Boa constrictor captured beside River Thames at Barnes

Summary: A large boa constrictor which was spotted slithering beside the Thames in south-west London has been captured.

The snake, which was about 5ft (1.5m) long, was caught by the RSCPA on Sunday after being seen in undergrowth near Barnes Bridge. Jade Guthrie, who collected the reptile, said that due to its size, she believed it had been recently abandoned rather than it being a stray. She said it was in a good condition and would be taken into specialist care.

दक्षिण-पश्चिम लंदन में थेम्स नदी के किनारे फिसलते हुए देखे गए एक बड़े बोआ कन्स्ट्रिक्टर को पकड़ लिया गया है।


Plan to house Guernsey Airport runway workers

Summary: Guernsey's Public Services Department has asked for permission to house about 150 workers for the Airport Runway project on a vinery site.

The plans for the field in the Forest, next to the Mallard, include temporary housing, a canteen, car parking and a recreational area. Guernsey Airport's director Colin Le Ray said it was a vital part of the redevelopment plans. He said there would be strict rules on anti-social behaviour at the site. The chosen contractor for the project, Lagan Construction, selected the site due to its proximity to the airport, good road access and large cleared space. The firm said it would employ security staff and any workers who break the company's behavioural policy would be subjected to disciplinary action. The plans have been submitted to the Environment Department.

ग्वेर्नसे के लोक सेवा विभाग ने एक वाइनरी साइट पर एयरपोर्ट रनवे परियोजना के लिए लगभग 150 श्रमिकों को रखने की अनुमति मांगी है।


Tamil MPs 'violated constitution'

Summary: A court in Sri Lanka has ordered the police to seek advice from Attorney General prior to calling Tamil MPs to appear in court to answer accusations that they violate country’s constitution.

The police have informed Colombo magistrate that three Tamil parliamentarians violated the constitution and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Police Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has told the court that the MPs have made anti-government and pro-LTTE remarks in Germany. S Jeyanandamurthy, P Ariyanetran and S Kajendran of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have violated the constitution by making the speeches in a Pongu Thamil rally, police said. The three MPs are accused on urging for a separate Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka and urging the Tamils to help LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran to fulfil that purpose. The CID has sought the permission of the court to order them to appear in court to face the charges. TNA which accepts the Tamil Tigers as the sole representative of Sri Lankan Tamils is the biggest Tamil political party in Sri Lanka parliament.

श्रीलंका की एक अदालत ने पुलिस को आदेश दिया है कि वे देश के संविधान का उल्लंघन करने के आरोपों का जवाब देने के लिए तमिल सांसदों को अदालत में पेश होने के लिए बुलाने से पहले अटॉर्नी जनरल से सलाह लें।


Nadine Dorries: Lessons from seven other reality show politicians

Summary: Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is under fire for agreeing to appear on ITV1's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Here, Justin Parkinson recalls seven other politicians who have flirted with disaster - and occasional triumph - on reality TV shows.

George Galloway In 2006, the Labour-turned-Respect MP subjected himself to several days of embarrassment, by taking part in Celebrity Big Brother. In one scene, he pretended to be a cat licking cream from an imaginary saucer placed on the lap of actress Rula Lenska. In another, he donned a red leotard and mimicked a robot, in tandem with the singer Pete Burns, who wore blue. The show enjoyed high ratings, but Mr Galloway came in for much criticism from fellow MPs and political rivals in his Tower Hamlets constituency for neglecting his Parliamentary duties. The Respect MP was characteristically unrepentant, claiming he was gaining valuable publicity for his fledgling party and the anti-war cause, but later complained that many of his political statements had been left on the cutting room floor. Lembit Opik The former Liberal Democrat Northern Ireland spokesman was embracing the celebrity lifestyle even before he lost his seat at the 2010 general election. His brief engagement to Cheeky Girls singer Gabriela Irimia apart, he regularly appeared on game shows, while playing his harmonica at social gatherings. As an ex-MP he too headed for the Australian jungle for a stint on I'm a Celebrity. While there, he managed to instigate a hitherto unseen level of rage in Nigel Havers, known as one of Britain's most suave and unruffled thespians. The cause was Mr Opik standing up while he, Havers and the rapper Aggro Santos were completing a river crossing in a canoe. Havers plunged in to the water. Emerging soaked, he proclaimed he was going to "annihilate" the former honourable member for Montgomeryshire. Havers later quit the show. Opik was the second person to be evicted by the public. Ann Widdecombe After her retirement from politics, the veteran Tory MP did not fade quietly from public life. Quite the opposite, in fact. In 2010 the outspoken former minister and animal rights activist, put on the sequins for one of the most memorable turns on BBC One's Strictly Come Dancing. Ms Widdecombe now vies with ex-BBC man John Sergeant for the title of "worst ever" contestant. During one Latin routine she was lowered on a hoist to join professional partner Anton Du Beke. Another time, they danced the paso doble to the accompaniment of The Troggs' Wild Thing. Eventually a fevered debate was played out in the press. Should Widdecombe quit, as Sergeant had done, or did the voice of the people - rather than the judges - deserve to be heard? The former Home Office minister stood firm. Finally, though, even those viewers who live to hear Craig Revel-Horwood mouth the word "disaster" relented and Widdecombe and Du Beke were the ninth couple to be voted off. Vincent Cable The business secretary has long boasted of his prowess on the dance floor and is the proud holder of several certificates attesting to his skill. So, only weeks after Widdecombe's departure, the veteran Liberal Democrat took part in a Christmas special of Strictly Come Dancing. The show was aired just days after the Daily Telegraph printed details of a secretly obtained recording of Mr Cable saying he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch's empire. During training for the show, he wore a Santa outfit. Party leader Nick Clegg was reportedly not happy about the appearance. Mr Cable came second to entertainer John Barrowman. Robert Kilroy-Silk The former Labour MP came to national prominence during the 1980s as the host of a BBC daytime discussion show. He quit after a row over comments he made about Arabs in a newspaper column and joined the UK Independence Party, becoming a member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands in 2004. After a failed attempt to oust UKIP's leader he quit the party to join one he had set up himself, Veritas. By the time he entered the I'm A Celebrity jungle, in 2008, he was sitting as an independent - and his fellow MEPs wasted little time in attacking the move, with Labour's Glenis Willmott saying: "I think it shows a complete lack of respect for voters." A fellow contestant, the tennis great Martina Navratilova, declared Mr Kilroy-Silk her "hero" after enduring a workout session in the company of rats, bugs and snakes to win extra food rations for the group. The audience were not as enamoured, as Mr Kilroy-Silk became the first contestant to be voted out. Julia Goldsworthy One of the younger female MPs when elected in 2005, Lib Dem Julia Goldsworthy decided to flex her muscles in 2006, when she took part in Channel 4's reality sports series The Games. Her tasks included cycling, running and archery. Ms Goldsworthy, a keen rower off the coast of her native Cornwall, came second in the women's category, with singer Javine Hylton taking gold. Ms Goldsworthy, who lost her seat in 2010, is now a special adviser to Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander. Derek Conway After deciding not to seek re-election as an MP in 2010 because of an expenses scandal, Mr Conway took a sunshine break with four other well-known figures: astrologer Russell Grant, newsreader Jan Leeming, singer Antony Costa and reformed "wild child" actress Emma Ridley. In Channel 4's Celebrity Five Go To Turkey, they played the part of tour reps. Mr Conway was shown in a state of semi-undress during a visit to a spa bath.

कंजर्वेटिव सांसद नादिन डोरिस आईटीवी1 के आई एम ए सेलिब्रिटी... गेट मी आउट ऑफ हियर में दिखाई देने के लिए सहमत होने के लिए आलोचनाओं का सामना कर रहे हैं। यहाँ, जस्टिन पार्किंसन सात अन्य राजनेताओं को याद करते हैं जिन्होंने रियलिटी टीवी शो में आपदा-और कभी-कभी जीत-के साथ छेड़छाड़ की है।


Rough sleeping stories: 'I lived in a sewer for four months'

Summary: Rough sleeping in England has more than doubled since 2010, according to official figures. But how do the men and women lying in shop doorways come to be there and what are their lives like? Here are the stories of some of the people we met living outdoors in cities across England.

