Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?

In the United States, the Farm Bill, a massive piece of federal legislation making its way through the US Congress, governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and soy, which are then fed to animals. By funding these crops, the government supports the production of meat and dairy products—the same products that contribute to America's growing rates of obesity and chronic disease. Fruit and vegetable farmers, on the other hand, receive less than 1 percent of government subsidies.

The US government also purchases surplus foods like cheese, milk, pork, and beef for distribution to food assistance programs—including school lunches. It is not required to purchase nutritious foods.


When the House of Representatives debated the bill in July, PCRM, along with many other health and public interest groups, supported the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment, which was offered by Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). This amendment would have limited government subsidies of unhealthy foods, cut subsidies to millionaire farmers, and provided more money for nutrition and food assistance programs for Americans and impoverished children overseas.

Unfortunately, politics doomed the reform effort. At the eleventh hour, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) feared that freshman representatives who voted to cut subsidies might risk losing their seats in farm states in the 2008 elections, endangering the Democratic majority. The reform amendment was defeated 117 to 309.

Nonetheless, Congress did make some modest changes to the Farm Bill’s subsidy programs at the very last minute.

This fall, the Senate will have its turn debating and voting on the bill. PCRM will need your help again to encourage senators to cut subsidies for unhealthy foods and increase support for fruits, vegetables, and vegetarian foods. Other groups, including the American Medical Association and the President’s Cancer Panel, are also calling on Congress for sweeping reforms.

Good Medicine.

US east coast shut down as 'snowpocalypse' hits

Washington DC ground to a halt on Saturday as the US capital was blanketed in its heaviest snowfall in nearly a century by a storm dubbed “snowmageddon” and “snowpocalypse”.


The “white-out” blizzard dumped up to 32 inches of snow in some parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia were all pounded, receiving up to 2.5 feet (30 inches). After setting several records, the storm swept out to sea across New Jersey and Virginia, battering the mid-Atlantic shore with winds gusting to 40 miles an hour but largely skirting New York.


The snow brought down electricity lines, leaving at least 200,000 people without power. Several roofs collapsed and trees were felled, blocking roads. The weather has already been blamed for hundreds of accidents and the deaths of a father and son who were trying to help a crashed motorist in Virginia.
President Barack Obama had his own minor brush with the hazardous driving conditions as his motorcade navigated the short journey from the White House to the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee.
A heavy branch crashed into a car two vehicles from the president’s. In his speech, Mr Obama later referred to the storm as “snowmageddon”, embracing one of the favourite short-hands for the historic storm.
Transport networks were preparing to shut down and residents of some rural areas were warned they could be forced to spend up to five days indoors. Stores had earlier reported a run on food and basic necessities, with many people stocking up for supplies for Sunday evening parties to watch the Super Bowl, the biggest date in the America sporting calendar.
Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia each declared “snow emergencies”, allowing them to call in assistance from the National Guard. The predicted snowfall is the biggest in the US capital for 90 years.
The National Weather Service warned that conditions would be “extremely dangerous,” with heavy, wet snow and strong winds. They warned that transport would be affected and supplies to shops could be delayed.
Airlines cancelled flights, schools closed and the federal government sent workers home. Some hospitals asked people with four-wheel-drive vehicles to volunteer to pick up doctors and nurses to take them to work.
The National Zoo closed early and the Smithsonian museums planned to close on Saturday. Flights on Saturday afternoon were cancelled at Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington. Amtrak stopped most trains heading south from Washington, affecting fans heading to the Super Bowl in Miami.
In western Virginia, a tractor-trailer struck and killed a father and son who had stopped to help another driver who had crashed in snow on Interstate 81, Virginia State Police said. William Edward Smith Jr., 25, and 54-year-old William Edward Smith Sr. died at the scene, authorities said.
The storm comes less than two months after a storm on December 19th dumped more than 16 inches of snow on Washington.

The Telegraph. Feb 6, 2010.

Google 'may quit' China

Internet giant Google has said it may end its operations in China following a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack originating from the country.


It did not accuse Beijing directly, but said it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine - google.cn.

This could result in closing the site, and its Chinese offices, Google said.

Chinese rival Baidu called the move "hypocritical" and financially driven. In US trade on Wednesday Baidu's shares were up 13%, and Google's down 0.57%.

