What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had lived in 1914?

Summary: World War One was a tragedy with particularly Austrian roots, sparked by the assassination of the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. But could the war have been avoided if he had not been killed? And would the Austro-Hungarian Empire have survived?

By Bethany BellBBC News, Vienna Those are the questions that have been posed at a conference at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, which has been training diplomats since 1754. For at least one person at the conference, the "what if?" question was personal. Maria Camilla Habsburg Lothringen, a descendant of Austria's former royal family, says the scenario is "quite intriguing" and would have changed her family's fate. "We would maybe have a different position here in Austria. Maybe we would have more possessions and more responsibility in our functions." However she says the thought of royal responsibilities and the lack of personal freedom makes her a little "uptight". And the war, she says, is clearly about far more than just the fate of her own family. "World War One was such a dramatic occasion. To look back at the past and ask what went wrong and learn out of that is a very important thing." One of the speakers, Richard Ned Lebow, professor of war studies at Kings College London, says counterfactual history is an "essential tool in figuring out how the world works", a way of considering the possibility of alternative outcomes. He believes that World War One could have been prevented, if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had survived the assassin's bullet. "Franz Ferdinand was the strongest spokesman for peace in Austria-Hungary. He believed that a war with Russia would lead to the downfall of both empires." Professor Lebow says the assassination of the Archduke "removed this brake on going to war", and created "a pretext and incentive to go to war". The Austro-Hungarian empire itself might not have collapsed if it had not gone to war, Holger Herwig from the University of Calgary believes. Posing such "what if?" questions, he says, are more than just a game. How did an assassination in Sarajevo lead to war? The living legacy of Gavrilo Princip "What we are trying to do here is to ask the alternatives. Was there an alternative strategy? Was there an alternative political approach to this?" He says it is important for historians to recognise there were choices to be made. Professor Lebow says counterfactual history is not just about the past, but has lessons for contemporary politicians and decision makers. He says leaders have a tendency "to exaggerate their ability to control events, which they all did in World War One with fatal consequences". The second lesson, he says, is that leaders convince themselves that while they have no freedom of action, the other side does. "When you have everyone believing this, everyone expects the other side to back down and that contributes to loss of control." The third lesson, he says, is that leaders tend not to question the set of assumptions they bring to problems and, in crisis situations, surround themselves with people they feel comfortable with. It doesn't matter how clever your policy-making is, he warns. "If you start with the wrong set of assumptions, you are not going to end well. And that, too, happened in 1914."

प्रथम विश्व युद्ध विशेष रूप से ऑस्ट्रियाई जड़ों के साथ एक त्रासदी थी, जो 1914 में साराजेवो में सिंहासन के उत्तराधिकारी आर्कड्यूक फ्रांज फर्डिनेंड की हत्या से शुरू हुई थी। लेकिन क्या युद्ध को टाला जा सकता था अगर वह नहीं मारा जाता? और क्या ऑस्ट्रो-हंगेरियन साम्राज्य बच जाता?


Dorset councils share chief executive to save cash

Summary: Two Dorset councils have agreed to share a chief executive in an effort to save about £400,000 a year.

Christchurch Borough Council and East Dorset District Council said the move would save each council £50,000 a year. The new post will be filled by one of the two serving chief executives, Michael Turvey at Christchurch and David McIntosh at East Dorset. A joint management team will also save the two councils about £300,000 a year as part of a package of savings. Christchurch council leader Alan Griffiths said: "The ongoing economic downturn has had a far-reaching impact on the public sector. "We already have a good track record of working together and this has created mutual respect and trust."

दो डोरसेट परिषदों ने प्रति वर्ष लगभग 400,000 पाउंड बचाने के प्रयास में एक मुख्य कार्यकारी को साझा करने पर सहमति व्यक्त की है।


Malaysia and North Korea - a friendship on ice

Summary: North Korea and Malaysia have taken the extraordinary step of banning each other's citizens from leaving their countries in the fallout over the killing of Kim Jong-nam. Security expert Hoo Chiew-ping traces the history of this unusual relationship.

Malaysia is not alone in sharing what some have called a "special relationship" with North Korea. In fact, many other South East Asian nations have developed close ties with the reclusive and rogue state. But their history begins in conflict and dates back to the 1950s when Malaya - as it was known then - was fighting a communist insurgency while North Korea provided training assistance to local communists. The Malayan Federation then gained independence from Britain, and in the early part of the Cold War the new nation adopted the anti-Communist rhetoric of the time. But after the US detente with China, Malaysia became the first South East Asian state to establish diplomatic ties with China. What is interesting are the events prior to that. Malaysia established diplomatic ties with North Korea on 2 July 1973, well ahead of the establishment of relations with China in May 1974. It remains unclear exactly why Malaysia would go down such a path. The main reason could have been a desire to embrace neutrality as Malaysia's new strategic foreign policy direction. And indeed Malaysia's pole position with the North allowed it to play a friendly third nation role in facilitating secret talks as well as open negotiations between the US, South Korea and North Korea throughout the nuclear talks in the 2000s. Business ties also served as a cornerstone of a special relationship that spanned from tourism, the mutual visa-waiver programme, to a special chartered direct flight between the capitals that other states don't normally enjoy. A relatively large cohort of North Korean workers can also be found working in the state of Sarawak. The state government there has jurisdiction over labour import matters, independent of federal government, but in order to be able to reach a deal on importing North Korean labour it would have to have received federal approval. The benefits to the North Korean regime are obvious, bringing it hard cash while the workers receive meagre pay for their labour. But what does Malaysia get out of the entire package? Well, there is a trade in raw materials, which North Korea is famous for, and the export of Malaysian processed food for the consumption of Pyongyang elites, department stores and resident foreigners, as well as palm oil. In truth, the deals were likely small in scale, but symbolic for that burgeoning "special relationship" between Malaysia and North Korea. But it was really Malaysia as an outpost for illegal North Korean economic activities that allowed it to have such cordial relations with the pariah state. One example of such activity was the instruction from the US Treasury to close down a North Korean bank account in a local Malaysian bank that was allegedly used for weapons deals with Myanmar, back in 2009. It is also widely believed that North Korea's Air Koryo serves those cities where it can directly bring back hard cash for the North Korean regime. All trade is important for North Korea and the regime survives on foreign financial dealings, whether they are legal or illegal economic activities. The Malaysian government's position prior to this point appears to have been one of silent neutrality. Officials deny endorsing the violation of any sanctions, and so any support from elements in Malaysia has always been discreet. The international repercussions would be severe if any evidence of a role in facilitating illegal activities were to surface. But everything changed with the killing of Kim Jong-nam in a Kuala Lumpur airport using a deadly nerve agent. It has seen Malaysia take firm and swift action to alienate North Korea. The hardline position of Najib Razak's administration is a departure from Malaysia's traditional diplomatic behaviour, which normally seeks to de-escalate conflict. But in fact a number of countries in South East Asia have had a special relationship in some way or another with North Korea - including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The regional Asean grouping reached a kind of consensus that it would not utterly isolate Pyongyang and would instead play the role of engaging North Korea in order to ensure regional stability and not suffer the spill-over effects of any North Korean provocations. North Korea is a member of one of Asean's bodies, the Asean Regional Forum (ARF), which has proved to be a useful mechanism to regulate its relationship with the region. It even used to send its top diplomat to the ARF meetings. But when in July 2016, ARF expressed concerns over North Korea's nuclear programme, Pyongyang tried in vain to request ARF to revise the statement. Its failure to do this may have driven North Korea away further from some friends in South East Asia. But the Najib government's move also plainly shows that Malaysia has decided to distance itself from North Korea, if not quite cutting it off altogether. Now that Malaysia has fallen off the North's friends list, it is likely to look towards emerging states like Myanmar to provide it with what it needs. But the one constant throughout all these painful and discreet diplomatic manoeuvres is the unpredictability of Pyongyang. Dr Hoo Chiew-Ping is a Senior Lecturer in Strategic Studies and International Relations at the National University of Malaysia.

उत्तर कोरिया और मलेशिया ने किम जोंग-नाम की हत्या के बाद एक-दूसरे के नागरिकों के अपने देश छोड़ने पर प्रतिबंध लगाने का असाधारण कदम उठाया है। सुरक्षा विशेषज्ञ हू चियु-पिंग इस असामान्य संबंध के इतिहास का पता लगाते हैं।


'Drag taught me you don't have to be a guy or a girl'

Summary: River McNutt describes herself as "gender fluid with a feminine sprinkle". She says dressing in male and female drag made her realise she did not have to choose between identifying as a man or a woman.