Thousands of people across England sleep on the streets. At the last count in 2018 there were 4,677 rough sleepers on one night. That was a 2% drop on the previous year, but an increase of 165% on 2010, when there were 1,768. 'Cold, scared and frightened' Dirk Holding, 51, told us he had slept rough for much of his life and spent four months living in a sewer in Brighton earlier this year. He has been on the streets on and off since the age of 10 after running away from children's homes where he was abused, he said. Mr Holding said he became addicted to prescription drugs and went to prison where he got clean. But on release he was placed "in a house full of drug addicts" and left to sleep rough. "You're cold and scared and frightened," he said. "You never know what's going to happen. Half the time you lay awake with your eyes shut but your mind open so you never really sleep. "There's stabbings and there's fights and there's abuse and there's a lot of horrible things happen when you're homeless. But the worse thing for me was I lived in the sewer. "I felt I'm not going to live up top feeling shame and dirty, with people looking down on me and people thinking I'm useless - I'm going to stay in the sewer. "So I made a bed in there. The first night it was freezing, I was soaked, there were rats in there. "It was horrible, cold and wet, but I survived." Mr Holding performs street poetry and now volunteers for Sussex Homelessness Support, distributing donations to other rough sleepers. "Now I try and give back now rather than self-destruct and feel bitter about society," he said. 'We're not all druggies or alcoholics' While most rough sleepers counted were men, 642 of those in the latest figures, 14%, were women. Samantha Bird, 30, has been sleeping rough on the streets of Birmingham for two years. "I was left in a house when I was 12 months of age," she said. "I was in foster care in Worcestershire, Birmingham and Kidderminster. "I came back to Birmingham and I lived in a shared house but my mental health got really bad and I was sectioned. "Because my housing benefit wasn't being paid my landlord said you've got 28 days to leave. I tried to explain to him I'd been in hospital and I showed him the letters but he wasn't having any of it." Ms Bird said life on the streets was dangerous and she felt judged by passers by. "A friend of mine was asleep and he got kicked in the face," she said. "I'd rather people come and ask why are we on the streets than judge and go 'look at her she's a druggy, she's an alcoholic'. We're not all like that." People estimated or counted on the streets on a single night 4,677rough sleepers in autumn 2018 165%up on 2010, but 2% down on 2017 296were aged under 25 642were female How many people really sleep rough? The 4,677 people in the rough sleeping figures represent the numbers counted or estimated on one autumn night, including 1,283 in London. However, to be counted a rough sleeper has to be seen sleeping or bedding down in the open air or in a building not designed to live in, such as a car park, doorway or stairwell. Those who were in hostels or shelters at the time of the count are not included, even though they would be officially classed as homeless. Figures published by the Greater London Authority suggest far more people will sleep rough at some point during the year. They showed 8,855 rough sleepers were contacted by outreach workers at different points in the 2018-19 financial year just in the capital. 'I sit under a bridge all day' Anthony is living on the streets of Lincoln and said it was the second time he had been homeless this year. "It's down to drugs and coming out of jail. I got out of prison five weeks ago." Anthony sleeps in the doorway of House of Fraser with other homeless men. "I keep an eye on Daz and Jack. I like to be close to people and look after them," he said. "I get woken up about 7am by the staff at House of Fraser, pack my stuff, get breakfast, get my meth and go and sit under a bridge all day. "I've been on the streets for so long that I'm finding it hard even to go back inside. How sad is that? You'd rather be here on the streets than in jail." He asked people who passed a homeless person in the street to "just say hello". "You don't need to give them evils and walk round them just because they're homeless," he said. "It could happen to anyone just like that. I had everything at one point." Homelessness in England 'I'd like my own place' David, 28, said he first became homeless at 15 when his mum "kicked him out". He said he felt ignored on the streets of Birmingham 150 to 200 times a day. "If you were to sit down and talk to me for two minutes, that would mean more to me than if you turn around to say here's a £20 note," he said. "Things will turn back around, I know they will. Hopefully within the next year I'd like to be in my own place but failing that a decent job would go down well." David said he felt safe on the streets. "Because I've been in Birmingham a long time I know a lot of people so I know for a fact if I had any bother I could come into the city centre and I'd have some back up," he said.

आधिकारिक आंकड़ों के अनुसार, इंग्लैंड में 2010 के बाद से खराब नींद दोगुनी से अधिक हो गई है। लेकिन दुकान के दरवाजों में लेटे हुए पुरुष और महिलाएं वहाँ कैसे आते हैं और उनका जीवन कैसा होता है? यहाँ कुछ लोगों की कहानियाँ हैं जिनसे हम इंग्लैंड के शहरों में बाहर रहते हुए मिले थे।


Aberdeen council HQ sale 'could fund improvements'

Summary: Proceeds from the sale of Aberdeen City Council's former headquarters could be used to pay for some city centre improvements, it has been announced.

More than 1,000 council staff vacated St Nicholas House for the newly-refurbished Marischal College building. The 14-storey former HQ was erected in 1968 and is being demolished. Labour - senior partners on the ruling coalition - said it was also exploring using Common Good Fund money to fund improvements. Councillors voted to scrap the £140m City Garden Project plan to transform the historic Union Terrace Gardens last week.

एबरडीन सिटी काउंसिल के पूर्व मुख्यालय की बिक्री से प्राप्त आय का उपयोग शहर के केंद्र में कुछ सुधारों के लिए किया जा सकता है, यह घोषणा की गई है।


The German officer who tried to kill Hitler

Summary: On 20 July 1944, a 36-year-old German army officer, Col Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, arrived at a heavily guarded complex hidden in a forest in East Prussia. His mission was to kill Adolf Hitler.

By Alex LastBBC World Service The Wolfsschanze, or Wolf's Lair, was Hitler's secret headquarters on the Eastern Front. Stauffenberg was attending the daily briefing between the Fuhrer and Germany's high command - but in his briefcase, he carried a bomb. "We were standing around and Hitler came in, and then the conference began," recalled German army officer Gen Walter Warlimont in a BBC interview in 1967. "Suddenly the door opened again, and I happened to turn around, and I saw that a colonel came in... he made a very deep impression on me, because his right eye was covered by a black patch and one arm was amputated, and he stood there quite erect, and he seemed to me to be the picture of a classical soldier." "Hitler turned around and looked at him without any kind of benevolence and [Gen] Keitel introduced him." Stauffenberg was an aristocratic, Catholic, career army officer. "Everyone says my father was extremely good looking - dark hair, blue eyes, slightly wavy hair, tall. He was a very cheerful man, he used to laugh a lot and we thought he was absolutely wonderful," says his son, Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who's now 80 years old. In 1943, Stauffenberg was badly injured while serving in Tunisia - he'd lost an eye, his right hand, and two fingers from his left hand. "You know wounds were so commonplace at the time and having lost an arm, having lost an eye, was quite normal. It was really a relief that he was alive," says Berthold. Though not overtly political, Stauffenberg was a conservative and a nationalist. At times, he had supported Nazi policies, but as the war progressed, his opposition to the regime grew - he was horrified by German atrocities in the east and the realisation that Germany was losing the war. "He was disenchanted with Hitler's strategic capabilities and that really Hitler was a different type of person from what we thought acceptable," says Berthold. "I was a boy of 10, very interested in what was going on in the world. I was just about to become a little Nazi, like all of us. But we never discussed that with my father or my mother. If he had discussed politics with us he couldn't have shown his real feelings because it would have been too dangerous. Children give things away." As he recovered from his injuries, Stauffenberg was approached by a group of conspirators led by Gen Henning von Tresckow, who wanted to kill Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. Stauffenberg became a leading member of the plot. In the months that followed there were several abortive attempts to kill Hitler and there was a growing fear that the Gestapo was closing in on the conspirators. But in 1944, Stauffenberg became chief of staff for the commander of the German Replacement Army. The post gave him access to Hitler and an opportunity to carry out the assassination. The conspirators' plan was fraught with risk. Stauffenberg would carry explosives in his briefcase, through the security checks surrounding the Wolf's Lair, prime the bomb and place his briefcase near Hitler during the daily briefing. He would then make his excuses and leave the room. After the explosion, Stauffenberg would dash back to Berlin where the conspirators would use the Replacement Army to take control. "They were not sure they would succeed but Tresckow said the attack on Hitler must go on, if only to prove that not all Germans were his followers," says Berthold. But if the plot failed, it was not just the conspirators who would be at risk. "My mother always said she knew what was planned. She'd found out and confronted my father and so he told her. But she didn't know that he was to plant the bomb." "They knew the consequences, but in times of war, life is not as important as it is now in a peacetime environment. People die all the time and to sacrifice oneself seems to be an enormous thing, but in wartime it's different." On Thursday 20 July, Stauffenberg arrived at the Wolf's Lair - the briefing was set for 12:30. But he was interrupted as he tried to set the bomb, so he put only one of two explosive devices in his briefcase before he entered the meeting. "I remember that Stauffenberg had a big black briefcase under his good arm," said Warlimont in 1967. "But then I didn't look at him anymore, so I didn't see him putting it under the table, or leaving the room shortly afterwards. About five to 10 minutes passed - I had forgotten about him when the explosion happened." Stauffenberg saw the explosion as he left the compound to head back to Berlin. He was sure that Hitler was dead. But just before the explosion, Stauffenberg's briefcase had been moved behind a table leg away from Hitler. The bomb was not as powerful as intended and Hitler was leaning over the thick oak table looking at maps when it went off which shielded him from the blast. Four died in the explosion and many were injured, but Hitler survived. "When the bomb went off I just had this feeling that a big chandelier had fallen on my head. I went down. I saw Hitler was led out of the room, supported on the arm of Keitel and my first impression was that he was not injured at all, or at least not seriously," recalled Warlimont. When, hours later, it became clear the Fuhrer was still alive, the attempted takeover of Berlin fell apart. Stauffenberg and other leading conspirators were arrested at the War Office in Berlin and shot. At the time, Stauffenberg's pregnant wife, Nina, and their four children were staying at the family's estate in the Swabian hills. Berthold didn't know what was going on. "I heard reports on the radio, reports that an attempt on Hitler's life had taken place and something about a small clique of criminal and stupid officers. I was 10 years old and I read a newspaper every day, I wanted to know what was going on. The grown-ups tried to keep me away from the radio. Me and my brother were sent on a long walk with my great uncle, Count Uxkull, who told us a lot of things about his life hunting big deer in Africa." "It was actually the next day that my mother took me and my brother aside and told me that it was our father who'd laid the bomb. I said 'How, could he do it?' And she said, 'He believed he had to do this for Germany.'" "It was a total shock, I couldn't believe it. An attack on the Fuhrer! We were brought up in school and everywhere else, to believe that the Fuhrer was a wonderful man." That night the Gestapo came - Berthold's mother, grandmother and great uncle were among those arrested. Berthold and his siblings were sent to a children's home. "The reason why, was never discussed. We were given different names - there is a theory that these were the names of families where we would have been taken after the war, probably SS families." In the aftermath, thousands were arrested and executed for their alleged connection to the resistance. Berthold's mother was taken to a Gestapo prison at the Ravensbruck concentration camp. She was reunited with her children after the war - she never remarried. "For my mother there was my father and that was just it. He was the man of her life." Berthold went on to become a general in the West German army. He still lives in the family's home town. "For me there is no question that the plot has saved a little of the honour of Germany." Berthold von Stauffenberg spoke to Witness on the BBC World Service Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

20 जुलाई 1944 को, एक 36 वर्षीय जर्मन सेना अधिकारी, कर्नल क्लॉस शेंक ग्राफ वॉन स्टॉफ़ेनबर्ग, पूर्वी प्रशिया के एक जंगल में छिपे भारी सुरक्षा वाले परिसर में पहुंचे। उनका मिशन एडॉल्फ हिटलर को मारना था।


Body found on beach in search for missing Cheshire man

Summary: A body has been found on a beach near Aberdeen in a search for a missing man.

