The strange virtual world of 4chan

Summary: Coventry cat tormentor Mary Bale has become the latest victim of 4chan - a website credited with creating some of the web's biggest phenomena, whose users wreak havoc across cyberspace. Just what is it all about?

By Jon Kelly and Jude SheerinBBC News When CCTV footage emerged of a middle-aged lady stroking a cat before dumping it in a wheelie bin, millions were outraged. But in one murky corner of the internet, the scent of blood was detected. En masse, an army of cyber-pranksters swung into action and culprit Mary Bale was initially outed not by the forces of Fleet Street but by users of an online community. According to reports, they quickly established her identity, her workplace and her employer's phone number. Death threats and prank calls quickly followed. It was the latest headline-grabbing prank from 4chan, an iconoclastic US site that has given the world such web staples as lolcats and Rickrolling. It claims 22 million page impressions every day and 9.5 million unique users every month. Other sites, such as eBaum and Something Awful, may thrive on similar viral material or "memes", but none have become as notorious as 4chan. The anarchic messageboard, which was originally set up to discuss Japanese anime and manga, has also become distinguished by its lawlessness, obscene content and vindictive campaigns - and is definitely not safe for reading at work. Less savoury campaigns staged by users have included flooding YouTube with pornography under the guise of teen-pop videos, googling Canadian pop star Justin Bieber's name en masse alongside the word "syphilis" to push the combination up the search engine's rankings, and inserting a virtual giant swastika constructed from avatars into a children's online computer game. Rob Manuel of B3ta.com, a British website founded on similar, albeit more whimsical lines, says 4chan's success has been founded on turning "trolling" - essentially, annoying other internet users - into an art form. "It's the equivalent of all the kids at the back of the classroom passing each other notes and being sarcastic," he adds. "Essentially, it's about taking trolling to the nth degree and saying: 'Let's put all the trolls in one place and see what happens.'" Browsers who are easily offended are best advised to steer clear of the site, which has virtually no rules other than a ban on images of child abuse. Racist, homophobic and pornographic content are all regular themes on its "random" or "/b/" messageboard. Users can post without having to register or provide a name, and the "Anonymous" tag has become a blanket term for online users acting collectively. The tag has also become synonymous with online mischief makers engaging in stunts like targeting other websites by flooding their bandwidth. Nonetheless, 4chan's most popular behests to the broader online community have been relatively innocent. Lolcats - images of anthropomorphic felines captioned with mis-spelt web-speak ("im in ur bed zleepin" and so on) - made their first appearance on the site, during its regular "Caturday" slot, but went on to dominate blogs and sites the length and breadth of the internet. And Rickrolling - tricking other web users into following a link, which turns out to be the video to Rick Astley's 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up - became a massively popular prank, with the song's YouTube video having generated more than 36 million views. But not all stunts originating from the site's users have been so harmless. In 2009 YouTube was forced to remove hundreds of pornographic videos apparently uploaded by 4chan users. The footage was uploaded under the names of teenage pop favourites such as Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers, and clips typically began with footage of their videos before groups of adults performing graphic sex acts filled the screen. Another 4chan favourite is Pedobear, a harmless-looking ursoid cartoon character who, despite his loveable appearance... you get the idea. Other 4chan stunts have been loosely political in character, including Project Chanology, a movement that protests against the practices of the Church of Scientology. Using the "Anonymous" persona, its tactics have included urging users to google the phrase "Scientology is a cult", pushing it to the top of Google Hot Trends, as well as staging real-world protests. In response, the Church of Scientology has labelled them "terrorists" guilty of "hate crimes". Despite its anarchic, Wild West nature, 4chan does have a leader, of sorts - a poster called moot. He is New Yorker Christopher Poole, who set up the site while a 15-year-old living at home with his mum. At first, he says, he was simply offering fans of anime and manga somewhere to post pictures, but the anonymity, the lack of an archive and the very basic board design created a "breeding pit" for memes and edgy humour. Wisely, Mr Poole does not defend every excess perpetuated by members of the community, and admits that his 55-year-old mother "wouldn't necessarily understand" something like Pedobear. He says the trolls have been called "an internet hate machine", but insists that "for the most part it's a lot more bark than bite". Mr Poole adds: "They like to get a reaction but they like to do it from the comfort of their chair at home in the basement. For the most part 4channers are more or less decent people, they're not going to go too crazy. "The conversation that takes place on the site is raw and unfiltered, when people contribute anonymously you get their innermost self they express things they would otherwise be shy to do in a forum where they could be identified, I'm a fan of the conversation that results, for better for worse." Of course, not everyone believes the worst of 4chan is excused by its best. Technology journalist Jack Schofield says the community can fulfil a useful function, outwitting the mainstream media when it fails to understand technology - but the anonymity and lack of restraint means members frequently cross the line. "I regard it as something of a court jester, able to get away with things that normally people can't get away with," he says. "The problem with it is that it can easily go too far. But re-routing Justin Bieber fans to porn just isn't acceptable." What seems certain is that 4chan will continue to shape digital culture for some time yet. But if you are tempted to visit the site, don't say you haven't been warned.

कोवेंट्री कैट टॉरमेंटर मैरी बेल 4चान की नवीनतम शिकार बन गई हैं-एक वेबसाइट जिसे वेब की कुछ सबसे बड़ी घटनाओं को बनाने का श्रेय दिया जाता है, जिसके उपयोगकर्ता साइबरस्पेस में कहर बरपा रहे हैं। बस यह सब किस बारे में है?


Aluminium: The metal that just keeps on giving

Summary: Two hundred years ago, no-one knew aluminium existed. Today it is everywhere - in cans, window frames, packaging, even car bodies. New uses for it are constantly being discovered - but it's possible that one day we'll be able to stop mining the ore, and rely completely on recycling.

By Laurence Knight and Tim Bowler BBC News Aluminium has a split personality. It may look dull, but it is one of the most reactive metals in the periodic table. "Aluminium fires are quite terrifying," says Andrea Sella, chemistry professor at University College London. "When you take aluminium and you burn it, you get a very, very intense fire." From that point of view, it may not be ideal for aircraft construction - but this disadvantage is outweighed by its strength, flexibility and exceptional lightness. The soft, malleable metal's alter ego is aluminium oxide, which forms a skin on the pure metal the moment it is exposed to air (and makes it unlikely that an aircraft will catch fire). This oxide is so hard that it is used to make sandpaper and other abrasive materials. Among gemstones, sapphires - crystals formed from the oxide - are second only to diamonds in their hardness. Indeed, there is a growing industry for manufacturing industrial sapphires the size of a large bucket, suitable for use in bullet-proof glass, aeroplane windows and soon - unscratchable smartphone displays. Although Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the earth's crust, it was not isolated until 1825, and remained so scarce that it was valued more highly than silver for decades. The reason it remained hidden for so long, unlike gold or silver, is that it is too reactive to occur in its pure form. Instead it is found as bauxite, a reddish-brown ore named after the French town Les Baux, where it was first discovered. Bauxite is found across the globe, and mining it is the easy part. Far trickier is extracting the metal. It was not until 1886 that a Frenchman and an American both cracked it. You have to melt the bauxite in another mineral called cryolite, and then pass an electric current through it, separating the oxygen atoms from the aluminium. It takes four tonnes of bauxite to produce one tonne of aluminium. The process is highly energy-intensive and therefore expensive. But recycling aluminium uses a fraction of the energy. "Beverage cans get recycled within 60 days, so a can of soda is back on the shelves 60 days later," says Nick Madden, who is responsible for buying raw metal for Novelis, the world's biggest manufacturer of rolled aluminium sheets. Once you have the metal, you can re-use it again and again, almost indefinitely. "It is one of the few materials that is genuinely 100% recyclable," Madden says. In theory, a day may come when we have mined all we need, and we can just keep re-using what we already have. "If demand stops growing, and scrap comes back from older uses like buildings in the future, then that will start to reduce the required primary consumption," says Madden. For now, though, demand is growing, and carmakers are one reason why. Lighter car bodies mean more fuel efficiency, better acceleration and braking, and lower carbon emissions. Novelis has seen a 25% increase in demand from the motor industry in the last year, most of it coming from one of its biggest customers, Jaguar Land Rover, which has just begun manufacturing Range Rovers with aluminium. The new car uses use 25% less fuel partly because its body is 39% lighter, helping to reduce the car's total weight by 420kg (925lb). "That's the equivalent of five people," says Nick Rogers, the Range Rover vehicle line director. "So, if you imagine driving around with all your family in the car - you feel the weight of the vehicle. "When you get in the new Range Rover Sport, all of your family has gone." Currently, Novelis obtains almost 50% of its aluminium from junk - empty cans, scrapped vehicles, demolition sites - and it aims to raise that to 80% by 2020. One challenge is to ensure that more aluminium finds its way into the recycling loop. "In the UK, I believe the recycle rate [of household aluminium waste] is about 75%," Madden says. Whether bauxite mining is still needed in our grandchildren's day may depend on the proportion we succeed in recycling, and whether we keep coming up with new uses for aluminium - either the light, malleable metal, or the hard almost unscratchable sapphire.

दो सौ साल पहले, कोई नहीं जानता था कि एल्यूमीनियम मौजूद है। आज यह हर जगह है-डिब्बे, खिड़कियों के फ्रेम, पैकेजिंग, यहां तक कि कार बॉडी में भी। इसके लिए नए उपयोग लगातार खोजे जा रहे हैं-लेकिन यह संभव है कि एक दिन हम अयस्क का खनन बंद करने में सक्षम होंगे, और पूरी तरह से रीसाइक्लिंग पर भरोसा करेंगे।


Discovery of woman's body in Aberdeen probed by police

Summary: The discovery of the body of a woman reported to have been dead for several years is being investigated by police in Aberdeen.

Officers were called to Allison Close in Cove last Thursday. The Evening Express has reported it is believed the elderly woman had been dead for "several years", and was found after she failed to show up for a Covid-19 vaccination appointment. Police Scotland said the death was being treated as "unexplained". A statement said: "Officers were called to an address in Allison Close, Aberdeen, on Thursday after the body of a woman was found within. "The death is being treated as unexplained and inquiries are ongoing. "A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal."

