divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/62108?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Zimbabwe+moves+to+tackle+cash+shortage+as+soldiers+riotch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Zimbabwe%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Chris+McGrealc7=2008_12_04c8=1128359c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Zimbabwec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FZimbabwe" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Zimbabwe government has greatly increased the amount of money people can withdraw from banks from today in an attempt to quell unrest, including riots and looting by soldiers this week, over a cash shortage caused by hyperinflation. /ppThe central bank has raised the withdrawal limit from the equivalent of 18p a day to about pound;33 a week following protests in which scores of troops angry at waiting in long bank queues targeted shops in th capital, Harare, that will only accept payment in US dollars and black market money changers dealing on the streets. /ppThe anger among soldiers and other Zimbabweans is in part because of the difficulty of using the national currency to buy anything but a few locally produced vegetables and bread after the US dollar was made legal tender. /ppThe central bank is also issuing new Zimbabwe dollar banknotes today worth Z$50m (pound;17) and Z$100m to keep pace with inflation officially put at 231,000,000 percent in July but which economists now estimate runs in to the billions./ppRiot police yesterday arrested trade union leaders and broke up a protest over limits on cash withdrawals. The union leaders were detained as they led a march of a few dozen people to deliver a petition to the central bank demanding an end to the restrictions. /ppThe demonstrators carried placards reading "No to cash limits" and "We are tired of sleeping at the banks" - many people spend hours queuing each day just to get enough money to cover transport and a few basic foodstuffs./ppThe police yesterday also broke up a protest by doctors and nurses trying to deliver a petition to the health ministry in Harare objecting to the lack of medical supplies and the closure of some large government hospitals. /ppThe collapsing health service is grappling with the extra burden of cholera. The UN said yesterday that it had confirmed 565 deaths from cholera among 12,546 reported cases but medical charities say the real toll is at least double. /ppOne-third of the deaths were in Harare, where water has been cut off for days because of a lack of chemicals to treat the supply./ppThe government said it will punish troops involved in the protests but some of Robert Mugabe's critics suspect the demonstrations may have been orchestrated to justify a further crackdown on his opponents and possibly the introduction of a state of emergency. /ppThe former home affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa, who has joined a breakaway faction from Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, told the IRIN news service that the protests may not be what they seem. /pp"I do hope the demonstrations by the soldiers are genuine and that it is not a ruse to come up with an excuse to crack down on the people, or even worse," he said. "You can't rule out what they [the government] might do. They have so many problems ... such as cholera and money shortages. They want to rule a country where they have total control over the people."/ppSuspicion is rife because the government has sought to retain the backing of the army by ensuring that banks regularly delivered cash to the barracks. /ppHowever, the troops still have much to be disgruntled about. The central bank is issuing the new banknotes today as the national currency continues its interminable decline. A new Zimbabwe dollar was launched in August after 10 zeros were wiped off the currency because banks and shops could no longer handle the numbers./ppBut the new dollar has plummeted just as fast, falling from about Z$10 to the pound in early August to Z$3m today for cash. Twenty-seven new currency denominations have been introduced in Zimbabwe this year alone./ppThe government caught up with reality by legalising the use of US dollars and other hard currency in September. Dollars and South African rand were already in use in what amounted to underground supermarkets selling imports. Now the transactions are legal, it is almost impossible to buy anything in Zimbabwe dollars./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/zimbabwe"Zimbabwe/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/9v-rkuzkooZ4O2uXuEkN2RsAna4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/9v-rkuzkooZ4O2uXuEkN2RsAna4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/24131?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+Mayor+Boris%2C+the+liberalch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Guardianc4=Boris+Johnson%2CLondon+%28News%29%2CLocal+government+%28Society%29%2CSociety%2CPolitics%2CConservatives%2CUK+newsc5=Society+Weekly%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CLocal+Government+Societyc6=Dave+Hillc7=2008_12_04c8=1128302c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpNovember was a big month for Boris Johnson. Policy initiatives flowed, on transport, on culture, on youth crime; some were still at the consultative stage but all have given shape and substance to a regime initially defined by its haplessness. For months, the Mayor Boris story was one of drift and departing advisers. Now, at last, true political battle can be joined. A year ago, candidate Johnson seemed too posh, too daft and too much of the cartoon right to become London's mayor. Today, his opponents may find him a more elusive target than they'd hoped./ppThere was widespread expectation that the Blond's ambition was to be Ken Livingstone's antithesis. Reality is proving more complex. In keeping with his mandate and spurred by the downturn, Johnson has cut jobs and spending across the Greater London Authority bureaucracies, yet has talked up the virtues of public spending on Crossrail, the Underground and an Olympics legacy. Public transport fares will rise above the rate of inflation in January, but discounts for the poorest will be retained. Most intriguing of all, Johnson's gut economic liberalism is being complemented by his own version of its social counterpart./ppThere is more to this than his broad adherence to David Cameron's "caring Conservatism" agenda. Johnson has gone strikingly further, in supporting the London Living Wage and in commissioning a study into the effects of granting earned amnesties to long-term illegal immigrants./ppBoth moves have had Tory top brass leaping to safe political distances, but they pose a greater threat to Johnson's challengers. There are cases to be made that his housekeeping will hurt the vulnerable most and that his housing policy favours those on middle incomes. But it's harder to depict him as a Thatcherite xenophobe when he's bumping up working-class incomes and lobbying for 400,000 rule-breaking foreigners to be freed from the underground economy./ppOpponents will have to respond imaginatively to his line on inclusion and opportunity. Though he is wearingly persuaded by the rightwing whine about so-called political correctness, he has acknowledged that the agitation for minority rights Ken Livingstone fostered in the 80s had good reasons for existing./ppJohnson still often recoils from such stuff. Endorsing Barack Obama in his Telegraph column he wrote that a benefit of the US electing its first black president would be the end of "race-based politics" and the associated "grievance culture". With typical Tory dimness, he seems to imagine that Obama's victory could still have happened had "race-base politics" not prepared the ground./ppHis strategies on culture and equalities are similar in disdaining the identity politics that emerged from those civil rights campaigns. Yet they emphasise widening access and encouraging participation. Johnson's approach highlights important questions. Identity politics are often defensive, a reaction to hostility. In the city London has now become, is such defensiveness necessary? Is targeting grants at minority groups the best way to tackle discrimination, or does it sometimes institutionalise a limiting introversion? If the goal is to break down barriers against full participation in society, what is the best way for the mayor to help achieve it?/ppJohnson is feeling his way towards a formula that works for him, a blend of can-do, moral intervention and an old-fashioned Tory pragmatism that recognises that the capital is the loser if hundreds of thousands of people are marooned in its social margins. At the same time, it seeks to address Johnson's image problem. Yet paradoxically, it's also one that could build on some of the finest achievements of the left. If it does, how will the left respond?/pp· Dave Hill blogs about London at a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog"Guardian.co.uk/Dave Hill's blog/a/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/boris"Boris Johnson/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/localgovernment"Local government/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5FM4wtdEvJWmfIwvIVgKGCrVN38/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5FM4wtdEvJWmfIwvIVgKGCrVN38/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Wine drinkers are to be hit hardest by curbs on cut-price drinks promotions proposed under plans to tackle irresponsible drinking. The move signals the death of “buy-one-get-one-free” deals. A mandatory code of conduct for the drinks industry would also end promotions that allow women to drink free of charge and would require pubs and bars to offer smaller wine glasses.