The discovery was made at Balmedie in Aberdeenshire at about 17:50 on Sunday. Formal identification is yet to take place, but the family of Alastair Done has been informed. The 25-year-old from Cheshire was last seen in the area on 5 January. Police had appealed for the operator of a drone to come forward as it may have captured footage of Mr Done. He had travelled to the area from Crewe train station the previous day.

एक लापता व्यक्ति की तलाश में एबरडीन के पास एक समुद्र तट पर एक शव मिला है।


Q&A: What are the legal implications for Prince Andrew?

Summary: A US woman has alleged she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17. The Duke of York categorically denies any wrongdoing but Ms Roberts's lawyers have sent him a letter asking him to respond under oath to the allegations.

By Clive ColemanLegal correspondent, BBC News Does the letter sent to Prince Andrew have any legal effect? No. The prince is not facing any legal proceedings. The claims were originally made as part of evidence relating to a wider case of an alleged sex trafficking scheme, involving US businessman Jeffrey Epstein. Could Prince Andrew be refused entry to the United States? This is theoretically possible but would be a decision for the US immigration authorities. I am told that they can refuse entry based on behaviour that falls short of a criminal offence - if it is tantamount to criminal conduct. The issue of refusing entry arose in the case of Nigella Lawson who admitted taking cocaine in a UK criminal trial. Prince Andrew has categorically denied the allegations of sexual abuse and so has denied any criminal offence. Could Prince Andrew be required to give evidence on oath in the Virginia Roberts case? There is longstanding mutual legal assistance between the UK and the US. It is a complex area of law but the idea is that our justice systems co-operate with each other. So, if there was a request from a US court - and it would probably have to be from the judge in the case - to have a UK citizen deposed on oath, the request goes to the UK Central Authority, which is an agency which works on behalf of the Home Secretary. There is a presumption of co-operation, ie that requests will be met. If the request is granted the person is summonsed to attend a court here and give their evidence on oath. The grounds for refusing such a request are limited. A request under mutual assistance could be another thing Virginia Roberts's legal team might consider. If Prince Andrew did travel to the US, could he be required to give evidence on oath while there? It would be much more difficult for him to resist in the US than for him to do so when he is outside US jurisdiction. In the US he would be under the jurisdiction of the court and could be issued with a summons/subpoena - which of course, he could challenge.

एक अमेरिकी महिला ने आरोप लगाया है कि उसे 17 साल की उम्र में प्रिंस एंड्रयू के साथ यौन संबंध बनाने के लिए मजबूर किया गया था। ड्यूक ऑफ यॉर्क ने किसी भी गलत काम से स्पष्ट रूप से इनकार किया है, लेकिन सुश्री रॉबर्ट्स के वकीलों ने उसे एक पत्र भेजा है जिसमें उनसे आरोपों का जवाब देने के लिए कहा गया है।


BGT dancer, 15, thanks Simon Cowell for paying for back surgery

Summary: A 15-year-old dancer who appeared in the final of Britain's Got Talent has thanked Simon Cowell for paying for two life-changing operations on her back.

Julia Carlile, who is part of the dance troupe MerseyGirls, has scoliosis, a back condition where the spine is curved to one side. Cowell appeared to offer her financial help when he said: "Whatever happens, we'll make sure you're all right." She said she has now had two successful operations in the United States. Julia, of West Kirby, Merseyside wrote on Twitter: "Second surgery was a success! Now on the road to recovery. Thankyou @SimonCowell @CowellOnline #strong #recovery #fighter" MerseyGirls were Alesha Dixon's golden buzzer act, which meant that they went straight through to the semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent. They then made it through to the final, in which they came ninth.

ब्रिटेन गॉट टैलेंट के फाइनल में भाग लेने वाली एक 15 वर्षीय नर्तकी ने अपनी पीठ पर दो जीवन बदलने वाले ऑपरेशन के लिए साइमन कॉवेल को धन्यवाद दिया है।


Urinating man causes injuries on Berlin boat

Summary: A man urinating off a bridge in Berlin has caused a number of injuries, according to the Berlin Fire Department.

The unidentified man urinated from the low lying Jannowitz Bridge onto a tourist boat on Friday evening. A number of people on board the boat jumped up in surprise, hitting their heads as the boat passed under the bridge. Four people were taken to hospital by ambulance with head lacerations. It is not known if the man was fined or arrested. The man's actions were criticised on social media. One person wrote on Twitter: "The animals in the zoo behave better."

बर्लिन अग्निशमन विभाग के अनुसार, बर्लिन में एक पुल से पेशाब करने वाले एक व्यक्ति को कई चोटें आई हैं।


Facebook 'bully' explains actions

Summary: Earlier this year 18-year-old Keeley Houghton became the first person in Britain to be locked up for internet bullying.

By Jim ReedNewsbeat reporter She spent six weeks in the young offenders' wing of Eastwood Park prison after posting a threatening message about another girl on her own Facebook profile. Part of the message read: "Keeley is going to murder the bitch." It also included other obscene language. During sentencing, the judge took into account Keeley's two previous convictions for assault and criminal damage towards the same girl. Under the conditions of her release, Keeley is not allowed on Facebook or other social networking sites until the new year. She spoke to Newsbeat's Jim Reed.

इस साल की शुरुआत में 18 वर्षीय कीली ह्यूटन ब्रिटेन में इंटरनेट बदमाशी के लिए बंद किए जाने वाले पहले व्यक्ति बने।


Sweet success: Unravelling the Jelly Baby's dark past

Summary: The humble jelly baby has been giving fans a sugary thrill for generations, but the apparently innocuous treat harbours a somewhat dark and mysterious past. BBC News takes a look at its journey from a Lancashire sweet factory to mass-produced giant of the confectionery world.

By Lauren PottsBBC News As you pinch the last Jelly Baby out of the bag and sink your teeth into its plump little body, have you ever stopped to wonder if there's a method to your mastication madness? Do you, for instance, nibble away at its arms and legs until you are left with a helpless torso? Or are you the ruthless type that goes straight for the kill and chops off its head, Henry VIII-style? The process by which you eat these innocent-sounding sweets has probably never occurred to you, least of all struck you as bordering on the macabre. But this act of pseudo-cannibalism isn't the only disturbing chapter in the history of the much-loved jelly baby. Confectionery historians believe the earliest jelly baby was the work of an Austrian confectioner who worked for Fryers of Lancashire. It is thought that in 1864 he was asked to make a mould for jelly bears, but the resulting sweets looked more like newborn infants and were subsequently given the ghoulish name, Unclaimed Babies. Tim Richardson, author of Sweets: A History Of Temptation, said although the name might sound ghastly to modern ears, sweet-eaters in the Victorian era would barely have batted an eyelid. "Unclaimed babies were a part of life back then - people would leave them on church steps and it's possible that people even found the name amusing," he said. "The sweets were sold loose and the jars they were in wouldn't have been labelled [or] branded, so people would have said, 'Can I have some of those jellied babies?'. "It is an example of one the most down-to-earth, mass-produced sweets which came along in the 19th Century." There are a number of references in newspapers and adverts at the time that corroborate the theory behind the odd name. An article that appeared in the Nelson Ledger in 1924 makes mention of Unclaimed Babies, albeit using language that would be considered shocking by today's standards, while another in the Burnley Express refers to it as the sweet in the "greatest demand". Confectioners' advertisements from the late Victorian era also list various baby-shaped candies as "dollies", "totties", and in at least one case, "unclaimed babies", said Glyn Hughes, editor of the Foods of England website. "It looks as if jelly babies can be traced to the 1880s and Unclaimed Babies seem to be well known and associated with the Burnley area, so probably made by Thomas Fryer's of Nelson," he said. "In 1885 for instance, Riches Confectionery of Duke St, London Bridge, were advertising a variety of baby-sweets including 'jelly babies'. "They were described as 'already dressed' and at the high price of a farthing each, they must have been quite large." The Unclaimed Babies name was relatively short-lived and petered out when Bassett's of Sheffield began producing the novelty-shaped candy in 1918. Archivists at Mondelez Ltd, which took over Cadbury in 2009, believe the sweets were rebranded as Peace Babies to mark the end of World War One, though the story has proved difficult to corroborate. A shortage of raw materials halted production during World War Two - perhaps a fitting hiatus given the irony of their supposed name - and it wasn't until 1953 when they were relaunched as Jelly Babies that their popularity really took off. In the decades that followed, the sweets became a household name, helped possibly in part by an off-the-cuff remark reportedly made by George Harrison of The Beatles that they were his favourite sugary treat. Fans of the band are thought to have pelted the mop-tops with the gummy sweets on at least one occasion at a concert in Cardiff. Tom Baker's Doctor Who also played a part in giving them pop culture kudos with his sweet-toothed obsession for the jellied sweet, which he often dished out to help defuse tricky situations. It would be another 40 years before the Jelly Baby was treated to yet another makeover, when Bassett's was taken over by Cadbury-Schweppes in 1989. This ushered in a new era for the sweet, which saw each baby given a name and their personalities brought to life at the hands of a team of animators. Brilliant, Bubbles, Baby Bonny, Bigheart and Bumper entered the world of music and television when they appeared in two commercials produced in the 1990s. Sketches and other creations by one of the artists, Bob Godfrey, feature in an archive of his work at the University of the Creative Arts. Rebekah Taylor, from the archive, said: "It's incredible to see the work that goes into that kind of material, seeing the mind in motion and everything you have to consider, like the colours. "You're creating things you don't necessarily think about when you're picking it up and eating it, so it's fascinating." Though their marketing campaign has certainly changed over the years, the fundamental characteristics of the Jelly Baby have stayed the same for more than a century. Perhaps the secret to its sweet success lies somewhere between novelty and nostalgia. "If you bite the head off a Jelly Baby it makes you like this giant, like a cannibal," said Mr Richardson. "Others like to suck the Jelly Baby whole, so your mouth turns into an acid bath, some like to nibble around the outside, eating the arms and the legs. "It's grotesque, but it allows you to regress and do things you wouldn't do in real life. It's sort of the fun of sweets, it's one of the few things you eat where it's acceptable to play with your food."

