The ancient Knights of Malta in modern world

Summary: Four thousand Knights of Malta, heirs to one of the great orders of European chivalry of mediaeval times, and the fourth oldest religious order in the Roman Catholic Church, took over the Vatican briefly on Saturday.

By David WilleyBBC News, Rome Members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from more than 100 countries marched five abreast into Saint Peter's Basilica on a cold winter's day under a cloudless sky, squinting in the bright sunlight. The knights were hatless, but wore long black woollen cloaks with the distinctive eight-pointed white cross of their order embroidered in front. The dames (about 30% of the members are now women), wearing similar robes and coiffed with black mantillas, followed behind. The procession, including aid workers and volunteers bringing up the rear, took more than half an hour to wind around the basilica, into the square and up the steps into Saint Peter's. At the high altar Pope Benedict's number two, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, led a special Mass to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the founding of the order by Brother Gerard, a Benedictine monk who opened a hospital for sick and poor pilgrims in Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades. In 1113 Pope Paschal II formally recognised the independence of the Knights with a Papal bull, the original of which is still held in Malta's National Archives. The Knights have had a long history of displacement around the Mediterranean. After being evicted from Jerusalem by Saladin towards the end of the 12th Century, they set up a new headquarters in Cyprus, and subsequently on the island of Rhodes where they created an independent state. During the Middle Ages they were more warriors than hospitallers. For two centuries they were the masters of Malta but they were again evicted, this time by Napoleon who occupied the island on his way to Egypt. They finally settled in Rome in 1834, where they continue to enjoy many of the privileges of statehood, such as the power to appoint and receive ambassadors, print stamps, and issue passports, without actually having a real state to govern. Observer status Today the Knights are a unique sovereign entity in that they rule over no territory except a palace in one of Rome's smartest shopping districts, a church and an elegant villa overlooking the city. They have observer status at the United Nations, just like the Vatican, and Pope Benedict is a member of the monastic order, having joined 15 years ago. He gave his blessing to the knights at the end of the Vatican Mass urging them to continue their work for the world's neediest people. He reminded them that they are not practising "mere philanthropy" but must always stay true to the order's original Christian ideals, and to Church teaching. The order's international headquarters is in a palace situated in Rome's Via Condotti, a short distance from the Spanish Steps. High fashion boutiques nearby offer neat handbags for sale at prices ranging up to $3,000. The atmosphere inside reminded me of an Oxbridge College or a London Club. Inside the porter's lodge there are cubby holes for letters addressed to His Highness, the Grand Master - who is British - and to senior officials. Attracting talent Matthew Festing is an expert on 17th Century European painting. He used to run the Northern England office of the auction house Sotheby's before being elected for life five years ago to become the leader of the Knights of Malta. He now enjoys the title of prince, and holds the equivalent rank of a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Sitting in his cosy private apartment decorated with gold brocade wall coverings, fine antique furniture and paintings, he explained to me how the Knights are changing. "The fact that we are called Knights is a function of the past really," he said. "We were originally recruited from the aristocratic families of Europe." The order has now become a worldwide organisation, and it tries to attract the most talented people from many areas outside Europe. "We have a very different makeup from what we did perhaps 50 years or 500 years ago, but fundamentally the talents we are trying to attract for our members are the same," Mr Festing said.

माल्टा के चार हजार शूरवीर, मध्यकालीन समय के यूरोपीय वीरता के महान आदेशों में से एक के उत्तराधिकारी, और रोमन कैथोलिक चर्च में चौथे सबसे पुराने धार्मिक आदेश ने शनिवार को वेटिकन पर कुछ समय के लिए कब्जा कर लिया।


At-a-glance: Scottish government cabinet

Summary: First Minister Alex Salmond has announced a new, larger Scottish cabinet, in the wake of the SNP's landslide election victory. Here is a look at the nine-strong senior ministerial team.