The 25-year-old shop-worker from Portsmouth shares her costumes on Instagram and YouTube in the hope of inspiring people to be themselves - and more accepting of others. 'I felt like my identity had been stripped from me' As a child I always loved dressing up just for fun. I grew up in Canada and we didn't have a school uniform - you could wear anything you wanted. When I was 14 I moved to England. I had pink hair and I had to change it. I couldn't even wear jeans, I had to wear school trousers. I couldn't believe it. It felt like my identity had been stripped from me after having that privilege before. I expressed myself through my clothes, hair and make-up and all of a sudden I couldn't do that. 'Am I a guy? Am I a girl?' It was around that time when I started experimenting with male drag in my spare time. It was kind of not knowing 'Am I a guy? Am I a girl?' - I've always been unsure about my gender. I was figuring out what was going on and I found that when I went out dressed as a guy I felt more comfortable. I remember thinking 'Am I a man? Should I be transitioning?' You might also be interested in 'I tattooed my face so I couldn't get a normal job' What I learned when I stopped shaving 'I came out at 68' A couple of years later, in college I would sometimes go in dressed like a guy. Sometimes as a woman you don't feel as powerful, and dressing as a guy made me feel more confident. I met my boyfriend in college and he was never really bothered about it at all. He just sees it as me expressing myself, being creative. He accepted it as part of me and we've been together nine years. 'Transforming into a fantasy character' I do drag at home once or twice a month just for me to create different looks and take pictures. My female drag is inspired by the 90s, so Barbie girl, My Little Pony, Tamagotchis. It's quite colourful and nostalgic. When I'm in female drag I feel more happy and bubbly and my mannerisms change, but in male drag I'm more calm and chilled. When I do the guy drag I don't cover my imperfections as much. I also give myself some more fine lines and stuff. The male side is more punk, Goth style. I've read many comments online about women doing female drag saying, "where is the transformation?" Even though it's a whole art form. But I performed at Portsmouth Drag Race in female drag and some of the older men who were drag queens were really kind to me. I think people might accept my male drag more because they say "oh wow, you're really passable". People seem to get it more when you're dressing as the opposite gender. But really it's like transforming into a fantasy or imaginary character, so your gender shouldn't matter. 'I can just be me' When I was a lot younger I really, really hated my body. I was super skinny, around 100lbs (45kg). I was so unsure about who I was but once I started accepting myself I grew into my body and became a better shape. It honestly took a lot for me to post my first male drag photo with my chest bound. It was interesting to finally see what I would look like. When I was thinking about what to call my drag personas I ended up coming back to my own name because it's gender neutral. My mum named me after River Phoenix. Since doing male drag I've felt more confident just being myself. Now I know that I don't need to pick one or the other, I can just be me. 'My wardrobe is insane' In my everyday life I do like to wear more gender-neutral clothing. Sometimes I'll wear jeans, T-shirt, pull my hair back or put a hat on and no make-up. Other days it'll be a full dress, curls and glitter. My wardrobe is insane. Some days I will wear make-up, some days I won't. I don't feel self-conscious about it. I feel like it's definitely becoming a more acceptable thing, not having to be like "you're a boy, you need to be like this; or you're a girl, you need to be like this". I feel it's hard to label everyone's gender as it's such a complex spectrum. I consider myself gender fluid with a leaning towards female. A feminine sprinkle. I use the female pronouns as it is just a bit easier but I don't mind "they" or "them" either. 'There are no rules' I think over time I've realised I am pansexual and I'm happy with who I am. For me, it basically means I wouldn't put any rules on who I'm attracted to. If someone was trans, or similar to me and didn't see themselves as a man or a woman, that wouldn't change the way I felt about them. One big thing with doing drag and dressing up is the ability to truly be whoever or whatever you want, whenever you want. There should be no boundaries with age, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Nothing should hold someone back from joining in on an art form. 'I want people to accept others' Although we have all become more accepting of each other in recent years, I still feel there is a lot to be done. When I went to Portsmouth Pride everyone was really happy and excited to see me in drag for the first time. But when I was walking home I did get quite a few heckles. I hope one day people can leave their homes dressed however they please and feel perfectly safe. Clothing and make-up doesn't hurt anybody. It shouldn't ever get an aggressive reaction. Even if you don't like the way someone looks, for whatever reason, you do not need to comment on it as it does not affect your life. I want people to accept other people. Let people be themselves and do their own thing. Photos: Emma Lynch/BBC

रिवर मैकनट खुद को "स्त्री के छिड़काव के साथ लैंगिक तरल पदार्थ" के रूप में वर्णित करती है। वह कहती है कि पुरुष और महिला के कपड़े पहनने से उसे एहसास हुआ कि उसे पुरुष या महिला के रूप में पहचान करने के बीच चयन करने की आवश्यकता नहीं है।


'I was there when gunmen tried to kill Bob Marley'

Summary: It's 40 years since would-be assassins tried to kill Bob Marley, the most famous reggae artist of all time. Nancy Burke, who was at the singer's house in Kingston, Jamaica, as the shootings took place, recalls what happened.

By Mike LanchinBBC World Service During the 1970s, Marley led the way in the Caribbean island as it became the reggae capital of the world. Burke, who lived next door to him, was the girlfriend of his art designer and became part of his crowd. "I love the music, I love his lyrics, I love the beat, I love the band," she says. "So it was a great privilege to be there, backstage, on the bus, going to shows." Marley may have been a potent symbol of the country's musical success, but 1970s Jamaica was an impoverished and divided nation, with violent gangs fighting for control over the poorest neighbourhoods. The left-wing Prime Minister Michael Manley was a polarising figure and political tensions and violence were rife, especially when there were elections on the horizon. In late 1976, a general election was due to be held. Marley had previously backed Manley, but this time the singer wanted to distance himself from the government. To try to help calm passions, Marley suggested holding a free outdoor concert in Kingston in December. But when the prime minister publicly endorsed the idea, and even moved the date of the vote to coincide with the event, Marley was left looking like a government stooge. Burke had been away in London, chaperoning one of Marley's girlfriends, Cindy Breakspeare, at the Miss World contest. They arrived back on the island on the afternoon of 3 December 1976. After showering and changing, Burke went to see Marley at home. "As I was walking towards the house, I just had this very quick moment of dread," she says. "I just shuddered." She noticed the gate was closed, which was unusual. But inside the house, Burke recalls, everyone seemed relaxed. The band were taking a break from rehearsals. Someone asked Burke to move her car to let Marley's wife, Rita, take her own car out. As the front gates opened for Rita to leave, another car slipped in. Burke was by then in a back room chatting with some children and Marley's lawyer, Diane Jobson. "I had just entered that room and started talking to them about Miss World when this barrage of gunfire started, really close. I mean, right there," Burke says. "You could hear this gunfire going on and on and all these shots being fired. And it was so shocking because we couldn't see it, but it was just a few feet away. "I sank to my knees, I just didn't know what to do. The light was on and we just thought they were going to come in and mow us down. It was scary, very scary. It was just a bedroom so there wasn't anywhere to go. The kids went under the bed but I couldn't." Find out more Mike Lanchin's interview with Nancy Burke was broadcast on BBC World Service's Witness. Listen again on iPlayer. Three gunmen, who'd driven in as Rita was leaving, had rushed into the house, spraying the place with bullets. Marley and the musicians had dived for cover. The shooters then sped off into the night, not pausing to survey the chaos they'd left behind. "The silence after seemed like forever, which was even more terrifying," Burke recalls. "The next sound I heard was somebody calling out to Diane, saying: 'Diane, Diane, come quick, Bob is shot.'" Burke stayed in the bedroom with the children until the police arrived. "That was the first point I decided to step out of this room," she says. "While I was doing that I saw Bob walk out with the police and he was holding his left arm. It was fantastic to see him on foot - looking really, really angry." It had been a very lucky escape for everyone. Marley had been hit in the arm and chest. His manager, Don Taylor, had been hit in the groin. No-one else was seriously wounded. Who'd carried out the shooting? Who'd sent the gunmen? Why hadn't they finished off the job? These were all questions that hung in the air. The shooting remains shrouded in mystery and the gunmen were never found. "I've heard rumours that they were taken care of, they're not alive," says Burke. "Somebody must know something. But it's hard to know what the reality is." Two days later, an injured Marley turned up to play for more than 80,000 fans at the free open-air concert in Kingston. Burke was too scared to go. "Nobody had been caught, nobody knew how or why. It was too frightening for me. I was too close to it the first time. I couldn't face that so soon again." Marley spent the next two years in self-imposed exile in London, then touring, producing some of his best work. In his short life he released 11 albums, four of them live. Burke kept close contact with Marley during the final years of his life, until his death from cancer in May 1981. He was just 36 years old. "The last time I saw Bob before he died he had removed the locks, he had started to lose weight," Burke says. "He was very withdrawn, quite small. He was shrinking in front of us. "When he died we were in New York when we heard. It was definitely one of the worst moments ever of my life. I still feel it's part of my mission to make sure people won't forget about Bob Marley. Which they won't, he's done that for himself." More from the Magazine Born in 1967, Cedella Marley was the eldest of Bob Marley's biological children. As a father, she says, he was surprisingly strict. Bob Marley: Coolest dad at my prep school Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

अब 40 साल हो गए हैं जब हत्यारों ने बॉब मार्ले को मारने की कोशिश की थी, जो अब तक के सबसे प्रसिद्ध रेगी कलाकार थे। नैन्सी बर्क, जो किंग्स्टन, जमैका में गायक के घर पर थीं, जब गोलीबारी हुई थी, याद करती हैं कि क्या हुआ था।


Final chapter in Awema story?

Summary: This could be the final chapter in the long-running story of Awema, which has been a significant one for a number of reasons, but primarily because this wasn't just one of the ethnic minority charities operating in Wales - it was the biggest.

By Nick ServiniPolitical editor, Wales The Welsh government wanted to have a single organisation that it could deal with on race relations issues, and it was the All Wales Ethnic Minority Association. Over the course of a decade, more than £7m went through its books. Most of the services it provided were sub-contracted out to other charities, so it was in a powerful position holding the purse strings. And the man who was running it during that time was the chief executive Naz Malik, who has now been cleared of two of the three fraud charges he faced. Salary increases However, questions remain about the financial accountability of Awema, and these were outlined in a series of reports which ultimately led to the funding being withdrawn by the Welsh government and the charity being wound up two years ago. They include claims that he increased his own salary without authorisation from the board, that he promoted his daughter within the organisation, without internal or external competition, and that her salary more than doubled over a period of more than three and a half years. At the time Naz Malik refused to comment, but the chairwoman at the time, Rita Austin, robustly defended the charity, saying the criticism was a time-honoured way of debasing and devaluing the contribution of black and minority ethnic people. And there were also big questions about the role of the Welsh government, when auditors found that civil servants had repeatedly failed to follow up concerns that were expressed about the accountability. The legacy of what happened at Awema will be felt strongly among the existing charities representing black and ethnic minority communities. They say it will take some time to fully recover. Taha Idris, chief executive of the Swansea Bay Regional Equality Council, said publicity surrounding problems at Awema over many years had damaged the confidence people have in other charities. "The whole Awema affair is not just about personalities, it was about policies and procedures and the way that the organisation was run which led to its downfall," he said. "Still, there will be people out there who will continue to think of Awema, they will not think of the fact that the chief executive has been acquitted of these serious allegations. "They will continue to think of Awema so it's going to be a few years before we can actually eradicate that stereotype and that philosophy from the minds of people." The Welsh government has also introduced changes in the way that it gives out around £300m a year in grants to charities. It includes standardising the kinds of things charities need to do to be eligible for grants, such as the trustees holding regular meetings and ensuring the proceedings are accurately recorded. The Welsh government says those changes were being introduced anyway, but the Welsh Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), which represents charities, says the problems at Awema gave the motivation for those changes a sense of urgency. And while Taha Idris believes there has been some damage to the image of race relations charities, the WCVA believes that overall that damage is limited. It feels the public has a lot of trust in charities and by and large that has held up, which of course is critical for the bodies, because around a third of their incomes comes directly from the public.