एबरडीन में पुलिस द्वारा कई वर्षों से मृत महिला के शव की खोज की जा रही है।


Mario Macilau: The street child who became a top photographer

Summary: Mario Macilau was 14 and living on the streets of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, when he got his hands on a camera. He taught himself to use it - and 12 years later he was holding a solo exhibition in Lisbon. Here he explains how he snapped his way out of poverty.

As a boy, I dreamed of becoming a journalist. But then I got caught up with day-to-day troubles. When your life is full of worry it is like the future does not exist. When I was about seven, my father left our home in a township near Maputo and travelled to South Africa to look for work. I was older than my sisters and had to help bring in some money. So I started to take my mother's biscuits into town to sell in the market. I got into doing odd jobs in the market - washing people's cars and helping to carry their bags. Instead of going home, I often slept overnight in the market with my friends. It wasn't very safe. We had nowhere to keep anything, so we stole from one another. I got into some bad habits - minor criminality, but it was a question of survival. Dog eat dog. My mother tried several times to send me to school but she just couldn't afford the fees. But all this time I was learning - I read books, and through volunteering with NGOs I learned English. When I was about 14, I borrowed a friend's camera. I started to take photographs of my surroundings, documenting people from the townships as they travelled to the city to sell their things. They were black-and-white photos, which I developed in a darkroom I made in my mother's house. I was teaching myself how to do things, practising whenever I could, but it was difficult for me to pay for the film and the chemicals. My favourite photograph was taken near the township where I grew up early one morning. It was of a woman walking into town to sell cassava. She had her back to the camera and it was raining. That photo is long gone - I didn't keep any of my early work. That's because it wasn't really "work", just something I did for my own pleasure. I had no thought of making a career in photography. Then one day in 2007, when I was about 23, a guy I knew brought a camera to me. It was a Nikon FM2, a film camera. He had been given it by the Portuguese family he worked for, but he had no idea how to use it so he thought he would sell it to me. I had no money, but my mother had recently got her first mobile phone, which she had given me because I was the breadwinner. So I gave him that and he gave me the camera. Find out more It was very difficult for me to tell my mother what I'd done. I said that I had been assaulted and that the phone had been taken from me. Around this time, my friends told me about a way to communicate with people outside the country - it was the fastest communication possible, and it was free. It was the internet. So we used to go to the library and log on to different chat rooms and networks. And I learned how to create a blog, and I posted my photos online. I started to get positive feedback, and eventually I was invited to take part in exhibitions. I managed to get on an exchange programme for young people to Vancouver in Canada. While I was there, I went to lots of photo exhibitions, and I taught photography in an elementary school. It was in Canada that I had my first solo exhibition - the standard was not very high, but it was a useful experience. It was after I returned to Mozambique that I started to really think about turning pro. I picked up some work as a fixer for foreign photographers who were coming to document the changes in my country. In 2009, I was invited by a parish in Lisbon to come to the city for a solo exhibition. I have since taken part in a group exhibition in the Berardo Collection Museum in that city, and the Saatchi Gallery in London. I was never intimidated by professionals or by the people I met on the art circuit. I just learned what I could from them. I still take inspiration wherever I find it. It might be a picture by a great photographer or one by someone who is just playing around, a kid who is not going to become a professional. Nowadays I use a digital Canon camera, but I still shoot on film too. It depends on the project. My work focuses on isolated groups of people. I have done projects on cement resellers in Mozambique, illegal loggers in Nigeria, and stone miners in Bangladesh. I never know what my next project will be. I just leave my house and something happens, I encounter something that inspires me. A project starts when you see something that you can't explain. My latest series, Growing in Darkness, is about street children in Maputo. If I had done this project when I first became a professional I would have felt guilty, like I was indulging in autobiography. But I was friendly with the street children, they knew me, and when they started to see my work on local TV and in magazines, they complained that I never took pictures of them. They said I was discriminating against them, that I thought they didn't deserve to be in my pictures. So one day I went to the street where I thought they lived, and I was surprised when they took me to where they really slept, not on the street at all but in an empty apartment building. My way of working is all in the research. When I say "research" I mean I am exploring ways of relating to my subjects, how I can approach them and find out who they really are. So to begin with, I don't take my camera. I need people to feel comfortable with me and I also want to feel comfortable with them. Then after they get used to me, I introduce them to the camera and give them time to get used to that too. Afterwards, if I can, I give the people in my projects photos I have taken of them. I order exhibition-quality prints for them, and they can see the difference in quality right away. Sometimes they put the photos in a special place. I'm not a fashion photographer, my goal is not to make people look glamorous. Even so, nobody ever complains about the way they look. The reason for that, I think, is that I am trying to bring out the dignity and the identity of these people, because this identity has been hidden. I deal with very strong subjects, so my task is to use light and composition to provide balance. Take the street children, for example. They might be wearing dirty T-shirts, but for them, in the photograph, they are clean. That's because the light is beautiful, their expression is beautiful and no-one sees the T-shirt. Other people look at street kids and just see poverty but their lives have much more meaning than just begging and sleeping on the streets. They eat, they watch movies and they make toys. In their free time they play. They're humans who have adapted themselves to their circumstances. I believe that in life we have to learn how to adapt and how to see things differently. I don't look at my past and wish that it had been different. My experiences taught me how to fight for what I believe in and how to be independent. They are what made me who I am today. I occasionally see the boys I used to hang out with when I worked in the market. But I don't speak to them. We have done different things with our lives. Everything has changed. I am definitely going to stay in Mozambique and build my studio here, in Maputo. I live with my mother in the township , but I rent another apartment too, where I can go to be alone and where friends can stay when they visit me. It took my family a long time to understand that I can make money by just taking photos. It was something that just didn't make any sense to them. Even now, my mother doesn't really get it, but it's OK, she accepts it as my choice. I have tried to make up for selling her mobile phone years ago. Every time I go abroad I bring her back another phone. She gives some to my sisters and cousins, and she keeps some for herself. Mario Macilau spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service. You can listen to the programme on iPlayer or get the Outlook podcast. Production by William Kremer. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

मारियो मैसिलाउ 14 वर्ष के थे और मोजाम्बिक की राजधानी मापुटो की सड़कों पर रहते थे, जब उन्होंने एक कैमरे पर अपना हाथ रखा। उन्होंने खुद को इसका उपयोग करना सिखाया-और 12 साल बाद वे लिस्बन में एक एकल प्रदर्शनी आयोजित कर रहे थे। यहाँ वे बताते हैं कि कैसे उन्होंने गरीबी से बाहर निकलने का रास्ता निकाला।


Novichok poisoning: Salisbury reacts to fresh case

Summary: The revelation that two more people have been exposed to the nerve agent Novichock has shocked people in Salisbury. Residents have experienced months of disruption and anxiety since the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March. Now many are wondering whether, despite a clean-up operation, their city is safe?

Charlie Rowley and his partner Dawn Sturgess, from Amesbury, became ill after visiting Salisbury on Saturday. Several locations in the city have again been cordoned off while police investigate how the couple came into contact with the nerve agent. "It's just shocking," says Aaron Allen, who knows Mr Rowley and saw him last week in Salisbury city centre. "It's not knowing whether people are being targeted at random that is worrying." "The fact I know him just makes it all worse," he added. "It was slowly getting back to normal in Salisbury and now this has happened." Following the attack on the Skripals, a massive clean-up operation was conducted in the city in an effort to keep the public safe. However, people in Salisbury now face the prospect that this clean-up was not as successful as first thought. "It's just frightening," said Dawn Dwyer. "It makes you wonder what is going to happen next. "You don't know if it might be on something you might touch. "Salisbury is quite quiet normally, really." Old school-friends Susan Ballam and Angela Majury have lived in and around Salisbury all their lives. Mrs Ballam said: "You think Salisbury is this beautiful cathedral city but why should it not happen here? "When the first Salisbury incident happened and everything was closed off with a huge police presence my initial thought was that it was an overreaction. "Now it feels like it could happen anywhere." Mrs Majury said: "We need to know if it is the same batch [of nerve agent]. "If somebody has got hold of a batch it might not be the Russians after all." A pleasant medieval cathedral city in Wiltshire, Salisbury typically attracts its share of tourists. Steven and Susan Watts, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, who are visiting the area with their caravan, said they had decided to go into the city despite some misgivings. "It's been on my mind," said Mrs Watts. "It's a bit of a worry wondering if they have picked it up somewhere." In nearby Amesbury, where Mr Rowley and Ms Sturgess were taken ill, there are yet more cordons. Roy Collins, secretary of Amesbury Baptist Church, said he had seen Mr Rowley at a hog roast at the church on Saturday. Ms Sturgess was already in hospital at this point. He said: "We woke up to discover the church was cordoned off. Then we discovered there had been an incident of some kind. "Now we understand the facts, which are horrific." The church is one of several places in the town cordoned off, along with Boots, where Mr Rowley and Ms Sturgess had been to pick up a prescription. Louise Graham said she had visited Boots and had also been near the sealed-off Baptist Church, but was not too anxious. "People are not panicking because they think this is a random thing," she said. But another Amesbury resident, Shpati Arapi, felt that people had been kept in the dark, especially those who lived on Muggleton Road, where the couple fell ill. "We should have been given more information - especially the houses on that street," he said. "First [we were told] it was drug-related but now it's something completely different."

यह रहस्योद्घाटन कि दो और लोग तंत्रिका एजेंट नोविचॉक के संपर्क में आ गए हैं, सैलिसबरी में लोगों को चौंका दिया है। मार्च में सर्गेई स्क्रिपल और उनकी बेटी यूलिया को जहर दिए जाने के बाद से निवासियों ने महीनों तक व्यवधान और चिंता का अनुभव किया है। अब कई लोग सोच रहे हैं कि क्या सफाई अभियान के बावजूद उनका शहर सुरक्षित है?


BBC launches iPlayer radio downloads

Summary: BBC radio listeners will soon be able to download programmes to their smart phones or tablets for the first time using the iPlayer Radio app.

