Britain has proposed tax breaks for fracking companies

Louisa Delpy had never protested before, but when she heard that shale gas extraction might begin in her leafy part of the English countryside, she was so furious that she took to the streets.

The 36-year-old mother went with two friends and a home-made sign to the lonely site where test drilling for oil and gas has begun, close to her upmarket village of Balcombe in West Sussex, a fifty-minute train ride from central London.

Three weeks later, the gaggle of demonstrators has mushroomed into a protest camp of hundreds, becoming the focus of a national campaign against the controversial extraction technique known as "fracking".

Protesters from around Britain have set up dozens of tents, loudspeakers and banners, while crowds surge forward with yells of fury to try to block each truck that drives towards the drilling site.

"I've never protested against anything in my life, but look where we are now," Delpy said.

Waving signs with slogans such as "Frack off!" and "Balcombe's not for shale", the campers say they will stay as long as it takes for Cuadrilla, the firm that has pioneered fracking in Britain, to reconsider its involvement.

A prosperous commuter area in the home territory of Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party, Balcombe is an unlikely birthplace for a rowdy protest movement.

But many residents say that having objected unsuccessfully through official channels, they feel forced into direct action.

"All the normal forms of democracy seem to have been ignored," said Stephen White, 59, a filmmaker from a nearby village. "It's like the Wild West."

Cuadrilla -- whose chairman is former BP chief John Browne -- has tried to pacify the locals, holding open days and promising not to "ruin the countryside".

It also says it is merely carrying out test drilling, which could lead to standard oil extraction, fracking, or nothing at all. The plan is to drill a 3,000-foot (915-metre) vertical well in a project lasting up to three months.

But Cuadrilla's involvement elsewhere with fracking, or hydraulic fracturing -- using huge amounts of pressurised water mixed with chemicals to crack open rock and release natural gas -- has fuelled suspicion.

Protesters bowed their heads for a minute's silence on Friday when news arrived that drilling had begun.

"It's a sad day for Balcombe -- but we will win!" declared 52-year-old Glayzer Frackman from Lancashire in the north, who turned activist and changed his name after his house was damaged by minor earthquakes blamed on test drilling.

Like the other protesters, he also worries about potential chemical contamination of the air and water, and possible water shortages.

The entertainer and DJ is one of dozens to arrive from Lancashire, a key testing area since the Conservative-led government took a strong stance in favour of fracking, which has led to a shale gas bonanza in the United States.

Britain has proposed tax breaks for fracking companies, hoping to boost jobs and tax revenues while increasing energy security, although the technique has been banned in France and halted in Germany.

Last week a Conservative member of parliament's House of Lords, David Howell, infuriated swathes of Britain when he suggested the "desolate" northeast as a good place to frack.

He then corrected himself -- to say he had meant the "unloved" northwest.

Balcombe's protest camp now has a kitchen, portable toilets and a children's play area. Demonstrators hold meditation sessions and concerts, and passing cars honk their horns in support.

Dozens of police vans surround the camp, manned by up to 70 officers.

There have been more than 30 arrests, amid scuffles with police and protest stunts including a group who locked themselves to an antique fire engine, blocking access to the site for six hours.

Celebrity campaigners such as Bianca Jagger, ex-wife of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger,wholesale fashion shoes have made appearances.

The camp also includes well-heeled professionals, with some protesters brandishing academic studies on the dangers of fracking.

In Balcombe itself, a village of immaculate brick houses, staff at the pub said they were "remaining neutral" while rumours circulated of a mystery thief taking down anti-fracking posters from local tea rooms.

But it is hard to find anyone there who says they oppose the camp.

"It's polarising people a little bit," said trainee nutritionist Nancy Towers, 47. "But I think it's wonderful. They're very peaceful people."

One 80-year-old villager, who asked not to be named, said she would protest on Saturday.
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while you sip on your venti latte?

