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Intermediate
Coal will probably rival oil as the worlds biggest source of energy in the next five years, with possible disastrous consequences for the climate, says the worlds 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 worlds second biggest consumer. China is the biggest coal importer, and Indonesia the biggest exporter.
According to the IEAs 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 isnt done, the world faces an increased risk of climate change as a result of this fast-increasing consumption of the highest carbon fossil fuel. | 1int
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Intermediate
Illegal downloading is a kind of moral squalor and theft, as much as putting your hand in someones 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, strongly defends copyright laws. He criticizes internet users who think it is OK to download music or books without paying for them.
The technical brilliance is so dazzling that people cant see the moral squalor of what theyre doing, he writes. It is outrageous that anyone can steal an artists work and get away with it. It is theft, just as putting your hand in someones pocket and taking their wallet is theft.
His article comes after music industry leaders met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street to discuss the issue of web piracy.
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 earning 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 groups 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 a lot wrong with copyright, which was created in an analogue age. She writes: Copyright closes the door on the many ways that people can share, build upon and remix each others work, possibilities that were unimaginable when those laws were made. She says artists need to think creatively about how they distribute and earn money from their work, quoting the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, who said: My problem is not piracy, its obscurity.
Index on Censorship agrees. The magazines editor, Rachael Jolley, said: Existing copyright laws dont 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 is enormous. 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 says 18% of internet users aged over 12 admit that they have recently pirated content, and 9% say they fear getting caught. Pullman writes in his article: The ease and speed 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.
Following the Downing Street meeting, Cameron appointed 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 its there to protect. We hope his influence and the prime ministers support for copyright will influence the approach of the UKs intellectual property office. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 its slow and complex and its 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 Hunts 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 entrepreneurs 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 dont get funding are worth testing, because you will have saved yourself a lot of time finding out it wasnt 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 caf in London through the site. Called Lady Dinahs 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.
Weve 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.
It allows you to test your market, test your pricing, test your features, discover new ways of getting money, get vital feedback, says Ringelmann.
With her Wall Street background and the experience of helping 100,000 businesses and services raise money, Ringelmann has useful advice for budding entrepreneurs.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Its 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. Its all about confidence to move fast and to learn, she says.
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. | 1int
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Intermediate
Emmanuel Limal used online dating sites a lot but he was tired of meeting women who werent ready to start a family, or at least wouldnt 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: Id like kids someday, but you would read the persons profile and think: You will never have time! If someones 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 couldnt 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. Its 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 shouldnt 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 dont make them say how many children theyd 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. Im fully expecting the first Babyklar.nu baby by next summer. More men have signed up than women (53% to 47%), with comments such as Its 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 Denmarks 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 havent met the right person yet will have another option, says Limal. He says that this isnt 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 wholl stay together. Im 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 countrys so small, a Jutlander can date a Copenhagener without too much travel, Limal said. Whats more, Limal has finally found love. Ive met a nice woman and she wants a baby too so we shall see. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 doesnt take away the physical achievement of what I did. Ive 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. Ive 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 Everests 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. Hes a fantastic climber. Hes 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, Stecks 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 theres less water. Theres 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 regions 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 thats fine. But at some point were 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. Its the perfect laboratory for figuring out how to solve some of these problems, like the impacts of climate change and tourism. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Tabatas 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 Japans 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 Tabatas 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 cant 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, youve 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 shouldnt even try. Tabata doesnt 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.
Its 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 dont 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. Thats the cruel genius of the programme: it is hard and effective. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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 countrys 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 Facebooks 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.
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 owners locked home screen. | 1int
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Intermediate
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, Tonagawas 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 very 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 peoples 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 Tonagawas 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Fergusons 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 hes 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: Ive 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. Alexs 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 Ren 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. Hes obviously a man who thinks very, very hard so Im sure hes put a lot of thought into making this decision. I wish him well. Hes been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give the new manager the same support that he gets. | 1int
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Intermediate
Not many exercise classes have a tea break halfway through. But Margaret Allens 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 Allens 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 Allens 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 wasnt 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, Allens 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, Whos that huffing and panting? and I had to admit it was me. Ruth Steere, 76, says Allen always knows whats going on, although her back is always to the class: She always shouts at us if we go wrong. Shes 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 BBCs 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. Im a prolific writer. I just cant 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, thats 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 couldnt 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 shouldnt eat too much. Whenever I hear someone saying, Oh, I cant 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: Im 80 and Im the oldest fitness instructor in the country! I was thinking: No, youre not. But I shant be writing to Buckingham Palace. | 1int
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Intermediate
Water scientists have given one of the strongest warnings ever about global food supplies. They say that the worlds 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 worlds 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 worlds 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 dont 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 reports editor, Anders Jgerskog. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 couldnt 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 gangs 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 todays 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. Virungas rich natural resources are for the benefit of the Congolese people, not for foreign oil prospectors. Our countrys 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, theres 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. Its 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, Africas 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 Africas heritage as the oldest and most biodiverse park on the continent, the report continues. Plans to explore for oil and exploit oil reserves put Virungas potential value at risk, it says. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Athenss 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, Greeces 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 dont 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 theyll 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 were 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, theres an atmosphere of misery, where people who know they wont 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 doesnt work it kills. | 1int
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Intermediate
During a momentous day at Liverpool Cathedral for the families of the 96 people who died so needlessly at Sheffield Wednesdays 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 Aspinalls 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 Wednesdays 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 panels 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Claridges hotel in Mayfair in 2012, an event that was mostly sold out.
