African migration 'a trickle' thanks to trafficking ban across the Sahara

Summary: The number of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean for Europe has been dropping and that is partly because of tougher measures introduced on the migrant routes, as Mike Thomson reports from Niger.

In a small dusty courtyard near the centre of Agadez, a town on the fringes of the Sahara desert, Bachir Amma, eats lunch with his family. A line of plastic chairs, clinging to the shadow of the mud walls, are the only visible furniture. Mr Amma, a former people smuggler, dressed in a faded blue denim shirt and jeans, has clearly known better days. "I stopped trafficking migrants to the Libyan border when the new law came in. "It's very, very strict. If you're caught you get a long time in jail and they confiscate your vehicle. "If the law was eased I would go back to people trafficking, that's for sure. It earned me as much as $6,000 (£4,700) a week, far more money than anything I can do now." Traffickers jailed The law Mr Amma mentioned, which banned the transport of migrants through northern Niger, was brought in by the government in 2015 following pressure from European countries. Before then such work was entirely legal, as Niger is a member of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) that permits the free movement of people. Police even provided armed escorts for the convoys involved. But since the law was passed many traffickers have been jailed and hundreds of their vehicles confiscated. Before 2015, the Agadez region was home to more than 6,000 people traffickers like Mr Amma, according to figures from the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) . Collectively they transported around 340,000 Europe-bound migrants through the Sahara desert to Libya. Migration in reverse Since the clampdown this torrent has become a relative trickle. In fact, more African migrants, who have ended up in Niger and experienced or heard of the terrible dangers and difficulties of getting to Europe, have decided to return home. This year alone 16,000 have decided to accept offers from the IOM to fly them back. A large and boisterous IOM-run transit centre in Agadez is home to hundreds of weary, homesick migrants. In one large hut around 20 young men, from a variety of West African countries, attend a class on how to set up a small business when they get home. Among them is 27-year-old Umar Sankoh from Sierra Leone, who was dumped in the Sahara by a trafficker when he was unable to pay him more money. "The struggle is so hard in the desert, so difficult to find your way. You don't have food, you don't have nothing, even water you can't drink. It's so terrible," he said. Now, Mr Sankoh has given up his dreams of a better life in Europe and only has one thought in mind: "I want to go home. "My family will be happy because it's been a long time so they must believe I am dead. "If they see me now they'll think, 'Oh my God, God is working!'" Coast guards intercept vessels Many thousands of migrants who make it to Libya are sold on by their traffickers to kidnappers who try and get thousands of dollars from their families back home. Those who cannot pay are often tortured, sometimes while being forced to ask relatives for money over the phone, and held in atrocious conditions for months. With much of the country in the grip of civil war, such gangs can operate there with impunity. In an effort to curb the number of migrants making for southern Europe by boat, thousands of whom have drowned on the way, coast guards trained by the European Union (EU) try and stop or intercept often flimsy vessels. Those on board are then taken to detention centres, where they are exposed to squalid, hugely overcrowded conditions and sometimes beatings and forced hard labour. Legal resettlement offers In November 2017, the EU funded a special programme to evacuate the most vulnerable refugees in centres like these. Under this scheme, which is run by the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR), a little more than 2,200 people have since been flown to the comparative safety of neighbouring Niger. There, in a compound in the capital, Niamey, they wait for the chance to be resettled in a European country, including the UK, as well as Canada and the US. So far just under 1,000 have been resettled and 264 accepted for resettlement. The rest await news of their fate. More on EU migration crisis: Abdul Karim, a young man from Somalia, arrived at this compound just over three weeks ago after six terrible months in the clutches of a Libyan kidnap gang "When I was in Libya I didn't see the sun for six months because we were kept underground. "It was so difficult to breathe and if you talked they would kill you. There was a lot of people, they died in there," he said. Finally, Mr Karim told me, he and nine other hostages managed to overpower one of their guards and escape, though two were shot dead on the way out. They were then rescued by police who notified UNHCR. Healing through music Among the most vulnerable refugees evacuated from Libya are unaccompanied children. Many have experienced similar horrors to Mr Karim and have brought memories of their long running nightmares with them to Niger. But a rehabilitation centre in the capital is trying to address these. The arresting tones of an electric organ mingle with gentle drum beats and the strumming of guitars in a small dusty room on the outskirts of Niamey. Around a dozen teenage migrants sit transfixed as they are patiently shown the basics of composing a melody. One boy at the back stares into space, his troubled mind evidently elsewhere, but most eyes remained glued to their young Senegalese music teacher, Adel. He tells me that many of these young migrants find it hard to articulate their thoughts, their traumas trapped deep inside, but believes that learning an instrument will help them. "Music doesn't have limits. And even if you are sad, music can express it. So if they learn music it's like a voice for them to talk," Adel said. 'Forced to drink urine' During a break in the lesson, which was organised by UN children's charity Unicef, I spoke to the boy at the back of the room whose attention had seemed elsewhere a little earlier. The 16-year-old, who did not want me to use his name, revealed what happened to his group when they were crossing the Sahara. When their water ran out they were forced to drink their own urine and the traffickers, who kept asking for more money, beat them all and repeatedly raped the women. But it seems that sessions like this one are slowly helping him recover. "When I first came to Niger I kept thinking of bad things, like when one of my friends died while we were crossing the Sahara. "But I have kept busy and the music is helping me forget these bad things." For tens of thousands of other refugees and migrants still in Libya, whether they are in squalid detention centres or being held by kidnappers, the nightmare continues. Little chance of desert rescue Although there has been a big drop in the number of African migrants heading north to Europe, the risks are now worse than ever for those who continue to make this journey. The law banning the transport of migrants in northern Niger has led many traffickers to take dangerous back routes to avoid being arrested by police patrols. These take them further from water holes into areas plagued by armed groups and strewn with land mines. The chances of being rescued in such desolate, hostile places is often extremely remote. The vastness of the Sahara desert, an area around four times the size of the Mediterranean, also means that the bodies of many migrants who have perished there may never be found. UNHCR's country representative in Niger, Alessandra Morelli, believes that many more migrants have lost their lives in this merciless sea of sand than have drowned in the Mediterranean. "We, the international community, the UNHCR, say that for every death in the Mediterranean there are at least two in the Sahara, unknown and anonymous. "Definitely the routes are more dangerous and more costly." 'Smuggling makes money' Back in Agadez, as the scorching sun sinks from the sky, a young man, his face partially concealed in the hood of a white fleece, is on his phone drumming up business. Ibrahim, who does not want his real name published, is preparing for his next trip through the Sahara to Libya. His task now is to get enough migrants to fill the pick-up truck he drives for a local people trafficker. Far from being worried about the clampdown which forces him to take longer, more dangerous back routes, Ibrahim smiles. Because he is paid by the day, he is now making more money than ever. "In the past the journey to Libya would take three days but now it can take a week. Also because these back routes mean me driving through mined areas we charge the migrants twice as much." The young trafficker says bandits and armed groups are other dangers which justify the higher charges. Not short of customers He tells me that he had given up this risky business after the EU funded offers to smugglers like him a variety of inducements to quit. These ranged from giving them motorbikes, fridges or livestock to help in starting a new trade. But, he says, he has never received a thing. "If they give us money then we definitely will stop. "For two years they've been promising to give it to us, but we haven't received anything yet. That's why we have to go back to this work, we can't stay penniless." An association set up in Agadez to represent some of the region's 6,000 former people traffickers claims only a small fraction of them have received anything. Many, like Ibrahim, are said to be returning to their dangerous trade. It seems they will not be short of customers. On my first evening in Agadez a convoy of pick-up trucks packed full of migrants sped past me on the desert going north. Others, like Sophie Herman Mbambi from Congo-Brazzaville, wait to join them soon. Convinced she has nothing left to lose she is undeterred by the terrible risks ahead. "If I'd stayed in Congo I would have killed myself because I had no family and no money to live on. "So even if I'm going to die, I'd rather my corpse was somewhere else than in my own country."

यूरोप के लिए भूमध्य सागर पार करने की कोशिश करने वाले प्रवासियों की संख्या कम हो रही है और यह आंशिक रूप से प्रवासी मार्गों पर शुरू किए गए सख्त उपायों के कारण है, जैसा कि नाइजर से माइक थॉमसन रिपोर्ट करते हैं।


Kent: Five held over 'exploitation' of fruit pickers

Summary: Five people have been arrested in connection with the alleged exploitation of Romanian fruit workers.

Police raided a property in Chatham, Kent, on Friday 22 May and arrested four men and a woman. All five were held on suspicion of human trafficking and modern slavery offences and released pending further inquiries. A number of identified victims were taken to a place of safety, Kent Police said.

रोमानियाई फल श्रमिकों के कथित शोषण के संबंध में पांच लोगों को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Radio 1 Big Weekend: Little Mix, Miley Cyrus and Stormzy perform

Summary: Little Mix, Miley Cyrus, Mumford and Sons, Stormzy and Lewis Capaldi are just some of the stars who put on a show for the crowd at Radio 1's Big Weekend.

