More than one million British workers might be employed on zero-hours contracts. This number comes from a poll of more than 1,000 employers by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Recently, some UK organizations – from shops to Buckingham Palace – have been criticized for employing staff without a guarantee of work and pay each week. Employees on zero-hours contracts often get no holiday or sick pay and have to ask permission before looking for extra work with another company.
The CIPD found that 38% of zero-hours contract workers describe themselves as employed full-time. They say they typically work 30 hours or more a week. One-third of voluntary sector employers use the contracts and one in four public sector organizations.
The retail company Sports Direct employs around 20,000 of its 23,000 staff on zero-hours contracts. Other companies using the contracts include cinema chain Cineworld and Buckingham Palace, which uses the contracts for its 350 summer workers. Pub group J D Wetherspoon has 24,000 of its staff – 80% of its workforce – on zero-hours contracts.
Vidhya Alakeson, from the Resolution Foundation, said: “If it’s true that there are around one million people on zero-hours contracts, then that would be a big part of the workforce.”
Unions say that employers put pressure on staff to sign the contracts. In this way, the employers can avoid their responsibilities to employees and reduce staff benefits.
Dave Prentis, of the trade union Unison, said: “The majority of workers are only on these contracts because they have no choice.”
Workers on zero-hours contracts are often only told how many hours they will work when weekly or monthly rotas are created. But they have to be available for extra work at short notice. They may get holiday pay, but they do not get sick pay.
The charity National Trust, which employs many of its seasonal workers on zero-hours contracts, said it gives the same pay and benefits to workers on zero-hours contracts as to full-time staff.
“We believe zero-hours contracts are essential in our organization, because we are very weather-dependent,” the National Trust said. “It’s important to be able to reorganize staff rotas quickly to respond to the weather and zero-hours contracts allow us to do this.”
Politician Chuka Umunna said, “While some employees welcome the flexibility of zero-hours contracts, for many, zero-hours contracts leave them insecure and unsure of when work will come,” he said.
The poll shows that 17% of employers in the private sector use zero-hours contracts, lower than the 34% of organizations in the voluntary sector and 24% in the public sector.
Industries where employers were most likely to have at least one person on a zero-hours contract were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%).


Mountain climber, Kenton Cool, has just flown down from Everest base camp to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Cool is talking about the three amazing climbs he completed the previous weekend. Early on Saturday morning, he reached the summit of Nuptse, the first of the three main summits in the Everest “horseshoe”. Later that day, he climbed to the summit of Everest, and reached the top in complete darkness early on Sunday. He then continued to the summit of Lhotse, the third of the three peaks, on Monday morning.
He says he took advantage of a rare opportunity. “For the first time since the late 1990s, there were fixed ropes on all three mountains. What I did was still a great physical achievement. But the person who does it next will do it without ropes or bottled oxygen.”
Everest was first climbed 60 years ago. I asked Cool to look forward and imagine what top climbers might do 60 years from now. “I hate to think,” he says, but he mentions the Swiss climber, Ueli Steck, who fled the mountain in April after an argument with a group of Sherpas. Steck was planning to climb Everest’s west ridge and then immediately climb Lhotse via a new route without fixed ropes. “Ueli trained like a machine,” Cool says. “He’s a fantastic climber. It would have been amazing.”
What will tourism look like in the Everest region in the future? One clue is in the amazing helicopter rescue by Simone Moro, Steck’s climbing partner. Moro flew back to Everest on Tuesday in a powerful helicopter to rescue a climber at 7,800 metres.
It was the highest rescue ever on Everest and highlights the increase in helicopter flights in recent years. By 2073, there might be a helipad on the mountain that would bring tourists. At the moment, they use helicopters to rescue both climbers and trekkers who walk to Everest base camp.
Mountain geographer and environmentalist, Alton Byers, thinks it is not certain that Everest can take more tourists. The combination of climate change and tourism, he says, is putting new pressure on the area. Glaciers in the Everest region are getting smaller, and even disappearing, and this is having a big effect already. “Everywhere you go, people are talking about how there’s less water. There’s less water for agriculture and less water for all the new lodges that they are building.”
In the Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar they are building a new pipeline to bring water for the tourists. The local stream is contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough water for a place that is full of tourists. “Every village is digging a pit for garbage. Khumbu has the highest landfill sites in the world,” he says. Human waste is now taken away in plastic barrels but then, according to Byers, these barrels are emptied into a huge pit down the valley – it could contaminate the region’s streams and rivers.
“We can solve these problems, but we need to be serious about it,” he says. “One climber can spend $85,000 to climb Everest. And that’s fine. But we’re going to have to look at these other problems. For half a million dollars a year, you could solve most of them.”
Climate change is another problem. Weather patterns are changing and this is also having an effect on tourism. Cloudy weather is closing Lukla Airport, the entrance to the Everest region, more often. They are building a new road for 4x4s to Lukla, to make sure tourists and their money can reach Everest. But Byers is worried that these new roads, which they are building very quickly, could cause soil erosion and landslides. He says that Everest is the perfect place to study some of these problems, like the effects of climate change and tourism.


The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, will retire at the end of the season after 27 years. He will become a director of the club. He is the most successful manager in British football. He has won 13 Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, the Cup Winners’ Cup, five FA Cups and four League Cups.
“The decision to retire is one that I have thought a lot about,” Ferguson said. “It is the right time. It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible condition and I believe I have done so.” He said that he thinks the quality of the team will bring continued success at the highest level. They also have lots of good young players, so Ferguson thinks the club has a very good future.
“Our training facilities are some of the best in world sport,” he added. “Our stadium, Old Trafford, is one of the most important venues in the world. I am delighted to become both director and ambassador for the club. I am looking forward to the future.” He also thanked his family for their love and support.
“I would like to thank all my players and staff, past and present, for an incredible level of professionalism and hard work that has helped to bring so many memorable triumphs. Without them, the history of this great club would not be as rich. In my early years, the support of the board of directors gave me the confidence and time to build a football club, not just a football team.
“Over the past ten years, the owners of the club have made it possible for me to manage Manchester United to the best of my ability. I have been very lucky to work with David Gill, a talented and trustworthy chief executive. I am grateful to all of them.” He also thanked the fans for their support and said he had really enjoyed his time as manager of Manchester United.
Joel Glazer, one of the owners of Manchester United, said: “Alex has shown us so often what a fantastic manager he is, but he’s also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and his hard work for the club have been remarkable. I will never forget the wonderful memories he has given us, like that magical night in Moscow.”
Avie Glazer, his brother, said: “I am very happy to tell you that Alex has agreed to stay with the club as a director. His contributions to Manchester United over the last 27 years have been extraordinary and, like all United fans, I want him to be a part of its future.”
David Gill added: “I’ve had the great pleasure of working very closely with Alex for 16 unforgettable years. We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it. Alex’s vision, energy and ability have built teams that are some of the best and most loyal in world sport. The way he cares for this club, his staff and for the football family in general is something that I admire. We will never forget what he has done for this club and for the game in general. Working with Alex has been the greatest experience of my working life and it is a great honour to be able to call him a friend.”
First-team coach René Meulensteen told everyone how Ferguson told his staff the news. “I found out this morning when I came to the club,” he said. “He asked us to go into his office and told us his decision. I’m sure he thought hard about it. I wish him well for the future. He’s been fantastic for this club and I hope all the fans give the new manager the same support.”