विनम्र जेली बेबी पीढ़ियों से प्रशंसकों को एक मीठा रोमांच दे रहा है, लेकिन जाहिरा तौर पर हानिरहित दावत कुछ हद तक काले और रहस्यमय अतीत को आश्रय देती है। बीबीसी न्यूज़ लंकाशायर मिठाई कारखाने से कन्फेक्शनरी दुनिया के बड़े पैमाने पर उत्पादित दिग्गज तक की अपनी यात्रा पर एक नज़र डालता है।


Mid-East: Will there be a domino effect?

Summary: The Arab world has been transfixed by the recent dramatic events in Egypt and Tunisia. Popular street protests have swept across Egypt just days after similar protests saw Tunisia's President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali flee his country. Could a domino effect sweep more leaders from power as it did around Eastern Europe in 1989?

Egypt Rocked by more than a week of protests, Egypt's reputation for strength and stability has been swept away. Open defiance of the authorities and calls for President Hosni Mubarak to stand down forced a pledge from him to step aside at elections due later this year. However, he has resisted calls for him to go now and while the protests have continued, it is not clear who will prevail. As in Tunisia, Egyptians face tough economic conditions, official corruption and little opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the political system. On 25 January, protesters called for a day of a "day of revolt" that drew thousands to central Cairo and other cities across Egypt in numbers not seen since the bread riots of the 1970s. The police response, using water cannon and rubber bullets, backfired. In the days of violent clashes that followed, some 300 people have died and hundreds more injured. Many analysts say the strength of the protests means that real change in Egypt is now inevitable, but what that change will be is uncertain. The US has called for an "orderly transition" to a more democratic system. Western powers fear that a power vacuum and the resulting chaos might allow armed Islamist groups to thrive. In any free and fair election, the Islamist and conservative Muslim Brotherhood would be expected to do well. But questions remain as to whether it can reconcile its aim of creating a state ruled by Islamic law with democratic principles. And, if in government, how would it change Egypt's relations with the US and Israel? Yemen Following several days of protest, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced on 2 February that, after three decades in power, he would not seek another term in office. He also told parliament that he would not hand over power to his son, saying: "No extension, no inheritance, no resetting the clock." His concessions came a day before planned mass opposition rallies across the country. Mr Saleh called on opposition groups to end their protests, but activists rejected his pleas and say they will go ahead with a so-called day of rage. Unrest has grown since Tunisia's revolt in January. On 27 January, tens of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated in the capital Sanaa calling on him to quit. Mr Saleh attempted to head off unrest on 23 January by ordering a 50% cut in income tax and control of basic commodity prices. The government also released 36 people jailed for participating in the unrest, including the prominent human rights activist, Tawakul Karman. At the same time, the president increased the salaries of state employees and armed forces personnel - a step apparently meant to ensure their loyalty. Yemen is the Arab world's most impoverished nation, where nearly half of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Algeria As the winter protests escalated in Tunisia, its western neighbour also saw large numbers of young people taking to the streets. As in Tunisia, the trigger appeared to be economic grievances - in particular sharp increases in the price of food. A state of emergency has been in place in Algeria since 1992, and public demonstrations in the capital are banned. Regular protests have occurred elsewhere in the country, but in recent weeks these broke out simultaneously across Algeria for the first time, including in the capital, Algiers. Protests have not escalated in the same way as in Tunisia however. Analysts say the relatively restrained response of the security forces, as well as the government's intervention to limit price rises has kept things calmer. Algeria's government has considerable wealth from its oil and gas exports and is trying to tackle social and economic complaints with a huge public spending programme. But grievances remain, including anger over unemployment, corruption, bureaucracy, and a lack of political reform. Algeria's tumultuous recent history stands in stark contrast to Tunisia's. In the 1990s Algerian politics was dominated by the struggle involving the military and Islamist militants. In 1992 a general election won by an Islamist party was annulled, heralding a bloody civil war in which more than 150,000 people were slaughtered. Syria Syrian President Bashar al-Assad inherited power in 2000, after three decades of rule by his father, Hafez al-Assad. In January, he told the Wall Street Journal that Syria was more stable than Tunisia and Egypt and that there was no chance of a political upheaval. However, some Syrian activists have turned to Facebook, calling for a "day of rage" on Saturday. Although the site is officially blocked, people routinely get around the restrictions. The activists are calling for peaceful protests against Syria's "monarchy, corruption and tyranny". Like Egypt, Syria is ruled through emergency law and suffers from high poverty and unemployment. Since taking over from his father 11 years ago, President Assad has slowly opened up the economy, but political and personal freedoms are severely curtailed. There are thousands of political prisoners in Syrian jails, and major opposition groups are banned. The administration also blocks access to several internet sites and maintains a tight control on the media. And in a country where the Baath party has ruled for almost half a century, critics say cronyism and corruption are rife. Libya After 41 years in power, Col Muammar Gaddafi is the longest serving ruler in Africa and the Middle East, and also one of the most autocratic. Reacting to the overthrow of Tunisia's President Ben Ali, he said: "There is none better than Zine to govern Tunisia. Tunisia now lives in fear." Protest of any kind in Libya is strictly prohibited, but there have been reports of unrest in the city of al-Bayda. The government also recently announced increased spending on public housing in a bid to head off growing disquiet. Jordan In the wake of large protests across the country, King Abdullah dismissed his government on 1 February and ordered new Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit to carry out political reforms. Like other states in the region, there is anger against poverty and unemployment, and protesters have demanded that the prime minister be directly elected. Jordan's powerful Islamic opposition movement, the Islamist Action Front (IAF), said it was not seeking to oust King Abdullah but added it did not welcome Mr Bakhit's appointment. Jordan is run by its royal family and some sections of society are loyal to the monarchy. King Abdullah himself appears so far to have escaped most of the wrath of the protesters. Morocco Like Tunisia, Morocco has been facing economic problems and allegations of corruption in ruling circles. Morocco's reputation was damaged after Wikileaks revealed allegations of increased corruption, in particular the royal family's business affairs and the "appalling greed" of people close to King Mohammed VI. Wikileaks cables from the US embassy in Tunis had cited similar problems in President Ben Ali's inner circle. But Morocco, like Egypt and Algeria, does allow limited freedom of expression and has so far been able to contain protests. Like Jordan it is a monarchy with strong support among sections of the public.

अरब दुनिया मिस्र और ट्यूनीशिया में हाल की नाटकीय घटनाओं से बदल गई है। ट्यूनीशिया के राष्ट्रपति ज़ीन अल-अबिदीन बेन अली को अपने देश से भागते हुए देखने के कुछ ही दिनों बाद मिस्र में लोकप्रिय सड़क विरोध प्रदर्शन हुए हैं। क्या एक डोमिनोज़ प्रभाव अधिक नेताओं को सत्ता से हटा सकता है जैसा कि उसने 1989 में पूर्वी यूरोप में किया था?


Mother's Day: From hero to 'beg-friend'

Summary: It's a shock to many parents - that moment when their teenage children fall out of love with them. How do you move on from that kind of rejection? Sue Elliott-Nicholls is finding it hard this Mother's Day.

