Archive for April, 2009
Administration deadline for LDV
Administration deadline for LDV
Struggling van maker LDV has applied to enter administration, a letter to staff on the firm’s website says.
Chief executive Evgeniy Vereshchagin said LDV would continue to look for funding until 6 May when its court application was due to be considered.
He said employees had been paid up to the end of last week, but that the firm could not confirm any further payments. Staff were told to stay away from work.
LDV could not be immediately reached for comment.
"During the past few weeks, the global economic crisis has forced us to operate in exceptional conditions and we cannot continue in this position without funding indefinitely," Mr Vereshchagin said in the letter.
Earlier, Erik Eberhardson, the chairman of LDV’s Russian owner Gaz, said he believed that LDV could be saved and the management buyout was the best option.
Two overseas investors have also been said to be interested in the company.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 30, 2009
RBS HQ notes ’signed by Sir Fred’
RBS HQ notes ’signed by Sir Fred’
Former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin employed someone to ensure only notes bearing his name were issued at RBS headquarters, it has been claimed.
City minister Lord Myners made the claim in the House of Lords.
Lord Myners has been at the centre of a row over how much he knew about Sir Fred’s £703,000-a-year pension deal.
A senior source at RBS dismissed the comment as "a ridiculous suggestion" and said it was "an amusing addition" to the feud between the two men.
Lord Myners told peers: "I have been advised that in the Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters in Gogarburn, Sir Fred Goodwin employed somebody whose sole job was to ensure that bank notes dispensed from automated telling machines in that headquarters building bore his signature and his signature alone."
RBS said all bank notes it prints are signed by its chief executive.
Sir Fred was in charge at the bank for nine years, and the majority of RBS notes in current use will bear his signature.
However, some may bear the signature of Sir Fred’s predecessor, Sir George Mathewson, while any new notes will be signed by current boss Stephen Hester.
Lord Myners also said that the bank’s board was still investigating whether it could recover some of Sir Fred’s pension."The government… has asked the Royal Bank of Scotland’s existing boards to explore legal channels and to ensure that the payment of the pension to Sir Fred Goodwin is in accordance with rules of the scheme and the terms of his contract," he said.
Lord Newby, for the Liberal Democrats, said that while Sir Fred was no longer signing bank notes he was "still receiving them in very copious quantities".
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 29, 2009
Children’s classics top list of best books of all time
Children’s classics top list of best books of all time
Classic tales including Just William and The Railway Children dominate a list of the best books of all time, as chosen by children’s laureates.
Just five of the 35 books – selected by Quentin Blake, Anne Fine, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen – came out in the past 20 years.
A fifth were published in the 19th Century, including the oldest – Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist from 1838.
There was no place on the list for any of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books.
E Nesbit appeared twice on the list – for Five Children and It, chosen by Blake, and The Railway Children, chosen by Wilson.
Robert Louis Stevenson also appeared twice – for A Child’s Garden of Verses, chosen by Fine, and Treasure Island, chosen by Morpurgo.
SELECTED FAVOURITES- The Box of Delights by John Masefield. Chosen by Quentin Blake
- Just William by Richmal Crompton. Chosen by Quentin Blake
- Five Go to Smuggler’s Top by Enid Blyton. Chosen by Michael Morpurgo
- The Railway Children by E Nesbit. Chosen by Jacqueline Wilson
- Fairy Tales by Terry Jones. Chosen by Michael Rosen
Source: Waterstone’s
Morpurgo, whose books include Kensuke’s Kingdom and Private Peaceful, said he "lived and loved" Treasure Island the first time he read it.
"This was the first proper book I read for myself," he said.
"Jim Hawkins was the first character in a book I identified with totally – I was Jim Hawkins."
Seven of the chosen books were from the 1930s, including Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, TH White’s Sword in the Stone and Mary Poppins by PL Travers.
Wilson, who chose Mary Poppins, said: "I would love to be Mary Poppins, admired by everyone, totally in control, never turning a hair even when flying through the air with her carpet bag and parrot-headed umbrella."
The most recent book to make the list was 2008’s Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear by Andy Stanton.
