Manchester builds up its culture scene with £25m Home

Summary: Manchester's new £25m arts centre Home is billed as the city's answer to the Barbican or Southbank Centre. With big money also being spent on other venues in the city, is Manchester on course to become a cultural powerhouse to rival London?

By Ian YoungsArts reporter The large curved glass wedge that has appeared opposite the site of the old Hacienda nightclub, and which will later have its opening ceremony - led by London 2012 supremo Danny Boyle - is the latest evidence of a mini building boom in Manchester's cultural scene. The wedge - which contains two theatres, five cinemas, an art gallery - replaces the much-loved Cornerhouse cinema and gallery and Library Theatre, which have merged and been given an upgrade in the process. Home's launch comes three months after the Whitworth gallery reopened after a £19m expansion, while there are also plans for another new £78m venue called The Factory, less than a mile from Home. Austerity? What austerity? If it happens, The Factory will be a 5,000-capacity permanent home for the Manchester International Festival. These projects, taken with the city's existing activities, seem to have given Manchester optimism that its cultural future can be as bright as its illustrious past. At Home, chief executive Dave Moutrey is relishing having a custom-built venue to replace the Cornerhouse. He boasts that they now have ample toilets and enthuses about the outdoor cafe seating (weather permitting) and smoother layout. "It's going to be quite a novel experience for our customers to be able to read the subtitles on a film without having to dodge somebody's head," he says. As well as improving the facilities, Home will provide more space to cater for what Moutrey describes as Manchester's "hunger for new ideas". The theatre, visual art and film offerings will all be roughly on the same wavelength - contemporary, intelligent, with a strong international flavour but with roots in Manchester. The opening line-up gives a taste of what to expect. Stockport playwright Simon Stephens - who put The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on stage for the National Theatre - has adapted Hungarian writer Odon von Horvath's 1932 play Kasimir and Karoline and renamed it The Funfair. The play has also inspired the opening art exhibition, which features artists from Egypt, Iceland and Kosovo as well as Manchester. And there will be inventive screenings of funfair-themed films like Big, Carnival of Souls and Freaks. "There is no superior art form here," Moutrey says. "There's no art form that calls the shots over the others. They're all in dialogue with each other." Home may be a culture vulture's dream, but it was conceived by Manchester City Council in the hope that it would boost the economy by attracting other businesses to its part of the city centre. Now, Moutrey points out restaurants, a hotel and offices that he says would not have moved in if Home were not there. "I think we're an example for how arts can be a catalyst for regeneration and people wanting to come and live and work in a city," he says. The tactic has already worked on one person - the organisation's new artistic director for film, Jason Wood, who has moved from Curzon Cinemas in London. Wood says he moved because the independent film scene in the capital was becoming "quite stagnant". "I was looking at a lot of the activity that was going on in Manchester - just the funding, the excitement, and the notion of a city in a really good space culturally," he says. "That was something that was really exciting and something I was happy to respond to. "I really was beginning to feel that London was becoming the second city in terms of how it responded to film culture. I was finding it was becoming more and more difficult to get audiences to come." Home's artistic director of theatre, Walter Meierjohann, has also arrived from London, where he worked for three years at the in-form Young Vic. He is originally from Germany, where a more federal system exists, he explains. "So the idea that in a country you can have five or six big cities... you can say Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich are all on an equal level culturally, which they are, [and that] is a good thing. "I still think London will always be number one, but I think Manchester's on a really good journey." 'The new Barcelona' Other UK cities have also seen recent cultural developments - Birmingham has its library, Liverpool has the new Everyman theatre, and a new arts centre in Bangor, north Wales, will cost twice as much as Home. But still, the current expansion in Greater Manchester - coupled with its existing world-class venues - suggests it will have a critical mass of culture that other cities outside London cannot match. And on top of that, it is being positioned as the de facto capital of the fabled "Northern Powerhouse" that the last government was so keen to promote. Home's third artistic director is Sarah Perks, who is continuing the visual art work she did at Cornerhouse. There is no need to compare Manchester with London, she says. "Manchester shouldn't look to become a mini-London or emulate London," she says. "It's about becoming Manchester and being known for that, and looking acrossways and upwards. It doesn't always have to be this weird colonial relationship with London." Dave Moutrey echoes that, describing the city as an "an alternative centre of gravity" rather than a rival to the capital. He compares the relationship between Manchester and London with that of Barcelona and Madrid. "If we continue to make great culture here I don't think it's too big a shock for people to start talking about Manchester in the same way as they talk about Barcelona," he says.

मैनचेस्टर के नए 25 मिलियन पाउंड के कला केंद्र होम को बार्बिकन या साउथबैंक केंद्र के लिए शहर के जवाब के रूप में बिल किया गया है। शहर के अन्य स्थानों पर भी बड़ा पैसा खर्च किया जा रहा है, क्या मैनचेस्टर लंदन को प्रतिद्वंद्वी बनाने के लिए एक सांस्कृतिक पावरहाउस बनने के लिए तैयार है?


Smart, social energy: Can software change our energy habits?

Summary: Gary in Sales is today's worst offender, again. He's clocked up 2.3 kilowatt hours (kWh) this time, a personal worst. He never switches off his PC before he leaves work, and keeps a personal kettle.

By Dougal ShawTechnology reporter More surprising is that Sue in marketing is not far behind him at 2.1kWh. But then she been known to leave her electric hair tweezers charging overnight. Could this be the office gossip of the near future? Conversations like this are already happening amongst Prof Nick Jennings's team at Southampton University, where he is testing out his smart energy software. His students have signed up as guinea pigs. Their workstation areas, equipped with power-hungry gear, are rigged up to a central database which then displays a league of shame on a monitor. The team is working on software to help people cut their energy use without having to spend too much time working out how to do it. Firms including British Gas already offer software allowing consumers to monitor and control their central heating from afar. The intention is to take this to the next level with a system that can analyse the energy use of every device in a home and suggest ways to use them more efficiently - or simply to replace them with better, cheaper-to-run equipment. Prof Jennings says this will be essential in a future in which non-renewable energy sources are running out, and greener alternatives such as wind and wave power cost more to use. But his ambitions can only come to fruition if the UK government proceeds with plans for a national "smart grid" - a network that provides both electricity and two-way communications technology, allowing utilities and the public to monitor and remotely adjust the millions of devices that make use of its power. Equipment could be adjusted, for example, to minimise energy use during peak times, putting less strain on resources. The proposal is being discussed at a two-day Smart Metering Forum in London. While backers like Prof Jennings say a smart grid can facilitate the intelligent management of future energy resources, critics counter that a centralised smart grid is both unworkable, and a threat to civil liberties. Smart Energy The focus of Prof Jennings's smart energy project is to create software for in-home displays (IHDs). According to the 2008 Energy Act, these read-out devices should become commonplace in our homes. Energy companies have already given out thousands to customers, and they will only go mainstream in 2014 when a government mandated mass roll-out is set to begin. Smart meters are replacing so-called "dumb meters" - the devices in most of our houses which keep a record of our energy consumption, and need to be visually inspected to calculate bills. Digital smart meters will feed this essential information back to energy companies directly, in real-time. But they will also give householders new powers to control their energy output. Connected wirelessly to smart meters, IHDs can let people turn a light off in their bathroom, and provide near-immediate feedback on how this affects their energy use. They can also tell people how much their current electricity consumption is costing them, and how this compares to their recent bills. The software that Prof Jennings's team is developing promises to build on this and give people greater control. It allows temperature in the home to be set according to how much money a user is willing to spend, or how much of a carbon footprint they are willing to leave. Any appliance fitted with sensors can relay information. The software also learns the energy profile of the house, and then compares this to outside weather conditions to predict future energy use. "The software will learn your energy profile over time," the professor says. It can then make suggestions on what to change - be it a sluggish toaster, or an under-performing fridge. It becomes what he terms an "energy avatar". "Interacting with you, it might say, for example, if your washing machine is very inefficient, if you bought a new one within a certain period of time you would have got that money back." It might also make "intelligent suggestions", prompting you to adjust your habits to save money, perhaps taking your evening shower a little later to save money. The intention is for the software to be able to interact with price comparison sites to suggest cheaper tariffs. "People are not interested in spending lots of time investigating their energy usage, even though it is such a big bill, so it makes sense to let machines automate some of the process," says Prof Jennings. Smart Move? But not all industry experts agree there is a market, or indeed a need, for this kind of technology. Ross Anderson, a Cambridge computer science professor and chair of the Foundation for Information Policy Research think tank, has published several reports criticising smart meters, comparing them to failed government centralising projects such as National ID cards and the NHS National Programme for IT. A smart grid would be a "strategic vulnerability", he says, allowing terrorists to shut down power remotely, the "modern day equivalent of a nuclear strike". And aside from security concerns, Prof Anderson believes that outside the lab, smart energy software fails to change people's behaviour. The experiments done into IHDs use samples that are too small, and their results are inconclusive, he suggests. In practice, people "can't be bothered" in the UK to make changes, says Prof Anderson, partly because energy is too cheap, and partly because we don't use as much power-hungry air conditioning equipment as other countries. However, he is more impressed with Prof Jennings's experiment on his students in the workplace. If you really want to reduce energy consumption, extreme social pressure is the way to do it, says Prof Anderson. A "pervasive surveillance structure" for society with a public hall of shame, singling out worst offending households to ridicule, would work, says Prof Anderson. "But the implications for social liberties are appalling."

