Organic food has more of the antioxidant compounds linked to better health than regular food, and lower levels of toxic metals and pesticides, according to the most comprehensive scientific analysis to date. The international team behind the work suggests that switching to organic fruit and vegetables could give the same benefits as adding one or two portions of the recommended 'five a day'.
The team, led by Professor Carlo Leifert at Newcastle University, concludes that there are “statistically significant, meaningful” differences, with a range of antioxidants being “substantially higher” – between 19% and 69% – in organic food. It is the first study to demonstrate clear and wide-ranging differences between organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and cereals.
The researchers say the increased levels of antioxidants are equivalent to “one to two of the five portions of fruits and vegetables recommended to be consumed daily and would therefore be significant and meaningful in terms of human nutrition, if information linking these compounds to the health benefits associated with increased fruit, vegetable and wholegrain consumption is confirmed”.
The findings will add to the controversy over organic food and whether it is better for people, with one expert saying that the findings were exaggerated. Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King’s College London, said the research did show some differences. “But the question is are they within natural variation? And are they nutritionally relevant? I am not convinced.” He said Leifert’s work had caused controversy in the past. “Leifert has had a lot of disagreements with a lot of people.” Sanders added the research showed organic cereals have less protein than conventional crops.
The results of the research are based on an analysis of 343 peer-reviewed studies from around the world – more than ever before – which examine differences between organic and conventional fruit, vegetables and cereals. “The crucially important thing about this research is that it shatters the myth that how we farm does not affect the quality of the food we eat,” said Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association, which campaigns for organic farming.
Plants produce many of their antioxidant compounds to fight back against pest attacks, so the higher levels in organic crops may result from their lack of protection by chemical sprays. But, the scientists say other reasons may be important, such as organic varieties being bred for toughness and not being overfed with artificial fertilizers.
Leifert and his colleagues conclude that many antioxidants “have previously been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers”. But, they also note that no long-term studies showing health benefits from a broad organic diet have yet been conducted. The researchers found much higher levels of cadmium, a toxic metal, in conventional crops. Pesticide residues were found on conventional crops four times more often than on organic food. The research was funded by the EU and an organic farming charity.
The research is certain to be criticized: the inclusion of so many studies in the analysis could mean poor-quality work skews the results, although the team did “sensitivity analyses” and found that excluding weaker work did not significantly change the outcome. Also, the higher levels of cadmium and pesticides in conventional produce were still well below regulatory limits. But, the researchers say cadmium accumulates over time in the body and that some people may wish to avoid this, and that pesticide limits are set individually, not for the cocktail of chemicals used on crops.
A further criticism is that the differences seen may result from different climates, soil types and crop varieties, and not from organic farming, though the researchers argue that combining many studies should average out these other differences. The greatest criticism, however, will be over the suggestions of potential health benefits. The most recent major analysis, which took in 223 studies in 2012, found little evidence. “The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods,” it found.
This was also the conclusion of earlier, smaller studies published in 2009 in a scientific journal and by the UK Food Standards Agency, though the latter considered just 11 studies. The 2012 study did note that eating organic food might help people avoid pesticide residues. Sanders said he was not persuaded by the new work. “You are not going to be better nourished if you eat organic food,” he said. “What is most important is what you eat, not whether it’s organic or conventional. It’s whether you eat fruit and vegetables at all. People are buying into a lifestyle system. They get an assurance it is not being grown with chemicals and is not grown by big business.”
Opinion polls show healthy eating (55%) and avoiding chemical residues (53%) are key reasons cited by shoppers for buying organic produce. But, many also say care for the environment (44%) and animal welfare (31%) are important, as is taste (35%). Browning said: “This research backs up what people think about organic food. In other countries, there have long been much higher levels of support and acceptance of the benefits of organic food and farming. We hope these findings will bring the UK into line with the rest of Europe.”


A recent report says that the wealthiest people in India will become four times richer by 2018 – hundreds of thousands of new entrepreneurs and inheritors will become multimillionaires. In India, at the moment, business people are beginning to be confident again in the world’s biggest democracy.
Economic growth has been weak in recent years in India. The cost of basic foods has risen and the value of the Indian currency has fallen. The economy has not been good but there are now nearly a sixth more Indians with more than $3.75 million than in 2013, the report says. “Cities are mushrooming, the middle class is growing, there are lots more opportunities and Indian politics have improved a lot in recent months,” according to Murali Balaraman, a co-author of the report.
The richest people in India have money and houses that are worth a trillion dollars. This is about a fifth of the total wealth in the country. By 2018, that total will probably reach $4 trillion, the report says, and there will be three times more multimillionaires.
New rich people are buying lots of luxury things. “They really want to show or talk about their wealth and buying luxury things is a nice way to do it,” Balaraman said. Abhay Gupta, who works for the company Luxury Connect, said that more and more people will want to buy luxury things and experiences. “There is a huge class of people who want to copy very wealthy people,” he said.
Cars are very popular things to buy, the report says. In 2009, wealthy Indians bought Indian SUVs to impress their friends but now they buy foreign cars. Mercedes sold 47% more cars in India in 2013. BMW has launched a new $200,000 model in Delhi.
But companies sell fewer luxury cars because of India’s terrible transport system. Lamborghini’s Chief Executive, Stephan Winkelmann, said, in 2013, that the traffic and roads in India “are not so suitable” for the $450,000 sports cars. In India, Lamborghini sells two models: the Gallardo and the Aventador, which has a maximum speed of 217 miles per hour. Winkelmann said Lamborghini’s Indian customers were much younger than European customers. In India, a normal buyer is in his 30s. But the most popular investments are still houses – mainly in India – and jewellery.
India’s super-rich have often surprised people around the world with their very high spending. Mukesh Ambani, India’s wealthiest man, has built the world’s most expensive home in Mumbai, the business capital. The 27-storey tower has helicopter pads, indoor cinemas and more than 600 people who work there. It is worth $1 billion.
The three-day wedding of the niece of Lakshmi Mittal, the steel tycoon who lives in the UK and has $16 billion, cost $80 million. Hundreds of guests flew to Barcelona for the wedding and party, which was in a museum in the city.
But people who buy luxury things are becoming more and more difficult to satisfy, the report says. One super-rich person bought nine boxes of Japanese whisky that cost more than over $750 a bottle for a wedding party. The attraction of the imported whisky was that no one who came to the wedding would be able to find the same drink in India. Another super-rich person bought identical pairs of Louis Vuitton bags, then cut up half of them to make clothes that would match her bags.
Even the traditional Indian wedding is changing. Traditionally, people send presents such as silver plates, dried fruit or sweets with wedding invitations. But, now, rich people prefer to send gifts by top western designers. “These days, it’s Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton bags,” says Gupta.
Almost half the new multimillionaires live in small cities and many of them give a lot of money to charity. Co-author Balaraman says that more rich people will not create more social problems because a wide gap in wealth is an “accepted norm” in India. “People know that someone is rich and someone is poor and they carry on with their lives,” he explains.


Serial dater Emmanuel Limal was tired of meeting women who weren’t ready to start a family, or at least wouldn’t admit that they were. The 43-year-old actor, originally from France, had spent 20 years living in Copenhagen and looking for love in the hope of raising children. He recently took his quest online but was dismayed by the results.
“I got frustrated with everyone trying to sell themselves as really active, always travelling or with a long list of hobbies, but no mention of children,” Limal said. “On some sites, there was an option to click, saying: 'I’d like kids someday,' but you would read the person’s profile and think: 'You will never have time!' If someone’s going to the gym eight times a week and travelling every month, they are not putting a family first.”
Limal has a six-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, but coming from a big family – his father is one of 11 – he has always wanted more children. “I couldn’t seem to meet anyone willing to prioritize starting a family and struggled with when to mention wanting kids any time I met someone new. It’s the ultimate dating taboo,” he said. “Then one day I read a profile from a 38-year-old who said she knew it was 'really bad to admit' but she wanted children. And I just thought: 'You shouldn’t be ashamed of this.'”
Limal remortgaged his apartment to fund the setting up of Babyklar.nu – or 'baby-ready now' in English. It functions like a normal dating site but every potential dater is asked to be honest about their wish to start a family soon. “We ask people if they are OK with someone who already has children as well as wanting another baby,” Limal said. “But we don’t make them specify how many children they’d like. That would be a bit too much like grocery shopping online.”
The response to the site has been overwhelming, he said. “We had 50 sign-ups an hour when we launched in June and we are already hearing from couples who have met through the site and are now together. I’m fully expecting the first Babyklar.nu baby by next summer.” More men have signed up than women (53% to 47%), with testimonials such as “It’s so lovely to be able to say this out loud” and “I finally dare to be honest about what I want.”
The site has come at an opportune time for the country of five million people. Danes are not having enough babies, according to a report from the Copenhagen hospital Rigshospitalet, and the current rate of 1.7 children per family is not enough to maintain Denmark’s population. The usual suspects are being blamed for the new low – women leaving it “too late” and couples cohabiting and waiting to start families.
“Now, I hope, men and women who want to start a family but haven’t met the right person yet will have another option,” says Limal. He’s keen to point out that this isn’t just about baby farming: “I want this to be about children and love. My goal is to pair up people who really want a family and a partner – and who’ll stay together. I’m a romantic at heart.”
There are plans to roll out the site in France and the UK later in 2013, but for now it is the Danes who are reaping the benefits. “Danes have no problem having children before marriage so things can move fast and, because the country’s so small, a Jutlander can date a Copenhagener without too much travel,” Limal said. What’s more, Limal has finally found love. “I’ve met a nice woman and she wants a baby too – so we shall see.”


