India female foeticide: Can Bihar save its girls?

Summary: The latest census figures have come as a big jolt to the authorities in the northern Indian state of Bihar who are just waking up to the dangers of female foeticide. So what are they doing about it? The BBC's Geeta Pandey reports from Patna.

On a steaming hot day, nearly two dozen women have gathered in the office of the government-run child development project in the Bihar village of Vidupur. Most are accompanied by their little daughters. All of them have a white sheet of paper which they scramble to show me. It's a precious document - it carries the name of the girl, her date of birth and other details. And it's proof that she is enrolled for the government's Kanya Suraksha Yojana (Girl Protection Scheme). Under the scheme, the state invests 2,000 rupees ($44; $27) in a fund in the name of the girl. The money grows along with the child - once she reaches 18, officials say it will be worth about 10 times that amount, and could be used to pay for her wedding or to fund a college education. The scheme is available only to those living below the poverty line and a family can enrol just two daughters. The initiative, announced in November 2007, is part of the government's plan to make baby girls wanted and, at the same time, make small families an attractive idea. "The scheme was launched to ensure the girl child is allowed to be born, that her birth is celebrated, and that she is cared for," says Irina Sinha, an official in the state government's Women's Development Corporation. A miracle A mere mile from Vidupur is another villager, Bihvarpur, where a social worker takes me to see baby Anuskha. The youngest of four siblings - all girls - Anuskha is nine months old. The very fact that she exists in flesh and blood is a miracle. In 2009, when her mother, Sunita Devi, became pregnant, she went to a clinic in the nearby town of Hajipur for an ultrasound test. "I asked the doctor whether it was a girl or a boy. I told her, 'I'm a poor person. I already have three daughters. I can't look after another girl'," she tells me. The doctor told her it was a girl. "I asked for an abortion. She said it would cost 5,000 rupees [$110; £68]." Sunita did not have the money so a few months later, baby Anushka was born. Since the illiterate mother does not have a birth certificate for her, Anushka cannot claim any state benefit. "Now where will I find the money to feed and clothe them? And how will I pay for their dowries?" Sunita asks. In mostly rural, feudal, male-dominated Bihar, women have very low status. Everyone I spoke to talked about the evil of the dowry system. Rich or poor, no-one's exempt from this menace. And that, almost everyone agrees, is the main reason why girls are not welcome. 'Good policies' "People here feel very sorry when a girl child is born," says Rafay Eajaz Hussain of the Public Health Resource Network, an NGO in the state capital, Patna. To change that, he says, the government has announced "some good policies for the girl child". "They are given books and uniform allowances and when a girl reaches the 9th grade, she gets a free bicycle." Just a little over a mile from Vidupur and Bihvarpur is the village of Navanagar. Here, teenagers Puja Kumari and Kiran Thakur pose for photos with the gleaming new bicycles they have received from the government. The three villages are in Vaishali district, a 45-minute drive from Patna, across the River Ganges. According to preliminary data released by the 2011 census, Vaishali has the worst child sex ratio in the state, with 894 girls for every 1,000 boys aged 0-6. Patna is second from bottom with 899. At 933, the state's child sex ratio is still better than the national average of 914, but it's dropped a long way from the than 981 which the state registered 30 years ago. This has sent the alarm bells ringing in the administration. Bihar is one of India's poorest states with 57% of its 103 million population living in extreme poverty. It also scores very low on human development indexes with high levels of female illiteracy and widespread malnutrition. "The sex ratio has not been high on the government agenda. The census data has given us all a big jolt," Ms Sinha says. "So far, we were focused on child marriages and malnutrition." 'Problem of affluence' Mr Hussain says perhaps what has prevented a large-scale bloodbath of baby girls in the state is the endemic poverty and lack of development. "In rural Bihar, information on sex selection is not easily accessible. Also, the poor cannot afford to pay for the ultrasound or the termination of pregnancy," he says. Ms Sinha says the problem of female foeticide is seen more in the middle class and affluent families and urban areas which have access to technology. "In cities what we see is a daughter who is 16 and then a son who is six - so what happened in between?" Given that the state's girl-friendly schemes are meant for the poorest of the poor, while foeticide is mostly practiced by the affluent, is the government barking up the wrong tree? "Not really," says Dr OP Kansal of Unicef. "Bihar has become the donors' darling. In the past five years, the state has launched many development schemes and as people come out of poverty and get more affluent, more girl children will be killed unless something is done now. "People would want smaller families and our obsession with the male child means they would want sons rather than daughters." Sign language India legally allows abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Gender can be determined only after 14 weeks of pregnancy and sex selective abortion is illegal. But medical practitioners have found a way of circumventing the law. In Bihar, there are more than 1,000 ultrasound clinics, many of them still unregistered. "We want to register them all. And we will punish those who carry out illegal sex determination," Bihar Health Minister Ashwini Chaubey says. An ultrasound scan costs a few hundred rupees and there is zero paperwork to avoid leaving any proof. The parents are never given anything in writing. Often, the gender of the foetus is conveyed by signs - a pat on the side of the nose signifies the nose-ring (or a girl) while a twirl of the moustache is meant to be a boy. Mr Chaubey says the problem has to be dealt with in two steps. In the short term, he says his government is committed to strictly enforcing the law against ultrasound clinics - they will be raided and sealed. In the long run, everyone will have to work together to change the mindsets of people. "We are going to tell people that female foeticide is wrong. It's a crime - religious and social. And our girl-friendly schemes will help change minds," he says. Mr Hussain, however, is not convinced. "Populist schemes will help politicians win elections, but they will not save the girl child," he says. "Small steps will not help. We need a revolution. And I'm not seeing that coming through." He is right. Despite all the girl-friendly schemes, little Anushka almost didn't get born.

नवीनतम जनगणना के आंकड़े उत्तरी भारतीय राज्य बिहार के अधिकारियों के लिए एक बड़े झटके के रूप में आए हैं जो अभी-अभी कन्या भ्रूण हत्या के खतरों के बारे में जाग रहे हैं। तो वे इसके बारे में क्या कर रहे हैं? पटना से बीबीसी की गीता पांडे रिपोर्ट करती है।


Myanmar Rohingya: What will happen next after damning UN report?

Summary: After the United Nations released a damning report into the violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar , we asked BBC South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head and Geneva correspondent Imogen Foulkes what could happen next.

Does this report change anything? Jonathan Head: The report is unusually strong; the authors do not mince their words, describing the Myanmar military in the most damning terms. They say there is a strong case for a genocide prosecution, and emphasise that accountability for the military inside Myanmar is impossible, and must therefore be pursued by the international community. Expect more energetic diplomacy at the UN, both in the Security Council and the General Assembly, to find a way to do this. The Myanmar government has rejected previous international reports documenting abuses against the Rohingya, but this one, compiled over more than a year, headed by three respected international legal experts, and likely to get public support at the UN, will be harder to dismiss. The report also condemns all of Myanmar's own inquiries into the abuses as worthless, making it harder for the government to take refuge behind them. The report compounds Myanmar's international isolation and puts its military leaders in the very worst category of human rights abusers, but will not significantly change the dynamics inside the country. Imogen Foulkes: The UN investigators say the situation in Myanmar should be referred to the International Criminal Court, a move which would have to be approved by the UN Security Council. It is more than likely that one of the five permanent council members, China, would veto such a move. Failing a referral to the ICC, the investigators suggest an independent criminal tribunal should be set up, as with Rwanda or former Yugoslavia. Such a tribunal could in theory be created by the UN General Assembly, avoiding a Security Council veto. For a tribunal to really function, however, Myanmar would have to co-operate, by ensuring that those indicted did turn up for trial. It took many years, and promises of a closer relationship with the EU, before Serbia and Croatia handed over their suspected war criminals to the Hague's tribunal. Has the UN played its trump card? Are there precedents? Imogen Foulkes: By naming six senior military figures, including the commander in chief of Myanmar's armed forces and his deputy, this UN team has gone further than any other. There have been many investigations into war crimes in Syria, and we know there is a long list of suspects, including, it is thought, very senior figures in the Syrian military and the government. But their names have never been made public. The Myanmar investigators must believe they can achieve something by naming names. Within hours of the report being published, there have already been consequences. The European Union is to hold a meeting this week, and will hear in person from the UN team. Facebook has removed accounts associated with Myanmar military leaders. A key concern in the UN report is the dissemination of misinformation designed to incite hate. Other possible actions could include sanctions, something the UN investigators also call for. The EU, or the UN Security Council, could impose travel bans on those named in the report, and could also freeze their financial assets. Could anyone - including Aung Sang Suu Kyi - actually be convicted? Imogen Foulkes: No-one can be convicted without the ICC or another form of tribunal. The UN team can investigate, but not prosecute. But the sheer weight of evidence gathered suggests there will have to be some form of prosecution, although it could be many years away. Jonathan Head: It's very unlikely Aung Sang Suu Kyi will face prosecution. The report acknowledges that the civilian government has no authority over the military in Myanmar, and that there is no evidence it knew of the military's plans to attack the Rohingya population. It does accuse her of failing to use her moral authority to curb the abuses, and says her government contributed to the crimes in Rakhine state by spreading false narratives, blocking independent investigations and denying the military's wrongdoing. The authors say their main focus for prosecutions must be on the military, which it finds primarily responsible. Perhaps the worst effect of this for Ms Suu Kyi is that she now finds herself in the same camp as men accused of the very worst human rights crimes, because she has insisted on backing the military's version of events in Rakhine. She could conceivably have supported the military's right to respond robustly to attacks by Rohingya militants last year while leaving the door open to credible investigations of human rights violations. She did not, and her international reputation has gone from being tarnished last year, to being shattered by this report. Imogen Foulkes: The UN may be hoping that this report helps Aung San Suu Kyi understand that if she wants to stay in power, or to exercise power more meaningfully than she has done so far, then she must support war crimes prosecutions. A first step could be for her to back the investigators' call for the resignation of Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing. Why is it so rare for the UN to use the word genocide? Imogen Foulkes: Genocide is a very specific crime under international law. To show that genocide has occurred, intent to exterminate an entire group must be shown. Random violence, an army rampaging through a village, would not constitute genocide. But a co-ordinated campaign, with a clear line of command from senior generals to troops on the ground to persecute, kill, or deport a group (usually based on race, religion or ethnicity) would. In the case of Myanmar, the investigators said that factors "pointing at such intent include the broader oppressive context and hate rhetoric; specific utterances of commanders and direct perpetrators; exclusionary policies, including to alter the demographic composition of Rakhine state; the level of organization indicating a plan for destruction; and the extreme scale and brutality of the violence". Read more: Why the word 'genocide' is used so carefully What does this mean for the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees? Jonathan Head: The situation for Rohingya on both sides of the border with Bangladesh is dire. Inside Rakhine they live in fear, without legal status and subject to arbitrary restrictions on their movements and possibly worse. About 140,000 are confined to dismal camps, where they fled in the communal violence of 2012, whereas the much smaller number of Rakhine people displaced by the conflict have been re-housed or able to go back to their homes. In Bangladesh the population of refugees is many times too large for the area of land they occupy. They are sustained by a massive international aid effort, which at least offers food, shelter, education and medical treatment - the last two near-impossible to obtain when they lived in Myanmar. But they are constantly vulnerable to weather, environmental degradation, the abuses of organised gangs within the camps, and to the possibility that Bangladesh may one day make good its threat to move them all to a semi-submerged island which is even less suitable. The two countries have agreed to repatriate the refugees, but Myanmar is still tightly restricting access to Rakhine for most international agencies, and unwilling to address the terrible abuses that forced the Rohingya to flee. Buddhist resentment of the Rohingya in Rakhine has hardened and no effort is being made to persuade them to accept them back. In these conditions a return to Rakhine for the Rohingya is impossible to imagine, and they are stuck in limbo. A huge diaspora living in squalid camps can spell trouble in the long-term, as the fate of Palestinian refugees suggests.

