Green's Natalie Bennett on leadership, hugs and 'stupid' questions

Summary: As the Green Party of England and Wales prepares to unveil a replacement for Natalie Bennett, who is standing down after four years as leader, she reflects on life in the media spotlight - and what she plans to do next.

By Brian WheelerPolitical reporter The phrase "rapid rise through the ranks" is a standard line in profiles of political leaders. But it's rarely as speedy as in Natalie Bennett's case. The Australian-born former Guardian journalist woke up on New Year's Day 2006 and decided she wanted to do something to change the world. After pondering her options (should she get involved with an NGO or the UN?) she joined the Green Party. Within six short years she had become its leader. Three years after that she was sharing a stage with the prime minister and other party leaders in a televised general election debate. Her sudden arrival on the frontline of British politics was all the more remarkable because she had never won an election, other than the one that had made her party leader. Her first aim when she took on the job was to insert the Green Party - routinely ignored or patronised by the mainstream media - into the national conversation. But when media outlets finally began calling, on the back of a surge in support for the party, she sometimes found it difficult to get her message across in a suitably snappy way. Her vision for the party was to show how "economic and environmental justice are indivisible", she explains, "the idea that tackling environmental problems isn't an add-on luxury". It was "not a easy concept to get across", she confesses. "I still don't think I've got the 12 second soundbite. But I am going to keep working on it." "It's a classic Shakespearean thing," she says of her struggles with the broadcast media. "It's both my strength and my weakness that I answer the question." But, she adds, "when you get asked a stupid question, it's rather hard to know what to do at that point. And I guess I get tangled up in my desire to answer a question, even when it's a really stupid question". Did she get asked a lot of stupid questions? "Yes." Asked for an example, she ponders for a minute, before highlighting an interview with the BBC's very own John Humphrys, which led to her having "to spend time, valuable peak time, explaining how the interviewer got the question wrong. And listeners don't particularly like that because it's all technical and boring and you are arguing with the interviewer but if it's entirely on the wrong track you have to". She says she has some sympathy with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has also attracted criticism for broadcast interviews in which he has deviated from the usual prepared soundbites. "The focus on the individual is a problem for British politics and it's very uncomfortable when the focus is on you," she says, arguing that the media in continental Europe are focused more on policies than personalities and trivia. "I am not complaining - you have to work within those limits," she adds, but she believes British politics is "broken" and the media must take its share of the blame. "There should be some pressure on the journalist to ask better, more sensible questions," she argues. There was nothing particularly stupid about the question that prompted her darkest moment in a radio studio, however, when she struggled over several excruciating minutes, punctuated by coughing fits, to answer a question from LBC's Nick Ferrari on her party's housing policy. She was quick to hold her hands up afterwards, apologising to supporters and blaming her sub-par performance, in the heat of the general election campaign, on "brain freeze". "That was a very tough moment. And of course you take a bit of a punch to the stomach. "But then a few weeks later I was up on the leader debates, able to look David Cameron in the eye and challenge him about his failure to welcome Syrian refugees to Britain, and that was one of the best moments. "My great problem on that day was that I was in no way well enough to actually be doing anything. I'd had about three and a half hours sleep and I'd been throwing up most of the night. I should have just pulled the day but that's partly a function of how we got to that point. "We weren't used to getting a lot of media attention and it was very, very hard to turn media attention down." One of Ms Bennett's proudest moments came at the end of the BBC leaders debate when she joined Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood and Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in a "group hug", while Labour leader Ed Miliband looked on awkwardly. This felt like a watershed moment for women in politics, she says, sending out the message "that politics can not just be 'dog eat dog', it can be people agreeing on some things and disagreeing on others but supporting each other". As a lifelong feminist, she is particularly pleased to have been told by "lots of young women" that they had been inspired by the "group hug", which she stresses had not been planned in advance. "I hope and think that that moment really, in 15 years' time, 20 years' time, we might see a whole crop of MPs down the road who will reference that moment as the time they decided they were going to try and get there." Ms Bennett's decision to pitch for the anti-austerity vote, positioning the Greens as a left-wing alternative to what was then Ed Miliband's Labour Party, struck a chord with idealistic young people who felt alienated by mainstream politics, and led to a surge in party membership. But then Jeremy Corbyn came along and shifted Labour firmly to the left, inspiring idealistic activists to join his party in numbers the Greens could only dream about. Hasn't the Green Party, which had a mixed set of results in May's elections, losing four councillors in England and failing to make progress in Wales but getting its best ever result in London, been crowded out of the picture by Labour? Ms Bennett insists this is not the case, arguing that there is a "very clear distinction" between the Greens and Labour on a range of issues - from nuclear weapons to fracking - and that voters know exactly what they are getting when they vote Green. But she is also open to the idea of a "progressive alliance" at the next general election, with local Green Parties potentially making electoral pacts with Labour, Plaid Cymru, the SNP or other parties who broadly share their outlook. Leadership advice She remains a passionate advocate of electoral reform. The Green Party fielded a record number of general election candidates in 2015, standing in 93% of constituencies, and gaining more than a million votes. By rights, she argues, the party should have 25 MPs. She believes the case for scrapping what she sees as Britain's outdated first-past-the-post electoral system is gaining ground in the country. She says she has had an "amazing" four years as leader, and has no regrets, believing the party is in better shape now, having quadrupled its membership and gained a foothold in the national debate on issues such as welfare and the economy, than when she took over. But she is also keen to stress that she will not be leaving politics. "I'm aiming to turn former leader into a role in its own right, to keep travelling the country, supporting local parties, doing media. Leadership is a role we can share around. It's not you become leader, that's the pinnacle, and then you disappear." Asked if she has any advice for the next leader, she says trust the party membership. Anything else? "Work out how to answer stupid questions," she laughs. "I still don't quite know the answer to that one myself."

जैसा कि इंग्लैंड और वेल्स की ग्रीन पार्टी नताली बेनेट के प्रतिस्थापन का अनावरण करने की तैयारी कर रही है, जो नेता के रूप में चार साल बाद खड़ी हो रही है, वह मीडिया की सुर्खियों में जीवन पर प्रतिबिंबित करती है-और वह आगे क्या करने की योजना बना रही है।


Why the UK election isn't exciting Americans

Summary: When it comes to the UK election, Americans have hardly been grabbing the popcorn. Box office it is not. And up against the summer blockbuster of the Trump presidency it looks more like a village hall production - the vicar's daughter playing the lead.

Nick BryantNew York correspondent Modern-day movie-goers like franchises, with characters and plotlines that are instantly recognisable; with over-arching themes that comport with a broader narrative. The French presidential election fitted that bill, with Marine Le Pen cast as the female Trump, the face of populist fury. But May versus Corbyn - it feels like an indie production with a very limited cinema release, a few movie theatres perhaps in Washington, New York and Boston. Brexit worked on the franchise front. The prequel to Trump's unexpected victory last November, it truly was an epic. But the UK general election doesn't even feature Nigel Farage, one of the few British politicians American viewers are familiar with. It's not even accurate to call it a forgettable election. Most Americans, I feel confident in saying, aren't aware it's even taking place. Articles have appeared in the quality press. But they've felt perfunctory, dull but worthy yarns to mark something editors feel is vaguely important but not ones that demand front page attention. Where's the drama? Where are the unexpected twists? To stretch the movie metaphor to breaking point, where is Helen Mirren or Hugh Grant? More UK Election Britain does still command attention here. Last week, obviously, the awfulness of Manchester was the headline story - part of a larger picture. But the other stories to cut through here in recent months have mostly involved the royal family. Prince Philip's retirement from public duties. The young royals' admirable decision to talk openly about their mental health. A small digression here. America's longstanding fixation with the royal family is not as historically anomalous as it seems. The American Revolution wasn't a rejection of the British monarchy, it was a rejection of the British parliament. Many of the American revolutionaries, foremost amongst them the voguish Alexander Hamilton, were arch-monarchists. Their gripe with King George was that he exercised too little power rather than too much: they wanted him to use his royal prerogative to overrule parliament over its much-hated tax regime. America's royal obsession sometimes has the feel of a cargo cult on a small Polynesian island, but it's faithful to the thinking of some of the country's leading founding fathers. History. That's what continues to fascinate Americans about Britain, not its modern-day politics. That's evidenced by the enormous popularity of the Netflix drama, The Crown. The heritage theme park view of the UK still persists here, and maybe Brexit reinforces it, because of its nostalgic overtones. It's the period dramas that always do well here rather than gritty social realism. Masterpiece Theatre rather than Mike Leigh. I'm always intrigued, for example, by the reaction of American politicians to Boris Johnson. Senior Republicans and senior administration officials absolutely love him. But you get the impression this is partly because he seems to have stepped straight from central casting. The English eccentric. The likeable buffoon. The diplomatic vaudeville act. Doubtless they admire his intelligence - one high-ranking Trump official I spoke with was positively giddy - but it's his entertainment value they seem to savour most. Entertainment. That's become a big part of American electoral politics, with Donald Trump not just blurring the lines between politics and celebrity culture but turning them into the self-same thing. His campaign became a reality show, with all the exaggerations and absurdities that we've come to associate with the genre. That, in ratings terms, is the problem with the British election. To the few American eyes that have bothered to peer over the Atlantic, it's just boring old reality. Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning

जब बात ब्रिटेन के चुनाव की आती है, तो अमेरिकी शायद ही पॉपकॉर्न पर कब्जा कर रहे हैं। बॉक्स ऑफिस पर ऐसा नहीं है। और ट्रम्प प्रेसीडेंसी के ग्रीष्मकालीन ब्लॉकबस्टर के खिलाफ यह एक विलेज हॉल प्रोडक्शन की तरह दिखता है-प्रधान भूमिका निभाने वाले पादरी की बेटी।


Pembrokeshire council tax rises by 4.5%

Summary: People living in Pembrokeshire are facing a 4.5% rise in their council tax bill during 2015-16.

