The Fed comments are more upbeat than in recent months

The US economy will sink at a slower pace than previously thought in 2009, thanks to a rebound in the second half of the year, the Federal Reserve says.

The Fed also upped its growth forecast for 2010 and 2011.

But it warned that US unemployment would rise above 10%, which is higher than its earlier forecasts.

The Fed predicts the jobless rate could get as high as 10.1%, from its old estimate of 9.6%. In June, unemployment climbed to 9.5%, a 26-year high.

The new projections were released along with minutes from its rate-setting committee.

"Consumer spending appeared to have stabilized since the start of the year, sales and starts of new homes were flattening out, and the recent declines in capital spending did not look as severe as those that had occurred around the turn of the year," it said.

"Moreover, it seemed likely that economic activity was in the process of levelling out, and the considerable improvements in financial markets over recent months were likely to lend further support to aggregate demand."

Stimulus measures

The Fed now predicts that the US economy will shrink by between 1% and 1.5% this year. The forecast issued in May projected it would contract by between 1.3% and 2%.

And for 2010, it forecast that the economy would grow by between 2.1% and 3.3% - a slight upgrade from its earlier prediction of forecast of growth between 2% and 3%.

However this would represent a slow recovery, the Fed added, meaning that unemployment would remain high until well into 2011, as firms waited to be convinced a corner had been turned before hiring staff.

US interest rates have been cut to almost zero in a bid to stimulate recovery.

And President Barack Obama has unveiled a $787bn stimulus package of tax cuts and increased government spending to try and get the US economy back to growth. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8152940.stm>

The Hot Dog Eating contest attracts entrants from all over the world

Americans famously eat a lot and are renowned for being among the biggest food consumers in the world.

On 4 July a man broke the world record for hot dog consumption - 68 dogs in 10 minutes, which works out at something like 1,000 calories a minute

But as far as costs are concerned for both the indulgent, and for the more regular consumer, prices seem to have fallen sharply in the past year.

For the last 12 months, the BBC has been monitoring prices at one Safeway supermarket in central Washington.

We look at the price of potatoes, eggs, meat, bread and milk, and we found that at this shop, at least, prices of these goods fell on average by 17% in the past year.

This is of course only one supermarket in one US city, but US government figures from the Department of Labour also show a drop in food prices over the past year nationwide.

Supermarket pressure

One explanation could be that millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the last year because of the recession, so they have less money and supermarkets are having to try a bit harder to entice their customers in.

That is certainly the case as far as stallholder Tom Calamaris is concerned.

He runs a small fruit and vegetable stall at Eastern Market in Washington DC and says his business is really being squeezed by the big supermarkets bringing prices down - something he has not been able to afford to do.

"I just can't do that," he says, "I know a lot of the big businesses can because they make millions of dollars."

Admitting he cannot compete, he warns, "Mama and Pop businesses go out of business because the big businesses swallow them up."

Like Tom, many shoppers are also facing tough economic times at the moment.

That might be one reason why it is difficult to find anyone who has noticed making any great savings in the past year, despite the apparent drop in food prices shown in the BBC research.. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8148175.stm>

Analysts say the stimulus package seems to be working

China's economy grew at an annual rate of 7.9% between April and June, up from 6.1% in the first quarter, thanks to the government's big stimulus package.

The country's quickening economic expansion comes as most nations in the West continue to experience recession.

Beijing now expects China to achieve 8% growth for 2009 as a whole, which compares with a predicted contraction of between 1% and 1.5% in the US.

However, the Chinese government warned that some economic challenges remain.

'Numerous challenges'

The BBC's correspondent in Shanghai, Chris Hogg, said China's latest economic growth was largely due to the government's 4 trillion yuan ($585bn, £390bn) economic stimulus plan unveiled last November.

VIEW FROM CHINA From BBC Shanghai correspondent, Chris Hogg. China's economy is recovering earlier than many had expected. That's largely due to the government's massive economic stimulus package unveiled last November, but the private sector is doing its part too. China's state controlled banks have lent huge amounts of money to the country's state owned and private sector businesses. Companies have used the cash to try to avoid shedding jobs and to invest in new equipment. The many new government infrastructure projects have provided employment for many of the migrant workers who have been laid off - mainly in the export sector. The slowdown elsewhere in the world means exporters are still suffering, but the rest China's economy is in much better shape.

Yet Chinese officials said the increased economic expansion between April and June could not obscure continuing problems.

"The difficulties and challenges in the current economic development are still numerous," said National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Li Xiaochao at a news conference.

"The basis of the rebound of the people's economy is not stable," he said.

"The base for recovery is still weak. Growth momentum is unstable. The recovery pattern is unbalanced and thus there are still uncertain and volatile factors in the recovery process," the NBS said in a statement distributed ahead of a news conference.

It said that urban per capita incomes were up 11.2% from a year earlier, and that real rural per capita incomes were up 8.1%.

Meanwhile, China's consumer price index fell 1.7% in June compared with the same month a year earlier, the fifth consecutive monthly decline.

Exports in June were down 21.4% compared with a year earlier, the government said last week. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8153138.stm>

Amnesty wants government action to stop forced displacement

Amnesty International has denounced what it says is a dramatic rise in the number of people being displaced by Colombia's armed conflict.

The human rights group notes that 380,000 people were forced to flee in 2008, a rise of nearly 25% on 2007.

Communities in areas of economic, military or strategic importance are being targeted in particular, it says.

Amnesty says Colombia has one of the world's biggest displaced populations, put at between three and four million.

The latest report by Amnesty says that as many as 380,000 people were forced to leave their homes last year to escape violence arising from the long-running conflict between guerrillas, paramilitary groups and the armed forces.

Their figures are based on information from a local human rights group, the Centre for Human Rights and the Displaced (Codhes), which reported in April that there had been a 25% rise in the number of internally displaced.

The dire humanitarian situation in Colombia is one of today's most hidden tragedies Marcelo Pollack Amnesty International

At the time, the government department dedicated to helping the displaced, Accion Social, said there had been an increase but also that some people were falsely claiming to have been forced from their homes in order to qualify from compensation.

According to government figures, 2.9 million people were displaced between 1997 and 2008.

Amnesty says many people have been deliberately targeted by guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and the security forces as part of strategies designed to remove whole communities from areas of military, strategic or economic importance.

There an estimated three to four million displaced people

The great majority of those affected are from one of three groups - indigenous people, Afro-descendents and campesinos - or farmworkers.

Many of them live in areas which are potentially economically profitable, such as land that could be used for mineral and oil exploration or agro-industrial developments.

Amnesty International's Americas Deputy Director Marcelo Pollack said: "The dire humanitarian situation in Colombia is one of today's most hidden tragedies, and belies claims by the Colombian government that the country has overcome its troubled past.

"Until the authorities in Colombia acknowledge the very real effects of the conflict, the human rights of millions of people have little chance of being protected."

Amnesty said much of the wealth accumulated by the paramilitaries and their political and business supporters was based on the misappropriation of land through violence or the threat of violence.

Some estimate that between four and six million hectares (10-15 million acres) of land have been stolen.

The human rights group is urging the Colombian authorities to take action stop forced displacement, improve the protection of civilians and to identify and return all stolen land and other assets to their rightful owners or their families. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8150130.stm>

Twitter employees can be a target, said Biz Stone

The microblogging service Twitter is taking legal advice after hundreds of documents were hacked into and published by a number of blogs.

TechCrunch has made public some of the 310 bits of material it was sent.

It posted information about Twitter's financial projections and products.

"We are in touch with our legal counsel about what this theft means for Twitter, the hacker and anyone who accepts...or publishes these stolen documents, " said Twitter's Biz Stone.

In a blog posting he wrote that "About a month ago, an administrative employee here at Twitter was targeted and her personal email account was hacked.

"From the personal account, we believe the hacker was able to gain information which allowed access to this employee's Google Apps account which contained Docs, Calendars and other Google Apps Twitter relies on for sharing notes, spreadsheets, ideas, financial details and more within the company."

Mr Stone, Twitter's co-founder, went on to stress that "the attack had nothing to do with any vulnerability in Google Apps".

He said this was more to do with "Twitter being in enough of a spotlight that folks who work here can be a target".

In his blog post, Mr Stone underlined the need for increased online security within the company and for staff to ensure their passwords are robust.

It is believed a French hacker who goes by the moniker "Hacker Croll" illegally accessed the files online by guessing staff members' passwords.

"News value"

A number of technology blogs were offered the documents for publication in what is now being dubbed "Twittergate" in some online forums.

Sensitive documents were hacked

TechCrunch, one of the most respected blogs in Silicon Valley, has set off a firestorm of criticism and debate over its decision to post some of the material.

It started things off with what it called a "softball" and published details about a reality TV show involving Twitter. Details of such a programme were made public in May.

That was followed by documents relating to an internal Twitter financial forecast that the company said is no longer accurate.

"There is clearly an ethical line here that we don't want to cross, and the vast majority of these documents aren't going to be published, at least by us.

"But a few of the documents have so much news value that we think it's appropriate to publish them," wrote TechCrunch Editor and founder Michael Arrington

Mr Arrington noted the site received a deluge of comments on the issue and said "many users say this is "stolen" information and therefore shouldn't be published. We disagree.

"We publish confidential information almost every day on TechCrunch. This is stuff that is also "stolen," usually leaked by an employee or someone else close to the company."

The TechCrunch founder cited examples of stories it has covered in the past that involved information it had acquired and also those covered by newspapers like the Wall Street Journal that had done a similar thing.

Mr Arrington said that he has also consulted lawyers about the laws that cover trade secrets and the receipt of stolen goods.

"Embarrassing"

Many in the technology industry said this latest episode points to the potent reminder of how much information is stored in the cloud and the vulnerability or otherwise of that data.

Twitter needs to force users to wise up, said one analyst

The hacker has claimed to have wanted to teach people to be more careful and in a message to the French blog Korben, wrote that his attack could make internet users "conscious that no one is protected on the net."

"The security breach exploited "an easy-to-guess password and recovery question, which is one of the simplest ways to make a username and password combination really insecure," said Phil Wainewright of ZDNet.com

"Unfortunately, users won't wise up until the cloud providers force them to."

In a study last year the security firm Sophos found that 40% of internet users use the same password for every website they access.

The affair has put Google on the defensive because the information was stored in Google Apps, an online package of productivity software that includes email, spreadsheets and calendars.

The company issued a blog post. While it highlighted the need for strong security, it said it could not discuss individual uses or customers.

Twitter's Mr Stone tried to play down the importance of the information being touted around the web.

"Obviously, these docs are not polished or ready for prime time and they're certainly not revealing some big, secret plan for taking over the world.

"This is "akin to having your underwear drawer rifled: Embarrassing, but no one's really going to be surprised about what's in there." That is an apt apology," Mr Stone said.

At the social media blog Mashable, Adam Ostrow agreed.

"It's another embarrassing moment in Twitter's torrid growth, but nothing that's likely to bring the house down." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8153122.stm>

Project Apollo might have been commissioned as a feel good project to boost the morale of a bruised superpower, but it was conceived as a piece of pure scientific exploration.

In his final essay marking the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 - which launched on 16 July 1969 - Dr Christopher Riley looks back at the part scientific curiosity played in inspiring the Moon landings.

One of Arthur C Clarke's "laws" states that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Some technological advancement take place over centuries, and some can occur within a single generation - leaving those who lived through it with that feeling of magic.

Apollo was an even faster example. Within eight years, we leapt from being unable to fly in space to living briefly on the Moon.

The world's oldest man at the time - Charlie Smith - reportedly born in 1842 was at the launch of the final Moonshot and simply couldn't believe where the men onboard were heading.

The science imperative was there

Even Apollo 11's Michael Collins, a man intimately connected with the machinations of his mission, once said he felt that there was some magic within the smooth clockwork-like running of his flight.

Such technological leaps require springboards of scientific curiosity, and Apollo was no exception.

Unsure about where the new president would point them (as Nasa always tends to be when new administrations come to office), the agency had prepared a number of options for President Kennedy to consider.

Chief amongst these were plans for a manned lunar exploration programme; conceived not by military strategists for reasons of Cold War bravado, nor by politicians with an eye on national prestige, but by one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th Century - a man passionately interested in our origins.

Planetary scientist Harold Urey had first suggested to Nasa that it commence a lunar exploration programme in the 1950s.

Urey figured that the Moon, lacking atmospheric weathering and the recycling of its crust through plate tectonics, might preserve some truly ancient geological relics from the early Solar System, long gone on Earth.

Ignited by Urey's curiosity, Nasa came up with ambitious plans to investigate his theories, harnessing an armada of robotic mapping missions and culminating in a manned landing.

With an estimated price tag of $11bn, there was little chance of it being adopted by the new President, but Nasa had it on the table just in case.

That case arose on the 12 April 1961, just three months after Kennedy had come to office, when Major Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth.

Kennedy immediately consulted his Vice President to find out what they could do to restore some national pride and Johnson was quick to recommend Nasa's novel lunar exploration programme.

At first Kennedy was reportedly unsure. With no guarantees of success, it seemed like a lot of money to convince Congress to spend. But Johnson was persuasive.

The Saturn V astonished all those who saw it, and felt its power

"To be second in space is to be second in everything," he told the President. Put that way, Kennedy had little choice but to embrace it. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8152431.stm>

Mr Obama warned against complacency in the push for reform

US President Barack Obama has described the Senate health committee's vote to approve a healthcare reform bill as a "major milestone".

And he urged Congress to pass a health reform bill by the beginning of August.

The committee's bill would expand coverage to 97% of Americans, at a cost of some $600bn (£365bn).

With its vote on Wednesday, the panel became the first congressional committee to pass a bill. Four other panels are also working on bills.

'Urgency'

Three House of Representatives committees announced a joint proposal on Tuesday, and will begin voting on it on Thursday.

The Senate Finance Committee is also expected to vote on its bill soon.

Eventually, a combined bill will be put before both chambers for approval. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8152382.stm>

The reported scandals have been headline news in Brazil

Politicians as a class are hardly the most admired group of people in Brazilian society, but even using a fairly low benchmark the last few months have done little to enhance their standing.

The focus of recent attention and scandals has been the upper house of the Brazilian Congress, the Senate, home to just 81 politicians representing all parts of this vast country.