I was shooting the breeze with a group of bright lovely 15-somethings in the park. Some of them I've known since they were grubby lolly-stained little cherubs with unbrushed hair, tearing around the playground before running back to us, their mums, for love and approval. Now they sit in the sunshine, well-groomed and gorgeous, flicking that once-messy hair. "So, you know how much you used to worship your mum?" I ask Eve. "Yeah?" "What happened?" "She grew old," says Eve. And there it is. That moment when you get shoved off the pedestal by your cruel uncaring teens is the most heartbreaking moment of parenthood. For me it was far worse than the leaving home thing. You expect the leaving home thing - when my eldest son left home, it felt right. But no-one prepares you for the moment you go from being the dramatic lead to the comedy cameo role in the second act. One day they're pleading with you to spare them five minutes of your precious time to build a Lego space ship ("OK, in a minute, in a minute, in a MINUTE! Mummy's busy darling, sorry.") The next, you're being called a "beg-friend". I hear them calling other mothers that, so I ask them: "What's a 'beg-friend'?" "A friend who (like) begs for your attention, who wants to hang around with you, but you don't really want to hang around with, and (like) spends all their money on you, just for your friendship," explains Eve. "What a horribly cruel heartless thing to say," I say, shocked. Eve shrugs, casting an uncaring sideways glance to her friends (the ones who don't need to beg). That is what we parents of teens have been reduced to - rejected, abandoned, irrelevant. I call my pals to check it's not just me. It's not. "I see him looking at me with pure hate," says Georgia, whose youngest son is 15. "If I try and kiss his cheek, he flinches." That's harsh. "It's like not being picked for the sports team any more," says Jude's mother, Mary Cate. "I'm really at the bottom of the list now." We despair at the way they all scuttle off to their smelly untidy bedrooms, which they now seem to prefer to the warm comfort of the family living room. "Not only are they alone in their rooms, they also have headphones on - another barrier," wails Christina, whose children rarely speak to her these days. Teenagers can still talk and be charming though - as long as they're with their friends. I hear them laughing hysterically and spend a few minutes standing behind the living room door, listening to the cruel banter they do so well. Then I walk in to say hello - and the room falls silent. The atmosphere is so awkward I feel my insides curdle. "Hi guys!" I say, my voice a touch too bright. "H'low." "Gmphhtf." I slither out, defeated. Christina used to chat to Fin's friend when he came over, until Fin told her to cut it out. "Please mum, he's not here to talk to YOU," he said. So rude! We would not take that kind of talk from anybody else, and yet, we take it. I ask the teenagers what the correct protocol is then, when addressing their precious friends? "I mean," I gush. "If I just ignored you when you came round wouldn't you think I was rude? Wouldn't you get a bit paranoid and worry that I didn't like you?" "Yeah, well you don't need to be rude," says Joel, looking shocked. "A polite 'Hi' - and that's it." "Hmm, it's probably less embarrassing for your kids if you just don't speak," says Nicole pointedly. OK, so play it cool. Be very, very careful, and try not to get too excited when they occasionally come over for a chat. It's best to control yourself, but it's hard. "If one of them starts talking, I overdo it with my questions and then I ruin it again," says my friend Christina. "I have to learn to keep quiet and nod, not shriek." I have in the past jumped up in delight when addressed, like a grotesque pantomime dame, only to have them look at me, lip curled in horror, as if I were something they just stepped in. These same kids who once looked at me as if I were a goddess. I can't bear to see toddlers looking into their mothers eyes any more. Sheer, unadulterated love - that was how it used to be. Now I feel like a needy ex, who can't let go, can't take the hint. "I'm not going to ignore my kids though, I tell the judgmental teen committee," (which includes one of my own, Spencer). "I'm not going to throw their dinner down and storm off, even though it's what I might feel like doing." They look horrified. "No, because we still want to feel loved," says Joel. "Just not give love in return." "Yeah, it's when they get too clingy," adds Nicole. "It's moderation - a 10-minute conversation, and then it's over," advises Joel. Ten minutes a day? I could do that. The teenagers agree, they could manage 10 minutes too. Wow, we're getting somewhere. I'm encouraged - maybe I'm missing my calling as a family therapist. You may also like: "What about TV?" I ask. A box set can be a bonding experience, according to my fellow victims/parents. Stranger Things has been the saviour of many a family unit. It might be a temporary fix, but hey, better than nothing. "Yeah my mum watches Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," says Nicole. "Don't blame her actually, 'cos I watch it as well - with her." Joel's mum loves A Place In The Sun. "Actually I quite like that too," he confesses. We're getting on swimmingly now, bonding over tacky TV. It's funny, when I was young, TV was being blamed for the break-up of the family and now we all agree that it's the lifebelt that's saving us all from drowning. A friend once told me that when teenagers look miserable it doesn't actually mean they're unhappy. I'm not sure that's true because they certainly look happy when they're with their friends, and that's when I want to be their mate too. But I guess I'll never be the B.F.F. again. Instead I'll just have to resign myself to being the B.E.G. We gave the teenagers a right to reply: "Mum, half the time we are in the house you're moaning or shouting at us because we aren't living up to your perfect image or you want us to help around the home that we are never supposedly in." Spencer, 16 - still watches First Dates with Sue "Mums, remember how you were at this age: too busy scraping decent exam results, dating unserious candidates and attempting to gain the all-important Street Cred Points. Don't fret, just remember 'cool' is subjective - enjoy your ancient music and boogie over your dead musicians." Nicole, 16 - bonds with her mum over The Apprentice "When my mum tells me stories of her hippy parents leaving her in tents and allowing her to swim up the Thames while they drank in the pub, I can understand why she's such a stress-head. But I don't think I've ever gone out without her knowing my every move." Eve, 17 - Mum-friendly shows: Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity "Ahhh mum, I can see where you're coming from, but at that age, you think you're so cool that you're almost offended by the fact that someone so uncool would even attempt to try and talk to you. I don't really think the problem goes away until you're about 19 and you realise that actually, you're not that cool anyway." Morgan, 22 - Sue's other son. Listen to Woman's Hour: How to cope when your child no longer wants to spend time with you Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter

यह कई माता-पिता के लिए एक सदमा है-वह क्षण जब उनके किशोर बच्चे उनके प्यार में पड़ जाते हैं। आप इस तरह की अस्वीकृति से कैसे आगे बढ़ते हैं? सू इलियट-निकोल्स को इस मदर्स डे पर मुश्किल हो रही है।


Smash and Angel Delight: 'The mixer that helped my family through hard times'

Summary: An ageing mixer reminds the writer Rebecca Stott of a period of adversity for her family in the 1970s, and the way her mother gritted her teeth and got them through it. Will today's children one day look back at the difficulties of the Covid era, she wonders, and remember someone who did the same?

A few weeks ago my mother, now 86, announced that it was time to let the Kenwood Mixer go. She couldn't remember the last time she'd used it, she said. Nor could I. She had tried to get it out of the cupboard, she told me, but it was too heavy for her to move now, with the arthritis in her hands and back. I wrestled it out and up on to the sideboard. There it was: our 1962 701-model Kenwood Major, navy blue and white, rusty at the base, its stainless-steel bowl a little dented in places but still gleaming, still ready for action. She and I stood side-by-side in the tiny family kitchen looking at it in silence for a while. Then she said: "I don't know how we managed." Just that: "I don't know how we managed." Back in 1976 our family ran into trouble. My father walked out, leaving my mother with five children to raise and no job. I was 12 in 1976, my brothers 13 and 10. The twins were five. We'd had ten years of relative affluence as a family by then - nice cars, good clothes, holidays, two of my brothers had started at private schools - but now we were up to our eyes in debt. My father had got himself caught in the talons of a gambling addiction. My mother knew about some of my father's debts when he left that day in 1976, but she wouldn't see the full extraordinary scale of it until he ended up in prison for forgery and embezzlement five years later. My mother did the maths and made a plan. Within weeks she'd sold the too-expensive family home and bought a terraced house near the sea in Hove, just big enough for her to take in three paying language students. We children took the two attic rooms, girls in one side, boys in the other. The language students, young people from all over Europe, took the others. Knowing that the income from the students wasn't going to be enough to keep us all fed and my brothers at their schools, she took on three part-time jobs in accountancy and book-keeping as well. There were breathtaking logistical problems in this plan of hers. Working away from home nine to five and often on the road, she also had to cook a supper for nine people seven days a week, change sheets and towels for each new guest arrival and make sure we were safe and keeping up with our schoolwork. She didn't get home from work until after 5pm. Dinner had to be on the table at 6pm. There were no relatives or friends to step in, and she'd have been too proud and private or just too busy to ask for help anyway, so at 12 years old I became my mother's enthusiastic helper. And this is where the Kenwood mixer came into its own. The secret of feeding a large household with no time on a really tight budget, she taught me, was convenience food purchased in industrial quantities from the local Cash and Carry. It was mostly powdered. And thankfully there was plenty of powdered convenience food available in the late 1970s. I'd get home from school half an hour before her and get the oven on and deal with any impromptu visits from the bailiffs who'd turn up from time to time looking for my father. Usually there was a meal plan on the sideboard. Sometimes there wasn't. Some nights I'd have to improvise. Every night we'd pour cups of Smash powdered potato into the stainless-steel bowl of the Kenwood and add boiling water straight from the kettle. Sometimes there was butter to mix in, usually margarine from a huge tub. We used the ice-cream scoop to make mounds on a baking tray, piled on some grated cheese and grilled them. At least once a week we made what my mother called concoctions: these were layers of leftovers, made in two huge pyrex dishes, sometimes interlayered with a catering tin of baked beans, the whole lot topped with more Smash, some grated cheese and shoved in the oven. Occasionally we made spam fritters, on birthdays and other special occasions spaghetti bolognese. For pudding there'd be Angel Delight mixed up and refrigerated the night before, or some kind of jelly with tinned fruit, occasionally a sponge mix poured over tinned peaches. None of the food we cooked bore much relation to the glamorous, manicured technicolour food in the Kenwood manual. And we certainly didn't look very much like the well-groomed smiling mothers and daughters in those pages either. And of course I wasn't always a compliant, helpful daughter. Teenage roaming with my friends in Brighton after school, or hanging out on the pier, or in their houses listening to Bowie or Neil Young, became a new kind of sweetness. I'd give my mother excuses at first, and then later, plenty of "lip", as she'd call it. But, for a while at least, my mother, the Kenwood and I were in it together. I don't think I ever heard my mother say "Keep calm and carry on" but she had plenty of similar phrases, like "Don't make a palaver," or "Where's your backbone?", "Buck up," and "Put some welly into it." She'd most likely learnt those phrases from the women who raised her: my grandmother, who had got herself up at dawn every day to blacken the grate, turn the mangle, beat the carpets, bake and polish through the war years, and from Auntie Nelly who had been the housekeeper at the local manor house. I have never had a professional training course since those years, not in time management or people management or in leadership, that taught me as much as the apprenticeship my mother gave me in the late 1970s. So now I am driving up the A23 back from Brighton to my home in Norwich, the 701-model Kenwood Major, first produced in 1962, strapped into the passenger seat. The K beater, the whisk and the dough hook are rattling around in the bowl, and I am tasting butterscotch Angel Delight on my lips. The sweet powder always clouded the air over the bowl before the milk released its lurid colours. And I'm thinking: "Well those years weren't so bad." Once dinner was ready, I'd ring the little bell she'd rigged up in the hall. Now I can hear my siblings and the foreign students thundering down the stairs, just as they used to do. I can see my mother passing round the plates asking the questions she'd ask our guests most nights: "What did you see from the bus today?" or "What did they teach you at school today?" My little sister is rolling her eyes. "They're supposed to have daily conversation practice," I can hear my mother hiss. "So give them conversation practice." Most nights we put on a good show. And it wasn't always a grind either. On Sundays she'd bundle us all in the car for an outing to keep our spirits up, and presumably also her own. We'd play the Left-Right game, a game she'd made up. At each crossroad, each of us took a turn to decide whether to turn Left or Right. We could also choose to stop and get out sometimes. That game taught us all that taking a chance, abandoning the plan, would sometimes yield unexpected pleasures. I remember a forest thick with pine cones, following a path through a field of poppies and finding an abandoned railway station littered with the sodden pages of pornographic magazines. She did not allow us to linger for long there. I never saw my mother curse or cry or throw anything, but her teeth were often gritted. I'd sometimes find her at the kitchen table late at night hunched over piles of bills or making her way through another section of the endless mending pile. If she was angry at her lot, she had learnt not to show it. I'm thinking now of that striking confession that Marmee makes in Little Women: "I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo; I have learned not to show it and I still hope not to feel it, though it might take me another 40 years to do so." Some days my mother just let the hoover or the Kenwood do her roaring for her. When we all look back together at the chaos and worry of these Covid days, when we ask, "How did we manage?" - living in the grip of worry about jobs, futures, the health of our old people, exams, home-schooling, paying the bills - my guess is that we'll all remember someone who gritted their teeth, made a plan, and managed. You may also be interested in: When her oldest daughter left home, Audie had to go part-time in order to be there for her two younger children after school. Previously, she'd made ends meet by working long and unsociable hours. Now she was sinking into debt - and at first there didn't appear to be a solution. 'Until I met my debt mentor, I couldn't always feed my kids'