गैरी इन सेल्स आज का सबसे खराब अपराधी है, फिर से। उसने इस बार 2.3 किलोवाट घंटे (केडब्ल्यूएच) का समय लिया है, एक व्यक्तिगत सबसे खराब। वह काम छोड़ने से पहले कभी भी अपने पीसी को बंद नहीं करता है, और एक व्यक्तिगत केतली रखता है।


The best photos rejected from the National Portrait Gallery's Taylor Wessing prize

Summary: The Portrait Salon Awards 2019 celebrate images submitted to, and rejected by, the National Portrait Gallery's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

The awards were founded by Carole Evans and James O Jenkins in 2011. Photographer Peter Dench selected this year's winners. "I lived with the portraits for a week and looked at them every day. It was a short, intense and rewarding relationship," Dench said. "From the bedroom to the kitchen, the mountains to the sea, the park to posh public school. "The selection, I hope, will move you and motivate, inform, encourage and engage. It's what a portrait should do and in my opinion, these succeed." Portrait Salon 2019 will be exhibited at The Royal Photographic Society in Bristol from 21 to 24 November. Portrait Salon will then travel to Photo North Festival in Harrogate from 30 November to 2 December 2019.

पोर्ट्रेट सैलून अवार्ड्स 2019 नेशनल पोर्ट्रेट गैलरी के टेलर वेसिंग फोटोग्राफिक पोर्ट्रेट पुरस्कार को प्रस्तुत और अस्वीकार की गई छवियों का जश्न मनाता है।


Fire vandals target Scottish Borders speed cameras

Summary: Firefighters in the Scottish Borders have been called out to deal with a speed camera which is thought to have been set alight.

The vandalism happened just after 0300 GMT on the A68 about three miles south of Lauder. It is at least the 19th such fire to have struck a safety camera in the region since 2004. Sites on the A68, A1 and A697 in Berwickshire have all been targeted in the past.

स्कॉटिश सीमाओं में अग्निशामकों को एक गति कैमरे से निपटने के लिए बुलाया गया है, जिसके बारे में माना जाता है कि उसे आग लगा दी गई है।


Why has India's Punjab fallen into the grip of drug abuse?

Summary: The northern Indian state of Punjab votes on Saturday for a new government. But the biggest issue confronting voters is not jobs or corruption, but a drugs epidemic that is sweeping the state. The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder travelled there to find out why one of India's most prosperous states is in danger of losing an entire generation to drug abuse.

"This is him when he was in his first grade. He had just won a school competition." Mukhtiar Singh smiles wistfully as he shows me a faded picture of his son Manjit, from a family album. "In my wildest dreams I could not imagine what was to happen to him." Punjab's drugs epidemic India court overrules cuts to film Straight Life: India's recovering drug addicts Manjit, 28, died in June last year because of a drug overdose. His father, a worker in the government's power department, marched through the streets of his village carrying his son's body, and then addressed a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "I told the prime minister he needed to step in to save Punjab's youth from drugs. Our children are dying and nothing is being done." Seven months later, Mr Singh is battling to highlight Punjab's alarming drugs problem. A recent government study suggests that more than 860,000 young men in the state, between the ages of 15-35, take some form of drugs. Heroin is the most preferred, used by 53% of all addicts. But opium and synthetic drugs such as crystal methamphetamine are also common. "My mission is to save Punjab's youth," Mr Singh tells me as we sit on the roof of his modest two-room home. "I have carried my son's body on my shoulders. It's something I don't want any other parent to experience." 'Easily available' It is astonishing how widespread the problem is. One estimate says that more than two-thirds of Punjab's households have at least one addict in the family. Across the state, from villages in the lush green countryside to bustling towns and cities, young men huddle together in cemeteries, abandoned buildings or plain fields, smoking, snorting or shooting up. Tarn Taran, a district located along the border with Pakistan is one of the worst affected. In the main town's civil hospital, which also serves as a centre to fight addiction, young men with glazed eyes hang around. In the space of 20 minutes, I see a number of transactions unfold in full public view. They are approached by peddlers, money swiftly exchanges hands before a little packet is handed over. The men then slink away behind a wall. Beyond it is a derelict building, surrounded by rubbish and reeking of urine. Strewn all around are used syringes and broken bottles of prescription medicines. "It's ridiculously easily available," Jasprit Singh tells me. Jasprit, who is from Tarn Taran, used to be an addict, but says that he has been clean for the past four years. "Heroin, synthetic drugs - you name it, I've done it all. When I scored for the first time, I felt as if I was experiencing something wonderful," he says. "I felt like something had been missing from my life until then." He now works at the same rehab centre where he underwent his recovery programme, counselling drug addicts. "I tell them that if I can give up drugs, anyone can." The Hermitage rehab centre is housed in an impressive two-storey building set amid lush green lawns. Inmates, called students not patients, receive counselling, psychiatric and medical treatment here. It's one of hundreds of rehab centres that have sprung up across the state in the past few years. The inmates come from a variety of backgrounds. They include judges, police officials, pop musicians, students and quite a few women. "The women are the most difficult to treat," the institute's director, JPS Bhatia, says. "Many of them are abandoned by their families. Most have been sexually molested when they try and seek help, by unscrupulous counsellors and doctors, even the police." Punjab's proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan, with which it shares a border, has meant that it's a major transit route in the lucrative drug smuggling trade. That's one reason why heroin is so readily available. But why are its youth so susceptible? Drug consumption in Punjab is three times the national average. Agriculture, which brought the state its wealth, is stagnating and with little industrialisation there is high unemployment. And in the 1980s, Punjab was in the grip of a violent separatist militancy which has now ebbed but has left its scars. "We got rid of terrorism only for it to be replaced with narcotics-terrorism," says Dr Bhatia. "And we just have not been prepared to deal with it or even come to terms with the problems faced by our youth."

उत्तरी भारतीय राज्य पंजाब ने शनिवार को एक नई सरकार के लिए मतदान किया। लेकिन मतदाताओं के सामने सबसे बड़ा मुद्दा नौकरी या भ्रष्टाचार नहीं है, बल्कि एक नशीली दवाओं की महामारी है जो राज्य में फैल रही है। बीबीसी के संजय मजूमदार ने यह पता लगाने के लिए वहाँ की यात्रा की कि भारत के सबसे समृद्ध राज्यों में से एक पर नशीली दवाओं के दुरुपयोग के कारण एक पूरी पीढ़ी को खोने का खतरा क्यों है।


Election 2017: Which MPs are standing down, and who might be standing?

Summary: The surprise election on 8 June has brought things into sharp focus for MPs looking for a way out of politics - and offers a possible way back for their former colleagues wanting to return.

