India and Pakistan: How the war was fought in TV studios

Summary: As tensions between India and Pakistan escalated following a deadly suicide attack last month, there was another battle being played out on the airwaves. Television stations in both countries were accused of sensationalism and partiality. But how far did they take it? The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan in Delhi and Secunder Kermani in Islamabad take a look.

It was drama that was almost made for television. The relationship between India and Pakistan - tense at the best of times - came to a head on 26 February when India announced it had launched airstrikes on militant camps in Pakistan's Balakot region as "retaliation" for a suicide attack that had killed 40 troops in Indian-administered Kashmir almost two weeks earlier. A day later, on 27 February, Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet and captured its pilot. Abhinandan Varthaman was freed as a "peace gesture", and Pakistan PM Imran Khan warned that neither country could afford a miscalculation, with a nuclear arsenal on each side. Suddenly people were hooked, India's TV journalists included. So were they more patriots than journalists? Rajini Vaidyanathan: Indian television networks showed no restraint when it came to their breathless coverage of the story. Rolling news was at fever pitch. The coverage often fell into jingoism and nationalism, with headlines such as "Pakistan teaches India a lesson", "Dastardly Pakistan", and "Stay Calm and Back India" prominently displayed on screens. Some reporters and commentators called for India to use missiles and strike back. One reporter in south India hosted an entire segment dressed in combat fatigues, holding a toy gun. And while I was reporting on the return of the Indian pilot at the international border between the two countries in the northern city of Amritsar, I saw a woman getting an Indian flag painted on her cheek. "I'm a journalist too," she said, as she smiled at me in slight embarrassment. Print journalist Salil Tripathi wrote a scathing critique of the way reporters in both India and Pakistan covered the events, arguing they had lost all sense of impartiality and perspective. "Not one of the fulminating television-news anchors exhibited the criticality demanded of their profession," he said. Secunder Kermani: Shortly after shooting down at least one Indian plane last week, the Pakistani military held a press conference. As it ended, the journalists there began chanting "Pakistan Zindabad" (Long Live Pakistan). It wasn't the only example of "journalistic patriotism" during the recent crisis. Two anchors from private channel 92 News donned military uniforms as they presented the news - though other Pakistani journalists criticised their decision. But on the whole, while Indian TV presenters angrily demanded military action, journalists in Pakistan were more restrained, with many mocking what they called the "war mongering and hysteria" across the border. In response to Indian media reports about farmers refusing to export tomatoes to Pakistan anymore for instance, one popular presenter tweeted about a "Tomatical strike" - a reference to Indian claims they carried out a "surgical strike" in 2016 during another period of conflict between the countries. Media analyst Adnan Rehmat noted that while the Pakistani media did play a "peace monger as opposed to a warmonger" role, in doing so, it was following the lead of Pakistani officials who warned against the risks of escalation, which "served as a cue for the media." What were they reporting? Rajini Vaidyanathan: As TV networks furiously broadcast bulletins from makeshift "war rooms" complete with virtual reality missiles, questions were raised not just about the reporters but what they were reporting. Indian channels were quick to swallow the government version of events, rather than question or challenge it, said Shailaja Bajpai, media editor at The Print. "The media has stopped asking any kind of legitimate questions, by and large," she said. "There's no pretence of objectiveness." In recent years in fact, a handful of commentators have complained about the lack of critical questioning in the Indian media. "For some in the Indian press corps the very thought of challenging the 'official version' of events is the equivalent of being anti-national", said Ms Bajpai. "We know there have been intelligence lapses but nobody is questioning that." Senior defence and science reporter Pallava Bagla agreed. "The first casualty in a war is always factual information. Sometimes nationalistic fervour can make facts fade away," he said. This critique isn't unique to India, or even this period in time. During the 2003 Iraq war, western journalists embedded with their country's militaries were also, on many occasions, simply reporting the official narrative. Secunder Kermani: In Pakistan, both media and public reacted with scepticism to Indian claims about the damage caused by the airstrikes in Balakot, which India claimed killed a large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants in a training camp. Hamid Mir, one of the most influential TV anchors in the country travelled to the area and proclaimed, "We haven't seen any such (militant) infrastructure... we haven't seen any bodies, any funerals." "Actually," he paused, "We have found one body… this crow." The camera panned down to a dead crow, while Mr Mir asked viewers if the crow "looks like a terrorist or not?" There seems to be no evidence to substantiate Indian claims that a militant training camp was hit, but other journalists working for international outlets, including the BBC, found evidence of a madrassa, linked to JeM, near the site. A photo of a signpost giving directions to the madrassa even surfaced on social media. It described the madrassa as being "under the supervision of Masood Azhar". Mr Azhar is the founder of JeM. The signpost's existence was confirmed by a BBC reporter and Al Jazeera, though by the time Reuters visited it had apparently been removed. Despite this, the madrassa and its links received little to no coverage in the Pakistani press. Media analyst Adnan Rehmat told the BBC that "there was no emphasis on investigating independently or thoroughly enough" the status of the madrassa. In Pakistan, reporting on alleged links between the intelligence services and militant groups is often seen as a "red line". Journalists fear for their physical safety, whilst editors know their newspapers or TV channels could face severe pressure if they publish anything that could be construed as "anti-state". Who did it better: Khan or Modi? Rajini Vaidyanathan: With a general election due in a few months, PM Narendra Modi continued with his campaign schedule, mentioning the crisis in some of his stump speeches. But he never directly addressed the ongoing tensions through an address to the nation or a press conference. This was not a surprise. Mr Modi rarely holds news conference or gives interviews to the media. When news of the suicide attack broke, Mr Modi was criticised for continuing with a photo shoot. The leader of the main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, dubbed him a "Prime Time Minister" claiming the PM had carried on filming for three hours. PM Modi has also been accused of managing his military response as a way to court votes. At a campaign rally in his home state of Gujarat he seemed unflustered by his critics, quipping "they're busy with strikes on Modi, and Modi is launching strikes on terror." Secunder Kermani: Imran Khan won praise even from many of his critics in Pakistan, for his measured approach to the conflict. In two appearances on state TV, and one in parliament, he appeared firm, but also called for dialogue with India. His stance helped set the comparatively more measured tone for Pakistani media coverage. Officials in Islamabad, buoyed by Mr Khan's decision to release the captured Indian pilot, have portrayed themselves as the more responsible side, which made overtures for peace. On Twitter, a hashtag calling for Mr Khan to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize was trending for a while. But his lack of specific references to JeM, mean internationally there is likely to be scepticism, at least initially, about his claims that Pakistan will no longer tolerate militant groups targeting India.

जैसे-जैसे पिछले महीने एक घातक आत्मघाती हमले के बाद भारत और पाकिस्तान के बीच तनाव बढ़ा, एयरवेव्स पर एक और लड़ाई चल रही थी। दोनों देशों के टेलीविजन स्टेशनों पर सनसनीखेज और पक्षपात का आरोप लगाया गया था। लेकिन वे इसे कितनी दूर ले गए? दिल्ली में बीबीसी की रजनी वैद्यनाथन और इस्लामाबाद में सिकंदर करमानी एक नज़र डालते हैं।


East Hull Pools replacement consultation begins

Summary: A consultation has been launched into plans for a new six lane swimming pool in Hull.

The proposed £6m facility at Woodford Leisure Centre would see the closure of East Hull Pools on Holderness Road, which has been open since 1898. The Hull City Council consultation is running until 5 January. The local authority has said the new 25 metre pool would be more modern, energy efficient and less expensive to maintain and run.

हल में एक नए छह लेन वाले स्विमिंग पूल की योजना के लिए एक परामर्श शुरू किया गया है।


Jack Ma: The billionaire trying to stop coronavirus (and fix China's reputation)

Summary: The richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month, in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, every one of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world.