The view from the visitors’ centre in the Doñana National Park in southern Spain is a bird- watcher ’s dream: 200,000 hectares of wetlands vital for the birds of western Europe. Many of Britain’s most loved migratory birds rest here every year on their migrations from Africa. Doñana is also home to some of Europe’s rarest birds, including the Spanish imperial eagle.
It is a beautiful landscape but it is under threat. In 1998, almost two billion gallons of toxic water, full of acid and waste metals, poured into the park from the Los Frailes mine 45km away. They collected more than 25,000 kilos of dead fish afterwards and nearly 2,000 adult birds, chicks, eggs and nests were killed or destroyed.
It was Spain’s worst environmental disaster and the clean-up cost €90 million. Spain realized that Doñana is the nation’s most important natural site, so the country decided to spend an extra €360 million on restoring the landscape to its original wetland state.
It has been an expensive process. And Doñana is still under threat from the pressures of modern life. There are plans to build an oil pipeline through Doñana and there is also an idea to build new hotels and golf courses, which would use a lot of local water. Sand and soil washed from nearby farms is also blocking the channels that cross the park.
But, the biggest shock has been the recent decision of the Andalucían government to reopen the Frailes mine that nearly destroyed Doñana in 1998. “This is Europe’s most important bird sanctuary, ” says Laurence Rose of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). “Doñana already faces a lot of threats but now they want to bring back the cause of the disaster 16 years ago. It is extremely worrying.”
If you look at the state of the local economy, you quickly see why the government has made this decision. The crash of Spain’s banks in 2008 had a very bad effect on the region. Unemployment in some parts of Andalucía is now more than 30%. If they reopen the mine, it would create more than 1,000 jobs.
“There are riches here, riches that the local inhabitants badly need,” said energy spokesman Vicente Fernández Guerrero. “We think mining is a good way to make it possible to allow local people to continue to live in the area. This is a mining area. People have mined metals here since Roman times.”
Fernández said that the mine licence would only allow modern mining techniques, which do not create poisonous wet waste. “They will use the best technology in the world here,” Fernández said. “They will not use liquid. We will not allow that.”
Some people agree with the idea, but a lot of people disagree with it. Carlos Dávila, who works for the Spanish Ornithological Society in Doñana, was also alarmed at the idea. “This is a very, very bad idea,” he said. “They say the new mine will be safe, but they said it was safe in 1998 and look what happened. We got the worst ecological disaster in the history of Spain.”
Almost every visitor at a local restaurant had a camera and telescopic lens or a pair of binoculars. Lots of tourists come to Doñana because of the birdlife. This is not surprising for this is a truly special place. A big sky hangs over this flat but dramatic landscape. Birds of every shape and size fill the air and sometimes the road. At one point on my visit, a stork calmly stood in front of our car until it felt ready to fly off.
“The trouble is that Spain does not have the public resources it had 16 years ago. A repeat of the disaster today would have a much, much more damaging impact,” said Rose. Dávila agrees. “After the disaster, Spain realized that it had a place of real ecological importance and did a lot to clean it up and protect it,” he added. “Now, it seems we have forgotten that lesson. It is very depressing.”


From all across Rwanda, and even from Burundi, people are coming to the southern town of Butare to a little shop called Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams). They come for a taste of something new, something most of them have never tasted before – sweet, cold ice cream.
Here, at the central African country’s first ice-cream shop, customers can buy ice cream in sweet cream, passion fruit, strawberry and pineapple flavours. Toppings include fresh fruit, honey, chocolate chips and granola. They can also buy black tea and coffee.
The shop, which has “ice cream, coffee, dreams” written on its signs, is taking advantage of local people’s curiosity about ice cream – and the shop is also “changing lives”, says Inzozi Nziza’s manager, Louise Ingabire.
“Ice cream is important,” she says between mouthfuls of honey-flavoured ice cream. “Some Rwandans like ice cream, but it’s a new thing. We still have some work to do, to tell others that they’ll enjoy it.”
The shop can certainly make dreams come true. “I didn’t have a job before: I just stayed at home. Now, I have a vision for the future. I am making money and I can give some of it to my family,” says the 27-year-old.
Butare has 89,600 residents and is 135km south of the capital, Kigali. It is the home of the National University of Rwanda. Inzozi Nziza has become a meeting place for students who want to treat themselves to something cool and different.
“The shop is uniting people here,” Kalisa Migendo, a 24-year-old student, says. “If you need to go out and talk to a friend, a girl or a boy, you come to Inzozi Nziza for an ice cream.”
Inzozi Nziza was opened by Odile Gakire Katese. She met Alexis Miesen and Jennie Dundas, co- founders of Blue Marble Ice Cream in Brooklyn, New York. The three women formed a partnership to open the shop in 2010.
At the start, Miesen and Dundas owned the shop in partnership with its employees and had shares in the business, which is a cooperative. After 18 months, they gave their shares to the women employees, who by then could control the business by themselves.
Ice cream is new to Rwanda. Selling and eating ice cream is not part of the Rwandan culture.
The Butare shop employs nine women. They spend their free time practising with Ingoma Nshya, Rwanda’s first and only female drumming group.
The musicians are Hutu and Tutsi women. Some are survivors of the 1994 genocide, when almost a million Tutsis and Hutus were killed. Some members of Ingoma Nshya are widows, some orphans.
Ingabire’s father, two siblings and many cousins were killed in the genocide. “When I’m drumming, it gives me power because we’re still alive and survivors,” she says.
The ice-cream shop is in a documentary by film-makers Rob and Lisa Fruchtman. Sweet Dreams, which tells the story of how the women have made a positive future after the genocide, also includes the female drummers.
The film has been shown in many countries, including the US, UK and several African states. “We feel the film is about hope, bravery and the ability to change your life,” says Lisa Fruchtman.


Intermediate
What is it like to look at the last of something? Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, there will be no more rhinos like them, male or female, born anywhere. And theres not much chance because Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed. Apart from these three animals, there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female.
It seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand with him. But, of course, it is an image of brutality. Sudan is under threat from poachers who kill rhinos and cut off their horns to sell them for medicine in Asia. Sudan is still in danger even though he has had his horn cut off to deter the poachers.
Sudan doesnt know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery  esh, a head of pure strength. How terrible that such a powerful head can, in reality, be so vulnerable.
Sudan does not look so different from the rhinoceros that Albrecht Durer portrayed in 1515. Durer was a Renaissance artist picturing an exotic beast from exotic lands. In 1515, a live Indian rhinoceros was sent by the ruler of Gujarat in India to the king of Portugal. The king sent it to the Pope but, on the way, the ship sank and it died.
Human beings  we always kill the things we love. We have been doing so since the Ice Age. There are beautiful pictures of European woolly rhinos in caves in France that were painted up to 30,000 years ago. These ancient relatives of Sudan share his power and his gentle appearance. A woolly rhino in Chauvet Cave seems agile and young, a creature full of life. But the same people who painted such sensitive portraits of Ice Age rhinos helped to kill them off.
Today, many people really love rhinos but they are being killed in greater and greater numbers. The northern white rhino is the rarest species of African rhino. There are more southern white rhinos and black rhinos. But the demand in some countries for rhino horn as a traditional medicine is increasing the poaching. Many people believe that rhino horn can cure everything from  u to cancer. In 2007, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. In 2014, 1,215 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa.
The vulnerable northern white rhino has been hunted very nearly to extinction  in spite of every precaution, in spite of the guards and their guns. Other varieties of African rhino are being hunted by poachers  the situation is totally out of control. The Javan rhinoceros is also on the verge of extinction. India has successfully protected the Indian rhinoceros but here, too, poaching is a problem. What a majestic creature Sudan is. Have we learned nothing since the Ice Age?


