Crossing Divides: The bomb maker turned peacemaker

Summary: "I am an expert bomb maker. I can make bombs in just five minutes."

By Rebecca Henschke and Endang Nurdin BBC World Service Ali Fauzi was a key member of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group with links to al-Qaeda, which was responsible for Indonesia's worst attack - the 2002 Bali bombing that killed more than 200 people. "My brothers carried out the Bali bombing. It was huge bomb in the heart of the island's tourist district." The group went on to carry out a string of bombings in Indonesia. They were deadly attacks on major hotels and Western embassies. The seemingly sleepy village of Tenggulun in Lamongan, East Java was the group's base camp. Now Ali Fauzi's mission is very different. He works to help former jihadis leave a life of violence and to stop new recruits from joining the next wave of militant groups in South East Asia. "The reality is that it is much easier to recruit people to terrorist groups," he says. "They only have to pull a trigger and lots of people will join them but the process of deradicalisation takes time. It has to be done step by step." And his new mission has come at a high personal cost. "The threats against me are intense, it's not just verbal attacks but death threats. But, honestly, I am not scared because I know what I am doing is right. I am ready and prepared to die doing this." It was videos of foreign wars - in Afghanistan, Bosnia and the Palestinian Territories, watched on mobile phones from their quiet Javanese village - that motivated Ali Fauzi and his brothers to join militant groups. "We saw videos of the brutal attacks on civilians. I wanted to carry out jihad to protect the Muslim people from the bullies. With young, hot blood I wanted to fight back." While his brothers went to fight alongside the mujahideen, in Afghanistan, Ali Fauzi stayed closer to home, joining Islamic militants fighting for a Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines. "I really wanted to die there. I imagined my own death all the time," he says. "I believed that if I was killed in battle I would go straight to heaven and be met by angels there. That's what our mentors told us every day." When his brothers returned from Afghanistan, they put into practice what they had learnt abroad. In October 2002, they were among a group that detonated two bombs targeting nightclubs in the Kuta area of Bali, the island popular with international tourists. "I saw it on TV and I was shocked, there were so many dead bodies," says Ali Fauzi. "It led the authorities right to us." Two of his brothers, Ali Ghufron and Amrozi, were executed while his third, Ali Imron, is behind bars for life. Ali Fauzi, who insists he was not involved in the Bali bombing, spent three years in jail for other terror-related offences. That's when his life took on a dramatically new direction. "Police treated me very humanely. If they had tortured me then maybe seven generations after me would be fighting the Indonesian government," he says. "I hated the police, we thought of them as Satan. That's what we were taught. But the reality was completely different. That's when my whole perspective completely changed." He also met victims of bombings his group had carried out. "I cried. My heart melted, seeing the horrific effect our bombs had. That's what made me really want to change from an agent of war to become a warrior for peace." As the evening call to prayer rings out across the Tenggulun village, prayer mats are rolled out in a square at the side of the village's main mosque. They are just next to the office of Circle of Peace, the foundation Ali Fauzi set up in 2016 to divert people away from extremism. The prayer event tonight is led by two bomb victims, guests of honour in this village which was once the base camp for the militant groups that carried out the attacks that destroyed their lives. "I often bring victims to the community," Ali Fauzi says, "as meeting them was the thing that destroyed my ego." On the screen on the side of the stage a graphic video shows the aftermath of all the bombs in Indonesia. It's an extraordinary meeting. In the audience are police who arrested members of this community, as well as those who have served time in jail on terrorism offences. They are listening to the victims of the bombing talk, through tears, about the pain they have suffered. In the audience is 33-year-old Zulia Mahendra. He was a teenager when his father, Amrozi, was arrested, sentenced to death and then later executed for the Bali bombing. Amrozi was dubbed the "smiling assassin" by the media because he showed no remorse during the trial, grinning throughout and defiant to his death. Crossing divides A season of stories about bringing people together in a fragmented world. After the meeting, Mahendra greets the two bomb victims. They hug and hold hands, and he repeatedly says sorry. "I want to say sorry, not because I am wrong. But he was my father and these are the victims of my family's actions. I have a responsibility to say sorry, on behalf of my father." Mahendra, too, has gone through an astonishing transformation. "When my father was executed, I wanted revenge. I wanted to learn how to make bombs too," he admits. "But over time and with guidance from my uncles - Ali Fauzi and Ali Imron - they made me realise it was the wrong thing to do. And I joined their project to help other terrorists change." "How I became who I am today was a very, very long journey," says Mahendra. "But I came to a place where I understood that jihad is not killing people or fighting, it can mean working hard for your family." One night, Mahendra says, he looked tearfully at his sleeping child and thought about his father. "I didn't want my child to have to go through what I have. If I continued on my father's path, my child too would be abandoned. I knew that the right jihad was to look after them - to protect them." But he says he has friends who have joined splinter militant groups in Indonesia, loosely linked to the Islamic State (IS) group. "There are lots of reasons why a person goes in that direction - their economic situation, not having anything to do... what they are taught and who they are influenced by." Ali Fauzi knocks at the door of the Lamongan jail. This is a familiar place for him, having come here many times to meet family members serving time but also to work with new inmates to try and turn their life around. "My deradicalisation work is not based on theory. It's from life experience. I was a fighter and a terrorist, so I come into the cells as a friend." But he faces resistance and is viewed by some as a traitor for working with the police. "They say that I am even more of a kafir [unbeliever] than the police or jail guards. I regularly face online abuse and threatening phone calls. But it's okay. I can handle it," he says with a smile. "Out of the 98 people we have worked with since 2016, two have come out of jail and gone straight back to their militant ways." "Deradicalisation is not easy because you are dealing with people's emotions and way of thinking, you have to give them the right medicine. And sometimes we get it wrong." Sometimes they get it right. Sumarno, he says, is one of his success stories. He takes me to a dry field, at the side of the road outside the village. It was here that Sumarno says he hid weapons belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah, after the Bali bombing. After serving a three-year jail sentence, Ali Fauzi helped Sumarno set up a small business - a travel company offering pilgrimage packages to Mecca. "Now I want to give back to society," says Sumarno. "With this travel company, I hope that I can leave a life of violence behind me." Sitting in his smart air-conditioned office in Paciran, a 20-minute drive from the village, he says he was nervous at first about telling his clients about his violent past, even careful not to say which village he was from. But now he starts the tour with what he calls his story of redemption. "I say I am the cousin of Ali Gufron and Amrozi who were executed for carrying out the Bali bombings. I tell them: 'I was part of their group. But thanks be to Allah I have been healed from that rotten way of thinking. And I am your tour guide to Mecca.'" In a room at the side of the village mosque, an after-school club takes place. Children dressed in colourful clothes recite the Koran. Some of their parents are behind bars on terrorism charges. The teachers include Ali Fauzi's wife, Lulu, and Zumrottin Nisa, who is married to Ali Imron. "We stress to them that not everyone believes the same thing," says Lulu. "That there are people in our community who are non-Muslim and we have to treat them with respect as long as they don't try to interfere with our faith." But she says they haven't convinced everyone. "There are those for and against our new mission. Those that are still militant don't like us now. They stay away from us," she says. "We used to be one group with the same mission but we changed after the Bali bombing killed so many innocent people, many of them Muslims. There are others who haven't changed." In May last year, a family of suicide bombers attacked three churches in East Java. The father went after one, his teenage sons went after another, and his wife and two daughters, age 12 and nine, blew themselves up at the third. The attackers were part of the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) network, which is loosely linked to IS. JAD has carried out a series of lone wolf attacks against Indonesian security forces and religious minorities. The most recent was a knife attack, by a young couple, against the country's top security officer, Wiranto. In the Circle of Peace office, Lulu Fauzi says she is shocked women are taking such an active part. "My husband is working hard to make sure former terrorism inmates don't go back. He is bringing them together and he has been able to turn around many people. "But many people are still radical. We can never really wipe it out," she says. As we drive through the village, Ali Fauzi's phone is constantly ringing. He takes a call from someone who has recently been released, having served time on terrorism charges. The person needs help getting housing. Another call is from a mother whose son is being questioned by the police. "Dozens of people from our community went to fight with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq," he says. "Not long ago, a member of IS was detained by the police here. So militant groups still exist and they still threaten Indonesia." Now he's on the side of what he describes as a battle against extremism and intolerance. "If we work hard and involve the whole community, then I am still hopeful that we can win this war."

"मैं एक विशेषज्ञ बम निर्माता हूँ। मैं केवल पाँच मिनट में बम बना सकता हूँ।"


Wrexham Waterworld centre demolition plans scrapped

Summary: A plan that could have seen Wrexham's Waterworld leisure centre demolished and replaced with a new £12m facility has been scrapped by councillors.

Officials warned back in February that the proposals were no longer affordable. Instead, the council's board voted to keep the centre and hand over its running to a leisure trust. An earlier condition survey found the centre could be maintained in its present state up until 2035. However, the council has been warned that the facility would become "very tired" after 20 years. The leisure complex was opened by the Queen in 1998 after a major refurbishment of the the town's swimming baths.

एक योजना जिसे रेक्सम के वाटरवर्ल्ड अवकाश केंद्र को ध्वस्त करते हुए देखा जा सकता था और एक नई £12m सुविधा के साथ प्रतिस्थापित किया जा सकता था, पार्षदों द्वारा रद्द कर दिया गया है।


Has Birmingham recovered from the 2008 recession?

Summary: Birmingham's skyline once stood as a symbol of the 2008 recession with its tall cranes frozen in mid air and new buildings abandoned halfway up. Eight years on and the horizon is being transformed by gleaming glass skyscrapers standing proud. Birmingham appears to have risen out of the recession but has the city recovered?

