Google is investing 450 million euros ($608 million) to expand a data center in southern Finland as part of Europe-wide development plans totaling hundreds of millions of euros.
The investment comes on top of the 350 million euros it spent on converting an old paper mill, bought from paper maker Stora Enso in 2009, into one of its centers serving customers in Europe and worldwide. It started operations in 2011, and currently employs some 125 people in Hamina, 150 kilometers (95 miles) east of Helsinki.
Google Inc. says the Hamina center is one of its most advanced and efficient, with a high-tech cooling system that uses seawater from the Baltic Sea to reduce energy usage and help keep computers running smoothly. In 2015, the plant will be primarily powered by wind energy and there are plans to meet future energy needs with “100% renewable energy.”
The company says the expansion will employ up to 800 engineering and construction workers at the plant and that new, permanent jobs will be created once the extension opens.
“This investment underlines our commitment to working to help Finland take advantage of all the economic benefits from the Internet,” Google’s Finland manager Anni Ronkainen said. “As demand grows for our products, from YouTube to Gmail, we’re investing hundreds of millions of euros in expanding our European data centers.”
Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, who attended the announcement in Hamina, welcomed the investment.
“Finland needs more foreign direct investments in order to enhance our economy, growth and employment,” Katainen said. “Google’s investment decision is important for us and we welcome it warmly.”
Google has 19 data centers worldwide, with 70 offices in more than 40 countries employing some 30,000 people
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Canada’s women’s hockey team didn’t play its best game in its Four Nations Cup opener, but it was enough to beat Finland 3-1 in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Rebecca Johnston, Natalie Spooner and Vicki Bendus scored for Canada, which is playing this tournament without star forward Hayley Wickenheiser and five other veterans. Canada scored two goals in 1:34 in the first period and wound up outshooting Finland 39-23.
“We were a little soft,” said Ruthven’s Meghan Agosta-Marciano, who assisted on Spooner’s goal.
“We need to be able to chip the puck a little more, come out of the zone together and come with speed, and that’s something that we kind of lacked a bit tonight. That’s not the best hockey that we’re going to be playing this tournament.”
Coach Dan Church praised his team’s adjustments in the third period but said the consistency needs to be better.
“Finland’s a tough team to play against because they clog the neutral zone and they’re very good at their neutral-zone forecheck,” he said. “We didn’t make an adjustment in the second period, but I thought the third period we did a good job.”
Finland’s only goal came in the third period, when Tea Villila scored on the fifth of six power plays to make it 3-1. Canada took seven minor penalties but Johnston’s goal, from Haley Irwin and Brianne Jenner, came on the power play.
Goaltender Charline Labonte stopped 22 of the 23 shots she faced.
“Charline had a solid game in net for us, turned aside a bunch of shots and was consistent back there,” Church said.
In addition to Wickenheiser, Canada is without experienced forwards Caroline Ouellette and Marie-Philip Poulin and defencemen Meaghan Mikkelson, Lauriane Rougeau and Laura Fortino, who are getting a rest.
Church wants to win the Four Nations Cup, but this tournament is also about evaluating players for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
“It’s a prestigious tournament, and it’s an important step on the road to Sochi. But there are things that we need to do to build our team,” he said.
“We brought 21 players here that are going to play all four games, and that’ll be an important process for us selecting our team down the road, leaving some players behind in Calgary.”
Those in Lake Placid, N.Y., have their sights on winning now and worrying about Sochi later.
“When I think Canada I think winning every single opportunity we have in any game or any tournament,” Agosta-Marciano said.
“It’s a great tournament to kind of see where everybody’s at, and at the end of the day we want to come out of this on top.”
Canada’s next game is Wednesday night against the United States, which it has already defeated twice recently. This is a renewal of that rivalry, even with some of Canada’s best players not participating.
“I think it’ll be good to see some of our younger players, having some of our more experienced veterans at home in Calgary, it’s an opportunity for them to step up,” Church said.