एक उम्र बढ़ने का मिश्रण लेखक रेबेका स्टॉट को 1970 के दशक में अपने परिवार के लिए प्रतिकूल समय की याद दिलाता है, और जिस तरह से उनकी माँ ने अपने दांतों को कसकर ठीक किया था। क्या आज के बच्चे एक दिन कोविड युग की कठिनाइयों को पीछे मुड़कर देखेंगे, उन्हें आश्चर्य होता है, और किसी ऐसे व्यक्ति को याद करेंगे जिसने ऐसा ही किया था?


Ripples spread from discovery of gravitational waves

Summary: Three months ago scientists announced they had discovered evidence for the existence of gravitational waves. Ripples in the very fabric of our reality that nicely proved something Einstein suggested a century ago and also gave us an entirely new way to study the universe.

David Gregory-KumarScience, Environment & Rural Affairs Correspondent These big physics discoveries always involve huge teams of researchers from right across the planet, but the University of Birmingham has a key role, both in building the detector itself and in analysing the data it produces. So now the scientific dust has settled I spent some time with the researchers at the university to get the behind-the-scenes story of the discovery and to ask them what they plan to do next. The LIGO experiment The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory or (LIGO for short) is based in America. It's actually two massive experiments, one in Hanford, Washington and another in Livingston in Louisiana. You need a lot of space for this experiment as you'll be bouncing lasers up and down pipes four kilometres long. And you also need to put the experiment as far away from noise and general vibration as possible. Gravitational waves are so small and so hard to detect that the vibration of waves on a distant shore is enough to mess up the measurements. So LIGO was built in pretty remote areas. LIGO works using a very special laser beam which you split it in two and send each bit down two four-kilometre pipes which are at right angles to each other. At the end of each pipe is a mirror which bounces the laser straight back down the pipe. The two beams are then recombined and should in theory cancel each other out. But if any gravitational waves have passed through the experiment, the distance the beams travel in their pipes will no longer be the same. Reality has been wobbled by the gravitational wave itself. And so when you recombine the laser beams this difference shows up as a pattern. The world's best ruler But the waves are so small, so quiet relative to all the other potential sources of noise, that we've spent half a century getting to the point where we can even build this experiment. LIGO needs to detect a change that's equal to a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a meter, or one one-thousandth the diameter of a proton. LIGO scientists say it is the most precise measuring device ever built. So you can imagine how vital it is to make sure LIGO doesn't pick up any other disturbance. From people walking nearby to the Brownian motion of the surface of the mirrors themselves. Along with other UK universities, it was Birmingham that helped create a system to hold the mirrors at the end of the tunnels so they could reflect the laser beams without adding any noise to the system. It's an extraordinary achievement involving wires made of glass and an amazing pendulum arrangement. LIGO wasn't officially switched on yet But all this is really new. In fact they hadn't officially turned LIGO on, they were just conducting an engineering check, when they detected what appeared to be a perfect gravity wave. So perfect in fact all the scientists (including those heavily involved in the analysis in Birmingham) suspected it wasn't a real signal but a fake. Often those in charge will introduce fake signals to an experiment like this to make sure the experiment and the scientists are all working perfectly. Can you imagine the emails and phone calls as it became apparent what was really going on? That this was the real thing! A real gravitational wave signal produced by the universe and not a test at all. The gravitational wave signal itself came from an event we had never even seen before. It was created by two black holes, locked in a death spiral, that collapsed into each other and in split second generated more energy than all the stars in all the galaxies in the universe. But the gravitational wave we detected from all that lasted less than half a second. Just as predicted, LIGO saw a brief little "chirp". Search on social media for "Chirp for LIGO" and you can find plenty of scientists making this happy this little noise as a celebration of the discovery. "Chirp" for LIGO The graphs show real data from the experiment. At the top you can see just how noisy this data is, you really can't see any signal. But then automated systems kick in to say there is something there and the humans take over. Zooming in to that split second where the signal, the "chirp", is revealed. That's what you can see as a yellow line in the bottom plot. That's then tidied up even more. There's still plenty to do. Most of the data from that first experiment hasn't even been published yet; that's coming in the next few days. Then LIGO itself will be tweaked and optimised to become even more sensitive before it starts its next data run in the summer. Then a 10-year programme of improvements and more LIGO detectors all over the world. Because this result gives us an entirely new way to look at the universe and if we build more detectors, we can start to reveal much more about what is going on. It's the dawn of a new age of astronomy and scientists at the University of Birmingham are at the heart of it.

तीन महीने पहले वैज्ञानिकों ने घोषणा की कि उन्होंने गुरुत्वाकर्षण तरंगों के अस्तित्व के लिए सबूत खोजे हैं। हमारी वास्तविकता के ताने-बाने में लहरें जो एक सदी पहले आइंस्टीन द्वारा सुझाए गए कुछ को अच्छी तरह से साबित करती हैं और हमें ब्रह्मांड का अध्ययन करने का एक पूरी तरह से नया तरीका भी देती हैं।


Beachy Head rocks walkers rescued by lifeboat

Summary: Four walkers had to be rescued by lifeboat after becoming trapped at the foot of cliffs in East Sussex by the rising tide.

The group set out from Birling Gap on Monday to walk along the beach to Holywell at Eastbourne but were cut off just east of Beachy Head lighthouse. Dover Coastguard was alerted by the crew of a passing yacht who spotted them trying to climb rocks to escape. Eastbourne lifeboat rescued the walkers and returned them to Birling Gap.

पूर्वी ससेक्स में बढ़ते ज्वार से चट्टानों की तलहटी में फंसने के बाद पैदल चलने वाले चार लोगों को लाइफबोट से बचाना पड़ा।


Coronavirus doctor's diary: The fake news about schools that's misleading parents

Summary: Just as children are about to return to school, a video in Urdu has been widely shared in Bradford, and possibly elsewhere, falsely claiming that sick pupils could be removed from their families without parental consent. Dr John Wright of Bradford Royal Infirmary is joining efforts to debunk the idea - and says the reopening of schools is important for children, and parents.

