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uk-england-south-yorkshire-17905458 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-17905458 | South Yorkshire Police unable to retrieve River Don body | A man's body has been found in the River Don in South Yorkshire but police said they cannot retrieve it because of dangerous conditions. | South Yorkshire Police said they were called at about 20:00 BST on Sunday after a body was spotted in the river. The force said the high waters and strong current had meant they were unable to enter the river. They also said debris being carried down the river near Sprotborough had made conditions extremely difficult. | दक्षिण यॉर्कशायर में डॉन नदी में एक व्यक्ति का शव मिला है, लेकिन पुलिस ने कहा कि वे खतरनाक परिस्थितियों के कारण इसे बरामद नहीं कर सकते हैं। |
uk-england-bristol-28522201 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-28522201 | Man summonsed to court over Bristol toddler's death | A man is to be prosecuted for manslaughter following the death of a three-year-old boy in Bristol. | Freddie Hussey died in hospital after being hit by a Land Rover pulling a trailer, on Hastings Road, Bedminster, on 27 January. Tony Davies, 37, from Hallen, was served with a summons to court for manslaughter and causing death by dangerous driving, police said. Mr Davies is due to appear before Bristol Magistrates on 15 August. | ब्रिस्टल में तीन साल के लड़के की मौत के बाद एक व्यक्ति पर हत्या का मुकदमा चलाया जाना है। |
entertainment-arts-48021899 | https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48021899 | Why David Cameron set Tina Fey a secret mission to change British TV | It's not unusual for TV fans to wish that their favourite shows would carry on (Fleabag anyone?) . But it seems viewers who long for more have an unlikely ally - former UK Prime Minister David Cameron. | By Alex TaylorBBC News Speaking on David Tennant's podcast, US writer and actress Tina Fey revealed that, while leader, Mr Cameron implored her to lobby the British TV industry to churn out as many episodes as US shows do. "Come and convince our showrunners that they can't just make six episodes of things. Like you guys, they should make 200 episodes," she recalled him saying. Fey rejected the request, however, explaining that US writers were, in fact, jealous of the less-is-more British approach. UK shows tend to be authored by one writer - be that Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge or Derry Girls' Lisa McGee - and hold shorter runs of between six to eight episodes per series as a result. In the US, meanwhile, scriptwriting is synonymous with the writers' room, in which a team of scribes - led by the showrunner - work together to produce up to 22 episodes a season. Each writer will generally get to pen their own episode as part of the overall narrative arc. But, according to scriptwriter Gareth McLean, the showrunner always has the chance to "overwrite to add a consistency of tone". Production timeframes also differ. Unlike the UK, where series are completed well ahead of time, writers of US shows often write from episode to episode. The closest we come to this in Britain is a soap, where multiple instalments are churned out per week. There are also more eyeballs to reach, and therefore more money, in the US market. Bigger ratings make the US industry more lucrative for advertisers, says Ant Boys, a Bafta-nominated writer and editor with credits on both UK political satire The Thick of It and its stateside equivalent Veep. "The biggest difference is that the US industry just has far more money pumped into it, and can afford to pay a room full or writers. The UK industry just can't," he says. "In the early days of The Thick of It, we were making episodes for £80,000, but for the early episodes of Veep, we were looking at $3m (£2.3m) an episode," "When you have that disparity, the ability to hire more writers and produce more episodes is clear." Less is more? Having more money, writers and episodes doesn't necessarily mean the calibre of writing is any better or worse, of course. But McLean says shorter runs can allow more succinct writing, authored in a way that can assure clarity of vision. "Confident" writers like Waller-Bridge use the brevity to great effect. "In the case of Fleabag it was very much a case of, 'I've got a story to tell, I can tell it really clearly in the way I want to tell it.'" The Office is an example of how the approaches can differ - Ricky Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant wrote 12 episodes, plus two Christmas specials, for the UK, whereas Greg Daniels' US adaptation turned it into into a 201-episode behemoth over nine seasons. Fawlty Towers, which was recently named the best British sitcom ever by Radio Times, was 12 episodes long, while Peter Kay's Car Share recently concluded, also after 12 instalments. Even long-running shows like Only Fools and Horses (64 episodes) and Blackadder (27) can't keep up with most hit US shows. Tina Fey's 30 Rock lasted for 138 episodes over seven seasons. A room full of writers' heads can be better than one, but there are also clear commercial reasons for this expansion, as shows can go on to make big money through syndication once their original runs conclude. US sitcom Seinfeld hit the headlines in 2013 after reportedly generating $3.1bn (£2.05bn) in repeat fees since its final episode 15 years earlier. Show me the money! The UK TV industry similarly benefits from lucrative overseas sales. British producers earned more than £900m from selling their shows abroad in 2016/17. The contribution they make to the economy is likely to be the main reason David Cameron approached Fey, rather than his love of The Office or 30 Rock. Commercial success "often means looking for ways to stretch something out even when it's not really feasible", says Guardian TV critic Hannah Davies. While US shows can be churned out quickly, she says "super-long US shows such as Supernatural can become generally disjointed", particularly in the glare of union-led writers' strikes. And this dominance of financial interests can strengthen further in syndication, with Seinfeld episodes "made shorter to free up more time per episode for adverts, increasing network revenue", says Sarah O'Connell, a YouTube host and film critic. "Of course, watering down content ultimately affects its overall quality and enjoyment, so it's a fine balance." Binge rules? So, what of Cameron's suggestion? Given the differences in funding levels between the traditional UK and US scriptwriting models, it would seem unrealistic. But in the current age of streaming and binge-watching, normal rules don't apply. Shows like The Sopranos and The Wire changed perceptions, according to culture journalist Manu Ekanayake, meaning "length is now practically expected". Stories are "deeper, characterisation more complex and sub-plots can unfold over a matter of years, rather than a season of six episodes". Streaming services can also take more creative risks - dropping and commissioning shows throughout the year and producing award-winning original programming - at a pace that traditional broadcasters are unable to match. But, in the carnage of what McLean describes as the "age of disruption", a middle ground is emerging in audience expectations. Both Boys and McLean say the models are overlapping. British series like No Offence have used a writers' room, while such set-ups in the US are shrinking. Davies says viewers are starting to become "more selective" to navigate the increasingly crowded TV marketplace. Over the past year, Netflix and Amazon have signed up writers to exclusivity contracts, suggesting the divide may not be over quantity, but quality. Waller-Bridge's decision to end Fleabag as it peaked in popularity reflects this. "I think people were surprised to hear it was apparently finishing after two series," says Davies. "But doing so let it end on a high. "Often you get the sense that some series, in particular US series, don't know quite when to stop." Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. | टीवी प्रशंसकों के लिए यह कामना करना असामान्य नहीं है कि उनके पसंदीदा शो जारी रहें (किसी को भी फ्लिबैग करें?)। लेकिन ऐसा लगता है कि जो दर्शक अधिक चाहते हैं, उनके पास एक असंभव सहयोगी है-ब्रिटेन के पूर्व प्रधान मंत्री डेविड कैमरन। |
world-asia-39099988 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39099988 | Saudi king visits Indonesia with 'cars and entourage' | Saudi Arabia's king is visiting Indonesia for the first time in 47 years. And while his official business in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation is receiving a lot of attention, so is the holiday to Bali and the luxury goods going with him. | King Salman bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud is in Jakarta from Wednesday as part of a month-long Asia tour that includes Malaysia, Brunei, Japan, China and the Maldives. BBC Indonesian's Christine Franciska takes a look at why people are fascinated by the royal visit. He's bringing luxury cars and a huge entourage King Salman will come to Indonesia with 459 tonnes of equipment, including two Mercedes-Benz S600s and two electric lifts, Indonesian media reports said. Airfreight firm PT Jasa Angkasa Semesta, which said it had been appointed to handle the king's cargo, told Antara news agency that 63 tonnes would be unloaded in Jakarta and 396 tonnes would be brought to Bali. There will be 620 people coming as part of his entourage as well as 800 delegates, including 10 ministers and 25 princes. It will take 27 flights to transport them all to Jakarta and nine flights to get them to Bali, the freight firm said. Although it's quite common for monarchs and heads of states to travel with luxury goods and a huge numbers of people, for some Indonesians it's all quite lavish. "A lot of Indonesian feel proud of King Salman and his luxurious lifestyle. I am more proud with our President Jokowi and his modesty," said one user on Twitter, referring to President Joko Widodo's famous man-of-the-people style. He doesn't come very often The last time a Saudi king went to Indonesia was in 1970, when King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz met President Suharto on his state visit to Jakarta. King Salman's visit comes after President Widodo visited Saudi Arabia in 2015 to promote Indonesia as an investment destination. "This is a very close, tight, and friendly relation," Indonesian Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung told reporters last week. King Salman started the multi-nation tour on Monday in Malaysia, which his predecessor had visited more recently, in 2006. And he took a diplomatic selfie with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. The visit comes with big money The Indonesian government has said the country will see about $25bn (£20bn) worth of investment during King Salman's visit. The deals that will be signed include an investment of $6bn by Saudi's oil company Aramco. On Tuesday, Aramco signed a deal to invest $7bn into a Malaysian oil company. King Salman's holiday trip to Bali island is also expected to boost national tourism. "It is an extraordinary visit from Indonesian perspective," Zuhairi Misrawi, Middle East observer and a member of Indonesia's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama told the BBC. "They will discuss many things from economy, culture, and tourism. What we need to see is how serious their commitment is to invest in Indonesia." Read more on: Why does Saudi Arabia invest in South East Asia? But there could be strings attached While it may bring a lot of economic benefit to Indonesia, analysts say the Saudis are getting a lot out of it too. As part of a diversification strategy, which is aimed at moving the kingdom away from its dependence on oil, Saudi Arabia has started to focus on pilgrimage services, which has now become the country's second most important industry after oil and gas. "Indonesia has already become the biggest income contributor for both the annual Hajj and the lesser rite of Umrah. Saudi Arabia has increased visa fees for Islamic pilgrims, but I don't think it will discourage Indonesians from going there," Zuhairi Misrawi explained. Some Indonesians have also been expressing concern over Saudi Arabia's increasing religious influence on Muslim countries in the region. Mr Misrawi echoed that sentiment. "From Indonesia's perspective, we need to be careful not to swallow their concept of 'moderate Muslim' wholly, because what's considered moderate for Saudi is different from Indonesia. "The Indonesian government needs to anticipate this. We need them to be firm to say to Saudi: Don't intervene in our ideology." | सऊदी अरब के राजा 47 वर्षों में पहली बार इंडोनेशिया की यात्रा कर रहे हैं। और जहां दुनिया के सबसे बड़े मुस्लिम बहुल देश में उनके आधिकारिक व्यवसाय पर बहुत ध्यान दिया जा रहा है, वहीं बाली की छुट्टी और उनके साथ जाने वाले विलासिता के सामान पर भी बहुत ध्यान दिया जा रहा है। |
uk-wales-north-east-wales-32233957 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-32233957 | Wrexham's Waterworld leisure centre demolition not likely | A plan to demolish Wrexham's Waterworld leisure centre and replace it with a £12m state-of-the-art facility looks set be abandoned. | Councillors on a scrutiny committee voted not to go ahead with the project and said the existing centre should be handed over to a leisure trust. The decision will go before the council's executive board next Tuesday for final approval. In February council officials advised the project was "no longer affordable". A condition survey found the Waterworld centre could be maintained in its present state up until 2035, but it would be "very tired" after 20 years. The leisure complex was opened by the Queen in 1998 after a major refurbishment of the the town's swimming baths. | रेक्सहैम के वाटरवर्ल्ड अवकाश केंद्र को ध्वस्त करने और इसे 12 मिलियन पाउंड की अत्याधुनिक सुविधा के साथ बदलने की योजना को छोड़ दिया गया है। |
uk-wales-south-east-wales-40536242 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-40536242 | £15m Pontypridd sports park to open despite mine discovery | A £15m sports park in Pontypridd will open before the end of the year despite delays when a network of mines was discovered. | Work began on the facility at the University of Wales' campus in Rhydyfelin last year. But the project, home to the first full-sized indoor 4G pitch in Wales, faced setbacks after "historic mine workings" were discovered. Developers Pick Everard said the work would be complete by November. The plans will see a new academic building and training facility, with offices. Rob Cleaver, regional director at Pick Everard, said the discovery of the mines led to extensive investigations and additional ground works to make it suitable for construction works to begin. | खदानों के नेटवर्क की खोज में देरी के बावजूद पोंटीप्रिड में 15 मिलियन पाउंड का एक खेल उद्यान वर्ष के अंत से पहले खुल जाएगा। |
technology-22464290 | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-22464290 | Censoring Facebook: Social network's violent video dilemma | Facebook's decision to remove videos showing people being decapitated leaves the firm in a quandary: should or shouldn't it impose a wider censorship policy? | By Leo KelionTechnology reporter Originally the social network rejected calls from users to delete the clips saying that it wanted to "preserve people's rights to describe, depict and comment on the world". But after the BBC revealed that one of its own safety advisers - the head of the Family Online Safety Institute - had criticised its decision, the firm announced a U-turn, saying it would remove clips showing beheadings while it re-evaluated its rules. That potentially opens a can of worms. Since publishing the article, readers have contacted the BBC to complain about other videos, including: In all cases they said the network had refused their requests to remove the material. A spokeswoman for Facebook confirmed its policy had only been amended in regard to decapitations. But imposing stricter controls would open the firm up to other criticism. Before his death, internet freedom campaigner Aaron Swartz warned of the dangers of privately owned parts of the net limiting what was posted onto their sites. He called this "corporate tyranny" and named Facebook as a specific concern. The social network could not provide a date for when its review would be complete. The following range of opinions suggest it will struggle to please everyone. Richard Allan, Facebook More than a billion people express themselves and comment on the world in which we live through Facebook and most of the time this is entirely without problem. On occasions, there are concerns about some of the content that is being shared and we have put in place a reporting system so that people can tell us about this. The reported content is evaluated against our community standards and appropriate action is taken where our rules have been breached. When drawing up and enforcing our approach to acceptable behaviour and content on Facebook, we aim to strike the right balance between enabling people to share information, news and content - and protecting the community as a whole. This is a complex challenge as Facebook is a large, diverse community and we are continually presented with novel situations. While we freely admit that we do not always get it right, the trouble-free daily experience of the vast majority of Facebook users demonstrates that our systems are working well in all but the most exceptional cases and that they are improving over time. As we said last week, we are reviewing our rules related to content showing graphic violence. In doing so we are clear that there are situations where it is important for people to be able to share content through Facebook even if this can at times be quite shocking. For example, people caught up in violent incidents such as the recent Boston bombings or the ongoing conflict in Syria want to be able to report on their experiences and may use quite graphic content to do this. This illustrates the kind of challenge that our highly experienced team deals with on a daily basis as we strive to offer a space for sharing that is mindful of everyone's expectations. Celia Mellow, petition organiser As a person who holds a strong sense of justice, I had no hesitation in setting up a petition for the removal of the sickening decapitation video I was shocked to find on my Facebook news feed. What shocked me even more was the fact that I had to actually make a petition in any hope for the video to be removed. No matter how many times my friends and I reported it, we all received the same message, stating that "it doesn't violate Facebook's community standard on graphic violence, which includes depicting harm to someone or something". How does a video of an innocent woman being brutally murdered not "violate" this? I can only hope that there is a criminal investigation that will bring her justice. As a loyal Facebook fan, I understand that Facebook is only allowing people to have freedom of speech. However, I think it is about time they drew a line between what is and isn't appropriate for the public. Facebook's audience starts from children aged 13 - what I feared the most was that my younger sister could easily have witnessed that disgusting video. No-one should be exposed to such graphic horror. Sadly, that video isn't the only inappropriate content to have wandered onto Facebook recently. I have heard of others showing extreme violence and cruelty to both humans and animals. It's time that new stricter regulations are made by Facebook in order to remove these vile videos for good so that it might return to being the safe social network it used to be. Jeremie Zimmermann, La Quadrature du Net Any intervention by Facebook to remove or block access to content beyond what a court might order - while respecting basic fundamental rights and the principle of proportionality - would in practice amount to privatised censorship, and nobody has an interest in going there. A dominant, centralised actor such as Facebook would be incentivised to spend as little money as possible determining which content would be lawful or not, suitable or not, etc. This would raise the question of what criteria would be used. Opening such a breach would ensure that any government could pressure Facebook to consider their own criteria, whether for political, religious or other reasons. Under such conditions we can be sure that the fundamental right to freedom of speech or the right to a fair trial would not be respected. As surely as we cannot trust giant centralised corporations to defend our fundamental freedoms, we cannot ask them to become the judges and enforcers of what information should be shared online. Protecting children on the net is a responsibility of their parents in the first place. It cannot be outsourced to Facebook. It is a matter of educating them about the difference between between privacy, publicity and a circle of trust. Since Facebook collects and stores so much information it should be able to determine when one of its members is a minor and is about to be exposed to content that has been reported as unsuitable, and display a warning message. Users would then be free to choose to take that advice, or make a conscious choice to access the content. Stephen Balkam, Family Online Safety Institute (Fosi) Facebook, and most other social media sites, have explicit terms of service about what is and what is not acceptable to be hosted on their websites. Some go further and have created what are known as community standards. These more clearly state the rules about what kinds of content will be removed. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have robust reporting mechanisms so that ordinary users can flag inappropriate or abusive content for review. What is challenging for these companies is how and where to draw the line. This will help them determine when to invoke the "public interest" principle in keeping material - such as images from the Boston Marathon bombing - up on their site, even though they depict graphic violence. This is new territory for us all as we navigate the rules, ethics and standards of user-generated content sites. Andrew McDiarmid, Center for Democracy & Technology The controversy over Facebook's treatment of shocking videos of beheadings is the latest illustration of the enormous complexity at work when it comes to promoting the exercise of human rights online. Billions of people rely on internet platforms to speak and access information in the networked public sphere, but the platforms are controlled by private companies, whose terms of service in large part determine the contours of free expression. In one sense, platform operators are themselves speakers that have the right to determine their own policies. At the same time, these "digital sovereigns" - to borrow a phrase from Rebecca MacKinnon - effectively govern their users' exercise of free expression rights. Platforms have a responsibility, particularly as they grow to Facebook-scale, to consider the human rights impact of their policies and to minimise restrictions on free expression. This is especially true with respect to government restrictions. It would be troubling indeed if government pressure precipitated the video's removal in this case. A key step in carrying out this responsibility is ensuring that content policies are clearly communicated and fairly applied. The horrific beheading video and Facebook's reported reaction demonstrate the challenges that arise when trying to develop and apply clear, consistent standards in the complex and multi-faceted realm of online communication. Context matters a great deal. Different companies might draw the line in different places, and just because something is offensive or disturbing does not mean it necessarily violates a particular term. And it certainly does not make it illegal. Because of this complexity, systems for assessing content require constant refinement to ensure that free expression is protected. Advocates, too, must remain vigilant that the private players that provide so much public value online are meeting their responsibilities to users. Is it complicated and prone to mistakes and close calls? Yes, but the alternative - mandated content policies and individual governments vying for control over the global internet - is untenable and fraught with risk for free expression. Dr Lynne Jordan, British Psychological Society The main concern, as an experienced psychologist, in working with the effects of actual and vicarious violence is a lack of awareness of violation of choice. Material is posted on news feeds and "liked" indiscriminately without thought as to the rights of under-aged youngsters and others who may view it. People, whether young or old, can be negatively affected by witnessing violence either on screen or in reality. Effects include trauma responses such as replaying the images, feeling scared and vulnerable, ashamed, invaded or violated and confused, as well as angry and helpless, which is reinforced via the news feed as these things pop up uninvited. Ethical codes are there for safety and to preserve the right to choose what is viewed when users are considered of age or able to understand the implications. Social media sites are mostly not obliged to adhere to such codes which creates a problem, particularly if they issue their own vague inadequate guidelines. Social networks' news feeds allow material to arrive on people's pages that might never be sought by choice. Extensive "friendship lists" develop with people who may not be actual friends but through casual contact get "befriended", perhaps out of obligation or a need to fit in, be liked etc. The material is often posted supposedly to prevent the spread of violent crime or other violations, but in fact it can inadvertently escalate it by sidestepping the consent of the people accessing the feeds. This is reminiscent of the "ban smoking in public places" debate with the concern of whose rights we are protecting. In that debate it was largely about public physical health. This debate concerns public mental health and wellbeing. | लोगों के सिर काटने वाले वीडियो को हटाने के फेसबुक के फैसले ने फर्म को एक दुविधा में डाल दिया हैः क्या उसे व्यापक सेंसरशिप नीति लागू करनी चाहिए या नहीं? |
uk-england-somerset-25807522 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-25807522 | Bath's Dorchester Street bus lane trial begins | A bus lane trial has begun in Bath city centre in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion. | All vehicles, except buses and taxis, are now banned from using the eastbound side of Dorchester Street. Bath and North East Somerset Council said the changes would "create a safer, more welcoming environment for people on foot and who use bicycles". Previously critics said the plan was "poorly thought through" and would "cause chaos" in the area. | यातायात की भीड़ को कम करने के प्रयास में बाथ शहर के केंद्र में एक बस लेन का परीक्षण शुरू हो गया है। |
uk-england-40285221 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-40285221 | M6 Toll is sold to investment group IFM | The M6 Toll has been sold, the BBC has learnt. | The 27-mile route between Cannock and Coleshill in the West Midlands opened in 2003 but has always lost money. It was put up for sale for nearly £2bn last year after a consortium of 27 banks effectively took ownership from Midlands Expressway Ltd. The road is now owned by IFM - owners of Manchester Airports Group, Anglian Water and Arqiva - which runs the transmitters used for BBC broadcasts. Latest figures show the average daily traffic across weekdays and weekends in January and March, for all vehicle types, is 44,942 - up from 42,045 over the same period last year. More updates on this story The road, which opened at a cost of £900m, bypasses the most congested parts of the M6 - starting at junction 3a and rejoining at junction 11a. The National Alliance Against Tolls has said the government should buy the loss-making motorway and remove the charge to reduce congestion. The weekday price for cars is currently £5.50 and £11 for HGVs. Peter Plisner, BBC Midlands Today transport correspondent, said the road was likely to move into profit under its new owners instead of losing an estimated £25m on average each year. A debt-restructuring process led to the consortium taking ownership from Midlands Expressway Ltd. The consortium then put its equity stake up for sale, which has now effectively been bought by IFM, which is owned by several Australian pension funds. Analysis: BBC Midlands Today Transport Correspondent Peter Plisner: Ownership of the M6 Toll has passed from one Australian company to another. Now, it's a group of pension funds that sees the road as a good investment. Despite the losses of previous year IFM, the road's new owner, sees it not only as a viable asset, but a profitable one too. Losses of the past happened mainly because of a huge mortgage needed to pay for the construction of the road. Following restructuring in recent years and the latest sale of the road, that mortgage has effectively been wiped away, clearing the way for the M6 Toll to finally make a profit. Growth in traffic and more roadworks on the Midlands motorways can only add to the profit potential. | बीबीसी को पता चला है कि एम6 टोल बिक चुका है। |
magazine-24945209 | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24945209 | Minsk's fond memories of Lee Harvey Oswald | Mystery and infamy surround Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot US President John F Kennedy in Dallas, 50 years ago. So it's odd to visit a city where people remember him clearly and fondly - and refuse to believe he is guilty. | By David SternBBC News, Minsk, Belarus "I just liked the guy," says Ernst Titovets, a medical student who attached himself to Lee Harvey Oswald after the American defector's arrival in Minsk, then the capital of the Soviet republic of Byelorussia, in 1959. The pair went to dances and concerts together, they both enjoyed practical jokes, and both energetically chased young female students. Titovets, who spoke good English, was able to play Cupid's helper when Oswald met his future wife, Marina, whom he describes as "attractive in a raw sexual sort of way". What did he think when he heard Oswald named as the man who had killed Kennedy, and then was himself shot? "I couldn't believe my ears," says Titovets, now a spry 75-year-old bio researcher. "I deeply believe he was innocent. He was incapable of killing anybody." Oswald, a 20-year-old former marine, had arrived in the USSR claiming to be a Marxist. According to Peter Savodnik, whose book The Interloper about Oswald's Minsk years was published earlier this month, he said he had secret details about the US's prized U-2 spy plane. The KGB however wasn't impressed and initially rejected his application, but on the day his tourist visa expired Oswald slashed one of his wrists. Fearing an international incident if he tried again, the Soviet authorities let him stay. They sent him to Minsk, a distant provincial capital, which might as well have been Siberia. He was assigned a job at a radio and TV factory, and allocated a one-room apartment in the city centre. Oswald basked in the attention of being one of Minsk's few foreigners, and its only American. He regularly made social calls to a girls' dormitory, near his flat. "He would come without warning and knock at someone's door and say, 'Hello, here I am,'" says Inna Markava, an English-language translator who was a student at the time. "And that's it - spend two or three hours. "He thought that he was the centre of the group," she says. "I remember that we were in the room, sitting, and if he thought we had forgotten about him, he would immediately remind everybody, that he was there, that he should not be forgotten." The KGB kept close tabs on Oswald, bugging his apartment and drilling a very small hole to record even his most intimate moments. Titovets says Oswald suspected as much. He remembers one time the two of them looking for listening devices. After an initial comic mix-up - Titovets thought "bugs" meant insects - they scoured the apartment high and low, finding neither the listening device in the ceiling or the peephole in the wall. It was only after the collapse of the USSR that he discovered how intense the surveillance had been, and that even the central location of the flat was deliberate. "He was placed in a carefully thought-out environment, easy to observe his minutest movements," Titovets says. At first the KGB thought he might be working for the CIA, and that his stumbling attempts at Russian might be a clever act. But Norman Mailer, one of the few people to have been allowed to study the KGB files on Oswald, for his 1995 book Oswald's Tale, reveals that instead of hearing Oswald reveal his motives in intimate moments, the KGB tended to get an earful of marital friction. Oswald: You never do anything! Wife: Have you ever cleaned up this apartment - just once? I've done it 21 times. You'll do it and then talk about it all day. Oswald: …You sleep until 10 in the morning and you don't do anything. You could be cleaning up during that time. Wife: I need my sleep. If you don't like it, you can go to your America… You're always finding fault; nothing's enough, everything's bad. Oswald: You're ridiculous. Lazy and crude. Savodnik says Oswald "believed he was a Marxist, a revolutionary" who was "taking part in the cause". But the deeper reason for his defection is "more psychological than ideological," he argues. "I think he went there because he didn't fit in anywhere else, and he was a desperate and lonely young man, who believed that in Russia he would be rescued." Before he met Prusakova, he proposed to a young woman called Ella German, and her refusal led to a "growing sense of isolation, detachment, anger and alienation", Savodnik says, which his subsequent marriage failed to reverse. Titovets noticed that Oswald began to chafe at life in the Soviet Union. There were outbursts. "Whenever our discussion would concentrate on the differences within the Soviet Union, the ways here, and the ways in the United States, I would say, 'You are unfair to coloured people there,' Titovets remembers. "And he admits, 'Yes, we are.' But then… he would say, 'You, here, you live like slaves!'" No-one I spoke to in Minsk believed that Oswald could have assassinated the US president. This proves nothing. It's human nature to believe only the best about your friends. Still it was somewhat unnerving to hear so many good things about a person whose name is associated with one of the most infamous acts of our era. I met one of Oswald's former workmates, Vladimir Zhidovich, at a local cafe. He, like everyone else, told me how Oswald was a "good guy" and he couldn't imagine him a murderer. As we parted, he asked a favour. If I ever go to Texas, he asked, would I lay some flowers on Oswald's grave, from him and the other colleagues at the radio factory? The request took me aback. I didn't know what to say. On the one hand, this was Oswald we were talking about - a man who may have slain a political leader and irrevocably altered world history. On the other hand, Zhidovich's appeal came from the heart. I still haven't made up my mind what to do. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook | रहस्य और बदनामी ली हार्वे ओसवाल्ड को घेरती है, वह आदमी जिसने 50 साल पहले डलास में अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति जॉन एफ कैनेडी को गोली मार दी थी। इसलिए एक ऐसे शहर में जाना अजीब है जहाँ लोग उसे स्पष्ट रूप से और प्यार से याद करते हैं-और यह मानने से इनकार करते हैं कि वह दोषी है। |
world-middle-east-46877038 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46877038 | The Arab country turning to 'female Viagra' | As Egypt becomes the first Arab country to authorise the production and sale of a drug meant to boost the female libido, the BBC's Sally Nabil explores whether there's a market for it in such a socially conservative country. | "I felt drowsy and dizzy, and my heart was racing." This is how Leila felt after taking her first pill of the so-called "female Viagra" - chemically known as flibanserin. The drug was first authorised for use in the US almost three years ago, and is now being produced in Egypt by a local pharmaceutical company. Leila - not her real name - is a conservative housewife in her mid-30s. She prefers to conceal her identity as, like many women in Egypt, talking about sexual problems and sexual needs is still very much a taboo. After almost 10 years of marriage, she says she decided to get the drug "out of mere curiosity". Leila, who has no health problems, bought the drug without a prescription - a very common practice in Egypt, where people can buy many medicines over the counter. "The pharmacist told me to take a pill every night for a few weeks. He said there would be no side effects," she says. "My husband and I wanted to see what would happen. I tried it once, and will never do it again." Divorce rates are on the rise in Egypt, and some local media reports have attributed it to persistent sexual problems between couples. The local manufacturer of flibanserin says three out of every 10 women in Egypt have a low sex drive. But these figures are just rough estimates - such statistics are hard to come by in the country. "This treatment is very much needed here - it's a revolution," says Ashraf Al Maraghy, a representative of the company. Mr Maraghy says the drug is safe and effective, and any dizziness and drowsiness will disappear over time - but many pharmacists and doctors disagree. One pharmacist I spoke to warned me that the drug could lower blood pressure to "alarming levels" and might be problematic for people with heart and liver problems. Murad Sadiq, who runs a pharmacy in northern Cairo, says he always explains the side effects to customers but that "they still insist on buying it". "About 10 people a day come in to buy the drug. Most of them are men. Women are too shy to ask for it." 'It's all in the mind' Inside Mr Sadiq's pharmacy, I noticed an advert that referred to flibanserin as "the pink pill". It's the female version of the "blue pill" - a term used in Egypt to refer to Viagra for men. But the manufacturer says the term "female Viagra" is inaccurate. "The media came up with this name, not us," says Mr Maraghy. While a Viagra pill treats erectile dysfunction by improving blood flow to the penis, flibanserin was developed as an anti-depressant and boosts sexual desire by balancing chemicals in the brain. "'Female Viagra' is a misleading term," says Heba Qotb, a sex therapist, who has refused to prescribe it to any of her patients. "It will never work with a woman who suffers any physical or psychological problems," she adds. "For women, sex is an emotional process. It all starts in the mind. A woman can never have a healthy intimate relationship with her husband if he mistreats her. No medication will help this." Ms Qotb says flibanserin's efficacy is very small and is not worth the risk. "Lowering blood pressure is a very serious side effect," she warns. Read more on women in Egypt: Egyptian women still have a long way to go before they will feel comfortable speaking up about their sexual needs. Leila says she knows a lot of women "who filed for divorce after their sexual relationship had soured as a result of the accumulative tension in their marriage". "If your husband is sexually weak, you will support him and help him seek treatment, as long as he is a loving life partner. But if you have an abusive husband, you will definitely lose all interest in him, even if he is good in bed. Men don't seem to understand this." Though it's still early days, Mr Sadiq the pharmacy manager says sales of flibanserin have been very promising so far and believes they will rise. But Ms Qotb, the sex therapist, is very concerned about the potential repercussions on marriages. "When a man notices no improvement in his wife's sex drive, even though she has been taking the pills, he will blame her and not the ineffective drug or their tense relationship. He might even find this as an excuse to dump her." | जैसा कि मिस्र महिला कामेच्छा को बढ़ावा देने के लिए एक दवा के उत्पादन और बिक्री को अधिकृत करने वाला पहला अरब देश बन गया है, बीबीसी के सैली नाबिल ने पता लगाया कि क्या ऐसे सामाजिक रूप से रूढ़िवादी देश में इसके लिए कोई बाजार है। |
uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-55660632 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-55660632 | Covid: Three men due in court over York testing site threats | Three men are due to appear in court next month charged with obstruction after allegedly threatening staff at a coronavirus testing site. | The men were arrested after reports a group was aggressive towards staff at Poppleton Bar, near York on Monday, said North Yorkshire Police. The site is a closed park and ride being used as a Covid testing facility. One man is due to appear on 2 February the others on 4 February, at York Magistrates' Court, said the force. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk. Related Internet Links HM Courts Service | कोरोनावायरस परीक्षण स्थल पर कर्मचारियों को कथित रूप से धमकी देने के बाद बाधा डालने के आरोप में तीन लोग अगले महीने अदालत में पेश होने वाले हैं। |
uk-wales-north-west-wales-36876287 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-36876287 | Regimental goat joins Royal Welsh parade in Llandudno | Soldiers from the Royal Welsh have taken part in a parade - joined by L/Cpl Shenkin, the regimental goat. | He led the parade of soldiers along Llandudno promenade to re-affirm the Freedom of the County of Conwy. Hundreds of residents and holidaymakers turned out to see the march in the shadow of the Great Orme headland, where Kashmir goats are an attraction. The Royal goat tradition began in 1844 when Queen Victoria presented the Royal Welch Fusiliers with its first one. The soldiers were accompanied by the Regimental Band of The Royal Welsh, and paraded with colours flying, bayonets fixed and drums beating. | रॉयल वेल्श के सैनिकों ने एक परेड में भाग लिया-जिसमें एल/सी. पी. एल. शेनकिन, रेजिमेंटल बकरी शामिल हुई। |
technology-15934685 | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15934685 | Read all about it: The online newspaper archive | Want to find out more about the history of your street, your community or your family? The archives of your local paper may be a good place to start. So I'm betting that a website which went live this morning will get a lot of attention. | Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter The British Library's newspaper archive at Colindale in north London has long been a place of pilgrimage for writers and historians wanting to search through its extraordinary collection of just about every paper printed in the UK over the last 300 years. But even if you make the trek, finding your way to that particular article in the Ayrshire Post or the Wigan Observer can be a challenge. Now, though, you won't need to make the trip, which in any case is being moved to a new home; you will be able to search it online. The British Newspaper Archive website is one of the most ambitious digital projects undertaken by a museum. In a room high up in the library, giant scanning machines have been capturing the contents of papers from across the UK. The project will last another 10 years and involves scanning 40 million pages. The British Library has teamed up with Brightsolid, a technology firm which specialises in family history. The process, which will involve substantial investment, is run on commercial lines, and users will have to pay a subscription if they want to view the digital archive and download items. For now most of what's on offer dates back to the 19th Century, partly because scanning more recent newspapers involves all sorts of copyright issues: some of the papers would rather keep control of their own archives. But it looks likely to become an extraordinary resource for anyone interested in knowing a bit more about their family background, or as a way of exploring history through the eyes of the reporters of the time. On a quick tour, I got some feeling of the scale of the project. Walking along the miles of shelves you come across all kinds of treasures: from accounts of the Battle of Waterloo to rare 1920s football programmes; from the great affairs of state to the dog show held at my local pub in 1896. Now, if you master the arcane art of searching the site, all this can be yours - for a price, of course. What really comes across is the sheer depth of information buried in the archives of our regional press. And that raises a question. With local newspapers getting thinner or closing every week, what picture of our communities in the 21st Century will be left for future researchers? | अपनी सड़क, अपने समुदाय या अपने परिवार के इतिहास के बारे में अधिक जानना चाहते हैं? आपके स्थानीय समाचार पत्र के अभिलेखागार शुरू करने के लिए एक अच्छी जगह हो सकती है। इसलिए मैं शर्त लगा रहा हूं कि आज सुबह लाइव होने वाली वेबसाइट पर बहुत ध्यान दिया जाएगा। |
magazine-24677237 | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24677237 | How is the NSA’s vault of secrets being unlocked? | Media organisations have revealed startling details about US espionage in recent weeks. The disclosures can be traced back to three people who don't play by the rules - intelligence leaker Edward Snowden and his chief disseminators, the Guardian newspaper reporter Glenn Greenwald, and independent film-maker Laura Poitras. | By Tara McKelveyBBC News Magazine The National Security Agency (NSA) reportedly collected data on millions of US customers of Verizon, a telecom firm, and on 60 million calls in Spain. It is also said to have obtained data on 70 million digital communications in France - and spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel for years. The revelations, which appeared in articles co-written by Mr Greenwald or Ms Poitras in the UK's Guardian newspaper, French paper Le Monde, Germany's Der Spiegel and two Spanish newspapers, El Mundo and El Pais, shed light on an organisation which, as experts explain, is even more shadowy - and hard to cover - than the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The media reports have unnerved diplomats, spies and politicians. In August UK authorities detained Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow Airport - and confiscated Snowden documents he had been carrying. "Disclosure of any information contained within those documents would be gravely injurious to UK interests, would directly put lives at risk and would pose a risk to public safety and diminish the ability to counter terrorism," said a detective, according to Reuters. On Monday, a European delegation went to Capitol Hill in Washington to talk with US lawmakers about the spy programmes. Meanwhile the man who has been masterminding the release of the documents about the NSA - and disrupting the schedule of world leaders - was on a Brazilian road, talking on his mobile and complaining to the BBC about a lousy phone connection. Mr Greenwald says that Brazilian telecommunications are spotty. "It is almost like pot luck," he says. In addition he has security measures for his phone. "Sometimes that makes it harder," he says. The security precautions make sense, given that quite a few people would like to listen to his conversations. As Mr Greenwald tells the BBC, the revelations about the NSA are based on documents obtained by Mr Snowden, the former contractor who is now in hiding in Russia. There are apparently tens of thousands of documents, many of which have not yet been published. They include details about NSA activities, US military intelligence and methods used to eavesdrop on embassies and missions. And they are not all about US operations. A former UK official says that Greenwald has 58,000 top-secret British security documents, according to the Independent. As one expert, Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, says: "The Snowden collection is the mother lode." Mr Greenwald says that he and Ms Poitras are in charge of the documents, and that they decide how and when the documents are disseminated. "We each have a complete set, and Snowden is not the one making the decisions," he says. "That's Laura and myself." Their goal, he says, is simple: "We want to inform people about what's being done to privacy." Mr Greenwald is the journalist who has garnered the most attention for his dealings with Mr Snowden, but he is not the only one. The Washington Post's Barton Gellman, was also given documents - that may or may not be the whole set - which he used for his work on an internet surveillance program called Prism. Mr Greenwald says that he tries to give the documents about the NSA to reporters and editors at influential media organisations so that the stories will have the biggest possible impact. Mr Aftergood explains: "He is releasing them strategically in different parts of the world." Mr Greenwald admits, however, that the process is somewhat ad hoc. He works with journalists at Le Monde and other media organisations to report on a story. When the piece is ready, he says, they publish it. "The process for deciding what gets published is not all that refined," he says. "It's not necessarily a scientific formula." Sometimes he makes mistakes. Le Monde's article, written under the bylines of Mr Greenwald and journalist Jacques Follorou, gives an account of alleged US eavesdropping operations in France. After the story appeared, a US official, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, fired off a statement saying that the newspaper provided "inaccurate and misleading information". "The allegation that the National Security Agency collected more than 70 million 'recordings of French citizens' telephone data' is false," he wrote. Mr Greenwald says that he believes the newspaper may have inadvertently said the NSA was monitoring calls - when in fact the agency was collecting metadata, which includes information such as the place where someone logged on to their email account. "That's the confusion," he says. He seems unfazed by the glitch. For Mr Greenwald, releasing the documents and having this kind of impact on the world - the New York Times' Bill Keller wrote in an article that he broke "what is probably the year's biggest news story" - has been a heady experience. Mr Greenwald sounds giddy on the phone, describing his accomplishments in journalism and his new media venture with eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Mr Greenwald announced recently that he will leave the Guardian in order to work on a general-interest news site backed by Mr Omidyar. Mr Greenwald explains that he will continue to publish documents about the NSA in conjunction with other media organisations. He sounds confident that his work will continue to have an impact - and reminds the BBC reporter on the phone that Mr Omidyar is one of the "richest men in the world". "I don't feel like I'm leaving the Guardian to work for some obscure website," Mr Greenwald says. "I'm not worried about our ability to be heard." He has the attention of the world - though like other journalists he is also at the mercy of modern telecommunications. A moment later the phone signal gets weak - and his voice is cut off. Update: NSA director Gen Keith Alexander said on Capitol Hill that reports about their collection of European phone records are "completely false". | मीडिया संगठनों ने हाल के हफ्तों में अमेरिकी जासूसी के बारे में चौंका देने वाले विवरणों का खुलासा किया है। इन खुलासों का पता तीन लोगों से लगाया जा सकता है जो नियमों का पालन नहीं करते हैं-खुफिया जानकारी लीक करने वाले एडवर्ड स्नोडेन और उनके मुख्य प्रसारक, गार्जियन अखबार के रिपोर्टर ग्लेन ग्रीनवाल्ड और स्वतंत्र फिल्म निर्माता लौरा पोइट्रास। |
