Brexit: The Brits searching for dual nationality

Summary: Do I have an Irish relative? Could I become a Spanish citizen? What about my Italian roots? After the UK's vote to leave the EU, some British people are investigating their ancestry in the hopes of getting a second passport.

The BBC has heard from Britons who have already started taking steps towards obtaining dual nationality in another EU country. Some are hoping it will help them continue to live and work in the 27 other countries that make up the union while others have more ideological reasons. Name: Rachel Pilling From: London Applying for passport in: Germany Rachel has started the process of applying for German citizenship - an option that is open to her because her Jewish grandmother fled Nazi Germany in 1936 and ultimately settled in London. The naturalisation claim under article 116 of the German Basic Law allows anybody who was deprived of their German citizenship between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945 on political, racial or religious grounds to reclaim their citizenship. Importantly, this also applies to any of their direct descendants. "I previously felt there would be no benefit in having a German passport as well as a British passport but if we leave the EU, then that may well change," says Rachel. "There is a real sense of sadness about this throughout my family. I have spoken to my grandmother and, while she will not be applying, she supports the idea of the rest of us doing so. Despite everything that happened in the past, she is really in favour of Europe and feels a lot of love for Europe. "At the moment I am free to study or work anywhere in the EU. I can't be certain that it will stay that way. If there were no physical advantages with regards to studying and working abroad then I probably wouldn't apply for a German passport but this could have a big influence on my life," she adds. Name: Joanne Munro From: Brighton Applying for passport in: Italy or Croatia Joanne doesn't actually think having an EU passport will make much practical difference, "except for shorter queues in the airport", and her reasons for applying are "symbolic". "I am an EU citizen and I'm not prepared to have anybody take that away from me," she says. "I feel European and looking at the bigger picture in the long term, we need to be able to act as one people, on one planet. There needs to be more unity, not more division so holding onto my European citizenship and passport is a way to stay loyal to that idea." The 44-year-old hopes her grandmother, born in a village near Trieste in modern-day Italy, may provide her route to obtaining a European passport. Initially confident that she would be eligible for an Italian passport under the legal principle of Jure Sanguinis (right of blood), a territorial dispute over which country Trieste belonged to back in 1922 has made her quest more challenging. She may have to apply for Croation citizenship instead. "It's an omni-shambles really but I have all of the paperwork and one way or another I am going to get a European passport," she says. Name: Oliver Baroni From: London Applying for passport in: Italy Oliver lives in Zurich and has both British and Swiss passports. As Switzerland is outside the European Union, the 44-year-old now faces the prospect of holding two non-EU passports. Since the result of the EU referendum, he has begun researching his Italian roots and says he is doing so for the benefit of his sons, aged eight and 18. "It just makes me mad that my kids won't be able to travel freely in Europe to study or work," he says. The musician also hopes that having another passport might help make it easier for his band, The HillBilly Moon Explosion, when they tour in Europe. "The first thing I did when it became clear that there had been a vote to leave the EU was to Google 'apply for Italian citizenship' and apparently it is not too difficult. The paperwork is likely to be a pain in the neck but it should be possible." Any claim made will be based on the fact Oliver's mother was born in Italy before moving to Switzerland and then the UK. Name: Hannah Neira From: Horsham Applying for passport in: Spain Hannah's father's side of the family is Spanish and she is very close to her paternal grandparents. The 28-year-old plans to move to Spain in a few years, once her career has settled down. "Because Brexit looks like it will put a damper on my plans to nurture my Spanish side, I contacted the Spanish embassy on 24 June to start the process of obtaining a Spanish passport," she says. "I think I qualify automatically because my father has Spanish nationality, though I'm not 100% sure." She's keen not to lose her Anglo-Spanish identity and wants to retain freedom of movement as an EU citizen. "Though my Spanish is quite poor, I feel connected to Spanish culture through my grandparents. I want to keep it easy to visit them whilst they are still with us." "I want to get more acquainted with the country that resulted in my inherited habits of spending hours in lively debate over the dinner table, despairing when TV chefs put chorizo in a paella, talking at breakneck speed, eating garlic like sweets and hero-worshipping Fernando Alonso. "Just as I am acquainted with the country that trained me to say "sorry" when someone steps on my foot, get sunburned at anything over 25 degrees, tut furiously at queue-jumpers and laugh at Blackadder." By Zak Brophy and Patrick Evans, BBC's UGC and Social News team

क्या मेरा कोई आयरिश रिश्तेदार है? क्या मैं एक स्पेनिश नागरिक बन सकता हूँ? मेरे इतालवी मूल के बारे में क्या? यूरोपीय संघ छोड़ने के लिए ब्रिटेन के वोट के बाद, कुछ ब्रिटिश लोग दूसरा पासपोर्ट प्राप्त करने की उम्मीद में अपने वंश की जांच कर रहे हैं।


Telford man admits murder on second day of trial

Summary: A man has admitted murdering a woman whose body was found at a flat in Telford.

Lynn McNally, 46, was found dead at a property in Mullinder Drive in Ketley in February. West Mercia Police said she died from multiple stab wounds. Paul Beddoes, 44, also of Mullinder Drive, had denied the charge and a jury was sworn in for his trial, but he changed his plea on Tuesday. He will be sentenced on Thursday at Stafford Crown Court.

एक आदमी ने एक महिला की हत्या करने की बात स्वीकार की है जिसका शव टेलफोर्ड के एक फ्लैट में मिला था।


Failure of joint mechanism a big blow-Japan

Summary: The failure of the government and LTTE to arrive at an agreement how tsunami relief and reconstruction is to be carried out would be a big blow to all concerned warns the Japanese special envoy Yakushi Akashi.

Speaking ahead of an international donors' meeting on Monday inthe central town of Kandy to review assistance to the island Akashi said that Sri Lanka faces a "critical period" inits faltering peace process and failure to cut a deal with Tigerrebels over tsunami relief could jeopardise foreign aid prospects. Akashi who travelled to the rebel held Wanni region for talks with the LTTE leadership briefed the press in Colombo. He said “Sri Lankan people have every right toExpect assistance from abroad, The lack of ajoint mechanism is certainly a major handicap but we mustfind alternative means for aid delivery.” The JVP and several others have opposed a joint mechanism with the LTTE saying that such agreement will confer official status to LTTE which is considered a terrorist organization by many countries. Akashi said that he has been discussing with JVP leader Somawnsa Amarasinha on devolution of power and Amarawansa will be soon visiting Japan to study the Japanese model of devolution.

सरकार और एल. टी. टी. ई. की एक समझौते पर पहुंचने में विफलता कि सुनामी राहत और पुनर्निर्माण कैसे किया जाना है, सभी संबंधित लोगों के लिए एक बड़ा झटका होगा, जापानी विशेष दूत याकुशी अकाशी ने चेतावनी दी।


Release date of Jurassic Park 4 is delayed by Universal

Summary: The release date of Jurassic Park 4 has been put on hold.

Universal Pictures said in a statement that the decision to delay the film until after the middle of 2014 was to give "the studio and filmmakers adequate time to bring audiences the best possible version" of the next instalment. The film had been due for release in cinemas on 13 June next year. Universal has yet to announce a new date for the film's release. The three Jurassic Park movies released so far generated $1.9 billion (£1,2bn) in worldwide ticket sales between 1993 and 2001, according to film website Box Office Mojo. Steven Spielberg directed the first two and will be taking on an executive producer role for the fourth film, while Colin Trevorrow will direct the next instalment. No announcement has been made on casting or on whether stars Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough will return. The first film, released in 1993, followed the story of a theme park of cloned dinosaurs and generated $967 million (£621m) in worldwide ticket sales, according Box Office Mojo. It ranks 16th among best-selling films in the US. It has generated $400 million (£258m) in American sales to date, including $42.5 million (£27m) from its limited cinema re-release in 3D this April. Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter

जुरासिक पार्क 4 की रिलीज की तारीख को रोक दिया गया है।


Mercury Prize-winner Michael Kiwanuka: 'I am not an imposter'

Summary: Michael Kiwanuka has won the 2020 Mercury Prize for his complex, poetic third album, Kiwanuka. In this interview, originally published in November 2019, the singer explains how he overcame crippling self-doubt to make the record of his career.