Dr Steve McCabe, economist at Birmingham City University, said signs of recovery could be measured by wages, unemployment and the Gross Value Added (GVA). The median annual gross pay for Birmingham's full time workers is currently £28,504, which is higher than the £27,872 median across England, according to the Office for National statistics. The percentage of the city's 16 to 65-year-olds claiming job seekers allowance was 5.8% in 2008 and rose to 7.5% in 2012. It is now down to 3.3% - but this is more than double the percentage for England at 1.2% according to ONS figures out this week. The GVA gives a value for the amount of goods and services produced, less the cost of all inputs and raw materials. Birmingham's Real GVA for 2009 was £21,117 per head, it dropped to £20,594 in 2012 and the provisional figure for 2014 was £21,093. So it is not quite back up to its former productivity. Birmingham falls behind Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham in terms of latest GVA figures. But it is ahead of Tyneside and Sheffield. "Birmingham is recovering but more slowly than, for example, Manchester," said Mr McCabe. Figures aside, Mr McCabe thinks Birmingham is suffering from an identity crisis following the recession. "As a city that is trying to develop itself as a place of post-industrialism, Birmingham has image problems and, perhaps lacks the assertiveness of other UK cities." But Paul Bunce, commercial manager at hotel and meeting centre Conference Aston, believes Birmingham's image has never been better. "People are finally seeing Birmingham as a destination for business. "The amount of organisations using Birmingham as a meeting place is the highest I've seen it in 10 years. "Thanks to developments like Grand Central shopping centre people are extending their stays to go shopping and sight seeing." What has changed in Birmingham? Opus restaurant owner Ann Tonks said her businesses were "a really interesting bellwether for what's going on in the city." "We had a real leap in 2014 - I'm talking double figures in the number of people coming through the doors and private dining bookings for months in advance. "In the last four or five years in the Colmore business district the scene has exploded. "The number of independent operations we have shows things are booming. "The more successful Birmingham is the more competition there is." But Birmingham's "success" has not been without its problems. An extension to the Midland Metro tram network through the city was delayed by several weeks, with technical issues with underground cabling being blamed. It was also revealed the network has not made a profit since it was opened in 1999, in fact it has lost £34m since. Bosses are hopeful the planned extensions to Edgbaston and Centenary Square will bring in nine million passengers per year by 2026. It is currently used by about five million. And, less than two years after its opening, hours at the Library of Birmingham were cut by nearly half to save money. Analysis by Peter Plisner, Business Correspondent, BBC Midlands Today Birmingham has gone from being that place you moved to if you had to - to the first choice for people leaving London for a better way of life. It's an amazing turnaround and it's something that the city has had to work hard to achieve. Several landmark projects have boosted Birmingham's fortunes, including the Bullring shopping centre more than a decade ago and more recently the revamp of New Street station. Proof that both have made a big different can easily be seen with the regeneration that's happened since they were first talked about. Once derelict sites close to the city centre have either been developed or are now prime development sites. Now with trams passing through the city's streets too, Birmingham's rise from recession really has turned into a major achievement. Drab to fab in less than a decade! Steve Brittan was president of the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce in 2012/2013. He said: "Birmingham was in a mess then as the whole country was after the recession. The chamber wasn't on a good footing. We were haemorrhaging members and subsequently money. "Then the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP came along and we established a very good relationship with Birmingham City Council to promote the city as the go to place for business. "Since then Birmingham and the chamber have completely turned around." Paul Faulkner, chief executive of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, said: "This is truly a period of renaissance for Greater Birmingham. "As well as all of the amazing regeneration work being undertaken, we have the exciting prospect of further powers being devolved from Whitehall. "And the region is unifying from the Black Country to Coventry and Warwickshire with the creation of the West Midlands Combined Authority. "With the government re-affirming its commitment to HS2 and further devolved powers for the region, there cannot be a more optimistic and promising era for this region." Mr McCabe said: "Birmingham has the youngest population of any city in Europe so what it really needs to be doing is creating jobs faster than we are losing them. "The way Birmingham looks, the environment has improved. It has got over the recession. But I still think the wounds are not too far beneath the surface." We asked you to choose from three of Your Questions and this was the most popular. Matthew Morris asked: "What has changed in Birmingham since 2008? Has the city recovered from the recession?"

बर्मिंघम की क्षितिज रेखा कभी 2008 की मंदी के प्रतीक के रूप में खड़ी थी, जिसमें इसकी लंबी क्रेन हवा के बीच में जम गई थीं और नई इमारतें आधे रास्ते पर छोड़ दी गई थीं। आठ साल बाद और क्षितिज को चमकती कांच की गगनचुंबी इमारतों द्वारा बदल दिया जा रहा है जो गर्व से खड़े हैं। बर्मिंघम ऐसा लगता है कि मंदी से बाहर निकल गया है लेकिन क्या शहर ठीक हो गया है?


Deadly train accident in Indian state of Tamil Nadu

Summary: Eleven coaches of a passenger train have gone off the rails in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, killing at least one person, officials said.

At least 21 people were injured when the Yashwantpur-Muzaffarpur express derailed on Wednesday morning. The cause of the accident is not known. It took place near Arakkonam, 40km (25 miles) from the state capital, Chennai. Accidents are common on Indian railways, an immense network connecting every corner of the country. The state-owned railway service operates 9,000 passenger trains and carries some 18 million passengers every day. Last year, railway officials said train accidents in India had killed 1,220 people over the past five years.

दक्षिणी भारतीय राज्य तमिलनाडु में एक यात्री ट्रेन के ग्यारह डिब्बे पटरी से उतर गए हैं, जिसमें कम से कम एक व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है।


Parasite: Will Gompertz reviews the best picture Oscar winner ★★★★☆

Summary: You don't get many movies like Parasite, nowadays.

Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter In a celluloid landscape dominated by comic-book blockbusters, re-booted franchises, and opulent Netflix Originals, small-scale domestic social satires about class and inequality are a rarity. That's because the modern movie mogul thinks films like Parasite don't belong on the silver screen. They're better suited to the home cinema and one of those massive, incongruous TVs that make it look as if someone's parked the family SUV in the front room. Meanwhile, the modern television mogul thinks films like Parasite should be stretched out beyond two hours into an Emmy-winning 10-season box set. And so, in the end, movies like Parasite don't get made at all. And that's why they are a rarity. It's also why critics take to films like Parasite with all the fervour of my wife knocking back a double gin after Dry January. Dulled senses tingle once more, an idling brain sparks; you succumb to the old-fashioned power of story-telling. There are no car chases in Parasite, nor are there any CGI intergalactic battles. Instead, director Bong Joon Ho transports you into the seemingly mundane lives of two Korean families who, through happenstance, become ever more entwined. In the unwritten rules of social engagement, as decreed by the pitiless market economics of capitalism, they should never cross paths. One family lives in poverty in a squalid subterranean flat at the wrong end of the wrong end of town. The other lot enjoy the life of Riley in their architect-designed modernist mansion, the sort of glass and concrete statement property that attracts new money like an auction of really bad contemporary art. Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang Ho) is the patriarch of the have-not household. He can look back on a 20-year business career notable for its remarkable consistency: whatever he runs always goes bust. His wife, Chung-sook (Chang Hyae Jin), is a former hammer-throwing track and field national medallist, who can still crush you with a look, but is otherwise unemployed like her husband. As is their arty daughter Ki-jung (Park So Dam) and her geeky younger brother Ki-woo (Choi Woo Shik). Both kids flunked their university entrance exams. This is a family who really didn't expect much from life, but even that turned out to be a pipe dream. To make matters worse, a local drunk has identified their basement window as his go-to alfresco urinal. Meanwhile, over on easy street, the freshly minted, slightly younger Park family are having a lovely time. Mr Park (Lee Sun Kyun) is as good at business as Ki-Taek is bad. His IT firm hasn't gone bust, it's gone global! The money is coming in faster than a Bondi Beach surfer pursued by a shark. His beautiful wife (Cho Yeo Jeong) flits in and out of their beautiful house while their two beautiful kids are looked after by a loyal housekeeper (Lee Jung Eun) in a beautifully ironed uniform. And there you have it, a picture of polarisation, where two families of the same size, living in the same city, are worlds apart. Until, that is, a friend of Ki-Woo's pops over to his dingy dwelling and suggests he take over his holiday job tutoring the Park's spoilt teenage daughter. Ki-Woo thinks it highly unlikely he'd get the gig. But then, he hadn't taken into account Mrs Park's naivety, his mother's eye for the main chance, and the possibility of repurposing his sister's artistic talents as a manufacturer of fake degree certificates. Before he knows it, Ki-woo is upstairs in the eerily spotless big house going beyond his strict academic brief with the stroppy daughter Da-hye (Jung Ziso), while his crafty sister, who has also inveigled her way into this nouveau-rich sanctum, teaches art to the Park's hyper-active son in the kitchen. I will say no more about the plot, other than it thickens in ways you can't imagine but are always believable. It is no surprise that director Bong Joon Ho has been lauded and awarded for Parasite. His script draws you into this darkest of comedies so completely you start to smell Ki-Taek's stale onion-scented sweat. This is not your average social drama film. It goes further than the likes of Revolutionary Road or Shoplifters, moving into the realms of a thriller, and at times, touching on the sensibilities of a zombie flick. It's weird and potent and well directed. The camera is frequently allowed to linger to the point of awkwardness, challenging the characters to maintain their composure as the tangled web of deceit starts to fray at the seams. It is a distinctly Korean film, but the themes and characters are universal and timeless. Dickens knew them, as did Shakespeare. And so do you. The movie's title conveys the humiliation endured by the poor forced to live off the wealthy, for whom the word parasite is equally applicable. It is also questioning the political, economic and commercial philosophies upon which we build our lives. For the most part, the film does this with incisiveness and intelligence. Bong Joon Ho does not judge his characters, there is no pity or resentment - this isn't a Korean Downton Abbey, playing on established rules of a class system. It is a reflection on how people act and react, are seen and not seen, depending on their financial status. It asks us what we would do if desperate. You'd probably leach off someone else's internet connection. But would you fumigate your kitchen by opening the basement window when a lorry passed by spraying insect-killer? Probably not, but then you might not share Ki-Taek's enterprising spirit. Parasite is a beautifully shot, sympathetically told, intimate social drama, which is paced to perfection until the end when what was a subtle, nuanced work of art lurches into the melodramatic, like a bloke who has been told he smells of old radishes once too often. Maybe that is because Bong Joon Ho refuses to play by the rules, and the clashing of genres is an echo of his two families brought together from opposite ends of the social spectrum, each accentuating the reality of the other. Read more about this topic Recent reviews by Will Gompertz Follow Will Gompertz on Twitter

आजकल आपको पैरासाइट जैसी बहुत सी फिल्में नहीं मिलती हैं।


The issue of depicting the Prophet Muhammad

Summary: French magazine Charlie Hebdo has published a new cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in its first issue since 12 people were killed during an attack on its offices in Paris by Islamist extremists who said they were "avenging the Prophet" after similar cartoons had appeared in the satirical publication.