uk-wales-35400565 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-35400565 | Olchfa to Oxbridge: The Swansea students who bucked the trend | Low academic attainment and low aspiration were issues raised in a 2014 report on why so few Welsh youngsters were applying to Oxford and Cambridge universities. But in the late 1970s, one Swansea comprehensive school alone got about 45 pupils into Oxbridge over three years - many of them going on to reach the top of their chosen professions. BBC Wales producer Gareth Jones asked two of his contemporaries at Olchfa - Russell T Davies and Sir Andrew Dilnot - how the school achieved such success. | By Gareth JonesBBC News Within a decade of opening in 1969, Olchfa Comprehensive had gained an enviable reputation for the number of pupils getting into Oxbridge - 15 in my year alone. In the year before me, 15 got in, including Andrew Dilnot, knighted two years ago for services to economics. In the year after me, 13 were accepted, including Dr Who screenwriter Russell T Davies, who became one of the most talented writers of his generation. Both say it was down to the teachers. One in particular, Iris Williams, made it her job to get as many applying to Oxbridge as possible in a part of Swansea where there was no such tradition. "Iris, bless her!" Russell said, when I asked him how he remembered her. "Big hair, big character. She stood out and stood up for academic excellence." Sir Andrew Dilnot recalls her wondering aloud: "Why shouldn't our children go to Oxford and Cambridge? They're as good as anyone else!" Iris brought in a programme of lunchtime talks and extra tuition for the candidates. She took us in her car to visit Oxford, she got to know admissions tutors, studied individual colleges and matched the candidates to them. She told Dilnot to apply to St John's Oxford, then as now one of the toughest to get into, academically. He was accepted to do PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). I followed him there a year later, same college, same subjects. One by one, those ancient bastions, from Balliol to Trinity Hall, fell to the all-conquering Iris and her sixth-formers. Perhaps her sweetest success was getting Gaynor Williams into Christchurch in 1980; one of the first women, not just from Wales but from anywhere, to be accepted by that most male and aristocratic of colleges. But this success was not down to just one woman. "We had some terrific teachers," Sir Andrew says. "There was Dai Jenkins for maths. He was incredibly demanding. When I got three out of 10 for a test, he wrote 'OAF' in big red letters on my book." It may have helped. Andrew is now the UK's top statistician. Peggy George, a former deputy head, thinks Olchfa's success was down to exceptionally motivated pupils and some superb staff. "It was a new comprehensive, formed after school reorganisation," she told me. "We had teachers from the old grammar schools who really knew their subject. We also had some very tough male staff, from the old secondary moderns, and they knew how to keep order." I benefited from Peggy's extra tuition. She taught me how write an essay. "It's not just the answers you come up with, boy," she used to say. "It's about asking the right questions." It was good training for Oxbridge's uniquely challenging tutorial system. One of my tutors was the leading economist John Kay and I, along with my tutorial partner Angela Eagle - who now sits on Labour's front bench - had to argue against him. There was a third factor in Olchfa's success - the parents. We came from hugely aspirational families who really valued education. Many of us, including me, were the first in our families to go to any university. Lord Murphy of Torfaen, who was commissioned by the Welsh government to to look into how to boost numbers of Welsh students at Oxbridge, says we need to raise the level of aspiration. Sir Andrew Dilnot, the first person from a comprehensive school to head an Oxford college, agrees: "Oxford wants students from all backgrounds, and we are very keen to get more applications from state schools." Murphy believes sending people to Oxbridge is important and benefits Wales. Russell T Davies is more ambivalent: "The most important thing is to move away from home - anywhere - to study because it gives you freedom. And there are so many great courses around now." Of that extraordinary group of Olchfa youngsters, hardly any came back to Wales to work. They are captains of industry, one owns a hedge fund, another set up the first nanoscience laboratory. Russell is one of the exceptions. His work has made a big contribution to the Welsh economy. Recently he went back to his old college to receive an honorary fellowship. "I felt proud. But I was the only one from a comprehensive school there that day," he said. You can watch BBC Wales' Week In Week Out programme, Is It Because I'm from Wales, on BBC One Wales at 20:30 GMT on Monday 8 February. | 2014 की एक रिपोर्ट में कम शैक्षणिक प्राप्ति और कम आकांक्षा के मुद्दे उठाए गए थे कि इतने कम वेल्श युवा ऑक्सफोर्ड और कैम्ब्रिज विश्वविद्यालयों में आवेदन क्यों कर रहे थे। लेकिन 1970 के दशक के अंत में, अकेले एक स्वानसी व्यापक स्कूल ने तीन वर्षों में लगभग 45 छात्रों को ऑक्सब्रिज में प्रवेश दिलाया-उनमें से कई अपने चुने हुए व्यवसायों के शीर्ष पर पहुंच गए। बीबीसी वेल्स के निर्माता गैरेथ जोन्स ने ओल्चफा में अपने दो समकालीनों-रसेल टी डेविस और सर एंड्रयू दिलनॉट से पूछा कि स्कूल ने ऐसी सफलता कैसे हासिल की। |
uk-politics-47219386 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47219386 | Brexit: Will Theresa May delay MPs' vote to last minute? | As we talked about late on Monday , there has been a sense building in Westminster that the prime minister is, maybe by accident, maybe increasingly by design, looking to almost the last possible minute for the definitive Brexit vote. | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter While ministers speak publicly of "talks" that must be given time to be completed with the EU, and officials continue to chew over the possibility of the "Malthouse compromise" (remember that? It already seems like months ago that it emerged, blinking, into the Brexit saga) more and more MPs believe it is displacement activity - ministers keeping outwardly busy while they run down the clock. Early on Tuesday morning, Commons leader Andrea Leadsom did not exactly quash that notion in an interview with the Today programme. She appeared to open up the possibility that MPs might in the end be asked to vote at a moment of peak jeopardy, and that ministers might be willing to let the matter run that long. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, the prime minister herself hinted that the government was prepared to do that. She was answering a technical question about the CRAG (the constitutional reform and governance bill before you ask, Brexit is nothing if not replete with acronyms). For ages, the existence of that bill has built a theoretical pause between a vote on the deal, and our actual departure from the EU. But today the prime minister said that process could be put on fast forward. So, in practice, if she wants to push this vote later, and later, then only to the very last minute (and remember the EU doesn't want to budge until then), that bit of legislation might not be a block, because if MPs approve it, she can get round it. That's always a big if, of course, but it certainly suggests that the government can at least foresee a situation where they have to take dramatic last-minute action, whatever the existing law says. What's also emerging though is how former Remainers want to stop that happening. They won't be using up their energy this week on votes that might not get anywhere. But their concerns have pushed the PM now to promise a vote will take place on 27 February. And there will be another go from the prominent Labour frontbencher Yvette Cooper, working with backing from Tories like Sir Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles. They will again try to force through legislation that would delay Brexit if the government can't get a deal done in time, removing the possibility of that last-minute kamikaze choice. But that will only work if enough Tory Remainers are ready to vote with them. And the way the numbers stack up, that probably has to mean ministers being ready to quit. One member of the government told me on Tuesday: "They have to realise that is it - and if no senior member of the cabinet is willing to do it, then we're heading for that terrible choice." Another minister, one of those who is thinking about departure, said: "I have to look the PM in the eye and ask what she is really willing to do. But for a number of us it's party versus country, and the Tories don't do well if we put ourselves before the public." Some of those organising the push to take the March "deal or no deal" choice off the table believe there are at least 10 government ministers who would be ready to quit. Maybe so. On past evidence, ministers who see themselves as moderate and pragmatic hang back in the end. But the end of February really does seem to be the last moment where they could do more to stop no deal than just pass a resolution the government could then ignore. If they are not willing to give up their ministerial red boxes on 27 February, their chance really will have gone. | जैसा कि हमने सोमवार को देर से बात की, वेस्टमिंस्टर में एक भावना निर्माण हुआ है कि प्रधान मंत्री, शायद दुर्घटना से, शायद तेजी से डिजाइन द्वारा, निश्चित ब्रेक्सिट वोट के लिए लगभग अंतिम संभावित मिनट की ओर देख रहे हैं। |
uk-england-kent-36000192 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-36000192 | Police and crime commissioner election 2016: Fergus Wilson's nomination rejected | A millionaire property magnate is taking legal action after his nomination to become Kent's next police and crime commissioner was rejected. | Fergus Wilson, who planned to stand as an independent, was told it was invalid as his papers were not hand delivered to the returning officer, but posted. Several voters nominating him had also not included their electoral numbers. Mr Wilson, of Boughton Monchelsea, said he would apply to the High Court for an injunction, and seek to be reinstated. A statement from the police area returning officer for Kent said he would respond in the event of any legal challenge. A total of six candidates are standing for the post of police and crime commissioner in Kent: | केंट का अगला पुलिस और अपराध आयुक्त बनने के लिए उनके नामांकन को खारिज कर दिए जाने के बाद एक करोड़पति संपत्ति व्यवसायी कानूनी कार्रवाई कर रहा है। |
world-asia-china-39503622 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39503622 | Trump Xi meeting: An A-Z of the big issues | US President Donald Trump will host his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, for two days of talks in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. From trade to currency to North Korea, a lot is on the table for the leaders of the world's two largest economies. Will they have time for some golf? | Carrie GracieFormer China editor@BBCCarrieon Twitter As in alpha males. At a fraught moment in history, the world's two biggest economies are led by two macho men about to meet on a blind date. A could also be for the anxiety this unpredictable encounter provokes among policymakers on both sides, especially in a Chinese presidential team which hates surprises. President Trump has done a lot of rhetorical China bashing. But at this summit the contours of a real US China policy must start to appear. Was all Mr Trump's campaign talk of winning against China just sound and fury signifying nothing or was it a muscular new policy in the making? President Trump has repeatedly accused China of being a master manipulator of its currency. Many economists say it was once but isn't now. For the past two years China has been selling its reserves to keep the value of its currency up rather than driving it down to boost exports. In Florida, will President Trump call President Xi a currency manipulator to his face or will he pick a different battle? Read more: The risks and benefits of China weakening its currency What will this summit actually deliver? Nearly half the US trade deficit is with China and this week President Trump said again the US "cannot continue to trade if we are going to have an unfair deal like we have right now". But in his lexicon, D is also for difficult. He has warned that the summit with President Xi will be exactly that, which is perhaps a way of managing expectations down towards Ds for disappointment and deterioration. Some pessimists warn that the most this summit can deliver is greater predictability in a stressed and uncertain relationship. Other pessimists say those pessimists are already too optimistic, that this summit is premature because President Trump doesn't even have a China team let alone a coherent China policy. But those pessimists are in the American camp. For China, US incoherence is a source of optimism. And US employment. President Xi must convince his host that China offers solutions for both if he wants to keep US markets open to Chinese goods. President Trump is giving President Xi plenty of it by inviting him to his private Florida resort. That's meaningful to a status conscious Chinese audience at home. If Mr Trump can refrain from tarnishing the gift by some unforeseen slight or offence, optimists say he may get a calculated concession on North Korea or trade in return. Because President Xi disapproves of a game played back home between tycoons and corrupt Communist Party officials. Instead G is for globalisation of which the Chinese president now likes to see himself the champion. Along with efforts to tackle climate change. Expect subtle Chinese allusions to President Trump's retreat from both. It's supposed to be a gesture of peace and its absence would send the wrong signal, but President Xi has his own version of this ritual and will not want to submit to the much studied Trump grab and yank. Watch for a hybrid handshake. Ivanka Trump, The soft power weapon of the Trump administration in China. Opinions divide on the father, but the daughter is a source of fascination to many young Chinese, and when relations between the incoming Trump administration and Beijing were at their nadir following the president elect's phone call with the Taiwanese president, it was Ivanka who kept lines of communication open with her attendance at a Chinese new year embassy function in Washington. Read more: Could China's Trump tactics actually be working? Jared Kushner, Ivanka's husband, has also established a good relationship with China's top diplomats in the US. At 36 and with no previous government experience, President Trump's son-in-law has become a key channel of communication between the White House and Beijing. But he's a novice on the most complex bilateral relationship in the world, and until last week his family's real estate business was pursuing a significant investment from a politically connected Chinese company. Those negotiations have now been suspended amid suggestions of a potential conflict of interest, but some observers still worry that he may be vulnerable to China's master negotiators and mistake a short-term gain for long-term US advantage. The leader of North Korea managed to overshadow a visit to Asia last month by the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. On that occasion it was the carefully timed announcement of a new rocket engine. No one is in any doubt that North Korea's bid for nuclear missiles which can reach American soil will loom large over this summit. But to prevent the world's inattention even for a moment, Kim Jong-un test fired a missile on the eve of President Xi's arrival in Florida. Read more: North Korea's missile programme And the lower key presence of the first ladies Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan. As fashion model and folk singer respectively, both were familiar with the limelight long before their famous marriages. It will be interesting to watch the first ladies attempt to engage without upstaging the husbands. For all President Xi's fine talk of openness and globalisation, the US market is currently open to Chinese goods and services in a way that China's is not. Beijing has repeatedly promised to remove import barriers, and as this is in the interests of China's long term growth, there really ought to be room for progress here. President Trump will have to avoid shouting, sulking and abuse. Chinese protocol will simply not tolerate it. The slogans that China likes: "One China" and "One Belt, One Road". The former is the formulation which frames a fragile US-China understanding on how to avoid going to war over Taiwan. The latter is China's massive infrastructure and development initiative for Asia. After initially threatening to re-examine relations with Taiwan, President Trump committed to the "One China Policy" in a phone call with President Xi in February. But there is no fixed US position on "One Belt, One Road" and President Trump is highly unlikely to sign up to President Xi's other favourite slogan the 'new model of great power relations' by which China signals its hopes for an Asian sphere of influence. The American ghost at the summit feast. The pivot to Asia was the slogan of the first Obama administration eight years ago, a vision of a United States firmly embedded in Asia with the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement underpinning a mesh of American security alliances. In Mr Obama's second term, the pivot to Asia was rebranded the rebalance, but with President Trump's decision to walk away from TPP, both pivot and rebalance are history. Even some US security alliances in Asia are looking less than solid in face of the rise of China and its vigorous cheque book diplomacy. If President Trump wants to hang onto allies like the Philippines and Thailand he urgently needs an Asia policy as well as a China policy. In fact, it's hard to define the latter without the former. The Trump administration talks tough on China, but when it comes to actually engaging, it is in the same quandary as every previous US administration since the US and China restored diplomatic relations four decades ago - how to exert leverage on Beijing without damaging itself or its allies. But also for rivalry and risk. In just a few brief hours together over a dinner and a lunch, can the two presidents build enough personal rapport to cut through the strategic rivalry and mistrust which risk the future of the world's most important bilateral relationship? The South China Sea. President Trump does not want to accept China's audacious island-building and militarisation as a fait accompli but President Xi will certainly not back down to a summit threat. And if the new US president is silent on the subject of the South China Sea, some allies may see it as a signal of willingness to surrender control of these vital waters to Beijing. So what to say about the South China Sea? Read more: South China Sea dispute And tariffs and Twitter. And also for Thucydides Trap, the theory that a rising power causes fear in an established power which then escalates toward war. Xi Jinping actually discussed the Thucydides trap at the 2015 summit with Barack Obama. On that occasion, there was no agreement on how to avoid it. Most would agree that the rise of the rising power and the fear of the established power have only increased in the interim. Read more: Is Trump wise to take on China over trade? This week President Trump said the US would solve the problem of a nuclear North Korea on its own if China was unwilling to help. In the first instance, dealing with the problem may mean secondary sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals who trade with North Korea. And as a last resort, it may mean the threat of pre-emptive US military action against Pyongyang. It's a discussion which will get President Xi's full attention but it seems unlikely that he and his host can agree on what constitutes Chinese "help with North Korea" let alone how much of it would be enough. US presidents often use summits to remind their Chinese communist counterparts of the virtues of democracy, human rights and freedom. But President Trump may choose to remain silent on values. The new US secretary of state gratified President Xi last month when on a visit to Beijing. He used the Chinese formulation "non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation" to describe US-China ties. President Xi would dearly love to hear President Trump echo this language. Despite all the name calling from Mr Trump over the past year, the Chinese president and his state-controlled media have stuck to mild appeals to reason and common interest in framing the US-China narrative. Vanilla is President Xi's favourite flavour here and if he can persuade President Trump to tweet bland he will call it a triumph. At home, the Chinese president is in the sensitive run up to a Communist Party Congress at which he wants to install key allies in top positions. The last thing he needs is a trade war with a vital export market, especially as China's economic growth is slowing. A standoff in the South China Sea or on the Korean peninsula would be even worse. President Xi needs his relationship with President Trump to work. And he needs to go home calling this summit a success. Read more: The ever-growing power of Xi Jinping … hmmm… not sure. Any suggestions? As in zero sum game. If President Trump takes a zero sum attitude towards the US trade balance with China, and if President Xi takes a zero sum attitude towards the US role in Asia then their summitry will swiftly sour and all talk of winners will look hollow. | अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प अपने चीनी समकक्ष शी जिनपिंग की फ्लोरिडा के मार-ए-लागो में दो दिवसीय वार्ता के लिए मेजबानी करेंगे। व्यापार से लेकर मुद्रा तक उत्तर कोरिया तक, दुनिया की दो सबसे बड़ी अर्थव्यवस्थाओं के नेताओं के लिए बहुत कुछ है। क्या उनके पास कुछ गोल्फ खेलने का समय होगा? |
uk-politics-26761128 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-26761128 | The EU debate - who won? | Much will be written about who won and who lost this debate. For what it's worth one instant poll hands it to Mr Farage. That, though, ignores the reason both men agreed to take part. They knew they could both be winners. | Nick RobinsonPolitical editor Nick Clegg relished the chance to present himself as the leader of "the party of IN", the man willing to stand up to UKIP's populism who is using his stance to appeal to Tory and Labour pro-Europeans to lend him their votes. Nigel Farage saw this as an opportunity to establish that his party is part of the political premier league and that he is more than a man with a pint, a fag and a jokey soundbite. He too is counting on those in the bigger parties to vote for him to make their views on Europe plain. Both men were confident. Neither stumbled. However, the UKIP leader looked vulnerable when challenged to justify his party's inflated claims on the scale of immigration and the cost of the EU. The Lib Dem leader looked least comfortable when trying to defend past promises that voters would get a referendum and would get EU reform. Few voters were likely to be watching or listening weighing up whether to back Farage or Clegg. What the leaders of Britain's smaller parties want was the status of men prepared to stand up and fight for what they really believe. | इस बहस में कौन जीता और कौन हारा, इसके बारे में बहुत कुछ लिखा जाएगा। एक तत्काल चुनाव के लिए यह श्री फराज को सौंप दिया जाता है। हालाँकि, यह इस कारण की अनदेखी करता है कि दोनों लोग भाग लेने के लिए सहमत हुए। वे जानते थे कि वे दोनों विजेता हो सकते हैं। |
business-42703841 | https://www.bbc.com/news/business-42703841 | The millionaires' club with too few women | Amid the ongoing fallout from widespread sexual assault and harassment allegations and the #MeToo campaign, gender equality is high on the Davos agenda this year, but the elite annual gathering still has its own issues to solve. | By Katie HopeBBC News, Davos Gillian Tans is softly spoken and unassuming. The 47-year-old isn't someone you'd immediately associate with power. Yet she has a lot of it. As the chief executive of online accommodation website Booking.com she's in charge of a staggering 15,000 employees in 70 countries around the world. In 2016, she earned an impressive $17.1m (£12.3m; €13.9m). That was more than her own then boss at US firm Priceline which owns Booking.com as well as other travel related brands including Kayak and rentalcars.com. In the world of business, a successful woman on this scale is still pretty rare. In Davos for the first time, Mrs Tans says showcasing people like her can help address the imbalance. "Role models are important." That's exactly why the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos wants her here. It's no secret that the annual gathering of chief executives, world leaders and celebrities has a problem attracting women delegates. The attendees are still overwhelmingly men, outnumbering women by five to one despite a quota system for large firms which must bring one woman for every four men. Every year photos of the suit-heavy gathering captioned "spot the woman" do the rounds on social media. Of course, this largely reflects the current reality - those at the top in both business and politics are predominantly male. WEF is undoubtedly trying. For the first time in the annual conference's 48-year history all seven of the conference's co-chairs are female, yet just 21% of attendees are women, little change from last year's 20%. Criticism of Davos as a boys' club is hard to shake, and not just because of the gender inequality. Anecdotal evidence suggests that even in these refined environs female attendees may have to deal with unwanted approaches. "Things can get tricky," says Mark Turrell, who is attending Davos for the 10th year in a row. The founder of business social networking application Vork says the overlap between professional work and the notorious night time parties means there can be misunderstandings. "There is an obvious grey zone where people are not sure. People try to find out and there may be a moment that wasn't quite expected," he says. Mr Turrell organises an informal group of young Davos attendees to help them reduce costs by sharing lifts and accommodation. He says some single attendees bring wedding or engagement rings to reduce the odds of unwanted approaches. In reality it's not that surprising. The outpouring of stories from women using #MeToo has showed just how widespread the issue is. From an unwanted comment or touch to (at the extreme end) physical abuse or rape, the problem is everywhere. "No matter where we look men are practising these things," says Gary Barker, chief executive of Promundo, which works on engaging men to end female harassment and violence. Often in the workplace, he says it may be "subtle psychological denigration". One solution, he says, is to use quotas to help promote more women into senior roles. "Short term a little bit of tokenism could help. There isn't a shortage of qualified women." WEF isn't shying away from the issue. This year's conference includes several sessions on what firms and society can do to help put a stop to sexual harassment as well as addressing the much broader issue of gender equality. On equality, WEF's evidence shows there's still a long way to go. Its latest report found that at the current rate of progress it will be another 100 years before we achieve gender parity worldwide. It's the first year since it started measuring the issue in 2006 that progress has gone backwards. But Shelley Zalis, founder of a firm which aims to advance workplace equality called The Female Quotient, believes the current heightened awareness will help. "People are no longer accepting the status quo for the norm," she says. This year she has quadrupled the space of her women's networking lounge, which she sets up at major conferences each year. The space hosts talks from successful women and have attracted some heavyweight commercial partners including Unilever and Google. Normally called The Girls' Lounge, this year at Davos she's called it The Equality Lounge in recognition of the topic's pertinence - men can also attend. The location on one of the main roads leading to the conference centre means that it's impossible to miss. She describes the lounge "as a safe place" for women, somewhere where they can be themselves. "A minority acting and feeling like the majority" as she puts it. "No one really understood it [the lounges], but now we've got a critical mass working together, understanding that their voice matters, all of a sudden we're seeing a shift," Ms Zalis says. This means the time is right to shake up the status quo with "new rules", she says. Yet the workplace solution at least isn't necessarily complicated. 'Little things' Research suggests that when firms have more women in senior roles, then more women are promoted or hired, when firms have more women in senior roles, then more women are promoted or hired. Booking.com is a case in point. Mrs Tans says more than half of its staff overall are female and they account for 20% of its tech team, typically a male dominated area. She says recruiting teams are always diverse and the firm makes sure shortlists of potential new staff or those being considered for promotion are from mixed backgrounds and sexes. It has also had an external audit to make sure the firm pays men and women equally. In the end, she says changing a lot of "little things" can help address the balance. "Companies need to own this to change it. I'm not a fan of systems [quotas] but firms need to look at the data and and what they need to do to bring numbers up," she says. Next year, when we see whether or not Davos has more female attendees, we'll have a better idea if that has happened. | व्यापक यौन उत्पीड़न और उत्पीड़न के आरोपों और #MeToo अभियान से चल रहे नतीजों के बीच, इस साल दावोस के एजेंडे में लैंगिक समानता अधिक है, लेकिन कुलीन वार्षिक सभा को अभी भी अपने मुद्दों को हल करना है। |
uk-england-cornwall-17309565 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-17309565 | Free transport for college students in Cornwall | Free transport is to be offered to 16 to 18-year-olds studying at colleges in Cornwall who come from households earning less than £31,000. | Cornwall College and Truro & Penwith College said the scheme would be available to new and returning students from September. Some of the funding has come from the Cornwall Bursary, which aims to help local students stay in education. It replaces the Education Maintenance Allowance axed in government cuts. Cornwall College has more than 45,000 students on full and part-time courses at seven sites across the county - Camborne, Newquay, St Austell, Saltash, Duchy College Rosewarne and Stoke Climsland and Falmouth Marine School. Truro & Penwith has more than 5,000 full-time and 11,000 part-time students. | कॉर्नवॉल के कॉलेजों में पढ़ने वाले 16 से 18 साल के बच्चों को मुफ्त परिवहन की पेशकश की जानी है, जो 31,000 पाउंड से कम कमाने वाले परिवारों से आते हैं। |
world-europe-11894292 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11894292 | Migrants at Greece-Turkey border face bleak future | The EU's border agency has sent a force to Greece's land border with Turkey to help stem the flow of illegal migrants. But human rights groups criticise the conditions in Greek detention centres. The BBC's correspondent Razia Iqbal reports from Orestiada: | "This is not what we thought Europe would be. They treat us like animals". A man from Morocco shields his face from the cold and our camera. We are talking with a fence between us, at the Filakio detention camp in northern Greece. He is among hundreds of illegal migrants being held, having crossed the border with Turkey. Greece is on the frontline of a European problem, which is why the Greek government has asked the EU for help. And the EU border agency, Frontex, has seen considerable signs of success. Before the 175-strong Rapid Border Intervention Team (Rabit) began its mission a month ago, 350 people a day crossed the border. Now, around 60 people a day make it. The region most affected is North Evros, and the area's police chief, Colonel Georgios Salamagkas, told us that since the beginning of the year, 35,000 migrants had been arrested. That is the equivalent to the population of the villages in that region. Since the sea borders have been contained and closed off to migrants, Greece's land border has become vulnerable. Frontex deputy director Gil Arias Fernandez told me: "This operation is not a panacea. The operation alone will not be the solution." "More needs to be done by Greece and more also by the EU. We will offer the Greeks all the assistance they need." What's changed the situation is a combination of manpower and technology. Frontex is using thermal imaging cameras. They work all day but are most effective at night, when most migrants cross. How Greece is coping with the detention of those they have caught is causing some concern. Barbed wire The scene at the detention centre we visit in Filakio is very bleak. Most of the detainees are being kept behind bars, including women and young children. When some notice we're filming, they are desperate to get our attention. One man tells us it's miserable inside, it's overcrowded, and unhygienic. He also says it's not a place for humans, but for animals, and he never imagined that Europe would be like this. There is barbed wire and arms reaching out from behind bars, holding out notes saying "help me". The UN's refugee agency UNHCR has described the conditions as a humanitarian crisis. Simone Troller of Human Rights Watch agrees. She also told us that Greek police are openly acknowledging that they are unable to cope with the numbers being detained. This may be Greece's burden at the border, but it is also Europe's frontier. And since the majority of migrants don't want to stay in Greece, but would like move on to the UK, France or Germany, this is a Europe-wide issue. | यूरोपीय संघ की सीमा एजेंसी ने अवैध प्रवासियों के प्रवाह को रोकने में मदद करने के लिए तुर्की के साथ ग्रीस की भूमि सीमा पर एक बल भेजा है। लेकिन मानवाधिकार समूह ग्रीक हिरासत केंद्रों की स्थितियों की आलोचना करते हैं। बीबीसी की संवाददाता रजिया इकबाल ओरेस्टियाडा से रिपोर्ट करती हैंः |
uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-42264674 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-42264674 | 'Small' Forties pipeline leak being repaired | A "small" leak on the Forties pipeline in Aberdeenshire is being repaired. | The leak was detected near Netherley on Wednesday morning during routine maintenance. The pipeline carries crude North Sea oil across land for processing at Grangemouth. The pipeline's owner, Ineos, said a very small quantity of oil was seeping out and added that there had been no environmental impact. Some local people were moved to temporary accommodation. | एबरडीनशायर में फोर्टीज पाइपलाइन पर एक "छोटे" रिसाव की मरम्मत की जा रही है। |
technology-37277965 | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37277965 | Apple's iPhone 7 ditches traditional headphone socket | The iPhone 7 will not have a traditional headphone socket. | Apple said its lightning connector could be used instead, which would make room for other components. It will also promote the use of wireless earphones, and has released a set of its own called Airpods. The firm said it had taken "courage" to take the step. However, it risks annoying users who will now require an adapter for existing headphones. The US company unveiled its latest handsets at an event in San Francisco following a year in which its phone sales and market share shrank. Other new features include: The launch comes a week after the European Commission demanded Apple pay up to €13bn (£11bn) in back taxes to Ireland - a ruling the firm is appealing. "The current difficulties with the EU will have little bearing towards the iPhone 7 at this juncture," predicted Ben Wood from the CCS Insight consultancy. "But the dispute will drag on for years, and if sentiment turns against Apple that could have major implications for the brand. "For now, there's a strong argument that the iPhone 7 is more than an iterative update. "Upgrades are all important to Apple and for consumers coming from an iPhone 5S or iPhone 6, the iPhone 7 will feel like a considerable step up." Airpods The 3.5mm headphone jack was made popular by Sony's Walkman cassette players, but was first introduced in one of the Japanese company's transistor radios in 1964. Apple has repeatedly been willing to ditch connectors and other ageing tech from its products earlier than its rivals. However, it was not first in this case. "Lenovo's Moto Z and select models from Chinese manufacturer LeEco have launched without the 3.5mm socket in 2016," noted IHS's Ian Fogg. "These manufactures have had little adverse reaction, in part, because they sell many fewer smartphones than Apple." One audio expert also had doubts. "If you've been interested purely in the audio quality then a wired connection has always been best," said Simon Lucas, editor of What Hi-fi magazine. "You have greater stability - there's no possibility of drop-outs. Wireless headphones also need to be charged, and the louder you listen to them the quicker they will run out of power. "With regards to headphones with a lightning connector, there's only about eight pairs currently available and they will all have had to pay Apple a licence to use its proprietary connector." Apple, however, suggests there are advantages to using its Airpods, which will cost £159. It demonstrated that the wireless headphones could be paired with the phone much more quickly than is normally the case with Bluetooth sets. The Airpods also contain infrared sensors to detect when they are in the user's ears. This allows them to automatically stop music when they are taken out. Motion sensors in the buds also allow the firm's virtual assistant Siri to be activated for voice commands by double-tapping their sides. Users will, however, have to get used to charging another device. Apple said the Airpods would last "up to five hours" on a charge, and come with a recharging case that can extend their life up to 24 hours before a plug socket is required. Another related change is the introduction of stereo speakers - one at each end of the handset - which Apple said meant the iPhone 7 could deliver twice the volume of the iPhone 6S. One company watcher said removing the 3.5mm socket would still annoy some users, but added that their frustration might be short-lived. "Apple changed the charger port a few years ago and people got upset," said Francisco Jeronimo from the research firm IDC. "But it didn't stop people from buying the iPhone. Removing the headphone jack won't either. "What's more important is whether a consumer likes Apple's ecosystem or Android's, because at this point Windows and Blackberry phones have an extremely low market share." Two cameras The iPhone 7 Plus has both a wide angle and telephoto lens on its back, both using their own 12 megapixel sensor. This allows the owner to quickly switch to a tighter shot without sacrificing image quality, and also allows the device to offer 10x zoom - double the amount than before - by digitally cropping the photo in the camera app. A similar feature is already available on LG's G5 phone. But Apple says it will also be able to combine data gathered by both camera sensors to simulate an effect associated with larger DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) cameras. It said software would be able to automatically pick people's faces out from the background, keeping the humans in focus while blurring the rest of the shot in order to enhance the portraits. The feature will not, however, be available at launch but will rather be provided as an update later on. The iPhone 7 ranges from £599 to £799, depending on the amount of storage. The iPhone 7 Plus ranges from £719 to £919. That marks an increase on last year's prices, when the entry-level iPhone 6S was £539 and the iPhone 6S Plus was £619, albeit with less storage. US consumers have not seen such significant increases. They are available to buy from 16 September. Apple has also raised the prices of other products in the UK, including its iPads, despite the fact that the tablets have just been given price cuts in the US. The BBC understands this has been done to reflect the weaker pound. Analysis: Dave Lee, North America technology reporter The room went silent upon seeing Apple's adapter for using normal headphones in the iPhone 7's lightning port. It's purposefully irritating and clunky, because Apple of course wants you to invest in wireless headphones. But a big cheer rang out for the Airpods themselves. They look cool, and relatively discreet - but could be a bit prone to falling out of your ears. Charging them could also become a hassle. Stereo speakers for external sound is a nice new touch - but Apple is really slow to this compared to rivals like HTC and ZTE. And, the grumpy man in me hates anything that encourages phone audio to be played out loud in public. The demonstration of the iPhone 7 Plus's camera capabilities didn't exactly draw cheers, but more satisfied "mmm, nice" noise from most of those around me. It also feels like Apple has had a slight rethink with the Apple Watch. The device is clearly a fitness device first, fashion statement second - no longer is it pushing a $10,000, gold-plated model. Now the poster people of Apple Watch are the likes of Serena Williams, not Beyonce. New Watch Apple also unveiled a new version of its smartwatch, which it described as the "ultimate fitness device". The firm said the Apple Watch Series Two is water resistant to 50m (164ft), meaning it can be used while swimming or surfing. It also introduces: The original Watch is the best selling smartwatch on the market, but shipments of the device dropped more than 50% between the April-to-June quarter of 2016 and the same period the previous year, according to IDC. "It seems people don't want all their smartphone features on a smartwatch - what they want is basic notifications and basic alerts, and that's why some other brands are now making traditional-looking watches with additional digital features instead," said Mr Jeronimo. "That's a challenge for Apple as well as for Samsung and other tech firms selling feature-rich smartwatches." Apple said it thought the device would have particular appeal to runners, and may be able to stoke interest through a partnership with Nike. The fitness brand has created an app that lets its owner share details of their runs with others, and has also launched its own bands for the timepiece. Super Mario Although many of the details of the new devices had leaked in advance, there was one major surprise at the start of the event. Video game character Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, appeared to announce that Nintendo's plumber would appear in his first iPhone video game before the end of the year. Mr Miyamoto confirmed that the running-themed adventure would be an iOS exclusive at launch. It follows the success of another Nintendo franchise, Pokemon, on the platform. It was also revealed that the Apple Watch would soon gain the ability to tell owners how close they are to nearby monsters in Pokemon Go, and to show which characters have hatched from eggs in the augmented reality title. Gone but not forgotten Apple has a habit of being an early abandoner of tech it thinks has become outdated. 1998: Floppy disk drive When Steve Jobs unveiled the original iMac, there was surprise that it was missing a floppy disk drive. Apple said 1.44 megabyte disks had become too small to hold the files owners would want to create. But the decision left the computer without a built-in way to get files on to removable storage as its CD-ROM drive could read but not write data. 2005: Dial-up modem An iMac refresh dropped built-in support for dialling up the internet via a telephone line. Most people in the US still did not have access to a broadband connection at the time, and some of those affected criticised Apple for making them buy a $50 add-on peripheral. 2008: CD/DVD drive Apple boasted that the MacBook Air was the world's thinnest computer and ran TV ads showing it fitting into an envelope. But the achievement was only made possible by building a laptop without the ability to play CDs or DVDs. Many reviewers believed that the trade-off made it an impractical choice as a user's primary computer. 2012: 30-pin connector Apple had used its proprietary 30-pin connector ever since 2003's iPod. It ditched the data-and-power plug in the iPhone 5 to help slim down the handset. But it left many users with old chargers, docking stations and other peripherals that did not fit the new devices. 2015: USB 3 ports Last year's Macbook launched with a single USB-C port for data connections and charging. The firm describes it as the "future of the notebook", but for now users need to buy an additional hub if they want to use it with older plug-in hardware. | आईफोन 7 में पारंपरिक हेडफोन साकेट नहीं होगा। |