Some of the big names stepping down include George Osborne and Sir Eric Pickles, while Tony Blair and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are among the more surprising names to suggest, perhaps not entirely seriously, that they are thinking of standing. Those who are going... George Osborne The former chancellor once feted as the likely successor to David Cameron as prime minister has announced he will not seek re-election as Conservative MP for Tatton, Cheshire. Mr Osborne was sacked as chancellor after Theresa May became the party's new leader in July. He has since become the editor of the London Evening Standard newspaper as well as taking a job for the fund manager BlackRock, among others, prompting calls for him to stand down. Announcing his decision not to seek re-election, the 45-year-old said he was stepping down "for now". Sir Eric Pickles Former Conservative Party chairman Sir Eric Pickles, 65, is standing down as MP for Brentwood and Ongar after 25 years. Sir Eric, who had been the communities and local government secretary between 2010 and 2015, said he was going to "miss it dreadfully" but there always came a point when things must end. Andrew Tyrie The long-standing chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, who has locked horns with Boris Johnson, HMRC and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, will quit his safe Conservative seat. Mr Tyrie, 60, said it had been an "exhilarating" 20 years as MP for Chichester in West Sussex but that he was "hopefully young enough" to contribute to public service in other ways. Douglas Carswell Douglas Carswell, UKIP's first elected MP who later became an independent after falling out with senior figures in the party, will not be seeking re-election in Clacton. Instead, the political maverick will lend his support to the Conservatives, the party he defected from in 2014, causing political shockwaves at the time. Farewell to an independent-minded MP Alan Johnson Regarded by some in Westminster as the best leader Labour never had, Alan Johnson is to stand down from the Hull West and Hessle seat he has held since 1997. Announcing his decision not to seek re-election, the former postman and union official who rose to become home secretary under Gordon Brown, said it was "best for the party". Gisela Stuart Labour's Birmingham Edgbaston MP, who was a key figure in the campaign to leave the EU, has decided not to seek re-election. Ms Stuart, who has represented the Midlands seat since 1997, told local supporters it was "time to stand down and pass on the baton". Andy Burnham Andy Burnham, a former Labour health secretary and now tipped as favourite to become Mayor of Greater Manchester, says he will not stand again in June. Mr Burnham, MP for Leigh for 16 years, had two shots at party leadership, coming fourth in 2010 and second to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. Other MPs known to be not standing Those hoping to return... Zac Goldsmith The former Conservative MP, Zac Goldsmith, has been re-selected as the party's candidate in Richmond Park. Goldsmith resigned from the party and stood as an independent in a by-election before Christmas in protest at the government's decision to give the go-ahead to the expansion of Heathrow Airport. But he lost to the Liberal Democrats' Sarah Olney, who is standing for re-election. Esther McVey The former employment minister, who was a TV presenter before entering Parliament, lost her Wirral West seat in 2015 to Labour's Margaret Greenwood (who is standing again). She has been selected to stand in George Osborne's former Tatton seat. Sir Vince Cable Sir Vince Cable, who served as former business secretary in the coalition government from 2010-2015, is one of a batch of Lib Dems who have confirmed they will stand again. A former Labour councillor, the 73-year-old was first elected as MP for Twickenham in 1997 but was defeated by Conservative Tania Mathias in 2015 after the Lib Dems lost dozens of seats. Ms Mathias is expected to stand again. Announcing his decision to stand again, Sir Vince said "Bring it on!". Sir Simon Hughes A former Lib Dem deputy leader and minister of state for justice and civil liberties in the coalition government, Sir Simon Hughes said he intends to be the party's candidate to fight the Bermondsey and Old Southwark seat in south London, which he lost to Labour's Neil Coyle in 2015. Mr Coyle is standing again. Sir Ed Davey Sir Ed Davey, 51, is another Lib Dem heavyweight to announce his return to the political fray. Confirming his intention to stand again for election in Kingston and Surbiton, the former energy secretary in the coalition government told the Independent: "We will be the surprise in this election, we will do far better than people currently think." The seat was won by Conservative James Berry in 2015, with a majority of 2,834. Mr Berry is standing again. Jo Swinson A former deputy leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson was once Parliament's youngest MP, after she was elected to East Dunbartonshire in 2005, but was ousted in 2015 by the SNP's John Nicolson, who is standing for re-election. Sir Bob Russell The former Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, Sir Bob Russell, is to stand again, despite retiring from politics after his defeat in 2015 to Conservative Will Quince. Sir Nick Harvey Previously an armed forces minister, former Liberal Democrat MP, Sir Nick Harvey, 55, has told the BBC he will be seeking re-election after losing his seat in North Devon in 2015 to Conservative Peter Heaton-Jones. Out of the race... Ed Balls Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls will not be standing in the Morley and Outwood constituency he held for five years and is not expected to stand anywhere else. Mr Balls, who lost his seat in the 2015 general election, has arguably since become best known for his dance moves on the last series of Strictly Come Dancing, in which he became a fan favourite. Arron Banks The former UKIP donor was all set to take on Douglas Carswell in Clacton - the two are not the best of friends - but since Mr Carswell pulled out the insurance tycoon has had a change of heart. After visiting UKIP volunteers in the Essex seaside town - a place he cheerfully admitted he knew nothing about - he has said he has "no intention of standing in the way of hard-working activists who are the soul of the party". He will instead endorse local UKIP councillor Jeff Bray for the role and "give the local party financial assistance to fight the election". Nigel Farage The former UKIP leader briefly flirted with an eighth attempt to get elected to the House of Commons, saying he could have had an "easy" win in the former UKIP seat of Clacton, but has thought better of it. He says he has more clout as a member of the European Parliament, where he will continue to "fight for Brexit". Karen Danczuk The ex-councillor and former wife of suspended Labour MP Simon Danczuk had applied to be Labour candidate for the Conservative-held Bury North seat. Ms Danczuk, dubbed the "selfie queen" by the tabloid press after posting pictures of herself on Twitter, had said she was "a voice of the people". However, the party has chosen James Frith to stand for the seat, currently held by David Nuttall. Simon Danczuk The MP was suspended as a member of the Labour Party in 2015 over allegations about his private life. He intended to stand for re-election as the party's candidate in Rochdale but Labour had other ideas. A Labour spokesman said: "After considering the case of Simon Danczuk in detail and speaking to him in an interview, the Labour Party's NEC endorsement panel unanimously recommended that he should not be endorsed as a Labour candidate." Hoping to stand for the first (or second) time... Paul Nuttall The UKIP leader - who recently failed to take Stoke-on-Trent from Labour in a by-election - wavered for a few days but has now confirmed he will stand in Boston and Skegness. The constituency, held by the Conservatives in 2015 with UKIP second, recorded the highest Leave vote in the EU referendum, with 75.6% choosing to leave the EU. Mr Nuttall said he would make it his "mission" to "ensure there is no backsliding on Brexit". Jack Monroe The food blogger and campaigner Jack Monroe will stand for the National Health Action Party in Southend West, against Conservative Sir David Amess. Announcing the plan on Twitter, the activist said: "Those who know me will know how much I fear meeting new people, which makes the next six weeks a huge personal challenge on every level... "...but some things are bigger than me, so today I'm digging deep and heading to Southend High St to meet campaigners fighting for our A&E." Will they, won't they? Steve Rotherham Will Labour's candidate to be Liverpool's first "metro mayor" - and a staunch ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn - continue to sit as an MP if he wins 4 May's poll? His ultra-safe Liverpool Walton seat would be a prize for any aspiring Labour politician and there is a row brewing locally about a candidate being "parachuted in" by the party's London HQ. And finally, a few long shots... Tony Blair He won three elections while leader of the Labour Party, before stepping down in 2007, but could Tony Blair - now 63 - be making a big political comeback in this snap election? The former MP for Sedgefield - and prominent Remainer - got tongues wagging during an exclusive interview with BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend, after he admitted there was a temptation to get back into Westminster politics to fight against a hard Brexit. "I feel for the first time since I first came into politics, I look at the British political scene at the moment and I actually almost feel motivated to go right back into it," he said. In an interview marking the 20th anniversary of his 1997 election victory, he later told The Observer that he wanted to "reconnect with voters" and "get his hands dirty" again but insisted he would not be a candidate in June. David Miliband There has been speculation about whether David Miliband might return to politics after stepping down as an MP in 2013. The former foreign secretary under Gordon Brown, who was surprisingly defeated by his brother Ed in the 2010 Labour leadership contest, declined to rule out a return to UK politics in an interview with the Times in February. Julian Assange The Wikileaks founder may have been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, but has still suggested, perhaps light-heartedly, that he could stand in the election. Mr Assange tweeted: "I can run for Parliament in any constituency in the UK. Ha ha. So which one?" Sign-up to get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning

8 जून को अचानक हुए चुनाव ने राजनीति से बाहर निकलने का रास्ता तलाशने वाले सांसदों के लिए चीजों को ध्यान में लाया है-और अपने पूर्व सहयोगियों के लिए एक संभावित रास्ता प्रदान करता है जो वापस लौटना चाहते हैं।


Massive crane arrives for Aberdeen offshore wind farm work

Summary: A massive floating crane has arrived in Peterhead ahead of work on the construction of wind turbines off Aberdeen.

The 11 turbines will make up the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC) off Aberdeen. Energy firm Vattenfall is behind the project. The 25,000-tonne Asian Hercules III arrived ahead of work involving suction bucket foundations involved in the construction.

एबरडीन में पवन टर्बाइनों के निर्माण के काम से पहले एक विशाल तैरती क्रेन पीटरहेड में आ गई है।


Bill Tutte: The unsung codebreaking hero of World War Two

Summary: He managed to decipher a secret Nazi code without seeing the machine responsible and is thought of by many as a hero, but Bill Tutte is by no means a household name. As a memorial is unveiled in his honour, BBC news looks at the man credited with shortening World War Two.

By Richard HaughBBC News Richard Youlden says it was never much fun playing the board game Mastermind with his great uncle, Bill Tutte. A player is given about 10 goes at guessing their opponent's chosen combination of four coloured pegs. With every guess, the person who set the pattern responds with how many colours were right, and how many were in the correct position. "He would put down a few lines of colours, getting my responses," Mr Youlden, 54, said. "He would then sit there and stare at it for a few minutes, smile and put down the right answer. "On one occasion he put down his answers and I said 'no, that's wrong'. "He said 'I think you've made a mistake'. "I had." Mr Youlden was a teenager at the time and at that point had no idea about the historical importance of his opponent, the very quiet, studious 'Uncle Bill'. About 35 years earlier, in 1941, Britain was at war and Bill Tutte had been invited to help with the codebreaking efforts at Bletchley Park. Tutte was born in Newmarket, Suffolk, in 1917 and from an early age had demonstrated a phenomenal grasp of mathematics. He came from a humble background but was offered scholarships at a high school in Cambridge and later at the University of Cambridge. A local charity is said to have bought him a bike to help him get to Cambridge. "He was a very gifted mathematician at Cambridge," said Kevin Murrell, from the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. "Lots of these mathematicians were rounded up and recruited into cryptanalysis and cryptographic work at Bletchley Park, decoding messages that were sent by Hitler's high command." At this time work was already being carried out by Alan Turing and his colleagues on decoding messages sent via the Enigma machines. But there was evidence of another system being used by the Nazis to send secret messages. "It was called the Lorenz system and was several degrees more advanced than Enigma," Mr Murrell said. Tutte was presented with the task of deciphering the teleprinter code. It took him about six months. "What Bill was able to do, with just a couple of captured messages, was to sit down and work out what this machine in Berlin would have been doing," Mr Murrell said. "This was without ever seeing the machine, or reading anything about it. "That's probably the single biggest intellectual achievement at Bletchley during World War Two." Based on Tutte's findings, the engineers at Bletchley were able to construct a device which mimicked the German encryption machine. "Once Bill worked out how the Lorenz cipher machine worked it was possible to, by hand, decrypt the messages, but it was taking a good six weeks," Mr Murrell said. "By the time you've decrypted a message that is six weeks old, it's all rather too late." The desire to speed up the process led to the development of the "first pre-computers", including Colossus. "Colossus operates on the techniques Bill developed," Mr Murrell said. "It cut the six weeks decrypt time down to about six hours, which is quite phenomenal." Towards the end of the war, the Allies were leaking false information to the Germans about when attacks would be made. "It was important to understand whether that leaked information got to the Germans and whether they believed it," Mr Murrell said. "It's because we understood how that coding system worked that we understood that Hitler had fallen for that misinformation. "That was vital for D-Day." Like the rest of the world, Richard Youlden learned about his great uncle's achievements in the mid 1990s. "Obviously I didn't know how involved he'd been in codebreaking, but it became very clear why he was so good at Mastermind," he said. "I was very surprised and impressed. "What he managed to do changed everything." Tutte died in Canada in 2002, just a few years after details of the secret operations at Bletchley had started to be released. "I think he managed to say a lot of the things he wanted to say, and explain the main part of what he did," Mr Youlden said. "But there were things he could never tell us." In Newmarket, a memorial is being unveiled to celebrate Tutte's work. Campaigners hoping to raise awareness of his achievements will also launch a scholarship scheme, with the aim of giving other people from a similar background to Tutte the "best education possible". David Cameron wrote to Tutte's family in 2012 to acknowledge his work, but Mr Youlden said more could be done. "I'd like to see a lot more attention given to the other people at Bletchley, not just Bill, as they made such a big contribution," he said. "The map people, the radar people, and all the others - they're still hidden in the background to a large extent. "There are a lot of stories out there still to be told."

