The light explosives detonated at the Swedish furniture chain’s stores in the Belgian city of Ghent, near Lille in northern France and Eindhoven in the Netherlands, on Monday late afternoon without causing damage or injuries.

“We are looking at all possible leads. We don’t know who is behind this, nor why,” the spokeswoman for the Ghent prosecutor’s office, An Schoonjans, said, adding that the store had not received any prior warning.

The Ikea premises in Ghent was evacuated after two small explosions took place almost simultaneously inside the store before closing time. An employee and a security agent complained of ear aches.

The devices were triggered by old mechanical alarm clocks that were attached to the explosives. Similar clocks, which are not sold at Ikea, were used near Lille and Eindhoven, said a Ghent police spokesman.

In Ghent, the clocks were concealed inside milk cartons and placed under pallets on the first floor. A triggering device was linked to the clock which caused a “tiny” quantity of powder to ignite, the police spokesman said.

Some 75 kilometres south, in the Lille suburb of Lomme, the kitchen section of the Ikea store was rattled by two explosions, 15 minutes apart, late in the afternoon, said a source close to the investigation. The explosives were also hidden under pallets.

“They were big fireworks, like those you can get in stores, attached to an alarm clock. Technically, it’s not dangerous. We could imagine the goal was to intimidate, but there’s no clear motive for now,” the source said.

In Eindhoven, the explosive detonated inside a trash can near a temporary entrance to the store. The bomb squad later blew up a suspicious package near the same entrance.

An Ikea spokeswoman in Sweden said the explosions were caused by small fireworks devices. “We had not received any threats against Ikea at all,” Charlotte Lindgren said. Bomb-sniffing dogs searched the three stores, all of which opened on Tuesday morning, she said.

Belgian media recalled that Ikea was recently criticised within the farming and food industries in Belgium because its cafeterias offer cheap meals, including steak with chips for 2.50 euros ($3.40).

Reaching the top of the country’s sacred mountain – an activity that takes an average of about eight hours starting from the end of the roads that go halfway up the mountain’s flanks – has become an increasingly popular challenge for summer visitors to Japan, supplementing the thousands of Japanese who want to make the same pilgrimage each year.

But the number of people climbing Japan’s highest mountain at 3776 meters tall has added new stresses to local infrastructure. These are primarily being felt in increased use of first aid facilities, the construction and maintenance of toilets on the peak and the disposal of rubbish.

These are problems that are far from unique to Mount Fuji as other popular hiking and mountaineering destinations around the world have struggled to cope with rising numbers of visitors, with Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, a good example of the challenges that face those with preserving the local environment.

Between 2000 and 2006, around 200,000 people hiked to the top of Mount Fuji each year during the official climbing season – which opens on July 1 and closes on the last day of August. That figure rose to 350,000 in 2007 and reached 430,000 the following year. And even before the close of the climbing season this year, one route to the top of the mountain reported a record 250,000 people setting out for the peak of the dormant volcano.

The cost of taking care of Mount Fuji’s needs already comes to around Y35 million (€330,000) each year. And that does not include the volunteer work that goes on at the conclusion of each climbing season, with close to 2 tons of plastic bottles and other debris collected last year after the last climber had vacated the mountain.

To help cover the costs of keeping Mount Fuji the most popular peak to climb in Japan, local authorities and the operators of the mountain huts are hoping to introduce a fee for using the Yoshidaguchi trail. A discussion panel will be tasked with deciding on the fee, which will probably be introduced at the outset of next summer’s climbing season.

Oh no come on! Not now! Even never actually…

A rare jewel set to transform the City. With the most prestigious and desirable office space in London. Enhanced by breathtaking views, and a roof terrace offering a dramatic vantage point of St Paul’s Cathedral and the London skyline. And incorporating a retail offering of exceptional range and quality… ONE NEW CHANGE!