At the heart of what is only the latest of many controversies has been the revelation of more than 600 "secret acts" which were signed over recent years and which were not officially approved by the Senate.

These previously undisclosed measures included providing jobs for family members and friends of senators, as well as paying extra hours and giving pay rises to members of staff.

Some of those hired never turned up to do the work for which they were employed. The federal police have now been asked to carry out an investigation, and the "secret acts" have been annulled. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8153641.stm>

As Apollo 11 sped silently on its way to landing the first men on the Moon, its safe arrival depended on the work of a long-haired maths student fresh out of college and a computer knitted together by a team of "little old ladies".

Now, 40 years after Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, the work of these unsung heroes who designed and built the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) is back in the spotlight.

"I wasn't so aware of the responsibility at the time - it sort of sunk in later," said Don Eyles, a 23-year-old self-described "beatnik" who had just graduated from Boston University and was set the task of programming the software for the Moon landing.

"I don't recall the risk and the responsibility and the fact that other people's lives were to some extent in our hands."

But if Mr Eyles embodied the young, can-do attitude of many of the 400,000 people who are estimated to have worked on the Apollo programme, the "little old ladies" epitomised a more cautious approach.

Why was onboard navigation a basic requirement for Apollo? Well, because the Russians might not play fair Richard Battin Director of the AGC project

The team of ex-textile workers and watch-makers were employed by defence firm Raytheon to "weave" the software into the memory of the computer.

"The astronauts toured the production facilities and got people to realise that it was real and they were real," explained Eldon Hall, designer of the AGC.

"The little old ladies said: 'that could be my son so I am going to do my job as well as I can'."

Computer Jam

The AGC was a first-of-its-kind device that would become the forerunner of all "fly-by-wire" aircraft systems and the computer that would land man on the Moon.

"The computer was tiny compared to the one in your cell phone," said Mr Eyles. "Tiny in every dimension except size."

The one cubic-foot-sized machine had the equivalent of 160 kilobytes of memory and could do a very simple addition in 24 microseconds.

"That may sound very fast, but compared to modern computers that's extremely slow," said Mr Eyles. "You have to understand that anything the computer did was made up of thousands if not millions of instructions."

Although relatively lethargic and cumbersome, Nasa realised early on that an onboard digital computer was the only way to guarantee success.

"Why was onboard navigation a basic requirement for Apollo? Well, because the Russians might not play fair. They might jam communications," Dr Richard Battin, director of the AGC project, recently told a conference.

In addition, the missions were so complex that the fledgling space agency could see no other way for the astronauts to reach the Moon.

"The pilots could not fly the thing… even though they kept thinking they would," explained Mr Hall.

In fact, some engineers thought that any intervention from the astronauts was completely unnecessary.

"From our point of view the guidance system could be completely without the pilot," Mr Hall told BBC News.

The contract to build the system - between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nasa - was the first of the Apollo programme and was signed just 76 days after JFK outlined his plans, highlighting the importance placed on the machine.

But Mr Hall remembers that many remained sceptical that it would work.

One you get it wired it's not going to change without breaking those wires Eldon Hall

"The biggest problem was convincing people that a computer could be reliable," he said. "That was harder than designing it."

In the 1960s most computers were still housed in their own building and required huge amounts of power and frequent repairs.

In contrast, the AGC had to be small, lightweight, never fail and consume less power than a 60 watt light bulb. It also had to be designed and built in eight years or less by a team that were themselves grappling with new ideas.

"I only heard the word 'digital' once through my entire time at university," admitted Mr Hall.

But the MIT lab had a long history of designing instrumentation for weapons and aircraft and it was felt that the team of engineers were up to the task.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8148730.stm>

Mr Obama said the "pain of discrimination" was still felt in the US

US President Barack Obama has told America's oldest civil rights organisation that African Americans should take charge of their own lives.

He told the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) there were "no excuses" for minority children not to succeed.

Mr Obama's comments came in a speech at a dinner marking the 100th anniversary of the NAACP.

It is his first speech focussing on race since he became US president.

The BBC's Jon Donnison in Washington says the tone of the speech was passionate, even preacher-like.

"Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America," Mr Obama told the NAACP members gathered for the anniversary dinner in New York.

He said discrimination was still felt by minorities in the US, including African Americans, Latinos, Muslim Americans and gay people.

But he told the NAACP members they had to take responsibility for their lives and their communities.

No one has written your destiny for you - your destiny is in your hands Barack Obama

"Government programmes alone won't get our children to the promised land - we need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes," he said.

The president said African American communities had "internalised a set of limitations" and "come to expect so little from the world and from ourselves".

But he said African American children should instead aspire to be scientists, engineers, Supreme Court judges and presidents.

"We have to say to our children: 'Yes, if you're African-American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighbourhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not.'

"But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school," he said.

"No one has written your destiny for you - your destiny is in your hands. You cannot forget that, that's what we have to teach our children."

Mr Obama also said he wanted to see a return to strong parenting and adults taking responsibility for the discipline of all children in their community.

He drew on his own experiences of growing up with a single mother, praising her for giving him "the chance to make the most of life". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8155077.stm>

No longer the Sears Tower - but will the new name catch on?

The Sears Tower in Chicago - one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world - is being renamed.

The 110-storey structure, which opened in 1973, is being rechristened the Willis Tower on Thursday.

London-based insurance brokerage Willis Group Holdings has secured the naming rights as part of an agreement to lease space.

But the name change has angered some protesters, who have launched a website called www.itsthesearstower.com.

The Sears Tower is not just a Chicago landmark, it's a national landmark that's known around the world Aaron Perlut PR agency Elasticity

Tourists from around the world have visited the tower's gallery to see views of Chicago.

Chicago teacher Marianne Turk, 46, told the Associated Press news agency that she was firmly against the change, as she waited to go up.

"It's always going to be the Sears Tower. It's part of Chicago and I won't call it Willis Tower. In Chicago we hold fast," she said.

Chicago landmark

The Willis Tower will be introduced to Chicago by the city's mayor, Richard Daley, during a public renaming ceremony hosted by Willis Group Holdings.

The company is hopeful that the name change will catch on.

"Everybody knows that tower," chief executive Joe Plumeri said ahead of the ceremony.

"If we're good corporate citizens and do what we should, hopefully Willis and the tower and Chicago will all become synonymous."

The glass cube that juts out from the viewing gallery on the 103rd floor

Other well-known buildings have undergone name changes - New York City's Pan Am Building became the MetLife Building, and Chicago's Standard Oil Building is now the Aon Center.

But people have not always taken to them.

Public relations experts said it could take decades for the new name of the Chicago skyscraper to take its place in the public consciousness.

"The Sears Tower is not just a Chicago landmark, it's a national landmark that's known around the world," Aaron Perlut, a managing partner at St Louis-based PR agency Elasticity, told Reuters news agency.

"We see it on our TVs, in movies and magazines, so it is part of pop culture."

"Gaining public acceptance of renaming the Sears Tower will be extremely challenging. Even with a very long, integrated marketing campaign we could be looking at a 20-to-30-year period," he said.

The building's original tenant, Sears Roebuck and Co, moved out in 1992 but its sign stayed on.

A real estate investment group, American Landmark Properties of Skokie, Illinois, now owns the building.<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8154331.stm>

A threat to blow up another French factory has not been defused

A US construction equipment firm has agreed to pay extra compensation to French workers who had threatened to explode gas canisters at their plant.

Staff at JLG Industries in Tonneins, south-western France, made the threat in order to get better redundancy terms for 53 workers.

It is the third such incident in which workers have threatened violence against employers.

Elsewhere, French workers have taken managers hostage in "boss-nappings".

The French Employment Minister, Laurent Wauquiez, described the tactics as "blackmail".

In the JLG deal, the 53 affected workers were each guaranteed 30,000 euros (£26,000; $42,000) in severance pay.

JLG Industries is a subsidiary of the US company Oshkosh, which makes cranes and work platforms.

Meanwhile, a tense stand-off continues at the bankrupt New Fabris car plant in Chatellerault, south-west of Paris, where workers have also made a threat to blow up the factory.

They have given a 31 July deadline for Renault and Peugeot, which provided 90% of the plant's work, to pay them 30,000 euros each.

Renault and PSA Peugeot said it was not their responsibility to pay workers.

The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby in Paris says there is an acute sense of injustice in France at the moment, with many workers complaining that while their bosses continue to reap company benefits and bonuses, they are paying for this economic crisis with their jobs. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8156329.stm>

Work by Sir Joshua Reynolds was among those uploaded to Wikipedia

The battle over Wikipedia's use of images from a British art gallery's website has intensified.

The online encyclopaedia has accused the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) of betraying its public service mission.

But the gallery has said it needs to recoup the £1m cost of its digitisation programme and claims Wikipedia has misrepresented its position.

The NPG is threatening legal action after 3,300 images from its website were uploaded to Wikipedia.

The high-resolution images were uploaded by Wikipedia volunteer David Coetzee.

Now Erik Moeller, the deputy director of the Wikimedia Foundation which runs the online encyclopaedia, has laid out the organisation's stance in a blog post. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8156268.stm>

Lego is used to test skills

A computer company in Denmark which has made huge strides in employing workers with autism is expecting to begin work in the UK soon.

Specialisterne was started by a Danish man whose own son has autism.

Thorkil Sonne now employs more than 40 people with autism.

He is finalising plans to set up a branch in Glasgow in the coming months.

He hopes to hire 50 workers in the first three years of operating in Scotland.

Autism affects about 1% of the population across Europe.

According to the National Autistic Society (NAS), people with the condition say a job is the one thing that would really improve their lives.

And yet a survey by Autism Europe shows 62% of adults with autism do not have any work at all. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8153564.stm>

Trent Reznor, 20 years later

Q. You’ve been very vocal about the state of the record industry and how
labels have been greedy about the whole business. How do you think it
can be improved, if at all?

Trent Reznor: It’s a kind of Mafia-type run business .. They have
systematically taken advantage of artists over the years from The
Beatles onwards. You [the artists] do all the work, they loan you money
to make records, then you pay them back and they own everything. To see
that system collapse is an exciting thing. There isn’t a clear answer on
what the right thing to do is right now, and as a musician you’re up
against a pretty difficult scenario: most kids feel it’s OK to steal
music, and do freely ... The good news is that people are excited and
interested in music ...

As an artist it’s your job to capitalize on that. It means generally
swallowing a bitter pill and saying, ‘Hey, people don’t want to buy
music, so let me give it to you. I’ll find another way to make money but
I want you on my side and hearing my music. So let’s get rid of this
walled garden of having to pay to hear it, here it is, give it to your
friends. Hey, try to come to our show if you can, or you can buy this
T-shirt of ours if you like, and that will help us out. Or, here’s a
nice version of our album that we put in a cool package for a premium
price and we’re only selling a couple thousands of them.’

There are ways that you can monetize your business, but the traditional
way of going to a record store and having to pay for it, those days are
over. In the States, there aren’t any record stores left. The only place
... is like a Best Buy where you go to buy a washing machine and there’s
a tiny rack of DVDs and CDs. I think we’re in between business models
right now ...

I’m trying everything I can to contribute to when that next model does
come up, whatever it might be, whether it’s subscriptions or whatever,
where the artist is more fairly represented and has a say and is
compensated, and you’re not paying for jets for record label CEOs ...
They’re in their last moments of death and I’m happy to see them go
’cause they’re all thieves and liars.

<http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20090713-215297/Trent-Reznor-20-years-later>

Warmed by the sun, the famous Montepulciano d'Abruzzo grapes are slowly sweetening in vineyards that slope gently towards the sea. It seems an unlikely scene for a battle.

Yet the fight over the future of this tiny patch of land in central Italy symbolises the conflict between the country's need for energy and its goal - affirmed once more at the G8 summit in the same region - to reduce its use of carbon-based fuels and protect the environment.

Italy is one of the most energy-dependent states within the G8 - importing at least 80% of its oil and gas needs. It sources some 7% of its energy needs from oilfields within Italy, and the Abruzzo region is believed to have untapped supplies beneath its mountains, olive groves and beaches.

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In the coastal town of Ortona, the struggle between an oil giant, local politicians and entrepreneurs on the one hand and web-savvy campaigners, residents and agriculturalists on the other over plans for an oil refinery in the middle of a prime, wine-producing land has reached a tense stalemate.

Walking along a white-pebbled beach lined by dense bamboo, Elga Tenaglia, a campaigner in her 30s, gestures out across the Adriatic Sea.

"I see these cargo ships - oil ships, I call them - and it disturbs me," she says. "Before, when I saw the sea I could breathe, I could relax. Not any more. Now I see them and it makes me think that things are about to change." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8152759.stm>

Jackson received second degree burns to his scalp in the accident

A spokeswoman for Pepsi said the drinks giant has no idea where "terrifying" footage of Michael Jackson's hair catching fire in 1984 came from.

The accident, which happened when the singer was filming a commercial for Pepsi at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, left him with serious burns.

"We don't know how the footage became available," Nicole Bradley of Pepsi-Cola North America said in a statement.

"This was an unfortunate accident that occurred more than 25 years ago."

'Grateful'

The late entertainer was singing his hit song Billie Jean for a Pepsi Cola commercial when the "highly publicised" incident took place.

The footage, which surfaced for the first time this week, shows the singer's hair being set alight by a pyrotechnic explosion.

Jackson, who was 25 at the time, was taken to hospital where he was treated for second degree burns to his scalp.

It has since been alleged the pop star became addicted to pain-killing medication as a result of the incident.

"It was a terrifying event that we'll never forget," Bradley continued, saying Pepsi had been "deeply saddened" by his death last month.

"We were grateful for Michael's recovery and for the chance to continue working with him on a number of successful projects." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8156303.stm>

GE boss Jeff Immelt says the firm is delivering "solid" results

General Electric's earnings fell 47% to $2.9bn (£1.7bn) in the second quarter of 2009 from the same period last year as the slowdown took its toll.

Revenues fell 17% to $39.1bn from the same quarter last year.

The company has been hit by falling revenues and profits at Capital Finance, its finance arm.

The conglomerate, seen as a barometer of US economic health, has interests ranging from the media to finance to heavy industry.

A 13% growth in profit at its energy infrastructure division was offset by an 80% drop at Capital Finance and a 41% fall at NBC Universal, the statement said.

