Frank Sidebottom and the man behind the mask

Summary: Cult comic character Frank Sidebottom has inspired a film starring Michael Fassbender, while a documentary and biography are also in the works. Four years after his creator Chris Sievey died, why is Frank's legend growing and who was the man behind the mask?

By Ian YoungsEntertainment reporter, BBC News The giant home-made head. The ridiculously nasal Mancunian voice. The anarchic and absurd humour. The deliberately naff pop songs. That was Frank Sidebottom. He was an unmistakable and irrepressible creation who found a following in the 1980s and '90s on late-night student telly and Saturday morning children's shows, as well as on the comedy circuit. He was a strange mixture of eccentric comedy creation, surreal performance artist and cartoon character come to life. While he attracted a devoted following, he was destined to remain a cult concern. So it is stranger still that he should have inspired a film featuring Hollywood stars Michael Fassbender and Maggie Gyllenhaal, which gets its UK premiere at the Sundance London film festival on Friday. The film, titled Frank, was co-written by journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson, who spent three years playing keyboards in Sidebottom's Oh Blimey Big Band in the late 1980s. In his movie, Fassbender plays a musician called Frank who wears an oversized comic-book head. That, however, is where the similarities with the original Frank Sidebottom end. In the film, the title character is a misunderstood musical genius as opposed to a purveyor of Bontempi-swing novelty pop songs. The Frank of the film hails from Bluff, Kansas, rather than Sidebottom's native Timperley, Greater Manchester. He also has a disconcertingly deep voice. Ronson changed the character because he did not want to make a straightforward biopic of Sidebottom and his creator. Chris Sievey, who was consulted before his death in 2010, did not want that either. Sievey guarded his true identity and was worried that, in a straight biopic, "the reality of Chris would somehow undermine the mystery of Frank", Ronson says. So the writer kept the name and the head but fictionalised the rest. However, Sievey's real story is arguably more interesting than the version that is about to hit the big screen. Before Frank Sidebottom was born, Sievey was desperate to make it as a musician. Aged 15, he hitch-hiked from Manchester to the Apple Records headquarters in London with his brother and staged a sit-in before engineers eventually let them record a session. With his post-punk band The Freshies, Sievey was on the fringe of the late-1970s Manchester scene. "He was just a really nice, amiable chap," remembers Mick Middles, who wrote for music magazine Sounds and is now writing a biography titled Out Of His Head. "All the other Manchester musicians were very competitive and he didn't seem to be. He was just nice to be around." Sievey wrote countless letters to record companies and got countless rejection letters in return. Undeterred, he set up his own label. But the closest they got to the charts was number 54 in 1981. After The Freshies split, Sievey kept making music while also experimenting with the newfangled art of computer programming. In 1983, he released the solo single Camouflage. On the B-side was the audio data for "the world's first computer promo", a music video created entirely using the Sinclair's blocky graphics. But his music career was going nowhere. Sievey was an all-round, restless creative spirit and in the early 1980s Frank Sidebottom started to take shape. "I think he tried every which way to be successful, and for whatever reason it just wasn't happening," says David Arnold, Sievey's road manager for the last five years of his life. "I think he got to a point where he thought, 'Shove it. I'm just going to do something that entertains me.' Fortunately he came up with the Frank thing and people liked it." Arnold is now working with director Steve Sullivan on a documentary about Sievey titled Being Frank. Frank took off, appearing on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, children's TV programme No 73, Anthony H Wilson's Channel 4 game show Remote Control and slots on BBC Radios 2 and 5. He supported boy band Bros at Wembley Stadium in 1989 (disastrously by all accounts) and reached the peak of his fame with his own TV series, Frank Sidebottom's Fantastic Shed Show, on ITV in 1992. Sievey was deadly serious about staying in character as Frank Sidebottom when he was wearing the fake head. "If he had the head on and you called him Chris, he would just ignore you," says Arnold. "I think he went above and beyond the call of duty with that. "Everything would change - his body language, the way he sat, the way he moved, the way he talked. You were with another person. "It didn't matter whether there was just one person there or five people or 500 people. When the head was on, you were in Frank's company. Chris was gone." When his drawings, models and animations went on exhibition at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London in 2007, Sidebottom turned up to the opening. "He splashed paint all over the walls at this opening," Middles says. "The people running it ran up to Chris afterwards and said, 'Why the hell did you do that?' "He said, 'What are you asking me for? It was Frank.' That was how he lived his life. "He used to write letters from Chris to Frank. He had two sets of handwriting. And he'd post them. Things like that he'd do all the time." So to what extent was Frank Sidebottom just an act, a part Chris was playing? Or did it become an alter ego, a completely different persona? "You've got to be careful not to psychoanalyse him too much because it might be wrong," Jon Ronson cautions. "But my feeling is that if Chris was incredibly chaotic and Frank was incredibly innocent, there's got to be a reason for that, right? "And to encase yourself in this fake head… there has to be a reason. It was safer. Frank was a calmer, safer place to be than Chris." David Arnold describes Chris and Frank as two separate identities. He says: "I think they were two different people with some interests that crossed over - namely The Beatles and Thunderbirds. "In some ways they were polar opposites, in that Frank was very childlike, very innocent. Chris was very the much rock'n'roll lifestyle, let's say." Sievey's "rock'n'roll" exploits were a world away from Sidebottom's innocent life. Mick Middles describes how Sievey "did the whole drink and drugs thing as much as any rock star you could think of". While Frank Sidebottom was enjoying his mid-1990s heyday, a remarkable cast of Sidebottom sidekicks began to overshadow him in the limelight. Sievey had asked his brother-in-law's friend Caroline Aherne to voice the part of Frank's neighbour Mrs Merton for a radio show. Mrs Merton went on to get her own TV show before Aherne achieved comic greatness with The Royle Family. Chris Evans, who was a driver for Chris/Frank, became a household name as a DJ and TV host. Ronson found success as a writer and presenter, while Mark Radcliffe - another band member - is now a BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music host. "He did become a little bit embittered, naturally, I think," Middles suggests. Sievey was too undisciplined to build on his success, Ronson believes. "Because he was quite chaotic he didn't see things through to the end," he says. 'Couldn't get rid of him' "Somebody like Caroline Aherne was really focused. She would work at Mrs Merton or The Royle Family until it was brilliant. "Chris was more chaotic and scatterbrained and was just a twig in the tidal wave of whatever was happening that day. I think that was ultimately to the detriment of his art." Sievey put Sidebottom into retirement after his fortunes dwindled in the late 1990s and began working as an animator on children's shows like Pingu and Bob the Builder. But the giant head came back off the shelf in 2005. "He couldn't get rid of him," Mick Middles says. "I think Chris resented Frank because Frank just kept coming back. "Chris wanted to do other things. He wanted to make films and do lots of other stuff but eventually he had to go back to Frank because Frank was the only way of making a decent living. "The story's quite sad towards the end, not just with his illness but because he was drinking and doing everything heavily." Sievey died of cancer in June 2010. He left behind three children and an ex-wife. Novelty act or genius? Reckless with money, Sievey was virtually penniless when he died. When word got around that he was to have a pauper's funeral, Sidebottom's army of fans mobilised to raise £15,000 in 24 hours. Their devotion continued with campaigns to raise a slightly surreal statue of Sidebottom in leafy Timperley and to fund the Being Frank documentary. Today, fans and friends insist Sidebottom was more than just a novelty entertainer. Steve Sullivan says he sees Sievey and his creation as "a performance artist, or as a work of art", while Mick Middles describes him as an outsider artist. After Sievey died, Mark Radcliffe said he was "one of the very few people I met whom I would call a genius". Jon Ronson agrees. "It's certainly how I saw him back when I was plucked from obscurity to join a band," he says. "I thought I was in the presence of genius." Frank screens at the Sundance London film festival on 25 and 27 April and will be released in the UK on 9 May. Being Frank and Out Of His Head are due out later this year. Jon Ronson's book Frank: The True Story That Inspired The Movie is out now.

कल्ट कॉमिक चरित्र फ्रैंक साइडबॉटम ने माइकल फासबेंडर अभिनीत एक फिल्म को प्रेरित किया है, जबकि एक वृत्तचित्र और जीवनी पर भी काम चल रहा है। उनके निर्माता क्रिस सिवे की मृत्यु के चार साल बाद, फ्रैंक की किंवदंती क्यों बढ़ रही है और मास्क के पीछे का व्यक्ति कौन था?


Viewpoint: Why has India's 'beef' lynching sparked no remorse?

Summary: The lynching of a 50-year-old Muslim man in a village in northern India sent shock waves around the country. But inside the village itself there is a disturbing lack of remorse which is an ominous sign for India, writes Senior Executive Editor of NDTV India, Ravish Kumar.

