Letter from Africa: Why Nigerians need to learn their history

Summary: In our series of letters from African journalists, Sola Odunfa looks at why it is a good idea for Nigeria to reintroduce history as a school subject - a move recently backed by the country's senate.

When I was growing up, one of the subjects I learnt in both primary and secondary school was history - not only of Nigeria but also of Europe. The bare facts of the growth of nationalities might not have been interesting to my young mind but I grew up with the conviction that hardly anything could be more exciting than the study of the exploits of men and women who later became heroes - or villains - among their people as they shaped the course of history either in their local areas or in the world at large. A long ago, I read in history books of the conquest of the Ilorin people in the central Kwara State, by Fulani forces from Sokoto under Shehu Alimi following the betrayal of the Alafin of Oyo by his former warlord, Afonja. So now I understand clearly the never-ending undercurrent of ethnic restiveness between the Yoruba and the Fulani peoples in the Kwara state capital. Many other ethnic crises across the Nigerian nation are similarly rooted in historical events and they may be resolved only after excavating the root, but who has the tools? Conquered chauvinism Queen Amina of Zaria in the north, Moremi of Ife and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Abeokuta in the west were historical figures whose lives I studied in school. They were women who conquered the chauvinism of their times to lead their communities in war and in political emancipation. Their history is a study in equality of the sexes, each given the same opportunities. A government has to be retrogressive to discourage the studying of the lives of these great human beings by removing history as a subject from our school curricula. Sola Odunfa: "A person who does not know the history of his own family compound surely cannot seek to settle scores among other families in the clan" It was during the military rule of General Ibrahim Babangida in the 1980s and early 1990s that the studying of history began to disappear from our schools and, in recent years, it has not been taught at all. The reason given then was that history did not add to the market value of students after graduation. Experience showed that the only employment open to history graduates was teaching, a vocation which had been degraded by the popular saying that the reward of teachers was in heaven rather than in good pay here on earth. No-one wanted to take a gamble of waiting to get to heaven before enjoying the good life. Many universities cleverly changed their Department of History to Department of History and International Relations and they awarded degrees in the latter subject. The Senate's vote to reintroduce history was prompted by Senator Shehu Sani, who had presented a motion calling for pan-Africanism to be taught in schools. A well-known activist, he appeared to have ignored the saying that charity begins at home. What the majority of lawmakers in the Senate have told him is that a person who does not know the history of his own family compound surely cannot seek to settle scores among other families in the clan. More from Sola Odunfa:

अफ्रीकी पत्रकारों के पत्रों की हमारी श्रृंखला में, सोला ओडुन्फा यह देखते हैं कि नाइजीरिया के लिए इतिहास को एक स्कूल विषय के रूप में फिर से पेश करना एक अच्छा विचार क्यों है-हाल ही में देश की सीनेट द्वारा समर्थित एक कदम।


Man appears in court over Scunthorpe death

Summary: A man has appeared in court charged with murder after a body was found in a disused building.

Raymond Ward, 51, was found dead in the building in Cliff Gardens in Scunthorpe on Tuesday. Dion Hendry, 24, of no fixed address, appeared at Grimsby and Cleethorpes Magistrates' Court. He will next appear at Hull Crown Court on 18 July. Another man, aged 36, has been released on bail over the death and a 47-year-old man is still being questioned. A fourth man, aged 37, was also arrested but has been released with no further action, Humberside Police said.

एक अप्रयुक्त इमारत में एक शव मिलने के बाद एक व्यक्ति हत्या के आरोप में अदालत में पेश हुआ है।


Dorchester's retail projects in the spotlight

Summary: Two major retail schemes are set to attract more visitors to a Dorset town, but with doubts hanging over their future and limited parking in the area some residents are concerned they might not deliver what they have promised.

By Sue PazBBC News, Dorset The main square of the £100m Brewery Square development in Dorchester, which is set to include hotels, restaurants and a cinema, was supposed to open this month but has been delayed until next spring due to the wet and windy weather of the summer, which meant cranes were unable to operate. New council buildings, a library and adult learning centre are being built in Charles Street in the town in the first phase of its regeneration. However, there are concerns that the £60m plans for phase two, which were approved in 2010 and had been due to include a hotel and an underground public car park, are "not financially viable". The council's executive committee has now agreed a recommendation to fund up to £2m of preparatory work for phase two, including the relocation of a church from Acland Road to Trinity Street. This move prompted West Dorset Lib Dem councillor, Ros Kayes, to call for Robert Gould, leader of West Dorset District Council, to resign. She said there had been "great disquiet" over decisions made about phase two of the revamp. Mr Gould said the scheme was backed by all three political parties, a claim which Ms Kayes disputed. Ross Cumber, manager of Taste cafe bistro on Trinity Street, said both developments would "draw business away from the central and north areas of the town centre" and added the existing shopping area should have been redeveloped instead. Mr Gould said the current development sites offered a "great future" for Dorchester as they would enable it to "continue to grow and evolve". "At the moment people are going elsewhere to do their shopping," he said, "so if we don't have an attractive retail offer no-one will come here." Residents in Queen's Avenue and Cromwell Road have voiced concerns about parking in the town centre. One 66-year-old resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said Queen's Avenue had become "somewhere to park your car within convenient distance of work, the market, town or station", which had been exacerbated by recent parking restrictions in neighbouring streets. She added an "already bad situation" had been made worse by the closure of 72 short-stay car parking spaces at the Charles Street site. Jane Cowlishaw, 55, described parking in Dorchester as "pretty evil particularly on a Wednesday when it's market day". "No matter how attractive the promise of extra shops in the new developments are, the lack of parking in the town means visitors could be deterred from visiting in the first place," she added. In a letter to Dorchester Town Council, mother-of-two Hayley Gould said trying to find a car parking space on Cromwell Road had become "a daily nightmare". She added her "biggest concern" was Brewery Square because she anticipated more people would use Cromwell Road to park their cars in the future. Ashley Newman, 30, who works in the town, said both schemes looked "good on paper" but added the parking pressures as well the increasing population in Poundbury - Dorchester's urban extension - meant "the reality is years of struggle until everything is completed". Shané Garner, 56, moved to Poundbury with her husband from Lincolnshire in the spring. She said they decided to "take the plunge" after being impressed with neighbouring Dorchester on previous holidays to Dorset, and welcomed the developments. "Where other towns are very much in decline, it seems to be on the up here," she said. Dorchester town crier, Alistair Chisholm, said retail and shopping was "only part of what Dorchester is about". He added: "A huge amount of the future of this town rests in making more of its extraordinarily long and varied past and its unique literary and legal association - such as Thomas Hardy and the Tolpuddle Martyrs." Recommendations have been made by the town council to Dorset County Council for parking restrictions in Queen's Avenue for two or four hour maximum stays. Cromwell Road could also see the introduction of parking restrictions on the bend by the railway station, as well as diagonal parking and a one-way system. The county council said it had allocated its budget for this financial year so no works could be undertaken until 2013-14. Mr Gould said the current park and ride facility in the town was "at full capacity" but added it was something the council hoped to develop in the future. The recommendations made by West Dorset District Council's executive committee for phase two of the Charles Street development are subject to a full council vote on Thursday 25 October. Although the main square at Brewery Square is delayed until March 2013, Waterhouse Resolution Property said the overall project was "on target", but could not give a completion date because it is a "rolling programme".

दो प्रमुख खुदरा योजनाएं डॉर्सेट शहर में अधिक आगंतुकों को आकर्षित करने के लिए तैयार हैं, लेकिन उनके भविष्य और क्षेत्र में सीमित पार्किंग पर संदेह के साथ कुछ निवासियों को चिंता है कि वे जो वादा किया है उसे पूरा नहीं कर सकते हैं।


Hay-on-Wye: A town of books or festivals?

Summary: The annual festival of literature and the arts is taking place in Hay-on-Wye this week, but the event's success masks a struggle for survival among the second-hand bookshops that first made the town famous.

By Huw ThomasBBC Wales arts and media correspondent Several shops have closed in recent years, with the competition from online retailers and e-books forcing the remaining businesses to adapt in order to survive. For some it has meant diversifying their stock, for others it has involved embracing the internet to turn a profit. Richard Booth's Bookshop is the grandest and best-known of the bookshops that pepper the few small streets branching off from the town clock. But even this icon of well-thumbed novels and nearly-new autobiographies has had to introduce food and films to keep a healthy base of customers. Alongside thousands of books - not all of them second-hand - the shop also has a cinema and cafe, and offers workshops and events for visitors. Elizabeth Haycox, the American businesswoman who bought the bookshop from Richard Booth, said it would be pointless to attempt to undercut the online retailers. "I'm not trying to compete with the internet because you can't. The booksellers, who are no longer here, did. Piling them high and selling them cheap just doesn't work. "Richard [Booth's] vision was that Hay would become a town of booksellers, each experts in their own specific field." Selling books Mrs Haycox said the town was evolving thanks to the success of the festival. "Hay is a market town, and it's whatever the market will bear. At one time it was sheep, it was butter, it was cheese, it was books. And now maybe Hay is heading for the next thing, which could well be ideas. "The festival is what has made the change. We no longer have to be a town just about books, we can be a town about ideas." Anne Brichto, who runs Addyman's Books, said the festival period was like Christmas for her three shops in Hay - but selling her stock online had helped counter a fall in trade in the town for the rest of the year. "Not so many people actually come to the bookshops of Hay. Over festival time we are very busy but it's only ten days, and we have to spend the rest of the year selling books. "We're only closed Christmas day, Boxing day, and New Year's Day - the rest of the time we are selling books, and we would love to see people come in this quantity again, which they used to do." Mrs Brichto said the festival was "a mixed blessing" for Hay-on-Wye, with many visitors staying in the tented site on the edge of the town, rather than visiting the bookshops. But she said the event was still good for the town. "It still keeps Hay in the news, it is still a very interesting thing for a town that's the size of a large secondary school to have all these people come here. It's very exciting." Local author Jim Saunders has written about Hay-on-Wye and the other market towns dotted along the Welsh border. He said Hay remained the envy of many of the neighbouring towns. "I think if you took all the bookshops away tomorrow, Hay would still do quite well. It's in the Brecon Beacons National Park, it's got a reputation as an interesting place to go. It's got nice restaurants and pubs, so it's got a lot of things going for it apart from the bookshops." The Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts continues until 1 June. You can find more information, and watch some events live on the BBC Arts site.

