George Floyd protests: What do 'thug', 'white privilege' and 'ally' mean?

Summary: Ally. Thug. All lives matter. White privilege.

These are just a few of the words and phrases you may have seen or heard in discussions about racial inequality after the death of George Floyd. Many of these terms about race and activism are controversial - and people often have different ideas about what certain phrases mean. Their life experiences will also affect how they define them. So Radio 1 Newsbeat's been chatting with a couple of people for their interpretations and perspectives. Kehinde Andrews is professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, director of the Centre for Critical Social Research, founder of the Organisation of Black Unity, and co-chair of the Black Studies Association. JT Flowers is a 26-year-old American rapper, student and activist living in the UK, and Natasha March is an academic and activist from Manchester. Thug "Subverted by thuggery." "Thugs and criminals." That's how Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel have referred to people involved in violence that occurred at recent Black Lives Matter protests in the UK. Donald Trump used the word in a tweet, flagged for inciting violence, that included the phrase, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts". Its dictionary definition is "a violent person, especially a criminal," but it has become a loaded term when referring to black people. A journalist who had traced the history of the word, told the BBC in 2015 that "thug" was brought to Western society from India in 1897, later used by politicians and in the media, even reclaimed by hip-hop artists such as Tupac and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It was used widely to describe black people involved the Baltimore riots in 2015, and the use of the word still hurts today. "They may as well just have the balls, have the bottle to say the N-word," says Natasha March. "Racism hasn't changed, it's just become more discreet, clever, manipulated, gaslighted, and thrown back at us." She believes people like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, both from a wealthy, educated background, should have known what the implications of the word thug are. "When you call an oppressed group thugs, what it does is it incites fear," she adds. "Fear of the other, fear of the immigrants, fear of the unknown." "When you have fear you shut down your senses, you don't listen, you don't see, you don't intellectualise. You're on survival mode. "And that is wonderful way to anesthetise a society, so they don't listen to the oppressed group. It's very clever." Natasha says the use of the word thug is an attempt to steal the voices of Black Lives Matter protesters. White privilege White privilege - a term some find upsetting and offensive - refers to the concept that people have basic rights and benefits simply because they are white. It doesn't mean they haven't suffered hardship or that they don't have a tough life - just that their colour hasn't made it harder. JT feels some people get defensive about this term because it's misunderstood. "You might be a white person and still be poor with a lack of access to education or face a language barrier in the workplace. It doesn't mean you can't be disadvantaged in other ways," he tells Newsbeat. "It just means with respect to that one particular thing - your race and skin colour - you do have the luxury of not being able to think about it. "It means having the luxury of being able to step outside without fearing that you're going to be discriminated against or oppressed in any way because of the colour of your skin," he says. The most recent statistics from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice show: Kehinde believes the benefits of whiteness can be "psychological" and that "there is a benefit to being white because you're not treated in the same way." "There are different dimensions to it, some people have more privilege." Kehinde tells us the phrase "white privilege" was first written by the famous black civil rights activist William Du Bois in the 1930s to explain the way white workers in America benefited from segregation and the colour of their skin. Many argue black people have to deal with an extra burden of worrying about how they will be treated because of how people perceive them. Speaking in a special show on BBC Radio 1Xtra, DJ Ace said as a "huge black man with a beard" people find him "frightening". "I have to live with this all day, every day and in every scenario. "I'm aware my aesthetic is scary to some white people. Sometimes I might 'tone it down' and that embarrasses me". "If I see a white woman coming down the street I might cross so she feels more comfortable." White saviour White saviour is usually used to describe somebody who appears to think certain communities '"need saving". "It is a concept that's rooted in this idea that marginalised communities, particularly the black community, isn't empowered enough to liberate themselves," says JT. He says in online spaces and activism it's usually used to point out when someone "takes it upon themselves to speak on behalf of black people or marginalised people," sometimes without understanding the circumstances. JT says ideally people should "create space for black people to speak for themselves". Last year, Stacey Dooley was criticised for making a film in Uganda for Comic Relief, and posting a picture on Instagram of her with a black child. At the time, MP David Lammy said: "The world does not need any more white saviours". Stacey Dooley insisted there was "nothing sinister" about what she did - and has since said she wouldn't change what she did. Following the row, Comic Relief's co-founder, the writer and director Richard Curtis, said the charity would use fewer celebrities in their films and be "very careful to give voices to people" who live in the areas being highlighted. Ally / allyship At first glance, this seems a contradiction to "white saviour". JT describes an ally as "a person who's willing to stick their neck out and stand up for what's right when they see something going wrong". Often, this is someone who is outside of the community they are trying to help - so in this case, it might be white people who want to support the black community. "It's what can white people do?" says Kehinde. JT believes an ally needs to do more than act like a "white saviour" and "take on some risk and bear the cost of actually standing up for justice". "What we're trying to do in the States is push the dialogue to a place where people begin to consider what it would look like to be an accomplice. He believes the best way to be an accomplice is to "create space for black people to speak for themselves." All Lives Matter This is often used as a response to the phrase "black lives matter' - the feeling from some people that all lives should be included in the conversation around race. JT believes people who say it may not understand what the "black lives matter" phrase means. "Imagine your house is on fire and somebody comes up to you and says, 'Hey all houses matter.' "Your response would be along the lines of, 'Yes but your house isn't on fire so if all houses matter and your house is fine, then why is it so much to ask you to care when my house is burning down?'" JT believes we live in a society where - at present, "black lives aren't valued in the same way that white lives are." Silence = Violence Again a controversial phrase which basically means the best way to address an issue is to speak about it - and staying quiet means you agree with what's going on. "It's effectively just the idea that the status quo, our everyday reality at present, is a violent one for black people," claims JT. "Refusing or failing to speak out on that is to be ok with things as they are. "You don't have to post something on social media in order to act and live your life in an anti-racist way. If you see something going wrong on a street, you can speak up and do something." JT realises many people can feel uncomfortable on speaking out or may feel it's not their place. "If you notice that you feel unequipped to have conversations with people about race, you can take the time to educate yourself. And speaking out doesn't have to mean posting on social media it can simply be about starting to talk honestly about race with those closest to you. "You can have conversations with your friends and family members." Follow Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

सहयोगी. ठग. सभी जीवन मायने रखते हैं. सफेद विशेषाधिकार।


Highland ponies combat scrub at Culloden Battlefield

Summary: Highland ponies have been introduced to Culloden Battlefield in the hope that their grazing keeps down scrub that threatens to overwhelm the site.

National Trust for Scotland (NTS) said the moorland battlefield would become woodland without the aid of the five animals. The ponies - Fraoch, Ghillie Bhuidhe, Findhorn Paulo, Gordina and Grian - are from Newtonmore Pony Centre. Government forces defeated a Jacobite army at Culloden on 16 April 1746.

हाईलैंड टट्टू को कुलोडेन युद्धक्षेत्र में इस उम्मीद में पेश किया गया है कि उनका चराई झाड़ियों को नीचे रखता है जो साइट को अभिभूत करने का खतरा है।


Army chief: Public has to understand why we need 'boots on the ground'

Summary: As he visits troops bolstering Nato's eastern border in Estonia in response to rising tensions with Russia, General Sir Nick Carter - the British army's top soldier - explains how the armed forces need to win support for their changing mission.

By Jonathan MarcusDefence and diplomatic correspondent Public support in Britain for the Army has been consistently strong. But General Carter says there are risks here as well as benefits. "That public support," he says, "is very much based upon sympathy and not necessarily upon empathy. "And I think if we wish to sustain our numbers, and indeed the sort of attitude you would want your army to have, I think it's important that the cursor swings more towards empathy than sympathy, so that people understand more about what an army does and why you need an army, and therefore what its final task might be." Of course the Army is about much more than that final task - "closing with and engaging the enemy". But the unpopularity of some of Britain's recent wars, the lack of understanding about military matters among much of the public, and the increasing sensitivity to casualties, have all meant that the term "boots on the ground" - putting soldiers into harm's way - has become almost toxic. General Carter has some sympathy with this view. "I think the term 'boots on the ground' has become difficult for people to comprehend. Unprecedented change "The trick of course is for boots on the ground to be applied in a way that is not necessarily risk-free, but is done for appropriate gain and benefit." This issue of the relationship between Britain and her army is a central aspect of General Carter's thinking. He is speaking at an Estonian army base in Tapa, a garrison town a little under 100 miles from the Russian border. The general is visiting the British-led multi-national battle group, which is there as part of a Nato deployment to reassure the Estonians and to demonstrate the alliance's cohesion to Moscow. "Young people join an army to be used and that is important to us," he says. "So the opportunity to do something like we are doing up here in Estonia is important. "But we also need to be prepared to be used in other ways as well, providing we can be used in an effective fashion." For the British army, this is a period of unprecedented change as it transitions away from a dominant focus on counter-insurgency operations in the heat of Iraq and Afghanistan, and re-builds its capability to fight modern high-intensity combat - the sort of conflict it trained for day-in and day-out during the Cold War years. Lessons of history The strategic picture is also changing dramatically. The potential threats are becoming more complex, the dividing line between peace and war ever less clear. Some people argue that the modern, Western way of war is at arm's-length - exemplified by armed drones and stand-off weapons fired at great distances from their intended targets. By such readings the traditional army - leaving aside maybe the special forces - seems strangely out of step with the apparent new reality. But General Carter disagrees. "I don't subscribe to the view that we find ourselves in a new era of warfare where you can do it all with stand-off; you can do it all with bombing; you can do it all with special forces and you can do it all with proxies," he tells me emphatically. "Those are all simply fallacies. The bottom line in all of this is that, in the final analysis, people live on land and it is ultimately the land component that has to 'mix it' where people live. History proves that that is a requirement. "Our policy makers absolutely understand that you have an army because, in the final analysis, armies are the business when it comes to a decision, and ultimately it's about a decision." 'Adequate numbers' Britain's army is of course an awful lot smaller than it once was. How big should it be in part depends upon what the country can afford. So does General Carter think that he has enough soldiers? "The straightforward answer to that question is that given the tasks that we have currently got, we have adequate numbers," he says. "If the tasks change or the tasks increase then we might have to ask questions about it." On equipment he is confident that the Army will get things that it needs, though "how quickly it arrives is always a question". But the Army itself is going to change even more dramatically in the years ahead. And this too is something that General Carter is pushing forward. Traditionally the Army - like most others - is what he terms "bottom-fed". In other words, "it recruits people who are youngsters and we grow them through a career". But he believes that as the Army requires and takes on more specialists, it is going to have to offer a very different career structure. "I suspect," he says, "that maybe as much as 30% of the army may be specialists in the future - and how we supply those specialist career schemes is something we have to think about." This could mean a lot more of what the Army calls "lateral entry" (ie joining at a much later age, probably from an established career) or indeed sharing people with industry. Nonetheless, at least in his lifetime, General Carter does not expect the combat arms of the Army "to look particularly different" to the way they do today. "I think we will still deliver that effect through a bottom-fed delivery system in the way that we understand it." But he says specialists will need to be recruited differently and that will have significant implications requiring a review of ranks, career structures, working practices and so on. 'Miscalculation risk' General Carter thinks that the Army is about a year or two away from taking on regular personnel by this lateral entry method. But the core business of the Army is not going to change. While its roles go way beyond just training for high-intensity combat, as here in Estonia, it remains part of the nation's insurance policy. So being so close to the Russian border, what security challenge does the general worry about most? "Probably the greatest risk at the moment," he says, "is the risk of miscalculation. "Understanding your potential opponents," he says, "and having the communications systems in place and the processes in place so that you realise what messages you are sending is fundamental. "Miscalculation is the thing that we probably need to watch."