How can all this be normal? How can life on the streets of Bisada village go on, as if nothing happened here, and whatever happened was not wrong? It has been two days since a massive mob pulled a man out of his house and killed him. Before killing Mohammad Akhlaq, they made him run to the farthest corner of his home. They broke down his door with such force that instead of giving way at its hinges, it cracked right down the middle. They smashed a sewing machine and used it to beat him to pulp. Their blood boiled in such seething rage, and that hot blood flowed into their hands, giving it such inhuman strength that they bent the grills that barred the top-floor windows as if they were made of flimsy wire. Could such fury, such bestial savagery have ridden on just a rumour that Mr Akhlaq had eaten beef? Bisada village has never had any history of communal tensions that can explain this killing. Nobody here has a criminal record. Dadri district where Bisada is located, is right next to Delhi. The village is clean and well-maintained. No shame How is it possible that no one looked bothered by what had happened here? How is it that I didn't find a single person who looked ashamed or had even a shred of remorse? Why was no one distraught that thousands of people from the village were transformed into a killer mob? By the time I reached Bisada, most of its young men had disappeared. Some families said their sons were unwell. Others said their sons were not in the village. The villagers blame four or five outsiders for instigating the violence. On the day of the killing, an announcement had been made over the temple loudspeaker, and within minutes thousands had collected outside Mr Akhlaq's house. The narrow street could not have held them all. The mob must have spilled over, all across the village. Yet, when I asked why so many people listened to a small group of outsiders, I was met with silence. No one saw this massive crowd. No one recognised them. Everyone says those who have been arrested are innocent. Only the courts can decide who is guilty, but the manner in which Bisada village has returned to normalcy makes me think that the police will never be able to identify the people who made up that murderous crowd. In any case, when have the police ever been successful in such cases? Even if forensic investigations identify whether it was beef or mutton, what difference will it make? The crowd has already delivered its judgment. It has already killed Mr Akhlaq. How can his daughter forget how her father was beaten to death in front of her? His old mother was also beaten by the crowd. There are deep wounds on her eyes. The Dadri incident will get lost under the glory of some foreign trip or some clever rhetoric in an election rally. The youth factor But, those of us who can think need to think today. What has happened that we are unable to rationally explain things to today's youth? Elders in the village say, even if it was beef, it was for the police to take action. But the young men of Bisada go straight to the issue of sentiment and beliefs. The way they react to emotive issues clearly shows that someone has already done some spadework here. Someone has planted the seeds of a poisonous tree, which is bearing fruit in their minds now. They are not even willing to listen to the prime minister's statement that communalism is poisonous. Prashant is a typical young man who wanted to take a selfie with me. He is an engineer. As soon as the selfie-session ended, Prashant said no one should play with anyone's sentiments. Prashant appeared to be a good boy, but it seems that he has no remorse about Akhlaq's death. Instead, he asked us why after the partition, when it had been decided that Hindus would stay in India and Muslims would go to Pakistan, did Gandhi and Nehru ask Muslims to stay back in India? I couldn't help but feel dismayed. These are the typical beliefs that keep the pot of communalism boiling. Prashant and I had a heated argument, but I lost. People like us are losing arguments every day. All I could do was ask Prashant to reconsider his views and read a few more books, but he is convinced that he's right. I wonder who would have taught Prashant to think like this? Did someone come amongst these young men before they coagulated into the mob that night? We do not understand what is happening around us. We are not able to make others understand. The sparks have been spread across our villages. Young men with their half-baked sense of history want me to pose with them for selfies, but are not willing to even consider my appeal that they give up their violent ideals. Our politics has become a collective of opportunists and cowards. I had gone to Dadri to cover Mohammad Akhlaq's death. On the way back, I felt I was carrying another corpse inside me. A longer version of this story appeared onndtv.com

एन. डी. टी. वी. इंडिया के वरिष्ठ कार्यकारी संपादक रवीश कुमार लिखते हैं, "उत्तर भारत के एक गाँव में एक 50 वर्षीय मुसलमान व्यक्ति की पीट-पीटकर हत्या ने पूरे देश को झकझोर दिया। लेकिन गाँव के अंदर ही पश्चाताप की एक परेशान करने वाली कमी है जो भारत के लिए एक अशुभ संकेत है।"


Frankie leads BBC Introducing line-up

Summary: Sunderland band Frankie & The Heartstrings, Flintshire's The Joy Formidable and London grime MC Tempa T are amongst the acts confirmed to play on the BBC Introducing stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend.

Alan Pownall, Django Django, Beatbullyz, Envy and My Tiger, My Timing will also play at the event which takes place at Bangor's Faenol Park on 22 and 23 May. The main stage and In New Music We Trust stage have already been announced and will see performances from Cheryl Cole, Rihanna and JLS. Fans have until 7pm on Monday 3 May to take part in the ballot for free tickets to this year's festival. Full line-up for the BBC Introducing stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend: SATURDAY 22 MAY Paegeus Bridge Y Promatics Alan Pownall The Wonder Villains Menis What Would Jesus Drive? Joy Formidable Tempa T SUNDAY 23 MAY Yr Ods Django Django We Are Animal Pete Lawrie Beatbullyz I Am Austin Ute Envy My Tiger My Timing

रेडियो 1 के बिग वीकेंड में बीबीसी इंट्रोड्यूसिंग स्टेज पर खेलने के लिए पुष्टि किए गए कृत्यों में सुंदरलैंड बैंड फ्रेंकी एंड द हार्टस्ट्रिंग्स, फ्लिंटशायर का द जॉय फॉर्मिडबल और लंदन ग्राइम एमसी टेम्पा टी शामिल हैं।


The sleepy town kept busy with $2m-a-day patent cases

Summary: It's a small town 150 miles to the east of Dallas, with a certain sleepy charm. Its 25,000 inhabitants boast that it was the birthplace of boogie-woogie, played an important role in the Civil War, and was at the centre of the development of the Texas Pacific railroad. But why would I - or anyone else, for that matter - want to spend time in Marshall, Texas?

Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent@BBCRoryCJon Twitter "You're here for the rocket docket," guessed Geraldine Mauthe, when I popped into the Marshall Conference and Visitor Bureau on my arrival. And she was right - the rocket docket refers to the speedy system (and speedy is relative) for dealing with patent cases which has made this small town's court famous or feared, depending on whether you're a plaintiff or a defendant. I had come to Marshall as part of a Radio 4 investigation into what has gone wrong with the US patent system. For this town at the centre of the Texas Eastern District is now one of the world's busiest places for patent litigation. As Palo Alto and Mountain View are to software engineers, so is Marshall to patent lawyers - a place where you can be sure of plenty of business. Two of the town's most prominent attorneys, Michael Smith and Sam Baxter, acted as my guides to the place and its premier industry. Mr Smith acts mainly for defendants, Mr Baxter principally for the plaintiffs, but each has built a pretty lucrative business on patent litigation. As we stood on the main square, looking across at the old courthouse, Mr Smith explained that it all started with a local company, the semiconductor maker Texas Instruments. "They were looking for a place where they could get patent claims heard. And the federal courts in Dallas were buried under a lot of drug trials." So they came to Marshall for a speedier hearing. "They filed the cases here for about 10 years and they were very happy with it. And then everyone else followed suit." It was what the locals call a triple digit day, when temperatures soar above 100F (37.8C), so I was grateful to step into the air conditioned former 1930s garage which houses Mr Baxter's law offices. Right next door to the courthouse, this lovingly restored building with its exposed brick walls and wooden floors becomes a hive of activity when a trial is on. "We have about 50 people working on a case," he explained. "We have a kitchen to feed them all, we have our own graphics people doing all the graphics for the trial - it's sort of a cottage industry. " And that doesn't come cheap for either side in a patent case. It can cost anything from $6m to $12m for a trial, says Mr Baxter. "If you got that many lawyers in a courtroom and the meter's running on every one of them, it is probably not unusual for the clock to be running at $2m a day in a courtroom." No wonder, then, that many smaller companies just agree to pay a licensing fee rather than ever get involved in a patent case. But for Marshall, the regular influx of as many as 100 lawyers for one of the big cases has been a boon. The fine old 1900 county courthouse has been restored, and is being used again when the regular state court across the road is occupied. Many of the town's office buildings are used by dozens of so-called patent trolls - companies that exist merely to litigate and find it useful to have an address - though no meaningful operations - in the district where they seek to bring cases. One evening I got talking to some locals in a restaurant on the main square, one of just two places you can drink alcohol in Marshall - once you show your driving licence and sign up to be a member of a club. It was boogie-woogie night, and although it was quieter than normal because the judge was out of town and no patent cases were underway, there was a decent crowd. Just about everyone I met had some involvement with the patent business, mainly as jury members. They were all quite proud of their town and seemed bemused that anyone might think the patent system was not working well for the US. And of course there is an economic benefit. "It's good for hotels, it's good for restaurants, it's good for lawyers," one man told me. But one of those lawyers, Mr Baxter, said there was more to Marshall's passion for patents than just self-interest. In this part of the country, respect for property rights was very strong - and the argument that many patents were now owned by people who litigate rather than invent products held no sway for him. "If you bought a piece of property that is real estate, and it turns out that it's got oil or gas underneath, nobody ought to be able to tell you that you can't take advantage of that." In a state which has built its fortune on oil, the very idea that you could not exploit a piece of property like a patent was "anathema to the free enterprise culture". On my visit to Marshall, I found only one dissident when it came to the patent industry. In the town's computer supplies store, I asked the young owner the same question I put to everyone I met here - what makes this town famous? "Slavery? Religious ignorance? Nutbaggery?" were his first guesses, indications perhaps that he didn't quite fit in. And when I mentioned the patent business, he said he hoped the town was not proud of that - it might be good for business but it wasn't good for the overall economy "because you've got companies being sued into oblivion". That view of a system which has seen patent litigation soar in recent years is now gaining wider acceptance in Washington DC, where politicians right up to President Obama are talking of reforms. But in Marshall, where a patent is a piece of property to be defended with every means possible, and $2m-a-day lawsuits are fought just about every week, most people hope that reform doesn't arrive any time soon. Patently Absurd is on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 20 August at 20:00 BST, or catch up with iPlayer

यह डलास से 150 मील पूर्व में एक छोटा सा शहर है, जिसमें एक निश्चित नींद का आकर्षण है। इसके 25,000 निवासी दावा करते हैं कि यह बूगी-वूगी का जन्मस्थान था, गृह युद्ध में एक महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाई, और टेक्सास प्रशांत रेलमार्ग के विकास के केंद्र में था। लेकिन मैं-या कोई और, उस मामले के लिए-मार्शल, टेक्सास में समय क्यों बिताना चाहेगा?


Man released over Wolverhampton stab death

Summary: A man has been released without charge after being arrested on suspicion of a stabbing murder, police have said.

Officers were called to Raven Crescent, in Ashmore Park, Wolverhampton, at about 05:15 BST on Friday following reports of a disturbance. A man in his 30s was pronounced dead at the scene and three men were arrested nearby. The two other arrested men remain in police custody. West Midlands Police said gunshot sounds heard in the area were believed to have been due to a car on fire.

पुलिस ने कहा है कि चाकू मारकर हत्या के संदेह में गिरफ्तार किए जाने के बाद एक व्यक्ति को बिना किसी आरोप के रिहा कर दिया गया है।


Then and now: A 'megadrought' in California

Summary: In our monthly feature, Then and Now, we reveal some of the ways that planet Earth has been changing against the backdrop of a warming world. Here, we look at the effects of extreme weather on a crucial reservoir that supplies water to millions of people in northern California.