By Andrew BlackPolitical reporter, BBC Scotland Alex Salmond - first minister After decades in the political spotlight, Alex Salmond has come to be regarded as one of the most able politicians of his generation. He was already a high-profile politician when he made history after being elected as Scotland's first Nationalist first minister in 2007, following many ups and downs for the SNP. He became leader of his party for the first time in 1990, while MP for Banff and Buchan, stepping down after 10 years but making a comeback in 2004. In 2011, Mr Salmond led the SNP to its greatest success yet, not only winning the Scottish election, but an outright majority at Holyrood. As first minister, the one-time civil servant heads the devolved government and is responsible for policies, constitutional affairs and promoting and representing Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon - deputy first minister and health Not everybody agrees with Nicola Sturgeon's politics, but not many question her unwavering commitment to life as an elected politician. Ms Sturgeon - who signed up with the SNP as a teenager - has stuck with the party through good times and bad, climbing the ranks to become Scotland's deputy first minister and health secretary. The former solicitor's direct style has earned her the title of "nippy sweetie", but has attributed this attitude to the seriousness with which she approaches her job. Ms Sturgeon became deputy SNP leader on a joint campaign ticket with Alex Salmond, serving for a time as the party's "Holyrood leader", before Mr Salmond's return to the Scottish Parliament. She came under fire in the last parliament for writing a letter of support for her constituent, Abdul Rauf, who defrauded Department of Work and Pensions of £80,000. Ms Sturgeon told MSPs she had acted in good faith but accepted the wording of her letter was "wrong". Despite the incident, Ms Sturgeon has proved to be a popular figure in the party and has seen through the abolition of prescription charges and declared war on hospital infections. She emerged victorious on election night by taking the new seat of Glasgow Southside - a close fight between the SNP and Labour. As health secretary, Ms Sturgeon oversees the NHS, mental health, pharmaceutical services and dentistry, as well as the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. She has also taken on a new role to promote Scotland's cities. John Swinney - finance John Swinney, who also signed up to the SNP at a young age, is seen as one of the party's key thinkers and strategists. By the time the former MP was in his early 20s, he was elected national secretary at a time of organisational turmoil, prompted by heavy SNP losses in the 1979 UK election. Elected deputy SNP leader in December 1998, Mr Swinney was credited, along with Alex Salmond, for taking a business-friendly approach to economic policy while encouraging a broad approach to encompass "middle Scotland". A spell as party leader came in 2000, but Mr Swinney eventually stood down, following internal criticism and the negative publicity of a leadership challenge by an unelected SNP activist. But the SNP's 2007 election win allowed Mr Swinney - who previously worked in the financial sector - to get back to what he did best, taking on the finance brief. Despite being in minority government, he skilfully garnered the votes he needed to pass the SNP's spending plans through a series of policy trade-offs with opposition parties. At the same time, he budgeted to freeze council tax, despite Westminster spending cuts resulting in a reduction to the Scottish budget. As finance secretary, Mr Swinney's post has taken on a renewed jobs focus, although his wide-ranging brief also includes responsibility for the Scottish budget, local government and public service delivery. Kenny MacAskill - justice A spell in police custody may not have been the best start to the career of an MSP who would go on to take charge of Scotland's justice department - but Kenny MacAskill has more than moved on from those days. Since becoming the Scottish government's justice secretary, following the Scottish National Party's 2007 election victory, the Edinburgh-born solicitor has never had his troubles to seek. Dealing with crowded jails, prisoners on the run and police recruitment is one thing - but Mr MacAskill will be forever remembered over his hugely controversial decision to release from prison Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the only man ever convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Kenny MacAskill, with his reputation as both a forceful and able speaker and a thoughtful and careful analyst, has never been afraid of calling a spade exactly that. His love for the Scottish football team saw him held in custody for the duration of a Scotland v England match at Wembley in 1999, which he dismissed as a "simple misunderstanding" after being neither cautioned nor charged. Mr MacAskill's achievements in the last parliament included boosting Scottish police officer numbers by 1,000 - a key SNP manifesto commitment - and sweeping reforms to criminal justice. As justice secretary, his ministerial responsibilities take in a range of policy areas, from criminal law and sentencing policy to fire and rescue services and religious and faith organisations. Mike Russell - education Mike Russell has been a key figure in the SNP for many years, previously serving as the party chief executive and strategist and aide to Alex Salmond. He was first promoted to the Scottish cabinet and given the education brief after having served as a junior minister. Elected an MSP in 1999, the former TV producer was already a high-profile figure in the party, having taken a role in running their election campaigns. He lost his seat in 2003 and during John Swinney's time as SNP leader - a not altogether happy time for the party - Mr Russell borrowed from the fable of Tory Party's fixers in grey suits to warn that electoral reverses for the party would prompt a visit to Mr Swinney "from the men in grey kilts". When Mr Swinney quit, Mr Russell made a pitch for the leadership - but was beaten by Alex Salmond. Much was made at the time of Mr Russell's poor chances given his status as an unelected politician. But, with Mr Salmond an MP at the time, his rival raised concern about the party - whose focus was now on Holyrood - being overseen by an "absentee laird". But years later, and with much water having flowed under the bridge, Mr Russell made a return to Holyrood in the 2007 election, won by the SNP. With the government's education policy under fire, including a pledge to cut class sizes, Mr Russell was made education secretary, moving, as one government adviser put it, at "a hundred miles an hour" as soon as he was confirmed in the post. As education secretary, Mike Russell is responsible for school and higher education, science, training and skills, social care and Gaelic. Richard Lochhead - environment Richard Lochhead, who is closely associated with Alex Salmond, has served as environment secretary since the SNP's win in 2007. His first major test came just a few months into the job, when the foot and mouth crisis required him to work closely with his UK counterparts on restrictions. Mr Lochhead began courting the Scottish Fisherman's Federation, offering to involve the body more closely with government, winning its support at the next EU talks in return. The former Dundee City Council economic development officer and former convener of the Scottish Parliament's European committee became MSP for Moray in a by-election following the death of Margaret Ewing. It was a bitterly-fought campaign, during which Conservative candidate Mary Scanlon's claim to be the "natural successor" to the late Mrs Ewing caused offence within the SNP. There were also brushes with Westminster ministers, when Mr Lochhead criticised plans not to devolve offshore marine control to Scotland and demanded powers to be able to block controversial plans for ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth. Mr Lochhead has responsibility for agriculture, fisheries and rural development, water quality and climate change. Alex Neil - infrastructure and capital investment Seen as something of a parliamentary bruiser, Alex Neil's high-profile as an SNP spokesman from the backbenches led opposition parties to refer to him as "minister for Newsnight". His efforts saw him awarded with a bona-fide ministerial role in communities and housing. Mr Neil has been particularly outspoken on the banking crisis, and notably teamed up with Lib Dem Tavish Scott and independent MSP Margo MacDonald in a failed bid to put on hold the £12.2bn HBOS takeover. It is all a long way removed from John Swinney's leadership of the SNP, which he secured after beating rival Mr Neil. After Mr Swinney's resignation from the top job in 2004, Mr Neil ruled out standing again, referring to "public statements made by Alex Salmond" that he would not work with him. Mr Salmond, who was sitting purely as an MP, told Newsnight Scotland at the time: "I would find it difficult, personally, to serve under anyone who, in my view, had been systematically undermining the leader of the SNP over the last four years." Despite past disagreements, Mr Neil, firmly back in favour, has now been given a new cabinet post with a focus on economic recovery. His responsibilities include Scottish Water, procurement, European funding, the Scottish Futures Trust, transport and housing and communities. Bruce Crawford - parliamentary business and government strategy Bruce Crawford's previous experience as SNP chief whip and party Holyrood business manager stood him in good stead for the parliamentary business role he won in 2007. With the SNP in minority government, Mr Crawford faced the unenviable task of having to work with opposition parties and win agreement when it came to conducting business at Holyrood. It was a job in which he won praise and, with the SNP now in majority government, will presumably become considerably easier. The former Perth and Kinross Council leader's post, has now been upgraded to cabinet level, and will take on responsibility for government strategy. Fiona Hyslop - culture and external affairs Like Bruce Crawford, Fiona Hyslop has kept her ministerial role, but now takes her place in the cabinet. The move reflects what the SNP sees as a growing international interest in Scotland. With much disagreement between the Holyrood and Westminster governments, Ms Hyslop also has the tough task of liasing with UK ministers. Ms Hyslop's move marks a return to cabinet for the politician - she was SNP's first education secretary but was demoted after a period of sustained opposition party attack on Scotland's education system. Her ministerial duties include Europe, broadcasting, architecture, Historic Scotland and lottery funding.

