Norway has more millionaires, measured in US dollars, than any other country in the world in terms of its size. No other country has more dollar-millionaires per capita than Norway, Roger Gullqvist of Paris-based consulting firm CapGemini told newspaper Finansavisen. A new study compiled by CapGemini and Merrill Lynch showed that one out of every 86 Norwegians has more than USD 1 million (about NOK 5.8 million at current exchange rates) in net worth even when the net value of their primary residences is excluded. ‘When viewed in relation to the size of the population (around 4.6 million in Norway), there’s no other country that matches that level,’ Gullqvist said. Norway also has the largest number of dollar-millionaires of all the Nordic countries, which includes the three Scandinavian countries of Norway, Denmark and Sweden plus Finland and Iceland. The report counted a total of 54,810 dollar-millionaires in Norway, nearly 6,500 more than in Sweden even though Sweden’s total population is nearly double that of Norway’s. The number of dollar-millionaires in Norway rose 9.7 percent last year. That’s also a faster rate of growth than the world average of 8.3 percent and the European average […]
LONDON — Astronomers said on Wednesday they had discovered the best evidence yet of water outside our own solar system — in the atmosphere of a giant planet 60 light years from Earth. Writing in the scientific journal Nature, researchers said the planet itself, HD 189733b, was unlikely to harbor life but evidence supported the search for life in other solar systems. ‘We’re thrilled to have identified clear signs of water on a planet that is trillions of miles away,’ Giovanna Tinetti, a European Space Agency fellow at the Institute d’Astrophysique de Paris in France who led the study, was quoted as saying in an accompanying news release. A light year is the distance a beam of light travels in one year at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 km per second), or close to 6 trillion miles. The Earth’s moon is only 1.3 light seconds from our planet. ‘Although HD 189733b is far from being habitable, and actually provides a rather hostile environment, our discovery shows that water might be more common out there than previously thought, and our method can be used in the future to study more ‘life-friendly’ environments,’ Tinetti said. Investigations […]
The former head of China’s Food and Drug Administration found guilty of taking bribes to licence fake drugs has been executed. Lindsey Hilsum reports on the deadly trade. The execution is a dramatic show of the Chinese government’s determination to rescue its reputation after a series of scandals involving unsafe products. Last year 10 people died after taking fake antibiotics in Eastern China; more recently attention has turned to counterfeit drugs and contaminated foods exported around the world. The World Health Organisation estimates that 10 per cent of drugs in circulation are counterfeit – with China the biggest source. Often officials turn a blind eye to back street factories and Zheng Xiaoyu’s rapid execution was a message from the central government to Chinese and foreign consumers who worry that medicines made in China could be ineffective or even lethal. Tan Jiangying of the State food and drug administration said: ‘The few corrupt officials of the State Food and Drug Administration are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems. ‘I think we need to reflect seriously on what lessons we can draw from such cases. We should […]
VANCOUVER — An annual study that tracks smoking among Canadians shows that teens are starting to shake off their nicotine habits, or aren’t picking up the habit at all. Fifteen per cent of teens told Statistics Canada in 2006 that they smoked either daily or occasionally, compared to 18 per cent who said in 2005 that they smoked. The number of teens who identified themselves as daily smokers declined from 11 per cent in 2005 to nine per cent in 2006. The number of women aged 15 to 19 who smoke fell from 18 per cent to 14 per cent. Meanwhile, smoking rates for men aged 15 to 19 fell from 18 per cent to 16 per cent. B.C. has the lowest rate of smokers in Canada with 16 per cent. The national average is 19 per cent. The study shows all the government, community and school efforts are working, said a spokeswoman for Vancouver Coastal Health’s Tobacco Reduction Strategy. ‘We’re trying to denormalize tobacco and send the message that most kids don’t smoke, most people don’t smoke,’ said Roopy Khatkar. ‘By raising awareness on the harmful effects of tobacco use and second-hand smoke, […]
Irish company Steorn made headlines around the world when it took out a full page advert in The Economist claiming to have developed a device that produced ‘free energy’. Throughout early July, the company planned to display the device to the public for the first time. Professor Sir Eric Ash, electrical engineer and former rector of Imperial College London, visited the demonstration for the BBC News website. Marvellous things can happen in this world. As an engineer, whenever I look at a new baby I say categorically that there can be no such thing – it’s far too complicated to work. Yet we know this lack of faith in the marvellous is misplaced. So, the fact that a device or an invention looks too marvellous to be true is not conclusive evidence that it isn’t. I believe that it is thinking on such lines that encourages inventors – and there have been many since the 12th Century – to pursue what would be a true marvel: a perpetual motion machine. The most recent attempt is from Mr Sean McCarthy, the Chief Executive Officer of an Irish company called Steorn. His invention, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