Like veins carrying the lifeblood of a city, a subway system teems with billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, of bubonic plague and drug-proof bugs and of human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to catalogue and map the bacteria coursing through a city’s subway – and they have found a wealth of curious results.
Dr Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that, for 18 months, swabbed the New York City subway system for the microscopic life forms that cover its turnstiles, seats, ticket booths and stations. In what Mason called “the first city-scale genetic profile ever”, his team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on the handhold of a train carriage and bacteria that cause bubonic plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.
In research published in the journal Cell Systems, the team strongly downplayed the findings of plague and anthrax, noting the extremely small trace of the latter, that rats likely carried the former and that no one has fallen ill with plague in or around New York for years.
“The results do not suggest that plague or anthrax is prevalent,” the study says. “Nor do they suggest that New York residents are at risk.”
In fact, most of the bacteria identified by the team are either harmless to humans or beneficial in the city’s thriving world of microorganisms, many of which process toxic hazards and waste in the same way that bacteria inside every human help with digestion and bodily functions.
Some of the results were expected, Mason said, including some bacteria associated with fecal matter, which he said “should be a gentle reminder for people to wash their hands”. He also said that many bacteria of the same genus as those “that are beneficial and helpful, like the one used for making cheese,” also turned up around New York.
Bacteria appeared to reflect the eating habits of various neighbourhoods. All around the subway, bacteria associated with cheeses – brie, cheddar, parmesan and the mozzarella of ubiquitous New York pizza – turned up. The distinctive bacteria of Swiss cheese were more localized to midtown Manhattan and the financial district, and the bacteria used to ferment cabbage for kimchi and sauerkraut showed up in the financial district and Bay Ridge. The computer also identified cucumber DNA all over the city, Mason said.
Bacteria associated with illness and infections were extremely common. Species that cause diarrhoea and nausea, both benign and bad E.coli (mostly benign), and the bacteria that can cause skin infections and urinary-tract infections were common all over the city. The species that produces tetanus appeared in Soho and bacteria that cause dysentery appeared at a station in the Bronx and another in Harlem.
With more than 1,000 samples collected at all of New York’s 466 open subway stations, Mason and his team ran the organic materials through a DNA sequencer and, then, through a supercomputer armed with genetic databases. They identified 15,152 distinct species, nearly half of which were bacteria.
The good news, the researchers wrote, is that these “potentially infectious agents” are not spreading sickness or disease throughout New York but rather seem to be “normal co-habitants” and “may even be essential”. They “represent a normal, 'healthy' metagenome profile of a city”.
In short, the researchers conclude, the subway and city are about as safe as everyone thought.
Mason said people should not be concerned about getting urinary-tract infections from subway seats. “You should wash your hands,” he said, “and probably get some sleep and eat salads and go to the gym, and that’s about the same today as it was yesterday.”
“If anything,” he added, “I’ve become much more confident riding the subway.”
Many findings made sense: heavily trafficked stations like Grand Central and Times Square had more bacteria and more diversity among them; the subway was most enriched for bacteria associated with skin. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest.
The researchers found marine bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy – but they were surprised to note the species included some normally associated with Antarctica and fish.
The next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, São Paolo and Shanghai, and continued studies of New York, for instance to see how the microbiome changes with the seasons. He said he hoped the research would provide “a baseline” of research for health officials and geneticists, and could help health officials to be better prepared to prevent and track diseases and pathogens.


Intermediate
The Canadian tennis player Frank Dancevic slammed Australian Open organizers for forcing players to compete in inhumane conditions. He collapsed on court as temperatures rose to 41C.
Dancevic collapsed during the second set of his fi rst-round match against Frances Benot Paire on the uncovered court six at Melbourne Park and passed out for a minute. He said conditions were dangerous for the players. He also said the heat had caused him to hallucinate: I was dizzy from the middle of the fi rst set and then I saw Snoopy and I thought, Wow, Snoopy  thats weird.
I think its inhumane. I dont think its fair to anybody  to the players, to the fans, to the sport  when you see players pulling out of matches, passing out, he added. Ive played fi ve set matches all my life and being out there for a set and a half and passing out with heat stroke, its not normal.
Having players with so many problems and complaining to the tournament that its too hot to play; I, personally, dont think its fair and I know a lot of players dont think its fair.
Other players agreed. The British number one, Andy Murray, said: Its defi nitely something that you have to look at. As much as its easy to say the conditions are safe, it only takes one bad thing to happen. And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people in the stands are collapsing. Thats not great.
I know when I went out before the match, the conditions at 2.303pm were very, very tough. Whether its safe or not, I dont know. There have been some problems in other sports with players having heart attacks.
Caroline Wozniacki said: I put the water bottle down on the court and it started melting a little bit underneath the plastic. So, you know it was warm.
John Isner said: It was like an oven when I open the oven and the potatoes are done. Thats what its like.
The defending champion Victoria Azarenka said, It felt pretty hot, like youre dancing in a frying pan or something like that.
Under a change to the rules for 2014, the decision on whether to stop matches at the tournament is now at the discretion of the tournament director, Wayne McKewen.
Organizers said temperatures peaked at 42.2C in the early evening on Tuesday and conditions had never reached the point where the matches would be stopped.
While conditions were hot and uncomfortable, the relatively low level of humidity ensured play would continue, McKewen said in a statement.
Dancevic, who said he had felt dizzy from the middle of the second set, started playing again after medical attention but, unsurprisingly, lost 76, 63, 64. I was really close to stopping completely, he said. I wasnt really running too much towards the end. I wasnt tired; I just felt my body temperature was too high.
A ball boy had earlier required medical attention after collapsing during Milos Raonics 76, 61, 46, 62 victory over Daniel Gimeno-Traver on the equally exposed court eight and the tournament started only allowing the ball boys to work for 45 minute periods. Chinas Peng Shuai also said the heat had made her cramp up and vomit, and she had to be helped from the court after her 75, 46, 63 defeat to Japans Kurumi Nara.
Offi cials played down health risks  they said the majority of matches were completed without anyone needing medical attention.
Of course, there were a few players who experienced heat-related illness or discomfort, but none required signifi cant medical treatment after they had completed their match, Tim Wood, the tournaments chief medical offi cer, said.
Roger Federer said that, although conditions were tough, they were the same for both players. Its just a mental thing, the Swiss said. If youve trained hard enough your entire life, or the last few weeks, and you believe you can do it and come through it, theres no reason. If you cant deal with it, you throw in the towel.
Dancevic disagreed. Some players are used to the heat  their bodies can genetically handle the heat and others cant, he said. Its dangerous. Its an hour and a half since my match and I still cant pee.