Google said the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were the primary target of the attack, which occurred in December.

The search engine has now said it will hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering had yet been made.

Google launched google.cn in 2006, agreeing to some censorship of the search results, as required by the Chinese government.

It currently holds around a third of the Chinese search market, far behind Baidu with more than 60%.

Email targeted


In a blog post announcing its decision, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said: "A primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists."


The company said its investigation into the attack found two accounts of its online mail service - Gmail - appeared to have been accessed.

However, the attack was limited to accessing account information such as the date the account was created and subject line, rather than e-mail content, it said.

It said it had also discovered that the accounts of dozens of US, China and Europe-based Gmail users, who are "advocates of human rights in China", appeared to have been "routinely accessed by third parties".

It said these accounts had not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but "most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on users' computers".

At least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses were similarly targeted, it added.

'Makes me sick'



In a blog, the chief architect of Baidu said Google's decision to quit was for financial reasons, rather than a human rights issue, as Google had failed to dominate the Chinese search market.


"What Google said makes me sick," he said. "If you are to quit for the sake of financial interest, then just say it."



Google's decision to concede to China's demands on censorship in 2006 led to accusations it had betrayed its company motto - "don't be evil" - but Google argued it would be more damaging for civil liberties if it pulled out of China entirely.

BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan Jones said Google had also seen a significant amount of internal dissent over its decision to operate under censorship.

In 2008, it signed the Global Network Initiative agreement with rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, pledging better protection of online privacy and freedom of speech against government interference.

Those commitments, however, are weighed against the commercial opportunities that China provides as a fast growing market.

Nearly 340 million Chinese people now online, compared with 10 million only a decade ago.





BBC News.  Jan 13, 2010.

Anne Frank helper dies aged 100

Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who helped protect Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, has died in the Netherlands aged 100.

She and other employees of Anne Frank's father Otto supplied food to the family as they hid in a secret annex above the business premises in Amsterdam.

Anne's diary of their life in hiding, which ended in betrayal, is one of the most famous records of the Holocaust.

It was rescued by Mrs Gies, who kept it safe until after the war.

Miep Gies died in a nursing home after suffering a fall just before Christmas.

Speaking last year as she celebrated her 100th birthday, Mrs Gies played down her role, saying others had done far more to protect Jews in the Netherlands.

She and her fellow employees kept Anne and the seven others supplied for two years, from 1942 to 1944.

When the family were found by the authorities, they were deported, and Anne died of typhus in the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen.

It was Mrs Gies who collected up Anne's papers and locked them away, hoping that one day she would be able to give them back to the girl.

In the event, she returned them to Otto Frank, who survived the war, and helped him compile them into a diary that was published in 1947.

It went on to sell tens of millions of copies in dozens of languages.

Mrs Gies became a kind of ambassador for the diary, travelling to talk about Anne Frank and her experiences, campaigning against Holocaust denial and refuting allegations that the diary was a forgery.

For her efforts to protect the Franks and to preserve their memory, Mrs Gies won many accolades.

Memories of Anne

In an interview from 1998, published on the annefrank website, Miep Gies says she thought it "perfectly natural" to help Anne and the seven others despite the penalties she could have suffered under the Nazi occupation.

"They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn..." she says. "We did our duty as human beings: helping people in need."

Her role was, she recalls, to fetch vegetables and meat while others supplied bread or books.

Her memory of Anne is of having the feeling she was "speaking to an adult".

"I'd say to myself, 'My goodness, child, so young and talking like that already'," she says in the interview.

She believes that she once came across Anne writing the diary.

"It was a very uncomfortable situation," she says.

"I tried to decide what to do. Should I walk away or go to her? At that moment she glanced at me, with a look that I'll never forget.

"This wasn't the Anne I knew, that friendly, charming child. She looked at me with anger, rage. Then Anne stood up, slammed her diary shut and glared at me with great condescension. 'Yes,' she said, 'I'm writing about you, too.'

"I didn't know what to say. The only thing I could manage was: 'That ought to be interesting.'"

Mrs Gies also remembers the day the Franks were taken away and how she went up into the empty annex to find the pages of the diary lying on the floor.

Removing the pages, she did not read them immediately, telling herself at the time: "These may belong to a child, but even children have a right to privacy."

BBC News. Jan 12, 2010.