By Mark KinverEnvironment reporter This year is likely to be critically dry for California. Winter storms that dumped heavy snow and rain across the state are not expected to be substantial enough to counterbalance drought conditions. Lake Oroville plays a key role in California's complex water delivery system. This 65km-square body of water north of Sacramento is the second-largest reservoir in California. Not only does Lake Oroville store water, it helps control flooding elsewhere in the region, assists with the maintenance of water quality and boosts the health of fisheries downstream. In 2014, more than 80% of California was in the grip of an "extreme drought". Against this backdrop, Oroville's capacity fell to 30% - a historic low level. As the water level receded to hundreds of feet below normal levels, ramps and roads no longer reached the water's edge. More worryingly, the reservoir - when full - provided enough water for an estimated seven million households, as well as providing power for hydroelectricity facilities and irrigation for agricultural land. 'Unusually destructive' The dry conditions didn't start in 2014, however, there had been a drought for years prior to Oroville recording its historic low level. Indeed, the US space agency's Earth Observatory had warned that the multi-year drought was having a wider impact on the region. Among its effects was a contribution to "unusually active and destructive" fire seasons and poor yields from agricultural land. "There is strong evidence from climate models and centuries of tree ring data that suggest about one-third to one-half of the severity of the current drought can be attributed to climate change," observed Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist from Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Agency scientists added that the data suggested a "megadrought" might already be underway in this region - and that it could last for decades. The latest update from the US Drought Monitor in December 2020, showed that much of the country's western states were gripped by extreme or exceptional drought, with Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, Colorado and western Texas being the worst affected. The Drought Monitor releases maps showing the parts of the country with prolonged shortages in the water supply. It is produced jointly by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). From one extreme... Climate change is not just about a warmer world, it also means that the planet will see more extreme environmental conditions and weather. So, for example, episodes of flooding will increase, as well as episodes of droughts. Lake Oroville was a perfect illustration of how these extremes can threaten our existing infrastructure. While the lake's levels reached a historic low in 2014, the reservoir's vast embankment dam - the tallest in the US - was pushed to breaking point in February 2017. Following fierce storms in the surrounding mountains, water was flowing into the lake at a rate of roughly one-and-a-half Olympic-size swimming pools each second. Communities downstream had been evacuated, with more than 100,000 people being ordered to leave their homes. Officials were struggling to allow water to flow out of the lake because the main spillway - a structure that provides controlled releases of water - and the emergency spillway had been eroded and damaged. Yet they had to continue sending water down the valley because the reservoir was reaching capacity and there was a sense that there could be a "catastrophic failure" in the structure. In the space of two years, the lake went from an unprecedented low to a capacity that had not been experienced before. Water cascaded over the emergency spillways, which had not previously been required. Traditionally, the lake was replenished by meltwater from a thawing snowpack in surrounding mountains, whose river systems fed the reservoir. June was the month when the reservoir was expected to reach its yearly maximum level. However, in 2017, it was rain that caused the intense water flow. The reservoir had reached capacity in February, rather than the middle of the year, as usually happened. Scientists again suggested that the event fitted into the paradigm of a warming world. Speaking at the time to the Guardian newspaper, Prof Roger Bale, from the University of California Merced, explained: "With a warmer climate, we get these winter storms, which dump rain rather than snow." The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) said that the "frequency and intensity of droughts, storms and extreme weather events are increasingly likely above 1.5C (above pre-industrial levels)". Failure to keep the global average temperature rise to below 1.5C, as outlined in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, is likely to result in more of the world's reservoirs or flood defences being tested to breaking point. This is a stark warning for world leaders, who will be gathering once again this year at the UN's annual climate summit (COP26) - to be held in Glasgow. The meeting, which had to be postponed by a year because of Covid, will seek to raise global ambition on tackling climate change - with a view to keeping temperature rise within the 1.5C limit. Our Planet Then and Now will continue up to the UN climate summit in Glasgow, which is due to start in November 2021

हमारे मासिक फीचर, तब और अब में, हम कुछ तरीकों का खुलासा करते हैं कि पृथ्वी ग्रह एक गर्म दुनिया की पृष्ठभूमि के खिलाफ बदल रहा है। यहाँ, हम एक महत्वपूर्ण जलाशय पर चरम मौसम के प्रभावों को देखते हैं जो उत्तरी कैलिफोर्निया में लाखों लोगों को पानी की आपूर्ति करता है।


Q&A: Angolan general elections

Summary: Voters in the southern African state of Angola go to the polls on 31 August in the first general election since the coming into force of the country's new constitution. This abolished direct election of the president, removed the post of prime minister and limited presidential tenure to two five-year terms.

The election is taking place amid complaints from the opposition that the date of the election - just three days after celebrations for the incumbent president's birthday - gives the sitting government an unfair advantage. How is the president elected now? Each political party must submit a list of their National Assembly candidates to the constitutional court. The person heading the list of the winning party is automatically elected as president. The change from direct election was made in January 2010 by a parliament dominated by the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Every Angolan citizen over the age of 18 is entitled to vote. Voter registration is compulsory and some 9.7 million voters out of an estimated population of 21 million have been registered ahead of the elections. Voters will directly elect 220 members of the National Assembly for a five-year term. Members of the Angolan diaspora will not be able to vote after the National Electoral Commission (CNE) in July decided to cancel their participation. The process will be overseen by the CNE, but the Constitutional Council will announce the results and is the final authority on electoral matters. Nine political parties and coalitions are taking part in the poll, but the two main contenders are the MPLA and Unita. MPLA The MPLA has dominated Angolan politics since independence from Portugal in 1975, and is favourite to win. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979, is likely to secure the presidency as the limit on numbers of terms served cannot be imposed retrospectively. The party has a tight control on state institutions and its officials have close ties with the Angolan business elite. It has considerable campaign funds and control of key state institutions, including the military and media. UNITA Unita is a former rebel group that fought the MPLA-led regime from 1975 until the killing of its leader Jonas Savimbi by government forces in February 2002. It subsequently signed a peace agreement with the government, ending one of Africa's longest-running civil wars. It has since become the main opposition party, but was weakened in March 2012 by the defection of senior officials who left to form the Broad Consensus for Angolan Salvation - Electoral Coalition (Casa-CE). Unita leader Isaias Samakuva has said "democracy is finally coming to Angola. It is coming to Angola with Unita in power". He has promised to form a government "based on competence and not party affiliation". Angola last held parliamentary elections on 5 September 2008 in which the MPLA secured 82% of the vote, winning 191 of the 220 seats. Unita won 16 seats, down from the 70 it held in the previous legislature. Voter turnout was 87%. Economic hardship and poor governance remain core issues. There have been numerous demonstrations by youths and war veterans, protesting about economic misery in a country where the cost of living is among the highest in the world. President Dos Santos has promised economic growth and a fairer distribution of wealth, while Mr Samakuva has said he "would embark on a national emergency programme" to tackle unemployment, housing, health care, education and social security. Unita has threatened to protest about the CNE's "electoral fraud". But MPLA spokesman Rui Luis Falcao Pinto de Andrade affirms the body's independence, while acknowledging that it is "facing some difficulties", which he says it will resolve. Meanwhile, the Casa-CE alliance has complained that "the number of voters is unclear" and Unita has reported various irregularities in voter registration to the CNE. The media have come under fire with accusations that the state media have been favouring the MPLA, but the complaints have been rejected by the media regulator, the National Social Communication Council (CNCS). And the opposition media have been criticized over programme content, with the CNCS questioning the "accuracy" of information on Unita's Radio Despertar and faulting it for using "aggressive" language in its talk shows. Civil war veterans have threatened to blockade the polls if the government fails to pay them; an offer of $500 (£320) dollars a month has been rejected. Demonstrations in support of their claims have been suppressed by the authorities. Meanwhile, Unita has alleged that the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and the Rapid Intervention Police have moved into pro-opposition areas "to create fear and coercively persuade people" to vote for the MPLA. However, FAA chief Gen Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda has told FAA personnel that they should "behave with full respect for the constitution, with strict discipline and completely in line with the decisions regarding military conduct before, during, and after the election". MPLA supporters have also been accused of harassing their opposition counterparts - sometimes violently - in various parts of the country. The leader of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) team of observers, Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe, has called for those running in the elections to show tolerance and moderation. The African Union has also sent a team of observers. BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here

दक्षिणी अफ्रीकी राज्य अंगोला में मतदाता 31 अगस्त को देश के नए संविधान के लागू होने के बाद पहले आम चुनाव में मतदान के लिए जाते हैं। इसने राष्ट्रपति के प्रत्यक्ष चुनाव को समाप्त कर दिया, प्रधान मंत्री के पद को हटा दिया और राष्ट्रपति के कार्यकाल को दो पांच साल के कार्यकाल तक सीमित कर दिया।


The evolution of Australia Day controversy

Summary: Australia's national day of celebration has drawn much criticism recently from those who say it causes unfair hurt to indigenous people. But the controversy, like Australia Day itself, has evolved over many years, reports Sharon Verghis from Sydney.