Galina Zaglumyonova was woken in her flat in central Chelyabinsk by an enormous explosion that blew in the balcony windows and shattered clay pots containing her few houseplants. When she jumped out of bed she could see a huge vapour trail hanging in the morning sky and hear the wail of car alarms from the street below. “I didn’t understand what was going on,” said Zaglumyonova. “There was a big explosion and then a series of little explosions. My first thought was that it was a plane crash.”
What she had actually witnessed were the death throes of a ten-tonne meteorite that plunged to Earth in a series of fireballs just after sunrise. Officials put the number of people injured at almost 1,200, with more than 40 taken to hospital – most as a result of flying glass shattered by the sonic boom created by the meteorite’s descent. There were no reported deaths.
The meteorite entered the atmosphere travelling at a speed of at least 33,000mph and broke up into chunks between 18 and 32 miles above the ground, according to a statement from the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The event caused panic in Chelyabinsk, a city of more than one million people to the south of Russia’s Ural mountains, as mobile phone networks swiftly became jammed by the volume of calls. Amateur video footage from the area, often peppered with the obscene language of frightened observers, showed the chunks of meteorite glowing more brightly as they approached the moment of impact.
The vapour trail was visible for hundreds of miles around, including in neighbouring Kazakhstan. Tatyana Bets was at work in the reception area of a hospital clinic in the centre of the city when the meteorite struck. “First we noticed the wind, and then the room was filled with a very bright light and we could see a cloud of some unspecified smoke in the sky,” she said. Then, after a few minutes, came the explosions. At least three craters were subsequently discovered, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and were being monitored by the military. One crater was more than six metres wide, while another lump of meteorite was reported to have slammed through the thick ice of a nearby lake. Radiation levels at the impact sites were normal, according to local military officials.
In Chelyabinsk itself, schools and universities were closed and many other staff told to go home early. About 200 children were among the injured.
A steady stream of lightly injured people, most suffering cuts from flying glass, came into the clinic where Bets works. She said a nearby dormitory building for college students was particularly badly affected and many of the students were brought in suffering from fright. “There were a lot of girls in shock. Some were very pale and many of them fainted,” she said.
Early estimates suggested more than 100,000 square metres of glass had been broken and 3,000 buildings hit. The total cost of the damage in the city was being valued at in excess of one billion roubles (£20m).
The meteorite over Chelyabinsk arrived less than a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 was expected to make the closest pass to Earth (about 17,510 miles) of any recorded cosmic body. But experts said the two events were linked by nothing more than coincidence.
Rumours and conspiracy theories, however, swirled in the first few hours after the incident. Reports on Russian state television and in local media suggested that the meteorite was engaged by local air defence units and blown apart at an altitude of more than 15 miles.
The ultranationalist leader of Russia’s Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said it was not a meteorite but military action by the United States, echoing much of the speculation voiced on amateur film footage. “It’s not a meteorite falling – it’s a test of new American weapons,” Zhirinovsky said.
Some were quick to take advantage of the confusion. Enterprising people were offering lumps of meteorite for sale through internet sites within a few hours of the impact.
President Vladimir Putin and the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, were informed about the incident, and Putin convened a meeting with the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry. “It’s proof that not only are economies vulnerable but the whole planet,” Medvedev said at an economic forum in Siberia.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and former Ambassador to NATO, took to Twitter to call for an international push to create a warning system for all “objects of an alien origin”. Neither the US nor Russia had the capability to bring down such objects, he added.


Intermediate
Kenton Cool can hardly speak. All the physical effort at high altitude has affected his voice. He is now in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal  he flew down from Everest base camp that morning. Cool is talking about a startling sequence of climbs completed the previous weekend. Early on Saturday morning, he reached the summit of Nuptse, the first and lowest of the three main summits in the Everest horseshoe that surrounds the glaciated valley called the Western Cwm.
That same day, he climbed up to the summit of Everest itself, reaching the top in complete darkness early on Sunday. He and his climbing partner then continued on to the summit of Lhotse, the third of this spectacular three-peaks challenge, on Monday morning.
He says he took advantage of a rare opportunity. For the first time since the late 1990s, there were fixed ropes on all three mountains, he says. That doesnt take away the physical achievement of what I did. Ive set the bar at a certain level. But whoever comes along next will move the bar further and do it without ropes or bottled oxygen.
Sixty years after Everest was first climbed, many of the media reports are looking back to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay and their age of innocence from the modern era of commercialism and environmental damage. Ive asked Cool to look forward and imagine what top climbers might be doing 60 years from now.
I hate to think, he says, but mentions the Swiss climber, Ueli Steck, who fled the mountain in April after an argument with a crowd of Sherpas at Camp 2. Steck, he says, was planning to climb Everests west ridge, first done in 1963, descend to the South Col and then immediately climb Lhotse via a new route, all without fixed ropes. Ueli had been training like a machine, Cool says. Hes a fantastic climber. Hes technically brilliant but he had also taken his physical condition to the highest possible level. It would have been amazing to see what he could have done.
What will tourism look like in the Everest region in the future? One clue is in the stunning helicopter rescue by Simone Moro, Stecks climbing partner, whose rude language caused the argument at Camp 2. Moro flew back to Everest on Tuesday at the controls of a high-powered helicopter to rescue a climber at an altitude of 7,800 metres.
It was the highest rescue ever performed on Everest and highlights the huge rise in helicopter flights in recent years. By 2073, the infrastructure on the mountain might include a helipad on the South Col that would bring tourists. In the meantime, helicopters are making it easier to rescue both climbers and the far more numerous trekkers who go as far as base camp.
It is not certain that the Everest region can continue to cope with a booming tourism sector, according to mountain geographer and environmentalist, Alton Byers. The combination of climate change and tourism, he says, is creating new stresses on the Sherpa homeland. The retreat, and in some cases disappearance, of glaciers in the Everest region is having a major impact already. Everywhere you go, people are talking about how theres less water. Theres less water for agriculture and less water for all the new lodges that are getting built.
In the Sherpa town of Namche Bazaar, he says, a new five-mile pipeline is being laid to bring water to service the growing tourist demand for showers and flush toilets. The local stream has become contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough water for a place that, in high season, is bursting at the seams. Every village is digging a pit just beyond the houses for garbage. Khumbu has the highest landfill sites in the world, he says. Human waste at base camp is now managed well and removed in plastic barrels. But, according to Byers, these barrels are emptied into a huge pit a few hours down the valley that could leak into the regions watercourses.
These problems can be solved, but we need to get serious about it, he says. One climber can spend $85,000 climbing Everest. And thats fine. But at some point were going to have to look at these other priorities. For half a million dollars a year, you could solve most of them.
Climate change is another issue. Byers works with local conservation committees to identify and plan for the impacts of climate change, most usually finding new water sources or introducing rainwater harvesting. The rapid build-up of glacial lakes is a constant threat  they threaten to burst and flood the Sherpa homeland. At some point in the future, people are going to have to get out of their way.
Changing weather patterns are also having an impact on tourism. Increased cloud cover in periods of normally clear weather is closing Lukla Airport, the gateway to the Everest region, more often. A new road for 4x4s is being built to Lukla to guarantee the flow of tourists and their money, but Byers is worried that the rapid spread of the road network in Nepal is being done too cheaply, with disastrous consequences in terms of soil erosion and landslides.
Everest is the icon everyone knows, he says. Its the perfect laboratory for figuring out how to solve some of these problems, like the impacts of climate change and tourism.


Intermediate
SeaWorld has suffered an 84% collapse in pro ts  customers have deserted the controversial aquatic theme park company because of claims that it mistreated orca whales.
The company trains dolphins and killer whales to perform tricks in front of stadiums full of people. They have suffered declines in attendance, sales and pro ts because people think they dont treat their animals well.
SeaWorld has been in the news since the 2013 documentary Black sh said that its treatment of orca whales made the whales act violently and that this caused the deaths of three people. After the documentary was shown, attendance collapsed and the company lost more than half of its market value on Wall Street. Its former CEO also had to leave the company.
Animal rights activists say that orcas kept in tanks die at a younger age than wild whales. SeaWorld started a marketing campaign to show that this isnt true.
It cut ticket prices and spent $10m on marketing but SeaWorld CEO Joel Manby had to admit that the company is still struggling to convince the public that it treats its whales well.
We realize we have much work ahead of us, Manby said. Talking about the companys reputation, he said, Early feedback on our campaign has been positive. However, we recognize that solving our image problems in California will be challenging.
We will continue to  ght with the facts because the facts are on our side, he said.
Manby, who joined the company as CEO in 2015 to help the company recover, said he would give a presentation on his vision for the future of the company at a special event on 6 November.
There are already plans for a new shark exhibition in Orlando and an attraction in San Antonio that will allow customers to swim with dolphins in a naturalistic setting.
The companys  nancial report, released on 6 August, showed pro ts in the second quarter dropped from $37.4m in 2014 to $5.8m in 2015. This is an 84% decrease. Revenue fell from $405m to $392m. Attendance dropped by more than 100,000 from 6.58 million to 6.48 million.
Analysts will now be closely watching SeaWorlds sales and attendance numbers in the third quarter, which is traditionally the companys most pro table and covers the summer holiday season. Attendance may suffer from a fresh scandal in July 2015  it was alleged that a SeaWorld employee had in ltrated animal rights protest groups against the company.
Jared Goodman, director of animal law for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said: SeaWorld has a spying scandal, animals are dying in its tanks and tens of thousands of people are against its plan to build a new orca prison. Families just dont want to buy tickets to see orcas going insane inside tiny tanks. SeaWorlds orcas wont recover and SeaWorlds pro ts wont recover either until it empties its tanks and builds sanctuaries by the coast.
SeaWorlds shares, which were worth $39 in 2013, fell to just under $18 in August 2015.