Vikings tackles Pat and Kevin Williams were in court on Wednesday to block their suspensions.

As expected, the FCC said today it will take up the issue of creating yet another wireless network, and set rules on cable pricing and programming, at its Dec. 18 meeting. As commenter Tom Evslin pointed out, the alternative wireless broadband network proposed is slow, will likely be filtered and will deliver yesterday’s technology in five or 10 years into the future. However, the rule-making on cable could be a win for consumers.

The cable efforts have the potential to bring more independent channels to cable systems as well as create rules designed to halt the disputes that arise between cable companies and content providers that can leave consumers without broadcast channels and force them to pay more for channels they once received as part of a cheaper package. Looks like Kevin Martin’s last fight as FCC chair will be against T-Mobile — which opposes the wireless efforts — and the cable guys.

Speaking to an assembly of nearly all of the nation's governors in Philadelphia on Tuesday, President-elect Obama called for innovation and collaboration, and invited dissenting opinions on how best to fix the economy. Governors and governors-elect from nearly every state attended. President-elect Obama quoted Justice Louis Brandeis, who said a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory, and encouraged Democratic and Republican governors alike to seek creative solutions. We are not going to be hampered by ideology in trying to get this country back on track, he said. We want to figure out what works.

French independent labels bodies SPPF and UPFI have welcome a move by Europe's Council of Ministers to reject a European Parliament amendment covering Internet rights, that would have been at odds with France's three-strikes legislation to tackle piracy.

Zimbabwe's government has asked for urgent help to tackle its cholera outbreak, the World Health Organisation says.

