Why the death of militant Burhan Wani has Kashmiris up in arms

Summary: Militant leader Burhan Wani's death in a gun battle with government forces in Indian-administered Kashmir has sparked days of deadly violence. Who was he and why was he so popular, asks local journalist Shujaat Bhukari.

Burhan Wani's funeral was attended by thousands of people, and despite restrictions, the funeral venue was so crowded there was no space to conduct funeral prayers. Wani, 22, is largely credited with reviving and legitimising the image of militancy in Muslim-majority Indian-administered Kashmir. The region has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, although violence has waned in recent years. New age militant Born to a highly-educated upper-class Kashmiri family, Wani - it is believed - was driven to militancy at the age of 15, after his brother and he were beaten up by police "for no reason". Wani was extremely active on social media, and unlike militants in the past, did not hide his identity behind a mask. His video messages, which would often go viral in Kashmir, were on the topics of Indian injustice and the need for young people to stand up to oppression. In his last video he had warned local police of "consequences" if they continued to resist the "movement". India considered Wani a terrorist, but for many locals he represented the spirit and political aspirations of a new Kashmiri generation. Indian officials have admitted that he was instrumental in persuading local boys to take up arms in the state. Isolation from India But Wani's popularity can be considered as more of a manifestation of the current mood and upsurge of violence in Indian-administered Kashmir, which has been influenced by several incidents. Two popular "uprisings" in 2008 and 2010 saw the death of more than 200 people, many of them civilian protesters, killed by Indian forces. The hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist convicted over the 2001 Indian parliament attack, also intensified anger and a sense of isolation. The final straw in recent times, seems to be the decision by the People's Democratic Party (PDP), which won elections in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, to form a coalition with India's ruling Hindu nationalist BJP which performed well in the neighbouring Hindu majority region of Jammu. Police records confirm that some of the young men who have recently become militants had actively canvassed for the PDP in the 2014 general elections. Analysts in the area say that the absence of political engagement to resolve the Kashmir dispute is setting a new political discourse and militancy is gaining legitimacy among people who believe Delhi is ignoring political realities. The question that is being asked now, is if Wani is more dangerous to India now that he is dead. The challenge the government now faces is fighting the ideology that Wani promoted, clearly reflected in the outpouring of sentiment over his killing. Shujaat Bukhari is the editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper, Srinagar

भारत प्रशासित कश्मीर में सरकारी बलों के साथ बंदूक की लड़ाई में आतंकवादी नेता बुरहान वानी की मौत ने कई दिनों तक घातक हिंसा को जन्म दिया है। वह कौन था और वह इतना लोकप्रिय क्यों था, स्थानीय पत्रकार शुजात भिकारी पूछते हैं।


Four Margate children arrested over warehouse blaze

Summary: Four children have been arrested over a fire at a Margate industrial estate.

A boy and two girls, all aged 12, and a 13-year-old girl have been arrested on suspicion of arson, Kent Police said. The four, who were all from the town, have been released while inquiries continue into the fire that broke out at an industrial unit at Westwood on 15 September. Damping down at the site continued for several days and demolition began at the weekend.

मार्गेट औद्योगिक एस्टेट में आग लगने के मामले में चार बच्चों को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Zimbabwe elections: The bones that haunt the country

Summary: At the bottom of a crevice in the rocks - just as the eyewitness had said - was a parcel of bones, wrapped in a shirt. It was a shirt just like the one Fanta Ndlovu was wearing when he went missing 33 years ago.

By Alastair LeitheadBBC Newsnight Just three days before Zimbabwe's historic election - the first in decades without Robert Mugabe on the ballot paper - it had been a short but challenging climb through granite boulders up a small, steep hill by the entrance to a homestead. Forensic anthropologist Sheri Eppel from the Ukuthula Trust first shone her torch and then clambered down into the crevice for a closer look. "You can see something that's wrapped in clothing or a blanket," she shouted up from the hole. "It seems to me that this story could well be true - that these are human remains." Their search for a man killed during the Matabeleland massacres stopped in its tracks until Fanta's family could be called, a full exhumation performed, and to establish if the remains really did belong to Fanta Ndlovu. It had been a Friday in February 1984 when the Fifth Brigade came to Silozwe and four men disappeared. Silozwe is in Zimbabwe's southwestern province of Matabeleland, and the army's fifth brigade was a notorious North Korean-trained unit which killed thousands of people under the command of Robert Mugabe and his inner circle. For decades the remains of these four men lay in shallow graves while their relatives could never mourn their "angry dead" - those whose spirits were not properly laid to rest. Only now are the bodies starting to be exhumed, the ghosts being exorcised and the families are finding peace. Silozwe is a beautiful place at the heart of the Matobo Hills where massive outcrops of granite flow through the landscape and huge boulders balance in towers where two billion years of erosion has left them stranded. But 'Gukurahundi' etched a terrible scar across Matabeleland - memories that the government spent decades trying to repress. Gukurahundi is the Ndebele name for the ethnic massacres perpetrated by the Fifth Brigade - killings by Robert Mugabe's Shona forces who won the fight for power in a newly independent Zimbabwe. It's not known how many died in the early 1980s, as a newly dominant Zanu crushed its rival Ndebele rebel group ZAPU to dominate politics as a one-party state under Zanu-PF - but it is thought to have been many thousands. Among those killed were the four men in Silozwe: Matchatha Tshuma, a preacher in his 60s; Simimba Ndlovu, a 32 year old local garden worker; Julius Mvulo Nyathi, an unusually tall man of 52; and Fanta Ndlovu who was in his 20s. Matchatha had been the first to be found. He hadn't been buried and scavengers had been tearing at his remains. His family collected what they could - it all fit into a plastic bag. Julius was next. It was in May this year, just a few months after new president, Emerson Mnangagwa, had signed a bill into law, authorising the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) to begin it's constitutionally-authorised work. After decades of silence, the family had asked for the people from the Ukuthula Trust to come and exhume his body - and lay him to rest properly in the right place. Amid prayers and watched by his son Chris, Julius' large frame was revealed as a thin layer of soil was removed from his shallow grave. They immediately knew it was him - from the khaki national park jumper he'd been wearing - and because he was such a big man. "It is very painful if a human being lying, unburied, for the past 34 years," said Chris Nyathi who said he felt great relief recovering the bones. He will rebury them at home this week. "I feel I am now alive. Before I could not understand myself - if I would leave this world before my father was reburied I wasn't going to be happy. My soul will not rest." They thought Simimba Ndlovu was buried in the same grave, but he was not. They thought Fanta Ndlovu might never been found, but after his family saw the closure Chris found from finally finding his father, they broke their silence and identified a small crevice in the rocks. "It is very important to our people here - especially the fact that they can now unblock the mourning process, because people didn't mourn," said Nico Ndlovu who works with the Ukuthula Trust and met the man who knew where Fanta's bones lay. It has helped people slowly start to talk about the atrocities, but it has also turned attention on Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was head of the intelligence services when the killings took place. He denies involvement and there is no 'smoking gun' pointing to any direct role or complicity in the Matabeleland massacres, but historian Stuart Doran insists there are questions to be answered. He has researched thousands of previously classified diplomatic documents from the UK, Canada, Australia and apartheid South Africa, as well as from the Zimbabwean intelligence services. "Is there a document where, with Mnangagwa's signature with him saying I hereby authorise the massacre of Ndebele speaking civilians in Matabeleland? "No there isn't that, but there is documentary evidence, there are witnesses to his involvement in these matters and I think when you stack all the evidence together it's highly credible." There are many issues people in Matabeleland considered before they cast their votes. The economy has collapsed, most men of working age have left to work in neighbouring South Africa or Botswana. But an unreconciled past leaves people feeling like second class citizens and will remain relevant until there's an apology, a proper truth and reconciliation process and an explanation. "For 38 years Mugabe sought to put a lid on this and it hasn't helped," said former opposition politician Paul Temba Nyathi. "It means that the memories continue to be extremely raw. Maybe if people had been allowed to talk about this the emotions wouldn't be as raw as they are. "If you go out into rural Zimbabwe, you will be amazed how fresh those memories still are in people's minds." You can watch Newsnight on iplayer or else subscribe to the YouTube page.

चट्टानों में एक दरार के नीचे-जैसा कि प्रत्यक्षदर्शी ने कहा था-हड्डियों का एक टुकड़ा था, जो एक शर्ट में लपेटा हुआ था। यह एक शर्ट थी जो फैंटा नडलोवु ने 33 साल पहले लापता होने पर पहनी थी।


Germanwings pilots set to go on strike

Summary: Pilots at airline Germanwings will strike on Friday if an agreement is not reached with parent firm Lufthansa over retirement plans, their union has said.

The strike will take place between 04.00 and 10.00 GMT. The action "will have significant impact on air travel to and from Germany, as well as on the domestic routes," Germanwings said. The Cockpit union is in talks with Lufthansa to resolve their differences and avert the strike. Pilots want the airline to maintain its current retirement benefits, whereby they can retire early at 55 and continue to receive some of their wages. Lufthansa wants to scrap the provision. Germanwings says that if the strike goes ahead, all cancelled flights can be rebooked free of charge. Pilots at Lufthansa went on a three-day strike earlier this year, resulting in hundreds of grounded flights.

एयरलाइन जर्मनविंग्स के पायलटों के संघ ने कहा है कि अगर सेवानिवृत्ति योजनाओं पर मूल कंपनी लुफ्थांसा के साथ कोई समझौता नहीं होता है तो वे शुक्रवार को हड़ताल करेंगे।


Ice bucket challenge link to death of teenager in flooded quarry

Summary: The death of an 18-year-old man in a flooded quarry is believed to be linked to the ice bucket challenge craze.

Cameron Lancaster, from Burntisland, Fife, died on Sunday evening. His family described his death as a tragic accident and "a great loss" and said Cameron would be hugely missed by family and friends. The emergency services were called to Prestonhill Quarry near Inverkeithing at about 17:00 on Sunday and a body was recovered four hours later. Police Scotland said inquiries are under way to establish the full circumstances of what happened, but it is thought the incident is connected to the ice bucket challenge. A statement from Cameron's family added: "During his short life, he touched so many people with his friendliness, kindness and thoughtful generosity of spirit."