साहित्य और कला का वार्षिक उत्सव इस सप्ताह हे-ऑन-वाई में हो रहा है, लेकिन इस कार्यक्रम की सफलता उन पुरानी किताबों की दुकानों के बीच अस्तित्व के लिए संघर्ष को दर्शाती है जिन्होंने पहली बार शहर को प्रसिद्ध बनाया था।


Natalie Hemming: Man held on missing woman murder charge

Summary: A man charged with the murder of a 31-year-old woman missing for four days has been remanded in custody by magistrates in Milton Keynes.

Natalie Hemming was reported missing from her home in Newton Leys, Milton Keynes, on Tuesday by a relative. Paul Hemming, 42, of Alderney Avenue, Newton Leys, will next appear at Luton Crown Court on Monday. Mother-of-three Ms Hemming was last seen on Sunday afternoon in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

चार दिनों से लापता 31 वर्षीय महिला की हत्या के आरोप में एक व्यक्ति को मिल्टन कीन्स में मजिस्ट्रेटों द्वारा हिरासत में भेज दिया गया है।


Maghaberry Prison: Timeline of reports and inquiries

Summary: Inspectors said on Thursday that Northern Ireland's high security Maghaberry Prison is "unsafe and unstable" for prisoners and staff.

Her Majesty's Chief Inspectorate of Prisons in England and Wales, Nick Hardwick said: "This is the most dangerous prison I've been into throughout my time as Chief Inspector." The prison has faced criticism in a series of reports dating back to 2009: 31 July 2008 October 2008 9 January 2009 21 July 2009 August 2009 16 December 2009 1 February 2010 18 June 2010 8 December 2010 22 May 2011 25 June 2012 27 June 2012 15 October 2012 December 2012 17 December 2012 May 2013 10 April 2014 24 April 2015 5 November 2015 24 February 2016 September 2016 November 2016 August 2017 April 2018

निरीक्षकों ने गुरुवार को कहा कि उत्तरी आयरलैंड की उच्च सुरक्षा वाली माघबेरी जेल कैदियों और कर्मचारियों के लिए "असुरक्षित और अस्थिर" है।


Coronavirus: Advice issued for spending Ramadan in lockdown

Summary: The Muslim Council of Britain, the largest umbrella organisation for Muslims in Britain, has published online guidance to help millions cope with the restrictions of lockdown during the coming fasting month of Ramadan.

By Frank GardnerBBC News It says this year's Ramadan, which begins at the end of this week, will be "a very different experience for Muslims as we adapt to changing circumstances during the Covid-19 pandemic". With lockdown continuing, there will be no congregational acts of worship outside the home, no Taraweeh prayers at the mosque and no iftars (usually a huge ritual meal marking the breaking of the fast after sundown) with friends and family to attend. Instead, the MCB is offering guidance on how to arrange virtual iftars online with loved ones and community members by using video chat. Plan your iftar menus in advance, it says, so as to avoid multiple shopping trips. It also suggests eating high-energy, slow-burning foods during the second meal of the night, the suhoor, which takes place just before dawn, to help maintain energy levels throughout the daylight fasting hours. The MCB advises Muslims to "honour your workplace duties with patience and good grace to those around you". But it also warns that a refusal by employers to allow flexibility in work timings for fasting employees without a legitimate business reason could amount to unlawful indirect discrimination. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is a special time for nearly two billion Muslims all over the world. In any normal year, it is a time of communal prayer, of daytime fasting, night-time feasting, extensive socialising and acts of profound generosity and charity as Muslims reaffirm their faith in God. For those living in the West, forsaking food and drink during daylight hours while the rest of the population is able to indulge publicly in cafes and restaurants has always been a testing time. But this year it will be very different. With lockdown continuing, most of those visible temptations on the streets will be absent as people stay at home. Yet individual isolation is completely counter-intuitive to most Muslims during the month of Ramadan. Usually, whole communities tend to pour onto the streets after dark to share and enjoy the communal experience with their relatives and neighbours. But Dr Emman El-Badawy, an expert on Islamic jurisprudence, believes the spirit of Ramadan will survive. "So much of the essence of Ramadan can be maintained during isolation. "The spiritual aspects may even be heightened for some of us, with less distractions than usual. "The communal practices will be missed under the restrictions, for sure, but there are already great initiatives being built to help with this." How will you be observing Ramadan where you are? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:

ब्रिटेन में मुसलमानों के लिए सबसे बड़े छत्र संगठन, मुस्लिम काउंसिल ऑफ ब्रिटेन ने रमजान के आगामी उपवास महीने के दौरान लाखों लोगों को लॉकडाउन के प्रतिबंधों से निपटने में मदद करने के लिए ऑनलाइन मार्गदर्शन प्रकाशित किया है।


Profile: Ebola nurse Pauline Cafferkey

Summary: Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey, who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone two years ago, is being investigated over claims she gave dishonest answers while being screened for the deadly disease when she returned to Heathrow Airport.

By Stuart NicolsonBBC News Scotland Ms Cafferkey, 39, spent several weeks in Royal Free Hospital in London in January 2015 after becoming the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the UK. She was later discharged after apparently making a full recovery - but later it was discovered that the virus is still present in her body. So what do we know about Ms Cafferkey? Pauline Cafferkey is said to have been inspired to join the NHS after watching the horror of the Ethiopian famine on television in the 1980s. So when an appeal was made for NHS staff who were willing to travel to west Africa to help tackle the Ebola outbreak, she felt compelled to volunteer. Ms Cafferkey - a nurse with 16 years of experience who was working at the Blantyre health centre in South Lanarkshire - was well aware of the risks she would face. But as she prepared to depart for Sierra Leone as part of a 30-strong NHS team in November 2014, she told BBC Scotland that she could not think of any reason not to go. She added: "I have experience in the past. I've done aid work, I've worked in Africa, so I didn't really think about it actually, I just did it." The NHS team - which included GPs, nurses, psychiatrists and emergency medicine consultants - had been specially selected from the 1,000 staff who volunteered to take part in the mercy mission to west Africa, where more than 7,000 people have been killed in the Ebola outbreak. They had undergone nine days of intensive training with the Ministry of Defence before being allowed to start work with patients at treatment centres across Sierra Leone. Colleagues who worked with her have spoken of Ms Cafferkey's dedication and enthusiasm for her role at the Ebola Treatment Centre in Kerry Town. And in extracts from her diary published by the Scotsman newspaper, she described how the work she was doing had quickly come to feel like a "normal part of life". She wrote: "My nice community nursing job in Blantyre is far removed from this but at the moment this seems a lot more real. The dreams that I do remember always seem to have an Ebola theme, it seems to be all consuming." During the third week of her diary, she described "an awful shift" during which she had to tell a young boy, whose father had died from Ebola, that the virus had also killed his mother and sister. "His mother had seen her daughter die in the bed across from her that morning and she died a few hours later," she wrote. "The sad thing is that this is a regular occurrence and we see and hear of whole families being wiped out by this awful disease." Ms Cafferkey returned to the UK on 28 December 2014 for a break as part of a rotation system. She was screened after arriving at Heathrow Airport, but no concerns were raised about her health. While waiting for a connecting flight to Glasgow, she complained about her temperature and had it checked a further six times, but was given the all clear. She arrived at Glasgow Airport at about 23:00 and took a taxi to her home in a block of flats in Cambuslang, on the south eastern outskirts of Glasgow. But a short time later she raised the alarm after feeling unwell, with neighbours waking to find a small fleet of ambulances and police cars sitting in the block's communal car park. She was taken to the specialist Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases on the Gartnavel Hospital campus in Glasgow, where she was put in isolation, before being flown on an RAF Hercules aircraft to the Royal Free Hospital in north London on 30 December. Medical staff who treated her there initially said she was "doing as well as can be expected". But on 3 January 2015, the hospital released a further statement saying her condition had "gradually deteriorated" over the previous two days, and her condition was "critical." Her condition was said to have stabilised by 5 January, and she was well enough to be discharged from hospital later that month, with doctors saying she had completely recovered and was not infectious in any way. But it was later discovered that the virus was still present in her body, and she was readmitted to the same hospital in October 2015. She again recovered, before being treated at the Royal Free for a third time in February of this year due to a further complication related to her initial Ebola infection. Ms Cafferkey, whose partner was said to have been among those tested for Ebola after coming into contact with her, had returned to work at the Blantyre health centre. In an interview with the BBC before her relapse, she described how Ebola was still affecting her health, but said she was hopeful of getting better. She said: "I do get joint pains - have done for two or three months now. To start with I had thyroid problems and then my hair fell out so it's taken me a good few months to recover from it. "And that's the thing you just don't know long-term-wise either. Hopefully this is it - that's the end of it." Ms Cafferkey won an award at the the Pride of Britain Awards in central London on 28 September 2015. The award was introduced by Prime Minister David Cameron and presented to her by comedian Lenny Henry. She met the Prime Minister's wife Samantha Cameron the following day at Downing Street, alongside other winners. The Daily Mirror awards recognise courage and achievement against the odds, with nominees voted by members of the public.

स्कॉटिश नर्स पॉलिन कैफरकी, जो दो साल पहले सिएरा लियोन में काम करते हुए इबोला से संक्रमित हुई थीं, उन दावों की जांच की जा रही है कि उन्होंने हीथ्रो हवाई अड्डे पर लौटने पर घातक बीमारी की जांच के दौरान बेईमान जवाब दिए थे।


Colombia Farc: The Norwegian who helped broker peace

Summary: A peace agreement for Colombia has finally been signed in Havana, after four years of negotiation presided over by hosts Cuba and Norway. The BBC's Will Grant in the Cuban capital met the Norwegian man who played a central role.