रूस के साथ बढ़ते तनाव के जवाब में एस्टोनिया में नाटो की पूर्वी सीमा को मजबूत करने वाले सैनिकों का दौरा करते हुए, जनरल सर निक कार्टर-ब्रिटिश सेना के शीर्ष सैनिक-बताते हैं कि कैसे सशस्त्र बलों को अपने बदलते मिशन के लिए समर्थन जीतने की आवश्यकता है।


'My dog Magic, the lifesaver'

Summary: Dogs are known as man's best friend and their powerful sense of smell means they also have the potential to save lives - detecting changes in blood glucose levels in type 1 diabetes patients and urine samples from those with prostate cancer.

Magic leaps up, placing his paws on his owner's knees, his brown eyes staring into hers. It is a routine he has done thousands of times. Magic is a medical alert assistance dog, and has been trained to detect a minute shift in the blood sugar levels of his owner, Claire Pesterfield. Using his superior sense of smell, he is capable of detecting tiny odour concentrations - around one part per trillion. Without Magic's assistance, changes in her blood sugar levels could put her at risk of a seizure, or - in extreme cases - the onset of a coma. Claire has type 1 diabetes, but - unlike most people with the condition - her body does not display the warning signs that a dangerous episode might be about to occur. "I've used all the latest technology that's out there, and it still doesn't give me enough warning to prevent the episodes, or make them less severe," she tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme. "But Magic can give me up to a 30-minute warning that I need to take action. "In the three and a half years we've been together, he has alerted and potentially saved my life 3,500 times. And he does it all for a dog biscuit. "I know without him, I wouldn't be alive today." Claire works as a children's diabetes nurse, supporting and educating children with type 1 diabetes and their families. She says she would not be able to do the job were it not for Magic, as she would be at risk of collapsing mid-meeting. "Without him I would be testing my blood glucose level every 20 or 30 minutes, to try and pre-empt what was going to happen," she explains. Having Magic also sends the message to the children she works with, she adds, that, "You can still live life to the full when you've got diabetes." 'I was exhausted' Magic sleeps by Claire's bed each night. When he detects a change in her blood glucose level, he prods her with his paw to wake her up. "Before I got Magic I would be up every hour, trying to check my blood glucose level, trying to predict when these episodes would happen," she explains. "That meant that I was exhausted. Many a time I would be too afraid to go to sleep in case I had an episode and wouldn't wake up. "Now I know my husband won't have to worry that when he wakes up in the morning I'm going to be dead next to him. "Simple things like that are very hard to put into words." Infected cells NHS trials are currently assessing if dogs could also be used to detect prostate cancer. The research being conducted offers an opportunity for the disease to be detected at an early stage - vital for improving survival rates. The dogs - usually from the gundog breed, such as labradors and springer spaniels - are taught to detect a sample of urine from a patient with prostate cancer. It is thought that the dogs can pick up the odour of cancer "volatiles", which travel from the infected cells into the urine as the body tries to dispose of the chemicals. When they correctly detect a sample containing these volatiles, they are given a treat as positive reinforcement. The dog's performances are recorded, and those that make the grade have more than a 90% success rate at detecting a sample from a patient with prostate cancer. 'Bio-sensor' Dr Claire Guest, co-founder of the charity Medical Detection Dogs, realised she had breast cancer after her dog, Daisy, began nudging an area of her chest which felt bruised. Tests later revealed she had two tumours. This potentially life-saving experience sparked her interest in the capabilities of detection dogs. "Although the dog has a fluffy coat and a waggy tail, he is in fact a highly sophisticated bio-sensor," she explains. "Evolution has given him this highly sensitive nose, going down to parts per trillion. So we're talking about a science here. "People board planes every day that have been screened by detector dogs to see if there are explosives on board. That's a life-or-death decision. "Why do we rely on them there but not assisting us with health?" Currently, cancer detection dogs do not receive any government funding, but Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith hopes that can change. He discovered the charity's work through his wife Betsy, who - after having breast cancer - became a trustee at Medical Detection Dogs. Mr Duncan Smith believes the "pioneering research doesn't just have the potential to save lives, but also to save our NHS many millions of pounds". England's Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told him he will consider the findings of the NHS trial when published. "I think ideas like this sometimes don't get looked at as quickly as they should, because they sometimes get put in the quackery box. "I will personally look at this research when it comes through. One of our jobs as MPs is to question orthodoxies and look at different ways of doing things that possibly the establishment has swept under the carpet. "If this research is good, I want to know about it." Watch the Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.

कुत्तों को मनुष्य के सबसे अच्छे दोस्त के रूप में जाना जाता है और उनकी सूंघने की शक्तिशाली भावना का मतलब है कि उनमें जीवन बचाने की क्षमता भी है-टाइप 1 मधुमेह रोगियों में रक्त शर्करा के स्तर में परिवर्तन और प्रोस्टेट कैंसर वाले लोगों के मूत्र के नमूनों का पता लगाना।


English wine: Is sparkling wine better in England than France?

Summary: The Duchess of Cornwall has called for a new name for English sparkling wine to match the grandeur of champagne. And for the first time, domestic wine is the most popular in the government's cellar. Have Britons developed a taste for a home-grown tipple?

By Tom de CastellaBBC News Magazine Someone arrives with a bottle of English wine. Cue excitable voices saying, "Gosh, English wine is really quite good, you know - it gives champagne a run for its money." The surprise used to be palpable. But English wine has grown up. Today it regularly wins awards - there were four gold medals at the International Wine Challenge (IWC) this year. It's a far cry from English actor Peter Ustinov's put down: "I imagine hell like this - Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine." But is there something holding English wine back? It accounts for just 0.25% of total wine sales in the UK, according to industry body English Wine Producers. This week the Duchess of Cornwall called on producers to come up with a name. "People should put their heads together and think of a new name for English sparkling wine," she said while visiting Hambledon Vineyard in Hampshire. "It should be something with much more depth. I plan to find a new word for it." So is new terminology the final piece in the jigsaw? English wine has been through a revolution. Old grape varieties are out, new owners are in. The area of vines planted in England and Wales has doubled from 761 hectares in 2004 to about 1,500 hectares today. The country now has 434 vineyards. Figures just released by the Foreign Office on the government's wine cellar, show that for the first time more English wine was drunk at government hospitality events than wine from any other nation. Andrew Neather, Evening Standard wine critic, says the new winemakers tend to be go-ahead types from the City or wealthy lawyers, who want to carve out another career. They are focusing on sparkling wine, planting more of the traditional champagne grapes - chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier. In 2010, for the first time more than half of the vintage went into sparkling wine. Three of this year's four IWC gold medal winners were sparkling wines. In June, Majestic announced that sales of English sparkling wine trebled in 2012, encouraged by the Jubilee and Olympics. There is logic to England focusing on fizz. Kent and West Sussex, where the best English sparkling wine originates, are only about 90 miles north of Champagne. The chalky soils around the North and South Downs are very similar to the earth where famous names such as Bollinger and Dom Perignon plant their grapes. English vineyards The best English sparking wine is as good as "decent" champagne, Neather says. England's top seller - Nyetimber - has more to offer than a mass market champagne like Moet Imperial, he argues. "It's more interesting, has more complexity and better acidity." The Moet costs more at £32.99 - although it is sometimes discounted - while Nyetimber is £29.99. The Financial Times wine critic, Jancis Robinson agrees, albeit with a couple of caveats. "Most English fizz is now very well made and attractively dry and zesty. But very little has any real complexity since producers generally cannot afford to age it very long." And cost is a problem. "It's never a bargain," Robinson says. "It is generally made by people who have invested a great deal in new vineyards or winemaking and need to see a return." The competition can be significantly cheaper whether prosecco, cava or own-brand champagne. Aldi, for example, sells champagne for just £12.99. Despite the cost premium, patriotism and the fashion for local provenance suggests that current levels of production are outstripped by demand. "The industry sells everything it produces," says Julia Trustram Eve, spokeswoman for English Wine Producers. "Demand is exceeding supply." Production is still tiny in international terms. Champagne alone produces more than 300 million bottles a year, compared with England's total annual wine production of about 3-4 million bottles. Tesco sells only three English wines. Waitrose stocks 57 but this still only accounts for 0.6% of the wine it sells. But there is momentum building, and big name involvement. The Queen is planning to sell wine from vines at Windsor Great Park. And next year the Waitrose vineyard at Leckford, Hampshire, will put its first bottles on sale. Frazer Thompson, chief executive at the Chapel Down vineyard in Kent, believes that English wine can grow quickly. Over the next decade, English producers should aim to move from today's 2% of the UK sparkling wine market to 10 or 15%, he says. Such a prediction will raise eyebrows. But Thompson cites the rapid growth of Chapel Down, which was selling 25,000 bottles of its non-vintage Brut for £5.99 when he joined 12 years ago. Today it sells 200,000 bottles at £18.99. Sparkling wine from the southern counties seems here to stay. But English still wine divides the experts. "I have had credible chardonnay in this country but it tends to have so much acidity that it's better in sparkling wine," says Neather. As a result of its lack of sunshine, the first English growers traditionally planted fast-ripening varieties like sevyal blanc, bacchus, and muller-thurgau. It's a problem, he believes. "You're never going to make decent wine from muller or bacchus. They're just rubbish." Julia Stafford, owner of Wine Pantry - two London shops selling exclusively English wine - disagrees. Part of English wine's charm is not just the success of its sparklers but its distinctive local grapes. "Bacchus hasn't got sauvignon blanc tropical fruits," Stafford says. "Instead it's like licking a Constable painting. You can smell the hedge rows and taste the English countryside." Stafford conjures up an English wine vocabulary that might appeal to the Duchess of Cornwall. Up to now the language of wine - Champagne, terroir, vin de table, appellation controlee, premier cru - has been French. The owners of Coates and Seely vineyard in the North Hampshire Downs have pushed the "Britagne" badge for sparkling wine. "It is a brand which belongs to Coates and Seely, which we use for our own wine, and which we will invite other vineyards working closely with us to use," says Christian Seely. "It is definitely not intended as a generic term for all English sparkling wines." So Camilla's search for the right term goes on. But language is not the real problem for English wine, Neather says. The big hurdle, even with climate change, is the weather. Last year Nyetimber ditched its entire harvest after a terrible summer. "This is the big challenge of the English climate - getting the damned grapes to ripen," he says. You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook

डचेस ऑफ कॉर्नवॉल ने शैंपेन की भव्यता से मेल खाने के लिए अंग्रेजी स्पार्कलिंग वाइन के लिए एक नए नाम का आह्वान किया है। और पहली बार, घरेलू शराब सरकार के तहखाने में सबसे लोकप्रिय है। क्या ब्रिटेन के लोगों ने घर में उगाए जाने वाले टिपल का स्वाद विकसित किया है?


Dresden: The World War Two bombing 75 years on

Summary: "The firestorm is incredible... Insane fear grips me and from then on I repeat one simple sentence to myself continuously: 'I don't want to burn to death'. I do not know how many people I fell over. I know only one thing: that I must not burn."

By Toby LuckhurstBBC News On 13 February 1945, British aircraft launched an attack on the eastern German city of Dresden. In the days that followed, they and their US allies would drop nearly 4,000 tons of bombs in the assault. The ensuing firestorm killed 25,000 people, ravaging the city centre, sucking the oxygen from the air and suffocating people trying to escape the flames. Dresden was not unique. Allied bombers killed tens of thousands and destroyed large areas with attacks on Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin, and the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the bombing has become one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War Two. Some have questioned the military value of Dresden. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill expressed doubts immediately after the attack. "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed," he wrote in a memo. "The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing." This story contains graphic images. Dresden is the capital of the state of Saxony. Before the bombing it was referred to as the Florence on the Elbe or the Jewel Box, for its climate and its architecture. By February 1945, Dresden was only about 250km (155 miles) from the Eastern Front, where Nazi Germany was defending against the advancing armies of the Soviet Union in the final months of the war. The city was a major industrial and transportation hub. Scores of factories provided munitions, aircraft parts and other supplies for the Nazi war effort. Troops, tanks and artillery travelled through Dresden by train and by road. Hundreds of thousands of German refugees fleeing the fighting had also arrived in the city. At the time, the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) said it was the largest German city yet to be bombed. Air chiefs decided an attack on Dresden could help their Soviet allies - by stopping Nazi troop movements but also by disrupting the German evacuations from the east. RAF bomber raids on German cities had increased in size and power after more than five years of war. Planes carried a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs: the explosives would blast buildings apart, while the incendiaries would set the remains on fire, causing further destruction. Previous attacks had annihilated entire German cities. In July 1943, hundreds of RAF bombers took part in a mission against Hamburg, named Operation Gomorrah. The resulting assault and unusually dry and hot weather caused a firestorm - a blaze so great it creates its own weather system, sucking winds in to feed the flames - which destroyed almost the whole city. The attack on Dresden began on 13 February 1945. Close to 800 RAF aircraft - led by pathfinders, who dropped flares marking out the bombing area centred on the Ostragehege sports stadium - flew to Dresden that night. In the space of just 25 minutes, British planes dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs. As was common practice during the war, US aircraft followed up the attack with day-time raids. More than 520 USAAF bombers flew to Dresden over two days, aiming for the city's railway marshalling yards but in reality hitting a large area across the city. On the ground, civilians cowered under the onslaught. Many had fled to shelters after air raid sirens warned of the incoming bombers. But the first wave of aircraft knocked out the electricity. Some came out of hiding just as the second wave arrived above the city. People fell dead as they ran from the flames, the air sucked from their lungs by the fire storm. Eyewitness Margaret Freyer described a woman with her baby: "She runs, she falls, and the child flies in an arc into the fire... The woman remains lying on the ground, completely still". Kurt Vonnegut survived the bombing as a prisoner of war in Dresden. "Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic, everything that would burn," he wrote in his work Slaughterhouse-Five. He described the city after the attack as "like the moon now, nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighbourhood was dead." In total, the British lost six bombers in the attack, three to planes accidentally hitting each other with bombs. The US lost one. Nazi Germany immediately used the bombing to attack the Allies. The Propaganda Ministry claimed Dresden had no war industry and was only a city of culture. Though local officials said about 25,000 people had died - a figure historians agree with now - the Nazis claimed 200,000 civilians were killed. In the UK, Dresden was known as a tourist destination, and some MPs and public figures questioned the value of the attack. A story at the time published by the Associated Press news agency said the Allies were conducting terror bombing, spreading further alarm. US and UK military planners, however, insisted the attack was strategically justified, in the same way as attacks on other cities - by disrupting industry, destroying workers' homes and crippling transport in Germany. A 1953 US report on the bombing concluded that the attack destroyed or severely damaged 23% of the city's industrial buildings, and at least 50% of its residential buildings. But Dresden was "a legitimate military target", the report said, and the attack was no different "from established bombing policies". The debate about the Allied bombing campaign, and about the attack on Dresden, continues to this day. Historians question if destruction of German cities hindered the Nazi war effort, or simply caused civilian deaths - especially towards the end of the conflict. Unlike an invasion like D-Day, it is harder to quantify how much these attacks helped win the war. Some argue it is a moral failing for the Allies, or even a war crime. But defenders say it was a necessary part of the total war to defeat Nazi Germany. It has even become a symbol for conspiracy theorists and some far-right activists - including Holocaust deniers and extremist parties - who have quoted Nazi casualty figures as fact and have commemorated the bombing. Seventy-five years later, the bombing of Dresden remains a controversial act. .

"आग का तूफान अविश्वसनीय है... पागल डर मुझे जकड़ लेता है और तब से मैं अपने आप से एक साधारण वाक्य लगातार दोहराता हूंः 'मैं जलना नहीं चाहता'। मुझे नहीं पता कि मैं कितने लोगों पर गिर गया। मुझे केवल एक ही बात पता हैः कि मुझे जलना नहीं चाहिए।"


Fearsome Australian 'lion' could climb trees, study says

Summary: The discovery of claw marks in a bone-filled cave in Australia suggests an extinct, "anatomically bizarre" predator was able to climb trees and rocks, meaning it would have been a threat to humans, writes Myles Gough.

