Sustainable students: Recycling clothes for London Fashion Week

Summary: After a damning report from MPs on the clothing industry's environmental credentials, how can we make our wardrobe more sustainable? Two students took up the challenge of repairing, reusing and recycling clothes for a London Fashion Week show.

By Michael Cowan and Owen KeanBBC Victoria Derbyshire programme It's mid-afternoon, and Loughborough University student Marcus Rudd is going through his wardrobe, piece by piece. He is with sustainable stylist Alice Wilby, and it turns out his wardrobe is not as environmentally-friendly as he had hoped - as he announces he buys around 10 to 15 T-shirts a year. "Did you know it takes about 3,000 litres of water to make one cotton T-shirt?" Alice asks him, bursting his bubble. "That's about as much water as [the average person's] drinks in three years." And then they come to the high-priced fashion in his wardrobe - the Versace jeans and Giorgio Armani jacket. Alice is quick to point out the styling is similar to that of many sustainable brands. "There isn't anything to me specifically that sets them aside as being designer - it's a pretty classic cut, it's a pretty classic style," she says. "I feel like you could buy this from a vintage shop," she adds, of one of Marcus's coats in which he takes extra pride. The fashion industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gases, water pollution, air pollution and the over-use of water. It's exacerbated, MPs say, by so-called "fast fashion" - inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers. The sector is proving increasingly popular. Goby Chan, a fellow Loughborough University student flat-sharing with Marcus, says the low price makes such clothes a particularly appealing prospect for young people. "You just go for it," she says, precisely because it's so cheap. But it also means many people purchase clothes they never wear - buying clothes in the hope of one day wearing them on a night out due to the fear others will notice you've worn the same dress twice. The scale of the problem is brought to life with a visit to the Oxfam recycling centre in Batley, Yorkshire. They sort through 80 tonnes of donated clothing and textiles per week. In one of their huge barns are stacks upon stacks of clothes, formed in to bales each weighing half a tonne. The British public sends the equivalent of 11,000 such bales to landfill each week, a figure that visibly shocks Gobi and Marcus. Of course, the clothing bales at the Oxfam factory do not go to landfill - they will instead be put to other purposes, such as insulation. This is because about 6% of the clothing Oxfam receives from donations are not of a fit state to be worn again - a problem increasing with fast fashion. "We do get a lot of that low-quality, High Street clothing in, and there's just nothing we can really do with it," explains Oxfam's Holly Bentley. So how can we, as consumers, turn the tide? For Alice, it is about the three 'R's - recycle, repair and reuse. She sets Goby and Marcus a challenge - to create an outfit to wear in a sustainable fashion show at London Fashion Week - using only second-hand and reused clothing, plus a repaired or restyled item from their wardrobe. The show is run by Amy Powney, creative director of sustainable designer brand Mother of Pearl. She explains that ethical fashion is not just about the fabric a garment is made out of, but the whole supply chain. "The average they say [your clothes travel during production] is five countries, for every garment you buy," she explains, much to Gobi and Marcus's surprise. "For each stage you have to send it to another country - package it off each time, then ship it - which is fuel and energy. "We'd love to see legislation for the labels in your garment not just to say 'Made in' wherever it's from - but 'grown in', 'finished in', 'manufactured in', so you can understand there is a longer process." Goby thinks this would be a good step forward. "I think people would actually treasure the clothing more when they actually know there are so many processes in one jumper," she says. "They will think twice before they actually buy so many of them." It is with this sustainably-charged mindset that both enter their task. Marcus chooses to repair a traditional Indian Kurta given to him by his grandmother, pairing it with some dark blue jeans and brown shoes that he bought from a charity shop. Goby picks a black top with sheer detail sleeves to repair, with a black chiffon detail dress from a local charity shop. When the big day comes a few days later, they are ready to model the ethical outfits waist-deep in a pit of balls made from recycled plastic. Each one is intended to represent the millions of microfibres that wash off our clothes when they get washed, entering the UK's water streams and eventually the food chain. For Goby, it is the culmination of a "very exciting" experience, but also one that has opened her eyes to the damage the fashion industry is causing. Now before buying clothes, she says, she will think about what material it is made from, and be more aware of what website she is buying from. "I do think it is a really good option to be buy less, but buy better," she adds. She also promises to rewear clothes that have become lost in her wardrobe, and refashion others into new and unique accessories. As for Marcus, he has already bought more clothes from vintage shops - a trend he very much plans to continue. Follow the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on Facebook and Twitter - and see more of our stories here.

कपड़ा उद्योग की पर्यावरणीय साख पर सांसदों की एक हानिकारक रिपोर्ट के बाद, हम अपने कपड़ों को और अधिक टिकाऊ कैसे बना सकते हैं? दो छात्रों ने लंदन फैशन वीक शो के लिए कपड़ों की मरम्मत, पुनः उपयोग और पुनर्चक्रण की चुनौती ली।


Brexit hits a snag

Summary: The textiles sector is already having to prepare for a "no deal" Brexit. In the case of one fast-growing Scottish firm, that means putting UK prices up by 12%. Even with a deal, it's too late to unravel some of those preparations, and the sector warns many companies are not yet aware of extra paperwork and regulation. With less EU trade, there are hopes of trade deals with other countries. But instead, Monday saw an escalation of the EU-US trade dispute over aircraft manufacturing which has snared Scots cashmere and whisky distillers.

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland Snag Tights were born in the Brexit era. Less than three years ago in West Lothian, Brie Reid and Tom Martin started up the company, having spent a long time finding the right manufacturer. They found it in a family-run textiles mill in Italy. They chose West Lothian as their base for its relatively low price rental, reliable, low-churn workforce, motorway access and courier collections that can get the product to American customers faster than some can manage in the US. And the product? Bright and funky coloured tights, with special editions and fun names: Builder's Tea, Bloody Mary, Blue Hawaiian, White Russian, Fishies and Sharkies. Its website does not feature the typical underwear model. Seven sizes range from 6 to 36. It has won a lot of word-of-mouth recommendations and repeat business for a product at £7.50 per pair. Marketing is largely through Facebook, and an online community, where enthusiastic fans are known as "Snagglers". Size inclusive Brie Read had done her market research, with figures showing 90% of women can't find tights that fit them properly. "Sixty per cent of women are now over size 16, and the fashion industry doesn't cater for these people as it should," she told me. "For us, the dream is to be completely size inclusive, so everyone of every size should be able to buy the same clothes, and have tights that fit". Only 30 months in, the company is sending out 4,000 parcels per day, to 90 countries, and turning over £3m per month. They now represent 60% of their Italian supplier's production. With 70 people on the payroll now, they want to take on more - up to 100 more. They're on a rapid "land grab" of this "size-inclusive" market, before others can catch up. Going Dutch But there's a snag. Two of them, in fact. One: A "no deal" Brexit at the end of next month means that their tights would be imported from Italy with a 12% tariff. The UK has said it plans to impose that on finished garments, to protect UK manufacturers from low priced competition- just as the EU has been doing. Fabric gets an 8% tariff and yarn is on 4%. For Snag, that tax will be passed directly on to the UK customer - roughly 30% of their market - with an explanation on the website and with a receipt explaining that the charge is a Brexit tax, which benefits neither the seller nor the customer. And two: Around a third of the market is in the European Union. To send from post-Brexit Britain into the EU would carry another 12% tariff. That makes no sense, so on 1 December, they open a new distribution centre in the Netherlands. They don't expect to shed any jobs in Scotland, as business is growing fast. Snag would have preferred to grow in Scotland, but two potential tariffs of 12% meant it had to go elsewhere. So remaining within the world's biggest single market, the Dutch town of Venlo gets the jobs benefit of this business success. From there, they will also fulfil orders for non-EU countries, including the USA and Australia. "Left entirely alone" Of course, there could be a deal, and that would probably mean tariff-free trade. But it's come far too late for a company that couldn't put its growth on hold while the political Brexit can was kicked down the road. "Those are jobs that would have been here in Scotland, if it hadn't been for Brexit," says Read. "Now, they're going to be in Europe. I'm very happy we'll be able to offer the people of Venlo jobs, but I would have rather they'd have been here." She reflects: "It's been really difficult, particularly over the last year, because we've been expecting some movement in terms of whether there will be a deal or not. "But so little movement has happened. We've had to take it entirely into our own hands and that feels very unfair - rather than having any advice or expertise or anything from the government about how this is going to happen. "It feels like we have been left entirely alone just to do what we can. That's not how you want to grow a business and that's now how you make an economy work." Fashion runway Importing garments from the EU and selling back into it has put Snag Tights in a particularly difficult place. But it's not alone, in a UK industry employing 120,000 people, turning over £9bn, and with three-quarters of its exports going to the EU. According to Adam Mansell, chief executive of Textiles Scotland and also of the UK textiles and fashion trade body, larger companies that sell into Europe have been making similar plans. Smaller companies, of which the fashion industry has many, are much less likely to be prepared for what may hit them soon. Even taking some garments to the Paris Fashion Show for a couple of days next year, he points out, will require an export certificate, and these companies have never had to think about that before. If the proposed level of tariffs is charged on all the garments, fabrics and yarn sold from the UK into the EU, the trade association reckons it could add around £1bn to prices. Brie Read asks where that tax revenue is going, and could it be recycled to help the firms affected? If there is a deal, with no tariffs, there is still an expectation of much more paperwork and requirements on labelling. Some goods that are made from yarns and fabrics imported from outside the UK and EU would still have tariffs at varying rates, when finished garments are sold into the EU. "Global Britain" And there will be labelling requirements, where there are dual licensing for safety and for use of chemicals. "The export paperwork will still apply in the event of a deal," says Adam Mansell. "There will still be borders and the need to have the right paperwork. They'll still need the right labelling. And with intellectual property and design rights, you'll have to protect them in the UK and the EU. "We very much hope there will be a deal, but even without a deal, it will be a completely different trading environment. Companies are going to have to learn to do things twice". There is a potential "global Britain" upside to Brexit, if the UK can secure trade deals that reduce tariffs on exports to other countries. The USA, for instance, has tariffs of more than 30% on finished garments, and is a ready market for luxury goods. "It's an incredibly expensive market for our exporters to break into. So if we can get a free trade deal with the US, that would be a huge advantage." Cashmere and Scotch First, though, there is the hope that a new Washington administration will remove the punitive 25% tariffs on cashmere sweaters, aimed at the Scottish industry while allowing Italian rival products in to the US with no tariffs. Along with the same level of tariff on single malt Scotch whisky, imposed 13 months ago as part of the dispute between the US and EU (along with the UK), over subsidies for Airbus in Europe and for Boeing in the US. That dispute escalated on Monday, with the EU imposing a 25% tariff on nearly £3bn-worth of US exports, ranging across tobacco, nuts, fruit juice, fish, spirits, bags, tractors and casino and gym equipment. The intention of the EU is to match the position of the US Trade Representative, using that leverage to force Washington into talks on a resolution. New faces in charge in America may help lower the temperature and re-set relations. But the dispute pre-dates Donald Trump's presidency. And it would be just the first step towards a much more complex question of securing a US-UK deal, in which food and agriculture will weigh more heavily than Harris Tweed jackets.