Glastonbury Festival is to combat the scourge of the plastic water bottle as part of a long- term strategy to become the world’s most environmentally friendly outdoor music event.
Festival organizers are targeting the disposable bottle, one of the most conspicuous symbols of the throwaway culture, that each year leaves the 900-acre Somerset site wreathed in plastic, with an estimated one million plastic bottles being used during the festival.
Stainless-steel reusable bottles will be given to 2,000 road crew and band members, with thousands more on sale to festival-goers, to stop them relying on plastic bottles. The 140,000 ticket-holders are also being urged to bring reusable bottles that they can fill at 400 drinking- water taps dotted across the site.
Lucy Smith, Glastonbury’s green issues organizer, said: “We have amazing water quality in the UK but everyone is obsessed with drinking bottled water.”
She said the initiative precedes a plan for Glastonbury 2015 to replace all plastic beer glasses and cutlery with reusable items in an attempt to eradicate the legacy of plastic waste from the huge rural site.
Environmentalists estimate that 150 million tonnes of plastic waste currently litters the planet and oceans, poisoning ecosystems and killing wildlife.
Ultimately, festival organizers hope to make Glastonbury the world’s greenest greenfield festival, emulating America’s Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, which is a “leave-no-trace” event, where people have to take away all that they bring.
Glastonbury revellers are also being urged to travel to the site on public transport or try car-sharing with friends. “We want to be as sustainable as we can. We do everything we can, but coping with the litter of 140,000 people is a challenge. We can’t put bins everywhere,” added Smith.
Campaigners say that plastic water bottles can take hundreds or even thousands of years to completely biodegrade, with their manufacture exacerbating their negative ecological impact. Millions of barrels of oil are used in the manufacture of plastic bottles and the transportation of mineral water across the planet produces even more carbon emissions.
Overall, an estimated 13 billion plastic water bottles are sold in the UK every year, yet just one in five is said to be recycled.
Smith said that, instead of buying bottled water, festival-goers should take advantage of the water on tap, which is being drawn from huge underground reservoirs, instead of old-fashioned water tanks that provided heavily chlorinated drinking water. The charity WaterAid will also set up water kiosks around the site, stocking reusable bottles and cups, and offering free refills. In 2015, the kiosks – modelled on those found in Africa – will double as DJ booths at night.
Organizers say that almost half of all the rubbish left on site was recycled in 2013 and add that there will be 15,000 bins for recycling across the festival grounds in 2014.
Despite its growing eco-credentials, critics continue to snipe at Glastonbury, accusing it of becoming increasingly corporate in tone. The latest critic, Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, has vowed never to bring his band to Glastonbury Festival after dismissing it as “the most bourgeois thing on the planet”.
The weather forecast for Glastonbury was positive, with the festival due to be sunny and dry, experts ruling out a repeat of 1985, the festival’s windiest year; 1997, its muddiest; and 2005, known as the “year of thunder”.


Nobody knows which came first: the economic crisis in Greece or shisha, the drug that is called the “cocaine of the poor”. But everyone agrees that shisha is a killer. And it costs only €2 or less.
“It is the worst drug. It burns your insides, it makes you aggressive and makes you go mad,” said Maria, an ex-heroin addict. “But it is cheap and it is easy to get, and everyone is taking it.”
This drug crisis is making problems for Athens’s health authorities, who already have the problem of large financial cuts.
Thousands of homeless Greeks, who live on the streets because of poverty and a loss of hope, are taking shisha. The drug is related to crystal meth. It is often mixed with battery acid, engine oil and even shampoo. It can make users become aggressive. And, even worse, it is easy to buy and easy to make.
“It is a killer, but it also makes you want to kill,” Konstantinos, a drug addict, said. “You can kill without understanding that you have done it. A lot of users have died.”
Charalampos Poulopoulos, the director of Kethea, Greece’s anti-drug centre, said shisha is an “austerity drug” – it is made by dealers who have become clever at making drugs for addicts who can no longer afford heroin and cocaine.
“The crisis has given dealers the possibility to sell a new, cheap drug, a cocaine for the poor,” said Poulopoulos. “You can sniff or inject shisha and you can make it at home – you don’t need any special knowledge. It is extremely dangerous.”
In all parts of Greece, there is a lot of depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. Crime has increased because austerity measures have cut the income of ordinary Greeks by 40%. Prostitution – the easiest way to pay for drugs – has also increased.
There are more suicides and HIV infections, and drug addicts (around 25,000 people) have become more and more self- destructive. Sixty-four per cent of young people in Greece are unemployed – this is the highest youth unemployment in the EU.
At the time when organizations such as Kethea need extra help, the Greek state has cut by a third the money it gives them. The European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund asked them to do this to help save the Greek economy.
Since the economic crisis began in 2009, Kethea has lost 70 of its 500 staff. They get less money, but studies show that for every euro the Greek state spends on anti-drug programmes such as Kethea, it saves about €6 because there is less crime and fewer health problems. “The cuts are a huge mistake,” said Poulopoulos.
On the streets of Athens, there is a fear that austerity not only doesn’t work – it kills.


Moses King, 48, is HIV positive. HIV is common in Liberia. King gets medicine for the disease from the Liberian government. But King and his family of six children cannot get the right food to eat. A poor farmer, he grew vegetables and bought rice. But he could not afford meat and fish – expensive, luxury products in Liberian markets but essential sources of protein.
Pate K Chon, who works with HIV sufferers in Liberia, has found a solution. She watched a film about a fish farm in Thailand several years ago and had the idea of starting a similar project in Liberia, so that HIV sufferers could have work and also get a source of protein.
“I saw this film about fish in a cement pool and I thought it was a good idea,” said Chon, who is also HIV positive. “So many of the people I work with don’t have the money to have a balanced protein diet and fish is such a clean source of protein – it doesn’t cause health problems like other sources and it is something we can farm.”
Chon began building a pool in which to farm fish. In June 2012, she met John Sheehy. He raised money for the non-profit fish farm in the northeast of Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, and started learning about fish farming, doing an online course and speaking to other fish farmers in Africa.
“I raised the money and built the farm, learned how to build the tanks and water flow system,” said Sheehy. “I learnt a lot on my own and now I would love to be able to write a book and share my knowledge with other people,” he said.
The project is now a fish farm with 12 tanks, each with 5,000 fish – and will give up to 200,000 fish per year to a community of 1,200 mainly HIV-positive people, including King and his family. In addition to the fish, waste from the tanks is collected and used to water crops, also giving food and money to the community.
“Many people in the community work on the farm,” said Sheehy, “and what they get in return is fish. They can use those fish to feed themselves and to sell in the market so that they get money to buy other food. The fish farm gives these people with HIV a way of getting back into society – now they are buying and selling with people in the market every week.”
1.5% of Liberia’s 3.5 million people are HIV positive. Good nutrition is particularly important for people with HIV. They need much more protein to stop their health getting worse and to allow healthy growth. “Nutrition is one of the key things if you are taking drugs to treat HIV,” said Chon. “The drugs are toxic and if you don’t have food to eat, they can make you very ill. But food in Liberia is very expensive. We buy expensive rice from other countries and fish is difficult for most people to afford.”
“Fish farming is absolutely possible in Africa,” said Paul White, owner of a fish farm in Ivory Coast, which produces 3,000 tonnes of fish each year. But some people criticize farmed fish – they say the fish can be inbred and have high levels of toxins. Sheehy says they do not have those problems. “A lot of farmed fish is inbred, which causes problems, but we are using a process with local fish from Liberia, not fish from another region. And we test the water and watch it all the time.”
Sheehy hopes to open more fish farms throughout Liberia and the region. “A rice-growing co-operative in Sierra Leone asked us if we could do this on our property so that they can feed their workers and we have had interest from Nigeria and Central America,” said Sheehy.