Councillors voted on the increase - a rise of £34.49 for the average band D property - to help reach the overall budget of £207.3m which it needs to deliver local services. It aims to make £12.3m of savings after the loss of a Welsh government grant. Some £160,000 is to be budgeted towards rolling out free wi-fi in town centres in the county during the year.

पेम्ब्रोकेशायर में रहने वाले लोगों को 2015-16 के दौरान अपने परिषद कर बिल में 4.5% की वृद्धि का सामना करना पड़ रहा है।


Edward Lear: Two hundred years of nonsense

Summary: Poet Edward Lear was a genius at writing "nonsense" verse. But the author of surreal limericks was also a serious travel writer, zoological illustrator and landscape painter. Had he been alive today he would have been 200 years old, alongside his great contemporary Charles Dickens.

By Robin BanerjiBBC World Service Children's author and laureate Julia Donaldson - writer of The Gruffalo - is among Lear's many enthusiasts and has written a sequel to his most celebrated work The Owl and the Pussycat to mark the anniversary. Lear's poem tells the story of two animals who go to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. The elegant fowl serenades his feline love to the sounds of "a small guitar". After getting a ring from the nose of "a piggy-wig" they are married next day by the turkey on the hill. This romantic and touching little poem has been set to music by Igor Stravinsky and Laurie Anderson among others. It has also been translated into languages as diverse as Bengali and Polish, Cree and Amharic. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Lear's career began not with words but with pictures. He jokes that he "began to draw for bread and cheese' at about the age of 15. He soon became a commercial artist. By the age of 18 he received permission to draw from life the parrots of London Zoo and, from 1830 to1832, he published in total 42 lithographs of parrots. Lear's lithographs were so successful that in 1832 the president of London Zoo, Lord Stanley, hired Lear to draw the menagerie of birds and mammals at Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool. It was there that Lear's gift for light verse made him a huge success with the family of the Earl of Derby. "He started writing verse for this man's great grandchildren to entertain them," says Donaldson. "It was just meant to be a sideline, I think the serious business of his life was his art." The sideline made Lear famous. In 1846 he published A Book of Nonsense. It contains some of his best-loved limericks such as: "There was an old man with a beard, who said, 'It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren, have built their nests in my beard!'" Donaldson is a great fan of Lear's "nonsense words, the wonderful words such as runcible and scroobious that children and adults love". Although accomplished and successful, Lear's life was marked by much unhappiness. The bad times started early on. Lear was the 20th of 21 children. His father was a stockbroker but when the boy Lear was four his father went bankrupt and - like Charles Dickens's father - seems to have ended up in a debtor's prison. At the time the young Lear left his parents' home with his eldest sister, Ann, who was 21 years older than him. "Ever since he was a child he had fits of depression," says Donaldson. One day when Lear was around seven years old, his father took him to a field near Highgate in north London. He saw some clowns, and a band playing. Afterwards he went home and cried "half the night" - as he recollected years later. Donaldson says "he realised, at an early age, that happiness and beauty were transient". Lear's own word for it was "morbidness" and it may explain what Donaldson calls "that mixture of happiness and sadness in his work". In Lear you find humour but also pathos. "Creatures such as the Dong with the Luminous Nose and the little birds in the poem, Callico Pie, that never come back. There is a kind of sadness mixed in with the humour, which is very appealing," says Donaldson. In The Owl and Pussycat, however, pathos is held at bay, just. Of her sequel, Donaldson says: "I cannot tell you everything but they go off in search of that very ring that they got married with - it gets stolen right at the beginning of my story by a crow - and they sail away in a beautiful blue balloon." Surely Lear would have approved. Julia Donaldson spoke to Newshour on the BBC World Service.

कवि एडवर्ड लियर "मूर्खतापूर्ण" कविता लिखने में प्रतिभाशाली थे। लेकिन असली लिमेरिक्स के लेखक एक गंभीर यात्रा लेखक, प्राणी चित्रकार और परिदृश्य चित्रकार भी थे। अगर वे आज जीवित होते तो वे अपने महान समकालीन चार्ल्स डिकेंस के साथ 200 वर्ष के होते।


What is driving French nationals to join Islamic State?

Summary: Two Frenchmen that have been spotted in Islamic State's latest execution video are reported to be recent converts to Islam, sparking fresh debate in France about what's driving the appeal of Islamic State, and how to tackle it.

By Lucy WilliamsonBBC News, Paris With delicate features and an unkempt beard, Maxime Hauchard, 22, helped to carry out executions in the arid Syrian landscape. He was once, according to his uncle, a calm and happy little boy. "He was never even naughty as a child," Pascal Hauchard said. But this week, Maxime became the latest name in the roll-call of Western recruits fighting alongside Islamic State. He had already given a Skype interview to French television, describing life in Syria and his desire to become a martyr. It's an odd kind of celebrity for a French boy from rural Normandy who, according to local reports, converted to Islam at the age of 17. But converts appear to make up a striking number of the French citizens attracted to the militants' cause, and generate a huge amount of interest back home, as shown by the case of the British militant nicknamed "Jihadi John". The second Frenchman has been named by prosecutors as Mickael Dos Santos, 22, from a small town just south-east of Paris. Propaganda value "They do it on purpose, of course they do," says Professor Jean-Pierre Filiu, from the School of International Affairs at Sciences-Po. "Western recruits have no military value [to militant groups] at the moment; they have no training or expertise. Their value is in propaganda and recruitment. Militant leaders want to use European Muslims as hostages for their own propaganda, to generate fear of a fifth column back home. And it's working." Responding to the latest video, President Francois Hollande said that more must be done to warn French families of the dangers of militant recruitment campaigns, which he said could touch people from every background, including converts. Converts do appear to make up a substantial portion of those attracted to IS from France. One recent survey by the French Institute, CPDSI, found that 90% of those who adopted radical Islamic beliefs had French grandparents, and that 80% came from atheist families. Over half of all phone calls to a government helpline, set up to combat jihadist recruitment, concerned teenagers without any Muslim or Arab background. Those figures may not be representative of all French recruits in Syria, but they give some context to stories like Hauchard's. Attraction of the cult Pierre N'Gahane, who is a member of a government de-radicalisation team working on the issue, says the profiles of those attracted to IS ideology are hugely varied. "You have the young girl who got high grades at school, and went to dance lessons, who in the course of a single day rejected her friends, and changed her dress and diet," he explained. "Or the serial delinquent, always in trouble with the law, who dropped out of the army. Or the young student who was already isolated, and tips into radicalism during one moment of fragility." Prof Filiu believes that the reason these young people have such hugely diverse profiles is partly a reflection of the tactics used by IS. "Any recruits that arrive are brutalised in a kind of initiation ceremony," he told the BBC, "and then they are forced to recruit four or five of their buddies through Facebook. That's why you have profiles that are so unpredictable, and why converts bring in more converts." But, he says, it's also precisely because most of them don't come from a Muslim religious culture and aren't looking for religion at all. Instead they are isolated teenagers, "fast-tracked" into an extreme ideology, "a cult", whose appeal is very different to the piety and purity promised by organised religion, Mr Filiu adds. "If you look at the images sent home," he told me, " it's all pizza and guns and sunsets over the Euphrates. It's an offer to join 'the winners'. Anybody who wants to become famous knows that if he goes and kills a hostage, he'll become a star, and be splashed across the front page of the newspaper back home." 'Victim narrative' Pierre N'Gahane agrees. "Converts to radical Islam are very different to those converting to Islam," he says. "They don't go through the mosque. They're fragile people who are drawn to a sectarian version of Islam, and really any other kind of sect would have done just as well. The attraction is a narrative that gives them an identity as victims of Western society, and as somehow special and chosen by God." That has clear implications for how the government here should be tackling the problem. Imams and mosques have little influence on recruitment drives which happen almost entirely on Facebook or via other internet sites. And there are few easy ways to tackle a network with such intimate connections and such disparate appeal. Some have blamed France's social inequality or lack of integration, but surveys have suggested that many converts are from well-integrated, middle-class families. But with more than 1,000 French citizens now either fighting with groups like IS, en route to join them, planning to do so, or returning to France, the government is under pressure to curb the flow of recruits. It has launched several programmes designed to target those at risk. One of the most recent, says Mr N'Gahane, focuses on offering psychological support to those wanting to leave France to join the group. The police now also have the power to confiscate the passports of anyone believed to be about to flee. Prof Filiu says societies may always harbour a radical fringe, ripe for cults to tap into. What makes this recruitment drive so effective, he believes, is the way it harnesses the internet for a simple but effective propaganda campaign. The only way to counter it, he says, is to ignore the European faces in its execution videos, and its use of Islamic symbols, and focus on the victims. But so far, he says, "they're winning. And we're just following each red herring they throw at us".

इस्लामिक स्टेट के नवीनतम निष्पादन वीडियो में देखे गए दो फ्रांसीसी लोगों के हाल ही में इस्लाम में परिवर्तित होने की सूचना है, जिससे इस्लामिक स्टेट की अपील को क्या प्रेरित कर रहा है और इससे कैसे निपटा जाए, इस बारे में फ्रांस में नई बहस छिड़ गई है।


Q&A: Why have rail upgrade plans been delayed?

Summary: The government is delaying a number of rail modernisation projects planned. Labour claims voters have been "betrayed" but ministers insist they only learned recently that promised upgrades would have to be paused. What was the original plan?

