Liberian church massacre survivors seek US justice

Summary: The Monrovia Church massacre in 1990 was the worst single atrocity of the Liberian civil war. About 600 civilians, including many children, were killed while taking refuge in a church. Now, four survivors are bringing a claim for damages against one of the men they believe was responsible, reports Elizabeth Blunt who was a BBC correspondent in Liberia at the time.

It was July 1990, and rebel fighters were advancing on the capital, Monrovia. President Samuel Doe was holed up in his vast, gloomy Executive Mansion. After dark bands of soldiers roamed the streets, looting shops and warehouses and seeking out people from Nimba County, the area where the rebellion had started. They dragged the men from their homes, beating and often killing them. Hundreds of terrified families, looking for a safer place to sleep, took refuge in St Peter's Lutheran Church - a spacious building in a walled compound. Huge Red Cross flags flew at every corner. But on the night of 29 July, government soldiers came over the wall and started killing those inside. An estimated 600 people - men, women, children, even babies - were shot or hacked to death with machetes before the order was given to stop. A Guinean woman doctor, who was one of the first to reach the church the next day, described to me the scene of utter horror. Dead bodies were everywhere. The only sign of life was a baby crying. She describes having to walk over corpses to reach the child, but when she picked it up and tried to comfort it, she said she suddenly saw a flicker of movement, and then another. A few children had survived, protected by the bodies of their parents, but only when they saw her, a civilian and a woman taking care of the baby, did they dare to come out. One of the child survivors is among those now suing for damages. 'Protected status' American missionary Bette McCrandall was there, too, that morning - she had lain awake the previous night, listening to everything that was happening from the Lutheran bishop's compound close by. She says those events have stayed with her, even all these years afterwards, as they have with all the survivors. "The memories of that day and that night don't leave me," she says. This was the worst atrocity of the war, the event so shocking that it drove neighbouring countries to mount an armed intervention. Yet no-one has ever been prosecuted or held responsible. The man now being taken to court in the US is Moses Thomas, formerly a colonel in the much-feared Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (Satu), based at the Executive Mansion. Survivors have identified him as one of those giving orders that night. Now he lives in the US state of Pennsylvania. Like many Liberians, he was given what is known as "temporary protected status", because of the atrocities which were going on back home. Liberia has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Mr Thomas was among those recommended for prosecution - but no cases have ever been brought. So now a movement has started to bring them to justice outside Liberia. Speaking to the BBC after being served court papers on Monday, Mr Thomas called the allegation "nonsense". "I don't want to give any credence to the allegation," he said. "No-one in my unit had anything to do with the attack on the church." 'Small victory' Hassan Bility, who heads the Global Justice and Research Project in Monrovia, said he was pleased with the latest development. "For 27 years the survivors of this massacre have fought and laboured for justice without success, and nobody has been paying any attention - not the Liberian government, not anybody outside. So this is a small victory," he says. What happened in Liberia's civil war? 1989: Charles Taylor starts rebellion against President Samuel Doe 1990: Doe horrifically killed by rebels 1997: Civil war ends after death of some 250,000 people. Taylor elected president 2012: Taylor convicted of war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone Ms McCrandall certainly sees it as important. "For me," she says, "it is a chance for him to own up to what he has done, and on whose orders. "That person will have to live and die with the guilt of what he has done. And in my mind it is comforting to me that this issue has not been put to rest, that the case has not been dropped." The snag is that for the moment this is only a civil suit, not a criminal case. A number of criminal prosecutions have started in Europe, where courts will hear cases for war crimes under so-called "universal jurisdiction". In the US that is more difficult, so campaigners against impunity have had to be ingenious. One Liberian warlord, known as "Jungle Jabbah", was recently prosecuted for immigration fraud, since he had falsely claimed on his application that he had never belonged to any armed group. Trial in Liberia? Mr Thomas is being sued in a civil action by four of the survivors. If they win, he is unlikely to be able to afford much in damages. But campaigners hope that the evidence which comes out in court will make the American authorities question his "protected" status, opening the way for a criminal prosecution or deportation. But if he is deported back to Liberia, what then? Would he go on trial? Liberia never set up a special court and has never tried any war crimes cases. Many suspects still hold high positions. Campaigner Hassan Bility clings to the hope that now, with a new government now in place, things might be different. "The current President, George Weah, was totally disconnected from the war," he says. "He was not part of any faction; he was playing football in Europe... And he gets a lot of his support from poor people, the ones who really suffered in the war... We have the opportunity right now to do this".

1990 में मोनरोविया चर्च नरसंहार लाइबेरियाई गृहयुद्ध का सबसे बुरा एकल अत्याचार था। एक चर्च में शरण लेते समय कई बच्चों सहित लगभग 600 नागरिक मारे गए थे। अब, चार जीवित बचे लोग उन लोगों में से एक के खिलाफ हर्जाने का दावा कर रहे हैं जिन्हें वे मानते हैं कि वे जिम्मेदार थे, एलिजाबेथ ब्लंट रिपोर्ट करते हैं जो उस समय लाइबेरिया में बीबीसी संवाददाता थे।


£6m homes plan for SA1 Swansea Waterfront

Summary: Fifty new homes are planned for Swansea after the Welsh government announced a deal with a construction company.

Contracts have been exchanged for two residential sites on SA1 Swansea Waterfront, leaving just four remaining plots at the development. Persimmon Homes West Wales said the £6m project would support a "substantial number" of construction jobs. Work could start later this year subject to planning approval. The company recently completed the new Haven development overlooking the Prince of Wales dock and plans are under way for a £100m waterside campus for University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

वेल्श सरकार द्वारा एक निर्माण कंपनी के साथ एक समझौते की घोषणा के बाद स्वानसी के लिए पचास नए घरों की योजना बनाई गई है।


Beirut explosion: What is ammonium nitrate and how dangerous is it?

Summary: Nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate - taken from a ship off the coast of Beirut six years ago and then stored in a warehouse - has been blamed for the explosion that ripped through the port area of the Lebanese capital on Tuesday.

By Tom EdgingtonBBC News But what is ammonium nitrate and why can it be so dangerous? What is ammonium nitrate? Ammonium nitrate is a crystal-like white solid which is made in large industrial quantities. Its biggest use is as a source of nitrogen for fertiliser, but it is also used to create explosives for mining. "You won't just find ammonium nitrate in the ground," explains Andrea Sella, professor of chemistry at University College London. That's because it's synthetic, made by reacting ammonia with nitric acid, he says. Ammonium nitrate is made all over the world and is relatively cheap to buy. But storing it can be a problem, and it has been associated with serious industrial accidents in the past. How dangerous is ammonium nitrate? On its own, ammonium nitrate is relatively safe to handle, says Prof Sella. However, if you have a large amount of material lying around for a long time it begins to decay. "The real problem is that over time it will absorb little bits of moisture and it eventually turns into an enormous rock," he says. This makes it more dangerous because if a fire reaches it, the chemical reaction will be much more intense. What caused the mushroom cloud? Videos from Beirut showed smoke billowing from a fire, and then a mushroom cloud following the blast. "You have a supersonic shockwave that is travelling through the air, and you can see that in the white spherical cloud which travels out from the centre, expanding upwards," says Prof Sella. The shockwave is produced from compressed air, he explains. "The air expands rapidly and cools suddenly and the water condenses, which causes the cloud," he adds. How dangerous are the gases produced? When ammonium nitrate explodes, it can release toxic gases including nitrogen oxides and ammonia gas. The orange plume is caused by the nitrogen dioxide, which is often associated with air pollution. "If there isn't much wind, it could become a danger to the people nearby," says Prof Sella. Is it used in bombs? With such a powerful blast, ammonium nitrate has been used by armies around the world as an explosive. It has also been used in several terrorist acts, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In that instance, Timothy McVeigh used two tonnes of ammonium nitrate to create a bomb which destroyed a federal building and killed 168 people. Has anything like this happened before?

लगभग 3,000 टन अमोनियम नाइट्रेट-छह साल पहले बेरूत के तट से एक जहाज से लिया गया था और फिर एक गोदाम में संग्रहीत किया गया था-मंगलवार को लेबनान की राजधानी के बंदरगाह क्षेत्र में हुए विस्फोट के लिए दोषी ठहराया गया है।


School closures in Leicestershire and Rutland

Summary: When there is severe weather a list of schools that are being affected in Leicester and Leicestershire will appear below.

For information related to school closures in Rutland, please refer to the county council website. The BBC relies on schools and local education authorities to notify it of closures. We advise you to contact your child's school during periods of extreme weather to find out if it has been affected. The page will be manually updated between 06:30 and 21:00 GMT on severe weather days. Please note this page does not auto-update. If no schools are listed below then the BBC has not been made aware of any closures in the region. School closures for [insert date]

जब गंभीर मौसम होता है तो लीसेस्टर और लीसेस्टरशायर में प्रभावित होने वाले स्कूलों की एक सूची नीचे दिखाई देगी।


Epsom soldiers and wives cycle to Germany for charity

Summary: A group of soldiers and military wives from Surrey are on a 500 mile (805km) ride from Epsom to Germany to raise money for two rehabilitation centres.

Fifteen cyclists left Headley Court Centre earlier to make the journey to the Personnel Recovery Centre in Normandy Barracks in Sennelager. Both centres help to rehabilitate injured servicemen and women. Capt Ian More said it was a huge challenge as many of the cyclists had not done anything like it before. Sophie Crease, who organised the event, said: "My father was a very keen army cyclist he did something similar in the nineties - I took the idea from him but went a little bit further." The team hopes to arrive in Germany on Friday.

सरे के सैनिकों और सैन्य पत्नियों का एक समूह दो पुनर्वास केंद्रों के लिए धन जुटाने के लिए एप्सम से जर्मनी तक 500 मील (805 किमी) की सवारी पर है।


A55 reopened at Abergwyngregyn after caravan overturns

Summary: The A55 in Gwynedd has now reopened after a caravan overturned on the road.

It was being towed by a lorry but had its roof ripped off, with the remainder lying on the road. The incident happened westbound near junction 13, for Abergwyngregyn, but at 16:30 GMT, the eastbound carriageway was also closed. All lanes have now been opened but traffic is still slow in the area.