प्रथम मंत्री एलेक्स सैल्मंड ने एसएनपी की भारी चुनावी जीत के मद्देनजर एक नए, बड़े स्कॉटिश मंत्रिमंडल की घोषणा की है। यहाँ नौ-मजबूत वरिष्ठ मंत्री दल पर एक नज़र है।


Crimea: Fear and unease in Novo-Ozyorne

Summary: Novo-Ozyorne is a small town of 7,000 in Crimea, where cats seem to outnumber people. The people are friendly, but these are painful times to be a Crimean, as the BBC's Patrick Jackson found out.

Ukrainian naval HQ Makeshift church Blockaded arsenal Russian flags in town War memorial Bilingual sign Ukrainian naval HQ Novo-Ozyorne is dominated by a Ukrainian regional naval headquarters on an inlet which leads down to the Black Sea coast. Makeshift church For now, the townspeople worship in a makeshift church while construction work continues on a replacement at the top of the town. Russian blockade of Ukranian arsenal A soldier, believed to be Russian, at a roadblock at the Ukrainian arsenal which is outside the town. Russian flag in town centre Russian flags flutter from lamp posts all around Novo-Ozyorne. War memorial A memorial to Soviet war heroes is a focal point in the town. Entry point to the town The sign at the entrance to Novo-Ozyorne is written in Russian and Ukrainian. The town was only built in 1971 and has a population of 7,200. In peacetime, having a regional naval headquarters up your street can be a boon when your livelihood otherwise depends on summer seaside visitors. Right now the Ukrainian southern fleet HQ bristles with guns - there's even an armoured car parked inside the gate - and they are not offering interviews. Just out of town, you begin to see why: Russian soldiers (everyone here knows the silent "little green men" are Russian) are digging trenches around the blockaded Ukrainian arsenal. In the town, Russian tricolours hang from lamp-posts. Meanwhile, elderly residents like Maria Nikiforovna brave the spring chill to collect their meagre pensions. There are worries that Kiev may stop sending public money if Crimea votes to become part of Russia. As someone who survived the siege of Sevastopol as a little girl, she has great fortitude, but this is hardly the retirement she or others in a town of pensioners had hoped for. The big surprise, perhaps, is the real fear many people here have of reprisals by Ukrainian radicals, should they speak out, let alone side with Moscow before Sunday's referendum on joining Russia. Ukrainian ultra-nationalists played an important role in the demonstrations in Kiev, and many ethnic Russians fear the influence of the far-right in the new government. "Come back after Sunday, then we'll talk," is what you hear again and again, as you walk around the crumbling Soviet-era housing blocks. One woman, who would only be interviewed on condition of anonymity, said: "We love Putin and are for Russia. And when this referendum is over, come back and it will be a pleasure for us to have our photographs taken. We are only for Russia. Why? Because we don't want fascists here." Bar owner Sergei Reshetnik - a Ukrainian who would like Crimea to stay part of Ukraine but with more local powers - fears for the tourist trade. But he is confident the people of the town will still get along together. "In my opinion, Ukraine should have full autonomy so it can look after its own finances. There should be no pressure from the government. I favour independence," he says. Over at the Church of the Holy Apostle St Andrew, the priest is happy to see any believer - Ukrainian or Russian - in the makeshift church where he serves. Meanwhile, construction work continues on its glittering replacement at the top of the town - one of the few new buildings to appear in Novo-Ozyorne. He is keen to highlight local cross-cultural harmony: "There is no question of even talking about the nationality of our parishioners because the Lord said that everyone should have equal access to the temple," he says . But decisions being taken by politicians far away from this little town may put community relations sorely to the test.

नोवो-ओज़िओर्न क्रीमिया में 7,000 लोगों का एक छोटा सा शहर है, जहाँ बिल्लियों की संख्या लोगों से अधिक लगती है। लोग दोस्ताना हैं, लेकिन ये एक क्रीमियन होने के लिए दर्दनाक समय है, जैसा कि बीबीसी के पैट्रिक जैक्सन ने पाया।


Will 'Super Saturday' be a decisive Brexit moment?

Summary: A new date in the diary, a new countdown.

Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter Not the EU summit, not the prime minister's deadline, but what might be a decisive day in the immediate aftermath, already being joked about as Super Saturday. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, in the unlikely event that there is a deal with the EU (progress check, still unlikely but not completely impossible) then the 19 October had been pencilled in as the day when Parliament would be asked to approve the arrangement the prime minister had brokered. Whatever happens now though, Mr Johnson plans to summon MPs to Westminster, where by whatever mechanisms available, he'll essentially try to force a decisive moment. If as expected now, there is no deal, why would he not just automatically do what Parliament has changed the law to do, to seek a delay from the EU immediately? The deadline for that to happen is midnight on that Saturday night. But up until that moment, and perhaps well beyond, Boris Johnson will fight the delay - not just because he believes it would be a mistake, but also because it is a political embarrassment for him to break the promise he flamboyantly made during the summer's leadership campaign and relentlessly since. That promise is that he would not ask for a delay, he'd stick to his Halloween deadline "do or die" - you can pick your particular dramatic metaphor, there are plenty to choose from. But he will overtly do his utmost to pin the blame for a delay on MPs. Whether you agree or find it repellent, there is nothing subtle about the obvious pitching of this No 10 against former Remainers. The truth is a delay would be a policy failure for the prime minister - forget for the moment that he and his team would use it to help their efforts to win a broader political argument. But inside government there is a belief that it might not quite be over. Don't all scream at once. Yes, there are lawyers everywhere warning that there is no way round the so-called Benn Act and they may well be absolutely right. There are active attempts in court to make sure that the legal provisions to force an extension are watertight. And several Cabinet ministers have told me they can see no way to avoid a delay if there is no deal. More in sorrow than in anger one told me "the EU will do what it always does, play long, and we'll have to agree". But inside Number 10 there are still discussions about whether to send a second letter to the EU - meaning the government would comply with the Benn Act demanding that the government has to seek a delay in letter one but then send another letter alongside it essentially denouncing that idea from a political perspective. Put that alongside likely protestations from the prime minister that a delay would be pointless, and perhaps that he would refuse to negotiate any further, and we might all find ourselves in an extremely turbulent period, where the reactions of the EU could be hard to predict. This would likely see the government almost immediately facing challenges in court, or perhaps even pursuing a few of their own. But despite all of the legal and political speculation, as I've written before, this is an untested area where there are no precedents and no conventions to guide us. That's why some of the wilder suggestions, including one that Boris Johnson might even refuse to move out of Number 10 if he loses a confidence vote and can't form a government, are impossible at the moment to exclude. Whatever happens on 19 October, that may be the moment when the extent of the provocation Downing Street is willing to pursue becomes clear. PS. Whatever you think of the aggressive noises coming out of the government about the state of the negotiations and the audacity of their plans, be in no doubt it is designed to convey a message to the EU not to expect Boris Johnson to compromise more readily after the likely general election. Essentially the dramatic language is designed not just to irritate their opponents, but also to make it clear to their negotiating opponents that any Brexit offer from the UK, if there is a Tory majority after the election, is likely to be a harder not softer one and the EU will face a government less willing to compromise, not more. The hope is to make it seem to the EU that their safest choice is to grab this deal. But at this stage, there is not much sign of that happening. PPS. All the hostility has created a separate row in the Tory Party over what goes in their election manifesto. Some Brexit hawks believe it ought to promise an automatic no-deal departure if they win the election (a huge if!) That suggestion riled some ministers and MPs who believe they now have some assurances from Mr Johnson that it would not be so stark. As I understand it there is no final decision. But a likely position is a souped-up version of the PM's 31 October pledge - where the manifesto would say the Conservatives would like to leave with a deal, but if a tight deadline - maybe extremely tight - can't be met, then it's no deal at a pace. Their upset is yet more evidence of Boris Johnson's challenge in keeping the Tories together, and trying to be able to please both former Remain voters and Leavers alike.

डायरी में एक नई तारीख, एक नई उलटी गिनती।


Bradley Cooper on Oscars and Silver Linings Playbook

Summary: Bradley Cooper has risen to the upper reaches of the Hollywood A list after receiving an Oscar nomination for best actor for his role in the comedy-drama Silver Linings Playbook.

By Ian YoungsEntertainment reporter, BBC News It is the first movie for 31 years to have Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories. Cooper plays Pat, whose split from his wife leaves him struggling with his bipolar disorder. It is a breakthrough role for Cooper, who was previously known for playing Phil in the outrageous comedy The Hangover and as Face in the 2010 big screen A-Team remake. He talks about his nomination, who he is taking to the Oscars and his plans to head to Broadway.

कॉमेडी-ड्रामा सिल्वर लाइनिंग्स प्लेबुक में अपनी भूमिका के लिए सर्वश्रेष्ठ अभिनेता के लिए ऑस्कर नामांकन प्राप्त करने के बाद ब्रैडली कूपर हॉलीवुड ए सूची में शीर्ष पर पहुंच गए हैं।


Man detained over Burton-upon-Trent church ground stabbing

Summary: A man who stabbed a teenage girl in the grounds of a church has been detained in a youth offenders institution.

The girl, 16, suffered "significant" injuries in the assault at All Saints Church on Branston Road, Burton-upon-Trent, in January. Claudiu Vacaru, 20, of no fixed address, admitted unlawful wounding and possession of a bladed article in a public place, at Stafford Crown Court. He was sentenced to 30 months and eight months for the offences, on Tuesday. The sentences were ordered to run consecutively. Charges of attempted murder and making threats to kill were dropped.

एक चर्च के मैदान में एक किशोर लड़की को चाकू मारने वाले व्यक्ति को एक युवा अपराधी संस्थान में हिरासत में लिया गया है।


Is business the 'path to peace' in the Middle East?

Summary: It is not yet six months since the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed a peace accord with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, but already there is a new occupant in the Oval Office and another election coming in Israel.

By Sameer Hashmi and Ian RoseBBC News, Dubai But the future of the "Abraham Accords" which normalised relationships between Israel and the two other countries for the first time in their history seems to be secure. Not only have Morocco and Sudan signed similar accords, but millions of dollars of business deals have been signed between the players. In December alone it is estimated that 60,000 Israeli tourists visited Dubai and that is not including the envoys of business people flowing back and forth. "We have a lot in common," says Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, and one of the founders of the UAE-Israel Business Council. "The minute the peace was announced people were jumping to get to know each other. We started creating Whatsapp forums and Zoom meetings and it had its own pace and own momentum." Deals have been announced in industries including banking, football, cyber-security and food technology. Kosher restaurants and catering are now being advertised in Dubai, and two gyms have opened to teach Krav Maga, the Israeli-developed self-defence practice. Some estimates say the accords will reap $4bn (£2.9bn) worth of business. One of the first official business deals was signed between an Israeli arm of the water systems company Fluence and the Dubai-based conglomerate, the Al Shirawi Group. Thani al-Shirawi, one of the company's bosses, says the deal was "a match made in heaven". "We spoke the same language," he told a special edition of the BBC's Talking Business programme, assessing the economic impact of the deal. "We had the same aspiration and we both wanted to grow. Israel had the technology - they are a few laps ahead when it comes to the water industry." The Israeli boss of Fluence, Yaron Bar-Tal, is equally enthusiastic, not just about the business deal but also about the wider peace. "Business can be the path to peace and vice versa, peace is the path to business so both as an Israeli and as a businessman I feel proud having our products as the path to the peace there." But the deal has not been universally acclaimed. The Palestinian response was swift, marches against the deal were seen immediately on the streets of Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority tweeted that there would be no solution until Israel ended its occupation. Cyber-attacks against companies based in the United Arab Emirates also spiked by as much as 250% after the announcement. William Brown, the Middle East lead for crisis and resilience at consultancy Control Risks, says it's important to put that in context. "We are also living in a time when remote working has become the norm," he says. "It's an over-simplification to say the spike has been in response to the deal, though it has obviously had an impact." Meanwhile, speculation that Saudi Arabia could be next to sign an accord with Israel because of its links with Bahrain are being played down. "Under the current [Saudi] king I think it's impossible," says Adedayo Bolaji-Adio from the Economist Intelligence Unit. "He aligns with the school of thought which is you have to solve the Palestinian issue before you can engage with Israel, so I think for the moment the deal is off the table," she says. "I can potentially see Oman signing a deal. I think the Omanis would like to see the reaction from the Arab world to these deals." For many years Israel has had peace deals with Egypt and Jordan but these were never very popular on the ground in those Arab states, unlike the more recent accords which have certainly been welcomed by the business communities in both countries. For decades business has unofficially flowed between the UAE and Israel - now it's out in the open. How far the deals realign the power alliances as well as the economies in the region will be of enormous consequence in the next few years. It seems the business community has already given its verdict. Additional reporting by Gidi Kleinman Talking Business with Sameer Hashmi can be seen this weekend on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News.