The relief in the room was palpable. As the former enemies walked in dressed in white, there were smiles and warm handshakes, even embraces ahead of the announcement that Colombians have spent decades waiting to hear: a final peace agreement between the Farc left-wing rebels and the Colombian government. First though, a symbolic moment of national unity. The entire room stood up and with one voice, leftist guerrillas and former generals, rebel commanders and career diplomats, all sang the Colombian national anthem. At one end of the main table, occupying a place he has filled for more than four years, was a slender, bald man with a well-groomed moustache. He listened respectfully to the anthem without singing along although by now he probably knows the words. But it is not his country's song. He is Dag Nylander, head of the Norwegian diplomatic team which - along with the hosts, Cuba - acted as guarantors for the Colombian peace process. For long-standing observers of Colombia's negotiations, Mr Nylander is a familiar sight. He has been a ubiquitous presence at every key moment over the past few years, reading out the details of the accords in his flawless but accented Spanish. At points of high tension or finger-pointing, he seemed to bring a calming presence to the proceedings, an external voice and a Norwegian sense of order to an entangled and bitter dispute. I caught up with him after the heady sense of elation of that night had subsided a little. "We did have a few Cuban cigars and some rum," he admits but more in "relief" at completing a job well done than with any sense of victory. Hardly surprising he and the other negotiators allowed themselves a little celebration. The peace talks are often said to have lasted around four years. In the case of Mr Nylander and other key participants, it was probably closer to six once the secret preparatory talks are included. "It's difficult to understand that this phase is really over," he tells me in a Havana hotel, not far from the one he has been based in for much of the past decade. "It has been very demanding, it has been the main occupation of my life. I've been spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round [on the peace process]. So it's been quite all-consuming." When formal talks in Havana started in November 2012, few would have predicted that they would take so long. In retrospect, did people underestimate the size of the task? "I remember one or even both parties having expectations that this would last months, not years," Mr Nylander recalls. "In hindsight, that was obviously not realistic. Could we have done it faster? Maybe. Did we get a solid, well thought-through peace agreement in the end? Absolutely. And I think that is the important thing." Reaching that point has not been plain sailing though, not by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed there were times when it looked like the entire process might collapse completely. "It was always external factors," says the Norwegian diplomat of the hardest moments. "The parties were negotiating during conflict. So the biggest crisis was when 11 government soldiers were killed in Colombia by the Farc. President Santos ordered aerial bombings to resume, resulting in a high number of Farc deaths, including people we knew who had been sitting at the negotiating table." Football and diplomacy Despite those challenges, it seems the two sides' shared concept of Colombia was ultimately stronger than their sharp differences. "These are Colombians, they have a joint history and a joint culture. Many of them had met before, both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table." There was even scope for the occasional light-hearted moment. "For example, at one of the first meetings one of the parties was watching a football game. Colombia versus Venezuela, if I'm not mistaken. And that was an important icebreaker." "Football always helps!" he jokes. He is fulsome in his praise of Cuba, too, for giving "huge support" to Colombia and hosting the talks with "the added value of having great credibility" with both the Colombian government and, especially, the Farc. As for Mr Nylander himself, he too had to adapt to Colombian idiosyncrasies. "If you ask my friends and family back in Norway, they'd say I have a couple of Colombian or Latin American elements in me now. Even to the point of turning up late for meetings which is permissible in Latin American culture but doesn't really work in Norway," he says, no longer wearing a watch on his wrist. "Still, if you ask the parties here, they'd probably say I'm a typical Norwegian!"

मेजबान क्यूबा और नॉर्वे की अध्यक्षता में चार साल की बातचीत के बाद कोलंबिया के लिए आखिरकार हवाना में एक शांति समझौते पर हस्ताक्षर किए गए हैं। क्यूबा की राजधानी में बीबीसी के विल ग्रांट ने नॉर्वे के उस व्यक्ति से मुलाकात की जिसने केंद्रीय भूमिका निभाई थी।


China's Communist Party theme park - and other unusual attractions

Summary: A Communist Party-themed amusement park has opened in Wuhan, China in time for the Golden Week holidays - but has failed to impress everyone. The BBC takes a look at the theme park designed to instil "socialist values" - and five other unusual tourist attractions in China.

Despite being dubbed central China's largest such park by the Wuhan Evening News, the Communist Party-themed amusement park has attracted criticism. Less party-minded online critics have ridiculed the park's rather plain appearance - and what they see as its attempt to "brainwash" visitors. The Communist Party theme park's exhibits include a Young Pioneers flag and an illuminated sculpture with the core values of the Party inscribed on it. It is hoped the park will help visitors better understand concepts like "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and the "outstanding contributions" made by key figures in the history of the Party. But while so-called "red tourism" is undergoing a resurgence, not everyone liked the idea. Commenting on social media, weibo user Fengjiangdepanqujiu said: "I've always thought that if you corralled all 8 million Communist Party members into a special zone, the Communist ideals would immediately be realised." Netizen H_Helios was even less complimentary: "Not complete; they also need to set up a few statues of corrupt officials for citizens to spit on." More capitalist-friendly leisure consumers may perhaps prefer to save their yuan for a trip to Universal Studios' planned theme park in Beijing - reportedly due to open in 2019, but with more input from Steven Spielberg than Chairman Mao. There's also the much-delayed Shanghai Disney Resort, currently due to open in 2016. But for those who prefer their attractions a little more left-of-field, if not quite as left-wing as Wuhan's park, there is no shortage of quirky tourist destinations in China. 1. Roast duck museum Wandering around museums can be hungry work, which is probably a good thing for the Quanjude restaurant chain behind Beijing's roast duck museum. The exhibits include clay models showing you how to prepare roast duck and pictures of famous people, including actor Charlie Chaplin, eating Peking duck. While it may seem like an odd subject for a museum, it is part of a boom in museums of all kinds, that has seen hundreds of museums created every year. 2. Watermelon museum But if you prefer healthier fare, the Beijing area has that covered too, with a watermelon museum in nearby Daxing. This shrine to many people's favourite fruit is packed with facts about their cultivation and history. Its location is not accidental - the area just south of the capital is famous for melon production. 3. Guerrilla life China's official Xinhua news agency reported last year on a cultural theme park in northern Shanxi province that "lets tourists sample life as a guerrilla" through stage shows of war stories and tours around Wuxiang County, which was host to many of China's older revolutionary heroes at various times. 4. Raising the Titanic Given its somewhat unfortunate record on sea-worthiness you might think it would not be such a good idea to recreate the Titanic, which sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912. But the Seven Star Energy Investment Group is apparently determined to make it the main attraction at their planned theme park in Daying, Sichuan Province. Said by the Global Times to have an estimated cost of around one billion yuan ($157m; £103m), the manager of the shipyard responsible admitted to local media that the project was "challenging" as the ship had to meet modern shipbuilding standards. Given the Titanic's history, that is probably just as well. 5. Crime and punishment Chinese President Xi Jinping has used his time in office to crack down on corruption and encourage public patriotism. So it should come as no surprise that along with the growth in "revolutionary tourism", people are increasingly visiting museums dedicated to (the evils of) corruption and crime too. Beijing's Police Museum incorporates both, offering displays on particularly nasty misdemeanours on their patch, as well as their involvement in operations against the nationalist Kuomintang forces in the Chinese Civil War. And with officials falling like flies in the face of corruption allegations, visiting displays of what happens when the powerful get greedy has become not just an entertaining pastime but a preventative measure too. One eastern Chinese city, Shiyan, made dozens of local officials and their partners tour a prison, as a warning against the temptations of corruption, and anti-graft "education centres" can be found across China. At one such centre in Beijing's Haidian District, gloomy prison doors contrast with hi-tech interactive displays, to better visualise the fate that befalls the corrupt.

स्वर्ण सप्ताह की छुट्टियों के लिए चीन के वूहान में एक कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी-थीम वाला मनोरंजन पार्क समय पर खोला गया है-लेकिन सभी को प्रभावित करने में विफल रहा है। बीबीसी "समाजवादी मूल्यों" को स्थापित करने के लिए डिज़ाइन किए गए थीम पार्क और चीन में पांच अन्य असामान्य पर्यटक आकर्षणों पर एक नज़र डालता है।


Museums Sheffield: After the cuts

Summary: When the organisation that runs Sheffield's main galleries and museums lost out on £1.4m of annual Arts Council funding earlier this year, it warned of "devastating" consequences. Can a big city's cultural institutions cope with being cut to the bone?

Kim Streets remembers the bad old days. The new chief executive of Museums Sheffield joined the organisation as a curator of social history during the last recession in the early 1990s. "I remember having to go to the then-director to ask for permission to get a colour laser copy for £1," she says. "It was tough times." Back in the '90s, the city's museums and galleries were hit hard as the city council was forced to slash its budget. "Our service clung on through that period, and we did some very exciting things with not very much," Streets recalls. Now the organisation is going through another tough time, with its budget down 43% in the last two years. Its annual grant from the city council is down 15% since last year to £2m, and the £800,000 a year it received from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) has now ended. When the government abolished the MLA and transferred its grant-giving powers to the Arts Council, Museums Sheffield applied for £1.4m a year but was turned down. Regional museums across England applied for a total of £117m from the Arts Council - almost double the £60m available. Referring to the Sheffield bid, the Arts Council said the "museums offer in Yorkshire is particularly strong" - meaning "we couldn't fund them all". Derby, Nottingham and Leicester were among the other cities to lose out. But Sheffield kicked up the biggest stink, warning that the quality of its service would "decline significantly". Since then it has received short-term transitional funds from the Arts Council and city council and has also applied for another, lesser strand of regular Arts Council funding. This year 38 of the 108 jobs are being lost - including that of chief executive Nick Dodd, who was replaced by Streets. In recent years staff have taken pay cuts as debts built up. Despite the daunting circumstances, Streets is positive. "There's a feel-good factor about arts and museums and collections," she says. "It's that passion we want to be sharing and that carried us through that period of not having a great deal [in the early '90s]. "That's what will carry us through this period as well - having a strong sense of purpose and a strong sense of arts and museums being food for the soul. "That's what they are and that will drive us through it." So what will the cuts mean for visitors? The organisation, which runs the Graves art gallery, the Millennium Gallery and the Weston Park museum, will host fewer expensive touring exhibitions and instead make more use of works that are usually hidden in the vaults. That will be welcomed by some. On the other side of the Peak District, the Manchester Evening News ran a front page story last month about the "revelation" that Manchester's galleries owned thousands of art treasures that had been "locked away in storage for years". "We want to make sure we can do the best we can with what we have," Streets says. One element of the Manchester story concerned the question of selling some of those dusty artworks. In Sheffield, as in Manchester, that is not on the agenda. One idea that is being considered, though, is introducing entry fees. "I don't think we should be putting admission charges on our sites," Streets says. "Politically, I believe that people should have free access to what are their collections." Reluctantly, though, she adds: "I do think we should just look at it and analyse the financial implications. "At the moment we need to be finding ways to sustain the service in the longer term in this economic climate, and admission charges is an obvious thing to look at." Elsewhere, events will be cut and the education team is being chopped from 23 people to three. The phrase "quality over quantity" keeps cropping up in Streets' strategy. The Graves Gallery, which houses the city's visual arts collection, had been under threat. Its closure has now been ruled out, but its opening times have reduced to four days a week. Strangely, visitor numbers have gone up since the opening hours were cut - something Streets partly puts down to the allure of a current visiting exhibition of Andy Warhol self-portraits. So if the passionate staff can work wonders, and they can make the most of their collections, and visitor numbers have held up, does the organisation really need a higher level of funding after all? Streets' answer, unsurprisingly, is yes. The relatively generous amounts available during the heady days of the late 1990s and 2000s "made a massive difference to our sites", she insists. "We have a new Millennium Gallery, which opened in 2001, we have a refurbished Graves, we have Weston Park museum completely gutted and refurbished and reopened in 2006. "What we've done is develop a service which I think is very much of the moment, it's in tune and it's connecting with people." She points to one of her successors in the social history department who, thanks to pre-crash funding, has been able to work with young people and those with mental health problems. "It's not about just hiding in the store room and quietly curating the collection," Streets says. "Everything we do is for people. "That funding has made a difference in that way. It's expanded those horizons. But the harsh reality is that we are where we are. "It won't be the same level of service. If we had the funding, we would be more ambitious, we would be out there. It does make a difference."