By Mark SavageBBC music reporter "I won't change my name, no matter what they call me," sings Michael Kiwanuka on his latest single, Hero. Over the years, the London-born singer has been called a lot of things. "Michael Kiwa-nin-nin-nooko, Michael Keena-wooka, Michael Kawaski... Anything other than Michael Kiwanuka," he told the BBC when he topped the Sound of 2012 poll seven years ago. "Once, on my dressing room, there were like five 'n's - Kiwanininininanuku!" As a young musician, he was repeatedly told to choose a new name to make him "more marketable". Now, with cool self-assuredness, he's called his third album Kiwanuka. All in capitals. Accompanied by a portrait of the singer dressed as a Tudor-era African king. You could interpret that as arrogance or pride, but that's not his intention. The album title is "a statement to myself", says Kiwanuka. A reminder that he conquered his crippling self-doubt. "I've always had imposter syndrome," says the singer. "I was always waiting for someone to find me out and go, 'We see that you're not actually that good and it's all going to crumble'." 'Really scared' It didn't matter that his last album, 2016's Love & Hate, went to number one and was nominated for a Brit Award. Nor that Cold Little Heart, the album's stunning, symphonic opening track, was placed over the opening titles of Big Little Lies, earning him international recognition. "It was frustrating because I thought [success] would have a different effect," he says, "but what it did was almost the opposite. I was overwhelmed by the response to the record." He began to believe the album's producers, Danger Mouse and Inflo, were the real talent - and that his own contributions were inconsequential. "Because they're so good and I look up to them so much, I started to think, 'Maybe I'm actually just average and they're the reason why it's popular,'" he says. "And because the album did well, it amplified those feelings, in an odd way. I started to really get scared about it." Kiwanuka's depleting confidence started to affect his work, especially when he started recording Love & Hate's follow-up. "There'd be times working on this album where I'd be really self-conscious about my abilities and what I can bring to the table. I'd think, 'If they hear this, they'll probably say, 'Oh, I'm not working with him again'. "But about a year-and-a-half ago, I got tired of that way of thinking. I just went, 'This isn't helping anyone, least of all me.'" As his confidence returned, it fuelled a burst of creativity: Kiwanuka's self-titled third album is a gorgeous, slow-burning trip into psychedelic soul, that's already won a clutch of four and five-star reviews. "One of the greatest albums of the decade," declared The Guardian. "A compassionate, career-defining masterpiece," agreed Q Magazine. Rolling Stone, meanwhile, noted it felt "like a proper old-fashioned album," designed to be heard in one sitting, with each track bleeding into the next through musical interludes and sampled dialogue. Kiwanuka hopes listeners will get "lost and immersed" in the music, the way he used to on his favourite albums. "When I was at school, I loved The Score by The Fugees. It had all these skits and songs and musical motifs that would come back. I remember being 12 and feeling I was in another world. "That was one of the ambitions for this record: How can I keep people engaged, especially in a time of playlists, where album listening is a rare thing? "So there's no fade outs or pauses between songs. If you press play when you're cleaning the house, you get sucked in for the whole duration and you won't even know when the song has changed." Marital bliss The album rewards your undivided attention, especially on headphones, as Kiwanuka colours and shades his songs with laid-back beats, torrid guitars, majestic strings, harps, brass, percussion, convulsive jazz chords and call-and-response gospel hooks. The influences he draws on are impeccable: Gil Scott Heron's wordplay, Prince's vari-speeded vocals, the fuzz-tone guitar of Funkadelic's Eddie Hazel and the heated-up-and-stretched-out grooves of Issac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul. "I think there's a reference to Hot Buttered Soul in every song I've tried to do over the last five years," he confesses. "I love that album." At the centre of it all is Kiwanuka's voice, full of warmth and resonance and humanity. He's at his most emotive on Piano Joint, a song about the healing power of love that was inspired by his wife, Charlotte. "I've been a married man for three years and there's nothing else like it. It's just so solid. "It's so therapeutic to know there's two of you on the same team. That kind of love is the thing that gets me through the difficulties." The 32-year-old says he's become something of a homebird over the last three years, making touring life a perplexing prospect. "On the first album, my flat was just in boxes. I didn't care about being a home at all," he says. "I was like, 'Send me on tour for seven years, I'll be fine!' And although I love it just as much as I did then, it's way harder to leave. "Home life is fun, you know? We'll be like, 'Shall we book this holiday?' or 'Shall we paint the walls?' "The little things that don't seem that big, that everyone can do, become really fun. It just gives you another side of life that anyone can attain, and it's just beautiful. It's difficult to describe, but I definitely recommend it." 'Subtle racism' The couple recently moved to Southampton, a far cry from Muswell Hill, where Kiwanuka had lived since he was a child, born to Ugandan parents who'd fled Idi Amin's regime. Their leafy suburb of North London was predominantly white, leaving the youngster with a sense of otherness and un-belonging that informed his 2016 single Black Man In A White World. He says he never experienced "blatant" racism in the UK - but that doesn't mean it wasn't there. "In America, everything's so much more polarised and amplified, but the things I went through are more way more subtle," he says. "It's more like you go to a university and there's there's no black people, there's no black teachers, no black people in places of leadership. Or you go to a record label - nobody. So it's not necessarily, 'I hate you, I'm shooting, I'm killing you in the streets,' but there's something askew there." It's that sort of ingrained, unconscious racism that he sings about on Hero: The people who told him to change his name were worried his records would be pigeon-holed as "world music", but they never considered they were asking him to erase his identity. "A name is a powerful thing," he muses. "You don't get more 'you' than your birth name, your given name." His refusal to adopt a pseudonym was a small act of defiance, but Hero goes on to reflect on the far greater sacrifices made by civil rights activists; comparing the murder of Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton with recent US police shootings. "I was looking at pictures on my phone of Fred Hampton and I was just moved by how young he was when he got killed," says the singer. "And then I started thinking of the musical icons who died young, too. And I had the idea of, like, to become a hero, do you need to be a martyr? Do you have so much good to give that it's too much for the world, and you get shot down - whether you're Bob Marley or John Lennon or Fred Hampton, or whoever it is? "The words came out pretty quick at that point. I finally had something to sing about." But while the subject matter of Kiwanuka's third LP gets pretty heavy, there's always a shaft of light - evidence of the singer's hope and humanity, rooted in the Christian faith which "has helped me my whole life". It's there in the sample of US civil rights activists staging peaceful sit-ins at segregated cafes in the 1950s: "You cause no violence. You have no angry words, [projecting] the idea that here sits beside me another human being." And it's there in the uplifting final track, Light, where Kiwanuka sweeps away his anxiety as he sings: "Shine your light over me / All of my fears are gone". "I finally accepted that I am a singer, I'm an artist and a songwriter and I love it," he smiles. "That's when I decided to call the album Kiwanuka - because there's no hiding from that. "This is who I am, rain or shine. I am completely myself. I am not an imposter." Kiwanuka is out now. Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

माइकल किवानुका ने अपने जटिल, काव्यात्मक तीसरे एल्बम, किवानुका के लिए 2020 का मरकरी पुरस्कार जीता है। मूल रूप से नवंबर 2019 में प्रकाशित इस साक्षात्कार में, गायक बताते हैं कि कैसे उन्होंने अपने करियर का रिकॉर्ड बनाने के लिए अपंग आत्म-संदेह को पार किया।


Mary Poppins: Brian Sibley's sequel that never was

Summary: Brian Sibley is one of writing's multi-hyphenates. He is a prolific and award-winning writer of radio drama, such as Radio 4's acclaimed Lord of the Rings adaptations. He has written plays of his own and many books focusing on film. The subjects of his biographies range from CS Lewis to Mickey Mouse.

By Vincent DowdBBC World Service In fact, a love of Disney has been central since childhood. At home his walls are plastered with Disney artwork. "In the 1980s, it was exciting to be flown over to LA to sit in script conferences at Disney, working on what looked like a marvellous project - the studio's second Poppins movie." Though the screenplay he wrote with PL Travers was never made, he looks back on the experience fondly. And he's in a unique position to explain what she really thought about the 1964 film. "I first corresponded with Pamela Travers in the 1970s, when I was writing a book about Walt Disney. I didn't get to meet her for a decade but when finally we met it quickly became a friendship. "Since she died, Pamela's been painted as an old dragon but it's not true: I'd go round for tea on a Sunday and she was great company. Writing with her turned out to be an eccentric experience but that was because she remained proprietorial about Mary Poppins. "But why shouldn't she be? - it was her creation. Though Pamela, who was very spiritual, would probably have said that the character had been given to her." Disney approach The first Poppins film had been a massive hit. "But in some ways it's quite a loose adaptation, " Brian Sibley says. "Her books were really collections of free-standing short stories. The first film used elements both of the original Mary Poppins book (published 1934) and the second one, Mary Poppins Comes Back. "The Disney studio had been very keen to make a sequel but Pamela always said no. One Sunday we were having tea when she mentioned they'd been in contact. She described the latest idea to me and said she was about to reject it." "I said it was a pity there couldn't be a new film - so many people had loved the Mary Poppins character. Pamela said 'Oh I could only agree if I could do it on my own terms. I'd have to work with someone I trust.' And she paused. 'If it were you dear that would be different." "So I wrote a letter to Roy Disney (Walt's nephew, by now in charge) who I had met a few times. This was the 1980s and people still wrote letters. I told him there might be a chance of making the film. After a couple of days I got news Roy was sending someone to London to talk to me. Within a fortnight we were working on an outline." The project was Mary Poppins Comes Back, based on those parts of Travers' second book unused in 1964. Disney contracted Sibley and Travers to supply a treatment which they then set to work to expand. "For months I would sit and talk with Pamela at her home in Chelsea about the ideas I had. Then she would give me notes on what Mary Poppins would or would not do and think. She was very particular, even down to how a line should be said. I recorded her on tape and went away. Of course I then wrote what I needed to write - but I always bore her comments in mind. I would give her my script pages and she would write notes all over it. Some parts came back with 'no No NO!' scrawled all over the page. But she also said when she liked what I'd written." Casting difficulties Sibley thinks they managed to find a balance between what Travers had written in her books and what the Poppins character then became in the film. But he also sensed a cloud looming over the movie's chances of getting made - the thorny issue of casting. "It was more than twenty years since the original so who could play Mary? Julie Andrews was no longer in her twenties and she had moved a long way from the My Fair Lady - Sound of Music stage of her career. Disney made an approach but it came to nothing. And who could ever have played Mary Poppins half as well?" Casting the world's most famous nanny was not the only quandary. "In our screenplay there was no longer a Bert (as played by Dick van Dyke). Instead there was Bert's brother, who had a similar function of being Mary's friend and possible admirer. Finding a Bert replacement was almost as tricky as re-casting the lead role. "I remember sitting in a restaurant on Rodeo Drive listening to an executive explain they thought Michael Jackson might be right for the part. Bear in mind this was an ice-cream seller in a park in Edwardian London. Or maybe it would have worked - who knows?" And contrary to popular belief, Sibley insists it's untrue that PL Travers hated the original film. "She may have mellowed in her views by the time I knew her but she knew there were good things in it. When we got down to work I thought it would be a good idea if we watched the original film first so I arranged a private screening. "I asked Pamela how long it was since she'd seen Poppins - this was the mid-1980s. She said 'Well not since the premiere, obviously'. I was astonished she hadn't seen this hugely famous film for more than twenty years. But Pamela didn't have a video or even a TV set. "Throughout the film she gave me notes. There were one or two moments where she said 'Oh that's terrible'. But there were more where she got excited at what was up there on screen. She patted my hand and said 'Oh we must remember that, that's excellent, I like that bit very much...' And that's how we began to build our screenplay." Eventually the sequel fell victim to a combination of inherent casting problems and the fact that new executives were running Disney. "But I treasured my time working with PL Travers," Sibley says. "And we stayed in touch almost until she died. She was demanding as a friend. But she had great wisdom and great knowledge of so many things: literature, life, love, faith. She was prickly and difficult at times. But she was also someone of a towering intellect whose friendship I really valued."

