My Business: The economy of the bikini

Summary: What makes an entrepreneur? BBC Brasil's Julia Carneiro and Tom Santorelli hear from Jacqueline De Biase, 49, who started making her own bikinis at home as a teenager and now runs one of Brazil's leading bikini brands.

It began with a young couple, an idea born over lazy days at the beach and two sewing machines. Swimwear brand Salinas started making its first bikinis at a home-factory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 30 years ago, opened its first shop in 1990 and today is one of Brazil's leading bikini brands. It has 45 shops around the country and sells to 39 different countries. Its bikinis have been on covers of magazines like Vogue and Sports Illustrated, and dressed the likes of Madonna and Naomi Campbell. Rio-born Jacqueline and Antonio De Biase were still a young couple thinking about their future in the early 1980s. She used to work as a model and considered becoming a veterinarian; he had just graduated in architecture - and they both spent a lot of time hanging out with friends on the beach. "Back then, we girls used to improvise a lot to make our own bikinis, because we still didn't have this bikini industry. The ones we had were very traditional, they came from the 1960s, from the two-piece swimsuit", remembers Jacqueline. The couple decided to invest their savings in starting up a company making the types of bikinis their friends would want to wear. Pulling the strings "The first thing I did was undo a bikini to see what came out: thread, Lycra and elastic. So I knew that's what I'd need to put one back together again," says Jacqueline. Along with two sewing assistants she set up a home-factory in a small house her grandmother had lent her in Santa Teresa, a quiet residential neighbourhood on Rio's hilltops. In a year's time they were able to make a living from the company's initial revenue. After three years they were producing around 2,000 bikinis a month. At first they sold the items to other shops that would stamp their own logos on them. They then started developing the brand's own image, reinvesting their profits to make the fledgling company grow. Today, 425 people work for Salinas in Rio. In 2007, it joined with a men's clothing brand from the same city, Richards, and three years later they both became part of InBrands, a holding that invests in the fashion industry. While InBrands manages the business, taking care of finances and all operational issues, she worries about patterns, models, fabrics, style, trends. "Today, Salinas is very big. It's very different", says Jacqueline. "I began doing everything by myself, drawing without knowing how to draw, designing without knowing how to design, directing without knowing how to direct. It was all very experimental at the time, based on trial and error." Drawing inspiration Salinas's creative office is the experimental laboratory where Jacqueline and her team develop each new bikini model. It occupies the third floor of an old industrial brick building shared with Richards and other brands. There is colour everywhere: In shelves crammed with samples of different fabrics, in panels on the walls where assortments of patterns are displayed and in racks with body-shaped hangers adorned with bikinis and other clothing items. Bikinis are still the flagship product, but over time Salinas started making clothing and accessories for the beach such as hats, sandals, shirts and dresses, which today represent about 30% of current production. It has also started making lingerie and Speedo-style swimsuits for men. Booming Brazil The company has grown by 60% since 2008, fuelled by internal expansion in Brazil which is now the world's sixth biggest economy. But the global financial crisis made the company reconsider its international expansion plans. The Brazilian currency - the real - is strong, and this has been taking its toll on sales abroad, she says. "The world out there is taking a break, so this is not a moment to force an expansion", says Jacqueline. On the other hand, she says, "things in Brazil are booming... from 2007 until now, we've doubled the number of shops we have here". But opening a business in Brazil can be difficult, she adds. "There is still lots of bureaucracy, although it has been worse, and taxes are very high. That doesn't make things easier for businesses that are starting up," says Jacqueline. "Sometimes there are incentives for small companies, but then you either have to be really small in order to have this benefit or really large so that these expenses are distributed within the business." Jacqueline will turn 50 next February. She has seen bikinis grow skimpy, then larger again; become thongs or look like shorts; gain laces, knots and ruffles. The one constant, she says, is the unease some women feel when looking at the mirror trying to pick the right bikini to hide their imagined flaws - even if she is the only one to spot them. "The trick is observing a lot and understanding that every detail can make a difference when our customer tries on a bikini. We have to have all the differences in a woman's body in mind when developing a collection", she says.

बीबीसी ब्राजील की जूलिया कार्नेइरो और टॉम सैंटोरेली ने 49 वर्षीय जैकलीन डी बायस से सुना, जिन्होंने किशोरावस्था में घर पर अपनी खुद की बिकिनी बनाना शुरू किया था और अब वे ब्राजील के प्रमुख बिकिनी ब्रांडों में से एक चलाते हैं।


Four compete for Devon and Cornwall police chief job

Summary: The acting Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police faces competition from three others in a "test day" to become the permanent leader of the force.

Rob Beckley, Simon Chesterman, Craig Denholm and the current acting chief constable, Shaun Sawyer, are on the shortlist for the job. The candidates will be interviewed and must make a 15-minute presentation which they have 45 minutes to prepare. An announcement on who has got the job is expected on Wednesday. The nomination will need to be approved by the Police and Crime Commissioner's watchdog, the Police and Crime panel, which will meet on 8 February. The four candidates are: The position carries a salary of £150,000.

डेवोन और कॉर्नवाल पुलिस के कार्यवाहक मुख्य कांस्टेबल को बल का स्थायी नेता बनने के लिए "परीक्षण दिवस" में तीन अन्य लोगों से प्रतिस्पर्धा का सामना करना पड़ता है।


Wasps: If you can't love them, at least admire them

Summary: Want to know the best way to kill a cockroach?

By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent Well, first inject some powerful neurotoxins directly into its brain. This will make the bug compliant; it won't try to fly away and will bend to your will. Second, slice off one of its antennae and drink the goo that comes out. For snack purposes, you understand. And then lead it off to your lair by the stump, like a dog on a leash. You're going to bury this zombie in a hole in the ground. But just before you close up the tomb, lay an egg on the bug. Your progeny can have the joy of eating it alive. Dr Gavin Broad relishes these stories about how wasps will parasitise other critters. He's the principal curator in charge of insect collections at London's Natural History Museum, which means he's got plenty of material to work with. He has drawer after drawer of wasps, gathered from all corners of the globe. Ok, I can already hear you saying, "I hate wasps even if they kill roaches". But spend just a few minutes with Gavin and I promise you your views will evolve. You'll marvel at their skill and in quite a few cases you'll be stunned (not stung) by their beauty. That destroyer of cockroaches, for example - Ampulex compressa - has an extraordinary iridescent exoskeleton. You can see why they sometimes call it the jewel wasp. "But every wasp is glorious," says Gavin, as he urges you to move beyond the PR spin that's got us to prefer beetles and bees instead ("Bees are just furry wasps that turned vegetarian"). Wasps have their role in Nature and it's not to pester humans in the autumn. Ignore those "yellow jackets" getting drunk on cider in September orchards; they'll soon be gone. No, wasps have very useful functions, one of which is to keep other insects in check. Every insect you can think of probably has some wasp that will attack it. If that wasn't the case, we'd almost certainly be using more pesticides than we already do on our farms. It's the parasitoid wasps that do this work for us and their methods - like those of Ampulex compressa - are often ingenious. I'm fascinated by a splendid European wasp - Rhyssa persuasoria (sabre wasp). In part, I think, because I can't ever recall actually seeing one in the wild. They frequent British forests. It has a remarkable ovipositor. That's the multi-function "hypodermic needle" at the end of the abdomen, and, in this instance, it doubles the length of the wasp to about 8cm. The Rhyssa hunts the larvae of sawflies hiding under the bark of trees. When it senses one, it uses the ovipositor to drill through the wood fibres, to sting the grub and then lay an egg on it. Again, the wasp doesn't immediately kill its target; it uses venom merely to immobilise its prey. "The key to success for parasitoid wasps is keeping your meat fresh," says Gavin. He calls me into the next room, a cavernous opening full of those floor-to-ceiling museum cabinets that move on wheels. Gavin knows exactly which drawer he's after. We don't really do "big" in the UK, so as you might expect there are even more impressive versions of Rhyssa from elsewhere in the world. Meet the aptly named Megarhyssa. Species in this group have ovipositors that can reach 15cm in length. They store them in a bag. Megarhyssa will spend a couple of hours drilling through wood to get to its victim. That's a lot of energy to expend, especially if you miss your target, or, as occasionally happens, another wasp comes along with a slightly narrower ovipositor and uses the exact same drill hole to replace the egg you've just laid. Hello to the group of wasps called Pseudoryhssa. Nature works like that sometimes. Species will use every trick in the book to survive and thrive. Constant warfare. Gavin closes the drawer. There's even a wasp that will lay its egg inside the larva of another wasp that's already inside a caterpillar, he tells me. That sounds a bit like an entomologist's Christmas dinner: a duck inside a turkey, inside a goose. So, what's the biggest wasp? Probably one of the tarantula hawks like Pepsis. When Gavin gives talks to schoolchildren, this is always their favourite. You know the routine by now: the wasp lands on the spider, stings it to a standstill, and then positions an egg where the hatched grub can burrow its way inside. What's so impressive is that the larva will make sure it doesn't consume too early those organs that keep the tarantula alive. And the smallest wasp? Well, that would be the fairyfly wasps. Creatures like Kikiki and Tinkerbella. Gavin is holding a card with some imperceptible dots on it. These wasps are about 0.2mm in length. Absolutely tiny - you need a microscope to see them. They're so small in fact, they're probably at the very limits of what's possible in terms of miniaturised flight. And yet fly they do, to find and parasitise the eggs of other species and single-celled organisms. My hour with Gavin is almost up but he won't let me go until he's shown me some of the most impressive nests in the NHM's collection. "Wasps probably gave us the idea for paper," he says. They chew up wood and build the most exquisite papier-mâché structures. Even your classic autumn annoyance, Vespula vulgaris, is an accomplished architect. The paper envelope that surrounds its comb nest will have intricate swirls and waves. The more diverse the wood sources, the more unusual the patterns. The NHM collection even has a 1940s wasp nest made partially from wool. The wasps had recycled a nearby scarf. Gavin's passion for his subjects is obvious and immense. So what does he say when people tell him they hate wasps. "I just cry." He laughs. "Why don't people already love wasps? They're the lions of the insect world." Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

तिलचट्टे को मारने का सबसे अच्छा तरीका जानना चाहते हैं?