संयुक्त राष्ट्र द्वारा म्यांमार में रोहिंग्या मुसलमानों के खिलाफ हिंसा की एक शर्मनाक रिपोर्ट जारी करने के बाद, हमने बीबीसी दक्षिण पूर्व एशिया संवाददाता जोनाथन हेड और जिनेवा संवाददाता इमोजेन फॉक्स से पूछा कि आगे क्या हो सकता है।


How Liverpool's St George's Hall played its part in World War One

Summary: The eye-catching cascade of ceramic poppies displayed last year at the Tower of London is about to be exhibited in Liverpool ahead of Remembrance Sunday. Known as the "weeping window", it will be draped down St George's Hall. But what is the building's link to World War One?

By Rumeana JahangirBBC News A Liverpool landmark, the neo-classical edifice - and its large plateau - has been the city's main gathering point in joy and sorrow since its completion in 1856. The writer Charles Dickens, who gave readings in the building, declared St George's Hall's concert room to be "the most perfect room in the world" but alongside it, the hall also hosted the city's civil and crown courts. "It was a curious mixture of the great affluence of the Victorian age - the most expensive events that took place outside of London and people being sentenced to death. It's bizarre," says St George's Hall historian Steve Binns. On 31 August 1914 - a month after World War One broke out - the plateau outside St George's Hall was "packed with thousands of men", from accountants to gas fitters, volunteering to fight, says Tony Wainwright of the Liverpool Pals Memorial Fund. Major employers in the city each had their own desk, including the shipping companies White Star Line - owners of the sunken Titanic - and Cunard. Alongside other players such as the Cotton Association and the sugar trade, they formed a "snapshot of Liverpool as a centre of world trade", says Mr Wainwright. By 10:00, the first 1,000 men had been recruited. By September 1914, more than 30,000 enlisted at St George's Hall. The scale of the recruitment meant that on one particular day, the hall held 7,000 medical check-ups for volunteers. It led to an unusual mix. "You got these courts going on, you got medicals going on and you got concerts in the concert room to collect money for the troops and their families," says Mr Binns. That autumn, the Earl of Derby - considered the most senior Conservative politician in Lancashire and the government's director of recruiting - helped raise four battalions in Liverpool. He coined the term "Pals battalions" as men could enlist with friends and neighbours, and the scheme - first tested in London - started to spread. In March 1915, he joined War Secretary Lord Kitchener - famed for his finger-pointing "Your country needs you" poster - at a review where about 12,000 new soldiers paraded outside St George's Hall. Later on in the war, the events at the venue could not have had a more different purpose. "They used it for tribunals to decide on conscientious objection and they were very fierce. Anyone who refused to go [to war] would face a tribunal," explains Mr Binns. Across the country, more than 5,000 conscientious objectors were jailed at least once during WW1. Situated in a port city, St George's Hall held inquiries into the loss of wartime ships, although the investigation into its largest - when the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania led to the deaths of 1,200 people - was held in London. But war weariness was tempered by the triumphalism and curiosity of seeing captured German military machinery. Crowds flocked to St George's plateau to see a gun in November 1915 and, less than a year later, a Fokker plane was displayed outside the hall before it was moved inside with other war memorabilia because of high winds. In 1917, "Julian" the tank rolled on to the plateau to advertise war savings so people could "feed" it with their bonds. King George V and Queen Mary also presented some military models when they visited in the same year. After US soldiers arrived by ship in 1917, the hall put on concerts and a Thanksgiving service, with troops parading on the plateau. When war finally ended in 1918, thousands of locals gathered at St George's and clambered on to the lamp-posts in celebration, says Mr Binns. "People gather at St George's without being told. Every city worth its name has got to have a place where people will go without the permission of their government or their establishment. "Most demonstrations will be held outside. If someone has died, they will gather outside." For survivors who returned to the city by train, St George's Hall would have been one of the first buildings they saw as they came out of Liverpool Lime Street station. Although he works for the stunning venue, Mr Binns admits to preferring Liverpool's Town Hall. But he says that doesn't stop him from believing St George's Hall is "the most important building in the development of this city's history". The first poppy of the Weeping Window will be planted in Liverpool on Tuesday. The display opens to the public on Saturday Poppies come to Liverpool How do we remember World War One?

पिछले साल लंदन के टावर में प्रदर्शित चीनी मिट्टी के खसखस का आकर्षक झरना रविवार के स्मरण से पहले लिवरपूल में प्रदर्शित होने वाला है। जिसे "रोते हुए खिड़की" के रूप में जाना जाता है, इसे सेंट जॉर्ज हॉल में लपेटा जाएगा। लेकिन इस इमारत का प्रथम विश्व युद्ध से क्या संबंध है?


Massive Dounreay radioactive material store completed

Summary: The first of two massive vaults where low-level radioactive material will be stored on the far north Caithness coast has been completed.

The building and its facilities at the Dounreay nuclear power complex cost about £20m to construct. Each vault will be able to hold the equivalent of between 370 and 450 double decker buses. The floor of the vault is 36ft (11m) below ground and the construction work involved 260 tonnes of steel. The Dounreay experimental nuclear power plant was built in the 1950s. Buildings, from its time when its reactors were operational, are being demolished and the site cleaned up by 2025. The land where the vaults are located will remain a restricted area for 300 years after that date because of the radioactive material stored inside the facilities.

दो विशाल तहखानों में से पहला पूरा हो गया है जहां सुदूर उत्तरी कैथनेस तट पर निम्न-स्तरीय रेडियोधर्मी सामग्री संग्रहीत की जाएगी।


When was the High Street at its best?

Summary: At its birth in the Victorian age, or the gracious Edwardian era? Or more recently, before the arrival of superstores and online rivals? Over the course of six weeks, one market town turned back the clock to try out shopping in each era for itself for BBC One's Turn Back Time.

By Megan LaneBBC News Magazine Today's High Street is not in the rudest health. It must compete with online retailers and super-malls, or risk the whited-out windows and boarded-up shopfronts of empty units. Nationally, 13% of shops are vacant, up from 12% in 2009. While a feared double-dip recession has yet to materialise, official retail figures show weaker than expected sales in September - and that was before the spending cuts and January's looming VAT rise. It normally takes decades for a shop to spool from bakery to tea shop to milk bar to chain cafe, or ironmonger to penny bazaar to record shop to mobile phone outlet to vacant store. Most High Streets (it's the most common street name in the UK) show glimpses of their retail history. Look up for bygone trade names in brick or stonework; look down and there may be brand names in doorway mosaics, a form of advertising popular until the 1950s. To gauge how High Street shopping has changed, empty premises in the once-thriving market square of Somerset's Shepton Mallet turned into time capsules over the summer. Modern-day shopkeepers lived and worked as Victorians for a week - with the wares, equipment and etiquette of the 1870s - then spent a week as Edwardian retailers, and so on up to the 1970s. Locals were encouraged to shop at these stores. So when was a golden era for the High Street? "It was in the 1860s and 70s that the High Street as we know it came about," says social historian Juliet Gardiner. "Because of urbanisation, people no longer had the facilities to grow food themselves or keep livestock. It was then that market stalls became shops, with fixed prices, customer service and home deliveries to entice people in." But it wasn't until Edwardian times that shopping came of age, when product choice matched customer service thanks to the riches of the Empire. And its popularity was boosted by the Votes for Women movement. "The suffragettes were quite bullish about women having somewhere respectable to go on their own - and this meant tea shops and department stores." The next golden age took 50 years to arrive, she says, when Britain became affluent again in the 1960s. "Mass production and disposable culture really took off, bringing prices down. Young people didn't want clothes made to last, they wanted fashionable clothes. And in 1964, the Resale Prices Act opened the way for buying in volume and slashing prices." What customers gained in choice and discounts, they lost in personal service. "This was the era of self-service and of sniffy boutique girls," says Ms Gardiner. What about on the other side of the counter? Among the shopkeepers taking part was Andrew Sharp, a butcher with 30 years experience whose family has been in the meat trade for centuries. Which era did he prefer? "The Edwardian age, without a shadow of a doubt. The level of customer service, the level of formality of the person serving, and the customer too," says Mr Sharp. This was a time when customers were referred to as sir, madam, miss or master. Staff had to be well turned out at all times. Convivial chats across the counter were frowned upon. The decor and layout popular at the time is still seen today, particularly among high-end retailers and artisan producers - all muted colours and airy spaces. Selfridges, the London department store, dates from this era - its doors opened in 1909. The customers lapped it up. "I felt like a lady. I was asked to sit down, and what would you like madam. I wish every shop was like that," said one Shepton Mallet resident after an Edwardian shopping trip. And, when living the life of a Victorian pork butcher, Mr Sharp rediscovered the art of retail showmanship. His shop looked scarily visceral to 21st Century eyes, its frontage adorned with pigs' heads - complete with glued-on dolls eyes. To tempt people closer, Mr Sharp did what his Victorian forebears did - live butchery and sausage-making on the street, complete with quick-fire sales patter. It proved a palpable hit. But what was good for the retailer wasn't so good for the customer - trading standards had yet to be introduced, and until the 1870s there were no laws guaranteeing the quality of goods. Butchers disguised rancid meat by painting it with chemicals. Bakers bulked up expensive flour with sawdust or plaster of Paris. Grocers added gravel to coffee beans and freshened old vinegar with sulphuric acid. They watered down milk, and added poisonous nasties such as red lead and mercury to cheese, pickles, sweets and tea leaves to improve the colour. These sharp practices came as a shock to Shepton Mallet's time travelling grocer, Debbie Sergison. She refused to indulge in such dubious methods, but has taken some Victorian methods back to her Lincolnshire deli. "It was a very manual era, you had to do everything from scratch - we blended tea, roasted coffee and made soap. I'd never thought to blend my own tea before, but it's delicious." She found life as a 1930s grocer involved stock heavily weighted towards branded goods and confectionery as disposable incomes rose after the Depression, and the 1940s dominated by rationing and absent men. In the 60s came self-service, her shop decked out with new-fangled conveyor belts and pricing so competitive the butcher went out of business. By the 70s, it was a supermarket. Which, for her, was the golden age? "For the look of the shops, it's the Edwardian era. Everything was so smart. And we had assistants so we could provide great service to our customers." And did the residents of Shepton Mallet fall back in love with their market square? Yes, to a point. Some of the time capsule shops once again stand vacant. But hopes are high the 1960s milk bar will reopen, and 1970s boutique will be reborn as a vintage shop.

