Apple’s challenge: Perfect what's next

Summary: Apple doesn’t always go first.

Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter It didn’t invent the portable mp3 player - it just gave it an iconic style deserving of the artistry stored upon it. It didn’t invent the smartphone - it merely created the first product that justified the term. And it didn’t invent voice assistants, or self-driving cars, or wearable technology or whatever comes next. It’s that - the whatever comes next - that poses the greatest threat to Apple, even if it seems untouchable right now. From this point on, to stay on top, Apple doesn’t so much have to predict the future, but perfect it. Smartphone twilight “We’ve moved from a desktop-centric world to a smartphone-centric world,” says Benedict Evans, from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Now, “we’re really thinking about what comes next”. iPhone sales have stopped growing. That’s normally a disaster for investors, but Apple has stopped it being bad news by making more money from each one. Last year’s iPhone X, at a price of $999, raised the average selling price of the iPhone to $724. So far, so good. But the next computing boom has the potential to make a new company king of the world much like the current one did to Apple. We are now in the smartphone era’s twilight, and Apple may not be in a particularly strong place to succeed with what comes next. “The focus is now cars, glasses, services, cloud, TV - things that aren’t really there yet,” says Mr Evans. He says the only choice Apple has at the moment, like every technology firm out there, is to hedge its bets. “Apple is working on future products, some of which will be as significant as the iPhone. The problem is: how do you know what those things will be, and how big they will be?” Missing data If, as many smart people predict, artificial intelligence and data provide the pillars of the next major platform, some feel Apple might have a weakness. The firm has made a marketing virtue out of the fact it does not collect as much data as the Googles and Facebooks of this world. While I wouldn’t doubt the firm’s principles on privacy, its stance does help cover the fact it may seriously lack the data needed to offer the types of artificial intelligence people are beginning to expect. “Apple will have to figure out how they can deliver without being in control of that data,” says analyst Carolina Milanesi. She says Apple’s issues start with Siri, its often mocked “smart” assistant. “Siri does not seem to retain what she knows about me across devices,” Ms Milanesi says. “As users become more reliant in using Siri, they will expect her to have knowledge of their likes and dislikes.” To do that, Apple would need to adjust its approach to data processing. Instead of keep user data local, on a person’s device, it may have to start sending some information to a far away server. “This might seem to Apple like having to compromise on privacy but it is not,” Ms Milanesi argues. Apple is working on addressing its AI shortcomings. Mr Evans points out Apple’s recent hiring of John Giannandrea, formerly Google’s head of artificial intelligence, as a major coup. The move was heralded by the Financial Times as being like a top footballer defecting to a rival team. “AI defector gives Apple access to Google’s secrets,” its headline read. Containable risks Some will tell you that the biggest hassle for Apple, in the short term, comes from combination of tides we already know about: Trump-enforced tariffs that could hit its supply chain economics in China, coupled with the growing presence of cheaper rivals from the same part of the world. Huawei, for instance, just overtook Apple on the number of smartphones sold globally. But in reality, neither of those things are likely to significantly impact Apple’s business. For starters, people pay an awful lot more for Apple’s devices than Huawei’s. And any issues stemming from the political climate, analyst Daniel Ives told me, are being seen as “containable risk” by Wall Street. At $1tn, Apple may well be too big to suffer. But you would have said the same about Microsoft in the 90s, when its period of dominance over the computing industry came as a result of perfecting what it meant to use a desktop computer: at work, at school, at home. Times changed. They’ll change for Apple too. ________ Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC Do you have more information about this or any other technology story? You can reach Dave directly and securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +1 (628) 400-7370

सेब हमेशा पहले नहीं जाता है।


Madeley Court Sports Centre opened for the last time

Summary: A Shropshire leisure centre has opened for the last time.

Madeley Court Sports Centre, in Telford, will be replaced with new facilities set to open on 9 January. The new centre will be within the Abraham Darby Sports and Learning Community - a new leisure site attached to a school. Customers can use neighbouring council leisure services such as those in Oakengates and Wellington in the three-week intervening period. Telford Snowboard and Ski Centre, which is located on the Madeley Court site, will remain open for business as usual. The new facilities will include a fitness suite, a 25-metre swimming pool with a moveable height floor, sports hall and an aerobics studio. Councillor Arnold England, Telford & Wrekin Council cabinet member for leisure and well-being, said: "We apologise for the inconvenience caused by the transition to the new leisure facilities at the Abraham Darby site. "However we are confident that users will be delighted with the new facilities."

एक श्रॉपशायर अवकाश केंद्र आखिरी बार खोला गया है।


How you could help stop a flu pandemic

Summary: We seem to be suffering from a global amnesia. Ask any passerby - as we did - “What was the most catastrophic cause of death in the last 100 years?” and you receive the usual suspects: WWII, perhaps WWI. There are also some less obvious replies: Chernobyl, the Boxing Day Tsunami, Hiroshima. Very, very rarely will anyone say Spanish Flu, and yet that particular pandemic killed up to 100 million people.

By Danielle PeckExecutive Producer, BBC Pandemic There have been three others since then. Even more astonishing is that the UK Government considers another flu pandemic so dangerous to our society that it tops the list of the newly updated National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies. So it’s particularly timely that the BBC has just launched the BBC Pandemic App on the iOS App Store and Google Play. This free app is part of the biggest experiment of its kind, a citizen science experiment that aims to spread a virtual pandemic - an outbreak of a simulated infectious disease around the entire country. That may sound like an odd thing to want to do but, if successful, the BBC Pandemic could help save lives when – not if – the next lethal pandemic spreads across the world. With international air travel at over four billion flights last year alone, stopping a flu pandemic taking hold is pretty much impossible nowadays, but the BBC Pandemic App will help a team of mathematical epidemiologists from the University of Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predict how a virus could spread across the UK and, crucially, test what might be done to slow it down. The problem with pandemic flu viruses is that they emerge unannounced, unlike the seasonal flu we experience every winter. Seasonal flu can be deadly too and the warning signs from Australia show that this year could be a bad one, but at least we get a heads-up from our southern neighbours several months in advance. This gives the critical time necessary to get a vaccine tailor-made and manufactured in sufficient volume to vaccinate key workers and those most vulnerable. But, every now and again, the animal world creates a strain of the flu virus that humans have never seen before - we have little protection from our immune system, or enough time to make a vaccine before the virus has started to spread. The 2009 pandemic was commonly known as swine flu because the human virus contained genes from a pig flu virus. The devastating Spanish Flu pandemic was caused by a virus that seems to have emerged from birds. Planning for another pandemic is the best defence we have until vaccine technology manages to catch up. And that’s where everyone in the UK can help, by downloading the BBC Pandemic App. Once downloaded, users will be asked basic questions like age and employment status. Then the app will track users’ approximate position every hour for just 24 hours - but the GPS will only be within the nearest square kilometre. Privacy as well as data protection is taken very seriously by the team. At the end of the 24 hours, there are a few questions about the kind of face-to-face contacts the users made in that time. And that’s it. Simple but enough to provide real data the researchers can use to help predict the spread of a real outbreak. The challenge is they would like 10,000 UK-wide to download the app and join in. This has never been done before so anyone taking part will be participating in ground-breaking research. The results will be shown in the BBC Pandemic documentary on BBC Four next year, presented by UCL mathematician Dr Hannah Fry and emergency medic Dr Javid Abdelmoneim. To download the app go to the App Store or Google Play and search for “BBC Pandemic”. There's much more information on the BBC Pandemic webpage. And, for those people who don't have a smartphone, there will shortly be a questionnaire on the webpage so that everyone can join in.

हम एक वैश्विक भूलभुलैया से पीड़ित प्रतीत होते हैं। किसी भी राहगीर से पूछें-जैसा कि हमने किया-"पिछले 100 वर्षों में मृत्यु का सबसे विनाशकारी कारण क्या था?" और आपको सामान्य संदिग्ध मिलते हैंः द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध, शायद प्रथम विश्व युद्ध। कुछ कम स्पष्ट उत्तर भी हैंः चेरनोबिल, बॉक्सिंग डे सुनामी, हिरोशिमा। बहुत, बहुत कम ही कोई स्पेनिश फ्लू कहेगा, और फिर भी उस विशेष महामारी ने 10 करोड़ लोगों को मार डाला।


Brazil and its 'relatively simple' World Cup delays

Summary: In a rare question-and-answer huddle with Brazilian journalists this week, President Dilma Rousseff pronounced with confidence that the beleaguered new football stadium in the southern city of Curitiba would "definitely" be ready for the World Cup.