सड़क पर एक कारवां के पलट जाने के बाद ग्वेनेड में ए55 अब फिर से खुल गया है।


Plans submitted for 529 homes at former Newport steelworks

Summary: Plans to build 529 new homes and a school at a former steelworks in Newport have been submitted to the council .

Whiteheads Steelworks was closed down in 2005 and later demolished as part of the city's regeneration works. Developers say the development, off Mendalgief road, could regenerate a section of Pill "traditionally associated with industry". Plans also include a pub-restaurant, retail and assisted living units. Whiteheads Developments first submitted plans for the development in 2015 with a smaller number of residential properties - 498 - and a care home. Developers changed the plans following noise concerns over the Coilcolor factory and after increased costs of "unforeseen contamination" at the site.

न्यूपोर्ट में एक पूर्व स्टीलवर्क्स में 529 नए घरों और एक स्कूल के निर्माण की योजना परिषद को प्रस्तुत की गई है।


World War One: The role of Cardiff's black serviceman

Summary: Many died in the cause of victory, but returned home from World War One to face intolerance, unrest and scorn. Cardiff's multicultural Tiger Bay contributed many black servicemen to the war effort, but there was no hero's welcome on their return. Actress Suzanne Packer looked at what life was like for them 100 years ago.

They served and died alongside white soldiers and seamen in the trenches and on the open sea. But the reward for some upon their return was violence, oppression and deportation. Following a huge surge in the number of men enlisting upon the outbreak of World War One, African and Caribbean men living in Wales found their offers refused. Prof Hakim Ali, an expert in the history of Africa and the African Diaspora, said the time before World War One was "a high point of imperialism... there was a common idea of white supremacy". A newspaper report in May 1915 said: "A number of coloured men have lately presented themselves for enlistment in any of the services at the Glamorgan headquarter recruiting office in Queen Street, but up to the present Recruiting Sergeant Ashton has been reluctantly compelled to decline their services until such time as the War Office consider it politic to form a coloured race battalion." There was talk of starting a black battalion between the ports of Cardiff, Newport, Barry and Swansea, but this never materialised. Some black men did join Welsh regiments, including the 1st Mons and the Welsh Guards, formed in February 1915. Prof Adi said: "Some people joined out of a sense of adventure... others, from the Caribbean and Africa, as well as other countries, believed that they were proving they were just as good, as patriotic, as any white person and, as a result of this sacrifice, they expected if they were going to suffer equally in the trenches or in the merchant fleet, that they should be treated equally when the war ended." Eustace Rhone joined the 3rd Battalion of the Welch Regiment and was deployed to France. He died on 27 September 1915 of gas poisoning, two days after being injured on the battlefield after chemicals fired by the Allies blew back on to the advancing troops. By 1916, the Merchant Navy were short of crew and Yemeni and Somali seamen arrived in Cardiff in significant numbers, including Ali Janrah who lived on Bute Street and rescued his captain after the ship was torpedoed. After the Armistice was signed and sailors returned home, there was unrest in Cardiff over competition for jobs on ships following the increase in the city's minority ethnic population from 700 to 3,000. The frustrations of unemployed veterans exploded in June 1919 with a series of notorious race riots. Mahomed Abdullah, 21, a native of Aden, Yemen, was one of those killed in the riots. He had served on British ships as a fireman. No-one was brought to justice for the killings in the riots. Prof Adi said those who had been attacked were subsequently blamed, so an idea was put forward to repatriate ex-servicemen and others. "Their involvement in war made absolutely no difference to their status at the end of it." The commander of one ship responsible for repatriating men to the Caribbean, The Orca, reported: "They came on board with a grievance that their patriotic services in the mercantile marine during the war have been entirely disregarded and they contend that they have been repatriated in undeserved disgrace without means to support themselves and without facilities to obtain employment." A telegraph from the ship said there had been a mutiny with "coloured troops and civilians" and requested armed guards on arrival in Barbados. One of the British West Indies soldiers, Private Lashley, was shot dead and five others were manacled. Ms Packer said: "So these men, who left the colonies to fight for the mother country, returned in shackles. "These demobilised men must have wondered why did they enlist at all. Why risk their lives on the front line? Or on the merchant ships. "Those who remained in Wales had survived one battle, but another was just beginning, a battle for acceptance that would take generations to win."

कई लोग जीत के कारण मारे गए, लेकिन असहिष्णुता, अशांति और तिरस्कार का सामना करने के लिए प्रथम विश्व युद्ध से घर लौट आए। कार्डिफ के बहुसांस्कृतिक टाइगर बे ने युद्ध के प्रयास में कई अश्वेत सैनिकों का योगदान दिया, लेकिन उनकी वापसी पर कोई नायक का स्वागत नहीं किया गया। अभिनेत्री सुजैन पैकर ने देखा कि 100 साल पहले उनका जीवन कैसा था।


Where are the blue plaques for black and Asian people?

Summary: At the same time a blue plaque was unveiled to mark the childhood home of football legend Laurie Cunningham it was revealed that in London, just 4% of the plaques honour black or Asian luminaries. But in such an ethnically diverse city, why are there so few?

By Bethan BellBBC News According to the Office of National Statistics, London has above-average ethnic minority populations for the UK. These include African (7%), Indian (6.6%), and Caribbean (4.2%). But there is not a proportional number of plaques and English Heritage has decided to take action. Gus Casely-Hayford, a curator and cultural historian with Ghanaian roots, has been appointed the leader of a working group to try to redress the balance. It will not award plaques itself, but will look for Asian and black candidates to put before the selection panel, which grants only 12 plaques a year. Dr Casely-Hayford says London is an "ethnic melting pot". "We are linked through language, culture, political alliance and economic partnership to every part of the world," he says. "And peoples from places that we have touched, have found their way here, to not just make London their home, but to make London and this country what it is. "We want to celebrate that rich, complex, sometimes difficult history, through the lives of those that truly made it." Although the blue plaque scheme was set up in 1866, it was not until 1954 that the first to honour a notable figure of minority ethnic origin was installed - to Mahatma Gandhi. Other black and Asian people who have English Heritage plaques include Jamaican Crimea War nurse Mary Seacole, Chinese writer Lao She, Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and American guitarist and song-writer Jimi Hendrix. There are a variety of reasons for such a small proportion of plaques being for blacks and Asians, English Heritage says. How to get a blue plaque The scheme celebrates the link between significant figures of the past and the buildings in which they lived and worked. Here are the criteria: These include the low number of public nominations fulfilling the blue plaque criteria and the lack of historic records establishing a definitive link between the person in question and the building in which they lived or worked. Some prominent black and Asian people could be excluded from the English Heritage blue plaque scheme because they have already been honoured with plaques from other organisations on the same building. For example, it initially appears Cesar Picton has been overlooked. A former servant, he became a coal merchant in Kingston-upon-Thames in the 18th Century and was wealthy enough by the time he died to bequeath two acres of land and a house - with a wharf and shops attached. But although he does not have an English Heritage blue plaque, he does have a plaque from Thames Ditton and West Green Residents' Association and one from the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Olaudah Equiano - a slave who went on to become a radical reformer and best-selling author, as well as the first black person to explore the Arctic - has a green plaque awarded by the City of Westminster and a memorial in St Margaret's Church at Westminster Abbey. Dadabhai Naoroji, the first Asian MP, has a green plaque on Finsbury Old Town Hall in Islington and a second one erected by a local society. This means none qualify for an English Heritage blue plaque on the same building. Another reason why there are fewer black and Asian people honoured with blue plaques is the schemes' strict rule that people must have been dead for 20 years before being considered. Many members of London's black and Asian communities arrived in the country after World War Two. Consequently many of the likely contenders for a blue plaque have either not been dead for long enough or are still alive. This category would include Jayaben Desai, the prominent leader of the Asian women strikers in the Grunwick dispute in London in 1976. She died in 2010. Similarly, Val McCalla, the Jamaican-born founder of The Voice, a national newspaper for the UK's black community, died in 2002. From humble beginnings in an East End flat, his newspaper grew into a major business and turned Mr McCalla into a millionaire. But he will not qualify for a blue plaque until 2022. However, English Heritage is standing firm on this policy. What are blue plaques? English Heritage has run the London blue plaques scheme since 1986, when it had already been in existence for 120 years. Before that it was run by three bodies in succession - the (Royal) Society of Arts, the London County Council and the Greater London Council. Outside London, many local councils, civic societies and other organisations run similar plaque operations. Here's a list of plaque schemes across England. "The 20-year rule is quite important to us," said spokeswoman Alexandra Carson. "It gives us the benefit of hindsight and allows us to better judge their long-term legacy." It also means dreadful mistakes can be avoided. The blue plaque panel, which meets three times a year, is led by Professor Ronald Hutton. "The 20-year rule acts as a safeguard," he says. "The Jimmy Savile case lights up in neon the dangers of going on someone's pre-death reputation." Another obstacle is the blue plaque schemes' traditional focus on establishment figures. This has resulted in a very low proportion of plaques for women or people from a working-class background. It has also served as a barrier to black or Asian people being recognised. But now, says Anna Eavis from English Heritage, the criteria has evolved. "[Since the scheme was established] our idea of which figures from the past are significant has changed," she says. "While Laurie Cunningham was an incredibly gifted footballer who paved the way for many other black players… 50 years ago he would never have found his way on to a plaque." Another issue is the fact that the plaques are as much about the buildings as about the people themselves. A plaque is only erected if there is a surviving building closely associated with the person in question. Many black and Asian people faced racism and institutional barriers, and often lived outside of the official records, which makes it difficult to definitively link them to a specific building. Historically, black and Asian people often lived in poorer areas which have since been redeveloped or demolished. Ignatius Sancho, an abolition campaigner, composer, actor, and writer - who was the first known black Briton to vote in a British election - falls foul of this. He has a plaque erected by the Nubian Jak Community Trust at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the City of Westminster, which says he "lived and had a grocery shop near this site" and another on the remaining wall of Montague House on the south-west boundary of Greenwich Park, which commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the Slave Trade Act. That would not be enough for an English Heritage blue plaque as there is no specific building he lived or worked in. But English Heritage says it is determined to redress the balance. Dr Casely-Hayford says he is asking the British public to help "in uncovering the stories of those unacknowledged heroes who helped make our great city what it is". Yet, given the stringent criteria, those stories will need a significant amount of uncovering before the number of English Heritage blue plaques even comes close to representing the ethnic makeup of England's "melting pot" of a capital city.