कपड़ा क्षेत्र को पहले से ही "कोई सौदा नहीं" ब्रेक्सिट के लिए तैयारी करनी पड़ रही है। एक तेजी से बढ़ती स्कॉटिश फर्म के मामले में, इसका मतलब है कि यूके की कीमतों में 12 प्रतिशत की वृद्धि। एक सौदे के साथ भी, उन तैयारियों में से कुछ को उजागर करने में बहुत देर हो चुकी है, और इस क्षेत्र ने चेतावनी दी है कि कई कंपनियों को अभी तक अतिरिक्त कागजी कार्रवाई और विनियमन के बारे में पता नहीं है। यूरोपीय संघ के कम व्यापार के साथ, अन्य देशों के साथ व्यापार सौदों की उम्मीद है। लेकिन इसके बजाय, सोमवार को विमान निर्माण पर यूरोपीय संघ-अमेरिका व्यापार विवाद में वृद्धि देखी गई, जिसने स्कॉट्स कश्मीरी और व्हिस्की डिस्टिलर्स को फंसाया है।


Body of man found in Worcester treated as 'unexplained'

Summary: The body of a 58-year-old man has been found at an address in Worcester.

West Mercia Police said they were called to an address in Lavender Road at about 04:00 BST on Thursday. The death is being treated "unexplained". A post mortem examination is due to take place and the next of kin has been informed. West Midlands Ambulance Service said it was called to the scene to find a man in cardiac arrest. The road remained closed on Thursday while investigations continued.

वॉर्सेस्टर में एक पते पर एक 58 वर्षीय व्यक्ति का शव मिला है।


Lord Laird defends dealings with registered sex offender in Florida

Summary: The Ulster Unionist peer Lord Laird was a paid advisor to a registered sex offender in Florida and hosted meetings for him at the House of Lords as part of a takeover of the Belfast Giants ice hockey team.

By Julian O'NeillBBC Newsline Lord Laird has defended his dealings with Christopher Knight. He said he first learned about his past about 18 months ago. When the Belfast Giants and the company that runs the Odyssey Arena found out, they scuppered the deal. Lord Laird said he cannot understand what the problem is. American Christopher Knight first met the Belfast Giants in autumn 2012. Initially, Mr Knight, who has a background in the telecommunications industry, had sought to sponsor the team before then offering to buy owner Jim Gillespie's 90% shareholding. Within less than four weeks of negotiations, Mr Gillespie had sold. But some at the Giants were curious about Mr Knight's financial background and that led to the team's general manager, Todd Kelman, making a discovery based on Mr Knight having different dates of birth on company documents. "He was using the same name with different birth dates," said Mr Kelman. Aliases "All I did was google his birth dates. His full name with one birth date and then his full name with another birth date listed and bam - first thing on Google." It was a link to Mr Knight's listing on Florida State's Sex Offender Register. The register includes a photograph of Mr Knight, along with seven aliases he has used. The register's "crime description" is of two charges of "lewd/lascivious battery, sex with victim 12-15 years old", dating from 2003. Mr Knight had pleaded no contest to the charges. Adjudication was withheld and he was given five years' sexual offender probation and was placed on the state's sex offender register. Mr Kelman resigned in mid-February, followed by the players and coaching staff. Veteran defenseman Rob Sandrock said there was not much debate about the decision: "Once this came out, for us to take the stance we did was a no-brainer. We all jumped onboard right away. New contracts "The management here have done a great job in getting the family atmosphere at the arena. It's not just about the games, it's about the kids, mums and dads, so to have someone like that at the top the organisation, it is not very good for the sport." At the same time, the Odyssey Trust, which runs the arena, used a clause in its contract which allowed it to terminate the lease by which Mr Knight's team could play at the rink. It also offered the players new contracts to play under its management. The Elite Ice Hockey League was satisfied with this arrangement and has allowed the Giants to continue to play out their remaining schedule this season uninterrupted. Mr Knight's response to subsequent inquiries has been to insist he was put on the list inappropriately. However, the BBC has spoken to James Weick Jr, the attorney who prosecuted for the State of Florida in the case against Knight and who confirmed no error. "The only way you are put on the Sex Offender Registry is if you have pleaded to a crime. In Mr Knight's situation, since he received five year's sex offender probation, he is automatically put on the registry, whether he was convicted of the crime by getting an adjudication of guilt or after a withhold of adjudication. "He is on that sex offender register 'correctly', for want of a better word. There is no mistake about that." As for getting the entry removed from the register, as Mr Knight had claimed he was doing, Mr Weick stated the procedure is clear: "In Florida, the only way you get back off that list is to complete 20 years from the time of the conviction or you have to go back to the Court of Appeals, get the plea vacated and start the process again." Affidavits Mr Knight has also claimed that he had made no secret of the entry on the register when he entered negotiations to buy the team. The BBC has been given sworn affidavits from both Jim Gillespie and Todd Kelman, as well as the chief executive of the Odyssey, all affirming that none of them was aware of the register entry until January. One person who knew from the outset of sale negotiations was Lord Laird. The Ulster Unionist peer had been present with Mr Knight when he was first introduced to the Giants last autumn and afterwards hosted two meetings at the House of Lords that progressed the American's purchase. Lord Laird and Mr Knight had a business relationship dating back almost two years. In May 2011, the peer made a declaration on the House of Lords register of interests. This was as a paid advisor to Knight Communications, a company co-founded by Mr Knight. It was an association which was to last right up until the Belfast Giants deal was killed and Mr Knight's background was about to become public. Lord Laird told us: "A way back at the very start, well, not the very start but near the start, I gave advice to him and for that he gave me a small monetary reward." For four months, Lord Laird was also a director of another company with which Mr Knight had links called Time is On Your Side Limited. But he resigned that position just a matter of days after the Odyssey told him it could not be associated with Mr Knight. At the same time, he removed his advisory role with Knight Communications from the Lords register. When Todd Kelman discovered the Florida link, he said he challenged Lord Laird who admitted to him he had known for some time. Lord Laird told the BBC he cannot see what the controversy is about: "It's not for me to do due diligence into someone with a lot of money or claiming to have a lot of money. 'Minor misdemeanour' "That's not my issue - ok? He is very upfront into what happened to him in Florida and that seemed perfectly reasonable to me that he should go around telling people about it. "In Northern Ireland, society requires me to work with people who have terrorist convictions and who are now in government. So we're worried about some minor misdemeanour in Florida? I just can't get around in my mind what the problem is." Lord Laird also believed his association with Mr Knight could have benefited Northern Ireland because Mr Knight had talked of creating a telecommunications business employing 1,500 people. The peer also told the BBC he had seen a letter from the Metropolitan Police stating Mr Knight was of no interest to them and did not have to be placed on the UK sex register because his five year probation period ended in 2008. Mr Knight has claimed the register was not the real reason he lost control of the Belfast Giants and has threatened to pursue the matter in the courts. While he said he was willing to be interviewed by the BBC, he pulled out on two occasions after reporting to the police two alleged incidents at his London home. On a third occasion he attempted to impose conditions upon our reporting. You can hear more on this story on BBC Newsline on BBC One at 18:30 GMT on Thursday

अल्स्टर यूनियनिस्ट पीयर लॉर्ड लेयरड फ्लोरिडा में एक पंजीकृत यौन अपराधी के लिए एक भुगतान सलाहकार थे और उन्होंने बेलफास्ट जायंट्स आइस हॉकी टीम के अधिग्रहण के हिस्से के रूप में हाउस ऑफ लॉर्ड्स में उनके लिए बैठकों की मेजबानी की।


My fear of dating as someone with dwarfism

Summary: Athlete and law student Pani Mamuneas has never had a girlfriend and says he suspects the only women who approach him want to tick "dwarf" off their bucket list. The 19-year-old decided to do something about it and applied for a TV dating show.

