Harvey Weinstein trial: Potential juror speaks of 'disgust'

Summary: Harvey Weinstein is about to go on trial - and 12 men and women in New York will be responsible for determining whether he is guilty.

By Helier CheungBBC News, Washington DC Jury selection is currently under way, with the former Hollywood producer accused of five charges, including rape and predatory sexual assault relating to two alleged victims. But finding impartial juries for such a high-profile case - one that galvanised the #MeToo movement across the world - could be difficult. The court has summoned 2,000 potential jurors for the case - about five times more than normal - just to find 12 suitable regular jurors and six alternate jurors. And on the very first day of jury selection, a third of the potential jurors present were dismissed outright, after telling the judge they did not think they could be impartial. "The first few days of jury selection has already underscored just how challenging it's going to be," Valerie Hans, a law professor and jury expert at Cornell University says. "When you have large numbers of people saying they can't be impartial, it's a wakeup call - because most people think of themselves as generally fair." Why is juror selection particularly difficult this time? Jury selection often takes no more than a few hours, or a day or two. But the process can be much more drawn out, particularly in high-profile trials. In the O.J. Simpson murder trial, it took almost 11 weeks for a jury to be selected. The judge in the Harvey Weinstein trial has allocated two weeks for jury selection, while the entire trial is expected to last up to two months - which means many potential jurors will be put off by the amount of time required. And in this case, "claims have been made against Weinstein by very high profile, high visibility people" - there has been "extensive publicity" and a high number of claims against him, which could make jury selection even more difficult, Prof Hans said. Xorje Olivares, who attended the court on 8 January as a prospective juror, was one of the dozens of people who ruled themselves out. He told the BBC his support for the #MeToo movement, and the fact he knew several people who were sexual assault survivors, meant he felt he could not be impartial. "I personally felt nothing but disgust... even being in the same room as him, I just felt very icky," Mr Olivares, who hosts a radio show, said. "I knew that I had these biased views, and I would bring them to the case." On the other hand, supermodel Gigi Hadid - who had also reported for jury duty - told the court she could remain impartial, despite having met Weinstein and actress Salma Hayek, one of the trial's potential witnesses. Hadid, who lives in Manhattan and studied criminal psychology, told the judge she would "keep an open mind on the facts" if selected - but she was dismissed on Thursday, 16 January, as the jury pool was whittled down. How is the jury being selected - and what sort of jurors will Weinstein's lawyers want? Although it's known as jury selection, it's actually a process of elimination. Many prospective jurors are being dismissed from the outset - either because they say they cannot be impartial, or because they have scheduling conflicts. Those remaining are asked to complete a questionnaire, where they are asked about their education, prior jury service, whether they know people working in the entertainment industry, and whether they have been a victim of physical or sexual abuse. Then, lawyers for both sides can question them in court, and get potential jurors dismissed if the judge agrees that they are not impartial - this is known as a challenge for cause. In the US, lawyers are also allowed to remove a number of potential jurors without giving a reason (known as a peremptory challenge), as long as it isn't on the basis of ethnicity or gender. Peremptory challenges are controversial to some - the UK abolished them in 1988 - because critics believe that lawyers can try to skew juries in a particular way and a randomly selected jury is fairer. However, in the US, they're considered an important part of the constitutional right to trial by an impartial jury. In Mr Weinstein's trial, lawyers on each side are allowed to dismiss up to 20 potential regular jurors, says Prof Hans. Lawyers from both sides will try to establish a jury that they believe will be more favourable to their side. The prosecution will want jurors who can relate to the alleged victims, while the defence will want jurors who "see themselves as the defendant", says Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a law professor at the University of Dayton. He believes the prosecution may want to select younger jurors, due to their understanding of the #MeToo movement. He adds that Mr Weinstein is "in a unique position" that "a lot of people will have difficulty relating to". "You really would need a jury of CEOs, or people who have been in position of power." What sorts of strategies could the lawyers use? Mr Weinstein's team has employed a jury consultant - an expert who will assist the lawyers with jury selection, including through community surveys and developing profiles of favourable and unfavourable jurors. They are also likely to search public social media postings from all prospective jurors to see whether they have commented on the #MeToo movement - although they are not allowed to "friend" jurors. "Each side will have an ideal juror they're looking for," says Alan Tuerkheimer, a jury consultant. However, they cannot be too obvious about who they want - because if it's clear they want a potential juror, the other side would "probably strike them out". Instead, he likens it to a "chess game" - where each side tries to guess which jurors are good for their opposition, and then dismiss them. "The defence are going to want jurors who believe women sometimes make things up to get powerful men in trouble... the prosecution will want people who think that any questioning of the account of victims is off limits." Prof Hans says the questionnaire results, and online research, can often help lawyers "identify in advance people who will be close minded to their case". This is particularly useful if it lets them ask the potential jurors questions that demonstrate to the judge that they are not impartial - because then they can be dismissed by a "challenge for cause", without the lawyers using up one of their peremptory challenges. Finally, with any high-profile trial, there is also the risk of "stealth jurors" - potential jurors with an agenda, or who hope to write a tell-all book afterwards. "If someone seems too eager to get on a jury, all parties should be careful," Mr Tuerkheimer says, adding that this has led to retrials in the past. What is it like serving on a high-profile trial? In the US, the names of jurors are often publicly available - and former jurors have faced intense media attention, or fallen out with family and friends who disagree with their verdict. James Matsumoto, who was jury foreman in the first corruption trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, remembered that the court room was packed with journalists when he was questioned as a potential juror. "There must have been several hundred people on the courtroom at the time. It was a little unnerving, because you don't have anyone there with you in the jury box - you're alone and handed a microphone so that everyone in the court room can hear what you have to say." He believes that the high-profile nature of the trial helped focus the minds on the jury, because it made them aware of how important the case was. One unexpected consequence was the fact that "most people gained weight" during the trial, which lasted nearly two months. Jurors were sequestered during the day, and had to eat lunch together in court, which meant "you're not getting very much exercise, and it's all fast food because you need something quick and near the court house". He was surprised to find that journalists were even interested in finding out where the jury ordered lunch - considering it a "coup" when they were able to publish their lunch choices. But the media attention became "really intense" once the trial ended - with the jury finding Blagojevich guilty on one count, but unable to reach an unanimous verdict on 23 other charges. On his way home, he noticed "a whole bunch of people standing in front of my house". He said a reporter approached him, asking if he was James Matsumoto - and he tried to divert him by saying "no, I think he lives down the block" - but ultimately he was still recognised. "That night the phone kept ringing and the answering machine became full. My wife wasn't expecting anything like that, so she was very upset with all the attention," he said. Other jury members had journalists knocking at their doors - while one found a helicopter hovering over their home. The trial made a lasting impression on Mr Matsumoto. To this day, he says it bothers him that his jury was not able to reach a consensus on the charges. (At a retrial a year later, Blagojevich was found guilty of 17 charges, and sentenced to 14 years in jail.) Despite this, Mr Matsumoto says if asked to be a juror again, he would. "For me it was a good experience - I learned more about human nature than I did before, and the nature of truth." "Most Americans don't want to serve on trials - but I think it's our duty as citizens to be jurors." His advice to jurors in the Harvey Weinstein trial is simple: "Do everything the judge instructs, just pay attention, and deliberate with honesty."

हार्वी वाइनस्टीन मुकदमे पर जाने वाला है-और न्यूयॉर्क में 12 पुरुष और महिलाएं यह निर्धारित करने के लिए जिम्मेदार होंगे कि वह दोषी है या नहीं।


Christopher Jefferies: How I was hounded

Summary: In December 2010, Christopher Jefferies was arrested for the murder of landscape architect Jo Yeates and vilified by the press. Here, in his most personal and emotional account to date, he writes about the far-reaching impact of the episode, even after he was cleared.