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According to a hasty translate from the Google, Finland’s jerseys are made of 72 percent recycled polyester.
The jerseys, like all the Nike-inspired ones thus far, have the faux-laces at the neck. The Finnish ones to appear to be a little more unique than the others, though, most notably with the recreation of the Finnish flag.
The new looks differs significantly from the ones the Finns wore at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, where they captured bronze:
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Became prostitutes before they were 20 to escape violent relationships
Mother-of-four Louise says arthritis makes some positions 'too painful'
Complain Amsterdam's prostitutes no longer have 'sense of community'
Twin sisters believed to be Amsterdam's oldest prostitutes have retired after more than 50 years each in the sex trade. Louise, a mother of four, has said her arthritis now makes some sexual positions 'too painful'. Scroll down for video And mother-of-three Martine admits she is finding it hard to attract new punters – except one elderly man who still comes for his weekly sado-maschism session.
She said: "I couldn't give him up. He's been coming to me for so long it's like going to church on a Sunday."
The pair were the subject of a documentary film last year called Meet the Fokkens, and have now written a book about their combined 100-years of sexual exploits called The Ladies of Amsterdam. Both women – who usually dress in identical red clothes – became prostitutes before the age of 20 to survive financially after escaping violent relationships.
They now look back on the 'golden years' of the profession before the Netherlands legalised prostitution and the sex trade was invaded by 'eastern European mafia'. Louise said: "It is very different now. We used to sit in the windows with clothes on. Today they are totally naked. "There are few Dutch women and no sense of community these days."
Martine added: "The legalisation of brothels in 2000 has not improved prostitutes' lives. "There is no point working just for tax. That is why the girls are working from the internet and from home – you are less likely to be spotted by the taxman. "It is better for the pimps and the foreigners, but not for the Dutch girls." Martine and Louise said they now hoped to be able to live off their earnings from the book and film rights.
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STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Residents of the small Norwegian town of Rjukan have finally seen the light.
Tucked in between steep mountains, the town is normally shrouded in shadow for almost six months a year, with residents having to catch a cable car to the top of a nearby precipice to get a fix of midday vitamin D.
But on Wednesday faint rays from the winter sun for the first time reached the town's market square, thanks to three 183-square-foot mirrors placed on a mountain.
Cheering families, some on sun loungers, drinking cocktails and waving Norwegian flags, donned shades as the sun crept from behind a cloud to hit the mirrors and reflect down onto the faces of delighted children below.
TV footage of the event showed the center of the crowded square light up a touch, but not as if hit by direct sunlight. Still, residents said the effect was noticeable.
"Before when it was a fine day, you would see that the sky was blue and you knew that the sun was shining. But you couldn't quite see it. It was very frustrating," said Karin Roe, from the local tourist office. "This feels warm. When there is no time to get to the top of the mountains on weekdays, it will be lovely to come out for an hour and feel this warmth on my face."
Like much of Scandinavia, the town of Rjukan often is freezing throughout the winter, but on Wednesday it was 45 degrees there.
The Italian town of Viganella has a similar, but smaller, sun mirror.
The plan to illuminate Rjukan was cooked up 100 years ago by the Norwegian industrialist Sam Eyde, who built the town to provide workers for a hydroelectric plant he located at the foot of a nearby waterfall.
The renowned engineer never saw his plan become reality, but his plant and the Telemark town he founded developed a special affection in the Norwegian imagination as the site of the country's most famous wartime escapade.
Occupied by the Germans during World War II, the factory was a staging post in Hitler's quest for the atomic bomb. The story of how 12 Norwegian saboteurs parachuted into the nearby tundra and survived freezing temperatures to destroy the factory's "heavy water" plant inspired a 1965 Hollywood film, "The Heroes of Telemark," and is being turned into a 10-part TV series by Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle.