You always hear girls say 'ooh what's your type? Oh tall, you know tall and handsome' and I'm the total opposite of that. At 4ft 7in people have always asked me 'would you have wanted to be born taller?' But now, I can't imagine life any other way. When I was younger I never saw myself as having a disability. I wasn't even aware of it until my teenage years when growth spurts happened to others and I started to see that I was different and school became very difficult. My fellow students at school in Leicester would ask 'Pani why are you so small? Were you born the size of a pea?' Thinking back, all those things that hurt me could have easily been avoided by realising people were just curious - they were kids asking silly questions. I have what's known as Achondroplasia - a form of dwarfism. Apparently I'm taller than average for my condition but still quite tiny and it definitely affected potential relationships and how I have viewed myself over the years. My male friends and I would always talk about girls and celebrities, the ones we would dream of marrying and how we would ask them out. But this is when things went very wrong for me. At the age of 12 I asked a girl out. We went to the cinema and seemed to have a good time, but the next day the gossip began. I secretly told a friend in the school library that I liked her but he wrote it in big letters on the whiteboard for everyone to see - when I saw it I wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. Myself and the girl both ended up in tears and she felt too embarrassed to talk to me again. That was when I lost all of my confidence and thought I was not good enough because of my height. I stopped talking to girls and I certainly wouldn't reveal if I fancied someone. I was afraid of what girls would think of me, always worrying they might ignore or tease me, or treat me like a nobody, because I was different. It was a very difficult time of my life. When I reached college, however, things started to look up. Everyone seemed to have matured and the general bullying stopped. It became a time for me to discover who I was, and what I wanted to do with my future. Sadly, this new way of thinking didn't mean my love life improved and I had other challenges to overcome including going to nightclubs with friends. I wouldn't have the confidence to go up to girls, chat to them or ask them to dance. I always felt that because I was different if a woman approached me it was so she could tick it off her bucket list. It was at this point, having never had a girlfriend, I decided to contact Channel 4's The Undateables - a reality show which tries to match disabled people with a partner - and so face my fear of dating with the hope of potentially finding somebody. It was a drastic thing to do but I thought if I could successfully go on a date on a television show I wouldn't have any confidence problems in the future. Facing my fears worked and I now feel able to approach a woman and have a conversation with her because I have learned there isn't anything to be afraid of. If the girl doesn't like me fair enough, but some open-minded people will like me. I had been competing internationally in shot put and javelin and hoped to compete in the Paralympic Games in Rio last year but injury forced me to take time out. Participating in The Undateables helped me to focus on a different aspect of life and took my mind off the injury although I've now returned to training with my sights set on the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo as well as taking a degree in law. This process has further boosted my confidence and I've realised that being short isn't a barrier it's a feature. All this time I shouldn't have thought of myself as less of a person. Being me is the best thing I can do better than anyone else. The Undateables transmits on Monday nights at 21:00 GMT on Channel 4 and is also available on All 4. Produced by Beth Rose For more Disability News, follow BBC Ouch on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to the weekly podcast.

एथलीट और कानून के छात्र पानी मामूनियस की कभी कोई प्रेमिका नहीं रही है और उनका कहना है कि उन्हें संदेह है कि केवल वही महिलाएं जो उनसे संपर्क करती हैं वे अपनी बाल्टी सूची से "बौने" को टिक करना चाहती हैं। 19 वर्षीय ने इसके बारे में कुछ करने का फैसला किया और एक टीवी डेटिंग शो के लिए आवेदन किया।


Chechnya's long wait for the disappeared to return

Summary: For visitors today to Chechnya's bustling capital, Grozny, war already seems like a distant memory. But thousands of Chechens are still waiting for relatives who disappeared in the war to return - their hopes boosted by traditional beliefs about life and death.

By Dina NewmanBBC News Travellers returning from Grozny marvel at the transformation of the city. Eleven years ago, after Russia's second military operation to bring the republic under central control, it stood in ruins. Today it's a place of busy cafes, smart shops and new high-rise buildings. Yet scholars note that the war-inflicted wounds in Chechen society are not healing. Thousands of families cannot accept that loved-ones who disappeared may be dead - either because there has been no official confirmation of death, or because of the Chechen belief in the power of dreams. Relatives believe they connect with lost family members through dreams, and this hinders the process of mourning and moving on. As long as one family member can dream of the missing relative, the whole family feels his or her presence in their daily life. Fortune tellers The subject has been studied by Cambridge University social anthropologist Mantas Kvedaravicius, who spent long periods in Chechnya between 2007 and 2009 and shot a film that was premiered at this year's Berlin Film Festival. "He comes to me each night, he is present in my life, his presence gives me joy," says one mother quoted by Kvedaravicius. Another mother dreams of three people sleeping in a room. Two of them are her surviving sons, and the third bed, she reasons, must be occupied by her missing son. "I want to lift the blanket, but I dare not look," she says. "I think if I look my heart will break. Better I should think that there lies my Rustam." A third mother has a more puzzling story. "I dreamed of my son and he had a hurt leg and he asked me for his shoes," she says. "I had old galoshes, which I took - and I broke one, and gave my son one-and-a-half." Such dreams are treasured and discussed in detail with friends, family and fortune tellers, to determine the loved-one's whereabouts and state of health. Before the family receives proof of death, even a brief thought of the missing person as dead would cause a feeling of guilt, as if it were a betrayal. "Families talk about their missing members daily, and always in the present tense," says Chechen historian Maerbek Vachagaev. "When I am visiting, I always ask for news of the disappeared. Sometimes I am certain that the missing person is no longer alive, and his family's hopes are futile. But I would not dare suggest it. "'Who are you to know that our son is dead? How can you be so sure?' they would reply." Hopeless search Outside Chechnya, it is generally understood that the vast majority of those who disappeared are dead. But Chechen and Russian officials are rarely able to give confirmation of death. It is impossible for Chechen officials even to acknowledge cases of disappearance, unless they can be blamed on Russian federal troops. Nearly all Chechens avoid talking about abduction or torture by Chechen security forces, for fear of punishment. The myth of Chechen prisoners stuck somewhere in Russian jails is therefore free to circulate. Mantas Kvedaravicius accuses Chechen officials of promoting what he calls the cruel "politics of hope". "This is a way of keeping someone at bay," he says. "Not only the years of family life lost in the hopeless search, but the very absence of the death and the recognition of this absence, cause individuals to collapse from inside." He compares the state of the disappeared relatives with the concept of Barzakh, in Muslim teaching - a state between life and death, where souls rest until the day of resurrection. In the words of one mother: "I hear a sound at night. I wake up. I look through the window and there is nothing. I do not have him alive, and I do not have him dead."

चेचन्या की हलचल भरी राजधानी ग्रोज़नी में आज आने वाले आगंतुकों के लिए युद्ध पहले से ही एक दूर की स्मृति की तरह लगता है। लेकिन हजारों चेचन अभी भी उन रिश्तेदारों के लौटने की प्रतीक्षा कर रहे हैं जो युद्ध में गायब हो गए थे-जीवन और मृत्यु के बारे में पारंपरिक मान्यताओं से उनकी उम्मीदें बढ़ गई थीं।


Suspected WW2 bomb detonated on Castletown beach

Summary: A device believed to be have been an unexploded World War Two bomb was donated by experts after it was discovered on an Isle of Man beach.

The device was found on Castletown beach and destroyed in a controlled explosion on Thursday. It was the second device to be found in just over a week after an "unexploded projectile" was discovered in a rock pool on 22 February. The Manx coastguard said the area was being kept "under observation". Several other explosives have been discovered around the island in recent years. In 2016 a wartime device was discovered in Ramsey, while two mortars were later discovered on a green lane track in the Sartfell area, near Kirk Michael. The Isle of Man Coastguard said suspicious objects found around the Manx coast should always be reported as soon as possible.

ऐसा माना जाता है कि द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध का एक अप्रकाशित बम था जिसे आइल ऑफ मैन समुद्र तट पर पाए जाने के बाद विशेषज्ञों द्वारा दान किया गया था।


What was in Osama Bin Laden's tape collection?

Summary: After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Osama Bin Laden was forced to flee the city of Kandahar, where he had been based since 1997. Several compounds were hastily vacated, including one, opposite the Taliban foreign ministry, where al-Qaeda bigwigs met. Inside it, 1,500 cassettes were waiting to be discovered.