उसी समय फुटबॉल के दिग्गज लॉरी कनिंघम के बचपन के घर को चिह्नित करने के लिए एक नीली पट्टिका का अनावरण किया गया था। यह पता चला कि लंदन में केवल 4 प्रतिशत पट्टिकाएँ अश्वेत या एशियाई दिग्गजों का सम्मान करती हैं। लेकिन इतने जातीय रूप से विविध शहर में, इतने कम क्यों हैं?


School meals: The mum trying to feed her children through half-term week

Summary: It's the start of half-term week, and Lucy is making pancakes for her two children for breakfast. But these are made with water, as she doesn't have any milk left. The eggs are from the chickens in her garden. And she is wondering what else she will feed her children until they go back to school.

By Lauren TurnerBBC News Lucy Houghton, 36, usually relies on the free school meals her children are entitled to and had vouchers over summer to spend in a supermarket for their food. But now it's half-term, and MPs have voted against the vouchers being continued through the half-term and Christmas holidays. "I know it's only a few pounds to some people - it's an expensive coffee and a muffin in London - but it can make the difference between my children eating or not," she says. "It's going to be tough this week." She's speaking as Prime Minister Boris Johnson defends his refusal to extend free school meals for children in England over the half-term holiday, saying he was "very proud" of the government's support so far. Lucy says it was "invaluable" to have vouchers over summer and simply be able to use them at a supermarket checkout, without anyone knowing about her situation. Many restaurants and cafes across the UK have offered support to families who are eligible for free school meals, to help them over half-term. But Lucy - who has sole parental responsibility for her two children - says: "It's all very well businesses offering free food, but I'm in a rural location and would need fuel to get there. And it's humiliating. "I hate asking for help from anybody and I know I'm not alone in that." She lives in Norfolk with her 11-year-old son, who is at private school on a bursary and currently on the second week of his half-term, and nine-year-old daughter. Lucy is a university graduate and lived in a large house with three acres of land, before having to move hours away from her family and friends. She is now on Universal Credit and - with it arriving at the start of the month, and half-term only coming at the end - she says: "October is a long month." "What upsets me the most is the stereotyping of what it is to be a single mum nowadays and callous, derisory comments from people who supposedly represent society," she says. "If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. "We don't have a TV. We have a second-hand sofa. I don't have my nails done, or anything like that," she says, adding that her children's school uniforms are second-hand. She makes clothes for them too, with one dress for her daughter made from a pillow case. "My kids don't ask for anything, because they know they can't have it. Little people shouldn't have to live like that." Lucy says having a friendly gamekeeper nearby who gives them pigeons and rabbits he has shot to supplement their diet has been vital. "I'm painfully aware that makes us lucky - there are other mummies who don't have that. Being in a rural area we have our apple tree as well," she says. Lucy, a former research scientist who is hoping to find a teaching assistant job, says she has to count the cost of everything - even, in term times when she needs to drive the children to school, having to decide between putting petrol in the car or buying food. This week, a typical meal will be the roast pigeon with foraged blackberries they had on Sunday night (she is aware, she adds, that "rural poor is different to urban poor" because of the foraging they can do), followed by apple and blackberry crumble. But there are times all they have is pasta. "Pasta is very cheap, so I will buy a 4kg or 5kg bag and then it can be pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner," says Lucy. "We have it with tuna and mayo and when that runs out, just with cheese. When there's no more cheese, it's plain pasta. This is our reality." There are also times when she won't eat, so that her children have enough food. 'I don't sleep' Lucy says she gets angry when she hears people discussing meal vouchers and saying that it's not their responsibility to help feed others' children. "I never imagined I would be living in this situation," she says. "There must be thousands out there too who have lost their jobs in the pandemic and are now being penalised through no fault of their own." Norfolk County Council said while there was support for families in need, there was no formal provision for those eligible for free school meals. Norfolk County Council leader Andrew Proctor said: "Concerns have been raised locally and nationally about how we can support our residents and communities as the coronavirus pandemic continues. "Throughout it all, Norfolk County Council has been providing targeted support for vulnerable people and families, either directly or with our partners. "This was before we received the £1.015m allocated by the government as an emergency assistance grant for food and essential supplies. "We have spent half of that and the rest is earmarked to provide support during Christmas and the remainder of this year. "The money was never intended to be used for free school meals. The government provided separate funding for free school meal vouchers between March and mid-July. If the government reintroduced that scheme and provided sufficient funding, we would, of course, support its delivery." And Lucy has her own firm views on the MPs who voted against the government paying to supply food vouchers more directly: "These people who took the vote have no idea what it's like to live with the constant worry. "I don't sleep, because I am thinking about where the money is coming from. "What I would give for them to swap with me for 24 hours and for them to see what our lives are like."

यह आधे सप्ताह की शुरुआत है, और लुसी अपने दो बच्चों के लिए नाश्ते के लिए पेनकेक्स बना रही है। लेकिन ये पानी से बनाए जाते हैं, क्योंकि उसके पास कोई दूध नहीं बचा है। अंडे उसके बगीचे में मुर्गियों के हैं। और वह सोच रही है कि वह अपने बच्चों को तब तक और क्या खिलाएगी जब तक कि वे स्कूल वापस नहीं जाते।


Carillion: Watershed moment for privatisation debate?

Summary: Ministers are feeling the pressure of awkward questions today.

John PienaarDeputy political editor@JPonpoliticson Twitter Carillion is not the first big public contractor to run into trouble under successive governments and surely won't be the last. But why was so much expensive business and responsibility heaped onto a single company - and a company many felt for months could be heading for trouble? Away from Whitehall - where day-to-day decisions on public projects are taken - Oxfordshire Council say they've noticed the warning signs for some time. Now, the sight of that local authority putting fire fighters on standby to provide school meals may provide enormous fun for the children, but it also symbolically reinforces the impression of a shock to the system and all hands to the pumps, like the convening of the emergency Whitehall committee, Cobra, later on Monday. Other questions being raised today run deeper. Far deeper. Cabinet Office minister David Lidington says there can be no question of asking taxpayers to bail out a private company, along with its shareholders. Few are arguing with that. Free marketeers can argue lucrative contracts come with risks attached in private business, and the same risks should be borne, and prudently guarded against, when it comes to public projects. On the left, there's scorn for the idea that profits should be privatised and losses nationalised. But the Carillion collapse may also be the spur for an ideological debate as fundamental as any seen since Margaret Thatcher began to roll back the frontiers of the state in the 1980s. A senior member of Team Corbyn, one not usually prone to public displays of emotion, told me he believed the Carillion affair would turn out to be a political "watershed". The party hierarchy is preparing to reel out statements and push lines of attack challenging the role of private business in the public sphere on multiple fronts. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has already pledged to consider taking a range of Private Finance Initiative schemes back into public ownership or control or both. This week, Labour shadow ministers will challenge the fundamental case for private sector involvement in prisons, schools, hospitals. Attacks will be seasoned by the suggestion that some of those responsible for handing out contracts have too easily ended up taking well paid jobs with the recipients. Just a couple of years BC (before Corbyn) the case in principle for significant private sector involvement in public services seemed to go virtually unchallenged. Now the settled political consensus has been opened to question again. The case for private enterprise in the public sphere is far from being lost. But the fact that ministers are having to make it again, afresh, speaks volumes about the new polarisation of view which has taken hold at Westminster, and on which the next general election will be fought.

मंत्री आज अजीबोगरीब प्रश्नों का दबाव महसूस कर रहे हैं।


Bug leads to wards visiting ban at Sandwell Hospital

Summary: A West Midlands hospital has closed all wards to visitors as a precaution because of the winter vomiting bug.

Sandwell General Hospital has also shut four of its wards due to norovirus. City Hospital in Birmingham, which is also part of Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, shut all wards to visitors on Thursday and has three wards closed. But people can still visit critical care, paediatrics, maternity and the Birmingham & Midland Eye Centre.

वेस्ट मिडलैंड्स के एक अस्पताल ने सर्दियों में उल्टी करने वाले कीड़े के कारण एहतियात के तौर पर आगंतुकों के लिए सभी वार्ड बंद कर दिए हैं।


Brexit: What just happened with UK election vote?

Summary: The UK parliament has just rejected Boris Johnson's bid to call a snap general election - for a third time - despite the prime minister arguing it would help "get Brexit done". But there remains a chance that the UK could have a pre-Christmas election.