In contrast to the shadow cast over Europe by Hitler's plan for an atomic weapon, the three mirrors — ironically being remotely controlled from Germany — captured the sunlight and sent it in an ellipse that illuminated about one-third of the square below.
A band encouraged a cloud that weakened the effect to move away with the song, "Let The Sunshine In."
Jan-Anders Dam-Nielsen, director of the Norwegian Industrial Museum, located on the site of the famous factory, said the solar experiment would mark another chapter in the history of Rjukan.
"Soon we will celebrate 70 years since the saboteurs struck the factory," he said. "Then we will think about how we mark this. This is a really important day in the history of this town. And like the mirrors reflected the sun, we will reflect this in the museum."
Helicoptered in and installed 1,500 feet above the town square, the $850,000 computer-controlled mirrors, or heliostats, are more commonly used to create solar power in sundrenched regions of the Middle East. Here, the solar energy the heliostats capture is used to power their tilting trajectory as they follow the sun's brief dash across the Norwegian winter sky.
The century-old idea was revived in 2005 by Martin Andersen, an artist and resident of the town, who helped raise the sponsorship money. The lion's share has come from Norsk Hydro — the company founded by Sam Eyde.
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Britain's economy picked up more speed between July and September, growing at its fastest pace in more than three years and building on an unexpected turnaround that has buoyed the government.
Gross domestic product rose by 0.8 percent, faster than the 0.7 percent achieved in the April-June period, Britain's Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
The quarterly growth and the year-on-year rate of 1.5 percent were in line with forecasts by economists in a Reuters poll. The numbers also made Britain, until recently a laggard among the world's rich countries, one of its fastest-growing economies with an annualized growth rate of over 3 percent.
British government bond prices initially rose, reflecting expectations among some investors that quarterly growth might have been closer to 1 percent, but quickly fell back. The pound strengthened slightly against the dollar and the euro.
Joe Grice, chief economist at the ONS, said quarterly growth could have reached 0.9 percent but for weak gas and electricity output. That was possibly a reflection of Britain's unusually hot summer this year.
Samuel Tombs, an economist with Capital Economics, said Britain's economy was unlikely to gather much more pace because of wages that are rising less than inflation, more government spending cuts and the dormant euro zone, reports Reuters.
"But with employment growing, confidence returning and productivity still well below its potential, it seems unlikely that the recovery will fade significantly either," he said.
Britain's economy has staged a surprising recovery since early 2013 when it avoided falling back into recession.
The turnaround has given a boost to Conservative finance minister George Osborne, who defied calls from the International Monetary Fund and the opposition Labor Party to bring forward spending in order to get the economy off the ropes.
The government hailed the growth figures as proof that its tough approach to public spending was paying off.
"Many risks remain, but thanks to our economic plan, the recovery now has real momentum," a Treasury spokesman said.
STILL SMALLER
The growth between July and September meant the British economy expanded for three successive quarters for the first time since 2011.
Nonetheless, unlike almost all other developed economies, which have fully recovered output lost during the financial crisis, Britain's economy remains 2.5 percent smaller than its previous peak in early 2008.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney noted on Thursday that growth was coming from a low base, so Friday's figures are unlikely to sway policy at the bank, which has suggested it will keep interest rates at their record low of 0.5 percent for three more years.
Earnings are lagging inflation, raising questions about the sustainability of the recovery and giving ammunition to Labor to attack the government in the run-up to a general election due in 2015.
Friday's data showed Britain's giant services sector, which accounts for nearly 80 percent of the economy, expanded by 0.7 percent from the second quarter and was now above its peak before the financial crisis hammered Britain.
Growth in services was driven by the private sector, while government services lagged behind, a reflection of Osborne's push to curb public spending.
Manufacturing grew 0.9 percent, and construction, which has begun to recover after a sharp contraction caused by the crisis, expanded by 2.5 percent, the strongest in more than three years as house building picked up, the ONS said.
Consumers, a key engine of Britain's economy, are feeling increasingly upbeat, a separate survey showed on Friday.
