Two arrested over Southwold antiques shop raid

Summary: Two people have been arrested in connection with a raid on a Suffolk antiques shop where about £100,000 of jewellery was stolen.

The Southwold Antiques Centre on the High Street was broken into on the evening of 5 November. Police were questioning a 24-year-old man from Felixstowe on suspicion of burglary. A 29-year-old woman, also from Felixstowe, was arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

सफोक प्राचीन वस्तुओं की दुकान पर छापेमारी के सिलसिले में दो लोगों को गिरफ्तार किया गया है, जहाँ लगभग 100,000 पाउंड के आभूषण चोरी हो गए थे।


The mystery American woman wanted in the UK

Summary: Anne Sacoolas, a US citizen, has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving in the UK, but returned home under the protection of diplomatic immunity. That doesn't mean she's escaped accountability.

By Tara McKelveyVienna, Virginia In August 2019, Anne Sacoolas collided with motorcyclist Harry Dunn while driving on the wrong side of the road in the UK. The 19-year-old was taken to hospital and later died. Sacoolas returned to the US, claiming diplomatic immunity, and an extradition request was blocked. But a US judge, TS Ellis, has said she must face the music, at least in civil court. He ruled last month that a lawsuit filed in the US state of Virginia by Dunn's family could go forward. They are claiming wrongful death. On Wednesday, Judge Ellis said the family could also pursue a damage claim against Sacoolas' husband. She was driving his SUV when the collision occurred. Judge Ellis chastised Sacoolas in a court teleconference last month: "Accepting full responsibility doesn't mean you run away." Ellis is a conservative judge, known for rulings that protect the government, especially the intelligence agencies. So his criticism of Sacoolas, and his decision to allow the civil claim to proceed, were surprising. Sacoolas was charged in the UK with "causing death by dangerous driving", but has remained on US soil. The case has created tension between the two countries, with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying this month his government would do "whatever we can to get justice" for Dunn. And the decision to allow her to escape justice in the UK has infuriated the Dunn family and their supporters, who have made direct appeals to the US government to have her sent her back to Britain. State department officials say she has diplomatic immunity, a rule that dates back to the 1961 Vienna Convention protecting diplomats while they are working abroad. It was a privilege she was granted as the wife of a US intelligence officer, working in Britain for the US embassy. Sacoolas' lawyer said she has taken responsibility for the collision, which occurred near RAF Croughton, the air force base in central England where her husband worked. In a statement released through her lawyer, she said she very briefly was instinctively driving on the wrong side of the road when the crash occurred, and did everything she could to help Dunn. The Dunn family wants her to face trial in the UK. So does British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who said letting her stay in the US, instead of returning to Britain for trial, was a "denial of justice". She has not, however, escaped justice entirely. National security lawyer Mark Zaid says the federal court in Virginia's Eastern district, where Judge Ellis presides, is the worst possible venue for those who are fighting the intelligence agencies: Ellis is "incredibly pro-CIA". For that reason, the judge's criticism of Sacoolas, and of the government, was unusual, says Zaid: "Folks should really pay attention." Sacoolas, 43, grew up in Aiken, South Carolina, and graduated from University of South Carolina. By 2003, she was living in Virginia, according to a wedding announcement in her hometown newspaper. She studied psychology and was "worldly, sophisticated", says an old friend, Aaron Howard, who met her while he was tending bar: she drank negronis, a gin cocktail. Her house in Virginia was set back from the street, filled with sturdy, childproof furniture, exercise machines and books about espionage: a copy of Peter Maas's Killer Spy, a book about a CIA mole, Aldrich Ames, sat on a shelf. But Sacoolas' occupation has been a bit mysterious. Her lawyer, John McGavin, said during a hearing last month that she worked for a US "intelligence agency", and that this had been "a factor" in her decision to leave the UK after the collision. Then, a moment later, he corrected himself, saying she worked for the US State Department. When the judge asked whether her job at the State Department was cover for her intelligence work, her lawyer said he did not have that information. Sacoolas, her husband and their three children live in northern Virginia, a place with ornamental shrubbery, wide streets and American flags. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters are located here, and many of Sacoolas' friends and neighbours have jobs that are similar to the ones the couple hold - they work for the government, and for the intelligence services. Sacoolas' diplomatic immunity has set off a debate in the US, and within the intelligence services, about the sweeping powers of intelligence officials and their families. The immunity is meant to protect officials from false charges by a hostile government. The UK is an ally, though, and many were surprised when she left and avoided trial. Under former president Donald Trump, federal officials defended her in a forceful manner. A spokesman for Dunn's family, Radd Seiger, recalls the family's visit to the White House in 2019. They were asked to meet with Sacoolas, who was waiting nearby. They refused. Before they left the West Wing, Seiger says then National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told them: "She's never going back". Seiger and others thought the situation might change with the new president, Joe Biden. So far, it has not. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tells me that she has been following the Sacoolas story on the BBC, but deferred questions about the case to the State Department. State Department spokesman Ned Price says their position is clear: Sacoolas has diplomatic immunity, and their decision is "final". Diplomatic immunity 'sacrosanct' The US defence of Sacoolas has come under increasing scrutiny. Lawyer Zaid says: "We [the US] obviously have full faith in the British legal system, so it's somewhat shocking that we up and ran." "Diplomatic immunity is not meant to shield our people from criminal or negligent activity. It is supposed to protect our diplomats from a hostile foreign government." A former acting general counsel for the CIA, Robert Eatinger, says he understands why the officials have held the line. If they made an exception for Sacoolas, he says, it would set a precedent. Diplomatic immunity is "one of the things that the US considers sacrosanct," he says, adding: "Once you've waived it for Mr So-and-So, it opens up other issues." The officials may have good reasons for their decision. One possible concern is that the US wanted to protect operations - a trial could expose details of intelligence work. Yet the waiver can still seem wrong to people. "There's an understanding at one level," says Eatinger, formerly of the CIA. "But at the other level, the human level, this just seems unfair." A former CIA officer, Ilana Sara Greenstein, says the decision to grant diplomatic immunity reflects a certain mindset within the industry. "There's a little bit of the God complex," she explains, describing the culture of the agency. "People walked around thinking: 'We can do what we want.'" In her view, diplomatic immunity for Sacoolas reinforces this belief. 'She has to accept responsibility' Today, Sacoolas's Virginian home is rented out, and she is living elsewhere while the civil case makes its way through the court. One breezy afternoon last week, Jerry Haskins, 70, was next door to her old house. The road smelled like pine, and whitetail deer roamed through back lots. He looked down a long driveway, pointing to a spot where he first met her. "She was friendly enough," he says. "She walked up and introduced herself. I told her: 'Nice to meet you.'" Today, he shakes his head. "She has to accept responsibility," he says. "Why didn't she stand trial?" Another neighbour, an IT expert who was striding past her house during his regular, mile-and-a-half walk, says she should have faced the consequences, rather than head home. "You own it up," he says, then continued on his way.

ऐनी सैकुलास, एक अमेरिकी नागरिक, पर यू. के. में खतरनाक ड्राइविंग से मौत का कारण बनने का आरोप लगाया गया है, लेकिन राजनयिक प्रतिरक्षा के संरक्षण में घर लौट आई है। इसका मतलब यह नहीं है कि वह जवाबदेही से बच गई है।


Matlock Bath Illuminations cancelled because of flood

Summary: An illuminations event, which draws thousands of visitors, has been called off because rain has made the river "too dangerous".

It is the final weekend of the Matlock Bath Illuminations, which involves a flotilla of hand-decorated boats lighting up the River Derwent. Organisers cancelled shows on Saturday and Sunday for the first time in 18 years after the river burst its banks. They said water levels were subsiding but not quickly enough. Ticketholders will received full refunds and the fireworks finale will still go ahead. The event dates back to 1897 and runs every weekend between the beginning of September and the end of October. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

एक रोशनी कार्यक्रम, जो हजारों आगंतुकों को आकर्षित करता है, को रद्द कर दिया गया है क्योंकि बारिश ने नदी को "बहुत खतरनाक" बना दिया है।


How Libya holds the key to solving Europe's migration crisis

Summary: The European Union wants to set up migrant "reception centres" in North Africa to process the thousands of Africans trying to reach Europe. This has been rejected by Libya, where people-smuggling networks once controlled by former strongman Muammar Gaddafi, are now able to operate freely, writes the BBC's Farouk Chothia.

