• Fugitive tycoon returns to UK after 17 years• Q&A;: Asil Nadir trial• How Polly Peck collapsed• Profile: Asil NadirAsil Nadir, the fugitive business tycoon, has failed in his bid for a speedy trial after a judge said he must wait until October 2011 before he can contest charges of fraud resulting from the collapse of his Polly Peck empire.Nadir, 69, also failed in his bid to limit his curfew and avoid electronic tagging while he stays in London waiting for the trial.The judge at a hearing at the Old Bailey said Nadir must be treated like any other defendant in a serious criminal trial and be home by midnight and monitored to prevent him leaving before 6am.Nadir looked relaxed in the dock at the Old Bailey after he arrived in a convoy of Mercedes and Jaguar cars outside the...

The survey, which includes businesses from hairdressers to banks, showed the service sector growing at the slowest pace since April 2009Growth in Britain's service industry has slowed sharply as employers have scaled back hiring in the face of the gloomy economic outlook and looming public spending cuts.A key survey of the sector, which includes businesses from hairdressers to banks and makes up two-thirds of the economy, showed it growing at the slowest pace since April 2009 and revived talk of a double dip recesssion. "Should the surveys continue to weaken in the next few months, the threat of a renewed contraction [in GDP] in the fourth quarter and beyond would become very real indeed," said Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics.Alan Clarke at BNP Paribas concurred, saying the report...

• Fugitive tycoon returns to UK after 17 years• Q&A;: Asil Nadir trial• Profile: Asil NadirFugitive tycoon Asil Nadir will appear in court today for the first time since fleeing Britain 17 years ago, during which a provisional trial date may be fixed and his bail renewed during a brief hearing at the Old Bailey.Nadir was given bail in his absence on 30 July on condition he returns to the UK and attends court today.Old Bailey judge Mr Justice Bean said he hoped it would end the "legal limbo" which existed since Nadir fled Britain for Northern Cyprus.He also quashed an arrest warrant for him and imposed 10 conditions on bail, including Nadir, 69, being electronically tagged.Nadir was facing 66 counts of theft involving £34m fraud allegations in May 1993 when he flew from Britain to...

Vice magazine have put together a great short film with Alex Rigopulos on how he came to come up with guitar hero. It’s actually been a 15-year odyssey to make music creation accessible to plebs like me. More at VBS.tv...

Ever want a compelling reasoned argument for those we meet who'd rather "young people learnt how to play outdoors in the sun and get away from all this technology"? John Connell vents some mild frustration at the Luddite brigade who proclaim that all this technology is good and well, but…: "Call me a grumpy old man, but I want my students to engage with ‘old’ technology – books, journals, articles, conference proceedings. face-to-face discussions in real time, learning to think on their feet…too often ‘new’ technologies get reduced to gimmicks and Wikipedia – I want students who can operate the tool between their ears (another piece of pretty old technology)…" The eloquence of Stephen Fry in this BBC Virtual Revolution rush, above, provides some common sense...

David and Ed Miliband distance themselves from former PM's statement of support for coalition's deficit strategyCandidates for the Labour leadership moved tonight to limit the impact of politically explosive remarks in Tony Blair's memoirs in which he backed the economic strategy of the Conservative-led coalition government.Blair shook the party with his backing of David Cameron and George Osborne's economic strategy to cut the financial deficit. Blair also backed the government's decision to raise VAT, which Gordon Brown vehemently warned against throughout the election campaign."If governments don't tackle deficits, the bill is footed by taxpayers, who fear that big deficits mean big taxes, both of which reduce confidence, investment and purchasing power," Blair wrote, in sharp...

Severe weather forces campaigners to give up their perilous position on British-owned rig off the coast of Greenland• Greenpeace 'shuts down' Arctic oil rigFour Greenpeace activists who halted drilling by a British-owned oil exploration rig off Greenland have been arrested after they abandoned their occupation because of severe weather.Greenlandic police arrested the four after high winds buffeted the Stena Don drilling rig overnight, forcing them to abandon mountaineering-style platforms they had suspended by ropes underneath the platform less than 48 hours earlier.Morten Nielsen, deputy head of Greenland police, said the four men were rescued between 8pm and midnight local time last night using baskets and ropes lowered from the Stena Don's deck after severe winds and waves up to 6m...

