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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.

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.

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.

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?

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

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."

world-us-canada-49240582

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49240582

The men who feel left out of US abortion debate

The fiercely-contested debate over US abortion focuses on the rights of the mother and foetus. But a lawsuit in Alabama by a man who says his girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes adds a third voice to the conversation, writes James Jeffrey.

After the rage has dissipated, after overcoming alcoholism as a coping mechanism, even after a new and beautiful family comes on the scene, a great sadness still persists - and likely always will. That's the message from men talking about their experiences of abortion, a voice rarely heard among the passionate multitudes in the US abortion debate, though abortion rights supporters argue that this group is an outlier and does not speak for the majority of men involved in an abortion. Currently, the usual male perspectives that feature are legislators pushing to restrict abortion procedures, drawing the ire of pro-choice supporters accusing them of trying to legislate women's bodies. But now would-be fathers denied by abortion are speaking out. An Alabama abortion clinic is being sued by a man after his girlfriend had an abortion at the six-week stage, against his will in 2017. The case is the first of its kind because the court recognised the foetus as the plaintiff and the father as the representative of his baby's estate. "I'm here for the men who actually want to have their baby," the man told a local news agency in February. "I just tried to plead with her and plead with her and just talk to her about it and see what I could do. But in the end, there was nothing I could do to change her mind." Currently in the US, fathers have no legal rights to hinder the abortion of a pregnancy for which they are responsible. State laws requiring that a father be given a say in, or even notified of, an abortion have been struck down by the US Supreme Court. "I was in my 30s living the good single life in Dallas," says 65-year-old Karl Locker. When a woman he was seeing told him she was pregnant, he says he felt "like one of those wolves with its leg caught in a trap". Nevertheless, he decided he had to support her - and the pregnancy. "I tried everything, I offered to marry her, to take the baby myself, or to offer it up for adoption," Mr Locker says, explaining that he felt keeping the child would be the right thing to do. "She said she could never give her child up for adoption - it didn't make cognitive sense." Other voices in abortion debate In the end he drove the woman to the clinic and paid for the abortion. Afterwards he says he moved to California as he couldn't bear the knowledge of what he'd done. "I didn't know how I was going to survive; I wasn't going to jump off a bridge, but I probably would have drank myself to death," says Mr Locker, who believes that reconnecting with his faith and starting a family with another woman saved him. "I've thought about what happened every day for the last 32 years." Men are usually involved in an abortion in one of four ways, all of which can leave men traumatised when they come to reflect afterwards on their roles, say those running counselling groups for post-abortive men. Sometimes men coerce a woman into having an abortion against her will; others say they will support the woman's decision either way, while steering that decision towards abortion. Some men find out about the abortion for the first time after the fact, or the abortion goes ahead against their wishes. What polling has occurred indicates a majority of women say they do not regret having an abortion, but fewer studies have been done on men's reactions. What data there is for men comes from post-abortive support groups, which is dependent on men seeking them out, making it difficult to make any broad statistical observations. But the accounts include commonalities such as feelings of anger, guilt, shame and deep sadness on anniversary dates. "Men are meant to be protectors, so there is a sense of failure - failing to protect the mother and the unborn child, failing to be responsible," says 61-year-old Chuck Raymond, whose 18-year-old girlfriend had an abortion in the late '70s when he was a teenager. "There is incredible guilt and shame about having not done that." Mr Raymond says he thought a child would have interfered with educational plans and his military training at West Point military academy, where cadets are not allowed to be married or be raising children. "Once I was involved in training, I got caught up in everything and suppressed the event, keeping it out of my consciousness. Years later though, I realised that a tragedy had occurred, and we had made a tragic choice." He likens the mental and emotional anguish that can follow an abortion to battlefield post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Abortion in US - how we got here The Supreme Court's landmark Roe v Wade decision issued on 22 January, 1973, is the best-known case on abortion, for having legalised the procedure across the United States. But two later cases had more of an impact on men, says Allen Parker, president of The Justice Foundation, a conservative law centre in Texas. After the 1976 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v Danforth, the father's consent to an abortion was no longer required. In its 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision, the court went further, saying fathers are not entitled to be notified about an abortion. "There's so many contradictions around all this - it's abortion first, and be damned if otherwise," says the Reverend Stephen Imbarrato, a Catholic priest and anti-abortion activist. Before entering the priesthood, Father Imbarrato got his girlfriend pregnant in 1975 and steered her toward having an abortion, finding out decades later she had been carrying twins. "Men regret lost fatherhood, as men are inherently called to be fathers." But others argue that the number of men traumatised by abortions are outliers. Gillian Frank, a historian of sexuality at the University of Virginia, says that the 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey decision found that "in most contexts, where there was a stable and loving relationship, men and women made the decision together". "And when men are absent from the decisions, it is often because there is a risk of violence or coercion in the relationship. These decisions [by the courts] rested on the fact it is not a child, so the situation is not analogous to child custody." There is disagreement on the ratio of women who have abortions without telling men, or in spite of them, or because of them. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organisation that analyses abortion in the US, half of women getting abortions in 2014 said they did not want to be a single parent or were having problems with their husband or partner. "It has been recognised time and again that when people say they are arguing for men's voices to be heard it is actually more about being able to control women and to regulate their decisions," Mr Frank says. "And I don't see it as men have been absent, quite the opposite, men have always been vocal about women's ability to control their reproductive destiny." Before Roe v Wade, he notes, this took the form of women having to go in front of a panel of usually male doctors to plead their cases for an abortion, and it continues today with "the men controlling pharmaceuticals and the men behind desks making decisions". "Outside our clinics, it's typically men who are leading the protests and clambering on to cars to yell over the fence with bullhorns," says Sarah Wheat who works for Planned Parenthood in Austin, the Texas state capital and a major battleground over Texas legislation on abortion. Planned Parenthood is an organisation that provides sexual health care services, of which about 6% involves abortion, Ms Wheat says. "It's usually loud and intimidating, designed to shame, stigmatise and intimidate. And when we go to the Capitol it feels very similar with the legislators. From our perspective, it feels men are still overrepresented." Indeed, much of the pushback against men's involvement in abortion is steeped in the historical context of a patriarchy telling women what to do. "There is a disconnect," Mr Locker says. "Men have a responsibility - as they should do - hence their wages get docked with child support if a baby is born, but at the same time they get no rights on an abortion going ahead." "People don't see it, they keep men out of it," says Theo Purington, 34, whose pregnant girlfriend got an abortion in 2006 against his wishes, leaving him "depressed and a mess". The experience led to him becoming involved in pro-life advocacy and counselling post-abortive men enduring similar struggles. "If men had to sign off on an abortion, I think you would see a 50% drop, and that's why the [abortion providers] don't want men involved," says Mr Purington. "The greatest injustice in this country today is that a man cannot protect his unborn child from abortion [in the same way as] men protecting our children is part of our responsibility." Amy Hagstrom Miller, who runs Whole Woman's Health, a company that manages seven clinics that provide abortion in five states in the US, says: "Yes, men are clearly involved at the beginning, in terms of getting the woman pregnant." But she adds: "When it comes to her body, then there is a line that is drawn. It is the woman's pregnancy, she is carrying it in her body, and you don't get to tell someone what to do with their body and force them to carry to term - once you do that you start going into terrifying areas." Ms Hagstrom Miller says that the abortion rights movement hasn't helped itself by framing abortion as just a woman's issue. "Abortion benefits women and men and families. Millions of men have benefited from having access to abortion." She notes that over 60% of abortion patients are parents already - a figure supported by the Guttmacher Institute - and that at her clinic many couples turn up who are wrestling with an unplanned pregnancy and all the complex issues surrounding it. Some factors they consider are what size of family they want to have and how a new child would impact their current situation or family. But, counter those involved in post-abortive counselling, it's what can happen further down the line that is not being acknowledged or spoken about enough due to the politics and posturing. "Because of the rhetoric out there, people can't address what is there, which is a sense of loss, and affects men and women and whether you went into it pro-choice or not," says Kevin Burke, a social worker and co-founder of Rachel's Vineyard, which runs weekend retreats for post-abortive men and women. "But you are not given permission to speak about any of that, so you can't process it." Mr Burke adds how he has found through his counselling work with imprisoned men from racial minorities that the fallout from an abortion can be heightened if a man previously experienced difficulties growing up. "The abortion experience for men, especially with previous father loss, abuse and trauma, can contribute to the other issues that can lead men to express their grief, loss and rage from childhood abuse, and their abortion experiences, in destructive ways," Mr Burke says. "What we have learned is they seem to interact in a kind of toxic synergy." Commentators note you don't have to be an anti-abortion advocate to feel sorrow over an abortion, or be haunted about whether you did the right thing. Hence, Mr Burke explains, later on many men and women carry a huge amount of moral and spiritual wounding. Ms Hagstrom Miller says she would like to see the debate "moving away from a conversation of rights to a conversation about dignity and respect, empathy and compassion" - a point not that far from sentiments held by some of those against abortion. "I hate it when you have people outside abortion clinics shouting things like 'You are going to hell'," says Mr Locker, who has joined prayer groups outside clinics. "For one it's not getting the job done [of dissuading the woman], and it shows no compassion, and just condemns the mother, who is feeling just as much like she has a leg caught in that trap too." In the meantime, we could be hearing more from increasing numbers of post-abortive men, says Theresa Bonopartis, director of Lumina, an organisation that counsels post-abortive men and women. She puts this down to a combination of the technological advances in ultrasound revealing more of what is occurring in the womb and the revelations of the passage of time since the Roe v Wade decision. "It's changing now, men are fed up," Ms Bonopartis says. "Men had bought into how they have no say in this and that if they speak out, they are against women, but now the impact is being felt by more and more of them as the repercussions of 45 years of abortion are being seen."

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.

magazine-24338387

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24338387

'Why I gave up my US passport'

The Magazine feature on the number of expat Americans renouncing their US citizenship due to tax filing requirements prompted a huge response from readers.

Many wrote to say they were experiencing similar problems to those outlined in the article. Here is a selection of their stories. 1. David Green, Ontario, Canada: I was born and raised in the US. At the age of 30, I fell in love with a beautiful French girl whose profession was working in the French language. We moved to Canada (bilingual) where we have enjoyed life and we both could earn a living and contribute to life. I always paid my taxes to both the USA and Canada and seldom paid US taxes due to the higher taxes in Canada. But when you retire, hold on to your hats because the common deductions you enjoyed while working no longer apply. I ended up paying over $3,000 (£1,850) in taxes to the US when I retired. That is a significant amount of my retirement income. Since all my benefits come from Canada and the USA provides nothing but increased complications in tax laws and the ability to snoop into our personal lives (including my wife who is not a USA citizen), I renounced my USA citizenship in April of this year - for a fee ($450). I feel sad at the action I have taken but angry at the bureaucracy that caused this problem for so many to possibly catch so few. 2. Pamela Schmidt, Germany: I was an American citizen, and I have spent most of my time in Europe for the last 12 years. In 2006, I married a German citizen and applied for German citizenship in 2010. The German authorities do not allow dual citizenship; therefore, I had to take a decision of becoming German or remaining American. I thought about it for a while and chose to become German. As I have spent most of my adult life in Europe, I feel more European than American, and I would like to be able to play a more active role in politics in the country where I live, which are the main reasons for my decision. However, the bizarre financial rules in the US did make the decision easier. The American government with laws like Fatca [Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act] treats non-criminal citizens abroad like tax-dodgers and limits Americans' financial situation when living abroad, as many local banks don't want to deal with these regulations. 3. Lorenzo, UK: I renounced my US citizenship recently as I am also a British citizen. It is probably true that most individuals do so for tax reasons or, at least, to free themselves from the administrative burden of having to file yearly tax returns in the US. This requires professional help even in the simplest of cases. In my case my motivation was entirely different. I had found out a few months ago that my son, aged eight, could not receive a US passport as his mother is non-American. I was unable to provide sufficient proof of residence in the US for him to qualify. This came as a shock to me and triggered a fundamental re-assessment of my historical US citizenship. Fundamentally, what meaning could I give to the nationality I was born with if I wasn't able to transmit it to my own son? To keep a nationality that has no application to the circumstances of my direct family seemed to me empty of substance as it wouldn't survive me. It was nonetheless with a heavy heart that I took the decision as both my father and grandfather were US veterans of the two world wars. Tax considerations seemed frivolous in my circumstances. 4. Cynthia Bennett, Alzey, Germany: I gave up my US citizenship in 2011 and was listed in the Federal Register. Of course the main consideration was the realisation that I was never going back to live in the US, after decades here in Germany. But the trigger that got me into action was Fatca and the realization that US congressmen and senators will happily throw middle-class Americans living and working abroad under the bus if that can garner them a few soundbites under the pretence of "punishing rich tax evaders". Probably they don't even realise that their efforts are bad for expats because they never think about expats. Expats are totally out of their considerations because expats won't affect their election results. Even if the Fatca mess gets straightened out (ie repealed), there will likely be another "inadvertent" attack on "US persons" living outside the US in a few years. 5. David Skene-Melvin, Toronto, Canada: In 1962, my widowed mother was forced to renounce her USA citizenship. Born Rye, New York, 1900, married St Louis, Michigan, 1931, she had lived her married life in Canada. In 1962, having come out of graduate school and with a steady job, I offered to take her to England to visit her immediate younger sister, British by marriage. The USA refused her a passport because, although she was, most definitely, a US citizen, she had not lived in the USA for 18 years. Although British by marriage, she deliberately took the route to formally renouncing her US citizenship, applied for and received a Canadian passport, and I took her to the UK for a happy two months to reconnect with her sister and visit her husband's (my father's) family. 6. Michael Putman, London, Canada: I relinquished US citizenship at the Toronto consulate last week on the basis of my naturalisation as a Canadian citizen and employment with the Canadian government. Although at first I came to Canada in 2004 for education alone, due to the continuous acts of kindness and generosity shown me I gradually fell in love with the country and its people, including one in particular who became my wife. I view my relinquishment not as an escape from IRS filing (although I won't miss it), or as a renunciation or political repudiation of the US but rather as a desire on my part to fully assimilate into the civic and cultural life of my new country, and to repay the people of Canada the many benefits and kindnesses they have shown to me by offering my full and undivided allegiance and loyalty in return. The fact of the matter is that after living here nearly a decade, I found that my character, values and behaviour had changed subtly but surely into becoming Canadian, and where the heart and mind go, the allegiance must follow. 7. Tim, Port Perry, Ontario: I renounced my US citizenship earlier this year. I was born in Texas to Canadian parents. I grew up in Canada and lived here most of my life, but when I wanted to join the military, I decided to serve in the US Air Force. When I left the air force, I came back to Canada and found out that I had to continue to file US taxes, even though I was not going back to the US and didn't live there. Every year, I had to fill out a form disclosing every bank account and asset that I had, including those of the company that I founded. I always thought that this was an invasion of privacy, especially when some of those accounts were joint with my wife, who is Canadian. When I heard about the new laws, I had had enough and made the appointment. I wasn't in any hurry to give up my citizenship, but I don't feel like I was left with much choice. 8. Michael Hayes, Freigericht, Germany: With its draconian penalties and inscrutable or non-existent filing guidelines, reporting into the US tax system has become a major financial risk for Americans living abroad. I decided to eliminate this risk to my family and well-being and simplify my life. Thus I became a German citizen and renounced my US citizenship. 9. Tom, Switzerland: I dumped mine in 2009. Would have done it sooner, but couldn't be bothered to take a day off work to go up to Bern and back (been Swiss since 1997). Doing so was still free of charge back then, my US passport was expired, and I didn't want to get another one just for the occasional (once or twice in 10 years) trip to the US. This was before I'd ever heard of Fatca. My children have been adversely affected by Fatca and will probably be relinquishing soon (keeping their Canadian and Swiss citizenships). For us, it's not about taxes, but rather the paperwork (and time) to show that we owe nothing. 10. Mike Connally, Reading, England: Gave it up nearly 20 years ago for exactly the reasons outlined in the article. I never owed any taxes, as my foreign-earned income exemption was high enough to cover my meagre income. But I was fed up with having to file extremely burdensome and voluminous forms every year to report chapter and verse of my financial life to the US. Morally, it's none of their business, and I'd had enough. I'm quite happy being "just" British. 11. Michael, London: I renounced my US nationality after having lived in the UK for almost 20 years. I was born and raised in America and am still an "American". Having or not having a US passport makes no difference. The reason I renounced my US nationality was that compliance was a nightmare. I usually paid little or no US tax, but the time and money involved in filing tax returns and bank account disclosures became onerous. Retirement planning was almost impossible without spending a lot of money on expert advice. The rules are foolish and probably end up costing more to enforce than is collected in tax. I have never regretted renouncing my US nationality. The only tiny downside is that I sometimes have to wait in a longer immigration queue to enter the US when I visit. 12. George Rivera, Zaandam, Netherlands: I have lived in Holland for the past 35 years. I renounced my US citizenship about 25 years ago. Living in Holland, after 10 years I was able to put in perspective how unfair the US government is with its own citizens (poverty, healthcare, education etc). Being a member of a minority group (Puerto Rican) living in New York, I never realised that life can be better. I was given a golden opportunity in Holland and I profited. I seriously doubt if I would be so content if I had remained in the US. 13. Sue Hughes, Monmouth, Gwent: I had been in the UK for four years and married to a Brit for two when in 1968 I wanted to vote in the US presidential election. I was astonished to learn that, as I was "married to a foreigner and living abroad", I no longer had a vote. I rang the Home Office to see if I could become a British citizen and was told that this was possible, so I changed my citizenship and was issued with a "certificate of loss" from the US. Dual citizenship was not an option. Since then I have voted in every single UK election, from parish council to general elections. But being told you no longer have a vote in the country of your birth and origin was pretty damning. 14. Donna-Lane Nelson, Switzerland: I gave up my citizenship in 2011 mainly because I couldn't have a normal banking relationship. Swiss banks are closing accounts of Americans, not allowing investments or giving loans. I was paying double taxes on my pensions, AVS and SS [social security] and on a limited income. However, it wasn't taxes, but the bank problem that made me give up my citizenship. It was so upsetting, I vomited afterwards. Like the day I was divorced, this was one of the saddest of my life. I don't regret the choice. 15. Norman Heinrichs-Gale, Mittersill, Austria: I gave up my American citizenship for Austrian in 2009. My wife gave up Canadian. We originally came to Austria to work at an international conference centre for just one year. Over the years and three children later, Austria felt more and more like home. Increasingly, the US seemed to become a very foreign place, culturally and politically. Tax issues were not a factor in our decision, but rather the availability of affordable university education and health insurance. 16. Robert Alexander, Cambridge, England: I recently obtained Irish citizenship through my grandparents being Irish. Up to then, I was a USA citizen born and bred. The reason why I chose to have Irish citizenship is because I met my wife through Facebook four years ago. It became apparent early on, that it would not be an easy process to be together, with the immigration rules being as tight as they are. We were looking at having to spend a large amount of money to apply to the Home Office for us to marry and me to be allowed to live and work in the UK. There were no guarantees I would even get the visa, despite having my wife and our daughter. It was just a huge stress and to know I could become Irish through descent seemed the most easiest way to go. I am now a legal alien, running my own business and supporting my family. For us, this was just the best way. 17. Alec, London: I left the US at the beginning of 1993. Next April I will have lived in the UK for 20 years. I left America both because I've loved Europe since living in Germany for a year when I was a teenager, and because the increasingly reactionary drift of American politics and political thought since the '70s made me feel more and more out of step with American values. The developments I've seen since I've left have only confirmed me in the wisdom of my decision. I held both British and American citizenship for several years, but when the IRS contacted me and told me that due to the Alternative Minimum Tax, I had incorrectly filed my taxes after a monetary windfall one year, and owed them over $2,000, I decided the time had come to give up my American passport. My only regret is not having done it much sooner - though visiting it for holidays and family is often pleasant (the shopping is great!), I'm always happy when I get on the plane to come home. 18. Walt Hopkins, Kinross, Scotland: I renounced my US citizenship in 2007. I have been a British citizen since 2002. After 2014, I plan to renounce my British citizenship and become a Scottish citizen. In addition to objecting to the expensive hassle of US taxes for expats, I renounced my US citizenship because of the way the US spent my taxes on illegal wars. I feel the same way about how my British taxes are spent, so I look forward to an independent Scotland that will use my taxes to care for people rather than to kill people. 19. Mary, Ottawa, Canada: I was born in Europe to expat parents. I only lived in the US for two-three years as a teenager, and I left again as soon as I graduated from high school. Filing my taxes for the US has always been stressful. The forms are very complicated, but getting them done professionally can cost upwards of $500 per year, and the price seems to keep rising. I've never had a high enough income for that not to hurt. So I muddle through, trying to file US taxes by myself, but there's always the stress of getting something wrong and being faced with a large fine. Then, after I had a child, I found out that the US wasn't going to recognise the tax-sheltered status of RESPs (Canada's educational savings plan). So even though it was for my child, because my name is on the account, any interest it earns or the government grants it receives are eligible for taxation by the US. I officially renounced my US citizenship last April and am waiting for "approval" from the State Department to officially be a non-US person. It was well worth the cost and I'm already sleeping easier. 20. Gray, California, US: During the Vietnam war, like many others I protested in Washington DC. Aged 18, I was falsely arrested by the FBI - a record that still follows me today (age 61). I left the US in 1976 and lived in and eventually became a British citizen in 1982. I'm committed to my decision. I have to say growing up I never felt "American" and although some might see me as American I never "wave the flag" or feel moved by hearing the national anthem. A few years ago I was hired by a company here in California. My stay here is only temporary and I miss being home in Britain. I'm looking forward to returning home. When I told my father, in 1982, that I had renounced my citizenship he was absolutely livid, offended and downright purple with rage. He didn't talk to me for over a year. It was only the birth of my daughter that loosened his tongue. Plus one who would never change... My husband and I pay our taxes, with no reservations. We'd never consider giving up our American citizenship. Why give up such a precious heritage, that so many people around the world would be envious to have? And I haven't met another American in Dubai who would consider giving it either. Dubai is a great place to live, and I'm glad we have the privilege to live as expats here, but it ain't America. Cheryl Keown, Dubai, UAE ...and one who changed and then regretted it... In the 50s I renounced my American citizenship to become an Israeli citizen. I felt gung-ho as an 18-year-old. Little did I realise the shabby treatment until after I got out of the military there. I came back home, became a naturalised American, became American again after the legal time limit. I would NEVER, EVER give up my US citizenship again. No-one in the world should renounce the citizenship of his birthright, except for despotic countries. Jack Gilead, Prachin Buri, Thailand ...and one who became a proud American I became an American citizen in 2002, 21 years after I married my American husband and settled in the US. As long as both my parents were alive in Norway, I felt I should keep my citizenship. When my father passed away I felt released from that obligation and applied to become a citizen of the US. However, I kept my Norwegian citizenship as long as I could, meaning that when my Norwegian passport expired 5-6 years ago I was not eligible to renew it again, since in the meantime I had sworn allegiance to a different nation. If Norway had allowed dual citizenship (they do in some cases because our daughter is a dual US and Norwegian citizen), I would have kept my passport simply because it makes travel a little easier. My heart is loyal to the US and if I ever had to make a hard choice, I would choose to side with the US even had I been able to keep my Norwegian passport. That is what happens when you live long enough in a great nation, I think. Berit Landeg, Mentor, Ohio, US You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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".

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All in a name: 25 of your changes

The Magazine's recent piece on changing your name by deed poll prompted lots of readers to email examples. Here are 25 of the best.