The new cover depicts the Prophet Muhammad shedding a tear and holding up a sign saying "Je suis Charlie", the message of solidarity with the victims. Above the cartoon are the words "All is forgiven". The move has drawn criticism from Muslim leaders and generated fresh death threats against staff members, recalling those received by a Danish newspaper in 2005 after it published cartoons satirising Muhammad. Why might such depictions cause offence? What does the Koran, the holy book of Islam, say? There is no specific, or explicit ban in the Koran on images of Allah or the Prophet Muhammad - be they carved, painted or drawn. However, chapter 42, verse 11 of the Koran does say: "[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth... [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him." This is taken by Muslims to mean that Allah cannot be captured in an image by human hand, such is his beauty and grandeur. To attempt such a thing is seen as an insult to Allah. The same is believed to apply to Muhammad. Chapter 21, verses 52-54 of the Koran read: "[Abraham] said to his father and his people: 'What are these images to whose worship you cleave?' They said: 'We found our fathers worshipping them.' He said: 'Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error.'" From this arises the Muslim belief that images can give rise to idolatry - that is to say an image, rather than the divine being it symbolises, can become the object of worship and veneration. What does Islamic tradition say on the matter? Islamic tradition or Hadith, the stories of the words and actions of Muhammad and his Companions, explicitly prohibits images of Allah, Muhammad and all the major prophets of the Christian and Jewish traditions. More widely, Islamic tradition has discouraged the figurative depiction of living creatures, especially human beings. Islamic art has therefore tended to be abstract or decorative. Shia Islamic tradition is far less strict on this ban. Reproductions of images of the Prophet, mainly produced in the 7th Century in Persian, can be found. What sparked the row over cartoons published in Europe? There were widespread protests across the Muslim world in 2005 after the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons showing Muhammad to accompany an editorial criticising self-censorship. Some of the cartoons seemed to be deliberately provocative. One notably showed Muhammad carrying a lit bomb on his head decorated with the Muslim declaration of faith instead of a turban. Many Muslims found the cartoons insulting an expression of a growing European hostility towards and fear of Muslims. The portrayal of the Prophet and Muslims in general as terrorists was seen as particularly offensive. In 2011, Charlie Hebdo's office was firebombed after it temporarily renamed itself "Charia Hebdo" - a play on "Sharia", or Islamic law - for an issue and invited the Prophet Muhammad to be "editor in chief". The next year, the magazine published an issue featuring several cartoons that appeared to depict Muhammad naked, amid a global uproar over the release of an anti-Islam film.

फ्रांसीसी पत्रिका चार्ली हेब्दो ने अपने पहले अंक में पैगंबर मुहम्मद का एक नया कार्टून प्रकाशित किया है, जब इस्लामी चरमपंथियों द्वारा पेरिस में उनके कार्यालयों पर हमले के दौरान 12 लोग मारे गए थे, जिन्होंने कहा था कि वे व्यंग्यात्मक प्रकाशन में इसी तरह के कार्टून दिखाई देने के बाद "पैगंबर का बदला ले रहे थे"।


The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon's 'treason'

Summary: Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls provide a fresh insight into his world. Among the revelations - he planned a dramatic entry into the 1968 Democratic Convention to re-join the presidential race. And he caught Richard Nixon sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks... but said nothing.

By David TaylorArchive On 4 After the Watergate scandal taught Richard Nixon the consequences of recording White House conversations none of his successors has dared to do it. But Nixon wasn't the first. He got the idea from his predecessor Lyndon Johnson, who felt there was an obligation to allow historians to eventually eavesdrop on his presidency. "They will provide history with the bark off," Johnson told his wife, Lady Bird. The final batch of tapes released by the LBJ library covers 1968, and allows us to hear Johnson's private conversations as his Democratic Party tore itself apart over the question of Vietnam. The 1968 convention, held in Chicago, was a complete shambles. Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters clashed with Mayor Richard Daley's police, determined to force the party to reject Johnson's Vietnam war strategy. As they taunted the police with cries of "The whole world is watching!" one man in particular was watching very closely. Lyndon Baines Johnson was at his ranch in Texas, having announced five months earlier that he wouldn't seek a second term. The president was appalled at the violence and although many of his staff sided with the students, and told the president the police were responsible for "disgusting abuse of police power," Johnson picked up the phone, ordered the dictabelt machine to start recording and congratulated Mayor Daley for his handling of the protest. The president feared the convention delegates were about to reject his war policy and his chosen successor, Hubert Humphrey. So he placed a series of calls to his staff at the convention to outline an astonishing plan. He planned to leave Texas and fly into Chicago. He would then enter the convention and announce he was putting his name forward as a candidate for a second term. It would have transformed the 1968 election. His advisers were sworn to secrecy and even Lady Bird did not know what her husband was considering. On the White House tapes we learn that Johnson wanted to know from Daley how many delegates would support his candidacy. LBJ only wanted to get back into the race if Daley could guarantee the party would fall in line behind him. They also discussed whether the president's helicopter, Marine One, could land on top of the Hilton Hotel to avoid the anti-war protesters. Daley assured him enough delegates would support his nomination but the plan was shelved after the Secret Service warned the president they could not guarantee his safety. The idea that Johnson might have been the candidate, and not Hubert Humphrey, is just one of the many secrets contained on the White House tapes. They also shed light on a scandal that, if it had been known at the time, would have sunk the candidacy of Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon. By the time of the election in November 1968, LBJ had evidence Nixon had sabotaged the Vietnam war peace talks - or, as he put it, that Nixon was guilty of treason and had "blood on his hands". The BBC's former Washington correspondent Charles Wheeler learned of this in 1994 and conducted a series of interviews with key Johnson staff, such as defence secretary Clark Clifford, and national security adviser Walt Rostow. But by the time the tapes were declassified in 2008 all the main protagonists had died, including Wheeler. Now, for the first time, the whole story can be told. It begins in the summer of 1968. Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign. He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser. At a July meeting in Nixon's New York apartment, the South Vietnamese ambassador was told Chennault represented Nixon and spoke for the campaign. If any message needed to be passed to the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, it would come via Chennault. In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris - concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared. Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal. So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing, Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out. He was also told why. The FBI had bugged the ambassador's phone and a transcripts of Anna Chennault's calls were sent to the White House. In one conversation she tells the ambassador to "just hang on through election". Johnson was told by Defence Secretary Clifford that the interference was illegal and threatened the chance for peace. In a series of remarkable White House recordings we can hear Johnson's reaction to the news. In one call to Senator Richard Russell he says: "We have found that our friend, the Republican nominee, our California friend, has been playing on the outskirts with our enemies and our friends both, he has been doing it through rather subterranean sources. Mrs Chennault is warning the South Vietnamese not to get pulled into this Johnson move." He orders the Nixon campaign to be placed under FBI surveillance and demands to know if Nixon is personally involved. When he became convinced it was being orchestrated by the Republican candidate, the president called Senator Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader in the Senate to get a message to Nixon. The president knew what was going on, Nixon should back off and the subterfuge amounted to treason. Publicly Nixon was suggesting he had no idea why the South Vietnamese withdrew from the talks. He even offered to travel to Saigon to get them back to the negotiating table. Johnson felt it was the ultimate expression of political hypocrisy but in calls recorded with Clifford they express the fear that going public would require revealing the FBI were bugging the ambassador's phone and the National Security Agency (NSA) was intercepting his communications with Saigon. So they decided to say nothing. The president did let Humphrey know and gave him enough information to sink his opponent. But by then, a few days from the election, Humphrey had been told he had closed the gap with Nixon and would win the presidency. So Humphrey decided it would be too disruptive to the country to accuse the Republicans of treason, if the Democrats were going to win anyway. Nixon ended his campaign by suggesting the administration war policy was in shambles. They couldn't even get the South Vietnamese to the negotiating table. He won by less than 1% of the popular vote. Once in office he escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives - quite apart from the lives of the Laotians, Cambodians and Vietnamese caught up in the new offensives - before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968. The White House tapes, combined with Wheeler's interviews with key White House personnel, provide an unprecedented insight into how Johnson handled a series of crises that rocked his presidency. Sadly, we will never have that sort of insight again. Listen to the Archive On 4 programme: Wheeler: The Final Word, on BBC Radio 4 at 20.00 GMT on Saturday or for seven days afterwards on the BBC iPlayer.

राष्ट्रपति लिंडन जॉनसन के टेलीफोन कॉल के अवर्गीकृत टेप उनकी दुनिया में एक नई अंतर्दृष्टि प्रदान करते हैं। खुलासे के बीच-उन्होंने राष्ट्रपति पद की दौड़ में फिर से शामिल होने के लिए 1968 के डेमोक्रेटिक कन्वेंशन में एक नाटकीय प्रवेश की योजना बनाई। और उन्होंने रिचर्ड निक्सन को वियतनाम शांति वार्ता में तोड़फोड़ करते हुए पकड़ा... लेकिन कुछ नहीं कहा।


The end of the stiff upper lip?

