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uk-wales-56321577

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-56321577

Weather alert issued for gale force winds in Wales

Winds could reach gale force in Wales with stormy weather set to hit the whole of the country this week.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for wind covering Wales and England, starting from 21:00 GMT on Wednesday evening. Travel and power are both likely to be disrupted, with the warning to remain in place until 15:00 on Thursday. Gusts of 55mph (88kmh) are likely and could hit up to 70mph on coasts and hills, with heavy and blustery showers.

इस सप्ताह पूरे देश में तूफानी मौसम के साथ वेल्स में हवाएं तूफानी ताकत तक पहुंच सकती हैं।

uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11069985

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11069985

Huge tidal turbine installed at Orkney test site

The massive tidal turbine AK1000 has been installed in 35m (114.8ft) of water at a test site in Orkney.

Atlantis Resources unveiled the marine energy device at Invergordon ahead of it being shipped to Kirkwall. Trials on the device will now be run at the European Marine Energy Centre test site off Eday. The device stands 22.5m (73ft) tall, weighs 1,300 tonnes and has two sets of blades on a single unit. It could generate enough power for 1,000 homes.

ऑर्कनी में एक परीक्षण स्थल पर 35 मीटर (114.8ft) पानी में विशाल ज्वारीय टरबाइन AK1000 स्थापित किया गया है।

uk-england-leeds-45776523

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-45776523

Leeds stabbing: Man attacked outside betting shop

A man has been stabbed in broad daylight outside a betting shop in Leeds.

Police were called to the scene outside the Coral shop on Compton Road in Harehills just before 14:00 BST. The man was taken to hospital for treatment but his condition is not known. West Yorkshire Police said the area has been cordoned off and officers remain at the scene. The force has appealed for information.

लीड्स में सट्टेबाजी की दुकान के बाहर दिन के उजाले में एक व्यक्ति पर चाकू से हमला किया गया है।

world-us-canada-51010441

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51010441

Could killing of Iranian general help Trump get re-elected?

It was inevitable that the fallout from the US airstrike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani would spill into presidential politics. Everything spills into presidential politics these days, and this is without a doubt a major story.

Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter With tensions rising between the US and Iran, the long-term consequences will largely depend on the nature of Iran's response to the attack and the intensity of any conflict that follows. If the end result is a US withdrawal from Iraq, the politics of the situation could be turned on its head, with hawks doing the howling and non-interventionists celebrating. In the short term, however, there are already some possible implications both for the Democratic presidential primaries that begin in less than a month and November's general election contest. A wartime president? Traditionally, a US president facing a major foreign policy crisis benefits from at least a short-term bump in public support. The "rally around the flag" effect boosted George HW Bush's standing during the 1991 Gulf War. George W Bush saw his approval surge to record levels in the days after the September 11 attacks and subsequent bombing of Afghanistan. Those were massive military engagements, however. When the stakes have been lower, the tangible political benefits - at least in terms of polling - are harder to discern. Barack Obama saw no change in his approval ratings during the 2011 air war in Libya. When Donald Trump fired missiles at a Syrian air base in response to that nation's use of chemical weapons, the slight increase in his ratings appear in hindsight to be little more than statistical noise for a man whose approval has been relatively stable throughout his presidency. The first survey following the Soleimani strike suggests the public will be as sharply divided on Trump's handling of the situation as it has been on everything else this president has done. A slim plurality approve of the action, but a similar plurality also express concern that the president did not "plan carefully enough". Short of a stunning military victory or a protracted bloody fight, the end result could be simply more of the same when it comes to views on the Trump presidency. Republican support Trump could end up benefiting from this episode, however, the way he always seems to benefit from his controversial or incendiary moves - by rallying his base. In that same Huffington Post poll, 83% of Republicans said they approved of the airstrike. Meanwhile, the president's supporters have gone on the attack, treating the Soleimani strike as the latest way to "trigger" political opponents. On social media, a common Trumpian response for those expressing concerns about the consequences of the Soleimani strike is "sorry for your loss". The Babylon Bee, a conservative parody website, joked that Democrats want to fly US flags at half-mast to mourn Soleimani's death. The drama in the Middle East may also help the president by turning national attention away from his impeachment and looming Senate trial. That seemed to be on the president's mind in multiple tweets Monday morning. "To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad!" he wrote. Democratic doves On the Democratic side, the Soleimani strike could invigorate an anti-war movement within the party that has not seriously flexed its muscles since the height of the Iraq War. Bernie Sanders, one of the Democratic front-runners, was quick to stake out his peace candidate credentials. "I was right about Vietnam. I was right about Iraq. I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran," he wrote in a tweet that included a video about his anti-war efforts. "I apologize to no one." Tulsi Gabbard, another candidate who has vigorously opposed what she views as "regime-change wars" pursued by both parties, said the Soleimani strike was an "act of war" that violated the US constitution. Those statements stood in contrast to other Democratic candidates, who both condemned Soleimani's record of support for proxy wars against US forces in the region and criticised the wisdom of the attack. "There are serious questions about how this decision was made and whether we are prepared for the consequences," said Pete Buttigieg. Elizabeth Warren called Soleimani a "murderer". Amy Klobuchar expressed concerns for US troop safety in the region. Meanwhile, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took aim at Sanders, saying it was "outrageous" for the Vermont senator to call the strike an "assassination" (a word used by several Democratic candidates). "This is a guy who had an awful amount of American blood on his hands," Bloomberg said. "Nobody that I know of would think that we did something wrong in getting the general." A rift within the party between progressives and moderates was on display time and again when the topic turned to healthcare during the debates. If the Iran crisis gets hot, the use of military force could become an equally divisive topic. More on the 2020 race Biden's challenge The Huffpost poll on the Soleimani strike had some particularly good news for front-runner Joe Biden, with 62% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters saying they "trust" him on Iran. That's well ahead of Sanders and Warren, who 47% said they trust on the subject. Such a response isn't surprising, given Biden's long record of foreign policy experience, including eight years as vice-president and a lengthy tenure as chair of the Senate foreign relations committee. That track record isn't entirely a blessing, however, as a focus on the Middle East has once again turned attention to Biden's support for the 2003 Iraq War - and his sometimes muddled defence of it. In response to a question from a voter in Iowa on Saturday, Biden said that while he voted for the Iraq War authorisation, he opposed President Bush's handling of the conflict "from the very moment" it began. Biden had spoken in support of the war before and after it was launched, however, and only first expressed regrets about his vote starting in 2005. The more Biden twists and turns to qualify his Iraq War support, the more media outlets will point out where he is misleading or exaggerating, giving the story national attention - and the more Biden's opponents could sense a weakness they could exploit. No more oxygen As if December's impeachment fight didn't make it hard enough for back-of-the-pack Democrats to generate attention amid a flood of major breaking news, now Iran is set to compete with a Senate trial of the president for top billing. That's bad news for candidates like Cory Booker, Deval Patrick, Tom Steyer and the few other stragglers who are still in the race but languishing in the polls and below the cut-off mark to qualify for upcoming primary debates. It could also spell trouble for Klobuchar, whose surge in fundraising and Iowa polling of late could prove short-lived if voters become preoccupied with events overseas. In presidential campaign politics, it helps to be the candidate who gets hot late in the game. With the Iran crisis looming, however, it may end up already being too late. Who will take on Trump in 2020?

यह अपरिहार्य था कि ईरानी जनरल कासिम सुलेमानी को मारने वाले अमेरिकी हवाई हमले का परिणाम राष्ट्रपति की राजनीति में फैल जाएगा। इन दिनों सब कुछ राष्ट्रपति की राजनीति में फैल गया है, और यह निस्संदेह एक बड़ी कहानी है।

uk-scotland-glasgow-west-52274685

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-52274685

Coronavirus: 'I've moved out to protect my family from the virus'

Week four of social distancing is starting to take its toll.

By Debbie JacksonBBC Scotland But while most of us are giving up trips out of the house, many health workers across the country are making an even bigger sacrifice. Those who are on the front line, experiencing face-to-face contact with patients who have the virus, are putting themselves at risk every day. Some of them have made the difficult decision to stay away from their families to avoid passing on that risk. Ambulance technician Jamie Kennedy from Glasgow is one of them. Jamie, 38, moved out of his family home 11 days ago and into a hotel so that he can carry on doing his job without worrying about bringing the virus home to his wife and two children. He can also continue to do vital work if any of his family have to self-isolate. He told the BBC: "I am staying in a hotel which offered free rooms to NHS staff at the start of lockdown. The hotel is almost full of NHS staff. "It was a difficult decision but when I saw the situation getting worse and worse I had the discussion with my wife Ashley. "It was a purely personal decision, but I would never forgive myself if anything happened and if the kids got ill. I am out in the community all day and if I went in and caused them to get sick, I would never forgive myself." Tuesday's figures saw the number of patients testing positive for Covid-19 in Scotland rise to 6,358. A total of 615 people have died, including two health and care workers. 'Symptoms present in the majority' Jamie's shifts for the Scottish Ambulance Service are completely consumed by coronavirus right now. "In the majority of calls one or more symptoms are present and we have to treat it as a potential case," he said. " It could be up to nine patients in a shift. "Thankfully the morale is high and we are well looked after. My manager calls to check we are doing okay." Contact with his wife and children is limited to video calls and one socially distant trip a week to drop off groceries. Having to see them from a distance is heartbreaking. He said: "I do a big shop for them and take it over to the back garden and talk to them from the back of the garden. "It's hard. I was there the other day and my daughter, who is eight, wanted a hug and she was crying. That was difficult. "There is no end in sight right now but I'll stay away from my wife and kids as long as I need to, to keep them safe." Jamie's wife Ashley says like many families of front-line workers, they are worried. 'The right thing' She said: "The children have taken it pretty bad but understand how important their daddy's job is. "It's been hard for me to see the children so upset and Jamie upset leaving, but I've had to stay strong for him to be able to put his all into his job and strong for the kids to feel secure and safe." "It's hard not seeing him and having a wee cuddle but we know it's the right and safest thing to do. "Jamie is the most selfless man I've ever known. "We as a family who is affected by this virus cannot stress enough that everyone keeps to the stay at home guidelines. The more everyone stays home the sooner the virus will die off and the sooner we can get Jamie home." 'We just wanted to do our bit to help' Scottish hotel group Manorview is one of many hotel companies across the country keeping their doors open to NHS staff at this uncertain time. The company made the decision to stop trading on 18 March. Five days later its hotels opened up again to front-line health staff, for no cost. They've had more than 2,000 room bookings, with three venues fully booked until the start of May. Managing director David Tracey said the group was humbled to hear some of the stories of NHS workers who are trying to keep working to look after patients, while also trying to protect their own families at home. He said: "More than ever, we need to secure the health, safety and wellbeing of our NHS team. They are on the front line, helping us all, and saving lives. We are very thankful for the work they do. We are there for them and we're proud to be of service, and in a position to help. "The attitude of our team has made this negative situation more positive."

सामाजिक दूरी का चौथा सप्ताह अपना प्रभाव डालने लगा है।

uk-northern-ireland-54677426

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-54677426

Ballymoney: Man, 37, arrested in UDA investigation

A 37-year-old man has been arrested as part an ongoing investigation into criminality linked to the North Antrim Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

He was arrested on Saturday morning and is currently in custody. Detectives from the Causeway Coast and Glens Criminal Investigations Branch also searched an address in Ballymoney and a number of items were seized. Police have appealed for those with information about criminality linked to paramilitaries to contact them.

नॉर्थ एंट्रिम अल्स्टर डिफेंस एसोसिएशन (यूडीए) से जुड़ी आपराधिकता की चल रही जांच के तहत एक 37 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।

uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-11714685

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-11714685

Electric buses take to the roads in Coventry

Electric buses will soon be running on the roads in Coventry.

Coventry firm Travel de Courcey is to introduce the three buses in May next year, on its Park and Ride South route. The 38-seat buses will run between the Memorial Park in Kenilworth Road and the city centre using power points already installed by the council. A Travel de Courcey spokesman said the company had been looking to improve its vehicles, both environmentally and from a passenger perspective. The buses, Versa EV's, are provided by Optare plc of Leeds. Travel de Courcey has invested £400,000, the government's Green Bus Fund has invested £300,000 and Centro, which looks after public transport in the West Midlands, has contributed £100,000. Mike de Courcey, from the bus firm, said when it heard about the Green Bus Fund it seemed a good opportunity for the firm. "The electric buses are ideal for urban driving where the vehicle is stopping and starting," he said.

कोवेंट्री की सड़कों पर जल्द ही इलेक्ट्रिक बसें चलेंगी।

world-europe-jersey-11398895

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-11398895

Jersey States pressed on cutting number of politicians

A Jersey deputy is calling on the number of States members to be reduced more than current proposals.

St Helier Deputy, Trevor Pitman, has put forward changes to proposals by a States group to cut back the number of senators from 12 to eight. He wants the States to go further, with numbers cut to six, saying it would save more money. Plans to reform the structure of the States are under review and could be the subject of a referendum.

जर्सी के एक प्रतिनिधि राज्यों के सदस्यों की संख्या को वर्तमान प्रस्तावों से अधिक कम करने का आह्वान कर रहे हैं।

uk-england-nottinghamshire-21964260

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-21964260

Nottingham Boots confirms 200 jobs to go

About 200 posts are to go at the Boots site in Nottingham.

Managers at Alliance Boots said a fall in demand for products made for other companies meant it had to reduce capacity. Bosses said the posts will go over the next two years and added they would make efforts to redeploy staff. The division of Boots involved, BCM, currently employs 1,200 people and will now focus on own brand beauty and skincare products. Stephen Le Hane, an HR director for the company, said: "You will appreciate that many of our customers are suffering from the recession as most companies are in the UK. "The amount of demand they have for the products in BCM has gone down and as there are quite high fixed costs in manufacturing, those adjustments in their volume requirements for us can have an impact on the profitability and success of the BCM business."

नॉटिंघम में बूट्स साइट पर लगभग 200 पद जाने हैं।

uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-11309150

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-11309150

Bletchley Park studies at The University of Buckingham

A degree in military intelligence studies, highlighting the importance of Bletchley Park is to be offered by The University of Buckingham.

The course will look at intelligence history and Bletchley Park focusing on the World War II code breakers. Course director, Professor Anthony Glees said it was an opportunity to work with Bletchley's previously unresearched archives. The Master of Arts degree explores how military intelligence developed. The degree is the university's newest course run by the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. Professor Glees said: "The course will reveal fresh insights into how the war was fought, which will be totally unique for students at this level."

सैन्य खुफिया अध्ययन में एक डिग्री, जो ब्लेचली पार्क के महत्व को उजागर करती है, द यूनिवर्सिटी ऑफ बकिंघम द्वारा प्रदान की जानी है।

world-middle-east-50850319

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50850319

Moqtada al-Sadr: The firebrand cleric who could calm Iraq

When the Americans launched the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and plunged Iraq into the violent chaos that continues today, few people outside the country had even heard of a little-qualified young Shia cleric called Moqtada al-Sadr.

By Jim MuirVisiting Senior Fellow, Middle East Centre, LSE Nearly 17 turbulent years later, he is probably Iraq's best-known figure and certainly one of its most powerful - instantly recognisable from his scowly features, yet elusively enigmatic. Radical, firebrand, maverick, mercurial, quixotic - these are just some of the adjectives routinely attached to a man whose actions and positions have often seemed puzzling and contradictory. Yet they have allowed him to achieve the extraordinary feat of surviving through years of upheavals during which his followers have battled the Americans and their allies, the Iraqi army, Sunni Islamic State group extremists, and rival Shia militias. His current political manifestation, a coalition known Saeroun (loosely translatable as "On The Move"), came out top of the polls in the 2018 general election, putting Moqtada al-Sadr in pole position in the inevitable jostling to form a coalition government (nobody wins an outright majority in Iraqi elections). As well as being a leading kingmaker, Moqtada al-Sadr is also a key player behind the upheavals currently shaking the country in protest against corruption and incompetence, themes he has been pursuing for years. Long lineage If he was obscure when the US-led invasion began, it was not long before he leapt into prominence. As soon as Saddam Hussein's grip was loosened, he set about activating the networks and legacy bequeathed him by his esteemed clerical father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, in the teeming, deprived Shia quarters of Baghdad and the cities of southern Iraq. It's impossible to understand Moqtada al-Sadr's undoubted appeal to the masses without reference to his eminent family clerical background. Both his father and his father-in-law, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Sadr, were revered religious figures who cultivated strong social care networks among the Shia poor, and incurred the wrath of Saddam Hussein. Both these illustrious forebears met violent deaths. Muhammad Baqer was executed by the regime in 1980 along with his sister Amina, and Muhammad Sadeq and two of Moqtada al-Sadr's brothers were cut down in a hail of bullets in 1999 by assassins believed to be agents of Saddam Hussein. So the concepts of sacrifice, martyrdom and social service are integral elements of the legacy inherited by the young Moqtada al-Sadr, who was only 30 at the time of the invasion. He is often pictured between images of these two eminences, all three black-turbanned to denote a lineage stretching back to the family of the Prophet Muhammad. At times, Moqtada al-Sadr has donned a white shroud to signal that he too is ready for martyrdom. Powerful images for the devout Shia masses. American foe Barely had the Americans and their allies settled in than Moqtada al-Sadr shot to prominence as the loudest voice calling for their ouster. Words were followed by action, as he mobilised his followers into the Mahdi Army (a name with messianic Islamic connotations) which US commanders rapidly came to see as their biggest threat in Iraq. From 2004 onwards, the Mahdi Army clashed repeatedly with US-led coalition forces and was blamed for numerous roadside bombings and other attacks. Moqtada al-Sadr also lambasted Iraqi leaders co-operating with the Americans. His followers were deeply involved in the Shia-Sunni sectarian atrocities and general gangsterism of 2006-7. In 2008 his men fought pitched battles with Iraqi army troops sent in to tame Basra by then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Through successive phases of turmoil since then, Moqtada al-Sadr has been adept and pragmatic in both the military and political spheres. The Mahdi Army has been through several mutations, and is currently labelled the Peace Companies. Politically, the Saeroun is the latest morph produced by the broader Sadrist movement. Such shake-ups have allowed Moqtada al-Sadr to keep a grip on both spheres and prevent complacency. In the 2018 elections he forbade any of his 34 incumbent MPs from standing again and ran a successful list which, astonishing for a supposedly Shia clerical-based outfit, included communists, secularists and Sunnis. Critical of Iran His decisions have often seemed fickle and bizarre, not least when it comes to relations with outside powers. While he has been consistently against American interference in Iraq, he has often criticised Iran too, for its interference both in Iraq and in Syria. In 2017 he even visited Saudi Arabia, Iran's regional arch-rival. Yet he took refuge in Iran from 2007 until 2011, studying in the Qom seminaries to try to upgrade his clerical credentials; and in September this year, he was filmed sitting with the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the mastermind of Iran's regional influence, Gen Qasem Soleimani - images that caused a frisson through much of Iraq. For Patrick Cockburn, author of a biography of Moqtada al-Sadr, there is no real contradiction in all this. "He and his father have pursued a pretty consistent line as populist nationalist religious leaders in the context of Iraqi politics with its multiple power centres at home and abroad. This means that nobody is a permanent friend or a permanent enemy." "In Moqtada's case, political ambivalence is exacerbated because he is, at one and the same time, leader of the biggest party in parliament, while his followers are playing a central role in the protest movement. "He is part of the post-2003 Shia political establishment - though the rest of it does not like him - and simultaneously its chief opponent." As long ago as 2003, an aspiring Shia politician - the now-resigned Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi - was warned by a friend : "Watch out for Moqtada. He has the streets." That remains the case today. "If there is to be a resolution of the present crisis, then Moqtada would have to be at the heart of it," says Patrick Cockburn. Jim Muir has covered the Middle East from the region since 1975, much of the time as a BBC correspondent.