Zimbabwe's government has asked for urgent help to tackle its cholera outbreak, the World Health Organisation says.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/83656?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Zimbabwe+tackles+cash+shortage+amid+riots+and+lootingch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Zimbabwe%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Chris+McGrealc7=2008_12_03c8=1128153c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Zimbabwec13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FZimbabwe" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Zimbabwe government is set to greatly increase the amount of money people can withdraw from banks from tomorrow in an attempt to quell growing unrest, including riots and looting by soldiers this week, over a drastic cash shortage caused by hyperinflation. /ppThe central bank has raised the withdrawal limit from the equivalent of just 18p a day to about £33 a week following the protests in which scores of troops apparently angry at waiting in long bank queues targeted shops in Harare that will only accept payment in US dollars and blackmarket money changers openly dealing on the streets. /ppThe growing anger among soldiers and other Zimbabweans is due in part to the increasing difficulty of using the national currency to buy anything but a few locally produced vegetables and bread after the US dollar was made legal tender. /ppThe central bank is also issuing new Zimbabwe dollar bank notes tomorrow worth Z$50m (£17) and Z$100m to keep pace with inflation officially put at 231m% in July but which economists now estimate runs in to the billions./ppRiot police today arrested trade union leaders and broke up a small protest over the limits on cash withdrawals. The union leaders were detained as they led a march of a few dozen people to deliver a petition to the central bank demanding an end to the restrictions. /ppThe demonstrators carried placards reading "No to cash limits" and "We are tired of sleeping at the banks" because many people spend hours queuing every day just to get enough money to cover transport and a few basic foodstuffs./ppThe police today also broke up a protest by doctors and nurses attempting to deliver a petition to the health ministry in Harare objecting to the lack of medical supplies and the closure of some large government hospitals. /pp"We are forced to work without basic health institutional needs like drugs, adequate water and sanitation, safe clothing gear, medical equipment and basic support services," the letter said./ppThe collapsing health service is now grappling with the additional burden of cholera. The UN said today that it had confirmed 565 deaths from cholera among 12,546 reported cases but medical charities say the real toll is at least double. /ppOne-third of the deaths were in the capital, Harare, where water has been cut off for days because of a lack of chemicals to treat the supply./ppThe government said it will punish troops involved in the protests but some of Mugabe's critics suspect the demonstrations may have been orchestrated to justify a further crackdown on his opponents and possibly the introduction of a state of emergency. /ppThe former home affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa, who has joined a breakaway faction from Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, told the IRIN news service that the protests may not be what they seem. /pp"I do hope the demonstrations by the soldiers are genuine, and that it is not a ruse to come up with an excuse to crack down against the people, or even worse," he said. /pp"You can't rule out what they [the government] might do. They have so many problems ... such as cholera and money shortages. They want to rule a country where they have total control over the people. Anything is possible - they face so many problems that I don't rule out any move to contain the situation."/ppSuspicion is rife because the government has sought to retain the backing of the army by ensuring that banks regularly delivered cash to the barracks. However, the troops still have much to be disgruntled about. /ppThe central bank is issuing the new bank notes tomorrow as the national currency continues its interminable decline. A new Zimbabwe dollar was launched in August after 10 zeros were wiped off the currency because banks and shops could no longer handle the numbers./ppBut the new dollar has plummeted just as fast, falling from about Z$10 to the pound in early August to Z$3m today for cash. Twenty-seven new currency denominations have been introduced in Zimbabwe this year alone./ppThe rioting soldiers told bystanders they were angry that what little money they have can be used for little more than paying for transport and buying a few of the sparse locally produced goods. /ppThe government caught up with reality by legalising the use of US dollars and other hard currency in September. Dollars and South African rand were already in widespread use in what amounted to underground supermarkets selling imports. Now