Frozen Britain

The freezing weather looks set to stay with them for up to a week but what do the figures tell us about the cold snap so far?

BBC News - Frozen Britain.

Star Trek was the 'most pirated movie' of 2009

The latest Star Trek film was illegally downloaded more than 10 million times in 2009, according to an internet blog site that monitors file-sharing.

The figures suggest it is 2009's most pirated film, ahead of Transformers sequel Revenge of the Fallen.
Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla was the third most pirated movie, with The Hangover and Twilight completing the top five.

The TorrentFreak blog reports on peer-to-peer activity which uses BitTorrent file-sharing software.
BitTorrent is one of the most popular means of transferring large files over the internet.
Other films featured in the list of most illegally downloaded titles include sci-fi thriller District 9 and the sixth Harry Potter adventure.

But X-Men Origins: Wolverine ranks fairly low in the Top 10, despite an unfinished version of the film appearing online ahead of its release.

Directed by JJ Abrams, Star Trek charted the early days of James T Kirk, Mr Spock and other crew members of the Starship Enterprise.

BBC News. 

For Some in Japan, Home Is a Tiny Plastic Bunk

For Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas, home is a cubicle barely bigger than a coffin — one of dozens of berths stacked two units high in one of central Tokyo’s decrepit “capsule” hotels.

“It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep,” he said, rolling his neck and stroking his black suit — one of just two he owns after discarding the rest of his wardrobe for lack of space. “You get used to it.”

When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel’s tiny plastic cubicles offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home.

Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510’s capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II.

Once-booming exporters laid off workers en masse in 2009 as the global economic crisis pushed down demand. Many of the newly unemployed, forced from their company-sponsored housing or unable to make rent, have become homeless.

The country’s woes have led the government to open emergency shelters over the New Year holiday in a nationwide drive to help the homeless. The Democratic Party, which swept to power in September, wants to avoid the fate of the previous pro-business government, which was caught off-guard when unemployed workers pitched tents near public offices last year to call attention to their plight.

“In this bitter-cold New Year’s season, the government intends to do all it can to help those who face hardship,” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said in a video posted Dec. 26 on YouTube. “You are not alone.”

On Friday, he visited a Tokyo shelter housing 700 homeless people, telling reporters that “help can’t wait.”

Mr. Nakanishi considers himself relatively lucky. After working odd jobs on an Isuzu assembly line, at pachinko parlors and as a security guard, Mr. Nakanishi, 40, moved into the capsule hotel in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district in April to save on rent while he worked night shifts at a delivery company.

Mr. Nakanishi, who studied economics at a regional university, dreams of becoming a lawyer and pores over legal manuals during the day. But with no job since Christmas, he does not know how much longer he can afford a capsule bed.

The rent is surprisingly high for such a small space: 59,000 yen a month, or about $640, for an upper bunk. But with no upfront deposit or extra utility charges, and basic amenities like fresh linens and free use of a communal bath and sauna, the cost is far less than renting an apartment in Tokyo, Mr. Nakanishi says.

Still, it is a bleak world where deep sleep is rare. The capsules do not have doors, only screens that pull down. Every bump of the shoulder on the plastic walls, every muffled cough, echoes loudly through the rows.

Each capsule is furnished only with a light, a small TV with earphones, coat hooks, a thin blanket and a hard pillow of rice husks.

Most possessions, from shirts to shaving cream, must be kept in lockers. There is a common room with old couches, a dining area and rows of sinks. Cigarette smoke is everywhere, as are security cameras. But the hotel staff does its best to put guests at ease: “Welcome home,” employees say at the entrance.

“Our main clients used to be salarymen who were out drinking and missed the last train,” said Tetsuya Akasako, head manager at the hotel.

But about two years ago, the hotel started to notice that guests were staying weeks, then months, he said. This year, it introduced a reduced rent for dwellers of a month or longer; now, about 100 of the hotel’s 300 capsules are rented out by the month.

After requests from its long-term dwellers, the hotel received special government permission to let them register their capsules as their official abode; that made it easier to land job interviews.

At 2 a.m. on one recent December night, two young women watched the American television show “24” on a TV inside the sauna. One said she had traveled to Tokyo from her native Gunma, north of the city, to look for work. She intended to be a hostess at one of the capital’s cabaret clubs, where women engage in conversation with men for a fee.