By Richard Fenton-SmithBBC News Picking through the ransacked property, an Afghan family found this haul of audio tapes, which they swiftly removed and took to a local cassette shop - with the Taliban now gone, there was money to be made producing previously banned pop music, and these were ripe for wiping and filling with the hit songs of the day. But a cameraman working for CNN heard about the haul, and convinced the shop owner to hand the tapes back, saying what they contained could be important. He was right. This was, after all, al-Qaeda's own audio library. The tapes eventually made their way to the Afghan Media Project at Williams College in Massachusetts, who asked Flagg Miller - an expert in Arabic literature and culture from the University of California, Davis - to immerse himself in this hotchpotch of sermons, songs and recordings of intimate conversations. He is still the only person to have heard the collection in full. "It was totally overwhelming," says Miller, recalling the day he received two dusty boxes of tapes back in 2003. "I didn't sleep for three days just thinking about what would be required [to] make sense of it." More than a decade on, Miller has written a book about his findings, titled The Audacious Ascetic, which explores this unique collection. The tapes date back to the late 1960s through to 2001 and feature more than 200 different speakers - Osama Bin Laden among them. He is first heard in a tape from 1987 - a recording of a battle between Afghan-Arab mujahideen and Soviet Spetsnaz commandos. Bin Laden had left his home in Saudi Arabia, where he had been brought up in luxury, to make a name for himself fighting Afghanistan's infidel invaders. "Bin Laden wanted to create an image of an effective militant - no easy job, because he was known as a bit of a dandy, who wore designer desert boots," says Miller. "But he was very sophisticated at self-marketing, and the audio tapes in this collection are very much part of that story - the myth-making." The collection also features speeches given by Bin Laden in the late 1980s and early 1990s to audiences in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. "What's fascinating is how Bin Laden is speaking about the ways in which the Arabian Peninsula is threatened - but who is the enemy? It's not the United States, as we often think, or the West. It's other Muslims," says Miller. While the US would eventually become Bin Laden's prime target, there is almost no reference to "the far enemy" in these early speeches. For several years he was much more concerned with what he called "disbelief" among Muslims who did not adhere to his strict, literalist interpretation of Islam. "They are Shia first and foremost. They are Iraqi Baathists. They are Communists and Egyptian Nasserists," explains Miller. "Bin Laden wanted to bring jihad to the question of who is a true Muslim." Audio cassettes were the perfect tool for proselytising and propaganda - it's no wonder Bin Laden was a fan. They could be shared easily - dubbed, or passed from hand to hand - and censors paid little or no attention to them. They were also hugely popular in the Middle East and Arab world, where people would often listen to them, together with friends, formulating revolutionary ideas. While sermons and speeches dominate this collection, there are curiosities, too. Among them is a conversation with a genie - or Jinni, in Arabic - who has taken over the body of a man. Speaking through him, he claims to have knowledge of political plots, although Bin Laden is said to have had no time for such superstition. There's also a recording of Afghan-Arab fighters - Arabs fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion force - having breakfast at a training camp in late 1980s. This candid conversation reveals the humdrum nature of life on the front line. The conversation is dominated by the yearning for a good meal and the culinary delights of "Mr Hellfire" - a famous chef in Mecca, known for his delicious desserts. There are also hours of Islamic anthems - songs featuring dramatised battles, and musical messages for aspiring Mujahideen. A key recruitment tool. "For many, this is the way into jihad - through the heart," says Miller. "These songs have an emotional draw, bringing home the sound of combat many would read about and see on TV - there's something intimate about hearing them in your headphones because they really play on your imagination." What about Phil Collins? Any Fleetwood Mac or the Rolling Stones? Unfortunately not - but Western pop music does make an appearance in the form of Gaston Ghrenassia, who usually performed as Enrico Macias, an Algerian Jew who first found fame in France, before achieving worldwide success in the 1960s and 70s. "I think this collection of French songs reveal the extent to which Afghan-Arabs in Kandahar spoke many languages, and had many world experiences. Many had lived in the West for long periods and it can't be said enough that they had led multiple lives," says Miller. "These songs suggest that that someone, at some point in their life, was enjoying the songs of this Algerian Jew - and may have continued to enjoy them despite other struggles that clearly would have suggested doing so was heresy." Another unexpected name to make an appearance in the tapes is Mahatma Gandhi, who is cited as an inspiration by Osama Bin Laden in a speech made in September 1993. This is also the first speech in the collection in which Bin Laden calls on supporters to take action against the US… by boycotting its goods. "Consider the case of Great Britain, an empire so vast that some say the sun never set on it," says Bin Laden. "Britain was forced to withdraw from one of its largest colonies when Gandhi the Hindu declared a boycott against their goods. We must do the same thing today with America." Bin Laden also encourages his audience to write letters to US embassies, to raise concern about America's role in the Middle East conflict. Still no mention of violence against America. "That changes in 1996, days after he is exiled from Sudan," says Miller. "Under US pressure he is stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 and he has also lost all of his money and so he's at his wits end. And so Bin Laden has to come up with something desperate to galvanise his extremist supporters, and that's done in his 1996 speech from Tora Bora." Holed up in the Hindu Kush, this speech is often called Bin Laden's declaration of war - but having gone through a complete recording of the speech found in the collection, Miller says this is not entirely accurate. "The last third of this speech is 15 poems, and many times when this speech is translated, the poetry gets dropped out. Because of this, we don't appreciate the extent to which this speech wasn't a declaration of war, as it was framed by the media at the time. "It's about the urgency of taking on the United States, but in light of a far greater struggle - the struggle against Saudi corruption." It's only in one of the final recordings found in the collection that there is any allusion to 9/11, in a recording of the wedding of Osama Bin Laden's bodyguard, Umar, which was taped a few months before the attacks on New York City and Washington DC. "There's a lot of mirth on the tape and then Bin Laden comes up, and it's no longer mirth. He talks about how celebration is important, but it mustn't overshadow more austere issues." Bin Laden then makes an ominous reference. "He talks explicitly about 'a plan' - he doesn't reveal details - and how we are 'about to hear news' and he asks God to 'grant our brothers success'," says Miller. "I understand that to signify the 9/11 attacks [because] he is talking specifically about the United States at that juncture." It's curious that across more than a decade of recordings which feature Osama Bin Laden, the thing he is most commonly associated with - terrorist violence against the West - gets such little mention. "Al-Qaeda's primary enemy on most of these tapes, most of the time, is Muslim leaders," says Miller. "Al-Qaeda's continued presence in Yemen, its effects in Iraq, and its ongoing devastation of Muslim lives in the Muslim world only confirms the fact that this organisation, this idea, claims many bloody paths. "There is nothing inevitable about 9/11 on these tapes. It was hard working on these tapes to remind myself of that." You can hear the documentary The Bin Laden Tapes on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, 17 August at 20:00 BST and on the BBC World Service from Tuesday, 18 August. Or catch up afterwards on iPlayer. Flagg Miller is the author of The Audacious Ascetic Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

2001 में अफगानिस्तान पर अमेरिकी आक्रमण के बाद, ओसामा बिन लादेन को कंधार शहर से भागने के लिए मजबूर होना पड़ा, जहां वह 1997 से रह रहा था। कई परिसरों को जल्दबाजी में खाली कर दिया गया था, जिनमें से एक, तालिबान के विदेश मंत्रालय के सामने था, जहां अल-कायदा के बड़े लोग मिले थे। इसके अंदर, 1,500 कैसेट खोजे जाने की प्रतीक्षा कर रहे थे।


Human bombs: Are they a realistic threat?

Summary: The underwear bomb that surfaced in Yemen this month has reignited concern that al-Qaeda's bomb-makers are finding innovative ways to hide explosive devices - even placing them within the body. How worried should we be?

By Gordon CoreraSecurity correspondent, BBC News A body cavity device would be just the latest chapter in the deadly cat and mouse game played between al-Qaeda and Western security officials when it comes to aviation. The terror group has consistently sought out new means of evading airport security regimes. After the use of box cutters and hijackings on 9/11, cockpit security was enhanced. But only a few months later, a shoe bomb nearly brought down a plane - and the introduction of security checks on footwear. By 2006 al-Qaeda had moved on to developing bombs made out of fluids, in turn leading to restrictions on liquids in hand luggage. In 2009, an underwear bomb worn by a young Nigerian nearly brought down a flight to Detroit. A few months before that incident, a young man had offered to surrender to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who runs Saudi Arabia's counter-terror operations. He insisted that he wanted to do so in person. When he met the prince at his villa in Jeddah, a phone call triggered a hidden bomb. The bomber's body was flung in all directions and part of his arm was embedded into the ceiling but remarkably, the prince was not seriously hurt. The exact nature of the device has been the source of some dispute, with some claiming it was internally placed in the rectum, others that it was an underwear bomb. The bomber, Abdullah al-Asiri, was carrying a device believed to have been built by his brother Ibraham al-Asiri, al-Qaeda's master bomb-maker in Yemen and arguably the most dangerous and most wanted al-Qaeda associate individual globally. He is credited with a number of innovative devices ranging from the underwear bombs to the devices hidden in printer cartridges bound for the US on cargo flights (which were only discovered thanks to an intelligence tip-off). On Monday, the group showed how deadly its devices could be when a suicide bomber killed close to 100 soldiers in Sanaa. A detailed 2011 report by Dr Robert J Bunker, of Claremont Graduate University, argues that the trend is moving bombs closer to the body - and the logical extreme is to place bombs inside the body. Drug smugglers frequently hide packages in body cavities such as the lower digestive tract. And in World War II, the forerunner of the CIA hid escape kits within the rectum. "If you go back in the military history literature, the placing of explosive booby traps such as fragmentation grenades under, and even inside of, the corpses of soldiers is a very common phenomenon," Bunker says. "This was especially evident in the Pacific Theatre in World War II and in the Vietnam War." One step beyond inserting a bomb in a body cavity is to undergo a medical procedure and open someone up, place the bomb inside their body and sew them up again. This has been attempted with animals. In 2010, al-Qaeda in Iraq reportedly surgically implanted bombs into dogs in order to send the canines on planes to the US on which they would explode. In this case, the animals died before the plan could be carried out. Surgically inserting a bomb requires considerably medical skill, and al-Qaeda bomb-maker al-Asiri has reportedly been working with doctors to see if it can be done. "The surgeon would open the abdominal cavity and literally implant the explosive device in amongst the internal organs," Dr Mark Melrose told ABC News. Other reports suggest devices could be placed in the breasts of female bombers much like an implant. However, one Gulf-based security expert says he has seen no evidence to support reports of doctors working on surgically-implanted bombs. So could such bombs be developed? The underwear bombs seized in 2009 and 2012 have no metal components and so can pass through metal detectors. After the underwear plot of 2009, there was pressure to introduce more body scanners at airports. Despite the objections of travellers who felt the images invaded their privacy, these machines have been introduced at some airports in the US and Europe. But in some parts of the world - notably the Middle East - they are barely used at all. While scanners may be able to pick up the type of concealed underwear bomb used in 2009, they may not pick up a device within the body. How else might such a bomb be detected? A medical X-ray machine might do it (just as it can pick up drugs hidden within the body), but concerns would be raised about exposing travellers to this level of radiation. Testing for explosive residue is another option, but careful bomb-makers leave precious little contamination. More emphasis may need to be placed in future on looking for suspicious behaviour at airports and forms of "soft" interrogation by security personnel - a tactic Israel has used. But while al-Qaeda may want to use this type of bomb, one security source tells me it may not be so easy to carry out in practice. Would a bomber with a device sewn into their body be fit to travel, and without exhibiting signs of recent surgery? Bomb-makers would also face the problem, experts say, of working out how much of the explosion the body itself would absorb. This may have been what saved Prince Nayef - it's possible that most of the blast was absorbed by his attacker's body, or the impact travelled into the floor. This may make the body bomb less useful as a tool for assassination. But in a plane, all that may be needed is an explosion just strong enough to punch a hole in a pressurised cabin. But the main challenge in such bombs, experts say, is detonation. If a timer is sewn into the body with the device, then what could the bomber do if the flight is delayed? The 2009 underwear bomb was thought to have used a chemical detonator delivered by syringe, but this failed to work and instead just burned the bomber. The 2012 version is thought to have this element upgraded, but the details have not been made public. And if a bomb is placed internally, rather than worn, it would be even harder to ensure a syringe hits the right point. Detonation through a phone call (as used in Jeddah against Prince Nayef) is an option, but only if you can guarantee phone coverage in flight, which is not always the case. The body bomb may so far be an unproven concept but al-Qaeda - and particularly its affiliate in Yemen - has shown itself to be unrelenting in its desire to strike the US, and especially planes. It has also shown itself remorselessly innovative in the search for new ways to achieve its deadly goals.