world-asia-41070924 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41070924 | Thailand's political trial of the decade explained | In an unexpected development, Thailand's former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra secretly left the country in late August just as she was due to appear for a verdict on criminal charges. She has now been sentenced in absentia to five years in jail. | The BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok answers some of the key questions around what's going on in the country. Why was Ms Yingluck on trial? The former prime minister was charged with negligence, essentially failing to prevent excessive losses and corruption in a rice subsidy scheme under her administration. She faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. Ms Yingluck's government was toppled by the military in 2014, and she was impeached over her role in the rice scheme a year later. The former PM insists the case is politically motivated Ms Yingluck was elected prime minister in 2011 and is the sister of former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by the military in 2006. Like her brother, who remains a dominant influence over the Pheu Thai Party, she introduced populist policies which won her strong support in the mainly rural north and north-east. One of those policies was a scheme to buy farmers' rice crops for a generous price. The military government says it cost the state at least $8bn and was mired in corruption. Our correspondent says it is impossible not to see a political dimension to the trial: "The military ousted her government in a coup and so the current rulers can hardly be considered impartial. And of course under a military government, there are always suspicions that the judiciary can be influenced. "It is not surprising that Ms Yingluck and her supporters say the whole thing is entirely politically motivated." Was her mystery-escape helped by the government? Ms Yingluck had been widely expected to turn up in court on 25 August and her sudden disappearance caught her supporters and even some family members by surprise. For months, she had stood firm, refusing to leave the country, even though it is widely believed she was quietly encouraged to do so. But Jonathan Head suggests her flight "will have been broadly welcomed in top circles, regardless of whether there was actual collusion or not". "Looking at the way that Ms Yingluck got out of the country so quickly and at the last minute, to flee to Dubai, there's little doubt there must have been some high-level support for this." The government is denying any collusion but many people on all sides of the political spectrum in Thailand say it is hard to imagine she could have left unnoticed. Why would the government allow her to leave? Ahead of the trial, the military government was faced with a dilemma: whatever the verdict, it would likely have provoked an angry reaction from either of the two sides. Had she been acquitted, hardline opponents of Ms Yingluck would have been upset. Had she been given a prison sentence, her own supporters would have been equally angry. Hence, many people think her fleeing is the best option for the government. "It takes the sting out of the possible verdict and reduces the possibility of an angry reaction," our correspondent explains. "All this comes at a very sensitive time for the country," he says. "The cremation of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej is scheduled for October, and the government wants there to be complete calm. It is a very important symbolic moment and carries a great deal of significance for the monarchy. The last thing that authorities want is any trouble." What is the reaction among her supporters? There was a sense of shock when her political followers found out out she had left the country. Her Pheu Thai party has won every election since 2001 but now faces a problem: There is no one else in the family who could take the leadership role that she and before that her brother Thaksin had filled. Yet the huge support base means the party will almost certainly remain the largest political force in the country. What now for Thai democracy? There's no other party in a position to replace Pheu Thai, our correspondent says. The party has an emotional hold over the north and north-east, making up about 40% of Thailand's voters. But the damage done to Pheu Thai may reduce its chances significantly of being able to form a government. The new constitution, signed into law by the new king in April this year, already diminishes the power of elected parties. Under the new electoral system, it will be very difficult for Pheu Thai to win an outright majority as it has in the past. So it is likely the previous dominance of Pheu Thai will be replaced by a more fractured political landscape, with the military and the traditional royalist elite playing a more influential role. Will a guilty verdict lead to unrest and protests? The fact that Ms Yingluck is out of the country takes away the symbol around which her supporters could rally. "Thailand has been divided and polarised for the best part of the past 12 years," Jonathan Head says. "The military and the conservatives have not been able to destroy the Shinawatra family and the family has not been able to fight its way back into a position of dominance they once had. "The general assumption has been that in the end either one side has to be destroyed, or there has to be a grand bargain. The latter scenario doesn't seem to be viable at the moment, but at the same time it is not clear if the current situation represents the beginning of the final destruction of the Shinawatra family's influence." | एक अप्रत्याशित विकास में, थाईलैंड की पूर्व प्रधान मंत्री यिंगलुक शिनावात्रा ने गुप्त रूप से अगस्त के अंत में देश छोड़ दिया, जैसे ही वह आपराधिक आरोपों पर फैसले के लिए पेश होने वाली थी। उन्हें अब अनुपस्थिति में पांच साल की जेल की सजा सुनाई गई है। |
uk-england-cornwall-52506888 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-52506888 | Coronavirus: Surrey to St Ives seaside day trip 'due to exam pressure' | A couple flouted lockdown rules with a drive from Surrey to Cornwall for a seaside trip to relieve "exam pressure". | The pair, in their 20s, told police they felt the 265-mile (426km) journey to St Ives was essential. Officers told them the day trip breached coronavirus travel rules, gave them a £60 fine and sent them home. "All in all a very long 530 mile round trip for an hour by the sea," said Penzance Police. | एक दंपति ने "परीक्षा के दबाव" को दूर करने के लिए सरे से कॉर्नवाल तक समुद्र के किनारे की यात्रा के साथ लॉकडाउन नियमों का उल्लंघन किया। |
uk-politics-17279867 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-17279867 | Planning reform critics 'to be disappointed by review' | Remember that battle the government had with the National Trust where it seemed to find itself very uncomfortably on the wrong side of the silent majority whose idea of Sunday afternoon fun is a stately home, afternoon tea and trip to the gift shop? | By Allegra StrattonPolitical editor, BBC Newsnight It was over the rather dry-sounding issue of how to reform the planning system but the National Trust believed the government intended to allow developers to pave paradise. And the government was forced by the fracas to go away and consult. Well, the consultation is not over yet but I understand that the eventual document is not going to go down well with the National Trust, English Heritage, Daily Telegraph and so on (apologies, I know I've missed many). Treasury officials met officials from the Department for Communities and Local Government on Monday after the Chancellor George Osborne grilled Communities Secretary Eric Pickles about the non-appearance of this plan in Cabinet one week ago. Because of the "tense" grilling Monday's meeting was convened. Now sources say it is "highly unlikely" the new document is going to please its critics. The phrase "a presumption in favour of sustainable development" is to stay, and indeed the Treasury is pushing for it to be implemented incredibly quickly. There may be a more explicit "glossary", I understand, to make it absolutely clear that drills do not start up in ancient woodlands - better explanations of areas of outstanding beauty and so on - but the plan is to be hardly altered from its first incarnation. The process of debate is this - does it come out on the Monday after the document as a discrete entity where the government will try to emphasise it is about what is best for communities rather than for the macro-economy? Or does it come out in the Budget explicitly as a growth document? (By the way, my hunch is that this Budget is going to be a bigger deal than we realised, that the Treasury has allowed debate to get up around peripheral issues like mansion taxes and the 50p tax rate to allow them space to crack on with supply side changes to the British economy, but I may well be over-thinking this). The Treasury is very bullish about this timing issue right now. They actually think that in this area, they may not have been as radical as they would like. For people less interested in process it means this - the government hopes building will start up soon - greater housing construction which means greater local employment, but also more homes for, among other people, first time buyers, so depressing price and so on. That's the idea. | याद रखें कि सरकार ने नेशनल ट्रस्ट के साथ वह लड़ाई लड़ी थी, जहां वह खुद को मूक बहुमत के गलत पक्ष में बहुत असहज महसूस कर रही थी, जिसका रविवार दोपहर की मस्ती का विचार एक आलीशान घर, दोपहर की चाय और उपहार की दुकान की यात्रा है? |
uk-england-gloucestershire-18268186 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-18268186 | Diamond Jubilee: Queen adopts Slimbridge Bewick's swan | The Queen has accepted the offer of a Bewick's swan to commemorate her Diamond Jubilee. | Diamond Two is one of more than 200 that fly into the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust site at Slimbridge each winter. WWT chief executive Martin Spray said the trust was delighted that as patron the Queen had decided to accept the gift. Its founder, the late Sir Peter Scott, is credited with the discovery of a Bewick's individual bill markings. Bewick's swans remain faithful to one site and Diamond Two has been coming to Slimbridge every year since 2008. | महारानी ने अपनी हीरक जयंती मनाने के लिए बेविक के हंस के प्रस्ताव को स्वीकार कर लिया है। |
newsbeat-10000348 | https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-10000348 | Young 'depressed' about money | Debt, unemployment and repossession have all been concrete and visible effects of the recession but there isn't as much focus on how it affects people emotionally. According to counselling charity Relate, many younger people are having a tough time at the moment. They see 15,000 young people every year and reckon a quarter are depressed about money. | By Catherine BurnsNewsbeat Reporter in Milton Keynes ___________________________________________________________ It's late afternoon, and there are dozens of young people hanging around. Some are skating, some flirting and some just chatting. None of them are buying anything though, because they don't have any cash to spare. One 16-year-old boy says the recession has "drastically affected his life." Another admits things are tight and money is hard to come by. Twenty-one-year-old Becky Apperley says her financial situation really gets her down. She's been unemployed for three years and isn't having any luck finding work. She said: "A lot of the time I feel suicidal. I do actually self-harm sometimes, although I've stopped it now. "It wasn't because of the fact that I was depressed over other things, it was because I was depressed about money." Becky is an extreme example. Relate counsellors say only 3% of the under-25s they see are so worried about their finances they think about killing themselves. Have Your Say: How has the recession affected you? Depression Paula Hall is from the charity. She says it's important not to underestimate how much of a problem the recession is for young people. "Half of Relate cousellors say the young people they see are worrying really significantly about money," she said. "It's high up on their agenda. It's something they want to talk about in sessions. The charity says 21% of the young people they see are worried about losing their home. It's a pressing concern for 16-year-old Conner. He said: "I'm actually having to move out this year, because my mum can't afford to have me live there. I'm worried I won't find a house for quite a while." Another boy, a 17-year-old who's asked Newsbeat not to give out his name, says when his dad lost his job the whole family thought about selling up. He said: "Cards were put on the table, options and that. One of them was we were going to have to move, probably to a different town. "I've never moved in my life so it was going to be a big thing." Luckily, his dad found more work and it didn't come to that. But the stress has affected things at home. He talked about sitting in his room, listening to his parents arguing and worrying. Relate say that's a common problem. 21% of the young people they see at finding it difficult to get on with their families. Hopeful The experts also say under-25s are worrying about their own future, and that 19% are stressed about their careers. Fifteen-year-old Beth wants to be a photographer. She worries that once she's done her GCSEs and college, she'll still struggle to get a job. Depsite that, she's staying positive. "I kind of just look on the bright side of things," she said. "I do think I am going to be able to make it. I'm only 15 now and things will change." Relate's Paula Hall reckons that's the right attitude. "It's important to get that balance between being realistic and being hopeful," she added. "We aren't going to be in a recession forever and we are still a fairly wealthy country. It's bound to turn around." | ऋण, बेरोजगारी और पुनर्निवेश सभी मंदी के ठोस और स्पष्ट प्रभाव रहे हैं, लेकिन इस बात पर उतना ध्यान नहीं दिया गया है कि यह लोगों को भावनात्मक रूप से कैसे प्रभावित करता है। परामर्श चैरिटी रिलेट के अनुसार, कई युवा इस समय कठिन समय से गुजर रहे हैं। वे हर साल 15,000 युवाओं को देखते हैं और मानते हैं कि एक चौथाई लोग पैसे को लेकर उदास हैं। |
world-us-canada-50785442 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50785442 | Will UK provide light bulb moment for US Democrats? | For the most part American politics exists in its own bubble with its own preoccupations. But every now and then something that happens in a foreign country intrudes. And pokes its nose in. Big time. | Jon SopelNorth America editor@bbcjonsopelon Twitter The 12 December 2019 UK General Election might be such a moment for the US Democratic Party - just as British politics imposed itself on the US presidential election on 23 June 2016, when the British people voted for Brexit. Coincidentally, Donald Trump arrived in Scotland the following day (not the day before as he has repeatedly claimed) and what the British people had just done was a galvanising moment in his campaign, a light bulb moment, as he prepared to face the American people five months later. So what should Democrats learn from the misery that befell the Labour Party last Thursday night? And more particularly can they afford to have Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren as their candidate and stand a chance of defeating Donald Trump in 2020 after the shellacking meted out to Jeremy Corbyn and his brand of radical, left-wing policies? Does UK election provide clues to Trump’s fortunes? Mind-boggling Let me start in Sedgefield in County Durham, an old mining constituency, whose pits closed in the 1970s and 1980s. It is a largely white, working class area. It has been rock-solid Labour since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. It is not unlike any number of towns you could find in the Appalachians in Pennsylvania. I've spent a bit of time there from when I was writing a long forgotten biography of Tony Blair in the mid-1990s through to when he became prime minister. In the village of Trimdon is the Labour Club. The last time I was there, Tony Blair was pulling the winning numbers out in the raffle: main prize a turkey (plucked), second prize a pound of sausages. The people I met there were decent, hard-working, straight-talking - and small "c" conservative. They had chosen Tony Blair as their candidate for the 1983 election because he wasn't on the "loony left" wing of the party, as his election agent explained to me over a pint in the Dun Cow Inn in the constituency. I reported from the nearby leisure centre in 2005 when Tony Blair won the seat for Labour with a huge majority, and won his third successive general election. The people of Sedgefield had delivered him a majority of over 18,000 and 58% of the vote. No-one else came close. But last Thursday night incredibly, unbelievably, ground-shakingly, Sedgefield went Conservative. Sedgefield. Conservative. It is mind-boggling. Remember, when Blair won with that gargantuan majority in 2005 he was at the height of his unpopularity - or the nadir of his likeability (whichever way you want to put it). The controversial Iraq War had been two years earlier and there was a strong feeling that Britain had gone to war on a false prospectus. No weapons of mass destruction had been found, and - hugely uncomfortably for Blair - the father of a British soldier who had died in conflict there stood against the prime minister as an anti-war candidate. Blair, by now, was no longer seen as the great hope, but as smarmy, President George W Bush's poodle, in the pocket of big business - and a war criminal. It was ugly. And yet he romped home on his "third way", left of centre, progressive ticket. And he was returned as prime minister with a comfortable majority: a third successive election victory, a feat that no other Labour politician in history had achieved. Seismic change But the policies of Labour in the 2019 election are very different from what they were in 2005 when Tony Blair and the so-called "modernisers" held sway. Labour last Thursday went into the election with an unashamedly socialist set of policies, promising a massive increase in government spending, and big tax increases for the well-off. Nationalisation of some industries was back on the agenda. There would be massive increase in spending for the National Health Service - and an offer of free broadband for everyone. Why no offer of free puppies for all, one wag asked derisively. The problem is that the pragmatic, working-class people of Sedgefield - and any number of other constituencies across the industrial towns and cities of the UK - held their collective noses and said you must be joking. These are smart, savvy people. They know that you don't get something for nothing. Electoral districts that all my life have been Labour - Blyth Valley, Bolsover, Rother Valley, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Dudley, Grimsby - are now held by the Conservatives. It is hard to overstate just how seismic this is. And remember social class in the UK has always been a bigger determinant of how people vote than it has been in the US. Just like the whole class system, frankly. Some of these constituencies have never, ever flirted with the right. Of course, there is a massive caveat that makes reading across from what happened in the UK to what might happen in the US precarious. Brexit, no deal, the European Union Withdrawal Agreement will not be on the ballot in the 2020 US presidential election. Brexit did play a big part in this general election - how could it not given the turmoil in Britain of these past three-and-a-half years? But as Phil Wilson, the man who succeeded Tony Blair as the Labour MP in Sedgefield - and who lost his seat on Thursday night - pointed out, Brexit was nothing like as big an issue on the doorstep as Jeremy Corbyn and Labour's socialist policies. Kitchen table issues Democrats would be wise to dig deeper into the reasons for such wholesale rejection of the UK Labour Party. If you are plotting a path to victory in 2020 that takes you through Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin - the three states that the Democrats lost in 2016 by a teeny, weeny number of votes and that guaranteed Donald Trump victory - then there are many similarities between these states and the industrial heartlands that Labour have just lost. Michigan's Democrats swept the board in the midterms in 2018, and the newly-elected Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is admirably straightforward about why they were able to turn around the fortunes of the Democratic Party after the shock of 2016. They didn't promise the earth, they promised to fix the roads. Kitchen table issues. But among the radical/socialist/progressive/liberal (choose your epithet) wing of the Democratic Party there is an ambition, a hunger for earth-shaking pledges. The bold Green New Deal, Medicare for all (which to those of us who are European may not seem such a giant leap) - these are big ticket policy ambitions with even greater price tags attached. But will they fly in a country where the centre of political gravity is much further to the right than it is in the UK? Promising bigger government and higher taxes may not be impossible. But it's not going to be an easy sell. I saw two sets of statistics that really struck me. In last Thursday's election, it seems 58% of 18-24 year-olds voted Labour. Only 16% of those over 60, it's estimated, voted Labour. Similarly, the percentage of Democrats under 30 and qualified to vote in the primaries who are backing either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren is massive. Something like 70%. Everyone else in the field is an also ran. But look at any statistics on election turnout, and you will see it is those infuriating oldies who vote in the highest numbers. Grasshoppers and cows And to Democrats in the US who look at their Twitter feeds and see the "likes" and retweets mounting up as they advance this or that position, let the 2019 UK election be a warning to you. For some Labour activists the result of the election seems to have come as a massive shock, because in the echo chamber world that we all now to a greater or lesser extent live in, you come away with the impression that everyone thinks like you. Twitter is not the real world. Nowhere near. In the 1980s and 1990s when protestors would take to the streets of London over the Poll Tax or the siting of American cruise missiles at Greenham Common or more recently the Iraq War, and most recently the huge protest marches backing Remain, the participants would often claim that because so many people had come out onto the streets this was the view of the British people. But for the million who may have protested (still a huge number), there were 59 million who had stayed at home. American Democrats need to be mindful of this. People like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be a social media genius (and she is), and she may have a massive number of followers (and she has), and be charismatic (and she has that by the bucketload) - but America is a big country with an awful lot of voters who are not signed up to all the "woke" things she and others might be advocating. The best voice on this is from a pre-tweeting, pre-electronic media, pre-opinion poll age - and it is from the 18th-Century Anglo-Irish philosopher, Edmund Burke. He wrote: "Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field." Labour in the UK lost the working class, but gained the woke. And that will give the party sleepless nights over the coming months and years. It was their worst defeat since 1935. I watched the UK election on Thursday night from the British Embassy in Washington, where the toast of Washington society met and mingled as the results came through. A smart friend of mine had to leave early to go to another event. She contacted me the next day to say that she went to a dinner and was seated next to a Democrat senator. As she sat down he leaned over to her and said "Are you following what's going on in Britain? Labour getting clobbered? We Dems in the US had better pay close attention." Who will take on Trump in 2020? | अधिकांश भाग के लिए अमेरिकी राजनीति अपनी व्यस्तताओं के साथ अपने बुलबुले में मौजूद है। लेकिन समय-समय पर कुछ ऐसा होता है जो किसी विदेशी देश में होता है। और अपनी नाक अंदर घुसाता है। बड़ा समय। |
uk-england-bristol-27609082 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-27609082 | Bristol's mental health care providers announced | The winning bidders to take on the care of mentally ill people across Bristol have been announced. | Mental Health Bristol, a partnership of 10 organisations, has been appointed to take over from the Avon and Wiltshire Mental (AWP) Health Partnership. AWP which is part of Mental Health Bristol will still run parts of the service under the new contract. Bristol Dementia Partnership, Richmond Fellowship and St Mungo's Broadway are also taking on parts of the service. Related Internet Links Future Mental Health: Bristol CCG Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust | ब्रिस्टल में मानसिक रूप से बीमार लोगों की देखभाल के लिए विजेता बोलीदाताओं की घोषणा की गई है। |
health-28689949 | https://www.bbc.com/news/health-28689949 | Ebola: Why is it this disease we fear? | The current Ebola outbreak in Africa is dominating headlines globally. But Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance questions why this - rather than any of the other deadly diseases which exist. He suggests it's because people in the west have forgotten what it is like to deal with an untreatable disease. | By Dr Seth BerkleyCEO of the GAVI Alliance It starts with familiar flu-like symptoms: a mild fever, headache, muscle and joint pains. But within days this can quickly descend into something more exotic and frightening: vomiting and diarrhoea, followed by bleeding from the gums, the nose and gastrointestinal tract. Death comes in the form of either organ failure or low blood pressure caused by the extreme loss of fluids. Such fear-inducing descriptions have been doing the rounds in the media lately. However, this is not Ebola but rather Dengue Shock Syndrome, an extreme form of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that struggles to make the news. Ebola is without a doubt a truly horrible disease, but then there are many other bad ones that kill far more. So, why is it that Ebola is grabbing headlines and other deadly diseases are not? Not the only one Is it because people in Africa are suddenly dying? That seems unlikely. Dengue has a relatively low death rate, but it still kills up to 20,000 of the half a million people who are infected every year; that's an order of magnitude more than the worst Ebola outbreak, and yet barely a fifth of the number killed by measles every year. And when you start to look at pathogens like pneumococcal and rotavirus - causes of the two biggest childhood killers, pneumonia and diarrhoea - the number of deaths rapidly climbs up into the high hundreds of thousands. It is true that Ebola is also highly infectious, which drives away health workers who may understandably fear a needle stick. But then so many others are more infectious, like measles, through air-droplets, and hepatitis B, which is transmitted by similar means to HIV but 50 times more infectious. Perhaps then it has something to do with the fact that there is no cure and that 50%-90% of people infected will inevitably die. Possibly, but then there is no cure for rabies either, and once someone develops symptoms they are almost 100% likely to die a slow and painful death, unless, that is, they have been vaccinated post-exposure. And herein lies a clue. The fact is while Ebola means a painful and isolated death, away from loved ones, there are other diseases that are horrific and equally deserving of both our fear and respect; diseases which, like Ebola, are still dreaded in West Africa and beyond, and which regularly kill hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world's poorest countries. However, in wealthy countries, thanks to the availability of modern medicines, many of these diseases can now usually be treated or cured, and thanks to vaccines they rarely have to be. Because of this blessing we have simply forgotten what it is like to live under threat of such infectious and deadly diseases, and forgotten what it means to fear them. So when an outbreak like this comes along, from the comfort of our relatively disease-free surroundings it is only natural to look on in horror and be terrified by the prospect of something like Ebola making its way to our shores. Attention 'welcome' But while Ebola remains a genuine concern in West Africa, if it ever did make it to Europe or North America the chances of it spreading far are remote. This is for two important reasons: first our disease surveillance is more stringent, and second Ebola kills or immobilises its host before they have much of a chance to spread it. In reality, a bigger concern far closer to home is that some diseases which we once vanquished, like measles, rubella and pertussis, are now making a comeback. Thanks to an insidious complacency we have seen significant drops in vaccination rates in many parts of the western world, to the extent that diseases are not only coming back but to levels where we are actually exporting them to poorer countries. Why should we see deaths from diseases we have previously wiped out and for which we have safe and effective vaccinations? And yet in these same wealthy countries people are now asking why there isn't an Ebola vaccine. So the fact that this Ebola outbreak has received so much attention is something to be applauded. For one thing it may help to accelerate the progress of some of the quite promising candidate drug treatments and vaccines whose development have otherwise been stalling. More of a certainty is that it will help bring in improved emergency response plans in affected countries, measures which could help prevent any future outbreaks from spreading quite so fast and so far. International spotlight For people in West Africa who are currently trying to get through this terrible outbreak that will be of little comfort. Even so, if casting the international spotlight onto Ebola helps to bring our notions of risk perception into sharper focus then that can't be a bad thing - not just in terms of boosting immunisation rates at home. But also if it helps to remind us that Ebola is not the exception, but rather just one example of the terrible norm - where thousands of men, women and children are dying from a range of horrible diseases every day - then perhaps that will bring the world a step closer to doing more about it. | अफ्रीका में वर्तमान इबोला का प्रकोप विश्व स्तर पर सुर्खियों में है। लेकिन जी. ए. वी. आई. गठबंधन के सी. ई. ओ. डॉ. सेठ बर्कले सवाल करते हैं कि ऐसा क्यों है-किसी भी अन्य घातक बीमारी के बजाय जो मौजूद है। उनका सुझाव है कि ऐसा इसलिए है क्योंकि पश्चिम के लोग भूल गए हैं कि एक अनुपचारित बीमारी से निपटना कैसा होता है। |
newsbeat-10004389 | https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-10004389 | Vampire Weekend to play free gig at London ice rink | Vampire Weekend have announced details of a free show at London's Somerset House ice rink. | The New York four-piece will play in the venue's courtyard at 5.30pm on Thursday 14 January. Tickets cannot be purchased in advance with fans encouraged to turn up on a first-come first-served basis with the first 50 being given the chance to skate for free. Ezra Koenig and co released their second album Contra on Monday (11 January). | वैम्पायर वीकेंड ने लंदन के समरसेट हाउस आइस रिंक में एक मुफ्त शो के विवरण की घोषणा की है। |
uk-england-bristol-22860461 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-22860461 | Government turns down bid for £18m new M49 junction | The government has turned down an application for £18m to fund a new junction on the M49 near Bristol. | The West of England Partnership bid for funding for the junction saying it would improve access to Avonmouth. The plan for the junction was outlined in South Gloucestershire Council's draft Core Strategy. A spokesman said it was "disappointed" the bid failed but said it will continue to work with the government to secure funding. The West of England Partnership believes a junction would help to open up the Severnside Growth Area - more than 1,000 acres of land and the largest brownfield site in Western Europe - for development. | सरकार ने ब्रिस्टल के पास एम49 पर एक नए जंक्शन के लिए 18 मिलियन पाउंड के आवेदन को ठुकरा दिया है। |
uk-43355904 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43355904 | Russian spy: Poisoning poses major challenge for MI6 | The attempted killing of Sergei Skripal poses major challenges for British intelligence. This was a man who had been convicted for spying for Britain, pardoned, released and then targeted to be killed on British soil. The search for a motive remains a key question. | By Gordon CoreraSecurity correspondent Skripal is thought to have been recruited by British intelligence in the 1990s while serving under diplomatic cover abroad with the GRU - the Russian military intelligence. He is likely to have provided valuable intelligence at the time - especially the identities of other undercover operatives. But he left the GRU around 2000 and was arrested in 2004. He was then imprisoned. After his release in 2010 in the spy swap, he will have been debriefed by British intelligence but there are few signs so far that he was involved in serious ongoing operational work. It has been reported that he may have given the occasional lecture about the GRU but he would have had little fresh operational knowledge about people or events in Moscow since he had retired close to 20 years ago and had spent the last 14 years either in prison or in Britain. There has even been speculation that he was somehow involved in the famous "dossier" about Donald Trump drawn up by former MI6 officer Chris Steele. But sources close to Orbis - Steele's company - have told the BBC that it had no links with Skripal at any point. So what does that leave as a possible motive? Revenge perhaps. Revenge for someone that former colleagues in Russian intelligence will certainly have seen as a traitor for selling secrets to MI6. And also perhaps a message to others thinking of doing the same. A message that Russia will one day come for you, wherever you are. That has been a recurrent theme from Vladimir Putin, a former intelligence officer himself. It has been pointed out that this case is different because Skripal had been formally pardoned and released as part of a spy swap. Killing someone after a swap would be against the traditional (unwritten) rules of espionage. This may be true. But it also neglects the fact that, under Vladimir Putin, Russia has shown a willingness to push the boundaries of what was previously considered acceptable. The same is true in cyberspace. Here, Russia is alleged to have been involved in acts like switching off a French TV channel and turning off the power in Ukraine, far beyond the realm of traditional cyber espionage and stealing secrets. And, even after allegations it hacked US political parties and operatives and released their emails, the same group - linked it is thought to the GRU for which Skripal worked - is said to have continued operating, hacking other countries such as France and, more recently, Germany. It is almost as if those behind such actions simply do not care about being found and called out about it. In the past, intelligence agencies talked of wanting "plausible deniability" for their covert operations - being able to say it was not them. But observers say that with Russia, it increasingly looks as if the intelligence agencies are happy with "implausible deniability" - even if it seems obvious they are behind an act, they simply say "prove it" and try to muddy the waters with misinformation as much as possible. If the theory of Russian revenge and message sending is correct, it raises difficult questions for British intelligence. MI6 relies on recruiting agents like Skripal in countries like Russia to provide secrets. It has always prided itself on keeping the identity of those agents secret in order to protect them. But if the perception emerges that it cannot protect those agents - even if they are in the UK - then it will make it much harder to do its job and recruit agents to gather intelligence. A risk assessment is normally made for agents who are resettled in the UK or elsewhere and it is possible the risk assessment for Skripal in 2010 was sensible, based on Russian behaviour at the time and the fact he was swapped. But there will be questions over whether the risk assessments were reconsidered given changing Russian behaviour. There will also be challenges for MI5, the security service, more generally. It puts the bulk of its resources - understandably - into counter-terrorism but there have long been questions about whether this has left enough focus on another part of its job - tracking the activities of foreign intelligence services in the UK. Counter-espionage was once the core of its work but it may need a significant boost if the service is going to have to contend with the possibility of other states using nerve agents to try to kill people on British soil. | सर्गेई स्क्रिपल की हत्या का प्रयास ब्रिटिश खुफिया के लिए बड़ी चुनौती पेश करता है। यह एक ऐसा व्यक्ति था जिसे ब्रिटेन के लिए जासूसी करने के लिए दोषी ठहराया गया था, माफ कर दिया गया था, रिहा कर दिया गया था और फिर ब्रिटिश धरती पर मारे जाने के लिए लक्षित किया गया था। एक उद्देश्य की खोज एक महत्वपूर्ण सवाल बना हुआ है। |
world-africa-23867710 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-23867710 | Your questions to Peter Horrocks | "Are the international media getting Africa right?" This is the question being asked by this month's BBC Africa Debate programme, to be broadcast from Nairobi, Kenya at 1900 GMT on Friday 30 August and 1200 GMT on Sunday 1 September. Ahead of the programme, BBC Global News director Peter Horrocks has answered your questions in a live Twitter Q&A on Wednesday 28 August. | This is an edited version of the session. Question from @tayo_taiwo: What is BBC Africa's role in the emerging economy of Africa? Peter answers: Africa's economic developments are a key story. The BBC is investing heavily in African business journalism. Question from @olaadaraMD: Are international media not over-exposing African youth to Western cultures thereby eroding African values? Peter answers: It is not our intention to erode anyone's values. But isn't it a good thing for all cultures to exchange ideas? Question from @anastrace: Why has there not been more coverage of the proxy shadow wars funded by the West and fought locally in Africa? Peter answers: Interesting point. Which "proxy wars" are in your mind? Question from @ChaingaZulu: International media would rather send a reporter from South Africa to be based in Zambia. Why not get a Zambian? Peter answers: We are using more and more local journalists to tell the story of Africa to the world accurately. Question from @Finnfield: What role can you recommend higher education plays to improve international media coverage on Africa? Peter answers: Careful academic analysis to show the achievements and gaps in our coverage is always welcomed. Question from @LCHartmann: What is your position on lifting sanctions on Zimbabwe? Peter answers: Lutz, it is not the BBC's job to have a position on sanctions. We report the facts and the issues. Question from @jessiedendere: International media have been accused of not accurately telling Zimbabwe's story. What are you doing to ensure accuracy? Peter answers: Jessie, we use reporters who come from Zimbabwe and we send well-informed reporters there, whenever we are allowed in. Question from @ateist64: How do they deal with #overpopulation in media & politic? Peter answers: I agree it is crucial to tackle solutions as well as problems. For the BBC, Africa is not a "they". Africa is our largest audience. Question from @ndokwa10east: Why is the BBC world service not on FM in Nigeria? Peter answers: We want to be on FM in Nigeria. Unfortunately, government regulation does not allow international news on FM. Question from Alexander Ze Habesha: The BBC gives more coverage to Kenya and other East African countries than Ethiopia. Why is that? Peter answers: BBC has a new reporter in Ethiopia, Emanuel Igunza. We will be doing more on that country, especially the economy. Question from, @tayo_taiwo: Please highlight the challenges BBC Africa faces. As a media house, what are your challenges? Peter answers: Key challenges: scale and variety of Africa; logistics; access to countries and leaders; distribution. Question from @knyaga: How is it that BBC Africa broadcasts from London? What were the challenges faced setting up the studio in Kenya? Peter answers: In the past, journalists needed to be in UK to avoid local pressures. Now they are all across Africa, and in London. Question from @IsaacMensah2: Is there the opportunity to report for the service or you have media houses you deal with in Africa for reporters? Peter answers: Yes, we work with other media houses, training journalists and encouraging them on to BBC airwaves. Question from @EricBright: Why do the international media think that Western analysts and organizations are infallible in everything? Peter answers: Eric, we aim to use as wide a range of experts as possible. Let us know when experts we use disappoint. Question from @LoveAfrica1: How much access does BBC have to report in difficult areas like Somalia, DRC or Nigeria? Peter answers: There are no-go areas in Somalia, DRC and Nigeria. But we have reporters in all three countries. Question from @yokogracy: On what are the criteria used by the BBC as an international media to put their interests in some countries in Africa and not in others? Peter answers: Grace, it depends on many things: size of the country, economy, level of insecurity, cultural impact, etc. Question from @soni_tweets: How does the BBC cover the Great Lakes region? What do you say about it being biased? Peter answers: We have reporters across the Great Lakes area, dedicated to accurate reporting. Please let me know when we fall short. For more tweets from Peter Horrocks you can follow his Twitter account: @PeterHorrocks1 You can also follow BBC Africa on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ | नैरोबी, केन्या से शुक्रवार 30 अगस्त को 1900 जी. एम. टी. और रविवार 1 सितंबर को 1200 जी. एम. टी. पर प्रसारित होने वाले इस महीने के बी. बी. सी. अफ्रीका वाद-विवाद कार्यक्रम द्वारा यह सवाल पूछा जा रहा है। कार्यक्रम से पहले, बी. बी. सी. वैश्विक समाचार निदेशक पीटर हॉरॉक्स ने बुधवार 28 अगस्त को एक लाइव ट्विटर प्रश्नोत्तर में आपके प्रश्नों का उत्तर दिया है। |
world-us-canada-38881469 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38881469 | The mind of Donald Trump | No modern president has been so analysed. Other leaders don't know him and can't read him. He leaves a trail, but it is strewn with contradictions. He craves popularity but revels in being demonised. He trusts his gut instincts and embraces unpredictability as a virtue. | Gavin HewittChief correspondent@BBCGavinHewitton Twitter Diplomats, foreign leaders, business chiefs are all trying to decipher what drives the 45th president. Donald Trump's first two weeks have been about power, about asserting it, about the noise of power, about taking a wrecking ball to the establishment and leaving it wrong-footed and uncertain. No president before him has been so ready with threats against foreign powers, old allies, major corporations, and Washington's public servants. At conferences, seminars, at diplomatic functions, in foreign ministries, I have encountered the same whispered and not so hidden question: what do these erratic actions tell us about the mind of Donald Trump?" Some say he can't survive or that he will over-reach himself. Others are waiting for him to self-destruct, but there is clear calculation behind these early heady days of being the most powerful man in the world. First, Donald Trump is doing in office what he promised he would do, on the campaign trail. At more than 15 campaign stops, I heard him vow to: His claims were dismissed as campaign braggadocio, but he would bracket most of his promises with the words "believe me". He is now delivering. Secondly, President Trump is looking after his core supporters; all those voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina who delivered him the White House. While demonstrators gather in cities and at airports, protesting at his banning refugees and citizens from seven mainly Muslim countries from entering the States, the polls indicate that in middle America he has the support of nearly one in two Americans: 49% agreed with the policy. Trump ramps up criticism of judge after travel ban setback Trump's executive order: Who does travel ban affect? The people around the president Newshour Extra: Steve Bannon - The de facto president? All the outrage about the policy being discriminatory, that it is incoherent, that it will prove a recruiting sergeant for extremists, that such a policy - if it had been in place - would have prevented none of the recent terrorists attacks, make little impression on Mr Trump's inner circle. Mr Trump knows his people, and he tweets his messages to them, direct and simple, as they were during the campaign. "This travel ban is not about religion," he tweets, "this is about terror and keeping our country safe." Some who voted for him may have misgivings, but most of them, so far, don't. They like his confrontational style. Offending Washington's elite is a badge of his authenticity. Early battles with judges and state department officials are evidence that he is "draining the swamp" as promised. When a federal judge halted the travel ban, the president tweeted: "The opinion of this so-called judge… is ridiculous and will be overturned." While his critics accused him of showing a lack of respect for the Constitution, Donald Trump reminded his audience that many "bad and dangerous people" could be "pouring" into the country. The president remains in campaigning mode. The dizzying array of announcements and executive orders form part of a strategic plan. Never mind that some of the policies are incomplete. That is to miss the point. The strategy is to demonstrate over the first 100 days of his presidency that he is a "high-energy" leader, shaking up the old order. He is lucky to have inherited a strong economy, but he has promised much more. The bonfire of regulations, the slashing of corporate and personal taxes, the pump-priming investments in infrastructure are all intended to lift growth levels above 3%. If he achieves that, many Americans will stick with him. Social media, as it did during the campaign, enables him to talk directly to those who packed his rallies. The conventional wisdom was that he would not be tweeter-in-chief when he got to the White House. But Mr Trump knows that every tweet becomes a news story and so enables him to manage the news agenda. The mainstream media is still struggling to find a convincing riposte to a president who bypasses them to deliver his messages. He declares he's in a "running war" with the press. His chief strategist labels the media the "opposition party". Again Mr Trump understands that if he denounces the media as "dishonest", it weakens its ability to hold him to account. His detractors call him "narcissist-in-chief". They point to his personal flaws: the need to be loved, to be popular, to make every issue about himself, the thin-skinned retorts, the savaging of those who disagree and the demonising of the press. All are weaknesses that over time may damage and perhaps undo him. His strategy is not just to change America but for him to dominate the public space. Others search for the ideology that will underpin his presidency. For Donald Trump, his guiding slogan will be "America first." It will be his defence against all attacks. If that means challenging the international order, or tearing up old trade agreements or upsetting the global elite, so be it. In these early days, it is impossible to know how much of a revolutionary Donald Trump will be and how much ideology will inform his decision-making. His chief strategist, Stephen Bannon is, on the other hand, deeply ideological. He is a self-proclaimed "economic nationalist". He seeks a new political order, where sovereignty returns to nation states, where the West confronts the "hateful ideology" of radical Islam. In the immediate future, President Trump is likely to continue with his confrontational style, believing it is popular with his core supporters. Many tests lie ahead. Not least is whether his policies will be followed through. Was the announcement about the wall with Mexico intended as a headline or is Mr Trump determined to build it with Mexican money? Will he really impose an import tax? Will he risk a trade and currency war with China? Will he move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem? Will he encourage anti-establishment parties in Europe? The questions are many, and the answers few. To those who have openly doubted the president's sanity in these churning, bruising opening days, a clear strategy emerges. The president and his close advisers will pay scant attention to the outcry from their opponents. But they will nurture those who gave him his majority in the electoral college and might again. In two years, and by the time of the mid-term elections, the American public will deliver an initial verdict on Trumpism. Most importantly the Republican Party will be deciding whether it stays loyal to Mr Trump or whether it allows doubts and reservations to seep in, making Congress the obstacle to his presidency. | किसी भी आधुनिक राष्ट्रपति का इतना विश्लेषण नहीं किया गया है। अन्य नेता उन्हें नहीं जानते हैं और उन्हें पढ़ नहीं सकते हैं। वह एक निशान छोड़ देते हैं, लेकिन यह विरोधाभासों से भरा हुआ है। वह लोकप्रियता चाहते हैं लेकिन राक्षसी होने का आनंद लेते हैं। वह अपनी अंतर्दृष्टि पर भरोसा करते हैं और अप्रत्याशितता को एक गुण के रूप में स्वीकार करते हैं। |