Overcoming their reluctance to waste the Fire Service's time paid off for a Timaru family who noticed a "funny smell" inside their home last night.

Herald reporter Fleur Cogle noticed the smell at her Matai Crescent home late on Monday night, but no amount of checking could locate the source.

"I felt reluctant about wasting Fire Service time but knew I wouldn't sleep unless it was checked,wholesale fashion shoes so I called 111 for peace of mind."

And that decision proved correct, as it is in around 60 per cent of cases, Senior Station Officer Lex Ferguson explained. Further checking for the smell by the fire crew found melted wire in the switchboard.

"There was no actual fire, and no smoke, just a funny smell in the switchboard area which also felt very warm to touch.

"As it was explained to me,the wire might have continued to melt and eventually cause a fire - or it could have gone out. Either way, it's fair to say we are relieved - both that we made the call and that we discovered the wire when we did,'' Ms Cogle said.

At this time of year the Fire Service gets a call to a smell or some other unusual incident in Timaru about once every six weeks, and they are more than happy with that, Mr Ferguson said.

"We would rather get called in the early stages than to the flames through the roof of the house at 2am."

If they did not find anything, but the smell returned, they were keen to be told so they could have another attempt at locating it, as obviously something was wrong.

He said people were often embarrassed to call them, but there was no need, as often as not the crew did find the cause of the smell. A thermal imaging camera used by the crew can locate "hot spots" behind walls or in other concealed spaces.

"Smell" calls were more common in summer, when the source was often smoke drifting into a house from a burnoff.

Sometimes it is only because a number of people around the country called about the same problem, that a fault in an appliance is detected. Mr Ferguson recalled that being the case with an early-model flat screen TV, and more recently, with some models of Samsung washing machines.

 Sick of looking for an outlet to charge your phone while you sip on your venti latte? It may be a thing of the past, if Starbucks has anything to say about it.

The coffee shop giant recently announced that some of its stores in Silicon Valley will allow customers to charge their phones using wireless charging technology. One of its San Jose, Calif., stores is debuting the capability today.

Linda Mills, a spokeswoman for Starbucks, said that the company was looking at the next big thing to improve the coffee drinker's experience while in the store.

"Customers are using mobile devices more and more," she told ABC News. "Keeping your devices powered is a problem."

Starbucks uses the Duracell Powermat to charge both phones and tablets. Customers will lay their smart device flat on a designated Powermat surface.

According to Daniel Schreiber, the president of Powermat Technologies, the closer the device, the more efficient the power transfer.

"Using wireless charges just as fast as a cable, with no degradation, at all," he told ABC News.

He added that at each participating Starbucks, there are 10 to 12 wireless charging stations, meaning that even though the technology may not require a plug, you still might be vying for valuable coffee shop real estate with other customers.
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The gameplay in Einstein Enigma is based around the machinations

While the Samsung Galaxy S4 does make the Apple iPhone 5 feel old there are certain things that one misses about the iPhone and here are just some of them.

The Apple iPhone 5 does have a lot of crapware, this is nothing when you compare it to the crapware that you cannot delete on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Do you really want Play Books, Play Magazines, Play Movies, TV, Music and Play Store?

Samsung have added on a lot of stuff that you cannot delete, while Apple keep rubbish from carriers off their handsets. When you have the Samsung Galaxy S4 you have lots of junk.

One of the things that is missing on the Samsung Galaxy S4 is Microsoft Office 365 support for office for the iPad. The version of Office on the Apple iPad is the same as the one on Windows phone. This is a feature that is not seen on the Samsung Galaxy S4.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 might come with the back that is replaceable, built in charging and a battery that is replaceable. However this cannot match the variety of accessories that you can get with the Apple iPhone. There is a huge range of add ons for the phone with anything from just fun to frivolous.

For instance iHealthLabs offer blood pressure monitors, wireless activity monitors, wireless scale and a wireless pulse oximeter, these are all superb tools, but you can only get them with iOS.