Australia's extinct marsupial lion, Thylacoleo carnifex, was the continent's top predator at the time of human arrival 50,000 years ago. Weighing more than 100kg, the animal had sharp claws and a powerful jaw, and shearing teeth that could rip through the flesh of its prey, which included giant kangaroos, rhinoceros-sized herbivores known as diprotodon, and possibly humans. But while experts agreed on the marsupial lion's fearsomeness, whether or not they could climb rocks and trees has been a source of contention. Some speculated that the lions' anatomy would lend itself to climbing, while others argued they would have been too heavy to clamber up to high places. Now palaeontologists at Flinders University say they have found the answer in a cave in Western Australia where marsupial lions left thousands of scratch marks. 'Significant threat to humans' The scratch marks, mostly made by juveniles and clustered on a near-vertical rock surface leading to a now-sealed exit, suggest two things about the lions: they were skilled climbers, and they reared their young inside caves. "[Our findings indicate] the [marsupial] lions were running up and down these rock piles to get out of the cave, and they weren't using the lower-gradient, longer route," says associate professor Gavin Prideaux, who supervised the research. "We can be confident now and say that they could climb. "And if they could climb really well in the dark, underground, there's no reason they couldn't climb trees. "They would have been a very significant threat to people when they first arrived in Australia. "What we're dying for are different lines of evidence that shed light on the behaviour or ecology of these animals, and that's what we've been presented with in the form of these claw marks." The team's findings, which reinforce some contentious ideas about the behaviour of these "highly adapted" and "anatomically bizarre" predators, have been published in Nature's open-access journal Scientific Reports. Identifying the scratch marks The claw markings were found inside the Tight Entrance cave near the Margaret River. In the mid-90s, bones inside the cave were identified as belonging to extinct megafauna, dating from 30,000 to 150,000 years old, says Prof Prideaux. Between 1996 and 2008, he went on numerous expeditions to the cave to collect fossils, and during that work discovered the scratch marks. "We had the feeling that they were probably Thylacoleo scratch marks, but we had to test it," he says. Prof Prideaux and his honours student, lead author Samuel Arman, established a list of seven species of animal that could have been responsible. It included the extinct marsupial lion, as well as Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils, which used to live on the mainland, wallabies, koalas, possums and wombats. Mr Arman left scratch pads inside zoos and wildlife parks, and collected tree bark to get sample claw markings from the living animals, which he compared to those inside the cave. Lions and devils This helped the researchers narrow their list to two key suspects: marsupial lions and Tasmanian devils. But they needed another clue. "We went through the more than 10,000 bones we collected from the cave to look for evidence for bite marks or little chewed-up bones [which are] absolute hallmarks of devil dens," says Prof Prideaux. "We found zero of that." "This is more consistent with what we've inferred about the behaviour of Thylacoleo from its dental morphology, and that is, it was primarily a meat eater and not a bone cruncher." Mr Arman also reconstructed a skeletal hand of the marsupial lion and made mock scratches on modelling clay that "perfectly matched" the large ones found in the cave. The animals, which became extinct around 46,000 years ago, lived all across the continent. Prof Prideaux suspects similar claw markings exist in caves elsewhere, but have yet to be discovered. Dr Judith Field, an expert in megafaunal extinctions from the University of New South Wales, says "the methods used to determine the size of the animal making the marks appear well conceived and well executed". "It is highly likely these marks were made by Thylacoleo," she told the BBC. "They are probably the only animal with claws large enough to effect these scratch marks." Still, Dr Field expressed some reservations about the study: "Most of the conclusions are speculation," she said. "Great discovery, and a neat story, but these assertions about their behaviour have yet to be substantiated by empirical data."

माइल्स गफ लिखते हैं कि ऑस्ट्रेलिया में एक हड्डी से भरी गुफा में पंजे के निशान की खोज से पता चलता है कि एक विलुप्त, "शारीरिक रूप से विचित्र" शिकारी पेड़ों और चट्टानों पर चढ़ने में सक्षम था, जिसका अर्थ है कि यह मनुष्यों के लिए खतरा होता।


Leeds motorcyclist killed in crash with car

Summary: A man died when his motorcycle was involved in a crash with a car in Leeds.

The collision happened on the A64 York Road at the junction with Somerville Green at about 16.18 GMT on Friday. Police said the rider of the motorbike, a 29-year-old local man, was treated by paramedics at the scene but was pronounced dead. The driver of the car stopped at the scene and has been spoken to by officers.

लीड्स में एक कार के साथ दुर्घटना में एक व्यक्ति की मौत हो गई जब उसकी मोटरसाइकिल दुर्घटनाग्रस्त हो गई।


Diana Vreeland: 'The Empress of fashion'

Summary: She 'discovered' Twiggy, introduced the world to bikinis and, as the boss of 1960s Vogue, paved the way for every formidable fashion editor that followed. Now a new documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, delves deeper into the legend.

Originally intended to be a book, director Lisa Immordino Vreeland - Diana's granddaughter-in-law -ultimately decided it would be more fun to bring the late "Empress of fashion" back to life on screen. She calls the documentary an "intimate portrait" of the former Vogue editor-in-chief, who died in 1989, and whom many view as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century. "The fashion editor never existed before her," says Immordino Vreeland. "It was a term that she coined from her 26 years at Harper's Bazaar." Formerly a globe-trotting wife and mother, Vreeland's fashion career started in 1936, when Bazaar editor Carmel Snow hired her after admiring her unique style and gown at a party. Her foray into journalism began with the provocative 'Why Don't You?' column. In it, she shunned the usual 'how to make your husband happy' advice, in favour of suggesting people wash their blonde children's hair in flat champagne to make it shine. 'The golden years' Years later, when she was passed over for the top job at Bazaar, she left to become editor-in-chief of Vogue. "Vogue was really not an important magazine at the time - she made it into the golden years of Vogue," explains Immordino. "She just recorded everything that was going on in the sixties, the whole zeitgeist." Vreeland certainly had her pick of talent, launching models such as Lauren Bacall, Anjelica Huston and Twiggy - models who "had personalities" - and working with photographers such as David Bailey and Richard Avedon, who dubbed her his "crazy aunt". In the documentary, Bailey reveals that she was the first to put a picture of an unknown Mick Jagger in a fashion magazine. Instead of classic ideas of beauty, she highlighted the unusual and imperfect, such as photographing Barbara Streisand in profile to emphasise her generous nose. Immordino Vreeland spent "easily a year" going through all the magazines - two and a half decades worth of Bazaar and nine years of Vogue - and fashion stories fill the documentary. "It's really a celebration of a century... not just a celebration of fashion," she explains. "I think it's exciting to see how she transcended fashion." Hollywood inspiration The film has already been dubbed "the original Devil Wears Prada" - and not just because it makes a catchy marketing slogan. While current Vogue boss Anna Wintour is widely believed to have been the inspiration behind the hit novel and subsequent film, Vreeland was also partial to the odd throwing-her-coat-in-an-assistant's-face moment. It is thought she was the inspiration for both the domineering fashion editor in the Audrey Hepburn film Funny Face - played by Kay Thompson - and Ms Maxwell in 1966 French fashion satire, Who Are You, Polly Magoo? "To have not only Funny Face, but also Polly Magoo based on you marks you down a little bit in history," says Immordino. "But she was clearly not happy with Funny Face. When she saw it in New York she said, 'I never want to talk about it again'." Vreeland wrestled with her looks early on in life, thanks to her mother's nickname of "my ugly little monster", but through dance and fashion she set about transforming herself into a "dazzling persona". The film features more than 40 interviewees, including some of fashion's biggest names, paying tribute to her wit, charm and talent as a fashion visionary. Fact or fiction? After being fired from Vogue in 1971 it is rumoured Vreeland spent a year in bed, before finding a purpose again at the age of 70, working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. There she reinvented the fashion exhibition, and often the "historical truth", according to the museum's Harold Koda. The same was true of Diana Vreeland's real life. She partied with Andy Warhol and gave fashion advice to Jackie Kennedy, yet still she would embellish everyday life to make it more exciting. When asked to qualify if something was fact or fiction, she famously replied: "Faction!" "She had a special filter," acknowledges Immordino. "She took things in and they just kind of came out imbued with a whole other veneer. "The fact that perhaps it was a little bit factually incorrect, that's not what was important. What was important is that she was always trying to paint a prettier picture for us. Ultimately she was always telling us a story." Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel is in cinemas now. It will be released on DVD on 29 October.

उन्होंने ट्विगी की 'खोज' की, दुनिया को बिकनी से परिचित कराया और 1960 के दशक के वोग के मालिक के रूप में, हर दुर्जेय फैशन संपादक के लिए मार्ग प्रशस्त किया। अब एक नई वृत्तचित्र, डायना व्रीलैंडः द आई हैज टू ट्रैवल, किंवदंती में गहराई से उतरती है।


Monsoon Concerns

Summary: A British charity worker who’s just visited camps holding more than a quarter of a million refugees in Sri Lanka says the military authorities in charge there are urgently concerned about the approaching monsoon.

There was what many feared was an indication of things to come when sudden storms flooded these vast camps last month, submerging toilets, contaminating water and damaging thousands of huts.The monsoon is due next month. An official of the UK-based Catholic Fund for Overseas Development or CAFOD, Geoff O’Donoghue, has just visited the camps with two British bishops, and said one of the military officers in charge there is overseeing an extension of the camp to ease crowding. Speaking to BBC correspondent Charles Haviland in Colombo Geoff O’Donoghue said “As the monsoon comes in there is deep concern, both expressed by the brigadier in the camp and workers in the camp and others outside that a potential crisis could brew there if the rains come through and those camps are still as congested” The Sri Lankan authorities are still preventing nearly all those in the camps from leaving. The government has just announced, though, that relatives or friends of those inside can now apply to accommodate them. Such relatives, like the camp dwellers, will also be subject to screening for possible links with the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels. Meanwhile the Catholic Church has proposed that 12,000 of the displaced people be allowed to move to a large local church and shrine as a first step to returning home. O’Donoghue of CAFOD said the plan had passed several stages of government approval.

हाल ही में श्रीलंका में दस लाख से अधिक शरणार्थियों को रखने वाले शिविरों का दौरा करने वाले एक ब्रिटिश दान कार्यकर्ता का कहना है कि वहां के प्रभारी सैन्य अधिकारी आने वाले मानसून के बारे में तत्काल चिंतित हैं।


The evolutionary puzzle of homosexuality

Summary: In the last two decades, dozens of scientific papers have been published on the biological origins of homosexuality - another announcement was made last week. It's becoming scientific orthodoxy. But how does it fit with Darwin's theory of evolution?