Summary: Unblinking fortitude in the face of adversity and hardship - or the suppression of boiling emotion - is referred to in the UK as stiff upper lip. But is this really a distinctively British characteristic and is it still firmly in place, asks Ian Hislop.

There was a moment when I stood in the pouring rain watching the Royal Flotilla during the Diamond Jubilee when I thought I might be on to something. After five hours getting completely soaked, the people next to me were still happily pointing out the little boats that had been to Dunkirk or the motor boat that had taken part in the Normandy landings or leading a huge cheer for a barge containing an Indian band in kilts playing the bagpipes. The weather in Britain does tend to bring out a sort of mad, masochistic defiance in people. But on this occasion I thought that everyone, from the elderly Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, who refused to sit down, to the massed choirs who belted out their anthems with dripping hair and running mascara, to the crowds with their umbrellas and thermos flasks of tea, was taking part in a grand pageant of stoicism. The fact that it resulted in the duke being hospitalised and various boat crews being treated for hypothermia only seemed to add to its appeal. I enjoyed the whole thing greatly even though I was aware of the fact that it was slightly bonkers. Over centuries, the British have come to be seen by others and to see themselves in terms of reserve, resilience and restraint. But this has not always been the case. When the Dutch scholar Erasmus came to London at the turn of the 16th Century he wrote home in amazement, describing how the English spend the whole time kissing each other. "Wherever you move there is nothing but kisses," he noted. Italian visitors in the Elizabethan period remarked upon how emotional everyone was and how we lacked self control. And it was the French who had words like "sang-froid" and "insouciance" to describe qualities that the British did not yet appear to possess. In the 18th Century the word "sentimental" was not pejorative in this country. It was a term of praise for a person of taste and refinement who displayed their emotions openly. The nation which would become known for its ability to "keep calm and carry on" had yet to appear. The evolution of the stiff upper lip is unexpectedly complex - emerging out of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars as a reaction to what Britain's rulers felt was a dangerous unleashing of unrestrained passion on the continent. Taking the lead from the prototypical Duke of Wellington, this model of stoic self-control was then rolled out from top to bottom of society. It then flourished in the imperial heyday with a parade of unflappable Victorian soldiers, explorers, and administrators who were supported by an equally tough cast of long-suffering women and doughty memsahibs. The story turns tragic in World War I as a whole uncomplaining generation seemed to walk straight into the enemy guns before struggling on for four hellish years. In the aftermath of the carnage it seemed as though the stiff upper lip was finished for good. But it was consciously revived in the Great Depression as a unifying national identity and then reinvented with a smile in the legendary cheery spirit of the Blitz. After WWII came austerity but the arrival of prosperity in the 1950s, and then the rapid social change of the 1960s, left the stiff upper lip looking old-fashioned and even more so when the "me generation" embraced therapy and "letting it all hang out". The nadir came in the events surrounding the death of Diana when the entire nation seemed to decide that dated notions of reserve, decorum and restraint were to be abandoned in favour of emotional release. The writer and historian AN Wilson says "the greatest factors in the development of the stiff upper lip were English public schools and Scottish Presbyterianism". That more or less covers my education and background. Having sat through Latin lessons studying Aeneas as a model of stoical leadership, and having a grandfather who was a member of Glasgow Boys Brigade, fought in Flanders, and was a stern lay-preacher, you could argue that I am no great expert on emotional literacy. But one can analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the stiff upper lip by examining sources as varied as the novel Robinson Crusoe and the Battle of Britain sketches in Beyond the Fringe. Everything from Victorian newspaper parodies about over-emotional policemen to the reaction to the first sexually explicit British edition of Cosmopolitan magazine can provide evidence. So can the HG Wells film Things to Come about futuristic air raids, and the classic British Character cartoons of Pont between the wars. The story of the stiff upper lip is a remarkable one. It may not be over. Here is a selection of readers' examples of the stiff upper lip.

इयान हिस्लॉप पूछते हैं कि प्रतिकूलता और कठिनाई का सामना करते हुए-या उबलती भावना के दमन-को यू. के. में कठोर ऊपरी होंठ के रूप में संदर्भित किया जाता है। लेकिन क्या यह वास्तव में एक विशिष्ट ब्रिटिश विशेषता है और क्या यह अभी भी दृढ़ता से अपनी जगह पर है।


The man who migrated twice

Summary: This is the story of the man who migrated twice.

By Matthew PriceChief correspondent, BBC Radio 4 Today Who dodged the police along the Italian border with France - twice. Avoided officials on the train to Paris - twice. Made it to the shanty town life in Calais - twice. Risked death as he stowed away on a vehicle to Britain - twice. Now he waits for the British asylum process to decide whether he can stay. Yes, again, for a second time. It is a story of the determination to make it to safety - wherever that is perceived to exist - and of why Europe's migration crisis is only deepening. First the man himself. Let's call him Adam, because he doesn't want me to use his real name, and because it's a popular name in Darfur, Sudan, from where he comes. He calls himself a "village man". But today, in a smart well-ironed shirt, Adam looks at home here in the UK, although the UK has become anything but home for him. Adam left Darfur in 2012, made his way to Libya, and spent some years there. But as that country crumbled, he felt propelled onwards, to Europe. He followed the route so many take. Sicily to Ventimiglia in northern Italy, on to Paris, then Calais and then finally Britain. Only it was not finally. He was detained by the authorities, put into indefinite detention for four months, then released. He was then arrested again, detained this time for two months before it was decided that he should be sent back to Italy because there was a record (his fingerprints) that he had first arrived there. "They put me in handcuffs," Adam says. Four officers accompanied him back to Milan and left him there. Surviving the deadliest migration route from Libya to Italy EU to curb rubber boat sales to Libya Migrant crisis: Italy threatens to shut ports 'Hipster right’ group trying to stop rescue ships "I stayed 10 days in Milan, on the streets." That was when he decided to go back, first to Ventimiglia, and this time round it was harder. He says: "The first time I was lucky. I just took the train from Ventimiglia to Paris." But this second time was another year into Europe's migration crisis and the border was being monitored more effectively. "I tried maybe two or three times to get to Marseille, but they sent me back again." Finally he stepped on to the railway tracks and started walking. "I just walked from Ventimiglia to Cannes for like eight hours." From there to Paris again and on to Calais. It was more difficult there too. The previous year "it was better. But this time was more difficult because many people (had) come and many police officers (were there) to stop people". He tried "for like 15 days, 20 days", until he managed to crawl into a space underneath a bus. "And I found myself in UK the second time." One month and one day after he had been deported from Britain, he was back. But this is not the end of Adam's story. Determination, desperation, there's no one word that encapsulates fully what you find today along the trail that Adam knows so well. His analysis, that it's getting harder to cross borders, is echoed by others and this is why. Italy has become the go-to country for those seeking to come across the Mediterranean. The Turkey-Greece route is all but shut down following an agreement between the EU and Ankara. This year, more than 93,000 migrants have arrived in Italy according to the United Nations. An EU-wide relocation scheme that should have taken the pressure off Italy has moved fewer than 8,000 since it launched almost two years ago. Rome is trying to do deals with Libya to stop the boats launching in the first place - but there's no central figure of authority in that war zone. They want other countries to open ports in the Mediterranean to migrant and rescue boats - France and others have said no. So Rome has dispersed its migrants across the country. There is growing resentment in towns and villages where people suddenly find themselves hosting others who don't speak their language. As one man in the north of Italy put it: "I'm not against immigration, but I'm against it when it's handled like this." The asylum process is stretched to breaking point. Shelters can't accommodate everyone. In Trento, towards the Austrian border, four men, from Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria, told how they have waited almost three years in limbo - unable to work - not knowing if their final appeal will grant them the right to remain or not. "If I'd stayed here six months and they told me 'we are sending you back to Ghana' (then) there is no crying," says Ibrahim Mohammed. But after three years? "How can you tell me to go back?" The likelihood is they will not be deported, even if their asylum appeals fail. Few are actually sent back. Instead they are stuck, unable to work, or provide for themselves. All this - and the poor state of the Italian jobs market - explains why so many decide to move on from Italy. And with numbers growing, that is why Austria to the north and France to the west have both put in more frequent border checks. The people they are trying to stop gather every morning for a small free breakfast at a refuge in the Italian border town Ventimiglia. Among them on one day recently were Nasser and his two-year-old son Aladin from Sudan. Aladin - still in nappies - is ill and they desperately need a doctor. "I've tried twice in the last week," said Nasser. "My sister is in France waiting for us. The police sent us back." On the small winding roads through the hills to France, the police check vehicles for stowaways before you can cross the border. They have set up camp in the olive groves up on the hillsides to keep watch for those trying to get across. Occasionally a patrolling helicopter passes overhead. For France too is "overwhelmed" - that's the word the new president uses - and is trying to stop people coming on to its territory. In the capital a week ago, they moved thousands off the streets around a metro station into shelters, but now another thousand are back on the streets, according to the deputy mayor, Patrick Klugman. "What's going now today, this week, this summer, we need urgent measures. We cannot handle it by ourselves in Paris." The French prime minister last week announced a series of new measures - cutting the time it takes to process asylum claims, "systematically" deporting so-called economic migrants and building more shelters to house refugees in the next two years. However, Mr Klugman says it is not enough. Only a tiny number of the hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers in Europe follow Adam for the whole of his journey and cross from Calais to the UK. We don't know how many of them do it twice. As for Adam, there is no happy ending to his story. It has been around a year since he had his last interview in his new asylum process. Since then he has been in limbo, not knowing whether he will be deported again, or this time be allowed to stay. He has a room to stay in - paid for by the government - and £75 a week to live off. He is not allowed to work. And he says it feels as if he is still on his journey, heading where he does not yet know. "I have nothing to do. Just eat, sleep, nothing. Wait, wait and nothing changes." "Sometimes you feel it's not a life. It's better to pass away."