Wyre DaviesRio de Janeiro correspondent Mrs Rousseff was speaking on the pitch at the Arena das Dunas in the northern coastal city of Natal, which she had just officially opened with a rather nervous kick of a ball from the centre-spot. It was a rare high-point for Brazil - and its World Cup organisers - after a disastrous week during which a high-level Fifa delegation had seen, warts and all, the state of the country's readiness for the tournament that begins in mid-June. The governing body of world football is not known for precipitating political rows or disputes with its member nations. Quite the opposite, in fact. Fifa officials are often accused of cosying up to politicians and business in host countries in order to help facilitate whichever event may be taking place there. But, with Brazil, even Fifa has had to speak out. First stop on the week-long visit was the new Itaquerao stadium in Sao Paulo, which is due to hold the opening match of the tournament between Brazil and Croatia. A terrible accident at the end of November, when a crane collapsed on part of the roof, not only killed two workers but also pushed back the timetable for the stadium's completion. As Fifa's secretary-general toured the site, the crane was still embedded in the roof. Jerome Valcke nodded thoughtfully as local officials outlined their plans to complete the project by early April, barely six weeks before the most important football match since the last World Cup final in 2010. Sao Paulo is not an isolated case. Six of Brazil's 12 World Cup stadiums missed the end of 2013 deadline. While such delays are not unique to Brazil, or to the World Cup, they are indicative of a chaotic, troubled process. Mr Valcke's inspection tour was then due to head west to Cuiaba and north to Manaus where the Arena da Amazonia is also running late. (It was also the site of a fatal accident in December when an untethered worker fell to his death from a roof.) Dozens of workers the BBC spoke to this week said they had not been paid for weeks and were coming under tremendous pressure to finish the project. In response, stadium bosses denied anyone was coming under undue pressure and that safety standards had been tightened since the tragedy in December. Lost opportunity However, pressing news from southern Brazil forced a highly unusual change to Mr Valcke's plans. The news from Curitiba was not good. Contractual disputes and financing "issues" among other problems meant the city's new Arena da Baixada was not just weeks but potentially months behind schedule. What the Fifa team saw shocked them. Mr Valcke said he "did not like it" and was disturbed to see so many delays. In an announcement that shocked the Brazilian government and its football establishment, Mr Valcke declared that unless things visibly improved before the committee's next visit in early February, Curitiba would be excluded from the tournament and the four scheduled games moved to other grounds. Later in the week, it was all smiles and handshakes as Mr Valcke and President Rousseff met up in Natal for the inauguration of the Arena das Dunas. But out of camera shot, as Mrs Rousseff spoke to local officials and dignitaries, Mr Valcke watched on from the stands, frowning and pensive. 'Rush job' Even in Natal, all is not as it seems. The United States coach and former German striker Jurgen Klinsmann had earlier in the week described the new venue as "beautiful". While the pitch certainly looks ready to hold World Cup matches, the exterior structure looks hastily and haphazardly put together. Lagging and insulation hang out everywhere from the upper areas. The corrugated roof covering has been roughly cut and put in place in what can only be described as a "rush job". From a distance the Natal stadium resembles the smooth dunes that characterise this stunning part of the country, but close-up it leaves a lot to be desired. Brazilians are passionate about their football and are rightly proud of their country's unparalleled record in the World Cup. They also expect their current side to win this tournament on home ground, adding a sixth winner's star to the crest on the famous gold shirt. But everywhere I travel in this vast country, touring the World Cup venues, I hear the same complaints and misgivings. From Manaus to Cuiaba to Rio de Janeiro, many Brazilians regard the tournament as a lost opportunity. To start with it has cost the country, and individual state governments, billions of dollars. Initial promises that private finance would cover the cost of building new stadiums evaporated and about 80% of the bill is now being met from the public purse. More damning, though, are the cancelled or delayed infrastructure projects that were meant to accompany the new stadiums and boost wider development in host cities. Promised rapid transit systems, light rail, airport upgrades and other transport initiatives have all been quietly shelved or radically downgraded in Manaus, Salvador and numerous other venues. I am a passionate football fan and consider myself very fortunate to be based in Brazil covering such a huge sporting event, but the more I see of how Brazil is preparing to host the tournament, the more I am convinced the country as a whole will not reap much benefit. As President Rousseff spoke on the pitch in Natal, no-one thought to ask her how she could be so confident that, somehow, officials down in Curitiba will turn things around in just a couple of weeks. Who has given her such "guarantees"? Is it just typical Brazilian optimism, or does the president know something which the damning images from Curitiba and Fifa's unusually critical statement failed to convey? Flying straight from Natal to the global economic forum in Switzerland, Mrs Rousseff made a "courtesy visit" to Fifa headquarters in Zurich. After a recent spat over Twitter about Brazil's preparation for what is, after the Olympic Games, the second biggest sporting event on earth, the two presidents (Rousseff of Brazil and Sepp Blatter of Fifa) were again singing from the same hymn sheet. Completing the remaining stadiums and infrastructure projects was "a relatively simple" matter, the Brazilian leader assured the head of world football. Jerome Valcke and the organisation he runs must share some of the blame for the way these tournaments are scheduled and financed. But Mr Valcke is losing patience with Brazil and time is running out.

इस सप्ताह ब्राजील के पत्रकारों के साथ एक दुर्लभ सवाल-जवाब बैठक में, राष्ट्रपति डिल्मा रूसेफ ने विश्वास के साथ घोषणा की कि दक्षिणी शहर कुरितिबा में संकटग्रस्त नया फुटबॉल स्टेडियम विश्व कप के लिए "निश्चित रूप से" तैयार हो जाएगा।


The Hobbit first edition fetches £137,000 at auction

Summary: A first edition of JRR Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, with an inscription in Elvish written by the author, had sold at auction in London for £137,000.

The sale smashes the previous record for a sale of The Hobbit, set in 2008 when a first edition sold for £60,000. Tolkien gave the book to Katherine "Kitty" Kilbride, one of his students at Leeds University in the 1920s. The Elvish verse is an extract from Tolkien's The Lost Road, part of his 12-volume History of Middle-earth. The Hobbit introduced the character of Bilbo Baggins and the "one ring" that would feature again in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Sotheby's had expected the first edition to fetch up to £70,000 at Thursday's auction of children's books and illustrated works.

जे. आर. आर. टोल्किन के 1937 के उपन्यास द हॉबिट का पहला संस्करण, लेखक द्वारा लिखित एल्विश में एक शिलालेख के साथ, लंदन में नीलामी में £137,000 में बेचा गया था।


Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: John Le Carre and reality

Summary: The new film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week, has been praised for its atmospheric depiction of 1970s London. But how firmly is John Le Carre's novel rooted in reality?

By Gordon CoreraSecurity correspondent, BBC News (Spoiler alert: Key plot details revealed below) Trying to establish the precise relationship between John le Carre's fictional depiction of British intelligence in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and real life is a task that requires the investigative skills of George Smiley. And even le Carre's fictional spymaster might be left wondering if he had unpeeled all the layers of mystery to get to the real truth. It is not unusual for writers to draw on the real world and their own experiences and then shape it into fiction. But le Carre is different. He draws on his own experience of the secret world for his work. And because that world - and le Carre's own career in it - is out of sight and clandestine, the reader is left wondering, far more than usual, where fact ends and fiction begins. "He has traded in this ambiguity through his career and made a virtue of it," argues Adam Sisman, who is currently engaged in the challenging task of trying to establish the truth for the authorised biography of le Carre. Le Carre's work was always coming from a different direction than Ian Fleming's James Bond books. Fleming's creation was a Technicolor escapist fantasy, le Carre's rooted in a grey, complex and morally ambiguous reality. No-one considers Bond to be real (well, almost no-one). But le Carre's world is different. It feels authentic. (Warning: Reading on from this point will spoil the plot for anyone who has not seen the film or original TV series or read the book) Some of his novels fit closely to what we know of le Carre's own life and career in the secret world, most notably A Perfect Spy. On the broadest level, Tinker Tailor too is rooted in a very real and traumatic period for British intelligence. Le Carre served in MI5 and MI6 in the 1950s and early 1960s and these were troubled times. It was becoming clear that the British establishment had been subverted from within. A small group of people - many motivated by the struggle against fascism in the 1930s and 40s - had begun secretly working for the Communist cause and had burrowed their way into the establishment. Amalgam characters Their treachery was being exposed just as le Carre was coming of age as a writer. Burgess and Maclean, two diplomats, fled to Moscow in 1951. By the early 60s, the rot had been found within British intelligence itself, with George Blake and Kim Philby exposed as traitors. Was that the full extent of it? A defector, Anatoly Golitsyn, arrived in the West talking of more traitors. Was another still in place? How high up might he have reached? The investigations would consume British intelligence in the 1960s and into the 1970s with even the head of MI5, Roger Hollis, coming under suspicion. In le Carre's fiction, the traitor, Bill Haydon, bears a close resemblance to Kim Philby, with his easy charm, good social connections and rise towards the top. Beneath the surface lies an antipathy towards the establishment of which he is part and the country which he serves. In an earlier draft of the book, there were reported to be more similarities to Anthony Blunt, another of the Cambridge Spies. But in the final draft, the fit between Haydon and a real person, in the form of Philby, is quite close, while other characters are more of an amalgam. What of George Smiley? The search for the real life inspiration of the man hunting the traitor is complicated. Some thought he resembled a real chief of MI6, Maurice Oldfield. But this is more a result of the 1979 TV adaptation of Tinker Tailor. Alec Guinness, who played Smiley, was introduced by le Carre to Oldfield over lunch and adopted some of his mannerisms. "I still don't recognise myself," the spy chief wrote to the actor after seeing the programme. Many others did though. But the TV series came several years after the written version of Smiley. There are two other more likely influences. One is the Reverend Vivian Green whom le Carre knew as a schoolboy and then at Lincoln College, Oxford. Another is John Bingham (later Lord Clanmorris), an MI5 officer who worked with le Carre and who wrote fiction himself. "Bingham was the physical inspiration for Smiley and Vivian Green the spiritual inspiration," reckons Sisman. Rabbit warren Tracing Karla - Smiley's nemesis - is also harder. Some have suggested Markus Wolf who ran the East German Stasi but when the theory was floated past le Carre, he dismissed it as wrong. While other spymasters, such as Rem Krassilnikov of the KGB, would be later described as a real-life Karla, it is not clear who was the original inspiration for the character. Language is another area where disentangling fact and fiction in Tinker Tailor is possible, but challenging. Some of what le Carre uses is real, some made-up and in some cases the made-up has become real. "Some of the terms have come into parlance thanks to Le Carre," argues Sisman. "Life has imitated art." The Circus - le Carre's headquarters for MI6 based in Cambridge Circus, in central London, is fictional. In reality, MI6 was based at Broadway Buildings in St James' Park, a rabbit warren of old rooms, before it moved to Century House south of the River Thames, with its grey post-war linoleum floors (an appearance that some who worked there once told me was closer to a building in the Soviet Union). Sarratt, the fictional training school for British spies, is actually a village near Watford in which le Carre worked as a teenager in a department store, says Sisman. The real training establishment is known as "The Fort". Control - used to refer to the head of MI6 - bears only a little relationship to reality. The man who headed the service was and is known as C. Beneath him there are Controllers - for instance for different geographical areas (Controller - Asia for instance). The name C originated with the first head of what would later become MI6, Mansfield Cumming, who signed documents he had read with the letter C, penned in green ink. Later directors have also been called C, but it is said to stand for "Chief" rather than "Control" (they still use the green ink though). Frisson Not all former spies liked le Carre's depiction of their world. "John le Carre I would gladly hang draw and quarter," Baroness Daphne Park, a former MI6 officer, told me shortly before she died. Others were less sure that his fiction was such a problem. "There were those who were furious with John le Carre because he depicts everybody as such disagreeable characters and they are always plotting against each other," Sir Colin McColl, a former MI6 chief told me. "We know we weren't always as disagreeable as that and we certainly weren't plotting against each other. So people got rather cross about it. But actually I thought it was terrific because it carried the name that had been provided by Bond and John Buchan. It gave us another couple of generations of being in some way special." The secret world may be the wellspring of his fiction but le Carre has worried over what he should and shouldn't reveal. For former spies there is always the fear of being accused of spilling real secrets. "It's a matter of pride to me that nobody who knows the reality has so far accused me of revealing it," le Carre once told me when declining a request to be interviewed about his work on the BBC. What many of his readers enjoy though is the frisson of entering a clandestine world with its own language - the sense of what it might feel like to be on the inside. In Tinker Tailor, le Carre manages to both strip away some of the mystique surrounding spying - to reveal the human frailties and petty bureaucracies - but also to envelop British intelligence in a new shroud of mythology which it still has not entirely shaken off.

