts her face to the light and closes her eyes. Sparbo has lived all her life in Rjukan and says, “This is so warming. Not just physically, but mentally. It’s mentally warming.” 
Two young mothers bring their children into the square and stand in the sun. On a freezing day, an elderly couple sit on one of the new benches and they smile at the warmth on their faces. Children smile. Lots of people take photographs. A shop assistant, Silje Johansen, says it’s “awesome. Just awesome.” 
Electrical engineer Eivind Toreid says “It’s a funny thing. Not real sunlight, but very similar. Like a spotlight.” 
Heidi Fieldheim says she heard all about it on the radio. “This will bring much happiness,” she says. 
Across the road, in the Nye Tider café, sits the man who created this happiness. Martin Andersen is a 40-year-old artist who moved to Rjukan in the summer of 2001. 
Andersen had the idea for an artwork he calls the Solspeil, or Sun mirror , at the end of September one year: “Every day, we took our young child for a walk,” he says, “and, every day, I realized we had to go a little further down the valley to find the sun.” By 28 September, the sun completely disappears from Rjukan’s market square. It doesn’t reappear until 12 March. 
In the months between September and March, Andersen says: “We would look up and see blue sky above, and the sun high on the mountain, but the only way we could get to it was to go out of town.” 
Twelve years after he first dreamed of his Solspeil, a German company that specializes in CSP – concentrated solar power – brought in, by helicopter, the three 17-square-metre glass mirrors that are now high above the market square in Rjukan. 
And it really works. Some people were against the mirrors at first, but now even they agree that it works. 
“I was strongly against it,” says Nils Eggerud. Like many others, he felt they needed the money for other things – for extra carers to look after Rjukan’s old people, perhaps, or better schools, cycle paths and roads. 
“And I still don’t know about the maintenance costs,” he says. “What will they be, who will pay them? But ... well, it feels nice, standing here. And, really, you just have to look at the people’s faces.” 
In his office with a view of the square, Rjukan’s young mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is less interested in the cost and more interested in the benefits the mirrors might bring to the town. Already, Bergsland says, there are more visitors than usual and Rjukan’s shopkeepers are making more money than usual. 
The town had to pay just 1 million krone – £100,000 – of the mirror’s total 5-million krone cost. The rest came from the government and a local business. “And”, says Bergsland, “just look out of the window. Look at those happy faces. Now it’s here, people love it.”",530
"Joseph Roche is on the shortlist of astronauts for Mars One, a private mission that plans to send humans to live on Mars from 2025. He is on the shortlist but he is sceptical about Mars One.
The selection process, Roche says, did not “reach the standard of more traditional astronaut selection processes”. He also says the Dutch
Mars One team are naive because they believe they can succeed alone in the $6 billion mission. He says they should now accept it will probably not happen. 
The group plans to send a lander and satellite to Mars in 2018, followed by a rover in 2020 and cargo missions starting in 2022. Humans will start arriving in 2025 and they will send more crews of four people every two years. The astronauts will not return to Earth.
Gerard ’t Hooft is a Dutch Nobel laureate in physics. He is a supporter of the project but he says he does not believe the Mars One plans are realistic. He said: “It will take longer and be more expensive. When they asked me to be involved, I told them: ‘You have to put a zero after everything’.”
Roche also said that there were not 200,000  people who applied to be astronauts, as Mars One said; there were only 2,761.
He talked about the selection process in more detail: “I have not met anyone from Mars One. At first, they said there would be regional interviews; we would travel there, and they would interview and test us over several days. To me, that sounded like a proper astronaut selection process. 
“But it changed from a proper regional interview over several days to a ten-minute Skype call.”
Roche says he does not want to give more interviews because he doesn’t want to sound negative about space travel.
He said that being involved in the public debate about future missions is one of the most interesting and enjoyable things about his connection with Mars One. He then said that, “If a one-way mission to Mars ever became possible, I would always volunteer. For an astrophysicist, that is not a difficult decision to make.” But he does not think there will be a one-way mission in his lifetime.",531
"When we talk about climate change, we usually just talk about the problem. We usually forget the many solutions. These solutions make recycling faster, reduce emissions and create alternatives to plastic, air conditioning, smartphones and fast fashion that are better for the environment.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met in Copenhagen to present its latest report. There is now climate change on all continents. We must increase our efforts to reduce emissions to make sure that climate change does not get out of control. Copenhagen looked at the risks and challenges but it also looked at the solutions.
The Sustainia Award looked at ten best solutions  to climate change. The solutions are used in 84 countries. From the areas of food, fashion, energy, transport, education and health, the awards showed that the future may not be so bad.
From California, we saw how we can now produce plastics from greenhouse gases. These plastics are good quality and not too expensive. From Switzerland, we learned a better way to recycle and reuse old clothes and shoes. And from Canada, we learned how smartphones can make bike-sharing easier.
The ten projects each offered unique solutions  to the problem of climate change. The Nigerian project, Wecyclers, won the Sustainia Award 2014.
Wecyclers makes it possible for poor communities to make money from the waste from their streets. Families in Lagos collect the rubbish on the streets. Then, bicycles come and collect the waste. Families get points for the garbage they collect. They can use these points to get things they need.
Recycling companies buy Wecyclers’ waste. They make the waste into products such as mattresses, pillows and trash bags. Wecyclers helps to solve local waste problems in Lagos, where only 40% of the city’s rubbish is collected.
Only 46% of town and city waste in Africa is collected. More than 5,000 families are involved in the Wecyclers scheme and there are plans to start the project in other cities in Nigeria.
Solutions to climate change are often hi-tech. But, to solve all the different problems, we need different solutions. We can’t just reduce emissions – we must also use our natural resources more intelligently and create healthier lives for ourselves.",532
"In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or Ásfríður; Baldey, Bebba or Brá. Dögg, Dimmblá, Etna and Eybjört are fine and so are Frigg, Glódís, Hörn and Ingunn. Jórlaug is OK and so are Obba, Sigurfljóð, Úranía and Vagna. But, if you are a girl in Iceland, you cannot be called Harriet. 
“The situation is silly,” said Tristan Cardew, a British cook who moved to Iceland in 2000. With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik – the registry decided not to renew the Cardew’s ten-year-old daughter Harriet’s passport because it does not recognize her first name. 
The registry does not recognize the name of Harriet’s 12-year-old brother Duncan either, so, until now, the two children have travelled on passports with the names Stúlka and Drengur Cardew, which mean Girl and Boy Cardew. But, this time, the registry has decided to apply the law. “And the law says no official document will be given to people who do not have an approved Icelandic name.” 
The situation meant the family were going to miss their holiday in France but they have applied to the British embassy for an emergency UK passport, which should now allow them to leave. 
Names are important in Iceland, a country of only 320,000 people. The law says that – unless both parents are foreign – the names of children born in Iceland must be submitted to the National Registry within six months of birth. If a name is not on a recognized list of 1,853 female and 1,712 male names, the parents must get approval from the Icelandic Naming Committee. 
About 5,000 children are born in Iceland each year and the committee receives about 100 applications. It rejects about half of these names because it wants to preserve the Icelandic language. There is a law that says names must be able to have Icelandic grammatical endings and should be written using the ordinary rules of Icelandic spelling. 
What this means is that names with letters that do not officially exist in Iceland’s 32-letter alphabet, such as “c”, are not permitted. Also, names that cannot be used with the case endings used in Icelandic are also rejected. “That was the problem with Harriet,” said Cardew. 
The country’s naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Blær – “Light Breeze” – Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdottir won the right to be officially called her name, not “Girl”. The former mayor of Reykjavik, Jón Gnarr, has also called Iceland’s naming law “unfair, stupid and against creativity”. 
The Cardews could solve Harriet’s problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. “But it’s a bit late for that and much too silly,” said Cardew. “Are they saying they don’t want us here?”",533
"Margaret Thatcher, the best known British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 and a global supporter of free market economics, has died. The British government announced that she would receive a ceremonial funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, said: “It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatcher’s death. We’ve lost a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton.” He added: “As our first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher succeeded against all the odds, and she didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country.” He added that he believed she would be remembered as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.
In a statement, President Barack Obama said, “Here in America, many of us will never forget her standing shoulder to shoulder with President Reagan, reminding the world that we can shape the currents of history with our moral beliefs, courage and iron will.”
The first woman elected to lead a major western state, Margaret Thatcher served 11 years at No 10 Downing Street before members of her own party removed her in 1990.
Thatcher, who was 87, had been in poor health for some years, suffering from dementia. When they heard of her death, politicians from all parties sent tributes.
Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, said: “She will be remembered as a unique figure. She reshaped the politics of a whole generation. She was Britain’s first woman prime minister. She moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage. The Labour Party disagreed with a lot of what she did and she will always be a controversial figure. But we can disagree and also greatly respect her political achievements and her personal strength.”
The deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said: “Margaret Thatcher was one of the most important figures in modern British politics. Whatever party you support, no one can deny that as prime minister she left a unique and lasting imprint on the country she served.”
Describing her as a political phenomenon, the former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major said: “Her outstanding characteristics will always be remembered by those who worked closely with her: courage and determination in politics, and humanity and generosity of spirit in private.”
The “Iron Lady” was a cold war ally of the US president Ronald Reagan in the final showdown with the Soviet Union, which broke up as a result of reformist pressures led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a Kremlin leader with whom Thatcher famously said she could “do business”. As a result, many ordinary voters in ex-Soviet bloc states saw her as someone who supported their liberty.
Thatcher was an unremarkable Conservative until she unexpectedly became party leader in 1975. Within ten years, she had become known around the world – both admired and hated – for her pro-market reforms in the UK and her implacable attitudes in foreign policy, including her long battle with the IRA, which almost succeeded in murdering her with a bomb in 1984.
At home, Thatcher was associated with denationalization of state-owned industry – the new word “privatization” became used in many countries – and defeat of militant trade unions, particularly the National Union of Miners, whose one-year strike (1984–85) was traumatic. With money from Britain’s North Sea oil fields, Thatcher was able to change the ageing industrial economy and she used the opportunity to defeat her enemies – including moderate members of her own party.
In the European Union she got a rebate for Britain – “my money” as she called it. She was less successful in controlling the European Commission, who wanted to centralize power in Europe, especially in the years when it was led by the French socialist Jacques Delors.
As the British economy recovered from the very bad recession that her policies had caused, she seemed invincible for a short time. But unlimited power and the defeat or retirement of allies led to mistakes and increasing unpopularity. When her deputy finally fell out with her – mainly on the subject of Europe – his damaging resignation speech led to a leadership challenge. After a vote among Conservative MPs failed to support her, John Major took control of the party.
After she retired, she wrote highly successful memoirs and campaigned energetically for the Thatcher Foundation, which aimed to promote her values around the world.",534
"Tigers are more numerous in Nepal than at any time since the 1970s, a new census has revealed, giving conservationists hope that the big cats, whose numbers have been dropping across south Asia for 100 years, can be saved. 
The number of wild royal bengal tigers in Nepal has increased to 198 – a 63.6% rise in five years – the government survey showed.” This is very encouraging,” said Maheshwar Dhakal, an ecologist with Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. 
The census is based on the examination of pictures from more than 500 cameras placed in five protected areas and three wildlife corridors. More than 250 conservationists and wildlife experts worked on the survey, which cost about £250,000. 
Dhakal said that a parallel survey was conducted in India and the results from both countries will be published later in 2013.” It will take a few more months for India, which now has 1,300 big cats in several huge protected areas, to finalize the data,” he added. 
Nepal has pledged to double the population of tigers by the year 2022 from 121 in 2009 when the last systematic tiger count took place. Increasing prosperity in Asia has pushed up prices for tiger skins and the body parts used in traditional Chinese medicines. International gangs pay poor local Nepali significant sums to kill the cats. The skin and bones are handed to middlemen, who pass easily through the porous border to India, where the major dealers are based. 
One major problem is complicity between senior officials and mafia networks involved in the trade. Conservation experts credit the increase in numbers to the effective policing of national parks, stronger anti-poaching drives and better management of tiger habitats in Nepal, where forests cover 29% of the land. But they say Nepal needs to do more to protect the habitat and animals on which tigers prey so the big cats have enough space to roam and food to eat. 
As the number of tigers has increased over the years, so have incidents of conflict with villagers. Seven people were killed in attacks by tigers around national parks in 2012 compared to four in 2011, park officials said. Villagers are also seeking better protection.” The government is making conservation plans for tigers. But it should also come up with plans to protect people from tigers,” Krishna Bhurtel, a local village headman in Chitwan, told Nepali newspaper Nagarik. 
Wildlife authorities captured a tiger in Chitwan after it killed two people, including a villager who was pulled from his bed in May. Thousands of tigers once roamed the forests in Bangladesh, India and Nepal. But their numbers have dropped to about 3,000, a 95% drop over a century. Chitwan National Park in central Nepal has the highest number of adult tigers, with 120, followed by Bardiya National Park (50) and Shukla Phanta Wildlife Reserve (17). 