ब्रायन सिबली लेखन के बहु-हाइफ़नेट्स में से एक हैं। वह रेडियो नाटक के एक विपुल और पुरस्कार विजेता लेखक हैं, जैसे कि रेडियो 4 के प्रशंसित लॉर्ड ऑफ़ द रिंग्स रूपांतरण। उन्होंने अपने स्वयं के नाटक और फिल्म पर केंद्रित कई किताबें लिखी हैं। उनकी जीवनी के विषय सी. एस. लुईस से लेकर मिकी माउस तक हैं।


The coldest computers in the world

Summary: Imagine the US is under attack. An enemy aircraft, loaded with warheads, is heading towards the coast, dipping in and out of radar. Fighter jets have been scrambled and there's a frantic effort to pinpoint the target.

By Chris BaraniukTechnology of Business reporter But the nation's best defence is not an aircraft carrier or a missile system. It's a box of incredibly cold atoms. "Use the quantum computer," yells a general. The atoms inside the computer can solve complex problems and, almost instantly, spit out an instruction for how to reconfigure a radar array so that the enemy aircraft can be tracked and targeted. One firm already getting to grips with a scenario like this is ColdQuanta. It recently signed a contract with US defence research agency Darpa to build a quantum computer that can rapidly work out how best to reposition radar equipment in the event of a defence system partially failing. The project relies on being able to gather together enough atoms as qubits - the building blocks of a quantum computer, which allow it to perform calculations. To do this, the atoms have to be extremely cold, making such computers the coldest in the world. Quantum computing is much-hyped but the technology is very much in its infancy. Firms are just beginning to build systems that they claim will one day outperform traditional, digital computers at certain useful tasks. "What we're asked to do over the next 40 months is be able to have a machine that has thousands of qubits to solve a real-world defence-related problem and the one that we're working on is a version of this radar coverage problem," explains Bo Ewald, chief executive of ColdQuanta, based in Colorado. The example above is an optimisation problem, a scenario to which there may be thousands or millions of possible solutions. The key is to choose the best one. Besides military applications, quantum computers could have uses in drug design, investment strategies, encryption-cracking and complex scheduling problems for large fleets of vehicles. More Technology of Business Mr Ewald says this is where quantum computers will have their initial impact - in finding optimal solutions to problems that would take existing computers, even the fastest supercomputers, many hours or days to resolve. There are various types of quantum computer in development but the approach using ultra-cold neutral atoms as qubits is unusual - it's different from the superconducting quantum computers being developed by big firms such as IBM and Google, or other projects that use charged atoms, also known as ions, instead. Superconducting quantum computers don't use individual atoms as qubits, and while those systems rely on low temperatures they are not as low as those needed for ColdQuanta's neutral atoms. "The superconducting folks are running at millikelvin… we're down to microkelvin," he explains, proudly. Kelvin is a measurement of temperature. Zero kelvin, absolute zero (-273.15C) is the coldest anything could ever be. And while millikelvin is cold, at 0.001 kelvin, ColdQuanta's microkelvin atoms are much colder - at roughly 0.000001 kelvin. Both are significantly colder, indeed, than anywhere we know about in the natural universe. In ColdQuanta's case rubidium atoms are gathered together inside a vacuum within a tiny, hexagonal or rectangular glass box, about an inch wide, an inch deep and two inches high. The atoms are held aloft purely by lasers. But why is temperature so important? Prof Andrew Daley at the University of Strathclyde and his colleagues are also working on ultra-cold neutral atom quantum computers. He says it is crucial to be able to manipulate the atoms and hold them in place. Shining lasers onto the atoms prompts them to release some energy and slow down. That makes it possible to hold them almost perfectly still, which is the real point here. They're not cold in the sense that you or I would conceive of cold - rather, they are just greatly slowed down. Once you've got your ducks - atoms - in a row, you can arrange them just how you want, says Prof Daley. This fine-grained control over the atoms means they can be placed in two- or three-dimensional formations, packed near to one another at the heart of a quantum computer. That's important because with every additional atom, the computer's capabilities are doubled. Prodding each neutral atom with yet another laser excites them, greatly increasing their size. These adjustments encode information or link the atoms together via a weird phenomenon called entanglement. Now you have a collection of qubits functioning together as a system that you can tweak in order to represent a mathematical model or problem of some kind. Amazingly, the user of a quantum computer could in theory programme this system to simulate a huge number of possibilities at once. It's not quite like a traditional computer processing lots of calculations in parallel, it's stranger and less predictable than that and getting a useful answer out at the end is tricky. "What you want is that the quantum state at the end represents the answer to the problem you're trying to solve," says Jonathan Pritchard, Prof Daley's colleague at Strathclyde. The quantum computer should end up favouring a particular state, or, one particular answer to a problem. For the right problem, it could get us a lot closer to an optimal answer, both more quickly and more efficiently, than a traditional computer. "We are really still waiting for a demonstration of a computing task where we can prove that these machines have done something beyond what you can do on a classical computer - for something that's actually useful," says Prof Daley. French company Pasqal is building a prototype system, based on similar principles as ColdQuanta. Pasqal's system is for energy giant EDF, which, if it works, will come up with super-efficient schedules for charging electric vehicles. Specifically, the goal is to minimise the total time needed to complete charging for all vehicles while also prioritising certain more important vehicles over others. This sort of problem could be tackled by a traditional computer, admits Christophe Jurczak, chairman, but he argues a quantum system will end up being significantly quicker, doing it in an hour rather than 24 hours for example. "It doesn't seem that big but if you want to update your strategy every hour, that's a big difference," he says. And it might use 100 times less electricity than a supercomputer in the process. At the moment, all of this remains to be demonstrated for real. But there are signs that in the next few years - faster than some expected - we will find out just how useful this breed of bewilderingly cold computer really is.

कल्पना कीजिए कि अमेरिका पर हमला हो रहा है। हथियारों से भरा एक दुश्मन विमान, तट की ओर बढ़ रहा है, रडार के अंदर और बाहर डूब रहा है। लड़ाकू विमानों को भगाया गया है और लक्ष्य का पता लगाने के लिए एक उग्र प्रयास किया जा रहा है।


Coronavirus: The circus preparing to reopen after lockdown

Summary: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... the circus is coming back after four damaging months in lockdown. So how are staff and performers at the country's last remaining permanent venue preparing - and will the audience roll up?

By Laura Devlin & Orla MooreBBC News As a cloud swing trapeze artist, Lucy Ladbrooke performs on a looped rope, high above the heads of the audience. But during lockdown, there were more lows than highs. She found herself "stranded in a showground in Shropshire" with a touring production - and a two-year-old in tow. "We were unable to move from our caravans and trailers. Everything stopped - we couldn't even train," she said. "When you're living at work and working at work, it's particularly difficult." Like other theatres and performance venues, Great Yarmouth's Hippodrome has been given the green light to reopen from 1 August, and Lucy is relishing training and performing once again. "I just want to get up there and start practising," she said. "There's a lot of muscle memory in what I do, so once I get up I'll be fine." Returning to the Norfolk venue would be "like coming home", she added. "My mum was a swimmer here before I was born, so it's great to be here, and quite emotional to bring my daughter." Her partner, fire-eater Antonio Candella, has also found lockdown hard. "I was restless, anxious, itching to go and trying to find something to keep me occupied," he said. "I was worried about finances, about my career - and the actual industry itself. Will theatrical entertainment still be a thing after this? "If Britain didn't have theatre or the circus, I don't know what this country would be like." When the pandemic began, the Hippodrome was preparing for the Easter show Pirates Live. But with the set built and rehearsals about to begin, it all stopped. The circus furloughed 15 box office, technical and ancillary staff, amid fears arts venues would struggle to emerge from lockdown at all. Ringmaster, producer and impresario Jack Jay took the baton from his father Peter, who bought the historic venue in 1979 and is now its artistic curator. Carrying on the family business after lockdown means accepting a new way of working. The venue's usual capacity has been reduced from 900 to 300. It typically gets 10,000 people through the doors each season, but that will fall by two-thirds this summer. "The nature of the circus means there's loads of space between the audience and the acts in the ring," said Jack. "A lot of performing ensembles are families who are already in their own bubbles. "We don't want to drop the standards, but it needs to work." This grand Art Nouveau venue, built in 1903 and tucked away behind an amusement arcade, remains one of only three purpose-built circuses in the world where the stage sinks to reveal a full swimming pool. The "quick and dramatic" transformation will now take place before the audience's eyes, and the show will last 70 minutes, with no interval. "From the moment the lights go down and the show starts, it will feel as it always does," said Jack. "This place is doing what it's always done: putting on a show. "We want it to be an escape, but we have to be sensitive to the fact that this has been a terrible thing for lots of people. "Kids, especially, are trying to navigate all of it. There's something to be said for letting them see and hear a fun side." You may also like: Co-hosting the show will be Jack's comedy partner of 10 years, Scottish comic Johnny Mac. "It was strange when Pirates didn't happen. As a performer it was nerve-wracking - I had a whole year's work put on ice," he said. "It is so nice to be back." Jack's brother Ben, general manager, said customers would notice changes in the auditorium - but not the show itself. "The main factor is the spacing between the seats: we're using every other row," he said. Two entrances will prevent everyone congregating in the foyer, seats have been removed to create room to pass others and the auditorium will be thoroughly sanitised between shows. "Importantly, it's a place where customers can feel safe but there's still enough people to have a really good atmosphere," he said. Trevor Fuller, from nearby Hopton-on-Sea, first attended the Hippodrome aged five or six with his grandmother. Now 44, he is a regular visitor with his daughter Lily, five, and partner Paula. "When you walk in, you're immediately hit with the smell of popcorn and you think 'Yes, we're at the circus!'" he said. "You go through and then you get the smell of chlorine from the water. I think Lily forgets that the floor drops away and it will be flooded. "It's amazing to watch her face when it happens." The family is planning to go to the show in the second week of August. "We know the Hippodrome will do everything as well as they possibly can within current guidelines," he said. "I don't think that will in any way take away the magic you get as a family. We know it's going to be an incredible show." Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk

देवियों और सज्जनों, लड़कों और लड़कियों... लॉकडाउन में चार महीनों के विनाशकारी प्रदर्शन के बाद सर्कस वापस आ रहा है। तो देश के अंतिम स्थायी स्थल पर कर्मचारी और कलाकार कैसे तैयारी कर रहे हैं-और क्या दर्शक जुटेंगे?