इस महीने यमन में सामने आए अंडरवियर बम ने इस चिंता को फिर से जगाया है कि अल-कायदा के बम बनाने वाले विस्फोटक उपकरणों को छिपाने के नए तरीके खोज रहे हैं-यहां तक कि उन्हें शरीर के भीतर भी रख रहे हैं। हमें कितना चिंतित होना चाहिए?


Profile: Yousuf Raza Gilani

Summary: Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has proved himself to be a wily and resilient political operator who up until June 2012 had persistently defied his critics and the might of the judiciary to cling onto his job.

But it appears that defiance has finally came to an end with his shock disqualification from office by Pakistan's Supreme Court. Its announcement came two months after it convicted the premier of contempt because of his refusal to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. Mr Gilani's strategy of not appealing against his conviction so as not to antagonise the court appears to have failed. His determination to stand up for himself helped Mr Gilani grow in stature in the eyes of many Pakistanis. He became the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Pakistan, where civilian governments have been repeatedly overthrown by the powerful military, often with the support of the Supreme Court. When he was appointed to the job in March 2008 many commentators did not expect his tenure would be long. But he repeatedly rose to the challenge and fended off his critics. In April 2012, Mr Gilani seemed in a stronger position than at any point during his confrontation with the Supreme Court. Although he was found guilty of contempt, the court gave him only a symbolic sentence and he did not have to serve any time in jail. The prime minister had argued that the president, who rejects the charges, had immunity as head of state. In April, the court in effect backed down from its efforts to remove the elected prime minister, and its symbolic judgement and token sentence were seen as something of a personal victory for Mr Gilani - the judiciary, the army and the opposition had apparently failed in their efforts to remove him. It is not clear whether Mr Gilani will now try to appeal against his disqualification. The ruling Pakistan People's Party should have the necessary majority in parliament to elect a new prime minister. In spite of his conviction, Mr Gilani emerged from his trial with his reputation enhanced, having succeeded in portraying himself as a man defending democracy in the face of a politically motivated campaign against him and his government. Throughout his time in office it was clear that whatever the criticisms levelled at him - from poor governance to corruption - no party wanted to be seen as the one to bring down yet another elected government in Pakistan. Supporters said that his long period as PM reflected Mr Gilani's sound political judgement and staying power. He refrained from followed the bidding of former President Pervez Musharraf, despite heavy pressure by his government to coerce him into joining many of his Pakistan People's Party (PPP) colleagues in switching sides. Mr Gilani's refusal to do a deal with Mr Musharraf is much admired within his party. He went to jail in 2001, serving five years following a conviction over illegal government appointments that were alleged to have taken place during his term as Speaker of parliament between 1993-96. A tall, softly-spoken man with an air of authority, he has acquired a reputation for doing the right thing. Political family Yousuf Raza Gilani was born on 9 June 1952 in Karachi in the southern province of Sindh, but his family comes from Punjab. The Gilanis are among the most prominent of landowners and spiritual leaders in the south of Punjab province. Their home town is the ancient city of Multan. The family's prominence naturally led to its members vying for political power. Mr Gilani's grandfather and great-uncles joined the All India Muslim League and were signatories of the 1940 Pakistan resolution. This was the declaration which eventually led to partition. His father, Alamdar Hussain Gilani, served as a provincial minister in the 1950s. Mr Gilani joined up in 1978 when he became a member of the Muslim League's central leadership. This was soon after he completed his MA in journalism at the University of Punjab. His first term as a public servant was as a nominee of General Zia-ul-Haq. The then Pakistan army chief had been the country's dictator since overthrowing elected Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in a 1977 coup. Mr Bhutto was executed in 1979, an act that forever soured the relationship between the army and the PPP. Figurehead Mr Gilani joined Mr Bhutto's PPP in 1988, months before Gen Zia's death brought an end to its political exile. Observers say it is his loyalty and his disdain for politicking within the party that earned him the nomination for prime minister. "[Mr Gilani] was perhaps the only man among the top leadership who did not badger Zardari for this or any other position," says one PPP insider. "This along with the fact of his proven loyalty, earned him the nod." But it was his independent thinking that won him many admirers after taking over as the country's chief executive. Correspondents say his first few months were uncomfortable, with many doubting whether he had the charisma and standing to lead the country. This feeling was strengthened when Mr Zardari, the PPP chairman, was elected president. It was felt Mr Zardari would now take a more hands-on approach to government - leaving Mr Gilani as little more than a figurehead. That did not happen and Mr Gilani grew in stature as his term progressed. He had to contend with some of the worst crises in Pakistan's history, including extensive flooding, rising Taliban militancy and deteriorating relations with the US after the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Related Internet Links National Assembly of Pakistan Pakistan People's Party The New York Times

पाकिस्तान के प्रधान मंत्री यूसुफ रजा गिलानी ने खुद को एक चालाक और लचीले राजनीतिक संचालक के रूप में साबित किया है, जिन्होंने जून 2012 तक लगातार अपने आलोचकों और न्यायपालिका की ताकत को अपने काम पर टिके रहने के लिए चुनौती दी थी।


Highland communities demanding improved public loo provision

Summary: The North Coast 500 is one of Scotland's most scenic routes, but some communities on it worry the experience is at risk due to a lack of public toilet provision. BBC Scotland's Iain MacInnes travelled the route to investigate the growing row.

The NC500 route is hotting up again this year, bringing thousands of visitors to the winding roads of the north Highlands. For tourists and locals alike - as for us all - there is sometimes the need to stop and spend a penny. But under Highland Council plans to close a number of toilets in the region, already short on provision, that could become a bit more of an issue. Sarah Macleod, of the Shore Caravan Site in Achmelvich, says tourists are "appalled" by the level of public conveniences in the area. She says: "A lot of them have kids with them, and there are elderly tourists as well. "The tourists are concerned and I think it would stop a lot of them coming to our areas if they could not stop somewhere and use the facilities." Across the Highlands, 29 toilets are threatened with closure, many on the NC500 between Ullapool and Kinlochbervie, including those which are open seasonally at the award-winning Achmelvich Beach. "There are people coming to this beach all year round," says Sarah. "The toilets should be open at other times as well because I don't want to know what they are doing otherwise." 'Fantastic opportunity' She adds: "When the toilets weren't open last year there was a lot of not very nice things behind the toilets. It was disgusting." Highland Council says that they face difficult decisions and want to see more communities take on the toilets and run them for themselves. Allan Henderson, chairman of environment, development and infrastructure at the local authority, says: "For the communities that have been doing this for a number of years it is not a major problem." He said having communities take over the running of toilets, means savings can be made that protected other council services and staff, including street cleaners and special needs assistants. Some in the region accept that changes are required but, although the consultation on the closure has been extended until the end of October, feel more time and consideration is needed. Tanja Lister, owner of the Kylesku Hotel, says: "There is a fantastic opportunity for us to really look at this and I would agree there are probably ways in which we could reduce the cost of running these toilets. "We could be extremely organised, instead what has happened is that there has been this reactionary decision pushed through at break-neck speed. "I would ask for an immediate stop to the threat to close these toilets at the end of October because fundamentally that is too short a space for us to come up with any kind of good outcome." 'Handled badly in beginning' Ian Munro, of the Kinlochbervie Fish Selling Company and life-long resident of Kinlochbervie, says those behind the moves to shut toilets "must not have any bowel problems in their lives". He says: "I used to drive fish lorries and for a period of my life 15 years ago I had chronic bout of ulcerative colitis and I depended on public toilets a lot. "It is not a very nice thing to talk about, but it is a real part of life." Highland Council accepts that mistakes have been made in the process, but insists that communities need to play a part to keep toilets in the area open. Councillor Linda Munro, who represents Sutherland, says: "Hands up, we handled this badly in the beginning. "We got it absolutely wrong the way the information went out, but we need to move on from there. "We are striving to keep key toilets open, but still wanting the communities to work with us." Many communities say that the toilets - in their current state - would be a liability and not an asset, as the council insist. However, as things pan out, the toilet network on the route looks set to be very different in the coming years.

नॉर्थ कोस्ट 500 स्कॉटलैंड के सबसे सुंदर मार्गों में से एक है, लेकिन इस पर कुछ समुदायों को चिंता है कि सार्वजनिक शौचालय प्रावधान की कमी के कारण अनुभव खतरे में है। बीबीसी स्कॉटलैंड के इयान मैकिन्स ने बढ़ते विवाद की जांच करने के लिए मार्ग की यात्रा की।


Tech equipment worth £250k stolen in Daventry warehouse theft

Summary: About £250,000 of computer equipment was stolen after a man scaled a five-storey warehouse and broke in through the roof.

Police were called to the break-in at the building in Nasmyth Road in Daventry in the early hours of Monday. A man was found hiding from officers in the warehouse and was arrested. Northamptonshire Police said they searched a wooded area close to the scene and retrieved laptops and tablets worth about £250,000. The 32-year-old was arrested on suspicion of burglary and remains in custody.

एक आदमी द्वारा पाँच मंजिला गोदाम पर चढ़कर छत तोड़कर अंदर घुसने के बाद लगभग 250,000 पाउंड का कंप्यूटर उपकरण चोरी हो गया था।


Three cheers for the onion

Summary: Onions are eaten and grown in more countries than any other vegetable but rarely seem to receive much acclaim. It's time to stop taking the tangy, tear-inducing bulb for granted and give it a round of applause, writes the BBC's Marek Pruszewicz.

