Britain’s biggest supplier Centrica has warned that household energy bills for the year will soar by an unprecedented 15 percent. Its flagship company British Gas has added that there would be a further increase in the bills in the face of escalating gas and electricity costs.

Centrica said in a statement that higher wholesale costs meant it was necessary “for further increases in retail energy tariffs, as has also been signaled by other suppliers.” British Gas could face further depletion in its customer base if the price rise goes through; it has already lost 445,000 since the start of the year.

British Gas managing director Mark Clare said, “All suppliers are facing declining UK gas reserves, high oil prices and the lack of access to European pipelines to get new gas supplies to the market. In the long term, the better news is the investments British Gas is making to secure future energy supplies should help put downward pressure on prices which in turn would benefit consumers.”

Centrica said that wholesale gas prices this year were expected to be 51 percent higher as compared to last year. Consumer group Energywatch warned that these increases would adversely affect Britain’s poorest households, “There comes a point where customers can’t bear any more. Any price rise will have a terrible impact on low earners and vulnerable people. It may be time for companies to think about social tariffs and ways of helping the vulnerable,” it said.

Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents companies that use large amounts of energy, said, “This puts manufacturers in an awful position. If they are able to pass the costs on to consumers they will, but manufacturing firms are often competing in international markets and can’t, and so it harms their profits.”

Shona Robison, the SNP shadow health minister, said, “It is very unfair of British Gas, who make such massive profits, to pass this increase on to customers, particularly those on low and fixed incomes. It will increase poverty among groups like the elderly, many of whom are trying to get by on their pensions. I also dread to think how it will affect the health and well-being of those with babies and young children who have so many other calls on their resources.”

Microsoft’s next generation operating system, Longhorn will have features to help PC users subscribe to sites that use the Really Simple Syndication protocol. Microsoft will be announcing this at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle this morning.

Commenting on this move, Windows Group product manager Megan Kidd said, “We believe RSS is the key to how people will use the Internet moving forward. We made a commitment to it, delivering support for RSS in Longhorn that’s integrated throughout the operating system.” Microsoft also said that the RSS capability would be integrated into the OS making it easier for software developers to work on their applications.

Microsoft has also announced the IE 7 will have features that will enable users to be aware of website updates. The IE 7 will display an orange button on the toolbar, which will light up whenever a RSS feed is posted on the site.

Disclosing this Dean Hachomovitch, general manager of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team, said, “We are making sure that throughout Windows the experiences for users are easy. We want RSS everywhere. I want it in more than just the browser and aggregators. We want to help RSS get even bigger and better than today.”

Microsoft also said that it was working on an extension of the RSS feeds called the Simple List Extensions. These would be made available through the Creative Commons license, thereby allowing other developers to incorporate them into their services and software products.

Mr. Hachamovitch said that Microsoft was really excited about the potential of RSS feeds, “Feeds are everywhere. We are not done with search. There are still a lot of people doing great innovative stuff with search. But there is this other thing called ‘subscribe’. It is not just a feature, it is a new approach. When I subscribe I can say what is interesting to me, the machine can do the work, and I can enjoy the fruits of its labour. It affects your web consumption habits. We believe in ‘subscribe’ very deeply. There is a lot of power and richness there,” he commented.

Longhorn is expected to debut only in December 2006, but Microsoft plans to release a beta at its Professional Developers Conference in September. Gary Schare, Windows product-management director, emphasized that Microsoft would incorporate the RSS features into the beta as well, “We’re making a really big RSS investment in Longhorn. We think RSS will work better than past push technology,” he commented.

The Big Recycle campaign has been launched across the UK in a bid to tackle the landfill crisis. The government is trying to induce more people to adopt recycling as a way of life as it seeks to control the ever-growing waste mountain.

New figures have shown that at least 60 percent of all household rubbish is recyclable. Anna Richards, manager of Waste Awareness Wales says, “At the moment, we’re throwing away about 80% of our rubbish. Why we don’t recycle is a big question. It’s certainly the case that other countries in Europe recycle more than us. Recycling is actually very easy. More and more, we’re seeing kerbside collections and, if you haven’t got that, just put it in the car and drop before you shop – take it to the supermarket and use the recycling bins there. Everyone can take part in a smaller way and it will make a huge difference.”

Launching the Big Recycle campaign this week, Environment minister Ben Bradshaw said that the UK would be able to meet the target of recycling 25 percent of waste next year, but cautioned that there was a lot of work to be done yet, “We need to continue expanding our recycling infrastructure, and encouraging all households and businesses to play their part. Awareness-raising campaigns such as the Big Recycle have an important role in shifting public attitudes. Councils have improved incredibly and so have we as a country. We have more than doubled since ’97, we will have trebled by next year the amount we recycle – it’s still not nearly enough, we need to do more. We are still lagging a heck of a long way behind the rest of Europe,” he said.

