President Zardari faced mounting criticism yesterday over his six-day visit to Europe as aid agencies warned of life-threatening food shortages amid the floods in Pakistan

Pakistan Floods

The Pakistan Government is struggling to deal with the floods in the north west that have killed 1,700 people and affected 3.2 million.

As the country braced itself for continued torrential monsoon rains in the south yesterday  Mr Zardari’s aides defended his decision not to cancel the trip, which includes a visit to his family’s château in France. They said that he was staying at London’s “cheapest five-star hotel” — the Churchill Hyatt Regency in Portman Square — which was picketed by people protesting at his visit.

European Joyride

Mr Zardari’s refusal to curtail what critics call a European “joyride” is raising grave questions about his leadership as the opposition, the army and even a banned charity are upstaging his Government in the flood relief effort.

Nawaz Sharif, the opposition leader and former Prime Minister, visited the northwestern town of Charsadda, one of the worst affected, and told reporters that Pakistanis been “let down very badly by Mr Zardari”.

“The Government has failed to perform its duty in the crisis. They should have used all their resources to help the flood victims,”

Mr Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz, who is Chief Minister of Punjab province, also visited flooded areas and pledged to compensate all those affected.

Imran Khan, the former national cricket captain, who is now an opposition politician, said that Mr Zardari should be in Pakistan to handle the disaster.

“Any talks can be postponed — surely the priority should be your own people,” he told ITV. “And then to go on this lavish tour — this money could be used on the victims.”

The Government’s failure to cope with the floods means that relief efforts are being mostly handled by the army, enhancing its reputation as the country’s most powerful and effective institution. The army, which has ruled Pakistan for roughly half its history, said yesterday that it had rescued more than 60,000 people from flood-hit areas using 40 helicopters and 450 army boats.

Soldiers Donate a Days Salary

General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, also announced that every soldier would donate a day’s salary to a relief fund set up by the Prime Minister. “Army is working at full pace and capacity to extend maximum help to the people,” he said in a statement.

Banned Charity Sends Aid

The Government’s failings have also opened a window for Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a banned Islamist charity, to win public support as it has during previous crises. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, who chaired an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday, announced later that government ministers would each donate a month’s salary to the fund.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa is considered a front for the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and was banned and placed on a UN blacklist in 2008 over the latter’s alleged role in the attack that year on Mumbai. The charity said yesterday that it was sending ten truckloads of goods and nine medical teams to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province worst affected by the floods.

The past few years various advertising campaigns, government and scientific advice urged us to be greener, in order to slow the effects of man made climate change. But behind the scenes big businesses with big money were making sure that no changes that might threaten their profits, the type of changes needed to make any real difference to climate change, would come to pass.

On the whole it was the general public that did begin to accept that we must all make some changes to our lives to prevent the worst happening, and I think on a whole, most people did. Businesses on the other hand did not, and it could not be done without them. Nobody wants to invest in the future anymore, they just want to get rich quick, now.

Then last year at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, the most important in history on the subject, leaders and scientists of the world gathered to decide on the most appropriate way to deal with the climate crisis. They failed to agree on anything. A major anti climax after over a year of hype and acceptance of people that were beginning to be ready for change.

So what are you doing about it now? Are you doing more now to do your part to prevent climate change, or less. Are you more sceptical or less? Answer below.

Oi Oi Oil

Oil is not a fossil fuel. It is abiotic, but found using fossils that developed later. Although virtually unlimited, deep wells are very expensive. BP and other oil companies don’t want you to know this, and the scientific community is dominated by paleontologists who use fossils to FIND more oil. Conservation and alternative fuels are costly but viable options in the long run. Natural gas, if removed safely, can be burned with CO2 returned to the Earth, and will remove this green house gas from the atmosphere. This will help cool the planet helpt the plants and flowers, but not stop human development.

However much crude oil remains there’s no need to make everything in the world out of it or power everything with it.

This economy has become largely a vehicle for as many petroleum uses as possible.

Our cups, clothing, medicine, and food now routinely contain petroleum.

It’s put into everything possible whether necessary or not, in order to sell more of it.

Glass, cotton, ceramics, the list goes on and on of industries marginalized by this monopoly.

The result is our eggs are now more or less in one basket.

Its name is crude, so I guess there’s no wonder.

Fitting that it comes from dinasours.

If you regularly books flights to the UK you will know that Thomas Cook are perhaps the cheapest airline to cross the Atlantic. This is why I am flying with them on Thursday when I return to the mountains of Canada. I know that when on long haul flights such as these, you need something to entertain you or you will be agonisingly bored.