So what just happened? How did Johnson lose (again)? Well - and this has an element of irony to it - the leader of the UK's governing Conservative Party cannot just choose to hold an early election. As a legal requirement, Mr Johnson needs the support of two-thirds of MPs - at least 434 - but is short of seats in the House of Commons, making this tricky. Without a majority, he has to convince members of the opposition to vote in his favour. Monday's vote was rejected after the leader of the main opposition Labour Party said he did not trust Mr Johnson and would not agree to a poll until the prospect of a no-deal exit from the European Union had been definitively ruled out. Labour MPs earlier complained that Mr Johnson's new deal, the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), contained plans to dilute workers' rights after Brexit. It was also suggested that the prime minister could change the election date after MPs had approved a 12 December poll, enabling him to postpone until after the UK had left the EU, effectively forcing through the WAB. Labour abstained in Monday's ballot, meaning that despite 299 MPs voting in favour and only 70 voting against, the bill failed to get the required 434 votes to pass. What happens next? Believe it or not, another vote on whether to have an election on 12 December. That's right; Mr Johnson is refusing to give up on a pre-Christmas election. On Tuesday, he will propose a new motion in the House of Commons calling for an early election that will require a simple majority of just one vote to pass in parliament. He will seek the support of opposition Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs by making the short bill "almost identical" to one proposed earlier by the two parties for an election on 9 December. Mr Johnson's new motion, however, will be subject to amendments - which could draw out the process. Will an election sort out Brexit though? Not necessarily. The Brexit deal agreed between Mr Johnson and the EU is in limbo after MPs voted against the three-day timetable to pass it through the Commons last week. But while an election could restore the Conservative Party's majority and give the prime minister more leverage in parliament, an early election also carries risks for Mr Johnson and the Tories. Leaving the EU by 31 October "do or die" was a key campaign promise in Mr Johnson's bid to become prime minister but he has since accepted an offer from EU leaders to - in principle - extend Brexit until 31 January 2020. As a result, voters could choose to punish him at the ballot box for failing to fulfil his campaign pledge. A general election is supposed to take place every five years in the UK. The last election was in June 2017. Is another referendum likely? A new vote on Britain's EU membership is one possibility in breaking the stalemate over Brexit. But organising another public vote would take a minimum of 22 weeks, according to experts at the Constitution Unit at University College London (UCL). This would consist of at least 12 weeks to pass the legislation required to hold a referendum, plus a further 10 weeks to organise the campaign and hold the vote itself. Also - and this is a recurring theme here - a government cannot just decide to hold a referendum. Instead, a majority of MPs and Members of the House of Lords would need to agree and vote through the rules of another public vote. What about the Brexit extension? EU Council President Donald Tusk said the latest agreed extension was flexible and that the UK could leave before the 31 January 2020 deadline if a withdrawal agreement is approved by the British parliament. The extension will need to be formalised through a written procedure among the 27 other EU nations following agreement from the UK. An EU official said they hoped for the process to be concluded by Tuesday or Wednesday. Is no-deal still possible? Yes. While Mr Johnson has formally accepted the EU's offer of a Brexit extension until 31 January 2020, it does not mean that a no-deal Brexit is off the table. Rather, it pushes the possibility further into the future. Mr Johnson is likely to continue to try to push his deal through Parliament and if his efforts fail before the deadline for Britain's exit is reached, the UK could leave without a deal. Please upgrade your browser Your guide to Brexit jargon Use the list below or select a button

ब्रिटेन की संसद ने तीसरी बार एक त्वरित आम चुनाव बुलाने के लिए बोरिस जॉनसन की बोली को खारिज कर दिया है-प्रधान मंत्री के तर्क के बावजूद कि यह "ब्रेक्सिट को पूरा करने" में मदद करेगा। लेकिन एक संभावना बनी हुई है कि ब्रिटेन में क्रिसमस से पहले चुनाव हो सकते हैं।


How Brexit could redraw Midlands political battle lines

Summary: "Europe: journey to an unknown destination"

Patrick BurnsPolitical editor, Midlands This was the title of the BBC's Reith Lectures delivered in 1972 by the political economist Andrew Schonfield. It helped to set the scene for Britain's entry the following year into what was then the European Economic Community. As an undergraduate student of politics, I lapped-up Schonfield's narrative: the UK was on track for some kind of epic "supranational" transformation. But into exactly what were we to be transformed? It was one thing to get on the bus, another altogether to agree the route and where it should take us. Come what may, it would be a fascinating experience to take the ride. It has certainly helped to keep us politics-watchers gainfully employed for 40 years or more. But its progress has been very different from that predicted by Schonfield. A succession of tortuous European summit conferences, hotly-contested treaty changes and British government crises has taken us along a relentlessly bumpy road towards today's much-enlarged political union. As an ultimate destination, Brexit is the exact opposite of Schonfield's theoretical direction of travel. And yet, by some strange irony, it gives a new resonance to his headline. "Journey to an unknown destination" is even more relevant at the moment of our leaving, than it seemed then when we entered. It signposts a future in which our politics may never be the same again. Our two-party mould Over the years, I have tended to pour cold water over excitable predictions of a fundamental political realignment. Back in the 'eighties, even with the help of some of the top talent drawn from the Labour and Liberal parties, the Social Democratic Party failed to "break the mould of British politics". After some notable early highlights, it took just seven years for "the gang of four" and the rest to admit defeat. By 1988, it was the SDP who were broken, while the two-party mould was obstinately refusing to crack: four consecutive terms of Conservative majority governments were followed by three Labour administrations. Maybe my scepticism has been shaped by my experience of a part of the country that is a prime example of two-party politics. For more than half a century, neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Liberals before them have held more three seats at any one time in a West Midlands region boasting over 60 constituencies. UKIP have undoubtedly left their mark on our recent European history: they scored their biggest successes in the 2014 European Parliamentary Election and in local elections in the Black Country and Stoke-on-Trent around that time. Remember it was they who coerced David Cameron into the "in-out referendum". But now they look increasingly like a magnesium flash which sparked brightly, but briefly, only to fall away. A shock to the body politic So what would it take for me to change my mind about the chances of that "fundamental political realignment"? I reckon it will take the most tremendous trauma, an enormous knock, to break that mould once and for all. But Brexit may just be exactly such a shock. I mentioned in last week's blog post how it is a debate which cuts through the two biggest parties as much as it does between them. During the early 'nineties, I reported on the deep-seated divisions in the Tory party between the "irreconcilable" Eurosceptics, including Bill Cash, then the MP for Stafford and now for Stone, and Euro-enthusiasts headed by the Rushcliffe MP Kenneth Clarke: (at that time my politics brief covered both the East and West Midlands together.) The crisis triggered by the Maastricht Treaty nearly brought John Major's government down. The Wolverhampton South West MP, Nicholas Budgen, was among 22 Tory backbench Eurosceptics who were suspended from their Parliamentary party for voting against the government. More recently those same Tory fault lines were another principal reason why David Cameron felt compelled to call that referendum. But Labour have divisions of their own, as the self-same Kenneth Clarke pointed out during last week's Prime Minister's Questions. He suggested to Theresa May that if she comes back with a compromise deal agreed with the European Union: "It would retain the support of pro-European Conservative backbenchers and also win the support of a significant number of Labour pro-European backbenchers, which would reveal the hard-line Eurosceptic views of the Bennites on the Labour front bench and the right-wing nationalists in our party are a minority in this House." Is it fanciful to suppose either or both of the main parties might fracture along these lines? Just imagine. What if Mrs May's "good deal for the United Kingdom" were, somehow, to pass through Parliament with the support of, say, 15 Labour MPs: enough to counteract the opposition both of the Tory Brexiters and of the Labour leadership? Speculation is mounting already that Labour backbenchers including Wolverhampton's Pat McFadden and the Stoke MPs Ruth Smeeth and Gareth Snell might be prepared to support such a deal even if it meant defying their party line. Mr Snell said this week: "I'm not wedded to opposing a deal just because it comes from the government. If the deal is as May has been suggesting then it would be difficult for me to justify to myself not strongly considering supporting it, if the alternative is crashing out without a deal." Consider how this might deepen divisions on both sides of this debate in both main parties. Might this have the effect of driving an unholy alliance of the more Euro-friendly Conservative and Labour MPs into something longer-lasting? Maybe the People's Vote campaign might also serve to define a new party political landscape. But where would this leave those hardened Brexiters who, like Sir Bill Cash, remain as 'irreconcilable' as ever? Who knows? Only when, or if, that trade deal materialises can the picture start to emerge. Stourbridge's Conservative MP Margot James (now the Minister of State at the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) was the only Midlands MP to declare herself a "Remainer" even before David Cameron had finished traipsing around the capitals of Europe in pursuit of his "renegotiated terms of membership". She and Pat McFadden (see above!) will both be joining me in the studio for this weekend's "Sunday Politics Midlands". And I hope you will too, at 11.00 on BBC One this Sunday, 21 October 2018. And finally: what price a sequel to that original series of BBC Reith Lectures? "Brexit: Journey to another unknown destination"?

"यूरोपः एक अज्ञात गंतव्य की यात्रा"


Police investigate possible Cardiff sex assaults link

Summary: Police are investigating whether two sexual assaults which happened very closely to one another in Cardiff are linked.

A woman was attacked in a property in Cathays Terrace early on Tuesday. This followed the sexual assault of another woman in the early hours of Sunday close to the Civic Centre. Supt Andy Valentine of South Wales Police said officers were "keeping an open mind" as to whether the two are linked. Earlier on Wednesday, police warned people to walk in pairs at night and stick to well-lit areas following the second sexual assault. Supt Valentine added: "We understand this is likely to cause concern within the local community and enhanced patrols by our local Neighbourhood Policing Teams are continuing."

पुलिस इस बात की जांच कर रही है कि क्या कार्डिफ में एक-दूसरे के साथ बहुत निकटता से हुए दो यौन हमले जुड़े हुए हैं।


Ethiopia's Tigray crisis: Cutting through the information blackout

Summary: The BBC has managed to speak to some people inside Mekelle, the capital of the Ethiopia's conflict-hit region of Tigray, for the first time since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared an end to the four-week-long military operation.

"It is really scary. It is really difficult. I don't think Tigray has ever been in such a trying time," a desperate-sounding resident of Mekelle shouted down the line. The BBC has spent days trying to speak to people in the city, which is home to half a million people. The phone lines have been down, and power shortages have meant that establishing a satellite internet connection has been hard. But we managed to have brief conversations with two people in the city on Wednesday and Thursday evening, who gave their perspective on what has been happening. We agreed to keep them anonymous for their own safety. They have been experiencing a lack of basic services since the conflict started on 4 November. And the two residents said that things have not changed since Ethiopian federal troops entered Mekelle a week ago. "There is still no electricity, no water and no banking services," one of our contacts said. "There is no government in the city." He added that federal soldiers can only be seen in a limited area and in the absence of local police and security forces, looting has become common. Meanwhile, government-affiliated media has reported that the city is "returning back to normal". One interviewee on Ethiopian TV (ETV) said that "people are moving about, shops are opening and… we are going to church. Everything is as you can see, very peaceful." ETV showed pictures of people walking about the streets. There are also differing perspectives on the impact of the assault on the city. Last week, before the federal troops entered Mekelle, it was shelled and some residents fled to the outskirts to escape the bombardment. 'Homes destroyed' On Monday, Prime Minister Abiy appeared in parliament in Addis Ababa and told MPs that "not a single civilian was killed" during the operation. However our two contacts in Mekelle told the BBC that they had seen wounded and dead civilians in the city's hospitals after the shelling on Saturday. One of those we spoke to provided a picture of a home destroyed by a shell in a residential area called Ayder Edaga Begie that also killed members of one family. Responding to these reports, Ethiopia's Minister for Democratisation Zadig Abraha backed the prime minister's view, and told the BBC: "We have completely avoided civilian causalities from our side." Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that Mekelle's main hospital was "dangerously low" on supplies - including body bags - as it treated the wounded from the fighting around the city. The ICRC, however, did not give any figures for the numbers injured or dead. Neither did it say whether the victims were civilians or military personnel. The BBC also managed to speak to someone in the western part of Tigray, where there was heavy fighting earlier last month. The telecom service has been partially restored in the area. 'Hiding in the bush' People are still living in fear there, our contact said, alleging that local militia from the neighbouring Amhara region are killing, harassing, threatening and displacing ethnic Tigrayans. "I have tried to cross to Sudan, they blocked us. We are in a difficult position. It is almost like we are in prison. Some people have nothing to eat hiding in the bush," he said. "We are spending the day in bush. There is no-one to protect us. We have left our farms behind. Our cattle are left scattered on the fields." Find out more about the Tigray crisis: Last month, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission reported on the massacre of at least 600 people in the town of Mai-Kadra. It said that ethnic Amhara people had been targeted by Tigrayan youths backed by the local Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) administration in what it said could amount to a war crime. The TPLF has denied involvement. The two Mekelle residents also told the BBC that fighting was still going on near the city on Wednesday and Thursday. They described sounds of heavy fire come from the west and south. But Mr Zadig said "there is no war", adding that the TPLF "has no more military capacity to conduct a war" and the federal forces now need to apprehend its leadership. The TPLF maintains that fighting is continuing, saying that they are defending their region from "invaders".