The Unite union reckons that since 2009, Royal Bank of Scotland's strategic review has seen the loss of 21,500 jobsRBS is axing 3,500 of its UK staff in a cost-cutting move which union leaders have attacked as a "horror story".The cuts, which include back office roles being axed as a result of the sale of 318 branches to Santander, comes after the state-controlled bank announced £1.1bn profits last month."The news that Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut another 3,500 staff from across the UK is a horror story," said Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer. "It will be a specially bitter pill for staff to swallow as RBS has decided to move some of the jobs abroad to the far east, India and America."Just three weeks ago staff were boosted to hear of the £1.1bn half-year profit yet today...

Federal Reserve chairman appears before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington• Lehman boss Dick Fuld was defiant in the hotseat yesterday2.41pm: There are 4 or 5 countries which are the most important that the US has to work with on solving the problem of 'too big to fail' banks, Bernanke says. Presumably (hopefully) that includes the UK. "There a lot of work to be done and I think we have a way to go" but there's plenty of co-operation and goodwill from international partners.2.38pm: So what's changed? Well, nowadays, Bernanke says, firms will have "living wills" giving instructions on how to wind them down.But a key problem, he says, is the international dimension - one bank supervised by the Fed has offices in 109 countries, each with its own bankruptcy rules and...

I stumbled across this report at TechCrunch about inDinero in a C round where it hopes to raise $1 million. That’s pretty good for a new vendor in the apps space but reflects the interest in SaaS/cloud apps that are aimed at the very small business (VSB.) Founder Jessica Mah traces here entrepreneurship back 7 years to age 13. No – that’s not a typo or a joke. This is one seriously smart person. If you know anything about Mint then inDinero’s idea will sound familiar. Here’s the pitch: Unlike accounting software, we’re tailored to the small business owner. Imagine your financial counselor telling you exactly what you need to know, and without the use of complicated accounting vocabularly. I can see a lot of very small businesses using a...

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair - Author of The Journey Related Posts:Before and after the SpeakerMPs expenses cartoon – official versionLet’s go global summitsPresident of the Council BlairChannel 4 newsPowered by Contextual Related...

Calls for main egg producers to be better regulated after two firms at centre of scare revealed to have breached basic hygieneUS politicians are coming under pressure to increase regulation of the country's largest egg producers after a federal inspection of two companies at the centre of a salmonella scare revealed breaches of basic hygiene.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspections of Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, both in Iowa, found piles of chicken manure up to 2.5 metres (8ft) high beneath the hens' cages. Employees crushed flies underfoot and live and dead maggots were seen in a manure pit.At Wright County pigeons roosted in an air vent and wild birds flew in and out of the chicken house. Mice were observed at both farms, as were chickens which had escaped their...

Earlier today I learned that ClearBooks had ‘unexpected downtime.’ Whenever you see that phrase you should substitute: ‘total cock up.’ To its credit, ClearBooks tried to communicate the issue on GetSatisfaction but in doing so exposed fundamental weaknesses of which buyers should be aware. From the GS trail: We are currently experiencing a problem with our database server. Downtime is currently unforseeable and could be for several hours. Unfortunately, this has caught us out with only one system admin on site. Two system admins were typically on the road for a meeting this morning and are now retracing their steps fast to assist and get this issue resolved. We had two local powercuts last night in our datacentre which is located in Aldershot,...

Kevin...

Bosses to be quizzed over safety failures that led to 33 miners being trapped, as engineers begin drilling rescue shaftThe owners of Chile's San Esteban mining company faced questions yesterday from a government committee about safety failures which led to the accident that has trapped 33 miners underground.Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny have so far failed to explain why the mine was reopened after an earlier accident on 11 July, when a rock fall severed the leg of one miner, Gino Cortés.Speaking of those presently underground, Bohn said yesterday: "The pain caused by this unwanted, unforeseen situation warrants we ask they forgive us for the anxiety they have suffered these days. It has been a terrible situation and we hope it ends very soon."Following July's accident the San José...

Last year's pay packet was the media mogul's smallest since 2003 owing to a smaller performance-related bonus While Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers laid off journalists and fought their way through a global advertising recession, the Australian-born media mogul endured a modest degree of personal belt-tightening – his take-home pay dropped by 6% to $16.8m, or £10.9m.Although still a hefty sum, Murdoch's annual pay packet was his smallest since 2003. The 79-year-old billionaire's salary was unchanged at $8.1m, but his performance-related bonus fell 20% to $4.4m. He got stock and share options worth $4.05m and he enjoyed $275,117 worth of personal use of a corporate jet.The figures were revealed in documents filed with US regulators yesterday by News Corporation, the parent company...