Sarah Clarke, of list organiser Waterstone’s, said: "I’m sure it will be a surprise to many that the list does not include more recent bestsellers like JK Rowling’s Harry Potter.
"But it’s great to see the laureates choosing some timeless greats like The Railway Children and Just So Stories and introducing them to a new generation of readers – that’s what the laureates are all about."
The children’s laureate prize is awarded to a children’s author every two years to celebrate achievement in writing for a young audience.
Current laureate Michael Rosen will shortly end his run in the role, with his successor due to be announced before the end of the month.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 28, 2009
Yours for £3.9m? Rare blue diamond goes on show in London
Yours for £3.9m? Rare blue diamond goes on show in London
By Rajini Vaidyanathan
BBC News
A rare blue diamond which could set a world record price per carat when it is sold in May has gone on show in London.
Smaller than a penny piece, it is worth between $5.8m (£3.9m) and $8.5m (£5.7m) according to estimates by its sellers.
It weighs 7.03 carats and is one of only a handful of blue diamonds in existence in the world.
The diamond was found in South Africa last year and is on show at Sotheby’s, in Mayfair, until Tuesday. It will be auctioned in Geneva on 12 May.
The gem, which was cut from a 26.58 carat rough diamond, was discovered in 2008 at the Cullinan mine.
‘Flawless’
The mine also produced the 530 carat Great Star of Africa diamond, which is set in the Crown Jewels.
The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) has graded the blue diamond as flawless in clarity, the highest ranking it can give to a diamond.
Cathy Malins, from Petra Diamonds, the company which mined the gem, described it as a unique find.
She said: "At our mine in South Africa we mine between two and three million tonnes of rock a year but we would be very lucky to get maybe one, maybe two, blue diamonds out of that.
"Quite simply we don’t know when we’ll mine another one".
The scarcity of the gems is in part down to the fact so few places in the world mine for blue diamonds.
The stones get their colour when the chemical boron is present during formation.
‘Exceptionally rare’
Auctioneers say that despite the current economic climate, they have had plenty of interest from prospective buyers across the globe.
David Bennett, Sotheby’s Europe and Middle East chairman, said: "It will be bought by somebody who wants the cachet of something that nobody else has – somebody who wants something that is exceptionally beautiful and exceptionally rare.
"I’m optimistic that even in this market the rarity of the stone will carry it along."
In May 2008 a 3.73 carat diamond was sold by Sotheby’s at auction for $1,328,444, (£900,000 at today’s exchange rate) setting the world record price per carat for any gemstone at auction.
If this diamond sells for the top estimate of $8.5m (£5.7m) it would break that record.
The person who buys it will also get to name the stone.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 27, 2009
Centre-left wins Iceland election
Centre-left wins Iceland election
Iceland’s ruling centre-left government looks set to have won a major victory in the country’s early elections.
Preliminary results show the coalition has won 35 of the 63 seats available, its first ever parliamentary majority.
Iceland has been one of the countries most dramatically affected by the global economic crisis.
The conservative Independence party, which resigned in January amid widespread protests over the economy, won 15 seats and has conceded defeat.
The Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement formed a coalition caretaker government in February, under Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir.
Ms Sigurdardottir said if the results were correct it would be "historic".
"We lost this time but we will win again later"Bjarni Benediktsson
Independence Party leader
"This is the first time that leftist parties will hold a majority. I hope this will be the result," she said.
Ms Sigurdardottir told supporters the nation was "settling the score with the neoliberalism" and with the Independence party who "have been in power for much too long".
"The people are calling for a change of ethics. That is why they have voted for us," she said.
Independence leader Bjarni Benediktsson said it was clear that his party had lost the trust of voters.
"We lost this time but we will win again later," he said.
EU debate
The small North Atlantic nation has a population of only 300,000.
But it had to take a $10bn (£6.8bn) rescue package, led by the International Monetary Fund, after its banking sector imploded late last year.
The next government will face many challenges, centred around the economy, the BBC’s Nicholas Walton says.
It needs rebuilding, with financial services no longer at its core. Unemployment and the government’s ruined finances also need attention, our correspondent says.