By Celia HattonBBC News "One world, one fight!" Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. "Together, we can do this!" he cheered in another. The billionaire entrepreneur is the driving force behind a widespread operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global brawl over life-saving equipment. But Ma's critics and even some of his supporters aren't sure what he's getting himself into. Has this bold venture into global philanthropy unveiled him as the friendly face of China's Communist Party? Or is he an independent player who is being used by the Party for propaganda purposes? He appears to be following China's diplomatic rules, particularly when choosing which countries should benefit from his donations, but his growing clout might put him in the crosshairs of the jealous leaders at the top of China's political pyramid. Other tech billionaires have pledged more money to fight the effects of the virus - Twitter's Jack Dorsey is giving $1bn (£0.8bn) to the cause. Candid, a US-based philanthropy watchdog that tracks private charitable donations, puts Alibaba 12th on a list of private Covid-19 donors. But that list doesn't include shipments of vital supplies, which some countries might consider to be more important than money at this stage in the global outbreak. No one else other than the effervescent Ma is capable of dispatching supplies directly to those who need them. Starting in March, the Jack Ma foundation and the related Alibaba foundation began airlifting supplies to Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and even to politically sensitive areas including Iran, Israel, Russia and the US. Ma has also donated millions to coronavirus vaccine research and a handbook of medical expertise from doctors in his native Zhejiang province has been translated from Chinese into 16 languages. But it's the medical shipments that have been making headlines, setting Ma apart. "He has the ability and the money and the lifting power to get a Chinese supply plane out of Hangzhou to land in Addis Ababa, or wherever it needs to go," explains Ma's biographer, Duncan Clark. "This is logistics; this is what his company, his people and his province are all about." A friendly face Jack Ma is famous for being the charismatic English teacher who went on to create China's biggest technology company. Alibaba is now known as the "Amazon of the East". Ma started the company inside his tiny apartment in the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou, in the centre of China's factory belt, back in 1999. Alibaba has since grown to become one of the dominant players in the world's second largest economy, with key stakes in China's online, banking and entertainment worlds. Ma himself is worth more than $40bn. Officially, he stepped down as Alibaba's chairman in 2018. He said he was going to focus on philanthropy. But Ma retained a permanent seat on Alibaba's board. Coupled with his wealth and fame, he remains one of the most powerful men in China. It appears that Ma's donations are following Party guidelines: there is no evidence that any of the Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation donations have gone to countries that have formal ties with Taiwan, China's neighbour and diplomatic rival. Ma announced on Twitter that he was donating to 22 countries in Latin America. States that side with Taiwan but who have also called for medical supplies - from Honduras to Haiti - are among the few dozen countries that do not appear to be on the list of 150 countries. The foundations repeatedly refused to provide a detailed list of countries that have received donations, explaining that "at this moment in time, we are not sharing this level of detail". However, the donations that have been delivered have certainly generated a lot of goodwill. With the exception of problematic deliveries to Cuba and Eritrea, all of the foundations' shipments dispatched from China appear to have been gratefully received. That success is giving Ma even more positive attention than usual. China's state media has been mentioning Ma almost as often as the country's autocratic leader, Xi Jinping. Over 150 countrieshave received donations from Jack Ma, including about: 120.4mface masks 4,105,000testing kits 3,704ventilators It's an uncomfortable comparison. As Ma soaks up praise, Xi faces persistent questions about how he handled the early stages of the virus and where, exactly, the outbreak began. The Chinese government has dispatched medical teams and donations of supplies to a large number of hard-hit countries, particularly in Europe and South-East Asia. However, those efforts have sometimes fallen flat. China's been accused of sending faulty supplies to several countries. In some cases, the tests it sent were being misused but in others, low-quality supplies went unused and the donations backfired. In contrast, Jack Ma's shipments have only boosted his reputation. "It's fair to say that Ma's donation was universally celebrated across Africa," says Eric Olander, managing editor of the China Africa Project website and podcast. Ma pledged to visit all countries in Africa and has been a frequent visitor since his retirement. "What happens to the materials once they land in a country is up to the host government, so any complaints about how Nigeria's materials were distributed are indeed a domestic Nigerian issue," Olander adds. "But with respect to the donation itself, the Rwandan leader, Paul Kagame, called it a "shot in the arm" and pretty much everyone saw it for what it was which was: delivering badly-needed materials to a region of the world that nobody else is either willing or capable of helping at that scale." Walking the tightrope But is Ma risking a backlash from Beijing? Xi Jinping isn't known as someone who likes to share the spotlight and his government has certainly targeted famous faces before. In recent years, the country's top actress, a celebrated news anchor and several other billionaire entrepreneurs have all "disappeared" for long periods. Some, including the news anchor, end up serving prison sentences. Others re-emerge from detention, chastened and pledging their allegiance to the Party. "There's a rumour that [Jack Ma] stepped down in 2018 from being the chairman of the Alibaba Group because he was seen as a homegrown entrepreneur whose popularity would eclipse that of the Communist Party," explains Ashley Feng, research associate at the Centre for New American Security in Washington DC. Indeed, Ma surprised many when he suddenly announced his retirement in 2018. He has denied persistent rumours that Beijing forced him out of his position. Duncan Clark, Ma's biographer, is also aware of reports that Ma was nudged away from Alibaba following a key incident in January 2017. The Chinese billionaire met with then-President-elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, ostensibly to discuss Sino-US trade. The Chinese president didn't meet with Trump until months later. "There was a lot of speculation of time that Jack Ma had moved too fast," Clark says. "So, I think there's lessons learned from both sides on the need to try to coordinate." "Jack Ma represents a sort of entrepreneurial soft power," Clark adds. "That also creates challenges though, because the government is quite jealous or nervous of non-Party actors taking that kind of role." Technically, Ma isn't a Communist outsider: China's wealthiest capitalist has actually been a member of the Communist Party since the 1980s, when he was a university student. But Ma's always had a tricky relationship with the Party, famously saying that Alibaba's attitude towards the Party was to "be in love with it but not to marry it". Even if Ma and the foundations connected to him are making decisions without Beijing's advance blessing, the Chinese government has certainly done what it can to capitalise on Ma's generosity. Chinese ambassadors are frequently on hand at airport ceremonies to receive the medical supplies shipped over by Ma, from Sierra Leone to Cambodia. China has also used Ma's largesse in its critiques of the United States. "The State Department said Taiwan is a true friend as it donated 2 million masks," the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweeted in early April. "Wonder if @StateDept has any comment on Jack Ma's donation of 1 million masks and 500k testing kits as well as Chinese companies' and provinces' assistance?" Perhaps Ma can rise above what's happened to so many others who ran afoul of the Party. China might just need a popular global Chinese figure so much that Ma has done what no one else can: make himself indispensable. "Here's the one key takeaway from all that happened with Jack Ma and Africa: he said he would do something and it got done," explains Eric Olander. "That is an incredibly powerful optic in a place where foreigners often come, make big promises and often fail to deliver. So, the huge Covid-19 donation that he did fit within that pattern. He said he would do it and mere weeks later, those masks were in the hands of healthcare workers." Duncan Clark argues that Ma already had a seat at China's high table because of Alibaba's economic heft. However, his first-name familiarity with world leaders makes him even more valuable to Beijing as China tries to repair its battered image. "He has demonstrated the ability, with multiple IPOs under his belt, and multiple friendships overseas, to win friends and influence people. He's the Dale Carnegie of China and that certainly, we've seen that that's irritated some in the Chinese government but now it's almost an all hands on deck situation," Clark says. There's no doubt that China's wider reputation is benefiting from the charitable work of Ma and other wealthy Chinese entrepreneurs. Andrew Grabois from Candid, the philanthropic watchdog that's been measuring global donations in relation to Covid-19, says that the private donations coming from China are impossible to ignore. "They're taking a leadership role, the kind of thing that used to be done by the United States," he says. "The most obvious past example is the response to Ebola, the Ebola outbreak in 2014. The US sent in doctors and everything to West Africa to help contain that virus before it left West Africa." Chinese donors are taking on that role with this virus. "They are projecting soft power beyond their borders, going into areas, providing aid, monetary aid and expertise," Grabois adds. So, it's not the right time for Beijing to stand in Jack Ma's way. "You know, this is a major crisis for the world right now," Duncan Clark concludes. "But obviously, it's also a crisis for China's relationship with the rest of the world. So they need anybody who can help dampen down some of these those pressures."

चीन के सबसे अमीर व्यक्ति ने पिछले महीने कोविड-19 के प्रकोप के बीच अपना खुद का ट्विटर खाता खोला। अब तक, उनका हर एक पद दुनिया भर के लगभग हर देश में चिकित्सा आपूर्ति पहुंचाने के अपने बेजोड़ अभियान के लिए समर्पित रहा है।


Hurricanes: A perfect storm of chance and climate change?

Summary: The succession of intense and deadly tropical cyclones that have barrelled across the Atlantic in recent weeks have left many people wondering if a threshold of some sort has been crossed. Is this chain of hurricanes evidence of some significant new frontier in our changing climate?

Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent@mattmcgrathbbcon Twitter The answer is mostly no, but with worrying undertones of yes. The first thing to note about this season is that it shows the power of science and weather forecasting. Every year, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) puts out a hurricane forecast for the season that runs from 1 June to 30 November for the north Atlantic, Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. In August, Noaa updated its predictions, stating that there would be 14-19 named storms and of these, 5-9 would become hurricanes. To date, we've had seven cyclones, with four that have gained category three status or stronger. So this season is unusual but not unprecedented. The bigger picture shows that between 1981 and 2010 the average was six hurricanes per season. What has happened this year is that a number of natural variable factors have come together and helped boost the number and power of these cyclones. In the background, climate change has loaded the dice. This season has been particularly warm in the region of the Atlantic where hurricanes form with temperatures 0.5 to 1.0C above average, according to Noaa. A wetter and stronger monsoon in West Africa and a natural cycle called the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO) have also helped boost the energy available for the massive, swirling heat engines that hurricanes become. Another factor that has helped so many storms form is the lack of wind shear. Some scientists believe that because this is a neutral El Niño year, there has been less wind shear which tends to break these storms apart. "There haven't been the upper-level wind flow or lower pockets of moisture that can often erode these storms; all these factors have come together this year," said Prof Richard Allan from the department of meteorology at the University of Reading, UK. "It relates primarily to the weather, but also the slower fluctuations in the ocean that you get from year to year have produced an unusually strong hurricane season." That view is echoed by Kerry Emanuel, an eminent atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US. "The number of hurricanes in the Atlantic varies a great deal from year to year for reasons that have to do with natural climate fluctuations like El Niño and also just plain random variability," he told BBC News. "A lot of it is just sheer chance." Those who have been sceptical of the impact of carbon emissions from human sources on the climate have crowed about the fact that it has been 12 years since a hurricane rated category three or above has made landfall in the US. But those working in the field believe that measuring the connection between hurricanes and climate change based on the number that make land is hugely mistaken. "Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which was the most damaging of any US hurricane, occurred in a very quiet year," said Kerry Emanuel. "That's just because the noise is so large and we are looking for these small signals - A busy year is no guarantee that you are going to see a major hurricane [make] landfall." Most researchers who study extreme events like hurricanes agree that climate change is most likely making the impacts of these events much worse. Rising temperatures lead to warmer air holding more moisture, which causes more intense downpours in a hurricane. The oceans have risen thanks to thermal expansion and glacier melt and this works to increase the dangers posed by storm surges. "In terms of the factors that control the genesis and the intensification of these hurricanes, a number of these point to the fact that they will undoubtedly be slightly more severe due to the extra heat content in the ocean due to the long-term warming of the climate," said Richard Allan. Kerry Emanuel strongly agrees. "The warming of the climate has increased the underlying probabilities of very heavy rain events like happened in Harvey and very high category hurricanes like Irma. "It is just not sensible to say either storm was caused by climate change, but the underlying probabilities are going up." Both experts believe that these factors are making the current round of hurricanes more threatening - but they are also making weather-related events, such as the recent floods in South East Asia, much more dangerous. "There are other damaging events going on, particularly flooding, in other parts of the world which link into the same physics as is impacting the hurricanes," said Richard Allan. "So even though it might be a normal monsoon season in the Indian sub-continent, the amount of rain that will fall will likely be more as the air can hold more moisture." Right now the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says there is low confidence in attributing changes in hurricane activity to rising temperatures - but in its fifth and latest assessment report in 2013, it argued that this perspective was likely to change. "The frequency of the most intense storms will more likely than not increase substantially in some basins," the report says. "More extreme precipitation near the centres of tropical cyclones making landfall are likely in North and Central America, East Africa, West, East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as in Australia and many Pacific islands." Climate scientists say that to see the full impact of emissions of greenhouse gases on hurricanes, you really have to look at the long-term record. "The evidence is that there is not really going to be an increase in the number of tropical cyclones but there is certainly some evidence that the strongest hurricanes will become more intense," said Richard Allan. "In terms of the rainfall and the storm surges that's very strong evidence that the amount of rain that will fall out of these intense hurricanes will be greater and storm surges will be higher and more deadly." Follow Matt on Twitter and on Facebook