जब शेफ़ील्ड की मुख्य दीर्घाओं और संग्रहालयों को चलाने वाले संगठन को इस साल की शुरुआत में वार्षिक कला परिषद के वित्त पोषण का 1.4 करोड़ पाउंड का नुकसान हुआ, तो उसने "विनाशकारी" परिणामों की चेतावनी दी। क्या एक बड़े शहर के सांस्कृतिक संस्थान हड्डी टूटने का सामना कर सकते हैं?


Foreign buyers dominate London's luxury housing market

Summary: As the celebrated architect Frank Gehry unveiled his contribution to redeveloping London's Battersea power station he felt it necessary to say, "I want to create a set of buildings people will want to live in," as if there were an alternative aspiration.

By Rob BroombyBritish Affairs Correspondent, BBC World Service He was addressing a concern that London's luxury new-build property market is becoming a repository for the wealth of the global super-rich. As such, many argue it is doing nothing to ease the city's acute housing crisis - especially if the new homes are left empty. Figures compiled by the global real estate consultancy Knight Frank show that for the two years to June 2013, 69% of new-build buyers in the prime central London market were not British. Almost half, 49%, were not resident in the UK - thus raising the fear that homes have been bought purely as an investment and may be left empty. Young buyers 'don't have a chance' In an earlier phase of the development of the Thames-side Battersea power station, half the apartments built in former power station's shell were sold outside the UK. The chief executive of the Battersea Power Station Development Company, Rob Tincknell, is aware that empty properties create a perception problem. "If this place doesn't work and there's nobody living here, it just won't function properly," he says. "It is essential we do what we can to make sure our homes are occupied, and we're doing everything possible". "You can't stop investors buying, but even if they do they're going to rent these properties out because people will want to live here - they will be great investments." Walking beneath One St George Wharf, another luxury tower development along the river from the Battersea site, I meet a woman walking her dog. "There's no way normal Londoners can live here, no way," she says. She agrees rich foreign buyers are squeezing out local people though she accepts it is "not their intention - it is just they have the money and the wherewithal." "It's out of most people's range," says a man eating a sandwich as he enjoys the new riverside walkway. "Youngsters coming on the market don't have a chance." 'Investment properties' Across London I meet Westminster councillor David Boothroyd outside one of London's most controversial new-build properties. One Hyde Park is a luxury development with, as the name implies, views of Hyde Park itself. "It is the most luxurious block of flats you could ever imagine in London and they sell for about £70m each." "It turns out there's almost no one actually living here," he says. The flats themselves are mostly investment properties and it is easier for the owners to keep them empty than have the hassle of renting them out, he says. "It is not contributing anything to the community because it is empty." He surveyed his central London borough, Westminster, and found that even though the number of homes had increased, the number of voters and council tax payers had fallen because so many properties were unoccupied. However, Grainne Gilmore, head of residential research at estate agents Knight Frank, argues that those who leave properties empty are few and far between. "It is a very small slice of the market. As you move up the value chain you have billionaires - globally wealthy people - who own homes all around the world and they spend a fraction of their time in each. "They are different from the investors, they want to keep their homes for their use only, but it really is at the top end of the market and it is a small fragment of homes in the capital." Despite anecdotal evidence of foreign buyers stoking house price inflation by purchasing normal residential properties, research by Knight Frank suggests that away from the prime central London locations, foreign non-resident buyers - at least of new-build homes - are less active. More than 79% of all new homes, even in inner London, are bought by UK residents and in outer London the figure is more than 93%, according to Knight Frank. "We do not have enough supply of homes in the capital and that has driven up pricing. Houses are not being built full stop," says Grainne Gilmore. Much of the building that is taking place is aimed at the top end of the market. According to the property consultancy EC Harri, the next decade will see 20,000 prime residential units completed in London, with a sales value of £50bn. Prof Tony Travers, who is local government expert at the London School of Economics, agrees and says that London's rapid house price inflation is more to do with the lack of building than with foreign buyers. "The population of London is growing by about 100,000 each year, but we're only building about 18-20,000 new homes." Development criticism Back at Battersea Power Station the modest plans for affordable homes, just 15% of the total, have drawn stiff criticism. And only half of those are expected to be social housing, accepts Rob Tincknell. So the homes ordinary Londoners can afford are simply not being built. Battersea Power Station stopped generating electricity in 1983 and since then differing development proposals have come and gone - but this one, backed by Malaysian money, looks likely to succeed. A much-loved building will have been given a new lease of life, yet most of the 3,444 new homes will be beyond ordinary Londoners' reach. For most, London will have gained another neighbourhood to look at rather than live in.

जैसा कि प्रसिद्ध वास्तुकार फ्रैंक गेहरी ने लंदन के बैटरसी पावर स्टेशन के पुनर्विकास में अपने योगदान का खुलासा किया, उन्होंने यह कहना आवश्यक महसूस किया, "मैं इमारतों का एक समूह बनाना चाहता हूं जिसमें लोग रहना चाहेंगे", जैसे कि एक वैकल्पिक आकांक्षा थी।


Surrey man cleared over 1987 axe murder

Summary: A Surrey man accused of murdering a private investigator found dead with an axe in his head has been cleared after no evidence was offered against him.

Daniel Morgan, 37, of Monmouthshire, was found dead in March 1987 outside a pub in Sydenham, south-east London. James Cook, 55, of Tadworth, was formally found not guilty after prosecutors at the Old Bailey offered no evidence against him. Three other men remain accused of murder and are to go on trial in 2011. William Rees, 56, of Weybridge, Surrey, Glenn Vian, 52, of south Croydon, and Garry Vian, 50, of no fixed address, deny the charge. Mr Morgan, who was originally from the village of Llanfrechfa, jointly ran a security firm called Southern Investigations.

एक निजी जांचकर्ता की हत्या के आरोपी सरे के एक व्यक्ति को उसके खिलाफ कोई सबूत नहीं दिए जाने के बाद उसके सिर में कुल्हाड़ी के साथ मृत पाया गया है।


Transgender children: Preparing for puberty

Summary: For most parents, their child's move to secondary school is a big moment which requires planning, even more so for those with transgender children. The Victoria Derbyshire programme has been following two of the UK's youngest trans children for the last two-and-a-half years.