The artists used fireworks and booming speakers to bring the party to Stewart Park in Middlesbrough on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Lewis, who performed on Saturday, told Radio 1 Newsbeat: "I think it might be the best gig I've ever played in my life. "It's the first time I've played a lot of these songs in a festival set-up. It's incredible to see people come out. "Hearing people singing back your songs is so weird... I don't think I'll ever get used to it." Here are some of the best pics from the weekend so far: Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

लिटिल मिक्स, माइली साइरस, ममफोर्ड एंड संस, स्टॉर्मी और लुईस कैपाल्डी कुछ ऐसे सितारे हैं जिन्होंने रेडियो 1 के बिग वीकेंड में भीड़ के लिए एक शो किया।


Egypt Morsi TV gaffe puts spotlight on control of media

Summary: The death of a former president in most countries around the world would normally make headline news domestically. But not the case for Egypt, where ex-President Mohammed Morsi died at the age of 67 on Monday after collapsing in a courtroom during his trial on spying charges.

His sudden demise barely registered in Egyptian media - in fact, papers there prioritised Egypt's hosting of the forthcoming 2019 African Cup of Nations on its front pages, and instead relegated Morsi's death to the inside pages usually designated for criminal affairs. The state-run channels failed to even mention that Morsi - the first democratically-elected leader in Egypt - was a former president, instead referring to him with his full name. The coverage was short and to the point - just 42 words (in Arabic) both in print media, radio and on television: "Mohammed Morsi died yesterday during his trial in an espionage case. The deceased asked the judge to speak and the court gave him permission. After the court was adjourned, he fainted and died. The body was transferred to hospital and the necessary procedures are under way." An Egyptian news anchor unwittingly put a spotlight on the similarities between the reports in an on-air gaffe on Tuesday. Whilst reading from a teleprompter, Extra News TV's Noha Darwish signed off her report with the words: "This was sent by a Samsung device." She appeared visibly confused and embarrassed when she realised her mistake, pausing for a few seconds before continuing to read the news bulletin. According to the opposition Mada Masr website, the story was sent to news editors across Egypt "by a government entity" via Whatsapp messenger. "This came with instructions to place the brief account of Morsi's death on the inside pages as opposed to the front page," the website said, quoting an anonymous newspaper source. Extra News TV is affiliated with a private equity fund which, according to Mada Masr, has links with Egypt's intelligence services. The BBC was unable to reach the Egyptian authorities for comment on the story. Morsi had largely fallen out of the spotlight after his ousting by the military as president in 2013. A year earlier, he was chosen as the Muslim Brotherhood's presidential candidate after the Islamist movement's first-choice candidate was forced to pull out of the race. However, his first - and only - year in office proved to be a turbulent time, with Morsi accused by his critics of mounting an Islamist coup and mishandling the economy. He faced mass anti-government protests which led to the military suspending the constitution and detaining him. Under his successor Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, the authorities launched a crackdown on Morsi supporters and the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood which saw hundreds killed and tens of thousands detained. Why was Morsi's death downplayed? "The media in Egypt is effectively controlled by the security forces," Hussein Baoumi, Amnesty International's Egypt researcher, explains. "Security agencies send messages or emails to the TV channels, giving them a script on how to cover a particular news item or specific issue," he told the BBC. "With Mohammed Morsi, they wanted to limit the information available on him and present their own version of the story - the story being that they were not responsible for his death. They also wanted to present his rule as though he was an abuser from the Muslim Brotherhood who fooled a population." The media landscape has transformed under Mr Sisi's presidency, with the authorities increasing their control over both traditional and social media to an unprecedented degree. According to Mr Baoumi, Mada Masr is one of the few remaining independent websites still operating in Egypt, and people have to circumnavigate heavy censorship of the site by using virtual private networks (VPNs) which use servers abroad to provide a secure internet link. Reporters without Borders (RSF) ranks Egypt 163 out of 180 countries worldwide for press freedom, describing it as "one of the world's biggest prisons for journalists". In 2015, President Sisi passed a counter-terrorism law banning journalists from publishing information that contradicts official government accounts of militant attacks. Three years later, he ratified another controversial law that allowed the state to tighten controls over the internet and block websites if they are deemed to be a threat to national security or the economy. "The authorities have waged a witch-hunt since 2013 against journalists suspected of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and have orchestrated what we call a 'Sisification' of the media," RSF's Sabrina Bennoui told the BBC, citing the terrorism and cybercrime laws. "Since then, journalists are forced to report only the official versions of 'terrorist' attacks and it was made possible to prosecute and imprison journalists, censor newspapers and close websites." Ms Bennoui says while there is no confirmation that the government dictated the 42-word report on Morsi's death, the former president was considered a member of a terrorist group and so these strict reporting restrictions would have probably applied to coverage of his death. At the time of his death, Morsi was serving numerous prison sentences on several charges - and rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, had criticised the conditions in which he was being kept in prison. The Egyptian authorities have accused the UN of "politicising" Morsi's death, after it called for an independent investigation into his demise. With reporting from BBC Monitoring's Neveen Youssef

दुनिया भर के अधिकांश देशों में एक पूर्व राष्ट्रपति की मृत्यु आम तौर पर घरेलू स्तर पर सुर्खियों में रहती थी। लेकिन मिस्र के मामले में नहीं, जहां पूर्व राष्ट्रपति मोहम्मद मोर्सी का जासूसी के आरोप में मुकदमे के दौरान अदालत कक्ष में गिरने के बाद सोमवार को 67 साल की उम्र में निधन हो गया।


Shrewsbury police control room 'too small' for alliance

Summary: Shrewsbury's police control room is "not big enough" to become the central control room for both the West Mercia and Warwickshire forces, West Mercia's police and crime commissioner has said.

The two forces currently have three control rooms between them - in Shrewsbury, Hindlip and Leek Wootton. Bosses are considering closing two and keeping just one. But police and crime commissioner Bill Longmore has now said Shrewsbury's control room would be unsuitable. "You have to have size and Shrewsbury is not big enough," he said. "There is not enough room to have all the equipment. If we went to one control room, it would need to be big enough to run the whole of the county." West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police became an official alliance in September. Mr Longmore said bosses were keeping all their options open and would make an announcement in the next few weeks.

वेस्ट मर्सिया की पुलिस और अपराध आयुक्त ने कहा है कि श्रूसबरी का पुलिस नियंत्रण कक्ष इतना बड़ा नहीं है कि वेस्ट मर्सिया और वारविकशायर दोनों बलों के लिए केंद्रीय नियंत्रण कक्ष बन जाए।


Swindon M4 crash: Man killed and motorway closed

Summary: An 18-year-old man has been killed in a crash on the M4 motorway in Wiltshire.

Wiltshire Police said the BMW car crashed into the central reservation at 01:30 BST between junctions 14 and 15, the turnings for Hungerford and Swindon East. A female passenger, aged 19, was taken to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon with minor injuries. The held-up traffic was allowed to pass through, but the motorway was closed in both directions for eight hours. The family of the man, who is from Cardiff, has been informed of the death. Related Internet Links Wiltshire Police

विल्टशायर में एम4 मोटरवे पर एक दुर्घटना में एक 18 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है।


Guernsey health minister wants more efficiencies

Summary: Guernsey's health minister wants to find efficiencies within his department before seeking any further funding, he says.

Hunter Adam was responding to public calls for him to campaign for States funding increases in order to raise the scope of the care provided. However, he said the onus was on him and his staff to cut inefficiencies first. The Health and Social Services Department's annual budget is £84m.

ग्वेर्नसे के स्वास्थ्य मंत्री आगे किसी भी धन की मांग करने से पहले अपने विभाग के भीतर दक्षता खोजना चाहते हैं, वे कहते हैं।


County Kerry: Teenage boy, 17, dies in Bull Head cliff fall

Summary: A 17-year-old boy has died after he fell from a cliff in Lispole, County Kerry.

It happened early on Sunday afternoon in the Bull Head area, east of Dingle. Gardaí (Irish police) said that following a search and rescue operation with the Irish Coast Guard, RNLI and Dingle Search and Rescue, the body was recovered. The teenager was pronounced dead shortly after and has been taken to the morgue at Kerry University Hospital. Gardaí say investigations are ongoing but the death is being treated as a tragic accident at this time.

काउंटी केरी के लिस्पोल में एक चट्टान से गिरने से एक 17 वर्षीय लड़के की मौत हो गई है।


Why Tory euro-tension is starting to bubble

Summary: The sheer pyrotechnics of Labour's internal feuding have mesmerised Westminster, but Conservative MPs should not titter too hard at their opponents' discomfort - they have their own civil war brewing.