माना जाता है कि बाढ़ वाली खदान में एक 18 वर्षीय व्यक्ति की मौत का संबंध बर्फ की बाल्टी चुनौती के क्रेज से है।


Coronavirus doctor's diary: Trying out tech that may help make worship Covid-secure

Summary: A Bradford mosque is trying out new equipment designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Dr John Wright, of the city's Royal Infirmary, takes a look and finds out how other places of worship have been adapting to pandemic conditions. He also hears about a trial in the US to test whether prayer can help Covid patients in intensive care.

It is a telling reflection on our society that the road to normality is lined with pubs, shops and restaurants. When lockdown ended, the government's priority was to get people back on the high street, and of course businesses badly needed their support. But it's interesting that our economic health takes precedence, while our spiritual health remains optional. The closure of churches, mosques and temples during lockdown left a gaping hole in many people's lives, and their re-opening has brought a welcome return of both religious and social connectedness, particularly for older people. We know from the dark days of the peak of the pandemic that religious settings hosted some of the super-spreading events that fed the transmission of infection: weddings, funerals and even choirs. After the lifting of lockdowns, churches have been the source of outbreaks in South Korea and the US. So the re-opening of places of worship remains a challenge, and it's one they have had to face without financial help from the Chancellor. I visited one of Bradford's mosques with my good friend Zulfi Karim, who, as well as being the president of the city's Council for Mosques, is a Covid-19 survivor - and only just. He picked up the virus right at the start of the pandemic and had a relentless and gruelling illness followed by a lingering debilitation that has lasted over six months. The al-Markaz ul Islami mosque, based in a converted mill, is a focal point for the local Muslim community as well as a spiritual home. Like all other mosques in the city, it closed down during lockdown and its congregation adapted to praying at home. With the lifting of lockdown, the imam recognised the importance of providing a safe space for his congregation and worked with two local GPs, Tahir Shaheen and Shiraz Ali, to create a Covid-secure place of worship. They showed me how they have installed equipment to screen visitors for fevers and check that face masks are being worn. An airport-style security booth sprays a mist that is supposed to disinfect people who pass through it and a clever ventilation system checks the purity and circulation of the air. "In the lockdown people were praying at home, but there are certain prayers that are only valid if they're in congregation, like Friday prayer. Our numbers are now restricted; we have capacity for just 10-15% of our normal capacity given the restrictions. We have many more people wanting to come than we can accommodate," Zulfi tells me. Since early July, an online booking system has been in place. When people walk through the door, the new equipment instantly measures their body temperature and anyone with a fever is guided to a quarantine room where they can be checked again, imam Muhammad Ishtiaq tells me. Those whose temperature is normal proceed to a sanitising station, and from there to the prayer room, where there are markings on the floor at one metre distances. The equipment was generously donated by a company called P4 Technology and the mosque will trial it for a year. "If the technology allows us, and it's been approved, we are hoping that we will be allowed to take the face masks off and stand side by side," the imam says. "If it benefits us, we want all other religions and groups to be able to benefit from it," adds Dr Shazad Ali. Front line diary Prof John Wright, a doctor and epidemiologist, is head of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, and a veteran of cholera, HIV and Ebola epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. He is writing this diary for BBC News and recording from the hospital wards for BBC Radio. At the Sikh temple on Leeds Road, in Bradford, volunteers have been checking that worshippers are wearing face masks. People have been encouraged to remain at a distance of two metres and singers have been located behind glass screens. Earlier this month, though, someone who'd attended the temple tested positive for Covid-19 and all those present on the same day had to self-isolate for two weeks. The Bishop of Bradford, Toby Howarth, tells me that communion in the cathedral is now very different. Only the priest can receive the wine; the priest then walks down the aisle putting the bread into each person's hand, disinfecting his or her own hands every time. In some churches, services are held online, or worshippers can watch a recorded sermon and then go to their church for communion. "Then there are other places that deliver the liturgy to people's houses, and everyone says the liturgy at the same time every week, knowing that everyone else is saying the same thing," Bishop Toby says. "So there is this sense that even if I can't see you, we are doing it at the same time - and almost with a heightened awareness of people saying it because they're not in the same building." One lovely example of where religion and science have come together in the hope of fighting Covid-19 is in Kansas, in the US, where doctors and religious leaders are carrying out a trial of prayer for Covid-19 patients in intensive care. This is no Mickey Mouse trial either. A double blind, randomised controlled trial of 1,000 patients, trials don't get much more scientifically robust than that. Now I suspect that most patients would be a little concerned if on the morning ward round their doctors dropped to their knees and started calling out for God's intercession. It certainly wouldn't fill you with optimism. In this trial, however, the prayer is done remotely - a universal prayer from five denominations (Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism) with the control group just getting standard medical care. We are constantly searching for more effective treatments, so let's wait and see whether prayer is as effective as dexamethasone. Follow @docjohnwright and radio producer @SueM1tchell on Twitter

ब्रैडफोर्ड की एक मस्जिद कोरोनावायरस के प्रसार को रोकने के लिए डिज़ाइन किए गए नए उपकरणों की कोशिश कर रही है। शहर के रॉयल इन्फर्मरी के डॉ. जॉन राइट एक नज़र डालते हैं और पता लगाते हैं कि कैसे अन्य पूजा स्थल महामारी की स्थिति के अनुकूल हो रहे हैं। वह यह परीक्षण करने के लिए अमेरिका में एक परीक्षण के बारे में भी सुनता है कि क्या प्रार्थना गहन देखभाल में कोविड रोगियों की मदद कर सकती है।


Can China's internet firms balance nationalism with global dreams?

Summary: It was a small flag on a small island in cyberspace.

By Saira SyedBusiness reporter, BBC News But for Baidu, China's biggest search engine company, the pixelated land grab could complicate its plans for global expansion and attempts to take on Google. The flag appeared at the height of a recent clash between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea. Tempers were flaring, and in many Chinese cities people took to the streets after Japan controversially bought the islands. The mobs targeted Japanese brands with attacks on retail stores and car showrooms. On 18 September, as the nationalistic cries reached a climax on the street, Baidu put up an image on its homepage of the disputed islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, with a flag claiming them as China's territory. Clicking on the image took users to a separate page that read: "The Diaoyu islands belong to China." Users could then plant their own digital versions of the Chinese flags on the islands. It was a move the company defended, despite taking the page down 24 hours later, and called it an "outlet for patriotic ardour that is more rational" than violence. However, for many experts it was an unnecessary provocation that highlighted just how much Chinese companies have to learn as they try to emerge from their protected domestic market and become global brands. "We are not used to this, in most capitalist countries corporate patriotism is not manifest in this way," says Marko Skoric from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "It might be more like trying to keep jobs locally, but not painting your face in stars and stripes." International expansion Within China, the cyber-patriotism merely mirrored the nationalistic anger felt by those who took to the streets in protest against Japan, and other internet companies had similar displays. Internet giant Tencent's QQ website showed a banner marking the 81st anniversary of an incident that sparked Japan's invasion of Manchuria, remembered every year in China. But it could be something Chinese companies may have to reconsider as they make their foray into other markets, a process that has already begun. Tencent has made inroads mostly in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America with its mobile QQ Browser, counting India and Indonesia as its biggest markets outside China. It even has a small presence in the US, where Chinese companies have perhaps faced the biggest backlash and suspicion over close alignment with the government. For its part, Baidu has only just started its expansion outside China with its Hao123 directory listings site in Vietnam and Thailand. It has other projects in Egypt and Latin America. It has also set up a joint lab in Singapore with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) which is developing natural language recognition technologies to help Baidu localise its products for the Southeast Asia region. Baidu commands more than 80% of the Chinese search market, according to iResearch based in Beijing, but has yet to launch its search service internationally. It has plans to do just that by next year pitting it directly against the likes of Google and Microsoft. "The China market still has plenty of room ahead of it to grow, but from the inception of this company it was never planned as a just China company. We've always wanted it to be more," the director of international communications for Baidu, Kaiser Kuo, told the BBC. Scrutiny Chinese companies and their global ambitions have often made other nations nervous because of their links, perceived or real, to the Chinese government. This apprehension was brought into sharp focus when a US congressional panel warned that Chinese telecoms firms ZTE and Huawei pose a security threat and should not be allowed to partake in any mergers or acquisitions in the US. The panel said the firms had not successfully proven they had no connection to China's government and military. Both firms have denied all accusations. "As Chinese companies succeed in China and muster resources to begin to push overseas into foreign markets... they are going to have to deal with some obstacles," says Josh Ong from The Next Web website in Beijing. "These companies are under a lot of scrutiny because Western governments and corporations are learning how business is done in China and what that means for things like national security and ethical concerns." Some analysts say that is why emerging markets are the primary targets for some Chinese companies, where they might not face such scrutiny. Bill Bishop, a technology commentator in Beijing, says the show of Chinese nationalism on the island dispute likely had very little effect on Baidu's reputation in the markets it is currently looking to expand in. "Do people in developing countries care if Baidu does this? Probably not," he says. "Some of them don't necessarily disagree with China's approach to the internet." China required internet sites to adhere to its policies of censorship, often referred to as the Great Fire Wall. Analysts agreed that the moves by Tencent and Baidu were likely to have been in line with Chinese government expectations. Road ahead As they leave the comfort of an environment they have learned to navigate for new worlds, these companies will inevitably face a bumpy road. "For Baidu's part they probably lost, from an international perspective, some respect from people who thought they were better than that," says The Next Web's Josh Ong. And as they become more and more visible on computer screens around the world, balancing their nationalism with the sensibilities of their new audiences will be trickier. "It's a sign of young companies which don't have the international outlook, it's part of a maturation process if they want to go global," says Mr Bishop. "For a long period of time there was no need to look outside China so it's going to take some time to develop the expertise needed."

यह साइबर स्पेस में एक छोटे से द्वीप पर एक छोटा सा झंडा था।


Cults Academy: Teenager in court for second time over Bailey Gwynne death

Summary: A teenage boy has appeared in court for a second time charged with murdering 16-year-old Bailey Gwynne, who was stabbed at his Aberdeen school.

Bailey died after the incident at Cults Academy on 28 October. The 16-year-old accused - who cannot be named for legal reasons - appeared in private at Aberdeen Sheriff Court. The boy is also charged with having a blade or point on school premises. He made no plea, was fully committed and remanded in custody. Special assemblies were held on Monday as pupils returned to classes for the first time since the incident. Bailey's family issued a message of thanks for the support they have received.