As he appealed to Nato not to launch air strikes to overthrow his regime, then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said: "Now listen, you people of Nato. You're bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe and in the way of al-Qaeda terrorists. This wall was Libya. You're breaking it." Gaddafi was trying to exploit European fears about migration in the hope of clinging to power, but it did not work. He was killed by Nato-backed militias in October 2011 following a popular uprising against his 42-year rule. As a result, Europe - especially Italy - lost a key partner in efforts to reduce migration from Africa. "Not enough attention was paid to Libya after Gaddafi's overthrow," Tarek Megersi, a Libyan analyst with the UK-based European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, told the BBC. "There is a lack of governance structures and smuggling groups have exploited this to the maximum," Mr Megersi added. Unlike Turkey which has stemmed the flow of migrants by agreeing to take back Syrians who reach the Greek islands in exchange for a huge financial package, Libya's weak internationally recognised government has rejected a European Union proposal to set up "reception centres" for African migrants while European states consider their asylum applications. 'We categorically reject camps for migrants,'' Libya's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeq said, following talks with Italy's far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini in Tripoli last week. ''It is not allowed by Libyan law," he added. A further complication is the breakdown in law and order in Libya, where a host of rival militias are largely able to operate as they please, with some making huge amounts of money from the migrant trade. 'Friendship agreement' Mr Megersi said migrants have rapidly changed the demographics of parts of Libya. The coastal city of Zawiya, which used to have a population of about 200,000, now has more than one million migrants living in it, and the surrounding area. "They [Libyans] have the same fear as European states," he added. Speaking after an African Union (AU) summit in Mauritania on Monday, Morocco's Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita also rejected the EU proposal, describing it as "an easy, counter-productive solution", although some poor states along the migration route - Niger is rumoured to be one of them - might eventually agree to host the "reception centres". Gaddafi signed a "friendship" agreement with then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in August 2008, in a deal which saw his regime tightening border controls - including joint maritime patrols - in exchange for Italy pledging $5bn (£3.75bn) in compensation for colonial-era crimes. The deal led to a sharp decline in the number of people trying to reach Europe by boat - from nearly 40,000 in 2008 to 3,200 in the first seven months after joint patrols started in 2009, according to EU-funded research. In total, 206,880 people left Libyan shores between 2003 and 2012, an average of about 23,000 a year. Almost all of them - 190,425 - went to the Italian island of Lampedusa and the remaining 16,445 to Malta, other research shows. 'Petrol and people-smugglers' Mr Megersi said Gaddafi used migration "to hold Europe hostage", allowing smuggling networks - made up of people from the two main ethnic groups in the south-west, the Tuareg and Tebu - to thrive when it suited him. "The tribes of southern Libya have historically been smugglers because of a lack of economic opportunities and development," Mr Megersi told the BBC. "Gaddafi made a deal with them - smuggle goods to Niger, Chad and Algeria, rather than people to Europe. He will give them petrol or flour at subsidised prices, which they will then sell at market prices. "The vacuum left by Gaddafi was never filled by any entity capable of exerting control or pressure over them," Mr Megersi said. What did EU leaders agree at their summit last week? According to UN figures, about 15,151 people left North Africa - mainly Libya - by boat in 2012, which many Libyans described as the "golden year" after Gaddafi's overthrow. In 2014, the number rose to a staggering 170,110. This was because conflict escalated between rival governments and militias jostling for power following disputed elections. The fighting was so intense that the US shut its embassy and evacuated its diplomats to neighbouring Tunisia. In a report published last year following a study on migration trends, the UN High Commission for Refugees said: "Libya has for decades drawn people from neighbouring countries, as it offered the best employment opportunities and highest salaries in the region - although it has been increasingly roiled by instability and insecurity since the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. "The study found that around half of those travelling to Libya do so believing they can find jobs there, but end up fleeing onwards to Europe to escape life-threatening dangers and difficult economic conditions plus widespread exploitation and abuse." Smuggling networks operating across East and West Africa bring the migrants by road to Libya, from countries as diverse as Eritrea - a small state which young people flee to avoid military conscription - and Nigeria, Africa's most populous state which is battling high levels of unemployment, an Islamist-led insurgency and clashes between herders and farmers. Efforts to break up the networks in Libya and other states have yielded results. "Certain militias [in Libya] have been given incentives to stop human-trafficking and have been co-opted into law-enforcement activities, but what these incentives are remains unclear," Mark Micallef, a Malta-based researcher with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime think-tank, told the BBC. Sudan - led by Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Courts for war crimes in Darfur - has also cooperated with the EU. "Over the past two years, Sudan has been cracking down on its northern border with Chad, Libya and Egypt," Mr Micallef said. "It has taken the opportunity to come out of isolation and engage with the international community." Niger - which is second from bottom on the UN Human Development Index - has also "played more than its part", despite the "very big hit" this has had on the economy in its northern Agadez region, which was heavily dependent on migrants en route to Libya, Mr Micallef said. In exchange, the EU offered 610m euros (£540m; $714m) to Niger in 2016 from a fund set up to address what it calls the root causes of "destabilisation, forced displacement and irregular migration" in 26 African states. This included tackling population growth, "extreme poverty" and weak "economic infrastructure", the EU said on its website. 'African narrative' Significantly, the number of boat migrants has dropped in the first six months of this year. Less than 50,000 people arrived in Europe from North Africa, suggesting that if there is no major outbreak of violence in Libya ahead of elections scheduled for December, sea crossings in 2018 could be at their lowest since 2014. More on the migration crisis: For its part, the AU decided at its summit to establish the African Observatory for Migration and Development in a bid to coordinate its response to the crisis. "Africa should not just react to decisions taken outside. We should have our own narrative," Mr Bourita, Morocco's foreign minister, told the BBC. To curb migration, African states needed to invest in young people, who were "an energy", Mr Bourita said. "Either you use it properly and it can be an element of development or you will not control it and it will be a problem for all the countries," he added. 'Europe need migration' In a report published last month after a survey in nine African states, Afrobarometer, a South African-based non-governmental organisation, said the continent needed "thriving" economies to stem migration. The desire to migrate was strongest among the young and the educated, with 43% of respondents citing the need to find a job as the main reason and 33% saying they wanted to escape economic hardship and poverty, the report said. Most southern Africans preferred to settle in another African state, while those from West and east Africa preferred to go to Europe and North America, the report added. Mr Megersi believes that the EU should place greater emphasis on creating legal avenues for migration in order to boost its workforce. "Some do it for asylum. Others for economic reasons. They are young men eager and willing to work in different spheres. Europe needs migration, with its ageing population," he said. But the current political climate in Europe mitigates against this, with many voters blaming migrants for their economic problems. This has led to the rise of right-wing parties - like Mr Salvini's League party in Italy - and efforts to curb migration are likely to intensify. "Populists are gaining ground by holding a firm line, and you have one ad hoc measure after another. Migration policy in Europe is a game of politics," Mr Megersi added.

यूरोपीय संघ उत्तरी अफ्रीका में प्रवासी "स्वागत केंद्र" स्थापित करना चाहता है ताकि यूरोप पहुंचने की कोशिश कर रहे हजारों अफ्रीकियों को संसाधित किया जा सके। इसे लीबिया द्वारा खारिज कर दिया गया है, जहां लोगों की तस्करी के नेटवर्क को कभी पूर्व शक्तिशाली मुअम्मर गद्दाफी द्वारा नियंत्रित किया जाता था, अब स्वतंत्र रूप से काम करने में सक्षम हैं, बीबीसी के फारुक चोथिया लिखते हैं।


Letter from Africa: A royal feud threatens Nigeria's heritage

Summary: In our series of letters from African journalists, the editor-in-chief of Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper, Mannir Dan Ali, considers why politicians have taken aim at one of the most influential spiritual and traditional leaders in the country's largely Muslim north.

For the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, 2019 looks set to be his "annus horribilis". This is because one politician in particular, Kano's Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, is determined to go to great lengths to clip his wings - or possibly remove his entire royal plumage. For more than 1,000 years, the position of Emir of Kano has been revered. Traditional leaders hold few constitutional powers but are able to exert significant influence as they are seen as custodians of both religion and tradition. The emir's role In pictures: Nigeria's many monarchs But last month, Mr Ganduje cut the historic Kano emirate into five. It left Muhammadu Sanusi II presiding over the smallest, though most densely populated, portion. It is a move that diminishes the emir's prestige. Lamido Sanusi, a controversial former bank chief, came to the emir's throne in 2014 after being selected by elders and then confirmed by the then-governor. Like his time at the bank, where he was sacked after revealing that billions of dollars of oil revenue had gone missing, the 57-year-old has used his position to speak out on some matters. But his holier-than-thou attitude has upset some politicians. The first sign that relations between the state government and the emirate were at an all-time low came shortly after Mr Ganduje's re-election earlier this year. A video began circulating on social media showing a crowd in Kano Government House forcefully removing a portrait of the emir and tearing it to pieces. This happened just a few metres from the grand hall, which was specially built in June 2014 for the emir's coronation. Mr Ganduje narrowly won a second term in office - in fact the race was so tight it had to be re-run in some areas in March and his rival is challenging the result in court. Now, the governor wants to settle scores with those he believes opposed his re-election. The emir is top of his list. Many suggest the emir is in this predicament because he has defied a tradition that dictates that part of his turban covers his mouth so that courtiers speak on his behalf. However, unlike his predecessors, this emir has been seen and very much heard. He has not shied away from public comments and has criticised the government which has put him on a collision course with political office holders. On one occasion he criticised the Kano governor's idea of building a metro rail with money from a Chinese loan. Durbar cancelled What some see as Mr Ganduje's vendetta against the emir began as early as 2017 when an investigation was opened into the finances of the emirate, which is funded by the state. A report published last week recommended the suspension of the emir, accusing him of undermining the investigation by instructing emirate officials to shun questions by its researchers. It said that up to 3.4bn naira (about $9.4m, £7.4m) was spent in what was called fraudulent, questionable and inappropriate ways, pointing to the cost of renovations within the palace, telephone bills, air travel and hotel bills. Since the drama began to unfold, the emir took an unusually long time to respond to the allegations, which he has now dismissed, saying it would have been impossible to misspend $9.4m because there was only $6.1m in the accounts when he took over. Who is Muhammad Sanusi II? Read:Will Lamido Sanusi ruffle feathers? The governor may have decided to make the report public to detract from corruption allegations that have been levelled at him after videos circulated appearing to show him shoving fistfuls of high-denomination dollars into the pocket of his voluminous robes. Mr Ganduje denied collecting bribes from contractors and said the recordings were faked. A state assembly investigation was later stopped by a court order sought by the governor, who is also suing for defamation. Emirs have been forced to resign in the past, but the current tension prompted the state government to cancel last week's durbar, a three-day horse parade held to mark the Eid al-Fitr celebration for the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. During the durbar, which is also a big tourist attraction, the emir rides a horse around the city, accompanied by a troupe of his cavalry wearing colourful, traditional robes and later people queue up to pay homage to him. It is these traditions that make the residents of Kano enormously proud - and an attempt in the 1980s by another governor to split up the emirate ended in clashes. For those who see the whole episode as politically motivated, their hope is that this latest attempt will too end in failure. Mr Ganduje's challenger is already promising to reverse the decision if the court rules in his favour. Although no-one is holding their breath - the emir's hold over the rich and colour heritage of Kano may wane if he becomes an ordinary civil servant answerable to the whims of politicians. More Letters from Africa Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Update 10 June 2019: This piece has been amended to reflect that the Emir of Kano has commented on the allegations against him.