the transactions are legal, it is almost impossible to buy anything in Zimbabwe dollars. /ppThe Spar in Ballantyne Park, in northern Harare, is used by middle-class Zimbabweans and their domestic workers. It prices almost everything in US dollars and will accept payments only in the American currency, rand or sterling. /ppChange is given in bread rolls because of a shortage of small foreign notes. Only locally produced vegetables, eggs and bread can be paid for in Zimbabwe dollars./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/zimbabwe"Zimbabwe/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YFRFX4MaPuMkawLl7pW8MdNKws4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YFRFX4MaPuMkawLl7pW8MdNKws4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/16540?ns=guardianpageName=Science%3A+Giant+flying+reptile+%E2%80%93+terror+of+Cretaceous+skiesch=Sciencec3=guardian.co.ukc4=Science%2CFossils+%28Science%29%2CArchaeology%2CZoology%2CEvolution+%28Science%29c5=Environment+Conservation%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=James+Randersonc7=2008_12_03c8=1128129c9=articlec10=GUc11=Sciencec12=Fossilsc13=c14=h2=GU%2FScience%2FFossils" width="1" height="1" //divpSoaring overhead in the Cretaceous skies with taut leathery wings longer than a family car, they would have made an unnerving sight. Now scientists, a href="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121526827/abstract"analysing a fossil/a that had lain for years after its discovery in a German museum, have for the first time glimpsed one of the most imposing of the prehistoric flyers./ppemLacusovagus magnificens/em, the magnificent lake wanderer, is the largest prehistoric flying reptile without teeth ever to have been found. The name comes from its preservation in lake sediments of the Araripe basin in north-east Brazil, a site well known for its excellently preserved fossils./pp"Some of the previous examples we have from this family in China are just 60cm long – as big as the skull of the new species," said Mark Witton a postgraduate student in the school of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Portsmouth, "Put simply, it dwarfs any chaoyangopterid we've seen before by miles." The chaoyangopterids are a family of toothless pterosaurs and the fossil is the first of the family to be found in Brazil. /pp"The discovery of something like this in Brazil – so far away from its closest relatives in China – demonstrates how little we actually know about the distribution and evolutionary history of this fascinating group of creatures," Witton said./ppInterpreting the fossil was difficult because of its unusual preservation. "Usually fossils like this are found lying on their sides but this one was lying on the roof of its mouth and had been rather squashed, which made even figuring out whether it had teeth difficult," said Witton. From the skull he was able to extrapolate that the beast would have had a wingspan of around five metres and stood more than a metre tall at the shoulder. It also had a wide mouth suggesting that it was able to tackle large prey. "The remains are very fragmentary, however, so we need more specimens before we can draw any conclusions," Witton said./ppAlthough large, emLacusovagus/em was much smaller than some of the giant toothed flying reptiles. emQuetzalcoatlus/em, named after the Aztec winged serpent god, was the size of a spitfire with a wingspan of 11 to 12 metres. It had a massively elongated fourth digit on its "hands" and fibres in the wing membrane for added support. Another species that may have been even bigger is ema href="http://www.springerlink.com/content/w55xf7hvvmwp6t5c/"Hatzegopteryx thambema/a/em, which is known from a single specimen discovered in Romania. Its bone structure resembles expanded polystyrene – presumably for extra lightness to allow flight./ppThe a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/12/1"smallest pterosaur/a ever discovered is emNemicolopterus crypticus/em, meaning "hidden flying forest dweller". Discovered in north-east China it was the size of a blackbird with a wingspan of just 25cm./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/fossils"Fossils/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/archaeology"Archaeology/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/zoology"Zoology/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/evolution"Evolution/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/PwD-nOdfavexelXjDjPlISAOYaM/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/PwD-nOdfavexelXjDjPlISAOYaM/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

If you're struggling to see a silver lining in the beaten-down real estate market, consider this one: It may be a rotten moment to sell your house, but if you've postponed a much needed renovation project on your home - replacing a rotting deck, repairing a leaky roof or updating an antiquated bathroom - now just might be the best time in years to tackle that task.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/Wc94e-hCkPs" height="1" width="1"/