एक किशोर लड़का दूसरी बार अदालत में पेश हुआ है, जिस पर 16 वर्षीय बेली ग्वेनी की हत्या का आरोप है, जिसे उसके एबरडीन स्कूल में चाकू मार दिया गया था।


In full: MPs who backed EU referendum motion

Summary: Listed below are 111 MPs, including 81 Tories, who supported a motion proposing a debate on UK membership of the European Union.

The motion by Tory MP David Nuttall called for a referendum by May 2013 giving the public three options: keeping the status quo, leaving the EU or reforming the terms of the UK's membership of the EU. Seventy nine Tories voted in favour of the motion while two tellers, Peter Bone MP and Philip Hollobone MP, indicated they supported a referendum and would have voted in favour of the motion. Two Tory MPs, Iain Stewart and Mike Weatherley, defied party whips and abstained however we have not included them in the list below.

81 टोरी सहित 111 सांसद नीचे सूचीबद्ध हैं, जिन्होंने यूरोपीय संघ की ब्रिटेन की सदस्यता पर बहस का प्रस्ताव रखने वाले प्रस्ताव का समर्थन किया।


Woman knocked down in Poole Asda car park dies

Summary: A 69-year-old woman has died after she was knocked down by a vehicle in a supermarket car park.

She was struck by a Vauxhall Insignia in the Asda car park in West Quay Road, Poole, on Friday afternoon. Police said the woman died in hospital in Southampton a day later. A 39-year-old man voluntarily attended a police station and was interviewed on suspicion of driving offences. Dorset Police said he had been released while inquiries continue.

एक सुपरमार्केट कार पार्क में एक वाहन की चपेट में आने से एक 69 वर्षीय महिला की मौत हो गई है।


Is Keystone a Touchstone?

Summary: On the face of things, Barack Obama's decision to reject the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is quite a significant shift for a president who for the last year at least has seemed reluctant to endorse any policy with a green tinge.

Richard BlackFormer environment correspondent The pipeline would have brought oil from the Canadian tar sands through a number of US states to the Texas shoreline, adding to the capacity of existing lines. The project was bitterly opposed by US environmental groups - in fact it has put more people on the streets and garnered more column inches than any other environmental topic in recent months. Their concerns were partly local, in that the route could have disturbed important ecological sites. It was also global, in that extracting oil from tar sands is very energy intensive - and they're so plentiful that full-scale development would seriously delay the transition to low-carbon alternative fuels that will be necessary if transport emissions in particular are to be curbed. So for groups that led the opposition, this might be an apt moment to open the champagne - or at least, the Californian sparkling wine. But there are also reasons for caution. To a large extent, the rejection was a case of the pipeline's largely Republican backers in Congress shooting themselves in the foot. Late last year, as a sop for approving national budgetary measures, they pushed through a requirement for the administration to make up its mind within 60 days - which did not allow enough time for a proper evaluation, virtually ensuring a defeat. Further applications will come. And there's no guarantee that the administration will want to, or be able to, respond with further rejections. What Keystone XL has done is to keep climate change on the agenda in the US at a time when, in the febrile conditions of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, it's been in danger of becoming a non-issue. In Canada itself, which announced its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol a few weeks back amid a gradual alignment with the US position on climate and energy policy, the issue is being kept alive by a similar ruckus over another tar sands pipeline, the Northern Gateway. This would take oil to the coast of British Columbia for export to Asia. It's being opposed by a coalition of First Nations and environmental groups. Backers of both projects are arguing for them partly on the basis that they will create employment. Oil industry sources said Keystone XL would create 20,000 jobs, though other studies suggested the real figure was about a third of that. What's a bit odd is that the opposite argument is hardly being heard. There are studies around showing that renewables generate more employment per unit of energy than fossil fuels. The equations are not completely straightforward. For example, if Canadian jobs are being created to export oil to China while Canadians themselves consume some other form of energy, that's still a net increase in employment from tar sands. Then there are indirect effects, which are even more difficult to quantify. Pro-fossil-fuel groups argue that if using renewables is more expensive, that has an overall negative impact on growth which should, in principle, curb employment. On the other hand, an oil spill at a terminal along the pristine British Columbian coast - a scenario cited by opponents of the Northern Gateway project - would damage the employment prospects of local people in fishing and tourism. Whatever the precise numbers, they're clearly more complex than the simple figures being bandied around by the pipeline's corporate and political backers might imply. Meanwhile, the US has re-gained the lead on global investment in renewables that China had taken from it in 2008. One of the incentives has been the high and unstable price of fossil fuels in recent years. However, on the most obvious indicator of all - the oil price - it's very much a double-edged sword. Last year saw the highest annual average price in history, around $111 per barrel of Brent crude, despite the world's economic woes. That's an incentive to curb consumption; but it's also an incentive to accelerate development of tar sands. The companies behind the project argue that they will be developed at some point, regardless of whether the products flow out South, North, West or East. If the economics favour it, the companies are probably correct, unless opponents can come up with something much more potent than the coalition that led to Keystone XL's rejection. In the old cliche, they won the battle; but the war is another matter.

चीज़ों के बावजूद, बराक ओबामा का नियोजित कीस्टोन एक्सएल तेल पाइपलाइन को अस्वीकार करने का निर्णय एक ऐसे राष्ट्रपति के लिए काफी महत्वपूर्ण बदलाव है जो कम से कम पिछले एक साल से हरे रंग के साथ किसी भी नीति का समर्थन करने के लिए अनिच्छुक लग रहा है।


Snow peephole driver stopped by police on A9

Summary: A driver was stopped by police in the Highlands after their snow-covered car was spotted with just a small patch of the windscreen cleared.

The motorist was on the A9 trunk road at Thurso in Caithness on Tuesday morning, when snow and ice affected large parts of Scotland. The driver was given a fixed penalty notice. Police Scotland urged motorists to clear their vehicles of snow and ice properly before beginning journeys. A police spokesman said: "Winter has been biting for most of us this week, which means it is more important than ever that your vehicle is suitably prepared for the roads. "Unfortunately not everyone follows this advice." The Met Office has weather warnings in place until Wednesday morning.

एक चालक को पुलिस ने हाइलैंड्स में रोका जब उनकी बर्फ से ढकी कार को विंडस्क्रीन के एक छोटे से हिस्से के साथ देखा गया।


Hirsute pursuit: Dodging the 'beard tax' and other historical levies

Summary: The Panama Papers have revealed the massive scale of tax dodging schemes of the rich and powerful. But tax avoidance is nothing new - people have been coming up with schemes and loopholes for as long as there have been taxes.

By Emma AilesBBC News Beard tax Peter the Great's great dislike of facial hair supposedly inspired him to bring in a beard tax in 1698. For centuries, Russian men had worn long flowing beards, but the young Tsar felt a clean shaven look was more Western and modern. Those who forked out the 100 rouble annual beard tax were given a special medal as proof of payment, with the words "The beard is a useless burden" inscribed on it. Of course, avoiding the tax was easy - have a shave. Claims online that a beard tax was introduced by Henry VIII in 1535, and again later by his daughter Elizabeth I, do not seem to be backed up by contemporary documents, beard historian Dr Alun Withey says. But Dr Withey has uncovered evidence that an official in New Jersey tried to introduce a levy on facial hair in 1910. He proposed an extra 20% on men with ginger beards. He failed to get the law passed. Other sartorial taxes include a tax on hats introduced by the British Parliament in 1784 which was "much evaded" - despite being punishable by death. Makers, who were required to buy a licence, apparently simply started calling their creations "headgear". Meanwhile a wig-powder tax 12 years later helped see off the fashion for wearing wigs. Desperate to raise money to finance a war with the French, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger tried all sorts of other taxes too - including on soap, clocks, dogs, horses, candles, and female servants. Hidden treasure "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," Jesus advised his followers, the Bible says. However, some wealthy citizens of the Roman Empire decided it was a better idea to bury their cash, jewellery and expensive furnishings than pay their dues. It's crucial to remember where you buried your valuables though. A hoard of 70,000 Iron Age coins found in Jersey - ironically widely seen as something of a tax haven today - is thought to have been a stash hidden from Roman tax collectors. Transparent dealings Rich people have bigger houses and therefore more windows - that was the theory behind England's 1696 window tax. The taxman simply had to count them. However, reluctant taxpayers soon began bricking up their windows to avoid paying. Ghost windows from the era can still be spotted on old buildings today. It even became fashionable to brick up your windows - a sort of "keeping up with the tax avoiders next door" type thing, according to John Whiting, formerly of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. Bricks and mortar Taxes have shaped housing design in lots of other ways too. In 18th Century Britain, people dodged a tax on wallpaper - which was the height of fashion - by hanging plain paper and painting it by hand. Meanwhile, a brick tax saw builders use bigger and bigger bricks - until the government cracked down by introducing a maximum brick size. In France, houses with low Mansard roofs were designed to shelter their occupants from taxes as well as the elements. Property owners were taxed on the number of floors below the roof line. The Mansard roof made the top floor essentially tax free. There are theories that narrow "shotgun houses", common in New Orleans in the US, were so designed because of a tax on the size of the front of people's houses. Playing with fire The hearth tax was introduced in England and Wales in 1662 on the premise that it was easier to count the number of fireplaces in a house than the number of people. The money went straight into the private purse of the newly-restored monarch, King Charles II - which caused some disgruntlement. Some people blocked their chimneys or knocked them down to avoid paying, a rather risky tax avoidance scheme. There are reports that one baker plugged her chimney and knocked through to her neighbour's, causing a fire which killed four people. This unpopular tax also ran into trouble when the newly established Hearth Office was burned down during the Great Fire of London. The tax was abolished after only 27 years. Ace of Spades In the 17th Century, King James I came up with the idea taxing playing cards, which were deemed to lead to bad behaviour by encouraging gambling. An early sin tax, if you like. An official stamp was printed on the Ace of Spades to show the tax had been paid. One cunning card maker, John Blacklin, came up with the idea of simply omitting the Ace of Spades from the pack to get round paying. He offered it for sale separately instead. Unfortunately for him, a jury did not buy this ploy. In a salutary lesson for any would-be tax evader, the Old Bailey record states he was sentenced to death in 1805 for his crime. Above the law More "over-river" than "off-shore", the much-photographed Bridge House in Ambleside in the Lake District was apparently built on a bridge over a river between jurisdictions to avoid land tax - what is now essentially stamp duty. A clever ruse, but there was only space on the bridge for a two room abode, which had to house a family with six children. Meanwhile, travellers have long avoided bridges which charge tolls to cross by practising the art of "shunpiking" - taking longer routes to get around paying. Tea and biscuits The British have a reputation as enthusiastic tea drinkers, and in 1689 politicians decided to cash in by introducing hefty duties on tea leaves. At its peak, the import tax was a whopping 119% of the value of the tea. The unintended consequence was a boom in tea smuggling, by criminals with supposedly brutal reputations. Fake tea was also rife, with sheep dung and even poisonous copper carbonate added to mimic the right colour. In the eyes of current UK law, biscuits and cakes are "necessities" and are zero-rated for tax purposes. However, chocolate-covered biscuits are regarded as a luxury, which means the full rate of value-added tax (VAT) is payable. McVities famously succeeded in arguing that Jaffa Cakes were cakes not chocolate-covered biscuits, and were therefore exempt from VAT. An equally eccentric VAT rule applies to gingerbread men. No VAT is charged if the figure has two chocolate spots for its eyes, but any chocolate-based additions - such as buttons or a belt - mean VAT is payable. So it is cheaper to buy a no-chocolate gingerbread man.

