National / International News

The Police Federation of England and Wales fails to achieve enough votes from its members to lobby the government for industrial rights.

Also: The best books coming out this week; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the movie; and cakes that look like classic works of literature.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Government plans to clamp down on "benefit tourism" could see both Britons and immigrants affected by changes to the rules on entitlement.

Months after mid and north Wales were hit by serious flooding, a summit considers how the country can best respond to the threat in future.

Welsh local authorities will put up council tax by an average of about 2.9% in the next financial year, although leaders say householders will still pay some £200 less than in England.

Steven Spielberg is giving life to a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick about Napoleon, which was scrapped by the late film-maker in the 1970s.

A Midlands chicken meat suppliers agrees to buy 11 sites from Vion's UK, securing jobs at three Scottish sites.

The chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog calls for access to Iran's Parchin military site "without further delay".

Ninety-four people, said to be members of an Islamist organisation, go on trial charged with plotting the overthrow of the government of the United Arab Emirates.

Jack the Giant Slayer, 2013's first big-budget action movie, tops the North American film box office with takings of just $28m.

At a watering hole in the desert of Lokichar, about a dozen goats and camels drink up as a group of rural herders look on.

For the herders, the animals are their savings accounts, their supermarket, and their insurance. And since oil was discovered here a year ago, local people feel they need all the insurance they can get.

Herder Lobun Napudan says when the U.K.-based oil company Tullow came here to explore two years back, it put up a tall fence nearby. Since then he hasn't been able to graze his animals on land he has used for years.

“It pains me to move the animals,” Napudan says, "we don’t know where the animals will end up and we worry we will all be displaced."

Fears about displacement and land being seized without compensation are rife. Head elder Jesop Lopus says local people are not consulted enough about what's going on -- or even informed.

“The community feels left in the dark and we don't know what is happening,” Lopus says.

Several non-governmental organizations want to change that. Ikal Angelei is the director of Friends of Lake Turkana, an environmental group. She's lobbied the oil company, Tullow, to talk to the local people about the seismic tests they're conducting at the nearby Lake Turkana.

“The fishermen brought up their concerns and the oil company gave their answers,” Angelei says.

There were meetings with Kenya's Ministry of Energy, too. Ikal Angelei says it's crucial to get local concerns heard at the top, in the capital Nairobi. So they’re making a national hub of environmentalists, lawyers, engineers and journalists to work together on the oil and gas issue. They’re pushing for more information about the production-sharing agreements struck by the government and the oil companies to make sure local people don't lose out.

Angelei says the hub is key, “to have support on the national level, expertise in terms of policy, legislations and details like that.”

Back at the watering hole, the herders say today's elections are an excellent opportunity for local people to hold local officials accountable.

That’s why everyone here intends to vote.

The atrium of the Zynga building in San Francisco,  home to the social gaming company behind Farmville, is a huge sunlit space filled with ping pong tables, pool tables, arcade games and foosball tables. One is the scene of a fierce game among a group of guys.   

"There are all guys playing," says Sukrutha Bhadouria, a female software test engineer at Citrix, who works in the building.

Bhadouria believes if she asked the guys to play, they’d be cool about it. But she's not going to do that and she can't say exactly why.

"I think it's the case where nobody wants to go to a place where they're a minority," she says.

Kellie McElhaney, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, says the same is true of the tech world.

"It's very complex why there aren't more women in industries like tech," she says. While there are exceptions, women in tech aren't facing the kind of overt discrimination past generation of women had to deal with. It's more about attitude and that's really squishy.

McElhaney recalls the time a friend applied for a position at a start-up. When she submitted her salary request, she got this response:

"Wow, you're really over-valuing yourself as a female." But, McElhaney is hopeful that women are starting to push back -- though there's still a long way to go.

For example, about 15 percent of  Fortune 500 companies have a woman on the board. But in Silicon Valley, "the number drops to 7 percent, and we continue to have companies that have zero women in senior management," says McElhaney, who points out that Apple’s management team is made up of 12 men.

The absence of women at the top might be discouraging women from entering the field.

"In 2000, women made up 29 percent of the computer science degrees, but by 2009, that number had fallen to less than 21 percent," says Kristen Gil, the VP of Business Operations at Google who also leads the Women at Google group.