यह अवेमा की लंबे समय से चली आ रही कहानी का अंतिम अध्याय हो सकता है, जो कई कारणों से महत्वपूर्ण रहा है, लेकिन मुख्य रूप से क्योंकि यह केवल वेल्स में काम करने वाले जातीय अल्पसंख्यक दानों में से एक नहीं था-यह सबसे बड़ा था।


Isle of Man government to offer TV licence refund to over-75s

Summary: Over-75s on the Isle of Man will soon be able to claim a refund on their TV licence, the Manx government has said.

Last year, the Manx government said pensioners would have to start paying the annual £145.50 fee as part of plans to save about £600,000 a year. However, a motion to allow those eligible to claim a refund from the government after buying a licence was approved in Tynwald's November sitting. It is thought the move will benefit about 5,800 households.

मैनक्स सरकार ने कहा है कि आइल ऑफ मैन पर 75 से अधिक लोग जल्द ही अपने टीवी लाइसेंस पर धनवापसी का दावा कर सकेंगे।


Where the councils are cutting

Summary: These are among the cuts to services and jobs that have been announced so far by councils across Britain. Many have yet to formally announce their plans, including councils in Greater London and the North East.

The government says it has taken "a progressive, fair approach" when calculating the funding for local government grants and that "more money is being channelled at those areas of the country that have the highest levels of need". Ministers argue that reductions to council spending "reflect the urgent need for the public sector to help put the country's finances back in order, keep interest rates down and prevent national debt escalating to £1.4 trillion of taxpayers' money." It claims the settlement represents a fair deal that will "enable councils to protect the front-line services people rely on, shield the most vulnerable places, safeguard the most vulnerable people and protect taxpayers' interests." The North West Manchester City Council has announced £110m in savings in the next financial year. Leisure centres, libraries and public toilets will close, and 2,000 jobs will be lost (17% of its workforce). It said 41% of job losses would be among managers. Children's services will be cut by 26% or £45.1m. However, social workers for vulnerable children will be increased. Liverpool City Council says it will shed 1,500 jobs by the end of March 2013. Council leaders said they had to find £141m of savings between now and 2013 - £91m of them in 2011/12. The council, which has 9,000 employees, said it could not yet confirm the areas affected. West Yorkshire Some 3,000 jobs will be cut under plans unveiled by Leeds City Council to tackle a £90m funding black hole. Adult social care facilities will be hit by the cuts with 13 buildings currently used for day care and support facing closure. Labour-controlled Kirklees council is based in Huddersfield, but also covers the towns of Dewsbury, Batley and Holmfirth. Adult social care is being scaled back there as the council makes millions of pounds of savings following government funding cuts. Kirklees Council said the new approach would result in £2m savings a year, contributing to the £80m savings the council has to make by 2014. South Yorkshire Sheffield City Council has announced 270 jobs will be axed over the next financial year as the local authority looks to save £80m. More than 400 posts have already been cut this year as a result of voluntary redundancies or unfilled vacancies. North Yorkshire North Yorkshire County Council has announced it will cut 330 jobs and close nine care homes for elderly people to save £69m over the next four years. At the City of York Council, officials are planning to make £21m of savings within 12 months. East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Lincolnshire County Council wants to cut 818 staff by the summer as part of its plans to save £125m from its budget in the next four years. Consultation with 3,200 staff members over the proposals has already begun. A total of 522 of the jobs would be in children's services and adult and children's social care. Lincoln City Council is preparing to cut £1.5m a year from its annual budget until 2012, council officials say. The cuts are needed to balance the books and will mean a review of services. Council spokesman Simon Walters said it would review all 400 different services to decide where money could be saved and which services could be cut. East Midlands Derby City Council is proposing to cut almost £5m from its health and housing budget in a bid to save £27m over the next two years. The Conservative-led council will also freeze council staff salaries and council tax for the next two years. The cuts could result in 570 job losses, but that figure was only an estimate, the council said. West Midlands Birmingham City Council says that 7,000 jobs must go in a bid to save £300m. So far 1,500 staff have requested voluntary redundancy, meaning forced losses will be "significantly reduced," council officials have said. Some £212m - 71% of the savings target - will be made in the 12 months from April this year. Before Christmas, Christmas Coventry City Council approved plans to save £146m by 2014, which may result in up to 1,000 jobs being lost. The South East East Sussex County Council has announced £37m in cuts next year. Spending on children's services will be reduced by £20m, which the council blames on cuts in government grants and increases in child protection services. It estimates 150 to 200 full-time equivalent jobs will go next year but unions say up to 400 people, including part-timers, will be affected. Medway Council is to cut 157 jobs as it makes savings of £23m. The council's funding from the government is being cut by more than 11%. However, council tax will be frozen and the authority said increases in fees and charges for services for the vulnerable would be kept to a minimum. The council employs more than 3,000 people and 130 of the job losses were announced last year. It said front-line services would be unaffected by the cuts, and it had gone through each department to identify many smaller savings, rather than looking at closures of major services. The South West Bristol City Council will cut 340 jobs during the next financial year, it has announced. The authority said 160 of the job losses would be made up through either voluntary or compulsory redundancies. Another 180 of those would come through "managing vacancies, redeployment and natural wastage". In December, Cornwall County Council approved budget cuts of £170m over four years, including a 23% reduction in its library budget. Scotland Councils across Scotland have been setting out their spending plans for the coming year. Scotland's largest authority, Glasgow City Council, approved a savings package of nearly £60m in the next financial year in an effort to address a shortfall in funding. It set its budget for 2011/12 at just over £1.3bn to match a reduction of 3.6% in funding from the Scottish government. Steps include cutting £400,000 of funding for VisitScotland and saving £1m through refuse collection changes. But it will also treble its planned roads maintenance budget to £12m to deal with potholes caused by harsh weather late last year. Edinburgh City Council, which faces making more than £90m in savings over three years, set its revenue budget at just over £1bn for 2011/12. It expects to save £51m in efficiency measures, including streamlining and reducing layers of management and improving procurement of goods and services. Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones says the cost of spending cuts on Wales could be felt for generations. He said Wales was facing its toughest challenge since devolution with a "devastating impact". As he spoke, a new poll suggested 57% in Wales believe public sector cuts were being implemented unfairly. But the Wales Office said most thought cuts were the result of the "economic chaos" left by Labour and the UK government was acting in a fair manner Torfaen Council plans to axe 80 jobs and save £9.2m. The council said it needed to save £9.2m to balance the books. Other Welsh councils which have announced cuts include Cardiff, which is envisaging cuts totalling £90m and 250 jobs over three years. Rhondda Cynon Taf will save £20m a year over three years, Flintshire will cut spending by £12m next year and Wrexham will lose £8.1m from its budget in the next 12 months. Northern Ireland The Northern Ireland executive has extended the consultation period on its draft budget by a week. It aims to save £4bn over the next four years, with cuts planned across all departments. In the budget announced before Christmas by NI Finance Minister Sammy Wilson, education will lose £67m, regional development £63m and justice £48m The deadline for submissions will now be 16 February because so many departments were late publishing their spending plans. All government departments are expected to see falling revenue with the exception of the core health service budget, which will see a marginal increase in real terms.

ये ब्रिटेन भर में परिषदों द्वारा अब तक घोषित की गई सेवाओं और नौकरियों में कटौती में से हैं। कई ने अभी तक औपचारिक रूप से अपनी योजनाओं की घोषणा नहीं की है, जिसमें ग्रेटर लंदन और उत्तर पूर्व में परिषदें शामिल हैं।


Profile: Mokhtar Belmokhtar

Summary: Mokhtar Belmokhtar - a one-eyed war veteran nicknamed "Mr Marlboro" and described as "uncatchable" - achieved international notoriety for ordering a deadly attack on an internationally run Algerian gas plant in January.