Programmes from Radio 1's Essential Mix to The Archers will be available to store for 30 days, allowing users to listen without an internet connection. The iPlayer Radio app on iOS, Android or Kindle will be updated this week. The upgrade will be completed in time for the start of the BBC Proms on Radio 3 on Friday. Until now, television programmes have been available to download on the iPlayer app, but radio programmes have not. The downloads have been made possible after an overhaul of the technology that supports the BBC's online audio content.

बी. बी. सी. रेडियो के श्रोता जल्द ही आईप्लेयर रेडियो ऐप का उपयोग करके पहली बार अपने स्मार्ट फोन या टैबलेट पर कार्यक्रम डाउनलोड कर सकेंगे।


Qatar crisis: The deep diplomatic tensions behind the row

Summary: Sometimes the recipe for a dispute says "leave to simmer". This one has been simmering for years. But then suddenly some of the cooks increase the heat substantially and dispute boils over into full-blown crisis.

By James RobbinsBBC diplomatic correspondent, Doha The underlying tensions between Qatar and three of her Gulf neighbours in particular have been visible for two decades. This is a region largely of absolute monarchs - kings or emirs - who have in common a very firm grip on politics at home, to head off any dissent which could represent a threat to their individual regime survival. But the emir of Qatar pursues a series of policies which simply don't fit into the rigid orthodoxy expected by most of the others, notably Saudi Arabia, the superpower of Sunni Islam. His unconventional foreign policy is seen as a threat to Sunni solidarity, particularly because the emir and his ministers promote dialogue and a search for good relations with the rival regional superpower, Shia Muslim Iran. Saudi Arabia is deeply hostile to that approach and now feels empowered to turn that hostility to action, in the certain knowledge that a new president, Donald Trump, is at Saudi King Salman's side. The core charge laid against Qatar as justification for this week's new and punitive blockade is the country's alleged funding of religious extremists, including the secret arming of some jihadi groups. Those are charges rejected by Qatar's government and similar ones have also been levelled in the past at many of those now condemning the country, notably Saudi Arabia. But the single most powerful motive behind the blockade may be a quite different one: the desire to rein in, or even to close down, one of the emir of Qatar's most cherished projects - the global television news channels of Al-Jazeera. He sees Al-Jazeera as an agent of positive change across the Arab world, opening up political debate, reporting on the challenges from ordinary people from the street, so evident during the "Arab Spring". However odd, even hypocritical it may seem for an absolute monarch in Qatar, a country devoid of elected politicians, to champion the cause of disaffected citizens demanding change elsewhere, that is a large part of what drives this emir, set on what he regards as a path of Middle East modernisation. His fellow autocrats see things quite differently, in Egypt as well as the Gulf. There, President Sisi drove the Muslim Brotherhood out of elected government and to near oblivion, branding them as intolerable Islamists. Al-Jazeera was painted as a propagandist for the Brotherhood. That's a portrayal other leaders who have been challenged by the station are happy to endorse, leaving the broadcaster as now another substantial target of the action against Qatar. So, how will this crisis end? There's no sign of any real progress towards a settlement yet, rather the reverse. The rift seems to be both deeper and wider than it was at the start of the week. Deeper because the accusations being thrown about on both sides are becoming harsher. The United Arab Emirates is amplifying the charge that Qatar encourages extremism. Qatar, through its Human Rights Council, is saying Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE together are abusing the human rights of all those caught up in the programme of expulsions and flight bans, separating families for whom the borders between Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries have never been closed in this way before. And it is becoming a wider rift as more and more outside countries weigh in and take sides. Several member states of the Arab League have lined up behind the anti-Qatar campaign. Equally, both Turkey and Russia are consolidating their positions as friends to Qatar. Turkey passed a law in near record time this week which would allow an accelerated deployment of Turkish troops to Qatar: something already possible but on a longer timeframe. Russia has invited Qatar's embattled foreign minister for talks in Moscow which Qatar hopes to use to maximise support. Meanwhile, the emir of Kuwait, playing a customary role as peacemaker within the GCC, faces his toughest task yet, shuttling between the royal courts of Gulf capitals trying to find a way through which somehow curbs Qatar's sovereignty - the demand of others - and does not curb that sovereignty, the insistence of the emir who rules in Doha. There's no sign yet of any such progress being made. This feels like a crisis which will be maintained at high temperature for some time. That alarms much of the outside world, fearing even greater instability in the Middle East, and this time instability in the area they normally rely on for dependable, but certainly not democratic, calm.

कभी-कभी किसी विवाद की विधि में कहा जाता है, "उबलने के लिए छोड़ दें।" यह कई वर्षों से उबल रहा है। लेकिन फिर अचानक कुछ रसोइये गर्मी को काफी बढ़ा देते हैं और विवाद पूरी तरह से संकट में बदल जाता है।


Posthumous award for aid worker Linda Norgrove

Summary: A woman who died in an operation by US special forces to release her from kidnappers in Afghanistan has been posthumously honoured.

Aid worker Linda Norgrove, 36, from the Western Isles, was taken hostage in September 2010 and was killed by a grenade the following month. The United Nations and Green Cross International Green Star Award recognises work she did in Afghanistan. The Robert Burns Humanitarian Award was also given to her posthumously.

अफगानिस्तान में अपहरणकर्ताओं से उसे रिहा करने के लिए अमेरिकी विशेष बलों के एक अभियान में मारे गए एक महिला को मरणोपरांत सम्मानित किया गया है।


Trump Jr's "very fake news" T-shirt, and Bernie Sanders in a giant ice cream tub

Summary: A T-shirt worn by the US president's son disparaging the mass media has awoken conspiracy theories online, while social media users have stirred up elements of Bernie Sanders' campaign following an image of the US politician addressing employees from a giant tub of ice cream.

By Lamia EstatieBBC News "Very Fake News" Donald Trump Jr had tweeted a photo of himself donning a green T-shirt featuring the words "Very Fake News", captioned: "I'm going to have to buy 5-10,000 of these to pass around to our buddies in the #MSM [mainstream media]. In the meantime, I'll model it for them." And some on Twitter responded by sharing images of the president's son wearing the T-shirt photoshopped into historical events. One shared an photo of Trump Jr showing off his "Very Fake News" T-shirt with a backdrop of US former astronaut John Young landing on the moon in 1972. The image is an allusion to the conspiracy theories which claim some, or all, of the moon landings were staged by Nasa. While another user shared an image of Trump Jr in the green shirt photoshopped into an illustration of the American Revolution. Another take on Trump Jr's T-shirt showed a bare-chested Russian President Vladimir Putin with angel's wings, featuring the word: "Besties." But one person on Twitter found a different use for the T-shirt, turning it into a word puzzle. The revolutionary tub of ice cream On the other side of the US political divide, an image of Bernie Sanders making a speech from a podium that happened to be a huge tub of ice cream has also brought out some laughs. The US politician tweeted the image of him gesturing while addressing Ben and Jerry's employees, captioned: "When we stand up and fight back we can change the country in very positive ways." "This image of Bernie Sanders preaching from a Ben and Jerry's pint podium is a fantasy I've had for some time now," one user said. Another shared a short skit involving himself, Mr Sanders, and the ice cream. Mr Sanders visited the ice cream chain's factory in Vermont on Friday to speak to employees and also tried some new flavours. "Y'all hear about the new Ben and Jerry's flavour?? It's called 'Feel the Bern' and it's got chocolate, sriracha and an actual size Bernie Sanders," one continued. And a meme of the original image captioned "I scream, you scream, we all scream for progressive social reform" proved popular online. Last year, Ben and Jerry's launched a limited edition ice cream called "Bernie's Yearning" in support of the former presidential candidate. Also by the UGC and Social News team: Easter pop star 'Egg Sheeran' a hit In pictures: Take your dog to work Dortmund fans open homes to stranded away supporters

अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति के बेटे द्वारा मास मीडिया का अपमान करने वाली एक टी-शर्ट ने ऑनलाइन षड्यंत्र के सिद्धांतों को जगाया है, जबकि सोशल मीडिया उपयोगकर्ताओं ने बर्नी सैंडर्स के अभियान के तत्वों को अमेरिकी राजनेता द्वारा आइसक्रीम के एक विशाल टब से कर्मचारियों को संबोधित करने की एक तस्वीर के बाद उकसाया है।


John Leigh and Deborah Harrison accused of £1m NHS fraud

Summary: A man and woman suspected of stealing £1m from the National Health Service have appeared before magistrates accused of fraud.

John Leigh, 53, and Deborah Harrison, 44, were remanded in custody to appear at Manchester Crown Court on 14 January by the city's magistrates. The pair, who were arrested in Cyprus on 21 December and extradited on Monday, face eight charges each. Ms Harrison and Mr Leigh have connections to the Rochdale area.

राष्ट्रीय स्वास्थ्य सेवा से 1 मिलियन पाउंड की चोरी के संदेह में एक पुरुष और महिला धोखाधड़ी के आरोप में मजिस्ट्रेटों के सामने पेश हुए हैं।


Edmonton minicab shooting leaves three injured

Summary: Two men and a teenage boy were injured when a shotgun was fired twice into a minicab they were sitting in.

They were waiting in the vehicle on Gordon Road in Edmonton, north London, at 18:00 GMT on Saturday when another car pulled up alongside them. At least two men got out of that vehicle then approached the minicab and fired a shotgun twice into it. Police said the minicab driver, 22, and his two passengers, aged 22 and 16, were all hurt in the shooting. One passenger's injuries were described as "potentially life-changing". No arrests have been made over the attack, which is being investigated by the Met's Trident and Area Crime Command.

दो पुरुष और एक किशोर लड़का घायल हो गए जब एक शॉटगन को दो बार एक मिनीकैब में दागा गया जिसमें वे बैठे थे।


The India-Pakistan masterpiece that fell through the cracks

Summary: A 1958 Pakistani film, considered by critics as the best ever made in the country and boasting a curious collaboration with India, is haunted by its spectacularly jinxed past more than half-a-century later, writes Faizal Khan.