पनामा पेपर्स ने अमीर और शक्तिशाली लोगों की बड़े पैमाने पर कर चकमा देने वाली योजनाओं का खुलासा किया है। लेकिन कर से बचना कोई नई बात नहीं है-लोग तब से योजनाओं और खामियों के साथ आ रहे हैं जब तक कर लगे हुए हैं।


'The year city-dwellers needed my photos of country life'

Summary: James Rebanks the farmer and writer has long had a devoted following on social media for the pictures he posts of his land and animals in the Lake District fells, but the photographs have taken on an extra significance for some in this year of coronavirus. Here he explains how the pandemic has affected him.

Some days I forget about lockdown. Or at least for a few hours. The valley has a cloud inversion this morning, it looks as though someone has used one of those disco dance-floor smoke machines until half of it has filled up. From our farmstead we look down on that sea of cloud, bathed in righteous sunshine, beneath a perfect blue sky. In the last few months we have felt very lucky indeed. We live far from the crowds of cities, and well away from the most touristy places in the Lake District. It is easy to think we aren't connected to the world, and we are incredibly lucky to have lots of outdoor space, so our lives can in many ways go on as normal. But of course we can't escape reality and we are connected to everyone else. Lockdown stopped our kids going to school for months, stopped visits to the farm, and made livestock sales volatile. When the sun shone for weeks in April and May we were almost in drought conditions, and the whole family was as brown as leather. We were lambing when the virus took off and my children were delighted to escape school and work with us in the fields. Those months of freedom seem to have changed our children, I wonder whether they liked it a little too much to ever settle at school again. I was like that, so it is hard to tell them off; they are all healthy, hard-working and smart so I think they will be OK. We were rubbish at home schooling, but we soon came to the conclusion that modern pushy parenting is daft anyway. The kids found their own interests and learned from doing all sorts of things without needing us very much at all. I have barely been in a town or city since March, and I haven't missed it. My contact with other people is very limited. If I get Covid and am poorly, I imagine the rest of the family and my friends would cover for me; this is an amazing community and we have each other's backs. I share my farming life with tens of thousands of other people through social media and my books. Though, in truth, I tend to forget about that most of the time and just write about the simple things we do, and the nature and beauty of this Lake District valley. But over the last few months I have been more aware that other people get something they need from this. The photos we share seem to give them the nature and rural life that they crave. I get messages from people all around the world every day saying that they need these glimpses of something else. It is kind of strange that someone in Taiwan or Manhattan might be living vicariously through my images. Winter is the toughest time on the farm. From the fell behind our house you can see all the way to Scotland, and we are at 1100ft above sea level, so it can be tough. The cold dry weather, and even periods of snow, are OK. But the long weeks of dark, cold and wet days are a struggle. I have a slight sense of dread at the start of every winter. But it isn't always bad. Yesterday I took my three-year-old son to the beck that runs down the valley bottom, for what he calls a "nature walk". Two ravens honked overhead, passing east, and a skein of geese cackled and left a contrail of child-like noise in the cold blue sky. I have felt a little guilty that so many people are less fortunate than us during the pandemic. I can't imagine the hardship of being locked down in grey urban spaces. I don't begrudge anyone else their freedom to roam or get out into the open spaces - we all need places to breathe fresh air, and feel free to wander and reconnect with the elemental things that matter. But we are also glad when tourists go home again in the winter, and we get the valley back to ourselves, with quiet roads and empty fellsides. And for all my farmer grumbling, I wouldn't leave and be anywhere else. I love this place. James Rebanks has recently published a calendar of his photographs. His new book, English Pastoral, will be Radio 4's Book of the Week starting on 8 January 2021. You can follow him on Twitter @herdyshepherd1 You may also be interested in: The northernmost Orkney island, North Ronaldsay, is home to just 50 people and 2,000 sheep. Since the 19th Century, when islanders built a stone wall to confine the flock to the shoreline, it has survived on seaweed alone - and it now seems that this special diet could hold the key to greener, more climate-friendly livestock farming. Belching in a good way: How livestock could learn from Orkney sheep

किसान और लेखक जेम्स रीबैंक्स लंबे समय से झील जिले में अपनी जमीन और जानवरों की तस्वीरों के लिए सोशल मीडिया पर एक समर्पित अनुयायी रहे हैं, लेकिन तस्वीरों ने कोरोनावायरस के इस वर्ष में कुछ लोगों के लिए अतिरिक्त महत्व ले लिया है। यहाँ वह बताते हैं कि महामारी ने उन्हें कैसे प्रभावित किया है।


Is coronavirus changing the world of cleaning?

Summary: "Before, we had basic cleaning standards when handling luggage but sanitation was not a priority," says Stasher's co-founder and chief executive, Jacob Wedderburn-Day. "It absolutely will be now."

By Kathryn KyteBusiness reporter The storage company uses spots such as hotel luggage rooms to stash bags - 300,000 bags have been stored over the last 12 months. Before the coronavirus crisis hit, the business could expect between 500 and 1,500 transactions every day. But Mr Wedderburn-Day doesn't see numbers at that level happening until there's a vaccine for Covid-19. In the meantime, he is considering cleaning ideas that could reassure customers when they come back. It's an issue many businesses will face. Hotels, airlines, shops and restaurants will all want customers to be confident that their premises are as clean as possible. More Technology of Business "The virus is here to stay," says virologist Byron Martina from Artemis One Health Research Foundation in the Netherlands. "Normally, the longer a virus stays in the population the less aggressive it becomes. However, that may be a process of years," he says. "A virus is nothing more than the virus chromosome that is protected against the environment by a shield, and in some viruses, like the coronavirus, the shield is further surrounded by a fat layer (the membrane)," says Dr Martina. That membrane can be dissolved by old-fashioned detergents. But customers, concerned about the coronavirus, might want an extra level of reassurance. One option could be to make surfaces clean themselves. Danish company ACT.Global sells a transparent coating that can be sprayed on surfaces and breaks down microbes. It reacts when illuminated and works with normal indoor light. Coats last up to a year, but the effectiveness of this technology also rests on how much light is available - it's not much good in dark places. To work, the coating needs eight hours of light, roughly equivalent to that in a standard family living room. "Let's face it, travel will likely increase. And with it the risk that pathogens, once geographically contained, can rapidly spread. To rebound and restore confidence, measures have to be taken to protect against the risk of further pathogenic outbreaks," says Christopher Lüscher, the chief technology officer at ACT.Global. Other companies are hoping that ultraviolet (UV) radiation will prove to be an effective way of destroying viruses. In particular the shortest wavelength, UVC, scrambles the DNA of organisms, killing them off. The Solaris Lytbot uses far-UVC, an even shorter wavelength that is less harmful to humans and combines that with UVB and UVA rays that heat and cool and confuse pathogens. The more problems pathogens face, the harder it is for them to survive. The Lytbot runs in three or five-minute cycles, depending on the size of the space, and it remains stationary, although the company is looking to add autonomous navigation. The head moves 360 degrees to target surfaces. But cleaning really big spaces, like sports stadiums, presents a bigger challenge. Lucid Drone Technologies has adapted its drones to spray disinfectant and can cover up to 23,000 sq ft (2,140 sq m) an hour. It is potentially a way to clean sports stadiums and the company says it is in talks with NFL teams. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the drones were used for exterior cleaning of multi-storey buildings, a business that has slowed down. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the company has built a dozen sanitation drones and has the ability to build 10 drones per week, says Lucid's co-founder and chief executive Andrew Ashur. Six cleaning companies have already signed deals to use the sanitation drones and the first batch are being delivered this month. Mr Ashur says he has been asked about using his drones for dust suppression, cleaning and maintaining windmill turbines and water towers, and oddly enough, vulture repellent. But professional cleaners are wary of hi-tech methods. Richard Sticklee's firm, Enviropure First Response, cleans up crime scenes and hazardous spills. He says nothing beats the human touch for professional cleaning. While drone cleaning and hi-tech sprays can help with larger spaces, Mr Sticklee says being experienced, knowledgeable and trained on how to disinfect is essential. And he points out that soap and hot water is the best way to get rid of the virus. But for many companies the lockdown has either put a dent in sales or wiped them out altogether and that could curtail any investment in hi-tech cleaning. "Profitability is of way more importance than growth for us in the next year," says Jacob Wedderburn-Day of Stasher, noting that the company has been "ruthless" about cutting costs. "When you get hit by a bus running a marathon, you don't get up and worry about winning. You go to the hospital and run again next year," he says.