The woman, 20, said she was hoping to land a job with a club that would put her up in an apartment. She declined to give her name because she did not want her family to know her whereabouts.

“It’s tough to live like this, but it won’t be for too long,” she said. “At least there are more jobs here than in Gunma.”

The government says about 15,800 people live on the streets in Japan, but aid groups put the figure much higher, with at least 10,000 in Tokyo alone. Those numbers do not count the city’s “hidden” homeless, like those who live in capsule hotels. There is also a floating population that sleeps overnight in the country’s many 24-hour Internet cafes and saunas.

The jobless rate, at 5.2 percent, is at a record high, and the number of households on welfare has risen sharply. The country’s 15.7 percent poverty rate is one of the highest among industrialized nations.

These statistics have helped shatter an image, held since the country’s rise as an industrial power in the 1970s, that Japan is a classless society.

“When the country enjoyed rapid economic growth, standards of living improved across the board and class differences were obscured,” said Prof. Hiroshi Ishida of the University of Tokyo. “With a stagnating economy, class is more visible again.”

The government has poured money into bolstering Japan’s social welfare system, promising cash payments to households with children and abolishing tuition fees at public high schools.

Still, Naoto Iwaya, 46, is on the verge of joining the hopeless. A former tuna fisherman, he has been living at another capsule hotel in Tokyo since August. He most recently worked on a landfill at the city’s Haneda Airport, but that job ended last month.

“I have looked and looked, but there are no jobs. Now my savings are almost gone,” Mr. Iwaya said, after checking into an emergency shelter in Tokyo. He will be allowed to stay until Monday.

After that, he said, “I don’t know where I can go.”

New York Times. Jan 2, 2010.

Heavy snow blankets the north-eastern states of the US

The Telegraph.

LED traffic lights don't melt snow and do cause accidents

A number of cold weather American states are reporting their dismay at finding out that LED traffic lights are so energy efficient that they do not produce enough excess heat to dissipate any snow that covers them. It turns out, perhaps in an homage to bad engineering everywhere, that the inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs was previously relied upon to keep traffic signals unimpeded. The new LEDs do not achieve the same effect, which has resulted in a few accidents and even a death being blamed on obstructed traffic lights. Feel free to apply palm to face now. It's not all gloomy, though, as the majority of people are said to treat a dysfunctional traffic light as a stop sign (how clever of them), and a tech fix is being worked on as we speak.

Engadget. Dec 17, 2009.

Border security guards kill -- literally kill -- a MacBook

A young American woman travels over to Jerusalem to meet some friends, see the sights, live the life. Overzealous border security officers ask her a bunch of questions, take issue with her answers, and a few well-placed bullets later she is allowed entry into the country with a somewhat altered MacBook in tow. So what can we all learn from this incident? Firstly, back up all the data you consider important; B, Israeli policemen don't mess about; and 3, distressed laptops look gorgeous no matter how they got there -- just look at the way the glass trackpad has wrinkled up from the force of the bullet penetrating near it, it's a borderline work of art. The young lady in question has been promised compensation, but lest you think this is a one one-off you can see pictures of an equally dead Dell at the Flickr link below. We've got a couple more close-ups of the ravaged MacBook after the break.

Engadget. Dec 16, 2009.

Insane Pics Inside Amazon UK's Distribution Center (before Christmas)

It's 'Manic Monday' and shoppers are expected to spend £17million an hour today over the internet. The total outlay will hit £417million in just 24 hours, making it the busiest web shopping day of the year. Sales are expected to peak between 1pm and 2pm when office staff log on from work. Another hectic period will have occured this morning when mothers got home after dropping their children off at school. And the biggest-selling items? They're expected to be Apple iPod Touch, Wii fit, Scalextric and LCD TVs.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1233766/Santas-little-helper-Todays-busiest-online-shopping-day-year-So-ready-biggest-grotto-Lapland.html#ixzz0ZGsvr2PU

Fake fingerprints

A Chinese woman managed to enter Japan illegally by having plastic surgery to alter her fingerprints, thus fooling immigration controls, police claim.

Lin Rong, 27, had previously been deported from Japan for overstaying her visa. She was only discovered when she was arrested on separate charges.

Tokyo police said she had paid $15,000 (£9,000) to have the surgery in China.