हाल के हफ्तों में अटलांटिक के पार आए तीव्र और घातक उष्णकटिबंधीय चक्रवातों ने कई लोगों को आश्चर्यचकित कर दिया है कि क्या किसी तरह की सीमा को पार कर लिया गया है। क्या तूफानों की यह श्रृंखला हमारी बदलती जलवायु में किसी महत्वपूर्ण नई सीमा का प्रमाण है?


A country where liberal journalists risk death

Summary: The life of a liberal journalist in Pakistan is not an easy one. Write about someone fighting a blasphemy case, or someone whose faith is considered heresy, and you may very soon find yourself in deep trouble.

By Mohammed HanifPakistan Shoaib Adil, a 49-year-old magazine editor and publisher in Lahore, has many well-wishers and they all want him to disappear from public life or, even better, leave the country. Since blasphemy charges were filed against him last month, the police have told him that he can't return home, he can't even be seen in the city where he grew up and worked all his life. It wouldn't be safe. As a journalist, Adil has been a vocal critic of religious militarism. But the threat to his life doesn't come from the Taliban. He is the victim of an everyday witch hunt by Pakistan's powerful religious groups - the kind of witch hunt that's so common and yet so scary that it never makes headlines. For the past 14 years, Adil has been editing and publishing a monthly current affairs magazine, a rare liberal voice in Pakistan's Urdu media. Back issues of Nia Zamana read like a catalogue of human rights abuses. The June issue's cover story, for example, reports on the murder of a human rights lawyer, Rashid Rehman in the city of Multan in central Pakistan. Rehman, defending a literature professor accused of blasphemy, was told in the court by the prosecuting lawyers that if he didn't drop the case he would not live to see the next hearing. Sure enough, Rehman was gunned down in his office before the next hearing. Adil had just published this issue of Nia Zamana when his crusading journalistic enterprise came to an abrupt end - and he was lucky to avoid sharing Rehman's fate himself. He was sitting in his Lahore office when a contingent of police arrived with a dozen religious activists, people Adil simply calls maulvis - teachers of Islamic law. They waved a book at him that he had published seven years ago - an autobiography of a Lahore High Court judge, titled My Journey to the Higher Court. The author, Justice Mohammed Islam Bhatti, had written that he belonged to the Ahmedi faith - a former Muslim sect that was declared non-Muslim in Pakistan exactly 40 years ago, and whose members have since then been prosecuted by the state and hounded by religious groups with equal gusto. He had then gone on to say some complimentary things about the founder of the faith. "The maulvis ransacked my office looking for more copies of the book or any other material to pin blasphemy on me," says Adil. Police officers meanwhile explained that the group the activists belong to, the International Council for the Defence of Finality of Prophethood, had demanded the registration of a blasphemy case against him. The Council is a much feared entity. Its sole purpose is to hunt down Ahmedis in Pakistan and to look for suspected sympathisers. They don't have to work very hard. The laws against Ahmedis are such that there is almost nothing that they cannot be accused of. They have been imprisoned for saying a casual Muslim greeting like "Asslamu aliakum", for printing a verse of the Koran on a wedding invitation, for calling their prayer a namaz and for calling their mosque a mosque. In Pakistan if you want to tarnish anyone in public life all you have to do is to insinuate that they are Ahmedi. Or an Ahmedi sympathiser. "I, the complainant work as a preacher for the Finality of the Prophethood," reads the application for a blasphemy case to be registered against Adil. "I bought and read a book called Journey to Higher Judiciary, an autobiography of Mohammed Islam Bhatti, published by Mohammed Shoaib Adil. I discovered that in many parts of the book serious blasphemy has been committed against various prophets, particularly against Jesus Christ, and the prophet Mohammed. Besides that, the cursed Mirza Ghulam Ahmed Qadiani (founder of the Ahmedi sect) has been shown sitting alongside our Prophet Mohammed. The whole book is full of such blatant blasphemies." The complaint goes on: "Because this book has hurt the religious feelings of all Muslims… the complainant pleads that the strictest action be taken against the accused." As soon as Adil saw the book being waved in front of him, and as soon as he heard the word "blasphemy", like many others before him, he knew that life as he had known it was over. He was taken to a police station and while he waited for his fate to be decided the Council activists stood outside making sure that the police didn't let him go. Adil managed to make some phone calls. First he called an uncle, a right-wing newspaper editor who "knows these kind of people". He called up a nephew, an influential TV reporter whose calls everyone returns. He called up the head of a journalists' collective, an influential Urdu columnist, a human rights activist. All these people started to call other people and thanks to their support the police backed down and decided not to register a case against Adil. His late father had been a well-known religious scholar, and his name was invoked again and again to plead Adil's innocence. The police asked him to stay in the police station as the activists were still surrounding it. When they finally dispersed at 04:00 in the morning, police whisked him to a pre-designated place where his nephew waited with a bag of clothes, and he was put an early morning bus leaving for another city. The parting advice from the police was: "Don't even think of returning to the city, stay silent, write nothing in the press, don't squeak on social media, a word out of you and we wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety." He would only be safe, they said, if he disappeared from his own life and maintained a permanent silence. For the next few weeks he hid at a friend's house while his family found shelter with other relatives. Adil meanwhile sought advice from other influential friends. The country's top human rights campaigner advised him to stay invisible, adding: "When you come to see me I feel scared for both of us." A powerful senator advised him to leave the country and promised to help him get a visa. Adil still hoped that there might be a way of getting the blasphemy application against him squashed. Justice Bhatti, the author of the autobiography, called fellow judges in the Lahore High Court but there was no response. Then he found a friend who was on good terms with a very influential religious scholar, no less a figure than the chairman of the Council of Islamic Scholars. As it turned out the blasphemy campaign against Adil was headed by the chairman's younger brother. He listened to Adil's plea patiently and then said: "Sorry, I can't help you. My brother is so radical that he considers me an infidel." As Adil waits for the Council activists to call off their hunt or for a country to provide him temporary refuge, there is still no registered case against him. But the police who may one day register this case, the lawyers who would then defend him, the judges who would hear the case, and every single one of Adil's journalist and activist friends have told him that if he tries to resume his former life there is no reasonable chance of his survival. Over the past few months Pakistan has become an increasingly harsh environment for journalists, particularly those considered liberal. In Lahore a TV presenter and writer, Raza Rumi, survived an attack in March. His driver didn't. Now Rumi lives somewhere abroad and is not likely to return to Pakistan for the foreseeable future. Pakistan's most famous TV journalist, Hamid Mir, took six bullets in April and remains off air and under guard after returning from treatment abroad. And the country's most famous TV host, Shaista Wahdi, had to flee the country overnight after she was accused of having shown disrespect towards the prophet's family by playing a wedding song in her morning TV show. So Shoaib Adil's well-wishers are not exaggerating the threat to his life. Nobody has given him any advice about the magazine that is his life's work, Nia Zamana, because everyone knows that even going near that office is like inviting death. Police have told him repeatedly that his tormentors have reconnaissance teams - they will find anyone who hangs around there. "I had only one full-time assistant, I have asked him to stay home, never mention that he was associated with me and try and find a new job," says Adil. Although Nia Zamana had a small print run, what made it significant was that it published in Urdu, where liberal voices are now rare. After a series of interviews during which Adil was not sure whether he should tell his story, and wasn't sure whether his well-wishers should be named or not, he made a request. "Is it possible that you write this in English because if it comes out in Urdu and those people read it they'll be even angrier." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

पाकिस्तान में एक उदार पत्रकार का जीवन आसान नहीं है। किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति के बारे में लिखें जो ईशनिंदा का मामला लड़ रहा है, या किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति के बारे में लिखें जिसके धर्म को विधर्मी माना जाता है, और आप बहुत जल्द खुद को गहरे संकट में पा सकते हैं।


Cambridge street pastors prepare for patrols

Summary: A team of street pastors to help improve night-time safety are taking to Cambridge streets in coming days.