पिछले सप्ताह वेनिस फिल्म महोत्सव में प्रदर्शित टिंकर टेलर सोल्जर स्पाई के नए फिल्म रूपांतरण की 1970 के दशक के लंदन के वायुमंडलीय चित्रण के लिए प्रशंसा की गई है। लेकिन जॉन ले कैरे का उपन्यास वास्तविकता में कितनी दृढ़ता से निहित है?


President praises the troops

Summary: In his address to the nation commemorating the 61st Independence Day, The President said the heroic forces have given Sri Lanka the opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of Independence in a country freed, from the dark shadow of 'terrorism'.

Addresing the nation from the celeberations in Colombo, The President also invited expatriate Srilankans to return to the motherland as the 'war is coming to an end'. "I announce with pride that we have raised the National Flag today over a motherland that is being united in keeping with the heart felt wishes and prayers of our people", said the president. Thirty years of 'illegal armed struggle' against the government prevented the people from celebrating true freedom. Defeat of 'terrorism' President Rajapaksa reminded the nation about the 'atrocities' of the Tamil Tigers. "Due to this terrorism the Sinhala and Muslim people who lived in the north were compelled to flee from their traditional lands. This period saw the massacre of Buddhist worshipers near the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi, at Anuradhapura. At Kaththankudi, Muslims were killed while worshiping in their mosque. There were terrorist attacks on the pinnacle of Buddhist worship, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy. Innocent people were collectively massacred in many places of this land". In his speech, the president accused the Tamil Tigers of ethnic cleansing. "They sought to establish a fascist state in which the Sinhala and Muslim people, as well as the Tamil people who were not prepared to bow before them, would not live. A large number of Democratic leaders of the Tamil people were killed by the terrorists" not to cause harassment to the innocent Tamil people The President also expressed gratitude to the troops for the sacrifices they had made. "Our troops have given us the opportunity to see the dawn of an honourable peace for the country. They have sacrificed their flesh, blood, sinews and life itself to bring this great historic opportunity to our motherland. Our troops were able to carry forward the battle against terror with great care so as not to cause harassment to the innocent Tamil people". The President called upon the Srilankans living abroad to return to build a united country. "The time has now dawned for the Sri Lankans who have their country, because of this unfortunate battle that had dragged for more than 20 years, to return to their land of birth and to the places they lived in. On this important occasion, on behalf of the entire Sri Lankan nation, I make an open invitation to all Sri Lankans – Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Burgher, Malay and of all other communities, who left this country because of war to return to your motherland". Enemies within The President also focused on the enemies within the communities in the South. "We are today a nation that has defeated a powerful enemy that stood before us. Similarly, we should have the ability to defeat all internal enemies that are found in our midst." He said the struggle for stability and building good governance and ridding the country of corruption and waste is a priority for the future." If we cannot do so we should be ready to leave the stage", the president said.

61वें स्वतंत्रता दिवस के उपलक्ष्य में राष्ट्र को संबोधित करते हुए राष्ट्रपति ने कहा कि वीरतापूर्ण ताकतों ने श्रीलंका को 'आतंकवाद' के काले छाया से मुक्त देश में स्वतंत्रता की वर्षगांठ मनाने का अवसर दिया है।


The fateful life of history's most famous female spy

Summary: On the morning of 15 October 1917 a grey military vehicle left the Saint-Lazare prison in central Paris. On board, accompanied by two nuns and her lawyer, was a 41-year-old Dutch woman in a long coat and a wide, felt hat.

By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris A decade earlier this woman had the capitals of Europe at her feet. She was a legendary 'femme fatale' known for her exotic dancing, and her lovers included ministers, industrialists and generals. But then came the war, and the world changed. She thought she could keep charming her way around Europe. But now the men in top hats wanted something more than sex. They wanted information. And that meant spying. This was Mata Hari, and she was about to be put to death. Her crime? Being an agent in German pay, gleaning secrets from Allied officers who she slept with, and passing them on to her paymaster, leading to lurid newspaper claims about her being responsible for sending thousands of Allied soldiers to their deaths. But the evidence presented at her trial, plus other documents, cast a different light: that she was actually a double agent and may have died as a scapegoat. Now, exactly a hundred years on, new light has been shed on the most famous woman spy of all time with the release of hitherto unseen documents by the French defence ministry. These include transcripts of her interrogation by the French counter-espionage service in 1917. Some are also on display at a new exhibition at the Fries Museum in her hometown of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. Among the papers is the telegram to Berlin from the German military attaché in Madrid which led to Mata Hari's arrest at a hotel on the Champs-Elysees, and later served as a key piece of evidence at her brief trial. Born Margarethe Zelle in 1876, Mata Hari (the name is said to come from the Indonesian for 'eye of the day' - the sun) had an extraordinary and tragic life. After a miserable marriage in the Dutch East Indies she reinvented herself as the louche diva of 'Belle Epoque' Paris, where her sensual dances were a ticket to the inner courts of European society. "Even without the spying, Mata Hari would be remembered today because of what she did in the capitals of Europe in the early part of the last century," says Hans Groeneweg, curator of the Fries Museum. "She more or less invented the striptease as a form of dance. We have her scrapbooks on display at the exhibition, and there are piles and piles of newspaper clippings and photographs. She was a celebrity socialite." Sadly though, the Mata Hari myth is dominated by the espionage. Over the years many historians have come to her defence. She was sacrificed - some say - because the French needed to find a spy to explain their succession of reverses in the war. For feminists, she was the perfect scapegoat because "loose" morals made it easier to tar her as an enemy of France. Until now the full details of her interrogation by prosecutor Pierre Bouchardon (incidentally the man who later prosecuted Marshal Petain) has been off-limits to historians. It was known, though, that in 1916 - after a brief sojourn in London where she was interrogated by the British security service, MI5 - Mata Hari returned to France via Spain. In Madrid she made the acquaintance of Arnold von Kalle, the German military attaché. Her later story was that this was all in pursuance of her prior arrangement with French intelligence, under which she undertook to use her pre-war web of German contacts to help the Allied effort. But it was von Kalle's subsequent telegram that led to her undoing. In it he set out to his masters in Berlin the details of a certain Agent H21. It gave addresses, bank details, and even the name of Mata Hari's faithful maid. There could be no question to anyone reading it that Mata Hari was agent H21. The telegram, intercepted by French intelligence, is now available for scrutiny at the Leeuwarden exhibition. Or rather, the official translation of the telegram is available. Because therein lies the rub. According to some historians, the whole telegram episode is fishy. The French - it is argued - had long since cracked the code in which the telegram was written. The Germans knew the French had cracked it. And yet still von Kalle sent the message. In other words, he wanted the French to read it. So, in this theory, it was the Germans who led the French by the nose into arresting and executing their own agent. Or there is the other theory. Why is there only a translation in the archives? Where is the original telegram? Could it be that the French themselves invented the document in order to pin the blame on Mata Hari? That way they would find their "spy". And the public would be satisfied. Both theories make Mata Hari into a victim. One side or the other found it convenient to get rid of her, and so they did. But the French archives throw up another detail, which actually relegates these hypotheses to the junior division. Because what the transcripts also show is that in June 1917, during her umpteenth interrogation, Margarethe Zelle decided to come clean: she confessed. She told Bouchardon that yes, she had been recruited by the Germans. It was back in 1915 in The Hague. Caught outside France at the start of the war, she was desperate to get back to Paris. Karl Kroemer, German consul in Amsterdam, offered her the means… if she would be so good as to help them with certain information from time to time. Thus was created Agent H21. Mata Hari insisted to her interrogators that she just meant to take the money and run. She said her loyalty was to the Allies, as she had shown when she subsequently promised to help French intelligence. But the evidence against her was now clear. Arriving at the Chateau de Vincennes on the eastern outskirts of Paris, Mata Hari was led to a piece of ground where a post had been erected in front of an earthen bank. Twelve soldiers formed the firing squad. Some reports say she refused to be blindfolded. As one hand was being tied to the post, with the other she made a brief wave to her lawyer. The commander lowered his sword in a swift motion, there was the sound of rifle fire, and Mata Hari crumpled to her knees. An officer approached with a revolver and shot her once through the head. After the execution, no-one came to claim Mata Hari's body. So it was delivered to the school of medicine in Paris where it was used for lessons in dissection. Her head was preserved at the Museum of Anatomy. But during an inventory some 20 years ago, it was found to have disappeared. Presumed stolen.

15 अक्टूबर 1917 की सुबह एक धूसर सैन्य वाहन मध्य पेरिस में सेंट-लाजारे जेल से निकला। दो नन और उनके वकील के साथ, एक लंबा कोट और एक चौड़ी टोपी में एक 41 वर्षीय डच महिला थी।


How one man's eureka moment earns Disney $3bn a year

Summary: The BBC's weekly The Boss series profiles a different business leader from around the world. This week we speak to Andy Mooney, chief executive of US guitar company Fender, and formerly a senior executive at both Nike and Disney.