At the 69th Cannes film festival last month, a feature film from Pakistan made a rare appearance in a segment dedicated to airing restored movies. The Urdu language film Jago Hua Savera, which means The Day Shall Dawn, was screened along with classics such as Russian maestro Andrei Tarkovski's Solaris, French director Regis Wargnier's Indochine and Egyptian auteur Youssef Chahine's Goodbye Bonaparte at the festival, which was held from 11-22 May. Set in the 1950s in a fishing village, Jago Hua Savera carries a lot of historical baggage. When director Aaejay Kardar began making the movie in 1958, the political landscape of Pakistan had just begun to change. 'Branded Communists' General Ayub Khan had become the first military dictator of the country in a coup only months earlier, positioning the country firmly in the American camp during the Cold War. "Three days before the release of the film, the government asked my father not to go ahead with it," Anjum Taseer, son of producer Nauman Taseer, told the BBC at the screening of the film. "The government branded the young artists and writers involved in the making of the film as Communists." It did not help that iconic poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, who was a known revolutionary, had written the script, lyrics and dialogue of the film. "Gen Ayub Khan imprisoned my father and many other artists," said Faiz Ahmad Faiz's daughter Salima Hashmi. It was decided to premiere the film in London, but the military government instructed the Pakistan high commission to boycott the event. "But on that day, then high commissioner and his wife defied the order," Mr Taseer said. Unusual collaboration Inspired by the early works of iconic Indian director Satyajit Ray, Jago Hua Savera is moulded in neo-realism, a genre shaped by Italian greats like Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica. Shot in black and white on location on the banks of the majestic Meghna river in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, the film portrays the hardships of a fishing community in Saitnol village near Dhaka, which is at the mercy of loan sharks. It presents an unusual collaboration between Pakistani and Indian professionals, only a decade after the bloody partition. Faiz's script was inspired by a story written by popular Bengali author Manik Bandopadhyay. Towering Indian musician Timir Baran, who lived in Kolkata (Calcutta), provided the music. The only professional actor in the film, Tripti Mitra, was Indian too. Watershed cinema Bengali actor Tripti Mitra and her husband Sombhu Mitra were both members of the Left-leaning Indian People's Theatre Association of the 1940s. With Faiz, Baran and Mitra on board, the producer commissioned British cinematographer Walter Lasally, who later won an Oscar for his work on Zorba the Greek. "The film is a watershed in the history of Pakistani cinema," says Indian film critic Saibal Chatterjee. "It is the only neo-realism film we know of, from the country. It was lost and those who restored it have done a great job in rediscovering the film." Given its high aesthetic and production quality and all the publicity it received due to the controversy with the government, Jago Hua Savera should have been a runaway success, but that was not to be. Within weeks, everybody, including its makers, forgot about the film. A classic that belonged alongside films like La Strada, The Bicycle Thief and Pather Panchali was instead lost to the world of cinema. Nobody talked about it for another 50 years until two French brothers Philippe and Alain Jalladeau, founders of the Three Continents Film Festival in Nantes, France, decided to screen a retrospective of Pakistani films in 2007. Race against time "It was then that Shireen Pasha (Pakistani documentary filmmaker and head of the department of film at the National College of Arts, Lahore) said you can't have a retrospective of Pakistani films without Jago Hua Zavera," says Philippe Jalladeau. What followed was a frantic search for a print of the film that took Taseer (his father died in 1996) across Pakistan and Bangladesh, and film archives in the western Indian city of Pune, London and Paris. One week before the festival, Taseer found some reels of the film with a French distributor, some in London and the rest in Karachi, eventually putting them together for a "showable print". After the Nantes festival, Taseer took on the task of properly restoring the film and sent a copy to a lab in the Indian city of Chennai. "It took six months to get the copy released by the Indian customs," says Taseer, who then, exasperated by the delay, decided to take the film to London for restoration in 2008 instead. It was finally completed in 2010. On an unusually warm Sunday morning on 15 May, Taseer joined Faiz's daughter Hashmi and Philippe Jalladeau to present the film in the Bunuel theatre, at the Palais des Festivals venue of Cannes. Continuing journey The hall was half empty - there were no Pakistani film critics, and only four Indian journalists were present. But Taseer's and the film's journey are not over. He is aware of the generation gap between the film and today's audience, but is not ready to give up yet. "I want to show the film in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh," he told the BBC. "The film is a combination of the efforts of the people of the three countries." He is also aware that the lives of the fishing communities in the three countries have not changed much. "The fishermen of today have mobile phones, but the same loans," he said. "There are several young and talented people in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I want to produce a film on the lives of these fishermen with the help of these talented filmmakers."

फैजल खान लिखते हैं कि 1958 की एक पाकिस्तानी फिल्म, जिसे आलोचकों द्वारा देश में अब तक की सबसे अच्छी फिल्म माना जाता है और भारत के साथ एक जिज्ञासु सहयोग का दावा करती है, आधी सदी से भी अधिक समय बाद के अपने शानदार अतीत से प्रेतवाधित है।


Escaping Boko Haram: How three Nigeria girls found safety

Summary: For six months the world has waited for news of the fate of more than 200 girls abducted by Nigerian militant group Boko Haram. As the Nigerian government insists a deal to release the "Chibok girls" is being negotiated, three girls who escaped their captors have told their story to BBC Hausa.

Lami, Maria and Hajara were at school in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria, when they were kidnapped in April. Best friends Lami and Maria escaped by jumping from the back of a truck. Hajara was taken to a camp but later fled with another girl. To protect the girls' identity we have portrayed their story as an animation, and provided an edited transcript of their account below. The girls' names have been changed for their protection. Animation by Luis Ruibal. The BBC's 100 Women season runs online, on BBC World News TV and on BBC World Service radio from 27-29 October. Lami: It was Monday night. We had exams the following day. Then we started to hear shootings in the town. So we went out. We phoned our parents to tell them what was happening in the town. They told us to run away when we got the chance. We told them that the town was already surrounded so there was no way we could run. Maria: Lami woke me up saying: "Maria didn't you hear what's happening? Haven't you heard sounds of shooting from the town?" I said we should climb the wall and run away. She said: "No. No-one has run away. We should gather in one place and wait to see what's going to happen." Other girls said nothing would happen to us. "We're girls. They don't do anything to girls. We should wait and see what God would do." Lami: We were at the school when suddenly three Boko Haram members entered. They said: "If any of you attempt to leave we'll kill all of you." When we went out they were everywhere. They gathered us where we have our school assembly. As we were there they kept burning the school. They burnt everything. Hajara: They asked us to get out of the gate, saying that when we were out they would let us go back to our homes. They said whoever did not have a headscarf or shoes should go and get them. They then asked us to climb on to a lorry, on top of the food loaded in it. The lorry was so high that we couldn't easily climb on. Maria: They said to us: "You're only coming to school for prostitution. Boko (Western education) is haram (forbidden) so what are you doing in school?" We kept quiet. I think there could have been about 100 Boko Haram members - they were all over the school. They outnumbered us. They took us away in their vehicles. We were sitting on oil drums in the vehicle. Our vehicle was really overloaded. We were saying to one another that we should throw away our shoes and scarves so that if our parents came they would know the road we had taken. Hajara: The vehicle became full before I could get on. There were about 100 of us walking. We stopped at one town and people brought us water. I saw one of those who brought us water changed his clothes and joined the Boko Haram men. They then put us in other vehicles. They put the rest in the boots of cars. Some of the Boko Haram members were so small that if I were to grab their necks I could break them. Some couldn't even carry their guns properly. Maria: We were wondering where we were being taken to. When we entered the vehicle, Lami said to me: "Shouldn't we jump out of the vehicle here so that we may possibly escape? There are no other vehicles close by." Hajara: I thought, it's preferable to have these people shoot me as I run than have them humiliate me. They kept saying to us: "Make sure you put on your scarves. Make sure you put on your scarves. We'll shoot any girl we see without a scarf. And any girl who jumps out will die." I was about to jump out when one girl held me back and said they'd shoot me if I did. "What's the difference," I said. "Is it not to the same death we're going? They should shoot me here and let my corpse be collected." I was crying and praying until we reached the camp. Lami: There was a lot of dust on the road, they couldn't see us. When we jumped out, we started to run. We were running without shoes. We found other people. We started to run away from them thinking they were Boko Haram. But they too had run from the town. Hajara: Boko Haram gathered us in a forest around noon. Some of the girls were tired and were lying down. But I couldn't lie down. The spirit of God was asking me to go. It was telling me: "Get up and go. Get up and go." So I went. Another girl followed me. When we were going I saw some of them [Boko Haram members] performing ablutions. We stooped as if we were trying to pull out thorns from our shoes, as if we were just going to wee. We'd walk a little then bend down for a little while as if we were looking for something we'd lost. After walking for a while they couldn't see us properly since it was forest. We then started to run. After we had run for a short distance, we heard them saying "catch those girls." We kept running. Whether they came after us not, we didn't know. Hajara: We kept going and our shoes were ripped. We found a house, where a girl could speak Hausa. Her parents gave us a place to sleep. We reached the Chibok area in the morning. A man looking for a relative among the missing girls drove us on motorbike into town. When I saw my elder and younger brothers, I fell to the ground crying. My mother and father were crying and all members of my family cried. Before I reached home it was as if there was a death in the house. Mats were spread. People were consoling my father and mother thinking that I had died. Who are Boko Haram? Who are Boko Haram? Profile: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau Will 'truce' with Boko Haram free Chibok girls? Lami: The people we met said: "Your town is far away. You can't go there now. Come here and wait until morning when we'll take you into the town to get transport back home." We stayed there till morning when they asked us to get up so that we go to the town. We couldn't walk. Our feet were full of thorns. They said: "Let's go find a vehicle to take you home." Maria: The men who helped us took us to Chibok, and I cried. It was the second time that something like that had happened to me. My dad was a pastor; Boko Haram went to our house and killed him. They also shot my mum in the stomach; they gave her 2,000 Naira ($12) to have the bullet. Lami: My parents warmed up water and cared for my feet. I was taken to the hospital and it was two weeks before I could stand up. Maria: I continued to live with the thought that Boko Haram members were coming to get me. I couldn't sleep. Hajara: I was having nightmares every day. There was even a day when I dreamed that they gathered all of us who fled in one place, and said to us: "You girls have defied us and fled. We're now going to burn you alive." I haven't forgotten about the other girls who are still in the hands of those people. I keep praying for them. Lami: God will never make us meet these people again. And for our sisters who are still in the forest, may God help them. And may the whole world cry out for these girls to get out so that we continue with our education in school again. Maria: They should pray to God to forgive them their sins. I'd also ask them to bring back the girls they have kidnapped because their parents are in distress. Some of the parents of the girls have already died. It was the thought of their girls that killed them. Hajara: God will do what he wills, but I don't want to look at them because of what they have done to my life. They think they've ruined me, but God willing, they haven't ruined me. I'll continue with my education.