Noma has been named the worlds best restaurant by Restaurant magazine for three years. Its chef, Ren Redzepi, says that ants taste like lemon, and a pure 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 UNs 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.
there are 40 tonnes of insects so there is not too much chance that they will become endangered. I know its 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, youve 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 planets 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 planets 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
It began with a bogus scallop, but a menu scandal that has affected some of Japans top hotels and department stores now threatens the international reputation of the countrys food.
Since one luxury hotel chain admitted lying about ingredients on its menus, Japanese media have written stories of similar incidents in restaurants run by well-known hotels and department stores
The story 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, which affected an estimated 78,000 diners.
One of the worst menu misdemeanours was a red salmon caviar dish that was actually the less luxurious eggs of the flying fish.
The hotel groups president, Hiroshi Desaki, went on television to announce a 20% pay cut for himself and 10% for other executives but this did not make consumers any less angry.
Days later, Desaki resigned, saying that the hotel group had betrayed our customers. One of the hotels head chefs later declined a medal of honour he was going to receive from the government.
The company has so far refunded 20 million yen to more than 10,000 consumers. The final bill is expected to reach 110 million yen.
Consumers who believed they had eaten expensive kuruma shrimps were told they had in fact eaten the much cheaper black tiger version.
The scandal started when a diner complained in a blogpost that a scallop dish he had ordered at the Prince Hotel in Tokyo contained a similar, but cheaper, type of shellfish.
The hotel started an investigation 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, had hoodwinked diners who believed they were paying high prices for top ingredients.
The Hotel Okura chain whose guests have included Barack Obama said they had also injected beef with fat to make it juicier and incorrectly described 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; shop-bought chocolate cream that the menu said was home-made; imported beef sold as expensive wagyu.
Even the governments top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, commented on the scandal. This inappropriate labelling has resulted in the loss of trust among consumers, he told reporters.
The fraudulent menu scandal has exploded at just the wrong time. Japan is trying to persuade South Korea and other countries to lift a ban on food imports that began after the Fukushima nuclear accident. And UNESCO is considering a request to add Japanese cuisine to its cultural heritage list.
One local newspaper had the headline, Japans proud food culture in tears, while the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun said it was shocked by the industrys lack of morals.
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 preferences, and, when they couldnt get the ingredients on the menu, hotels just used food from different places, Hiroshi Tomozawa, a hotel and restaurant consultant, told Kyodo News.
The industrys biggest problem will come from Japans demanding consumers. In 2009, 72% of diners in Japan said that, when they were choosing from a menu, where the food is from was the most important thing for them, followed by the amount of calories and other nutritional details. | 1int
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Intermediate
The problem with Google Glasses, says Takahito Iguchi, is that theyre not cool. He may be right. Theres 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 its this that Iguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, hopes may be Googles Achilles heel. He is launching a competitor that is a bit more stylish. A bit more Blade Runner. A bit more Japanese.
Iguchis augmented reality glasses arent 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.
Its 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. Youll 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. Im 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 doesnt seem to worry. In his shared office space in San Francisco a cool, converted warehouse he quotes Sun Tzus 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, hes had to leave Tokyo and go to Silicon Valley.
Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture but its still an island. Its isolated. There is not any way to expand. Whereas, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. Its 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 elses 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. 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 | 1int
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Intermediate
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 UKs 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. Its frustrating, admitted Abdullah, who has been in charge of Indias most sensitive state since early 2009. Today, unfortunately, as a result of that travel advice, peoples insurance isnt 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 havent stopped people from visiting. I mean, how many British citizens did you lose in 9/11? Did you stop people from visiting New York? Youve lost them in Spain, in Bali, said Abdullah. Weve lost Indians in London. There is still a possibility that al-Qaida could do something stupid, but we havent 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 Germanys 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 Abdullahs 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 dont 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 thats common sense.
Abdullah said tourism would help the economy. J&Ks 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.Im 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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, Closers 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. Closers editor has hinted she has other, more intimate pictures.
The couple welcome the judges 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 someones 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 governments 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 governments claim that the three claimants should sue the Kenyan government because it had inherited Britains 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: Im 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 governments 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 dont have the money to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein it doesnt 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, Liberias 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 Liberias health survey,1.5% of Liberias 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 dont 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 doesnt 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 cant 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 worlds 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Earths 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 companys 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 Rmer, 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 Rmer. Reality meets talent show with no ending and the whole world watching.
