Mobile phone subscriptions to tip 5 bln this year

Jonathan Lynn GENEVA Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:26pm EST

GENEVA (Reuters) - Mobile phone subscriptions will buck the economic crisis and top five billion this year, but the high speed Internet remains a "digital divide" between rich and developing countries, a U.N. agency said on Tuesday.

Technology

By the end of 2009 there were 4.6 billion mobile subscriptions globally, corresponding to a penetration rate of 67 percent, the ITU"s annual report on developments in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector showed.

In developing countries the penetration rate reached 57 percent, more than double its 2005 level of 23 percent, while in developed countries it averages more than 100 percent -- more than one subscription per head.

"Demand for mobile telephony is fairly resilient with consumers willing to spend their disposable income on mobile services even at times of financial constraints," statistician Esperanza Magpantay told a news briefing at the launch of the ITU"s 2010 report on Measuring the Information Society.

Nor is the crisis likely to hit investments in the longer term as operators take account of the shift in revenue from voice to data and of the increasing importance of broadband, ITU official Vanessa Gray said.

"They will be trying to increase their revenues by investing in such technologies as broadband and if they think it"s a viable solution then also mobile broadband," she said.

"We don"t necessarily expect a negative impact even in the coming years of the crisis on ICTs."

The ITU estimated that 26 percent of the world"s population or 1.7 billion people were using the Internet, although only one in five people in developing countries are online against nearly two-thirds in rich nations.

BROADBAND COSTS

Growth in developing country penetration of mobile telecoms and the Internet was driven in particular by expansion in India and China, with China alone accounting for one third of Internet users in the developing world.

The most marked gap between countries is broadband Internet connection -- crucial for boosting economic productivity as well as providing access to a range of services in areas such as health and government.

A high-speed Internet connection costs 500 percent of average monthly national income per head in Africa, putting fixed broadband out of reach of most people, against less than two percent for Europe, the ITU said.

One element in bringing down broadband prices is market liberalization that ensures all Internet service providers have access to affordable international bandwidth, Gray said.

The 10 most advanced countries in telecoms and the Internet terms were Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Britain in Europe and South Korea and Japan in Asia, according to an ITU index measuring access, use and skills in 2008, the latest year with available data.

The most dynamic developing countries include Nigeria, Vietnam and Cap Verde, it said.

The countries with the lowest ICT prices relative to national income per head are Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait, Luxembourg, the United States, Denmark, Norway, Britain and Iceland, it said.

And around the world mobile is now on average cheaper than fixed-line telephony, it said.

(For ITU news release go to r.reuters.com/kac52j )

(For full report go to r.reuters.com/wad52j )

(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Jon Boyle)

Technology

Revolutionary kitchen does afar with pots and pans

A cooker that doesn"t use pots and pans could one day be taking centre stage in your kitchen.

Fancy a bite to eat? Tea for the kids? All you need do is press your hand down on the softened surface to create a hole and in go the ingredients.

Setting the temperature and time is then another simple flick of a finger.

This is the future according to Electrolux and their new tactile design concept called "Heart Of The Home".

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The ingredients are placed on the mouldable surface which then heats up and cooks your food

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Although Electrolux have no immediate plans to create the device, they believe the technology should be in use within 40 years

The ingredients are placed on the mouldable surface and the same area then heats up and cooks your food.

Before it does this, it analyses what has been placed on it and offers you a range of recipe options to choose from.

If you need to cook larger amounts and need a wider surface then you simply press down on a bigger area.

And because there are no pots and pans, there won"t be any washing up.

Although the firm"s concept video doesn"t explain how it is cleaned,it presumably takes just a swish of a dishcloth to clear away anyremains.

In the video the user is shown creating a number of pans simply by pressing on the malleable surface.

Once a recipe is selected the user is able to move the "hobs" across the surface.

Electrolux said the design had been prompted by the need to createenergy-efficient devices that were of practical use for an increasinglyurbanised society.

It pointed out that 2008 was the year when, for the first time inhistory, more people were living in cities than in rural areas.

The UN believes that the number will rise to a staggering 74 percent in 2050. This compares with a mere 29 per cent living in cities in1950.

Pressures on space and resources will mean that homes will needappliances that can carry out a number of functions as opposed to onespecific function.

Although Electrolux have no immediate plans to create the device, they said the technology should be in use within 40 years.

The company said the design had been: "Created for the person drivenby culinary curiosity using new technology without removing the essenceof cooking."

Heart of the Home was presented for the first time at DesignBoost in Stockholm, last week.