छह महीने से दुनिया नाइजीरियाई आतंकवादी समूह बोको हराम द्वारा अपहृत 200 से अधिक लड़कियों के भाग्य की खबर का इंतजार कर रही है। जब नाइजीरियाई सरकार जोर दे रही है कि "चिबोक लड़कियों" को रिहा करने के लिए एक समझौते पर बातचीत की जा रही है, तो उनके अपहरणकर्ताओं से बचने वाली तीन लड़कियों ने बीबीसी हौसा को अपनी कहानी सुनाई है।


Big Daddy to Toni Storm: The revival of British wrestling

Summary: For many a sports fan, Saturday afternoons were spent watching Big Daddy grapple with Giant Haystacks. But when wrestling on TV was axed, the popularity of the sport in Britain took a nosedive. Decades later and a generation that grew up glued to World of Sport is spearheading a revival - but will it stick?

By Lauren Potts & Mark BosworthBBC News In an era when there were just three TV channels - unless you fancied watching the Open University - the choice was between BBC One's Grandstand or World of Sport on ITV. At four years old, Jim Smallman opted for the commercial channel because it screened bouts of British wrestling. "I genuinely hated Big Daddy," he remembers. "But there was a wrestler called Johnny Saint, and the way he wrestled was brilliant. "He was all about escapology and did these technical, complex holds, turning people [practically] inside out. "When I first saw him it blew my mind." British wrestling was already popular in the mid-1950s, but when the sport hit the nation's TV screens the following decade it found a new audience. Millions of viewers would tune in to see the likes of Adrian Street, Kendo Nagasaki and Klondyke Kate, then head to draughty town halls to see them in person. Fans were known for their passion and while the "faces" (the heroes) were lauded, the "heels" (the villains) took the brunt of handbags swung at them by angry ringside grannies. But in 1985 World of Sport was taken off air and the wrestling portion of the programme moved to a less popular time slot, before disappearing altogether by 1988. When wrestling made its TV return the following year, it was the oiled and muscular stars of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) - Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior and Bret "The Hitman" Hart - who were centre screen. "Terrestrial TV was the shop window [for British wrestling] and the money was in getting customers to the shows," says Dr Ben Litherland, author of Wrestling in Britain: Sporting Entertainments, Celebrity and Audiences. "The second that was removed, the whole business model fell through. Television was so central to the model that British wrestling had been operating on since the 1950s." Holiday camps such as Butlin's continued to hold wrestling events but by the 1990s "the scene was dying", says Ben, who lectures at Huddersfield University. "British wrestling still attracted large audiences, but the emergence of multi-channel Sky television, on the one hand, and ITV seeking to adapt its brand, meant that British wrestling was squeezed. "This happened at the same time as [WWF owner] Vince McMahon was seeking to aggressively expand. "He had done a good job of creating links with youth programming and Hollywood movies. The WWF was operating pretty sophisticated trans-media storylines in a soap-opera style." While the melodrama of the US shows kept viewers watching week after week, British wrestling faded from the mainstream sports scene. But it never lost its charm for Jim - so much so that in 2012, he and a friend set up Progress Wrestling. "Wrestling has always been popular in Britain," says the 40-year-old. "As a nation, we love it, and in the 60s and 70s there were thousands of shows a month. "But recently there's been this [realisation] that there's great wrestling on our doorstep. "We started at a time when other [independent] companies were getting big and all of a sudden there was a decent wrestling scene and promotion in most major cities. "But people need a reason to watch it. Progress wanted to tell better stories so that fans could really get invested in it. "We wanted compelling characters with compelling storylines to draw people in." One of those people is Shirleigh Kaur, who has been to more than 100 British wrestling shows since 2015. The 26-year-old primary school teacher says the atmosphere sets it apart from the American shows hosted by what is now called World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). "We don't get WWE here very often and when you do it's expensive. British wrestling is affordable and it's near where you live. "It's a lot more entertaining than what you see on TV; the [wrestlers] aren't afraid to be interactive with the audience. "At Progress shows, they're throwing themselves at you and that's part of the appeal. I usually sit in the front row, dead centre, and it's a thing where wrestlers throw themselves at me - they give me little hints and I have to get out of the way. "I feel part of it, you can immerse yourself in it a lot more than [being part of] a WWE audience, which is a lot quieter. "At Progress, everyone's involved and there's cheering and booing, which makes a huge difference." Writer Carrie Dunn agrees that the DIY grit of modern British wrestling is what sets it apart from the gloss of the US shows. "It's a fantastic time to be a wrestling fan," says the author of Spandex, Screw Jobs and Cheap Pops: Inside the Business of British Pro-wrestling. "There's still a place for the grand British panto-style wrestling in holiday clubs, but it now has a more edgy style. "Promoters host adult-only shows in music venues to fit with its 'punk-rock' identity - it's the extreme end of the spectrum. "There can be blood; if they're taking a blow, the punishment is real." You might also be interested in: Meet Candy Floss and other women wrestlers Dungeons & Dragons - the revival of a geeky pastime The man who broke rugby's racial barrier In the past decade, a wave of wrestling promoters - such as Fight Club Pro in Wolverhampton, ICW in Glasgow and Attack in Bristol and Cardiff - have sprung up across the UK. The growing fanbase is in part down to the "slick and media-savvy" owners, Carrie says, who use social media to promote their brands. "It's played a massive part in making British wrestling grow," says Shirleigh. "I'm always vocal on social, saying 'you should keep an eye on this wrestler or that wrestler'. "It's so easy to get a show on the internet and have eyes on it around the world. "Social media is word of mouth." For Progress, crowds have steadily grown from 300 people at its first show in 2012 to 2,500 at Brixton Academy four years later. Jim says his wrestlers have gone from part to full time, with demand for shows seeing performers in the ring six times a week. "The scene in 2010 was very different," says Gavin Watkins, who gave up his job as a teacher to go full time with the company as Flash Morgan Webster. "I remember doing shows in Wales where the promoters struggled to get 80 people through the door. "Now, the same promoters are putting on shows three times a month and getting 300 people. "Going from that to Wembley Arena, It's absolutely unreal." In September, Progress saw 4,750 fans travel to the London venue for an event - 1,500 more than Jim expected. It was the best-attended independent wrestling show in England since Big Daddy squared up against Giant Haystacks in 1981 in front of about 5,000 people. Its success comes after World of Sport's return to ITV over the summer, when 28 of Britain's best wrestlers battled it out over 10 episodes. Whether the broadcaster will permanently revive the programme is unclear, but its Twitter feed pointed to some success, with 1.2m people apparently tuning in for the debut. But what did the new generation of wrestling fans make of it? "It was cool to see it on TV and if you looked online, it was buzzing," says Shirleigh. "So I think for that purpose, it was successful - to expose British wrestling and get eyes on it. "My dad asked why I was watching it - asking if Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy were on. "No," she laughs. "It was good for that era, but it's a lot more advanced now, more varied and technical and acrobatic." For Jim, however, it's never been about making wrestling "popular" again - to him, it always has been. "Wrestling has always had peaks and troughs - when I was at university there was a phenomenon of the WWE's 'Attitude' era; before that there was the MTV peak with Hulk Hogan. "Now British wrestling is fashionable, but it's always been popular with me. "I thought [at the beginning] we would do a show, lose a load of money and never do one again. Now Progress does a couple of shows a month and goes around the country. "We got addicted and now we can't stop, but if we did, a lot of people would be sad. "It will never stop being a big deal to us."

कई खेल प्रेमियों के लिए, शनिवार की दोपहर बिग डैडी को जायंट हेस्टैक्स से जूझते हुए देखने में बिताई जाती थी। लेकिन जब टीवी पर कुश्ती बंद हो गई, तो ब्रिटेन में इस खेल की लोकप्रियता में गिरावट आई। दशकों बाद और एक पीढ़ी जो वर्ल्ड ऑफ स्पोर्ट से चिपकी हुई बड़ी हुई, एक पुनरुद्धार की अगुवाई कर रही है-लेकिन क्या यह टिकेगी?


Holiday childcare: Five ways to beat the cost

Summary: The school summer holidays have now officially begun for most children.