Intermediate
A mirror that sends heat into cold space has been designed by scientists to replace air-conditioning units that keep buildings cool on Earth.
Researchers believe the mirror could slash the amount of energy used to control air temperatures in business premises and shopping centres because they wont need to use cooling systems.
Around 15% of the energy used by buildings in the USgoesonairconditioningbuttheresearchers say that, in some cases, the mirror could completely offset the need for extra cooling.
In a rooftop comparison in Stanford, California, scientists found that a roof that had been painted black reached 60C more than the air temperature in sunlight and aluminium reached 40C more. However, the mirror was up to 5C cooler than the surrounding air temperature.
If you cover signi cant parts of the roof with this mirror, you can see how much power it can save. You can signi cantly offset the electricity used for air conditioning, said Shanhui Fan, an expert in the study of light at Stanford University, who led the development of the mirror. In some situations, you will be able to completely offset the air conditioning.
Buildings warm up in a number of different ways. Hot-water boilers and cooking areas release heat into their immediate surroundings. In hot countries, warm air comes in through doors and windows. Then, there is visible light and infrared radiation from the sun, which also heat up buildings.
The Stanford mirror was designed to re ect 97% of the visible light that falls on it. But, more importantly, it works as a thermal radiator. When the mirror is warmed up, it releases heat at a speci c wavelength of infrared light that passes easily through the atmosphere and out into space.
To make anything cool, you need what engineers call a heat sink: somewhere to put unwanted heat. The heat sink has to be cooler than the object that needs cooling or it will not do its job. For example, a bucket of ice will cool a bottle of wine because it becomes a sink for heat in the liquid. The Stanford mirror relies on the best heat sink: the universe itself.
The mirror is built from several layers of very thin materials. The  rst layer is re ective silver. On top of this are layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide. These layers turn the mirror into a thermal radiator. When silicon dioxide heats up, it radiates the heat as infrared light at a wavelength of around ten micrometres and the heat passes straight out to space. The total thickness of the mirror is around two micrometres or two thousandths of a millimetre.
The cold darkness of the universe can be used as a renewable thermodynamic resource, even during the hottest hours of the day, the scientists write in Nature. In tests, the mirror had a cooling power of 40 watts per square metre at outside temperatures.
 Writinginthejournal,Fansaysthatthecostofthe mirrors is between $20 and $70 per square metre. He calculates an annual electricity saving of 100MWh on a three-storey building.
Fan said that the mirror could cool buildings but he said that the mirrors would not slow down global warming. Roof space is only a small portion of the Earths surface so the mirror is not a solution to the problem of global warming. But our mirror will help limit greenhouse gas emissions by reducing electricity consumption, he said.
Im really excited by the potential it has, said Marin Solja__i__, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You could use this on buildings and spend much less money on air conditioning or maybe you wouldnt need it at all. You could put it on top of shopping malls. Im really excited by the potential it has, said Marin Solja__i__, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You could use this on buildings and spend much less money on air conditioning or maybe you wouldnt need it at all. You could put it on top of shopping malls. Im really excited by the potential it has, said Marin Solja__i__, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You could use this on buildings and spend much less money on air conditioning or maybe you wouldnt need it at all. You could put it on top of shopping malls.


Wales will become the first country in the UK that will assume that people agree to donate their organs, if they haven’t opted out.
The Welsh Assembly voted to accept the opt-out scheme, which will allow hospitals to assume that people who die want to donate, if they have not registered an objection.
“This is a very big day for Wales and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales who are waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.
“I am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. We have shown we are ready to take action to increase organ donation and to give hope to those people who wait every week for a transplant.
“When family members know that organ donation is what the dead person wanted, they usually agree to the donation. The new law will make clearer people’s wishes about organ donation and so it will increase the number of donations.”
The issue is controversial, but the government says they will protect the dead person’s and the family’s wishes. Relatives will have a “clear right of objection”, which will give them the chance to show that their relative did not want to be an organ donor.
Wales has acted because it does “not have enough organs for people who need them,” said Drakeford. “About one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list.
“About a third of the people who live in Wales are on the organ donor register, but more than two-thirds of people say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t find the time to put their names on the register.”
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK.
Doctors are delighted at the scheme. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a lot of success. Hospitals have also become better at organizing transplants – for example, they have important discussions with relatives when no one knows what the wishes of the dead person were. But the increase in numbers of organs is still not enough.
Some religious groups strongly oppose the scheme. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council are not happy, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”


Nelson Mandela, the towering figure of Africa’s struggle for freedom and a hero to millions around the world, has died at the age of 95.
South Africa’s first black president died in the company of his family at home in Johannesburg after years of declining health, which had caused him to withdraw from public life.
The news was announced to the country by the current president, Jacob Zuma, who, in a sombre televised address, said Mandela had “departed” around 8.50pm local time and was at peace.
“This is the moment of our deepest sorrow,” Zuma said. “Our nation has lost its greatest son. What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves.
“Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell.”
Zuma announced that Mandela would receive a state funeral and ordered that flags fly at half-mast.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu led a memorial service in Cape Town, where he called for South Africa to become as a nation what Mandela had been as a man.
Barack Obama led tributes from world leaders, referring to Mandela by his clan name – Madiba. The US president said: “Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of others, Madiba transformed South Africa – and moved all of us.
“His journey from a prisoner to a president embodied the promise that human beings – and countries – can change for the better. His commitment to transfer power and reconcile with those who jailed him set an example that all humanity should aspire to, whether in the lives of nations or our own personal lives.”
UK prime minister David Cameron said, “A great light has gone out in the world,” and described Mandela as “a hero of our time”.
FW de Klerk – the South African president who freed Mandela, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993 and paved the way for him to become South Africa’s first post-apartheid head of state – said the news was deeply saddening for South Africa and the world.
“He lived reconciliation. He was a great unifier,” de Klerk said.
People gathered in the streets of South Africa to celebrate Mandela’s life.
In Soweto, people gathered to sing and dance near the house where he once lived. They formed a circle in the middle of Vilakazi Street and sang songs from the anti-apartheid struggle. Some people were draped in South African flags and the green, yellow and black colours of Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC). Mandela’s death sends South Africa deep into mourning and self-reflection, nearly 20 years after he led the country from racial apartheid to inclusive democracy.
But his passing will also be keenly felt by people around the world, who revered Mandela as one of history’s last great statesmen, and a moral paragon comparable with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It was his act of forgiveness, after spending 27 years in prison, 18 of them on Robben Island, that will assure his place in history. With South Africa facing possible civil war, Mandela sought reconciliation with the white minority to build a new democracy.
He led the ANC to victory in the country’s first multiracial election in 1994. He then voluntarily stepped down after one term.
Born Rolihlahla Dalibhunga in a small village in the Eastern Cape on 18 July, 1918, Mandela was given his English name, Nelson, by a teacher at his school.
He joined the ANC in 1943 and became a co-founder of its youth league. In 1952, he started South Africa’s first black law firm with his partner, Oliver Tambo.
Mandela was a charming, charismatic figure with a passion for boxing and an eye for women. He once said: “I can’t help it if the ladies take note of me. I am not going to protest.”
When the ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela went underground. After the Sharpeville massacre, in which 69 black protesters were shot dead by police, he took the difficult decision to launch an armed struggle. He was arrested and eventually charged with sabotage and attempting to overthrow the government.
Conducting his own defence in the Rivonia trial in 1964, he said: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.
“It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
He escaped the death penalty but was sentenced to life in prison, a huge blow to the ANC, which had to regroup to continue the struggle. But unrest grew in townships and international pressure on the apartheid regime slowly tightened.
Finally, in 1990, FW de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC and Mandela was released from prison amid scenes of jubilation witnessed around the world.
His presidency rode a wave of tremendous global goodwill but was not without its difficulties. After leaving frontline politics in 1999, he admitted he should have moved sooner against the spread of HIV and Aids in South Africa.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed the truth and reconciliation committee after the fall of apartheid, said: “He transcended race and class in his personal actions, through his warmth and through his willingness to listen and to empathize with others. And he restored others’ faith in Africa and Africans.”
Mandela continued to make occasional appearances at ANC events and attended the inauguration of the current president, Jacob Zuma. His 91st birthday was marked by the first annual “Mandela Day” in his honour.
Married three times, he had six children, 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.