Stephen Lawrence murder: A timeline of how the story unfolded

Summary: As the 25th anniversary of the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence approaches, his mother Doreen has suggested it is time for the police investigation to be closed.

It is one of the recent developments in the long-running story surrounding Stephen's murder in 1993. Read the timeline to find out more about the case: 22 April 1993 - Stephen Lawrence murdered The 18-year-old is stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths as he waits at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, with his friend Duwayne Brooks. 23 April 1993 - Suspects identified The day after the murder, a letter giving the names of the suspects is left in a telephone box. Police surveillance begins on their homes four days later. 4 May 1993 - Family express frustrations Stephen's family hold a press conference to complain not enough is being done to catch the killers. They meet Nelson Mandela two days later. 7 May-23 June 1993 - Suspects arrested and two charged Police arrest brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, David Norris, Gary Dobson and Luke Knight, and search their homes. Neil Acourt and Luke Knight are identified by Duwayne Brooks at ID parades as part of the gang responsible and the pair are charged with murder. They deny the charges. 29 July 1993 - Charges dropped The CPS drops the prosecution as it says the ID evidence from Duwayne Brooks is unreliable. 22 December 1993 - Inquest halted The Southwark coroner, Sir Montague Levine, halts an inquest into Stephen's death after the family's barrister, Michael Mansfield QC, says there is "dramatic" new evidence. April 1994 - CPS refuses to prosecute There is insufficient evidence to bring charges based on the new evidence, which was believed to be the identification of further suspects - the CPS says. September 1994 - Private prosecution launched Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, launch a private prosecution against Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt. All three deny the charges. A private prosecution is the same as a standard criminal trial but not brought by the CPS. December 1994 - Police surveillance Covert video shot over several days in Dobson's flat captures him and Norris using strong racist and violent language. Neil Acourt and Luke Knight are also caught on camera using violent and racist language. 18-25 April 1996 - Private prosecution fails The murder trial begins against Neil Acourt, Luke Knight and Gary Dobson at the Old Bailey. But the case collapses when Mr Justice Curtis rules that identification evidence from Brooks is inadmissible. All three are acquitted. 13 February 1997 - Inquest verdict The inquest resumes and the five suspects refuse to answer questions. A verdict of unlawful killing "in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five youths" is delivered by Sir Montague. 14 February 1997 - Daily Mail front page The Daily Mail newspaper uses its front page to name the five men it says killed Stephen Lawrence. It invites them to sue if it is wrong. March 1997 - Police Complaints Authority investigation The Kent Constabulary launches its probe into police conduct, which nine months later highlights "significant weaknesses, omissions and lost opportunities". But it says there is no evidence of racist conduct. July 1997 - Public inquiry announced Home Secretary Jack Straw says there will be a judicial inquiry into the killing and subsequent investigation - to identify lessons for police in dealing with racially motivated crimes. It will be chaired by Sir William Macpherson, a retired High Court judge. March 1998 - Inquiry opens The five suspects are told to give evidence or face prosecution. In June, they appear and are pelted with bottles by protesters as they leave, after being accused of being evasive. July 1998 - Police apology The Lawrence family call on the Met Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon to resign. He apologises to them when he appears in October, admitting there had been failures. February 1999 - Macpherson report published It accuses the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism and makes 70 recommendations, many aimed at improving police attitudes to racism. It also includes some proposals for changes in the law, including strengthening the Race Relations Act to try to clamp down on discrimination. September 2002 - Norris jailed David Norris and former suspect Neil Acourt (right) are jailed for 18 months for a racist attack on an off-duty police officer in Eltham in 2001. Norris, a passenger in a car driven by Acourt, threw a drink and shouted racist abuse at the black officer. May 2004 - Trial ruled out The CPS finally announces there is insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone for Stephen's murder following a review. April 2005 - Double jeopardy scrapped Government drops the legal principle which prevents suspects being tried twice for the same crime. July 2006 - BBC documentary A BBC documentary investigating the case raises fresh questions about the prime suspects, prompting the Metropolitan Police to review their evidence. In October 2007, the Independent Police Complaints Commission says it has found no evidence of wrong-doing by an officer as alleged in part of the documentary. November 2007 - Forensics review Police confirm they are investigating new forensic evidence in the case after a police review, staffed by 32 officers, was launched the previous summer. It examined evidence gathered at the time, looking at opportunities to use new technology to find leads. February 2008 - Memorial opens Doreen Lawrence opens a £10m architecture centre in honour of her son. Two weeks later vandals smash its windows in a suspected racist attack. February 2009 - Report anniversary Ten years on from the Macpherson inquiry, a report from a member of its panel, Dr Richard Stone, says the police have made significant progress in reforming but charges of racism remain. Justice Secretary Jack Straw says the Met is no longer institutionally racist, but Stephen's mother says police still fail black Britons. July 2010 - Dobson jailed Gary Dobson starts a five-year jail term for supplying a class B drug after being caught during a sting by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). May 2011 - Two to face trial Gary Dobson and David Norris are to face trial over the murder of Stephen Lawrence following a review of forensic evidence. The Court of Appeal decides there is enough new and substantial evidence to allow Dobson's acquittal to be quashed. The pair had been charged the previous September. November 2011 - Trial begins The trial of Dobson and Norris begins at the Old Bailey. The jury hears that Stephen's DNA was found on the defendants' clothes. January 2012 - Guilty of murder Dobson and Norris are both found guilty of murder at the end of a six-week trial into the death of Stephen Lawrence. During the trial, the court hears that microscopic evidence found on clothing belonging to the accused links them to the murder. The jury takes two-and-a-half days to reach its decision. Both men receive life sentences; Dobson is jailed for a minimum of 15 years and two months, Norris for 14 years and three months. June 2013 - Former police officer 'spied' on Lawrence family The prime minister calls for an immediate investigation into reports the police wanted to smear Stephen Lawrence's family. The Guardian claims former officer Peter Francis went under cover to infiltrate the family's campaign for justice in 1993. Mr Francis tells the paper and Channel 4's Dispatches programme he was looking for "disinformation" to use against those criticising the police. March 2014 - A new public inquiry On a dramatic day of developments, a review into the original murder investigation - by the barrister Mark Ellison - finds that an undercover Met Police officer worked within the "Lawrence family camp" while an inquiry into the handling of the murder was under way. It also finds there are reasonable grounds to suspect at least one detective on the team was corrupt. This leads Home Secretary Theresa May to announce a new public inquiry into undercover policing. A separate report into Operation Herne - an investigation launched by the Met into the allegations made by former undercover officer Peter Francis - finds no evidence to back claims he was tasked to smear the Lawrence family. But it does find failings regarding allegations about undercover officers indulging in inappropriate sexual relationships. March 2015 - Inquiry into undercover policing A public inquiry into the abuse of undercover techniques by police officers is launched. While its scope is wide - it includes, for example, the use of dead children's names in fake identities - one of its main focus points is the infiltration of the Lawrence campaign for justice. Over the next three years the inquiry suffers setbacks due to a burgeoning list of participants and issues around revealing the identities of former undercover police officers. In March 2018, campaigners stage a walk-out during proceedings and call for the inquiry's current chair, Sir John Mitting, to step down from his post. October 2015 - Police corruption investigation The National Crime Agency (NCA) confirms it has been investigating alleged police corruption during 1993 murder inquiry for months. The new investigation is prompted by the findings of the 2014 Ellison review. Any findings are to be reported back to the police watchdog and could result in criminal or misconduct proceedings. March 2016 - Officer 'had case to answer' The police watchdog finds ex-Met Police commander Richard Walton would have had to answer a case for misconduct after meeting an undercover police officer during the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. Mr Walton met the officer in 1998, allegedly obtaining information about the Lawrence family and their supporters. The watchdog said he would have faced a disciplinary hearing but had retired. Lawyers for Neville Lawrence unsuccessfully urged the force to halt Mr Walton's retirement earlier that year. Mr Walton said the Met had rejected the watchdog's findings and "did not plan to bring misconduct proceedings". September 2016 - Handbag strap mystery Scotland Yard announces it has received "significant information" after a BBC Crimewatch reconstruction. Detectives attempt to identify a woman whose DNA was on a handbag strap found close to the murder scene and a separate possible witness. April 2018 - Investigation 'unlikely to progress' The Met says the investigation into Stephen's murder is "unlikely to progress" without new information. Doreen Lawrence tells the Daily Mail she believes detectives have run out of lines of inquiry and calls on them to "be honest" about the likelihood that anyone else will be convicted over his murder. Neville Lawrence tells BBC News he would accept the inquiry being scaled back but believed it should not be completely closed. Dr Lawrence adds he remains hopeful that, with the publicity around the 25th anniversary of his son's death and a BBC documentary, Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation, someone would come forward.

जैसे-जैसे किशोर स्टीफन लॉरेंस की हत्या की 25वीं वर्षगांठ नजदीक आ रही है, उसकी माँ डोरीन ने सुझाव दिया है कि पुलिस जांच को बंद करने का समय आ गया है।


NHS funding and rationing: The debate intensifies

Summary: It is becoming as familiar as Halloween or 5 November fireworks - a crescendo of demands for more money for the NHS ahead of the Autumn Statement. So is it any different this time and are the financial pressures more intense than before?