संयुक्त अरब अमीरात और बहरीन के नेताओं ने व्हाइट हाउस में इज़राइल के प्रधान मंत्री बेंजामिन नेतन्याहू के साथ एक शांति समझौते पर हस्ताक्षर किए हुए अभी छह महीने नहीं हुए हैं, लेकिन पहले से ही ओवल कार्यालय में एक नया निवासी है और इज़राइल में एक और चुनाव आ रहा है।


'Respect ceasefire' Solheim

Summary: The Norwegian mediator in the Sri Lankan peace process, Erik Solheim, has urged the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels to respect a ceasefire ahead of his visit to the country next week.

Solheim, who's the head of the Norwegian mediating team, said there was a need to stabilise the ceasefire which had seen a number of violations in the recent past. He will meet both the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse and the rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. There's been growing international concern over a recent upsurge in violence in the country; the government has extended a national state of emergency declared last year.

श्रीलंका की शांति प्रक्रिया में नॉर्वे के मध्यस्थ एरिक सोलहेम ने श्रीलंका सरकार और तमिल टाइगर विद्रोहियों से अगले सप्ताह देश की अपनी यात्रा से पहले युद्धविराम का सम्मान करने का आग्रह किया है।


Robbie Lawlor: Man arrested in murder investigation

Summary: Police have arrested a 36-year-old man in connection with the murder of Robbie Lawlor in north Belfast.

Mr Lawlor, 36, was shot outside a house in Etna Drive in Ardoyne on Saturday. He had been a suspect in the abduction and murder of Drogheda teenager Keane Mulready-Woods in January. It is believed Mr Lawlor was a leading figure in a feuding criminal gang. The suspect was detained on Tuesday night on suspicion of murder. The PSNI believes a single gunman was involved in the Ardoyne attack. Three other men and a teenager who were arrested have since been released.

पुलिस ने उत्तरी बेलफास्ट में रॉबी लॉलर की हत्या के मामले में एक 36 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया है।


Fiscal framework: What is Scotland's new funding deal?

Summary: Let's talk about Scotland's new fiscal framework.

By Andrew BlackBBC Scotland News Okay, okay but before you nod off, it is worth pointing out this is a vital issue which goes to the heart of new powers for Scotland. The Scotland Bill, currently making its way through Westminster, stands to transform Holyrood into one of the world's most powerful devolved parliaments - or so we're told by the UK government. Edinburgh is on course to gain major new tax and welfare powers - but that's currently being overshadowed by a debate about whether it can be done fairly. Barnett barney At the moment, most of Scotland's £30bn annual budget is funded by the UK Treasury - known as the block grant - and the amount of cash which goes into the pot is worked out under the Barnett Formula. Once Holyrood gets more power to raise its own tax money, the amount of Barnett cash which comes north of the border will be cut. Year One of these powers is straightforward enough - if you get £10bn worth of cash-raising powers, £10bn is then deducted from the block grant. But things start getting complicated in future years, where tax policy in Scotland and the rest of the UK could begin to look very different. Potential options The Smith Commission, set up by UK ministers to agree which new powers should be transferred from Westminster to Scotland, said the final agreement shouldn't put Scotland at a disadvantage. It's been called the "no detriment" rule - but some experts argue that's a near impossible task. Economist Prof David Bell, said: "You have to have detriment. "If you are taking on new powers, then you take on the risk that something goes wrong in the economy and you don't get the tax revenues that you expected. "You cannot have a situation where, under all states of the world, things will be no worse than they would be under the current Barnett Formula." Prof Bell, of Stirling University, has co-authored a report by the IFS economic think tank, which has looked at various ways of adjusting the block grant. Each has its pros and cons - and getting your brain around the economic theory isn't easy. But three different options for working out how to cut the block grant have emerged: Getting it right is crucial. The economist and Glasgow University Principal Anton Muscatelli has warned a bad deal could leave Scotland hundreds of millions of pounds worse off within a few years. 'Messy fudge' The UK and Scottish governments are committed to keeping the Barnet Formula - which partly allocates money based on population - despite much debate over the years on replacing it. The political scientist, Prof Michael Keating, has a view on the ultimate outcome - and because politicians are involved, you've probably heard this one before. "It will be a political compromise - it always is," said the Aberdeen University academic, adding: "They'll get something in between and then they'll give it a name, like the Barnett Formula. "A lot of people said we should have a formula based on need, and you raise some of your own revenue. "But politicians have shied away from that one, and they're going to back away from it this time, because they'll never find it easy to agree what that formula should be. "So we'll get a messy fudge." And time is now running out. Talks to agree Scotland's new funding deal, being conducted behind closed doors between the Scottish and UK governments, have so far not produced a result. However, everything needs to be wrapped up well ahead of the Scottish Parliament election in May. Without a proper fiscal framework, there remains a question mark over the prospect of Holyrood getting new financial powers.

आइए स्कॉटलैंड के नए राजकोषीय ढांचे के बारे में बात करते हैं।


China set to introduce new rules on smoking in public

Summary: China's health ministry will renew its push to end smoking in public places with new regulations due to come into force on 1 May. These will outlaw smoking in places like bars, restaurants and buses, but not workplaces.