विक्टोरियन युग में अपने जन्म के समय, या दयालु एडवर्डियन युग? या हाल ही में, सुपरस्टोर और ऑनलाइन प्रतिद्वंद्वियों के आगमन से पहले? छह हफ्तों के दौरान, एक बाजार शहर ने बीबीसी वन के टर्न बैक टाइम के लिए प्रत्येक युग में खरीदारी करने की कोशिश करने के लिए घड़ी को पीछे कर दिया।


Murder arrest after woman's 'sudden death' in Hyson Green

Summary: A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following the death of a 51-year-old woman in Nottingham last summer.

Nottinghamshire Police were called after reports of a "sudden death" in the Bentinck Road area of Hyson Green, on 13 July. A 43-year-old man is being held in connection with the woman's death after officers executed a warrant earlier on Wednesday. He remains in police custody. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk. Related Internet Links Nottinghamshire Police

पिछली गर्मियों में नॉटिंघम में एक 51 वर्षीय महिला की मौत के बाद हत्या के संदेह में एक व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Linus Torvalds: Linux succeeded thanks to selfishness and trust

Summary: Linux creator Linus Torvalds has won the Millennium Technology Prize and an accompanying cheque for 600,000 euros ($756,000; £486,000) from the Technology Academy of Finland.

By Leo KelionTechnology reporter He was nominated for the award in recognition of the fact he had created the original Linux operating system and has continued to decide what modifications should be made to the Linux kernel - the code that lets software and hardware work together. Today a variety of Linux-based systems power much of the world's computer servers, set-top boxes, smartphones, tablets, network routers, PCs and supercomputers. Ahead of the announcement Mr Torvalds gave a rare interview to the BBC. When you posted about the original system kernel on Usenet in 1991 what did you think would happen to it? I think your question assumes a level of planning that simply didn't really exist. It wasn't so much about me having any particular expectations of what would happen when I made the original kernel sources available: a lot of the impetus for releasing it was simply a kind of "hey, look at what I've done". I was definitely not expecting people to help me with the project, but I was hoping for some feedback about what I'd done, and looking for ideas of what else people would think was a good idea. The success of Linux is in large part due to its open source nature. Why do you think people have been willing to give up so much time without financial reward? In many ways, I actually think the real idea of open source is for it to allow everybody to be "selfish", not about trying to get everybody to contribute to some common good. In other words, I do not see open source as some big goody-goody "let's all sing kumbaya around the campfire and make the world a better place". No, open source only really works if everybody is contributing for their own selfish reasons. Now, those selfish reasons by no means need to be about "financial reward", though. The early "selfish" reasons to do Linux tended to be centred about just the pleasure of tinkering. That was why I did it - programming was my hobby - passion, really - and learning how to control the hardware was my own selfish goal. And it turned out that I was not all that alone in that. Big universities with computer science departments had people who were interested in the same kinds of things. And most people like that may not be crazy enough to start writing their own operating system from scratch, but there were certainly people around who found this kind of tinkering with hardware interesting, and who were interested enough to start playing around with the system and making suggestions on improvements, and eventually even making those improvements themselves and sending them back to me. And the copyright protected those kinds of people. If you're a person who is interested in operating systems, and you see this project that does this, you don't want to get involved if you feel like your contributions would be somehow "taken advantage of", but with the GPLv2 [licence], that simply was never an issue. The fundamental property of the GPLv2 is a very simple "tit-for-tat" model: I'll give you my improvements, if you promise to give your improvements back. It's a fundamentally fair licence, and you don't have to worry about somebody else then coming along and taking advantage of your work. And the thing that then seemed to surprise people, is that that notion of "fairness" actually scales very well. Sure, a lot of companies were initially fairly leery about a licence that they weren't all that used to, and sometimes doubly so because some portions of the free software camp had been very vocally anti-commercial and expected companies to overnight turn everything into free software. But really, the whole "tit-for-tat" model isn't just fair on an individual scale, it's fair on a company scale, and it's fair on a global scale. Once people and companies got over their hang-ups - renaming it "open source" and just making it clear that this was not some kind of anti-commercial endeavour definitely helped - things just kind of exploded. And the thing is, if your competition doesn't put in the same kind of effort that you do, then they can't reap the same kinds of rewards you can: if they don't contribute, they don't get to control the direction of the project, and they won't have the same kind of knowledge and understanding of it that you do. So there really are big advantages to being actively involved - you can't just coast along on somebody else's work. 7,800 developers across 80 countries contributed to the last version of the Linux kernel. But as it becomes more complex is there a danger it become less accessible for new people to get involved? So the kernel has definitely grown more complex, and certain core areas in particular are things that a new developer should absolutely not expect to just come in and start messing around with. People get very nervous when somebody they don't see as having a solid track record starts sending patches to core - and complex - code like the VM subsystem. So it's absolutely much harder to become a core developer today than it was 15 years ago. At the same time, I do think it's pretty easy to get into kernel development if you don't go for the most complex and central parts first. The fact that I do a kernel release roughly every three months, and each of those releases generally have over 1,000 people involved in it, says that we certainly aren't lacking for contributors. You have previously mentioned that you can't check that all the code that gets submitted will work across all hardware - how big an issue is trust in an open source project like this? Oh, trust is the most important thing. And it's a two-way street. It's not just that I can trust some sub-lieutenant to do the right thing, it's that they in turn can trust me to be impartial and do the right thing. We certainly don't always agree, and sometimes the arguments can get quite heated, but at the end of the day, you may not even always like each other, if you can at least trust that people aren't trying to screw you over. And this trust issue is why I didn't want to ever work for a commercial Linux company, for example. I simply do not want people to have even the appearance of bias - I want people to be able to trust that I'm impartial not only because they've seen me maintain the kernel over the years, but because they know that I simply don't have any incentives where I might want to support one Linux company over another. These days, I do work full-time on Linux, and I'm paid to do it, but that didn't happen until I felt comfortable that there was a way that could be pretty obviously neutral, through a industry non-profit that doesn't really sell Linux itself. And even then, in order to allay all fears, we actually made sure that my contract explicitly says that my employment does not mean that the Linux Foundation can tell me what to do. So exactly because I think these kinds of trust issues are so important, I have one of the oddest employment contracts you've ever heard of. It's basically one paragraph talking about what I'm supposed to do - it basically boils down to the fact that everything I do has to be open source - and the rest of the contract is about all the ways that the company I work for cannot influence me. "Trust" is not about some kind of absolute neutrality, or anything like that, but it's about a certain level of predictability and about knowing that you won't be shafted. Linux is popular in many areas of computing including smartphones and servers, but it has never had quite the same breakthrough on desktops - do you think it will ever happen? So I think that in order to make it in a consumer market, you really do need to be pre-installed. And as Android has shown, Linux really can be very much a consumer product. So it's not that the consumer market itself would necessarily be a fundamentally hard nut to crack, but the "you need to come preinstalled" thing is a big thing. And on the laptop and desktop market, we just haven't ever had any company making that kind of play. And don't get me wrong - it's not an easy play to make. That said, I wouldn't dismiss it either. The whole "ubiquitous web browser" thing has made that kind of consumer play be more realistic, and I think that Google's Chrome push (Chromebox and Chromebooks) is clearly aiming towards that. So I'm still hopeful. For me, Linux on the desktop is where I started, and Linux on the desktop is literally what I still use today primarily - although I obviously do have other Linux devices, including an Android phone - so I'd personally really love for it to take over in that market too. But I guess that in the meantime I can't really complain about the successes in other markets. Steve Ballmer once described Linux as a "cancer", but in recent months we've heard that Microsoft is running its Skype division off Linux boxes, and it's now offering a Linux-based version of its Azure cloud service - does this give you satisfaction? Well, let's say that I'm relieved that Microsoft seems to have at least to some degree stopped seeing Linux as the enemy. The whole "cancer" and "un-American" thing was really pretty embarrassing. The recent launch of the Raspberry Pi, running on Linux, has attracted a lot of attention. Are you hopeful it will inspire another generation of programmers who can contribute to the Linux kernel? So I personally come from a "tinkering with computers" background, and yes, as a result I find things like Raspberry Pi to be an important thing: trying to make it possible for a wider group of people to tinker with computers and just playing around. And making the computers cheap enough that you really can not only afford the hardware at a big scale, but perhaps more important, also "afford failure". By that I mean that I suspect a lot of them will go to kids who play with them a bit, but then decide that they just can't care. But that's OK. If it's cheap enough, you can afford to have a lot of "don't cares" if then every once in a while you end up triggering even a fairly rare "do care" case. So I actually think that if you make these kinds of platforms cheap enough - really "throw-away cheap" in a sense - the fact that you can be wasteful can be a good thing, if it means that you will reach a few kids you wouldn't otherwise have reached. You work from home - how hard is it to avoid being distracted by family life and focusing on what must be very abstract concepts? Oh, I'm sure it can be hard for some people. It's never been a problem for me. I've always tended to find computers fascinating, often to the point where I just go off and do my own thing and am not very social. Having a family doesn't seem to have made that character trait really any different. I'll happily sit in front of the computer the whole day, and if the kids distract me when I'm in the middle of something, a certain amount of cursing might happen. In other words: what could be seen as a socially debilitating failure of character can certainly work to your advantage too.