जब अमेरिकियों ने आक्रमण शुरू किया जिसने 2003 में सद्दाम हुसैन को अपदस्थ कर दिया और इराक को हिंसक अराजकता में डुबो दिया जो आज भी जारी है, तो देश के बाहर बहुत कम लोगों ने मोक्तादा अल-सदर नामक एक अल्प-योग्य युवा शिया मौलवी के बारे में सुना था।

blogs-trending-30055278

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-30055278

#BBCtrending: Rosetta physicist's 'sexist' shirt

One of the leading scientists on the Rosetta Project gave a string of TV interviews in a shirt emblazoned with half-dressed women. The angry reaction online spawned two hashtags, spoof images and has now led to a tearful apology as well.

BBC Trending What's popular and why The eyes of the world were focussed on Matt Taylor this week. The British scientist involved in the Rosetta Project - to land a spacecraft on a comet - was at the heart of media coverage of the event. And so was his shirt. On Wednesday he appeared in front of the cameras wearing a bespoke short-sleeved number, plastered in bright cartoon images of scantily-clad women. People on Twitter were not amused. "Women are toooootally welcome in our community, just ask the dude in this shirt," tweeted a female tech journalist, sarcastically. She was sent abusive tweets in response. Science is seen by many as a male dominated world, and so the shirt only reinforces the notion that women aren't accepted on equal footing, claimed his critics. "For clarity -- No, the shirt is not "cool" or acceptable in a professional setting - on an engineer, scientist, or anyone," tweeted another user. The hashtags #ShirtGate and #ShirtStorm appeared, and have been used more than 3,500 times. South African cosmologist Renée Hložek wrote a blog addressed to budding female scientists: "Yes, you are capable of being taken seriously," she wrote. Pressure mounted on Taylor to apologise, while others lightened the mood by spoofing the photo. "Fixed it," claimed one tweeter, who posted a new image showing famous female scientists photoshopped onto the shirt. That image alone has been shared more than 2,700 times on Twitter. The scientist wasn't without his sympathisers, however. "Poor Dr Matt Taylor. He landed on a comet and the only thing people seem to talk about are his tattoos and his shirt," wrote one. BBC Trending contacted Taylor for comment but has not heard back. The outcry has evidently hit him hard though. During a press briefing this morning, he broke down in tears and apologised for his choice of clothes. "The shirt I wore this week, I made a big mistake and I offended many people," he said. You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending All our stories are at bbc.com/trending

रोसेटा परियोजना के प्रमुख वैज्ञानिकों में से एक ने आधे कपड़े पहने महिलाओं के साथ एक शर्ट में टीवी साक्षात्कारों की एक श्रृंखला दी। ऑनलाइन गुस्से में प्रतिक्रिया ने दो हैशटैग, स्पूफ छवियों को जन्म दिया और अब एक अश्रुपूर्ण माफी भी मांगी है।

uk-england-berkshire-33971014

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-berkshire-33971014

Arthur Hill Baths in Reading closes for urgent repairs

A 103-year-old swimming pool has been shut for four days after an inspection revealed urgent repairs were needed.

The Arthur Hill Memorial Baths in Reading will be closed until Saturday to allow work on corroding cast iron pipework which feeds into the pool. The building was donated to the town by the Hill family in memory of Arthur Hill JP, who was mayor of the town four times between 1883 and 1887. Reading Council has spent thousands on the aging building over the years. The local authority apologised for the brief closure but said the repairs had to be done. The pool was opened on 29 November 1911.

एक 103 साल पुराने स्विमिंग पूल को चार दिनों के लिए बंद कर दिया गया है क्योंकि एक निरीक्षण से पता चला है कि तत्काल मरम्मत की आवश्यकता थी।

uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51206457

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51206457

New virtual reality experience of Scottish waters

Scotland's opportunities for sailing and boating on rivers, lochs and seas are being promoted in a new campaign.

A series of 360 degree virtual reality videos have been produced as part of #MustSeaScotland. St Kilda, Islay, Skye and Inverness Marina are among the locations featured. Sail Scotland has created the campaign with other organisations, including the National Trust for Scotland and VisitScotland. The campaign comes during Scotland's Year of Coasts and Waters 2020. All images are the copyright of Airborne Lens.

एक नए अभियान में स्कॉटलैंड के नदियों, लॉच और समुद्रों पर नौकायन और नौका विहार के अवसरों को बढ़ावा दिया जा रहा है।

science-environment-19365661

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19365661

Bloodhound diary: Supercar needs supertrack

A British team is developing a car that will capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the Bloodhound SSC (SuperSonic Car) vehicle will mount an assault on the land speed record. Wing Commander Green is writing a diary for the BBC News website about his experiences working on the Bloodhound project and the team's efforts to inspire national interest in science and engineering.

By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder I've just had a very odd experience - someone's sent me a video of myself appearing on Foreign Secretary William Hague's Facebook page. To try and explain this rather strange event, I'll start with my recent visit to the Bloodhound track in the Northern Cape of South Africa. I've just been to inspect the work on Hakskeen Pan, in the Northern Cape, where we'll be running Bloodhound SSC next year, as we test and develop the car up to our astonishing target of 1,000mph. The scale of the work required to prepare this surface is truly vast. The car will need to do a number of test runs, so our main track is 500m wide, to give us multiple lanes to run on (each time the car runs on the hard soil surface, its metal wheel cut ruts, so each lane is one-use only). The track is 12 miles (19km) long - which is just long enough to accelerate to 1,000 mph, then stop again before the desert ends. This process will only take two minutes, from setting off to coming to a halt 12 miles away. In addition to the main track of 500m, we need a 300m "safety zone" either side of the track, in case the car gets very slightly offline - because "slightly" off at 1,000mph can mean being a couple of hundred metres sideways in the time it takes to correct the steering (for the sort of things that I might need to correct while I'm driving at 1,000 mph, have a look at "How hard can it be to keep it in a straight line?"). The team preparing the track has to remove a huge quantity of stones from the surface - an estimated 6,000 tonnes. There is no mechanical way of clearing these without damaging the surface, so it all needs to be done by hand - all 21,000,000 sq m of it! That's the equivalent of clearing a two-lane road, by hand, stretching from London to Moscow. This is a task of biblical proportions and would defeat us without a huge amount of help - which is exactly what we are getting from the Northern Cape Government in South Africa. The Northern Cape is preparing the track for us, paying a team of 300 local unemployed people (moving 6,000 tonnes of stones - that's 20 tonnes each). This will leave them as the owners of the World's Best Race Track and is, in the meantime, bringing some much-needed employment to the area. This team has just finished clearing the 19km x 500m main track, so I went to see how it was looking, and to spend a bit of time working with the team and thanking them for their work (you can see some more detail on how it's looking in our latest desert update). While I was working on the desert (and finding out just how hard and tiring the work really is), I took a small break to record a short video about the preparation work. The UK High Commission in South Africa asked for a copy - and that's how I finished up on the Foreign Secretary's Facebook page. Bloodhound's long-term legacy is to excite a generation of young people, through our Education Programme, about the magic of science and technology (and if your local school hasn't already signed up to this free programme, get them to do it now!). In generating this global Engineering Adventure, of course, we'll also be promoting British engineering on a global stage. This is exactly the sort of thing that the government's "GREAT" campaign is trying to achieve. I'm proud that we will be helping to promote Great (make that GREAT) British engineering - and I'm equally proud of the stunning work that the Northern Cape is doing, as they build the world's best race track. I'm still surprised to be on William Hague's Facebook though. The engineering part of our adventure is also coming along well, and our rocket test programme is about to move into the next stage. Unfortunately, I can't give you any details (it would spoil the surprise), but watch this space - we've got a cracking event planned in the not-too-distant future. Meanwhile, the tank that will contain the rocket oxidiser (high test peroxide, or HTP for short) inside Bloodhound SSC is completing its design in preparation for manufacture. The tank will be manufactured by ABC Stainless from thin-walled stainless steel (about 2-3mm thick) and will weigh around 80kg. It's going to have to carry 950 litres of HTP, weighing 1,320 kg. HTP is almost pure hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hence it's nearly 40% heavier than water (H2O). The tank (and the rest of the car) will have to withstand 2g of acceleration and 3g of deceleration, with an absolute limit of 9g (just in case). During rocket firing, the tank will feed our pump motor (the 800 hp Cosworth F1 engine) with 950kg of HTP, which will all be pumped into the rocket (at 76 Bar/1100 psi) in 20 seconds. If those numbers don't paint a picture for you, then imagine filling your bath in three seconds - that's the flow rate we're talking about. The tank will be pressurised to 1.5 Bar (24 psi) during this process, to help supply this huge flow of HTP. To make sure that there are no leaks or weak points, the tank will be pressure tested to 1.5 times this working load, and designed to survive 2.5 times the pressure if required. There is no precedent for testing a hybrid-rocket-powered 1,000 mph car, so we've borrowed the test figures from another cutting-edge technology company - these pressures are based on Nasa protocols. Good news on the wheels as well. The design for our runway wheels (which we will need first, for the UK runway tests next year) has been released to Castle Engineering. The tyres for the runway tests were originally designed for the Lightning jet fighter, but they happen to have the tall thin shape that we need. We bought some unused tyres from the world's last Lightning operator - Thunder City in South Africa. So we've shipped UK-made tyres back from South Africa in order to test Bloodhound in the UK next year, before shipping it (still on these tyres) out to South Africa. It's a funny world sometimes. The manufacturing process for the high-speed desert wheels has also been agreed with all the companies involved. The whole wheel manufacturing process will involve some four tonnes of aluminium, which Trimet is supplying in liquid form (did you know that aluminium is shipped as a liquid? No, me neither). Otto Fuchs will then turn this large aluminium puddle into solid lumps (there are some technical terms involved like "casting" and "forging", but you get the general idea) from which we can machine the wheels. The carbon fibre monocoque work also continues, with the production of one of the cockpit moulds, which is now ready for work to begin on the cockpit lower section. It's been a long time coming - can't wait to see my "1,000mph office" finally taking shape. If you want to see how the whole process works, have a look at the latest Cisco BHTV video . With the huge success of the Olympics only just behind us, we're looking forward to creating another global British success in 2013/2014. The Olympics aimed to inspire a generation about sport, and of course to promote the team work and dedication that makes a successful athlete. Look behind the science and technology of Bloodhound, and we are promoting exactly the same things - our engineers, and the hundreds of supporting companies, are the best in the world because they work hard at it, and they are building the world's first 1,000mph car together as a world-class team. The Olympics has done its bit, so now it's our turn - and I can't think of a better time to do it.

एक ब्रिटिश टीम एक ऐसी कार विकसित कर रही है जो 1,000 मील प्रति घंटे (1,610 किमी/घंटा) तक पहुंचने में सक्षम होगी। एक यूरोफाइटर-टाइफून जेट इंजन को बोल्ट किए गए रॉकेट द्वारा संचालित, ब्लडहाउंड एसएससी (सुपरसोनिक कार) वाहन भूमि की गति के रिकॉर्ड पर हमला करेगा। विंग कमांडर ग्रीन ब्लडहाउंड परियोजना पर काम करने के अपने अनुभवों और विज्ञान और इंजीनियरिंग में राष्ट्रीय रुचि को प्रेरित करने के लिए टीम के प्रयासों के बारे में बीबीसी न्यूज वेबसाइट के लिए एक डायरी लिख रहा है।

science-environment-50017189

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50017189

Bloodhound diary: South African trials get under way

A British team is developing a car that will be capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h). Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the vehicle aims to show its potential by going progressively faster, year after year. By the end of 2019, Bloodhound wants to have demonstrated speeds above 500mph. The next step would be to break the existing world land speed record (763mph; 1,228km/h). The racing will take place on Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, South Africa.

By Andy GreenWorld Land Speed Record Holder We're off! By the time you read this, Bloodhound will already have started the 5,500-mile journey south to its Hakskeenpan desert track in South Africa. The majority of the team will arrive in mid-October, aiming to start high-speed testing towards the end of the month. There's been a huge amount of work over the past few weeks to get the car ready. It may seem strange that we've apparently left everything to the last minute but believe me, it's not by choice. Some of the key bits of hardware on the car have only recently arrived, including our Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine, once all the paperwork was in place (borrowing a state-of-the-art military jet engine is, quite rightly, a non-trivial process). The huge carbon-fibre airbrake doors were another long-lead item that arrived pretty much at the eleventh hour but, given all the work that went into them, we're very grateful to have them in time for this year's tests. With the arrival of all the bits of the car, both big and small, the team has raced to fit them all together over the past few weeks. Each bit then needs testing to make sure it will work when we unpack it 5,500 miles away in South Africa. This includes the complex jet engine systems, which have to mimic the controls of the Eurofighter-Typhoon to make the jet engine think it's at home. Our first attempt to simulate a jet engine start was unsuccessful (I would emphasise the word "simulate" - we've got a great relationship with our hosts at Berkeley Green UTC, but if we fired up a jet engine inside the college, the relationship might become a little strained). Our brilliant systems guru Joe Holdsworth quickly diagnosed that the high-speed digital comms link between the engine and the car had failed to start up correctly. The solution? The same one you and I would use - switch it off, then switch it back on again! Last week I watched the wheel hubs being assembled. These are beautiful bits of engineering, containing not just one, or even two, but three separate high-speed wheel bearings on each wheel, giving us a huge amount of redundancy (and hence safety). The wheel hubs are an "interference fit" inside the wheel bearings. In other words, they are so precisely machined that the parts grip each other tight when fitted together. In turn, this extremely tight fit requires a special assembly method. Each hub is left in the freezer overnight, which causes it to shrink very slightly. When the hub is brought out of the freezer and dropped into the bearing housing, it slides in snugly. As the hub gradually warms up to room temperature, it expands by a fraction of a millimetre and, because the clearance is so small, it locks in place inside the bearings. Hopefully we won't have to take them out again. There have also been some interesting discoveries during the car assembly. One of the less welcome ones was a broken retainer on a pin in the suspension assembly. We believe that this device was originally weakened/damaged by some of the high bump loads we had during our Newquay test session a couple of years ago. A fix is already being put in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. Bits do break on racing cars and land speed record racing is no different. Every time we run the car over the next few weeks, there will be a large range of engineering checks to look for exactly this sort of problem. It will take time, but that's fine by me; it's all part of the process of doing this as safely as possible. While we've been busy getting the car ready, the Northern Cape government has been doing some terrific work to get the desert fully race ready. Although the desert clearance was largely completed a couple of years ago, the annual rains have revealed some more bits and pieces of rock that need to be removed. In addition, as the desert gradually "rehabilitates" following the surface repairs of the past few years, and with the wear and tear of local traffic, there are some minor ridges and ruts that need to be smoothed out. Stuart Edmondson, our director of engineering operations, was on the pan a few days ago and sent a short clip of video to show us just what a great job they are doing (thank you, Northern Cape!). The other exciting image from the pan is Bloodhound's new home-from-home being assembled. The engineering workshop/hangar is being erected on the eastern side of the pan, roughly opposite the mid-point of the track. It's next to some key facilities, including the joint control room that we will run with the South Africans and (perhaps more importantly) the only toilet facilities for about 20 miles in any direction. When we arrive out in South Africa, we'll have to get the car ready to run on the desert. After taking it off its airfreight pallet, the car will need to have the 90kg metal desert wheels fitted, along with the all-important tail fin that will keep it pointy-end forwards. Once everything has been checked over, we'll be ready to start our high-speed test programme. Every single run will have a detailed schedule, known as the "run profile", with a target speed and a list of test objectives. We're planning on up to 12 run profiles, with the later runs depending on the results from the first few tests. At the moment, the test programme is looking roughly like this: Don't get too excited, though. For those of you who are already multiplying the number of 7-12 profiles by 50mph jumps, that's not what we're planning. A couple of the remaining profiles will explore the peak speed of Bloodhound, while the rest are scheduled for engineering trials, including airbrake tests at reduced speeds. For me as the driver, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I don't have to memorise this whole list. Each time we run the car, the team will agree the exact details of the profile(s) the day before we run. The bad news for me is that I will then have to memorise all the details of the agreed profile(s), so that I can reproduce them exactly when the car is screaming along at several hundred miles an hour. It's all in a day's work. Each run will have a long list of test objectives. Looking at the "simple" example of profile 1, this is just a slow-speed test of the steering and brakes. To fit all the test points in, I'm planning to break the run up into three phases, possibly more. My "supersonic office" is going to keep me busy right from day one. For the first test run, we'll start with phase 1, a static engine test, to check engine start-up procedure, check for leaks and check the onboard systems. After that, phase 2 will be the first rolling test. A gentle increase in the throttle will determine the power required to move the car away from rest, followed by a check of the steering feel and response with the desert wheels. I will also need to check that the digital back-up speedo matches the main speedo as we accelerate, and that the cockpit distance counter (used in later runs as one of the cues for chute deployment) is working and can be reset between phases. At the end of phase 2, I'll gently brake to a stop, monitor the brake pressure required and keep an eye on the brake temperatures to confirm the thermocouples appear to be working. Phase 3 of the first test run (which we may need to repeat a couple of times) will use gentle acceleration (no reheat) to accelerate to a maximum of 100 mph. After selecting the jet to idle, I'll gradually increase the brake pressures to find the maximum grip level of the metal wheels on the desert, keeping a careful eye on brake temperatures as well. There's more to add to that list, but you get the general idea. One of the key things that we are looking at during high-speed testing this year is the chute deployment sequence. Bloodhound's chutes are based on the tried-and-tested systems used for both Thrust SSC (the current record holder) and its predecessor, Thrust 2, way back in 1983. As you'd expect, we've made a couple of small changes to try to improve the system, so we need to test these. The problem with testing brake chutes is that it's almost impossible to measure what is happening during the deployment. The only way to find out is to video each and every deployment to see what happens (or doesn't happen!). To watch the chutes, we've built video cameras into the rear wheel fairings on both sides. They'll produce some really exciting shots of jet engine reheat and the desert tearing past at 500+ mph, all of which we will be posting on the Bloodhound website over the next few weeks. Their main job, though, is to capture that fraction of a second at the end of a run when the chute comes out to play, so that we can make sure it's playing nicely. Finally, when we get to South Africa, I'll get to wear the new "Bloodhound LSR" race helmet for the first time. The colour scheme is based on two winning entries for our helmet design competition, run all the way back in 2013. My personal thanks to Sam James (11 years old at the time) and Cerys Rogers (then 14) for their cracking designs (and to "Ringo" for the superb artwork of course) - sorry it took so long, guys. I hope you both like the finished article.