Barack Obama has told young people to reject pessimism and meet people who have different political beliefs if they want to change the world.
On the last day of his last visit to Britain as US president, Obama told 500 youth leaders at a meeting in London: “Reject the idea that there are things we can’t control. As JFK said, our problems are manmade and can be solved by man.”
“You’ve never had better tools to make a difference,” he told the students at the question-and-answer session. “Reject pessimism and know that progress is possible.”
But Obama said he knew that young people had many challenges. He said it was a time of great change, with 9/11, 7/7, and with so much information and bad news, for example on Twitter.
The president told the audience to meet and talk with people who have different political beliefs: “Look for people who don’t agree with you and it will also help you to compromise.”
Obama said he was proud of his healthcare reforms and talked about the 2008 financial crisis: “I saved the world from depression – that was quite good.”
He also said that his talks with Iran and the response to the Ebola crisis were some of the best things about his presidency.
Tanya Williams, a community officer, said: “I like Barack Obama and it’s exciting to hear someone who has changed so much.”
Oliver Sidorczuk, 26, said: “Everyone is extremely excited to listen to what he has to say.”
Furqan Naeem, from Manchester, said: “I recently visited the United States and I saw some really important work the president did – the work brought different people together.”
Later, Obama met Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who said they had an “excellent” 90-minute discussion. They also talked about Britain’s membership of the EU.
After the meeting, Obama played golf with British Prime Minister, David Cameron. Obama had dinner with Cameron and the US ambassador, Matthew Barzun, and, then, travelled to Germany.


Intermediate
At Addis Ababa airport, visitors are greeted by pictures of golden grains, tiny red seeds and a group of men around a giant pancake. The words say: Teff: the ultimate gluten-free crop!
Ethiopia is one of the worlds poorest countries, well known for its difficult food situation. But it is also the home of teff, a highly nutritious ancient grain that is now being sold in health-food shops and supermarkets in Europe and America.
Teffs tiny seeds  the size of poppy seeds  are high in calcium, iron and protein, and also amino acids. Naturally gluten free, the grain can be used instead of wheat flour in anything from bread and pasta to waffles and pizza bases. Like quinoa, the Andean grain, teffs superb nutritional profile offers the promise of new and lucrative markets in the west.
In Ethiopia, teff is a national obsession. Grown by around 6.3 million farmers, fields of the crop cover more than 20% of all farmland. It is ground into flour and used to make injera, the flatbread that is basic to Ethiopian cooking. The grain is also central to many religious and cultural ceremonies. Across the country, and in neighbouring Eritrea, people gather around large pieces of injera, which is also used as cutlery, scooping up stews and feeding one another as a sign of loyalty or friendship  a tradition known as gursha.
The growing appetite for traditional crops and the booming health-food and gluten-free markets are breathing new life into the grain, which is increasingly being called Ethiopias second gift to the world, after coffee.
Sophie Kebede, a London-based businesswoman who owns a UK company specializing in the grain, says she was flabbergasted when she discovered its nutritional value. I didnt know it was so sought after. I am of Ethiopian origin; Ive been eating injera all my life.
Growing demand for so-called ancient grains has not always been a simple positive for poor communities. In Bolivia and Peru, there are reports of rising incomes from the now-global quinoa trade, but also malnutrition and conflicts over land, as farmers sell their entire crop to meet western demand.
Ethiopias growing middle class is also increasing demand for teff and rising prices have made the grain too expensive for the poorest people. Today, most small farmers sell most of what they grow to people in the city.
This may have helped boost incomes in some rural areas but it has had nutritional consequences, says the government, as teff is the most nutritionally valuable grain in the country. In urban areas, people eat up to 61kg of teff a year. In rural areas, the figure is 20kg. The type of teff people eat is different, too: the rich eat the more expensive magna and white teff varieties; poorer people usually eat less-valuable red and mixed teff and more than half combine it with cheaper cereals such as sorghum and maize.
The Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015. It says that the grain could play an important role in school meals and emergency aid programmes, and help reduce malnutrition  particularly among children and adolescents.
Though Ethiopia has a fast-growing economy, it remains on the UNs list of least-developed countries. An estimated 20% of under-fives are malnourished.
The governments Agricultural Transformation Agency aims to boost crops by developing improved varieties of the grain and introducing new planting techniques and tools.
The government does not allow the export of raw teff grain, only of injera and other processed products. But this could change: the goal is to produce enough teff for Ethiopia and for export.
Mama Fresh is a family company that has been selling injera to top restaurants and hotels in the Ethiopian capital for years. It also exports the flatbread to Finland, Germany, Sweden and the US, mostly for Ethiopians who live there. But, the company wants to double exports to America in 2014 and will soon start producing teff-based pizzas, bread and cookies.
Regassa Feyissa, an Ethiopian agricultural scientist and former head of the National Institute for Biodiversity, warns that, without careful planning, increased teff production for export may mean that farmers do not grow other important crops.
With not much Ethiopian teff on the international market, farmers in the US have started planting the crop. Farmers in Europe, Israel and Australia have also experimented with it.