Last year was a good for the UK as far as recycling was concerned. A study by Valpak’s Pack flow project says that UK households recycled around a third of all their packaging in 2004; which means approximately 3.5 billion glass bottles and jars, 1 billion plastic bottles, 2 billion aluminum cans and 2.5 billion steel cans were recycled. Commenting on the findings of the study, Mr. Bradshaw said, “I welcome this new study which show that households and businesses are recycling more than ever before, which is excellent news. There is no doubt that it is becoming easier to recycle in the UK, and that people are becoming increasingly keen to do so.”

But environmental organizations have warned that a huge amount of work still needs to be done to meet the target of recycling 30 percent of waste by 2010, Martin Williams, of Friends of the Earth, said, “Local councils have done well to meet targets the government has set but those targets haven’t been ambitious by international standards.”

The Big Recycle campaign is organized by the Waste and Resources Action Programme and UK recycling organizations British Glass, Corus, Novelis, Paperchain, Recoup and Valpak.

A joint report by the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission says that the National Health Service is reeling under huge debts due to financial mismanagement.

The report says that almost one in five NHS bodies were mired in debts in 2003-4. On the whole, the NHS has run up a deficit of almost 140 million pounds last year. This state of affairs prevails despite record government investment in the health sector.

Commenting on the state that the NHS is in, James Strachan, Chairman of the Audit Commission said, “Financial management is now a matter of major concern for the NHS. The Department’s welcome policy of greater transparency on financial matters means that many of the old practices, which obscured the year-end financial position, are no longer possible. We can now see where the real financial problems lie which is the first important step on the way to addressing them. Important reforms like Payment by Results and the new financial regime for NHS Foundation Trusts are also increasing the risks and demand first class financial management.”

The report also found that more than 100 NHS bodies were in the red with 16 of them reporting a deficit of more than £5 million. NAO head Sir John Bourn said, “2003-04 was a relatively stable year in terms of challenges facing NHS financial management but, even so, a number of bodies clearly found it difficult to manage their resources effectively. The major developments taking place in 2004-05 and beyond will pose unprecedented challenges with which all bodies in the NHS will have to deal.”

The pressure on the NHS was immense in the light of the new reforms regime, the report said. Mr. Strachan added, “All NHS bodies need to reassess their own financial management arrangements in the light of this report. We will help in that process. For the first time our auditors will now score PCT and NHS Trust financial management arrangements and show clearly what needs to be done to secure improvement.”

Responding to these findings, the Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said, “The problem that I think we have got in parts of the NHS is that they are not particularly efficient. I think that what will happen is that individual hospital departments, if they are not able to deliver the quality of care that patients want and to balance their books, they will find themselves replaced by other hospitals who are doing better for that particular procedure.”

Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley lashed out at the government by saying, “The Government claims to be spending record amounts on the NHS but the money is not getting through to services. Extra costs, bureaucracy and waste are eating up the additional resources while deficits affecting the frontline are causing cuts to patient services.”

The report has also outlined four themes for improving the financial management at the NHS;
* The role of the board in improving financial management;
* Improving forecasting of the year-end position;
* Earlier production and audit of the annual accounts;
* Increasing the transparency of financial reporting.

For the detailed report, please visit www.nao.org.uk and www.audit-commission.gov.uk

LONDON: Congo became the world’s only chimpanzee to have his paintings sold at an auction when three paintings by the ape fetched more than £14,000. The Bonhams auction house witnessed wild scenes as the paintings by the chimp sold for more than 20 times their estimate.

At the auction, household names in the art world like Andy Warhol, Jake and Dinos Chapman and other contemporary artists took a backseat as the three abstract paintings created by Congo in 1957 got tangled in a bidding war.

Howard Hong, a Californian telecommunications consultant, who ended up winning the paintings, said, “Many people have said to me, ‘There is a cheaper solution. Buy a chimpanzee and put it in a room with some paper and paint’,” he said. “But on a purely artistic level, when I saw the paintings they struck me. (The style) looks like an early Kandinsky. My only upset is that Congo never titled his paintings. It is said that what makes us human is our ability to conceive of abstract concepts. This totally contradicts that theory.” He added that he was prepared to bid double the eventual amount for the paintings. He even labeled Congo as “the ultimate chimp of the art world”.