Mark D'ArcyParliamentary correspondent We got a foretaste a couple of weeks ago when Europe Minister David Lidington delivered a Commons statement on the government's demands for a renegotiation of Britain's EU membership. The reaction from the hard core of backbench "outers" was summed up by Bernard Jenkin's dismissive comment, "Is that it?" The government's promised in-out EU referendum was a vote-winner at the election, and probably essential to keep the lid on Tory euro-tension in the last parliament. But as the 2017 deadline appears on the horizon, it is prompting some Commons Tories to murmur of a "Corn Laws-style split" in the party. Of course, historically, the Conservative Party has always been able to rely on a powerful instinct for unity, born of an equally powerful instinct for power. But party history offers some warnings too. Issues that go to the heart of what the Conservative party is about can split it, and have split it. Ghosts of Peel In the 1840s, it was agricultural protection and the move to abandon the Corn Laws which protected the incomes of landowners. In the 1900s, it was imperial protection and the idea of moving away from free trade to a customs union with the countries of the Empire. And ever since the UK joined the EU, a growing - possibly now a majority - faction of the party has wanted out. Those splits destroyed Tory governments - conjure up the ghosts of Robert Peel or AJ Balfour, ask John Major about his cabinet rebels - and recall that party management has never been David Cameron's strongest suit. Next time, the dynamics of the promised referendum suggest that it could pull the Conservative party apart again. The scenario works like this: polling suggests that, without substantial change in the UK's membership terms, the British public will vote to leave the EU - with immigration a particularly crucial area. But most people will not assess the small print setting out changes to an intricate and little understood institutional structure. Instead, they will look to figures they trust to tell them whether enough has changed. And in particular, that means Mr Cameron. His will be the crucial voice in any effort to persuade the voters that he has delivered acceptable terms. This week's tough talking to other EU leaders on benefits for EU citizens is a public display of political hardball, for UK consumption, as well as an attempt to underline his determination. But, assuming he does campaign to keep the UK inside the EU, the referendum will turn on how voters react when he says to them, "Trust Me." Incredulity The "out" side of the argument will have no option but to attack his personal credibility. Tory toes are already creeping across this line. If you listen carefully to interviews by some "outers", they praise his past successes and talk about how his place in history has been secured by his victory in May. It's a subtle point, but what they're not doing is banging the normal party gong and hoping he will rule forever. And soon they will go further than that. And for the prime minister and his heir-presumptive, Chancellor George Osborne, if they do - as seems almost certain - campaign to maintain British membership, the referendum will become a struggle for survival. Whatever they say, the idea that they could campaign to stay in, then, after a vote to leave, pick themselves up, dust themselves down and negotiate the terms of a so-called Brexit, is met with frank incredulity. In the anti-EU ranks they are quite clear - if their team wins, they'll hoist the trophy, run the victory lap and provide the captain. Combine the certainty of attacks on the PM's personal credibility with the struggle for factional survival that's facing the current magic circle of the Conservative Party, and you have a sinister brew of malice and ambition certain to corrode Tory unity. The more so if Labour is languishing in the polls with problems of its own. Handbrake turn Expect purges and punishments to be the order of the day. And whatever the referendum result, we know that there will be a Tory leadership campaign at the back end of this Parliament - into which this poison will seep. In some ways, the worst-case scenario for Tory unity is a narrow vote to stay. Scotland does not provide an encouraging precedent - a No to independence by an 11% margin has fed, rather than slain, the SNP. A tighter result in an EU referendum could allow the "out" side to sustain a "we wuz robbed" mentality and treat the forthcoming leadership election (Mr Cameron has said he won't serve another term as PM) as a continuation of the referendum by other means. A Conservative MP reminded me the other day that in 1975 Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson campaigned for and won a mandate to keep Britain in the then EEC in a referendum - but eight years later his party fought a general election on a manifesto commitment to leave. Parties, he said, can turn on a sixpence when they have to, even if such a handbrake turn can fling some passengers out of the vehicle altogether. All of which raises the question, as the country staggers towards the 2020 general election, will there, by then, be any functional UK-wide political parties left?

लेबर के आंतरिक झगड़ों की विशुद्ध आतिशबाजी ने वेस्टमिंस्टर को मंत्रमुग्ध कर दिया है, लेकिन रूढ़िवादी सांसदों को अपने विरोधियों की असुविधा पर बहुत अधिक ध्यान नहीं देना चाहिए-उनका अपना गृह युद्ध चल रहा है।


Five ways to stay in power in Central Asia

Summary: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are both expected to re-elect their leaders this spring. Few will be surprised if Nursultan Nazarbayev keeps his job in Kazakhstan - though he's yet to announce he is running again - or if Islam Karimov stays president in Uzbekistan.

By Abdujalil AbdurasulovBBC News, Almaty Both have been in charge since Soviet times and are two of the longest serving leaders in the world. Here are five tried and tested tactics they have used to keep themselves in power. 1. Hold a referendum Often, instead of an election, a referendum is organised to extend the president's term. This was particularly popular in the 1990s when post-Soviet Central Asia was going through a painful transition and growing poverty, high unemployment and a declining economy meant holding an open election could have allowed an opposition to capitalise on public grievances. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan held referenda in 1995, which extended both presidents' terms until 2000. Another referendum in 2002 allowed Islam Karimov to rule Uzbekistan for an extra two years until 2007. Since the idea of a referendum draws considerable criticism from the international community, the incumbent now tries to avoid it. 2. Elastic elections If elections do take place in Central Asia, they are not necessarily on schedule. This is the second time Uzbekistan has held a presidential election long after its leader's term has expired. This time, it was delayed to avoid a clash with parliamentary elections in December 2014 and will now take place on 29 March. Calling elections early, as has been done three times in Kazakhstan, allows the leader to catch his opponents off guard - the main opposition boycotted the early elections in 2011, saying they had had little time to prepare. Bringing the schedule forward can also be useful if difficult issues are looming and a leader wants to squeeze in a poll before they hit. Announcing early elections late last month, President Nazarbayev mentioned a "growing economic crisis" and "heightening geopolitical antagonisms" - hinting at the crisis in Ukraine - as some of the reasons for his decision. The vote will take place on 26 April. In order to make early elections or referendums look legitimate, in Kazakhstan the initiative is often presented as having come from a group of citizens. The idea to hold early elections in 2015 was proposed by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan. In 2011, millions of signatures were gathered in support of the bid to extend President Nazarbayev's term until 2020 through a referendum. And then as a "compromise" President Nazarbayev suggested early elections. 3. No real opposition One of the main criticisms of the elections in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan from observers at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a regional democracy watchdog, is the lack of competition. Plurality of candidates does not necessarily mean a genuine choice for voters, they claim. Opposing candidates tend to be pro-incumbent and in some cases they even admit that they voted for the incumbent. This is arguably understandable given the pressures the candidates can face. The opposition leader who challenged President Karimov in Uzbekistan's 1991 elections, Muhammad Solih from the Erk party, had to flee the country as a result of the persecution he was facing. In Kazakhstan, prominent opposition candidates usually fail to get as far as contesting the presidency. In 1999 main opposition candidate Akezhan Kazhageldin was convicted of participating in an unsanctioned rally, which automatically barred him from running for president. In 2011 the main opposition parties boycotted the vote, criticising the decision to hold early elections (see point 2). 4. Constitutional change This spring, President Karimov is effectively running for his fourth term and if or when President Nazarbayev decides to run, it will be his fifth campaign. Even if the constitution stipulates a single person may serve only two terms, presidents of Central Asian states can easily bypass this by amending it, or adopting a new constitution. And previous terms served before the changes are not counted towards the new limit. This is how Mr Nazarbayev and Mr Karimov were allowed to run for their third terms. But then Kazakhstan decided to ditch such meticulous legislative fiddling altogether and adopted a law that allows Mr Nazarbayev to serve an unlimited number of terms. 5. Electoral fraud It is common for the incumbent to receive more than 90% of votes and the turnout is always very high. Experts claim that such high figures are achieved through fraud. OSCE observers report ballot staffing, multiple voting and other irregularities during elections. Their reports also regularly mention intimidation and pressure exerted on people to vote in favour of the leader. Ironically, both Islam Karimov and Nursultan Nazarbayev would probably win elections without resorting to fraud, because in such a controlled political environment voters see no alternatives. But the fraudulently inflated numbers are viewed as crucial to boost the leaders' legitimacy. Low figures could show them as weak, which could send wrong signals to both allies and opponents.

कजाकिस्तान और उज्बेकिस्तान दोनों से इस वसंत में अपने नेताओं को फिर से चुनने की उम्मीद है। अगर नूरसुल्तान नज़रबायेव कजाकिस्तान में अपनी नौकरी बनाए रखते हैं तो कुछ लोगों को आश्चर्य होगा-हालांकि उन्होंने अभी तक घोषणा नहीं की है कि वह फिर से चुनाव लड़ रहे हैं-या अगर इस्लाम करीमोव उज्बेकिस्तान में राष्ट्रपति बने रहते हैं।


Care homes arrests: Fourth arrest for 'modern day slavery' offences

Summary: A fourth person has been arrested on suspicion of modern day slavery amid allegations staff at two care homes were victims of the crime.

A 37-year-old woman from Rhymney, in Caerphilly, remains in police custody. Gwent Police and the National Crime Agency executed warrants at Danygraig Nursing Home, in Newport, and Ashville Residential Care Home, in Brithdir, Caerphilly, on Thursday. The three arrested previously have been released on conditional police bail. They were a 53-year-old man and a 64-year-old man, both from Newport, and a 43-year-old man from Surrey.

दो देखभाल गृहों के कर्मचारियों पर अपराध का शिकार होने के आरोपों के बीच एक चौथे व्यक्ति को आधुनिक समय की गुलामी के संदेह में गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Is Catholic Church's influence in Philippines fading?

Summary: The Catholic church plays a powerful role in the Philippines but last month it lost a significant battle in its bid to prevent a government-backed family planning programme. Aurora Almendral asks if the church is losing its grip on the islands.