It is Japan's first case of alleged biometric fraud, but police believe the practice may be widespread.

Japanese police suspect Chinese brokers of taking huge sums to modify fingerprints surgically.

Local media reports said Ms Lin had undergone surgery to swap the fingerprints from her right and left hands.

Skin patches on her thumbs and index fingers were removed and then re-grafted on to the matching digits of the opposite hand.

Japanese newspapers said police had noticed that Ms Lin's fingers had unnatural scars when she was arrested last month for allegedly faking a marriage to a Japanese man.

The apparent ability of illegal migration networks to break through hi-tech controls suggests that other countries who fingerprint visitors could be equally vulnerable - not least the United States, according to BBC Asia analyst Andre Vornic.

BBC News. Dec 7, 2009.

Balloon boy parents will face criminal charges for 'hoax'

After initially accepting that Richard and Mayumi Heene, from Colorado, prompted a major rescue effort because they genuinely believed their six-year-old son had stowed away on the helium balloon, the local sheriff said that he and the media had been "manipulated" by the family.

Jim Alderden, the Larimer County sheriff, said the parents, who had once appeared on the reality TV series Wife Swap, had planned the stunt for two weeks in order to attract sufficient publicity that they would get their own show.


The couple, who first met at drama school, "put on a very good show for us, and we bought it" an embarrassed Mr Alderden announced at a press conference. "On the bizarre meter, this rates a 10."
He said the pair had not yet been arrested but were likely to face both misdemeanour and more serious felony charges.

They could include conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, making a false report to authorities and attempting to influence a public servant, he said.

Some of the more serious charges are punishable by six years in prison and a $500,000 (£300,000) fine.
All three of the Heenes' children knew about the hoax but are unlikely to be charged as the oldest is only 10.

Mr Alderden said the parents had shown "no evidence of any remorse".

Sheriff's deputies searched their home in Fort Collins on Saturday, taking away several boxes and a computer, after the family spent the day being questioned.

In an elaborate land and air rescue that gripped television viewers across the world, the authorities pursued the flying saucer-like balloon after it took off from the Heenes's home and soared thousands of feet into the air last Thursday.

Mr and Mrs Heene said they were convinced Falcon was inside the balloon's cockpit but, five hours later, he was discovered hiding in the attic of their garage.

Suspicions about the drama grew after it emerged that Mr Heane, an amateur inventor, was obsessed with becoming a TV star.

Then, in an interview with CNN, Falcon was asked by his father why he had not come out of his hiding place sooner. He replied: "You guys said that we did this for the show."

Mr Alderden said the apparent slip-up was their "first 'ah-ha' moment" but added that investigators were also suspicious about the flimsiness of the strings with which the Heanes had tethered the balloon.

Robert Thomas, a former business associate of Mr Heene, told Gawker, a US website, that he had previously discussed a plan to kick-start his TV career by using a weather balloon to fake a UFO sighting.

Mr Heene was "driven by ego and fame", and was determined to get his own television series in which he would conduct bizarre scientific experiments, he said.

Barbara Slusser, a friend and fellow storm chaser, said she stopped collaborating with Mr Heane because he kept bringing his young children on expeditions, even one into the eye of Hurricane Gustav.

She said he had an "explosive" personality, once trying to stuff lavatory paper down her throat during an argument.

Mr Heene said on Sunday the saga has become "convoluted".

The Telegraph. Oct 18, 2009.

Underwater cabinet meeting symbolises threat from rising seas

The Maldivian president and ministers held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting yesterday, in a symbolic cry for help as rising sea levels threaten the tropical archipelago's existence.
Aiming for another attention-grabbing event to bring the risks of climate change into relief before a landmark UN climate change meeting in December, President Mohamed Nasheed's cabinet headed to the bottom of a turquoise lagoon.

Clad in black diving suits and masks, Nasheed, 11 ministers, the vice-president and the cabinet secretary dived 3.8 metres to gather at tables under the crystalline waters that draw thousands of tourists to US$1,000-a-night luxury resorts.

As fish darted around a backdrop of white coral, Nasheed gestured with his hands to start the 30-minute meeting, state TV showed.

"We are trying to send our message to let the world know what is happening and what will happen to the Maldives if climate change isn't checked," a dripping Nasheed said as he re-emerged from the water.

