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Mixing the idea of Google’s Street View with multi-spectral thermal camera technology, Massachusetts-based startup Essess is building a giant database mapping residential and commercial properties in the U.S.

The project is the idea of Sanjay Sarma, professor of mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who wanted to create a way of identifying and remedying inefficiencies in buildings.

Essess currently has a fleet of five cars mounted with thermal cameras that take a matter of seconds to assess an individual building. The brighter the colors, the greater the “heat leak.”

Company CEO, Storm Duncan says they are capturing around two to three million buildings per month at the moment.

“The purpose of the approach is to provide a snapshot of the energy efficiency. It answers about 20-30% of the problems of your home.” Duncan said.

“I consider it a fabulous way to start a broader dialogue about the more comprehensive (energy) profile,” he added.

Essess have also developed computer programs that generate energy reports highlighting specific areas of concern and calculating their cost — financially and environmentally.

The beauty of the reporting system (see gallery) is its simplicity, says Duncan, with consumers immediately getting a sense of how efficient their homes really are.

The database will also create what he calls “an eco-system around building efficiency” becoming the cornerstone of a competitive hub where homeowners can link up with specialists who can remedy problems.

Buildings consume around 40% of the U.S.’s total energy requirements annually, according to the Department of Energy, with over one third of that power going to waste.

The company is evolving a business model which Duncan hopes will mean customers won’t pay a cent to view information about their home.

Instead, audits will potentially become part of the service provided by real estate databases like Zillow and Trulia, Duncan says.

Essess hope to have covered 10% of the U.S.’s 125 million properties by the end of the year.

Thermal imaging surveys are nothing new, but widespread access to them is says Stewart Little, CEO of British thermal imaging company, IRT.

“Back in the 1980s the cameras cost about £250,000 ($400,000). Now they cost around £5,000 ($8,000). So the technology’s moved on lots and lowered the barrier to entry for companies to go and do it.”

IRT have surveyed around 200,000 UK homes since they were founded in 2002, and also offer customers quantified thermal images showing the financial and carbon costs of energy leaks.

It’s a strategy that’s proved highly successful in motivating people to insulate their homes, Little says.

The UK’s Energy Saving Trust says online surveys and energy monitors can also help homeowners track their energy usage.

They estimate that savings could save up to $380 a year by improving insulation.

“The challenge is to do something about it,” says Rob Bell, a energy consultant and former business development with the Energy Saving Trust.

“With gas and electricity prices only looking like they are going in one direction, the amount you can save is also upwards as well,” he added.

“The headline figures around how much you can save could be the catalyst to get you from being aware to doing something about it.”

Story By: by Kelly McEvers

Syrians appear behind the damaged windshield of a minibus as they inspect the site of a blast in the central Midan district of Damascus last month. A new jihadist organization in Syria claimed responsibility for the attack.

It was Friday, April 27, when a car bomb exploded in the Damascus neighborhood of Midan. Syrian state television showed soldiers and civilians running from the smoke of the explosion under a bridge. Then the camera closed in on streams of blood and body parts.

The Syrian regime’s narrative is that the uprising that has gripped the country for more than a year is not a case of people protesting and sometimes fighting for their rights; the official stance is that it’s terrorism.

Days after the April attack, that narrative seemed to be validated, as a new jihadist organization released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack in Midan. The al-Qaida-style terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra Li-Ahl al-Sham, or Front to Protect the Syrian People, has apparently entered the fray.

Following the group’s claim to the attack, alarmist media stories emerged about how rebels who oppose the Syrian regime have worked with foreign fighters and that they make their own bombs.

Terrorism experts say, however, that it isn’t quite so simple.

Some See Democracy As Religion

Brian Fishman has been studying jihadist groups in Syria’s neighbor, Iraq, for years. He says so far, Jabhat al-Nusra appears to be legitimate. Online, he says, they use the typical jihadi icons and rhetoric.