More than most other nations, perhaps, Australia has a relaxed relationship to its national day. Australia Day, on 26 January, commemorates the day in 1788 when Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of 11 British ships, arrived at Sydney Cove to signal the birth of the colony. On Friday, many in this nation of 24 million people will once again gather on beaches and around barbeques to celebrate. From regattas to camel races, flip-flop-throwing carnivals to outdoor concerts, Australians will mark a public holiday more popularly treated as a late summer festival than the solemn national day its founders intended it to be - a unifying celebration of the good fortune of being Australian and the values that bind the nation: democracy, freedom, independence, a fair go, mateship. But what does 26 January really mean for Australians and how did it come to be? An old and new celebration Like all national days, the significance attached to Australia Day has changed over time. It is also, in its current form, relatively new. Not until 1994 was there consistently a national public holiday on 26 January, rather than on the nearest Monday. In 1818, New South Wales (NSW) formally marked 30 years as a colony with a triumphant 30-gun salute, the first official celebration of the date. It became an annual public holiday there in 1838 and remained a NSW-centric commemoration for many years. But by 1888, 26 January had become known as "Anniversary Day" and was a public holiday in all capital cities except Adelaide. The inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 reinforced momentum for a foundation holiday. By the 1920s, Anzac Day had become a national holiday but was regarded as a day of sombre commemoration of Australia's war casualties rather than a celebration. The search for a national day that fit this latter description continued - ending in 1935 when all states of Australia agreed to adopt a common name and date. In the 1980s, the Australian government began to take an increasingly prominent role and established the National Australia Day Committee. By 1994, all states and territories began to celebrate a unified public holiday on the actual day for the first time. How opposition was voiced Australian historian Prof Kate Darian-Smith, from the University of Tasmania, says that Australia Day, now far from its roots, sparks a sometimes heated annual public debate about cultural identity, history and what it means to be Australian. "In the commemorations in 1938, and then in 1988, there were restagings of the arrival of the First Fleet to Australia - and we would not see this now," she says. "Australia Day had become a politicised flashpoint for discussion about how we should celebrate the past, and recognising what the day means for indigenous people." For indigenous Australia, a historic protest came during sesquicentenary (150 years) celebrations in Sydney in 1938, when more than 100 Aboriginal people gathered for a conference to mark the "Day of Mourning". But the notion that indigenous Australians had been "robbed" of their land by the colonists was even acknowledged in the 19th Century by Henry Parkes, a NSW premier. In 1988, a protest march of more than 40,000 indigenous and non-indigenous people took place in Sydney, entrenching a tradition of "survival day" and "invasion day" concerts, marches and protests which continue today. Indigenous protest has continued to grow, mirroring similar movements surrounding days commemorating European colonisation, such as Thanksgiving in the US. It has dovetailed with heightened political and community activism coalescing around a "change the date" campaign. The push has been spearheaded by the left-wing Australian Greens and others who regard the date as more divisive than unifying, making Australia Day the antithesis of the harmonious national festival organisers had intended. Grassroots protests within the last year have ranged from some local councils in Melbourne dropping their Australia Day events, to radio station Triple J moving the unofficial soundtrack for Australia Day - its iconic Hottest 100 - to a different date. Patriotism for Anzac Day Australians don't appear to be particularly fixated on maintaining the 26 January date. A recent poll found that 56% of those surveyed didn't mind when it was held as long as there was a national day of celebration. Nearly half (49%) believed Australia Day should not be on a day that is offensive to indigenous people. Over the years, suggested alternatives have included 27 May, the date in 1967 when indigenous people were finally allowed constitutional rights, and 1 January, the day Australia's constitution came into force. Even 8 May - a pun on "mate" - has gained popular support. But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ruled out any changes, expressing his disappointment at the "divisive" actions of Australia Day reformists. Interestingly, says Prof Darian-Smith, there has been an upsurge of millennial-fuelled patriotism for Anzac Day, a day of remembrance for Australian and New Zealand forces who served and died in military conflicts. "In fact, Anzac Day, sometimes called Australia's secular holy day, has increasingly become the day that national fervour is most expressed," she says. To many, it holds less historical baggage, is more inclusive of migrants and indigenous veterans, and "is a day embraced very much by a younger generation - the turnout at Anzac ceremonies has become bigger and bigger each year". But Australia Day retains support from the nation's biggest political parties. "A free country debates its history - it does not deny it," Mr Turnbull has said. Sharon Verghis is a freelance writer based in Sydney

ऑस्ट्रेलिया के राष्ट्रीय दिवस समारोह की हाल ही में उन लोगों ने बहुत आलोचना की है जो कहते हैं कि यह स्वदेशी लोगों को अनुचित चोट पहुंचाता है। लेकिन सिडनी से शेरोन वर्गिस की रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, ऑस्ट्रेलिया दिवस की तरह विवाद भी कई वर्षों में विकसित हुआ है।


Jury retires in case against parents of 'Jihadi Jack'

Summary: A jury has retired to consider its verdict in the case against the parents of a Muslim convert dubbed "Jihadi Jack".

John Letts, 58, and Sally Lane, 57, are accused of sending or trying to send their 18-year-old son Jack £1,723 after he joined Islamic State. Old Bailey judge Nicholas Hilliard QC told jurors to consider "only the evidence you have seen in court". Mr Letts and Mrs Lane deny three counts of funding terrorism.

"जिहादी जैक" नामक एक धर्मांतरित मुसलमान के माता-पिता के खिलाफ मामले में अपने फैसले पर विचार करने के लिए एक जूरी सेवानिवृत्त हो गई है।


What were the most-played songs of the 2010s?

Summary: Aah, the 2010s... Do you remember them?

By Paul GlynnEntertainment & arts reporter Back in that golden age when we were all still able to listen to music in bars, cafes, shops, stadiums, at the gym and (sometimes) even at the office. Now with the first Easter of the 2020s on lockdown, PPL and BBC Radio 2 can reveal the top 40 most-played songs, on UK TV and radio, of the last decade. DJ Scott Mills will countdown the list of "absolute bangers" - led by Adele and Bruno Mars, with three appearances each - on the station on Monday. "The top 40 most-played songs are the sounds that radio producers and broadcasters have consistently played throughout the last decade and will evoke many memories for all of us," said Peter Leathem, boss of the music licensing company which compiled the chart. 'Universally loved' Jeff Smith, head of music at Radio 2, added it's "packed with universally loved, sing-along pop hits that really do stand the test of time". The new data suggests broadcasters mostly favoured songs by male solo artists, with 22 nods compared to 14 solo female tracks, while American stars outweighed home-grown performers by 18-14. Bands and groups accounted for 12 of the tracks, while that most modern phenomenon of the "collab" yielded seven hits. And British outlets, it seems, also preferred to give airtime to songs released that decade (34 out of 40), with just a few from the noughties and Natalie Imbruglia flying the flag for the 1990s on her own, with Torn. Rihanna, Coldplay, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry all made the top 40, however that's the last you'll be hearing of that lot in this article. Because we're about to dip straight into the top 10, which features two Brits, two women and two Pharrells. The top 10 most-played songs of the 2010s on UK TV and radio: 10. Sex On Fire - Kings Of Leon First up, pop pickers, is a song that you've almost certainly heard a wedding covers band butcher since its release in 2008. It gave the Nashville guitar slingers their first UK number one, and their first Grammy win too, for best rock performance by a group. In 2017, they told Radio X how they would one day explain the song's saucy lyrical content to their kids. "It's Socks on Fire," said drummer Nathan Followill. "Uncle Caleb's socks caught on fire one night when I was drying them out on the heater." Use Somebody, another track off their fourth album, Only by the Night, also made the top 40. 9. Forget You - CeeLo Green As many of you will have noticed, this is actually the broadcast-friendly version of the Atlanta singer's 2010 track, written in collaboration with Bruno Mars and several others. The song, which was a dig at the music industry, ironically won him a Grammy award for best urban/alternative performance. Billboard reviewed it at the time as sounding "as sunny as a '60s Motown hit and as expletive-laden as an early Eminem song". CeeLo was last seen, or heard rather, performing as the monster on the surreal ITV show The Masked Singer. 8. Counting Stars - One Republic The US pop-rock band topped the UK charts for the first time in 2013 with Counting Stars, which frontman and songwriter Ryan Tedder penned when he was trying to come up with something for Beyonce (who is notably absent from this chart). The song's accompanying video has now been viewed well over 2.9 billion times on YouTube, making it the streaming site's 14th most-viewed video ever. Not enough music videos contain crocodiles these days, do they? 7. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson, ft Bruno Mars The second biggest-selling song of the decade - on streaming and physical sales - is also the second big royalty cheque on this list for the Mars man, and gives us our first Brit too. London-born US producer/DJ Ronson, and the Hawaiian singer bagged the Brit award for best British single for Uptown Funk in 2015, when it felt like it was never off the speakers, anywhere. Fun fact: after its release though, they were legally made to credit The Gap Band as co-writers, due to the song's resemblance to the their 1979 party hit, Oops Up Side Your Head. Bruno's other songs, Locked out of Heaven, and Just the Way You Are, also appear on the top 40. 6. I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas "Tonight's the night / Let's live it up" sang B.E.P in their 2009 hit, and I'm sure we all intend to follow that advice if we're ever allowed out again. The track was produced by superstar French DJ David Guetta and arguably saw them both at the peak of their powers. After singer Fergie left in 2015, the band went on to perform the song as part of a medley before the 2017 Champions League Final in Cardiff. However, the performance, which included fireworks, ran over time and forced the kick-off to be delayed by several minutes. Fair to say they've had better nights. 5. Can't Stop The Feeling! - Justin Timberlake As well as singing the film Trolls' lead song, JT played the worrywart Branch in the DreamWorks animation. In an interview with TheWrap, he said, like his character, he was pulling his hair out over the prospect of producing a hit for some colourful mythical creatures. "This wasn't just like writing a song for a movie - it was writing a song for characters that are going to sing it in the movie," he said. "That part had to work, and that's the part that made it a task that none of us had ever done." He needn't have worried, as the song - which he debuted live at the Eurovision song contest - won the Grammy Award for best song written for visual media. Having been released in 2016, this is actually the most recent track in the top 10, which is weighted in favour of older songs - because its surveying plays over a whole decade - and perhaps helps to solve the mystery of the missing Ed. Sheeran's stellar 2017 track, Shape of You, came in in 38th. 4. Get Lucky - Daft Punk, ft Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers Combining the musical might of the French electronic duo, the US hip-hop star and the legendary guitarist, it was only ever going to end one way, wasn't it? Choon. Stevie Wonder even added to the talent pool by joining them on-stage to perform the modern disco-hit at the 2014 Grammys, where it won record of the year and best pop group performance. It topped almost every chart in the world, selling a million equivalent copies in the UK in just 69 days. "When I think how it happened, too, with people who I like a lot, that we just decided to go into the studio and do something," Rodgers told the Official Chart Company. "And then it turns out like this? It's absolutely remarkable, because no-one was prepared for this!" While attempting to Get Lucky is very much against current government guidelines, dancing around your kitchen to that funky bass-line is not. 3. Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5, ft Christina Aguilera Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine attempted to brighten up one of the dullest Super Bowls in recent history by going topless as sang this ode to his hip-thrusting abilities, last year in Atlanta. The 2010 track peaked at number two in the UK but topped the US charts, meaning Christina Aguilera became only the fifth female to score number one singles in three different decades, after Janet Jackson, Madonna, Spears and Cher. But it still wasn't enough for her to get invited back to the "greatest show on earth" to perform. Incidentally, last year, Sir Mick Jagger - the 76-year-old Rolling Stone referenced in the song's title - posted a video of himself dancing at home following heart surgery, to prove he still had his signature moves. The Los Angeles band's other big hit of the decade, Payphone - featuring rapper Wiz Khalifa - also gets a mention in the top 40. 2. Rolling In The Deep - Adele The opener from Adele's Brit award-winning second album, 21, was essentially her big comeback track following the breakthrough success of her debut, and also the moment she became a real star in the States too. The gospel-tinged vibes of the pounding 2010 track saw her pick up three Grammys - record and song of the year, plus best short-form music video. The visuals found her alone in an abandoned room which soon began to fall apart, like the relationship she was singing about. After Mark Ronson, the Londoner is the only other British-born artist (and second woman) to appear in the top 10... and he mostly grew up in New York. Someone Like You and Set Fire to the Rain, from the same blockbuster album, also made the top 40 mix. 1. Happy - Pharrell Williams So there you have it! An upbeat and inoffensive top 10. The appearance of Mr Williams' second ubiquitous earworm of the 2010s confirms there is no room at all at the top table for Drake, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber or Ariana Grande. Possibly as while they are popular with younger audiences, radio and TV has to appeal to a much broader listenership. Happy was another track written for an animated film; namely Despicable Me 2, and it fast became the eighth biggest-selling song in UK chart history. A live rendition of the song eventually scored the singer/rapper a Grammy, after he previously lost out in the best original song category to Let it Go, from Disney's Frozen. "When they read the results, my face was... frozen," Pharrell told GQ magazine. "But then I thought about it, and I just decided just to... let it go." With Lucky and Happy enjoying great success, we look forward to seeing which of the remaining seven dwarves he'll name his hits after in this new era. (Joke... we know Lucky isn't one really). Scott Mills presents the Most Played Songs of the Decade on Radio 2, at 14:00 BST on 13 April. Follow us on Facebook, or on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