The archipelago nation off the tip of India is among the most threatened by rising seas. If UN predictions are correct, most of the low-lying Maldives will be submerged by 2100.

Nasheed and the ministers used a white plastic slate and waterproof pencils to sign an "SOS" message from the Maldives during the 30-minute meeting. "We must unite in a world war effort to halt further temperature rises," the message said. "Climate change is happening, and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on earth."

World leaders will meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and industrialised nations want all countries to impose sharp emissions cuts.

"We have to have a better deal," Nasheed said. "We should be able to come out with an amicable understanding that everyone survives. If Maldives can't be saved today, we do not feel that there is much of a chance for the rest of the world."

The developing world wants rich countries to shoulder most of the burden, on the grounds they contributed most to the problem.

Nasheed and the cabinet trained for two weeks and were assisted by professional divers to pull off his latest eye-catching move related to climate change. Barely a month after entering office last year, he declared he would establish a sovereign fund to relocate his country's 350,000 people if sea levels rise, but he later admitted it was not feasible given the state of the Maldivian economy.

He has vowed to make the Maldives carbon-neutral within a decade by switching to renewable energy and offsetting carbon emissions caused by tourists flying in.

SCMP. Oct 18, 2009.

European Airline Brings Back the Smoking Section

It’s been a long time since passengers have been allowed to smoke on an airliner in the United States. It’s the same story in Europe. But now the smoking crowd across the Atlantic have an option when the nicotine comes calling.

Ireland-based Ryanair is selling smokeless cigarettes on all the company’s flights. Ryanair says a survey showed more than 24,000 passengers would like the option to smoke during flights and that was enough of an incentive in these lean times to try and gain some market share as well as some extra income. So as long as you’re at least 18 years old, the company will sell you a pack of smokeless smokes for 6 euro (about HK$68).

Ryanair is a discount airlines that flies throughout Europe and North Africa and is no stranger to using a gimmick to bring in  some business. The company says the cigarettes can’t be lit and deliver the nicotine through inhalation.

For those who fear the old days when the difference between the smoking section on an airplane and the non-smoking section was simply whichever way the air was flowing inside the cabin, the smokeless cigarettes do not emit any toxins or chemicals to nearby passengers. Company spokesman Stephen McNamara believes when smokers can get their nicotine, everybody wins, “as these cigarettes are smokeless, they cause no discomfort to other passengers and can ensure a more enjoyable and stress-free flight for all passengers as non-smokers will no longer have to cope with moody smokers in need of nicotine.”

Wired. Sep 28, 2009.

Music player noise limit planned

Train and bus passengers keen not to share the beat of fellow travellers' portable music devices might be happier to hear about a new plan from the EU.

A maximum noise default setting will be set on new portable music players, the European Commission has suggested.

But the standard decibel setting could be overridden by music fans still keen to turn up the volume.

The proposal came after research claimed that one in 10 users could suffer permanent hearing loss.

Scientists said those who listened at high volume for more than one hour per day over five years risked permanent harm. Between 50 million and 100 million people may be listening to portable music players on a daily basis, they found.

Levels

Existing EU standards currently prescribe no maximum sound limit nor require any specific volume labelling on devices.

The new proposals suggest that a default volume is set on all personal music players and mobile phones with a music playing function manufactured in the future. The proposals could take some months before becoming standard practice and would be voluntary among manufacturers.

The Commission said that at 80 decibels, exposure should be limited to 40 hours a week. At 89 decibels, exposure should not exceed five hours a week.

"It is easy to push up the sound levels on your mp3 player to damagingly loud levels, especially on busy streets or public transport," said EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva.

"The evidence is that particularly young people - who are listening to music at high volumes sometimes for hours each week - have no idea they can be putting their hearing at risk. It can take years for the hearing damage to show, and then it is simply too late.

"These standards make small technical changes to players so that by default, normal use is safe. If consumers chose to override the default settings they can, but there will be clear warnings so they know the risks they are taking."

BBC News.  Sep 28, 2009.

Sydney dust storm 'like Mars'

A storm which blew in from the Australian outback blanketed Sydney in a layer of orange dust. Here, residents describe the bizarre and frightening scene.

Tanya Ferguson said the dust was the weirdest thing she had seen in her life, turning the city into a scene from another planet.

"It was like being on Mars," she told the BBC News website.

