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It is unlikely that the Global Recession has completely dampened people’s enthusiasm for new gadgets this Year End.

But for cash strapped consumers with a shiny new mobile in their hands, there is a way of making money from their old, unwanted handsets. According to mobile phone trade-in website Fonebank, only 20% of UK Consumers are recycling their mobile phones for cash.

A survey it conducted to find out what people did with their mobile, found that 28% put them away in a drawer while 23% simply threw them away.

“It is crazy that a lot of people out there are still chucking their phones in the bin when they no longer have any use for them”, said Mark Harrison, director of Fonebank.

Fonebank recycled around 10,000 phones in November, the majority of which are earmarked for Africa, Pakistan, India and South East Asia.

Other charities, including Age Concern and British Red Cross, are also offering people the chance to donate phones.

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Canada has been blanketed in snow from coast to coast after severe winter storm hit transport and left thousands of homes without electricity. Strong winds and snowfall have hampered relief efforts, with meteorologists forecasting more bad weather to come.

Storm warnings have been issued for coastal areas of Nova Scotia and Vancouver, Quebec and Ontario were also braced for more wintry weather.

Weathermen say that Canada may see its first countrywide with Christmas since 1971.

Several areas in the US have also been settling in for an extended cold snap, with storm warnings in place across a number of states after a weekend of hurricane-force winds and heavy snowfall.

In eastern Canada, Nova Scortia power reported that tens of thousands of customers were without electricity, with more forecast to fall. Some ferry services to the south eastern province had been cancelled, while cross-country rail networks have also been affected.

Several bridges, ferries and parts of the Trans-Canada highway were closed to traffic.

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Canada has announced a $4bn bail out plan to aid 2 US Car manufacturers with operations here. The offer of the emergency loans follow the US Government’s decision on Friday of $17.4bn in loans to help General Motors and Chrysler survive.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it was ” a regrettable but a necessary step to protect the Canadian economy”. The amount promised represented the 20% share Canada has in the North American automobile industry, he said. The money will help the two companies continue to operate while they restructure their business. The Federal Government will provide C$2.7bn in short term loans, with a further C$1.3bn coming from Ontario, where the manufacturers are based.

“These are extraordinary circumstances that require extraordinary measures”, said Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Mr Harper said that there were “hundreds of thousands if not millions” in Canada potentially affected by the ongoing difficulties in the Car Industry. He said that the deal ensured that Canada was looking out for their interests and insisted that the deal was “not a blank cheque”.

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A Turkish shoe firm says it had to take on 100 extra staff to cope with the surge in orders after an Iraqi threw shoes at the US President George W Bush.

Istanbul-based Baydan shoes claims it made the shoes and says it now has tens of thousands of orders from around the world - including from the US and Iraq. The shoe was called Model 271 but has been renamed Bush Shoe, the firm said.

However, the brother of Shoe throwing journalist says that the show were Iraqi-made. It is not very difficult to verify from where exactly the shoes were manufactured. But after the incident, the shoes were completely destroyed. According to the shop owner, a US Firm has added 18,000 pairs and a further 15,000 pairs are destined for Iraq and a British distributor has asked to be the Firm’s European sales representative.

Muntadar-Al-Zaidi, the journalist has been hailed a hero by some people for throwing his shoes at President Bush during the Baghdad news conference on 14th December. This action is seen as a grave insult in the Arab World.

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UK Retail stores rose unexpectedly last month, official figures have shown. Total sales volume climbed 0.3% in November from the previous month, the office for National Statistics said. Sales were up 1.5% from a year ago.

Analysts had been expecting the sales to fall from November and recent surveys have suggested that the trading is weak. The rise in monthly sales was led by household goods, which were up 3.9% in November - their biggest monthly increase since July 2007.

Food sales were up 0.2% for the month, while those of clothing and footwear were down by 0.1%. The rate of overall sales made by the Internet was 3.8%, up from 3.2% in October. Analysts had been expecting retail sales to fall by 0.6% in November.

“Early Christmas shopping could explain the part of the strength, but it does not really tally with the weakness in the consumer confidence nor the data seen in the CBI and British Retail Consortium Surveys”, said James Knightley, an economist at ING.

The British Retail Consortium said that last week, the total UK Retail sales had fallen in consecutive months for the first time in at least 13 years.

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Internet search giant Yahoo! is to cut the time it stores personal data from 13 months to 3 months. It is hoping that it’s decision will provide a benchmark for the industry. Currently, Google stores data for nine months and Microsoft for six months.

International data protection officials have been urging firms to do more to protect the data of the users. Privacy advocates have welcomed the move and challenged rivals to go even further.

“I would challenge the industry to move to 30 days across the board. People should demand that their information is expunged as rapidly as possible”, said Simon Davies, head of Privacy International. A recent rash of data leaks has left users concerned and organisations embarrassed, he said.

“The less time data is online means the less risk that rogue companies can establish dangerous comprehensive profiles on users”, he added.

Yahoo! said its decision to cut the time it stores information gathered from the web surfing came about following a “review of it’s data practices”.

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In a surprise move, Apple said that it is to abandon its Annual Tech gathering Macworld after this January’s event. Meanwhile, the fact that the keynote address will not be given by the CEO Steve Jobs, has reignited speculation about his health, following Cancer four years ago. Concern was raised earlier this year when Mr Jobs appeared at the firm’s developer conference looking gaunt. Apple spokesman Steve Dowling refused to discuss the issue and said shows like MacWorld were no longer relevant.

“Apple is steadily scaling back on trade shows and in recent years, is reaching more people in more ways than ever before”, Mr Dowling said to a news channel.

“Every week 3.5 million people visit our Retail Stores. And like many companies, trade shows are a minor part of how Apple reaches its customers”.

Mr Dowling also said that as the company had scaled back on such shows, it had ramped up stand-alone launch events like the September Ipod launch event seen by millions of people in the Internet.

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According to the joint statement issued by the Ritchie’s publicist, Madonna and Ritchie are “happy” about their divorce agreement.

But an earlier statement released to the press suggesting the singer paying Ritchie 50 pounds was “misleading and inaccurate”, they added. The Associate Press News Agency had quoted Madonna’s US spokeswomen Liz Rosenberg on Monday. The new statement said, the settlement details would “remain private”.

Ms Rosenberg had told AP on Monday that Ritchie had been given $76m-$92m and that the figure included the value of couple’s Ashcombe House estate on the Wiltshire/Dorset border. Custody of the couple’s children have yet to be worked out, she added. She also said “I assume it is one of the largest payouts ever in divorce”.

In the new statement released by Ritchie’s representatives on Wednesday, the couple said, “We have tried to maintain a dignified silence regarding the details of our divorce for the last few months whilst accepting the obvious media interests”.

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Microsoft has issued a patch to fix a security flaw which is believed to have affected as many as 10,000 websites. The flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser could allow criminals to take controls of people’s computers and steal passwords. Internet Explorer is used by the vast majority of people around the world and flaw could affect all its versions. However, so far the vulnerability has affected only machines running Internet Explorer 7.0

Security Update MS08-078 would protect customers from active attacks against the Internet Explorer, said the US software giant in the statement accompanying the release of the update.

“This update will be applied automatically to hundreds of millions of customers through automatic updates over the next few days” said Mike Reavey, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center ( MSRC ). According to Rick Ferguson, a senior security adviser at Security Firm Trend Micro, the flaw has so far been used to steal gaming passwords, but more sensitive data could be at risk until until the security update is installed.

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