Shopping, eating and drinking: One New Change will create a new focus in the heart of the City – an iconic, seven-days-a-week, world-class shopping and leisure destination. There will also be a public open space on the roof housing a café/restaurant, which will open up fantastic new views of neighboring St Paul’s Cathedral and more widely across the capital. With brands including Topshop, H&M, Banana Republic, Reiss, Hugo Boss, Dune, Office, Links of London and Swarovski, there is something for everyone from men’s and women’s fashion to accessories and jewellery. Favourites Nando’s, Sumo, Byron and Zizzi’s are joined by a brand new concept restaurant, Barbecoa, from Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry-Lang – who are also opening a butcher’s shop and a delicatessen.

The Building:  One New Change is a contemporary building with a total of eight floors comprising offices on the top four floors, a public terrace at roof level on the sixth floor, and shops on the Lower Ground, Ground and First Floor. With around 60 stores spanning the three floors, One New Change will be one of the largest shopping centres in central London, rivalling other London shopping hot-spots. A panoramic lift in the middle gives direct access to new and exciting views over St. Paul’s Cathedral dome.

The Architect:  In 2003, Land Securities launched a competition to find a world class architect. For one of London’s most prestigious developments. Someone with the extraordinary brilliance, shining talent and rare vision, to design a landmark that would respect its unique historical setting. To create a building of artistic integrity. They found him in the internationally acclaimed French architect Jean Nouvel. “The design of One New Change is about enriching the City with a new sort of modernity, one that reaches beyond itself to speak, to contemplate and to reveal the diverse character of its surroundings. It is a contemporary building which will set up a dialogue with St Paul’s and the neighboring buildings. The proposed design is calm and deferential to St Paul’s Cathedral and provides a unique opportunity to bring the public into the site.” The modernist building has 6,500 floor-to-ceiling glass panes in varying shades of red, grey and beige, flooding the floors with natural light. 4,300 of which are unique pieces.

History:  One New Change is set to restore Cheapside to its rightful place as one of London’s great commercial thoroughfares. The City mall will play a leading role in the transformation of the City into a seven-day shopping and leisure destination. Whether you work in the City, are a tourist or a Londoner, One New Change is the newest place to relax and shop, away from the hustle and bustle of the West End.

One New Change’s customer base is complicated further by the tourist element, but it couldn’t be better located within the City to capitalise on different shopper bases. It’s a bold call, but after the experience of Victoria, there’s no reason why it can’t draw the crowds in an unconventional location.

http://www.onenewchange.com/

The rapid pace at which technology is evolving continues to raise sociological and ethical questions and no company is pushing the boundaries further than Facebook in that respect. With every modification, every enhancement, comes a new debate on privacy.

If you’re a Facebook account holder then data about you is already being used so that companies can serve you with adverts that are relevant to you – it’s called targeted advertising. Imagine how valuable it would be to advertisers if they could find out – in addition to what they already know – not only which type of places you go to, but the exact stores, supermarkets, bars and restaurants. Companies would pay a high price to get their hands on that information. Step right up Facebook Places – the software that can make an advertiser’s dreams come true.

Last weekend iPhone users will have noticed that there was a Facebook application update available for download. With this upgrade came the new opt-in service from the social giant. It has already launched in the US but the service won’t start working in the UK for another couple of weeks.

If you’re familiar with established geolocation services such as Foursquare or Gowalla, then Places is very similar: your smartphone will display a list of nearby venues for you to pick from and allow you to ‘check in’ to the one you are currently visiting. Your location will then be broadcast to your Facebook friends – and advertisers, of course.

The difference between Places and other location services is that your Facebook friends can check you in to a location. If you don’t want your friends to be able to do this, however, you can disable this feature. If you agree, you will be notified each time a friend checks you in and you’re able to untag your location if you choose, but only after it has already been published on your wall – the same way Facebook serves photo-tagging.

Now, I’m not against all geolocation software; The difference is that on Foursquare, for example, I decide who sees my location and so I only allow four or five of my close friends that access. With Facebook Places that information would, under the default setting, be displayed to all 123 of my ‘friends’ and I’d have to manually select or deselect friends I didn’t want to know my location.

I would only consider roughly 23 people on my friend list to actually be current close friends of mine. The other 100 are all acquaintances, most of whom I went to school with and haven’t seen this decade. Do I want all of these people to know where I am? No, because – and excuse my pessimism – when people know where I am they will also know where I am not, i.e. at home. While I’m sure none of my close friends are looking to rob me blind, how can I be so sure about the people I haven’t seen in the last ten years? Addresses are usually pretty easy to find off the back of information people display on Facebook and this has led to numerous incidents of burglaries in the past.