In the last five years, Jennievic Betana, who is just 24 years old, has been pregnant four times. She lives with her three surviving children in a small, crumbling cement-block house together with two brothers and husband, Buboy, in the vast slum of Bagong Silang in northern Manila. Buboy, a barber, earns about 300 pesos (£4, $7) a day, two-thirds of which goes to feeding the family. The burden of the extra mouths to feed is considerable. To avoid adding to their family, Jennievic and her husband rely on the calendar method, an arrangement that nevertheless resulted in the last two unplanned pregnancies. A practising Catholic, Jennievic knows that contraception is a sin in the eyes of the church, but says she is willing to take the spiritual risk for more immediate financial concerns. "I want to use birth control," Jennievic says, "but after paying for food, electricity and water, there's nothing left. I'll use it, even though I know it's a sin. "If [the Church] were to help us once the children are here, then sure, I'll have more children. But they don't." Jennievic's story is typical of many in the Philippines which has one of the highest population growth rates in Asia. Currently, the country is adding nearly two million people every year to its 100-million-strong population. This is putting a massive strain on resources, especially for the poorest among whom much of the recent growth has been concentrated. There is also the issue of illegal abortions, of which there are an estimated 600,000 a year. Some 90,000 of the women having these procedures are later hospitalised and about 1,000 die. Ugly episodes This issue was recognised many years ago, when the Reproductive Health Bill was introduced in the Philippine congress back in 1999. Its aim was straightforward, to provide contraceptives to those who wanted and most needed them. But it has proved to be one of the most divisive issues to have been debated by congress in recent history. Conservative politicians opposed the bill and were backed by a horrified Catholic Church which fought against contraceptives from the pulpit and in the streets. "There were some ugly episodes," says Risa Hontiveros, a former congresswoman, women's rights activist and prominent supporter of the bill. Priests denied communion to community health workers, campaigned against politicians supportive of the bill, and even threatened President Benigno Aquino III with excommunication. The ensuing battle dragged on for years. With 81% of Filipinos defining themselves as Catholic, the country's culture and society is intimately intertwined with the teaching of the church. Laws are often framed around Catholic values. Alcohol and cigarettes are taxed for being "sins". Abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage are deeply frowned upon, and the Philippines is the only country in the world, besides Vatican City, where divorce remains illegal. Fight from the pulpit The Church has long wielded much more than spiritual influence. In a show of formidable political power, the Church rallied the faithful to help overthrow Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, a feat it repeated in 2001 to oust then-president Joseph Estrada. When the church's final legal challenge to the bill was overturned, the defeat had some in the Catholic Church, worried. Archbishop Oscar Cruz, who has twice served as president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, the church's governing body, admits that the passing of the bill "shows that the church is losing influence over its members". According to Allen Surla, professor of political science at De La Salle University, a Catholic institution, this is to do with the changing media landscape. Under the Marcos dictatorship, he says, the pulpit was the main source of information, dissenting or otherwise. These days, the church's teachings are vying for influence with many other sources of opinion in newspapers, radio, TV and the web. "People are much more socially aware now than they were 20 or 30 years ago," says Prof Surla. Church 'too controlling' Despite its efforts to demonise contraception, widespread support for the church's position never materialised. A poll taken in 2010 found that 70% of Filipinos supported the bill. Corazon Quinalayo, 52, a homemaker just leaving mass at Quiapo Church, one of Manila's most holy sites, says she does not support the reproductive health bill, but nor does she agree with the church hierarchy. She believes making contraceptives available for free is an endorsement of promiscuity and a waste of government funds. But she says the church is "being too controlling. It's like they're not giving people their freedom." Quinalayo adds that, however misguided, "the government is just trying to help". The 9 April decision of the Philippine Supreme Court to unanimously uphold the constitutionality of the law is seen as a victory in the eyes of women's rights activists and other supporters, who rallied outside the courthouse. Risa Hontiveros says the mood after the announcement was "ecstatic". "There was cheering, crying and unadulterated joy. This was the fight of our lives," she says. Big fights ahead As a Catholic herself, Hontiveros says it was painful to see the church try to assert its power over women's bodies, but says she never felt conflicted about her support for the bill. "This will assist the majority of Filipinos who are poor," she says. "They won't be overwhelmed by too many children. They won't be snowed under by the demands of the every day. It will improve maternal health and allow women to pursue more education or livelihoods." Meanwhile, the church, licking its wounds, is looking ahead to other battles to fight. "Contraception is no longer the issue. It's passe," says Archbishop Cruz, predicting further fights over divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage. "I'm looking forward to it," he says, "because it's going to be a big fight."

कैथोलिक चर्च फिलीपींस में एक शक्तिशाली भूमिका निभाता है लेकिन पिछले महीने यह सरकार समर्थित परिवार नियोजन कार्यक्रम को रोकने के लिए अपनी बोली में एक महत्वपूर्ण लड़ाई हार गया। ऑरोरा अल्मेंड्राल पूछता है कि क्या चर्च द्वीपों पर अपनी पकड़ खो रहा है।


Somalia beach attack: Survivor tells of ordeal at hands of al-Shabab

Summary: The 21 January attack by al-Shabab on a popular beachside restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu has now claimed more than 40 lives. Many of the victims died from their injuries in the days following the attack. Nasro Dahir Abukar was at the Beach View Cafe when the militants struck. Here, she gives her personal survival story.

I was with my younger brother Eyman. We were were having tea, looking out at the sea, enjoying the sight and sound of the waves. It was one of those wonderful moments in life. Suddenly, shooting started on the side of the restaurant which spreads out onto the beach. We all got up and started running away, except those who were hit by the bullets. As the gunfire got louder and louder, most of the people who had been sitting on the beach side of the restaurant fell down on to the sand. I didn't see Eyman after he ran away, so I started shouting for him and running at the same time. I fell down, but someone gave me a hand and I couldn't tell if he knew me or not. He pulled me towards where the kitchen and toilets were. Those of us who had run for our lives went to hide in the toilets and shut ourselves inside, standing by the hand-wash area. Even though praying is forbidden inside toilets, quietly I started reciting verses of the Koran and Hadith [the stories and traditions of Muhammad's life], praying that Allah would protect us from these evil cowards. I wondered whether I would survive or be killed. My thoughts also turned to my little brother Eyman. I wasn't sure if he had escaped the restaurant in time. I started shouting: "Eyman, Eyman, Eyman!" I remembered how much my mother loved Eyman, since he was her youngest child. I thought of how she would react to the news of our death. Eyman was not just the youngest, but my mother's only son, after she had lost her other son two years ago. She still feels his loss now. I prepared for the worst. As the gunfire intensified, I thought about what would happen to our family. I would take the blame for Eyman's death; it was my idea to bring him to Liido beach after all. "Why did I bring him with me?" I asked myself over and over. Now, some of the bullets entered the toilet, hitting some of those I was hiding with, whose blood now poured over me. The attackers threw bombs inside the restaurant and the attack kept getting stronger and stronger. I could hear the cries of babies and women, of explosions and gunfire. People were crying out: "LaaIllaaha Illalaah", which is a phrase to use when someone is on the verge of death and asking Allah for forgiveness. But their cries made the attackers realise that there were people still alive, so they increased their fire towards us, until we asked everyone to shut their mouths and stay silent. Now the restaurant was in darkness. The only lights we could see were came from the bullets flying through the air. I lay on the floor, with blood running all around me. Injured people were on top of me and I couldn't say a word. I assumed Eyman was already dead and that I was about to die too. But then, hope came. Some special forces from the National Intelligence Service Agency (NISA) had arrived. They came to the window, signalling to us with lights. Then they started breaking down a section of the wall near the window. First, they told those who were wounded and the women to come forward. They kept telling us to come to them, but we were still in shock and didn't know what to do. Then one of the special forces team, whose face was covered, raised his hand and asked me to come. He had a gun in one hand and he pushed my hand, asking me to move forward. He pulled my body and forced me to come out of the building. When I got outside, I checked my body to see whether I was injured or not. Luckily I was okay, except the pain throughout my body from when I had fallen down onto the floor, and people had trodden on me as they rushed to escape. I was covered in shards of glass. The sounds of bombs and gunfire was fresh in my mind. Then, they told me "yes" - my brother Eyman was safe. I thought of the brave soldier who had chosen to risk his life in order to save us. The attack was still going on while the soldier was rescuing us, and we could hear the sounds of bombs and bullets all around. I owe my life to this soldier and if I had seen his face or knew his name, I would try to find him so I could thank him personally for what he did. I give my thanks to Allah, and to this solider who helped me survive the attack. The soldier was so kind, professional, compassionate, committed and determined to save our lives. I know that his mission was to save people trapped in the restaurant, and every girl or boy that he saved was also his duty, but my feelings of gratitude and appreciation are so deep. So if you are reading this article, know that you are a brave soldier and only Allah can repay your sacrifices to humankind.

सोमाली राजधानी मोगादिशु में एक लोकप्रिय समुद्र तट के किनारे रेस्तरां पर अल-शबाब द्वारा 21 जनवरी को किए गए हमले में अब 40 से अधिक लोगों की जान चली गई है। हमले के बाद के दिनों में कई पीड़ितों की चोटों से मौत हो गई। नसरो दाहिर अबुकर बीच व्यू कैफे में थे जब आतंकवादियों ने हमला किया। यहाँ, वह अपनी व्यक्तिगत उत्तरजीविता की कहानी देती है।


Secrecy makes our buildings unsafe

Summary: Since the catastrophic fire in Kensington in June, it has become clear that England has fundamental problems with building safety. This is an opportunity to fix one critical but subtle problem in how we make sure products are safe - and not just in buildings, but more widely.