The volunteer street pastors will be in the city to support anyone who is unwell or vulnerable or in any form of difficulty or trouble. Their role includes helping people to get home safely and offering practical care. The team will be on the streets from 1000 GMT until 0400 GMT on 22 and 31 December. Related Internet Links Cambridgeshire County Council

रात के समय सुरक्षा में सुधार करने में मदद करने के लिए सड़क के पादरियों की एक टीम आने वाले दिनों में कैम्ब्रिज की सड़कों पर जा रही है।


Virtual question time was the easy bit... now for the votes

Summary: It was a bit ponderous, sometimes.

Mark D'ArcyParliamentary correspondent Virtual questions was the easy bit... now for the votes The sound quality was occasionally poor. And no-one laughed when the Speaker announced that the (former Scottish Secretary) David Mundell was unable to connect. But the first session of the virtual Commons was a success, with Mr Speaker Hoyle keeping the proceedings moving at a sedate pace, to allow the technical staff behind the scenes time to get the right faces on-screen, when their turn came to ask a question. The Lords, too, have launched their virtual system, although its first outing was conducted behind closed doors, after a dress rehearsal so chaotic that the House authorities didn't dare let the public watch. The Lords currently bases its virtual proceedings on the Microsoft Teams system, rather than Zoom, as used by the Commons. This is because that was the system their Lordships had to hand when the crisis arrived, but it has not proven well-adapted to the requirements of a virtual parliament, and they will eventually switch to Zoom. In the meantime one official will have the sole function of muting and un-muting peers during virtual sessions, which sounds like a fairly thankless task. More managed debates Compared to the normal, glacial, pace of change in Westminster, parliamentary procedure has been moving at warp factor nine. The question now is whether the 'dilithium crystals' can take much more. Because, considerable though the achievement of virtual question times has been, that was the easy bit. Creating a virtual system capable of dealing with the much more free-flowing debate that would normally come when MPs consider the detail of legislation - particularly at Report Stage or Committee of the Whole House - will be rather more difficult. The kind of thing I mean is where MPs intervene on a minister to ask for a clarification or assurance about a particular point, and maybe rebellion (or even acceptance) crystallises on the floor of the House. Question times have an established list of questioners; spontaneity, with some MP unexpectedly rising to push a particular issue, is much harder for the Chair to cope with, when they're not in the Chamber. The chances are that debate will be much more managed and stilted, with MPs having to organise their spontaneity in advance. Votes cannot be avoided forever Then comes the question of voting. For the next week or so the "usual channels" - the parliamentary business managers - will try to avoid divisions, that is to say counted votes, in the House. So, for example, the Second Reading of the Immigration Bill has been postponed, precisely because that was one measure where MPs would expect to have to troop through the Aye and No lobbies. Another is the forthcoming vote on allowing abortion in Northern Ireland - a very sore point with the Democratic Unionist Party. The forthcoming business will be subject to a "nod or nothing" rule, so that if, unexpectedly, someone does oppose it, and seek to force a division, the division will be postponed. But votes cannot be avoided for ever - and a system to allow remote voting will need to be in place fairly soon. Trials of a system similar to the kind of thing that happens when people need to change a password on something important like internet banking, have already taken place. MPs would be emailed a link and texted a code number to allow them to log into a website where they could register their vote for each division.... but, I'm told, there was an 80 per cent failure rate. Mr Speaker's discretion Even so, the House has now agreed a motion on remote voting, leaving much to the discretion of Mr Speaker Hoyle. • There will be the option to make a remote vote a "deferred division" (this would allow votes to be taken in a group at a later time) • It is up to the Speaker to confirm that a remote vote is applicable • The technicalities of the remote voting will be "authorised by the Speaker" • There will be no tellers • MPs have 15 mins to vote • The 15 mins can be suspended if the Speaker thinks there are issues • The Speaker will announce the result from the chair • MPs can continue with subsequent business before the result is announced - and the Speaker will interrupt proceedings with the result • The Speaker can rule that the vote is "null and void" and order a re-run if there are "problems in the conduct of the division occurred which might have affected the result" The nightmare scenario is that the validity of some close vote is challenged because someone's vote was somehow not registered, or even wrongly registered. The Chair of the Procedure Committee, the former Cabinet Minister, Karen Bradley, didn't push an amendment, delaying the implementation of remote voting to a division. But she remains to be convinced about the technology.

यह कभी-कभी थोड़ा मुश्किल होता था।


Cameroon's Anglophone crisis: Red Dragons and Tigers - the rebels fighting for independence

Summary: The Red Dragons, Tigers and Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF) - these are just some of the armed groups which have sprung up to fight for independence in English-speaking parts of Cameroon, posing a major security threat to Sunday's elections, in which President Paul Biya, 85, is seeking to extend his 36-year rule.

By Farouk ChothiaBBC News In the absence of reliable opinion polls, it is impossible to gauge the level of their support but the authorities' brutal crackdown has only pushed more of the local population into the arms of the separatists, analysts say. The militias, formed in the past 12 months, have made many small towns and villages in the two main Anglophone regions, the North-West and South-West, "ungovernable", something unimaginable just a few years ago, Nigeria-based Cameroon analyst Nna-Emeka Okereke told the BBC. "They probably have 500 to 1,000 active fighters, but more importantly they have the morale and determination to fight for the independence of what they call Ambazonia state," he said. The militias have repulsed attempts by the powerful Cameroonian army, including its elite US-trained troops, to defeat them because of the support they command in the two regions, Mr Okereke said. "Women will cook for them, share information with them on troop movement and, in at least one instance, even helped lure a soldier to his death in Manyu Division [in the South-West]," Mr Okereke said. 'Proud of Anglophone heritage' The militias began to emerge in 2017 after a security force crackdown on mass protests, led by lawyers in wigs and teachers in suits, over the government's alleged failure to give enough recognition to the English legal and education systems in the North-West and South-West. The government was accused of relying heavily on people trained in the French legal and educational tradition to work in key posts and generally marginalising Cameroon's English-speaking minority, who make up about 20% of the population. After some groups declared independence on 1 October 2017, the government dismissed the armed groups as "terrorists", and state radio reported that Mr Biya "declared war" on them. "People in these regions are proud of their Anglophone heritage - especially their legal and education institutions. So it was a campaign for greater political and civil rights, and the separatists were seen as very marginal. But the government intervened in a heavy-handed way and that stirred support for the militants," Francophone Africa analyst at the UK-based Chatham House think-tank, Paul Melly, told the BBC. Locals say this happened in many areas, including the farming town of Bafut, where soldiers were accused of carrying out random attacks, even torching the motorcycle taxis of young men. 'Classic rural insurgency' With their source of income destroyed, the taxi operators made the town a no-go area for the government by forming the Seven Karta militia - "karta" refers to a famous cloth worn by people in the area and "seven" to a group of men who, legend has it, were known for their strength during the colonial era. Rights group Amnesty International said the militants have also committed atrocities. Apart from killing members of the security forces, they have also carried out attacks "designed to strike fear amongst the population, going as far as burning down schools and targeting teachers who did not enforce the boycott", Amnesty said in a report. The International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank estimates that around 10 armed separatist groups exist, gaining control of a "significant proportion of rural areas and main roads" in the North-West and South-West regions. "They are not operating under one broad front, but there is very likely to be co-ordination between political elements in exile," ICG Cameroon analyst Richard Moncrieff told the BBC. "They are waging a classic rural insurgency. They don't control territory all the time. They move around. They use hit-and-run tactics against isolated units of the security forces or prestigious targets - like local chiefs, whom they kidnap," Mr Moncrieff told the BBC. Mr Okereke said he believed that the Ambazonia Self-Defence Council (ASDC), which is also known as the Ambazonia Restoration Forces (ARF), is the largest armed group, incorporating smaller militias like the Seven Karta, the Red Dragons and the Tigers. Cameroon - still divided along colonial lines: Read more: Cameroon timeline But the monitoring group, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled), said on its website that the ADF is the most active militia. The ADF launched operations in 2017 in the Manyu district in the South-West and Mezam in the North-West, before shifting its focus to six other districts, the monitoring group said. African mythology The ADF and other militia have clashed with government forces 83 times this year, compared with 13 times last year, Acled added. "Many of the regions where Ambazonian separatists are newly active are in North-West Cameroon. This expansion does not necessarily suggest that any one militia that comprises the Ambazonian separatists is expanding its operations; the spread could be the result of new groups forming in the North-West," it said. The armed separatists have also established a strong presence on social media, with the Red Dragons posting videos of its fighters, including women, in gumboots and uniforms in a bush, and showing what they say was the shooting down of a military helicopter. Critics dismiss the videos as propaganda and say the group has suffered heavy setbacks at the hands of government forces. The militias rely heavily on imagery of animals, as well as African mythology, to rally support. "You must know a tiger to become a Tiger," the Tiger group said on its website. "It is believed that some of the Tigers are the ghosts of dead ancestors who have risen from the grave to defend their people," it added. The name Ambazonia comes from Ambas Bay, the area of a settlement of freed slaves which is regarded as the boundary between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon. 'Desertions from army' A phrase often heard among the fighters as they appeal to their supporters, inside and outside the country, for funding is: "We need to buy sugar cane and ground nuts." It is a euphemism - sugar cane refers to guns and ground nuts to bullets. Read more about Cameroon: Many of the Amba Boys, as the separatist fighters are colloquially known, are armed with hunting rifles, though more sophisticated weapons, like Kalashnikovs, are said to have been seized from government forces while ammunition is being smuggled in from neighbouring Nigeria, according to some analysts. More significantly, the ranks of the militias are also being swelled by some English-speaking deserters from the Cameroonian army, the ICG said. "The security apparatus is under pressure, as evidenced by the proliferation of military desertions in the English-speaking area, some 20 of them even joined armed separatist groups," the ICG said. Agreeing with the ICG, Mr Okereke said some government officials, including governors and mayors, fled their posts or failed to take up new appointments after the conflict started. "Biya thought he could overrun the separatists, but the government is under immense pressure from them," he added. 'No serious dialogue' While the army has been unable to defeat the separatists, they in turn are unable to win a military campaign, Mr Moncrieff said. "They do not have sufficient international support and military strength to defeat the army," he added. The conflict has, in the past year, claimed the lives of at least 420 civilians, 175 military and police officers, and hundreds of separatist fighters. More than 300,000 people have also been forced to flee their homes, according to the ICG. Mr Melly said the conflict was mainly between the armed separatists and the government. "This is not an inter-communal war between two nations who hate each other. People move back and forth all the time between the Anglophone and Francophone regions, and many of the people fleeing the conflict are going to Francophone areas. If there is political will, a solution can be found," he added. For now, there is no sign of that. The armed separatists have vowed to enforce a boycott of Sunday's election, raising fears of attacks on polling stations and a low turn-out in mainly Anglophone areas. Mr Biya is likely to win the poll, as he has "absolute control over the security forces, and the electoral body", Mr Moncrieff said. The key question is whether he will offer an olive branch to the separatists after the poll. "So far, his strategy has been to keep multiplying troops," Mr Moncrieff said. "There has been no serious attempt to advance dialogue. He'll need to do that. The overwhelming majority of Anglophone Cameroonians have genuine grievances, and feel they are treated like second-class citizens."

