The Welsh Assembly Government has specified seven areas throughout Wales where additional wind farms will be set up in an attempt to augment clean energy production by at least 10 % from renewable sources in the subsequent five years. The Welsh Assembly Government has specified seven areas throughout Wales where additional wind farms will be set up in an attempt to augment clean energy production by at least 10 % from renewable sources in the subsequent five years.

The government announced its plans after a consultation process but failed to receive a positive response, especially by the natives of Wales, who believe that wind farms did not produce enough electricity that could substantiate its need and establishment, besides damaging landscapes. In fact, Caroline Evans, co-ordinator of the Brechfa Forest Energy Action Group called the decision a “death- knell for the Welsh uplands.” She intended to touch a personal chord with the populace while saying, “We want to get tourists and in Brechfa Forest money has just been invested in mountain biking tracks to do that. But that’s no good if you look up and see something bigger than the Statue of Liberty.”

Moreover, in a Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, a statement disagreeing to the wind farm project said, “We are particularly disappointed that this ill conceived policy framework does not give reasonable credence or legitimacy to the realistic contribution that energy conservation measures and the range of other renewable technologies offer.”

Nevertheless, environment minister, Carwyn Jones looked unfazed about the issue and expressed confidence in the new strategy. He believed that it was apt for Wales and it would “enable us to meet our commitment to deliver four terawatt hours of electricity generated from renewable sources by 2010.” He added that a variety of other renewable energy sources and technologies had been evaluated after which coming to the conclusion that “onshore wind is the only viable option to provide the lion’s share of the 2010 Assembly renewable target.”

Meanwhile, environmental group appreciated the move, along with Friends of the Earth Cymru. The allotted sites for wind farms included Carno North in Powys and Coed Morgannwg, which would have the maximum number of turbines of more than a 100 each. Other five sites outlined for development were Nant-y-Moch in Ceredigion, Clocaenog Forest in Gwynedd, Pontardawe in the Swansea Valley, Brechfa Forest in Carmarthenshire and Newtown South in Powys. All these sites would have about 25-50 turbines each.

Presently, about 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity from renewable sources is achieved in Wales and there is need for more 1,000MW to achieve the energy target. According to the plan, about 200MW of the required amount would be derived from offshore wind farms while the remaining 800MW will be got from on-shore wind farms. The total cost involved would amount to £700m.

Then again, Joel Rawson at the Centre for Alternative Technology was seen pushing the efficiency of other renewable energy generating sources, like solar and hydro electricity and reiterated that exploration of alternative sources ought to be done in greater detail.

He said, “We would certainly like to see much more commitment made to the development of these sort of technologies, (solar and hydro) because support needs to be given at this stage, in order for them to be ready in 10 years or so, to sit alongside wind power and make a coherent energy strategy.”

LONDON: Music downloads are gaining remarkable popularity in Britain. There have been more than 10 million legal downloads so far this year, against a recorded 5.7 million in the whole of 2004, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

Industry watchers attribute the phenomenal increase to the action taken against illegal file-sharing sites late last year and the launch of several legal music sites and online stores like Apple’s iTunes and Napster.

BPI, the representative organisation in Britain, described the figure as a milestone and said tracks legally downloaded were higher in number than physical sale of singles for the first time in the last week of December 2004.

BPI’s chairman Peter Jamieson said the industry has accepted the legal download service and its rewards are now being felt. “The battle against illegal filesharing will continue, but we are delighted to have hit this milestone so soon.”

There were 659,377 digital single track downloads between April and June 2004 and 5,562,638 during the same period this year.

However, sales of CD singles continued to decline, by 23 per cent this year, from 5,721,873 between April and June 2004 to 4,408,453 during the same period this year. Artist albums sale went up by 2.2 per cent to 25,137,810 during April to June this year.

The 7-inch vinyl single recorded 87.3 per cent increase in the quarter, compared with last year, while the annual sales are expected to touch 1.4 million units, the best sales figure since 1998.

For the year ended March 2005, the best-selling 7-inch single is a limited edition reissue of Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast. Other titles that dominated the format are Libertines, Babyshambles, Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand.

Jamieson said, “Despite the incredible growth in download sales, there is still a huge demand for the collectible physical formats — it would be wrong to write them off just yet. Record companies are committed to meeting consumer demand in whatever format people want their music.”

The year 2004 also saw British music score in the U.S. Some 75 albums achieved the 100,000-sales mark, compared with 66 in 2003.