"In a global economic environment that continues to remain challenging, GE delivered solid second-quarter business results," said Jeff Immelt, GE chairman and chief executive.

"We are executing through the recession by aggressively controlling costs and driving working capital improvements while continuing to invest for future growth." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8155815.stm>

A second person has died following the collapse of a stage being constructed for a Madonna concert in France.

Charles Prow, a 23-year-old from Headingley in Leeds, died overnight at a hospital in Marseille.

Technicians had been setting up the stage at the city's Velodrome stadium when the partially-built roof fell in on Thursday, bringing down a crane.

Madonna said she was "devastated" by the news. Her concert, planned for Sunday, has been cancelled.

Charles Criscenzo, a 53-year-old French worker, was killed outright in the accident, which took place at around 1715 (1615 BST).

Eight other people were seriously hurt, including an American who was hospitalised in a life-threatening condition.

More than 30 people suffered minor injuries and shock, according to authorities.

'Shaking and collapsing'

The 60,000-seater Velodrome is France's second-biggest sports arena and home to the Olympique de Marseille football club.

Firefighters said the accident occurred when the roof of the stage became unbalanced as it was being lifted by four cranes, toppling one of them.

The planned concert was part of Madonna's Sticky and Sweet tour

About 50 people from a range of nationalities were working to set up the structure, city sports official Richard Miron said.

The roof "started shaking and collapsing" gradually, said Marseille city councillor Maurice Di Nocera.

"Since it did not collapse right away that allowed several people to get out," he said.

Madonna, who is performing on her Sticky and Sweet tour, was in Udine, Italy, when she was told of the incident.

"I am devastated to have just received this tragic news," she said in a statement released by Live Nation, the organisers of the concert.

"My prayers go out to those who were injured and their families, along with my deepest sympathy to all those affected by this heartbreaking news."

Mr Prow's family have contacted the BBC, saying he was "a much-loved son, grandson, brother, uncle and friend". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8154643.stm>

Mrs Clinton has sought to allay Indian fears on carbon cuts

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Delhi, with climate change set to top her agenda.

Mrs Clinton has sought to allay fears the US will press India on carbon emission cuts but will also argue they do not contradict economic development.

Mrs Clinton is on a five-day visit and spent the first two in Mumbai.

She will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other officials, with relations with Pakistan also sure to be high on the agenda.

Mistakes

Carbon emissions remain a sensitive subject for developing countries such as India and China, and they have refused to commit to cuts in a new treaty.

They argue that the cuts restrict development and that countries like the US must do more themselves as they have been historically to blame for the emissions.

India is concerned carbon cuts could harm development

Mrs Clinton, however, will argue there is no contradiction between economic development and low carbon emissions.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with Mrs Clinton, says the secretary of state accepts that developed countries made the mistakes that led to the current environmental problems, but that countries like India could lead in a different direction.

Our correspondent says the talks in Delhi promise to be spirited, although there is no indication of what outcome is expected.

But she notes that the belief in the travelling US team is that governments are often more willing to take action than publicly agree to proposals or requests.

The key date for climate change is December - when a summit in Copenhagen, Denmark will look to forge a new international treaty that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Another key issue on Mrs Clinton's agenda in Delhi will be India-Pakistan relations.

The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says that publicly Mrs Clinton has insisted that what Pakistan and India do is completely up to them.

However, he says that everyone in Delhi is clear that it was pressure from Washington that pushed the countries to hold talks in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt last week.

Pakistan-India relations dominated Mrs Clinton's visit to Mumbai, in the wake of attacks on the city last November that left more than 170 people dead.

India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attack.

Much of the US focus in the region has been on countering militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mrs Clinton will also be looking for other tangible agreements, mostly related to nuclear energy and weapons, deals that would pave the way for more business for American companies. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8157818.stm>

CalMac has been working to fix a fault on the Isle of Lewis ferry

The controversial first Sunday ferry sailing from Stornoway on Lewis to mainland Scotland will go ahead as planned, the operators have said.

The managing director of Caledonian MacBrayne said he was "very hopeful" the usual ferry would be repaired in time for the Sunday afternoon sailing.

A replacement vessel has been operating on the route since the ferry suffered engine problems on Friday.

The MV Isle of Arran was drafted in to make crossings on Saturday to catch up.

A backlog of hundreds of would-be passengers had built up at the mainland port of Ullapool after the MV Isle of Lewis developed a fault.

Sabbath day

CalMac Managing director Phil Preston said: "We are aiming very much to have the Isle of Lewis back on schedule for 1430 BST on Sunday."

The plan for a sailing on the island's Sabbath day has been controversial.

Councillors in the Western Isles opposed the Sunday service, describing it as an attack on the culture, heritage and way of life in Lewis.

However, others said it would be a great benefit to the islands.

Mr Preston said the main issue for CalMac was legal advice which said refusing to provide a service on the grounds of religion or belief would "most likely" be in breach of the Equalities Act 2006.

The Reverend Dr James Tallach of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland said it "grieved the spirit when the law of God is broken".

He said the fourth commandment states "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy".

"CalMac made a great play that they must keep the law", he said.

"Well, I ask them what about the law of God?

"We will not be tried at the end of the day, when all of us stand before the judgment seat of Christ, on the basis of EU law." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8157570.stm>

The recession means Mr Zuma has little room for manoeuvre

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma has named former deputy governor Gill Marcus as the new governor of the country's central bank.

She replaces Tito Mboweni, who has faced criticisms in some quarters for keeping interest rates too high, and will take over in November.

Ms Marcus served as deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank between 1999 and 2004.

She is currently chairwomen of banking group Absa.

"I have reappointed Mr Mboweni as Reserve Bank Governor. However, he has indicated his wish to leave in November 2009 to pursue other interests," said Mr Zuma.

"I have therefore decided to designate Ms Gill Marcus."

The appointment has been closely watched. With the country in recession, the president has come under pressure from unions to loosen monetary policy, and focus more on job creation.

But, for now, Mr Zuma seems to be resisting such calls.

"She's not new... let nobody wonder what's going to happen. She was there when the policy was made, so there's nothing really new," he said. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8158000.stm>

Mrs Cisneros says the government works hard for the people

Thirty years on, Esperanza Cisneros is as much a believer as ever.

Her small Managua home seems like a shrine to the Sandinista Revolution. Its walls are adorned with political slogans.

A bicycle in the front porch has two black and red flags flying from the handlebars. Patriotic music blasts from the CD player.

But her enthusiasm is balanced with pain.

Like thousands of Nicaraguan mothers she lost a son to this country's violent political upheaval.

"A lot of blood was spilt", she says, "but now we have a government working hard for the people."

In 1979, almost the entire population of Nicaragua agreed with her.

The ouster of the dynastic dictator Anastasio Somosa was seen as a victory of hope over repression.

For as long as most Nicaraguans could remember, the Somosa ruling family had held a feudal grip on the country. The country's police force was notorious for its liberal use of torture.

By the time the Sandinistas, who took their name from their murdered historical hero Agustin Sandino, rolled into Managua, they were feted as liberators.

Their leader, a young man called Daniel Ortega, was seen as the new incarnation of Sandino.

'Revolution over'

Daniel Ortega says he has changed his colours since the revolution days

But within months the mood changed. Many deserted Ortega, viewing his style of government as authoritarian and proto-communist.

A new rebellion began. It was stoked by foreign interests.

The Soviets backed the Sandinistas. The United States, fearing communism in its back yard, backed the counter-revolutionaries or "contras".

Overall, 50,000 lives were lost in the revolution and ensuing war, before a truce was declared in 1987.

That is more than 1% of the population. The equivalent of three million Americans.

Now Mr Ortega is back in power again, after winning the 2006 presidential election.

He says he has changed his colours, and that his administration is about reconciliation.

His government includes some of his old foes from the civil war days. An alliance has also been formed with the Roman Catholic Church.

As an apparent symbol of a softer, more inclusive form of rule, propaganda posters across the country are now pink, rather than the traditional red and black of the Sandinistas.

This leadership is not revolutionary at all Erik Flakoll

Some suggest the revolution is well and truly over.

Erik Flakoll, an American martial arts expert, was one of thousands of foreign idealists who came to Nicaragua in the 1970s and 80s to support something they believed in.

Months after arriving in 1980 he found himself recruited as a bodyguard to the senior Sandinista leaders.

His photo album shows him a as a young man in combat fatigues travelling the world with the new heroes of the eastern bloc.

"The uniform is from East Germany" he points out, with a smile.

Now he sees the men he once worked for as a sordid new elite, running a new oligarchy, in complete betrayal of their professed ideals.

"This leadership is not revolutionary at all," he says. "I do not know how history will determine who is the greatest thief. Is it Somosa...or will it be Daniel Ortega?

Grinding poverty

Such allegations are dismissed as absurd by Eden Pastora, aka Comandante Cero, as we talk in his office a few days before the 30th anniversary.

Unemployment is as high as 80% in some parts of the country

The room is stacked full of guns, ammunition and revolutionary memorabilia.

The silver haired ex-commander is something of a legend in revolutionary history. With 19 comrades he stormed the Nicaraguan congress in 1978, in a spectacular publicity boost for the Sandinista movement.

He has since had his differences with the Ortega leadership, but now he appears back on side.

"Everybody has heard the stories" he says. "That Daniel was funded by Qaddafi, $100,000 a month…that his brother, the head of the army was given $50,000.

"It's not true. I have been to his house. The ceiling is falling to bits. There are cobwebs everywhere. If it were true the people would not have voted for him".

He points to the achievements of the Ortega governments, from literacy campaigns to housing projects.

But most Nicaraguans have other priorities than judging whether the Sandinista revolution has been a success, or a fraud.

Grinding poverty is daily life for half the population. Unemployment in many areas is around 80%.

La Chureca rubbish dump on the outskirts of the city is home for hundreds of families, who somehow survive picking through the putrid garbage of their marginally more fortunate neighbours.

It is a place where ideology seems irrelevant.

I ask one man, stooped over a pile of plastic bags, what he thinks of his government.

"Things just seem to get worse", he says. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8157762.stm>

Chris Hogg heads to the small Chinese village of Zhushanxia, 200km from Shanghai, to see how lives have been shaped by the economy under communist rule, the recession and the country's economic recovery.

Huang Jiao Ling lives at the end of a long dusty road.

Mobile phone numbers are daubed all over the walls of her home and those of her neighbours.

It is like a strange kind of mathematical graffiti, but the numbers are, in fact, advertisements for people offering goods and services.

In modern China, it seems everyone has something to sell.

Huang Jiao Ling, too, is an entrepreneur. She is in her 50s, but she looks younger.

In her front garden, where others might have planted vegetables, she has built a small workshop.

Inside, the walls are unfinished and the floor uneven, but there is just about enough room for a work-bench and a handful of basic machine tools.

Churning out widgets

On the floor are cardboard boxes filled with piles of tiny metal widgets.

They are simple to make - her husband sits at the bench turning them out rapidly by hand.

Many Chinese run their own small businesses in order to get ahead

A few feet away, his bicycle-taxi is parked just inside the front door of the house.

The machine work is a lot less tiring than pedalling passengers around, but he still keeps the bike.

It is useful, he says, to supplement their income in leaner times.

The Huangs sell the boxes of widgets to the factory where Huang Jiao Ling has a full-time job.

For a while this year they had to shut the workshop as demand dropped, but now the machines are humming again.

They have two children, because if you live in the country and your first child is a girl, you are allowed to have another one.

The girls go to very good schools, the best Huang Jiao Ling can afford.

She spends more than half her income on school fees.

"We have to think of their future," she tells me.

"It's a Chinese tradition. Parents always think of their children, and when the parents get old, their children will look after them. It's the same for every generation."

Yu Feng Guo is Huang Jiao Ling's brother-in-law.

She is doing well for herself in China's new modern market economy, but he has been left behind.

He used to work in a state-owned brick factory. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8155630.stm>

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a reported US request that a building project in Jerusalem be halted.

The project involves building 20 apartments in the mainly Arab East Jerusalem area, which was captured by Israel in 1967.

Last week US officials told the Israeli ambassador that the project should be suspended, Israeli media said.

But Mr Netanyahu rejected this in comments at his weekly Cabinet meeting.

"We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem," he said.

"Unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable."

Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It has annexed the city and declared its east and west Israel's eternal capital.

This undermines the efforts being exerted to revive the peace process Saeb Erekat, Palestinian negotiator Demolitions build Jerusalem tension Obstacles to peace: Jerusalem

This is not recognised by the international community, with the east of the city considered occupied territory.

Palestinians hope to establish their capital in East Jerusalem, as part of a two-state peace deal with the Israelis.

They say Israel uses settlement and demolition orders to try to force them from the area. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8158062.stm>

What is the legacy of the moon landing?

Bangkok's showcase new international airport is no stranger to controversy.

Built between 2002 and 2006, under the governments of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the opening date was repeatedly delayed.

It has been dogged by allegations of corruption, as well as criticism of the design and poor quality of construction.

Then, at the end of last year, the airport was shut down for a week after being occupied by anti-government protesters.

Now new allegations have been made that a number of passengers are being detained every month in the duty free area on suspicion of shoplifting, and then held by the police until they pay large sums of money to buy their freedom.

That is what happened to Stephen Ingram and Xi Lin, two IT experts from Cambridge, as they were about to board their flight to London on the night of 25 April this year.

They had been browsing in the duty free shop at the airport, and were later approached by security guards, who twice asked to search their bags.

Mr Ingram and Ms Xi were told they had to pay £7,500

They were told a wallet had gone missing, and that Ms Lin had been seen on a security camera taking it out of the shop.

The company that owns the duty free shop, King Power, has since put the CCTV video on its website, which does appear to show her putting something in her bag. However the security guards found no wallet on either of them.

Despite that, they were both taken from the departure gate, back through immigration, and held in an airport police office. That is when their ordeal started to become frightening.

Interpreter

"We were questioned in separate rooms," Mr Ingram said. "We felt really intimidated. They went through our bags and demanded that we tell them where the wallet was."

The two were then put in what Mr Ingram describes as a "hot, humid, smelly cell with graffiti and blood on the walls".

Mr Ingram managed to phone a Foreign Office helpline he found in a travel guide, and was told someone in the Bangkok embassy would try to help them.