रेड ड्रैगन्स, टाइगर्स और अंबाजोनिया डिफेंस फोर्सेज (ए. डी. एफ.)-ये कुछ ऐसे सशस्त्र समूह हैं जो कैमरून के अंग्रेजी बोलने वाले हिस्सों में स्वतंत्रता के लिए लड़ने के लिए उभरे हैं, जो रविवार के चुनावों के लिए एक बड़ा सुरक्षा खतरा पैदा कर रहे हैं, जिसमें 85 वर्षीय राष्ट्रपति पॉल बिया अपने 36 साल के शासन को बढ़ाने की मांग कर रहे हैं।


What would a US-Iran conflict look like?

Summary: A US naval reconnaissance drone was downed by Iranian missiles. President Donald Trump says he ordered - and then aborted - a retaliatory attack, changing his mind 10 minutes before the planned strikes. The sequence of events provided a glimpse of how a conflict might start.

Jonathan MarcusDiplomatic correspondent@Diplo1on Twitter Just suppose the president had not changed his mind. What might have happened? The first US strikes would have been limited in scope, targeting Iranian missile sites or radars, either associated with or similar to the ones that shot down the US drone. They would have been accompanied by a clear diplomatic warning to Iran (as appears to have been delivered over-night on Thursday) that this was indeed a limited attack, solely in retaliation for the loss of the US aircraft. Mr Trump also reportedly offered an olive branch; according to reports the message to Tehran - which was relayed through Oman - included a further request for talks. Say the strikes had gone ahead. What would happen then? The next move would be Iran's. According to one report, it responded last night that it was not interested in talks, and gave a warning of its own: "Any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences," one un-named official told the Reuters news agency. So where might such a conflict go and what would it look like? There are many variables to consider, and it is easier to say what will not happen. The Trump administration may be an implacable foe of the Iranian regime but there is not going to be a full-scale ground invasion of Iran to topple the regime. This is not Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Iran is an altogether more complex challenge both militarily and politically. Some in the White House clearly want regime change. They are likely to be disappointed. So rule out a major land war. Any follow-up Iranian attack on US ships or aircraft would almost certainly be met by an escalation from the Americans. Iranian naval installations, air bases and so on would be hit by aircraft and cruise missiles with the focus, in part, on the Revolutionary Guard Corps whose naval arm appears to have played a prominent role in recent events. Of course the United States can deliver punishing strikes against Iran's military infrastructure. But Iran has the means to strike back too. It can use a variety of measures from mines, swarming small boat attacks or submarines to disrupt operations in the confined waters of the Gulf. Oil tankers could be attacked forcing the Americans to take steps to protect them too. Where the US clearly has an extraordinary advantage is in intelligence gathering and situational awareness. But as the downing of the very sophisticated and hugely expensive drone illustrates, there are significant US vulnerabilities too. All Iran may think it needs to do is to damage or sink a few US warships to make the price of this conflict one that Mr Trump will not want to pay. Any war would be characterised by this "asymmetric" aspect. This term suggests a war of the weak against the strong - two sides with very different goals and very different metrics for success. If a war does break out the US will seek to pummel Iran's armed forces. It would probably go about it in its time-honoured fashion; initially taking down Iranian air defences and so on. But the Iranians simply need to do enough damage to turn US public opinion against the conflict - to make it appear open-ended and uncertain. Iran, if under sufficient pressure, might also seek to spread the conflict more broadly, urging its proxies in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere to attack US targets. In extremis it might even try to prevail upon Hezbollah (in concert with its own forces in Syria) to launch rocket attacks on Israel. The goal would be to demonstrate to Washington that what Mr Trump might see as a short-punitive campaign actually risks setting the region on fire. But why would either country allow themselves to drift into a war? After all, modern conflicts are not "won" in any conventional sense. The Americans should have learnt this lesson all too well from Afghanistan and Iraq. And Iran surely cannot think it can "beat" the United States in any meaningful sense? But the reality is that somewhere between punitive attacks on the one hand and a full-scale conflict on the other, both countries may believe that they can make strategic gains. The US wants to contain Iran. Severely damaging its military capabilities - especially those of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - would serve this purpose. A serious reversal for Tehran might ultimately impact domestic politics in the country, though a war could equally have the unwanted result of consolidating support for the current regime. Iran may be pursuing its own high-stakes version of a "regime change" policy too. It may see the current US administration as aggressive, but equally as indecisive and lacking support from its key western allies. By drawing the Americans into a costly and open-ended conflict, the Iranian leadership may believe that they can absorb the pain while damaging President Trump's chances in the next Presidential race. An Iranian reading of the US political scene may see the Democrats as more likely to return to some kind of nuclear deal and as more willing therefore to relax economic sanctions. The problem for Tehran is that time is not on its side. The economic pressure of sanctions is hitting hard. Iran has relatively few cards to play beyond threatening chaos. Thus it may see escalation as a route out of this crisis. President Trump on the other hand, according to his own tweets, says he is "in no hurry". Let's hope all this discussion is academic. President Trump appeared ready to strike back at Iran after the downing of the drone and then had second thoughts. Many will hope that it is these second thoughts that prevail in the president's mind over the coming days. A war with Iran would indeed be costly and unpredictable. It would neither resolve the problem of Iran's nuclear programme nor of Iran's growing prominence in the region. That was the indirect outcome of Washington's last major war in the Middle East - the destruction of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Conflicts, it should be remembered, have unintended consequences.

ईरानी मिसाइलों द्वारा एक अमेरिकी नौसैनिक टोही ड्रोन को मार गिराया गया था। राष्ट्रपति डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प का कहना है कि उन्होंने नियोजित हमलों से 10 मिनट पहले अपना मन बदलते हुए जवाबी हमले का आदेश दिया-और फिर उसे निरस्त कर दिया। घटनाओं के क्रम ने एक झलक प्रदान की कि संघर्ष कैसे शुरू हो सकता है।


Petraeus affair: Why the cult of the American general?

Summary: The downfall of retired Gen David Petraeus, once America's most prominent post-9/11 military leader, has stunned a nation. Why does the US hold its top military commanders in such high esteem - and what are the consequences?