एक ब्रिटिश टीम एक ऐसी कार विकसित कर रही है जो 1,000 मील प्रति घंटे (1,610 किमी/घंटा) तक पहुंचने में सक्षम होगी। एक यूरोफाइटर-टाइफून जेट इंजन को बोल्ट किए गए रॉकेट द्वारा संचालित, वाहन का लक्ष्य साल दर साल उत्तरोत्तर तेजी से आगे बढ़कर अपनी क्षमता दिखाना है। 2019 के अंत तक, ब्लडहाउंड 500 मील प्रति घंटे से अधिक की गति का प्रदर्शन करना चाहता है। अगला कदम मौजूदा विश्व भूमि गति रिकॉर्ड (763 मील प्रति घंटे; 1,228 किमी/घंटा) को तोड़ना होगा। दौड़ दक्षिण अफ्रीका के उत्तरी केप में हक्सकीन पैन पर होगी।

uk-england-essex-54825879

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-54825879

Paris Bataclan attack: 'My brother's life isn't defined by that night'

Five years ago, Nick Alexander was shot dead at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris. The 35-year-old was working as the merchandise manager for Eagles of Death Metal when three gunmen stormed the building as part of co-ordinated terror attacks across the city, killing 130 people.

Nick was the only British victim of the attack. His sister, Zoe Alexander, told the BBC she was was determined to ensure his life was not defined by the events of the night of 13 November 2015. It still feels so surreal to me that Nick died in the attacks. Five years is quite a significant amount of time but grief is not a linear experience. In some ways it feels like a very long time since I last saw him but in other ways it feels like yesterday. Nick was a vibrant force and he was fantastic company. As a child growing up in Weeley, Essex, he was funny, quirky and a popular and loyal friend. There were seven years between us which feels like a big gap as children but as an adult he was a great friend as well as a brother. He was such a people person which is why he was so good at his job, interacting with the fans on a daily basis. One of the things I admired most about Nick was that he was unashamedly himself and trod his own path throughout his whole life. He was authentic and that gave him a great energy that people wanted to be around. After he died we received messages from all over the world, some from people he had only met once after they bought merchandise from him, but he left a lasting impression on them. That was the kind of guy he was. We talk about him all the time at home and he is very present for us. My children are eight and nine, they still remember Uncle Nick and how he made them laugh. We share funny stories and we go to Paris every year on his birthday and drink champagne. We miss him deeply. Of course it is easier now and it does get better but you never fully recover. The pain lessens but the remembering does not. Every year I also travel to Paris with my parents to go to an annual ceremony to remember the victims, on the anniversary of the attack. We obviously can't go this year but we will be watching a live stream. A brilliant community has formed of survivors and relatives of the people who died, and we find great strength in standing alongside each other. A survivor community has also formed here in the UK and there are around 20 of us that have a really close friendship. It is one of the good things that has come out of such a horrible tragedy. Terror attacks here in the UK, and recently over in France and in Vienna, take you straight back to that moment. It makes you reflect. Terrorism and radicalisation thrive in the cracks and divisions of society but so much community cohesion has come out of what happened - we have seen what we can be and what we can achieve. Four years ago, on the first anniversary of the attack, myself and my parents created The Nick Alexander Memorial Trust, which provides music equipment to disadvantaged communities across the UK. Several gigs we have staged to raise money have been really successful and we have been able to help many different projects. We have refurbished the music studio for a homeless centre, worked with ex-offenders and provided instruments for deaf babies, pre-schoolers and dementia patients. We have also helped music groups stay connected during lockdown by providing them with iPads. Music was Nick's passion, he dedicated his career of 15 years to it and I'm sure he would be incredibly proud of everything we have achieved. Queens of the Stone Age are broadcasting previously unseen footage of an acoustic show on their YouTube channel on the anniversary and are encouraging fans to donate to the trust. The band's singer Josh Homme is also part of Eagles of Death Metal, although he wasn't on tour with them when the attack happened. Their support means so much to us. We have managed to build a legacy for Nick and have created something so positive in his memory. It has helped with our grief process and it means Nick is not defined by the tragedy of that night. It makes us feel like he is almost still around and it has helped us take back control of his ending. Now we are the ones deciding how his life continues. As told to Charlie Jones Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]

पाँच साल पहले, निक अलेक्जेंडर की पेरिस के बटाक्लान थिएटर में गोली मारकर हत्या कर दी गई थी। 35 वर्षीय व्यक्ति ईगल्स ऑफ डेथ मेटल के लिए व्यापारिक प्रबंधक के रूप में काम कर रहा था, जब तीन बंदूकधारियों ने शहर भर में समन्वित आतंकवादी हमलों के हिस्से के रूप में इमारत पर धावा बोल दिया, जिसमें 130 लोग मारे गए।

world-middle-east-26240650

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26240650

Egypt's commitment to press freedom on trial

Three journalists from al-Jazeera's English news channel go on trial in Egypt on Thursday, in a case which campaigners say is part of a sweeping crackdown on freedom of speech, reports the BBC's Orla Guerin in Cairo.

In mid-December, the award-winning Australian correspondent Peter Greste arrived in Egypt's capital for a routine assignment - his first in the country. He checked into an upmarket hotel on the banks of the Nile, where al-Jazeera had a makeshift office, and started reading up on the story. Just two weeks later, the former BBC correspondent became the story. He and two of his colleagues from al-Jazeera English - Egyptian-Canadian Cairo bureau chief Mohamed Adel Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed - were arrested. The trio was soon branded the "Marriott Terror Cell". On Thursday, they are due to appear before a criminal court in Cairo on charges including broadcasting false news, and aiding or joining a terrorist organisation - as the Muslim Brotherhood was designated four days before their arrest - and endangering national security. If convicted, they could be sentenced to several years in jail. 'Breaking the law' Egypt denies the case is an attack on freedom of speech. It says the al-Jazeera journalists were working illegally because they did not have press passes. "We have accredited more than 1,000 correspondents from foreign organisations, and they are working freely," one official says. "If you break the law, this is not freedom of expression." Al-Jazeera is a regular target for Egypt's military-backed interim government. The channel is owned by the government of Qatar, which backs the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt regards the network as a mouthpiece for the Islamists. But al-Jazeera's management deny allegations of bias. "The charges just don't hold water," says Heather Allan, head of newsgathering for al-Jazeera English. "Egypt is a very important story for us. We've always been there, we believe we have been very fair, and when they were picked up we thought it would last a day or two." Instead, the journalists have now spent almost two months in Cairo's Tora prison complex, a much feared high-security fortress. In a letter written from there last month, Peter Greste recounted being "locked in my cell 24 hours a day, for the past 10 days, allowed out only for questioning". His colleagues were held separately in worse conditions, according to relatives. They say Mohamed Fahmy, who entered prison with a dislocated shoulder, was forced to sleep on the floor, and is still waiting for medical treatment. All three men are now sharing a cell, and are being allowed out for only an hour's exercise a day. Their only offence, according to Peter Greste's prison letter, was "doing what any responsible journalist would - trying to make sense of the unfolding events with accuracy, fairness and balance". But trying to provide balanced coverage is a dangerous business in Egypt these days - especially if that includes reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood. The army removed it from power last July, along with President Mohammed Morsi - following mass opposition protests - and would clearly prefer it to disappear from view. Fear returns Thousands of miles away, at their home in Australia, Peter Greste's parents cannot comprehend how he and his colleagues wound up behind bars. "He's a professional journalist, of a high ethical standard," his father Juris told the BBC. "He's been there for about two weeks, just getting his bearings, all of sudden he is accused of being a terrorist. You can't punish someone just because you don't like the message." But critics say that is exactly what Egypt is doing - with scant legal justification. The three men are among a group of 20 people indicted by the authorities at the end of January. They also include the Dutch newspaper and radio correspondent, Rena Netjes, whose only connection with al-Jazeera was having a meeting with Mohamed Fahmy at the Marriott. She managed to flee Egypt, with the help of her embassy. Many journalists in Egypt say they are now working, or trying to work, in a climate of fear - among them 23-year-old Mosa'ab Elshamy. The photojournalist has been documenting the tumultuous changes here since the revolution of 2011 that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. But lately, he has been taking fewer pictures because of the risk of being jailed. "It is my biggest fear because I know it is going to take months, if not years, before getting out," he says. "We have seen how journalists in Egypt have been detained for the most absurd reasons, and they continue to spend months of their lives [in prison], and a day in prison is like no other day." Mr Elshamy has adapted by covering fewer stories and spending less time on the streets, but some of his colleagues have opted to leave the country. "The change is huge and it's tangible," he says. "The little achievements and the little freedoms that people got from the revolution have been taken away. People are back to this fear." Hunger strike For the young photographer, concerns about press freedom are acutely personal. His older brother, Abdullah, has been in prison since August. The correspondent for al-Jazeera's Arabic channel was arrested while covering the violent dispersal of a pro-Brotherhood sit-in, during which hundreds of people were killed by the security forces. At the time the authorities insisted they had to restore security. Unlike the other three al-Jazeera journalists, Abdullah Elshamy has no trial date. The 25-year-old has not even been charged. On 21 January, he began a managed hunger strike in protest - he is accepting liquids, but no solid food. "I do not belong to any group or ideology," he says in a statement posted on Facebook by his brother. "I belong to my conscience and my humanity. Nothing will break my will or my dignity." Police state 'reinvented' Campaigners say the al-Jazeera staff are among 13 foreign and locals journalists imprisoned in Egypt. The country is now ranked among the top 10 jailers of journalists in the world. The current attack on press freedom is the most severe ever, according to Gamal Eid of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information. "There is no space for the opposing view," he says, comparing the country to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and even Germany under Adolf Hitler. The silencing of dissent goes far beyond journalists. Political scientist Amr Hamzawy is facing charges over a tweet questioning a court ruling. The university lecturer and former member of parliament has even been barred from leaving the country. "There are increasing signs of restrictions on freedom of expression for academics, for politicians and for intellectuals," he says. "We are really looking at days worse than the Mubarak days, because even under Mubarak we had opposing voices being heard every now and then, but now its being suppressed. We are witnessing the reinvention of the police state." When the case against the al-Jazeera journalists comes to court, it will be carefully watched abroad, including in the White House, which has called for the journalists to be released. Many here believe they are being tried just for telling all sides of the story. Critics say that in today's Egypt that is tantamount to a crime.

काहिरा में बी. बी. सी. के ओरला गुएरिन की रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, अल-जज़ीरा के अंग्रेजी समाचार चैनल के तीन पत्रकारों पर गुरुवार को मिस्र में मुकदमा चलाया गया, एक ऐसे मामले में जो प्रचारकों का कहना है कि अभिव्यक्ति की स्वतंत्रता पर व्यापक कार्रवाई का हिस्सा है।

disability-45045223

https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-45045223

The stomach-churning one-night stand

Life with a disability can sometimes give rise to unspoken questions and sensitivities, but amid the awkwardness there can be humour. The following is an edited version of a sketch by Philip Henry, who has Crohn's Disease, delivered for the BBC at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

There's nothing sexy about diarrhoea. And since that's the main, outwardly noticeable symptom of Crohn's Disease, it makes dating hard. This is why I decided the best way to deal with the problem was to ignore it completely. Let me tell you how that turned out. I had always thought Lydia was cute, but nothing had ever happened between us. A few years passed before I ran into her again and clocked the nakedness of her ring finger - she was single - and asked her out for dinner. The fact Crohn's had reared its ugly mug since we last knew each other wasn't mentioned. It just didn't come up. All I needed was one good date - enough to make her want a second, and hopefully a third. Date three was the time to drop the C-bomb. You can bail after two dates, but after three you need a good reason, and I figured no woman would be callous enough to say, 'it's because you have a chronic illness and I think it'll be a drag'. You'd think my body would be a faithful accomplice in this plan, but no, it wasn't going to give me two trouble-free dates. It wasn't even going to give me one. That evening, as I waited for the taxi, my stomach bubbled and gurgled like an air-locked radiator. Maybe nerves were making it worse, I don't know, but thanks to Imodium I made it into the taxi and to the restaurant. I walked in and saw her. She looked really good. I could tell she wanted this to work as much as I… needed the toilet. I bolted and made it to a cubicle with nano-seconds to spare. I had to stay positive. She hadn't seen me and if I could get this all over with now, I might be OK for the rest of the night. After a few false starts, I left the cubicle. Two lads stood by the sinks daring each other to take an ecstasy pill. I threw another Imodium into my mouth. "Third one tonight," I said, as I passed, leaving them suitably shocked. After blaming the taxi for my lateness, Lydia and I had dinner - I hoped good solid food would settle my stomach, which turned like a washing machine - and she even laughed at my jokes. We headed to a local pub where a band was playing. It was a warm summer night and this was going well. I'd almost forgotten about the date-saboteur in my intestinal tract. While we watched the band, it started again. Just the odd cramp at first, then the familiar spasms that foreshadowed something like a fire hose being shot into a toilet bowl. I scanned the pub for the toilets and spotted them at the far end. But while I had looked away to plan my route, something unexpected happened - she made "the move". Her hand had edged across the bench towards mine and she had interlocked our fingers. It was the sweetest gesture directed at me in years and I wanted to tell her, to reciprocate, but instead, I said "I think I see someone I know," snatched my hand away and ran towards the toilet. Storytelling Live: Going Out Philip was one of six people with a disability or mental health problem to perform a story about going out as part of BBC Ouch's storytelling event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - hosted by Lost Voice Guy. You can watch the show on BBC Two at 23:30 BST on Friday 31 August and on iPlayer afterwards. Here are other stories from the event that you might like: As I sat and stared at the graffiti-riddled cubicle door, my stomach sank in a way that had nothing to do with Crohn's. She had made the first move and I had embarrassed her. She thought I had rejected her. When I returned, her hands were folded across her stomach. The conversation was polite but dry. I had to come clean. "Lydia, I'm sorry about ducking into the toilets. My ex came into the pub and I knew she'd go crazy if she saw us together, so I had to wait for her to leave." It was pathetic. It was the most obvious lie I had ever told. And she bought it. Twenty minutes later we were snogging in the back of a taxi on our way to her flat. Thirty minutes later we were in bed together. An undisclosed amount of minutes later we were lying back in each other's arms smiling. I fell asleep happy, content, and with no further emergencies. Morning! I sat bolt upright. Morning was the worst time for me. Every day was a sprint to make it to the bathroom, but as I looked around this strange bedroom I realised I didn't know where the bathroom was. I looked at the empty space beside me. She wasn't even there to ask. I got up, ran out of the room and found I was in trouble - I could hear the shower. I tried the handle. Locked. Now she gets modest? I looked around. It was too much to hope that this little flat would have two bathrooms. I knocked on the door. "Hey, will you be long?" "Give me 10 or 15 minutes. Put the kettle on." I couldn't hold on for that long. It was impossible. My sphincter was already at maximum clenching tolerance. My stomach cramped violently. I ran down the hall and looked for anything that might help. I stopped and considered it for a while - but the cat's litter tray just wasn't feasible. I ran into the living room - a couple of vases, they'd work as Plan B. Sweat dripped off my forehead as I ran into the kitchen and saw the answer to my problem - the kitchen bin. It was seat-height, had a bin-liner in it and there was a roll of kitchen tissue nearby. It was the best I could hope for. In one deft move I sprinted towards it, pulled my boxers down, turned and aimed - I had one shot at this. When Lydia arrived draped in a towel, she stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth agape. "You made breakfast!" she said. I nodded and smiled back. I ushered her to the table and pulled out her chair. She sat down in front of the bacon butty and mug of tea I'd prepared. She looked up at me, shaking her head. 'I can't believe you did this.' I shrugged, "I also emptied your bin." For more Disability News, follow BBC Ouch on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to the weekly podcast.