The kids may well be excited, but for working parents managing the six week period of no school and hence no state childcare, can be difficult. Whilst school holiday camps, sports clubs and au pairs often provide the solution, it can be expensive. In fact the cost of holiday childcare has jumped 4% since last summer, according to The Family and Childcare Trust, with parents now paying on average £133 per child each week. But some parents have found innovative ways to cut the costs. We detail five possible solutions below. 1. Ask other parents for help One solution is to form a "childcare co-operative" with other parents who can look after each other's kids. Ugochukwu Nwamo, a delivery manager for BT, has two children aged four and two, both of whom are still at nursery. However, already planning ahead, he recently created a childcare group for the school holidays comprising friends and family on messaging app Telegram. "If anybody has childcare needs then they can post their request and it's up to others to respond," the Londoner says. So far there are only 10 members, but he says it's already proved useful. He himself has used it to have a Friday night out, but says someone on the group has also managed to secure "two to three days of childcare" through the app. "It's up to the parents to make sure no one takes advantage of any other parent without reciprocating," he says. Grace, a mother from Belfast, says the co-operative she has joined has a different way of keeping things fair. "Myself and friends use a points system," she told BBC Radio 5 Live's Wake up to Money. "So you look after their kids for a day you get two points in the bank, a half day is one point. Works well. "Points move between friends and at the end of summer if you have more points than your friends then they take you out to dinner." 2. Give up your job and retrain Sally Pinnegar from Cambridgeshire was working as a cartographer when she had her son, Rory, at the age of 39 but soon felt at odds working a rigid 37-hour week in an office. She says she always felt "terrible guilt" that she couldn't be at home with Rory, both during the holidays and term time. "And working from home was fairly new to the organisation then and not everyone trusted it," she says. So when Rory turned 10 she decided to put her nutrition and personal training qualification to use and set up her own business which which she could run from home. She admits it takes "a lot of time and effort" and she works "twice as long now each week" than she did in the office. "But I do it when it suits me, I love what I do and am happier that I'm there for my child," she says. "I don't feel on the back foot for not being there at exactly the same time as everyone else." 3. Fall back on family Volunteer development manager Marissa Charles, 44, is a single mum based in London who splits childcare during the summer holidays with her ex. However, with only 25 days holiday from work a year, she can't take the whole three weeks off To make up the shortfall she's come up with an idea. "I am flying my 18-year-old nephew over from Norway [at a cost of £94] to hang out with my 10-year-old son. "I plan stuff for them to do every day so they actually get out of the house for a few hours. It works out great." She says she could put her son in a summer camp but he hates being in situations with kids he doesn't know. He could also stay with his grandmother, but she's 77 and "some days he would be stuck in the house", Ms Charles says. "This way he gets to stay in London, go to the cinema and museums and I get to see him every day. And my nephew gets a holiday in London." 4. Send the kids abroad While it may sound extreme, some people have found it is cheaper to send their children abroad during the summer holidays than to pay for childcare at home. Milena Kuicka from Burton upon Trent sometimes sends her nine-year-old daughter to Poland during the holidays. Mrs Kuicka, 33, says her daughter "loves going" as she has friends and family in the country and she learns Polish. "Our family mostly speaks in English at home as dad is English," Ms Kuicka says. Her four-year-old son will go for the first time next year, but even though she says she will miss them while they are away, she feels she has no choice. "If I wanted to keep them with me in UK it would cost me over £2,000 for six weeks' childcare. Also I feel that they need contact with their grandparents as they don't see them much and their English grandparents are dead." 5. Take them to work with you Getting any work done with a child present may seem impossible, but some have made it work. Office manager Rebecca Budworth who works for her family's property business says: "If I need to be in the office then I take my two boys with me, they are good and will be happy enough with a raft of scrap paper and a big box of pens." Some companies actively encourage it. Investment bank Goldman Sachs, which already runs a nursery for staff in London, opens it up to 5-12 year olds during the school holidays. It has 48 spaces and around 1,200 parents are registered, representing almost a quarter of Goldman's London staff. Sebastian Howell, executive media manager at the bank, says staff love being able to "pop downstairs" to see their kids at lunch. Each parent at the bank also gets 20 free "back-up" days each year to use the centre for emergency childcare.

अधिकांश बच्चों के लिए स्कूल की गर्मियों की छुट्टियां अब आधिकारिक रूप से शुरू हो गई हैं।


Rare pictures of India's extraordinary Jayalalitha

Summary: Jayaram Jayalalitha, who died in the city of Chennai on Monday night, was one of India's most influential and controversial politicians.

One of India's most successful actresses, her political career was marked by allegations of self-enrichment to fund an extravagant lifestyle. Her admirers say she played a key role in the economic development of the southern state of Tamil Nadu - but critics say she encouraged a personality cult and fostered corruption in the state.

जयराम जयललीता, जिनका सोमवार की रात चेन्नई शहर में निधन हो गया, भारत के सबसे प्रभावशाली और विवादास्पद राजनेताओं में से एक थीं।


Woman, 61, rescued at Blue Lake quarry after collapsing

Summary: A 61-year-old woman had to be rescued by a mountain search team and a helicopter after collapsing at an isolated beauty spot in Gwynedd.

Aberdyfi Search and Rescue Team was called after a road ambulance was unable to reach the woman at Blue Lake quarry, Fairbourne, on the Mawddach estuary on Saturday at 13:40 BST. Volunteers and paramedics evacuated the woman down to the valley floor to meet a coastguard helicopter. She was flown to hospital for care.

ग्वेनेड में एक अलग सौंदर्य स्थल पर गिरने के बाद एक 61 वर्षीय महिला को एक पर्वत खोज दल और एक हेलीकॉप्टर द्वारा बचाया जाना पड़ा।


Nantes' theme park economics at Machines de L'Ile

Summary: It was a gamble, but in 2004 the City of Nantes in western France decided to take it. Using funds from regional government and from the European Union, it invested 10m euros (£8.4m; $13.3m) in Machines de L'Ile.

By Ben MorrisBusiness reporter, BBC News The idea was to create a theme park based around giant mechanical animals. Making their own parts, engineers and artists would build the huge contraptions in a converted warehouse. Visitors would be able to watch the machines being constructed and ride on the completed ones. The park would also be the anchor of a much larger plan to regenerate a run-down part of Nantes that had been in decay since the closure of the dockyards in 1987. Pierre Orefice is one of the two creators of the Machines de L'Ile. He had years of experience in producing outdoor theatre and, perhaps more importantly, the confidence of the city mayor, who approved the investment. Pierre and his partner in the project, Francois Delaroziere, were convinced the project would be a success if they could create a broad appeal. "In the Disney and Asterix parks, the parents are spectators, they don't have the same emotion as their kids," Pierre said. "We were sure there should not be separation from the world of children and adults. It was very important that a parent could enjoy the experience as much as the children." Pricey pachyderm Almost a decade later and the gamble seems to be paying off. The star attraction, a 12m-tall (39ft) elephant which stomps around the park spraying water, is a huge hit. The park has seen visitor numbers grow, even through the financial crisis and this year expects to attract 500,000 customers. Big companies are keen to be associated with the project. Power firm EDF and the bank, Credit Mutuel, are among the firms that provide 300,000 euros (£251,540; $400,380) a year in sponsorship. But despite that income, the park does not cover its costs. Operating a giant mechanical elephant is not cheap. It needs 2,000 litres of oil to keep it running smoothly and altogether costs Machines de L'Ile 200,000 euros a year. The park itself had a budget last year of 3m euros and it paid for 80% of that with the city picking up the rest of the bill. But local officials are happy with the investment. They argue that the project has created 50 highly skilled jobs in the workshop and another 60 in the gallery. They also say that the tourist revenue outside the project more than compensates for the losses. So they were happy to invest another 10m euros in the park's latest creation. David Martineau works for the French statistics agency, Insee, in Nantes: "It was a crazy project, for sure. It was quite difficult to make people come with you on the project. "But you have to have faith that cultural activities can be an engine for growth in a city like Nantes. "You can't really compete with tourism activities in other cities in France. "You can't compete with Bordeaux, Lyon [for tourism], so it's a way of competing." Cultural hub This summer, Machines de L'Ile unveils its latest creation. The Carousel of Marine World is 25m tall and will have three levels of elaborate mechanical sea life, including a giant squid, flying fish and manta ray. It promises to be quite a sight. Once again the regional government, the city and the European Union are helping to fund the park. But Machines de L'Ile creator Pierre Orefice is not complacent about the future. He describes the business environment as "fragile" and feels the pressure of having to create new attractions ever year. His theme park is part of a much larger regeneration of Nantes. Covering 337 hectares, it is one of the largest urban projects in Europe. The city hopes that with projects like Machines de L'Ile, it can become a cultural hub in France. That will need private investors and more slices of government funding. Patrice Guillotreau is an associate professor of economics and business at the University of Nantes: "Culture had a massive investment for the three last decades and this is very important as an appealing factor for the town, it makes it attractive for people."

यह एक जुआ था, लेकिन 2004 में पश्चिमी फ्रांस के नान्टेस शहर ने इसे लेने का फैसला किया। क्षेत्रीय सरकार और यूरोपीय संघ से धन का उपयोग करते हुए, इसने मशीन्स डी ल 'इले में 10 मिलियन यूरो (£8.4 मिलियन; $13.3m) का निवेश किया।


Brandon Lee death: Two men charged with murder

Summary: Two men have been charged with murdering a 24-year-old in South Shields.

Brandon Lee was found at a property in Victoria Road at 04:00 BST on Tuesday, with "injuries consistent with a bladed article". Mr Lee, of Wansbeck Road, Jarrow, died a short time later. Ross Miller, 23, of Victoria Road, and Garry Miller, 25, of Beach Road, South Shields, are due to appear before magistrates' in Newcastle later.

साउथ शील्ड्स में दो लोगों पर 24 वर्षीय युवक की हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Circumcision: Rwanda's quick cut to fight HIV

Summary: Circumcision in heterosexual males could reduce HIV by up to 60%, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In Rwanda, the BBC Focus on Africa magazine's Matthew Stein looks at government efforts to convince men to consider circumcision through a new non-surgical procedure that is cheaper, cleaner and more accessible.