Hugh PymHealth editor@bbcHughPymon Twitter In 2014, ahead of the general election, George Osborne, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, conjured up an extra £1.9bn for the NHS in England for 2015-16, after warnings there had been an unbridgeable gap in the finances. Under the usual funding formula, this became £2.2bn across the UK, on the assumption the devolved administrations spent their allocations on health. This was unveiled with a hospital photo opportunity involving Mr Osborne, Simon Stevens, of NHS England, and the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and was widely welcomed by health commentators and think tanks. The election came and went, and it was not long into the 2015-16 financial year before hospital trust bosses were warning of mounting deficits and the sums not adding up. Fast forward to the autumn of 2015, and Mr Osborne was publishing his Spending Review for the years up to 2020. Once again, a photo opportunity of the chancellor in a medical setting, this time in a GP surgery, was designed to underline the government's commitment to health service funding. The 2015 Spending Review allocated £3.8bn above inflation to the NHS in England in 2016-17 - and annual increases beyond that, to reach £8.4bn in 2020. Once again, this was a cue for applause from the health world, with experts noting there was a significant increase in the first year of the settlement. A year on, however, and there are renewed warnings about the dire state of NHS finances. Another Autumn Statement is approaching, with the Chancellor, now Philip Hammond, facing calls for pump-priming of the health service and social care. Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, who chairs the Health Select Committee, has added to his postbag with a strongly worded plea for intervention. Some of the committee's demands are not new. It rejects the government's claim that it has promised an extra £10bn to the NHS. Ministers say this extra funding covers 2014-15 to 2020-21, but the committee argues the Spending Review period began a year later. The MPs also point out that the sum in question relates to NHS England and once cuts in other areas of health spending are accounted for, the overall increase is more like £4.5bn. The tone of the cross-party letter is unmistakeable. It says that what looked like a significant increase in funding this year in England now looks rather less significant and warns that short-term pressures may become "overwhelming". It argues that "per capita funding" (that is spending per head of population) will actually fall in 2018-19. The letter is challenging the government's claim to be giving the NHS what it wants, following Mr Stevens's suggestion that he did not get all the financing he had asked for. The government is sticking to its line that cash injections and pledges from 2014-15 onwards will add up to £10bn in real terms for the NHS in England. There is a view in Whitehall that when the money was promised, over the past two years nobody, at NHS England was arguing that it did not go far enough. The road ahead looks bumpy. NHS England is committed to finding up to £22bn of annual efficiency savings by 2020. Across 44 areas of England local health and social care, leaders have been told to come up with sustainability and transformation plans (STPs), to make better use of resources and redesign services. A poll of local commissioning groups by Health Service Journal has shone some light on the process. Of those that responded (just under 50%), nearly half had plans to reduce hospital beds and a third intended to close or downgrade accident and emergency departments as part of their STP. The underlying problem is the same as it always has been. The NHS has a finite level of resources allocated by governments but has to cope with unlimited demand. What looks like a good settlement the year before can seem more like a sticking plaster solution as the cash gets swallowed up in the face of unpredictable increases in patient numbers. The money will be tight across the board in this Autumn Statement. The chancellor and the prime minister may decide to leave the NHS to make better use of the above inflation increases already awarded. But in doing so they may have to face damaging headlines as the NHS struggles to cope through this winter.

यह हैलोवीन या 5 नवंबर की आतिशबाजी के रूप में जाना-पहचाना होता जा रहा है-शरद ऋतु के बयान से पहले एन. एच. एस. के लिए अधिक धन की मांगों का एक क्रसेंडो। तो क्या यह इस बार कोई अलग है और क्या वित्तीय दबाव पहले की तुलना में अधिक तीव्र हैं?


Hollande's nightmare over nationality

Summary: Determined to act tough after November's attacks, France's President, Francois Hollande, finds himself trapped in a damaging ideological fix over French nationality, and whether certain convicted terrorists can be made to give it up.

By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris The row has exposed deep divisions within his ruling Socialist Party (PS), many of whose members believe the president has veered dangerously to the right in his reaction to the Paris atrocities. With just a year till campaigning starts for the 2017 presidential election, it shows the uphill task facing Mr Hollande as he tries to forge a united leftwing bloc capable of returning him to the Elysee. The problem might appear abstruse - and with little actual impact in the battle against jihadist extremists. But in France - and especially among the French left - symbols count. And the right to carry the title Citizen of a French Republic is a matter over which people have fought and died. The problem arose from a promise by Mr Hollande - made in his speech to the united houses of parliament after the attacks - to strip of their French nationality convicted terrorists who are "bi-nationals", in other words who have a second nationality. In detail: Paris attacks The unanswered questions Who were the attackers? Significantly, he said this should apply to bi-nationals "who are born French" - and not just to people who have acquired a second French nationality through residence or marriage. (In some circumstances, this category can already be stripped of nationality). The president - backed by Prime Minister Manuel Valls - decided it was the kind of strong response the people of France expected. Polls putting support for the measure at 80%-85% suggest he is right. At the time he announced it - with the shock of the 130 dead still reverberating - little was made of the idea. Intensifying opposition But today the opposing voices are rising in crescendo, and it is clear many on the left regard the president's proposal as a grotesque betrayal. For critics, the idea of stripping "French-born bi-nationals" of their French citizenship is fundamentally wrong because it creates two classes of French citizen. It means if you are a French jihadist with only one nationality, then your French citizenship is safe. But if you are a French jihadist who has two nationalities (say French and Algerian), then your French citizenship can be taken away. The measure removes the universal nature of French citizenship, and thus discriminates against the estimated three million people (mainly of North African origin) who have two passports. So goes the argument. Former Socialist minister Benoit Hamon said: "This decision will create a schism among people of the left, but equally in the nation as a whole. "I fully recognise that there are political issues at stake here. "But ends cannot justify the means. "It is a question of conscience and of values." Meanwhile, ever-provocative Left Front leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said his feeling was "less one of indignation or disgust, more one of total nausea". "Curse them for this unprecedented ignominy," he added. The nationality issue is fast becoming one of those abstract points of principle on which the French left loves to tear itself apart. On one side are those with the president, who say it would be mad to ignore the anger of the voters. They point out many other EU countries - including the UK - have given themselves the right to remove nationality from terrorists. On the other, are those who accuse Mr Hollande of running shamelessly after the right, junking long-cherished values in the process. It does not help the president that the no-French-nationality-for-terrorists cause has long been the preserve of his enemies. The far-right Front National even thanked Mr Hollande for adopting a measure that is part of its own manifesto. As for Nicolas Sarkozy's Republicans, they point out that when Mr Sarkozy pushed through a similar measure in 2010 to punish bi-nationals who attacked police officers, he was accused of rabble-rousing xenophobia by no lesser figures than Mr Hollande and Mr Valls themselves. Realising they are in an embarrassing mess over the issue, some Socialists have proposed a way out. In order to avoid creating a two-tier system of citizenship (with bi-nationals different from mono-nationals), why not make it possible for all citizens to have their nationality removed if convicted of acts against the state? Right to nationality The problem there is that they run into another point of principle. If you strip a mono-national of his nationality, then he or she become nation-less. And that would be in breach of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, which states that every individual has a "right to a nationality". UN Declaration on Human Rights: Adopted on 10 December 1948, following a vote in which 48 nations voted in favour, none against, and eight abstained (the Soviet Union, the Soviet Republics of Ukraine and Belarus, Yugoslavia, Poland, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, and Saudi Arabia) Contains 30 Articles designed to act as "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations" Article 15: (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality (2) No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality The absurd problem could easily arise of a convicted terrorist being stripped of his nationality but having to remain resident in France - because no other country would ever accept him. To secure his proposal, President Hollande wants it in a package of constitutional reforms to be voted on by the joint houses of parliament some time in the next two months. But to pass, it will need a three-fifths majority of the 925 deputies and senators. If a large bloc of the left votes against, he might have to rely on the support of Mr Sarkozy's opposition. That would be highly embarrassing, and do little for the president's standing both in his party and in the left as a whole. But then dropping the proposal would be a sign of weakness at a time when Mr Hollande feels it is essential to stand firm. He really is in a bit of a fix.

नवंबर के हमलों के बाद कड़ी कार्रवाई करने के लिए दृढ़ संकल्पित, फ्रांस के राष्ट्रपति, फ्रांस्वा ओलांद, खुद को फ्रांसीसी राष्ट्रीयता पर एक हानिकारक वैचारिक उलझन में फंसते हुए पाते हैं, और क्या कुछ दोषी आतंकवादियों को इसे छोड़ने के लिए मजबूर किया जा सकता है।


Man arrested over Slough churchyard rape

Summary: A man has been arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in a churchyard in Slough.

The victim, who is in her 30s, was attacked in the grounds of St Mary's Church in Church Street, Upton, at about 19:45 GMT on Wednesday. Thames Valley Police said a 42-year-old local man was being held in custody. Det Insp Stuart Brangwin said: "This investigation is still in the early stages, and I would re-iterate our appeal for witnesses."

स्लॉ में एक चर्चयार्ड में एक महिला के साथ बलात्कार करने के संदेह में एक व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


New-look Marischal Square plans lodged for Aberdeen

Summary: Detailed plans for the proposed new look for the site of the former Aberdeen City Council headquarters have been lodged.

Muse Developments was chosen to deliver the new £107m shape of the St Nicholas House area. Muse wants to create offices, shops, restaurants and a hotel on the site. The developers said they had listened to feedback, making more public space available and giving greater prominence to historic Provost Skene's House. In 2011, more than 1,000 council staff vacated the 14-storey St Nicholas House building, erected in 1968, for the newly-refurbished Marischal College building.

पूर्व एबरडीन नगर परिषद मुख्यालय के स्थल के लिए प्रस्तावित नए रूप के लिए विस्तृत योजनाएँ दर्ज की गई हैं।


Beyond Angkor: How lasers revealed a lost city

Summary: Deep in the Cambodian jungle lie the remains of a vast medieval city, which was hidden for centuries. New archaeological techniques are now revealing its secrets - including an elaborate network of temples and boulevards, and sophisticated engineering.