By Will SmaleBusiness reporter, BBC News Andy Mooney was standing in line at an ice rink in Phoenix, Arizona, when he had a eureka moment that continues to earn entertainment giant Disney more than $3bn (£2.4bn) a year. This was back in 2000, soon after Mr Mooney, a Scot, had been appointed head of Disney's consumer products division. Joining the company after 20 years at Nike, he was working hard to bring himself fully up to speed on every facet of the business. This included going to see a production of Disney on Ice, where figure skaters portray Disney characters. While queuing to get in he noticed that a great many of the young girls - and also their mothers - had dressed up in generic princess dresses, to look like Disney heroines, such as Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. Disney didn't sell such dresses at the time, but Mr Mooney immediately realised that the company was missing an incredibly lucrative trick. "I was standing in line with mothers and daughters, all dressed head to toe in princess regalia that they had made at home," says Mr Mooney, 63. "I said to a few of the mums 'if Disney made official dresses like this would you buy them?', and they all replied that they'd buy lots. "So I rushed back to [Disney headquarters] in Burbank [Los Angeles], and we launched the Disney Princess series pretty quickly." Not only did Mr Mooney and his team introduce dresses based on those worn by Disney's best-known female characters, they set to work on everything from books to lunchboxes, dolls, magazines, computer games, pyjamas, and tie-ups with food producers. The idea was to start selling basically everything that female Disney fans, both young and old, might like to buy, all featuring one or more Disney princess. "By the end of 2001 sales across the Disney Princess lines were something like $300m, and today it is more than $6bn a year," he says. This is not the success in life that Mr Mooney could have dreamed of when he grew up in a council house in the small Scottish town of Whitburn, half way between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The son of a miner, he left school at 16 to train as an accountant at his local tyre factory. Yet from this modest start, he went on to play a key role in the growth of US footwear and sportswear company Nike. And after his success at Disney, he is now chief executive at Fender, which - for someone who has been an avid guitar player since he was a teenager - is his "dream job". After a number of years at the tyre plant Mr Mooney switched to a similarly unglamorous junior accountancy role at the local ironworks. Then aged 25, in 1980, he took his first steps towards to the top of the US corporate world when he applied for, and got, the job as chief finance officer of Nike's UK operation. "In the interview they didn't ask me anything to do with my accountancy background, it was all about whether I was a cultural fit," says Mr Mooney. At the time Nike was primarily selling running shoes, so to best understand the business and his products Mr Mooney says he switched from playing football to jogging. "I picked up running when I joined, and I have stuck at it ever since, running marathons around the world," he says. While Mr Mooney's day job was a financial one, he started to impress his bosses with his gut instinct for what shoes would sell particularly well, and how Nike could best sell more of them. So much so that Nike UK switched him to head of marketing in 1982. Two years later he was poached by the marketing team at Nike's head office in Oregon, rising to the become chief marketing officer. While at Nike Mr Mooney was a key mover behind the introduction of special limited editions trainers, when inspiration came to him at a set of traffic lights. "I had become relatively successful, so I could afford to buy a very bad used Porsche 924," he says. Then a guy pulled up alongside me in a bright yellow 924, and I went 'what the hell is that?'. I discovered that it was a limited edition version of the car, and I wondered if that would work in shoes... It was a big success." After 20 years at Nike Mr Mooney says that Disney approached him, and he left for a fresh challenge in 2000, taking up the head of consumer products role. He stayed with Disney for 11 years before leaving to spend just 26 months as chief executive at sportswear brand Quiksilver, where he admits that for once things didn't work out for him. When he joined Quiksilver it was struggling with debts of more than $1bn. The top position at Fender followed in 2015, which Mr Mooney says really is "an honour" for someone who already had a collection of more than 40 guitars. More The Boss features: While he says that Fender's annual turnover is a very respectable $500m, he wants to help increase this by reducing the number of people who give up on trying to learn to play their guitar. "The industry has a retention problem," he says. "Some 45% of guitars we sell go to first time buyers, half of whom are women, but 90% of all new players then abandon the instrument in the first year." To help more people learn how to play their guitar (and then potentially buy another), Fender launched "Fender Play" last year, online guitar tutorials that are now used by 70,000 people. Mark Ritson, adjunct professor of marketing at Melbourne Business School, says: "Andy Mooney is an unusual chief executive. "He has a strong marketing background, and has proven adept at first understanding the customers his businesses were targeting, and then using that knowledge to diversify and grow revenues. "His role at Fender will be to do that again. The fact that he plays a mean guitar does him no harm either." When not busy at work Mr Mooney now jams with some of his guitar heroes, such as Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, and Jim Root of Slipknot. And he has swapped Scotland for Los Angeles' exclusive Hollywood Hills. "I do have to pinch myself," he says.

बी. बी. सी. की साप्ताहिक द बॉस श्रृंखला दुनिया भर के एक अलग व्यापारिक नेता का परिचय देती है। इस सप्ताह हम अमेरिकी गिटार कंपनी फेंडर के मुख्य कार्यकारी एंडी मूनी से बात करते हैं, जो पहले नाइकी और डिज्नी दोनों में एक वरिष्ठ कार्यकारी थे।


Wolverhampton New Cross Hospital set to get new A&E

Summary: Plans are being drawn up for a new accident and emergency department at a Wolverhampton hospital, to help cope with an increasing number of patients.

Officials at New Cross Hospital said the new unit would cost £25m and would be part of a wider development plan. Mike Goodwin, head of estates development, said the preferred location was adjacent to the Heart and Lung Centre but was yet to be agreed. It is hoped work will begin on the new unit in late 2013.

रोगियों की बढ़ती संख्या से निपटने में मदद करने के लिए वॉल्वरहैम्प्टन अस्पताल में एक नए दुर्घटना और आपातकालीन विभाग के लिए योजनाएँ तैयार की जा रही हैं।


Compulsory purchase order for new Welborne development

Summary: Landowners will be forced to sell hundreds of acres of land so work on a major housing development in Hampshire can begin, a council has agreed.

Up to 6,000 new homes are planned on 1,000 acres (400 hectares) of land close to the M27 in Welborne, Fareham. The borough council voted in favour of imposing compulsory purchase orders for the land at a meeting on Monday. The move came despite opposition from the landowners and hundreds of people living nearby. Plans for the site also include 30% affordable housing, one new secondary and three new primary schools, health facilities, shops, offices, warehouses, play areas and allotments. Subject to planning permission, it is hoped work on the site could start in 2019.

भूमि मालिकों को सैकड़ों एकड़ भूमि बेचने के लिए मजबूर किया जाएगा ताकि हैम्पशायर में एक प्रमुख आवास विकास पर काम शुरू किया जा सके, एक परिषद ने सहमति व्यक्त की है।


The chasm cutting an Antarctic base adrift

Summary: Thirty-six years after he first went there as a young meteorologist, BBC Weather's Peter Gibbs returned to the current, sixth incarnation of the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Research Station . There, on "a day with no horizon", he explored the chasm threatening to cast it adrift.

By Peter GibbsBBC Weather The Brunt Ice Shelf feels like another planet even on the sunniest of days, but when the cloud closes in it turns downright eerie as sky, snow and ice blend into one diffuse white light. Approaching the chasm, the only hint of this 100m-wide gash is a neon glint of blue from the depths of a crevasse in its far wall. The ropes laid by guides Matt and Al seem to vanish into thin air, but as I hook on and nervously reverse up to the edge I can see the coils lying on polished ice 30m vertically below. The initial commitment is tough, but once suspended I start to enjoy the drama of the place, sliding down past annual layers of ice which count off the years since I was last in Antarctica. At the bottom, an intense silence and then the thrill of tasting salt water 40km from the coast - the Weddell Sea oozing up through the crack as it widens at a relentless 15cm a day. It's a sobering reminder of the precarious nature of life on a floating ice shelf. Too soon, it's time for the long climb out - and a reminder that I'm not as fit as I was 36 years ago! Follow Peter on Twitter UK viewers can also watch Peter's Horizon programme - Ice Station Antarctica - on BBC Two at 8pm on Wednesday 4 May, and afterwards on the BBC iPlayer.

एक युवा मौसम विज्ञानी के रूप में पहली बार वहाँ जाने के छत्तीस साल बाद, बी. बी. सी. वेदर के पीटर गिब्स ब्रिटिश अंटार्कटिक सर्वेक्षण के हेली रिसर्च स्टेशन के वर्तमान, छठे अवतार में लौट आए। वहाँ, "एक दिन जिसमें कोई क्षितिज नहीं था", उन्होंने उस खाई की खोज की जो इसे बह जाने की धमकी दे रही थी।


Independent probe of Highlands and Islands fire service

Summary: An independent investigation is to be mounted into Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service (HIFRS).

The fire board has agreed to spend £10,000 on the study. HIFRS was been criticised in reports by the Accounts Commission and Grampian's chief fire officer for how it was run and the level of training for crews. Fire board members and senior officers at HIFRS have said significant progress has been made in improving management and training.

हाइलैंड्स एंड आइलैंड्स फायर एंड रेस्क्यू सर्विस (एच. आई. एफ. आर. एस.) में एक स्वतंत्र जांच की जानी है।


Burnley death: Gary Fletcher charged with murdering woman, 33

Summary: A man has been charged with murder after the discovery of a 33-year-old woman's body.

The body of 33-year-old Nicola Howarth was discovered at a house in Wilton Street, Burnley on 22 July. A post-mortem examination revealed she died from asphyxiation, Lancashire Police said. Gary Fletcher, 34, has also been charged with child neglect and is due to appear at Burnley Magistrates' Court later.