But publisher intends to tackle problem by adding online services to sell more than just a boxed product

One of the issues he plans to tackle in upcoming meetings this month, is a plan to give all Americans free access to the Web via the airwaves -- minus the porn. pa href=http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/2GhiRZDAKGp1XdODA2tvjLyUovU/aimg src=http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/2GhiRZDAKGp1XdODA2tvjLyUovU/i border=0 ismap=true //a/pimg src=http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/digg/container/technology/popular/~4/uhhIzHWir3Q height=1 width=1 /br[a href=http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/01/outgoing-fcc-chairman-wants-to-rid-the-wireless-web-of-porn-good-luck-with-that/ title=linklink/a] [a href=http://feeds.digg.com/~r/digg/container/technology/popular/~3/uhhIzHWir3Q/Outgoing_FCC_Chairman_Wants_to_Rid_The_Wireless_Web_Of_Porn title=moremore/a]

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43908?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Forty+years+on%2C+Laos+reaps+bitter+harvest+of+the+secret+warch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=World+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Ian+MacKinnonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127780c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=c13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2F" width="1" height="1" //divpThe entrance to Craters restaurant is guarded by a phalanx of bombshells, each as big as a man. Opposite, the Dokkhoune hotel boasts an even finer warhead collection. For tourists who have not cottoned on, the Lao town of Phonsavanh lies at the heart of the most cluster-bombed province of the most bombed country on earth./ppThe haul of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is just a taster of that littering the countryside, or sitting in vast piles around homes and scrapyards. The deadly harvest from the US bombing of this landlocked country 30 years ago in the so-called "secret war" as the real battle raged in next-door Vietnam has become big business. Steel prices that surged on the back of soaring demand from China's go-go economy drove up scrap prices five-fold in eight years in impoverished Laos. It sent subsistence rice farmers, struggling make to ends meet amid spiralling food and fuel prices, scurrying into their fields in search of the new "cash crop"./ppBut it comes at a high price. At least 13,000 people have been killed or maimed, either digging in fields contaminated with live bombs or, increasingly, in their quest for lucrative scrap metal. Half the casualties are young boys, most killed by exploding tennis-ball-sized cluster bomblets - christened "bombies" locally - that are everywhere./ppThe scale of the contamination is mind-boggling. Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of the second world war. Of the 260m "bombies" that rained down, particularly on Xieng Khouang province, 80m failed to explode, leaving a deadly legacy./ppOverwhelmed by the immensity of the clear-up, Laos - which has dealt with just 400,000 unexploded munitions - had resisted the signing today in Oslo of a treaty banning cluster bombs and demanding that remnants be cleared within 10 years. But the country has had a rethink and will now be a key player in the ceremony./ppFor Laos it could be a godsend, focusing world attention on its plight and bringing international resources to tackle the problem. With 37% of agricultural ground made unsafe by unexploded munitions in a nation where four-fifths of people farm the land, the scourge has stifled development./ppYet farmers eking out a living below the dollar-a-day poverty line have no choice. Bombs unearthed as they gingerly peck at the soil are planted around, or moved to the side of the field./pp"In the end the Lao people regard lack of food as much greater threat than unexploded bombs," said David Hayter, the Lao country director of British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG). "It's just that each UXO death is marked by a big bang, but deaths from lack of food or poor water are less noticeable."/ppFatalistic acceptance of the danger is fostered by familiarity. Bomb remains are fashioned into everyday items: cluster-bomb casings become fencing; houses perch on stilts crafted from 500lb bombs; mortars with fins are used as table lamps. "People's familiarity is the most striking thing for me," said Jo Pereira, an occupational therapist with the Lao charity Cope, which fits UXO victims with prosthetic limbs. "They've lived with it for so long. Much of it is in their houses. Children think 'we've got those at home' and don't see the risks."/ppSo when scrap metal prices rocketed many saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity to boost meagre incomes. For those unable to grow enough rice to feed their families throughout the year, there is little choice but to collect UXO scrap despite the dangers./pp"People have lived with this for two generations," said Gregory Cathcart, an MAG programme officer. "They don't view it as risky. It's simply a cash crop. The problem is the main scrap on the surface is gone, so they've to dig it up which is extremely dangerous."