Chris CookPolicy editor, Newsnight@xtophercookon Twitter Imagine, for a moment, I have set up a company that makes the component parts of some very efficient and elegant cladding systems. But some of the components do not meet the requirements for automatic use on the outside of a tall building because they do not have good fire-safety ratings. To get this stuff approved for use, it needs to be used in a design that will keep the combustible parts shielded from fire and, if it cannot do that, stop fire spread. To make sure that this is done properly, any designs my components are used in will need to be tested in a fire lab. That means what it sounds like: we mock up each design we might want to use it in in a laboratory, and start a fire underneath it. If the design resists the fire, it can be used. If it does not, it cannot. Let us suppose that there are five proposed designs that I want to get my components approved for use in. And let us call them designs A to E. Each is similar, but has a slightly different set of materials for use in slightly different scenarios. It might be that I run tests on designs A to C, and the designs pass comfortably. It is, however, expensive to keep running these tests. So, to save money, I commission a so-called "desktop study" to look at designs D and E. What does that mean? I go to an accredited fire engineering company and ask them if they think D and E will pass. Since the results on A, B and C are clear passes and because the designs of D and E are so similar to them, they agree the designs look safe. They use their expertise to declare there is no need for a test. To recap: we now have five approved designs. Three, A to C, have actually been tested. Two, D and E, have not. But a qualified person believes that the test data for A, B and C implies similar D and E are safe. That is how the system is supposed to work. It all seems to roughly make sense. But it is not a safe system. Because, hidden in the weeds, there is a set of fundamental problems. Fundamental problems The biggest of these is that the system is opaque and secretive. I paid for the tests, so only I and the testing house know what is in them. Not the government. Not building inspectors. Not unless I say so. If you - or the government - ring the test houses and ask if a certain combination has passed or failed, they will refuse to answer. This creates fundamental problems. These desktop studies and the original reports are all confidential, so there is no way for an outsider to know whether designs A, B and C are really close enough to designs D and E to allow my fire engineer to draw the conclusions they have. This is not a hypothetical: we have published excerpts from desktop studies which, in the view of experts, extrapolate apples into oranges. One of them assumes that an aluminium panel would behave in the same way as a ceramic tile during a fire. Furthermore, what if a third-party were to run a test on, say, design D - and it failed? There is no system that makes sure I will hear about it and withdraw my desktop study. And there is also no process, even if I do hear of it, to make sure I act on the test failure by withdrawing the desktop study. The reason why the government's tests of seven designs, released earlier this year, had such enormous impact. They were published. No-one could say that they did not know that certain designs now appear to be unsafe. Replicability The fire test is also intrinsically unpredictable. The fire labs are, ultimately, building a wall and seeing how it copes with a bonfire - a complex, non-replicable phenomenon. And you only need to pass once. Small issues can make the difference between pass and fail. Sometimes, the installation of the wall design will be perfect. Sometimes not. We have heard it said from several places that ventilation differences mean one of the test rigs within one of the test centres is easier to pass on than other rigs. Luck matters: what if design A might pass only one fifth of the time - and we just got lucky? And what if I took luck out of it: I am allowed to retake the tests. Suppose I repeated the test until it passed, and then I stopped - and never told anyone about the failures? The test labs might refuse to run identical tests one after another, but what if you made a cosmetic change to the design - perhaps just changing the name of one of the products - so the test lab would think it was different? As a component producer, only I know - and I can hide failures, so it looks like a perfect first-time pass. Time to open up testing Remember, too, that the secrecy means I can withhold data from desktop study authors. So what if I actually ran multiple tests on all the designs - including designs D and E, but I could not get D and E to pass? So I took the test passes for A, B and C to a fire engineer, and asked them to write a Desktop Study for D and E without telling them that they had already been tested and failed? Note, by the way, if I were going to do this, I would need to use a different fire engineering company to the one that did the testing. Someone who knew about testing of D and E could, in good conscience, never write such a report. It was, therefore, a safeguard that there are just a few accredited fire engineering companies. The building industry, however, has dropped the requirement that desktop studies needed to be by accredited companies. These days, there are no stipulations about who writes these studies. We have found a dozen companies producing them. But even who they are is secret: the accredited companies do not really know who their competitors are. We do not know what goes into the reports being produced. We do not know what the authors' qualifications are. We do not know on what basis they are arguing designs are safe. But their studies can be used to get material onto a building. If, after the regulations review, tests remain a major part of our system, we need to make the whole system open-access. This is. by the way, not the only place where this sort of problem exists. We need a new mantra to run through everything from pharmaceuticals to insulation: we need to talk about replicability and what levels of evidence we need in different scenarios. We need to ask questions about what the proper role is for the state in testing and certification. Above all, though, when safety is at stake, there must be no secrets.

जून में केंसिंगटन में विनाशकारी आग लगने के बाद से, यह स्पष्ट हो गया है कि इंग्लैंड में भवन सुरक्षा के साथ बुनियादी समस्याएं हैं। यह एक महत्वपूर्ण लेकिन सूक्ष्म समस्या को ठीक करने का अवसर है कि हम कैसे सुनिश्चित करते हैं कि उत्पाद सुरक्षित हैं-और न केवल इमारतों में, बल्कि अधिक व्यापक रूप से।


The growth of gay retirement homes

Summary: As gay rights advance across the US, there is one group that feels it has long been neglected and isolated - the elderly. But that may now be changing, with a series of retirement housing projects opening to serve the gay community.

By Aidan LewisBBC News, Minneapolis Before she moved house, Lucretia Kirby suffered homophobic verbal harassment and menacing notes pushed under her door. On one occasion, she and her partner Sandra were physically beaten and had to seek treatment in hospital. That all changed in October, when she got a place in Spirit on Lake, an apartment block in Minneapolis marketed to elderly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT/GLBT) people. "It's more than what I expected it to be. I thought it was just going to be another apartment complex and I was surprised that we've become a community - we know just about everybody by first name," says Kirby, a 58-year-old former teacher and nun who left her convent after falling in love with one of the other sisters. "I just feel blessed." A number of commercial, market-rate projects succumbed to the financial crisis, but there are now three affordable or low-income housing developments that cater to gay retirees in the US. The first, Triangle Square, opened in Hollywood in 2007, shortly before the recession. Spirit on Lake eventually followed last year, and the John C Anderson apartments in Philadelphia received their first residents in January. Three other blocks are scheduled to open in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago this year and next. All have a combination of public and private funding, with subsidised, means-tested rental prices. "I think it's taking off in a big way," says Gayle Gates of Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing in Los Angeles, which developed Triangle Square, "not only because people are beginning to see the need, especially for seniors, but because the baby-boomer generation is so large and ageing". Many gay pensioners have a particular need for affordable housing. They usually have less family support than straight people and can find themselves at a financial disadvantage too - few or no spousal benefits, less help from children and possibly cut out from inheritance. "They came of age in the United States at a time when they were heavily discriminated against," says Serena Worthington of the national non-profit group Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE). "It was illegal to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, you could be condemned by the church from the pulpit, you could be declared mentally ill, you could be fired." Elderly gay people may still face prejudice living on their own or in other types of retirement housing - some return to the closet when they enter a residential home, fearful of telling other residents and staff about their past. "If you think about the folks who supported a whole society that was extremely discriminatory, that is the population that is in the nursing homes now," says Worthington, citing the case of a lesbian couple in Oregon who were told they would have to pretend to be sisters if they moved into a retirement home. The non-profit Equal Rights Center recently did tests across 10 US states and found that in 46% of cases, gay couples reported discrimination when seeking housing. "I've lived in regular apartment buildings and it's like you don't really want to draw that much attention to yourself," says Scott Quail, another resident at Spirit on Lake. "You want to be gay but you don't want to be overtly gay. So in other apartment buildings you try to inhibit yourself. While campaigners have focused on issues including gay marriage and rights in the workplace, the elderly LGBT community feel their concerns have often been ignored. That's especially true for gay men, says Quail. "It's a very ageist community. It's better to be young and pretty, and I'm not either." But this may be changing, says Barbara Satin, a 79-year-old transgender activist who played a key role in launching of Spirit on Lake. "This is an interesting time for the GLBT community because they're finally beginning to realise that age is something that presents some challenges." Whereas the those already in their 70s or 80s may have lived in relative isolation, "the baby boomers have lived more openly and they expect to be treated with respect and they will push for it". Ageing challenges include specific health concerns - HIV and, for the transgender community, taking hormones that may conflict with other medicine. Satin has been involved in a scheme to train local elderly care providers about gay issues. Fountaingrove Lodge, a high-end LGBT retirement home that opened in California in December, says it is the first with a license to provide continuing care such as dressing and bathing residents. Gay retirement housing is also spreading beyond the US. In November, the Regnbagen or Rainbow apartments, Europe's first solely gay retirement housing, opened in Stockholm. In Berlin, 24 flats run by the Gay Counselling Centre opened in 2012, with 60% of places reserved for gay men. A Spanish foundation is hoping to open 40-50 flats near Madrid later this year, and a British developer is building a gated gay retirement village in southern France. Christer Fallman, Regnbagen's chairman, says all 27 of his flats are occupied, and about 50 people are on the waiting list. Though Sweden is widely regarded as progressive over gay rights, he says pensioners can face problems in public elderly care, where they are automatically assumed to be heterosexual. "Elderly people want social security," he says. "They don't want to live alone - the possibility of going into the closet again is very big. They know that here they are not alone. Somebody always looks after them." Living in such a tight-knit community is not for everyone. Larry Watson, a 76-year-old who volunteers at a LGBT library on the ground floor of the Spirit on Lake building, says he is quite happy living in a standard apartment building eight blocks away. "I'm not lonely, I don't lack for activities, I haven't lost a partner fortunately," he says, adding that as gay rights continue to advance, he's not convinced that the demand for separate housing will be sustained. "I think the course will remain very positive, and 15 or 20 years from now I'm not sure that GLBT are going to be looking for a niche similar to what's available and is wanted by GLBT people right now, as reflected by this community." Satin says that in a survey conducted 10 years ago in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, about half of those who took part said they would want to live in a gay community in their old age. In the Twin Cities there are an estimated 30-35,000 gay people aged over 65. With 46 apartments at Spirit on Lake, "we're not even scratching the surface", she says. Under fair housing rules, the affordable or low-income projects that cater for gay people cannot exclude straight people outright, or they would not qualify for federal subsidies. This can make for an interesting mix. In Triangle Square, 78% of residents are elderly and gay, but 11% are monolingual Russians. At Spirit on Lake, which unlike the other blocks has no minimum age requirement, the result is still more improbable - about three-quarters gay, and the rest Somali immigrants, many of them young. That had some of the gay residents worried at first, but they say they now appreciate the diversity, and that there has been no friction. Scott Quail tells a story of when he was in the lift with a man he was dating and they started to kiss. "The elevator opened and in walked a couple of Somali ladies and they just kind of looked and smiled and that was it. And it felt good because now I feel I don't have to hide myself from them." Video produced by Colm O'Molloy Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