Diwakar Chapagain, who heads a World Wildlife Fund Nepal unit that monitors wildlife trade, said tiger skins were in demand in Tibet, where well-heeled people use them as festival costumes. 
In Nepal, kings used to stand on tiger skins in front of stuffed tigers for special occasions. Some affluent Nepali have mounted tiger heads on the walls of their living rooms. Tiger bones are in high demand for use in traditional Chinese medicines.” The trade in tiger parts is lucrative and fetches thousands of dollars in illegal markets,” Chapagain said, highlighting the threat tigers face.",535
"Prince Harry has left Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour. He spoke about the frustrations of being a royal who doesn’t want a lot of public attention. 
He also talked about his feelings for some parts of the media and described how his father constantly told him to behave more like a member of the royal family. 
As a commander of an Apache helicopter, the prince said he had shot at the Taliban. He said he was only doing his job. 
In interviews during his time based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, the prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, explained his 'three mes'. “One in the army, one socially in my own private time and one with the family.” 
He admitted he sometimes disappointed people and also himself with his silly behaviour. He said he was “probably too much army and not enough prince”, but he said he was entitled to privacy, too. 
In another interview, he criticized the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. He said he was very annoyed by articles that compare his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews during the second world war. “No, it’s not like that at all,” he said. 
The prince said he didn’t like the media because of the treatment of his family when “I was very small”. He said that he read the stories written about him. “Of course I read them,” the prince said. “If there’s a story and somebody writes something about me, I want to know what they said. But it just upsets me and makes me angry that people can write those things. Not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, 'Don’t read it'.” 
When he was asked if he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was revealing. “Definitely. I’ve always been like that. My father’s always trying to tell me about who I am and things like that. But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.” 
Before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was photographed naked in Las Vegas at a private party. Harry said he had disappointed himself and other people, but also blamed the media. “At the end of the day I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.” 
When he was asked why he and his brother liked helicopters, he said, “Probably because you can only fit a few people in a helicopter, so no one can follow us, like you guys.”",536
"There are bird droppings in one of Britain’s most expensive houses. Pigeon skeletons lie among broken mirrors and water is coming through the walls. This is The Tower, a £30m palace in “Billionaires’ Row” in north London. 
It is one of ten mansions in the middle of The Bishops Avenue that have been empty for many years. The Saudi Arabian royal family bought it. Their Grecian columns are cracking into pieces and mosaic-tiled swimming pools are filled with broken stones. Nature has taken control and owls have moved in. 
You see the same thing again and again on the avenue. Lloyds Bank says The Bishops Avenue is the second most expensive street in Britain. House prices in London are rising at 11.2% a year. More and more people find it difficult to buy a house, but 16 mansions on the most expensive part of The Bishops Avenue are empty. Their gates are locked and there are guard dogs in their overgrown gardens. 
Across the street stands another empty mansion worth £18m. It has broken windows and its walls are painted with anti-climb paint. Metal bars block the windows of another mansion, which has sold for £20m. 
For people who find it very difficult to keep a roof above their heads in one of the world’s most expensive cities, seeing the empty houses can be painful. One security guard who works on the avenue said it was annoying to see so many mansions – enough for many people to live in – falling apart. 
Rich royals from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia came to this road near Hampstead Heath first. Iranians came here after the fall of the shah. Now, Chinese house hunters are following Russians and Kazakhs who have spent millions to get an address that estate agents tell them is as world famous as the Champs Elysées and Rodeo Drive. Recently, two mansions have been on sale for £65m and £38m. 
But in the grounds of the empty mansions, stone fountains crumble. Inside one mansion, the ceiling has collapsed and water drips through a huge crystal chandelier onto a thick carpet, which is rotting. Moss grows through bricks and mirrored tiles are lying on a bathroom floor. The swimming pool is filled with dirty water and has flowers growing through its tiles. The wood in the sauna is coming off the walls. 
But it is the ruin of The Towers, a grand mansion, that is most dramatic. There are pigeons in its huge, high-ceiling halls and its walls are bright green with algae. 
Today, very few people live on The Bishops Avenue all the time. A security guard outside one mansion said that the owners were not there. Another guard outside Royal Mansion would not say if anyone was home and a member of staff at another mansion warned the Guardian about the guard dogs. 
Magdy Adib Ishak-Hannah, who has £45m, said he is one of the few residents who lives there all the time. 
“I have never seen what my neighbours look like. Next door, a Saudi princess spent £35m on a new house and I’ve never seen her. There are about three houses that are lived in 24/7 and half of the houses are lived in three to six months a year. The other half, who knows if they come or not?” he said. 
The reason for the multimillion-pound ruins is that some of the world’s richest people see British houses as an investment. 
Anil Varma, who develops homes and then sells them, wants to build £5m apartments, instead of £50m mansions, to try to bring people back. 
He has decided to rebuild one of the most expensive sites on the avenue as a collection of 20 apartments with a concierge, maid service, 25-metre pool, spa and cinema.",537
"Benjamin Carle is 96.9% made in France, right down to his underpants and socks. Unfortunately, six Ikea forks, a Chinese guitar and unsourced wall paint stopped him being declared a 100% economic patriot, but nobody is perfect. 
Carle, 26, set out, in 2013, to see if it was possible to live using only French-made products for ten months as part of a television documentary. 
The idea was triggered by the Minister for Economic Renewal Arnaud Montebourg’s call for the public to buy French to save the country’s industrial production sector. 
The experiment cost Carle his smartphone, television, refrigerator (all made in China); his spectacles (Italian); his underpants (Moroccan); morning coffee (Guatemalan) and his adored David Bowie music (British). 
Fortunately, his long-suffering girlfriend, Anaïs, and cat, Loon, (both French) stuck with him. 
“Politicians say all sorts of things and expect us to go along with it. I wanted to see if it was possible and feasible to do what the minister was asking us to do; to hold him to account for his words,” Carle told the Guardian over a non-French coffee in a Parisian café after finishing his documentary. 
He set just three rules: eat only foods produced in France, eliminate contact with foreign-made goods and do so on €1,800 a month (above the minimum wage of €1,430 to cover the extra expense of living in Paris). 
The journalist was shocked to find out at the start of the experiment that only 4.5% of the contents of his flat were made nationally – and that the rest would have to go, including the lightbulbs (China) and green beans (Kenya). 
The removal men left his home almost bare. 
Left without a refrigerator (none are made in France) or nail clippers, he was forced to chill his food on the window ledge and saw at his toenails with a penknife. 
His foreign-made clothes, down to his underwear, were replaced with more expensive alternatives: French-produced underpants (€26), socks (€9), polo shirt (€75), espadrille sandals ( €26), but no jeans as none are produced in France. 
During the experiment, Carle scoured supermarket shelves for 100% French-made products, learned to cook seasonal fruit and vegetables grown in France, proudly brushed his teeth with the last toothbrush made in France by a company in Picardie employing 29 people and hand-washed his smalls until he found the last French-made washing machine (which, being top opening, would not fit under the kitchen counter). 
Going out with friends was problematic – no American films, no Belgian beer, no sushi or pizza. Staying home, with no sofa for the first few months and no television, meant listening to crooner Michel Sardou and reading French novels. French wine was, of course, allowed and French-Canadian singer Céline Dion, but not, according to his advisers, French bands such as Daft Punk, who sing in English. 
Unable to use his British-made bicycle or even a French car after discovering the only affordable Peugeot, Renault and Citroën models are mostly made overseas, he invested in a fug-emitting orange Mobylette moped. 
The last things to go were the computer, replaced by a Qooq, a recipe tablet that connects – slowly – to the internet and the iPhone, swapped for an old Sagem mobile. 
The documentary shows Carle – realizing he is addicted to his iPhone – smashing it with a brand-new French-made Tefal saucepan, while his girlfriend shrieks: “Are you crazy? Those are new pans!” 
Carle tells viewers his aim is to “save the French economy. After all, I like Mission Impossible”. He admits the experiment was part serious and part jest. At one point, he consults a French language expert to check if he should be using “cool” and other Anglicisms – he was advised to swap it for the nearest French equivalent: “chouette”. 
On discovering France makes no refrigerators (apart from wine coolers) or televisions, but is big in aeroplane seats and windmills, he sighs and says: “Great. Nothing that will fit into my apartment.” 
At the end of the experiment, Carle takes out a bank loan to refurnish his home and clothe himself. A special “auditor” declares him 96.9% “made in France” and Montebourg visits to present him with a medal. 
Carle’s conclusion: “It’s not entirely possible or even desirable to live 100% made in France, particularly in terms of new technology. But that wasn’t the point. 
“This wasn’t about French nationalism or patriotism. It was trying to show that we should reflect about the way we consume and make different choices, and that applies in all countries. If we want to save jobs and industries, wherever we are, we might think about supporting them. 
“A T-shirt is more expensive in France but I can be sure it has been produced by workers who are correctly paid and have good working conditions. I cannot be sure about a cheaper T-shirt produced in Asia or Morocco.” 
He added: “It’s hypocrisy to go around blaming capitalists for a country’s economic decline when people could be doing more as consumers.” 
Carle says he hopes to continue supporting French industry and producers, but not 100%. “It is a full-time job just finding the stuff,” he said. 
The first thing he did when the experiment ended was invite his friends around for the evening to enjoy “a plate of cheese and listen to the David Bowie album Aladdin Sane”. 
“It was difficult not being able to invite people around because there was nowhere to sit ... but I’d choose the Bowie over a sofa any day.”",538
"A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) says that 35.6% of all women around the world will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner. The report says that 30% of women are attacked by their partners. It also says that a large percentage of murders of women – 38% – are done by their partners. 
The highest levels of violence against women are in Africa, where nearly half of all women – 45.6% – will experience physical or sexual violence. In poor and middle-income Europe, the percentage is 27.2%. But, richer countries are not always safer for women – a third of women in rich countries (32.7%) will experience violence. 42% of the women who experience violence have injuries, which doctors and nurses may notice. The report says that injuries are often the first opportunity to discover violence in the home and to offer the woman help. Violence has a big effect on women’s health. Some come to hospital with broken bones and others have problems related to pregnancy and mental illness. 
The WHO has two reports – one report is on violence; the other report tells doctors and nurses how to help women. Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, of the WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote the reports. 
“For the first time we have compared data from all over the world on partner violence and sexual violence by non-partners and the effect of these sorts of violence on health,” said Garcia-Moreno. These included HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, depression, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies and babies that are born too small. 
There were differences in the levels of violence against women in different regions of the world but, said Garcia-Moreno, “it is too high” everywhere. Data from 81 countries shows that, even in rich countries, 23.2% of women will experience physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in their lives. The global figure for women attacked by partners was 30%. 
Women report more sexual assaults and rapes by acquaintances or strangers in rich countries than elsewhere. The report says that 12.6% of women in wealthy countries will be sexually attacked by a non-partner in their lives. The percentage in Africa is 11.9%. 
The report says that their previous research shows that better-educated women and working women are less likely to experience violence, but not in all regions. There is a need to change some attitudes, said Watts. “In some societies, are certain forms of violence against women acceptable?” she asked. “In some societies, violence against women is not OK – but, in some societies, it is OK.” 
Garcia-Moreno said that the percentages show that we must pay more attention to this question. Over the past ten years, more people see that there is a problem, she said, but “it is a complex problem. We don’t have a vaccine or a pill”. 
The WHO now recommends teaching doctors and nurses to recognize the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault. But they do not recommend asking every woman who arrives in a clinic if she has been the victim of violence. 
“If a woman comes back several times with injuries she doesn’t mention, you should ask her about domestic violence,” said Garcia-Moreno.",539
"On one day in August, one in seven people on Earth, 1 billion people, used Facebook, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. In ten years, the social network has completely changed people’s relationships, privacy, their businesses, news media, helped to end regimes and even changed the meanings of common words.
“A more open and connected world is a better world.
It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities and a stronger society,” wrote Zuckerberg.
These are just some of the ways his company changed everything – for better or worse.
1 Facebook has changed the definition of “friend”
“To friend” is now a verb. And, unlike in real life, it is easy to “unfriend” someone, a word invented to describe ending a Facebook friendship when that person is no longer improving your Facebook newsfeed.
Although the meanings of the words “share” and “like” are basically the same, Facebook has made the terms more important to us.
School and university reunions are unnecessary – you already know whose career is going well, whether the perfect pair have split and you’ve seen pictures of your schoolmates’ babies. You won’t be surprised to see an ex in the street with a new girlfriend or boyfriend: you already know they’re dating someone else from the romantic selfies.
But, unlike in real life, on Facebook, all your friends have the same importance. A classmate from university who you haven’t seen for 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a party or a colleague you’ve never actually spoken to in person – they are all Facebook friends in the same way as your closest friend or your spouse or your mum.