The moments between sleeping and waking hover between dream and consciousness, the mind uncertain as to what is fantasy and what is reality. It was in that state that the knocks on the door announcing my arrest brutally inverted fact and fiction, truth and falsehood, nightmare and the world of familiar reassurance. I was taken to the police station, unable to think beyond the moment, aware only of what was being done to me by forces I was powerless to influence. It seemed I was the only one who saw the person instinct told me still existed. Everyone else saw not Chris Jefferies, but the murderer of Jo Yeates. An individual living out the complex narrative of his own existence was suddenly transformed into a villain. During the next three days in custody, and then during the three months that followed, everything that seemed stable suddenly became precarious. As I had to hand over the clothes I was wearing and the possessions I had on me, it was as if the process of stripping me of my identity had begun. The clothes I was given to wear, the DNA samples, the fingerprints and the photographs that were taken all seemed like attempts to impose an alien persona. When the doctor examined me, who did she see? The bare 19th Century cell reflected back at me nothing that I recognised. The distant sounds beyond the sightless windows were the only reminders of a world with which I seemed to have lost contact. With no watch and with little natural light, time had no shape or structure and events seemed random and haphazard. As I think about the experience now, I'm acutely conscious of how very different the outcome could have been without friends. Even as I was starting to think that I needed urgently to arrange legal representation, I was allowed a call from a friend and former pupil who had seen to it that a solicitor was on his way. That moment of re-connection with life outside a police cell was as if a source of energy had been switched back on. So too, the calm determination of the solicitor, incredulous at the flimsiness of the case against me, suddenly re-focused my own perspective. His strength, my anger at what I was being subjected to and the knowledge that I had absolutely nothing to hide gave me back some feeling of control. I was writing the script, not the police. From the moment I was released on police bail, I was determined that the wrong that had been done would be put right. But the following weeks became very much more painful, before I started to feel any real sense of restored identity. Almost as great as the shock of arrest was the announcement that every item of clothing I possessed had been removed from my flat for forensic examination, and the flat itself would remain in police hands. I had nothing to wear but the clothes I had been given at the police station and, to add to the feeling of disconnection, even my watch and mobile phone remained confiscated. I was fortunate to be on my way to stay with the same friend who had made the legal arrangements, but as I was driven away by the solicitor there was the sharp realisation of how unbearably isolated and vulnerable I would still be if I had nowhere to go but a bail hostel. As it was, for three months I moved between four sets of friends whose lives provided the psychological security without which it would have been almost impossible to cope. Almost immediately I was made to realise something of the enormity of what had been appearing in the press, and the Dorian Gray-like portrait which was all that existed as far as the world was aware. But, wisely, I was advised by my friends not to look at the reports. The process of gradually restoring the identity vandalised by the media was reinforced when, in mid-January, police charged Vincent Tabak, the man who was subsequently convicted of Jo's murder. But countering that positive and restorative process, and at times overwhelming it, were the stresses and tensions of the fugitive life I had to lead. I was unable for a time to go out, except occasionally after dark, because the press were desperate for the scoop of discovering where I was. More generally, there was the effect on me of nine weeks of waiting to be cleared of suspicion. At the time it felt as if the police were deliberately playing a game - promising the ordeal would soon be over and then finding it necessary to prolong the wait. It was a form of psychological torture. At such times the mind plays tricks, and one starts to believe that perhaps one is a criminal without knowing it and that, as in some Kafkaesque nightmare, guilt has been pre-ordained and the sentence is inescapable. When finally, in early March, I was publicly cleared of involvement in the murder, my possessions were returned and I was able to return to my flat. The slow process of re-ordering every room which, as in a burglary, had been turned upside down during the police investigation, came to seem a metaphor for the emotional and psychological restoration that was still taking place. But it was a process made enormously easier by the extraordinarily supportive reaction from neighbours, the local community and beyond. Somewhat hesitantly and apprehensively, I started to re-connect with my former life. In fact, I need not have worried since, despite wondering whether I would ever be able to feel at ease in the flat again, the speed with which a sense of normality reasserted itself both surprised and pleased me. Within another three months, the events of the start of the year seemed a distant nightmare. It was some 10 months after Jo's murder that I finally learned more of what had been written of me, through Brian Cathcart's analysis of the press coverage in the Financial Times Weekend Magazine. The piece set out some of the coverage that I had avoided - The Sun's use of "the strange Mr Jefferies", "Jo suspect is Peeping Tom" in the Daily Mirror and "Angry 'weirdo' had foul temper" in the Daily Star were all among the many false claims levelled. The impact was so intense as to be almost physical in its effect. As the libel action was prepared, I focused only on what the lawyers needed me to read. Successful actions against eight key newspapers followed, which coincided with contempt of court proceedings brought by the attorney general. Later I was able to give evidence at the Leveson Inquiry. It was, I felt, a chance to show something of the reality behind the grotesquely distorting mirror of the press. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

दिसंबर 2010 में, क्रिस्टोफर जेफरीज को लैंडस्केप आर्किटेक्ट जो येट्स की हत्या के लिए गिरफ्तार किया गया था और प्रेस द्वारा बदनाम किया गया था। यहाँ, अपने अब तक के सबसे व्यक्तिगत और भावनात्मक खाते में, वह प्रकरण के दूरगामी प्रभाव के बारे में लिखते हैं, भले ही उन्हें साफ़ कर दिया गया हो।


Shoeburyness stranded car rescued as high tide rolls in

Summary: A stranded car had to be towed off a beach minutes before a rising tide threatened to sweep it away.

Two people in the vehicle called 999 to say they had driven on to wet sand and got stuck in Shoeburyness, near Southend Coastguard Station, on Sunday. HM Coastguard said the driver was given details of vehicle recovery firms while it went to keep a watch on the situation and help if needed. It said the car was moved "15 minutes prior to the tide reaching" it. It added that while HM Coastguard was the fourth emergency service, "contrary to popular belief that does not include vehicle recovery and breakdown service".

एक फंसी हुई कार को समुद्र तट से कुछ ही मिनटों पहले खींचना पड़ा, इससे पहले कि एक बढ़ते ज्वार ने उसे बहा ले जाने की धमकी दी।


Coronavirus in Scotland: What is known about care home deaths?

Summary: Nearly half of Scotland's 4,193 coronavirus deaths have been linked to care homes. So what do we know about these men and women who succumbed to a disease that has ravaged the world? Surprisingly, the answer is very little.

By Marc EllisonData journalist, BBC Scotland The first Alan Wightman knew about virus-related deaths in his mother's care home came from an unexpected phone call. "Have you seen The Courier?" the home's deputy manager asked. The local newspaper was reporting that an outbreak at Scoonie House in Fife had resulted in 16 positive cases, and two deaths. "If that article had not been published, they'd never have phoned me," says Alan. "Their hand was forced." That phone call came on 1 May and five days later Alan's 88-year-old mother Helen became another coronavirus fatality. According to the Care Inspectorate - Scotland's regulatory body for the sector - care providers are under "no statutory obligation" to notify residents, or their families, of an outbreak in their homes. Caring Homes - the private company that runs Scoonie House - said its residents were an "absolute priority", and everything had been done to keep them well. It had "proactively" sourced the right protective equipment for staff, engaged in routine testing and stopped new admissions. The company added: "We have sought to be transparent with relatives and they have received regular communications from our home manager and senior leadership team." The one thing it didn't say was how many deaths linked to Covid-19 had happened. Alan doesn't dispute his mother's care and he was thankful for the regular updates he was given. What he does question is how coronavirus still managed to take hold, despite the measures employed. He also questions why Caring Homes won't make public its death numbers. Alan's view is that care homes are "hiding, where they can, behind confidentiality". Caring Homes is not the only provider reluctant to reveal how many fatalities could be attributed to the pandemic. So, what do we know about deaths? Officially, there have been suspected cases in two-thirds of homes. And we know coronavirus has claimed slightly more lives in care homes (1,950) than in hospitals (1,945). Data also reveals that since mid-March there have been 2,365 "excess deaths" in Scottish care homes as measured against the five-year average. Weekly figures published by National Records of Scotland - which include confirmed and suspected coronavirus deaths - show what the situation is at health board level. But is it possible to map every single care home death by address and provider? Over many weeks I sent hundreds of emails to the 1,080 public and private homes looking after Scotland's elderly. But most declined to say how many virus-related deaths they had reported to the Care Inspectorate. The regulatory body - as well as the Scottish government - also refused to release a breakdown. The Care Inspectorate also declined to disclose the data via a freedom of information request, pointing out that infections and death numbers "may not necessarily be related to a service's quality of care, hygiene standards, and use of PPE". The watchdog added: "To release information, even at provider level, could have significant impact on the ability of the provider, and consequently their services, to function commercially in already challenging economic circumstances. "Releasing information at this level would also likely impact on their ability to engage new staff and/or attract new residents." The government said data needed to be accurate and published in a way that protected people's right to confidentiality. Faced with very little official figures, I searched online news articles, obituaries, and death notices and contacted social media groups set up by those who had lost loved ones in care homes. But despite casting a wide net, I could find only 93 care homes in which 588 residents had died - that's 30% of all the 1,950 confirmed and suspected elderly deaths. Of these, 78% were reported at privately-run homes. For context, 63% of the sector is private, with the remainder being non-profit (24%), council (12%), and health board (1%). But many providers would not even confirm figures that had appeared in the media. For example, Advinia Care Homes Limited declined to reveal numbers despite freedom of information requests and news stories reporting at least 66 deaths in five of its homes. It simply said it would not release such data "out of respect to the families who have lost someone". Helen Wightman's son Alan says he is dismayed at the lack of openness, adding "they [the care homes] are not providing answers". As well as private homes failing to release death figures - half a dozen local authorities have also declined to publish numbers. The media reported 15 deaths at council-run Crosslet House, but West Dunbartonshire said patient confidentiality meant it was "unable to confirm" fatalities. Robert Kilgour - executive chairman of Renaissance Care - told BBC Scotland councils should provide figures for deaths. He said: "If they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. There are no data protection issues at all. This is a smokescreen for them to hide behind." What about deaths by council area? While weekly figures published by National Records of Scotland use local authority areas they don't reveal which specific homes have reported deaths. Through the crowdsourced data I had found, I built maps highlighting possible virus hot spots. Some show evenly-spread points across councils like Glasgow, whereas we see clusters of care home deaths in the east of Renfrewshire, and eastern Edinburgh. The limited data set also allows us to calculate what percentage of deaths in a council area can be attributed to a single care home. How does Scotland compare to other countries? Analysis of global figures by academics at the London School of Economics (LSE) suggests care home residents were more likely to die of Covid-19 in the UK than in any of the other major European countries, apart from Spain. The proportion of residents dying in UK homes was a third higher than in Ireland or Italy, about double that in France and Sweden, and 13 times higher than in Germany. If we look at Scotland as an individual nation and use the LSE's analysis, the country's care homes would see 5% of deaths attributed to the pandemic. However, the report notes that "international comparisons are difficult" due to differences in testing; how deaths are recorded, and variations in the definition of "care home". A Scottish government spokesman said "the calculation uses a snapshot day and therefore doesn't account for the flow (in and out) of care home residents across the year. In our view, it provides at best a rough proxy measure". One of the report's authors, Dr David Henderson from Edinburgh Napier University, said nobody knows how many people in Scotland are in care homes at any given time and so "an accurate denominator is beyond us". He added that the "data gap" had been "cruelly exposed by the pandemic". The Scottish government has pledged to review social care in the wake of coronavirus which had "shone a light" on areas that needed to be improved. That review has been welcomed by Alan Wightman who is still trying to piece together how his mother Helen contracted coronavirus.