A new kitchen concept has been unveiled by Electrolux

Delhi officials betray hulk open air freshener to dumpy ambience clean

Rhys Blakely & , : {}

Officials in Delhi have denounced a in advance resolution to plunge in to the increasingly sick fog unresolved over the city: a hulk open air freshener that scrubs the ambience clean.

The seven-tonne Systemlife Citta costs about twenty-five million rupees (357,000). It sucks in 10,000 cubic metres of unwashed air an hour, subjects it to a filtering process, and afterwards emits purify air.

Delhi officials contend that some-more of the machines will be paid for if the stream one, commissioned at one of Delhis busiest trade junctions as piece of a commander project, proves a success. We will weigh the efficiency after 3 months, P.K. Sharma, health arch of the New Delhi Municipal Council, told The Times. If it works, we will buy more.

Delhi is the second dirtiest city in the universe in conditions of the volume of particulate make a difference in the atmosphere, according to the World Bank.

Related LinksIndia to plunge in to wickedness with appetite cutsIndia allows 25bn litres of sewage in to the riversIndia"s new set of wheels

A brownish-red mist mostly lingers over the Indian collateral a smudgy clouded cover related by analysts to augmenting rates of asthma.

Only in Cairo is the air grimier. Another Indian city, Calcutta, is in third place.

Globally, air wickedness claims about dual million lives a year, according to the World Health Organisation.

Athletes due to contest in Delhi in the Commonwealth games, that will proceed in October, are being suggested to arrive in the city at the last probable moment, to minimise the risk to their respiratory systems.

Those who live there are at risk of respirating gradually dirtier air as India becomes some-more affluent. By 2030 the series of vehicles on the countrys already undiluted roads is approaching to climb sevenfold to about 380 million vehicles.

In the same duration hothouse gas emissions are projected to enlarge fourfold, to 6.5 billion tonnes a year, according to McKinsey, the commercial operation consultants.

Environmentalists have criticised the Indian Government for not ancillary open ride to cut trade overload and wickedness levels.

The Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment claims that some-more than half of Indias cities are fogged by vicious levels of pollution.

It has cursed the Governments await of factories that set up small poor cars, indicating out that personal vehicles cars and two-wheelers make use of up some-more than 75 per cent of the highway space in Delhi but encounter usually twenty per cent of the citys travelling demand.

Our cities dont need some-more cars, it pronounced in a new report. "They need improved open transport."

hair wig

British Fritzl transient for thirty years notwithstanding 7 incest accusations

Andrew Norfolk , : {}

A father who regularly raped his dual daughters and done them profound eighteen times during a authoritarian 35-year debate of earthy and passionate abuse transient showing since of a litany of failings by caring professionals, a inform suggested yesterday.

Agencies concerned with the family unsuccessful to confront the man even though they strongly suspected for most years that he was the father of the girls 7 babies, a little of them innate with critical genetic defects.

An eccentric examination of the case, whose outline was published yesterday, disclosed that some-more than 100 caring professionals from twenty-eight agencies were concerned with the family in Sheffield and Lincolnshire from 1973 to 2008.

The white British family changed home 67 times as the father, who tranquil his mom and young kids by violence, intimidation, bullying and romantic control, sought to hedge detection. Numerous opportunities to meddle were missed. Seven times allegations of incest were upheld to amicable workers, military and health professionals and there were a offer twelve reports of the man being aroused to his children. The agencies exchanged suspicions and hold sixteen kid insurance meetings but no one took any stairs to remove the girls.

Related LinksHow dual girls were trapped"British Fritzl": military face examination British Fritzl sealed up for 30-year rape system of administration over daughtersMultimediaIN FULL: the critical box examination

The inform by Pat Cantrill, an partner arch nursing officer, found caring workers were as well peaceful to accept the relatives assurances and unsuccessful to speak to, or attend to, the children.

Between 1988 and 2002 the dual daughters became profound eighteen times. Nine pregnancies by or were aborted since of genetic disorders, dual babies were stillborn and of the 7 flourishing young kids dual had critical earthy disabilities.

The girls mom suffered made at home abuse and mostly fled to a refuge. She changed out in 1992, withdrawal the girls alone with their father. The integrate additionally had a son who was abused physically, but not sexually, by his self-employed father. He left home at the same time as his mom and has suffered mental health problems.

The inform settled that it usually indispensable one chairman to have analysed the incident effectively and recognized the need to take suitable action, nonetheless no veteran had the persistence to follow by their concerns.

Professor Cantrill remarkable that even though a little professionals were fearful of the father they were rebuilt to leave his young kids with him. Most seemed to believe, wrongly, that there was zero they could do unless the daughters plainly suggested the abuse.