There is also the question of whether or not to apply to join the European Union.
In the past, Icelanders felt that they were better off outside the EU.
But the financial crisis has changed opinions, our correspondent says. Now, many see EU membership or adopting the Euro as Iceland’s currency, as part of the solution to the country’s problems.
Pro-EU Ms Sigurdardottir said if the country applied immediately for membership it could begin using the Euro "within four years".
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 26, 2009
Assault leaves teenager critical
Assault leaves teenager critical
A teenager is critically ill in hospital after being attacked in west Belfast.
The 19-year-old suffered head injuries in the attack off the Springfield Road at about 0230 BST on Friday. It is understood he was found in a lay-by.
Police said they were trying to establish a motive for the attack.
A police spokesman appealed for anyone who was in the area at the time or who witnessed the attack to contact them.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 25, 2009
‘It’s a buzz’
By Rowan Bridge
BBC Radio 5 Live
Walking through Burnley town centre with Janet and Jane Cunliffe, you immediately notice the number of people staring at them as they walk past.
In their white jeans (size six), matching tops, peroxide blonde hair and rather heavy make-up, they appear somewhat out of place amongst the Tuesday lunchtime crowd in the former Lancashire mill-town.
At one point, one of the people walking past sniggers once they’re behind us.
"Yes, we get a bit of that," Jane, who’s 29, says.
Janet, it’s fair to say, doesn’t look – or dress – like your average 50-year-old.
"People think we must be sisters, or related in some way, but they’d never believe we were mother and daughter," she says.
‘Like my sister’
But her ability to fool people about her age hasn’t come cheap. Janet reckons she’s spent £12,000 on surgical enhancement.
"I was a 34A/B and now I’m 34DD. I had my upper eyes lifted and lower eyes, I had my nose reshaped and my lips filled with filler.
"I decided to do it because I was feeling low at the time, I’d just come out of a long-term relationship, so just to boost my confidence.
"She looks like my sister and I’m happy for her"Jane Cunliffe, daughter
"My daughter inspired me at the time, so I just wanted to look like her and to make me feel a lot more youthful and to give me some confidence."
Jane’s initial reaction was perhaps not surprising.
"I went mad. It were the dangers I was scared of for her. I didn’t want her to change her looks, but she’s happy now. I’m proud of her that she’s feeling more confident in herself.
"She looks like my sister and I’m happy for her."
The two of them shop for clothes together. and will often find themselves wearing matching or complementary outfits when they go out together.
As they rifle through their wardrobe of clothes Janet pulls out one of their dresses to show me.
"There is a purple dress here that we bought in America that we both liked and we both wear it. It’s a nice clingy dress and I think it looks great on both of us.
"We always get compliments when we go out when one of us has got it on."
‘Just a buzz’
Both of them clearly enjoy the attention.
"Oh, it’s amazing the reaction that we get, everyone stares. They can’t believe she’s my mother. They think she’s my sister and it’s just a buzz." says Jane.
Walking alongside them through Burnley town centre it is easy to see what she means.
You notice everyone we walk past casts their eyes over the two of them. I stop a few people and ask them to guess how old they think the ladies are.
"Forty-nine, 50 – and I’d say about 22," says the first man I stop.
Jane looks far happier with our mystery shopper than her mum does.
"She’s 42, and 24," guesses the second person.
"Janet about 40 and Jane, 23. Do they look their real age No," says a female passer-by.
What do you make of the way they’re dressed though
"Well," says the woman diplomatically, "It’s not my style obviously, but yeah, fine, it’s great, nothing wrong with it."
The Victoria Derbyshire programme is on every weekday between 10am and 1pm on BBC Radio 5Live.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 24, 2009
Giant leap looms for mobile bugs
Giant leap looms for mobile bugs
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Prague
The widespread outbreak of mobile phone viruses will occur when a sufficient number of them share an operating system (OS), according to researchers.
Viruses spread by Bluetooth could reach all users of a given OS in days, whereas those spread by multimedia messages could spread in just hours.
But the virulence will only appear when a given OS has about 10% market share.
This "percolation transition" was described at the Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague.