यह उस व्यक्ति की कहानी है जो दो बार देश छोड़कर चला गया था।


Who owns Scotland? The changing face of Scotland's landowners

Summary: For centuries, the Scottish countryside has been dominated by the image of tweed-clad lairds and their wealthy friends hunting, shooting and fishing on sprawling, heather-covered estates.

By Andrew Picken & Stuart NicolsonBBC Scotland News The entitlement and privilege that built this way of life survived almost intact for more than 500 years, with Scotland said to have the most unequal land ownership in the western world. More recently, a new breed of owner has emerged alongside attempts by the Scottish government to modernise the rules. But campaigners argue that the reforms have not gone far enough, and that the concentration of land in so few hands is still leading to abuses of power. This article was inspired by questions sent in by readers of the BBC website. So who owns what in Scotland? Unfortunately, this is a tough one to answer. The basic problem is that it's not as easy as it could - and many would argue should - be to find out who owns which piece of land in Scotland. A Scottish government project which aims to map who owns every part of the country by 2024 was launched five years ago, but has so far only managed to register about a third of the country's total land mass. The government believes 57% of rural land is in private hands, with about 12.5% owned by public bodies, 3% under community ownership and about 2.5% is owned by charities and other third sector organisations. The remainder is thought to be owned by smaller estates and farms which are not recorded in those figures. The Green MSP and land reform campaigner Andy Wightman reckons that half of the country's rural land is owned by only 432 landowners - a picture that has remained largely unchanged in recent decades. This is a problem, according to a report by the Scottish Land Commission, because having so much land in so few hands can lead to abuses of power. But the landowners are pushing back, fed up with what they describe as outdated stereotypes of their businesses. The Duke, the Sheikh and the Danish billionaire The continued dominance of the private estates in rural Scotland can't be underestimated, and they often remain in the hands of the same families for generations - an average of 122 years, according to the Scottish Land Fund. Grouse shooting, deer stalking and other country sports are said to be worth £350m to the country's economy. The most prominent of the more traditional big landowners is the Duke of Buccleuch, who has moved to slim down his holdings in recent years but still owns about 200,000 acres, much of it in the south of Scotland. However, the Duke was recently overtaken as the country's biggest private landowner by the billionaire Danish clothing tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen, who represents a newer generation of Highland laird. Mr Povlsen is said to have fallen in love with the Highlands during a childhood fishing trip, and now owns about 220,000 acres spread across 12 estates in Sutherland and the Grampian mountains. He recently thanked the people of Scotland for their support after three of his children died in April's attacks in Sri Lanka, and said the Highlands had given his family "special memories" over the years. The billionaire ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, has also been busy snapping up about 63,000 acres of Scotland's countryside, and plans to build a plush new nine-bedroom lodge at Inverinate in Wester Ross. The site already boasts a triple helipad and a 16-bed luxury hunting lodge - but the latest proposals have drawn objections from locals. But the biggest landowner is... Us. Or, to be more exact, the government agencies and other public bodies who manage huge areas of land on behalf of the nation. By far the biggest of these is Forestry and Land Scotland, which was known until very recently as Forest Enterprise Scotland. It manages more than a million acres of public forest that is said to generate about £395m for the economy every year, largely through timber and tourism. Elsewhere, about half of the Scottish coastal foreshore is held as part of the Crown Estate, while Scottish Natural Heritage owns a string of nature reserves across the country, such as Tentsmuir in Fife. The National Trust for Scotland owns about 180,000 acres of land alongside the 130 properties it manages, and the MoD also still owns large swathes of countryside - such as the 25,000 acres of moorland at Cape Wrath in the north west of Scotland - which is primarily used for military training exercises. Scotland's 32 local councils own about 81,000 acres between them, while conservation charity the John Muir Trust owns 60,000 acres, including the Ben Nevis Estate, and RSPB Scotland owns 125,858 acres of land for its network of reserves across the country. One of the more surprising names on the list of the country's biggest landowners is the Church of England - which bought up about 32,000 acres of Scottish forestry in 2014 as part of a massive expansion of its investment portfolio. What about absentee landlords? Historically many parts of rural Scotland, such as the Isle of Eigg, have suffered from issues with absentee landowners - people who own a piece of land but do not live on it, and who potentially do not pay as much attention to it as they might. But despite the amount of publicity given to the likes of Mr Povlsen and Sheikh Mohammed, the number of landowners who don't actually live in Scotland is not as big as you might imagine. Registers of Scotland (RoS) says that just 6% of the titles it has recorded (104,257) are registered with an owner who has an address outside Scotland. The vast majority of these were to people living in other parts of the UK, while about 24,117 are registered to overseas addresses. However, research by Mr Wightman suggests that 750,000 acres of the country is owned in overseas tax havens, while separate RoS data suggests property in Scotland worth £2.9bn is owned by offshore companies. Owning Scottish property through offshore companies is not illegal, but it does mean the landowners duck out of paying the likes of inheritance duties and capital gains tax - which are used to fund public services such as the NHS. How big of a problem is all of this? In a report published earlier this year, the Scottish Land Commission called for a radical reform of the country's land ownership rules, and warned that having so much land in so few hands was causing "significant and long-term damage" to some rural communities. The commission, which was set up by the Scottish government, argued that the "land monopoly" that exists in many areas gives landowners far too much power over things like land use, economic development and housing. And it said there was an "urgent need" for measures to be put in place to protect fragile communities, including tenant farmers, from the "irresponsible exercise of power". It did not single anyone out for criticism, and stressed that the problems were not confined to private landlords - with public bodies also causing issues in some areas. The commission also said owners in many areas had a positive impact on the local community and economy, and highlighted how some were actively increasing the diversity of ownership by selling off some of their land. But Sarah-Jane Laing, chief executive of Scottish Land and Estates (SLE) - which represents landowners - is worried that the land commission "still sees land ownership rather than land use as the prime route to dealing with issues being faced by communities". Ms Laing says several SLE members, including Dalkeith Country Park near Edinburgh, have diversified into areas such as tourism and renewable energy. The SLE also points out that Scotland's three new towns, such as Tornagrain in the Highlands, are being developed by rural landowners, and that private estates support about 8,000 jobs nationwide. What is being done about it? There have been some fairly big changes to land laws in recent years, largely aimed at making it easier for local communities to purchase the land they live on. Among the most high-profile of these community buyouts have been on the Isle of Eigg and on the South Uist Estate, which includes the islands of Benbecula and Eriskay. The latter of these saw 3,500 islanders join forces to raise the £4.5m it took to buy the estate's 93,000 acres and 850 crofts from absentee landlords in 2006. Since then, residents have built three huge wind turbines - named Wendy, Fanny and Blowy - which have helped to boost the economy of the islands. Alex Salmond, the then-first minister, set a target in 2013 of one million acres of Scotland being owned by local communities by the end of 2020. The latest available figures show there are now 562,230 acres in community ownership across the country - including a Cold War surveillance station on the Isle of Lewis and a former church in Edinburgh. Ministers are also considering the recommendations of the Scottish Land Commission, which include a public interest test for significant land transfers. Further reforms seem highly likely, with government ministers consistently stressing that land reform is on a "radical journey". Ian Cooke, director of Development Trusts Association Scotland, which helps community groups secure land, said: "For a range of reasons, I don't think many people thought this was a realistic target when Alex Salmond announced it, but it has usefully focused minds and driven activity towards more community ownership." Mr Cooke points out "community ownership is a means to an end, rather than an end itself" and predicted a bigger role for local people in the lands around them in the future. Do you have any other questions around land ownership - or any other topic - in Scotland that you'd like us to investigate? Use the tool below and we could be in touch. Your contact info Please don't publish my name I am over 16 years old I accept the Terms of Service The BBC retains the right to select from these contributions based on editorial requirements and subject to online terms and conditions and BBC editorial guidelines. For more information about how the BBC handles your personal data, see here. If you are reading this page on the BBC News app, you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question on this topic.

सदियों से, स्कॉटिश ग्रामीण इलाकों में चिमटी-पहने गायों और उनके अमीर दोस्तों की छवि का प्रभुत्व रहा है, जो विशाल, हीदर से ढकी संपत्तियों पर शिकार, शूटिंग और मछली पकड़ते हैं।


Bangladesh war crimes trial: Key accused

Summary: A controversial tribunal in Bangladesh has been investigating war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. BBC News profiles the main defendants.