The 57-year-old man, who to strengthen his young kids cannot be named, perceived twenty-five hold up sentences and was systematic to offer a smallest of nineteen years after revelation mixed rapes in Nov 2008, 6 months after his daughters told a amicable workman of their ordeal, that began when one was 5. His price tag was after marked down to a smallest of fourteen years.

His crimes gimlet a little similarities to the Austrian box of Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter sealed in a attic for twenty-four years and fathered 7 young kids by her. The sheer disproportion was that the British victims had countless contacts with the authorities over decades.

Public zone agencies in Sheffield and Lincolnshire mutually released an above-board reparation to the women yesterday but certified that no one concerned with the familys box had been trained or dismissed. Chris Cook, eccentric chair of Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board, said: We are honestly sorry. We should have stable you.

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Live blog: Britain expels Israeli shrewd person Politics

The father of Palestinian belligerent Mahmoud al-Mabhouh binds up a family photo, at their home in the Jebaliya interloper camp, northern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP

2.00pm: David Miliband is about to have known to the House of Commons the formula of an review by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in to the abuse of British passports in the gangland slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas official, in a Dubai road house in January. The unfamiliar cabinet member is approaching to ban an Israeli shrewd chairman in a show of British anger.

Diplomats stressed that the unfamiliar secretary"s remarks would be cramped to the issue of passports and would not residence Mabhouh"s murder. However, the make a difference will be at large seen around the universe as the initial decisive claim from a horse opera supervision of Israeli shortcoming for the murder.

The timing is annoying for Israel as the budding minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is on a fence-mending mission in Washington. Relations with the US are tattered over Netanyahu"s warding off to freeze all allotment wake up in Palestinian territory.

Reports from Israel contend that the chairman to be diminished is the deputy of the Mossad, Israel"s comprehension service.

2.35pm: Israel"s Ha"aretz journal reports that the Foreign Office finished it transparent to the Israeli ambassador, Ron Prosor, that the review had determined for certain that the passports were fake when British adults upheld by airports on their approach in to Israel, with officials receiving them afar for "checks" that lasted around twenty minutes.

2.43pm: The BBC universe affairs correspendent, Paul Reynolds, records the ritualistic tinge of these incidents.

New Zealand got indignant with Israel in 2004 when dual Israeli agents were found to be utilizing New Zealand passports. Diplomatic ties were frozen, but were sensitively resumed a year or so after after an Israeli apology. In 1987, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did sequence the closure of the Mossad hire in London for a time - though no disbelief it carried on in opposite ways - after the abduction of the Israeli chief whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. But that did not affect her await for Israel and in due course, normal make use of resumed.

3.01pm: Miliband"s make a difference to the Commons at around 3.30pm is approaching to be brief, about fifteen minutes. Then he will do the rounds of the TV studios to elaborate, labour and clarify. The Israeli ambassador, Ron Prosor, will afterwards take his spin on the airwaves so this is going to last all afternoon. The Foreign Office will additionally brief. Assuming that Israeli comprehension was at the back of the hit, it might be wondering either the tactful fallout is value it.

3.12pm: Call it black humour. This is an Associated Press inform picked up by Ha"aretz a couple of weeks ago.

An Israeli supermarket is seeking to money in on the barbarous notice video of an gangland slaying group suspected of murdering a Hamas commander in chief in Dubai with a new blurb desirous by the footage. A new TV discuss for the Mahsanei Kimat Hinam supermarket sequence shows actors wearing wigs and hats and carrying tennis rackets as they have their approach by store aisles. "We suggest torpedo prices," voiced the advertisement"s tagline.

3.23pm: The Guardian"s interpretation blog has this utilitarian distinguished on the twenty-six suspects.

3.36pm: Miliband is starting his statement, a couple of mins late. He says the UK is stability to await inquiries, but the supervision has perceived a inform from Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) this morning.

He says there is constrained justification that Israel was obliged for the faking of the passports.

3.42pm:Miliband says Britain is profoundly uneasy that such movement would be carried out by a friend. This, he says, adds insult to injury.

He records the significance of UK-Israeli ties, but says he has asked for an Israeli shrewd chairman to leave.

As for the twelve British adults whose passports were copied, they are being released with new biometric passports that will be some-more formidable to forge.

3.42pm: Miliband has accomplished and William Hague, his Tory shadow, voices await for the supervision and points out that Israel has finished something identical in the past and has not lived up to past assurances not to do anything identical to it again.

3.44pm: Hague says Britain should ask for assurances that Israel will not repeat counterfeits and wonders either British passports are some-more receptive to forgery.

He adds that the government"s movement is right and has full subsidy of the House.

Miliband is vocalization again and records that investigations in alternative countries, together with the UAE. He says ruefully that no alternative nation had so most passports fake in this "sorry affair".