लिनक्स निर्माता लिनस टोरवाल्ड्स ने फिनलैंड की प्रौद्योगिकी अकादमी से मिलेनियम प्रौद्योगिकी पुरस्कार और 600,000 यूरो ($756,000; £486,000) का एक चेक जीता है।


Six lessons learned from US Democrat wins

Summary: What a difference a year makes. Last November, Democrats were in despair - losing a presidential race, cementing their minority status in the US Congress and facing historic deficits in state legislatures and governor's mansions across the US.

Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter In off-year elections on Tuesday night, the party found traces of a path out of the wilderness and cause for a glimmer of hope. Meanwhile, the Republican Party - and Donald Trump - just heard the first crack of thunder of a possible storm to come. After 2016, when none of the old rules seemed to apply, political gravity reasserted itself. Out-of-power parties traditionally do well in non-presidential election cycles, and 2017 was no exception. Here are six implications of the Democratic Party's surprisingly strong showing on Tuesday. A Trump-style campaign without Trump is a risky proposition Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, isn't anyone's idea of a Trump-style politician. The long-time Washington lobbyist, who once chaired the Republican National Committee, could give fan-boat tours of the Washington "swamp". For the past few months, however, he adopted many of the cultural-war elements of Mr Trump's successful presidential campaign. He aired commercials blasting his opponent as being soft on crime and, in particular, the Central American gang MS-13. The New Jersey native opposed taking down the Confederate memorial statues that pepper Virginia parks and town squares. He distributed leaflets linking Democrats to the NFL players who have protested allegations of police brutality by kneeling during pre-game playing of the national anthem. While Mr Gillespie did reasonably well among rural and working-class voters, they didn't show up at the polls on Tuesday in the kind of numbers that helped power Mr Trump to the presidency. It wasn't even close. For Republicans trying to determine if Mr Trump's success last year was just about the man - a well-known public figure who had a tell-it-like-it-is brand that transcended issue debates and the controversies that swirled around him - they may have just gotten an answer. And it's not a good one. Mr Trump's 2016 electoral magic may be difficult to reproduce. Mr Trump, at least in Virginia, is a lead balloon Opinion surveys have shown near-historic levels of unpopularity for Mr Trump for months. Given the president's surprise victory last November, however, analysts and experts have been cautious to draw conclusions about how these numbers translate to future voting behaviour. Now we have a snapshot of what Trump's unpopularity looks like at the ballot box in a key presidential battleground state. According to exit polls of actual Virginia voters, Mr Trump popularity stood at 40% positive and 57% negative - only marginally better than in recent national surveys. A plurality, 34%, voted "to express opposition" to Donald Trump, while only 17% voted to show their support. Mr Trump's unpopularity dragged Mr Gillespie - and many of his fellow Virginia Republicans - down to defeat, despite the candidate's attempt to walk a line between embracing Trumpian rhetoric and keeping his distance from the man himself. Winning cures Democratic ills The Democratic civil war has been postponed - at least for now. In the days running up to Tuesday's vote, the long knives were already coming out, as the party's various factions - outspoken economic populists, establishment moderates, race-conscious activists and everyone in between - braced themselves for what would have been a humiliating defeat (or even an embarrassingly narrow victory). For the past few weeks, the polls in Virginia had been tightening and it looked like Mr Northam - who ran a steady, cautious and largely unspectacular campaign - was going to be the early Thanksgiving turkey. Even during his victory speech on Tuesday night, Mr Northam was interrupted by a handful of immigration activists. Now imagine what would have happened if he had lost. Instead, Mr Northam won in a rout - as did Democratic candidates of all stripes. Virginia elected its first openly lesbian state-level politician and several first-even ethnic minority candidates, and it is poised to seat the nation's first openly transgender state legislator. Moderates won. A "Democratic socialist" in the mould of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won. It was an across-the-board victory. The party will continue to have debates over what direction it should take in the coming months and years, but thanks to the Virginia results there won't be omnipresent dread that a step in the wrong direction could be the difference between victory and defeat. The "candidate x could have won" debates aren't gone forever, but they're a lot less divisive when candidates across the alphabet come out on top. The victory went beyond Virginia Although Virginia, as a presidential swing state that appeared to be a tight contest, drew most of the attention on Tuesday night, it wasn't the only place with a Democratic surge. The party rolled in New Jersey, where incumbent Governor Chris Christie - once a shining star in the Republican firmament - has become historically unpopular and is scorching the earth for his fellow conservatives. In Maine, voters passed a ballot measure calling for expanding the state's Medicaid healthcare programme for poor - over the opposition of the state's Trump-style Republican governor, Paul LePage. Democrats picked up a handful of seats in the Republican-controlled Georgia legislature and won a special election in Washington state that will give them unified control of the legislature there. The only conservative redoubt was Utah, where a Republican cruised to victory in a congressional special election. Virginia may have been hit by a Democratic wave, but Utah is on a Republican mountaintop. A year since Trump upset the odds The Democratic coalition reforms The 2016 presidential election saw the Democratic coalition of young, blue-collar, women and minority voters that powered Barack Obama to two terms in the White House crumble to dust. Traditional Democratic white working-class voters in key states shifted to Republicans. On Tuesday, from that rubble were signs that a new winning coalition could be forming. According to Virginia exit polls, minorities (80%) and voters age 18 to 29 (69%) backed Mr Northam in sizable numbers, as did women (61%). Joining this coalition were college-educated voters, who supported the Democrat by a 60% to 39% margin. Mr Northam did particularly well in the affluent, well-educated Washington, DC suburbs of Northern Virginia. In Fairfax County, for instance, he won by larger margins than Hillary Clinton last year, Barack Obama in 2012, and state-wide Democrats in 2013 and 2014. Both New Jersey and Virginia elected black lieutenant governors, and in race after race in Virginia, first-time women candidates for the state legislature knocked off entrenched Republican incumbents. There are also signs that Democrats have found some winning policy items on which to run. A plurality of voters in Virginia (39%) said healthcare was their most important issue, and 77% of them voted for Mr Northam. Even Virginians who said guns were most important - a topic that usually motivates only conservatives - were evenly divided between the Republican and the Democrat. In rural Blacksburg, a former reporter whose girlfriend was shot and killed during a live local news broadcast ran and won as a gun-control candidate against a three-term incumbent backed by the NRA. Democrats clearly have some building blocks to work with as they prepare for next year. The clock is ticking for Republicans If there was a silver lining for Republicans on Tuesday, it's that the damage was contained to just a handful of states. Their political position may be tenuous, but they have a year until the nationwide congressional midterm elections and a number of high-profile governor races to do something about it. It won't be easy, however. Mrs Clinton carried Virginia in 2016 and Republicans still won nationwide, but Mr Northam's margins in the state were bigger. The trend-lines are heading in the wrong direction. Complicating things is the fact that a number of Republican congressional moderates, facing tough re-election campaigns, have opted to retire. Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee were two high-profile recent announcements, but the race to the exits is also picking up steam in the House of Representatives, which could be more susceptible to a Democratic surge next November. It doesn't appear a change of course is in the works for Mr Trump and his political backers, however. The president took to Twitter from South Korea shortly after Mr Northam declared victory to claim that Mr Gillespie "did not embrace me or what I stand for". Meanwhile, after positioning himself to take credit for what looked like it could be a Republican win in Virginia, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has also turned on Mr Gillespie. A headline on the pro-Trump conservative website Breitbart, which Mr Bannon runs, condemned the Virginia Republican as a "Republican swamp thing". If this is the lesson Mr Trump takes from Tuesday's results - that Republicans either embrace him or face defeat - then 2018 is going to be an even bigger referendum on Trump's presidency than 2017 was. That is a thought that will keep a lot of Republican officeholders up at night.

एक साल में कितना फर्क पड़ता है। पिछले नवंबर में, डेमोक्रेट निराशा में थे-राष्ट्रपति पद की दौड़ हारना, अमेरिकी कांग्रेस में अपनी अल्पसंख्यक स्थिति को मजबूत करना और पूरे अमेरिका में राज्य विधानसभाओं और राज्यपाल के भवनों में ऐतिहासिक घाटे का सामना करना पड़ रहा था।


Coronavirus: Sheep wool 'barely worth selling any more'

Summary: "I started my company because my dad received approximately 3p per fleece for his Hebridean wool and I thought, 'We must be able to do better than that,'" says shepherd's daughter Rachel Atkinson.