आह, 2010 का दशक... क्या आपको याद है?


My verbal sparring with Charles Taylor

Summary: A UN-backed war crimes tribunal has convicted Liberia's former President Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone. He first came to international prominence after an interview on the BBC's Focus on Africa programme with its then editor Robin White, who looks back at Charles Taylor's rise and fall.

New Year's Days are usually a bit thin on news and much of the discussion in the Focus on Africa office on New Year's Day 1990 was along the lines of "how on earth are we going to fill the programme?" And then, Charles Taylor called. He claimed to have invaded Liberia and was on his way to Monrovia to overthrow President Doe. I'd never heard of Taylor, or his Patriotic Front movement but he sounded plausible. Liberia was not a happy place to be in 1989. It had been run for the previous 10 years by Samuel K Doe, an illiterate army sergeant who ended more than 100 years of rule by the True Whig party - by parading government ministers through the streets of Monrovia, naked, and then shooting them dead on the beach. Doe was incompetent, brutal, tribalistic and possibly cannibalistic. He rigged an election and locked up the opposition. Unsurprisingly there had been several attempts to get rid of him. So Charles Taylor's call was not a total surprise. I interviewed him and we put him on air. The rest, as they say, was history. The Focus on Africa radio programme broadcast on the BBC World Service became the focal point for the coverage of Liberia's chaotic civil war. Everyone wanted to be on the programme. Scarcely a day went by without a warlord or a government spokesman or a peacekeeper or an eyewitness calling us to ask that their voice should be heard. Flamboyant and clever I thought and, I think many Liberians thought, that Taylor's war would be short, sharp and successful. He had the backing of Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and some of Liberia's near neighbours. He had money, guns, and ammunition and, at first, considerable popular support. But it took him more than eight years to make it to the presidency - by which time thousands had died and the country lay in ruins. Charles Taylor's appeal was obvious. He was the complete opposite of Doe: Flamboyant, clever and well educated. And, above all, he could talk. Liberians love a talker and he was the mother of all talkers. He was the "Liberian Lip"; the "Monrovian Motormouth". He knew how to deal with the media. He never held a press conference unless he had something important to say. He never called us if he didn't have a story to tell - and he rationed his appearances. Many listeners think that he was constantly on BBC Focus on Africa bragging about his latest successes. In fact, during those many years of war, he only phoned six times. Taylor's progress was at first dramatic. He took Nimba country and then moved on to other targets like the vital iron mining town of Yekepa. His army grew. He was endorsed by prominent Liberians abroad such as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's current president. Monrovia beckoned. But then his advance stalled. His Patriotic Front movement split down the middle after he quarrelled with Prince Johnson, the man who finally killed Doe. And other liberation movements, like Ulimo, sprang up to muddy the waters. Ecomog, the West African peacekeeping force, moved in to try and establish some kind of order and Taylor was left stranded in his regional capital, Gbarnga, pretending to rule half of the country. Pyrrhic victory Umpteen peace conferences later, Taylor finally got his prize - he won the 1997 presidential election. But it was a pyrrhic victory. Liberia had been destroyed and the people demoralised. He had no money and he was an international pariah. He needed money to finance his private army, the Anti-Terrorist Unit. But he couldn't beg or borrow - so he had to steal. He chopped down Liberia's forests and shipped off timber to Marseilles, and he flogged off any minerals and diamonds he could lay his fingers on. It did him no good. Already copycat rebel movements like Lurd were on the march and, like Taylor before them, were calling us at Focus on Africa to claim military successes. The writing was on the wall. I first met Taylor face-to-face in the Executive Mansion in Monrovia in 2000. He could still talk the talk, but in person he is not so impressive: Small, slightly moth-eaten, with not very well designed stubble on his face. He denied masterminding the RUF rebellion in Sierra Leone and rejected American claims that he was dealing in "blood diamonds". He told me: "There is a satellite over Liberia every 48 minutes. The United States can take a picture of a matchstick or even a safety pin. But they don't have any evidence of anything". But the connections with Sierra Leone were obvious. Amongst the praise singers milling around Taylor in the Executive Mansion when I was there were RUF supporters who made no attempt to hide their identity. Taylor loved danger, loved plotting, loved scheming, loved meddling. It's hard to believe that he didn't have some finger in the Sierra Leonean pie. But the abiding mystery for me is this: Why has Charles Taylor been tried for what he did in Sierra Leone? Why is he not held to account for what he did to Liberia and Liberians?

संयुक्त राष्ट्र समर्थित एक युद्ध अपराध न्यायाधिकरण ने लाइबेरिया के पूर्व राष्ट्रपति चार्ल्स टेलर को पड़ोसी सिएरा लियोन में विद्रोहियों की सहायता करने और उन्हें उकसाने का दोषी ठहराया है। वह पहली बार बीबीसी के फोकस ऑन अफ्रीका कार्यक्रम में इसके तत्कालीन संपादक रॉबिन व्हाइट के साथ एक साक्षात्कार के बाद अंतर्राष्ट्रीय प्रसिद्धि में आया, जो चार्ल्स टेलर के उदय और पतन को देखता है।


Man extradited after manslaughter charge over fatal Trafalgar Square attack

Summary: A man has been extradited from the United States in relation to a fatal attack in London's Trafalgar Square.

Lucas Antunes, 21, has been flown back to the UK after being charged with the manslaughter of Desmond O'Beirne, 51, who died from injuries he suffered in the early hours of 3 June, 2017. He has become the second person to be charged over the death. Antunes will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 28 September. Luis Abella, 22, of Marshall Court was charged with manslaughter on 15 August and last appeared at Southwark Crown Court on 3 October. A trial date is yet to be set, the Met Police has said.

लंदन के ट्राफलगर स्क्वायर में एक घातक हमले के संबंध में एक व्यक्ति को संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका से प्रत्यर्पित किया गया है।


Davos 2019: The man who thinks he can make us love kale

Summary: Matt Barnard's favourite memory of the recent Christmas holiday period was receiving a thank you letter from the 10-year-old daughter of a friend who'd been over for a meal. "I'm stunned you got me to like kale. I never knew I could like salad," she wrote.