By William KremerBBC World Service Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's hit song Same Love, which has become an unofficial anthem of the pro-gay marriage campaign in the US, reflects how many gay people feel about their sexuality. It mocks those who "think it's a decision, and you can be cured with some treatment and religion - man-made rewiring of a predisposition". A minority of gay people disagree, maintaining that sexuality is a social construct, and they have made a conscious, proud choice to take same-sex partners. But scientific opinion is with Macklemore. Since the early 1990s, researchers have shown that homosexuality is more common in brothers and relatives on the same maternal line, and a genetic factor is taken to be the cause. Also relevant - although in no way proof - is research identifying physical differences in the brains of adult straight and gay people, and a dizzying array of homosexual behaviour in animals. But since gay and lesbian people have fewer children than straight people, a problem arises. "This is a paradox from an evolutionary perspective," says Paul Vasey from the University of Lethbridge in Canada. "How can a trait like male homosexuality, which has a genetic component, persist over evolutionary time if the individuals that carry the genes associated with that trait are not reproducing?" Scientists don't know the answer to this Darwinian puzzle, but there are several theories. It's possible that different mechanisms may be at work in different people. Most of the theories relate to research on male homosexuality. The evolution of lesbianism is relatively understudied - it may work in a similar way or be completely different. The genes that code for homosexuality do other things too The allele - or group of genes - that sometimes codes for homosexual orientation may at other times have a strong reproductive benefit. This would compensate for gay people's lack of reproduction and ensure the continuation of the trait, as non-gay carriers of the gene pass it down. There are two or more ways this might happen. One possibility is that the allele confers a psychological trait that makes straight men more attractive to women, or straight women more attractive to men. "We know that women tend to like more feminine behavioural features and facial features in their men, and that might be associated with things like good parenting skills or greater empathy," says Qazi Rahman, co-author of Born Gay; The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation. Therefore, the theory goes, a low "dose" of these alleles enhances the carrier's chances of reproductive success. Every now and then a family member receives a larger dose that affects his or her sexual orientation, but the allele still has an overall reproductive advantage. Another way a "gay allele" might be able to compensate for a reproductive deficit is by having the converse effect in the opposite sex. For example, an allele which makes the bearer attracted to men has an obvious reproductive advantage to women. If it appears in a man's genetic code it will code for same-sex attraction, but so long as this happens rarely the allele still has a net evolutionary benefit. There is some evidence for this second theory. Andrea Camperio-Ciani, at the University of Padova in Italy, found that maternal female relatives of gay men have more children than maternal female relatives of straight men. The implication is that there is an unknown mechanism in the X chromosome of men's genetic code which helps women in the family have more babies, but can lead to homosexuality in men. These results haven't been replicated in some ethnic groups - but that doesn't mean they are wrong with regards to the Italian population in Camperio-Ciani's study. Gay people were 'helpers in the nest' Some researchers believe that to understand the evolution of gay people, we need to look at how they fit into the wider culture. Paul Vasey's research in Samoa has focused on a theory called kin selection or the "helper in the nest" hypothesis. The idea is that gay people compensate for their lack of children by promoting the reproductive fitness of brothers or sisters, contributing money or performing other uncle-like activities such as babysitting or tutoring. Some of the gay person's genetic code is shared with nieces and nephews and so, the theory goes, the genes which code for sexual orientation still get passed down. Sceptics have pointed out that since on average people share just 25% of their genetic code with these relatives, they would need to compensate for every child they don't have themselves with two nieces or nephews that wouldn't otherwise have existed. Vasey hasn't yet measured just how much having a homosexual orientation boosts siblings' reproduction rate, but he has established that in Samoa "gay" men spend more time on uncle-like activities than "straight" men. "No-one was more surprised than me," says Vasey about his findings. His lab had previously shown that gay men in Japan were no more attentive or generous towards their nieces and nephews than straight, childless men and women. The same result has been found in the UK, US and Canada. Vasey believes that his Samoan result was different because the men he studied there were different. He studied the fa'afafine, who identify as a third gender, dressing as women and having sex with men who regard themselves as "straight". They are a transgender group who do not like to be called "gay" or "homosexual". Vasey speculates that part of the reason the fa'afafine are more attentive to their nephews and nieces is their acceptance in Samoan culture compared to gay men in the West and Japan ("You can't help your kin if they've rejected you"). But he also believes that there is something about the fa'afafine way of life that means they are more likely to be nurturing towards nieces and nephews, and speculates that he would find similar results in other "third gender" groups around the world. If this is true, then the helper in the nest theory may partly explain how a genetic trait for same-sex attraction hasn't been selected away. That hypothesis has led Vasey to speculate that the gay men who identify as men and have masculine traits - that is to say, most gay men in the West - are descended from men who had a cross-gendered sexuality. Gay people do have children In the US, around 37% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people have a child, about 60% of which are biological. According to the Williams Institute, gay couples that have children have an average of two. These figures may not be high enough to sustain genetic traits specific to this group, but the evolutionary biologist Jeremy Yoder points out in a blog post that for much of modern history gay people haven't been living openly gay lives. Compelled by society to enter marriages and have children, their reproduction rates may have been higher than they are now. How many gay people have children also depends on how you define being "gay". Many of the "straight" men who have sex with fa'afafine in Samoa go on to get married and have children. "The category of same-sex sexuality becomes very diffuse when you take a multicultural perspective," says Joan Roughgarden, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii. "If you go to India, you'll find that if someone says they are 'gay' or 'homosexual' then that immediately identifies them as Western. But that doesn't mean there's no homosexuality there." Similarly in the West, there is evidence that many people go through a phase of homosexual activity. In the 1940s, US sex researcher Alfred Kinsey found that while just 4% of white men were exclusively gay after adolescence, 10% had a three-year period of gay activity and 37% had gay sex at some point in their lives. A national survey of sexual attitudes in the UK last year came up with lower figures. Some 16% of women said they had had a sexual experience with another woman (8% had genital contact), and 7% of men said they had had a sexual experience with a man (with 5% having genital contact). But most scientists researching gay evolution are interested in an ongoing, internal pattern of desire rather than whether people identify as gay or straight or how often people have gay sex. "Sexual identity and sexual behaviours are not good measures of sexual orientation," says Paul Vasey. "Sexual feelings are." It's not all in the DNA Qazi Rahman says that alleles coding for same sex attraction only explain some of the variety in human sexuality. Other, naturally varying biological factors come into play, with about one in seven gay men, he says, owing their sexuality to the "big brother effect". This has nothing to do with George Orwell, but describes the observation that boys with older brothers are significantly more likely to become gay - with every older brother the chance of homosexuality increases by about a third. No-one knows why this is, but one theory is that with each male pregnancy, a woman's body forms an immune reaction to proteins that have a role in the development of the male brain. Since this only comes into play after several siblings have been born - most of whom are heterosexual and go on to have children - this pre-natal quirk hasn't been selected away by evolution. Exposure to unusual levels of hormone before birth can also affect sexuality. For example, female foetuses exposed to higher levels of testosterone before birth show higher rates of lesbianism later on. Studies show that "butch" lesbian women and men have a smaller difference in length between their index and ring fingers - a marker of pre-natal exposure to testosterone. In "femme" lesbians the difference has been found to be less marked. Brothers of a different kind - identical twins - also pose a tricky question. Research has found that if an identical twin is gay, there is about a 20% chance that the sibling will have the same sexual orientation. While that's a greater likelihood than random, it's lower than you might expect for two people with the same genetic code. William Rice, from the University of California Santa Barbara, says that it may be possible to explain this by looking not at our genetic code but at the way it is processed. Rice and his colleagues refer to the emerging field of epigenetics, which studies the "epimarks" that decide which parts of our DNA get switched on or off. Epimarks get passed on to children, but only sometimes. Rice believes that female foetuses employ an epimark that makes them less sensitive to testosterone. Usually it's not inherited, but occasionally it is, leading to same-sex preference in boys. Dr William Byne, editor-in-chief of the journal LGBT Health, believes sexuality may well be inborn, but thinks it could be more complicated than some scientists believe. He notes that the heritability of homosexuality is similar to that for divorce, but "social science researchers have not… searched for 'divorce genes'. Instead they have focused on heritable personality and temperamental traits that might influence the likelihood of divorce." For Qazi Rahman, it's the media that oversimplifies genetic theories of sexuality, with their reports of the discovery of "the gay gene". He believes that sexuality involves tens or perhaps hundreds of alleles that will probably take decades to uncover. And even if heterosexual sex is more advantageous in evolutionary terms than gay sex, it's not only gay people whose sexuality is determined by their genes, he says, but straight people too. Qazi Rahman appeared on the Why Factor on the BBC World Service. Listen again to the programme on iPlayer or get the Why Factor podcast. Follow @BBCNewsMagazine on Twitter and on Facebook

पिछले दो दशकों में समलैंगिकता की जैविक उत्पत्ति पर दर्जनों वैज्ञानिक शोध पत्र प्रकाशित हुए हैं-पिछले सप्ताह एक और घोषणा की गई थी। यह वैज्ञानिक रूढ़िवादी बन रहा है। लेकिन यह डार्विन के विकास के सिद्धांत के साथ कैसे मेल खाता है?


Legal action taken over baby ashes at Hazlehead Crematorium in Aberdeen

Summary: Parents alleging the wrongful disposal of baby ashes in Aberdeen are taking legal action against the city council at the Court of Session.

BBC Scotland revealed last year that no ashes had been offered to the families of infants cremated at Hazlehead Crematorium over a five-year period. The council found no wrongdoing. Lindsay Bruce, of Thompsons Solicitors, said a number of parents had been left with no alternative other than to pursue matters through the courts. An Aberdeen City Council spokesman said: "As these claims are now subject to court proceedings it would be inappropriate to comment."

एबरडीन में बच्चे की राख के गलत निपटान का आरोप लगाते हुए माता-पिता कोर्ट ऑफ सेशन में नगर परिषद के खिलाफ कानूनी कार्रवाई कर रहे हैं।


'One stroke took my speech away - I think another brought it back'

Summary: Peter lost his ability to speak after a stroke four years ago, at the age of 73. But earlier this year he woke up one morning and suddenly he could speak again. Soon afterwards he discovered he'd had another stroke. Could the second stroke have returned his speech?