People change their given names for many reasons, as discussed in the article, and a wide selection is represented here. 1. I changed my middle name last week from Eleanor to Deci after collecting sponsorship to do so. I raised about £400 for the mental health groups I work for. It's only being changed for a year so I don't have to worry about getting a new passport though. A lot of people are calling me Deci or Decibel at the moment. Janet Deci Bell, London 2. My wife and I changed our names when we married. It seemed unfair that I kept my surname and she had to give up hers. A new name also gave us the chance to create something that belonged just to us. By combining our surnames, Walker and Bland, we came up with Blake. Twenty-seven years later we're a pair of very happy Blakes. David Blake, London 3. I took a bet with my work colleague to change. He bet me £1,000 I would not do it but I did. At the time I was 23 stone so the name - John ateall-thepies - was appropriate. This was over two years ago and I am now 15 stone after a long diet. I have since changed my name back to John Spring as I got asked so many times as to why I had this name due to my new figure! John Spring, Sutton 4. Changed name to RU Seerius to stand for parliamentary election. Monster Raving Loony Party of course. Jonathan Brewer, Derbyshire 5. I had my middle name changed to "Danger". Names aren't that important and I think everyone should choose their own name when they come of age. There should be less James Smiths and more Zig-Zag Banana-Hammocks in this world. My mum was fairly mystified when she found out but she didn't give me a middle name to start with so it's sort of her fault anyway, leaving me a blank canvas to paint on. My friend paid for the name change as a birthday present. I'm thinking of changing my first name to "Incredible". Lee Danger Cooper, London 6. I was christened Julian Ralph Willetts Cook but found myself in a school year with four other boys named Julian. At the time my parents were living in Africa so I travelled a bit more than other kids at school, and with the surname Cook I ended up with the nickname Thomas Cook (the travel agent). This quickly got shortened to Tom, which is what I got used to being called. I filed a statutory declaration to simply add Tom on to the front of my existing names. My sister and my niece and nephew as well as my aunt and cousins still call me Julian, and my wife has got used to switching to Julian when we are with them. For everyone else, I'm Tom. Tom Cook, Cowbridge 7. I changed my name to Joseph Stuart James Walcroft-Woodward from my birth name Stuart James Woodward. I changed my family name after genealogical research proved that my direct male line ancestors had a different name. I also first-named myself after a hero from my ancestry, Joseph, who fought and survived throughout the Peninsular War (1807-1814) as well as military service before and after that. I have retained my birth names because I like them and also in honour of my parents. In all normal circumstances I am still known as Stuart Woodward and called Stuart. The rest is really just for my own deeply-held feelings of connection to my forbears. Joseph Stuart James Walcroft-Woodward, Colchester 8. I changed my name last year. I was registered at birth as Anne Carolyn but was called Carolyn from a young child. After a serious illness which involved undergoing lots of hospital procedures, I was sick to death of being called Anne so I applied to have the Anne removed from my name and now I am just Carolyn Mitchell - and very happy with it! Carolyn Mitchell, Harrogate 9. I changed my surname by deed poll to take my wife's name when we got married. I believe the practice of the woman taking the man's name is somewhat anachronistic. It also helped that my surname was Green so Chapelle is much nicer! Similarly my wife is one of two sisters so there is a concern the Chapelle name would die out. Of course, the law of Sod, we have now gone on to have two daughters so let's hope they find a man prepared to do the same. Dan Chapelle, Ipswich 10. I had to pay to change my name to have the same married surname as my partner and now my son. I was not allowed to double up my surname with my partner's as she did with mine when we married. Lee Hamilton-Evans, Brighton 11. I was Caroline for the first 17 years of my life, but I've been Charlie for the last 24 years. My mother chose a very popular first name for me - I had nine school friends in my year with the same name, or a variation thereof - so, to be different, I changed it in my last year of school, much to the amusement of my fellow pupils. I chose Charlie in honour of my grandfather, of whom I was very fond. I changed my name legally in 1994 in order to have my new name on my passport. Charlie, Edinburgh 12. I was born Claire Lily Botley and was teased and tormented throughout school. My mum remarried when I was nine and I became legally known as Claire Lily Douglas. My mother divorced her husband and I decided that I wanted my doctorate title to be associated with my maternal family. I recently got married but have decided not to change my surname for the fourth time as I must remain Scott for work purposes. My uncle's speech at my wedding made reference to me having had more surnames than he had had cars. Dr Claire L Scott, Glenrothes 13. I didn't exactly change my name, just added to it. Having lived without a middle name since birth and feeling that I'd missed out, I thought long and hard about it and finally took my father's middle name and changed it by deed poll. My full name is now Alison Ogston Leith. I have two grown up children who were both given middle names - I wouldn't have had it any other way. Alison Leith, Aberdeenshire 14. I changed my name when I was 18 (now 46) but only by reversing my two forenames and then adding a third forename which was a family name. I was Christopher Michael Young, I am now Michael Christopher George Young. My parents were unhappy about the change and my mother still insists on using my former first name! Michael Young, Brighton 15. When I was in the RAF I was offered a Branch Commission (a commission in one's own trade) but it was suggested to me that I change my name as officers and gentleman did not have foreign names. Can you imagine them suggesting that these days? I did change it, but when I was invalided out I changed it back again. I'm not ashamed of being half Greek - quite the opposite. Len Loullis, Stamford 16.When I was a teenager I changed my name when my mum remarried but when she went to the solicitors, she called me and asked if I wanted to change my first name from Charlotte to Charlie as well as changing my surname, to which I said yes. Now as an adult I hate my name being Charlie, with all the "ooh I was expecting to see a man" and "that's a man's name isn't it?" comments. It is my biggest regret. I will shortly be changing my name back to Charlotte! Charlie Hawkes, Wolverhampton 17. I changed my name a couple of years ago now. I can't say it was because I wanted to be a celebrity or anything like that, I just didn't like the former name (John). Do I regret changing my name? No I don't and I can honestly say I feel happier about myself. Admittedly I changed my full name and I'm not sure if I'm entirely happy with the surname but I created it on the basis of ideals and methods that I want to follow. Kai Childheart, UK 18. I changed my surname by statutory declaration as I wanted to leave the surname of my ex-husband, but my new man did not want to get married. I also wanted my new baby to have the same surname as both her parents (she is now 28), and outside the family most people assumed we were married. Anne Course, Surrey 19. I changed my name after my husband left me and we got a divorce in 2010. My maiden name was Ebbage and I think the reason that I did not revert back to it was because I was going through a lot of self-discovery at the time of my divorce. I have always been a fan of Agatha Christie and at the time I was reading her autobiography and her account of the separation from her first husband. After talking it over with my parents I decided to change my name to Lesley Anne Christie and the day I was able to change my name at the bank, at work and the council was the day I finally felt freedom from my upsetting marriage. I love telling people my name and every time I see it and say it, I am reminded of a very wonderful woman and the strength I found inside myself to overcome a very painful time in my life. Lesley Christie, Cheltenham 20. My (then) seven-year-old daughter and I both chose the name O'Hara as our last name based on my Irish ancestry. We rejected both my father's name and her father's name and chose instead our own family name. Why should we be burdened by the name(s) of people we feel no connection with or loyalty to? We chose to abandon the patriarchal naming system and move forward with our own, new, chosen family name. Kate O'Hara, Hong Kong 21. My current name is Alixandrea Corvyn and was chosen by combining my original first name (Alix) with the name of a character I created in a short story I wrote. The Corvyn comes from the Latin "Corvus" for crow and the surname "Corbin" of one of my favourite artists. I was Alixandrea online for a good year or two before I officially changed my name. I also considered it as my "stage name" before deciding to take it for all aspects of my life. Alixandrea Corvyn, Cambridge 22. My previous surname was Timms. My wife's maiden name was Fowler and she had a son by a previous relationship, also with the surname Fowler. Between meeting and marrying we had two further children and we had to decide what we would do for a family name. After discussions with my wife's first son, who didn't want to loose the Fowler name, we decided to hyphenate our surnames and this is the surname given to our two newborn children at birth. For some years we were a family unit with one surname until my wife's first born son elected to change his name to an obscure made up Italian-style name in an effort to attract girls. This didn't work and he suffered a fair deal of abuse from his peers over it so he promptly changed it back. David Fowler-Timms, Northampton 23. When my parents divorced my mum wanted to change her surname but still wanted to have the same name as my brother and I. Since her family are Spanish it seemed like a logical choice to go double barrelled but sometimes I regret it as the UK doesn't seem to be prepared for it. I often have problems filling out my full name and when I do companies drop one of my surnames. Sometimes I wish I had a nice normal name rather than Chani Emily Francisca Lawrence Martinez - it is a bit of a mouthful! Chani Lawrence Martinez, Bristol 24. I changed my surname last September and it was the best decision of my life. I haven't seen my father for over 10 years. While this used to upset me as a child, I now felt it was time to move on. I felt that my old name associated me with him, as it was his surname as well. I took my nana's maiden name and I feel liberated from my past. My nana was honoured that I took her name and I love that people associate me with her because of my name change. Holly Fernyhough, Keele 25. I am an actor and the opportunity to change my name came when I applied to join Equity. There was already someone with my name in the union.I changed my name in 1998, at the age of 30. It took me a very long time to realise that I felt dissociated from it, that my name didn't - and never had - described "me". When I changed it to something I felt more comfortable with, I immediately noticed how much happier I felt to give my name when asked for it. Not that my birth name was a stupid one - it just wasn't me. Richard Ely, Alfreton And someone who was tempted but did not: 26.When I was younger and fed up with all of the jokes I swore I would change my name as soon as I was old enough. Now I wouldn't dream of changing it. It is a part of who I am and it is memorable, which isn't a bad thing at all so long as you are remembered for the right reasons! Bill Badger, Romford

world-us-canada-39724045

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39724045

100 days: America in a time of Trump

Presidential elections are always something of a national Rorschach test.

By Nick BryantBBC News, New York The reaction to candidates, like the perception of inkblots, helps to divulge the nation's character, underlying disorders and emotional condition. Donald Trump's unexpected victory showed that America had a split personality. It also revealed that, among his 62 million supporters, rage and fear were over-riding emotions. Make America Great Again not only became a mission statement but a nostalgic catch-all. For many of his white working-class supporters, it implied a return to an era when the homeland was more homogenised and the world was less globalised. The first 100 days of an administration, though in many ways a bogus measure, can also be diagnostic. They can reveal the character of a presidency and set the tone. Also they are indicative of the health of US democracy: the functioning of its institutions, executive, legislative and judicial; the workability of the US constitution and the dispersion of political, economic and cultural power. Inauguration day was a celebration for some, a convulsion for others. What is the state of the nation now? The Character of the Presidency What has become clear since Donald Trump delivered his inaugural address is that he has changed the presidency more than the presidency has changed him. The vocabulary of President Trump, if not all his policies, is much the same as that of candidate Trump. To the White House he has brought the same aggression and plain speaking that characterised his insurgent campaign. Social media remains his favoured conduit with the American people. Twitter is to Trump what television was to JFK and radio was to FDR. But it is his means of expression, more than the utilisation of a new medium, that marks such a break from the past. At his inaugural ball he vowed to keep tweeting. By choosing Frank Sinatra's My Way for his first dance, he also gave us a musical clue as to how he would govern. Trump would be Trump. The anti-politician had morphed into the anti-president. His so-far unsubstantiated allegation that Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower - "Bad (or sick) guy!" he tweeted - emphasised how he does not feel bound by presidential protocols or conventions. Here he disdained the longstanding tradition that incumbent presidents avoid savage attacks on their predecessors. From his ongoing refusal to release his tax returns to his stonewalling of requests to disclose visitor logs at the White House, he has indicated normal rules do not apply to him. All this continues to horrify his critics but not most of his supporters. They voted for unorthodoxy, and seem to have granted him dispensation to flout norms so long as he delivers results. And yet, he has received highest marks when he is at his most conventionally presidential. His speech to the joint session of Congress, which was similar in language and tone to normal State of the Union addresses, was probably the highpoint of his first 100 days. It got far better reviews than his inaugural, both from Republicans and some Democrats. His decision to strike Syria also trod the path of orthodoxy. Cool-headed and cogent, his late-night statement explaining his decision to strike was also standard presidential fare. Even some of his detractors remarked how in these two moments he truly assumed the mantles of president and commander-in-chief. Lauded by many Democrats who wished Obama had enforced his red line on chemical weapons, the strike on Syria angered some hardline loyalists. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Michael Cernovich, a self-styled "American nationalist", were dismayed that pictures of dying children moved him so easily and that he acted like a neo-conservative rather than a neo-isolationist. Unsurprisingly perhaps, conformism infuriates the alt-right. Flip-flops on Syria, Chinese currency manipulation and Nato have made Trump's foreign policy appear erratic and incoherent. The confusion over whether or not his administration continues to support a two-state solution in the Middle East displayed a lack of clarity that perplexed foreign diplomats. His congratulations to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following a referendum granting him more authoritarian powers was markedly different from the cautious reaction of European leaders. Ahead of the French presidential election, Trump said of Marine Le Pen "she's the strongest on borders and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France". His words, which came close to an endorsement, prompted this shocked response from former Bush speechwriter David Frum: "Collect jaw from floor, reinsert in head." Had one of his predecessors implied support for a far-right candidate, the political storm would have lasted days, and possibly overshadowed their entire presidency. But the response to Trump's remarks was more like a passing shower. It spoke of how quickly the abnormal has become quotidian under this presidency. There's an argument to be made that Trump is at his most successful in foreign affairs when he's at his most unpredictable for the simple reason that is when he's most feared. The Assad regime will surely hesitate before ordering another chemical strike. Nato's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he's already seeing the effect of Trump's focus on financial burden-sharing within the military alliance. The American aid worker Aya Hijazi was released after three years in detention only when Trump raised her case with President Sisi. At the United Nations, there's a new focus on reform, especially of peacekeeping operations. This is partly because there is a new reformist Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, but mainly because of the fear that the US, by far the organisation's biggest donor, could pull funding. Trump has brought a fear factor to the American presidency often absent during the Obama years. Richard Nixon labelled this kind of strategic unpredictability the Madman Theory, and saw it as an essential diplomatic tool. Communist bloc leaders, the theory went, would not provoke America because of the unpredictability of the president's response. It might be crazed. Nuclear even. But the fact that Nixon used this approach in Vietnam shows its shortcomings. In the present context, it's a risky approach to apply to North Korea, but the Trump administration clearly believes "the era of strategic patience" towards Kim Jong-un is over, and that sabre rattling will jolt Beijing into pressuring Pyongyang. The next 100 days, presumably, will tell. Overall, there's a "good cop, bad cop" dynamic to the Trump administration's diplomacy. Mainstream foreign policy types such as Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson adopt the more conventional approach. Trump lends menace, often through his tweets. Sometimes the very administration seems to have a split personality. Yet the first 100 days have probably yielded more results in the foreign realm than the domestic. Noticeable in these first 100 days has been the corporatisation of the presidency. There's a chairman-of-the-board feel to his daily routine, with its meetings and photo opportunities that often place him in a leather-backed chair in the presidential boardroom - the West Wing basically has two, the Roosevelt Room and the Cabinet Room - surrounded by corporate chiefs. His cabinet is also packed with fellow billionaires and multi-millionaires. This raises the question of whether a super-rich president at the head of a super-rich cabinet can remain a working-class hero in the all-important Rust Belt. After spending time last week in the Ohio River Valley, which is dotted with derelict steelworks, what struck me was how few of his supporters cared. "No-one works for a poor man," said one Trump devotee. There's a nagging sense one business that's undoubtedly seen an uptick is Trump Inc. Potential conflicts of interests abound, and it is hard sometimes to differentiate where the presidency ends and the family business begins. There's been criticism that Trump spends so much time at resorts owned by the Trump Organization. The mixing of business with the presidency could yet be his undoing . An aim of staffing the administration with so many executives was to vest government with corporate know-how and efficiency. But this presidential start-up has been surprisingly accident-prone, critics would say incompetent. Whether with big-ticket items such as the original travel ban or fairly trivial matters, like misspelling Theresa May's name in a White House memo handed to reporters, it has often shown itself to be slapdash. Turf battles between hardline figures like Steve Bannon and moderates like Jared Kushner also belie Trump's boast that it is a "fine-tuned machine". David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times, has labelled it "a golden age of malfunction". When a new administration fumbles what should have been a pro-forma presidential statement marking Holocaust Remembrance Day you sense there is a problem. When the White House spokesman claims that Hitler did not use chemical weapons against his own people, it suggests it has lost the historical plot. These last examples showed not only a disregard for detail but also an apparent disdain for truth. The first 100 days has produced a litany of falsehoods. A scorecard compiled by the website Politifact found that of Trump's statements 69% were either mostly false, false or "pants on fire". Alternative facts: Kellyanne Conway was lampooned when she first used this Orwellian-sounding phrase, but it perfectly captured the twilight zone of truth often found at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Under Donald Trump, the White House is no longer a reliable source. Victories are often lost in the swirl of controversy. Illegal crossings over the southern border have fallen sharply, by 40% during the first month of Trump's presidency, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That's the steepest decline since 2009. With immigration arrests up by almost a third in the first month, there's a feeling among his supporters that he is delivering on his pledge to protect America's border, even if construction has not yet started on his famed wall. Trump would argue he has already made the homeland safer. A by-product of Trump's troubled presidential launch has been to burnish the reputations of his predecessors. For Democrats, the idolatry of Barack Obama gathers pace. George Herbert Walker Bush, recently ailing in hospital, has become even more of a revered national elder. His son, George W, the one-time Toxic Texan, has been subject to some speedy historical revisionism. Not only has his newly published collection of portraits of wounded warriors won acclaim, as a work of the hand and the heart, his reported remarks at Trump's inauguration - "That was some weird sh**" - have come close to making him a folk hero of the left. Might Trump one day be subject to this kind of reassessment? The hostile commentary on him is similar to the scorn heaped on Ronald Reagan. Yet the movie star president is now widely seen as the leader who, by winning the Cold War, ended America's long national nightmare after Vietnam and Watergate. Lyndon Baines Johnson was pilloried as a racist vulgarian, but nonetheless enacted transformative legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, dismantling segregation, and launching Medicare. History remembers John F Kennedy's early presidency for the elegance of his inaugural address and the photogenic beauty of his New Frontier, but his first months in office were full of missteps. They included the Bay of Pigs, a string of congressional setbacks and a disastrous summit with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, which emboldened the Soviet leader to build the Berlin Wall. While Trump cannot yet boast much of a record of accomplishment in these first 100 days, there are still 1361 to go. Checks and Balances A "civics lesson from hell" was how the Harvard academic Louis Menand described the contested aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, with its hanging chads, thwarted recounts and litigation. Not since the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Bush versus Gore has the US constitution faced such a stress test. Now, as then, we have learned where power in America truly lies, and how the checks and balances hard-wired into the US system operate in practice. Donald Trump's executive power has continually been constrained. After signing that early executive order banning entrants from seven mainly Muslim countries, the courts intervened to block him. It was an early constitutional test. But although Trump railed against the "so-called judges" who thwarted him, using unusually vehement language, his administration abided by the court's decision and kept within the law. With the checks and balances working as the founding fathers intended, a constitutional crisis was averted. With Trumpcare, it wasn't the courts that blocked Trump but Congress. As he sought to repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump could not even secure a simple majority in a House of Representatives under Republican control. Had his healthcare proposals cleared that hurdle in the lower house, parts of the reform package would have run into trouble in the Senate. There the Republicans also enjoy a majority but not one big enough to enact bills into law without bipartisan support. With the legislative branch restraining the executive branch, again the constitution worked as intended. The Republican leadership, frustrated by these checks, successfully removed one of them: the use of the filibuster in blocking nominees to America's highest court - in this instance, Trump's nominee Neil Gorsuch. This did not involve an amendment to the constitution, rather a revision of Senate rules, but it was nonetheless momentous. This nuclear option, as it is called, delivered a clear win for the president: the elevation of Judge Gorsuch to the bench. However, the filibuster remains intact to block his legislative agenda, and Democrats will use it to thwart Trump. In recent years, as Washington has become more ungovernable, there's been a growing literature about the inoperability of the constitution, and how its checks and balances have acted more like spanners in the works. Just as Republicans, the great practitioners of the politics of No, used the constitution to stymie Barack Obama, Democrats are relying upon it to impede Donald Trump. For them, the constitution must now seem timeless and timely. A number of Democrats have told me that the genius of the Founding Fathers was to anticipate this kind of presidency. In these first 100 days, we have been reminded of the power of states and municipalities. We have seen an inversion of the doctrine of states' rights. For decades, states' rights was the battle-cry of white supremacists determined to uphold segregation in defiance of federal court orders demanding integration. Now progressive states are using this principle. Some of the biggest cities in the country, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC, are wilfully obstructing Trump's immigration crackdown. Thus, sanctuary cities have become to the progressive left what segregationist citadels were to the racist right, emblematic battlefields in a tug of war between local government and the federal government. Similar battle-lines have been marked out over climate change. Protest power has also emerged as a significant force, as something akin to a national passion play has unfolded on the streets. The sea of pink pussy hats at the massive women's marches on the first weekend of the presidency vividly highlighted a new sense of personal political empowerment: people ready to take matters into their own hands. The speed at which demonstrators congregated at US airports in the immediate aftermath of the ban surely had an emboldening effect on the state attorneys general who successfully challenged it in the courts. The death certificate of Trumpcare may have been signed in the House of Representatives, but mortal wounds were inflicted in those angry town meetings, which alarmed Republican lawmakers. Maybe one of the reasons President Donald Trump has not yet returned to Trump Tower in Manhattan is the fear of massive demonstrations in the city of his birth. For the past eight years, popular anger was on the right of US politics. Now it is on the left. The pertinent political question over the coming years will be to what extent the Democratic Party can harness this street agitation. Will there be a Tea-Party-style mobilisation of progressives that translates into real political power? Or are opponents of Donald Trump pinning more faith in pressure groups than the Democratic Party? The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, has witnessed a fundraising bonanza. The ACLU raked in $24m (£18.7m) in online donations the weekend after the first travel ban, six times the amount it normally raises in a year. Constrained by Congress, the courts and his own party, so far this has not been an imperial presidency, the phrase coined by the historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jr to describe the Nixon White House, which was accused, even before the Watergate break-in, of pushing constitutional bounds. Rather it has been an inhibited presidency, in which Donald Trump has been made all too aware of the limits of his executive power. Economy, Business and Culture Donald Trump's promise to Make America Great Again was primarily an economic pledge, and there were early signs of a Trump Bump on Wall Street and Main Street. Just three trading days after the new president took the oath of office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through the 20,000 mark for the first time in its history. Investors expected him to slash corporate taxes and set fire to business regulations. Not since 2000, a report suggested last month, has consumer confidence been so buoyant. This rosy soft data has not been matched by hard economic data. The US economy added just 98,000 jobs in March, almost half of what some economists expected. Industrial production and housing starts were lower than expected. Retail sales, which should have risen with consumer confidence, actually fell by 0.2% in March, their first decline in over a year. The markets, having watched the healthcare debacle, are no longer so confident Trump can deliver lower corporate tax rates and a $1tn infrastructure spend. Barron's, the weekly financial newspaper, recently opined: "Trump bump, we hardly knew ye." As for the impact of Trump's "Buy American, Hire American" doctrine, it is too early to judge. Industry groups have voiced concerns it will raise costs, making it prohibitively expensive to build the new bridges and roads. The tech sector is worried Hire American policies will block or discourage high-skilled immigrants. The tourism industry is reporting a "Trump Slump," because of the off-putting effect of the travel ban and its author. After signalling his willingness to name and shame corporations accused of exporting US jobs abroad or stiffing the federal government, there's evidence it has had a chastening effect. Presumably, no senior executive of a publicly traded company wants to reach for their smartphone in the morning to find their name on his Twitter feed, if only because of the effect it can have on the share price. Boeing, a company that Trump shamed publicly during the transition, says it's made progress with the administration over bringing down the costs of the replacement for Air Force One. The Trump administration also claims to have created jobs by pressuring major corporations to invest in new American plants. Most of these expansion plans were in place, however, before Barack Obama left office. That's true of Ford's Michigan investment, ExxonMobil's Gulf Coast expansion, and Intel's Arizona plant, all of which were touted by the administration as totems of Trumpism. Arguably, the main effect of his self-congratulatory tweets about saving US jobs has been political rather than economic. It has persuaded blue-collar voters that this billionaire populist is battling on their behalf. As for his tweets lambasting business? They've created a love/fear relationship with the corporate sector, which welcomes his deregulation and proposed tax cuts but not necessarily his efforts to roll back globalisation. One sector that has undoubtedly benefited from a Trump bump is the media. The New York Times and Washington Post have seen subscriptions soar. CNN, a network of which obituaries were being written only a few years ago, is enjoying a ratings windfall. Twitter, whose once stagnant user numbers have risen, is finally winning again. Despite high-profile exits, Fox News remains the most influential news channel in America, if only because its breakfast show Fox and Friends is what Trump watches in the morning. Overall, the response of the US journalistic community to Trump's presidency has been to become more adversarial. Reporters like Jim Acosta, anchors like Jake Tapper, and even mild-mannered Wolf Blitzer have adopted a more hard-edged approach. The New York Times has replaced bland headlines with more judgemental wording. A headline three days into his presidency signalled its new approach: Trump Repeats Lie About Popular Vote in Meeting With Lawmakers. Elsewhere, cultural lines are being blurred, an inevitable response perhaps to a president who turned politics in a new reality show genre. Comedians, faced with the dilemma of satirising a self-satirising White House, have adopted a more journalistic persona. John Oliver and Samantha Bee mix gags with serious reportage, much of it directed against Trump. Stephen Colbert, who struggled at first as David Letterman's successor after shedding his mock right-wing persona, may overtake apolitical Jimmy Fallon in the late-night ratings. The mimicry of Alec Baldwin and the casting of Melissa McCarthy as Sean "Spicey" Spicer have once again made SNL appointment viewing. In the arts, the expectation is that Trump will produce a burst of creativity, in line with the "Take your broken heart, make it into art" plea from Meryl Streep at this year's Golden Globes. But much of that art, whether paintings, screenplays or novels, may still be unfinished. Just as we await the great Trump-era movie - a Doctor Strangelove, The Deer Hunter or Wall Street - there's not yet been a great Trump-inspired novel. For now, literary classics are filling the void. George Orwell's 1984, with an assist from Kellyanne Conway's "alternative facts", rose to the top of best-seller lists. Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, which imagines as president Charles Lindbergh, the aviator who became the spokesman of the America First Committee in the early years of World War Two, has also enjoyed a revival. Hulu is streaming a dramatisation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, which imagines a totalitarian America. On Broadway, a stage adaptation of 1984 is in the works. Then there has been the unexpected success of Come From Away, a feel good 9/11 musical of all things, which tells the story of the nearly 7,000 airline passengers stranded in Gander, Newfoundland, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Foot-tapping and tear-jerking, the show is all about making outsiders feel at home. Rather pointedly, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took Ivanka Trump to see it. Next month unveils the fifth season of House of Cards, but in the wake of accusations of Russian meddling, its plotlines, once considered so outlandish, now seem more run-of-the-mill, a case perhaps of life overtaking art. Two Americas To journey from the major coastal cities into the American heartland feels right now like travelling between different countries. There has long been two Americas, one that favours pick-up trucks over Prius hybrids, Walmart over Whole Foods, Duck Dynasty over This American Life. This age of Trump, as well as accentuating those divisions, has brought with it new identifying markers. Do you wear a scarlet Make America Great Again baseball cap or a pink woollen hat? Would you buy an Ivanka Trump dress? Do you agree with Alex Jones, the host of the far-right Infowars, or Van Jones, CNN's leading pundit? Or, more simply, do you have faith in the president? Increasingly, how you respond to Trump determines which America you inhabit. Barack Obama entered office vowing to bring together red and blue state America, though he was a deeply polarising figure who singularly failed in that endeavour. Donald Trump has not tried particularly hard to be a unifying figure. His travel largely has been to states that voted for him. Many of his appearances outside the White House and Mar-a-Lago have essentially been campaign rallies. His Attorney General Jeff Sessions, angry that a judge had challenged the latest travel ban, even referred to Hawaii, which achieved statehood in 1959, as "an island in the Pacific". My own travels around the country, mainly into the Bible and Rust Belt, suggest he remains strong in the regions that sent him to the White House. Last week on the Ohio River Valley, businessmen told me how the Trump Bump is for real. They see it on their balance sheets, with the relaxation of Environmental Protection Agency rules over coal often cited as the reason for the turnaround. Many Rust Belt voters continue to adore Trump because liberals hate him so. They voted for the billionaire partly to punch sneering bicoastal liberals in the nose. They are enjoying the sight of elite blood being shed in such quantities. Because of the shadow cast by the Russian allegations, these first 100 days have sometimes felt like the final days of an ailing administration. Trump is routinely cast as a modern-day Richard Nixon. Yet while it is difficult sometimes to see how this administration can remain viable in its present form, it is harder to imagine how it would be brought to a premature end. Barring some catastrophic revelation emerging from the FBI's investigation into Team Trump's alleged links with the Kremlin or some massive financial scandal, the Republican leadership is unlikely to move against him. In the unlikely event that it launched impeachment proceedings, here the constitution is his friend. It is hard to dislodge an incumbent president. The Founding Fathers, who came up with a governing model that has constrained Trump, also came up with an electoral model, the Electoral College, which has already helped him and may do so again. That will be true if the Rust Belt remains a stronghold. My overwhelming sense, based on the popular vote in November and opinion polls since, is that more Americans are anti-Trump than pro. But my sense also is that many blue-collar battlers remain fiercely loyal. So to write him off would be to repeat the same analytical mistake commentators have made since he first announced for the presidency, that of underestimation. For while Democrats regard their new president as a national embarrassment, many of his supporters continue to view him as a potential national saviour. One hundred days into a presidency the like of which this country has never seen before, the state of the union is disunion.