It doesn’t necessarily mean we see them the same way. Professor Robin Dunbar is famous for his research that suggests a person can only have about 150 people as a social group. Facebook hasn’t changed that yet, he believes. But Dunbar says he fears it is so easy simply to end friendships on Facebook that, eventually, people may not need to learn to get on with each other.
2 We care less about privacy
The surprising thing is that Facebook users happily hand over their information.
Pew Research Center found that most young people are more than willing to hand over their details. Ninetyone per cent post a photo of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, more than half give email addresses and a fifth give their phone number.
But, because so much of a person’s life is shared online, Facebook gives people a way to create an image and a fanbase. Academics have described a new phenomenon: the “Facebook self”.
More than 80% of Facebook users list their interests, which allows brands to target them effectively. But most younger users limit who can see their profiles, with 60% allowing friends only.
3 Facebook has created millions of jobs – but not in its own offices
Facebook provides indirect employment for people whose job it is to make Facebook work for their brand.
“It is a tool like no other,” said Michael Tinmouth, a social media strategist who has worked with brands such as Vodafone and Microsoft. “Marketers have an understanding of a brand’s customers like they have never had before. The data available is extraordinary. You know who your customers are, who they are friends with and how they engage with your brand.” And advertisers pay a lot for that. Facebook reported advertising revenue had increased by 46%, reaching $3.32bn.
Facebook is also a minefield for brands. Suddenly, customers don’t simply complain on the phone to a customer service representative or on a small specialist internet forum – angry customers can post their complaints for hundreds of their friends to see or even on the brand’s own page.
4 Facebook has been the tool to organize revolutions
Organizing demonstrations and direct action has been revolutionized by Facebook. Manchester University’s Olga Onuch found Facebook had been the key way for reaching half of all the Euromaidan protesters in Ukraine.
Many of the people interviewed in Onuch’s research said they relied on Facebook for the truth about what was happening – they don’t trust traditional media.
5 Facebook makes news, breaks news and decides what is news
About 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds say the internet is their main news source and 63% of users overall, according to the Pew Research Center. About a third of Facebook users post about politics and government.
Most people will first read an item of breaking news via Facebook or other social media, mostly on mobiles.
Facebook has also changed the ways journalists write stories. It is a resource many reporters cannot now live without. For better or (often) worse, it is a place to find information on almost any ordinary person, who might suddenly find themselves at the centre of the day’s biggest news story.
6 Users are changing Facebook
It used to be a site for students of top US universities.
In 2014, ten years after its launch, 56% of internet users aged 65 and older have a Facebook account.
And 39% are connected to people they have never met in person.
More than ever, the site is a gateway not just to your friends but to the rest of the internet.
We may as well get used to it, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. “It might very well go away further down the road but something this big takes a long time to disappear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Facebook has proven its ability to change and it will continue to be a very, very major player.”",540
"What surprised researchers was not how hard people found the challenge but how far they would go to avoid it. The task? To sit in a chair and do nothing but think.
Some found it so unbearable that they took the safe but alarming opportunity to give themselves mild electric shocks to break the tedium.
Two-thirds of men pressed a button that gave them a painful shock during a 15-minute period of solitude.
Under the same conditions, a quarter of women pressed the shock button. The difference, scientists suspect, is that men are typically more sensation-seeking than women.
The report from psychologists at Virginia and Harvard Universities tries to answer the question of why most of us find it so hard to do nothing.
In more than 11 separate studies, the researchers showed that people hated being left to think, regardless of their age, education, income or the amount of time they spent on smartphones or social media.
Timothy Wilson, who led the work, said the findings were not necessarily due to the pace of modern life or the spread of mobile devices and social media. Instead, those things might be popular because of our constant need to do something rather than nothing.
In the first experiments, students were taken – alone, without phones, books or anything to write with – into a room and told to think. The only rules were that they had to stay seated and not fall asleep. They were told that they would have six to 15 minutes alone.
The students were questioned when the time was up. On average, they did not enjoy the experience. They struggled to concentrate. Their minds wandered even with nothing to distract them.
In case the unfamiliar setting reduced the ability to think, the researchers did the experiment again with people at home.
They got similar results. In fact, people found the experience even more miserable and cheated by getting up from their chair or checking their phones.
To see if the effect was found only in students, the scientists tested more than 100 other people, aged 18 to 77, from a church and a farmers’ market. They also disliked being left to their thoughts.
But, the most surprising result was yet to come. To check whether people might actually prefer something bad to nothing at all, the students were given the option of giving themselves a mild electric shock.
They had been asked earlier to say how unpleasant the shocks were, compared to other options, such as looking at pictures of cockroaches or hearing the sound of a knife rubbing against a bottle.
All the students chosen for the test said they would pay to avoid mild electric shocks.
To the researchers’ surprise, 12 of 18 men gave themselves up to four electric shocks and six of 24 women did the same.
The scientists said that the most surprising thing was that being alone with their thoughts was so hard for many people that they gave themselves an electric shock – something the participants had earlier said they would pay to avoid.
Jessica Andrews-Hanna at the University of Colorado said many students would probably give themselves an electric shock to cheer up a tedious lecture. But, she says we need to know more about the motivation of the shockers in Wilson’s study.
“Imagine – a person is told to sit in a chair with wires attached to their skin and a button that will deliver a harmless but uncomfortable shock, and they are told to just sit there with their thoughts,” she said.
“As they sit there, their mind starts to wander and it naturally goes to that shock – was it really that bad?”",541
"You probably know a vaper – someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the fi gures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.
E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published fi gures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
But fi gures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and exsmokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the fi gures as statistically important.
Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. “The number of people who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke is going down,” West said. “We’ve only been studying vaping for just over a year, so it’s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or ‘never’ smokers using e-cigarettes. The number of people vaping might change but, at the moment, it looks like it’s staying the same.”
Experts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers. Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. “The fi gures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the fi gures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
“E-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.”
The European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
West suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn’t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. “Some local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes – they ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.",542
"The beginning of the year is probably prime-time for feeling glum about work: it’s ages until the next holiday, and it’s dark in the morning and when you get home. And, if you’re stuck in a job you don’t like, it could be enough to have you reaching for your CV. 
But, before you start hunting through the job ads, try to put things in perspective. So, what else could you be doing instead? We asked five people doing some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work. 
1. Dog-food taster 
The job: Tasting dog food to make sure it meets a premium brand’s quality standards 
What it involves: Opening sample tins of each freshly made batch of dog (or cat) food, smelling it and eating it. “Although dogs’ palates are different from ours, taste is an important quality check to ensure each different ingredient is perfectly balanced in just the right way,” says Philip Wells, the chief taster for Lily’s Kitchen pet food. “Trying the food is also a good way to pick up on the nuances of the cooking; this works especially well on the dry food.” 
Typical salary: £20,000 for an entry-level job in the quality department. However, Wells says £50,000 or more is “easily achievable” for an experienced technical director who, as well as tasting products, is also likely to be responsible for developing new recipes and advising the business on technical and regulatory matters. Worst part of the job: The deadlines, for Wells, who admits he quite likes the food. The meat used in pet food has to be derived from animals passed as fi t for human consumption, under the Animal Feed Regulations 2010, and he says the firm uses “human-grade freshly prepared raw food” in its recipes. He adds: “There are some pretty gruesome pet foods out there and, although I don’t taste them, the smell is enough to turn the stomach when I do a bit of market research.” 
Job satisfaction: “No two days are ever the same.” It’s rewarding, Wells says, that a project he has worked on will “help pets to become happier and healthier”. However, he acknowledges that some of the credit must go to another “key member” of the tasting team: Lily, the border terrier. 
2. Hygiene technician 
The job: Disinfecting areas that have potentially been exposed to bio-hazardous situations 
What it involves: Cleaning up crime scenes, road accidents and suicides. Clearing hoarders’ houses full of rubbish, rats and excrement … among other things. “The job is about keeping people safe,” says Richard Lewis, a hygiene technician for Rentokil. “We deal with some very disturbingly dirty sites.” 
Typical salary: The entry-level salary is usually around £14,500 and a top salary can be up to £22,000. Worst part of the job: Cleaning up after suicides. “You get used to the job being disgusting but the emotional side of it is still hard.” You learn not to take your work home with you, he says. “You also need to have a sense of humour, as some days can be tough.” 
Job satisfaction: Lewis finds the variety of tasks exciting. “One day, I’m cleaning up after a dead body; another day, I’m in a prison cell or 100 feet in the air being lowered down into a silo to clean it.” He also takes pride in the transformation he brings about: “It’s satisfying to return a potentially hazardous site back to a safe environment. And it bene fits society.” 
3. Biogas engineer 
The job: Setting up biogas plants in developing countries 
What it involves: Linking a system of digesters – which can be filled with human excrement, animal dung and other waste products – to toilets to produce a biogas that can be used for cooking and lighting. “You have to know what size and shape the mixing pit needs to be, how to create the optimum temperature for digestion and where to situate the biogas plant,” says Baburam Paudel, chief technical officer in Nepal for the charity Renewable World. “You also have to convince poor communities that poo can be productive – many are repelled by the idea of connecting their toilets to their kitchens.” 
Typical salary: An entry-level salary is around £10,000, while a typical salary for a chief technical officer is £30,000. Worst part of the job: For Paudel, it’s seeing people struggling to survive on very little income. But, he admits, anyone who won’t change a nappy would struggle. “You have to be willing to get your hands dirty during the build process and inspections. Unsurprisingly, the anaerobic digestion (the process that takes place when bacteria eat the decomposing waste and produce methane) smells like rotten eggs. It can be disgusting and there is no room for mistakes.” 
Job satisfaction: “I find it immensely satisfying to know that I am helping people to increase their incomes and allowing girls to attend school by replacing the need to collect firewood,” says Paudel. “My work improves the health and hygiene of whole communities.” 
4. Eel ecologist 
The job: Conserving the critically endangered European eel 
What it involves: To monitor the size of the endangered eels, ecologists wade into the Thames and other London rivers and marshes full of eels, sometimes up to their armpits, and reach into a net filled with up to 20 adult eels to grab one with their bare hands. “Adult eels can be a metre long, or even larger, and weigh up to 2kg. They’re not at all dangerous but they are almost pure muscle and they can be a little bit slimy,” says Stephen Mowat, an eel conservationist and ecologist for the Zoological Society of London. “We have to weigh and measure them, and they wriggle … a lot. It’s difficult to look professional while crawling on the ground chasing an eel across the grass.” 
Worst part of the job: “Eels are really tricky creatures to work with – and getting outsmarted by an eel can be quite embarrassing,” says Mowat. “You also have to be ready to jump from one project to the next. I once had to dissect a tub of dead eels to examine parasites living in them, moments before jumping into a suit for a meeting with government officials. I remembered to wash my hands.” But, for Mowat, the worst part of the job is definitely not handling the eels – he believes baby eels (known as elvers) are “as cute as pandas”: “The worst thing about the job is regularly learning how much damage we, the British population, are doing to the environment.” 
Job satisfaction: “Getting to work outdoors and seeing British wildlife up close is the best part of the job,” says Mowat. “Eels are beautiful creatures and working with eels doesn’t just bene fi t the eel: it helps whole river systems, estuaries and coastal habitats. That is something worth working on.” 
5. Shopping channel presenter 
The job: Selling and demonstrating a wide range of products on live TV 
What it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous content, while simultaneously demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that you’re selling. “I prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand,” says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV. “But you also need the ability to relate to every genre of products and to every viewer.” 
Typical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of £30,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over £55,000. 
Worst part of the job: “The unsociable hours,” says Ryan. “An experienced presenter like myself generally gets to work prime-time hours, which means all weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus the occasional 5am shift.” His worst task ever, he says, was singlehandedly having to sell some female slimming pants: “It was a very tricky hour and not my fi nest.” 
Job satisfaction: “I love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second,” says Ryan. “I also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.”",543
"Prince Harry has flown out of Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour. During his time there he admitted killing insurgents while flying his Apache helicopter. He spoke about the frustrations of being a royal who wishes for a life out of the spotlight.
He also told of his disdain for and distrust of some sections of the media and described how his father constantly reminded him to behave more like a member of the royal family.
A commander of the army’s most sophisticated attack helicopter, the prince said he had shot at the Taliban during operations to support ground troops and rescue injured Afghan and NATO personnel. He said he was only doing his job.
In a series of interviews during his time based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, he hinted at the difficulty of reconciling the different roles in his life. The prince, known as Captain Wales in the army, explained his ‘three mes’. “One in the army, one socially in my own private time and one with the family.”
He admitted he sometimes ‘let himself down’ with his laddish behaviour, which he said was probably because he is “too much army and not enough prince”, but he said he was entitled to privacy, too.
