Coronavirus economy: The 'banker ladies' saving friends from debt

Summary: Minority communities in the US and elsewhere have sometimes turned to traditional money saving methods outside the formal banking system. The economic shock from the coronavirus pandemic could spur renewed interest in those savings clubs.

By Angelica Casas & Boer DengBBC News When Hilda Robles recalls her first years in America, tears come to her eyes. "I cried and even wanted to leave at one point because I felt alone," she says. "I would ask people for help and they couldn't help me because they didn't understand Spanish and I didn't understand English." When she came to San Antonio, Texas some 20 years ago, even daily duties like getting to work or going to the doctor were feats of bilingual diplomacy and logistical planning - she had no car, no English and almost no one to turn to for help. Opening a bank account seemed impossible. "When I stepped into a bank for the first time, I was told I couldn't open a bank account because I had no social security number," she says. "Someone told me about a bank where I could open an account with no social security number, but the language barrier stopped me from going." So Ms Robles, 49, went a different route - she started a tanda, an informal savings club popular in Latin America, with contributions from her extended relatives. Members of the club each contribute a fixed sum to a pool of money on a regular, periodic schedule, with the lump sum going to one member each round until everyone gets paid. This means that members get back what they put in over the course of the scheme, but by getting it in the form of a lump sum, the money can be put to use for purchases, investments or debt payments they otherwise could not afford. Members who get their "hand" early are effectively receiving an interest-free loan, while those who receive theirs later in the cycle are essentially withdrawing a lump of "saved" cash. With the $5,000 lump sum she received for her turn of her tanda, Ms Robles bought her first car. Her relatives and friends in the savings club were able to put down payments on houses, pay for university tuition - and now, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, survive when their families have been out of work or sick. Since that first savings club 14 years ago, Ms Robles has run them continuously with only a few months break to organise the next one. "It gives me a lot of joy to see people reach their goals because of the tandas without having to drown in debt from loans," she says. "It's proof that among us Hispanics, we can get ahead here." Hispanic-Americans are not alone in their use of this ancient savings mechanism that has parallels all over the globe, known generally as a rotating savings and credit association, or roscas. In Mexico, they are popularly called tandas, but they are also known as huis, susus or ballot committees in various parts of the world. Immigrant communities continue their practice in the US. As economic hardship accompanies the public health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, for some families, traditional methods of saving outside the banking system have become a lifeline, especially for hard-hit immigrant communities with little access to mainstream sources of capital. Financial access and security in America has become an increasingly pressing subject of discussion in 2020. Even before the pandemic, the US was behind other rich countries when it comes to accessing money and credit. Some seven percent of Americans over the age of 15 did not have any kind of bank accounts in the US in 2017, compared to less than one percent of Canadians, and less than four percent of Britons, according to the World Bank. A quarter of American adults - more than 80 million people - were "unbanked" or "underbanked", meaning either that they had no accounts entirely, or that they are forced to use alternative services besides traditional banks in order to get enough financial access to meet goals or obligations. Households most likely to fall into the two categories were black or Hispanic, lack university qualifications and to be poor. To access loans, they must sometimes turn to non-bank lending options like payday lenders or loan sharks. These shadow banking options can be risky, charge high interests and bring dire consequences for borrowers who struggle to pay - but a rosca can provide a safer, more trustworthy alternative. "These systems are actually useful when we have bank systems that have a finite possibility," says Caroline Hossein, a professor of business and social studies at York University who studies roscas in communities in Canada. "Banks only have a certain amount of money, and if you only have a certain amount of money, you're only going to dish it out to those that are less risky. "So it makes perfect sense that people would engage in these kinds of mutual aid or money pooling systems." Often, they are run by women, whom Dr Hossein calls the "banker ladies" of the community. "The banker lady, who might be the one organising it - you can be in touch with her anytime of day, it may be someone who lives in your neighbourhood so [there's] the ease of getting there. "The paperwork is not as treacherous as it would be as a formal bank, so there's a kind of kinship that exists because it's people who voluntarily like and know each other." Though they tend to be "more of a life line for people who have difficulty accessing banking, particularly on the lending side," such savings schemes are also used by more established members of communities who may have inherited knowledge about them from immigrant parents. Beyond access to a pool of money, "a primary benefit is building 'bonds of mutual trust' within a network of trustworthy people," says Lee Martin of the University of California, Davis. Roscas are primarily beneficial for people without access to mainstream forms of credit, he says. But because they are used by marginalised communities, studying their overall prevalence and use has been difficult, says Dr Hossein, who participates in a rosca - known as a su-su in her Afro-Carribean community - as part of her research. "A lot of these roscas, particularly in places like Canada, the US or Europe, tend to be underground," she says, because many worry that the endeavour is seen as an unrespectable or even an illicit form of financing, only for those who are short of options. Clearly, unlike a savings account, they do not generate interest. Yet economists believe they are probably quite common in the West. One survey of Korean-American garment business owners in Los Angeles from 2004 found that 77% of households had participated in a version of the lending scheme. Self-lending within communities can have unexpected benefits. A rosca-like system among Chinese immigrants in Spain, for example, helped expatriate businessmen weather the Euro crisis of the late 2000s and 2010s. The Chinese business community was "largely insulated from the vagaries of the country's tottering retail banking system" - precisely because the system that shut them out meant they turned to each other, reported the Financial Times in 2014. In the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, families who participated in the tanda Ms Robles is running were able to pay their bills when some fell ill and could not work. For most, it was their only source of cash, Ms Robles says - only one of the families has received a cheque from the government for coronavirus relief because they lack the papers to get onto the dole. Like any investment scheme, however, roscas are not risk-free. A participant could fail to pay their hand, or take their share and run. Ms Robles says there have been rare times that she misplaced a contribution and had to make up the difference out of her own pocket, which can be costly. As they operate on trust, usually within a deeply connected community, the social consequences of misdeeds dissuades wrong-doing. But since they are run by privately, there is little legal recourse for cheating. And unlike putting money in a bank savings account, there is no interest paid. Could roscas catch on and become more mainstream? The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia asked just such a question in 2006, but was sceptical given the depth of trust it would require. An attempt by Yahoo Finance to popularise a tanda app in 2018 was unsuccessful. The scheme shut down after only a few months due to, it would seem, lack of participation. There are two big hurdles, as Dr Hossein sees it - the stigma attached to a non-traditional financial tool used by ethnic minority communities, and the barrier in trust that must be surmounted to put one's faith in other people to handle money. But with the Covid-19 pandemic, a younger generation of North Americans with an interest in sharing resources and the technology to do so efficiently - from crowdfunding to forms of "caremongering" - roscas are bound to be a savings method that continue and evolve and expand. For Mayra Martinez, 30, a university administration professional in Dallas, Texas, being in tandas has helped her learn about trust and foster a sense of obligation to save, which can otherwise be hard for young people like herself she says. "It's not like your commitment to yourself, where you can easily say 'hmm, I'm not going to do that this month because I just don't want to," she says. It is an added layer of security in an economic world that has been particularly unpredictable for young professionals, which Ms Martinez says she has seen first-hand - her sister and brother-in-law each recently tested positive for Covid-19 and could not work. "She just happened to get her tanda this week," says Ms Martinez. Because of that, Ms Martinez says, her sister was able to tell her husband: "It's ok". The tanda Ms Martinez is involved in now consists of family members from all generations and is run by her mother. Would she ever take over and start one for her own cohort of siblings and cousins once the older generations retire from such schemes? "I wouldn't mind running one," she says, adding with a laugh, "but it depends on which cousins."

अमेरिका और अन्य जगहों पर अल्पसंख्यक समुदायों ने कभी-कभी औपचारिक बैंकिंग प्रणाली के बाहर पारंपरिक धन बचत के तरीकों की ओर रुख किया है। कोरोनावायरस महामारी से आर्थिक आघात उन बचत क्लबों में नए सिरे से रुचि पैदा कर सकता है।


Randy Rainbow made his name satirising Trump - now what?

Summary: Those with cause to lament Donald Trump's departure from the White House may include America's satirists - the people he gave comic material to almost daily. In those four years the videos of Randy Rainbow delighted countless followers with satire chiefly using the improbable medium of Broadway show tunes. But the curtain's not down yet.