The world shares him and London claims him but Stratford-upon-Avon intends to spend 2016 celebrating William Shakespeare as their man: the bard of Avon, born in the Warwickshire market town in 1564, who died there 400 years ago. Stratford remained hugely important throughout Shakespeare’s life, argues Paul Edmondson, the head of learning and research at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
“People have seen Shakespeare as someone who turns his back on Stratford and his family, goes to London to earn his fortune and only comes back to die,” he said. “But Stratford is where he bought land and property, where he kept his library, where he lived and read and thought. We are going to spend the year re-emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare, the man of Stratford.” The seveneenth-century diarist, antiquarian and gossip John Aubrey, born 11 years after Shakespeare died, was at pains to point out there was nothing so very special about the bard. Aubrey, university educated, unlike Shakespeare, said that he acted “exceedingly well” and that “his Playes took well ”. The world has not agreed with Aubrey. The anniversary of the death of the man from Stratford, the most famous and the most performed playwright in the world, will be marked across Britain and the globe.
Macbeth will open in Singapore, Romeo and Juliet in Brussels. Shakespeare’s Globe is completing the first world tour in the history of theatre, in which it has taken Hamlet to almost every country – North Korea is still holding out. In London, they are also creating a 37-screen pop-up cinema, one screen to showcase each of Shakespeare’s plays, along the South Bank.
The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and virtually every other theatre production company in the country will be marking the anniversary. Interpretations will range from the resolutely traditional to the Brighton-based Spymonkey’s Complete Deaths, a romp through the 74 deaths – 75 including a fly squashed in Titus
Andronicus – by stabbing, poisoning, smothering and smashing across the plays. There will also be hundreds of lectures, recitals, international academic conferences, films, concerts, operas and major exhibitions.
For a man famous in his own lifetime, there is little documentary evidence for Shakespeare’s life and times. The plays would scarcely have survived if his friends and fellow actors had not gathered together every scrap of every play they could find – drafts, prompt scripts, scribbled actors’ parts and 17 plays not known in any other version – into the precious First Folio published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death.
The actor Mark Rylance has called it his favourite book in the world and most of the surviving First Folios will be on display – including those belonging to the British and Bodleian libraries, and a tattered copy recently discovered in France. Some of the most precious surviving documents will be gathered together in an exhibition at Somerset House in London, jointly organized by the National Archives and King’s College London, including four of his six known signatures, which are all slightly different.
The exhibition, By Me, William Shakespeare, will include his will, the court papers relating to the audacious move when Shakespeare and his fellow actors dismantled a theatre on the north side of the Thames and rebuilt it as the Globe on the South Bank, and accounts showing payments from the royal treasury for Boxing Day performances for James I and Queen Anne.
The outgoing Globe director, Dominic Dromgoole, recently jokily claimed Shakespeare as a true Londoner – albeit conceding “some spurious claim” by Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford, however, will be insisting that the town made and educated Shakespeare. His old school room is being restored with a £1.4m Heritage Lottery grant and will open as a permanent visitor attraction.
Shakespeare bought the splendid New Place, the second best house in the town, where he died, according to literary legend, on St George’s Day, 23 April, the same day as his birth. “You don’t buy a house like New Place and not live there,” Paul Edmondson said. “The general public and many academics have consistently underestimated the importance of Stratford to Shakespeare.”
Edmondson believes that, after Shakespeare bought the house in 1597, all his thinking time was spent there and that the late plays, including The Tempest, were at least planned in his library and probably written there. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust describes New Place as “the jewel in the crown of the 400th anniversary celebrations” but, in truth, it is more of a gaping hole where the gem should be.
Shakespeare’s house was demolished 300 years ago and the house that replaced it, probably incorporating some of the original fabric, was flattened in 1759 by an irascible clergyman, Francis Gastrell, in a row over taxes. He had already cut down Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, under which the writer is said to have sat and worked, because he was irritated by all the tourists peering into his garden.
The gap in the Stratford streetscape has never been filled but a five-year archaeology project has peeled back the years and the news that Shakespeare’s kitchen had been found in the partly surviving cellars went round the world. The whole site is being redisplayed for the anniversary, with the foundations marked and the garden restored. “Without Stratford,” Edmondson said, “there would have been no Shakespeare.”


Vienna is the world’s best city to live in, Baghdad is the worst and London, Paris and New York are not in the top 35, says an international study on quality of life.
German-speaking cities do well in the 18th Mercer Quality of Life study, with Vienna, Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt in the top seven.
Paris fell ten places to 37th. This was mostly because of the terrorist attacks on the city. Paris was just above London in 39th place.
The study looked at the economy, health, education, housing and the environment. Big companies use the results of the study to decide where they should open offices and factories and how much they should pay their employees.
Helena Hartlauer, 32, is from Vienna. She said she was not surprised about her city’s top position. For many years, Vienna’s government has spent money on good social housing. This makes Vienna a cheap place to live compared to other big cities.
“I live in a 100 square-metre apartment in a good area about 20 minutes’ walk from the city centre.
But my rent is just €800 (£625) a month.” A similar apartment in London costs over £2,000 and even more in New York, which came 44th in the study.
US cities do badly in the study, mostly because of worries about personal safety and crime. The US city in top position is San Francisco, in 28th position; Boston is 34th.
“You don’t realize how safe Vienna is until you go abroad,” said Hartlauer. “We also have terrific public transport – the underground trains run 24 hours at weekends and it only costs €1 per trip.”
“Vienna’s location is very special,” said Martin Eichtinger, Austrian ambassador to London, who lived in Vienna for 20 years. “The fall of the Berlin Wall helped make Vienna a centre for companies who want to do business in Central Europe.”
Mercer says Zurich in Switzerland has the world’s second highest quality of life but the Viennese say their city is far more fun. “There are more students in Vienna than any other German-speaking city,” said Hartlauer. “It’s a very young and lively city,” she added.


Galina Zaglumyonova was woken in her flat in central Chelyabinsk by a very big explosion that broke the balcony windows and broke pots containing her houseplants. When she jumped out of bed she could see a huge vapour trail in the morning sky and hear car alarms from the street below.
“I didn’t understand what was going on,” said Zaglumyonova. “There was a big explosion and then lots of little explosions. My first thought was that it was a plane crash.” In fact, it was a ten-tonne meteorite that fell to Earth in lots of pieces.
Almost 1,200 people were injured. More than 40 people were taken to hospital – most of them were hurt by flying glass. There were no deaths.
The meteorite entered the atmosphere at a speed of at least 33,000 miles per hour and broke into pieces between 18 and 32 miles above the ground.
The event caused panic in Chelyabinsk, a city of more than one million people to the south of Russia’s Ural mountains. People could see the vapour trail for hundreds of miles, even from neighbouring Kazakhstan.
Tatyana Bets was at work in the reception area of a hospital clinic in the centre of the city when the meteorite hit. “First we noticed the wind, and then the room was filled with a very bright light and we could see smoke in the sky,” she said. Then, after a few minutes, the explosions came.
At least three craters were found. One crater was more than six metres wide. Another piece of meteorite broke through the thick ice of a lake.
In Chelyabinsk, schools and universities were closed and people were told to go home early. About 200 children were injured.
Many people, mostly with cuts from flying glass, came into the clinic where Bets works. She said many of the students at a nearby college came to the hospital. “There were a lot of girls in shock”, she said.
More than 100,000 square metres of glass were broken and 3,000 buildings were hit. The total cost of the damage in the city is probably more than one billion roubles (£20 million).
The meteorite arrived a day before asteroid 2012 DA14 passed Earth very closely (about 17,510 miles). But experts said the two events were not connected.
There were lots of rumours in the first few hours after the incident. Reports on Russian state television and in local media suggested that the Russian military blew apart the meteorite.
The ultra-nationalist leader of Russia’s Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said it was not a meteorite. He said it was a weapons test by the United States.
Some people were selling pieces of meteorite through internet sites within a few hours of the impact.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that it shows us that the whole planet is vulnerable.


Intermediate
Fit in four minutes sounds like a headline from a health magazine or an impossible promise on late-night satellite TV. Then you try Dr Izumi Tabatas training programme  20 seconds of allout effort, ten seconds of rest, repeat eight times  and, after collapsing on the floor, you realize you were wrong.
Tabata has seen it all before. They were dead! he laughs as he remembers the first time he tried out his system on his university students in the early 1990s. After four minutes hard exercise they were completely exhausted. But after six weeks they saw the results and were surprised. We all were.
He began his research after he watched Japans speed skating team in the early 1990s  he noticed that short bursts of incredibly hard exercise seemed to be at least as effective as hours of moderate training. Tabata tried to prove this with a simple experiment. One group of moderately trained students did an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on an exercise bike five times a week. The other group did a ten-minute warm-up on the bike, followed by four minutes of Tabata training, four times a week  plus one 30-minute session of steady exercise with two minutes of Tabata.
The results were very surprising. After six weeks of testing, the group following Tabatas plan  exercising for just 88 minutes a week  had increased their anaerobic capacity by 28% and their VO2 max, something that shows your cardiovascular health and maximal aerobic power, by 15%. The control group, who trained for five hours every week, also improved their VO2 max, but by 10%  and their training had no effect on anaerobic capacity.We also measured increases in heart size after three weeks of doing the exercises, says Tabata
But you have to work very, very hard. You cant sit on a cross trainer, chewing gum and reading the latest issue of HELLO! The programme demands intensive bursts on a stationary bike or rowing machine; explosive bodyweight exercises, sprints and so on. Remember how you felt after doing a 100m sprint at school? Imagine doing eight of them with only a tensecond break to recover.
All-out effort at 170% of your VO2 max is the basis of the programme, says Tabata. If you feel OK afterwards, youve not done it properly. The first three repetitions will feel easy but the last two will feel impossibly hard. In the original plan the aim was to get to eight, but some only managed six or seven.
One person on an online forum wrote: When done correctly you should meet God. Most people are incapable of doing it correctly and shouldnt even try. Tabata doesnt completely agree. Everyone can do it but beginners should start with educated trainers so that they can work at the correct intensity for them, he explains. He adds that his programme burns an extra 150 calories in the 12 hours after exercise, even at rest. So, although it is used by most people to get fit  or by fit people to get even fitter  it also burns fat.
Its slightly surprising, therefore, that only serious athletes follow the programme at the moment. But that may change now that Tabata has agreed a deal that will lead to a network of instructors and a DVD range released towards the end of the year. I decided to do this because I often go on YouTube and, while I am pleased that people are doing it, some are doing it wrong because they dont realize how hard they need to work, says Tabata.
So should we all start following this plan? Richard Scrivener, a former rugby fitness coach, says that while the benefits are clear, Tabatas are an addition, not a replacement, to a favoured sport or training method. Runners, for instance, need a high level of running economy, which comes from learning the skills and running for many miles, says Scrivener, But they could reduce the number of long runs and the overall mileage by introducing Tabata training. This will give joints the chance to rest and recover, especially if you have a history of injuries  and you would probably therefore get more benefit from the long runs when you do them.
Gym rats can benefit by doing three strength sessions and three Tabatas a week. And the rest of us can slowly increase the number of sessions, although we know that it will never get easier because every session needs maximum effort. Thats the cruel genius of the programme: it is hard  and effective.