विकलांग जीवन कभी-कभी अनकहे प्रश्नों और संवेदनशीलताओं को जन्म दे सकता है, लेकिन अजीबता के बीच हास्य हो सकता है। निम्नलिखित फिलिप हेनरी द्वारा एक स्केच का संपादित संस्करण है, जिसे क्रोन रोग है, जिसे एडिनबर्ग फेस्टिवल फ्रिंज में बीबीसी के लिए दिया गया है।

newsbeat-20489859

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-20489859

Merlin to be axed after fifth series ends in December

The BBC show Merlin will end after the current series.

The programme has been running for five years and pulls in almost seven million viewers in its Saturday evening slot. The creators say the show, which features a young King Arthur and his wizard servant, will come to a "natural and dramatic end" with a two-part finale. "I think the show has run its natural course," admits Northern Ireland-born Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin. "We've arrived at its strongest point and we've achieved what we set out to do." Newsbeat recently spoke to Bradley James who plays King Arthur about Merlin's future. "It's always wise to go out on a high and I think we are at a stage where you take it series by series and think do we want to another one or do we want to do something else?" 'Spectacular finale' The creators of Merlin say this series is where the storylines have reached their peak. "We always felt the story of the legend was best told across five series, leading to a spectacular finale that draws on the best-known elements of this much-loved story and brings to a conclusion the battle for Camelot." Richard Wilson plays Merlin's mentor in the show and admits while he is extremely sad the show is ending thinks it is good news for his character. "Speaking as Gaius I feel I have mentored the young wizard as far as I can. He is much smarter and greater than me now and I am simply exhausted." Over the years the programme has had a number of guest stars including Michelle Ryan, Emilia Fox and Mackenzie Crook. The controller of BBC One says they have ambitious plans for new drama in Merlin's Saturday night slot for 2013. The next episode of Merlin is on BBC One at 8pm on Saturday 1 December. Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter

बीबीसी शो मर्लिन वर्तमान श्रृंखला के बाद समाप्त हो जाएगा।

uk-wales-mid-wales-26963177

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-26963177

Road reopening after lorry gets stuck under Newtown bridge

A road has reopened after a large lorry earlier became stuck under a railway bridge in Powys forcing the cancellation of trains.

Traffic queues formed in the town after the incident at 06:30 BST on the A483, which was shut in both directions at Dolfor Road. Buses replaced trains between Newtown and Machynlleth but services are running again. Network Rail has assessed the bridge for damage.

पाविस में एक रेलवे पुल के नीचे एक बड़ी लॉरी के फंस जाने के बाद ट्रेनों को रद्द करने के लिए मजबूर होने के बाद एक सड़क फिर से खुल गई है।

world-asia-china-26414016

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26414016

Making sense of the unrest from China's Xinjiang

The horrific attack at Kunming railway station - in which knife-wielding attackers hacked at least 29 people to death - has shocked China. One of the country's newspapers dubbed it China's "9/11."

By Martin PatienceBBC News, Beijing Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua called it a terrorist attack carried out by "Xinjiang separatist forces". Rich in minerals and resources, Xinjiang is home to approximately nine million Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic minority. Most are Muslims. In the last year, more than a hundred people have been killed in violence in the autonomous region. Beijing blames the attacks on violent Uighur separatists. But human rights groups say that China's repressive policies in the region are fuelling the unrest. But what must really worry China's leaders is that the violence from Xinjiang now appears to be spreading. In October of last year, Chinese officials said that militants from the region were involved in an apparent suicide attack in Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of power in China. The attack in Kunming appears to represent a further escalation. "This attack is a very significant development in the trajectory of Chinese terrorism," said Rohan Gunaratna, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who studies terrorism in Asia, including China. "It was a low-cost but a high-impact attack which has generated huge publicity," he added. "Uighur extremists have shown that they can launch an attack far away from their base of operations." 'Cross-fertilisation' There have long been tensions in Xinjiang. During the 1990s, there was a surge in nationalist sentiment among Uighurs after several Central Asian countries gained their independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Beijing suppressed the demonstrations during what it called a "strike hard" campaign. Since then, China has regularly blamed outside forces for stirring up the violence, including serious ethnic riots in 2009 that left around 200 people - mainly Han Chinese - dead. In particular, the Chinese authorities have singled out the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for orchestrating attacks. In a recent article, Philip Potter, an expert on terrorism at Michigan University, said that China's ongoing security crackdown in Xinjiang has forced the most militant separatists into neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. He wrote that they were forging strategic alliances with jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He concluded that this was leading to "cross fertilisation" that has the potential to "substantially increase the sophistication and lethality of terrorism in China". But other analysts say there is little or no evidence to suggest that ETIM, or any other group for that matter, is behind the violence. They argue that China plays up the threat in order to justify its heavy-headed security policies in the region. 'The walls have ears' Human rights groups say that Beijing's restrictions on practising Islamic religious customs as well as Uighur culture and language are fuelling the unrest. Foreign journalists trying to operate in Xinjiang are constantly followed by the security services, making it difficult to assess the situation on the ground. During one visit to the region, I was told by a Uighur that "the walls have ears" and that "no-one was allowed to talk out about what was going on". Another BBC team visited the scene of a violent attack last year, which the authorities also blamed on terrorists. But locals told the BBC that the violence had been triggered after officials pressured some devout Muslim men to shave off their beards. Many Uighurs also resent the influx of Han Chinese to the region. Once the majority, Uighurs are now a minority in what they consider their homeland. They believe that Beijing is trying to water down and dilute their culture and religion through mass migration. Uighurs also complain that they are not sharing in the profits of the region's economic boom. Some Chinese scholars admit this is part of the problem. "The reason why Xinjiang is troubled is because development in the region has been unbalanced," says Xiong Kunxin, a professor of China Ethnic Theory at the China Minzu University. Prof Xiong says that speeding up development in the region will help alleviate the problem. But other analysts believe that the problem is more deep-rooted than simply economics. "It's the general colonial attitude of Han Chinese officials to Uighurs that generates huge resentment," says Michael Dillon, an academic and author of the book, Xinjiang: China's Muslim far northwest. In order for Beijing to tackle the unrest, he said: "Xinjiang needs to become a genuinely autonomous region." But Mr Dillon says that will almost certainly not happen. Like Tibet, Beijing sees Xinjiang as an integral part of modern-day China. The country's leaders regard any talk or even hints of separatism as treason - a red line that simply cannot be crossed.

कुनमिंग रेलवे स्टेशन पर हुए भयानक हमले-जिसमें चाकू से हमला करने वाले हमलावरों ने कम से कम 29 लोगों की हत्या कर दी थी-ने चीन को चौंका दिया है। देश के एक समाचार पत्र ने इसे चीन का "9/11" करार दिया है।

uk-43069415

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43069415

Barry Bennell: Justice has been served, say victims of ex-football coach

Three of Barry Bennell's victims have told how he turned their dreams into a "horrendous nightmare" after the former youth football coach was convicted of 43 sex assaults on boys.

Bennell, who worked at Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra, was found guilty of abusing 11 boys aged eight to 15. Speaking outside Liverpool Crown Court, another victim, Andy Woodward, said "justice has been served". It is understood 86 others have come forward to say they were victims. The jury, which deliberated over five days, had been told of Bennell's abuse of 12 boys between 1979 and 1990. Before the case he admitted seven charges of indecent assault on three boys, two of whom were also part of the allegations he was tried on. He was found guilty of 36 charges on Tuesday, and a further seven counts on Thursday. Bennell, who is now known as Richard Jones, appeared in court via videolink during the five-week trial due to illness. He could be seen shaking his head and muttering when the final guilty verdicts were returned by a 10-1 majority. He will be sentenced on Monday and will be produced from custody to attend the hearing. It was the fourth time Bennell had been convicted of abusing boys. The jury was told he had previously received jail sentences in the UK and in the US in 1995, 1998 and 2015. 'Innocence shattered' The latest police investigation began in November 2016 when Andy Woodward gave interviews about his experiences to the Guardian and BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. Speaking outside court after the verdict, the ex-Crewe defender said: "Justice has been served today and people will be able to move on with their lives including myself." Mr Woodward said he believed "the football clubs that were accountable for this... could have stopped this for so many years... And I think now's the time that that comes sort of out. "And I would personally like after 15 months, an apology from Crewe Alexandra for what happened to us boys." Ex-Manchester City youth player Chris Unsworth, who was abused by Bennell when he was a scout at the club, stood alongside Micky Fallon and Steve Walters as he read a statement. The three men are supporters of the Offside Trust, which was set up by ex-professional players to support abuse survivors. Mr Unsworth said: "We stand before you today as men united in justice, but this is about so much more than us." Mr Fallon, who was targeted by Bennell at Crewe, said: "We stand before you today as men united but, at the same time, we were very young boys. We were little boys with a dream and our innocence was shattered. Our dreams turned into the most horrendous nightmare." Prosecutors described Bennell as a "predatory paedophile" who abused boys on an "industrial scale". They told the trial he had a "power hold" over the aspiring professional players. Boys were abused at his home - including a property in Derbyshire where he had arcade games and a puma and a monkey - on trips away, and in his car on the way to and from training, they said. Det Insp Sarah Oliver, who led the investigation, said Bennell had betrayed the trust of the young players. "As a football coach he should have provided nothing more than safety and support for the players in his care," she said. "Instead he abused them. He also abused the trust of their families who had placed them into that care so they could pursue their dreams of being professional footballers. He has shattered those dreams and left them burdened for decades." Club launches review In a statement, Crewe Alexandra expressed its "deepest sympathies" to Bennell's victims and said it worked closely with the police investigation. It added it was was not aware of any sexual abuse by Bennell or had received any complaint before or during his employment with the club. Manchester City offered "heartfelt sympathy to all victims for the unimaginably traumatic experiences they have endured". The club said it was keen to speak to any survivor or witness to sexual abuse which might be connected to Manchester City or which could support a review it launched after the latest allegations were raised in 2016. It added its review also identified serious allegations of child sex abuse in respect of a second man with "potential historic connections to the club". The man is now dead and is not believed to be linked to Bennell. The Football Association said it acknowledged the "traumatic experience" of Bennell's victims "and the bravery they have shown in coming forward". It said an independent inquiry into allegations of non-recent child sexual abuse in football had been set up and also urged victims and survivors to contact police "if they are ready to do so". Bennell chose not to offer any evidence or witnesses in his defence and had told police he was suffering from cancer, which in turn had caused memory problems. His barrister accused the complainants of inventing stories about him and "jumping on the bandwagon". During the trial, the judge, Recorder of Liverpool, Clement Goldstone QC, had directed the jury to find Bennell not guilty on three charges of indecent assault.

बैरी बेनेल के तीन पीड़ितों ने बताया है कि कैसे उन्होंने पूर्व युवा फुटबॉल कोच को लड़कों पर 43 यौन हमलों का दोषी ठहराए जाने के बाद उनके सपनों को एक "भयानक दुःस्वप्न" में बदल दिया।

technology-20439301

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20439301

How the world's first webcam made a coffee pot famous

Computer technology now moves so fast it's hard to remember life before the internet. But just 19 years ago at the beginning of the nineties, the fledgling world wide web had no search engines, no social networking sites, and no webcam.

By Rebecca KesbyBBC World Service The scientists credited with inventing the first webcam - thereby launching the revolution that would bring us video chats and live webcasts - stumbled upon the idea in pursuit of something far more old-fashioned: hot coffee. As computer geeks at the University of Cambridge beavered away on research projects at the cutting edge of technology, one piece of equipment was indispensable to the entire team - the coffee percolator. "One of the things that's very, very important in computer science research is a regular and dependable flow of caffeine," explains Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser. But the problem for scientists was that the coffee pot was stationed in the main computer lab, known as the Trojan room, and many of the researchers worked in different labs and on different floors. "They would often turn up to get some coffee from the pot, only to find it had all been drunk," Dr Stafford-Fraser remembers. Streaming coffee To solve the problem, he and another research scientist, Dr Paul Jardetzky, rigged up a camera to monitor the Trojan room coffee pot. The camera would grab images three times a minute, and they wrote software that would allow researchers in the department to run the images from the camera on their internal computer network. This removed the need for any physical effort to check the coffee pot, and avoided the emotional distress of turning up to find it empty. However, it wasn't until 22 November 1993 that the coffee pot cam made it onto the world wide web. Once again it was a computer scientist, momentarily distracted from his research project, who made the breakthrough. Dr Martyn Johnson was not one of those connected to the internal computer network at the Cambridge lab, and therefore had been unable to run the coffee pot cam software. He had been studying the capabilities of the web and upon investigating the server code, thought it looked relatively easy to make it run. "I just built a little script around the captured images," he says. "The first version was probably only 12 lines of code, probably less, and it simply copied the most recent image to the requester whenever it was asked for." And so it was that the grainy images of a rather grubby coffee pot in a university lab were written into computer science folklore, as the first ever webcam. East of Java "It didn't vary very much," explains Dr Stafford-Fraser. "It was either an empty coffee pot, or a full one, or in more exciting moments, maybe a half-full coffee pot and then you'd have to try and guess if it was going up or down." Word got out, and before long millions of tech enthusiasts from around the world were accessing images of the Trojan room coffee pot. Dr Stafford-Fraser remembers receiving emails from Japan asking if a light could be left on overnight so that the pot could be seen in different time zones. The Cambridge Tourist Information office had to direct visitors from the US to the computer lab to see it for themselves. The coffee pot cam even got a mention on the BBC's longest running radio soap opera - the Archers. "I think we were all a little bewildered by it all to be honest," confesses Dr Johnson. "I sometimes think nothing else I'm ever involved in again in my life will get this much coverage and it was just one afternoon's crazy idea," adds Dr Stafford-Fraser. Die Kaffeekanne Ten years and millions of hits later, the scientists wanted to move on. "The software was becoming completely unmaintainable," remembers Dr Johnson. "Research software is not always of the highest quality and we simply wanted to throw away the machines that were supporting this." Despite a wave of nostalgic protest from webcam fans around the world, the coffee pot and the webcam were eventually switched off. The last image captured was the scientists' fingers pressing the "off" button. "In 10 years it had gone from being a wacky new idea, to a novelty that a reasonable number of people knew about, to a widely viewed icon of the early web, to an historic artefact, and then to something that people were mourning over when it was no longer there," concludes Dr Stafford-Fraser. "Only on the internet can that sort of thing happen in just a few years." The Trojan room coffee pot was sold at auction - predictably over the internet - for £3,350. It was bought by Der Spiegel news magazine in Germany, which soon pressed the pot back into active service. Rebecca Kesby's report on the creators of the world's first webcam airs on the BBC World Service's Witness programme on 23 November. You can download a podcast of the programme or browse the archive.

कंप्यूटर तकनीक अब इतनी तेजी से आगे बढ़ रही है कि इंटरनेट से पहले के जीवन को याद रखना मुश्किल है। लेकिन सिर्फ 19 साल पहले नब्बे के दशक की शुरुआत में, नवोदित वर्ल्ड वाइड वेब में कोई खोज इंजन, कोई सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट और कोई वेबकैम नहीं था।

magazine-37735370

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37735370

The WhatsApp suicide

A 40-year-old woman from northern India killed herself in January after a video of her being raped was circulated on WhatsApp. The BBC's Divya Arya travelled to the village in Uttar Pradesh to hear the full story.