/ppCheap Vietnamese metal detectors costing as little as pound;7.36 boost the business. Landless families have turned full-time scrap collectors, earning up to pound;2.70 a day if they unearth six or seven kilos. Stumble on half a cluster bomb casing of "best Detroit steel" and they hit pay-dirt, worth pound;20 to pound;27./ppNo such luck for Sher Ya, 25. He plonks a plastic bag of bullet casings on the scrap dealer's scales and anxiously eyes the needle. His teenage brother dredged the shells from their village rice field. It earns a welcome 40p. "My family grows only enough rice for six months," he said. "So when we're not planting or harvesting we collect bomb scraps. It's scary, but we've no choice."/ppThe trade is so lucrative that scrap dealers ferry collectors by truck to virgin forests every day. Sypha Phommachan, 45, need not to go to such lengths. Farmers around Thajok village beat a path to the scrap dealer's door. A pile of fragments, casings, and mortars is all she had left after the foundry took away nearly eight tonnes a few days before./pp"That took me about three weeks to collect," she said. "That's quite slow because it's the rice harvest season and people are busy farming. In a couple of months they'll be out furiously collecting to raise cash for the Hmong festival." Yet she carefully inspects the bomb harvest, rejecting live munitions. She knows the risks. In the six years she has lived in the village, 10 people have been killed collecting scrap. One 50-year-old man died three months ago when he tossed half a "bombie" he believed safe into the wicker basket on his back. It exploded and the ball-bearings it threw out went clean through his chest, killing him instantly./ppToday's treaty banning the stockpile and use of cluster munitions is due to be signed by 107 countries - including the UK, which has been the third biggest user. Those holding out include the US, China, Russia and Israel. /ppBut Richard Moyes, co-chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, is confident that the convention will change the climate. "We sense we'll see a dramatic decline in cluster munitions use even among states that don't sign."/pa href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/0isZpde_2gKB0VQVLsihe6OOssY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/0isZpde_2gKB0VQVLsihe6OOssY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/29505?ns=guardianpageName=Environment%3A+CBI+calls+for+incentives+to+protect+climatech=Environmentc3=The+Guardianc4=Climate+change+%28Environment%29%2CCarbon+emissions+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CBusiness%2CPoliticsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CClimate+Change%2CEthical+Livingc6=Terry+Macalisterc7=2008_12_03c8=1127770c9=articlec10=GUc11=Environmentc12=Climate+changec13=c14=h2=GU%2FEnvironment%2FClimate+change" width="1" height="1" //divpThe CBI warned yesterday that government would not meet its ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions unless it introduced bolder policies including new financial incentives, but said the global economic crisis was no reason for either side to slam the brakes on./ppRichard Lambert, the director-general of the main employers' body, said he supported a ministerial drive to tackle climate change and cut greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 but the right framework for investment needed to be in place if the private sector was to develop the necessary technologies./pp"We must not let the global economic crisis become an excuse for inaction on climate change. Now more than ever, we need to secure a binding EU climate change deal, or the opportunity to make the transition to a low-carbon economy will slip through our fingers," he added./ppThe government had made a promising start by setting up a new Department for Energy and Climate Change plus creating a new planning act. But 300 wind farms still awaited planning approvals, companies needed incentives to cut non-carbon emissions and further financial help was needed to speed-up the insulation of homes, Lambert said at a special climate change conference organised by the CBI and attended by Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary./ppMiliband praised Lambert and other business leaders for setting the pace on green initiatives. Britain would continue to lead the way on climate change and he insisted it was not the time now for the European Union to row back on previous commitments when it met to discuss climate change at Poznan in Poland next week./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange"Climate change/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/carbonemissions"Carbon emissions/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/aFhjxzbCvXYlG9rSTLPZeBAfcM8/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/aFhjxzbCvXYlG9rSTLPZeBAfcM8/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