Announced in March 2014, the government said the five-year £38bn investment programme for England and Wales would benefit millions across the country. The plan included the construction of new tracks, renovation of stations and an upgrade of existing lines. The government highlighted some key features, including creating a Northern Hub "transforming rail across the north of England", the electrification of 850 miles of railway and a new link between the Great Western, West Coast and Midland main lines. Danny Alexander, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said the programme would "involve the largest modernisation of the railways since Victorian times", while Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said it would "generate growth, create jobs and boost business". What has happened now? This week the government said rising costs and missed targets made the original project untenable. Mr McLoughlin said the plan was being "reset". Sir Peter Hendy, who will become Network Rail's new chairman, will report to ministers in a few months with a new plan, detailing what can go ahead and how much it will cost. Electrification work on the Midland mainline and on the Trans-Pennine route between Leeds and Manchester has been paused, although work on the Great Western main line will go ahead. BBC business editor Kamal Ahmed wrote after the announcement: "Today all bets are off as to how much of the ambitious plan will be delivered. And when." Network Rail chief executive Mark Carne said it would not be possible to estimate the impact of the delays on the final cost. Did anyone see this coming? Senior sources in the rail industry have told the BBC the Department for Transport was warned last spring that the five-year plan was at risk. The House of Commons Transport Select Committee raised some concerns in January, writing: "We are concerned that key rail enhancement projects - such as electrification in the north and north west of England - have been announced by ministers without Network Rail having a clear estimate of what the projects will cost, leading to uncertainty about whether the projects will be delivered on time, or at all." There were other warnings from the Office of Rail Regulation. In their 2015 election manifesto, the Conservatives committed to electrifying main routes, funding "the biggest investment in rail since Victorian times" and repeated the pledge to "invest £38 billion in our railway network in the five years to 2019." Sources in the Department for Transport and Network Rail told the BBC they only realised the problems were so bad that a pause was needed in the week before the announcement. Is anyone to blame? Announcing the delays, Mr McLoughlin blamed Network Rail. He announced that its current chairman, Richard Parry-Jones, would leave his position. David Cameron's official spokesman said the organisation's performance "hasn't been good enough". But Network Rail said the plans were too ambitious. Mark Carne told the BBC the challenges of delivering myriad improvement projects while still running a railway seven days a week were simply overwhelming. He said: "Rather than beating ourselves up over some rather arbitrary target, I think we should level with people and reset expectations around what we can deliver." Labour accused the Conservatives of waiting until after the general election before admitting upgrades could not go ahead as scheduled. Michael Dugher, the shadow transport secretary, also accused the government of trying to "shift all the blame" to Network Rail, adding: "This happened on the government's watch and the responsibility for this mess lies squarely with the government". What do consumer groups say? Transport Focus, the independent watchdog, said passengers would be "disappointed" by the announcement. Chief executive Anthony Smith said: "Long-term plans and investment are important and welcome, and passengers have put up with much inconvenience in the expectation of a better, more reliable, and more comfortable rail service. "What passengers will want now is a clear plan of action, setting out exactly when Network Rail will start to deliver some of the promised improvements. They want to know that somebody is getting to grips with this." What about the 'Northern Powerhouse'? The creation of a "Northern Powerhouse" has been a key part of the government's economic policy. In the Tory manifesto, electrification of the main rail routes featured under the Northern Powerhouse section. Labour frontbencher Hilary Benn said the pausing of that electrification scheme undermined the idea. The Leeds Central MP said: "You can't talk about the northern powerhouse and then shelve a project that would improve transport links between Leeds and Manchester." But the minister responsible, Andrew Jones, wrote in the Yorkshire Post on Friday: "This is a pause, not a stop, and this change to the team will strengthen it to make sure we deliver. We remain hugely ambitious and that is why the budget remains intact." What happens now? Much of the investment is still expected to go ahead, but at a slower pace and with a higher cost, BBC business editor Kamal Ahmed says. The Department for Transport says the Midland Mainline and Trans-Pennine electrifications have been paused - not scrapped - and the government remains committed to making them happen. Whitehall sources have also told Kamal Ahmed the plan is still to spend £38bn over five years - meaning the Tories do not break their manifesto pledge.

सरकार कई रेल आधुनिकीकरण परियोजनाओं की योजना में देरी कर रही है। लेबर का दावा है कि मतदाताओं के साथ "विश्वासघात" किया गया है, लेकिन मंत्रियों का कहना है कि उन्हें हाल ही में पता चला है कि वादा किए गए उन्नयन को रोकना होगा। मूल योजना क्या थी?


Mona Lisa is moving - what does it take to keep her safe?

Summary: She's one of the world's most recognisable faces, with a smile that's been printed on mugs, bags and T-shirts across the globe. But she's only left her country a handful of times, and has stayed in the same room for 14 years.

By Ashitha NageshBBC News We're talking about Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's Renaissance masterpiece that has been on display in the same room since 2005. But it's being moved overnight on Tuesday from its usual home, the Salle des États in the Louvre in Paris to another room in the same museum. From Wednesday until October, it will be displayed in the Galerie Médicis, so that the Salle des États can be renovated. Although the painting isn't going very far, moving it is still a delicate operation. Why is Mona Lisa being moved? The Louvre has been undergoing massive renovations for the past five years. The museum says more than 34,000 sq m (366,000 sq ft) has been renovated so far, including 17,579 sq m of gallery space. It's currently the turn of the Salle des États. Unsurprisingly, given its famous resident, the Salle des États is the Louvre's most-visited room - which means that it's suffered a fair bit of wear and tear in the 14 years since its last major refurbishment. You might also like to read: Work on the room actually began in January, but the renovators have so far been able to work around Mona Lisa. Now, they need to carry out work on the wall behind the painting. Another painting in the same room, Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, is going to stay in a protective case for the entire time the renovations are carried out. The Galerie Médicis, where Mona Lisa is moving, is one of the museum's largest rooms. Will it be hard to move Mona Lisa? The short answer is "yes" - but the long answer is, "not that much harder than most artworks". Catriona Pearson, exhibitions manager at the University of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, tells BBC News: "The risk doesn't change regardless of the value, we always move things in the same way - which is to say, very, very carefully!" She explains that gallery workers try to limit how much they move an artwork, and keep the number of people handling it to a minimum if they can, because "the more movement it goes through, the higher the risk is". And although Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez told AFP that the Galerie Médicis was only "100 paces" away from the Salle des États, there are still risks. People pose one big risk. This is why gallery workers try to arrange these moves for a time of day when there are fewer visitors. The Louvre, for example, chose to move Mona Lisa in the evening, after the museum had closed. Then, the workers do a trial run with a piece of wood that is roughly the same size and shape as the painting. When moving a painting within a museum, Ms Pearson says, "you look at your route in advance, and perhaps do a walk-through with whoever is going to be moving the object". "This is something we do sometimes if it's a particularly large painting, and we're not sure if it will fit through all the doors and lifts," she says. "We'll mock-up with plywood the shape of the object and do a walk-through to check, because sometimes angles going around corners and things are tighter than you'd expect. You can measure them, but until you try to walk the object round there, you're not going to find out." If you're moving an artwork abroad, Ms Pearson says, it's a bit more complicated. "For moving from one museum to another, and from one country to another, there's a whole new set of risks," she says. "You need to make sure that the object is going to be packed correctly using crates." You then need to decide how you want the object to be transported - by road or by air, for example - based on how fragile the artwork is. When the artwork arrives, it needs to get used to its new environment - especially if it's travelled overseas. So the artwork will be left in its crate to acclimatise. Altogether, this can take up to a year to plan for. Has Mona Lisa ever been sent abroad? Yes, but only a handful of times in recent history. The painting last left France in 1974, when it was loaned to Russia and to Japan. Some 11 years earlier it was loaned to Washington DC's National Gallery and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art - also known as the Met - for two blockbuster exhibitions that have gone down in history for how popular they were. According to the Met, then-French culture minister André Malraux was approached by First Lady Jackie Kennedy during an official trip to Washington in 1962, who asked him if the US could display Mona Lisa. He was open to the idea, but many in France protested, arguing that the journey across the Atlantic could damage the artwork. Fortunately, when it made the journey the following year, it survived - and saw tens of thousands of people queuing for hours in freezing cold temperatures just to catch a glimpse. Back in 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre by Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian gallery worker who thought it should be taken back to Italy. It eventually re-emerged in Florence two years later. Perhaps, some speculate, this is why the Louvre rejected a request from the city of Florence for a loan of the work in 2013.

वह दुनिया के सबसे पहचानने योग्य चेहरों में से एक है, एक मुस्कान के साथ जो दुनिया भर में मग, बैग और टी-शर्ट पर छपी हुई है। लेकिन वह केवल मुट्ठी भर बार अपना देश छोड़ चुकी है, और 14 साल तक एक ही कमरे में रही है।


Aston Martin plant funding by Welsh Government revealed

Summary: Aston Martin is receiving £5.8m in financial support from the Welsh Government as part of the deal to bring the luxury carmaker to the Vale of Glamorgan, it has been revealed.

By Brian MeechanBBC Wales business correspondent The funding is based on conditions including detailed development and financial plans and leasing a super-hanger at St Athan. The firm will build its new DBX model from 2020. The new plant will employ 750 highly-skilled workers. The information commissioner instructed the Welsh Government to release the details of the financial support given to the company. Ministers had initially refused to make the figure public. This was challenged through the Freedom of Information Act by businessman Tom Gallard. The £5.8m is "repayable business finance" according to the details released by the Welsh Government. Wales beat off more than 20 other countries to secure the deal, which was announced early last year. Mr Gallard, who runs a tech company, said: "I'm happy the Welsh Government has now released this information. It is an important principle that we must know how public funds are being spent."