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.

explainers-53664064

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?

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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]

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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Timeline: North Korea nuclear stand-off

Key dates in the long-running crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

2013 2 April: North Korea says it will restart its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, including a reactor mothballed in 2007. 30 March: North Korea says it is entering a "state of war" with South Korea, amid increasing tension in the peninsula. 27 March: North Korea cuts a key military hotline with South Korea, the last official direct link between the two. 19 March: The US flies B-52 nuclear-capable bombers over Korean peninsula, following several North Korean threats to attack US and South Korean targets. 15 March: North Korea accuses the US and its allies of attacks on its internet servers after some of its official websites become inaccessible. 11 March: The US begins annual joint military drills with South Korea. North Korea says it has scrapped the Korean War armistice, a pact with the UN says cannot be unilaterally scrapped. 7 March: The UN approves fresh sanctions on Pyongyang. North Korea says it has the right to a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" on the US. 12 February: North Korea has "successfully staged" a third underground nuclear test, state-run news agency KCNA says. 24 January: North Korea's National Defence Commission says it will proceed with a "high-level nuclear test". 22 January: UN Security Council passes resolution condemning North Korea's rocket launch and expands existing sanctions. 21 January: South Korea says the long-range rocket launched by North Korea in December was largely made using domestic technology. 2012 12 December: North Korea successfully puts a satellite into space, using a three-stage rocket. The test is condemned by the US and Pyongyang's neighbours as a banned test of long-range missile technology. 1 December: North Korea announces plans to test-fire a long-range rocket. 22 August: North Korea completes a ''major step'' by placing a dome on a light water reactor that could support its nuclear programme, an analyst says. 18 July: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is given the title of marshal, state media announce. 17 July: North Korea appoints a new vice-marshal, Hyon Yong-chol, a day after the army chief, Ri Yong-ho, is removed from his post "due to illness". 9 June: North Korea says it has no plans to conduct a third nuclear test "at present", but hits out at what it says is provocation from South Korea. 16 April: UN Security Council condemns North Korea's failed rocket launch in a statement. 13 April: North Korea launches a long-range rocket, but it breaks up and crashes into the sea shortly after blast-off. 16 March: North Korea says it will launch a satellite mounted on a rocket to mark the 100th birthday of its late former President Kim Il-sung - a move that draws condemnation from Western nations and regional neighbours who say it will constitute a banned test of missile technology. 29 February: North Korea agrees to suspend uranium enrichment, as well as nuclear and long-range missile tests. 23 February: US and North Korean officials meet in Beijing, China, for talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programme - the first since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. 20 February: South Korea holds live-fire military drills near disputed sea borders with the North, despite threats of retaliation from Pyongyang. 20 January: Seoul says it will allow a private group to deliver 180 tonnes of flour to North Korea. 1 January: The Korean peninsula is at a "turning point" and there are opportunities for change, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says in a New Year speech. 2011 31 December: Kim Jong-il's son, Kim Jong-un, is formally named supreme commander of the country's armed forces, state media say. The move is seen as a clear sign that the young leader is fast consolidating power over North Korea. 19 December: State media announce that Kim Jong-il has died of heart attack, aged 69. Pyongyang's neighbours are on alert amid fears of instability and power struggle in the North. 30 November: The construction of an experimental light-water reactor and the production of low-enriched uranium are "progressing apace", an unnamed foreign ministry official in Pyongyang tells the KCNA state-run news agency. 25 October: The US and North Korea fail to reach a deal on restarting negotiations on the North's nuclear programme, after two days of talks in Geneva. 21 September: Nuclear envoys from the North and the South hold a rare meeting in Beijing. No details are given about the outcome. 24 August: North Korea's Kim Jong-il hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Siberia. Mr Kim says he is ready to discuss ending nuclear tests if the talks on denuclearisation resume, Russia's media report. 1 August: Pyongyang says in a statement it is eager to resume the six-party talks "at an early date" and "without preconditions". 29 July: The US and North Korea hold "exploratory" talks in New York, aimed at gauging whether Pyongyang is serious about resuming the nuclear talks. 24 May: The US envoy for human rights in North Korea, Robert King, visits the North to assess the severity of its food shortages and whether Washington should resume its aid programme. 14 May: North Korea and Iran appear to have been exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of sanctions, a leaked UN report shows. 1 March: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urges the North to resume six-party nuclear talks and give up its nuclear programme. 28 February: US and South Korean troops stage major annual land, sea and air drills, prompting Pyongyang to threaten "all-out war" on the Korean peninsula. 20 January: South Korea agrees to high-level military talks with the North. Seoul says it would join the talks only if the agenda includes the two events that have soured relations - the sinking of a southern warship last March, and the shelling of South Korea's island in November. 2010 6 December: South Korea begins major live-fire exercises off its coast despite warnings from the North. 23 November: North Korea shells South Korea's border island of Yeonpyeong, killing four people. The South returns fire. 12 November: A US nuclear scientist is given a tour by North Korean officials of an advanced uranium enrichment plant, and says he was "stunned" by its sophistication. Senior officials in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul express concern. 30 August: US President Barack Obama imposes new financial sanctions on North Korea that will hit eight North Korean "entities" and four individuals, targeting the trade in arms, luxury goods and narcotics. During his second visit to China this year, Kim Jong-il says he hopes for an "early resumption" of international talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programme, but gives no further details. 27 August: Former US President Jimmy Carter secures the release of an American citizen jailed in North Korea for eight years for illegally entering the country from China. 25 July: The US and South Korea stage a major military exercise in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) aimed at sending a message of deterrence to North Korea. 21 July: The US announces new sanctions on North Korea, following the crisis over the sinking of a South Korean warship, targeting Pyongyang's sale and purchase of arms and import of luxury goods. 28 May: A United Nations panel accuses North Korea of continuing to export nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria and Burma in defiance of a UN ban. 25 May: North Korea says it will cut all relations with South Korea and expel all South Korean workers from a jointly-run factory north of the border. 20 May: An international inquiry blames North Korea for sinking the Cheonan warship near the disputed inter-Korean maritime border. Pyongyang calls the claim a "fabrication". 26 March: A South Korean warship sinks killing 46 sailors, after an explosion caused by an alleged torpedo attack by the North. Pyongyang denies any involvement. 11 January: North Korea says it could return to talks on its nuclear disarmament in exchange for a peace treaty with the US and an end to sanctions. 2009 6 October: North Korea tells China it may be willing to return to six-party talks, if it sees progress in bilateral talks with the US. 5 August: Former US President Bill Clinton visits to help secure the release of two detained US journalists. 30 June: South Korea confirms that the North is going ahead with its threat to enrich uranium, which can be used to fuel a nuclear reactor, or be more highly-enriched for use in a nuclear weapon. 12 June: The UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea. Pyongyang responds by saying it will view any US-led attempt to blockade the country as an "act of war" and that it plans to "weaponise" its plutonium stocks and start enriching uranium. 27 May: North Korea says it will no longer guarantee the safety of US and South Korean vessels off its south-western coast and is no longer bound by the truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. 26 May: North Korea test-fires two short-range missiles hours after the UN Security Council condemns the nuclear test. 25 May: North Korea detonates an underground nuclear explosive device. This is North Korea's second nuclear test and is believed to be several times more powerful than the first one tested in 2006. 14 April: North Korea announces that it will pull out of the six-party talks and orders IAEA inspectors to leave the Yongbyon complex and the country in response to UN Security Council criticism of its recent rocket launch. 5 April: North Korea launches a rocket to international condemnation. It flies over Japan and lands in the Pacific Ocean. The launch is widely viewed as a pretext to test a type of missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. 24 February: North Korea announces that it is preparing to launch a satellite, Kwangmyongsong-2, from its north-eastern coast. 2008 10 December: Latest round of six-party talks ends without agreement on how to verify North Korea's account of its atomic activity. 11 October: The US says it has taken North Korea off its list of state sponsors of terrorism, after North Korea agrees to full verification of its nuclear sites. 9 October: The UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, says North Korea has banned its inspectors from entering the Yongbyon nuclear complex. 24 September: IAEA says North Korea has removed seals preventing it using its main plant at Yongbyon. North Korean officials say UN inspectors will have no further access to the plant. 26 August: Two months after submitting its nuclear declaration, Pyongyang says it has stopped disabling its nuclear facilities in protest at the US failure to remove it from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. 24 July: The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets her North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun, for informal talks at an Asean summit in Singapore - the first such meeting for four years. Ms Rice says the talks are "good", with no surprises. 27 June: North Korea demolishes the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, in a symbol of its commitment to the talks on ending its nuclear programme. 26 June: After a delay of more than six months, the North hands over an account of its nuclear programme, enabling six-party negotiations to restart on 10 July. 13 May: North Korea hands over documents concerning its plutonium production programme. 25 April: The US accuses North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that "was not intended for peaceful purposes"; US says it is concerned about Pyongyang's "proliferation activities". 8 April: US and North Korean negotiators hold more talks in Singapore; both say progress was made. 28 March: North Korea test-fires short-range missiles off its western coast. 26 February: The New York Philharmonic performs a groundbreaking concert in North Korea, seen as a major act of cultural diplomacy. 19 February: US and North Korean nuclear negotiators hold talks in Pyongyang, but no deal is reached. 31 January: North Korea has not changed its mind about ending its nuclear programme, Kim Jong-il reportedly says. 7 January: US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill call for patience towards North Korea and says that the US is ready to persevere with negotiations in order to secure a complete and correct declaration. 2007 31 December: North Korea fails to meet a deadline to disclose full details of its nuclear programme by the end of 2007. 6 December: US President George W Bush sends a letter to Kim Jong-il urging him to follow through on North Korea's pledge to reveal full details of its nuclear programme. 4 December: The top US envoy to North Korea, Christopher Hill, makes a rare visit for talks with the country's foreign minister. After visiting the Yongbyon facility, he says progress on disabling it is "going well". 6 November: US nuclear experts say they have made a "good start" disabling the reactor. 11 October: A team of nuclear experts arrives in North Korea to oversee the dismantling of reactors and other facilities. 3 October: Chinese officials say North Korea has agreed to disable its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and give complete details of its nuclear programme by 31 December. 3 September: North Korea says Washington has agreed to take it off a list of countries that sponsor terrorism. 2 September: Following bilateral talks in Geneva, the US says Pyongyang has agreed to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of the year. 16 July: International inspectors confirm North Korea has shut down Yongbyon. 14 July: North Korea tells the US it has shut down its nuclear reactor after receiving the first shipments of heavy fuel oil. IAEA inspectors arrive for a monitoring visit to Yongbyon. 26 June: IAEA inspectors arrive in North Korea, the first time they have been allowed into the country since 2002. 21 June: US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill arrives for a surprise visit to Pyongyang. 14 April: North Korea misses the deadline to "shut down and seal" its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for energy aid, saying the banking row first needs to be resolved. 22 March: Six-party talks to discuss progress on the 13 February deal stumble after Pyongyang says it is unable to access its funds in a Macau bank. 15 March: The US ends an inquiry into the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, paving the way for a block on North Korea's accounts, containing $25m (£13m), to be lifted. 13 March: Mohamed El Baradei goes to Pyongyang for talks. He says North Korea is "fully committed" to giving up its nuclear programme. 23 February: The head of the UN's nuclear agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, says he has been invited to North Korea for talks on its nuclear programme. 13 February: North Korea agrees to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament, as part of a deal reached during talks. 8 February: Six-nation nuclear talks resume in Beijing. 9 January: Japan's PM Shinzo Abe tells the BBC his country cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea and calls for closer international co-operation to stop such an outcome. 2006 29 December: South Korea describes its northern neighbour as a "serious threat", in the wake of its nuclear test in October 18 December: Six-nation talks resume in Beijing, but end on 22 December with no sign of progress. 31 October: China announced that six-nation talks will resume "soon", following a meeting between envoys from the US, North Korea and China. 16 October: US intelligence officials announce that air samples gathered from the test site contain radioactive materials, which confirm that North Korea carried out an underground nuclear explosion. The size of the blast was less than 1 kiloton, the statement says. 14 October: The UN Security Council votes unanimously to impose weapons and financial sanctions on North Korea over its claimed nuclear test. Resolution 1718 demands that North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. The resolution allows nations to inspect cargo moving in and out of North Korea to check for non-conventional weapons but is not backed by the threat of force. It also calls for Pyongyang to return "without precondition" to stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear programme. 9 October: North Korea says it has carried out its first-ever test of a nuclear weapon. It calls the test a "historic event" and says it was carried out safely and successfully. 27 September: North Korea blames US financial sanctions for the deadlock in multilateral talks on its nuclear programme. In a speech to the UN General Assembly, envoy Choe Su-Hon said that North Korea was willing to hold talks, but the US stance had created an impasse. 11 September: Senior US diplomat Christopher Hill warns North Korea against a nuclear test, saying that it would be a provocative act. 15 July: The UN Security Council unanimously votes to impose sanctions on North Korea over its missile tests. The resolution demands UN members bar exports and imports of missile-related materials to North Korea and that it halt its ballistic missile programme. 7 July: South Korea suspends food aid in protest at the missile tests. 5 July: North Korea test-fires a seventh missile, despite international condemnation of its earlier launches. 4 July: North Korea test-fires at least six missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2, despite repeated warnings from the international community. 3 July: Washington dismisses a threat by North Korea that it will launch a nuclear strike against the US in the event of an American attack, as a White House spokesman described the threat as "deeply hypothetical". 12 April: A two-day meeting aimed at persuading North Korea to return to talks on its nuclear programme fails to resolve the deadlock. 2005 20 December: North Korea says it intends to resume building nuclear reactors, because the US had pulled out of a key deal to build it two new reactors. 7 December: A senior US diplomat brands North Korea a "criminal regime" involved in arms sales, drug trafficking and currency forgery. 11 November: Fifth round of six-nation talks ends without progress. 20 September: North Korea says it will not scrap its nuclear programme until it is given a civilian nuclear reactor, undermining the joint statement and throwing further talks into doubt. 19 September: In what is initially hailed as an historic joint statement, North Korea agrees to give up all its nuclear activities and rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while the US says it had no intention of attacking. 13 September: Talks resume, but a new North Korean request to be built a light water reactor prompts warnings of a "standoff" between the parties. 7 August: The talks reach deadlock and a recess is called. 25 July: Fourth round of six-nation talks begins in Beijing. 12 July: South Korea offers the North huge amounts of electricity as an incentive to end its nuclear weapons programme. 9 July: North Korea says it will rejoin nuclear talks, as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins a tour of the region. 22 June: North Korea requests more food aid from the South during ministerial talks in Seoul, the first for a year. 25 May: The US suspends efforts to recover the remains of missing US servicemen in North Korea, saying restrictions placed on its work were too great. 16 May: North and South Korea hold their first talks in 10 months, with the North seeking fertiliser for its troubled agriculture sector. 11 May: North Korea says it has completed extraction of spent fuel rods from Yongbyon, as part of plans to "increase its nuclear arsenal". 1 May: North Korea fires a short-range missile into the Sea of Japan, on the eve of a meeting of members of the international Non-Proliferation Treaty. 18 April: South Korea says North Korea has shut down its Yongbyon reactor, a move which could allow it to extract more fuel for nuclear weapons. 10 February: North Korea says it is suspending its participation in the talks over its nuclear programme for an "indefinite period", blaming the Bush administration's intention to "antagonise, isolate and stifle it at any cost". The statement also repeats North Korea's assertion to have built nuclear weapons for self-defence. 19 January: Condoleezza Rice, President George W Bush's nominee as secretary of state, identifies North Korea as one of six "outposts of tyranny" where the US must help bring freedom. 14 January: North Korea says it is willing to restart stalled talks on its nuclear programme, according to the official KCNA news agency. 2004 28 September: North Korea says it has turned plutonium from 8,000 spent fuel rods into nuclear weapons. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su-hon said the weapons were needed for "self-defence" against "US nuclear threat". 23 August: North Korea describes US President George W Bush as an "imbecile" and a "tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade", in response to comments Mr Bush made describing the North's Kim Jong-il as a "tyrant". 2 July: US Secretary of State Colin Powell meets North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun in the highest-level talks between the two countries since the crisis erupted. 23 June: Third round of six-nation talks held in Beijing, with the US making a new offer to allow North Korea fuel aid if it freezes then dismantles its nuclear programmes. 23 May: The UN atomic agency is reported to be investigating allegations that North Korea secretly sent uranium to Libya when Tripoli was trying to develop nuclear weapons. 22 January: US nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker tells Congress that the delegates visiting Yongbyon were shown what appeared to be weapons-grade plutonium, but he did not see any evidence of a nuclear bomb. 10 January: An unofficial US team visits what the North calls its "nuclear deterrent" facility at Yongbyon. 2003 9 December: North Korea offers to "freeze" its nuclear programme in return for a list of concessions from the US. It says that unless Washington agrees, it will not take part in further talks. The US rejects North Korea's offer. President George W Bush says Pyongyang must dismantle the programme altogether. 21 November: Kedo, the international consortium formed to build 'tamper-proof' nuclear power plants in North Korea, decides to suspend the project. 30 October: North Korea agrees to resume talks on the nuclear crisis, after saying it is prepared to consider the US offer of a security guarantee in return for ending its nuclear programme. 16 October: North Korea says it will "physically display" its nuclear deterrent. 2 October: North Korea announces publicly it has reprocessed the spent fuel rods. 27-29 August: Six-nation talks in Beijing on North Korea's nuclear programme. The meeting fails to bridge the gap between Washington and Pyongyang. Delegates agree to meet again. 1 August: North Korea agrees to six-way talks on its nuclear programme, South Korea confirms. The US, Japan, China and Russia will also be involved. 9 July: South Korea's spy agency says North Korea has started reprocessing a "small number" of the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods at Yongbyon. 13 June: South Korea's Yonhap news agency says North Korean officials told the US on 30 June that it had completed reprocessing the fuel rods. 9 June: North Korea says publicly that it will build a nuclear deterrent, "unless the US gives up its hostile policy". 2 June: A visiting delegation of US congressmen led by Curt Weldon says North Korean officials admitted the country had nuclear weapons had "just about completed" reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods which would allow it to build more. 12 May: North Korea says it is scrapping a 1992 agreement with the South to keep the peninsula free from nuclear weapons - Pyongyang's last remaining international agreement on non-proliferation. 2 May: Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer expresses concern after an official from North Korea's ruling Worker's Party is found on board a state-owned ship accused of bringing A$80m (US$50m) worth of heroin into Australia. 24 April: American officials say Pyongyang has told them that it now has nuclear weapons, after the first direct talks for months between the US and North Korea in Beijing end a day early. 23 April: Talks begin in Beijing between the US and North Korea, hosted by China. The talks are led by the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs, James Kelly, and the deputy director general of North Korea's American Affairs Bureau, Li Gun. 18 April: North Korea announces that it has started reprocessing its spent fuel rods. The statement is later amended to read that Pyongyang has been "successfully going forward to reprocess" the rods. 12 April: In a surprise move, North Korea signals it may be ready to end its insistence on direct talks with the US, announcing that "if the US is ready to make a bold switchover in its Korea policy for a settlement of the nuclear issue, [North Korea] will not stick to any particular dialogue format". 9 April: The United Nations Security Council expresses concern about North Korea's nuclear programme, but fails to condemn Pyongyang for pulling out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. 1 April: The US announces that "stealth" fighters sent to South Korea for a training exercise are to stay on once the exercises end. 10 March: North Korea fires a second missile into the sea between South Korea and Japan in as many weeks. 2 March: Four North Korean fighter jets intercept a US reconnaissance plane in international air space and shadow it for 22 minutes. 25 February: Roh Moo-hyun sworn in as South Korean president. 24 February: North Korea fires a missile into the sea between South Korea and Japan. 12 February: The IAEA finds North Korea in breach of nuclear safeguards and refers the matter to the UN security council. 5 February: North Korea says it has reactivated its nuclear facilities and their operations are now going ahead "on a normal footing". 31 January: Unnamed American officials are quoted as saying that spy satellites have tracked movement at the Yongbyon plant throughout January, prompting fears that North Korea is trying to reprocess plutonium for nuclear bombs. 28 January: In his annual State of the Union address, President Bush says North Korea is "an oppressive regime [whose] people live in fear and starvation". North Korea says Mr Bush's speech is an "undisguised declaration of aggression to topple the DPRK system" and dubs him a "shameless charlatan". 10 January: North Korea announces it will withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 7 January: The US says it is "willing to talk to North Korea about how it meets its obligations to the international community". But it "will not provide quid pro quos to North Korea to live up to its existing obligations". 6 January: The IAEA passes a resolution demanding that North Korea readmit UN inspectors and abandon its secret nuclear weapons programme "within weeks", or face possible action by the UN Security Council. 2002 27 December: North Korea says it is expelling two International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear inspectors from the country. It also says it is planning to reopen a reprocessing plant which could start producing weapons-grade plutonium within months. 26 December: The IAEA expresses concern in the light of UN confirmation that 1,000 fuel rods have been moved to the Yongbyon reactor. 25 December: It emerges that North Korea had begun shipping fuel rods to the Yongbyon plant which could be used to produce plutonium. 24 December: North Korea begins repairs at the Yongbyon plant. North-South Korea talks over reopening road and rail border links, which have been struggling on despite the increased tension, finally stall. 22 December: North Korea begins removing monitoring devices from the Yongbyon plant. 13 December: North Korea asks the UN's IAEA to remove seals and surveillance equipment - the IAEA's "eyes and ears" on the North's nuclear status - from its Yongbyon power plant. 12 December: The North threatens to reactivate nuclear facilities for energy generation, saying the Americans' decision to halt oil shipments leaves it with no choice. It blames the US for wrecking the 1994 pact. 11 December: North Korean-made Scud missiles are found aboard a ship bound for Yemen, provoking American outrage. The US detains the ship, but is later forced to allow the ship to go, conceding that neither country has broken any law. 18 November: Confusion clouds a statement by North Korea in which it initially appears to acknowledge having nuclear weapons. A key Korean phrase understood to mean the North does have nuclear weapons could have been mistaken for the phrase "entitled to have", Seoul says. 14 November: US President George W Bush declares November oil shipments to the North will be the last if the North does not agree to put a halt to its weapons ambitions. 20 October: North-South Korea talks in Pyongyang are undermined by the North's nuclear programme "admission". US Secretary of State Colin Powell says further US aid to North Korea is now in doubt. The North adopts a mercurial stance, at one moment defiantly defending its "right" to weapons development and at the next offering to halt nuclear programmes in return for aid and the signing of a "non-aggression" pact with the US. It argues that the US has not kept to its side of the Agreed Framework, as the construction of the light water reactors - due to be completed in 2003 - is now years behind schedule. 18 October: Five Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea 25 years before are allowed a brief visit home - but end up staying, provoking more tension in the region. 17 October: Initially the North appears conciliatory. Leader Kim Jong-il says he will allow international weapons inspectors to check that nuclear facilities are out of use. 16 October: The US announces that North Korea admitted in their talks to a secret nuclear arms programme. 3-5 October: On a visit to the North Korean capital Pyongyang, US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly presses the North on suspicions that it is continuing to pursue a nuclear energy and missiles programme. Mr Kelly says he has evidence of a secret uranium-enriching programme carried out in defiance of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Under this deal, North Korea agreed to forsake nuclear ambitions in return for the construction of two safer light water nuclear power reactors and oil shipments from the US.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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

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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"?

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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."

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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".

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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."

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https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18723463

A Point of View: The curse of a ridiculous name

Gopnik. It's not the most common of surnames. In Russian it's a term for "drunken lout". Those who carry a curious name know it has comedy value, says Adam Gopnik (that's G - O - P - N - I - K).