एक 33 वर्षीय महिला का शव मिलने के बाद एक व्यक्ति पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


'Money is tight' - Living on Universal Credit in lockdown

Summary: A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that the coronavirus pandemic is having "a disproportionate impact" on those already living in poverty, and calls on the government to make a £20 increase in Universal Credit permanent. We talk to some of the people who have had to rely on the benefit to get them through the pandemic.

By Alex Forsyth & Kate WhannelBBC News Scott Boerder, 38, moved to Warwick from Derby in late 2019 for a job in retail management but was made redundant. Then the pandemic hit and he hasn't been able to find work. "I have applied for lots and lots of jobs but instead of ten people applying for a job, there's 100 or 200 people". Although his background is in retail he says he's been looking for any kind of employment from warehouse jobs to security work to cleaning the streets. And as someone who had always been in work, Scott has found unemployment difficult. "I'm used to the working life where you have spare money," he says. He has been on Universal Credit since October 2019, and admits it has been a struggle. "It is terrible - the first one or two weeks when you get Universal Credit, you are sort of okay, but the third and fourth week, you're struggling." "It doesn't last - you've got your bills, your gas, electric, your TV licence, your water. "I can't afford to have broadband, I'm on a pay-as-you-go telephone, I can't afford to go to have a coffee at a coffee shop." "Money is tight, you have to think about it every day." He says that without food banks and the charity Christians Against Poverty: "I'd really be in trouble." On the brink The report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation urges the government to prioritise tackling poverty. "Trying to work, care for children and stay healthy during a third lockdown will push many to the brink when they have few resources left," it says. Director of the foundation Helen Barnard says: "It is a damning indictment of our society that those with the least have suffered the most before the pandemic and are now being hit hardest once again by the pandemic." 'It's impossible' At the beginning of winter Rebecca, who lives with her eight-year-old daughter, invested £20 in candles. "They last for 12 hours, so in the night time I can just put some candles on in my room and not put the electricity on," she says. And when her daughter is at school she doesn't turn the heating on. "I would just be freezing in the house and then save on electricity." Despite working for a charity, Rebecca still has to rely on Universal Credit to make ends meet. She says the benefit is "arbitrary and inconsistent" making it hard to budget. "You have to count the pennies and be careful what's coming in and going out but when you've got no idea month-to-month what they may or may not pay, it's impossible." "We just basically lurch from crisis to crisis every month, trying to make things work," she says. "I'm already maxed out just paying for the bare minimum... so any dip in earnings from Universal Credit is massive because the only place you can take that money from really is food." She says food parcels from the local church have been "a huge lifeline". 'A little bit less rubbish' Last year, the government raised Universal Credit by £20 - something Rebecca says has given her much-needed "breathing space". "I know that to some people £20 a week might not sound like anything much but £20 a week is literally our food spend, so that's massive. "It's not the greatest thing in the whole wide world and we're not suddenly living like kings but it's a little bit less rubbish." She has tried to save up food where she can including a big store of pasta but says the "day-to-day" stress of the pandemic has taken its toll. "The added uncertainty is horrible," she says. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's report praises the government for increasing Universal Credit by £20 a week but says this rise must be made permanent and extended. Both Labour and the SNP have urged the government to maintain the £20 increase, which is due to expire in April. Their concerns have also been echoed by the chair of the Treasury Committee, Conservative MP Mel Stride. "When the measure was originally brought in for a year on a temporary basis, I don't think the expectation then would have been that we would, at this stage, be in a third lockdown," he said. "It's been a pretty long haul, that's been very difficult for a lot of people. "The pandemic itself has disproportionately affected young people within ethnic minorities, but certainly poorer families. So they are, in a sense, bearing the brunt of the difficulties we're going through." Responding to the report a government spokesperson said: "We are committed to supporting the lowest-paid families through the pandemic and beyond to ensure that nobody is left behind." "That's why we've targeted our support to those most in need by raising the living wage, spending hundreds of billions to safeguard jobs, boosting welfare support by billions and introducing the £170m Covid Winter Grant Scheme to help children and families stay warm and well-fed during the coldest months."

जोसेफ राउनट्री फाउंडेशन की एक रिपोर्ट में पाया गया है कि कोरोनावायरस महामारी का उन लोगों पर "असमान प्रभाव" पड़ रहा है जो पहले से ही गरीबी में जी रहे हैं, और सरकार से यूनिवर्सल क्रेडिट में स्थायी रूप से £20 की वृद्धि करने का आह्वान करते हैं। हम कुछ लोगों से बात करते हैं जिन्हें महामारी के माध्यम से उन्हें प्राप्त करने के लिए लाभ पर भरोसा करना पड़ा है।


Inside the silent nation of Brunei

Summary: Brunei has become the focus of global attention for its decision to impose harsh Islamic punishments for offences such as adultery and sodomy - but in the country itself there is silence, as the BBC's Jonathan Head reports.

At first glance you could be in Singapore. The roads are smooth and well maintained, the city carefully landscaped with plenty of trees and space for pedestrians. Bandar Seri Bagawan - the capital city of Brunei - is safe, orderly and very quiet. It is the conspicuous domes of the mosques, some dazzlingly gilded, the large signs in Arabic script and the prominent pictures showing the bearded figure of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah that tell you this is Brunei. The country is one of the few absolute monarchies left in the world. The sultan has complete executive power, unconstrained by politicians or parliament. He is concurrently Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, Finance Minister and the head of Islam in Brunei. His word is law. Moving closer to religion A British colony and then protectorate until 1984, at independence the sultan proclaimed the concept of a Malay Muslim monarchy. This is instilled now in Bruneians as the national philosophy, and described by the government as "a blend of Malay language, culture and Malay customs, the teaching of Islamic laws and values and the monarchy system, which must be esteemed and practiced by all". No room for dissent there, even though not all Bruneians are ethnic Malays and at 80% of the population the country has proportionally fewer Muslims than pluralistic Indonesia. Since independence the sultan has pushed Brunei towards an ever-stricter observance of Islamic precepts. Dominik Mueller is an expert on Islam in South East Asia at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, and one of the very few academics to have studied Brunei closely. "The sultan has increasingly turned to religion over the past three decades, especially since his first pilgrimage to Mecca in 1987. He has repeatedly stressed the obligation from Allah to introduce the Sharia penal code, and the blessings this would bring, in this world and the afterlife," he told the BBC. "This mirrors the State Mufti's narrative. The influence of the Islamic bureaucracy cannot be overstated. Its leaders have long told the monarch and the public that Brunei must completely enforce God's law, as they interpret it." Mr Mueller added that while the sultan "may have become personally convinced by this, he may also see the political need to ensure the continued support of the Islamic establishment, while heading off potential Islamic opposition that might question the monarchy's legitimacy." Brunei has allowed no opposition and almost no independent civil society to exist since independence. It is still ruled under a state of emergency declared in 1962, which tightly restricts freedom of assembly and expression. Media cannot report freely and those deemed to have infringed official limits can be shut down, as happened to the Brunei Times in 2016. There are several laws, notably the sweeping Sedition Law, which can be used against government critics. That makes it difficult for visiting journalists. People are naturally hospitable and helpful. But we were unable to persuade anyone to speak on the record about the new Sharia penal code. Most were too nervous even to meet a BBC team, however discreetly. The government did not respond to several requests for comment. 'Life is as normal as normal gets' One group of devout Muslims we met, in the beautiful Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, said only those in authority - as they put it - were allowed to speak about such matters. We did chat on social media with a gay woman we will call Sarah. And we met a gay man, who wants to be called Dean, outside Brunei, and spoke to several other people, some of them gay. None of them believes the harshest punishments in the new penal code, like stoning to death, will actually be enforced. And the sultan, apparently in response to the international uproar and calls from Hollywood celebrities to boycott Brunei-owned hotels, has now issued a statement stating that the de-facto moratorium in place on executions will apply to anyone sentenced to death under Sharia. But Bruneians are divided over what the new code means for the LGBT community. Dean says that provided you keep a low profile there are no problems being gay in Brunei. "We have not been denied basic human rights", he told me. "We have not been denied the opportunity to work and study. To walk in public. Unlike what a lot of reports suggest, life is as normal as normal gets." But Sarah worries about rising homophobia encouraged by the new laws, despite the promise now not to carry out death sentences "The Sultan's speech is law and now it is effective that there will be no death penalty, even if it is still written in the law. However, it still does not change the existing homophobic tone that the law sets," she says. "It is apparent through the comments from Bruneians that people are still very opposed to homosexuality. Does this change anything? I feel like it doesn't really. The law never applied to gay women, but I still wouldn't feel safe with people knowing my sexuality." Vice across the river A conversation with two young professionals in the capital Bandar Seri Bagawan turned to Brunei's future, with the oil and gas that have funded its extraordinary prosperity due to run out over the next two decades. Low oil prices have forced the government to run huge budget deficits in recent years. Economic growth has been flat, and youth unemployment is the highest in South East Asia, as the traditional source of jobs in the government sector dries up. Is the sultan's embrace of stricter Islam perhaps a search for new legitimacy in preparation for when the generous, no-tax welfare state he has offered Bruneians until now is no longer affordable? No-one knows. The government has a programme it calls Vision 2035 which is supposed to help Brunei diversify and wean itself off its heavy dependence on hydrocarbons. But progress has so far been very limited. "The government decides. We have no say in our country's future", the young professionals said. From midday on Friday in Bandar Seri Bagawan the usually quiet streets are even more deserted, as people go to one of the many mosques in the city. Muslim Bruneians are required by law to go. Offices and shops are closed. On Saturday night, the border-crossings into neighbouring Malaysian territory get crowded, with Bruneians waiting to cross to be able to enjoy vices like drinking, smoking and music that are not available at home. It is just an hour-and-a-half to the small riverside town of Limbang in Malaysian Borneo. The hotels and karaoke bars fill up and most of the cars have Bruneian number plates. In one bar we met a group of Bruneian men, all non-Muslims, enjoying a night out. Did the Sharia penal code bother them, I asked? Not really. So long as we are free to come here, and we have our comfortable lives in Brunei, they said, why worry?