By Vincent DowdArts correspondent, BBC News Randy Rainbow - it's his real name - grew up outside New York City and at 10 moved with his family to south Florida. Returning to New York at 22 he was intent on a performing career. "But I knew I was a pretty young 22," he recalls. "I'd been on stage as a kid and I thought I just had to grow into myself as a person before I began a career for real. To fill in I did jobs such as working in restaurants and behind the desk at production offices." To fend off boredom he started writing a blog which picked up on trends in popular culture and especially in musical comedy. "That led me to YouTube and once I had some eyeballs on me I got a job providing content for the BroadwayWorld website," he says. For a time he was doing two separate things online. "There was my non-musical stuff which, so to speak, Forrest Gumped me into the hot topics in mainstream media. The first video which really went viral was in 2010: I was on the phone in my apartment pretending to date a ranting Mel Gibson. "Whereas BroadwayWorld wanted material based on what was going on in theatre. So I started writing and performing parodies of show tunes and over the years it all just merged into one. "Eventually I was doing parody songs on YouTube about whatever was happening in the US. And of course from 2017 that mainly meant satirising Trump - though initially I had no idea how much work it would all mean." His recent video Sedition has already had more than two million hits. It's based on Tradition, the opening number of the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof. Warning: Some of the language in this video may be considered offensive. Among other hits have been Kamala!, based on Camelot, and a version of the West Side Story song Gee Officer Krupke reworked as a love letter to Dr Anthony Fauci. Rainbow has a fascination for even obscure Broadway and Hollywood songs: The Bunker Boy is a clever rewriting of The Jitterbug, an Arlen & Harburg number dropped from The Wizard of Oz. Usually Rainbow has been posting a couple of videos each month. For a one-man band working from the spare bedroom of his New York apartment they're made to an impressive standard. Growing financial success has meant he's been able to move from the outer borough of Queens to Manhattan's Upper West Side. Yet he insists his technical skills remain under-developed. "Basically I'm a ham and my roots are totally in performance. In anything else I'm winging it: I don't know what the hell I'm doing. "I've taught myself just enough of Final Cut and Adobe After Effects to put all this together. My overhead is small - the expense is mainly for certain videos when I need to buy costumes or maybe props. But it varies - you can get a cheap wig these days for $4.95." Rainbow films his own contributions on green screen and the music he uses comes from karaoke download sites. Copyright problems are none as US law protects the concept of musical parody. Luminaries of the theatre who have let Rainbow know how much they approve of his lyrical and musical meddling include Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Rainbow says he needs to produce each video inside 72 hours at most and if possible within 48 hours. "It's because the news cycle has now become so crazy in America that there's always a danger you could start something that will feel out of date before anyone sees it." Fairly obviously Rainbow is no Trump fan. But he says his own followers are not exclusively of the Democrat-supporting liberal elite the former president was critical of. "He has devoted supporters and admirers who nonetheless aren't blind to his foibles. I was told by whistle-blowers there were White House people who enjoyed my work. Maybe they were talking about Melania. "I think at one point her husband did have a sense of humour but I very much doubt now he would take an interest. And he never blocked me on Twitter which I'm very upset about." Isn't Rainbow worried he's about to have very little left to satirise? "It's true I don't anticipate Joe Biden being the same endless source of comedy material. The kind of satire I do is always better when there's a great central subject - just like storytelling is enriched by a really juicy villain. But the joke had expired on Trump." Rainbow's final video of the Trump era may have been his least amusing. Perhaps that was the point. Seasons of Trump, posted in the dying hours of the presidency, is based on Seasons Of Love from the musical Rent. It's without comic one-liners and the basic tone is of anger and regret. "The truth is it had been getting trickier for me to make the jokes," he says. "There was a time when the job was a lot more fun. I'm ready to be done with it all because it's become so dark, what's going on in the world." Rainbow has recorded an album of Christmas classics and he's currently writing his first book. But he doesn't anticipate an immediate end to life as an online satirist. "Topical humour, by its nature, is an endless well of material. In these times of social media people are always up in arms and debating something. You're looking for the thing everyone is talking about and really I've just been following the bouncing ball." Rainbow says his job isn't necessarily to spoof whoever's in, or has been in, the Oval Office - although he may still do Trump videos if he's making the news. He points out that in 2020 his output wasn't all Trump anyway - the subject was often Covid-19. "It just so happens that for four years almost all the heat in comedy came from one source. But that's not how humour is meant to be. Or how America is meant to be."

व्हाइट हाउस से डोनाल्ड ट्रम्प के जाने पर शोक व्यक्त करने वालों में अमेरिका के व्यंग्यकार शामिल हो सकते हैं-जिन लोगों को उन्होंने लगभग हर दिन हास्य सामग्री दी। उन चार वर्षों में रैंडी रेनबो के वीडियो ने अनगिनत अनुयायियों को मुख्य रूप से ब्रॉडवे शो धुनों के असंभव माध्यम का उपयोग करके व्यंग्य के साथ खुश कर दिया। लेकिन पर्दा अभी तक नीचे नहीं है।


Fracking could transform Britain's industrial heartland, says Ineos boss

Summary: Fracking could transform Britain's industrial heartland in the way it has revived America's Rust Belt, chemicals tycoon Jim Ratcliffe - the man behind Tuesday's first shale gas import to the UK - has told the BBC.

By Dominic O'ConnellToday business presenter In an interview with Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Ratcliffe said preliminary work by his company Ineos indicated Britain had significant quantities of shale gas in South and North Yorkshire, Lancashire and across Scotland. "If you look at a place like Pittsburgh in America, a steel town that was on its knees, it has been completely changed by shale gas. We could do the same for our industrial heartland. It could change people's lives," he said. The Ineos Insight, carrying 27,500 cubic metres of gas from the Marcellus shale field in Pennsylvania, arrived at the company's Grangemouth chemicals plant in Scotland on Tuesday morning. Grangemouth has used gas from the North Sea, but has been running at less than full capacity as domestic production declines. Mr Ratcliffe said the company had faced a decision on whether to abandon Grangemouth three years ago, which led to the plan to import cheaper US shale gas. The cargo arrived the day after the Labour Party conference vowed to try and ban fracking in England - there is already a ban in place in Scotland. Mr Ratcliffe said the opposition was "difficult for me to understand." "One million wells have been drilled in America and while there were issues early on, it is now a very safe and well regulated industry," he said.

रसायन व्यवसायी जिम रैटक्लिफ-ब्रिटेन में मंगलवार को पहले शेल गैस आयात के पीछे के व्यक्ति-ने बीबीसी को बताया है कि फ्रैकिंग ब्रिटेन के औद्योगिक केंद्र को उस तरह से बदल सकता है जिस तरह से इसने अमेरिका के रस्ट बेल्ट को पुनर्जीवित किया है।


The Great Pretender: England on film

Summary: The great English landscape is a film icon in its own right - think of the sweeping grandeur of Wuthering Heights, Bond's swaggering London, the Cotswoldian charm of Pride and Prejudice.

By Sarah GoslingBBC News But what about the film locations you never knew about? Here are some of the country's best disguises. Avengers: New York State The grand and futuristic Avengers HQ in "Upstate New York" is in reality nestled in Norwich. The hangar-like building featured in the Thor movies, the newest Spider-Man offering (Homecoming) and the Avengers franchise is actually the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts on the campus of the University of East Anglia in Norwich. The building - when not overrun by people in exclusively skin-tight outfits - houses modern art donated by Lord and Lady Sainsbury, including works by Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon and Edgar Degas, as well as world art spanning 5,000 years of human creativity. Atonement: Dunkirk One of the most poignant sequences in the film Atonement was shot on Redcar beach. It captures the moment in the story when the character of Robbie Turner, played by James McAvoy, along with two of his soldier friends, arrive at Dunkirk having walked for many days to get there. They are greeted by chaos, with hundreds of thousands of men on the beach hoping for the British ships to return so they can be evacuated. Additions to the eight-mile stretch of sand near Middlesbrough included the smouldering wreckage of a seafront French hotel and thousands of local extras in army uniform. You might also be interested in Dungeons & Dragons: The revival of a "geeky" pastime The off-screen heroes behind Marvel magic London's iconic album cover images World War Z: Nova Scotia In the 2013 Brad Pitt film World War Z, one place speaks of safety, tranquillity and freedom following the great zombie panic - Nova Scotia. Can't get to Canada? Then step forward Lulworth Cove in Dorset. With its sweeping coastline and green hilltops it's the very picture of safety and natural serenity in this bleak movie. Les Misérables: Paris At first glance 2012's Les Misérables seems about as classically French as possible, and yet the majority - sweeping landscape shots aside - was actually filmed in England. In one scene, Russell Crowe's character - the vengeful police officer Javert - becomes overwhelmed by the futility of his existence and throws himself into the River Seine. The scene of the Seine, however, is the weir of the River Avon beneath the Pulteney Bridge in Bath, Somerset. The Princess Diaries: The royal palace of Genovia While the bulk of the Anne Hathaway movie might be set in San Francisco, her regal life is set firmly in the fictional country of Genovia. But the exterior of the grand palace is actually Longford Castle in Bodenham, Wiltshire. The main building is an unusual triangular shape with a round tower in each corner which it's said represent the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Dark Shadows: Collinsport, Maine The sleepy, eerie setting of Tim Burton's 2012 comedy Dark Shadows is Collinsport in Maine. It was filmed, however, in England and Scotland. Those wild and breath-taking beach scenes are in fact filmed at Great Mattiscombe Sands near Kingsbridge in Devon. A View To A Kill: Silicon Valley One of the things synonymous with England is 007, Her Majesty's secret weapon - Mr James Bond. And while we expect to see the Aston Martins and the finely-cut suits in Westminster, what we don't expect is for scenes set in California to be filmed in England. Nevertheless, this Zorin's mine in "Silicon Valley" is actually a shaft at Amberley Working Museum in West Sussex.

महान अंग्रेजी परिदृश्य अपने आप में एक फिल्म आइकन है-वुथरिंग हाइट्स की व्यापक भव्यता, बॉन्ड के शानदार लंदन, गर्व और पूर्वाग्रह के कॉट्सवोल्डियन आकर्षण के बारे में सोचें।


South West ambulance plea ahead of pay strike

Summary: The South Western Ambulance Service has urged people to only call them if it is absolutely necessary ahead of Wednesday's day of strike action.

The service said it expected some staff to strike but it did not know how many. A spokesperson said it would have to prioritise the most important calls, but an ambulance would be sent to a genuine emergency. Public sector workers are expected to strike because of changes to pensions and pay. Dr Andy Smith, the executive medical director at the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust said: "If they dial 999 with an emergency that's serious and life threatening they will receive the same kind of response they receive now. "We will reprioritise our staff to those who really need us," he added.

दक्षिण पश्चिमी एम्बुलेंस सेवा ने लोगों से आग्रह किया है कि वे बुधवार की हड़ताल के दिन से पहले उन्हें केवल तभी कॉल करें जब यह बिल्कुल आवश्यक हो।


Man dies after being hit by car on M32 near Bristol

Summary: A man died when he was hit by a car on a motorway after he got out of his vehicle following an earlier crash.

It happened on the M32 near Bristol shortly after 22:00 GMT on Saturday. Five cars were involved in the crash on the northbound carriageway between junctions 2 and 1. Another individual suffered back injuries, while two received minor injuries. The motorway has now been reopened after it was closed earlier. Police have asked for dashcam footage. Related Internet Links Avon & Somerset Police

एक व्यक्ति की मृत्यु हो गई जब वह पहले की दुर्घटना के बाद अपने वाहन से बाहर निकलने के बाद मोटरवे पर एक कार से टकरा गया।


Free parking in Cherwell council area during Christmas

Summary: An Oxfordshire authority is to provide free parking over the Christmas period.

