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2009
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The Future Laboratory’s Mr Raymond says key trends are beginning to show.
“People are becoming more measured with their spending, more determined to compare prices,” he says.
He indicates that people are more prepared to challenge and to barter, and consumers will go back and argue after they have made a purchase.
There is even a group who call themselves ‘freegans’. They eat products that are just left around after other people have finished.
There are also housewives who call themselves Chief Household Officers, who say they run a house the way they would run a business – strategically and balancing budgets.
“A growing number of people are concerned with excess in terms of what they need to live, along with how and why products need to be produced the way they are,” Mr Raymond says
Figures show that people are buying less, and also buying products which have a certain integrity about them in terms of sourcing.
“Look at sales of local produce in North America, and the revival of interest in corner stores which are now beginning to do better than supermarkets,” he says.
“People not just shopping in terms of value, they are also asking questions about the origin of their foods,” he says.
The desire to spend, and spend conspicuously, seems to have taken a back seat for the moment.
It remains to be seen whether this change in attitude, which ultimately might provide a better world for future generations, will be permanent.
1st
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2009
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Some 380,000 Colombians were forced from their homes last year by the continuing armed conflict, a local human rights group has said.
The Centre for Human Rights and the Displaced, Codhes, says this is a 25% rise on 2008 and brings the total displaced since 1985 to 4.6 million.
Government officials say the number registered as displaced has risen.
But they say the Codhes total includes figures from previous years and those falsely claiming compensation.
In its annual report, Codhes says 2008 saw the rate of displacement rising to levels last seen in 2002, the worst year on record when 410,000 people were forced to flee.
According to its study, 380,863 people had to leave their homes or places of work as a result of the armed conflict between guerrillas, paramilitary groups and the security forces.
Codhes says that between 1985 and 2008, 4.6 million Colombians have been uprooted.
“The great majority live in severe conditions of poverty,” the Codhes report said, while their own land and property had fallen into the hands of others in a “de facto expropriation”.
1st
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2009
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Experts say there are many outstanding questions about the effects of HRT.
Further studies are being carried out to understand more about how it affects women over long periods of time.
Previous studies had suggested that HRT increases the risk of some cancers, particularly breast cancer, but protects against osteoporosis and coronary heart disease.
However a Women’s Health Initiative study, recently found it was linked to a 29% increase in heart attacks and increase in other cardiovascular conditions.
She told BBC News Online: “This large study tested oestrogen therapy alone as a treatment option, and demonstrates that this also does not reduce overall risk of further cardiac events in post menopausal women after they have had a heart attack.”
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2009
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The BBC Urdu service’s Haroon Rashid is one of the first journalists to travel to the north-western Pakistani district of Buner, since heavy fighting broke out between the army and the Taliban.
“It’s just a firecracker,” our driver said as a sound like a rifle round whistled above our vehicle.
We had just passed through the last checkpoint into Ambela, a sub-division of Pakistan’s troubled Buner district.
Passing through the checkpoint
Our first impressions were that Buner does indeed appear to be calmer – but also more deserted.
Stopping where we heard the sound of the shot – to debate its origins – a passer-by told us it was a warning shot fired by the army.
He indicated the hills around the road, where I was told that it was possible for me to see troops in entrenched positions all around.
I was told this was the way that the army enforced the curfew in the absence of local police.
31st
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2009
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The roots of Yemen’s current civil conflict, in which the government is trying to put down a localised but potent rebellion, lie in the Cold War regional politics of the 1960s.
Then, Egyptian-backed army officers brought an end to Yemen’s 1,000-year Shia Imamate and established the modern Yemeni republic.
Republican troops seized control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 1962, while the imam fled to the northern mountains, where he mounted a spirited counter-offensive from the same territory where the fighting is happening today.
Then, as now, a well-equipped army in Sanaa deployed air power and superior military hardware against the rebels in the Saada region but for five years republican forces failed to defeat the mountain guerrillas
Thursday’s reported aerial bombardments of civilians, reports that the Saada rebels are holding Yemeni soldiers as prisoners of war and preparations by aid agencies to deliver humanitarian relief across the border from Saudi Arabia echo familiar patterns of conflict from the 1960s.
Then, as now, regional dynamics inflamed local tensions inside Yemen, with Saudi Arabia and Jordan backing Yemen’s imam against thousands of Egyptian troops barracked in Sanaa.
31st
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2009
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For men who turned the eyes of the world to Indonesia, it was a small and muted death.
Just a handful of witnesses and a firing squad, hidden away on Indonesia’s prison island.
There, in the darkness around midnight, three men convicted of carrying out Indonesia’s worst ever bomb attack, were shot though the heart.
It was the end of a six-year story that changed Indonesia, and its place in the world.
That story began in the darkness of another night – 12 October 2002 – on the nearby island of Bali, when bomb attacks ripped through two of the island’s busiest nightspots.
More than 200 people died: tourists, taxi drivers, night-club staff.