एस्टन मार्टिन को लक्जरी कार निर्माता को वेल ऑफ ग्लैमॉर्गन में लाने के सौदे के हिस्से के रूप में वेल्श सरकार से 5.8 करोड़ पाउंड की वित्तीय सहायता मिल रही है, यह पता चला है।


Coronavirus: 'Why can I meet my mum in a pub but not her home?'

Summary: More than 1.8 million people in the West Midlands are under new lockdown restrictions . But with the main message being not to mix households and the introduction of the national "rule of six" coming at the same time, confusion has been rife. Here's what people in Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull and Wolverhampton can do now, and what they cannot - until infection rates come down.

By Rebecca WoodsBBC News, Birmingham In a nutshell, what are the new rules? If you live in Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull or Wolverhampton, you are not allowed to socialise with anyone outside your household in your house or garden - and you cannot go into anyone else's. The only other person you could socialise with in their house or garden would be a person you have formed a support bubble with - and that would have to be a person living on their own, or a single parent with children under 18. These rules do not just apply to you while you are in the West Midlands - people living in the affected areas cannot socialise in the homes or gardens of anyone else across the country. So what we can do? Pretty much everything else you could do since the national lockdown was loosened. If you live in the West Midlands you can continue going to pubs, restaurants, cafes, parks and attractions, and can do so with people from other households - provided you abide by the national "rule of six". You can also go to work, and children can continue going to school. Why are the rules so specific about houses and gardens? This is key to understanding the reasons for the local lockdown. Data has shown that, in the West Midlands, the virus has been spreading more rapidly because of contact with other families within each others' homes. "What we're seeing most strongly from the evidence is that people are meeting up behind closed doors and just forgetting to keep the two metres distance," explained Dr Justin Varney, director of public health at Birmingham City Council. "They're going in for a handshake or a hug. They're passing a plate of biscuits from each other and that's spreading the virus and we're particularly seeing that where people have gathered with multiple households behind closed doors, being the kind of epicentre of some of these clusters. That's not to say we haven't got clusters in other places, but the strongest evidence at the moment is for that and therefore we brought in additional regulations." But why is it OK to meet my mum in a pub but not her house? Pubs, restaurants, schools and workplaces have had to implement strict safety procedures such as one-way systems, hand gel stations and social distancing, and for this reason they are viewed as being a safer place to socialise than inside a home. "They've got to have a clear plan that keeps you safe," Dr Varney explained. "We're not seeing a huge amount of spread in those settings where they are managing them safely. Where they're not, yes we have seen some cases and we are doing stuff and all [the] councils are working together in terms of making absolutely crystal clear what we expect from hospitality." The situation in the West Midlands has been different to that of Bolton, where pubs and restaurants have been ordered to close because data there showed cases were rising mainly among young people socialising in venues around the town. But if the West Midlands cannot get its cases down, then it too could see hospitality venues penalised. "It depends on what we all do and how well we abide by this, how well we abide by the rule of six and the other guidelines that are out there," said Dr Varney. "We'll either stay here or we'll keep climbing the ladder and we may well end up like Bolton with a curfew, with takeaway only with almost full lockdown again. It's up to us to avoid that." And schools - why are health chiefs so certain they are safe? The Covid-19 safety plans at schools appeared to be working, said Dr Varney, despite some having to send class or year "bubbles" home after a confirmed case of coronavirus. "What we're not seeing at the moment is any clear evidence of spread within schools," he said. "What we are seeing is the evidence of the social stuff outside of schools like birthday parties. Multiple children have gone to the same birthday party and are testing positive and that's leading to three or four bubbles in the same school having to be sent home to isolate." Can people from Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull and Wolverhampton travel outside their towns and cities? Yes, you are free to travel anywhere and socialise with others outside of their household - but must not enter anyone's house or garden, and must always abide by the rule of six when out and about. And can we go on holiday? Yes you can. However, you must not stay in the same accommodation as another household - only with members of your own household or support bubble. "You treat it as a household unit - and you can go anywhere as that household unit," said Dr Varney. "But you can't go into anyone else's house or garden and you can't share accommodation - like a cottage or a caravan - with anyone that you don't live with." What about if I use family and friends for childcare - can that still continue? When the restrictions were first brought in, friends and relatives could not look after a child they did not live with. However, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has since announced an exemption to allow for formal and informal arrangements for looking after children under the age of 14. It came after Julian Knight, MP for Solihull, Saqib Bhatti, MP for Meriden, and others wrote to the government asking if the rule could be relaxed, saying parents would struggle to work without help looking after children. Can children stay with both parents if they don't live together? Yes, existing arrangements between children and parents living separately can continue as normal. Can I continue caring for a vulnerable person by going into their home? Yes, this is exempt from the restrictions. However, people are advised to keep visits short and to adhere to national guidelines for working inside another person's home. Can I hire a plumber or an electrician? If people are coming to your house to carry out paid employment, then that would be allowed under the rules, provided they followed national safety guidance such as social distancing. Although it probably feels a bit strange that you can welcome a TV repair man into your home but not your parents, it is based on what an unlikely event it would be for you to feel compelled to hug the person fixing your television. Estate agents are also able to continue showing people around homes, provided they follow guidelines such as wearing face coverings and minimising numbers of people inside houses. Mobile hairdressers, beauticians and cleaners can also continue working inside people's homes. When will this local lockdown end? Unfortunately, it is not as simple as reaching an ideal infection rate that will mean the restrictions are lifted. The chief medical officer, Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and the local authorities will continue to monitor the virus in the West Midlands, such as looking at how it is being transmitted, before deciding if the areas must remain on the national watch list. The situation will be updated every Friday, with details added here.

वेस्ट मिडलैंड्स में 18 लाख से अधिक लोग नए लॉकडाउन प्रतिबंधों के तहत हैं। लेकिन मुख्य संदेश घरों को मिलाने और एक ही समय में आने वाले राष्ट्रीय "छह के नियम" की शुरुआत के साथ, भ्रम व्याप्त है। यहाँ बर्मिंघम, सैंडवेल, सोलिहुल और वॉल्वरहैम्प्टन के लोग अब क्या कर सकते हैं, और वे क्या नहीं कर सकते-जब तक कि संक्रमण दर कम न हो जाए।


Girl, 15, dies after river incident in Llanrumney, Cardiff

Summary: A 15-year-old girl has died after an incident in a river in Cardiff.

Police, fire and ambulance services were called at about 17:20 BST on Friday after the teenager was seen in the River Rhymney in Ball Lane in the Llanrumney area of the city. She was found at about 18:40, South Wales Police said, and died despite the efforts of the emergency services. The police helicopter had also been deployed to search for the girl.

कार्डिफ में एक नदी में एक घटना के बाद एक 15 वर्षीय लड़की की मौत हो गई है।


Little Clacton murder charge in van death inquiry

Summary: A man has been charged with the murder of a man who died after being hit by a van.

Dean Clark, 41, died at the scene close to the Blacksmith's Arms pub in The Street in Little Clacton, Essex, at about 23:00 GMT on Friday. Craig Garton, 41, of Upper Branston Road, Clacton-on-Sea, was arrested a short time later and has now been charged with murder. He will appear before magistrates in Chelmsford on Monday. Related Internet Links HM Courts Service Essex Police

एक व्यक्ति पर एक व्यक्ति की हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है, जिसकी वैन की चपेट में आने से मौत हो गई थी।


Can India really halve its road deaths?

Summary: India has some of the world's most dangerous roads. Last year nearly 150,000 people died in traffic accidents, an increase of 50% in the past decade. But the government insists it can halve this figure in two years, while also embarking on one of the biggest road-building programmes the world has ever seen.