Kuupik Kleist claims environmental campaigners are damaging country's economy by occupy drilling platformThe prime minister of Greenland has accused Greenpeace of threatening the safety of oil workers and the environment after four activists forced a controversial deep-sea exploration rig in the Arctic to shut down today.Just before dawn, the four campaigners used three high-speed inflatable boats to evade the Danish navy before clambering on to the British-owned rig and slinging mountaineering-type platforms beneath it about 15 metres above the sea. The raid forced the Edinburgh-based oil exploration firm Cairn Energy to suspend drilling, escalating tensions between the Greenlandic government and Greenpeace.Kuupik Kleist, the government's socialist prime minister, denounced the...

Check out the video below that has Sara Allison from Underbelly talking to Rob Miles, Lecturer at Hull University, about actually coding for fun (!?) and how easy making games for the Xbox using XNA is. Colin Bird, Director of RippleRock tells everyone that the water’s not that cold once you’re in – advice about starting your own business and sailing. All this happened on day 2 of UK Tech Days. Tweet This! Share this on Facebook Post this to MySpace Share this on Reddit Digg this! Share this on del.icio.us Post on Google Buzz Share this on Technorati Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon Related posts:iTunes Freebies! 12 Days of Christmas LEGO Mini...

Frank Miller of 300 and Sin City fame has produced a commercial for Gucci. This will feature on MTV on September 12. It is fantastic to watch, but it also a point of convergence between high fashion and geek culture. This has been going on for a while with people like hackette and fashion model Anina who pioneered lifestreaming. Hat-tip to PSFK....

An often heard remark is that Governments need to take action to stop climate change – by reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions nationally, and agreeing a new international treaty. This is very true – but to properly tackle climate change we need a co-ordinated effort across society, including business, civil society and  individuals. This was brought home at an event organised by my colleague Shobana Kesava in Singapore recently. Working with WWF Singapore, the discussion looked at “Carbon Reduction and Corporate Sustainability”. After outlining the new British Government’s approach to the issue (including the commitment to reduce Government emissions by 10% over the next year), the local context was set by screening the film High Stakes, which shows how climate change is...

31-tonne drill bores 50 feet into rock as rescue mission to save 33 trapped miners beginsDrilling began on Monday to rescue the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground, as it emerged that they have spoken for the first time to family members waiting for them on the surface.A 31-tonne drill bored 50 feet into the rock, the first step in the week-long drilling of a "pilot hole" to guide the way for the rescue. Later, the drill will be fitted with larger bits to widen the bore and eventually pull the men through, a process that could take three to four months.The trapped men were able to speak briefly to family members over the phone late yesterdayon Sunday, giving a measure of reassurance to those above as to their ability and resolve to survive until the rescue operation can get them...

The story of Silicon Valley, that I have helped to perpetuate in my career as a PR professional. Dare I say it there is even a ‘start-up’ monomyth. Bright young things work really hard developing cool | amazing inventions in a spare room | garage. Their ideas inspire rich people or organisations to fund them and they become financially successful. The world is enriched by their innovation. The truth of course is somewhat postmodern in comparison, but that wouldn’t have paid my bills. There are a number of histories of Silicon Valley, some include the beat and counterculture generations of the 1960s, others include square-jawed engineers who would look right at home on the set of Mad Men. This video of a talk at Google highlights the role of the military industrial...

I’ve known for some time that Kashflow is refactoring its user interface. Both Duane Jackson, CEO Kashflow and I agree that in its current iteration it is out of date and by making changes, he hopes this will encourage more people to come on board. User interfaces are always the subject of much angst among developers and can easily upset customers. UI is also subjective: what’s good for one isn’t necessarily good for another. The trick comes in striking a balance that most customers will accept and which continues to get the job done in as few clicks as possible. Over the weekend Duane sent me some representative screen shots to give an idea where they’re going. The main changes are to the positioning and style of navigation areas: In this...