The decade in grime

Summary: In 2010, grime's future was uncertain. As we prepare to enter the 2020s, it's definitely in a better place.

By Kameron VirkNewsbeat reporter Here's a look at some of the moments that helped define grime during this decade. 2010 - 2013: Pass Out We'll start with two pictures that represent 2010 and the battle that was being fought over the direction of grime. At the start of the decade there was a real risk that grime's best days were behind it. The scene's biggest names were all giving pop music a go - with different degrees of success - and it looked like that was the path forward. Grime was going to be swallowed by the mainstream and given back to us unrecognisable. Pre February 2010 Tinie Tempah was best-known for his 2007 mixtape Hood Economics, which featured the now iconic Wifey Riddim. Then he released Pass Out, the first of his seven UK number one singles and one that at the time was impossible to avoid. A few months later came D Double E's Street Fighter Riddim - an instant classic from one of the scene's stalwarts. These hits showed that during grime's quiet period of 2010 to 2013 there were still be plenty of artists - from P Money to Kozzie to Jme - who stuck with it. 2014: Blacked out window, leaning back Without the release of Meridian Dan's German Whip, which featured Big H and Jme, grime might not be where it is today. It was the song that showed it was possible to create an authentic grime song that also translated to daytime mainstream radio - landing at 13 on the Official Charts. Some of the artists above him were Iggy Azalea, Charli XCX, Jax Jones, Pharrell Williams, John Legend and Jess Glyne (twice). 2014: 'We're gonna respect Jamaica. But right now we're doing it for London' Four crews, four stages and 20,000 people at Earls Court in London. If you were lucky enough to be there for Red Bull Culture Clash 2014, it's a night you definitely won't forget in a hurry. Reigning champions Boy Better Know were unseated by Rebel Sound - consisting of David Rodigan, Shy FX and Chase and Status - at the end of the night. But with the godfather Wiley, the king Skepta and the newcomer Stormzy all on stage together at various points, it will go down in history as the time a few of grime's superpowers united. 2015: All Day In 2010, who would've thought Kanye West's name would be popping up in a grime moments of the decade list? But when Ye invited what seemed like half the grime scene* on stage at the Brit Awards in 2015, it was undoubtedly a moment. Then Skepta sampled someone's reaction to the performance - which featured everyone blacked out in hoodies, holding flame-throwers - in the middle of arguably 2015's biggest song, Shutdown. "A bunch of young men all dressed in black dancing extremely aggressively on stage. It made me feel so intimidated and it's just not what I expect to see on prime time TV." Including it in his song showed that grime was at a place again where it didn't care what outsiders had to say. *Try as much as you like, you won't find Jme on that stage, even though he was invited. Skepta's younger brother said he hadn't eaten all day, so "it was either die or watch it at home". 2015: Chip can't run out of bars A lot happened in 2015 as grime was exploding back to life again. Chip launched the year's biggest saga when he came up to 1Xtra for a Fire in the Booth segment and ended up cutting off the music after four minutes to deliver a bit of a sermon. It centred around lyrics from Tinie Tempah's own Fire in the Booth from a year previous, one of which can explicitly be seen as a dig at Chip. The Tottenham MC used it as a warning for people not to try him in 2015. But one Manchester native, up to that point relatively unknown, didn't listen. Bugzy Malone's debut Fire in the Booth, apart from going on to be the year's most-watched, ignited a war that would run most of the rest of the year. It at different points involved Tinie Tempah, Big Narstie, Saskilla, Devilman and Skepta - but always centred around Chip and Bugzy. It gave grime something it hadn't had in a while, and two days in October 2015 when five diss tracks were released were some of the hypest of the decade. 2015: You never been in Shoreditch when it's Shutdown eh? In the midst of the growing beef between Chip and Bugzy, Skepta had dropped Shutdown - which somehow barely made a dent in the charts, peaking at 39 - despite being inescapable. But when the Meridian man announced an impromptu show at Shoreditch car park, hundreds of fans turned up and it was literally shut down by the police - although not before it helped Skepta add to the hype that was building around his name. 2015: Brush your teeth Three had come before it, but when Lady Leshurr dropped Queen's Speech 4 it properly went viral. The playful freestyle, filmed in one-take in Birmingham, now stands at almost 60m views. 2016: Man are like Jaykae where have you been? It's fair to say grime didn't look much outside of London, the city it came from, for the first decade after it started in the early 2000s. But when it looked like the genre was being abandoned MCs in Birmingham, Nottingham and around the UK refused to let the grime sound die. Thanks to the likes of Sox, by the time Jaykae dropped Toothache in 2016, Birmingham was practically grime's second city. Toothache and the reaction to it showed two things: that grime really had progressed to become a nationwide sound and - with the song being featured in one of America's biggest TV shows, Power - that it was properly making international waves. 2016: Microphone Champion Skepta's had a lot of good music and big moments this decade - from mixtapes Community Payback and Blacklisted, to the 25-minute, Matrix-shattering YouTube monologue that ended up in the Tate Britain. But when he won the Mercury Prize in 2016 it was a moment to deep how quickly things had changed, with Skepta stood on stage next to his mum, soaked in champagne, with friends and family alongside him as he held the award. He'd beaten David Bowie, Radiohead and The 1975 to one of the biggest prizes in British music. Whether it should have beaten Kano's Made in the Manor though, is another question entirely... *sips tea*. 2018: Where's that money for Grenfell? When the Grenfell fire happened in 2017, grime artists were asking questions of the authorities. Whether it was Lowkey, Big Zuu, AJ Tracey or Akala, they stood up and spoke out for the 72 people who died. Stormzy, who'd been to meet some of the families affected, felt he needed to use his platform to help. The Brit Awards in early 2018 - where grime artists historically haven't been recognised but where Stormzy won best album and best artist - was his moment. He called out then-Prime Minister Theresa May, drew a response from Downing Street, and helped ensure Grenfell was still in the headlines. 2018: Buda-bup-bup There's arguably no-one who lives and breathes grime more than D Double E - and there's definitely nobody else who has to do so little for a reload. But despite already having legendary status, Double released his first-ever album in 2018. Jackuum seemed in some ways cathartic for D Double E, who admitted that his debut album should have happened a long time ago. A week later, at GRM Daily's Rated Awards, he picked up the Legacy Award - cementing a great decade. 2019: Glastonbury crew In 2008 the British public wasn't ready for Jay-Z - the man with more number one solo albums than anyone else in US history - to headline Glastonbury. Little over 10 years later Michael Omari became the first black British solo artist to headline the Pyramid stage. Not only did he smash the performance, but he paid homage to the likes of Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Skepta, Giggs, Ghetts, Wretch 32... he shouted out a total of 65 artists. "I feel like the 25 years of my life have all led up to this moment right here. And there have been so many people who have paved the way for me," he said. If you were to take one moment to sum up grime's 2010s, this is possibly it. 2019: Grime MC Jme has always been in his own lane but, when he released Grime MC on vinyl and CD only, he made a point about where grime is in 2019 - whether he meant to or not. "The fabric of our community, our culture, is MCing," Jme told SK Vibemaker after the release of his third album of the decade. "Everyone feels like there's something you should do: you should make a song, do a YouTube video, get your views, put it on Spotify, tweet it, Instagram it, do it again and again and again. And I think, that's not what I'm living for. I ain't living for that. "If YouTube and Spotify and all that shut down, I'm still going to be spitting bars." It seems like Grime MC is meant to work as a reminder of why we all love the genre so much: that crazy, energetic, indescribablefeeling it gives you, whether from a radio set, a rave or a single. "It's just art. Graffiti is art, but you don't see graffiti in the National Gallery. Graffiti is on the street - that's where it belongs," Jme said. "Music is art, but we've been told or shown that if you make music, it has to go 'here'. 'This is where music goes'. But it doesn't feel like music should go 'here' when I make it. "When I'm making music... or writing a bar... I'm not thinking, 'Ah, I can't wait to put this on Spotify! I can't wait to put this on Apple Music!' I don't make music for that. I make music so I can see it - I need to see the reaction. I need to feel it." And that feels like as good of a place as any to close out the decade in grime. Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

2010 में, ग्रिमे का भविष्य अनिश्चित था। जैसा कि हम 2020 में प्रवेश करने की तैयारी कर रहे हैं, यह निश्चित रूप से एक बेहतर जगह पर है।


How can we stop our village flooding again?

Summary: Two months ago, as flood water descended on the village of Fishlake, near Doncaster, Peter Trimingham battled through the night to help neighbours to safety. The experience has left him thinking hard about what can be done to prevent this happening again, reports the BBC's Sue Mitchell.