Okay, so you've bought your iPhone, or SmartPhone, or iPod, or whatever the portable device is that you're going to carry with you and entrust so much of your life to. It's now time to protect it. Is that necessary? women shoes manufacturer Well -- not totally. If the sides or back get dinged or scratched, does that really matter? To some people, it does -- the design of the thing, after all, is half the joy of a handheld device. More to the point, a case does offer some protection if it gets dropped. Okay, when it gets dropped. Though don't think you can drop something without impunity, just because there's a case around it. So, there is value in a case. But where protection is a near-necessity is with the screen, since if that gets scratched up, it might render your device too difficult to read. So, we look at a couple of those products here, as well -- with quite interesting results.

Know, too, that although these are all for the iPod touch (which was reviewed her in March), most of these cases will have an equivalent for the iPhone, so if something strikes your interest, it's worth checking the company websites to see if there's something that matches. I know it's not a perfect solution, but one plays with the cards you have. Perhaps that will change in the future.

The gameplay in Einstein Enigma is based around the machinations of the enigma rotor cipher machine that Germany used to send messages during the World War II.

Each puzzle board contains at least two differently coloured axels that are surrounded by four separate pieces. The contents of the axels tend to overlap, and you need to slide your finger or thumb along the sides of the wheels in order to match up the coloured pieces with their proper axel.

Easier said than done. When you rotate the contents of one axel, all the surrounding pieces respond regardless of colour. In other words, you may think that sliding a single wayward puzzle piece back into its proper home would be easy, but chances are that pieces are going to wind up everywhere and the whole game board will look like a madman hacked up the wheels with a cleaver.

Working through the puzzles in Einstein Enigma takes foresight, patience, and a strong stomach for a lot of restarts.
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The company manufactures its engagement rings

The company has signed leases for premises in the Trinity Leeds and Monument Mall in Newcastle with both sites expected to be up and running in October.

That adds to its stores in current Glasgow's Argyll Arcade, Silverburn, Braehead, Aberdeen's Union Square and at the Assembly Rooms on George Street in Edinburgh.

Its central distribution hub which services all its locations is also in Glasgow.

Around 20 jobs will be created across the new sites with the Leeds shop also the first to feature only the company's Rox branded jewellery and designs.

Managing director and co-founder Kyron Keogh, who is jetting out to a jewellery trade fair in Hong Kong this week, said the business would typically only open one store a year but both sites were too good to turn down.

He said: "We have had our eye on getting down south for quite some time but you need to find the right location.

"We have built a business that is scalable and the plan is to keep adding stores to it.

"It is a pretty good tenants market at the moment and we were able to strike some pretty good deals to help with our expansion."

Both stores will have a champagne bar but the Newcastle outlet is almost double the size of Leeds at 3000 square feet.

The north east of England shop will be across two levels and feature a private lounge similar to its so-called thrill rooms in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Glasgow based Graven Images, which worked on the Rox shops in Edinburgh and Argyll Arcade, has won the contract to do the interior design.

Mr Keogh said the business had received good support from its bankers HSBC and indicated the launch of a Rox only brand store could make it easier to roll out further sites across England.

Mr Keogh also hopes the venture will aid in the development of Rox as a luxury brand in its own right.

He said: "We have been given the confidence over the last year as we have seen our own brand really take off and we believe the next step is to try a store.

"If we can have Rox only stores then [for example] we could open in Manchester Trafford centre without having to get the support of the brands that are already located there.

"Stock investment is also lower as well and the return on investment is actually much higher."

The company manufactures its engagement rings in the UK with all the design work on its jewellery collections being done here.

Mr Keogh said Rox has been working with a number of designers in the past two years who have had experience with upmarket firms such as Boodles and Asprey.

The Rox brand silver is said to be outselling lines by brands such as Thomas Sabo and Links of London.

