News Headlines - 18 May 2013

▽Tax avoidance from big global firms costs every British taxpayer ￡183 a year - Mirror Online

Every British taxpayer is being cheated out of ￡183 a year as global giants including Google and Amazon avoid paying annual taxes of as uch as ￡5.5billion... A massive ￡1.4billion of the shortfall, based on an estimated 30 per cent profit, comes from just eight companies which netted ￡18.2billion in UK sales, but only paid ￡33million in tax.

▽Syria’s Assad Says Peace Talks Likely to Fail - NYTimes.com

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in a rare interview with a foreign newspaper, appeared to dismiss the possibility of serious progress arising from any peace talks, and to back away from earlier statements by Syrian officials that the government was willing to negotiate with its armed opponents.

▽David Cameron rejects gay marriage criticism - Telegraph

David Cameron has rejected claims by one of his senior Cabinet ministers that too much parliamentary time is being spent on gay marriage.

▽Google's wearable Glass gadget: cool or creepy? | Reuters

Google staged four discussions expounding on the finer points of its "Glass" wearable computer during this week's developer conference. Missing from the agenda, however, was a session on etiquette when using the recording-capable gadget, which some attendees faithfully wore everywhere - including to the crowded bathrooms.

▽British backpacker died after drinking poisoned 'gin' in Indonesia - Telegraph

The 23-year-old had been travelling across south Asia with her boyfriend Joe Cook, 21, and a male friend the couple had met on their travels when they bought the tainted alcohol from a local shop in Indonesia. Methanol is extremely poisonous and is known to cause kidney failure, blindness, seizures and death even in small doses.