"I haven't been there, obviously, but I imagine that's what the sky would look like."


She said she woke to a massive gust of wind blowing through her windows early in the morning.

"The whole room was completely orange. I couldn't believe my eyes," she said.

Ms Ferguson said she initially thought there was a bush fire. When she finally decided to venture outside, she said the entire city was covered in a film of orange dust.

"All the cars are just orange - and the orange was so intense," she said by phone from Sydney, where she has lived for the past six years.

"It was like being in the outback, but it was right here in the city."

Ms Ferguson said the sky was overcast and it was very dusty, making her sneeze a lot.

Public transport was disrupted and the roads were clogged as drivers struggled in the difficult conditions, but she said some people went to their jobs, and she saw a few residents wearing face masks.

By evening, Ms Ferguson said there were blue skies over Sydney and that it was returning to a normal day.

'Pink until noon'

Fellow Sydneysider Nick Beaugeard said his four young children were really frightened when they woke up on Wednesday morning.

"There was a really red glow inside the house, really crimson" he said. "It looked like the end of the world."


After the initial shock, he said the children got really excited and went off to school where they said it was "pink until noon".

Mr Beaugeard - who moved to Australia from the UK in 1998 - had to drive to work from the Northern Beaches area because the ferries were closed.

"It was like driving through a pea soup of fog," he said, "except it was bright red".

He said the lights looked blue because it was so red outside.

Mr Beaugeard said his wife - who is an asthmatic - was fine despite the blanket of dust and fog.

"She went out with a scarf over her mouth and she came back without it," he said.

He said the dust left everyone with a dry mouth, and a really gritty taste, but caused no breathing problems for his wife.

'Armageddon'

Andrew Hawkins, who lives in Northmead, about 20km from the centre of Sydney, says he was scared at first because it looked like the end of the world.

"This morning's dust storm was unbelievable… It was like waking up to see that Armageddon is upon us," he wrote in.


Mr Hawkins said he thought his eyes were playing up, or that there had been a nuclear explosion or a bush fire.

He described an ethereal scene of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House as he rode the train to work.

"To see a city of such beauty shrouded in red, was a sight which cannot be described - even pictures fail to capture the eerie nature of the scene which surrounded us this morning," Mr Hawkins added.

Another Sydney resident, Kirsty Ainsworth, said it was like being in a film.

"It was really, really bizarre. It was actually like being in a movie - the Day After Tomorrow or Armageddon," she said.

Ms Ainsworth said there had been storm warnings on Monday and Tuesday, but the dust storm took everybody by surprise.

"It came out of nowhere," she said, adding that visibility had improved enough for her to make it to work by around 0830 local time.

"Everybody's cars were caked in orange dust, and there's still sand everywhere," she said.

BBC News.  Sep. 23, 2009.

Russian president orders swift anti-alcohol controls

Russian President Dmitry Medvedvev on Friday gave his officials three months to enact tough restrictions to try and curb alcohol abuse.

Last month, Medvedev described alcoholism as a "national disaster", which undermines public health and hampers the economy, urging the public to unite in fighting against it.

Russia has one of the world's highest per-capita rates of alcohol consumption, linked to life expectancy. According to official figures, just 40 percent of this year's school leavers will reach the pension age of 55 for women and 60 for men.

Earlier attempts to introduce curbs on alcohol, including a major campaign by the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched in 1985, brought little practical results and undermined government popularity.

On Friday, Medvedev ordered Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to introduce new restrictions on advertising alcoholic drinks and to allow local authorities to ban the sale of alcohol in specific locations and at specific times of the day. Medvedev also proposed replacing fines with criminal punishment for those who sell spirits and beer to those under 18, who are banned from buying alcohol.

The proposals, which echo similar measures introduced during Gorbachev's campaign, will be unpopular in a country where easy access to alcohol and public drinking in parks and streets are seen as traditional rights.

Medvedev also ordered the government to initiate new measures limiting the illegal production and sale of spirits.

Russian officials say about 30-50 percent of Russia's vodka market is illegal and untaxed. Many officials say a state vodka monopoly would bring order to the market and make it easier to control.

The proposed measures will hardly affect importers of alcohol, whose share of the local market does not exceed three percent. Most imported wines and spirits are sold in legal shops, which will not be affected.


Reuters. Sep 11, 2009.