अफ्रीकी पत्रकारों के पत्रों की हमारी श्रृंखला में, नाइजीरिया के डेली ट्रस्ट समाचार पत्र के प्रधान संपादक, मन्नीर दान अली, इस बात पर विचार करते हैं कि राजनेताओं ने देश के बड़े पैमाने पर मुस्लिम उत्तर में सबसे प्रभावशाली आध्यात्मिक और पारंपरिक नेताओं में से एक को क्यों निशाना बनाया है।


Wellingborough welfare service shut by budget cuts

Summary: A welfare charity that helps vulnerable and elderly people in Northamptonshire is to close at the end of March because its core funding has been cut.

Conservative-controlled Wellingborough Borough Council, aiming to cut budgets by £1.4m and axe 100 jobs, said some discretionary funding would be cut too. Wellingborough Welfare Rights says no other help organisation does its job of providing support to the vulnerable. The council said the Citizens Advice service could carry on its work. But Audrey Ellis, who has worked for Wellingborough Welfare Rights for almost two decades, said: "We are the only people who go to vulnerable people's homes to help them fill out complicated forms. "Some of them may be elderly, mentally ill or have learning difficulties. We help them with their benefits claims and can represent them at tribunals."

एक कल्याणकारी दान जो नॉर्थम्पटनशायर में कमजोर और बुजुर्ग लोगों की मदद करता है, मार्च के अंत में बंद होने वाला है क्योंकि इसकी मुख्य निधि में कटौती कर दी गई है।


Can you earthquake-proof a city?

Summary: About a million people have died in earthquakes in the last two decades, most in a handful of huge quakes in urban areas.

Yet the population of cities at risk continues to grow. Is such death and destruction inevitable? Four experts talk to the BBC World Service Inquiry programme about how far we can quake-proof a city. Dr Emily So: Lessons from the dead Civil engineer Dr Emily So is director of Cambridge University's Centre for Risk and the Built Environment. "Most deaths from earthquakes are caused by buildings collapsing: people are more likely to die in bad buildings. "There are different types of buildings around the world, and with each of these the collapse mechanisms are different; dependent on roof types, the type of environment. For drier climates - in Peru for example - the roofing structure will be much lighter so that prevents death. Even though it collapses, the roof doesn't crush people. "It's these kind of subtleties that I want to capture with my work. "In 1999 there was an earthquake in Chichi in Taiwan which was 7.6 [on the Richter scale]. It killed just over 2,000 people. The same magnitude earthquake in Kashmir in Pakistan in 2005 killed over 86,000. "I was watching news [of the 2005 Pakistani earthquake], and the frustration that we know how to build against building collapse and prevent these deaths was really the motivation behind the work I'm doing now. "With a lot of developing countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Haiti, the population are keen to use modern materials like concrete, but they haven't got the skills or money to build them properly. "They have the aesthetic of concrete, but not the actual material of an engineered reinforced concrete building, and therefore when the earthquake strikes, it becomes dead weight and falls on the people inside. "Because of urbanisation, we are tending to build more and more in cities, and in more hazardous regions. Population density is making the issue more prominent. "I think it is possible to earthquake-proof a city. We have the knowledge and the know-how to prevent collapse of buildings. We have the knowledge and know-how of where to put people because of research into seismology. "But it comes down to awareness, the quality of the buildings, education, building control, economics and possibly political will as well, because these events don't happen very often, and priorities in different countries are different. "There's a saying that for every $1 (£0.70) spent in mitigation, $7 (£4.90) is saved in relief and reconstruction, and that's the key message. Given that we know the hazard itself is not preventable, it's the vulnerability and exposure of the built environment and its inhabitants that we need to work on." David Malott: High-tech city Architect David Malott designed three of the world's ten tallest towers. "Tall buildings are somewhat inherently more stable in an earthquake: the ground shakes, moving back and forth at something like half a second to two-and-a-half seconds. A building - depending on its height - will also have a natural frequency to it. "When the ground shaking and the building swaying match up, they go into resonance and that's where we see these catastrophic results. "Buildings in the low to mid-height range are inherently more susceptible to ground shaking, whereas a building which is 100 floors tall, ironically falls outside of that frequency of the earthquake and therefore doesn't go into resonance. "I've been working on tall buildings for 15 years now. The first one I completed was the Shanghai World Financial Centre which is 492m tall. "[When Shanghai shook during the Sichuan quake of 2008], it hardly moved. We have sensors on the building, and even during this earthquake, the tower moved something like a metre at its top. "That's actually a very small amount of movement relative to the height of the tower. There's something to these towers being very flexible and able to sway gently, even though the forces of nature might be quite violent, that enables these structures to withstand what nature throws their way. "There are a number of techniques to test whether a building is earthquake-proof. Computers play a large role in the early days. Engineers take historic data on past earthquakes and plug it into the computer model, and we watch the way the structure behaves in that earthquake, and the computer lets us know how big to make the columns, how thick a steel should we use. "As the design gets more mature, in China for example, designers are required to build a large structural model. We put it on what's called the shaking table [which] rocks back and forth to simulate that earthquake environment, and then sensors are placed on the physical model and we watch how that model performs. "This is expensive [but] these buildings are designed to last for 100 years, perhaps 200, so the investment you make in performing these tests is a drop in the bucket compared to the initial costs. "The paradox is that the parts of the world where we're finding the greatest need for these tall towers in terms of just population density - places like China, Japan, Indonesia - are in the ring of fire, where we find the most difficulty in terms of earthquakes and typhoons. We're building in perhaps what's the most dangerous locations on earth, and that's the challenge." Martijn Schildkamp: Low-tech approach Architect Martijn Schildkamp founded a charity called Smart Shelter to strengthen cheap housing. He has built schools in Nepal using quake-resistant methods. "Is it possible to earthquake-proof a city in the developing world? If you have a lot of money, yeah, but there's not a strong lobby behind it yet who can invest and do the testing, because the investment will never be returned. "So there's still a lot of guess work. [When you drive through an area after an earthquake], you see houses which look like they've been built the same, but one is completely collapsed and the neighbour is still standing strong. Why? What's the difference here? "We see stone, wood and bricks all over the world, so if you can figure out those basics and then have a little bit of tweaking on the local level, we can go a long way. "One important element is the number of horizontal beams that hold the walls together. We call it 'tying up your building' like a present, and this combination of very simple techniques is what we train. Over and over again, repeating, repeating, supervising, supervising, but it really works. Animated map: The Nepal earthquake and its 120 aftershocks "Our buildings have been tested. Last year during the [Nepal] earthquakes, our buildings survived without a scratch. They were about 70km (43 miles) from the epicentre, so relatively close. "In all fairness, the region where we are was not as severely hit as Kathmandu Valley, [but] I'm convinced that our schools would have done very well there as well. "What I see now is that there's a lot of experimenting. In Nepal where people are building with sandbags and straw bales and plastic bottles, their justification is that it should be quick and cheap. I absolutely am against experimenting in the backyard of people that already lost their house once. "It should be done in a safe environment in a university, where we first figure out exactly how it works before we consider building thousands of these at the same time in villages in Nepal. It just doesn't make sense. "For Nepal, I see the benefit of building with gabion boxes - woven steel nets which we fill with stones. Rather than stacking them next to a mountain to prevent landslides, they say, 'No, let's stack them into walls,' because then we don't need cement which is very scarce and expensive there. "We have two students working in Bologna in Italy to figure out if we can make those gabion boxes earthquake-resistant." Dr Lucy Jones: Prioritise wisely Dr Lucy Jones is science advisor for risk reduction at the US Geological Survey. "Stopping all earthquake damage is an insanely expensive process. Stopping enough that you can keep your society functioning, that's very doable if you're willing to put in time and effort. "What you need to do is prioritise. There's only so much money that's available. There's only so much political capital that's available, and being wise about which ones you tackle is critical. "I had the opportunity within the US Geological Survey to create a project to demonstrate how we could use hazard science to improve a community's resilience to natural disasters. "We created a model of what a magnitude 7.8 San Andreas earthquake would be like, and said 'let's use the media, use the attention to get people to focus on what we know about the big earthquake and motivate some political action'. "We ended up getting 5.5 million people to participate in the drill, which is a quarter of the population of Southern California. "The good news is we've gotten traction. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti turned out to be a very visionary guy who listened to what we had to say, and committed to doing something about it. The Resilience by Design programme that I helped him develop is moving forward. "There is a style of construction that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s called non-ductile reinforced concrete. There are 1500 of those buildings in Los Angeles and thousands more in the region. "Probably 10-20% of them would collapse under strong shaking, and their concrete is heavy, so the largest number of fatalities are expected to occur in those buildings. "We're mandating retrofit. We're talking about billions of dollars having to be spent on existing buildings, and we were able to talk the business community into supporting this. We passed unanimously in the city council. Nobody objected, because they can see their investment is at stake. "So there are a lot of very positive things that are growing, and if we can just hold the earthquake off for long enough, I think we can turn it around. "I don't think I'm going to earthquake-proof Southern California, but I really do think that we can get enough pieces in place that we can keep her going." The Inquiry is broadcast on the BBC World Service on Tuesdays from 12:05 GMT. Listen online or download the podcast.

पिछले दो दशकों में भूकंपों में लगभग दस लाख लोग मारे गए हैं, जिनमें से अधिकांश शहरी क्षेत्रों में मुट्ठी भर बड़े भूकंपों में मारे गए हैं।


Four armed men rob Asda supermarket in Biggleswade

Summary: Four masked men armed with copper pipes designed to look like firearms threatened staff at an Asda store and stole a "substantial amount of cash".

The group arrived at the Church Street, Biggleswade, supermarket at about 22:00 GMT on Saturday, as staff were cashing up the day's takings. They assaulted a security guard, who suffered minor injuries. Bedfordshire Police said the men left in a dark blue Audi A4, driven by a fifth offender. The vehicle, which had false number plates, has since been recovered. Armed response vehicles were called to the area as soon as the alarm was raised and an extensive search carried out but without success, a spokesman said. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.