The business began manufacturing some of its ranges in Scotland earlier this year and Mr Keogh is keen for Rox to eventually have its own in-house designer but admitted finding the right person has so far been difficult.

He said: "We have put the word out that we are looking for someone but so many people in our industry end up in London."

Mr Keogh believes the move into England is also likely to give a boost to online sales.

He added: "We have full Scottish coverage and strong multi-channel coverage.

"To keep growing we hope to take market share and by moving down to Leeds and Newcastle we hope we can merge our online and retail activities like we have in Scotland.

"For jewellery people do like to handle it so I think you need to have visibility on the high street and project the right image."
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Pakistani girls walk in shoes of young activist

As Pakistani school girl Malala Yousufzai recovers from bullet wounds in a British hospital, her classmates say they will not let the Taliban extremists who put her there force them to quit school.

“Though we are very sad for our friend Malala, such mean actions would never discourage us and will never keep our attention from getting education,” said Rida, a ninth-grade schoolmate of Malala’s at Khushal School in Mingora, Swat Valley.

“Education is our right given to us by our religion and no forces can stop us from getting it,” says Rida, whose full name is being withheld by USA TODAY to prevent retaliation against her.

Malala’s hometown in the lush Swat Valley became the center of Taliban violence in Pakistan after the group pushed its way into power in 2007. Staunch opponents of female education, the Taliban terrorized students and teachers, bombed hundreds of schools and forced many others to close their doors to girls because of the risk.

But a major offensive by the Pakistan military two years later largely drove the Taliban from the area and allowed young girls to go back to their classrooms.

Earlier this month, 15-year-old Malala, an outspoken advocate for girls’ education, was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban on her way home from school. The group has vowed to finish her off, saying she had been acting against Islam in her activism.

Even so, the attack on Malala has shown their threat continues. But the girls in her hometown say they can’t let the fear of extremists put them off again.

“We saw three bleak years where our schools were torched and blasted and we were forcefully stopped from going to school — we got education secretly,” said Kausar, a 10th-grader at Government High School No.1 in Saidu Sharif, Swat, whose full name is also being withheld by USA TODAY.

“That was the worst time of our lives but we have never given up our education.”

The official literacy rate in Pakistan is 56% and 40% of females can read. Literacy rates for women in Pakistan have increased from 15% to 40% since the early 1980s. Pakistan’s government credits the rise to public campaigns to get more girls in school.

Malala became famous for a blog she wrote for the BBC in 2009 under a pseudonym about her oppressive life under the Taliban regime and its repression of education of girls. When she was shot for it, Pakistanis across the political, ethnic and religious spectrum came forward to denounce the Taliban.

In the south of the country, where it is safer for girls to go to school, Malala is considered a hero.

“I want to do what Malala did,” said Swaliha Abdullah, a 12-year-old eighth-grader at Eck Eck Government School, a Karachi public school. “She saved her school by writing about it.”

In Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, girls go to school unhindered by extremists. Instead it is poverty that most affects girls’ schooling as well as that of boys.

At Karachi’s P and T Government Girls’ School, girls in pigtails held in place by red ribbons and in the traditional blue-and-white shalwar kameez tunic and trousers, the everyday style of Pakistani females, peek out of the classrooms as the end of the school day approaches.

“My mom wants me to be a doctor, but I want to be a teacher,” said Wajiha Ashfaq, 14, an eighth-grade student there. Her best friend, Fouzia Ayaz Ahmed, wants to be a doctor.

Fouzia’s father is a driver and Wajiha’s has a government job. They live in a low-income neighborhood close by and walk to school together. Their little sisters tag along.

“I have never taken time off school except once when I had fever,” boasted Laiba Ashfaq, Wajiha’s sister, who is in the fourth grade.

She explains that she loves school and English is her favorite subject. Laiba wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

Rich Pakistanis send their children to private school while poorer children often attend those run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Citizens’ Foundation, which is supported by private donors. In many of these schools, tuition is waived and the NGO pays for uniforms and books.