प्रधान मंत्री अबी अहमद द्वारा चार सप्ताह तक चलने वाले सैन्य अभियान को समाप्त करने की घोषणा के बाद पहली बार बीबीसी ने इथियोपिया के संघर्ष प्रभावित क्षेत्र टिग्रे की राजधानी मेकेले के अंदर कुछ लोगों से बात करने में कामयाबी हासिल की है।


Doctor Who: Will Gompertz on the new series with Jodie Whittaker ★★★★☆

Summary: Relax! Take the afternoon off. You don't have to vacuum behind the sofa. The new Doctor Who isn't that scary. It has its moments, of course, but a trip to the dentist is far worse - at least it would be if...well…

Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter Let us not even take the smallest step down a road that might lead to a plot spoiler. Suffice it to say that in the opening episode of season 11 (starting from the 2005 re-boot) there are goodies and baddies and surprises (nice and not so nice) and some strange events and…a new Doctor. That we already know. Because it's been everywhere. What's more we met her at the end of the last episode when Peter Capaldi regenerated into Jodie Whittaker who promptly fell out of the TARDIS and plummeted to who-knew-where. Turns out she was heading for one of the very few places in the entire unknowable universe of potentially a gazillion planets where the inhabitants not only speak her native language, but do so in the same accent. And so it is that the thirteenth Doctor Who gets to start her exciting stint of inter-galactic policing in present day Sheffield. Unfortunately for her there is no time to enjoy a stroll around the city's expansive parkland, or to take in a show at the Crucible Theatre. She is thrown in at the deep end with a life-threatening crisis to help avert. From this we quickly learn that the new Doctor is not one to panic. No matter how serious the situation she always has a witty quip to hand to quell nerves and lighten the mood. These she delivers with puckish dry humour and perfect timing. If Capaldi's Doctor had a slightly chilly edge, Whittaker's is warmer than a mug of Yorkshire tea. She is a very talented actor, whose down-to-earth style plays cleverly with her character's otherworldly nature, in the way, say, Roger Moore's old-school charm subverted James Bond's cold-blooded ruthlessness. From the moment she enters the fray Jodie Whittaker completely owns the part. Any chat about gender is rendered wholly irrelevant before she's finished her first sentence. She is Doctor Who, and that's it - some will love her interpretation of the Time Lord, others won't. I'm in the former camp, but not without one small reservation. These are early days, she has another nine episodes to fully flesh out her version of The Doctor, but at this stage the character is a little too jolly and friendly, which makes building up dramatic tension almost impossible. David Tennant, who strikes me as the most similar to Whittaker's take on the role, was able to change mood in an instant: from class clown to a deadly serious galaxy-saving leader. She is yet to show that tonal transition from light to dark. On those occasions when she does dispense with the flippant asides for a more profound thought, her Doctor tends to come across more like a Sunday-school teacher than a masterful rhetorician who can inspire and intimidate in equal measure. That might well be a case of an experienced actor slowly developing the character to draw the audience in over the course of the run. Or, it could be the way the part is being written and directed. Doctor Who is a massive entertainment brand, which like most global products, requires constant refreshing both to enlist new customers and to keep existing punters interested. In that respect a TV franchise is no different than a Premiership football club. It's all showbiz; new faces are imperative: they all need to regenerate. And with that new public face almost always comes a new back-room team. As is the case with this all new Doctor Who, which sees previous show-runner Steven Moffat exit stage right, and Chris Chibnall come in to take up the reins (he worked with Whittaker on Broadchurch). Hopefully they will turn out to be a dream team. Actually, they have to be the dream team, because imagination is the only thing that will keep Doctor Who's TARDIS on the universe's super-highway. It would be good to see them challenge the concept of science fiction and push it beyond the hackneyed and obvious, in the way Charlie Brooker has re-thought the dystopian novel in the shape of his TV series Black Mirror, which focuses on 21st century concerns. It's fine for Sci-Fi to be funny, but it should be unsettling too - and the only way to do that is to make it real: Doctor Who needs to tell us our worst nightmares, contemporary stories that are so darkly embedded in our unconscious minds we need to hide behind a sofa when they are revealed to us. Doctor Who is on BBC One on Sunday at 18:45 BST.

आराम करें! दोपहर की छुट्टी लें। आपको सोफे के पीछे खाली करने की ज़रूरत नहीं है। नया डॉक्टर जो इतना डरावना नहीं है। इसके अपने क्षण हैं, निश्चित रूप से, लेकिन दंत चिकित्सक की यात्रा कहीं अधिक खराब है-कम से कम यह होगा अगर... ठीक है...


Supreme Court: Why a fight over US abortion law now looms

Summary: Anthony Kennedy was a swing vote on the US Supreme Court, albeit one that frequently tilted to the right. Replacing him with a solidly conservative justice, however, could have a significant impact on US jurisprudence - and politics - for decades to come.

Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter Here's a look at some of the most consequential issues. Abortion Shortly after Mr Kennedy announced his retirement, Supreme Court analyst Jeffrey Toobin tweeted that "abortion will be illegal in 20 states in 18 months" - an indication that he believes Mr Trump's nominee will join a majority in reversing Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision legalising abortion throughout the US. Anti-abortion advocates have been trying to scale back the broad constitutional guarantees of the Roe decision in the decades since, and now - without Mr Kennedy on the court - they could be poised for a breakthrough. Back in 1992, when Mr Kennedy was just a junior justice, the court considered a series of Pennsylvania restrictions on abortion rights in a case, Planned Parenthood v Casey, that could have drastically curtailed what had been established as a constitutional right to abortion. Mr Kennedy reportedly initially sided with the more conservative justices but eventually co-wrote a three-justice plurality that upheld the "essential holding" of the landmark Roe decision legalising first-trimester abortions throughout the US. Since then, Mr Kennedy has frequently sided with abortion rights advocates in the court, most recently last year, when he joined the court's four liberal justices to strike down a Texas law stringently regulating abortion clinics and the doctors who perform the procedure. It may not be long before the Court considers the next big abortion case, as there is already an Iowa law prohibiting the procedure after a foetal heartbeat is detected - usually around six weeks of pregnancy. The measure is currently on hold pending a legal challenge from abortion rights groups. At the very least, a court without Mr Kennedy could uphold the constitutionality of state-level regulations that make abortion effectively - if not legally - unavailable in a number of states where only a handful of clinics currently operate at the moment. Gay rights Mr Kennedy may be most remembered for his support for cases involving gay rights. He sided with the majority in a 1996 decision striking down a Colorado measure banning city-level anti-gay discrimination ordinances. In 2003, he authored the decision holding that a Texas law that made gay and lesbian sex illegal was unconstitutional. His most famous opinion, however, surely is the 2015 ruling that legalised gay marriage across the US. In Obergfell v Hodges, Mr Kennedy wrote that marriage "allows two people to find life that could not be found alone" and that the Constitution grants gay couples right to "equal dignity in the eyes of the law". The Court's vote was 5 to 4, the narrowest of margins, and while a newly constituted conservative majority on the court may follow precedent and not directly reverse this decision, it could take steps to allow individuals and corporations greater freedom to deny civil rights protections and accommodations to gay persons and married couples by citing religious beliefs. The court also was poised to consider the constitutionality of school bathroom bans for transgender students before the Trump administration reversed an Obama-era guidance prohibiting such bans. The case is back at the lower-court level and could end up in the next few years on the docket of a Supreme Court that looks very different from the one that would have ruled on the matter this term. Death penalty Capital punishment has been allowed in the US since a Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the practice in 1976. Mr Kennedy has not questioned that precedent, but he has repeatedly sided with justices who have chipped away at who can be executed and under what circumstances. In 2005 he wrote the majority opinion ruling that capital punishment was an unconstitutional punishment for crimes committed by those under the age of 18. He joined a 2002 opinion prohibiting the execution of those with intellectual disabilities and authored a 2014 majority opinion limiting a state's ability to decide who is and isn't mentally capable. There has been some speculation that the Supreme Court could be steadily progressing to a point where it could rule that capital punishment in all cases constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. There is a good chance that whoever Mr Trump picks to replace Mr Kennedy will bring this trend to a halt. Affirmative action The ability of public colleges and universities to consider race and ethnicity in an attempt to create a diverse student body has been on shaky grounds for years. Mr Kennedy has opposed any type of school admissions process that gives individuals an advantage in admissions based solely on their race. In 2016, however, he authored a majority opinion, again by one vote, that upheld a University of Texas practice of weighing an applicant's race among a number of factors in a "holistic review" of a prospective student's enrolment application. It was an opinion that walked a fine legal line, allowing public universities to craft policies that created a more diverse student body while avoiding quotas and other direct actions. That's a line the other conservative justices have shown no interest in observing. With one more reliable vote in their number, Mr Kennedy's measured "maybe" could be replaced by a firm "no". A partisan firestorm The new Supreme Court vacancy is certain to throw petrol on the smouldering flames of anger and resentment that have come to define US politics in the Trump era. Liberal activists are girding for all-out war, although their ability to block the Republican-controlled Senate's ability to confirm the president's nominee is limited. Mid-term congressional elections are less than five months away, and the coming confirmation fight is sure to figure prominently in the campaigns. Republicans running against Senate Democratic incumbents in Trump-friendly states like West Virginia, Indiana and North Dakota are sure to highlight any moves their opponents make to block the president's choice. Meanwhile, Democrats targeting at-risk Republicans in House of Representatives races could capitalise on increased engagement and energy from liberal voters who view abortion and gay rights at new risk. In 2016 the open court seat ended up helping Mr Trump by spurring evangelical voters and cultural conservatives to stick by their candidate despite his various controversies and missteps. At the time, Republicans were on the defensive - facing the prospect of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia being replaced by a liberal jurist. Now Republicans are on the attack, with the opportunity to cement a conservative court for a generation. Democrats may not be able to do anything to stop it at this point, but flocking to the polls in November may give them some measure of comfort - or revenge.