Geeta was a brave woman. She was a health worker in a rural area of northern India, a job that meant she often walked alone between the surrounding villages, sometimes after dark, visiting strangers' houses. Her income supported the whole family, including an alcoholic husband and three teenage children. They lived in a brick house that had no door or toilet, but Geeta was proud that she had been able to educate her daughter and her two sons. Towards the end of 2015, a young man from a nearby village started following Geeta. He had first seen her when she helped his brother's wife to give birth. When Geeta refused to speak with him, he began to threaten her. According to Geeta's friend and colleague, Khushboo, the man snatched her phone in the street and told her, "If I find you alone, I won't let you go." Geeta must have heard stories about sexual assault in the villages where she worked. Eighteen months earlier, in 2014, her home state of Uttar Pradesh made international headlines when two teenage girls were raped and murdered in the village of Badaun. She must have known, too, that in the patriarchal and honour-bound culture of the village, she could be blamed for "inviting" the sexual advances of a man - even if those advances were unwelcome, intimidating, or violent. The next time she was called out to the man's village, she told Khushboo she was afraid to go alone. Khushboo immediately offered to go with her, and was alarmed to see the man "roaming around" the village. She urged Geeta to tell the village elders about the situation. Convinced that any such a request would backfire, Geeta refused. "They'll only find fault with me," she said. A few days later, when the two friends were going to administer polio drops to children, Geeta told Khushboo that "something bad had happened". When Khushboo questioned her further, Geeta said that the man, together with three of his friends, had followed her out of the village. The men, she said, had forced themselves upon her and "torn her clothes". #ShameOnline This is one of a series of stories looking at a new and disturbing phenomenon - the use of private or sexually explicit images to threaten, blackmail and shame young people, mainly girls and women, in some of the world's most conservative societies. Explore all the stories and join the conversation here. Khushboo is adamant that Geeta, although distraught, was not suicidal. "I said to her, 'We're all with you; just don't do anything drastic.' But at that point Geeta was not thinking about death. In fact, she was thinking of going to the police. She told me, 'I'll report them. I'll find out the names of the men who abused me and get them arrested.'" But before Geeta could gather the courage to tell the police, a video of the rape began to circulate on the messaging service WhatsApp. Within hours it was being watched and shared on mobile phones by young and old men, while women spoke in hushed whispers. "She called me," says Khushboo, "and said that it had become difficult to go out of the house because all her neighbours knew about 'it'. She sounded so worried. She asked me if anyone knew about 'it' in my neighbourhood." Geeta's intuition that she would be shamed and blamed for attracting the predatory advances of a man was eventually borne out. "Those last days she was so sad," says Khushboo. "She wasn't even eating properly… The day before she died, she told me that she had gone to the local doctor and told him everything. He had said, 'Go back home and stay quiet, it's all your fault.' She also went to the former head of the village, but he also said, 'It's your fault - what can we do about it?'" That was the final blow. The next afternoon, Geeta was found foaming at the mouth on a roadside on the outskirts of the village. She died before she could be taken to hospital. The post-mortem confirmed death by poisoning. The rape and shaming of Geeta is not an isolated incident. In recent years, mobile phones and chat apps have spread through even the poorest and most remote areas of the country, and India has seen a series of recent cases in which gang rapes have been filmed on mobile phones and circulated on messaging services. In August 2016, the Times of India found that hundreds - perhaps thousands - of video clips of sexual assault were being sold in shops across Uttar Pradesh every day. One shopkeeper in Agra told the newspaper, "Porn is passé. These real life crimes are the rage." Another, according to the same report, was overheard telling customers that they might even know the girl in the "latest, hottest" video. Sunita Krishnan, an activist who runs an anti-trafficking NGO in Hyderabad, recently told the Supreme Court she had collected more than 90 rape videos from social media. Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate, told the BBC that judges were so "appalled" by two reports of gang rape that were recently circulated via WhatsApp in southern India that they issued a special order to India's Central Bureau of Investigation to identify and pursue the perpetrators. The court also asked the IT Ministry to examine what measures could be taken to block the online circulation of such videos. "Women are constantly being targeted," he said, "and just because not enough cases are being talked about, that should not give us the complacent picture that everything is fine and hunky dory." At village level, many are more bothered about women using mobile phones at all than they are about men using them to intimidate rape victims or to share videos of sexual assaults. A number of local councils in Uttar Pradesh, concerned with what they see as technology's corrupting effect on traditional moral values, have prohibited girls from owning mobile phones. "There is so much pressure on girls, and if by any chance they do lay their hands on a phone or use ear phones to listen to music, then they are branded 'characterless'" says Rehana Adib, a social worker who took part in a fact-finding mission to study Geeta's case. ("Characterless", in India, implies loose morals.) "When society and family squarely places the burden of honour and good character on the shoulders of women, and men are absolved of passing any test of integrity, then how can a woman who dares to be strong and independent survive?" Following protests led by health workers from adjoining villages, three men have now been arrested for raping Geeta and for making and circulating the video. But in her home village, anger over Geeta's death is still muted by questions about her honour. Even Geeta's own husband, who eventually found out about the video from his neighbours, shares the prevailing suspicion that she might have done something to encourage the attack. "If she had told me," he says, "we'd have asked her if it was done with her consent. Then we'd have gathered the village elders to decide what action should be taken." He shows no sign of outrage about the rape, and has made no demands for police action. When the BBC spoke to the village doctor and the former village head, both men denied discouraging Geeta from going to the police, and blamed her for what had happened. To another villager, who asked not to be named, Geeta's death required no special explanation: "How could she continue to live with this public humiliation?" he asked. The same sentiment was echoed by Pradeep Gupta, the senior police official investigating the case. "It appears that the woman must have felt social pressure and that would have forced her to take her own life," he said. "It is very unfortunate." In the village, then, the notion that rape places a burden of shame on the shoulders of the survivor continues unchallenged. Geeta's death was, for many, inevitable. But that changes nothing for those left behind - especially Geeta's daughter. "It's still very difficult," she says. "Whenever I step out, someone would point at me and jeer, asking 'Aren't you ashamed of what happened with your mother?'" The names "Geeta" and "Khushboo" have been made up, to protect the identities of the women involved Read more: The head-on collision between smartphones, social media and age-old notions of honour and shame

उत्तर भारत की एक 40 वर्षीय महिला ने बलात्कार का एक वीडियो वॉट्सऐप पर प्रसारित होने के बाद जनवरी में आत्महत्या कर ली। बीबीसी की दिव्या आर्य ने पूरी कहानी सुनने के लिए उत्तर प्रदेश के गाँव की यात्रा की।

world-asia-35399545

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35399545

Viewpoint: The toll of terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan

In the past couple of months there has been a suicide terrorist attack almost every day somewhere in the world. The attacks have covered all the main continents and dozens of countries. The list is becoming endless and includes such countries as Indonesia which had not experienced a terrorist attack for nearly a decade.

By Ahmed RashidLahore Among the countries worst affected have been Afghanistan and Pakistan which alone have accounted for a bomb a day - sometimes several bombs a day. The level of suffering, the devastation of families, the loss, trauma and psychological impact of all this killing is taking a heavy toll. The loss to children when one or more parents are killed is particularly heartbreaking. Yet for the terrorists the soft targets are children, pupils at school and college, kids at play in the street kicking a football around. The terrorists make sure that the parents feel guilty for the rest of their lives. Afghanistan has been facing up to three to four attacks a day in the form of Taliban infantry assaults on towns, villages and police stations or in the form of insidious car or motorcycle bombs detonated to wipe out targeted individuals. On 20 January a suicide car bomber targeted a bus carrying employees of the privately-run Afghan Tolo TV channel, killing seven people. It was heartbreaking news because many of the dead were younger journalists who bought news to our doorsteps. They left a number of young children behind. Unrestrained violence For months the army and the government were telling Pakistanis they had seen the back of Taliban extremism after an 18-month-long military campaign in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan in which they said about 2,000 militants had been killed. Yet Pakistanis woke up earlier this month to mourn dozens killed in three suicide attacks on three successive days. The worst - if there is such a delineation when we talk about such unrestrained violence - was the attack on 20 January on a university at Charsadda in the north west of the country that claimed the lives of 22 students and professors. The day before 10 soldiers and civilians were killed by a suicide bomber at a check post in the north-west, while on 18 January six soldiers were killed in a landmine explosion in the centre of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province. It is not just the Taliban who are orchestrating the violence. Afghanistan is facing a multi-dimensional civil war with the Afghan Taliban fighting and killing representatives of the Kabul government as well as al-Qaeda, break-away Taliban factions and Central Asian groups. On top of all that it is also at daggers drawn with militants from so-called Islamic State. Distant onlookers may say it is good that extremists are fighting among themselves, but we who are closer to the ground know the truth. In such battles it is only the innocent, the bystanders, the children and the people at the wrong place at the wrong time who are the victims. There are no victories to be had or territory to be gained in such brutal internal combat. The worst tragedies always affect the bravest of men and women. That was the case with the bombing of the bus in Kabul. Tolo TV employs some of the best and brightest staff and is setting the pace for the rest of the Afghan media. Saad Mohseni and his family - who run Tolo - have been threatened by the Taliban for some time but they and their staff have laboured on regardless. Meanwhile the mainstream Afghan Taliban are capturing territory, now exerting control over large swathes of southern and central Afghanistan as well as the fragile road system which they can block at any time. They have the capacity to starve certain cities. The fact is that the closer you are to such wanton killing the more it affects you, making you irritable, sad and less inclined to go out too much. People are constantly on the watch to ensure their children have returned home safely a night. Yet people are also aware that such suffering is only a drop in the ocean compared with what is going on in Syria and Iraq, where on many days casualties can soar into the hundreds. On 17 January for example IS launched a three-pronged assault on the town of Deir al-Zour, killing some 135 Syrian soldiers and civilians while kidnapping another 400. The fact is that at ground level it does not appear that the world is beating back IS. In fact there is a growing perception of international dithering and procrastination. The world needs more diplomacy to bring its disparate parts together, to heal longstanding wounds and forge a coalition of the truly willing to combat this scourge, this Black Death of our time. Above all it requires the Muslim world to wake up to the abominations it is allowing within its ranks and join together to fight the extremists. The West cannot do for the Muslim world what Muslims must do for themselves. Similarly it cannot provide endless numbers of troops, trainers and special forces when Muslim nations refuse to take the initiative and prefer instead to be preoccupied by internal conflicts - such as that between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Ahmed Rashid

पिछले कुछ महीनों में दुनिया में लगभग हर दिन कहीं न कहीं आत्मघाती आतंकवादी हमला हुआ है। हमलों ने सभी मुख्य महाद्वीपों और दर्जनों देशों को कवर किया है। सूची अंतहीन होती जा रही है और इसमें इंडोनेशिया जैसे देश शामिल हैं जिन्होंने लगभग एक दशक से आतंकवादी हमले का अनुभव नहीं किया था।

world-africa-42996851

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42996851

Liberian church massacre survivors seek US justice

The Monrovia Church massacre in 1990 was the worst single atrocity of the Liberian civil war. About 600 civilians, including many children, were killed while taking refuge in a church. Now, four survivors are bringing a claim for damages against one of the men they believe was responsible, reports Elizabeth Blunt who was a BBC correspondent in Liberia at the time.

It was July 1990, and rebel fighters were advancing on the capital, Monrovia. President Samuel Doe was holed up in his vast, gloomy Executive Mansion. After dark bands of soldiers roamed the streets, looting shops and warehouses and seeking out people from Nimba County, the area where the rebellion had started. They dragged the men from their homes, beating and often killing them. Hundreds of terrified families, looking for a safer place to sleep, took refuge in St Peter's Lutheran Church - a spacious building in a walled compound. Huge Red Cross flags flew at every corner. But on the night of 29 July, government soldiers came over the wall and started killing those inside. An estimated 600 people - men, women, children, even babies - were shot or hacked to death with machetes before the order was given to stop. A Guinean woman doctor, who was one of the first to reach the church the next day, described to me the scene of utter horror. Dead bodies were everywhere. The only sign of life was a baby crying. She describes having to walk over corpses to reach the child, but when she picked it up and tried to comfort it, she said she suddenly saw a flicker of movement, and then another. A few children had survived, protected by the bodies of their parents, but only when they saw her, a civilian and a woman taking care of the baby, did they dare to come out. One of the child survivors is among those now suing for damages. 'Protected status' American missionary Bette McCrandall was there, too, that morning - she had lain awake the previous night, listening to everything that was happening from the Lutheran bishop's compound close by. She says those events have stayed with her, even all these years afterwards, as they have with all the survivors. "The memories of that day and that night don't leave me," she says. This was the worst atrocity of the war, the event so shocking that it drove neighbouring countries to mount an armed intervention. Yet no-one has ever been prosecuted or held responsible. The man now being taken to court in the US is Moses Thomas, formerly a colonel in the much-feared Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (Satu), based at the Executive Mansion. Survivors have identified him as one of those giving orders that night. Now he lives in the US state of Pennsylvania. Like many Liberians, he was given what is known as "temporary protected status", because of the atrocities which were going on back home. Liberia has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Mr Thomas was among those recommended for prosecution - but no cases have ever been brought. So now a movement has started to bring them to justice outside Liberia. Speaking to the BBC after being served court papers on Monday, Mr Thomas called the allegation "nonsense". "I don't want to give any credence to the allegation," he said. "No-one in my unit had anything to do with the attack on the church." 'Small victory' Hassan Bility, who heads the Global Justice and Research Project in Monrovia, said he was pleased with the latest development. "For 27 years the survivors of this massacre have fought and laboured for justice without success, and nobody has been paying any attention - not the Liberian government, not anybody outside. So this is a small victory," he says. What happened in Liberia's civil war? 1989: Charles Taylor starts rebellion against President Samuel Doe 1990: Doe horrifically killed by rebels 1997: Civil war ends after death of some 250,000 people. Taylor elected president 2012: Taylor convicted of war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone Ms McCrandall certainly sees it as important. "For me," she says, "it is a chance for him to own up to what he has done, and on whose orders. "That person will have to live and die with the guilt of what he has done. And in my mind it is comforting to me that this issue has not been put to rest, that the case has not been dropped." The snag is that for the moment this is only a civil suit, not a criminal case. A number of criminal prosecutions have started in Europe, where courts will hear cases for war crimes under so-called "universal jurisdiction". In the US that is more difficult, so campaigners against impunity have had to be ingenious. One Liberian warlord, known as "Jungle Jabbah", was recently prosecuted for immigration fraud, since he had falsely claimed on his application that he had never belonged to any armed group. Trial in Liberia? Mr Thomas is being sued in a civil action by four of the survivors. If they win, he is unlikely to be able to afford much in damages. But campaigners hope that the evidence which comes out in court will make the American authorities question his "protected" status, opening the way for a criminal prosecution or deportation. But if he is deported back to Liberia, what then? Would he go on trial? Liberia never set up a special court and has never tried any war crimes cases. Many suspects still hold high positions. Campaigner Hassan Bility clings to the hope that now, with a new government now in place, things might be different. "The current President, George Weah, was totally disconnected from the war," he says. "He was not part of any faction; he was playing football in Europe... And he gets a lot of his support from poor people, the ones who really suffered in the war... We have the opportunity right now to do this".

1990 में मोनरोविया चर्च नरसंहार लाइबेरियाई गृहयुद्ध का सबसे बुरा एकल अत्याचार था। एक चर्च में शरण लेते समय कई बच्चों सहित लगभग 600 नागरिक मारे गए थे। अब, चार जीवित बचे लोग उन लोगों में से एक के खिलाफ हर्जाने का दावा कर रहे हैं जिन्हें वे मानते हैं कि वे जिम्मेदार थे, एलिजाबेथ ब्लंट रिपोर्ट करते हैं जो उस समय लाइबेरिया में बीबीसी संवाददाता थे।

uk-wales-south-west-wales-32993942

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-32993942

£6m homes plan for SA1 Swansea Waterfront

Fifty new homes are planned for Swansea after the Welsh government announced a deal with a construction company.

Contracts have been exchanged for two residential sites on SA1 Swansea Waterfront, leaving just four remaining plots at the development. Persimmon Homes West Wales said the £6m project would support a "substantial number" of construction jobs. Work could start later this year subject to planning approval. The company recently completed the new Haven development overlooking the Prince of Wales dock and plans are under way for a £100m waterside campus for University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

वेल्श सरकार द्वारा एक निर्माण कंपनी के साथ एक समझौते की घोषणा के बाद स्वानसी के लिए पचास नए घरों की योजना बनाई गई है।

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https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53664064

Beirut explosion: What is ammonium nitrate and how dangerous is it?

Nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate - taken from a ship off the coast of Beirut six years ago and then stored in a warehouse - has been blamed for the explosion that ripped through the port area of the Lebanese capital on Tuesday.

By Tom EdgingtonBBC News But what is ammonium nitrate and why can it be so dangerous? What is ammonium nitrate? Ammonium nitrate is a crystal-like white solid which is made in large industrial quantities. Its biggest use is as a source of nitrogen for fertiliser, but it is also used to create explosives for mining. "You won't just find ammonium nitrate in the ground," explains Andrea Sella, professor of chemistry at University College London. That's because it's synthetic, made by reacting ammonia with nitric acid, he says. Ammonium nitrate is made all over the world and is relatively cheap to buy. But storing it can be a problem, and it has been associated with serious industrial accidents in the past. How dangerous is ammonium nitrate? On its own, ammonium nitrate is relatively safe to handle, says Prof Sella. However, if you have a large amount of material lying around for a long time it begins to decay. "The real problem is that over time it will absorb little bits of moisture and it eventually turns into an enormous rock," he says. This makes it more dangerous because if a fire reaches it, the chemical reaction will be much more intense. What caused the mushroom cloud? Videos from Beirut showed smoke billowing from a fire, and then a mushroom cloud following the blast. "You have a supersonic shockwave that is travelling through the air, and you can see that in the white spherical cloud which travels out from the centre, expanding upwards," says Prof Sella. The shockwave is produced from compressed air, he explains. "The air expands rapidly and cools suddenly and the water condenses, which causes the cloud," he adds. How dangerous are the gases produced? When ammonium nitrate explodes, it can release toxic gases including nitrogen oxides and ammonia gas. The orange plume is caused by the nitrogen dioxide, which is often associated with air pollution. "If there isn't much wind, it could become a danger to the people nearby," says Prof Sella. Is it used in bombs? With such a powerful blast, ammonium nitrate has been used by armies around the world as an explosive. It has also been used in several terrorist acts, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In that instance, Timothy McVeigh used two tonnes of ammonium nitrate to create a bomb which destroyed a federal building and killed 168 people. Has anything like this happened before?