world-us-canada-40745235 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40745235 | Nafta talks: The view from the free trade front lines | As Canada, the US and Mexico prepare to sit down and renegotiate their trade deal at President Donald Trump's request, unease has enveloped a motor industry town in Ontario which finds itself on the front lines of this battle over North American trade. | By Jessica MurphyBBC News, Toronto Every day some 8,000 trucks travel the 2.8km (1.75 miles) between border checkpoints at Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, under the steel arches of the Ambassador Bridge and over the Detroit River. The 88-year-old bridge - the busiest border crossing by trade volume in North America - is a vital link between the two countries. It connects industrial nerve centres in each country, feeding highly integrated cross-border supply chains. And each day, trucks from Laval International, a 42-year-old compression mould making company based in Windsor, come and go across the span. Company president Jonathon Azzopardi has a message he'd like to deliver to Donald Trump, as Canada, the US, and Mexico prepare to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). "Canada, of all three of the partners, is the only one that fulfilled its obligations," he says. "You didn't fulfil your promises. We did." On 16 August, the three trading partners will sit down in Washington, DC, for the inaugural round of talks launched at US President Donald Trump's behest. Mr Azzopardi says Canadian companies like his have invested in the American and Mexican economies, creating jobs and helping to sustain communities. "Did we profit from it? We grew, yes. But did we also reinvest? 100%. They can never take that away from us." He says he'd be "hard pressed" to find the same number of American and Mexican companies who did the same for the Canadian economy. In Windsor, where so many livelihoods and companies depend on Nafta, people are feeling wary, says Keith Henry, president at Windsor Mold, a tooling and automotive components company with divisions in Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee and Mexico. "The Nafta uncertainty is just causing - has caused - everybody to just pause because they don't know where to invest, they don't know what's going to happen," he says. They hope legislators on both sides of the Canada-US border understand the vast and dynamic market that has grown within Nafta, which formed the world's largest free trade zone when it came into force in 1994. Nafta's battlegrounds Canada is America's second largest trading partner. In 2016, more than $540bn-worth of goods passed over the border, from avocados from California to petroleum from Newfoundland and Labrador. But while trade between the two countries is integral for both economies, manufacturing is heavily concentrated in specific regions and industries. Almost 40% of all US goods sold to Canada comes from just five states: Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Texas and New York, and is concentrated in just a few industries such as automobiles and machinery. In Canada, Ontario produces about half of all goods sold to the US and much of its products are tied up in the auto industry. All in all, the auto industry in Ontario and Michigan alone is responsible for about 12% of all trade between the two nations. The Windsor-Detroit region is one of Nafta's epicentres. Windsorites see their town as a Detroit suburb, sharing a vital auto industry with Motor City. The big three - General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) - have had their headquarters in Michigan. Ford and FCA have operations in Windsor, helping generate around 20,000 jobs. Windsor is also a hub to move goods, services, and people across the border. Almost 17% of all Canadian exports end up in Michigan. Over 10% of Canada's imports from the US come from Michigan. Because the border is so close and convenient, over 6,000 Windsor residents cross each day to work in the US, under Nafta provisions for professional workers. Mr Azzopardi didn't always support Nafta. He remembers his father, the company founder, coming home and warning the freshly-inked trade deal was a job killer, a disaster for the Canadian economy and exporters like him. Mexico had cheaper labour and could make cars for less. There were a couple of years of struggle in Windsor. But the region's manufacturers learned how to compete, becoming suppliers within the integrated continental market. "We've expanded to Mexico, we're growing together," says Mr Azzopardi. "That's the secret sauce that people don't see." As the big three auto makers expanded operations into Mexico, their clients - companies like Laval International and Windsor Mold - expanded with them. Says Keith Henry: "We didn't put a plant in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labour and make parts there and ship them back to the United States and Canada." "We located in Mexico because our customers were expanding their business operations in that country." Zekelman Industries is the largest independent pipe and tube manufacturer in North America, producing 2.5 million tons of pipe and tube annually in 15 manufacturing plants in the US and Canada. The company's products can be found in the the roof of the Skydome, where Toronto's popular baseball team - the Blue Jays - plays. The company also produced 125,000 tons of hollow steel structural tubing used in the security fence along the US-Mexico border. CEO Barry Zekelman understands the resentment in US Rust Belt states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin that helped propel Donald Trump into the White House. He's ready with a quote from another US presidential candidate, Ross Perot, who warned in 1992 that Nafta would result in the "giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading to Mexico. "That's exactly what happened," he says. "You have communities that you drive through, you go through these towns and they've disappeared. " Mr Zekelman understands why the Trump administration has targeted the $63.2bn trade deficit the US has with Mexico, and doesn't think that the White House takes real issue with Canada as a partner. "Trump's a big personality and that style rubs a lot of people the wrong way," he says. "But he's there. He's president and you have to learn how to deal with it. So everyone needs to calm down. I don't think he has any animosity towards Canada." It's a belief bolstered by comments the president made to his Mexican counterpart. According to a leaked transcript of a January phone call recently published by the Washington Post, Trump told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto that: "Canada is no problem - do not worry about Canada, do not even think about them. That is a separate thing and they are fine and we have had a very fair relationship with Canada". In July, the US set out its broad negotiation objectives for the talks, which include reducing the US trade deficit and improving market access in Canada and Mexico for US manufacturing, agriculture, and services. Canadian industries in the US sights include dairy, wine, and grain. Trade-dependent industries worry about who might become pawn in the negotiations, unsure what might be traded for more access or to protect another industry. Canada's economy is hugely dependent on trade with the US, with over 75% of its exports heading south across the border. The trade pact opened up new export opportunities, helped businesses become globally competitive, and brought in foreign investment. But it's not an entirely a one-way street. Canada isn't without leverage, says Lawrence Herman, with the CD Howe Institute, an economic think tank. "We purchase selected products, we're a major market for so many states. The Midwest is highly dependent on trade with Canada. There are pressure points." Almost 9m American jobs are dependent on trade and investment with Canada. It's that message Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has been bringing to American lawmakers. Over the past few months, ministers, provincial premiers and even city mayors have beaten a path to the US to plead the pro-trade case. Industry and lawmakers from US states that count on the agreement being there for business have also warned the administration to tread carefully in the Nafta renegotiations. In Canada, there is no dispute that the US economy has to be sound. The country depends on its 320m consumers. "If the US (economy) catches a cold, we die of the flu. And we shouldn't be ashamed to say that," says Mr Azzopardi. "Just because we're the little brother doesn't mean we don't contribute. We contribute a lot." Data reporting by Robin Levinson King | जैसे-जैसे कनाडा, अमेरिका और मैक्सिको राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प के अनुरोध पर बैठने और अपने व्यापार सौदे पर फिर से बातचीत करने की तैयारी कर रहे हैं, वैसे-वैसे ओंटारियो में एक मोटर उद्योग शहर में अशांति फैल गई है जो खुद को उत्तरी अमेरिकी व्यापार पर इस लड़ाई की अग्रिम पंक्ति में पाता है। |
uk-politics-37357314 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37357314 | A quick guide to Labour's leaders | Labour is preparing to unveil its new (or not so new) leader. On Saturday we will learn whether Owen Smith has managed to upset the odds, and Jeremy Corbyn, and add his name to a list which includes the likes of Blair, Kinnock and Attlee. | How many more do you recognise? Scroll down for a look back at 110 years of Labour Party leaders. Jeremy Corbyn (2015-) The current Labour leader was a rank outsider when he narrowly made it onto the ballot for Labour's leadership contest. But a surge in Labour's membership helped propel him to a landslide victory, as he scored 59.5% of the vote. A dramatic year ensued, with Mr Corbyn - the left-wing MP for Islington North - attempting to adjust to a job he could scarcely have expected and to unite a Parliamentary party that largely did not want him to be leader. The divisions came to a head when most of his shadow cabinet resigned, citing his performance in the EU referendum campaign, and MPs signed a no-confidence motion in the leader. This led to a formal leadership contest, with Owen Smith emerging as the sole challenger to his crown. Ed Miliband (2010-2015) Labour's leadership contest after its 2010 general election defeat produced a surprise victory for Ed Miliband over his brother David. It caused a rift in the Miliband family, with former foreign secretary David leaving Parliament and moving to New York. Ed took on the coalition government but was given a rough ride by the press, including mockery over a photograph of him struggling to eat a bacon sandwich. The Conservatives accused him of being a puppet for the trade unions who backed him in the leadership contest and Labour struggled to shake off government accusations that they had overspent when in office. Mr Miliband went into the 2015 general election with policies including a freeze on fuel bills and a "mansion tax" on homes worth over £1m and the polls showed Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck. It wasn't to be, however, and Labour's leader resigned in the aftermath of a Conservative victory. Gordon Brown (2007-2010) Having long coveted the Labour top job, long-serving chancellor Gordon Brown took the helm on 27 June 2007, succeeding Prime Minister Tony Blair, as the sole candidate. He faced several major challenges during his first months in office - including acts of terrorism, an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and widespread flooding. His party's poll ratings improved but his decision to rule out a snap general election prompted accusations of weakness and dithering from his opponents. He took the party into the 2010 general election after surviving the financial crash and calls to step down from some MPs. The campaign included a memorable gaffe as Mr Brown was recorded referring to 65-year-old Gillian Duffy - who he had just met - as a "bigoted woman". The election produced a hung Parliament. Mr Brown resigned after days of coalition talks as the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed a government. Tony Blair (1994-2007) Labour's longest-serving prime minister, and its first to win three consecutive elections, Mr Blair became Britain's youngest prime minister in almost 200 years and went on to spend a decade in Number 10. He was one of the architects of New Labour and moved the party further into the centre ground, alienating some on the left but achieving the electoral success that had long eluded it. Public service reforms - characterised by slogans like "education, education, education" - and flagship policies like the national minimum wage were introduced, before his rifts with his chancellor came to the fore. His second term brought his most controversial moment, the invasion of Iraq, which has dogged him ever since. Despite the huge protests the invasion triggered at the time, Blair won another general election - in 2005 - before finally handing over to Brown in 2007. John Smith (1992-94) Elected party leader with an overwhelming 91% of the vote, he set about unifying the left and right factions of Labour and attacking the government of John Major, dismissing the PM as "devalued" in his first Commons speech as leader in the aftermath of Black Wednesday. But Smith led Labour for just two years before he died suddenly of a heart attack aged 55. "He had achieved a personal ascendancy unmatched by any Labour leader since Clement Attlee," said the Guardian in its obituary. Neil Kinnock (1983-92) After Labour's thumping general election defeat in 1983, Neil (now Lord) Kinnock won the subsequent leadership contest - but went on to lose two general elections. He famously battled the left-wing extremities of his party, including in a memorable conference speech attacking Liverpool City Council, which was dominated at the time by the militant faction. Kinnock's purge of this element of his party opened the way for New Labour in the following decade. He implored, cajoled and ordered Labour to modernise, comfortably seeing off a challenge to his leadership in 1988 from left-winger Tony Benn. Unlike New Labour, his efforts were not rewarded by ballot box success. In 1992, despite leading in the polls, and oozing confidence during a famous pre-election rally, he was defeated - after The Sun's famous "lights out" front page warning against a Labour victory. Michael Foot (1980-83) The left-wing MP, a great political orator, beat Denis Healey in Labour's leadership contest by 10 votes in a ballot of MPs. The result dismayed many on the right of the party, and was one of the main factors leading to the start of three-party politics in Britain. The following year, four senior Labour figures - named the "gang of four" -defected from the party, forming the centre-left Social Democratic Party. The split in the party, as well as the 1982 Falklands War and an ill-judged manifesto contributed, to a heavy defeat for Labour in the general election of 1983. Labour's share of the vote was just 27.6%, the lowest since 1918, and Foot resigned the leadership. James Callaghan (1976-80) The former chancellor and foreign secretary defeated Michael Foot in the 1976 leadership contest, by 176 to 137 in the final round. He was prime minister until 1979 and his time in Downing Street was dominated by economic recession and industrial militancy. That contributed to the election of the Conservatives and Labour's exclusion from office for the next 18 years. His decision to postpone a general election until the spring of 1979 - only to see his government totally discredited by mass industrial militancy during the 1978-1979 "winter of discontent" - was a tactical error and he resigned as leader soon after Margaret Thatcher defeated Labour in the 1979 election. Harold Wilson (1963-76) Harold Wilson won four general elections and held the original EU referendum. He steered Britain away from direct military involvement in the Vietnam War, outlawed capital punishment and liberalised laws on censorship, abortion and homosexuality. Having come to power in 1964, he increased Labour's majority in 1966, but harsh economic measures and the devaluation of the pound contributed to the decline in his popularity, and the Conservatives won a narrow victory in 1970. He returned as prime minister in 1974 and held Britain's first referendum on membership of the European Economic Community, as it was then called, in 1975. He resigned unexpectedly in 1976. Hugh Gaitskill (1955-63) The former chancellor was elected in a ballot of MPs to replace Mr Attlee (see below). His proposal - following Labour's election defeat in 1959 - to modify Labour's image by altering the controversial Clause Four of its constitution was rejected by the party. He had frequent battles with the left wing of the party and campaigned against British membership of the European Economic Community. Gaitskill died suddenly in 1963 after a short illness, aged 56. Clement Attlee (1935-55) An MP since 1922, and Labour leader since 1935, Attlee was deputy prime minister in Churchill's coalition government during the World War Two. He went on to win a landslide victory in the 1945 general election. His 1945-1951 Labour government was seen as the most significant reforming administration of 20th Century Britain. It introduced the National Health Service, nationalised one fifth of the British economy, and granted independence to India. Labour narrowly lost the October 1951 general election, and Attlee resigned after a second defeat in 1955. George Lansbury (1932-35) He took over from Henderson after Labour was defeated in the 1931 general election by MacDonald's National Government. The lifelong pacifist was replaced in 1935 by his former deputy, Clement Attlee. Arthur Henderson (1908-10, 1914-17 and 1931-32) The Glasgow-born trade unionist was raised in Newcastle. He was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (as the leading figure was then known) in 1908 and he returned to replace Ramsay MacDonald as leader when World War One broke out in 1914. Henderson was home secretary when Labour came to power for the first time in 1924 and later foreign secretary. When Ramsay MacDonald ditched the party in favour of a national government he became leader again, but Labour was crushed in the 1931 general election by the National Government and he resigned in 1932. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934 for his work on international disarmament. James Ramsay MacDonald (1911-14, 1922-31) He resigned in 1914 over his opposition to World War One but in 1924 he went on to become Labour's first prime minister. Labour lost power later that year but MacDonald was back in office in 1929. He formed a National Government with Conservative and Liberal support when faced with a worldwide recession and a split cabinet. He continued as prime minister until 1935 but his decision to lead a coalition government was considered a betrayal by many in the party he had done much to create. Joseph Clynes (1921-22) He led Labour for just a year but his reign included the 1922 general election, when Labour made a breakthrough, winning 142 seats. Under the party rules at the time, MPs held leader elections annually while the party was in opposition - and Clynes was replaced in 1922 by MacDonald. William Adamson (1917-21) He was elected unopposed to replace Arthur Henderson in 1917. "Solid, industrious and widely trusted, he was nonetheless a poor debater", says historian Greg Rosen in his Dictionary of Labour Biography, who also notes Adamson was the owner of a "bristling chestnut moustache". George Barnes (1910-11) Labour's third leader lasted 358 days. He resigned after the December 1910 general election. Keir Hardie (1906-08) The founding father of the Labour Party and its first leader, Hardie rose from very humble beginnings to become one of Britain's most notable politicians. The servant's son and former miner was elected in 1892 for the Independent Labour Party and again in 1900 for the Labour Representation Committee, which eventually developed into the Labour Party. When the Labour Party was set up as a separate party in 1906, Hardie was elected its leader. After resigning in 1908, he devoted his energy to promoting the Labour Party and championing equality, particularly in the cause of women's suffrage. He was an outspoken pacifist during the first year of World War One, and died in September 1915. Read more: The man who broke the mould of British politics | लेबर अपने नए (या इतने नए नहीं) नेता का अनावरण करने की तैयारी कर रहा है। शनिवार को हम जानेंगे कि क्या ओवेन स्मिथ बाधाओं को दूर करने में कामयाब रहे हैं, और जेरेमी कॉर्बिन, और उनका नाम एक सूची में जोड़ें जिसमें ब्लेयर, किन्नॉक और एटली की पसंद शामिल हैं। |
world-australia-46105681 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46105681 | Israel embassy review: Why Australia fears upsetting Indonesia | Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's recent announcement that he is considering recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital took many by surprise, and none more so than Indonesia, perhaps Canberra's most crucial regional ally. Enter some unusual diplomacy to mend ties, writes Kathy Marks in Sydney. | He was dumped as prime minister, relinquished his seat and insists he is now just a private citizen. Yet last week Malcolm Turnbull was in Bali, meeting senior Indonesian leaders in an attempt to calm diplomatic tensions created by the man who ousted him, Scott Morrison. Indonesians could be forgiven for feeling confused. Certainly, they are perplexed and angry, following Mr Morrison's announcement last month that Australia is considering moving its embassy to Jerusalem and recognising the contested city as Israel's capital. The news was bound to be received poorly in neighbouring Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. Yet the government gave barely 12 hours' notice of the policy shift - seen as an attempt to woo Jewish voters before a by-election - to President Joko Widodo and his senior ministers. By unhappy coincidence, Mr Widodo and his Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi were hosting the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki that same day. "It was rotten timing," says Ross Taylor, president of the Indonesia Institute, a Perth-based think-tank. 'Slap' to Indonesia In leaked WhatsApp messages the previous evening to her Australian counterpart, Marise Payne, Ms Marsudi called the embassy issue a "really big blow" that would "slap Indonesia's face on the Palestine issue". Now diplomats in both countries are scrambling to minimise the damage to a key bilateral relationship which encompasses regional security, defence, policing and anti-terrorism co-operation, as well as joint measures to thwart "people smugglers". Also at stake is a free trade agreement, painstakingly negotiated over a decade and due to be signed soon, giving Australia access to a market of 268 million people, including a huge emerging middle class. Hence Mr Morrison's unorthodox deployment of Mr Turnbull - in Bali for a conference on ocean sustainability - to explain Australia's position to Mr Widodo and Ms Marsudi. While in office, Mr Turnbull built a warm rapport with the president and the bilateral relationship blossomed, following strains caused by revelations that Australia spied on Indonesian leaders and Indonesia's execution of two Australian drug smugglers. Foreign policy experts say what happens next will depend on whether Mr Morrison, following US President Donald Trump's lead, goes ahead with the Israel embassy move - which would be "met with a very negative reaction in Indonesia", Mr Turnbull warned after his meetings. Competing priorities Mr Widodo is facing a presidential election next April, and would be under pressure to prevent his opponent, Prabowo Subianto, from painting him as soft on Australia. "Any hint that Jokowi is undermining Indonesia's sovereignty and hurting the feelings of the Islamic electorate, the opposition can spin it into a big deal," says Evan Laksmana, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. It is a sensitive time politically in Australia, too, with a general election due by next May. The by-election, which Mr Morrison's Liberal Party lost, was crucial because the government had a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives. While Indonesian leaders understand the demands of domestic politics, the Israeli-Palestinian question is "particularly sensitive and emotive" in Indonesia, Mr Laksmana says. He adds: "So you're potentially dropping a domestic political timebomb [with the embassy announcement], but you couldn't give us a heads-up that this was even being discussed?" Australia has 'more needs' It has emerged that Mr Morrison did not consult Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs before announcing the policy review. Even Foreign Minister Payne learnt of it only two days beforehand. In a reference to Ms Marsudi's WhatsApp messages, Mr Taylor says: "For someone from Indonesia to be angry like that is quite unusual and not in their culture. The leadership were really, really annoyed that something like this would come out of left field. Australia really set Jokowi up." Although Mr Widodo is keen to sign the free trade agreement and boost his economic credentials at a time when the Indonesian rupiah is plummeting, Mr Taylor believes the agreement would be an early casualty of any deepening diplomatic rift, "and the pain of abandoning it would be felt much more strongly in Australia". "Let's be honest: Australia needs Indonesia much more than Indonesia needs Australia," he says. "50% of our trade goes through Indonesian waters, and Indonesia acts as our first line of defence in issues such as anti-terrorism and people smuggling. This is the kind of co-operation which could be seriously harmed. "Turnbull wasn't exaggerating when he said that Indonesia - and Malaysia, in fact, and the whole region - would take that [relocating the embassy] really seriously." Some doubt it will happen. Marcus Mietzner, an Indonesia expert at the Australian National University, says: "Indonesia's tough response serves Morrison's interests. "He can cite it when he… announces that the review concluded not to pursue it [the move]. This will send a message about the importance of the relationship and help Morrison to save face." | ऑस्ट्रेलियाई प्रधान मंत्री स्कॉट मॉरिसन की हाल की घोषणा कि वह जेरूसलम को इज़राइल की राजधानी के रूप में मान्यता देने पर विचार कर रहे हैं, कई लोगों को आश्चर्यचकित कर दिया, और इंडोनेशिया से ज्यादा कुछ नहीं, शायद कैनबरा का सबसे महत्वपूर्ण क्षेत्रीय सहयोगी। सिडनी में कैथी मार्क्स लिखते हैं कि संबंधों को सुधारने के लिए कुछ असामान्य कूटनीति में प्रवेश करें। |
uk-england-london-23919206 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23919206 | Westminster 9in double yellow lines 'absurd' | Double yellow lines measuring just 9in (23cm) long in central London have been branded "absurd" by the council which commissioned them. | The lines painted in Caxton Street, Westminster, have been painted between a taxi rank and some parking bays. Westminster City Council said: "This was a mistake by a contractor. We are obviously not happy about it." It added: "We can see how absurd this looks and we will make sure it is corrected." Earlier this year, double yellow lines stretching 13in (33cm) were discovered on a street in Cambridge between parking bays in Humberstone Road. | मध्य लंदन में सिर्फ 9 इंच (23 सेमी) लंबी दोहरी पीली रेखाओं को परिषद द्वारा "बेतुका" करार दिया गया है जिसने उन्हें नियुक्त किया है। |
uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-45484825 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-45484825 | Revised offshore offer rejected by members of Unite | Members of the Unite union working on three offshore platforms operated by Total have rejected a revised pay offer. | Workers on the Elgin, Alwyn and Dunbar platforms have taken part in several 12 and 24-hour strikes. The concerns include a move to a three-weeks-on and three-weeks-off rota. Talks with the independent arbitration service Acas were held last month, and the consultative ballot was then held. More Acas talks are planned this week. | टोटल द्वारा संचालित तीन अपतटीय प्लेटफार्मों पर काम करने वाले यूनाइटेड यूनियन के सदस्यों ने एक संशोधित वेतन प्रस्ताव को अस्वीकार कर दिया है। |
world-us-canada-14630848 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-14630848 | What now for Dominique Strauss-Kahn? | After all that has been written and alleged in these past three months it is hard to believe Dominique Strauss-Kahn could return to front-line politics in France - even less so to the presidential race in which he was once the front-runner. | By Christian FraserBBC News, Paris But France is a country where the media and the voters have always been more forgiving of the sexual peccadilloes of their politicians, perhaps more so than any other European country. Already there are senior figures within the Socialist Party who are beginning the rehabilitation. Former culture minister Jack Lang believes he can return not to the presidential race, but as kingmaker and perhaps prime minister in a new Socialist cabinet. These are difficult economic times in France. Mr Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF, is a sharp, astute politician; on the economy his stature is unrivalled within the Socialist Party. He was a huge asset - at one point a runaway favourite in the polls for next year's presidential election - and no wonder there are senior figures within the party who would like to see him return to the fray. 'Immensely relieved' Francois Hollande, the new front-runner in the presidential race, hinted that if he wins next year Mr Strauss-Kahn could play a prominent role. Asked if he could return to the race itself he said: "That depends on him. A man with the abilities of DSK can be useful to his country in the months and years to come." Mr Hollande's closest rival Martine Aubry, the party leader and Mr Strauss-Kahn's close friend, echoed those sentiments. "Obviously we have to wait for the judge to confirm this. But I am very happy," she said on hearing the news. "I feel a lot of affection for Dominique and I am immensely relieved. We are all waiting for him to emerge from this nightmare. This is great news." There are no clues as to when Mr Strauss-Kahn might return here to France. It has been suggested he may first travel to Washington to speak to former colleagues at the IMF. Returning to the race? The primary elections that will decide the Socialist candidate for next year's presidential election are not being held until 9 and 16 October, so in theory it is still possible for him to take part. The Socialist Party has hinted it would consider his late application to stand - but it is highly unlikely. Many believe he will throw his support behind Ms Aubry, giving her the kind of heavyweight support that might give her the edge over Mr Hollande. When the speculation first emerged that the case in Manhattan was about to collapse there were snap polls suggesting 60% of Socialist Party voters would support him if he decided to run. Part of the story in France is the anger at the "unjust" way in which he was paraded and humiliated before the evidence had been heard. The "perp walk". "He should now be left in peace," said Pierre Moscovici, another senior figure within the party, who had planned to support Mr Strauss Kahn's bid for the presidency. "When a case like this has been put aside, you can't continue to make accusations against him. That goes for the woman - as well as the media." Other allegations But there are other stories of infidelity, betrayal and sleaze on which the media has focused - including the second allegation against Mr Strauss-Kahn that is still being investigated here in France. Tristane Banon, an author, commentator and the goddaughter of Mr Strauss-Kahn's second wife, alleges he attacked her in 2003 while she sat to interview him in a Paris apartment. Her mother Anne Mansouret, a Socialist politician, believed a criminal prosecution would tarnish her daughter's career and persuaded her not to press charges. It has since emerged that Ms Mansouret, too, slept with Mr Strauss-Kahn - a consensual encounter, in which, she alleges, he behaved with the "obscenity of a soldier". The case looks hard to prosecute. There is a lack of material evidence and Mr Strauss-Kahn may yet be exonerated. But the new Socialist front runner Francois Hollande was told of the incident and has already been interviewed by police. In Tuesday's newspapers Ms Mansouret said she was "outraged" at the decision to drop charges in New York. She added that she was "revolted by the support he has had within the [Socialist] party", pointing to the sexual encounter that was proven by forensic evidence to have taken place. 'Machismo' Sylvie Kauffmann, the first female editor of Le Monde, said the "DSK moment" will outlast the machismo of the political elite. There is a tendency among men "to pretend that nothing has happened", she told the New York Times. "In the establishment mind, this issue is not very important. The political class considers this issue of women and political attitudes toward women not so relevant. But I would bet that the average voter may feel differently." And who would bet against women's rights playing a more prominent role in the upcoming presidential election. In that sense his return to the political fold could backfire badly on the Socialist candidate next year, particularly since the resurgent Front Nationale and its leader Marine Le Pen will shift the attention to Mr Strauss-Kahn's past and his friends and associates within the party who knew - and said nothing of it. | इन पिछले तीन महीनों में जो कुछ भी लिखा और आरोप लगाया गया है, उसके बाद यह विश्वास करना मुश्किल है कि डोमिनिक स्ट्रॉस-कान फ्रांस में अग्रिम पंक्ति की राजनीति में लौट सकते हैं-राष्ट्रपति पद की दौड़ से भी कम जिसमें वे कभी सबसे आगे थे। |
uk-scotland-highlands-islands-34145139 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-34145139 | New campaign opposes government's Marine Protected Areas | A new campaign has been launched to oppose the Scottish government's designation of protected areas of seabed and coastline. | The Comhairle Fisheries Industry Group is leading the campaign. Members of the group include Western Isles Council - Comhairle nan Eilean Siar - and Western Isles Fishermen's Association. They argue Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) put unnecessary restrictions on traditional fishing grounds. Representatives from the association and the comhairle have sought a meeting with Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead. | स्कॉटिश सरकार द्वारा समुद्र तल और तटरेखा के संरक्षित क्षेत्रों के पदनाम का विरोध करने के लिए एक नया अभियान शुरू किया गया है। |
uk-36336011 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36336011 | The prison wing housing only terrorists | An independent review into radicalisation in jails in England and Wales is due to be published. The BBC has learned that UK officials have visited a Dutch prison that separates terrorist offenders from other inmates. Chris Vallance was granted access to the prison. | By Chris VallanceWorld at One, BBC Radio 4 Visiting De Schie prison in Rotterdam, you lose count of the number of locked doors you pass. The jail, bordered on two sides by broad waterways, is a child of the 1980s; mostly salmon pink and yellow on the outside, pale blue on the inside. Official websites describe the strikingly "colourful character of the building". To increase security, the terrorism unit is at the top of the prison. As we approach through a maze of corridors and interlocked doors, Cees, who manages the wing and requested that we did not publish his surname, points out sophisticated-looking CCTV cameras, equipped with microphones. The TA, as the terrorism wing is called, houses prisoners on remand for terrorist offences or those who have been convicted of them. De Schie Prison, Rotterdam: According to prison deputy director Rob Janssen, most current inmates have either wanted to travel to Syria or Iraq in support of jihadist groups or have returned from the conflict. In Rotterdam there are seven cells in the terrorism wing, each with one inmate. A larger facility at Vught houses another 22 people. On rare occasions De Schie has housed female and juvenile detainees. National security The policy, which began in 2006, separates extremists from the rest of the prison population to prevent them radicalising other prisoners. It is this system that interested the UK officials who visited the terrorism wing at Vught. It is understood the government is currently considering proposals for a unit housing a very limited number of extremist inmates considered to present a genuine and enduring risk to national security. The TA is, in effect, a jail within a jail. There is no contact between the inmates and other offenders. It has its own gym, with speakers playing pop music, and a kitchen. Through its darkened glass, two inmates could be seen cooking, a pleasant smell of frying meat filling the corridor. Recruitment fear The social activity of the inmates is tightly controlled. The cell windows overlook a courtyard used for exercise. The area used by the terrorist prisoners is separated by a fence and a large fretwork metal dome sits over most of it. Guards will intervene if TA inmates attempt to shout to other inmates. For terrorism unit manager Cees, there is no doubt these measures prevent the radicalisation of other inmates. He tells me one prisoner who was in the TA unit was moved into another part of the jail and began radicalising others. "So I think it is good to put the prisoners in one unit," he said. Others have raised concerns that by putting extremist offenders together, they are likely to reinforce each other's beliefs and become further radicalised. Lawyer Andre Seebregts says the "severe" regime, including frequent strip searching of inmates and intense surveillance, is counter-productive. "I have eight to 10 clients who have spent time in these wings, and I distinctly have the impression that they become more and more negative towards the Dutch authorities, and they feed off each other," he says. 'Least worst option' Daan Weggemans, a researcher at Leiden University, found a more mixed picture. For half the detainees he studied, imprisonment resulted in a "confirmation of their hostile world view". However, others saw it as a "wake-up call" and broke with their former violent extremist networks, he says. During my visit, I was not permitted to talk to the detainees, but a former inmate of a Dutch terrorism wing agreed to talk about their experiences on condition that they were not named. The ex-prisoner felt the unit was a necessity and "the least bad of all bad options" because it prevented the radicalisation of inmates in the general prison population. But they said care was needed to house only extremist "leaders" on the wings and not their "followers", who presented a much lower risk of radicalising others. Cees says the Rotterdam prison does recognise such distinctions. Inmates are only allowed to meet in two groups, one group containing those still committed to their extremist beliefs and another smaller group of those who want to work on their "re-socialisation and reintegration". The Dutch government continues to discuss how to deal with extremist offenders in the terrorism units. In her office in The Hague, Angeline van Dijk, director of the prison system in the Netherlands, says the authorities understand that prisoners are not all the same. A newly developed "assessment tool" will, she told me, allow the authorities to separate inmates within the units, helping to keep the high-risk offenders from those who might be further radicalised. With many more terrorist offenders in jail in England and Wales than in Holland, the proposals being considered by the UK government are even more selective, the BBC understands. There are no plans for anything like a "jihadi jail". Any terrorist wing would be small and highly targeted to ensure its inmates would only be those who present the gravest risks. | इंग्लैंड और वेल्स की जेलों में कट्टरपंथ की एक स्वतंत्र समीक्षा प्रकाशित होने वाली है। बीबीसी को पता चला है कि ब्रिटेन के अधिकारियों ने एक डच जेल का दौरा किया है जो आतंकवादी अपराधियों को अन्य कैदियों से अलग करती है। क्रिस वैलेंस को जेल में जाने की अनुमति दी गई थी। |
education-42623929 | https://www.bbc.com/news/education-42623929 | Top five questions for education new boy Damian Hinds | Damian Hinds has become the new Education Secretary, replacing Justine Greening. What are the questions waiting at the top of his in-tray? And what should he do differently to avoid the sudden exit of his predecessor? 1) How to get back the political initiative? | Sean CoughlanEducation correspondent Damian Hinds will have to re-energise the Conservatives' vision for education, finding something positive that will connect with the public. From the perspective of 10 Downing Street, it must have seemed as though Labour was making much of the weather over schools and universities. Parents were worried about being asked to bail out cash-starved schools. And Jeremy Corbyn's promise to scrap tuition fees had seen Labour's student vote reaching record levels. Justine Greening seemed unenthusiastic about the prime minister's Tory heartlands view of education, characterised by the push for more grammar schools. But, it is suggested, there was impatience in Downing Street about the lack of any clear alternative vision or policy offer for parents. There is a catch for Mr Hinds. His revival has to cost nothing and not take up legislative time consumed by Brexit. 2) Can anyone end the pain of tuition fees? Theresa May has promised a major review of university funding and how much students should be expected to pay - as evidence that she was "listening" after the election. Jo Johnson, the outgoing Universities Minister, had made no secret of his reluctance for any significant changes. But his departure opens the way for a much more far-reaching review. The rising levels of fees, interest charges and student debt, have been like a recurrent political toothache, and Mr Hinds will be looking for an affordable way to neutralise the electoral pain. It's been the mouse-trap hidden in the in-tray for ministers of successive governments. And he will have to see whether university bosses can really be more restrained over pay, after the chastening battles over "fat cat" salaries. 3) What will head teachers be demanding? School funding gaps and teacher shortages are among the issues that heads see as most urgent. They are exasperated that they have to keep juggling and struggling on with what they claim are inadequate budgets. In the election it became a significant doorstep issue, not least because head teachers discovered the power of sending a letter home to millions of parents. When it comes to plausibility, head teachers' warnings of cuts to children's lessons will always win out over politicians protesting that funding is at record levels. It's a challenge that the new education secretary will have to resolve. Otherwise he risks cold water being poured over any other initiatives, as heads tell ministers to get back to the basics of funding and staffing. 4) What does social mobility actually mean? Damian Hinds and Justine Greening have something in common. They both say social mobility is a priority, as has the prime minister. But what does it really mean? The government's own social mobility commissioners walked out claiming so far it had been all talk and no progress. Mr Hinds has previously highlighted the importance of investing in the early years, before the social divide begins to widen. He has also pointed to the central importance of high-quality teachers to making sure that the disadvantaged get the best chances in school. It might seem an age ago, but before the election the focus of social mobility was on the need to help "ordinary working families", working hard on low incomes and without access to good schools. Mr Hinds will have to decide how to make social mobility something more than rhetoric and good intentions. 5) How to balance tradition with reform? As a former grammar school boy from the north-west of England, with a Hampshire constituency, Mr Hinds will be seen as representing a less metropolitan view of education. He will be seen as closer to the views of Tory backbenchers, uncertain about the wholesale ditching of grammar schools. Mr Hinds will also be expected to push through a change to free school regulations, promised in the Conservative manifesto, which would make it easier for faith groups to set up new schools. This would allow religious free schools to give priority in admissions in the same way as existing local authority and academy faith schools. Such a change, likely to increase the number of faith schools, will be opposed by humanists and secular campaigners. But that could be the kind of opposition and clear blue water that would be relished by an education secretary wanting to assert his traditionalist credentials. Ministers have always been advised to pick their enemies as carefully as their friends - and Mr Hinds will also have noted that Ms Greening's bridge-building with the teachers' unions did her no political favours. And someone somewhere is going to write a headline about the benefit of "Hinds-sight". | डेमियन हिंड्स जस्टिन ग्रीनिंग की जगह नए शिक्षा सचिव बन गए हैं। उनके सामने कौन से सवाल हैं? और उन्हें अपने पूर्ववर्ती के अचानक बाहर निकलने से बचने के लिए अलग तरीके से क्या करना चाहिए? 1) राजनीतिक पहल को कैसे वापस लाया जाए? |