जैसे-जैसे समलैंगिक अधिकार पूरे अमेरिका में आगे बढ़ रहे हैं, एक समूह है जो महसूस करता है कि इसे लंबे समय से उपेक्षित और अलग-थलग किया गया है-बुजुर्ग। लेकिन अब यह बदल रहा है, समलैंगिक समुदाय की सेवा के लिए सेवानिवृत्ति आवास परियोजनाओं की एक श्रृंखला के साथ।


Motorcyclist dies in Ermine Street crash near Winterton

Summary: A motorcyclist has died in a crash with a farm vehicle on a rural road in North Lincolnshire.

The man, riding a Kawasaki bike, collided with the farm vehicle on the B1207, near the Roxby Causeway junction near Winterton on Friday. The 48-year-old suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene on Ermine Street, said Humberside Police. The force is appealing for anyone who was a witness and may be able to help to get in touch. More stories from East Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire

उत्तरी लिंकनशायर में एक ग्रामीण सड़क पर एक खेत वाहन के साथ दुर्घटना में एक मोटरसाइकिल सवार की मौत हो गई है।


Biker drove 100mph along north Wales' 'Evo-Triangle'

Summary: A biker was caught doing 100mph on a stretch of road in Conwy county that is being used as a "racetrack" by drivers from across the UK, a court has heard.

Stephen Ramsay, 59, from Nottingham, admitted breaking a 60mph (97km/h) speed limit on the B4501. He was banned from driving for 28 days and fined £500 at Flintshire Magistrates' Court on Wednesday. Motoring magazine Evo has promoted the A5, A543 and the B4501, dubbed the Evo-Triangle, to thrill-seeking drivers. In June, a man admitted causing a couple's death by dangerous driving on the A543 and was jailed for eight years. Ramsay told the court he had never heard the name Evo-Triangle until the policeman who booked him wrote it down. He said he looked it up online later. Prosecutor Brian Robinson told the court: "Riders and drivers are converging from all over the UK to use these roads as racetracks as part of the so-called Evo Triangle."

एक अदालत ने सुना है कि एक बाइक सवार को कॉनवी काउंटी में सड़क के एक हिस्से पर 100 मील प्रति घंटे की रफ्तार से दौड़ते हुए पकड़ा गया था, जिसे पूरे ब्रिटेन के चालकों द्वारा "रेसट्रैक" के रूप में इस्तेमाल किया जा रहा है।


Sterns nightclub: The raves in the house on the hill

Summary: At the height of its popularity, ravers blocked the roads of rural Sussex trying to get to a 19th Century mansion whose floors pounded with the sounds of the so-called Second Summer of Love. But the success of Sterns nightclub would partially lead to its downfall. Just three years after it began, the party was over.

By Tanya GuptaBBC News Worthing in the early 1990s was "a very boring place", remembers DJ Carl Cox - except for the fact the coastal town had a club that was "100% equivalent to the Hacienda" - the Manchester club that epitomised the rise of rave culture at the time. "There was this lunatic club off the A24 - one of the most unlikely places in the world," says the house music legend and Space Ibiza pioneer. "It was in the middle of nowhere. There was no Uber, no cabs, no internet, and the line-up was 'London'. "You saw this manor house - it was the only place which had three floors when all other nightclubs had one. You went in and everyone was going mad. You went downstairs and they were going mad. You went underground and it was just going off." The house formerly known as Sterns was bought in 1919 by Sir Frederick Stern - banker, horticulturalist and one-time private secretary to ex-Prime Minister David Lloyd George. By the 1980s it was owned by Richard Garrett, who worked with music promoters Interdance. It was the vision of its leader Mensa that turned the mansion on Highdown Rise into a rave venue that predated super-clubs like Ministry of Sound, Gatecrasher and Cream and attracted headliners such as Moby, The Prodigy, Sasha, Fabio and Grooverider. The club had a view of the sea from its top windows and overlooked a town that was - and still is - characterised by its older demographic. It was an unexpected location in which to find all-night raves which paid homage to the Second Summer of Love - a movement embraced by British youth culture between 1988 and 1989 that came from the house clubs of Chicago. Life in Britain in the early 1990s was punctuated by Freedom to Party marches and Conservative rule, while the headlines were dominated by ecstasy and illegal raves. The prevalence of the latter, particularly those in warehouses and fields around the M25, eventually led to the Criminal Justice Act, which famously targeted music "characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". But parties at Sterns, which operated from 1990 to 1993, were legal under a public entertainment licence granted by Worthing Borough Council. The official cut-off time was 03:00 but the music often carried on until 06:00, under what former club staff describe as a "gentleman's agreement". While it was licensed as a members-only club, its exclusivity was seemingly elastic. Mensa's girlfriend, Rachel Jones, kept a handwritten list of members which she recalls topped about 12,000 names. "I was 19 and it was phenomenal. We travelled, we did events in other cities, we lived the good life. "It was a vibe - that's what Mensa put into the place. I can see him now, standing out there, wearing a suit, the pride on his face." Sterns reached people through flyers and word of mouth, bringing people down from London, Birmingham, Manchester, and even from across Europe. Its location was undoubtedly unique - Jody Cottier remembers how they dug the basement of the house out of the South Downs chalk hillside, which insulated the huge sound system. Sweat and condensation famously dripped from the walls and ceiling, a phenomenon referred to by many as "Sterns rain". "You walked downstairs and you felt the body heat coming up, and the sound was like being in a speaker," says Jody. "It was a shared feeling, a buzz. Everyone was into music - it was anarchy on the dance floor." James Holdsworth, who runs the Sterns Facebook page, remembers how relationships were built at the after-parties at Chaffinches Farm in Birdham - then home to the Interdance crew. He describes it as a "real, creative hub" where the best of the week's music was recorded at the farm's own studio. Mensa prided himself on playing the newest music at the club, regularly travelling with Rachel to London to listen to pirate radio and recording music on cassettes to bring home because the reception on the south coast was so poor. At the club, DJs regularly accepted white labels from those in the crowd hoping to have their work played exclusively. Former Sterns sound engineer Simon Scutt says Mensa's distribution of music "fresh off the turntable" helped spread the word about the club. "He was very shrewd, very astute. It took a huge amount of energy. He'd drive thousands of miles. He distributed music as far as Scotland and abroad - and that music had only been heard at Sterns." Mensa's DIY aesthetic also extended to the club's unusual flyers, a 50,000 run which took all night to print. Tony Ladd, who designed many of them, says they hit on the idea to use household names such as Marmite alongside tongue-in-cheek wordplay to distinguish Sterns from other clubs. "Using food and product-based ideas was a conscious effort to get the flyers to blend in nicely, as piles [of them] were distributed in shops and on counters in public places everywhere," he adds. The club's popularity was to prove a double-edged sword. Each party was regularly attracting 2,500 people when it only had capacity for 900, says Simon, and cars would block the roads and were left parked on the central reservation of the A259. Sussex Police already had Sterns on its radar over drugs concerns and the added attention from overcrowding fuelled the issue. Simon recalls how he and Mensa were arrested on Fontwell roundabout during a raid in 1992 when officers targeted cars approaching the club. "We thought we were being robbed, but it was the police. They got us out [through] the car windows and they handcuffed us to each other across the top of the car." Sussex Police says it no longer holds any records about Sterns but David Kenny, who has produced a 90-minute documentary about the club, says the 1992 raid was a game-changer. "Once police started knocking on the door, it changed the vibe," he says. "There were drugs, without a shadow of a doubt, but the way things got dealt with pushed them right underground. Closing the club doesn't tackle the issues. "Those issues were freedom of expression and the music movement spreading through the country." Councillor Steve Waight was tasked with visiting the mansion when he was elected. He said concerns about the club were nothing to do with the music, the clientele, or any kind of reaction to a youth movement. The 64-year-old, who still sits on the Worthing and West Sussex authorities, went on to oppose renewal of the licence, which was awarded in 1990 when Mensa secured funding from Margaret Thatcher's Enterprise Allowance. "I went up there with uniformed police officers and we saw open drug-dealing in the car park. My concern was solely the blatant and widespread use of illegal drugs." Richard Garrett fought the courts over the licence, telling magistrates that drugs searches at the club were so thorough he would have been embarrassed to undergo them himself. But ultimately, he failed to convince them. Newspaper reports at the time cited a number of issues, including overcrowding and drug use. According to papers seen by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, Interdance lodged a further appeal with the crown court, but the legal bid was withdrawn. Journalist Thomas Green, who lectures on dance music at the University of Chichester, believes Worthing Council has never wanted to celebrate Sterns, describing the town as small, conservative and, at the time, "offended by the club". "They oppressed and crushed it. People involved with it certainly felt harassed. The law and council did not want it." You might also be interested in The rave that changed the law Landing a Specials gig from a viral photo London's iconic album cover images Sterns closed before the Criminal Justice Act came into force in 1994. But its demise reflected the national disconnect between youth culture and the authorities. Two years earlier, thousands of ravers had gate-crashed a free festival for new age travellers at Castlemorton Common - a situation widely viewed as the catalyst for what came next. The then-Home Secretary Michael Howard had told the BBC the law wasn't designed to counter rave culture, but rather to balance one group of people's interests with another's. But this was also a Britain whose Prime Minister John Major had famously hit out at new age travellers and painted a picture of a nation that prided itself on warm beer and cricket grounds. "Sterns was the antithesis - dancing to loud music in an empathic and loving culture that was not necessarily based on people settling down," says Green. Sterns held its last party on 14 August 1993. Six months later, in February 1994, Mensa was killed in a car crash. Rachel remembers how he had set off, only to return five minutes later because he had forgotten his Filofax. "He joked and he said 'I love you, but only just' and off he went." At the inquest, the coroner said Mensa - real name Adam Todd - had been overtaking, not wearing a seatbelt and speeding at 80 or 90mph in a 60mph area. His death from multiple injuries was ruled an accident, and a beer he had drunk at lunch was cited as a relevant factor. Interdance ran a few more events in Bracklesham Bay, near Chichester, after Sterns closed and the club briefly reopened as Mansion House. But the party was over. Jody, whose cousin survived the car crash, says: "When Mensa died, Sterns died with him." The building is now a hotel, but memories of the south coast's tribute to the Second Summer of Love are fondly remembered by those who whiled away the nights within its walls. Highpoints for Danny Bushell include the police helicopter descending in the car park to disperse ravers at noon - the day after the night before - and seeing Prodigy for the first time in October 1991. "Entering Sterns was like opening a secret door," recalls another punter, Rob Ford. "Being in the house immediately gave you an energy many had never felt before." Green describes what happened at Sterns as a "socio-music phenomenon" - something not seen since punk in the late 1970s. "Sterns was a key place where people would come to dance to music made in people's bedrooms, music that was getting in the charts without being played on the radio: instrumental, electronic, minimalist music. "We wouldn't have The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers without it." Filmmaker Kenny, who hopes to release his documentary pending licensing agreements, believes the energy that fuelled Sterns reflected a feeling of freedom and belonging. "We should be hugely proud of what we were a part of," he says. "But it happened too quickly. It was a moment in time. For a lot of people that was their moment in life." A Sterns reunion will be held in Brighton on 24 August.