Intermediate
Felix Baumgartner stood at the edge of space above New Mexico and paused slightly. It was a small step away from the capsule, but a 24-mile drop back down to Earth. Our guardian angel will take care of you, said mission control, and the man known as Fearless Felix jumped.
Ten terrifying minutes later, the Austrian landed back on Earth. He had reached speeds of up to 725 miles per hour, and broken three world records, including becoming the worlds first supersonic skydiver by breaking the sound barrier at Mach 1.24. We love you Felix, cheered the control room. Baumgartner raised his arms in a victory salute.
He was wearing a specially designed survival suit to protect him against the enormous pressure changes during the jump. Without it, his blood would have boiled and his lungs might have exploded. Baumgartner later told a press conference that all he could think about was getting back alive, but he added: Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.
His other two records were for the highest altitude manned balloon flight and the highest altitude skydive. The jump happened on a sunny morning in good weather. Baumgartner was carried up into clear skies by a gigantic balloon  it measured 30 million square cubic feet and its skin was one-tenth the thickness of a sandwich bag. At the bottom of the balloon was a capsule, where Baumgartner sat in his suit.
As he reached the correct height, Baumgartner went through a checklist of 40 things with his mentor Joe Kittinger. Kittinger was the previous holder of the highest altitude manned balloon flight.
Baumgartner had a problem with his visor. This is very serious, Joe, he told Kitttinger. Sometimes its getting foggy when I breathe out. But they decided to go ahead, watched by a record 8 million people live on YouTube.
After a two-and-a-half-hour journey up, during which the curvature of the Earth became visible and the skies gradually turned black, the descent was much quicker. Three cameras, which were attached to Baumgartners suit, recorded his free-fall of just over four minutes and then the parachute opening.
The success of the mission, and of the suit, means that astronauts might be able to survive a high-altitude disaster, like on the space shuttle Columbia in 2003, by jumping out of their craft. Baumgartners top medical man in the stunt was Dr Jonathan Clark, whose wife Laurel Clark died in the Columbia accident. Clark is now working to help astronauts survive high-altitude disasters.
Baumgartner has a reputation for daring stunts. The former paratrooper has parachuted off buildings and mountains and once into a 600 foot deep cave. He had already done two practice free-falls in preparation for this jump  one from 71,000 feet and a second from 97,000 feet. But nothing can compare with his jump above the town of Roswell, a place famous for its UFO sightings.
He was trying to break five different records: the first human to ever break the sound barrier in free-fall; the highest free-fall altitude jump; the highest manned balloon flight; the longest free-fall; and his jump platform is believed to be the largest manned balloon in history. The stunt was planned for seven years, was sponsored by Red Bull drinks, and beat two of Kittingers records: before, the retired US air force colonel held the high altitude and speed records for parachuting. Kittinger jumped from a balloon 19 miles above the planet in 1960 and gave advice to Baumgartner during the ascent.
Asked after the jump what he wanted to do next, Baumgartner said: I want to inspire a generation. Id like to be sitting in the same spot in the next four years as Joe Kittinger. There is a young guy asking me for advice because he wants to break my record. He said the most exciting moment for him was when he was standing outside the capsule on top of the world. He added: The most beautiful moment was when I was standing on the landing area and Mike Todd [the life support engineer who dressed Baumgartner in his suit] appeared and he had a smile on his face like a little kid.
Baumgartner said that he felt like Todds son, adding: He was so happy that I was alive. Earlier, Todd had told the press conference: The world needs a hero right now, and theyve got one in Felix Baumgartner.
This will be the last jump, Baumgartner said. He has promised to settle down and enjoy life with his girlfriend, Nicole Oetl, flying helicopters on rescue missions in the US and Austria.


On one day in August, one in seven people on Earth, 1 billion people, used Facebook, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. In ten years, the social network has changed people’s relationships, privacy, their businesses, news media, helped to end unfair governments and even changed the meaning of common words.
“A more open and connected world is a better world,” wrote Zuckerberg.
These are just some of the ways his company changed everything – for better or worse.
1. Facebook has changed the definition of “friend”
“To friend” is now a verb. In real life, it is difficult to end a friendship but, on Facebook, it is easy to “unfriend” someone. “To unfriend” is a word invented  to describe ending contact with a Facebook friend. The meanings of the words “share” and “like” are the same but Facebook has made the words more important to us.
School and university reunions are unnecessary  – you already know whose job is going well and you’ve seen pictures of your schoolfriends’ babies. You won’t be surprised if you see an ex in the street with a new girlfriend or boyfriend: you already know they’re with someone else because you’ve seen the romantic selfies.
In real life, some friends are more important than others but, on Facebook, all friends have the same importance. A classmate from university who you haven’t seen for 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a party or a colleague you’ve never spoken to – they are all Facebook friends in the same way as your best friend, or your husband or wife, or your mum. It doesn’t mean we see them the same way. Professor Robin Dunbar is famous for his research that says a person can only have about 150 people in their social group. Facebook hasn’t changed that yet, he believes. But Dunbar says he fears it is so easy to end friendships on Facebook that, one day, people may not need to learn to get on with each other.
2 We care less about privacy
Most young people are happy to give Facebook their personal details. Ninety-one per cent post a photo of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, more than half give email addresses and a fifth give their phone number.
More than 80% list their interests, which allows companies to try to sell things to them. But most young users limit who can see their profiles – 60% allow friends only.
3 Facebook has created millions of jobs – but not in its own offices
Michael Tinmouth has worked with companies such as Vodafone and Microsoft. He says, “Thanks to Facebook, companies have a better understanding of their customers than ever before. The data available is extraordinary. You know who your customers are and who they are friends with and what they think about your company.”
And advertisers pay a lot for that. Facebook earned $3.32 billion from advertising.
Facebook can also be dangerous for companies. Suddenly, customers don’t simply complain on the phone or on a small internet forum – angry customers can post their complaints for hundreds of their friends to see or even on the company’s own page.
4 Facebook has been the tool to organize revolutions
Organizing demonstrations has been revolutionized by Facebook. Manchester University’s Olga Onuch found that half of all the Euromaidan protesters in Ukraine had got their information from Facebook.
Many people told Onuch that they needed Facebook to read the truth about what was happening – they don’t trust traditional media.
5 Facebook makes news, breaks news and decides what is news
About 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 63% of all users say they get news from the internet. About a third of Facebook users post about politics and government.
Most people will first read an item of news on Facebook or other social media, mostly on mobiles.


A car with a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour, two seats and no pedals or steering wheel does not sound very interesting. But Google, in the US, shocked the car and taxi industries when it unveiled the latest version of its driverless car.
Google has begun testing the electric car at its headquarters in Mountain View, California. The car does not have all the normal car controls, such as foot pedals. Instead, it has a smartphone app that calls it and tells it the destination, and a STOP button between the two seats in case the passengers need to override the computer.
The company is building about 100 prototypes for a two-year test. The company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, said that the vehicle was still just a prototype. He says that they want to change the world for people who do not find it easy to travel around.
Talking about the car, he said, “You’re just sitting there; no steering wheel, no pedals. For me, it was very relaxing. About ten seconds after getting into the car, I forgot I was there. I found it really fun.”
Google says that the aim of the project is to improve safety. They say that the car is made with foam at the front and a plastic windscreen, so “it should be far safer than any other car for pedestrians”.
The cars have been built specially by a company in Detroit. Google will now test the cars, which are not yet for sale.
There need to be detailed scans of the roads before the cars can drive on them, because they cannot collect and process enough information in real time.
So far, there are detailed maps of about 2,000 miles of California’s roads, but California has more than 170,000 miles of roads.
Google says it wants to license the technology to traditional car makers when they have improved it.
But the idea that driverless cars will replace taxis with human drivers has alarmed some people.
Dennis Conyon from the UK National Taxi Association said that taxi drivers will become unemployed.
London has about 22,000 black taxis and Conyon thinks that the total number of people who drive taxis in the UK is about 100,000.
Other car makers, including Volvo, Ford and Mercedes, are going to make vehicles that will be different from Google’s version because they will have driver controls.
But Chris Urmson, director of the driverless car project at Google, said that the new prototypes do not have a steering wheel or brakes because a human passenger might not be able to take control in an emergency. He said that it was simpler just to have an emergency stop button.
Urmson said: “The vehicles will be very basic. But they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And, that’s an important step towards improving road safety and helping millions of people travel around more easily.”
So far, the Google versions of the driverless cars have driven 700,000 miles without an accident caused by the computer. The company says that thousands of people die each year on the roads and that about 80% of crashes are caused by human mistakes.


Clay Cockrell is sitting in his office opposite the Trump International Hotel and Tower. In front of the tower is Central Park, where Cockrell holds his popular walk and talk therapy sessions.
Cockrell is a former Wall Street worker who is now a therapist. He spends large parts of his days walking in Central Park or the Battery Park in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street, talking to some of New York’s wealthiest people.
“Many of the very wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are,” he says.
So, what problems do America’s 1% have? “There is guilt that they are rich,” he said. “There is the feeling that they have to hide that they are rich. And, then, there is the isolation – being in the 1% can be lonely.”
Counsellors say that things have become worse since the financial crisis in 2008. People now talk about the gap between rich and poor more because of groups like Occupy Wall Street.
“Occupy Wall Street had some important things to say about the gap between rich and poor but it was negative about the 1%,” said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist. The media, she said, makes the rich “feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed”.
“Sometimes, I am shocked by things that people say. You would never talk about another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to talk about wealthy people.”
“It’s really isolating to have a lot of money. People’s reaction to you can be scary,” said Barbara Nusbaum, an expert in money psychology. “We are all taught not to talk about money. It’s not polite to talk about money. But it’s harder to talk about being rich than it is to talk about being poor. People don’t mind if you say ‘I am broke. Things are hard.’ You can’t say ‘I have a ton of money.’ You have to keep a lot of your life private.”
As a result, Cockrell says, the rich hang out with other rich Americans who understand them and their problems.
In the US, over the last 30 years, the number of very wealthy people has grown. In 2014, the number of US households with $1m or more – excluding the value of their main home – was 10.1 million. There were 1.3 million households worth $5 million and 142,000 worth $25 million or more.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown and the situation “has gotten worse for the wealthy”, Cockrell said. The main reason? Not knowing if your friends are friends with you or with your money.
“Someone else who is also a billionaire – they don’t want anything from you. Never being able to trust your friendships with other people, I think that is difficult,” said Cockrell.
“Wealth can stop you from connecting with other people,” said the wife of a man who made about $80 million. Some Americans keep their wealth secret.
“There are a lot of people hiding their wealth because they are worried about negative judgment,” said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy Americans talk about their problems, people don’t have a lot of sympathy,” she said.
Cockrell said that there is a common mistake that many of his wealthy clients make – they let their money be the most important thing in their lives.
“If you are part of the 1%, you still have problems. There are other parts of your life. Money is not the only thing,” he said. “Your problems are real.”