स्कॉटलैंड में 4,193 कोरोना वायरस से हुई मौतों में से लगभग आधी मौतें देखभाल गृहों से जुड़ी हुई हैं। तो हम इन पुरुषों और महिलाओं के बारे में क्या जानते हैं जिन्होंने एक ऐसी बीमारी के कारण दम तोड़ दिया जिसने दुनिया को तबाह कर दिया है? आश्चर्य की बात है कि इसका जवाब बहुत कम है।


Muttiah Muralitharan on the 'challenge' of his disputed biopic

Summary: Former Sri Lankan cricketing great Muttiah Muralitharan says a planned film about his life will be released, despite a massive backlash in south India which caused the lead actor to quit. The BBC's Nalini Sivathasan speaks to him and explains the controversy around the film.

"I've been in so many controversies, not just cricketing. I have got through hurdles. This is just one of the many challenges I've faced," says the 48-year-old of the uproar around the film. A member of Sri Lanka's minority Tamils, Muralitharan defied the odds to make it on to the national team during a long civil war between Tamil separatists and the Sinhalese-majority security forces. Then, he battled controversy over his bowling action - he was famously no-balled for "chucking" in Australia - to become one of the most formidable bowlers the cricketing world has ever seen. However the biopic of his life - entitled 800, a reference to his record-breaking 800 Test match wickets - may be his biggest obstacle yet. Shooting has yet to start, but when a film poster featuring popular south Indian actor Vijay Sethupathi in the lead role was released there was a massive outpouring of anger The hashtag #ShameOnVijaySethupathi started trending across the state of Tamil Nadu, with many demanding that he turn down the role. The film's producers have called it a "sports biography", intended to inspire young people, but critics fear a hagiography, an attempt to glorify someone who has become a controversial political issue. Much of the outrage stems from Muralitharan's comments at a presidential election event last year, at which he celebrated the end of the war in 2009 and supported the candidacy of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Mr Rajapaksa was the defence secretary when government forces crushed Tamil Tiger separatists in a brutal campaign that also left tens of thousands of civilians dead. He said the "happiest day of my life" was in 2009 as the country could now "go on without fear". An estimated 40,000 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians are believed to have died in the last stages of the war, and it has been an emotive issue in Tamil Nadu, where the same language and ethnic identity are shared. "Even though Muralitharan is a Tamil, he does not behave as a Tamil, and we don't want him to enter Tamil Nadu in any form - whether in person or on film," said V Prabha, a youth activist based in Chennai (formerly Madras). "Muralitharan did many wrongs during the Sri Lankan civil war, we don't want him to be a hero in the Tamil community." Read more about Sri Lanka's civil war But Muralitharan says his words have been repeatedly "twisted" and taken out of context. "I meant that after 2009, we had peace in this country. For me when the war finished, it was the happiest day of my life because peace came - not because Tamil civilians were killed," he said, speaking from Dubai, where he is a bowling coach for the Sunrisers Hyderabad team at the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament being held there. "I did not take any sides over the war - Rajapaksa side or the other side. I was in the middle. People in India don't know what's happening in Sri Lanka." Muralitharan has close links with India, especially Tamil Nadu. His wife is from the state and he represented Chennai when he played for Chennai Super Kings from 2008 to 2010, becoming one of the team's most most popular players. So why is the film so contentious? "In 2010, people in Tamil Nadu knew what had happened to Tamils in the Sri Lankan civil war, but they didn't connect Muralitharan to it," said Mr Prabha. "We then started a campaign showing how he supported the Sri Lankan state, and by 2013, we were able to ban him and other Sri Lankan players here." In 2013, the Tamil Nadu government banned IPL games with Sri Lankan players from being played in the state, due to alleged human rights violations of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Kavitha Muralidharan, a freelance journalist in Chennai, says the furore over Muralitharan's biopic has been so intense because of its lead actor, 42-year-old Vijay Sethupathi. "Sethupathi is seen as a progressive actor, he speaks out on a lot of social issues, so for many people it was troubling to see him choosing to play the role of Muttiah Muralitharan," she said. "People in Tamil Nadu take cinema very seriously. A movie is not just a movie there - Tamil cinema and politics are inter-related." Tamil nationalism is often infused into Kollywood, as the Tamil cinema industry is known. A number of the state's chief ministers were actors before they took to politics. The pressure on Sethupathi to quit came from both film stars and politicians. But it was Muralitharan's surprise intervention - he asked the actor to withdraw - that decided the issue. "Why does Sethupathi have to have unnecessary problems with this movie? Why do I want to put these problems on him?" the cricketer asks. "This is my battle, not his battle, so I will take on the battle." The response in Sri Lanka - where he is widely regarded as a sporting hero - has been mixed. "I would have loved to see a film about him, not glorifying him, but something which brings all aspects of his complex identity to the screen," said Andrew Fidel Fernando, a cricket writer in Colombo, who has written extensively about Muralitharan's cricketing reign. "The immediate backlash to the film seems ludicrous - we don't know what the film would have been like." Families of Tamils who went missing during the Sri Lankan civil war are more critical, with some calling for the film to be scrapped completely. "Muralitharan's words - when he said 2009 was the happiest time of his life - have affected Tamil people all over the world, worse than this coronavirus pandemic," Gopalakrishnan Rajkumar, who represents families of the disappeared, told BBC Tamil. "Because he was Tamil, he became popular, but he hasn't done anything for Tamil people here." The film's producers, Dar Motion Pictures (which made the Bollywood films The Lunchbox and Ugly) and Movie Train Motion Pictures had hoped to begin shooting 800 in early 2021. Without a lead actor, that now seems unlikely. But Muralitharan is confident that his story will be told on screen. "It will be made. The film's not just for Tamil Nadu. The producers are from Mumbai, they want it in all languages, in Tamil, Sinhala, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam and with English subtitles," he says. "It's a sports movie, how can it be controversial?" Yet the furore around 800 suggests it will be difficult to separate the cricketing legend from his politics. You may also be interested in:

श्रीलंका के पूर्व क्रिकेट महान मुथैया मुरलीधरन का कहना है कि दक्षिण भारत में भारी विरोध के बावजूद उनके जीवन पर एक नियोजित फिल्म रिलीज की जाएगी, जिसके कारण मुख्य अभिनेता को छोड़ना पड़ा। बीबीसी की नलिनी शिवथासन ने उनसे बात की और फिल्म को लेकर विवाद के बारे में बताया।


Ilkeston house fire that killed boy, 6, 'not started deliberately'

Summary: A house fire in which a six-year-old boy died is not thought to have been started deliberately, the fire service said.

The boy died in hospital after being pulled from the blaze, in Shaw Street West, Ilkeston, at about 22:40 BST on Friday. Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service said the fire was "not being treated as deliberate or malicious". The name of the boy who died has not yet been released. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

अग्निशमन सेवा ने कहा कि एक घर में आग लगने से छह साल के लड़के की मौत हो गई, ऐसा नहीं माना जाता है कि इसे जानबूझकर शुरू किया गया था।


Translation tech helps firms talk business round the world

Summary: English is the language of business, right? Er... not really.