By Elisabeth MahyBBC Radio 5 Live Rachel manufactures woollen products, but her firm is struggling. Wool's popularity has been in decline since the 1950s - and this year, coronavirus has added problems that businesses can ill afford. The global wool market closed in February. This has led to vast volumes of wool lying unsold in depots and has pushed prices down. Most farmers sell their fleeces through British Wool, formerly the British Wool Marketing Board. Some 14 million kg of wool are waiting to be shifted from its stores, while the average price per kg has nearly halved: it is now 32p, compared with 60p the previous year. Rachel, who is based in Banbury in Oxfordshire, says: "Farmers used to be able to pay a year's rent from the price of wool, but it's barely worth selling anymore." Some producers are even chucking it away. "I'm wishing I had more space and more money to buy from the shepherds, who are really suffering with this," she says. Thrown out Gerallt Hughes runs a farm on Anglesey. He has put nearly 600 fleeces on the compost heap. Each farmer's costs are different, but in Gerallt's case, it doesn't make financial sense selling the wool this year. "I'm not going to spend 30p on packing [a fleece] to get 24p back," he said. He is critical of British Wool and says he thinks the organisation has been over-reliant on the Chinese market. "What the Wool Board should have been doing is looking for alternative markets for the last 20 years," he says. British Wool chief executive Joe Farren says the organisation is "big enough and ugly enough" to take criticism, but that a new strategy to market and sell the product is under way. Wool produced in the UK is used in products such as carpets, knitwear, soft furnishings and bedding. "We are a convenient outlet for farmers' wool," he says. "[But] if a farmer wants to put a supply chain together and develop their wool and bring their own product to market, they're open to do that." Andrea Meanwell, a shepherdess in the Howgill Fells, an area that straddles the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, says she is storing her sheep's wool, hoping that next year demand will pick up. Like Gerallt Hughes, she says the costs of selling the wool this year outweigh the benefits, particularly for remote farms, where transportation costs are higher. "Lots of people that I know are burning or composting, or just leaving the wool to rot," she says. "It's quite time-consuming to innovate a product yourself. Most farmers just don't have the time to do that." Mr Farren says British Wool is now working "with branded manufacturers to create new consumer demand for the products". "We're working hard to address the structural issues in the supply chain," he says. Mr Farren is calling on farmers to continue working with British Wool during a "terrible year". "Please send the wool, let us collect it. If it's not brought in, it will fall out of use," he said. He told the BBC that British Wool had been turned down for the government's Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme "on a technicality", but that it needed financial support "to pay our producers this year for next year's wool". The reasons for the decline in the price for wool - while exacerbated by Covid-19 - are many. Industry insiders point to the growth in synthetic fibres, fewer players in the industry supply chain, Brexit uncertainty and the US-China trade war. But before the pandemic, Rachel Atkinson had been optimistic. "It's incredibly sad, as the British wool industry had been steadily gaining in value over the past few years," she says. Andrea Meanwell says she hopes wool will become popular again with consumers. "We're hearing so much now about micro-plastics damaging the environment," she says, "so farmers have been hoping for a while that there'll be a return to people using wool. "But at the moment, it doesn't seem to have happened."

चरवाहे की बेटी राचेल एटकिंसन कहती हैं, "मैंने अपनी कंपनी शुरू की क्योंकि मेरे पिता को उनके हेब्राइडियन ऊन के लिए लगभग 3 पैसे प्रति ऊन मिलते थे और मैंने सोचा, 'हमें इससे बेहतर करने में सक्षम होना चाहिए।


Reporting JFK's assassination: A BBC correspondent's notes

Summary: The BBC's Peter Watson was reporting from the UN in New York when the news broke of President John F Kennedy's assassination. Within hours he was broadcasting from Dallas. His reports capture the atmosphere of a city in shock, and Texas's shame - and the gloom that descended on the country. He typed this summary a few days later, on 29 November 1963. Peter Watson died last week.

For an accessible text version of Peter Watson's diary, click here. Peter Watson's despatch: 'Dallas the day after' (23 November 1963) Peter Watson was born in Essex in 1925. He joined the BBC in 1950 or 1951, after serving in India during WWII and studying PPE at Oxford. He worked as a newsroom sub-editor before assignments in Algeria, Paris, Cyprus, Beirut and the US. Later he presented From Our Own Correspondent and edited Yesterday in Parliament. When he left the BBC in 1975, his reports from Dallas, and on the civil rights Freedom March, were described as "outstanding". David Witherow, then Editor of External Services News, wrote: "We shall miss his knowledge and professional ability, and also his pleasant companionship." Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

बीबीसी के पीटर वॉटसन न्यूयॉर्क में संयुक्त राष्ट्र से रिपोर्टिंग कर रहे थे जब राष्ट्रपति जॉन एफ कैनेडी की हत्या की खबर आई। कुछ ही घंटों में वे डलास से प्रसारण कर रहे थे। उनकी रिपोर्ट एक शहर के सदमे के माहौल और टेक्सास की शर्म और देश पर आई निराशा को दर्शाती है। उन्होंने कुछ दिनों बाद, 29 नवंबर 1963 को यह सारांश टाइप किया। पीटर वॉटसन की पिछले सप्ताह मृत्यु हो गई।


'Once ever' dodo auction inspires excitement and envy

Summary: A dodo goes up for auction next week, sparking a frenzy of interest that could see the specimen fetch in excess of £500,000. Humans drove the bird into extinction in the 17th Century so rapidly and remorselessly that few traces remain - so how was one collector from the south of England able to construct a near-complete skeleton?

By Tanya GuptaBBC News The vendor never actually set out with this particular mission in mind, but has described the moment he realised he could do it - after he mounted the bones he had spent decades collecting into a lifelike pose. "I finally found myself looking at a dodo in my workshop, something so extraordinary that I hadn't really imagined it would happen." He has remained anonymous throughout - because he dislikes publicity and wants to continue buying unrecognised at auctions - but has told his story exclusively to the BBC. We have called him George. George acquired the first part of the dodo in the 1970s when he bought a foot bone, a purchase he said was driven solely by its beauty. At that point there were many more opportunities to find dodo parts, and he said he was "buying at a time when fewer people were as passionate as me". George said he gathered the bones with the help of friends and contacts in the dodo world. Auctions take place across the globe and his network helped him to be aware of what was on offer. Other contacts helped him to discover what was held in private collections - information that led to more purchases, as George was tipped off as to when items became available, thus removing the need to buy at auction. After four decades of collecting he found he owned a near-complete dodo. George said: "Only when I laid out all of the dodo specimens I had in front of me did I realise that I might be able to put one together." When Summers Place Auctions revealed in August what was about to go under the hammer, there was an overwhelming response. Director of the West Sussex auction house Rupert van der Werff said the news was greeted with huge interest, amazement, continued questions about who had put it together - and a certain amount of envy. He said: "It's very unlikely another one will ever appear on the open market. It's not just a once-in-a-lifetime chance - it's a 'once' chance." The auctioneer admitted that keeping the collector's identity secret had contributed to the intrigue surrounding Tuesday's sale. 'Bigger than a turkey' The dodo is an extinct, flightless bird from Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean. It was first seen by Portuguese sailors in the first decade of the 16th Century but was soon wiped out by humans and the animals they introduced. The dodo was extinct by 1681. Bigger than a turkey, it was thought to weigh about 23kg (50lb), with blue-grey plumage, a big head, a nine-inch (23cm) blackish bill with reddish sheath forming the hooked tip, small useless wings, stout yellow legs and a tuft of curly feathers high on its rear end. All that remains of the dodo is a head and foot at Oxford, a foot in the British Museum, a head in Copenhagen, and skeletons, more or less complete, in various museums of Europe, the United States and Mauritius. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica George said he had been taken aback by the attention. "It's great to know that years of collecting have actually resulted in this, but I am quite shocked that this sale has generated so much publicity," he said. "I have never liked publicity. "I still like to occasionally buy auction lots. This sale could put me in a different light with auction houses and in my personal life, and I certainly do not want that." George said he hoped the dodo might be bought by an organisation, perhaps a museum, that would display it for the public to enjoy and for scientists to work on. He added: "There is a special excitement when bidding in an auction and I want that experience for other collectors to enjoy." George said he was moving on parts of his collection before his own time came to "depart the planet", and he hoped the excitement surrounding the sale of the dodo would have a positive impact. "All I can say is that if the sale of this dodo - a bird that became extinct directly because of our actions - highlights the negative way we are treating our planet, the publicity surrounding the sale can only be a good thing." 'A star of natural history' "The dodo is one of the most iconic of the extinct species. Everybody's heard of the expression 'dead as a dodo'. People are aware of the dodo from Lewis Carroll's work and paintings of it," explains auctioneer Rupert van der Werff. "I think because it was such an extraordinary animal, it has gained mythical status. "It's quite a curious animal. It looks like it's made up of different bits from different animals and it must have been incredible for the people that saw them walking around. They'd have never seen anything like it. "It's got a very good name, it's a catchy name, it's a short name, and allied to that, Victorians really were the ones that raised its profile. "A number of events happened within a short space of time that made the dodo the superstar that it was. "Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865) came out after Melville and Strickland's book, The Dodo and its Kindred (1848), and people were beginning to appreciate that islands could produce really unusual animals and this was one of them. "Sadly, none of them got the chance to ever see a living one. "Everybody's heard of the dodo in the same way as most people have heard of Tyrannosaurus Rex. It's just one of the stars of natural history. "But it's such an odd-looking creature. It's difficult not to feel sorry for it."

एक डोडो अगले सप्ताह नीलामी के लिए जाता है, जिससे रुचि का एक उन्माद पैदा हो जाता है जिसमें नमूना 500,000 पाउंड से अधिक प्राप्त कर सकता है। 17 वीं शताब्दी में मनुष्यों ने पक्षी को इतनी तेजी से और बिना किसी अफसोस के विलुप्त कर दिया कि कुछ निशान ही बचे हैं-तो इंग्लैंड के दक्षिण से एक संग्राहक कैसे एक लगभग पूर्ण कंकाल का निर्माण करने में सक्षम था?


Egypt protesters defiant over Mubarak

Summary: News that Egypt's former president, Hosni Mubarak, had broken nearly two months of silence spread fast among the large crowds of demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square, but few were impressed by his message.