stories-47726967 | https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47726967 | Lion Mama: The woman who fought off her daughter’s rapists | Nokubonga Qampi became known as the "Lion Mama" in South Africa after she killed one of three men raping her daughter and wounded the others. She was charged with murder - but after a public outcry the prosecution was halted, and she was able to focus her efforts on her daughter's recovery. | By Gavin FischerBBC News, South Africa It was the middle of the night when the telephone call came, waking Nokubonga from her sleep. The girl at the other end of the line was just 500m away - and she said Nokubonga's daughter, Siphokazi, was being raped by three men they all knew well. Nokubonga's first response was to call the police, but there was no answer. She knew, anyway, that it would take them time to reach her village, in the rolling green and brown hills of South Africa's Eastern Cape province. She was the only person that could help. "I was scared, but then I was forced to go because it was my daughter," she said. "I was thinking that when I get there, she might be dead... Because she knew the perpetrators, and because they knew her and knew she knows them, they might think they had to kill her so she couldn't report them." Siphokazi had been visiting friends in a group of four small houses in the same village but had been left alone, asleep, when her friends went out at 01:30. Then three men who had been drinking in one of the other houses attacked her. Nokubonga's sparsely furnished hut has two rooms, a bedroom, where she had been sleeping, and a kitchen - where she picked up a knife. "I took it for me, for walking the distance between here and where the incident was taking place, because it is not safe," she says. "It was dark and I had to use the torch on my phone to light the way." She heard her daughter's screams as she approached the house. On entering the bedroom, the light from her phone enabled her to make out the awful sight of her daughter being raped. "I was scared… I just stood by the door and asked what they were doing. When they saw it was me, they came charging towards me, that's when I thought that I needed to defend myself, it was an automatic reaction," Nokubonga says. Nokubonga refuses to go into detail about what happened next. Find out more Listen to Nokubonga and Siphokazi talking on Outlook, on the BBC World Service Download the Outlook podcast The judge in the court case against the attackers said Nokubonga's testimony showed she had "become very emotional" as she saw one of the men raping her daughter, while the other two stood nearby with their trousers round their ankles, waiting to take their turn again. Judge Mbulelo Jolwana went on to say, "I understood her to mean that she was overcome with anger." But in recounting the story now, all Nokubonga will admit to was fear - for herself and her daughter - and her face betrays only sadness and pain. It's clear, though, that when the men charged at Nokubonga she fought back with her knife - and that as she stabbed them they tried to flee, with one even jumping out of a window. Two were seriously injured, and the other died. Nokubonga did not stay to find out how badly hurt they were. She took her daughter to a friend's house nearby. When the police arrived, Nokubonga was arrested and taken to the local police station, where she was kept in a cell. "I was thinking of my child," she says. "I got no information [about her]. It was a traumatic experience." At the same time, Siphokazi was in hospital worrying about her mother, imagining her in her cell and heartbroken about the prospect of her being jailed for years. "I wished that if she spent time in prison, I would be the one who would serve it on her behalf," she says. Still in shock, she could remember little or nothing of the attack. What she now knows she heard from her mother when she arrived at the hospital two days later, after being freed on bail. From that moment on they have been each other's emotional support. "I didn't get any counselling but my mother has been able to assist me," Siphokazi says. "I am recovering." Nokubonga's efforts are focused on ensuring that life continues just as it was before. "I'm still the mother and she is still the daughter," she says. They share a laugh about the closeness of their relationship, joking that Siphokazi cannot get married, because then Nokubonga would have no-one to look after. In the 18 months since the attack occurred they have come a long way. Buhle Tonise, the attorney who represented Nokubonga, remembers that both seemed to have given up when she first met them, a week after the attack. "The mother was distraught," she says. "When you are meeting with people that are at that level of poverty, then you know most of the time they would feel that the mother is going to jail because she has no-one to stand by her side. The justice system is for those who have money." As Buhle spoke to Nokubonga, Siphokazi watched her silently, as though the attack had deprived her of the power of speech. Although Buhle says she was confident Nokubonga could argue convincingly that she acted in self-defence, she feared it would be a struggle to overcome her client's overwhelming pessimism. What neither of them had foreseen was the help they would get from the media, which ended up creating the legend of the Lion Mama. It is rare in South Africa for a rape case to get more than basic news coverage. This may be in large part down to the sheer number of rapes in the country, estimated at around 110 per day - a situation President Cyril Ramaphosa recently labelled a national crisis. The Eastern Cape province - the country's poorest, with unemployment of over 45% - has a higher level of rape per capita of population than any other. In Lady Frere, the village where Nokubonga and Siphokazi live, there were 74 recorded rapes in the year 2017/2018 - an astonishingly high figure for somewhere with a population of less than 5,000. But among the numerous harrowing stories of rape in South Africa, Nokubonga and Siphokazi's story stood out. The press quickly latched on to the tale of a mother protecting her daughter. Unable to name Nokubonga, to protect her daughter's anonymity, one newspaper labelled her "Lion Mama", placing the story next to a picture of a lion and her cubs. The name stuck. "For me, at first, I didn't like it because I couldn't understand," Nokubonga says. "But in the end I knew it meant I was a hero, because when you look at a lion it would protect its cubs." The public responded by criticising the decision to charge Nokubonga with murder and raising funds to help her mount her legal defence. This raised her spirits, but the extent of the public support did not sink in until her first appearance in a local magistrate's court, a month after the attack. "Going to court I was scared, I woke up and said a prayer," she says. When she got there, she found the place was full of well-wishers. "There were a whole lot of people from all over South Africa. What I said to people is thank you, because the fact that the court was filled to the rafters, it meant that they supported me. They really gave me hope." She was quickly called before the magistrate. "I was told the charges had been withdrawn," she says. "I just stood there, but I was excited, I was happy. At that moment I knew the justice system is able to separate right from wrong, they were able to tell I had no intentions of taking someone's life." Buhle Tonise recalls the impact the magistrate's decision had on Siphokazi as well. "After the case was withdrawn, she calls her daughter. For the first time ever I heard her daughter laugh. I think that's when [Siphokazi] said she also wants to see the guys going to jail." They had to wait over a year for that to happen, but in December 2018 the two remaining attackers, 30-year-old Xolisa Siyeka and 25-year-old Mncedisi Vuba - members of the same clan as Nokubonga and Siphokazi - were each sentenced to 30 years in prison. "I was happy about it," says Siphokazi, now 27. "I felt a bit safe, but a part of me just felt they deserved life imprisonment." This is as close as Siphokazi gets to showing anger toward her attackers. Once the case was finished, she decided to waive her anonymity in order to give encouragement to other rape survivors. "I would tell a person that even after such an attack there is even life beyond it, you can still go back to society. You can still live your life," she says. Nokubonga also shows a surprising lack of anger for someone compared by the media to a lioness. In fact, she has hopes that her daughter's rapists can achieve something positive in the future. "I'm hoping that when they finish their sentence they'll come back as reformed or changed people," she says, "to tell a story about it and be a living example." You may also be interested in: Pili Hussein wanted to make her fortune prospecting for a precious stone that's said to be a thousand times rarer than diamonds, but since women weren't allowed down the mines she dressed up as man and fooled her male colleagues for almost a decade. Read: I acted as a man to get work - until I was accused of rape Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. | नोकुबोंगा कैंपी दक्षिण अफ्रीका में "लायन मामा" के रूप में जानी जाने लगी जब उसने अपनी बेटी के साथ बलात्कार करने वाले तीन लोगों में से एक की हत्या कर दी और अन्य को घायल कर दिया। उस पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया था-लेकिन सार्वजनिक आक्रोश के बाद अभियोजन पक्ष को रोक दिया गया था, और वह अपनी बेटी के ठीक होने पर अपने प्रयासों को केंद्रित करने में सक्षम थी। |
uk-politics-43942465 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-43942465 | Obituary: Michael Martin | The son of a merchant seaman and a cleaner, Lord Martin of Springburn, who has died aged 72, symbolised for many in the Labour movement the opportunities their party offered to working class people to rise above their origins. | Michael Martin was intensely proud of his Glasgow roots and the way he had overcome a difficult start in life to ascend to one of the highest ceremonial roles in the land. He was forced out as Commons Speaker in May 2009, after losing a vote of no confidence in his handling of the expenses scandal that was sweeping through Westminster. His critics - led by the then Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who called him a "dogged defender of the status quo", and a major obstacle to greater "transparency and accountability" in the expenses system - claimed he was not up to the job. But his supporters felt that the criticism levelled at him, almost from the moment he assumed the Speaker's chair, had been motivated as much by class-based snobbery as his merits as a Commons ringmaster. His Glaswegian accent and background as a sheet metal worker and union official led him to be dubbed "Gorbals Mick" by some Conservative MPs and newspaper sketch writers. In fact, he had been born in a tenement in the nearby Anderston area, on the north bank of the River Clyde. He cut his political teeth as a shop steward in the Springburn railway engine works and, after a stint as a Labour councillor, became MP for Springburn in 1979. Seen as being on the right of the Labour Party and a social conservative on matters such as abortion and homosexuality, he served as a Parliamentary aide to Labour's then deputy leader Denis Healey. He set his sights on becoming Speaker and - after serving as deputy to Betty Boothroyd - was elected by MPs to succeed her in the role of keeping order in Commons debates and deciding which MPs can speak, in 2000. Breaking traditions He was the first Catholic Speaker since the Reformation and quickly set about making changes to some of the centuries-old traditions surrounding the role. He began with a press conference - provoking critics to say he had broken the convention of keeping a distance from the media. He did away with the tights worn by Speakers in favour of dark flannel trousers and continued the precedent set by his predecessor, Betty Boothroyd, by dispensing with the traditional wig. Martin's father was an alcoholic, and apart from a teenage dalliance with underage drinking, he was a teetotaller, albeit one with his own brand of Scotch Whisky. In March 2001, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme how he went about selecting a new single malt to carry his title, which is traditionally sold in the Commons gift shop, by inviting 16 friends to a blind tasting. "I left it up to the panel, and then afterwards we all had a good supper," he explained. He initially faced criticism of bias towards Labour MPs - Commons speakers cease to represent any political party and are expected to be neutral. In October 2001, he had to apologise after speaking up in favour of Home Secretary David Blunkett's abolition of the voucher scheme for asylum seekers. In February 2002, he told off Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, and then prime minister Tony Blair, for raising what he described as party matters during prime minister's questions. In the ensuing row, it was reported that Martin felt he was being undermined, because of his background, with each slur "an attack on every working class person from Clydeside". Later Labour MP Tam Dalyell said: "All this stuff I read about 'Gorbals Mick' is odious. What the man is trying to do is do the job of Speaker properly." In 2006, Mr Martin provoked uproar in the Commons by stopping Tory leader David Cameron asking Tony Blair whom he wanted as "his successor". Martin insisted prime minister's questions was meant for discussing government business, not party matters. Mr Cameron called the decision "bizarre and extraordinary". He also came in for criticism over the way he allowed the police to search the Commons office of then shadow immigration minister Damian Green, as part of an inquiry into leaked documents, without a warrant. He was accused of failing to protect both MPs' rights and the power of Parliament to hold government to account. But it was the expenses scandal that was to prove his downfall. He led efforts to block the release of expenses details and called for a police investigation into the source of the leak to the Daily Telegraph. His own allowances came under the spotlight - including claims he had flown members of his family in business class from Glasgow to London for a New Year break, using air miles gained from official trips. The figures had been publicly declared already and there was no suggestion he had used his allowance incorrectly. Confidence vote But it was his reaction to the allegations levied against other MPs - and his own handling of the crisis - that led to a campaign to oust him. On one occasion he angrily slapped down two Labour MPs who questioned his handling of the issue, telling one of them, Kate Hoey, he had already heard her "pearls of wisdom on Sky News". He was thought to be the first Speaker in 300 years to be forced out by a confidence vote. In October 2009, the former Labour MP joined his predecessor as speaker, Baroness Boothroyd, on the crossbenches in the House of Lords. Although by tradition speakers are elevated to the Lords, the decision to grant Lord Martin's peerage proved controversial, with some speculation the honour should be withheld. Tributes to him were led by his successor, John Bercow, who described him as "a decent, public-spirited man" who was "both passionate about and proud of his roots". "He also had a great sense of humour," added Mr Bercow. Former Labour leader and prime minister Gordon Brown said: "I knew him as a successful young trade union organiser, a dedicated member of Parliament, a conscientious Speaker of the House of Commons and latterly as a member of the House of Lords and no matter the position he occupied, he never forgot the debt he owed to his upbringing and the people he had been elected to serve." | एक व्यापारी नाविक और सफाईकर्मी के बेटे, स्प्रिंगबर्न के लॉर्ड मार्टिन, जिनकी 72 वर्ष की आयु में मृत्यु हो गई, ने श्रम आंदोलन में कई लोगों के लिए उन अवसरों का प्रतीक था जो उनकी पार्टी ने श्रमिक वर्ग के लोगों को उनके मूल से ऊपर उठने के लिए दिए थे। |
world-54990010 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54990010 | Letters to kids: Why it's a good time to write to your children | The pandemic has presented many with an urge to express their feelings in writing. And for some that means passing on, in letters to their children, parts of themselves hitherto hidden from view. | By Rebecca SealesBBC News "I think a lot of families faced the same quandary that I was running into - do my kids really know about my life? Maybe I should tell them while I still can. Because at some point it's gonna be too late." - Bob Brody The pain and privations of this weird year have reshaped many families. From lost loved ones, to relationships frayed - or formed - in the intensity of lockdown. Diary-writing has been booming, as a way to carve out mental space or clarify feelings while we grapple with instability. And if you've tried to explain the new world to children, perhaps it's left a sense that we're living through something worth recording. Something they'll understand better if we can pass our memories on. The literary history of parental letter-writing goes back to Ancient Rome, where the philosopher and statesman Cicero wrote a three-book essay to his son Marcus, outlining how to act with honour. More recently, Barack Obama released a picture book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters, in 2010, during his first term as US president. You don't have to be a politician or philosopher to record events or guidance for your children. Bob Brody, 68, is a New York-based consultant and essayist who felt that impulse more than a decade ago, long before Covid-19. He started a blog - Letters to my Kids - which became a movement of journal-keeping parents. Many of them wrote in stolen moments; coffee-fuelled on the train to work, or in half-conscious half-hours while a new baby slept. "It happened as I entered my mid-50s," Bob says. "I just one day realised I had written all kinds of stuff for decades and decades, everything from articles to newsletters, brochures, stuff for newspapers and magazines, a book, two unpublished novels… some deeply misguided short stories… and somehow I had managed to do all this writing without aiming anything at the audience most important to me - namely my kids. "All I could think was - how much do my kids know about me, how much do they know about my recollections of their childhood, how much do they know about my family - my parents and grandparents? "Somehow we had never really found time to tell stories. Everybody was just busy doing stuff, living our lives." His children, Michael and Caroline, were 25 and 20 years old when the project started in 2008. It was a New Year's Resolution, and Bob set out the terms. He would write by hand, in journals, and they would take the form of letters addressed to his son or daughter. Nothing would be crossed out or rewritten, and he would try to capture moments - incidents, encounters, something Caroline said, something Michael did. One journal for each child. Time - or the lack of - was a problem, so Bob committed to writing a few hundred words once a week, in secret, on Saturday or Sunday mornings. He spent a year beavering away. "Then on Christmas Day we were all together, our family, and I said to the kids - I wrote something for you, Michael, and I wrote something for you, Caroline. And here you go." Bob had written the letters as an act of love and memory for his children, but also as a legacy - a repository of knowledge about the relatives who came before them. "They told me they appreciated my honesty in talking about my own life, my parents, my career, and everything that came through about my feelings for my kids," he says. "And something that really stuck with me was - they told me they felt bad about some of the difficulties I'd gone through as a boy, particularly because both my parents were deaf. I think some of those recollections about trying to have a conversation with my mother, and my mother having trouble understanding me, brought my kids a certain sadness." Bob ended up writing for a second year, figuring there was more he had to say and more the children wanted to know. Then on Fathers' Day 2010, with his family's tentative sign-off, he made the letters the basis for a blog and started encouraging people to write their own. As well as his own letters and a how-to guide, Bob wanted to feature guest posts from other parents. One of those he asked was Lisa Sepulveda, a former colleague and friend of 30 years. At the time, he had no idea she'd been writing journals for her daughters for 18 years. Now 56, Lisa is CCO of global clients at international PR firm Edelman. Her eldest child is Sara, 25, and Megan her younger daughter is 23. She started penning letters to her daughters before they were born, with a deep sense of purpose drawn from the early loss of her own mother. "When I was growing up my mom passed away when I was 19," she says. "She had leukaemia, she was sick. We were very close. And there are some scrapbooks, some photos. I cherish every one of those things that my mother had collected. What I realised after my mom passed away is that I didn't have all the answers to my questions. Some of them were really mundane, like when did I lose my first tooth, and things like that. So I had this burning desire to leave my daughters answers to as many questions as I could, for as long as I was here. "And so I started the letters, and it went 'Dear Sara…'" Over the years, Lisa filled several journals for Sara and Megan, and decided she would pass them all on when the girls turned 21. She stored them in a steel box for maximum safe-keeping. "I lovingly named Sara's The Sara Chronicles, and Megan's Letters to Megan. It was my favourite project, so it was going to be something that I did for as long as I could. But I also wanted [them to be] old enough to appreciate it. "As they got older, I started adding some photographs, some articles of things that were happening in the world. I tried to keep it upbeat but I didn't want to hide that there's sadness in the world also. There was a couple of entries that I typed and put in each of their journals, and one of them was after 9/11, 'cos it was so hard to write it." Then at 42, Lisa was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her daughters were 15 and 16 at the time. "I had to write about that, because you couldn't ignore that moment, in the middle of telling them about their lives. That's another reason why I think the journals had to wait, for a moment that was happy, to be celebrated. But you couldn't only paint a rosy picture. You had to paint a picture that was real and true." "There are small joys in this horrible time that we're living in, and you have to find them because it's what lifts you up. I think that people are using their time in different ways, and sometimes looking for more meaningful ways. I didn't start a journal or anything like that during the pandemic - but boy, it would be interesting for my girls' children to see." It's clear her daughters feel the same. Sara had this message for her mum: "The day I was handed those six journals I knew I was in for the most special journey. Who knew the story of my life would be such a page-turner? I am beyond lucky to cherish these handwritten journals you kept for me over the years - this will become a tradition we pass down from one generation to the next." Megan also plans to write for her own children one day, adding: "Words cannot express how lucky I feel to have a mom so thoughtful and dedicated to these memory books." Lisa admits that friends would say to her "How do you find time? You must have 27 hours in your day. You're making me feel guilty." But over the years, many have taken up their pens for special family occasions, or committed to one journal entry a week. "I think I have motivated a lot of my friends to either start, do it for their grandchildren - it's never too late to write a letter," she says. "It's never too late." If at this point you're thinking you'd love to record your memories for your kids, but writing doesn't come easy to you, sociologist Dr Michael Ward has some excellent advice - try another medium. Dr Ward, a Senior Lecturer in Social Sciences at Swansea University, has been collecting submissions for a sociological study about lockdown life - the Corona Diaries - since mid-March. "I kind of hoped for about a dozen people," he smiles. "I've ended up with 178 participants between the ages of 11 and 89, from 12 different countries." Diary entries of all kinds are welcome, and importantly, submissions don't have to be written: "There's a range of other virtual media things," says Dr Ward. "Videos, memes, TikToks, YouTube videos, artwork, we're talking paintings, sculptures… One person sent me a radio show that they did for local radio: fourteen nights' dinner with the host. Somebody kept a dream log. One participant's mother who was doing some cross-stitch said, 'Ooh, can I contribute my corona cross-stitch to the project?' And she did." The Corona Diaries will ultimately go into an online archive at Swansea University, to help illustrate and illuminate the pandemic in years to come. Yet writing, and other forms of memory-keeping, can compound pain as well as joy - and Covid-19 has brought trauma and loss into many people's lives this year. "We have to remember that some people find writing about chaotic events quite triggering," Dr Ward says. "So writing and recording your thoughts and feelings isn't always productive because it can set you back into a difficult mental space." On that basis, letter-writing isn't something anyone owes to children, no matter what you live through or how much you love them. It's vital to look after your mental health. But if you are in the right headspace, and what's holding you back is lack of confidence, Bob Brody has a parting word of encouragement. "I understand that a lot of people are uncomfortable with writing," he says. "I think people should do it anyway. Sometimes non-writers can pull off something like this even better than a writer might. They're not trying to be literary. "A lot of people know how to tell stories. And everybody has stories to tell. I would just say to people: Tell your story. And tell it to your kids. Who better to tell it to?" | महामारी ने कई लोगों को लिखित रूप में अपनी भावनाओं को व्यक्त करने का आग्रह किया है। और कुछ लोगों के लिए इसका अर्थ है, अपने बच्चों को पत्रों में, अपने कुछ हिस्सों को अब तक दृष्टि से छिपा कर रखना। |
entertainment-arts-41692370 | https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41692370 | Blue Planet II: 22 things to know about the new series | A year after the epic Planet Earth II, Sir David Attenborough is returning to our screens with a follow-up to 2001's Blue Planet. | By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter No spoilers, but we've seen the first episode and as sequels go we can confirm it's better than Sex And The City 2. We've also been to the press conference and spoken to some of the team behind the new series. Here are 22 things you need to know about Blue Planet II - complete with behind-the-boat info and what you can expect from the first episode. 1. Five babies were born to crew members in the time it took to film. Blue Planet II involved "125 shoots, 6,000 hours filming underwater and 1,000 hours filming in submersibles", explains production manager Katie Hall. But away from the shoots, she adds, it was also a busy time for the crew: "We had three weddings. Four houses were bought. Five babies. Two babies on the way. "That's what happens when you're filming for four years." 2. "Oceans cover 70% of the surface of our planet, and yet they are still the least explored," says Sir David Attenborough in the opening sequence. "Hidden beneath the waves, there are creatures beyond our imagination," he continues. Roughly translated, we think he's saying: "Look, I know you might have seen Finding Dory multiple times but this is the real deal." 3. Hans Zimmer is doing the music again. It's bad news for Fifth Harmony fans as the soundtrack has already been sorted by composer and general legend Hans Zimmer. "We actually put the music out to tender, we weren't sure who we wanted to do it," explains executive producer James Honeyborne. "And although we loved Planet Earth II [which Zimmer also did the soundtrack for] we wanted to keep this feeling fresh. "But Hans came to us with such an impassioned pitch as to why he wanted to do it, which was incredible." 4. There will be seven episodes in the series. And they're split into different habitats - like deep ocean, the coral reefs, the open ocean and the coastlines. "Once you start dividing those up, you start to see where some of the stories would naturally fit," says James. 5. We wouldn't fancy filling out the risk assessment form for this show. "When we green light each shoot, we're constantly mitigating risk," says Katie. "But bar a couple of earaches, a little bit of water at the bottom of a submersible, and one cameraman stubbed his finger, we were extraordinarily lucky. "But the planning that goes into every single shoot, and managing the risk - whether that's financial risk or health and safety - you don't see any of that." Shame. 6. There's some serious drama in the opening episode. Spoiler alert etc, etc. In the opening episode, we meet some birds. Who sometimes like to fly down to the ocean and chill out a bit on the surface. Unfortunately for them, there's some rather hungry giant trevallies (ie big scary fish) lurking under the water. And they have a particular taste for birds. We won't give much more away, but it's safe to say you're about to see some snakes and iguanas-level drama go down. 7. Fish are Facebook-friendly. The trailer for the new series has already built up 43 million views on social media. Which is all part of a new digital strategy this year, according to Tom McDonald, who is (deep breath) head of commissioning at the BBC's Natural History and Specialist Factual unit. "One of the interesting things about Planet Earth II was that more people watched it than the X Factor results show when they were up against each other last year," he says. "So if there is a younger audience out there that is going to consume natural history content, we should focus our digital strategy on them, which is what we've done this year." 8. New technology was built to film the series. "We built a huge piece of housing which we called the megadome which allowed us to slice the sea in half so you can see above and below at the same time," James says. "We also built a tow-cam which can be pulled behind a boat which allowed us to travel with really fast-moving animals like dolphins and tuna." 9. They've brought back those 'making of' segments at the end of the episodes. Remember on Planet Earth II, you'd get 50 minutes worth of TV show, and then 10 minutes of how the episode you've just seen was shot? Half the time, the "making of" bit was even more interesting and eventful than the show itself. Well, they've brought that bit back - and this series will have a segment called Into The Blue at the end of each instalment. 10. There's some stuff in the series that even Sir David Actual Attenborough didn't know about. "When we first showed him some clips, he was like, 'Oh I didn't know this' and 'I didn't know that'," James says. "Genuinely he was surprised. It's always good if you can surprise David, it doesn't happen often." 11. One Walrus has clearly been watching Titanic. At one point in the first episode, a walrus tries to seek refuge from a preying polar bear on a floating iceberg. Problem is, there are already some walruses (walri?) on said berg. Clearly, this walrus watched Titanic, and, like the rest of us, thought there was plenty of room for Kate Winslet to shift over and make room for Leonardo DiCaprio on that piece of wood. Unfortunately, the extra weight of this particular walrus on this particular iceberg causes it to collapse, ruining the party for everybody (there's always one). 12. Bottle-nosed dolphins are super-cute They just look so friendly don't they, you'd definitely go for a drink with one. 13. Dolphins surf, Sir David explains, "to strengthen friendships, develop social skills, and for the sheer exhilaration of it". Coincidentally, this is also why humans do karaoke. 14. The show doesn't shy away from the impact of pollution. "You can't go out there and make a series like this without seeing some really big issues unfolding in front of you," says James. "You can go to the middle of the ocean and find plastics from many different continents coming together. "The impact that has on the wildlife can be devastating." In the show, we hear Sir David comment: "There are worrying signs that conditions in the oceans that have remained relatively stable for millennia, are changing radically." 15. Warning: The first episode includes "mating". In case you're planning to watch with your parents. Fortunately, the mating involves this handsome chap. 16. Some shots weren't filmed on location. Earlier this week, The Guardian said some footage had been captured in "controlled laboratory conditions". After the report was published, James explained the series was overwhelmingly shot on location, but in a few select instances, such as rock pools in the Coasts episode, labs were used. "Filming in the wild would have been too disruptive for the wildlife," he said. "It would have been impossible to film close-ups of this magical world, so we worked with scientists to accurately recreate a rock pool in the controlled conditions of the lab." 17. It wasn't originally going to be called Blue Planet II. "The series was commissioned as Oceans," explains Tom. "It was a very easy commission, instinctively the channel understood it was a brilliant thing to do and it felt like it was the right time to go back to this habitat. "It was never designed so that we'd have Planet Earth II last year and Blue Planet II this year, so now it looks like it was a brilliant strategy, but it wasn't exactly conceived that way." 18. Tusk fish are determined little creatures. There is one tusk fish who travels to the edge of the coral reef every morning, Sir David explains, looking for some breakfast. While most of us would grab some Special K from the cupboard, this guy travels quite some distance in search of a small clam. Using his mouth, he takes it back to his "kitchen" - which is essentially a massive rock, against which he starts bashing the clam repeatedly in order to crack it open. "It's not easy when you have no hands," Sir David observes. 19. Not all of the plans for the series came off. "There were lots of shoots that failed, to put it bluntly," says Tom. "The team set out to capture particular species, and when you watch this, I think James and his team make it look really easy. "And when I think about the number of variables when it comes to filming in the ocean, I think it's remarkable what they were able to capture." 20. In true W1A style, the show has led to more collaborative BBC working. "Some of the new technologies that were invented specifically for this series are already being deployed by the Natural History Unit on future projects," says Tom. James adds: "There was a sequence on The One Show last week about sturgeon [not Nicola], and they borrowed our probe lens, which is great - we built it, they were able to use it." 21. There's going to be a podcast to accompany the series. So make sure you're all caught-up on Serial. 22. So... Planet Earth II. Blue Planet II. What's next? "We have a big landmark series for next year which is very different to Blue Planet II," says Tom. "It's been announced already, it's called Dynasty, not to be confused with Carringtons and Colbys, so who knows if it will stay that title. "But the premise of each film is we take one animal family and follow them for a number of years to see the ups and downs of their family lines. "I'm already viewing episodes of it, and it's incredibly visceral. It feels so different to this." There's more. "One other thing I'm really excited about is a series the NHU have made which is on in January called Animals With Cameras, a really simple proposition. "We've built bespoke cameras for different species, that the animals wear, so we can see the world from an animal's point of view. "There's meerkats in it," he adds. "That's my innovation for 2018, more meerkats." Blue Planet II begins on BBC One at 20:00 GMT on Sunday. The series has been sold to more than 30 countries around the world. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. | महाकाव्य प्लैनेट अर्थ II के एक साल बाद, सर डेविड एटनबरो 2001 की ब्लू प्लैनेट के अनुवर्ती के साथ हमारे पर्दे पर लौट रहे हैं। |
uk-england-nottinghamshire-33179535 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-33179535 | HMP Ranby prison death: Four men arrested | Four men have been arrested after a prisoner died following an assault at a Nottinghamshire prison. | The 37-year-old man was attacked at HMP Ranby, near Retford, on Monday. He died the next day in hospital. Nottinghamshire Police said four men, aged 22 to 39, were being questioned by officers. The man has not yet been formally identified and a post-mortem examination is to be carried out later to determine how he died. | नॉटिंघमशायर जेल में हमले के बाद एक कैदी की मौत के बाद चार लोगों को गिरफ्तार किया गया है। |
magazine-28562156 | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28562156 | The perils of the Streisand effect | Former motor racing boss Max Mosley is suing Google for continuing to display photographs he says breach his privacy. But does pressing for information to be kept private, or suppressed, often have the opposite effect? | By Justin ParkinsonBBC News Magazine At first sight not much unites Beyonce and Max Mosley. But they, and several other celebrities and organisations, have become victims of the "Streisand effect". In 2005, Mike Masnick, founder of the Techdirt website, coined the term. Two years earlier singer Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman, who was documenting the coastline of California, for including her clifftop home in Malibu. The resulting publicity helped drive 420,000 visits in a month to the site where the photo was published. According to documents filed in court, images of Streisand's house had been downloaded only six times before the legal action. It's not always a fight over privacy. In February last year the Buzzfeed website published a selection of singer Beyonce's "fiercest moments" - mocking her facial expressions while performing at the Superbowl. Her publicist reportedly contacted it to ask that seven of the most "unflattering" photos be removed. Buzzfeed refused and republished exactly this selection with the headline: "The 'Unflattering' Photos Beyonce's Publicist Doesn't Want You To See". The exposure of the unflattering photos was magnified. A few months later it was reported that lawyers for Pippa Middleton, sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, had asked for the removal of a parody Twitter feed, which offered ridiculously obvious lifestyle advice in her name, such as "Avoid getting lost by consulting with a map" and "A party isn't much fun without people attending". Its following increased. In 2008 the Church of Scientology reportedly tried to get a video featuring film star Tom Cruise talking about his faith, designed for viewing by its followers only, removed from websites after it was leaked. The publicity meant it became shared more widely. In 2012, Argyll and Bute Council banned nine-year-old Martha Payne from taking pictures of her school meals and posting them, along with dismissive ratings out of 10, on a blog. Her family complained and this was overturned, amid much publicity. To date the blog has had more than 10 million hits and Martha has raised more than £130,000 for charity. You don't need to be famous to suffer from the Streisand effect. Spaniard Mario Costeja Gonzalez fought a long legal battle for the right to be forgotten. He complained that a search of his name in Google brought up newspaper articles from 16 years ago about a sale of property to recover money he owed. He enjoyed a landmark victory to establish the right to be forgotten. But it is unlikely he will ever be forgotten. As of this moment, his name conjures up hundreds of thousands of Google search results. The Streisand effect But Max Mosley is arguably the greatest example. He is suing Google for continuing to display in search results images of him with prostitutes at a sex party, citing alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act and misuse of private information. Every time he makes a legal move in his crusade over privacy, there's a danger it becomes more likely people will seek out the very images he is complaining about. The 74-year-old former president of Formula One's governing body FIA wants Google to block pictures first published in the now-defunct tabloid News of the World, which he successfully sued in 2008. "As the gateway to the internet Google makes enormous profits and has great influence, so I have not taken this action lightly," he has said in a statement. His lawyers add that the company should not be allowed "to act as an arbiter of what is lawful and what is not". Google says it has been working with Mosley "to address his concerns". But is there a risk that Mosley will cause himself more embarrassment by bringing a fairly old, and perhaps half-forgotten, news story back to people's attention? A survey of Twitter shows some users are posting the pictures that he is keen to remove. "Anyone trying to get something banned is always going to be of more interest than something that people don't seem bothered by," says Jenny Afia, head of talent at the law firm Schillings. "It's a spark for curiosity." In previous generations there's no doubt it was more straightforward to attempt to suppress information or images. The ease of sharing now almost means that nothing can really be suppressed. You could argue that the internet makes attempts to guard your privacy risky on a scale proportional to the likelihood of your privacy being meaningfully breached in the first place. If there was a danger that lots of people would circulate a private photo of you doing something embarrassing, it's very likely that trying to suppress it will have the opposite effect. If there was little danger that the photo would have been circulated, an attempt at suppression might not trigger the Streisand effect. There are endless mischief-makers who would dedicate themselves to propagating information that someone wanted hidden, just for the very fact of the attempt to hide it. Mosley is a wealthy man used to publicity. Yet suing could mean a stressful, drawn-out court case, covered in detail by the media. "It's a horrible dilemma for people who are faced with horrible or untrue stories," says Afia. "That's where Max Mosley is very brave to keep fighting. Many people decide to let it go." For the likes of Mosley and Costeja Gonzalez, the principle surely supersedes the actual effect of legal action. They effectively end up fighting for the right of others to more easily safeguard their privacy. Even at the de facto cost of their own. And there's a clear difference between those fighting for a right to privacy and those, like Beyonce's representatives, who are merely trying to manage a reputation or public image. There the Streisand effect is potent. If your reaction to mockery is to try and squash it, there will be lots more mockery. Public relations expert Mark Borkowski says modern celebrities, open to Twitter trolls and online parodies, need "the skin of a rhino". "If it's really, really trivial you have to make the decision about whether you're going react to the person who's satirising you and potentially make it much worse." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. | पूर्व मोटर रेसिंग प्रमुख मैक्स मोस्ले गूगल पर उन तस्वीरों को प्रदर्शित करना जारी रखने के लिए मुकदमा कर रहे हैं जिनके बारे में उनका कहना है कि वे उनकी गोपनीयता का उल्लंघन करते हैं। लेकिन क्या जानकारी को निजी रखने या दबाने के लिए दबाव डालने से अक्सर विपरीत प्रभाव पड़ता है? |
world-europe-jersey-41218313 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-41218313 | Condor sailings cancelled due to bad weather | All fast ferries sailing from the Channel Islands to Poole and France have been cancelled on Monday due to high tides. | Condor Ferries said tides were predicted to reach 4.1m (13.4ft), which is outside the firm's operating limits. The Condor Liberation from the UK and the Rapide to France will not operate. The Commodore Clipper is currently in dry dock in Falmouth. Condor apologised and said it was experiencing high-call volumes. Correction: 12 September 2017: This story originally said the Commodore Clipper was operating as scheduled at the time of writing which was not the case. | चैनल द्वीप समूह से पूल और फ्रांस जाने वाली सभी तेज नौकाओं को सोमवार को उच्च ज्वार के कारण रद्द कर दिया गया है। |
uk-england-london-48444814 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-48444814 | 'Giant Christmas bauble' in Thames sparks bomb alert | A suspected unexploded bomb on the banks of the River Thames turned out to be a "giant glittery Christmas bauble". | The ordnance-like ornament was mistaken for an explosive when it washed up near Wapping, east London. Met Police officers were called to inspect the device and "luckily" realised it was an oversized festive feature. It comes a few days after an unexploded World War Two bomb was discovered in Kingston-upon-Thames. Students from Kingston University had to be evacuated from the campus until the device was dealt with. Officers from Tower Hamlets who dealt with the bauble posted a picture of the faded decoration on Twitter. You may also like: | थेम्स नदी के तट पर एक संदिग्ध अप्रकाशित बम एक "विशाल चमकदार क्रिसमस बॉबल" निकला। |
world-europe-guernsey-17535277 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-17535277 | Guernsey fisherman jailed for drug dealing | A Guernsey fisherman has been sentenced to four years and three months in jail for intending to supply a Class B drug. | Clinton Downes, 32, admitted the offence when he appeared before the island's Royal Court on Monday. Border Agency officers found 144.56g of 4-methylethcathinone, otherwise known as 4-MEC, when they searched his home address in December. The drug was estimated to have a local resale value of between £7,356 and £11,770. Downes also admitted a second charge of possessing 1.10g of herbal cannabis, for which he was given a seven-day sentence to run concurrently. | ग्वेर्नसे के एक मछुआरे को बी श्रेणी की दवा की आपूर्ति करने के इरादे से चार साल और तीन महीने की जेल की सजा सुनाई गई है। |
world-middle-east-31761997 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31761997 | Israel election: Will you be voting in the election on March 17? | Will you be voting in Israel's general election on 17 March? | We are looking to speak to people from all religious and political backgrounds in Israel. What are the issues that concern you? What are your hopes for the future following the election? Thank you for your comments. Read some of your views here. | क्या आप 17 मार्च को इज़राइल के आम चुनाव में मतदान करेंगे? |
uk-england-devon-46109810 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-46109810 | Lorry fire on A30 in Devon causes disruption | A fire ripped through a lorry on a dual carriageway, causing its tyres to explode and burning it to a shell. | The "intense" blaze happened on the A30 in Devon at about 23:00 GMT on Monday. Repair and recovery work caused two-mile tailbacks on the commuter route into Exeter on Tuesday morning. Highways England said the road was expected to be closed until midnight while maintenance work is carried out and the vehicle is dismantled. No-one was hurt. The road between Fingle Glenn and Ide remains closed. Latest news and stories from Devon | दोहरे कैरिजवे पर एक लॉरी में आग लग गई, जिससे उसके टायर फट गए और उसमें आग लग गई। |
uk-politics-38553797 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38553797 | Society and the Conservative Party | Theresa May has set out her vision for a "shared society" in which the state has a role in helping people who are struggling to get by. It marks the latest attempt by a Conservative leader to spell out what society should, or should not, be. | 'No such thing'? In a 1987 interview with Woman's Own magazine, Margaret Thatcher said there was "no such thing as society", and that line went on to become one of her most famous. It has been much debated over the years, with critics seeing it as evidence of a heartless approach where needy individuals are left to fend for themselves. But Thatcher's supporters complain the quote is taken out of context, and in her memoirs the former PM said it had been "distorted beyond recognition". More recently, polling has found that while a strong majority of people disagreed with the "no such thing" line in isolation, most agreed with the longer version. Here it is: "I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it... They're casting their problem on society. "And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. "It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation." 'Classless' Thatcher's successor, John Major, entered Downing Street in 1990 promising to create a "classless society", which he described as a "a tapestry of talents in which everyone from child to adult respects achievement". He was still talking about it in his party conference speech the following year: "I spoke of a classless society. I don't shrink from that phrase. "I don't mean a society in which everyone is the same, or thinks the same, or earns the same. But a tapestry of talents in which everyone from child to adult respects achievement; where every promotion, every certificate is respected; and each person's contribution is valued. And where the greatest respect is reserved for the law." 'Responsible' Next up was William Hague, who called for a "responsible society", and said Thatcher's famous line had been wilfully misinterpreted and used against the Conservatives. "A strong society rests on responsible individuals and families. They need to be able to turn to straightforward, reliable help when times are bad," the Tories' 2001 manifesto said. "But that should not become dependence on the state when times are good." 'Big' "There is such a thing as society; it's just not the same thing as the state," declared David Cameron in his 2005 victory speech after becoming Conservative leader. Five years later, the idea of a Big Society was a key strand of the Conservatives' 2010 general election manifesto. It involved allowing voluntary groups and charities to run public services, encouraging people to do more volunteering and giving local groups more power to take decisions affecting their area. After becoming PM, Cameron described building the Big Society as his "great passion", hoping "people power" would help keep pubs and museums open and mean more residents getting involved with their communities. But there were reports Conservative candidates found it a hard concept to explain on the doorstep, and the Tories' political opponents said it was simply a way of hiding cuts to local services as the new government reduced public spending. Mentions of the Big Society became less prominent over the course of the Parliament, and the theme featured little in the 2015 general election campaign. Having quit frontline politics after the 2016 EU referendum, Mr Cameron now works with the National Citizen Service, describing the organisation as "the Big Society in action". 'Shared' In what has been seen as a break from David Cameron's championing of voluntary work, Theresa May has stressed the role of the state in creating "a society that works for everyone". The so-called shared society, she says, "doesn't just value our individual rights but focuses rather more on the responsibilities we have to one another" and respects "the bonds of family, community, citizenship and strong institutions that we share as a union of people and nations". In a speech setting out her vision, she said there was "more to life than individualism and self-interest". "We form families, communities, towns, cities, counties and nations. And we embrace the responsibilities those institutions imply. "And government has a clear role to play to support this conception of society." | थेरेसा मे ने एक "साझा समाज" के लिए अपना दृष्टिकोण निर्धारित किया है जिसमें राज्य की उन लोगों की मदद करने में भूमिका है जो आगे बढ़ने के लिए संघर्ष कर रहे हैं। यह एक रूढ़िवादी नेता द्वारा यह बताने का नवीनतम प्रयास है कि समाज को क्या होना चाहिए, या क्या नहीं होना चाहिए। |