A Bonham’s spokesman said, “It was quite an historic moment and it was fantastically exciting. People seem to see these paintings as the truest form of creativity.” Howard Rutkowski, Bonhams’s director of impressionist and modern art, said, “It is not just any chimp — it is Congo. If you own a Congo you are in the company of Picasso and Miró. Desmond Morris traded Congo’s paintings with those artists. Perhaps Miró’s Congo is worth more than Morris’s Miró.”

Congo has created more than 400 drawings under the guidance of Desmond Morris, the zoologist and anthropologist. Morris even presented Congo as the star of Zootime, an animal programme presented from London Zoo. He became famous when the Institute of Contemporary Arts mounted a large exhibition of his work in 1957.

Morris has recorded a statement saying, “It was truly art for art’s sake. Congo became increasingly obsessed with his regular painting sessions. If I tried to stop him before he had finished a painting, he would have a screaming fit. And if I tried to persuade him to go on painting after he considered that he had finished a picture, he would stubbornly refuse.”

The champion chimp died of tuberculosis in 1964. He was 10.

A study conducted by web testing firm SciVisum has found that one in ten websites fail to provide access to non Internet Explorer browsers such as Firefox, thereby incurring customer and revenue losses.

SciVisum examined 100 of the leading consumer websites in the UK and found that around 3 percent of the sites did not have Firefox compatibility, while seven per cent of the sites included non-standard code that was recognized only by Internet Explorer.

Commenting on these findings, Deri Jones, CEO of SciVisum said, “When webmasters design first for Internet Explorer and not standards-compliant browsers, they so often end up restricting user access to the website which has detrimental affects for a company. Surprisingly, after all these years, users of standards-compliant browsers are still faced with sites that do not support their browser or with a link suggesting they download Internet Explorer, a browser they had presumably chosen not to use.”

The firm said that the sites, which turned away non-IE browsers, included:

Bssuk.co.uk
Mansell.plc.uk
Companieshouse.gov.uk
Bat.com
Odeon.co.uk
Jobcentreplus.gov.uk,
Flybmi.com/cargo

(Non definitive list)

Firefox is an open browser that has gained a sizeable user base in the last six months. US-based analysts NetApplications say that the browsers’ market share has gone upto 8 percent in May. This is as compared to 5.59 percent at the beginning of the year. Microsoft IE’s continued to rule the market with a share of 87.23 percent in May. “There is a certain business logic to this as IE is the most widely used browser,”

Mr. Jones said, but added that companies who valued their brands needed to address browser issues immediately. “Over time developers have begun to misuse the original standards created for the web to create websites that look great to you and I, but are confusing to a disabled person using a screen reader which needs to make sense of the content,” he alleged.

SciVisum has advised web developers to develop code only around the CSS2 web standard, the official Cascading Style Sheets 2 specification, presented by the World Wide Web Consortium.

“Companies who value their brand need to address browser issues immediately. This means ensuring all international standards such as CSS2, which is intended to help web developers separate content from presentation and to make sites more accessible to those with disabilities, are adhered to,” Jones concluded.

Browser Alternatives:

www.getfirefox.com
www.mozilla.org
www.opera.com
www.apple.com/safari/
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/
browser.netscape.com
www.avantbrowser.com
www.neoplanet.com
beta.aol.com/projects/aolexplorer/
www.aol.co.uk

LONDON: Jardine Strategic Holdings Ltd, the Hong Kong-based holding company within the Jardine Matheson Group, is acquiring a 20 per cent stake in Rothschilds Continuation Holdings AG for $185 million from British insurance company Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Plc.

Rothschilds Continuation Holdings is the parent company of N M Rothschild & Sons Ltd and a major holding company within commercial and private banking concern Rothschild Group. Based in Zug, Switzerland, it is closely-held. Jardine Strategic will be the only non-Rothschild shareholder in the company.

The Rothschild group has offices in more than 30 countries and is involved in treasury, investment banking, fund management, private banking and trust management services. The group said it will book a $110 million gain from the sale.

Royal & Sun Alliance has also sold its remaining 1.5 per cent holding in Rothschilds Continuation Holdings to an employee share trust of the group. The divestment enables Royal & Sun Alliance to focus on its core insurance business. It has already raised funds in the past two years through a rights issue and debt as well as through disposals.

Jardine Strategic said it is investing in Rothschild for “the long-term” and plans to help the group grow in Asia through its “knowledge and network of relationships” in the region. The transaction has to await regulatory approval.

“Jardine Strategic’s investment in RCH is in line with its policy of taking significant stakes in multinational businesses, and supporting their development,” the company said in a statement filed with the Singapore Stock Exchange, where it is listed.