I have a funny name. I know it. Don't say it isn't or try to make me feel better about it. I have a funny name. My children and social networkers tell me that. And you out there have even been tweeting about it: "@BBC POV, Gopnik: what kind of name is that? #weirdnames" Gopnik. It has a strange sound, and an ugly look. It manages to be at once starkly plain and extremely uninteresting, boringly unadorned and yet oddly difficult to say. Despite the stark, Orcish simplicity of its syllables, it manages to be hard to pronounce. "Golnik" or "Gotnik" people say, swallowing or spitting out the middle consonant. A first name is malleable. Your chancellor of the exchequer began life under the name of Gideon Osborne - a name that might only have helped him become one more short-tenured professor of dark arts at Hogwarts. But he plucked the safer and saner "George" from among his other pre-names, and seized the country's trust with it, for a while anyway. Last names are more durable. My parents tried to elevate the name by giving all six of my brothers and sisters poetic Welsh or Hebrew names such as Morgan and Blake. All good names but with no middle names at all to help. "Gopnik" rises immediately after each one, like a concrete cinderblock wall topped with barbed wire, to meet them bluntly as they try to escape. It's not just a funny name. It has become, in the Russia from which it originally hails, an almost obscenely derogatory expression. A gopnik in Russian, and in Russia, is now a drunken hooligan, a small-time lout, a criminal without even the sinister glamour of courage. When Russian people hear my last name, they can barely conceal a snigger of distaste and disgusted laughter. Those thugs who clashed with Polish fans at Euro 2012? All gopniks - small G. And I'm told that it derives from an acronym for public housing, rather than from our family's Jewish roots, but no difference. My wife, even before the Russian gopnik business, tried gently to pry apart her potential children from my name. Her name is Parker, simple as that, and she would much prefer that her offspring go through life without the difficulty of their father's name. "Let's just call them Parker," she urged when we married. "And then," she added gently, as one talking to a small child, "you can give them your name as a sort of secret middle name." We ended by doing the worst thing you can do to a child in these times - we hyphenated. The real trouble is this. Like every writer, I would like my writing to last, and most writers who have lasted not only have euphonious names, but names that somehow resonate with their genius. Jane Austen. How can you not write matchlessly wry and intelligent novels with a name like that? Who would not want to be named Anthony Trollope or Evelyn Waugh? The solid sense and then the elegant malice are written into the names - even the androgyny of "Evelyn" adds to the slight air of something-not-quite-right that his prose implies. I envy even those writers blessed with those Restoration Comedy names: In the Latin world, get a name like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Mario Vargas Llosa, and you can practically make reservations for Stockholm, direct from the baptismal font. Are there any big modern writers who have really funny names? Only Kipling, I think, and that is an accident of the participle. More to the point, are there good writers who are now forgotten, as I am pretty sure I shall be, because their names are so funny? Yes, I have to say with dread, there are - for instance, the 20th Century American poet WD Snodgrass. Snodgrass was a truly great poet, the originator, if anyone was, of the style we now call "confessional poetry", a hero to Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath and the rest. But he had that funny Pickwickian name, and he knew it. He used to make fun of his own name: "Snodgrass is walking through the universe!" one poem reads (I, too, make fun of my surname, in the hopes of keeping off the name-demons). No use. For all his priority, I bet that you have heard something of Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton but that, unless you are a specialist in American poetry, you have never heard of WD Snodgrass. The subject has led me, gloomily, to search for the first reference to the power of names over writers' reputations. Oddly, astonishingly, I think we can find it. it occurs in the best and most famous scene in all of English biography, that moment in Boswell's Life of Johnson when, in 1776, Boswell craftily arranges a dinner between the arch Tory Dr Johnson and the radical libertine John Wilkes. The two men, political opposites, come together over their love of learning and good food. Wilkes is talking about the lost office of the city poet, and says: "The last was Elkanah Settle. There is something in names which one cannot help feeling. Now Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits." The irony, the final irony, is that my kind of essay writing (a lot of it anyway) depends on finding meanings in minutiae of sensation, which is just where the tragedy of a name like mine resides. Wilkes' cruel but accurate remark is a big one, a herald of the coming Romantic era as much as any poem about a lake or a lilac. For while the classical sensibility that Dr Johnson represented involved an, at times, undue respect for the authority of sense, the coming Romantic sensibility that Wilkes heralded involved, above all, a hypersensitivity to the accidents of sensation. Things become whatever feelings they evoke; if a name evokes an aura, it becomes it. Academics even have a name for this - they call it "phonetic symbolism". The only writer I can think of in all of English literature to have out-written his name - to have been given a really weird and funny-sounding name and yet replace its phonetic symbolism with a new symbolism of its own being - is... Shakespeare. We are so used to that name by now that I think we forget how truly odd it is. A blunt description of an intrinsically funny action - shaking a spear. It is not even a dignified action, as Swordthrust might be, he is merely Shake-speare. In his own day, it was obviously the first thing people noticed about him. The very earliest reference we have to him as a playwright involves the critic Robert Greene sneering at his funny name. "He fancies that he is the only 'Shake-scene' in the country." And a later wit wrote a play in which a dim-witted undergraduate keeps talking about "sweet Mr Shakespeare, Mr Shakespeare", obviously for the comic effect of the repeated funny name. Indeed, the name "Shakespeare" is exactly like the name of a clown in Shakespeare, whose funny name would set off pages of tiresome puns: "Prithee, Sirrah, and where do you shake that spear? Come, sir!" "Oh, sire, in any wench's lap that doth tremble for it." And so on. You know the kind of thing I mean. Indeed, if he had died of the plague, as was as likely as not, after writing only two plays and some poems, I wonder if we would not now have to suppress a laugh when we heard his name in class. "The minor poets of the Age of Jonson," some don would intone - or "The age of Fletcher" or "Lovelace", for surely someone else left in his shade would have risen in the space left clear by his absence - "were Drayton and Davenant and the short lived Stratfordian, Shakespeare." And then the students, desperately memorising for the exam: "Yeah, there's Beaumont and Manningham and then that other one - you know, the one who died young and wrote the Roman play with the twins and those weird bisexual sonnets, which I actually kinda like - you know, the guy with the funny name." But he kept on writing, about bees and kings, and other things and so lost his name and became himself. It can be done, it seems, if one writes long enough and well enough. But the bar, that bar, is too high. And the phonetic symbolism of my name is too absolute. The spectre of those gopniks in their crewcuts and parkas rise to overwhelm all hope. It is fixed. I shall remain and now say goodbye - and then vanish as a, and A. Gopnik.

world-africa-36795484

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36795484

Are young South Africans ignoring Aids message?

It is a frostily cold morning in the outskirts of Johannesburg. Children aged between six and 17 are queuing up for their "morning meds", shivering their greetings to the nurse assigned to supervise them. It's now part of their daily routine before they skip off into the yard and get bussed off to school.

By Karen AllenBBC News, Johannesburg These youngsters are a walking, breathing, living testimony to South Africa's shameful past. When a minority in the leadership allowed politics to overshadow science and refused to accept the potent reality of HIV/Aids, it delayed the rollout of preventative treatment and exposed tens of thousands of newborns to disease. Most of the youngsters popping their pills were infected in the womb. When the rest of the world was rolling out a drug called Nevirapine to reduce the chances of mothers transmitting the virus to their offspring, elements within the South African leadership famously advised patients to use lemon and garlic instead, to protect themselves. Aids in South Africa: 340,000 new infections in 2014 (931 a day) 2,700 young people infected every week - 74% girls More than half a million infected in the past year 140,000 recorded Aids deaths every year Many Aids deaths go unreported, so it is estimated there are more than 400 aids deaths each day Source: UNAids, 2014 But times have changed. Dramatically. South Africa reviewed its position in the face of international criticism. "At least now the children have treatment, and more importantly they have life," says a sanguine Gail Johnson, the founder of a refuge for HIV-positive children created in the memory of the little boy she fostered, called Nkosi Johnson. Her 11-year-old son's impassioned plea during the last big Aids conference here 16 years ago, to stop stigmatising people with HIV, moved the world to tears. It marked a line in the sand and South Africa now has the most extensive anti-retroviral treatment programme in the world. Youngsters like Sanele - a slightly built 20-year-old from Soweto who grew up in Nkosi's Haven orphanage and lost most of his family to Aids - are now far less likely to be infected at birth. "I never asked to be infected with this disease... at times I rebelled, I said: 'Why me?'" he says. But he is now reconciled to his fate, is well controlled on his medication and wants to be a role model to other young people like Nkosi who died shortly after his famous speech, deprived of Aids drugs. Sanele is now completing his higher school certificate and dreams of becoming a computer engineer. 'Sugar daddy' syndrome Rates of mother to child transmission have fallen by more than 50% since 2009 thanks to an aggressive programme of testing and treatment which has been rolled out across South Africa. But the country faces a new threat - the staggering number of young people here under the age of 24 becoming newly infected with HIV. In any one week, 2,700 young men and women aged 15-24 become infected with HIV, according to figures released by UNAids. Young South African women are particularly at risk and are getting infected in higher numbers due to a complex range of factors including economic and gender inequality, family breakdown and the practice of younger women having sex with older men. This is the so-called "sugar daddy" syndrome or what the experts call "inter-generational sex". It explains why in some places, young women are three times more likely to be infected with HIV than young men. A new word which captures this arrangement is a "blesser" - used to describe an older man who will offers gifts to a younger woman for sex. South Africa's Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi recently embraced the term when he unveiled a new programme seeing to tackle the alarming number of adolescent infections. As well as addressing problems with gender violence, he said the programme aims "to keep girls at school for as long as possible and create job opportunities for them so they reduce their dependence upon men". 'It is not spoken about' HIV/Aids has exposed the complex social dynamics in South Africa and treatment alone is clearly not the answer for reaching the holy grail of an Aids-free generation. One of the challenges that young people face is stigma. Sanele is one of the few courageous young South Africans to have declared his HIV status to his friend and his girlfriend. "When I told her, she didn't believe me, she thought I was messing around but eventually she talked to my family and realised it was true and she got used to it. We are still together today". But he admits that when you are out on the street "it is not spoken about". Stigma and ignorance about HIV persists in South Africa despite concerted efforts at public information campaigns. Sanele looks like any ordinary young man, enjoys his football and is clearly not dying. Yet an estimated 400 people die in South Africa every single day of HIV-related illnesses, either because they don't seek help early on or default on their treatment. That message - that you can still die from the Aids virus - is somehow getting lost, he believes. South Africa is not alone. More than two million adolescents around the world are living with HIV, according to Unicef. Most of them are in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. It still remains the biggest cause of death among young people in Africa and the number of lives lost in this group has tripled in the past 16 years. Little wonder then that the issue is likely to dominate debate when Aids experts reconvene in Durban, to assess the progress since the last conference.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-28017189

Noctilucent clouds visible from the Isle of Man

Noctilucent clouds, the highest in the earth's atmosphere, have been photographed from the west coast of the Isle of Man.

James Brew, from Andreas, snapped the clouds at about midnight above Peel Beach on Thursday. Sightings of the rarefied clouds peak about 20 days after midsummer. Mr Brew said: "I was greeted by this jaw dropping sky so I grabbed my camera and rushed out as quickly as I could." Noctilucent clouds appear in the night sky between the end of May and start of August. They appear 50 miles (89.5km) above the Earth in the mesosphere, right on the edge of space, and glow with a white-blue light.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869519

In pictures: Brussels blasts

Scores of people have been killed and wounded in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station during the morning rush hour.

There has been heightened security in the Belgian capital since it emerged that several of the men behind last November's Paris attacks had come from Brussels. Four days ago, a man suspected of involvement in the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in Brussels after four months on the run. What we know so far about Tuesday's attacks Crisis information

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Gosforth and Jesmond Metro stations to be revamped

Two Tyne and Wear Metro stations are to be refurbished as part of a £385m modernisation programme.

The work at South Gosforth and West Jesmond, will see the platforms, buildings and approaches to the stations improved. New ticket machines will also be installed during the modernisation work. Nexus, which owns the Metro, said the work would start on Monday and was expected to last about 15 weeks. Both stations will remain open, but there will be limited platform closures on some evenings, Nexus said.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43963677

Iran nuclear: What's changed after Netanyahu's presentation?

So what has changed, if anything, in the wake of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's theatrical presentation of Israel's claimed seizure of a trove of documents from Iran's secret nuclear archive?

By Jonathan MarcusDefence and diplomatic correspondent The purpose and timing of Mr Netanyahu's presentation was clear: to discredit the Iran nuclear deal, and to influence one man - Donald Trump. The US president must decide by mid-May whether to walk away from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or to stick with it, at least for the time being. So what did Mr Netanyahu actually tell us? It was in large part a reminder that Iran, despite all its denials, did have elements of a nuclear weapons programme and that it retains the scientific know-how to reactivate such a programme if it ever wanted to. That of course is not news to the major powers who signed up to the nuclear deal with Iran. Indeed, it was why they sought a nuclear agreement with Tehran in the first place. What Mr Netanyahu gave was essentially a history lesson. He did not show any convincing evidence that Iran is in breach of the 2015 agreement. And this could prove crucial. Indeed, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - the global nuclear watchdog monitoring the deal - has given Iran a clean bill of health on several occasions. It is, apparently, upholding its end of the agreement to the letter. Those governments like Britain, France and Germany who have been urging Mr Trump to maintain the deal with Tehran will argue that Mr Netanyahu's case, far from undermining the JCPOA, actually underscores why it is necessary. Gathering war clouds Mr Netanyahu, like Mr Trump, has long been opposed to the JCPOA. Mr Trump insists that it is "a bad deal", though the fact that it was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama seems to weigh heavily in the president's judgement. Mr Netanyahu believes that it does not go far enough in ending Iran's nuclear ambitions, and that once many of its clauses expire Iran will have the know-how, enrichment capability and missile programme to develop a nuclear arsenal at relatively short notice if it so wishes. Israel's position is complicated by the fact that it is involved in a developing conflict with Iran which has a growing influence in Syria, where Tehran has strongly backed the Assad regime. Iran supplies weaponry to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, much of which is routed through Syria. War clouds are gathering and Mr Netanyahu wants the JCPOA gone. The problem is that supporters of the agreement insist that precisely because of these growing tensions any constraint on Iran's nuclear activities is a good thing and should be maintained. And Mr Netanyahu must contend with the fact that many senior Israeli military and security figures, while not enthusiastic about the JCPOA, also believe it is better to keep it than consign it to the waste bin. Europe vs Trump So whatever the theatricality of Mr Netanyahu's presentation not much has really changed. The Iran nuclear deal stands on its merits (or shortcomings) and President Trump must now work towards his own conclusion. Will he be swayed by the Israeli prime minister - whose views are more in tune with his own? Or will he give ground to the key European signatories of the agreement - France, Britain and Germany - who all want to see the deal kept in place? The Europeans also believe, like President Trump, that something needs to be done to expand the JCPOA's scope. But there is a paradox here. By agreeing with Mr Trump that an additional deal is required to cover things like Iran's missile programme and its wider regional activities, might the Europeans actually be undermining the very agreement that they want to save? The JCPOA covers what it covers and no more. If the original negotiators had tried to expand its scope they would probably have met a brick wall from the Iranians. What's clear is that whatever evolving agreement there may be between the European capitals and Washington for further constraints on Tehran, there is no chance of the Iranian government being willing to accept them. The whole purpose of the JCPOA, to use an inelegant term, was to "kick the can down the road" - to postpone any Iranian nuclear crisis for the future. It set as many constraints on Iran's nuclear activities as feasible while leaving in place a reinforced inspection and verification scheme that may provide some early warning going forward of any efforts by Tehran to break out and rush for a bomb. The deal can be criticised on many grounds. But it is what was possible at the time. The real question is whether, amidst the worsening tensions in the region, it is better to stick with the agreed constraints or abandon them altogether? Mr Netanyahu disagrees with most of the major powers and with large parts of his own security establishment. He might argue that he and his country are much closer to the epicentre of crisis and that Iran - via its military presence or those of its proxies in Syria and Lebanon - is close to posing a direct threat on Israel's own borders. Mr Netanyahu is ranged against pretty well all of those who actually signed the deal. President Trump now has the casting vote.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-22278010

Man 'critical' after Abingdon care home fire

A man is in a critical condition after he was rescued from a fire at a care home in Oxfordshire.

The 48-year-old was rescued from The Knowl on Stert Street, Abingdon, after the blaze broke out at about 04:15 BST. He was treated at the scene for burns and smoke inhalation before being taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Thames Valley Police are investigating the cause of the blaze, which is being treated as unexplained.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-24119079

Lib Dem conference 'lacking buzz'

A few random thoughts from the Lib Dem conference.

James LandaleDeputy political editor@BBCJLandaleon Twitter 1. The Lib Dems want to be known as a responsible party of government. And by voting in favour of nuclear power and sticking to their guns on the economy, they will say they are being responsible. But a confected row with Vince Cable that muddies the economic message does not look grown up. Nor does an errant internal email that confuses policy on tax and potentially alienates target voters. It also looks indulgent. 2. Nick Clegg has learned not to be peevish. The Lib Dem leader has in the past allowed his entirely human irritation with silly questions from MPs or journalists to get the better of him. But he has realised that peevishness is not attractive to voters. From his interview with Andrew Marr to the Q&A with party members, he has displayed a remarkable absence of irritation and it has been remarked upon. 3. Nick Clegg is lucky. If British forces were being used to bomb Syria or if the Lib Dems had lost the Eastleigh by-election, this would be a very different conference. Party members would be wandering around the corridors of the conference centre insisting that they did not join the Lib Dems to go to war. And they would also be wandering around saying: "We are doomed, we are doomed. If we cannot hold Eastleigh, how will we hold...(insert constituency of choice)?" 4. The mood at this conference appears flat despite the fact that it matters so much. Policy is being decided here that will have a huge impact on our lives if the Lib Dems join another coalition after the next election. And yet buzz there ain't. 5. Scottish Lib Dems are in a fine mood. And not just because their conference is being held in Glasgow (for them it is closer to home, cheaper to get to and they don't have to ask where to eat). No, they are chipper because the independence referendum is giving them a chance to improve their dismal position north of the border. "The referendum is allowing us back in," says one senior Scottish Lib Dem. "It gives us something to talk to voters about, and then we can move onto other things."

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-49836830

The mums with eco-anxiety: 'I could cry all the time'

Eco-anxiety is a recently popularised term to describe the overwhelming powerlessness some people say they experience when they think about climate change. For parents, such fears can be particularly acute. BBC News speaks to some of those affected.

'I couldn't sleep and my appetite went' Like many new parents, Heather Sarno takes her son Jack along to rattle, rhyme and roll sessions at her local library. However, she broke down at a recent class because of her fears about the future of the planet. "I was asking one of the staff members if I could speak to some of the other mums about coming to a climate strike," says Heather, from Beeston in Nottinghamshire. "She said they wouldn't be able to get involved in anything political and I got really, really upset. She said, 'I think you need to go and see someone'. But a doctor isn't going to prescribe me with what I want." The 32-year-old mum of one says she wants an end to the damage humanity is inflicting on the planet. She says the fact her fears are grounded upon scientific fact sets her anxieties apart from other psychological conditions or the usual fears that afflict new parents about their offspring's future. For starters, she says, there is no medical treatment for the eco-anxiety she is experiencing. "A doctor wouldn't be able to control the companies responsible for 70% of the world's carbon emissions or put a stop to recreational flights," she says. "Only this morning, I was crying about it. It's like a grief process." Having a child has exacerbated Heather's fears for the future. She says she only realised the impact of climate change after Jack's birth. "It was terrifying - for days, I couldn't sleep. My appetite went. I cried loads. I felt really, really anxious and upset. I remember being really frantic and asking my husband, 'did you know about this?' I felt so guilty about having had Jack." So guilty did Heather feel, she has decided against having any more children. "Jack is four months old. He's absolutely lovely. He's a dream baby, really," she says. "I can look at him and just burst into tears because I want him to have a nice life. I could definitely cry all the time but I've kind of made peace with the fact that if we carry on the way we are, he will die because of the effects of climate change. "That's absolutely horrific but I have made peace with the fact that that is what will happen." Heather channels her energy into activities for Extinction Rebellion, the protest movement that campaigns on climate change, which she recently joined. She takes Jack along to the meetings and says she has no concerns he will find such activities overwhelming. "The atmosphere is actually really chilled," she says. "I don't want to pass on my anxiety until he's old enough to deal with it." What is eco-anxiety? 'You need to feel the fear' Like Heather, fellow mum Lily Cameron, joined Extinction Rebellion a few weeks ago and says listening to speeches by the likes of teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg, makes her cry. She has an eight-year-old daughter, Jasmine, whom she takes to environmental gatherings. "I don't want her to become anxious," she says. "For children, anxiety is more of a problem because they have so little control over their lives. Because of that, there are some things I wouldn't say to her." The 31-year-old mum, also from Beeston, has not sought medical treatment for her environmental fears. "If you went to the doctor about eco-anxiety they would probably tell you to distract your mind or take these medications," she says. "It's not appropriate in this case. You need to feel the fear. "I wake in the middle of the night and can't switch my brain off. I've always been quite eco-friendly but the anxiety has definitely got worse in the past few months. I've realised the things I'm doing are not going to be enough. "The more you learn, the more fearful you feel but it's important that fear galvanises you into action. If you just feel the fear, you will be completely overwhelmed by it and not do anything." 'You are not alone' Mum-of-two Heidi Jeffree, 31, from Forest Fields in Nottingham, says she has spells of shakiness and a shortness of breath when she considers the future of the planet. She also recently joined Extinction Rebellion and says forming such alliances made her feel "powerful". "It shows you you are not alone," says Heidi, who is mum to Cassie, four, and Finch, one. "That's really helpful and calming." Unlike Heather and Lily, Heidi has previously suffered from anxiety. In her 20s, she received counselling and "various medications". "Therapy was massively helpful but I think anxiety is probably a facet of my personality," she says. "It's not necessarily a bad thing if you can manage it. And I can take the things I learned in therapy and apply them to this situation. "For me personally, getting outside every day for fresh air and doing breathing exercises can help with the stress. It also helps to connect to other people." Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-47172774

Memorial plaques stolen from Barnsley crematorium

About 100 bronze plaques have been stolen from a South Yorkshire crematorium.

Barnsley Council said they were taken from the town's crematorium on Wednesday. The missing plaques would be replaced and the families of those concerned are being contacted, the council said. South Yorkshire Police said an investigation was under way into the thefts and anyone with information should contact the force. Related Internet Links South Yorkshire Police Barnsley Council

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-42079438

Dog owners warned over palm oil on Pembrokeshire beaches

Dog walkers have been urged to take care on Pembrokeshire beaches after what is believed to be palm oil was washed up.

Pembrokeshire council said the coastguard and fire services were at South beach in Tenby and there had been a similar incident on nearby Castle Beach. It warned more may wash up on future tides but in smaller quantities. Palm oil can be harmful to dogs.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-19557814

Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre calls for £20m arena expansion

Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre needs a new larger arena to attract stars, its managers have said.

They want to spend up to £20m to increase capacity to attract bigger events and concerts. The centre said it has missed out on acts including Rihanna and Elton John in recent months due to size constraints. Earlier this year the city council agreed to write off the AECC's £26.2m debts.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-guernsey-14841870

Quarter of ferries between UK and Channel Islands late

One in four fast ferries between the UK and Channel Islands are late, according to figures released by Condor Ferries.

The figures for April, May and June show 76% of journeys to and from the UK were made within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. In the same period the company's fast ferries to France and the conventional UK ferry made 87% of journeys on time. The company said in those three months just 26 of its 1,343 passenger sailings had been cancelled.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-36409481

Brass eagle lectern stolen stolen from Newtown church

An ornate brass lectern has been stolen from a church near Newbury.

Police said the theft happened between 18:00 BST Thursday and 11:00 on Friday, from the St Mary the Virgin and St John the Baptist Church in Harts Lane, Newtown, on the border of Hampshire and Berkshire. The church door was stolen before the lectern, which features an eagle book rest, was taken. Hampshire Constabulary said the lectern was insured to the value of £10,000.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-55200996

Man dies in car crash at Penygroes Road, Blaenau

A 20-year-old man has died after a one-car crash in Carmarthenshire.

A white Vauxhall Corsa crashed on Penygroes Road, Blaenau, near Llandybie, on Friday at 20:45 GMT. "Our thoughts are with his family who are being supported by our officers," said a spokesperson for Dyfed-Powys Police. The force is appealing for witnesses or anyone with any dashcam footage to "help officers establish what happened".

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39898589

The wounded victims of Sri Lanka's child marriage law

In Sri Lanka the legal marriage age is 18, but under a decades-old community law, much younger Muslim girls can get married. As calls grow for this law to be amended, BBC Sinhala's Saroj Pathirana meets one young girl forced to marry against her will.

When Shafa* was 15, she was forced to get married. "While studying for exams, I fell in love with a boy," Shafa said, tears running down her cheeks. "My parents did not like it. They sent me to my uncle's place. While I was studying there, a regular visitor told my aunt and uncle that he wanted to marry me." Shafa, who comes from a Muslim family and lives in a remote village in Sri Lanka, refused. She wanted to marry the boy she loved, after completing her secondary school education. But despite her objections, her uncle and aunt arranged for her to marry their friend. Whenever she objected to the marriage, she was beaten. Her uncle and aunt even threatened to kill themselves if she did not listen to them. "I cut my arms as there was no other option," said Shafa, pulling up her sleeves to show the scars. "I also took some pills from my uncle's place. "While I was being treated in hospital, they bribed the doctors and took me - together with my saline bottle - to a private hospital. A few days later they forced me to marry that man." Shafa decided to stay with her young husband as she could see no escape but he suspected she was continuing her relationship with her boyfriend. "He regularly beat me," she said. "When I told him that I was pregnant, he picked me up and threw me to the floor. "He then told me that he only wanted me for the one night, he'd already had me and didn't need me any more." It was at the hospital that she realised she had lost her baby as a result of the violence. When Shafa went to the police, they did not take her complaint seriously. One day she got a call from the mosque in the village. There, her husband agreed to continue the marriage but she refused. A few days later, she started getting phone calls and text messages from strangers, asking how much she charged to sleep with them. Shafa realised that her husband had published her photograph and telephone number on social media. The callers threatened her with filthy language and told her: "We got your number from your husband." "I recorded all these calls. And I still have all the text messages," said Shafa, who could not stop crying but was determined to tell her story. Shafa's father did not want to get involved with what was happening. But Shafa's mother is now taking her daughter to a social welfare centre so she can get psychological and legal help in the wake of her traumatic marriage. They visit the centre in secret because openly seeking psychological help is still a taboo in Sri Lanka. Shafa's mother supports her five children by doing daily labour jobs in the village. She was evicted from her hometown by Tamil Tiger separatist rebels in 1990. "I sent my daughter to my brother's place due to one incident. I never thought this would happen to her," she said. She says she objected to her daughter being forced to marry but her brother did not listen to her. "It was a forced marriage," she said. "I fear for her safety and her education now [because of the lies her husband has spread about her]. She can't go to classes. She can't even travel on a bus. Her whole future is uncertain." Every year, hundreds of girls like Shafa from Sri Lanka's Muslim minority are forced to get married by their parents or guardians. Human rights lawyer Ermiza Tegal says Muslim child marriages have gone up from 14% to 22% within a year in the eastern province, a rise attributed to increased conservatism. Shafa was 15 years old but Muslim women's groups have documented girls as young as 12 being forced into marriage. Sri Lanka's common law does not allow underage marriages. The legal age is 18. But a decades-old community law called the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) allows Muslim community leaders, who are mostly men, to decide the marriage age. There is no minimum age, although a marriage involving a girl under 12 requires special permission from an Islamic magistrate. Girls and their mothers have suffered in silence for decades but Muslim women activists are now coming forward to seek reform of the MMDA, despite serious threats from mullahs and other conservative community leaders. Child marriage: the facts Sources: Girls Not Brides; Pew Research Centre Sri Lanka plans to reform its constitution and so activists believe now is the moment to act. The United Nations and the EU have also recently urged the government to amend the MMDA and other discriminatory laws. But there is not a lot of hope, because a committee set up by the government nearly 10 years ago to look into MMDA reform failed to come up with any concrete proposals. Muslim groups such as Jamiyathul Ulama and Thawheed Jamaath have long resisted the call for change. Thawheed Jamaath treasurer BM Arshad said the organisation supported reforming the MMDA as long as proposals came from within the community, but it opposed setting a minimum marriage age. "Neither Islam nor Thawheed Jamaath accept child marriages," said Mr Arshad. "But Thawheed Jamaath will never agree to setting a minimum age for marriage. "The need for the girl to get married should be the criteria for a marriage," he said. "Some girls may not need to get married even after 18 years of age. It is the right of the person getting married to decide when they do." He denied accusations that his organisation threatens Muslim women activists. The centre Shafa and her mother attend has helped more than 3,000 Muslim women with various issues over the last three years, including 250 child marriage victims. "I have to stay away from home because of the threats from men," said the social worker who runs the centre. "I'm afraid to send my children to school. "I have had to stay in my office and now I'm even afraid to take a tuk tuk home." Activist Shreen Abdul Saroor of the Women's Action Network (WAN) was one of the few Muslim women who dared to reveal her face and her identity. "Child marriage is statutory rape," she said. She insists that 18 years should be the legal marriage age for all communities in Sri Lanka, irrespective of their nationality or religion. A child is not physically mature enough to give birth to another child and they miss out on their education, she says. "When we look at these children getting married, it affects the whole community. The whole community goes backward," said Ms Saroor. "My message to the Muslim community and religious leaders is please do not destroy the childhood of these children." Despite her trauma, Shafa was always a brilliant student and was determined to resume her studies. Her family hope she can get a good job but she still faces many challenges. "Boys regularly come to me and make rude jokes when I go to tuition classes," she says. "This is serious harassment. I feel down. I'm helpless. I don't know what to do." But she refuses to let the bullies win, saying she wants to be a lawyer. "Is it because you want to help other victims like you?" I asked. "Yes," she said. As her smiling eyes meet mine, I sense her determination. *Shafa's name has been changed to protect her privacy.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37751579

Will Turkish ambitions complicate fight for Mosul?