एंथनी कैनेडी अमेरिकी सुप्रीम कोर्ट में एक स्विंग वोट थे, हालांकि एक जो अक्सर दाईं ओर झुकता था। उन्हें एक ठोस रूप से रूढ़िवादी न्याय के साथ बदलना, हालांकि, आने वाले दशकों तक अमेरिकी न्यायशास्त्र और राजनीति पर महत्वपूर्ण प्रभाव डाल सकता है।


Stormont talks: Finances set to remain under pressure after deal

Summary: More than £500m in new money is trumpeted in the new agreement between Northern Ireland's political parties and the British and Irish governments.

By John CampbellBBC News NI Economics & Business Editor But even if that stacks up it is effectively offset by funds that have to be found from Stormont budgets to pay for welfare mitigation. The cut in corporation tax will also have to be paid for, but the bills for that will not arrive until 2019. All this is taking place against a tough public spending environment directed from Westminster. Manageable Stormont can expect its so-called block grant to fall by up to 2% a year until 2019-20. Savings made through public sector redundancies and other measures should ease a bit of the pressure. Senior officials tell me the implementation of welfare reforms will make the budget "manageable." But even with this agreement Stormont's finances will remain under pressure.

उत्तरी आयरलैंड के राजनीतिक दलों और ब्रिटिश और आयरिश सरकारों के बीच नए समझौते में 500 मिलियन पाउंड से अधिक के नए धन की घोषणा की गई है।


How improving children's diets can aid development

Summary: Early malnutrition can blight a child's development - and also that of their community and nation, say Anthony Lake. director of Unicef and President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania. In this week's Scrubbing Up column, they say a new initiative called Scaling Up Nutrition - backed by the G8 - is crucially important.

By Anthony Lake & Jakaya KikweteDirector of Unicef and President of Tanzania The foundation of a healthy future for every child is the 1,000 days between a mother's pregnancy and her child's second birthday. The right nutrition during this critical period puts a child on track to be stronger, healthier and ready to learn. Well-nourished children grow to be adults that can earn to their potential and contribute to the economic and social development of their families, communities and nations - building a strong foundation for a better world. An estimated 180m children under the age of five years in the world are up to 4-6" (10-15cm) shorter than their peers. The reason is not genetics or disease, but a condition called stunting. It is caused by chronic nutritional deficiencies during that 1,000 day window of opportunity. Earnings boost When we consider that a lack of adequate nutrition can cause a five-year-old to lose up to a half-foot of growth, it is no surprise that the effects also extend to the immune system and cognitive development, permanently limiting the child's capacities and opportunities throughout life. The effects are costly: the World Bank estimates that countries blighted by stunting and other consequences of malnutrition lose at least 2-3% of their gross domestic product, as well as billions of dollars in forgone productivity and avoidable health care spending each year. We have seen first-hand the debilitating and often deadly effects of malnutrition. But we have also seen how communities and countries are strengthened by an investment in nutrition. Prioritising nutrition in national development yields significant economic benefits - one study has found that improving nutrition during childhood can increase earnings in adult life by up to 46%. So imagine what a child could do, what a nation could do, what we as a global community could do - if nourished to reach full growth and potential. Recently, the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of leading economists, including four Nobel Laureates, found that fighting malnourishment should be the top priority for those seeking to improve global welfare. Based on research, the Consensus recommends improving availability of vitamins and minerals, complementary foods and treatments for intestinal worms and diarrhoeal diseases, as well as education and information on good nutrition practices - which could reduce chronic malnutrition by 36% in developing countries. Even in very poor countries and using conservative assumptions, each dollar spent to reduce chronic malnutrition can have at least a $30 (£19) payoff. Taking action That is why, as members of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement's Lead Group, we are committed to creating lasting change through improved nutrition, thereby lifting communities and nations out of the cycle of poverty and on to the path of productivity. The SUN Movement, which brings together more than 100 global partners in the international community, business, civil society, researchers and donor governments, is a push for action toward better maternal and child nutrition. Led by countries facing nutrition challenges, it aims to support a growing number of countries developing national plans and programs to tackle malnutrition, and to learn from and help each other in the process. SUN is a different approach to improving nutrition. We're working with new partners, coordinating across sectors and looking for innovative ways to create sustainable change that no one organisation, business or government could achieve alone. Our work is supported by other efforts: investing in agricultural output has also been highlighted by the Copenhagen Consensus as a way to make children smarter, better educated and higher paid, helping to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. US President Barack Obama recently announced a new G8 initiative to invest in improving agriculture and food and nutrition security. As part of that initiative, the G8 will actively support SUN and pledge to maintain robust programs to further reduce child stunting. We know all too well the debilitating and deadly effects of malnutrition. But now, through SUN, we are witnessing communities and countries taking action to scale up nutrition, allowing people to thrive in the good years and to weather the bad ones. Both of us know that investing in nutrition isn't just the foundation for building a better world; it's also a powerhouse for development, driving improved health, productivity, educational achievement and economic performance. Because good nutrition truly empowers children, families, communities and nations, it's a cost-effective opportunity for major, sustainable, global development progress. We know what to do. Countries are ready to do it. Let's invest now.

एंथनी लेक. यूनिसेफ के निदेशक और तंजानिया के राष्ट्रपति जकाया किकवेटे कहते हैं कि प्रारंभिक कुपोषण एक बच्चे के विकास को प्रभावित कर सकता है-और उनके समुदाय और राष्ट्र के विकास को भी। इस सप्ताह के स्क्रबिंग अप कॉलम में, वे कहते हैं कि जी8 द्वारा समर्थित पोषण को बढ़ाना नामक एक नई पहल महत्वपूर्ण है।


Bishop says Salisbury worthy of top 10 world cities list

Summary: The UK city of Salisbury has been named among the top 10 cities in the world to visit, by the Lonely Planet travel guide. We should not be surprised - it is one of the loveliest places on earth, writes the Right Reverend Nicholas Holtam, Bishop of Salisbury.

"Salisbury is lovely; a quintessentially English cathedral city. After the painter John Constable was taken from here to Winchester by his friend John Fisher, he wrote to his wife that Winchester is more magnificent - but Salisbury is more beautiful. The Cathedral Close is the largest in England and arguably the finest of cathedral precincts in the whole of Europe, while our elegant 13th Century cathedral is the main draw for tourists, with the tallest spire in England. We have the best of the four original versions of Magna Carta and next year's celebrations for its 800th anniversary makes 2015 a particularly worthwhile time to visit. We love the sense of community here. It is a warm and friendly place - maybe that's because there are so many military here. They have moved around a lot and know how to put down roots quickly. In many ways this is prosperous middle England, but like any community at the moment, there are big gaps between rich and poor. The Trussell Trust foodbanks started here. Charity begins at home, but does not stop at home. Every summer, my wife and I host a garden party to raise funds for medical care in the South Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries. It's almost like a trip back in time: a traditional summer fête with games and rides on a camel or in a Bentley, a silver band and children serving strawberries and cream. Salisbury has a real old-fashioned charm, but just because it is old-fashioned doesn't mean it's stuffy. When we came to live here in 2011, we were struck by the way we were invited to be part of a community at the start of the West Country, with hospitality to match. We have great pubs, a theatre, arts centre and the Salisbury International Arts Festival. It is a great small city and the water-meadows, right in the city centre, make it even more special. It is surrounded by Wiltshire's gorgeous chalk valleys and downland, which makes excellent walking country. Put simply, Salisbury is one of the loveliest places on earth."

ब्रिटेन के शहर सैलिसबरी को लोनली प्लैनेट ट्रैवल गाइड द्वारा दुनिया के शीर्ष 10 शहरों में नामित किया गया है। हमें आश्चर्य नहीं होना चाहिए-यह पृथ्वी पर सबसे प्यारे स्थानों में से एक है, सैलिसबरी के बिशप राइट रेवरेंड निकोलस होल्टम लिखते हैं।


A Point of View: The curse of a ridiculous name

Summary: Gopnik. It's not the most common of surnames. In Russian it's a term for "drunken lout". Those who carry a curious name know it has comedy value, says Adam Gopnik (that's G - O - P - N - I - K).