In a cool room in Kigali's Kanombe Military Hospital a group of camera and notebook-toting doctors, nurses and researchers are standing to attention. On request of the consultant doctor, the young man standing in the middle of the room calmly lowers his trousers. He is here to reveal the results of his nine-day old circumcision, a new, non-surgical procedure for adults which is being tested in Rwanda. A thick gauze bandage, which was placed around the tip of his penis after his foreskin was removed two days earlier, is clean and without blood. Dr Jean Pierre Bitega, the specialist who oversaw the operations explains: "We want to see if, in the future, a patient can remove the dressing alone at home." In an adjacent room, 21-year-old Richard Muheto is preparing to undergo the same circumcision procedure. A student from Bugesera in south-east Rwanda, Mr Muheto says he has long wanted to be circumcised to reduce his risk of contracting HIV and "to be a cleaner person for washing". Wasting no time In 2010, the WHO said there was compelling evidence that circumcision can reduce the risk of HIV infection by around 60% in high risk areas such as sub-Saharan Africa. However, those involved in the fight against Aids stress that using condoms and staying faithful to one partner offer far more reliable protection. Experts give several reasons for this including that the foreskin traps HIV in a moist environment allowing the virus to live longer. But until recently this was unaffordable for people like Mr Muheto. Then he heard from a colleague that the government was offering a "new kind" of non-surgical circumcision which was free of charge. He wasted no time in signing up. The new procedure involves the use of a device called a PrePex, a three-piece mechanism consisting of two plastic rings and an elastic mechanism. It is clamped onto the penis without any need for sutures or anaesthesia. As such the procedure can be done in any clean, sheltered environment releasing Rwanda's already stretched surgical theatres for more urgent matters. Moreover, using the device is simple and can be taught to nurses in just two days, allowing medical professionals to concentrate on other complex operations. "We had been waiting for this innovation but until the PrePex we didn't have it," says Rwandan Health Minister Agnes Binagwaho. In fact, Rwanda became so intrigued with PrePex that it sent two of its own health specialists, Dr Bitega and Leon Ngeruka, to help the American manufacturer, Circ MedTech, improve the device for the country's particular environment. Since then, Rwanda has been conducting its own PrePex studies to satisfy WHO standards. 'No pain' The objective is to scale up use for a mass circumcision initiative across the country. The campaign, which was launched in December 2010, intends to halve Rwanda's current HIV incidence rate of 3% by circumcising two million men by the end of 2012. Since early May, nurses have been undergoing a two-day training course as opposed to the 15 days it takes to learn surgical circumcision. By mid-May, says Dr Bitega, six nurses had successfully graduated and 10 more were expected by June. Mr Muheto is impressed by the swiftness of the procedure and says there is no pain to report. For good measure, he will receive two oral painkillers, but will be discharged immediately. A week later he must return to have his foreskin removed. Since the campaign began, Rwanda has circumcised 5,000 men but it can dramatically increase these figures. The health ministry estimates that with 500 health facilities in the country Rwanda can perform approximately 250,000 procedures every two weeks. However, circumcision is still a foreign concept to Rwandans. Only 15% of adult males are circumcised. In rural areas, where illiteracy is high and traditional customs are more entrenched, this falls to as low as 1-2%. The government has launched a public education sensitisation campaign on the radio with the help of local leaders and community health workers. "When the service is available the community complies," says Corine Karema, acting director of the Treatment and Aids Research Centre. "When it's the government that plans they know it's for their better health." Innocent Mpirimbanyi, the health and education officer for Ndera village near Kigali, had only heard about the sensitisation campaign from radio advertisements. "I haven't received any documentation on this subject," he says. But the procedure has yet to receive full approval from the WHO. Without this, funding from organisations like the UN's Global Fund or Pepfar, the United States President's Emergency Fund for Aids Relief, will remain out of reach. The European Union has already endorsed PrePex but the WHO needs ample clinical data to inform its decision. It requires that a given device be tested in different contexts before it is approved, explains Kim Dickson, a senior adviser in the WHO's HIV/Aids department. But so far the data received from Rwanda has been "extremely promising", she says. For local Rwandan officials the viability of the new method is beyond doubt. "We've had zero infections," says Dr Bitega, "it's perfect every time." Matthew Stein is the regional editor for The Independent, a Uganda-based weekly news magazine

विश्व स्वास्थ्य संगठन (डब्ल्यू. एच. ओ.) के अनुसार विषमलैंगिक पुरुषों में खतना एच. आई. वी. को 60 प्रतिशत तक कम कर सकता है। रवांडा में, बीबीसी फ़ोकस ऑन अफ्रीका पत्रिका के मैथ्यू स्टीन एक नई गैर-शल्य चिकित्सा प्रक्रिया के माध्यम से खतना पर विचार करने के लिए पुरुषों को मनाने के सरकारी प्रयासों को देखते हैं जो सस्ती, स्वच्छ और अधिक सुलभ है।


The collapse of Northern Rock: Ten years on

Summary: In the summer of 2007, Newcastle had much to look forward to. The Toon - Newcastle United - had a new owner, the billionaire retail tycoon Mike Ashley, and much was expected under the management of Sam Allardyce.

By Dominic O'ConnellToday business presenter The performance of the team's shirt sponsor, Northern Rock, was a source of pride; after decades of hard times following the end of shipbuilding and mining, the North East had a new economic champion, one that was giving the financial services giants of the South a real run for their money. The former building society had demutualised and scaled the heights of the FTSE 100, the elite club of Britain's biggest quoted companies, and in the process had become the fourth biggest bank in the UK by share of lending. The chairman, Matt Ridley, summed it up in the annual report, lauding "another excellent year" and said "our strategy of using growth, cost efficiency and credit quality to reward both shareholders and customers continues to run well." Toxic fuel A few months later, Northern Rock's empire was in ruins. The fuel it had used to grow so quickly turned out to be toxic. Rather than using customer deposits as the source of funds to lend out to homeowners, it borrowed in the international money markets. When the sub-prime crisis hit America, those markets took fright, and stopped lending to anything that looked like it might be over-exposed to the housing market. Northern Rock was an obvious first casualty. The BBC broke the news that it needed Bank of England support 10 years ago tomorrow, and the day after there were queues outside branches, the first run on a British bank in 150 years. After limping on for a few more months, Northern Rock was nationalised in February 2008. Regional shock Councillor Nick Forbes, leader of Newcastle City Council, remembers walking out of the civic offices to nearby Northumberland Street where Northern Rock had its main city centre branch. "There was a queue outside going right down the street. That really was the first sign that something was wrong. No-one really saw it coming." Northern Rock's demise - it was split into "bad" and "good" sets of assets and operations, with Virgin Money buying the latter - was a shock to the region's economy, as was the banking crisis that followed. "We were early into recession and late out," said Mr Forbes. "It's only now really that we have recaptured that lost ground." About 2,500 jobs were lost. There was another heavy blow, little understood outside the North East - the loss of the Northern Rock Foundation, a charitable trust which received 5% of the bank's profits each year. It had given £235m to good causes before the bank was nationalised and broken up. Mr Forbes is now pressing the Treasury to give back some of the profits it expects to make from its intervention on Northern Rock to make up for the loss of the foundation. Northern Rock shareholders are also making a claim on the potential profits, which independent experts think could eventually reach about £8bn. An association of small shareholders, many of whom lost their life savings when the bank was nationalised, has asked the chancellor to think again on compensation, which has been denied before. Jon Wood, a fund manager who was a big Northern Rock shareholder and has been severely critical of the Bank of England's action, is also thought be to considering fresh legal action. The Treasury has said that any surplus from the Northern Rock nationalisation should compensate taxpayers for the amounts risked in the rescue. Lessons learned A decade on, important strands of "the run on the Rock" story are only now being uncovered. In an interview with the BBC Gary Hoffman, who was parachuted in as chief executive after privatisation, said he found an organisation with an unquestioning - and unhappy - culture. "The management had completely lost touch with the coal face, and did not know what was happening. There was an attitude that you did not question what was going on, which was a tragedy because there were extremely good people at the bank." Hoffman reveals that the Treasury had considered all options for the future of the bank when he was in charge - not just a sale to a banking rival, but also a refloating of the bank as an independent business, and its complete run-down and closure. Other senior banking sources have told the BBC that the last option - closure - was the favourite right up until Christmas Eve 2008, when the bank's leadership was able to convince the Treasury it could be sold as a going concern. Mr Hoffman says that the UK's banking sector is now safer than in the run-up to the crisis, with greater capital reserves at the big institutions. Others disagree, however, saying the increases have been largely illusory. Kevin Dowd, professor of finance and economics at the University of Durham, says changes in bank regulations have not greatly improved banks' resilience. "The Bank of England looks at the book value of bank assets - the value that they themselves put on their assets. But if you look at the stock market, investors don't believe it because most of our big banks have stock market values less than their book values."

2007 की गर्मियों में, न्यूकैसल के पास आगे देखने के लिए बहुत कुछ था। द टून-न्यूकैसल यूनाइटेड-का एक नया मालिक था, अरबपति खुदरा टाइकून माइक एशले, और सैम एलार्डिस के प्रबंधन के तहत बहुत कुछ अपेक्षित था।


Can you pass the taxi driver theory test?

Summary: Taxi drivers in Northern Ireland say a test for new drivers is so difficult that it is putting people off joining the profession.

The practical and theory tests, in place since October 2014, must be passed before drivers can become qualified to pick up passengers. Drivers sitting the theory test have to answer questions in four categories, covering issues from road responsibilities and mechanical knowledge to health and safety and customer care. A number of questions are specific to the taxi industry, but some are the same as those in the theory test for new car drivers. The pass mark is 80%, so ask yourself:

उत्तरी आयरलैंड में टैक्सी चालकों का कहना है कि नए चालकों के लिए एक परीक्षण इतना कठिन है कि यह लोगों को पेशे में शामिल होने से रोक रहा है।


Archaeologists unearth Roman road in Netherlands

Summary: Archaeologists in the Netherlands have discovered a 2,000-year-old stretch of Roman road and the remains of a Roman village at the town of Katwijk, which once marked the northern boundary of the Roman Empire.