When Peter Trimingham volunteered to become a flood warden in the village where he's lived since childhood, he hadn't imagined it would lead to the toughest challenge of his life. He and his four fellow flood wardens, all over 60, started hastily bagging sand on the night of 8 November, but quickly ran out. The village was cut off by water, so it took hours for fresh supplies to get through. The scale of the disaster took everyone by surprise, because the village hadn't flooded since 1947. The memory of past floods had faded as new generations had moved in. Only grainy photographs remained. "There's a gorgeous photograph in the village of past flooding. The flood water used to shoot down the main street, and the locals had it cracked. They've got barrels of beer positioned carefully from the step to the pub and raised up by about five feet and they've got barrels in the road and planks that run from the door of the pub across to the higher ground at the other side of the road. They'd be walking across it to get their beer. And that's in 1923," says Peter. According to Prof Ian Rotherham, an ecologist and environmental historian from Sheffield Hallam University, Fishlake was caught in a pincer movement between two rivers, the Don and Ea Beck. Both burst their banks into an area of drained fenland that was already sodden from rain over a period of weeks. "I've been studying the history of the area and was talking to community groups down the river Don and various people were saying, 'Well my grandad used to have a boat and we didn't know why,'" he says. "All the way from Sheffield right down to Doncaster, the communities had boats because they knew they got flooded five, six times a year, and you just had the boat. Like the guys with the barrels of beer, you were prepared. But then from the 1950s, we've engineered the solutions and people then forget that they ever needed that, and [now they say], 'Oh yeah, we thought my grandad was bonkers, but aha, that explains it!" Peter Trimingham and the other flood wardens accept that a degree of complacency had crept in but believe that some of the problems in Fishlake have their roots in flood defence systems introduced a decade ago in Sheffield. In 2007, floods in the city led to two deaths and hundreds of evacuations. After that, £20m was spent on a flood-defence scheme in the Don Valley near the city, which Ian Rotherham agrees contributed to Fishlake's problems. "In Sheffield, the main factories and other areas affected in 2007 are now protected. However, if you are keeping the water out there, then you are moving it faster downstream, and Fishlake bore the brunt of this. You're not holding the water in the upper catchment - defending those businesses and premises means you're moving the water downstream faster. It's going to hit sooner, harder and deeper." Peter and the other flood wardens were powerless when this water poured in, flooding more than half of the 250 homes in the village. People were working in the dark with freezing cold water pouring through every crack and hole and rising quickly. "It's pretty traumatic. You've not got vision; you've got darkness and floodwater - two very, very dangerous combinations," Peter says. "You have no concept of time. You can't see and my phone was destroyed in the flood water anyway. You feel so small and insignificant and useless: something much more powerful than you can't be imagined unless you've been in it." Find out more For many in Fishlake the loss can't be quantified: it includes everything from photos, treasured possessions and mementos to cars and furniture. The community came together in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. Farmers used their tractors to help get people to safety. One, Greg Mawson, describes how he battled to save others, only to return to find his farmyard under up to eight feet of water and thousands of tonnes of straw lost. The local church, St Cuthbert's, provided space for people to sleep on the night of the floods and has acted as a storage hub for hundreds of donations of food, clothing, children's toys and cleaning products, from mops to vats of disinfectant. But people are getting back to normal at different speeds. Some of those who were evacuated are still unable to return. Many homes hum and drone with heaters, dehumidifiers and fans. Those whose home insurance doesn't cover flood insurance, or who have yet to receive insurance payouts, have received two recovery grants of about £700 in total from Doncaster Council and a local charity, South Yorkshire Community Foundation. According to Peter Trimingham, the response from insurers has been mixed; some people have been paid quickly and have been able to get on with rebuilding, while others have been left arguing about what is covered and what needs to be done. "It's incredibly stressful because you go from coming downstairs to a flooded house - or worse, you're in a flooded bungalow and left with just the clothes you're stood in. Some people have to wait because the insurance companies are slow - that means you don't get the house cleared, you don't get the dehumidifiers in," he says. "That's the experience people are going through now. So a natural disaster is followed by a human disaster and that is the point where people are really, really low." It was Day 21 before Peter's home was fully equipped with dehumidifiers, beginning a process that took weeks. He, his wife Fiona, and their son, Paddy, have just started sleeping there again but the downstairs is a wreck - all the soft furnishings had to go in the skip - and it's not clear when they'll get the final go-ahead from insurers to begin rebuilding. This feeling of helplessness is leading residents to demand more input in designing solutions. They don't want to see a situation in which Fishlake is safeguarded at the expense of other communities. "I think we're reactive to flooding and given what's happening we need to become more proactive," says Alison Slack, from Fishlake Cricket Club. "Putting in a flood defences only means you're going to move a problem somewhere else and I seriously would not want anybody going through what the village has gone through." One scheme that has caught Peter Trimingham's eye is being piloted in Hull and overseen by Dr Liz Sharp, from the University of Sheffield. It involves rainwater harvesting using water butts in flood areas. "The project is just finishing now and so far we've just looked at which people will be willing to take water butts for this purpose and a few simple calculations on what impact it would have," says Dr Sharp. "What we also found is that quite a few of the people we talked to actually said, 'Well, if they were to text us and tell us when to empty our water out, we would empty it to create more capacity.' And people were really willing to do that because they know that they're vulnerable to flooding. They know it's a horrible experience and they want to help other people and prevent that problem." The element of community engagement in this scheme strongly appeals to Peter Trimingham. "It's this feeling that you're doing something and that you're contributing to the public good as well as your own good. We just need more ideas like that, that are so simple and that have so much impact for so little cost," he says. "People can feel they're actually doing something as opposed to the way that we felt in Fishlake. We were flooded and we felt lacking in power. This empowers ordinary people to do something brilliant." Another scheme he's interested in has taken root in Sheffield, and unlike earlier flood defence measures it could actually slow down the speed at which run-off enters the Don and bears down on Fishlake. It's a project to transform semi-redundant roads into a network of flower meadows and wetlands, and also footpaths to increase access to the riverside district. At Porter Brook, in the heart of the city, river plants are now blooming in a small section of the waterway, where a "pocket park" has been created. "In the event of the floods this space will hold the water," says Ian Rotherham. He pays tribute to "enlightened" city council planners and developers. "It's created a gorgeous little spot. You can come here in spring, you can hear birds singing, you will see kingfishers, we have got trout back in the river. We've got salmon spawning this year, in the upper reaches of the River Don. That's brilliant." These projects give Peter Trimingham hope that something good can come out of what's happened to his community. He wants more coherent government planning on water management, rather than a series of reactions to individual crises. "It's got to start in Westminster. We make decisions about planning, we make decisions about water, and we've got to stop treating it as the enemy that comes over the bank," he says. "It needs to be the friend and we need to look after it." You may also be interested in: The northernmost Orkney island, North Ronaldsay, is home to just 50 people and 2,000 sheep. Since the 19th Century, when islanders built a stone wall to confine the flock to the shoreline, it has survived on seaweed alone - and it now seems that this special diet could hold the key to greener, more climate-friendly livestock farming. The seaweed-eating sheep that belch in a good way

दो महीने पहले, जब डॉनकास्टर के पास फिशलेक गाँव में बाढ़ का पानी उतर रहा था, पीटर ट्रिमिंगम ने पड़ोसियों की सुरक्षा में मदद करने के लिए रात भर संघर्ष किया। बीबीसी के सू मिशेल की रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, इस अनुभव ने उन्हें इस बारे में सोचने पर मजबूर कर दिया है कि ऐसा फिर से होने से रोकने के लिए क्या किया जा सकता है।


Delaney Brown death: Kyle Beckford charged

Summary: A 22-year-old man from Bedfordshire has been charged with the murder of cyclist Delaney Brown in Luton.

Mr Brown, 19, died on 5 September in Vincent Road, Leagrave, after his push bike was struck by a BMW 1 series car. Kyle Beckford, of Waleys Close, Marsh Farm in Luton, is due to appear before Luton Magistrates' Court on Friday, police said. Seven other people questioned by police on Wednesday on conspiracy to murder have been bailed until 28 November.

बेडफोर्डशायर के एक 22 वर्षीय व्यक्ति पर ल्यूटन में साइकिल चालक डेलेनी ब्राउन की हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Reg Harris and Bradley Wiggins: Two cycling heroes

Summary: Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins is being feted, but when the last London Olympics took place Reg Harris was a very different British cycling hero, writes Robert Dineen, author of a new biography.

Earlier this week, Bradley Wiggins wheeled a bike down his driveway, smiled for a small press corp, and pedalled out towards the Lancashire countryside. British cycling's new superstar then embarked on a training run remarkably similar to the one often followed by the first man to earn that status. As a keen student of his sport's history, the new Tour de France champion might be able to tell you a little about Reg Harris, too. A household name in the 1940s and 1950s, Harris won five world sprint titles, two Olympic medals and broke several world records. In dominating his sport like no Briton had ever done, he was also twice named Sportsman of the Year - the precursor to the BBC Sports Personality award - and later inspired a bronze statue that overlooks the track at Manchester Velodrome. Born into poverty in Bury - barely 15 miles from Wiggins's home - Harris was quite a different personality to Wiggins. While the latter is a reluctant hero who has admitted to being uncomfortable with the attention focused on him over the past month, Harris was a showman who revelled in the adulation during a golden era for cycling. It was an age when thousands cycled to work and almost as many rode for leisure at the weekends. As a result, Harris raced in front of huge audiences at home and across Europe almost every week, was the first cyclist to appear at a Royal Variety Performance and his statue spent a decade in Madame Tussauds. "A champion must take to the arena smiling, perfectly turned out and apparently full of confidence," Harris, a consummate crowd-pleaser, once said. "You must develop and put across a personality - become your own public relations officer." Harris exploited his fame differently, too. While it's been suggested Wiggins likes to wind down with a pint and perhaps a rugby league match at Wigan Warriors, Harris preferred to visit an expensive restaurant and to drink fine wine, stocking thousands of bottles in his cellar. When not racing on two wheels, Harris often competed in sports cars against the finest motor racing drivers in the country. Yet in at least one aspect of their characters, Wiggins and Harris had something important in common. There are those who note that a tough upbringing and, specifically, an absent father defined both men. Wiggins's dad, Gary, a hard-drinking Australian track rider, abandoned the family home when his son was aged only two and had no contact with him again until Wiggins had turned 17. Even then, however, their relationship was tortuous. Wiggins did not attend his father's funeral when he died after an attack by unidentified assailants in 2008 after a drunken night in New South Wales. Yet this was a watershed moment for Wiggins and his career. As Brendan Gallagher, his biographer, wrote: "He took stock on long, contemplative rides. He vowed not to let his talent go to waste like Gary." Within a year, Wiggins had defied all expectations to finish fourth in the Tour de France. On Sunday, he crossed the finish on the Champs-Elysees as the first Briton ever to win the race. As Chris Boardman, a former world cycling champion and Olympic gold medallist, said: "It showed how the sport allows you to overcome your background." Harris's upbringing was slightly different. He was born to a single mother, Elsie Hargreaves, who later married twice, to Ezebon Holding, then Joe Harris, though neither man took a leading role in her son's life. Harris claimed that he benefited from not being subject to the pressure that a father might place on a son, insisting that "the last person a boy needs around when racing is his father". In private, though, many people who knew Harris sensed that he was ashamed of his background, hence the lie that he upheld for all his life - Harris claimed that his full name, Reginald Hargreaves Harris, was derived from the names of his father and stepfather. "Reg wasn't confident, I was close enough to him to know that," said Pete Brotherton, a former pursuit rider and training partner of Harris. He knew about Harris's childhood. "He never talked about it but that was a big factor. Many sportsmen are sportsmen for a reason. Either they had a rough upbringing or they don't feel confident in themselves, so they try to make themselves part of an elite. Reg made himself confident with his performance. He had to convince himself he was No 1." Brotherton felt that Harris had to be the best in every aspect of his life, not only on the track, but with his choice of car, his wine, even his clothes. He liked three-piece suits, hand-made shirts and bespoke shoes. He was known also for the trail of beautiful women that he squired. "He was besotted by them," Tommy Godwin, a former team-mate of Harris, said. "He loved them and he thought they loved him." At a time when little scrutiny was paid to sportsmen's private life, the public did not know about this side to Harris, and perhaps would not have cared much anyway. Like Wiggins, he was heroic to them for what he achieved on the bike. Also like Wiggins, he achieved so much partly because his background was so tough. Robert Dineen is a Daily Telegraph journalist and author of Reg Harris: the rise and fall of Britain's greatest cyclist.