लगभग 3,000 टन अमोनियम नाइट्रेट-छह साल पहले बेरूत के तट से एक जहाज से लिया गया था और फिर एक गोदाम में संग्रहीत किया गया था-मंगलवार को लेबनान की राजधानी के बंदरगाह क्षेत्र में हुए विस्फोट के लिए दोषी ठहराया गया है।

uk-england-leicestershire-15923253

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-15923253

School closures in Leicestershire and Rutland

When there is severe weather a list of schools that are being affected in Leicester and Leicestershire will appear below.

For information related to school closures in Rutland, please refer to the county council website. The BBC relies on schools and local education authorities to notify it of closures. We advise you to contact your child's school during periods of extreme weather to find out if it has been affected. The page will be manually updated between 06:30 and 21:00 GMT on severe weather days. Please note this page does not auto-update. If no schools are listed below then the BBC has not been made aware of any closures in the region. School closures for [insert date]

जब गंभीर मौसम होता है तो लीसेस्टर और लीसेस्टरशायर में प्रभावित होने वाले स्कूलों की एक सूची नीचे दिखाई देगी।

uk-england-surrey-17728180

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-17728180

Epsom soldiers and wives cycle to Germany for charity

A group of soldiers and military wives from Surrey are on a 500 mile (805km) ride from Epsom to Germany to raise money for two rehabilitation centres.

Fifteen cyclists left Headley Court Centre earlier to make the journey to the Personnel Recovery Centre in Normandy Barracks in Sennelager. Both centres help to rehabilitate injured servicemen and women. Capt Ian More said it was a huge challenge as many of the cyclists had not done anything like it before. Sophie Crease, who organised the event, said: "My father was a very keen army cyclist he did something similar in the nineties - I took the idea from him but went a little bit further." The team hopes to arrive in Germany on Friday.

सरे के सैनिकों और सैन्य पत्नियों का एक समूह दो पुनर्वास केंद्रों के लिए धन जुटाने के लिए एप्सम से जर्मनी तक 500 मील (805 किमी) की सवारी पर है।

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-38885723

A55 reopened at Abergwyngregyn after caravan overturns

The A55 in Gwynedd has now reopened after a caravan overturned on the road.

It was being towed by a lorry but had its roof ripped off, with the remainder lying on the road. The incident happened westbound near junction 13, for Abergwyngregyn, but at 16:30 GMT, the eastbound carriageway was also closed. All lanes have now been opened but traffic is still slow in the area.

सड़क पर एक कारवां के पलट जाने के बाद ग्वेनेड में ए55 अब फिर से खुल गया है।

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-38931372

Plans submitted for 529 homes at former Newport steelworks

Plans to build 529 new homes and a school at a former steelworks in Newport have been submitted to the council .

Whiteheads Steelworks was closed down in 2005 and later demolished as part of the city's regeneration works. Developers say the development, off Mendalgief road, could regenerate a section of Pill "traditionally associated with industry". Plans also include a pub-restaurant, retail and assisted living units. Whiteheads Developments first submitted plans for the development in 2015 with a smaller number of residential properties - 498 - and a care home. Developers changed the plans following noise concerns over the Coilcolor factory and after increased costs of "unforeseen contamination" at the site.

न्यूपोर्ट में एक पूर्व स्टीलवर्क्स में 529 नए घरों और एक स्कूल के निर्माण की योजना परिषद को प्रस्तुत की गई है।

uk-wales-36711013

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-36711013

World War One: The role of Cardiff's black serviceman

Many died in the cause of victory, but returned home from World War One to face intolerance, unrest and scorn. Cardiff's multicultural Tiger Bay contributed many black servicemen to the war effort, but there was no hero's welcome on their return. Actress Suzanne Packer looked at what life was like for them 100 years ago.

They served and died alongside white soldiers and seamen in the trenches and on the open sea. But the reward for some upon their return was violence, oppression and deportation. Following a huge surge in the number of men enlisting upon the outbreak of World War One, African and Caribbean men living in Wales found their offers refused. Prof Hakim Ali, an expert in the history of Africa and the African Diaspora, said the time before World War One was "a high point of imperialism... there was a common idea of white supremacy". A newspaper report in May 1915 said: "A number of coloured men have lately presented themselves for enlistment in any of the services at the Glamorgan headquarter recruiting office in Queen Street, but up to the present Recruiting Sergeant Ashton has been reluctantly compelled to decline their services until such time as the War Office consider it politic to form a coloured race battalion." There was talk of starting a black battalion between the ports of Cardiff, Newport, Barry and Swansea, but this never materialised. Some black men did join Welsh regiments, including the 1st Mons and the Welsh Guards, formed in February 1915. Prof Adi said: "Some people joined out of a sense of adventure... others, from the Caribbean and Africa, as well as other countries, believed that they were proving they were just as good, as patriotic, as any white person and, as a result of this sacrifice, they expected if they were going to suffer equally in the trenches or in the merchant fleet, that they should be treated equally when the war ended." Eustace Rhone joined the 3rd Battalion of the Welch Regiment and was deployed to France. He died on 27 September 1915 of gas poisoning, two days after being injured on the battlefield after chemicals fired by the Allies blew back on to the advancing troops. By 1916, the Merchant Navy were short of crew and Yemeni and Somali seamen arrived in Cardiff in significant numbers, including Ali Janrah who lived on Bute Street and rescued his captain after the ship was torpedoed. After the Armistice was signed and sailors returned home, there was unrest in Cardiff over competition for jobs on ships following the increase in the city's minority ethnic population from 700 to 3,000. The frustrations of unemployed veterans exploded in June 1919 with a series of notorious race riots. Mahomed Abdullah, 21, a native of Aden, Yemen, was one of those killed in the riots. He had served on British ships as a fireman. No-one was brought to justice for the killings in the riots. Prof Adi said those who had been attacked were subsequently blamed, so an idea was put forward to repatriate ex-servicemen and others. "Their involvement in war made absolutely no difference to their status at the end of it." The commander of one ship responsible for repatriating men to the Caribbean, The Orca, reported: "They came on board with a grievance that their patriotic services in the mercantile marine during the war have been entirely disregarded and they contend that they have been repatriated in undeserved disgrace without means to support themselves and without facilities to obtain employment." A telegraph from the ship said there had been a mutiny with "coloured troops and civilians" and requested armed guards on arrival in Barbados. One of the British West Indies soldiers, Private Lashley, was shot dead and five others were manacled. Ms Packer said: "So these men, who left the colonies to fight for the mother country, returned in shackles. "These demobilised men must have wondered why did they enlist at all. Why risk their lives on the front line? Or on the merchant ships. "Those who remained in Wales had survived one battle, but another was just beginning, a battle for acceptance that would take generations to win."

कई लोग जीत के कारण मारे गए, लेकिन असहिष्णुता, अशांति और तिरस्कार का सामना करने के लिए प्रथम विश्व युद्ध से घर लौट आए। कार्डिफ के बहुसांस्कृतिक टाइगर बे ने युद्ध के प्रयास में कई अश्वेत सैनिकों का योगदान दिया, लेकिन उनकी वापसी पर कोई नायक का स्वागत नहीं किया गया। अभिनेत्री सुजैन पैकर ने देखा कि 100 साल पहले उनका जीवन कैसा था।

uk-england-37450922

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-37450922

Where are the blue plaques for black and Asian people?

At the same time a blue plaque was unveiled to mark the childhood home of football legend Laurie Cunningham it was revealed that in London, just 4% of the plaques honour black or Asian luminaries. But in such an ethnically diverse city, why are there so few?

By Bethan BellBBC News According to the Office of National Statistics, London has above-average ethnic minority populations for the UK. These include African (7%), Indian (6.6%), and Caribbean (4.2%). But there is not a proportional number of plaques and English Heritage has decided to take action. Gus Casely-Hayford, a curator and cultural historian with Ghanaian roots, has been appointed the leader of a working group to try to redress the balance. It will not award plaques itself, but will look for Asian and black candidates to put before the selection panel, which grants only 12 plaques a year. Dr Casely-Hayford says London is an "ethnic melting pot". "We are linked through language, culture, political alliance and economic partnership to every part of the world," he says. "And peoples from places that we have touched, have found their way here, to not just make London their home, but to make London and this country what it is. "We want to celebrate that rich, complex, sometimes difficult history, through the lives of those that truly made it." Although the blue plaque scheme was set up in 1866, it was not until 1954 that the first to honour a notable figure of minority ethnic origin was installed - to Mahatma Gandhi. Other black and Asian people who have English Heritage plaques include Jamaican Crimea War nurse Mary Seacole, Chinese writer Lao She, Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and American guitarist and song-writer Jimi Hendrix. There are a variety of reasons for such a small proportion of plaques being for blacks and Asians, English Heritage says. How to get a blue plaque The scheme celebrates the link between significant figures of the past and the buildings in which they lived and worked. Here are the criteria: These include the low number of public nominations fulfilling the blue plaque criteria and the lack of historic records establishing a definitive link between the person in question and the building in which they lived or worked. Some prominent black and Asian people could be excluded from the English Heritage blue plaque scheme because they have already been honoured with plaques from other organisations on the same building. For example, it initially appears Cesar Picton has been overlooked. A former servant, he became a coal merchant in Kingston-upon-Thames in the 18th Century and was wealthy enough by the time he died to bequeath two acres of land and a house - with a wharf and shops attached. But although he does not have an English Heritage blue plaque, he does have a plaque from Thames Ditton and West Green Residents' Association and one from the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Olaudah Equiano - a slave who went on to become a radical reformer and best-selling author, as well as the first black person to explore the Arctic - has a green plaque awarded by the City of Westminster and a memorial in St Margaret's Church at Westminster Abbey. Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Asian MP, has a green plaque on Finsbury Old Town Hall in Islington and a second one erected by a local society. This means none qualify for an English Heritage blue plaque on the same building. Another reason why there are fewer black and Asian people honoured with blue plaques is the schemes' strict rule that people must have been dead for 20 years before being considered. Many members of London's black and Asian communities arrived in the country after World War Two. Consequently many of the likely contenders for a blue plaque have either not been dead for long enough or are still alive. This category would include Jayaben Desai, the prominent leader of the Asian women strikers in the Grunwick dispute in London in 1976. She died in 2010. Similarly, Val McCalla, the Jamaican-born founder of The Voice, a national newspaper for the UK's black community, died in 2002. From humble beginnings in an East End flat, his newspaper grew into a major business and turned Mr McCalla into a millionaire. But he will not qualify for a blue plaque until 2022. However, English Heritage is standing firm on this policy. What are blue plaques? English Heritage has run the London blue plaques scheme since 1986, when it had already been in existence for 120 years. Before that it was run by three bodies in succession - the (Royal) Society of Arts, the London County Council and the Greater London Council. Outside London, many local councils, civic societies and other organisations run similar plaque operations. Here's a list of plaque schemes across England. "The 20-year rule is quite important to us," said spokeswoman Alexandra Carson. "It gives us the benefit of hindsight and allows us to better judge their long-term legacy." It also means dreadful mistakes can be avoided. The blue plaque panel, which meets three times a year, is led by Professor Ronald Hutton. "The 20-year rule acts as a safeguard," he says. "The Jimmy Savile case lights up in neon the dangers of going on someone's pre-death reputation." Another obstacle is the blue plaque schemes' traditional focus on establishment figures. This has resulted in a very low proportion of plaques for women or people from a working-class background. It has also served as a barrier to black or Asian people being recognised. But now, says Anna Eavis from English Heritage, the criteria has evolved. "[Since the scheme was established] our idea of which figures from the past are significant has changed," she says. "While Laurie Cunningham was an incredibly gifted footballer who paved the way for many other black players… 50 years ago he would never have found his way on to a plaque." Another issue is the fact that the plaques are as much about the buildings as about the people themselves. A plaque is only erected if there is a surviving building closely associated with the person in question. Many black and Asian people faced racism and institutional barriers, and often lived outside of the official records, which makes it difficult to definitively link them to a specific building. Historically, black and Asian people often lived in poorer areas which have since been redeveloped or demolished. Ignatius Sancho, an abolition campaigner, composer, actor, and writer - who was the first known black Briton to vote in a British election - falls foul of this. He has a plaque erected by the Nubian Jak Community Trust at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the City of Westminster, which says he "lived and had a grocery shop near this site" and another on the remaining wall of Montague House on the south-west boundary of Greenwich Park, which commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the Slave Trade Act. That would not be enough for an English Heritage blue plaque as there is no specific building he lived or worked in. But English Heritage says it is determined to redress the balance. Dr Casely-Hayford says he is asking the British public to help "in uncovering the stories of those unacknowledged heroes who helped make our great city what it is". Yet, given the stringent criteria, those stories will need a significant amount of uncovering before the number of English Heritage blue plaques even comes close to representing the ethnic makeup of England's "melting pot" of a capital city.

उसी समय फुटबॉल के दिग्गज लॉरी कनिंघम के बचपन के घर को चिह्नित करने के लिए एक नीली पट्टिका का अनावरण किया गया था। यह पता चला कि लंदन में केवल 4 प्रतिशत पट्टिकाएँ अश्वेत या एशियाई दिग्गजों का सम्मान करती हैं। लेकिन इतने जातीय रूप से विविध शहर में, इतने कम क्यों हैं?

uk-54692270

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54692270

School meals: The mum trying to feed her children through half-term week

It's the start of half-term week, and Lucy is making pancakes for her two children for breakfast. But these are made with water, as she doesn't have any milk left. The eggs are from the chickens in her garden. And she is wondering what else she will feed her children until they go back to school.

By Lauren TurnerBBC News Lucy Houghton, 36, usually relies on the free school meals her children are entitled to and had vouchers over summer to spend in a supermarket for their food. But now it's half-term, and MPs have voted against the vouchers being continued through the half-term and Christmas holidays. "I know it's only a few pounds to some people - it's an expensive coffee and a muffin in London - but it can make the difference between my children eating or not," she says. "It's going to be tough this week." She's speaking as Prime Minister Boris Johnson defends his refusal to extend free school meals for children in England over the half-term holiday, saying he was "very proud" of the government's support so far. Lucy says it was "invaluable" to have vouchers over summer and simply be able to use them at a supermarket checkout, without anyone knowing about her situation. Many restaurants and cafes across the UK have offered support to families who are eligible for free school meals, to help them over half-term. But Lucy - who has sole parental responsibility for her two children - says: "It's all very well businesses offering free food, but I'm in a rural location and would need fuel to get there. And it's humiliating. "I hate asking for help from anybody and I know I'm not alone in that." She lives in Norfolk with her 11-year-old son, who is at private school on a bursary and currently on the second week of his half-term, and nine-year-old daughter. Lucy is a university graduate and lived in a large house with three acres of land, before having to move hours away from her family and friends. She is now on Universal Credit and - with it arriving at the start of the month, and half-term only coming at the end - she says: "October is a long month." "What upsets me the most is the stereotyping of what it is to be a single mum nowadays and callous, derisory comments from people who supposedly represent society," she says. "If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. "We don't have a TV. We have a second-hand sofa. I don't have my nails done, or anything like that," she says, adding that her children's school uniforms are second-hand. She makes clothes for them too, with one dress for her daughter made from a pillow case. "My kids don't ask for anything, because they know they can't have it. Little people shouldn't have to live like that." Lucy says having a friendly gamekeeper nearby who gives them pigeons and rabbits he has shot to supplement their diet has been vital. "I'm painfully aware that makes us lucky - there are other mummies who don't have that. Being in a rural area we have our apple tree as well," she says. Lucy, a former research scientist who is hoping to find a teaching assistant job, says she has to count the cost of everything - even, in term times when she needs to drive the children to school, having to decide between putting petrol in the car or buying food. This week, a typical meal will be the roast pigeon with foraged blackberries they had on Sunday night (she is aware, she adds, that "rural poor is different to urban poor" because of the foraging they can do), followed by apple and blackberry crumble. But there are times all they have is pasta. "Pasta is very cheap, so I will buy a 4kg or 5kg bag and then it can be pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner," says Lucy. "We have it with tuna and mayo and when that runs out, just with cheese. When there's no more cheese, it's plain pasta. This is our reality." There are also times when she won't eat, so that her children have enough food. 'I don't sleep' Lucy says she gets angry when she hears people discussing meal vouchers and saying that it's not their responsibility to help feed others' children. "I never imagined I would be living in this situation," she says. "There must be thousands out there too who have lost their jobs in the pandemic and are now being penalised through no fault of their own." Norfolk County Council said while there was support for families in need, there was no formal provision for those eligible for free school meals. Norfolk County Council leader Andrew Proctor said: "Concerns have been raised locally and nationally about how we can support our residents and communities as the coronavirus pandemic continues. "Throughout it all, Norfolk County Council has been providing targeted support for vulnerable people and families, either directly or with our partners. "This was before we received the £1.015m allocated by the government as an emergency assistance grant for food and essential supplies. "We have spent half of that and the rest is earmarked to provide support during Christmas and the remainder of this year. "The money was never intended to be used for free school meals. The government provided separate funding for free school meal vouchers between March and mid-July. If the government reintroduced that scheme and provided sufficient funding, we would, of course, support its delivery." And Lucy has her own firm views on the MPs who voted against the government paying to supply food vouchers more directly: "These people who took the vote have no idea what it's like to live with the constant worry. "I don't sleep, because I am thinking about where the money is coming from. "What I would give for them to swap with me for 24 hours and for them to see what our lives are like."