The next morning the two were given an interpreter, a Sri Lankan national called Tony, who works part-time for the police.

They were taken by Tony to meet the local police commander - but, says Mr Ingram, for three hours all they discussed was how much money they would have to pay to get out.

Mr Ingram and Ms Xi were taken to meet the local police commander

They were told the charge was very serious. If they did not pay, they would be transferred to the infamous Bangkok Hilton prison, and would have to wait two months for their case to be processed.

Mr Ingram says they wanted £7,500 ($12,250) - for that the police would try to get him back to the UK in time for his mother's funeral on 28 April.

But he could not arrange to get that much money transferred in time. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8154497.stm>

Most land in Tuvalu is less than a metre above sea level.

The tiny Pacific island state of Tuvalu has said it wants all its energy to come from renewable sources by 2020.

Public Utilities Minister Kausea Natano said his nation of 12,000 people wanted to set an example to others.

Tuvalu is made up of a string of atolls with the highest point only 4.5m (15 ft) above sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to flooding.

The government hopes to use wind and solar power to generate electricity, instead of imported diesel.

"We look forward to the day when our nation offers an example to all - powered entirely by natural resources such as the sun and the wind," Kausea Natano said.

Inspiring others

Tuvalu and many other low-lying atolls in the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean fear that global warning could lead to sea level rises that could literally wipe them off the map.

Other nations - including Norway, New Zealand, Iceland and Costa Rica - have also vowed to become carbon neutral, reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases to zero.

Most of these countries have relatively small populations, and their pledges are unlikely to make a significant difference in the overall battle against global warming.

But many environmentalists say their stance is nevertheless important, as they provide a lead for other countries to follow.

"In a sense, they are paving the way for medium and larger economies which have to move if we are going combat climate change," Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme, told the French news agency AFP.

Tuvalu estimates it would will cost about $20m to generate all its electricity by using renewables. It has already begun the process by installing a $410,000 solar system on the roof of the main soccer stadium in the capital, Funafuti. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8158604.stm>

His memoir of an impoverished Irish childhood catapulted Frank McCourt into the spotlight

Frank McCourt, who died of cancer on 19 July, was a New York schoolteacher who achieved literary fame later in life with his "epic of woe" about his impoverished Irish childhood.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in August 1930, the eldest of seven children of Malachy and Angela McCourt.

It was a year after the Wall Street Crash and unable to find work in the depths of the Depression, the McCourts returned to their native Limerick, in 1934, where they sank deeper into poverty.

His father was a drinker and when McCourt was 11, he left to find work in the factories of wartime England.

He sent little money to the family, leaving Angela to raise four children - a baleful period, which would become the material of his best-selling work Angela's Ashes.

In the book, he describes an entire block of houses sharing a single outhouse, flooded by constant rain, and infested with rats and vermin.

Three of his seven siblings died, and he nearly perished from typhoid fever.

Aged 19, he left Ireland to return to the United States where, after a stint working in a hotel, he was drafted and sent to Germany. Upon his discharge from the army, he returned to New York where he held a series of jobs before enrolling in New York University.

After receiving a Masters degree from Brooklyn College in 1967, he taught English at McKee High School and Stuyvesant High School in New York City. His career as a teacher was to last 30 years.

Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood Opening lines of Angela's Ashes

Until his mid-60s, McCourt was known primarily around New York as a creative writing teacher and a local character - the kind who might turn up in a New York novel - singing songs and telling stories with his younger brother and otherwise joining the crowds at the White Horse Tavern and other literary hangouts.

But there was always a book or two being formed in his mind and the world would learn his name, and story, in 1996, after a friend helped him get an agent and his then-unfinished manuscript was quickly signed by Scribner.

"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood," was how Angela's Ashes began.

"People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty, the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests, bullying schoolmasters; the English and all the terrible things they did to us for 800 long years." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8158584.stm>

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and leading California legislators say they have agreed a plan to close a state deficit of more than $26bn (£17bn).

Mr Schwarzenegger said the plan would include $15bn of spending cuts and no significant tax increases.

Legislators said they were hoping to vote on the plan on Thursday.

Mr Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency earlier this month after legislators missed a deadline to agree a budget for the coming financial year.

Amid a protracted fiscal crisis, the office of the state controller has been sending promissory notes, or IOUs, to thousands of contractors and vendors providing state services.

Monday's deal came after more than two weeks of intense negotiations.

"We are very happy to have a basic agreement," Mr Schwarzenegger said as he announced the plan.

California's lawmakers approved a budget package in February that was designed to plug the state's deficit until the summer of 2010.

But the recession has sharply reduced state revenues, making further measures necessary.

Along with the spending cuts, the plan proposes to raise money by borrowing from local government, moving funds from other government accounts and accelerating the collection of some taxes.

California's assembly speaker, Democrat Karen Bass, said the plan protected basic social services that her party had sought to preserve. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8160315.stm>

Top professions such as medicine and law are increasingly being closed off to all but the most affluent families, a report into social mobility has said.

Former minister Alan Milburn has chaired a study for the prime minister on widening access to high-status jobs.

He says young people in England should have access to much better careers advice to boost their ambitions.

Mr Milburn told the BBC: "We have raised the glass ceiling but I don't think we have broken through it yet."

He said the professions had a "closed shop mentality" and "have become more and not less exclusive over time".

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mr Milburn called for "a second great wave of social mobility" like that of the 1950s and 1960s to match a projected growth in the number of managerial jobs.

"It's not that Britain doesn't have talent, to coin a phrase - Britain has lots of talent," he added.

We have a country in which a former circus manager's son, John Major, became prime minister - don't talk about glass ceilings Quentin Letts Daily Mail Closing the opportunity gaps Move to widen student talent pool City reaches out to young talent

"What we have got to do is open up these opportunities so they are available for everybody."

But speaking to BBC News, Daily Mail journalist Quentin Letts said Mr Milburn was presenting an "Edwardian" view of the class system.

"If you only brought back selection into state schools and you had grammar schools again and you had a decent education system, people would be able to power though this," Mr Letts added.

"We have a country in which a former circus manager's son, John Major, became prime minister - don't talk about glass ceilings." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8160052.stm>

'Criminal aspects' probed in Jackson memorial cost

The number of city centre bars and cafes has increased

UK pubs closed at a rate of 52 per week in the first half of the year - a third more than the same period in 2008 - the British Beer & Pub Association said.

Local pubs were the most vulnerable as communities were hit by the fallout of the economic downturn, it added.

The research suggested businesses that provided food were far more resilient to the recession.

And branded pubs and cafe-style bars were opening at a rate of two a week, according to the report.

I know it's tough out there, but a lot of pub closures are due to standards dropping Mark Hopkins, Publican Should we care pubs are closing?

"Pubs are already diversifying, but unfortunately if you are a community pub, you can't transform yourself into a trendy town-centre bar," said an association spokesman.

"The biggest impact is the recession. There are fewer people out and fewer people spending money in pubs and bars, regardless of where they are," he said.

On Tuesday, two MPs tabled a motion in the House of Commons, urging their colleagues to "support their local pubs".

Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland and Labour's Lynne Jones said the pub industry was "hugely important to the British tourist trade". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8161793.stm>

As part of a series for the World Service on Europe's nomadic communities, Katia Moskvitch of BBC Russian speaks to Irish travellers in Britain.

Sweat dripping from his forehead, Commonwealth boxing champion John O'Donnell takes a powerful swing at a sparring partner.

The 23-year-old winner of the prestigious Commonwealth welterweight title in April is an Irish traveller, a Pavee.

His family has been living in a tiny encampment in West London for the past two decades.

The site's 20 caravans stand hidden between industrial buildings, with a railway running on one side and the Westway, one of the main routes into London, overhead.

There are no trees or grass; just a few flower pots to decorate the caravans' front porches.

Many travellers say they do not want to leave their caravans

"If I'm honest, it's a dump. Obviously it would be nice to get somewhere different, away from the road and the railways. But we're used to it," Mr O'Donnell says.

But the O'Donnell family say they live there not out of a lack of housing but because it is their way of life.

Pavees are nomads and caravans have been their homes for centuries.

Irish travellers do not look any different from the native community, but in the UK they have been recognised as an ethnic minority - with their own culture, traditions and language.

Their true origins are not exactly known, but some historians suggest they are descendants of the Irish peasants who became landless after Oliver Cromwell's military campaign in Ireland and during the potato famine of the 1840s.

Although known as travellers these days, most prefer to settle down.

"We're just called travellers, it's a name, nothing more," explains Mr O'Donnell. "I have never been on the road with my family." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8140429.stm>

Crack teams of volunteers keep the net online and functioning, according to leading internet lawyer Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University.

The way data is divided up and sent around the internet in many jumps makes it "delicate and vulnerable" to attacks or mistakes, he said.

However, he added, the "random acts of kindness" of these unsung heroes quietly keep the net in working order.

Professor Zittrain's comments came at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

Incidents such as when the Pakistan government took YouTube offline in 2008 exposed the web's underlying fragility, he explained.

But a team of volunteers - unpaid, unauthorised and largely unknown to most people - rolled into action and restored the service within hours.

"It's like when the Bat signal goes up and Batman answers the call," Professor Zittrain told BBC News.

Blind faith

The fragility of the internet's architecture was largely due to its origins, said Professor Zittrain.

He said it had been conceived with "one great limitation and with one great freedom".

"Their limitation was that they didn't have any money," he told the TED audience in Oxford.

It's like dark matter in the universe. There's a lot of it, you don't see it but it has a huge impact on the physics of the place Professor Jonathan Zittrain Harvard University

"But they had an amazing freedom, which was that they didn't have to make any money from it.

"The internet has no business plan - never did - no CEO, no single firm responsible for building it. Instead it's folks getting together to do something for fun, rather than because they were told to or because they were expecting to make money from it," he said.

That ethos, he suggested, had led to a network architecture that was completely unique.

"As late as 1992, IBM was known to say that you couldn't build a corporate network using internet protocol."

Internet protocol (IP), the method used to send data around the internet, was first described by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1974. Data is broken into chunks - or packets - and sent around different parts of the network, often owned by different corporations and entities.

Professor Zittrain likened it to how a drink may be passed along a row of people at a sporting event.

"Your neighbourly duty is to pass the beer along - at risk to your own trousers - to get it to its destination."

"That's precisely how packets move around the internet, sometimes in a many as 25 or 30 hops with the intervening entities passing the data around having no contractual or legal obligation to the original sender or to the receiver."

The prime minister spoke at the conference on Tuesday

The route the data takes depends on the net's addressing system, he said.

"It turns out there is no overall map of the internet. It is as if we are all sat together in a theatre but we can only see in the fog the people around us.

"So what do we do to figure out what is around us. We turn to the person on our right and tell them what we can see to the left and vice versa.

This method, he said, gives network operators a general sense of "what is where".

"This is a system that relies on kindness and trust, which also makes it very delicate and vulnerable," he said.

"In rare but striking instances, a lie told by a single entity within this honeycomb can lead to real trouble."

Bucket brigade

One example, he said, was an incident in 2008 when Pakistan Telecom accidentally took YouTube offline.

At the time, the Pakistan government asked Pakistan's ISPs to block the site, reportedly because of a "blasphemous" video clip.

However, a network error caused a worldwide blackout of the site.

"This one ISP in Pakistan decided to [institute] the block for its subscribers in a highly unusual way," said Professor Zittrain.

"It advertised that … it had suddenly awakened to find it was YouTube."

Because of the way that the network spreads messages between neighbours, the announcement quickly reverberated around the world.

Passing a drink, firefighting, and saving the net - driven by similar motivations

Within two minutes, YouTube was completely blocked.

"One of the most popular websites in the world, run by the most powerful company in the world, and there was nothing that YouTube or Google were particularly privileged to do about it," said Professor Zittrain.

However, he said, the problem was fixed within about two hours.

This was down to a largely unknown group known as the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG), he said.

NANOG is a forum for distributing technical information among computer and network engineers.

"They came together to help find a problem and fix it," he said.

Despite being unpaid volunteers they were able to put YouTube back on line, he said.

"It's kind of like when your house catches on fire," he said.

"The bad news is there is no fire brigade. The good news is that random people appear from nowhere, put out the fire and leave without expecting payment or praise."

The same social structures - and in particular kindness and trust - are also responsible for websites such as Wikipedia, he said.

"It's like dark matter in the universe. There's a lot of it, you don't see it but it has a huge impact on the physics of the place," he earlier told the BBC.

This year's TED Global conference runs from 21 to 24 July. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8163190.stm>

If top professions in Britain are tough to break into for disadvantaged children, as former UK minister Alan Milburn's report on social mobility found, is there a land of opportunity that can serve as a beacon? Yes, but it's not the US, argues University of Ottawa professor Miles Corak.

---

The American Dream promises that aspiration, hard work and individual enterprise will be rewarded with prosperity, regardless of family background.

President Barack Obama, the first black president, epitomises this; but all too often the dream fails to match reality.

The truth is that the US sits with the UK at the bottom of the international league table of social mobility.

TOP FOR SOCIAL MOBILITY Norway Canada/Denmark/Sweden Finland Germany UK US Source: London School of Economics

Family background has as strong an influence on socio-economic opportunity in the classless United States as it does in the supposedly hidebound class-ridden UK.

In terms of giving children a good start in life and having a fair labour market, both countries probably have much to learn from those at the top of the league table - Finland, Norway and Canada, among others.

A generation ago the UK spent less on the education of its children than most other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

This without doubt contributed to the lack of social mobility experienced by today's adults.

Class in the classroom

But Finland spent no more per pupil than the UK; the United States the most.

School financing in the US, based on local property taxes, is a strong force for concentrating advantage across the generations.

More affluent parents in America shop for schools, move neighbourhoods and spend a great deal on private tuition for their children.

This is in sharp contrast to the broad-based and universal structure of the Finnish system.

Ready for school? Obama has encouraged all children to achieve

The UK has a good deal more in common with the US than it does with Finland, but is increasingly recognising that access to good quality education is a playing field that needs to be levelled.

Reform of school financing does not appear to be a priority for the current US administration.

But President Obama's focus on healthcare - if it is truly reformed in a way that will boost access for poorer children - may well pay dividends in promoting social mobility for the long run.