In a effort recoup some dwindling profits many airlines are trying new ways to charge people flying with them. Thomas Cook are now to remove the free in flight entertainment system to replace it with PSP consoles that customers will be charged to use. UK’s easyJet introduced optional PSP hire in April. Jetstar recently announced plans to charge passengers $10 to hire Apple iPads, containing pre-loaded ebooks and feature films on its flights too.

Extra charges on flights has increased 42% since 2008.

But there is one thing that is consistent in Whitehall spending, it is the obscene amounts they insist on wasting on furniture. A few years news got out that when the Ministry of Defence moved buildings, they also got new office furniture, including office chairs costing £3000 EACH. At the time no one really batted an eye lid, we were a growing economy that showed no sign of meltdown. Roll on 2008.

Now that the world is in economic collapse and our governments are spending Billions (if not Trillions) bailing out our banks so society doesn’t fall apart, we started to pay a bit more attention to where our money was going. Last year the expenses scandal revealed to us all just how greedy, ignorant, unfair and downright stupid politicians could be, with claims for items such as Duck houses, Moat cleaners and toilet seats.

But if you think that because we are now in a recession that the wasteful spending has ended then think again. A new investigation from the new Coalition Government into Whitehall spending has found that Labour ministers authorised officials at the Department for Communities and Local Government to to buy 28 of the sofas at a cost of £4,120 EACH. That’s a total of £134,503.

If you think that is bad then wait until you hear how they (tried to) justify it. The luxury sofas were intended to create a “peaceful oasis” in the workplace in part of a an efficiency initiative called “SpaceFlex” to make the department “more practical” and save money. A source at the department said the red sofas made the office seem like a “Parisian boudoir” and pointed out that council tax bills had more than doubled under Labour. Anyone that thinks spending £4,120 on a sofa will help saving money needs to get there head examined and banned from working anywhere near the government!

Everyone involved with this decision has failed people they serve (us) massively whilst working in the public sector and should be out of a job. Spending on luxury items anywhere in the government should not exist until the deficit is paid off, we have perfect healthcare, a policing and criminal justice system that works, political reform, modern transport and decent education for everybody.

After all this, we now have to pay off a debt of over £900 Billion. A debt that we will all contribute to in one way or another in painful cuts over the coming years and months. Well government, they better start on your doorstep. If not we will be there banging down the door.

China are thought to have executed at least 1700 (but could be up to 5000) people in 2009. Iran executed at least 388. Iraq at least 120. Saudi Arabia at least 69. In the United States of America, the supposed home of freedom and modern society, 52 people were put to death in 2009.

Even Japan executed 7 people. Egypt executed at least 5. 2 were executed in Thailand, and that is not including those who succumbed to government suppression. No one in the Western world can be sure how many were executed in communist North Korea.

We support Amnesty International in their quest to rid the world of Death Sentence.

Their efforts to solve the problem have been as ridiculous as the methods in this video to clean up spilt coffee.

But the effects of climate change on the iceberg were much quicker than expected. The iceberg has already broken apart and the statue has fallen into the sea. It has been spotted about 500 meters below sea level off the coast of Greenland.

The iceberg broke loose and began its journey from the island of Uummannaq in May. The GPS signals set up on the statue to track the iceberg’s progress disappeared Thursday. “The sea doesn’t freeze. People can’t trust nature anymore. As an artist, I see it as a sort of mission to make people aware of what’s happening over here.”

You can see the whole story of the iceberg’s short lived journey on the coolemotion blog

Car sharing is not a new idea. The concept had some success in the 80’s in built up cities in Switzerland, Sweden, Canada & America. What makes this idea different from car hire, is that instead of picking up and dropping off cars at the companies parking lots, you can drop them off anywhere, leaving them for the next person to pick up. You can pay a monthly fee to have access to the fleet of cars and use them whenever you like. You simply search online to find the nearest car too you, and use your card to access it, then just park it up anywhere when you are done.

It is more recent developments in technology, such as online booking, electronic locks and low-emission vehicles that has sent the business model into new highs. Zip Car confirmed this week that the 400,000 member car share operation has formally begun the process of going public. Shares of the rapidly growing company expected to go on sale later this year in a $70-million initial public offering.

In April the Wall Street Journal declared car-sharing to be “a hot area of the otherwise slow growth global car hire industry.” One market research report even predicted that European car share networks could have 5.5 million members by 2016.