Cherwell District Council approved the plans on Monday evening for Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from 1 December, for six weeks. Councillor George Reynolds described the decision as a "Christmas present to the traders". It will affect all council-owned and run car parks and does not include the Spiceball and Compton Road car parks in Banbury. Mr Reynolds said shoppers would be restricted to the time limit set for each car park and that this would be enforced. The town has car parks with one-hour, three-hour and all day parking restrictions, which will remain. He added that pay machines would not accept money during the free parking days and that there would be increased signage. "I have a horrible feeling there will be more notices than parking spaces," he said. Earlier in the year Cherwell District Council refunded £11,600 worth of parking fines after The Local Government Ombudsman found it had failed to properly signpost new charges.

एक ऑक्सफोर्डशायर प्राधिकरण क्रिसमस की अवधि में मुफ्त पार्किंग प्रदान करने के लिए है।


The secret of why we like to eat chocolate

Summary: It may seem simple - we like chocolate because it tastes nice. But there's more to it than that - and it relates to a fat/carbohydrates balance that is set right from the very beginning of our lives.

By Dr Michael MosleyBBC I love chocolate and once I start on a bar I can't stop until it's all gone. One square, or even a few, are never enough. My family know that if they bring chocolate into our house they will have to hide it. So what is it about the food that so many of us find irresistible? And what characteristics does chocolate share with other foods that we simply can't say, "no" to? As part of a new series on the science of food, botanist James Wong and I went looking for answers. 'Lemonade and a custard apple' Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, which have been grown and consumed in the Americas for thousands of years. The Maya and the Aztecs made a drink out of cocoa beans called xocolatl, which means "bitter water." Can people learn to curb their chocolate cravings? That's because in its raw form cocoa beans are intensely bitter. To get at the beans you first have to crack open the thick husk of the cocoa pod, releasing a pulp that has an intense tropical flavour that's halfway between lemonade and a custard apple. Known as baba de cacao, it's sweet, acidic and very sticky. The beans and pulp are then sweated and allowed to ferment for several days before being dried and roasted. Roasting releases a range of chemical compounds including 3-methylbutanoic acid, which on its own has a sweaty rancid odour, and dimethyl trisulfide, the smell of over-cooked cabbage. The combination of these and other aroma molecules creates a unique chemical signature that our brains love. But the rich, chocolaty smells and the happy memories of youth that those smells provoke, are just part of chocolate's attraction. Chocolate contains a number of interesting psychoactive chemicals. These include anandamide, a neurotransmitter whose name comes from the Sanskrit - "ananda", meaning "joy, bliss, delight". Anandamides stimulate the brain in much the same way that cannabis does. It also contains tyramine and phenylethylamine, both of which have similar effects to amphetamines. Finally, if you look hard enough, you will find small traces of theobromine and caffeine, both of which are well-known stimulants. For a while, some food scientists got very excited about the discovery but to be honest, although chocolate contains these substances, we now know they are only there in trace amounts. Your brain is not going to get much of a chemical rush from eating a few squares. None the less, they may play a small part in seducing our senses. Sugars plus fats So what else does chocolate have going for it? Well, it also has a creamy viscosity. When you take it out of its wrapper and put a bit in your mouth without biting, you will notice that it rapidly melts on your tongue, leaving a lingering sensation of smoothness. Special touch receptors on our tongues detect this textural change, which then stimulates feelings of pleasure. But the thing that really transformed the cocoa from a bitter and watery drink into the snack we adore today was the addition of sugar and fat. The addition of just the right amount of each is crucial to our enjoyment of chocolate. Look at the side of a packet of milk chocolate and you will see that it is normally contains around 20-25% fat and 40-50% sugar. In nature such high levels of sugar and fat are rarely found, or at least not together. You can get lots of natural sugars from fruits and roots, and there is plenty of fat to be found in nuts or a tasty chunk of salmon, but one of the few places where you will find both together is in milk. Human breast milk is particularly rich in natural sugars, mainly lactose. Roughly 4% of human breast milk is fat, while about 8% is made up of sugars. Formula milk, which is fed to babies, contains a similar ratio of fats to sugars. This ratio, 1g of fat to 2g of sugars, is the same ratio of fats to sugars that you find in milk chocolate. And in biscuits, doughnuts, ice cream. In fact this particular ratio is reflected in many of the foods that we find hard to resist. So why do I love chocolate? For a whole host of reasons. But it may also be that I, and chocoholics like me, are trying to recapture the taste and sense of closeness we got from the first food we ever sampled; human breast milk. The Secrets of Your Food begins on BBC2 at 2100GMT on Friday February 24th. Join the conversation on our Facebook page.

यह सरल लग सकता है-हमें चॉकलेट पसंद है क्योंकि इसका स्वाद अच्छा होता है। लेकिन इसमें और भी बहुत कुछ है-और यह हमारे जीवन की शुरुआत से ही वसा/कार्बोहाइड्रेट संतुलन से संबंधित है।


South China Sea: What's China's plan for its 'Great Wall of Sand'?

Summary: Despite all the other issues demanding China's attention this year - the virus, its trade war with the US, Hong Kong's national security law, and a host of economic woes - the South China Sea has been revived in recent months as an arena for serious tensions.

With US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo now - for the first time - calling China's territorial claims in the South China Sea unlawful, Alexander Neill examines China's plans to extend its reach in the region. The South China Sea, home to vital shipping lanes, has been a flashpoint for years, with several countries claiming ownership of its small islands and reefs and with it, access to resources. In recent years, China has been increasingly assertive over what it claims are its centuries-old claims to the contested region, and has been rapidly building up its military presence to back up those claims. Former Commander of US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris once referred to this as the "Great Wall of Sand" - a "nine-dash line" creating a protective ring and supply network around Chinese territory at sea, as the wall did on land. But while China and the US have traded increasingly barbed comments over the South China Sea, broadly speaking, they had managed such differences. Despite their trade conflict, the US had avoided taking sides in China's territorial disputes with other countries - other than to demand freedom of movement for its vessels. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Criticism of China's early handling of the outbreak, led by the US, has enraged China. Many Western leaders appear to be persuaded by Mr Pompeo's argument that China was exploiting the pandemic to double-down on its coercive behaviour in general. And those rising tensions have been playing out in the South China Sea. Military tensions at a worrying time In early April, a Chinese Coast Guard vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel close to the Paracel Islands, which China and Vietnam claim as theirs. Then, a Malaysian oil exploration project also found its operations disrupted off the coast of Borneo by a Chinese marine survey vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, backed by China's Navy and Coast Guard. Consequently, the USS America, a US Navy amphibious assault ship, joined by an Australian frigate, was deployed to waters nearby. The escalation continued with the deployment of two US Navy guided missile destroyers, USS Bunker Hill and USS Barry to the Paracel and Spratly Islands (known as the Xisha and Nansha in Chinese) respectively. The warships conducted Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) aimed at challenging what the US views as a pattern of China's unlawful claims in international waters. Most recently, China closed off a swathe of sea space to conduct naval exercises in the waters surrounding the Paracel Islands. The US angrily said this violated Chinese commitments to avoid activities exacerbating disputes. Meanwhile, the US Navy deployed not one but two aircraft carrier strike groups - the USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan - for joint operations in the region. In addition to the US Navy fighters conducting carrier operations and the P8-Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft criss-crossing the sea, the US Air Force sent a B-52 strategic bomber for good measure. China's state media reacted with predictable vitriol. The US Navy's surge into the South China Sea increases the risk of an incident between the two rival powers and a rapid escalation in hostility. The situation is particularly dangerous in light of a recent pattern of increasing assertiveness by China over its "core concerns". Its recent use of lethal force on its disputed border with India, and the imposition of the National Security Law on Hong Kong, have prompted many to ask how restrained China is likely to be in its response to these challenges. What is China's South China Sea goal? Beijing views the South China Sea as a crucial part of its maritime territory, not only serving as a bastion for its seaborne nuclear deterrent based on Hainan island but also as a gateway for the Maritime Silk Road, part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. The South China Sea is critical, for example, for the future success of China's Greater Bay Area economic development plan, into which Hong Kong is incorporated. China's plan for populating the South China Sea was launched in 2012 when "Sansha City", the administrative centre for all Chinese-claimed features in the South China Sea on Woody Island in the Paracels, was upgraded from county to prefecture-level status. The government re-settled the small fishing community there into modern dwellings, built a primary school, a bank and a hospital and installed mobile communications. Tourists have been visiting on regularly scheduled cruises to the islands. The second phase of the plan was initiated in April this year, when China created two further county level administrative districts subordinate to Sansha City, including the establishment of Nansha District People's government, headquartered on Fiery Cross Reef and administering all the Chinese claimed features of the Spratly Islands. In the six years since China began reclamation of several reefs and atolls in the Spratlys, satellite and air surveillance has revealed one of the world's greatest feats in maritime engineering and military construction. In addition to the military facilities on the islands - including 3,000m runways, naval berths, hangars, reinforced ammunition bunkers, missile silos and radar sites - images show neatly arranged accommodation blocks, administrative buildings roofed with blue ceramic tiles, hospitals, and even sports complexes on the reclaimed islands, which have become visibly greener. Subi reef is now home to a farm - including a six-acre fruit and vegetable plot pollinated by bees imported from the mainland, a herd of pigs, flocks of poultry and fish ponds. Meanwhile, the China Academy of Sciences established an Oceanographic Research Centre on Mischief Reef in January 2019. China's top hydrologists have announced that the water table on Fiery Cross - once little more than a rock in the sea - has been expanding rapidly and will allow water self-sufficiency within 15 years (link in Chinese). The residents of the island already enjoy 5G mobile data access and availability of fresh fruit and vegetables shipped in refrigerated containers. Imagery also shows large fishing fleets moored in the larger lagoons on Subi and Mischief reef. Perhaps before too long, fishing families could be permanently housed on China's southernmost islands, their children schooled alongside those of party and government officials. An 'irreversibly' Chinese waterway? The most symbolic evidence of China's push into the South China Sea is quite literally set in stone - transplanted from mainland China. In April 2018, 200-tonne commemorative megaliths, erected on each of the three biggest island bases in the Spratly Islands were unveiled amid some secrecy. Quarried from Taishan stone and shipped to the Spratly islands, the monuments resonate with President Xi Jinping's China Dream of national rejuvenation. Mount Taishan is viewed as the most sacred of China's mountains, a symbol of unbroken Chinese civilisation for thousands of years. All of this shows China has moved into a second phase of a calculated plan to make this great strategic waterway of South East Asia an irreversibly Chinese one. The recent US Navy exercises in the South China Sea were aimed at demonstrating US resolve to protect the "freedom of the seas": for the US Navy to operate in and ultimately protect the seaspace across these international waters. Alongside the US Naval manoeuvres, Mr Pompeo's announcement formally stating that China's claims across the region are "completely unlawful" begs the question of what the US is prepared to do next. At a minimum, Mr Pompeo wants to build a diplomatic coalition to demonstrate China's self-isolation, not just with some of the other claimants but also along with bigger powers. The US could very rapidly reduce China's new Nansha district to concrete and coral rubble - but this would entail a war for which neither the US nor China has an appetite. Alexander Neill is a military analyst and director of a strategic advisory consultancy in Singapore