The aim is to establish a permanent human colony, according to Mars Ones 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
All six numbers match, so its time to buy that Audi, book the holiday in the US and phone the estate agent. At least, thats 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 peoples 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Talibans efforts to stop education for girls. By 14, she was on the radar of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who suggested her for the International Childrens 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 Talibans. 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 childs 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 Malalas speech.
At the start of her speech, Malala said: I dont know where to begin my speech. I dont know what people are expecting me to say. She did not need to worry. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 didnt 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 meteorites 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 Russias 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 Russias Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said it was not a meteorite but military action by the United States. Its not a meteorite falling its 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. Its proof that not only are economies vulnerable but the whole planet, Medvedev said at an economic forum in Siberia. | 1int
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Intermediate
There comes a time in some mens 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.
Theres a common understanding that theres 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 its 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 apes 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? Its hard to see anything in an apes life that would have that sort of pattern. Theyre not particularly good at seeing far ahead into the future; thats 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 whats going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans, he said. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Zurichs 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 well 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 Hamburgs 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 dont 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, well need to keep on with the traditional cut, said Lars Oesterhelweg, Deputy Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Charit 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 dont like the idea of autopsies because of the disfigurement they cause. They are much happier with the non-invasive method. | 1int
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Intermediate
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has approved a bill that would make the National Security Agencys 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 NSAs 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 committees hearing had ended, Feinstein strongly supported the NSAs main domestic programme. I think theres huge misunderstanding about this NSA database programme, and how vital it is to protecting this country, she said.
Concern over the Intelligence Committees 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 Ive 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 everyones 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 NSAs 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. Were just going to keep fighting this battle. Its going to be a long one.
Feinsteins 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 youve had the merger of global communications, I think youre going to have a lot more challenges spying on foreigners with implications for US citizens, Wyden said. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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 worlds 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
Nelson Mandela, the towering figure of Africas struggle for freedom and a hero to millions around the world, has died at the age of 95.
South Africas 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 Mandelas 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 Mandelas party, the African National Congress (ANC)
Mandelas 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 historys 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 countrys 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 Africas 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 cant 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.
Mandelas 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Nepals 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
On the market square in Rjukan stands a statue of the towns 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 worlds biggest power plant.
But one thing he couldnt do was change the sun. Deep in its eastwest 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 its certainly not bright, either.
Now, high on the mountain opposite Eydes 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.
Its 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. Its 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 its awesome. Just awesome.
Electrical engineer Eivind Toreid is more cautious. Its 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 its far more than I expected, she says. This will bring much happiness.
Across the road, in the Nye Tider caf, 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 Rjukans market square. It doesnt reappear until 12 March.
In the months between September and March, Andersen says, Wed 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. Its 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 wed 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 Rjukans old people, perhaps, or improved school facilities, cycle paths and roads.
And I still dont 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 peoples faces.
In his office overlooking the square, Rjukans 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 Rjukans 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 its here, people love it. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Obamas 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. Lets come together. We know what the issues are; lets 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 isnt 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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. Swedens top ranking followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada is predictable, but the Global AgeWatch index provides some surprising results.
The US, the worlds 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 worlds 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 worlds 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 ones 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 peoples 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 dont 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, thats not an expression of love. Its more a medical use of a body. | 1int
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Pope Benedict XVI arrived in 2005 as a simple, humble worker in Gods 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 Sanchz 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 Sanchz Barba looked around him in St Peters 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 Gods representative on earth give up the job. The cardinals were just looking at one another, Sanchz 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 Sanchz 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 Popes 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 hes doing it because hes tired and not because hes 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?
Benedicts 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 Benedicts 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 Peters Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic, was still considering the implications of the Popes resignation. If youre Gods 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. | 1int
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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 armys 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 familys 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, its 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 couldnt stop reading the stories written about him. Of course I read them, the prince said. If theres a story and somethings been written about me, I want to know whats 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, Dont read it. Everyone says, Dont read it, because its 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. Ive always been like that. My fathers always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But its very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyones 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 brothers 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. | 1int
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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 worlds 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 others 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 rats 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 dont think theres any risk of supersmart rats from this, he added. Theres a big difference between sharing sensory information and being able to plan. Im 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 persons 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 dont 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 wed be very thankful not to be in someone elses head. | 1int
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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 kings 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. Leicesters 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 Shakespeares 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 kings 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 Richards 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 weve 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 Richards 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. | 1int
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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 Marys 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 anyones 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 Williams 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. Its 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, Its 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 Marys, 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 peoples 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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 its 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 Baumgartners 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. Baumgartners 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 Kittingers 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. Id 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 Todds 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 theyve 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Sebastin Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist party, which is in opposition in Tarifa but voted with the governing Peoples 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 Spains 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. Its 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 didnt 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 Ral Romeva, a member of the European Parliament. In Romevas 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 Andalusa.
Many locals are also wondering why a resort should be built 10km away, and not on wasteland near Tarifas 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 Cristbal 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 Galn 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. | 1int
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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 empires UK outlets into crches, 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 companys profitable business in Britain.