It has also resorted my faith in people a little bit, by discovering that most of us really are motivated by good things like mastery and purpose. Well worth a watch, especially if you are in management.

A new study has revealed that more than £57 Million is lost down the back of sofas in Britain every year. People individually on average lose £1.43 in lose change each year in things like furniture and old wallets.

“It’s astounding when you think about how much money is potentially waiting to be found. People take out loans and get credit cards every day, but perhaps they should start looking down the back of their sofa, in old coat pockets and under the bed for a bit of extra cash.”

That is such a massive sum of money, way more than we ever raise together for things like comic relief or children in need. It just goes to show the awesome power we could have if we all gave a little effort into one united goal. I wonder if we all looked down the back of our sofa and gave the discovered money we found to charity, if it would really come to £50 Million. Just imagine the difference that could make to peoples lives.

The Winner? According to the survey, Vienna in Austria is the best city in the world to live in with the highest quality of life, for the second year in a row. European cities dominate the top 30, with Zurich & Geneva of Switzerland scoring second and third respectively. Vancouver in Canada and Auckland in New Zealand are tied at fourth place, with German Cities Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich completing the top 8.

Other rankings include Sydney Australia at number 10, Copenhagen in Denmark at 11 and Amsterdam in the Netherlands at 13 (take that Bill O’Reilly you massive idiot). Canada scores well above the USA with Vancouver at 4th, Ottawa at 14th, Toronto at 16th, Montreal at 21st and Calgary at 28th.

Both the UK and the USA scored pretty poorly compared to the rest of the world. The only city from England to make the top 50 was London at number 39, out placed by Dublin at 26th. The highest ranking city for the USA is Honolulu at number 31, followed by San Francisco in joint 32nd. Japan’s highest entry was Tokyo at number 40. Paris was France’s highest scoring city at number 34, just ahead of Helsinki of Finland and Brisbane Australia.

New York City and Seattle rounded up the bottom of the top 50, just behind Chicago and the USA capitol Washington. In the Middle East, Dubai and Abu Dhabi scored 75th and 83rd respectively, and last place on the list of 221 countries went to Baghdad in Iraq. Iraq’s score improved slightly from last year, but remained in last place due to it’s lack of security and stability.

A second list was also released showing the top 50 Eco-Friendly cities in the world. Canadian City Calgary scored highest, with Canada also achieving 3rd (Ottawa) and joint 13th (Vancouver & Montreal). Aberdeen is the cleanest UK city in at number 19, with Belfast (30) and Glasgow (47) also making the top 50. Surprisingly, Eco capital of the world Copenhagen in Denmark made only 8th on the list.

You can see the complete lists here

Lost followed a seemingly random group of survivors of a flight from Australia to Los Angeles that crash landed on a mysterious Island before reaching it’s destination. The show told the story of  their struggle to survive on the Island, as well as the stories of the characters previous lives via flashbacks.

My first memory of Lost is the first UK trailer in the summer of 2005. Living in the UK, I missed the initial launch of the first season in the USA, yet the hype had made it across the sea sooner than its August 2005 UK premier. Lost was an instant hit the world over and for many reasons. Perhaps the most important of all was the timing. The dawn of the digital age was in full swing and the Internet was the driving force behind changes in pretty much everything, and the revolution of the way we communicate.

The past decade saw Television move in a new direction. As technology progressed, it became easier and cheaper than ever to get movie quality special effects into television budgets. Still this didn’t stop Lost’s Pilot episode becoming the most expensive TV episode of all time. But to this day it is still hailed as one of the best episodes of any TV show ever. It set the tone of action packed, mystery filled drama that immediately got audiences asking questions and craving answers. This was not your business as usual American TV Drama.

It was closer to a movie than a TV show in both quality and scale. This was not the story of one man, or one island. It was the story of a big group of people, who had to discover each other at the same as time we discovered them. It had everything, and yet was unlike anything else that had ever been on television before. The first season was flawless, arguably the best series of any TV show still to this day. It was perhaps the mystery written into the show that made it really stand out. Each week would leave the audience with more questions than answers. And it was these questions that go people talking.

The timing of the show, coinciding with the way the internet was revolutionising the way we communicate, that played right into it’s hands. Everyone wanted to know why there was a polar bear on the island, or what was in the hatch. Everyone had a theory. The internet meant that we were no longer confined to talk about last nights TV around the water cooler, but could share thoughts and ideas with people anywhere in the world at any time. The show had been very well thought out and the continuity and consistency was unparalleled. The writers made it knowing that every single part of every episode would be scrutinised for clues to solve some of the mysteries of the show. Every line, every prop, every single frame could hold a clue from the writers to the fans. The writers knew it and played along with it. It was this communication between the writers and the fans, and vies versa, that really took Lost to the next level.

