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15th March 2010
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Drivers face record £1.20 a litre petrol at the pumps over Easter

From the Daily Mail

Petrol prices are set to soar to a new record within days, it has been predicted.

A litre of fuel is set to cost an all-time record of £1.20 by Easter as international oil speculators drive up prices, the AA warned.

Alistair Darling's planned April 1 tax hike will add another 3p in duty and VAT - costing motorists a massive £5.59 a gallon.

The huge hike will add around £4 to the cost of filling up a tank and will hammer recession-hit families almost £20 a month extra.

Hitting motorists: A 3p tax hike plus record oil prices will push petrol prices up to £1.23 a litre by Easter

MPs and motoring groups are now urging the chancellor to delay the 3p increase in petrol duty, claiming motorists are being 'legally mugged at the forecourt'.

They also want an inquiry into why drivers are paying so much even though the price of oil is little more than half the cost it reached at its peak in 2008.

Petrol prices peaked at a record 119.7p a litre in July 2008 when oil prices were at a record $147 a barrel. Oil currently is around $80 but the price of petrol has not fallen proportionately.

Lindsay Hoyle, the senior Labour MP on the Commons business select committee, said: 'This is a complete disgrace. Yes, crude oil has gone up this year, but nothing like the rise in petrol prices.

'Motorists are being legally mugged at the forecourt by petrol companies.'

According to the AA, a 17per cent  rise in European wholesale petrol prices since late January is behind the latest rise, and the motoring group blames speculators for the hike.

It called on the Government to investigate their actions and, if necessary, take action to curtail their impact.

The AA said:'We believe speculators are driving up the price. We want the Government to investigate the sudden surge.'

A spokesman for the AA added that the rise in petrol costs since January - plus a weaker pound - has lifted the wholesale price of petrol around 7p to 39p per litre.

'With VAT, that could add 8p to the January/February price,' he said.

The current average price of petrol is around 115.9p for unleaded and 116.5p for diesel.

'Compared to late January/early February prices, the price of a tank of petrol could increase by £4,' the spokesman added.

'A family with two petrol cars could see the monthly cost of fuel rise £16.99 above what it was earlier this year.'

This is on top of an increase on prices last year, with the AA estimating that the average family is already paying £52 a month more to fill up than a year ago.

AA president  Edmund King said:'The UK is barely out of recession yet petrol prices threaten to rise to record prices seen during the boom of 2008 – shortly before the collapse into recession.

'If families, drivers on fixed incomes and those on low pay were unable to cope with record prices then, they are even less likely now.'

Mr King added: 'Before this wholesale price surge works it way through to consumer spending and hits economic revival.

'The AA believes the Government should look at what is behind it. With refiners in Europe closing sites or looking to sell them, soaring wholesale prices could drive down demand and weaken the sector further.'

He added: 'Political parties have started to jump on the bandwagon of high fuel prices, calling for a fuel price/tax stabiliser. In the AA’s opinion, the easiest and quickest stabiliser would be to freeze the fuel duty increase on 1 April.' 

Chris Hunt, at the UK Petrol Industry Association, which represents oil refiners, said it was 'nonsense' to blame oil companies for the price of petrol and pointed out that large numbers of refineries and service stations were closing down.

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9th March 2010
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Picture This

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Google Streetview to cover every UK road

Google's controversial mapping service will soon cover 238,000 miles of the UK's roads

Pictures of nearly every street in the country, from the Shetlands to Penzance, are to be made available via Google. From Thursday, the search giant’s Streetview technology will feature 360-degree images of more than 99 per cent of the United Kingdom’s roads, both rural and urban, covering a total of approximately 238,000 miles.

The company launched Streetview in 25 UK cities in March last year - about 12 per cent of Britain's streets and roads - and since then has been working on surveying the rest of the country using specially designed cars fitted with cameras. Hard to access areas have been captured using tricycles. The entirety of Spain, France, Italy and the USA is already covered.

Although the technology has proved controversial, with some villages, such as Broughton in Buckinghamshire, so concerned that they asked the company’s vehicles to leave, its release has not led to the crimewave that some analysts predicted. The company’s drivers reported that the biggest challenge they faced came from the British weather, rather than from hostile residents.

Google uses automatic technology to blur faces and car number plates, and allows users to request that their property be removed from the service. Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has asked for his house to be taken off the site, for instance.

Inappropriate material can also be reported, although a number of unfortunate images, including fights and people in allegedly compromising situations, have already been published.

A survey commissioned by Google from polling company YouGov indicated that Streetview’s launch has coincided with a 30 per cent increase in people using the website’s mapping technology, available at maps.google.co.uk. Six out of ten of those users had consulted Streetview to find out what a place they were going looked like, while one-third had used it to look at locations abroad and 21 per cent had used it to help while house hunting.

Sandie Dawe, the chief executive of the official website to promote UK tourism, VisitBritain.com, welcomed the launch of the nationwide service. She said that Streetview was one of the “first places people turn to when planning a visit to one of Britain's many world-class attractions.”

Future applications for Streetview technology could include shopping; cameras have already been spotted photographing American supermarkets.

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1st March 2010 - 13.03
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Latest news and events surrounding the recent earthquake in Chile. A dedicated forum.

Images from the recent quake in Chile

Save the Children Appeal - Chile Fundraising...

 

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