When he appears before the committee, Starbucks Chief Financial Officer, Troy Alstead, will attempt to repair the companys reputation.
MPs accused the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the UKs 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 doesnt 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 Weve chosen to really highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So were going to focus on transforming Starbucks into those services that the government are cutting, such as refuges and crches.
Starbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street across the country and thats 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: Im 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. Weve 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 companys extended economic impact to the UK economy is more than 80m a year. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 industrys 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
Swedish prisons have long had a reputation around the world for being progressive. But are the countrys prisons a soft option?
The head of Swedens 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 Swedens 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, Swedens most secure jail, 130 miles west of Stockholm. However, he doesnt 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Syrias 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 dont 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 Baath 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 wasnt 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 Assads most senior aides were killed. Concrete blast barriers often painted in the Syrian flags 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 everyones mind: will there be a battle for Damascus the worlds 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 Syrias 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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.
Teffs 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, teffs 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 Ethiopias 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 didnt know it was so sought after. I am of Ethiopian origin; Ive 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.
Ethiopias 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 UNs list of least-developed countries. An estimated 20% of under-fives are malnourished.
The governments 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Pauls Cathedral.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, said: It was with great sadness that l learned of Lady Thatchers death. Weve 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 didnt 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 Britains 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 (198485) was traumatic. With money from Britains 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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, Weve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis, the IMFs 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 Obamas 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. Chinas official Xinhua News Agency accused the US of jeopardizing other countries dollar assets. China is the US governments 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 wont be in the eleventh hour. Weve 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 womens 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 societys 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 dont 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 doesnt mention, you should ask about domestic violence, said Garcia-Moreno. When I was training in medical school, it wasnt 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 didnt know that domestic violence was the issue. Now, I think I would do the interview very differently. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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 Erdmanns 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 authors 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 shouldnt be thrown in there, she said.
The message and the bottle will be on display at Hamburgs 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Huffingtons 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 were 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 youre 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, theres 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 its so taxing. The low pay also means many of them take second jobs. Basically, they dont sleep so that Huffington can and can sell books about it.
Getting enough sleep isnt just a question of valuing sleep enough to go to bed at the right time; its a question of going to bed in the right neighbourhood and in the right body. Numerous studies show that youre more likely to sleep badly if youre poor. Its hard to sleep if youre worried about your safety or havent had enough to eat. Its hard to sleep if youre one of the 15 million American shift workers who work irregular hours. Research has also found that theres 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, its a rebranding. The very real sleep crisis isnt that a few rich people think its a waste of time; the problem is the 99% who cant afford to spend time sleeping.
Sleep may be a performance enhancer but its 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 wont be a luxury anymore; itll be something only the poor will be forced to do. At that point, we may need a whole new sort of sleep revolution. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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, McDonalds and Gillette down the table.
Googles 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, Kelloggs 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 couldnt dream of a more appropriate logo, Janoff said.
Graham Hayles, Interbrands chief marketing officer, said it was not out of kilter that Apples brand could account for a fifth of the companys 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). Theyre 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 Koreas Samsung (6th), Japans Toyota (8th) and Germanys 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
In the Arctic regions of Canada, the summer sun shines for more than 20 hours a day. For some, its 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 havent 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 its more manageable.
Many in the community of 100 people break their fast together they gather in the citys 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.
Its a similar situation across Canadas most northern mosques during Ramadan, as Muslims deal with the countrys 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 Edmontons timetable. We currently have 24 hours a day of sun, said Ahmad Alkhalaf. Theres 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. Theres no sun at that time; its 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. Youre supposed to break your fast when its dusk but we eat when the sun is up. Its 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 2016s timing stretching across some of the longest days of the year has made it one of the more difficult of recent years. Its 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. Ill follow those hours, too, he said with a laugh. Oh yes, definitely. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 hasnt 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, theres 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 dont think thats 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 thats 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 theres 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, doesnt 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 masters.
In South America, China and countries in Africa, there is a huge appetite for learning and some of the worlds 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
An international agreement to improve safety in Bangladeshs 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 dont 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 hes 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 SOHAYs 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 dont 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 SOHAYs centres, she now goes to a state primary school. Her family live in the slum and her parents cant 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 childrens 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 childrens 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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: Im here to ask you to reject the idea that there are forces we cant control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.
Youve 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 theres 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 dont 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. Im proud; I think Ive 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 its exciting to have the chance to hear someone who has changed so much and encouraged so many people who didnt vote before to vote for the first time.
Oliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: Everyone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say. Im 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 Americas 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 Britains 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 peoples calls and texts, but not the content of the communications, two scientists at Stanford University worked out peoples 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 somebodys 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 didnt 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 peoples 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 persons 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 peoples 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 peoples 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 NSAs, will reveal highly confidential information about ordinary people, the scientists said. | 1int
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Intermediate
You can see a thick layer of bird droppings inside one of Britains 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 Londons 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 worlds 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 Elyses 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.