By Neal RazzellBBC News For a crash course in India's car-crash culture, go to Mumbai. There are more accidents here than any other Indian city. You'll witness a dangerous mix of pedestrians, scooters, cars, buses and lorries jostling through choked junctions. Many ignore both signals and the traffic police. Officers can do little about such rampant law-breaking. "We can catch a maximum of two offenders at a time - maximum," one shouts at me above the horns and revving engines at one particularly busy junction. "The rest," he says flicking his wrist, "just go. There are no consequences." Mumbai's commissioner of traffic police, Milind Bharambe, says this will soon end. From his cool office, flanked by monitors with live CCTV feeds of notorious accident spots, he explains how cameras will enforce the law electronically, targeting those who speed and run red lights. Combine that with the recent introduction of stiff new fines and within six months, he promises "a sea change" in driver behaviour. But bad driving and weak enforcement are only part of the problem. Another aspect of it is the rapidly growing number of vehicles - a new one joins the chaos every 10 seconds. It adds up to almost 9,000 new vehicles a day, or more than three million a year. This means that the streets are increasingly choked. It's almost impossible to leave a safe distance between vehicles, and when space does open up, frustrated drivers often respond by putting their foot down. Find out more Neal Razzall presents Fixing India's Car Crash Capital on Crossing Continents, at 11:00 BST on Radio 4 - catch up on BBC iPlayer Radio The problem is perhaps most acute in Mumbai, which is surrounded by water on three sides and has little room to grow. Officials here have in the past responded to the crush of cars by tearing out pavements to make room for more. "The government still thinks the major issue is 'How do we move people in cars faster and quicker?'" says Binoy Mascarenhas from the pedestrian advocacy movement, Equal Streets. In reality, he says most journeys are local and, in theory, can be done on foot. In theory. He grew up in Mumbai, and used to walk to school. His daughter now goes to school in a car because it's too dangerous to walk. Pavements, where they exist, are often in such a poor state people have to walk on the roads. No wonder then that pedestrians account for 60% of road deaths in Mumbai. There are dangers outside the city, too. India's first expressway, between the cities of Mumbai and Pune, opened in 2002. It has three wide lanes and room to move at high speed - a relief after the congestion of the city. But drive it with one of India's few professional crash investigators, Ravishankar Rajaraman, and a quiet terror settles in. He's studied thousands of crashes on this road and can point to dangers all around. "There are small, man-made engineering problems that are actually killing people," he says. Instead of rumble strips to warn drivers they're at the road's edge, there are black and yellow curb stones embedded into the concrete. Hit one of those, Shankar says, and your car can flip over. Then there are cliffs with no barriers, and guard-rails with tapered ends, which, he says, can send cars into the sky "like a rocket launcher". Things like this are happening all the time. The expressway is just 94km (58 miles) long but about 150 people die on it every year. "That's serious. That's a very bad number," Shankar says. He and his colleagues at JP Research have identified more than 2,000 spots on the expressway where relatively simple engineering fixes, from better barriers to clearer signs, could save lives. "Road engineers are not serious about this problem," Shankar says. "So we keep fighting with them on this point. How many deaths are you going to wait for, until you really understand that this is a serious concern?" In this context, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan for the biggest expansion of roads in Indian history is unnerving. In the next few years he wants to pave a distance greater than the circumference of the earth and there's a particular push to build highways and expressways. Piyush Tewari, CEO of the SaveLIFE Foundation, says that without putting the country on a "war footing", including a complete overhaul of road safety legislation and a modern road-building code, Modi's new roads will only add to the number of dead. "Road crash deaths will increase at the rate of one death for every 2km of new road that is constructed. That's the average death rate on Indian highways - one death every 2km, annually. So if we don't fix any of this, if we're constructing 100,000km of highways, 50,000 deaths is what the average maths tells us will be added to the total," he says. Modi's government insists the new roads will be safer. "We are improving the road engineering; we are improving the traffic signal system; we are making crash barriers", transportation minister, Nitin Gadkari, tells me. There is progress in other areas too. When Mumbai's commissioner of traffic police predicts a "sea change" in driver behaviour he is partly putting his faith in a new motor vehicle bill, now before parliament, which if passed would increase fines, toughen vehicle registration requirements and mandate road-worthiness tests for transport vehicles. And earlier this year, a Good Samaritan Act came into effect which ended the crazy situation whereby people who helped crash victims could be held liable for the costs of treating them or even accused by police of causing the crash in the first place. That alone, campaigners say, will save thousands of lives. More from the Magazine When a road accident occurs, bystanders will usually try to help the injured, or at least call for help. In India it's different. In a country with some of the world's most dangerous roads, victims are all too often left to fend for themselves. If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why (June 2016) The SaveLIFE Foundation estimates that half of all road deaths are the result of treatable injuries. That means 75,000 lives could be saved every year just with better medical care. One man trying to save some of those lives is Mumbai neurosurgeon Dr Aadil Chagla, who is working with volunteers to build a series of clinics along Highway 66, south of Mumbai - many of them in rural areas - to prevent victims having to be driven for hours to the city. The first is more than half-built. It looks out over rice paddies and lush hills, but Dr Chagla estimates it will be treating victims from "one or two crashes a day, every day". "If I can have an ambulance service and trauma centres every 50 to 100km run by the locals it would make huge difference to this entire highway - with or without government support," he says. Since Dr Chagla started practising in the 1980s, the number killed on India's roads has increased by 300%. "I waited all this time and nothing has really come through so it's important that I should do something about it," he says. So if transportation minister Nitin Gadkari is to make good on his promise to cut road deaths from 150,000 to 75,000 per year in two years, it will be thanks in part to the efforts of volunteers. The state corporation that owns the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, meanwhile, says it will reduce deaths to zero - yes, zero - by 2020. It has accepted the list of essential improvements identified by crash investigator Ravishankar Rajaraman and authorised them to be made and then audited by the SaveLIFE Foundation. But there's a snag, which suggests India is not yet on a "war footing" when it comes to safety. The state government owns the road, but a private company runs it in exchange for collecting tolls. The two sides dispute who should make the safety upgrades. The official in charge of the expressway says the work will be done, even if it requires litigation to recover the costs. While the dispute drags on, 100,000 vehicles use the expressway every day in its current, dangerous state. In the past week, it claimed six more lives. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

भारत में दुनिया की कुछ सबसे खतरनाक सड़कें हैं। पिछले साल यातायात दुर्घटनाओं में लगभग 150,000 लोगों की मौत हुई, जो पिछले दशक में 50 प्रतिशत की वृद्धि है। लेकिन सरकार का कहना है कि वह दो वर्षों में इस आंकड़े को आधा कर सकती है, जबकि दुनिया के अब तक के सबसे बड़े सड़क निर्माण कार्यक्रमों में से एक को भी शुरू कर रही है।


Northampton 'hit-and-run' leaves woman seriously hurt

Summary: A woman left lying in a road with serious injuries was the victim of a suspected hit-and-run, police said.

The 37-year-old was found on York Road, Northampton, close to 23:00 BST on Tuesday and told paramedics she had been hit by a car, which drove off. She was taken to hospital with serious head and pelvic injuries, Northamptonshire Police said. The force has appealed for witnesses or anyone with information about the incident to come forward. Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk Related Internet Links Northamptonshire Police

पुलिस ने कहा कि गंभीर चोटों के साथ सड़क पर पड़ी एक महिला एक संदिग्ध हिट-एंड-रन की शिकार हुई थी।


Robert Rauschenberg: Art pioneer and inspiration

Summary: Robert Rauschenberg produced some of the most distinctive American art of the second half of the 20th Century. Yet he was the most restless of artists - moving from traditional painting to print-making and sculpture. He was one of the first people to explore the relationship between art and technology. Tate Modern is staging the first major retrospective since Rauschenberg died in 2008.

By Vincent DowdArts reporter, BBC News Years before Damien Hirst first successfully split the cow, Rauschenberg used a full-sized angora goat in his 1955 work Monogram. The goat had once graced a textile company in New York which specialised in mohair. Yet Rauschenberg spotted its artistic possibilities. Six decades on, the goat greets visitors to the Tate's new show, still apparently oblivious to the car tyre which has somehow wedged around its middle. Also in 1955 the artist created Bed, a characteristic Rauschenberg "combine". Taking a pillow, a sheet and a quilt he merged them with a traditional oil-painting. Years later Tracey Emin would go a stage further with My Bed, throwing in her mattress - but not until 1998. Walking around Tate Modern's retrospective of the work of Rauschenberg (1925 - 2008) these are not the only cases where you think: "He got there first." Rauschenberg was Texan and was born into a family with a deep Christian faith. At 18 he was drafted into the US Navy and served as a medical orderly. Post-war he went to Paris to study art but disliked it. "Right place, wrong time," he observed. He returned to America. He was gay but nonetheless was married to a woman for three years from 1950. 'Long road to travel' David White is senior curator at the Rauschenberg Foundation. He's in London for the new show, which next May will travel to New York. "In 1965 when I first met Bob you immediately saw he was outgoing and open and convivial. He was always very serious about work but light-hearted in his engagement with other people. "At the same time he was concerned about the human condition and wanted to help right wrongs. But unlike some artists he was full of enthusiasm rather than gloom." White adds: "In 1964 he had won at the Venice Biennale - so he was aware he was esteemed. He was entering the mid-part of his career and finally making money. "But he still had a long road to travel and so much to explore." White points out a huge and extraordinary piece from 1966 called Mud Muse. A metal and glass tank, roughly three metres by four, is filled with soft bentonite clay which bubbles and pops as compressed air passes through. White says it's a good example of how Rauschenberg liked to work. 'His own artist' "Bob genuinely loved collaboration. It might be with another artist or with people in the theatre or with a choreographer like Merce Cunningham - but with Mud Muse he collaborated with a bunch of engineers to produce something unique. It's serious art - but also it's a comic, delightful, playful object." White can see why some pieces in the show get Rauschenberg labelled as part of pop art - pieces such as Triathlon or the well-known Retroactive II, which uses an image of President John F Kennedy and, like many Rauschenberg images, came from a magazine or newspaper. "But the label's really not accurate. Bob came after abstract expressionism, which had dominated American art after World War Two and he provides a partial link from there to pop art. He was his own artist." The curator of the exhibition for the Tate is Achim Borchardt-Hume. "In many ways the turning-point for Robert was after Paris at Black Mountain College (near Asheville in North Carolina). Black Mountain was a true laboratory - students were encouraged to work across many different disciplines. I suspect the parties were as important as classes - but there was also a very strong sense of discipline and of working out what you were good at," says Borchardt-Hume. "In terms of race or gender or sexuality or religion it was a wonderful mix of everything. And that's extraordinary given that at the time the area beyond the college was highly segregated." When Rauschenberg moved to a studio in Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan he had little money. 'Nothing he wouldn't try' "What he shared with the abstract expressionists was their ambition and heroic scale. So though he was younger than them, there's certainly a link," Borchardt-Hume says. "But he was never happy working in a single medium - there was almost nothing he wouldn't try. "When he was young he had been very shy and always felt he was a disappointment to his father. His sexuality must have been difficult, given his family background. "It seems his first relief from shyness was to go dancing. Marriage came early and it failed. But it produced a son, Christopher - now a photographer - and he remained friends with his wife Susan Weil. "Robert Rauschenberg was rather a political artist. Don't forget that he became a well-known name in the Sixties, with America changing around him. So his work often contains - quite literally - images from news magazines. They might be of Martin Luther King or an Army helicopter but they're redolent of the America he knew." He adds: "He thought that to be an artist was to play a role in the world. That and his early shyness may be why he was unusually keen on collaborating: he didn't believe being an artist meant leading a life of isolation." Borchardt-Hume says there are huge riches on display in the exhibition. But he's happy if the image of the Goat in the Tyre dominates how some visitors react. "It's one of those extraordinary moments where you think, 'how on earth did an artist arrive at this idea?'. Now, with everything that has happened in art since, we think it's quite all right. But I think at the time it must have seemed truly shocking." The Robert Rauschenberg exhibition runs at Tate Modern until 2 April and then at MoMA in New York from 21 May 2017. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

रॉबर्ट रॉशनबर्ग ने 20वीं शताब्दी के उत्तरार्ध में कुछ सबसे विशिष्ट अमेरिकी कला का निर्माण किया। फिर भी वे कलाकारों में सबसे अधिक बेचैन थे-पारंपरिक चित्रकला से प्रिंट बनाने और मूर्तिकला की ओर बढ़ते हुए। वे कला और प्रौद्योगिकी के बीच संबंधों का पता लगाने वाले पहले लोगों में से एक थे। 2008 में रॉशनबर्ग की मृत्यु के बाद से टेट मॉडर्न पहला प्रमुख पूर्वव्यापी प्रदर्शन कर रहा है।


The government's Heathrow problem

Summary: It is the most eagerly anticipated "decision" in Westminster for quite some time. Except when the metaphorical white smoke drifts up over SW1 the likely outcome is that the "decision" is not to make a decision yet at all.

Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter The politics of making a decision on building more runways in the South East of England were always going to be fraught - this time there's the London Mayoral election and a wannabe Tory Mayor, Zac Goldsmith who says he'll walk if Heathrow goes ahead. There are strong arguments put forward by Gatwick's supporters, concerns over air quality at the West London option, and the implacable opposition from several members of the Cabinet. By delaying, the government avoids a short term political problem and a pretty acute one at that. Yet these difficulties are precisely why the government set up the Davies Commission in the first place, independently, to look at the arguments in 2012, to try to take the politics out of a decision that has few political upsides, if any at all, in the short term. At the time, the government were accused of a fudge, putting off a decision until after the General Election. Well, tonight it looks like there will be a fudge on a fudge, more like the whole sweet shop. What is interesting is that ministers inside government I've been talking to are frustrated about the indecision, one told me it was "ludicrous". Another delay certainly is a coup for Gatwick, and will raise doubts about whether Heathrow will ever be a viable option - one minister said it made Heathrow a "dead horse". But in a wider sense, ignoring the findings of the Davies Commission creates another problem for the government. It was vaunted as the model for making big decisions that the government professes to really care about. George Osborne told the BBC it was exactly the way he wanted his new Infrastructure Commission to work, that the Davies process had been a success. Under Lord Adonis's leadership, that Infrastructure Commission is meant to be getting down to business to make independent recommendations on the big projects that the country needs to be competitive. It doesn't say much for the shiny new model if the government leaves Davies's Heathrow one on the shelf.

यह वेस्टमिंस्टर में काफी समय से सबसे बेसब्री से प्रतीक्षित "निर्णय" है। सिवाय इसके कि जब रूपक सफेद धुआं एस. डब्ल्यू. 1 के ऊपर बहता है तो संभावित परिणाम यह है कि "निर्णय" अभी तक कोई निर्णय नहीं लेना है।


Turning Point USA: Are conservatives fighting back on campus?

Summary: A conservative group for US students, formed less than six years ago, has 1,200 branches and a $10m budget. So who are they?

By Owen AmosBBC News, Omaha, Nebraska On a sunny day in middle America, a line of students with Colgate smiles stand behind a table of apple pie. In front of them, passers-by throw balls into buckets. If the ball goes in, they take a slice. The students are here to sell. But they're not selling a product, or event, or even a pie. They're selling a message. "The US army purchased a mega blimp for $297m - but never even used it!" says one bucket. "The federal government is spending $2.6m over five years...to make sure prostitutes in China drink less on the job!" claims another. Under the buckets, a poster sums up their message in three words: "Big government sucks." Welcome to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and the campus chapter of Turning Point USA. Officially, the non-profit group promotes "freedom, free markets, and limited government". Unofficially, it wants to blow the dust off conservatism. Turning Point pre-dates Donald Trump's presidency - it was formed in 2012 - and is non-partisan. They support conservatism, rather than the Republican Party. Some of the Creighton chapter - including the founder - didn't vote for Mr Trump, and the treasurer is a Democrat. But nationally, there are links between Turning Point and the president. Donald Trump Jr is friends with the group's founder, Charlie Kirk, and spoke at a Turning Point event in Florida in December. Soon afterwards, the president thanked Mr Kirk in a tweet. There are also shades of Mr Trump in the group's messaging. Big and bold. Short and simple. Uncomplicated and - above all - unapologetic. In Omaha, a poster says: "I am not a victim". A sticker shouts: "Socialism sucks". This is active, go-get-em conservatism; proselytizing politics for the Instagram age. The chapter's president, 21-year-old Malia Shirley, encourages her team to engage passers-by. Some take a sticker, or a piece of pie. Others take issue. Shannon Chamling is a 19-year-old from southern California - "a very liberal area," she says - and wants to complain about a cake sale. Last year, Malia and her team tried to organise an "affirmative action" cake sale on campus (affirmative action favours groups who have suffered discrimination; all-women shortlists are an example). The cake sale idea came from Turning Point HQ's 51-page chapter handbook. The 2016 handbook recommends different prices for different races: "$2 for white...$.50 for black...free for Native American." The point, says Turning Point, is to "demonstrate the unfairness and inadvertent racism of affirmative action". Malia decided to charge everyone the same, but include a card with every sale. The university approved the event, but some students complained. It was divisive and racist, they said. It should be cancelled. The protesters threatened to blockade the sale. In the campus newspaper, one student wrote that he "died just a little bit inside, knowing that Turning Point USA is allowed at Creighton". The university called Malia. We are not telling you to stop, they said, but we are asking. Reluctantly, she cancelled. "I was extremely disappointed," says Malia. Shannon, the student taking issue, thinks affirmative action is a good thing. "It helps people of colour and a lot of women, so I am in favour of that," she says. Despite that, her 10-minute conversation with Turning Point is calm, considered, and respectful. They agree to disagree. She is glad they're on campus. "Having both sides, and every viewpoint, is really important," she says. "Especially the way the last [presidential] election went - both sides screaming at each other, without very much listening." Malia welcomes conversations with liberals like Shannon. It's one of the reasons Turning Point exists, she says. But, she adds, those conversations are rare. "We want people to come up and talk about the ideas," she says. "If they disagree, totally fine. But that's never the case. They just want to shut us down, shut us down, shut us down." A day after the pie event, the Creighton chapter hold their monthly meeting. Nineteen people turn up; seven are women. There's free pizza at the front. Malia, wearing a Socialism Sucks t-shirt, begins with a clip from Fox News: Candace Owens, Turning Point's director of urban engagement, debating Jehmu Greene, a Democrat. Members pitch for next month's leadership election, before debating that day's campus protest (around 200 staff and students joined a 17-minute walkout, calling for action after February's school shooting in Florida). Some think the staff should have stayed - "We're paying them to be here," says one - while others think they had a right to protest. It's a good-natured debate. At Creighton, it seems, Turning Point is a broad church. When asked what their political priority is, the answers vary: immigration; fiscal responsibility; free speech; law and order; anti-abortion; others. When asked what media they use, there's also variety: New York Times; Breitbart; Buzzfeed; Daily Wire; Drudge Report; Ben Shapiro's podcast. But, when asked if there's liberal bias on campus, the answer is unanimous. Yes, they say, there is - even at Creighton, a Catholic university with $38,000 annual tuition fees (£27,000). Many have lost friends over their conservatism. Others feel essays are marked down for raising right-wing ideas. One student from Texas says a professor called Trump voters "uneducated rednecks": at the time, the student had a Trump sticker on her laptop. The chapter's founder, Justin Carrizales, sits at the back, smiling. This is familiar ground. When he alleged liberal bias at Creighton, it made national news. Justin is a smiling 22-year-old from Chicago who speaks in rapid-fire sentences. He wears shorts and a National Rifle Association T-shirt; on the back, it says "Keep calm and carry guns". He was raised in a Democratic family, with Democratic teachers and friends, but grew up more right-wing. At high school, he started calling himself conservative, and enjoyed challenging teachers in class. "I would try to have a conversation with them - this is the other side - because we weren't getting that," he says. When he went to college in 2014, a Turning Point member in Iowa - just across the Missouri river from Nebraska - asked if he would start a chapter at Creighton. "I was like yes, absolutely, I'd love to," says Justin. He liked Turning Point's support for fiscal responsibility - the US public debt is over $20 trillion - and its non-partisan stance. "It was always principles over people [candidates], and principle over party," he says. "I enjoy that so much more, because I consider myself a conservative before a Republican." After proving interest in a Turning Point chapter, Justin went to the college for approval. They turned him down, saying he missed the deadline (he says they agreed to a late filing). "But I was like, simple enough, I'll submit again," says Justin. And then came the multiple-choice Trump question. In 2015, one of Justin's English professors included a bonus question on a test. It asked whether Donald Trump was a) a fool, b) already in hell, c) a clown, d) all of the above, e) an evil man, f) the anti-Christ. Justin took a picture, and the story was picked up by media across the country. Creighton said the question was an attempt at humour and didn't represent the university's views. Soon afterwards, Justin's second attempt to get Turning Point approved on campus was turned down. "They rejected it outright," he says. "All of a sudden there was a target not only on my back, but the organisation's." (The university says it did not attempt to silence Turning Point). Turning Point was finally approved at Creighton in 2017, and is free to host events. Even so, Justin says some conservatives don't feel comfortable on campus. "I would hate to take away from the gay community, and the struggles they have, but I relate to it," he says. "Students come up to me, or they message me. They're saying: 'Hey, I support you. Keep doing what you're doing. I would totally love to be involved, but I can't, because I'm scared, or I'm worried." Scared of what? "The most worrisome thing, which comes out again and again, is their worry about professors," says Justin. "And they want to feel comfortable around friends. Anyone in this room could probably tell you - people look at you differently." Turning Point was founded by an 18-year-old from the Chicago suburbs, Charlie Kirk, in 2012. Since then, it has attracted - or sought - controversy. In November 2016, it published a list of teachers who, allegedly, discriminate against conservatives and push left-wing propaganda. It was called the Professor Watchlist. So far, 258 people are on it. Critics call it sinister; McCarthyist, even. Turning Point calls it a "free speech response to radical leftist professors who are silencing opposing student viewpoints". Either way, that muscular, chest-out conservatism has proved popular. Turning Point has groups on more than 1,200 US campuses - high school and college - with 450 officially recognised by their school. Wealthy donors provide a $10m budget, and there are more than 100 staff. In February, the Creighton chapter hosted a talk with Ben Shapiro - a 34-year-old conservative commentator and rock star of the right-wing. They expected to sell 400 tickets; they actually sold 2,000. "After we announced we were bringing him in, I started getting emails, Facebook messages, DMs on Twitter," says Malia. "People were saying, 'I'm so excited a conservative speaker is coming. I'm conservative but I never want to say it.' It shows that it [conservatism] is not unpopular - just quiet." So is this a trend? Are we seeing the start of a conservative fight-back? At the very least, says Justin Carrizales, there is a push-back. "Conservatives have been pushed around too much, to where they feel the need to push back, and there needs to be some sort of counter-culture," he says. So conservatism is the new counter-culture? "Yeah! Which is kind of crazy, because liberals were at some point a counter-culture to a traditional, conservative country, right? Now, the conservatives are doing the exact same thing." Statement in full from Creighton University: "The Creighton University chapter of Turning Point USA met all the requirements of our Student Organization Review Committee in its most recent application to form a student organisation. "Creighton University did not, at any time, attempt to silence Turning Point USA's opinions or right to form a chapter. "We simply asked the group to follow the same regulations and submission guidelines as any other group, and the initial application contained insufficient information. "In addition, the university provided support to TPUSA when Creighton students asked to use one of our facilities to host a lecture by Ben Shapiro, including moving the event to a larger venue."