एक नई जीवनी के लेखक रॉबर्ट डाइनन लिखते हैं कि टूर डी फ्रांस चैंपियन ब्रैडली विगिन्स को सम्मानित किया जा रहा है, लेकिन जब पिछला लंदन ओलंपिक हुआ था तो रेग हैरिस एक बहुत ही अलग ब्रिटिश साइकिलिंग नायक थे।


Handgun seized as armed police stop car in Tingley

Summary: A handgun and ammunition were seized when armed police stopped a car in the middle of a residential street.

National Crime Agency (NCA) officers arrested three men inside the vehicle in the Beech Street area of Tingley, West Yorkshire, on Wednesday. A fourth man was also arrested in a raid in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. The agency said the arrests were part of an investigation into the supply of firearms to criminal gangs in the north of England. The men remain in custody and are being questioned on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of firearms. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

जब सशस्त्र पुलिस ने एक आवासीय सड़क के बीच में एक कार को रोका तो एक हैंडगन और गोला-बारूद जब्त किया गया।


Aberdeen flights to Reykjavik dropped

Summary: Icelandair is to drop its flights linking Aberdeen with Reykjavik, the airline has announced.

The four-times weekly service began in March 2016. However the airline said it was stopping the flights after 14 May for "commercial reasons". Icelandair said customers due to travel after that date had the option of travelling to Reykjavík from Glasgow, changing the date of travel, or receiving a full refund.

एयरलाइन ने घोषणा की है कि आइसलैंडएयर एबरडीन को रेकजाविक से जोड़ने वाली अपनी उड़ानें बंद कर रही है।


Wind farm in forest plan on public display

Summary: Plans for a wind farm to be built in clearings of a forestry plantation have gone on public display.

Twenty-seven turbines have been proposed for the site near Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire. Developer Druim Ba Sustainable Energy said it would take on board opponents' concerns that the project would harm tourism and wildlife. An exhibition on the plans will be held in Kiltarlity, Abriachan and Beauly over the course of this week.

वानिकी बागान की सफाई में बनाए जाने वाले पवन फार्म की योजनाएँ सार्वजनिक प्रदर्शन पर चली गई हैं।


Homeless man assaulted in Brighton dies in hospital

Summary: A homeless man who died after being assaulted in Brighton has been described as "a free spirit".

Andrew O'Connell, 54, from Kent was attacked at Royal Pavilion Gardens at about 23:55 BST on Tuesday and died later in hospital. His family said: "He was a kind, intelligent man with a free spirit who loved to travel. As a family we are utterly devastated, hurt and angry." Sergio Lemori, 32, also homeless, has been charged with murder. Mr Lemori is due to appear at Lewes Crown Court on Tuesday.

ब्राइटन में हमले के बाद मारे गए एक बेघर व्यक्ति को "एक स्वतंत्र आत्मा" के रूप में वर्णित किया गया है।


Armed police deployed after Lincolnshire gun threat

Summary: Armed police were sent to a house in Lincolnshire after a woman claimed she had been threatened by a man with a handgun.

Lincolnshire Police said a firearms unit was deployed to a house in Linden Terrace in Gainsborough at 16:30 BST on Saturday. The woman was not injured in the incident. Two men later handed themselves in to police. They have been arrested and are being questioned by officers.

सशस्त्र पुलिस को लिंकनशायर में एक घर में भेजा गया था जब एक महिला ने दावा किया कि उसे एक आदमी द्वारा बंदूक से धमकी दी गई थी।


Covid: The countries worried they won't get the vaccine

Summary: Pictures of the first people being vaccinated against Covid-19 haven't filled everyone around the world with joy. In some places - in countries such as Zimbabwe, Mexico and Pakistan - the battle to get hold of the vaccine is likely to be long and tortuous.

By Stephanie HegartyBBC World Service Watching the vaccine roll out in the UK, Lois Chingandu wasn't excited - she was worried. Like most of us, she's looking forward to getting vaccinated and getting life back to normal. But unlike many people right now, she doesn't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's not clear when her country, Zimbabwe, will get a vaccine. "It's now just an issue of sitting and hoping if we will get it in my lifetime," she says. "I live in fear that I will contract Covid and die because of where I am sitting." It may sound like an exaggeration, but she has seen something very similar happen before. Ms Chingandu works in HIV prevention and in the late 1990s in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital city, she watched thousands of people die from AIDS each day. Medicine was available to stop it - but only to those who could afford it. "Eventually when the privileged decide that it's time to save the poor people, then we will get the vaccine," she says. Ms Chingandu is a member of a campaign called the People's Vaccine Alliance, which has admonished rich countries - particularly the US, UK, EU countries and Canada - for hoarding vaccines. According to researchers at Duke University, which is keeping track of deals between governments and vaccine companies, a handful of countries have secured more supply than their populations actually need. Canada has secured enough vaccines to vaccinate its entire population five times. These countries took a risk in buying vaccines before they proved to be effective and in turn helped to finance their development. Ms Chingandu and the People's Vaccine campaign believe this process is unfair. They say excess vaccines should be redistributed to country's that need them. So far, 189 countries have signed up to the Covax initiative, which is supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and a group of international vaccine advocacy groups. Its aim is to unite countries into one bloc so they have more power to negotiate with drug companies. Of those countries, 92 - all low or middle-income countries - they will have their vaccines paid for by a fund sponsored by donors. The UK has donated half a billion dollars to this fund. The US and Russia are among the few countries that are not contributing. The remaining countries will buy vaccines through Covax but they may get better deals than if they had negotiated on their own. So far, Covax has secured deals for three promising Covid-19 vaccines. But, for now, the scheme will only cover the doses needed to cover 20% of a country's population. Critical months Mexico is a big supporter of the scheme and is one of the countries that will buy vaccines through it. But the country's chief vaccine negotiator, Martha Delgado, knows 20% won't be enough to stop Mexico's soaring rates of Covid-19. She's working hard to also secure vaccines by other means. Any delay is the difference between life and death. "These months are crucial," she says. On the 13 October, in what she describes as an iconic moment, her team secured deals directly with three vaccine companies. The team managed to secure a small number of doses of the much-coveted Pfizer vaccine - the first to be administered outside of trials. On Friday, Mexico's regulator approved the vaccine for emergency use and it will roll out this month. "At least in Mexico we have the money to buy vaccines," Ms Delgado says. "I have seen other countries in the Latin-American region that don't have enough money to buy vaccines right now and they are not really guaranteed access." For many countries Covax is the only current solution. The vaccine that is in development by Oxford University and the drug company AstraZeneca has said it will not profit from sales to developing countries. It's an important part of the Covax portfolio, but it hasn't been authorised for use in any country yet. And one vaccine company will not be able to produce enough doses get vaccines to 7.8 billion people in a matter of months. Like Mexico, Pakistan has been in talks with every vaccine manufacturer. "We definitely are competing with richer countries. And that was a given," says Faisal Sultan, the special assistant to Pakistan's prime minister on health, who has been central to those negotiations. "Everybody is going for a finite pie. The pie is fixed for now and everybody wants a slice of it. And there's obviously going to be some jostling and pushing." So far, he says negotiations are going well but they have yet to secure any doses. Pakistan can't afford to pay for a vaccine before they know that it will work. "That's a luxury," says Dr Sultan. "I think there's only a handful of countries who may do this. If we can get the right stuff, the right combination, we should be okay. But we cannot do blind bets." Leading universities in Pakistan have helped to run clinical trials on behalf of Chinese firm, CanSinoBIO and that may help secure a supply but it's not a quid quo pro. And negotiations are not purely about money either. Ms Delgado admits that Mexico's good diplomatic relations were an important part in her successful deals. "Companies do exist within countries," Dr Sultan agrees. "And when you're talking countries, obviously politics and alliances and all these things do come into play. But at present, what we are trying to do is work above any geopolitical fray, it may or may not be truly possible." Lois Chingandu and the People's Vaccine are calling for something more radical than diplomacy or even Covax. They want vaccine companies to share the intellectual property, so that generic forms of the vaccine can be made. The WTO has delayed its decision on whether it will waive intellectual property rules for Covid vaccines. The proposal has won support from some countries at the WTO but is opposed by many Western countries. So for most countries, getting a Covid vaccine is still a waiting game. "People are going to continue to die of Covid," says Ms Chingandu, "while people in other countries are living a normal life."

कोविड-19 के खिलाफ टीका लगाए जाने वाले पहले लोगों की तस्वीरों ने दुनिया भर में सभी को खुशी से नहीं भर दिया है। कुछ स्थानों पर-जिम्बाब्वे, मैक्सिको और पाकिस्तान जैसे देशों में-टीका प्राप्त करने की लड़ाई लंबी और कठिन होने की संभावना है।


Aberdeenshire flooding bill expected to be £7.6m

Summary: The cost of the clear-up in Aberdeenshire in the aftermath of Storm Frank is expected to be £7.6m.

Councillors will be told next week that £1.7m has already been spent. A large proportion of the money is being spent on repairing and refurbishing 22 flood-damaged council houses in the Ballater area. Replacing a collapsed section of the A93, near Crathie, cost £300,000.

स्टॉर्म फ्रैंक के बाद एबरडीनशायर में सफाई की लागत 7.6 करोड़ पाउंड होने की उम्मीद है।


Shark attacks: A magnetic solution?

