Such installations are not called attractions for nothing; their purpose is to draw people to everything that surrounds them. With Valhalla, the boasts centre on consumption and output – some 100,000 gallons of water being pumped through the system every minute, and 35,000 sq ft of gas per hour providing the supernatural blasts of fire that erupt in its interior as riders drift past in theirfibreglass longboats.Most important, perhaps, is its capacity to pump paying customers through its turnstiles: 2,000 an hour if all goes well and its adventurous combination of water, electricity and delicate computer systems doesn’t prove temperamental The omens on the first day were not good. Shortly after transporting the first VIPs and journalists through the Nordic underworld, the system ground to a halt for emergency remedial work. Six hours later, it still hadn’t restarted ferrying day trippers to the other side.So what about the ride itself? Students of Nordic mythology may feel that a few tricks have been missed when it comes to theming.

After all, Odin’s palace offered its ghostly residents the flesh of a boar slaughtered daily and made whole again each evening, and liquor that flowed from the udder of a goat: Blackpool makes do on the catering front with Thor’s Plaice and Chips and Loki’s Bar, in which the optics disappointingly take a more conventional form.Students of hi-tech thrill rides will no doubt engage in theological debate about the merits of flame effects, video projection (skulls filled with writhing maggots) and animatronic wolves. For those who lack the will or the time to visit Blackpool, the experience was like travelling through a malfunctioning car wash in an open-topped car; repeated rinses interrupted by gusts of hot hair, electrical arcing and frightening mechanical jolts.It is quite unnerving and quite fun – the lurid flames of Odin’s chamber breathing hot in your face shortly after you have been chilled by a blast of artificial snow. But something nagged at me as we were tugged through this alternative reality. Drenching downpours, howling gales, icy blasts and the occasional burst of heat .. surely you can get that on the promenade for nothing?. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the bosses of Germany’s nuclear power plants agreed Thursday on a plan to end the country’s use of atomic energy, clinching a deal that has eluded Schroeder’s center-left government for more than a year. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the bosses of Germany’s nuclear power plants agreed Thursday on a plan to end the country’s use of atomic energy, clinching a deal that has eluded Schroeder’s center-left government for more than a year.
At an early morning news conference, Schroeder announced that both sides had compromised on how quickly the phaseout would take effect, with the government allowing two extra years of running time.

That means Germany’s last nuclear plant would go off-line in about 20 years.Industry leaders said they regretted the early closures. “But we accept the primacy of the political system,” Ulrich Hartmann, chairman of the Veba utility, said after 4 1/2 hours of talks.Schroeder came into office in late 1998 promising to negotiate an end to nuclear power in Germany – an issue especially dear to the hearts of his junior coalition partner, the environmentalist Greens party.Germany’s 19 nuclear plants provide almost a third of the country’s electricity. But the country also has a big anti-nuclear lobby that regularly targets shipments of nuclear fuel or waste with massive, sometimes violent protests.Schroeder, a Social Democrat, initially said his government would legislate plant closures after a year if a voluntary deal couldn’t be reached with plant operators. But the negotiations dragged on over 18 months and were marked by bickering between the partners over how quickly the plants should be forced off-line.The final deal allows a total lifespan of 32 years for power plants, Schroeder said. He did not say exactly when the last nuclear energy production will end. But the newest German plants came on line in the late 1980s, which means their 32 years should be up around 2020.Before Thursday’s deal was reached, Greens party lawmakers had suggested that the first two nuclear plants could be shut down before the end of the current legislative period in 2002. The conservative opposition, however, has threatened to block any deal in the upper house of parliament, where the states are represented.Conservatives accuse the government of ignoring potential job losses and costs to states like Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg – both conservative-led – that are major shareholders in public utilities.