स्टैशर के सह-संस्थापक और मुख्य कार्यकारी, जैकब वेडरबर्न-डे कहते हैं, "पहले, सामान को संभालते समय हमारे पास बुनियादी सफाई मानक थे, लेकिन स्वच्छता प्राथमिकता नहीं थी।" "यह बिल्कुल अब होगा।"


Keith Vaz profile: Labour MP and 'Teflon politician'

Summary: Keith Vaz, who has resigned as chairman of the influential Home Affairs Select Committee following newspaper reports about his private life, was Labour's youngest MP when he was elected in 1987, and has become one of Britain's best-known politicians.

In his role as chairman, he regularly questioned senior figures and led inquiries on issues including immigration, policing and counter-terrorism. He has a high profile in the UK media, regularly commenting on stories ranging from Brexit and drug laws to refugees and the ongoing inquiry into child sexual abuse. But he is also controversial, with critics branding him a self-publicist and calling him a "Teflon" politician for his perceived ability to emerge unscathed from scandals. Mr Vaz's parents were from Goa in India, but he was born in Aden, a British colony which is now part of Yemen, in 1956. He moved to Britain in 1965 and later studied law at Cambridge University before becoming a lawyer. When he became an MP at the age of 30, his website says, he was the first person of Asian origin elected to the House of Commons since 1922. He has represented Leicester East ever since, and his parliamentary roles have included serving as minister for Europe under Tony Blair. Mr Vaz, who is married and has two children, was elected Home Affairs Select Committee chairman in 2007 and attracted both praise and criticism for his work in this role. 'Vazeline' The Independent has called him an "accomplished political operator", though it also said he has been "vilified as a chronic self-publicist". "No matter how much judicious chairmanship he can boast of at the Home Affairs Select Committee, he is best known for inviting Russell Brand along to talk about drugs and call him 'mate'," it added. Mr Vaz has been referred to in the media as the "Teflon" politician and "Vazeline" - because, in the words of the Telegraph, "nothing sticks". The paper said he was "seemingly able to brush aside scandals that would have quickly ended careers for others". In 2001, he was accused of wrongdoing over his dealings with the billionaire Hinduja brothers. Some of the claims against him were dismissed, but he was suspended from the House of Commons for a month for "serious breaches of the MPs' code of conduct". In 2009, Mr Vaz repaid £18,949 in expenses amid the scandal over claims made by MPs. He was criticised for claiming more than £75,000 to fund a second home in Westminster, despite having a family home just 12 miles away in Stanmore. In a statement about his repaid claims, Mr Vaz said he had stopped all claims for food and, after feedback from his constituents, had decided only to claim when Parliament was in session. Despite the negative headlines, his media touch is undeniable. Few politicians would be comfortable dancing Gangnam Style for the cameras, or telling Parliament that Gary Lineker should keep his promise to present Match of the Day in his pants. Mr Vaz, who is diabetic, is a long-standing campaigner on a variety of issues including obesity. In his home affairs role, he was a frequent critic of the government and other authorities. He has criticised the "shocking" lack of diversity in the police, said the UK Border Agency was "not fit for purpose" and said files on child sexual abuse had been lost "on an industrial scale". In 2014, he said the UK's immigration system was in "intensive care". Mr Vaz said the UK's vote to leave the EU was a "crushing decision" which would have catastrophic consequences for the country and the European bloc.

कीथ वाज, जिन्होंने अपने निजी जीवन के बारे में समाचार पत्रों की रिपोर्टों के बाद प्रभावशाली गृह मामलों की चयन समिति के अध्यक्ष के रूप में इस्तीफा दे दिया है, 1987 में चुने जाने पर लेबर के सबसे कम उम्र के सांसद थे, और ब्रिटेन के सबसे प्रसिद्ध राजनेताओं में से एक बन गए हैं।


Teenage girl killed and two boys injured in Cork crash

Summary: A teenage girl has been killed and two teenage boys have been seriously injured in a single-vehicle crash in County Cork.

The incident happened at about 23:45 local time on Thursday. The girl died after the car she was travelling in hit a wall on Harbour View Road at Knocknaheeny. She was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem examination will be carried out. The driver and second passenger in the car were taken to Cork University Hospital. One passenger's condition is understood to be critical. The Harbour View Road is partially closed for Garda Forensic Collision Investigators with local diversions in place. Gardaí in Gurranabraher are appealing for witnesses.

काउंटी कॉर्क में एक ही वाहन की दुर्घटना में एक किशोर लड़की की मौत हो गई है और दो किशोर लड़के गंभीर रूप से घायल हो गए हैं।


GERS: A challenge to change

Summary: GERS shows the gap between Scottish tax take and spending is big, but coronavirus is set to make it humongous, with fiscal repairs requiring years of effort. Annual publication fires up the independence debate. Allied to the current crisis, and a point of disruption, there is a case for revisiting the economic case for independence. The case for independence may yet be won on non-economic grounds, but even if it is, there will still be a need to set out an economic plan.

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland It's a brave person who forecasts where we'll be a year from now, but it's a reasonable bet that there will be a humongous gap between taxation and spending in Scotland when the GERS figures are published next August. The Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland reckoning highlights a gap for 2019-20 that already looks alarmingly large, at £15.1bn, and 8.6% of Scottish output. That had only a tail-end impact from the start of the pandemic crisis. Since then, billions have been poured into the health effort, disease controls, and mitigating the impact of lockdown on businesses and individuals. The UK government is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to have a budget deficit this year of at least 16% of GDP (the standard measure of total economic output), which would be the highest in peacetime, up from 2.5% last year. The benchmark safe and sustainable ceiling for borrowing in any one year is reckoned by the European Union to be 3%. Strictly speaking, the OBR is not offering a forecast, but a scenario, and the central scenario (not too hot, not too cold, but merely astonishing) rises to perhaps 19%. So if that's the scale of increased deficit, what about Scotland? The Institute of Fiscal Studies has run the numbers, and on the same basis, it reckons the GERS figures could be showing a notional deficit for 2020-21 of about 27%. Rich country club What does that mean? For every £100 generated in the economy, £27 would have to be borrowed just to pay for government spending commitments and make up for the shortfall in tax. That would be up there with the worst of wartime years in the 1940s, when tax revenue was very low and money was being borrowed and poured into the battle for survival - these days meaning grants and loans to businesses, with furlough payments, rather than stepping up munitions and Spitfire production. But at least the pandemic year should be a one-off, right? Well, not so fast. We don't know if the pandemic and lockdowns continue into 2021-22. Even if they don't, repairing the fiscal damage is going to take time. To keep going with the OBR scenario, the UK could still be facing a deficit of 4.6% four years from now. And David Phillips, at the IFS, has extended that Scottish assessment, to reach a deficit of 11%. That's the same level as the worst year of the financial crash just over a decade ago. It's clear that the UK is not going to be alone in facing these challenges. But there's a reminder from the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich country's club, that the UK has so far come off among the worst from the economic downturn. And that feeds through to the Scottish independence debate, which gets re-provisioned with GERS ammunition at this time of year. The figures released this week will be the last for some years that reflect a sort of stable equilibrium. They come as a reminder that the economic case for independence remains in a state of flux. There was a big growth commission, chaired by former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson, which gave the party faithful some difficult home truths about closing that fiscal gap. But in getting Scotland onto a faster growth path to help achieve that, it left a lot of awkward choices yet to be made about tax and spending levels. The economist and public finance wonk John McLaren has gone back into the argument, and come up with some further challenges for the independence cause. At current rates of growth, he argues that Andrew Wilson's 10-year plan to fiscal sustainability will require deeper spending cuts than the past 10 years have seen, and even more so for programmes other than health if that continues to gobble a growing share of the budget. Dr McLaren is not seen as a friend of the independence cause, but he seems genuine when he offers advice - to get back into the economic case for independence, and use this moment of tumult and disruption to set a new path for the economy. He points out that the economic model offered to Scottish voters by the SNP has been something similar to the UK's one, but tweaked and improved with fairness bells and growth whistles. Resilience and flexibility However, there's evidence that people want to see change coming out of the current pandemic crisis: less inequality, a much cleaner, greener environment, improved health and care services with better paid workers, and a better work-life balance than we have had. The pressure is on to shorten supply chains and reverse the process of globalisation. That would mean sacrificing efficiency and cheap consumer goods to achieve a higher level of resilience. Applied to public services, that raises the question: can we afford to have an NHS that runs close to capacity at all times, when we now know it needs more capacity and flexibility to handle sudden surges in demand? The Scottish government would catch some of these within the broad notion of 'wellbeing', the vaguely-defined concept with which it is seeking to balance the SNP's past focus on economic growth. But rather than tweaking, Dr McLaren is saying this might be the time to spell out more clearly what a wellbeing economy would look like - with significantly higher taxes, for instance, similar to Scandinavia? The answer to that used to be 'no need - we've got North Sea oil revenues'. But that can no longer be the case. Matching reality And he's raising a more political point. Where is the leadership in this? Ministers are rather busy dealing with short-term challenges. Some perceive the SNP as being too absorbed in internal battles. So is anyone else - other, perhaps, than Andrew Wilson - doing the heavy-lifting for setting out that economic case? It might be that there's no need. The independence cause and another referendum might well be won on non-economic issues, such as identity, or through the failure of the pro-union side to mobilise an effective counter-offer and campaign. But there's a warning that comes from observing Brexit. John McLaren says it is essential that the basic economic and fiscal principles of any new beginning are clearly laid out and coherent: "To avoid doing so, as with Brexit, is asking for trouble". In other words, if you win, you'd better be sure what you're going to do next, and prepare the ground for the possibility that easily-made campaign pledges don't match up to reality.

जी. ई. आर. एस. से पता चलता है कि स्कॉटिश कर लेने और खर्च करने के बीच का अंतर बहुत बड़ा है, लेकिन कोरोनावायरस इसे विशाल बनाने के लिए तैयार है, जिसमें वित्तीय मरम्मत के लिए वर्षों के प्रयास की आवश्यकता होती है। वार्षिक प्रकाशन स्वतंत्रता की बहस को तेज करता है। वर्तमान संकट और व्यवधान के बिंदु के साथ, स्वतंत्रता के लिए आर्थिक मामले पर फिर से विचार करने का मामला है। स्वतंत्रता का मामला अभी भी गैर-आर्थिक आधार पर जीता जा सकता है, लेकिन अगर ऐसा है, तो भी एक आर्थिक योजना निर्धारित करने की आवश्यकता होगी।


I'm slim so why am I at risk of diabetes?