“Moreover, the [Jabhat al-Nusra] as a group has been embraced by the jihadi community online,” Fishman says, “including some important scholars, particularly in Jordan, but other major figures, ideological figures, within the jihadi trend.”

Still, the group is very small, he says, and not necessarily aligned with the protesters and the rebels in Syria. While jihadists might have the same goal as the protesters and the rebels — overthrowing the Syrian regime — Fishman says they don’t have the same plan for what happens after that overthrow. And they certainly don’t have the same ideology.

“From their world view, democracy is a religion because it asserts the sovereignty of human beings over the sovereignty of God,” Fishman says. “So when they see protesters in Syria calling for democracy, they believe that this is a call for the imposition of a religious system that is antithetical to the system they would like to install.”

For now, Fishman says, the jihadists might be willing to put these differences aside and work with the protesters and the rebels. That’s not to say the protesters and the rebels want to work with them, though.

‘The Disintegration Of Order’

The irony in all this is that the presence of these jihadi groups might actually strengthen the regime in the short term, by scaring Christians and other minorities in Syria into believing the regime is their sole protector. It could also scare off the international community, which fears any intervention might only attract more jihadists.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, a professor at Princeton University, used to be the policy planning director at the State Department. She says the presence of jihadist groups in Syria shouldn’t dissuade the U.S. and its allies from intervening. Rather, she says, it should wake them up to the dangers that a prolonged conflict in Syria could create.

“If countries in the region and beyond start seeing this as the disintegration of order within which any number of groups can then act,” she says, “that becomes an even greater danger than simply an internal civil war spilling over borders, which is bad enough.”

Slaughter says one major threat is the Syrian regime’s stockpile of chemical weapons. No one would like to see those fall into the hands of jihadists.

She says while the jihadist presence in Syria might help the Syrian regime in the short term, it could eventually force the international community to intervene — and change the regime’s narrative for good.

A man jailed in Africa after finding a suspected massacre is now being treated as an official murder suspect, his family has said.

David Simpson, 24, from North Yorks, was working for a safari firm in the Central African Republic when he says he came across 18 mutilated bodies.

He reported it to the authorities but was later arrested and jailed.

Paul Simpson said his brother, who has been in jail for more than a month, "remained upbeat".

Mr Simpson said he regularly spoke to his brother who has access to a phone in jail.

He said: "When we heard the news it seemed like a step backwards but it is a step in the right direction because it's better than him being held there and not being told what's going on.

"He's fine, he just wants everyone to know he's OK and he's staying positive."

Mr Simpson, of Pickering, was working for Swedish company Central African Wildlife Adventures, which takes clients game hunting, and had been looking for a water supply when he found the bodies in remote bush land. He knew some of the victims from a nearby village.

Other bodies were also found in the area.

Mr Simpson told his family it was believed the suspected massacre had been carried out by the rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army.

After contacting the authorities, the family said Mr Simpson had gone voluntarily to answer questions and had been arrested and imprisoned along with his boss Erik Mararv.

Mr Mararv's wife Emelie said they had now been shown a report which stated they were being treated as official murder suspects.

Paul Simpson said it was understood an investigation was now being carried out by the African authorities and they were awaiting the outcome of that to determine what would happen next.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We can confirm the arrest of British national David Simpson in Central African Republic.

"We are providing consular assistance to Mr Simpson. We are in contact with Central African Republic authorities and continue to monitor the situation closely."

The Olympic flame will be lit in a ceremony in Olympia, Greece, on Thursday ahead of the start of the torch relay and the London 2012 Games.

The 2008 Olympic torch relay, which travelled the globe, was dogged by pro-Tibet, democracy and anti-China protests.

Viewers in the UK can see live coverage of the torch lighting ceremony on the BBC News Channel, BBC Radio 5 Live and www.bbc.co.uk/2012/ on Thursday morning.

The sole remnant of France's once-extensive possessions in North America, the Atlantic islands of St Pierre and Miquelon lie off the Canadian island of Newfoundland.