By Daniel NasawBBC News Magazine, Washington America's 12th president was so apolitical that before he ran for the job in 1848 he had never voted. But Zachary Taylor had been a successful general during the US-Mexican War. That was enough to take the Whig Party nomination - and win the White House. "Generals have played a very central role in American politics - this cult of the general goes back to Washington and the Continental Army," says Ron Chernow, a biographer of George Washington. "In Britain they get knighthoods. We reward them with political positions in high office." Now, Gen Petraeus, the most prominent military leader in a generation, who went on to head the CIA and had been mentioned as a future presidential candidate, has wrought his own downfall in a dalliance with his biographer. Gen John Allen, a Marine and Gen Petraeus' successor as commander in Afghanistan, has been accused of exchanging "inappropriate communications" with a second woman involved in the scandal. Gen Petraeus' disgrace - in a matter that has little apparent connection to his performance as a military leader - opens the way for a needed public discussion, says Andrew Bacevich, visiting research fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and a retired Army colonel. "Knocking him off the pedestal - this huge standing that he had - ought to create a climate in which serious people can begin to ask serious questions about why our military has not delivered on our expectations" in Iraq and Afghanistan, he says. America's adoration of its generals dates back to its founding years, when military leaders defended the country from the perceived twin threat of European invaders and Native American tribes. George Washington, the first president, had commanded the army that won independence from Great Britain. At the time, Americans' sense of national identity was weak - they still considered themselves citizens of their respective states first. Washington's army was one of the first national institutions, and he embodied it, says Chernow. Since then, generals have exemplified much of what Americans profess to love - and distrust - about their democracy. They are seen as having worked their way up through the ranks even from modest backgrounds. Gen Ulysses Grant, who commanded victorious Union armies in the Civil War and was later president, was the son of a tanner. President Andrew Jackson was the son of Scots-Irish emigrants to the US. Before the White House, he was a general who won glory in the War of 1812 by defeating the British at the Battle of New Orleans. "They earn their status on the basis of ability, and they get great public trust," says Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Even though they are adept at manoeuvring within military institutions, generals are seen as unsullied by national politics and its backroom deal-making or potential for moral compromise. "Since fairly early in the history of the US, there's been a certain amount of cynicism toward politics on the part of many Americans," says James McPherson, a Princeton historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War history Battle Cry of Freedom. Generals are perceived to be more pure - uncorrupted by the political cesspool, he says. In the public eye, generals have an advantage over another prominent class of supposedly non-political politicians: business leaders. "These are the ones who are supposed to be selfless," says H W Brands, a University of Texas historian and biographer of Gen Grant. "They put their lives at risk for the welfare of the public." And before the advent of mass media, military heroism lent instant fame in a far-flung country, says Chernow. "How many Americans would have been so well known and admired throughout the country? Not very many," he says. "What an advantage for a military hero-turned-political figure." America's adoration of its generals shows up in the numbers: 10 US presidents have served as generals. In the same period, a single retired general became British prime minister: the Duke of Wellington. "In American politics you can parachute in at the top - you're a general," says Brands. "In British politics, you have to work your way up through the party." Like Taylor, Grant had no political background and before the Civil War was a failed businessman and junior army officer. But the Republican Party saw advantage in his reputation and nominated him for president in 1868. The Vietnam War was so toxic for the public that none of its generals found later political success, and their names are not etched in the American memory in the same way. And like Vietnam, the Iraq war in which Gen Petraeus won national prominence was deeply divisive and regarded by many Americans as an imperialist exercise. But since the 1970s, Americans have been adept at distinguishing the individual soldier - and his or her presumed heroism and gallantry - from the cause. Few Americans look back on the Gulf War as a heroic national cause, but Gen Colin Powell was mentioned in the 1990s as a presidential candidate and later served as secretary of state. Gen Norman Schwarzkopf became a figure of international renown. "Americans knock themselves out, especially since 9/11, praising the military," says Brands. "If you put on the military uniform you're a prima facie hero. Generals are the epitome of that. They're the ones who have been most successful at the soldier's trade." Today, the military is the most respected public institution in America. Seventy-eight per cent of Americans profess "a great deal" or "a lot" of confidence in the military, according to a 2011 Gallup poll. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer political leaders today actually served in uniform, so they make up for that by genuflecting toward the military, says Kohn. President Ronald Reagan began saying "we'll listen to the military", and George W Bush made a political mantra of "we'll listen to the commanders in the field", he says. Gen Petraeus became a household name in January 2007, when Mr Bush named him overall commander of US forces in Iraq. "Nothing in Iraq seemed to be going well, and there was this need to find somebody who could demonstrate that it was not a completely lost cause," says Bacevich. "The moment was right for us to discover a new hero and Petraeus was that hero." With Gen Petraeus' public downfall, the American public can begin to grapple with why after 11 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan "we haven't won anything", Bacevich says. The consequences of the myth of "the great heroic general" have been dire, he says. "It's an excuse to not think seriously about war and to avoid examining the actual consequences of wars that we have chosen to engage."

सेवानिवृत्त जनरल डेविड पेट्रियस, जो कभी अमेरिका के सबसे प्रमुख सैन्य नेता थे, के पतन ने एक राष्ट्र को चौंका दिया है। अमेरिका अपने शीर्ष सैन्य कमांडरों को इतना सम्मान क्यों देता है-और इसके क्या परिणाम हैं?


On the trail of Britain's WWII 'explosive' beauty spots

Summary: Britain is a land of rolling hills, rugged moors and spectacular coastline, which millions of us enjoy exploring.

By David McKennaBBC News But some of these idyllic spots hide potentially explosive secrets. Every year, unsuspecting members of the public stumble upon dozens of undetonated shells and bombs, most dating back to World War II. So what happened in these remote places during the war? And how much do we know about the people who lived and worked there? WAR ON LANGSETT MOORS In 1941, hundreds of soldiers began descending upon an isolated part of the Peak District. Troops fired chemical weapons, tanks thundered along rubble tracks, and abandoned farm buildings were bombarded with bullets and mortars. What they left behind still has the "potential to kill". Mountain rescue volunteer Milo Milinkovic has been helping to clear what remains of the ordnance left on the moors around Langsett and Midhope. "They've been there 70 years plus, so they've eroded - markings can't be seen and fuse cases are corroded. You can't see anything that will guarantee it's safe." "The shells could make a room sized crater, so as far as an individual is concerned if you activated it, it's going to kill you and anyone near you." As well as helping make the area safe, Mr Milinkovic is part of a team working to unearth the little-known wartime history of the area. Langsett, he said, was a "totally different place" during the war. "There were soldiers billeted to protect the dams, and there were an awful lot of troops stationed here. "The dams were defended by searchlights, guns, and things called catenary defences - which was basically a metal curtain to stop planes being able to run in and bomb them. "At the same time we were training our own tank regiments, and Canadian, American, Polish, French troops for what ultimately became the D-Day landings." Access to the moors was severely restricted, and life changed dramatically for the few hundred people living in the surrounding farming communities. Soldiers stayed in houses belonging to the water board and, as the camp grew, a NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Force Institute) was built. Staffed by local women, it provided bars, shops and a place for troops to eat. Local people often adapted to the army's constant presence in idiosyncratic ways. Mr Milinkovic said: "One of the stories I have heard is about a then young lady who lived in a property that was within the secure area. "She used to go the [Girl] Guides, but to come back home had to cross the dam wall where there was a sentry post. Safety warnings "She was a little bit put off by the soldiers challenging her, so as she and her friends approached they would stamp their feet loudly so the soldiers knew they were coming in plenty of time." "It doesn't seem a lot, but if you're out in blackout conditions, it would have been quite frightening for the girls to have someone jump out at them." Mr Milinkovic said he had also heard stories about young men sledging during the Blitz, and seeing German bombers flying over with aircrew visible in the turrets. "There are lots of little examples of things like that. "It was an interesting time, that's just never been recorded, and it's worthy of that story being told." The team has received a £7,400 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which will be used to put up signage about the moors' role in the war, and safety warnings about ordnance. THE NEW FOREST'S ROLE IN WWII A tranquil area of what is now the New Forest National Park was used to test some of the biggest and most destructive weapons of WWII. The 12,000lb Tallboy and the 22,000lb Grand Slam "earthquake" bombs were designed to hit targets with pinpoint accuracy, and cause huge damage. "The bombs would penetrate deep into the ground before exploding, with the shock wave devastating nearby structures and foundations," said Gareth Owen from the park authority. "Local residents were told to keep their windows open, but not the reason why [to prevent them shattering]." Developed by Barnes Wallis - the inventor of the Dambusters' bouncing bomb - the top-secret projects in Hampshire were part of a shift away from large-scale carpet bombing. Viewed from above, the landscape at Ashley Walk is littered with craters and the remains of large chalk targets. One former RAF pilot - 92-year-old Arthur Poore, who joined the Dambusters' 617 Squadron after the raids on Germany's Ruhr dams - flew test missions there. These involved dropping Tallboys on reinforced concrete buildings. He said: "There were huge U-boat pens the size of three football pitches at Brest and the French ports. They had twelve feet of concrete on top so that if you had a direct hit with a 4,000lb bomb, it would just bounce off. "So to experiment, they built a small building in this aerodrome [Ashley Walk] with ten feet of concrete on top and squadron bombers came along and dropped their bombs to see what happened." The results showed the Tallboy's shock waves could cause extensive damage to a hardened or underground building, even if it was not a direct hit. They were later used to great effect destroying rail tunnels and heavily fortified V-2 bunkers. A 9ft (2.7m) reinforced wall was also built at Ashley walk to test Barnes Wallis' most famous invention - the bouncing bomb. It is generally believed the Upkeep bomb was not used after the Dambusters' raids - but tests were carried out in the New Forest in 1943 to see if the device could be adapted to breach sea wall defences in France. Fragments of ordnance are often found in the area, although it is rare for large-scale bombs to be found intact. However, last year two 500lb objects were unearthed - they turned out to be WWII training devices. Mr Owen is working on the New Forest Remembers WWII project which aims to chart the wartime history of the area. He said: "Ashley Walk is probably still strewn with shards and remains of Second World War bombs, which, along with archive reports and photos, really sheds light on this period. "It was a top secret testing area, so even local people weren't meant to fully know what was going on. "We knew before this project began that Ashley Walk was an important site, but we didn't realise the sheer scale and number of bombs dropped and how important it was." Other parts of the New Forest were also used extensively during the war. Twelve airfields were built within the park, with commandos based along the Beaulieu River - the last part of England many of them saw before they left for occupied France. COMMANDO TRAINING IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS US boatman Joseph "Eddie" McCann was just 15 when in 1944 he led a small boat carrying troops onto the beaches of Normandy. "We thought it might be an easy one - you're always hoping for an easy one. I wasn't really prepared for what come about in the next 100 yards. It was unbelievable," he said. "We lost in that first wave over 2,000 men. We got hit with body parts, heads come flying, guts start stacking up all over the beach, along with the bodies - it's hard to really talk about it, when you see your brothers being mangled." The D-Day landings of WWII were key to the liberation of German-occupied western Europe. Although bloody, brutal and chaotic, they had been rehearsed at length. Training took place around the UK, including at Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, where troops dodged live bullets as they practised beach assaults. Commandos were based at Achnacarry, near Fort William, with Special Operations Executive (SOE) at Lochailort, near Mallaig. Local coastguard Craig Burton said: "Camas an Lighe, more popularly known as Singing Sands, on the north coast bears witness to that history. "The beaches and their dune system were used for live fire landings training prior to many operations, including D-Day. "One in particular, known locally as number three beach, contains most of the evidence." He said: "Operations involved using fixed-height machine guns, fired above the troops as they landed. "They returned fire as they advanced up the beach using rifles, machine guns, mortars, grenades and other ordnance. "They were even reputed to be able to call in air support to attack a target painted on a rock face at the back of the beach." He added: "Today, as the sands continue to move around, they regularly reveal evidence of all this activity. Spent and live rifle and pistol bullets have been found in abundance. "High explosive, smoke, and, more worryingly, phosphorus mortar bombs and hand grenades turn up less frequently - although they cause quite a stir when they are placed on the bar at the local hotel or are handed in at the local police station." 'Shelled by accident' Larger ordnance, such as bombs and shells, has not been found for a number of years - but other evidence of the military exercises is often uncovered, especially barbed wire and the folding cutters used to penetrate it. Although there is a memorial at Spean Bridge to the commandos who trained in the Lochaber region, few accounts of life during the war have been recorded. Mr Burton said one story he had heard was about a local postman being shelled by accident whilst trying to deliver the post to Gorteneorn. He said: "Luckily, he decamped to the nearest ditch and used his own military training from WWI to time the shells - making his break to the next ditch between salvos. "Both the postman and his post got through unharmed."