In another interview, he criticized the media, especially the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, three of the royal family’s strongest supporters. He said he was particularly annoyed by articles comparing his role as an Apache co-pilot gunner to Spitfire crews during the second world war. “No, it’s not like that at all,” he said.
The prince said his suspicion of the media came from the treatment of his family when “I was very small”, but that he couldn’t stop reading the stories written about him. “Of course I read them,” the prince said. “If there’s a story and something’s been written about me, I want to know what’s being said. But all it does is just upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing the stuff they do. Not just about me, but about everything and everybody. My father always says, ‘Don’t read it’. Everyone says, ‘Don’t read it, because it’s always rubbish’.”
Four years ago, the prince had to be taken out of Afghanistan during his first tour after a media silence was broken by mistake by an Australian magazine. This time, the Ministry of Defence chose to publicize his deployment on the understanding that newspapers and broadcasters would not give a running commentary on his life out there to allow him to do his job. Two-man crews from the BBC, Sky and ITN were sent once each to report on his visit.
When he was asked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was one of the most revealing he has given about his relationship with Prince Charles. “Definitely. I’ve always been like that. My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.”
Shortly before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was photographed naked in Las Vegas during a private party. Harry said he had let himself down, but also blamed the media. “I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But, at the end of the day, I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”
When he was asked where he and his brother’s fascination with helicopters came from, he said, “Probably the fact that you can only fit a certain number of people in a helicopter, therefore no one can follow us, like you guys.”",544
"The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son on Monday, 22 July. The baby is third in line to the British throne.
Kensington Palace announced at 8.30pm that the baby was born at 4.24pm in the exclusive Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London. “We could not be happier,” the Duke of Cambridge said.
In a statement, Kensington Palace said: “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. The baby weighs 8lbs 6oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.”
The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Harry and members of both families were informed and were delighted with the news that Her Royal Highness and her child were both doing well.
It is understood that the couple delayed making the announcement immediately so that they could enjoy some private time with their newborn. William telephoned his family to tell them the good news, speaking to the Queen, his father Charles and younger brother Prince Harry.
The birth of the baby prince means the monarchy has three generations of heirs to the throne for the first time since 1894.
The baby is the first Prince of Cambridge to be born for more than 190 years since Prince George of Cambridge, a grandson of George III and the only son of Prince Adolphus Frederick, the 1st Duke of Cambridge.
In a statement, Prince Charles said: “Both my wife and I are overjoyed at the arrival of my first grandchild. It is an incredibly special moment for William and Catherine and we are so thrilled for them on the birth of their baby boy.
“Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone’s life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months, so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time and we are eagerly looking forward to seeing the baby in the near future.”
The newest royal will be called HRH Prince George of Cambridge.
Following tradition, a formal notice was posted on an easel – the same used to announce Prince William’s birth in 1982 – in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace shortly before 9pm. Within an hour, the numbers had swelled from hundreds to thousands outside the palace, with locals and tourists wanting to share in the historic moment.
New Yorker, Sharon Surloff, was delighted with her phone picture of the royal bulletin. She, her niece and her mother had squeezed through crowds to take a photograph of the easel.
“The police were just saying to everyone: ‘OK, 20 seconds and then the next person’. It’s just great to be here, though. We arrived this morning, at nine in the morning, so it has all worked out beautifully.”
The palace announced the birth in a press release. Minutes later, as crowds of wellwishers outside cheered, “It’s a boy”, the formal medical bulletin was taken from the hospital to Buckingham Palace under police escort.
The prime minister was one of the first to offer his congratulations. Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, David Cameron said: “It is wonderful news from St Mary’s, Paddington, and I am sure that, right across the country, and, indeed, right across the Commonwealth, people will be celebrating and wishing the royal couple well.
“It is an important moment in the life of our nation but, above all, it is a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who have got a brand new baby boy. It has been a remarkable few years for our royal family: a royal wedding that captured people’s hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent jubilee and now this royal birth – all from a family that has given this nation so much incredible service.”
Congratulations came from the White House, too, from Barack Obama and his wife. The president said: “Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, tweeted: “Delighted for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. May God bless them all with love, health and happiness,” he said.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “Many congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I wish them and their son all happiness and good health.”",545
"Police and intelligence agencies around the world have, for almost 100 years, used the polygraph, a lie-detector test, to help catch criminals and spies. 
But, now, researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have developed a new method, which is correct (in tests) over 70% of the time. Police stations around the world might begin using this new method within ten years. It doesn’t monitor movements in the face, talking too much or waving arms – all signs that someone is lying. The new method monitors movements in the whole body, which can show that the person is feeling guilty. 
The polygraph is often used in the US in criminal cases and by the FBI and CIA but is much less popular in Europe. Many people do not believe that it is reliable. 
The basic idea behind the new method is that liars fidget more and that an all-body motion suit – the kind used in films to create computer-generated characters – will record this. 
The new method is over 70% reliable – the polygraph is only 55% reliable. In some tests, the success rate of the new method was more than 80%. 
Ross Anderson, one of the research team, said: “Guilty people fidget more and we can now measure this.” 
The polygraph was created in 1921 by policeman John Larson. It records changes in pulse, blood pressure, sweating and breathing to find out if someone is lying. 
In movies, the polygraph is always correct but, in 1998, the US Supreme Court decided that there was no agreement that the polygraph was reliable. The US National Academy of Scientists said the same thing in 2003. 
The tests Anderson and his colleagues did involved 180 students and employees at Lancaster University. Half of the people were told to tell the truth and half to lie. 
The researchers interviewed some of the people about a computer game called Never End that they played for seven minutes. Others lied about playing it. 
The second test involved a lost wallet with £5 inside. Some people had to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box. Others hid it and lied about it. 
The new body-suit method was correct 82.2% of the time. Researchers monitored how much the people moved their arms and legs, to decide if they were telling the truth or lying. 
All-body suits are expensive – they cost about £30,000 – and they can be uncomfortable, so Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at cheaper alternatives. These include using motion-sensing technology from computer games, such as the Kinect devices developed by Microsoft for the Xbox console.",546
"Wales will become the first country in the UK that will assume that people agree to donate their organs, if they haven’t opted out. 
The Welsh Assembly voted to accept the opt-out scheme, which will allow hospitals to assume that people who die want to donate, if they have not registered an objection. 
“This is a very big day for Wales and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales who are waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford. 
“I am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. We have shown we are ready to take action to increase organ donation and to give hope to those people who wait every week for a transplant. 
“When family members know that organ donation is what the dead person wanted, they usually agree to the donation. The new law will make clearer people’s wishes about organ donation and so it will increase the number of donations.” 
The issue is controversial, but the government says they will protect the dead person’s and the family’s wishes. Relatives will have a “clear right of objection”, which will give them the chance to show that their relative did not want to be an organ donor. 
Wales has acted because it does “not have enough organs for people who need them,” said Drakeford. “About one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list. 
“About a third of the people who live in Wales are on the organ donor register, but more than two-thirds of people say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t find the time to put their names on the register.” 
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK. 
Doctors are delighted at the scheme. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a lot of success. Hospitals have also become better at organizing transplants – for example, they have important discussions with relatives when no one knows what the wishes of the dead person were. But the increase in numbers of organs is still not enough. 
Some religious groups strongly oppose the scheme. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council are not happy, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”",547
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have won the first part of their fight for privacy. A French magazine was told to stop selling or reusing photos of the royal couple. The pictures show the duchess sunbathing topless while on holiday in the south of France. 
It is possible that the magazine editor and the photographer or photographers will also have to go to a criminal court. 
The French magazine Closer was told to give digital files of the pictures to the couple within 24 hours. 
Closer’s publisher, Mondadori Magazines France, was also told to pay €2,000 in legal costs. The magazine will have to pay €10,000 for every day it does not give the couple the files. 
The court decided that every time Mondadori – the publishing company owned by the ex Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – publishes a photograph in the future in France, they will get €10,000 fine. 
The couple welcome the judge’s decision. “They always believed the law was broken and that they had a right to their privacy.” 
The royal couple are pleased with the decision, but they want to have a much more public criminal trial against the magazine and photographer or photographers. 
Under French law, if you do not respect someone’s privacy, you may have to spend a maximum of one year in prison and pay a fine of €45,000. 
This punishment would send a message to the world and, the couple hope, stop paparazzi taking photos like this in the future. 
On Saturday the Irish Daily Star also published the photos. And the Italian celebrity magazine Chi published a special edition of 26 pages with the photos of the future queen.",548
"Low-income countries will continue to be the most affected by human-induced climate change over the next century. They will experience gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to a recent report.
The last major United Nations (UN) assessment, in 2007, predicted temperature rises of 6°C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4°C above present levels – enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot.
As temperatures rise and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will see sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September.
East Africa can expect increased short rainfalls and west Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, heavier summer rains are anticipated. Indonesia may receive less rainfall between July and October, but the coastal regions around the south China Sea and Gulf of Thailand can expect increased rainfall extremes when cyclones hit the land.
“In the long term, rainfall patterns will change. Northern countries, such as those in Europe or North America, are expected to receive more rainfall, but many subtropical arid and semi-arid regions will likely experience less rain,” said the report’s authors.
They added that the monsoon season is likely to start earlier and last longer. 
Scientists in developing countries and commentators have welcomed the report, which they said supported their own observations.
“The IPCC says that climate change is real and happening much more strongly than before. We are already seeing the effects of climate change in Bangladesh and across south Asia. It’s not news to us. Most developing countries are facing climate change now. They do not need the IPCC to tell them that the weather is changing,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development.
Scientists have also lowered their projections of sea-level rises. Depending on future greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will rise an average of 40–62 cm by 2100. Nevertheless, there will be signifi cant geographical variations; many millions of people living in the developing world’s great cities, including Lagos and Calcutta, are threatened.
Weather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report suggests. Although the global frequency of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease or remain unchanged, they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall.
Life in many developing-country cities could become unbearable, especially as urban temperatures are already far above those in surrounding countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said.
The charity Oxfam predicted that world hunger would worsen because climate changes inevitably hurt crop production and reduce incomes. They said the number of people at risk of hunger might rise by 10% to 20% by 2050.
“The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fi ght against hunger, and it looks like it will get worse,” said Oxfam. “A hot world is a hungry world”.",549
"In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or Ásfríður; Baldey, Bebba or Brá. Dögg, Dimmblá, Etna and Eybjört are fine and so are Frigg, Glódís, Hörn and Ingunn. Jórlaug is OK, as are Obba, Sigurfljóð, Úranía and Vagna. But you cannot, as a girl in Iceland, be called Harriet.
“The whole situation,” said Tristan Cardew, “is really rather silly.” With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik not to renew their ten-year-old daughter Harriet’s passport because it does not recognize her first name.
Since the registry does not recognize the name of Harriet’s 12-year-old brother Duncan either, the two children have, until now, travelled on passports identifying them as Stúlka and Drengur Cardew: Girl and Boy Cardew. “But, this time, the authorities have decided to apply the letter of the law,” Cardew, a British-born cook who moved to Iceland in 2000, said. “And that says no official document will be issued to people who do not bear an approved Icelandic name.”
The situation meant the family, from Kópavogur, risked missing their holiday in France until they applied to the British embassy for an emergency UK passport, which should now allow them to leave.
Names are important in Iceland, a country of only 320,000 people, whose phone book lists subscribers by their first name for the very sensible reason that most Icelandic surnames simply record the fact that you are your father’s (or mother’s) son or daughter. Jón Einarsson’s children, for example, might be Ólafur Jónsson and Sigríður Jónsdóttir.
The law says that the names of children born in Iceland must – unless both parents are foreign – be submitted to the National Registry within six months of birth. If they are not on a recognized list of 1,853 female and 1,712 male names, the parents must seek the approval of a body called the Icelandic Naming Committee.
For the 5,000 or so children born in Iceland each year, the committee reportedly receives about 100 applications and rejects about half under a 1996 law aimed mainly at preserving the Icelandic language. Among its requirements are that given names must be “capable of having Icelandic grammatical endings”, may not “conflict with the linguistic structure of Iceland” and should be “written in accordance with the ordinary rules of Icelandic spelling”.
What this means in practice is that names containing letters that do not officially exist in Iceland’s 32-letter alphabet, such as “c”, are out. Similarly, names unable to accommodate the endings required by the different cases used in Icelandic are also routinely turned down. “That was the problem with Harriet,” said Cardew.
The country’s naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Blær – “Light Breeze” – Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdottir won the right to be officially known by her given name, as opposed to “Girl”, when a court ruled that denying her was a violation of the Icelandic constitution. The former mayor of Reykjavik, Jón Gnarr, has also called Iceland’s naming law “unfair, stupid and against creativity”.