With little agriculture and a troubled fishing industry, they depend on France for subsidies and on their near neighbour for goods and transport links.

Fish processing is the main economic activity, although tourism is increasingly important. The territory capitalises on its image as "France in North America".

The fishing industry was badly hit by disputes with Canada from the late 1970s over quotas and territorial waters, and by a later moratorium on cod fishing. In 1992 a tribunal awarded an economic zone to St Pierre and Miquelon that was less than 25% of the area claimed by France.

At its peak the fishery attracted hundreds of vessels from Europe every year, spawning a ship supply and repair industry.

After periods of French and British rule and frequent skirmishes between the two, the territory was restored to France in 1816. It became a French department in 1976. This was unpopular; many islanders said European integration did not take into account their remoteness.

The islands became a French "territorial collectivity" in 1985. The status – something between a department and an overseas territory – allowed French subsidies to continue and calmed Canadian fears about European exploitation of its fishing grounds.

The territory enjoyed a windfall in the prohibition era of the 1920s, when the US banned the production and sale of alcoholic drinks. It became a centre for shipping whisky, wine and rum to the US. But the end of prohibition in 1933 plunged the islands into economic depression.

Fish stocks in the seas around the islands attracted the first Europeans. A French fishing post was established in 1604. The descendants of the first settlers – including Bretons, Normans and Basques – make up much of the present population.

Rugged cliffs, hills, lakes and peat bogs characterise the mostly-barren landscape.

Air India has fired 10 pilots after dozens of them called in sick amid a dispute over training for the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes.

The airline has derecognised the Indian Pilots' Guild and its office is being sealed, an Air India spokesman said.

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh called the strike "illegal".

The pilots are protesting against the decision to train pilots from Indian Airlines, which merged with Air India in 2007, to fly these planes.

Air India pilots have said the planes were ordered before the merger, so they should be preferred for training.

According to reports in the Indian media, another 150 pilots were expected to miss work later on Tuesday.

Air India said it had cancelled four international flights due to the unavailability of pilots.

The strike is the latest in a series of problems for India's national carrier.

Rising fuel costs coupled with increased competition have seen the carrier make heavy losses, raising concerns about its future.

To make matters worse, the airline's debt levels have been rising.

Earlier this year, three state-owned oil firms halted supplies to the airline for almost four hours for non-payment of dues.

The airline's dwindling fortunes have seen the government come to its rescue.

Last month authorities approved a debt restructuring plan and said they would inject 300bn rupees ($5.9bn; £3.7bn) into the airline by 2020.

Situated in north-eastern Europe with a coastline along the Baltic Sea, Latvia is geographically the middle of the three former Soviet Baltic republics.

Latvia was under foreign dominion from the 13th until the 20th century. After the first world war it declared independence which Russia recognised in 1920.

Two decades later, following a pact between Stalin and Hitler, Soviet troops invaded in 1940 and Latvia was absorbed into the Soviet Union. Nazi forces pushed the Soviets back in 1941 but the Red Army returned in 1944 and remained for half a century.

During the Soviet period, which ended in 1991, Latvia underwent heavy industrialisation, and experienced a big influx of immigrants from other parts of the USSR, mainly Russia.

About a quarter of the population is Russian-speaking and the rights of this section of society have been a thorny issue since independence. Government reforms introduced in 2004 to restrict the use of the Russian language in schools remain controversial.

Legislation on citizenship was toughened up in 2006. Candidates who fail a Latvian language test three times will be denied citizenship. People without citizenship are entitled neither to vote nor to obtain an EU passport.

Like its Baltic neighbours, in the decade after independence Latvia made a rapid transformation to embrace the free market.

Latvia's economy grew by 50% between 2004 and 2007 but the global financial crisis of 2008-9 hit the country hard, and the former Baltic tiger endured one of the worst recessions in the EU.

The social turmoil triggered by the financial crisis led to the fall of the Godmanis government in February 2009. By January 2010, unemployment had soared to 20%, prompting fears of further political instability.