By Ben LawrieDocumentary film-maker In April 1858 a young French explorer, Henri Mouhot, sailed from London to south-east Asia. For the next three years he travelled widely, discovering exotic jungle insects that still bear his name. Today he would be all but forgotten were it not for his journal, published in 1863, two years after he died of fever in Laos, aged just 35. Mouhot's account captured the public imagination, but not because of the beetles and spiders he found. Readers were gripped by his vivid descriptions of vast temples consumed by the jungle: Mouhot introduced the world to the lost medieval city of Angkor in Cambodia and its romantic, awe-inspiring splendour. "One of these temples, a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo, might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome," he wrote. His descriptions firmly established in popular culture the beguiling fantasy of swashbuckling explorers finding forgotten temples. Today Cambodia is famous for these buildings. The largest, Angkor Wat, constructed around 1150, remains the biggest religious complex on Earth, covering an area four times larger than Vatican City. It attracts two million tourists a year and takes pride of place on Cambodia's flag. But back in the 1860s Angkor Wat was virtually unheard of beyond local monks and villagers. The notion that this great temple was once surrounded by a city of nearly a million people was entirely unknown. It took over a century of gruelling archaeological fieldwork to fill in the map. The lost city of Angkor slowly began to reappear, street by street. But even then significant blanks remained. Then, last year, archaeologists announced a series of new discoveries - about Angkor, and an even older city hidden deep in the jungle beyond. An international team, led by the University of Sydney's Dr Damian Evans, had mapped 370 sq km around Angkor in unprecedented detail - no mean feat given the density of the jungle and the prevalence of landmines from Cambodia's civil war. Yet the entire survey took less than two weeks. Their secret? Lidar - a sophisticated remote sensing technology that is revolutionising archaeology, especially in the tropics. Mounted on a helicopter criss-crossing the countryside, the team's lidar device fired a million laser beams every four seconds through the jungle canopy, recording minute variations in ground surface topography. The findings were staggering. The archaeologists found undocumented cityscapes etched on to the forest floor, with temples, highways and elaborate waterways spreading across the landscape. "You have this kind of sudden eureka moment where you bring the data up on screen the first time and there it is - this ancient city very clearly in front of you," says Dr Evans. These new discoveries have profoundly transformed our understanding of Angkor, the greatest medieval city on Earth. At its peak, in the late 12th Century, Angkor was a bustling metropolis covering 1,000 sq km. (It would be another 700 years before London reached a similar size.) Angkor was once the capital of the mighty Khmer empire which, ruled by warrior kings, dominated the region for centuries - covering all of present-day Cambodia and much of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. But its origins and birthplace have long been shrouded in mystery. A few meagre inscriptions suggested the empire was founded in the early 9th Century by a great king, Jayavarman II, and that his original capital, Mahendraparvata, was somewhere in the Kulen hills, a forested plateau north-east of the site on which Angkor would later be built. But no-one knew for sure - until the lidar team arrived. The lidar survey of the hills revealed ghostly outlines on the forest floor of unknown temples and an elaborate and utterly unexpected grid of ceremonial boulevards, dykes and man-made ponds - a lost city, found. Most striking of all was evidence of large-scale hydraulic engineering, the defining signature of the Khmer empire. By the time the royal capital moved south to Angkor around the end of the 9th Century, Khmer engineers were storing and distributing vast quantities of precious seasonal monsoon water using a complex network of huge canals and reservoirs. Harnessing the monsoon provided food security - and made the ruling elite fantastically rich. For the next three centuries they channelled their wealth into the greatest concentration of temples on Earth. One temple, Preah Khan, constructed in 1191, contained 60t of gold. Its value today would be about £2bn ($3.3bn). But despite the city's immense wealth, trouble was brewing. At the same time that Angkor's temple-building programme peaked, its vital hydraulic network was falling into disrepair - at the worst possible moment. The end of the medieval period saw dramatic shifts in climate across south-east Asia. Tree ring samples record sudden fluctuations between extreme dry and wet conditions - and the lidar map reveals catastrophic flood damage to the city's vital water network. With this lifeline in tatters, Angkor entered a spiral of decline from which it never recovered. In the 15th Century, the Khmer kings abandoned their city and moved to the coast. They built a new city, Phnom Penh, the present-day capital of Cambodia. Life in Angkor slowly ebbed away. When Mouhot arrived he found only the great stone temples, many of them in a perilous state of disrepair. Nearly everything else - from common houses to royal palaces, all of which were constructed of wood - had rotted away. The vast metropolis that once surrounded the temples had been all but devoured by the jungle. Watch the first episode of Jungle Atlantis on Thursday 25 September at 20:00 BST on BBC Two, or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer. The programme was made in association with The Smithsonian Channel, which will be transmitting both episodes in the US on 5 October under the title Angkor Revealed.

कम्बोडिया के जंगल की गहराई में एक विशाल मध्ययुगीन शहर के अवशेष हैं, जो सदियों से छिपा हुआ था। नई पुरातात्विक तकनीकें अब इसके रहस्यों को उजागर कर रही हैं-जिसमें मंदिरों और बुलेवार्डों का एक विस्तृत नेटवर्क और परिष्कृत इंजीनियरिंग शामिल है।


Loneliness: Actress's mission to combat isolation

Summary: Actress, writer and singer Carys Eleri created a one-woman comedy show to address the neuroscience behind love as well as loneliness. Here she explains why she is on a mission to combat loneliness.

Loneliness has always existed. It is now being heightened by our phone addiction. I have always considered myself to be this really bubbly person with lots of friends and an amazing family. So it was really strange when I realised suddenly, oh my gosh, I'm lonely. I was working long hours, I was single and living on my own. That had never bothered me until I realised my behaviour was changing. Slowly, instead of on my days off actively seeking people out to spend time with them, I was finding myself becoming more on my own. What was going on here? This wasn't like me at all. That's when I realised absolutely everything I did was on my phone. You can just stare at your phone and do yoga through a yoga app. You don't even have to go to a class any more. So you don't actually have to speak to anybody. People are telling you you maybe need to get a boyfriend. There's an app for that, so you are trying to pull in your living room, swiping right and left, and there is nobody around. It was when I was doing that, that I realised I had been fooled by all this technology. I had been fooled into feeling connected with people when I really wasn't. Love and loneliness are two universal states. No matter who we are, we all feel love and loneliness, so that's why I created my comedy show, Lovecraft, based around that, so I could really get my message across. I made jokes about the good and bad bits of living on your own, and I told the story quite frankly as well as scientifically and factually. But, during my research, I also learnt a lot - like how loneliness has its own page on the NHS website. In fact, it kills people, being up there with obesity and smoking. If you are feeling lonely, I would advise people to call a friend, go and see friends. It is nurturing friendships that are really, really important to us. By that I mean, actual friendships in the real world, not the online world. There are so many physical health benefits to just being physically present in people's lives. For me, the opposite of being lonely is to love. I'm not talking in a romantic sense. I'm talking about being cared for and that you matter. We need to get more connected as human beings. What happens to the brain when you are lonely? Dr Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist and lecturer at the Cardiff University Centre for Medical Education, said: "The reason humans have such big brains is to facilitate social interaction, to engage with and relate to people. "The brain has evolved to be sociable so if you cut it off from that, it's depriving it of something it needs. "If you deprive a developing or adolescence brain of company, it won't develop normally. "Chiefly, emotions become a problem - if you take the emotion of guilt, for instance, this only works in social interactions. "If you don't learn that, then your brain struggles to handle and deal with these emotions as well as it should. "The consequences of that will lead to certain behavioural changes. "You drink more, you eat more, you don't take the exercise you need as you are not motivated, which could then lead to unpleasant health consequences." You can watch the full story on Wales Live on the BBC iPlayer.

अभिनेत्री, लेखिका और गायिका कैरीज एलेरी ने प्यार के साथ-साथ अकेलेपन के पीछे तंत्रिका विज्ञान को संबोधित करने के लिए एक महिला कॉमेडी शो बनाया। यहाँ वह बताती है कि वह अकेलेपन से लड़ने के मिशन पर क्यों है।


Coronavirus: The toys and games that saved lockdown

Summary: Stuck at home, irritable, and a little bit bored during lockdown - and that's just the parents. Many have felt the need to buy big Lego sets and 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles to keep themselves entertained.

By Kevin PeacheyPersonal finance reporter Their children, on the other hand, have had a whale of a time playing outside in the glorious weather. Retro stationary tennis game Swingball has bounced into the top 10 toy bestsellers during the coronavirus restrictions. While many families do not have the luxury of outdoor space at home, one psychologist says the experience of playing games together may be one good outcome from the national crisis. Bored of board games? Lockdown has proved to be a mixed blessing for the UK toy sector. Toy retailers, like the rest of the High Street, have been shut and struggling. Gary Grant, boss of one of the biggest toy sellers in the UK, The Entertainer, says that the business would have folded without the government's financial support, and is still fighting for survival. Yet the value of UK toy sales rose by 17% in the two months from the beginning of lockdown compared with the same period last year, according to analysts NPD. That's because parents and children in the UK have actually been buying fewer toys, but spending more on those they have bought during lockdown. The average amount spent on a toy or game has risen from £8.07 to £9.65, NPD data shows. Initially, the big sellers were games and puzzles "to keep the kids occupied while parents were working", according to Frederique Tutt, global toy industry expert at NPD. They remain the biggest success story, with sales up 43% in value in the first half of this year compared with the first six months of 2019. Monopoly and Dobble are among the 10 biggest-selling toys and games during lockdown. Then the month of May - the sunniest calendar month on record in the UK - prompted demand for outdoor toys, which recorded a 31% increase over the same period. Sand and waterslides flew off the virtual shelves. It was a different story in continental Europe where, despite similarly good weather, tighter restrictions and less of an online market meant parents saved their toy spending until the shops reopened. In the UK, children - unable to visit the toy shop - have kept their pocket money tucked away too. The amount spent on collectable toys, the big hit of recent years, has collapsed by nearly a third (29%) since the start of the year. Impulse buying evaporated, and that was bad news for Gary Grant, long-time advocate of the physical toy shop. Even the sale of 300 tonnes of play sand in eight weeks could not make up for lost revenue. He describes the last three months as "traumatic". The vast majority of his 2,000 members of staff have been furloughed and he had to overhaul the business's online operation and warehouses within days. All attention is now on the shops reopening in England on Monday and later in other parts of the UK, and making them a safe place to visit. "We want children to run around our shops. They are toy shops. But at the moment, they can't, because it has to be safe for customers and staff," he says. Reopening has to work for the future of town centres, he says. The government lifelines of providing state-paid wages, business rate breaks, and support loans will end eventually. "We cannot afford to have a second wave [of the virus]," he says. "We might not survive that." For now, he is appealing to the public to visit shops again, but sensibly. "Do not turn your back on the High Street, otherwise the High Street will be dead. Retailers like the food shops stepped up [during lockdown], we need to back them up," he says. The analysts' predictions will not all make happy reading for him. Consumer surveys by NPD suggest shoppers are cautious about heading back to stores. Four out of five of those asked said they would research toys online before buying them. Click and collect, free delivery, and in-store fast lanes at tills are all high on consumers' wish lists. The silver lining for shops is that, despite the inevitable economic pain ahead, Christmas in the toy sector has usually been resilient to stretched household budgets. The last thing to sacrifice, it seems, is the kids' presents, especially when grandparents are able to step in to help pay for them. Quality time The sector can also comfort itself in the knowledge that, according to one psychologist, play has helped families get through the anxieties created by the coronavirus outbreak. "Playing is a great distraction, and families communicate better when they are doing something together," says Dr Amanda Gummer, founder of the Good Play Guide. She says that there are inequalities over space at home, and how much money can be spent, but play is a great leveller. "You can still make a great den with pillows and a duvet," she says. The long-term effects of lockdown may also be positive. Children have had to learn about boredom and how to entertain themselves, to know when to be energetic or quiet, she says. That might not mirror every parent's experience, but she says they too may have recognised the benefits of a slower pace of life, taking time to smell the roses or do a scavenger hunt with their children. If all that fails, they could just go back to that unfinished jigsaw.