वह मशीन को जिम्मेदार देखे बिना एक गुप्त नाजी कोड को समझने में कामयाब रहा और कई लोग उसे एक नायक के रूप में मानते हैं, लेकिन बिल टट्टे किसी भी तरह से एक घरेलू नाम नहीं है। उनके सम्मान में एक स्मारक का अनावरण किया गया है, बीबीसी समाचार उस व्यक्ति को देखता है जिसे द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध को छोटा करने का श्रेय दिया जाता है।


Hackers, spies, threats and the US spies' budget

Summary: America's senior spies have offered up to the public a frightening litany of the threats facing the US - al-Qaeda, hackers, Russian militants, and Edward Snowden. But sceptics note that scaring senators is a good way intelligence agencies can keep up their budgets.

By Tara McKelveyBBC News Magazine In the national security business, fewer problems means less money. "You tend to get the best funding when things are at their worst," said Gary LaFree, University of Maryland professor of criminology and director of terrorism research group Start. Counter-terrorism is a grim world of sobering statistics, and indeed it seems to be getting gloomier. Across the world, the number of attacks attributed to terrorists and militants has gone up. In 2012 there were more than 8,000 terror attacks worldwide, according to Mr LaFree, up from about 5,000 in 1991. On Wednesday, America's spy chief described the threat in a statement to the US Senate intelligence committee. "We face an enduring threat to US interests overseas," said James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence. He was testifying on a report compiled by intelligence officials entitled Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community. The report described threats within cyber and counterintelligence, with detours on to mass atrocities, extreme weather, water shortages, and more. The BBC spoke to terrorism analysts and others about the highlights. The al-Qaeda franchise Mr Clapper said organisations such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula pose a threat to US citizens - but most of the attacks attributed to the group hit people in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The attacks are more lethal than in the past. Militant groups such as Basque separatists ETA used to issue public warnings before they would strike. "There used to be a common expression: 'terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead,'" Mr LaFree said. "These days, there is an interest in not only a lot of people watching - but also in a lot of people dead." Cyber threat In recent months the debate over electronic intelligence and cyberspace has focused on the electronic surveillance operations exposed in the secret National Security Agency (NSA) documents released by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor turned fugitive in Russia. On Wednesday, Mr Clapper reminded his audience about other dangers - the threat of cyber-attacks from rogue elements. "The likelihood of a destructive attack that deletes information or renders systems inoperable will increase," he said. For people who follow security issues, this is a familiar warning. "'It's the cyber-Pearl Harbor.' It's what you say when you want to protect your budget," said Camille Francois, a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "But does that mean the threat is over-rated? I don't know." Enemies of the state Meanwhile, Mr Clapper lumped Mr Snowden in with transnational crime rings, for-profit hackers and foreign spies in his rogues gallery of US enemies. "Trusted insiders with the intent to do harm can exploit their access to compromise vast amounts of sensitive and classified information as part of a personal ideology or at the direction of a foreign government," Mr Clapper said. He meant Mr Snowden, of course, and some sceptics found the focus on his case jarring. "It doesn't belong on the list," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "It tells you something about how deeply wounded the intelligence community was that they would even mention the Snowden documents in the same breath as the global threats." Militants at home Mr Clapper also warned of what he called "home-grown violent extremists" residing on US soil. US officials have expressed concern about an estimated 70 Americans who went to Syria to fight in the civil war there - then came back. Officials have set up "costly round-the-clock surveillance" on them, said FBI Director James Comey, according to Time magazine. Richard Barrett, formerly of MI6 and now a senior vice-president with private intelligence firm Soufan Group, said he was not sure the Americans who fought in Syria are that dangerous or that the threat justifies a major surveillance operation. "I don't think they're doing all this just for the fun of it," he said. "But it's a huge amount of work to possibly stop a potential attack - all that surveillance, the whole thing." He said this approach raised questions. First, "are you prepared to accept an element of risk? You can't have zero." Secondly, he said, a more focused approach is usually more effective - namely relying on people who live in local communities to look out for militants and to help disrupt potential attacks. "I think you're better protected with that than if you have a whole system of surveillance," he said. Sochi and militant groups In addition the report draws attention to the dangers that Americans may face next month at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. "We have seen an increase in threat reporting just prior to the Olympics," said Mr Clapper. In the end, though, it is not clear how much weight Mr Clapper's report has. Critics of the Obama administration say the spy chiefs have discredited themselves. Mr Clapper has been accused of making misstatements to Congress if not outright lying, as the Washington Post reported. The raw material Marc Sageman, the author of Leaderless Jihad, on militant networks, discounted the value of the report, which he had not read. Its authors, he said, have misled the public in the past. And he challenged the officials who prepared the report to make public the raw intelligence undergirding it. "Then," he said, "we'll be able to make an assessment."

अमेरिका के वरिष्ठ जासूसों ने जनता के सामने अमेरिका-अल-कायदा, हैकर्स, रूसी उग्रवादियों और एडवर्ड स्नोडेन के सामने आने वाले खतरों की एक भयावह सूची पेश की है। लेकिन संदेहियों का कहना है कि सीनेटरों को डराना एक अच्छा तरीका है जिससे खुफिया एजेंसियां अपने बजट को बनाए रख सकती हैं।


Aberdeenshire Council scraps plans to move HQ from Aberdeen to Inverurie

Summary: Aberdeenshire Council has scrapped plans to move its headquarters from Aberdeen to a new building in Inverurie.

Aberdeenshire is the only local authority authority in Scotland to have its headquarters outside its boundary. Last January, councillors agreed to move forward with plans to relocate the authority's headquarters to a purpose-built facility at Harlaw in Inverurie. Councillors have now voted to stay at the existing offices at Woodhill House.

एबरडीनशायर काउंसिल ने अपने मुख्यालय को एबरडीन से इनवेररी में एक नई इमारत में स्थानांतरित करने की योजना को रद्द कर दिया है।


Is there a danger from scented products?

Summary: It's the time of year when we generally keep our doors and windows shut and maybe light a few scented candles to brighten up the long dark evenings. But is there a potential danger, asks Saleyha Ahsan.

Lots of people use air fresheners and body sprays - almost all of which contain what the ingredients listing coyly describes as "perfume". All in all, it adds up to quite a fragranced atmosphere - and with little airflow in our increasingly-insulated homes, have you ever wondered what happens to all these perfume chemicals? Well, it seems they could be reacting in the air forming a potentially dangerous cocktail. The levels of perfume chemicals are regulated inside products, but what we then do with those products is entirely up to us. No one measures air quality inside our houses. Prof Alastair Lewis of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of York and the team from Trust Me, I'm a Doctor set out to do just that. Firstly he measured the levels of a whole range of "volatile organic chemicals" (VOCs) in six similar, modern houses in York over the course of five days. The stand-out chemical - varying most among the houses - was limonene. It's commonly used to give a citrus smell. In the three houses that used the most cleaning products, limonene levels were so high that Prof Lewis even had to adjust the sensitivity of the monitors. The York study That in itself is no cause for panic. Limonene is not a chemical that poses a big hazard to health - in fact it is also used as a flavouring in foods. However, once sprayed into our houses, it doesn't stay as limonene for long. Back in the laboratory, Prof Lewis analysed its reactivity, and discovered that on exposure to ozone - which is present in the air all around us - every two molecules of limonene could produce one molecule of another chemical, formaldehyde. Having lots of formaldehyde in our houses is quite a different prospect. Since the 1980s, links have been established between formaldehyde and cancer, and since 2011 it's been listed as a known human carcinogen. It's present in some furniture, and is created by burning cigarettes or by gas stoves. But given the very high levels of limonene discovered in some of our houses, we wanted to measure formaldehyde in them too. We discovered that it correlated with the levels of limonene, in line with Prof Lewis's findings that it was created from limonene. It seems that while enjoying the aroma of fragranced candles, plug-ins, air fresheners and cleaning products we are increasing our exposure to a serious nasty. Find out more Trust Me I'm A Doctor, presented by Dr Saleyha Ahsan (pictured) and others, is broadcast on Wednesdays at 21:00 GMT on BBC Two - catch up on BBC iPlayer Are perfumed products bad for me? An obvious solution is to open the doors and windows more, but that's not altogether practical in the winter, and goes against our recent energy efficiency measures. There might be, though, a more ingenious solution. Among the reams of research done over the decades on chemicals in the air, there is a small collection of papers about the pollution-busting effects of houseplants. In laboratories, many plants have been shown to absorb particular chemicals, including formaldehyde, but very few studies appear to have taken this research out into the real world. To put the practicality of this solution to the test, each house in the study took in four specially chosen houseplants for six weeks, while Prof Lewis continued to record the levels of both limonene and formaldehyde. Over those four weeks, the levels of limonene in all six houses rose - probably because over those weeks winter truly set in. Doors and windows were closed, and scented candles came out - pushing limonene in one house up to the highest levels Prof Lewis had ever recorded. The house plants were clearly not having a significant effect on limonene levels. But then came the formaldehyde readings. In all three houses measured, while the limonene levels went up, the formaldehyde levels came down. Although it's a tiny sample size, it certainly suggests that perhaps the plants were helping absorb the toxic formaldehyde. Which plants are the best absorbers? Well, several have come up trumps in laboratory tests. English ivy (Hedera helix) is apparently a good all-round absorber, while geraniums, lavender and many ferns are particularly good at absorbing formaldehyde. So, perhaps the best fragrance for all our homes isn't fresh citrus but natural lavender from a houseplant. Trust Me, I'm A Doctor continues on BBC Two at 20:00 BST on Wednesday 13 January - or watch on BBC iPlayer. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

