The storm which is the first named storm of the 2010 Pacific season caused devastation in Guatemala and neighboring El Salvador at the weekend after dumping more than three feet of rain, officials have reported that Agatha has killed at least 146 people with 53 still missing across Central America.

The sink hole which appeared near a downtown intersection swallowed up an area which was larger than the street of an intersection, locals believe that a poor sewage drainage system was to blame for the sinkhole. It is similar to on which opened up nearby last year and can appear suddenly but are thousands of years in the making, geologists said. As rainwater gradually eats away at the porous rock such as limestone that is beneath the surface it becomes weakened and creates a honeycomb of caverns and caves, these can become packed with mud and it is believed that floodwater may have flushed away that mud, causing the ground above to collapse.

Picture courtesy of horslips5

Superdry specialises in street-style clothing and is aimed at 18-23 year olds and was started by Julian Dunkerton, who started out in the fashion business with a market stall in Cheltenham, the brands Supergroup parent company said today its offer of shares to institutional shareholders had been “heavily oversubscribed”. Considering other companies attempts to float show the strength and determination of the brand and also the fact that Supergroup has no debt which looks better for investors.

The Supergroup float will value the business at £395m and raise £125m, of which more than £100m will go to the group’s owners. Only £15m will be used to fund expansion, with 20 new outlets, including a flagship London store, planned. The company which employs 1,000 staff they opened 17 new stores last year, taking its total to 40 and also has 54 concessions in House of Fraser, where it is one of the department store group’s fastest-selling labels. The popularity is down to the diversity in designer menswear and women swear as well as being favoured by celebrities such as David Beckham and the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

However, the mint said they had no plans to take the coins out of circulation, and they have rapidly become collector’s items in the country. Pedro Urúa the mint’s head franker denied allegations that the spelling error had been a deliberate move and said “I have been accused of having written the word “Chiie’ deliberately, but it was an error spotted by neither myself nor the entire chain of people who saw and approved it afterwards”.

Picture courtesy of ricardo.martin

Alexander Skopintsev who was from the eastern region of Primorye near China’s border was convicted for the unlawful construction and storage of weapons and received a two-and-a-half year suspended sentence, he had laid 3 land mine devices on his land after making them in his garage. “Skopintsev testified that he had prepared the explosive devices to protect his garden against thieves,” regional prosecutors said in a statement reported by RIA-Novosti news agency.

Picture courtesy of net_efekt

There was a misconception, both at the time and currently, that you could win or lose at no cost to you. This is not so because when a person entered into a no win no fee, or conditional fee arrangement, the solicitor acting for them would take on the case if he considered that there was a good likelihood of success, for an agreed fee, usually an aftermarket insurance premium. If they won their claim, the solicitor acting for them earns their fee and usually a success fee (bonus) from the opposing party, typically an insurance company. The winning party should also keep 100% of any compensation sum awarded to them!

The legal system changed after the no win no fee system came into being in 1995 with the end of the legal aid system being available for Personal Injury cases. This stopped the process of having to apply for means tested access to legal help for personal injury claims and it is now at the discretion of your chosen solicitor whether they take your case on a conditional fee arrangement or CFA basis. CFA’s have levelled the playing field regarding access to the compensation and changed the legal system for all, rich and poor!

Until fairly recently, the deaf were the forgotten users of the web. By contrast, great hullabaloos were made over the course of the last decade and a half about the needs of the visually impaired. Browser software began to enact zooming features and on-the-fly text-size alteration, and screen readers such as

If you’re looking for information about ‘accessibility’ for the internet then chances you’ll find that most information is about the needs of those with visual problems – closely followed by those with motor difficulties. As a result, there are a raft of conventions and technologies out there for anyone wishing to make their content accessible to the blind, and almost nothing about the deaf.

At first pass, you could be forgiven for thinking that the internet is actually the perfect medium for deaf people. Largely based on textual communication, there seemed to be little requirement to take into account the needs of the deaf.