इस साल चीन के ध्यान की मांग करने वाले अन्य सभी मुद्दों-वायरस, अमेरिका के साथ इसका व्यापार युद्ध, हांगकांग का राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा कानून और कई आर्थिक संकटों के बावजूद-दक्षिण चीन सागर को हाल के महीनों में गंभीर तनाव के क्षेत्र के रूप में पुनर्जीवित किया गया है।


Katy Perry reveals 'teenage' second album

Summary: Katy Perry has revealed details of her forthcoming second album, Teenage Dream, which will be released on 30 August.

It will be preceded by new single California Gurls on 20 June. Perry, who is engaged to comedian Russel Brand, said the new single, which features rapper Snoop Dogg is a response to Jay-Z's homage to New York, Empire State Of Mind. She said: "I decided that we needed to make a response. I want people to want to book a ticket to California the first time they hear it." The Santa Barbara starlet's debut One Of The Boys, which featured single Hot N Cold and I Kissed A Girl, has sold five million copies worldwide since its release in 2008.

कैटी पेरी ने अपने आगामी दूसरे एल्बम, टीनएज ड्रीम के विवरण का खुलासा किया है, जो 30 अगस्त को रिलीज़ होगा।


Young people explain psychosis on film

Summary: In a new YouTube video by 25-year-old filmmaker John Richardson, he and two other young people recount their personal stories of psychosis and the help they received from a mental health service for young people where they live in Sussex.

By Emma TraceyBBC News, Ouch "I was speaking a million miles an hour to my friends about thousands of different topics," says Richardson in the film, saying he had paint and coffee stains all over him, and had written words up and down his arms. We then see a young man, Dominic, who believed he was Jesus and later a young woman, Jo, who talks about the troubling agreement she made with her hallucination. She says: "We made a deal that he could be with me when I killed my friends and family." She believed at the time that carrying out this act would save the people she loved from an even worse fate. The film explains the kind of help and understanding they received from the early intervention service, a team dedicated to helping young people. Richardson says he made the film Simon Says: Psychosis because it's the one he would have wanted to have seen when he became ill. Instead, he says he spent two years jumping out of windows and hiding to avoid discussing his mental health with the team. John Richardson spoke to Ouch this week: What was your first experience of psychosis? I was fed up with my film course and felt unfulfilled, so I started getting all these ideas of films I could make in the summer and it snowballed into a bit of a psychotic episode. I couldn't sleep and was running around the town, filming everything and talking to my Dictaphone. A friend got my mum up from Eastbourne and she found me lying in glass that had accumulated over five days of me breaking stuff. To anyone in a normal state of mind, it just looked like a mess, but to me, in that moment, I was arranging it into some sort of intricate piece of art. I thought that if someone could work it out, they'd glimpse what kind of state I was in. I still have all the footage, which is quite disturbing. When did the early intervention team get involved? They came the fourth day I was in hospital... but I wasn't open to help. I think most people have that engagement issue, where they don't feel there's anything wrong with them or they don't feel like the people who are saying that they can help, can actually help. They just don't trust them. The team increased my positive outlook on life. They changed the way I think about hope. Rather than it being that the world's going to blossom into rainbows and flowers, it's that I can find some hope in myself and be a bit stronger in the future. They armed me with the tools that I need to stop similar things happening to me again. How does your film differ to any other mental health films you've seen? For a start, we don't have any manipulative, emotional piano. We tried to make it as honest as possible and not too much like a glorified advert. I'm a cynic so I look right through that "this service is amazing" stuff and see it as a lie. It is nice for people to see that the clinicians are actually people and have personalities too. The first thing professionals should do is strike up a relationship in a humane way, something like "what's your favourite colour". It is easier to form a therapeutic relationship if you can relate to them as a person. You can watch the film Simon Says: Psychosis here Follow @BBCOuch on Twitter and on Facebook, and listen to our monthly talk show

25 वर्षीय फिल्म निर्माता जॉन रिचर्डसन के एक नए यूट्यूब वीडियो में, वह और दो अन्य युवा लोग मनोविकृति की अपनी व्यक्तिगत कहानियों और ससेक्स में रहने वाले युवाओं के लिए एक मानसिक स्वास्थ्य सेवा से प्राप्त सहायता के बारे में बताते हैं।


Thinking outside the box in space

Summary: The latest consumer electronics device seems to hold its novelty these days for about as long as a gnat can concentrate. No sooner have you opened the packaging than you're already yearning for the upgrade. It's a fast paced world, and one of the few examples where "better" seems to cost less as time progresses.

Jonathan AmosScience correspondent@BBCAmoson Twitter No wonder other industries are trying to capture the same magic, and the space sector is no exception. The British satellite manufacturer SSTL has had a good deal of success down the years by incorporating components into its spacecraft that would ordinarily be used in laptops. "Off the shelf" has lowered the price of the Guildford company's products, and it's constantly on the look-out for that next clever cross-over. So, enter Microsoft's XBox Kinect. For those who don't play video games at home and need a little education (that's me!), this is a motion sensor system that allows you to interact with the Xbox 360 console without the need to touch any sort of hand controller. Just sway one way, and the infrared scanner in the Kinect will sense your movement and tilt your surfboard to the left; jump, and Kinect will lift your on-screen avatar into the air. It's a smart piece of kit that became one of the fastest selling consumer electronics devices of all time when it was released in 2010. So, what could you do with it in space? Well, the engineers at SSTL and the University of Surrey think the technology in Kinect could form the basis of a novel in-orbit proximity sensor and docking system. And they plan to try it out. Come together The Surrey team has a cubesat programme called Strand (Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator). You may have heard of this already. The first Strand cubesat currently in development will incorporate a Google Nexus One Android phone. It should launch later this year. The satellite-borne phone will map the Earth with its 5 megapixel camera and conduct a number of scientific and engineering experiments, the most significant of which will be to hand total control of the spacecraft over to the Nexus. That's never been done before. The Strand-2 project which has just been initiated will see two cubesats launched together on the same rocket. Once in orbit, these little satellites will separate for a short period to conduct systems checks. Then, when the engineers are ready, the cubesats will be commanded to use their on-board Kinect technology to find each other and dock together. The Surrey researchers have been developing a simple magnetic docking system that works like a cup and cone. The pair will join, separate, join, separate, and so on. Shaun Kenyon from SSTL told me: "Kinect uses an infrared laser to pepper its surroundings, building up a 3D model of the space immediately in front of it. A webcam on the box also overlays a picture on to the distance information provided by the laser. "There are quite a lot of YouTube videos out there of people using the Kinects in different applications rather than just playing computer games with them. "We saw one really cool idea where someone had taken the electronics from the Kinect and put it on a hobby quadrotar. "This unit was completely autonomous and it could fly around a room. Because it had the Kinect, it was building up a 3D model of its surroundings as it was flying. So, we thought why not use this technology in space as part of a docking system." Low-cost space Where can you go with this? The Strand team sees it as perhaps the start of intelligent "space building blocks" that could be stacked together and reconfigured to build larger modular spacecraft. We may not be about to see space stations being built this way anytime soon, but one can very easily envisage "snap-on" auxiliary satellites that provide backup power, propulsion or even additional on-board computing to another spacecraft. Space junk is a big topic for discussion currently, also. So, maybe you could snap on devices to help bring redundant satellites out of the sky faster than would otherwise be the case. Meanwhile, watch out for Strand-1. One of its experiments is called "Scream in Space" and was suggested by Cambridge University students. This will see the Nexus phone play videos of people screaming to test the famous Alien movie poster statement: "In space, no-one can hear you scream". In a vacuum, this is certainly true… but probably only up to a point. It's quite likely the phone's microphone will sense a scream emitted from its speakers if only because they're connected to each other on the same candy bar structure. "This is all about finding out whether these newer electronics are suitable for use in space. The way we'll know is if we fly them," says Kenyon. "They may not perform well. There are radiation issues, and there are temperature issues to contend with. "There are also power constraints: when your mobile phone runs out of juice, it's easy enough to re-charge it; but in space you're dependent on the solar panels and you cannot be constantly re-charging. The power has to be managed. But that said, the electronics found in consumer devices are incredibly powerful and very, very cheap. If we can show these new chips are useful in space, that's very good for our future technology development."