By Katie HopeBBC News, Davos The products had come directly from Mr Barnard's South San Francisco farm. It's a nice anecdote. Of course, food you've grown yourself tends to be fresher and taste nicer than the same stuff from the supermarket. But Mr Barnard's ambitions are a lot bigger than providing friends and their children with nice lunches. He is the chief executive of Plenty, a high-tech, agricultural start-up that he co-founded six years ago. He may only have two farms currently, with a third due to open later this year, but they are test pads for a much more ambitious global expansion plan. "Plant science artificial intelligence training centres" is how he describes them. Pole planting The crops are grown upwards on vertical poles, enabling them to produce higher yields on much smaller areas of ground, and the farms are indoors, meaning the weather has no impact. LED lights provide the equivalent of sunshine. The plants don't even need soil, instead they are fed by nutrient-rich water and there's no need for pesticides because there are no pests in this carefully controlled environment. For Mr Barnard, farming is a return to the family business. He grew up on an orchard but says he never expected to work in the industry because he "didn't enjoy growing up without any control over my livelihood". On his farms it's now all about control. The amount of water, ratio of minerals, humidity levels and different types and durations of LED light are all being varied and tested. "By giving plants different versions of perfect environments, we have the ability to influence the way they taste," he says. 'Bowling balls' The farms' small size means they can also be close to, or even within, big cities, dramatically reducing the distance produce needs to travel before it is eaten. He believes that fresh produce "gets a bad rap" because most fruit and veg crops are chosen for their durability, rather than their flavour. "Look at the iceberg lettuce. It's got no flavour and no nutrition, but it's the largest cash crop in the US because it's like a bowling ball making it resilient in the field and truck. That's what the supply chain dictates," he says. Local farms like his are able to grow more delicate and varied types of produce because they don't need to be as robust. "Working to produce food for people not trucks," is how Mr Barnard puts it. High energy He is optimistic that people will automatically choose to eat more veg if it tastes better. Such farms could also be part of the solution to obesity and to feeding a growing global population when we're running out of space to grow crops economically, he believes. As futuristic as it sounds, this kind of farming isn't new. There are similar companies elsewhere such as Jones Food Company in North Lincolnshire, Intelligent Growth Solutions in Scotland and the Growing Underground business in London. Internationally there are rivals such as Aerofarms in the US. Plenty of such farms have also failed, with critics saying the high cost of the energy required to run them stops them being commercially viable. Mr Barnard says it's an industry that is easy to enter with off-the-shelf systems, but argues that Plenty's use of machine learning and data is what makes it different. He says external changes, including a sharp drop in the cost of LED lighting, has also helped make it viable, with the farms more reliant on light than heat. Reconnecting It's easy to be sceptical, but he's been backed by some serious investors, raising $200m (£154m) from some big names, including Japanese media giant SoftBank, Alphabet's Eric Schmidt and Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in 2017. Prof Tim Benton, an expert in food systems from the University of Leeds, agrees there is a role for companies like Plenty, but says they are unlikely to replace conventional horticulture. "On average, if you divide global agricultural land by the number of people on the planet, each person uses a football pitch of land to crop the food we eat. Even if vertical farming stacks space high, it would be difficult to replicate even a big chunk of this space within cities. So, whilst part of the solution, it is not THE solution," he says. But like Mr Barnard, Prof Benton agrees vertical farming is one way to reconnect people with food, "converting it from a commodity that is plastic wrapped, cheap and 'waste-able', into something real, something local, something nurtured during production". Plenty's farms currently grow leafy green plants including kale, sweet lettuces and salad leaves, which require less energy compared to more substantial crops such as potatoes. The crops are distributed via online retailers, at special events and given to a small number of consumers to trial. Shelf life Mr Barnard says Plenty only sells its produce when it can do so at "median organic pricing or better". Of course, that is still much higher than rival non-organic produce, but Mr Barnard denies that his farms are simply producing tasty food for the middle class. Lab tests have shown the produce has a longer shelf life and he says that means people will waste less, which makes it more affordable. "Our mission is pretty ambitious. We've shown that it is possible at large scale relative to efficiency. Now we have to go about the hard work of building a business." That's why he's here at Davos to spread the word and secure further investment for his plan. Mr Barnard expects the business to accelerate after 2020, with expansion "likely to be outside the US". In the end, he will judge his success on whether he manages to "meaningfully change how people think about fresh produce" as something enjoyable to eat. So has he persuaded his own children, aged 11 and 13, to take an interest in veg? "More and more so. Both are eating more over time," he says.

हाल ही में क्रिसमस की छुट्टी की अवधि की मैट बर्नार्ड की पसंदीदा याद एक दोस्त की 10 साल की बेटी से धन्यवाद पत्र प्राप्त करना था जो भोजन के लिए गई थी। "मैं हैरान हूं कि आपने मुझे काले पसंद करने के लिए कहा। मुझे कभी नहीं पता था कि मुझे सलाद पसंद आ सकता है", उसने लिखा।


Teenager arrested over East Kilbride death

Summary: A teenager has been arrested in connection with the death of a man in South Lanarkshire.

Frank Sinclair, 61, was found dead near Riverton Drive in East Kilbride at about 20:40 on Saturday 19 January. Police confirmed that a 16-year-old boy had been arrested and charged in relation to the death. He is due to appear at Hamilton Sheriff Court and a report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.

दक्षिण लनार्कशायर में एक व्यक्ति की मौत के मामले में एक किशोर को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Jersey States approve healthcare reform plans

Summary: Jersey politicians have broadly backed proposals for the reform of the island's healthcare system.

All but one of the States members voted for the policy, although individual proposals and how they will be funded will need to agreed by the States. The changes would include more care in the community and increased funding for services like doctors' surgeries, and dental and opticians' services. It also involves the building of a new hospital costing more than £430m.

जर्सी के राजनेताओं ने द्वीप की स्वास्थ्य सेवा प्रणाली में सुधार के प्रस्तावों का व्यापक रूप से समर्थन किया है।


Cars damaged on Condor ferry to Jersey in high winds

Summary: About 25 cars on a fast ferry to Jersey were damaged in high winds and waves as the Condor Express sailed from the UK.

Condor Ferries said three crew members had minor injuries during the crossing from Poole to Jersey via Guernsey. There were winds of about 65 knots off the coast of Alderney at about 17:00 BST on Thursday. On arrival in Guernsey the Jersey passengers were transferred to the traditional boat the Commodore Clipper which arrived in Jersey later. The extent of the damage to the cars is not yet known. Charlotte Milner who was on board the boat said: "Fifteen foot waves, screaming children, roof falling apart, hands down worst journey of my life."

ब्रिटेन से रवाना हुई कोंडोर एक्सप्रेस के तेज हवाओं और लहरों से जर्सी जाने वाली एक तेज नौका पर लगभग 25 कारें क्षतिग्रस्त हो गईं।


Dingle stabbing victim named as Kyle John Farrell

Summary: A 21-year-old man stabbed to death in Liverpool has been named by police.

Kyle John Farrell was found with a stab wound to his chest at a house on Charlecote Street, Dingle, at about 05:00 GMT on Friday. He died later in hospital. His family said he was a "devoted father and loving son" who will be missed by all his family and friends. A 21-year-old woman has been arrested by Merseyside Police on suspicion of murder.

लिवरपूल में एक 21 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की चाकू मारकर हत्या कर दी गई है।


SLMM urged by LTTE to investigate killings

Summary: Calling off a scheduled meeting with international donor agencies in Kilinochchi Tamil Tigers urged the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to make the international community aware of the findings on the attack that killed the LTTE's Eastern political wing leader.

Dinasena Ratugamage who visited rebel held Kilinochchi reported that the LTTE flag was flying at half mast and black flags were hoisted in Kilinochchi while solemn music was played through the public address system. In a statement issued on Tuesday the LTTE political wing said that the killing is "is a serious violation of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) that provides for the travel of unarmed LTTE members" in territory under government control. The statement came while the body of the slain Tiger leader Eliyathambi Lingarajah alias Kaushalyan along with five others were brought to the Batticaloa teaching hospital. Shanthi Selvadurai reporting from Batticaloa said that the bodies escorted by SLMM personnel were given security by the Sri Lankan Military. District Administrative officer Daya Mohan speaking to journalist in Batticaloa said that this attack would not have been possible without the knowledge of the Sri Lankan military. "LTTE" responsible He said that "traitors dressed in military uniform" have carried out this attack. Denying any involvement in the killing of the senior LTTE leader sri Lanka military spokesman Brigadier Daya ratnayake said that the LTTE should bear the responsibility of the deaths of its own people. He said that the LTTE leaders have been warned by the Sri Lankan military about travelling in government held areas as there was a threat to Tigers since the Karuna group split from the LTTE in last April. Adding that the military provided security for LTTE leaders for the past three years, the spokesman said that state security was not informed of Kaushalyan's Monday tour. However, the Sri Lankan military said on Monday that the vehicle including Kaushalyan entered government held territory on Monday (07) afternoon across the Omanthai military check point.

किलिनोच्ची में अंतर्राष्ट्रीय दाता एजेंसियों के साथ एक निर्धारित बैठक को रद्द करते हुए तमिल टाइगर्स ने श्रीलंका निगरानी मिशन (एस. एल. एम. एम.) से आग्रह किया कि वह एल. टी. टी. ई. के पूर्वी राजनीतिक विंग के नेता को मारने वाले हमले के निष्कर्षों के बारे में अंतर्राष्ट्रीय समुदाय को जागरूक करे।


The 'British' Germans the war left behind

Summary: By 2020, all the British soldiers stationed in Germany will have come back to the UK, the Ministry of Defence has announced. But the offspring of soldiers who stayed on after World War II or returned there in the years that followed are making their mark in German society, says Chris Bowlby.

Helmut Kohl, Gerhard Schroeder, Angela Merkel. The roll call of recent chancellors in Berlin has a properly Germanic ring to it. So it would be a bit of a shock if one of the future occupants of that post was named… David McAllister. But that is just what could happen, as Mr McAllister, currently prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony, is one of the brightest prospects in Germany's Christian Democratic Union party. He is tipped to do very well on the national scene too. So why Mr McAllister? He is part of a fascinating and increasingly prominent group in German life - the children of former British soldiers who opted to live permanently in Germany after World War II. It is hard to obtain precise figures for this group. But there are many thousands of soldiers who did not return home after their military service ended, deciding they preferred life in Germany. Many have German wives or partners. In Mr McAllister's case, his Scottish father, who had been in the British army during World War II, returned as a civil servant with the British occupying forces in Cold War Berlin. He formed a relationship with a German woman, and they had a daughter in 1960. But they were not allowed to marry until 1964 as in early post-war decades, marriage between Brits and Germans was much frowned upon by the British authorities. Mr McAllister, born in 1971, recalls early confusion about his identity. His first years were spent in a kind of British bubble in West Berlin. "I felt British", he recalls. Mr McAllister attended British schools, listened to British broadcasting and spoke English every day to his father, who read the Daily Telegraph rather than a German newspaper. But when he read Victor magazine's war stories and played with other school boys, he could not understand why the Germans were always the baddies. Diversity Later, when the family moved to what was then West Germany, Mr McAllister went to a German secondary school. He then took the key decision to do his military service with the German army - though he retains dual citizenship. He later pursued a German political career, rising swiftly to his current post, where he sits in an impressively grand office in the Lower Saxony capital, Hannover. I asked him whether Germans, hearing his name, ever doubted where his loyalties lay? Only occasionally, he said, did he get emails or even "nasty letters". They came mostly, he added, "from elderly men of the very far right". His rise to prominence, he adds, reflects a new Germany that many outside the country have failed to appreciate. "Germany is becoming more diverse", he says. He points out that the current German Vice-Chancellor and head of the Free Democrat Party, Philipp Rösler, is of Vietnamese origin. And the national leader of the Green party is a Turkish-German, Cem Özdemir. So maybe the British Germans like Mr McAllister will make their mark too? But if they are ever more influential in German life, where would that leave all that popular prejudice, where Brits and the Germans see each other as permanent rivals - whether in politics or, say, sport? Football matches between England and Germany are one place where these rivalries are still played out. If he had to attend such a match as future German Chancellor, Mr McAllister would have no doubt where his loyalties lay. Thanks to his Scottish father. he is a keen supporter of Scottish rather than English football, and Glasgow Rangers in particular - as well as supporting the German national team. But there could be a worse twist for England fans. When their team inevitably lose to the Germans on penalties, the winning goal might be scored by one of Germany's top young players - one Lewis Holtby. Yes, you've guessed it, he has a British dad who served in Germany with the RAF, and a German mother. He could have played for England, but opted instead for Germany, which nurtured him, speaking of his pride when hearing the German anthem at games of the Under-21 team he captains. These younger generations of mixed British and German background are a far cry from the tensions when British forces first arrived after World War II. Many soldiers regarded the Germans as evil enemies, and they obeyed strict rules enforcing "non-fraternisation" with local civilians. Couples like Mr McAllister's parents had to struggle to keep their relationships despite official disapproval. But over the decades, there has been much mingling between the two communities. British forces based in Germany are due to depart finally in the next decade. But they will leave behind British Germans in their multi-thousands, increasingly prominent in a fast-changing German society. And they may offer a much better idea of the British-German future than the hostile memories of the 20th Century past.