entertainment-arts-44612302 | https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44612302 | Cardi B reveals she married Offset nine months ago | Cardi B has confirmed she got married in secret nine months ago. | By Mark SavageBBC Music reporter The rapper revealed she tied the knot on the same day her boyfriend Offset, from rap trio Migos, proposed to her. Writing on Twitter, the 25-year-old said: "There are so many moments that I share with the world and then there are moments that I want to keep for myself. Getting married was one of those moments!" The couple are expecting their first child this summer. Gossip site TMZ was first to report the marriage, posting a copy of the wedding certificate on Monday. The rapper seemed irritated by the revelation, writing on Twitter: "This why I name my album Invasion of Privacy, cause people will do the most to be nosey about your life". However, the post was accompanied by a long note, explaining why the couple had kept the marriage secret. "Our relationship was so new - breaking up and making up - and we had a lot of growing up to do; but we was so in love we didn't want to lose each other," she wrote. "One morning in September, we woke up and decided to get married. "We found someone to marry us, and she did, just [t]he two if us and my cousin. I said I do, with no dress no make up and no ring!" Bizarrely, one month later, Offset proposed to Cardi on stage during a concert in Philadelphia. She addressed the proposal in her message, saying: "I appreciate and love my husband so much for still wanting for m[e to] have that special moment that every girl dreams of." Secret weddings Cardi B and Offset aren't the only artists to keep their marriage secret from fans. Here are some of the others who managed to keep their vows private. Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem - Although they started dating in 2007, the actors never confirmed their relationship - "He's a friend and the best actor in the world," was Cruz's standard response to questions about Bardem. They married in a private ceremony in the Bahamas in 2010, a spokesperson later confirmed. Beyonce and Jay-Z - Rumours had circulated for years that the musicians were dating, but fans were astonished when they filed a signed marriage licence in New York in April 2008. Six months later, Beyonce confirmed the wedding to fans. Janet Jackson and Rene Elizondo - News of Jackson's second marriage only came to light when she divorced video director Rene Elizondo in 2000. The couple had, however, worked together for 15 years. Elizondo had co-writing credits on dozens of her songs - and it was his hands that covered her breasts on an infamous Rolling Stone cover. Janeane Garafalo and Rob Cohen - Incredibly, this comedy power couple were married for 20 years without knowing it. Garafalo (The West Wing, The Truth About Cats and Dogs) drunkenly tied the knot with Big Bang Theory producer Cohen at a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas in the 1990s. They only realised the ceremony was legitimate in 2012 when Cohen started making plans to marry his new fiancee and his lawyers dug out the marriage certificate. The couple immediately filed for divorce. Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley - The couple never announced their engagement, and married in secret in Australia two years ago. Robbie eventually confirmed the union in an Instagram post showing off her wedding ring. Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Almanzar, rose to fame last year with the song Bodak Yellow while her current single, I Like It, is a contender for 2018's song of the summer. A former gang member and stripper from the Bronx, she took a modern route into music, establishing her name via reality TV and social media. She and Offset were recently photographed together for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. In the accompanying interview, Cardi said motherhood would not affect her career. "Just because I'm a mom, my street credibility's not gone, my sex appeal's not gone," she said, adding that she planned to bring her along when she tours with Bruno Mars this September. "What I envision is my tour bus has my own personal room, and I just want to be with my baby. "Only time I don't have my baby with me is when I'm getting my hair done, make-up done, performing." Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. | कार्डी बी ने पुष्टि की है कि उन्होंने नौ महीने पहले गुप्त रूप से शादी की थी। |
uk-england-humber-21797872 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-21797872 | M62 shut as lorry overturns and sheds salmon load | A lorry carrying 10 tonnes of frozen salmon overturned shedding some of the fish on the M62 in East Yorkshire. | The eastbound section of the motorway was closed for more than 15 hours after the accident between junctions 34 and 35 in the early hours of Friday. Humberside Police said the 44-tonne refrigerated lorry had blocked the carriageway and some of its load had spilled on to the westbound section. The 47-year-old male lorry driver suffered head injuries. He was treated at the scene by paramedics and his injuries are not thought to be serious. | 10 टन जमे हुए सैल्मन को ले जा रहा एक लॉरी पूर्वी यॉर्कशायर में एम62 पर कुछ मछलियों को फेंकते हुए पलट गई। |
business-47850774 | https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47850774 | Jury discharged in Barclays fraud trial | The jury in the fraud trial against four former Barclays bankers - including the former chief executive, John Varley - has been discharged. | The case dated back to the financial crisis, when the bank raised billions of pounds from Middle East investors. The others charged were investment banker Roger Jenkins, head of wealth management Thomas Kalaris and Richard Boath, former head of Barclays' European Financial Institutions Group. The four denied the charges. Reporting restrictions are in place. All four were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in relation to Barclays' June 2008 capital-raising. Mr Varley and Mr Jenkins were charged with a second count of conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in relation to Barclays' October 2008 capital-raising. The high-profile case, the first jury trial involving such senior bankers, took place at Southwark Crown Court before the jury was dismissed on Monday. | पूर्व मुख्य कार्यकारी जॉन वार्ले सहित चार पूर्व बार्कलेज बैंकरों के खिलाफ धोखाधड़ी के मुकदमे में जूरी को आरोपमुक्त कर दिया गया है। |
magazine-36399891 | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36399891 | Tragically Hip: The most Canadian band in the world | When Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid tearful tribute to Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie after his death from brain cancer, he led a nation in mourning for a unique band of home-grown heroes, writes Jordan Michael Smith. | Few rock bands are publicly mourned by the premier and other high-level politicians, comedians and actors, alongside the country's most prominent musicians. But the Hip, as they are known, are not ordinary musicians to Canadians. Rather, more than any other artist, they have reflected the sense of what it's like to love and live in a beautiful, overlooked country. To understand why the Hip resonates, it's essential to understand Canada's place in the world. From Confederation in 1867 to the end of World War II in 1945, the country lived in the shadow of Great Britain. After the United States became the dominant world power, Canada became dwarfed by America. "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant," Mr Trudeau's father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, told Americans in 1969. "No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." American power is overwhelming, and Canada struggles to maintain a distinct identity in the face of a colossus. No part of the world escapes American culture - its music, movies, television, and fashion is embraced by all parts of the globe. Canada has fewer resources than most countries to preserve a separate national culture, being relatively young, small in population, and isolated geographically. Laws exist mandating that broadcasters feature Canadian-created content, but most culture consumed in Canada is American nonetheless. Even worse, many of the most talented and popular artists and intellectuals migrate to the US, unable to resist its mammoth market and influence. Most of the Canadian-born entertainers and thinkers best-known to the world - from Justin Bieber to Ryan Reynolds to Frank Gehry - live in America. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Celine Dion all moved south of the border - the Canadian border - to achieve fame. Even Alice Munro, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize for her short stories about small-town Ontario, attracted attention through the New Yorker magazine. The Hip never penetrated American consciousness, conversely. Nine of their albums have reached number one on the music charts in Canada; they have never broken even the top 100 in the US. They are even more obscure internationally. As a result, the band is like a secret handshake for Canadians, a way to establish an exclusive commonality among anyone between the ages of roughly 15 and 45. It helped that the Hip never seemed to care much about becoming worldwide superstars. They appeared once on Saturday Night Live - introduced by fellow Canadian Dan Ackroyd -and toured the US many times. But their base was always in Canada and they never left home for long periods of time. "[Interviewers] always ask us about our success or lack of success in the States, which I find absurd," Downie once complained. "While that is a story of the band, there are so many other stories." What's more, the Hip mined and reflected Canadian mythology in their lyrics. Songs frequently have references to hockey, geography, history, and culture that are recognisable to Canadians but unknown to outsiders. One of the band's best-known songs, Courage, is subtitled "For Hugh MacLennan", a mid-20th Century Canadian novelist. Another, Bobcaygeon, name-checks Toronto and is named after a picturesque, tiny town in Ontario. Downie sings in one song of Jacques Cartier, the French explorer who named Canada. He even mentions the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in another tune. The Hip treat their country the way Bob Dylan treats America: as a source of endless poetic fascination and mystery. And as with Bruce Springsteen, the band became a cherished national symbol, even if only to itself in this case. Lyrics aside, however, the Hip are fully American-derived. That reality is telling - it is difficult for even nationalist artists to avoid US impact, an inescapable closeness that breeds resentment alongside affection. The Hip play rock n' roll, after all, an art form that originated not in Montreal and Vancouver but in Memphis and Chicago. Their music is a combination of bar bands from the 1960s, stadium rock from the 1970s, and college rock of the 1980s. What's original came from Downie, who would interrupt his Canadiana-saturated lines with bizarre stories about whale tanks and double suicides. But originality is not the point. Cultural artefacts do not have to be artistically revolutionary to be meaningful. And there is no doubt about the Hip's meaning to millions of Canadians. In the cassette culture of the 1980s and 1990s, the group's shows were heavily bootlegged, with tapes of their concerts circulating among fans and records stores in the tradition of the Grateful Dead. They have sold more albums in Canada than global powerhouses like U2, and retail chains used to open stories at midnight when Hip albums were released to offer fans instant access to the new music. In 2013, Canada Post even released a stamp with a photo of the band. Asked Downie in one song: "What's a windswept face, the elusive presence of the sun, to the hard Canadian?" Canadians know the answer, even if nobody else does. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. | जब कनाडा के प्रधान मंत्री जस्टिन ट्रूडो ने मस्तिष्क के कैंसर से उनकी मृत्यु के बाद दुखद रूप से हिप फ्रंटमैन गॉर्ड डाउनी को अश्रुपूर्ण श्रद्धांजलि दी, तो उन्होंने घरेलू नायकों के एक अद्वितीय समूह के लिए शोक में एक राष्ट्र का नेतृत्व किया, जॉर्डन माइकल स्मिथ लिखते हैं। |
uk-scotland-20512744 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-20512744 | Mrs Brown's Boys - 'We are not the Waltons' | Mrs Brown's Boys has been a surprise success - winning a Bafta for best sitcom and gathering up to eight million viewers on BBC One. It returns for a third series, starting with two Christmas specials on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. Its creator and star Brendan O'Carroll explains how it took 20 years to become an overnight success. | By Steven BrocklehurstBBC Scotland news website She is a foul-mouthed Irish mammy who is played by a 57-year-old man. To make matters more confusing, Brendan O'Carroll's real-life wife plays his TV daughter, his TV son's wife is acted by his daughter, and his big sister is his neighbour and best friend in his sitcom. There are more family connections in Mrs Brown's Boys but it all gets very complicated. There is no doubt O'Carroll is the head of the family, on stage and off. But he says: "We are not the Waltons, that's for sure." He actually added an extra word into the above quote. It begins with the letter f and is a favourite of O'Carroll, both in life and in his comedy. Despite much of the cast being related, O'Carroll says the Mrs Brown extended family is much larger than that. Rory Cowan (his TV son Rory), Pat 'Pepsi' Shields (his TV son Mark) and Dermot 'Bugsy' O'Neill (Grandad) are not "blood relations" but they have all worked with O'Carroll and the many incarnations of Mrs Brown for 20 years. "I'm the youngest of 11 kids, most of those I don't care about as much as I do about Rory," says O'Carroll. "The same would be for Pepsi and Bugsy." For anyone not familiar with Mrs Brown - a quick recap. Struggling Irish writer and performer Brendan O'Carroll created the Dublin widow for Irish radio in the early 90s. When the actress due to play Mrs Brown did not turn up, O'Carroll, who was only 35 at the time, took on the role himself. It became a huge success and opened doors for O'Carroll, including writing a 1999 film starring Anjelica Houston. But he overstretched himself financing another film project and went bust. Five plays Mrs Brown was brought back to life for the stage in order to pay his debts. It was a phenomenal success in Dublin and just over a decade ago made its way to Glasgow, where a series of five plays have annually drawn huge and loyal audiences to the city's Pavilion Theatre. Glaswegian comedy writer Ian Pattison, the creator of Rab C Nesbitt, told BBC producer Stephen McCrum there was something remarkable happening that he needed to check out. McCrum travelled up from London to see it and was instantly convinced it would be a TV success. O'Carroll says: "Afterwards he came back to the dressing room and said 'we'd like to make a sitcom of this'. "I went 'thanks very much'. "When he had gone I said I had no idea who he was but people don't just walk in and say they want to make a sitcom. "'He's probably a janitor', I said." McCrum was as good as his word and a TV phenomenon was born. The first series was received sniffily by the critics but the viewing figures were massive for a new comedy show. The second series has so far picked up five major awards, including a Bafta. Eight million people watched the last episode of the second series. O'Carroll says: "You don't really get a sense of what eight million people watching feels like. It is twice the population of Ireland, so I can't even get a concept of that." And it is not just the number of people watching that has astounded him, it is the intensity of their adoration. "We kind of know it is funny," he says. "We've been doing this on the stage so we know there are gags that are going to work. "But I'm really surprised about how much people love the show." He adds: "I've never felt that way about any programme in my life." In addition to those who write to say Mrs Brown is the highlight of their week or that it has helped to get them through depression, O'Carroll says he has now had hundreds of letters from the parents of autistic children. He says: "Letters from people saying thank you for letting us hear our child laugh for the first time ever." The comedian was so baffled by why he seemed to connect with autistic children that he has put funding into two research projects dealing with autism and learning. One is an Irish project to buy ipads for autistic children. He says the technology has revolutionised the way autistic children are taught. Despite living part of the year in Florida, touring extensively in the UK and filming his TV show in Glasgow, O'Carroll is still very much attached to the Dublin roots from which Mrs Brown springs. Panel show In September next year he will begin filming a movie of Mrs Brown, set in Moore Street market. The script, which O'Carroll says he has not yet had time to write, will involve Mrs Brown becoming an international symbol of the fight against heartless capitalism when she tries to defend her market stall against a property developer. There was also a pilot made for a Saturday night quiz show in which Mrs Brown was the host, given free licence to "destroy" a panel of celebrities. O'Carroll says a pilot for the show was made, and it was "hilarious". But the funnyman turns businessman when he considers how being a panel show star would affect the Mrs Brown brand. It a step he is reluctant to take at the moment. He says: "You have to think product-wise too, that sounds very mercenary, but we spent a lot of time and a lot of effort building this brand. "Mrs Brown has become a really strong brand and we did not want to throw it away." He adds: "I don't care how funny you think you are, people are entitled to think 'oh no, not him again'. "It might make Mrs Brown more famous but, Jesus, we can't get any more people into the gigs than we do already." The Mrs Brown stage tour no longer plays venues such as the Pavilion Theatre, having moved to 5,000 seat arenas such as the Odyssey in Belfast. Real jobs In 2014, they are booked to go to Australia, where it is the number one show. O'Carroll says the "family" sometimes just "sit down and giggle" at the incredible success but he insists nobody takes it for granted. "I think it is because we all had real jobs," he says. "Bugsy was a window washer, Pepsi was a mechanic, Rory worked in EMI for many years, I was a waiter, Jenny worked in the bank, Eilish worked for Guinness - everybody had real jobs. "You are always terrified that one day they will find out you are a waiter and they will want their money back. So I think we do appreciate it more than normal." | मिसेज ब्राउन 'ज बॉयज़ एक आश्चर्यजनक सफलता रही है-सर्वश्रेष्ठ सिटकॉम के लिए बाफ्टा जीतना और बी. बी. सी. वन पर 80 लाख तक दर्शकों को इकट्ठा करना। यह तीसरी श्रृंखला के लिए लौटती है, जिसकी शुरुआत क्रिसमस की पूर्व संध्या और बॉक्सिंग डे पर दो क्रिसमस विशेष कार्यक्रमों से होती है। इसके निर्माता और स्टार ब्रेंडन ओ' कैरोल बताते हैं कि कैसे इसे रातोंरात सफल होने में 20 साल लग गए। |
world-asia-china-34319122 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34319122 | Nuclear technology - China's next great export? | For China, the prize on offer in the UK is not the investment in Hinkley Point or Sizewell B but a controlling stake at Bradwell in Essex. This could be the first Chinese-designed nuclear power plant in the West, a massive breakthrough for China in promoting global exports of its nuclear technology. | Carrie GracieChina editor@BBCCarrieon Twitter So far its customers have been confined to countries like Pakistan, Romania and Argentina with the developed world opting for American, Japanese and French technology. But the Energy Secretary, Amber Rudd, has said that China will be part of building the next generation of UK nuclear power stations and that having Chinese design up and running in the UK would give other countries confidence on safety. Safety is a key question. China launched a nationwide safety inspection into all its existing nuclear facilities in the wake of the Tianjin chemical warehouse disaster last month that killed more than 160 people. Though none of its existing reactors has experienced any serious accidents, its entire nuclear construction programme was suspended in 2011 following Japan's Fukushima disaster. New approvals started again this year. China is the world's biggest builder of nuclear power plants. It currently operates 24 reactors with a further 25 under construction. Critics say the industry is expanding too fast given its brief history in China and serious shortage of experienced engineers and operators. They also complain that safety regimes have come second to profit and that China offers no protection for whistleblowers. At home the Chinese government is committed to fast expansion to reduce air pollution and cut dependence on imported oil and gas. But as with other high-value infrastructure like high speed rail, Beijing is also keen to leverage this technology for commercial advantage abroad. Given the UK's long track record on nuclear power, and internationally recognised safety standards, a contract to build a Chinese-designed plant in Essex would be a huge endorsement for China, and one which will raise eyebrows in other European capitals and in Washington where the Obama administration would certainly not invite Chinese involvement in a strategic project with sensitive security implications. But the chancellor has said there is to be "deepening collaboration in nuclear sectors in the UK and China" and all eyes will be on London next month for the signing of these important deals during President Xi Jinping's state visit to Britain. | चीन के लिए, ब्रिटेन में प्रस्तावित पुरस्कार हिंकले पॉइंट या सिज़वेल बी में निवेश नहीं है, बल्कि एसेक्स में ब्रैडवेल में एक नियंत्रित हिस्सेदारी है। यह पश्चिम में पहला चीनी-डिज़ाइन किया गया परमाणु ऊर्जा संयंत्र हो सकता है, जो चीन के लिए अपनी परमाणु प्रौद्योगिकी के वैश्विक निर्यात को बढ़ावा देने में एक बड़ी सफलता है। |
stories-50718146 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50718146 | Why can't this doctor work in the UK? | The NHS in North-East England is making an effort to exploit the skills of doctors who arrived in the UK as refugees. But well-trained doctors from one country, who would love to practise here, are still having to spend their days working in factories or delivering pizzas, reports the BBC's Emma Jane Kirby. | Dr Yemane does not want to do this interview. For the first 15 minutes we spend drinking Ethiopian coffee together in a little cafe not far from Middlesbrough train station, he lets his friends and colleagues do the talking, replying to my questions extremely politely but with an obvious reserve. He's concerned that someone might think he's moaning, that he's complaining about his lot. Push him about his feelings and he clears his throat, shifts uncomfortably in his chair and offers only that, "Things might occasionally be a little tough." In truth, things have been far more than "a little tough" for 35-year-old Yemane, a refugee from Eritrea. After implicitly criticising his country's health service at a public meeting in 2012, his life was threatened by the ruling military and he had to flee, eventually ending up in Birmingham where he was granted political asylum. "As much as I thank the UK for being a safe haven for me and giving me refuge, there's a feeling of incompleteness," he says quietly. "Because a refugee doesn't want to be a burden on society and I know I could offer this society a lot more." Yemane has found work in a factory, as a care assistant, and as a volunteer in a refugee charity. He picks up the large tome on the chair beside him and flicks through the pages. It's a book on pharmacology. He's soon absorbed in its pages. Because Yemane is actually a qualified doctor - he's just not allowed to practise in the UK. Yemane was among the second intake of students at the Orotta School of Medicine and Dentistry set up in 2004 in Asmara, Eritrea, with the help of Cuban academics. He studied there for eight years, covering a wide range of disciplines from neurology to surgery. Examinations were monitored externally by professors from Switzerland, the US and Sudan. Yemane has a record of every semester he spent studying there and he tells me modestly that he "doesn't want to exaggerate" but that he is confident that the level of study at Orotta School of Medicine was as rigorous and thorough as any British medical school and that he was "competent" at his studies. In fact, his report card shows he passed almost every exam at Grade A. But for the General Medical Council (GMC), the body that regulates and registers doctors in the UK, that's not enough. They need verification from the Eritrean authorities and the Orotta School of Medicine that Yemane's primary medical qualification is exactly what he claims it is. The problem is that Eritrea is an authoritarian state and will not acknowledge citizens who have fled the country. "Of course they won't respond, of course they won't release information," says Bini Araia, a fellow Eritrean who works with the Middlesbrough-based charity, Investing in People and Culture, which is helping North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust get refugee doctors back into practice. "It's one way of controlling and making refugees' lives difficult so that they can never succeed outside if they leave their country. "Eritrea is not a friend of the West. It is the North Korea of Africa, it's heavily militarised and it's a dictatorship. It's not going to co-operate with the GMC." It's a bitter irony for Yemane that he moved from Birmingham to Middlesbrough precisely because he'd read a BBC article about the pioneering scheme set up by Bini Araia in partnership with North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust. From his reading he also knew that the Teesside region has an acute shortage of medical practitioners. He was immediately accepted on the scheme and unusually, passed the very rigorous English exam at first sitting and with flying colours. The next step was sitting the two necessary medical exams known as Plab 1 and Plab 2 but as Yemane knuckled down to revision, the GMC blocked his attendance. Yemane is too polite to slate the GMC for its caution. He says only that he would hope the GMC might try to find a way around the problem. Find out more Listen to Emma Jane Kirby's report from Middlesbrough for The World at One on BBC Radio 4 Read her earlier report on refugee doctors working on Teesside "I am very grateful for their efforts," he says diplomatically. "But sometimes I think maybe they could do just a little bit more?" His supporters are a little more outspoken. "It's just so frustrating!" says Dr Margaret Hinman, a retired Teesside GP, who has been lobbying for Yemane and helping him with private study. "I totally understand that patients' safety is paramount but surely we can find a solution to get this situation righted?" She looks over at Yemane who is absorbed in the pharmacology text book she's lent him, absent-mindedly lacing a stethoscope through his fingers. "I mean, here we have a young man who has overcome so many difficulties, a ready-made doctor who wants to work and who wants to make Teesside his home - and we have so many vacancies here!" She reminds me of the success of the scheme - four refugee doctors are now working full time in the NHS, five more are about to be registered while a handful of others are sitting their medical exams. "And there's no reason to think Dr Yemane is any less qualified than anyone else," she adds. "We have information from the former dean of medicine [at the Orotta School of Medicine], we have Yemane's curriculum and what's so frustrating is that other EU countries like Austria and Sweden - whose guidelines I'm sure are just as stringent as ours - are able to accept that same paperwork and let Eritrean doctors practise." Doctors like Dr Sahle, a classmate and close friend of Yemane, who fled Eritrea about the same time. Sahle claimed asylum in Austria rather than in the UK, however, and once he got settled status, was able to present his paperwork to the Austrian authorities and start his German-language tests and rigorous medical retraining. He now works full time as a doctor in a large hospital in Graz, south-east Austria, where he's hoping to specialise in internal medicine. We have to wait a couple of weeks to set up a Skype call together because he is run off his feet. "It's not fair," he tells me. "Because I remember Dr Yemane as a caring doctor, very professional and hard-working. If they could just give him the opportunity I'm sure he'd show them just how competent he is." Sahle reflects on how much he loves his job and how, now that he can map out a career path, he feels he has really started his new life in Europe. Twice a week, he calls his friend Yemane to share news. Listening in to one of their conversations, it's painful to hear how hungry Yemane is to learn about the cases his old friend has been working on, and how careful Sahle is to answer his questions with tactful restraint. "I am working and he is not," he reminds me. "But I have the same documents he has - nothing more." Bini Araia from Investing in People and Culture says there are at least four other qualified Eritrean doctors in the UK who are desperate to work here. Instead he says they are working for delivery companies, in pizza restaurants and factories. "It bleeds my heart," he says with genuine feeling. "They have already given up so much. Why must we punish them again?" Jane Durkin, assistant director for registration at the GMC, sighs when I talk to her about the waste of human potential. She reminds me that the primary concern of the GMC is to protect patients and to make sure all the doctors the body registers have the relevant skills. She sounds as frustrated as Yemane's supporters when she recounts the efforts the GMC has made to contact the Eritrean authorities and the complete silence those efforts have been met with. When I remind her that other European countries have accepted the same paperwork that Yemane has as proof of training, she concedes that that is a reasonable point but says she cannot comment on other countries' practices. "We don't want to put up barriers," she insists. "But the law requires us to validate qualifications." But is it realistic to expect a political refugee to have fled for his life carrying all his documentation and professional paperwork in a neat folder, stamped and endorsed by the very authoritarian regime he has escaped from? Jane Durkin admits that the paperwork the GMC has been requesting will almost certainly remain unobtainable. And then quite suddenly she announces that the GMC has decided that the Eritrean doctors' case is a truly exceptional one and it is for this reason that the doctors will now be allowed to take their Plab 1 and Plab 2 examinations. I ask her to repeat herself to make sure I have understood. "Yes," she says, and there is a good-natured smile in her voice. "We are going to let them sit their exams." I check this means that Yemane, if he passes his exams as he's predicted to do, will then automatically be registered as a doctor and will be able to apply for jobs in the NHS. There's a pause on the line. "Er, no," says Jane Durkin. "If he passes the exams that will prove he has the knowledge to pass the tests, but we still need to verify his primary qualification - we have to work with the UK's legal framework." She sounds apologetic. "I know it sounds jobsworth. But he can get on with his training while we will pursue all avenues to piece together the evidence." This is still a massive leap forward for the Eritrean doctors and is enough for Yemane and his Middlesbrough supporters, Bin Araia and Margaret Hinman, to order a celebration cake. "We're buzzing!" says Yemane. "I am so happy and my colleagues are all so happy - we are moving in the right direction and it is the greatest news!" Bini Araia has to leave the gathering early to attend a meeting at North Tees hospital. He has promised Yemane that while he is studying for his medical exams, which will probably take a year to complete, his refugee charity will work tirelessly to help the GMC find the proof it needs via third parties, to satisfy the demands of UK law. Meanwhile, Yemane is already deep in his medical text books. He's been dreaming of becoming a doctor since he was six years old. Perhaps now that vision will once again be realised and by September 2020, he'll be accompanying Bini to North Tees hospital to start work and his new life. You may also be interested in: The mother of a child who developed meningitis and sepsis because of a bacterial infection called Group B Strep is calling for all pregnant women to be tested for it. Currently the test is only available privately - and some women are still not being told about the potential danger to their baby. Group B Strep: 'A common bug could have killed my baby' | उत्तर-पूर्वी इंग्लैंड में एन. एच. एस. उन डॉक्टरों के कौशल का दोहन करने का प्रयास कर रहा है जो शरणार्थियों के रूप में यू. के. आए थे। लेकिन एक देश के अच्छी तरह से प्रशिक्षित डॉक्टर, जो यहां अभ्यास करना पसंद करेंगे, उन्हें अभी भी अपने दिन कारखानों में काम करने या पिज्जा वितरित करने में बिताने पड़ रहे हैं, बीबीसी की एम्मा जेन किर्बी रिपोर्ट करती हैं। |
uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-55071803 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-55071803 | Firefighters called to machinery blaze at Leith docks | Firefighters have been tackling a fire in a large machine at a site in Edinburgh's Leith docks. | The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SRFRS) said it was alerted to the blaze at Bredero House in the Imperial Docks just before 12:20. A large plume of smoke could be seen and four appliances were sent to the scene. Forth Ports said the fire had broken out in the engine bay of a piece of machinery in a storage yard. It said no-one was hurt. Police Scotland said it was aware of the incident but not involved. | अग्निशामक एडिनबर्ग के लीथ डॉक में एक स्थल पर एक बड़ी मशीन में लगी आग पर काबू पा रहे हैं। |
uk-england-essex-30730807 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-30730807 | Breck Bednar murder: How Lewis Daynes manipulated his victim | A 19-year-old man has been jailed for life for the murder of a 14-year-old boy he met online. Described by investigators as "quite unique in terms of how horrific it was", the case involved the manipulation of a schoolboy who was turned against his family and ultimately lured to his death. | By Jodie SmithBBC News The voice at the end of the phone was calm, collected, measured. "I need police and a forensic team," the man said to the 999 call handler. "My friend and I got into an altercation and I am the only one who came out alive." Just under a year later, that man - 19-year-old Lewis Daynes from Grays, Essex - has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering 14-year-old Breck Bednar. Described by police as "a cruel, manipulative person," Daynes had spent months building up online relationships with "vulnerable teenage boys". One of those boys was Breck, who lived with his mother, Lorin LaFave, and his siblings in Caterham, Surrey. A "dedicated" student at St Bede's school in Redhill, a churchgoer and member of the Air Training Corps, Breck was "kind, intelligent" and "extremely gifted". Ms LaFave's partner, Simon Goodwin, said Breck was "a good kid". "Very respectful, never heard him answer back to his mother, or shout or swear. He was almost a model son," he said. Breck had started communicating with Daynes through a gaming website, of which a couple of his friends were already members, in 2013. Together, the boys would spend time playing games and chatting over TeamSpeak, a piece of software which acts like a telephone conference call. But some of the gamers soon became concerned Breck was being controlled and turned against his family by Daynes. Ms LaFave had also begun to notice some differences in her son's behaviour. "His personality was changing, and his ideology was changing, and he was starting to refuse to attend church with us. "He was starting to refuse to do the normal family things we did. I felt like it was because of the negative influence of this person [Daynes]." She raised her concerns by contacting Surrey Police in December 2013 - but a few weeks later, her son got into a taxi, paid for by Daynes, and made his way to a flat in Grays. He was never seen alive again. Under instructions from Daynes, Breck had told his father Barry Bednar he was going to meet a friend on 16 February, and later asked permission to stay overnight. Police cannot be sure of exactly what happened inside that flat that night, between Daynes ordering a pizza at 18:40 GMT and the call he made to emergency services at 11:06 the next day. "When he rang the police, he gave an account, and it was the account he wanted us to hear," said senior investigating officer Det Insp Anne Cameron. Daynes told the call-handler Breck had arrived at his house saying his was "fed up with his home life". Daynes claimed his victim had grabbed a penknife on morning of 17 February and had tried to attack him after "losing control". He said he had stabbed Breck "in the back of the neck, near the brain stem" and the struggle had ended with Daynes cutting Breck's throat. But when police arrived, they found Breck had been tied up with duct tape, and Daynes' phones, hard drives and pen drives - which were all encrypted - had been immersed in water. He refused to give police access to passwords to any of the devices. "He wanted to be in control all the time he was in custody," said Det Insp Cameron. "As part of our investigation we went away, we searched what he was saying and compared, and clearly there were inconsistencies. But when we went back to question those inconsistencies, he exercised his right to give no comment." Staying safe online A "computer engineer" who lived alone, Daynes was a "very insular person". "The only people that could give us a lot of information about him were his gaming friends, the ones he manipulated online," Det Insp Cameron said. "A lot of those said that becoming acquainted with him, they found that he was very domineering. "He would stress his views upon other people, and demand they accepted those views." Jenny Hopkins, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the East of England, said her team had gathered evidence to show how "controlling and manipulative" Daynes was. "He provided the victim with a mobile phone, provided him with a cover story that he could give his father as to why he wasn't coming home, he paid for his taxi ride - all of it culminating in the most brutal attack," she said. "We deal with many shocking cases at the CPS, but this one stands out because it is particularly cruel and violent, and also because of the level of manipulation and planning that Daynes used leading up to the murder." Breck's family have set up a foundation in his memory to "support computer education for young people, including the responsible use of technology". "I think there's a lot of perception that it only happens to people who don't have parents looking after them," Ms LaFave told the BBC. "These predators are very good at manipulation and controlling, controlling children and trying to control me. "We have set up a foundation and the theme is 'play virtual but live real'. It's OK to know who you're speaking to," she said. Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigations into the conduct of both Essex Police and Surrey Police are ongoing. Murder Games: The Life and Death of Breck Bednar was broadcast on BBC Three on Tuesday, 26 January, 2016. | एक 19 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को एक 14 वर्षीय लड़के की हत्या के लिए आजीवन कारावास की सजा सुनाई गई है, जिससे वह ऑनलाइन मिला था। जांचकर्ताओं द्वारा "यह कितना भयानक था" के संदर्भ में काफी अनोखा बताया गया है, इस मामले में एक स्कूली लड़के के साथ हेरफेर किया गया था, जिसे उसके परिवार के खिलाफ कर दिया गया था और अंततः उसकी मौत का लालच दिया गया था। |
stories-45226484 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45226484 | The French connection: How Catalonia got its ballot papers | This time last year the Catalan government was busily preparing for a vote on independence, even though the parliament had yet to give its final approval. One puzzle was how to obtain ballot papers and ballot boxes - and how to prevent them being seized in advance. The BBC's Niall O'Gallagher visited France to discover how the problem was solved. | Elna is a town not found on any map. I could tell you that it lies north of the Pyrenees on the road to Perpignan. But if you consulted the chart, you'd find, nestled between the mountains and the sea, only the French town of Elne. Even armed with GPS, I fared no better at first: the address I'd been given returned no results. Only when I'd translated my destination from Catalan did the disembodied voice of the hire car's computerised navigator splutter into life. Elna lay at the end of a trail that had begun in Barcelona on 1 October last year. I had waited in the rain for voting to begin in Catalonia's disputed referendum on independence from Spain. The authorities in Madrid had taken control of the region's finances so the Catalan government couldn't buy ballot boxes or print voting papers. Somehow, despite a heavy police presence, the polls opened as planned. But how? Contacts in the Catalan capital sent me north to meet Maria - not her real name - striking at 70 with her black hair and fur coat, on a cobbled street above Elna's old walls. We followed her car to a restaurant, which she persuaded to re-open and serve us salad while we talked. Maria grew up here speaking Catalan at home, and like many others in this part of France feels a deep sense of loyalty to her fellow Catalans in Spain. So it's not that surprising that in Elna - perhaps over a meal like this, of ripe tomatoes with pungent vinegar - a plot was hatched to evade the attention of the Spanish police and supply those south of the border with what they needed to hold their independence vote. Find out more Maria would introduce us to the plotters. Her mobile rang and she exchanged a few words in Catalan with the man on the other end of the line. Jaume agreed to meet us later, on condition we would not reveal his identity. He arrived at our rendezvous carrying a ballot box exactly like the ones I'd seen in Barcelona. Maria made coffee while Jaume, a slight man with a pointed white beard, answered in terse monosyllables my small talk about the children and the weather. Eventually, once my third cup was cold, he began to talk. "I drove ballot papers from France across the border with Spain in a lorry," he told me. "There was always the danger that some information would be leaked, which would jeopardise the whole operation. "But I wasn't afraid. All I did was transport paper - and as far as I know, transporting paper from one EU state to another isn't a crime." The nonchalant humour in Jaume's voice sat uneasily with his desire for anonymity. So far two people I've interviewed while covering this story have ended up in jail. Maria then introduced us to Jordi, a local activist in his sixties but built like a boxer. He had come to Catalunya del Nord - as the French province of Roussillon is sometimes called - from Terrassa, south of the border, years earlier. Over peach brandy, a BBC colleague asked whether it was love that had brought him north. "No," he said without smiling. "I was in the resistance during the dictatorship." The ballot-paper smugglers from Elna had traced in reverse the route taken by thousands of refugees fleeing the Franco regime, who came through the mountains in the decades after the Spanish Civil War. While the voting papers were being printed in Elna, the ballot boxes had travelled all the way from a factory in China, via Marseille, before being hidden in the French-Catalan countryside. They were then taken south ahead of the referendum - a day that ended with hundreds injured at the hands of the Spanish police. "They were held up to ridicule," Jordi told me, "and that humiliation turned to vengeance on 1 October." After resetting our satnav for our onward journey, I took a call from Maria. She was keen for me to hear one more story before I left. "Twenty-four hours before the referendum," she told me, "there was a raid on a printing press in the south. Someone called me and said there weren't enough ballot papers left to go ahead. So we found a printer in Elna who opened up in the middle of the night and made more. They were driven across the border just in time." Catalans are split on independence and no-one knows how this story will end. The Spanish Prime Minister at the time, Mariano Rajoy, has now left the stage. Ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont waits in the wings in Belgium. But when the history of the October referendum is written it might reflect that the machinations of politicians would have come to nothing were it not for a group of pensioners in a tiny French village, who risked their liberty so their fellow Catalans could vote. They put Elna on the map - but no chart can show the people of this region their destination. French connection II Listen to John Laurenson reporting from the Spanish exclave of Llivia, in southern France, on the role it could play in the Catalonian nationalists' next move Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. | पिछले साल इस बार कैटलन सरकार स्वतंत्रता पर मतदान की तैयारी में व्यस्त थी, भले ही संसद ने अभी तक अपनी अंतिम मंजूरी नहीं दी थी। एक पहेली यह थी कि मतपत्र और मतपेटियों को कैसे प्राप्त किया जाए-और उन्हें पहले से जब्त होने से कैसे रोका जाए। बीबीसी के नियाल ओ 'गलाघेर ने यह पता लगाने के लिए फ्रांस का दौरा किया कि समस्या का समाधान कैसे किया गया। |
newsbeat-10003195 | https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-10003195 | Pussycat Dolls 'still together' | Robin Antin, founder of girl group Pussycat Dolls, has issued a statement saying there "is no truth" to the rumours that the American girl group had split up. | Media speculation had suggested that the relationship between lead singer Nicole Scherzinger and the rest of group had become strained. In a statement Antin, who oversees the band, said: "The Pussycat Dolls are very much alive and there is no truth to the silent treatment statements. Nicole and the Dolls have ALWAYS been close." Antin went on to add: "Nicole is and always has been a strong creative force within this group and I cherish the way we collaborate. Finally she said: "The Pussycat Dolls have proven their success over many years and will continue to do so." Nicola Scherzinger, partner of Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, is currently working on a solo album. Pussycat Dolls' last album Dollmination came out in September 2008. | लड़कियों के समूह पुसीकैट डॉल्स के संस्थापक रॉबिन एंटिन ने एक बयान जारी कर कहा है कि अमेरिकी लड़कियों के समूह के अलग होने की अफवाहों में कोई सच्चाई नहीं है। |