Media mix
In 2008, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University in the US, published a study on the movements of more than 100,000 mobile phone users.
Their daily routines showed which "social networks" an individual user inhabits, and their patterns of movement exhibited surprising repetition and predictability.
"Once any operating system reaches 10% of the whole user market…viruses will spread everywhere"Albert-Laszlo BarabasiNortheastern University
Now, Professor Barabasi and his team have turned their attention to how these networks could facilitate the proliferation of mobile viruses.
"There are actually more than 600 mobile phone viruses out there," Prof Barabasi told BBC News. What is more, he explained, mobile phone viruses have reached a level of sophistication in two years that computer viruses took more than two decades to achieve.
"But why haven’t I ever got one" he asked.
Slow movers
Mobile viruses can spread in two ways: through Bluetooth, or via a file sent as a multimedia message.
"You have to have the right operating system; the viruses that will spread on the iPhone will not spread on Nokias, and vice versa," said Prof Barabasi.
"It turns out that the Bluetooth way, because it’s driven by human mobility, is relatively slow. If you launch a Bluetooth virus it may take anywhere from days to months to spread, particularly if it’s not a popular phone."
Eventually users take infected phones to shops and replace or reset them, or change phones altogether, and the viruses spread no further.
"The real question is about MMS viruses. They’re instantaneous: within two minutes everyone in your address book could have it; within a few hours everyone who is reachable would have it."
To discover the reason that this hasn’t happened, the team turned to the network theory that was used in the 2008 work, making use of the data set that showed them the details of users’ movement and social connections.
In the network theory, there is a phenomenon known as a "percolation transition".
In social networks, beyond the transition, everyone is connected to everyone. Applied to mobile viruses, the transition describes the point of no return: when everyone who could conceivably have a given virus will get it.
Up to now, viruses transmitted by MMS have spread sufficiently slowly that operators have had a chance to block them. The future scenario will be very different.
"Right now, we’re under the percolation threshold. Only 5% of users have smartphones and even those are fragmented into different operating systems – the largest one doesn’t even reach 3% of the overall market.
"We predict that once any operating system reaches 10% of the whole user market, then the percolation transition will happen, and then the [viruses] will spread everywhere."
Near the percolation transition of 10% market share, viruses spread via MMS wouldn’t necessarily reach every single handset with a given operating system, but they would cast their net before operators will have time to respond.
On the other hand, a Bluetooth-mediated viruses, while having a much slower rate of infection, could conceivably reach every user of a given OS.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 23, 2009
Long queues as South Africa votes
Long queues as South Africa votes
South Africans have been queuing to vote in what is likely to be the most competitive general election since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Many voters were wrapped in blankets, hats and scarves on a chilly day and turned out hours before booths opened.
Former leader Nelson Mandela, 90, was among those voting.
The ruling ANC – led by Jacob Zuma – is expected to win, but it could lose its two-thirds majority in parliament which allows it to change the constitution.
Among its rivals is a new party – Congress of the People (Cope) – formed last year by a group who split from the ANC after ex-President Thabo Mbeki was replaced as leader.
Some 20,000 polling stations are being used for more than 23 million registered voters. Polls close at 2100 local time (1900 GMT).
Opposition plea
BBC correspondents around the country reported lively groups of voters braving the wintry weather to cast their ballots.
Your pictures: At the polls
Many voters arrived hours before polling stations opened – some wrapped in blankets, clutching mugs of hot drinks.
By midday, most of the main political figures had voted.
Mr Mandela had already pledged his support to the ANC at a rally last week, but Mr Mbeki was widely rumoured to be considering backing Cope.
After casting his vote in Johannesburg, Mr Mbeki did not confirm the speculation, saying: "People should vote for who they want, not out of fear, but for the party they believe will deliver the South Africa they want."
In a polling station queue, the leader of the official opposition Democratic Alliance party, Helen Zille, told the BBC that South Africans needed to "stop Zuma to save the constitution".
"He’s a one-man constitution-wrecking machine and what he says and what he does are two different things," she said.