The point is that what matters is not so much the size of the government's social budget, but the degree to which the dollars, pounds or euros are advantageous to the disadvantaged.

In a similar way, removing labour market inequality also helps social mobility. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8162616.stm>

Foz do Iguacu leads the murder rate table

A young black teenager in Brazil is nearly three times more likely to die as a result of violence than a white adolescent, a new report has concluded.

The study found that 5,000 young people aged between 12 and 18 are killed in Brazil's cities and towns each year.

The majority of victims are said to be poor, uneducated black males.

The report was prepared by the UN children's agency, Unicef, the Brazilian government and a group which monitors life in Brazil's shanty towns.

The report paints a depressing picture of the level of violent deaths among young people in Brazil.

In a projection based upon current trends, and starting from the year 2006, it suggests that some 33,000 Brazilian adolescents will die as a result of violence by the year 2012.

KEY FINDINDS On average 2 out of every 1,000 children aged 12 will die before reaching 19 Adolescent death: murder 45% of cases, natural causes 25%, accidents 22% Most violent town for youths tourist spot of Foz de Iguacu - nearly 1 in 100 youths killed Index of Adolescent Homicide (IHA) studied 267 towns and citiies with pop of 100,000+

Among the main reasons for these killings were problems linked to the consumption of drugs such as debts that were owed to traffickers. The risk of dying violently was nearly 12 times higher among young men than among teenage girls, and nearly three times as high among young blacks as whites.

With firearms singled out as one the main causes of death, the reports' authors say some form of gun control is imperative.

A Unicef official said the level of fatalities among young people was undermining the gains the government had made in bringing down infant mortality, with children saved in infancy starting to die from the age of 12.

In his first reaction to the report Brazil's President Lula pointed to efforts already being made to confront poverty and violence, but acknowledged there were still many things that needed to be done.

One official highlighted the current public focus on swine flu in Brazil in which every single death was recorded, and said the same level of concern was required over young lives lost through violence. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8162568.stm>

Courts are giving out tougher sentences for knife possession

The number of knife deaths in areas targeted by an anti-knife crime scheme has risen, the Home Office has said.

The government's Tackling Knives Action Programme started last July in 10 police areas in England and Wales.

In its first nine months, 126 people died after being attacked with a knife or other sharp object - seven more than in the same period the previous year.

Overall knife-related violence fell by 10%, but the number of deaths among teenagers remains unchanged.

The Home Office-led Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) was triggered by a series of high-profile teenage stabbings.

Police have stepped up searches and patrols in knife crime hotspots and are running courses to highlight the dangers of carrying the weapons.

A second phase of the scheme, focusing on all forms of serious violence among 13 to 24-year-olds, will now be rolled out. About £5m will be made available to the 10 original forces and six others.

Warwickshire Chief Constable Keith Bristow, who leads TKAP, said "public angst" over knife crime was understandable but added that there were some "promising signs" in the reduction of killings among youngsters.

He said: "It's a mixed picture in the sense that in some places there have been some increases but overall it's going in the right direction.

"This is a long journey. Success when you're dealing with these sort of problems might be measured in generations, not weeks or months."

The figures also showed the number of offenders aged 19 and under possessing an offensive weapon fell 13% despite an increase in stop and search measures in all 10 police force areas.

Robberies with sharp instruments against those aged 19 and under also fell by 13%. According to provisional figures knife-related hospital admissions fell 32%, compared with 18% in non-TKAP areas.

FIRST 10 TKAP AREAS Metropolitan Police Essex Lancashire West Yorkshire Merseyside West Midlands Greater Manchester Nottinghamshire South Wales Thames Valley Send us your comments Data on teen killings

And the length of court sentences increased for people caught in possession of knives or offensive weapons in England and Wales. However, a significant number are still being cautioned.

The families of some of those killed were invited to 10 Downing Street on Monday for a knife crime summit hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

Mr Johnson told the BBC it was important the overall number of stabbings had decreased.

He said: "The fact that a stabbing leads to the tragedy of a death is nothing to do with the perpetrator of the stabbing, its to do with how quickly the health service got to them, etc.

"The number of stabbings being down overall is encouraging and that's what we're looking for at this stage just one year in.

"We're not saying this programme's completed. We're saying there's a long way to go yet but there are encouraging signs."

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said tougher penalties had been introduced for knife crime and it had been made clear anyone aged 16 or over should be prosecuted for a first offence.

"This tough stance is already having a positive impact - latest figures show that more people are going to jail, and for longer, when caught carrying a knife," he said.

The families of knife crime victims met the prime minister on Monday

TKAP was launched in the Metropolitan, Essex, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire, South Wales and Thames Valley police areas.

Bedfordshire, Northumbria, South Yorkshire and British Transport Police were added to the initiative in November 2008, and Kent and Hampshire in March 2009.

Colin Knox, whose 18-year-old son Robert was fatally stabbed in south-east London last year, said the government's knife crime strategy lacked deterrence.

He said: "We need to send a strong message to the knife carrier - if you carry a knife you will get a custodial sentence, as a minimum of six months."

Professor Marian Fitzgerald, a criminologist at Kent University, said the government was putting too much emphasis on knife carrying instead of knife crime.

She said: "They have thrown a lot at very visible police enforcement, lots of stop and search, most of which yields nothing.

"Meanwhile that hardcore who are determined to perpetrate violence whatever is done are not being dealt with." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8161880.stm>

Mr Wiedeking became Porsche chief executive in 1993

German luxury car maker Porsche has said chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking and financial director Holger Haerter have resigned "with immediate effect".

Mr Wiedeking leaves with a 50m euros ($70m; £43m) payoff package.

Earlier this year, Mr Wiedeking failed in his attempt for Porsche to take over larger German rival Volkswagen (VW), despite building a 51% holding in VW.

Now the way is open for VW, Europe's biggest carmaker, to take over Porsche and add it to its brands.

The news comes as the boards of Porsche and VW hold separate meetings on the way forward.

'Reverse bid'

"The news that the Porsche chief executive is resigning is not really unexpected," Credit Suisse automotive analyst Arndt Ellinghorst told the BBC.

He leaves a quarter of a century later a much richer man - but with the manner of his departure casting a shadow over his otherwise hugely successful career Life and legacy of Wendelin Wiedeking

"He has... failed to take over Volkswagen, now Volkswagen is going for a reverse bid of the Porsche car business. I think ultimately this is going to be a good outcome."

Mr Ellinghorst pointed out that Porsche and VW have had close links since they were both founded by Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s.

"The two companies will merge their operations and I think that this is key for their performance. We are seeing all over the world in the auto industry the need for consolidation."

And he said, despite the seeming diversity between Porsche and VW cars, that the two firms would be able to work together on platforms and components.

Earlier, Porsche said it would increase its capital by at least 5bn euros ($7.10bn; £4.3bn).

It said that this new sum would "create the foundation of building an integrated car manufacturing group with Porsche and Volkswagen".

Porsche's board also endorsed negotiations for the sale of a stake to Qatar to bolster its balance sheet. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8164295.stm>

New cables could revolutionise communications in the region

The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa has gone live.

The fibre-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia.

The firm says the cable will help to boost the prospects of the region's industry and commerce.

The cable - which is 17,000km long - took two years to lay and cost more than $650m.

Seacom said in a statement the launch of the cable marked the "dawn of a new era for communications" between Africa and the rest of the world.

The services were unveiled in ceremonies in the Kenyan port of Mombasa and the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam.

School benefits

The cable was due to be launched in June but was delayed by pirate activity off the coast of Somalia.

The BBC's Will Ross in Nairobi says the internet revolution trumpeted by Seacom largely depends on how well the service is rolled out across the region.

To the disappointment of many consumers, our correspondent says some ISPs (internet service providers) are not planning to lower the cost of the internet, but instead will offer increased bandwidth.

But businesses, which have been paying around $3,000 a month for 1MB through a satellite link, will now pay considerably less - about $600 a month.

The Kenyan government has been laying a network of cables to all of the country's major towns and says the fibre-optic links will also enable schools nationwide to link into high quality educational resources.

But our correspondent says it is not clear whether the internet revolution will reach the villages, many of which still struggle to access reliable electricity.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8165077.stm>

Four-year-old Samar Abed Rabbu lost her two sisters during Israel's offensive in Gaza last December and January.

The BBC's Christian Fraser has been following the plight of Samar and her family - now divided across two continents, as Samar receives treatment in Belgium with her mother.

---

Throughout these months of gruelling therapy Belgian doctors say Samar Abed Rabbu has demonstrated remarkable courage.

Samar has lost the use of her legs but has shown remarkable spirit

She is desperate to walk again - she even simulates it on the bed with her fingers - but there is nothing the Belgian doctors can do to repair Samar's broken back.

"She has had two operations so far," said physiotherapist Pierre Van Lierde. "One in Gaza and one here in Brussels. But the bullets are lodged too deeply. It's too dangerous to remove them and at least one of them is embedded in her spinal cord."

I first met Samar in January in a hospital in Egypt. She had been evacuated from Gaza for emergency surgery, just one of scores of children who were injured as the Israelis searched out their Hamas targets.

Shocking

But there was something particularly shocking about this story.

The family alleged that Israeli soldiers had opened fire at close range - as they lined up outside the house and while Samar's grandmother waved a white flag.

When the war ended we travelled to Jabaliya, northern Gaza, to find Samar's father. He told us that Samar's two sisters - Soad, 7, and Amel, 2 - had been killed in the assault. We brought him news that his only surviving daughter was now paralysed.

Today, after months of treatment - paid for by the Belgian government - Samar is at least upright and learning to balance.

She must wear a plastic brace to correct the position of her spine.

Every day she undergoes intensive physiotherapy to move her legs and to build the strength in her upper body. On the day we visited her custom-built wheelchair had just been delivered.

Home in ruins

But these are all things that will all need to be replaced as she grows - and the question is how this family will cope when Samar is eventually sent back to Gaza.

I am desperate to see her again. But I don't want her to come back here - not to this Khaled, Samar's father Jabaliya, Gaza

The neighbourhood of Jabaliya looks exactly as it did when I was last there just over six months ago.

With the Israeli blockade still in place there is no concrete or steel to rebuild it. At the moment there is precious little to come back to.

In Gaza there is still no sign of the aid that was promised by the outside world.

In Jabaliya people are so desperate to salvage some respectability that they spend their days scavenging for broken bricks and metal, which they drag away on donkey-drawn carts.

In place of his home, Samar's father Khaled has been given a prefabricated hut - which feels like a sauna in Gaza's summer heat. It is without any running water or electricity.

"I miss my daughter terribly," he said. "I am desperate to see her again. But I don't want her to come back here - not to this. What can I offer her? She is much better where she is."

Khaled spends what little money he has on phone calls to Brussels.

Samar's family now live in a hut next to the ruins of their former home

Samar sings to him down the line.

So imagine the emotion as he had the chance to see her face in the pictures we had brought from Brussels.

The entire family gathered around as we showed Khaled the film - including Samar's young brother.

"It's been tough for all of us," said Khaled. "The family has been split for almost seven months - and we are still coping with the trauma and the grief. This little boy needs his mum."

Israeli denial

The Israeli Defence Force has told the BBC that their inquiry into the family's allegations had found no evidence of such an incident. They stressed they have never targeted innocent civilians.

The Israeli blockade has meant little rebuilding in Gaza

But the morals and behaviour of the army have been called into question by a number of serving soldiers who took part in the Gaza offensive - although the military has dismissed their testimonies as based on hearsay.

Back in Belgium, Samar's mother Kawtar says she wants to stay in Europe, even though the family has been split.

"I want Samar to get better," she says. "I am just hoping that she won't stay like this.

"The doctors say she is very smart and she performs well. I don't want to take her to Gaza because I don't want her to lose her mind like she lost her legs."

In the orderly surroundings of a Belgian hospital Samar has all the attention she needs. But it is tough enough dealing with a disability like this, never mind coping with it, amid the chaos and destruction of Gaza. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8164582.stm>

A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.

Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain.

He told the TED Global conference in Oxford that a synthetic human brain would be of particular use finding treatments for mental illnesses.

Around two billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment, he said.

"It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years," he said.

"And if we do succeed, we will send a hologram to TED to talk."

'Shared fabric'

The Blue Brain project was launched in 2005 and aims to reverse engineer the mammalian brain from laboratory data.

In particular, his team has focused on the neocortical column - repetitive units of the mammalian brain known as the neocortex.

The team are trying to reverse engineer the brain

"It's a new brain," he explained. "The mammals needed it because they had to cope with parenthood, social interactions complex cognitive functions.

"It was so successful an evolution from mouse to man it expanded about a thousand fold in terms of the numbers of units to produce this almost frightening organ."

And that evolution continues, he said. "It is evolving at an enormous speed."

Over the last 15 years, Professor Markram and his team have picked apart the structure of the neocortical column.

"It's a bit like going and cataloguing a bit of the rainforest - how may trees does it have, what shape are the trees, how many of each type of tree do we have, what is the position of the trees," he said.

"But it is a bit more than cataloguing because you have to describe and discover all the rules of communication, the rules of connectivity."

The project now has a software model of "tens of thousands" of neurons - each one of which is different - which has allowed them to digitally construct an artificial neocortical column.

Although each neuron is unique, the team has found the patterns of circuitry in different brains have common patterns.

"Even though your brain may be smaller, bigger, may have different morphologies of neurons - we do actually share the same fabric," he said.

"And we think this is species specific, which could explain why we can't communicate across species."

World view

To make the model come alive, the team feeds the models and a few algorithms into a supercomputer.

"You need one laptop to do all the calculations for one neuron," he said. "So you need ten thousand laptops."

The research could give insights into brain disease

Instead, he uses an IBM Blue Gene machine with 10,000 processors.

Simulations have started to give the researchers clues about how the brain works.

For example, they can show the brain a picture - say, of a flower - and follow the electrical activity in the machine.

"You excite the system and it actually creates its own representation," he said.

Ultimately, the aim would be to extract that representation and project it so that researchers could see directly how a brain perceives the world.

But as well as advancing neuroscience and philosophy, the Blue Brain project has other practical applications.

For example, by pooling all the world's neuroscience data on animals - to create a "Noah's Ark", researchers may be able to build animal models.