Granted, while these threats to personal safety are real, they are likely to be rare. But what will affect all of us is the use of our personal data. Big companies are preying upon this new culture of social sharing and openness, which in reality is just another vehicle for them to peddle their latest products. Again, excuse my pessimism.

For sure, Places will be a massive win for Facebook, which already has over 500 million users worldwide, because it means the company can tap into a new type of advertising. By creating a social directory of local businesses, Facebook can turn on another massive revenue stream. We know that ad spending on Facebook is expected to be around £837m in 2010 but Places could boost this significantly as it lets Facebook tap into the market for local advertising.”

What started as a fun way of communicating with other students at a Harvard dorm in 2003 has become one of the largest banks of personal information in the world, whose key business model is making money by using your data. Doesn’t sound so fun any more, does it?

Spread over three separate floors and composed of a blend of original brickwork and shiny glass elevators, the new store features separate chambers for every kind of Apple product, from iPads, Macs, iPods, and iPhones to software and accessories.

There’s also a kids area, with demos of educational software and Macs playing Lego Star Wars to indoctrinate their supple little minds. Customers can take their new products to the ‘Start Up Room’ where Apple experts will help get their new devices up and running before they even take them home. There’s also a Briefing Room to help business clients and a new Pro Labs training program, and of course there’s a great big Genius Bar, the biggest in the world.

To deal with the baying crowds, Apple is employing 300 people to staff the Covent Garden branch and it will also be introducing a new payment system, EasyPayTouch, which can check customers out anywhere in the store with credit card swiping technology connected to employees’ iPod touches. Once again, Apple is amazing! A must be seen store!

The artist’s impression unfortunately fails to excite the imagination of many Londoners who have seen it online, leaving comments such as “It’s a mess”, “bloooming ugly” and “looks like a rollercoaster that’s been in an earthquake”.

The problem is that artists impressions normally manage to make ugly things look ok, but on the other hand anything by Kapoor is unlikely to look ugly in the flesh judging by his impressive list of current achievements.

Standing at 115 metres tall, the Orbit will be slightly taller than Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty, twice the height of Nelson’s Column, just short of the Great Pyramid of Giza and considerably shorter than the structure to which it is being compared – the Eiffel Tower.

As well as the aesthetics, the Stratford Orbit Tower is likely to be controversial for economic reasons. Boris Johnson, London’s current incumbent Mayor has spoken at the launch citing the need to justify all the investment that is being made in East London.

The structure gets its formal name from steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Mittal is the richest man in Europe, and he is the one funding the whole project. He said that this project is an incredible opportunity to build something really spectacular for London, for the Olympic games. This is something that can play a lasting role in the legacy of the games.

Mayor Johnson said that the structure will cost around £19.1 million to build. He went on to note that he is sure that some people are going to think that they are nuts, in the depths of a recession, to build the biggest piece of public art that Britain has ever seen. However, they are certain this is the right thing for Britain, and work has to be started on it right away.

Andrew Thornton, owner of the controversial Budgens, is undeterred, pointing out that selling 10 to 15 squirrels a week is not a massacre. He goes on to suggest that squirrel meat is more sustainable than beef, which requires a tonne of grain to produce a tonne of meat. He is also suggesting that since the furry little beasties are proving a problem – too many of them, they’ve chased off red squirrels, they steal from bird feeders and are nuisances in homes – we may as well eat them instead of culling and destroying them. There’s also profit to be made, which he does not mention in the same quote.

It’s important to add here that the squirrels for eating are not the feisty attention seekers posing for photos and snacks in St James Park or streaking across four lanes of traffic in central London. Thornton purchases squirrel meat from a game supplier in Suffolk. His branch of Budgens is the only one in London to stock squirrel meat – don’t all rush at once to either purchase or protest: it’s been out of stock for weeks because the suppliers are focusing on stocking other game products.

I am not going to rush out and buy one but if I come across it on a menu will maybe try it. Will you?…