Rebecka Singerer is often told that the beer she wants is too dark and too strong for her. Men often tell her to “have something sweeter”.
“No, I don’t want a fruit beer. Women can drink whatever they want,” she says.
Now Singerer, a childminder, has joined FemAle, a group of female drinkers in Gothenburg, to make and sell beer. It is Sweden’s first beer that is made by women.
People in Sweden can now buy We Can Do It, a bottled pale ale. Its label is similar to Rosie the Riveter, created as part of a US Second World War poster. The poster became a symbol of women’s power at work.
The person who started the group is Elin Carlsson, 25. She paints cars at the Volvo factory outside the city. “We Can Do It is not a female beer. It is a beer brewed by women that anyone can drink,” she says. “It’s nothing to do with feminism; it’s about equality – we wanted to show we can do it.”
There is a lot of prejudice in the beer world. Carlsberg and other big brewers have spent millions trying to sell beer to women. Carlsberg’s Eve and Copenhagen beers, Foster ’s Radler and Coors’s Animée are some of the beers they tried to sell to women – they were lighter, flavoured beers – but they were unsuccessful.
FemAle’s way of making beer is different. They invite women to tastings that allow women to try flavours and styles of beer that they may not normally try. These tastings are the way to “get more girls into the beer world”, the group says. “Bring your mother, sister, girlfriend, aunt and grandmother so we all can learn more about beer.”
We Can Do It was Felicia Nordström’s idea. She is a bar worker who says she was fed up with male beer snobs telling her: “What do you know about beer?”
She talked to FemAle and they joined Ocean, a local independent micro-brewery. One weekend they created the recipe; the next weekend they brewed 1,600 litres.
This beer is not aimed at women,” says Thomas Bingebo, the head brewer at Ocean. “When the big breweries target women, it usually fails. This is something completely different.”
The first bottles of We Can Do It were sold out straight away. Other breweries have already asked FemAle if they can brew new beers with them.
“Women choose a glass of wine because they don’t know about beer. They don’t know what to order,” says Carlsson. “We open up new worlds to them.”


On one day in August, one in seven people on Earth, 1 billion people, used Facebook, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. In a decade, the social network has transformed people’s relationships, privacy, their businesses, news media, helped topple regimes and even changed the meanings of everyday words.
“A more open and connected world is a better world.
It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities and a stronger society that reflects all of our values,” wrote Zuckerberg in the post announcing the numbers. 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. And, unlike in real life, when the ending of a friendship can be deeply traumatic, it is easy to “unfriend”, a word invented to describe ditching a casual acquaintance when they are no longer enhancing your Facebook newsfeed. Although the meanings of the words “share” and “like” are essentially the same, Facebook has brought an entirely new weight to the terms. School and university reunions have become redundant – you already know whose career is going well, whether the perfect pair have split and you’ve seen endless pictures of your schoolmates’ babies. You won’t be surprised by an ex in the street with a new girlfriend or boyfriend: you already know they’re dating someone else from the romantic selfies.
But, unlike in real life, Facebook has no hierarchy of friendships. A classmate from one project at university who you haven’t seen in 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a stag do or a colleague you’ve never actually spoken to in person – they are all Facebook friends in the same way as your closest mate or your spouse or your mum.
It doesn’t necessarily mean we see them the same way. Professor Robin Dunbar is famous for his research that suggests a person can only have roughly 150 people as a social group. Facebook hasn’t changed that yet, he believes, but, in an interview with the New Yorker, Dunbar said he feared it was so easy simply to end friendships on Facebook that, eventually, there may no longer be any need to learn to get along.
2 We care less about privacy
There’s a wise saying: if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product. Facebook embodies that philosophy and created an entire industry from it. The astonishing thing is that users know that and they willingly hand over that information.
Pew Research Center found that most young people are more than willing to hand over their details.
An overwhelming majority of 91% post a photo of themselves, 71% post the city or town where they live, up from 61%, more than half give email addresses and a fifth give their phone number. But, as so much of a person’s life is shared online, Facebook gives a platform for everyone to cultivate an image and a fanbase. In an article for the journal Frontiers in Psychology, academics described a new phenomenon, the emergence of the “Facebook self ”. More than 80% list their interests, allowing brands to target them most effectively. But most younger users do restrict their profiles, with 60% allowing friends only.
3 Facebook has created millions of jobs – but not in its own offices
Facebook has essentially created an entire sector, including indirect employment for people whose job it is to make the platform work for their brand.
“It is a tool like no other,” said Michael Tinmouth, a social media strategist who has worked with brands such as Vodafone and Microsoft. “Marketers have an understanding of a brand’s consumers like they have never had before. The data and analytics available to you are extraordinary. You know who your customers are, who they are friends with and how they engage with your brand.”
And advertisers pay a lot for that. Facebook reported ad revenue was up 46%, reaching $3.32bn. Facebook is also a minefield for brands. Suddenly, rather than complaint conversations taking place over the phone with a customer service representative or on a small specialist internet forum, angry customers can post their complaints for hundreds of their friends to see or even on the page where all loyal fans of the brand have been carefully cultivated. And an injustice can go viral.
4 Facebook has been the tool to organize revolutions
Though the Arab Spring was dubbed the Twitter revolution, organizing demonstrations and direct action has been revolutionized by Facebook. Manchester University’s Olga Onuch found Facebook had been the key medium for reaching half of all the Euromaidan protesters in Ukraine. Facebook posts signalled the start of the Maidan protests during the hours after it was announced that Ukraine would not sign a free trade and association agreement with the EU, Onuch found. The posts organized live action, not just online anger. Mustafa Nayyem, the Ukraine activist, posted: “If you really want to do something, don’t just 'like' this post. Let’s meet near the monument to independence in the middle of the Maidan.”
Many of those interviewed in Onuch’s research said they relied on Facebook for the truth about what was happening – unable to trust traditional media.
5 Facebook makes news, breaks news and decides what is news
Roughly 71% of 18- to 24-year-olds say the internet is their main news source and 63% of users overall, according to the Pew Research Center. About a third of Facebook users post about politics and government.
Most people will first encounter a piece of journalism or an item of breaking news via Facebook or other social media, and most of those encounters will be on mobiles.
Users might never have to leave the site to get their news: Instant Articles will see stories run within Facebook. It allows news companies to sell ads around their articles, gaining them 100% of that revenue, while Facebook can also sell ads around that article, with 70% of the revenue from the social network’s advertising also going to the news companies.
Facebook has also changed the ways journalists write stories. It is a resource many reporters cannot now live without. For better or (often) worse, it is a directory to find, contact and glean information for almost any ordinary person, who might suddenly find themselves at the centre of the day’s biggest news story. Facebook has its own newswire, sharing the most useful user reaction to breaking stories, including pictures and videos.
6 Users are changing Facebook
It used to be a site to get students connected, with only elite US universities allowed access.
In 2014, a decade after its launch, 56% of internet users aged 65 and older have a Facebook account. And 39% are connected to people they have never met in person.
Groups have given way to pages, writing on each other’s walls is passé and carefully curated albums have given way to instant mobile uploads. More than ever, the site is a gateway not just to your friends but to the rest of the internet.
We may as well get used to it, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect . “It might very well go away further down the road but something this big takes a long time to disappear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Facebook has proven its ability to change and it will continue to be a very, very major player.”