यह आधे सप्ताह की शुरुआत है, और लुसी अपने दो बच्चों के लिए नाश्ते के लिए पेनकेक्स बना रही है। लेकिन ये पानी से बनाए जाते हैं, क्योंकि उसके पास कोई दूध नहीं बचा है। अंडे उसके बगीचे में मुर्गियों के हैं। और वह सोच रही है कि वह अपने बच्चों को तब तक और क्या खिलाएगी जब तक कि वे स्कूल वापस नहीं जाते।

uk-politics-42688295

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-42688295

Carillion: Watershed moment for privatisation debate?

Ministers are feeling the pressure of awkward questions today.

John PienaarDeputy political editor@JPonpoliticson Twitter Carillion is not the first big public contractor to run into trouble under successive governments and surely won't be the last. But why was so much expensive business and responsibility heaped onto a single company - and a company many felt for months could be heading for trouble? Away from Whitehall - where day-to-day decisions on public projects are taken - Oxfordshire Council say they've noticed the warning signs for some time. Now, the sight of that local authority putting fire fighters on standby to provide school meals may provide enormous fun for the children, but it also symbolically reinforces the impression of a shock to the system and all hands to the pumps, like the convening of the emergency Whitehall committee, Cobra, later on Monday. Other questions being raised today run deeper. Far deeper. Cabinet Office minister David Lidington says there can be no question of asking taxpayers to bail out a private company, along with its shareholders. Few are arguing with that. Free marketeers can argue lucrative contracts come with risks attached in private business, and the same risks should be borne, and prudently guarded against, when it comes to public projects. On the left, there's scorn for the idea that profits should be privatised and losses nationalised. But the Carillion collapse may also be the spur for an ideological debate as fundamental as any seen since Margaret Thatcher began to roll back the frontiers of the state in the 1980s. A senior member of Team Corbyn, one not usually prone to public displays of emotion, told me he believed the Carillion affair would turn out to be a political "watershed". The party hierarchy is preparing to reel out statements and push lines of attack challenging the role of private business in the public sphere on multiple fronts. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has already pledged to consider taking a range of Private Finance Initiative schemes back into public ownership or control or both. This week, Labour shadow ministers will challenge the fundamental case for private sector involvement in prisons, schools, hospitals. Attacks will be seasoned by the suggestion that some of those responsible for handing out contracts have too easily ended up taking well paid jobs with the recipients. Just a couple of years BC (before Corbyn) the case in principle for significant private sector involvement in public services seemed to go virtually unchallenged. Now the settled political consensus has been opened to question again. The case for private enterprise in the public sphere is far from being lost. But the fact that ministers are having to make it again, afresh, speaks volumes about the new polarisation of view which has taken hold at Westminster, and on which the next general election will be fought.

मंत्री आज अजीबोगरीब प्रश्नों का दबाव महसूस कर रहे हैं।

uk-england-birmingham-20758269

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-20758269

Bug leads to wards visiting ban at Sandwell Hospital

A West Midlands hospital has closed all wards to visitors as a precaution because of the winter vomiting bug.

Sandwell General Hospital has also shut four of its wards due to norovirus. City Hospital in Birmingham, which is also part of Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, shut all wards to visitors on Thursday and has three wards closed. But people can still visit critical care, paediatrics, maternity and the Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre.

वेस्ट मिडलैंड्स के एक अस्पताल ने सर्दियों में उल्टी करने वाले कीड़े के कारण एहतियात के तौर पर आगंतुकों के लिए सभी वार्ड बंद कर दिए हैं।

world-europe-50210441

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50210441

Brexit: What just happened with UK election vote?

The UK parliament has just rejected Boris Johnson's bid to call a snap general election - for a third time - despite the prime minister arguing it would help "get Brexit done". But there remains a chance that the UK could have a pre-Christmas election.

So what just happened? How did Johnson lose (again)? Well - and this has an element of irony to it - the leader of the UK's governing Conservative Party cannot just choose to hold an early election. As a legal requirement, Mr Johnson needs the support of two-thirds of MPs - at least 434 - but is short of seats in the House of Commons, making this tricky. Without a majority, he has to convince members of the opposition to vote in his favour. Monday's vote was rejected after the leader of the main opposition Labour Party said he did not trust Mr Johnson and would not agree to a poll until the prospect of a no-deal exit from the European Union had been definitively ruled out. Labour MPs earlier complained that Mr Johnson's new deal, the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), contained plans to dilute workers' rights after Brexit. It was also suggested that the prime minister could change the election date after MPs had approved a 12 December poll, enabling him to postpone until after the UK had left the EU, effectively forcing through the WAB. Labour abstained in Monday's ballot, meaning that despite 299 MPs voting in favour and only 70 voting against, the bill failed to get the required 434 votes to pass. What happens next? Believe it or not, another vote on whether to have an election on 12 December. That's right; Mr Johnson is refusing to give up on a pre-Christmas election. On Tuesday, he will propose a new motion in the House of Commons calling for an early election that will require a simple majority of just one vote to pass in parliament. He will seek the support of opposition Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs by making the short bill "almost identical" to one proposed earlier by the two parties for an election on 9 December. Mr Johnson's new motion, however, will be subject to amendments - which could draw out the process. Will an election sort out Brexit though? Not necessarily. The Brexit deal agreed between Mr Johnson and the EU is in limbo after MPs voted against the three-day timetable to pass it through the Commons last week. But while an election could restore the Conservative Party's majority and give the prime minister more leverage in parliament, an early election also carries risks for Mr Johnson and the Tories. Leaving the EU by 31 October "do or die" was a key campaign promise in Mr Johnson's bid to become prime minister but he has since accepted an offer from EU leaders to - in principle - extend Brexit until 31 January 2020. As a result, voters could choose to punish him at the ballot box for failing to fulfil his campaign pledge. A general election is supposed to take place every five years in the UK. The last election was in June 2017. Is another referendum likely? A new vote on Britain's EU membership is one possibility in breaking the stalemate over Brexit. But organising another public vote would take a minimum of 22 weeks, according to experts at the Constitution Unit at University College London (UCL). This would consist of at least 12 weeks to pass the legislation required to hold a referendum, plus a further 10 weeks to organise the campaign and hold the vote itself. Also - and this is a recurring theme here - a government cannot just decide to hold a referendum. Instead, a majority of MPs and Members of the House of Lords would need to agree and vote through the rules of another public vote. What about the Brexit extension? EU Council President Donald Tusk said the latest agreed extension was flexible and that the UK could leave before the 31 January 2020 deadline if a withdrawal agreement is approved by the British parliament. The extension will need to be formalised through a written procedure among the 27 other EU nations following agreement from the UK. An EU official said they hoped for the process to be concluded by Tuesday or Wednesday. Is no-deal still possible? Yes. While Mr Johnson has formally accepted the EU's offer of a Brexit extension until 31 January 2020, it does not mean that a no-deal Brexit is off the table. Rather, it pushes the possibility further into the future. Mr Johnson is likely to continue to try to push his deal through Parliament and if his efforts fail before the deadline for Britain's exit is reached, the UK could leave without a deal. Please upgrade your browser Your guide to Brexit jargon Use the list below or select a button

ब्रिटेन की संसद ने तीसरी बार एक त्वरित आम चुनाव बुलाने के लिए बोरिस जॉनसन की बोली को खारिज कर दिया है-प्रधान मंत्री के तर्क के बावजूद कि यह "ब्रेक्सिट को पूरा करने" में मदद करेगा। लेकिन एक संभावना बनी हुई है कि ब्रिटेन में क्रिसमस से पहले चुनाव हो सकते हैं।

uk-england-45864729

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-45864729

How Brexit could redraw Midlands political battle lines

"Europe: journey to an unknown destination"

Patrick BurnsPolitical editor, Midlands This was the title of the BBC's Reith Lectures delivered in 1972 by the political economist Andrew Schonfield. It helped to set the scene for Britain's entry the following year into what was then the European Economic Community. As an undergraduate student of politics, I lapped-up Schonfield's narrative: the UK was on track for some kind of epic "supranational" transformation. But into exactly what were we to be transformed? It was one thing to get on the bus, another altogether to agree the route and where it should take us. Come what may, it would be a fascinating experience to take the ride. It has certainly helped to keep us politics-watchers gainfully employed for 40 years or more. But its progress has been very different from that predicted by Schonfield. A succession of tortuous European summit conferences, hotly-contested treaty changes and British government crises has taken us along a relentlessly bumpy road towards today's much-enlarged political union. As an ultimate destination, Brexit is the exact opposite of Schonfield's theoretical direction of travel. And yet, by some strange irony, it gives a new resonance to his headline. "Journey to an unknown destination" is even more relevant at the moment of our leaving, than it seemed then when we entered. It signposts a future in which our politics may never be the same again. Our two-party mould Over the years, I have tended to pour cold water over excitable predictions of a fundamental political realignment. Back in the 'eighties, even with the help of some of the top talent drawn from the Labour and Liberal parties, the Social Democratic Party failed to "break the mould of British politics". After some notable early highlights, it took just seven years for "the gang of four" and the rest to admit defeat. By 1988, it was the SDP who were broken, while the two-party mould was obstinately refusing to crack: four consecutive terms of Conservative majority governments were followed by three Labour administrations. Maybe my scepticism has been shaped by my experience of a part of the country that is a prime example of two-party politics. For more than half a century, neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Liberals before them have held more three seats at any one time in a West Midlands region boasting over 60 constituencies. UKIP have undoubtedly left their mark on our recent European history: they scored their biggest successes in the 2014 European Parliamentary Election and in local elections in the Black Country and Stoke-on-Trent around that time. Remember it was they who coerced David Cameron into the "in-out referendum". But now they look increasingly like a magnesium flash which sparked brightly, but briefly, only to fall away. A shock to the body politic So what would it take for me to change my mind about the chances of that "fundamental political realignment"? I reckon it will take the most tremendous trauma, an enormous knock, to break that mould once and for all. But Brexit may just be exactly such a shock. I mentioned in last week's blog post how it is a debate which cuts through the two biggest parties as much as it does between them. During the early 'nineties, I reported on the deep-seated divisions in the Tory party between the "irreconcilable" Eurosceptics, including Bill Cash, then the MP for Stafford and now for Stone, and Euro-enthusiasts headed by the Rushcliffe MP Kenneth Clarke: (at that time my politics brief covered both the East and West Midlands together.) The crisis triggered by the Maastricht Treaty nearly brought John Major's government down. The Wolverhampton South West MP, Nicholas Budgen, was among 22 Tory backbench Eurosceptics who were suspended from their Parliamentary party for voting against the government. More recently those same Tory fault lines were another principal reason why David Cameron felt compelled to call that referendum. But Labour have divisions of their own, as the self-same Kenneth Clarke pointed out during last week's Prime Minister's Questions. He suggested to Theresa May that if she comes back with a compromise deal agreed with the European Union: "It would retain the support of pro-European Conservative backbenchers and also win the support of a significant number of Labour pro-European backbenchers, which would reveal the hard-line Eurosceptic views of the Bennites on the Labour front bench and the right-wing nationalists in our party are a minority in this House." Is it fanciful to suppose either or both of the main parties might fracture along these lines? Just imagine. What if Mrs May's "good deal for the United Kingdom" were, somehow, to pass through Parliament with the support of, say, 15 Labour MPs: enough to counteract the opposition both of the Tory Brexiters and of the Labour leadership? Speculation is mounting already that Labour backbenchers including Wolverhampton's Pat McFadden and the Stoke MPs Ruth Smeeth and Gareth Snell might be prepared to support such a deal even if it meant defying their party line. Mr Snell said this week: "I'm not wedded to opposing a deal just because it comes from the government. If the deal is as May has been suggesting then it would be difficult for me to justify to myself not strongly considering supporting it, if the alternative is crashing out without a deal." Consider how this might deepen divisions on both sides of this debate in both main parties. Might this have the effect of driving an unholy alliance of the more Euro-friendly Conservative and Labour MPs into something longer-lasting? Maybe the People's Vote campaign might also serve to define a new party political landscape. But where would this leave those hardened Brexiters who, like Sir Bill Cash, remain as 'irreconcilable' as ever? Who knows? Only when, or if, that trade deal materialises can the picture start to emerge. Stourbridge's Conservative MP Margot James (now the Minister of State at the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) was the only Midlands MP to declare herself a "Remainer" even before David Cameron had finished traipsing around the capitals of Europe in pursuit of his "renegotiated terms of membership". She and Pat McFadden (see above!) will both be joining me in the studio for this weekend's "Sunday Politics Midlands". And I hope you will too, at 11.00 on BBC One this Sunday, 21 October 2018. And finally: what price a sequel to that original series of BBC Reith Lectures? "Brexit: Journey to another unknown destination"?

"यूरोपः एक अज्ञात गंतव्य की यात्रा"

uk-wales-south-east-wales-34333396

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-34333396

Police investigate possible Cardiff sex assaults link

Police are investigating whether two sexual assaults which happened very closely to one another in Cardiff are linked.

A woman was attacked in a property in Cathays Terrace early on Tuesday. This followed the sexual assault of another woman in the early hours of Sunday close to the Civic Centre. Supt Andy Valentine of South Wales Police said officers were "keeping an open mind" as to whether the two are linked. Earlier on Wednesday, police warned people to walk in pairs at night and stick to well-lit areas following the second sexual assault. Supt Valentine added: "We understand this is likely to cause concern within the local community and enhanced patrols by our local Neighbourhood Policing Teams are continuing."

पुलिस इस बात की जांच कर रही है कि क्या कार्डिफ में एक-दूसरे के साथ बहुत निकटता से हुए दो यौन हमले जुड़े हुए हैं।

world-africa-55189607

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-55189607

Ethiopia's Tigray crisis: Cutting through the information blackout

The BBC has managed to speak to some people inside Mekelle, the capital of the Ethiopia's conflict-hit region of Tigray, for the first time since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared an end to the four-week-long military operation.

"It is really scary. It is really difficult. I don't think Tigray has ever been in such a trying time," a desperate-sounding resident of Mekelle shouted down the line. The BBC has spent days trying to speak to people in the city, which is home to half a million people. The phone lines have been down, and power shortages have meant that establishing a satellite internet connection has been hard. But we managed to have brief conversations with two people in the city on Wednesday and Thursday evening, who gave their perspective on what has been happening. We agreed to keep them anonymous for their own safety. They have been experiencing a lack of basic services since the conflict started on 4 November. And the two residents said that things have not changed since Ethiopian federal troops entered Mekelle a week ago. "There is still no electricity, no water and no banking services," one of our contacts said. "There is no government in the city." He added that federal soldiers can only be seen in a limited area and in the absence of local police and security forces, looting has become common. Meanwhile, government-affiliated media has reported that the city is "returning back to normal". One interviewee on Ethiopian TV (ETV) said that "people are moving about, shops are opening and… we are going to church. Everything is as you can see, very peaceful." ETV showed pictures of people walking about the streets. There are also differing perspectives on the impact of the assault on the city. Last week, before the federal troops entered Mekelle, it was shelled and some residents fled to the outskirts to escape the bombardment. 'Homes destroyed' On Monday, Prime Minister Abiy appeared in parliament in Addis Ababa and told MPs that "not a single civilian was killed" during the operation. However our two contacts in Mekelle told the BBC that they had seen wounded and dead civilians in the city's hospitals after the shelling on Saturday. One of those we spoke to provided a picture of a home destroyed by a shell in a residential area called Ayder Edaga Begie that also killed members of one family. Responding to these reports, Ethiopia's Minister for Democratisation Zadig Abraha backed the prime minister's view, and told the BBC: "We have completely avoided civilian causalities from our side." Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that Mekelle's main hospital was "dangerously low" on supplies - including body bags - as it treated the wounded from the fighting around the city. The ICRC, however, did not give any figures for the numbers injured or dead. Neither did it say whether the victims were civilians or military personnel. The BBC also managed to speak to someone in the western part of Tigray, where there was heavy fighting earlier last month. The telecom service has been partially restored in the area. 'Hiding in the bush' People are still living in fear there, our contact said, alleging that local militia from the neighbouring Amhara region are killing, harassing, threatening and displacing ethnic Tigrayans. "I have tried to cross to Sudan, they blocked us. We are in a difficult position. It is almost like we are in prison. Some people have nothing to eat hiding in the bush," he said. "We are spending the day in bush. There is no-one to protect us. We have left our farms behind. Our cattle are left scattered on the fields." Find out more about the Tigray crisis: Last month, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission reported on the massacre of at least 600 people in the town of Mai-Kadra. It said that ethnic Amhara people had been targeted by Tigrayan youths backed by the local Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) administration in what it said could amount to a war crime. The TPLF has denied involvement. The two Mekelle residents also told the BBC that fighting was still going on near the city on Wednesday and Thursday. They described sounds of heavy fire come from the west and south. But Mr Zadig said "there is no war", adding that the TPLF "has no more military capacity to conduct a war" and the federal forces now need to apprehend its leadership. The TPLF maintains that fighting is continuing, saying that they are defending their region from "invaders".