Its 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 Ive 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 worlds 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 wont sell, he said. Locals wont buy and so you have to bring in overseas buyers.
But nobody plans to use the avenues 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
I got a Dyson vacuum cleaner but I dont 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 oclock in the morning. It was mental in there. It was crazy. It was absolutely disgusting, disgusting.
Haggerty went to a 24-hour Sainsburys 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 didnt have a chance, she said. The poor woman who was second in the queue was pushed out by a crowd of youths. She didnt 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 dont even know how much it costs; I dont know even know if Im going to buy it. I just wanted something, she said. There are lads in there with three, four, five tellies. Its 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 couldnt tell you the prices but I know theyre bargains. But his friend Henry Fischer wasnt as successful. Someone snatched my telly from me its because Im the smaller one.
Blackett, Fischer and some friends had driven to Sainsburys 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. Ill sell it to you for 350, 300 cash, he said. Further back in the queue, Christine Ball, 62, wasnt impressed. I got here at 10.15pm and Im further back now than when I got here, she said. These people dont 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. Its crazy having the sale at midnight the police must have more important things to do at night than come to sales. Were going to PC World first thing their sale starts at 8am. | 1int
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Intermediate
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.
Its 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 dont 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 systems 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 arent harmful that has a huge impact on the quality of life. A child who cant eat wheat or drink milk cant go to parties.
The belief that a childs 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 childrens 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
On the top of a hill, looking down on Northumberlands 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 Britains 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 observatorys 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 UKs 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 whats 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 its darkest. Its 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 Britains 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 Europes 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. Its 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? | 1int
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Intermediate
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 studys 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 Swedens 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 dont 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.
Im not saying its a peace-and-love story coexistence often means conflict but its important to manage that conflict and resolve the problems it causes. Wolves can be difficult neighbours, said Chapron. We shouldnt 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 dont 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, its 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 weve lost more of our large mammals than any country except for Ireland, he said. Apart from the accidental reintroduction of wild boar, weve done almost nothing, whereas in much of the rest of Europe weve 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, theres absolutely no reason why it cant work in the UK, he said. He points out that bears and wolves live within an hour of Rome. Theres no reason why we cant have a similar return of wildlife in the UK. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Sudans Darfur district who comes to three or four hours of classes every day. Its 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 schools 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 tai 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 doesnt 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 childrens 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 dont 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 dont know, the volunteers say.
Zimarcos work starting the school is remembered in its unofficial name everyone in the camp just calls it Zimarcos 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 arent people.
We have a discotheque, a house, a mosque, a school, shops, he says. We are not animals. | 1int
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Intermediate
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?
Its 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 thats 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. Theyre 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 cant 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 dont 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, theyre getting lighter, theyre 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 Curries Larry Pizzi. Pedego and startup ElectroBike arent 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 Pedegos 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 Europes 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, Curries Larry Pizzi says. While baby boomers are still very important, were finding that a lot of younger people are using e-bikes for transportation, instead of cars.
Accells 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. Its a minivan alternative. | 1int
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Intermediate
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.
Thats where Axanis 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.
Im 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 wasnt easy and it certainly wasnt 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 donts of travelling together. At the end of it, wed 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 thats a lot of stories, thats a lot of individuals and thats 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 cant 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. Ill only say that theres been lots of interest from many production companies. Were well advanced. In terms of his love life, Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher yet. Im not looking for anything but life happens and well see, he said. As always, lifes a journey. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 isnt good, but hes 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 Jos 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. Hes 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. Weve been giving him a lot of water and hes gaining strength.
Fraser Christian, who teaches maritime survival courses, said the mans 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 doesnt rain for a few days, so you cant 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 doesnt sound right to me. There are 1,001 hazards that would make his survival for so long very unlikely. | 1int
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Intermediate
Every morning, before the temperatures in Indias 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, Indias 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.
Indias 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 Indias 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 tai 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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.
Basfords 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.
Its 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 didnt 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 Merritts Art Therapy Colouring Book is in fourth place on Amazons bestseller lists, Millie Marottas Animal Kingdom detailed pictures of animals to colour is in seventh and a mindfulness colouring book is in ninth. Basfords books are in second and eighth place thats half of Amazon.co.uks top ten filled up by colouring books for adults.
At independent UK publisher Michael OMara, 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 its creative. For many people, a blank sheet is very daunting; with a colouring book, you just need to bring the colour. Also, theres 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; its 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 wasnt a trend then. I drew the first story and they said, Lets 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 its been a real surprise to see the category bloom.
She is currently working on a third book. Its a major trend and it doesnt look like its 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 dont 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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. Gaos 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, Italys 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 Luxembourgs 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 Europols 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Cubas 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. Its 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.
Kchos 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 Cubas islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery.
In the centres courtyard, tech-savvy young people lounge throughout the day or just sit outside when its 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 Kchos 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 Kchos 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 hadnt 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 Davids talents and ambition meant that he should go solo. David took the name Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees.