यह साल का वह समय होता है जब हम आम तौर पर अपने दरवाजे और खिड़कियां बंद रखते हैं और शायद लंबी अंधेरी शाम को रोशन करने के लिए कुछ सुगंधित मोमबत्तियां जलाते हैं। लेकिन क्या कोई संभावित खतरा है, सलीहा अहसान पूछती है।


Local elections 2018: What will elections tell us about parties?

Summary: That's it! The polls are closed.

Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter In 150 areas the ballot boxes will be sealed up and spirited to sports halls, schools and council offices around the country. In many of them around England, the tellers will be flexing their fingers, ready for a long night ahead. In other places, they'll be asleep, ahead of a long day at the counts tomorrow. And for the politicians? Well, this is the moment where they know they have completely surrendered control. They can't knock on any more doors. They can't make any more promises. And their councillors, activists and supporters can only wait and watch as the decisions of the public become clear, in the first completely authentic tests of public opinion since the general election. First off, here are the caveats. Elections aren't taking place everywhere. Voters have been to the polls right across London, and in other big cities and towns, Swindon, Plymouth, Carlisle, Sheffield - north, South, East and West. But in the areas up for grabs, Labour already holds more than half the seats - they are largely urban and metropolitan areas. So the results themselves will give a flavour of where particular parts of the country, certain types of voter are going, rather than a full national picture. It's also important to know that the last time these seats were contested was 2014, in a totally different political universe. David Cameron was still the prime minister. Nick Clegg was still the deputy prime minister. Ed Miliband was the leader of the Labour Party and Nigel Farage was in charge of UKIP, who were sweeping up more and more support. I don't need to remind you how much has changed since then. Remember too that local issues, unsurprisingly, are part of how people make their minds up in these local elections. Bear in mind that what happens in the next 24 hours doesn't definitively tell us anything about what will happen at the next general election. But, it gives us big clues about the direction in which the parties are going. Both of the main parties have had a difficult couple of months, grappling with their own demons. The national opinion polls suggest that they are also locked in a kind of stalemate with each other, roughly level pegging, both struggling to make any decisive moves. The Labour Party is almost certain to make big advances in London, potentially taking some of the Tories' totemic councils like Wandsworth and it's not impossible they'll take Kensington too. But London is already a Labour city. The harder test for them to pass is to show that they can advance, in parts of the country where there are marginal Westminster constituencies - Swindon, Southampton, Watford. For the Tories, it is a case of stopping the rot. They dropped back, relative to Labour, in the general election. Traditionally, the governing party loses significant numbers of seats in local elections. But Theresa May is vulnerable. Her supporters have been fighting to stop the slide. It's possible though that the results may not see swathes of the country change hands. One senior Labour figure suggested this week that we may, broadly, simply see both parties digging in more firmly in territory that seems naturally theirs, a confirmation of what we saw at the general election - where Labour consolidated its urban support, and the Tories deepened their reach in town and country. Politics has changed at breakneck speed in the last few years. In contrast, these elections could see in the main, a deepening rather than a reverse of recent trends. What are the results in your council election?

बस इतना ही! मतदान बंद हो गए हैं।


Eight ways the 2018 Oscars will be different

Summary: "And the winner is... La La Land!"

Somehow, that moment - and the subsequent revelation that Moonlight had, in fact, won the Oscar for best picture was a whole year ago. But an awful lot can change in Hollywood in a single year. Here are eight things that will be different about the 90th Academy Awards - and what to look out for at Sunday's ceremony. 1. The way winners are announced Expect envelope jokes. Lots of them. That said, host Jimmy Kimmel already got a few quips out of the way in the trailer for this year's show, co-starring with Warren Beatty, who was handed the wrong envelope at last year's ceremony. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm which has been in charge of counting Oscar votes (and looking after those all-important envelopes) for the past 84 years is, perhaps unsurprisingly, making a few changes. 2. Last year's best actor winner won't present the best actress award It's traditional for the previous year's best actor winner to announce who has won best actress - and vice versa. But Casey Affleck, who won the award for Manchester by the Sea, has pulled out of presenting duties. He was sued by two female crew members for alleged sexual harassment in 2010. Affleck denied the allegations, and the lawsuits were settled out of court. The best actress winner will instead be announced by former winners Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence. 3. The presenting line-up is making history A diverse line-up of presenters has been chosen to actually hand out the Oscars. They include Tiffany Haddish, Gina Rodriguez, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Lupita Nyong'o. And Daniela Vega is also making history. She is believed to be the first openly transgender actress to present at the Academy Awards. Vega is the star of Chile's best foreign film nominee A Fantastic Woman. Others presenting include Jodie Foster, Mark Hamill, Greta Gerwig, Helen Mirren, Tom Holland, Gal Gadot, Laura Dern and Zendaya. 4. Women are being placed front and centre Women are still under-represented amongst the Oscar nominees, but some important steps have been made. Rachel Morrison has become the first woman to ever (yes, ever) be nominated as best cinematographer. She's honoured for her work on Dee Rees' Mudbound, which starred Carey Mulligan and Mary J Blige. And then there's the fact that Greta Gerwig is the fifth woman to ever (yes, ever) be nominated in the best director category, for her debut Lady Bird. Several films in the best picture category are notable too for being centred around women, without romance being the main focus of the plot. That includes films like Lady Bird, a coming of age story set in early 2000s Sacramento, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, about a grieving mother's fight for justice. 5. Two contenders are older than the awards themselves The first Academy Awards were held on 16 May, 1929 - but two nominees for the 2018 Oscars were born the previous year. James Ivory, nominated for best adapted screenplay for Call Me By Your Name, was born on 7 June, 1928 and Agnes Varda, nominated for best documentary for Faces Places, on 30 May, 1928. If either wins, they will also be the oldest-ever Oscar winners. It's worth noting, too, that best supporting actor nominee Christopher Plummer, given a nod for his role in All the Money in the World, is the oldest ever actor nominated for a competitive award. 6. Time's Up is likely to have a presence on the red carpet At the time of writing, it's not expected that there will be a Golden Globes-style black out on the red carpet - with everyone wearing monochromatic outfits. But it's likely the massive political earthquake that has hit Hollywood in the past year will be represented not just on the red carpet but throughout the ceremony. Stars will potentially arrive holding white roses - as happened at the Grammys and Brit Awards. Watch out, too, for celebrities bringing activists as their guests on the red carpet, rather than their significant other (or their mum). This is what happened at the Globes, with Emma Watson among those using their moment in the spotlight to make a stand against sexual harassment. 7. Harvey Weinstein won't be there It's been suggested that Harvey Weinstein is the most thanked man in Oscars history, with several best actor and actress winners through the years giving him a name check. His firm was also responsible for best picture winners like Shakespeare in Love and The King's Speech. And just as his presence has been very much felt in previous years, so will his absence this year, after the sexual abuse scandal that erupted at the end of 2017. (Weinstein has denied all accusations of non-consensual sex). Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel may - or may not - choose to address the issue in his opening monologue. If he does, he'd be following Globes host Seth Meyers who tackled what he called "the elephant not in the room" at the January ceremony. 8. There's no clear front-runner Which makes guessing who's going to win a little bit trickier. At the moment, it seems to be a two-horse race between The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri for the best picture title. But the experts' opinion on who's going to win seems to change every day. There are also murmurings that Get Out, starring British actor Daniel Kaluuya, is gathering momentum. Then again, some think Dunkirk could be the shock winner. It's also notable that the nominated films have had the lowest grosses in six years. Some have suggested this represents a growing gap between what the movie-going public actually watches, and what wins the gongs. One last thing to mention: This year's ceremony is later than usual, due to the Winter Olympics. It's being held at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre on Sunday, 4 March, starting at 17:00 local time. Join us on the night for our live coverage, here on the BBC news website as well as through the night on BBC Radio 5 live and on the BBC News Channel. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

"और विजेता है... ला ला लैंड!"


Brexit: Sadness and relief - European papers' view

Summary: There is no escaping the melancholy in many European papers marking Britain's departure from the European Union (EU). Images of a rent EU flag or its broken and scattered stars illustrate the fears many have for Brexit's impact on the union.

