Guardian UK – Companies across Europe are hoarding permits to produce greenhouse gas emissions worth hundreds of millions of pounds, the Guardian can reveal. The surplus credits have been amassed from over-allocation of permits to pollute from the European emissions trading scheme, and by buying cheap credits from carbon-cutting projects in developing countries and holding on to their more expensive official EU allowances. The saved permits can be used to meet future targets to cut the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming and climate change without actually reducing pollution, or sold for a profit in the future. Read Article
Daily Mail – Britain is the worst country in which to raise children, while Australia is the best, a study has found. A massive 78 per cent of children who moved there from countries such as the UK spent more time outdoors than they did before, and the majority ate more healthily. Read Article
Times Online – The Italian Parliament has approved a law that will shield Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, from criminal trials for the next year and a half. The decision led to vociferous protests from magistrates, judges and the centre-Left opposition. The law, passed last night, in effect undermines two trials in which Mr Berlusconi, 73, is accused of corruption. In one he is charged with giving David Mills, his former British tax lawyer and estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, a bribe to lie for him in court in corruption cases in the 1990s. In the second his television company Mediaset is accused of tax fraud over the purchase of Hollywood film rights. Read article
Telegraph – Google, the internet giant, is believed to be testing a new technology which will allow consumers to search programme listings on their own television sets. The new product, which utilises parts of Google’s Android mobile operating system, also lets users find and watch YouTube video clips on their televisions. The system, details of which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is currently on trial in a small number of homes belonging to Google employees and their families. The exact trial size not currently known. Read Article
Bloomberg – The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter. Direct investments may allow funds such as those in Oregon, New Jersey and California to cut fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets, the people said. They declined to be identified because talks with regulators are confidential. Read Article
BBC – Scientists have discovered the primary mechanism by which thalidomide causes malformed limbs in developing embryos. This side-effect was recognised after thousands of affected children were born to mothers who had been prescribed the drug for morning sickness. Read Article
Daily Mail – Princess Diana died after attempts to frighten her into dumping Dodi al Fayed and ending her anti-establishment activities went horribly wrong, a leading lawyer has claimed. Michael Mansfield claimed he was sure Diana’s ‘killers’ had no intention of ending her life in a Paris tunnel in August 1997 and simply wanted to scare her. But he claimed the operation to torpedo her relationship with Dodi, and silence her planned criticism of the British government over foreign arms sales, backfired spectacularly. Read article
Telegraph – Thousands of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to develop mental health problems, General Sir Richard Dannatt said. The news came as the Prince of Wales launched an appeal by the charity Combat Stress to raise £30million to pay for better mental health services for veterans across the UK. So far 180,000 British troops have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. General Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, said that as many as 8,500 former servicemen of these will develop mental health problems. Read article
Reuters – The ground shook and buildings swayed as billionaire Sebastian Pinera took over as Chile’s president on Thursday, tasked with rebuilding after a massive earthquake killed hundreds just 12 days ago. A series of strong aftershocks rattled central Chile minutes before conservative Pinera was sworn in at Congress in the port city of Valparaiso, as Latin American presidents and other dignitaries looked nervously at the ceiling. Read article
Times – Northern Rock, the state-owned bank bailed out with £26 billion in taxpayers’ funds, will share a £14.9 million bonus among its staff despite running up a loss over 2009. The lender’s 4,500 staff will receive rewards, including its 32 top managers, who will benefit from a £3 million bonus specifically for senior staff, to be paid in three instalments and subject to the Government’s 50 per cent tax on awards in excess of £25,000. Read Article
Zero Day – The United States Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) has warned that the software included in the Energizer DUO USB battery charger contains a backdoor that allows unauthorized remote system access. In an advisory, the US-CERT warned that he installer for the Energizer DUO software places the file UsbCharger.dll in the application’s directory and Arucer.dll in the Windows system32 directory. Read Article
BBC – Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador to Sweden after the parliament voted narrowly to describe as genocide the killing of Armenians in World War I. The Turkish government condemned the resolution, saying it was “based upon major errors and without foundation”. The Swedish government opposed the opposition resolution but it passed by one vote after some MPs voted against party lines. It comes days after a US congressional panel passed a similar resolution. Read article