Bowies 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 albums themes included immortality, insanity, murder and mysticism, which showed that Bowie was a songwriter who was thinking outside of pops usual boundaries.
He followed it with 1972s 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 Roegs film The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Bowies 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 Schraders movie Cat People (1982).
1983 was the year in which he put his energy into the album Lets Dance and follow-up concerts. Lets Dance turned Bowie into a crowd-friendly global rock star, with the album and its singles Lets Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all becoming huge international hits.
This was the heyday of MTV and Bowies 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 Imans 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
Well-known British author David Mitchell is used to the critics analysing his novels in detail. So, its a relief, he says, that his latest work wont 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 Patersons Future Library project, for which 1,000 trees were planted in 2014 in Oslos 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.
Its 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 were 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 wont be around to take the consequences of this being good or bad. But, Im sandwiched between Margaret Atwood and no doubt some other brilliant writer. So, it had better be good. Id look such a fool if they opened it in 2114 and it wasnt 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 didnt 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 Patersons 1,000 trees are planted. The title is taken from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. But, other than admitting that its 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 Wordsworths A slumber did my spirit seal. Its ending, Rolled round in earths 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 Librarys 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 Atwoods in a wood-lined room in Oslos 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
Some cities have pigeons. Lima has black vultures. They fly in groups overhead and sit on the citys 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 projects 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 Limas Huachipa Zoo, Alfredo Correa, is full of admiration. They can eat dead animals because their bodies protect them from viruses and bacteria, he says. Theyve 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 Limas 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 Limas 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 Limas 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 dont pay. That means some of the 43 district municipalities dont 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 vultures GPS coordinates with the municipalities, says Javier Hernandez, the project director. Its 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Commissions 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. ACEAs draft regulation would have covered fewer pollutants and delayed the regulations 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 EUs new emission tests will be watched closely around the world. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 shes totally tame.
That evening, the woman was tickling Dustys 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 shes 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 couldnt 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 didnt know how bad my injuries were and my biggest fear was internal bleeding. He checked me over and said he couldnt 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, its 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, its scary, but dolphins have this lovely, wide smile.
I dont have any anger towards Dusty. I respect her. But I was in her territory and shes a wild, unpredictable animal. People need to know that. So many come here to swim with her and they dont 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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 its the creatures that provide the most ecosystem services that are getting many scientists really worried. Three quarters of the worlds food production is thought to depend on bees and other pollinators. Pandas may be cute and tigers beautiful but its worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down.
Its the loss of the common species that will impact on people, not so much the rarer creatures because they are so rare, were 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 Britains 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 its not just about the numbers of species going extinct, but the actual numbers in a population; thats 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, its 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. Its not as simplistic as fish die and people starve its 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Frances Benot 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 thats weird.
I think its inhumane. I dont think its fair to anybody to the players, to the fans, to the sport when you see players pulling out of matches, passing out, he added. Ive played fi ve set matches all my life and being out there for a set and a half and passing out with heat stroke, its not normal.
Having players with so many problems and complaining to the tournament that its too hot to play; I, personally, dont think its fair and I know a lot of players dont think its fair.
Other players agreed. The British number one, Andy Murray, said: Its defi nitely something that you have to look at. As much as its 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. Thats not great.
I know when I went out before the match, the conditions at 2.303pm were very, very tough. Whether its safe or not, I dont 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. Thats what its like.
The defending champion Victoria Azarenka said, It felt pretty hot, like youre 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 76, 63, 64. I was really close to stopping completely, he said. I wasnt really running too much towards the end. I wasnt tired; I just felt my body temperature was too high.
A ball boy had earlier required medical attention after collapsing during Milos Raonics 76, 61, 46, 62 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. Chinas Peng Shuai also said the heat had made her cramp up and vomit, and she had to be helped from the court after her 75, 46, 63 defeat to Japans 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 tournaments chief medical offi cer, said.
Roger Federer said that, although conditions were tough, they were the same for both players. Its just a mental thing, the Swiss said. If youve trained hard enough your entire life, or the last few weeks, and you believe you can do it and come through it, theres no reason. If you cant 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 cant, he said. Its dangerous. Its an hour and a half since my match and I still cant pee. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 FIFAs 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 ngel 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. Webbs 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 FIFAs executive committee have now been charged in the investigation, which alleges $200m in bribes, mainly as kickbacks from TV and marketing contracts but also FIFAs 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 Joo Havelange, was charged alongside Del Nero and his predecessor Jos 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 Bolivias 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 dont really want to move out to rent as its more than a mortgage but you need such a big deposit to get a mortgage so its 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 its been so difficult, Ive 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 dont 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 dont want to rent I dont want to spend all that money and have nothing at the end, she said. Ive looked at buying and seen mortgage advisers but I just cant borrow enough to get on the property ladder.