By BBC MonitoringEssential Media Insight There's also relief that this milestone has finally been reached, and there are hopes of rebuilding ties with Britain as a trading partner. Some believe Britain will find new strength in its self-reliance. But accompanying this is a continued wariness of the uncertainty in trade negotiations to come. 'Tragic defeat for everyone' "Like a thief in the night, [Britain] will leave the European Union late on Friday," says the Belgian paper De Morgen. "The way the EU is losing a member state for the first time in its history is a tragic defeat for everyone." "Brexit is, inescapably a terrible loss," says the Irish Times. "The EU will be weaker... and Ireland has lost a valuable ally at the EU table." It is "a defeat for EU and the European idea, a defeat for anyone who has primarily liked to think of the EU as a peace project," says Norway's Aftenposten. "It is a relief, it is a loss, it is a failure," agrees another Belgian daily Le Soir. The paper calls the moment a "historic turning point", with the EU now "dwindling, shrinking, shrivelling". "When London leaves the community, all the countries there will feel orphans, especially those that have never believed in European integration," says Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore. Some are counting the cost in detail: "The EU will lose a significant part of its population, discover a 60-billion-euro hole in the budget and have only one permanent member of the UN Security Council with nuclear weapons," notes a commentator in the French daily Les Echos. Others believe there is a broader, existential dilemma. "The debate on the future of the club coincides with a very delicate moment in the international situation, marked by an unprecedented challenge to the world order," says the Spanish daily El Pais. Brexit could be 'source of envy' There are calls for greater self-reflection within the EU. "When will Brussels start the inquiry into its own share in this divorce?" asks a commentator for the Dutch financial channel RTLZ. "It would be better if Brussels finally looked at itself in the mirror and started wondering about what aversion the British - and too many other Europeans - are experiencing." Austria's Der Standard appears to agree: "Should the British ever rejoin a European community, it would be an organisation significantly different from the EU in its current form. Should this be considered a bad thing?" Some perceive an economic threat from the UK. "There is a great concern in Brussels that competition is emerging from the coast," says the German business daily Handelsblatt. Brexit "could become a source of envy if the British demonstrate all the agility they are known to be capable of", says France's Le Figaro. "Let us not imagine that they will sink into a kind of post-divorce spleen." Brussels will now want to prevent the emergence of a tax haven on its doorstep, the paper adds, warning the EU may suffer from competition with a "Singapore-on-Thames". To that end, there are appeals to rebuild relations and recognise that Britain and the EU still rely on each other - especially when negotiating future trade relations. "Know that Belgium is still open for business. And that you are still welcome in Brussels," says the Belgian financial De Tijd, in a letter addressed to the British people. "It is so important from the EU side that.. no hurt pride rejects the desired partnership," says Austria's Die Presse. 'The truly difficult part starts' Little changes in practical terms from today, given the UK enters an 11-month transition period to negotiate new ties, but "it is quite possible that a few months from now the risk of 'no deal' will appear again," says Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza. "The problem is that the Boris Johnson government views many EU regulations as constraints" and that "there have been indications" the UK intends to distance itself from EU laws and regulations, it says. "They know they are playing 27 against one but also, across the Channel, they believe they have aces up their sleeve," muses Italy's La Stampa. "In defence or foreign policy, for example, they know they are indispensable for Brussels." "Now, the truly difficult part begins," says Sweden's Dagens Nyheter. Brexit since 2016: The long, absurd goodbye The immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016 was characterised in catastrophic, irreversible terms by many - an earthquake, the worst crisis in Europe's history for the UK and for Europe. As the deadlock over the terms on which the UK left continued however, the tone slowly turned to exasperation and bewilderment at what appeared, to some, to be a grotesquely absurd situation. Images of clowns, references to the Marx brothers, Monty Python, and Mr Bean have all been used in commentary, as well as an already familiar photo of Mr Johnson dangling, legs akimbo, from a zipline. To some, the absurdity is still evident. "Should we laugh or cry?" asks the Hungarian business weekly Heti Vilaggazdasag. "To give history the finger... appears an overreaction to [former Tory leader David] Cameron's experiment with disciplining his own party," says Slovakia's Sme newspaper. "The fact that the British voluntarily chose to leave that big, free market and that they must simultaneously try to regain access to it, indicates how absurd the entire idea of Brexit is," says De Standaard. BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

यूरोपीय संघ (ई. यू.) से ब्रिटेन के प्रस्थान को चिह्नित करने वाले कई यूरोपीय पत्रों में उदासी से बचने की कोई बात नहीं है। यूरोपीय संघ के किराए के झंडे या इसके टूटे हुए और बिखरे हुए सितारों की छवियां संघ पर ब्रेक्सिट के प्रभाव के लिए कई लोगों की आशंकाओं को दर्शाती हैं।


Lee Kuan Yew: Life in pictures

Summary: Lee Kuan Yew - known almost universally as LKY - is considered the founding father of modern Singapore, and has been the point around which politics in the city-state has revolved for nearly five decades.

But Singapore's stability and growth have been achieved in part through its only cursory nod towards democracy, and a determined quashing of dissent and free speech. As news emerges that "The Old Man" has died at the age of 91, the BBC looks back at some key images from his life. Lee Kuan Yew was born on 16 September 1923 in Singapore, to third-generation migrants from China. He lived for a short period in this house on what is now Neil Road. Singapore was at that time under British imperial rule, meaning he was born a British citizen and grew up with English as his first language - he did not speak Chinese until he was in his 30s. He studied at an English school in Singapore, becoming the highest achieving student in his year in Singapore and Malaysia. The outbreak of World War Two put Lee's plans to travel to England for further study on hold. In February 1942, the British colonial army surrendered to the invading Japanese, starting a "reign of terror". Lee narrowly escaped being rounded up and killed in the Sook Ching massacre, one of the most large-scale atrocities of the occupation years. He later said he believed between 50,000 and 100,000 people had died, and that the British failure to prevent the massacre was further proof that Singaporeans should be free to rule themselves. During the war, he went on to work as a Japanese interpreter and ran his own black market glue business. After the war, Lee belatedly began his university education, studying first at the prestigious London School of Economics and then at Cambridge. While in England he married Kwa Geok Choo (seen above in 1965), a brilliant Singaporean scholar and later lawyer, at a secret ceremony in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1949 he turned his back on a possible British legal career and returned to Singapore, where he practised law and became involved in the trade union movement. In 1954, LKY became the founder and general secretary of the People's Action Party (PAP), a socialist alliance of Chinese and English-speaking movements which aimed to bring an end to British rule. In December 1959, Lee - seen above campaigning for a 1958 by-election - was present as Britain granted autonomy to Singapore, though it kept control of foreign affairs and defence. Two days later, Lee - then aged 36 - was sworn in as the first prime minister of self-governing Singapore, a position he would hold for the next three decades. He embarked on an ambitious five-year programme of slum clearing, building low-cost quality housing, industrialisation and tackling corruption. He spoke fiercely of the need for Singapore to be a multi-racial nation. The PAP also began campaigning for Singapore to split entirely from the UK and merge into the Federation of Malaya, believing the island to be too small and lacking in resources to survive alone. On 16 September 1963, Lee announced the successful merger from the steps of City Hall, ending 144 years of British rule. But racial tensions were growing between the Chinese majority in Singapore and Malays over what the ethnic character of the Federation of Malaysia should be. Despite Lee's appeals for calm, several large-scale riots left hundreds injured and more than 20 people dead. On 9 August 1965, a weeping Lee announced he had agreed to Malaysia's request that Singapore leave the federation to stop the bloodshed from destabilising the union. It was, he said, "a moment of anguish" and went against "everything we stood for". Two days later, Lee declared tiny, isolated Singapore to be an independent nation. Over the next 31 years, Lee's vision for Singapore turned it from an abandoned and vulnerable colonial outpost to one of the world's wealthiest nations. The country became pioneers in mass house building and nationalised healthcare, while Lee was adamant that education was essential, often saying Singapore's only natural resource was its people, and strongly encouraged well-educated people to marry and have children. Singapore opened up to foreign investment and expertise, recruiting migrant labour widely while enforcing strict racial quotas in housing. Lee was unapologetic in the face of criticism that Singapore interfered too much in individuals' lives, telling the Straits Times in 1987 "had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think." Reflecting on his time in power in a New York Times interview in 2010 he said: "I'm not saying that everything I did was right, but everything I did was for an honourable purpose. I had to do some nasty things, locking fellows up without trial." Lee was critical of what he saw as the overly liberal approach of the US and the West in general, saying it had "come at the expense of orderly society. "In the East the main object is to have a well-ordered society so that everybody can have maximum enjoyment of his freedoms. This freedom can only exist in an ordered state and not in a natural state of contention and anarchy," he said in an interview with Foreign Affairs in 1994. He made no secret of the fact that he wanted the PAP to hold onto power. In 1981 Joshua Benjamin (known as JB) Jeyaretnam - leader of the Workers' Party - won the first ever opposition seat in Singapore. Furious with Jeyaretnam's criticisms of his handling of Singapore, Lee brought repeated defamation lawsuits against him and in 2001 he was declared bankrupt, meaning he could not hold office and was reduced to selling his book on the street to pay his debts. He died in 2008. Lee was a source of advice for a parade of foreign leaders seeking to better understand Asia. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore in 1978 to learn more about its model of development. UK Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher said Lee had a way of "penetrating the fog of propaganda and expressing with unique clarity the issues of our time and the way to tackle them", while US diplomat Henry Kissinger said no world leader had taught him more than Lee Kuan Yew. When they met in 2009, US President Barack Obama described Lee as one of the "legendary figures of Asia in the 20th and 21st Centuries". In her later years, Lee's wife Kwa Geok Choo suffered from ill health and dementia and was confined to bed. In the 2010 New York Times interview, he said the stress of caring for her was harder than anything he had faced in politics. "She understands when I talk to her, which I do every night. She keeps awake for me; I tell her about my day's work, read her favourite poems," he said. The agnostic Lee told the Times he had taken up Christian meditation to "keep the monkey mind from running off into all kinds of thoughts". Kwa died in October 2010. Thousands lined the streets to pay tribute, or visited her body lying in state. "Without her," Lee said at her funeral, "I would be a different man, with a different life". Lee's political involvement continued almost until his death. Though he stood down as prime minister in 1990 he remained a senior minister, his opinion sought on all matters. He represented the Tanjong Pagar constituency in central Singapore for almost his entire political life, campaigning for office here in 2011. One of his last major public appearances was at the age of 90, when he attended celebrations for Singapore's National Day, marking 49 years since he signed the deal which had filled him with such dread. He died months before seeing the 50th anniversary.