By Sarah BellVictoria Derbyshire programme "I won't mention it, but if it comes up I will be honest. I'm not going to say, 'Guess what, I'm trans', but if someone mentions it I will say I am, because I am," says Jessica. The 10-year-old's friends do not really mention the fact she has transitioned from living as male to female, a fact she prefers. She just wants to be treated "like a normal girl". We first met "Jessica" and "Lily", who is now nine, in January 2015. We are not using their real names. Jessica's stepfather "Alex" - who transitioned from living as female to male - says he is "taken aback, but quite proud" that she plans to be open when she moves to her next school in just over a year's time. While it is not without problems, he says that approach avoids having to worry about whether someone will find out, which can be stressful for both the child and siblings who could accidentally "out" them. "It's a big secret to keep. It just puts so much pressure on them. And so if somebody does feel that they can sort of be open about it, I personally I think that's a better way," he says. Find out more Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel. Our first piece about Lily and Jessica can be found here. Our second piece can be read here. Transgender is a term used to describe a person who does not identify as the gender that was assigned to them at birth - they may wish to be seen as a different gender or no gender at all. The UK's only centre specialising in gender issues in under-18s is the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, which is based in London and has clinics across the UK. In the last two years, the number of children aged 10 or under who were referred to the NHS because they were unhappy with their biological gender has risen from 87 to 216, including 32 aged five or under over the last year. It is something psychologists at the trust admit surprised them. They say it is impossible to know for sure why so many more children are being referred, but that it is clear there is much greater awareness and acceptance in society for young people to be able to talk about questioning their gender. Lily's mum "Jen" says the search for the right secondary school began two years ago, before her older son started. She asked how it would support trans children, so she knew it could help both of her offspring. At the time, the school had not encountered any other transgender children, but said it was happy to build something into the curriculum to educate the other pupils. The school already has two children transitioning from male to female. "It's reassuring that they've got a bit of experience of it and getting their heads around it," she says. 'Old news really' Lily, who still has two years left at primary school, is "very happy and doing well", her mum says. "[She's] possibly more confident and just seems more relaxed in herself. At school it doesn't seem to be an issue any more, it's just a kind of old news really." But Lily says her fellow pupils are not always kind. "There was a person, they said, 'You won't be a very good woman, you should just be a man', and that really upset me." Jessica went through a more difficult period at the end of last year as hormones began to kick in, her parents said. "Occasionally she'll bring up, 'When I grow up I'm going to live alone, because no-one will want to live with me because I'm trans, I won't ever get a boyfriend'," says mum "Ella". "They should be children, they should just be allowed to get on with stuff. I just want everything to go smoothly and normal for her, as normal as life is," she adds. Jessica's parents say she felt much better after speaking to a consultant at the Tavistock clinic, who reassured her that the physical changes linked to puberty were some way off. Younger transgender children can receive treatment on the NHS, but at that age it takes the form of counselling and support sessions. Medical intervention is not considered until they approach puberty, when hormone blockers might be offered. Blockers pause the physical changes associated with puberty, giving the young person time to think for much longer about their gender identity. At around the age of 16, a patient can then take cross-sex hormones, which would mean they go through the puberty of the gender that they feel that they are. Ella says she worries about whether they will have the money to pay for private treatment if Jessica wants hormones earlier. "I've got friends whose children need it for their own mental health, their hormones earlier. So I am aware that Jessica may need them sooner." Jen adds: "It's hard being a teenager anyway, (let alone) to have to wait until you're 16 for your body to develop. It's upsetting to think all her peers are going to be talking about periods and developing breasts and wearing bras and things and she will be waiting - a really tough thing for her to go through." The most crucial thing for both sets of parents is to support their children as they grow up and ensure that they have the skills to handle the challenges ahead. "The research evidence shows that teenagers and young people who are trans who have had that support, had the treatment that they need, have the support from families and schools have got the same or better mental health than normal non-trans young people," says Jen. She says the families are fortunate that they are going through the experience now. "Even five years ago things were so different. There were no blockers, that must have been so hard for families going through what we're going through," she says. For more information and support: NHS page with general information. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust - provides the only NHS gender identity service for under-18s. The Gender Identity Development Service - the official website for the service, offering information and resources Mermaids gives support for children, young people and their families Gendered Intelligence gives support to young people Gender Identity Research & Education Centre

अधिकांश माता-पिता के लिए, उनके बच्चे का माध्यमिक विद्यालय में जाना एक बड़ा क्षण है जिसके लिए योजना की आवश्यकता होती है, और भी अधिक ट्रांसजेंडर बच्चों वाले लोगों के लिए। विक्टोरिया डर्बीशायर कार्यक्रम पिछले ढाई वर्षों से यूके के सबसे छोटे ट्रांस बच्चों में से दो का अनुसरण कर रहा है।


Man held over 'Punish a Muslim' letters

Summary: A 35-year-old man has been arrested as part of a police investigation into letters calling for a day of violence against Muslims in the UK.

The man, from Lincoln, was arrested on suspicion of soliciting to murder by police investigating the so-called "Punish a Muslim Day" letters. He is also being held on suspicion of sending a hoax noxious substance and threatening letters. The anonymous letters called for a co-ordinated attack on Muslims. The man is in custody at a police station in West Yorkshire. In a statement, Counter Terrorism Policing North East said searches have taken place at a home in Lincoln and an office in the city centre. The letters, which proposed specific forms of attack, have been circulated online and received in communities across England - including West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Leicestershire and London.

ब्रिटेन में मुसलमानों के खिलाफ एक दिन की हिंसा का आह्वान करने वाले पत्रों की पुलिस जांच के हिस्से के रूप में एक 35 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


EU summit: My part in the Treaty of Rome signing

Summary: More than 20 European heads of state and government are gathering this weekend in the Italian capital to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Present on that day was David Willey, later to be one of the BBC's longest-serving foreign correspondents. At the time, he was a trainee reporter learning the rudiments of journalism.

By David WilleyBBC Vatican correspondent Newsreels of the event confirm my memory that it was raining cats and dogs on that March evening 60 years ago when the founding fathers of the six-nation European Economic Community (EEC) arrived at Michelangelo's great architectural masterpiece Palazzo dei Conservatori on Rome's Capitoline hill. They included the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer; Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian mover and shaker of the new European federal post-war dream; and Walter Hallstein, the German diplomat soon to be elected as the first president of the new community. They were there to put their signatures to what was to become known as the Treaty of Rome. The document promised what they hoped would be "an ever closer union". The symbolism was almost overpowering. They were gathered at the very hub of the ancient world where, 2,500 years ago, six centuries before Christ, the foundations were laid of Rome's first major temple, dedicated to Jupiter, king of the gods. That massive edifice disappeared many centuries ago, the victim of fire or earthquake, but you can still see its excavated foundations, layer upon layer of carefully piled blocks of greyish tufa, the local building material, near the cavernous frescoed room half the length of a football field, where the treaty signing actually took place. The fathers of the new Europe were overlooked by two enormous statues of 16th Century popes raised on plinths at either end, one in bronze, the other in marble. The colourful frescoes depict tales of the legendary heroes and founders of ancient Rome. The ministers and their black-suited advisers sat at long trestle tables and the signatories all said a few inspiring words in Italian, French or German. No-one spoke in English: Britain had been invited to join but had slightly huffily declined. Only four years later Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would reverse British government policy and make a formal application to join the new European club. I had been assigned to cover the signing ceremony by the local Reuters news agency bureau where I was a junior trainee reporter. The English media had shown little interest in the story and that was the reason why I was sent along. I recently checked the report in the following day's Times. It got only a third of a column on page eight. "Historic Date" was the brief headline. The Vatican newspaper of record L'Osservatore Romano was much more upbeat. It lyrically described the event as "the most illustrious and significant international political event in the modern history of Rome". Most of Europe's leaders in the mid-50s were Catholics, so the following day the ministers all trooped off for a private audience across the river Tiber with Pope Pius XII, the wartime pope still reigning at the Vatican. His strong attachment to Germany had been honed by long years spent as nuncio, or papal ambassador, in Berlin. Pius turned out to be more cautious than his newspaper's editorial about the prospects for changing the already successful European Coal and Steel Community into a full-blown political and customs union. "At the present time," he said, "many people are of the opinion that it will be a long while before the initial enthusiasm for [European] unification is revived." What we did not know on that day was that only the first and last pages of the Rome Treaty had actually reached the signatories. The bulky documents on the trestle tables were mostly composed of blank pages. There had been a last-minute mix-up in sending the final text from the chateau in the Brussels suburbs where ministers had been closeted for months arguing and haggling endlessly about such arcane matters as the shape of bananas to be sold in West Germany. The Germans liked long fat ones; the French wanted to sell the smaller sweeter ones from their former African colonies. It was all a foretaste of troubles to come.

20 से अधिक यूरोपीय राष्ट्राध्यक्ष और सरकार इस सप्ताह के अंत में इटली की राजधानी में रोम की संधि पर हस्ताक्षर की 60वीं वर्षगांठ मनाने के लिए इकट्ठा हो रहे हैं। उस दिन डेविड विली मौजूद थे, जो बाद में बीबीसी के सबसे लंबे समय तक सेवा करने वाले विदेशी संवाददाताओं में से एक थे। उस समय, वे पत्रकारिता के मूल सिद्धांतों को सीखने वाले एक प्रशिक्षु रिपोर्टर थे।


Coronavirus doctor's diary: Take care when you clap for carers

Summary: The Thursday evening celebration of NHS workers causes a spike in arrivals at A&E, Dr John Wright of Bradford Royal Infirmary writes in his regular diary. And below he tells the story of one of those workers, a nurse who suffered badly from the virus but has been discharged just in time for her son's first birthday.