Intermediate
A Canadian man who became famous because he offered a free round-the-world trip to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend has returned from the trip with his chosen namesake. Unfortunately, to the disappointment of those following the story, the two of them did not fall in love. Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old Toronto charity founder, arrived back in Canada with Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher and said the pair had a brother-sister-like relationship.
Axani had made headlines in 2014 because he offered an air ticket to any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher. He had booked a three-week vacation with his girlfriend but they split up and he was unable to change the name on the flight tickets.
Thats where Axanis new travelling companion, a 23-year-old student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, enters the story. Elizabeth Gallagher, who calls herself Quinn, replied to an online posting from Axani and she was chosen. Gallagher explained before the trip that she had a pretty serious boyfriend. But that had not stopped journalists from hoping the globetrotters might fall for one another. Unfortunately, it did not happen.
Im going to be very clear, Axani said, soon after the pair returned to Toronto. This was never a romantic endeavour. It was strictly platonic. I do not think of Quinn in a romantic way at all. There is no future for us romantically. She is a good friend. I think of her as a little sister and that is it. And our feelings are entirely mutual.
It took work to create that brother-sister, good-friend relationship, however. It wasnt easy and it certainly wasnt immediate. It took us about a week to really figure each other out, Axani said. There was a certain amount of stumbling around as the pair got to know each other about the dos and donts of travelling together. At the end of it, wed developed a really great rhythm  one second, we had really funny inside jokes and, the next second, we knew when the other person needed space.
Although the pair did not fall in love, Axani said the trip, which included Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Khao Lak (in Thailand) and Hong Kong, was fantastic. A favourite place was Prague, Axani said, where they met more people than anywhere else on the trip.
Over the course of two and a half days I think we met about two dozen people. So thats a lot of stories, thats a lot of individuals and thats a lot of love for their home city of Prague.
People were following the pair on Twitter and Instagram, Axani said, and they were even recognized in the street in Hong Kong. It was a real adventure. We had a blast. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other. I cant imagine it going much better than it did.
Axani arrived back in Toronto at 3am and went straight into a meeting at his charity, A Ticket Forward. Axani started the non-profit organization after his internet post went viral. He wants to offer round-the-world-trips to survivors of abuse, cancer and war.
Apart from that, Axani is also discussing making his story into a television show or film, he said. But he would not comment on what form those productions might take. Ill only say that theres been lots of interest from many production companies. Were well advanced. In terms of his love life, Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher yet. Im not looking for anything but life happens and well see, he said. As always, lifes a journey.


Brazil experienced one of its biggest nights of protest in decades as more than 100,000 people took to the streets nationwide to express their frustration at heavy-handed policing, poor public services and high costs for the World Cup.
The major demonstrations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasilia, Belem, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and elsewhere started peacefully, but several led to clashes with police and arson attacks on cars and buses.
The large turnout and geographic spread marked a rapid escalation after previous, smaller protests against bus price increases led to complaints that police responded disproportionately with rubber bullets, tear gas and violent beatings.
Coinciding with the start of the Confederations Cup – a World Cup test event – the rallies brought together a wide coalition of people frustrated with the escalating costs and persistently poor quality of public services, lavish investment in international sporting events, low standards of health care and wider unease about inequality and corruption.
While the vast majority of demonstrations in Rio were peaceful, several police were injured in clashes at the city’s legislative assembly, at least one car was overturned and burned, and windows were smashed in the offices of banks and notary offices.
The unrest escalated during the night as a large crowd set several fires outside the legislative assembly, smashed the building’s windows and painted graffiti on the walls proclaiming “Revolution”, “Down with Paes, down with Cabral [the mayor and state governor]” and “Hate police”. Police inside responded with pepper spray and perhaps more – the Guardian saw one protester passed out and bleeding heavily from a wound in the upper arm.
The causes pursued by the protesters varied widely. “We are here because we hate the government. They do nothing for us,” said Oscar José Santos, a 19 year old who was with a group of hooded youths from the Rocinha favela.
“I’m an architect but I have been unemployed for six months. There must be something wrong with this country,” said Nadia al Husin, holding up a banner calling on the government to do more for education.
At a far smaller rally in Brasilia, demonstrators broke through police lines to enter the high-security area of the national congress. Several climbed onto the roof.
In Belo Horizonte, police clashed with protesters who tried to break through a cordon around a football stadium hosting a Confederations Cup match between Nigeria and Tahiti.
In Porto Alegre, demonstrators set fire to a bus and, in Curitiba, protesters attempted to force their way into the office of the state governor. There were also rallies in Belem, Salvador and elsewhere.
In São Paulo, which had seen the fiercest clashes the previous week and the main allegations of police violence, large crowds gathered once again but initial reports suggested the marches passed peacefully.
Reflecting the importance of social networks in spreading the message about the protests, some in São Paulo – where numbers were estimated at between 30,000 and 100,000 – carried banners declaring “We come from Facebook”.
Most protesters were young and, for many, it was their first experience of such a giant rally. “My generation has never experienced this,” said Thiago Firbida, a student. “Since the dictatorship, Brazilians never bothered to take over the streets. They did not believe they had a reason to. But now Brazil is once again in crisis, with a constant rise in prices, so people are finally reacting.”
Comparisons have been drawn with rallies in Turkey and elsewhere. Another global link was evident in the handful of demonstrators who wore Guy Fawkes masks, associated with Anonymous and the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Brazil’s demonstrations are being referred to as the “vinegar revolution” (after police arrested people for carrying vinegar to counter tear gas), as well as the “20-cent revolution” (due to the bus price rise) and the Passe Livre (after the demand for free public transport).
Some said the protests felt un-Brazilian but liberating. “Our politicians need to see the strength we have as one people. Brazilians tend to be too nice sometimes – they enjoy partying rather than protesting – but something is changing,” said Deli Borsari, a 53-year-old yoga instructor.
Following widespread news coverage of the costs of new and refurbished stadiums, the Confederations Cup football tournament has been one of the focuses of the protests. Before the opening match in Brasilia, crowds of demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. Footage showed frightened Japanese supporters rushing from the area holding their children, as the sound of shots – perhaps rubber bullets or tear gas – was heard.
Another protest march, near Rio’s Maracana Stadium, was met with a similarly heavy police response.
Most of the rallies appeared to start peacefully until they confronted the security forces, who are largely organized at a regional level. President Dilma Rousseff condones the protests, according to her aides. “The president believes peaceful protests are legitimate and proper for a democracy, and that it is natural for young people to demonstrate,” said Helena Chagas of the president’s office.
However, the president was booed at the opening ceremony for the Confederations Cup. With the economy in bad shape and social unrest on the rise, she faces a serious political challenge, both now and in 2014, when Brazil will not only host the World Cup but also have a presidential election.


Intermediate
According to a top-secret document, the National Security Agency (NSA) has got direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other major US internet companies. The NSA access is part of a program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
The document claims collection directly from the servers of major US service providers. Although the document claims that the program is run with the help of the companies, all the companies who responded to a request for comment denied knowledge of any such program.
In a statement, Google said: Google cares deeply about the security of our users data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government back door into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.
Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge, one said. An Apple spokesman said he had never heard of PRISM.
The NSA access became possible because of changes to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012. The program facilitates a large amount of in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating companies who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.
The revelation of the PRISM program follows a leak of a top-secret court order that forced telecoms provider Verizon to give the telephone records of millions of US customers to the US government. The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate about the level of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records from Verizon, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.
It is claimed that some of the worlds largest internet companies are part of the information-sharing program, which was introduced in 2007. Microsoft  which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan Your privacy is our priority  was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012.
Under US law, companies must comply with requests for users communications, but the PRISM program allows the intelligence services direct access to the companies servers. The NSA document notes that the operations have the help of communications providers in the US.
During the renewal of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in December 2012, several US senators warned about the high level of surveillance the law might allow and shortcomings in the safeguards it introduces. When the FAA was first introduced, its supporters argued that one safeguard would be the fact that the NSA could not get electronic communications without the permission of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program makes that permission unnecessary, because it allows the agency to take the communications directly off the companies servers, communications that include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype, for example) chats, file transfers and social networking details.
The PRISM program allows the NSA, the worlds largest surveillance organization, to get targeted communications without requesting them from the service providers and without needing individual court orders. With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the companies and get both stored communications and live communications.
A senior administration official said in a statement: The Guardian and Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This law does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person who is within the United States. The program is overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Executive Branch and Congress. Only non-US persons outside the US are targeted. The program must limit the information it gets, keeps and disseminates about US citizens.
This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after a lot of debate. Information that is collected under this program is some of the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and it is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.