By News from Elsewhere......as found by BBC Monitoring The road is 125 metres (410 ft) long and lies close to a busy highway in the Valkenburg suburb. The Roman village comes complete with a canal and burial ground, the Omroep West regional broadcaster reports. South Holland Province asked archaeologists to examine the whole area where the new RijnlandRoute bypass is to run, aware of the local Roman legacy and anxious to preserve any finds. The Emperor Claudius built the city of Lugdunum Batavorum at the mouth of the Old Rhine River, which still flows through Katwijk, and ships would sail from there for Britain. But no one expected to find such well-preserved remains in Katwijk itself. 'Great surprise' "The extent to which the Roman road is complete is a great surprise", the province says on its official website. Even the tall oak piles that stood alongside the road to stop it from subsiding are in remarkably good condition. Archaeologists reckon the road was built in about the year 125 CE, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. The dig also uncovered pottery, leather footwear, coins, a fish trap and other household objects, but the rarest find is a piece of building material with fragments of plaster and paint still intact after two millennia. The excavation will take another few weeks, and the archaeologists should complete their study of the site by end of the year. The public will be allowed to visit the dig on 13 October - Archaeology Day in the Netherlands. World Heritage Work on the new road is due to start in the second half of 2019 but will not disturb the site, the provincial authorities promise. The most important finds from the dig will go on display at the RijnlandRoute's information centre, and this may not be the end of the story. You might also be interested in: Dutch gritters salt roads during heatwave Lost Greek temple found after steps recounted Turkey: Ancient city put up for sale The excavations are part of the Lower German Limes - the old northern border of the Roman Empire - which the Netherlands has nominated for special UN international status, the Rheinische Post reported earlier in the year. If the application is successful, the old boundary that runs from Bad Breisig in Germany to Katwijk - including the Roman road - will become a World Heritage Site. The UN's World Heritage Committee is to consider the bid in 2021. Reporting by Martin Morgan Next story: Mickey Mouse expelled from Egypt schools Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.

नीदरलैंड में पुरातत्वविदों ने 2,000 साल पुरानी रोमन सड़क और कटविजक शहर में एक रोमन गांव के अवशेषों की खोज की है, जो कभी रोमन साम्राज्य की उत्तरी सीमा को चिह्नित करता था।


'No Food shortages for IDPs' - GA

Summary: There is no shortage of food to Killinochchi and Mulativu areas say the government agent of Mulativu Imelda Sukumar. World Food Programme [WFP] and the government had been supplying the food and other essential items, the official told the BBC.

Mulativu government agent say, "Today I saw 46 lorries of food going north. I met the WFP officials going with them. Thirty of the lorries were for Killinochchi district while the other sixteen were going to Mulativu. There were other lorries carrying goods for sale". She said that the supplies were temporarily stopped when Omanthai checkpoint was closed few days ago. sufficient amounts of nutritious food "At the moment we only have food supplies for fourteen days. But the government and the WFP had given assurances that food supplies will return" say the Government Agent. In a report issued recently, the Amnesty International has said the food supplies to Wanni were not sufficient. They also said the displaced people were facing malnutrition due to lack of nutritious food. "There is sufficient amount of nutritious food in the area. We have a good network for distributing food. It is working well. There is no reason to worry. We never had any shortages for weeks". The Government agent said. still difficulties with shelter When asked about the situation with regards to the supply of shelter for the Internally Dispalced People, Mulativu Government Agent said there are problems of supplying sufficient shelter material at the moment. "Timber, Cadjan and metal sheeting are difficult to get. We are working with the government and the NGOs to supply shelter for the people. At the moment some are taking shelter in government buildings. We are making arrangements to provide enough long term shelters." Government Agent Imelda Sukumar told in an interview with BBC Sandeshaya.

मुलातिवु इमेल्डा सुकुमार के सरकारी एजेंट का कहना है कि किल्लिनोच्ची और मुलातिवु क्षेत्रों में भोजन की कोई कमी नहीं है। अधिकारी ने बीबीसी को बताया कि विश्व खाद्य कार्यक्रम (डब्ल्यूएफपी) और सरकार भोजन और अन्य आवश्यक वस्तुओं की आपूर्ति कर रहे थे।


'Horror show' child porn collector Graham Capocci jailed

Summary: A man who downloaded more than 250,000 indecent images of children, with some victims aged only two, has been jailed.

Graham Capocci spent seven years amassing the library, which was dubbed a "horror show" by Judge Peter Davies. Carlisle Crown Court heard police raided the 44-year-old's Wellington Row home in Whitehaven last year and seized computer equipment. Capocci pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent photographs of a child and was jailed for a year. The hearing heard how hundreds of the images were said to be classed as category A - the most serious. Hundreds more were listed as category B and 235,000 were ranked in category C, the court heard.

केवल दो साल की उम्र के कुछ पीड़ितों के साथ बच्चों की 250,000 से अधिक अभद्र छवियां डाउनलोड करने वाले एक व्यक्ति को जेल भेज दिया गया है।


What do trade agreements do?

Summary: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the biggest trade agreement signed to date, in terms of the combined economic activity of the countries involved. But there are more deals, many already in force and others in the negotiating pipeline, including one that's even bigger than TPP.

By Andrew WalkerBBC World Service economics correspondent How many are there? Countries are required to notify the World Trade Organization (WTO) when they conclude an agreement. As of February this year, a total of 625 have been notified (though you get smaller numbers if you count them differently.) There are more in the pipeline, notably one involving the US and the EU, called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The negotiations have not been completed, but if they ever are it will be bigger than the TPP. In addition there is a negotiation called the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) between the EU and 22 countries. The US is involved and some emerging economies including Chile, Turkey and Pakistan. What are these agreements intended to achieve? To boost trade, and in the process boost economic activity, by reducing or even removing barriers to trade across international borders. Countries taking part are generally seeking improved opportunities for their businesses to sell their goods and services overseas. It is business groups who are the main supporters of these negotiations. There are also often investment aspects to these deals which are intended to encourage more foreign investment between signatory countries. What sort of trade barriers do they tackle? They involve negotiating reduced tariffs, taxes that are applied only to imports. Sometimes the aim is to eliminate them on many items. But they also try to reduce, to varying degrees, a wide range of other types of obstacle, called non-tariff barriers. For example, by: Some agreements also cover labour rights, for example requiring signatory countries to allow workers to organise and join unions and outlawing child and forced labour. What about investment? Many agreements have rules on how countries treat investors from other nations involved in the agreement. For instance: There are often restrictions on host governments "expropriating" an investment. Conventionally that means taking government ownership without compensation. But it can sometimes be interpreted quite widely, to include "indirect expropriation", which covers actions that reduce the value of a foreign investment. The tobacco company Philip Morris tried to argue that Australia's plain packaging laws were expropriating its investment, though it ultimately lost the case. The investment aspect often also includes a provision for arbitration, known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). In some cases these have led to governments having to pay compensation to a foreign investor over a change of government policy. The Philip Morris case against Australia was one of the most controversial to have made use of ISDS. What are the benefits of international trade? The great majority of economists see international trade as beneficial - to all the countries that take part, importer as well as exporter. Consumers, as well as firms that buy raw materials, components and services, get more choice and lower prices. Note, however, that the mainstream economic view is not that all individuals and all firms necessarily benefit from trade. Trade helps countries to specialise and do more of what they are best at. Economists call it comparative advantage. In practice a lot of trade is within an industry - "intra-industry trade". For example, some British motorists buy French-made cars while some in France buy vehicles made in Britain. But trade enables these companies to reduce costs by servicing a larger market and allows consumers more choice. The economist Paul Krugman won his Nobel Prize partly for his work on intra-industry trade. If freer trade is so good why not remove barriers on a global scale instead of in small groups of countries? There is a forum for doing this, the World Trade Organization. It has more than 160 member countries. The WTO began a new "round" of trade negotiations in 2001 in Doha, the capital of Qatar. But it has produced only modest results - an agreement on improving customs procedures. The latest WTO ministerial conference in Nairobi, in December 2015, is now widely seen as the moment when the member countries effectively gave up on the Doha Round. The appeal of bilateral agreements or deals among groups of countries has increased as the Doha Round failed to make much progress, although many of these agreements have been vigorously opposed on a wide range of grounds. Do the economic benefits hold water? There are criticisms of the basic economic case for these deals. Some say the potential economic benefits are small. Some say they will result in job losses as firms and the workers they employ face new competitive challenges. Some critics say projections of benefits are based on unrealistic assumptions about how quickly those workers find alternative jobs. Are the negotiations transparent? Negotiators are frequently accused of conducting the negotiations in secret, failing to inform the public about what they are doing and what the implications are likely to be. Often the negotiators say they are being as open as they can be without revealing their hand to the other side. What is the effect on regulatory standards and national sovereignty? There is a concern that regulatory convergence could lead to what is often called the "lowest common denominator" in terms of protecting consumers, public health and the environment. Many critics also complain that these agreements undermine national sovereignty and democracy. In Britain, there is a particular concern that TTIP and its ISDS arrangements might make it much harder to prevent or reverse the privatisation of services provided by the National Health Service. The provisions for ISDS, or investor tribunals, have been particularly attacked. Campaigners say that they can make governments reluctant to regulate in the public interest for fear of having to compensate an aggrieved foreign investor. Many also say that big business is the driving force behind these negotiations.

ट्रांस-पैसिफिक पार्टनरशिप (टी. पी. पी.) शामिल देशों की संयुक्त आर्थिक गतिविधि के संदर्भ में अब तक हस्ताक्षरित सबसे बड़ा व्यापार समझौता है। लेकिन अधिक सौदे हैं, जिनमें से कई पहले से ही लागू हैं और अन्य बातचीत की प्रक्रिया में हैं, जिनमें से एक टी. पी. पी. से भी बड़ा है।


Portsmouth house partially collapses after explosion and fire

Summary: A house has been severely damaged in a suspected gas explosion, causing a fire which spread to neighbouring properties.

Six fire crews were called to Whale Island Way in Portsmouth shortly after 12:00 GMT. The mid-terrace home has partially collapsed, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service said. No-one is reported to have been seriously injured and nearby properties were evacuated, the service added. Related Internet Links Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service

संदिग्ध गैस विस्फोट में एक घर गंभीर रूप से क्षतिग्रस्त हो गया है, जिससे आग लग गई है जो आसपास की संपत्तियों में फैल गई है।


Q&A: Bid to ban German far-right party

Summary: The German upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, has voted to ask the constitutional court to ban the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).

The Bundesrat represents the country's 16 constituent states and is entitled to launch such cases on its own. The lower house and the government, which also have this power, have yet to decide whether or not to join the petition. BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. For more reports from BBC Monitoring, click here. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

संसद के जर्मन ऊपरी सदन, बुंडेसरेट ने संवैधानिक अदालत से धुर दक्षिणपंथी नेशनल डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी ऑफ जर्मनी (एन. पी. डी.) पर प्रतिबंध लगाने के लिए कहने के लिए मतदान किया है।