रक्षा मंत्रालय ने घोषणा की है कि 2020 तक जर्मनी में तैनात सभी ब्रिटिश सैनिक ब्रिटेन वापस आ जाएंगे। लेकिन द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के बाद रहने वाले या उसके बाद के वर्षों में वहां लौटने वाले सैनिकों की संतानें जर्मन समाज में अपनी पहचान बना रही हैं, क्रिस बोल्बी कहते हैं।


'I survived D-Day - then had my first champagne'

Summary: The 75th anniversary of D-Day, when British, American and Canadian forces landed in France to drive out the occupying German army, will be a special one for a dwindling group of people - those who were there at the time. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby met a US veteran and two French civilians.

What 96-year-old Jake Larson remembers most about D-Day is the feeling of exhaustion. Well, the exhaustion and his first taste of champagne. "Let me tell you the story!" he says from his home in California as we chat on the phone. "You'll love this story!" Seventy-five years on and Jake's vintage tales of war are still as effervescent and sparkling as the bubbly he used to knock back in Normandy. For 65, perhaps for 70 years, he refused to speak about his experiences on the French coast - when he left the US Army in 1945, he was demobbed with "the shakes", he says. But when he did allow the cork to pop, suppressed memories frothed and spilled over in Technicolor. Jake had joined the National Guard in Minnesota aged 15. He'd lied about his age in the hope he'd get paid there and then - he'd only signed up because he'd wanted 10 cents for a cinema ticket to watch the latest Gene Autry film with his cousin. But national guardsmen were among the first to be conscripted into the US Army, and by 1944 Jake was a sergeant. When someone found out he could type, he was quickly shipped to the US Army's HQ in England to become a clerk, typing up the loading orders for the Normandy invasion plans of the US V Corps. "Man, I was so tired!" he remembers. "No-one had slept on the 4th or 5th [of June] and the seas were so rough we were turning and turning and everyone was sick. But on 6 June, maybe around 06:30, it was time to go in and here we were landing at Omaha beach with the water up to our necks and machine-gun fire on all sides. It was a shooting gallery." The sea, he says, was red with the blood of soldiers who had stepped on mines and he recalls having to push floating bodies out of his path to shore. After scrambling up the beach, he hid trembling behind a small sandbank and trying to calm his nerves with a cigarette, he asked the soldier crouched behind him for a match. When the man didn't reply, Jake nudged him and saw there was no head under the helmet. Find out more Time just evaporated that day, Jake reflects. He remembers setting up a command post by the cliffs, digging himself a foxhole to sleep in and by seven o'clock that night he was dropping with fatigue. That's when he was told by his commanding officer that he was to be in charge of the night shift. The next morning - Jake's longed-for bedtime - the guns roared again and more tanks rolled up the beach. "I couldn't sleep with that noise!" he protests. "I just couldn't sleep and man, I really needed to rest!" It was the locals who helped Jake out. As he stumbled away from the beach towards the village, French civilians rushed out to greet the liberators, hugging the soldiers and plying them with Normandy cheeses and other local fare. "There was Camembert!" delights Jake. "Am I even pronouncing that right? It was delicious, that Camembert cheese, but I didn't know how you ate that thing - I was just a farm boy from Minnesota! Then they gave us champagne! Wow! Man! Did you ever drink champagne?" Jake giggles down the telephone line. "I used to drink a whole bottle of that champagne every morning! We were out in the open and they (the Germans) were shooting at us and we were shooting back - and the noise! And I needed to sleep! Well that champagne was quite a thing - you drink a bottle of that and you could fall asleep! It was amazing stuff!" At her home in Angers, 90-year-old Thérèse le Chevalier claps her hands together in delight when I tell her about Jake and his champagne cure for insomnia. Back in June 1944, Therese was a 15-year-old boarding school pupil, but when a cousin working for the Resistance hinted to her mother that something significant was about to happen on the Normandy coast, Thérèse's mother ordered her home to Bernières-sur-Mer, the stretch of coastline known to the Allies as Juno Beach. As Jake Larson would have been clutching his stomach and vomiting in the rolling transport ship as he waited to land at Omaha Beach, Therese was hunkered down with her parents and little sister in a trench at the back of her yard, waiting for the ground to stop trembling with the bombing and gunfire. And as soon as it did, they went into the street. "The joy! The amazing feeling when we saw all those soldiers!" she exclaims. "The first were Canadians and some had their faces blacked up to avoid being spotted. And there were all kinds of weapons coming by, tanks and jeeps!" Later, while her parents were busy, she and her little sister sneaked away to look at the sea and were startled to find it packed with boats sporting silver anti-aircraft kite balloons. "It's strange," she reflects. "But I don't remember seeing corpses or anyone injured on the beach. My 15-year-old self did not understand death, did not believe in death, so maybe I just blocked it out." She does remember being chased away by soldiers who warned her that the beach was dangerous and there were things going on there which were not fit for a child to see. But for the most part, Thérèse sparkles as she speaks of her memories of D-Day and her joy is absolutely infectious. "Everyone was in the street," she tells me. "They were so happy because first of all we were liberated, we felt free, but really because we were alive! That whole day was a wonderful feeling of life." Therese's mother opened up her house to the soldiers to welcome them and to try to warm them up. "Of course, we pitied those poor things," Thérèse says, her hands cupping her face. "Because they were all wet from walking in the sea - oh, we felt so sorry for them! My mother boiled water all day for their tea and we made them coffee." She shakes her finger, correcting herself. "Well we didn't have coffee by then, of course, I think it was barley we gave them." Thérèse shows me a photograph of herself taken around the time of the D-Day landings and I look at an image of a beautiful, confident young woman with masses of thick, dark hair piled high on top of her head. "Oh yes!" she laughs coquettishly. "My hair was my pride, my crowning glory!" The soldiers were clearly enchanted by this pretty 15-year-old and gave her sweets and biscuits from their rations. But the gift she remembers most clearly is the little tin of chocolate they gave her, which could be heated up as a drink. Therese closes her eyes in ecstasy as she recalls tasting it, watching the battalions of Canadian and British soldiers. "Honestly," she sighs, "I never drank such a chocolate in all my life!" That evening, she says, the soldiers pulled a piano from a bomb-damaged house into the street and one of them played for the village. Thérèse doesn't remember the exact tunes he played but she knows it was something joyful. "Because we danced!" she laughs. "We danced until the evening came." While we chat, Thérèse's husband Pierre watches us quietly, occasionally sighing and shaking his head. His experience of the liberation was very different from his wife's because he lived 20km south of Bernières-sur-Mer, at Caen, which would endure a further two months of heavy bombing before the Germans were defeated. A French liberator On 6 June 1944, 21-year-old Leon Gautier was one of 177 elite French commandos who took part in the Normandy landings with the British 4 Commando unit. He was one of the first men to step on to Sword beach - the British soldiers were "gentlemanly", he says, and allowed the French to land first. He was distraught when the photo of his English girlfriend, Dorothea, got wet in the sea. Later, in a trench, he repaired it with the sticking plaster from his first aid kit. He remembers meeting a few French civilians near Sword beach and laughing when they presumed he was British and tried to speak to his unit in English. They told him they were scared of repercussions when the Allied forces left. "We will not go back," he told them. "This time it's for good." The historian Anthony Beevor once described the Battle of Caen as being "close to a war crime", but Pierre does not want to criticise the Allied forces, he just says that life was "very, very hard" for Caen's civilians, who were almost starving by the summer of 1944. For two-and-a-half years, Pierre and his parents slept in their cellar to survive. Many of their friends and neighbours were not so lucky. "There were many, many dead at Caen," he reminds me. "And we knew nothing about D-Day. That night (6 June) the bombs fell non-stop. We imagined something might be happening but we didn't know it was accompanied by soldiers landing on the Normandy coast. All we saw were German reinforcements passing by - and, later, trucks returning from the front full of dead soldiers." Eventually, Pierre's parents decided to evacuate to the countryside. "The first D-Day soldiers I saw would have been in August," he says. "American soldiers - a battalion of black American soldiers - gave us chewing gum but passed by quickly. We didn't have physical contact or conversation with the Americans. We were liberated without really knowing it." He shrugs. "And Caen didn't get better from one day to the next. We had no electricity, no water - everything had been bombed to bits." Thérèse has been busy shelling peas for lunch while her husband talks but she comes over to join us now and interjects that while she had the pleasure of seeing the liberation, her husband saw only the war. Pierre smiles at us sadly. "There was no joy," he admits. "Even after the ceasefire in 1945, the people weren't spilling over with joy. I don't remember any laughter in the streets. I think mentally, we were all rather crushed." Pierre and Thérèse will return to Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day just as they have done many times before. And for the first time since the war ended, 96-year-old Jake Larson will be back in France too, to pay his respects at the cemeteries where his fallen comrades are buried. "I'm the luckiest man alive," he tells me emphatically. "We lost 2,400 men on Omaha beach that day, men I walked over, men who died to spare me." His voice trails off. "There's a feeling of guilt in that," he admits. "So now it's time to pay my respects and to thank them for their sacrifice." Jake Larson is now the only survivor from his regiment - the "last man standing", as he jokes. Pierre and Thérèse too are painfully aware that in another 10 years there may be only a handful of civilian witnesses like them. "Young people don't know about D-Day, they don't care about the war," says Thérèse with a wry smile. "To them it's just history. But when you live that history, it's very, very different." Thérèse Le Chevalier's story is featured in In Their Footsteps, an exhibition at the Juno Beach museum running until 11 November 2019 Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