ब्रुनेई व्यभिचार और सोडोमी जैसे अपराधों के लिए कठोर इस्लामी दंड लगाने के अपने फैसले के लिए वैश्विक ध्यान का केंद्र बन गया है-लेकिन देश में ही खामोशी है, जैसा कि बीबीसी के जोनाथन हेड की रिपोर्ट है।


Earth Day: Lifestyle changes in Yorkshire to reduce pollution

Summary: As presidents, prime ministers and premiers met for a virtual summit on Earth Day aimed at cutting carbon emissions, millions across the world are already trying to do their bit to make a difference to the environment.

US President Joe Biden concluded the virtual summit with a pledge to cut his country's emissions to around half of 2005 levels and urged others to do the same. While most of us may not be able to make policy with the stroke of a pen, many are making changes to live a greener lifestyle. BBC News spoke to three people in Yorkshire who believe that action against climate change starts at home. 'We haven't missed the car' In Leeds, Tamsin Constable, her partner and two teenage children have ditched the family car and now use other ways to get around. As well as saving money on insurance, fuel and other car-related costs, Ms Constable said the change, which has resulted in more walking and cycling, has improved the family's physical health and they now feel "less stress". "We just do not have to think about congestion and traffic jams, or where to park," she said. "We thought that not owning a car would be much more of a challenge than it's proved to be. "On balance, over the last 15 months it's going OK and the truth is we haven't really missed the car at all." The family still hires or borrows a car every couple of months and does bulk shopping, "working the wheels really hard". Ms Constable, who works for Leeds City Council promoting safe and sustainable transport, said ditching the car was made easier as the family lives in an area with good transport links and she appreciated "that everybody does not have that infrastructure". 'Lovely to hear nothing' For many, the car is an essential part of the school run - but how many drivers switch off their engines at the school gates? Abi Thomas, from Bradford, puts leaflets on cars outside schools warning about the impact of pollution from idling vehicles. She was inspired to start her campaign because two of her children have asthma. "It's just a simple thing, really. Just trying to take a positive approach to helping people think a little bit more about the emissions from their cars," she said. Drivers had been "really positive" about the leaflets, she added. "One stopped me a couple of days after I'd given her a leaflet and said thank you so much and I really support what you're doing." Ms Thomas said she thought her campaign was having an impact: "My friend said to me in the morning as we walked down to the car park at school, 'It's so lovely to just hear nothing'. "You don't realise until all the engines are switched off what we're used to." 'Gradual changes' Robert Gordon, from York, has cut down on his plastic use by stopping shopping at supermarkets and taking his own containers to refill at shops. Mr Gordon, who is a member of the Green Party, said that at first he tried to cut out all plastics, but found it "incredibly difficult". "Since then I've tried to aim for more realistic goals of only cutting down on non-recyclable plastic," he said. The 25-year-old said he was encouraged to see more and more people changing their shopping habits. "Sometimes there can be a big upfront cost, whether that's time or money," he said. "But by making changes gradually, for example when you need to replace your toothbrush replacing it with a bamboo one rather than a plastic one, then gradual changes like this over time can make the transition much more manageable and you're still having that positive environmental impact." Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

कार्बन उत्सर्जन में कटौती के उद्देश्य से पृथ्वी दिवस पर एक आभासी शिखर सम्मेलन के लिए राष्ट्रपतियों, प्रधानमंत्रियों और प्रधानमंत्रियों की मुलाकात के रूप में, दुनिया भर में लाखों लोग पहले से ही पर्यावरण में बदलाव लाने के लिए अपना योगदान देने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं।


India no longer polio endemic says WHO

Summary: India has been officially removed from the list of polio endemic countries. The announcement was made in Delhi at a polio summit. It was a decision that was widely trailed in my coverage of polio from India last week and confirms the remarkable achievement the country has had in tackling the disease.

Fergus WalshMedical correspondent The Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh said "It is a matter of satisfaction that we have completed one year without any single new case of polio being reported from anywhere in the country. This gives us hope that we can finally eradicate polio not only from India but from the face of the entire mother earth. The success of our efforts shows that teamwork pays". India will need to go another two years without a case of the disease before it is formally regarded as polio-free. It leaves three countries - Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria as polio endemic - which means the virus is circulating freely and transmission of the disease has never been stopped. Chad, DR Congo and Angola have also had cases of polio this year. A group of international experts who are monitoring the efforts to eradicate polio have said the plan to stop global transmission by the end of 2012 remains "far off track". The team, headed by Sir Liam Donaldson, England's former Chief Medical Officer, has painted a stark picture of what will happen if eradication is not achieved soon. The Independent Monitoring Board, in its latest report says: "An annual expenditure exceeding one billion US dollars is currently containing polio cases at low levels. If the eradication effort does not succeed soon, this funding will dry up. Country workers risk becoming increasingly fatigued. Failure would unleash the virus, paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children. This prospect seems unthinkable." The report says the quality of the immunisation programme is too variable and says the people who carry it out are often overlooked. The report concludes: "Too many of these workers are underrated, rarely thanked, frequently criticised, often under-paid, poorly motivated, and weakly-skilled. Being an excellent vaccinator means being well-organised, a good communicator, and having the tenacity to track down every last child." One issue that will have to be resolved is when to stop using the oral polio vaccine and switch to the injectable version. This is because the oral vaccine contains a weakened live form of the polio virus and this can, in rare cases, mutate sufficiently so that it can spread in the community, triggering outbreaks. This is known as circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV). Most developed countries switched to the injectable, inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) some years ago. Unlike the oral vaccine this contains an inactivated or killed version of the virus. But any risk from the oral vaccine is tiny compared to the wild virus. The WHO says that 10 billion doses of oral polio vaccine have been given to more than 2.5 billion children in the past decade. It estimates this has prevented at least 3.5 million polio cases. In the same period there have been 18 outbreaks of cVDPV resulting in 510 cases. Although the type 2 wild polio virus has been eradicated, Nigeria has seen outbreaks of type 2 cVDPV. Dr Bruce Aylward Director of Global Polio Eradication Initiative said: "If these vaccine-derived strains are not dealt with they can spread and cause paralysis like the wild virus. But they can be stopped in their tracks by immunisation." The entire world would need to be polio-free for three years before the disease could be regarded as eradicated.

भारत को आधिकारिक तौर पर पोलियो से पीड़ित देशों की सूची से हटा दिया गया है। यह घोषणा दिल्ली में एक पोलियो शिखर सम्मेलन में की गई थी। यह एक ऐसा निर्णय था जो पिछले सप्ताह भारत से पोलियो के बारे में मेरे कवरेज में व्यापक रूप से देखा गया था और इस बीमारी से निपटने में देश की उल्लेखनीय उपलब्धि की पुष्टि करता है।


100 Women 2016: Bringing up my son as a feminist

Summary: Photographer Pedrinho Fonseca is determined to bring up his young son Joao as a feminist, in contrast to the intense chauvinism he himself witnessed as a child in his home region in Brazil. He tells BBC's 100 Women about what influences made him change course, and how he tries to help Joao move away from perceptions fostered by an entrenched culture.

I come from a very sexist place. I was born in the north-east of Brazil - a poor region that absorbed what was worst during the time of Portuguese colonial rule: the concept of domination. We were populated by white and wealthy men who enslaved Africans and left us a legacy that relationships should be ruled by this logic. Men from this area have grown up with the notion that they are owners; they have possessions, which can be land or other human beings, especially women. Thus they are responsible for bringing home the money, but no affection. And women are expected to serve them. Centuries later, we are still growing up getting this same information that we can do anything - and that women exist to please us only. This twisted scenery has built generations of complete sexism. No gender issue But many years later, with the arrival of my son, João, I realised that I needed to be a point of reference for him, completely different from the men I had known as a child, so he could grow up with another perception of the world. Watching a child grow up: Have you seen the beginning of a river? It is tiny. There is no water flow, nothing to show that this small puddle will eventually be defined by a course, miles away, as an abundant river. Every river is, in its essence, a surprise for those who follow it. Suddenly it has crossed rocks, poured through valleys, sculpted green banks, jumped through waterfalls, wet the feet of women washing their family's clothes. This is what it is like to watch a child grow up. The men, the providers, fold their arms, ignoring the most simple human tasks such as cleaning the house, making the bed, cooking, washing the dishes, watering the plants, shopping for groceries. Their duty is to walk away in the morning, work to bring back some money, come back to sleep, and the next day, start all over again. This pattern is the norm for many generations, even the current one, particularly in north-eastern Brazil. I was raised in this atmosphere. And this was the template I was used to. It never occurred to me to question it because it is such an entrenched part of the culture, a symbol of historic domination ruled by the idea that women exist to serve. My course, my natural perception of this world where men have a voice, and women do not, was interrupted by the birth of my first child. Suddenly here was someone who might follow the pre-established course for a Brazilian man - but I couldn't allow him to do that. Now, there was another man in my house, and his arrival brought the possibility of change, for both him and me. What is 100 women? BBC 100 Women names 100 influential and inspirational women around the world every year. We create documentaries, features and interviews about their lives, giving more space for stories that put women at the centre. We want YOU to get involved with your comments, views and ideas. You can find us on: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and YouTube. Spread the word by sharing your favourite posts and your own stories using #100women Other stories you might like: 'I married a man to keep my girlfriend' 'Adults are so obsessed with children they have no time for important things' Who is on the BBC's 100 Women 2016 list? Tips for fathers of boys I, who had never previously appreciated the role of my mother in my life, started to see her in another way. She had virtually raised me by herself, played all the parts: she worked all day long, but also took care of me all the time, cooked, gave me love, and soothed my small childhood and adolescence pains. I, who had never understood that a partnership could have a political and ethical dimension and that I could fight for gender equality, discovered even more about women's power through my wife, Lua. And listening to her voice inside the house and outside in the world, defending women's potential, João can start to follow a course I didn't. I understood that it is impossible to achieve social sexual equality unless we start with how we treat our children. And when I show him my affection and love, when we share household chores between the whole family (Joao has two younger sisters), when he realises that the norm should be to respect women's voices and bodies, I feel that he can observe the world from a new place. Not somewhere that I, nor a huge portion of my generation, came from, but definitely where we must go. 'Done something wrong' Does Joao ever say anything sexist? Yes - it happens when he is distracted. He is a young child who is still hit by sexist values. For example, he told us that during a school break all the pupils ran to the playground to play football. When they got there, the boys told the girls they should find something else to do. He brought up this story during dinner - because, according to him, he "felt he had done something wrong, but did not know what". We talked and told him that the mistake was to try and decide for the girls what THEY should do and to assume that playing football could not be a 'girl thing'. We talked, he listened, asked questions and the next day when he got home from school, told us he had apologised to the girls for what had happened. All photographs: Pedrinho Fonseca