With the offensive on Mosul well under way, the simmering tensions between the Shia-dominated Iraqi government and Turkey threaten to open up new fault lines that could greatly complicate the operation. They also raise questions about the future battle for influence in Mosul in particular and, more generally, in northern Iraq.

Jonathan MarcusDiplomatic correspondent@Diplo1on Twitter From the outset of the operation, Turkey has been itching to play a role. This has been resolutely opposed by the government in Baghdad, and the Americans have had to mount some nimble diplomacy to try to ensure the differences between Turkey and Iraq do not overshadow the early stages of the Mosul offensive. US Secretary of Defence Ash Carter made the point explicitly at the end of last week when, on a visit to Baghdad, he reaffirmed "the vital importance of every country operating with full respect for Iraqi sovereignty". This message was clearly directed at the Turks. Turkey's interest in Iraq is complex. It is an amalgam of contemporary strategic concerns, domestic politics, and nostalgia for the Ottoman past. The rise of so-called Islamic State has served to weaken the already fragile Iraqi state and it has reduced Syrian territory to a government-controlled rump. Borders established in the wake of World War One seem far from permanent. A patchwork of ethnic, religious and sectarian groups are seeking to protect their own local interests and many of these groups - most notably the Kurds - straddle the existing borders. No wonder, then, that there continues to be discussion about the cohesion of Iraq, let alone Syria. But it is not just the internal Syrian and Iraqi factions who are in play. Powerful regional actors like Iran and Turkey are also eager to secure their interests which is why, for example, Turkish troops have moved into northern Syria. And, as the fighting comes closer to its own border with Iraq, the Ankara government is eager to reinforce its position in that country, too. Ankara's fundamental strategic concern is to ensure that the Kurdistan Workers' Party - the PKK - which has been mounting an insurgency inside Turkey for decades - does not expand its activities in northern Iraq. It also wants to limit Iranian influence, Tehran already having significant ties with the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. Turkey has cast itself as something of a protector for Sunni Arabs and the Turkmen minority in northern Iraq. That is why it has been so averse to the idea of the involvement of Shia militias in the Mosul campaign. But there is also a good deal of history here as well, bound up with the increasingly expansive rhetoric of Turkey's increasingly controversial President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In a speech in Bursa on 22 October, Mr Erdogan referred back to the immediate post-World War One period, commenting that "we did not voluntarily accept the borders of our country". He noted that one of modern Turkey's greatest mistakes was "the weakening of our cultural connections". "With total ignorance," he said, people asked "what business does Turkey have in Iraq, Syria and Bosnia? [But] these geographies are each part of our soul." In part, this was a powerful attack against the secular regime that had previously ruled modern Turkey. But, equally, it also sent a signal of where Turkey's abiding interests lie. The Turkish media has been awash with maps showing Turkey's widening horizons. This "irredentist cartography and rhetoric," according to the analyst Nick Danforth, offers a fascinating insight into Turkey's current foreign and domestic policy concerns. For now, Turkish troops are not going to take part in the Mosul operation. Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned of a possible military confrontation if they became involved. "We are ready for them," Mr Abadi said. "This is not a threat or a warning, this is about Iraqi dignity." But Turkey retains an army base at Bashiqa, a little to the north-east of Mosul, which has been a frequent bone of contention with Baghdad. It keeps up a close military liaison in major population centres of the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government. Just as in Syria, Turkey has trained a local militia force - the Ninevah Guards - a 3,000-strong force of Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds. Its potential role in the Mosul operation remains unclear. But the tensions between Ankara and Baghdad are not going to go away. Turkey, for example, said on Monday that it had employed tank and artillery fire from its base at Bashiqa to assist Peshmerga fighters against IS. The Iraqi government has moved swiftly to deny the story. This is a row not so much about the battle for Mosul but about its aftermath. Who will control the region once IS is expelled? Can a highly sectarian Iraqi government really act in the interests of all? How far is Turkey willing to go to back one set of Kurds to exclude another? And might President Erdogan's neo-Ottoman rhetoric encourage him to play a more active part in Iraq just as he has sought to do in northern Syria ?

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31962644

Ukraine conflict: Inside Russia's 'Kremlin troll army'

Over the past year, Russia has seen an unprecedented rise in the activity of "Kremlin trolls" - bloggers allegedly paid by the state to criticise Ukraine and the West on social media and post favourable comments about the leadership in Moscow.

By Olga BugorkovaBBC Monitoring Though the existence and even whereabouts of the alleged "cyber army" are no secret, recent media reports appear to have revealed some details of how one of the tools of Russian propaganda operates on an everyday basis. "Troll den" The Internet Research Agency ("Agentstvo Internet Issledovaniya") employs at least 400 people and occupies an unremarkable office in one of the residential areas in St Petersburg. Behind the plain facade, however, there is a Kremlin "troll den", an investigative report by independent local newspaper Moy Rayon ("My District") suggests. The organisation, which the paper ties to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a restaurateur with close links to President Vladimir Putin who allegedly pays bloggers to produce hundreds of comments on top news websites and manage multiple accounts on Twitter, LiveJournal and other social media platforms. "[During one 12-hour shift] I had to write 126 comments under the posts written by people inside the building. And about 25 comments on pages of real people - in order to attract somebody's attention. And I had to write 10 blog posts," a former employee, Anton, told Radio Liberty. Typical troll accounts, Moy Rayon noted, were operated by people posing as "housewives" and "disappointed US citizens". To avert suspicions, the fake users sandwich political remarks between neutral articles on travelling, cooking and pets. "My name is Tatyana and I'm a little friendly creature)). I'm interested in what is happening in the world, I also like travelling, arts and cinema," user "tuyqer898" wrote on her blog. However, a leaked list of alleged Kremlin trolls published by liberal Novaya Gazeta newspaper suggests that "Tatyana" is in fact a fake account. Strict guidelines A collection of leaked documents, published by Moy Rayon, suggests that work at the "troll den" is strictly regulated by a set of guidelines. Any blog post written by an agency employee, according to the leaked files, must contain "no fewer than 700 characters" during day shifts and "no fewer than 1,000 characters" on night shifts. Use of graphics and keywords in the post's body and headline is also mandatory. In addition to general guidelines, bloggers are also provided with "technical tasks" - keywords and talking points on specific issues, such as Ukraine, Russia's opposition and relations with the West. One recent technical task, former employee Lena told Radio Liberty, was devoted to the murder of prominent Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov. "It was mandatory to convey the message to the people that Nemtsov's murder was a provocation ahead of the [opposition] march and that he was killed by his own associates," she said. "As a result, hundreds and thousands of comments, where this idea is served up under different dressings, emerge under every news article of leading media," she added. "Reverse censorship" Despite the efforts of the founders of the "troll den", some Russian experts are not convinced there is much point in the Kremlin having an online army. "The efforts the paid crowd make to create a pseudo-patriotic and pro-government noise on the net go to waste," popular blogger Rustem Adagamov told St Petersburg-based news website Fontanka.ru. "It is TV that changes the public conscience, rather than the internet," he added. Internet expert Anton Nosik agrees. "Internet trolling is not, in the first place, aimed at effectiveness, that is at changing the political views of the audience," he told Moy Rayon newspaper. But prominent journalist and Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev, however, believes Russia's efforts are aimed at confusing the audience, rather than convincing it. "What Russians are trying to go for is kind of a reverse censorship," he told Ukrainian internet-based Hromadske TV ("Public TV"). They cannot censor the information space, but can "trash it with conspiracy theories and rumours", he argues. BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

world-europe-isle-of-man-26388585

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-26388585

Ideas invited to develop Isle of Man prison site

Ideas have been invited from the Isle of Man public about the future of the site of a former Victorian jail.

The prison was decommissioned in 2008 and inmates were transferred to a new £41.7m jail in Jurby. Replacing the 18th Century Castle Rushen jail, the Victoria Road site in Douglas opened in 1891 and housed criminals for more than 100 years, Despite calls for the building to be kept as a listed building the redbrick jailhouse was demolished in 2012. Anyone interested in submitting ideas for the two-acre site is asked to contact the Manx government via the consultation website. .

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Your pictures of Scotland 25 September - 2 October

A selection of your pictures of Scotland sent in between 25 September and 2 October. Send your photos to scotlandpictures@bbc.co.uk. Please ensure you adhere to the BBC's rules regarding photographs which can be found here.

Please also ensure you follow current coronavirus guidelines and take your pictures safely and responsibly. Conditions of use: If you submit an image, you do so in accordance with the BBC's terms and conditions. Please ensure that the photograph you send is your own and if you are submitting photographs of children, we must have written permission from a parent or guardian of every child featured (a grandparent, auntie or friend will not suffice). In contributing to BBC News you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material in any way, including in any media worldwide. However, you will still own the copyright to everything you contribute to BBC News. At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe the law. You can find more information here.

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Spanish flu: How the 1918 pandemic hit Ulster and beyond

One hundred years ago this weekend, a fortnight after Armistice celebrations brought people to the streets across Great Britain and Ireland, a killer that claimed more lives globally than the four-year conflict reached its peak in Belfast.

By Hannah GayBBC News NI In the week ending 23 November 1918, the death rate in the city had tripled from the yearly average for all causes. Although the recorded reasons varied, historian Dr Patricia Marsh said that the vast majority of deaths were undoubtedly related to a much-feared global pandemic - the Spanish flu. According to Dr Marsh, it is no coincidence that the death toll soared in the two weeks that followed Armistice Day. The virus was, by this stage, in its "second wave" in Ulster. "The Spanish flu had returned in October in a much more virulent wave than the previous one, and so the public were advised to avoid cinemas and other confined spaces," said Dr Marsh. "The authorities were doing their best to try and contain it, but you can't expect people not to come together to celebrate the end of a war. "You can see from the photos that there were thousands of people on the streets on 11 November. We know now that this is how viruses spread, but back then, people weren't as knowledgeable about the causes of illness." Across the whole island of Ireland, there were more than 23,000 recorded deaths as a result of the virus - approximately 7,500 of those were in Ulster. However, due to a lack of diagnosis and documentation, it is thought that up to 800,000 people in Ireland could have been infected, according to Dr Ida Milne, of Maynooth University. The pandemic is estimated to have killed up to 100 million people worldwide, reaching countries across the globe, as well as remote pacific islands and even the Arctic. The movement of troops and goods in a post-war world allowed the respiratory illness to be transported trans-nationally. In the shadow of World War One, many people were left malnourished and with weak immune systems, making them more susceptible to illness. Unusually, the virus also affected the 20-40 age group more than any other section of the population, so "strong, young adults, parents and workers, were wiped out by it", said Dr Marsh. To make matters worse, many doctors and nurses had been killed while working on the Western Front, so the medical industry was not fully equipped to deal with another disaster. Public places, such as cinemas and schools, were closed to prevent the spread of the flu and people were advised to keep their hands clean and to refrain from spitting. According to Dr Marsh, Belfast was the first location in Ireland where signs of Spanish flu were detected. From there, it spread across the rest of Ireland, thriving in densely populated towns and cities; factories, where workers gathered in close quarters, encouraged the virus to spread. "Newry also had a high mortality rate, which remains more of a mystery, but the nearby port, with its merchant ships, could have been the reason as to why the death rate was so high," said Dr Marsh. "It was recorded as returning to Northern Ireland on 9 October in Larne - probably because of the harbour." Despite being a rural farming area, County Donegal also experienced great losses. According to Dr Marsh, the Catholic tradition of holding wakes for the deceased is likely to have been a primary cause of death within the county. "Many believed an infected corpse would have been contagious, but it was actually the gatherings in confined spaces that would have caused the spread," she explained. "Many members of the farming community died in Donegal. If one infected person entered a small cottage at an event such as a wake, the disease would spread like wildfire." Rosaleen McQuillan Crilly, whose family descended from Hannahstown village on the outskirts of Belfast, has some knowledge of the horror the virus caused. Her father, John McQuillan, was born in September 1918. "Tragedy struck the McQuillan family when my father was eight weeks old, as they were caught by the epidemic that was sweeping across Europe," she said. Triple funeral "My grandfather, Johnny, died from the flu on 12 November 1918, aged just 30 years. His sister, Elizabeth, passed away the very next day, aged just 32 years, as well as their mother Mary, aged 58 years. "Both granddad and Elizabeth's death certificates state the cause of death to be influenza and septic pneumonia, and great-grandmother Mary's stated influenza and heart failure." Their gravestone is a subtle reminder of just how badly the 1918 influenza pandemic devastated both society and communities in the post-World War One world. Today, there remains no official commemoration site marking the pandemic and it is rarely included in school history curriculums. However, evidence of the lives lost can be found on gravestones, in obituaries, in newspapers and within stories passed down through the generations. "There was death everywhere," said Dr Marsh. "When you think about 23,000 deaths in Ireland in the space of nine months - more than the total for the War of Independence that followed - when you think about whole families dying together, countless children left orphaned across Ireland, the horror of that is quite unimaginable in this day and age." *This is an amended version of the original report. The reference in the second paragraph to the number of people who died in November 1918 has been corrected.

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Introducing… Egyptian Hip Hop

Perhaps it's the blinding glare of the buzz surrounding his band at the moment, or the din of the rest of his gang watching Terminator 2 in the back of the tour van, but Alex Hewett is pretty quiet today.

By Greg CochraneNewsbeat music reporter What jokers! Neither Egyptian nor hip hop, the four college students are the latest subversive pop servants coming out of Manchester. He speaks in meek, one sentence answers, seemingly with his mind on other things. You can't blame him for being a little distracted though as Manchester's latest darlings - Alex Pierce (drums), Nick Delap (bass) and Lou Stevenson-Miller (guitar) all 17 years old - EHH are midway through their first ever UK tour. They're dates which come while they're being touted as the fourth leg of north-west England's 2010 takeover - Delphic, Everything Everything and Hurts being the other three. 'Boring' studies Right now the foursome are fitting playing gigs around attending college - or not, as the case may be. "Me, Nick and Lou do music B-tech so right now we'd probably be studying acoustics which is really boring," says Hewett. "Just calculating differences between units of time. "We are just sitting in a van right now but it is a lot more relaxing at least. "We're kind of organising around it [school] at the moment," he says reluctantly. "I haven't got a huge interest in college because it just doesn't teach me as much as actually being out here." Huge buzz Egyptian Hip Hop's own journey began last year when they began writing material in Lou's bedroom. A buzz quickly grew with the release of their debut single Rad Pitt, a lo-fi tinkling waterfall of pop. Bulkier in sound, current follow-up Wild Human Child is a different kind of beast produced by Sam Eastgate lead singer of Nottingham experimenters Late Of The Pier. "I met Sam a few years ago now because I'm quite good friends with his brother who is the same age as us," explains the singer. "We always knew he was really talented with production. "We're definitely a fan of Late Of The Pier, they've done something quite new but in a pop context." It's a sound, coupled with the return of Klaxons this year, that's had bloggers, record labels and promoters getting feverishly excited about Egyptian Hip Hop. They've also already been Nick Grimshaw's 'record of the week'. "We haven't really considered stuff like a record deal," says Hewett quietly. "We don't even know what songs we've got that could become a record." One thing they do know is that they're not going to stop trying new things and decide exactly what the sound of their own band is to be. "Unless you're like Oasis you don't do things for years and years," he says. "We all listen to different music between us - we just experiment. We've already set it so we don't have any boundaries as such - we're free to throw any idea into a song. "We'll pretty much do anything." Listen to the band in session for Radio 1's Huw Stephens

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In Pictures: The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2018

A shocked squirrel has scooped the overall prize in this year's Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.

Out of thousands of entries from around the world, Mary McGowan, from Tampa, Florida, won the overall prize with her photo titled Caught in the Act. Other entrants included an exasperated bear, a smiley shark and a rhino appearing to wear a tutu. Here is a selection of some of the hilarious winners and highly commended entries. Winning photos 'Highly Commended' photos The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards is releasing a book, which helps support the Born Free Foundation charity.

world-asia-48850490

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48850490

The mystery of screaming schoolgirls in Malaysia

It was a quiet Friday morning last July when pandemonium broke out at a school in north-east Malaysia. Siti Nurannisaa, a 17-year-old student, was at the centre of the chaos. This is her account of what happened.

By Heather ChenBBC News, Kelantan, Malaysia The assembly bells rang. I was at my desk feeling sleepy when I felt a hard, sharp tap on my shoulder. I turned round to see who it was and the room went dark. Fear overtook me. I felt a sharp, splitting pain in my back and my head started spinning. I fell to the floor. Before I knew it, I was looking into the 'otherworld'. Scenes of blood, gore and violence. The scariest thing I saw was a face of pure evil. It was haunting me, I couldn't escape. I opened my mouth and tried to scream but no sound came out. I passed out. Siti's outburst triggered a powerful chain reaction that ripped through the school. Within minutes students in other classrooms started screaming, their frantic cries ricocheting through the halls. One girl fainted after claiming to have seen the same "dark figure". Classroom doors slammed shut at the Ketereh national secondary school (SMK Ketereh) in Kelantan as panicked teachers and students barricaded themselves in. Islamic spiritual healers were called to perform mass prayer sessions. By the end of the day, 39 people were deemed to have been affected by an outbreak of "mass hysteria". Mass hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness, as it's also known, is the rapid spread of physical symptoms such as hyperventilation and twitching among a substantial group of people - with no plausible organic cause. "It is a collective stress response prompting an overstimulation of the nervous system," says American medical sociologist and author Robert Bartholomew. "Think of it as a software problem." The mechanisms behind mass hysteria are often poorly understood and it is not listed in the DSM - the manual of mental disorders. But psychiatrists like Dr Simon Wessely from King's College Hospital in London view it as a "collective behaviour". "The symptoms experienced are real - fainting, palpitations, headaches, nausea, shaking and even fits," he says. "It is often attributed to a medical condition but for which no conventional biomedical explanation can be found." Transmission, he adds, "is largely due to psychological and social factors". Outbreaks have been recorded around the world, with cases dating back as early as the Middle Ages. Incidents in Malaysia were particularly prevalent among factory workers during the 1960s. Today it largely affects children in schools and dormitories. Robert Bartholomew spent decades researching the phenomenon in Malaysia. He calls the South East Asian country "the mass hysteria capital of the world". "It is a deeply religious and spiritual country where many people, especially those from rural and conservative states, believe in the powers of traditional folklore and the supernatural." But the issue of hysteria remains a sensitive one. In Malaysia, cases have involved adolescent girls from the Malay Muslim ethnic majority more than any other group. "There's no denying that mass hysteria is an overwhelmingly female phenomenon," says Mr Bartholomew. "It's the one constant in the [academic] literature." Surrounded by lush green rice fields, the sleepy Malay village of Padang Lembek sits on the outskirts of Kelantan's capital Kota Bharu. It's a small, tight-knit community where everyone knows each other, the sort of place that would make many Malaysians reminisce about how their country used to be. There are family-run restaurants, beauty salons, a mosque and good neighbourhood schools. Siti and her family live in a modest, single-storey terrace house, easily distinguishable by its weathered red roof and green exterior. An old, sturdy motorbike she shares with her best friend Rusydiah Roslan, who lives nearby, is parked outside. "We rode it to school on the morning I was possessed by 'spirits'," Siti says. Like any other teenager, stress affects Siti. She says she felt it most during her final school year in 2018, when all-important examinations loomed. "I was preparing for weeks, trying to memorise my notes but something was wrong," she says. "It felt like nothing was going into my head." The incident at school during the July study period left Siti unable to sleep or eat properly. It took her a month of rest before she returned to her - almost-regular - self. An outbreak of mass hysteria usually begins with what experts call an "index case", the first person to become affected. In this story, that is Siti. "It doesn't happen overnight," says Robert Bartholomew. "It starts with one child and then quickly spreads to others because of an exposure to a pressure-cooker environment of stress." And all it takes is a major spike in anxiety in a group situation, like seeing a fellow classmate faint or have a fit - to trigger a reaction in another person. Rusydiah Roslan will never forget seeing her best friend in that state. "Siti was screaming uncontrollably," she says. "No one knew what to do. We were afraid to even touch her." The girls have always been close but the events of the past year have strengthened their bond. "It helps us to talk about what happened," Rusydiah says. "It helps us to move on." From the outside, SMK Ketereh looks like any other Malaysian high school. Giant trees shade its premises and its walls have fresh coats of grey and bright yellow paint. Makcik (aunty) Zan runs a popular stall across the street selling local rice dishes. She was preparing food a year ago, on that humid July morning, when she heard screams. "The cries were deafening," the elderly vendor says as she serves up dishes of grilled mackerel, yellow curry and steaming glutinous rice. She saw at least nine girls being carried out of their classrooms, kicking and screaming. She recognised some of them as regulars at her stall. "It was a heartbreaking sight," she says. She later saw a witch doctor enter a small prayer room with his assistants. "They were in there for hours," she recalls. "I pity the children for what they must have seen that day." Security at SMK Ketereh has been heightened since the July 2018 incident. "In order to prevent outbreaks from spiralling again, we restructured our safety programme and had a change in staff," a senior staff member told the BBC on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media. Daily prayer and psychology sessions have also been introduced, he said. "Safety comes first but we also know the importance of aftercare for our students." It is unclear what such sessions involve or if they have been designed by mental health professionals. He would not provide further details. Experts like Robert Bartholomew strongly advocate that Malaysian students be educated about the phenomenon, given its prevalence in the country. "They should be taught why mass hysteria happens and how it spreads," he says. "It's also important they learn how to cope with stress and anxiety." Malaysian education ministry officials have not responded to a request for comment. SMK Ketereh is one of 68 secondary schools in Kelantan. But it is far from the only one to have witnessed an outbreak. In early 2016, mass hysteria took hold across many schools in the state. "Officials could not handle the multiple outbreaks and shut all the schools," said Firdaus Hassan, a local reporter. He and TV cameraman Chia Chee Lin remember a febrile atmosphere that April. "It was mass hysteria season and cases were happening non-stop, spreading from one school to another," says Chia. One case in the nearby town of Pengkalan Chepa attracted significant media attention. Students and teachers were described in reports as becoming "possessed" after seeing a "dark, shadowy figure" lurking around the compound. About 100 people were affected. Siti Ain, who studied at SMK Pengkalan Chepa 2, says she will remember it as being "the most haunted school in all of Malaysia". "The scare lasted hours but it took months for life to return to normal," the now 18-year-old says. She shows us a secluded spot next to a basketball court. "This is where it first started," she says, pointing to a row of tree stumps. "My schoolmates said they saw an elderly woman standing amongst the trees. "I couldn't see what they saw but their reactions were real." Malaysia's fascination with ghosts dates back centuries and is deep-rooted in shamanic tradition and South East Asian folk mythology. Children grow up hearing stories about dead infants called toyol - invoked by shamans using black magic - and other terrifying vampiric ghosts like the pontianak and penanggalan, vengeful powerful female spirits that feed on the living. Trees and burial sites are common settings for these eerie tales. These locations stoke fears that feed into superstitious beliefs. It's hard to determine what really happened that day at Pengkalan Chapa 2 but officials wasted no time in tackling what they believed to be the source of the problem. "We watched from our classrooms as workers came with electric saws to cut down the trees," Siti Ain says. "The old trees were beautiful and it was sad to see them go but I understood why." Like many students here, she sees what happened that day not as an outbreak of mass hysteria but as a supernatural event. But this isn't a phenomenon confined to Islamic schools in deeply religious areas. Dr Azly Rahman, a US-based, Malaysian anthropologist described an episode of mass hysteria in 1976 at an elite boarding school he attended in neighbouring Kuantan city. "All hell broke loose" during a campus singing competition when a female student claimed to have spotted "a smiling Buddhist monk" on top of a nearby dormitory. "She let out a bloodcurdling scream," he recalls. Witch doctors were brought in to perform exorcisms on 30 affected girls. "Their role was to mediate between the living and the dead. But it's important for society today to look to logical explanations behind such outbreaks," Dr Rahman says. Siti Nurannisaa and her family were given the scientific and medical language of mass hysteria to understand the events of a year ago. "It would hurt any parent to see their child suffer like ours has," says doting father and former military man Azam Yaacob. He insists that "nothing was wrong" with Siti psychologically. In the wake of the incident they turned to Zaki Ya, a spiritual healer with 20 years of experience. At his centre in Ketereh, he greets us with a warm smile. "Apa khabar, how are you?" He abides by the teachings of the Koran, Islam's holy book, and also believes in the power of Jinn - spirits in Middle Eastern and Islamic cosmology that "appear in a variety of shapes and forms". "We share our world with these unseen beings," Zaki Ya says. "They are good or bad and can be defeated by faith." Islamic scriptures adorn the centre's bright green walls. Bottles of holy water are stacked up high near its entrance. In a corner by a window, a collection of mysterious objects are gathered on a table - rusty knives, combs, orbs and even a dried seahorse. "These are cursed items," Zaki Ya warns. "Please do not touch anything." Zaki Ya met Siti Nurannisaa and her family after the 2018 outbreak at SMK Ketereh. "I've been guiding Siti and she has been getting better with my help," he says proudly. He shows me a video of another girl he "treated". She is seen thrashing about wildly on the floor and screaming before being restrained by two men. Minutes later, Zaki Ya enters the room and approaches the visibly distressed girl. He holds her head and chants Islamic verses, and she appears to calm down. "Women are softer and physically weaker," he tells us. "That makes them more susceptible to spiritual possession." He professes to understand that mental health plays a role in many of the cases he sees, but is emphatic about the power of Jinn. "Science is important but it can't fully explain the supernatural," he says. "Non-believers won't understand these attacks unless it happens to them." A more controversial approach comes from a team of Islamic academics in Pahang, the largest state in peninsular Malaysia. Priced at a hefty 8,750 Malaysian ringgit (£1,700; $2,100), the "anti-hysteria kit" they offer consists of items including formic acid, ammonia inhalants, pepper spray and bamboo "pincers". "According to the Koran, evil spirits are unable to tolerate such items," says Dr Mahyuddin Ismail, who developed the kit with the aim of "combining science and the supernatural". "Our kits have been used by two schools and solved more than 100 cases," he says. There's no scientific evidence to back up these claims. The kit drew widespread criticism upon its release in 2016. Former minister Khairy Jamaluddin called it "the mark of a backward society". "It's nonsensical, absurd superstition. We want Malaysians to be scientific and innovative, not remain entrenched in supernatural beliefs." But clinical psychologists, like Irma Ismail from Universiti Putra Malaysia, do not discount such beliefs when it comes to mass hysteria cases. "Malaysian culture has its own take on the phenomenon," she says. "A more realistic approach is integrating spiritual beliefs with adequate mental health treatment." If Malaysia is the "mass hysteria capital of the world", Kelantan on the north-east coast is ground zero. "It is no coincidence that Kelantan, the most religiously conservative of all Malaysian states, is also the one most prone to outbreaks," Robert Bartholomew says. Known as the Muslim-majority nation's Islamic heartland, Kelantan is one of two states ruled by the conservative opposition Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). Unlike the rest of the country, Kelantan's week follows the Islamic calendar - with the working week beginning on Sundays and ending on Thursdays to free up Fridays for prayers. "This is a different side of Malaysia," says Ruhaidah Ramli, a sprightly 82-year-old vendor at a local market. "Life here is simple. It isn't busy or stressful like it is in [the capital] Kuala Lumpur." Are religion and supernatural beliefs related? Academic Afiq Noor argues that the stricter implementation of Islamic law in school in states such as Kelantan is linked to the surge in outbreaks. "Malay Muslim girls attend school under rigid religious discipline," he says. "They observe stricter dress codes and can't listen to music which isn't Islamic." The theory is that such a constricted environment could be creating more anxiety. Similar outbreaks have also been reported in Catholic convents and monasteries across Mexico, Italy and France, in schools in Kosovo and even among cheerleaders in a rural North Carolina town. Each case is unique - the cultural context is different and hence the form varies. But it ultimately remains the same phenomenon and researchers argue that the impact of strict, conservative cultures on those affected by mass hysteria is clear. To clinical psychologists like Steven Diamond, the "painful, frightening and embarrassing symptoms" often associated with mass hysteria could be "indicative of a frustrated need for attention". "Might their remarkable symptoms be saying something about how they are really feeling inside but are unable or unwilling to allow themselves to consciously acknowledge, feel or verbalise?" he wrote in a 2002 article for Psychology Today. 2019 has been a quiet year for Siti Nurannisaa. "I have been doing okay. It's been calm for me," she says. "I haven't seen bad things for months now." She's lost touch with much of her cohort after graduating from SMK Ketereh already but this doesn't bother her - she tells me she's always kept a small circle of friends. She is now taking a break from study before going on to university. On the day we meet, she shows me a shiny black microphone. "Karaoke has always been a favourite pastime of mine," she says. Pop songs by Katy Perry and homegrown Malaysian diva Siti Nurhaliza are her favourites. Singing proved to be a great stress-reliever for the young girl during her ordeal. It helped her gain some confidence back after the very traumatic incident. "Stress makes my body weak but I have been learning how to manage it," she says. "My goal is to be normal and happy." On that note, I ask her what she wants to be in future. "A policewoman," she says. "They are brave and aren't afraid of anything." Additional reporting and translation by Jules Rahman Ong.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-53668285