अपनी लोकप्रियता के चरम पर, रैवर्स ने ग्रामीण ससेक्स की सड़कों को 19 वीं शताब्दी की हवेली तक पहुंचने की कोशिश में अवरुद्ध कर दिया, जिसके फर्श तथाकथित सेकंड समर ऑफ लव की आवाज़ों से गूंज रहे थे। लेकिन स्टर्न्स नाइट क्लब की सफलता आंशिक रूप से इसके पतन का कारण बनी। इसके शुरू होने के सिर्फ तीन साल बाद, पार्टी समाप्त हो गई थी।


Aberystwyth University's £45m student halls plan unveiled

Summary: A £45m plan to build accommodation for 1,000 students has been unveiled by Aberystwyth University.

The new halls of residence will be near the university's Penglais campus and will include 100 studio flats for postgraduate students. The building work is expected to be completed by September 2014. The new site is expected to replace Pantycelyn halls which currently houses students who study in the Welsh language.

एबेरेस्टविथ विश्वविद्यालय द्वारा 1,000 छात्रों के लिए आवास बनाने के लिए 45 मिलियन पाउंड की योजना का अनावरण किया गया है।


The Christian family refusing to give up its Bethlehem hill farm

Summary: A Palestinian Christian family that preaches non-violence from a farm in the West Bank is battling to hold on to land it has owned for 98 years. Now surrounded by Israeli settlements, the family is a living example of the idea of peaceful resistance.

By Daniel Silas AdamsonBethlehem On his farm outside Bethlehem, Daher Nassar is picking apples from the ruins of the orchard he planted at least eight years ago. The fruit is scattered across ground freshly opened and imprinted with the tracks of a bulldozer. At the field's edge, branches reach out from inside a mound of earth, the bark stripped and mangled, unripe almonds still clinging to the trees. On 19 May a Palestinian shepherd from the village of Nahalin was out at first light and saw the bulldozer at work in the field, guarded by Israeli soldiers. By the time Nassar arrived the whole orchard - the best part of a decade's work - was gone. His English is far from fluent, but there's no mistaking the pain in his voice: "Why you broke the trees?" A spokesperson for the Israeli military authorities in the West Bank said the trees were planted illegally on state land. Nassar's sister, Amal, has a different explanation. The government, together with the Israeli settlers who live around the farm, is "trying to push us to violence or push us to leave," she says. Amal insists that her family will not move from the land, nor will they abandon their commitment to peaceful resistance. "Nobody can force us to hate," she says. "We refuse to be enemies." That phrase, which is painted on a stone at the entrance to the farm, was first used by her father, Bishara Nassar. Long before the concept became widely known among Palestinians, he taught his children a theory of non-violence that was rooted in his own Christian beliefs. Bishara ("Gospel") Nassar was a child when his father bought this land in 1916. Even at that time, as World War One transformed the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire limped to an end, Palestinian Christians were beginning to emigrate. After the war of 1948 the Christian exodus from the West Bank quickened, and Bishara, who was a gifted preacher and accordionist, began to travel round the nearby villages, singing songs and leading Bible study in family homes. Music and stories, he thought, might deepen the faith and lift the spirits of Bethlehem's Christian children, encouraging them to stay. Bishara also came to believe that the Christian community had a special role to play in building a more peaceful future. "My father always said, 'We will never achieve peace in Palestine and Israel just by shaking hands - we need to work on people, to start with the grassroots'," says Amal Nassar. "So what we do now, as a family, is fulfilling the dream of my father that people can build bridges, for hope, for understanding, reconciliation, dialogue, to achieve peace. This is the idea." Guided by that vision, she and her brothers have transformed the farm into a centre for peace-building and non-violent resistance called the Tent of Nations. For more than 20 years they have held workshops here, welcoming Israeli students, rabbis, and peace activists, as well as groups from across Europe and America. They run summer camps for local schools, teaching Palestinian children about non-violence and encouraging them to develop a love for the land by working and playing on the farm. This is especially important, says Amal Nassar, for a generation that has grown up in the refugee camps and urban sprawl behind Israel's separation barrier. She also trains Palestinian women in non-violence, while her mother - Bishara's widow, Milada - cooks traditional food for the day's guests. Milada Nassar says her husband would have been proud of what his children have created. But in the years since his death in 1976, the family's commitment to non-violence has been tested in ways he could never have imagined. At that time the West Bank had been under Israeli military rule for almost a decade, and Jewish settlers were just beginning to move into the area south of the farm. For the most part, though, the hills around Bishara's land were still open countryside, farmed by Palestinian families or used as grazing by shepherds. In the 40 years since, Israeli settlements have been built on every one . There are five settlements in total, the nearest so close that the settlers' voices carry across the valley to the farm. The most recent, Netiv Ha'avot, is little more than a strip of houses encircled by coils of razor wire and festooned with Israeli flags. The largest, Beitar Illit, is a town of more than 40,000 people, a blaze of lights on the hillside at night. All of them are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. As they watched the settlements rise around them in the 1980s, the Nassars began to worry. Their farm was in a prime location, close to the main north-south road through the West Bank and on high ground. In 1991 their fears were confirmed. The military authorities declared that more than 90% of the farm now belonged to the State of Israel. Gush Etzion, one of the biggest settlement blocks in the West Bank, looked set to expand on to the Nassar farm. The Nassars, though, refused to leave, or to see the land divided. And virtually alone among Palestinian farmers, they had the documents they needed to launch an appeal in the Israeli courts. In 1924, realising that the Ottoman Empire was finished and worried by rising tensions between Arabs and Jews, Bishara Nassar's father had registered his property with Palestine's new imperial rulers. The British issued land deeds that specified the size and borders of the farm, and Bishara's father, who was a literate man, held on to the documents. Almost 70 years later, those papers would form the basis of a legal case that has been in front of the Israeli courts for 23 years. It remains unresolved. "They know very well that the Palestinians cannot afford to defend the land," says Amal Nassar, "so they give up hope and leave." But the family have somehow found the money and determination to keep their appeal alive. When they were informed, after 10 years in the military courts, that their Palestinian lawyer was not eligible to contest the case in Israel's supreme court - because he carried West Bank identity papers - they found an Israeli firm willing to take it on. When they were told to provide a land survey, they hired (at a cost of $70,000) an Israeli surveyor, and sent him to consult maps and documents in the imperial archives of London and Istanbul. When they were asked to bring witnesses in support of their claim to have farmed the land for three generations, they hired a bus to take more than 30 Palestinian villagers to the military court near Ramallah. "We had to wait five hours outside the court under the sun," remembers Amal Nassar. "And then, after five hours, a soldier come out, they say, 'We don't want witnesses, go home.' "Every time they see you are ready to meet their demands, they ask [for something] more and more difficult, [so] that you say 'I am fed up, I cannot.' Yes, this [is] always the process. We know it. It's a game to push us to leave." The way Amal sees it, the Israeli military and the settlers, having failed to evict the family by legal means, are now trying to force them out. She remembers the settlers who uprooted 250 young olive trees in 2002, and who permanently closed the road to the farm with rubble. The demolition orders posted on the gate, threatening to destroy the Nassars' home and water wells. The soldiers who, in 2009, forced her 72-year-old mother out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night and made her wait in the cold while they searched the farm. The Israeli authorities in the West Bank insist that by destroying the Nassars' orchard and posting demolition orders on the Tent of Nations, they are simply enforcing planning regulations. "We are not intimidating the family," said a spokesperson for CoGAT, the body responsible for implementing Israeli policy in the West Bank. "We are not doing any of those steps in order to make the family leave. We are enforcing the law." The Israeli military did not respond to the specific allegations made by the Nassars, but they, too, denied that the family is subject to a campaign of harassment: "The assertion that the IDF seeks to intimidate as a means of eviction is farcical, and an absolute contradiction of the reality on the ground in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]. The reality of Judea and Samaria, in which acts of Palestinian terrorism and extreme violence continue to rise, presents a complex security challenge. Nonetheless, the IDF remains committed to fulfilling its mission of safeguarding security and stability in the region, in a highly professional manner based on the morals and code of ethics that stand as a pillar of all IDF activities." Amal Nassar's younger brother, Daoud, is not impressed by the moral code of the men who uprooted his orchard. But neither is he angry: "We are willing to build up a better future in a non-violent way… without hatred," he says. "Our response to this injustice will never be with violence, and we will never give up and leave." Palestinians have a word that captures this refusal to be provoked or demoralized: sumud. Sometimes translated as 'steadfastness', sumud describes the stubborn, patient determination to stay on the land and to carry on in spite of all the difficulties of living under military occupation. It is a quality embodied by Daher Nassar, who, even as he walks across a scarred and empty field, is imagining the orchard he'll harvest 10 years from now. "I will plant more trees," he says. "Double trees." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