Four months later, he was reported to have masterminded two suicide attacks in Niger, targeting a military base in Agadez and the French-run uranium mine in Arlit, killing at least 25 people. He has been declared dead many times, the latest by a US air strike on 14 June in Libya, according to the country's authorities. However, Belmokhtar has survived previous announcements of his death. In March 2013, the Chadian army claimed to have killed him, only for him to resurface months later. For years, the US government has been offering a reward of up to $5m (£3.3m) for information leading to his location. "He is one of the best known warlords of the Sahara," Stephen Ellis, an academic at the African Studies Centre in Leiden in The Netherlands, says. He became known as "Mr Marlboro" because of his role in cigarette-smuggling across the Sahel region to finance his jihad, which he has recently waged under the banner of the Signed-in-Blood Battalion. "Belmokhtar has been active in political, ideological and criminal circles in the Sahara for the past two decades," Jon Marks, an academic at the London-based think-tank Chatham House, told the BBC. Mokhtar Belmokhtar Profile: Al-Qaeda in North Africa 'Emir of the Sahel' Born in Ghardaia in eastern Algeria in 1972, Belmokhtar - according to interviews posted on Islamist websites - was attracted as a schoolboy to waging jihad. Inspired to avenge the 1989 killing of Palestinian Islamist ideologue Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, he travelled to Afghanistan as a 19 year old to receive training from al-Qaeda. "While there, Belmokhtar claims [on Islamist websites] to have made connections with jihadis from around the world," says the US-based Jamestown Foundation, in a report published on its website. "Moreover, Belmokhtar claims to have been to battlefronts 'from Qardiz to Jalalabad to Kabul'." When he returned to Algeria in 1993, the country was already in the throes of conflict after the French-backed Algerian military annulled elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win. Belmokhtar joined the conflict, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and became a key figure in the militant Armed Islamist Group (GIA) and later the breakaway Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). Algerian journalist Mohamed Arezki Himeur says Belmokhtar lost his left eye in fighting with government troops in the 1990s and now wears a false eye. "He has been condemned to death [by Algeria's courts] several times," he adds. When the GSPC merged with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Belmokhtar headed an AQIM battalion in the desert between Algeria and Mali. After AQIM stripped him of his title as "emir of the Sahel" as a result of in-fighting, Belmokhtar launched a new jihadist group in 2012, known variously as the Signed-in-Blood Battalion, the Masked Men Brigade and the Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade. The bloody attack on the In Amenas gas facility in south-eastern Algeria was its first big operation, showing that he remained influential despite his marginalisation within AQIM. Among the hundreds of hostages seized were many Western workers. By the time Algerian forces had brought the crisis to an end, 38 people were dead, of whom all but one were foreigners. It was thought Belmokhtar's aim had been to move the Western hostages to northern Mali, where French troops had intervened to oust an alliance of Islamist militants. Sightings of Belmokhtar had been reported in the two main cities in northern Mali, Timbuktu and Gao, since the al-Qaeda-linked rebels seized control of the region in 2011. "He knows the Sahara Desert very well," says Mr Himeur. Tuareg ties In recent years, Belmokhtar has gained notoriety as a hostage-taker across the vast Sahara, often demanding multi-million dollar ransoms from Western governments which - along with cigarette-smuggling - finances his jihad. Former UN Niger envoy Robert Fowler was captured by Belmokhtar loyalists outside Niger's capital, Niamey, in December 2008. "We were frog-marched and thrown into the back of a truck... We began our descent into hell - a 1,000km [600-mile] journey northwards, into the Sahara Desert," he told the BBC. "I think I know instinctively what they [the hostages captured in Algeria were] going through." In its report, the Jamestown Foundation said Belmokhtar had been able to operate across borders because of his deep ties to the region. "Key to Belmokhtar's Saharan activities has been his strong connections with local Tuareg communities... Belmokhtar is reported to have married four wives from local Arab and Tuareg communities," it said. In June 2012, Algerian media reported that Belmokhtar - described in 2002 by French intelligence sources as "uncatchable" - had been killed in clashes between Islamists and Tuareg separatists in northern Mali. But this turned out to be untrue. The Signed-in-Blood Battalion warned in December 2012 against any attempt to drive out the Islamists from Mali. "We will respond forcefully [to all attackers]; we promise we will follow you to your homes and you will feel pain and we will attack your interests," the group said, according to Sahara Media. The attacks in Niger, while planned by Belmokhtar, were allegedly carried out by his allies in Mujao fighters - angered by Niger's co-operation with France and involvement in Mali. Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou believes the militants who carried out the attack came from new bases in southern Libya. His country has contributed soldiers to the 6,000-strong West African force in Mali, which deployed following the French intervention in January 2012 and which will be incorporated into the new UN force in July. After the Niger attacks, an statement allegedly posted online by the Signed-in-Blood Battalion and signed by Belmokhtar urged Niger's withdrawal with this warning: "Columns of commandos and those seeking martyrdom are ready and waiting for their targets."

जनवरी में अंतरराष्ट्रीय स्तर पर संचालित अल्जीरियाई गैस संयंत्र पर एक घातक हमले का आदेश देने के लिए मुख्तार बेलमोख्तार-एक आंख वाले युद्ध के दिग्गज, जिनका उपनाम "मिस्टर मार्लबोरो" था और जिन्हें "अजेय" के रूप में वर्णित किया गया था, ने अंतर्राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर कुख्याति हासिल की।


PM takes the low emissions road

Summary: A 10-point green agenda from Boris Johnson is highly political, and raises big questions about how or if it can be delivered in Scotland. The shift to cars and eventually trucks being low/no emission leaves a sizeable gap in Treasury revenue, and raises once more the option of road user charging. It is part of a wider economic and business shift to figuring out what needs to be done to reach climate change targets, with significant plans this week from Aggreko, one of Scotland's big and polluting energy companies.

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland It's time for Boris Johnson to save the planet, and his premiership. The prime minister has opted for a re-set; post-Brexit, eventually post-Covid, post-Dominic Cummings. COP 26, the mega-conference in Glasgow, beckons next November. He will have a more agreeable and amenable US president, or vice president Kamala Harris, to welcome to the Scottish Events Campus on Clydeside. So this week, we get a grand vision, or at least a 10-point plan, to paint the UK economy a lively shade of green. Sales of petrol and diesel cars will be phased out by 2030, with only the cleanest of hybrids allowed for the years thereafter. That's quite a target - to re-tool the car industry, and install sufficient charging points, with big shifts required in rewiring power distribution to let that happen. It's also a consideration for your next car purchase. There will be more rapid obsolescence for fossil-fuel vehicles, and therefore declining re-sale prices. And there's the start of a conversation about road freight going diesel-free. No deadline yet, but like buses, other targets will be along sooner than you would think. Power companies will be delighted, as they are every time a politician sets out a vision and a target: once that's set, they present the government with the bill, which is duly passed on to the public, as customer. The 10 points include hydrogen power and other innovations, low-emissions marine and aviation travel, plus adaptations to make public buildings more efficient. How much applies in Scotland is complicated. Scotland has had a more ambitious target for phasing out diesel and petrol by 2032, but that's now being leapfrogged. Will 2030 now be matched? Probably. What of the tax implications? Holyrood controls Scottish roads, but not road traffic law, or fuel tax or vehicle excise duty - the latter charged at no or low rates for low-emission vehicles. Removing those taxes from the Treasury's weaponry, Rishi Sunak and his successors are going to have to find a replacement for the revenue lost. Already this week, we've seen the idea floated of road user charges, based on mileage and time of use. It's not in the prime minister's 10 points this week, but it's probably in the top 20. Road user charging has green credentials and the technology is not far off. But that flag has been run up the pole before, and quickly shot down. It's politically difficult, and all the moreso if it's seen as a revenue grab. Many of Boris Johnson's targets for car charging points, coastal defences and forestry seem to apply only to England. But to hit his targets for wind and marine power, he will have to reach into other parts of the UK. Might this require Whitehall and St Andrew's House to co-ordinate the introduction of such charges in the next few years? And how could that be done? Or could this bit of part-devolved territory be the battleground on which the UK government parks its environmental tanks, to push devolution back? That would be in keeping with city growth funds, and it may also be the way in which Whitehall distributes the post-Brexit replacement for European structural funds. Either way, is there a plan? It's just possible, given what else he's been saying about Scotland and devolution, that the prime minister has not thought through the devolved implications. While government gears up for a decade and more of greening the economy, business sectors are preparing their plans. The salmon farming industry did so recently. And on Tuesday, one of Scotland's biggest corporates set out its own ambitions, which could have implications around the globe. Aggreko is based in Glasgow with an assembly plant near Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire. It provides temporary power - famously to the Olympics and World Cup, and also to music festivals, to hurricane-hit bits of the Caribbean, to mines far from the power grid in the Australian outback, and to entire nations where the power sector has failed to keep pace with economic development. It's a grubby business, with around 70% of its fleet of generators running off diesel. There's already a shift under way to gas. In Nigeria and other countries, it is more economic to truck gas as much as 1000 kilometres in a "virtual pipeline" to the generator than to run off diesel. That is destined to grow fast. And with investment announced this week of between £250m and £350m, Aggreko is shifting at a much faster pace to reach 30-40% diesel by 2030, and net zero 20 years after that. In addition to gas, there's to be a big push into biofuels and recycled cooking oil. Solar and photovoltaic has been getting much cheaper and expanding rapidly in developing nations. Aggreko's chief executive Chris Weston sees that as more of an opportunity than a threat to his business model. It is intermittent, and requires a big power company to provide both the baseload and the batteries to even out supply. Batteries large and small are going to be a much bigger part of the Aggreko business model - up by around 30-fold to 1.5 gigawatts of capacity. Further down the road, when the technology is commercially viable, Aggreko wants to adapt much of its generator fleet to hydrogen. All this activity ought to be good news for Aggreko workers at its Lomondgate plant near Dumbarton. A lot of those generators will have to be adapted for new fuel sources. More jobs are likely, but not being promised yet. Meanwhile, after a huge fall in demand for its power at events around the world, there are stirrings of recovery. In Japan, staffing is on the up in a warehouse full of Aggreko generators which were parked there last summer, with the postponement of the Olympics. For future Commonwealth Games and World Cups, the tendering process is back again. Mr Weston says the order book is looking more lively in the second quarter of next year. With everyone hoping a vaccine can open up gatherings for social, cultural and sporting events, it looks livelier still by the second half of next year - probably including some temporary power support for the vast environment conference close to company headquarters.