By Daniel ThomasBusiness reporter If the oft-heard maxim were universally true, the outsourced translation market wouldn't be worth a chunky $37bn (£23bn) or be growing at about 6% a year. While content in English still dominates the web, "billions of people don't read English at all or well enough to make buying decisions," concludes a survey by Common Sense Advisory, a business research consultancy. In reality, businesses must translate and localise products into a host of different languages, and that requires linguists. And with competition among translation firms fierce, many are turning to technology to steal a march on their rivals. Found in translation Take Thebigword, a Leeds-based firm employing about 12,000 linguists in 73 countries covering 500 languages. Its previous clients include Ricoh, Electrolux and DHL. The firm says it can connect you with an interpreter in just 30 seconds by phone, localise your market messages or translate your documents. However, it believes the real weapon in its technological arsenal is its new "translation management system" (TMS), which claims to deliver projects four times faster than the industry standard by automating project workflow and using computer-assisted translation tools. Imagine you are a technology business launching a new phone in multiple countries on the same day. "Translation for a job like that goes through a huge amount of different processes - it's not just one page sent, translate it and send it back," says chief executive Larry Gould. "It may have diagrams on it or illustrations, or need to be presented a certain way, localised, edited and double-proofed. And of course you've got to do it all to tight deadlines." Mr Gould can use up to 200 linguists on a single project like this, spread across 33 countries. But the TMS helps co-ordinate the process, allocating the workload across time zones to speed things up and cut costs. Language barrier? Such firms still rely heavily on human linguists but are increasingly complementing them with lower-cost automated "machine translation" tools, known as MT in the business. Ben Sargent, a senior analyst at Common Sense, says such technology has its drawbacks, but can work well for low-stakes, high-volume work, particularly online. "We estimate that less than half of 1% of all the digital content that could and should be translated, actually is. "No-one has the budget to do all that. So in low-value content applications, like user-generated content and consumer-to-consumer interactions, automated translation gets a lot more traction." For example, when eBay realised that more than 20% of its sales involved cross-border trade - and that its international business was growing faster than its domestic business - it acquired AppTek's machine translation technology to help meet the demand for local language listings. Currently eBay only translates listings in countries such as Brazil and Russia, but eventually wants to help sellers list their goods in multiple languages, and chat to buyers via instant messaging that translates in real time. But Ryan Frankel, chief executive of VerbalizeIt, a translation firm that uses only human translators, is not convinced by MT. He believes that it "is light years away" from delivering anything beyond a "get the gist" solution. "Businesses rightly value accuracy but also brand, industry and cultural-specific terminology and nuances that require an experienced and trained community of translation professionals." Even advocates of the technology admit that an accuracy rate of about 70% is considered excellent, but that this can only usually be achieved for technical documents using highly consistent terminology. Once the slang phrases, idioms and metaphors of normal human conversation are thrown into the mix, accuracy can plummet to 30%. Beam me up Scotty "Speech-to-speech" technology, which translates the human voice in near real time into text or words spoken by your computer, offers some exciting possibilities. Although it is certainly in its early stages - Microsoft's pre-beta Skype Translator tool, unveiled in May, was clunky and slow in demonstration to say the least - speech-to-speech is evolving fast. According to analyst Gartner the market is likely to mature in the next five to 10 years. SpeechTrans, a frontrunner in the space, claims its users can have a conversation in more than 40 languages over fixed-line or internet phone, and that the technology can even recognise different accents and dialects. "In four years we have been able to accomplish more than was ever thought possible in this area of technology," says Mark Coviello, director of sales. "At this rate we foresee the ability for any human being to communicate with any other human being without error [using speech-to-speech]." Hewlett-Packard has already integrated SpeechTrans into MyRoom, its web conferencing platform, enabling business professionals "anywhere in the world to collaborate in 30 different languages, in the same conversation, at the same time". The technology giant won't tell the BBC how many users it has, but says "adoption is increasing", along with the application's accuracy and speed. 'Dubious results' Still, Mr Sargent says such platforms have a long way to go before they really take off. "Progress can be slow, and the utility of these systems today is limited. "Don't expect to see courtroom or hospital interpreters being replaced anytime soon, except for emergency situations, where dubious results may still be better than nothing." As with MT, some also doubt whether speech-to-speech will ever really grasp the nuances of language the way a human can. Still, Mr Coviello claims taking humans out of the equation has its benefits, too. "We find that there may not always be a person available for translation when needed the most, or that due to certain ideologies or conditions the person translating may mistranslate what is being said." While businesses will surely explore automated translation technology for its cost-saving potential, it seems that demand for high-quality human translation will continue to grow as multilingual content proliferates. "We believe new technology has to be embraced because there is just so much communication required out there," says Thebigword's Mr Gould. "It's brilliant for our industry - [technology] will enhance our business, not take away from it."

अंग्रेजी व्यापार की भाषा है, है ना?


Maeshowe Neolithic burial cairn in Orkney to stay open

Summary: A Neolithic Orkney burial cairn is to stay open to the public thanks to a shuttle bus service aimed at addressing road safety concerns.

Concerns had been raised over the car park at Maeshowe. Historic Environment Scotland said a shuttle bus service was being introduced from Thursday from the visitor centre at Skara Brae, allowing three tours a day. The agency said work to find a long-term solution was ongoing.

सड़क सुरक्षा चिंताओं को दूर करने के उद्देश्य से एक शटल बस सेवा के कारण एक नवपाषाण ऑर्कनी दफन स्तूप जनता के लिए खुला रहेगा।


Cleveland PCC Barry Coppinger has phone stolen by pickpocket

Summary: A pickpocket has been jailed for stealing a mobile phone from a police and crime commissioner (PCC).

Cleveland PCC Barry Coppinger was in a cafe in Middlesbrough when the phone was taken from his jacket. He reported the matter to police and a man was arrested after CCTV footage was circulated to officers. Anthony Rene, 32, from London, pleaded guilty to theft at Teesside Magistrates' Court and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison. Mr Coppinger praised the security system in the cafe and said he was pleased the man had been brought to justice "swiftly".

एक पुलिस और अपराध आयुक्त (पी. सी. सी.) से मोबाइल फोन चुराने के आरोप में एक चोर को जेल भेज दिया गया है।


Windows 10 update stops webcams working

Summary: A Windows 10 update has stopped many popular webcams from working.

By Rhiannon WilliamsTechnology reporter The update, released earlier this month, stops many cameras being used for Skype or to broadcast and stream footage. The cause seems to be a change in the way Windows 10 handles video so it can be used by more than one program at a time. Microsoft said it was working on a fix but has not given any date for when the patch will be available. 'Poor job' Soon after Windows Update 1607 was distributed in early August, many people started reporting webcam problems to Microsoft via its support site. The trouble affected both webcams connected via USB cables or on the same network and meant either that footage could not be streamed, or that images froze after a while. The problems even affected webcams working with Skype and Lync - both companies owned by Microsoft. Comments on the support thread suggest millions of people have been inconvenienced by the bug. Some companies said customers who used webcams for internet banking had complained because they could no longer verify transactions. Analysis put the blame on changes to the video encoding systems with which Windows 10 works. The update ends support for two widely used encoding systems so it became possible for more than one application to use video as it is being shot. Prior to the update Windows 10 only allowed one application access to a stream. A Microsoft camera engineer who responded to complaints on the support thread said the company had done "a poor job" of letting people know about the change. "We dropped the ball on that front, so I'd like to offer my apologies to you all," he said. He added that Microsoft was working on a way to fix the problem and get webcams working again. The fix is likely to be released in September. Microsoft has yet to officially comment on the problem. Changes to the way Microsoft handles updates also seem to have made the problem harder to fix. Prior to update 1607, Windows 10 users could roll-back to a previous version within 30 days of it being installed. The update cut that to 10 days giving people little chance to switch back to the earlier version of Windows 10 under which their webcams worked.

विंडोज 10 अपडेट ने कई लोकप्रिय वेबकैम को काम करने से रोक दिया है।


The bionic eye changing a woman's life

Summary: At Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, a clinical trial is taking place in which six patients who have had little or no sight for many years are having a cutting-edge "bionic eye" implanted in an attempt to give them some sight, and independence, back.

The first patient in this trial is 49-year-old Rhian Lewis, from Cardiff. She explains: "I was a toddler when my parents noticed I would not cross a darkened room, even from one light room to another light room, and that I was really scared of the dark. So they took me back and forward to the optician and specialists and then they diagnosed me with retinitis pigmentosa." This disorder destroys the light sensitive cells in the retina - but how much and how quickly varies from person to person. In Rhian's case, it eventually made her almost completely blind. "I think I was about four or five. I've never had any vision at night or in dim light and then, as I went through school, I had the glasses and I sat at the front because I couldn't see the board. "It was progressive and as I went to work in a shop, checking up deliveries, I had to use a magnifier increasingly to check the delivery notes and then I couldn't read the titles of the books properly, so then they put me on to different materials, like art and stationery, because there were different shapes and sizes so I could manage with that - I could do a lot from memory." Her sight deteriorated and around 16 years ago she lost all vision in her right eye and most of the sight in her left eye. "In my left eye, I sort of navigate around by light. If it's bright outside I'll sort of aim for the window or if it's dark and the lights are on I'll navigate by the light bulbs, like a moth." The problem with having no sight, she says, is that you also lose your confidence because you lose your mobility. "I don't go out and about on my own, ever. Then around the house, the kitchen, you rely on other people to find things for you - it's very frustrating. It's simple things like shopping...clothes shopping, you don't know what you look like. It's been, maybe eight years that I've had any sort of idea of what my children look like. And I've got friends now where I've got no idea what they look like. And I certainly don't know how I've aged." In the summer, Rhian travelled to Oxford for an operation to implant a tiny 3x3mm chip into her right eye. The device replaces the light-sensitive retinal cells in the eye, and is connected to a tiny computer that sits underneath the skin behind the ear. When it is switched on using a magnetic coil applied to the skin, signals travel to the optic nerve and then to the brain. Rhian still had an intact optic nerve and all the brain wiring needed for vision, but her mind needed time to adjust to the signals it was suddenly receiving after being dormant for so long. She explains: "It was a bit nerve-wracking. I didn't know what to expect. "They sort of put the magnet to the little receiver there on my head and switched the receiver on. They said I might not get any sensation… and then all of a sudden within seconds there was like this flashing in my eye, which has seen nothing for over 16 years, so it was like, 'Oh my God, wow!' It was just amazing to feel that something was happening in that eye, that there was some sort of signal." One of the first tests the doctors did was to check if Rhian could now see flashing lights on a computer screen in a dark room - she could. "What I was seeing was sort of a line at the top of my eye and at the bottom. But it was getting quite distracting because it was quite a slow flash really, so I asked them if they'd change the frequency. Now I've got more of a shimmer, rather than flashing lines, which is much less distracting and a little more accurate." Next they checked if she could distinguish white objects on a black background - a white plate on a black tablecloth - which didn't go so well. Rhian recalls: "I wasn't quite sure where the plate was. So I left that day with sort of mixed feelings, because the flashing was working but I couldn't see the plate on the table." She returned the following day to repeat the failed test. "They did the objects on the table and I could get them and I was so chuffed, I must have looked like a kid at Christmas! I was just locating a plate, a cup and a couple of shapes, but it was difficult because I didn't have any co-ordination. I haven't seen anything through that eye for so long, so I kept overshooting it a little bit - but we were getting there. I was just elated, really elated." Next, it was time to go outside. "I was absolutely terrified, because I didn't know what to expect at all. And I was thinking 'oh, I don't want to let anybody down, I don't want to let myself down…' But as it turned out, it was great. "There was a car, a silver car and I couldn't believe it, because the signal was really strong and that was the sun shining on the silver car. And I was just, well, I was just so excited, I was quite teary! "Being out in the real world, actually out in the street, you know, is far more useful, than locating flashes on a computer screen and doing the things in the lab. Just to walk under a tree and realising it'd gone dark was amazing, because I hadn't had that. "Now, when I locate something, especially like a spoon or a fork on the table, it's pure elation, you know. I just get so excited that I've got something right. It's really just pure joy to get something right, because I've never done it before - well, not for the last 16 or 17 years anyway." The surgical team at the Oxford Eye Hospital, John Radcliffe Hospital have been as delighted as Rhian with her progress. Although the chip has the resolution power of less than 1% of one megapixel, which is not much compared to a standard phone camera, it has the advantage of being connected to the human brain, which has over 100 billion neurons of processing power. Using dials on a small wireless power supply held in the hand, Rhian can adjust the sensitivity, contrast and frequency to obtain the best possible signal for different conditions as she continues to practise interpreting the signals and regaining her independence. If the rest of the trial is successful, it's possible that this implant could be made available on the NHS. The team also hope that one day this technology can be applied to other eye diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration. You can watch her story on Trust Me, I'm a Doctor on BBC2 at 8pm on Wednesday 6 January.