Ghulam Azam - died in custody The former leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, was sentenced to 90 years in jail for crimes against humanity on 15 July 2013. Ghulam Azam, who was in his 90s, was the party's leader until 2000 when he retired from active politics. He died in October 2014 while an appeal against his conviction was pending. He had denied all the charges against him, which included genocide, murder, abduction and arson. Azam is alleged to have created and led pro-Pakistan militias which carried out numerous murders and rapes during the nine-month war. Described by his party colleagues as a writer and Islamic thinker, Azam was strongly opposed to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan, arguing at the time that it would divide the Muslim community. He also cautioned that an independent Bangladesh would come under the political and economic influence of neighbouring India. Azam's supporters say he was widely respected across the Muslim world. But his detractors - mainly in the governing Awami League party - saw him as a traitor. In 1973, the government cancelled his citizenship for allegedly co-operating with Pakistani forces during the independence war. Azam lived as an exile in Pakistan and the UK but returned to Bangladesh in 1978 when the country was led by Gen Ziaur Rahman - the assassinated husband of the country's current opposition leader Khaleda Zia. The Supreme Court restored his citizenship in 1994. Motiur Rahman Nizami - executed in May 2016 Nizami, who led Jamaat-e-Islami, was hanged in Dhaka's prison early on 11 May after refusing to seek mercy from Bangladesh's president. He was sentenced to death for war crimes in October 2014. The Supreme Court rejected his final appeal on 5 May 2016. Motiur Rahman Nizami, 73, faced 16 charges including genocide, murder, torture and rape. Nizami, born in 1943, had been an active supporter of the party since he was a student. At the time of the 1971 war, he was president of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then the party's student wing, and vociferously campaigned against the division of Pakistan. He was accused of setting up the al-Badr group, an auxiliary force that helped the Pakistani army identify and kill pro-independence Bengali activists. Nizami, a Dhaka University graduate, was twice elected to the Bangladeshi parliament, serving as a minister in the government led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) between 2001 and 2006. He had described the accusations against him as "the worst falsehood in history". His supporters consider him to have been a competent and honest minister and an authority on Islamic teaching. They say he was widely respected in the Muslim world. Nizami wrote about 20 books, mostly on Islam. In 2009, he was judged to be among the top 50 most influential Muslims by an American Islamic think-tank. Mir Quasem Ali - executed in September 2016 A leader and financial backer of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, he was sentenced to death in 2014 for offences including murder and torture during the war with Pakistan. The tycoon, 63, was hanged at a high-security prison outside Dhaka. He declined to seek a presidential pardon, which would have required an admission of guilt. At his trial, Mir Quasem Ali was accused of involvement in a "reign of terror" in the city of Chittagong. He was found guilty of eight of the 14 charges he faced. Delwar Hossain Sayeedi - sentenced to life in jail A prolific speaker and a well-known leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the 72-year-old former MP had his death sentence overturned on appeal and is now serving life in jail. He was found guilty in February 2013 of charges including murder, torture and rape. Arrested in June 2010, he was the first suspect to be indicted by the tribunal in 2011. State prosecutors accused him of working with the al-Badr group during the independence struggle and of carrying out numerous atrocities, including forcibly converting Hindus to Islam. His critics say that during the war he formed a small group to loot and seize the property of Bengali Hindus and those who supported independence. He denied all the allegations and after he was convicted there were widespread protests across Dhaka. Sayeedi's supporters say that - like many of his co-accused - he is an Islamic scholar and a conscientious member of various social organisations. He has travelled to the US and Europe to give lectures on the Koran and has written books on interpreting Islam. Some British MPs opposed his visit to the UK in 2006 because of his alleged extreme views, particularly his comments against the US and British role in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid - executed in November 2015 Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, 64, was the secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami and an influential figure within the party. He was executed in November 2015 after being sentenced to death in July 2013 - a decision that was upheld in June 2015 when the Supreme Court rejected his appeal. He was highly regarded for his organisational skills and oratory. He was social welfare minister in the BNP-led government from 2001-2006. A student leader in 1971, he was among those who supported Bangladesh remaining part of Pakistan. His critics say he was also an al-Badr leader responsible for the killings of a number of pro-independence Bangladeshi leaders and intellectuals. He strongly denied the allegations but the tribunal found him guilty of five charges, including abduction and murder. Like many other Jamaat leaders he went into hiding soon after independence, but resurfaced after Gen Ziaur Rahman came to power in a military coup in 1977. His supporters say his trial was nothing but a political vendetta by the ruling Awami League. They also say he was a successful minister known for his honesty and integrity. Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury - executed in November 2015 A former minister, Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury was a BNP MP and the most senior leader from the party to be sentenced for crimes against humanity. He was executed in November 2015 after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal in June 2015. Better known as Saqa, he was the eldest son of the late Muslim League and Chittagong-based leader Fazlul Quader Chowdhury and a member of the BNP's main policymaking body. His father was the speaker of the National Assembly of undivided Pakistan in 1965 and campaigned for a united Pakistan. The tribunal found him guilty of nine out of 23 charges including genocide, arson and persecuting people on religious and political grounds. He was also accused of forcefully converting a number of Hindus to Islam. The prosecution said that his father's residence in Chittagong was turned into a torture cell during the war. Chowdhury denied all the charges and the BNP - which did not exist at the time of the war - described his trial as a political vendetta. Chowdhury complained at the time of his conviction that the verdict had come "from the [law] ministry", saying it had been made available on the internet before it was formally announced in court. Chowdhury's family alleged he was tortured while in custody. The authorities rejected the allegations. Muhammad Kamaruzzaman - executed in April 2015 The assistant secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami was found guilty in May 2013 of masterminding what the prosecution described as one of the bloodiest single episodes in the independence war. The Supreme Court later upheld his death sentence on appeal and he was hanged in April 2015. The war crimes tribunal heard that he played a prominent role alongside Pakistani troops in the "slaughter" of at least 120 unarmed farmers in the remote northern village of Sohagpur which subsequently became known as the "village of widows". Three women widowed as a result of the killings testified against Kamaruzzaman during his trial. They described how he led Pakistani troops to the village and helped the soldiers to line up and execute the farmers. Kamaruzzaman was found guilty on five out of seven charges of crimes against humanity, including the murder and torture of unarmed civilians. His lawyers insisted that he did not receive a fair trial. Working as a journalist after independence, Kamaruzzaman tried on several occasions to become an MP but was unsuccessful in each attempt. Abdul Kader Mullah - executed in December 2013 Abdul Kader Mullah, assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party since 2010 and a former executive editor of The Daily Sangram, was found guilty on five of six counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes on 5 February 2013. He was sentenced to death in September of that year after a failed appeal and hanged in December. Mullah, who denied all the charges, was convicted of killing 344 civilians as well as rape and other crimes. Many of the atrocities for which he was convicted took place in Dhaka's Mirpur area, earning him the name "Butcher of Mirpur". He was sentenced by the tribunal to life in prison - which caused huge anger among many Bangladeshis who took to the streets demanding he be put to death. Prosecution and defence lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court. On 17 September the court increased his life jail term to a death sentence. Mullah was born in 1948 in Faridpur district. He joined Jamaat's student wing, then known as Islami Chatra Sangha (ICS), while studying for a science degree at Rajendra College in Faridpur in 1966. When leaders of the Jamaat opposed the independence movement in East Pakistan in 1971, Mullah joined the feared paramilitary force al-Badr, prosecutors said. He was charged in December 2011 with abetting the Pakistani army and actively participating in the 1971 atrocities. Following his death sentence the attorney general ruled out an appeal, meaning his only chance of clemency would have been a presidential pardon.

बांग्लादेश में एक विवादास्पद न्यायाधिकरण पाकिस्तान से 1971 के स्वतंत्रता संग्राम के दौरान किए गए युद्ध अपराधों की जांच कर रहा है।


Dame Helen Mirren mines for Klimt Gold

Summary: It was described as "the Mona Lisa" of Vienna and for years was the main attraction of Austria's Vienna Belvedere Gallery: Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, known as The Lady in Gold, is one of the most famous paintings in the world.

By Emma Jones Entertainment reporter The story of how it came to be moved from Austria, to hang in the Neue Galerie in New York, is now the story of a film, Woman in Gold, starring Dame Helen Mirren. "It was theft by the Nazis," says Dame Helen. "That painting belonged to the family of an Austrian Jew called Maria Altmann, of which she was the surviving member after the Holocaust. Adele Bloch-Bauer was her aunt. "The Nazis looted the painting and after the war it took pride of place in the Belvedere. Maria mistakenly believed for years it had been donated to them, and it was only at the age of 82 after discovering the truth, that she launched a lawsuit to get it back." Made by BBC Films and directed by Simon Curtis, who made My Week With Marilyn, Woman in Gold sees Dame Helen [clearly playing Maria a lot younger than she was] starring opposite Ryan Reynolds, who plays the young lawyer who took on Altmann's case. The Austrian government refused to settle with Altmann because, the actress says, "the problem was that they were iconic pictures. At the time of painting by Klimt, they were thought of as being decadent, and even though they were looted, the Nazis didn't particularly approve of them". "But after the war they ended up in the Belvedere, the British equivalent of the National Gallery, and when you went to Vienna, if you bought a souvenir mug or fridge magnet, it would probably have The Lady in Gold on it. Then there's this little old woman saying: 'I'm sorry, that's mine'. The shock was huge. "Maria Altmann was a really remarkable woman, and I wish I had managed to meet her before she died," says the actress. "It's a story of justice against the odds, that's why I wanted to do it, there's courtroom drama in there too, and also the relationship of an older woman and a younger man, which you don't often get. It was rich pickings for an actress." True stories of art theft - whether 2014's Big Eyes, starring Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, or The Monuments Men, directed by George Clooney - have become popular with film-makers in recent years. Dame Helen says such films, if seen by enough people, can change government policy, even though Altmann had to defeat the Austrian government in a court of law in 2006 in order to have the painting returned to her. "We show in this film the art becomes a symbol of a stolen life and stolen memories," she says. "I believe the necklace belonging to Adele in the original portrait actually went to Hermann Goering's wife and ended up round her neck at Nazi parties. That generation of Austrian Jews, in many cases, lost their whole families. It's totally incomprehensible and for Maria, it was much more than getting a painting back. "When we filmed in Vienna, the government and the new mayor were wonderful to us and said they had great respect for Maria Altmann because she made them look again at their history, even though they were not comfortable with doing it, and admit their mistakes." After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, looting and destruction of Jewish homes and businesses followed. Around 94 synagogues were destroyed - and much of the persecution is shown in the film. Altmann and her husband were one of the few lucky Jewish families who escaped Austria - first to Liverpool, and then to Los Angeles, where Altmann set up a cashmere shop. Dame Helen, whose own Russian ancestors had to find refuge in Britain, calls the film "very relevant, very contemporary. There's never a year when it won't be relevant because it's always happening to one community in the world, whoever they happen to be. It's in our nature as humans to demonise 'the other'. "It's always important to remind ourselves of the reality of what happened in Europe because we are losing the generation who witnessed it and who could articulate what happened at first hand. "There's a line in the film which says: 'It's all about the Holocaust to you people'. Well actually yes, it is all about the Holocaust if you experienced it. It happened, and don't try and sweep it under the carpet. "Maria Altmann was always grateful to the British for allowing her refuge in Britain on her way to California. It's even more difficult for refugees to find safe havens in the contemporary world, but then you read about ships of Jewish people being turned away by Britain and the USA during the war. "It's a constant human dilemma of how to react to someone else's trouble, and of the ignorance of not understanding." Altmann died in 2011, aged 94, having been awarded £11m in compensation for the theft, as well as selling The Lady in Gold to the Neue Galerie in New York for £73m - on the condition it was always on display. Dame Helen says: "She gave most of her fortune away. It really never was about how much the painting was worth, it was about getting her aunt back, and about justice." Woman in Gold is out in the UK on 10 April.