ऐसा लगता है कि नवीनतम उपभोक्ता इलेक्ट्रॉनिक्स उपकरण इन दिनों अपनी नवीनता को तब तक बनाए रखता है जब तक कि एक कीट ध्यान केंद्रित कर सकता है। जल्द ही आपने पैकेजिंग को खोल दिया है जितना कि आप पहले से ही उन्नयन के लिए तरस रहे हैं। यह एक तेज गति वाली दुनिया है, और कुछ उदाहरणों में से एक है जहां "बेहतर" समय के साथ कम लागत लगता है।


Entries from US and Brazil to Caithness flag contest

Summary: A competition to design a flag for Caithness has attracted 327 entries - including 10 ideas from the US and others from Brazil and Australia.

The contest, which involves Highland Council, has also had submissions from across Scotland and England. The judging panel met in Wick last Friday to whittle the entries down to a short-list. Four ideas are now being created in a digital format for an online public vote later this month. The vote would run until 31 July. Caithness Civic Leader Gail Ross said: "The flag will be the public symbol of Caithness so I was delighted that so many creative and inspiring designs were submitted. "As well as entries from our local schools, 10 designs came from America and there were also entries from Brazil, Australia, England and elsewhere in Scotland." Related Internet Links Highland Council

कैथनेस के लिए एक ध्वज डिजाइन करने की प्रतियोगिता ने 327 प्रविष्टियों को आकर्षित किया है-जिसमें अमेरिका के 10 विचार और ब्राजील और ऑस्ट्रेलिया के अन्य विचार शामिल हैं।


Different fates for Langholm and Auldgirth wind farms

Summary: Councillors in Dumfries and Galloway have approved one wind farm scheme in the region but rejected another.

They gave the green light, with strict conditions, to 15 turbines at Crossdykes Farm north west of Langholm. However, a five-turbine project near Auldgirth was refused. Force 9 Energy wanted to develop the site but planning officials said it would have a significant adverse impact on the surrounding landscape.

डमफ्रीज और गैलोवे के पार्षदों ने इस क्षेत्र में एक पवन कृषि योजना को मंजूरी दी है लेकिन दूसरी को खारिज कर दिया है।


The Skype sex scam - a fortune built on shame

Summary: One night a young Palestinian man living abroad fell victim to an online scam, involving a web camera and a beautiful woman. Here Samir (not his real name) tells the story of how he was trapped - and below the BBC's Reda el Mawy visits the Moroccan boomtown where many of the scammers are based. WARNING: this story contains descriptions of sexual acts

It happened when I was home alone. This girl added me on Facebook. I didn't think it was anything strange - I often get friend requests from old school friends who I don't know well. The next day she sends me a message: "Hi, how are you? I saw your profile and I liked you." So I looked at her profile and, I mean, she was really hot. That night she starts messaging me via Skype. She says she's 23, her parents are dead, and she lives with her older sister in Sidon, Lebanon. She says she's bored because she doesn't study or work and that her sister is very strict. I ask her about her hobbies and she says she likes sex. She loves it, she says. "Hmm," I thought, "this is interesting." At this point I am curious but unsure, because it's strange how easily she's talking about sex with a stranger. But I was bored, my girlfriend was out of town, and didn't have anything to do. So I figured, "What the hell, I'll chat with this girl and see where it goes." Eventually she asks if I have a webcam. So I turn on my video and say, "Can I see you too?" She turns on her video and when I see her, you know, she is a really beautiful girl. With a girl like this, you lose your head. We continue chatting, but only in messages, not actually speaking. She says she's afraid her sister will hear her. As we're chatting she tells me that talking with me is turning her on. I'm thinking because she lives with her strict sister, in the south of Lebanon rather than in a more open place like Beirut, maybe she's frustrated and looks for sexual encounters online. Then she asks me to show her my penis. So I show her my penis. Then I say, "OK, your turn." She lies on the bed, undresses, and starts masturbating. I'd never seen anything like it. It was so easy. Too good to be true. So I start masturbating too. She tells me to put the camera on my face because it excites her, so I move the camera back and forth between my face and my penis. After a few minutes she pretends to have an orgasm. Still naked, she comes back to the keyboard to chat with me. She asks me what I do, and I tell her I work in marketing in Milan. "Oh, so you must be rich!" she says. "Well, I get by," I say. Then she says she hears her sister coming, so she gets dressed and signs off. A half hour later I get a message on Facebook. "Listen," it says, "I'm a man, and I recorded a video of you masturbating. Do you want to see it?" He sends me the video. It's about five minutes of me masturbating. "I have a list of your friends and family from Facebook - your mum, your sister, your cousins," he says. "You have one week to send me to send me 5,000 euros (£4,450), or I'll send them the video." I was in shock. My first thought was to send him the money immediately. But I cancel her, or him, as a Skype contact and right away I get a message on WhatsApp. "I'm here," it says. #ShameOnline This is one of a series of stories looking at a new and disturbing phenomenon - the use of private or sexually explicit images to threaten, blackmail and shame young people, mainly girls and women, in some of the world's most conservative societies. Explore all the stories and join the conversation here. So I plead with him. I tell him I don't have 5,000 euros. He says, "Of course you do, you have a good job in Europe." "No," I tell him, "that was a lie, just to impress the girl, I'm just a pizza delivery guy." Then I remember a photo I had sent her of me tiling my bathroom and I say, "Look, do you think if I were some rich guy I'd tile my own bathroom?" He's sort of convinced by this and says, "That may be true, but I don't care. You have one week to send me 2,000 euros. Otherwise, I'm sending the video to your family." I try to calm down and think rationally. If I send him money, what is to stop him from coming back and demanding more? Then it occurs to me that if he sends the video to my contacts - people he isn't friends with - it will go to a junk inbox that no-one checks. And even if they check it, I figure, who is going to open a video file from an unknown person? It could be a virus. So I have two choices: I send him the money and I have no guarantee he doesn't ask for more, or I refuse and hope no-one looks at the video. The day comes, though, when he messages me and says, "OK, I'm about to upload the video to YouTube." "Upload it," I tell him. "I don't care any more." Then I change my privacy settings so no-one can post to my wall or tag me without my consent. Then he sends me the link to the video on WhatsApp. I watch it again. It's me masturbating, on YouTube. I feel sick to my stomach. Immediately I start reporting the video to YouTube for sexual content. I report it, close the page, reload the link, and report it again. Over and over. He sends me a message saying he's about to send the link to my relatives on Facebook if I don't pay. "Go ahead," I tell him, "send it." I couldn't pay him. First 2,000 euros, then perhaps 5,000. Where would it end? He was so upset. He starts sending me insults, telling me he'll send the video to my mother, to everyone I know. I keep reporting the video. Each time I'm watching the number of views to see if anyone else has viewed it. After about an hour YouTube takes the video down. From what I can tell, all the views were mine, except for one. That could have been him viewing it after he uploaded it, or one of my relatives. I'll never know for sure, but I've never heard from anyone. Maybe a male relative saw it and never told anyone. Can you imagine, though, if an aunt had seen it? She would have told another aunt, her husband, her kids, soon my whole family would have known. I have family all over the world, the US, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Europe. And what if my mum sees this? A video of me masturbating. I would have thrown myself out the window from the shame. After the video was taken down I didn't hear from the guy again. I imagine he moved on to bigger fish. I remember when I asked why he was picking on a poor young guy like me he had said, "You think I don't target rich guys in the Gulf states? Of course I do. You're lucky I can see from your Facebook page you're not married, or I would be asking for a lot more money." I think it's over, but every now and then I check YouTube to see if he's re-uploaded it. Reda el Mawy writes: The "23-year-old Lebanese girl" who seduced Samir on Skype was almost certainly a young man from Oued Zem - a small town in central Morocco that has become known as the capital of the "sextortion" industry. The Oued Zem scammers trawl Facebook for victims, and as soon as a man answers a video call - either on Skype or, increasingly, within Facebook itself - they activate software that shows the victim a pre-recorded video of a girl downloaded from a porn webcam site. They are so familiar with this video that they are able to chat-message their victims at exactly the points where the girl appears to be typing on the keyboard. "We ask him to take off his clothes and to do obscene gestures," says one young scammer I will call Omar. "It's crucial that his genitals are visible while he's doing these gestures. This is filmed with his face on screen so the video looks credible. When we've got the recording we upload it to YouTube and send it to him in a private message. That's when the threatening starts. We spend 20 minutes chatting, 20 minutes for the video, and 20 minutes threatening - threatening and negotiating. They all pay." He adds: "The weak point of Arabs is sex. So you look for their weaknesses, and you exploit them. The other weakness is when they are married, for example. You can exploit that. Then there are the really religious guys. You see someone who looks like a sheikh, carrying the Koran, and you think, 'There's no way he'll fall for this - but let's try him anyway.' And when you try, he falls for it." Omar says he earns about $500 (£400) every day from the scam, and that hundreds of other young men in Oued Zem are doing the same. I counted at least 50 international money transfer offices in the town. The manager of one of these offices told me that he took in about $8,500 (£7,000) every day, and that the vast majority of that was blackmail money. There are German cars and Japanese motorbikes in the streets, and fancy café-restaurants that provide a front for families that need an explanation for their new-found wealth. In the UK, Wayne May runs an online community, Scam Survivors, that offers advice and support to victims of the webcam masturbation racket. Since 2012 he has received more than 14,000 requests for help from victims all over the world, including the UK and the US. Many are young Arab men, he says, and about a third of all the scams originate in Morocco. Before the advent of social media, Oued Zem was largely reliant on remittances from people working in Europe. But with the economic crash of 2008, remittances dropped - and this was exactly the moment that Facebook and webcams were becoming everyday tools of communication. Salaheddin El-Kennan, a labour activist, does not blame the town's young men for making money from extortion. He points the finger at the state-owned company that mines phosphate in the surrounding countryside but employs very few local people. "I chose not to go down the route of scamming because I consider it incompatible with our Moroccan and Islamic values," he says. "But unemployment rates in our town are higher than in the rest of Morocco. Nationally, unemployment is at 8.7%, while in our town we estimate that it's as high as 60%. With the lack of employment, and no apprenticeship schemes in the city, many people look for other ways to make money." Omar said he was not proud of what he does, and that he wanted to stop scamming. Intelligent, articulate, and technologically adept, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in a place with more opportunities a young man of Omar's talents could find a legitimate way to earn his $500 a day. Reporting by Sean O'Neill, Reda el Mawy, and Daniel Silas Adamson Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter

एक रात विदेश में रहने वाला एक युवा फिलिस्तीनी व्यक्ति एक ऑनलाइन घोटाले का शिकार हो गया, जिसमें एक वेब कैमरा और एक सुंदर महिला शामिल थी। यहाँ समीर (उसका असली नाम नहीं) कहानी बताता है कि वह कैसे फंस गया था-और नीचे बीबीसी के रेडा एल मावी मोरक्को के बूमटाउन का दौरा करते हैं जहाँ कई घोटालेबाज आधारित हैं। चेतावनीः इस कहानी में यौन कृत्यों का विवरण है।


Great British Bake Off: The oven gloves are split as Mary leaves and Paul stays

Summary: Paul Hollywood's decision to stay with the Great British Bake Off when it moves to Channel 4 and Mary Berry's decision to leave the programme has got Britain's bakers in a flap(jack).

Presenters Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc announced earlier in September that they would not follow the show and go to Channel 4 saying: "We made no secret of our desire for the show to remain where it was... we're not going with the dough." The judges' decisions have left a few puns in the oven: There was a cracking suggestion from Pointless co-presenter, Richard Osman: There was shock: And dismay: Some were suggested holding a memorial to the programme: How to explain to the younger generation about the significance of 'Great British Shake-up': Some were concerned about the rest of the ingredients: Others asked about loyalty: So what now for GBBO? Who will stir in the double entendres? If your surname's Baker, you're halfway there: Would he approve of these co-stars? They might cost a pretty penne. Compiled by Sherie Ryder, BBC UGC & Social News team

पॉल हॉलीवुड के ग्रेट ब्रिटिश बेक ऑफ के साथ रहने का निर्णय जब यह चैनल 4 में चला जाता है और मैरी बेरी के कार्यक्रम छोड़ने के फैसले ने ब्रिटेन के बेकरों को एक फ्लैप (जैक) में डाल दिया है।


Art and science collide to reopen Whitworth gallery

Summary: One of Britain's leading artists has teamed up with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to turn fragments of drawings by William Blake, JMW Turner and Pablo Picasso into the so-called "wonder material" graphene. The fruits of Cornelia Parker and Professor Konstantin Novoselov's experiments in art and science will reopen the Whitworth art gallery in Manchester on Friday after a £15m expansion.

By Ian YoungsArts reporter, BBC News The laboratory where graphene was discovered looks just like you hope a top scientist's lab will look. In the corner, a large steel vat with the word "cryogenics" on the side has frothing gases flowing from its spout, looking like it may have been bought second-hand when Top of the Pops was taken off air. There are banks of electronic modules with flashing red digital displays and wires winding from one to the next. Down the road, people are dressed head-to-toe in protective clothing and bathed in artificial yellow light as they peer through goggles into microscopes. It is tempting to assume that Professor Konstantin Novoselov will complete the picture by entering in a lab coat and with zany white hair. But the Russian-born boffin, personable but unassuming in jeans and a grey jumper, is no mad scientist. He is one of the two brilliant graphene pioneers who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010. Their discovery was a very thin form of carbon, a single atom thick, which is apparently 100 times stronger than steel and conducts electricity better than copper. It will supposedly revolutionise our lives. Prof Novoselov - known as Kostya - is also an art lover. So when he was asked to work with Cornelia Parker, one of Britain's most acclaimed artists, he says he "jumped on it immediately". It was in these University of Manchester labs that the pair came up with the idea of taking tiny fragments of graphite from the pencil lead on drawings by Blake, Turner, Picasso and Constable and turning them into graphene. "She had this vision that we can bring back to life the old drawings of the old masters," Prof Novoselov says. "Of course that possibility's only once in a lifetime, to get my hands on the old masters, and probably correct a few things which they did wrong. "I picked a few specks of graphite from there and turned it into graphene." Prof Novoselov has a glint in his eye when he suggests that he has removed a few pencil strokes to "correct" these great artists' mistakes. The amount of graphite he actually removed was minute. "You would never know that there has been anything taken from those drawings," he adds in case anyone did not get his little joke. "I work with pieces of graphite that are sub-100 microns (0.1mm), so you would never notice those with the naked eye." The drawings he took graphite from include William Blake's Study for Tiriel Denouncing his Sons and Daughters (1789). The graphene he extracted from that picture has now been used to make a sensor that will trigger a firework display at the nearby Whitworth gallery on Friday. The firework display has been designed by Parker, who has added bits of meteorite from Arizona to the fireworks to make a sort of meteor shower. "I'm re-enacting the meteor's fall in a firework display," says Parker. Parker was inspired by Blake's poem America: A Prophecy, in which he wrote of "flam'd red meteors" and "terrible wandering comets". "He's very biblical in his proselytations about the firmament, and so somehow this firework display is going to be a Blakeian firework display," she explains. Like the lab, the Whitworth is owned by the University of Manchester. As well as arranging the fireworks, Parker is exhibiting at the Whitworth as part of its reopening line-up. The gallery has been shut for redevelopment since September 2013 and will reopen to the public on Saturday, having doubled in size and gained a new wing and an "art garden" in the neighbouring Whitworth Park. Parker is a former Turner Prize nominee and was the only living artist in the top 10 after a survey to find the most popular British artworks in 2013. Long before dabbling in graphene, she made her name by examining, dismantling and playing around with familiar objects before allowing us to look at them anew. She crushed silver with a steamroller, enlisted the British Army to blow up a garden shed, made a magnified image of a hole in a pin cushion made by Charlotte Bronte and microscopic portraits of the chalk crystals in Einstein's equations. The Einstein work was made while she was artist in residence at the Science Museum. There is now talk of her doing a residency at Cern, the home of the Large Hadron Collider, in Switzerland. 'Genius' ideas "Artists and scientists are very close," Parker says. "They always have been, but I think we've just been divided out over the last few centuries into specialisms. "Leonardo da Vinci was drawing helicopters and all kinds of things. We're artificially divided. I think we're closer than we think we are." Artists and scientists both rely on curiosity, willingness to learn and imagination, Prof Novoselov believes. "Artists and scientists both think outside the box," he continues. "They've got to come with genius experiments or ideas to expose the most interesting phenomena. "Later, they've got to diverge a little bit because scientists will start to look at the common elements between many of the phenomena to describe the most general law, and artists will probably try to study individuals rather than the crowd as a whole. "But we're just two sides of the same medal."

ब्रिटेन के प्रमुख कलाकारों में से एक ने विलियम ब्लेक, जे. एम. डब्ल्यू. टर्नर और पाब्लो पिकासो के चित्रों के टुकड़ों को तथाकथित "अद्भुत सामग्री" ग्राफीन में बदलने के लिए एक नोबेल पुरस्कार विजेता भौतिक विज्ञानी के साथ मिलकर काम किया है। कला और विज्ञान में कॉर्नेलिया पार्कर और प्रोफेसर कॉन्स्टेंटिन नोवोसेलोव के प्रयोगों के फल शुक्रवार को 15 मिलियन पाउंड के विस्तार के बाद मैनचेस्टर में व्हिटवर्थ आर्ट गैलरी को फिर से खोल देंगे।


The scale of abuse

Summary: Child sexual abuse has dominated the news agenda since the Jimmy Savile revelations. But the focus on abuse by celebrities and grooming gangs masks the fact that more than 80% of abuse takes place within the home, according to campaigners.