ब्रिटेन घुमावदार पहाड़ियों, ऊबड़-खाबड़ मूर्स और शानदार तटरेखा की भूमि है, जिसे हम में से लाखों लोग तलाशने का आनंद लेते हैं।


Man in court charged with Easterhouse murder

Summary: A man has appeared in court charged with the murder of a 43-year-old man in Glasgow.

Andrew Linton was found with serious injuries at Lochend Road, in the Easterhouse area of the city, at about 16:45 on Tuesday. Mr Linton, of Easterhouse, was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary where he died a short time later. Thomas Reilly, 43, made no plea when he appeared in private before Glasgow Sheriff Court. He was also charged with assault. Mr Reilly was remanded in custody for further examination and will return to court next week.

ग्लासगो में एक 43 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की हत्या के आरोप में एक व्यक्ति अदालत में पेश हुआ है।


Jet Airways: The riches to rags story of India's oldest private airline

Summary: For a long period of time, especially during the late 1990s and 2000s, Jet Airways was the shining face of Indian aviation. But now it finds itself on the verge of collapse. What went wrong? The BBC's India business correspondent Sameer Hashmi explains.

Jet Airways won itself many loyal customers when it started operations because it redefined the Indian flying experience. It set itself apart in a market dominated by the national carrier, Air India, by offering world class service. Over the last decade it grew steadily - becoming India's largest international carrier. But the airline, which celebrated its silver jubilee just last year, is now fighting for its survival. In recent weeks it has cancelled thousands of flights, affecting passengers flying on both international and domestic routes. It has grounded more than two-thirds of the 119 aircraft it had in its fleet because it is no longer able to pay leasing companies. The company has amassed a debt of more than than $1bn (£750m) and has failed to pay salaries and loans. Rescue efforts But for now at least, all is not lost. In a rare move the Indian government is desperately trying to save Jet, despite the fact that it is a private airline. So it is asking state-run banks to step in with a bailout plan. With elections scheduled to start next month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to stop the airline - which employs 23,000 people - from collapsing. The "rescue mission" is headed by the State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest public sector bank. Its head, Rajnish Kumar, on Thursday said that lenders are close to working out a resolution plan. But not everyone is convinced it can be saved. Air India's former executive director, Jitender Bhargava, says it will be very difficult for banks to find investors - given the current financial mess the airline is in. "Who will be ready to put in money when profitability is not on the horizon? You cannot put in money to sink it." SBI has already held talks with Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, which owns a 24% stake in Jet. The lenders want Etihad Airways to invest more money in the airline but the latter is reported to have declined the offer and instead wants to sell its entire stake and exit the business. But aviation expert Mahantesh Sabarad thinks that Jet Airways is still a strategically good investment for Etihad. By increasing its stake, he believes, the gulf carrier will get a bigger foothold in an aviation market that is forecast to become the third largest by 2024 behind the United States and China. "If immediate cash is injected and the aircraft that are grounded start flying again, then the airline can be rescued. In the current scenario, Etihad is the best bet for Jet Airways," he said. The Goyal problem But the major factor that has held back potential investors, including Etihad Airways, is the founder and chairman of the airline. Naresh Goyal has been reluctant to give up control of the company. According to multiple reports, Etihad Airways initially agreed to invest more money and raise its equity stake in the airline. But the deal collapsed after Mr Goyal refused to step down as the chairman of the airline. He and his family own a 52% stake in Jet Airways. Indian aviation rules allow foreign airlines to own a stake of up to 49% in Indian carriers. "Mr Goyal has always wanted to keep control of the airline at any cost. Even in the past when the airline was going through tough times, he turned down deals to protect his position," says a former senior executive of Jet Airways who didn't want to be named. Many news reports say lenders have asked Mr Goyal and his wife to step down from the board. "Mr Goyal stepping down will open up a lot of options for the airline. Any investor that is willing to invest would want full control and to run it professionally," says Mr Bhargava. An email sent to Jet Airways regarding Mr Goyal's future did not elicit any response. Turbulence from low cost carriers Jet Airways was born in 1993, two years after India liberalised its economy and opened its doors to private investments. The company was one of five private airlines to set up soon after. The others did not survive but Jet Airways kept cruising to new heights. It kept increasing its market share, eating into the monopoly enjoyed by national carrier Air India. In fact, the rise of Jet coincided with the decline of Air India, which was plagued by poor service and bad business decisions taken by its political masters. Its troubles however, began with the entry of low-cost carriers like IndiGo and SpiceJet in the mid-2000s. The new airlines began offering tickets at a much lower prices. IndiGo also kept its operational costs low by offering basic services and no food on flights. To compete with them, Jet also started lowering its fares, despite continuing to be a full service airline. "The biggest challenge for Jet Airways was that its operational cost was much higher compared to low-cost carriers, which is what prevented it from making profits," says Mr Bhargava. Apart from stiff competition, volatile crude oil prices and a depreciating rupee also exacerbated its financial problems. Since 2008, the airline kept incurring huge losses , forcing it to keep borrowing from banks. Meanwhile, IndiGo kept eating into Jet Airways market share. Things turned from bad to worse in 2018. Crude oil prices shot up significantly, touching $80 and simultaneously, the Indian currency lost nearly 20% of its value against the dollar. Both factors play a critical role in the airline business. "These two factors really dented the airlines' cash flow, and it couldn't recover from there," says Mr Sabarad. Borrowed time Jet Airways used to operate on 600 domestic and 380 international routes. But since the crisis began, it has cut down hundreds of flights including to international destinations like Abu Dhabi, Manchester and Hong Kong. It has also curtailed its operations within the country by stopping flights from the capital Delhi to major Indian cities like Bangalore, Chennai (formerly known as Madras) and Hyderabad. According to some media reports, the government has nudged low cost carriers like SpiceJet to consider taking over some of the aircraft grounded by Jet Airways. To make matters worse, the airline's pilots union has said they have decided to stop flying from 1 April if Jet Airways does not have a rescue plan in place by then. "It is not about the salary right now, it is about getting clarity about our future. We have bills to pay, and many of us are sole breadwinners in the family," Asim Valiani, vice president of the union, told the BBC. Airfares have soared with passengers sometimes having to pay four to five times the cost of a regular ticket. It is still unclear what the outcome of the Jet Airways fiasco will be. But for now, airline staff and customers are bearing the brunt.

लंबे समय तक, विशेष रूप से 1990 और 2000 के दशक के अंत में, जेट एयरवेज भारतीय विमानन का चमकता चेहरा था। लेकिन अब यह खुद को पतन के कगार पर पाता है। क्या गलत हुआ? बीबीसी के भारत के व्यापार संवाददाता समीर हाशमी बताते हैं।


North Korea: surfing the net in the world's most isolated nation

Summary: What's the point of a computer in a hermit country sealed off from the internet? What use can a smartphone be if the smartest uses are blocked? And why would anyone learn computer coding in a country closed off from the world-wide-web?