आग्नेयास्त्रों की तरह दिखने वाले तांबे के पाइपों से लैस चार नकाबपोश लोगों ने एक असदा स्टोर में कर्मचारियों को धमकी दी और "पर्याप्त मात्रा में नकदी" चुरा ली।


Expenses watchdog under pressure from seething MPs

Summary: Appalling. Diabolical. A nightmare.

By Ross HawkinsPolitical correspondent Those were some of the terms MPs used to describe the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) even before they found out it had failed to pay them their full salaries. The 418 MPs re-elected to Parliament at the general election were each underpaid by £119.63 last month as Ipsa took over the job of paying them from the House of Commons authorities. A spokesman for Ipsa says: "This is a technical discrepancy which often happens in switching payroll systems. "We've already put in place the means to make up the difference. We've paid every MP even when they haven't given us their bank details and in some cases that meant hand delivering cheques." 'Very miserable' Ipsa is keen to point out MPs did not make things easy for them. A spokesman says, at first, 230 MPs failed to give the organisation their bank details. By pay day, 50 had still not passed on the information. They were paid by cheque. None of that will impress MPs. Most refuse to be quoted - wary of being portrayed in the newspapers as whingers - but there is real anger at Westminster about Ipsa's performance. The former Labour Europe minister Denis MacShane says: "I've never in my 16 years seen morale so low. "People are just very, very miserable. The rules keep chopping and changing." They are furious about an online system for claiming expenses which many struggle to use and changes to rules which mean they have to put in claims for stationery, occasionally without success. One MP says she has just 30 sheets of headed notepaper left, but cannot get her claims accepted when she tries to buy more. Some say they no longer have enough money to honour existing staff contracts. Ipsa is under scrutiny. It will be the subject of a debate on Wednesday. The leader of the House of Commons Sir George Young has held a meeting with the interim chief executive Andrew McDonald. Director resigns The backbench Conservative 1922 committee and the Parliamentary Labour Party have passed on concerns from both sides of the House of Commons. Next month the Committee on Standards in Public Life - whose recommendations for changes to MPs' expenses set the groundwork for the current system - will publish in its annual report a "stock take" of the situation. There are stories of honourable members making their frustrations very clear to Ipsa staff. The organisation's interim operations director Nigel Gooding resigned, telling the Mail on Sunday he left the job for the sake of his "health and sanity", although he said he had not been hounded out by MPs. Some members of Parliament consider the organisation unresponsive and unhelpful. "Their helpline is an anti-helpline," says one. "No information is given, absolutely none." In fact Ipsa has made a number of changes in MPs' favour. They had said they would pay only 85% of phone bills. They will now reimburse the full cost of calls made for parliamentary business. Ipsa is offering interest-free advances of £4,000 to be repaid later in the financial year for members struggling with cash flow problems. Some will be allowed to spend more on staffing and office costs for the rest of this year if they can convince Ipsa they need the money. Calm voices suggest the problems are merely "teething troubles" that will pass in time. MPs have to show patience, partly because they have no direct control over a body that was established to be independent, and partly because they fear a backlash from angry voters. Administering the expenses and pay of 650 individuals and their staff is a limited task. But this group includes some of the most powerful people in the country. They have a Parliament in which to air their concerns, a hotline to the media and a number of them are very angry.

भयावह. शैतानी. एक दुःस्वप्न।


Genital warts: NHS 'must vaccinate'

Summary: The NHS vaccinates teenage girls against cervical cancer with the Cervarix vaccine. It offers good protection, but does not also protect against genital warts. In this week's Scrubbing Up, two sexual health experts argue that if the vaccine used was changed to Gardasil, teenagers would also get protection from genital warts.

VIEWPOINT By Dr Colm O'Mahony and Dr Steve TaylorChester Foundation Trust Hospital and Birmingham Heartlands Hospital Genital warts are just a cosmetic nuisance, right? You try telling that to somebody who has just discovered a load of unpleasant 'mini-cauliflowers' in the genital area. In our long careers as sexual health consultants we can safely say that the patients who discover genital warts are some of the most distressed and upset patients we have ever met. At 135,000 new and recurrent cases per year, it is the commonest sexually transmitted infection dealt with in our clinics. Imagine our delight then when in 2007 it was announced that there was a vaccine available for the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) - the virus responsible for genital warts and the government was considering a national vaccination programme. Saving money? Unfortunately, there were two vaccines, one which did not cover the genital warts virus at all - Cervarix - and a second vaccine - Gardasil - which covered the viruses that cause cervical cancer, HPV 16 and 18, but also types six and 11 which cause almost 100% of all genital warts in the UK. We naively thought at the time this was no contest, genital warts cost millions of pounds, as not only do types six and 11 cause warts but they also cause thousands of cervical smears to be classified as abnormal resulting in thousands of visits to GPs, gynaecology departments and sexual health clinics for wart treatments. The Joint Vaccination Committee recommended HPV vaccination and said that if the vaccines were the same price, Gardasil should be chosen but if Cervarix was considerably cheaper then it might be the option. The reduction in cervical cancers wouldn't be seen until 2025 whereas in a year of the vaccine programme with Gardasil we would have started to see a reduction in genital warts and started saving millions of pounds not to mention reduction in workload and distressed patients. Gardasil for our children It's extraordinary that we are the only developed country in the world, apart from Holland, to have chosen Cervarix for the national programme. The Republic of Ireland did the maths and chose Gardasil. Australia, which was first country out of the blocks, had a vaccination programme for young women between the ages of 12-26 and within the year of their Gardasil vaccine programme finishing, were already seeing a 47% reduction in genital wart presentation in young women with a corresponding 17% reduction in young men from herd immunity. A recent Australian study calculated that the only 'danger to Australia in the future would be unvaccinated backpackers' - Brits. We, as consultants in sexual health, have been told to say nothing publicly that would damage the current vaccine programme as the Cervarix vaccine has already been purchased. We have had to be circumspect in public but in private we have all purchased Gardasil for our own children and advised colleagues to do the same. 'Horse has bolted' It is sad that a golden opportunity to eradicate the commonest sexually transmitted infection in the UK, has been ignored. This decision will be regretted for many years to come. A small chink of light is the fact that the contract is up for renewal this year. However, this will only now involve 13-year-olds as the horse has already bolted, with all 13 to 18-year-old girls already vaccinated with Cervarix. Common sense and economics dictate that the decision to change and use Gardasil needs to be made sooner rather than later. There are those that say 'So what, genital warts are a punishment for promiscuous behaviour' - that is callous and unfair - even skin contact is enough to transmit HPV; condoms do not prevent transmission or acquisition of HPV so even young women who try to be careful are at risk from this virus. In our clinics we can only apologise to any young women we see who has had her full three doses of Cervarix and yet presents in great distress with genital warts. This was a bad decision, let's hope the new government will make a re-assessment, taking all the economic and social factors into consideration and reverse this decision. Neither author has any financial interest in either Cervarix or Gardasil

एन. एच. एस. किशोर लड़कियों को गर्भाशय ग्रीवा के कैंसर के खिलाफ सर्वेरिक्स वैक्सीन से टीका लगाता है। यह अच्छी सुरक्षा प्रदान करता है, लेकिन जननांग मौसा से भी सुरक्षा नहीं करता है। इस सप्ताह के स्क्रबिंग अप में, दो यौन स्वास्थ्य विशेषज्ञों का तर्क है कि यदि उपयोग किए गए टीके को गार्डासिल में बदल दिया जाता है, तो किशोरों को भी जननांग मौसा से सुरक्षा मिलेगी।


The Covid funding gap faultline

Summary: Tensions between Whitehall and the north of England have implications reaching throughout the UK. Very large amounts of additional crisis funding are coming to Holyrood. But since funding of crisis measures has become a Holyood battleground, are Tories correct to say the SNP isn't using funds to help business?