By Fergal Keane & Dominic HurstBBC News Abuse in the home is rarely reported to police and survivors rarely get justice. It is a secret history of horrific stories, of children abused by those they loved and trusted or targeted because their home circumstances made them vulnerable to manipulative outsiders. On a bench in a deserted park in Kent, Chris Tuck is warming up for her exercise routine. Despite the cold wind she stretches her body then jogs on the spot, preparing for her morning workout. She is a health coach with a successful business and a happy family life. But Chris Tuck has had to face a traumatic past. She is survivor of abuse. She says her childhood was scarred by neglect, beatings, emotional cruelty and sexual abuse. "It makes you feel violated," she says. "It makes you feel dirty. It makes you feel angry. It just doesn't feel right. It's hard to explain. You also don't want to talk about it. It's not something you would go up and say: 'My Daddy has been touching me here, my Daddy has been doing that.' It's not something you speak about and unless someone asks you that question, why would you speak about it?" It was when she had her own child that she felt compelled to speak out. "That's when I had my breakdown. And I knew I had to get strong to bring my own children up. I have had to learn to love and to nurture. I have had to learn to bring my children up in the best way I can as I never had that as a child. And that is where abuse in the home can be so destructive." Tuck is not alone. The NSPCC estimates one in 20 children are victims of sexual abuse. It says in 90% cases the victim is known to the perpetrator. And one in three children never tell anyone about the abuse. Sexual abuse Source: NSPCC For decades many survivors never spoke about their experiences. Many perpetrators went unpunished. But now more and more survivors are coming forward. In a small office in south London, Dr Jon Bird is on the telephone, listening intently. The caller is a survivor of child abuse who wants to talk. Bird is working at the helpline for one of the support groups for survivors, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. Since the revelations about Jimmy Savile, there's been a surge in people coming forward reporting abuse. Between 2012 and 2013 the volume of calls to the NAPAC free helpline doubled to between 1,500 and 2,000 per month. At its peak in the autumn of 2012, the helpline was taking 3,500 calls a month. In the last three years it has also received more than 12,000 emails. Many of the survivors contacting the charity have never spoken before about their abuse. Bird is a good listener. He is a survivor himself. Raped in a park at the age of four and then abused at school, his life spiralled out of control until he was homeless, living on the streets and addicted to heroin. Through study and perseverance he has now turned his life around and helps others through the painful journey towards recovery that he himself made. Many of those he helps were abused by a relative or somebody they knew. "Child sexual abuse and all abuse of children rips families apart. I get calls saying I was abused by person x. Then later they tell mum and she cant believe it. She married him. Or trusted him as a brother," he says. "It rips families apart. It is much more complicated than a perpetrator and a victim. It is much wider than that and very difficult to talk about in the family, especially in cultures where it is not done to speak ill of your elders." He says that with the current focus on celebrity and institutional abuse, the crisis in the home is in danger of being ignored. "Just 0.06% of abuse was by somebody famous. The vast majority of the problem is in the home." In the tranquil Devon seaside town of Torquay, palm trees blow in the sea breeze along the seafront. But here - like so many communities across the UK - there is a hidden problem of abuse. Not far from the seafront, the Children's Society runs an outreach project called Checkpoint. Each month it deals with dozens of cases of abuse, child sexual exploitation and missing children. One of the children its project workers have been helping is "Lisa", though this is not her real name. From the age of 14 she began going online and soon began meeting men who groomed her. "Yes I met a lot of people alone. I used to not care. I used to go and meet people at stupid times at night and put myself in danger. It was in exchange for sexual favours and sexual advantage. They were normally aged 19 to 25." She explained how she would fall under the spell of internet groomers. "At first they are so nice. They compliment you. They make you feel like the person you want to be. Then you find out it is all lies they want something out of you. All they do is make you feel worthless." Her project workers at the Children's Society have helped her make changes in her life and she has now found work. But she still struggles with low self-esteem. "I just feel worthless," she says. "There are people who die of serious causes. I would prefer to give them my life as I don't really want mine." But there has been a significant cultural change. The shamed silence which surrounded abuse is being challenged. Children are being given explicit warnings about potential dangers - not just those posed by strangers but from those closer to home. At a school in Fulham in West London children aged 10 and 11 sit attentively waiting for the lesson to begin. They are about to learn about the dangers of abuse. Instead of teachers, this lesson is conducted by a group of volunteers from Childline, in association with the NSPCC, and all wearing bright green T-shirts bearing the charity's logo. The content is remarkably frank and honest. But the tone is calm. There is no sense here that children are being frightened or being taught a general mistrust of adults. They are shown animated videos and told about different forms of abuse - neglect, emotional cruelty, violence and sexual abuse. Together they chant the ChildLine phone number - 0800 1111 - and its website address. The children are given tasks to discuss in small groups the different risks a child may face. The discussions are lively and open. The NSPCC is increasing its work in schools so that by next year it aims to visit every primary school in the UK twice a year, although to do this it needs more volunteers to help. Last year 18,600 children and young people contacted Childline to discuss child sex abuse. But the culture of shame, the desire to protect parents even if they are abusers, a child's lack of awareness of their rights - all can act as powerful barriers to breaking the silence. The NSPCC Area Co-ordinator, Kelly Thorndick, believes it is important that children understand the danger of abuse as early as possible. "It's about educating children so they know how to get help at a much earlier stage. But it's also about giving them the confidence to take action for themselves, as often children don't understand what is happening to them is abuse," she says. If you have been affected, the following organisations can help: The police if you have evidence of having suffered sexual abuse so an investigation can be made. NSPCC charity specialises in child protection. National Association for People Abused in Childhood offers support, advice and guidance to adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse. Childline is a private and confidential service for children and young people up to the age of 19. The Children's Society works to support vulnerable children in England and Wales.

जिमी सेविले के खुलासे के बाद से बाल यौन शोषण समाचार एजेंडे पर हावी रहा है। लेकिन प्रचारकों के अनुसार, मशहूर हस्तियों और संवारने वाले गिरोहों द्वारा दुर्व्यवहार पर ध्यान केंद्रित करना इस तथ्य को छिपाता है कि 80 प्रतिशत से अधिक दुर्व्यवहार घर के भीतर होता है।


Texting SMS pioneer Matti Makkonen 20 years on

Summary: In a world first, on 3 December 1992, an engineer sent the message "Merry Christmas" from a PC to a mobile device using Vodafone's UK network.

But the origins of the idea date back further to Matti Makkonen. Over a pizza at a telecoms conference in 1984, the former Finnish civil servant put forward the idea of a mobile phone messaging service. This was to become the SMS (short message service) standard. Dubbed the "father of SMS"- a title he dislikes because of the work others did to develop the technology - Matti Makkonen rarely gives interviews. However, he made an exception for the BBC's tech team with an interview via SMS. If you are on a mobile device, you can read the full text here.

दुनिया में पहली बार, 3 दिसंबर 1992 को, एक इंजीनियर ने वोडाफोन के यूके नेटवर्क का उपयोग करते हुए एक पीसी से एक मोबाइल उपकरण पर "मेरी क्रिसमस" संदेश भेजा।


Hard or soft? Why the City isn't headed for Norway

Summary: Hard; soft; open; closed. To the City of London it may not make too much difference. While the UK government is still grappling with the outcome of last week's election, Brexit is already getting real for the banks, fund managers and insurers that do business in the Square Mile.

Helen ThomasNewsnight business editor The most immediate example of this is announcement on Tuesday on the process known as clearing. The European Commission has said it wants to heighten its oversight of the clearing of euro-denominated derivatives outside the European Union. What, exactly, does that mean? The clearing houses are important parts of the financial infrastructure. Ensuring that more derivatives transactions were cleared was a crucial part of the regulatory response to the 2008 financial crisis. But it has long been an irritation to some in Brussels that so much euro-denominated derivatives business is cleared in London, mainly at LCH, which is owned by the London Stock Exchange Group. Brexit simply breathed new life into this old grievance. Still, for those fearing an all-out land grab of London's business, there was some good news. Tuesday's proposal stopped short of the nuclear option that would have immediately forced chunks of London's clearing business to be relocated to within the EU. Instead, the Commission proposed a beefed up form of supervision of clearers outside the EU that are deemed "systemically important" - basically the biggest clearing houses. That doesn't look terribly controversial. The London Stock Exchange has said it would be happy to be more directly regulated by European supervisors. It is an approach taken by the American authorities, with 90 per cent of dollar-denominated interest-rate swaps cleared outside the US. But there was a sting in the tail. The European proposal kept open the stick of forced relocation, a move that critics say would mean higher costs for users and a less liquid, riskier market. Effectively, it said that for the very largest clearing houses enhanced regulation might not be sufficient and the Commission could require that they move into the EU. One comfort may be that it falls to European regulators and the relevant central bank, rather than politicians, to determine that other measures have failed in overseeing clearing houses. The Commission said Tuesday it was "not moving business for the sake of moving business". But others are wary that once a legislative tool is created giving Europe the power to force relocation, it will - sooner or later - be used. Elsewhere, though, the City's planning for Brexit is running ahead of the political debate. Banks must by mid-July share their contingency plans with the Bank of England. Those could include what jobs and activities must move to the continent under a range of different scenarios. So far, the emphasis has been on being ready for a worst case scenario, according to people familiar with the banks' planning. That is an exit from the EU where banks lose their "passporting" rights to operate freely, where there is no access granted on the basis of "equivalence" of regulations and where there are no transition arrangements in place to act as a crash mat for the UK's financial sector. So are banks likely to hit the pause button now that the election result has thrown into doubt the government's strategy for a "hard" Brexit? Well, probably not. Financial analysts generally agree that the hung parliament makes a different type of Brexit more likely. But many also argue that it heightens the small risk that we get jettisoned out of the Union without any deal at all, either by design, delay or just by dint of sheer incompetence. More importantly, it isn't clear that the options being discussed for a "soft" Brexit would work for the City well either. Staying in the customs union would mean tariff-free, frictionless trade of goods but doesn't cover the type of cross-border provision of services the City provides. The "Norway option" - staying within the European Economic Area - would mean banks based in London would keep passporting, a major advantage. But that too presents problems in the long term, say people involved with the industry's work on the subject. Being within the EEA but not within the EU means being a so-called "rule-taker" - signing up to the rules and regulations of the EU without having any say in making them. That is enough to make the industry twitchy. It could also mean financial regulation being made without the input and expertise of the largest financial centre in Europe. Hence the City's insistence that the industry will ultimately need a bespoke arrangement with Europe - one that grants access to each other's markets; one that sets out ways for keeping regulation aligned (though not requiring it be identical); and one that has a method for resolving disagreements as they inevitably arise. That may be needed no matter how hard, soft, tough, easy or otherwise the UK's Brexit proves.

कठिन; नरम; खुला; बंद। लंदन शहर के लिए यह बहुत अधिक अंतर नहीं ला सकता है। जबकि यूके सरकार अभी भी पिछले सप्ताह के चुनाव के परिणाम से जूझ रही है, ब्रेक्सिट पहले से ही बैंकों, निधि प्रबंधकों और बीमाकर्ताओं के लिए वास्तविक हो रहा है जो स्क्वायर माइल में व्यापार करते हैं।


Vogue: Why 'posh girl exodus' continues at fashion magazine

Summary: Leaving Vogue seems to be in fashion at the moment.