Times Online – The threat of violent protests loomed over Iraq yesterday as the country’s leading opposition politician said that there was widespread fraud in last week’s elections. Ayad Allawi told Western officials that aides to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, had hidden ballot papers and falsified computer records in an effort to retain power. “They are stealing the votes of the Iraqi people,” his spokesman told a press conference called to set out the main claims. Read article
The Register – Global arms’n'aerospace behemoth Boeing says it will now begin work in earnest on its “Phantom Eye” high-altitude hydrogen spy drone, powered by a pair of modified Ford car engines. The unmanned Phantom Eye will, according to Boeing engineers, be able to cruise for as long as four days at a time at altitudes of up to 65,000 feet. They should call it the Ford bi-motor, not the Phantom Eye. Read Article
Wall Street Journal – Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past. Read Article
Associated Press – The Pentagon said Thursday the cost to build its next-generation fighter jet has doubled to as much as $113 million per plane since 2001. The bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Progam, delivered Thursday to Congress, was swiftly denounced by lawmakers who said runaway spending on major weapons systems has become all too common. Read article
Guardian – A senior UN official has called for Burma’s military rulers to be investigated over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated against Burmese civilians, in a move that will sharply increase pressure on the isolated regime ahead of controversial national elections due later this year. In a draft report to the UN Human Rights Council [pdf] in Geneva, Tomás Ojea Quintana, special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, described “a pattern of gross and systematic violation of human rights” which he said has been in place for many years and still continued. Read article
Bloomberg – Unemployment decreased in nine U.S. states in January, led by an improvement in Michigan that demonstrates factories are driving the economic rebound. Michigan’s jobless rate fell to 14.3 percent, still the highest in the nation, from 14.5 percent in December, according to figures issued today by the Labor Department in Washington. Nationwide, unemployment unexpectedly fell to 9.7 percent from 10 percent, the Labor Department reported last month. Read Article
The Columbus Dispatch – WASHINGTON – Dozens of former federal officials are playing leading roles in helping carmakers handle federal investigations of auto defects, including those for Toyota’s runaway acceleration problems. A Washington Post analysis shows that as many as 33 former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration employees and Transportation Department appointees left those jobs and now work for automakers as lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and in other jobs that deal with government safety probes, recalls and regulations. The reach of these former agency employees is broad. Their names appear on rosters for every major automaker, every automotive trade group and as expert witnesses and legal counsel for the industry in class-action lawsuits. Read Article
Deutsche Welle – As a new solar cycle of activity begins this year, the Earth will once again be bombarded with increased radiation from the sun. This effect may damage satellites and interfere with GPS, television and communications. Read article
Times Online – The Soviet Union is gradually being rebuilt as Vladimir Putin eyes a return to the Kremlin. The man who declared the collapse of the Communist state to be the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century” appears determined to forge a new empire. The latest evidence emerged in a suggestion by Igor Shuvalov, First Deputy Prime Minister in Mr Putin’s Government, that Russia may abolish the rouble and create a common currency with Kazakhstan and Belarus. Read article
(AP) Two years after receiving Its first deposits, a “doomsday” seed vault on an Arctic island has amassed half a million seed samples, making it the world’s most diverse repository of crop seeds, the vault’s operators announced Thursday. Cary Fowler – who heads the trust that oversees the seed collection, which is 620 miles from the North Pole, said the facility now houses at least one-third of the world’s crop seeds – Read Article
ABC – United States defence secretary Robert Gates has raised the prospect of some American troops withdrawing from Afghanistan earlier than expected. Mr Gates has been in Afghanistan watching Afghan troops being trained by American and British forces. Although US troops are not due to start withdrawing until the middle of next year, Mr Gates says some could be out earlier than that. Read article
Sky news – Youngsters at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood claim they returned from half-term to find staff had installed the cameras without notifying them or their parents. Some parents are furious at what they say is a “total invasion of privacy” and claim some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities. One mother whose teenage daughter attends the school is concerned the footage could fall into the wrong hands. Read Article
SkyNews – The Earth really did move during last month’s massive Chile quake, which killed hundreds of people and left two million homeless. Researchers say cities and islands physically shifted west. Thanks to satellites, scientists at Ohio State University and the University of Hawaii found that the city of Concepcion moved at least 10 feet to the west – Read Article