Gavin is trying to save for a deposit. Its 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 14 but she said she had always imagined she would have her own place by the time she was 30. I dont see that happening, as its next year. But, hopefully, in a couple of years, Ill move out. | 1int
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Intermediate
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, its made me happy, Vronique Soulier, president of the clubs supporters association, told journalists. When I first heard the news, I was rather surprised, but, once that passed, we were pretty unanimous that its 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 masters degree in sports science. She is also a UEFAlicensed coach. She previously coached Benficas male youth teams, the Qatar womens team and, more recently, the Iranian womens 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. Frances womens 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 mens professional team, said: I dont 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 womens game, playing for Italy in 153 internationals. In 1999, she was named as the coach of the mens team Viterbese. But, after only two games, she resigned from the job because of a disagreement with the clubs proprietor. She added: For the time being, I see too many men, even in the womens 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 shouldnt they manage mens teams? The opposite happens and doesnt cause any problems. Its 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, Id hire a woman as my number two. He beat me to it.
A statement on Clermont Foot 63s website said Costas appointment would allow the club to enter a new era. On the club supporters website, reaction to Costas appointment was a mix of surprise and a certain cynicism. In my opinion, its just a publicity stunt to get people talking about the club and she wont last the season. I find it hard to believe shell be able to get the players respect, above all when shes the same age as the oldest, wrote one fan. Her CV isnt 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 itll 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 theyre lacking at the moment, she said. The boys in the team can be difficult to manage. With a woman in charge, maybe theyll be less demanding.
If Costas reputation is anything to go by, she will be the one making the demands. After doing work experience at Chelsea during her compatriot Jos Mourinhos 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 thats concerned, yes, Im happy to be compared with him, she said. | 1int
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Intermediate
For 85 years, it was just a grey blob on classroom maps of the solar system. But, on 15 July, Pluto was seen in high resolution for the first time. The images show dramatic mountain ranges 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 back 4bn miles to Earth from the New Horizons spacecraft. They are the climax of a mission that has been quietly underway for nearly ten years.
Alan Stern, the missions principal investigator, said New Horizons is returning amazing results. 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 systems mysterious third zone where Pluto is, with about 100,000 smaller icy objects. John Spencer, a mission scientist, said the mountains appear to be around 3,000 metres high and several hundred miles across.
The detailed image of one edge of the dwarf planet showed not a single crater. This tells scientists that there has been recent geological activity on the surface, which could include dramatic geysers throwing ice into the atmosphere or cryo-volcanoes that erupt in explosions of ice.
Pluto used to be the ninth planet but, since 2006, it has been known as a dwarf planet. The NASA press conference began with spectacular images of the sun and the eight official planets. Weve 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 shown.
Stern said that there would be many more images and that we would learn a lot more about the planet during the coming year. The images have already produced some surprises. Scientists believe the mountains are made from water ice with just a thin cover of exotic ices, methane and nitrogen.
Water ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains and thats what we think we can see here. This is the first time weve seen this. The methane and nitrogen are just a coating. The mountains on Pluto probably formed no more than 100m years ago extremely recently in the 4.56bn-year-old solar system. This suggests the region, which covers about 1% of Plutos surface, may still be geologically active. 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 craft were flying over London, we would be able to see the runways at Heathrow airport.
The distance to Pluto 5bn km 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 announced that the heart-shaped feature visible on Pluto will now be known as the Tombaugh Regio, after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930.
The new view of Charon reveals an area of cliffs stretching about 1,000km. This suggests cracks in Charons surface, which could also be the result of geological activity. The image also shows a dramatic canyon about 7 to 9km deep.
Cathy Olkin, a mission scientist, said: Charon just blew our socks off when we saw the new image today. The team has just been abuzz. There is so much interesting science in this one image alone. Scientists think that Pluto is two thirds rock surrounded by a lot of ice, with surface temperatures of about minus 230C. As the 460m mission continues 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 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. Theyre all very cold its like a cosmic deep freeze. Its the best way of preserving solar system history. That is what is so fascinating about this. Its 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 sending back data 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.
New Horizons also observed the smaller members of the Pluto system, which includes four other moons: Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos. New Horizons is a true mission of exploration, showing us why basic scientific research is so important, said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate.
The images also suggest that Hydras 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 brands 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 Lilys 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 dont 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, Im cleaning up after a dead body; another day, Im 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: Its 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, its 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. Theyre 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. Its 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 doesnt 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 youre 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 elements 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 Dubnas 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
Glastonbury Festival is declaring war on the plastic water bottle as part of a long-term plan to become the worlds 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, Glastonburys 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 worlds greenest greenfield festival. They want to be like Americas 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 cant 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 Maidens Bruce Dickinson said he would never bring his band to Glastonbury Festival, which he called the most bourgeois thing on the planet. | 1int
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Intermediate
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. Weve 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 Sciences 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, peoples tweets and all of the world wide web, its clear that we could lose an awful lot of our history, he said. We dont 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 dont 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 todays 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 todays 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 todays 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. Weve been surprised by what weve 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. Were talking about preserving them for hundreds to thousands of years, said Cerf. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 companys 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: Youre 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 Californias 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 Googles 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, thats 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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.
Its been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us, she said. Its given us free marketing and an international profile. Im 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. Highcleres 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 Highcleres future.