"We cannot keep on doing animal experiments forever," said Professor Markram.

It may also give researchers new insights into diseases of the brain.

"There are two billion people on the planet affected by mental disorder," he told the audience.

The project may give insights into new treatments, he said.

The TED Global conference runs from 21 to 24 July in Oxford, UK.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8164060.stm>

Spinvox has spoken several times to the BBC about its technology

A UK firm that turns mobile messages into text faces questions over its privacy standards, technology and finances following a BBC investigation.

Spinvox's service aims to convert voice messages into text messages using advanced speech recognition software.

But claims to the BBC suggest that the majority of messages have been heard and transcribed by call centre staff in South Africa and the Philippines.

The firm declined to comment on how many messages are "read" in this way.

"Speech algorithms do not learn without human intervention and all speech systems require humans for learning - Spinvox does this in real-time," the firm said in a statement.

"The actual proportion of messages automatically converted is highly confidential and sensitive data," it added.

The Spinvox website claims its technology "captures spoken words and feeds them into a Voice Message Conversion System, known as 'D2' (the Brain)".

The company said that, when necessary, parts of messages can be sent to a "conversion expert".

The part sent is anonymised so that there is no way of tracking back a particular number or person. It will be just one of millions of messages going through the automated system on a particular day, the company said.

A Facebook group created by staff at an Egyptian call centre, which used to work for Spinvox, includes a picture of one transcribed message containing what appears to be sensitive commercial information.

It also includes an audio recording of one call, and pictures of staff at the call centre.

Spinvox said that the pictures relate to a training session, and that the call centre did not meet its stringent standards and never handled live calls.

Data protection

However, the BBC has spoken to Kareem Lucilius, who said he worked for six months at the call centre, alongside as many as 150 others.

He said that after initial training, he went on to transcribe live messages. Asked what part machines played he said, "It was done 100% by people".

He described the work: "We heard the message from the very beginning to the very end. Love messages, secret messages, messages with sexual content, even people threatening to kill each other."

Other call centre staff in South Africa and the Philippines have discussed on blogs how they have also transcribed calls for Spinvox.

A source at the company has told the BBC that the vast majority of messages are in fact converted into text by staff at call centres.

The fact that messages appear to have been read by workers outside of the European Union raises questions about the firm's data protection policy.

The firm's entry on the UK Data Protection Register says it does not transfer anything outside the European Economic Area.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) told the BBC that it has contacted Spinvox "to ensure that its entry on the data protection register is both accurate and complete, especially with regards to the transfer of personal data outside the European Economic Area".

In a statement, the ICO explained there was nothing to prevent Spinvox from using people rather than machines to translate messages.

However, it said that "it may be helpful if the company is clearer about the likelihood that people will be used to translate messages".

"This is particularly important if customers are using the service for transmitting sensitive or secure information," it added.

Is Spinvox a major technology success story, cracking the age-old problem of getting a machine to understand the human voice in all its glorious, cacophonous varieties? Not yet, it isn't Rory Cellan-Jones BBC technology correspondent Dot.life: The Spinning of Spinvox

Spinvox, which has raised more than $200m (£120m) from investors, was founded in 2004.

The company source told the BBC that operating large numbers of call centres is putting a huge financial burden on the business.

Last week the company's co-founder Christina Domecq appealed to staff to take all or part of their pay for the months of July and August in the form of share options.

'Cost-cutting measures'

In an e-mail to staff she explained that the target was to raise £1m to see the company through to profitable status.

But she warned that "should we not achieve the uptake we need, unfortunately, we may have to explore further cost-cutting measures".

Daniel Doulton, the firm's other co-founder, told the BBC that it was true that the company had suffered some growing pains because of the exponential growth it was enjoying - bringing it 100 million customers around the world.

"The business now operates profitably," he said. "We are going through enormous growth as a business."

The BBC has also learned that Spinvox has been locked out of one of its London data centres, leaving it unable to get access to its servers after a dispute about payments.

A spokesman at ANLX, the company which runs the data centre, said "their access has been suspended. We are reviewing our options on a day-to-day basis."

Spinvox said it cannot comment on the dispute, but said its main data storage locations are not affected.

The company says it works with some of the world's biggest telecoms companies and institutional investors who, following due diligence and audit, have gone on to sign contracts with the voice-to-text firm.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8163511.stm>

More than 40 people, including politicians, officials and several rabbis have been arrested in a major FBI operation in the US.

Three mayors from the state of New Jersey and two members of the state legislature were among those held.

One man is accused of alleged kidney trafficking involving Israeli donors.

Three hundred FBI agents raided dozens of locations in New Jersey and New York as part of a 10-year probe into corruption and money laundering.

Prosecutors say the arrests were part of a "dual-tracked" investigation.

Acting US Attorney Ralph Marra told reporters there were 29 suspects on what he termed the "public corruption" side of the investigation, including the politicians.

On the other side, he said, there were 15 suspects in connection with alleged international money-laundering, including the rabbis and their "associates".

'Vulnerable people'

Prosecutors accuse one man of dealing in human kidneys from Israeli donors for transplant for a decade.

It is alleged that "vulnerable people" would give up a kidney for $10,000 (£6,000) and these would then be sold on for $160,000 (£97,000).

ARRESTED Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez State legislator Harvey Smith State legislator Daniel Van Pelt Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, Deal, NJ Rabbi Saul Kassin, Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Edmund Nahum, Deal, NJ Rabbi Mordechai Fish, Brooklyn, NY Informant leads FBI sting operation

Law enforcement officials say investigations originally focused on a network they allege laundered tens of millions of dollars through charities controlled by rabbis in New Jersey and neighbouring New York.

It widened to include alleged official corruption with links to a New Jersey construction boom.

State legislators Harvey Smith and Daniel Van Pelt were also arrested.

Mr Marra said: "It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action. The corruption was widespread and pervasive. Corruption was a way of life for the accused."

He said politicians had "willingly put themselves up for sale" and clergymen had "cloaked their extensive criminal activity behind a facade of rectitude".

The BBC's Jane O'Brien says the money laundering ring reportedly spanned the US, Israel and Switzerland.

Jon Corzine, the Governor of New Jersey, said: "The scale of corruption we're seeing as this unfolds is simply outrageous and cannot be tolerated."

Ed Kahrer, an FBI agent who has worked on the investigation from the start, said: "New Jersey's corruption problem is one of the worst, if not the worst, in the nation.

"It has become ingrained in New Jersey's political culture," he said.

Another FBI agent said: "The list of people we arrested sounds like it should be the roster for a meeting of community leaders, but sadly they weren't meeting in a boardroom this morning, they were in the FBI booking room."

Correspondents say the number of people arrested is large even by New Jersey standards, where more than 130 public officials have either admitted to corruption or been found guilty of it since 2001. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8165607.stm>

Passing a healthcare reform bill is a top priority for Mr Obama

The US Senate says it will not be able to vote on a US healthcare reform bill by August, in a setback to President Barack Obama's proposed timetable.

But Mr Obama said he still wanted to see the bill passed by year's end.

He said his intention was not to add to the country's fiscal deficit of over $1 trillion, but to address it by tackling spiralling health costs.

But Republicans and leading Democrats have objected to the rush, saying the bill will be taken up after the summer.

"I think that it's better to have a product that is one that's based on quality and thoughtfulness rather than trying to jam something through," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid told reporters.

The BBC's Jane O'Brien in Washington says the setback is substantial but not terminal.

'Difficult issues'

In a major televised news conference on Wednesday, the president stressed the importance of passing the bills by the end of the first week in August, so he would be in a position to sign a final, combined, bill in October.

HEALTHCARE IN THE US 47 million uninsured, 25 million under-insured Healthcare costs represent 16% of GDP, almost twice OECD average Reform plans would require all Americans to get insurance Some propose public insurance option to compete with private insurers Q&A: US healthcare reform US readers' views on health reform

On Thursday, Mr Obama conceded the bills would be delayed, but said he still wanted to see progress.

"I want the bill to get out of the committees," he told a town hall meeting in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

"I have no problem if people are really working through these difficult issues in making sure we get it right."

The reform package is intended to reduce health costs, increase choice and widen coverage.

President Obama declared he would not sign the bill if it added even a dime to the deficit over the next decade. He also said that two-thirds of the cost of reform could be met by reallocating money already in the system.

The bill will now be taken up in September when Congress returns from its summer break.

Critics will see this as a challenge to the president's authority and will question his ability to control members of his own party, our correspondent says. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8166311.stm>

After Israel's housing minister called on Jews to move to the north of the country to stop what he described as "the spread of Arabs" there, the BBC's Katya Adler reports on the struggle for land in the area.

Sami Salameh has taken me to what used to be his home before the Israeli authorities flattened it.

Metal rods and slices of skirting board are all that's left, among an expanse of sun-scorched wild grass.

He has brought along some photographs and kicks the earth as he shows them to me. The wiry 65-year-old man is angry and emotional.

"When the house collapsed so did my dreams," he says.

He insists this plot of earth belonged to his family dating back to Ottoman times. But Israel has claimed it as state land. He is not allowed to build here now.

Mr Salameh's new home is in the Arab town of Majdal Krum, in northern Israel. It's illegally built, as is the whole neighbourhood.

"Zionism is not racism... Northern Israel is Arab, it's Jewish, it's Druze - we have to value and admire each other" Ron Shani Head of Misgav regional council

His family of 14 lives in three rooms. The sewage system is poor.

Mr Salameh's wife, Ashi, tells me the atmosphere in the house is listless and depressed.

He blames their birthright - living as Arabs in the Jewish state of Israel, he says.

"I lost everything when they demolished my house. If I had equal rights, I wouldn't be in this mess. Jewish communities get building permits easily. They have electricity, water, sewage, street lights and parks. How come they live like that and we don't?"

Just outside Mr Salameh's home, a group of boys plays football in the street. Their identity, like his, is complex.

They are Israeli but also Arab. Their families stayed put in Israel after its war of independence 60 years ago.

Israel's Basic Law says all its citizens are equal, but Israeli Arabs say some Israelis are more equal than others.

Neighbouring the town is the leafy, affluent, self-proclaimed Zionist village of Manof.

It is one of the growing predominantly Jewish communities encouraged in the north by Israeli governments since the late 1970s. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8164755.stm>

A system that can deliver power to devices without the need for wires has been shown off at a hi-tech conference.

The technique exploits simple physics and can be used to charge a range of electronic devices.

Eric Giler, chief executive of US firm Witricity, showed mobile phones and televisions charging wirelessly at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

He said the system could replace the miles of expensive power cables and billions of disposable batteries.

"There is something like 40 billion disposable batteries built every year for power that, generally speaking, is used within a few inches or feet of where there is very inexpensive power," he said.

Trillions of dollars, he said, had also been invested building an infrastructure of wires "to get power from where it is created to where it is used."

Witricity claims to be able to charge gadgets large and small

"We love this stuff [electricity] so much," he said.

Mr Giler showed off a Google G1 phone and an Apple iPhone that could be charged using the system.

Witricity, he said, had managed to pack all the necessary components into the body of the G1 phone, but Apple had made that process slightly harder.

"They don't make it easy at Apple to get inside their phones so we put a little sleeve on the back," he said.

He also showed off a commercially available television using the system.

"Imagine you get one of these things and you want to hang it on the wall," he said. "Think about it, you don't want those ugly cords hanging down."

Good vibrations

The system is based on work by physicist Marin Soljacic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

It exploits "resonance", whereby energy transfer is markedly more efficient when a certain frequency is applied.

When two objects have the same resonant frequency, they exchange energy strongly without having an effect on other, surrounding objects.

For example, it is resonance that can cause a wine glass to explode when a singer hits exactly the right tone.

But instead of using acoustic resonance, Witricity's approach exploits the resonance of low frequency electromagnetic waves.

HOW WIRELESS POWER WORKS 1. First magnetic coil (Antenna A) housed in a box and can be set in wall or ceiling 2. Antenna A, powered by mains, resonates at a specific frequency 3. Electromagnetic waves transmitted through the air 4. Second magnetic coil (Antenna B) fitted in laptop/TV etc resonates at same frequency as first coil and absorbs energy 5. Energy charges the device

The system uses two coils - one plugged into the mains and the other embedded or attached to the gadget.

Each coil is carefully engineered with the same resonant frequency. When the main coil is connected to an electricity supply, the magnetic field it produces is resonant with that of with the second coil, allowing "tails" of energy to flow between them.

As each "cycle" of energy arrives at the second coil, a voltage begins to build up that can be used to charge the gadget.

Mr Giler said the main coil could be embedded in the "ceiling, in the floor, or underneath your desktop".

Devices using the system would automatically begin to charge as soon as they were within range, he said.

"You'd never have to worry about plugging these things in again."

Safety concerns

Mr Giler was keen to stress the safety of the equipment during the demonstration.

"There's nothing going on - I'm OK," he said walking around a television running on wireless power.

The system is able to operate safely because the energy is largely transferred through magnetic fields.

Magnetic fields interact with everyday objects less than electric fields

"Humans and the vast majority of objects around us are non-magnetic in nature," Professor Soljacic, one of the inventors of the system, told BBC News during a visit to Witricity earlier this year.

It is able to do this by exploiting an effect that occurs in a region known as the "far field", the region seen at a distance of more than one wavelength from the device.

In this field, a transmitter would emit mixture of magnetic and potentially dangerous electric fields.

But, crucially, at a distance of less than one wavelength - the "near field" - it is almost entirely magnetic.

Hence, Witricity uses low frequency electromagnetic waves, whose waves are about 30m (100ft) long. Shorter wavelengths would not work.

'Ridiculous technology'

Witricity is not the first jump on the concept of wireless electricity.

For example, the nineteenth century American inventor Thomas Edison and physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla explored the concept.

"In the very early days of electricity before the electric grid was deployed [they] were very interested in developing a scheme to transmit electricity wirelessly over long distances," explained Professor Soljacic.

Intel showed off its wireless power solution in August 2008

"They couldn't imagine dragging this vast infrastructure of metallic wires across every continent."

Tesla even went so far as to build a 29m-high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower in New York.

"It ran into some financial troubles and that work was never completed," said Professor Soljacic.

Today, chip-giant Intel has seized on a similar idea to Witricity's, whilst other companies work on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer, such as lasers.