डी-डे की 75वीं वर्षगांठ, जब ब्रिटिश, अमेरिकी और कनाडाई सेनाएँ कब्जे वाली जर्मन सेना को खदेड़ने के लिए फ्रांस में उतरीं, लोगों के एक घटते समूह के लिए विशेष होगी-जो उस समय वहाँ थे। बीबीसी की एम्मा जेन किर्बी ने एक अमेरिकी दिग्गज और दो फ्रांसीसी नागरिकों से मुलाकात की।


Pokemon and the power of nostalgia

Summary: Pokemon Go may be the biggest game on the planet right now, but its little monsters first sprang on the scene in the mid-1990s. The BBC's Heather Chen remembers the unique emotional connection the game made with its earliest users.

Some girls loved Hello Kitty. Others played with Barbie. I grew up with Pokemon. For many '90s children, video game characters were almost like friends. I was nine when I first discovered the game. So for me, Pokemon Go wasn't just the start of a craze. It was more than just soaring share prices and renewed interest in the Japanese gaming giant. This was the news that would reawaken an entire generation of aspiring Pokemon masters, now adults. Pokemon Go fever is a result of many things: a clever concept with smartphones, a viral marketing campaign and not forgetting the franchise's powerful emotional connection with fans. Nostalgia is indeed a huge part of the formula, but there are other more emotional factors that could help explain Pokemon madness. Read More Childhood dreams, now on your smartphone Playing the first version of Pokemon back in 1996 meant relying on our trusty Game Boys - and a lot of imagination. As young and aspiring trainers, we would roam around different worlds in search of rare Pokemon to fill our Pokedex encyclopaedias and learn more about our favourite monsters. Many of us shared the same daydream: what if Pokemon were real? Pokemon Go fulfils the fantasy we had growing up of seeing pocket monsters roam our world. And swapping our Nintendo consoles for smartphones, hunting for Pokemon has now been revolutionised and brought to life. To be the very best (like no one ever was) There is still a thriving Pokemon nostalgia community online. We share memes, reblog Tumblr posts and swap stories of our first battles - both wins and losses - and Pokemon memories, like this one. But the nostalgia doesn't stop there. Many also remember the hit cartoon show on weekends which took users on new pocket monster adventures. And who could forget its catchy opening theme, with its uplifting message about doing your best to chase your dreams? "I wanna be the very best Like no-one ever was To catch them is my real test To train them is my cause ... Pokemon, gotta catch 'em all!" Being different is okay But one of the most important lessons I learnt from playing the game, was that you don't need to follow the same path as everyone else to be the best. You choose your own unique starter Pokemon and are strategic. Many of us grew to love our first Pokemon which would even go on to become our friends. I cannot emphasise how important a decision this was: the monster would become your first ever Pokemon, the one who you'd go into battle with. Electric rodent Pikachu was always a fan favourite. Some liked cuddly grass Pokemon Bulbasaur but an even more popular choice was baby fire dragon Charmander which seasoned players gravitated towards. With the right training and attention, it could go on to evolve into one of the game's most powerful creatures. It also happened to be the Pokemon of choice among all my friends. So I knew I had to be strategic if I wanted to defeat them. Water extinguishes fire and I became a water Pokemon trainer, starting with a Squirtle who I named Bubba. We went on to win many gym battles and claim badges together, all with the help of my heat-resistant army. Finding him in the real world (while looking for my mail) was a dream come true. And now I can't wait to see all my Pokemonsters again.

पोकेमॉन गो अभी ग्रह पर सबसे बड़ा खेल हो सकता है, लेकिन इसके छोटे राक्षस पहली बार 1990 के दशक के मध्य में सामने आए। बीबीसी की हीथर चेन अपने शुरुआती उपयोगकर्ताओं के साथ इस खेल के अद्वितीय भावनात्मक संबंध को याद करती हैं।


RSPB's Beckingham Marshes wildlife reserve opens

Summary: A wetland area the size of 100 football pitches which is designed to attract wildlife has opened to the public.

The Beckingham Marshes reserve in the Trent Valley, on the Nottinghamshire Lincolnshire border, has taken three years to complete. The RSPB said the creation of pools and wet ditches over 350,000 sq metres (86 acres) has already attracted lapwing, water voles, owls and hares. It was a joint initiative between the RSPB and the Environment Agency.

100 फुटबॉल पिचों के आकार का एक आर्द्रभूमि क्षेत्र, जिसे वन्यजीवों को आकर्षित करने के लिए बनाया गया है, जनता के लिए खोल दिया गया है।


Labour conference: An activist's speech from leader Corbyn?

Summary: The thirst in the hall for him to do well was tangible.

Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter Some members of the party have wanted to hear a speech like this for years. And although he never really expected to be doing one of the most high profile, hardest jobs in politics, if Jeremy Corbyn was nervous, he didn't show it. And goodness me, the audience was pleased to see him, applauding for two minutes on their feet before he even said a word. Inside the hall his clarion calls, as he even highlighted, "strong message here", were eagerly received, even though I caught the eyes of a fair number of stony-faced MPs. Promises to end austerity, to defend human rights, to oppose cuts to tax credits, to end "Tory gerrymandering" played well to the home crowd, and will have delighted the many, many thousands of supporters who signed up over the summer with the express reason of giving him their backing. And by mentioning, repeatedly, his mandate and firm intention to reform the party, it is clear that he wants to change how Labour works fundamentally, abandoning control and command that came to dominate the party from the mid-nineties. Instead he wants to spread power across the party, including to his new supporters. Inside the movement, this excites and alarms, perhaps in equal measure. But having found himself unexpectedly their leader, was Jeremy Corbyn ready to take advantage of the chance to tell the rest of the country what he would do with power? Conference speeches like this are one of the very few opportunities that opposition leaders have not just to display their agenda, but to connect to the wider public, whose votes they ultimately need. Team Corbyn created the expectation that he would play to this, extol his love of British values, his belief that the majority agrees with him. He did, up to a point. But here, there was a conflict in his speech. It was the speech of an activist, a protestor, Jeremy Corbyn the campaigner, a list of the causes he passionately believes in, not a programme for government. He hardly mentioned how to balance the books, there was little appeal to those outside the party. This speech was a long way from Ed Miliband's "squeezed middle", and a million miles from the New Labour call to Middle England. And aside from a few passages about encouraging entrepreneurs, this was a speech that could have been delivered at one of the packed-out rallies during the leadership contest itself. With the Labour party so demoralised after its election defeat perhaps a zealous campaigner in its comfort zone is precisely what it needs. Mr Corbyn has recruited an army of new supporters. And he has broken the rule that politics is the art of the possible, by achieving a victory that his party's establishment thought impossible. But after today, the anxiety of many MP s in the party who want to understand how that translates to the rest of the country remains.

उसके लिए अच्छा करने के लिए हॉल में प्यास स्पष्ट थी।


Five things we learned from Obama interview

Summary: President Barack Obama sat down with the BBC's North America editor, Jon Sopel, to discuss Britain's role in the world, his upcoming trip to Africa, and Mr Obama's plans for his remaining time in the White House.

Below are some of the biggest takeaways from the BBC's exclusive interview. UK-US RELATIONS At the beginning of his presidency, there was talk that the much-vaunted "special relationship" between the US and UK had grown cold. But almost eight years later, the loving feeling has certainly returned (if in fact it ever left), with Mr Obama praising the "outstanding partner" he has in UK Prime Minister David Cameron. He was insistent the UK had a vital role to play in both the European Union and the fight to stabilise Syria. AFRICA "We have heard that in the US they have allowed gay relations and other dirty things." So says William Ruto, the deputy president in Kenya - hardly the kind of talk that would fly in the US, where the right to marriage was recently extended to gay Americans across the country. But Obama says he has no tolerance for intolerance, and will push a more inclusive agenda on his trip. IRAN Mr Obama scored a victory when the US struck a nuclear deal with Iran, but finding neutral ground with Tehran might have been the easy part. Now he has to get Republicans in Congress on board with the plan. His critics say lifting sanctions will result in more money flowing to Hezbollah and the Assad regime, further destabilising the region. But Mr Obama says Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has incentive to modernise the economy. GUN LAWS The tail-end of Mr Obama's presidency has brought a looser, more candid commander-in-chief. Witness his last press conference, where he virtually dared reporters to ask him tough questions about the Iran deal. With the BBC, he openly discussed the biggest frustration of his presidency - his inability to pass any gun control reform. RACE RELATIONS When Mr Obama sang Amazing Grace on a stage full of black ministers at the funeral for one of the victims of the Charleston shootings, jokes flew on Twitter that he had achieved a "peak black" moment. It was a long time coming for many who hoped to see Mr Obama more fully engage with issues of racism during his presidency. But with little over a year left in office, he has been more assertive about dealing with race relations - and says the country has evolved on race since he moved into the White House.

राष्ट्रपति बराक ओबामा ने दुनिया में ब्रिटेन की भूमिका, अफ्रीका की उनकी आगामी यात्रा और व्हाइट हाउस में अपने शेष समय के लिए श्री ओबामा की योजनाओं पर चर्चा करने के लिए बीबीसी के उत्तरी अमेरिका के संपादक जॉन सोपल के साथ बैठक की।