2 May 2020 The Thursday evening clap for carers gets louder and more joyous every week. It is a deeply moving tribute that captures the very essence of our communal spirit in these times of adversity. It is also the only time communities now come together and generates a rare feeling of release and togetherness, a faint memory of a previous era. But when people have gone out to clap we've seen interesting little peaks in accident rates that we weren't expecting. People might need to be a bit more cautious, especially if they've been sitting down all day and then get up to clap. It might be one of the only times older people come outside and so there is a risk of falling and I'd just remind people to take care. "The clap for carers has made us a little busier," says Richard Pilling, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Harrogate District Hospital. "It's very nice that everyone is very enthusiastic about showing support but it's escalated, so people are coming out banging pans and seeing who can clap the loudest, and therein accidents lie. "It's nice to walk on to your doorstep and show appreciation, it's a chance to see your neighbours, and it's lovely to see people sticking together during the lockdown. Just do it less vigorously - you don't have to be the loudest on the street." Clapping injury Ella Simkin, 23, went out with her parents to clap on Thursday at their house in south London, and decided to jump up on to a raised concrete flower bed to get a better view of all the neighbours. She missed her footing, and suddenly "there was this sharp pain," she says. "It sliced into my knee - I was wearing jeans and at first I didn't realise but it was bleeding a lot and we went to Accident and Emergency. "I was very embarrassed when we got there. When I went for the X-ray I was telling them I was out clapping when it happened. Everyone found it very funny and lots of people said my heart was in the right place." Richard points out that some people have been exercising more than usual during the lockdown, but others have stopped exercising, and problems can occur when they suddenly get up and clap. They may fall and break a bone, for example. Some people arrive at hospital immediately after the clap, others later in the evening, after trying and failing to get over their injury at home. "When you're trying to keep pressure off the NHS, it's adding to the workload at a time when we really want to avoid that happening," Richard says. "I think people need to be careful and just slow down a bit if they're going out into the street." Despite the precautions taken in our hospitals, health workers do sometimes catch Covid-19 - and even fit young people without previous health problems may find themselves needing hospital treatment. Palliative care nurse Kelly Ward, aged 35, had been looking after elderly Covid patients at a neighbouring Bradford hospital, when she began to feel out of breath at the end of a shift one day. By the time she got home she was feverish, and the following day she was brought into hospital by ambulance, hardly able to breathe. Front line diary Prof John Wright, a medical doctor and epidemiologist, is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and a veteran of cholera, HIV and Ebola epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. He is writing this diary for BBC News and recording from the hospital wards for BBC Radio 4's The NHS Front Line She was put on a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which has been our secret weapon in the treatment of Covid-19. It blows air into the lungs, keeping them inflated, but the feeling is unpleasant - and the mask needed for machine to work can make people feel claustrophobic. Some of our patients just cannot tolerate it. "At first I panicked, I'm not going to lie," Kelly told me when I visited her on the ward 10 days ago. "I've never had anything like that before and I tolerated it for maybe about an hour or two, and I was fine. And then I told the doctors overnight that I wasn't having it on any more, it was so claustrophobic. It felt like I had no control over what was going into my lungs, even though I know it was helping me. I felt like I couldn't breathe. "And one of the doctors gave me strict talking to and said, 'You know, if you don't have it on you are going to go downhill.' So I had it on again." She got on fine with it for the rest of that day, but the following morning - the day we met - she started panicking again and rejected it. Fortunately, by this stage, Dr Paul Whitaker, a consultant in respiratory medicine, felt she had turned a corner, and could already start to be weaned off oxygen. Kelly agreed. She confessed that there had been a moment during her first 48 hours in hospital when she'd thought she might die, but that moment had passed. However, I witnessed Dr Whitaker talking to another patient, a woman in her early 70s who had tried CPAP and couldn't face it again. He asked her whether she would use it if it was a case of life or death. "No," was the answer. "It's not what my family would want but it isn't their decision," she said. Then she added: "I know I'm not giving you much chance to help me." She died a few days later. Kelly continued to improve, however. It was her objective to be home in time for her son's first birthday on Sunday 3 May, and I'm glad to say she was well enough to be discharged on Friday. In our experience it's taking people a long time to recover from Covid-19. Kelly is still breathless and told me she had to crawl up the stairs on her hands and knees. Once at the top she had to stop and draw breath, before continuing to her bedroom. "I'm breathless, exhausted but really overjoyed to be home," she says. "It's been much harder than I expected. I didn't expect to feel as weak as I do. It's really taken it out of me, it really has. I've been downstairs once and have spent the rest of the time in bed." Kelly's son is so young he may not have realised she'd been away. Her eight-year-old daughter, however, shed tears of joy to see her mother again. "My daughter knows I've been poorly and I'm getting better. She knows it will be a while until I'm back to full force, but she's not frightened," Kelly says. "When this all started I was very open with her and told her I was looking after very poorly people, as was everyone in the NHS. It's been tough and she's done very, very well." "Next Thursday, when everyone in the city comes out to clap, they will be clapping for you, Kelly," I told her. "I'll be clapping for every single person in the NHS," she replied. "Everyone has been unbelievable. My life has been saved and I'm so, so grateful." Two more patients have been discharged. A week ago I wrote about Michael and Mary Blessington, a couple in their 60s who have been together from the age of 13, and who were together in hospital with Covid-19. Mary was finally able to leave hospital today. Their son, Craig, says Michael stood at the gate waiting for her, after she rang to say she was leaving. Then, when it proved impossible to get the fish and chips she had been waiting for for so long, Michael made her scrambled egg. Another Covid-19 patient who is very pleased to be home - and who at one point thought it might never happen. Follow @docjohnwright on Twitter

ब्रैडफोर्ड रॉयल इन्फर्मरी के डॉ. जॉन राइट अपनी नियमित डायरी में लिखते हैं कि गुरुवार की शाम को एनएचएस कार्यकर्ताओं के उत्सव के कारण ए एंड ई में आगमन में वृद्धि होती है। और नीचे वह उन श्रमिकों में से एक की कहानी बताता है, एक नर्स जो वायरस से बुरी तरह पीड़ित थी लेकिन उसे अपने बेटे के पहले जन्मदिन के लिए समय पर छुट्टी दे दी गई थी।


From beats to eats: How nightclubs try to survive

Summary: A night out looks very different when compared to a few months ago. The ten o'clock curfew, the 'rule of six', sound limits on noise and music and the no dancing rule make it all a different experience. So what are nightclubs doing to adapt and how does a night out feel?

As soon as the lockdown was lifted, Birmingham club The Night Owl decided it would have to try and change the direction of its business. Gone are the times when club-goers would dance the night away on its sprung-wooden dance floor. Now, socially distanced tables are on the floor, food is served and there is no dancing - at least not much. The club's managers decided it made sense to expand its daytime attractions. It had previously hosted monthly food and music events but they have now become a weekly thing. Promoter and DJ Mazzy Snape said: "As well as a reggae cookout we have soul and funk, disco and Prince-themed brunches. "Our Britpop brunch is proving really popular." Customers can book a table at the venue from lunchtime up until closing time. Food and drink is ordered by app. "The whole ethos of the club before was so people could dance - so at first we had to keep reminding them they couldn't," she said. "Most people are understanding, and we do have a bit of chair dancing. "Throughout lockdown we supported people with live-streamed DJ sets, Northern Soul championships, and the like, to keep people occupied - and people appreciated it. "So when we reopened people were keen to support us. "People want us to be there in a year's time when hopefully we can dance again." The Jam House in Birmingham used to welcome more than 600 customers through its doors on a Saturday night - but now only has seating for 150. The live music venue would also regularly host big bands on its stage - but now, with social distancing, the most musicians it can hold is five. Before the curfew, there would be about three musical sets per evening. "But that's gone now," manager John Bunce said. "We've only got four hours to play with so there is some live action, a DJ working as a compere and a then a catalogue of previously recorded live shots from the Jam House of the past. "Then there is a live performance but then it's time to prepare to leave. "The curfew has been hard. We try to be as hospitable as we can but it's hard when given rules from an outside force." Like many other hospitality venues it has had to let staff go. "During lockdown we took advantage of the furlough system," Mr Bunce said "We had just under 50 (staff) in the roll call, unfortunately come this August we had to make a number of people redundant, staff roll about 30 now." Despite the challenges the venue wanted to continue hosting live music and try to continue to support musicians. "We didn't want to run as a pub and restaurant. "It's a big venue on several floors and we didn't think we could create the intimacy or a pub or a bar." Average takings were down to 20% when it reopened and then they suffered a further reduction to 14% when the curfew was introduced. And it could be more restrictions are on the way with pubs and clubs expected to close in some areas of England. "We can only really open Friday and Saturday nights - whereas previously we traded five nights a week." "We think we can hold on until past Christmas at the levels of loss we're experiencing," he added. But what are the changes like for the former nightclub-goers? Harriet Crossley, 19, from Dudley is a regular at Snobs nightclub in Birmingham. The second-year English student at Birmingham City University said since it reopened after lockdown she regularly goes with friends about twice a week. "No dancing is allowed, you have to be completely seated and can't really stand up," she said. "The bouncers are quite strict but also very understanding - everyone complies really well. "It does feel strange but it's like our local so to us it's still the same Snobs. "Everyone wants to support it and nobody wants it to close, so it's always full and there are never any spare tables. "It always used to be about music and dancing but now with the social distancing it's more about a club atmosphere with people your age, rather than going to a pub."

कुछ महीने पहले की तुलना में एक रात बाहर बिताना बहुत अलग दिखता है। दस बजे का कर्फ्यू, 'छह का नियम', शोर और संगीत पर ध्वनि सीमा और नृत्य नहीं करने का नियम इन सभी को एक अलग अनुभव बनाता है। तो नाइट क्लब अनुकूलन के लिए क्या कर रहे हैं और एक रात बाहर बिताना कैसा लगता है?


Twelve crews sent to 'large fire' in Bristol

Summary: More than 40 firefighters have been tackling a blaze at an office block in Bristol.

There were small explosions in the fire, which broke out at the Strachan and Henshaw building in Foundry Lane in the Speedwell area, Avon Fire and Rescue Service said. Twelve crews from across the service area have been at the scene of the "large fire", it said. The service said crews had been "firefighting in difficult conditions". It urged people to avoid the area if possible.

40 से अधिक अग्निशामक ब्रिस्टल में एक कार्यालय ब्लॉक में लगी आग पर काबू पा रहे हैं।


Police cuts: Is the force drowning or shroud-waving?

Summary: The warning to the home secretary that cuts to police budgets might "reduce very significantly" the UK's ability to respond to a Paris-style terror attack is seen by senior officers as a trump card in their campaign to change the chancellor's mind before next week's spending review.