Man suffered head injury in Birkenhead street attack

A man is being treated in intensive care after being found in the street with a serious head injury.

Police believe the 27-year-old man was assaulted in Birkenhead, Wirral, and are examining CCTV footage. He was taken to hospital after being found at the junction of Beckwith Street and Duke Street at around 16:45 BST on Tuesday, 4 August. Merseyside Police said an investigation had begun and have appealed for witnesses to come forward. Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk

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PC Christopher Burnham hit-and-run accused in court

A man has appeared in court charged with the attempted murder of a police officer who was left seriously injured when he was hit by a car.

PC Christopher Burnham suffered a fractured skull and shattered knee when he was struck by the vehicle in Radford, Coventry, on Wednesday. Tekle Lennox, 37, indicated to the court he would plead not guilty. He was remanded in custody. He is also charged with driving while disqualified and without insurance. Mr Lennox, of no fixed address, appeared at Coventry Magistrates' Court and will next appear at Warwick Crown Court on 31 October. There was no application for bail. Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.

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Pilot killed in glider crash on Cheltenham school field

One man was killed and another injured when a glider crashed on school playing fields in Gloucestershire.

Cotswold Gliding Club said "one of the pilots received fatal injuries" in the crash at St Edward's prep school in Cheltenham at about 13:20 BST. The other pilot in the club's two-seater glider "suffered minor injuries" and was taken to a local hospital. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch has sent a team of investigators to the scene in Charlton Kings. The gliding club said it had no further information about the injured man but added "our thoughts are with the pilots' families".

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For one Missouri lawyer, eight clients executed in 18 months

At a time when other states in the US are backing away from the death penalty, Missouri has done the opposite. It is currently executing its death row inmates faster than any other state in the country, at a rate of about one per month.

By Jessica LussenhopBBC News Magazine At 21:09 local time on Tuesday evening, Roderick Nunley became the sixth death row inmate executed by the state of Missouri in 2015. He was convicted of the 1989 kidnapping, rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kansas City. His was the latest in a string of executions by the state since 2013. In May 2015, Nebraska became the 19th state to abolish the death penalty. A federal appeals court in California is currently considering the constitutionality of capital punishment. Difficulty procuring the drugs necessary for lethal injections has halted the process in some places. But while executions have slowed elsewhere, Missouri is ramping up, ever since it secured a new, secret source for the execution drug pentobarbital. Lawyer Jennifer Herndon's caseload is a testament to that fact. Of the last 18 men executed by Missouri, eight of them were her clients. Nunley was her final capital case. No one in Missouri has had more executed clients in the last two years. In part because of this, she was profiled by The Marshall Project in an article entitled "The Burnout". In the story, Herndon - known once as a dedicated lawyer who won a landmark decision that said individuals who committed their crimes while juveniles can not be executed - said she no longer wanted to represent death row inmates. At the time, Nunley and another man named Richard Strong were still alive. Strong was subsequently executed in June this year. "I'm not doing anybody any good," Herndon told the news outlet."There's no joy in it whatsoever. They execute people no matter what." Missouri capital defence attorneys Lindsay Runnels and Jennifer Merrigan were shocked by what they read about Herndon in the story. They did not realise that her law licence had been suspended for a time in 2013 because she was delinquent on her taxes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. The article also went into depth about her second job as a business coach and online marketer. In the days leading up to Nunley's execution, they tried to convince the Missouri Supreme Court that Herndon did not fulfil her legal obligations to him by failing to find his original trial files and by commenting to media that only a "miracle" could save him. They say the problem is systemic. "It's the same lawyers over and over and over again, Ms Herndon among them. We are involved in every execution," says Runnels. "We're outgunned and out-resourced. And then there is competency problems with some of the bar." Merrigan - who helped Herndon back in 2010 with Nunley's case - has defended several death row clients, and says Herndon's caseload coupled with her tax trouble show a lawyer not able to devote significant time to clients whose lives hang in the balance. Merrigan says working on even a single execution case is a tremendously draining experience for capital defence lawyers. "Even for a person who is not in serious financial trouble, who has not taken another full-time job, it is still extremely stressful," she says. "To say that somebody has had eight executions over the past 18 months, that means they've spent approximately six months in this type of crisis litigation. It's completely unreasonable to believe anyone could operate that way." Together, Runnels and Merrigan filed affidavits last week with the Missouri Supreme Court and a motion asking it to halt the execution so that Nunley could be properly represented. They had many concerns beyond the ones revealed in the Marshall Project article, including the fact that Herndon allegedly never tracked down Nunley's original trial file. According to her affidavit, Runnels says Herndon told her it was stolen, then later admitted she "didn't ever check with the trial attorneys" for the files. "Mr Nunley received mental health treatment as early as 1978...Mr Nunley was 'never the same' after his brother died suddenly as a child...he had suffered at least two gunshot wounds," wrote Runnels in her affidavit. "These red flags and potential lines of humanising and mitigating information were never developed. Additionally, no life history chronology has ever been completed for Mr Nunley nor has any in-depth social history ever been done. " These types of investigations are crucial, says Sean O'Brien, associate law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, in order to show "a unique and complex human being who deserves mercy". That, he says, is the "heart and soul" of the work of capital defence lawyers trying to convince a jury to hand down a life sentence instead of death. He says it takes a huge amount of time and is accomplished mostly pro bono after funding dries up over the years it takes for death penalty cases to be resolved. "A good lawyer wouldn't find herself appointed on seven death cases," he says. "No lawyer could do that. No lawyer could financially survive that." The Missouri Supreme Court overruled Runnels and Merrigan's motion. A half hour before his execution would be allowed to proceed, final appeals to the US Supreme Court sent by Herndon were denied, and Runnels and Merrigan submitted their final writ to the US Supreme Court. "Ms Herndon appears to lack the time and capacity to competently represent Mr Nunley," they wrote. "She also claims to no longer want to do capital defence work and claims to not be able to conduct the work her clients require." Herndon declined BBC's interview request on Tuesday. "I'm busy with my client," she wrote in an email. O'Brien says with the tiny defence bar, the wave of executions and the pro-death penalty politicians in power in Missouri, there is a "perfect storm" raging in the state. In March of this year, four lawyers who served on the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Assessment Team wrote that the Missouri Supreme Court should only allow lawyers to have a client facing execution once every six months. One of them was the group's co-chair, University of Missouri School of Law associate dean Paul Litton. "It is obviously increasing the chances of due process denials," he says of the pace of executions. "We're talking about a time where we're seeing not just fewer executions in general, we're seeing fewer juries sentencing people to death every year." Litton's recommendations were not taken up by the Missouri Supreme Court and the executions have continued at roughly the same pace. Shynise Nunley Spencer, Nunley's daughter, also submitted an affidavit to the Missouri Supreme Court on behalf of her father before he was executed. "Despite the ongoing, close relationship that my father and I share, I have never, not once, spoken with Jennifer Herndon. She has never called me. She has never returned my calls," Spencer wrote. "The simple truth is that I love my father and talk to him almost everyday. My children love my father. His death will be devastating for me and for them." After the US Supreme Court denied the final petition, Roderick Nunley was given a lethal injection at 20:58 and died 11 minutes later. He gave no final statement. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon reminded the public of Nunley's crime in a press release announcing he had denied Nunley clemency. "On the morning of March 22, 1989, 15-year-old Ann Harrison was waiting for the school bus at the end of the driveway of her Raytown home when she was abducted, raped, and then stabbed to death by Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor. The capital punishment sentence given to Taylor for his role in these brutal crimes was carried out last year," Nixon's statement reads. "Nunley also pleaded guilty to these heinous crimes and was sentenced to death. My decision today upholds this appropriate sentence." Herndon did not respond to subsequent interview questions about whether she will ever represent a capital client again. Another execution is scheduled in Missouri for next month.

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Why you can't judge a zebra by its stripes

You can't judge a zebra by its stripes.

By Helen BriggsBBC News That's the finding of research that is shaking up the family tree of the African wild horse. The common (plains) zebra lives on the grasslands of eastern and southern Africa, from southern Ethiopia to northern Namibia. DNA evidence challenges the idea that there are six subspecies that you can tell apart based on variations in the animal's distinctive black and white stripes. Dr Rasmus Heller of the University of Copenhagen says there's little evidence that differences in striping patterns "mean anything in a biological sense". "At least we can say that the striping pattern does not contain much information about the history of the plains zebra, and how the different populations relate to each other," he said. The study, based on analysing variations in the DNA of 59 plains zebra from across Africa, suggests that there are nine populations of the zebra living in different areas of the continent. This knowledge is important when it comes to conservation, the scientists say. "We now have a much clearer impression of which populations should be monitored, ie. are more vulnerable to loss of genetic diversity," said Dr Heller. "This is particularly true for the two Ugandan populations, which have markedly lower genetic diversity and are relatively isolated from other populations." While zebra are still found in large numbers across Africa, some populations - in Uganda and parts of Tanzania - are dwindling in number. The northern-most population from northern Uganda is by far the most genetically distinct from the others, the research shows. To maintain high levels of genetic diversity in the species, there need to be corridors of suitable habitat for zebra to roam. "To maintain the populations that we have today, we have to maintain these habitat corridors, " said co-researcher, Casper-Emil Pedersen, also of the University of Copenhagen. Extinct zebra One type of plains zebra - the "quagga" has already gone extinct. The zebra was once found in large numbers in South Africa, but died out more than 100 years ago. Overhunting was one factor in its demise. However, its isolation from other populations would have played a role, say the researchers. "The quagga probably went extinct because there were no habitat corridors in the region where it lived," said Dr Pedersen. The research, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, also reveals the ancient heartland of the plains zebra. Its birthplace was in the wetlands of southern Africa - the Zambezi and the Okavango - about 370,000 years ago. The plains zebra is listed as near threatened by conservation body IUCN. There are thought to be about 500,000 zebra ranging from South Sudan and southern Ethiopia, east of the Nile River, to southern Angola and northern Namibia and northern South Africa. They are now extinct in two countries in which they formerly lived: Burundi and Lesotho, and are probably extinct in Somalia. The six subspecies currently recognised are distinguished on the basis of physical features, such as coat patterns, skull dimensions and the presence or absence of a mane. Follow Helen on Twitter.

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Swindon town centre Union Square plans go on show

Plans for the £350m redevelopment of Swindon town centre are on show for the first time.

The Union Square project will be situated between Swindon railway station and The Parade shopping area. Development company Muse is due to submit plans to Swindon Borough Council this spring but expect the scheme to take 10 to 15 years to build. Plans can be viewed at Swindon Central Library on 4 March from 1400 to 2000 GMT and 5 March from 1000 to 1400 GMT.

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Coronavirus: 'People couldn't wait for our model village to reopen'

When Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced certain businesses in England could reopen, there was some surprise that model villages appeared on a list alongside places like pubs, restaurants and hairdressers. BBC News went to Buckinghamshire to find out more about this very British fascination.

By Laurence Cawley and Laura DevlinBBC News It proudly states it's "stuck in a 1930s time warp" and portrays England "how it used to be". This is Bekonscot, the oldest model village in the UK, which has attracted 15 million visitors to a tiny corner of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire for more than 90 years. Here, the miniature residents enjoy the wholesome pursuits of cricket and bowling, going to church, taking tea in the garden and ploughing the fields, without a care in the world. After months of lockdown it is perhaps comforting to visit a little world tucked away from everyday life, not least against the ravages of a global pandemic. "They couldn't wait for it to be open," said owner Brian Newman-Smith, who lives on site. "What we've got here is fantastic - when you approach there are high hedges, then suddenly you see the entire village in front of you. It has the wow factor." About half a dozen families were queuing just before 10:00 BST for the first day of reopening, having booked tickets online to ensure Bekonscot can limit visitors to 100 per hour. First in line was nanny Stephanie Butters who had travelled 40 minutes from west London to give Ellie and Lottie's parents the space to home-school their siblings. "I've been many times," she said. "It's something fun to do after lockdown. "There's a little park near them in Chiswick, we've been going there to feed the ducks. We're getting a bit fed up feeding ducks now." When the prime minister made his widely-anticipated lockdown-loosening statement in the House of Commons on 23 June, the reopening of pubs, restaurants and hairdressers came as little surprise. The news that museums and galleries could also unlock their doors did not seem particularly unusual. But also in that list of businesses and visitor attractions was, very specifically, model villages - a rather niche and eccentric curiosity, of which there are just a handful in the UK. Miniature village fans were overjoyed but others were bemused, with one woman tweeting that her fiancee had only learnt of them because of lockdown easing and had asked "but why, why do they exist?" "I honestly don't have an answer for her," she said. Robert Peston, ITV's political editor remarked: "Live theatre - banned. Compulsory five-to-18 education in schools - banned. Trips to model villages - very much back on," while comedian Justin Moorehouse quipped: "I'm not prepared to visit a model village until I've had my nails done, thanks for nothing Boris." But for historian Tim Dunn, who worked at Bekonscot and describes himself as "probably the world's only model village expert", the appeal is obvious. He tweeted about his enduring love for model villages, even at the age of "39-and-a-bit". "Model villages are about joy - they're about the suspension of reality," he wrote in a blog post. "People go to them to escape for a bit, to reminisce, or forget. "They're full of silly things, they're full of joyful things, they're full of things that we wish for. They bring out the child in us - because suddenly the world isn't such a scary place full of responsibilities after all." Everywhere you turn, Bekonscot's tiny residents are enjoying an impossibly pleasant and carefree village life in 1:12 scale - relaxing on a boating lake or drinking in a beer garden, with no concerns for face masks, hand-sanitiser or social distancing. The miniature railway weaves through the rolling landscape, the village doctor and nurse assess a patient without the need for PPE and there is no queue outside Chris P Lettis, the greengrocers. You may also like: But for its Gulliver-sized visitors, there are new signs about keeping safely apart. The tea shop can only offer takeaways, picnicking is not allowed and the site has become fully contactless. After months being kept from public view, Bekonscot was in need of a bit of care and attention, with its dainty shrubs and manicured lawns growing wild since March. "The model makers and the gardeners were furloughed, the grass grew long because we've been closed all these weeks," said Mr Newman-Smith. "The team have done a fantastic job, it looks great." Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk

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Hillwalker dies on walk in Sutherland

A hillwalker has died on a walk in Sutherland, police have said.

The 67-year-old man's body was found during a search involving Assynt Mountain Recue Team and Stornoway Coastguard helicopter on Monday. He had earlier been reported overdue from his walk in the Achfary area near Lairg. Assynt MRT said its thoughts were with the man's family and friends. Related Internet Links Assynt MRT

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New Jersey-UK health agreement 'very close'

The health agreement between Jersey and the UK is "very close" to being reinstated, a minister says.

Jersey lost its reciprocal agreement in 2009, which has meant islanders paying for some medical services while in the UK and vice versa. The UK's Department of Health has agreed in principle for a reinstatement of the agreement, the States said. Jersey Health Minister Anne Pryke said the new agreement would provide peace of mind for islanders.

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Countdown to Ullapool's Loopallu music festival

Final preparations are being made for the 14th Loopallu music festival in Ullapool this weekend.

Last year's was expected to be the last after problems securing a site in the village. But following support from Loopallu's fan base, its organisers agreed to keep holding the festival so long as there was an audience for it. This year's line-up includes Alabama 3, The Bluetones, John Cooper Clarke, Breath Underneath and St Martiins.

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In pictures: Bosley mill blast 'scene of devastation'

The rubble and ruins after a massive explosion at a wood flour mill in Cheshire have been described as a scene of "complete devastation" .

Four workers were unaccounted for after the explosion at Wood Flour Mills, at Bosley, near Macclesfield on Friday. The body of one person was found on Sunday and a second body was recovered on Tuesday. All four were believed to be working in the upper floors of the mill when the blast and subsequent fire reduced the four-storey building to rubble. The following images show the rescue mission faced by the fire and search teams.

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Domestic abuse: 'He hunted me down when I thought I was safe'

When Holly began her relationship with Simon, it felt like the "best thing she had ever encountered". But as time went on, he became violent. When she ran away he hunted her down. This is her story from the time she became pregnant with their child, in her own words, as told to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme.

"When I found out I was pregnant, it should have been a happy, joyous time. Since the start of our relationship it had been a whirlwind, I felt like it was the best thing I had ever encountered. But then it started to get intense on another level. One day, as I returned home, all I felt as I came through the door was the most shocking and excruciating pain right between the eyes. Simon had punched me. And he wasn't finished. He dragged me through the kitchen, still punching. I remember so clearly trying to protect my baby in my stomach and my head from his blows." "He left me on the kitchen floor, confused, with blood pouring from my nose. He later came over and was super loving, saying he had lost control and that I needed to be more aware so I didn't make him feel like that again. But the more I put every effort into making him calm and happy, the more he seemed to pick on things I was doing wrong. The cleaning, the cooking, not showing him enough affection or attention. I could never do anything right." 'Rushed home after pregnancy' "He told me mid-pregnancy he didn't want to be at the birth. When the time came he was at the neighbour's. I called him and told him it was time, but I didn't want to anger him. While at the hospital he was constantly texting me, telling me to hurry up as he had work in the morning. I became really stressed and had quite a difficult delivery. I waited for the doctor to check over my daughter and rushed back home." "Upon returning he was very mad. The next day I absolutely lost it, saying having a baby was not a party. He slapped me across my face and threw me down the stairs. He then came down after me, stamping on me. It was seriously painful as I had not long given birth. I was bed bound for approximately 10-12 days. I couldn't walk. I had to have a friend come in to bring my baby to me to breast feed." 'Snatched my daughter' "I eventually fled to my friend's house. I stayed inside, petrified to come out. One day, my friend had taken my daughter for a drive. When she got out he appeared from nowhere, snatched my daughter and ran away leaving a message that if I wanted her back I had to return. The police said it was a civil matter and there was nothing they could do." Domestic abuse Source: Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office for National Statistics, Women's Aid For information and support on domestic abuse, visit the BBC's Action Line. "I returned [to Simon] and got a really bad beating. He made a point to tell me he owned me, and would rather kill us than see us leave. I felt scared for my children, and my life." "The beatings continued. He proceeded to rape me. A couple of times I tried to lock him out the house, but he would break through the windows. He stabbed me in the thigh because I had disturbed him in the kitchen. The only thing that kept me going was my children." 'My heart stopped' "A neighbour gave me the number of a refuge, in a place I had never heard of, and they found me a space. I got on a train with the children and left. I was having panic attacks. But day by day I got stronger. We started to rebuild our lives, and life was beautiful. Then one day [years later], my daughter heard that someone was threatening to hurt us. My heart stopped. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The next day my daughter was attacked by Simon. He then tried to gain access to my house. Police were called but said there was nothing they could do as he had left by the time I got through." 'His sole intention' "I spent a huge amount of money on hotels as I was scared to stay at the property. I notified my housing association and requested a move to a refuge, but I was informed they had nothing available. Everywhere I went Simon would be there." "If I went to the supermarket he would be there. If I went to a petrol station he was there. He would do signs like mimicking a knife cutting a throat. I knew his sole intention was to end our lives." 'Wake up without fear' "I was really considering killing myself. It was a hard decision to move to the new refuge [when the offer later came], because it was uprooting our lives again. All we want is to be together somewhere nice and quiet, and be positive members of the community. I want to remember what it's like to enjoy life again. To wake up without fear and anxiety somewhere nice." Holly and Simon's names have been changed. Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News channel.

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Who have been Scotland's first ministers?

Nicola Sturgeon is set to continue as Scotland's first minister following the SNP's victory in the Scottish Parliament election on 5 May 2016.