Deep in the archives of Yale University's Babylonian Collection lie three small clay tablets with a particular claim to fame - they are the oldest known cookery books. Covered in minute cuneiform writing, they did not give up their secrets until 1985, nearly 4,000 years after they were written. The French Assyriologist and gourmet cook Jean Bottero - a combination only possible in France, some might say - was the man who cracked them. He discovered "a cuisine of striking richness, refinement, sophistication and artistry" with many flavours we would recognise today. Especially one flavour. "They seem obsessed with every member of the onion family!" says Bottero. Mesopotamians knew not just their onions, but also their leeks, garlic and shallots. And this devotion to the humble bulb is shared by most subsequent cooks too - rare is the cookery book that that is onion-free. It's the world's most ubiquitous foodstuff. The UN estimates that at least 175 countries produce an onion crop, well over twice as many as grow wheat, the largest global crop by area harvested. And unlike wheat, the onion is a staple of every major cuisine - it's arguably the only truly global ingredient. "We think that based on genetic analysis onions came from central Asia, so they are already far afield by the time the Mesopotamians are using them. There's also very early evidence of their use in Europe back to the Bronze Age," says food historian Laura Kelley, author of The Silk Road Gourmet. "They are a very pretty flower, so it could be someone thought, 'These are gorgeous,' and then found they were also nutritious. They are very, very easy to grow... There's a very good chance of success and very few pests." Without doubt, onions would have been traded along the Silk Road as far back as 2,000BC, around the time the Mesopotamians were writing down their onion-rich recipes, Kelley says. Mesopotamian wildfowl pie Laura Kelley, author of the Silk Road Gourmet, has cooked some of the recipes in the Babylonian cuneiform cookery book, including this pie. The original ingredients are: Fowl, water, milk, salt, fat, cinnamon, mustard greens, shallots, semolina, leeks, garlic, flour, brine, roasted dill seeds, mint and wild tulip bulbs, says Kelley. (NB the last ingredient can be toxic) See Laura Kelley's step-by-step cooking guide Today, though, there is little global trade in onions. About 90% are consumed in their country of origin. This may be why, in most parts of the world, onions generally escape much notice. China and India dominate production and consumption - between them they account for about 45% of the world's annual production of more than 70 million tonnes. Neither country is among the top onion-eating nations, however, measured by the quantity of onions eaten per head of population. The global champion in this regard is Libya, where in 2011 each person ate, on average, 33.6kg of onion, according to the UN. "We cook up onions with everything," a Libyan friend tells me. Some even consider macaroni or couscous with onion the national dish. Kelley points out that a lot of West African cultures eat "huge amounts of onions", though none of them makes it into the UN's top 10. "There's a Senegalese dish called Yassa, which has a huge amount relative to the amount of meat or veg - it's onions with onions," she says. The Senegalese ate 21.7kg per head in 2011, according to the UN data, more than twice as much as Britons, who got through around 9.3kg per head. Extended family From top left, clockwise: Garlic - Allium sativum, Onion - Allium cepa, Leek - Allium ampeloprasum, Chives - Allium schoenoprasum, Shallot - Allium cepa var. aggregatum, Spring onion (scallion) - various cultivars of Allium cepa, but also some other species The French, whom the British like to think of as big onion eaters, in fact made do with a modest 5.6kg each. One country where onions do make headlines, is India - if the price goes up too fast, there will be trouble. Within a month of being sworn in as India's new prime minister in May, Narendra Modi's government intervened to stop onions being exported too cheaply, fearing a rise in domestic prices. Four years ago the government of the day halted all exports, and even imported onions, to prevent street protests. "There is no established causal relationship, but anecdotally it is true that onion price spikes have become important election issues from time to time," says Pranjul Bhandari, HSBC's chief India economist. Perhaps the most notable impact was in 1998, when the defeat of the governing BJP party in Delhi state elections was put down to the rise in onion prices. The reason for their political importance is that onions form "an integral part of almost every Indian household's life", according to Bhandari. "Barring a few exceptions, no Indian meal is complete without onions as an ingredient. As a result, changes in the price of onions are felt every day by the common man," she says. In the UK, an onion shortage is less likely to cause disturbances, but growers go to some lengths to ensure a steady supply throughout the year. "Harvest will run through July to September - we know they are ready when they fall over," says Sam Rix, a third-generation onion farmer, growing, packing and supplying onions near Colchester in Essex. "The onions are stored in warm air at 28C for three weeks to dry them and to help them develop that golden colour. Then they are gradually cooled down to around zero degrees," he says. "Eleven weeks after harvest the onions will naturally want to grow. It's a race against time to prevent that." The bulbs are then kept chilled at fridge-like temperatures in warehouses about the size and height of a secondary school sports hall for months on end. Although this isn't cheap, it helps ensure that something like 90% of the crop gets to market. Improvements in storage, and the breeding of increasingly hardy varieties means that producers like Rix are now within reach of a tantalising goal - being able to store onions right through until the following year's harvest begins. "Last year we went into the middle of July with onions that we harvested in September," he says. He imported onions - from New Zealand and Spain - for just three weeks of the year. The packing operation, meanwhile, works 363 days out of 365, closing only for Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. There is a small spike in demand at Christmas - perhaps because few turkey stuffings are made without an onion, or perhaps simply because people eat more at Christmas than at other times of year. But it turns out that bigger spikes in British onion demand coincide with other religious festivals - Diwali and Eid. As you might expect, the world's most global ingredient is also its most multicultural. Sliced and diced Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

किसी भी अन्य सब्जी की तुलना में अधिक देशों में प्याज खाया और उगाया जाता है, लेकिन शायद ही कभी बहुत प्रशंसा प्राप्त होती है। यह तीखे, आँसू-प्रेरक बल्ब को हल्के में लेना बंद करने और इसे तालियों का एक दौर देने का समय है, बीबीसी के मारेक प्रुज़ेविज़ लिखते हैं।


Will 'bigger is better' approach work for Sainsbury's?

Summary: Sometimes attack is the best form of defence and this bold move should be seen as a response to threats in the market from a resurgent Tesco's move into wholesaling, the rise of the discounters Aldi and Lidl and of course Amazon - which has the UK grocery market in its sights.

Simon JackBusiness editor@BBCSimonJackon Twitter This bigger is better strategy is primarily based on the increased buying power a combined Sainsbury and Asda will have with suppliers. Sainsbury's boss Mike Coupe is promising a 10% reduction in price on regular staples for customers of both stores. However, one supplier to Asda who spoke to the BBC was sceptical that big price savings could be achieved. "Does [Mike Coupe] seriously think that Sainsbury's and Asda's buyers have been so bad at getting good prices that he can magic up savings of 10%?" Mike Coupe told me that although the two companies are forbidden by competition law to compare buying prices, a third party analysis said that the stores paid different prices for some goods and where that happens, the combined group would try to move both to the lower price. Mammoth task Does that mean that customers will pay the same price in both stores for the same product? Not necessarily says Coupe. He conceded that the stores' brands are different and appeal to different customers - precisely why they are going to keep them running side by side. How shoppers at Sainsbury's will respond to the prospect of being charged more for the same item than Asda customers will be interesting to watch. To integrate these two businesses will be a mammoth task - which will involve migrating Asda logistical processes onto Sainsbury's systems. A commitment not to cut in-store jobs still leaves jobs in other functions vulnerable if the company is to hit its target of cutting £500m pounds in costs. Its hard to imagine that the tie-up won't see cuts in buying, logistics and head office functions. There is still a long way to go before this ambitious deal is done. Even if competition watchdogs give it the green light, Mike Coupe doesn't expect the deal to be sealed until 2019.

कभी-कभी हमला रक्षा का सबसे अच्छा रूप होता है और इस साहसिक कदम को थोक बिक्री में पुनरुत्थान करने वाले टेस्को के कदम, छूट देने वाले एल्डी और लिडल के उदय और निश्चित रूप से अमेज़ॅन से बाजार में खतरों की प्रतिक्रिया के रूप में देखा जाना चाहिए-जिसमें यूके का किराने का बाजार है।


Franklin expedition: Will we ever know what happened?

Summary: Canadian explorers have drawn a blank in the latest hunt for the remains of Captain Sir John Franklin's fatal expedition, 160 years after he took 129 men deep into the Arctic. But will the mystery of the doomed crew ever be unravelled?