प्रधान मंत्री अबी अहमद द्वारा चार सप्ताह तक चलने वाले सैन्य अभियान को समाप्त करने की घोषणा के बाद पहली बार बीबीसी ने इथियोपिया के संघर्ष प्रभावित क्षेत्र टिग्रे की राजधानी मेकेले के अंदर कुछ लोगों से बात करने में कामयाबी हासिल की है।

entertainment-arts-45739825

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-45739825

Doctor Who: Will Gompertz on the new series with Jodie Whittaker ★★★★☆

Relax! Take the afternoon off. You don't have to vacuum behind the sofa. The new Doctor Who isn't that scary. It has its moments, of course, but a trip to the dentist is far worse - at least it would be if...well…

Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter Let us not even take the smallest step down a road that might lead to a plot spoiler. Suffice it to say that in the opening episode of season 11 (starting from the 2005 re-boot) there are goodies and baddies and surprises (nice and not so nice) and some strange events and…a new Doctor. That we already know. Because it's been everywhere. What's more we met her at the end of the last episode when Peter Capaldi regenerated into Jodie Whittaker who promptly fell out of the TARDIS and plummeted to who-knew-where. Turns out she was heading for one of the very few places in the entire unknowable universe of potentially a gazillion planets where the inhabitants not only speak her native language, but do so in the same accent. And so it is that the thirteenth Doctor Who gets to start her exciting stint of inter-galactic policing in present day Sheffield. Unfortunately for her there is no time to enjoy a stroll around the city's expansive parkland, or to take in a show at the Crucible Theatre. She is thrown in at the deep end with a life-threatening crisis to help avert. From this we quickly learn that the new Doctor is not one to panic. No matter how serious the situation she always has a witty quip to hand to quell nerves and lighten the mood. These she delivers with puckish dry humour and perfect timing. If Capaldi's Doctor had a slightly chilly edge, Whittaker's is warmer than a mug of Yorkshire tea. She is a very talented actor, whose down-to-earth style plays cleverly with her character's otherworldly nature, in the way, say, Roger Moore's old-school charm subverted James Bond's cold-blooded ruthlessness. From the moment she enters the fray Jodie Whittaker completely owns the part. Any chat about gender is rendered wholly irrelevant before she's finished her first sentence. She is Doctor Who, and that's it - some will love her interpretation of the Time Lord, others won't. I'm in the former camp, but not without one small reservation. These are early days, she has another nine episodes to fully flesh out her version of The Doctor, but at this stage the character is a little too jolly and friendly, which makes building up dramatic tension almost impossible. David Tennant, who strikes me as the most similar to Whittaker's take on the role, was able to change mood in an instant: from class clown to a deadly serious galaxy-saving leader. She is yet to show that tonal transition from light to dark. On those occasions when she does dispense with the flippant asides for a more profound thought, her Doctor tends to come across more like a Sunday-school teacher than a masterful rhetorician who can inspire and intimidate in equal measure. That might well be a case of an experienced actor slowly developing the character to draw the audience in over the course of the run. Or, it could be the way the part is being written and directed. Doctor Who is a massive entertainment brand, which like most global products, requires constant refreshing both to enlist new customers and to keep existing punters interested. In that respect a TV franchise is no different than a Premiership football club. It's all showbiz; new faces are imperative: they all need to regenerate. And with that new public face almost always comes a new back-room team. As is the case with this all new Doctor Who, which sees previous show-runner Steven Moffat exit stage right, and Chris Chibnall come in to take up the reins (he worked with Whittaker on Broadchurch). Hopefully they will turn out to be a dream team. Actually, they have to be the dream team, because imagination is the only thing that will keep Doctor Who's TARDIS on the universe's super-highway. It would be good to see them challenge the concept of science fiction and push it beyond the hackneyed and obvious, in the way Charlie Brooker has re-thought the dystopian novel in the shape of his TV series Black Mirror, which focuses on 21st century concerns. It's fine for Sci-Fi to be funny, but it should be unsettling too - and the only way to do that is to make it real: Doctor Who needs to tell us our worst nightmares, contemporary stories that are so darkly embedded in our unconscious minds we need to hide behind a sofa when they are revealed to us. Doctor Who is on BBC One on Sunday at 18:45 BST.

आराम करें! दोपहर की छुट्टी लें। आपको सोफे के पीछे खाली करने की ज़रूरत नहीं है। नया डॉक्टर जो इतना डरावना नहीं है। इसके अपने क्षण हैं, निश्चित रूप से, लेकिन दंत चिकित्सक की यात्रा कहीं अधिक खराब है-कम से कम यह होगा अगर... ठीक है...

world-us-canada-44569514

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44569514

Supreme Court: Why a fight over US abortion law now looms

Anthony Kennedy was a swing vote on the US Supreme Court, albeit one that frequently tilted to the right. Replacing him with a solidly conservative justice, however, could have a significant impact on US jurisprudence - and politics - for decades to come.

Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter Here's a look at some of the most consequential issues. Abortion Shortly after Mr Kennedy announced his retirement, Supreme Court analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted that "abortion will be illegal in 20 states in 18 months" - an indication that he believes Mr Trump's nominee will join a majority in reversing Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision legalising abortion throughout the US. Anti-abortion advocates have been trying to scale back the broad constitutional guarantees of the Roe decision in the decades since, and now - without Mr Kennedy on the court - they could be poised for a breakthrough. Back in 1992, when Mr Kennedy was just a junior justice, the court considered a series of Pennsylvania restrictions on abortion rights in a case, Planned Parenthood v Casey, that could have drastically curtailed what had been established as a constitutional right to abortion. Mr Kennedy reportedly initially sided with the more conservative justices but eventually co-wrote a three-justice plurality that upheld the "essential holding" of the landmark Roe decision legalising first-trimester abortions throughout the US. Since then, Mr Kennedy has frequently sided with abortion rights advocates in the court, most recently last year, when he joined the court's four liberal justices to strike down a Texas law stringently regulating abortion clinics and the doctors who perform the procedure. It may not be long before the Court considers the next big abortion case, as there is already an Iowa law prohibiting the procedure after a foetal heartbeat is detected - usually around six weeks of pregnancy. The measure is currently on hold pending a legal challenge from abortion rights groups. At the very least, a court without Mr Kennedy could uphold the constitutionality of state-level regulations that make abortion effectively - if not legally - unavailable in a number of states where only a handful of clinics currently operate at the moment. Gay rights Mr Kennedy may be most remembered for his support for cases involving gay rights. He sided with the majority in a 1996 decision striking down a Colorado measure banning city-level anti-gay discrimination ordinances. In 2003, he authored the decision holding that a Texas law that made gay and lesbian sex illegal was unconstitutional. His most famous opinion, however, surely is the 2015 ruling that legalised gay marriage across the US. In Obergfell v Hodges, Mr Kennedy wrote that marriage "allows two people to find life that could not be found alone" and that the Constitution grants gay couples right to "equal dignity in the eyes of the law". The Court's vote was 5 to 4, the narrowest of margins, and while a newly constituted conservative majority on the court may follow precedent and not directly reverse this decision, it could take steps to allow individuals and corporations greater freedom to deny civil rights protections and accommodations to gay persons and married couples by citing religious beliefs. The court also was poised to consider the constitutionality of school bathroom bans for transgender students before the Trump administration reversed an Obama-era guidance prohibiting such bans. The case is back at the lower-court level and could end up in the next few years on the docket of a Supreme Court that looks very different from the one that would have ruled on the matter this term. Death penalty Capital punishment has been allowed in the US since a Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the practice in 1976. Mr Kennedy has not questioned that precedent, but he has repeatedly sided with justices who have chipped away at who can be executed and under what circumstances. In 2005 he wrote the majority opinion ruling that capital punishment was an unconstitutional punishment for crimes committed by those under the age of 18. He joined a 2002 opinion prohibiting the execution of those with intellectual disabilities and authored a 2014 majority opinion limiting a state's ability to decide who is and isn't mentally capable. There has been some speculation that the Supreme Court could be steadily progressing to a point where it could rule that capital punishment in all cases constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. There is a good chance that whoever Mr Trump picks to replace Mr Kennedy will bring this trend to a halt. Affirmative action The ability of public colleges and universities to consider race and ethnicity in an attempt to create a diverse student body has been on shaky grounds for years. Mr Kennedy has opposed any type of school admissions process that gives individuals an advantage in admissions based solely on their race. In 2016, however, he authored a majority opinion, again by one vote, that upheld a University of Texas practice of weighing an applicant's race among a number of factors in a "holistic review" of a prospective student's enrolment application. It was an opinion that walked a fine legal line, allowing public universities to craft policies that created a more diverse student body while avoiding quotas and other direct actions. That's a line the other conservative justices have shown no interest in observing. With one more reliable vote in their number, Mr Kennedy's measured "maybe" could be replaced by a firm "no". A partisan firestorm The new Supreme Court vacancy is certain to throw petrol on the smouldering flames of anger and resentment that have come to define US politics in the Trump era. Liberal activists are girding for all-out war, although their ability to block the Republican-controlled Senate's ability to confirm the president's nominee is limited. Mid-term congressional elections are less than five months away, and the coming confirmation fight is sure to figure prominently in the campaigns. Republicans running against Senate Democratic incumbents in Trump-friendly states like West Virginia, Indiana and North Dakota are sure to highlight any moves their opponents make to block the president's choice. Meanwhile, Democrats targeting at-risk Republicans in House of Representatives races could capitalise on increased engagement and energy from liberal voters who view abortion and gay rights at new risk. In 2016 the open court seat ended up helping Mr Trump by spurring evangelical voters and cultural conservatives to stick by their candidate despite his various controversies and missteps. At the time, Republicans were on the defensive - facing the prospect of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia being replaced by a liberal jurist. Now Republicans are on the attack, with the opportunity to cement a conservative court for a generation. Democrats may not be able to do anything to stop it at this point, but flocking to the polls in November may give them some measure of comfort - or revenge.

एंथनी कैनेडी अमेरिकी सुप्रीम कोर्ट में एक स्विंग वोट थे, हालांकि एक जो अक्सर दाईं ओर झुकता था। उन्हें एक ठोस रूप से रूढ़िवादी न्याय के साथ बदलना, हालांकि, आने वाले दशकों तक अमेरिकी न्यायशास्त्र और राजनीति पर महत्वपूर्ण प्रभाव डाल सकता है।

uk-northern-ireland-politics-34850503

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-34850503

Stormont talks: Finances set to remain under pressure after deal

More than £500m in new money is trumpeted in the new agreement between Northern Ireland's political parties and the British and Irish governments.

By John CampbellBBC News NI Economics & Business Editor But even if that stacks up it is effectively offset by funds that have to be found from Stormont budgets to pay for welfare mitigation. The cut in corporation tax will also have to be paid for, but the bills for that will not arrive until 2019. All this is taking place against a tough public spending environment directed from Westminster. Manageable Stormont can expect its so-called block grant to fall by up to 2% a year until 2019-20. Savings made through public sector redundancies and other measures should ease a bit of the pressure. Senior officials tell me the implementation of welfare reforms will make the budget "manageable." But even with this agreement Stormont's finances will remain under pressure.

उत्तरी आयरलैंड के राजनीतिक दलों और ब्रिटिश और आयरिश सरकारों के बीच नए समझौते में 500 मिलियन पाउंड से अधिक के नए धन की घोषणा की गई है।

health-18461228

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-18461228

How improving children's diets can aid development

Early malnutrition can blight a child's development - and also that of their community and nation, say Anthony Lake. director of Unicef and President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania. In this week's Scrubbing Up column, they say a new initiative called Scaling Up Nutrition - backed by the G8 - is crucially important.

By Anthony Lake & Jakaya KikweteDirector of Unicef and President of Tanzania The foundation of a healthy future for every child is the 1,000 days between a mother's pregnancy and her child's second birthday. The right nutrition during this critical period puts a child on track to be stronger, healthier and ready to learn. Well-nourished children grow to be adults that can earn to their potential and contribute to the economic and social development of their families, communities and nations - building a strong foundation for a better world. An estimated 180m children under the age of five years in the world are up to 4-6" (10-15cm) shorter than their peers. The reason is not genetics or disease, but a condition called stunting. It is caused by chronic nutritional deficiencies during that 1,000 day window of opportunity. Earnings boost When we consider that a lack of adequate nutrition can cause a five-year-old to lose up to a half-foot of growth, it is no surprise that the effects also extend to the immune system and cognitive development, permanently limiting the child's capacities and opportunities throughout life. The effects are costly: the World Bank estimates that countries blighted by stunting and other consequences of malnutrition lose at least 2-3% of their gross domestic product, as well as billions of dollars in forgone productivity and avoidable health care spending each year. We have seen first-hand the debilitating and often deadly effects of malnutrition. But we have also seen how communities and countries are strengthened by an investment in nutrition. Prioritising nutrition in national development yields significant economic benefits - one study has found that improving nutrition during childhood can increase earnings in adult life by up to 46%. So imagine what a child could do, what a nation could do, what we as a global community could do - if nourished to reach full growth and potential. Recently, the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of leading economists, including four Nobel Laureates, found that fighting malnourishment should be the top priority for those seeking to improve global welfare. Based on research, the Consensus recommends improving availability of vitamins and minerals, complementary foods and treatments for intestinal worms and diarrhoeal diseases, as well as education and information on good nutrition practices - which could reduce chronic malnutrition by 36% in developing countries. Even in very poor countries and using conservative assumptions, each dollar spent to reduce chronic malnutrition can have at least a $30 (£19) payoff. Taking action That is why, as members of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement's Lead Group, we are committed to creating lasting change through improved nutrition, thereby lifting communities and nations out of the cycle of poverty and on to the path of productivity. The SUN Movement, which brings together more than 100 global partners in the international community, business, civil society, researchers and donor governments, is a push for action toward better maternal and child nutrition. Led by countries facing nutrition challenges, it aims to support a growing number of countries developing national plans and programs to tackle malnutrition, and to learn from and help each other in the process. SUN is a different approach to improving nutrition. We're working with new partners, coordinating across sectors and looking for innovative ways to create sustainable change that no one organisation, business or government could achieve alone. Our work is supported by other efforts: investing in agricultural output has also been highlighted by the Copenhagen Consensus as a way to make children smarter, better educated and higher paid, helping to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. US President Barack Obama recently announced a new G8 initiative to invest in improving agriculture and food and nutrition security. As part of that initiative, the G8 will actively support SUN and pledge to maintain robust programs to further reduce child stunting. We know all too well the debilitating and deadly effects of malnutrition. But now, through SUN, we are witnessing communities and countries taking action to scale up nutrition, allowing people to thrive in the good years and to weather the bad ones. Both of us know that investing in nutrition isn't just the foundation for building a better world; it's also a powerhouse for development, driving improved health, productivity, educational achievement and economic performance. Because good nutrition truly empowers children, families, communities and nations, it's a cost-effective opportunity for major, sustainable, global development progress. We know what to do. Countries are ready to do it. Let's invest now.

एंथनी लेक. यूनिसेफ के निदेशक और तंजानिया के राष्ट्रपति जकाया किकवेटे कहते हैं कि प्रारंभिक कुपोषण एक बच्चे के विकास को प्रभावित कर सकता है-और उनके समुदाय और राष्ट्र के विकास को भी। इस सप्ताह के स्क्रबिंग अप कॉलम में, वे कहते हैं कि जी8 द्वारा समर्थित पोषण को बढ़ाना नामक एक नई पहल महत्वपूर्ण है।

uk-england-wiltshire-29706383

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-29706383

Bishop says Salisbury worthy of top 10 world cities list

The UK city of Salisbury has been named among the top 10 cities in the world to visit, by the Lonely Planet travel guide. We should not be surprised - it is one of the loveliest places on earth, writes the Right Reverend Nicholas Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury.

"Salisbury is lovely; a quintessentially English cathedral city. After the painter John Constable was taken from here to Winchester by his friend John Fisher, he wrote to his wife that Winchester is more magnificent - but Salisbury is more beautiful. The Cathedral Close is the largest in England and arguably the finest of cathedral precincts in the whole of Europe, while our elegant 13th Century cathedral is the main draw for tourists, with the tallest spire in England. We have the best of the four original versions of Magna Carta and next year's celebrations for its 800th anniversary makes 2015 a particularly worthwhile time to visit. We love the sense of community here. It is a warm and friendly place - maybe that's because there are so many military here. They have moved around a lot and know how to put down roots quickly. In many ways this is prosperous middle England, but like any community at the moment, there are big gaps between rich and poor. The Trussell Trust foodbanks started here. Charity begins at home, but does not stop at home. Every summer, my wife and I host a garden party to raise funds for medical care in the South Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries. It's almost like a trip back in time: a traditional summer fête with games and rides on a camel or in a Bentley, a silver band and children serving strawberries and cream. Salisbury has a real old-fashioned charm, but just because it is old-fashioned doesn't mean it's stuffy. When we came to live here in 2011, we were struck by the way we were invited to be part of a community at the start of the West Country, with hospitality to match. We have great pubs, a theatre, arts centre and the Salisbury International Arts Festival. It is a great small city and the water-meadows, right in the city centre, make it even more special. It is surrounded by Wiltshire's gorgeous chalk valleys and downland, which makes excellent walking country. Put simply, Salisbury is one of the loveliest places on earth."

ब्रिटेन के शहर सैलिसबरी को लोनली प्लैनेट ट्रैवल गाइड द्वारा दुनिया के शीर्ष 10 शहरों में नामित किया गया है। हमें आश्चर्य नहीं होना चाहिए-यह पृथ्वी पर सबसे प्यारे स्थानों में से एक है, सैलिसबरी के बिशप राइट रेवरेंड निकोलस होल्टम लिखते हैं।