Top News Stories –

Glitch grounds UK flights –
A major glitch in the UK air-traffic controllers system has affected flights in and out of nearly all of Britain’s airports including 89 flights cancelled at Heathrow. National Air Traffic Services (Nats) said a technical fault in the flight data system at its Swanwick centre caused the problem.
Heathrow Terminal 5

Amazon beefs up Prime
Amazon Prime launches 4K (UHD) streaming for its Amazon Prime service following Netflix into the 4K market.

Oz helping out Global Warming issues
Prime Minister Tony Abbott says Australia will contribute A$200 million over four years into a U.N. fund to help poor nations cope with global warming.
Tony Abbott with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi

In the club (sandwich)
The British Sandwich Association has named chicken and bacon has been named the nation’s favourite sandwich filling – overtaking the BLT. (See List of the day)
A chicken and bacon sandwich aka a club sandwich

Video of the Day –

Moment Abroad from Andrew Walker on Vimeo.

List of the day –

Facts and Figures Concerning the UK Sandwich Industry

The information below is from the British Sandwich Association, and you can visit their website by clicking here

• The British sandwich market bought ‘on the go’ is currently worth £2.8 billion
• In the last year 1.69 billion sandwiches were sold ‘on the go’, at an average price of £1.66
• Over 62% of the population buy a sandwich at least once a year
• Over 19.7% of sandwiches are bought in work (work canteens and staff shops etc)
• People in Yorkshire spend the most on sandwiches – an average of over £114 a year
• People in the South West spend the least – an average of £55 a year. This means they spend under half that of their northern counterparts
• The most expensive place to buy a sandwich is London – £1.83 versus a national average of £1.66
• Wraps account for 4% of total sandwich sales, baguettes for 10%
• One third of the market in value is accounted for by 25-34 year olds
• Over 30% of all sandwiches sold have chicken as a filling
• 70% of all sandwiches are eaten at home, totalling 6.2 billion occasions (down 3% on 2004)
• An average of 4.2 sandwiches are eaten at home, per person, every week in Britain
• 55% of sandwiches eaten at home are consumed at lunchtime. A further 13% are eaten at Tea, 11% at the Evening Meal and & 7% as part of a snack. Surprisingly 14% are eaten at Breakfast.
• With a further 2.67 billion sandwiches made for lunch boxes, this means UK consumers are currently consuming nearly 11 billion sandwiches per year.

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Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• An Ansar al-Sharia suicide bomb attack kills seven soldiers at an army base in southern Yemen. (CNN)
• Three Turkish Army soldiers die by gunfire in the town of Ceylanpinar. The local Turkish governor begins an investigation of whether the gunfire came from the Syrian side of the border. (BBC)
• Another bomb explodes (the previous was November 6, 2014) on a passenger bus, killing at least 11 people and injuring 21 in the southern Philippines province of Bukidnon. (Xinhua)
• Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb release Serge Lazarevic, a French hostage seized three years ago in Mali. (NYTimes)

Law and crime

• A court in Lismore, Australia, convicts the former National Rugby League player Craig Field of the manslaughter of Kelvin Kane outside the Kingscliff Hotel in 2012. (ABC News Australia)
• The US Supreme Court rules 9–0 (Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk) in favor of Amazon.com Inc. that employees are not entitled to be paid for the time they spend undergoing security checks after their shifts. (Reuters)
• The Pirate Bay website goes offline after Swedish police seize its servers. (The Next Web)

International relations

• The Democrat-controlled United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence releases a report critical of the post-September 11 Bush Administration-era CIA interrogation techniques used to extract intelligence from captured Al-Qaedaoperatives. The Obama Administration places US embassies around the world on high alert. (BBC)

Politics and elections

• 2014 Hong Kong protests:
  • The Hong Kong Police Force warn protesters that they have until Thursday to leave their protest camp in Admiralty.(AP via ABC News)

Science

• Nature publishes Penn State University findings of Ancient shells with 430,000-year-old engravings believed to be made by Homo erectus, changing beliefs on artistic expression and tool use by ancestors of Homo sapiens. Dutchanthropologist Eugene Dubois found the collection in Java in 1891 and Penn State discovered the markings in a museum in the city of Leiden. (WA Today)

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