I have a funny name. I know it. Don't say it isn't or try to make me feel better about it. I have a funny name. My children and social networkers tell me that. And you out there have even been tweeting about it: "@BBC POV, Gopnik: what kind of name is that? #weirdnames" Gopnik. It has a strange sound, and an ugly look. It manages to be at once starkly plain and extremely uninteresting, boringly unadorned and yet oddly difficult to say. Despite the stark, Orcish simplicity of its syllables, it manages to be hard to pronounce. "Golnik" or "Gotnik" people say, swallowing or spitting out the middle consonant. A first name is malleable. Your chancellor of the exchequer began life under the name of Gideon Osborne - a name that might only have helped him become one more short-tenured professor of dark arts at Hogwarts. But he plucked the safer and saner "George" from among his other pre-names, and seized the country's trust with it, for a while anyway. Last names are more durable. My parents tried to elevate the name by giving all six of my brothers and sisters poetic Welsh or Hebrew names such as Morgan and Blake. All good names but with no middle names at all to help. "Gopnik" rises immediately after each one, like a concrete cinderblock wall topped with barbed wire, to meet them bluntly as they try to escape. It's not just a funny name. It has become, in the Russia from which it originally hails, an almost obscenely derogatory expression. A gopnik in Russian, and in Russia, is now a drunken hooligan, a small-time lout, a criminal without even the sinister glamour of courage. When Russian people hear my last name, they can barely conceal a snigger of distaste and disgusted laughter. Those thugs who clashed with Polish fans at Euro 2012? All gopniks - small G. And I'm told that it derives from an acronym for public housing, rather than from our family's Jewish roots, but no difference. My wife, even before the Russian gopnik business, tried gently to pry apart her potential children from my name. Her name is Parker, simple as that, and she would much prefer that her offspring go through life without the difficulty of their father's name. "Let's just call them Parker," she urged when we married. "And then," she added gently, as one talking to a small child, "you can give them your name as a sort of secret middle name." We ended by doing the worst thing you can do to a child in these times - we hyphenated. The real trouble is this. Like every writer, I would like my writing to last, and most writers who have lasted not only have euphonious names, but names that somehow resonate with their genius. Jane Austen. How can you not write matchlessly wry and intelligent novels with a name like that? Who would not want to be named Anthony Trollope or Evelyn Waugh? The solid sense and then the elegant malice are written into the names - even the androgyny of "Evelyn" adds to the slight air of something-not-quite-right that his prose implies. I envy even those writers blessed with those Restoration Comedy names: In the Latin world, get a name like Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Mario Vargas Llosa, and you can practically make reservations for Stockholm, direct from the baptismal font. Are there any big modern writers who have really funny names? Only Kipling, I think, and that is an accident of the participle. More to the point, are there good writers who are now forgotten, as I am pretty sure I shall be, because their names are so funny? Yes, I have to say with dread, there are - for instance, the 20th Century American poet WD Snodgrass. Snodgrass was a truly great poet, the originator, if anyone was, of the style we now call "confessional poetry", a hero to Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath and the rest. But he had that funny Pickwickian name, and he knew it. He used to make fun of his own name: "Snodgrass is walking through the universe!" one poem reads (I, too, make fun of my surname, in the hopes of keeping off the name-demons). No use. For all his priority, I bet that you have heard something of Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton but that, unless you are a specialist in American poetry, you have never heard of WD Snodgrass. The subject has led me, gloomily, to search for the first reference to the power of names over writers' reputations. Oddly, astonishingly, I think we can find it. it occurs in the best and most famous scene in all of English biography, that moment in Boswell's Life of Johnson when, in 1776, Boswell craftily arranges a dinner between the arch Tory Dr Johnson and the radical libertine John Wilkes. The two men, political opposites, come together over their love of learning and good food. Wilkes is talking about the lost office of the city poet, and says: "The last was Elkanah Settle. There is something in names which one cannot help feeling. Now Elkanah Settle sounds so queer, who can expect much from that name? We should have no hesitation to give it for John Dryden, in preference to Elkanah Settle, from the names only, without knowing their different merits." The irony, the final irony, is that my kind of essay writing (a lot of it anyway) depends on finding meanings in minutiae of sensation, which is just where the tragedy of a name like mine resides. Wilkes' cruel but accurate remark is a big one, a herald of the coming Romantic era as much as any poem about a lake or a lilac. For while the classical sensibility that Dr Johnson represented involved an, at times, undue respect for the authority of sense, the coming Romantic sensibility that Wilkes heralded involved, above all, a hypersensitivity to the accidents of sensation. Things become whatever feelings they evoke; if a name evokes an aura, it becomes it. Academics even have a name for this - they call it "phonetic symbolism". The only writer I can think of in all of English literature to have out-written his name - to have been given a really weird and funny-sounding name and yet replace its phonetic symbolism with a new symbolism of its own being - is... Shakespeare. We are so used to that name by now that I think we forget how truly odd it is. A blunt description of an intrinsically funny action - shaking a spear. It is not even a dignified action, as Swordthrust might be, he is merely Shake-speare. In his own day, it was obviously the first thing people noticed about him. The very earliest reference we have to him as a playwright involves the critic Robert Greene sneering at his funny name. "He fancies that he is the only 'Shake-scene' in the country." And a later wit wrote a play in which a dim-witted undergraduate keeps talking about "sweet Mr Shakespeare, Mr Shakespeare", obviously for the comic effect of the repeated funny name. Indeed, the name "Shakespeare" is exactly like the name of a clown in Shakespeare, whose funny name would set off pages of tiresome puns: "Prithee, Sirrah, and where do you shake that spear? Come, sir!" "Oh, sire, in any wench's lap that doth tremble for it." And so on. You know the kind of thing I mean. Indeed, if he had died of the plague, as was as likely as not, after writing only two plays and some poems, I wonder if we would not now have to suppress a laugh when we heard his name in class. "The minor poets of the Age of Jonson," some don would intone - or "The age of Fletcher" or "Lovelace", for surely someone else left in his shade would have risen in the space left clear by his absence - "were Drayton and Davenant and the short lived Stratfordian, Shakespeare." And then the students, desperately memorising for the exam: "Yeah, there's Beaumont and Manningham and then that other one - you know, the one who died young and wrote the Roman play with the twins and those weird bisexual sonnets, which I actually kinda like - you know, the guy with the funny name." But he kept on writing, about bees and kings, and other things and so lost his name and became himself. It can be done, it seems, if one writes long enough and well enough. But the bar, that bar, is too high. And the phonetic symbolism of my name is too absolute. The spectre of those gopniks in their crewcuts and parkas rise to overwhelm all hope. It is fixed. I shall remain and now say goodbye - and then vanish as a, and A. Gopnik.

गोपनिक। यह उपनामों में सबसे आम नहीं है। रूसी में यह "शराबी लाउट" के लिए एक शब्द है। एडम गोपनिक (यानी जी-ओ-पी-एन-आई-के) कहते हैं कि जो लोग एक जिज्ञासु नाम रखते हैं वे जानते हैं कि इसका हास्य मूल्य है।


Are young South Africans ignoring Aids message?

Summary: It is a frostily cold morning in the outskirts of Johannesburg. Children aged between six and 17 are queuing up for their "morning meds", shivering their greetings to the nurse assigned to supervise them. It's now part of their daily routine before they skip off into the yard and get bussed off to school.

By Karen AllenBBC News, Johannesburg These youngsters are a walking, breathing, living testimony to South Africa's shameful past. When a minority in the leadership allowed politics to overshadow science and refused to accept the potent reality of HIV/Aids, it delayed the rollout of preventative treatment and exposed tens of thousands of newborns to disease. Most of the youngsters popping their pills were infected in the womb. When the rest of the world was rolling out a drug called Nevirapine to reduce the chances of mothers transmitting the virus to their offspring, elements within the South African leadership famously advised patients to use lemon and garlic instead, to protect themselves. Aids in South Africa: 340,000 new infections in 2014 (931 a day) 2,700 young people infected every week - 74% girls More than half a million infected in the past year 140,000 recorded Aids deaths every year Many Aids deaths go unreported, so it is estimated there are more than 400 aids deaths each day Source: UNAids, 2014 But times have changed. Dramatically. South Africa reviewed its position in the face of international criticism. "At least now the children have treatment, and more importantly they have life," says a sanguine Gail Johnson, the founder of a refuge for HIV-positive children created in the memory of the little boy she fostered, called Nkosi Johnson. Her 11-year-old son's impassioned plea during the last big Aids conference here 16 years ago, to stop stigmatising people with HIV, moved the world to tears. It marked a line in the sand and South Africa now has the most extensive anti-retroviral treatment programme in the world. Youngsters like Sanele - a slightly built 20-year-old from Soweto who grew up in Nkosi's Haven orphanage and lost most of his family to Aids - are now far less likely to be infected at birth. "I never asked to be infected with this disease... at times I rebelled, I said: 'Why me?'" he says. But he is now reconciled to his fate, is well controlled on his medication and wants to be a role model to other young people like Nkosi who died shortly after his famous speech, deprived of Aids drugs. Sanele is now completing his higher school certificate and dreams of becoming a computer engineer. 'Sugar daddy' syndrome Rates of mother to child transmission have fallen by more than 50% since 2009 thanks to an aggressive programme of testing and treatment which has been rolled out across South Africa. But the country faces a new threat - the staggering number of young people here under the age of 24 becoming newly infected with HIV. In any one week, 2,700 young men and women aged 15-24 become infected with HIV, according to figures released by UNAids. Young South African women are particularly at risk and are getting infected in higher numbers due to a complex range of factors including economic and gender inequality, family breakdown and the practice of younger women having sex with older men. This is the so-called "sugar daddy" syndrome or what the experts call "inter-generational sex". It explains why in some places, young women are three times more likely to be infected with HIV than young men. A new word which captures this arrangement is a "blesser" - used to describe an older man who will offers gifts to a younger woman for sex. South Africa's Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi recently embraced the term when he unveiled a new programme seeing to tackle the alarming number of adolescent infections. As well as addressing problems with gender violence, he said the programme aims "to keep girls at school for as long as possible and create job opportunities for them so they reduce their dependence upon men". 'It is not spoken about' HIV/Aids has exposed the complex social dynamics in South Africa and treatment alone is clearly not the answer for reaching the holy grail of an Aids-free generation. One of the challenges that young people face is stigma. Sanele is one of the few courageous young South Africans to have declared his HIV status to his friend and his girlfriend. "When I told her, she didn't believe me, she thought I was messing around but eventually she talked to my family and realised it was true and she got used to it. We are still together today". But he admits that when you are out on the street "it is not spoken about". Stigma and ignorance about HIV persists in South Africa despite concerted efforts at public information campaigns. Sanele looks like any ordinary young man, enjoys his football and is clearly not dying. Yet an estimated 400 people die in South Africa every single day of HIV-related illnesses, either because they don't seek help early on or default on their treatment. That message - that you can still die from the Aids virus - is somehow getting lost, he believes. South Africa is not alone. More than two million adolescents around the world are living with HIV, according to Unicef. Most of them are in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. It still remains the biggest cause of death among young people in Africa and the number of lives lost in this group has tripled in the past 16 years. Little wonder then that the issue is likely to dominate debate when Aids experts reconvene in Durban, to assess the progress since the last conference.

