£12 bill rise for energy upgrade

17 December 2012 Last updated at 06:49 ETThe energy regulator will permit firms running the UK’s electricity and gas grids to add an average £12 to annual energy bills for the next eight years to pay for upgrades and maintenance.Ofgem said it had cut £7bn from the total cost of work on UK transmission networks planned by energy firms.The biggest of these firms by far – National Grid – said it was...

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Iran media: Son of ex-president released on bail

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media say the son of influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been released on bail.Several papers, including the pro-reform Etemad daily, say Mahdi Hashemi was released late Sunday and immediately went to his father’s home.Authorities arrested the younger Hashemi in late September, a day after he returned to Iran from Britain.He is held on charges of fomenting...

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RIM begins BlackBerry 10 tests with business, government clients

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd said on Monday that it had begun a “beta testing” program that allows 120 companies and government departments to try out its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones before their global launch on January 30.The Canadian company, which is trying to reverse a sharp decline in market share for the BlackBerry, said the program would enable so-called enterprise customers...

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Beck looks for new connection with ‘Song Reader’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Beck Hansen wants you to think about the way music has changed over the last century and what that means about how human beings engage each other these days.Laboring over the intricate and ornate details of his new “Song Reader” sheet music project, he was struck by how social music used to be — something we’ve lost in the age of ear buds.“You watch an old film and see how...

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Pediatricians call to keep thimerosal in vaccines

(Reuters Health) – A mercury-containing preservative rarely used in the United States should not be banned as an ingredient in vaccines, U.S. pediatricians said Monday, in a move that may be controversial.In its statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsed calls from a World Health Organization (WHO) committee that the preservative, thimerosal, should not be considered a hazardous...

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Apple’s Stock Falls, Threatens to Break $500

It seems like only yesterday that Apple’s stock was testing the $ 700 mark. Apple (AAPL) broke through that barrier on Sept. 18 and closed a day later at its high for the year of $ 702.10. Since then, it’s been mostly downhill amid worries about growth in China and renewed tablet competition. Apple took a particularly sharp drop on Friday, falling $ 20, or about 4 percent, as of noon on a gloomy report...

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Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger...

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Leaked BlackBerry Handset Appears to Emulate iPhone’s Design

Photos of RIM’s first handset that will run BlackBerry 10 — the company’s next operating system, which is scheduled for release in early 2013 — landed on a Vietnamese forum this week. If the 18 photos of the device on tinhte.vn are to be believed, the L-Series, codenamed BlackBerry London, looks quite similar to Apple‘s iPhone 5.The BlackBerry-branded device in the photos has a rectangular touchscreen...

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Sundance film “End of Love” finds distributor

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Gravitas Ventures and Variance Films have acquired all North American rights to writer-director Mark Webber‘s drama “The End of Love,” the companies announced on Thursday.The father-son drama, which debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, stars Webber alongside Shannyn Sossamon (pictured), and Webber’s real-life son Isaac Love, and features appearances by Michael...

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Child deaths and bitter cold in Syrian refugee camps

ZAATARI, Jordan (Reuters) – One-year-old Ali Ghazawi, born with a heart defect, faced a battle for survival even before his family fled Syria‘s civil war. It was a struggle he lost two weeks ago in the bitter winter cold of a tented refugee camp in north Jordan.Ali died two days after undergoing a heart operation in Zaatari camp, which houses at least 32,000 refugees who escaped fierce bombardment...

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