div class="rxbodyfield"p class="ArticleBody" page="1"VMware released on Tuesday VMware View 3, new software aimed at providing desktop virtualization, application virtualization, and management of virtual desktops in one product./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"VMware View is a reworking of the company#39;s VMware Desktop Infrastructure product that adds other components to solve the problem of managing virtualized desktop environments, said Raj Mallempati, a group product manager of desktop products for VMware./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"b[ Discover the top-rated IT products as rated by the a href="http://www.infoworld.com/testcenter/?source=fssr"InfoWorld Test Center/a. ]/b/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"VMware View is part of an initiative that VMware is calling#160;a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2008/09/day_one_of_vmwo.html"vClient, which it unveiled at its VMworld conference in September/a. Mallempati said with the vClient strategy, VMware hopes to solve the quot;desktop dilemmaquot; of not only virtualizing applications and desktops, but also managing and deploying those environments./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"quot;At the end of the day, we also want to make sure we can provide end-users with a virtualized view of their desktops, applications and data,quot; he said./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"In addition to providing desktop virtualization, VMware View 3 includes View Composer, a new product that creates virtual desktops from a master image; VMware ThinApp, which simplifies application packaging and deployment to a virtual desktop environment; and Offline Desktop, which provides the ability to move virtual desktops between the datacenter and a local laptop or desktop. The product also includes Unified Access, which provides desktop administrators a single management platform for virtual desktops and applications./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"VMware View 3 comes in an Enterprise Edition and a Premier Edition. The Enterprise Edition includes VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition, VMware View Manager 3 and Unified Access, and it costs $150 per concurrent user for a perpetual user license. The Premier Edition includes those products but adds VMware View Manager 3, VMware ThinApp, VMware View Composer, and Offline Desktop. It costs $250 per concurrent user for a perpetual license./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"As virtualization of server OSes becomes more common, both VMware, which remains the leader in the virtualization software market, and other vendors are expanding their offerings to tackle the problem of virtualization desktops and applications that run on desktop computers./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Even though VMware remains the leader in virtualization across the board, the company has had a bumpy year in which it#39;s faced its stiffest competition to date. Vendors like Microsoft are building virtualization directly into their server OSes and also are branching out into desktop and application virtualization. And in July, the company had a major executive shake-up, with CEO Diane Greene leaving suddenly to be replaced by former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz./p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=895795d72248e04284f0b5d996fbd175p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=895795d72248e04284f0b5d996fbd175p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=895795d72248e04284f0b5d996fbd175 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

In the EU's long-running front against cyber-crime, the Council of Ministers has proposed a five-year plan to tackle the problem, including collaboration with regional law enforcement branches and the implementation of remote searches.

Tectoy, the company that brought licensed Sega games to Brazil, designed a console specifically for emerging markets. The Zeebo gives users access to a library of games that they can download for a fee, a plan Tectoy believes will thwart piracy problems. Tectoy has more companies than Sega signing up to have their games distributed via the Zeebo too. A product list on the Zeebo page shows Namco Bandai and Capcom supporting the Zeebo with a handful of titles. Tekken 2, Street Fighter Alpha, Sonic Adventure, and a mysterious version of Double Dragon are slated to come out on the console. Resident Evil 4 is sort of on the list too since you can see a link to a broken image in Tectoy’s HTML code, but the linked image says Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition. What?



One possibility is TecToy is distributing PC versions of these games since Resident Evil 4 and Sonic Adventure have PC ports. However, games like Alpine Racer 3 and Tekken 2 don’t. TecToy could distribute PlayStation ports, but that would require emulation for PsOne and PS2 games. It’s going to be interesting to see how Tectoy tackles the problem or if they’re going to use fancy mobile phone ports of console games like they’re doing with the Sims. Sure, all of these games are ”last-gen”, but Tectoy’s distribution mechanism is so unusual it’s rather interesting. The Zeebo is close to a tangible version of the Phantom console.



Update: A tipster who wishes to remain anonymous shed some more light on the Zeebo system. The console uses BREW, a platform for mobile phone games and some of the titles listed like Ridge Racer and Pac-Mania are reportedly mobile phone games. Resident Evil 4 has a mobile phone version too so it’s quite possible that version will be distributed on the Zeebo. Some of the Zeebo mobile phone ports will be changed with new user interfaces, but it looks like the Zeebo is going to primarily deliver mobile phone games to a TV probably not near you.

http://www.siliconera.com/2008/12/01...sident-evil-4/