ऑक्सफोर्ड के जॉन रैडक्लिफ अस्पताल में, एक नैदानिक परीक्षण हो रहा है जिसमें छह रोगी जिन्हें कई वर्षों से बहुत कम या कोई दृष्टि नहीं है, उन्हें कुछ दृष्टि और स्वतंत्रता वापस देने के प्रयास में एक अत्याधुनिक "बायोनिक आंख" प्रत्यारोपित की जा रही है।


Police name woman who died in Alness crash

Summary: A woman who died following a crash near Alness in the Highlands has been named by police.

Karen McKeddie's Rav4 crashed on the C1016 between Alness and Achandunie, north of Millcraig Road. The 56-year-old, who was from Alness, died at the scene. Police have asked anyone who was on the road between 22:30 on Saturday and 00:40 on Sunday and who witnessed the crash or had dashcam footage from the area to come forward.

हाइलैंड्स में एलनेस के पास एक दुर्घटना में मरने वाली एक महिला का नाम पुलिस ने लिया है।


Women rescued from island off Arisaig after being cut off

Summary: Three women have been rescued by lifeboat after they became stranded on a small island in the Highlands.

The women were cut off by the tide after spending Saturday afternoon on the island off Arisaig. Mallaig RNLI lifeboat rescued the women after they called for help at about 19:30. A coastguard spokeswoman said: ""They had been enjoying their day on the island and then realised they were cut off by the tide."

हाइलैंड्स के एक छोटे से द्वीप पर फंसी तीन महिलाओं को लाइफबोट द्वारा बचाया गया है।


Oxford protesters occupy NHS building

Summary: The headquarters for the Oxfordshire NHS Primary Care Trust have been occupied by groups protesting against the NHS and Social Care Bill.

Members of Oxfordshire Anti Cuts Alliance and Keep Our NHS Public accuse the bill of "dismantling the NHS". Organiser Gawain Little said: "Profit not patients will be the central motivating force of the new system." Defending the bill, health minister Lord Howe said: "Competition would only be used to benefit patients." An NHS spokesman said: "There is a peaceful protest taking place in a conference room at our (NHS Oxfordshire) headquarters in Oxford. "There are currently around 20 people inside the room. At present the protest is not causing any disruption for people working in the building." Earlier police confirmed they were in attendance.

ऑक्सफोर्डशायर एन. एच. एस. प्राइमरी केयर ट्रस्ट के मुख्यालय पर एन. एच. एस. और सोशल केयर बिल का विरोध कर रहे समूहों ने कब्जा कर लिया है।


Details emerge on Valve video game console

Summary: Video game maker Valve is working on a PC that will allow users to play Steam games on their big-screen televisions.

The plan to produce a "very controlled" set-top box was revealed in an interview with gaming website Kotaku about the future of the PC. The company, best known for Half Life and Left 4 Dead, has already developed a "big picture mode" for Steam. Although Steam is run by Valve, the service gives gamers access to many developers and games studios' titles. Valve boss Gabe Newell said demand for the big picture interface had been "stronger than expected". Kotaku suggested the device might run the open-source operating system Linux.

वीडियो गेम निर्माता वाल्व एक ऐसे पीसी पर काम कर रहा है जो उपयोगकर्ताओं को अपने बड़े स्क्रीन वाले टेलीविजन पर स्टीम गेम खेलने की अनुमति देगा।


'I saved my teenage son's life with a defibrillator'

Summary: When 15-year-old Ethan Askew started to feel ill in a sports class, he went to tell his teacher and collapsed into his arms - he'd stopped breathing. And it was his Dad who used the school's newly installed defibrillator to help save his life.

By Frances CroninHealth reporter At 15, Ethan was a fit and healthy teenager, who went hiking with his dog Treacle and worked towards Duke of Edinburgh awards. There was no hint of any health problem before his collapse. Ethan's dad Stuart works as premises manager at the Steiner Academy school which his son attends. "I was just leaving a meeting when three girls ran up the stairs saying Ethan had collapsed. "I'm a first-aider at school, and with the number of stubbed toes and things like that you get on a daily basis you don't really worry when somebody says something like that - but I ran down to the field. "As I was sprinting across, I realised somebody was doing chest compressions on him and it kind of takes a couple of seconds to realise what that truly means. "I knew how serious it was." The school had applied to the British Heart Foundation for a community defibrillator for the village to be installed at the school, and it had recently been delivered. "Literally two days before, I was sitting in the middle of the staff room putting the battery in it - and then the idea that the first person that it gets used on is actually my son... It's staggering," says Stuart. "You know if I said, 'Pick anyone this could be used on', he would never have made the list. But it's not just the elderly or people with existing conditions, it could in theory just happen to anyone, so putting these community defibrillators in any location is just amazing." There are tens of thousands of defibrillators now available in workplaces, train stations, leisure centres and other public places across the country. But sometimes it is difficult to find out where they are. NHS England and NHS Scotland are joining the British Heart Foundation and Microsoft over the next 12 months to create a database of defibrillators across the UK. The move is in response to figures that show public-access defibrillators are used in less than 3% of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, which the British Heart Foundation says is "significantly reducing the survival chances of tens of thousands of people every year". Stuart says the device was "very easy" to use, which he acknowledges "is a very weird thing to say" considering the stressful circumstances. "It was very scary, but as soon as I remembered we had a defibrillator I kind of didn't doubt it would have an OK ending. It was a terrible and frightening experience but I never really had any doubt that that was it." An ambulance arrived within five minutes and Ethan was taken to hospital and put in an induced coma. Tests revealed that one of his coronary arteries was too narrow - a random genetic condition - and because he'd exercised so much, not enough oxygen was getting to his heart. Ethan had surgery during which they replaced his artery. Now 16, he says he's fully recovered and "even better than before". He says it feels like a bizarre dream. "I still can't believe it happened. Honestly I can't remember anything from that day. I can remember the day before and then I can't remember anything past that until I woke up from my induced coma and then after that it was a bit hazy." And he wasn't fully aware of what his Dad had done for him. "Everything was so overwhelming, I didn't really acknowledge it that much. I kind of just accepted everything that happened from then on. "They only told me they put it in two days before after I came out of hospital, so that was quite a surprise." But Stuart says things could have been very different. "He was due to go on his Duke of Edinburgh silver expedition the week after, which means he'd have been in the middle of the Brecon Beacons. We're so fortunate that it happened within sight almost of a community defibrillator." The first thing Stuart did when he went back to work was to register the defibrillator with the West Midlands Ambulance service. He says people shouldn't be scared to use them in an emergency, even if they haven't had any first aid training. "Have the confidence that the device is there to help. As soon as you unzip the pack there are only one or two buttons to press and the device tells you what to do. "Don't be afraid and just know that you're doing some good - you have the potential to save someone's life by having the guts to go and get this device and it really is just having that confidence to grab it and be part of helping somebody."

जब 15 वर्षीय एथन अस्क्यू एक खेल कक्षा में बीमार महसूस करने लगा, तो वह अपने शिक्षक को बताने गया और अपनी बाहों में गिर गया-उसने सांस लेना बंद कर दिया था। और यह उसके पिता थे जिन्होंने उसकी जान बचाने के लिए स्कूल के नए स्थापित डिफिब्रिलेटर का इस्तेमाल किया।


Jersey hoard experts aim for 500 coins a week over three years

Summary: Archaeologists are aiming to remove and clean up to 500 coins a week for the next three years from a hoard found encased in mud, Jersey Heritage says.

The collection of coins and jewellery pieces was found by two metal detector enthusiasts in 2012. For the past two years experts have been documenting the hoard that dates back about 2,000 years. Those involved will finally begin pulling it apart, one coin at a time, from Friday, Jersey Heritage said. The hoard, found in a Grouville field, is thought to be worth about £10m.

जर्सी हेरिटेज का कहना है कि पुरातत्वविदों का लक्ष्य अगले तीन वर्षों के लिए मिट्टी में मिले भंडार से एक सप्ताह में 500 सिक्कों को हटाना और साफ करना है।


Coal gasification: The clean energy of the future?