By Kate DaileyBBC News Magazine In 1845, Capt Franklin, an officer in the British Royal Navy, took two ships and 129 men towards the Northwest Territories in an attempt to map the Northwest Passage, a route that would allow sailors to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the icy Arctic circle. Stocked with provisions that could last for seven years, and outfitted with the latest technology and experienced men, the two ships - HMS Erebus and HMS Terror - were some of the biggest, strongest, vessels ever to make the journey. But the men vanished into the frozen Arctic, leaving a few clues but no explanation as to what went wrong. The first search party set off in 1848 and searches involving teams from Canada, the UK, and the US have continued ever since. Last week, representatives from Parks Canada announced the results from their search this summer, which proved unsuccessful. "What people have been looking for has changed. We've given up looking for survivors, we've given up looking for bodies. Now we're just looking for any answers," says William Battersby, who wrote the biography of James Fitzjames, the captain of the Erebus. "The extraordinary thing is that despite all this effort, after 160 years and by thousands of people, we still don't know where the ships are, and what happened on the expedition, or what happened to most of the men." Scattered remains Explorers have found rock cairns with messages from sailors who abandoned ship. They've taken oral history from Inuit people whose ancestors saw the ships get stuck in giant ice floes. In several cases, they've dug up the bones and preserved bodies of the ship's crew. But they've found no ships, no logs, and no sign of Franklin himself. In subsequent years, a rough sketch of the troubles emerged. During the first winter, the crew disembarked, travelled south to hunt. Franklin left a reassuring message in a rock cairn, signed "All well". A month later, he was dead. A year later, the crew returned to the cairn and updated the note. By that time, 15 sailors had died. "If it had just been that, it would have been one of the biggest disasters of Arctic exploration," says Ted Betts, a Toronto lawyer and author of the blog Franklin's Ghost. But it wasn't just that. From that time on, things only got worse. The men, sickened from scurvy, tuberculosis and lead poisoning, got weaker and weaker. They reportedly abandoned ship in 1848, only to meet a cold death elsewhere. In 1859, an explorer sent by Franklin's wife travelled to the spot where the ships had been abandoned. He didn't find the Terror or the Erebus. Instead, he found a small whaleboat, full of books, chocolates, and the skeletons of two sailors. The boat, says Russell Potter, professor of English at Rhode Island College, was pointed towards where the abandoned ship once sat. "Maybe they weren't trying to get away, but to get back to their ship and die in comfort," he says. "It's a very poignant arrangement." Two other locations offered a concentrated amount of remains, says Battersby. "They do seem to be associated with men who just abandoned ship, gave up hope of ever being rescued, and sadly, gradually, cannibalised the bodies of their comrades." A few fully-preserved corpses have been found in the snow as well. But the bodies of others, including Franklin, are missing. "They simply disappeared. It's like Apollo 13 went around the moon and never came back again," says Battersby. "They never had a date of death, a place of death. They're immortals who are trapped between life and death. Are they ghosts? How long did the last one live? We just don't know." Desolate and desperate For Ron Carlson, a Chicago architect and licensed bush pilot, it's easy for him to understand why, after all these years, the ships are still missing - and how desolate the last days must have been for men on that doomed ship. "It's vast. When I flew, I could look out over Victoria Strait and see 50 miles of ice pack in all directions," he says. "It's like the surface of the moon, but without any marks." The broad and punishing size of the search area dwarfs the high-tech equipment and meticulous research used by the Parks Canada team, and the other explorers before them. "Both of the ships were caught in the ice for two years but slowly drifting south in a very large body of water," says Marc-Andre Bernier, chief of underwater archaeology services at Parks Canada. That could mean that the ships are hundreds of miles apart. "For us, it's just as important to know where they're not," he says, so that future searches can start fresh. For sailors on the Terror and Erebus, the barren landscape and dim prospects possibly only added to an increasing sense of foreboding. "It seems very clear from several sources that the men on these ships suffered from terrible lead poisoning, which leads to depression," says Battersby, who read the records from an earlier trip by the Terror to the Arctic. "The account of the Terror's voyage of that year says how bad the atmosphere was, how demoralised people were and how depressed they all were." Battersby believes that the ships themselves, which had an internal pipe system to melt ice and provide fresh water, was the source of the poison. Finding the ships could prove this theory. It would also bring to a close a search first launched in the time of Queen Victoria. But it wouldn't end the mystery. "It's really just the beginning," says Betts. The papers, artifacts, and infrastructure will provide a whole new raft of information and leads - and more fodder for followers of the Franklin expedition's sad fate.

कनाडाई खोजकर्ताओं ने कैप्टन सर जॉन फ्रैंकलिन के घातक अभियान के अवशेषों की नवीनतम खोज में एक खाली जगह बना ली है, 160 साल बाद जब वह 129 लोगों को आर्कटिक में गहराई तक ले गए थे। लेकिन क्या बर्बाद चालक दल का रहस्य कभी उजागर होगा?


Cardiff three arrested over woman's 'false imprisonment'

Summary: Two men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of falsely imprisoning a woman in Cardiff.

South Wales Police said officers were called to reports of a "woman in distress" at about 06:40 GMT. A 27-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man from Canton and a 38-year-old man from Gabalfa were taken into custody. Police said the 24 year-old woman was "safe and well". The arrested trio been taken to Cardiff Bay police station where they will be questioned.

कार्डिफ में एक महिला को गलत तरीके से कैद करने के संदेह में दो पुरुषों और एक महिला को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Transgender inmate admits Wakefield jail sex offences

Summary: A transgender prisoner has admitted sexually assaulting inmates at a women's jail.

Karen White, 51, who was born male but now identifies as a woman, has pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual touching at New Hall Prison, Wakefield. The offences took place between September and November last year. She has since been moved to a male prison. Details emerged when White appeared at Leeds Crown Court to admit to a rape committed outside prison. White previously admitted two further rapes, which also happened outside jail. More stories from Yorkshire White will be sentenced for all offences on 11 October.

एक ट्रांसजेंडर कैदी ने महिला जेल में कैदियों का यौन उत्पीड़न करने की बात स्वीकार की है।


NHS Grampian to only publish surgery report recommendations

Summary: NHS Grampian will publish only the recommendations from a report into general surgery at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary after taking legal advice, BBC Scotland can reveal.

The review was carried out by the Royal College of Surgeons of England at the request of the health board. An expert group spent two days within the general surgery department. The board has decided to release just the recommendations, and confirm what the remit of the review was. BBC Scotland understands interim chief executive Malcolm Wright briefed general surgeons and board members on Friday. Local politicians had demanded the report be published in full. Meanwhile the findings of a separate investigation by Healthcare Improvement Scotland into patient care at the hospital is due to be published next week.

बीबीसी स्कॉटलैंड खुलासा कर सकता है कि एन. एच. एस. ग्रैम्पियन कानूनी सलाह लेने के बाद एबरडीन रॉयल इन्फर्मरी में सामान्य शल्य चिकित्सा की रिपोर्ट से केवल सिफारिशें प्रकाशित करेगा।


Plymouth bus lane drivers fined £1m

Summary: More than £1m has been collected in fines from motorists caught driving in bus lanes in the last eight months in Plymouth, the city council has said.

Almost 39,000 fines have been issued since six CCTV cameras were installed in August, Plymouth City Council said. Drivers who are caught face a £60 fixed penalty charge. The authority said the money received was being "invested back into Plymouth's transport network and services". In August, a council spokesman said the aim was to keep traffic flowing and make the roads safer. The £60 fine, which is issued to motorists caught driving in the lanes, is halved if the charge is paid within 14 days of it being issued.

नगर परिषद ने कहा है कि प्लाईमाउथ में पिछले आठ महीनों में बस लेन में गाड़ी चलाते हुए पकड़े गए मोटर चालकों से £1 मिलियन से अधिक का जुर्माना वसूला गया है।


The headstones with unusual stories to tell

Summary: Cemeteries offer a heady mix of history, beauty, nature and death to those who enjoy browsing around them. Burial grounds such as Highgate in north London, which host the graves of the rich and famous, draw thousands of visitors. But there are scores of other less well known but interesting graves around England.

By Bethan BellBBC News The barmaid who taunted a tiger In 1703, Hannah Twynnoy became Britain's first recorded victim of a tiger. She was a barmaid at the White Lion in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, when a travelling menagerie set up in the pub's large rear yard, ready to attract paying crowds. Hannah was warned against upsetting the tiger but she enjoyed bothering and poking at the big cat - until one day it discovered the cage door was open. Fed up of the pesky barmaid, the tiger launched itself on the unfortunate servant and mauled her to death. The stone, in Malmesbury Abbey has the epitaph: In bloom of life She's snatched from hence She had not room to make defence; For Tyger fierce Took life away And here she lies In a bed of clay Until the Resurrection Day. The diver who saved a cathedral William Walker was a deep-sea diver who, in 1905, was employed to help repair the foundations of Winchester Cathedral. Large cracks had appeared in the cathedral's walls and vaulted ceilings, some of which were wide enough for owls to roost in. Because Winchester has a high underlying water table and the cathedral is built on peaty soil, trenches dug below filled with water before any reinforcing work could be done. So Walker, who usually worked at Portsmouth dockyard, was recruited. A tunnel was excavated beneath the building and for six years he spent nearly six hours a day underwater, in darkness, replacing and shoring up the foundations with his bare hands. He worked entirely by touch. Eventually he propped the cathedral up with 900,000 bricks, 114,900 concrete blocks and 25,800 bags of cement. Because it took him so long to put on and take off his heavy diving suit, when he stopped for a break he would just take off his helmet in order to eat his lunch and smoke his pipe. As if that was not enough effort, each weekend he cycled 150 miles - home to Croydon, south London, before returning to work on Monday. He died aged 49 during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. His grave, at Beckenham Cemetery in Bromley, south-east London, bears the words: "The diver who with his own hands saved Winchester Cathedral." The soldier whose beer was too weak In Winchester, there is a grave which pays homage to a 26-year-old grenadier in the North Regiment of the Hants Militia. Thomas Thetcher died after drinking contaminated small (weak) beer when he was hot. Before the invention of modern sanitation, people would drink small beer when fresh water was unavailable. This was because the alcohol was toxic to water-borne pathogens. However, it was not enough to prevent Thetcher catching a fever and dying. Following his death in 1764, his comrades arranged for a jocular headstone inscription warning of the dangers of drink. It read: Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier, Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer, Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall And when ye're hot drink strong or none at all. In 1918, the tombstone caught the attention of a young American soldier called Bill Wilson, who was camped nearby with his US Army unit. Twenty-one years later, following a battle with alcoholism, he founded Alcoholics Anonymous and in 1939 published a book about his experience. In it he claimed the gravestone had been an "ominous warning which I failed to heed", and printed the first two lines of the verse in the front of his book. However, it appears he misunderstood the headstone, as he missed out the crucial advice about only drinking strong beer. On 12 May - the anniversary of Thetcher's death - people gather at the grave to drink (strong) beer and raise a glass to the grenadier. Peter the Wild Boy Peter had been found living alone and naked in a German forest in 1725. He could not talk, and would scamper about on all fours rather than walk. When he was about 12 he was brought to London by King George I where he became a "human pet" at Kensington Palace. However, his inability to learn table manners or speech, hatred of wearing clothes - even his specially-made green velvet suit - and lack of decorum led to him falling out of favour. The court paid for him to retire to a Hertfordshire farm with a generous pension and when he died, aged about 72, the locals paid for a headstone. Even today, flowers are laid on his grave. Peter's funeral was held at St Mary's Church, Northchurch, Hertfordshire, and was paid for by the government. His gravestone was provided by local people. At the time, courtiers assumed Peter's behaviour was the result of being brought up by wolves or bears. However, modern analysis of a portrait suggests Peter had a rare genetic condition known as Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome. The bleeding tombstone of Richard Smith St Mary's Church in Hinckley, Leicestershire, is the last resting place of Richard Smith who was killed on 12 April 1727, aged 20. Although his headstone is fairly run-of-the-mill, the story behind his death serves as an abject warning to young men with a fondness for messing about when they should be paying attention. According to the local history club, a recruiting sergeant for the army had come to Hinckley and was singing the praises of taking the King's shilling. Richard, rather than listening, made jokes and quips until the recruiter lost his temper. In a slight overreaction, the soldier gave the crowd an unplanned demonstration in how to use a pike in close quarter combat - and killed Richard. For years there were reports of the headstone appearing red and tradition held the gravestone sweated blood on the anniversary of the murder. However, a more prosaic explanation was suggested by a researcher in 1936. The gravestone used to be positioned under a block of red sandstone and it was thought that the "blood" being sweated may have resulted in water dripping from this block. The Woodplumpton Witch Nestled among the neat headstones at St Anne's churchyard in Woodplumpton, near Preston, is a boulder marking the grave of Meg Shelton. Known as "the Fylde Hag", she was accused of witchcraft in the late 17th Century. Allegations centred on the fairly tame "stealing milk" and the more-impressive "turning herself into a animal". She was killed in mysterious circumstances when a barrel crushed her against the wall of her cottage. Folklore has it she dug her way out of her grave on more than one occasion. She was eventually buried head down in a narrow shaft so that if she tried to claw her way out she would be heading in the wrong direction - and instead burrow her way to Hell. The boulder was put on top as an extra way of keeping her anchored in the grave. According to legend, if you walk three times around the boulder while chanting "I don't believe in witches", Meg's bony hand will rise from her grave and grasp your ankle.