Intermediate
A long time ago, cinema audiences were transported to a galaxy far, far away.
That was 1977 but, in 2015, as the franchise plans to release its seventh  lm, interest in Star Wars shows no sign of slowing down. Now, there is news of a new  lm about Han Solo and of a reappearance for Darth Vader.
Many fans around the world are constantly waiting for the release of new poster art, new trailers and other information, said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst. Its hard to imagine any other movie franchise that could cause this much enthusiasm and excitement.
The latest Star Wars mania started after Disneys purchase of Lucas lm from the  lms creator, George Lucas, in 2012. Disney paid $4bn for Lucas lm and very soon announced that there would be three more Star Wars episodes  VII, VIII and IX  plus plans for spin-off movies and standalones.
Details of the second spin-off have now been made public. It is a story about Han Solo, the intergalactic smuggler played by Harrison Ford in the  rst three  lms. This second new  lm will be released in May 2018.
It will follow the release in December 2015 of Episode VII, directed by JJ Abrams and titled Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The unnamed Episode VIII is due out in 2017 and a spin-off, Rogue One, will arrive in cinemas in 2016.
That movie will outline a rebel mission to steal the plans of the Death Star, a key part of the story in the  rst  lm in 1977. There was lots of interest in the rumour that Darth Vader, the black-clad villain of the original series, will reappear in Rogue One. The interest con rms the power of Star Wars nostalgia.
In creating a multi-storyline, multi-character cinema universe around Star Wars, Lucas lm-Disney are copying the phenomenally successful series of  lms produced by Marvel Studios, which Disney also bought, in 2009.
Disney has increased the level of marketing savvy to a product that was already popular: Dergarabedian says the decision to make all six existing Star Wars  lms available on streaming services is a brilliant way to build the excitement for the new  lm and reinvigorate the idea of Star Wars in the minds of the fans.
But, it is not certain that it needs reinvigorating. The level of enthusiasm that has surrounded Star Wars for at least the last twenty years is shown by the huge number of novels, comic books, video games and merchandising that Lucas lm has created over the years.
Michael Rosser, news editor for Screen International, suggests that it is this shared universe of nostalgia that makes Star Wars the top  lm franchise. The great thing about the original  lms was that they created a huge universe of characters and possibility that sparked the imagination of viewers, he said.
For years, people have been wondering how the different parts of the story  t together. This new  lm goes back to Han Solo and Luke Skywalker so we hope it will reconnect with the original Star Wars  lms. The prequels failed to do that.
Rosser is referring to the three  lms Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005  The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith  which were about the life of Luke Skywalkers father, Anakin, who becomes Darth Vader. Despite quite bad reviews, the prequels took $2.5bn at the worldwide box of ce.
It shows the power of Star Wars that, although they were disappointing, the prequels still made a lot of money, said Rosser.
In the world of  lm, branding and a successful franchise are very important. Is there a risk that movie studios will simply become branding machines and lose their interest in cinema?
Rosser thinks not. They are desperate to keep the franchise going and make sure new  lms are of good quality. They also want people to go to the cinema at a time when lots are staying home for entertainment. But you dont want to watch Star Wars on your iPhone.
Meanwhile, Dergarabedian expects massive business when The Force Awakens reaches cinemas in December 2015. We certainly expect a record opening for December and the  lm should make at least a billion dollars worldwide. Truly, Star Wars is the ultimate movie brand.


Amsterdam still looks liberal to tourists, who were recently assured by the Labour Mayor that the city’s marijuana-selling coffee shops would stay open despite a new national law tackling drug tourism. But the Dutch capital may lose its reputation for tolerance over plans to dispatch nuisance neighbours to “scum villages” made from shipping containers.
The Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, insists his controversial new £810,000 policy to tackle antisocial behaviour is to protect victims of abuse and homophobia from harassment. The camps where antisocial tenants will be rehoused for three to six months have been called “scum villages” because the policy echoes proposals from Geert Wilders, the far-right populist, who last year demanded that “repeat offenders” be “sent to a village for scum”.
But Bartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, denies that the plans are illiberal. “We want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam,” he says. “We want everyone to be who he and she is – whether they are gay and lesbian or stand up to violence and are then victims of harassment. We as a society want to defend them.” According to Boer, the villages are not for “the regular nuisance between two neighbours where one has the stereo too loud on Saturday night” but “people who are extremely violent and intimidating, and in a clear situation where a victim is being repeatedly harassed”.
Those deemed guilty of causing “extreme havoc” will be evicted and placed in temporary homes of a “basic” nature, including converted shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. “We call it a living container,” says Boer. Housing antisocial tenants in these units, which have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation, will ensure that they are not “rewarded” by being relocated to better accommodation.
Dutch newspaper the Parool has pointed out that in the 19th century troublemakers were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which rapidly became slums. But Boer insists that the administration has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to house the antisocial together.
It would be more accurate to call them “scum houses” than scum villages, says Boer, “because we don’t want to put more than one of these families in the same area”. After up to six months in these houses, scattered around the city, the tenants will be found permanent homes. The city government anticipates moving around ten families a year into this programme, which starts in 2013.
The temporary dwellings will be heavily policed, but antisocial tenants will also have access to doctors, social workers and parole officers. “They are taken care of so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in,” says Boer.


Intermediate
Behind the bright lights and mirrored panels, cameras are watching you. If you pick up a boot, a camera will make sure you dont put it into your bag. Enter a department store and you will be watched. But new technology is less focused on shoplifting and more interested in your age, sex and shopping habits.
A few months ago, IT company Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) wrote a report that said around 30% of stores use facial recognition technology to track customers in-store. Facial recognition is a technology that can identify people by analysing and comparing facial features from a database. It uses devices such as Intel RealSense cameras, which are able to analyse everything from particular expressions to the clothing brands someone is wearing.
Intel spokesman Joe Jensen says that the aim of using RealSense technology in shops is not to create databases of speci c peoples lives but to build generalized models of peoples lifestyles and shopping habits. We dont need to know a particular customer. We need to know that this shopper has these characteristics and that, when those characteristics are present, this is what a person tends to do.
If you combine recognition technology with databases of previous customer patterns, you can start to predict a lot about what a person may or may not do in a shop. If, for example, theres a woman walking quickly towards the sock section, you can use that data to predict she wants to buy socks. That could allow a store to automatically put targeted ads on screens aimed speci cally at that person. If she looks like the type of person who wants to buy socks, they will show her adverts for socks.
If it sounds familiar, its because the online world has been using techniques like these for years. If you search for something on Amazon, youll get targeted ads for similar products on other sites. But its not easy to bring these systems into the physical world. People do not react to cameras in the same way as they do to browser cookies.
Hoxton Analytics, a team of data scientists in London, has developed a technology that uses machine learning and arti cial intelligence to categorize people based on the shoes they are wearing. By analysing the style and size of peoples footwear as they walk past the sensor, the system can identify a customers gender with 75-80% accuracy.
Owen McCormack, Hoxton Analytics CEO, says that the focus of the system was partly a reaction to facial recognition. My idea was, why dont we simply consider the clothes someones wearing? he said. If I just showed you a photo of someones body, you could probably tell me what gender they are. However, pointing a camera at someones chest or hips feels just as creepy as facial recognition. The idea was  what about peoples shoes?
People use the word creepy a lot during discussions of in-store tracking. For stores and data scientists, the aim is to  nd a way of getting information without seeming intrusive.
For McCormack, the argument is based on the fact that personal information isnt collected. Right now, shops are doing lots of incredibly invasive things but we just dont know about it. What we say is that, if you know someones a male or a female, then your advertising will be much more ef cient. If you know that everyone in your shop right now is a male, youll be advertising PlayStations not hairdryers.
From the perspective of stores, its understandable that physical shops want some of the information online shops collect. We allow this to happen online so why not of ine? Online, you get a pop-up asking you to accept cookies. But you cant ask for peoples consent in the same way when they move from one physical shop to another.
But its also true that the generation that is growing up with online shopping does not see online advertising as so invasive. In the CSC report, a survey showed that 72% of people aged 55 or more said they were very uncomfortable with these types of technologies in physical shops. But only 51% of 16-24 year olds said they were uncomfortable.
Are younger people more open because they are more familiar with digital technology or do they believe in the honesty of organizations offering free services? Is this kind of technology always creepy or does it depend? In any case, there are a growing number of eyes between the shelves and they care a lot about what youre wearing.