By Elaine ChongBBC Stories The day that Peter regained his speech, he was on holiday in Devon with his family. "I woke up as usual. Carol was on the other side of the bed. I stood up and spoke to her, but it didn't feel weird. It felt like I was talking to my wife - like the most natural thing to do. "I kept talking to her, and her mouth just dropped open. She said, 'Pete, you're speaking!'" "I was going: 'Come on! Don't stop! Don't stop! Don't stop because it might go away again. Keep going, keep going!'" remembers Carol. Their son, Jonathan, who was in the next room, heard two people having a conversation and came rushing in. "What's going on, Mum?" he said. "I thought your voice had dropped! Who is that deep voice?" "I said, 'It's your father speaking!'" says Carol. "We all started crying and laughing at the same time. It was very emotional because it had been so long." It was such a shock, nobody can remember what Peter's first words in four years were. "Carol wasn't interested in what I said, she was more interested in the fact that I was talking," says Peter. Find out more They all went out to celebrate, but Carol soon noticed that the left-hand side of Peter's mouth was drooping. Later in the day he complained of weakness in his legs - he had difficulty walking, and his son Jonathan had to hold him up. They took a taxi to the nearest hospital where a scan suggested he'd had another stroke. Fortunately, however, the negative effects were only temporary. Peter's mouth stopped drooping and his legs returned to normal. And months later, he's still talking. The couple are convinced that this second stroke somehow "dislodged" something in Peter's brain - something that had stopped him talking after the first stroke. However, Alex Leff, a professor of cognitive neurology and an expert in the recovery of language after stroke and brain injury, offers little support for this theory. He says you can think of the brain as a network, and of a stroke as an event that "takes out" some of the language nodes. In many cases, patients "reroute some of the language functions using what is remaining in the brain", he says - but when they have had severe language problems, like Peter, this tends to be a slow process, not a sudden one. The case is "certainly very unusual", he says. Aphasia Sources: National Aphasia Association, NHS Carol was with Peter when he had his first stroke. They had been out, but Peter hadn't been feeling well, so Carol was driving them back to their Gloucestershire home. "I asked him for the time and he didn't answer me," says Carol. "I asked him again. I just sensed that something was wrong. When you live with somebody and have been married 52 years you know everything, don't you?" Afterwards, over a period of weeks, Peter gradually felt his ability to speak fade away. "I found it more and more difficult to have a proper conversation," he says. "Words were difficult to find, I couldn't get any flow to sentences. The words were coming out staccato-like. "In the end it felt almost impossible to speak. I could only say 'Yes' and 'No' and occasionally a very short phrase. That was the best I could do." Carol found it heartbreaking to see her husband, a retired engineer who she describes as a "clever and eloquent man", unable to speak. The whole family shared her distress. Their daughter, Jane, admitted to her mother, "I really miss Dad." Carol told her, "Well, he's not dead, he's not gone away. It's awful for us, but it's dreadful for him - and that's what you've got to remember." Despite being unable to form words, Peter says that he was always able to understand everyone's conversation. "I always knew exactly what was going on around me, so I was completely aware - but being unable to converse with people is the worst," he says. The couple perfected a system to communicate with each other. Carol would ask yes/no questions and Peter would respond with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down gesture. He also carried round a pencil and pad, writing down what he wanted to say. "We got by very well," he says. "We made light of it," Carol adds. "Well, we've got to carry on, we're getting old. You expect something to happen." Peter has a strong interest in photography, so if they went to a camera shop and he wanted to ask a technical question he would write it down in advance. Sometimes Carol would explain the need for this unusual form of communication. "I would tell them, 'My husband's had a stroke. He can't speak so he's written down a question for you.'" During his silent years Peter would often spend the day reading or working on mathematical modelling. Carol remembers that he was always scribbling algorithms and equations in notebooks. "It kept him quite busy actually." Peter says the relief of being able to speak again is overwhelming. He gets tearful about it. "Being able to communicate with other people is almost all of being a human being," he says. "When that goes, it's a big part of you gone and my family felt that I had sort of disappeared. You can't really convey emotion with 'Yes' and 'No'." They tried to include him in the conversation, and make him laugh, but it wasn't the same, he says. The most challenging part was listening to people say things that he didn't agree with. "I found it particularly frustrating when people were arguing about something and I couldn't respond in the conversation - it was like losing every argument," Peter says. "It's nice to be able to argue again and make myself a nuisance." His first big debate was about Brexit with friends. "They said to me, 'Oh, I'm glad you're back!'" Carol chips in: "Oh he loves an argument, he could argue with an empty room." Peter's speech is near-perfect now, apart from some slurring when he gets tired in the evenings. But everyone has remarked on how his accent has changed. "People say that I am speaking a bit posh now," he says. "I tell them that I'd always been a bit posh really, but I'd tried to hide it from them." Banter and friendly bickering is clearly a big part of Peter's relationship with Carol. She admits that she got so used to speaking for him that she's now having to adapt to him piping up again. "It's a habit," she says. "When we were at the hospital I kept talking for him. I've got to learn to shut up and button it. I have had a bit of a monopoly the past few years." On the day he could suddenly speak again, Peter looked pointedly at the nurse and said, "I think Carol is going to regret this." "At times, I do," she admits. "I told you to be quiet the other day, you've done nothing but natter." But both of them worry he may lose his new-found ability again. "It's such a delicately balanced thing," says Peter, ever the engineer. "It's like a watch that's been knocked with a hammer and come back, and it could have another knock and go away - like a bad contact." Peter asked that the BBC not use his full name. You may also be interested in: Adam and Raquel Gonzales had been together for five years when he woke up one morning with no idea who she was - he had lost all memory of marrying her. But Raquel, who knew Adam had once had a brain injury, was determined to win him over again. Read: 'I woke up and didn't recognise my wife' Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

पीटर ने चार साल पहले, 73 साल की उम्र में एक स्ट्रोक के बाद बोलने की क्षमता खो दी थी। लेकिन इस साल की शुरुआत में वह एक सुबह उठे और अचानक वह फिर से बोल सकते थे। इसके तुरंत बाद उन्हें पता चला कि उन्हें एक और स्ट्रोक हुआ है। क्या दूसरा स्ट्रोक उनकी बोलने की क्षमता को वापस कर सकता था?


Tech Know: A journey into sound

Summary: The BBC Technology index has been writing about makers, hackers and other assorted tinkerers for over a year. Time, then, to see if any of the skills and crafts we have filmed and written about have rubbed off.

All we needed was a project. As if on cue, an e-mail fell into the inbox from Allegra Hawksmoor who told us about a band called The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. One track of their next album, called Now That's What I Call Steampunk - Volume One, will be available on a wax cylinder. The CD album and single wax cylinder track will be available from 1 June. "As far as we're aware, it's the first album to be sold with (at least a partial) wax cylinder release for the best part of a century," she said. Anyone buying one of the 40 copies of the track on wax will also get instructions for building a phonograph to play the cylinder. Would we be interested in finding out more, she asked? Yes, we said, we would. Just try stopping us. The idea to put one track on a wax cylinder came from band member Andy Heintz. "The second I heard him say it, I knew we had to do it," said Ms Hawksmoor. However, she added, she had no idea whether it was even possible. The internet helped Ms Hawksmoor find Adrian Tuddenham of Poppy Records, one of the few souls in the land that can put digital recordings onto wax cylinders. Finding Mr Tuddenham solved one problem. The other, bigger, task was to draw up plans for a home-brew phonograph that would cost about £20 to make. But she already knew someone who could help with that. Professor Offlogic, aka Sam Kimery, is a veteran maker. "Making things has always been a necessity for me," he told the BBC. "Nobody made good Star Trek props, or toy Geiger counters or any of the neat stuff I wanted to play with," he said. "This led, naturally, to blowing stuff up with a chemistry set, which led to electricity (hey, some of those exploding things needed a remote trigger) and general inventing and tinkering with things." He adds: "If you don't want what everyone else wants you have to make your own, the market just doesn't serve you very well if you are at all strange." This led him to a career in hi-tech and a lifelong interest in making stuff. As a result creating a phonograph from scratch was no stretch, even though he had never actually done it before. "I remember playing an Andy Williams LP using a paper cone and sewing needle as a kid," he said. "That's about as close as I got to this project before." The Prof sent along the plans and we set about getting all the parts together. We scoured DIY shops, craft stores, hobby shops and the cookery aisles of lots of supermarkets. Some bits were easier to find than others. Inspiration struck when we found a cone-shaped metal measuring jug that became our sound horn. The internet helped with other parts, particularly the little motors and pulleys needed to get the cylinder turning. Once we had the bits piled up, the work started. At that point we handed over to Jason Palmer who, as a doctor of physical chemistry, has far more experience with building stuff than anyone else. He takes up the story. Tinker time It is the simplest mechanical means to record and reproduce sound - hence the rich history stretching back to one of history's great inventors. But how about making one, today, with bits you can easily get your hands on? In principle, it's easy, but we were provided nothing more than a schematic with no dimensions, so some careful planning and improvisation were both required through the day. We had our greatest trouble getting a smooth movement of the cylinder. Partly that was down to getting the O-ringed motor shaft centred and stable between the rails on which the cylinder sat. But more than that, the trouble was the sliding friction against those rails. From a design point of view, there are no constraints on these, so take the time to find the right rails and ideally some bearings that they can turn in, or bearings that fit on the rails themselves and can be fitted with O-rings. Our attempts with O-ringed plastic wheels and then with plain rubber grommets were woefully inadequate to keep the cylinder from bouncing all over the shop. One thing to keep in mind throughout is the tiny size of your signal. Even if mechanically everything turns and moves as it should, the phonograph needs to carry a minuscule vibration from the stylus through to a resonator and then out a tube and into a horn. Every connection is another place where sound can effectively be lost, so aim for the shortest path between needle and ear, trying to mechanically isolate anything that's carrying sound. Our first stylus, a carefully cut section of aluminium can, served more to scratch the cylinder than play anything from it; in the end we fitted the player with a length of wire that did the job far better. Sound lessons So, we did it and got it working, after a fashion. Even if it took Poppy Records to help refine the design and improve the sound output. But as has often been said of anything that is hand-made, be it a work of art, a tiled bathroom or a phonograph built from bits; these things are never finished, they are more or less abandoned. Why? Because you know the corners that were cut when the work was being done; the unfinished parts that are obvious to you and no-one else; and all those ideas you had about improving it while making it are clamouring for attention. Even if it works, and works well, you know it could work better. Despite that, there is comfort in knowing that being a hacker or a maker is a journey not a destination, and that no matter how high the shoulders you stand on, you'll never see over the horizon. It is consoling to realise that you, at least, have raised your eyes to the sky and are looking in the right direction.