इसे वियना की "मोना लिसा" के रूप में वर्णित किया गया था और वर्षों तक ऑस्ट्रिया की वियना बेल्वेडेर गैलरी का मुख्य आकर्षण थाः गुस्ताव क्लिम्ट का 1907 का एडेले ब्लॉच-बाउर प्रथम का चित्र, जिसे द लेडी इन गोल्ड के नाम से जाना जाता है, दुनिया के सबसे प्रसिद्ध चित्रों में से एक है।


Turkish opposition press fears new civil war

Summary: Turkey's air strikes on PKK Kurdish separatists have prompted fears in opposition newspapers of a renewed civil war, with some commentators calling for the militant Islamic State (IS) group to be the sole target.

Pro-government media, on the other hand, stress the country's right to self-defence. Elsewhere, IS remains silent on the Turkish air strikes on its own positions close to the Turkish-Syrian border, while Syrian state media say Turkey is paying the price for "supporting" IS. Dialogue or war? The opposition press in Turkey is full of warnings against a Kurdish-Turkish conflict. The centre-left Radikal daily blames the current situation on "the wrong policies pursued in Syria", and calls for a changed military and political strategy. "This will only be possible by not marginalising the Kurds, either within or outside Turkey, by identifying our allies in the fight against IS in Syria, and maintaining a dialogue with them," writes Unal Cevikoz. Mehves Evin paints an equally ominous picture in centrist Milliyet. "Is it not time to ask those who defend a war with Kurds whether they really want to repeat the deaths and the suffering?," she writes. "We will defend peace until our last breath." But pro-government Yeni Safak defends the decision to bomb PKK positions. "In no other part of the world would the state turn a blind eye to weapons, terror and 'armed politics'," writes Hikmet Genc. "Actually, that is why the state exists." The centre-right , meanwhile, accuses both the PKK leadership in northern Iraq and the Turkish pro-Kurdish leftist HDP party of trying "kill the once in a lifetime opportunity" of the peace process, and says only acting against them will give Turkey lasting peace. Cynical manoeuvring? In Iraqi Kurdistan, the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) - which in recent years has striven to maintain cordial ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) - has refused to condemn the Turkish bombing of PKK bases. In the press, Erbil-based journalist Rebwar Karim Wali is also critical of the PKK. "PKK politics and bases in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region are just as illegitimate as the Turkish bombings of the region," he writes in the pro-KDP news portal . But others - such as such as Farhan Jawhar, a member of the Iraqi Kurdish regional parliament, on the NRT TV website - criticise the attacks as cynical manoeuvring by Mr Erdogan and his party aimed at reversing the slide in its popularity in parliamentary elections in June. Erdogan's 'folly' Media outlets elsewhere in Iraq have simply ignored the attacks on PKK camps in northern Iraq. Others present them as attacks on PKK, not on Iraq. The pro-government Al-Sabah News reports the attacks as a "Turkish breach of Iraqi sovereignty". In Syria, the state-controlled press has reacted furiously to Turkey's bombing of IS positions. The Al-Thawrah daily says Turkey "is paying the price for its support of terrorism" and that "Erdogan still continues his folly". "Has Erdogan's government found itself in an impasse in its wager on Da'ish (IS) after the monster it bred began to snap at it?" asks Turki Saqr in another regime paper, Tishrin. Islamic State itself still seems to be keeping its own counsel, with no official comment seen so far on its affiliated outlets. IS's daily Al-Bayan radio bulletins have also completely ignored the apparent rift with Turkey. The only sign of acknowledgment has been a report last week by the IS-linked "news agency" Aamaq on an exchange of fire between IS and Turkey on the border, although it did not mention air strikes. 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.

पीकेके कुर्द अलगाववादियों पर तुर्की के हवाई हमलों ने विपक्षी समाचार पत्रों में नए सिरे से गृह युद्ध की आशंका पैदा कर दी है, कुछ टिप्पणीकारों ने आतंकवादी इस्लामिक स्टेट (आईएस) समूह को एकमात्र लक्ष्य बनाने का आह्वान किया है।


Northampton Greyfriars: Demise of the Brutalist 'mouth of hell'

Summary: As a form of design, Brutalism has divided opinion for decades. In recent years many examples have been razed to the ground, with Northampton's Greyfriars bus station next in line. So why are some mourning the potential loss of an entire era of architecture?

By Tom Percival and Martin BarberBBC News Northampton's Greyfriars bus station is a relic from a period of bold geometries within architecture known as Brutalism. Costing more than £40m in today's money, the 1970s building has been the subject of ridicule for decades as an over-ambitious example of bad planning and - for some - its demise cannot come quickly enough. It was derided by Channel 4 presenter and designer Kevin McCloud as "like a great big mouth of hell" and work on its destruction begins this weekend. A troubled project from the start, it opened 18 months late in April 1976 after costing more than twice its £3m budget. More than 175m (574ft) long, with three floors of offices and a car park above the bus bays, it was big enough to double as an overnight garage for many of the town's buses. In an April 1976 editorial in the Evening Telegraph newspaper, Pat Percival described it as "really remarkable building", while others said it had a "space age" feel. But local architect Dominic Kramer said the modern view was very different. "It had no respect for the public realm. Where you would have been able to walk out of the town it just severed [access]." He said town planners, politicians and architects all over the country were emerging in the 1960s from post-war rationing of materials with a new-found freedom. "I think they believed they were going to create some sort of utopia. The failure of this building [is] it just doesn't integrate [with people] using the town." With deconstruction set to begin at Easter - it cannot be demolished due to the danger from asbestos - the end of Greyfriars is not only about removing a failed blueprint for Northampton's architecture, it signals the end of another Brutalist building - a period of architecture that it has been argued "produced some of the most sublime, awe-inspiring buildings on the planet". The World Monuments Fund published a watch list warning that a whole era of architecture could be lost. The Twentieth Century Society has campaigned to protect the best examples of British Brutalist design, including London's South Bank Centre and Preston's Bus Station. However, senior conservation adviser Henrietta Billings said Northampton's Greyfriars had "interesting elements" but was not of "outstanding architectural interest or quality" and not worth campaigning to save. Question marks remain over what will be done with the site, but as another example of Brutalism disappears, is there a chance the mistakes of the past, the knocking down of fine examples of Victorian architecture, or inter-war art deco, could be repeated? 'Beyond repair' Not according to Mr Kramer. The Brutalist architects got "wrapped up in believing their own rhetoric," he said. "If a building doesn't work - they are too big to get overtly sentimental about. "We can argue with hindsight that we knocked down too many buildings from the art deco period of the 1930s. I think we've had enough time as a community [with Greyfriars] to say 'do we want to save it'? "If it was worth saving, we would have revamped it... this is just failing at so many levels, it's just far too big and continues to block any movement across the town and I think that's far more important to get right." On Easter Sunday, the bridges that link Greyfriars to the Grosvenor complex will be removed, the first visible sign of the building's slow disappearance from the town's skyline which is due to be complete by the end of the year. "Greyfriars is beyond repair and its demolition opens up a very large and significant site," said David Mackintosh, leader of Northampton Borough Council. "With the large regeneration projects that are changing the face of Northampton, this will breathe new life into this underused area of town and become one of the cornerstones for a bigger and better town centre." Hear more about the "Mouth of Hell" on BBC Radio Northampton at 08:25 BST from 22 - 25 April

डिजाइन के एक रूप के रूप में, क्रूरता ने दशकों से राय विभाजित की है। हाल के वर्षों में कई उदाहरणों को जमीन पर गिरा दिया गया है, जिसमें नॉर्थम्प्टन का ग्रेफ्रियर्स बस स्टेशन अगली पंक्ति में है। तो फिर कुछ लोग वास्तुकला के पूरे युग के संभावित नुकसान का शोक क्यों मना रहे हैं?


Higgs boson: The poetry of subatomic particles

Summary: The Higgs boson, which scientists at Cern appear to be homing in on after 45 years, gets its name, as everyone knows, from British physicist Peter Higgs, one of the first to propose its existence.