The Cardews could get round Harriet’s problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. “But it’s a bit late for that and way too silly,” said Cardew. “Are they saying they don’t want us here?”",550
"An atmosphere of melancholy and changing times pervades the opening to the final series of Downton Abbey. The year is 1925 and there are already the first rumblings of the economic storms that will blight the end of the decade. The neighbours are selling up their own stately home, while Lord Grantham seeks to cut back on servants after declaring that under-butlers are no longer affordable. 
But at the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George “Geordie” Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon – the financial outlook has rarely been brighter. According to Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the huge global success of Downton has funded a rolling programme of building repairs aimed at safeguarding Highclere for the next generation. 
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “It’s given us a wonderful marketing platform, an international profile. I’m hugely grateful. My husband and I love the house, and the people here. Now, without doubt, it is loved by millions of other people.” 
Currently, only the ground and first floors of Highclere, on the borders of Hampshire, are used. But, a restoration project of derelict tower rooms has begun that will eventually allow visitors to climb up into the tower to an exhibition showcasing the work of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry, who rebuilt the house between 1839 and 1842. 
When the Downton Abbey producers first approached Highclere in 2009, the family faced a near £12m repair bill, with urgent work priced at £1.8m. But, by 2012, the Downton effect had begun to take the pressure off. Lord Carnarvon said then: “It was just after the banking crisis and it was gloom in all directions. We had been doing corporate functions but it all became pretty sparse after that. Then, Downton came along and it became a major tourist attraction.” 
Visitor numbers doubled, to 1,200 a day, as Downton Abbey, scripted by Julian Fellowes, came to be screened around the world after becoming a hit in the UK in 2010 and, then, in the US. It is now broadcast in 250 countries. The formerly somewhat basic ticketing policy has become a computerized advance booking system, helping to guarantee foreign visitors admission. The accounts of Highclere Enterprises for 2014-15 show current assets have almost trebled to around £1m since 2012. Gareth Neame, the executive producer for the series, said: “I think Downton Abbey secured Highclere’s future.” 
Peter Fincham, ITV’s director of television, recalls the moment when Highclere was booked. “I thought, 'So what?', because I had never heard of Highclere Castle. One stately home looks much the same as another. How wrong I was. The castle has been one enormous character as well.” 
The Downton tourists are part of a growing phenomenon. VisitBritain estimates that nearly 30% of foreign visitors, or nearly nine million people, include castles and historic houses on their itineraries. Almost half of potential visitors to Britain now say they want to indulge in “set jetting ”, visiting places featured in films or on TV. More than a million embark on a tour of historic buildings each year, spending in excess of £1bn. From the biggest emerging tourist markets, 51% of Brazilians, 42% of Russians and Chinese, and 35% of Indian visitors are likely to include a visit to a site of interest in their trips. VisitBritain’s director, Patricia Yates, said: “The links between tourism, films and TV are potent ones.” She added that period dramas have also raised the popularity of regions outside of London. 
Neame is now an ambassador for the GREAT Britain campaign, which is backed by government departments and the British Council, using it to promote the UK around the world. Events include special Downton -themed receptions at British embassies. 
Neame said: “They approached me because of the reach. A lot of people here think of it as soapy entertainment. In other parts of the world, people revere our actors, our writing and production talent. It is something I am passionate about; I am a really strong believer in soft power. We are not nearly as proud of our achievements as we should be. 
“Downton Abbey is iconic for expressing Britishness. Really, it is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. It’s the first TV period drama that has really leapt out of the screen and become part of popular culture.” 
Lady Carnarvon is still keen to emphasize that the long-term future of Highclere is not necessarily secure. “The bottom line is quite thin,” she said. “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings, have the follies restored.” 
In the pipeline is a Tutankhamun centenary event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, together with Howard Carter, discovered the tomb that revolutionized our understanding of Egyptology. Another opportunity to keep Highclere in the public mind is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds. 
“What you do is never sit on your laurels. Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “For all these great houses, you have to invest in them. And, there has been a deficit since the 1930s. Perhaps, in the past, an estate and house defined and supported the family and their lifestyle but, today, it is quite the reverse: the challenge is how Geordie and I seek to support and look after Highclere. 
“From my point of view, I’ve tried to persuade people it is fun and have specific events they can engage with, not just a wander around a dusty house. We have to compete with attractions like the London Dungeon.”",551
"As colourful fish were swimming past him off the Greek coast, Cathal Redmond was convinced he had taken some great photos with his first underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results on dry land, the images were brown and murky. Having taken the pictures while holding his breath underwater, he blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, the industrial designer thought, was a little more time to properly capture the fish in their natural environment. 
He vowed to make the little extra time needed a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive – a refillable air storage device, held in the mouth, that lets users swim underwater for two minutes. It is aimed at bridging the gap between snorkelling, with its limited scope, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but at the cost of using cumbersome and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention – which is still in the initial stages of testing individual parts – looks like a cross between a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle. 
“I wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just get in underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted to do a little bit more than they were able to do,” says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe fish in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, were the fins, the weight belt, the wetsuit, air tank, mask and all the other equipment. 
“I was very keenly aware of the fact that I had about 50kg strapped to me and getting into the water was quite foreign when you are used to trying to keep yourself at the surface. It was a very surreal experience,” he says. “The real problem is that it is very limiting as to what you can do. Although it allows you to stay underwater for longer, you have to plan your whole day around it. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you – you can’t be walking on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it. It demands a lot. There is a lot of relearning required.” 
It was during a final-year project for his product design degree at the University of Limerick that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the unit uses a fan to suck in air via a vent in the mouthpiece. The air, accelerated around the motor-driven turbine, is compressed through a series of valves and stored in the attached tank, which has a display light that flashes green when it is full. When air is no longer being taken in, the vent shuts off and, as the user dives, air is fed back via the mouthpiece. 
That display, which is in the user’s eyeline, then acts as a health bar turning from green to red when the air runs low. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to be refilled. “When you put the compressor into the unit with all of the rest of the stuff, the batteries and the electronics and the membranes for the scuba delivery, the big trick was to be able to get it small enough so that it would be able to be held through the teeth and out of the mouth,” Redmond says. 
The electrics are shielded from the water in the casing and are recharged using inductive power transfer – a system using an electromagnetic field, similar to the pads which can wirelessly charge mobile phones, so that there is no need for exposed wires. 
Redmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He likens it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. “It is an extension of the body’s capacity to store air,” he says. The prototype, made from high-density foam, aluminium and silicone, has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes’ worth of air into the unit and that the design can be effectively held in the diver’s mouth. What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is confident he can get a fully functioning device that will not endanger swimmers underwater. 
Redmond recently came runner-up for the International James Dyson Award, which will give him £5,000 to further develop the project. Early indications are that the device would be priced at £280, he says, and it is likely to weigh anywhere from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed. 
To anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a minor improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make all the difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. “Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,” he says.",552
"Benjamin Carle is 96.9% made in France, including even his underpants and socks. Unfortunately, six Ikea forks, a Chinese guitar and unsourced wall paint stopped him being declared a 100% economic patriot, but nobody is perfect.
Carle, 26, decided, in 2013, to see if it was possible to live using only French-made products for ten months as part of a television documentary.
He got the idea after the Minister for Economic Renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, asked the French people to buy French products to save the country’s industrial production sector.
For the experiment, Carle had to give up his smartphone, television, refrigerator (all made in China); his glasses (Italian); his underpants (Moroccan); morning coffee (Guatemalan) and his favourite David Bowie music (British).
Fortunately, his girlfriend, Anaïs, and cat, Loon, are both French.
“Politicians say all sorts of things. I wanted to see if it was possible to do what the minister was asking us to do”, Carle said.
He had just three rules: eat only food produced in France, remove any contact with foreign-made goods and do so on €1,800 a month (above the minimum wage of €1,430 to cover the extra expense of living in Paris).
The journalist was shocked to find out, at the start of the experiment, that only 4.5% of the contents of his flat were made in France – and that the rest would have to go, including the lightbulbs (China) and green beans (Kenya).
Left without a refrigerator (none are made in France), he was forced to chill his food on the window ledge.
His foreign-made clothes, including his underwear, were replaced with more expensive alternatives: French-produced underpants (€26), socks (€9), polo shirt (€75), espadrille sandals (€26), but no jeans because none are produced in France.
During the experiment, Carle hunted in supermarkets for 100% French-made products, learned to cook seasonal fruit and vegetables grown in France, proudly brushed his teeth with a toothbrush made in France and hand-washed his underwear until he found a French-made washing machine (which opened at the top and so would not fit under the kitchen counter).
Going out with friends was a problem – no American films, no Belgian beer, no sushi or pizza. Staying home, with no sofa for the first few months and no television, meant listening to French singer Michel Sardou and reading French novels. French wine was, of course, allowed and French-Canadian singer Céline Dion, but not French bands such as Daft Punk, who sing in English.
Unable to use his British-made bicycle or even a French car, because he discovered that the only affordable Peugeot, Renault and Citroën models are mostly made overseas, he bought an orange Mobylette moped.
The last things to go were the computer, replaced by a Qooq, a recipe tablet that connects – slowly – to the internet and the iPhone, which he swapped for an old Sagem mobile.
Carle said his aim was to “save the French economy”. He admits the experiment was part serious and part jest. At one point, he asked a French language expert to check if he should use “cool” and other English words – he was advised to swap it for the nearest French equivalent: “chouette”.
When he discovered that France makes no refrigerators (apart from wine coolers) or televisions, but makes aeroplane seats and windmills, he sighed and said: “Great. Nothing that will fit into my apartment.”
At the end of the experiment, Carle took out a bank loan to buy new furniture and clothes. A special “auditor” declared him 96.9% “made in France” and Montebourg visited to present him with a medal.
Carle’s conclusion: “It’s not entirely possible or even desirable to live 100% ‘made in France’, particularly in terms of new technology. But that wasn’t the point.
“This wasn’t about French nationalism or patriotism. It was trying to show that we should reflect about the way we buy and make different choices, and that applies in all countries. If we want to save jobs and industries, wherever we are, we might think about supporting them.
“A T-shirt is more expensive in France but I can be sure it has been produced by workers who are correctly paid and have good working conditions. I cannot be sure about a cheaper T-shirt produced in Asia or Morocco. People could do more as consumers.”
Carle says he hopes to continue supporting French industry and producers, but not 100%. “It is a full-time job just finding the stuff,” he said.",553
"Robert Mysłajek stops dead. Between two paw prints on a muddy mountain track, the scientist finds what he is looking for. “Droppings!” he enthuses. Wolf sightings are so rare that the sighting of their faeces marks a good day, even for a seasoned tracker. 
But it is getting easier. There are now an estimated 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. Wolves are – along with the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine – Europe’s last large predator carnivores. Conservationists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are beating a path here to find out how the country has saved this protected species, slandered even in fairy tales. 
Bits of bone and hair protrude from the precious black faeces. “It ate a red deer,” says the University of Warsaw biologist. “In my lab, I can tell you all about this wolf – not only its diet but its gender, sexual habits, age, state of health and family connections.” 
DNA tests have established that Polish wolves are travellers. “One wolf reached the Netherlands, where unfortunately it was hit by a car. They have a tremendous range. They need space. The average territory required by a Polish pack is 250 sq km,” said Mysłajek. 
“Is there any prospect of our ever being able to reintroduce wolves to Scotland?” asks student Alex Entwisle, 23, on a field trip to southern Poland from his college in the UK. The animal science students have spent the day observing droppings and paw prints in the spruce-clad Beskidy mountains of the Polish Carpathians. 
Their hot discussion topic is whether to reintroduce wolves to the British Isles for the first time since the 18th century. 
As the guest of a British charity, the Wolves and Humans Foundation, Mysłajek toured the Scottish Highlands in 2015 and took questions from villagers about the Polish experience. “The big difference between Scotland and Poland is that we eat pork. We do not have many sheep here. 
“The similarity is that we have a lot of animals – 300,000 red deer and more than 800,000 roe deer. In Poland, we also have a massive overpopulation of wild boar – about 200,000 – and these are ravaging farmers’ cereal crops. Here, wolves are part of the solution,” he says. 
The scientist, who is a familiar face on Polish television, says wolves are exceptional animals that are capable of moving up to 30km during a single hunt. “The Beskidy pack is a strong unit, eight or nine individuals. This year, we have recorded five cubs, two yearlings and two adults. 
“We track them using motion-activated cameras in the forest and by following their prints in the mud and snow. In each family group, only one pair reproduces, once a year. All pack members care for the young with solidarity and devotion.” 
Mys łajek, the son of a shepherd, is puzzled by wolves’ bad reputation. “Why does one speak of a 'lone-wolf gunman'? Why did we have to have Little Red Riding Hood?"" 
He is fascinated by these aloof canines who remained in the wild 33,000 years ago when others decided on a much more comfortable existence as domestic dogs. 
Wolves are not pooches. Mysłajek says only scientific arguments – the need to regenerate forests and control the wild animal population – can save Europe’s wild carnivores, especially the unpopular wolf. “Natural predators balance the ecosystem. They keep herbivores in check, thus allowing trees to grow tall for birds to nest in.” 