Equally important to keeping girls in school is to give them the means to help support the family so they are not forced to work. Nighat Abbasi of the Inner Wheel Club, the NGO that adopted P and T Government Girls’ School, organizes programs such as in tie-dying so that girls have a way to augment the family income while staying in school.

Anam Basri, a classmate of Malala at the Khushal School in Mingora, says the Taliban is naive if it thinks it can frighten girls from pursuing an education.

“They will never be successful in their evil thinking and actions to stop us from education,” she says.

What gift or message would you send to your ancestors?

The scramble to find iPads and iPhones to send to the dead during China's Qingming Festival is an unusual reminder of how pervasive the high-tech gadgets have become in that country's popular culture.

Typically, Chinese families leave paper replicas of money and luxury items such as cars and bottles of wine at the graves of their ancestors during the festival.

But the hottest items during this year's festival are paper replicas of iPads and iPhones, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Qingming day, or Tomb Sweeping Day, traces its origins to the Confucian teaching of loyalty to one's family, and is celebrated in China and other Asian countries where the faith is common.

Replicas of all sorts are sold at variety stores and by vendors across Asia.

Malaysian shopkeeper Jeffrey Te was selling paper replicas of the iPad 2 - painted and labelled to look like an actual tablet computer - for 10 yuan, or about $1.60, Reuters reported. They were sold out almost immediately.
"I can only offer them the first iPad model," Te told Reuters, pointing to his shelves of paper first-generation iPads, as well as Samsung cellular phones and paper gadgets. The replicas list an 888-gigabyte capacity - the number eight is lucky in Chinese tradition.

Micgadget explains that while family members might want to show off the latest gadgets to loved ones who liked electronics when they were alive, others send items that they believe one would need in the afterlife. Replica clothes, shoes, chairs and money are popular items.

One Taiwanese website allows you to order from a diverse collection of elaborate paper replicas from make-up sets to video game consoles.

Chilling tale involving paper iPhone

According to his family members, the man, in his early 20s, had told them that his dead grandfather had acknowledged receiving the IT tool, and since he did not know how to use it he wanted the youth to teach him.

The youth is said to have suffered a fright from his dream, and fell sick thereafter.

His family members said they then consulted a medium, and following prayers and burning of some paper money, the youth is said to be feeling better now.

One of the family members, who requested anonymity, said the youth had returned to his workplace in Singapore after he felt better, and swore that he would never again lay hands on such items in future Qing Ming.

The incident might sound ridiculous, but, similar tales have emerged during every Qing Ming as families burned modern ‘IT tools’ for their dead ancestors.

One housewife, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said she was unsure whether to believe in such tales, “but, for the sake of peace and harmony in the family, I forbid my children to burn such modern items for the dead ancestors”.

A coffee shop owner in Sibu Jaya said he had been following the tradition of burning items during Qing Ming, “but, our family only burns paper money”.

He said this was being done in accordance with the teachings of the Chinese Dao Religion, in which only the burning of paper money was mentioned.

“The practice has been commercialised in the modern days when traders start selling other items for burning, like boats, houses, mansions, motorcycles, luxury cars, maids, shoes, cigarettes, and, now, the IT items.”
He said this also happened during Christmas when profit-oriented parties churn out attractive figures of Santa Clause and promoted food like ginger bread and Christmas pudding, the items of which had nothing to do with the spirituality of the celebration.

Each Chinese family might spend thousands of ringgit during Qing Ming just to buy items for burning, food, flowers, and the cleaning of the tombs.

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It seemed fitting that it would happen when the Tar Heels were in town, trying to win another title."It's uncanny how things happen,'' Jordan nike shox nz said. "I'm glad to be here, I'm glad that North Carolina's playing, I'm glad they're playing in a game I can watch and enjoy, and hopefully we can walk out of here with a champions