A consumer confidence index compiled by market researchers YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research hit its highest level this month since it was launched in April 2009.
The survey showed that expectations of higher house prices were driving the increase in confidence; homeowners expected their properties to be worth 2 percent more in 12 months' time, almost double the expected gain in July's survey.
Critics of the government's economic policies say its attempts to revive the housing market will not help bring about the long-hoped-for rebalancing of Britain's economy towards more manufacturing and exports.
The ONS's preliminary estimates of GDP are among the first released in the European Union, and are based partly on estimated data. On average, they are revised by 0.1 percentage points up or down by the time a second revision is published two months later, but bigger moves are not uncommon.
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MADRID (AFP) – A Spanish court freed a serial rapist 17 years into his 30-year sentence under a European human rights ruling that also benefits terrorism convicts, officials said Friday.
Antonio Garcia Carbonell, 76, became the first non-terrorism convict to benefit from the ruling, which has angered Spanish authorities.
The European decision ruled against a Spanish judicial practice that cuts remission earned through prison work, mostly for jailed members of the armed Basque group ETA.
An official in the Catalonia regional courts service told AFP on Friday that a Barcelona court had ordered Garcia’s release the previous day. Media reported he had walked free almost immediately.
Garcia was convicted of a string of rapes, robberies and abductions and sentenced to a total of 268 years in jail from 1996, of which he was ordered to serve a legal maximum of 30 years.
In a written ruling ordering his release on Thursday, the Barcelona court upheld an appeal by Garcia’s lawyers on the grounds of Monday’s decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in a separate case.
“The penal liability to which Antonio Garcia Carbonell was sentenced is extinguished… and consequently the convict’s liberty is decreed,” the Barcelona court said.
The European court said Monday that Spain had wrongly extended the sentence of Ines del Rio Prada, a 55-year-old woman jailed for a series of violent ETA attacks.
It said Spain breached European rights law by cutting the years of remission she earned for prison work.
Spanish courts had also applied this practice, known as the Parot Doctrine, to Garcia, who would otherwise have been due for early release in 2011.
“This convict is in a comparable situation to the appellant in the Rio Prada case,” so the Strasbourg court’s ruling is “binding” in his case, the Barcelona court said.
The ruling in Strasbourg outraged the families of people killed by ETA in its four-decade campaign of bombings and shootings for an independent Basque homeland.
So far 51 imprisoned ETA members have demanded their freedom since the ruling.
The National Court in Madrid on Friday ordered the release of the second ETA prisoner in Spain to benefit from the change in the law. A court in London has granted conditional release to a third.
Spain’s interior ministry said the change in the law could also lead to several other rapists and murderers being released.
A court in Valencia said on Friday it had received a request for full release from a man jailed for sexually abusing minors.
Media reports said the man was a physical education teacher who abused children aged between eight and 12 and is currently on conditional release.
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BOSTON (AP) — Slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was named as a participant in an earlier triple homicide by a man who was subsequently shot to death while being questioned by authorities, according to a filing made by federal prosecutors in the case against his brother, surviving bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
According to the filing made Monday, Ibragim Todashev, told investigators Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in a triple slaying in Waltham on Sept. 11, 2011.
In that case, three men were found in an apartment with their necks slit and their bodies reportedly covered with marijuana. One of the victims was a boxer and friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Todashev, a 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter, was fatally shot at his Orlando home during a meeting with an FBI agent and two Massachusetts state troopers in May, authorities said. He had turned violent while being questioned, according to authorities.
The filing is prosecutors' attempt to block Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from getting certain information from authorities, including investigative documents associated with the Waltham slayings.
"The government has already disclosed to Tsarnaev that, according to Todashev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in the Waltham triple homicide," prosecutors wrote.
According to prosecutors, the ongoing investigation into the 2011 slayings is reason not to allow Dzhokhar Tsarnaev access to the documents he's seeking.