Summary: Dirty it may be, but coal is cheap.

By Richard AndersonBusiness reporter, BBC News For this simple reason, it remains the world's main source of power, providing a quarter of our primary energy and more than 40% of our electricity. And it will continue to do so for many years to come. The challenge, then, is how to harness coal's energy more cleanly. While global attempts to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) have stalled, a number of countries are looking at different ways to exploit their abundant coal reserves. Not all are motivated by environmental concerns, but are driven instead by economics and a desire for energy independence. Old and new The main technology being used is coal gasification - instead of burning the fossil fuel, it is chemically transformed into synthetic natural gas (SNG). The process is decades old, but recent rises in the price of gas mean it is now more economically viable. The US has dabbled in the technique, but China is going all out in a bid to satisfy its soaring demand for power and reduce its dependency on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG). The country's National Energy Administration has laid out plans to produce 50 billion cubic metres of gas from coal by 2020, enough to satisfy more than 10% of China's total gas demand. Not only does it make economic sense, but it allows China to exploit stranded coal deposits sitting thousands of kilometres from the country's main industrial centres. Transporting gas is, after all, a lot cheaper than transporting coal. Coal gasification can also help address local pollution problems that have in recent months brought parts of the country to a virtual standstill. But there are two big problems. First, coal gasification actually produces more CO2 than a traditional coal plant; so not only will China be using more coal, it will be doing so at a greater cost to the environment. As Laszlo Varro, head of gas, coal and power markets at the International Energy Agency (IEA), says: "[Coal gasification] is attractive from an economic and energy security perspective. "It can be a nice solution to local pollution, but its overall carbon intensity is worse [than coal mining], so it is not attractive at all from a climate change point of view". Indeed a study by Duke University in the US suggests synthetic natural gas emits seven times more greenhouse gases than natural gas, and almost twice as much carbon as a coal plant. The second problem is water use. Coal gasification is one of the more water-intensive forms of energy production, and large areas of China, particularly in the western parts of the country that would host new gasification plants, already suffer from water shortages. Mr Varro says a recent IEA report concluded that coal and coal gasification plants would use "quite a substantial portion of the available water in China". Abundant reserves Other countries are looking at different ways to get gas from coal. One method, particularly popular in Australia, is coal-bed methane, a process allowing access to coal deposits that are too deep to mine. Water is sucked out of the seam and the methane attached to the surface of the coal is freed and then collected. China, Indonesia and Mozambique are looking at coal-bed methane, while the US and Canada also have abundant reserves. Very little CO2 is emitted, but the process is not without controversy. Opponents highlight concerns about water contamination, land subsidence and disposing of waste water safely, while the water intensive process sometimes involves fracking. And yet coal-bed methane has "fundamentally changed the dynamics of the gas industry in Australia," according to Phil Hirschhorn, partner at the Boston Consulting Group's energy practice in Sydney. He says there are 200 trillion cubic feet of coal-bed methane resources in the country, with projects under construction to liquify and export 25 million tonnes of gas every year - equivalent to 10% of the entire global LNG market. Clean access A very different way to produce gas from coal is known as underground coal gasification (UCG), a process that has been around since the 19th Century but which has yet to become commercially viable on a grand scale - there is currently one working facility in Uzbekistan and pilot projects in Australia and South Africa. According to Julie Lauder, chief executive of the UCG Association, the process is a "new way of harnessing the energy of coal without the usual environmental impacts". Technological developments and the rising price of gas mean UCG is now a feasible way of accessing the vast resources of coal that are too deep to mine, she says. Indeed, estimates suggest that as much as 85% of the world's coal resources cannot be accessed through traditional mining techniques. Opening them up to exploitation has potentially disastrous implications for CO2 emissions and climate change, but the industry says these resources can be accessed cleanly. The process involves pumping oxygen and steam through a small borehole into the coal seam to produce a small and controlled combustion. Unlike coal-bed methane, therefore, the actual coal is converted from a solid state into gas. The hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide and CO2 are then siphoned off through a second borehole. According to Dr Harry Bradbury, founder and chief executive of UK clean energy company Five Quarters, this process results in 20% of the CO2 produced from traditional coal mining. But his company is developing a process that requires no burning of coal, and which combines what Dr Bradbury calls "solid state chemical engineering" with releasing gases that are trapped not just in the coal, but in the surrounding rocks as well. And all of this takes place offshore, relieving concerns about water contamination and subsidence, he argues. But the real advantage lies in the ability to capture the CO2. "We need to get more radical - we need to get to zero carbon," Dr Bradbury says. "Full carbon capture and storage is absolutely crucial." This can take place through re-injecting the CO2 back into the coal seams, or by converting the carbon into products such as plastics and graphene, he says. The UK government has established a working party to investigate the merits of UCG, undoubtedly excited by the vast resources of coal sitting under the North Sea. Other governments are equally keen to exploit new technologies to access their hidden coal seams. The problem, of course, is that the process depends entirely on wider efforts to develop CCS, efforts that have, so far, singularly failed to find a solution. Until one is found, any attempts to gasify coal underground will either remain theoretical or will exacerbate the already grave problem of CO2 emissions. And if recent efforts are anything to go by, we could be waiting a long time.

यह गंदा हो सकता है, लेकिन कोयला सस्ता है।


Trump 'compromising' claims: How and why did we get here?

Summary: Donald Trump has described as "fake news" allegations published in some media that his election team colluded with Russia - and that Russia held compromising material about his private life. The BBC's Paul Wood saw the allegations before the election, and reports on the fallout now they have come to light.

By Paul WoodBBC News, Washington The significance of these allegations is that, if true, the president-elect of the United States would be vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians. I understand the CIA believes it is credible that the Kremlin has such kompromat - or compromising material - on the next US commander in chief. At the same time a joint taskforce, which includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump's organisation or his election campaign. Claims about a Russian blackmail tape were made in one of a series of reports written by a former British intelligence agent, understood to be Christopher Steele. As a member of MI6, he had been posted to the UK's embassy in Moscow and now runs a consultancy giving advice on doing business in Russia. He spoke to a number of his old contacts in the FSB, the successor to the KGB, paying some of them for information. They told him that Mr Trump had been filmed with a group of prostitutes in the presidential suite of Moscow's Ritz-Carlton hotel. I know this because the Washington political research company that commissioned his report showed it to me during the final week of the election campaign. The BBC decided not to use it then, for the very good reason that without seeing the tape - if it exists - we could not know if the claims were true. The detail of the allegations were certainly lurid. The entire series of reports has now been posted by BuzzFeed. Mr Trump's supporters say this is a politically motivated attack. The president-elect himself, outraged, tweeted this morning: "Are we living in Nazi Germany?" Later, at his much-awaited news conference, he was unrestrained. "A thing like that should have never been written," he said, "and certainly should never have been released." He said the memo was written by "sick people [who] put that crap together". The opposition research firm that commissioned the report had worked first for an anti-Trump superpac - political action committee - during the Republican primaries. Then during the general election, it was funded by an anonymous Democratic Party supporter. But these are not political hacks - their usual line of work is country analysis and commercial risk assessment, similar to the former MI6 agent's consultancy. He, apparently, gave his dossier to the FBI against the firm's advice. How did Trump 'compromise' claims come to light? And the former MI6 agent is not the only source for the claim about Russian kompromat on the president-elect. Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by "the head of an East European intelligence agency". Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file - they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was "more than one tape", "audio and video", on "more than one date", in "more than one place" - in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg - and that the material was "of a sexual nature". 'Be very careful' The claims of Russian kompromat on Mr Trump were "credible", the CIA believed. That is why - according to the New York Times and Washington Post - these claims ended up on President Barack Obama's desk last week, a briefing document also given to Congressional leaders and to Mr Trump himself. Mr Trump did visit Moscow in November 2013, the date the main tape is supposed to have been made. There is TV footage of him at the Miss Universe contest. Any visitor to a grand hotel in Moscow would be wise to assume that their room comes equipped with hidden cameras and microphones as well as a mini-bar. At his news conference, Mr Trump said he warned his staff when they travelled: "Be very careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go you're going to probably have cameras." So the Russian security services have made obtaining kompromat an art form. Anthony Zurcher: Theatre of the absurd One Russian specialist told me that Vladimir Putin himself sometimes says there is kompromat on him - though perhaps he is joking. The specialist went on to tell me that FSB officers are prone to boasting about having tapes on public figures, and to be careful of any statements they might make. A former CIA officer told me he had spoken by phone to a serving FSB officer who talked about the tapes. He concluded: "It's hokey as hell." Mr Trump and his supporters are right to point out that these are unsubstantiated allegations. But it is not just sex, it is money too. The former MI6 agent's report detailed alleged attempts by the Kremlin to offer Mr Trump lucrative "sweetheart deals" in Russia that would buy his loyalty. Mr Trump turned these down, and indeed has done little real business in Russia. But a joint intelligence and law enforcement taskforce has been looking at allegations that the Kremlin paid money to his campaign through his associates. Legal applications On 15 October, the US secret intelligence court issued a warrant to investigate two Russian banks. This news was given to me by several sources and corroborated by someone I will identify only as a senior member of the US intelligence community. He would never volunteer anything - giving up classified information would be illegal - but he would confirm or deny what I had heard from other sources. 10 things we learnt from Trump press event Trump press conference: Full transcript "I'm going to write a story that says…" I would say. "I don't have a problem with that," he would reply, if my information was accurate. He confirmed the sequence of events below. Last April, the CIA director was shown intelligence that worried him. It was - allegedly - a tape recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign. It was passed to the US by an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States. The CIA cannot act domestically against American citizens so a joint counter-intelligence taskforce was created. The taskforce included six agencies or departments of government. Dealing with the domestic, US, side of the inquiry, were the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Justice. For the foreign and intelligence aspects of the investigation, there were another three agencies: the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency, responsible for electronic spying. Lawyers from the National Security Division in the Department of Justice then drew up an application. They took it to the secret US court that deals with intelligence, the Fisa court, named after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They wanted permission to intercept the electronic records from two Russian banks. Their first application, in June, was rejected outright by the judge. They returned with a more narrowly drawn order in July and were rejected again. Finally, before a new judge, the order was granted, on 15 October, three weeks before election day. Full coverage: Trump takes office Neither Mr Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order, which would only cover foreign citizens or foreign entities - in this case the Russian banks. But ultimately, the investigation is looking for transfers of money from Russia to the United States, each one, if proved, a felony offence. A lawyer- outside the Department of Justice but familiar with the case - told me that three of Mr Trump's associates were the subject of the inquiry. "But it's clear this is about Trump," he said. I spoke to all three of those identified by this source. All of them emphatically denied any wrongdoing. "Hogwash," said one. "Bullshit," said another. Of the two Russian banks, one denied any wrongdoing, while the other did not respond to a request for comment. The investigation was active going into the election. During that period, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid, wrote to the director of the FBI, accusing him of holding back "explosive information" about Mr Trump. Mr Reid sent his letter after getting an intelligence briefing, along with other senior figures in Congress. Only eight people were present: the chairs and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, and the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress, the "gang of eight" as they are sometimes called. Normally, senior staff attend "gang of eight" intelligence briefings, but not this time. The Congressional leaders were not even allowed to take notes. 'Puppet' In the letter to the FBI director, James Comey, Mr Reid said: "In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and co-ordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government - a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Mr Trump praises at every opportunity. "The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information." The CIA, FBI, Justice and Treasury all refused to comment when I approached them after hearing about the Fisa warrant. It is not clear what will happen to the inter-agency investigation under President Trump - or even if the taskforce is continuing its work now. The Russians have denied any attempt to influence the president-elect - with either money or a blackmail tape. If a tape exists, the Russians would hardly give it up, though some hope to encourage a disloyal FSB officer who might want to make some serious money. Before the election, Larry Flynt, publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, put up a million dollars for incriminating tape of Mr Trump. Penthouse has now followed with its own offer of a million dollars for the Ritz-Carlton tape (if it exists). It is an extraordinary situation, 10 days before Mr Trump is sworn into office, but it was foreshadowed during the campaign. During the final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a "puppet" of Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin. "No puppet. No puppet," Mr Trump interjected, talking over Mrs Clinton. "You're the puppet. No, you're the puppet." In a New York Times op-ed in August, the former director of the CIA, Michael Morell, wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr Putin had recruited Mr Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." Agent; puppet - both terms imply some measure of influence or control by Moscow. Michael Hayden, former head of both the CIA and the NSA, simply called Mr Trump a "polezni durak" - a useful fool. The background to those statements was information held - at the time - within the intelligence community. Now all Americans have heard the claims. Little more than a week before his inauguration, they will have to decide if their president-elect really was being blackmailed by Moscow. Clarification: 11 January - This article was amended to make clear that the opposition research firm which commissioned the report had first worked for an anti-Trump political action committee.

डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प ने कुछ मीडिया में प्रकाशित "फेक न्यूज" आरोपों के रूप में वर्णित किया है कि उनकी चुनाव टीम ने रूस के साथ सांठगांठ की थी-और यह कि रूस ने उनके निजी जीवन के बारे में आपत्तिजनक सामग्री रखी थी। बीबीसी के पॉल वुड ने चुनाव से पहले के आरोपों को देखा, और अब नतीजों पर रिपोर्टें सामने आई हैं।


Alan Turing law: Gay, unjustly convicted - and now denied a pardon

Summary: Two years ago the "Turing law" was passed to right a historic injustice by pardoning gay men convicted in the past because of their sexuality. But fewer than 200 living people have had their convictions wiped out so far. What's going wrong?

By Joseph LeeBBC News Terry Stewart is 66 and the recipient of an award for his work advising the police on LGBT issues. But as a young man in 1981 he was a target: spotted by a pair of police officers in a Charing Cross public toilet, he was arrested for "importuning" - an outdated offence which effectively criminalised gay men chatting each other up in public. "They said I had approached several men in the toilets and told them I wanted to have sex. There was nobody there," he says. An outspoken campaigner for gay rights who had challenged police in the past, Mr Stewart feels the arrest was typical of a prevailing "hostile atmosphere" against gay people at the time. "It just confirmed all my fears about so-called British justice," he says. "The attitude was they were two upstanding police officers protecting society from people like me." Mr Stewart was convicted on a majority verdict and fined £20, but a criminal record meant he could not pursue his chosen career in social work. He is now one of thousands of gay men unable to obtain the pardons offered by the government since 2017, which were intended for people unjustly convicted because of their sexuality. For Mr Stewart and many like him, it is because the offence they were convicted of - importuning - is not one of those eligible for a pardon, despite the government acknowledging it was used in a discriminatory way. Others are put off from even applying by an intimidating, bureaucratic system, say campaigners. As many as 15,000 gay men were said to be eligible when the law was passed, inspired by the posthumous pardon of World War Two code-breaker Alan Turing, who killed himself after being convicted of gross indecency. The law meant the convictions of about 50,000 gay men who had died were automatically deleted, while those still alive could apply for statutory pardons. Applications for pardons were tacked on to an existing Home Office scheme, where gay men could apply for some offences under laws which are now repealed to be "disregarded" or deleted. But to date, only 189 of these applications have been approved. As a result, few pardons have been issued. The convictions eligible for disregard and pardon are gross indecency and buggery under the 1956 Sexual Offences Act, equivalent military offences and similar offences under earlier legislation. Mr Stewart says the government should live up to its promises and pardon all gay men with convictions for their sexuality. "What I would like people to know is that there was a whole period of our history, within our lifetimes, which was absolutely horrendous. Our own government should be able to put its hand up and say, 'We treated these people appallingly,'" he says. Katy Watts, a solicitor at the Public Law Project who has represented Mr Stewart, says the crime of importuning was repealed in 2003 and the Home Office has acknowledged it was used in a "discriminatory way". She says: "People have lost livelihoods and careers because of an offence that should never have been a crime in the first place." 'Branded and ashamed' Thousands of gay men are living with this conviction but the home secretary has the power to "put this right" by extending the system to more offences, Ms Watts says. Campaigners working with people to overturn their convictions also say the "incredibly low numbers" applying for pardons are "inevitable" because of flaws in the scheme. Christopher Stacey, co-director of Unlock, a charity which works with people facing obstacles because of a criminal record, says forcing people to apply instead of proactively pardoning them is a "clear barrier to justice". "It causes people understandable anguish when faced with a Home Office form which forces them to show why their application should be granted for something that they might have felt branded and ashamed of for much of their life," he says. When people do apply, they are often rejected for not meeting the requirements: 71% of the 663 applications made up to April this year were turned down. Home Office figures show the reason most applications were rejected was that they related to offences not connected with sexuality - such as possession of drugs. Many people were also turned down because they were convicted of sex in a public lavatory, which remains an offence. A handful were rejected because their offence was deemed non-consensual or involved someone under 16. A Home Office spokesman said: "We are proud of the government's record on improving equality. We made it possible for men with eligible historical convictions for decriminalised behaviours to apply to have their convictions disregarded. Those who have their convictions disregarded are also automatically pardoned for the offence." He said there was "no scope" to disregard offences outside the official scheme. When the issue of men convicted of importuning was raised in Parliament before the Turing law passed, former Home Office minister Sam Gyimah said they were not eligible. The full offence in the 1956 Sexual Offences Act is "soliciting and importuning", and soliciting remains a crime, he said. Today, it only applies to people seeking the services of sex workers on the street, however. 'You feel guilty' Some gay men say unfair criminal records still have the power to blight their lives, even in recent years. Richard - not his real name - was arrested in the mid-1990s for importuning, after a man briefly spoke to him as he left a West End gay club. He unwittingly signed a caution thinking it was part of the paperwork needed to leave the police station. "As a gay person you think you're in the wrong anyway," he said. "You have internal homophobia yourself and everything that goes with it - the shame, everything else. You feel guilty." Later, Richard worked in education for several years. But when he tried to change jobs in 2014, he fell foul of more stringent criminal records checks, which had been tightened after a series of controversies and tragedies. He found himself rejected for multiple jobs and unable to work in his profession for a year because of a criminal record he had previously been unaware of. "It broke me," he said, plunging him into depression and isolation. It was "so twisted and painful" to find his pride in his professional life under attack because of his sexuality, he said. Richard eventually persuaded the police force involved to expunge his caution, after it accepted it was unlawful. But he says it is "outrageous" that there is no clear way for many other gay men to achieve the same outcome.

दो साल पहले "ट्यूरिंग कानून" एक ऐतिहासिक अन्याय को सही करने के लिए पारित किया गया था जिसमें अतीत में समलैंगिक पुरुषों को उनकी कामुकता के कारण दोषी ठहराया गया था। लेकिन अब तक 200 से कम जीवित लोगों की दोषसिद्धि का सफाया हो चुका है। क्या गलत हो रहा है?


Has Airbnb grown a conscience?