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland Follow the money, and you might find significant new faultlines in this Disuniting Kingdom. Where finance and the constitution meet an unprecedented public health crisis, Downing Street is losing its grip. When the Prime Minister speaks to the nation, it turns out his message is only for one of four parts of the nation. And he doesn't have as much authority as he thought when the message reaches north of Crewe and Stoke. Mayors in the north of England don't have a funding formula to fall back on as they fight for the funds to compensate businesses for tightening infection controls. Instead, they have to battle through a series of parallel negotiations with Downing Street, clawing back at huge cuts in the past ten years. Those in leading roles, such as Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, are flexing their muscle. Give us the money to compensate business for closures, pay for testing and the means to enforce new measures, they're saying, and only then will they accede to the requirement to move up a tier, and shut down social contact in commercial settings. Driving the trams It's the flipside of the devolved administrations in Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont, where they have the funding formula in place, and the public health responsibilities to go with them. But the result is similar: Whitehall doesn't have anything like the levers of control that it thought. That political problem is fuelled by a) that wall of Labour red north of England constituencies turned blue at last December's election and b) the divergent tendencies of a lot of Scots, increasing autonomy asserted by the Welsh, and the hotly contested Britishness of Northern Ireland. Emboldened by powers and funding over the past ten years, will England's mayors be willing to go back to running the trams after this? Sarah Longlands, director of IPPR North, a left-leaning think-tank, suggests not: "The UK is already deeply regionally divided and places like the North are particularly vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic because they have been let down by austerity and our uniquely centralised system of governance," she argues. "In our region, one in four workers earn less than the Real Living Wage. This hasn't happened by accident but is a consequence of an economic and political system that is more centralised than any other comparable country. We already knew that this approach doesn't work, but it's been thrown into sharp relief during the Covid-19 crisis. "Right now, government should be giving local leaders the powers and resources they need to do "all is takes" to respond to this crisis, to recover, and to build resilience." Should this matter to the devolved administrations? Potentially and probably, yes. To those who argue for a more federal UK, this is the very moment at which the English regions begin to assert themselves, and when Whitehall and the metro-centric media start paying attention. Another consequence could be that English regions demand their own allocations through a revised Barnett Formula, 42 years after the first one was devised. If so, it would pose some interesting challenges to the way devolution is financed beyond England. Northern hostelries In the meantime, you'd be forgiven for confusion at the big numbers being bandied around in Holyrood campaign skirmishing. Kate Forbes, the SNP's finance secretary, found £40m to help business through the October restrictions. It's to provide grants for those forced to close of £1,500 or £3,000, depending on rateable value. For those forced to close and with workers still on furlough, it should help with the 20% employer contribution towards the wage bill. And there's a discretionary fund for those not forced to close, but hit hard by the consequences of further restrictions, including those outside the central belt, and in the supply chain for the hospitality industry. Friday brought a First Ministerial hint that travel from the central belt into the less infected north of Scotland could move from strong discouragement to a ban. That would exacerbate the problems of those northern hostelries, already barred from selling alcohol or opening past 6pm. Furlough funds Then, along comes Douglas Ross, newish leader of Scottish Tories, with a charge that Ms Forbes is failing to help business with the £700m she's just been handed by the Treasury in London. There's a mighty big gap between £40m and £700m. So what's going on? I can't say that either side has rushed to help me explain, but let me do my best. The £40m was announced on Friday 9 October, and appears to have been either taken from an unspent Covid-related fund or raided from another Scottish government budget. On the same day, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced a hasty amendment to his winter plan, with the promise of similar grants to firms required to close down for infection control measures. With that announcement came £1.3bn for sharing between Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont. Scotland's share of that is around £700m. According to the Treasury, it is added to extra funds already allocated since the start of the pandemic and the financial year that began soon after, which now reach £7.2bn. That takes Holyrood's total spend this year above £50bn. Lots more than that £7.2bn has been spent directly by the Treasury in Scotland, through the furlough scheme, business loans paid through banks, and an uplift in Universal Credit. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves whether an independent Scotland could have done so much. I'm going to leave that question for another time. Eye-watering test costs For now, though, is that £700m for business support, as Douglas Ross seemed to be arguing when on BBC One's Question Time? That's up to the Scottish government to allocate. But it is derived from a Scottish share of several allocations of newly borrowed funds to English spending priorities. It is rarely made clear how that is derived, and it has become less clear since the Treasury started funding Covid crisis measures by raiding other unspent Whitehall budgets. The more they do that, the less consequence through Barnett. So far, a very large share of that extra funding has gone into matching England's additional health service costs, for test and trace, which is costing an eye-watering amount, and personal protective equipment for those most vulnerable to infected people. A much smaller amount is associated with England's business grants scheme. And big sums are required to subsidise bus and rail operators, for whom the current constraints on passenger numbers is leaving them with big losses. Rishi Sunak has not said how much his grant scheme for businesses will cost. It's an open-ended commitment, depending how many local or regional lockdowns take place. Raw anger That makes it impossible to say if the £40m allocated by the Scottish government is more or less generous than the English one, as it only covers this month. What looks more generous is that there are those extra funds for those not forced to close but affected nonetheless. And the Scottish scheme is running in October. England's funds this month depend on those mayoral negotiations. So as with the local part-lockdown strategy itself, it looks messy, unclear and insufficient to do the job beyond the short term. The raw anger in hospitality at taking the brunt of restrictions on opening hours, alcohol sales, and household combos has not subsided. The Scottish money, we're told "will barely touch the sides" - further evidence, this is going to be a long, tough winter.

व्हाइटहॉल और इंग्लैंड के उत्तर के बीच तनाव के प्रभाव पूरे ब्रिटेन में फैले हुए हैं। होलीरूड में बहुत बड़ी मात्रा में अतिरिक्त संकट वित्तपोषण आ रहा है। लेकिन चूंकि संकट उपायों का वित्तपोषण एक होलीवुड युद्ध का मैदान बन गया है, क्या टोरी का यह कहना सही है कि एसएनपी धन का उपयोग व्यवसाय में मदद करने के लिए नहीं कर रहा है?


Terence Edwards: Man charged with Wrexham murder

Summary: A man has been charged with the murder of a 60-year-old who was found dead in his Wrexham home.

The 41-year-old was charged after Terence Edwards was found at his property in Caia Park on 1 June this year. Barry Bagnall of Trevenna Way, Wrexham, will appear before Llandudno Magistrates' Court on Friday. He was also charged with perverting the course of justice, following a lengthy police investigation.

एक व्यक्ति पर एक 60 वर्षीय वृद्ध की हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है जो अपने रेक्सम घर में मृत पाया गया था।


Nottinghamshire fatal house fire 'not suspicious'

Summary: A fatal house fire in Nottinghamshire is not being treated as suspicious following a joint police and fire investigation.

A body was recovered after firefighters extinguished the blaze at the property in Merton Close, Arnold, on Monday evening. Police said the person who died has yet to be formally identified, but next of kin had been informed. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Nottinghamshire Police said identification of the deceased is a matter for the coroner. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

नॉटिंघमशायर में एक घातक घर में लगी आग को संयुक्त पुलिस और अग्निशमन जांच के बाद संदिग्ध नहीं माना जा रहा है।


Six Nations rugby match 'real test' for transport network

Summary: The Six Nations rugby match between Wales and England will be a "real test" for the transport network, Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb has said.

Extra trains were being laid on as thousands of fans were flocking to Cardiff for the Friday night match. Mr Crabb said rail investment was "crucial" to the economy as he visited Network Rail's centre in the city. UK ministers are funding Swansea-London mainline electrification and almost half the cost of Valley line upgrades.

वेल्स के सचिव स्टीफन क्रेब ने कहा है कि वेल्स और इंग्लैंड के बीच छह देशों का रग्बी मैच परिवहन नेटवर्क के लिए एक "वास्तविक परीक्षा" होगी।


Harbury landslip stop Banbury and Leamington Spa trains

Summary: No trains are running between Banbury and Leamington Spa for a second day due to a landslip in Warwickshire.

Chiltern Railways said the landslip was reported on Friday morning near Harbury Tunnel. Rail users north of Banbury are advised to use Virgin Trains between London Euston and Birmingham New Street, Chiltern Railways said. Engineers have been working through the night and on Saturday to stabilize the area, they added.

वारविकशायर में भूस्खलन के कारण दूसरे दिन भी बैनबरी और लेमिंगटन स्पा के बीच कोई ट्रेन नहीं चल रही है।


Bronchiolitis: 'I thought it was just a cold at first'

Summary: When Stephanie Elderton's twin boys caught a cold, she never imagined that one of them would end up in intensive care. But the cold developed into bronchiolitis - and while bronchiolitis is usually a mild illness, in rare cases it becomes serious.