By Chris HoggBBC News, Shanghai More than one in three people smoking a cigarette in the world right now is lighting up in China. The country's authorities believe smoking kills more than one million people every year and that figure is predicted to triple by 2030. The new smoking ban is an attempt to prevent that prediction coming true. Penalties unclear From 1 May, businesses will not be allowed to use vending machines to sell cigarettes in public areas, but there will not be a blanket ban on smoking in the workplace. Crucially, the authorities have not set out penalties for infractions, or specified how the law will be enforced. Across the country, different provinces will impose different sizes of fine. One smoker in Shanghai told the BBC she was unsure whether China was really taking the issue seriously. "I don't think this policy will make much difference," said the young office worker. "Particularly in the smaller cities in the countryside, where smoking is more part of the culture." Shanghai introduced its own ban on smoking in public places in March last year. The city plans to expand the regulations to cover more venues from 1 May. Roger Chu, who runs an Australian restaurant in the city, said the ban has affected his business. "A lot of customers don't want to come into the restaurant because they can't smoke inside," he said. Mr Chu said he hoped that, as time went on, people would realise it was a government regulation and not the restaurant's own policy that was stopping them from smoking. "Then our business will get better," he said. Those comments were echoed by the manager of a Japanese restaurant, who declined to give his name. "It's more about inconvenience than economic cost," he said. "Sometimes it's led to arguments between customers and staff." He admitted, though, that he felt the ban made sense on health grounds. 'Very old tradition' Many non-smokers, of course, approve of the new policy. "I hate those people who smoke," said one young worker in a foreign company. "So I hope this policy can be implemented fully." He, too, was unsure though whether the ban would work. "Smoking is a very old Chinese tradition," he added. The tobacco companies have huge influence in China. The government operates a monopoly on tobacco sales, which brings in huge amounts of money in tax receipts. Campaigners say it is difficult to promote anti-smoking policies because of the lobbying that officials face from both foreign and Chinese tobacco firms. The cost of a packet of cigarettes is significantly lower in China than in many western countries. Chinese health officials say unless more is done to cut the number of smokers, then, in less than 20 years time, one in every four people here who dies will be a victim of a smoking-related disease. The costs to the country's healthcare system - and its economy - could dwarf the amount of tax it gets from tobacco sales today.

चीन का स्वास्थ्य मंत्रालय 1 मई से लागू होने वाले नए नियमों के साथ सार्वजनिक स्थानों पर धूम्रपान को समाप्त करने के लिए अपने प्रयास को फिर से शुरू करेगा। ये बार, रेस्तरां और बसों जैसी जगहों पर धूम्रपान पर प्रतिबंध लगाएंगे, लेकिन कार्यस्थलों पर नहीं।


Radioactive sludge removed from Dounreay 'ponds'

Summary: Work to remove radioactive sludge from water tanks at the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) is nearing completion.

The DFR is housed within the dome, a landmark of the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness. Two tanks, called ponds, were built in 1956 to store fuel and breeder elements removed from the experimental reactor. Specially-made baskets have been used to scoop up the sludge which will be treated for storage as low-level radioactive waste. Dismantling of the ponds is part of a wider project to demolish the reactor.

डौनरे फास्ट रिएक्टर (डी. एफ. आर.) में पानी की टंकियों से रेडियोधर्मी कीचड़ को हटाने का काम पूरा होने वाला है।


Male or female? Babies born on the sliding sex scale

Summary: A child that is born neither male or female is a rare occurrence but babies born with some form of Disorder of Sex Development (DSD) happens in one in every 1,500 births, according to the support group Accord Alliance.

For some born with a DSD it can mean growing up in a world of shame and secrecy, but many people are working to foster openness about it. After Janet was born, it was difficult to tell if she was a boy or a girl. "When my grandfather learned there was a question of my sex, it was suggested by him that they just let me die," she says. Now in her 50s and a mother of two, she was born with a womb, ovaries and female genes but her genitals and hormones were partly masculine. She was diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a DSD where her body makes too much testosterone. Male and female genitals grow from the same tissue, but testosterone makes them look and develop differently. So an enlarged clitoris can be something between male and female. Living with this condition, says Janet, left her a "psychological mess" for many years. A wide range of factors determine a baby's sex. Disruption in the development of any of these can cause a disorder of sex development. They can range from girls with more masculine characteristics and vice versa, to babies born with indeterminate sex, previously known as intersex. Clinical psychologist and sex therapist Dr Tiger Devore was born with indeterminate sex. He has severe hypospadias, an abnormality of the penis, which in its milder form can affect one in 250 men. "(Intersex) people are usually raised with shame and secrecy," he says. "Those babies are hidden from general society - and that was my experience of growing up." "I always had to keep it a big secret. I could not tell anybody I was having surgery down there, which we're not supposed to talk about." Aileen Schast, a clinical psychologist who counsels families at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, says: "It can be very confusing and isolating for families and what worries me the most is an early feeling of shame starts to develop, as this has to do with genitalia, and we don't talk about that. "Everyone is dying to find out what the baby is and how do you say we don't really know yet. "I had one parent tell me she almost wished her child had cancer because at least people have heard of it, so when she needed support she could say this is what my child has and people would know what it meant." Choosing a sex Since Janet and Dr Devore were born there is much more understanding about Disorders of Sex Development. Today the whole family of children born with a DSD are involved from the beginning, and urology, endocrinology, genetics, social work and psychology experts also work together. For a child born of indeterminate sex they will undergo number of tests including those involving chromosomes, hormones and internal organs. To further complicate things the test results are not just either male or female, they can be on a sliding scale between the two. Ultimately the sex chosen for an intersex baby is the one doctors and their family believe they will grow up to identify with best. Dr Devore and Janet were both born at a time when parents went along with what the doctors said and surgery was seen as the first thing to do. They have both had multiple operations. Dr Devore has had 20 surgeries, the first at three months old. "In my view all the surgeries I suffered up to age 19 were unnecessary failures," he says. "I lost a tremendous amount of feeling tissue that I would like to have." Some people now believe that surgery should be left until the child can make the decision themselves. "There are a lot of activists that describe infant surgery in one word - mutilation," explains Dr Devore. "Unless there's a medical necessity to change the appearance of those genitals I don't think they should be cut on at all," he asserts. "It's the kid's genitals, not the parents or the doctors and when they're young adults they are going to want them to work." But Tom Kolon, MD Urologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia points out there can be a problem with leaving it until the child has grown up. "I think we would all want the child to be able to make the decisions themselves. The problem there is if you wait until they are old enough and mature enough to understand and say yes - have you hurt them by not doing the surgery or the medication earlier?" Female outside, male inside Some DSDs are not obvious at birth because they affect the internal organs and can go undiagnosed for years. Katie has androgen insensitivity syndrome, which was only discovered when she had a hernia operation when she was six. "I look female on the outside, I have a normal female body but instead of having XX chromosomes like a typical female I have XY chromosomes like a typical male." During her hernia operation, surgeons were surprised to find a partially descended testicle. She also had no ovaries and no womb. Her mother and father, who are both doctors, had been trained at medical school not to tell women if they had this condition "because it would be so devastating to them that they would commit suicide". But Katie's parents broke the mould and did tell her some of the details of the condition to prepare her. Katie was 18 when they told her the full details, which changed her world. "I was really scared. I was not prepared to think about myself as totally and irreversibly different to every other woman. I wondered if I would ever be loved, if I was so different I couldn't be loved," she says. Her testes were removed and she takes pills to give her more appropriate hormones. Katie and her mother went on Oprah's TV programme to talk about her condition and the publicity has contributed to more openness about DSDs in the US than there is in the UK. "I think we have very inadequate definitions of what sex is," says Katie. "But based on what we do have I can't say that I'm either male or female in terms of my sex, although my gender identity is very female." Dr Devore would also like to see the definitions of sex widened. "The tyranny of being forced to circle M or F (male or female) on every form I fill out, I'd like to see that change, I'd like to have a lot more options. "Typically what I do is I circle the whole thing so it is 'MORF', M or F - that is my favourite way of responding to that question." Me, My Sex and I will be broadcast on BBC One, on Tuesday 11 October at 22:35.