Ms Sturgeon became first minister on 20 November 2014, following the resignation of Alex Salmond. She is the fifth politician to head Scotland's devolved government (not counting Jim Wallace, who served as acting first minister three times.) Here's a quick look at Scotland's leaders, past and present, and the legacies they have left. Donald Dewar: 13 May 1999 - 11 October 2000 Donald Dewar secured his place in history when he became first minister of the first Scottish Parliament in almost 300 years, but his time in the role was cut sadly short. He was known for an astute legal brain, fierce, fast and formidable debating skills and squaring up to the opposition benches. Not a typical Labour man, he was born in Glasgow on 21 August 1937 into a middle class family and studied law before entering the Commons in 1966 as MP for Aberdeen South and, later, represented the seat of Glasgow Garscadden. His loyalty in the shadow cabinet during Labour's wilderness years saw him rewarded with the post of secretary of state for Scotland by Tony Blair in 1997 - the vehicle by which he helped bring about devolution two years later, earning him the title "Father of the Nation". Mr Dewar became MSP for Glasgow Anniesland, but his new administration was soon embroiled in an access-to-ministers scandal, the Holyrood building fiasco and the repeal of Section 28. He admitted the first year was "towsy". Despite an operation to replace a leaky heart valve and being two years off becoming a pensioner, he was determined to resume his key role in politics. On 10 October 2000, Mr Dewar fell on the pavement outside his official residence and later died from a brain haemorrhage. Mr Dewar's legacy lives on through the devolved parliament itself, and a towering statue of the man himself in Glasgow city centre. Henry McLeish: 26 October 2000 - 8 November 2001 Whatever Henry McLeish's achievements in politics, his tenure in office will always be marked by having been the only Scottish first minister forced to resign from the job. The former professional footballer cut his political teeth in Fife in the early 1970s, working his way through the echelons of Kirkcaldy District Council and Fife Regional Council to be elected Labour MP for Fife Central in 1987. He served on the shadow benches before becoming a devolution minister in the former Scottish Office, playing a key role in delivering the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Mr McLeish was regarded as a competent parliamentary performer, and was seen as a safe pair of hands to take over the reins following the death of Donald Dewar. But there were doubts about the presence of a "common touch" and the ability to control rebellion in the ranks. Nevertheless, he masterminded the introduction of Scotland's historic scheme to provide free personal care for the elderly. The Fife MSP's downfall came during a row over his Westminster constituency office expenses, dubbed "Officegate". The episode was made worse by Mr McLeish's inability to resolve the matter in the eyes of the public and media, and he eventually stood down as first minister, describing his actions as "a muddle, not a fiddle". Mr McLeish's post-Holyrood years have seen him lecture widely in the United States. He has also served on several SNP government investigations and commissions looking into a range of issues, including prisons, football, broadcasting and colleges. That, along with his post-2007 commentary about Labour's woes, during which he lambasted the party's "culture of denial", led some observers to cheekily question whether he was "going Nat". Jack McConnell: 22 November 2001 - 16 May 2007 Elected Labour MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw in 1999, the former maths teacher came to the fore after taking up the "poisoned chalice" of education minister, tackling a crisis at the Scottish Qualifications Authority head-on. Following Henry McLeish's resignation, Lord McConnell won the job - openly admitting to a previous extra-marital affair in the process - and taking on the post while wondering whether devolution could survive. As first minister, he saw through the ban on smoking in public places and forged new links with the African country of Malawi, one of the poorest in the world, which have been maintained to this day. He stood down as Scottish Labour leader after the SNP's 2007 election win, moving to the backbenches for four years. Mr McConnell was due to become British High Commissioner to Malawi in 2009 but, before having a chance to take up the post, the then prime minister Gordon Brown decided to appoint him his "special international representative on strengthening conflict resolution capacity". The move provoked speculation that it would avoid a Labour by-election defeat in Motherwell and Wishaw. After being made a life peer, taking the title Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, he announced a move to leave Holyrood. He also expressed his wish to work in post-conflict reconstruction and campaign for vulnerable young people. Despite the odd gaffe - including having to reverse a decision to attend a golf club dinner rather than D-Day commemorative events in Normandy and once telling a group of high school pupils it was okay to get drunk "once in a while" - Lord McConnell says he is immensely proud of his achievements as first minister. In his parting shot to Holyrood, Lord McConnell said the Scottish Parliament was failing in its role as a focal point for national debate and ministerial scrutiny and was in need of "radical change". And as Mr Salmond's milestone as longest-serving first minister approached in November 2012, Lord McConnell took to Twitter, cheekily writing: "This might be my last ever night as 'longest serving First Minister of Scotland'. Maybe overtaken tomorrow? Still the youngest though!" Alex Salmond: 16 May 2007 - 19 November 2014 Seen as one of the most talented politicians of his generation, Alex Salmond already had a high-profile before he won two historic Holyrood elections as SNP leader, securing the mandate to hold a referendum on Scottish independence in the process. Born in 1954 in Linlithgow, Mr Salmond graduated from St Andrews University and began a career in economics, working for the Scottish Office and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Despite earning himself a brief expulsion from the SNP in 1982 for his role in the breakaway '79 Group, he began his parliamentary career as MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987, building himself a high-profile. He served as party leader from 1990, standing down after 10 years only to make a dramatic comeback to the SNP's top job before winning the 2007 Holyrood election. Often derided by his political opponents as arrogant and self-serving, Mr Salmond nonetheless succeeded in turning his party into the most popular in the history of devolution, on his platform of fighting for Scottish interests. Despite a hard-fought campaign on the "Yes" side, voters rejected independence by 55% to 45% in the 18 September vote and, the following day, Mr Salmond announced he was standing down as first minister and SNP leader. After more than seven years as first minister, there is little doubt Mr Salmond has changed the course of Scottish politics forever. Nicola Sturgeon: 20 November 2014 - Ongoing Born in the North Ayrshire town of Irvine in 1970, Ms Sturgeon joined the SNP at the age of 16, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. Ms Sturgeon said her decision to become an SNP member rather than Labour was borne from a "strong feeling that it was wrong for Scotland to be governed by a Tory government that we hadn't elected" and that the country would only truly prosper with independence. After studying law at Glasgow University and working as a solicitor at the city's Drumchapel Law Centre, Ms Sturgeon's entry into full-time politics came at the age of 29, when she was elected to the new Holyrood parliament in 1999, as a Glasgow regional MSP. She gained an early reputation for being overly serious, which earned her the nickname "nippy sweetie". When John Swinney resigned as SNP leader in 2004, Ms Sturgeon launched a leadership bid before withdrawing from the race once Alex Salmond unexpectedly threw his hat into the ring. Ms Sturgeon agreed to become Mr Salmond's deputy, standing in for him as the party's "Holyrood leader" while Mr Salmond remained an MP at Westminster. After the SNP's victory in the 2007 election, Ms Sturgeon became Scotland's deputy first minister and health secretary, seeing through popular SNP pledges such as the reversal of A&E closures and the abolition of prescription charges. She also won praise for her handling of the swine flu crisis, and played a large part in the SNP's historic majority in the 2011 election. Ms Sturgeon later described the result - and the dismantling of Labour strongholds across the country - as having broken the mould of Scottish politics, and put the SNP's success down to being "in touch with the country it served". Ms Sturgeon subsequently accepted one of the Scottish government's biggest roles, overseeing the 2014 independence referendum, and was the obvious successor to Mr Salmond when he stood down as both first minister and SNP leader after voters rejected independence by 55% to 45%. In her first six months in the job, Ms Sturgeon led the SNP to a stunning success in last year's general election, when the party won 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland. The party also won a third successive victory in the Scottish Parliament election on 5 May 2016, when it won 63 of the 129 seats - short of a majority, but all but guaranteeing Ms Sturgeon will remain as first minister. Ms Sturgeon is married to Peter Murrell, who is chief executive of the SNP. The pair wed in 2010, after meeting 15 years previously at an SNP youth weekend in Aberdeenshire. Jim Wallace: Between 1999 and 2001 Liberal Democrat Jim Wallace never held the post of first minister on a permanent basis but was called on to do the job on three occasions when sickness, death and scandal befell the Labour incumbent. The politician, now known as Lord Wallace of Tankerness, became deputy first minister in 1999, staying in the post until his resignation as Scottish Liberal Democrat leader on a high, following a good night at the polls for his party in the 2005 UK election. He studied law at Edinburgh University and worked as an advocate before entering parliament in the 1983 General Election as MP for Orkney and Shetland. Mr Wallace joined the Liberal Party in 1972 and became its Scottish party leader in 1992, before being elected MSP for Orkney when devolution happened in 1999. When no clear winner emerged in the first devolved government, Mr Wallace's Liberal Democrats agreed to become Labour's coalition partner. He credits his party's role in the coalition for bringing about policies like scrapping up-front tuition fees, free personal care and Scotland's "right to roam" land reforms. But it was not all plain sailing when, as Scottish justice minister, Lord Wallace was forced to perform a series of u-turns, with plans to ban smacking, close Peterhead jail and open up children's hearings to over-16s all dropped. Less than a year after devolution, Mr Wallace took up the post of first minister when Donald Dewar became ill, stepping in again when he died in October 2000. When Mr McLeish quit in 2001, Lord Wallace found himself, albeit briefly, back in the hot seat, and his efforts saw him named Scottish Politician of the Year. After his move to the Lords and a bit of a back seat, Lord Wallace again found himself in government, putting his political and legal skills to use as Advocate General for Scotland in the UK coalition.

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Cardinal Keith O'Brien resignation: Statement in full

Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, is resigning as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, after being accused of inappropriate conduct - allegations he contests. This is the full statement issued by the Scottish Catholic Media Office on the resignation of the cardinal:

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has accepted on the 18 February 2013 the resignation of His Eminence Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien from the pastoral governance of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh. This information will be announced and published in the Osservatore Romano of Monday 25 February 2013. The Cardinal had already presented last November his resignation in view of his 75th birthday on 17 March 2013, and it was accepted by the Holy Father with the formula nunc pro tunc (now for later). Given the imminent Vacant See, the Holy Father has now decided to accept the said resignation definitively. Reacting to the acceptance of his resignation, Cardinal O'Brien said: "Approaching the age of 75 and at times in indifferent health, I tendered my resignation as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh to Pope Benedict XVI some months ago. "I was happy to know that he accepted my resignation nunc pro tunc on 13 November 2012. The Holy Father has now decided that my resignation will take effect today, 25 February 2013, and that he will appoint an apostolic administrator to govern the archdiocese in my place until my successor as archbishop is appointed. "In the meantime I will give every assistance to the apostolic administrator and to our new archbishop, once he is appointed, as I prepare to move into retirement. 'Failures' "I have valued the opportunity of serving the people of Scotland and overseas in various ways since becoming a priest. Looking back over my years of ministry: For any good I have been able to do, I thank God. For any failures, I apologise to all whom I have offended. "I thank Pope Benedict XVI for his kindness and courtesy to me and on my own behalf and on behalf of the people of Scotland, I wish him a long and happy retirement. "I also ask God's blessing on my brother cardinals who will soon gather in Rome to elect his successor. I will not join them for this conclave in person. "I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me - but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor. However, I will pray with them and for them that, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, they will make the correct choice for the future good of the Church. "May God who has blessed me so often in my ministry continue to bless and help me in the years which remain for me on earth and may he shower his blessings on all the peoples of Scotland especially those I was privileged to serve in a special way in the Archdiocese of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh."

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Seattle's great minimum wage experiment

At a union-organised event in Seattle former McDonald's worker Martina Phelps recounts how she walked out three years ago in protest at how little she and her colleagues were getting paid. It was the first time she had ever taken part in a strike.

By Edwin LaneBusiness reporter, BBC World Service, Seattle "It was the experience of a lifetime," she says, as the audience whoops and cheers. "After seeing my co-workers literally struggling and not having enough money to take care of their children, it was set in my mind that I can do something about this." The strike was part of the Fight for 15 campaign - a nationwide movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 (£10) an hour. 'Wage stagnation' It began with fast-food workers in New York, but it was on America's west coast that it saw early success - two years ago Seattle became the first major city in the United States to pass a $15 minimum wage into law. It will come in gradually. This year larger companies started paying employees $13 an hour. It will go up to $15 next year. By 2021, the new $15 minimum will be rolled out to everyone. Since then Fight for 15 has gained momentum. This year both California and New York approved state laws bringing in a $15 an hour minimum wage, along with more than a dozen other cities and counties. Listen to Edwin Lane's report on Seattle's $15 minimum wage on Business Daily, BBC World Service "We've had 40 years of wage stagnation in the US at a moment when the county has gotten richer and richer," says union leader David Rolf, who helped bring in the Seattle law. "Half of Americans now make less than $17 an hour. Forty-three per cent make less than $15 an hour. A quarter make less than $10 an hour. The reality is the American dream is at its moment of greatest risk." 'Supply and demand' But not everyone thinks paying people more is a good idea. The current federal minimum wage is just $7.25 an hour and some economists warn that raising it to $15 will more than double the cost of labour and discourage businesses from hiring people altogether. "It all goes back to supply and demand," says Jacob Vigdor, professor of public policy and governance at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has been tasked by the city to monitor the economic impact of the new minimum wage as it is phased in. "So far as we can tell right now, Seattle is still open for business and we haven't seen a large increase in unemployment," he says. "But that's not to say everything will be just fine forever." He says low-paid workers themselves are concerned about the prospect of prices rising as a result of higher wages, in a city they already find expensive. Businesses have also told him they want more experienced staff for the higher wages they are now paying. "Younger workers who are just starting out in the labour force may find it more difficult to find work," he says. 'Blend jobs' Restaurateur and chef Jason Wilson is among the small business owners with reservations about the new minimum wage. He's already raised the prices on his menu and changed the way staff are paid - getting rid of tipping in favour of a standard service charge. He says he will also expect more of his staff. "We're going to have to look at everyone's job and what they do and start to blur the lines of responsibility, blend those jobs together and get higher levels of efficiency," he says. But he's also sympathetic to the plight of workers stuck in low-paid jobs for long periods. "I grew up earning minimum wage as a kid. I worked extra hours at a bar for tips, and that would incentivise me to work harder and find greater opportunities. That's what a minimum wage job is meant for. It's not meant to support a family." 'No compelling evidence' David Neumark is an economics professor at the University of California who has studied the impact of past minimum wage increases in the US. His main criticism is that higher minimum wages do very little to help the poorest in society, because many minimum wage workers aren't actually poor, but are using low-wage jobs to access the labour market. "In the US data, you really can't find any compelling evidence that the minimum wage reduces poverty, and the reason is a lot of minimum wage workers are not in poor families," he says. He argues that a much more effective action would be to reduce income inequality by simply taxing the rich more and redistributing to the poor. "A politician can legislate a higher minimum wage and they don't have to look at their budget or raise anyone's taxes. A much more effective tool would be to raise taxes, but in the US it's virtually impossible to talk about raising taxes." Back in Seattle union leader David Rolf says the city's implementation of the $15 minimum wage remains an important example to the rest of the country. When the first increases came in a year ago "the sky did not fall in", he says. "That really captured the imagination of the public in this city."

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Dominic Cummings shines a light on No 10's inner workings

Some will contest it, some will question the motives.

Hugh PymHealth editor@BBCHughPymon Twitter But today's dramatic evidence from Dominic Cummings shone new light on the government's handling of the biggest peacetime crisis in modern times. He was a central player in Downing Street and Whitehall and has become the highest profile figure so far to give an inside story of the critical moments and decision making. Mr Cummings' account of the first Covid-19 wave in 2020 was highly critical of ministers and officials who were his former colleagues. British people flown back from Wuhan in China were quarantined in late January. But until the end of February there was no attempt to get the government machine on a war footing, he said. Some key players even took skiing holidays. This was the situation in the UK even as Italian hospitals were being over-run with seriously ill Covid patients. Mr Cummings argued there should have been a lockdown by early March - but big sporting events like the Cheltenham racing festival went ahead. He said experts thought closing mass spectator events would mean people went to pubs instead, but this, in his view, was typical of the flawed thinking on how people might behave. By Monday, 16 March 2020, there had been a big change in thinking. Mr Cummings revealed this had only happened over the weekend once warnings about hospitals being overwhelmed had been taken on board. That day saw the first announcement of restrictions, though a full lockdown did not happen for another week. But Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, said none of the options for ministers were clear cut. He said: "I think it was clear to us that really urgent action needed to be taken - but that was very difficult for the politicians to balance all the inputs they were getting from the scientists on one hand, and those who thought this was really going to be very damaging for the economy on the other." Mr Cummings slammed what he alleged was the lack of preparation for a pandemic, including shortages of personal protective equipment. He said even with virus cases surging in March there were no urgent plans to secure more supplies from overseas distributors. Circuit breaker By September the second wave of the virus was developing, and Mr Cummings said action should have been taken then. The testing system was coming close to being overwhelmed and he claimed the prime minister rejected the idea of a short circuit breaker lockdown in England aimed at reducing case rates. Some experts, including Prof Linda Bauld of the University of Edinburgh, agree that was a mistake. "Its pretty clear that there were a lot of arguments in favour of taking early action in September when cases were rising again and we did not have vaccines," she said. "People had been able to travel and we had reimported infections back into the country, people were moving around and we should have done something earlier." The number of UK deaths is one of the highest of leading industrialised nations - but some other governments struggled as much as the British administration with the timing and duration of lockdowns. Mr Cummings said mistakes had been made and he was sorry for his part in them. His chilling statement that tens of thousands of people had died who did not need to is sure to dominate debate in the run up to the public inquiry next year. Others will give their version of events. Some will want to set the record straight - and recollections may well differ from those of Mr Cummings.

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Depression: A revolution in treatment?

It's not very often we get to talk about a revolution in understanding and treating depression and yet now doctors are talking about "one of the strongest discoveries in psychiatry for the last 20 years".

By James Gallagher, Rachael Buchanan & Andrew Luck-BakerThe Inflamed Mind, BBC Radio 4 It is based around the idea that some people are being betrayed by their fiercest protector. That their immune system is altering their brain. The illness exacts a heavy toll on 350 million people around the world, among them Hayley Mason, from Cambridgeshire: "My depression gets so bad that I can't leave the bed, I can't leave the bedroom, I can't go downstairs and be with my partner and his kids. The 30-year-old added: "I can't have the TV on, I can't have noise and light, I have suicidal thoughts, I have self-harmed, I can't leave the house, I can't drive. "And just generally I am completely confined to my own home and everything else just feels too much." Anti-depressant drugs and psychological treatments, like cognitive behavioural therapy, help the majority of people. But many don't respond to existing therapies and so some scientists are now exploring a new frontier - whether the immune system could be causing depression. "I think we have to be quite radical," says Prof Ed Bullmore, the head of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. He's at the forefront of this new approach: "Recent history is telling us if we want to make therapeutic breakthroughs in an area which remains incredibly important in terms of disability and suffering then we've got to think differently." The focus is on an errant immune system causing inflammation in the body and altering mood. And Prof Bullmore argues that's something we can all relate to, if we just think back to the last time we had a cold or flu. He said: "Depression and inflammation often go hand in hand, if you have flu, the immune system reacts to that, you become inflamed and very often people find that their mood changes too. "Their behaviour changes, they may become less sociable, more sleepy, more withdrawn. "They may begin to have some of the negative ways of thinking that are characteristic of depression and all of that follows an infection." It is a subtle and yet significant shift in thinking. The argument is we don't just feel sorry for ourselves when we are sick, but that the chemicals involved in inflammation are directly affecting our mood. Find out more You can listen to The Inflamed Mind documentary on BBC Radio 4 at 21:00 BST and then here on iPlayer. Inflammation is part of the immune system's response to danger. It is a hugely complicated process to prepare our body to fight off hostile forces. If inflammation is too low then an infection can get out of hand. If it is too high, it causes damage. And for some reason, about one-third of depressed patients have consistently high levels of inflammation. Hayley is one of them: "I do have raised inflammation markers, I think normal is under 0.7 and mine is 40, it's coming up regularly in blood tests." There is now a patchwork quilt of evidence suggesting inflammation is more than something you simply find in some depressed patients, but is actually the cause of their disease. That the immune system can alter the workings of the brain. Joint pain To explore this revolutionary new idea in depression, we visited an arthritis clinic at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. It is perhaps an unexpected location, but it was in clinics like this that doctors noticed something unusual. Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by the immune system attacking the joints. And when patients were given precise anti-inflammatory drugs that calmed down specific parts of the immune response, their mood improved. Prof Iain McInnes, a consultant rheumatologist, said: "When we give these therapies we see a fairly rapid increase in a sense of well-being, mood state improving quite remarkably often disproportionately given the amount of inflammation we can see in their joints and their skin." It suggests the patients were not simply feeling happier as they were in less pain, but that something more profound was going on. Prof McInnes added: "We scanned the brains of people with rheumatoid arthritis, we then gave them a very specific immune targeted therapy and then we imaged them again afterwards. "What we are starting to see when we give anti-inflammatory medicines is quite remarkable changes in the neuro-chemical circuitry in the brain. "The brain pathways involved in mediating depression were favourably changed in people who were given immune interventions." One possible explanation is that inflammatory chemicals enter the brain. There they interrupt the production of serotonin - a key neurotransmitter that's linked to mood. Could I be depressed? If you are having trouble understanding any of these questions, or at any point you start to feel distressed, please stop and seek the advice of a medical professional. See the links below for organisations that may be able to help you. NHS Choices: Stress, anxiety and depression The Samaritans Mind, the mental health charity About the self assessment: The first eight questions are taken from a measure known as the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 or PHQ-9, used by doctors to assess and monitor depression severity. The PHQ-9 was developed by Dr Robert L Spitzer, Dr Janet B W Williams, Dr Kurt Kroenke and colleagues, with an educational grant from Pfizer Inc. To hear more we visited Carmine Pariante's laboratory at King's College London. The professor of biological psychiatry has been piecing together the evidence on inflammation and depression for 20 years. He told the BBC: "Nearly 30% to 40% of depressed patients have high levels of inflammation and in these people we think it is part of the causal process. "The evidence supporting this idea is that high levels of inflammation are present even if someone is not depressed, but is at risk of becoming depressed. "We know from studies that if you have high levels of inflammation today you're at higher risk of becoming depressed over the next weeks or months even if you are perfectly well." He's shown that not only are depressed patients more likely to have high levels of inflammation, but those with an overactive immune system are also less likely to respond to anti-depressants. This is a big deal because a third of patients don't get any benefit from drug treatments. But there's something confusing here. The immune system responds to infection and that doesn't seem to fit the usual story of depression. Take Jennifer Streeting, a trainee midwife in London, who traces her mental health problems back to when she was 14. "My nana passed away and my mum had breast cancer and if you ask my therapist now she puts it down to grief and not really dealing with that at the time, I think there was just a lot going on." Prof Pariante argues it is actually these awful moments in our lives that change our immune system, priming it to increase the risk of depression years later. He said: "We think the immune system is the key mechanism by which early life events produce this long-term effect. "We have some data showing adult individuals who have a history of early life trauma, even if they have never been depressed, have an activated immune system so they are in a state of risk." The hope is that drugs targeting the immune system will provide much needed treatments for patients, particularly for those like Jennifer who seem to have tried them all. "I had sertraline, I had Prozac, there was another one, I got started on citalopram, I was put on duloxetine, mirtazapine as well. I was on three at one point." She is now on a combination of drugs that seem to be working for her, but it has been a long journey. "It is totally trial and error," said Prof Pariante. He added: "We are not able to predict right from the beginning whether someone will respond. "We think by measuring inflammation in the blood we'll actually be able to identify individuals that do require more complex, intensive antidepressant treatment, maybe a combination of an antidepressant and and anti-inflammatory." Most of us have common anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen at home, but doctors warn against experimenting at home, while clinical trials are taking place to prove whether this will work in patients. The world's largest medical research charity, the Wellcome Trust, has brought together universities and the pharmaceutical industry. The aim is to consolidate the evidence to accelerate the field; ultimately they want to find a new treatment for depression and develop a test to identify those who will benefit. Cambridge University's Prof Bullmore is leading the consortium. But we interviewed him at his other employer, GlaxoSmithKline. The company's immuno-inflammation laboratory is where scientists are developing new molecules which they hope will become effective medicines for inflammatory disorders. That process will take more than a decade, but Prof Bullmore says there may already be a drug out there. "One of the exciting things about immunopsychiatry is that because of the success of immunology in other areas of medicine there are already many drugs that are far beyond this stage of development. "They may already be licensed or in late-stage clinical trials so the timeline from start of work on that project to delivering a medicine that might make a difference to patients could be much shorter." Progress Raiding the cupboards is already showing signs of success. Those early clues in arthritis mean the anti-inflammatory drug sirukumab is now being trialled in depressed patients. So are drugs targeting the immune system about to transform the treatment of depression? Prof Bullmore argues: "I don't think they are going to be a panacea, I don't think we're talking about a scenario in future where every patient with symptoms of depression is going to be offered an anti-inflammatory drug. "I don't think that makes sense and frankly that sort of blockbuster one-size-fits-all approach to development of drugs for psychiatry has not been helpful to us in the past. "We have to take a more personalised or stratified approach, not everyone that is depressed is depressed for the same reason." That will require a blood test to identify which patients will benefit from immune-based therapies. Depression is a disease that affects hundreds of millions of people. Even if anti-inflammatories help just a small proportion of them - that would still be a huge number of patients. But if immunotherapy becomes a success, its biggest impact may be on the way we think about the disease, making people less likely to believe sufferers should just "pull themselves together". "I hate that phrase, if I could I would," says Jennifer. She adds: "Just as if someone had diabetes and their insulin levels weren't working correctly, you wouldn't say, 'Oh snap out of it, stop having a hypo.'" Hayley feels the same: "If there was a way to say depression was a physical problem I think it would make a massive difference, I think people would treat depression as something that is not made up and going on in the head. "It would be seen as a genuine condition, it would validate a lot of people's feelings." Prof Pariante concludes: "It is groundbreaking because, for the first time, we are demonstrating that depression is not only a disorder of the mind, in fact it is not even only a disorder of the brain, it is a disorder of the whole body."

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Seven West Midlands ambulance stations up for sale

Seven West Midlands Ambulance Service stations have been put up for sale.

In the third wave of sales in the service's Make Ready scheme, asking prices range from £200,000 for Craven Arms ambulance station in Shropshire to £475,000 for Dordon, Staffordshire. In Birmingham and Solihull another five ambulance stations have gone on sale. Vehicle maintenance hubs and Community Ambulance Stations are being created in the £9.6m project "to ensure a faster response to 999 calls". The hubs house teams of Ambulance Fleet Assistants who prepare vehicles for ambulances crews. The crew will then be based at one of 30 Community Ambulance Stations, which will be leased rather than owned by the service. A spokesperson for WMAS said: "When completed, the number of Community Ambulance Stations will be more than three-times that of traditionally owned stations to ensure a faster response to 999 calls." Two hubs are already in operation in Shropshire and another has opened in the refurbished West Bromwich ambulance station. In Coventry and Warwickshire new hubs are being built in Coventry, Nuneaton, Rugby and Warwick. In Birmingham new hubs will also be created in Erdington and Northfield. In Worcestershire two stations are being refurbished to become hubs at a cost of £1.45m. Alternatives to other ambulance stations are "being planned", with assurances no station will be vacated until new premises are found. Three ambulance stations in Shropshire and two in Warwickshire went on sale in January.

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Brexit: Dual nationality on the table for Britons?

It is more than a week since Britain voted to leave the European Union, and there is still little certainty regarding the future status of EU citizens currently living in the UK, or of British people living elsewhere in the EU.