Summary: Diabetes is on the rise around the world, and nowhere more rapidly than in developing countries that are adopting the sugary, starchy diet that has plagued the richer world for years. And it turns out that Asians, and especially South Asians, are particularly vulnerable.

By Anu AnandBBC World Service, Colombo The nutritionist runs a white measuring tape around my waist. I defy the urge to suck in my stomach. I'm 42 years old, a mother of two and a journalist based in India's capital, Delhi, currently one of the world's most polluted cities. I eat organic food, rarely snack, and consider myself pretty slim and active, especially compared to my American friends, whom I can see on Facebook are generally twice my girth. "It's 87cm (34.25in)," says Chaya Ranasinghe, nutritionist at Sri Lanka's National Diabetes Centre. I'm here to find out why slim-looking Indians and Sri Lankans are increasingly falling victim to type 2 diabetes - a disease we tend to associate with people who anyone could see were obese. "Not bad," I say. "That's pretty honourable for my age." "Yes, but it should be 80cm (31.5in) maximum," she replies. "You are 7cm (2.75in) over." "Should have sucked in my waist," I fume belatedly. Chaya is helping me assess my risk for diabetes and the waist measurement is key for people of Asian origin. That's because Asian genes dictate that fat is laid down in the abdominal area. It's this "visceral" or belly fat, as well as fat inside the liver, that puts us at risk. "Imaging technology that measures fat in humans has shown that Asians of a healthy BMI have more fat around organs and in the belly area than Europeans with the same BMI, thereby increasing risk," according to a 2009 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Fat makes tissue resistant to insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar, so the glucose builds up, and can eventually trigger type 2 diabetes. According to some researchers, Asians, and especially South Asians, are more likely to have not only more abdominal fat, but also less muscle, which further increases insulin resistance. Find out more You can listen to The Truth About Diabetes on the BBC World Service on Tuesday 12 January from 00:30, or catch up afterwards on iPlayer. In addition, Asian women are at greater risk of suffering from diabetes during pregnancy, which can put their children at risk of type 2 diabetes in later life. That's why the waist measurement - 80cm (31.5in) for Asian women and 90cm (35.5in) for men - is a good indicator of diabetes risk, along with five other factors: family history of the disease, smoking, drinking, exercise and stress levels. My "lifestyle consultation" reveals that I'm at risk on five of those six factors - all except smoking. This is getting serious. "Asians have what we call the "thrifty" phenotype which means our bodies are designed to conserve energy and lay down food in the form of fat," explains Prof Chandrika Wijeyaratne, who runs NIROGI Lanka, a diabetes prevention task force. "But when we conserve energy in today's environment of unhealthy food, we conserve way, way too much." Wijeyaratne explains that body mass index (BMI) standards, which help classify people as "normal", "overweight" and "obese", need to be adjusted for Asians. For the average Westerner, it takes a BMI of 25 to 30 to be considered overweight, she says, but a person of Asian origin need only have a BMI of 23 to 25. "And it's a misconception that sugar alone causes diabetes," she tells me. "Starch is a big problem too." When nutritionist Chaya Ranasinghe takes me to a local grocery shop, I point proudly to fresh fruits and vegetables, which I eat regularly. However, we then come face to face with an unexpected culprit: rice. This is a food I've always considered the epitome of healthy Asian cuisine. But it turns out that white rice, which is polished and processed, is not what my body - genetically speaking - is adapted to. "You should be eating red or brown rice," Chaya tells me. "White rice has had the husk - or fibre -removed, so it's faster to digest. It means you eat more, it fills you up less, and turns to sugar more quickly in the blood." I'm stunned. I eat at least two bowls of rice each day. I've always thought of rice as my birthright, and a healthy one at that. Globally, the WHO says at least 350 million people live with type 2 diabetes and the number is set to rise to half a billion in two decades' time. "It's a frightening situation - diabetes is of tsunami proportions, and South Asia is at the epicentre," says Wijeyaratne. China is recognised as the world's diabetes capital with 109 million diabetics, or nearly 10% of the population. According to the Diabetes Atlas, compiled by the International Diabetes Federation, India has 69 million diabetics, or 9% of the population. However, there is insufficient screening in India and only the most rudimentary health system, so the numbers may be far higher. What is diabetes? Source: WHO In Sri Lanka, 10% of the population already have diabetes and another 10% show early signs of it - that's a total of four million people on this island nation of sunny beaches, fresh fruit and seafood alone. According to 10-year-old data from the World Health Organization more than a quarter of Sri Lanka's population is overweight. Only 17% eat the recommended five or more servings of fresh fruit and vegetables daily and a whopping 88% have one-to-three raised risk factors for diabetes. "Eight to 10 years ago, we were talking about type 2 diabetes in middle age. Now, increasingly, I'm seeing more and more young people, in their 20s, and more worryingly, school children between 12 and 18 years old," says Dr Manilka Sumanatilleke at his diabetes clinic, in Karapitiya Hospital on the country's idyllic south-west coast. "I see at least one or two such young patients per month in this clinic." He blames the popularity of white rice, stir-fried in coconut oil, as well as kottu - a fried bread stuffed with meat and vegetables. "They love it, but it is very unhealthy," he said. The country's national health system is struggling to cope with the huge rise in patients with chronic illnesses like diabetes. Infectious and other communicable diseases now account for only 10% of the demand on the country's health service. Non-infectious diseases - diabetes, cancer and asthma, for example - swallow up the other 90%. At the National Hospital in central Colombo, Prof Mandika Wijeyaratne witnesses the human cost of diabetes every day. A surgeon, he amputates the limbs of patients whose untreated diabetes has ravaged blood vessels, leading to loss of feeling and simple, but often catastrophic, injuries. "It always starts with a tiny wound," he says showing me around Ward 28. "Here is a patient who's had below-knee amputation. This all started with a little injury - he stepped on a sharp stone barefoot. His infection spread upwards very quickly. To save his life, we had to take off half his leg. "The situation here has got much worse in the last 20 years. Then, it was smokers' problems. Now it's shifted mainly to diabetics." As I head back to Delhi, I consider my risk factors and plot what changes I can make immediately. A few months on, I no longer eat white rice. Instead, I've switched to red rice, which I enjoy, even in biryanis and stir-fries. I must do more exercise, but Delhi is a dense, chaotic urban jungle where pavements are broken, traffic omnipresent, and clean parks few and far between. Not to mention it's become the world's air pollution capital with levels of fine toxic particles twice as high on average as Beijing's. In truth, most days the only exercise I get is walking the 10 steps from my bedroom to my office, where I sit editing radio interviews or writing on my computer. Even when I do need to get out and about, it's by car, the fastest, safest option. But I've seen my grandmother die from diabetes complications. And recently my father, who has stubbornly refused to confront his blood sugar levels, was diagnosed with retinopathy, where diabetes damages the fine blood vessels in the eye. Vision loss is irreversible. I may not escape the same fate unless I accept that my DNA is unforgiving and make drastic changes in my behaviour now. For me, those changes include a decision to move somewhere less polluted, where physical exercise is easier. For millions of South Asians, arresting the runaway growth of diabetes will have to involve waking up to the problem, and making fundamental changes to the way people eat, work and play. Anu Anand presents part one of a new series The Truth About Diabetes on the BBC World Service. The series visits Sri Lanka, Mexico, Tonga and the United States, and asks how governments, healthcare and big business are responding to a crisis that is spiralling out of control. More on the danger of ignoring diabetes I became blind over the course of 12 months from late 1999 to the end of 2000. It was mostly my fault. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was a little girl. At the time they explained I would have to eat a precise amount of food each day, and that I would need to inject a precise amount of insulin to handle it. At some point during my teens I discovered I could skip an injection without anything terrible happening. I stopped monitoring my blood glucose levels almost entirely and when I was old enough to make my own decisions, I stopped going to the doctor for annual check-ups. Throughout my student days I had a riot. I smoked, danced, partied, and kept on ignoring the fact I was diabetic. I went blind and feel partly to blame Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

मधुमेह दुनिया भर में बढ़ रहा है, और विकासशील देशों की तुलना में कहीं भी अधिक तेजी से नहीं है जो मीठे, स्टार्च वाले आहार को अपना रहे हैं जिसने अमीर दुनिया को वर्षों से परेशान किया है। और यह पता चला है कि एशियाई, और विशेष रूप से दक्षिण एशियाई, विशेष रूप से कमजोर हैं।


Michaela Coel: A rising star at the National Theatre

Summary: Chewing Gum Dreams, the dreams of the abandoned and forgotten, the ones which get flattened, stuck to filthy pavements, trodden on by those who barely register their faded existence any more.