However, unlike Witricity's work, lasers require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.

In contrast, Mr Giler said Witricity's approach could be used for a range of applications from laptops and phones to implanted medical devices and electric cars.

"Imagine driving in the garage and the car charges itself," he said.

He even said he had had interest from a company who proposed to use the system for an "electrically-heated dog bowl".

"You go from the sublime to the ridiculous," he said.

Ted Global is a conference dedicated to "ideas worth spreading". It runs from the 21 to 24 July in Oxford, UK. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8165928.stm>

For centuries, scientists have puzzled over why the toucan's bill is so remarkably large - but now one team thinks it might have an answer.

Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say that the toucan uses its enormous beak to stay cool.

They used infrared cameras to show the bird dumping heat from its body into its bill, helping it to regulate its body temperature.

The toucan has the largest bill of any bird, relative to body size.

It makes up about one-third of its total body length.

Hot secrets

Darwin thought that the beak could be a sexual ornament

The oversize appendage has received many different interpretations: Charles Darwin thought it might be used to attract mates, more recent ideas centre on fruit peeling, nest predation and visual warnings.

To investigate further, a team of researchers from Brock University, Canada, and Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil, looked at the toco toucan (Ramphastos toco), which has the biggest bill of all the toucans.

Dr Glenn Tattersall, the lead author of the paper, from Brock University, Canada, said: "We used infrared thermal imaging technology to assess the surface temperature of the bill of toucans while they were encountering a range of air temperatures from 10C to 35C.

"This allowed us to measure the exact temperature of the bill."

As the surroundings heat up, the toucans dump body heat into their bills

The scientists found that as the surroundings got warmer, the toucan's bill would rapidly heat up, effectively acting as a radiator to draw heat away from the bird's body, allowing it to stay cool.

Conversely, in cooler temperatures, little heat would radiate from the bill, letting the bird conserve its warmth.

The effect was particularly evident at night: at sunset, the birds would, in a matter of minutes, pump out heat from their beaks, lowering their body temperature as they slept.

The birds' bills have a network of blood vessels that can increase or restrict the flow of blood.

Dr Tattersall said: "By altering blood flow to the bill's surface, toucans can conserve body heat when it is cold or cope with heat stress by increasing blood flow.

"Essentially, the large surface area of the bill, and the fact it is not insulated, means that the blood flowing through is able to release heat into the bill, thus cooling the bird.

"This blood-derived heat in the bill is then dissipated into the air." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8165895.stm>

Malaysia questions ethnic preferences

PM Najib Razak wants to win back the support of non-Malays

Malaysia's New Economic Policy is not new, it has been around for almost 40 years.

But in his first 100 days in office, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak has been forced to tackle the government's most controversial policy - one that gives special treatment to the majority Malays.

It was meant to help people like Azban. He is 37, with a wife and two young children. He works in a ticket office at a train station.

I met him as we waited for the lift at the government-built tower block where he lives, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

The estate is rundown, with water pouring down from a spill higher up.

But it is better than the wooden house he used to live in before he left his village for the capital city.

For decades the NEP has ensured preferential treatment for people like Azban: special access to jobs, housing, education and loans - all because they are Malay.

Malaysia is made up of three main ethnic groups: Malays, Chinese and Indians.

The Malays make up the majority - just. The Chinese and Indians have been in this country for centuries but some Malays still regard them as foreigners.

Patronage politics

The NEP was born out of race riots in 1969.

The aim of the policy was to tackle an imbalance between rich businessmen, mostly Chinese, and the poor, who were mostly Malay.

At the time government figures claimed that Malays controlled less than 3% of the economy.

I think the people of this country realise and understand and agree that the Bumi [Malay] population of this country needs to be supported Syed Amin Malay Chamber of Commerce

Ramon Navaratnam was one of the team of government economists who helped draw up the NEP.

"The principle was, have an expanding cake, with more balance and equity provided for Malays or the underprivileged - of all races it was supposed to be."

But he said the noble aims were soon displaced by the politics of patronage.

"Some politicians got smart about it and wanted to allocate special reservations and shares and stocks and contracts to Malays, and very often it went to the wrong Malays, who had no clue about business."

Forty years on the Malays, who are also known as Bumiputra, which means "son of the soil", have grown in economic power.

According to government statistics they control 20% of the economy, but that is still some way off the target of 30%.

Malay students are granted preferential access to universities

It may have been an effective political tool but many people, such as Syed Amin from the Malay Chamber of Commerce, see it as a failed project.

"There is no point in saying that we have achieved some measure of success just because we have trained a few Bumis in being professionals" he told me.

He thinks the Malays still need special help.

"I think the people of this country realise and understand and agree that the Bumi population of this country needs to be supported." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8165746.stm>

It was thought adult heart muscle cells could not divide

Scientists say they have found a new way to mend damage to the heart.

When cells turn into fully-formed adult heart muscle they stop dividing, and cannot replace tissue damaged by disease or deformity.

But a US team have found a way to coax the cells to start dividing again, raising hopes they could be used to regenerate healthy tissue.

The study, carried out on mice and rats by Children's Hospital Boston, appears in the journal Cell.

If the same mechanisms identified by the researchers can be shown to work in the human heart, it opens up real possibilities for new and more efficient ways to treat people with heart disease Professor Jeremy Pearson British Heart Foundation

The researchers say their work could provide an alternative to stem cell therapy, which is still largely untested, and carries a potential risk of side effects.

In theory, it could be used to treat heart attack patients, those with heart failure and children with congenital heart defects.

The key ingredient is a growth factor known as neuregulin1 (NRG1).

The Boston team envisages patients going to a clinic for daily infusions of NRG1 over a period of weeks.

However, researcher Dr Bernhard Kühn said more work to established the safety of the therapy before it could be tested in humans. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8162838.stm>

Microsoft said it expected another tricky quarter.

Microsoft has reported disappointing results for the April to June quarter, with profits down by almost a third.

Net profit for the period was $3.1bn (£1.9bn), down by 29% from the same period a year earlier. Revenue came in at $13.1bn, down 17% from a year ago.

The results were worse than analysts had been expecting.

The world's largest software maker said it had been affected by weakness in the global personal computer (PC) and server markets.

Cost cutting

In after hours trading, Microsoft shares fell more than 7%, reflecting the market's disappointment with the results.

"It looked like a pretty tough quarter for Microsoft. The top line was very weak," said Toan Tran at Morningstar.

The one bright spot was the company's cost-cutting measures.

"In light of the environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750m of operational savings compared with the prior year quarter," said Chris Liddell, Microsoft's finance chief.

Microsoft makes most of its profit selling the Windows operating system and business software such as Office.

However, demand has been hit by falling sales of PCs as consumers and businesses trim spending.

Microsoft - which became a public company in 1986 - has been looking at ways of cutting costs.

In January, it said it would cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, including 1,400 immediately.

Increasing pressure

To make matters worse, the company is coming under increasing pressure from internet search engine Google, which recently announced a better-than-expected rise in second quarter profits.

Google is developing an operating system for personal computers in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system.

Microsoft itself is poised to launch its new operating system, Windows 7, this autumn. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8166262.stm>

It takes an hour of pedalling to charge a phone completely

Two Kenyan university students have invented a device that allows bicycle riders to charge their mobile phones.

Jeremiah Murimi, 24, and Pascal Katana, 22, said they wanted their dynamo-powered "smart charger" to help people without electricity in rural areas.

"We both come from villages and we know the problems," Mr Murimi told the BBC.

People have to travel great distances to shops where they are charged $2 a time to power their phone, usually from a car battery or solar panel.

"The device is so small you can put it in your pocket with your phone while you are on your bike," said Mr Murimi.

It is estimated that some 17.5 million people out of Kenya's 38.5 million population own a mobile handset - up from 200,000 in 2000.

We took most of [the] items from a junk yard Pascal Katana Young Malawian invents wind generator

The two electrical engineering students have been working on the invention, which they are selling for 350 Kenyan shillings ($4.50) each, over the last few months during their university break.

In Kenya, bicycles are sold with a dynamo to be attached to the back wheel to power the lights.

The dynamo lead can be switched to plug into the charger instead, they explained.

The BBC's Ruth Nesoba went to Nairobi University campus to see the young men demonstrate their handiwork.

Jumping on a bike, Mr Katana explained it takes an hour of pedalling to fully charge a phone, about the same time it would if it were plugged into the mains electricity.

Our reporter says after a short ride, the phone's battery display indicated that it was charging.

Guinea pigs

The cash-strapped students used old bits of electronic equipment for the project.

"We took most of [the] items from a junk yard - using bits from spoilt radios and spoilt televisions," said Mr Katana.

The dynamo is attached to the back wheel

Workers with bicycles at the campus were used as guinea pigs, including security guard David Nyangoro.

"I use a bicycle especially when I'm at home in the rural areas, where we travel a lot," he said.

"It's very expensive nowadays charging a phone. With the new charger I hope it will be more economical, as once you have bought it, things will be easier for you and no more expenses."

Mr Murimi says so far they have only made two chargers - but are making five more for people who have seen it demonstrated.

"And a non-government organisation in western Kenya wants 15 so they can test them out in rural areas to see how popular they prove," he said.

The two friends are about to start their fifth and final year at university in September.

"We are not planning to stop our studies," Mr Murimi said.

Kenya's National Council for Science and Technology has backed the project, and the students hope they will find a way of mass-producing the chargers. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8166196.stm>

Car scrappage schemes are already operating in other countries

The US government has unveiled details of its car scrappage scheme, aimed at persuading owners of "gas-guzzling" cars to exchange them for greener ones.

The $1bn programme, which runs until 1 November, offers vouchers worth up to $4,500 for people scrapping vehicles that do fewer than 18 miles per gallon.

They must buy a new car with a rating of at least 22 mpg or a light truck that manages at least 18 mpg.

Similar schemes in Europe have helped ailing firms sell more cars.

The carmaking industry has suffered worldwide from the economic downturn, which has pushed two of the big three US auto firms into bankruptcy protection.

Approved dealers

In order to qualify for the vouchers, car owners must visit the official Car Allowance Rebate System website (www.cars.gov) to find a list of approved dealers.

Vehicles to be traded in should be drivable, less than 25 years old and have been insured and registered to their owners for at least a year.

The replacement vehicle must be brand-new and should have a retail price of no more than $45,000.

Neither the old car nor the new one has to be US-made. The scheme covers domestic and foreign-made vehicles alike.

As the website makes clear, the stated purpose of the scheme is to promote fuel efficiency.

"Oil is a non-renewable resource and we cannot sustain our current rate of use indefinitely. Using it wisely now allows us time to find alternative technologies and fuels that will be more sustainable," it says.

However, similar schemes in other countries, notably the UK and Germany, have acted as a stimulus to the economy by boosting car sales and production. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8167828.stm>

Microsoft was fined by the Commission last year

Microsoft has made a new proposal to European competition regulators that it hopes will end their row over the firm's Internet Explorer web browser.

It proposes that European buyers of its new Windows 7 operating system will be offered a list of potential browsers when they first install the software.

The move comes a month after Microsoft said European buyers of Windows 7 would have to download a web browser.

Brussels ruled in January that pre-bundling Explorer hurt competition.

The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness Commission regulators

Microsoft said its proposal meant that users would be able to "easily install competing web browsers, set one of those browsers as a default, and disable Internet Explorer" from a "ballot screen" of alternative browsers.

"We believe that if ultimately accepted, this proposal will fully address the European competition law issues relating to the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows," said Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith.

'Investigate'

"The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness in terms of ensuring genuine consumer choice," said Commission regulators.

They added that Microsoft was also proposing to disclose more interoperability information about Windows to external software providers.

Last year Microsoft was fined 899m euros ($1.4bn; £680.9m) by the Commission for separate anti-competitive practices.

This penalty - the largest ever from the European Commission - came after Microsoft failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that it abused its market position.

Windows 7 is due to go on sale from 22 October. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8168235.stm>

The ISP has taken an unusual approach to copyright policing

Internet service provider (ISP) Karoo, based in Hull, has changed its policy of suspending the service of users suspected of copyright violations.

The about face was made following a BBC story outlining the firm's practice.

Karoo issued a statement on Friday, saying that it has been "exceeding the expectations of copyright owners".

The firm will now adopt a "three strikes" rule, in which suspected file-sharers will receive three written warnings before action is taken.

"We have always taken a firm line on the alleged abuse of our internet connections," said Nick Thompson, director of consumer and publishing services, in the statement.

"However, we continually review our policies and procedures to reflect own customers' changing needs and evolving use of the internet.

"It is evident that we have been exceeding the expectations of copyright owners, the media and internet users. So, we have changed our policy to move in more line with the industry standard approach."

'Totally unfair'

Karoo - the only ISP in the area, which has no BT lines - long held a policy of suspending service of suspected file-sharers. In order to get their service restored, customers had to sign a document promising not to repeat the offence.

The firm's approach is more aligned with many other ISPs' approaches to suspected file sharers, mirroring the "three strikes" rule that the music industry itself has called for.

It's an improvement that they've done that - rather than just zero chance for any negotiation Andrea Robinson Karoo customer

Andrea Robinson, a Karoo customer from Willerby, told the BBC that a day after her service was cut off, she received a letter from the firm claiming that she had been using the peer-to-peer file-sharing service BitTorrent to download the film Terminator Salvation.

On calling Karoo, she was told to visit the company's offices to resolve the issue.

"They gave me a form to sign to get reconnected," she told the BBC. "The form basically said 'if I admit my guilt you'll reconnect me'. So I didn't sign it and walked out."

Jim Killock, executive director of the digital rights activists The Open Rights Group, told the BBC that it is "totally unfair" to disconnect people without notice.

"In fact, disconnection is something that should only even possibly be considered as a result of court action," he said.

While she said that her service had still not been restored, Mrs Robinson called Karoo's policy change "a step in the right direction".

"I'm still a bit upset about it, but it's an improvement that they've done that - rather than just zero chance for any negotiation or to put your case across," she told BBC News.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8166640.stm>

Thousands of people have gathered in Edinburgh for the world's largest clan meeting and Highland Games.

The Gathering forms the centrepiece of the Homecoming celebrations, to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of national bard, Robert Burns.

It culminates with a clan parade along the Royal Mile and a pageant on the esplanade at Edinburgh Castle.