3.48pm: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem unfamiliar affairs spokesman, says what took place was frightful and praises Miliband for distinguished the right change in this incident.

He raises the predicament of Palestinians of Gaza.

3.51pm: Miliband voiced his high regard for await from the alternative parties and stressed the slight concentration of the Soca review on the pass issue and not on the attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder itself.

Sir Gerald Kaufman, a difficult censor of Israel, spoke of Israel"s "serial crimes" and combined his regard for Miliband. It"s surprising for such concord to be show in the House.

3.55pm: Miliband stresses that it is in Israel"s seductiveness to hang to general law.

In reply to the Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay, the unfamiliar cabinet member says the Foreign Office finished a specific ask as to who should leave from the Israeli embassy. In alternative words, the preference was not left to the Israeli embassy.

Labour MP Robert Marshall Andrews is broadening the discuss by wondering when Britain will step up defamation of Israel "for hidden land and water" from Palestinians.

4.00pm: We"re deviate from the issue, with the contention erratic in to temperament cards. Here"s PA"s take on Miliband"s statement.

Foreign cabinet member David Miliband pronounced an review had detected "compelling" justification that Tel Aviv"s tip make use of was obliged for cloning the ID documents.

He told MPs it was "intolerable" for a unfamiliar nation to handle in such a way, and the actuality that Israel was a close fan combined "insult to injury".

4.02pm: The former Lib Dem leader, Menzies Campbell, wonders because Britain has not resolved that Israel was at the back of the murdering itself.

Miliband says the review in Dubai is stability and leaves it at that. Investigators in Dubai have pronounced they are "99%" certain the Mossad was at the back of the murder.

4.05pm: Rob Marris (Labour) wonders because Britain considers Israel a crony when it disregards what Britain thinks. Miliband disagrees with this perspective.

4.08pm: Martin Linton (Labour) invites the supervision to take identical movement each time Israel builds settlements. Another MP wants to know who Britain is expelling. Miliband declines to give any names, nonetheless reports contend it is a deputy of the Mossad. The House has right away changed on to alternative business.

Miliband"s make a difference on the Foreign Office website says: "Given that this was a unequivocally worldly operation in that high peculiarity forgeries were made, the supervision judges it is rarely expected that the forgeries were finished by a state comprehension service.

"Taking this together with alternative inquiries, and the couple to Israel determined by Soca, we have resolved that there are constrained reasons to hold that Israel was obliged for the injustice of the British passports."

4.30pm: First Israeli - rather humble - reaction. Israel"s envoy to Britain, Ron Prosor, pronounced Israel was "disappointed by the preference of the British government" but endorsed his joining to a attribute "of mutual importance."

4.32pm: Prosor creates a short make a difference outward the embassy but receiving questions. He says Israel"s organisation goal is to make firm attribute with the UK. Now Miliband is on the BBC, once again refuses to name the central expelled. Says the UK has "parted company" with Israel on this specific issue. Adds that he has not perceived any reparation from the Israeli supervision and says he has asked for Israeli assurances that it won"t do anything identical to this again. "Israel needs to understand" that this should not occur again, the unfamiliar cabinet member says.

4.39pm: Ha"aretz reports that Miliband has additionally cancelled his coming at a rite scheduled for after that dusk at the Israeli embassy.

4.40pm: The Foreign Office has nice the transport recommendation for Israel, the crux of that is that your pass sum could be nicked whilst travelling in Israel. The last line would be utterly droll if it wasn"t such a critical matter.

"UK pass holders should be wakeful of a new Serious Organised Crime Agency review in to the injustice of UK passports in the attempted attempted attempted attempted attempted murder of Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai on nineteen Jan 2010. The SOCA review found inconclusive justification of Israeli impasse in the fake make use of of British passports. This has lifted the probability that your pass sum could be prisoner for crude uses whilst your pass is out of your control. The risk relates in sold to passports but biometric security features. We suggest that you usually palm your pass over to third parties together with Israeli officials when positively necessary."

4.52pm: Miliband is unequivocally earning his keep today. He has only been on Sky News, observant there is no idea of a tit-for-tat plea from Israel. From what Prosor was saying, Israel is penetrating to keep this from escalating. Miliband repeats that the measures taken - formed on clever investigations - are completelly justified.

5.02pm: Some tactful hair-splitting here. Gordon Brown"s orator says the Israeli shrewd chairman in subject had technically been "asked to withdraw" from the UK, rather than expelled, and was being since dual weeks to leave the country.

5.14pm: The subject right away is the temperament of the shrewd chairman who is being kicked out - well technically asked to leave. The answer will probably be in tomorrow"s papers, but that"s it for today"s live blog. Thanks for your comments.