Merkel leads calls for Thilo Sarrazin to be sacked over remarks about migrants being 'unfit or unwilling to integrated' into societyThe German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has called for the dismissal from the central bank of a prominent board member who has repeatedly said that Muslim immigrants in Germany are unfit and unwilling to integrate into society.The Bundesbank said that comments made by Thilo Sarrazin in a highly publicised new book were harmful to the bank and violated its code of conduct. It said it would meet with the banker before deciding about his future.Sarrazin has unleashed an impassioned debate about Germany's immigrant population by saying that the behaviour of its members is putting the country under threat.His thesis, set out in a book published today , has stoked...

More than 20,000 American mortgagees to hit Palm Beach as Naca's five-day mortgage modification marathon gets under wayIn the pre-dawn darkness of a steamy night of sub-tropical rain, a queue of anxious, soggy people snakes around the palm trees outside a cavernous Florida convention centre. Some have erected camp beds or makeshift tents. All clutch sheaves of mortgage documents.Welcome to America's biggest jamboree of delinquent borrowers. For five days, the Neighbourhood Assistance Corporation of America (Naca), a not-for-profit organisation, is working round the clock to help homeowners hang on to their houses. More than 12,000 people have signed up in advance and more than 20,000 are expected to turn up, travelling from as far afield as California, Georgia and Maryland."It's either...

Acceptance of inequality rests on assumptions that 'free markets' make us all richer in the end. Growth figures tell it differentlyAs Nick Clegg fends off accusations of selling out and Labour leadership candidates set out their stall, debates about inequality show no sign of going away. But the moral arguments are rarely extended far enough, and virtually no politician challenges a basic, erroneous premise that inequality is a price worth paying for a more efficient market system that enriches us all.The simplistic, free-market view of the Thatcher-Major era said equality of opportunity is all we need for a fair society. If no one had their market participation blocked, the result, however unfair it may look to some, should be accepted as fair. Today many people, both on the left and the...

Ross Mayfield, co-founder SocialText pointed me to a case study of Hayes Knight, an ST customer that in my view ‘gets’ the connections between socializing tools and CRM as applied to professional services firms. Progress at last. I’ve only been saying that firms need to grasp this way of working for the last five years. Frustrating at times.. (sic) As background, Hayes Knight is a group of independent accounting firms in Australia bound under the same name operating out of nine Australian states with 42 directors and more than 300 staff. From the case study: Hayes Knight’s knowledge management company, Knowledge Shop, provides a web-based member service subscribed to by 500 accounting firms and the thousands of accountants who work for them. It serves...

• British Airways refuses to give cabin crew back travel concessions• Unite union to meet BA again but says strike is an optionThe Unite trade union is hoping to meet British Airways for further peace talks next week after accusing the airline of turning down its latest attempt to end a long-running industrial dispute with cabin crew.Unite's joint general secretary, Tony Woodley, wrote to 11,000 BA flight attendants after the carrier told staff that it was "focused" on trying to resolve the dispute in talks hosted by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service.One of the biggest barriers to a resolution is the airline's refusal to fully reinstate travel perks stripped from thousands of cabin crew who joined 22 days of walkouts this year. BA in turn claims that union...

33 men entombed in collapsed San Jose mine are given just 30 seconds each to speak to their wives, children and parentsThe 33 Chilean miners trapped deep underground have spoken for the first time to family members waiting for them on the surface.The brief phone conversations late yesterday brought a measure of reassurance to families who have grown increasingly worried about the ability of the men to survive the estimated three months of the rescue operation.Engineers at the mine in Chile's Atacama desert are awaiting for drilling parts from Germany to begin the initial digging of what is expected to be the main rescue shaft."The families have had the chance to communicate by telephone with them, so of course there have been moments of great emotion," said Ximena Matas, the governor of...

• Apple earned $410m from 5bn apps downloads in two years• IFPI reports 2009 CD sales fell by 12.7% losing £1bn in value The invitation to Apple's event on Wednesday at the Yerba Buena centre in San Francisco shows an acoustic guitar, with a soundhole in the shape of the Apple logo. Seasoned watchers of the company know that this is the time of year when the iPod gets a refresh, yet there's a shadow over the digital music player that turned Apple from an also-ran computer company into a force in the technology world.The latest sales figures for the quarter to June showed 9m sold – the lowest quarterly number since 2006. In short, the iPod, launched in October 2001, looks to be in terminal decline. While Apple is unworried – sales of its iPhone and iPad are booming – the...