ली कुआन यू-जिन्हें लगभग सार्वभौमिक रूप से एलकेवाई के रूप में जाना जाता है-को आधुनिक सिंगापुर का संस्थापक पिता माना जाता है, और यह वह बिंदु रहा है जिसके इर्द-गिर्द शहर-राज्य में राजनीति लगभग पांच दशकों से घूम रही है।


China buying up the world?

Summary: This week, the largest acquisition of a US firm by a Chinese company was announced . Chinese pork producer Shuanghui International had an offer of $4.7bn accepted by US meat giant Smithfield Foods, the world's biggest pork producer.

Linda YuehChief business correspondent Just a fortnight earlier, China's State Grid, the world's largest utility firm, said it was investing in a couple of companies in Australia. And China is also branching out into movies. The new owner of US cinema chain AMC theatres, Wanda, is Chinese. Overseas investments by Chinese firms require permission from the government, because the country controls capital movements across its borders. But that is rarely a problem if you are in an area favoured by the Chinese government, such as food, technology, resources, etc. In other words, when a Chinese firm wanted to buy Hummer, which makes the giant off-road vehicles, that wasn't approved. In fact, the government is pushing for more overseas investment as part of its Going Global policy, which was launched in 2000. The aim is to create multinational companies, with a particular emphasis in the areas that are important to support China's economic development. There are macroeconomic benefits in helping China diversify its investments (see my earlier post on China's global ambitions). That is why, for firms that meet those aims, the Chinese state can offer to help by financing the deals using its foreign exchange reserves. One way to create multinationals is to buy existing companies, especially trusted brands, as the Chinese companies hope the goodwill associated with these names will rub off on them. Lenovo's purchase of IBM's PC business, as well as the use of the IBM brand name for five years, is the most prominent example of this. The aspiration was to make Lenovo synonymous with a global brand known for its quality. The deal also showcases some of the difficulties, however. A key one is that businesses that are for sale aren't usually the most successful ones. So what firms such as Lenovo try to do is to make the products more cheaply. A typical Chinese merger and acquisitions strategy involves cutting costs. Plus, the product can be sold to a larger market. A Chinese owner can offer entry into one of the biggest consumer markets in the world. This can work, but can't be taken for granted. Value of trust Nowhere is the importance of brand and quality more apparent than in the area of food products. Shuanghui's reputation suffered when a banned chemical, clenbuterol, which makes meat leaner, was found in its products. This may explain why the Chinese firm bid $34 a share for Smithfield, more than a third higher than the value of the shares before the bid was announced. Of course, as pork is a staple of the Chinese diet and the country will consume more meat as it grows richer, the growth potential is sizeable. With outward investment in quality and brands an important part of China's growth strategy, this may not be the biggest deal for long. So is China buying up the world? Well, not quite. China still receives more investment than it invests overseas. But big Chinese takeovers such as these are certain to keep making headlines.

इस सप्ताह, एक चीनी कंपनी द्वारा एक अमेरिकी फर्म के सबसे बड़े अधिग्रहण की घोषणा की गई थी। चीनी सूअर का मांस उत्पादक शुआनघुई इंटरनेशनल के पास दुनिया के सबसे बड़े सूअर का मांस उत्पादक अमेरिकी मांस दिग्गज स्मिथफील्ड फूड्स द्वारा स्वीकार किए गए $4.7bn का प्रस्ताव था।


Migrant slavery in Libya: Nigerians tell of being used as slaves

Summary: The European Union is working with Libyan coastguards to reduce the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea. But many of those intercepted end up in detention centres in Libya, where some migrants say they are used as slaves, as the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty found when she spoke to some Nigerians who have just returned home.

As evening falls on Benin City, outside the mildewed 1960s block of one of the city's many hotels, a group of men and women are sitting on a scattering of plastic chairs, under a sign advertising "exotic cocktails" and "groovy nights". But they are not here for drinks or dancing, they are about to start the hard work of rebuilding their lives. They have come from Libya, where most of them were held in detention centres by the Libyan authorities. And they have returned with accounts of horrifying abuse, including being leased or sold as slaves. 'They gave us to their friends' Agen Akhere has a round, baby-face but his small eyes are searing red. He is sniffling as he talks, and looks like he might well up with tears. He was held for two months in a detention centre in a place called Gharyan. He was registered by the UN's migration agency (IOM), released from the detention centre and flown home - but his friend did not make it. "It's because of money," he said, pleading and craning his neck to get closer to the microphone. "My friend, he's still there. His name is Samson. He's still there, in Gharyan." Gharyan is a prison in the mountains about 100km (60 miles) south of Tripoli. And it is a place where all of the migrants we spoke to were taken before they made it home. Again and again they tell the same story, of detainees horrifically abused by prison guards, starved, beaten, raped - and traded as slaves. "They come to our caravans [cells], they pick six persons to do their dirty jobs to do farming, brick-laying work," says Lucky Akhanene. He returned in the same group as Mr Akhere and was held in Gharyan for four months. "They give us out to their friends. They don't pay us. It's just hard labour, if you're not fast with your job you get beaten." Three separate people spoke about being leased out by the prison for day labour like this. Others said they were sold. Jackson Uwumarogie and Felix Efe were arrested "on top of the sea", off the coast of Libya and taken to Gharyan. They said one night a prison guard came and counted out 20 men, he took them outside and blindfolded them. Mr Uwumarogie overheard the men talking about a price - 1,000 dinars ($735; £550). They were put into a van and taken to a farm. Read more: Mr Uwumarogie and Mr Efe were forced to work harvesting onions and feeding cattle. They slept in a plywood hut and were guarded day and night by men with guns. They were never paid. Mr Uwumarogie's baggy tracksuit bottoms hang from his tiny waist and a tight woollen polo neck highlights his skinny frame and slightly puffy, swollen cheeks. He is clearly not well. On the farm they were only given food every few days, he said, and sometimes given sea water to drink. After six months they and five others were loaded into a pick-up truck and taken to the desert. "They dumped us there," Mr Uwumarogie said. They were there for two days. "It was with the help of God that we found the man that rescued us." The man brought them to his house and then took them to Tripoli to meet the IOM. Stories of black slavery in Libya have been circulating for the past two years. But the number of accounts we heard from recent returnees seems to suggest it has become endemic in the detention system. And it is tied to something that has been going on for much longer: a dark but thriving industry in which migrants are extorted for money by traffickers and prison guards. Wrists tied with barbed wire "There was a connection man who normally has a connection to the Mudeen, that is director of the prison. He would call them and he would bail them out," Mac Agheyere said. He left for Europe in 2015 and was arrested and taken to prison in the Libyan town of Zawiya. "I had no-one to bail me out." He explained that the middleman would charge up to 250,000 naira ($695; £520) per person. Mr Aghayere borrowed money from his family in Nigeria to pay for his own release but he was arrested again. This time he could not afford to pay but one day a man came, who paid it for him. "I thought he was my Messiah," Mr Aghayere said. "I never knew he was an evil person." The man owned a carwash and some beach huts by the sea. He said Mr Aghayere should work for a month to pay back the release money. After that, they agreed on a salary. But two months later he refused to pay. Another month went by and he refused to work any longer. "He beat me with an iron bar," he says. "They took barbed wire and tied my hands and my feet and threw me inside a car and took me back to prison." Mr Aghayere was told he was being sent back to Nigeria but he was transferred to Gharyan prison and spent seven months there before he was repatriated by the IOM. He said in the time he was there he saw 20 people die. Again and again we heard stories of horrific abuse at Gharyan prison. Each of the Nigerian migrants we met, separately, told us that they were given very little food - a piece of bread smaller than the palm of their hand in the morning and watery pasta in the evening. Some said they drank water from the toilet. They were regularly rounded up and beaten. "They beat boys," Fatima Atewe said. She was one of the only women who agreed to speak to us about what happened in Gharyan. "Even in prison in Nigeria, they don't beat Nigerian people the way they beat Nigerian people there." "Many people are dying there day and night. And their cold is not good, their cold is like inside a fridge," Ms Atewe added. She spent just over 10 days in Gharyan before she was repatriated. She had been arrested with a friend and after three days in prison she said, her friend was sold. The UN's migration agency, together with various African governments are working to get migrants home. But delegates from each country have to get to the detention centres before they can identify their citizens. Libya is in the middle of a civil war. With many different militia groups vying for power, travelling beyond Tripoli is dangerous. 'Inhumane' The prison at Gharyan is run by Libya's Ministry of Interior which itself is run by two militia groups. The Ministry of the Interior is only nominally under the UN-recognised government in Tripoli. As of yet, the Libyan Interior Ministry hasn't responded to requests for an interview. In recent months, the situation has become increasingly lawless but also on the rise is the numbers of migrants being held in these prisons. The EU is encouraging Libya to stop migrants from crossing the Mediterranean. It has been training the Libyan coastguard to intercept boats leaving Libyan waters. Arrivals to Italy have fallen by 70%. But many of the migrants who are stopped end up in detention centres like Gharyan. Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres says the numbers of migrants in the Libyan detention centres that it has access to have increased tenfold since July, when these policies began. The UN's human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Hussein has described the policy as "inhumane". As more and more migrants pile into these centres, conditions will only get worse. The stories of abuse will keep coming. Those that return come with a warning. "I just want to plead with everyone out there," Lucky Akhanene said. "Libya is not a place to go. "Most times I wonder if Libya is not from this earth."