To change that trend, Google has been trying to recruit and retain more women. It has extended maternity leave and put more women on hiring committees.

Gil says having more women in the workplace is about maintaining Google's competitive edge.

"If you have a diverse workforce that has different perspectives, you're going to be in a better position to come up with more innovative solutions, and research shows this," she says.

And innovation is what has made Google a leader -- not just in tech -- but in business.

The atrium of the Zynga building in San Francisco,  home to the social gaming company behind Farmville, is a huge sunlit space filled with ping pong tables, pool tables, arcade games and foosball tables. One is the scene of a fierce game among a group of guys.   

"There are all guys playing," says Sukrutha Bhadouria, a female software test engineer at Citrix, who works in the building.

Bhadouria believes if she asked the guys to play, they’d be cool about it. But she's not going to do that and she can't say exactly why.

"I think it's the case where nobody wants to go to a place where they're a minority," she says.

Kellie McElhaney, a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, says the same is true of the tech world.

"It's very complex why there aren't more women in industries like tech," she says. While there are exceptions, women in tech aren't facing the kind of overt discrimination past generation of women had to deal with. It's more about attitude and that's really squishy.

McElhaney recalls the time a friend applied for a position at a start-up. When she submitted her salary request, she got this response:

"Wow, you're really over-valuing yourself as a female." But, McElhaney is hopeful that women are starting to push back -- though there's still a long way to go.

For example, about 15 percent of  Fortune 500 companies have a woman on the board. But in Silicon Valley, "the number drops to 7 percent, and we continue to have companies that have zero women in senior management," says McElhaney, who points out that Apple’s management team is made up of 12 men.

The absence of women at the top might be discouraging women from entering the field.

"In 2000, women made up 29 percent of the computer science degrees, but by 2009, that number had fallen to less than 21 percent," says Kristen Gil, the VP of Business Operations at Google who also leads the Women at Google group.

To change that trend, Google has been trying to recruit and retain more women. It has extended maternity leave and put more women on hiring committees.

Gil says having more women in the workplace is about maintaining Google's competitive edge.

"If you have a diverse workforce that has different perspectives, you're going to be in a better position to come up with more innovative solutions, and research shows this," she says.

And innovation is what has made Google a leader -- not just in tech -- but in business.

One of the weirdest cars of the 21st century might be the Chrysler PT Cruiser. While the playful, retro, odd [insert your own adjective] car lost its popularity with drivers a few years after its release, it became a staple in rental car fleets. 

"It was a novelty car, and like all novelty items the enthusiasm faded," says Keenan Mayo, associate editor at Bloomberg Businessweek, who wrote an obituary of sorts for the Cruiser. "The only people who were really buying it for much of the last decade were the rental car companies because it was cheap."

But after government intervention in Detroit drove up the price, the rental companies backed off. Then, in 2010, Chrysler discontinued the PT Cruiser line altogether.

Often a punch line, PT Cruisers had quite a run. Over the course of 10 years, Chrysler sold 1.4 million Cruisers, reaching a peak in 2008-2009, according to Mayo, who was issued a PT Cruiser rental back in 2008. 

"It was very under-powered as a car, it had this weak four cylinder engine. The other problem was you are driving it and people stare at you," Mayo says.

A business traveler Mayo interviewed for his story described the car as "what Steve Carrell drove in [the TV show] 'The Office'" and Mayo agrees.

What's the first word that comes to mind when you think of a PT Cruiser? Tell us on Facebook or in a comment below.

Germany says it will not allow Bulgaria or Romania to join the EU's passport-free Schengen zone if the issue is put to a vote in the EU on Thursday.

Nasa's Curiosity Mars rover is put into "safe mode" after a computer glitch caused by corrupted files.

President Obama plans to announce three Cabinet-level nominations Monday, including a new administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, who could be on the hot seat in the looming battle over global warming.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

David Beckham becomes a global ambassador for Chinese football to help the image of the country's game.

A Libyan man suing the UK government for its alleged role in his rendition to Libya offers to settle the case for an apology and a token payment of £1.

Bank of Ireland records a loss of 1.8bn euros for 2012, as the Irish lender saw little respite in the pace at which it had to write off bad loans.