घर में फंसा हुआ, चिड़चिड़ा, और लॉकडाउन के दौरान थोड़ा ऊब गया-और यह सिर्फ माता-पिता हैं। कई लोगों ने खुद का मनोरंजन करने के लिए बड़े लेगो सेट और 1,000 टुकड़े वाली जिगसॉ पहेलियाँ खरीदने की आवश्यकता महसूस की है।


Can I recycle on Boxing Day?

Summary: Leftovers, hangovers and mountains of rubbish.

In the cold light of Boxing Day, the excesses of food, drink and gifting are apparent, with houses overtaken by cardboard, paper, bottles and packaging refusing to fit in the wheelie bin. A BBC survey has found only three council areas in Scotland continue collections and open recycling centres on the Boxing Day public holiday. So what can we do on Boxing Day when we are drowning in waste? Well, it depends on where you are in Scotland. A mixed picture across Scotland BBC Scotland surveyed all Scotland's local authorities to find out which waste services are provided on Boxing Day. The picture is mixed. Fifteen councils observed the traditional holiday and provided no kerbside collection or depot facilities at all. Fourteen had either collections or centres operating, while three - Edinburgh, Aberdeen city and Renfrewshire - had both services running. Councils rate the importance of the service differently. This could partly be down to staffing. The GMB union has said a fairer, more consistent approach is needed across Scotland for the workers who provided these services. Drew Duffy, senior organiser for public services in Scotland, told the BBC the majority of union members work on Boxing Day not by choice but because they are made to work. He said: "There's a discrepancy between terms and conditions across the 32 local authorities. Some councils deem it an essential service to the extent they actually have to work and give up time with their friends and family. ''They don't know what they're going to be getting paid in different areas so a more uniform approach across Scotland would be better. He also called for planning to be done further in advance. "We know it's coming, we know when Christmas is going to be, when Boxing Day is, and we know people will need some kind of refuse service to get their stuff picked up - so let's plan to make it more consistent and fairer across the country," he added. A spokesman for council umbrella group Cosla said: "The vast majority of conditions of service are determined at a local level by individual councils in negotiation with local trade unions representatives. "Rates of pay at holiday times falls into this category and, therefore rightly, is a matter for individual councils." Scots are also warned that rubbish must not be left outside bins, as this could lead to fines of £200, with penalties for fly-tipping up to £40,000. Can I recycle on Boxing Day? The services in your area. Aberdeen city - Operates uplift service every day except Christmas Day and New Years Day. Household waste recycling centres are open every day except 25 December and 1 January. Aberdeenshire - Households will only have their kerbside recycling or residual waste collected on Boxing Day if that is their normal scheduled day of collection. Household waste recycling centres will be closed from 15:00 on Christmas Eve until the morning of 27 December. There are unmanned recycling points around the area. Angus - Recycling centres will be closed on Boxing Day and no refuse collections will take place on 26 December. Argyll and Bute - The council operates 'Bring sites' across Argyll and Bute to dispose of excess recyclable material over the holidays. No collections or refuse centres open on the bank holiday. Clackmannanshire - Kerbside collections due on 26 December will take place on 28 December. The recycling centre is closed on 26 December, and reopens on 27 December. Dumfries and Galloway - No collections and all recycling centres are closed 26 December. Dundee - Tuesday collections will be carried out on 26 December. Recycling centres closed. East Ayrshire - No collections or recycling centres on 25 and 26 December, or 1 and 2 January. Catch-up collections will take place on 22 and 23 December and 29 and 30 December. East Dunbartonshire - No recycling or waste collections on 25 and 26 December. More than a dozen unmanned recycling points across the area during this period located at the local supermarkets, leisure centres or in and around town centres. East Lothian - No collections or waste depots open on Boxing Day. East Renfrewshire - Recycling centres closed on 26 December but staff will uplift from "bring sites" and continue normal Tuesday collections. Edinburgh - Kerbside rubbish and recycling collections as usual on Boxing Day. Several recycling centres open limited hours. Falkirk - No collections on Boxing Day. Denny and Boness recycling centres open. Fife - No collections and no recycling centres on Boxing Day. Centres will be open on 24, 27, 31 December and 3 January. Recycling points not serviced on 25, 26 December and 1, 2 January. Glasgow - No kerbside collection service on Boxing Day. Four household waste and recycling centres will be fully staffed from 08:00 to 20:00 (normal service). Highland - Normal kerbside collection on 26 December. Recycling bottle banks accessible across the region. Inverclyde - No kerbside collection on Boxing Day. Recycling centres open for reduced hours. Midlothian - All facilities, including the recycling centres, closed on 25 and 26 December. Moray - No depots or collections on Boxing Day. North Ayrshire - No kerbside collections and no depots on 26 December North Lanarkshire - Six household waste recycling centres will be open on Boxing Day and 2 January. No household bin collections. Orkney Islands - No collection service on Boxing Day. Perth and Kinross - No domestic or commercial collections on 26 December and recycling centres closed. Renfrewshire - Waste collections as normal on 26 December and 2 January. Recycling centres open (winter hours). Scottish Borders - Kerbside collections are normal. No staffed waste depot services. Shetland Islands - No waste collection or recycling services. No recycling centre service. South Ayrshire - Collections on Boxing Day and 2 January (reduced service). No plans to open recycling centres on any of the public holidays. South Lanarkshire - No collections on Boxing Day, recycling centres will be open. Stirling - No collections or recycling centres on Boxing Day. West Dunbartonshire - No collections but staffed household waste recycling centres are open. Western Isles - Boxing Day is a collection day. Household waste recycling centres are closed for both days. West Lothian - Food waste collections are planned as normal, but no other kerbside collections. Recycling centres are closed. Christmas waste advice In the meantime, if people are unable to get to recycling centres or have later bin collections, Zero Waste Scotland has issued advice on dealing with Christmas waste. Jill Farrell from Zero Waste Scotland, said: "We all tend to wake up on Boxing Day with loads of food left over from Christmas. Don't let it go to waste. Check out the great leftover recipe ideas on the Love Food Hate Waste Scotland website and you'll be able to give your sprouts and turkey a whole new lease of life. "If you've been given something for Christmas you're not too fond of, don't just put it in the bin. Re-gifting presents is a wonderful way of giving unwanted presents a second chance while making someone else's day. Alternatively, you could pass on the presents that you no longer want to a charity shop or someone else in need. "From wrapping paper and boxes to cards and empty bottles, Christmas can generate a lot of waste. Keeping tabs on the recycling can be tricky at this time of year so check out your local authority's website so you don't miss the festive collections."

बचे हुए हिस्से, हैंगओवर और कचरे के पहाड़।


Cuban baseball greats vs US-based defectors

Summary: Some of Cuba's greatest baseball stars are about to begin an unprecedented sporting event. The veterans play a series in the US with former team-mates who left the communist island, many playing in the Major League on huge salaries.

By Sarah RainsfordBBC News, Havana The average age of the athletes stretching, pitching and batting in a corner of Havana's Sport City has shot up in recent weeks. Alongside younger baseball players in training, veterans of Cuba's most famous team, Industriales, were preparing for a unique encounter in the US. To mark the 50th birthday of the club, they are taking on old team-mates who defected from the communist island. "It's a historic meeting, it's amazing," laughs Antonio "Tony" Gonzalez, shortly before the group set off for Florida. Gonzalez was a short-stop for Industriales in the 1960s, and at 75 is the oldest player on the roster. "I'm like a child, I can hardly sleep waiting for the day we play," he says, in between practice catches. Cuban baseball was a prime source of players for US Major League teams until Fidel Castro's revolution. Castro banned professional sport having deemed the money "corrosive". Today, Cuban athletes are trained for free then paid small state salaries. But the prospect of multi-million dollar contracts overseas has remained alluring for many of them. Relaxed rules Industriales pitcher Rene Arocha, who will join the veterans for the reunion match, began the main flood of defections in 1991. He slipped away during a stopover at Miami airport. Dozens more have followed, often lured by professional scouts. Two young players fled just last month and it now appears that Cuba's brightest talent, Jose Dariel Abreu of Cienfuegos, has also gone. The fate of his former Cienfuegos team-mate must be a big draw: Yasiel Puig skipped Cuba last year and signed for the LA Dodgers for $42m (£27m). Until recently, those who abandoned Cuba were considered traitors and blocked from returning. The government relaxed the migration laws earlier this year, and a handful of former baseball stars have since visited. But for most of the Industriales veterans, the 50th anniversary meet in Florida is a long-awaited reunion. "It will be great to see them again. They're part of our lives and part of the history of baseball, of Industriales," says Lazaro Valle, who played 15 seasons with the team and counts some of the defectors as close friends. Among those he is keen to catch up with is Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, who fled Cuba by boat in 1997 and signed with the New York Yankees. Valle has not seen him since. "Why would I think badly of what they did when they're like brothers to me? It was their desire, and I have to respect that," Valle says. Tony Gonzalez agrees: "When someone leaves, it affects those who remain a lot, but they remain Industriales for ever." Quiet transformation Not everyone is keen on such baseball diplomacy. The US city of Miami is home to large numbers of Cuba exiles and, for many of them, a showcase match for Cuba's top baseball side appears too close to pro-Castro propaganda. That initially complicated the search for a venue when Florida International University pulled out. But eventually organisers found alternatives. The series starts with a game in Tampa on Friday. One of the men striding out in Industriales blue will be Lazaro Vargas. At 49, he is now director of the Havana-based club he starred with for over 20 seasons. In his prime he was offered $10m to leave Cuba for the US, but refused. "I like it here," he shrugs, laughing. Defecting would have meant cutting ties with the island, including family and friends for good. But Vargas now sees a quiet but radical transformation in Cuban baseball that could help reduce the defections. This year, three players were contracted out to a Mexican club on deals worth some $10,000 a month, according to Cuba's state-run Sports Institute. The institute said the players kept "the vast majority" of the money. In Cuba, a player earns around $20 a month. All three men are now back with their home clubs in time for the National Series; the experiment will be examined and expanded if it is deemed successful, as the players hope. "It's a big change," says Vargas. "I think it won't only help prevent people defecting, it will also raise the level of Cuban baseball. If people play overseas and lift their level, the Cuban game will improve too." Patriots vs defectors Defections have certainly played a part in slashing standards: Cuba's national team suffered a disastrous 5-0 defeat in Iowa last month to a US college side. The US trade embargo on Cuba will presumably keep Major League teams, and the really big money, off-limits. US sanctions block any financial transactions that enrich the island's government, and active Cuban athletes are still treated as "property" of the state that trained them. Unless that changes, the impact of any other liberalisation will be limited. So as they await developments, the Industriales veterans are preparing to take part in their own, ground-breaking initiative: the clash of the Industriales "patriots" against the "defectors". "It's a bit hard now we're older. The muscles hurt a bit more," Vargas admitted, between still-powerful practice strikes in the nets. "But I think it will be a good game. They don't want to lose, and neither do we."