By Steven McIntoshEntertainment reporter A number of senior figures have exited the magazine in recent weeks amid reports that its new editor is making some staffing changes before he officially begins on 1 August. Edward Enninful is taking over from Alexandra Shulman, who announced in January that she was leaving after 25 years in charge. He is the first male editor in the magazine's history, and is already making a few tweaks (or, removing "posh girls", as The Times put it) to the senior editorial team. Since his hiring was announced, Vogue veterans such as Lucinda Chambers and Emily Sheffield have announced their departure as Enninful gears up to bring in his own team. But it hasn't been a smooth transition so far. Chambers, Vogue's former fashion director, was one of the first major figures to leave. And she did so in style. "Lucinda has announced that she is to step down from her position," the magazine delicately said on its website in May. Chambers herself had a slightly different take. "A month and a half ago I was fired," she said in a candid interview with fashion blog Vestoj, published this week. "Truth be told, I haven't read Vogue in years. The clothes are just irrelevant for most people - so ridiculously expensive." There's more. "Most fashion magazines leave you totally anxiety-ridden," she said, adding: "We are always trying to make people buy something they don't need. We don't need any more bags, shirts or shoes. So we cajole, bully or encourage people to continue buying." The comments echo what Shulman herself said earlier this year. "At the end of the day, very few people have to have another pair of trousers, another skirt, another bomber jacket, so what you are doing as an industry is creating desire," she said. Hilary Alexander, editor-at-large for Hello! Fashion Monthly and trustee of Graduate Fashion Week, says there's an element of truth in Chambers's comments. "There's no doubt there are too many clothes in the world, and the number of collections being pumped out month after month, you could spend the entire year going from one Fashion Week to another," she says. "But at the opposite end of the scale, fashion is a huge industry that employs millions of people across the world, it's worth around £28bn a year in this country alone if you include the retail sector." The departure of senior figures like Chambers is to be expected, says Susie Lau, fashion blogger and journalist. "From an industry point of view, it's completely normal for someone like Edward Enninful to come in and say he wants a completely new team," she tells the BBC. "Especially at the senior level, he would want to have people that he feels can push forward the new editorial direction, and I think it is going to be a very different tone and feel to what Alex did." Chambers appeared to be pulling no punches with her rather honest interview, but not long after it was published, it was taken down... and then put back up again. "Due to the sensitive nature of this article, we took the decision to temporarily remove it from the site," Vestoj said in a statement. "In terms of the reasons why it was removed, they are directly related to the industry pressures which Lucinda discusses in her interview. "As you know, fashion magazines are rarely independent because their existence depends on relationships with powerful institutions and individuals. We created Vestoj to be an antidote to these pressures, but we are not always immune." You can see why some figures in the fashion industry may not have been best pleased with the Chambers article. At one point in the interview, she said: "The June cover with Alexa Chung in a stupid Michael Kors T-shirt is crap. He's a big advertiser so I knew why I had to do it. I knew it was cheesy when I was doing it, and I did it anyway." But Lau says the close relationship between advertisers and journalists has always been a fixture of the industry. "[Chambers] has been in fashion for so long, she's worked for a magazine where the commercial concerns are hugely important, and that's not anything new," she said "Advertisers are of course given precedence, and maybe creative control has to be sometimes compromised - but it was ever thus. That's part and parcel of working in a print landscape that has undergone so many changes." She adds that Chambers's comments in the interview are understandable given how long she has spent working at Vogue. "I think when you work in the industry you do become quite jaded. When you're dealing with the mainstream side of fashion and doing it in a very commercially-minded way, it can get cynical. "There are wonderful creative and brilliant things happening, but I guess if your day-to-day isn't about that any more, that can wear you down." Vogue's replenishing continued on Tuesday with reports another senior figure announced she was exiting the publication. Deputy editor Emily Sheffield, who is also the sister of Samantha Cameron, said she was leaving her role as Vogue's deputy director "after a very happy decade". She might not have updated her Twitter biog yet, but the invitations for her leaving do have gone out so we're pretty sure it's only a matter of time. "Emily Sheffield was suggested as a replacement when Alex's retirement was announced, so it's only natural if you're thinking you might get the top job and someone newer and younger comes in, that you would feel there isn't really a place for you any more," Alexander explains. Both Lau and Alexander are looking forward to seeing what changes are made to the magazine when Enninful officially starts as editor. "I'm excited because he is a brilliant stylist, I think Vogue will be a lot more diverse, I think we can expect surprises and shocks," Alexander says. "Perhaps there will be more focus on younger, newer designers, those who are working in unusual ways. I would welcome that, you don't want to constantly read about the same old faces." Lau adds: "I know some of the people going in there [to Vogue], they haven't been announced yet but I think it's going to be a really exciting team. "It won't be quite as different as people are painting it, but there will be changes. Vogue is a barometer of our times, and I think it will reflect that." Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

वोग छोड़ना इस समय फैशन में प्रतीत होता है।


Daniel Pelka death exposes Polish integration challenge

Summary: A report into the murder of four-year-old Daniel Pelka from Coventry found he went unnoticed by the professionals he came into contact with. Last month, his mother Magdelena Luczak and her partner Mariusz Krezolek were jailed for a minimum of 30 years each for what the judge called their "incomprehensible brutality". Some members of the Polish community in the West Midlands believe that, like Daniel, they too are "invisible" to society and more needs to be done to recognise their needs as a migrant group.

Elizabeth Kardynal, from Walsall, who founded the town's Polish school and European Welfare Association, said there was still "a serious lack of engagement" and Daniel's story was an example of "what will happen if we don't all work together". "It's not until something really bad happens that people start to react," said Ms Kardynal, who moved to the UK nine years ago. "We're the second biggest minority group after the Asian community here yet there is no recognition of that or willingness to have a conversation." 'Help them help us' Ms Kardynal admitted a lack of English could be a barrier but said Polish people also needed more help from the authorities to integrate. "I've got a list of hundreds of people who need more help than they get with things like access to education, benefits and even legal advice. "I understand times are tough and there isn't much money around but we are trying to help [councils] help us." Walsall Council said it worked to offer support to Polish people in the area, including a multi-lingual support service for reporting hate crime. Councillor Chris Towe said: "It is disappointing to hear that some members of the Polish community do not feel that they are being listened to and supported. "The council will always do our best to support people of all backgrounds to get the help that they need." Ms Kardynal said she recently carried out training with West Midlands Police to help raise awareness about the Polish community in the area. In return, officers trained her 50 volunteers at the Polish school about hate crime. Supt Chris Johnson from West Midlands Police said hate crime was under-reported across the force area. "We are training our call handling staff to better identify hate crime and vulnerability so that support can be provided right from the start," he said Ms Kardynal said she believed better awareness was "vital" after the experience of the Wawrzkiewicz family in West Bromwich. Monika Wawrzkiewicz said her family's windows were smashed and car tyres slashed, forcing them to move to Wednesbury four months ago. Her 13-year-old son Damian was also bullied at his former school, Phoenix Collegiate. "I was pointed at by random people, called names and beaten up so badly that I ended up in hospital," he said. "I believe it's because I'm Polish, but the school never found out who it was - I reported it several times." 'Different expectations' Head teacher Gary Hill said he could not comment on individual students but that the school "does not tolerate bullying". Damian said he was "almost certain" he would end up returning to Poland after gaining a British education. Alicja Kaczmarek, director of the Polish Expats Association in Birmingham, said isolation was typical of "typical of migrant communities". "They face lots of barriers, language and cultural (because) people don't often realise how many differences there are." However she said "overall the Polish community was settling in quite well". Monika Rozanski, who presented a radio programme for the Polish community on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, which is no longer on air, said often people found their expectations about moving to the UK let them down. "For example in Poland you don't go to a doctor to get referred to a specialist whereas here you do and that isn't always explained," she said. "The Polish community can be quite hard to reach by the police because people are more wary of them in Poland." West Midlands Police said the force had a number of centres where people can speak in confidence to someone not attached to the force, if they wished. Ms Rozanski also said language barriers were the risk that Polish people took by moving here. "It's less of a problem these days but there are still those who move here and have to rely on a relative or friend."

कोवेंट्री के चार वर्षीय डेनियल पेल्का की हत्या की एक रिपोर्ट में पाया गया कि वह उन पेशेवरों का ध्यान नहीं गया, जिनके संपर्क में वह आया था। पिछले महीने, उसकी माँ मैग्डेलेना लुकजाक और उसके साथी मारियस क्रेज़ोलेक को कम से कम 30 साल की जेल हुई थी, जिसे न्यायाधीश ने उनकी "समझ से बाहर क्रूरता" कहा था। वेस्ट मिडलैंड्स में पोलिश समुदाय के कुछ सदस्यों का मानना है कि, डैनियल की तरह, वे भी समाज के लिए "अदृश्य" हैं और एक प्रवासी समूह के रूप में उनकी जरूरतों को पहचानने के लिए और अधिक करने की आवश्यकता है।


Aberystwyth to Haverfordwest bus link service begins

Summary: A new bus service between Aberystwyth in Ceredigion and Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire has started running.

The hourly T5 service replaces the X50 and 412 services and is part of the Traws Cymru network, which is funded by the Welsh government. The journey takes around two hours and 45 minutes and includes stops at Aberaeron, Cardigan and Fishguard. A fleet of fuel-efficient buses will be introduced from the end of April.

सेरेडिगियन में एबेरेस्टविथ और पेम्ब्रोकेशायर में हैवरफोर्डवेस्ट के बीच एक नई बस सेवा शुरू हो गई है।


Man in court after toddler dies in Edinburgh

Summary: A man has appeared in court charged with assault following the death of a two-year-old boy in Edinburgh.

Emergency services were called to a property in the Muirhouse area of the city at about 09:30 on Saturday morning. The boy had serious injuries and died at the scene shortly afterwards. Lucasz Czapla, 40, was also charged with driving over the alcohol limit, dangerous driving and failing to stop a vehicle. He appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Monday where he made no plea and was remanded in custody. Det Ch Insp Lynn McFall said: "I'd like to thank the local people in the Muirhouse community for their help during this inquiry. This was an isolated incident."

एडिनबर्ग में दो साल के लड़के की मौत के बाद हमले के आरोप में एक व्यक्ति अदालत में पेश हुआ है।