Organisers said demand for tickets had been "phenomenal", despite the event not selling out.

The convention was to see 100 of Scotland's clan chiefs assembled together for the first time in recorded history.

Hundreds of clan representatives from across the world are also in attendance.

The first minister said the event has been a great success

The Gathering got under way on Saturday, with more than 20,000 people watching the Highland Games in Holyrood Park.

It was officially opened by the Duke of Rothesay, who said it was a unique event.

"It seems to me that today's event represents the stirring meeting of Scotland's history and its living heritage," he said.

"Where else could you find a gathering of this scale?

"To which other country would so many have come from all over, and how else would you expect it to be celebrated, other than in the context of a great Highland Games?"

First Minister Alex Salmond said the event, which has attracted people from 40 countries, was more than just a marketing tool for Scotland.

"Obviously the Homecoming year has a visitor aspect to it," he said.

"But all of these people are celebrating their heritage and roots.

"These are deep roots and affinities that stretch back centuries. To mobilise that wonderful diaspora to make a contribution to the future of our country is a massive thing."

The event, set up in 2007, has been given funding from EventScotland, Edinburgh City Council and Scottish Enterprise.<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8167998.stm>

For every Starbucks's Venti Dark Berry Mocha Frappuchino....

Some iced coffees being sold on the high street contain as many calories as a hot dinner, a cancer charity warns.

The chief offender had 561 calories, others contained more than 450, and the majority had in excess of 200.

It is the combination of sugar, full-fat milk and cream which appears to push some of the cool coffees into the upper echelons of the calorie scale.

The World Cancer Research Fund, which identified the drinks' calories, noted healthier versions were available.

The "venti" or largest version of Starbucks' Dark Berry Mocha Frappuccino, a limited offer for the summer, contains 561 calories - more than a quarter, WCRF notes, of a woman's daily calorie intake.

...you could have had one of these, and even a few fries

Take away the whipped cream and it has 457 calories. The smallest version, without whipped cream, provided 288.

But even some options with skimmed milk are high in calories. At Caffe Nero, the skimmed version of a Double Chocolate Frappe and a Mocha Frappe Latte contain 452 calories, WCRF said.

Costa Coffee's summer offerings are rather more modest but may still contain more calories than a chocolate bar. The Massimo Coffee Frescato contains 332 calories, while the primo-size, the smallest available, just under 200.

WCRF said it was highlighting calorie content, because after not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight "is the most important thing you can do to help prevent cancer".

In fact it suggests people should become as lean as possible without being underweight.

Earlier this year it estimated that 19,000 cancers a year in the UK could be prevented if people lost their excess weight.

Dr Rachel Thompson, Science Programme Manager for WCRF, said: "The fact that there is an iced coffee on the market with over a quarter of a woman's daily calorie allowance is alarming.

"This is the amount of calories you might expect to have in an evening meal, not in a drink. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8168142.stm>

Ben Bernanke said new laws were needed to allow firms to fail

Ben Bernanke, the boss of the US central bank, has defended the US bail-out plan citing his fears of a second Great Depression, during a public talk.

"I was not going to be the Federal Reserve chairman who presided over the second Great Depression", he said at an event in Kansas.

Helping finance firms as part of the $700bn (£424bn) stimulus plan had benefitted the wider economy, he said.

He added that more regulation was needed so no firm was too big to fail.

I had to hold my nose and stop those firms from failing. I am as disgusted about it as you are Ben Bernanke

"Too big to fail is a terrible situation and we've got to fix that," said Mr Bernanke during the town hall event.

"I think that's the top priority for politicians going forward."

He said more laws were needed to permit government to wind down failing "financial behemoths" in a transparent manner, to prevent "damage throughout the system".

'Fiscal sanity'

The central bank in conjunction with the the US Treasury, organised a $700bn bank bail-out plan in last October, and has since spent around $3 trillion to boost the credit markets and mitigate the downturn.

The government's intervention in rescuing and providing state aid, for insurance giant AIG among others, has come under criticism from those who say no firm should be too large to fail.

"I had to hold my nose and stop those firms from failing. I am as disgusted about it as you are," said Mr Bernanke.

While most of what Mr Bernanke said has been said before, it is unusual for a Fed chairman to have such direct contact with the public, allowing for questions from ordinary Americans.

Looking ahead he said he expected inflation to remain low for some time, but that once the economy improved it would be crucial for the Fed to raise interest rates.

He also said while the deficit was likely to remain high "it is very important for the Congress and the administration to develop a plan, to say, "Here is how we're going to get back to fiscal sanity". <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8170577.stm>

Sir Jonathon has been government green adviser for nine years

The government has been accused of failing to develop a green economy for the 21st Century by its own outgoing adviser on sustainable development.

Sir Jonathon Porritt, who left his role at the weekend, criticised ministers on the environment and social justice, and for failing to protect UK prosperity.

He told the BBC the biggest problems were in the Treasury, business and transport departments.

The government said it had a "strong record" on environmental policies.

Abiding shame

Sir Jonathon told BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin that the three departments singled out were dogmatically following an outdated Thatcherite model of economic growth regardless of the social and environmental consequences.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson had been particularly hostile to the concept of sustainable development, Sir Jonathon also claimed.

The government got completely seduced by the [Thatcherite] economic model it inherited in 1997 Sir Jonathon Porritt Harrabin's Notes: Porritt's pop

He said there had been a massive failure of political leadership, with elements of deep hypocrisy, and that the UK was a world leader in green rhetoric.

On key issues such as fuel policy Labour ministers should feel an abiding shame, he said.

Sir Jonathon said: "The government got completely seduced by the [Thatcherite] economic model it inherited in 1997. It felt the model should be run full on.

"That model is hostile to sustainable development where you are not discounting factors about people's wellbeing and the state of the environment.

"If you look at what the Treasury has done since 1997, it is dogmatically to defend the model of consumption-driven economic growth, regardless of some of the costs that growth generates." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8169627.stm>

A replacement for the black and white stripes of the traditional barcode has been outlined by US researchers.

Bokodes, as they are known, can hold thousands of times more information than their striped cousins and can be read by a standard mobile phone camera.

The 3mm-diameter (0.1 inches), powered tags could be used to encode nutrition information on food packaging or create new devices for playing video games.

The work will be shown off at Siggraph, a conference in New Orleans next week.

"We think that our technology will create a new way of tagging," Dr Ankit Mohan, one of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers behind the work, told BBC News.

Distant reader

The Bokodes currently consist of an LED, covered with a tiny mask and a lens.

Information is encoded in the light shining through the mask, which varies in brightness depending on which angle it is seen from.

Bokodes use light to encode information

"It is either bright or dark depending on how we want to encode the information," said Dr Mohan.

The researchers believe the system has many advantages over conventional barcodes.

For example, they say, the tags are smaller, can be read from different angles and can be interrogated from far away by a standard mobile phone camera.

"For traditional barcodes you need to be a foot away from it at most," said Dr Mohan.

The team has shown its barcodes can be read from a distance of up to 20m (60ft)

"One way of thinking about it is a long-distance barcode."

Initially, said Dr Mohan, the Bokodes may be used in factories or industrial settings to keep track of objects. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8170027.stm>

In the small town of Cary, near Chicago, you can see American industry being dismantled in front of your eyes.

Doug Bartlett's factory used to make electronic circuit boards. But orders collapsed as the recession took hold.

The factory shut in March with the loss of 87 jobs. Now the wrecking crew is in and the factory is being gutted.

"It hurts," says Doug. "You hate to see the people laid off."

Doug is selling off all the usable machinery. He blames the death of his business on unfair competition from the Chinese, accusing them of artificially devaluing their currency to undercut American goods.

"You have to stop the Chinese from cheating," he says.

"We're not only watching the dismantling of my company, we're also watching the dismantling of the circuit board industry in the United States and the dismantling of American industrial might." <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8169378.stm>

The company hopes to launch the service in the US soon

The Swedish music streaming service Spotify is planning to launch its first mobile application within weeks.

The company has submitted the application to Apple's iTunes App Store for its approval.

If given clearance, Spotify's service will then be available for users to download onto iPhones.

Spotify has been called an "iTunes killer" because of its ease of use and its comprehensive, free library of millions of songs.

It is also looked on as a possible saviour for the music industry, in its bid to offer alternatives to piracy.

The application is designed to search for new music and will allow users to temporarily store playlists to their phone for use when there is no connection.

It will also allow users to stream playlists.

Spotify has said the application will be free, but will require a premium subscription to use.

Being able to download a playlist to your phone over your own network before you go out, then listen to it despite poor or non-existent network coverage is a real bonus Rory Cellan-Jones BBC technology correspondent Dot.life: Spotify - going mobile Have Your Say: What is your desert island download?

The premium service, which currently costs £9.99 a month, allows users to run Spotify on their computers without adverts.

The service, which launched last year, now has more than two million users in the UK, and more than six million across Europe.

It has not yet launched in the United States but says it intends to do so by the end of the year.

The company has already demonstrated an application for mobile phones running Google's Android software, though that has not been made available to the public. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8169971.stm>

The SEC says the emergency rule has helped to stop abusive short selling

US stock market regulators have made permanent a rule aimed at reducing abusive short-selling.

The emergency rule on "naked short-selling" was introduced at the height of last year's market turmoil, and was due to expire on Friday.

Short-sellers usually borrow shares, sell them, then buy them back when the stock falls and return them to the lender keeping the difference in price.

"Naked" short selling is when sellers do not even borrow the shares.

The US the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledges that short selling can help limit market bubbles in individual shares.

But it has been concerned that the practice can also be used to manipulate the market.

'Abuse' reduced

The rule now made permanent includes a requirement that brokers must promptly buy or borrow securities to deliver on a short sale.

The SEC says this has helped to reduce what it calls "abusive, naked short-selling", by more than 50% in an eight-month test period.

US politicians have put pressure on the SEC to curb trading moves they believe worsened the market downturn.

However, some analysts in the securities industry warn that the new regulation on naked short-selling could have negative consequences, such as wilder price swings and market turbulence.

In a related move, the SEC says it is working on new approaches to reining in rushes of short-selling that can cause dramatic plunges in stock prices. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8171667.stm>

The relationship between the US and China will shape the 21st Century, President Barack Obama has said, as top officials met in Washington for talks.

"Co-operation, not confrontation" was the way forward, he said, with climate change, security and the economy all areas where common ground existed.

His comments opened two days of talks at a new forum between the two nations.

The US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue is expected to focus on working towards economic recovery.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are co-hosting the talks.

China has sent Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councillor Dai Bingguo to the forum.

'Strong coordination'

The talks will cover a range of issues, including halting the spread of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran, and creating clean and secure energy sources.

But the main focus will be the economy.

KEY ISSUES Values of dollar and yuan The US will press China to rely less on exports and more on domestic consumption China will push for the US to make a priority of curbing inflation Both sides will seek reassurances over accusations of trade protectionism North Korea and Iran's nuclear programmes Climate change and clean energy

"The current crisis has made it clear that the choices made within our borders reverberate across the global economy - and this is true not just of New York and Seattle, but Shanghai and Shenzhen as well," Mr Obama said.

"That is why we must remain committed to strong bilateral and multilateral coordination."

Mr Wang said the opening up of China's economy could help the US recovery.

"With the furthering of China's reform and opening up, China and the United States will have even closer economic cooperation and trade relations and (the) China-US relationship will surely keep moving forward," he said.

But there are areas of contention. The US is expected to push China to rely less on exports and to focus on encouraging its domestic market.

US manufacturers also complain they cannot compete fairly with their Chinese competitors, accusing Beijing of deliberately devaluing its currency to make its exports seem cheaper.

China, meanwhile, is worried about the value of the US dollar. It holds huge amounts of US debt - more than $800bn (£486bn) of US Treasury securities alone.

It fears Mr Obama's stimulus spending will stoke inflation in the United States, eroding the value of the dollar and making the US debt China holds worth a lot less. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8169869.stm>

The refinery supplies Berlin with its petrol and diesel

A metallic smell, and a jagged collection of thin towers and convoluted silver pipe work mark out the PCK oil refinery.

It is a vast site which stretches for several kilometres near the eastern German town of Schwedt.

White jets of steam fizz from the pipes. It is an impressive sight, a hymn to industrial architecture built on the border with Poland.

Every year, 12 million tonnes of Russian crude oil are processed here, into diesel, jet fuel and petrol - a tenth of the oil refined in Germany.

But this business also has a human story to tell, of the extraordinary jolting change that happened in the eastern part of Germany after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

'Its own world'

Twenty years ago, the then East German government owned PCK, which stands for Petrolchemisches Kombinat Schwedt.

It was, in the words of the current chief executive Klaus Niemann, "a state within a state".

Our aim is that our young people should stay in school here, find jobs and not go to other regions PCK worker Roswitha Floter

The workforce numbered 9,000. Their children went to kindergartens run by the refinery.

There were 25 kitchens and canteens. The refinery owned a farm, and raised its own pigs.

It had its own laboratories and a research facility with 800 researchers. A lack of foreign exchange meant everything had to be made on site by engineering workshops, even screws.

PCK was the centre of life in Schwedt. It even had its own newspaper, staffed by six people.

One of them was Roswitha Floeter, who likes to brew up a pot of English tea in her comfortable office. She is small, wiry, and after 35 years with PCK, intensely loyal.

"I love this refinery," she confides, praising its "modern spirit" and high standards.

But she remembers the time of greatest change, after the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. PCK was privatised in 1991; nowadays it is owned by several big oil companies.

Klaus Niemann says business is okay, but has been better

The bloated inefficiencies of the Soviet era were ironed out, with a series of savage job cuts.

"Oh, it was a terrible time," she muses, "not good for the soul".

She was relieved to be told she would be kept on in a new public relations job. Others were less lucky.

The numbers employed dropped like a stone, from 9,000 in 1989 to 1,200 today.

Dr Niemann estimates that of those who lost their jobs, one third managed to find employment in the surrounding area, but two thirds decided to move to west Germany.

Wages are about 10% lower in Schwedt than in the west, and unemployment rates are still much higher, at somewhere between 20 and 25%.

In small villages, Dr Niemann says half the population may be living on state benefits. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/business/2003/small_business/8171116.stm>