छह साल से भी कम समय पहले गठित अमेरिकी छात्रों के लिए एक रूढ़िवादी समूह की 1,200 शाखाएँ और 10 मिलियन डॉलर का बजट है। तो वे कौन हैं?


Who are Los Topos, Mexico's volunteer rescuers?

Summary: They were formed spontaneously in response to a huge earthquake in 1985. Since then, Mexican volunteer rescuers known as the Topos - Moles - have helped in earthquakes from Iran to Nepal. Now, they are needed back at home.

The devastating 1985 earthquake struck on 19 September, the very same day as the one this year. It flattened 30,000 buildings in Mexico City and killed an estimated 10,000 people. The Topos volunteers began to lift rubble, look for signs of life and pull people out, assisting the stretched and overwhelmed emergency services. The next year, there was an earthquake in El Salvador and some of Los Topos headed south to help the neighbouring country in need. They have since earned a reputation worldwide, and have assisted after earthquakes in Japan (1995), Colombia (1999), Haiti (2010) and Nepal (2015), among others, and in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami. They travel with small tools - pickaxes and saws, for instance. Now their skills are in need at home again. Although many people have come together to assist with the earthquake rescue, these groups are different; they have specialised knowledge, as they keep up training throughout the year in the earthquake-prone country. They come from many professions but are still an unpaid force, and they work closely with firefighters and paramedics. They receive regular training in first aid, moving through and around collapsed buildings, climbing, managing search and rescue dogs, and fighting fires. Their signal is well known in Mexico: Arms in the air, balled fists. It means: Be quiet. We think we hear someone. Asking for silence like that dates back to the earthquake in 1985. One of the rescuers later told the BBC (in Spanish): "I remember that the volunteers formed human chains and I watched with curiosity how they asked for silence to try to listen to the people who had been trapped. "The government was overwhelmed," the rescuer, Eduardo Acevedo, continued. "We had to organise ourselves. "When people saw that this small group was taking people out of the rubble, they started calling us moles. "We were the only ones who were ready to act in situations of risk." On the website of one of the two groups that now carry the Los Topos name, they say: "To be a Topo, all you need is to want to help people, be tenacious and brave, and have the disposition to want to protect and help."

वे 1985 में एक बड़े भूकंप के जवाब में अनायास बने थे। तब से, टोपोस-मोल्स के रूप में जाने जाने वाले मैक्सिकन स्वयंसेवक बचावकर्ताओं ने ईरान से नेपाल तक भूकंपों में मदद की है। अब, उन्हें घर पर वापस लाने की आवश्यकता है।


Limousin heifer named Royal Manx Agricultural Show supreme champion

Summary: A cow has been named as supreme champion at the Isle of Man's largest agricultural show for a second time.

Crosby farmer Lee Cain's two-year-old Limousin heifer won the Royal Manx Agricultural Show's top prize on Saturday, having previously taken the title as a calf in 2016. Mr Cain said he was "absolutely delighted" to have won again. More than 20,000 people attended the show at Knockaloe Farm in Patrick on Friday and Saturday.

आइल ऑफ मैन के सबसे बड़े कृषि प्रदर्शनी में एक गाय को दूसरी बार सर्वोच्च चैंपियन के रूप में नामित किया गया है।


Surveillance law prompts unease in France

Summary: A new French law to beef up intelligence-gathering in the face of Jihadist violence is being opposed by an alliance of internet operators, defenders of civil liberties, journalists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris They say it is a dangerous extension of government power that authorises mass surveillance and threatens the independence of the digital economy. One place the law does not face opposition - at least not in any significant measure - is the French parliament. On Tuesday, the text goes to a vote in the National Assembly, where it is assured of a comfortable majority. Most members of the opposition UMP have said they are in favour, and among the ruling Socialists there are few discordant voices. Thanks to a fast-track procedure chosen after the Paris attacks in January, the law will go quickly before the Senate and should be on the statute books by July. The political consensus is what remains of the "spirit of 11 January" - the mass demonstration of national unity triggered by January's Islamist terror. When Prime Minister Manuel Valls assured that the new law "has no resemblance to the Patriot Act" in the US and "offers concrete guarantees for our compatriots such as they have never had before in the matter of intelligence-gathering", MPs showed little inclination to argue. Increasing doubts Only a handful of deputies aired the doubts that are increasingly being heard in the extra-parliamentary sphere. One dissident Socialist, Pouria Amirshahi, warned that the context - the aftermath of the Charlie-Hebdo and HyperCacher killings - made it impossible to debate the law with due objectivity. "Today if you express the slightest reserve over the text, you are practically accused of abetting terrorism," he said. And it was left - oddly - to the Front National's Marion Marechal Le Pen to make the case for civil liberties. "I cannot vote for this law because I cannot tell the French that their security comes at a cost to their freedom," she said. The new law is officially intended to update the legislative framework inside which the security services do their work, taking account of the latest changes in technology. Main provisions of the new law: But on all three main points of the new law, the voices of concern are increasingly loud. The text of the law lays out a series of areas in which France's six different security agencies may act. Some of these are uncontroversial, such as "prevention of terrorism" and "national defence". Confused implications But what, say critics, of "major foreign policy interests"? Does that allow spying on opposition movements in other countries? Or "industrial and scientific interests"? Would that allow agents to eavesdrop on journalists investigating major French companies? The biggest confusion is over the nebulous expression "Prevention of attacks on the Republican form of institutions". Pierre Lellouche - one of the few UMP deputies to oppose the text - says this could in theory have been used against the students in May 1968 or protesters in the general strike of 1995. As for the new CNCTR, it will - according to the government - have extra powers to control electronic eavesdropping and act for aggrieved citizens. It will have the right to launch investigations with access to classified documents and take cases of abuse to the State Council (France's highest administrative court). But sceptics say these powers are meaningless. Though intelligence agencies will have to present plans for approval to the CNCTR, its advice is non-binding because it can be over-ruled by the prime minister. In addition, there are provisions in the law for emergency surveillance that bypass the CNCTR altogether, while citizens who want to go to court will in practice find it almost impossible to establish grounds for action. There are worries about new listening devices such as IMSI-catchers, the briefcase-sized computers that by replicating a relay-station sweep up all mobile calls in the vicinity. But by far the loudest opposition - because it comes from commercial interests as well as rights groups - is over internet-based data collection. The law will allow intelligence-gatherers to install so-called "black boxes" on internet service providers (ISPs). Using a computer algorithm, these can trawl through billions of communications in search of suspicious activity that can then be analysed more thoroughly. Government insistence that there is no mass intrusion of privacy because the information initially gleaned is all "metadata" - ie dates, times and places rather than actual content - has failed to convince opponents. The internet company Mozilla is the latest to join the campaign. In a statement, it said the government proposals "threaten internet infrastructure, user privacy, and data security". A group of digital start-ups called NiPigeonsNiEspions (Neither suckers nor spies) has warned that some companies could relocate outside France because of the loss of credibility among foreign partners. "Putting the internet under massive surveillance will undermine France's digital future, along with its jobs and hope for the French economy," it says. No distinctions And defenders of civil liberties say in a petition that the new system would "hoover up without distinction everything which appears on the French web". "Contrary to the denials of the government, it is indeed generalised surveillance," the petition says. Adrienne Charnet, of the group La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net), said: "The whole population will be profiled and then according to some unknown criteria - Do I encrypt my mail? Do I know the wrong person? Is my behaviour abnormal? - I can be declared suspect. "It is also ludicrous to say the metadata is not private. These days metadata can say as much about my habits as the inside of a message does." President Francois Hollande has now said that the text will be brought before the Constitutional Council (the august body which rules on the constitutionality of laws), which may well insist on some changes. It is an odd initiative because as head of state he chaired the cabinet meeting where the text was first approved and so presumably believed back then that it was in order. Normally it is parliamentary opponents who challenge aspects of a new law. But it is a sign that the campaign is having an effect. Parliamentary opposition may have been hushed by the post-Charlie urge for consensus. But in the land, the doubters are taking the lead.