By Lucy WallisBBC Stories Reece and Luca are adorable twin boys. Now aged 14 months, they were born prematurely in 2017, arriving at 34 weeks. Reece weighed 4lb 7oz and Luca 4lb 2oz. "They are identical boys but personality wise they are completely different," says Stephanie. "They are very chatty, they're very lively. They love balls and any pop up toys and spinning toys. They like to laugh and they like to run. "Well - Reece likes to run. Luca's a lot more serious, I would say, than Reece. He is quite happy to just be by himself and play by himself." Despite being premature, the twins did not require any special care. Soon after the birth they went home to join their older brother Jamie, who is now five. But in January 2018, when the twins were five-and-a-half weeks old, Stephanie noticed that a cold they had both been suffering from was getting worse, so she asked her GP's surgery for advice. "Luca stopped feeding as much and I mentioned this to the doctor, I mentioned this to the health visitor and they basically said, 'No, it's absolutely fine, they've just got a cold.' "I said, 'OK, no problem, we'll just carry on as we are.' Then, when they were six weeks old, he wasn't waking, he wasn't eating, and so I took him back to the doctor's and I was like, 'There is something really wrong because this is just not how a baby should be.'" Stephanie also noticed changes in the way the twins were breathing - it was much faster than normal and more laboured. The GP sent Stephanie straight to the local hospital, Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire, where Luca was instantly put on a monitor to check the oxygen levels in his blood. "They said he really wasn't very well and they put him straight into the high dependency unit (HDU) and then they looked at Reece and went, 'We think he's the same,'" says Stephanie. The HDU is a ward designed for people who need close observation, but not intensive care. The hospital doctors told Stephanie the twins were suffering from bronchiolitis, a condition she had never heard of. "Bronchiolitis is a viral chest infection and it's usually caused by the common viruses that cause colds in adults," says Dr Francis Gilchrist, a consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine and trustee of the British Lung Foundation. It affects children under one year old, starting off with familiar cold symptoms. But with bronchiolitis the airways in the child's lungs become inflamed and swollen, causing them to narrow. In severe cases smaller tubes in the child's lungs - the bronchioles - clog up with mucus. In the vast majority of cases, children recover at home within two to three weeks. But just occasionally severe cases occur - about 2-3% of all infants require hospitalisation, according to Francis Gilchrist. When to seek help Parents should seek urgent medical help if they see these "red flag" signs: Source: NHS and NICE The frustrating thing about bronchiolitis, he says, is that there is no effective treatment for the underlying condition. "All the care that we do is supportive. So if necessary we give oxygen or support their breathing, or if they're really unwell they go on to have artificial ventilation in intensive care." Fortunately this is very rare - it only applies to 0.1%, or one in 1,000 children. In the HDU, Luca was kept on observation for 24 hours but showed no signs of improvement. "They did some X-rays to see what was going on and basically the whole of his left lung was completely blocked," says Stephanie. At this point, the decision was taken to move him to Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge, where he could be ventilated. But then things suddenly got serious. "When they tried to tube him, he basically stopped breathing altogether," says Stephanie. "They had to give him CPR quite a few times and then they transferred us straight to Addenbrooke's hospital, to intensive care." There the ventilator did the breathing for Luca to ensure more oxygen reached his tiny lungs. It was very hard for Stephanie to watch. "He's just lying there, he's not awake because he's sedated and you can touch him, you can talk to him but he's not really him, you can't cuddle him or anything," she says. To make things harder, Reece had remained in Hinchingbrooke hospital and she had to keep phoning the ward for updates. "It was very tough and I didn't have my car either so I couldn't come back and forth so I just stayed at Addenbrooke's," says Stephanie. "I had to kind of shut Reece out - 'Luca's the one that needs me now - Reece is fine, he's getting the help he needs' - and just kind of not think about it. Because otherwise that would have worn me down even more." Fortunately, Stephanie's mother was able to spend time at Reece's bedside. Because the boys were twins the medical team suspected they would both end up in the intensive care unit at Addenbrooke's, Stephanie says. But although Reece was very poorly, being fed via a nasal gastric tube, he stayed at Hinchingbrooke. Most cases of bronchiolitis are caused by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), something that most children will have been exposed to by the time they are three. However it can also be caused by other viruses, such as rhinovirus, the most common cause of the common cold. Why some children are affected more seriously than others, is still not fully understood, says Francis Gilchrist. Further help and advice: "There are certain risk factors that children have that mean they're more at risk of having severe bronchiolitis and that would be if they're very young, if they were born prematurely, if they have pre-existing disease, such as congenital heart disease, or if they have an underlying problem with their immune system. "But there are some children who have none of those risk factors and end up with a severe episode, and we can't fully explain why." After five days in intensive care, the medical team tried to take Luca off the ventilator and transfer him to a different method of breathing support, known as Continuous Positive Air Pressure (CPAP), but Stephanie says Luca couldn't take it and had to be put back on the ventilator again. "I was very disheartened by that, because after five days he hadn't got any better, we're kind of moving backwards not forwards," says Stephanie. "It felt as if it was never going to end." During this time, Luca was having chest physiotherapy to try and loosen the mucus from his airways. Finally, after seven days, he was taken off the ventilator and began to improve. Stephanie says it felt very strange to cuddle him again for the first time. "It was a bit like, 'Aww I don't remember how to do this,'" she says. Luca was taken back to the children's ward at Hinchingbrooke. His twin, Reece, had been discharged the day before, but Luca had a visit from his older brother, Jamie, who had been staying with Stephanie's parents while the twins were in hospital. "It was just amazing to see him, because it felt like I hadn't seen him for such a long time," says Stephanie. Twenty-four hours later Luca was discharged too and the family was finally reunited at home. Terrified the boys would catch another cold, Stephanie did not take them outside. But two weeks later she noticed they were breathing rapidly again - and this time they had spots. She called an ambulance and the twins ended up back at Hinchingbrooke. There they were diagnosed with meningitis and put on intravenous antibiotics. There is no association between bronchiolitis and bacterial meningitis, says Francis Gilchrist. It seems as though the boys were just unlucky. After another six days in hospital they were able to return home, but again Stephanie was afraid to take them out. "Because they're twins, obviously twins seem to be quite unusual, everyone wants to look at them, everyone wants to touch them, all the old ladies want to kiss them. It's just madness. So I was like, 'Please don't touch them, they could get poorly.'" A year later, she still worries about them getting colds. "If my bigger one gets ill, I'm like, 'Don't touch them, wash your hands!'" she says. "I'm very frightened every time they cough or anything." If they do get a cold, they tend to get very wheezy, Stephanie says, but they now have asthma inhalers and other medication to reduce airway inflammation. She's noticed that many parents know as little about bronchiolitis as she did before her children became ill, and is keen to raise awareness about the illness - and in particular about the possibility of severe symptoms, even if they only occur in a small minority of cases. "I don't know why it's not out there, because of how serious it can be," she says. She says her hopes for the future are for her children to stay out of hospital and keep smiling. But she knows the trauma of winter 2018 didn't just leave her when the children were discharged. "It's going to be here forever," she says. All photographs courtesy of Stephanie Elderton You may also be interested in: Margot Noel has a condition called misophonia, which literally means "hatred of sound". It can be so disturbing that she has to wear headphones or ear plugs to protect herself. Read: 'The crunch of an apple wants to make me run away' Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

जब स्टेफनी एल्डरटन के जुड़वां लड़कों को सर्दी लगी, तो उन्होंने कभी नहीं सोचा था कि उनमें से एक को गहन देखभाल में ले जाया जाएगा। लेकिन सर्दी ब्रोंकियोलाइटिस में विकसित हो गई-और जबकि ब्रोंकियोलाइटिस आमतौर पर एक हल्की बीमारी है, दुर्लभ मामलों में यह गंभीर हो जाता है।


Beijing smog: Images before and after

Summary: For the first time, China's capital has declared a smog "red alert" for three days from Tuesday.

Schools will be closed, outdoor construction stopped and severe restrictions placed on drivers. Last week, photographers from the AFP agency and Getty Images took to the streets of Beijing to illustrate the difference smog makes. The contrasting images below were taken a day or two apart, after the smog cleared.

पहली बार, चीन की राजधानी ने मंगलवार से तीन दिनों के लिए धुंध "रेड अलर्ट" घोषित किया है।


The enduring appeal of violent jihad

Summary: The Islamic State group (IS) has lost its short-lived caliphate in the Middle East, with hundreds - possibly thousands - of would-be international jihadists stuck in limbo, and tempted to return home despite fears of arrest and imprisonment.

By Frank GardnerBBC security correspondent Yet the scourge of violent jihad - where extremists attack those they perceive to be enemies of Islam - has not gone away. The hotel attack in Nairobi two weeks ago by the al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group al-Shabab was an uncomfortable reminder. Large swathes of north-west Africa are now vulnerable to attack by marauding jihadists. Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan remain ideal refuges for jihadists. So just what is the enduring appeal of violent jihad for certain people around the world? Peer pressure The decision to leave behind a normal, law-abiding life, often abandoning family and loved ones to embark on what is frequently a short, dangerous career is a personal one. Jihadist recruiters will play on the notion of victimhood, sacrifice and rallying to a higher cause in the name of religion. For nearly 20 years now the internet has been awash with gruesome propaganda videos, some portraying the collective suffering of Muslims in various parts of the world, others depicting revenge attacks and punishments inflicted on perceived enemies. These serve two purposes. The first is intended to arouse sympathy and even shame, that the viewer should be watching comfortably at home on his or her laptop while "your brothers and sisters are being murdered" - in say, Syria, Chechnya or the Palestinian Territories. Secondly, the revenge videos appeal particularly to those of a sadistic nature, often attracting those with a violent criminal record. Peer pressure can be the trigger that tips an individual over from being simply angry about events in the world to taking violent action. In Jordan I interviewed a convict in prison who had been persuaded by his best friend from school to come and join him in Syria with IS. He did, then regretted it, escaped back to Jordan and was then sentenced to five years in prison. Those who are especially vulnerable to recruitment are young men and women who have grown apart from their families or their societies. For them, belonging to a secret, illegal organisation that appears to value them can be an attractive alternative. Even if it ends with them being told to strap on a suicide vest and blow themselves up in a market place. Bad or absent governance There is a reason why the Middle East has long been a primary source of global jihadism. Corrupt, undemocratic and often oppressive regimes tend to drive peaceful political dissent underground. In the early 21st Century Syria has been the most glaring example of this. After nearly eight years of civil war, with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad largely victorious against the rebels, the vast numbers of citizens who have disappeared into his jails provide a source of recruitment for extremist groups. In Iraq, a country turned upside-down by the ill-fated US-led invasion of 2003, sectarian discrimination has played a major part in the rise of al-Qaida and then IS. For eight years the oppression of the Sunni minority by the Shia-led government was so profound that IS (a Sunni militancy) was able to present itself as "the protector of Iraq's Sunnis" and easily take over much of the country. It is widely predicted that IS will look to exploit any future grievances. Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia and the Sahel (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania) all contain large areas of ungoverned or conflict-riven space where jihadists have been able to recruit, train and plan attacks. In Afghanistan billions of dollars in international aid have failed to deliver the level of governance needed to stem the Taliban-led insurgency. Corruption is endemic and the police are seen by many as untrustworthy. The International Crisis Group (ICG) says state institutions there are so fragile, they are unable to "deliver basic services to the majority of the population". In remote, rural areas many Afghans prefer the draconian justice and rule meted out by the Taliban to that of the government. Desperate poverty, lack of employment opportunities and poor or absent governance have all combined to make the Sahel countries bordering the Sahara fertile ground for jihadist groups. Many recruits join up, not out of ideology, but simply because they see it as the only alternative to destitution. Religious duty Recruiters for al-Qaida, IS, the Taliban and others have long been able to exploit religious obedience to draw young men and women into their ranks. Extremism expert Dr Erin Saltman says extremist groups often promote "a narrative of struggle, heroic sacrifice and spiritual obligation in order to establish legitimacy and connect with potential recruits". It is notable that after al-Shabab carried out its attack on the Nairobi hotel it gave as its justification the decision by President Trump to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the third most sacred site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. Jerusalem has been an emotional touchstone for many people in the Middle East and al-Shabab may be trying to broaden its appeal beyond Somalia. The ideology behind violent jihad is likely to endure for some time yet, even though it is not shared by the vast majority of peaceful Muslims around the world. Al-Qaeda has survived the death of Osama Bin Laden and still has its regional franchises in Asia and Africa. IS still has its followers, including in the UK, although since it is now deprived of a physical space to call its caliphate it may well struggle to attract recruits in such numbers. On a global scale, containing and reducing violent jihad will require more than just good intelligence and police work. It will require far better and fairer governance, removing the drivers that spur people towards the violence that ruins so many lives.

इस्लामिक स्टेट समूह (आईएस) ने मध्य पूर्व में अपना अल्पकालिक खलीफा राज्य खो दिया है, जिसमें सैकड़ों-संभवतः हजारों-अंतर्राष्ट्रीय जिहादी फंसे हुए हैं, और गिरफ्तारी और कारावास के डर के बावजूद घर लौटने के लिए लुभा रहे हैं।


Where is the cheapest place to buy citizenship?

Summary: It is a cliche used from Bond to Bourne: the classic spy image of a suitcase filled with cash and multiple passports for a quick getaway. But increasingly it is not spies that are looking for a second passport, but a growing number of "economic citizens".