Peter Fincham, ITVs 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.
VisitBritains 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. Its 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 Tutankhamuns 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, dont 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.
Ive 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
A degree in Spanish got me my fi rst job as a journalist, with an international press agency in Mexico City, but it didnt stop me from making mistakes as a young 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 offi ce, coordinating the news from areas of fi ghting in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and the rest of Central America. But, I also had to report on occasional disasters: fi res, fl oods and explosions at firework 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. Once, when I meant to call the police, I got a Mexican grandmother out of bed at 2am because I had misunderstood a number and dialled a wrong digit. Even worse, there were too many victims 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 offi ce in Washington. I dont know what training you have had, an editor shouted, but has no one ever told you a death toll cant go down?!
Why are numbers in another language such a problem? It may be because of different numbering systems. 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). Different number systems can clearly cause confusion.
Some experts believe there is a link between dyscalculia the diffi culty in understanding arithmetic and problems learning foreign languages, particularly if languages are learnt by rote. 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 quite easy, apart from the numbers.
But, perhaps its also because you often hear numbers in a non-native language out of context or in isolation. The listener might have switched off from the foreign language and be unable to suddenly tune in. I talked to multilingual friends and found that many can be fl uent in French or Italian when ordering from a restaurant menu, for example, but freeze if they have to communicate numbers, especially over the phone. Numbers seem to be taxing, but no one could really 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 fi rst journalism job, getting the numbers wrong didnt 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 offi ce. With no senior English-speaking reporter in the offi ce, I had to try to reach the consulate by phone. I got the phone number wrong and I was put through to an extension elsewhere in the building. The identity of the person who took my call was unmistakable: I chatted for 15 minutes to the gunman. I didnt persuade him to put away his gun but my reputation as a reporter rose overnight. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 doesnt 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 planets 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 Associations fundraising director, said: The criticism is to be expected but, really, this is just a wonderful windfall and were so grateful. We didnt 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 Californias 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. Id 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 wont 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 its expensive to manage. Over 50% die within two years of diagnosis. Its 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 couldnt have created this if wed 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. Its fabulous for us to get this windfall. Well 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or sfrur; Baldey, Bebba or Br. Dgg, Dimmbl, Etna and Eybjrt are fine and so are Frigg, Glds, Hrn and Ingunn. Jrlaug is OK, as are Obba, Sigurflj, rana 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 Harriets passport because it does not recognize her first name.
Since the registry does not recognize the name of Harriets 12-year-old brother Duncan either, the two children have, until now, travelled on passports identifying them as Stlka 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 Kpavogur, 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 fathers (or mothers) son or daughter. Jn Einarssons children, for example, might be lafur Jnsson and Sigrur Jnsdttir.
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 Icelands 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 countrys naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Blr Light Breeze Bjarkardttir Rnarsdottir 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, Jn Gnarr, has also called Icelands naming law unfair, stupid and against creativity.
The Cardews could get round Harriets problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. But its a bit late for that and way too silly, said Cardew. Are they saying they dont want us here? | 1int
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Intermediate
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 dont 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.
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.
Around the rainbow Theres 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.
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.
Theres life out there Apart from clouds and other planes, we dont expect to see much directly outside a flying aircrafts 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.
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.
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.
You cant 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 bodys 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.
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.
Flying through time Time zones provide an artificial journey through time but special relativity means that a flight involves actual time travel. However, its so minimal that crossing the Atlantic weekly for 40 years would only move you 1/1,000th of a second into the future.
Terrible tea Dont blame the cabin attendant if your tea isnt great. Water should be just under 100C when it is poured on to tea leaves but that isnt possible on a plane. Its impossible to get water beyond 90C during flight so choose coffee.
I cant 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.
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.
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.
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 planes lift comes from Newtons 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 worlds 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, Indias 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.
Indias appalling infrastructure limits demand for luxury cars, however. Lamborghinis 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 Lamborghinis 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.
Indias super-rich have often surprised people around the world with their spectacular spending. Mukesh Ambani, the countrys wealthiest man, has built the worlds 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, its 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. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 dont 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. Thats 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 Hawkes Bay, on the east coast of New Zealands 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 hes 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 wasnt 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 dont 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. Theres always a chance Inky could come home to us. | 1int
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Intermediate
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 isnt quite the same as regretting making a rifl e, but Nguyen is just the latest inventor who wished he hadnt created a monster.
The labradoodle The labradoodle isnt a monster its adorable. But whats monstrous is the way crossbreed dogs have been sold since the labradoodles inventor, Wally Conron, fi rst created the breed in the 1980s. Ive done a lot of damage, he told the Associated Press. Ive 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 didnt expect was that the labradoodle and other types of poodle-cross dogs, many of which have health problems would become so popular.
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 peoples deaths, even if they were enemies?
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. Its not pleasant, Kirkland Gable told the Guardian in 2010, but Im not in control of the universe. I have to realize there are some things out of my control.
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.
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. | 1int
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