Summary: Corey Klein would like to believe Airbnb's recent promise that it will make a "positive contribution to society". But the 37-year-old lawyer, who lives directly below one of the platform's rentals, has his doubts.

By Natalie Sherman & Michelle FleuryBusiness reporters, New York Last year, the tech giant spent more than $4m (£3.1m) in an effort to fend off new rules in the city where Mr Klein lives in New Jersey. The bruising battle was eventually won by critics like Mr Klein, who said that Airbnb, if left unchecked, would drive up rents and turn his neighbourhood into a springboard for budget-conscious travellers bound for New York City, just across the river. "I hadn't signed up to live in a hotel," says Mr Klein, who sits on the board of the Hamilton Park Neighborhood Association in Jersey City. "The problem is the scale of it." he says. "Both myself and my neighbours were sort of getting squeezed out." 'Positive impact' Airbnb, whose website boasts listings in more than 220 countries, has faced similar fights around the world, from Barcelona to Berlin to Boston. Last month, it made its clearest case yet for why Mr Klein and others like him should not be so worried. In a public letter on its website, it promised to do business with an eye towards "all stakeholders" - including local communities. Among other steps, the firm said it would put $150m to safety measures, host a "stakeholder" day to hear from the public, and offer $100m to local initiatives over the next 10 years. "Our commitment is to make sure that Airbnb does have a positive impact," co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk says. Airbnb's promises place it at the centre of a broader debate in the American business world asking whether its longstanding focus on earning profits for shareholders has gone too far. The discussion is partly a response to outside pressure from consumer boycotts, staff walkouts and social media shame campaigns. Rising numbers of investors with social aims and attacks by Democratic presidential candidates - such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders - have added to the heat. But while there have been plenty of calls for reform since the 2008 financial crisis, this time companies seem to have taken their critics to heart. Corporate support Last year, 181 firms signed onto a statement by the influential business lobby, the Business Roundtable, affirming that corporate responsibilities extend beyond shareholders. It was a pointed rejection of a view of shareholder primacy that has served as an article of faith since economist Milton Friedman made it a rallying cry among the American business community in the 1970s. The topic of "stakeholder capitalism" was the theme of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos and the subject has continued to percolate in public letters from investment giants, such as BlackRock's Larry Fink and Bridgewater's Ray Dalio. "We're seeing support from corporations themselves in a way that is remarkable when even compared to a few years ago," says New York Law School professor Tamara Belinfanti. There's plenty of evidence that the old priorities still rule. After the US cut corporate tax rates in 2017, companies used much of the extra cash to buy their own stock - delivering money to shareholders. But as inequality grows and climate change worsens - without a meaningful political response - business leaders are increasingly "seeing the writing on the wall, that the usual way to approaching business has failed", says CB Bhattacharya, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business. In recent years, firms such as Amazon, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs have announced a blitz of programmes aimed at improving their environmental footprint, bettering worker benefits, and boosting diversity among staff. Prof Bhattacharya, the author of 'Small Actions, Big Difference', cautions that the actions promised by many companies don't necessarily live up to the talk. "Unless we see more companies that are actually changing their business models and doing more on the sustainability front, this will only be paper promises," he says. Gearing up to IPO Mr Blecharczyk says Airbnb, which is gearing up to sell shares on the public market, is creating a framework that will help it resist pressure to focus on short-term profit. For example, it will tie staff bonuses to safety metrics and hear from the public via the stakeholder meeting. "We're not talking just abstractly about these important issues," he says. "We're actually saying, here's exactly how we hold ourselves accountable." The development of metrics is important, says Sarah Kaplan, professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. But she notes that the firm has focused on matters - like guest safety - that are in its interest to address ahead of its sale of shares to the public. "There is a very self-interested aspect of what they're doing," she says, pointing to recent killings at homes rented through the site. "If they're going to IPO, they have to manage the risk associated with their business." Potential regulation, like that in Jersey City, represents a more than $10bn threat to Airbnb's growth, according to research firm Truvalue Labs, which tracks companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. Airbnb's stakeholder pledge is a "good sign" but hasn't lessened that risk, says Andre Shepley, product manager for ESG Integration. "Sustainability is about outcomes not intentions," he says. "Until we start seeing different outcomes, where there's observably less risk ... that's when I think the view in terms of investment thesis will change." But Airbnb can't be too radical, cautions Prof Belinfanti. Shareholders coming first took root, in part, because it offered a clear way to evaluate business performance. And there is a limit to how much control public investors - whose share purchases would fund Airbnb - will be willing to cede, she says. "I'm not sure how much the market can bear," she says. Mr Blecharczyk says he knows that the steps the firm has outlined will not satisfy all of its critics. "There's going to be issues and I guess our approach is, 'Let's confront those issues'," he says. "The worst thing you can do is to not try at all."

कोरी क्लेन एयरबीएनबी के हालिया वादे पर विश्वास करना चाहेंगे कि यह "समाज में सकारात्मक योगदान" देगा। लेकिन 37 वर्षीय वकील, जो सीधे प्लेटफॉर्म के किराए में से एक के नीचे रहते हैं, को संदेह है।


EU workers in the UK: Do I stay or do I go?

Summary: There has been a record drop in the number of Eastern European workers in the UK, latest figures show. Here, two families, one from Poland and one from Romania, explain their reasons for leaving and staying in the UK.

By Dan WhitworthRadio 4 Money Box reporter "This might sound crazy but even though I'm going to take a 50% pay cut back home in Poland that money will take me further." After 12 years of living, working and raising a family in the UK, Waclaw Wiater and his wife have decided to move back to their home country. "The British pound just doesn't take you as far any more," he says. Waclaw, who works for an engineering company in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, says it's not just the weaker exchange rate that's hit his pocket. "The cost of shopping, just for weekly essentials, the prices of everything have just absolutely rocketed. "We don't go to Tesco or Sainsbury's, we stay away from those places, we go to Aldi or Lidl and for us it's £120 or £150 per week." Lower prices and an improving economy in Poland are also pulling him home. "The cost of petrol and diesel is much lower in Poland," he says. "Not only do we pay about £1 per litre, you've also got your road tax included in that price. "Also council tax, here [in the UK], it goes up and up every year. In comparison to back where we are going to live, we don't pay council tax at all." Record numbers Waclaw says he was shocked at how easy it was to get a similar job in Poland to the one he has in the UK and surprised at the amount of money he was offered as a salary. "I fired off some CVs and the first two companies that I applied to for a job with were straight on to me." After phone interviews he was flown over for face-to-face meetings and offered a job two days later. This is not surprising perhaps when an IMF report last year said Poland's "economy is operating above potential, with the unemployment rate at a historical low". Waclaw is just one of a record number of workers from the EU 8 (the countries, including Poland, Latvia and Estonia, that joined the EU in 2004) leaving the UK. Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show there was a record drop of 117,000, or 12%, in the number of migrants from those countries working in the UK between April and June 2018. 'Land of opportunity' There is a flipside to this story though. While the number of workers from the EU 8 countries is down, the number of Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK is at a record high. ONS figures from the same period show there were 391,000 working here, up more than 50,000 from 2017. Ioan Hoza came to the UK from Romania four years ago and works for a logistics company in Daventry. "We got to the point in Romania where we couldn't afford to raise the children," he says. "We didn't get paid regularly, we had issues with the bills, we couldn't deal with basic issues like feeding our children." After making the decision to move to the UK, he started doing night shifts in the warehouse and has worked his way up to become an IT analyst on a major contract for his company. "I said I would give myself 12 months to earn enough capital to be able to bring my family over to join me. If I didn't earn enough I would simply go back to Romania." Those night shifts, along with hard work and securing several promotions meant Ioan had enough money to bring his wife and two children to the UK within six months. "The beauty of how the system works here is you've got opportunities and it's up to you which path you are going to take." Ioan's wife Dora works late shifts at the same logistics company while sons Liviu, 17, and 11-year-old Raul have both settled into school. After three-and-a-half years they both speak perfect English without any trace of an accent. "So far we've managed to accomplish so many things in four years here in the UK that we could have only dreamed of in Romania," Ioan says. It's not difficult to understand why. Despite strong growth of around 7%, Romania is one of the EU's poorest countries. The World Bank measured its GDP at $211bn (£162bn) last year with average monthly salaries of around $600 (£460). Sitting in the house he has managed to buy in the suburbs of Daventry, Ioan says; "I'm still living the dream. I still have to pinch myself that I am actually living a dream. "Maybe it sounds funny but sometimes I touch the walls of this house and say, 'You're mine.' "That feeling, 'You are actually mine,' is unbelievable, how everything came together and how we are now where we are." You can hear more on BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme on Saturday at 12:00 BST or listen again here

नवीनतम आंकड़ों से पता चलता है कि यू. के. में पूर्वी यूरोपीय श्रमिकों की संख्या में रिकॉर्ड गिरावट आई है। यहाँ, दो परिवार, एक पोलैंड से और एक रोमानिया से, यू. के. छोड़ने और रहने के अपने कारणों की व्याख्या करते हैं।


New station near Inverness Airport given go-ahead

Summary: A plan to build a new railway station near Inverness Airport has been approved by Highland councillors.

The single platform stop on the Inverness to Aberdeen line and parking spaces for 150 cars have been proposed for a site at Dalcross. A station close to the airport has been a long standing aspiration of Hitrans, which promotes improvements to public transport in the Highlands. It has been proposed to open the station next year.

इनवर्नेस हवाई अड्डे के पास एक नया रेलवे स्टेशन बनाने की योजना को हाईलैंड पार्षदों द्वारा मंजूरी दी गई है।