Summary: An American chemist says he's found a substance - several, in fact - that can repel some of the most fearsome predators in the ocean. He wants to use his discovery to protect them, and us.

By Ari Daniel ShapiroPRI's The World Eric Stroud stands on a pier on the island of North Bimini in the Bahamas. He looks down into the turquoise water. A couple of eagle rays and barracudas swim by. "The current is ripping through here right now," he says. "The tide is going out. So any scent that's put here goes right to the outside of the channel, and that's where the big sharks are right now." Stroud is setting up an experiment. He unwraps 20lbs (9kgs) of frozen sardines, drops them into a mesh bag tied to the pier, and tosses the bag into the water. He's hoping to attract a large bull shark. "It's a fairly dangerous shark," he explains. "It can be aggressive, especially when provoked or cornered." If a bull shark does turn up, he'll throw a large baited hook into the water. But it's not your typical fishhook. In fact, if all goes well, this hook won't catch any sharks. For more than a decade, Stroud has been working to develop shark repellents. He used to work as a chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. Then, in the summer of 2001, he and his wife went on a cruise to Bermuda. "We hit bad weather, and we were trapped in a cabin, and on the news was shark bite after shark bite," he says. "It seemed like everyone that stepped in the ocean in Florida was getting attacked by a shark that summer." That's when his wife suggested he turn his talents to developing shark repellents. When they got home to New Jersey, he set up several small pools in his basement, and filled them with small sharks. He watched how the sharks fed, swam, and behaved. Then, one day, he accidentally dropped a large magnet from his workbench. He noticed some small nurse sharks dart away. "That night, we put magnets into the water and couldn't believe the nurse sharks were extremely distressed and stayed away from them," he says. Stroud thinks that was the moment he discovered that magnets repel sharks. He demonstrates the effect at the Bimini Biological Field Station in the Bahamas. He stands waist-deep in water, just offshore, in a fenced-in pen in the sea. Several young Lemon sharks glide around the perimeter. One of Stroud's assistants captures one of them and slowly rotates it onto its back underwater. This puts the shark into a sleep-like state. Then Stroud takes a magnet and spins it as he moves it towards the shark. The shark darts away suddenly. "There you go," he says. "Look at that beautiful bend away from the magnet like he's repelled by it". Sharks possess electrical sensors, called the ampullae of Lorenzini, that look like tiny freckles on their snouts. Biologists believe sharks use these sensors to detect the heartbeats of their prey and to navigate using the Earth's magnetic field. Stroud suspects the spinning magnet overwhelms these electrical sensors. "It's probably something like a bright flashlight across your eyes," he says. "It's just temporarily blinding, and you're startled. And it's not pleasant." Other shark experts believe magnets could have a potential use but it's too early to say. Rob Lawrence, who has been working with great white sharks for more than 20 years and takes tourists in Cape Town cage diving, says: "It could work if a lot more research was done on this. "Sharks have a lot of sensory organs in their snout so potentially the magnetic field could affect it. "But people here in South Africa have looked into this and there hasn't been much success with it." Geremy Cliff, head of research at KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, says an Australian study in 2009 suggested that magnets can repel five shark species, while they have little effect on one teleost (bony fish) species in a test tank environment. "But the authors had raised concerns that the size and weight of the magnets was considerable and that many would be needed to keep sharks out of nets," he adds. Stroud says other ocean species don't appear to be affected by magnets. "Bony fish, like tuna or swordfish, do not have this special organ. Therefore, they are not affected at all in the presence of magnets or metals." He says the same is true for eels, invertebrates, and crabs. "We have not tested this on sea turtles - which, like sharks, use the Earth's magnetic field as a compass - but some early work by other researchers indicates they have no effect." Stroud made his discovery in 2004. It helped him jumpstart a company he'd founded called SharkDefense, that aims to develop and commercialise shark repellents. He and his team tested other substances, and they found that some metals also interfere with a shark's electrical sensors. "Certain metals didn't work, others did", says Stroud. "You begin to hone down the periodic table". Particularly effective are rare-earth metals like samarium, neodymium, and praseodymium. His team are also in the process of testing various chemical shark repellents . Other deterrent products using electronic waves to deter sharks are already in use. Stroud's original plan was to develop repellents to protect people, and he's working on ways to do that. For instance, he and his partners are researching a magnetic underwater fence that might keep sharks away from swimmers. But his main focus has switched to using repellents to protect sharks. Many shark species are being overfished, and some are endangered. One reason is that fishermen trying to catch other fish often catch sharks by mistake. Stroud wondered - what if he could produce fish hooks that catch fish like tuna and halibut as usual, but that sharks avoid? "We realised we could magnetise the fishing hook, and coat it with a rare earth metal," he says. "It looks just like a regular hook." Several countries are now testing his so-called SMART hooks to see if they work. Some tests show a 60-70% reduction in the number of sharks caught. Stroud received an award from the World Wildlife Fund for his invention, and he's hoping to sell the hooks commercially before long. In the meantime, he continues to refine the design, trying new combinations of metals and magnets, and observing how they affect different types of sharks. Additional reporting by Rob Hugh-Jones Listen to more on this story at PRI's The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH in Boston. This story was produced in partnership with the PBS program NOVA. Learn more about the intriguing properties of metals and other elements, by watching Hunting the Elements with David Pogue.

एक अमेरिकी रसायनज्ञ का कहना है कि उसे एक पदार्थ मिला है-कई, वास्तव में-जो समुद्र में कुछ सबसे डरावने शिकारियों को पीछे हटा सकता है। वह अपनी खोज का उपयोग उन्हें और हमें बचाने के लिए करना चाहता है।


The Cape Town schools learning from transgender students

Summary: As an increasing number of young South Africans reveal that their gender identities differ from their sex at birth, schools are learning about the challenges these students face, writes the BBC's Mohammed Allie from Cape Town.

Three years ago, Alex* transitioned from a boy to a girl. Now eight years old, she wears her blonde hair long and feels at ease among her classmates at a primary school in a leafy Cape Town suburb. "My friends are really nice," she says, even if some children in another class "don't really understand and act a bit mean". Alex's mother Jennifer* says the family was initially advised by a psychologist against allowing Alex to explore her female identity, and was urged instead to reinforce the male gender. "So we cut her hair and forced her to be a boy, but that turned out to be awful," Jennifer says. "She was affected badly - there was a noticeable decline in her sense of self." Matters only improved after the family - acting on the advice of another mental-health professional - allowed Alex to dress as she wished. "Legally we haven't changed the gender marker," Jennifer says, "but she started wearing dresses to school and they were OK with that." South Africa has been getting better at understanding the needs of transgender students, backed by a constitution that is widely recognised as one of the most liberal in the world. The country remains the only one in Africa that legally prohibits unfair discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, guaranteeing equality for all. The risks of 'coming out' Despite the legal framework, homophobia and discrimination still persist in South African society, more so in the majority black communities than among their white and mixed-race compatriots. According to the Centre for Risk Analysis at the South African Institute of Race Relations (IRR), only half of black LGBT people are completely open about their sexuality. The report says black LGBT people may be more reluctant to reveal their sexuality because they are "more likely to be victims of physical violence than those in other race groups". The risks of "coming out" are particularly high for black people in rural areas. According to the IRR, only 35% of LGBT people in Limpopo province are open about their sexuality - the lowest rate in the country. At the other end of the scale is Western Cape province, where an estimated 70% of LGBT people are completely open about their sexuality - way above the national average of 57%. The provincial capital, Cape Town, has developed a global reputation as a gay-friendly city, boosted by its annual Gay Pride festival. According to Ron Addinall, a sexologist and social psychologist based at the University of Cape Town, schools in the area have led the way in understanding the needs of transgender students. The number of transgender students who have gone public has also been rising dramatically, he says, thanks to growing awareness of what it means to be transgender. Mr Addinall, who has been advising schools as well as parents and their transgender children on dealing with transitions, says many teachers told him they were initially unaware they had transgender students in their classes. Single-gender toilets Some 20 schools in Cape Town have made provisions to accommodate the needs of transgender students, and more are following suit. The measures include introducing single-gender toilets, as well as allowing students to use their new names and gender-neutral school uniforms. At Westerford High, a school with a reputation for free thinking, principal Rob le Roux says the needs of a transgender student were accommodated by allowing a change in uniform, and in the pronouns used to address the student. "The biggest change was in attitude," he says. "We had meetings with staff, parents and children to discuss how to deal with these types of requests." Township 'inequality' While well-resourced suburban schools may have adjusted to the unique challenges faced by transgender students, Mr Addinall says the situation is not quite the same at township schools. "I'm anxious about what is happening in the pre-urban and rural school environments. "The concern is that there are many transgender children in those schools [that are] not getting the appropriate support and have to hide who they are." Read more: Iranti, a media advocacy organisation that defends the rights of lesbians, transgender and intersex people, has highlighted the case of a seventh-grade transgender pupil at a Western Cape school who was mocked after the school refused to recognise him as a boy because he had been registered as a girl at birth. And last year, a judge at an Equality Court in Limpopo ordered the provincial education department to pay 60,000 South African rand ($4,100; £3,300) in compensation to a transgender pupil who said her principal instructed other pupils to provoke her in the school toilets. Mr Addinall says his work with schools depends on the co-operation of individual educators and principals. "Things would be much better if we had a national policy that clearly stipulates how transgender learners should be supported and cared for," he says. * Alex and Jennifer's names have been changed to protect their identities.

केप टाउन से बीबीसी के मोहम्मद एली लिखते हैं कि जैसे-जैसे युवा दक्षिण अफ्रीकियों की बढ़ती संख्या से पता चलता है कि उनकी लिंग पहचान जन्म के समय उनके लिंग से अलग होती है, स्कूल इन छात्रों के सामने आने वाली चुनौतियों के बारे में सीख रहे हैं।


Prague flood defences put to test

Summary: At least four people are now feared dead in the Czech Republic, as heavy rain in the western half of the country continues to cause severe flooding. The Czech government has declared a nationwide state of emergency, Prague's metro system has been shut down and most schools in the capital remain closed.