uk-england-27684979 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-27684979 | Tour de France Grand Depart diary | With the world's biggest bike race starting in Leeds on 5 July, BBC Yorkshire's Tour de France correspondent Matt Slater rounds up the best of the gossip, opinion and stories, on and off the bike, and also tries to explain some of cycling's unique lingo. TOP STORIES | The first Grand Depart hosts to stage a cultural festival, the first to have an Olympic-style volunteer programme, the first to turn the team presentation into X Factor meets the World Cup draw, Yorkshire's Tour de France is all about innovation. And this weekend, Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive Gary Verity became the first bid leader to actually ride a proper stage of his/her Grand Depart. I say proper because the Tour's owners ASO think Prince Albert of Monaco cycled his first stage in 2009, but that was a 15.5km prologue. Verity, on the other hand, did 190km. Not bad for a cycling novice who had heart surgery nine months ago. He even managed to drag yours truly around behind him. Full story: ITV News If you live in the Huddersfield area and have plans tonight, change them. Slubby Billy's, "a clog-shod Morris side", are starting a four-week "Tour de Dance" to "make sure real ale and clogs welcome the Tour de France". Apparently, there are eight local breweries in Huddersfield and the Holme Valley, seven of which are within a quarter of a mile of the Tour route. Was Chris Froome made aware of this? Anyway, the morris dancers are starting their warm-up tour at Oakes' Rock Brewery at 8pm this evening, before clip-clopping to the aptly-named The Sportsman in Huddersfield for 8.45. A double bill to savour. Full story: Huddersfield Examiner The region's paper of record, The Yorkshire Post, has unveiled a cheeky advertising billboard: "The French believe they have the toughest summits. Our view: it's all downhill after Yorkshire." They have also invited online readers to answer the question: will the Tour be good for Yorkshire? Hmm, I suspect what should be a landslide "yes!" will end up being a lot closer. But then many people in east London had mixed feelings about the Olympics right up until this country's biggest party went off without a hitch, raising the area's profile around the globe and putting a smile on everybody's face for months. Full story: Yorkshire Post CYCLING ROUND-UP If only those post-Olympic good vibes were still in effect at Team Sky. The British team might be the world's most successful cycling team of the last two years (and yes, I am ignoring the UCI's rankings) but they are not always as happy about this as they should be. Take the stubborn saddle sore that is the relationship between Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, this is a monster of a story that refuses to die. Here is a recap: Froome helps Wiggins to become the first Brit to win the Tour in 2012 but manages to upstage Wiggins in the mountains, only to be reminded of his place by the team's bosses, which upsets Froome without placating Wiggins. This is all happens in broad daylight, with the pair's other halves joining in on twitter. Fast forward to 2013 and Froome is now the team leader, with Wiggins looking elsewhere for challenges. He picks the Giro, or it is picked for him, and it does not go well. He is then ruled out of the Tour with a knee injury. Some observers thought this was quite convenient. Froome, now liberated of water-carrying duties, wins the Tour. Wiggins stays away, and sends no congratulations, but then rescues a dismal 2013 with a win at Tour of Britain and a silver medal at the Worlds. Froome sends no congratulations. But then we are told hatchets have been buried and peace pipes smoked at a training camp in Majorca this January. Froome remains the team's leader, but Wiggins is back on board with new goals of his own and the desire to help Froome defend his Tour title. Wiggins then confirms his form at Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of California, while Froome does his thing at the Tours of Oman and Romandie. All is swell, right? No. A Sunday Times serialisation of Froome's new autobiography digs up the hatchets of 2012 and cracks the peace pipes of 2014. He says this changes nothing, which could mean they are still fine, or they are still fighting. Watch my interview with him in Harrogate on Saturday and make up your own mind. It should also be noted that Froome and Wiggins are still being kept apart, with the former taking what looks like a Tour team to a key Tour build-up race in France, while Wiggins heads to Switzerland. Will Wiggo be on the start line in Leeds? I honestly don't know, but I do know Froome/Wiggins will be a story that week whether he is or not. TWEET OF THE DAY "Froome + 7 of probable Sky 8 for the Tour ride Dauphine. Wiggo rides Swiss - logical after return from US. Read into it what you will…" Guardian cycling correspondent William Fotheringham on Team Sky's choices for the key Tour warm-up races. A TO Z OF LE TOUR T is for… Tete de la course - Literally, the head of the race, this means what it says on the tin, but manages to sound somehow more intriguing and nuanced than "race leader". I think this is probably because of the subtleties of stage racing. Those guys up front are clearly leading the race at that given moment, but they are still very much connected to what is happening behind them, and that lead is often very artificial and temporary. Turn - Another staple term for a commentator, this refers to the "turn" a rider takes riding at the front of a group, effectively punching a hole through the air, and giving everybody behind a more aerodynamic ride. Team leaders do not take turns until they really have to. TODAY'S TOUR TRIVIA If you are wondering why there is such a fuss about having Froome and Wiggins in the same team it because cycling's history is littered with examples of teams who had tried to serve more than one master at the Tour and ended up a fractious mess. But the example most frequently cited, the 1986 Tour, is actually an exception to the rule, as the team in question, La Vie Claire, ended up with a one-two. The reason it is remembered, however, is because the civil war between the new man, Greg LeMond, and his more experienced teammate, Bernhard Hinault, was played out over a series of remarkable stages in the final week of the Tour. Having helped Hinault to victory the year before, LeMond thought the French hero would repay the favour that year (sound familiar?), only for the inscrutable Hinault to emerge as his greatest rival, hardly surprising when you consider that Hinault could scent a record-breaking sixth Tour win. LeMond did eventually triumph, becoming the first American to win the race, and he would win two more. But it took him a long time to get over his teammate's attempted treachery. Not that Hinault ever saw it that way, and he would no doubt love to see "the road decide" who should lead Team Sky this summer. | 5 जुलाई को लीड्स में शुरू होने वाली दुनिया की सबसे बड़ी बाइक दौड़ के साथ, बीबीसी यॉर्कशायर के टूर डी फ्रांस संवाददाता मैट स्लेटर बाइक के अंदर और बाहर गपशप, राय और कहानियों का सबसे अच्छा दौर पेश करते हैं, और साइकिल चलाने की कुछ अनूठी भाषा को समझाने की भी कोशिश करते हैं। |
world-europe-14143606 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14143606 | Q&A: Reform of EU fishing policy | The European Parliament has approved a package of major reforms to the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), designed to cut waste and stop overfishing in European waters. | Under the plan, the existing system of fishing quotas - which often leads to tonnes of perfectly good fish being dumped at sea - will be reformed. For the first time MEPs have legislative power in this policy area. They are proposing amendments to a European Commission reform plan for the CFP. But there will be more negotiations with the 27 fisheries ministers this year before the changes become EU law. | यूरोपीय संसद ने यूरोपीय संघ की सामान्य मत्स्य नीति (सी. एफ. पी.) में बड़े सुधारों के एक पैकेज को मंजूरी दी है, जिसे अपशिष्ट में कटौती करने और यूरोपीय जल में अधिक मछली पकड़ने को रोकने के लिए बनाया गया है। |
uk-wales-mid-wales-31922240 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-31922240 | Dyfed-Powys Police needs 100 more special constables | One hundred new special constables are to be recruited by Dyfed-Powys Police. | The volunteer police officers will wear a uniform and have full police powers. The new recruits will take the force's number of specials up to 200. Successful candidates will receive formal training at a police station as well as online training. | डेफेड-पॉव्स पुलिस द्वारा एक सौ नए विशेष कांस्टेबलों की भर्ती की जानी है। |
business-48832110 | https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48832110 | Kylie Minogue: How our obsession is driving her success | Thirty-three years ago. That's when Kylie Minogue first entered my life - and that of millions of teenagers - in the Australian soap Neighbours. It's hard to believe it's that long ago. | By Simon BrowningBusiness reporter I watched her marry Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) in 1988, alongside 20 million others. I dread to think how many times I watched it on VHS. But looking back, it was early evidence that I, alongside the British public, had already taken Kylie to my heart and that she had real marketing appeal. More than three decades later, public affection for our adopted "pop princess" shows no sign of wavering after Sunday's storming set on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage. After appearing on stage to a blaze of Pride colours and mirrors - even Kylie seemed overwhelmed by the size of the crowd that had come to watch. "I've never seen a crowd like it. Ever. Everybody loves Kylie. You could feel it," BBC Music presenter Lauren Laverne said after Kylie came off stage. It's exactly how I felt when I met Kylie last year when I was working at BBC Breakfast. She was as nice in real life as she appears on stage: kind, accepting and smiling. But it takes more than niceness to achieve a music career that spans 30 years, an incredible feat when pop music can be transient and fleeting for many musicians. To date, there have been; How has she done it? Building a career with such longevity is about more than just pop music, it is also about being a shrewd and clever businesswoman who is able to constantly reinvent herself. Kylie's career has seen many guises from squeaky teenage soap star, to a pop hit machine with Stock Aitken and Waterman (I Should Be So Lucky, Hand on Your Heart, Better the Devil You Know), to "indie Kylie" (Confide in Me, Where The Wild Roses Grow) and into "disco Kylie" (Spinning Around, Love at First Sight, Can't Get You out of My Head). The Glastonbury appearance was just her latest reinvention. It hasn't been easy the whole time. There has been music that didn't resonate with the wider public outside her fan base and periods when Kylie was simply not cool. "She was unfashionable after Stock, Aitken and Waterman and at times it seemed like she was trying to find herself," says Jo Elvin, editor of You Magazine. "But she has real resilience. That's what people like. It took her a while to realise that being a pop princess was cool. When she accepted that, it's when her own confidence evolved and everyone said 'we love Kylie' and she became a national treasure." The Glastonbury performance was partly about Kylie making sure she stays relevant, says Amy Thomson, a music artist manager and part of the Grammy Recording Academy. "It was a triumph - but it was also about her reinvesting in her future. People are talking about her again today. Brands will be talking about her again. Businesses will want to talk to her." Unpromising beginnings But while I have always been a fan since her early days (my first seven-inch single bought from my local Asda was 'Locomotion'!) not everyone was convinced. "If you looked at the start of her career, on paper, it looked short-lived," says Eamonn Forde, a music business journalist. He says her being picked up by Parlophone, alongside Coldplay, at the end of the 90s sparked a huge change in how seriously she was taken. By the dawn of the millennium Kylie reinvented herself again, with Spinning Around and her biggest single ever - Can't Get You Out of My Head. It's a reinvention that was well received when I witnessed her play at Privilege nightclub in Ibiza wearing those legendary gold hotpants. "We loved it". But Mr Forde says these tunes were not just "throw-away pop songs" but the start of a new performance era. "It began a very clever, well thought out progression and the start of huge shows that were and still are an incredible spectacle." For a majority of artists now, these shows are the main money-spinner out of everything they do. People come to these shows and pay good money for their tickets, to see a performer - and that's what you get with Kylie. I should know, it's the reason I keep going back. I think I'm at 12 shows now. "As much art is involved in writing songs as there is in performing them. Kylie might not write them all. But a great performer can take a great song somewhere else. People buy into that. And they buy into her," adds Mr Forde. Being a pop star is also about looking good, something that Ms Elvin acknowledges Kylie has done - and continues to do very well. But Ms Elvin says it is Kylie's professional approach to work which has really made her stand out. "Kylie understands she is the pop person there to do her bit. She understands it's business. There are no big pop star dramas." There are no reliable statistics, but being a pop star has obviously brought Kylie substantial riches. Music releases and arena tours have helped her amass sizeable wealth. But her brand power is also a big part of her income. She has partnerships with opticians chain Specsavers and her own range of bedding, and has also done very lucrative private appearances for families and businesses in the Middle East. Power secret How broad the Kylie brand stretches was apparent in the crowd watching her performance at Glastonbury. It was a complete cross-section of the population. Yes, the LGBT community, which believes it has adopted her, was there in force, but so were parents, children, guys and gals singing in the sunshine. "In a music genre all about youth, she's there and taking every audience with her all at once", adds Mr Forde. "She's not afraid to talk honestly and openly and just be genuinely herself. That's her power." | तैंतीस साल पहले। यही वह समय था जब काइली मिनोग ने पहली बार मेरे जीवन में प्रवेश किया-और लाखों किशोरों के जीवन में-ऑस्ट्रेलियाई धारावाहिक नेबर्स में। यह विश्वास करना मुश्किल है कि यह बहुत पहले की बात है। |
stories-51065910 | https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51065910 | 'Why can't I find an Afro-Caribbean egg donor?' | When Natasha and her husband had difficulty conceiving a child, doctors gave her two pieces of bad news. The first was that she would need to find a donor egg. The second was that Afro-Caribbean eggs are rarely donated. But she hasn't given up hope. | By Ben CarterBBC News Natasha is 38 and is struggling to have a baby. She got married in 2011, and started trying to conceive immediately. Eventually it became clear there was a problem. "I actually had four rounds of IVF treatment and obviously none of them were successful. And after the third round the doctor said, 'We doubt that your eggs are going to be any good and you probably need to consider going down the egg donation route.' And she literally got up from her seat and said, 'I'll give you some time with your husband to discuss,' and she walked out the room. And that was it." Natasha's next step was to call organisations that might help her obtain a donor egg. One was a donation bank. "They basically said, 'We're going to have to be honest with you, but we don't have many black Afro-Caribbean egg donors come forward.' They told me straight and I appreciated the honesty rather than being sent on a goose chase." Natasha then cast her net further afield. A clinic in Spain offered her an egg donated by an African. Many might think this was not a bad solution, but Natasha was not sure it would be right for her. "My heritage is Caribbean. My grandparents on both sides of the family are both from the Caribbean… it was important to me to at least have some cultural connection with the child, and I felt that if it was from a different heritage, I may not…" She also felt that her family, which she says "has a big hang-up about who looks like who", might discriminate against a child that they knew had come from a donor. In 2017, about 1,900 individual donors donated eggs in the UK. Of these only 15 were categorised as "Black Caribbean". Twenty were Black African. The vast majority - 1,608 - were White. As Black Caribbeans make up 1.1% of the population according to the 2011 census, you might expect 21 out of the 1,900 donors to have come from this group. Black Africans, meanwhile, make up 1.8%, so if 2017's donor eggs had been evenly distributed by race, there would have been 34. Dr Edmond Edi-Osagie, a reproductive medicine specialist in Cheshire says that there is "something cultural within the black community" that makes women reluctant to donate eggs. "Any time I see an Afro-Caribbean woman over the age of 35 who walks through my clinic, the first thing I think about is, 'Are they going to need donor eggs?' My heart really sinks, because I know that it's going to be a really difficult battle if they are," he says. He also finds that Afro-Caribbean women are more likely to need donor eggs, than white women of a similar age. "The reasons for that we're still not very clear about, and there are many plausible reasons, but that's what we are finding anecdotally." Edi-Osagie has been to a number of black organisations and black churches to talk about the lack of donor eggs and the message always goes down well, he says. "I get a line of people who wait to speak to me to give me their contact details and then I get my staff, over the following weeks, to try to contact all of those people - and unfortunately, almost invariably that's where the trail ends," he says. Find out more: Listen to Natasha: Trying to find a black egg donor on Monday 13 January from 20:00 Part of the series My Name Is... on BBC Radio 4 Natasha thinks that one reason so few eggs are donated could be that women don't know there is a shortage. "There's no awareness, no-one's printed any leaflets - it's not sitting in the waiting rooms of any hospitals," she says. She also thinks it's a taboo subject that is rarely discussed in the black community. If the subject is ever mentioned, it's a throwaway comment like, "Sandra up the road, she cannot have a baby," Natasha says. "It's never taken seriously about how that person must be feeling or what support they may need. It's just not a topic that's ever brought up and yes it does need to change, it really does," she says. "Especially because women, no matter what cultural background, are having children later. So I know I'm not going to be the only person that has gone through this." Natasha admits she hasn't told her own family about her fertility problems. In fact, she doesn't even think her husband is aware of the toll they are taking on her. "He is a very practical man… all on my own." She says she has to "wear a mask" so that people don't see how she is feeling when something they've said makes her emotions almost brim over. This doesn't surprise counselling psychotherapist Helen George who, in the course of her research into why older Afro-Caribbean women rarely seek therapy, has heard many say, "You don't talk your business to people." She's keen to encourage the black community to talk more about infertility, but also to encourage the health system to discuss infertility in a more inclusive way. "I feel that when we look at the whole landscape of infertility and the services out there, you know, it doesn't represent us," she says. She had noticed online an event in London called Fertility Fest, which describes itself as "the world's first arts festival dedicated to fertility, infertility, the science of making babies and modern families", and found herself thinking, "it's kind of all white people". But in 2019 it ran a session on race, religion and reproduction, and she took part. "The taboo, the stigma, not talking about it in communities, that all came out," she says. "Religion was another one… religion in terms of being angry at God, being angry at not getting what they want." But she came away with the feeling that the conversation had started. "There was a room full of people of colour all talking about it. People are finding their voice now." You may also be interested in: When Elaine Chong found out that there was a shortage of women of colour donating eggs, she decided to do something about it. Why I chose to donate my eggs Natasha is on a waiting list for an Afro-Caribbean donated egg. She doesn't know how long she will have to wait. "I need to build up my inner strength to be able to go forward with this again," she says. "I know my age is against me." She also wants to start raising awareness about this issue in her community in the hope that this will encourage more women to donate eggs - not just for her benefit but for the general good. It frustrates her that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which is aware of the shortage of certain eggs doesn't try to alert the public to this fact. The HFEA points out that it is a regulator, and that this role doesn't fall within its regulatory charter. And she thinks that more could be done to point out to women that although donating an egg is not a simple procedure - it involves numerous medical tests and you have to inject yourself with hormones twice a day - donors are compensated with a one-off payment of £750. "I feel that I need to start the ball rolling and maybe being that voice that is knocking on the door, and actually steering this conversation further and making people more aware that this is a problem - because I'm sure that most people wouldn't even consider that this problem even exists." Nadia Akingbule is on Instagram | जब नताशा और उनके पति को गर्भ धारण करने में कठिनाई हुई, तो डॉक्टरों ने उन्हें दो बुरी खबरें दीं। पहला यह कि उन्हें एक दाता अंडा खोजने की आवश्यकता होगी। दूसरा यह कि एफ्रो-कैरेबियाई अंडे शायद ही कभी दान किए जाते हैं। लेकिन उन्होंने उम्मीद नहीं छोड़ी। |
uk-wales-34679176 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-34679176 | Nearly 80% of women screened for cervical cancer | Nearly eight in 10 women in Wales have been screened for cervical cancer at least once in the past five years, a report has said. | The 2014-15 report from Public Health Wales showed 78% of women in the target age of 25 to 64 had been tested. Almost a quarter of the women received their results within four weeks. Women are invited for screening for abnormal cells from the age of 25. Rachel Jones, head of cervical screening Wales, said: "The positive figures suggested in the annual report are consistent across Wales, with coverage of screening exceeding 76% in each of the health boards." | एक रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि वेल्स में 10 में से लगभग आठ महिलाओं की पिछले पांच वर्षों में कम से कम एक बार गर्भाशय ग्रीवा के कैंसर के लिए जांच की गई है। |
sinhala.060215_slmc | https://www.bbc.com/sinhala/news/story/2006/02/060215_slmc | Hakeem banned from local polls | District Court of Colombo ruled that Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauf Hakeem and its general secretary should not sign any nomination papers for the forthcoming local polls. | The court issued this injunction order followed by a hearing of a petition filed by a member of the SLMC which said that the above two officials have no authority to sign the nomination papers as they are not recognised as party officials. The petitioner said annual convention of the party was not held for a long period of time and therefore they are no longer the officer bearers of the party. The district court also issued an order to the Election Commissioner asking not to accept the nominations papers signed by them. | कोलंबो की जिला अदालत ने फैसला सुनाया कि श्रीलंका मुस्लिम कांग्रेस (एस. एल. एम. सी.) के नेता रउफ हकीम और उनके महासचिव को आगामी स्थानीय चुनावों के लिए किसी भी नामांकन पत्र पर हस्ताक्षर नहीं करना चाहिए। |
technology-54378960 | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54378960 | 'Why I bought a voting machine on eBay' - the hackers protecting US election | "Earlier this year, I attended a conference and was shocked to find that you could actually buy voting machines on eBay. So I bought one, two months ago, and have been able to open it up and look at the chips." | By Joe TidyCyber reporter Beatrice Atobatele is trying to hack one of the most commonly used voting machines in the US, to look for security vulnerabilities, but not with any criminal intentions. Beatrice is actually one of more than 200 people who have signed up to a volunteer group of security experts and hackers called the Election Cyber Surge. And by understanding how this machine works, she hopes she can ensure any vulnerabilities are fixed. "I've bypassed the authentication itself," she says. "I'm still learning and trying to find any new vulnerabilities that might not be known about yet." Human error The problem with US elections, Beatrice and others say, is how disjointed they are. Most estimates suggest there are about 8,000 separate election jurisdictions. The equipment and voting methods vary dramatically. And every step of the process is vulnerable to hackers and human error. Soccer-obsessed daughters In the polling booth, there are many different systems, from direct-recording electronic voting machines to ballot-marking devices and paper-based systems. And the more digitised and connected a system is, the higher the risk of some sort of cyber-interference. Like all the volunteers, Beatrice's research is conducted outside of her day job. And as a keen footballer, and mother to two soccer-obsessed daughters in New York City, she has to fit the volunteering around a busy schedule. She didn't plan to get into cyber-security at all. But 17 years ago, she lost more than $1,000 (£775) after hackers used her account to buy five pairs of Nike trainers. It spurred her on to a new career path. And she is now a security specialist for state and local government. 'Worst-case scenario' Despite the pressure she's under, Beatrice is desperate to help the election run smoothly. "Every vote cast should count," she says. "The thing that I'm worried about is some sort of ransomware attack on these machines on the day, which would stop people from voting. "That's my worst-case scenario." A ransomware attack is when hackers take over a computer system or encrypt data until the victims have paid a ransom. Potential problems Beatrice and the rest of the Election Cyber Surge group are aware time is running out. By now, it's too late to update physical voting equipment. But she is still searching for critical software flaws and offering to help election officials better understand their machines and any potential problems. The group is being led by the University of Chicago's Cyber Policy Institute, trying to "open up a line of communication between election officials and a network of volunteers for direct communication about cyber-security matters" leading up to the 3 November vote. Hackers from all over the US have signed up to help secure the election or deal with any attacks that could derail an already fraught process. "It's not just voting machines on polling day that could be vulnerable to cyber-attack," Christopher Budd, another volunteer from Washington state, says. "With my hacker hat on, going after the registration lists being compiled right now across the US would be a great way to disrupt an election. "If I'm not registered or if my registration record is altered in some way, even if the voting system is completely secure, my vote might not count." And again, the disjointed nature of the electoral system adds risk. The security and even the actual structure of voter-registration databases vary. And an FBI alert in the lead-up to the 2016 election warned foreign actors had gained access to some of these databases. With the added complication this time of election officials remote working, and trying to plan around Covid-19 restrictions, Christopher is worried: "I always try to de-escalate things in my job "But there's no doubt that there are heightened threats in this election. "Everyone is focused on the vulnerability of this election. "And so am I. "I'm willing to give whatever time is necessary to help out." Deer peering Christopher's expertise is in crisis communication and management. As a consultant, he deals with cyber-attacks that bring large corporations to their knees. He handles everything from panicking chief executives to angry IT managers, from his rural home office overlooking the woods. And when he has to pull all-nighters, the only company he has are the local deer peering into his window, wondering what the fuss is about. Work fast Over his 20 years of experience, Christopher has developed a secret weapon for when things truly hit the fan. "I'm a huge classical music fan," he says. "When I really need to focus and work fast, there's only one place I turn to - Symphony No 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns." Christopher hopes he won't have to "crank out the Camille" in the next month - but he's ready. Leaked online The group is also putting a huge amount of effort into data protection. The last US and UK elections were hit by high-profile "hack and leak" operations. In 2016, email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and some top Democrats were hacked and then leaked. And in the 2019 UK general election, documents on UK-US trade talks were stolen from an MP's email account and leaked online. Zero-days attacks Jason Kirkland specialises in protecting "end points" - computers and phones. But he is less concerned about highly sophisticated zero-day attacks than more basic techniques. "I don't think we're going to see attackers burn through precious zero days when they can get into important networks with far easier methods," he says. "It's probably going to be things like malicious software that gets in through everyday office applications that are really going to be the threat. "I want to help people get the basics right. "For example, don't download bad files or click on malicious links." Harm democracy US and UK security services publicly blamed Russian hackers for the "hack and leak" operations and numerous other disinformation campaigns to sway voters and sow discord on social media. Russia denies the accusation. And other countries are also being blamed for cyber-activities that harm democracy. Earlier this week, Twitter removed about 130 accounts linked to Iran it said had been trying to disrupt the public conversation during the first presidential debate. Bad guys Disinformation campaigns are a major concern the volunteer hackers say they won't have time or capacity to deal with. But Jason is committed to helping keep the bad guys out as best he can. Before he got into hacking and cyber-security, he was a dispatcher for local state troopers. And his time in law enforcement is what compelled him to become involved. Wife teases "I'm definitely a rule-follower," he says. "And my wife teases me about it all the time. "But rules and laws are very important. "And we need to uphold those things. "I feel an uneasiness right now. "Election officials have so much coming at them. "So I'm really hoping I can help." | "इस साल की शुरुआत में, मैंने एक सम्मेलन में भाग लिया और यह जानकर हैरान रह गया कि आप वास्तव में ईबे पर वोटिंग मशीन खरीद सकते हैं। इसलिए मैंने एक, दो महीने पहले खरीदा था, और इसे खोलने और चिप्स को देखने में सक्षम रहा हूं।" |
uk-wales-44615864 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-44615864 | 'MDMA gave me anxiety, depression and panic attacks' | When she went to raves with her friends Laura - not her real name - used to take Ecstasy to give her a buzz. But it got to the point where she started to take drugs most weekends even if she was just going over to a mate's house or to a barbecue or house party. Here, the 20-year-old Cardiff student explains about the lasting impact using MDMA has had on her life and mental health. | In college, I think it was quite a common thing. We all used to go to raves, and used to take pills or MDMA powder or different varying substances depending on the evening. It depended on events but we could take it every other week, it could be once a month, but it got to a point where it got to be every other week or every week. For maybe two to three years it was a very frequent occurrence, it was what we used to do most weekends or when we were going to see our friends or if we were just going to a house party or to a barbecue. It's really accessible. I think, without realising it, you will know more people that do take drugs, than not, and especially around the ages between 16 and the early twenties. Especially when you are underage, people can't always get alcohol as easy as they would be able to get drugs. Then, when people go to university, it's deemed as a cool thing for people to go out and try these new kinds of things - it's quite common and easy to get hold of. I personally haven't had one time where I took something and it sent me to hospital, but over months and years, I noticed a massive depletion in my serotonin levels and I became depressed. It wasn't for the first six months to a year that I really started to notice the effects. People know you do get a "come down" after taking it and I thought "it's OK, I'll just feel rubbish for a couple of days". But then, when the "rubbish days" start to become normal, then you notice that there's something wrong. Only after looking into that and getting help through mental health services and the NHS did I realise that it was the MDMA and the drugs that I was taking that had such a knock-on effect. Before I started taking drugs, I did not suffer with anxiety and I never would have called myself somebody who was easily susceptible to depression, but I've got really bad anxiety now, I've had panic attacks. MDMA is a party drug, so if you're going out to a rave or if you're on a night out, then it'll give you a little boost. It gives a sense of pleasure, although it is artificial pleasure - that's how you get into the cycle. You can't be short-sighted with it because, while in the short-run, yes, you do have a brilliant time and I have had memories that are amazing - but the long-lasting knock-on effects are not worth it. I will suffer with anxiety for the rest of my life now, I will be a lot more susceptible to depression and mental illnesses. I can only speak for myself, but a lot of my friends also suffer from different mental illnesses. As much as you'd like to trust the person [who gives you the drug], you can't. Even though I had a close relationship with my dealer, and I thought that he tried the substances before me, but that doesn't mean he did. I know an instance where one of my friends bought something off someone thinking they knew what it was, and it turned out to be a fake heroin substitute. He was hallucinating and got in lots of trouble and we were really worried because we had to go to hospital - and all because he thought he'd taken an MDMA pill and it wasn't at all. Recently that a girl I know, she took what she thought was MDMA powder and it was only the smallest amount and straight away she passed out. I think that was something to do with its high purity levels but she's still not sure. Thank goodness she was with her friends who were there to look after her but if she was in a club or something, you don't know what could have happened. I think the thing to remember is it [the high from these drugs] is an artificial pleasure. The pleasure it brings won't equate to real happiness you might have. I think it's really important to remember that, although it might make you feel this pleasure for a short amount of time, it won't bring you the happiness you need in the long-run. | जब वह अपने दोस्तों के साथ रैव करने जाती थी तो लौरा-उसका असली नाम नहीं-उसे एक चर्चा देने के लिए एक्स्टसी लेती थी। लेकिन यह उस बिंदु पर पहुंच गया जहां वह ज्यादातर सप्ताहांत में ड्रग्स लेना शुरू कर देती थी, भले ही वह सिर्फ किसी साथी के घर या बारबेक्यू या हाउस पार्टी में जा रही हो। यहाँ, 20 वर्षीय कार्डिफ छात्रा बताती है कि एम. डी. एम. ए. के उपयोग से उसके जीवन और मानसिक स्वास्थ्य पर स्थायी प्रभाव पड़ा है। |
world-latin-america-23333368 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-23333368 | City of God, 10 years on | Ten years after a Rio de Janeiro slum called Cidade de Deus (City of God) burst into the world's consciousness with the hit film of the same name, very little has changed for the residents and the actors have enjoyed mixed fortunes, writes Donna Bowater. | By Donna BowaterRio de Janeiro In one of the ubiquitous street-side bars in the west of Rio de Janeiro, Leandro Firmino sits sipping water dressed in the shirt of his beloved Flamengo football team. In Cidade de Deus, the community where he grew up, he knows almost all who pass by and gives them a thumbs up or a wave. He could be any of the million who live in the city's favelas. But his famously haunting eyes are unmistakeable. A decade after playing the terrifying drug lord Li'l Ze in the unexpected box-office success, City of God, he shows few other signs of the fame he achieved back then. Sprawling poverty The film, which begins in the 1960s and ends in the early 1980s, follows the lives of Li'l Ze and Rocket, a young photographer who chronicles the decline of Cidade de Deus, against a backdrop of drugs, criminal rivalry and wanton violence. Now home to around 40,000 people, the community was originally built for families relocated to the outskirts by Rio's authorities to rid the city centre of its favelas. However, it became notorious for its gangsters, criminals and dangerous streets. In one of the most memorable scenes, Li'l Ze orders a boy to choose another boy to shoot dead. Felipe Silva, one of the children in the scene, recalls: "I was scared to death of Leandro Firmino. They kind of made me fear him so I could cry in that scene." Firmino, now 35 and father to a 21-month-old boy, was recruited directly from the favelas to make the film, an adaptation of Paulo Lins's novel. "It's gone pretty fast," says Firmino. "I'm surprised people remember it. It's very much alive, even among children of 11 or 12." High-profile visit Like many of the cast, Firmino enjoyed a high profile in the wake of the film's success, which included four Oscar nominations. He has worked with film group Nos do Cinema (We in Cinema) and acted in several Brazilian films. In 2011, Firmino was invited to the reception for US President Barack Obama when he visited Brazil. "I didn't go. I had another engagement," he says. "Barack Obama's visit to Cidade de Deus was a political thing." But while continuing to act and work in film, Firmino's life remains unaffected by one of the most enduring works of cinema to emerge from Brazil in recent years. "Do I feel like a celebrity? No. I think it's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous word. Art is about being close to people, celebrity is about being distant," he explains. "I grew up here in Cidade de Deus. I really like it here. And God willing, I will continue to work in cinema." He mentions that others also found success following the film, many of whom feature in the forthcoming documentary, City of God: 10 Years Later. Love interest Alice Braga, who played Rocket's love interest Angelica, went on to star opposite Will Smith in I Am Legend and credited City of God with launching her career. "I think that beach scene, especially the one with the kiss, really helped my career because the frame of that kiss stuck in many people's minds," she tells the documentary. "I got an agent abroad. I met many people thanks to that kiss and the picture it became." And Seu Jorge, who played Li'l Ze's arch rival Knockout Ned, continues to be one of the best known musicians in Brazil, performing at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. Firmino says others have been less fortunate, mentioning Jefechander Suplino, who played Clipper, one of the impoverished thieves in the film's "Tender Trio". He could not be traced by the producers of the documentary and is feared dead. His mother insists her son is still alive and told researchers: "He's not dead, I'm sure of that." Rubens Sabino da Silva, who played Blackie, was arrested for trying to rob a woman on a bus in 2003. He appealed for help from the film's director, claiming he received no money for his part. While the cast had mixed fortunes, the film has become a steadfast cultural reference for Brazil's social problems, crime and violence. After the film was released, original novelist Paulo Lins says he feared the reaction of such a brutal depiction of Rio de Janeiro. "I was a little scared about the repercussions of the launch [of the film]." "It was the time of the presidential election in Brazil. Violence was the most discussed topic of the campaigns and the media talked every day about the movie. Everyone was looking for me to do interviews. I never thought I'd be so exposed in the press. "The launch was a show of glamour, there was a lot of talk from politicians on criminality, but so far nothing has been done to effectively stop children getting into the world of violent delinquency." Vibrant culture But for Firmino, who returned to life in Cidade de Deus after the film, there was little in the way of public response. "It was normal," he says. "I lived here. Cidade de Deus has the difficulties of the favela but it always had a kind of culture. "When I launched the film and became a public persona, it was cool, but it wasn't a big novelty because we had already seen others - musicians, some who no longer live here, and some who still live here. "For example, if you talk about funk in Rio de Janeiro, you talk about Cidade de Deus. It was normal. It just raised morale here among people that I had produced this piece of work." The reaction of the community to the new documentary is perhaps more telling. Cavi Borges, executive producer, says: "There are many people in City of God who don't like the film because of the violence. When they heard we were doing a documentary, they were like: 'Oh no, not again.' "But ours is a different form. It's a reference for Brazilian cinema; everything is City of God, City of God, City of God. It's good and bad. In 2009, Cidade de Deus became the second favela in Rio to be "pacified" as part of a government programme to improve safety and security by increasing the police presence in poorer communities. Police officers moved into the favela and installed a special unit to try and drive out drug traffickers. The murder rate fell from 36 in 2008 to five in 2012. Mr Borges says he wants to change people's perception of the area. "It's what people think Brazil is like in reality. Everyone wants to see the communities. It's like Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire," which is set in the Indian city of Mumbai. "My dream is to bring this documentary to all the countries that saw the original film." | डोना बोवाटर लिखते हैं कि रियो डी जनेरियो की झुग्गी बस्ती सिडाडे डी ड्यूस (भगवान का शहर) के इसी नाम की हिट फिल्म के साथ दुनिया की चेतना में आने के दस साल बाद, निवासियों के लिए बहुत कम बदलाव आया है और अभिनेताओं ने मिश्रित भाग्य का आनंद लिया है। |
uk-england-leeds-44827307 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-44827307 | Yorkshire Regiment soldier killed 'by gunshot wound' | A soldier who died in Estonia was killed by a "gunshot wound, believed to be self-inflicted", a coroner said. | Pte Reece Miller, 29, died on 3 July while serving with the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment. Oxfordshire Coroner's Office said the circumstances surrounding his death were still being investigated and an inquest will take place in December. The Ministry of Defence said Pte Miller was from Huddersfield and had served in the regiment since 2009. Read more stories from across Yorkshire His commanding officer said he was "the very epitome of the formidable Yorkshire soldier and just the sort of bloke you want in your regiment". Pte Miller's body was flown into RAF Brize Norton airbase in Oxfordshire last week. | एक मृत्यु समीक्षक ने कहा कि एस्टोनिया में मरने वाले एक सैनिक की "गोली के घाव से मौत हो गई, माना जाता है कि वह खुद को मारा गया था।" |
world-europe-guernsey-18248912 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-18248912 | Guernsey renewable energy projects 'on right path' | Guernsey's on the right path towards making use of its natural resources to generate electricity, according to a team from Exeter University. | Twenty-four undergraduates were in the island for 10 days to study the potential for renewable energy. Their initial findings were of "a vast wind, wave and tide resource" and "good potential for financial returns". It is one of several projects the Commerce and Employment Department is involved in with three UK universities. Mat Desforges, lead officer for the department's renewable energy team, said: "It's been a great independent check and confirmation we're going in the right direction." A public presentation of the results of the study is due to be held in June. | एक्सेटर विश्वविद्यालय की एक टीम के अनुसार, ग्वेर्नसे बिजली पैदा करने के लिए अपने प्राकृतिक संसाधनों का उपयोग करने की दिशा में सही रास्ते पर है। |
uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-50167860 | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-50167860 | Two arrests after people jump out of lorry near Luton Airport | Two people have been arrested after people were seen jumping from a lorry close to Luton Airport. | It happened on Kimpton Road in the town at about 10:30 BST. Bedfordshire Police did not say how many people were believed to be in the lorry but said two people had been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences. The driver was not detained. It comes a day after the bodies of 39 Chinese people were found in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Essex. | ल्यूटन हवाई अड्डे के पास लोगों को एक लॉरी से कूदते हुए देखे जाने के बाद दो लोगों को गिरफ्तार किया गया है। |
uk-england-humber-13403864 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-13403864 | Thousands join Jane Tomlinson Hull 10k race | Thousands of people have taken part in a 10k road race set up in memory of charity fundraiser Jane Tomlinson. | It is the the second year Hull has hosted the Run For All Event, which got under way at 0900 BST. Mrs Tomlinson, of Rothwell, Leeds, died in September 2007 after having cancer for seven years. She raised £1.85m for children's and cancer charities. The family set up a number of 10k races to mark her fundraising legacy. | चैरिटी फंडरेजर जेन टॉमलिंसन की याद में स्थापित 10k रोड रेस में हजारों लोगों ने भाग लिया है। |
uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-46694253 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-46694253 | Prakash Kaur named as Coventry woman killed in crash | The family of a woman who was killed after being hit by a car say she was "loved and well-known". | Prakash Kaur, 64, was struck by a blue Subaru car in Foleshill Road, Coventry, on 14 December at about 16:00 GMT. West Midlands Police said she suffered very serious injuries and was pronounced dead shortly afterwards. "She gave her time in abundance to help others, she will be a huge loss to the community and her family," relatives said in tribute. A 49-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and released under investigation. | कार की चपेट में आने से मारे गए एक महिला के परिवार का कहना है कि वह "प्रिय और प्रसिद्ध" थी। |