They also argue that scrapping nuclear power would create other problems by forcing Germany to use other fuels to produce electricity, keeping the nation from meeting targets for reducing air pollution.Schroeder has said he believes a nuclear phaseout law could be formulated that does not require approval in the upper house.But the Bavarian state government said Wednesday it was already preparing a complaint to bring to the Constitutional Court if Schroeder tries to push through a deal.. Euro-MPs have backed tough new anti-smoking measures, including a huge increase in the size of health warnings on cigarette packs and new maximum levels of tar and nicotine. Euro-MPs have backed tough new anti-smoking measures, including a huge increase in the size of health warnings on cigarette packs and new maximum levels of tar and nicotine.
The European Parliament decided last night that warnings should cover 35 per cent of the front of cigarette packs and 45 per cent of the back, although the proportions will be higher in countries which have more than one official language.Cigarette makers will no longer be able to label their products “low tar,” “mild” or “light” unless those descriptions have been authenticated by member state governments.The vote underlined the powers of the parliament by tightening measures put forward by the European Commission, which had proposed that a quarter of the surface of cigarette packs should be devoted to health warnings.However, extensive lobbying by the tobacco industry appeared to have had some affect as the Strasbourg parliament rejected a call for cigarette packs to show shock photos of smoke-stained teeth, scarred lungs or young children imitating smoking adults.The move to use the images follows experiments in Canada where up to 90 per cent of the surface of cigarette packs will be devoted to health warnings by the end of the year.Wilfried Dembach, a spokesman for the European Community Cigarette Manufacturers, a Brussels-based trade group, called that “disproportionate,” saying that what counted for consumers was the information in the warning.But Catherine Stihler, the Labour group’s health spokeswoman, expressed her disappointment with the rejection of shock images by paraphrasing the adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words. “These pictures would have saved a thousand lives,” she said.The legislation, which is likely to take effect in January 2003, now goes to the health ministers of the 15 EU nations who are expected to give it their approval on 29 June.The maximum amount of tar per cigarette will be cut to 10 milligrams, from 12mg, the maximum amount of nicotine lowered to 1mg and the amount of carbon monoxide reduced to 10mg. However, the tobacco lobby won another partial victory by staving off a stipulation that those standards apply to cigarettes produced in the EU but exported outside, mostly to the third world.That was due to have come into effect in 2003 but will now be delayed a further three years, following claims that it would cost up to 3,000 jobs in the UK alone.David Byrne, the European Commissioner for health and consumer protection, said the parliament’s vote vindicated his decision to launch the latest anti-smoking initiative last November.Brussels estimates that 500,000 Europeans die prematurely every year from tobacco-related diseases and, since the late 1980s, the EU has imposed bans on tobacco advertising and sponsorship as well as tougher rules on tobacco labelling.David Byrne, European Commissioner for health and consumer protection, welcomed the parliament’s vote, saying, that it vindicated his decision to launch the latest anti-smoking initiative in November.Brussels estimates that 500,000 Europeans die prematurely every year from tobacco-related diseases..

McDonald’s can go to Peking McDonald’s can go to Red Square. But there is one small patch of earth where there will never be a McDonald’s

McDonald’s can go to Peking McDonald’s can go to Red Square. But there is one small patch of earth where there will never be a McDonald’s.
The residents of the Rue des Rosiers, the main thoroughfare of Paris’s old Jewish quarter, were holding a celebration on the street last night.The gathering had been called to demonstrate against the plans of the American fast-food giant to take over one of the street’s most beautiful buildings, a former Turkish bath. But earlier in the day the management of McDonald’s France announced it had withdrawn the proposal.More than 1,000 local residents signed a petition objecting to the plans: some on the basis that McDonald’s was not kosher (although there was a proposal to serve kosher Big Macs) and hundreds more who argued that a large fast-food restaurant would irredeemably ruin the character of one of the few unspoilt quartiers of central Paris.The Rue des Rosiers is the home of Jo Goldenberg’s, the Jewish delicatessen and restaurant attacked by a terrorist bomb in 1982, with the loss of six lives. It lies at the heart of the old Jewish quarter, from where thousands of Jews were rounded up and deported in 1941-42. Although only a few steps from the Place de la Bastille, it still has a warren of small Jewish businesses, including jewellers, a cobbler and a kosher pizza parlour.In truth, the street has already fallen victim to the touristification of the centre of the French capital. The Rue des Rosiers also has a row of fashion boutiques and a Häagen- Dazs ice-cream parlour.Evelyne Sakhoun, the patronne of the Café des Rosiers, said: “McDonald’s would have been the death of the Rue des Rosiers I have nothing against McDonald’s My kids love to eat McDonald’s.