POLL IN NUMBERS- 23m registered voters
- 19,700 polling stations
- 9,130 candidates – 3,511 female
- 2,000 soldiers deployed
- 4,000 local observers, 153 from abroad
The alliance has repeatedly suggested that if the ANC retains its two-thirds majority, it might change the constitution to protect Mr Zuma from prosecution – claims he has denied.
Voting in his home state of KwaZulu-Natal, Mr Zuma told cheering supporters: "When I grew up, I did know that this day would come.
"This makes me feel great and it’s a feeling far different from the one that we had under the apartheid government."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has described Mr Zuma as an unfit president, cast his vote in Cape Town.
"Because of the role the ANC has played in the struggle, and in the first years of our freedom, most people would have tended to vote ANC," he said.
"Now, it is no longer quite so straightforward. People are asking questions, which is a good thing, I mean, that is what a democracy is."
Charges of corruption against Mr Zuma were dropped just two weeks before the poll, after state prosecutors said there had been political interference in the case.
‘Voting for change’
Many of the new voters are young people who have little memory of the struggle to end white minority rule, which brought the ANC to power.
One first-time voter, Bhekisa, was among the first at the polling station in Johannesburg City Hall.
"It’s so cold today, you can see it’s freezing. But I am excited because I am here," he said.
While another, Pam Morris, said she was keen to vote for a change.
"That is what we have to look for every day. Change. A better life," she said.
Analysts say Cope’s emergence energised the early stages of the election campaign, but the party’s popularity seems to have diminished in recent weeks.
Cope fielded a relatively unknown presidential candidate, former Bishop Mvume Dandala, who analysts say has struggled to make an impact.
Some say the real battle is between Cope and the Democratic Alliance – for second place.
Neither party has ruled out entering into a coalition after the election.
An opposition coalition would provide the biggest challenge to the ANC since it was first elected in 1994, ending years of white minority rule.
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Add comment April 22, 2009
Couple jailed for fake ID factory
Couple jailed for fake ID factory
A couple who set up and ran an international fake ID factory from their Cheshire home have been jailed.
Adrian Holmes and Lucy Sanders made about £300,000 from a website targeting young people hoping to break drinking laws, Chester Crown Court heard.
The pair, who admitted a charge of conspiring to supply articles for use in fraud, had orders from as far away as Singapore and Japan.
Holmes, 32, of Lymm, was jailed for two years and Sanders, 28, one year.
The court heard that Holmes was the brains behind the operation, designing the website and cards while Sanders made them in their basement.
The site boasted testimonials from underage drinkers hailing the "absolutely fantastic" cards that "never failed".
"They knew full well what their customers were using the IDs for"
Peter Moss, prosecuting
They were highly sophisticated – featuring holograms and chips – and came in the form of driving licenses, permits and UK identity cards.
All customers needed to do was email their photograph, date of birth, signature and pay £20.
Saying it was the first prosecution of its kind, Peter Moss, for the crown, said the pair did not care what the cards were used for as long as they were getting paid.
"It’s a feature of the case that if you paid your money you got what you asked for," said Mr Moss.
"It didn’t matter how many you asked for, you got what you wanted.
"They knew full well what their customers were using the IDs for."
‘Successful enterprise’
Trading standards officers and police raided their home in Lymmington Avenue, Lymm, in April 2008.
Documents were found that showed the couple had £165,000 in one bank account and could make up to 40 fake cards a day.
The couple were caught after licensees and community support officers in Cheshire were handed batches of cards confiscated by door staff.
Judge Elgin Edwards, the Recorder of Chester, described the business as a "novel and highly successful enterprise".
He said: "This business effectively drove a coach and horses through an area of control of youthful drinking and access to nightclubs.
"And there is the danger of even more serious misuse."
Later, Vanessa Griffiths, trading standards manager at Cheshire West and Chester Council, said officers were pleased with the "deterrent sentences".
"It is the first prosecution of its type and we hope it sends out a strong message to anybody else operating or considering this kind of business," she added.
Ms Griffiths said there were other investigations ongoing and more prosecutions were expected to follow.
An assets hearing for Holmes and Sanders will be held in July.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Add comment April 20, 2009