Angry waiters are asking people to support their battle to keep their tips. Protesters plan to target PizzaExpress restaurants, to try to get the restaurant chain to stop taking a percentage of tips for staff that have been paid on credit and debit cards. Protesters have also started an online petition – they hope that people who go to the restaurants will support them.
Some employees are very angry because PizzaExpress keeps, as an admin fee, 8p out of every £1 paid when tips are given by card. The chain, which has 430 restaurants in the UK, earns around £1 million a year from this practice, according to the union Unite.
“We believe this 8% fee is unfair. If the chain values its staff, it should pay them the total tips from customers,” said Chantal Chegrinec of Unite. “We are starting with PizzaExpress but they are not the only company who do this. And we will target other companies after this.”
The first protest will take place at a PizzaExpress restaurant at the British Museum in London. Unite did a survey of PizzaExpress staff after a Chinese company bought the chain in 2014. Lots of the staff complained about the 8% deduction from their tips so that’s why Unite began the campaign.
One angry PizzaExpress employee, who does not want to give her name, said that the admin fee cost her £3 a night. “I have worked at PizzaExpress for 15 years,” she said in a letter to Unite. “After all this time, I’m still only paid the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour. So you see my colleagues and I need customer tips to increase our low wages. I work hard and am good at my job but, when PizzaExpress thinks it can take a percentage of our tips, I get upset.”
Restaurant chains Ask and Zizzi also deduct 8% of the tips paid by card. But other chains deduct even more. Café Rouge, Bella Italia and Belgo deduct 10%; Strada and Giraffe do, too.
A spokesperson for PizzaExpress said that the money they take from tips pays for a system that they use to share the tips among staff. “Staff use this system to decide how to share tips made by card,” she said.
The chain sells 29 million pizzas a year in its UK restaurants. It says it does not make a profit from the admin fee. But other restaurant groups do not deduct an admin fee from tips. Wagamama, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday all take nothing. Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquitos and Garfunkels used to take 10% but stopped years ago.
Unite recently targeted ten PizzaExpress restaurants in south London. They distributed leaflets to customers – the customers were “shocked and disgusted ” by the practice. PizzaExpress says they mention the admin fee at the bottom of the menus. But the employee who wrote to Unite said that customers were always surprised by the admin fee. Most customers then paid the tip in cash. Almost 6,000 people have signed Unite’s online petition.
One waiter said that at least a third of his money is from tips. He doesn’t work for PizzaExpress but has worked for 11 years for another restaurant chain. “I work in a busy London restaurant and I usually serve 150 people every night. I earn £40 to £50 in tips,” he says. “That seems like a lot but that money is very important to me because my basic pay is only £6.50 an hour.”


A Canadian man became famous because he gave a free round-the-world trip to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend. The man has now returned from the trip with the woman he chose. Unfortunately, people who followed the story were disappointed because the pair did not fall in love. Jordan Axani, a 28-year-old from Toronto who started a charity, arrived back in Canada with Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher and said the pair were like brother and sister.
Axani became famous in 2014 when he offered an air ticket to any Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher. He reserved a three-week holiday with his girlfriend but they split up and he was unable to change the name on the tickets.
Axani’s new travelling companion, was, of course, called Elizabeth Gallagher. She was a 23-year-old student from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. This Elizabeth Gallagher, who calls herself Quinn, replied to an online posting from Axani and he chose her. Before the trip, she already had a boyfriend. But people still hoped that the globetrotters might fall in love. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
“I’m going to be very clear,” Axani said, soon after the pair returned to Toronto. “The trip was never a romantic idea. It was completely platonic. I do not think of Quinn in a romantic way at all. She is a good friend. I think of her as a little sister – that is all.”
But it was difficult to create that brother-sister relationship. “It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t immediate. It took us about a week to really understand each other,” Axani said. They made some mistakes as the pair got to know each other. “At the end of the trip, we’d developed a really great rhythm – one second, we had really funny jokes and, the next second, we knew when the other person needed time alone.”
The pair did not fall in love, but Axani said the trip was “fantastic”. They visited Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Khao Lak (in Thailand) and Hong Kong. A favourite place was Prague, Axani said, where they met more people than anywhere else on the trip. “During two and a half days, I think we met about 24 people. So that’s a lot of stories, that’s a lot of people and that’s a lot of love for their home city of Prague.”
People followed the pair on Twitter and Instagram, Axani said. And they were even recognized in the street in Hong Kong. “It was an adventure. We had a great time. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other.”
Axani arrived back in Toronto at 3am and went directly to a meeting at his charity, A Ticket Forward. Axani started the charity after his online posting went viral – he plans to offer round-the-world-trips to victims of abuse, cancer and war.
Axani also wants to turn his story into a television show or film, he said. “There’s been lots of interest from many production companies.” Axani said he was not looking for his next Elizabeth Gallagher yet. “I’m not looking for anything. But we’ll see,” he said. “As always, life is a journey.”


Low-income countries will remain on the front line of human-induced climate change over the next century, experiencing gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to the most thorough assessment of the issue yet.
The last major United Nations (UN) assessment, in 2007, predicted runaway temperature rises of 6°C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4°C above present levels – enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot.
As temperatures climb and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will face sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September.
East Africa can expect to experience increased short rains, while west Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, heavier summer rains are anticipated. Indonesia may receive less rainfall between July and October, but the coastal regions around the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand can expect increased rainfall extremes when cyclones hit land.
“It is virtually certain that, in the long term, global precipitation will change. High latitude countries, such as in Europe or North America, are expected to receive more rainfall, but many subtropical arid and semi-arid regions will likely experience less precipitation. Over wet tropical regions, extreme precipitation events will very likely be more intense and more frequent in a warmer world,” said the report’s authors.
They added: “Monsoon onset dates are likely to become earlier or not to change much while monsoon withdrawal rates are very likely to delay, resulting in a lengthening of the season.”
Scientists in developing countries and commentators have welcomed the report, which they said backed their own observations.
“The IPCC makes the case that climate change is real and happening much more strongly than before. We are already seeing the effects of climate change in Bangladesh and across south Asia. It’s not news to us. Most developing countries are facing climate change now. They do not need the IPCC to tell them that the weather is changing,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, based in Dhaka.
Scientists have also lowered projections of sea-level rises. Depending on future greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels will rise an average of 40 –62 cm by 2100. Nevertheless, there will be signiﬁcant geographical variations; many millions of people living in the developing world’s great cities, including Lagos and Calcutta, are threatened.
Weather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report suggests. Although the global frequency of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease or remain essentially unchanged, they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall.
Life in many developing-country cities could become practically unbearable, given that urban temperatures are already well above those in surrounding countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said.
Dr Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, says: “Climate models are not yet robust enough to predict impacts at local and regional scales, but it is clear that everybody is vulnerable in some way.”
The charity Oxfam predicted that world hunger would worsen as climate changes inevitably hurt crop production and disrupt incomes. They suggested the number of people at risk of hunger might climb by 10% to 20% by 2050, with daily per-capita calorie availability falling across the world.
“The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the ﬁght against hunger, and it looks set to worsen,” said Oxfam. “A hot world is a hungry world. If the remainder of the 21st century unfolds like its ﬁrst decade, we will soon experience climate extremes well outside the boundaries of human experience.”