This week the schools are going back and everyone is nervous. We have grown accustomed to home working and social distancing, so the idea of hundreds of thousands of children and young people suddenly coming together in confined environments for long periods of time is hard to comprehend - a throwback to the pre-Covid-19 era. From the start, Covid-19 created fertile ground for the spread of fake news, as I wrote in April. The ban on hospital visiting at the peak of the pandemic led to a disconnect between patients and staff and relatives. We struggled to counter the rumours in different communities that we were harming patients or that coronavirus was a cunning attempt by the Home Office to lure in people to repatriate them. We had sick patients who refused to be admitted for fear of what we were going to do to them. Now the anxiety about returning to school has caused a new round of false rumours. This time the claim is that if children fall sick they will be removed from their families and taken into care. Head teachers, school governors and parents who have heard the story have approached Bradford City Council seeking reassurance that it isn't true. I myself was contacted by the chair of governors of a local school, who told me that despite her efforts to dispel the rumours she was "concerned that accurate information may not be getting through". Front line diary Prof John Wright, a doctor and epidemiologist, is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and a veteran of cholera, HIV and Ebola epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. He is writing this diary for BBC News and recording from the hospital wards for BBC Radio. In an attempt to understand why people are falling for the conspiracy theories, my colleague, consultant anaesthetist Fozia Hayat, spoke to one father of three, Arshid Siddique, who told her he disbelieved a lot of what he had been told about Covid-19. He accepted that Covid-19 existed, but didn't believe people had died from it. "They've committed suicide and Covid-19 has been written on the death certificates," he said. "Doctors are being paid to put Covid-19 down for anyone who dies in the hospital." This is a myth that Fozia and I have heard many times. Arshid said the video of a woman warning that children could be quarantined by the state and not allowed home had been sent to his wife, and that they believed her, so would not be sending their children back to school. The speaker, whom he described as "a very well-spoken lady", says she is a tabeeba, an Urdu word for doctor, and uses the title "doctor" in English, though her website describes her as "a qualified practitioner of prophetic medicine". She clearly doesn't have a degree in medical science and isn't a doctor in the usual sense of the word. So why did Arshid believe this person who had popped up on social media, while rejecting information from the government and the NHS? "The government isn't telling the truth and everyone in power keeps changing their minds," he replied. "First there's no Covid for kids and then there is, and then it's no masks for kids and now that's changing. "No-one believes the officials. People aren't telling the truth in government. There was that Dominic whatever-it-is and he got caught red-handed. So if it's real, and if it's dangerous, and if it's life-threatening, then why are these people acting like this?" I've heard other reasons for scepticism, too. The additional lockdown restrictions in West Yorkshire and Manchester were announced with poor timing on the evening before Eid al-Adha, when the food had already been prepared. And the contrast of being able to visit the pub but not your own family comes across to some as insensitive and unfair. There has been a loss of trust in authority, which makes people more receptive to fake news. West Bradford MP Naz Shah, who says people started questioning her about the video a few days ago, says it's always a difficult decision to debunk fake news, because by doing so you give it the oxygen of publicity. But Bradford City Council clearly thinks the story has already spread so far that it needs tackling head on. Education safeguarding officer Shaqib Juneja and deputy leader Imran Khan have recorded videos assuring people that there is no truth in the story, and that if children are unwell parents will be asked to take them home. Allotment bubble Zahabia Naveed, 15, is nervous about going back to school for another reason. During lockdown she has been learning how to grow vegetables from 73-year-old Alan Wainwright, and wants to continue after the start of term. Alan has only had contact with two other people throughout the period of lockdown, his wife and her daughter. The last thing Zahabia wants to do is to catch the virus from one of the 1,400 pupils at her school and accidentally bring it into Alan's bubble. A Bradford rapper, Faisal, is also spreading the message and there is a plan to ask GPs to send a text message to their patients, assuring them that there is no question of separating sick children from their families. I've been asked to record a video myself, which I am very glad to do. There is much we know about Covid-19 and much we don't, and this partly explains why advice on masks - as noted by Arshid Siddique - has changed over time. Importantly, the evidence is becoming clearer about the risk of Covid-19 in schools. Children have lower rates of infection and generally much milder disease. Child-to-child transmission in schools is rare and serious outbreaks in schools are unusual. Evidence from other countries suggests that re-opening schools does not increase community transmission. Of course, parents will be worried about their children bringing the virus home, and in Bradford, where there are many multi-generational households, the risk to older family members is real. But there is nothing more important than a safe return to school. The loss of education during lockdown will have lasting effects. Our children and young people need to reclaim their youth and their friends, while parents need to be freed from the challenges of home-schooling and allowed to return to work. Health and education Health and education are so closely linked, yet schools are historically isolated from health services. This is the time to link arms and we have been working closely with public health colleagues to support head teachers as they face the sleepless nights that we experienced in hospitals in the spring. We have produced webinars and guidance on how to prepare the schools for opening, how to use face masks, what to do when a child gets symptoms, how to manage an outbreak, and how to provide mental health support. We will also be helping to reduce uncertainty by teaming up with leading scientists from across the UK to help understand children's immunity in the coming months. A couple of days after Fozia's conversation with Arshid Siddique there was some good news - his wife had received an encouraging call from an Urdu-speaking teacher at his daughter's school. "She told my wife that it would never happen, that they can't take children away. She's been reassuring people, and I've told my wife that we won't let them test the children," he said. There is still a lively debate about the video going on among parents of pupils at the school, according to Arshid, but he and his wife are now planning to send their children back. Then, on Saturday, Fozia managed to speak to the woman who made the video that has caused so much havoc. Her name is Alia Syed and she is based in Derby. She told Fozia she had made a huge mistake and that she had now removed the video from her website and put out a retraction, in English and in Urdu. "I am hoping you will be able to put your mind at rest now. Please send your children to school, it's very important they continue with their education," her new video says. It seems, though, that the original video is still circulating on social media and messaging apps. If some of Bradford's Asian children stay at home this week, rather than returning to school, we will be able to guess how much harm it has done. Dr Fozia Hayat will be reporting on this story for My City in Lockdown on BBC Radio 4 at 11:00 on Tuesday 1 September Follow @docjohnwright and radio producer @SueM1tchell on Twitter

जैसे ही बच्चे स्कूल लौटने वाले हैं, उर्दू में एक वीडियो ब्रैडफोर्ड और संभवतः कहीं और व्यापक रूप से साझा किया गया है, जिसमें झूठा दावा किया गया है कि बीमार छात्रों को माता-पिता की सहमति के बिना उनके परिवारों से हटाया जा सकता है। ब्रैडफोर्ड रॉयल इन्फर्मरी के डॉ. जॉन राइट इस विचार को खारिज करने के प्रयासों में शामिल हो रहे हैं-और कहते हैं कि स्कूलों को फिर से खोलना बच्चों और माता-पिता के लिए महत्वपूर्ण है।


Safeguard civilian life - UN

Summary: The United Nations calls upon the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) for the protection of civilians and uphold international human rights and human right law.

The United Nations expressing concerns over civilian deaths during aerial bombardments on Tuesday calls once more for cessation of hostilities between the two parties and resumption of the peace process. Margareta Wahlström, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator in a statement said it is imperative that both sides to the conflict take all measures to fulfil their obligations under international law to protect civilians in the conflict. "Sri Lankans continue to suffer deeply due to this conflict, and today's loss of life is a source of deepest concern," said Margareta Wahlström. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also remains concerned about deteriorating livelihoods on the Jaffna Peninsula in northern Sri Lanka.

संयुक्त राष्ट्र श्रीलंका की सरकार और लिबरेशन टाइगर्स ऑफ तमिल ईलम (एलटीटीई) से नागरिकों की सुरक्षा और अंतर्राष्ट्रीय मानवाधिकारों और मानवाधिकार कानून को बनाए रखने का आह्वान करता है।


Angler dies after falling into gorge in Sutherland

Summary: A 68-year-old man has died after falling into a gorge in Sutherland.

The man, who had been on a fishing trip, fell near Oykel Bailey Bridge on Monday night. Emergency services were alerted at about 22:50. Coastguard rescue teams and a helicopter were sent to the scene to assist. Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death and a report would be submitted to the procurator fiscal.

सदरलैंड में एक खाई में गिरने से 68 वर्षीय एक व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है।


A permanent reminder of my own stupidity

Summary: I have done something so stupid I still can't believe it.

Justin RowlattSouth Asia correspondent Maybe I had fallen under the influence of the 10-headed demon Ravana. The vanquishing of Ravana by Lord Rama is the excuse for Dussehra, one of the wildest of all Hindu festivals. Towering wicker effigies of Ravana and his henchmen - complete with curling moustaches and wicked smiles - are filled with fireworks, ready to be burned in the climax of a re-enactment of Lord Rama's great victory. Last year my wife and I took our four children to the biggest Dussehra celebration in Delhi, at the Ramlila Maidan, a vast field outside the gates of the old city. As the sunlight turned a delicious gold, we joined the jostling queues. But Ravana's malign influence isn't enough to explain what follows. I blame the fairground, too. There's an Indian concept called jugaad. It means a simple, cheap solution to a complex problem. Basically - it means bodging it. The rides applied jugaad with breathtaking abandon. It was as my 14 and 15-year-old daughters and I tottered, giggling nervously, from a terrifying, harness-free spin on a juddering big wheel that I noticed the sheet laid out on the dry mud. Crouched on it was a man offering temporary tattoos. Now, I have always hated tattoos. I live in fear of my children getting some ugly doodle etched into their perfect skin. That's why I thought it would be so funny to surprise my wife, Bee, with a fake one. "How about a heart with her name in it for her birthday?" I said. I promise I hadn't had anything to drink. Find out more "They wash off, yes?" I asked the tattoo man. "Yes, yes, yes," he said. "Temporary, yes?" "Yes, yes, yes." "Not real tattoos?" "Yes, yes, yes." I felt the chrome nozzle of his little machine. I couldn't feel a needle. He showed me a pot of ink. Well, you'd need ink for a temporary tattoo, wouldn't you? I pointed to a heart on one of the laminated sheets with pictures of his craft, and then at the letters B, E, E. "Yes, yes, yes," he said and took my arm firmly. Before I knew it, he was already at work, and here's the thing: it didn't hurt. Everyone I know who has ever had a tattoo says it hurt. All I felt was a prickle. That said, it did worry me, but by then the tattoo man had already inked out a rough heart - and I do mean rough - in the middle of my upper arm. It must have taken all of 30 seconds. He started on the letters. First an L. Hold on a second… Then a smaller heart - an O. Now I was really worried. I tried to pull my arm away. "No, no, no," said the tattoo man, pulling back. With a sharp tug I got my arm free and wiped in desperation at the ink. But beneath my fingers I could feel my skin was slightly raised. The blue-black ink didn't even smudge. "What have you done?" my wife wanted to know when we found her in the crowd and showed her my arm. My daughters were doubled up with glee. Who wouldn't laugh when your dad has just got himself a tattoo by mistake? The first fireworks exploded in the sky. Ravana was about to be put to the torch. I was already rushing for the exit. "There must be a way to get rid of this thing," I told myself. There wasn't. And here's some advice you probably don't need - never follow home tattoo removal instructions from the internet. Flushing it with gin - the only alcohol to hand - didn't make any difference. Salification - literally rubbing salt in the wound - didn't work either. Nothing worked. I now have a white scar as well as a cheap tattoo. My wife was more worried about the risk of blood-borne infection, which is how I came to be sitting in front of a doctor in one of Delhi's hospitals. So how risky is a street tattoo like this, I wanted to know? "Oh, infection is very, very, very common," he told me with a huge smile. He said as well as hepatitis B and C, there was also the risk of HIV. "Really?" I asked. "Oh, this is a very, very, very common way to get HIV. I see it all the time. All the time," he said, apparently delighted. Two weeks later, the results of the blood test came through. It was clear. I have booked another test to make sure that is still the case. The tattoo, however, isn't going anywhere. Ugly as it is, I'm keeping it - a permanent reminder to be less impetuous. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