Shoot the deer? “It is only a partial solution,” he says. “In a diverse environment, you have the so-called 'landscape of fear', where herbivores no longer spend all day grazing on the tender riverside grass. They move away, as a precaution, to avoid being trapped by a predator. This gives the vegetation a chance.” 
The ban on wolf hunting in the western Carpathians came into force in 1995 and nationwide in Poland in 1998. There are now resident packs in virtually all the country’s major forests. The predators coexist with humans rather than being fenced off, as they are in African safari parks. 
The Polish government pays compensation for livestock killed by wolves. Mysłajek advises farmers on erecting electric fences. He has helped revive the use of two deterrents that, for reasons no one quite understands, wolves find particularly scary: red bunting (hung around sheep pens) and the bark of the fluffy white Tatra Mountain Sheepdog. 
The survival and mobility of Poland’s wolves has been helped by the country’s belated infrastructure development. In 1989, when the communists relinquished power, Poland had only one motorway. Major road projects – requiring wildlife impact studies – began after Poland joined the European Union in 2004. The country now has one of the highest densities in the world of overhead crossings and underpasses for wild animals. 
Attitudes have also changed. “For many years, hunting was cultural. In 1975, there were fewer than 100 wolves in Poland. Beginning in the 1950s, hunting wolves had been encouraged by the authorities. They paid a reward for killing a wolf worth a month’s salary. It was carnage.” 
Mysłajek says the improvement in Polish wolves’ survival chances has been considerable but remains fragile. Packs are mobile across borders and hunting still goes on in neighbouring Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Slovakia. 
He claims Poland’s new government, elected in October 2015, is hostile to wolves. “The Environment Minister, Jan Szyszko, makes no secret of being a hunter. There are 120,000 licensed hunters in Poland and they are influential in parliament. 
“The hunters claim wolves are a pest and that there are 4,000 of them in Poland, which is a spurious figure based on an unscientific count. This government is capable of turning back the clock.” 
Being a wolf advocate is not easy. “It is not as if you can argue to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a tremendously sensitive sense of smell.” 
The 12 British animal science students leave the Polish Carpathians without a wolf sighting; just photographs of paw prints and droppings. Entwisle is convinced that Scotland will never be able to match Poland’s success. 
“It would be amazing for the environment to have them back because of the problem of too many deer. But it would just not be viable because of the roads and sheep. 
“There would be problems with farmers. We had our industrial revolution too long ago. We ruined it for ourselves. In Britain, we like predators to be far away and to watch them on television, said Entwisle.",554
"Introduction
Did you know that, in the UK, there is no law that says restaurants have to pass on tips to staff?
A new government report asked workers, employers and customers what they thought about tipping. After reading the report, the UK government says it wants to change the rules to make sure that low-paid workers get the tips that customers leave for them.
The report said that some waiters are made to pay a 15% administration fee on tips that customers pay by credit or debit card.
The government said that it wants customers to know that tips are voluntary. They want the tipping process to be made clearer so that everyone can understand it.
We asked waiters around the UK what they think of tipping, including how much money they get from tips and if it’s fair.
2. Elle, 22, Edinburgh: ‘We never know whether it’s fair’
Average tips: £20 per eight-hour shift
I think they treat waiters best in ... France
I have three part-time jobs. My day job is in a café where the staff work both in the café and in the kitchen so all our tips go in a pot and we all get the same. My evening job is at a restaurant where we don’t get our tips but we get the minimum wage plus an extra £2.50 per hour. My third job is events catering and nobody ever tips.
In restaurants, because a lot of customers add tips by card, the staff never see how much the tip is – so we don’t know if what we get is fair or not. The system seems better in France, where they don’t tip much but being a waiter is seen as a proper job with job security and good wages.
3. Ashley, 22, London: ‘Tips go towards customer breakages’
Average tips: £10-15 per eight-hour shift
I think they treat waiters best in ... Australia
I work in a London pub in the evenings and I do day shifts at a local restaurant. In both places, all the tips are collected and shared out at the end of the night. Money is taken from the tips to pay for breakages by staff and customers.
It is very unfair that our tips are shared out, especially when one member of the team doesn’t work hard enough. It’s really unfair that money from our tips is taken for breakages by customers. The managers should have ways to pay for broken glasses and plates without taking our tips. I make around £20 a shift in tips but often I only get £10-15 of that money.
I really need tips because I am only paid £7 an hour. I’d prefer to get a good basic wage (like in Australia) and not have to rely on tips.
4. Tom, Manchester: ‘A big night of tips can help pay the rent’
Average tips: £40 per eight-hour shift
I think they treat waiters best in ... Italy
Where I used to work, waiters kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The rest went to the other staff in the restaurant.
It’s hard to say how much I earn in a shift; maybe about £40. It can make a big difference. Sometimes, waiters need a good night to be able to pay their rent.
They have got tipping right in Italy, where customers don’t add a big tip but usually round up their bill so, if their meal is €19, they leave a €20 note and don’t ask for change.",555
"McDonald’s is the world’s biggest burger chain and a global emblem of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald’s are looking a little tarnished. After a decade of expansion, customers around the world don’t seem to be ‘lovin’ it’ any more. McDonald’s has revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% from 2013. The set of results were described as awful.
The company has problems almost everywhere. In China, sales fell by 23% because local media showed workers at a local supplier claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in McDonald’s and KFC products. In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of problems in Ukraine and the anti-western mood in Russia. Around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors and ten have been closed.
But it is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis is deepest. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.
McDonald’s has seen 12 straight months of falling sales in its massive home market, with sales down 4.1% in the latest quarter. Younger diners are deserting the restaurant in droves to eat out at rivals such as Chipotle Mexican Grill. The number of 19-to-21-year-olds visiting McDonald’s once a month has fallen by 13% since 2011.
To add to the company’s problems, McDonald’s hamburgers were recently named the worst in America in a poll of more than 32,000 American diners, who said they would rather eat a burger at Five Guys, Smashburger or Fuddruckers. McDonald’s is also widely perceived as less healthy than most of its rivals, especially Chipotle, with its antibiotic-free meat and “locally sourced, seasonal produce” – although ‘local’ can mean 350 miles away.
The depth of consumer mistrust of McDonald’s was exposed by a consumer outreach exercise the company launched in the US in October. “Have you ever used pink slime in your burgers?” was one question on the Our Food Your Questions website – this refers to the controversial beef filler used for dog food that is sprayed with ammonia to make it “fit” for human consumption. McDonald’s has not used the meat product since 2012 but Chief Executive Don Thompson acknowledged the company had a job to do in addressing misconceptions about the freshness and quality of its ingredients.
Yet, just as McDonald’s has been losing the customers who will pay a bit more for food they think is fresher and healthier, it has also lost its edge in fast-food essentials: speedy service at low prices. Ever since it introduced $2 items on its dollar menu, it has gained a reputation for being more expensive than its rivals, while many consumers complain that service is slower.
The “expensive” tag was unjustified, said Mary Chapman at food analysts Technomic. “Prices have indeed gone up but they haven’t gone up as quickly as the rest of the fast-service chains in the US.” Prices at McDonald’s have increased by 4.8% since 2009, well below the fast-food average (up 19.4%), and the cost of “fast casual” eating, a category that includes Chipotle, is up 16.9%. US consumer prices rose 11% over the same period.
But critics are not wrong about the longer queues. McDonald’s has a bigger menu than some, with more complicated items – its chicken McWrap takes 60 seconds to make. “I think it is worth waiting but the guy behind me who wants his double cheeseburger for a dollar might not,” said Chapman.
In the UK, McDonald’s has turned around its business, which makes Britain a rare bright spot for the company. A competitive breakfast menu, improved coffee and free wi-fi have given McDonald’s a broad appeal in the UK, said consultant Peter Martin, adding that 56% of British adults have visited a McDonald’s restaurant at least once in the last six months.
Executives are promising to fight misconceptions about its food in its home market. Thompson has promised more organic food and custom-made burgers but, to cut down queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. Analysts are not sure how the company can solve the problem of simpler menus and greater choice over fillings.
“They want to simplify the menu but enhance its ability to customize and that sounds tricky,” said Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets. Only four out of McDonald’s 14,000 US restaurants had so far tested “build your own burger”, he said. “Right now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.”
Meanwhile, despite the declining sales, the chain continues to expand globally: by the end of 2014, it expects to have 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski expects McDonald’s market share will continue to shrink but he, too, warned against writing off the company. “We think it will be number one for not just years but decades to come.”",556
"The problem with Google Glasses, says Takahito Iguchi, is that they’re not cool. He may be right. There’s already a website dedicated to people wearing them looking either ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. Search Google Images and one of the first hits is a picture of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. And it’s this that Iguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, hopes may be Google’s Achilles’ heel. He is launching a competitor that is a bit more stylish. A bit more Blade Runner. A bit more Japanese.
Iguchi’s augmented reality glasses aren’t really glasses – they are more a single piece of metal with a camera and a tiny projector. They are called Telepathy One and, since they were presented to the public for the first time in Austin, Texas, they have attracted $5m of venture capital. Like Glass, Telepathy One is due to launch in 2014.
It’s a simplified version of Google Glass. Glass has a range of uses – you can surf the internet, read emails, take photographs – but Telepathy will be “more of a communication device”. Connected via Bluetooth to your phone, it will focus on real-time visual and audio sharing. You’ll be able to post photos and videos from your line of vision on Facebook or send them as an email, or see and speak to a video image of a friend.
“It will help bring you close to your friends and family. We are very focused on the communication and sharing possibilities,” says Iguchi, who has worked in the Japanese technology industry for 20 years.
Of course, not everyone wants to get closer to the man in the futuristic headset, I tell him. Iguchi shakes his head. “I’m a visionary. I have a dream that people will understand other people. When I go to London, I am a stranger. Sometimes I feel fear. But I believe that everyone wants to be understood and to understand each other. And, with this device, you can know more information about people before you even speak to them.”
Compared to Google, Telepathy is a minnow, but Iguchi doesn’t seem to worry. In his shared office space in San Francisco – a cool, converted warehouse – he quotes Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and says that even tiny armies can sometimes beat powerful forces. When he was growing up, Japanese technology ruled the world: the Sony Walkman was the iPhone of its day. Now, to compete, he’s had to leave Tokyo and go to Silicon Valley.
“Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture but it’s still an island. It’s isolated. There is not any way to expand. Whereas, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. It’s where you come to connect globally.” The hardware will be made in Japan, and he is putting together a team of software engineers in the US to develop its applications.
Building the prototype of Telepathy One was easy, Iguchi says. “We have every sort of technology in Tokyo. It is presenting it to the world that is the challenge.” The top manufacturers all want to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just struggle to sell it. “There needs to be a story to the product. Like Apple did with the iPod – 1,000 songs in your pocket. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.”
Maybe. He certainly has the confidence of Jobs, but, with a thick Japanese accent, he sometimes struggles to make himself understood, a fact that may have contributed to his idea for Telepathy One. When he went to London to present the headset, he stayed in an Airbnb. “The house owner was not my friend but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that quicker. If you are getting info from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily.”
Iguchi hopes that seeing somebody else’s literal point of view will help you to see their metaphorical point of view. As a student, he explains, he studied philosophy by day and taught himself how to code by night. “And, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and I suddenly realized that everything is code. Everything is coded and is shareable between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code is exchangeable between humans, that will end all war.”",557
"n 2005, BlackBerry brought instant messaging to the mobile phone and the company was just entering its period of success. Then, the iPhone was still just an idea and BlackBerry’s innovations made its smartphone one of Canada’s biggest exports. 
Six years later, in the summer of 2011, there were riots in London and other UK cities. Rioters used BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and politicians wanted the service to shut down. But, two years later, the users themselves are leaving BBM. 
Fewer and fewer people want BlackBerry phones. There are now many alternative products, from Facebook’s and Apple’s instant messaging applications to independent apps such as WhatsApp and Kik (which is also Canadian). They are free to download and use, and they use the internet to swap text messages, pictures, voice clips, 'stickers' and even videos between most types of phones. 
BBM is trying to keep its customers and you can now use it on Android and Apple phones. There are many other apps people can use, but lots of people want to use the BBM app – more than 20 million people downloaded it. But many people believe BBM will not survive. “The move to bring BlackBerry to the iPhone is four or five years too late,” says James Gooderson, a technology blogger. “WhatsApp has made BlackBerrys unnecessary for young people.” 
BBM says it has 80 million monthly users after its upgrade, but WhatsApp has 300 million. Other services show BBM’s weaknesses: Skype and Viber have video or voice calls, but BBM doesn’t; Path does location sharing, but BBM doesn’t; there is no video sharing, as on iMessage; and the stickers (a more sophisticated version of the smiley face), that kids around the world adore, are also absent. Even the contacts and calendar sharing that BBM made possible on BlackBerry phones are not on the Apple and Android versions. 