कब्रिस्तान उन लोगों के लिए इतिहास, सुंदरता, प्रकृति और मृत्यु का एक शानदार मिश्रण प्रदान करते हैं जो अपने आस-पास घूमना पसंद करते हैं। उत्तरी लंदन में हाईगेट जैसे कब्रिस्तान, जो अमीर और प्रसिद्ध लोगों की कब्रों की मेजबानी करते हैं, हजारों आगंतुकों को आकर्षित करते हैं। लेकिन इंग्लैंड के आसपास कई अन्य कम प्रसिद्ध लेकिन दिलचस्प कब्रें हैं।


Two charged following Arbroath fireraising incident

Summary: Two men have been charged following an alleged fireraising incident at a street in Arbroath.

The alleged incident took place in Sidney Street at about 05:00 on 5 October. The two men, who are aged 22 and 19, are expected to appear at Dundee Sheriff Court later. Detectives issued a description of suspects at the time and said that a 34-year-old householder was uninjured in the alleged incident.

आर्ब्रोथ में एक सड़क पर कथित गोलीबारी की घटना के बाद दो लोगों पर आरोप लगाया गया है।


Rare giant squid caught off County Kerry coast

Summary: A deep sea monster has surfaced in County Kerry.

An extremely rare giant squid, which measures 5.8m (20ft) long, was landed by fishermen off the coast of Dingle on Monday. The cephalopod catch is the first in 22 years and only the fifth documented sighting of the squid in Irish waters. Marine Biologist Kevin Flannery described the specimen as a "legend of the sea". "It's something rare, something wonderful and something unusual," Mr Flannery told BBC Radio Foyle. "These things have been legends of the sea, when the trawl comes up and this 20ft arm comes out and sticks on to you - you'd get a bad fright!" The squid was caught by fisherman Pete Flannery (no relation to Kevin), skipper of the Cú na Mara, near the Porcupine Basin, about 120 miles off the Dingle coast. Incidentally, it was Mr Flannery's father who caught two other giant squid in the same waters, in 1995. If you're counting, that makes the Flannerys responsible for landing 60% of all known giant squid in Ireland since 1673. "His father caught two of them back in 1995, so maybe they're attached to them or something like that but I think it's to do with the area in which they fish," said Kevin Flannery. Mr Flannery, who is director of Dingle's Ocean world Aquarium and the Explore Us Aquarium in Portaferry, said the current specimen will now be scientifically studied. "Squid don't have a long lifespan, so obviously they must reproduce rapidly and have quite a number of offspring," he said. "You can learn their growth patterns, what they feed on, what their size ratio is, if they're pregnant, what sex they are and we also keep some for DNA purposes as well to see if they're related to species off the coast of South Africa. "I hope to bring some part of it (the squid) up to the aquarium up in Portaferry and let people see the suckers, because they have hundreds of these sucker nail type cutting discs that they attach to the great whales."

काउंटी केरी में एक गहरे समुद्र का राक्षस सामने आया है।


Can you learn English from EastEnders?

Summary: You might expect anyone who learns their English from watching BBC One's EastEnders to pepper every other sentence with shouts of "Get outta my pub!", "You ain't my mother!" and the collected musings on life of that great sage, Mick Carter, as played by Danny Dyer.

Dominic CascianiHome affairs correspondent@BBCDomCon Twitter But picking up English from the soap was about more than a string of one-liners for Farid Saleh when he arrived in the UK from Afghanistan as a child refugee. It was a route to a new life. Farid's father had been killed in political violence and, as the oldest son, the 13-year-old was in danger. His family paid for him to get to the UK, where the scared and bewildered teenager was placed with a foster family. "When I met my foster family it was challenging, I didn't know what they were saying," he says. "There would be days I would come home from school and say, 'I can't do this.'" So every night his foster mother would sit with him and they'd watch EastEnders together with the subtitles on. They would note new words and Farid would try to use them in sentences. Slowly and steadily he stopped being a teenager lost in a foreign world and grew into a young man with a future. You don't need to take my word for it. Farid speaks for himself in our film, although I should perhaps apologise for twisting his arm into saying the legendary "Get outta my pub!" line. "EastEnders helped me to know what people were talking about at school," he says. "I was able to be part of that conversation." Farid has done well for himself (more on that later) because he was well supported. But professionals say watching soaps is no substitute for proper tuition that can accelerate integration. The problem is, somebody has to pay for it. Very few refugees have the means to do so until they get into work... and to get into work, they need to speak English. So the government funds English tuition. But the charity Refugee Action says new research has uncovered what it says is a crisis in English classes that is preventing people from integrating. The charity says tens of thousands of refugees in the UK are in a linguistic limbo as they wait to get on to courses, known as Esol, because of chronic underfunding. The delays faced by women are even longer because they struggle to get childcare. The system is "simply not fit for purpose", says Mariam Kemple Hardy of Refugee Action, adding that refugees are waiting up to three years to get classes. "When you can't speak English, life can be extremely isolating. They can't make friends with their neighbours. It is incredibly hard to get a job, to become a real part of their community," she said. "So learning English is a big part of rebuilding their lives in the UK. The government has to improve English language provision by increasing investment." Funding for Esol comes from the Department for Education and stood at just over £200m eight years ago - since then it has fallen by half. Natecla, which is the national association for teachers in the field, says that in 2008-09 there were 207,400 adults on courses. That had fallen to 131,000 by 2014/15 - all during a period of high immigration - and it wants a new national strategy for England, like this in place in Wales and Scotland. Who gets help with English lessons? A Department for Education spokesman said: "We are committed to supporting all adults in England secure the English language skills they need for life and work. Adults who are granted refugee status are eligible for the same skills funding as any other English resident." But the calls for better funding are not new - and not confined to lobby groups. They have also come from one of the government's top advisers. The Casey Review into Opportunity and Integration, commissioned by former Prime Minister David Cameron, concluded last year that if people can't speak the language, they end up poorer, isolated and living in segregated communities. It noted that over the course of two recent years more had been spent on Cornish than on English by the department responsible for integration. Ministers have promised to publish an integration strategy in the coming months. There are many charities and volunteers who are trying to plug the gap in helping new refugees to integrate. Farid is one of them. He is studying at university to become a social worker and also helping today's child refugees who feel as lost as he once did. So what does he tell them? "My advice would be to watch EastEnders - and a lot of TV," he smiles. "It will help you - put the subtitles on and watch them."

आप उम्मीद कर सकते हैं कि जो कोई भी अपनी अंग्रेजी बीबीसी वन के ईस्टएंडर्स को देखकर सीखता है, वह "मेरे पब से बाहर निकलो!", "तुम मेरी माँ नहीं हो!" और डैनी डायर द्वारा निभाए गए उस महान ऋषि, मिक कार्टर के जीवन पर एकत्रित संगीत के साथ हर दूसरे वाक्य को सुनता है।


Isle of Man TT visitor numbers up by 6% for 2017 festival

Summary: The number of racing fans visiting the Isle of Man for the 2017 TT festival rose by 6% on the previous year, according to government figures.

The TT visitor survey showed that 45,054 people travelled to the island in June, compared with 42,420 in 2016. The report estimates that the festival brought in about £24.6m to the Manx economy. The recently-published research also indicated a 40% rise in the number of TT fans aged 18 or under. Visitor numbers peaked on 4 June when there were about 26,600 tourists on the island, the survey said. The date - known as Mad Sunday - gives visiting bikers the chance to ride the TT course, part of which is derestricted. At its peak in 1913, the island's tourism industry attracted more than 660,000 people every year.

सरकारी आंकड़ों के अनुसार, 2017 टी. टी. उत्सव के लिए आइल ऑफ मैन आने वाले रेसिंग प्रशंसकों की संख्या में पिछले वर्ष की तुलना में 6 प्रतिशत की वृद्धि हुई।