फोटोग्राफर पेड्रिनो फोंसेका अपने छोटे बेटे जोआओ को एक नारीवादी के रूप में लाने के लिए दृढ़ हैं, इसके विपरीत कि उन्होंने खुद ब्राजील में अपने गृह क्षेत्र में एक बच्चे के रूप में तीव्र रूढ़िवाद को देखा था। वे बीबीसी की 100 महिलाओं को बताते हैं कि किन प्रभावों ने उन्हें पाठ्यक्रम बदलने के लिए प्रेरित किया, और कैसे वह जोआओ को एक मजबूत संस्कृति द्वारा पोषित धारणाओं से दूर जाने में मदद करने की कोशिश करते हैं।


'I grew up in a Victorian workhouse'

Summary: The harsh regime of workhouses is something we associate with Victorian times. But the shocking truth about the buildings is that they continued to house families well into the 20th Century. BBC News Online speaks to a woman who grew up in one.

By Jennifer HarbyBBC News At the age of eight, Susan Swinton was shown into a room, together with her mother Joan, 10-year-old sister and brothers aged six and one. The room was narrow - only about 18ft (5.5m) wide - and stark. Cream paint flaked from the walls. Five iron beds with thin sheets, evenly spaced, were set down one side of the room. There was not much other furniture - a table, a cooker, a small sink and a coal bucket. At the far end were two barred windows. There were no curtains. If you tried to look out at the world beyond, your view was blocked by a high line of hedges. A fierce Scottish matron ran the children through a list of rules, most of which started with the words: "You must not". They were told they must never go into the orchard at the other side of the building. They must never hang their washing outside. They must never venture through the velvet-lined door - beyond it was the staff quarters. If they were caught transgressing, the family was told they would be thrown back out on to the streets. The room, the dark passage outside and a small courtyard were to be their domain. The sprawling, factory-like building to which Susan and her family had been brought was a Victorian workhouse - one of the first to be built in the country. The workhouses' harsh regimes, which involved subjecting the "idle and profligate" to hard, monotonous tasks such as rock-breaking, would become notorious. But the shocking thing about Susan's case was that she and her family were not born in the times of Charles Dickens. Their life at Southwell's workhouse, in Nottinghamshire, began in 1968 and lasted until 1971. "I used to spend hours with my little doll, looking out of those windows, thinking, 'When is somebody going to come and take us away?'" Pauper's path At first, the workhouse provided a kind of sanctuary for Susan and her siblings. Until then their existence had been precarious, shuffled from place to place as their dad, Brian, moved in and out of prison. For a while the family lived in a derelict Victorian terrace in Newark, but then Brian moved in with his girlfriend, leaving his family on the street. "My mum traipsed around to the bus station and we sat there for four hours," Susan remembers. "Eventually, the bus inspector asked us what we were doing and my mum said, 'We've nowhere else to go'. So we spent the night with the Salvation Army." The next day, the family were taken to Southwell Workhouse - known at the time as Greet House. In the 20th Century, workhouses became known as public assistance institutions and were intended to provide temporary accommodation for homeless people, but the stigma associated with the regime endured. "It was a relief at first," Susan says. "My dad wasn't always belting us. He wasn't shouting and screaming at my mum." Susan has memories of building a den in the high hedges with her brother and endless hours of reading library books. But gradually, the institution began to grind the family down. "The rules of the place seemed as if they had come from Victorian times," Susan recalls. "We weren't allowed to mix with anybody. "My dad was back in prison again but it felt as if we had been sent to prison too." Her school attendance was sporadic but, when she did go, she remembers the other children calling her a "Gypsy". "We were stigmatised because we lived at the workhouse," she says. The long, echoing rooms were frightening for a child, particularly at night. "There were no lights and the bit we lived in was completely open - anybody could have come in and walked up those stairs," says Susan. "There was a shared corridor that ran down to the toilet and I hated going there, especially at night. I used to imagine people coming up the stairs to get us." And living on top of each other, in one small room, took its toll. "To live in one room for so long with so many people, you just lost all of your privacy," said Susan. "My mum gave up. She didn't care if she lived or died. She would either sit there being quiet, or cry." With her mother, Joan, increasingly dependent on alcohol and sleeping pills, it was left to Susan to care for the family. Each week, she used the family's social security money to buy food and a bottle of sherry for her mum, and to pay the rent to the wardens. She also had to go to the doctor to get her mother's sleeping pills. "It was traumatic having to do that," she says. "I was sitting in the waiting room with a begging letter from my mother and everyone knew who I was and why I was there. "If my mother didn't get her drink or tablets, she would be in a temper. She was a really nice mum but she had been through so much. "We got to the point where we would do without food so she could have her sherry." It was Susan who did most of the family's cooking - tinned food, mainly - and cleaned the room, which was inspected each week. "You had to make sure it was clean at all times - that was one of the rules," she says. There were few toys, while second-hand clothes and shoes were provided by a charity. "None of the shoes ever fitted properly and I didn't know what it was like to get a haircut," Susan says. The other families at the hostel moved on after a few weeks but Susan's family were repeatedly overlooked. "They just wouldn't give us a council house," she says. The overall feeling was one of having been forgotten. "We were just left to ourselves," she says. "That's what I feel so angry about now. Why did it take three years to move us out of the workhouse?" Finally, the family were provided with a council house in Southwell and left the workhouse. A few months after they left, the building stopped being homeless accommodation and was instead used by social services and for elderly care. Sections of it became derelict. In 1997 the former workhouse was bought by the National Trust, which restored it. Staff and volunteers dress up as Victorians and tell visitors of the building's past life. Among the volunteers is Susan. "People say they are surprised I want to go back there," she said. "But I am glad people want to listen to me, because nobody wanted to listen to me at the time. "It's important the story of the workhouse is told. When I see people lying in shop doorways, I think, 'What is your story and will anybody ever want to listen to it?'" The room where Susan lived has been redecorated as a near-replica of what it looked like when she was there. She says visitors are shocked when they happen upon the relatively modern furnishings amid the Victorian costumes and settings of the rest of the workhouse. "Sometimes I think people reckon I'm in cloud cuckoo land, saying I lived here," she said. "I have a lot of anger in me for the neglect we suffered from social services and the professionals who saw what was happening to us and did nothing to help us. "But my volunteer work helps me deal with the anger in me." You may also be interested in: In later years, Susan drifted apart from her siblings. Age 60, she is married with grown-up children and has just retired from her work as a shop manager. "I felt so, so lonely the whole time we lived there. When you live in a place like that, with no neighbours, no friends, you really know what isolation feels like. It's a really deep-down thing that will always be with me." Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

वर्कहाउस का कठोर शासन कुछ ऐसा है जिसे हम विक्टोरियन काल से जोड़ते हैं। लेकिन इमारतों के बारे में चौंकाने वाली सच्चाई यह है कि वे 20 वीं शताब्दी तक अच्छी तरह से परिवारों को घर देते रहे। बीबीसी न्यूज़ ऑनलाइन एक महिला से बात करता है जो एक में पली-बढ़ी।


The Apology

Summary: Photographer Aletheia Casey recently returned to Australia after living abroad for five years and began work on a project looking at the process of reconciliation and apology to indigenous Australians. To mark National Sorry Day in Australia, Casey writes about the work.

Phil CoomesPicture editor Shortly before I left Australia in 2008, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to the First Peoples of Australia and recognised the ongoing trauma and dislocation that the colonisation of Australia has had on the Indigenous Peoples of this land. He also made a specific formal apology for the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their homes which occurred from the 1920s until well into the 1970s in Australia. I was struck by what an important statement it had been for the government of Australia to recognise the trauma that it had directly inflicted in the past. I did wonder, however, was it, as many people felt, simply an acknowledgment of 'White Guilt'? And did this Apology have long-term healing effects on the people who had been directly affected by the laws of the past? And so I decided to explore these themes, with a direct emphasis on indigenous women, as I believe that indigenous women throughout the past have been marginalised from Australian society, and these women have had to struggle even harder than men to have their voice heard within the Australian cultural context. It is important not to underestimate the ongoing effects of what has happened in the past and how this resonates in the present and affects future generations. By asking the question, "Has anything changed for you, emotionally or in your daily life, since the Australian federal government formally apologised to the Stolen Generation in 2008?", I aim to discover what effect this Apology has had on indigenous Australians and in particular whether it has helped in healing any of the traumas of the past. Using handwritten quotes taken from this discussion combined with portraits and landscapes the final images are in an-depth exploration into the themes of grief, loss and reconciliation. This series is photographed with a large format camera and expired film. The treatment of the images is intended to stimulate memories and to create an emotive response to the image, thus becoming a memory landscape and an attachment to a time and place. Expired films were of help in achieving the vintage look and the colour treatment enhanced the aberrations which randomly resulted from the chemical development of the films. The landscapes are paired with the portraits in order to emphasize how important a place of belonging is - the Stolen Generations were not only removed from their families, but they were also removed from their place of belonging, their land, and from their long history as custodians of the land. You can see more of Aletheia Casey's work on her website.