The Chief Medical Officer for England compared the problem of antibiotic resistance to the risks of international terrorism. But, each year, the number of deaths around the world from bacterial resistance is far more than the number of deaths from terrorist attacks.
The World Health Organization says that each year more than 150,000 people die from tuberculosis because of antibiotic resistance. This is now a war.
A hundred years ago, life expectancy in the UK was about 47 years for a man and 50 years for a woman. Lots of young children died. About 30% of all deaths were in children under the age of five, mostly because of infectious disease.
But a child born in Britain today has more than a 25% chance of reaching their 100th birthday. We can thank public health systems, vaccination and antibiotics for this.
In intensive care, antibiotic resistant bacteria are most common. Here, powerful antibiotics are used very often. These drugs kill ordinary bacteria. But they cannot kill strong bacteria that have begun to learn how to survive antibiotic drugs.
When I became a doctor in the 1990s, I learnt about Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) is a bacteria that is resistant to methicillin and all other penicillins. There were just a few drugs that could kill it – for example, vancomycin and teicoplanin. But antibiotic resistant bacteria became more and more common.
In our hospitals and our doctor’s surgeries we use antiobiotics too often.
Also, we have put antibiotics into the food chain, when we grow food and when we put anti-bacterial drugs into food for farm animals.
We thought that antibiotics were something we could use forever. We thought that companies would continue to make more and more antibiotics.
But this is no longer true. We have found new, more resistant bacteria. The vancomycin that we used to treat MRSA infection no longer worked. We found Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (VRSA) in our hospitals. And other bacteria were becoming resistant too.
Today, infections with organisms that are very resistant are common, but fewer and fewer new antibiotic drugs are made. It is more and more difficult to develop new drugs that can kill resistant bacteria. Antibiotics have become drugs that are expensive to develop, that are only used in short courses and that quickly stop working because of bacterial resistance.
This war against bacteria is different from all other wars. There needs to be change in the way doctors give antibiotics and we need to use fewer antibiotics in farming. And we have to give companies good reasons why they should make new antibiotics, which will not make them lots of money.
Today, antibiotic resistance has become a normal part of life. Less than a hundred years after the discovery of penicillin, we are beginning to lose the fight.


Intermediate
The Moroccan city of Ouarzazate is used to big productions. It is on the edge of the Sahara Desert and at the centre of the North African countrys Ouallywood  lm industry, where scenes from movies such as Lawrence of Arabia, The Mummy, The Living Daylights and even Game of Thrones were  lmed.
Now the city, known as the door of the desert, is the centre for a complex of four linked solar mega- plants, which, together with hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Moroccos electricity from renewable energy by 2020. The project is a key part of Moroccos ambitions to use its deserts to become a global solar superpower.
When the full complex is complete, it will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. The  rst phase, called Noor 1, will be ready in November 2015. The mirror technology it uses is less widespread and more expensive than the photovoltaic panels that you can see on roofs all over the world. But it will have the advantage of being able to continue producing power even after the sun goes down.
The potential for solar power from the desert has been known for decades. In the days after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, the German particle physicist Gerhard Knies calculated that the worlds deserts receive enough energy in a few hours to provide power for all the people in the world for a whole year. But the challenge is to capture that energy and take it to where it is needed.
As engineers  nish Noor 1, its 500,000 moon-shaped solar mirrors glitter in the desert. The 800 rows follow the sun across the sky, whirring quietly every few minutes.
When they are  nished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will need a space as big as Moroccos capital city, Rabat, and generate 580 mega-watts of electricity, enough to power a million homes.
Moroccos environment minister, Hakima el-Haite, believes that solar energy could have the same effects on the region this century that oil production had in the last century. But the $9bn project was triggered by more immediate concerns, she said.
We import 94% of our energy as fossil fuels from other countries and that has big consequences for our state budget, el-Haite told the Guardian. So, when we heard about the possibilities of solar energy, we thought, Why not?
Solar energy will make up a third of Moroccos renewable energy supply by 2020. Wind and hydro will make up the other two-thirds.
We are very proud of this project, el-Haite said. I think it is the most important solar plant in the world.
Technicians say that the Noor 2 and 3 plants, due to open in 2017, will store energy for up to eight hours  this gives the possibility of 24/7 solar energy in the Sahara and the surrounding region.
The  rst part of the project is nearly completed and Morocco has bigger international ambitions. We are already involved in transportation lines to cover the full south of Morocco and Mauritania, says Ahmed Baroudi, manager of Societe dInvestissements Energetiques, the national renewable energy investment  rm. But he says the projects effects will go further  even as far as the Middle East.
Exporting solar energy could have stabilizing effects within and between countries, according to the Moroccan solar energy agency (Masen). Morocco is making plans with Tunisia and energy exports northwards across the Mediterranean are a key goal.
We believe that its possible to export energy to Europe but,  rst, we have to build the interconnectors which dont yet exist, said Maha el-Kadiri, a Masen spokeswoman.
In the meantime, Morocco is focused on using solar to meet its own needs. This could one day include water desalination, which is very useful in a country that is having more and more droughts as the climate warms.
About $9bn has been invested in the Noor Complex, much of it from international institutions such as the European Investment Bank and World Bank and supported by Moroccan government guarantees. Energy subsidies from Moroccos King Mohammed VI have stopped the cost from being transferred to normal people.
Over a thousand, mostly Moroccan, workers are still racing to  x electric wires, take down scaffolding and insulate steel pipelines. They hurry past in yellow and orange safety vests, working 12-hour shifts beneath the Atlas mountains. They wear hard hats, safety shoes and ear plugs.
Weve done the construction and, now, we will see how these projects look when they start, says Hajar Lakhael, a 25-year-old environment and security manager from Meknes. It is exactly like the preparation for a grand performance.
A global audience will be watching with interest.


The direct action group UK Uncut plans to make many Starbucks cafés into crèches, refuges and homeless shelters to make people notice that Starbucks does not pay enough tax.
The House of Commons questioned Starbucks. They asked why the company paid no corporation tax in the UK during the past three years.
UK Uncut wants to show a connection between government cuts, especially the cuts that affect women, and multinational businesses who do not pay enough tax.
Sarah Greene, a UK Uncut activist, said money for refuges would be cut if companies did not pay the fair amount of tax. The government lost about £32 billion in 2011 because multinational businesses did not pay enough tax.
Greene said the government could easily collect billions of pounds that could help pay for important services, if they were stricter when they collect taxes.
UK Uncut turned its attentions to Starbucks after an investigation found that the company had paid only £8.6 million in corporation tax since opening its cafés in the UK in 1998 despite sales worth £3 billion.
Uncut campaigner Anna Walker said “We’ve chosen to highlight the impact of the cuts on women. So we’re going to focus on changing Starbucks into the services that the government are cutting, for example refuges and crèches.
“Starbucks is a really great target because it is on every high street in the country so people can take action in their local areas,” she said.
Starbucks says it pays the correct level of taxes. The group Chief Executive, Howard Schultz, said: “Starbucks has always paid taxes in the UK.
“Over the last three years alone, our company has paid more than £160 million in various taxes, including national insurance*, VAT and business rates.”
Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google and Starbucks have avoided nearly £900 million of tax. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said: “I’m not happy with the current situation. We need to make sure we continue to encourage these businesses to invest in our country, but they should pay fair taxes as well.”
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said: “Tax law can be extremely complex, but Starbucks respects tax laws and accounting rules.
“Starbucks spends hundreds of millions of pounds with local suppliers on milk, cakes and sandwiches, and on store design and improvements. When you consider the indirect employment created by Starbucks, the company’s economic impact to the UK economy is more than £80 million every year.”


