Nick Drainey's World View - UN pulls wool from eyes over energy bill

Published on Saturday 2 August 2008 19:52

UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations is encouraging its New York staff to trade wool business suits for cooler attire this summer so the organisation can slash air conditioning costs and help the environment.

"There is going to be a relaxing of the dress protocols and people are being encouraged to wear lighter clothing," said US architect Michael Adlerstein, who is overseeing a $1.8bn renovation of the 60-year-old UN skyscraper.

Adlerstein said about $100,000 would be saved by turning the thermostats up 5 degrees to 77 Fahrenheit (25 Celsius) in the UN secretariat building and to 75F (24C) in conference rooms, during a trial run this month.

It would also help the environment in New York City, he said. About 4,400 million pounds of steam – equivalent to several hundred tons of carbon dioxide – would be saved by reducing air conditioning at the landmark midtown Manhattan building.

Adlerstein sported a white shirt with neither jacket nor tie as he addressed reporters at UN headquarters.

GERMANY

If you want an animal that can hold its drink, look no further than the tree shrew.

They thrive on fermented nectar, sucking up amounts that would inebriate a human but seem to have no such ill-effects themselves.

Researchers say their findings may shed light on how animals evolved a taste for alcohol and may help in understanding why so many humans abuse it.

The tree shrew, found in Malaysia, is very similar to the last common ancestor of all living primates – a group that includes people – and it could be that the human taste for alcohol evolved millions of years ago, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

SOUTH KOREA

A South Korean man won his appeal against a one-year jail term for assisting in a suicide by throwing a lighter to his petrol-soaked love rival.

The Seoul appeal court reversed a lower court ruling, saying that the 30-year-old man had not believed the former lover of his girlfriend would actually set light to himself.

Last September, the former boyfriend had stopped the couple in their car after dousing himself in petrol, threatening to kill himself if she did not get out.

The defendant then threw him a lighter, reportedly saying: "Go ahead and kill yourself."

SAUDI ARABIA

A Saudi appeal court upheld a jail and flogging verdict against a biochemist and his female student whose research contact was ruled to be a front for a telephone affair that led her to divorce her husband.

The biochemist, Khalid Zahrani, said that he found out this week from the court offices that three judges had approved the verdict.

He was sentenced last year to eight months in prison and 600 lashes and his student to four months in prison and 350 lashes for establishing a telephone relationship that the court said led her to divorce her husband.

The man said the only recourse left to him was the Supreme Judicial Council, a court that only views cases if requested by the king. He also hopes for intervention from the government's Human Rights Commission.

FRANCE

A retired French carpenter came agonisingly close to becoming the first one-armed man to swim the English Channel, but was forced to abandon his bid within sight of the French coast.

Olivier Desmet, 56, whose left forearm was amputated after a motorcycle accident in 1976, said he had dreamt of attempting the 22-mile crossing for the last five years.

"For me it's a great success and not a failure", Desmet said, despite having to give up the challenge last week when strong currents dragged him off his planned route.

"I was in tears when the captain of the boat with me made me come aboard, because I still had plenty of energy left even though I'd spent 14.5 hours in the water", he said.

Desmet said he trained for eight months in a local pond and put on more than 22lbs with a rigorous diet of chips and beer to build up the layers of fat needed to resist the cold Channel water.

The pensioner from the village of Wargnies le Grand in northwest France has already won gold for triathlon 13 times in the handisport world championships.

He said he was not thinking of trying the Channel swim again.

OH, REALLY

Michael Wax stank. He's the first to admit it. The 31.5-stone New Yorker said he was playing poker in an Atlantic City casino for 17 hours and didn't have time for a wash. He understands why grossed-out gamblers complained about his body odour, but said he didn't deserve stinky treatment from the casino that asked him to leave.

Dave Coskey, a spokesman for the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, said it is company policy not to comment on matters involving customers.

Wax said he told casino officials: "There's no question I stink. I'm not denying it. I do have an odour".