फोटोग्राफर एलेथिया केसी हाल ही में पांच साल तक विदेश में रहने के बाद ऑस्ट्रेलिया लौटी और स्वदेशी ऑस्ट्रेलियाई लोगों से सुलह और माफी की प्रक्रिया को देखते हुए एक परियोजना पर काम करना शुरू किया। ऑस्ट्रेलिया में राष्ट्रीय क्षमा दिवस को चिह्नित करने के लिए, केसी ने काम के बारे में लिखा है।


Profile: Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh

Summary: Ali Abdullah Saleh has proved to be one of the Arab world's most tenacious leaders, projecting a statesman-like, even affable, image in the face of popular opposition, in sharp contrast to some of his counterparts during the "Arab spring".

While Yemen has seen the bloody repression of protests in its capital Sanaa and other cities, the country's president has sought - with diminishing success - to distance himself from the violence. But the country's strife finally caught up with him personally when he was wounded on 3 June in an attack on the presidential mosque in Sanaa that wounded several government officials and killed seven bodyguards. The following day, Mr Saleh was flown on a Saudi medical plane to Riyadh to receive medical treatment for shrapnel wounds and burns. Mr Saleh accepted but then declined to sign a regional plan for ending the conflict. Under the plan he would step down in return for immunity from prosecution and handover power to his vice president, Abdrabo Mansour Hadi. Critics say that over more than three decades at the top, he used every means and loophole to stay in power, promising to exit politics only to bide his time in an effort to prolong his rule. "[He] has always ruled by creating confusion, crisis and sometimes fear among those who might challenge him," Yemen expert Sarah Phillips wrote in an article for the UK's Guardian newspaper. Mr Saleh has led one of the most challenging countries in the region, an impoverished state vulnerable to militancy, positioned between the oil-rich authoritarianism of the Gulf states and the lawlessness of Somalia, and still healing from a Korea-like division during the Cold War. Now approaching his 70th year, he has likened the task of ruling Yemen to "dancing on the heads of snakes". Balancing act The modern Republic of Yemen is inextricably linked to Mr Saleh, elected its first president after unification in 1990. Born in Sanaa and receiving little education, he worked his way up through North Yemen's military, being wounded during the 1970 civil war between republicans and Saudi-backed royalists. He took part in a coup four years later and assumed his first national leadership role in 1978, when parliament endorsed him as president. The next 12 years saw the painstaking work of unification with Marxist South Yemen, a process which briefly appeared to collapse in 1994 when civil war flared up. Abroad, Mr Saleh largely achieved the delicate task of keeping both Western and Arab powers on side. His battle to control al-Qaeda - who have sensed in Yemen a base comparable to Afghanistan in the late 1990s - won him friends in Washington. The Americans might otherwise have been wary of a leader who had stayed close to Iraq's Saddam Hussein during the occupation of Kuwait. Turning point The spectre of civil war is something Mr Saleh has continued to conjure up in a bid to justify his hold on power. "They [the opposition] want to drag the area to civil war and we refuse to be dragged to civil war," he said in a speech on 22 April, the day before news broke that he had agreed to leave power imminently. "Security, safety and stability are in Yemen's interests and the interests of the region." The shooting of 45 people by snipers at an opposition rally in Sanaa on 18 March had proved a turning-point for many, despite his denials that his security forces had taken part. Ministers and ambassadors abandoned him in protest, and the crowds in the streets swelled in the weeks that followed. With outrage now added to anger at corruption and poverty he had failed to tackle for decades, Mr Saleh's "snake-dancing" days looked to be nearly over. Some analysts doubt he will make a return trip to Sanaa to resume power once his wounds have healed.

अली अब्दुल्ला सालेह अरब दुनिया के सबसे दृढ़ नेताओं में से एक साबित हुए हैं, जो "अरब वसंत" के दौरान अपने कुछ समकक्षों के विपरीत, लोकप्रिय विरोध के सामने एक राजनेता जैसी, यहां तक कि मिलनसार, छवि पेश करते हैं।


Teen girl beats boys to 'make history' as state champion

Summary: Girls-only wrestling is not recognised in North Carolina.

By Tom GerkenBBC News, Washington As is the case in many states across the US, there are not enough girls wrestling in secondary schools for a division to be formed. So when Heaven Fitch set her sights on becoming a wrestling champion, it was always going to mean facing a field made up of mostly boys. On 22 February, she became the first girl to win a North Carolina High School Wrestling State Championship. Heaven follows in the footsteps of Michaela Hutchison, who became the first girl to ever win a state-wide secondary school title in 2006. In an Instagram post about the victory, Heaven proudly said: "I did it again, I made history." But when she spoke to the BBC, the 16-year-old struggled to show anything other than modesty when discussing her success. "I'm just like any other person," she said, before clarifying, "outside of wrestling". "Last year I was the first girl to reach second place in North Carolina, but I never expected to win it. Just to place last year was crazy in itself - all I wanted was to place higher. "I'm proud of how far I've come." If her words leave you in any doubt of her talents, you need only speak to Chris Waddell, who has been her coach for the past two years. "There hasn't been anyone like her in North Carolina," he told the BBC. "I've never coached anyone like her. "Heaven's an exceptional wrestler and she's making history. It's an outstanding achievement - she's just that good." "All around," he explained, "she's probably the most talented kid I've ever coached. "I always tell her she's a unicorn - because she's so special." In the days since her victory, a video of Heaven's win has been viewed more than 250,000 times on social media, and she has made headlines across the country for "making history". It will perhaps not surprise you to learn that the teenager was down-to-earth when reflecting on the amount of press coverage her success has received. "It's been really surreal," she said. "I didn't expect it to go this far, it's become this big thing." And although it took some convincing, when pressed on what she thinks about the "making history" tag she's been given by the press, Heaven finally allowed a bit of swagger to seep through. "I do see it like that," she said with a laugh. "I am the first female to place, so it is history for North Carolina. And coach Chris hopes her win may lead to the creation of a girls-only division in North Carolina in the next few years.

उत्तरी कैरोलिना में केवल लड़कियों की कुश्ती को मान्यता नहीं है।


Four banking tales

Summary: Here is a tale of four big British banks - RBS, Barclays, Co-op Bank and Lloyds, all doing interesting stuff five years after the great banking crash, not all of it good news, but none of it threatening (phew) to the wealth of savers.

Robert PestonEconomics editor Let's start with Royal Bank of Scotland - since I have learned a little smidgeon of new news. RBS is close to announcing the sale, forced by the European Commission, of a small business banking operation (315 branches serving 250,000 small businesses and two million retail customers). What I have learned is that the offer from a consortium of mainstream investment institutions, led and chaired by the former Tesco finance director, Andy Higginson, has been rejected. Its rejection by RBS may spark some controversy, since its offer was the only one to offer de facto full separation from the off, with a plan to float the whole thing on the London Stock Exchange. However RBS's board has concluded that the two other offers, from private equity consortia - one led by Corsair and the other by Blackstone - offer better value, in that they both involve RBS keeping a stake in the separated small-business bank for a while, which should allow it to share in any future increase in the value of the bank. Now Barclays, which yesterday formally launched its jumbo rights issue to raise £5.8bn. The rights-issue prospectus discloses that it has been warned by the Financial Conduct Agency that it has been found guilty of breaching London rules for raising money from the sale of listed securities. This may sound terribly technical and dull, and Barclays is contesting the findings, but the implications of the FCA's verdict are serious. To be clear, it is not the proposed fine of £50m which is the big headache for Barclays. The much bigger concern is the FCA's conclusion that a £322m payment by Barclays to Qatar Holdings, an investment arm of the Qatari state, was to "make additional payments, which would not be disclosed, for the Qatari participation in the capital raisings". What do "additional payments, which would not be disclosed" for services rendered, sound like to you? Barclays is well aware what those payments look and smell like, because it also discloses that "the Serious Fraud Office is investigating the same agreements", and that the US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are "undertaking an investigation into whether the Group's relationships with third parties who assist Barclays to win or retain business are compliant with the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act". The SEC and DoJ "are also investigating" the £322m payment to the Qataris and the "the US Federal Reserves has requested to be kept informed". This is hair-raising stuff. The US authorities take breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act very seriously indeed. Then there is the Co-op. You will recall that Co-op Group is trying to rescue Co-op Bank - whose capital has been seriously depleted by losses - by forcing £500m of losses on owners of £1.3bn of bonds and preference shares, and injecting into the bank £1bn from the sale of assets and its own resources. Well, a bunch of hedge funds and other sophisticated professional investors, controlling roughly 30% of the £1.3bn of the bonds, don't like the offer - and there is enough of them to stymie it. Instead they propose all the £1.3bn of bonds should be converted into shares, which would leave Co-op Group with zero ownership of the bank and the investment institutions owning the whole thing. This would be revolution. Whether or not Co-op Bank could be called "Co-op" when separated from the co-operative movement and owned by hedge funds is moot. However, this can be seen as a pretty aggressive play in a negotiation. And goodness only knows where it will end up. Finally, back to the historic first stage in the privatisation of Lloyds. A year ago, when Lloyds shares were languishing at almost half today's level, the notion that the Treasury could sell a big chunk of them for a profit would have seemed absurd. So the Chancellor has inevitably hailed the sale of 6% of the bank for 75 pence, above the 73.6 pence paid by taxpayers when bailing out Lloyds, as an important step towards getting our money back. The £3.2bn sale yields a cash profit of £61m for the Exchequer - although the National Audit Office will eventually say there was no real profit on the deal, after adjustment is made for the cost of locking up all those billions of pounds in shares that didn't pay a dividend for all those years. Also, many investors believe Lloyds shares are almost certain to rise in coming weeks, partly because the British economy seems to be reviving and partly for the mechanistic reason that the government has fewer shares left to sell. So some may query whether George Osborne should have waited for a better price - although experienced investors know that waiting for the best price means never selling.

यहाँ चार बड़े ब्रिटिश बैंकों-आरबीएस, बार्कलेज, को-ऑप बैंक और लॉयड्स की कहानी है, जो महान बैंकिंग दुर्घटना के पांच साल बाद दिलचस्प काम कर रहे हैं, यह सब अच्छी खबर नहीं है, लेकिन इनमें से कोई भी बचतकर्ताओं की संपत्ति के लिए खतरा नहीं है।