European Cafe Gives Discount for Being Polite

A café in Europe is offering discounts from orders if customers are polite.

While a coffee is usually three euros there, if the customer says "please", the order will be one euro cheaper.

In addition, wishing the staff "good morning" knocks another euro off the price - meaning a coffee would only cost one euro.

See the pic.

iPad Free App of the Week: Lightning and Rain

While this isn't a great app yet, it has promise.

What it is supposed to do, is show where lightning strikes are occuring.

It does that, but right now it's only working for Europe.

For each discharge the app will show:

* Location (lattitude, longitude, address)
* Discharge (kA)
* Time of discharge (CET-2)

It only keeps the last 100 discharges stored.

If it can add North America to the mix then the entire globe, this would be cool.  Until then it's just for our European friends

Cold Snap, Labor Strike Slow Travel in Europe

An early cold snap in Europe claimed more lives Saturday, and a wildcat strike by Spanish air traffic controllers added to the travel chaos caused by snow, ice, and in some countries flooding.

Freezing weather killed another nine people in Poland over a 24-hour period, bringing the death toll there to 46 since the beginning of November, police said.

Temperatures there dropped as low as minus 19 degrees Celsius (minus 2 Fahrenheit) overnight Friday.

In the neighbouring Czech Republic, it was minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) overnight, disrupting rail traffic as the ice seized up signals at several junctions.

French police blamed icy driving conditions for three deaths in the east of the country after a car slid off the road and into a canal near Plobsheim late Friday. Neither the driver nor the passengers had been drinking, police added.

Weather forecasters warned of black ice in northern France that would make driving particularly dangerous.

Officials in the French Alps meanwhile warned to watch for avalanches on Sunday in ski stations already open because of the early snow. The danger would increase Monday with fresh snowfalls and a subsequent thaw, they added.

The roof of a building at the Flamanville nuclear power station in northern France partially collapsed under the weight of snow overnight Friday, power company EDF said.

The building contained about 10 barrels of low-level radioactive waste, but France's nuclear safety agency, the ASN, classed the incident one on a scale of seven, at the bottom of the scale of seriousness.

Civil aviation officials asked airlines flying out of Charles de Gaulle, Paris' main airport, to cut back their flights by 20 percent during daylight to ease the pressure caused by the snow and ice there.

In Spain, the disruption to air traffic came mainly from a wildcat strike by air traffic controllers, which ran from Friday to Saturday evening, hitting an estimated 300,000 passengers over a long holiday weekend.

The government there put the military in command of the skies and threatened to prosecute the strikers, who had called in sick en masse rather than staging a formal strike. By Saturday afternoon, they were returning to work.

Britain's Transport Secretary Phil Hammond relaxed the maximum-hours restrictions for lorry drivers to keep the country's vital supplies moving.

"This will help us with deliveries of fuel, it will help supermarket chains with their deliveries to their stores and it will help with deliveries of salt around the country," he said.

The wintry weather has disrupted road, rail and air travel in Britain over the past few days. In many parts of England and Wales however, the snows were melting away.

Ski resorts in Scotland warned of the risk of avalanches, but the thaw there was also helping rail traffic, badly disrupted by the recent snow, to slowly get back on track.

In Switzerland, Geneva's University Hospital cancelled non-urgent operations scheduled for Monday and Tuesday to cope with a massive flow of broken bones caused by people slipping and falling in icy conditions. Operating theatres were working overtime through the weekend.

Stay tuned, a lot going on across Europe right now.

Cold Weather Blasts Europe

Northern Europe contines to be hit with cold and snowy conditions.

Dozens of people are reported to have been killed by exposure to the cold or in weather-related accidents.

The snow continues to disrupt transport networks but many airports are resuming a more normal service.

Temperatures in Poland have fallen to as low as -33C (-27F) in the past few days.

Another 12 people froze to death across Poland on Thursday night, according to police, bringing the total killed there during this cold snap to 30.

Police say many of the victims were homeless people.

Eleven people were reported to have died in Russia over the past 24 hours, and three in France. Deaths were also reported in Germany and the Czech Republic.

The snow and ice has meant widespread delays and cancellations to European flights in recent days, with the closure of a number of British airports.

London's Gatwick airport reopened on Friday morning for the first time in two days, but the authorities said it was likely to be some time before flight schedules returned to normal.

While a regular service appears to be resuming in many European airports, arrivals and departure boards are still showing delays and some cancellations.

Eurostar says it expects to operate a significantly reduced service until Sunday, but that no more tickets will be available until Monday.

Cold air moving down from Siberia has contributed to the wintry conditions in northern Europe.

Temperatures are an average 5C-10C below average in some major cities.

Terror Warning for Americans in Europe

The US government is to warn its citizens to stay away from high-profile sites in Europe amid renewed fears over al-Qaida terrorist attacks, reports say.

American and UK officials are understood to have been in contact over the possibility of a broad alert being issued as early as today that would have significant implications for tourism across Europe. High-profile tourist sites and transport hubs are expected to be highlighted as potential targets.

People are encouraged to exercise caution rather than cancelling travel plans altogether.

The warning comes one week after intelligence officials in Britain intercepted a credible Islamist-linked terror plot. The attack would reportedly have been similar to the deadly commando-style raids in Mumbai, India, two years ago, with other European cities, in France and Germany, also targeted.

On Tuesday night the Eiffel Tower in Paris was evacuated following a bomb threat called in from a telephone booth. It was the second such alert at the tower in two weeks. A search by bomb experts found nothing unusual, and it was reopened within hours.

There has also been speculation that Osama bin Laden could be masterminding the latest plots personally.

There has been an upsurge in US drone raids in Pakistan in recent weeks as Nato targets Islamic militants. The US has carried out at least 25 drone strikes so far this month in Pakistan's tribal areas – the highest monthly total for the past six years, US media reported.

US officials have been pushing Pakistan to increase their search for al-Qaida militants, who are believed to be hiding in a mountainous border region in the country.