Messaging is now becoming visual. Photos that are uploaded to Instagram get instant comments and Snapchat’s pictures have opened a world of other possibilities. Like BBM, all of these services are free for any phone with an internet connection. But, in 2011, BBM was so powerful that it helped to start a revolution in Egypt; and at the time of the London riots, people used BBM, not their televisions, to find out quickly what was happening. 
Nearly 80% of young smartphone owners regularly use a social networking application but two-thirds use more than one. 60% of 16- to 24-year-olds use Facebook every day, but 46% use alternatives. “It’s much more complex,” says Benedict Evans, a digital media specialist. “All of these apps use your smartphone. Apps rise and fall like fireworks. Some, like Instagram, last; others just disappear.” 
Thirteen-year-old Bennett has three phones. He keeps his BlackBerry for messaging, he uses an iPhone to play games, and he makes phone calls on an Android phone. His friends are still on BBM. At the touch of a few buttons, you can send a single BlackBerry message to several hundred people; on WhatsApp, the limit is 50. But, for Bennett, Instagram is now a major social network. “Instagram is Facebook without parents,” he says. “Facebook is now for older people.” The low cost of buying and using a BlackBerry is still an advantage. Anyone with a second-hand phone and a £7-a-month deal from a telecoms company can use unlimited BBM messages. But people no longer trust the privacy of BBM. Business people, revolutionaries, demonstrators and rioters used to believe that their messages were secret. The arrests that followed the riots showed that wasn’t true. 
In the rich London district of South Kensington, the older pupils at one school all have Apple phones. They all use WhatsApp. For many, BBM is a distant memory. “I still have a Blackberry, but I’m the only one,” says one teenager. And how does that make him feel? “Isolated,” he says.",558
"He arrived – in his own words, in 2005 – as “a simple, humble worker in God’s vineyard”. And on a grey, cold, blustery Monday in February, Pope Benedict XVI signed off in the same fashion: like an elderly labourer who can no longer ignore the pains in his back; who can no more count on the strength of his arms. Characteristically for this most traditionally minded of pontiffs, he made his excuses in Latin. The first German pope in modern times timed his departure to the minute. “From 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours”, he told a gathering of cardinals in the Vatican, “the see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new supreme pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.” 
Among those present was a Mexican prelate, Monsignor Oscar Sanchéz Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome to be told the date for a canonization in which he has played a leading role. “We were all in the Sala del Concistoro in the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace,” he said. “After giving the date for the canonization, the twelfth of May, the Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it. 
“We were all left …” – Sanchéz Barba looked around him in the Bernini colonnade that embraces St Peter’s Square, grasping for the word, as speechless as the “princes of the church” who had just heard the man they believe to be God’s representative on earth give up on the job. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” Sanchéz Barba said. 
Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who must have been forewarned, delivered a brief and perhaps hurriedly composed speech. Before going on to assure the Pope of the cardinals’ loyalty and devotion, he said he and the others present had “listened to you with a sense of bewilderment, almost completely incredulous ”. At the end of his address, the Pope blessed those present, and left. “It was so simple; the simplest thing imaginable,” said Sanchéz Barba. “Then we all left in silence. There was absolute silence … and sadness.” 
John Thavis, who spent 30 years reporting on the Holy See and whose book, The Vatican Diaries, is soon to be published, said he had had an intuition the Pope might be about to resign and timed his return to Rome from the US accordingly. A fellow-Vatican watcher confirmed this to be the case. Thavis noted that in the book-length interview Benedict gave to a German journalist, published as Light of the World in 2010, he had made it clear he considered it would be right to go if he felt he were no longer up to the job. “I asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects are off the ground. What is more, there were no dates in his calendar of events he personally had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February, which is the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. So I got it wrong.” 
The line emerging from the Vatican within hours of the announcement was that the Pope’s decision was a brave one. By this account, Benedict – never one to shrink from utterances and decisions that shocked – had taken it upon himself to bring his church face to face with reality: the reality that contemporary medicine can keep men alive far beyond the age at which they are up to grappling with the demands of running a vast global organization. Thavis agreed: “What I find particularly courageous is that he is prepared to say now, when he is not sick, that he is going; and that he’s doing it because he’s tired and not because he’s particularly ill.” But is that the whole story? Does he know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public? 
Benedict’s own account of his reasons makes it clear that he took into account not only his physical, but also his psychological condition: “In order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.” Other theories will no doubt swirl around the Vatican in the days and weeks ahead, just as they did following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already there is speculation that something was about to come out about Benedict’s past. The Vatican will just as predictably dismiss such notions with contempt. But they are understandable all the same, for the transcendental importance of what Benedict has done cannot be overstated. 
Emerging from St Peter’s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic, was still turning over the implications of the Pope’s resignation. “If you’re God’s chosen one, how do you choose not be chosen?” she mused. It is a question many practising Catholics will be asking of their priests in the weeks ahead. In his first speech as Pope – humbly disclaiming his fitness for the task – Benedict said: “I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.” At some point in the last eight years, it would seem, he ceased to believe that was true.",559
"From glow-in-the-dark trees to underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins, we look at some of the more leftfield solutions to help make our cities more livable. 
City living has many upsides but a sustainable lifestyle is increasingly not among them. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily trials that city-dwellers have to deal with. 
Step forward the inventors. We consider ten of the wackier solutions to making our cities more livable. 
1 Pop-up parks
Today’s cities sometimes look like they’re built more for cars than people. The pop-up park is a simple idea. Take an empty car park, a pocketful of change and a pot plant or two, and make yourself your own private park. The PARK(ing) project kicked off as an arts experiment in San Francisco and has since spread across the world. Temporary urban farms and ecology demos are just some of the ideas to have emerged out of the movement, which celebrates a day of action every September.
2 Subterranean storage
Not all urban dwellers are hooked to the car. Bikes are ever more in vogue. The question is: where to keep it safe? Tokyo-based engineering firm Giken has come up with a concept for a solution: an “ecocycle, anti-seismic underground bicycle park”. At just seven metres wide, the cylindrical storage facility buries deep enough into the ground to house 204 bikes. Owners can retrieve their bike at the touch of a button, with the automated system delivering it back above ground in around 13 seconds.
3 Glow-in-the-dark trees
When most people think of trees that glow in the dark, Christmas baubles and fallen pine needles usually come to mind. Not Daan Roosegaarde. The Dutch designer-artist has comes up with a “bioluminescent” plant. The experimental technology splices DNA from luminescent marine bacteria with the chloroplast genome of a plant to create a jellyfish-type glow. Trials are underway to create an industrial-scale version of the biomimicry-inspired technology that Roosegaarde hopes could one day replace conventional street lighting.
4 Footfall harvesting
Every day, hundreds of commuters and shoppers in the east London neighbourhood of West Ham cross the elevated pedestrian walkway close to the underground station. Few probably notice the springiness beneath their feet. Fewer still connect that five-millimetre flex in the rubber surface to the powering of the streetlights above. The paved flooring is decked with smart tiles that capture the kinetic energy from pedestrians’ footsteps and convert it into electricity. Pavegen, the UK firm behind the innovation, has installed a similar system at London’s Heathrow Airport, among other international locations.
5 Supertrees
It had to happen eventually: man-made trees. Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay has a small copse of them. Up to 50 metres high, these steel-framed 'supertrees' not only have flowers and ferns growing up them but their metallic canopies act to absorb and disperse heat too. They’re equipped to harvest rainwater, too, as well as provide air ventilation for two “climate-controlled biomes” (large conservatories, in other words) below. Eleven of the 18 trees also boast solar panels along their ’branches’.
6 Water-producing billboard
We live in a consumer world. And, so we don’t forget it, advertisers wallpaper our cities and highways with banks of billboards. Researchers at Lima’s University of Engineering and Technology have come up with a billboard with a difference. Using a system of condensers and filters, it traps the humidity in the air and extracts the water vapour to produce around 96 litres of drinking water a day. The public can help themselves to it for free.
7 Neo-walled gardens
Gardens stopped being just the preserve of people’s front lawns long ago. For a while, roof gardens were all the rage. Now, it’s all about walls. Drawing on advances in hydroponics (growing plants without soil), the facades of a growing number of libraries and offices, shops and hotels are bursting into flower. One of the companies at the forefront of the “living wall” boom is UK-based firm Biotecture. The company’s “vertical gardens” can be seen gracing the Taj Hotel in central London and the exit wall of Edgware Road Tube Station, among other locations. Aesthetics aside, green walls are credited with reducing air pollution and improving air quality.
8 Algae-powered building
To prove the dynamism of the “living wall” concept, look no further than Hamburg’s International Building Exhibition. Instead of sweet-smelling flowers, the south-facing facades of the zero-carbon apartment complex are laced with green-tinged algae. The walls’ external fabric includes a “bio-skin” of hollow grass panels on which the algae photosynthesizes and grows. Periodically, the algae is harvested from the walls and fermented in a biogas plant to produce electricity.
9 Smart rubbish bins
Forget gas-guzzling dumper trucks and smelly skips. City authorities around the world are now turning to solar-powered “trash compactors” to keep litter off the streets. The 150-gallon-capacity rubbish bins are equipped with a motor that pushes down the rubbish when it nears the top. The motor is powered by solar panels embedded in the lid. The newest BigBelly bins include a wireless monitoring system that notifies rubbish collectors when the bins are full.
10 Spray paint
Finally, desperate times may sometimes call for desperate measures. That’s clearly what was going through the minds of authorities in Chengdu, one of China’s fastest growing cities. To brighten up the place, the municipal landscaping department has taken to spraying the yellowing grass green. Use of the non-toxic green spray has now spread to Tianjin and a host of other cities in China’s north-west.",560
"In Canada’s Arctic, summers are marked by a bright light that bathes the treeless tundra for more than 20 hours a day. For some, it’s a welcome change from the unrelenting darkness of winter. But, for the small but growing Muslim community of Iqaluit, Nunavut, life in the land of the midnight sun poses a real challenge during the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims typically fast from sunrise to sunset. 
“I haven’t fainted once,” said 29-year-old Abdul Karim, one of the few in the city who has carefully timed his Ramadan fast to the Arctic sun since moving from Ottawa in 2011. This year, that means eating at about 1.30am before the sun rises and breaking his fast at about 11pm when the sun sets. “The only reason to stop would be if it hurts my health,” Karim said. Pointing to his sizable frame, he laughed as he added: “But, looking at my condition, I don’t think fasting will hurt me.” 
As the end of Ramadan draws near for Muslims around the world, much of the holy month’s focus on community work, prayer and reflection has been a constant in communities around the world. But in Iqaluit and the other Muslim communities in the Arctic, the long days have forced a shift in how the element of fasting is approached. 
Most in Iqaluit adhere to the timetable followed by Muslims in Ottawa, some 1,300 miles south of the city – following the advice of Muslim scholars who have said Muslims in the far north should observe Ramadan using the timetable of Mecca or the nearest Muslim city. It still means fasting for some 18 hours a day, said Atif Jilani, who moved to Iqaluit from Toronto in 2015. “It’s long days, but more manageable.” 
Many in the 100-strong community break their fast together, gathering in the city’s brand new mosque – completed in February amid temperatures that dropped as low as -50C with wind chill – for nightly suppers. As they tuck into traditional foods such as dates and goat or lamb curries, the sun shines brightly through the windows. 
It’s a scene that plays out across Canada’s northernmost mosques during Ramadan, as Muslim communities wrestle with the country’s unique geography. The 300 or so Muslims in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories, have several options when it comes to fasting during Ramadan, said Nazim Awan, president of the Yellowknife Islamic Centre, with exceptions made for those who are pregnant or ill. “There might be some superhumans who want to fast for 23 hours, but the other option is to follow the intent and spirit of fasting by following nearby cities or they can follow the times of Mecca and Medina.” In recent years, much of the community has opted to follow the Ramadan timetable of Edmonton, in Alberta. Some, such as Awan – a father of two young children, including a 12-year-old who recently started fasting – follow the timings of Mecca. He hopes to encourage his son with the more manageable timetable of about 15 hours of fasting as compared with about 18 hours in Edmonton. 
“If I fast Yellowknife or Edmonton times, my son might say, 'Papa, you are really insane. What are you doing?'” he said. Faced with the impossibility of following the local movements of the sun, the 100 or so Muslims in Inuvik, a small town that sits 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, have also been following Edmonton’s timetable. “We currently have 24 hours a day of sun,” said Ahmad Alkhalaf. “There’s no sunrise or sunset.” 