Mark EastonHome editor@BBCMarkEastonon Twitter It is thought George Osborne is considering reductions of around 20% in the amount spent on the police in England and Wales. That, a leaked document from a senior officer argues, is more than double what the force could withstand if it is to offer a viable response to multiple simultaneous terrorist incidents such as we saw across Paris a week ago. How much credence will the home secretary and, more importantly, the chancellor give to these warnings? After all, the prime minister has already announced that the police's counter-terrorism budget will be protected. The leaked note, entitled "Implications of the Paris Attack for UK Preparedness", says further losses in officer numbers "will severely impact our surge capacity" in respect of a major terrorist incident. So what is "surge capacity"? The phrase is usually applied in a medical situation: it relates to the ability of health services to respond to a major emergency or disaster. The senior officer, however, is using it in the context of police response to a major terror incident, the first time I have seen the phrase employed in this way. Clearly, if you have multiple terror attacks in different locations over a very short period, it is going to require an extraordinary response from police and, potentially, the military. The suggestion, though, that thousands of bobbies with truncheons might be mobilised to respond to such an incident does not make sense. Surge capacity must mean armed police officers. The latest figures show there are 5,875 firearms officers in England and Wales, down more than 1,000 from 2009. The number has fallen as demand for their services has declined. Violent crime has fallen significantly and last year armed officers were only required to fire their weapons on two occasions. With less than 5% of police officers trained to confront tooled up terrorists, one might ask why chief constables don't train more, if that is what they really need. I heard former Home Secretary Lord Reid on BBC Radio 4 this morning pointing out that there were 115,000 police deployed in Paris last weekend - equal, he suggested, to what the entire force in England and Wales might be if the cuts go ahead. Policing traditions in France, however, are very different from Britain. The French have long had a penchant for men in uniform with guns. The Gendarmerie Nationale, numbering some 98,000 armed officers, is part of the armed forces and therefore under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defence - although it is now part of the Ministry of the Interior - and deals with serious crime on a national scale. The Police Nationale, with a further 144,000 officers routinely carrying pistols, operates in cities and large towns. And then there is the Compagnie Republicaine de la Sécurité (CRS), numbering around 13,000, who are used for riot control and the re-establishment of order. In addition to all of that, the French have Police Municipal - around 18,000 unarmed local officers in 3,500 communities. In the UK, the principles of Sir Robert Peel apply to policing - a focus on minimal use of force and the notion that officers are "only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen". There is little public support for officers to be routinely armed. Cuts to police numbers, however, have caused concern among police, some politicians and members of the public. People tend to equate the size of the force with its ability to protect us from harm - more cops, less crime. While there must be some truth in this idea, there is really very little correlation between the number of officers we have and the risk of being a crime victim. Broadly, crime rose in Britain in the 50 years after World War Two and has since fallen consistently. Police numbers rose as crime increased, but continued to rise as crime started to decline in the mid-90s - peaking at about 144,000 in England and Wales in 2009. Since then we have seen a reduction of about 20,000 police officers - the current figure for England and Wales is 124,264, not including police and community support officers. Northern Ireland has 6,780 officers and Scotland has 17,234. So would further reductions on police numbers put the country's safety in jeopardy? This week the Institute of Fiscal Studies looked at police budgets in a report called "Funding the Thin Blue Line". The report concluded that "cuts to police spending since 2010-11 have been large enough to reduce spending per person by 2014-15 roughly back to the level it was in 2002-03". But is that such a problem? After all, the amount of crime reported to police has fallen by more than a quarter since then. In 2002-03 they dealt with 5.9 million incidents. In the last year it was just 4.3 million. That aspect of their work has diminished greatly and I don't recall police complaining their budgets weren't big enough to keep us safe back then. The police argument is that while crime has fallen, other parts of their work have grown. As the service of last resort, they are increasingly expected to deal with people with mental health problems, anxieties over anti-social behaviour, domestic disputes and other non-criminal activity. A significant part of police time is now spent monitoring serious offenders in the community as well as protecting vulnerable individuals. Senior officers would also point to the changing risk from cyber-crime and, indeed, terrorism. These are legitimate points. The debate needs to be around the question of what the police are for. Theresa May famously told senior officers that their job was "nothing more, and nothing less, than to cut crime". But most police and crime commissioners would say that is simplistic. The public expect police to do much more than deal with crime. A lost child or a confused old gentleman, a burst water main, inconsiderate parking, noisy neighbours - are we really saying that the police should stop worrying about these unless they are demonstrated to "cut crime"? And then there is the risk from a Paris-style terrorist attack. Of course, we could reconfigure our police forces to be ready to respond to simultaneous shootings and bombings. We could train and arm tens of thousands more officers so there is "surge capacity" in every major town and city in the UK. But that would mark a revolution in Britain's attitude towards policing - a change for which there is little evidence of public support.

गृह सचिव को चेतावनी कि पुलिस बजट में कटौती से पेरिस-शैली के आतंकवादी हमले का जवाब देने की ब्रिटेन की क्षमता "बहुत कम" हो सकती है, वरिष्ठ अधिकारियों द्वारा अगले सप्ताह की खर्च समीक्षा से पहले चांसलर के मन को बदलने के अपने अभियान में एक ट्रम्प कार्ड के रूप में देखा जाता है।


Teen detained for Notting Hill Carnival police stabbing

Summary: A 17-year-old boy who stabbed a police officer with a lock knife at the Notting Hill Carnival has been given a six-month detention and training order.

The PC was breaking up a brawl on 31 August in Elgin Crescent when the youth lashed out with the drawn knife. At Wimbledon Youth Court, the teenager pleaded guilty to wounding and possession of a knife with intent to cause threats and violence. Police arrested a total of 67 people for having weapons at the carnival. The PC, from Catford Police Station, had to have stitches in the 1in (3cm) deep wound in his arm. Det Supt Raffaele D'Orsi, from Kensington and Chelsea Police, said the case showed the dangers police face. "I am thankful that his injury was not life-threatening," he said.

नॉटिंग हिल कार्निवल में एक पुलिस अधिकारी पर चाकू से वार करने वाले एक 17 वर्षीय लड़के को छह महीने की हिरासत और प्रशिक्षण आदेश दिया गया है।


Elton John: 'I still want my dad's approval'

Summary: He may have started out singing cover versions on cheap compilation albums, but Elton John went on to become the fifth highest-selling recording artist of all time.

By Mark SavageBBC music reporter He was the first musician to enter the US album charts at number one. He has won a Brit award for outstanding achievement three times. And he owns six gold, 38 platinum and one diamond albums. None of this, however, impressed his father. Stanley Dwight, a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, never attended one of Elton's shows, and never expressed pride in his son's success. Their relationship was strained until his death from heart disease in 1991. Writing in his new autobiography, Me, Elton admits he spent his whole career "trying to show my father what I'm made of". "It's crazy, but I just wanted his approval," the star tells the BBC, in the only print interview about his book. "I'm still trying to prove to him that what I do is fine - and he's been dead for almost 30 years." Strikingly, however, the star harbours no resentment, describing his father as a "product of his time" - uptight, emotionally stunted and trapped in an unhappy marriage. "Although he didn't really come to the shows or write me a letter to say, 'well done', I don't think he knew how to," he explains. Born Reginald Dwight and raised in Pinner, near Wembley in north-west London, Elton was frequently on the receiving end of his parents' frustration. He spent his formative years in "a state of high alert" amid arguments and "clobberings" from his mum. "My parents were oil and water. They should never have gotten married," he says. "As you get older, you can see much clearer what they went through, what they tried to do for me at the expense of their happiness." 'All hell broke loose' His salvation came in rock and roll. Both his parents were musically inclined - Stanley was a trumpet player with the Bob Miller band, while his mother, Sheila, would bring home new records every week on pay day. One day, she arrived home clutching Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel, a disc that turned Reggie's world upside down. "I grew up in the 1950s, which was a very conservative age - people peeking behind the curtains, being very judgmental," he says. "I knew nothing about sex, it was never even mentioned to me. If a girl got pregnant she was sent away and nobody talked about it. It was a very different place. "Then Elvis Presley arrived on the scene and revolutionised things musically and socially, and then the 60s happened and all hell broke loose". Initially, the teenager watched these developments as an outsider - in love with the music, but forbidden to participate. "I was very shy," he says. "I grew up not being able to wear what I wanted to. Winkle picker shoes? No, they were too disgusting. The mods wore chisel toe shoes and anoraks. I couldn't wear those either. "So when I changed my name and became Elton John, I just went off like an Exocet missile, and I had a great time. I lived my teenage years in my 20s, basically." The story has been told a thousand times: The miraculous meeting with lyricist Bernie Taupin, a blue-touch-paper appearance at LA's Troubador club, and an unbeatable run of hit albums. Between 1970 and 1975, there were 11 in all, an astonishingly productive purple patch that generated classic singles like Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Tiny Dancer and Rocket Man - the latter of which unexpectedly turned Elton into a sex symbol. "It was a surprising time," he laughs. "I mean, I wasn't David Bowie, I wasn't Marc Bolan, I was sitting at the piano. But I suddenly became, you know, the object of screaming girls. I don't know why." Emboldened by success, Elton's outfits became ever more outrageous: Satin capes and winged boots gave way to mohawk wigs, bejewelled top hats and peacock suits adorned with feathers and sequins - the sort of thing Liberace would have worn if he'd had the courage to be really flamboyant. His imperial phase culminated with two sold-out shows at LA's Dodger Stadium in October 1975. With a combined audience of 100,000 fans they were, at the time, the largest concerts ever staged by a single artist. "He was like Elvis at the height of his career," said photographer Terry O'Neill, who shot the gigs. "It is impossible to try to explain to people today what it was like." But Elton knew as he played those shows that he would never reach that peak again. "I was smart enough to know it couldn't last. It's impossible. You just have to accept that there's going to be someone bigger than you." It's a sense of perspective other artists lack, he says. "When Michael Jackson said, 'I want to sell more records than Thriller', I thought, 'Oh boy, you're in for a big fall'. Because Thriller was a classic record. It sold 40 million albums, which was huge. You can't have a record coming in at number one all the time." Sure enough, Elton would have to wait until 1990 before he returned to the top of the charts. The wilderness years, while hardly hit-free, saw him split temporarily with Bernie Taupin and record an ill-advised disco album, Victim Of Love. Behind the scenes, his drug and alcohol intake was spiralling out of control. In his memoir, he describes having seizures and witnessing his voice go "haywire" as his "unbelievable appetite" for cocaine grew stronger. The drug had initially given him a "jolt of confidence and euphoria," but as addiction took hold, he became erratic and violent. In 1983, after filming the video for I'm Still Standing, he woke up with his hands throbbing, unaware that the night before, he'd stripped naked, punched his manager John Reid and methodically demolished his hotel room. Although the recent biopic Rocketman depicts I'm Still Standing as Elton's hymn to sobriety, it actually took him another seven years to kick the habit. The turning point came when his then-boyfriend Hugh Williams checked into rehab, plunging Elton into a fortnight-long cocaine and whisky binge. Eventually, he dragged himself to the clinic, where Williams confronted him on his behaviour. "You're a drug addict, you're an alcoholic, you're a food addict and a bulimic," he said. "You're a sex addict. You're co-dependent". "Yes," said Elton, "yes, I am," and started to cry. So on 29 July, 1990, he entered rehab in Chicago to treat "three addictions at once". In his book, Elton reprints a poignant break-up letter he wrote to "the white lady" during his treatment. "I don't want you and I to share the same grave," it reads. He kept his word: The singer has now been clean for 29 years, during which time he's revitalised his career, married film producer David Furnish, written the hit soundtrack to the Lion King, launched the stage version of Billy Elliot and become father to two children, Zachary and Elijah. He says the autobiography was written for them: A document they could read after he's gone that would tell the unvarnished truth. "I want them to know that their dad was being honest, and he made something of his life after a few hiccups along the way", he says. It was Elton's sons that prompted him to give up touring, too. "My kids were only going to grow up once," he writes in the memoir. "Music was the most wonderful thing, but it still didn't sound as good as Zachary chatting about what had happened at football practice." With typical grandiosity, Elton's farewell tour is scheduled to run for three years, with the final show set for 17 December, 2020, at London's O2 Arena. But that is definitively not the end. Last week, Bernie Taupin posted a photo of himself at the writing desk, composing lyrics. Can Elton confirm they're intended for him? "Yes, they are," he says. "I said to Bernie, 'I'm going around the world for three years, why don't I write? "You know, I wrote the whole of the Captain Fantastic album on the SS France, sailing from Southampton to New York, and I didn't have a tape recorder. So I remembered everything I wrote in my head: The chord changes, the sequences, everything. "And I said, 'I'd like to go back and do that, instead of going into the studio and writing on the spot'. It may not be successful but I just want to try it." What's more, he's already cooking up plans to play concerts after the farewell tour. His "dream thing" is to put on a theatrical residency, in the style of Kate Bush's Before the Dawn extravaganza in 2014. Like her, Elton would delve deep into his back catalogue, prioritising lesser-played cuts like Amoreena, Come Down In Time and Original Sin over fan favourites like Your Song or Rocket Man. "I've sung these songs nearly 5,000 times, some of them, and although they're wonderful songs, and I'm very appreciative of them, I've sung them enough," he says. "If I do perform again, I would like to do songs that I think are just as good as the ones that have been popular for 50 years, but haven't had the chance to emerge." Elton John's autobiography, Me, is out now, You can hear excerpts, read by Taron Egerton, on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week and on BBC Sounds this week. Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