By Stephen EvansBBC News These are the conundrums at the core of the puzzle about technology in North Korea. If the south is the most teched-up nation in the world, the north ought to be the least - except it's not. At least one in 12 people there have smartphones. Not only that but North Korea has some very sophisticated computer programmers designing clever applications. We know that North Korea has so many smartphones because its 3G network is run by Koryolink, a joint venture between an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom, and the North Korean state. The Egyptian end publishes figures which add up to about two million North Korean subscribers. Mobile manners So great is the use of mobile phones that North Koreans have been advised on etiquette. Some of it resonates everywhere. The main South Korean news agency got hold of a northern magazine which complained that "speaking loudly or arguing over the phone in public places where many people are gathered is thoughtless and impolite behaviour". The magazine also bemoaned the habit of not identifying oneself when answering the phone. This meant the caller had to enquire along these lines: "Is it you, Comrade Yeong-cheol?" Some problems are the same the world over; some are not. But the bigger question is: how do North Koreans manage without the global internet? With difficulty, is the answer. Cookery tips A few bright students are trained and do have access from controlled and monitored institutions while the mass of the citizenry have to make do with the internal North Korean intranet called the Kwangmyong. This is some way short of the sum of all knowledge and delight provided by the worldwide web. It does relay the words and deeds of the Supreme Leader but also recipes, including:"Our nation's beautiful dietary manner" and "Rabbit meat tonic broth: Do remember not to feed the rabbit anything but water for a day before slaughter - read the recipe to find out why". There's also advice in English, Korean and Chinese on diet and age, the kind of health webpage which would generate clicks on any website anywhere. "During the meal, don't drink too much water," it warns. "If drinking too much water, the gastric juice is diluted and the food is not digested well. And in summer, the bacteria in the food go down to the intestine without being killed by the stomach acidity and can cause the disease". For the general populace this intranet has to suffice. The authorities are hyper-keen to close the slightest crack in the wall to the internet outside. Border patrols According to North Korea Tech, which monitors technology there, foreign visitors now have to de-activate their Sim cards on departure. They can buy cards which give web access on entry but, in the past it was possible that they could be left behind, still loaded with unused internet access for locals to use. That gap has been plugged. So has the possibility that North Koreans near foreign embassies and the offices of international organisations could access the buildings' wi-fi. In August, foreign missions were told that "signals of regional wireless networks… produce some effect on our surroundings" and, therefore, their licences were revoked. The ban followed a report on a South Korean website that demand for property around embassies in Pyongyang had risen because of the ability of neighbours to furtively make use of unencrypted wi-fi. There is a continual game of cat and mouse between the North Korean authorities and people who want to talk to the outside world - for which there are fierce penalties. Some may, for example, want to get onto South Korean or Chinese networks near the northern or southern borders, but Martyn Williams who runs the North Korea Tech monitoring site tells the BBC this isn't easy. "It's very difficult for the average North Korean to get near the South Korean border because that's such a heavily guarded security area", he says. "It's difficult but easier to get near the Chinese border and there you do see people inserting Chinese Sim cards into their phones, or they'll have smuggled phones from China. "If they can get onto the Chinese cellular network, they can make calls to anywhere in the world. They can also access the internet without the North Korean government stopping them. "One of the things the North Korean government does is heavily patrol the border and try to find people using these cellphones." Video game malware With such constrained access to the outside world, it's a wonder any kind of sophisticated computer programming exists in North Korea - but it does. "When I talk to people who work with North Koreans for business, they are impressed with the level levels of sophistication of some of the programming," says Mr Williams. "Of course, it's not just for commercial reasons they're doing this. Offensive cyber-capability is something big which many nations are building up. "It seems North Korea sees it as useful tool on the military side but also something that could be used on the business side." Just like other countries, the North Korean militarised regime needs top coders to intrude on the systems of other countries and to resist hacking by the intelligence agencies of other countries. South Korea certainly thinks that North Korea listens in. According to the head of the South Korean National Intelligence Service, North Korea infected about 20,000 South Korean smartphones with malware hidden in games between May and September in a bid to monitor their owners. Pyongyang denies the claim. But Martyn Williams says that bright students are indeed selected and then trained in computer skills at specialised institutions to carry out such programmes, but he adds there are also bright software engineers working on apps designed for civilian use. North Korea launched the Samjiyon tablet last year, running on the Android system and pre-loaded with games including what appears to be a rip-off of Angry Birds. The tablet was also loaded with the eBook Gone with the Wind, the classic novel set on a slave plantation in the American Deep South. According to the Washington Post, the novel was accompanied by an introduction which said the book was "particularly useful for understanding how modern capitalism spread to all of the United States". The difficulty for bright people trying to innovate in North Korea is that without easy and constant access to the web, they don't always know what the competition might be. Geoffrey See, who founded the Choson Exchange - which tries to improve skills and knowledge in North Korea - recently organised an IT conference in Pyongyang. "We often find that when we talk to the smaller IT companies there, they are developing products for which there is already a very strong product on the market," he says. Cut off from the world, North Korean software developers risk toiling in darkness on products which others have already made. Mr See thinks the way forward is better links. "You need a lot of collaboration with international programmers, being plugged into that network of programmers and venture capitalists who are able to tell you who else is working on such a product," he explains. And therein lies the problem. The North Korean regime clearly does not want to grant its people that kind of access to the outside world. Twenty-five years ago, the Berlin Wall was pushed down. If you talk to East Germans now, they often say that their real yearning was not for some abstract idea of freedom but just to get a first-hand view of the outside world. Kim Jong-un knows the dangers of that. But for how long can the gaps be plugged?

एक संन्यासी देश में कंप्यूटर को इंटरनेट से बंद करने का क्या मतलब है? अगर सबसे चतुर उपयोगों को अवरुद्ध कर दिया जाए तो स्मार्टफोन का क्या उपयोग हो सकता है? और कोई भी ऐसे देश में कंप्यूटर कोडिंग क्यों सीख सकता है जो विश्व-व्यापी-वेब से बंद है?


Bosnia's wartime rape survivors losing hope of justice

Summary: The Bosna, the river that gave this country its name, flows northwards through the city of Zenica, slicing it in two. On its banks, the chimney stacks of the giant steelworks in the centre of the city funnel thick smoke into the surrounding valley.

By Stuart HughesBBC News In the garden of a women's refuge overlooking the plant, Lejla describes the brutality she suffered as a teenager. "I was 14 and living with my grandmother when the war began," she says. "I was captured and spent three years in a prison camp, where we were forced to do manual labour. Later, I was separated from the rest of the prisoners along with three other women and taken to a house. "The soldiers would drink. We would have to serve them like slaves and they would rape us." Estimates for the number of women like Lejla who were subjected to sexual violence during the Bosnian War range from 20,000 to more than 50,000. The true figure will never be known, not least because many women have chosen to remain silent, fearing they will be stigmatised by society if they speak out. No witness protection As the Bosnian war slips further into history, it is becoming more difficult than ever for some women to talk openly about their experiences, according to Nela Porobic from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. "What we are finding from our discussions with victims of sexual violence but also with the professionals working with them is that talking about sexual violence was actually easier in the midst of war and immediately after the things happened rather than now, with the passage of 20 years," she says. "They feel society is tired, they don't want to hear about what happened, they want to move on - but these women can't move on." Researchers say the war in Bosnia created a "hierarchy of trauma". With so many atrocities committed between 1992 and 1995, sexual violence is viewed by some as a lesser evil than ethnic cleansing or torture. For those seeking justice, the obstacles remain immense. The courts are already trying to clear a backlog of some 1,300 war crimes cases. Only those cases regarded as the most serious, or involving high-ranking officers, are dealt with at the state level where witnesses are given anonymity and protection. Cases involving women raped by rank-and-file soldiers are often passed to lower-level regional courts, where there is no witness-protection programme and victims may be asked to give evidence in front of their attacker. 'A shell of a man' So far, there have been fewer than 70 prosecutions for crimes of sexual violence during the Bosnian War. "Survivors of sexual violence feel that no one believes what happened to them," says Sabiha Husic, director of the Medica Zenica women's project. "Most survivors tell me they don't want to go through with the legal process if it means they're going to have to give evidence to prove their case. "We try to support and encourage them but sometimes when they are asked to appear in court, it's just too stressful and traumatic." Men were also raped during the Bosnian War, often as a means of humiliation. Zihnija, a former soldier in the Bosnian army, shakes visibly as he recounts what happened to him. "The military police took me to a basement and beat me unconscious," he recalls. "When I woke up, one of the officers took a shovel, ripped my trousers and put it inside me. Then they threw me back on the floor. They thought I would probably bleed to death. "When you lose an arm of a leg you can see it - but when your soul is hurting it's invisible. I may look like a rock but I'm just a shell of a man. A shell." Rapists still at large The issue of sexual violence in conflict will be addressed at a major international conference in London in June, chaired by UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and the Hollywood actress and UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie. The pair have been working together on the issue since Mr Hague watched Angelina Jolie's film about the Bosnian War, In The Land of Blood and Honey, two years ago. They travelled to Bosnia last week, and pledged to use the London summit to launch new guidance on documenting and investigating war zone rape and to increase the support given to survivors. While better evidence-gathering may lead to more prosecutions in future conflicts, for some any improvements are already too late. "The men who raped me are still at large," says one survivor, Edina, as Hague and Jolie toured the crumbling former UN peacekeeping compound in Srebrenica. "I've found some of them on social networks. They walk around freely. They have Facebook profiles," she says. "I'm bitter towards the Bosnian government because the process of arresting and prosecuting the perpetrators is so slow. After 20 years, many victims have already died." "They didn't live long enough to see justice being done." she says.

बोस्ना, वह नदी जिसने इस देश को इसका नाम दिया, ज़ेनिका शहर के माध्यम से उत्तर की ओर बहती है, इसे दो हिस्सों में काटती है। इसके तटों पर, शहर के केंद्र में विशाल स्टीलवर्क की चिमनी ढेर आसपास की घाटी में घने धुएं को फैलाती है।


Unexploded bomb found in Plymouth park

Summary: Bomb disposal experts were called to a park in Devon after the discovery of a ordnance device.

Devon and Cornwall Police said the bomb, believed to be a World War II munition, was found at Devonport Park in the Stoke area of Plymouth. A 200m (656ft) cordon was initially put in place when the bomb was discovered at about 1140 GMT, but that has now been removed. A police spokesman said the bomb was not thought to be "viable". Last month part of Plymouth city centre was evacuated when a partially buried German World War II bomb was found by workmen at a building site in Notte Street.

एक आयुध उपकरण की खोज के बाद बम निरोधक विशेषज्ञों को डेवोन के एक पार्क में बुलाया गया।


Alderney starts review of fishing in island waters

Summary: Islanders in Alderney are being asked for their views on fishing in local waters.

The General Services Committee is carrying out a review of commercial and recreational fishing. They want to hear from anyone involved, either directly or indirectly at a public meeting on 24 June. The agenda includes trawlers, charters, the size of vessels, protected areas, fishing limits, the closed season and fishing in bays.

एल्डर्नी में द्वीपवासियों से स्थानीय जल में मछली पकड़ने पर उनके विचार पूछे जा रहे हैं।