By Yolande KnellBBC News, Cairo "Egyptians don't believe a word. We think Mubarak is a liar," said Tahir Abdul Zahir, standing on the edge of a new makeshift campsite. "Maybe we will make a big protest again on Friday." Mr Mubarak used an audio recording on Sunday on al-Arabiya television, broadcast with just a library photograph on screen, to deny corruption allegations and vow to clear his name. "I cannot remain silent in the face of continued campaigns of lies... aimed at tarnishing the reputation of me and my family," he said. After the long-time leader was forced out of power on 11 February, there were unconfirmed reports that he had amassed a personal fortune worth billions of dollars, much of it kept in overseas accounts. In his statement, he insisted he only had money saved in an Egyptian bank. One of the people gathered in Tahrir Square, Sharif Buri'e, said everyone regarded Mr Mubarak's words as a "big joke". "I hope we can get him. We can talk about the money later but let's talk about the bloodshed first, let's talk about the corruption of our political system for the past 30 years." Army rule Egypt's public prosecutor, who has been investigating the killing of hundreds of protesters in the country's 18-day popular uprising and claims of misuse of public funds, has now summoned Mr Mubarak and his sons for questioning. Yet nothing short of a prosecution will satisfy demonstrators who have remained in Tahrir Square since a mass rally on Friday. They withstood clashes with the army during their first night and continue to hold their ground. "This really doesn't change anything," said one young woman passing through an informal checkpoint set up by the barbed wire now sealing off the busy intersection to traffic. "I think we will stay here." Egypt's new military rulers will be disappointed by such comments. There has been growing criticism of the army's handling of this key stage of political transition and its perceived failure to deliver justice. Mr Mubarak appointed all of the generals of the Supreme Military Council, making many activists wary of their loyalties and commitment to reform. Over the weekend, the army moved in to shift protesters from Tahrir Square, leaving one one protester dead and dozens injured. Such actions have only added to tensions. One protester, Fawzi Radwan, now carries an effigy of military chief Field Marshal Tantawi around Tahrir Square to remind everyone of the weekend's violence. "The military fired tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse us," he said. "I got assaulted at 2.30 in the morning. Anyone who came in their way was beaten: women, children, old and young." Although the army has made strong statements, warning it will use "firmness and force" to restore order and enforce a night-time curfew, it has seemed unwilling to carry out its threats. "Now that the military has stepped from behind the curtain and is governing directly, it is inevitably facing friction with the people on a variety of fronts," said Elijah Zarwan who wrote an International Crisis Group report analysing the military's revolutionary role. "The tug-of-war between a decentralised protest movement and a hierarchical institution whose first interest is stability, is likely to continue." Away from Tahrir Square, many Egyptians are ready to give the ruling generals more time to fulfil their promises. There is recognition that while the military is the most powerful institution in the country it is scrambling to meet post-revolutionary demands.

यह खबर कि मिस्र के पूर्व राष्ट्रपति होस्नी मुबारक ने लगभग दो महीने की खामोशी तोड़ी थी, काहिरा के तहरीर चौक पर प्रदर्शनकारियों की बड़ी भीड़ के बीच तेजी से फैल गई, लेकिन उनके संदेश से बहुत कम लोग प्रभावित हुए।


Staffordshire Police officer charged with sexual offences

Summary: A police officer has been charged with multiple sexual offences including making indecent images of a child.

PC Lee Tatton, aged 54, was based with Staffordshire Police's Northern Resolution Centre. He was arrested on 10 December 2019, the force said, and has been suspended from duty. PC Tatton is due to appear before Birmingham Magistrates' Court on Monday 3 August, charged with attempted sexual communication with a child. He is further charged with four counts of making indecent images of a child. Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk

एक पुलिस अधिकारी पर एक बच्चे की अश्लील तस्वीर बनाने सहित कई यौन अपराधों का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Panama Papers: How did Panama become a tax haven?

Summary: A huge leak of documents from a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, has thrown new light on how the rich and powerful hide their wealth. It has also brought renewed attention on Panama itself, one of the world's best-known tax havens. But what makes Panama different from other low or no-tax jurisdictions and how did it become this way?

How did it all start? According to a 2013 academic study published by the Norwegian Center for Taxation, the history of Panama as a tax haven began in 1919 when it started to register foreign ships to help American oil giant Standard Oil escape US taxes and regulations. Where Standard Oil led, other US ship owners followed, some seeking to avoid higher wages and better working conditions imposed by US legislation. Among other applications of Panamanian registration at this time, US passenger ships were able to serve alcohol to their customers during Prohibition without breaking the law. Within a few years, Panama saw the opportunity to extend the principles it had applied to shipping of minimal tax, regulation and disclosure requirements to offshore finance. According to the Norwegian study, "Wall Street interests helped Panama introduce lax company incorporation laws, which let anyone start tax-free, anonymous corporations, with few questions asked". For decades, offshore finance had a relatively modest profile in Panama, but it took off in the 1970s as world oil prices surged. What happened then? Panama passed laws entrenching corporate and individual financial secrecy. Strict confidentiality laws and regulations were put in place, with severe civil and criminal penalties for violations. The names of corporate shareholders were not required to be publicly registered. The country also has strict banking secrecy laws. Financial institutions are prohibited from giving information about offshore bank accounts or account holders. The only exception is reported to be a specific Panamanian court order in conjunction with investigations into terrorism, drug-trafficking or other serious offences (not including tax evasion). Furthermore, Panama has no tax treaties with other countries, providing an extra layer of protection for foreigners. And it has no exchange controls, so there are no limits or reporting requirements for money transfers in or out. By 1982, partly attracted by business opportunities deriving from the Panama Canal and its free trade zone, more than 100 international banks had offices in Panama City. The result of all this? "These laws attracted a long line of 'dirtbags' and dictators who used Panama to hide their stolen loot, including Ferdinand Marcos, 'Baby Doc' Duvalier, and Augusto Pinochet," wrote journalist Ken Silverstein in a 2014 expose of Mossack Fonseca for Vice. "When Manuel Noriega, commander of the Panama Defence Forces, took power in 1983, he essentially nationalised the money-laundering business by partnering with the Medellin drug cartel and giving it free rein to operate in the country." The following years saw setbacks to Panama's attempts to position itself as a legitimate offshore banking centre. Global financial troubles hit Latin America especially hard, and debts owed by regional players including Mexico and Argentina soared. At the same time, criticism was growing about the influence of narco-businesses in Panama. Eventually, the US decided to act, invading Panama in 1989 and overthrowing Noriega. His successor, Guillermo Endara, a civilian and lawyer, put a new complexion on Panama's international image. But accusations that the country's financial system permitted money-laundering, fraud and international tax evasion have persisted. What makes Panama different from other tax havens today? "There is no such thing as a good tax haven," Jolyon Maugham, a barrister who specialises in tax, told BBC 5 Live. "They don't serve any purpose for the global economy... And what is true in the general is certainly true of Panama. "Panama is a real standout bad guy in this story. It's a uniquely ugly place to site your assets... notable only for the extreme and unattractive secrecy that it offers." Mr Maugham says Panama makes available "an especially strict form of secrecy, a type of opacity of ownership, and (if the reports of backdating are correct) a class of wealth management profession[als] some of whom have especially compromised ethics. "You go to Panama, in short, because, despite its profound disadvantages, you value these things." Campaign group, the Tax Justice Network, says of Panama: "In recent years, it has adopted a hard-line position as a jurisdiction that refuses to co-operate with international transparency initiatives." Tax, and making legal avoidance arrangements, is a global business and havens compete to provide the services, and secrecy, that clients may seek. Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the OECD's centre for tax policy, has been quoted as saying: "From the standpoint of reputation, Panama is still the only place where people still believe they can hide their money." Following revelations from the Mossack Fonseca documents, Panama's President Juan Carlos Varela said his government had "zero tolerance" for illicit financial activities. Panama Papers - tax havens of the rich and powerful exposed

पनामा की एक कानूनी फर्म, मोसैक फोंसेका से दस्तावेजों के एक बड़े रिसाव ने इस बात पर नई रोशनी डाली है कि अमीर और शक्तिशाली लोग अपनी संपत्ति कैसे छिपाते हैं। इसने पनामा पर भी नए सिरे से ध्यान आकर्षित किया है, जो दुनिया के सबसे प्रसिद्ध कर पनाहगाहों में से एक है। लेकिन क्या पनामा को अन्य कम या बिना कर वाले क्षेत्राधिकारों से अलग बनाता है और यह इस तरह से कैसे बन गया?


Swing-crush girl Alexia Walenkaki died from head injury

Summary: A five-year-old girl died from severe head injuries after a park swing she was playing on collapsed on to her, a post-mortem examination has found.

Alexia Walenkaki was visiting Mile End Park in east London as an early birthday treat with friends on Friday 17 July when a tree trunk collapsed. She had been playing on a rope-swing which ran from the trunk to the frame of a zip wire, police said. Post-mortem tests on Wednesday gave the cause of death as severe head injuries. Alexia's mother Vida Kwotuah said she watched in horror as the tree trunk knocked her daughter to the ground. The Metropolitan Police and the Health and Safety Executive are jointly investigating the death and the playground remains closed. Related Internet Links Metropolitan Police Service Health and Safety Executive Tower Hamlets Council

एक पांच वर्षीय लड़की की सिर में गंभीर चोटों के कारण मौत हो गई, जब वह एक पार्क झूले पर खेल रही थी, जिस पर वह गिर गई, एक पोस्टमॉर्टम जांच में पाया गया है।


A bumpy year ahead

Summary: It's a busy time for clairvoyants. I've been having a look at some of the predictions for 2015, and thought I'd save you the effort of doing likewise, by offering up a few themes.