Water scientists have given a very strong warning about the world’s food supplies. They say that everyone may have to change to a vegetarian diet by 2050.
We believe there will be an extra two billion people in the world by 2050. Humans get about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to decrease to just 5% to feed these extra people, say the world’s top water scientists.
“There will not be enough water to produce food for the nine-billion population in 2050 if more people start eating like people in the West,” the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
“There will be enough water if the percentage of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories.”
There are warnings that water shortages will limit food production. At the same time, Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for food items such as corn and wheat have increased nearly 50% on international markets since June. The price increase has been caused by very bad droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people already have serious food shortages across the Sahel.
Oxfam says that the effects of price increases will be very bad in developing countries that need to buy food from other countries, including parts of Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East.
Changing to a vegetarian diet is one way to keep more water to grow food, the scientists said.
Animal protein-rich food uses five to ten times more water than vegetarian food. One third of the world’s farmland is used to grow crops to feed animals.
“Nine hundred million people already don’t have enough food and two million people are malnourished, even though we are producing more food,” they said. “70% of all water is used in farming, and growing more food to feed an extra two billion people by 2050 will put more pressure on water and land.”
The report was released at the start of the annual world water conference in Stockholm, Sweden, where 2,500 politicians, UN groups, non-governmental groups and researchers from 120 countries met to discuss global water supply problems.
Eating too much, malnourishment and waste are all increasing. “We will need a new recipe to feed the world in the future,” said the report’s editor, Anders Jägerskog.


If we reduced the amount of food we wasted around the world by just 25%, there would be enough food to feed all the hungry people in the world. Each year, we waste 1.3 billion tonnes of food, about one third of all the food we produce. This includes about 45% of all fruit and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, 20% of dairy products and 20% of meat. We waste food like this, when, at the same time, 795 million people suffer from hunger.
The problem is global but is different in different parts of the world. In developing countries, there is a lot of “food loss” – this is when food is lost because of poor equipment, transportation and so on. In rich countries, there are low levels of “food loss” but high levels of “food waste”, which means people throw away food because they have bought too much or shops reject food because it doesn’t look good.
In developed countries, people and shops throw away between 30% and 40% of all food bought but, in poorer countries, people throw away only 5% to 16%.
“In the developing world, there is almost no food waste,” says Robert van Otterdijk, coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Save Food programme. “Food waste is happening in countries where people have more money, so they can throw away food. But there is a lot of food loss in developing countries because of the poor conditions they have.”
The environmental impact of food loss and waste is high. The carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2. This means that, if food waste were a country, it would produce more greenhouse gases than any country, except the US and China.
“We cause the problem of climate change because we produce and use too much – we are not in balance with what the Earth can provide,” says van Otterdijk. “Production of food is one of the biggest production sectors in the world. If we waste one-third of all this, you can imagine what a huge effect this has on the natural resources – on land, water, energy and greenhouse gases.”
The US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand produce the most food waste. People in those countries waste 39% of all the food they buy. The next is Europe, where people throw away about 31% of all the food they buy. In the UK, 15 million tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year. British people throw away 4.2 million tonnes of edible food each year. This means that 11.7% of all food people buy is wasted, which costs each family £700 a year.
The foods most often found in British bins are bread, vegetables, fruit and milk. The most wasted food in the UK by weight is bread – people throw away 414,000 tonnes (22.4%) of all the bread they buy. By percentage, the most wasted food is lettuce and leafy salads – people throw away 38% (64,000 tonnes) of all they buy.
The UK has improved in the past ten years, thanks to a campaign to reduce waste. Van Otterdijk says the UK has been very successful in reducing food waste. Between 2007 and 2012, the amount of food waste produced by UK households decreased by 21%, from 5.3 million tonnes to 4.2 million tonnes.
Van Otterdijk says that more and more people are interested in food waste and this is great. “We have to do much more, and companies and governments also need to help,” he says. “But, if it continues like this, maybe, after ten years, the situation around the world will be better.”


Intermediate
The problem with Google Glasses, says Takahito Iguchi, is that theyre not cool. He may be right. Theres already a website dedicated to people wearing them looking either ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. Search Google Images and one of the first hits is a picture of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. And its this that Iguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, hopes may be Googles Achilles heel. He is launching a competitor that is a bit more stylish. A bit more Blade Runner. A bit more Japanese.
Iguchis augmented reality glasses arent really glasses  they are more a single piece of metal with a camera and a tiny projector. They are called Telepathy One and, since they were presented to the public for the first time in Austin, Texas, they have attracted $5m of venture capital. Like Glass, Telepathy One is due to launch in 2014.
Its a simplified version of Google Glass. Glass has a range of uses  you can surf the internet, read emails, take photographs  but Telepathy will be more of a communication device. Connected via Bluetooth to your phone, it will focus on real-time visual and audio sharing. Youll be able to post photos and videos from your line of vision on Facebook or send them as an email, or see and speak to a video image of a friend.
It will help bring you close to your friends and family. We are very focused on the communication and sharing possibilities, says Iguchi, who has worked in the Japanese technology industry for 20 years.
Of course, not everyone wants to get closer to the man in the futuristic headset, I tell him. Iguchi shakes his head. Im a visionary. I have a dream that people will understand other people. When I go to London, I am a stranger. Sometimes I feel fear. But I believe that everyone wants to be understood and to understand each other. And, with this device, you can know more information about people before you even speak to them.
Compared to Google, Telepathy is a minnow, but Iguchi doesnt seem to worry. In his shared office space in San Francisco  a cool, converted warehouse  he quotes Sun Tzus The Art of War and says that even tiny armies can sometimes beat powerful forces. When he was growing up, Japanese technology ruled the world: the Sony Walkman was the iPhone of its day. Now, to compete, hes had to leave Tokyo and go to Silicon Valley.
Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture but its still an island. Its isolated. There is not any way to expand. Whereas, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. Its where you come to connect globally. The hardware will be made in Japan, and he is putting together a team of software engineers in the US to develop its applications.
Building the prototype of Telepathy One was easy, Iguchi says. We have every sort of technology in Tokyo. It is presenting it to the world that is the challenge. The top manufacturers all want to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just struggle to sell it. There needs to be a story to the product. Like Apple did with the iPod  1,000 songs in your pocket. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.
Maybe. He certainly has the confidence of Jobs, but, with a thick Japanese accent, he sometimes struggles to make himself understood, a fact that may have contributed to his idea for Telepathy One. When he went to London to present the headset, he stayed in an Airbnb. The house owner was not my friend but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that quicker. If you are getting info from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily.
Iguchi hopes that seeing somebody elses I suddenly realized that everything is code. Everything is coded and is shareable between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code is exchangeable between humans, that will end all war. literal point of view will help you to see their metaphorical point of view. As a student, he explains, he studied philosophy by day and taught himself how to code by night. And, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and


Intermediate
When two people from the Marshall Islands saw a small fibreglass boat washed up on the beach of a remote Pacific island, they decided to take a closer look. Inside the boat, they found an emaciated man with long hair and a beard, who said he had been drifting for 16 months after setting out from Mexico, more than 12,500km away.
The man, dressed only in a pair of underpants, told his rescuers that he had been adrift in the 7.3-metre fibreglass boat, whose engines were missing their propellers, since he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012. A companion had died at sea several months before, he said.
His condition isnt good, but hes getting better, said Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on Ebon Island, one of the Marshall Islands. The man said his name was Jos Ivan and that he survived by catching turtles and birds with his bare hands. There was no fishing equipment on the boat, but a turtle was inside when it washed up. The boat looks like it has been in the water for a long time, Fjeldstad told reporters.
According to Fjeldstad, the islanders who found the man took him to a nearby island  which is so remote it has only one phone line and no internet  to meet the mayor, Ione de Brum. The mayor contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Majuro, the Marshall Islands capital. Officials at the ministry said that they were waiting for more details and expected the man to be taken to the capital.
Officials are considering sending a boat to pick up the castaway. Hes staying at the local council house and a family is feeding him, said Fjeldstad, who added that the man had a basic health check and was found to have low blood pressure, but did not appear to have any life-threatening conditions and was able to walk. Weve been giving him a lot of water and hes gaining strength.
Fraser Christian, who teaches maritime survival courses, said the mans story, if true, would be remarkable but not unique. It was possible to catch turtles or small fish by hand, he said, since they are inquisitive and they will approach a small boat to shelter underneath it. Christian advises people who are forced to eat turtles to start with their eyes  lots of fluid  then move on to the blood.
The major dangers castaways experience are exposure and dehydration. The basic rule is: no water, no food. You need water to digest protein. If you have no fresh water and it doesnt rain for a few days, so you cant collect rainwater, you have basically had it. Individual physiology was also important, with some people more able to survive than others.
Stories of survival in the vast Pacific Ocean are not uncommon. In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were discovered drifting, also in a small fibreglass boat near the Marshall Islands. They said they had survived for nine months at sea on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds. But Cliff Downing, who teaches sea survival to sailors, said he was sceptical about the latest tale. It just doesnt sound right to me. There are 1,001 hazards that would make his survival for so long very unlikely.