Earlier, Coldplay’s third album X&Y; entered at No 1 with first-week sales of 739,000. Its third studio album was the first British album to simultaneously top both the U.S. and U.K. charts since the Beatles 1 collection in 2000.

Said Jamieson: “We have not seen anything like it for a decade. From Coldplay to Oasis, Dido to Gorillaz, Lostprophets to Franz Ferdinand, British music is on the march.

“Music is still one of the U.K.’s great exports. We are by far the biggest exporter of music outside the U.S. We export many times more music to the U.S. than the rest of Europe put together.”

SHANGHAI: eBay’s global online payment system, PayPal, has come to China, custom-designed for the country’s Internet users. The free service, PayPal China, launched Monday, allows Chinese Internet users to make safe and secure online payments in the Chinese local currency.

The service has been integrated with 15 Chinese banks and 20 debt cards, PayPal International, the eBay subsidiary that runs the service, said.

eBay is extending the service to China through a strategic cooperation with ChinaPay E-Payment Service Co Ltd, a unit of the group that runs China’s credit card clearing system. Two of China’s Internet portals, NetEase Inc and TOM Online Inc, are also partners in the venture.

Purchases made on the portals will be covered by PayPal’s buyer protection program. Another ecommerce marketplace in the country, eBay EachNet, is expected to join the program from 1 September.

PayPal International’s vice president Mathias Entenmann said PayPal China “will improve the payment experience and increase the velocity of ecommerce in China”.

PayPal’s realtime payment solution makes use of the infrastructure of bank accounts and credit cards of individual users or businesses, who can with an email address send and receive payments online securely and quickly. With some 72 million accounts, it operates in 56 markets around the world. Apart from security, PayPal guarantees total confidentiality of customer information.

PayPal runs international services in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. The currencies acceptable under the payment system are U.S. dollars, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, Japanese Yen and Pound.

The company is not integrating the Chinese service with its international operations due to restrictions on the convertibility of the Chinese yuan.

The Chinese online store, Alibaba.com, has its own online payment system, AliPay. The company said AliPay’s June transactions in China were equivalent of $16.9 million. It has three million registered users.

eBay is estimated to have 80 per cent share of China’s online auction market in 2004. It expects the transaction volume to grow more than 30 per cent to $400 million-plus in 2005. The company will spend $100 million on brand promotion in the country, which it feels will become the largest market in five to 10 years.

eBay had come to China in 2002 by acquiring 33 per cent stake in Shanghai-based EachNet for $30 million. It bought the balance stake in 2003 for $150 million.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has announced the successful launch of a new satellite that seeks to explore the mystery surround the black holes.

The satellite blasted off from the Uchinoura base in the Kagoshima prefecture, which is located around 620 miles southwest of capital Tokyo. The M-5 rocket took off on Sunday and carried abroad the Astro-EII satellite. JAXA telecast the event live on the web. A spokesman said that according to schedule the craft dropped back the main booster rocket to Earth three minutes after take-off. Later in the day, JAXA confirmed that the Astro-EII had successfully entered its orbit, which had been located 348 miles from the Earth.

The 21-foot-long satellite weighs 1.7 tons and carries onboard five X-ray telescopes. JAXA says that the satellite will power its panels using solar energy, which will then be used to activate these telescopes.

The agency expects to get data from the craft five times daily and said that Astro-EII’s data streaming capabilities would be tested when it sent data on the movement of black holes and the collapse of galaxies and stars. Japanese scientists hope to unlock the mystery surrounding the evolution of the universe after deciphering this data.

Japan’s space program has been in full swing after the successful launch of the H-2A rocket in February this year. The JAXA has suspended the program following an accident in November 2003. A rocket scheduled to launch two spy satellites had exploded mid-flight in that year. The Astro-EII was originally scheduled to take-off earlier in the year, but was delayed since JAXA wanted to put the H-2A into orbit first. The Astro-E-II is expected to start relaying data sometime next week.

The Littlewoods chain of 120 retail outlets will now be taken over by British group, Associated British Foods PLC (AB Foods) for £409 million stg in cash and debt in its bid to strengthen the hold of Primark, its discount clothes retail group, in Britain.

Just a few months back this year, Primark purchased six stores from the busted group, Allders, and is now on its way to transform about 25-40 large stores that would be equivalent to around 40 % of Littlewoods’ 2.1 mln square feet of retailing sale space.