Among the dead were 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians and 28 Britons
31st
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2009
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The BBC’s Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta says police are sure this time Noordin is dead because of fingerprint tests.
Thank God on this holy month of Ramadan – it’s Noordin M Top,” police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a nationally televised news conference to cheers, reports AFP news agency.
He added that alleged bomb-maker Bagus Budi Pranato, alias Urwah, was also among those killed.
A member of the national parliament’s security committee said he and other lawmakers had been allowed to inspect the bodies of the four militants.
“Today, God willing, the radical movement has been disabled. One of the biggest terrorist masterminds, Noordin M Top, has been shot,” said the MP, Sidarto, reports AFP.
“There were signs that pointed to it being Noordin M Top, such as a big mole on the left side of his nose,” he added.
Noordin, 41, is accused of leading a more hardline splinter faction of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.
Police are reported to have closed in on the rented house late on Wednesday after arresting two suspects nearby.
Witnesses said they heard gunfire through the night and then an explosion early on Thursday.
30th
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2009
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North Berwick has won the top award in the annual Beautiful Scotland campaign to find the cleanest, most sustainable and beautiful community in the country.
It is the second time the East Lothian town has taken the Rosebowl Trophy, having also won in 2007.
The winners of various categories were announced at an awards event in Aberdeen on Monday.
Scottish Government Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead presented a Homecoming Award to Cupar, Fife.
Mr Lochhead said: “The Beautiful Scotland awards showcase and recognise the hard work of communities throughout Scotland.
“We should be proud of our communities, urban or rural, and do our utmost to keep them attractive, safe places to live and visit.”
He added: “In this, the year of Homecoming, our villages, towns and cities are helping cement Scotland’s global reputation.”
Rothesay on Bute received the Rosebowl Reserve Trophy, while Perth & Kinross villages of Comrie and Muthill took the Best Village and runner-up awards.
In total 71 communities across Scotland entered the campaign and were visited by assessors during a national judging tour in August.
The judges assessed the towns under the headings of horticultural achievement, environmental responsibility and community participation.
30th
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2009
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Dr Foing’s formal job title within Esa is “chief scientist”, and he comes with formidable pedigree, not least being the leader of Esa’s pioneering Smart-1 mission.
But he could equally well have inscribed on his business card “Chief Space Visionary, Europe”.
The Moon tulip is just one example of the futuristic, fun and possibly even feasible ideas dreamt up in his think-tanks headquartered at Esa’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (Estec) in the Netherlands.
Also on the drawing board is a robotic lander.
“Ten years ago, we had a lunar studies group making a feasibility study and design for a lunar lander at the equator or the pole,” Dr Foing recalls.
“But at that time it was very difficult to design a mission at low cost, because a lot of technologies needed to be developed, and also we didn’t know what the polar region of the Moon looked like.
“With current missions we have much better knowledge of the polar regions as a site where we could search for ice; and also with Smart-1 we have identified some ‘peaks of eternal light’ where we would like to land – these are areas near the poles of the Moon which have sunlight all the time, even in winter.”
Landing at one of these sites would guarantee solar power all day and all year round.
Various working groups are now discussing what should be done to take best advantage of these sites; what equipment should be carried on a robotic lander, how far rovers should rove, how to plan missions so they go from the safest operations to progressively more risky ventures carrying potentially greater rewards?
Currently on the drawing board is a lander weighing about 180kg which could be launched at relatively low cost.
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2009
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Hakim’s pledge to co-operate with Coalition authorities placed him in direct confrontation with newer, more radical Shia clerics who had stayed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, such as Moqtada Sadr.
Sadr accused Sciri of attempting to benefit from the peace deal that saw his Mehdi Army leave Najaf after a bloody battle with US troops, and warned them to “beware that they are not sucked into America’s plot to incite fighting among Shia”.
Hakim and Sciri were collaborators in the eyes of Sunni militants too. Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on Sciri’s headquarters in 2004 which Hakim survived but left 13 dead.
Following the January 2005 election, several Sciri leaders were given key roles in the new Iraqi cabinet – Adel Abdul Mahdi became vice-president, while Bayan Baqir Solagh was named interior minister.
Mr Solagh was heavily criticised for the human rights abuses committed by interior ministry personnel during his term, and accused by many Sunni Arabs of allowing Shia militias, including the Badr Organisation, to operate death squads within the security forces.
The UIA maintained its dominance in the December 2005 election despite the outrage, but this time Sciri was forced to accept a compromise candidate from the rival Dawa Party, Nouri Maliki, for the post of prime minister.
In the three years since coming to power, Mr Maliki has sought to reduce the presence of Shia militiamen in the security forces and limit Sciri’s power, while at the same time draw Sunni Arabs back into the political process. This, combined with the US troop surge, has seen security dramatically improve in the past year.
The changing situation and its questionable government record has also resulted in diminished support for Sciri – which dropped its revolutionary tag and became the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council in 2007 – but it nevertheless remains one of the most popular, powerful and well-organised political parties in Iraq.
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