बोरिस जॉनसन का एक 10-सूत्री हरित एजेंडा अत्यधिक राजनीतिक है, और इस बारे में बड़े सवाल उठाता है कि इसे स्कॉटलैंड में कैसे या कैसे वितरित किया जा सकता है। कारों और अंततः ट्रकों में बदलाव कम/कोई उत्सर्जन नहीं होने से ट्रेजरी राजस्व में एक बड़ा अंतर पैदा होता है, और एक बार फिर सड़क उपयोगकर्ता शुल्क लेने का विकल्प बढ़ता है। यह यह पता लगाने के लिए एक व्यापक आर्थिक और व्यावसायिक बदलाव का हिस्सा है कि जलवायु परिवर्तन के लक्ष्यों तक पहुंचने के लिए क्या करने की आवश्यकता है, इस सप्ताह स्कॉटलैंड की बड़ी और प्रदूषणकारी ऊर्जा कंपनियों में से एक एग्रेको की महत्वपूर्ण योजनाओं के साथ।


Man charged with murder over Glenn Boardman stab death

Summary: A man has been charged with murder following the discovery of a body at a house in Sheffield.

The body of Glenn Boardman, 59, was found by emergency crews called to the house on Steven Close in Chapeltown at 00:30 BST on Tuesday. A post-mortem examination found Mr Boardman had been stabbed to death. Michael Andrew Goddard, aged 50, of Steven Close, Chapeltown, is expected to appear at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on Friday.

शेफील्ड में एक घर में एक शव मिलने के बाद एक व्यक्ति पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


London fire: Six questions for the investigation

Summary: A total of 80 people are feared dead after a huge fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell tower block in west London, destroying 151 homes. Several questions emerged for the investigation into the disaster, some of which have been answered.

1. How did the fire start? Firefighters were called to Grenfell Tower at 00:54 BST on 14 June and the fire was brought under control at 01:14 BST the next day. The fire started in a Hotpoint fridge freezer and the government ordered immediate testing of the appliance. Police said the fire had not been started deliberately and the speed with which the fire spread was "unexpected". Fridge freezers and other electrical appliances are a relatively common cause of fires. Anyone who has a white Hotpoint fridge freezer model number FF175BP or graphite fridge freezer model number FF175BG should register their appliance with the manufacturer to receive any updates. It is believed to have started on the fourth floor. Tower blocks are designed so fires should stay contained within individual flats. But this clearly did not happen. In 2009, three women and three children were killed by a fire in the 14-storey Lakanal House, in Camberwell, south-east London, which started in a TV set on the ninth floor. Southwark Council admitted it had failed to address fire risks and was fined £270,000, plus £300,000 in costs. 2. Why did the fire spread so quickly? Footage has shown the fire spreading up one side of the building externally, before engulfing the entire block. Fire safety expert Elvin Edwards described it as a "chimney effect", adding that the wind would have fanned the flames. Cladding can create cavities which in some cases can cause a chimney effect, drawing flames up the cavity if there are no fire barriers. It is unclear whether Grenfell Tower was fitted with fire barriers. The London Fire Brigade's aerial platform vehicles can reach heights of only about 32m (105ft) - limiting how high up the blaze can be fought. Having to get 20 storeys up to rescue people in that situation "is just unbelievable", firefighter turned safety consultant Bob Parkin said. Matt Wrack, of the Fire Brigades Union, said something had clearly gone badly wrong with fire prevention procedures at the building. Before and during a recent refurbishment, the local Grenfell Action Group said the block constituted a fire risk and residents warned that site access for emergency vehicles was "severely restricted". Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning 3. Should there have been alarms and sprinklers? The block - which was built in 1974 - did not have a sprinkler system. Under current law, all new residential blocks over 30m high must have sprinkler systems fitted. There is no legal requirement for local authorities to retrofit sprinklers to tower blocks. Ronnie King, honorary secretary of the All-Party Fire Safety and Rescue Group, told LBC Radio there were about 4,000 tower blocks that did not have fire sprinklers fitted. He said after the fire in Lakanal House there had been a "recommendation, which was down to each local council and landlords to determine the appropriateness" regarding fitting sprinklers in some blocks. The coroner in the inquest into the fire also recommended that the government encouraged providers of high-rise buildings to consider the retrofitting of sprinkler systems. In Wales, sprinklers are compulsory for all newly-built houses and blocks of flats, as well as care homes and university halls of residence. Paul Fuller, chairman of the Fire Sector Federation, said sprinklers could have helped lessen the impact of the fire. He told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "We know that sprinklers are effective. "Also, sprinklers will make the environment more survivable by containing the fire and containing the smoke. But they are not a total solution." The British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association (BAFSA), the trade body for the fire sprinkler industry, said retrofitting the building with sprinklers might have cost £200,000. Rydon Construction carried out the £8.6m refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, which was completed in May last year. Kensington and Chelsea council leader Nick Paget-Brown said Grenfell Tower was not fitted with sprinklers during the refurbishment as the authority was told that fires in high-rises should be able to be contained within the flat of origin. He told BBC Newsnight there was also not a "collective view" by residents to retrofit sprinklers in all flats as it would have delayed and caused further disruption to the upgrade. Some residents have also reported not hearing fire alarms. Alarms will often go off only on the floor affected, according to fire expert Elfyn Edwards. 4. Did a renovation in 2016 affect the building's safety? Rydon Construction, which carried out the refurbishment, said it had delivered a "number of improvements" to community facilities and energy efficiency to the building. "Externally, rain screen cladding, curtain wall facade and replacement windows were fitted, improving thermal insulation and modernising the exterior of the building," it said. Fire safety experts have pointed to cladding on the building as a possible reason the blaze spread so quickly externally. The cladding requested for the refurbishment had a metal outer coating and an expanded foam interior. It had a polyethylene - or plastic - core instead of an even more fireproof alternative, BBC Newsnight understands. However, experts told the programme that cladding with a mineral core is considered to be less flammable. The Times reported that the particular type of cladding used on Grenfell Tower is banned in the US on buildings taller than 40ft (12m) - for fire safety reasons. It says the manufacturer makes two fire-resistant alternatives, but they are more expensive. The paper calculates the difference in cost at Grenfell Tower would have amounted to less than £5,000 for the entire building. The Department for Communities and Local Government said that if the cladding used was a composite aluminium panel with a polyethylene core, it would be non-compliant with current building regulations guidance. This material should not be used as cladding on buildings over 18m high, the department said. It would not comment on the type used at Grenfell. This would be subject to investigations into the fire's cause, it said. Chancellor Philip Hammond told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that there were two questions to be asked regarding cladding. "One, are our regulations correct, do they permit the right kind of materials and ban the wrong kind of materials?" he said. "The second question is were they correctly complied with? That will be a subject that the inquiry will look at." Preliminary tests on samples of building insulation showed it burned soon after the test started, and more quickly than the cladding tiles. They both failed the police's safety tests which are similar to those being carried out by the government. The cladding, insulation, fixings and installation will be examined both individually and how they worked together. Police said all criminal charges were being considered "from manslaughter onwards" including health and safety and fire offences. Every company involved in the building and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower would also be looked at as part of the investigation, they said. Were green targets to blame? By Roger Harrabin, environment analyst Cladding can be used to improve thermal insulation and energy efficiency within buildings. Some commentators are now asking whether green energy targets are to blame for Grenfell Tower fire. But campaigners for warm homes say the insulation policy is right - it's the implementation that's wrong. That's because insulation has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in cold damp tower blocks. Comfort has improved, health is better, bills are slashed. Carbon emissions are down. In fact insulation needs to be massively extended as the government strives to reduce fuel poverty and curb carbon emissions. But engineers will need to use insulation that's safe for tower blocks - and then prove to sceptical tenants that it is safe. The Fire Protection Association (FPA), the UK's national fire safety organisation, says that when properly fitted - and with its polyethylene insulation expertly encapsulated - cladding should resist fire. In Dubai, recent high-rise building fires, including at the 79-storey Torch tower in 2015, spread because of cladding, according to fire engineering consultancy Tenable Dubai. Ray Bailey, managing director at Harley Facades Limited, which installed the cladding, has said: "At this time, we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower." Rydon said its work met "all required building regulations, as well as fire regulation and health and safety standards". A newsletter from Rydon sent to residents after the refurbishment said that smoke detection systems had been "upgraded and extended". Local authorities are required to ensure appropriate fire safety procedures are in place in council-run blocks. Inside Housing - a magazine for the UK social housing sector - has reported that information released by Kensington and Chelsea Council under the Freedom of Information Act shows the most recent fire risk assessment on the tower was in December 2015. Kensington and Chelsea Council leader Nick Paget-Brown said high-rise buildings were regularly inspected. 5. Was the advice to stay put correct? Residents of tower blocks such as Grenfell Tower, whose flats are not affected by fire or smoke, are usually advised to stay in place. Safety standards are meant to contain fires to the individual flat affected and keep stairwells and hallways free of smoke for some time, says Graham Fieldhouse, allowing the fire to be fought and evacuations carefully managed. "[Firefighters] don't need hundreds of people coming down the stairs when they are trying to fight the fire," the fire safety expert told the BBC. Geoff Wilkinson, a fire and building inspector, told the BBC that one of his "major concerns" was that smoke seemed to have spread into escape routes. A number of witnesses have told the BBC that hours after the fire first broke out, residents were still being told to stay in their flats and await for the fire service. 6. How will other buildings be affected? A nationwide operation to identify buildings with cladding like that used in Grenfell Tower has seen local authorities urgently assessing their tower blocks for fire safety. Councils have been sending in samples of cladding used in their high-rise blocks to see if they are dangerous. They are trying to establish whether any materials used are the same as or similar to those thought to have caused the Grenfell fire. In total, 259 high-rise blocks have now been found with cladding that raises concerns. In Camden in north London, residents have been evacuated from four tower blocks over fire safety concerns. The Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, has also said safety checks are also urgently needed in hospitals, offices and private buildings and said NHS England was in contact with around 200 health trusts to check cladding on hospitals.

पश्चिमी लंदन में 24 मंजिला ग्रेनफेल टावर ब्लॉक में भीषण आग लगने से 151 घर नष्ट हो गए, जिसमें कुल 80 लोगों के मारे जाने की आशंका है। आपदा की जांच के लिए कई सवाल सामने आए, जिनमें से कुछ का जवाब दिया गया है।


Australia risks Chinese anger over power grid sale

Summary: Australia's decision to preliminarily block Chinese and Hong Kong bidders from taking a controlling stake in Ausgrid, the country's largest Australia network, over national security concerns, is likely to be met with outrage and indignation in China. The Chinese don't like being snubbed.