बीबीसी टेक्नोलॉजी इंडेक्स एक साल से अधिक समय से निर्माताओं, हैकर्स और अन्य मिश्रित छेड़छाड़ करने वालों के बारे में लिख रहा है। तो फिर, यह देखने का समय आ गया है कि हमने जिन कौशल और शिल्प के बारे में फिल्माया और लिखा है, उनमें से कोई भी बंद हो गया है या नहीं।


No-deal Brexit: Can Parliament stop it?

Summary: There's a big problem facing members of Parliament who want to avoid a no-deal Brexit. They can't just show there is a majority in the House of Commons against no deal - they need to prove there is a majority in favour of an alternative outcome.

By Chris MorrisReality Check correspondent, BBC News That's because leaving the EU - with or without a deal - is currently the default. If the prime minister fails to get a deal through the House of Commons, the UK will leave with no deal at all unless something changes, because leaving the EU is written into UK law. The EU Withdrawal Act sets 29 March as the date of departure. The wording of the act does allow a minister to change the definition of "exit day" relatively quickly using a statutory instrument - a piece of secondary legislation - rather than an entirely new act of Parliament that would need to be debated. A minister would have to propose the change and MPs would have to approve it. Article 50 But there is a second and more significant reason why no deal would become the default position: that's what EU law says. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is the formal route for any country leaving the EU and it allows for a two-year process of negotiation. At the end of that period "the treaties shall cease to apply to the state in question" unless Article 50 is extended or revoked. The most obvious way therefore to stop a no-deal Brexit, or any form of Brexit, is to revoke Article 50. The European Court of Justice has ruled the UK can do that on its own, without asking the other 27 countries, and stay a member of the EU on its current terms - including opting-out of key policies, and keeping the budget rebate. But it seems highly unlikely that the House of Commons would vote to revoke Article 50 unless there had been another referendum, or maybe an election, in which the public backed the UK remaining in the EU. The government rejects the idea of holding another referendum anyway - and the time to do so before the end of March has run out. Extending Article 50 So, the other way to avoid a no-deal Brexit in the short term is to play for time and extend the Article 50 period. The government would need to propose that and MPs would have to approve it. But, crucially, unlike in the case of revoking Article 50, to extend it the UK would also need the agreement of all 27 other EU countries. It would probably need to persuade them that something important had changed in UK politics to warrant an extension - perhaps a looming election, or another referendum, rather than more of the same argument. One of the constraints for the rest of the EU is that European elections will take place at the end of May and the new European Parliament (without UK MEPs if Brexit has taken place) is due to meet for the first time in July. The only other circumstance in which a brief extension to Article 50 would probably be approved by the EU is if there had been a vote in favour of Theresa May's deal but a little more time was needed to dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s. But if Article 50 was extended without a deal passing the House of Commons, no deal would still remain the default outcome at the end of the extended negotiating period. So what else can MPs do for now? In a word, amendments. An amendment to the Finance Bill, limiting the Treasury's ability to make no-deal preparations unless authorised by Parliament, was backed by MPs by 303 to 296 votes. This amendment will make it "harder for the government to drift into no deal without Parliament being able to direct it", according to Labour MP Yvette Cooper. A cross-party coalition of MPs against no deal is now flexing its muscles, and what we're likely to see over the next couple of months is what some are calling "guerrilla warfare by amendment" in the House of Commons. The trade bill is likely to be another target - it would be needed in the event of no deal, to try to keep the UK trading on the same terms as it has now with the rest of the world. The idea behind all this parliamentary manoeuvring is to demonstrate that there is a clear majority in the House of Commons against no deal. But none of it, taken in isolation, will prevent the Article 50 clock ticking away until it stops at the end of March. 'Indicative votes' That's why a growing number of MPs support the idea of holding a series of "indicative votes" on different potential outcomes, to try to find an alternative to no deal that would enjoy broad (or even sufficient) support. Senior MPs argue that the government would be unable to ignore the political pressure if the will of the House of Commons was clearly expressed on numerous occasions. But political pressure is not the same as legal reality. Three ministers have said publicly they would resign if the government pursued a no-deal strategy, while others are thought to hold the same position in private. A handful of backbench MPs have said they would quit the party. The Work and Pensions Secretary, Amber Rudd, is understood to have told cabinet that history would take a dim view of the government if it accepted no deal and it would leave the UK a less safe country. But if the prime minister did decide to press on regardless, it may well be that the only way MPs could stop a no-deal Brexit at the last moment would be to vote down the government itself. UPDATE - This article was updated on Wednesday 9 Jan to include the new amendment asking government to return to Parliament with new plans within three days of a vote against the Prime Minister's withdrawal deal. Read more from Reality Check Send us your questions Follow us on Twitter

संसद के सदस्यों के सामने एक बड़ी समस्या है जो बिना किसी सौदे के ब्रेक्सिट से बचना चाहते हैं। वे केवल यह नहीं दिखा सकते कि हाउस ऑफ कॉमन्स में किसी सौदे के खिलाफ बहुमत है-उन्हें यह साबित करने की आवश्यकता है कि एक वैकल्पिक परिणाम के पक्ष में बहुमत है।


Enfield stabbing: Murder charge after man found dead at house

Summary: A man has been charged with murder after another man was stabbed to death in north London.

Nathaniel De Sousa-Roper, 37, was found at a property in Macleod Road in Enfield, late on Friday afternoon. Paramedics carried out first aid but he died at the scene. Joshua Gabbana, 24, has been charged with his murder following an investigation by homicide detectives. He will appear before Highbury Corner magistrates on Monday.

उत्तरी लंदन में एक अन्य व्यक्ति की चाकू मारकर हत्या करने के बाद एक व्यक्ति पर हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Has art gallery boom paid off?

Summary: Over the past decade, bold and costly new art galleries have sprung up in towns from Margate to Middlesbrough in the hope of regenerating underloved areas and bringing modern art to the masses. Has the strategy worked?

By Ian YoungsArts reporter, BBC News Ten years ago on Friday, an old flour mill on the banks of the River Tyne was reborn as a temple to modern art when Gateshead's Baltic gallery opened its doors. The £46m Baltic and its neighbour the Sage, a futuristic Norman Foster-designed concert hall, have become city landmarks. But as well as cultural venues, they are monuments to the metamorphoses cities like Newcastle and Gateshead have gone through since the steam and soot of heavy industry subsided. The Baltic and Sage demonstrate how "cultural investment" can regenerate an area, according to Baltic director Godfrey Worsdale, who points to new hotels, a design centre and college that have sprung up in their shadows. "Whilst the major cultural venues in Newcastle and Gateshead do demand almost £20m a year from the public purse to operate," he says, "we know that the return into the regional economy is something like £80m. "So it's a massive injection of resource into the regional economy and that has obviously created very significant numbers of opportunities for the local population." The Baltic and Sage do not just represent bricks-and-mortar renovation, but have also changed the atmosphere and the way people feel about the city, he believes. The Baltic attracts about 400,000 visits per year, including a dedicated audience of 80,000 who now come to every exhibition. It was among the new British galleries that followed in the wake of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, which reinvented the former port city when it opened in 1997. The "Bilbao effect" was then chased by the Nottingham Contemporary, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Mima), the Towner in Eastbourne, the Public in West Bromwich, the Turner Contemporary in Margate, the Hepworth Wakefield and Firstsite in Colchester. Between them, they cost £195m to build. In Middlesbrough, Mima celebrated its fifth birthday in January and the striking building was intended to provide a focal point for the central square. But, surrounded by uniformly ugly office blocks, a row of empty shop units and a couple of Georgian council buildings, the glass-fronted gallery could have been beamed in from another planet. Mima has earned a good reputation in the art world but costs £1m a year to the council, which is having its budget cut by £50m over the next four years. In 2010, the town was ranked as the least able place in the country to cope with economic shocks like public sector cuts. The local jury seems to still be considering its verdict on whether the gallery has been a good thing. When asked whether it has made Middlesbrough a more desirable place to live, a lady in a local estate agent answers: "It's neither here nor there. "I suppose it's something nice to look at in the middle of this mess." She declined to be identified. Lots of people in the town centre look blankly when asked what impact Mima has made and say modern art is not their cup of tea. A newspaper seller called Alan declares it "a waste of money", adding: "They could spend however much millions of pounds on maybe getting something for the kids. Like the swimming baths that used to be in Middlesbrough." The only indication of the gallery's knock-on effect on the nearby row of empty shops is a sign for a pop-up "art and performance space" called We Are Open, which is decidedly not. But there are other, subtle changes. "There's an element of town pride that goes along with having something that isn't Middlesbrough, known for the smoke, the pollution, the general urban decay," says Chris Neale, a bank worker on his lunch break in the square. And at the railway station, a smaller gallery space called Platform A has been open for a year alongside studios for 15 artists. Artist and founder Tony Charles says Mima's arrival made others realise that the council was receptive to creative ideas. It has also given the university's fine art graduates a reason to stick around. "Since we've become established here, we can see other people following our example and starting to set things up themselves," he says. "It all contributes to the creative maturing process of Middlesbrough. "Now, it's not unusual to be talking to an artist in Middlesbrough in the middle of the street. There are plenty of them. Whereas years ago, before Mima, they were a rare breed." Two of the most recent additions to the gallery circuit are the Hepworth Wakefield and Turner Contemporary in Margate, both designed by David Chipperfield, which each boasted 500,000 visitors in their first years - far exceeding expectations. But are those visitors also spending time and money in the area, or just visiting the galleries before going straight home? In Wakefield, the gallery estimates that its visitors each spent an average of £20 in the town, bringing in £10m to the local economy. Wakefield Express editor Mark Bradley says opinion in the city is still not "unequivocally positive", but that the gallery has won over many critics. "I've been into various shops in Wakey - sandwich shops, coffee shops, places like that - where they've said that they have had people that aren't from Wakefield discussing their visit to the Hepworth. "At the outset, there were a lot of people saying 'People are just going to go to the Hepworth and then leave Wakefield'. But I don't believe that's true. I think a lot of people are sticking around a bit." High-profile galleries may offer a "very quick visible fix" for councils looking to address problems, according to Professor Malcolm Miles of the University of Plymouth, but they cannot make much difference on their own. There must be other attractions to draw in visitors, and other forms of regeneration to really improve an area, he believes. The New Art Gallery in Walsall, which opened in 2000, is one that struggled in its early years. "The time I went there, I was the only visitor for quite a long period," Professor Miles says. "The building really stands out in the environment around it as the only element of regeneration there. It's too isolated. "And it's so near Birmingham, which has a lot more. People will go into Birmingham and not Walsall. Which is a pity because there were a lot of positive aspects about the building and what's inside it. These are well intentioned initiatives but they're sometimes rather naive." New Art Gallery director Stephen Snoddy says the venue had 175,000 visitors in 2011 and that new flats, shops and a hotel had now been built nearby. The new galleries have certainly loosened London's monopoly on contemporary art. Funding from councils and other sources is being squeezed, though, and Arts Council England has decided to focus capital money on improving existing buildings rather than putting up new ones. The galleries from Wakefield to Margate are among the last of their generation, and must now prove their worth in the long run, just as the Baltic appears to be doing.