जोहान्सबर्ग के बाहरी इलाके में यह कड़ाके की ठंड वाली सुबह है। छह से 17 साल की उम्र के बच्चे अपनी "मॉर्निंग मेड" के लिए कतार में खड़े हैं, उनकी देखरेख करने के लिए नियुक्त नर्स को अपना अभिवादन करते हुए। अब यह उनकी दिनचर्या का हिस्सा है इससे पहले कि वे यार्ड में जाएं और स्कूल जाने के लिए बस लें।


Noctilucent clouds visible from the Isle of Man

Summary: Noctilucent clouds, the highest in the earth's atmosphere, have been photographed from the west coast of the Isle of Man.

James Brew, from Andreas, snapped the clouds at about midnight above Peel Beach on Thursday. Sightings of the rarefied clouds peak about 20 days after midsummer. Mr Brew said: "I was greeted by this jaw dropping sky so I grabbed my camera and rushed out as quickly as I could." Noctilucent clouds appear in the night sky between the end of May and start of August. They appear 50 miles (89.5km) above the Earth in the mesosphere, right on the edge of space, and glow with a white-blue light.

पृथ्वी के वायुमंडल में सबसे ऊँचे नाक्टिलूसेंट बादलों की तस्वीरें आइल ऑफ मैन के पश्चिमी तट से ली गई हैं।


In pictures: Brussels blasts

Summary: Scores of people have been killed and wounded in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station during the morning rush hour.

There has been heightened security in the Belgian capital since it emerged that several of the men behind last November's Paris attacks had come from Brussels. Four days ago, a man suspected of involvement in the attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in Brussels after four months on the run. What we know so far about Tuesday's attacks Crisis information

ब्रसेल्स अंतर्राष्ट्रीय हवाई अड्डे और शहर के एक मेट्रो स्टेशन पर सुबह की भीड़ के दौरान हुए हमलों में कई लोग मारे गए और घायल हो गए।


Gosforth and Jesmond Metro stations to be revamped

Summary: Two Tyne and Wear Metro stations are to be refurbished as part of a £385m modernisation programme.

The work at South Gosforth and West Jesmond, will see the platforms, buildings and approaches to the stations improved. New ticket machines will also be installed during the modernisation work. Nexus, which owns the Metro, said the work would start on Monday and was expected to last about 15 weeks. Both stations will remain open, but there will be limited platform closures on some evenings, Nexus said.

385 मिलियन पाउंड के आधुनिकीकरण कार्यक्रम के हिस्से के रूप में दो टाइन और वियर मेट्रो स्टेशनों का नवीनीकरण किया जाना है।


Iran nuclear: What's changed after Netanyahu's presentation?

Summary: So what has changed, if anything, in the wake of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's theatrical presentation of Israel's claimed seizure of a trove of documents from Iran's secret nuclear archive?

By Jonathan MarcusDefence and diplomatic correspondent The purpose and timing of Mr Netanyahu's presentation was clear: to discredit the Iran nuclear deal, and to influence one man - Donald Trump. The US president must decide by mid-May whether to walk away from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or to stick with it, at least for the time being. So what did Mr Netanyahu actually tell us? It was in large part a reminder that Iran, despite all its denials, did have elements of a nuclear weapons programme and that it retains the scientific know-how to reactivate such a programme if it ever wanted to. That of course is not news to the major powers who signed up to the nuclear deal with Iran. Indeed, it was why they sought a nuclear agreement with Tehran in the first place. What Mr Netanyahu gave was essentially a history lesson. He did not show any convincing evidence that Iran is in breach of the 2015 agreement. And this could prove crucial. Indeed, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - the global nuclear watchdog monitoring the deal - has given Iran a clean bill of health on several occasions. It is, apparently, upholding its end of the agreement to the letter. Those governments like Britain, France and Germany who have been urging Mr Trump to maintain the deal with Tehran will argue that Mr Netanyahu's case, far from undermining the JCPOA, actually underscores why it is necessary. Gathering war clouds Mr Netanyahu, like Mr Trump, has long been opposed to the JCPOA. Mr Trump insists that it is "a bad deal", though the fact that it was negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama seems to weigh heavily in the president's judgement. Mr Netanyahu believes that it does not go far enough in ending Iran's nuclear ambitions, and that once many of its clauses expire Iran will have the know-how, enrichment capability and missile programme to develop a nuclear arsenal at relatively short notice if it so wishes. Israel's position is complicated by the fact that it is involved in a developing conflict with Iran which has a growing influence in Syria, where Tehran has strongly backed the Assad regime. Iran supplies weaponry to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, much of which is routed through Syria. War clouds are gathering and Mr Netanyahu wants the JCPOA gone. The problem is that supporters of the agreement insist that precisely because of these growing tensions any constraint on Iran's nuclear activities is a good thing and should be maintained. And Mr Netanyahu must contend with the fact that many senior Israeli military and security figures, while not enthusiastic about the JCPOA, also believe it is better to keep it than consign it to the waste bin. Europe vs Trump So whatever the theatricality of Mr Netanyahu's presentation not much has really changed. The Iran nuclear deal stands on its merits (or shortcomings) and President Trump must now work towards his own conclusion. Will he be swayed by the Israeli prime minister - whose views are more in tune with his own? Or will he give ground to the key European signatories of the agreement - France, Britain and Germany - who all want to see the deal kept in place? The Europeans also believe, like President Trump, that something needs to be done to expand the JCPOA's scope. But there is a paradox here. By agreeing with Mr Trump that an additional deal is required to cover things like Iran's missile programme and its wider regional activities, might the Europeans actually be undermining the very agreement that they want to save? The JCPOA covers what it covers and no more. If the original negotiators had tried to expand its scope they would probably have met a brick wall from the Iranians. What's clear is that whatever evolving agreement there may be between the European capitals and Washington for further constraints on Tehran, there is no chance of the Iranian government being willing to accept them. The whole purpose of the JCPOA, to use an inelegant term, was to "kick the can down the road" - to postpone any Iranian nuclear crisis for the future. It set as many constraints on Iran's nuclear activities as feasible while leaving in place a reinforced inspection and verification scheme that may provide some early warning going forward of any efforts by Tehran to break out and rush for a bomb. The deal can be criticised on many grounds. But it is what was possible at the time. The real question is whether, amidst the worsening tensions in the region, it is better to stick with the agreed constraints or abandon them altogether? Mr Netanyahu disagrees with most of the major powers and with large parts of his own security establishment. He might argue that he and his country are much closer to the epicentre of crisis and that Iran - via its military presence or those of its proxies in Syria and Lebanon - is close to posing a direct threat on Israel's own borders. Mr Netanyahu is ranged against pretty well all of those who actually signed the deal. President Trump now has the casting vote.

इजरायल के प्रधान मंत्री बेंजामिन नेतन्याहू द्वारा ईरान के गुप्त परमाणु संग्रह से दस्तावेजों की एक टुकड़ी को जब्त करने के इजरायल के दावे की नाटकीय प्रस्तुति के बाद क्या बदल गया है?


Man 'critical' after Abingdon care home fire

Summary: A man is in a critical condition after he was rescued from a fire at a care home in Oxfordshire.

The 48-year-old was rescued from The Knowl on Stert Street, Abingdon, after the blaze broke out at about 04:15 BST. He was treated at the scene for burns and smoke inhalation before being taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Thames Valley Police are investigating the cause of the blaze, which is being treated as unexplained.

ऑक्सफोर्डशायर में एक देखभाल गृह में आग से बचाए जाने के बाद एक व्यक्ति की हालत गंभीर है।


Lib Dem conference 'lacking buzz'

Summary: A few random thoughts from the Lib Dem conference.

James LandaleDeputy political editor@BBCJLandaleon Twitter 1. The Lib Dems want to be known as a responsible party of government. And by voting in favour of nuclear power and sticking to their guns on the economy, they will say they are being responsible. But a confected row with Vince Cable that muddies the economic message does not look grown up. Nor does an errant internal email that confuses policy on tax and potentially alienates target voters. It also looks indulgent. 2. Nick Clegg has learned not to be peevish. The Lib Dem leader has in the past allowed his entirely human irritation with silly questions from MPs or journalists to get the better of him. But he has realised that peevishness is not attractive to voters. From his interview with Andrew Marr to the Q&A with party members, he has displayed a remarkable absence of irritation and it has been remarked upon. 3. Nick Clegg is lucky. If British forces were being used to bomb Syria or if the Lib Dems had lost the Eastleigh by-election, this would be a very different conference. Party members would be wandering around the corridors of the conference centre insisting that they did not join the Lib Dems to go to war. And they would also be wandering around saying: "We are doomed, we are doomed. If we cannot hold Eastleigh, how will we hold...(insert constituency of choice)?" 4. The mood at this conference appears flat despite the fact that it matters so much. Policy is being decided here that will have a huge impact on our lives if the Lib Dems join another coalition after the next election. And yet buzz there ain't. 5. Scottish Lib Dems are in a fine mood. And not just because their conference is being held in Glasgow (for them it is closer to home, cheaper to get to and they don't have to ask where to eat). No, they are chipper because the independence referendum is giving them a chance to improve their dismal position north of the border. "The referendum is allowing us back in," says one senior Scottish Lib Dem. "It gives us something to talk to voters about, and then we can move onto other things."

लिब डेम सम्मेलन से कुछ यादृच्छिक विचार।


Memorial plaques stolen from Barnsley crematorium

Summary: About 100 bronze plaques have been stolen from a South Yorkshire crematorium.

Barnsley Council said they were taken from the town's crematorium on Wednesday. The missing plaques would be replaced and the families of those concerned are being contacted, the council said. South Yorkshire Police said an investigation was under way into the thefts and anyone with information should contact the force. Related Internet Links South Yorkshire Police Barnsley Council

दक्षिण यॉर्कशायर के एक श्मशान से लगभग 100 कांस्य पट्टिकाएँ चोरी हो गई हैं।