By Rob CameronBBC News, Prague With the catastrophic floods of 2002 and 1997 still very much alive in people's memories, some Czechs are once again battening down the hatches while others head for higher ground. At midday on Monday the River Vltava in Prague was flowing at 2,815 cu m per second - 10 times its usual volume. "Last night we went down to look at the river," said Jakub Szanto, who lives in the low-lying Prague district of Modrany. "The biking and jogging path was underwater. Based on past experience, I moved the car and my motorbike up the hill, emptied the cellar and my wife packed up the kids' things." "At 03:00, the police started driving past with their sirens on, asking everyone to leave their homes," Mr Szanto told the BBC. His first floor flat is 3m (10ft) above the pavement and 300m from the River Vltava. "So I emptied the contents of the fridge into a huge box, woke the kids up, told them we were going to play a game called 'Evacuation' and we left for grandma's." Cautious optimism So far, Mr Szanto and his family are just one of several hundred families in Prague who have had to leave their homes, as nervous officials watch the river levels rising. Most schoolchildren have stayed home, and while buses are struggling to replace the suspended metro service in the city centre, the city is still largely functioning as normal. Swollen tributaries are adding to the Vltava's problems, but the local authorities believe the metal flood defences - installed after the catastrophic floods of 2002 - and the banks of sandbags will hold back the torrent. The Vltava has peaked so far at 2,840 cu m per second. In the devastation of 2002, the river raged at 5,300 cu m per second. So there are grounds for cautious optimism that the Czech capital - and its unique architectural heritage - will escape the worst. The historical heart of the city including the iconic Charles Bridge, plus central areas like Karlin, ravaged in 2002 and completely rebuilt at huge cost, look likely to survive more or less intact if - as forecast - the rain eases off on Monday evening. Animals spared Prague Zoo, devastated in 2002, is reporting substantial devastation. Unlike last time, though, all animals have been successfully evacuated - the only reported casualty is a flamingo with a broken leg. But the director there says the lower part of the zoo, which was meticulously rebuilt after the last flood, could be completely destroyed. Elsewhere in the country, the situation is more serious. Towns and villages in the wooded hills of South Bohemia, where the River Vltava rises, have been badly flooded. Western, central and northern Bohemia are all suffering too, with road and rail links severed and many homes ruined. So far there have been two confirmed deaths, with two more people feared drowned and a number of people - including several rafters - missing. Attention is now turning north, where the Vltava flows into the River Elbe, part of a river system that flows into Germany and onwards to the North Sea. The low-lying, industrial city of Usti nad Labem is reporting serious flooding, and could be in for a tense night. Other towns along the Elbe - some of which are home to chemical factories and power stations - could also be badly hit.

चेक गणराज्य में अब कम से कम चार लोगों के मारे जाने की आशंका है, क्योंकि देश के पश्चिमी हिस्से में भारी बारिश के कारण गंभीर बाढ़ आ गई है। चेक सरकार ने राष्ट्रव्यापी आपातकाल की स्थिति घोषित कर दी है, प्राग की मेट्रो प्रणाली को बंद कर दिया गया है और राजधानी के अधिकांश स्कूल बंद हैं।


Man accused of elderly women sex offences in Sheffield

Summary: A man has appeared in court charged with a number of sexual offences against elderly women in Sheffield.

Police said the alleged victims, aged in their 80s, were targeted earlier this month at their homes in the Walkley area of the city. The 27-year-old man is also accused of burglary and two counts of fraud by false representation. Two other men, aged 48 and 49, arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary, have been released on bail.

शेफ़ील्ड में बुजुर्ग महिलाओं के खिलाफ कई यौन अपराधों के आरोप में एक व्यक्ति अदालत में पेश हुआ है।


What happens after a whale is beached?

Summary: A whale which beached in Skegness on Saturday was the fourth to wash up at the Lincolnshire resort in recent years. So how common is it for whales to wash ashore - and what happens to their carcasses?

By Caroline LowbridgeBBC News When the sperm whale washed up in Skegness on Saturday it became something of a tourist attraction. Hundreds of people visited the beach to see the creature and some had photographs taken standing next to it. But the sight was not as unusual as one might expect. Whale for sale The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP), which investigates whale, dolphin and porpoise strandings on behalf of Defra, recorded nine cases of sperm whales being washed ashore in the UK last year. Earlier this year police investigated claims parts of a dead whale found in Norfolk were offered for sale on Facebook. Rob Deaville, project manager for CSIP, said the whale parts would technically belong to the Crown. "They are classified as royal fish," said Mr Deaville, who works for the Zoological Society of London. "A very ancient statute gave the head of the Crown the right to all the cetaceans stranded around the UK. "The king had the right to the head and the queen had the right to the tail." But Mr Deaville is not aware of a monarch ever asking for part of a whale. "The royal prerogative has transferred to the Receiver of Wreck, within the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, but in practice our project gets first dibs," he said. After being made aware of a stranded whale CSIP decides whether to examine it or not. Whale specimens are also gathered by the Natural History Museum, which was given access to the carcasses of dead, stranded cetaceans for the purposes of scientific investigation under an agreement negotiated in 1913. "They are so hard to study in the wild that strandings give you a unique opportunity to learn more about them," said Mr Deaville. Since being contracted by Defra in 1990, CSIP has recorded about 10,500 strandings of dead and living cetaceans and approximately 10% each year are whales. Of these 10,500 strandings, CSIP has carried out post-mortem examinations on about 3,000. These tests are sometimes carried out before a whale has been moved, depending on how big and difficult it is to transport. Too decomposed People speculated that the recent Skegness whale could have been killed by a boat because it had a large gash. However, it was not examined because it was thought to be too decomposed. "It may well be consistent with a boat strike but we can't say for sure without having examined it and we can't say it wasn't done post mortem," said Mr Deaville, after viewing photographs. If whale deaths are related to human activities then the information gathered can be used to prevent further deaths. But Mr Deaville said a lot of whales starve. "We only get male sperm whale strandings in the UK and the ones we've examined post mortem have all shown evidence of a lack of recent feeding," he said. Sperm whales usually become stranded in Scotland or along the east coast of England. "It seems they get into the North Sea where they can't feed," said Mr Deaville. "The females are probably part of a matriarchal unit elsewhere." 'Riding' a whale One of the most high-profile whale deaths in the UK in recent years was that of a northern bottle-nosed whale which swam up the Thames in January 2006 and died after lengthy attempts to rescue it. A year later the whale's skeleton went on display at a newspaper office, on loan from the Natural History Museum. Just as crowds gathered to see the Skegness whale, tens of thousands of people lined the Thames to watch the London whale swim past. And the animals, dead or alive, tend to be an interesting and rare enough sight to attract attention. In September 2009 people took turns to climb on and "ride" the body of a minke whale which washed ashore in Barry, in the Vale of Glamorgan. But a decomposing whale can be a public health risk, meaning councils or private landowners usually have a responsibility to dispose of the bodies. "I am aware of incidents where it has been left in situ so it can decompose naturally, where you can't physically move it anyway and the risk to public health is fairly low," said Mr Deaville. "In parts of Scotland some whales have been buried." The council or landowner must cover the cost of the disposal. East Lindsey District Council estimates the recent Skegness whale will cost about £10,000 to dispose of but the cost varies depending on the size and weight. Exploding whales Depending on the circumstances a number of licences need to be granted before a whale can be moved and disposed of, including from the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). Many are taken to landfill sites, such as the Skegness whale which was taken to Winterton, in North Lincolnshire. Others are disposed through incineration or rendering. There is film footage from 1970 of a whale in Florence, Oregon, in the United States, being disposed of by explosion. "We don't do that in the UK and we don't advise that either, because you would be left with bits of whale over the beach which you've still got to clean up," said Mr Deaville. However, dead whales can explode naturally, such as when a sperm whale was being transported to a research centre in Tainan, Taiwan, in 2004. "That actually exploded en route because of the gases building up inside," said Mr Deaville. "How long it would take [for a whale to explode] we just don't know. It would depend on a lot of factors."

शनिवार को स्केगनेस के तट पर एक व्हेल हाल के वर्षों में लिंकनशायर रिसॉर्ट में चौथी बार बह गई। तो व्हेल का तट पर धोना कितना आम है-और उनके शवों का क्या होता है?


Mountain biker critical after Grizedale Forest fall

Summary: A 31-year-old man is in a critical condition after coming off his mountain bike in Cumbria.

The cyclist, from Cheshire, suffered serious head, neck and back injuries during the fall in Grizedale Forest. He was taken by air ambulance for treatment at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough where he is "critically ill". A spokesman for the Great North Air Ambulance Service said the man had to be stabilised before he could be moved.

कुम्ब्रिया में अपनी माउंटेन बाइक से उतरने के बाद एक 31 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की हालत गंभीर है।


How do you survive in the coldest place on Earth?

Summary: In Siberia, the winter temperature can drop to -60C, making it one of the coldest places to live in the world. In the first of our series on extremes, Adam Mynott finds out how the people of Oymyakon district cope with everyday life under such extraordinary conditions.