समर्थन समूह एकॉर्ड एलायंस के अनुसार, एक बच्चा जो न तो पुरुष या महिला के रूप में पैदा होता है, एक दुर्लभ घटना है, लेकिन लिंग विकास विकार (डी. एस. डी.) के किसी न किसी रूप के साथ पैदा होने वाले बच्चे हर 1,500 जन्मों में से एक में होते हैं।


How historical Afrin became a prize worth a war

Summary: Afrin and its environs are beautiful, a rich prize worth fighting for. The region is known as Kurd-Dagh - the Mountain of the Kurds - where 360 thriving Kurdish villages make it the most densely Kurdish populated part of Syria.

By Diana DarkeAuthor on Middle East culture The Afrin River runs north-south through heavily treed hills. The lush valleys and fertile red soil are renowned for their excellent fruit and nut produce, especially olives. No snakes or scorpions are said to inhabit this soil. Water flows in abundance. The Midanki Falls were tamed in 2004 by a dam so the old road now vanishes abracadabra-like into a long thin lake. At weekends locals picnic and barbecue round its shores. Arabic is hardly spoken north of Midanki and older men still dress traditionally in baggy black trousers. Neighbouring Azaz is also home to many Turkmen and Arab communities. Almost everyone, Kurds included, is Sunni Muslim. Kurdish identity is based not on religion, but on ethnicity and cultural heritage. Overlooking the Afrin River, within sight of the Turkish border, sprawl the vast Roman ruins of Cyrrhus, a suitable vantage point from which to digest the epic struggles of this region and to ponder the dilemmas unfolding here today. Cyrrhus once served as a military base for the Romans conducting campaigns against the Armenian Empire to the north. By the 4th Century it had become an important centre for Christianity with its own bishop, but was abandoned in the 12th Century after losing its strategic role. Nearby stands the landmark which gives the site its local name, al-Nabi Houri, the pyramid-roofed tomb of Uriah the Hittite, sent to his death in battle by Israelite King David so that he could marry the lovely Bathsheba, his widow, according to the scriptures. Today the tomb is a Muslim shrine and mosque, tended by a Kurdish household whose patriarch lost his leg, not in battle, but in a minefield as he crossed the Turkish border to visit relatives. Border disputes Such complexities are reflected in a 1935 map of Syria compiled by troops of the French Mandate. It shows the religious and ethnic communities of Syria just before the French gifted the Sanjak of Alexandretta on the Mediterranean coast to Turkey as a bribe to keep it neutral in World War Two. The Turks renamed it Hatay, its population then estimated at 50% Arab, 40% Turkish and 10% Armenian. Syrian maps still mark the Hatay border as "temporary". Throughout the volatile seven-year Syrian war, conflicting parties routinely produce maps with differing claims of territorial control. Afrin, abutting Hatay to the west and rebel-held Idlib to the south, is the latest victim, as Turkey once again tries to force what it sees as "terrorist Kurds" out. The last time was in 1998, when Syria was sheltering Turkey's nemesis Abdullah Ocalan and his Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency for autonomy in south-east Turkey. As a result of Turkish pressure, Syria expelled the group and its leader. Competing interests When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's soldiers quietly withdrew from northern Kurdish areas in summer 2012, the well-organised Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) - the dominant Kurdish party in northern Syria, regarded by Turkey as an extension of the PKK - quickly took charge, setting up their own education system and administration. The PYD's armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), effectively became the military. Kurdish soldiers are tough, used historically by the Ottomans and the French, and today by the Americans to help fight the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria. But the real fight may yet be among the Syrian Kurds themselves, for not all support Mr Ocalan, despite the omnipresence of his photo. Thousands have fled PYD rule in order to escape large-scale conscription and the use of child soldiers. Many complain the PYD are mercenaries and criminals. Stories of human rights abuses abound, like bulldozing Arab villagers' homes on the pretext of clearing out IS extremists, accusations the PYD denies. Since 2015, private schools, including those teaching in Arabic, have been forced to close by the Kurdish administration. Meanwhile, the Syrian state continues to issue all civil documents, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, in an attempt to maintain influence. With so many competing interests, the fight for Afrin will be ugly. Kurdish dreams of "democratic federalism" and Turkish dreams of safe zones free of "terrorists" may lead inexorably to Syria's de facto partition. Whatever the future holds for Afrin, one side's dream is likely to be the other's nightmare. Diana Darke is the author of several books on Middle East society, including My House in Damascus: An Inside View of the Syrian Crisis (2016), and The Merchant of Syria (2018). Follow her on Twitter.