"Any benefit to Tsarnaev of knowing more about the precise 'nature and extent' of his brother's involvement does not outweigh the potential harm of exposing details of an ongoing investigation into an extremely serious crime, especially at this stage of the proceeding," prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors also said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not entitled to the information because his brother's criminal history will be relevant, if at all, only at a possible future sentencing hearing.
A phone message left for a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office was not immediately returned on Tuesday night. A message left for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's federal public defender was also not immediately returned.
Authorities allege that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 20, and 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechens from Russia, planned and carried out the twin bombings near the finish of the marathon on April 15. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces 30 federal charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction and 16 other charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a gunbattle with police as authorities closed in on the brothers several days after the bombings.
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LONDON (AP) — A forgetful British bridegroom who made a hoax bomb threat rather than admit he'd neglected to book the venue for his wedding was sentenced Tuesday to a year in jail.
Neil McArdle called Liverpool's St. George's Hall from a phone booth on his scheduled wedding day in April, claiming a bomb was due to go off in 45 minutes.
His fiancee, Amy Williams, was left standing in the street in her wedding gown while the building was evacuated.
McArdle, 36, was arrested the same day and admitted that he made the call because he had forgotten to fill out the paperwork for the wedding.
"He did say several times how embarrassed and ashamed he was and how sorry he was," said prosecutor Derek Jones.
A judge at Liverpool Crown Court in northwest England sentenced McArdle to 12 months in jail.
Judge Norman Wright said that McArdle had frightened staff at the venue with his hoax —which came days after the Boston marathon bombings — and let down his fiancee.
"She was getting ready, expecting you were going to be man and wife and a very solemn public event in her life and you knew that was not going to take place," the judge said.
"You did not say 'We need to talk.' You tried to weasel your way out by creating a bomb hoax so the wedding would not take place."
Defense lawyer Charles Lander said McArdle and Williams are still together.
"The fact that she stands with him speaks volumes for her, and I hope volumes for him," Lander said.
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LONDON (AFP) – A Ukrainian student with a hatred of “non-whites” on Monday admitted murdering a Muslim grandfather and planting bombs near three British mosques.
Pavlo Lapshyn, 25, pleaded guilty in court to stabbing 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem to death as he walked home from a mosque in the central English city of Birmingham in April.
Lapshyn, a postgraduate student from the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, also admitted plotting to cause explosions at mosques in three towns in central England between April and July.
No one was injured in the blasts in the towns of Walsall, Wolverhampton and Tipton.
Lapshyn, who said he was motivated by racial hatred, is due to be sentenced on Friday.
Police said they found more bomb-making equipment in the room he was staying in as he carried out a work placement at a software firm in Birmingham.
“We found part-made devices in Lapshyn’s room plus chemicals and bomb-making equipment, so it is clear he planned to place further devices with the intention of killing or maiming innocent members of the public,” said Detective Superintendent Shaun Edwards of the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit.
“All three of the devices he detonated were powerful but his final attack in Tipton was the first to feature shrapnel and nails.
“He placed this near the mosque’s car park with the intention of hitting worshippers as they arrived for prayers.
“Thankfully the service had been put back an hour so the mosque was largely deserted when the bomb went off.”
He added that Lapshyn had told police he had acted alone rather than as part of a wider cell, and “was keen to take credit for masterminding and carrying out the attacks”.
The student came across as “calm, calculated and committed” during police interviews, Edwards said. British police are now in Ukraine to try to understand more about his background.
Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, from the same police force, described Lapshyn as “a dangerous, evil and completely ill-informed man”.
“It is of great relief that he is not free to walk the streets any further,” he told reporters outside London’s Old Bailey court.
Lapshyn had only been in Britain for a few days when he murdered father-of-seven Saleem, a well-respected member of the local Muslim community.
He was arrested on July 18 for one of the bombings, and then further arrested two days later for the murder.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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