It was extremely cold. Stepping off the plane from Moscow into the brutal, brittle cold of Yakutsk in eastern Siberia, I could hardly believe that humans could survive, let alone thrive in such harsh conditions. Yet this was a relatively mild start to my 10 days in the region. The temperature was -32C, and I was to encounter much worse. One of the first things I noticed in Yakutsk, the regional capital of Sakha province, was that this city must be at severe risk of flooding, as all the buildings were built on concrete and steel stilts, suspending them 2m (6ft) above the ground. But Valentin Spector, a senior researcher at the Permafrost Institute, said the stilts had nothing to do with flooding. He explained that in the summer, when temperatures can rise to more than 40C, the top layer of frozen ground warms and defrosts, in some places to a depth of a metre and in others to as much as three metres. This "active layer," as Mr Spector called it, is very unstable, and unless the foundations of buildings are firmly rooted deep in the permafrost below, movement in the summer will bring them crashing down. He told me that 65% of Russia sits on permafrost, and in some places in Siberia the frozen ground is 1500m deep. 'Shockingly painful' The permafrost poses many other difficulties. Even though the summers are hot, it takes a long time for the topsoil to shake off the chill, and the growing season for farmers is shoe-horned into a small period of a few weeks. The following day we flew to Ust-Nera, a town north of Yakutsk, inside the Arctic Circle and deep in the mountains. The air temperature fell another 10 degrees to around -42C, another startling shock to my life-support system. As we drove into the town from the airport, we fell in behind a column of cars on their way to a funeral. Another problem posed by permafrost: how do people bury their dead in the middle of winter? It takes two or three days to dig a grave in frozen ground. A fire is lit and coals are piled on; after a couple of hours the coals are dragged to one side and the 15cm of ground defrosted by the heat and flames are dug and cleared. Hot coals are then pushed into the hole and the process begins all over again until the hole is 2m deep. I was beginning to get used to the cold, but I still found it shockingly painful and difficult to operate in. In the winter here, no-one goes outside unless they absolutely have to, and if they do have to venture out to shop or go to school or work, they are very well wrapped up. Fur hats and long fur coats are everywhere. A long fur coat can cost more than $1550 (£1000), beyond the purse of many people where the average wage is the equivalent of $600 (£400) a month. You can take out a mortgage on a fur coat - banks will lend to enable people to buy the garment they need. I arrived with more sets of thermal underwear than I knew what to do with, but what I lacked was a good hat. I was told by everyone that real fur was the only sensible solution, but I did not want to be responsible for the death of an Arctic Fox or a rabbit and, frankly, the real fur hats were very expensive, so I decided to go for fake fur. This caused snorts of derision from the government guide who was accompanying me. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and contempt. "Huh, Greenpeace," he said. Gulag ordeal The town of Ust-Nera started as a small settlement after geologists discovered gold and other minerals in the region in 1937. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin saw the underground reserves as one solution to deal with bourgeois "enemies of the state," and sent many tens of thousands of political prisoners to gulags (work camps) in Siberia to extract the gold and other minerals with picks and shovels. Mikhail Ivanov is one of the few gulag workers who survived the ordeal and is still alive. I met the academic and historian in his apartment in Yakutsk, where he told me his crime had been just to praise the writings of a Yakut accused of being a nationalist. After a sham trial, he was sent to work in a coal mine. "If I dragged 25 wheelbarrows full of coal up to the surface, I received two bowls of porridge. If I couldn't manage 25, I got just one bowl," he told me. The mines are still operating under, of course, totally different regimes. The money they offer in wages attracts miners from all over Russia and beyond. It is the mines that sustain the economy in this barren cold environment. And without the mines, the town of Oymyakon, which is the coldest inhabited place on Earth, would probably only be occupied in the summer by reindeer herdsmen. When I visited the Badran gold mine, the temperature above ground was -45C. I found it almost unbearable. Andrei Dubov, who has worked at the mine for a decade, said the cold was no problem. "I wrap up warm, and it's dry. So it's a much better climate than many other parts of Russia." He said the coldest temperature he could recall was -63C. "It was probably colder," he told me, "but the thermometer only reads down as far as -63C." -52C and falling Underground, the miners work in temperatures between -15C and -20C, which seems appalling, but remarkably, the mine feels incredibly mild, warm even. The coldest temperature I experienced in my few days in Siberia was -53C. This was so cold that after no more than a few minutes outside, exposed skin started to smart with pain, damp surfaces in my nostrils froze, and toes and fingers turned uncomfortably cold very quickly, despite three layers of thick socks and two pairs of gloves. I was carrying my microphone, and the flexible cable that led to the recording machine turned as rigid as a stick and I was warned that if I tried to bend it before it warmed up, it would snap. It is easy, perhaps even arrogant, to look at the lives of the people who live in the district of Oymyakon and think they would not live in such a physically demanding place if they knew better. Of course, they do know better. I visited the Vadreyev family, who were all born in Ust-Nera and feel they belong to the town and its people. As she dressed her daughter, Maria, in a thick fur coat, fur hat, scarf and gloves, Martina Vadreyev said: "Sure, we have to wrap up warm. In other parts of Russia you can throw on a coat to go outdoors, here it takes ages to dress. But we are used to it. This is our home." Then the two of them pulled open the door of their apartment and stepped into the blast of super-chilled air -52C and falling.

साइबेरिया में, सर्दियों का तापमान-60 डिग्री सेल्सियस तक गिर सकता है, जिससे यह दुनिया में रहने के लिए सबसे ठंडे स्थानों में से एक बन जाता है। चरम पर हमारी श्रृंखला के पहले भाग में, एडम माइनॉट को पता चलता है कि ओयमाकॉन जिले के लोग ऐसी असाधारण परिस्थितियों में रोजमर्रा की जिंदगी का सामना कैसे करते हैं।


Timeline: Tiananmen protests

Summary: In the spring of 1989, more than one million Chinese students and workers occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square and began the largest political protest in communist China's history. Six weeks of protests ended with the Beijing massacre of 3-4 June.

15 April: Hu Yaobang's death Former Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang, a leading reformist, dies of a heart attack aged 73. Mourners begin to gather in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. They are expressing their sadness, but also their dissatisfaction with the pace of reform in China. 18-21 April: Demonstrations spread Numbers in Beijing swell into thousands in the following days, and demonstrations spread to cities and universities nationwide. Students, workers and officials shout slogans calling for greater freedom and democracy and an end to what they called dictatorship - others complain about inflation, salaries and housing. 22 April: Hu's memorial Tens of thousands of students gather outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square as Hu's memorial service is held. Their actions come in spite of an earlier warning by the city government that protesters risk severe punishment. They deliver a petition of demands and insist on a meeting with Li Peng - China's premier at the time - which is rejected. 26 April: Inflammatory editorial The state-run newspaper, the People's Daily, publishes an editorial entitled The Necessity for a Clear Stand Against Turmoil, accusing the protesters of rejecting the Communist Party. The article closely mirrors views expressed by Deng Xiaoping, China's unofficial leader. It further fuels public anger. 4 May: Numbers rise Tens of thousands of Chinese students in at least five cities stage the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations of their kind since the communists came to power 40 years ago. The action coincides with the 70th anniversary of the 4 May movement, an intellectual movement that wanted a stronger China. But at a meeting with Asian bankers Zhao Ziyang, the official head of the Communist Party, says the protests will gradually subside. 13 May: Hunger strike Ahead of a visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, hundreds of students begin an indefinite hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, pressing for political reforms. They blame their extreme action on the government's failure to respond to their requests for dialogue. The move draws broad public support. 15 May: Gorbachev's state visit Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Beijing for the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years. His visit is intended to put a formal end to years of hostility between the two communist nations. The protests force the authorities to cancel plans to welcome him in Tiananmen Square - a huge embarrassment for the government. 19 May: Zhao visits square Zhao Ziyang visits students on Tiananmen Square, and makes a final, unsuccessful appeal for a compromise. Zhao is accompanied by Li Peng, his hard-line rival, and Wen Jiabao, who will eventually become China's premier in the future. Zhao, who wanted China to introduce far-reaching political reforms, reportedly told the crowd: "We have come too late." It was to be one of his last political acts. 20 May: Troops move in Martial law is declared in several districts in Beijing and troops move towards the city centre. A huge number of civilians block their convoys, setting up barricades on streets. The soldiers have been ordered not to fire on civilians. 24 May to 1 June: Heightened tensions Over the next week, demonstrations continue with almost no visible security presence - there is a jubilant atmosphere in Tiananmen Square. However, at government headquarters China's leaders plan a new offensive to end the demonstrations and end the chaos in China's capital. 2 June: Offensive approved Communist Party elders approve the decision to put down the "counter-revolutionary riot" by force. 3 June: Night of bloodshed In the evening, thousands of PLA soldiers begin moving towards the centre of Beijing. People flood on to the streets to try to block them, setting up barricades along routes into Tiananmen Square. As the army tries to break through in armoured personnel carriers, some troops open fire with guns loaded with live ammunition, killing and injuring many unarmed citizens. 4 June: Anger and shock Tiananmen Square is cleared after a night of the worst bloodshed ever seen in Beijing under communist rule. As the new day begins, the capital is in a state of shock. Thousands of angry and curious residents crowd up to lines of soldiers blocking the north-east entrance. The soldiers open fire again. There is sporadic gunfire throughout the day. The government hails the military intervention as a great victory. An editorial is published saying the army would severely and mercilessly punish "lawless people who plan riots and disturb social order". But Peking Radio's English language service, in an act of defiance, says thousands of innocent civilians were killed. The government-run radio calls the act a gross violation of human rights and a barbarous suppression of the people. Afterwards the authorities claim no-one was shot dead in the square itself. There is still debate about exactly how many people were killed. Some say a few hundred, others say a few thousand. 5 June: 'Tank man' The army now has complete control of Beijing. But the world witnesses a staggering act of defiance - the unarmed man blocking a column of tanks as they moved along Chang'an Avenue towards Tiananmen Square. To this day, the fate of the man remains unknown. 9 June: Deng Xiaoping appears China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping appears for the first time since the brutal crackdown. In a speech to military officers he praises their efforts, and blames the turmoil on counter-revolutionaries who wanted nothing less than to overthrow communism.

1989 के वसंत में, दस लाख से अधिक चीनी छात्रों और श्रमिकों ने बीजिंग के तियानमेन चौक पर कब्जा कर लिया और कम्युनिस्ट चीन के इतिहास में सबसे बड़ा राजनीतिक विरोध शुरू किया। छह सप्ताह के विरोध प्रदर्शन 3 से 4 जून के बीजिंग नरसंहार के साथ समाप्त हुए।


How does black hair reflect black history?

Summary: Black hair has been an integral feature of black history - from African tribal styles to dreadlocks and the afro. As an exhibition in Liverpool explores the significance of hair in black culture, BBC News takes a look at some of the key styles.