मैंने कुछ ऐसा मूर्खतापूर्ण किया है जिस पर मुझे अभी भी विश्वास नहीं हो रहा है।


Man, 46, dies after Grimsby street assault

Summary: A 46-year-old man has died after an assault on a street in Grimsby last month, said police.

Christopher Shipway was seriously injured in the attack in the North East Lincolnshire town in the early hours of 25 August, said Humberside Police. Mark Bennison, aged 36, of no fixed abode, was arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm in August. He has been remanded into custody by magistrates and is to appear at Grimsby Crown Court on 24 September. More stories in Yorkshire Detective Chief Inspector Stewart Miller, of Humberside Police, said: "We're now working with the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether the current charge will be changed."

पुलिस ने कहा कि पिछले महीने ग्रिम्सबी में एक सड़क पर हमले के बाद एक 46 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई है।


Mayoral elections: Voters outside London 'disenfranchised'

Summary: Voters in London will head to the polls on 3 May to decide who they want to be their mayor. But with Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone seeking to exercise power outside of the capital, have voters in the home counties been left without an electoral voice?

By Nick TarverBBC News The London Elections are anything but local. Home to nearly eight million people and the seat of government, it is unsurprising London's power is felt beyond its boundaries. The current mayor Boris Johnson and his Labour rival Ken Livingstone have signalled their intent to bring suburban rail services - some of which are in Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire - under the mayor's control. Mr Johnson has also been at the forefront of efforts to build a new international hub airport in the south east of England. However, his chosen location is not London, but the Thames Estuary, in Kent. As a result, concerns have been raised that voters living in the home counties, who may also commute into the capital, are increasingly being left without a voice. So has the fictional newspaper letter writer "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells", now become "Disenfranchised of Tunbridge Wells"? 'Don't have a vote' Rodney Chambers, who is the leader of the Conservative-run Medway Council, in north Kent, said there is great resistance to London "extending its tentacles" beyond its boundaries. "Boris Johnson came up with this idea for the estuary airport off the top of his head, because he thought it was a vote winner," he said. "He doesn't have any voters in Kent and we cannot show our disquiet because we don't have a vote in London." The £40bn Thames Estuary airport idea has since moved beyond a Mr Johnson suggestion, to being looked at in detail by the government. Mr Chambers believes the mayor's support for the plan was due to the electoral unpopularity among Londoners of a third runway at Heathrow airport. And the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the council, Geoff Juby, described the scheme as "pie in the sky". "London has to address its own issues and look after its own people - not just pass the bits they don't want to deal with outside of the capital," he said. Mr Johnson has also, along with Mr Livingstone, advocated the bringing of some suburban rail services under Transport for London (TfL) and the mayor's control. This follows the creation of London Overground in 2007, when TfL took over routes run by Silverlink. Green Party candidate Jenny Jones also believes the network should come under TFL control and Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick also backs the plans for "certain rail routes". But opposition to the idea has been vocal. In February, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and MP for Sevenoaks, Michael Fallon, said he was concerned his constituents could end up with a worse and more expensive service. He said: "Why should [Boris Johnson] set fares and service levels when my constituents can't vote for him?" However, the leader of the Labour group on Sevenoaks District Council, Mark Fittock, said there could be some advantages to the rail plan. "Lots of people who live here work within London's boundaries and there would be some benefits to bringing the Oyster card system outwards," he said. He added London does exert an influence outside of its boundaries, but it is more "economic and social, rather than political". 'Not subordinate to London' A spokesman for Mr Johnson said the fractured organisation of London's suburban railways was "totally inefficient". "It needs a complete overhaul and devolving the commercial franchises would allow him to invest millions of pounds in improving stations and to simplify the ticketing system, all aimed at improving the services," he said. And Mr Livingstone said bringing the suburban rail service under his control would be good for those living outside of the capital. He said: "Millions of people come to work, visit or socialise in London. "My plan to cut fares and to take over the suburban rail network and upgrade it to tube level performance will benefit Londoners, and those who live outside London." Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick has also expressed his approval for TfL taking over "certain rail routes". He said: "What has Boris Johnson been doing for the past four years? "If he had spent more talking and lobbying government to work out a proper plan rather than wasting time, effort and money on plans for a fantasy airport, then we might be a bit nearer actually seeing this happen." Ms Jones said: "The Greens - both in and out of London - are opposed to the Thames Estuary airport, but of course recognise that this isn't something that is decided by City Hall." She believes the mayor and assembly's remit to "fight London's corner in the setting of national policy", is a correct one. "[But] I'd focus on issues that benefit Londoners - fighting air pollution, reducing fares, lobbying to restore funding for higher education and opposing NHS reform - not an airport that would increase air and noise pollution for Londoners," she said. For politicians who represent constituents outside of the capital there are worries that so-called creeping powers could be the thin end of the wedge, with more influence heading London's way. Medway Council leader, Mr Chambers, said the suggestion that someone in London should have some authority over the people of Kent has caused a lot of antagonism. "At the end of the day we're not subordinate to London and we're here to do what is best for us and our surrounding areas," he said.

लंदन में मतदाता 3 मई को यह तय करने के लिए मतदान करेंगे कि वे अपना महापौर कौन बनना चाहते हैं। लेकिन बोरिस जॉनसन और केन लिविंगस्टोन के राजधानी के बाहर सत्ता का प्रयोग करने की मांग के साथ, क्या घरेलू काउंटियों में मतदाताओं को चुनावी आवाज के बिना छोड़ दिया गया है?


Size doesn't matter - it's all about speed

Summary: The size of yesterday's intervention by the chancellor was impressive.

Simon JackBusiness editor@BBCSimonJackon Twitter At over 15% of total national income it's a package that measures up favourably against measures announced by other countries including France and the US. However, in this fast-moving environment it's not about the size and supply of credit, it's about speed and demand. Far and away the most popular measure among business owners was the immediate 12-month holiday on business rates. But to be honest, most businesses I've spoken to in the last 48 hours had no intention of paying their rates anyway. That also applies to VAT which the government may waive imminently. Hospitality groups are also circulating a template letter for members to fill in with their own details to ask for significant rent reductions. But again, many are taking matters into their own hands by withholding rent payments. But the biggest cost most businesses face are staff wages, and it is here that the government will need to think boldly and creatively to prevent what is a severe but hopefully temporary crisis turning into a long-term economic malaise. The head of the CBI has urged the government to use the National Insurance system to reverse the flow of cash from government to business. Printing cash In the US, the government is considering "helicopter money" - using the central bank to create money which is sent directly to citizens. It is a measure of how serious the current situation is that this is getting serious consideration - having been dismissed by most during the financial crisis of ten years ago as a step too far. The supermarkets will be key in any strategy and we are already seeing them cut opening times, ration popular items and accelerate payments to their suppliers. Delivery services like Deliveroo are working up proposals to cut the price of using their app, but as one hospitality business owner told me, the problem is that "many of these technology platforms are not yet turning a profit so their ability to help is limited". The Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, told the BBC that new measures to help firms are imminent. Getting ahead of this crisis will be a very significant challenge. The usual rule book is being ripped up. Brexit extension? One question that business owners are repeatedly asking me is whether the government is serious about pressing ahead with a potentially disruptive departure from the EU this December. Ministers have already conceded that there will be additional cost and friction - HMRC estimates that over 200 million additional customs declarations will cost UK businesses £6.5bn and require considerable management focus. Given that the negotiations will be severely disrupted by this health emergency - many are asking whether it would be wiser to request an extension of the transition period beyond the end of December.

कुलाधिपति द्वारा कल के हस्तक्षेप का आकार प्रभावशाली था।


Milk and varnish spill closes A34 near Winchester

Summary: Cargoes of milk and varnish spilled from two crashed lorries closed part of a major road near Winchester.

The A34 southbound was shut between the A303 and A272 following the collision at South Wonston at about 06:30 BST. Unquantified amounts of milk and varnish spilled onto the carriageway, but there was no risk to public health, police said. The road reopened after the carriageway was cleared, following a 10-hour closure.

दो दुर्घटनाग्रस्त ट्रकों से गिरे दूध और वार्निश के माल ने विनचेस्टर के पास एक प्रमुख सड़क के हिस्से को बंद कर दिया।