Douglas FraserBusiness and economy editor, Scotland The new year looks bumpy, in economic and political terms. While the American economy is not badly placed for a good run, few others can say the same. China has slowed. India faces difficult choices this year if it's to speed up. Russia's in all sorts of bother, with a nasty habit of sharing its troubles with neighbours. Another to watch could be Nigeria - Africa's biggest economy, oil dependent, facing elections and in a mess. Deflation is already a significant threat in the eurozone, making the European Central Bank and its boss, Mario Draghi, a likely newsmaker for 2015. There will be knock-on impact for UK exporters and the UK economy. But as a net importer of oil, the European Union may be in the majority of economies that benefit from the sharp cut in oil prices. This is being likened to a big tax cut, meaning money released from energy bills can be spent elsewhere. Crude calculations The impact on Scotland will be mixed. Those paying for oil - the transport sector among them - will benefit. But obviously, it's not good for Aberdeen and the north-east if offshore contractors pay is already being cut, and investment projects will likely be shelved. Scotland's oil and gas economy has been very important to sustaining employment and economic activity through recent tough years. This year may see it as more of a drag on performance. Will the oil price continue to decline? The consensus seems to be: yes. In new year trading, Brent crude dipped below $56 per barrel, lower than half the level it was at in June. Few would be surprised if it fell below $50. But those who know about the oil market (rather than those of us who gaze into a crystal ball to find something to do at this time of year) reckon a first quarter low will be followed by adjustments to supply and demand into the second quarter, meaning that prices could rise. What matters is not the actual price, but the cost of uncertainty and risk, the industry's expectations of whether this is going to last, and the average price of Brent crude over a longer period. Those figures are the decisive ones for investment projects. Retail tumult That's one of the dynamic sectors worth noting. Retail is another. Tesco's new chief executive is soon to unveil his plans for a turnaround of the beleaguered supermarket giant. It's tried to match the upstart discounters on price. It now has to "right-size" its store portfolio and land bank. And it's just one of those struggling to chart a way through tumultuous times on the high street. Some foresee chains shedding large numbers of outlets, and others going under because they can't sustain the recent level of discounting. Of course, the tumult is largely being caused by all that activity online, and even more so by mobile shopping. Technology dominates the predictions for each new year, as we can already see what is slated for product launches. This year sees much talk of smart watches - though also warnings of hype about wearables. In retail, the Next Big Thing will be the use of location, location and also location to tempt mobile shoppers into stores and to steer them around shopping districts and malls. The demise of City Link brings into focus the need to get distribution right, with Click and Collect (from a convenient convenience store) a candidate for getting more of a push in place of doorstep delivery. TV stream Also linked to the disruptive power of technology is the future of television. When I saw what you can do with a selfie stick, I realised this has potential beyond narcissism. It's just one of the ways that TV can be made more cheaply. And unless the Civil Aviation Authority clamps down, camera-by-drone will become a standard part of the news viewing fare. A new perspective on the market for TV shows it getting even more of a shake-up. The way people view television is shifting to streamed services on-demand rather than dictated by channel schedulers. The BBC has been a leader in this, through developing iPlayer. What that means for the corporation's future provision will be one of the factors in determining the terms and conditions on its next charter. Whoever controls Westminster after the May election will be closely involved. For commercial broadcasters, the shift in viewing habits will drive a shift in advertising too. Reaching people through a 30-second advert is getting tougher, so the broadcast companies are having to get smarter. And in order to avoid people switching off their satellite and cable subscriptions - known in the US as 'cord-cutting' - Sky, BT, Virgin Media face a tough fight to retain customers with live events and sport, as well as bundled telecom offerings. Strange bedfellows The bumpiness of politics this year will revolve around the 7 May elections to Westminster. To political buffs, it looks harder to call than ever. To business, it brings uncertainty about the future direction of economic policy and of Britain's place in or out of the European Union. And to business in Scotland, it adds to another year when constitutional change will dominate. The outcome of the Smith Commission could see business taking a much higher profile on tax powers than it did in last year's referendum campaign. With support for Conservative or Labour polling, on some occasions, lower than the combined support for the smaller parties, the LibDems, the Scottish National Party or UKIP are seen as potential kingmakers. But an eye-catching thought from the Financial Times, in its new year predictions, is for a national government of Conservative and Labour - driven into a very uncomfortable alliance by the demands of smaller parties being too much for either of them to bear. All that plus a fad for trendy toast bars. And 21 October 2015 is the day to which the film 'Back to the Future 2' travelled forward, featuring a hoverboard. Yes, this will be a big year for predictions. Remember: none of the above is original thought. Most of it will be wrong. Probably. And in case I forgot to mention it, I hope it's not too late to wish you a happy new year. In the latest edition of Radio Scotland's Business Scotland programme, David Henderson is joined by a panel of leading business women to look ahead to 2015. Listen to the programme here.

यह दूरदर्शी लोगों के लिए एक व्यस्त समय है। मैंने 2015 के लिए कुछ भविष्यवाणियों पर एक नज़र डाली है, और सोचा कि मैं आपको कुछ विषयों की पेशकश करके ऐसा करने का प्रयास बचाऊंगा।


Von der Leyen's Commission: The ones to watch at Europe’s new top table

Summary: The EU parliament has approved incoming Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's new team by a large majority.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted in favour of the new commissioners by 461 to 157 against. There were 89 abstentions. The new team will take office on 1 December, a month later than planned. Mrs von der Leyen, the first woman to take on the presidency, said earlier that her team would "give Europe a new start" with a focus on climate change. Wednesday's vote in the European Parliament in Strasbourg required a simple majority for the team to be approved. Mrs von der Leyen, Germany's former defence minister and long-time close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, vowed to build a team to lead the EU's executive body made up of equal numbers of men and women. Her list of 27 sees 12 women get a seat at the top table - herself included - after weeks of stumbling over nominees grilled by MEPs. There is no UK commissioner. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government opted not to nominate a candidate even though the UK has not yet left the union and the EU has since launched legal action. "One member of our family intends to leave our union," Mrs von der Leyen said ahead of Wednesday's vote, to cheers and clapping from the UK's Brexit Party MEPs. "A vast majority of this house appears to be very happy that the small [Brexit] group will not be able to clap as loudly any more," she said to rapturous applause. A number of MEPs who voted on Wednesday voiced objections to some of the chosen candidates, citing conflicts of interest. So who are some of the key names to look out for? Thierry Breton (France): Internal Market and Services "I sold all my shares," the ex-head of French tech giant Atos assured MEPs, when they raised questions about possible conflicts of interest earlier this month. The 64-year-old was France's second candidate for the von der Leyen team after President Emmanuel Macron's preferred choice, Sylvie Goulard, was rejected. Mr Breton has stressed the need to regulate the tech sector and bring in single market rules, which he argues would help address challenges from competition outside the EU. Thierry Breton caused a bit of a stir at the helm of Atos in 2011 when he announced a plan to ban internal email exchanges. The idea, aimed at removing distractions and improving individual productivity, was described at the time as both "bold" and "stupid". In the years that followed, email correspondence at Atos was gradually replaced with an internal messaging system - a move credited with helping to boost growth. Margrethe Vestager (Denmark): Vice-President - Europe fit for the Digital Age A big name in Danish politics, Ms Vestager has spent the past five years as EU competition commissioner, spearheading EU anti-trust investigations that have ended in big fines for US technology giants Google and Apple. Her approval for this new, high-powered role may well cause technology firms to sit up and take note, as it includes digital reform as well as competition policy. She has already earned the wrath of US President Donald Trump: "Your tax lady, she really hates the US," he is reported to have told her previous boss, Jean-Claude Juncker. But Ms Vestager, 51, believes companies must pay their way. She has previously served as Denmark's economy and interior minister. Oliver Varhelyi (Hungary): Neighbourhood and Enlargement policy Mr Varhelyi, 47, was only given the green light last week - a move described by Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban as the country's "biggest diplomatic success" in a decade. Hungary's government has clashed with the EU over issues of rule of law and migration in recent years - passing several laws in breach of EU treaties. Mr Orban said Hungarians could now "increase their influence in European politics" in areas such as migration through EU candidate countries in the Balkans. During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, MEPs questioned whether Mr Varhelyi's loyalties lay with the bloc as a whole or with Mr Orban. He insisted he would not take orders from Budapest. The previous Hungarian nominee, Laszlo Trocsanyi, was blocked ahead of confirmation hearings over a conflict of interest. Dubravka Suica (Croatia): Vice-President for Democracy and Demography Ms Suica has been an MEP since Croatia joined the EU in 2013 and has vowed to use her position to address Europe's demographic change, describing it as "a root cause of some people losing faith in our democracy". The former mayor of Dubrovnik - the first female to secure the role - has also said that she will work "towards the rule of law and transparency". But the 62-year-old has come under fire for a lack of transparency relating to her own personal wealth. "Can you reveal how you acquired a wealth of more than €5m ($5.5m; £4.3m)?" Ms Suica was asked by a member of the European Parliament at a hearing. She said the figure included the salary of her husband, who had received a significant wage during his many years as a sea captain, and that "everything is clear and transparent". Ms Suica was also asked about her previous decision to vote against European resolutions calling for greater women's rights, in particular relating to sexual and reproductive health. Frans Timmermans (Netherlands): Vice-President for European Green Deal The centre-left politician has already shown a preparedness to tackle the climate crisis, helping to steer through EU legislation banning plastic straws in his role as first vice-president of the Commission. The multilingual 58-year-old, who has been given the task of helping to implement further environmental policies, received a standing ovation earlier this month when he suggested "a pivotal role" for hydrogen in Europe. Mr Timmermans said this was because Europe already has a lot of gas infrastructure in place, making the transition smoother and cost-effective. He has also previously negotiated the EU's 2016 deal with Turkey to reduce the flow of migrants and has warned of the risks of nationalism. Margaritis Schinas (Greece): Vice-President for Promoting the European Way of Life This new and broad role gives the current EU Commission spokesman and member of Greece's governing centre-right party New Democracy oversight of migration, security, employment and education. The very name of his job is a delicate issue. It had to be changed after the previous title - Protecting Our European Way of Life - was criticised for tapping into right-wing rhetoric. It was described by MEPs as "grotesque" and by Amnesty International as "worrying". Mr Schinas' top two priorities, according to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, should be to reform the EU's asylum system and increase border protection. Greece has seen a big rise in migrant numbers crossing from Turkey. Five of its islands are under tremendous strain from the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers. Jutta Urpilainen (Finland): International Partnerships Ms Urpilainen, the first woman to lead Finland's Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 2008, has said gender equality should be a top priority for all existing and developing EU programmes and policies. Speaking to MEPs in October, the 44-year-old described the EU's 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals as "a golden opportunity" for Europe to lead the way in eradicating poverty worldwide. At the age of 22, she set up the Finnish European youth movement, under the umbrella of the Young European Federalists - a group seeking to promote "a more democratic Europe". Later, as Finland's finance minister in 2012, Ms Urpilainen wrote on her website that her country "would prefer to consider leaving the eurozone rather than to pay other countries' debts in the currency area". The remark led to questions about the SDP's position on Finland's membership and the party was forced to issue a series of denials and clarifications. Phil Hogan (Ireland): Trade Mr Hogan - referred to as "Big Phil" - has become the EU's point man in any future Brexit trade negotiations with the UK. The 59-year-old has said he looks forward to working with the UK in due course, if and when Britain's exit from the EU takes place during his tenure. But, while it is not clear who will be leading future negotiations on the UK side, Mr Hogan has previously been vocally derisive of Prime Minister Johnson and his approach to Brexit. "The UK government's only Churchillian legacy will be - 'never have so few done so much damage to so many'. Gambling with peace and the Good Friday Agreement is not good politics," he wrote in the Irish Independent newspaper in August. Ylva Johansson (Sweden): Home Affairs Ms Johansson has held ministerial posts in the Swedish government for 11 years under three different prime ministers. She told MEPs recently that one of her main tasks in her new EU role would be to propose a new pact on migration and asylum, creating legal and safe pathways for migrants. Ever since the influx of migrants and refugees in 2015-16, EU countries have struggled to agree on how to take people in. "It is difficult, but failure is simply not an option", the 55-year-old said in October. In an interview last year with Sweden's TT news agency, Ms Johansson said those arriving in Sweden should be made to study the country's laws and way of life. "Many people who move to Sweden come from countries with big differences in daily life and values," she said. Who else is on the list? Johannes Hahn (Austria), Budget and Administration; Didier Reynders (Belgium), Justice; Mariya Gabriel (Bulgaria), Innovation and Youth; Stella Kyriakides (Cyprus), Health; Vera Jourova (Czech Republic), Values and Transparency; Kadri Simson (Estonia), Energy; Paolo Gentiloni (Italy), Economy; Valdis Dombrovskis (Latvia), An Economy that Works for People; Virginijus Sinkevicius (Lithuania), Environment, Oceans and Fisheries; Nicolas Schmit (Luxemburg), Jobs and Social Rights; Helena Dalli (Malta), Equality; Janusz Wojciechowski (Poland), Agriculture; Elisa Ferreira (Portugal), Cohesion and Reforms; Adina Valean (Romania), Transport; Maros Sefcovic (Slovakia), Relations and Foresight; Janez Lenarcic (Slovenia), Crisis Management; Josep Borrell (Spain), A Stronger Europe in the World. How the European Commission works