By Kev GeogheganArts and entertainment reporter, BBC News It is the title of a new one woman show on at the National Theatre's Shed venue, written and performed by poet, singer and actress Michaela Coel. To say that the 26-year-old from Hackney, east London is something of a rising star at the National risks a degree of understatement. The show is her third consecutive appearance in a NT production at the red-wooden venue on the South Bank in London. She appeared in Nadia Fall's powerful Home and followed it up with Nick Payne's gender politics piece Blurred Lines, written following the success of Robin Thicke's controversial global hit. During the National's early days right up until the early 2000's, it was common for an actor to star in consecutive NT productions. In 2000, Oscar-nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor acted in Peer Gynt, Romeo and Juliet and Blue/Orange. The last two actors to do the same were Elliot Levy and Michelle Terry across 2009-10. Coel, it transpires over the course of the interview, already has a fourth production in the pipeline. "I've been cast in something else," she beams. "And it's not in the Shed, I'm moving into the house from the garden." "It's on at the Olivier (the biggest of the National's three theatres), it's Medea which Carrie Cracknell (Blurred Lines) is directing so I'm very excited to be playing the nurse. "Once again, I can't quite believe that I get to work at the National, I've only just finished drama school so I just feel very, very lucky. The more work I see there, the more I feel a sense of pride for the theatre. "I'm glad to be a part of it." Chewing Gum Dreams, a 45 minute-long semi-autobiographical monologue is "partly based on my own experience of growing up". On a set decorated with a single chair, Coel - in character as 14-year-old Tracey Gordon - talks about boys, friendship, school and sex. She's not always pleasant but she is a frank and funny and often stark and moving - a tribute to Coel's energetic performance. In her own words, Tracey "ain't smart enough to be someone, just smart enough to know I'm a no-one". Domestic violence, racism and a savage indictment of an uncaring education system all come under Coel's gaze. "In a scene of quiet lyricism, Tracey's (white) boyfriend tells her to aim higher than the cracks in the floor, but she shrugs: 'why bother?'" says Maddy Costa in the Guardian's review. "Often it's through silent gestures, the wide-eyed amazement that anyone should admire her and the shivers of alarm at any expectation of her, that Coel communicates most about Tracey's lack of self-belief." If Tracey is only a small part of Coel, the actress says she also represents many of the friends with whom she grew up. "What partly drove me to write it is my luck in the direction I've ended up in and seeing what happened to a lot of my friends, who I know had so much potential. "I called it Chewing Gum Dreams because I was thinking about all the aspirations we have when we're younger before we're taught there's a certain benchmark above which we can't aim. "Our dreams, like on the high rise estate which I grew up on, the dreams end up like dried up chewing gum on the floor. In her four-star review in the Evening Standard, Fiona Mountford praises "a solo performance of quite some note". "Tracey's young life is already circumscribed by domestic violence and aggressive sexuality and behind all the braggadocio lurks a very real fear that the future holds precious little for her and her peers." After "feeling like a hamster on a wheel in the kind of school I went to," Coel reluctantly followed in the footsteps of her sister, now a psychology teacher, and went to university. She briefly studied political science before dropping out and applying to drama schools. "I think I went to one lecture," says Coel. Her mother, a cleaner at the time, now a carer, "was not happy at all". "My mum was disturbed," she continues. "And she kept handing me university applications before I got into Guildhall". Two years ago she graduated from the drama school - where the alumni include Daniel Craig, Damien Lewis and Fay Ripley. Coel says: "I was very lucky in that I got a scholarship for my first year and then my next two years I won the Laurence Olivier bursary." In recent times, many established actors, including Andy Serkis, Dame Helen Mirren and Julie Andrews have all expressed grave concerns that only those from financially secure backgrounds will be able to afford to attend drama school. It is something to which Coel, who grew up in Tower Hamlets in east London, can relate. "I was the only person in my year whose parents didn't own a house and I remember thinking it was weird. It is worrying because there's a whole group of amazing actors who may never find their potential or discover that part of themselves. There have to be more scholarships." Coel's faith is equally important to her, having undergone "a massive weird spiritual conversion" when she was 18. Though she is no longer a member of the same church, "there always seems to a an element of faith in my writing". On television, Coel was one of a young black cast of the Channel 4 series Top Boy. Last week, comedian Lenny Henry highlighted the fall in the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people in the broadcasting industry. Henry cited the examples of celebrated British black actors David Harewood and Idris Elba who located to the US to find roles. Coel says, for a young black actress, it can be even worse. "For all the theatre I've done, I can count on the fingers of one hand the auditions I've had for television. "Even in American TV, they like big, strong dark men and exotic looking fair women. I have not seen one black British actress apart form Marianne (Oscar-nominated British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste) that has gone to America and had a successful career. "I see article after article about black men, none about black women. "But I think it's about writing, it's about casting directors being braver, (12 Years a Slave director) Steve McQueen is one of them. And I'm hopeful that I have power to change things myself." Chewing Gum Dreams is on at The Shed until 4 April.

च्युइंग गम के सपने, परित्यक्त और विस्मृत लोगों के सपने, जो चपटे हो जाते हैं, गंदे फुटपाथ पर अटक जाते हैं, उन लोगों द्वारा कुचले जाते हैं जो मुश्किल से अपने लुप्त अस्तित्व को दर्ज करते हैं।


Hidden Figures: How Nasa hired its first black women 'computers'

Summary: The Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures tells the story of African-American women whose maths skills helped put a US astronaut into orbit in the 1960s. But the history of black women working for Nasa goes back much further - and they were still struggling to get the best jobs in the 1970s.

By Charlotte McDonaldBBC News In 1943, two years after the US joined World War Two, Miriam Daniel Mann was 36 years old. She had three children, aged six, seven and eight - but she also had a Chemistry degree. Job opportunities for married women were limited then, especially for those with children, and even more so for African-American women. But as men went off to war, there was a skill shortage in vital industries. The president signed an executive order allowing black people to be employed in the defence sector for the first time, and Nasa's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), started looking for black women to work on mathematical calculations. Through her husband, a college professor, Mann heard about the recruiters visiting black college campuses. She registered to take an exam, passed it, and became one of the first black women to work as a "human computer" at the NACA aeronautics research facility at Langley in Virginia. These were the days before the machines we now know as computers were available to crunch numbers - and when they were invented, they took their name from the humans who had done the job before them. Miriam Mann Miriam Mann's daughter, Miriam Mann Harris, wrote in 2011: "My early memories are of my mother talking about doing math problems all day. Back then all of the math was done with a #2 pencil and the aid of a slide rule... She would relate stories about the 'colored' sign on a table in the back of the cafeteria. She brought the first one home, but there was a replacement the next day. New signs went up on the bathroom door, 'colored girls'." Mann's granddaughter, Duchess Harris - a professor at Macalester College and co-author of Hidden Human Computers, the Black Women of Nasa - points out that Mann was born in 1907, only half a century after the end of slavery. But there had been a big drive to educate African Americans, most of whom had been illiterate before emancipation, Harris says, so by the 1940s there was a pool of talented black women with maths and science degrees waiting to be employed. Thanks to them - and to white women, who had been employed as computers since the 1930s - male engineers could spend more time theorising and writing equations. "After the war in most industries the women were sent home again," says Bill Barry, Nasa's chief historian. "But in the computing business that didn't happen. In fact, Nasa started hiring more women, in large part because of the quantity of work going on." Often jobs were held open for women to come back to after having a child. "A skilled computer was an incredibly valuable resource," he says. At Langley, in the 1940s and 1950s the women were split into two pools - the East computing unit for white women, and the West computing unit for black women. This segregation had been a requirement of Virginia state law, says Barry. For most of the 50s, a woman called Dorothy Vaughan was the supervisor in charge of West Computing - she is one of the main characters in the film Hidden Figures. When tasks from the engineers came in, she would allocate the work and show her team what they needed to do. "Dorothy Vaughan would take the equation and break it into sections and tell you how to solve that equation in small parts. Tell you which columns you multiply, which ones you add," says Christine Darden, who started working for Nasa in 1967. "By the time you have followed all her directions across you would have the solution." By the time Darden joined, the women were no longer in separate pools and had been allocated to specific engineering sections. She had fallen in love with maths as a teenager, but when she told her father she wanted to study it at college, he didn't like the idea. He could not see a career path. "My father insisted I get a degree in teacher education because during that time black females generally didn't get very many jobs in math," says Darden. "He told me I had to be able to teach so I could get a job." Darden listened to her father, but as she was determined to follow her passion she took extra maths classes and even carried on studying for a Master's while teaching. One day at college she was handed an application form for Nasa, and a few weeks later she was offered a job in one of their computer offices. While most of the women were still carrying out their tasks using spreadsheets and a calculator, she was among a growing number who learned to programme the new IBM computers. These were capable of doing laborious calculations in a fraction of the time it took a human. When Darden was given an equation to solve, she would work out the different steps required, and then write a program telling the computer each step, by punching holes in a card that would be fed into the machine. "We had a card punch in our office. I would punch the cards. I would take the cards over to the building that had the computer and they had people who would run the program." The work that these women did from the 1940s onwards was essential for Nasa's work, but their names didn't appear on research papers. Slowly, however, some of these highly educated and intelligent women started to make their way into more advanced roles. The film Hidden Figures features a woman named Katherine Johnson who helped work out the trajectories to launch the first American into orbit around the planet. Another is Mary Jackson who fought for the right to be an engineer in her own right. But years later, Christine Darden, with her Masters degree, still had to struggle to be treated as an equal to the male engineers. "When I found out that the engineers were doing very theoretical engineering - sitting at their desk working with equations, I decided that was what I wanted to do," she says. Her manager told her it wasn't possible. But in 1972, as funding for the space programme was scaled back, Christine feared she was about to be made redundant. "That gave me the incentive to go to a higher-level boss and ask why men were assigned to engineering sections to do their own projects - write the paper, give the paper - but the females were assigned to the computer pools to do the calculating as a support role." It worked - Christine was allocated to an engineering team that was studying planes flying faster than the speed of sound. She studied ways to minimise sonic booms which are caused by planes travelling at such speeds. By the time she retired in 2007, as a Nasa senior executive, she had published more than 50 papers. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

ऑस्कर नामांकित फिल्म हिडन फिगर्स अफ्रीकी-अमेरिकी महिलाओं की कहानी बताती है जिनके गणित कौशल ने 1960 के दशक में एक अमेरिकी अंतरिक्ष यात्री को कक्षा में स्थापित करने में मदद की। लेकिन नासा के लिए काम करने वाली अश्वेत महिलाओं का इतिहास बहुत आगे जाता है-और वे अभी भी 1970 के दशक में सर्वश्रेष्ठ नौकरी पाने के लिए संघर्ष कर रही थीं।


A wallaby bounds into a road near Slaithwaite

Summary: A driver said he had "the shock of my life" when he saw a wallaby jumping along a road in the Yorkshire Pennines.

The sighting of the Australian marsupial was on Marsden Lane, near the village of Slaithwaite, outside Huddersfield. The driver who took a picture of the animal said: "I kept sounding my horn but it wouldn't move." The animal is believed to have escaped from a local farm where three wallabies are kept as pets. According to the unnamed witness, after a while sitting in the middle of the road the animal "just skipped off". West Yorkshire Police said they have had no reports of wallaby-related road incidents.

एक चालक ने कहा कि उसे "मेरे जीवन का सदमा" लगा जब उसने यॉर्कशायर पेनिन्स में एक दीवार वाले को सड़क पर कूदते देखा।


Billy Connolly picks up Bafta for life's work

Summary: Compared to some venues Billy Connolly has played, Glasgow's Fruitmarket is a modest size - even if all 500 seats have been snapped up. But it is home turf, as evidenced by the man from the Gorbals in the audience who wants to tell the man from Partick how influential he has been.