वेस्ट बैंक के एक खेत से अहिंसा का उपदेश देने वाला एक फिलिस्तीनी ईसाई परिवार 98 वर्षों से अपने स्वामित्व वाली भूमि पर कब्जा करने के लिए संघर्ष कर रहा है। अब इजरायली बस्तियों से घिरा हुआ, यह परिवार शांतिपूर्ण प्रतिरोध के विचार का एक जीवित उदाहरण है।


Covid-19: Policing the coronavirus law breakers

Summary: Since the onset of the pandemic last March, thousands of people across the UK have either been fined or criminally prosecuted for coronavirus-related offences. What is it like for police officers having to tackle the Covid-19 rule-breakers?

By Laurence Cawley and Dotty MacleodBBC News Cambridgeshire, with its mix of cities, large towns and rural areas, is a fairly typical English county. Its inhabitants, however, are far less likely to be fined for coronavirus rule breaches than those in most other parts of the country. Between the start of the pandemic and late December, Cambridgeshire Police had issued 280 fines, with lockdown breaches or failing to wear protective masks accounting for the majority. While the fine rate in Cambridgeshire is higher than counties such as Kent and Essex, it is a fraction of that of places including Northamptonshire, Dorset and Cumbria. Part of the reason for the differences, officers say, is that fines are meant to be a last resort. PC Jack Cooke has yet to issue a fine, though he admits some of those he has encountered came "very close" to getting one. "Most people are behaving themselves and sticking to the rules," he says. "I've had opportunities where I could have dished out fines on several occasions but at the moment our force wants us to engage with the public first, explain again the pandemic and why it is important for everybody to do their bit. "So far nobody has been obstructive. "I've caught people out who are either wilfully ignorant to it or just plain trying to get away with it. But they've been apologetic, they've listened when told to go home and so far I've not had to give those fines. "I've been very close, mind." How do police enforce Covid rules? Police chiefs have followed a system called "The Four Es". Before fines are issued to rule-breakers, police will first: The fourth "E" is "Enforce" by issuing penalty notices, as a last resort. Source: BBC PC Cooke said several calls came in over a period of about three months concerning a public house hosting suspected lock-ins. "That in itself could attract a £10,000 fine for the owner if they were caught in breach of the rules," he says. "I did rock up and you had the red-flag signs of the blinds down and the light on inside and I thought to myself 'oh here we go'. "There was about eight of them in there having a drink together." He said those inside were all co-workers who had been "legitimately working alongside one another earlier in the day". "Because he was very apologetic and it was the first time a police officer had spoken to him quite candidly about how dangerous the situation he was putting himself and his staff in, I decided not to fine him or the others but told them it was their first and only warning," he says. Asked whether in hindsight he should have issued a fine, PC Cooke says: "I don't want to ruin anybody's life and I do believe in a bit of give and take and compromise, and if somebody is willing to listen to reason and admit to what they've done then I believe in giving members of the public a break. "There will be a divide, I appreciate that, and there will be some who say I should have made an example. But then I would have ruined that person's life. "The incident has been logged, all of the details are there, so should we go back there will be no hesitation next time." You might also be interested in: Huntingdon-based Sgt Daniel Newton, meanwhile, has issued fines. An officer with nine years of service, he says: "It is a very different and unique part of my policing career, shall we say. It is not something I ever anticipated or foresaw when joining the job. "I've had to hand out fines before. A lot of it is naivety. On the whole we do have a lot of people who are complying, who do their best and take every precaution they can and follow the restrictions to the tee. Those people we do thank. "On the flip side are people who are very dismissive of the dangers of having the virus about, people who don't believe the virus is out there at all. People really should understand after nearly a year what their responsibilities are." He said on one occasion a rule-breaker - caught holding a four-person house party - thought he would just get a "warning and a ticking off". "Unfortunately in this case they tried to provide false details, which didn't help them, and a fine was the most appropriate response," said Sgt Newton, whose mother is a nurse in Ipswich and father a shop worker. "They were surprised at the £200 fine and voiced regret that they had been caught out." PC Kirsty Hulley, who is based in Wisbech, has fined people on two separate occasions. She says the public should be mindful of the fact that coronavirus has added another level of policing to what was already a full workload. "It is difficult but I do still love my job," she says. "Overall people are sticking to the restrictions and pulling together to get back to a more normal way of life. "There are some people who do feign ignorance, claiming that they don't know the rules or that they don't apply to them and understandably some people are getting fed up with lockdown and restrictions. "It is obviously very difficult for people not being able to see their families. We get that." Most of the violations she has dealt with involve social distancing breaches, of people meeting up with friends. "I do sometimes think people see me, as a police officer, as an easy person to vent their frustrations out on. "I'm happy to do that in a constructive way, in which I can listen to them but also explain why we have these restrictions in place, why we are as tough as we are, and how it is ultimately to save people's lives and to save the NHS." Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk Related Internet Links Cambridgeshire Police

पिछले मार्च में महामारी की शुरुआत के बाद से, ब्रिटेन भर में हजारों लोगों पर या तो जुर्माना लगाया गया है या कोरोनावायरस से संबंधित अपराधों के लिए आपराधिक मुकदमा चलाया गया है। कोविड-19 नियम तोड़ने वालों से निपटने के लिए पुलिस अधिकारियों के लिए यह कैसा है?


Ruth Bader Ginsburg in pictures and her own words

Summary: US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has died of cancer at the age of 87, was a passionate, astute and outspoken advocate of women's rights, civil liberties and the rule of law.

As serious as she was about these subjects, she also had a way of highlighting critical issues with humour, embracing her nickname "Notorious RBG" and commenting that she and rapper Notorious BIG had something in common: "We were both born and bred in Brooklyn, New York." Here, we look back at some of Ginsburg's most memorable quotes on gender equality, law and being remembered. On gender equality and sex discrimination: - The pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage. - I ask no favour for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks. - When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women judges on the US Supreme Court bench] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that. - Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception. - Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation. - As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we'll all be better off for it. - I pray that I may be all that [my mother] would have been had she lived in an age when women could aspire and achieve and daughters are cherished as much as sons. On law and her career: - I became a lawyer for selfish reasons. I thought I could do a lawyer's job better than any other. - When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous. - A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom. - Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked. - Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. On being an inspiration and on being remembered: - Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. - I just try to do the good job that I have to the best of my ability and I really don't think about whether I'm inspirational. I just do the best I can. - Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true. - [I would like to be remembered as] someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. You might also be interested in: All images are subject to copyright.

अमेरिकी सुप्रीम कोर्ट की न्यायाधीश रूथ बेडर गिन्सबर्ग, जिनका 87 वर्ष की आयु में कैंसर से निधन हो गया, महिलाओं के अधिकारों, नागरिक स्वतंत्रताओं और कानून के शासन की एक भावुक, चतुर और मुखर अधिवक्ता थीं।