Princes Harry and William begin African bike rally for charity
October 23, 2008 by happytopics.com
Filed under International News
British princes William and Harry set off Saturday on a grueling 1,000-mile motorcycle rally in South Africa to raise money for charity.
Princes Harry, left, and William pictured Friday at Port Edward, South Africa, before competing in the rally.
Princes Harry, left, and William pictured Friday at Port Edward, South Africa, before competing in the rally.
The pair joked that they had a wager on which royal tumbles from their bike the most during the eight-day off-road adventure.
“It’s going to be very challenging and we’re expecting to fall off many a time,” said Harry, 24, before more than 80 riders set off from the holiday resort of Port Edward on South Africa’s southeast coast.
A crowd cheered the riders as they hit the winding dust road bound for the southern coastal city of Port Elizabeth.
William, 26, who next year will begin training to be an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot, said he and his brother had decided to take part in the rally “because it’s a mixture of adventure and charity.”
Funds raised through the princes’ participation in the Enduro Africa 08 event will be divided among UNICEF, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and Sentebale, a charity established by Prince Harry to help disadvantaged children in Lesotho.
Harry, an officer in the Household Cavalry regiment, said he was looking forward to spending some rare time together with his brother.
Both brothers ride high performance motorbikes when in the UK, but William said they had not trained for the event.
“We both ride bikes at the moment but on-road biking is completely different. All the off-road stuff is up hills, down slopes, across rivers and is all rocky and hilly,” William said.
Questioned about which royal was the better rider, William said, diplomatically, that “we’re both quite good actually,” while his brother quipped: “We’ll have to wait and see in a couple of days time.”
Slovenia gives Britain’s queen a Lipizzaner horse
October 23, 2008 by happytopics.com
Filed under International News
Slovenia
gave Britain’s queen
a prized Lipizzaner stallion during her visit to this Alpine nation Wednesday — but she won’t be taking the horse home to meet the rest of the royal menagerie.
The 16-year-old horse, 085 Favory Canissa XXII, is so precious to the identity of this tiny nation of 2 million that Queen Elizabeth II decided to leave him in the care of the Lipica stud farm in western Slovenia. The meticulously trained horses are known for being able to perform highly stylized prancing, jumps and other moves.
“He’s a real stallion: Sometimes, he cannot concentrate on training because he thinks about mares all the time,” said the horse’s chief trainer, Igor Maver.
The symbolic gift becomes another addition to a tradition of feathered, furry or four-legged presents. In the past, the royals have been given sloths, tortoises, pygmy hippopotami — among other creatures.
Most end up in zoos and sanctuaries — so it seems fitting the latest addition will remain back at the stud farm for horses so ingrained in the national culture their image is stamped on coins.
The queen took instant pride in ownership though.
“Let me see the stable,” she told the stud farm’s director, Matjaz Pust, before marching away toward the stall.
He explained that the stallion’s stall had just been renovated, “so he has a royal room now.”
The queen beamed.
The 428-year-old stud farm dates to the time of the Austia’s ruling Habsburgs, who went to Spain to buy horses for an empire that stretched across much of Europe. They founded the farm in the village of Lipica — or Lipizza in the Italian spelling — in what is now Slovenia.
The tour was a high point of the queen’s trip to the former Yugoslav republic, which is squeezed between Italy, Austria and Croatia.
She complimented country’s “striking achievements” since gaining independence 17 years ago — praising its seamless shift from communism to democracy. Slovenia, which joined the European Union in 2004, began using the euro last year and just wrapped up a stint as the head of the EU rotating presidency.
The queen, who toured with her husband, Prince Philip, said during a banquet Tuesday that her trip should “demonstrate the importance the United Kingdom attaches to our relations with Slovenia, as a partner in Europe and an ally in NATO.”
Later Wednesday, the queen had a lunch with prominent Slovenes at the Castle on a hill overlooking the capital, Ljubljana.
She and Prince Philip then took a walk downtown, waving to several hundred people gathered in a central square to see her.
The queen planned to leave Thursday morning for Slovakia, another small EU member.
Sex, internet make Aussie male happy
October 23, 2008 by happytopics.com
Filed under National News
Rest, relaxation and entertainment topped the list for both men and women in the index, with quality time with your partner also making the top four for each sex.
But that’s where the similarities end.
Sex ranks as a top five activity to make men happy and surfing the internet tops even that at number three.
Sex and the internet were also top 10 choices for women to make them happy, but enjoying a family meal and playing with pets or children ranked much higher.
Eating comfort food scored in the top 10 for both sexes, but the more discerning men questioned said they preferred great food and wine or drinking with friends to reaching for the chocolate.
Despite urban myths to the contrary, shopping does not make all women happy – only 30 per cent were happiest when shopping for new clothes, shoes or accessories.
It may come as little surprise that just 14 per cent of men were happiest when shopping.
One in two women said reading a good book made them happy whereas less than one in three men said the same, and 36 per cent of generous-natured women said buying gifts made them feel joyful, compared to a miserly 19 per cent of men.
The index was compiled by marketing consultants The Leading Edge who spoke to more than 8500 Australians aged between 18 and 64.
“Australians are made happy on a week-to-week basis, not by possessions and achievements, but by entertaining experiences and by meaningful interactions with others,” The Leading Edge managing director Karen Phillips said.
The index has been designed as a marketing tool to give businesses a better picture of their target customers.
Britain to cut emissions ‘by 80pc’
October 23, 2008 by happytopics.com
Filed under International News
BRITAIN will introduce a legally binding pledge to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, the minister for the newly created Department for Energy and Climate Change said today.
The promise, which involves amending soon-to-be approved legislation that requires Britain to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050, came after a recommendation to do so from a government-appointed committee.
“We will amend the Climate Change Bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and that target will be binding in law,” Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said, to the House of Commons.
The cuts will cover all industries – including shipping and aviation – and, according to the chair of the committee that made the initial recommendations, would cost around one to two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2050 and was “challenging but feasible”.
Mr Miliband said other laws would be amended to encourage small-scale energy generation through the use of home-based wind turbines or solar panels.
He also called on European countries – which have considered rolling back previous commitments to combat climate change in recent days amid the global financial crisis – to follow suit.
Campaigners welcomed the carbon-cutting pledge, but cautioned that Britain should ensure it lowered carbon emissions locally, and did not rely on the use of carbon offsetting, whereby individuals or companies can pay for green projects elsewhere to “offset” their own emissions.
Describing it as “a great step forward”, WWF-UK chief executive David Nussbaum said: “The key issue now is to ensure that we move swiftly to a low-carbon economy which creates new jobs here in the UK … rather than relying excessively on imported carbon credits.”
Britain became the first country in the world to introduce legally-binding cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas seen as largely to blame for climate change, when the Climate Change Bill completed its passage through both houses of parliament in March.
It is now awaiting Royal Assent, effectively a rubber stamp that shows the monarch has approved it.