यूरोपीय संघ भूमध्य सागर पार करने वाले प्रवासियों की संख्या को कम करने के लिए लीबिया के तट रक्षकों के साथ काम कर रहा है। लेकिन जिन लोगों को रोका गया उनमें से कई लीबिया में हिरासत केंद्रों में समाप्त हो जाते हैं, जहां कुछ प्रवासियों का कहना है कि उन्हें दास के रूप में इस्तेमाल किया जाता है, जैसा कि बीबीसी की स्टेफ़नी हेगार्टी ने पाया जब उन्होंने कुछ नाइजीरियाई लोगों से बात की जो अभी-अभी घर लौटे हैं।


Why it's hard to be a Kevin in France

Summary: What happens when you have a name that seems perfectly reasonable in your home country, but raises a sympathetic smile when you're abroad? BBC Europe Correspondent Kevin Connolly has been finding out the hard way.

There is a theory called nominative determinism, much beloved of students of literature and other idlers. It holds that your character will come over time to match your name. So if you are called Max Power or Chuck Handgrenade then you are predestined to life as a man of action - and if you're called Ray O'Sunshine or Sunny B Happy then you will be lovability incarnate. I'd never expected to find myself touched by the theory personally, being equipped as I am with a wholly unremarkable name. I wasn't even given a middle initial on the utilitarian grounds that they're only useful to professional cricketers and American politicians. That all changed when a colleague drew my attention to an article in a French magazine called The Curse of Kevin. Its point was that, in the French-speaking world, that Christian name - my Christian name - more or less predestines you to being considered an idiot. And not necessarily a particularly lovable idiot either. My Irish mother would have been mortified to hear this. To her, Kevin was a respectable saint's name and added the music of alliteration to the prosaic sound of Connolly. I've never been entirely persuaded myself - Kevin was a curmudgeonly hermit celebrated for pushing a woman who made overtures towards him into a bed of nettles. If he were alive today I can't help thinking that Kevin would be receiving court-ordered counselling rather than the prayers of the faithful. But of course I had no say in the matter. And the name wasn't always a curse in the Francophone world either. When I lived in Paris in the 1990s, I wouldn't say it was enjoying a vogue exactly, but it was experiencing a kind of blip of recognition. We even settled - in our office at least - on an agreed pronunciation of K'veen. It broke the rules of French phonetics a bit - it should surely be Ke-van - but people had at least heard of the name. It was never quite clear why it suddenly surged briefly from obscurity, but we know that in 1991 a total of 14,087 French children were given the name Kevin - and no reason to doubt it was a winning ticket in the lottery of life. We were never sure why. There were the Hollywood Kevins of course - Costner, Bacon and Spacey - but none of them seemed well-known enough individually to explain the phenomenon. Perhaps, we theorised, when you added them together they achieved a kind of critical mass - like a celebrity nuclear reaction. Rival theorists suggested that the name was copied from members of boy bands, or even, God forbid, from the American film Home Alone, in which the geeky super-child at the heart of the story is also called Kevin. Anyway, our moment in the sun was brief indeed. The number of new Kevins in France has slowed to a dreary trickle these days, with potential parents frightened off, perhaps, by the trenchant manner in which French sociologists analyse such matters. Kevin, they say, simply was popular with the lower classes and Kevin was never well-perceived by his betters. Kevin, in short, is an oik, shown in surveys to have as much as a 30% lower chance of being hired when compared with Philippe, or Jean-Luc or Vincent. Find out more The online discussion that followed the article did not contain, as it might in Britain or America, an angry rejection of this tendency to isolate and marginalise the Kevin, although it did include a handy list of other, equally cursed names, including Brian, Brandon, Jessica and Dylan. It didn't discuss whether this varies according to whether you're named after the American singer or the hippy rabbit from the Magic Roundabout. Anyway, a novel has now been published in French which tells the story of how a young man improves his chances of being accepted into the intellectual salons of Paris by changing his name from Kevin to Alexandre. I'm not sure my own disqualification from those salons was ever entirely down to my name but it all feels like a timely reminder of the exclusion which now appears to be part and parcel of the life of a Kevin in the Francophone world. I'd like to say that I just don't understand it. But then, of course, that's the curse of nominative determinism. Anyone called Kevin is destined to not quite understand anything. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

क्या होता है जब आपके पास एक ऐसा नाम होता है जो आपके गृह देश में पूरी तरह से उचित लगता है, लेकिन जब आप विदेश में होते हैं तो एक सहानुभूतिपूर्ण मुस्कान उठाती है? बीबीसी यूरोप संवाददाता केविन कॉनॉली कठिन रास्ते का पता लगा रहे हैं।


Family of exiled top Saudi officer Saad al-Jabri 'targeted'

Summary: A senior Saudi security official who for years was the key go-between for Britain's MI6 and other Western spy agencies in Saudi Arabia is now being persecuted along with his family, according to former Western intelligence officials.

By Frank GardnerBBC security correspondent Dr Saad al-Jabri, who helped foil an al-Qaeda bomb plot against the West, fled into exile three years ago, ahead of a purge by the all-powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Now his children have been seized as "hostages", according to his eldest son, Khalid. "Omar and Sarah were kidnapped at dawn on 16 March and taken out of their beds by about 50 state security officers who arrived in 20 cars," says their brother, Khalid al-Jabri. The family house in Riyadh was then searched, the CCTV memory cards removed and the pair, aged 21 and 20 respectively, held incommunicado at a detention centre. There have been no charges given and no reason offered to the family for their arrest, Khalid tells me on a phone call from Canada where he and his father live in self-imposed exile. "We don't even know if they are alive or dead." He believes they are being held as bargaining chips in an attempt to force his father to return to Saudi Arabia where he fears he will face immediate arrest and imprisonment. "They can make up any lies they want about him but he is innocent." The Saudi authorities have not responded to the BBC's requests for comment on the allegations made by the family of Dr Saad al-Jabri and those who worked with him. Who is Saad al-Jabri? For years he was the right-hand man, the gatekeeper, to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was widely credited with defeating the al-Qaeda insurgency in the 2000s. He was also the linchpin in all Saudi Arabia's relations with the "Five Eyes" (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) intelligence agencies. In 2010 this crucial link "helped save hundreds of lives", according to a former Western intelligence officer who worked with him. Al-Qaeda in Yemen had smuggled a powerful bomb on-board a cargo plane bound for Chicago, hidden inside a printer ink toner cartridge. But Saudi intelligence had a human informant inside al-Qaida who provided the tip-off to MI6, even relaying the serial number of the device it was hidden in. British counter-terrorism police then located and defused the bomb inside the plane at East Midlands Airport. "If that had gone off as planned over Chicago hundreds would have been killed," said the former intelligence officer. "Dr al-Jabri transformed Saudi counter-terrorism efforts," says another former western intelligence official. "He changed it from being a crude, violent, confession-based system into one that used modern forensics and computer-based data mining. "He was the smartest guy we dealt with amongst so many others who were dysfunctional," he says. A quiet-spoken man with a doctorate in artificial intelligence from Edinburgh University, Dr al-Jabri rose to the rank of cabinet minister and held a major-general's rank in the interior ministry. But in 2015 everything changed. King Abdullah died and his half-brother Salman ascended to the throne, appointing his young and untested son Mohammed Bin Salman (known as MBS) as defence minister. MBS then ordered his country's forces to intervene in Yemen's civil war, a move opposed by Dr al-Jabri who pointed out that there was no exit strategy. More than five years later Saudi Arabia is still looking for a way out of the costly stalemate in Yemen. In 2017 MBS carried out a bloodless palace coup with his father's blessing. He effectively usurped the next in line to the throne, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, becoming crown prince himself. Today that deposed prince is under arrest, his assets seized and those who worked for him have been removed from their posts. Dr al-Jabri fled into exile in Canada. But former Western intelligence officials believe MBS still sees him as a threat to his legitimacy. "He can't afford to have that guy as a free radical and a galvanising force against him," says one of them. His family say they have tried in vain to meet the Saudi authorities "on neutral ground" and have now decided to go public. "There are signs that Dr Saad is being targeted with a wide range of threats and the (Canadian) authorities are taking it seriously," says his son Khalid. "We were pushed into this," he adds. "We are patriots, we love our country, we don't want to embarrass Saudi Arabia but kidnapping Omar and Sarah like this, it's daylight thuggery by a state."

पूर्व पश्चिमी खुफिया अधिकारियों के अनुसार, एक वरिष्ठ सऊदी सुरक्षा अधिकारी, जो वर्षों से सऊदी अरब में ब्रिटेन की एम. आई. 6 और अन्य पश्चिमी जासूसी एजेंसियों के लिए महत्वपूर्ण था, अब अपने परिवार के साथ प्रताड़ित किया जा रहा है।