Chief executive of Primark, George Weston stated during an interview that acquiring Littlewoods was indeed a strong move towards making Primark establish its presence in the high street. Calling it a “unique opportunity”, Weston said that Primark would arrive “to many towns and cities where it is currently not present.”

Meanwhile, the Littlewoods clothing chain has decided to keep its lucrative catalogue shopping business.

After taking customers from high-class Marks & Spencer Group PLC and retail entrepreneur Philip Green’s Arcadia group, Primark’s operating profit in the first-half rose by 18% and touched 59 mln stg, with its sales soaring 12%.

Primark’s parent, AB Foods further added that the discount retail chain that sold sleeveless womens’ tops for 2 pounds had showcased quite a robust performance after figures in March. In addition, the AB Foods group anticipates the operating profit derived from the new Littlewoods stores to surpass the cost of funds employed, in the full first year term once it is completed.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board, the industry watchdog in the U.S. that rates video games, is investigating whether the blockbuster “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” has some code embedded in it that allows players to make the characters engage in simulated explicit sex acts after downloading a modification.

The game has a M (mature 17 +) rating from the board and if the board decides to change it, it may get AO (adult only), which will mean major limitations in sales.

The serial games makers, Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. subsidiary Rockstar Games, admitted that the investigation is on and said it is cooperating. The games, one among the best selling, has also drawn rebuke for encouraging wanton violence.

The board’s president Patricia Vance said the board has “opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the ‘Hot Coffee’ modification for (the game) … to determine if there has been a violation of ESRB Rules and Regulations requiring full disclosure of pertinent content.”

‘Hot Coffee’ is a freely downloadable modification, which when installed on a PC with San Andreas on it, can generate several minigames in which the game’s hero can be made to engage in x-rated sexual acts.

The board will find out whether the modification will indeed unlock a code pre-existing in the game, or whether it is a creation of an outsider providing the modification.

Vance said, “If after a thorough and objective investigation of all the relevant facts surrounding this modification, we determine a violation of our rules has occurred, we will take appropriate action.”

Rockstar maintained that the work of the mod community is beyond the scope of either publishers or the board.

The board’s initiative is on the basis of criticism by a California lawmaker, Leland Yee (Democrat, San Francisco). Yee, a child psychologist, says the game is capable of creating explicit material on the computer screen and wants its rating to be modified to AO.

Yee implied in his outbursts that the board, which was set up by the Entertainment Software Association in 1994, is reluctant on giving AO ratings.

The board has so far assigned 1,036 ratings in 2004, and less than 1 per cent is AO.

“Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” is about a character who seeks vengeance against gangs in streets, using automatic weapons and indulging in bloody violence. He steals cars for fun and picks up women along the way. The game allows users to download and install modifications from several freely available sites and one of the modifications, say enthusiasts, facilitate creation of girls in nude and simulation of explicit sex acts.

The video games of today allow the system of modification — mods — by which the look and feel and even content can be modified by software writers. Many games have tools embedded in them to make the modification process easier. The game vendors encourage mods because it can increase sales, while users will have the flexibility to add and reduce the content to fit their imaginations. And many of the mod creators offer their patches for free.

The author of this particular mod, Patrick Wildenborg of Deventer, Netherlands, however, says the code he has created just unlocks previously present content in the game. He has challenged Rockstar to prove that its code is free of these graphics. “They’re lying and I will be able to prove that.”

Wildenborg says the explicit material can be viewed only on the version of the game meant for desktop PCs and it would require his ‘Hot Coffee’ mod. It is like setting a censor flag as he calls it. When the flag is set, the explicit scenes are blocked. So, when the hero visits his girlfriend’s house for a cup of coffee, in the version of the game where the flag is set, one can hear only suggestive sounds. But, once the flag is removed, using the mod, all the explicit scenes are part of the normal game.

There are several critics for “Grand Theft Auto” mainly objecting to its beastly brutality. There is legislation in place against the game in Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. intended to limit its reach among minors.

Chipmaker Intel has announced plans to step into the world of movies and has revealed that it would be investing substantially in a company called ClickStar Inc. Intel will be collaborating with film star Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment in this venture. ClickStar will offer movie downloads on the Internet on a pay-per-view basis.

The company plans to offer original movies to Web users before they are available on DVD and also while they are playing in cinemas.