But what about the other part of this great name - boson? This, in fact, is also named after a physicist, Einstein's Indian contemporary, Satyendra Nath Bose. Physicists from Russia to California have given lots of curious and sometimes poetic names to the subatomic particles discovered over the last century or so. Here are 10 of them. 1. Higgs boson / God particle The Higgs boson, proposed by Peter Higgs in 1964, is if it exists what gives matter mass. It has also been named the name God particle by American physicist Leon Lederman. "He wanted to refer to it as that 'goddamn particle' and his editor wouldn't let him," Higgs told the Guardian . So "God particle" it was. 2. Quark A fundamental particle that combines to form a range of other particles, including protons and neutrons, the particles that make up the atomic nucleus. The term was drawn from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake by American physicist Murray Gell-Mann (born 1929) in 1962. He had already come up with the sound, and was thinking of spelling it "kwork". "Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word 'quark' in the phrase 'Three quarks for Muster Mark'," he explained in his book, the Quark and the Jaguar. 3. Hadron A particle made of quarks. The name was proposed by the Russian theoretical physicist Lev Okun (born 1929) in 1962. He wrote: "In this report I shall call strongly interacting particles 'hadrons'… the Greek hadros signifies "large", "massive", in contrast to leptos which means "small", "light". I hope that this terminology will prove to be convenient." It is in Cern's Large Hadron Collider, a machine in which hadrons are accelerated to high speeds and smashed together, that footprints of the Higgs boson have been spotted. 4. Boson A class of particles often associated with forces (as the carriers of the force). They obey Bose-Einstein statistics, named after the Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-1974). The suffix "-on" is Greek, and became standard for newly discovered particles a century ago. 5. Fermion A class of particles which, unlike bosons, obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. They are usually associated with matter rather than force. They are named after the Italian-born physicist Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) a naturalised American regarded as one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, along with Robert Oppenheimer. 6. Gluon A type of boson responsible for the strong force between quarks. The term derives from the English word "glue". It was first proposed in 1962 by Murray Gell-Mann, who suggested the existence of particles composed of a number of gluons, which he called glueballs. 7. Neutrino Uncharged particles created as a result of certain types of radioactive decay, with a tiny mass even by the standards of subatomic particles. Neutrino means "small neutral one" in Italian. The particle was first proposed by Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) in 1930, who gave it the name "neutron". Enrico Fermi renamed it three years later, because "neutron" (from the Latin for "neutral") had by then begun to be used to refer to the uncharged particle present in the atomic nucleus. 8. Electron An indivisible quantity of electric charge, proposed in 1894 by the Irish physicist, George Johnston Stoney (1826-1911). Derived from the word "electric" (or the Latin "electrum") plus the Greek suffix "-on". 9. Meson A particle made of a quark and an anti-quark. The name comes from the Greek "meso" meaning "mid", because mesons, when first observed, appeared to have a mass somewhere between that of an electron, and nucleons (the particles - protons and neutrons - making up the atomic nucleus). 10. Muon One of a large number of particles named after letters of the Greek alphabet, in this case "mu". It was originally thought to be a type of meson (the mu meson, as distinct, say, from the pi meson), but was later renamed. Mesons came to be understood as particles made up of quarks, while muons are elementary particles. The scientists at Cern have cornered the Higgs boson (probably) using a detector known as the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), which measures the energy and momentum of muons, photons, electrons and other particles generated by the colliding hadrons in the LHC.

हिग्स बोसॉन, जिसे सेर्न के वैज्ञानिक 45 वर्षों के बाद देख रहे हैं, को इसका नाम ब्रिटिश भौतिक विज्ञानी पीटर हिग्स से मिला है, जो इसके अस्तित्व का प्रस्ताव देने वाले पहले लोगों में से एक थे।


Milestone for Myton hospices nurse appeal

Summary: An appeal to raise money for more hospice nurses has now reached £60,000 - enough money for a second nurse.

BBC Coventry & Warwickshire said the figure for its Myton hospices campaign covers paying for recruiting, training and supporting two nurses for a year. A total of £60,000 has been already banked or pledged. The hospice said each new nurse would care for 43 extra patients. The 12-month appeal was launched in October 2011 and reached £30,000 in February. Fund-raising packs are available from Myton , and updates about the BBC C&W Myton Nurse Appeal will be broadcast after events and as and when landmarks have been reached.

अधिक धर्मशाला नर्सों के लिए धन जुटाने की अपील अब 60,000 पाउंड तक पहुंच गई है-एक दूसरी नर्स के लिए पर्याप्त धन।


Covid breach driver's car seized on Lake District trip

Summary: A motorist who had been driving with no insurance for more than two years had his car seized after breaking lockdown rules with a Lake District trip.

Lancashire Police said the journey was "non-essential" and the car owner's insurance had expired in December 2018. A spokesman said the driver had "thought it odd that the insurance direct debits had stopped". The car was seized at Lancaster services on the M6 on Saturday and the driver then had to take a taxi home. Checks also revealed the driver of the white Volvo did not have any tax or MOT. Related Internet Links Lancashire Constabulary

एक मोटर चालक जो दो साल से अधिक समय से बिना किसी बीमा के गाड़ी चला रहा था, उसकी कार को तालाबंदी के नियमों को तोड़ने के बाद लेक डिस्ट्रिक्ट ट्रिप के साथ जब्त कर लिया गया था।


Controversial book accuses Bengalis of 1971 war crimes

Summary: Forty years ago Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in a short but brutal civil war in which it was claimed as many as three million people could have died. A book released to coincide with the anniversary has reached some highly controversial conclusions as the BBC's Alastair Lawson has discovered.

Sarmila Bose's book, Dead Reckoning, says that one of the bloodiest wars in the past half-century has been "dominated by the narrative of the victorious side" - Bangladeshi nationalists who won independence in 1971 from Pakistan. She writes that both sides in the conflict "are still imprisoned by wartime partisan myths". The introduction of her book does not exonerate Pakistani troops from committing atrocities during Bangladesh's bloody struggle for freedom. But in what is certain to be viewed in Bangladesh as an extremely controversial conclusion, it says Bengalis - fighting for and against independence - also committed "appalling atrocities". Dr Bose, a senior research fellow at Oxford University - and a former BBC presenter - says the Pakistani army has been "demonised" by the pro-liberation side and accused of "monstrous actions regardless of the evidence", while Bengali people have been depicted as "victims". "This has led to a tendency to deny, minimise or justify violence and brutalities perpetrated by pro-liberation Bengalis," she says. Already Bangladeshi academics at home and abroad are lining up to attack her book. One, the Dhaka and New York based writer Naeem Mohaiemen, told the BBC that she was guilty of "pushing her conclusions to an extreme" by arguing that the war was fought between two equally violent sides, "with the Pakistan army using only justified and temperate amounts of retaliatory force". He has accused her of lacking sufficient curiosity to unpack the more complex issues behind 1971, "such as why the killings began, why the Pakistan state behaved so brutally and why Bengalis reacted violently". Nevertheless, the book is one of the first by a Western author to subject the war to thorough and independent scrutiny. Dr Bose went through published documentary evidence, travelled to remote areas of Bangladesh to interview elderly villagers and journeyed to Pakistan to question retired army officers. 'Shocking bestiality' Her book says the Bengali nationalist rebellion in what was then East Pakistan "turned into xenophobic violence against non-Bengalis" especially against West Pakistanis and mainly Urdu-speaking people who migrated to East Pakistan from India at the time of partition who were known as Biharis. "In the ethnic violence unleashed in the name of Bengali nationalism, non-Bengali men, women and children were slaughtered," Dr Bose says, arguing such atrocities took place in the towns of Chittagong, Khulna, Santahar and Jessore during and after the 10-month war. "Non-Bengali victims of ethnic killings by Bengalis numbered hundreds or even thousands per incident... men, women and children were massacred on the basis of ethnicity and the killings were executed with shocking bestiality." Some of the worst brutalities were among Bengalis themselves, Dr Bose says, between those who were defending the unity of Pakistan and those who were fighting for the liberation of Bangladesh. While "the killing of pro-liberation professionals by pro-regime death squads in the dying days of the war stands out as one of the worst crimes of the conflict... brutalisation and elimination of those with a different political viewpoint seemed to be the hallmark of nationalist Bengalis too". There is clear evidence, Dr Bose says, of the violence suffered by "non-Bengali victims of Bengali ethnic hatred". "Of the corpses reported littering the land and clogging up the rivers, many would have been Bihari... as Bengali mobs appear to have killed non-Bengalis indiscriminately while the Pakistani army appeared to target adult Bengali men." In one notorious incident examined by the author in the south-western town of Khulna on 28 March 1971, Bengalis "slaughtered" large numbers of Biharis in the town's jute mills. 'Gigantic rumour' Dr Bose also examines the widely reported suggestion that three million Bengalis were killed by the Pakistani army. These figures are sacrosanct in Bangladesh, where the overwhelming majority of people continue to honour and respect those who died in the liberation struggle. Describing the three million figure as a "gigantic rumour", she says it is "not based on any accounting or survey on the ground". "None of the popular assertions of three million Bengalis allegedly killed by the [Pakistani] army cites any official report," she says. "Claims of the dead in various incidents wildly exceeding anything that can be reasonably supported by evidence on the ground - 'killing fields' and 'mass graves' were claimed to be everywhere, but none was forensically exhumed and examined in a transparent manner." Her conclusion over how many died has been roundly rejected by Mr Mohaiemen, who pointed out that Bangladeshis have themselves publicly dissected the problem of "numbers", going back to 1972 when the three million number was first cited. "Researchers like Zunaid Kazi documented 12 different media estimates of death tolls. Thus, the implied 'hook' of Dr Bose's book, a claim to being the 'first' to dissect the death toll, rings hollow and is self-promotional. "In any case, whether the death toll was three million or 300,000, does that make it any less of a genocide? That appears to be her intellectually indefensible conclusion." Dr Bose does not ignore atrocities carried out by Pakistan and its supporters - her book has several chapters on this subject - concluding its army committed political and extrajudicial killings that in some cases were "genocidal". She says: "Ultimately neither the numbers nor the labels matter. What matters is the nature of the conflict, which was fundamentally a complex and violent struggle for power among several different parties with a terrible human toll." The Bangladeshi government has so far not commented on her book - but the country's attitude towards those who express dissenting views about the 1971 war was clearly seen in April when a film about a woman's love affair with a Pakistani soldier during the conflict was speedily withdrawn amid suggestions it distorted history. The Indian edition of Sarmila Bose's book is being published by Hachette India and is due to be released in mid-June. The book is published by C Hurst and Co in the UK and by Columbia University Press in the US.

चालीस साल पहले बांग्लादेश ने एक छोटे लेकिन क्रूर गृहयुद्ध में पाकिस्तान से अपनी स्वतंत्रता हासिल की थी जिसमें यह दावा किया गया था कि तीस लाख लोग मारे जा सकते थे। इस वर्षगांठ के अवसर पर जारी की गई एक पुस्तक कुछ अत्यधिक विवादास्पद निष्कर्षों पर पहुंच गई है जैसा कि बीबीसी के एलिस्टेयर लॉसन ने पाया है।