Karishma VaswaniAsia business correspondent@KarishmaBBCon Twitter That's not surprising - after all, who likes being dumped? And this is starting to look like a recurring pattern. Australia's move comes as the UK has postponed approval for the Hinkley point nuclear power project, in which China's General Nuclear Power Corp will have a minority stake, on similar concerns. CGN is also accused of leading a conspiracy to steal American power industry secrets to speed up the development and production of Chinese reactor technology. Szuhsiung Ho, a senior adviser to CGN, is due in court in the US next week, and is accused of recruiting American experts to obtain sensitive nuclear technology for China, in a plot that prosecutors say threatened US security. But the UK's snub has already had serious consequences - verbally at least. Writing in the Financial Times, China's ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaming has said the delay to approving the plant had brought the two countries to a "crucial historical juncture." He hinted that "mutual trust" could be in jeopardy if the UK government decided not to approve the deal. There's been no official comment yet about the blocking of the Australian deal from China's State Grid Corp. But it is a state owned enterprise, and this may be seen as an affront to China's global ambitions, or viewed as yet another attempt to cast doubt on China's motivations in the international business arena. State Grid Corp was attempting to buy a 50.4% controlling stake in Ausgrid in a deal reportedly worth some $7.5bn (£5.8bn). Hong Kong's Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, owned by HK billionaire Li Ka-shing, was also bidding separately - and has quickly distanced itself from this rejection. In a statement to the BBC, it said: "We believe that the Australian government must have reasons beyond the obvious which led them to make today's announcement. The issue is unrelated to CKI." The rejection of CKI is being read by some Australian commentators as a consequence of the close ties between the firm's billionaire boss Li Ka-shing and the Chinese government. It's not you, it's me. Or perhaps it is you… There have been lots of Chinese investments in Australia that have gone through without a hitch. But this time, Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison has said that the foreign investment proposals from both bidders "were contrary to the national interest." He hasn't provided any further details, just saying national security issues were identified in critical power and communications services that Ausgrid provides to businesses and governments. It's too early to draw too many parallels to the UK's Hinkley deal - but on the surface at least, there are some. In the Hinkley plant delay, the UK didn't explicitly say national security concerns were a major factor, but there have been reports that the new British Prime Minister Theresa May was concerned about Chinese involvement in a UK nuclear power station, and that was the primary reason for postponing the deal. China snubbed This isn't the first time that a Chinese led consortium has been rejected in Australia or elsewhere around the world - just take a look at the deals that have been rejected over the last few years: July 2016: The United Kingdom postpones approval for a new nuclear reactor plant in which China's General Nuclear Power Corporation would have a minority stake, on security concerns May 2016: Australia blocks Chinese consortium led by Shanghai Pengxin Group from buying an 80% stake in Kidman & Co - the world's biggest cattle farm - on concerns that it would not be in the "national interest". March 2012: Australia blocks China's Huawei Technologies from tendering for contracts for National Broadband Network, over cyber-security concerns. Huawei has also encountered problems in the US over security concerns. Australia blocks Chinese power grid sale But is snubbing China justified? Not everyone thinks so. "When the government decided to stop Huawei from buying the national broadband network in 2012, that made sense," says Hugh White from the Australian National University. "If you have a lot of intelligence equipment in the national broadband network, you can conceivably gather a lot of sensitive data. But what's the concern over a power grid - that the Chinese might turn off the electricity? That's absurd." Mr White added that it was hard to determine what national security concerns Australia has because the government has not made those issues clear. "Australian governments have proved to be very poor at understanding how to manage relations with China - they are a bit bewildered by China's rise," he said. "We need to figure out how we live in a world where China has become the principal economic player in our neighbourhood." But it's not just about politics or security concerns. "It is pretty clear that Australians and local bidders are becoming frustrated that they cannot compete in the bidding process of assets being privatised on the back of premiums Chinese or HK players are wiling to pay," Lindsay David, the co-founder of LF Economics, tells me. China's economic rise will no doubt continue - and even if the economy is slowing down, its ambitions to own assets overseas won't grind to a halt. Increasingly Chinese companies also have the ability to spend more than other firms. That is bound to create some resentment in the marketplace. It's not hard to see why China is sometimes the object of suspicion, when it comes to these overseas acquisitions. But the countries that China wants to invest in will increasingly have to balance their national security concerns, with their economic and commercial ones too.

राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा चिंताओं को लेकर देश के सबसे बड़े ऑस्ट्रेलिया नेटवर्क ऑसग्रिड में चीनी और हांगकांग बोलीदाताओं को नियंत्रित हिस्सेदारी लेने से रोकने के ऑस्ट्रेलिया के फैसले को चीन में आक्रोश और आक्रोश का सामना करने की संभावना है। चीनियों को नजरअंदाज किया जाना पसंद नहीं है।


New Press and Journal editor named as Damian Bates

Summary: A successor to the longest-serving editor of a daily Scottish newspaper has been named.

Damian Bates is to replace Derek Tucker, who was the Aberdeen-based editor of the Press and Journal for the past 18 years. Mr Bates is the editor of the the Press and Journal's sister paper, the Evening Express. The Press and Journal - which dates back to 1747 - is a regional daily for the north and north east of Scotland.

एक दैनिक स्कॉटिश समाचार पत्र के सबसे लंबे समय तक सेवा करने वाले संपादक के उत्तराधिकारी को नामित किया गया है।


What we can expect to see at North Korea's 'biggest military parade'

Summary: North Korea is preparing for what is expected to be the largest military parade in its history. Thousands of soldiers have practised for months to ensure that each step is marched with precision and each fervent cry of adoration will be heard by the Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

By Laura BickerBBC News, Seoul These events are often ostentatious formal displays of military might to show a devoted people paying homage to their leader in closely directed goose-stepping drills. Mistakes are not tolerated. But these parades can also be part provocation. A chance to show off new missiles and weaponry despite being under strict economic sanctions. The state has not featured any ballistic missiles in its parades since Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held their first summit in 2018. Talks between the two sides broke down in Hanoi last February without a deal and North Korea has continued to test a number of new short range ballistic missiles. This event, on 10 October, to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party comes just weeks before the US presidential election. So is North Korea going to use it to make a point and prove that it still has weapons capable of striking the United States? New hardware on parade It's certainly going to be big, according to the editor-in-chief of the Daily NK, a Seoul-based website with paid sources in the North. Lee Sang Yong told me that as early as March, Pyongyang had ordered its military to mobilise 32,000 soldiers. It's become so large that the site where soldiers practise has had to be expanded. "The Pyongyang Mirim airport now has two new roads and 10 new buildings. Therefore, I think it is likely that we will see Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles [ICBMs] or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles [SLBMs] on display at the parade this time," he said. "Also, 600 students and researchers from Kim Il-sung University will also take part. This is not an insignificant number. This university is where they develop new talent for missile development. By bringing them to the parade or putting them on display, North Korea may be trying to install pride and respect for the missile development talents." Jeongmin Kim, an analyst with NK News, said North Korea does not always use these events to prove a point to the outside world. "We have to remember that many times - for a hereditary dictatorship especially - they constantly have to prove legitimacy to rule to their domestic audience. "So 10 October will also aim to do exactly that: trying to show its people, with dazzling parades with uplifting propaganda slogans, that they are 'doing okay', despite all of what has been going on this year. "Of course, precedents do point to the possibility of Kim Jong-un or other high-level officials making a speech that may involve some message aimed at the outside world, such as how they are not waiting around for sanctions relief any more and will focus on 'self-reliance'." Cut off more than ever While some will be watching for any new missiles on display, there is growing concern about the welfare of the 25 million North Korean people. 2020 has been a bad year for most countries, but for North Korea it has the potential to be devastating. "I hear there is a surge in the number of orphans and homeless street kids in the North this year," said Lee Sang Yong. "Even though we cannot even imagine it here in South Korea - there are people in the North who are dying and starving." The state closed its borders to the outside world in January to prevent an outbreak of Covid 19 spreading from neighbouring China. Authorities have reportedly issued "shoot-to-kill" orders along the border and created a buffer zone to stop anyone entering the country. Diplomatic sources told me earlier this year that stockpiles of PPE and other essential medical supplies, including vaccines, had built up at the border with China, unable to get through. North Korea claims to have had no cases of Covid-19, but Kim Jong-un continues to hold high-level meetings to ensure tight restrictions remain in place. The North Korean people are now cut off from the outside world more than ever before. Even movement between provinces has been limited. "Land, sea, and air. It's a complete shutdown of both people and material," said Mr Lee. "Unless you are military personnel or a high-ranking officer, no one is moving inside of North Korea. Quarantine measures against Covid-19 are so tight. "The North Korean economy has come to a halt. Smugglers and small traders at the border have questioned why the regime is risking the fate of the economy if there is no Covid-19 in the country." Watch a previous parade: Six months' training for 10 minutes on parade Trade with its key ally China has plummeted by nearly 70% in the first eight months of this year, as compared to last year. The impoverished state has also been battered by extreme weather in recent months and Korean state television spends its afternoons showing "heroic" efforts to overcome the damage from several typhoons. Kim Jong-un has now ordered a nationwide drive to try to boost the ailing economy, describing it as an "80-day battle". In short, that means more work for the North Korean people, extra hours in the fields or factories and additional duties in their towns and villages. The harder they struggle, the more loyal they will seem to local leaders. The message blasted across state TV is one of "self-reliance". In the South, farms across the country are busy harvesting rice. But it's hard to know if this is happening in the North. It's difficult to get a clear picture of how badly the state's harvests have been hit, but with 11 million people in the country thought to be food insecure, even a small number of rain-ravaged fields can amount to thousands going hungry. A tale of two Koreas My team travelled to the Demilitarised Zone near Geosong on the east coast. We drive past white sandy beaches flanked by high barbed wire. Bright blue skies give us a crystal clear view of the mountains to the north. A few checkpoints are visible on the peaks From here, curious South Koreans love to peer into the North. This is as close as they can get. Pyongyang dramatically cut off all communication with Seoul in June and blew up the inter-Korean liaison office Earlier this month an incident in disputed waters to the west of the peninsula saw a South Korean man, thought to have been trying to defect, shot and killed. His body was burned. It shocked South Koreans. And yet the North still has friends here. Some still harbour hopes of ending the 70-year war even after Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un could not reach a deal on denuclearisation. Just three years ago, North and South Koreans competed together at the Winter Olympics in Gangwon province and the local governor believes it's time to look again at these types of exchanges as a path to peace. "The effort to reach a big deal resulted in no deal. It is time for us to go back to develop non-political initiatives and to achieve small deals in sport and cultural exchanges," said Choi Moon Soon. "It is very unfortunate that we are left with the situation that even small exchanges between North and South Korea are cut off by pursuing the political big deal and revealing differences in the process." Mr Choi would like to create a United Nations peace zone at the border. International sanctions mean this is an unlikely dream for now. Instead Mr Choi acknowledged that North Korea is keeping a close eye on the US presidential election to figure out its next move. "I am not sure if I will see North and South Korea unified in my life time but I have two daughters and I would like it if they didn't inherit this volatile situation. We live with continuing threat and potential of conflict. We shouldn't pass down this volatility to our next generation." That may be out of his hands and instead fall to whoever wins the White House. Pyongyang is trying to read the situation inside and outside its country. It's not yet clear which path it's willing to take. Will its current perilous predicament eventually encourage Kim Jong-un back to the negotiating table. Or will he look further inward and keep the borders closed. The North Korean leader has been unusually quiet this year. This parade is a chance to show his hand and his agenda and put the fate of his country back into the public eye. You may also be interested in:

उत्तर कोरिया अपने इतिहास की सबसे बड़ी सैन्य परेड की तैयारी कर रहा है। हजारों सैनिकों ने यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए महीनों तक अभ्यास किया है कि प्रत्येक कदम को सटीकता के साथ आगे बढ़ाया जाए और सर्वोच्च नेता किम जोंग-उन द्वारा आराधना की प्रत्येक तीव्र पुकार सुनी जाएगी।


Ballynahinch church is burgled twice in under 24 hours

Summary: Police are investigating after a church in Ballynahinch, County Down was burgled twice in under 24 hours.

The first break-in at the New Testament Pentecostal Church on Main Street was reported on Friday at 12.10 GMT. A second break-in at the same church was reported at 06:20 GMT on Saturday. Police are still working to establish what was taken in the two incidents and are appealing to the public for information. Insp Alastair Macdonald said: "Our enquiries are continuing and I am appealing to anyone who has information about these incidents to call detectives."

काउंटी डाउन के बालीनाहिंच में एक चर्च में 24 घंटे से भी कम समय में दो बार चोरी होने के बाद पुलिस जांच कर रही है।


The unlikely origins of the word 'thug'

Summary: In the wake of violence and unrest in Baltimore, media commentators as well as politicians - including President Barack Obama - called rioters "thugs", and were criticised for it. But the term has a much older history.

By Bradley CampbellPRI's The World In the US, "thug" is a loaded term. It's surfaced a lot in recent months, usually surrounding protests against the deaths of young black men in various American cities. Activists and cultural critics have pointed out the term is often used to refer to black Americans, and white Americans doing similar things would not be labelled the same way. And it's back in the news this week as rioters in Baltimore were tagged as "thugs." Even the city's African-American mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, used the term, though she softened her comments on Wednesday. So it may be a surprise that the word originates far away, in India. "As far as I can tell, thug goes back to the 14th Century," says Megan Garber, who traced the word's origin for a story in The Atlantic. "There was a gang of criminals known as the thuggee." Garber says the Thugs were a huge criminal network that operated all around India's main roads. "They would basically befriend travellers along the roads, gain the travellers' trust," she says. "And then they would murder them, usually by strangulation, and steal their valuables. It was all very violent." Mark Twain was one of the first Americans to report on the group. Observations about the Thugs appeared in his book, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Published in 1897, the book started the steady rise of "thug" in popularity and usage in American English. In the United Kingdom, the Thugs were much better known, thanks to British colonial rule in India. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used the word decades ago with relative frequency. "Thugs" were everyone from unruly soccer fans to people involved in race riots. Garber says the word thug actually rebounded in American popular culture, thanks in part to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. "There was a plotline that involved kidnapping by way of thugs," she says. "A lot of Indian Americans actually protested the portrayal of the thugs in that movie, but that sort of brought it back into the cultural presence again." Then hip-hop took the word. Tupac had it tattooed onto his body, and Cleveland's Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sent the word into cars and living rooms across the country. In this conception of the word, Garber writes, thugs "are both victims and agents of injustice, they are both the products and producers of violence, and mayhem, and outrage". She's also been listening to how people have been using the word in the Baltimore riots. "It's this very effective way of suggesting that the people who are doing the rioting and who are being called thugs don't actually have a right to their outrage," she says. That's partly why there's widespread disgust in the African American community over its use. Just take the response Baltimore Councilman Carl Stokes gave to CNN's Erin Burnett over the word. "It's not the right word to call our children 'thugs,'" Mr Stokes said. "These are children who have been set aside, marginalised, who have not been engaged by us." "But how does that justify what they did?" Ms Burnett said. "That's a sense of right and wrong. They know it's wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old persons' home. I mean, come on." "Come on? Just call them [n-word] . Just call them [n-word]," Mr Stokes said. "No, we don't have to call them by names such as that. "You wouldn't call your child a thug if they should do something that would not be what you expect them to do." Garber isn't surprised the word has become so loaded. "In some sense, the history of language is about people trying to wield power over other people," she says. "And so this is just one more example of that strife and that effort." This story first appeared on the PRI's The World - a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH in Boston. Hear more at PRI.com/TheWorld.

बाल्टीमोर में हिंसा और अशांति के मद्देनजर, मीडिया टिप्पणीकारों के साथ-साथ राजनेताओं-राष्ट्रपति बराक ओबामा सहित-ने दंगाइयों को "ठग" कहा और इसके लिए उनकी आलोचना की गई। लेकिन इस शब्द का बहुत पुराना इतिहास है।


US-Turkey row: Pastor a 'pawn in personal feud'

Summary: The US is increasing pressure on Turkey to try to secure the freedom of American pastor Andrew Brunson. While the leaders of the two Nato allies clash with each other, Mr Brunson's fate hangs in the balance.

By Tara McKelveyBBC White House reporter US President Donald Trump tweeted earlier this week that Mr Brunson was being held "hostage" in Turkey. Mr Brunson should be released, he said. Mr Brunson has been held for almost two years because of his alleged links to political groups that are outlawed in Turkey and he is now under house arrest. Members of the Protestant evangelical church in the US - part of the president's base of support - have rallied on his behalf, demanding his freedom. Mr Trump and his aides have amplified their demands and criticised the actions of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A senior US official has wondered aloud whether Turkey could even be considered a true Nato ally, given how Turkish officials have treated Mr Brunson. "A real Nato ally wouldn't have arrested Brunson in the first place," the official said. Mr Trump and Mr Erdogan, says the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Jon Alterman, are in a personal feud - with Mr Brunson as a "pawn". Mr Brunson, 50, is originally from Black Mountain, North Carolina, and he runs a small evangelical church in Izmir, Turkey. He has denied any wrongdoing. US officials have imposed financial sanctions against Turkey and called for Mr Brunson's release. Turkish officials say they won't cave in to threats from the US. Officials from the US and Turkey have imposed tariffs on one another's goods. The conflict between the two countries has aggravated Turkey's economic crisis - the lira has lost about a third of its value against the dollar since January. And now US officials are threatening to retaliate against Turkey even more. Senior US officials are discussing additional sanctions that could be imposed. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that they had more in mind - and could be put into effect if Mr Brunson was not freed. US officials have also said that further negotiations over a contentious issue in US-Turkish relations - a Turkish state bank, Halkbank, which allegedly helped Iran to evade US sanctions - will have to wait until Mr Brunson is released. US treasury department officials have subpoenaed the bank, according to a US official, and received material from them. But at this point the US officials are unsatisfied with the material that Halkbank has provided. In addition, according to a US official, the US justice department is pursuing an investigation into Halkbank and the case, the US official warned, could turn into a criminal one. Turkish officials have said the bank did nothing illegal and shouldn't be penalised. Meanwhile the feud continues. Mr Trump wants Mr Erdogan to release Mr Brunson for humanitarian reasons. If Mr Brunson is found guilty, he could face up to 35 years in prison. But there are other reasons too, says Joshua Landis, a professor of Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. He says that if Mr Trump wins Mr Brunson's freedom, then the president can claim that his "strong-arm tactics" are effective in the realm of foreign policy. Besides that, says Mr Landis, securing the release of Mr Brunson would be welcomed by "the religious right". "That's his bread and butter," says Mr Landis. "He's doing this for them."

अमेरिका अमेरिकी पादरी एंड्रयू ब्रनसन की स्वतंत्रता की कोशिश करने के लिए तुर्की पर दबाव बढ़ा रहा है। जबकि दो नाटो सहयोगियों के नेता एक-दूसरे के साथ संघर्ष करते हैं, श्री ब्रनसन का भाग्य अधर में लटका हुआ है।


Firms left out of Jersey telephone directory

Summary: A Jersey car hire company, which was left out of this year's JT telephone directory, claims it has lost business because of the mistake.