Fans flocked to the internet to find answers and share their ideas on the mysteries of the show. It was truly the first show to create a real community on the web, with sites like DarkUFO and Lostpedia becoming havens of information on the subject. It was also the dawn of the Podcast and fans flocked to download the latest theories from the biggest names in the community. The writers paid close attention to fans reactions to every twist and tale. Never before did an audience have so much of a say into what they wanted from a scripted show. It lead some critics of the show to claim that the writers were making it up as they were going along. The claim, denied by the writers, may have been true to a small extent, but certainly worked in the shows favour when it came to eliminating dull characters (Nikki & Paulo in Season 3) that fans quickly grew tired of. But the writers never really deviated from the overall path of the show.

Lost not only worked for the hardcore fans that delved themselves into the mythology of the show, it also appealed to the casual viewer. TV shows before Lost generally followed the idea that you had to dumb down the narrative to make it appeal to a large audience. Lost managed to prove that that was no longer the case. It may have been the overall story ark that brought the hardcore fans back every week, but they did not make up for even half of it’s millions of weekly viewers. Lost managed to intertwine an amazing map of story arks both long term and short term. And it was perhaps these easier to understand short term character plots & developments that consistently kept the average viewer tuning in.

Despite all its hype, all it’s mystery and it’s massive external community, it was Lost’s characters that were the real stars of the show. What a lot of people failed to realise, despite constant reassurance from the writers, was this was a story about these individuals and not about the island or the mysteries behind it. It was these people, these flawed individuals forced to live together or die alone, that really made Lost excellent Television.

So when it came to the final season, we were promised the answers that everyone craved. The writers knew they would never please everyone, and the fans knew that they couldn’t all be right. The writers wanted a legacy. They would never end Lost in such a way to ruin its status they had worked so long on building. True fans of the show (myself included) could figure out that we would never get all the answers to everything on the show. But that’s not what the show was about. It was about the characters and their path to redemption. And that is exactly what they got.

After watching the finale, I can comprehensively say that it gave me everything I wanted as a Lost fan. It was the damn near perfect way to end the perfect TV show. There were no big mythological answers or huge revelations, just the very emotional and sombre endings of the stories of these characters. The writers made it very rewarding for those of us who have been there since the very beginning and ended it the way they clearly set out to from the start. It was probably the strongest emotion reaction I have ever felt from TV or film and one I feel is unlikely to be beaten. I hope that when I die I get to hang out in a room with all the cool people from my life.

So for me personally, Lost has to go down as one of, if not THE best TV show of all time. It consistently pushed the boundaries of TV and was consistently flawless on almost every level. So Thank you all to everyone involved! Well Played Chaps!

Offices, schools and businesses have reopened in Bangkok, days after a violent end to weeks of protests. At least 85 people are known to have died in the protests and the military response to them, while hundreds more were left injured. The Thai government still faces tough challenges of healing the wounds caused by political unrest, and restoring the country’s social and economic order.

Opposition lawmakers have filed a motion to impeach Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and several other ministers over their handling of the crisis. But the motion was expected to be defeated, as the prime minister’s coalition has a majority in parliament. A night-time curfew, from 23:00 to 04:00 local time, remains in force in Bangkok and 23 provinces, with the government announcing today that it has been extended for seven days.

The government had responded to protester calls for an election by saying one could be held in November, but talks between the two sides broke down. The red shirts were demanding the resignation of Mr Abhisit, while most of the protesters support prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup.

I must admit I personally know very little of this conflict. The first I heard about it was when one of my friends arrived home early from travelling, after his insurance company told him they would no longer insure him if he boarded his flight to Bankok due to the crisis there. Many more with flights to Thailand were forced to cancel their travels over the past weeks due to the threat of violence. Hopefully things are calming down again now so it should soon be safe to travel again.

“We understand the current situation in India. We should take adaptation and mitigation measures based on our national conditions and capacity. China and India are both developing countries and victims of climate change.  The two countries do not have the obligation to binding emission reduction targets on climate change.”

India has refused to accept binding emission cuts that it says could slow its economic growth and has instead harped on voluntary actions to stem emissions.

“Voluntary actions of developing nations will be subject to international monitoring, report and verification (MRV) as per agreed procedures to the extent that these actions receive international support” Claims Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.