technology-35356147 | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35356147 | Zano: The rise and fall of Kickstarter's mini-drone | When Europe's biggest Kickstarter project, the Zano mini-drone, crashed to earth last November there was plenty of blame to go round. But many of the 12,000 backers - who had put in £2.3m and ended up with nothing - had angry words for the crowdfunding platform. | Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter Kickstarter responded in a creative way - by commissioning an investigative journalist to find out what went wrong. Now his report has been published. Mark Harris, a technology writer based in Seattle, travelled to South Wales, spent six weeks speaking to as many people as he could reach and produced an epic account of the history of the Zano. In more than 13,000 words he describes the origins of the Torquing Group, a business that was essentially the personal mission of self-taught engineer Ivan Reedman to build a marketable drone; how clever - though misleading - marketing turned the Zano into a Kickstarter sensation, galloping past its original funding target; and then the disaster which unfolded as Reedman and his colleagues discovered they just did not have the skills or the experience to mass produce the mini-drone. It is the backers for whom this work was designed and many of them will be hoping for a smoking gun to reinforce their belief that the whole project was just a scam to get them to part with their money. They will be disappointed. Mr Harris concludes that this was case of foul-up, not foul play. "Torquing's directors managed their business poorly and spent the Kickstarter money too freely, but I've found no evidence that any of them ended up rich on the backs of the crowd," concluded Harris. He does raise serious questions about the video which excited so much interest in the project. Reedman denies that CGI, other drones or even selfie sticks were used to create a misleading picture of what the Zano could do but admits that the video shows features that were not operational at the time it was shot. In fact, as I found when I came to shoot a demo of the project last August, the Zano never delivered what was promised in the video. But it was not only potential backers who swallowed exaggerations in the marketing campaign. Kickstarter chose Zano as a "staff pick" and the tech news site Engadget shortlisted it for its best of CES 2015 award, even though the Torquing team could not demonstrate the drone flying at the show. As late as October, Popular Science chose it as one of its 100 most amazing innovations of 2015. The writer does not accuse the Torquing team of dishonesty but says that as production problems mounted and the money began to run out they showed "a dangerous lack of self-awareness of the problems the company was making for itself". Harris has only managed to speak on the record to Reedman, but he concludes that neither he nor the other members of the team "possessed the technical or commercial competencies necessary to deliver the Zano as specified in the original campaign". But the most significant lessons to be drawn from his account are for Kickstarter. The crowdfunding platform, which paid for his work, was allowed to look at the finished article before publication but not to change anything. He says all crowdfunding platforms need to reconsider the way they deal with projects involving complex hardware, massive overfunding, or large sums of money. He wants them to look at bringing in mentors to advise projects like Zano which suddenly find themselves taking on far more than they had planned. He also wants Kickstarter to be far more explicit about the nature of the risk backers are taking - and more active in weeding out weak projects before they are funded. Harris interviewed Kickstarter's co-founder Yancey Strickler and though he appears to find a few of the suggestions helpful, he is robust in rejecting most of the criticisms. He says that while the platform does have rules about realistic videos showing a genuine prototype, they are hard to enforce. Tightening up the rules can only go so far, he argues, and it is essential for backers to understand that it is up to them to evaluate a project. "If you want 100% success with hardware and new products, I think the only solution is that you just shop on Amazon," he adds. And in the end, Harris seems to agree. If we want an alternative to banks and venture capital as a funding source for high-risk tech start-ups, he says, we may have to accept the occasional Zano alongside the Pebbles and Oculus Rifts. Now, some of the thousands of people who lost money backing this doomed project will look cynically at a piece of journalism funded by the very organisation they see as partly responsible for their losses. But what Harris - and Kickstarter - have produced is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the risky nature of any technology hardware start-up. | जब यूरोप की सबसे बड़ी किकस्टार्टर परियोजना, ज़ानो मिनी-ड्रोन, पिछले नवंबर में पृथ्वी पर दुर्घटनाग्रस्त हो गई, तो चारों ओर जाने के लिए बहुत सारे दोष थे। लेकिन 12,000 समर्थकों में से कई-जिन्होंने 23 लाख पाउंड लगाए थे और कुछ भी नहीं था-ने क्राउडफंडिंग प्लेटफॉर्म के लिए गुस्से में शब्द कहे थे। |
uk-england-kent-53642310 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-53642310 | Margate man charged over seaside town murder | A man has been charged with murder after a body was discovered at a property in Margate. | Kent Police said a 47-year-old man was found dead at a property in Dane Road on 28 July. His identity has yet to be released by police. Jonathan Cottrell, 34, of Athelstan Road, Margate, is accused of murder. Mr Cottrell was remanded in custody by Medway magistrates on Monday and is due to appear before Maidstone Crown Court on Wednesday. | मार्गेट में एक संपत्ति में एक शव मिलने के बाद एक व्यक्ति पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है। |
uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-30728272 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-30728272 | Stoke-on-Trent hospital: Major incident status dropped | A Staffordshire hospital has dropped its major incident status. | The University Hospitals of North Midlands Trust (UHNM), which runs The Royal Stoke University Hospital, had raised its incident level on Monday due to "unprecedented" demand. It declared it had "de-escalated" the incident on Thursday. However, the trust advised patients with minor injuries to use "appropriate alternatives" while the health system stabilised. It blamed a national increase in demand for hospital beds on a higher-than-expected number of elderly and vulnerable patients suffering from influenza and norovirus. At the height of the major incident, paramedics told the BBC the Royal Stoke's A&E department had temporarily closed its doors, although the trust could not confirm this. But the trust, which also runs the former Stafford Hospital, was forced to cancel some operations due to the increased pressure on services. Stuart Poyner, chief executive of Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Partnership NHS Trust, apologised to patients who had appointments postponed. "The decision to suspend some of our services was not taken lightly," he said. Last week, UHNM recorded the worst A&E figures in England, with just 61.3% of patients seen within four hours, compared with a national target of 95%. | स्टैफोर्डशायर अस्पताल ने अपनी प्रमुख घटना की स्थिति को छोड़ दिया है। |
uk-19224757 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19224757 | Olympics: Men's 50km walk draws crowds | As the 2012 Olympic Games nears an end, there is a palpable sense that London's time at the centre of the sporting world is almost over. Perhaps with this in mind, thousands of people turned out to watch the 50km race walk, one of the remaining events that are free to watch. | By Alexis AkwagyiramBBC News Applause, whoops of delight and frenetic banging of hoardings rippled through the crowd as athletes glided past on the 2km course that looped around The Mall and Constitution Hill 25 times. Men, women and children pressed up against barriers waving and cheering as the athletes walked by. For the uninitiated, commentators peppered their observations with regular reminders of the rules. The grimacing competitors, eyes fixed in concentration and sweat dripping down their faces, were walking incredibly fast, hips sashaying and arms pumping like pistons. And, while the melange of flags, languages and accents was - for the most part - mixed, there were some particularly vocal national blocks. Ireland's Robert Heffernan, who eventually finished fourth in a national record of 3hrs 37mins 54secs, had particularly strong support from those who draped his nation's flag over their shoulders and others clad in green T-shirts and wigs. Katie Roberts, 42, from Marlow, near London, watched with her husband and two young sons. Her husband has a ticket to watch the US and Spain contest the men's basketball final but it was her only opportunity to see Olympic athletes in action. "I definitely wouldn't usually watch this but I'm glad that I saw something. It's been a good opportunity to experience the Olympics in London - it's a once in a lifetime opportunity," she said. She wasn't alone in highlighting the ability to watch for free as a factor. Others expressed a desire to soak up the Olympics atmosphere before it is all over. For some, it was an opportunity to watch disciplined athletes in peak condition, amidst the grand backdrop of Buckingham Palace. Carlos Flores, a 28-year-old from Mexico, added the race walk to his memories of watching diving, football, beach volleyball and sailing. The accountant, who also travelled to Athens and Beijing when they hosted the Games, said he found London to be a "beautiful city with beautiful, friendly people" during his two-week visit. In stark contrast to the veteran spectator of three Games, Nick Forbes showed what the Olympics could offer without a penny being spent. The home maintenance consultant from Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, added the race walk to triathlon swimming, 10km swim and a cycling event to his tally of free sporting spectacles. "I've really enjoyed the free events. I've had a fantastic time for nothing," he said. He explained that he had been given an insight into sports he did not follow before. 'Big party' "I'm amazed at how they can walk at that speed," said Mr Forbes, as a pack of walkers passed by, before adding: "I'd definitely watch this again. It's been very entertaining." He pointed out that he has also made the 90 minute-long journey from his home to enjoy an array of free cultural events at London's South Bank. Two other people who had enjoyed the Games for free, albeit in a very different way, shared their final reflections. Two volunteers - Elizabeth Wilson and Gilliane Carlsson - agreed that they had been through "the most unbelievable experience". The pair, who met volunteering around Green Park, said they intended to remain firm friends. For Ms Carlsson, a restaurateur, it was a chance to reconnect with the "special city" she lived in before moving to Mallorca seven years ago. She nodded enthusiastically as her fellow volunteer summed up her views, between bursts of cheering from the nearby crowd. "People from around the world have been coming to London because they want to be part of the atmosphere," said Ms Wilson or Liz, as she likes to be called. "We've had so much fun and it's given us the chance to help everyone else have fun. It's just a big party." | जैसे-जैसे 2012 के ओलंपिक खेल समाप्त होने वाले हैं, एक स्पष्ट भावना है कि खेल जगत के केंद्र में लंदन का समय लगभग समाप्त हो गया है। शायद इसी बात को ध्यान में रखते हुए, हजारों लोग 50 किलोमीटर की रेस वॉक देखने के लिए बाहर निकले, जो बाकी प्रतियोगिताओं में से एक है जिसे देखने के लिए स्वतंत्र हैं। |
uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-20733270 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-20733270 | 'Jobs being lost' over Super Puma grounding | An increasing number of offshore workers are being laid off as a result of the ongoing disruption caused by the grounding of some Super Puma helicopters, it has been claimed. | EC 225 models have been out of service since one ditched off Shetland in October. It could be February at the earliest before they return to the air. The RMT union said it had evidence that workers were being made redundant because of ongoing logistical problems. Industry body Oil and Gas UK said it was making inquiries to find out to what extent the situation was affecting people. All 19 people on board were rescued safely after the Super Puma put down in the sea in October. | यह दावा किया गया है कि कुछ सुपर प्यूमा हेलीकॉप्टरों के ग्राउंडिंग के कारण चल रहे व्यवधान के परिणामस्वरूप अपतटीय श्रमिकों की बढ़ती संख्या को हटा दिया जा रहा है। |
technology-39198508 | https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39198508 | My journey from fleeing Iran to making the internet safer | Niloofar Howe is a rare woman working in internet security. | By Clare SpencerBBC News Her path to being the chief strategy officer of internet security firm RSA started when she travelled on her own to the US at 11-years-old. Ms Howe remembers vividly arriving at San Francisco airport on her own. "A tall, lanky, moustached immigration agent spends what feels like an eternity questioning me. I know the stakes are high. I know my family's future depends on me passing this interview" she explained at a Tedx event. Her family had fled Iran shortly before the 1979 revolution. They went to the UK and a few months later put her on a flight to the US as they "calculated that an 11-year-old girl on her own will not be turned away by immigration," she said. Their calculation paid off. The customs officer stamped her Iranian passport and she started her new life. The first thing she had to do was adapt to California - a place she described as "where all-you-can eat buffets and free-thinking rebellion are the norm". She found her safe space in coding. "I was happy in the computer room," she told the BBC. "I was an immigrant, trying to fit in a girls' school and the computer room was a safe place to be." Sidetracked by Spielberg But at 17-years-old she took an entirely different direction. She "fudged" a few details on her CV and applied for a job as a casting assistant for Steven Spielberg. "My 1968 birthday changed to 1966 so I could work legally full-time in that job," she explained. "I remember trying to stay as close to the truth as possible." Ms Howe was in her senior year at school, but was also doing a course at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) so just didn't mention the bit about school. She had also been an assistant director in theatre productions and gave that a prominent showing in her CV. She got the job and for around eight months she moonlighted between casting for a TV show and her senior year at high school. The UCLA course gave her more freedom than in normal high school and when she needed to take an exam she told her boss that she had a doctor's appointment. It would be decades before she returned to the world of coding. In that time she went from being an entertainment lawyer to business consultant to angel investor to venture capitalist. Ms Howe was meeting with the cyber security company Endgame to talk about investing in them when she was offered a job by the chief executive. "He said 'raising money is not going to be a problem. What I need is a business partner'." She took the job of chief strategic officer and eventually moved to a bigger cyber security company RSA. She described the path back to the computer room as "circular" and said she had been "distracted" by "bright shiny things" in the entertainment industry. But Ms Howe said she was not alone, as a female, in her interest in technology not turning into a career at first. Over the nine years of investing in tech, she said she had only met a "handful" of female company founders. Protective urge But Ms Howe urged women to consider working in internet security specifically. She said making the internet safe was a "mission" that "appeals to women". "Solving a problem that makes the world safer, makes our personal lives safer and makes our children online safer," is how she put it. Internet security companies are struggling to fill vacancies and she said the demand for workers was only going to become bigger. The 13-year-old in the computer room now needs many more protections than when she was a teenager. | निलोफर होवे इंटरनेट सुरक्षा में काम करने वाली एक दुर्लभ महिला हैं। |
uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-39816896 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-39816896 | Scottish Green Party and SNP get first councillors in Orkney and Shetland | Orkney has elected its first ever Scottish Greens councillor, while the SNP has gained its first representative in Shetland. | Steve Sankey was elected in the East Mainland, South Ronaldsay and Burray ward of Orkney Islands Council. Party co-leader Patrick Harvie tweeted that he was "delighted" with the first Green gain in the elections, and the party's first Orkney councillor. Robbie McGregor won the uncontested Shetland South seat for the SNP. He is the first councillor to represent the party on Shetland Islands Council. The Greens said Mr Sankey was the first member of a mainstream national party to be elected to Orkney Islands Council, where candidates have traditionally stood as independents. Both Orkney and Shetland councils were independent holds. | ऑर्कनी ने अपना पहला स्कॉटिश ग्रीन्स पार्षद चुना है, जबकि एसएनपी ने शेटलैंड में अपना पहला प्रतिनिधि प्राप्त किया है। |
blogs-magazine-monitor-27520374 | https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27520374 | Who, What, Why: How dangerous is bullfighting? | The prestigious San Isidro bullfight has been suspended after three matadors were gored in one day. This is actually rarer than the uninitiated might expect - it's the first suspension for 35 years. So how dangerous is bullfighting, asks Tom de Castella. | Who, What, WhyThe Magazine answers the questions behind the news Bullfighting is a "supremely dangerous art", says Garry Marvin, professor of human-animal studies at Roehampton University. "If a normal person got into the ring with a fighting bull, I'd expect them to be severely gored or dead in a few moments." Matadors are highly skilled, however, and may go several seasons without injury. What do the figures say? Bullfighting in Spain is run by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport - but surprisingly no statistics on injuries are kept. Some unofficial figures do exist, however. In the 2013 season, 31 matadors received horn wounds, according to the datoros.com website. Some were minor, some life-threatening. As well as the matadors themselves, 16 of their assistants were injured - the assistants usually include "picadors" on horseback, "banderilleros" on foot, and a sword page. These 47 injuries occurred during a total of 661 bullfights in Spain in 2013 (the ministry does count how many bullfights take place). The profession is less perilous than it was, thanks to advances in medicine. The invention of penicillin helped, and today at big bullrings specialist surgeons are on standby to operate. The last Spanish matador to die was Jose Cubero Sanchez "El Yiyo" in 1985. Alexander Fiske-Harrison, author of Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight, cites records showing that 533 professional bullfighters have been killed in Spain since 1700. However the records may be incomplete, he says, as bullfighting has only been regulated for 100 years. When matadors are hurt, the injuries can be gruesome. In October 2011, Juan Jose Padilla was blinded in one eye by a horn. He was back six months later. Worldwide, the last matador to die was Colombian Jose Eslava Caceres, who was trapped against boards at the edge of the ring in 1987, and suffered a fatal piercing of the lung. While the matador is there by choice, the bull is not. It dies every time, apart from rare occasions where both bull and matador perform exceptionally well. In these cases, the bull's life is spared. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook | प्रतिष्ठित सैन इसिड्रो बैल की लड़ाई को एक दिन में तीन मैटाडोरों के मारे जाने के बाद निलंबित कर दिया गया है। यह वास्तव में अप्रत्याशित लोगों की अपेक्षा से दुर्लभ है-यह 35 वर्षों के लिए पहला निलंबन है। तो टॉम डी कैस्टेला पूछते हैं कि बैल की लड़ाई कितनी खतरनाक है। |
world-africa-42003020 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42003020 | Zimbabwe takeover: Five things you should know | As the world waits to see what happens next after Robert Mugabe refused to resign despite pressure from the army and the ruling Zanu-PF party, we look at some of the key things you should know about the country and its current situation. | 1. The economy is in a mess Zimbabwe has gone from one economic crisis to another over the last decade. Estimates of the country's unemployment levels vary, but the country's biggest trade union claims the jobless rate was as high as 90% earlier this year. Zimbabwe has struggled with hyperinflation, which peaked in 2008 with an official rate of 231 million per cent. The country was forced to abandon its own currency at a rate of Z$35 quadrillion to US$1, adopting the use of foreign cash. Because of a continuing chronic shortage of hard money, the government issued their own version of dollars called bond notes, but they have rapidly lost their value. People with money stored electronically in banks are unable to access it, or are subject to strict limits on what they can withdraw. Because of this, crypto-currencies that are traded online have risen in popularity. Following the news of the military takeover, Bitcoin prices in Harare surged on Wednesday. Zimbabwe crisis in 10 numbers 2. Mugabe has been controversial for some time The 93-year-old leader has confounded his critics by staying in power for so long. Sometimes dismissed as a cartoon figure abroad, he was viewed in Zimbabwe, at least originally, as a revolutionary hero who fought against white minority rule, and still enjoys respect as the "father of the nation". But he and his supporters have used violence to keep a tight grip on power, using the machinery of the state to bolster his party and himself. His party says it is fighting capitalism and colonialism, but the country's economic problems have tested even his most ardent supporters. He has often said he would only step down when his "revolution" was complete, but also wants to handpick his successor - something that led to the current crisis. Robert Mugabe - Revolutionary hero or the man who wrecked Zimbabwe? 3. His unpopular wife caused his downfall Aged 93 and in visible decline, the battle to succeed him intensified in recent months. The ruling party split into two factions - one backing his wife Grace, 40 years his junior, and the other his long-time ally, Emmerson Mnangagwa. When he sacked Mr Mnangagwa, it was obvious that he was backing his wife to take power. She was deeply unpopular, partly because of her love of shopping, which led to her nickname "Gucci Grace". Mr Mnangagwa fought in the 1970s war of independence which brought Mr Mugabe to power and retains close ties with many other former comrades, who occupy senior positions across the top of all of Zimbabwe's security forces. So when he was ousted, they intervened on his behalf. Who is Grace Mugabe? 4. Any new leader may not be a big change If the ousted Mr Mnangagwa does succeed Mr Mugabe as president, he is cut from the same cloth. He has featured prominently in all of the atrocities and attacks on opposition supporters which have been carried out since Mr Mugabe came to power. However, he has hinted that he may introduce some economic reforms, and even work with the opposition in some form of transitional government. Emmerson Mnangagwa: The 'crocodile' who snapped back 5. Was it a coup or not? The military certainly intervened, however they have not replaced the president - yet. In a statement on television, the military said it had temporarily taken control to "target criminals" around the head of state, not Mr Mugabe himself, and still referred to him as "commander-in-chief". The army wants a veneer of constitutionality to be preserved, and certainly none of his former comrades wants to arrest him, or worse, as often happens to leaders when the military takes over. The army wants a political process to play out - Mr Mugabe to resign and Zanu-PF to name a new leader. And the military encouraged a public march to increase pressure on him, and show that their actions had the popular support. So far, however, he is refusing to play ball, even though the ruling Zanu-PF party has sacked him as its leader, and so parliament may have to impeach him. However, on Sunday, Mr Mugabe vowed to remain as president until the Zanu-PF congress, due in December, so it is far from clear what happens next. Do you have a question about the situation in Zimbabwe you'd like us to answer? Send your question to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk and we'll investigate a selection. You can also contact us in the following ways: | जैसा कि दुनिया यह देखने के लिए इंतजार कर रही है कि सेना और सत्तारूढ़ ज़ानू-पी. एफ. पार्टी के दबाव के बावजूद रॉबर्ट मुगाबे द्वारा इस्तीफा देने से इनकार करने के बाद आगे क्या होता है, हम कुछ प्रमुख चीजों पर गौर करते हैं जो आपको देश और इसकी वर्तमान स्थिति के बारे में पता होनी चाहिए। |
uk-england-cambridgeshire-22740142 | https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-22740142 | Cambridgeshire fire alarm response needs 999 call | Firefighters will now respond to automatic alarms in daylight hours at 21,000 properties in Cambridgeshire only after a 999 call is made. | Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue has imposed the new rule from Saturday after a survey revealed 98% of callouts in 2012-13 were unnecessary. The new response regime will operate from 09:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday. Hospitals, schools, residential care homes and flats above four storeys will be exempt from the changes. | अग्निशामक अब कैम्ब्रिजशायर में 21,000 संपत्तियों पर दिन के उजाले में स्वचालित अलार्म का जवाब केवल 999 कॉल किए जाने के बाद ही देंगे। |
world-asia-india-41331736 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41331736 | Why is a condom advert with Sunny Leone angering Indians? | A condom company has been forced to pull down an advertisement promoting their popular Manforce brand ahead of the major Hindu festival of Navratri in the western state of Gujarat after protests by some Indians. The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi explains the controversy. | Just days before the nine-day festival was to begin on Thursday, huge billboards went up in several cities in the state in which the Canadian actress of Indian origin Sunny Leone is seen advising people to "Play this Navratri, but with love [Aa Navratriye ramo, paraantu prem thi]". A former porn star who has made a successful transition to the role of leading lady in hit Bollywood movies, Ms Leone has a massive fan following in India and is the brand ambassador for Manforce, the country's biggest condom company. The advert outraged some conservative Indians who accused the contraceptive firm of "taking marketing to an all-time low". Many took to social media sites to criticise the "offending advert" and the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) even lodged a complaint with the government, calling for an immediate ban on it. "This is an irresponsible and immature attempt to boost sales by putting all our cultural values at stake," the organisation said in a petition to Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan. Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, CAIT general secretary Praveen Khandelwal said: "Navratri is a pious festival which symbolises the strength of women and linking condoms with the festival is highly objectionable." Mr Khandelwal, who's based in Delhi, spotted the billboards during his visit to the city of Surat earlier this week. "The advert doesn't mention the word condom, but it uses double entendre to encourage youths to use Manforce condoms in the name of Navratri festival. It's unethical," he said. Following complaints, police in Surat and Vadodara city (formerly Baroda) have taken down dozens of billboards, but Mr Khandelwal is demanding action against the condom manufacturer and the actress "to set an example for future offenders". And on Wednesday night, the company tweeted saying they had withdrawn the advert: Some, however, say a condom advert during the Navratri festival is perhaps not such a bad idea. Many years ago, friends and family in the Gujarati city of Ahmedabad told me about the "fun" that young people had during Navratri - the festival of nine nights. It's a time when even the most conservative parents adopt a somewhat relaxed attitude and teenagers and young unmarried men and women are allowed to stay out until late in the night, participating in the traditional garba dances held at hotels, banquet halls, parks and private farmhouses. Since the late 1990s, there have been reports that during the festival, youngsters often throw caution to the wind, indulge in unprotected sex, and two months later, there's a spike in the rate of pregnancy and many land up at clinics seeking abortions. Although many long-time residents of Gujarat insist that these reports are hugely exaggerated and maybe even a figment of overactive imaginations, the fact remains that over the years, doctors and health workers have flagged up the issue and state authorities have expressed their concerns. There have been attempts to encourage young people to practice safe sex and reports say that revellers, in many cases girls or young women, are shedding their inhibitions to buy condoms. Jaswant Patel, chairman of the Federation of Gujarat State Chemists and Druggists Associations, says over the past 10 years, he's seen the sale of condoms go up by at least 30% during the festival period. "Condoms are sold not just at chemists and general stores, they are stocked at even corner shops that sell paan (betel leaf) and most of the buyers there are teenagers and college students," Mr Patel told the BBC. But despite the increase in condom sales, Dr Ruby Mehta, a gynaecologist who's run a clinic in Ahmedabad for the past 20 years, says a spike in teenage pregnancies after the festival has continued. "Condoms are extensively available, and couples in their 20s are more responsible, but there's not much awareness among teenagers and they get carried away. So every year, the number of people who come to our clinic seeking terminations after Navratri is double compared to other times of the year," she adds. Dr Mehta laughs when I ask her if the Manforce advert is a good idea and if Ms Leone can encourage youngsters in Gujarat to practice safe sex? "Sex education is one thing, an advert is another. What we need is better sex education in schools. Teenage girls need to be made more aware and that alone will help this issue," she says. | एक कंडोम कंपनी को कुछ भारतीयों के विरोध के बाद पश्चिमी राज्य गुजरात में नवरात्रि के प्रमुख हिंदू त्योहार से पहले अपने लोकप्रिय मैनफोर्स ब्रांड का प्रचार करने वाले एक विज्ञापन को हटाने के लिए मजबूर किया गया है। दिल्ली में बीबीसी की गीता पांडे ने विवाद की व्याख्या की। |
world-us-canada-12282218 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-12282218 | Ahmed Ghailani sentence: The future of Guantanamo | The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in a civilian court has been sentenced to life in prison. The BBC's Laura Trevelyan in New York looks at how the trial of Ahmed Ghailani has complicated the Obama administration's strategy of trying Guantanamo inmates in federal courts. | Ahmed Ghailani was convicted on just one charge relating to the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in East Africa - conspiracy to damage or destroy US property with explosives. He was cleared of more than 200 others, including intent to kill. Republican Congressman Peter King, from Long Island just outside New York City, said afterwards: "This tragic verdict demonstrates the absolute insanity of the Obama administration's decision to try al-Qaeda terrorists in civilian courts." While the conviction was not the resounding one the US Department of Justice would have liked, US Attorney General Eric Holder seized on Ghailani's life imprisonment to press the case for civilian trials. "A life term imposed on a Tanzanian national for his role in the bombings of two US embassies proves the strength of American courts in trying terror cases," he said. 'Committed' But it is hard to envision when the next civilian trial of a Guantanamo detainee will be, or indeed when President Barack Obama can close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, as he promised in his first days in office. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated on Tuesday that the US is "absolutely committed" to closing the controversial facility. But how? In the weeks following the Ghailani verdict, Congress passed a law preventing military funds from being used to transfer Guantanamo inmates to the US. This makes it in practice very difficult for the Obama administration to empty the detention centre, and to move detainees and try them in civilian courts in the US. Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey, who represents a Guantanamo detainee, said it would have been much harder for Congress to pass such a law if Ghailani had been convicted on all counts. "The Ghailani verdict provided ammunition for lawmakers and groups opposed to the use of civilian courts to thwart the future use of the federal justice system," he said. Trial critics Ghailani was subject to what the government calls "enhanced interrogation" by the CIA at a secret prison, and any evidence prosecutors presented that had been obtained during that process risked being declared inadmissible in court. Indeed, US prosecutors suffered an early setback when Judge Lewis Kaplan barred a key government witness from testifying, ruling he had been named by Ghailani while "under duress". Therein lies the problem, critics of civilian trials say. They argue acts of war should not be treated as law enforcement issues. One of Ghailani's lawyers, Michael Bachrach, took the opposite view, telling the BBC the trial showed the jury was able to weigh evidence without undue influence from the politics of the case. "The fact that Mr Ghailani was able to receive a fair trial shows the system worked," he said. As a presidential candidate, Mr Obama criticised as "flawed" the military commissions the Bush administration established to try Guantanamo detainees, but he may now have to revive them. Given the barrier Congress has erected to moving detainees from Guantanamo, if the US government wants to try the inmates, for the moment the only practical option seems to be the military commissions. Indefinite detention The New York Times has reported that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen, could be one of the first to be charged and then tried. Others like Mohamedou Slahi, a Mauritanian represented by Mr Hafetz, face the prospect of indefinite detention without trial at Guantanamo. Mr Slahi was originally arrested in 2001, soon after the 9/11 attacks, and accused of involvement in a series of attempted attacks in the US around the turn of the millennium. Those charges have since been dropped, and he is now being held because of his alleged connections with al-Qaeda. Mr Slahi and others were designated "enemy combatants" by the Bush administration, but they have now been renamed "unprivileged belligerents" and remain at Guantanamo. Ghailani has learned his fate and is preparing for a life spent behind bars. The Obama administration once hoped to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, in a federal court in New York. When that might happen is anyone's guess. | नागरिक अदालत में मुकदमा चलाने वाले पहले ग्वांतानामो बे बंदी को आजीवन कारावास की सजा सुनाई गई है। न्यूयॉर्क में बीबीसी की लौरा ट्रेवेलियन ने देखा कि कैसे अहमद घैलानी के मुकदमे ने संघीय अदालतों में ग्वांतानामो कैदियों पर मुकदमा चलाने की ओबामा प्रशासन की रणनीति को जटिल बना दिया है। |
world-africa-49097080 | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49097080 | Letter from Africa: Zimbabwe descends into darkness | In our series of letters from African writers, journalist-turned-barrister Brian Hungwe says many people in Zimbabwe are struggling to cope with long power blackouts as the country's financial crisis worsens and fears of hyperinflation grow. | With both the government and families battling to pay electricity bills, many children now do their homework by candlelight. For the last month, as soon as the sun goes down at six o'clock, candles are lit so they can settle down to complete their assignments. It is only after they have gone to bed that the electricity comes on - usually at around 22:00 local time. The children then have to be woken the next morning before 05:00 if they want a warm breakfast, as that is when the blackout starts again. It could be their only hot meal of the day. It is like that in most households unless you have invested in solar power or a generator - but the latter is difficult to rely on because of severe petrol and diesel shortages and long queues at garages. Other people have resorted to wood to cope with the 18-hour daily blackouts - which can be purchased from the roadside vendors who, quick to spot a business opening, now populate the roads leading to residential areas with their bundles of logs. This means deforestation is on the rise. Mobile cash hit The electricity rationing, known as load shedding, is also crippling the economy and robbing people of sleep. I know people who are doing their ironing after 22:00, when they should be heading to their beds, or staying up late into the early hours to cook meals for their family. A charity that runs a retirement home has appealed for help as it struggles amid the blackouts. "We need to run on generators, not only to heat our water so people can bath, and enjoy hot meals - but more importantly, for people who rely on oxygen provision to keep them comfortable, and ultimately alive," BS Lion said in its appeal. More on Zimbabwe's cash crisis: Many businesses that rely on electricity have resorted to working a night shift. You now see artisans such as welders and carpenters heading out to work in the evening to make the most of the seven hours of electricity. The industrial area to the south of Harare, which the economic mayhem of recent decades has left a shadow of its former self, is still ominously quiet during the day. Last Saturday, the country's biggest mobile phone operator, Econet, shutdown for more than six hours thanks to a blackout after its own generators failed - this hit those out doing their weekly shopping as millions rely on mobile money to pay as cash is still in short supply here. Such prolonged blackouts are a big threat to production in the mining and agriculture sectors - and could bring job losses. Mining contributes a huge chunk to Zimbabwe's foreign currency earnings - something the country, which imports nearly everything, desperately needs. Farmers complain that it is hard to irrigate crops - which they need to do in this winter season when there is no rain. Unpaid bills And it is rain - or the lack of rain - that the government blames for these problems. The country has one hydropower plant - Kariba - but it is failing to supply its usual amount of electricity because of low water levels cause by drought. It is now only generating 358MW instead of its usual 1,050MW. Zimbabwe needs 1,700MW each day to meet demand. A coal-fired power plant in Hwange is also facing problems caused by its ageing and crumbling infrastructure, only three of its six units are operational. Zesa, the state power firm, which would usually have been able to buy electricity from its neighbours in such circumstances, has been unable to do so because it has failed to pay its outstanding bills - it owes $83m (£66.4m) to South Africa and Mozambique. Last month the government said it was paying $10m to South Africa's power utility, Eskom, which has its own problems meeting demands, as part of negotiations to open up supplies. Zesa also blames its cash-strapped customers for failing to pay their bills and it has proposed that mining firms pay for their electricity in US dollars. This flies in the face of government policy which last month banned the use of foreign currencies that had been legal tender for the last decade - in its bid to stabilise the economy. But the situation appears to be spiralling out of control because of a severe shortage of foreign currency, something that will only improve if exports grow. The most recent figures suggest inflation has risen sharply over the last year. In May it was 98% and by June, annual inflation stood at 176%. So, the trend is not encouraging. Solar power is definitely the country's one growth area - panels and such gadgets are mushrooming on rooftops. Yet it seems Zimbabweans will have to continue operating in the dark for some time to come. More Letters from Africa Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica | अफ्रीकी लेखकों के पत्रों की हमारी श्रृंखला में, पत्रकार से बैरिस्टर बने ब्रायन हंगवे कहते हैं कि जिम्बाब्वे में कई लोग लंबे समय तक बिजली कटौती से निपटने के लिए संघर्ष कर रहे हैं क्योंकि देश का वित्तीय संकट बिगड़ रहा है और अति मुद्रास्फीति की आशंका बढ़ रही है। |
magazine-24716407 | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24716407 | Trending: #JusticeforLiz and the rape that's shocked Kenya | A brutal gang rape of a 16-year-old girl was first reported in Kenya three weeks ago. But the online petition calling for justice has gained over a million signatures from around the world only in recent days. How did it suddenly get international attention? | By BBC TrendingWhat's popular and why The story could hardly be more horrific. A teenage girl, walking home from a funeral in western Kenya, was attacked and repeatedly raped by six men. They threw her unconscious body into a latrine. Her spine was broken, and the girl - referred to simply as Liz to protect her identity - is now in a wheelchair. Earlier this year, a similarly horrific gang rape in India sparked a worldwide frenzy in social media and brought international condemnation. Liz's case was first reported by Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper on 7 October. "This is one of many such cases that happen in rural areas and the slums," says Njeri Rugene, the journalist who broke the story. "People keep quiet about it - but it's rampant." The men who allegedly attacked Liz - three of whom she says she knows - were told to cut grass, then set free. The lack of punishment spurred a handful of journalists and activists to use social media to raise awareness of the case. The hashtags created did not get widespread traction, with #Justice4Liz getting just a couple of hundred tweets. But in recent days, an online petition set up by activist Nebila Abdulmelik started to gain international attention. Two weeks ago it had just 1,600 signatures. But by Monday, it had more than one million names from all around the world. Why the sudden spike? One reason was that Avaaz, the site hosting the petition, promoted it to all members. "I saw Nebila's tweet about it, it grabbed me and we developed it," says Avaaz campaign director Sam Barratt. The site worked with Nebila to choose the wording for the petition page, and then emailed its members, helping it stand out from about 5,000 petitions which are created each week. "With this campaign, who could not care?" says Barratt. "Not only was the attack horrendous, but the lack of justice was clear. I think people look to see parallels of change elsewhere [such as the Indian case]. There is a real power in echoes." Have you seen an interesting trend? Tweet us using #BBCtrending | केन्या में तीन सप्ताह पहले एक 16 वर्षीय लड़की के साथ क्रूर सामूहिक बलात्कार की पहली घटना सामने आई थी। लेकिन न्याय की मांग करने वाली ऑनलाइन याचिका पर हाल के दिनों में ही दुनिया भर से दस लाख से अधिक हस्ताक्षर हुए हैं। यह अचानक अंतर्राष्ट्रीय ध्यान कैसे आकर्षित किया? |
business-53442614 | https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53442614 | Top 10 tips for diversifying your workplace | How can businesses move to better represent their customers and workforces following the cultural shifts aided by the Black Lives Matter movement? Advertising boss Karen Blackett OBE - who was made race equality business champion by former Prime Minister Theresa May - has a series of tips for bosses seeking to tackle racism and to diversify their firms. Ms Blackett is the UK manager of advertising giant WPP and UK CEO of media investment firm GroupM. | 1. Watch out for microaggressions I think it's people just not even realising what they're saying. [People have said to me:] "With your skin tone you can get away with that colour." Or, a comment about the size of your lips: "She could take shares out in those." It's like a mosquito bite. It's annoying and itches, but you can live with it. If you have another, and then another, and another, all on the same arm, by the end of the day you've got an arm that's quite painful and quite swollen. And that's what it feels like if you keep getting those tiny little putdowns day after day. 2. Look at your phone I always ask senior leaders to tell me the four people in your phone that you contact most often from a work perspective. Now look at the next four people. Look at the eight people and now start telling me what these people are like. And if they're similar to you in terms of background, in terms of social class, in terms of race, none of us are doing enough. That applies to me as well. 3. BAME is too broad a category What's really important is understanding the differences - even between African and Caribbean. Understanding the differences and what the pressure points are or the triggers are so that you can address it. And I always talk about how important data is, and that really means drilling and mining the data, not lumping it together to get an average. 4. Get past uncomfortable Unless we're comfortable talking about race and making it part of our everyday vernacular, it's going to be the elephant in the room every single time. We've all got to get comfortable talking about race. But we've got one black CEO in the FTSE 100. So it's something that you have to get comfortable with. It's something you have to talk about. 5. Treat diversity like any business issue If you had a business issue you would absolutely drill down and you would look at where you can improve and where you have targets and how you set them. You break it down and you address it and you focus on it and you have a strategy for it. And actually, more diversity is a huge solution to so many business issues that we all have, where you can source growth and have that real opportunity to leap forward. We do that with any other business metric, and this should be exactly the same. 6. Use targets and reporting If you look at gender, we have seen how the Davies report and the Hampton-Alexander report were a catalyst to organisations doing more to make sure that they had senior women on their decision-making boards. We've also seen how gender pay gap reporting has made organisations really analyse and focus on the data and focus on what proportion of our business is female. We've seen how legislation can just help businesses focus. I don't believe in overloading businesses with lots of paperwork and reporting, but when it can make a huge economic difference to the UK and for society as well, I think it's something that we should do. 7. Go further than unconscious bias training I believe that unconscious bias training is hygiene. It's hygiene, which any responsible company should do. But does it make a fundamental difference to your culture? I don't believe it does. I genuinely believe in much more active interventions. And that involves the boardrooms of all of our organisations and all of our companies across the UK. 8. Don't just level the recruitment playing field You need to really focus on your people practices and your interview systems. Because if you level the playing field, you still might not allow somebody to get through the door. It's actually considering that somebody with a 2:2 degree from a university in a really deprived area, which is where they were brought up, could be the equivalent of a First from a Russell Group university (group of 24 leading universities). 9. Look beyond universities We had the first government-backed apprenticeship programme in our industry sector, whereby we looked to people aged 18-24 that haven't been to university. We specifically looked at recruiting from areas where the schools had above-average exam results, but also an above-average reliance on subsidised school meals. So you had talent, but not necessarily matched with opportunity. We started that in 2012 at MediaCom (she was UK CEO from 2011-16) and it's been one of the most successful things that we have done to bring diversity of thought and diverse talent into the organisation - not just in terms of more talent from ethnic minority backgrounds, but also social class as well. 10. 'Blind' CVs are only a start If [using anonymised CVs] helps with the sifting and getting people through the door because there's some sort of bias which is happening at the recruitment stage, I understand that. But at some point you have to meet the person, even in the remote working world which we're in now - whether it's through a laptop screen or whether it's face to face. Unless you've absolutely, fundamentally looked at your recruitment system - and that system can sometimes perpetuate inequality - then it doesn't make a bit of difference. Karen Blackett was speaking to Evan Davis for The Bottom Line on BBC Radio 4 | ब्लैक लाइव्स मैटर आंदोलन द्वारा सहायता प्राप्त सांस्कृतिक बदलावों के बाद व्यवसाय अपने ग्राहकों और कार्यबल का बेहतर प्रतिनिधित्व करने के लिए कैसे आगे बढ़ सकते हैं? विज्ञापन प्रमुख करेन ब्लैकेट ओ. बी. ई.-जिन्हें पूर्व प्रधान मंत्री थेरेसा मे द्वारा नस्ल समानता व्यवसाय चैंपियन बनाया गया था-के पास नस्लवाद से निपटने और अपनी फर्मों में विविधता लाने के लिए मालिकों के लिए कई सुझाव हैं। सुश्री ब्लैकेट विज्ञापन दिग्गज डब्ल्यू. पी. पी. की यू. के. प्रबंधक और मीडिया निवेश फर्म ग्रुप. एम. की यू. के. सी. ई. ओ. हैं। |