By Pauline McLeanBBC Scotland arts correspondent The event was staged to allow Connolly to pick up his Bafta Scotland award, for Outstanding Contribution, in person. So this was a romp through his best-known screen roles, complete with Connolly's inimitable commentary. Film, he told interviewer Francine Stock, was something he had always loved, as a boy watching Westerns in cinemas in Glasgow. Peter MacDougall, he said, was responsible for first getting him into acting: "He said, I've just written you, and I read the script (Just Another Saturday) and I realised he HAD written me." Director Anthony Page cast him in Absolution (1978), alongside Richard Burton, "because he wanted a hippy who could play a banjo and ride a motorbike". He only met Burton 15 minutes before filming. Connolly says: "He was wearing a mink jacket. I just thought, a mink jacket? Give me a break!" "He was the biggest star on the planet. The nearest I'd come before that was seeing Roy Rogers at the Glasgow Empire." He recalled being buried alive by Burton in the film. "And they actually put me into the ground and put earth on me and because they were filming Richard Burton from behind, he was singing the whole time. 'I belong to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town, there's nothing the matter with Glasgow when you're buried underground'." Connolly said his Catholic background helped him to give Burton, who was playing a priest, some advice. "He - Burton - would walk around with his fags in his hand and I'd say 'cassocks have pockets, you know'. 'Look here'." He told the audience he felt limited as an actor. "I never get asked to do auditions. They generally know what they want from me. But that was true of James Mason too, so that doesn't worry me." "I'm amazed they always want the Glasgow accent. They don't seem to mind, whatever the setting. Sometimes I'm the only one with a Glasgow accent and no one seems to question it. It's like a classic joke: A Glaswegian walks into a film..." He said had not heard anything about John Brown before taking the role in the film Mrs Brown (1997) - "except that he'd had it off with the Queen. What else do you need to know?" For the role he had to master riding a horse, and read between the lines with his co-star Judi Dench, who played Queen Victoria. "At one point, I thought she actually fancied me. We were dancing an eightsome reel and she was all flushed and flirty and I thought she's coming on to me. And then I realised it was Queen Victoria who fancied me. So I did it back and it seemed to work." 'Ginks and Gonks' He is dismissive of method acting although he admits he tells the crew to give him time to concentrate on his lines when he's on set. "I called my wife - Pamela Stephenson - and said "how do you act?" And she said 'it is beyond words'. 'Use your feelings. Think with your eyes.' As Shelley winters said: 'speak quietly and think out loud'." Connolly has just finished making the second instalment of The Hobbit in New Zealand - "playing this incredible dwarf king who rides a pig and kills people with an axe". He said he told director Peter Jackson he had not read The Hobbit and didn't like people who had. "We're making a film, not a book. Where I grew up, there were Tolkien people and Incredible String Band people and I was definitely one of the Incredible String Band people and we didn't like the Tolkien people. You get a lot of them at the Edinburgh festival, armed with pamphlets, and they haven't seen any shows. I'm also very suspicious of anyone who is upset about wars between Ginks and Gonks." His infamously fraught relationship with the press continues. "Last week I was at an event for the foreign journalists association and this big skinny woman said to me - you're so funny, you make us laugh so much, have you ever considered stand-up comedy?' I said, 'have you ever considered journalism?' And these people decide the Golden Globes?" His latest role in Quartet - which is due out in January was also discussed. He stars alongside Maggie Smith, Tom Courtney and Andrew Sachs, as a retired opera singer. "I'm the youngest one in the film apart from Sheridan Smith. It's not about dying, it's about staying alive." His challenge this time was singing. "We try to keep the home open by singing. We didn't sound like opera singers. We sounded like four old guys singing. The director - Dustin Hoffman - was really moved. I thought he was going to cry." In the end, it was Connolly who cried as he accepted his Bafta Scotland award from fellow comedian Kevin Bridges. "It's a delightful thing, coming from Scotland. I've been nominated for loads of these things - although sometimes it is like the kid in the remedial class being given a prize for being nice. "Genuinely, to get this, I'd say it breaks my heart but it definitely touches me, somewhere I live. "I guess you only get these things once in your life but if we could all meet once a fortnight and do it all again, that would be great."

बिली कोनोली द्वारा खेले गए कुछ स्थानों की तुलना में, ग्लासगो का फ्रूटमार्केट एक मामूली आकार का है-भले ही सभी 500 सीटों को काट दिया गया हो। लेकिन यह घरेलू मैदान है, जैसा कि दर्शकों में गोर्बल्स के आदमी से पता चलता है जो पार्टिक के आदमी को बताना चाहता है कि वह कितना प्रभावशाली रहा है।


Condor Ferries cancels services due to storm forecast

Summary: Channel Island high speed ferry services have been cancelled on Sunday and Monday due to storm forecasts.

There will be no Condor Ferry sailings to the UK on both days, while those to St Malo will sail earlier on Sunday. Monday's services have been cancelled. Additional services are being run by the company's conventional ferry, the Commodore Clipper, on Sunday and the high-speed ferries on Tuesday. The company said it would be contacting passengers to rearrange sailing times.

तूफान के पूर्वानुमान के कारण चैनल द्वीप की तेज गति वाली नौका सेवाओं को रविवार और सोमवार को रद्द कर दिया गया है।


Joaquin Phoenix's Joker: Will Gompertz reviews the film about Batman's arch-enemy ★★★★☆

Summary: They say people only go to the movies nowadays to see all-singing-all-dancing multi-million-dollar, computer-enhanced Hollywood franchises. They say there's no money to be made anymore with serious, gritty dramas. They say, that's what box sets on streaming services are for. The golden days of cinema are over. They say.

Will GompertzArts editor@WillGompertzBBCon Twitter They say that. But then they haven't seen Joker, the origin story of Batman's arch-enemy, co-written and directed by Todd Phillips. Sure, it might sound like another of those action-packed, special effects-laden fantasy epics that overshadow all else. It might even be what the folk who go to see it expect. But Joker has about as much in common with your typical superhero caper as Wonder Woman has with Dennis the Menace. Joker is a Trojan Horse: a dark art house film smuggled into the neon-lit world of multiplexes, disguised as a DC Comic Universe action adventure. It's an interesting move by Warner Brothers. The studio knows audiences love "Thwack!", "Pow!" action sequences; that they expect witty dialogue and plenty of banter, and CGI is a given. Well, there's none of that in Joker. Instead you have Joaquin Phoenix giving it the full Daniel Day-Lewis in a slow-burn performance of such intensity and weirdness, it will either have the Academy purring come the Oscars or shunning altogether. It worked for me. Phoenix plays misfit Arthur Fleck, a man who hasn't exactly run out of luck, because he never had any in the first place. From an early age Arthur has suffered from a neurological condition that causes him to laugh like a hyena at the most inappropriate moments. Not a fun infectious laugh, but a laugh so dry and hard it makes him retch and everybody else feel nauseous. And then there is his mother (Frances Conroy) whom he loves and who loves him, but… well, as I said, he's not a lucky guy. Arthur Fleck is an oddball in a cruel, intolerant world that doesn't have time to care for vulnerable people. He lives in a Gotham City that's gone to the dogs: uncollected garbage bags pile up like stinking black skyscrapers, welfare budgets have been slashed, and mass civil unrest is one small trigger-point from becoming a reality. If Arthur were sensible he'd take an admin job in a library and keep his head down. But Arthur isn't sensible, he's delusional and therefore makes choices that are not good for him or anyone else. He's a chap who wants to put a smile on people's faces, and so he becomes a clown-for-hire during the day and an amateur stand-up comic at night. There is not a career adviser on the planet who would have pushed him in that direction. Phoenix plays Arthur's tragic descent in a way which seemingly encourages our empathy but makes sure he never really gets it: we know he's not a character to whom you'd want to get too close. There is a maniacal darkness behind his eyes which is a bit creepy. His only pleasure comes from watching Murray Franklin's chat show, on to which he dreams of being invited one day. Robert De Niro plays the legendary TV host, thereby reversing the role he played as Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy, a film to which Joker owes a debt (as well as Psycho and Taxi Driver). Everything about the film is downbeat. The sun never shines in this Gotham City. Class war simmers while the media crank up the tension with inflammatory headlines and irresponsible TV shows that give airtime to the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The elite live in a pampered bubble without a care in the world, wilfully ignorant of the hardships other folk suffer. It might be set in the early 1980s, but it is clearly a parable about the here and now. Joker is a powerful film. It is several galaxies away from a piece of light comic entertainment with cartoon violence and clever sight gags. There are no laughs in this tale about a man who wants to be funny. It is a heavy, serious and, at times, a painfully slow piece: Beckettian almost. It is not perfect. Several of the minor supporting characters are too thinly drawn to allow them to be anything more than "types." And you might want to challenge some of the assumptions and conclusions it makes around issues of mental health right down to its central question: what turns someone like Arthur into the Joker? The violence is bloody and hard to watch, but valid in terms of context and mood. I say this because Joker is a film that not only raises the issue of a culture in which there is wide accessibility to firearms, but also because it sits within a franchise that tragically became associated with the real-life consequences of gun crime. In 2012 James Holmes killed 12 people and injured dozens more at the midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado. The conversation about art and life and the relationship between the two is ancient and modern. It will and should continue. I didn't think Joker was flippant or indulgent. Nor do I think it is encouraging or inciting violence. It is reflecting on it, which art is there to do. My only reservation was the 15 certificate, given the graphic nature of some scenes in a genre when parents might be expecting a more slapstick approach. I've seen a lot of yellow-toothed Jokers in my life, from Cesar Romero to Heath Ledger. They've all brought something to the part but none gave the character the fragility and psychosis of Joaquin Phoenix's desperate and desperately sad Joker. I think it will become a classic. Recent reviews by Will Gompertz Follow Will Gompertz on Twitter

उनका कहना है कि आजकल लोग केवल फिल्मों में लाखों डॉलर की नृत्य करने वाली, कंप्यूटर से लैस हॉलीवुड फ्रेंचाइजी देखने के लिए जाते हैं। उनका कहना है कि गंभीर, भद्दे नाटकों से अब कोई पैसा नहीं बनता है। वे कहते हैं, स्ट्रीमिंग सेवाओं पर बॉक्स सेट इसी के लिए हैं। सिनेमा के सुनहरे दिन खत्म हो गए हैं। वे कहते हैं।