By Rumeana JahangirBBC News African origins In early African civilisations, hairstyles could indicate a person's family background, tribe and social status. "Just about everything about a person's identity could be learned by looking at the hair," says journalist Lori Tharps, who co-wrote the book Hair Story about the history of black hair. When men from the Wolof tribe (in modern Senegal and The Gambia) went to war they wore a braided style, she explains. While a woman in mourning would either not "do" her hair or adopt a subdued style. "What's more, many believed that hair, given its close location to the skies, was the conduit for spiritual interaction with God." Slavery and emancipation It is estimated that 11,640,000 Africans left the continent between the 16th and 20th Centuries due to the transatlantic slave trade. These slaves took many of their African customs with them, including their specially-designed combs. "Their key is the [bigger] width between the teeth because African-type hair is very fragile," says Dr Sally-Ann Ashton, who curated an afro comb exhibition at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum in 2013. "Out of all the different [hair] types, it's probably the most fragile so if you're yanking a fine tooth comb through it, you're going to do an awful lot of damage." During the 19th Century, slavery was abolished in much of the world, including the United States in 1865. However, many black people felt pressure to fit in with mainstream white society and adjusted their hair accordingly. "Black people felt compelled to smoothen their hair and texture to fit in easier, and to move in society better and in camouflage almost," says exhibition producer Aaryn Lynch. "I've nicknamed the post-emancipation era 'the great oppression' because that's when black people had to go through really intensive methods to smooth their hair. "Men and women would put their hair in a hot chemical mixture that would almost burn their scalp, so they could comb it back and make it look more European and silky." The industry grew to the extent that black entrepreneur Madame CJ Walker, who sold hair growth products, shampoos and ointments aimed at the African-American market, was recorded as the first self-made millionairess in the US by Guinness World Records. Civil rights era The afro hair style, which emerged in the 1960s during the civil rights movement, was "a symbol of rebellion, pride and empowerment", says Mr Lynch. As black people protested against racial segregation and oppression, the eye-catching style took off - an assertion of black identity in contrast to previous trends inspired by mainstream white fashions. And with it the African (or afro) comb re-emerged. "It was never lost in Africa of course," says Dr Ashton. "But this was with the advent of black power and politics. "The afro hairstyle became very popular and for that you need a long kind of pick… it's quite high-maintenance." In response to the racial politics of the time, the fist comb - with a handle shaped like the black power salute - was designed in the 1970s. "A lot of people who were born in the 1980s and 90s think [the salute] is associated with Nelson Mandela, which it's not - it's just that he happened to use that salute when he was released from prison," says Dr Ashton. Roots In the 1930s, Rastafari theology developed in Jamaica from the ideas of Marcus Garvey, a political activist who wanted to improve the status of his fellow blacks. Believers are forbidden to cut their hair and instead twist it into dreadlocks. It is not clear where the style originates from, although there are references in the Old Testament and the Hindu deity Shiva is also sometimes depicted wearing them. The profile of the religion grew significantly in the latter half of the 20th Century, as the "roots" movement developed, harking back to the origins of African-Caribbean culture. Its profile increased following the success of musician Bob Marley in the 1970s, with dreadlocks becoming a common sight in British cities. Along with the afro, dreadlocks remain the most distinctive black hair style among other ethnic groups. "The problem remains however, that while we may style our hair to reflect our own individual choices, our hair is still being interpreted by a white mainstream gaze and that interpretation is often wrong as well as racist," author Ms Tharps says. "Too many people still make assumptions that an afro implies some sort of militancy or that wearing dreadlocks means a predilection for smoking pot." Contemporary culture Black hair care is now a major industry, conservatively estimated to be worth about £530m ($774m) last year. However, there is often debate about whether some trends still symbolise a desire to fit in with a mainstream Western look, Mr Lynch says. "Do we still feel like we're compelled to appropriate white culture or is it now a choice, whatever's convenient, whatever's in fashion?" Among women, hair extensions known as weaves have been popular but there is also a reported revival in natural hair - usually interpreted as styles not altered by chemicals. "It's a really important movement that's going on and in America it's a lot bigger than it's over here," says Dr Ashton. "So if you go to the States, you see lots of African-American women with natural hair - you're starting to see that more in this country but there's still nowhere near the same number in Britain as there are in the States." Many are browsing online to learn more about natural hair care - knowledge of which declined among black communities in the West after slavery. But changes in working patterns in the past 60 years, especially for women, means there can be less time to spend on maintenance, says Dr Ashton. "I think one thing a lot of non-black people don't realise is just how much maintenance African-type hair is. If somebody says I'm washing my hair tonight, it can be like a three-hour job - it's an excuse for why you wouldn't go out." HAIR runs until 31 August at the Museum of Liverpool. Liverpool's black history

काले बाल काले इतिहास की एक अभिन्न विशेषता रही है-अफ्रीकी आदिवासी शैलियों से लेकर ड्रेडलॉक और एफ्रो तक। लिवरपूल में एक प्रदर्शनी के रूप में काले संस्कृति में बालों के महत्व की खोज की जाती है, बीबीसी न्यूज़ कुछ प्रमुख शैलियों पर एक नज़र डालता है।


Coronavirus: The strangers reaching out to Kyrgyzstan's lonely teenagers

Summary: Like teenagers around the world, Maksat hasn't been to school in weeks. As Kyrgyzstan imposed quarantine restrictions, the 15-year-old feels isolated like never before. He has been trapped at home with a sister he doesn't get on with, a father he struggles to communicate with and a mother working abroad.

By Abdujalil Abdurasulov BBC News He is comfortable talking only to an internet chat bot. Maksat (not his real name) feels alone and misunderstood. He often expresses suicidal feelings - a noticeable change, his teachers say, from the boy they knew before the curfew was brought in. And then he met a "phone pal" - Jalalbek Akmatov, a university student in the capital Bishkek. Jalabek is one of around 100 young adults taking part in a project to reach out via phone to teenagers just like Maksat, thousands of whom have been stuck at home for weeks. The scheme - called You Are Not Alone - was launched after seven teenagers took their own lives in the first two weeks after Kyrgyzstan started coronavirus lockdown in in March. At the time, the nation's attention was on the poor medical facilities, lack of protective equipment and impact of coronavirus on the economy. But as news of the teenagers' deaths spread, a group of activists decided there was also a need to focus on the country's children and their mental health. "I was dismayed. We had had one coronavirus death and during the same period [so many] children committed suicide," said Banur Abdieva, one of the project's founders. There is nothing to say the seven deaths were directly related to the lockdown, but people like Kurmanjan Kurmanbekova, a psychologist from a refugee centre in Tubingen, Germany, feared the strain it was putting on children's mental health. "And as a symptom of depressive conditions, we get a suicide mood," she explained to the BBC. Schools closing in Kyrgyzstan mean many children have limited options for interaction, especially in rural areas where education offers a respite from the relentless drudge of housework and a rare opportunity to communicate with other children. Added to this were concerns from experts over any potential increases in domestic violence, which could possibly be exacerbated by isolation and parents' loss of income. But how do you reach teenagers like Maksat, who live in remote villages? in numbers Six millionpeople live in Kyrgyzstan 2.1 millionof them are children One in fivedo not live with their parents Almost 73%of children report experiencing abuse or neglect The answer, the project team decided, was to keep it simple - to start a network of volunteers who would befriend teenagers considered "at risk" by calling them up for a regular chat. "Their aim is to show moral support and engage in social interaction so that the child doesn't feel total isolation," Ms Kurmanbekova explained. Volunteers approached local schools and state education agencies which sent them a list of students in a "group of risk" - mostly children without parents or who live with relatives and may lack attention and care. There are now more than 100 volunteers and nearly 400 children aged 12 and older in their database - and the list is growing. Crucially, volunteers are not just on the end of the phone to talk about the problems their new friend is facing - unless the teenager brings it up themselves. Instead, they focus on their new friend's future goals and potential. Take volunteer Ayperi Bolotzhanova, who is 25. She bonded with her 12-year-old phone pal over taekwondo. "I offered to teach her some tricks and she agreed," said Ayper. "Now, I send video of my practices and she sends back her own." But it is not always easy to take the first step, the volunteers admit. "I was very nervous before my first phone conversation," Jibek Isakova, who currently lives in Budapest, recalled. "I was afraid that she would refuse to be my friend." Of course, there was distrust: a total stranger calls you up out of the blue and offers friendship. But most of the volunteers found their "mobile relationship" took off after a few conversations. Indeed, the volunteers were surprised how most teenagers were keen to talk to them. What do they want to discuss? Other than the skills needed to milk a cow - a must-have in rural Kyrgyzstan - they're much the same things teens across the world want to talk about: K-pop, Instagram, the difficulties of finding love. Drawing famous Japanese cartoon characters and learning languages were other topics that cropped up. And they were all united in one thing: how much they hated online education during the quarantine. You may also be interested in.... Every response, every question the volunteers receive from their teenage friends is seen as a success. Jalalbek got particularly excited that - after a difficult start - Maksat sent a photo of him together with his family in the mountains. For some volunteers, the cause is very personal. Eldiyar Manapov, 24, joined the project because he considered suicide as a teenager. Like his phone pal, he grew up without parents and now feels a particular connection with his new friend. "I experienced what he is going through now," he told the BBC. "You are constantly in need of some things like clothes. Children mock you that you don't have parents. I don't want him to feel all this pain, I want him to chat, to be distracted." Even though the idea is simple, the challenges the activists face are not. One of them - a lack of mobile phones - could easily derail the whole project. "It's very difficult to build a phone friendship when most children don't have personal phones," said Banur Abdieva. "Volunteers have to negotiate with parents or guardians. Sometimes they even ask teachers if they could come to the gate at a designated time. And it's quarantine, so they need to sanitise their phone and pass it on to the child." Activists launched a fundraising campaign to buy phones for the project. Some people donate their used phones, which volunteers try to deliver to children living in remote regions, a challenge on its own during the lockdown. "Just imagine how happy my friend will be if he gets his own device," said Eldiyar, whose phone pal is using a mobile belonging to a cousin. "He will be able to learn more and communicate more. That means he will have less time for all bad thoughts." If you've been affected by a mental health issue, help and support is available. Visit Befrienders International for more information about support services.

दुनिया भर के किशोरों की तरह, मकसत हफ्तों से स्कूल नहीं गया है। किर्गिस्तान ने संगरोध प्रतिबंध लगा दिए हैं, 15 साल का बच्चा पहले की तरह अलग-थलग महसूस करता है। वह घर पर एक बहन के साथ फंस गया है जिसके साथ वह नहीं मिलता है, एक पिता जिसके साथ वह संवाद करने के लिए संघर्ष करता है और एक माँ जो विदेश में काम करती है।