But that was the old web. The web of usenet and forums and blogs. The web where the word was king. But today, streaming media has finally become reality. From YouTube to Spotify, Joost to Hulu, content is increasingly being served as audio and video. The attractions are manifest and obvious. We do our best communication face to face, and the nuances of extemporised speech make points in a way that only the best of writers can emulate in text. When Google decided to start answering questions from its users, the format it chose was spoken-to-camera video on their popular Webmasters YouTube channel. And when President Obama called Kanye a ‘jackass’ the story only really went into hyperdrive with the release of the audio which turned dry reportage into something real and immediate.

Suddenly, a new frontier in web accessibility is opening up – and the deaf are on the wrong side of that gulf.

Does the answer lie with the BBC?

Currently, there is very little in the way of provision for the deaf to interact with video content in particular. As video blogging takes off, the problem is only going to get greater. Whilst lip-reading on television or in person might be second nature to many deaf people, the relatively poor resolution of much video content makes it unclear how well this ability will help deaf listeners. And of course in the case where voiceover narration is used to contextualise the imagery, lip-reading will be no use at all.

Now the BBC has announced that it’s own in-house video player – the iPlayer – will be almost fully subtitled by the end of this year, with further improvements mooted for 2010. This includes live streaming content. The aim is ambitious, as the Beeb concede:

“Improved live subtitle synchronisation – live subtitles on iPlayer, at present, are based on those from broadcast TV and we are still working on ensuring that the time-lag between speech and subtitles, which is a limitation of the current live subtitling broadcast process and the current online repurposing process, is reduced as much as reasonably possible to improve the experience of watching live subtitles online”

Now this technology is proprietary and currently only available to UK television license payers who watch BBC TV, but an important watermark has been reached: it is technically feasible to bring video content to deaf people online.

Will this cross over into the mainstream and become an automated service on sites like YouTube? The answer is probably “yes”, but not for a long time. Deciphering audio into text has proven to be a very difficult hurdle for technologists to bridge, although there are plenty of companies developing solutions as we speak.

So while the gulf has finally been acknowledged, and technology is coming up to speed in some ways, but we are a long way from utopia. But with the weight of organisations like the BBC behind it, the solution is tantalisingly close to making a truly accessible web for all.

Speaking about his decision, Sir Alan said that it was a “gut instinct” which made him choose Yasmina over the equally capable Kate. After winning, Yasmina said: “I can’t believe it, I am in shock. All those months ago you first apply to try to get on, and here I am, it’s amazing”.

Talking about Kate, Yasmina added, “I don’t think mine were any better than hers, I just think that’s the kind of guy Sir Alan is, and I’m sure Kate will do just as well as I do but on a different path”.

The final of The Apprentice saw Yasmina and Kate being given the task of marketing a new brand of chocolate, and the previous contestants were brought back to provide assistance.

Yasmina will now work alongside one of Sir Alan Sugar’s companies on a new digital signage project for outdoor advertising.

The job losses are nearly double what DMGT estimated in November, saying that it had been a “difficult quarter” and that they expect a “substantial fall” in profits for the first half of 2009.

The company said that most of the job cuts have already been implemented and that further cost cutting plans were to take effect in all of its departments, including the Daily Mail and Metro offices. The DMGT also stated that it expects its advertising revenue for the first quarter of this year to be down by 24%.

We were all shocked by the sharp fall in interest rates recently to try to combat the global credit crunch and increase borrowing, but this has a direct effect on savers. Retired savers who had planned to use the interest on their savings to subsidise their income from pensions are starting to look for different options.

The top equity release providers are expecting the volume of new business will rise sharply in 2009 expanding the market by £200 million. The value of the equity release market currently stands at £1.2 billion and it is expected to reach £1.7 billion in 2010.

This increase in people being offered equity release schemes by financial advisors does have its pitfalls as there is a general lack of understanding about how equity release mortgages work. Also the schemes tend to be based on rising house prices, but at the moment the property market is in free fall. So to save you and your family a shock in the future, do plenty of research before making the decision on which route to take.