Jardine Matheson group is an investment company controlled by Scotland’s Keswick family. It had its origins in the 1830s, when founders William Jardine and James Matheson invested their substantial returns from opium trade in China. The company’s legacy is linked to the historic annexation and subsequent control of Hong Kong by Britain.

ONDON: Britain’s biggest electrical goods retailer Dixons Group Plc is expected see major restructuring including a name change. While reporting full year profits that were in line with expectations of analysts, the company also announced that it was being forced to cut costs up to £30 million.

UK consumers know the group also as Curry’s, The Link and PC World. In continental Europe, the company trades as UniEurope, Elkjop and PC City. The group is finding its UK operations getting increasingly tough what with the current slowdown in consumer spending.

Fortunately for the group however, its non-UK operations were contributing consistently growing proportion of sales and profits. Its chain of Dixon stores contributes barely 10 percent to the group’s overall sales. Group sales at £6.98 billion were 8 percent higher than previous year. Same-store sales rose 2 percent. (Overall same-store sales had actually declined 1 percent in the second half.) Turnover from its UK businesses showed a 3 percent growth at £4.82 billion. Pretax profit declined 8 percent to 336.8 million pounds, almost matching analysts’ forecast.

Chief executive John Clare said the group took the decision to cut costs because they feared a prolonged slowdown in consumer spending in the UK. Additionally, they were facing an increasingly challenging environment in their main markets which included Italy, because of which “the outlook for the year ahead is uncertain.” he said. Overall growth rate too is certainly slowing down for the group.

Clare also said the group would assume the name DSG International Plc in order to reflect its increasing international presence. Cost cutting would involve overhauling distribution network and outsourcing IT operations.

The Dixons chief admitted that there would be job losses as a result of the restructuring and cost cutting, but these, he said, would not be significant as “We’re still opening new stores and will be a net employer of people this year.”

The group is currently market leader in the UK, accounting for over £1 in every £5 being spent on purchase of electrical goods in Britain.

NEW YORK: Major credit card issuers are still assessing the extent of damage caused by a security breach at a processing firm announced by MasterCard last Friday. They are still not sure which customer accounts have been intruded into and are waiting for details from MasterCard and Visa on the possible targeted accounts.

The breach, according to the card issuers, affected about 20 million Visa holders, 14 million MasterCard holders and 6 million holders of American Express and other card brands.

MasterCard said it suspects data from roughly 200,000 accounts have been stolen in the incident. Card issuers like Citigroup, J. P. Morgan Chase and MBNA are monitoring their respective accounts.

The security breach had occurred in May at CardSystems Solutions, an Atlanta-based company that processes credit card payments for small and medium-sized merchant firms.

The firm said it does not know how its system was hacked or whether the intrusion took place from inside or outside the company. The breach was detected at its Tucson, Arizona, processing center.

John Perry, CardSystems’ chief executive officer when asked about cause, culprit and how simply said: “We don’t know. This is very early in the investigation.”

CardSystems processes payments for more than 105,000 businesses. It handled more than $15 billion in transactions for MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express last year.

The firm admitted it had stored information on thousands of cardholders — their names, account numbers and security codes — violating rules of MasterCard and Visa, for “purposes of research”. The idea was to assess why certain transactions were never authorized or completed.

Perry said account numbers, names and expiration dates were stored in an “exception file.” The file contained accounts with transactions unable to be processed.

However, the file did not contain information used in identity theft, such as Social Security numbers or birth dates, a MasterCard spokesperson said.

Both Visa and MasterCard have started giving lists of their affected accounts.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group advised credit card holders to wait for notices from their respective banks. The Group’s consumer program director, Edmund Mierzwinski, said, “In the interim, if consumers have the ability to check credit and checking accounts online they should do that and if not, they should open and review their statements very carefully the next couple of months.”

MasterCard clarified that it “does not allow processors that are in violation of our rules to process transactions”. The company said it detected rule violations by CardSystems only when it began investigating this spring.

Visa had carried out a security audit of CardSystems in December 2003 and certified that the firm has been complying with the security regulations. It had not found any breaches until mid-May.

A spokesperson for Visa said, “When we investigated, that’s when we knew they were storing the data, and that’s when they fell out of compliance.”

As per service conditions, Visa could levy a fine up to $500,000 on the firm. Visa has nearly 150 such service providers around the globe, all of which follow the strict security audits. It said it is planning to review the security audits from retailers and other businesses that accept its cards.

Meanwhile, major banks in the U.S. and elsewhere are asking Visa and Mastercard holders who may have used their cards in the United States or online in the past six months to check their statements.