Telecoms firm JT did not put the address or telephone number of Zebra Hire Cars and a number of other companies into its 2012 phone book. The company apologised to all those affected by the error. Barna Kutvolgyi, from JT, said the directory was "a complex document" that contained "a huge volume of data". To address the problem, the company distributed a directory supplement around the island. Philip Sturgess from Zebra Hire Cars said it had cost him business. He said: "Everyone is fighting for every bit of business and as we all know anything to do with tourism is down this year dramatically."

जर्सी की एक कार किराए पर लेने वाली कंपनी, जिसे इस साल की जे. टी. टेलीफोन निर्देशिका से बाहर रखा गया था, का दावा है कि गलती के कारण उसने व्यवसाय खो दिया है।


Why Indian women must shun sex to claim alimony

Summary: A court in southern India recently ruled that a woman divorced for being adulterous could not claim maintenance from her ex-husband. The ruling by Justice S Nagamuthu of the Madras high court may be legally sound, but the language of the judgement is worrying women's activists, writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi.

Justice Nagamuthu's ruling that to claim alimony, a woman must maintain "discipline" - in other words, remain celibate - even after her divorce has kicked up a hornet's nest in India. Indian law denies alimony to a wife "living in adultery". The high court order said that since a ruling by the Family Court which had initially granted the divorce had accepted that the woman, identified as Kanimozhi in court documents, was adulterous, she was clearly not entitled to any maintenance from her ex-husband. But the ruling also has wider implications - since the judge, in his order, goes on to insist that even after a divorce is granted a woman must continue to shun sex if she is to retain her right to maintenance. "Even after a decree for divorce is granted, if the wife wants to retain her right to claim maintenance from her former husband, she is expected to continue to maintain the same discipline, as she was expected to maintain during her marital ties, after the snapping of the marital ties also," Justice Nagamuthu wrote in the order. "In other words, during the subsistence of the marriage, the wife cannot live in adultery and in the event she lives in adultery, she loses her right to claim maintenance from her husband; similarly, even after the divorce, if she continues to maintain the same discipline, she will continue to retain the right to claim maintenance from her former husband. "If she commits any breach of the said obligation and starts living in adultery, that is, having sexual relationship with another man, she will lose her right to claim maintenance," he said. Timeline of the case: 1998: Kanimozhi marries Chinna Karuppasamy, a low-level government employee in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. 2009: Karuppasamy files a petition in the Family Court in Madurai, accusing his wife of living in adultery and seeking divorce. Kanimozhi does not challenge the order. Early 2010: Kanimozhi files her own petition in a magistrate's court, demanding 2,500 rupees ($38; £24) as monthly compensation. She denies the charge of adultery and instead accuses her husband of being involved in an illicit relationship. March 2010: Family Court grants an "ex-parte" divorce on the ground that the wife was "living in adultery". 2011: Magistrate's court rejected Kanimozhi's compensation claim and she appeals in a higher court. 2012: Principal District and Sessions Judge orders Karuppasamy to pay her 1,000 rupees ($15; £10) every month. July 2015: Madras high court judge says Kanimozhi not entitled to claim alimony if she "committed breach of the sexual obligation she had before dissolution of her marriage". In this particular case, the circumstances under which the divorce was granted also seem questionable. The Family Court order was "ex-parte" which means Kanimozhi never contested the case and never appeared in court. Reports say she's very poor, appears to not understand the complexities and nuances of the Indian legal system, and had no means to engage a good lawyer. In fact, while hearing her appeal, the high court had to appoint a legal aid counsel to help her since she had not been able to hire a lawyer. Legal experts say it's very difficult to prove adultery and the charge may not have stuck if she had been able to engage a good lawyer right at the start of her trial. A lawyer connected with the Kanimozhi case told the BBC he believed it was never proved beyond doubt that she was living in adultery. Now many in India are left wondering if justice has been denied to a poor woman. Circumstantial evidence Prabhjit Jauhar, one of Delhi's best-known divorce lawyers, says in cities, people with means can hire detectives to spy on their spouses, gather photographic evidence, collect mobile phone data, record telephone conversations and present transcripts as evidence. But even then, proving a case of adultery can be difficult and judges often have to rely on circumstantial evidence. "In one case, the Delhi high court accepted the charge of adultery saying that if a woman was found alone in a room with a man, they were obviously not singing prayers from the Bible. In another case, a woman who had long telephone conversations with a man late at night was taken to be adulterous," Mr Jauhar says. What India's maintenance law says: Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which deals with alimony, spells out clearly the three circumstances in which a "wife" is not entitled to maintenance: Women's rights activists have described the ruling as appalling and preachy. "It is one thing if a judge simply argues that adultery means losing alimony, but extending it to say that it means it continues even after divorce is an entirely different thing," said activist Kavita Krishnan. "The judge said she could claim maintenance from the man she is committing adultery with. How can you link alimony or maintenance to sex? Is the court saying you take money from any man you sleep with? "These are obviously patriarchal and sexist views that are being perpetrated. I think she has a strong case to challenge the order in Supreme Court," Ms Krishnan said.

दक्षिण भारत की एक अदालत ने हाल ही में फैसला सुनाया कि व्यभिचार के कारण तलाकशुदा महिला अपने पूर्व पति से भरण-पोषण का दावा नहीं कर सकती है। मद्रास उच्च न्यायालय के न्यायमूर्ति एस नागमुथु का फैसला कानूनी रूप से सही हो सकता है, लेकिन फैसले की भाषा महिला कार्यकर्ताओं को चिंतित कर रही है, दिल्ली में बीबीसी की गीता पांडे लिखती हैं।


Australia's 'Egg Boy' gives donations to NZ attack survivors

Summary: An Australian teenager who broke an egg on a controversial far-right senator's head says he has given almost A$100,000 (£55,000; $69,000) to survivors of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Will Connolly egged Fraser Anning in March - prompting people to flood him with donations to pay his legal costs. Mr Anning had caused fury a day earlier when he said, on the day of the shootings, Muslim migration was to blame for them. Fifty-one people died in the attacks. Mr Anning was formally censured by Australia's Senate in April for his "appalling" remarks. Mr Connolly, 17, approached the senator from behind as he gave a press conference in Melbourne on 16 March. Footage of the egging and subsequent clash went viral. It showed Mr Anning physically retaliating before his supporters tackled the teenager to the ground. Online fundraising campaigns were set up for Mr Connolly, widely dubbed "Egg boy", to "buy more eggs" and to cover potential legal fees. Police chose not to press any charges last month, instead giving the teenager an "official caution". They ruled Mr Anning had acted in self-defence. On Tuesday, Mr Connolly announced that he had transferred "all monies" to New Zealand charities in charge of official fundraising efforts. "To the victims of the tragedy, I whole heartedly hope that this can bring some relief to you," he said. Though his actions drew praise, they also sparked a conversation in Australia about forms of political protest. Another protester drew considerably less public support for throwing an egg at Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier this month. Mr Connolly told Australia's Ten network in March: "I understand what I did was not the right thing to do. However, this egg has united people." Victims of the Christchurch shootings Fifty-one people lost their lives in the shootings at two mosques in the city. Mr Anning has refused to apologise for his comments, despite a petition which was signed by more than 1.4 million people. He failed to win a new term in the Senate at Australia's general election on 18 May.

एक विवादास्पद दूर-दराज़ सीनेटर के सिर पर अंडा तोड़ने वाले एक ऑस्ट्रेलियाई किशोर का कहना है कि उसने क्राइस्टचर्च मस्जिद हमलों से बचे लोगों को लगभग 100,000 ऑस्ट्रेलियाई डॉलर (55,000 पाउंड; 69,000 डॉलर) दिए हैं।


Folkestone cat flap burglar caught by DNA on fishcake

Summary: A burglar who used a cat flap to break into a home was caught after his DNA was found on a half-eaten fishcake he left at the scene.

Jan Gina initially denied any involvement in the crime, "claiming he did not like fish," Kent Police said. He later admitted stealing bank cards and a handbag from a house in Folkestone while the owners were asleep on 9 May. The 20-year-old was sentenced to 125 weeks in a young offenders institute. Gina, from Cambridge Gardens, Folkestone, had "helped himself to a cooked fishcake" during the burglary, police said. Tests revealed his DNA on the unfinished snack and he was later found in possession of the stolen items, along with five bags of cannabis. He pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown Court to burglary and possession of a Class B drug.

एक चोर जिसने एक घर में घुसने के लिए बिल्ली के झंडे का इस्तेमाल किया था, उसका डीएनए घटनास्थल पर छोड़े गए आधे खाए हुए फिशकेक पर पाए जाने के बाद पकड़ा गया था।


Pentyrch farm blaze is extinguished say firefighters

Summary: A large blaze on a farm near Cardiff has been extinguished, say firefighters.

An outbuilding on the farm in Pentyrch had been well alight and black smoke was visible for miles around. Eye witnesses said smoke had been drifting across the M4 near junction 32 at Coryton, Cardiff. A spokesperson for South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said two crews were now damping down at the scene. There were no reports of any injuries.

अग्निशामकों का कहना है कि कार्डिफ के पास एक खेत में लगी एक बड़ी आग बुझ गई है।


Guernsey States could outsource more says expert

Summary: More services provided by the States of Guernsey could be run by the private sector, a specialist in infrastructure investment has said.

Giles Frost was invited from the UK by Guernsey Institute of Directors to be a guest speaker. He told 500 island business leaders more could be done to reduce the pressure on public finances. "I'm talking about social services, health services, leisure services." Mr Frost said. "There's a whole range of services. There are plenty of examples of them being successfully outsourced elsewhere." He said: "Most public services can be provided on an outsourced basis by private sector contractors on appropriate contracts where sufficient regulation is retained."

अवसंरचना निवेश के एक विशेषज्ञ ने कहा है कि ग्वेर्नसे राज्यों द्वारा प्रदान की जाने वाली और अधिक सेवाओं को निजी क्षेत्र द्वारा चलाया जा सकता है।