By Kim GittlesonBBC reporter, New York Henley and Partners citizenship expert Christian Kalin, who helps to advise clients on the best place to spend their money, estimates that every year, several thousand people spend a collective $2bn (£1.2bn; 1.5bn euros) to add a second, or even third, passport to their collection. "Just like you diversify an investment portfolio, you want to diversify your passport portfolio," he says. The option has proven popular with Chinese and Russian citizens, as well as those from the Middle East. Cash-strapped countries have taken notice. In the past year alone, new programmes have been introduced in Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, Malta, the Netherlands and Spain that either allow direct citizenship by investment or offer routes to citizenship for wealthy investors. However, concerns have been raised about transparency and accountability. In January, Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European Commission, said in a speech: "Citizenship must not be up for sale." But for now, at least, it seems that those with money to spare are in luck, with half a dozen countries offering a direct citizenship-by-investment route with no residency requirements. Essentially, citizenship that is very much for sale. Dominica By far the cheapest deal for citizenship is on the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica. For an investment of $100,000 plus various fees, as well as an in-person interview on the island, citizenship can be bought. However, experts caution that because the interview committee meets only once a month, actually getting a Dominican passport can take anywhere from five to 14 months. Since Dominica is a Commonwealth nation, citizens get special privileges in the UK, and citizens can also travel to 50 countries, including Switzerland, without a visa. Dominica country profile St Kitts and Nevis The Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nevis have the longest running citizenship-by-investment programme (CIP) in the world, which was founded in 1984. There are two methods to obtain citizenship, with the cheapest option being a $250,000 non-refundable donation to the St Kitts and Nevis Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation, a public charity. A second option involves a minimum $400,000 investment in real estate in the country. The programme has recently been singled out by the US Treasury, which cautioned that Iranian nationals could be obtaining passports and then use them to travel to the US or make investments, which could violate US sanctions. (St Kitts closed its programme to Iranians in December 2011.) However, Mr Kalin of Henley and Partners, which helped to set up the programme, says that while the programme has its issues, "St Kitts is relatively well run - it's in a way a model." He adds that Caribbean locations are good for interim passports for "global citizens" who are looking to eventually establish themselves via investments in other "economic citizenship" programmes like those in Portugal or Singapore. St Kitts and Nevis profile Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda introduced its CIP in late 2013, with similar parameters to the St Kitts model: a $400,000 real estate investment or a $200,000 donation to a charity. In a speech announcing the programme, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer cited a common reason that countries have increasingly introduced CIPs: an economic slowdown and "the virtual disappearance of traditional funding sources". He cited both the St Kitts example as well as the United States, which allows foreigners to obtain a green card under the EB-5 visa if they invest $500,000 in a "targeted employment area" and create 10 jobs. (Since 1990, foreigners have invested more than $6.8bn and the US has given out 29,000 visas through the EB-5 programme, although there is a yearly cap of 10,000.) However, Mr Spencer also said: "The Antigua and Barbuda Citizenship by Investment Programme is not an open-sesame for all and sundry." Antigua and Barbuda profile Malta "Citizenship-by-investment programmes are certainly on the rise, especially in Europe," says University of Toronto law professor Ayelet Shachar. The tiny nation of Malta recently came under fire when it announced plans to allow wealthy foreigners to obtain a passport for a 650,000 euro investment with no residency requirement, which would have made it the cheapest European Union (EU) nation in which to purchase citizenship. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat estimated about 45 people would apply in the first year, resulting in 30m euros (£24m; $41m) in revenues. After pressure from EU officials, officials changed the rule to require potential passport holders to reside in Malta for a year and raised the investment to 1.15m euros. The uproar exposed rising tensions over the definition of citizenship, according to Prof Shacher. "At stake is the most important and sensitive decision that any political community faces: how to define who belongs, or ought to belong, within its circle of members," she says. "The heft of the applicant's wallet is the new answer, according to citizenship by investment programmes. This is in breach of our standard naturalisation and citizenship requirements that focus on establishing a genuine link between the individual and the new home country." Malta country profile Cyprus Cyprus is the other EU nation to offer a direct citizenship-by-investment route. The cost of the programme was slashed to 2m euros in March, partially in an effort to placate mostly Russian investors who lost money when Cyprus was forced to accept a strict European Union bailout. (The 2m euro figure applies when one invests as part of a larger group whose collective investments total more than 12.5m euros; an investment of 5m euros in real estate or banks is still required for an individual.) But Mr Kalin cautions against a Cypriot investment, noting that the programme initially cost 28m euros, then 10m euros, then 5m euros. "It's a good example of how not to do it - you bring a product to market and totally misprice it and it gets cheaper every six months. It is ridiculous," he says. Cyprus country profile

यह बॉन्ड से बॉर्न तक इस्तेमाल किया जाने वाला एक क्लिच हैः नकदी से भरे सूटकेस की क्लासिक जासूसी छवि और एक त्वरित पलायन के लिए कई पासपोर्ट। लेकिन तेजी से यह जासूस नहीं हैं जो दूसरे पासपोर्ट की तलाश कर रहे हैं, बल्कि "आर्थिक नागरिकों" की बढ़ती संख्या है।


Coach breakdown on Holy Island causeway

Summary: A rescue operation was launched when a coach with 40 passengers broke down on a Northumberland causeway with less than 15 minutes of safe crossing time left.

The coach became stranded on Holy Island's causeway with about 30 vehicles trapped behind it. Humber coastguard helped co-ordinate the Seahouses RNLI inshore lifeboat, police and an RAF Boulmer helicopter. Northumbria Police managed to transfer the passengers to a second bus. The Holy Island Coastguard towed away the stricken bus, and the other vehicles managed to clear the causeway before the tide came in. Graham Dawson, Humber Coastguard Watch Manager said: "Breakdowns are just one of those things that happen. "Unfortunately it happened in the worst possible place but the police and our Coastguard rescue teams were on hand to save the day." Related Internet Links Maritime and Coastguard Agency

एक बचाव अभियान तब शुरू किया गया जब 40 यात्रियों के साथ एक कोच नॉर्थम्बरलैंड कॉजवे पर टूट गया, जिसमें 15 मिनट से भी कम सुरक्षित पार करने का समय बचा था।


Women smokers who quit by 30 'evade earlier death risks'

Summary: Women who give up smoking by the age of 30 will almost completely avoid the risks of dying early from tobacco-related diseases, according to a study of more than a million women in the UK.

By James GallagherHealth and science reporter, BBC News The results, published in the Lancet, showed lifelong smokers died a decade earlier than those who never started. But those who stopped by 30 lost, on average, a month of life and if they stopped by 40 they died a year younger. Health experts said this was not a licence for the young to smoke. The study followed the first generation of women to start smoking during the 1950s and 60s. As women started smoking on a large scale much later than men, the impact of a lifetime of cigarettes has only just been analysed for women. "What we've shown is that if women smoke like men, they die like men," said lead researcher Prof Sir Richard Peto, from Oxford University. He told the BBC: "More than half of women who smoke and keep on smoking will get killed by tobacco. "Stopping works, amazingly well actually. Smoking kills, stopping works and the earlier you stop the better." Professor Peto added the crucial risk factor was "time" spent smoking, rather than amount. "If you smoke 10 cigarettes a day for 40 years it's a lot more dangerous than smoking 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years," he said. "Even if you smoke a few cigarettes a day then you're twice as likely to die at middle age." He added it was hard to measure the risk of "social smoking" a few times a week. Early death The records from 1.2 million women showed that even those who smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes a day were more likely to die sooner. Sir Richard said that it was exactly the same picture as for men. The British Lung Foundation said the prospects for long-term health were much better if people stopped smoking before they were 30, but cautioned that this was not a licence to smoke "as much as you want in your 20s". Its chief executive, Dr Penny Woods, said: "Stopping smoking can also be difficult to do - an estimated 70% of current smokers say they want to quit, so you shouldn't start and just assume you'll be able to quit smoking whenever you want to. "The best thing for your health is to avoid smoking at all." Prof Robert West, from the health behaviour research unit at University College London, said it was important to remember that smoking had more effects on the body than leading to an early death, such as ageing the skin. "Around your mid-20s your lung function peaks and then declines. For most people that's fine - by the time you're into your 60s and 70s it's still good enough. But if you've smoked, and then stopped there is irreversible damage, which combined with age-related decline can significantly affect their quality of life. "Obviously there is an issue around smoking if they want to get pregnant because it affects fertility and then there are the dangers of smoking during and after pregnancy." The chartered health psychologist, Dr Lisa McNally, who specialises in NHS stop smoking services, also emphasised other factors. Speaking to BBC News, she said: "There's the danger isn't there that people could almost take permission to continue to smoke to 30 or even to 40, but actually in my experience younger women quit smoking for other reasons other than life expectancy. "They're more concerned about the cosmetic effects." The Department of Health has announced that more than 268,000 people registered to take part in its "Stoptober" campaign - the UK's first ever mass event to stop smoking. Health minister Anna Soubry said the £5.7m campaign had "exceeded expectations", adding that smokers were "five times more likely to give up for good after 28 days".

ब्रिटेन में दस लाख से अधिक महिलाओं के एक अध्ययन के अनुसार, जो महिलाएं 30 साल की उम्र तक धूम्रपान छोड़ देती हैं, वे तंबाकू से संबंधित बीमारियों से जल्दी मरने के जोखिम से लगभग पूरी तरह से बच जाएंगी।


Perisic appeals against war crimes verdict at The Hague

Summary: The Hague tribunal is hearing an appeal by Momcilo Perisic, the most senior officer of the former Yugoslav Army to be convicted of war crimes.

Perisic, who commanded the Yugoslav Army during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, was jailed for 27 years by the UN war crimes tribunal last year. He was convicted of aiding and abetting crimes but acquitted of a direct role in the Srebrenica massacre. Perisic insists he was not aware of or responsible for atrocities. The tribunal convicted him of aiding and abetting murders, inhumane acts, persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, and attacks on civilians in Sarajevo and Srebrenica. He was also found guilty of failing to punish his subordinates for their crimes of murder, attacks on civilians and injuring and wounding civilians during rocket attacks on Zagreb in Croatia.