This announcement was made in the presence of Mr. Freeman and Intel CEO Paul Otellini at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Idaho. As of now, the company does not have any major Hollywood Studio on-board, but hopes that Intel’s brand name and Morgan Freeman’s clout would convince studios to sign on.

Speaking at the launch, Morgan Freeman said that the new service aims to address the growing worldwide consumer demand for digital content with special emphasis on filmed entertainment, “Our goal is to deliver first-run premium entertainment to film fans around the world and to make film easier to buy than to pirate,” he commented.

Nizar Allibhoy, who has previously served as a Sony Pictures executive will be the CEO of ClickStar. Producer Lori McCreary, who is a partner in the Revelations Entertainment, was enthusiastic about the new venture. She said that the company would be working with independent filmmakers as well as studio content, “We’ve basically been speaking with our filmmaker friends and getting great feedback. We see it as a tremendous opportunity for everyone in the business,” McCreary said on the occasion. For his part, Nizar Allibhoy hoped that ClickStar would do the same thing for movies as iTunes did for music, “We have the same advantage of being the first out there,” he said.

ClickStar refuted rumors that it was setting up a direct competition with online movie rental services as Movielink and CinemaNow, “There is a demand there, but we believe it’s a limited demand because the content has been out there already,” Roger Vakharia, the MD of Intel’s Content Services Group said. He added that ClickStar was “a missing piece in today’s environment.”

The main intention of ClickStar is to beat movie pirates by playing the game on the same rules, albeit legally. The service is scheduled to be launched sometime in 2006.

The Halifax has said that with the Olympics set to return to London in seven years’ time, house prices in London could go through the roof, as the demand will outstrip the supply in the run-up to the games.

The bank has based its predictions on the fact that all the host cities of the last four Olympic games saw house prices soar to unprecedented levels; Barcelona, Sydney and Athens saw a 50 percent rise in housing prices five years prior to the games.

According to Tim Crawford, the group economist at Halifax, the news that Olympics was returning to London was a great one, “Hosting an Olympic games encourages city regeneration and is usually accompanied by an improvement in facilities and transport links. These factors tend to be positive for house prices.” He added that homeowners in Hackney and Stratford stood to gain the most.

Dan McLeod of the estate agency, Atkinson McLeod expressed similar sentiments and said, “This is the best news for the property market in this area for years. Since the announcement, we have already had calls from investors asking about properties to develop in the east end.”

Russell Jervis, Spicerhaart managing director was of the view that the trend in growth of housing and economic prosperity in east London was set to be boosted by the news of a successful bid, “A new east London is fast emerging with much regeneration work currently underway and the already successful transformation of the Docklands. The win will create massive investment to the area, creating new jobs, homes and improved transport links,” he commented.

A sum of around £250 million has been earmarked for a new Olympic Stadium at Stratford in East London. Besides this £650 million will be spent on athletes’ village alone. Overall the London 2012 bid team expects to rake in a £100 million profit at the end of the games.

LONDON: Britain received its first shipment of imported liquefied natural gas Monday as the country prepares to rely on imports with its North Sea fields increasingly drying up.

The first tanker, the Berge Arzew, carrying 138,000 cubic metres of LNG from Algerian state producer Sonatrach for British Petroleum, docked at a new import terminal at the Isle of Grain on the Thames Estuary. The gas will be pumped into National Grid Transco’s new LNG terminal.

Two more such terminals will be built — at Milford Haven in South Wales — by 2007 to handle LNG imports, mostly from Egypt and Qatar.

Britain, Europe’s largest gas market, had stopped importing LNG in the 1980s with the North Sea taking care of its entire gas needs. However, the dwindling yield from the fields has forced the country to look at oil gas producers in the Middle East.

It estimates that LNG will meet between 20 and 25 per cent of the country’s gas demand by 2008-2009. Currently it consumes around 100 billion cubic metres of gas a year.

Centrica, one of the gas suppliers, has bought huge capacity in the Isle of Grain expansion and it is negotiating with gas producers in north and west Africa and the Middle East.

Plans are also afoot to import gas via subsea pipelines. An existing pipeline connecting Belgium is getting expanded and two pipelines connecting Norway and the Netherlands are under construction.

Britain at one time had gas reserves ranked fourth in the world. The reserves were optimally exploited in the 1970s, but as the reserves fell and the cost of extraction and refining went up, the country, like other industrialised counterparts, has started relying on imports.

Oil experts predict that LNG will cater to 10 percent of global fuel needs by 2020.