जिहादी हिंसा का सामना करते हुए खुफिया जानकारी जुटाने के लिए एक नए फ्रांसीसी कानून का इंटरनेट ऑपरेटरों, नागरिक स्वतंत्रता के रक्षकों, पत्रकारों और गैर-सरकारी संगठनों (एन. जी. ओ.) के एक गठबंधन द्वारा विरोध किया जा रहा है।


Halifax stab death: Boy arrested on suspicion of woman's murder

Summary: A 16-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a woman who was stabbed to death in Halifax.

Police were called by paramedics treating the 23-year-old woman on Cumberland Close at about 05:30 BST. She was taken to hospital where she died from her injuries. Det Supt Nicola Bryar said: "Clearly people will be shocked by the nature of this incident and we are doing all we can to provide additional support and reassurance to the local community." She appealed for anyone with information to contact police. Related Internet Links West Yorkshire Police

हैलिफ़ैक्स में चाकू मारकर हत्या की गई एक महिला की हत्या के संदेह में एक 16 वर्षीय लड़के को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Festive fun or hopping mad: Is Easter the new Christmas?

Summary: There was a time when Easter meant a Sunday roast, strange homemade bonnets, a visit to Church and lots of chocolate. But with shops now offering trees, wreaths and crackers, is it becoming spring's answer to Christmas?

By Laura LeaBBC News Fresh flowers. White napkins. Fruit tarts. The dinner table for Good Housekeeping's Easter photo shoot was light, bright, and traditional. But look closely, and there's something unusual on the plates: sky blue Easter crackers. Carolyn Bailey is homes and garden editor for the magazine. She said more people were buying decorations for Easter than ever before. "Easter is becoming like a second Christmas," she said. Retailers have hopped on the trend. A number of supermarkets - including Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose - are stocking Easter crackers this year. Poundland have also got in on the action, offering everything from bunny banners to carrot-shaped fairy lights. Meanwhile Tesco, M&S and John Lewis are selling egg-speckled wreaths. Eggs are no longer just made of chocolate, but are painted and covered in beads, sparkles or pom-poms. And where do you hang these egg-cellent trinkets? On an Easter tree of course. Varying arrays of twigs - often painted white - are laden with colourful eggs and bunnies. There are more than 16,000 posts for #Eastertree on Instagram and thousands more on Pinterest. And if your garden doesn't have much in the way of Instagram-able branches, a number of High Street stores are selling the skeletal trees ready for decorating. Decorated eggs are not a new phenomenon. House of Fabergé set the standard back in 1842. Eggs themselves have been associated with the Christian tradition for even longer. They symbolise both new life and the empty tomb. Canon Sarah Rowland Jones is from the Church in Wales. "In many ways Easter is the more important Christian festival," she says. "People should be given cause to remember what it's all about. "If making more of Easter makes people look beyond the caricature of Christianity - at what is at the heart of what more than two billion people around the world practise - then it's a good thing." Easter continues to be the second-biggest retail event in the UK after Christmas. Market researcher, Mintel, estimated Easter to be worth £550 million to UK retailers in 2016. Craft giant, Hobbycraft has seen sales of its Easter range soar almost 44% compared to last year. Included in the range is a faux grass bunny which has completely sold out. Meanwhile, fillable egg characters are up 93% compared to 2016. Anna Protherough, a seasonal buyer for the retailer, said: "More and more, people are looking for reasons to celebrate and because of this, seasonal events such as Halloween and Easter are becoming bigger and bigger." Hobbycraft says "decorating the home for Easter is bigger than ever before" and that homeowners are inspired by crafters like American businesswoman Martha Stewart. Ms Stewart's online project tutorials currently include "cosmic painted eggs" and "How to fold a napkin into a bunny". But if all this has got you hopping mad, Amazon has just the slogan t-shirt for you: "I don't carrot all."

एक समय था जब ईस्टर का मतलब रविवार को भूनना, घर में बने अजीब बोनट, चर्च जाना और बहुत सारी चॉकलेट होती थी। लेकिन अब दुकानों में पेड़, माला और पटाखे चढ़ाए जाने के कारण, क्या यह क्रिसमस के लिए वसंत का जवाब बन रहा है?


In pictures: Parsons Green Tube train 'terror' blast

Summary: An explosion on a Tube train in south-west London injured a number of people.

Witnesses reported panicked scenes as a result of the blast at 08:20 BST at Parsons Green station on the District Line on Friday. A white bucket inside a supermarket bag was photographed inside the carriage, although it did not cause extensive damage. Police are treating it as a terror attack. An 18-year-old was arrested at the port of Dover on Saturday morning in connection with the incident.

दक्षिण-पश्चिम लंदन में एक ट्यूब ट्रेन में हुए विस्फोट में कई लोग घायल हो गए।


Egyptian Christians living in fear for the future

Summary: At the ancient Monastery of St Mina in the desert sands of Egypt, a low concrete tomb holds the remains of Christians slaughtered for their faith - not in Roman times, but earlier this month.

By Orla GuerinBBC News, Alexandria They were among almost 50 people killed in co-ordinated attacks at two churches. The bombings - on Palm Sunday - were claimed by the so-called Islamic State (IS). Priests at the monastery say persecution is as old as the faith. "The history of the Christians is like this," said Father Elijah Ava Mina, his flowing white beard contrasting with his black robes. "Jesus told us 'narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way'." The burial chamber now holds seven coffins but there is space for more. Future attacks look all but guaranteed. The Egyptian branch of IS has said Christians are its "favourite prey". The beleaguered minority accounts for an estimated 10% of the country's population of 90m, which is predominantly Muslim. Most Christians here belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which traces its roots to the Apostle Mark. IS struck at the historic heart of the faith. One of its targets was the oldest church in Egypt - St Mark's Cathedral in the port of Alexandria. 'My son' When the bomber came to the wrought iron gates of the cathedral, Gergis Bakhoom had just left. Back at his tiny tailor's shop the 82-year old got word of the explosion. He rushed to hospital in time to witness his oldest son, Ibrahim, take his last breath. "He was gasping for air," he said, mimicking the act. "After that they got a sheet and covered him and sent him to the morgue. I saw it with my own eyes. He should have buried me," he wept. "Instead I buried him." Father and son toiled together, sharing a sewing machine. "He had a goal in his life," said Mr Bakhoom. "He worked hard, stitch by stitch, to support his children." The grief here is fused with anger. After the first attack that day, at a church in the city of Tanta, Christians beat a senior police official in the street - enraged that IS could strike their community again. The extremists killed about 30 mass-goers in Cairo last December. 'We have no value' The latest bombings robbed Marian Abdel Malak of her three of her loved ones, including her 18-year old brother, Bishoy. Lately he had been going to church often and had told his family he wanted to die as a Christian martyr. They are all waiting their turn to do the same, according to Marian. "If things stay like this and we don't get our rights we definitely have no future," said the 26-year old. "We would be better off dead because we don't have any place anywhere in the country - in schools, or in government departments. We don't have any value." The authorities should have tightened security back in 2011, according to Bishoy's friend, Sandro George, when some two dozen people were killed in another church bombing in Alexandria. "If they seriously wanted to secure the churches and fend off any dangers that would have happened then," he said. "After that blast there were only two officers guarding the church." Security has been stepped up after the most recent attacks. Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi announced a three-month state of emergency and deployed the military near churches. But some Christians warn that when the headlines fade, the security will too. Papal visit As worshippers flocked to St Mark's for a recent mass, troops in an armoured vehicle were stationed at a corner nearby. A few hours later - with crowds still arriving for the lengthy service - the armoured vehicle was already gone. Beleaguered Copts say their community is at risk not only from IS, but also from sectarian tensions and long-standing discrimination. A law introduced last year has made it harder to even build a church, according to Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher on the issue of religious freedom. If Christians try to gather together to pray at home, he says, they can be burned out of their houses. As they grieve for their new dead, Christians here are preparing for a visit from Pope Francis, who is coming to Egypt on a "mission of peace". The pontiff will find new fears for the future in one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. But some are drawing strength from their suffering. "I am not afraid," said Nadia Nazeem, Bishoy's mother, her voice almost extinguished by grief. "Bad things happened, are happening and will happen in the future. But I will not stop going to the church. I will go to all the churches."

मिस्र के रेगिस्तानी रेत में सेंट मीना के प्राचीन मठ में, एक कम ठोस मकबरे में ईसाइयों के अवशेष हैं जिन्हें उनके विश्वास के लिए मार दिया गया था-रोमन काल में नहीं, बल्कि इस महीने की शुरुआत में।


Two men die after car crashes into building in Leven

Summary: Two men have died after their car crashed into a building in Fife.

The accident happened on the Windygates Road in Leven at about 03:00. Police Scotland confirmed the two men aged 27 and 29 were pronounced dead at the scene. The road is currently closed while officers carry out an investigation into the crash. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said it had assisted in the incident but had now left the scene.

फाइफ में एक इमारत में उनकी कार के दुर्घटनाग्रस्त होने से दो लोगों की मौत हो गई है।