हेग न्यायाधिकरण युद्ध अपराधों के लिए दोषी ठहराए जाने वाले पूर्व यूगोस्लाव सेना के सबसे वरिष्ठ अधिकारी मोमसिलो पेरिसिच की अपील पर सुनवाई कर रहा है।


Council elections: 'Not enough' women and minorities stand

Summary: Voters around England will be heading to polling stations next Thursday to vote in local elections. And chances are many will be faced with a ballot paper mainly containing the names of white men of a certain age. Does it matter, and why are women, younger people and those from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds less likely to stand for election?

By Daniel WainwrightBBC News The average councillor in England is 59, white and probably called David or John. Councils have been criticised for being "too slow" to encourage women and people from BAME communities to stand. A census suggests 96% of councillors are white and two thirds are male. Analysis by the BBC ahead of the council elections in May shows there are almost 1,000 candidates named either David or Dave. This compares with 151 called Sue, the most popular female name. Candidates who are elected will get to oversee budgets worth millions of pounds, decide how often bins get empted, where new housing estates can be built and what services to provide or cut. However, the most recent census of councillors in England by the Local Government Association (LGA) showed a far higher proportion of councillors are white, male and over 60 than the population. David and John are the most common candidate names Analysis of data on candidates standing in 248 council areas on 2 May showed 818 people called David are seeking a council seat, with another 140 called Dave. There are 765 Johns. Ranked in order of popularity, there are 22 male names and one unisex name before Sue, the most common name for a female candidate. The vast majority of councillors are white Since 2004 the proportion of white councillors has moved very slightly, down from 96.5% to 95.8%, the LGA survey found. The proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) councillors was far lower than the overall population. Campaign group Operation Black Vote told BBC 5 Live there should be all-black shortlists to tackle the lack of diversity. Simon Woolley, director of operations, said: "Unless you have a voice, then things are done to you, not for you. "Communities turn away because they can't see themselves, they can't see policies that reflect their concerns and they say 'why bother'." He said the lack of diversity was "desperate" and needed "radical" solutions. "I don't think in local party politics it [all-black shortlists] would work, but in national party politics it should be considered." Councillors are getting older More than a quarter (26%) of councillors in England are over 70 years old. This is up from 14% in 2004, the LGA census suggested. However, the proportion under 40 has also risen from 7% in 2004 to just over 10% in 2018. 'They said they needed us' Lancaster City Council has five councillors under 25 years old. One of its wards covers the campus of Lancaster University. Amara Betts-Patel is standing down in May, before she goes into the final year of her linguistics degree. The 20-year-old from Halesowen, West Midlands, said her fellow councillors encouraged her to get involved. "They came and said they needed students," she said, referring to the by-election in 2018 when she stood for her seat. "Being a young person does makes it more difficult to decide to do this. "There are no access points to understand how serving on a council works. You have to go to meetings and listen to what they are talking about. To a lot of people it can sound like gibberish." Councillor Betts-Patel said councils needed to make it easier to understand what powers councillors had and what they could do to help people. "Things will not change until younger people see someone similar to themselves doing this job, balancing it with work or studying and see it is for people like them." 'There is a lot of pressure on young people' David Clifft is almost Mr Average when it comes to local councillors. The 57-year-old from the West Midlands has the most common name for a candidate and is only two years off the average age for a councillor. "It is very difficult for younger people to decide to do this," he said. "People in their 20s and 30s are starting or getting on with their careers and there is a lot of pressure on them to climb the ladder. "It is easier for people of my age if the mortgage is paid off and we can afford to give up the time at work." The number of women is growing, but still low The LGA census for 2018 suggested about 36% of councillors were women. This was up from 29% in 2004. Rachael Farrington of Voting Counts, which encourages people to use their vote, said: "It is important that people feel there are candidates who can represent people like them and understand the day to day lives and issues facing the community. "If voters feel their circumstances are not represented, they may feel that their interests will never be considered by authorities and be inclined not to vote." Andrew Bazeley from the Fawcett Society campaign group said: "The pace of change is still far too slow when it comes to getting more women on to councils across the country - and more diverse representation in terms of ethnicity, age, and disability too." He said councils needed to "change the way they do business", putting in place maternity and childcare policies, better meeting hours, and systems to "stop harassment and sexism in the council chamber". An LGA spokesman said: "It is vital that the make-up of councils reflects their communities and their experience. "The LGA has been constantly working with councils towards increasing diversity and inclusion." He said the association had created a toolkit for councils to support "councillors who are women, parents and carers".

इंग्लैंड के आसपास के मतदाता अगले गुरुवार को स्थानीय चुनावों में मतदान करने के लिए मतदान केंद्रों पर जाएंगे। और संभावना है कि कई लोगों के सामने एक मतपत्र होगा जिसमें मुख्य रूप से एक निश्चित उम्र के गोरे पुरुषों के नाम होंगे। क्या यह मायने रखता है, और महिलाओं, युवाओं और काले, एशियाई और अल्पसंख्यक जातीय पृष्ठभूमि के लोगों के चुनाव में खड़े होने की संभावना कम क्यों है?


From boom to bust in Australia's mining towns

Summary: After 23 years of growth, including one of the biggest mining booms in the nation's history, tumbling iron ore and coal prices have put a brake on Australia's economy - and mining towns are paying the price.

By Julian LorkinSydney Peter Windle is a casualty of the mining slowdown. The New South Wales mining employee has lost a well-paid job, a company car and an annual bonus that in some years was as high as A$60,000 ($48,800; £31,300). A termination package from the mining company he used to work for has helped soften the blow. But Mr Windle still had to sell his investment property to keep his head above water. Once part of a vast army of workers in what was Australia's booming resources sector, Mr Windle now gets up at 5.30 am five days a week to clean and drive school buses in the small town of Muswellbrook. For decades, the town had ridden the waves of Australia's coal boom. "It's the worst I've seen it in 28 years in the mining industry," says Mr Windle. "Everyone is getting out. Three hundred houses are for sale in my town, three in my street, and rental prices have collapsed on older weatherboard houses from A$1,000 a week to A$200," he says. Mr Windle was the purchase and compliance manager at Glennies Creek Coal Mine. Earlier this year, however, Brazilian company Vale - which owns the underground mine and an open-cut mine at nearby Camberwell - suddenly announced it was sacking 500 workers and mothballing the mines. 'Sharpening of pencils' Mr Windle's story is not unusual. Across Australia, coal and iron ore mines are laying off staff, shutting down operations or putting new investments on hold. Resource analysts say it is the end of a long and lucrative mining boom that was mostly fuelled by demand from China. The number of people employed in coal mining alone rose from 15,000 to 60,000 between 2001 and 2014, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Mining companies offered high wages to entice workers from other industries, and to mines that were often in remote locations such as outback Western Australia. Preliminary estimates suggest that this year, Australia exported over A$40bn of coal, much of it to China. But as China's economy has slowed, the price of coal used for power generation has fallen, from US$142 a tonne in January 2011 to US$67 a tonne in November 2014, according to the World Bank. In the case of iron ore, in mid-December it was trading at about US$70 a tonne, the lowest level since 2009. The mining downturn has been painful in small towns like Muswellbrook, which has a population of about 10,000 and lies about 250km (155 miles) north of Sydney. Its locals might find jobs in the region's wine and horse-breeding sectors. But mining has always been the big employer. Muswellbrook mayor Martin Rush says there are still jobs to be found operating local mines but admits the outlook is subdued. "There has been a 'sharpening of pencils' around the cost side [of mine operations] and a significant reduction in service sector jobs. Contractors were the first to go," he says. In a bid to offset mining job losses, the town is working closely with the tourism and equine industries, and is planning a Muswellbrook university campus in a partnership with the University of Southern Queensland and vocational education provider, TAFE. Ripple effect The fall in the price of coal is a classic case of supply and demand, says senior economist at St George Bank, Janu Chan. "Over the past decade, prices went up. There was an incentive to increase coal supply, and more mines opened or became profitable. However, as capacity increased, it generated too much coal and prices fell again." But, she explains, thanks to its own downturn, China started buying less coal and iron ore, adding to a worldwide resources glut. In just six months, Australia's export earnings from resources have dropped from A$192bn to A$176bn because of lost royalty income and company tax, according to the Australian government's Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics. Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey says the downturn has produced the largest decline in Australia's terms of trade since 1959. The ripple effect from China's economic slowdown is tinged with irony, says Ms Chan. "Australia's central bank cut interest rates to 2.5% [in 2013] to compensate for the slowdown in China," she says. "Effectively, the Chinese housing boom ending means mortgage interest rates fall in Australia, giving a boost to house prices in Sydney and Melbourne [because cheaper credit fuels demand for housing]." It is poor consolation for Mr Windle, who is now contemplating looking for a job in another state. "I'm 54 now, and I've had a hip replacement. I might get a job at an outback mine in the far north of Queensland but I'd hate to spend another year working away from home. And suppose they lay off workers too?" he asks.

23 वर्षों के विकास के बाद, देश के इतिहास में सबसे बड़े खनन उछालों में से एक, लौह अयस्क और कोयले की कीमतों में गिरावट ने ऑस्ट्रेलिया की अर्थव्यवस्था पर ब्रेक लगा दिया है-और खनन शहरों को कीमत चुकानी पड़ रही है।


Man arrested after pedestrian dies near Chesterfield

Summary: A man has been arrested after a 61-year-old pedestrian was run over and killed.

It happened in Ashover Road, Old Tupton, near Chesterfield, at about 21:00 GMT on Friday. The man was taken to hospital but later died. Derbyshire Police said a 25-year-old man was being held on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. Eyewitnesses are being sought by officers. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

61 वर्षीय पैदल यात्री के कुचल कर मारे जाने के बाद एक व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।