By Claudia AllenBBC News While many British citizens are happy to potentially wave goodbye to freedom of movement within the EU, some Britons would like to hold on to the opportunity to live and work in the other 27 countries that make up the union. At the weekend, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said the remaining members should not "pull up the drawbridge" for young Britons, who largely voted to remain, and so should consider offering dual nationality to young British citizens "who live in Germany, Italy or France, so that they can remain EU citizens in this country". Mr Gabriel's comments follow a statement by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi last Tuesday suggesting that EU nations were considering whether British students at universities on the continent could be offered citizenship. Mr Renzi said he was "sad" for the younger generation of Britons. In the absence of any concrete information on either plan, what other options are already open to British citizens, of any age, keen to access an EU citizenship after Brexit? Move to the EU now and later apply for citizenship The UK remains part of the EU, for now, so freedom of movement still applies. This means a British citizen currently still has full rights to move to any other EU country to work or study, as many have already done. While it is not clear what will happen to those residents once the UK "brexits", they may well be able to stay, and, in time, apply for citizenship. For example, residents of Germany can apply for citizenship after eight years - less in some circumstances - as long as they pass an assessment of their German language skills and a naturalisation test, among other criteria. A spokesman for the German interior ministry told the BBC that, while up-to-date figures were not available, he would not rule out an increase in applications for German nationality from Britons in light of the Brexit vote. This is because German law requires non-EU citizens to give up their existing nationality when applying for German citizenship - so British citizens are currently able to hold on to their UK passport and get a shiny new German one. The ministry confirmed that a Briton in this situation would not be deprived of their newly acquired German nationality even if/when the UK subsequently leaves the EU. Mr Gabriel's SPD - the junior coalition partner in the German government - told the BBC that the vice-chancellor's comments about dual nationality for young Britons referred specifically to Britons living in Germany, so that they would be able to retain their UK citizenship even if applying for German naturalisation in a post-Brexit world. France and Sweden are among several EU countries which set a shorter period for residents to gain citizenship. Adults must have lived in Sweden for at least five years, children as little as two years, before they can apply for naturalisation (again, other conditions apply). Dig out the family tree Grandpa from Galway? Nonna from Napoli? Then you may be entitled to claim a second nationality by descent. If you have a parent born in another EU country, your route to citizenship may be reasonably clear, but if the link is more distant you need to look in detail at the relevant country's nationality laws. Ireland in particular allows people with just one Irish grandparent to claim Irish citizenship - and if each generation registers before the birth of the next, it is possible to keep passing the Irishness down the generations, even if you do not live there. Post Office in NI reports 'unusually high number of people' seeking Irish passports And Italian roots can go back even further, with citizenship being passed from parent to child and no limit on the number of generations. So a single great-grandparent might entitle you to an Italian passport - as long as no-one in the chain has renounced their Italian citizenship, and with the important proviso that citizenship could only be passed on by women after 1948. Lithuania is another country that potentially allows citizenship for great-grandchildren of its former citizens. The laws of other countries, including Spain, Poland and Hungary, allow descendants of citizens to claim nationality, though the rules are often complex, and you would have to track down a lot of documents. If you are descended from Jews or other groups who had to flee persecution, including the Holocaust, you may be eligible under special rules, sometimes called restored citizenship or restitution. The German constitution provides for German citizenship for the descendants of former German citizens "who were persecuted on political, racial or religious grounds between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945". This mainly applies to German Jews and social democrats and Communists who had to flee the country. Descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal five centuries ago may be able to apply for a Spanish or Portuguese passport more easily under recent legislation - although there are language requirements. Spain naturalises expelled Sephardic Jews' descendants Portugal to naturalise descendants of Jews expelled centuries ago Find love Some countries will grant citizenship to the spouse of a passport holder - even if the couple do not live in the country concerned. Italian law states that "the spouse of an Italian citizen living outside of Italy can apply for Italian citizenship three years after the date of the marriage, or after 18 months if the couple has children". Portuguese citizenship can also be acquired by declaration after three years of marriage or de facto partnership with a Portuguese citizen. Most other EU countries do require the non-national spouse to live in the country for a set period - but this period is often less than it would be if they were not married to a citizen of that country. Note that for Irish citizenship, the spouse or civil partner needs to have lived on the island of Ireland (so Northern Ireland counts) for at least three of the past five years, and to have been married for at least three years. Invest Malta and Cyprus are both in the EU, and both offer a fast-track to citizenship for people who are able to invest a significant amount of money. Maltese citizenship is available to those who invest €1.15m (£965,000; $1.3m) there; the country added a one-year residency requirement after EU pressure. The scheme is aimed at "ultra-high net worth individuals and families worldwide". The Cypriot government offers citizenship to those who put €5m (£4.2m; $5.6m) into approved investments - this is reduced to just €2.5m for those taking part in a collective investment. Applicants need to have a property in Cyprus but do not need to live there all of the time. Family members are included in the application, which can take as little as three months. Malta tightens passport sale terms under EU pressure Where is the cheapest place to buy citizenship? None of the above apply? Already married, lacking a spare £1m, most exotic ancestor from Sunderland and not able to move abroad anytime soon? Do not worry - a British passport remains one of the most useful you can have, giving visa-free access to 175 countries, according to a firm which ranks these things.

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Hurricane Irma: Visual guide

The most powerful Atlantic storm in a decade has caused widespread destruction across the Caribbean and the southern US, leaving 55 people dead. Irma, at times a category five hurricane, packed winds of up to 295km/h (185mph).

The storm cut a devastating trail across Caribbean countries and territories before moving up through the US states of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, weakening into a tropical depression. An estimated 1.2 million people have been affected. Irma broke weather records At its peak, Irma was a category five storm with winds topping 295km/h (185mph). According to Phil Klotzbach, research scientist at Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science, Irma's top wind speeds were tied with the second-strongest maximum winds of all time for an Atlantic hurricane. Irma matches a 1935 storm in the Florida Keys, Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and Wilma in 2005. Only one hurricane, Allen in 1980, has recorded stronger winds, at 190 mph, he said. However, Irma broke Allen's record for sustained winds. It maintained maximum wind speeds of 295km/h for longer than any other Atlantic Hurricane. Irma grew in strength over a few days The remnants of Hurricane Harvey, which hit in late August, could still be seen by satellite when Irma made its way across the Atlantic towards the Caribbean. Irma and remnants of Hurricane Harvey, 2 September Irma was just a category two storm on 2 September, but soon became category three. Irma grew stronger quickly because of a combination of very warm water, high levels of mid-level relative humidity, and vertical wind conditions, meteorologists say. Between 2 and 5 September, Irma strengthened from a category three to a category five storm, the highest possible level. By 7 September, Irma was being followed by storm Jose, which was also upgraded to hurricane status. Also present was Storm Katia in the Gulf of Mexico, which became a hurricane before it hit the Mexican state of Veracruz. Two people died in a mudslide caused by the extreme weather. Katia, Irma and Jose, 7 September Irma's clouds were very, very cold Infrared data from the Nasa-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Suomi NPP satellite on 7 September revealed very cold, very high, powerful thunderstorms stretching around Irma's northern, eastern and southern sides. Storms with cloud tops reaching very low temperatures have the capability to generate "very heavy rainfall", according to Nasa. Infrared image of Irma, 7 September Cloud-top temperatures at the centre of the storm were as cold as 190 Kelvin (minus 83.1C/117.7F), Nasa said. Irma generated vast amounts of rain The eye of the storm measured about 35 miles across and generated "extreme rainfall". Nasa rainfall analysis of Irma's eye, 5 September . Nasa's rainfall analysis showed rain falling at a rate of more than 274mm (10.8in) per hour on 5 September in the solid ring of storms within Irma's eye. The powerful storms rotating around the eye were really tall, reaching altitudes greater than 12.5km (7.75 miles). But the tallest thunderstorms were found south west of Irma's eye, reaching heights of more than 16.2km (10 miles), Nasa said. Sea temperatures contributed to Irma's power Warm oceans, along with wind speed and direction, are the two key ingredients that fuel and sustain hurricanes. As Irma approached Florida, it passed over waters that are warmer than 30C (86F) - hot enough to sustain a category five storm, according to Nasa scientists. Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico temperatures The green line on the map tracks Irma's path between 3 and 6 September. Understanding the impact Hurricane Irma has hit many of the Caribbean's islands, and made landfall in Florida on Sunday. Places hit: Storm surges Huge volumes of water are pushed by hurricane-force winds. When they meet land, the water surges inshore at levels far exceeding normal tides. Storm surges were caused across the south of Florida. Hurricanes A guide to the world's deadliest storms Hurricanes are violent storms that can bring devastation to coastal areas, threatening lives, homes and businesses. Hurricanes develop from thunderstorms, fuelled by warm, moist air as they cross sub-tropical waters. Warm air rises into the storm. Air swirls in to fill the low pressure in the storm, sucking air in and upwards, reinforcing the low pressure. The storm rotates due to the spin of the earth and energy from the warm ocean increases wind speeds as it builds. When winds reach 119km/h (74mph), it is known as a hurricane - in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific - or a typhoon in the Western Pacific. "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Well, we're about to get punched in the face." Florida Mayor Bob Buckhorn, ahead of Hurricane Irma (2017) The central eye of calmer weather is surrounded by a wall of rainstorms.This eyewall has the fastest winds below it and violent currents of air rising through it. A mound of water piles up below the eye which is unleashed as the storm reaches land. These storm surges can cause more damage from flooding than the winds. "Urgent warning about the rapid rise of water on the SW FL coast with the passage of #Irma's eye. MOVE AWAY FROM THE WATER!"Tweet from the National Hurricane Center The size of hurricanes is mainly measured by the Saffir-Simpson scale - other scales are used in Asia Pacific and Australia. Winds 119-153km/hSome minor flooding, little structural damage. Storm surge +1.2m-1.5m Winds 154-177km/hRoofs and trees could be damaged. Storm surge +1.8m-2.4m Winds 178-208km/hHouses suffer damage, severe flooding Storm surge +2.7m-3.7m Hurricane Sandy (2012) caused $71bn damage in the Caribbean and New York Winds 209-251km/hSome roofs destroyed and major structural damage to houses. Storm surge +4m-5.5m Hurricane Ike (2008) hit Caribbean islands and Louisiana and was blamed for at least 195 deaths Winds 252km/h+Serious damage to buildings, severe flooding further inland. Storm surge +5.5m Hurricane Irma (2017) caused devastation in Caribbean islands, leaving thousands homeless "For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life." Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin ahead of Hurricane Gustav, 2008 Click arrow to proceed Loading ... Swipe to progress

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‘Exonerated’: The verdict on Mueller from Trump's heartland

People in Arkansas thought that the Mueller report was a "witch hunt" and feel vindicated by its findings. Their affection for President Donald Trump is deep - and so is their scepticism towards the special counsel and Washington.

By Tara McKelveyBBC News, Russellville, Arkansas Joyce Smith, a retired nurse, heard about the findings on Sunday while she was driving across Oklahoma. A friend texted her the news, and she told her husband, Walter, who was in the driver's seat. They were both delighted by Mueller's conclusion. Congressional Democrats, liberals and others in Washington may be clamouring for more investigations. Yet she and her husband reflect the views of many if not most of those who live in Arkansas, "flyover people", she describes them, "the people in the middle who get skipped", or as Trump says: "the forgotten people". They make up the bedrock of support for the president and on Sunday they celebrated since, as Mr Smith says: "Trump was exonerated." On that day she and her husband drove through a landscape that is familiar to those who know flyover country. Signs of the economic hardship, resilience and patriotism that mark small-town and rural America are easy to spot in west-central Arkansas. Here in Russellville (population of 29,000), the place where the Smiths stopped before leaving on their trip, one can see vacant buildings in the downtown area and a gigantic American flag that whips back and forth in the wind. The Smiths and others who live here were gratified by the results of Mueller's investigation, which uncovered no evidence that the president colluded in the Russian government's alleged attempt to interfere in the democratic process. For the Smiths, Mr Trump is not a criminal or a Russian spy. Instead he is a leader who has ushered in economic growth to the country and hope to Arkansas. Russellville is one of the many towns across the nation that has supported Mr Trump and his drain-the-swamp campaign despite the chorus of critics in Washington and demands for his impeachment. In 2016 Trump won more than 70% of the vote in Pope County, where Russellville is located, and people here remain firmly behind him (and proud that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who lived in nearby Pulaski County, is working at the White House). For many in Russellville, their enthusiasm for the president has not dimmed despite the fact that their own economic prospects may not be any better than before he was elected. The median household income in town, $35,000 (£26,500), remains significantly below the national average of $56,000. Some people have high-paying jobs in manufacturing (Grace, which makes kitchen products, is based here) or at a nearby chicken-processing plant. But a lot of people work at Burger King or in other fast-food restaurants, and some - like the Smiths' son - end up moving to Oklahoma or other states to find a decent job. Mr Trump has not fixed the problems faced by many people in Russellville, but at least he has stood up for them and fought back against their common enemy, Washington. This scepticism towards the federal government has been brought into sharp relief because of the Russia investigation, but the sentiment has a long history. These anti-Washington views are so entrenched it seems likely that they will continue to shield the president from whatever mishaps - or investigations - could dog him in the future. Some academics trace the anti-Washington mindset in Arkansas and in other southern states - and the dislike that people express towards special counsels and federal investigations - back to the reconstruction era after the US Civil War. Back then, says Kelly Jones, an assistant professor of history at a local university, Arkansas Tech, white people in Arkansas and in other parts of the south complained about the new political order and had "mistrust" of what they saw as a corrupt government. This is a charge that people in Arkansas continue to make today when they talk about Washington and the Mueller report. There are other historical reasons, too, for hating the federal government: here people see themselves as independent and resourceful. Standing outside a Burger King in Russellville, Mr Smith says that more than four decades ago he and his wife were driving through Arkansas and liked the hilly, rustic landscape. Mrs Smith points out trees for me: "Oak, cedar, pine." They decided to move here, and over the years he has built a house, driven a school bus and raised milk goats - and expressed deep scepticism towards Washington and those who take "handouts". Years ago, conservatives in Arkansas rejected another independent counsel, Ken Starr, echoing a similar anti-Washington sentiment. Starr led an investigation into a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, a former Arkansas governor, in the 1990s. Both Republicans and Democrats felt angry at Mr Starr, who became a symbol of Washington politics. As Doug Thompson, a political reporter for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, says: "There were people in the state who despised the Clintons and still hated the special counsel." She and others in town express similar disdain for the Mueller report: "A made-up thing to discredit Trump", she says. Or as Sam Eastman, an attorney in town, puts it, the investigation was "a way to root out people", especially those who support the president. "I don't really care about the Republicans or the Democrats, and I don't think either of them cares about us either," he says of Capitol Hill. Timothy Schroeter, a college student who is studying business, says he is glad the report is done so people can move on. He spent Sunday evening at the house of his relative, Toni Crites, who lives near a chicken hatchery on the east side of town. "I feel like they have their own agendas," he says of members of Congress. "I would hope that they want to better our country and not just try and stuff their pockets with money." Now that the report's findings are public, he says he hopes that the president can go back to doing his job. But not everyone wants this chapter in US history to be over. Ms Crites says she hopes that investigators will continue to search for evidence. "They need to dig and find out for sure," she says. "Trump didn't drain the swamp. He made a bigger swamp." "There's still something in that report," says her sister Phyllis Hammond, who was sitting across the living room from her. "I think everybody needs to see the full report - we need to find out for sure." Still most people in town are like the Smiths, the so-called "forgotten people" who support the president and believe that the special counsel, members of Congress and others in Washington just get in his way. "They have forgotten who their bosses are," says Mrs Smith, "we, the people, are the ones that put them there."

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Three reasons for optimism over the Eurozone economy

It is easy to be gloomy about the Eurozone's economic prospects. While GDP in the UK and US is now above its pre-crisis level, in the Eurozone it is still languishing below. But is there room for greater optimism?

Duncan WeldonNewsnight economics correspondent@Duncanweldonon Twitter A major economy being smaller than it was seven years ago is not something that happens often. Unemployment remains stubbornly high and the latest flaring up of tension over a possible Greek bailout extension is yet another reminder that some of the structural issues in how the Euro was designed will continue to be a source of friction. And now, new Eurostat figures show that consumer prices in the Eurozone fell by 0.6% in the last year: a possible sign of the early stages of a damaging deflationary slide. But is the gloom overdone? There are three reasons to think it might be - three reasons why Eurozone growth in 2015 may well surprise to the upside for the first time in years. Reduced oil prices The first reason is the reduction in oil prices. Since June 2014 world oil prices have more than halved, which - all things being equal - should be good news for an energy importer like the Eurozone. In effect, this functions as a large tax cut for consumers and firms financed by overseas producers. And although declining oil prices add further pressure to falling consumer prices in the Eurozone, this doesn't mean they should not be welcomed in Europe - even if Eurostat's figures suggest that the pace of decline in consumer prices is accelerating. The fear has always been of a "debt-deflationary" cycle - a situation in which falling prices lead to reduced profits for businesses and subsequent wage cuts. In the event of a generalised fall in prices and wages, then the real burden of debt increases. But for falling oil prices to be a cause of "bad deflation" rather than "benign disinflation", consumers and firms would have to save rather than spend their windfall from lower energy costs. In that situation there would be no boost to demand, but there would be an additional downward pressure on prices. The early signs, however, are that this is not happening. European retail sales grew strongly in the fourth quarter of last year, suggesting lower prices at the pumps are providing a stimulus to growth, rather than a drag. Weaker currency The second reason for cautious optimism is the fall in value of the Euro, which has lost almost 10% of its value against other currencies over the past year. This makes European exports more competitive on world markets and should provide a boost to the single currency area's trade. And thirdly, the European Central Bank last month - not soon enough - began a programme of quantitative easing (QE), electronically creating money to buy assets - usually government bonds - to consequently push down the value of interest rates. One the biggest factors holding back Eurozone growth over the last few years has been a weak banking system. But even before the introduction of QE, there were indications that bank lending was starting to pick up. Lower risk So overall, healthier bank lending, a weaker currency and the additional kicker of an effective large tax cut for firms may well be enough to push growth higher. A Greek bailout extension may be a case of "kicking the can down the road" rather than dealing with the fundamental problems, but it is also another reason for optimism about the Eurozone as a whole. It further decreases the risk of a nasty financial accident. The Eurozone is often compared to the pre-World War Two gold standard - a commitment by participating countries to fix the prices of their domestic currencies in relation to a specified amount of gold. In effect, the countries in the Eurozone no longer have an independent monetary policy, interest rates cannot be set in the pure national interest and exchange rates between countries are fixed - so fixed they have actually ceased to exist. This means that if a country loses competiveness relative to its peers then it cannot regain it by devaluing its currency, and instead is forced to try and drive down prices and wages domestically to increase productivity, in a process known as internal devaluation. In the 1920s and 30s that proved to be a recipe for disaster. A disaster that many think has been replayed decades later in the so-called periphery of the Eurozone - Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal. 'Something to celebrate' Until recently the gold standard analogy has worked fairly well in explaining the dynamics of the Eurozone. One big difference being that leaving the gold standard, as opposed to the Euro, was at least relatively straightforward. But that might now finally be changing. One big reason for that is the ECB's decision to increase the amount of Euros, through the use of QE. In terms of the gold standard, that is as if the central banks in the 1930s had suddenly discovered a lot of gold mines. This removes some of what economists believe is an in-built bias towards disinflation in the Euro's design. The Eurozone economy may be unlikely to reach the kind of growth rates on display in the UK and US this year, but 2015 looks set to be the best year for its economy since 2007. That is something to celebrate.

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Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous

On Saturday protests are planned across the world against Acta - the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The treaty has become the focus of activists associated with the Anonymous hacking network because of concerns that it could undermine internet privacy and aid censorship.

By Alan MooreAuthor First published in 1982, the comic series V for Vendetta charted a masked vigilante's attempt to bring down a fascist British government and its complicit media. Many of the demonstrators are expected to wear masks based on the book's central character. Ahead of the protests, the BBC asked V for Vendetta's writer, Alan Moore, for his thoughts on how his creation had become an inspiration and identity to Anonymous. PREOCCUPATIONS Without wishing to overstate my case, everything in the observable universe definitely has its origins in Northamptonshire, and the adoption of the V for Vendetta mask as a multipurpose icon by the emerging global protest movements is no exception. Back at the crack of the 17th century, Rushton Triangular Lodge was a strange architectural folly constructed to represent the Holy Trinity by an increasingly eccentric Sir Thomas Tresham while he endured decades of house-arrest for his outspoken Catholicism. It was also one of the two locations, both owned by Tresham and both in Northamptonshire, at which the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was formulated by a group of dissident Catholics that included Tresham's son Francis. It would seem likely that the treatment afforded to the elder Tresham played some part in the general mix of grievances from which the reckless scheme ignited. Mastermind By the early sixteen-hundreds, the bonfires traditionally lit around the start of November had been co-opted as trappings for a sort of national anti-Catholic day at which effigies of the Pope would be incinerated. As mastermind behind the terrorist outrage du jour, however, the plot's nominal leader Guido Fawkes rapidly replaced the pontiff as hate-mascot of choice on these occasions. Jump forward 300 years, though, to the battered post-war England of the 1950s, and the saturnine insurrectionary had taken on more ambiguous connotations. When parents explained to their offspring about Guy Fawkes and his attempt to blow up Parliament, there always seemed to be an undertone of admiration in their voices, or at least there did in Northampton. While that era's children perhaps didn't see Fawkes as a hero, they certainly didn't see him as the villainous scapegoat he'd originally been intended as. Revolutionary At the start of the 1980s when the ideas that would coalesce into V for Vendetta were springing up from a summer of anti-Thatcher riots across the UK coupled with a worrying surge from the far-right National Front, Guy Fawkes' status as a potential revolutionary hero seemed to be oddly confirmed by circumstances surrounding the comic strip's creation: it was the strip's artist, David Lloyd, who had initially suggested using the Guy Fawkes mask as an emblem for our one-man-against-a-fascist-state lead character. When this notion was enthusiastically received, he decided to buy one of the commonplace cardboard Guy Fawkes masks that were always readily available from mid-autumn, just to use as convenient reference. To our great surprise, it turned out that this was the year (perhaps understandably after such an incendiary summer) when the Guy Fawkes mask was to be phased out in favour of green plastic Frankenstein monsters geared to the incoming celebration of an American Halloween. It was also the year in which the term "Guy Fawkes Night" seemingly disappeared from common usage, to be replaced by the less provocative 'bonfire night'. At the time, we both remarked upon how interesting it was that we should have taken up the image right at the point where it was apparently being purged from the annals of English iconography. It seemed that you couldn't keep a good symbol down. If there truly was government unease about the mask and its associations back in the 1980s, these concerns had evidently evaporated by the first decade of the 21st century, when the movie industry apparently decided to re-imagine the original narrative as some sort of parable about the post-9/11 rise of American neo-conservatives, in which the words "fascism" or "anarchy" were nowhere mentioned. Anarchy and romance When the film was made during the peak period of anti-terrorist legislation the golden touch of Hollywood was, it seemed, sufficiently persuasive for the authorities to permit a massed horde of extras dressed as the nation's most famous terrorist to cavort riotously in Parliament Square. I don't think one need subscribe to any quasi-mystical theories about how the conceptual world of ideas can affect the substantial world of everyday existence in order to agree that, in retrospect, this could be seen as practically begging for it. After that, it wasn't long before the character's enigmatic Time-Warner trademarked leer appeared masking the faces of Anonymous protesters barracking Scientologists halfway down Tottenham Court Road. Shortly thereafter it began manifesting at anti-globalisation demonstrations, anti-capitalist protests, concerted hacker-attacks upon those perceived as enabling state oppression, and finally on the front steps of St Paul's. It would seem that the various tectonic collapses deep in the structure of our economic and political systems have triggered waves of kinetic energy which are rolling through human populations rather than through their usual medium of seawater. It also seems that our character's charismatic grin has provided a ready-made identity for these highly motivated protesters, one embodying resonances of anarchy, romance, and theatre that are clearly well-suited to contemporary activism, from Madrid's Indignados to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Neglect Our present financial ethos no longer even resembles conventional capitalism, which at least implies a brutal Darwinian free-for-all, however one-sided and unfair. Instead, we have a situation where the banks seem to be an untouchable monarchy beyond the reach of governmental restraint, much like the profligate court of Charles I. Then, a depraved neglect of the poor and the "squeezed middle" led inexorably to an unanticipated reaction in the horrific form of Oliver Cromwell and the English Civil War which, as it happens, was bloodily concluded in Northamptonshire. Today's response to similar oppressions seems to be one that is intelligent, constantly evolving and considerably more humane, and yet our character's borrowed Catholic revolutionary visage and his incongruously Puritan apparel are perhaps a reminder that unjust institutions may always be haunted by volatile 17th century spectres, even if today's uprisings are fuelled more by social networks than by gunpowder. Some ghosts never go away. As for the ideas tentatively proposed in that dystopian fantasy thirty years ago, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that whatever usefulness they afford modern radicalism is very satisfying. In terms of a wildly uninformed guess at our political future, it feels something like V for validation.

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What is the World Heritage In Danger List?

The Great Barrier Reef is one of more than 1,000 places on Unesco's World Heritage List of precious environmental and cultural sites. In June, Unesco will decide if the Reef should be added to its "in danger" list. On Friday, a draft recommendation will be made about the reef's status.

Who created the list and why? The World Heritage Convention links the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. It recognises the way in which people interact with nature, and the need to preserve the balance between the two. The convention defines the kinds of natural or cultural sites that can be included on the World Heritage List. The 191 nations that have signed the convention have pledged to conserve their World Heritage Sites. What kinds of places are on the list? There are 1,007 sites on the list, ranging from a 65m-tall minaret in the ancient Afghan city of Jam and Britain's city of Bath, to Canada's Dinosaur Provincial Park and Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park. More than two-thirds of the listed sites are man-made, and include everything from monasteries, cathedrals and opera houses, to entire cities such as Graz in Austria. What is the World Heritage In Danger List? The committee compiles another list of sites it considers to be "in danger" of losing their heritage status. This time last year, Unesco threatened to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger, amid controversy over a plan to dump dredged sediment from a port expansion near the reef. Declining water quality, climate change and coastal development were also cited as threats to the reef's health. The "in danger" list is designed to tell the international community about the conditions that threaten the very characteristics for which a property was added to the World Heritage List in the first place, and to encourage governments to take action to protect the sites. A country can ask for one of its sites to be listed in order to receive help to address the threats. For example, listing would enable the World Heritage Committee to allocate funds to help protect a site. It would also alert the international community who might contribute funds or technical expertise to save an endangered site. If a site loses the characteristics which determined its inscription on the World Heritage List, it could be deleted from both the List of World Heritage in Danger and the main World Heritage List. To date, that has only happened twice. How do you get off the 'in danger' list? Ecuador's Galapagos Islands Archipelago was the first World Heritage site. It was listed in 1978 for its unusual and globally unique biodiversity. But over the years, invasive species, illegal fishing and pressure from increased tourism and urban growth have put the islands and their animals at serious risk. In 2007, the Galapagos were added to the "in danger" list. Alarmed by that decision, Ecuador devised plans to manage invasive species, curtail illegal fishing and control the number of tourists and types of tourist vessels visiting the islands. By 2010, its efforts were enough to turn the tide on the destruction and get the islands removed from the "in danger" list.