हो सकता है कि उन्होंने सस्ते संकलन एल्बमों पर कवर संस्करण गाना शुरू किया हो, लेकिन एल्टन जॉन अब तक के पांचवें सबसे अधिक बिकने वाले रिकॉर्डिंग कलाकार बन गए।


University of Ulster's Magee expansion plan 'in doubt'

Summary: The chairman of Stormont's Employment and Learning committee has warned that any expansion of third level education is unlikely because of the deficit in the department's budget.

Basil McCrea's statement casts further uncertainty over the University of Ulster's plans to expand its Magee campus in Londonderry. The plans were first proposed in 2008. He said it is difficult to see how Magee can grow given the current financial climate. "The higher education budget as it currently stands is going to be contracting rather than expanding," he said. "The pressure will be on the University of Ulster to maintain its three university campuses, never mind expanding. So this is something that is going to be quite difficult in the medium term."

स्टॉर्मोंट की रोजगार और शिक्षा समिति के अध्यक्ष ने चेतावनी दी है कि विभाग के बजट में कमी के कारण तीसरे स्तर की शिक्षा के किसी भी विस्तार की संभावना नहीं है।


Why tourists are shunning a beautiful Italian island

Summary: A sunny Italian isle in the Mediterranean with beautiful beaches and sparkling seas, Lampedusa sounds like an ideal holiday destination - but tourists are staying away. Police have become a constant presence, sent to deal with the huge number of migrants arriving on the island, and for some locals the uniforms evoke uncomfortable memories.

By Emma Jane KirbyBBC News, Lampedusa The mottled brown dog paws the heavy wire gates of the reception centre and whines to be let in, rubbing his mangy head on the mesh to try to attract the guard's attention. The young officer grins as he opens the door; "You just can't get enough of these guys can you?" he says fondly as the stray dog makes a beeline for the lunch queue and trots expectantly towards a group of migrants who are spooning pasta from plastic pots. The rest of Lampedusa, particularly those who are engaged in the tourist trade, don't share the dog's unconditional adoration of the migrants. At the island's port, Giorgio is turning over the engine of his small boat, Giorgio, a skipper, tells me he rarely gets the chance these days to take tourists out on the open sea - he's got no clients. It's hardly a selling point, he says, to boast that Lampedusa is a migrant hotspot - it doesn't exactly give off that festive holiday buzz. I protest that the island has some of the best beaches in the world, that its climate, even in these winter months is mild and comforting and that the surrounding cobalt-blue sea is full of dolphins, turtles and carnival coloured fish. He gives me a withering smile. "Yes mate," he agrees. "But so is Sardinia. That's why skippers there are happily fleecing tourists every day, while I sit idle here in the port." His girlfriend, Angela, hands him a cloth to wipe the salt off the boat's windows. "I used to work eight months of the year as a hotel receptionist," she complains. "Now I'm lucky to get three months work a year - the guests just aren't coming anymore, even in summer." In the main shopping street, a sparse handful of German tourists flick through glossy guide books and untidy piles of marked-down, turtle embossed T-shirts at the souvenir shop. A solitary birdwatcher, with a jumble of binoculars and cameras hanging from his neck, sits on the church steps mopping at a sticky trail of ice cream on his fleece as he gawps at the cafe opposite. But the cafe, far from being deserted, is stuffed with customers, each one clamouring loudly over the thumping pop music, for his mid-morning cappuccino. But it's not the frenetic activity that's caught our birdwatcher's eye - it's the fact that that every one of the customers in the cafe is in police uniform. On the other side of the island, looking out over a beautiful cove, Angela's old boss Andrea is chain-smoking cigarettes with an air of desperation. He's just put down the phone on a potential visitor who told him he'd like to book for next spring, but his wife is a bit concerned they might bump into a corpse when they go swimming. Andrea says that last year he was 50% down on bookings, but curiously he doesn't blame the migrants. He says it's the way they're managed. "Welcome to Lampedusa police state!" he says sarcastically as we hear a siren wail on the coastal road. "This whole island has become militarised - you can't go anywhere without seeing burly blokes in uniforms with truncheons, guns and bullet-proof vests. It's hardly a welcome is it?" There was a time, I remind him, when migrants outnumbered the islanders. They set up dirty, wild camps in the scrubland overlooking the port, and were constantly seen in bedraggled groups in the town in full view of the tourists - now they're kept inside the reception centre while they're processed and are quickly moved on to Sicily. "Isn't that better," I ask, "in terms of visitor appeal?" Andrea takes a long drag on his cigarette. "Those poor refugees are locked in as if they're in a concentration camp," he says quietly. "And what that says to tourists is, 'Welcome back to fascism'." Find out more I tell him that I've been chatting with Lampedusa's exhausted-looking mayor who's assured me that tourism on the island is undergoing a renaissance, welcoming a new kind of socially-aware visitor who feels solidarity with the migrant's plight. Andrea nods thoughtfully. "She's right," he says. "But unfortunately our new visitors are generally young and broke - they've no money for a nice hotel or dinner." He won't answer my question about what happens to his business if tourism doesn't pick up. Giorgio the skipper, though, is already talking about going to look for work further north, just like the migrants. Inside the reception centre, the brown dog chews contentedly on a sock he's stolen from an asylum seeker. He rolls onto his back in the dust. Tonight these migrants may all be shipped off, but tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, he knows there'll be more of them, so his future at least is certain. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

सुंदर समुद्र तटों और चमकते समुद्रों के साथ भूमध्य सागर में एक धूप वाला इतालवी द्वीप, लैम्पेडुसा एक आदर्श छुट्टी गंतव्य की तरह लगता है-लेकिन पर्यटक दूर रह रहे हैं। पुलिस एक निरंतर उपस्थिति बन गई है, द्वीप पर आने वाले बड़ी संख्या में प्रवासियों से निपटने के लिए भेजी गई है, और कुछ स्थानीय लोगों के लिए वर्दी असहज यादें जगाती है।


Is Hampshire devolution doomed?

Summary: It all seemed to be going so well. Hampshire and Isle of Wight's bid for devolution was seen as a southern front-runner. An economy close to the scale of Wales bidding for control of its own destiny.

Peter HenleyPolitical editor, South of England@BBCPeterHon Twitter The architect of the plan, Hampshire leader Roy Perry, was singled out to speak at the Conservative Party conference in September and the Secretary of State Greg Clark seemed keen. As deals were signed with the North East, then the South West, it seemed the Southern powerhouse was just around the corner. But now I am told it will be January at the earliest before the plan will be looked at again. After initial meetings Westminster enthusiasm appears to have cooled. And back on the south coast changes that were ordered aren't going down well, in particular the concentration on new housing, overriding local plans. At least two of those who originally signed the original document have now tempered their commitment. Glossy Prospectus The glossy prospectus picked out the South of England's role as a driver of the UK economy, representing the largest "county area" economy in the UK, promising to add £3bn if productivity was raised. An impressive 24 signatures backed the bid, Hampshire County Council, Isle of Wight Council, Portsmouth and Southampton city councils and 11 district councils. They were working together on the project along with the Solent and Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnerships, New Forest and South Downs National Park authorities, Hampshire Constabulary, Hampshire Fire and Rescue and NHS England Wessex. But keeping the leaders of all those organisations marching in the same direction has proved difficult. When the Leader of Hampshire County Council Roy Perry got top billing at a debate on devolution at the Conservative conference the call for 100% retention of business rates looked more distinctive than now that the chancellor has announced that was what he planned anyway. One council leader, Ferris Cowper from East Hampshire then admitted he'd only signed the bid reluctantly saying: "If it proved possible to stay in the project for the time being, then we had a chance of influencing the outcome to be more in our favour. "To remove ourselves from the bid at this early stage, would deny us that opportunity." Hardly a ringing endorsement. Then the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership sent a letter expressing some of its own reservations. In November, Secretary of State Greg Clark cancelled a planned visit to the South, summoning representatives from the region to London instead. A leader who was there described it as "a cross between Dragon's Den and the Apprentice". So who got fired? The government still wants to see an elected mayor at the helm of a new authority, so far the southern bid is offering just a board of leaders. The bid puts accelerated housing delivery at the forefront of its offer in return for certainty over infra-structure funding. But now several of the Conservative-led district councils are backing away from agreeing to vote-losing concreting over southern green fields. Far from one streamlined new administration, it's looking increasingly like devolution may end in tears - or the same old tiers - of local government.

ऐसा लग रहा था कि सब कुछ बहुत अच्छा चल रहा है। हस्तांतरण के लिए हैम्पशायर और आइल ऑफ वाइट की बोली को दक्षिणी मोर्चे के रूप में देखा गया। एक ऐसी अर्थव्यवस्था जो वेल्स के पैमाने के करीब है जो अपने भाग्य पर नियंत्रण के लिए बोली लगा रही है।