यूरोपीय संघ की संसद ने आने वाले आयोग के अध्यक्ष उर्सुला वॉन डेर लेयेन की नई टीम को बड़े बहुमत से मंजूरी दे दी है।


Sportingbet's profits hit by Spanish ruling

Summary: Quarterly profits have slumped at Sportingbet after it was forced to suspend its Spanish operation following a demand for back-dated tax payments.

The online gambling firm made a pre-tax profit of £300,000 in the three months to 30 April, down from £12.1m a year earlier. Sportingbet suspended its Spanish unit in March after a court upheld an injunction brought by a casino firm. But it intends to restart its operations in Spain shortly. It expects to receive a licence from the Spanish government after agreeing to settle a tax demand for 14m euros ($18m; £11m).

पिछली तारीख के कर भुगतान की मांग के बाद अपने स्पेनिश संचालन को निलंबित करने के लिए मजबूर होने के बाद स्पोर्टिंगबेट में तिमाही लाभ में गिरावट आई है।


Remembering the Kurdish uprising of 1991

Summary: After more than a month of intensive air attacks and a short land offensive by the US-led coalition against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the Gulf War of 1991 drew to a close. The goal to liberate Kuwait following Iraq's invasion in August the previous year had been met, yet Saddam remained in power and turned his wrath on the Kurd and Shia communities. Photographer Richard Wayman had worked with many of the Kurdish groups active in Iraq and Turkey during the 1980s and decided he needed to be there. Here, he recounts his time covering the uprising of 1991.

Two days after the liberation of Kuwait, the then US President, George Bush made a statement to the Iraqi population, "In my own view… the Iraqi people should put Saddam aside, and that would facilitate the resolution of all these problems that exist and certainly would facilitate the acceptance of Iraq back into the family of peace-loving nations." Thus emboldened, in early March, the Shia in southern Iraq, and the Kurds in the north, made almost simultaneous uprisings against the regime. I was a freelance photojournalist and from my London base I tried to piece together the logistics of getting out to Iraqi Kurdistan as soon as possible. In the days before internet communications and mobile phones, getting usable or correct information was time-consuming. Often what was "correct" one day was "wrong" several days later. It took a few days for information to filter through. The best way, I felt, was just to get a flight out to eastern Turkey and see how the land lay, which is what I did and so managed to reach the border with Iraq. The Turkish army had closed the border and journalists waited in the border town of Cizre for a way across. After several frustrating days trying to get across the border legally, I teamed up with a couple from German ZDF TV and we made for Silopi - even closer to the border. After befriending some Turkish border guards at a farmhouse on the border itself we negotiated "safe passage" to cross the River Khabur which marked the border at this point. Late one night we pushed our raft, made of truck tyre inner tubes, into the fast flowing and cold waters of the river. On the far bank, an Iraqi border fort stood on a ridge invitingly. In the dawn light the following morning, a group of Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga walked us through a mined area to the safety of their fort. The Kurds were on a high - having recently taken the oil-rich city of Kirkuk from Saddam's forces. But things began to change very rapidly for them as, within days, regime loyalists regrouped and went on an offensive to reclaim the cities. They were helped by the fact that about half of tanks of the elite and politically reliable Republican Guard managed to escape from the Saddam-proclaimed "mother of all battles" in Kuwait. In addition, the Gulf War ceasefire agreement prohibited the Iraqi military's use of fixed-wing aircraft over the country, but allowed them to fly helicopters because most bridges had been destroyed. The allied forces of the coalition had accepted the request of an Iraqi general to fly helicopters, including armed gunships, to transport government officials because of the destroyed transport infrastructure. Almost immediately, the Iraqis began using the helicopters to put down the uprisings. The outgunned rebels had few heavy weapons and few surface-to-air missiles, which made them almost defenceless against the gunships and artillery barrages. Kurdish forces attempted to delay the advance of the Republican Guard to allow the evacuation of civilians from Iraqi Kurdistan to the safety of Turkey and Iranian frontiers but were inevitably crushed by superior fire-power of regime forces. I fled with the refugees, walking to the border with Turkey on a two-day trek. The Kurds were terrified that Saddam's men would use chemical weapons against them - as they had done in 1988. Another Kurdish dream of freedom was thwarted. More than one million Kurdish refugees swamped the borders with Turkey and Iran. Many were to die in the mountains before the setting-up of safe havens by coalition forces on the Iraqi side of the border brought some respite for their plight. All photographs by Richard Wayman.

एक महीने से अधिक समय तक तीव्र हवाई हमलों और सद्दाम हुसैन के इराक के खिलाफ अमेरिका के नेतृत्व वाले गठबंधन द्वारा एक छोटे से जमीनी हमले के बाद, 1991 का खाड़ी युद्ध समाप्त हो गया। पिछले साल अगस्त में इराक के आक्रमण के बाद कुवैत को मुक्त करने का लक्ष्य पूरा हो गया था, फिर भी सद्दाम सत्ता में रहे और उन्होंने कुर्द और शिया समुदायों पर अपना गुस्सा निकाला। फोटोग्राफर रिचर्ड वेमैन ने 1980 के दशक के दौरान इराक और तुर्की में सक्रिय कई कुर्द समूहों के साथ काम किया था और फैसला किया था कि उन्हें वहां रहने की आवश्यकता है। यहाँ, उन्होंने 1991 के विद्रोह को कवर करते हुए अपना समय याद किया।


In pictures: Oxford's May Morning

Summary: A record-breaking 27,000 people have descended on Oxford for its annual spring celebration.

The May Morning festival, whose origins are unclear, has been a tradition for more than 500 years. It began with crowds listening to the Magdalen College Choir serenade the congregation from Magdalen Tower at daybreak. The bells were then rung - the movement of which typically makes the tower sway up to 4in (10cm).

ऑक्सफोर्ड में वार्षिक वसंत उत्सव के लिए 27,000 लोग रिकॉर्ड तोड़ते हुए पहुंचे हैं।


Woman found in missing person search in Cardiff

Summary: A woman has been found safe and well following a missing person inquiry in Cardiff which saw emergency services gather at Blackweir bridge.

There had been reports a person had fallen into the River Taff during the aftermath of Storm Callum. Emergency service personnel, including the Coastguard and fire service, used boats during the search at the river earlier on Sunday. But South Wales Police confirmed the woman was found safe soon after.

कार्डिफ में लापता व्यक्ति की पूछताछ के बाद एक महिला सुरक्षित पाई गई है, जिसमें ब्लैकवायर पुल पर आपातकालीन सेवाओं को इकट्ठा होते देखा गया।


Tyne and Wear Metro services disrupted over Easter

Summary: Tyne and Wear Metro passengers face a weekend of disruption due to a major line closure.

The line between Gateshead Stadium, Hebburn and Brockley Whins will be closed until Monday while a power line is replaced. Bus replacement services are running and fans travelling to the Sunderland v Manchester United game on Saturday are advised to plan their journey. Around £385m is being spent on modernising the network.

टाइन और वियर मेट्रो यात्रियों को एक प्रमुख लाइन बंद होने के कारण सप्ताहांत में व्यवधान का सामना करना पड़ता है।


Long-awaited Reading Ikea store set to open in July

Summary: A new £10m Ikea store will open in Reading in July - four years after planning permission was granted.

It will be the first store the Swedish furniture giant has opened in the Thames Valley and the first in the UK for seven years. Developers have spent £4m improving junctions and access to the new store at Pincents Lane Retail Park in Calcot. Up to 350 new jobs will be created by the development and the site is set to open on 14 July. A £10m three-level store was approved in 2012 but the furniture company reduced its proposal to two storeys in 2014 to reflect the "ever-changing retail environment".

जुलाई में रीडिंग में एक नया 10 मिलियन पाउंड का आइकिया स्टोर खुलेगा-योजना की अनुमति दिए जाने के चार साल बाद।