The adherence to Edmonton’s schedule was already in place in 2001 when he moved from Toronto to the small northern community of 3,500 people. “My first Ramadan here was in December. There’s no sun at that time; it’s dark all day and night. So we used Edmonton time.” At times, it can be psychologically challenging to follow the clock rather than what is happening outside, Alkhalaf said. “You’re supposed to break your fast when it’s dusk and we eat when the sun is out. It’s not usual to have iftar [the meal breaking the fast] when the sun is up,” he said. In Inuvik, where much of the population is Inuit, the Muslim community has sought to strike a balance between Ramadan and the local culture and traditions. The iftar meal includes dates and rich curries – as well as local game such as reindeer, prepared in accordance with Islamic law. “We make a soup or curry … but instead of using beef, we use reindeer.” 
In Iqaluit, as the Muslim community prepares to mark the end of Ramadan, some reflect that 2016’s timing – stretching across some of the longest days of the year – has made it one of the more challenging of recent years. It’s particularly true for those like Karim who have determinedly followed the local sunrise and sunset. But, his efforts will be rewarded years from now, said Karim, thanks to the lunar calendar. Ramadan will eventually fall during winter, which, in Iqaluit, sees the sun rise and set within a few hours each day. “I’ll follow those hours, too,” he said with a laugh. “Oh yes, definitely.”",561
"wo mothers in South Africa have discovered they are raising each other’s daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth in a hospital in 2010. 
But, while one of the women wants to correct the error and reclaim her biological child, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own, posing a huge legal dilemma. 
Henk Strydom, a lawyer for one of the mothers, who cannot be identified because of a court order, described the inadvertent swap as a travesty and tragedy that is unlikely to have a happy ending. 
Both mothers gave birth at the Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, on the same day in 2010. “Nobody suspected anything,” Strydom said. 
But, in 2013, one of the mothers, who is 33 and unemployed, sued her ex-partner for maintenance for her daughter. Strydom continued: “The man denied he was the father. A DNA test was done and it was found it was not his baby and not her baby. She was devastated. She didn’t know what to do.” 
Eventually, she met the other mother and, since December 2013, they have been attending joint counselling sessions, arranged by the hospital. This has included meeting their biological daughters. 
Strydom said of his client: “She said there are resemblances to herself. She conveyed to me that it was traumatic. You can see it’s not easy for her. She has to care for a child that is not hers on her own while her child is with someone else.” 
The woman reportedly became unhappy with the process and approached the children’s court in a bid to gain custody of her biological child, but the other mother refused. Strydom agreed to represent the woman, who has one elder child, pro bono. 
“It’s a tragedy. She wants the baby back but it seems the other mother is reluctant. It’s four years later: you can understand she doesn’t want to give up her baby.” 
The High Court in Pretoria has appointed the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Child Law to investigate what will now be in the best interests of the children, which is the guiding principle under South African law. It must report back within 90 days. 
Strydom added: “Your guess is as good as mine what the court may decide. It’s a travesty. How do you rectify it after four years? The longer you wait, the more traumatic it will be. But, whatever happens, someone won’t be happy.” 
He said at this point, he and his client do not want to sue the hospital or government health department, which is currently helping with the case and providing counselling. 
The Centre for Child Law will now interview the mothers and fathers, as well as any other person with a “significant relationship” with either of the girls. The children and mothers will undergo “full and thorough” clinical assessments and may be seen by a psychologist. 
Karabo Ngidi, a lawyer with the centre, said “What’s going to happen must be in the best interests of the children. Biology is an important aspect but not the only one.” 
The families are of Zulu ethnicity and so Zulu tradition, culture and customary law will be a factor, she added. It is also still possible the ex- partner of the mother taking legal action could be the biological father of the girl who was switched. 
It is not the first child-swap case to come to light in South Africa. In 1995, two mothers were awarded damages after their sons, born in 1989, were accidentally switched at the Johannesburg hospital where they were born. 
In 2009, in Oregon in the United States, Dee Ann Angell and Kay Rene Reed discovered that they had been mistakenly mixed up at birth in 1953 when a nurse brought them back from bathing. In 2013, in Japan, a 60-year-old man swapped at birth from his rich parents to a poor family was given compensation. He grew up on welfare and became a truck driver, whereas his biological siblings – and the boy brought up in his place – attended private secondary schools and universities. 
Bruce Laing, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg, said the long-term effects of a baby swap could be “profound”, “terrifying” and “incredibly traumatizing”. He told The Times of South Africa: “An increasingly complicated situation is that some resentment towards a child that is not yours might occur. The parents might always be thinking 'What if?'”",562
"According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), 35.6% of all women around the world will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner. The report reveals the shocking extent of attacks on women from the men with whom they share their lives, with 30% of women being attacked by partners. It also finds that a large proportion of murders of women – 38% – are carried out by their partners.
The highest levels of violence against women are in Africa, where nearly half of all women – 45.6% – will suffer physical or sexual violence. In low- and middle-income Europe, the proportion is 27.2%. However, wealthier nations are not always safer for women – a third of women in high-income countries (32.7%) will experience violence at some stage in their lives. 42% of the women who experience violence suffer injuries, which can bring them to the attention of healthcare staff. That, says the report, is often the first opportunity for violence in the home to be discovered and for the woman to be offered help. Violence has a significant effect on women’s health. Some arrive at hospital with broken bones, while others suffer pregnancy-related complications and mental illness.
The two reports from the WHO – one is on the extent of violence, the other offers guidelines to healthcare staff on helping women – are the work of Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, lead specialist in gender, reproductive rights, sexual health and adolescence at WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, an epidemiologist who specializes in gender, violence and health, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“For the first time, we have compared data from all over the world on the extent of partner violence and sexual violence by non-partners and the impact of these sorts of violence on health,” said Garcia-Moreno. These included HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, depression, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies and lowbirthweight babies.
There were variations in the rates of violence against women in different regions of the world but, said Garcia-Moreno, “in whatever region we looked at, it is unacceptably high”. Data from 81 countries shows that, even in high-income countries, 23.2% of women will suffer physical and/or sexual violence from a partner in their lives. The global figure for women attacked by partners was 30%.
More sexual assaults and rapes by acquaintances or strangers are reported in high-income countries than elsewhere – the report says that 12.6% of women in wealthy countries will be sexually attacked by a non-partner in their lives, which is higher than the African rate of 11.9%. But, the data on such crimes is not well collected in all regions.
The authors say that their previous research shows that better-educated women and working women are less likely to suffer violence, although not in all regions. There is a need to question social norms, said Watts. “What is society’s attitude concerning the acceptability of certain forms of violence against women?” she asked. “In some societies, it is not OK – but not all.”
“I think the numbers are a wake-up call for all of us to pay more attention to this issue,” said Garcia-Moreno. Over the past ten years, there has been increasing recognition of the problem, she said, but “we have to recognize that it is a complex problem. We don’t have a vaccine or a pill”.
The new WHO clinical and policy guidelines recommend healthcare staff should be trained to recognize the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault, but they do not recommend general screening – that is, asking every woman who arrives in a clinic whether she has been subjected to violence.
“But, if you see a woman coming back several times with injuries she doesn’t mention, you should ask about domestic violence,” said Garcia-Moreno. “When I was training in medical school, it wasn’t something you learned or knew about. Years later, I was sometimes in a situation where I could tell there was something else wrong with the woman I was interviewing, but didn’t know that domestic violence was the issue. Now, I think I would do the interview very differently.”",563
"At the beginning of the final series of the TV programme, Downton Abbey, there is a feeling of sadness and everyone knows things are changing. The year is 1925 and Downton Abbey’s neighbours are selling their stately home. At Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham wants to reduce the number of servants. 
The real Downton Abbey is Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. At Highclere Castle, they have more money than before. Lady Fiona Carnarvon says that the huge success of Downton all around the world has paid for building repairs at the castle. 
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “I’m very grateful. My husband and I love Highclere Castle. Now, millions of other people love it.” 
At the moment, they only use the ground floor and first floor of Highclere, on the borders of Hampshire. But, a restoration project of tower rooms has begun. When it is finished, visitors will be able to climb up into the tower to an exhibition of the work of the architect of the Houses of Parliament, Sir Charles Barry, who also rebuilt Highclere Castle between 1839 and 1842. 
In 2009, when the Downton Abbey producers first asked about filming at Highclere Castle, the castle needed £12 million of repairs. “It was just after the banking crisis and we were worried. Then, Downton began and Highclere became a major tourist attraction.” 
The number of visitors doubled, to 1,200 a day, after Downton Abbey, written by Julian Fellowes, was shown around the world. It was a hit in the UK in 2010 and, then, in the US. It is now shown on television in 250 countries. 
The Downton tourists are part of a growing phenomenon. The organization, VisitBritain, says that nearly 30% of foreign visitors, nearly nine million people, visit castles and historic houses. Almost half of visitors to Britain now say they want to visit places from films or TV. 
More than a million tourists take a tour of historic buildings each year and they spend more than £1 billion. Fifty-one per cent of Brazilians, 42% of Russians and Chinese, and 35% of Indian visitors will probably include a visit to a site of interest in their trips. 
VisitBritain’s director, Patricia Yates, said: “The links between tourism, films and TV are strong.” She added that period dramas, like Downton Abbey, have also made places outside of London more popular. 
“Downton Abbey expresses a certain view of Britain. It is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. It’s the first TV period drama that everyone knows and talks about.” 
Lady Carnarvon says that the long-term future of Highclere might not be secure. But, she says, “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings.” 
Highclere Castle plans a Tutankhamun event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon went to Egypt with Howard Carter and discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. Another event is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds. 
“Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “You have to invest in these great houses. I’ve tried to show people it is fun. We have special events, not just a walk around a dusty house.”",564
"Like veins carrying the lifeblood of a city, a subway system teems with billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, of bubonic plague and drug-proof bugs and of human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to catalogue and map the bacteria coursing through a city’s subway – and they have found a wealth of curious results. 
Dr Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that, for 18 months, swabbed the New York City subway system for the microscopic life forms that cover its turnstiles, seats, ticket booths and stations. In what Mason called “the first city-scale genetic profile ever”, his team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on the handhold of a train carriage and bacteria that cause bubonic plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan. 
In research published in the journal Cell Systems, the team strongly downplayed the findings of plague and anthrax, noting the extremely small trace of the latter, that rats likely carried the former and that no one has fallen ill with plague in or around New York for years. 
“The results do not suggest that plague or anthrax is prevalent,” the study says. “Nor do they suggest that New York residents are at risk.” 
In fact, most of the bacteria identified by the team are either harmless to humans or beneficial in the city’s thriving world of microorganisms, many of which process toxic hazards and waste in the same way that bacteria inside every human help with digestion and bodily functions. 
Some of the results were expected, Mason said, including some bacteria associated with fecal matter, which he said “should be a gentle reminder for people to wash their hands”. He also said that many bacteria of the same genus as those “that are beneficial and helpful, like the one used for making cheese,” also turned up around New York. 
Bacteria appeared to reflect the eating habits of various neighbourhoods. All around the subway, bacteria associated with cheeses – brie, cheddar, parmesan and the mozzarella of ubiquitous New York pizza – turned up. The distinctive bacteria of Swiss cheese were more localized to midtown Manhattan and the financial district, and the bacteria used to ferment cabbage for kimchi and sauerkraut showed up in the financial district and Bay Ridge. The computer also identified cucumber DNA all over the city, Mason said. 
Bacteria associated with illness and infections were extremely common. Species that cause diarrhoea and nausea, both benign and bad E.coli (mostly benign), and the bacteria that can cause skin infections and urinary-tract infections were common all over the city. The species that produces tetanus appeared in Soho and bacteria that cause dysentery appeared at a station in the Bronx and another in Harlem. 
With more than 1,000 samples collected at all of New York’s 466 open subway stations, Mason and his team ran the organic materials through a DNA sequencer and, then, through a supercomputer armed with genetic databases. They identified 15,152 distinct species, nearly half of which were bacteria. 
The good news, the researchers wrote, is that these “potentially infectious agents” are not spreading sickness or disease throughout New York but rather seem to be “normal co-habitants” and “may even be essential”. They “represent a normal, 'healthy' metagenome profile of a city”. 
In short, the researchers conclude, the subway and city are about as safe as everyone thought. 
Mason said people should not be concerned about getting urinary-tract infections from subway seats. “You should wash your hands,” he said, “and probably get some sleep and eat salads and go to the gym, and that’s about the same today as it was yesterday.” 
“If anything,” he added, “I’ve become much more confident riding the subway.” 
Many findings made sense: heavily trafficked stations like Grand Central and Times Square had more bacteria and more diversity among them; the subway was most enriched for bacteria associated with skin. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest. 
The researchers found marine bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy – but they were surprised to note the species included some normally associated with Antarctica and fish. 
The next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, São Paolo and Shanghai, and continued studies of New York, for instance to see how the microbiome changes with the seasons. He said he hoped the research would provide “a baseline” of research for health officials and geneticists, and could help health officials to be better prepared to prevent and track diseases and pathogens.",565