क्यूबा के कुछ महान बेसबॉल सितारे एक अभूतपूर्व खेल आयोजन शुरू करने वाले हैं। दिग्गज खिलाड़ी अमेरिका में टीम के पूर्व साथियों के साथ एक श्रृंखला खेलते हैं, जिन्होंने कम्युनिस्ट द्वीप छोड़ दिया, जिनमें से कई बड़े वेतन पर मेजर लीग में खेल रहे थे।


A76 closed due to suspected gas leak and fire in Sanquhar

Summary: A number of properties were evacuated after a suspected gas leak and fire in Dumfries and Galloway.

The A76 was closed following the incident, which happened at about 16:15, near High Street, Sanquhar. Traffic Scotland said the road was closed in both directions after the alarm was raised. Police put a diversion in place but later said the incident was not serious. The road reopened at 17:30.

डमफ्रीज और गैलोवे में संदिग्ध गैस रिसाव और आग लगने के बाद कई संपत्तियों को खाली करा लिया गया था।


Tony Nicklinson: The trapped man

Summary: BBC Wiltshire presenter Lee Stone got to know Tony Nicklinson during his battle for a law change that would allow doctors to legally end his life. Here he offers his personal tribute to the 58-year-old, who died earlier.

By Lee StoneBBC Wiltshire Less than a week ago, I was sitting in Tony Nicklinson's kitchen looking at a solitary good luck card on the tidy granite work surface. It was five minutes to 14:00 BST, and the nation's media had crammed into his modest Melksham bungalow to hear whether the High Court would let a doctor end the life that Tony described as "miserable, demeaning, and not worth living". As it turned out, Tony Nicklinson had no luck. When two o' clock arrived and the court handed down its decision, he burst into tears. He wept like a child, uncontrollably and without dignity. He wept in the way most of us would weep if we were told we were going to die. For Tony, the news was worse. He was going to live. I first met Tony Nicklinson three years ago. He had been a successful engineer who had lived and worked in Hong Kong and Dubai. The plain walls of his small room were covered with pictures of him playing rugby, skydiving, and standing proudly with his wife and two children. 'Twisted and broken' He sat in front of those memories, slumped in a medical chair. His body was twisted and broken after a catastrophic stroke during a business trip to Athens in 2005. The first interview was tough. How do you talk to a man who can only answer by blinking letters to his wife so that she can painstakingly guess at what he's trying to say? A man who makes lucid, compelling arguments while dribbling incessantly and coughing alarmingly? It became easier as I began to understand his rather stubborn viewpoint. The more he told me, letter by letter, that he didn't give a hoot about what the religious lobby thought, the more I wanted to challenge his position. And the more I wanted to challenge him, the more I began to share the frustration that he was feeling as he sat, locked into a body that simply refused to do what he asked of it. Over time we shared emails. His were always direct and to the point. They were sharp and clear. As months progressed, his campaign gathered pace. He became clearer about how he wanted to die. He sent me a document which he had written, asking me what I thought about his idea for a machine which could administer a lethal injection to end his life. His life was the stuff of nightmares. What will Tony Nicklinson's legacy be? He leaves behind a wife and two daughters who have been his fiercest advocates. They are a family who loved him enough to be prepared to let him go. More than that, they were prepared to fight for him to go. Seven years late, they will be able to say goodbye to the man they lost back in Athens in 2005. But there is a sad paradox to Tony's death. His natural passing puts an end to his long campaign to take back control of his life. Now, he will not achieve his aim of wrestling control of his life from a legal system which couldn't find a way to protect the vulnerable while allowing him freedom of choice. Ultimately, death has robbed him of the right to die.

बीबीसी विल्टशायर के प्रस्तुतकर्ता ली स्टोन ने टोनी निक्लिंसन को एक कानून परिवर्तन के लिए उनकी लड़ाई के दौरान जाना जो डॉक्टरों को कानूनी रूप से उनके जीवन को समाप्त करने की अनुमति देगा। यहाँ उन्होंने 58 वर्षीय को अपनी व्यक्तिगत श्रद्धांजलि दी, जिनकी पहले मृत्यु हो गई थी।


100 Women 2016: My sham marriage

Summary: In China, the pressure for young women to get married is huge. So what do you do if you are a gay woman? Ou Xiaobai, a 32-year-old living in Beijing, describes how a marriage of convenience helps her please her family and preserve her freedom.

I want to protect and be with my girlfriend for my entire life. And that's why I married a man in 2012. At that time I was living a happy life with my girlfriend in Beijing. But I was under constant pressure from my family - who lived in Dalian - to get married. Ironically my situation would have been easier a decade ago. Then there was less awareness of homosexuality and therefore less suspicion. My parents kept asking me if I was seeing anyone. And the situation got worse after my father passed away, because my mother - concerned that I didn't seem to have settled down with anyone - started coming to live with me for a few months every year. Realising there was no way that I could avoid the issue, I went to my friends for help - and that's how I got to know about "marriages of convenience". I met my husband through a friend. He is a very nice man. Just like me and my girlfriend, he has been with his boyfriend for many years and has not come out. 'I knew I had made the right decision' At our wedding my girlfriend was my bridesmaid, make-up artist and wedding dress consultant. She was very happy and supportive of my decision, as was my husband's boyfriend. Despite being brought together by necessity, the four of us got on well and decided the details of the weddings together. After seeing how happy my family were at my wedding, I knew I had made the right decision. Only in this way can we satisfy everyone's needs - my family is happy to know that there will be someone looking after me when they die, and my husband no longer gets encouraged by his colleagues to go on dates with women. At first my husband and I visited our families together during traditional holidays such as the Spring Festival and I would be at his side at work gatherings. But in the last couple of years, now that our families and colleagues believe we have settled down, we rarely have to act as a real couple. What is 100 women? BBC 100 Women names 100 influential and inspirational women around the world every year. We create documentaries, features and interviews about their lives, giving more space for stories that put women at the centre. Other stories you might like: Girl on the Train author on difficult friendships Children rewrite 'sexist' Cinderella Girl gamers challenge e-sports sexism I live with my girlfriend and he lives with his boyfriend. The four of us go for dinner sometimes as we have become good friends. After I got married, friends who knew my sexuality started asking me for advice. That's when my girlfriend and I realised that there are many people who are in desperate need of help. Not only the 70 million homosexual people in China, but also the millions of heterosexual women who risk ending up married to homosexual men. So we set up a service on social media called iHomo. Over the course of a year, we organised more than 80 events, helping to form 100 marriages of convenience. And now we are working on an iHomo app. However I do understand that for many, a marriage of convenience could be the beginning of a nightmare. It gets very tricky if other family members live in the same city - a surprise visit could easily reveal the truth of their marriages. In these cases, setting up another home with shared amenities is crucial, but obviously keeping that up can get very tiring. Added to the pressure is the constant question: "When will you two have a child?" If the male and female "couple" go ahead with methods such as IVF, then there comes the question - should the biological parents raise the child? If so, then the "couple" would have to live together. It just gets too complicated! We have managed to skirt the children question so far. Right now we are focusing on finding a husband for my girlfriend. Although she came out to her parents when she was in high school and we visit them every weekend, we understand their fear that other family members and friends might find out her sexual orientation, especially her grandmother who is desperate for her to get married. Sooner or later, because I don't do everything I could to keep it a secret, my family will find out the truth. But I believe Chinese society will eventually become more tolerant towards the LGBT community and it will be easier for my mother to accept my sexuality in the future. I do want my family to accept the real me. My girlfriend and I want to help society understand us better, but being loud and aggressive might not be the best strategy. We want to use marriages of convenience as a pragmatic way to ease the conflict so that homosexuals can live the life they want. We know how extremely difficult it will be, but we will fight for what we believe in and keep going forward. Research by Natalia Zuo and Oana Marocico

चीन में, युवा महिलाओं के लिए शादी करने का दबाव बहुत अधिक है। तो अगर आप एक समलैंगिक महिला हैं तो आप क्या करते हैं? बीजिंग में रहने वाली 32 वर्षीय ओउ शियाओबाई बताती हैं कि कैसे सुविधा की शादी उसे अपने परिवार को खुश करने और अपनी स्वतंत्रता को बनाए रखने में मदद करती है।