पिछले एक दशक में, मार्गेट से मिडल्सब्रो तक के शहरों में साहसिक और महंगी नई कला दीर्घाएं खड़ी हुई हैं, ताकि कम पसंद किए जाने वाले क्षेत्रों को फिर से बनाया जा सके और आधुनिक कला को जनता के सामने लाया जा सके। क्या यह रणनीति काम कर गई है?


Children denied an identity under China's one-child policy

Summary: Right in the centre of the tiny farming village of Beigaoli, in eastern China's Shandong province, lies a cheery local kindergarten. Most of the village children attend classes here every day for free, singing songs and making use of the outdoor swing set.

By Celia HattonBBC News, Beijing But the parents of one three-year-old had to bribe the kindergarten's teachers to allow him to attend. Zhang Rundong is a little boy with big eyes and a serious expression, standing on the edge of the noisy group of children. He is the Zhang family's illegal second son, born in violation of the country's one-child policy. In retaliation for the boy's birth, officials are withholding his identity papers. Without them, he cannot access healthcare or free education, travel within his country or even use a library. This month, China's one-child policy was relaxed, allowing some couples to have two children. But nothing has changed for an estimated 10-20 million children already born in violation of the original policy. In their simple home, the Zhangs detailed their ongoing battle with the local officials, starting with the failure of Mrs Zhang's government-mandated birth control. "I was scared when I found out I was pregnant again," she said. "Of course, I was a little bit happy too. So I didn't want the other villagers to find out and force me to abort the baby." Following their son's secret birth, the couple borrowed from friends and relatives to pay a fine totalling almost $10,000 (£6,100). Across China, more than $3.3bn in similar fines were paid by families in the year 2012 alone - though it is unclear where that money ends up. Critics believe the fines are used as extra income for local governments. The Zhangs showed the BBC receipts from the payment of their fines from the local Communist officials, but they did not appear to be official government documents. Instead, the receipts were handwritten on small slips of paper, illustrating the arbitrary nature of the party's punishment system. In some parts of China, those who violate the one-child policy pay a fine, which they can sometimes reduce after negotiating with local officials before receiving their child's identity papers. Others, like the Zhangs, are not so lucky. The family's fine has been paid, but that is still not enough for local officials. Secret audio recordings, they allege, reveal the Beigaoli village party chief's additional demands: Mrs Zhang must also be sterilised. The couple do not want any more children, but they are refusing the procedure, arguing that it violates their basic rights. "Many women have been sterilised by force," Mrs Zhang explains. "We are scared officials will detain me and make me have the operation if my husband leaves the house." The BBC crew visited the village's family planning office, but no one was available to speak to us. Repeated interview requests were ignored. 'I will appeal' Almost 500km (310 miles) to the north of Beigaoli, another mother is also demanding answers. On the northern outskirts of Beijing, Liu Fei is also fighting local officials in her area to relinquish her son's identity papers. Her eight-year-old does not even have a birth certificate, although for now, Ms Liu has found a school that will allow him to attend classes. Liu Fei received an unusually harsh punishment after having her second child in her second marriage. Because her second husband also had one child, the government is treating Ms Liu as if she has had three children of her own. She faces a $54,000 fine that is 14 times her annual salary as a warehouse worker. "I'll never be able to pay it off in this lifetime," Liu Fei told the BBC, before bursting into tears. So this widow is suing the local authorities - something that is almost unheard of in China. "If no specific government law denies my son an identity before I pay the fine, he should receive one," she explains. "If they don't give him that, I will appeal." Ms Liu and her lawyer believe it is illegal for the Beijing government to deny a child's identity papers until the one-child policy fine has been paid. The Beijing court is expected to issue its decision on the case within the next week. It is a case that could set a precedent for millions in the same situation, though most agree there is little hope the Liu family will win; little promise that this boy's legal right to exist will be separated from his mother's battles with the government.

पूर्वी चीन के शेडोंग प्रांत के छोटे से कृषि गांव बेइगोली के ठीक बीच में एक खुशमिजाज स्थानीय बालवाड़ी है। गाँव के अधिकांश बच्चे हर दिन यहाँ मुफ्त में कक्षाओं में भाग लेते हैं, गीत गाते हैं और बाहरी झूले का उपयोग करते हैं।


Ayia Napa rape case: Teenager's mother promises 'relentless pursuit of justice'

Summary: The mother of a British woman found guilty of lying about being gang-raped in Cyprus has told the BBC they will be "relentless in the pursuit of justice", as they appeal against her conviction.

The teenager was given a four-month sentence, suspended for three years. Her lawyer said he "expected a full hearing before the [Cypriot] Supreme Court" from May onwards. He said her initial statement admitting guilt had been taken "in breach of both EU and European Human Rights Law". 'Pressure and coercion' Speaking to the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, the woman's mother said: "The issues in this case are of such monumental importance for sexually assaulted women around the world that we will be relentless in the pursuit of justice." She added that her daughter was "doing well and has blended back into society" since she returned to the UK after being handed her sentence in January. The woman - whom the BBC is not naming - was put on trial and convicted in December after recanting a claim that she had been raped by a group of 12 young men in a hotel room in Ayia Napa in July 2019. She said Cypriot police had made her falsely confess to lying about the incident - something police have denied. Her lawyer, Lewis Power QC, told the Victoria Derbyshire programme "the fight to clear her name forges ahead in earnest". "She maintains that she was brutally raped but was forced to change her account under pressure and coercion from the Cypriot Police." He said her "confession" had been taken "without access to a lawyer" and "under immense pressure" after hours of questioning. "We will also be highlighting a number of key issues such as the District Court's refusal to hear evidence which supported the teenager's account, and also the very conduct of the trial and the arguable differential treatment between the defence and the prosecution. "Additionally, the court's apparent disregarding of the array of expert evidence put forward by the defence was a surprising feature of this case, and we hope that when the appeal court views this case as a whole they will come to the view that the young girl was not afforded a fair trial." Shami Chakrabarti, Labour's Shadow Attorney General, told the BBC: "This shocking case raises many unanswered questions of both Cyprus and UK governments. "Did the Cypriot police contact the British High Commission before the young woman was questioned or pressured about her complaint for eight hours? Was she offered any consular support? If not, why not?" 'A second chance' During the sentencing in January, judge Michalis Papathanasiou told the teenager he was giving her a "second chance" by suspending her sentence - allowing her to fly back to the UK. He said the woman's "psychological state, her youth, that she has been away from her family, her friends and academic studies this year", had led him to the decision. At the time, Boris Johnson's spokesman said the UK prime minister was "pleased" she could now return home. However, Downing Street said the UK government had highlighted its "concerns about the judicial process in this case and the woman's right to a fair trial" to the Cypriot authorities. The 12 men whom the woman alleges raped her were arrested but later freed, and returned home after she retracted her claims. Israeli lawyer Nir Islovich, who represented four of the 12 men in the case, welcomed the decision to convict the woman. "What was important to us was that she would be convicted of the charges brought against her," he said at the time. "That happened with full adoption of the facts as presented by my clients." Follow the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on Facebook and Twitter - and see more of its stories here.

साइप्रस में सामूहिक बलात्कार के बारे में झूठ बोलने का दोषी पाई गई एक ब्रिटिश महिला की मां ने बीबीसी को बताया है कि वे "न्याय की खोज में अथक प्रयास" करेंगे, क्योंकि वे उसकी सजा के खिलाफ अपील करेंगे।


Eight jobs safeguarded after Powys firm wins Merthyr recycling contract

Summary: A company in Powys has won a five-year contract with Merthyr Tydfil council to operate and manage recycling centres in Aberfan and Dowlais.

Potter Group, based at Welshpool, already operates household waste recycling centres in Welshpool, Newtown and Machynlleth on behalf of Powys council. It also runs commercial waste transfer stations in Brecon and Welshpool. The firm said eight jobs had been safeguarded in Aberfan and Dowlais.

पॉव्स की एक कंपनी ने अबेरफान और दौलाइस में पुनर्चक्रण केंद्रों के संचालन और प्रबंधन के लिए मेरथिर टायडफिल परिषद के साथ पांच साल का अनुबंध जीता है।