अफरीन और इसका परिवेश सुंदर है, एक समृद्ध पुरस्कार जिसके लिए लड़ना उचित है। इस क्षेत्र को कुर्द-दाग के रूप में जाना जाता है-कुर्दों का पहाड़-जहाँ 360 संपन्न कुर्द गाँव इसे सीरिया का सबसे घनी कुर्द आबादी वाला हिस्सा बनाते हैं।


Parents deny murder over baby found on bus in Stratford

Summary: The parents of a three-month-old baby found seriously hurt on a bus have denied murder.

Imani Wiltshire was discovered on the lower deck of the bus in Stratford, east London, on 28 September. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead. A post-mortem examination found she died from head injuries. Rosalin Baker, 25, and Jeffrey Wiltshire, 52, of Manor Park, pleaded not guilty to murder at the Old Bailey. They also denied charges of causing or allowing the death of their child. A trial date has been set for 13 March at the same court.

बस में गंभीर रूप से घायल तीन महीने के बच्चे के माता-पिता ने हत्या से इनकार किया है।


Five challenges for the Met's new chief

Summary: When the Metropolitan Police Service's newly appointed commissioner, Cressida Dick, begins work at the force's impressive new headquarters on the Embankment, she might like to take a moment to admire the view overlooking the River Thames. But only a moment. Ms Dick won't have time for much more than that.

Danny ShawHome affairs correspondent@DannyShawBBCon Twitter The new commissioner will find that when it comes to leading the Met, there's no off-switch. It's a policing organisation like no other in the UK, with a budget of £3bn, a workforce of 43,000 and responsibility for keeping everyone in London - from Barking to Buckingham Palace, from West Norwood to Westminster - safe. The leader of Britain's biggest and most influential police force will come under pressure to make early decisions: on whether to roll out controversial spit-guards, on how to police the Notting Hill Carnival and if Tasers should be extended to all officers. She'll face intense scrutiny from the media, which has a tendency to escalate stories of local difficulties into ones of national importance. And she'll be expected to provide regular updates to the London Assembly, MPs on the home affairs committee, the mayor of London and the home secretary. For Ms Dick there's also an added dimension: the need to stamp her authority on a police force that for over five years has bent to the will of Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, whose no-nonsense style was respected but not universally liked. Indeed, Sir Bernard's retirement may tempt officers who didn't always agree with him to speak out, to adopt a different approach, to do things their own way. And that could spell trouble for Cressida Dick as she sets out to make her mark. Training more firearms officers One of the key issues the new commissioner will have to grapple with is how to shore up the confidence of firearms officers. In Sir Bernard's final major speech last week, he said there was a "very shallow pool" of people wanting to do the job partly because they were increasingly "portrayed as suspects" when someone was shot. The problems may come to a head within weeks, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides whether or not to charge a policeman over the death of Jermaine Baker in Wood Green in December 2015. The officer who fired the fatal shot was arrested, interviewed under criminal caution and bailed by police pending the CPS decision, which is seen as pivotal in the Met's efforts to recruit 600 more specialist armed officers. The move to boost police firearms capacity was sparked by concerns about the threat from terrorism - in particular, the possibility of a marauding gun attack. Dealing with political turbulence For Ms Dick, who will have national responsibility for counter-terrorism as well as for protecting London, a complicating factor in the security picture is the political turbulence caused by the election in the US of Donald Trump - and Brexit. The result of the EU referendum sparked a rise in hate crime which police will need to remain on the alert for, while Britain's departure from the EU means the Met and other forces will have to forge new relationships over law enforcement with their European counterparts. As for President Trump, his state visit to the UK, expected to be this year, will present the commissioner with a huge policing challenge. Protests have already taken place in London and are likely to continue, sometimes at very short notice. Tackling rise in violent crime Many commissioners judge their success in terms of crime. Has it gone up or down? Since the mid-1990s the overall trend has been downwards, due mainly to large falls in acquisitive crimes such as car theft and burglary. For the past three years, however, offences recorded by the Met Police have been on the increase. In 2016, there were 761,998 crimes, 3.5% up on the year before, prompting Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe to remark that the "warning lights are flashing". Although the rise in crimes such as sexual offences and domestic abuse is driven by a greater willingness on the part of victims to come forward, what'll most worry the new incumbent are the year-on-year increases of 6% in violence, 17% in knife crime and 22% in firearms offences. Understanding what's behind this apparent upsurge and finding ways to tackle it will be a priority for the commissioner. Making a difference while cutting costs Her task will undoubtedly be made harder by the tough financial climate. Over the past six years the Met has saved about £600m on its annual budget, chiefly by selling police buildings and cutting civilian staff posts. Making further cutbacks - which Sir Bernard and Sadiq Khan, London's mayor, both anticipate if the government changes the way constabularies are funded in England and Wales - are almost certain to entail a reduction in the number of officers. So far, that's been avoided, with 32,000 currently in post. Keeping right numbers to do the job Over the past few months, the outgoing Met commissioner has issued a number of warnings about the impact of cutting officers in a city whose population is becoming bigger and more diverse. If recruitment slows or freezes, efforts to broaden the ethnic mix of the force so it better reflects the people of London will grind to a halt At present 13% of officers are black, Asian or from a minority ethnic background, compared to 40% of those living in the capital. The issue of officer numbers and possible budget cuts is likely to be the biggest and most immediate political challenge facing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe's replacement. Will she be as bold in confronting the problem as he's been? Or will she take a more diplomatic approach? However calm the Thames may look from her vantage point in New Scotland Yard, Cressida Dick will know that choppy waters lie ahead.

जब मेट्रोपॉलिटन पुलिस सेवा की नव नियुक्त आयुक्त, क्रेसिडा डिक, तटबंध पर बल के प्रभावशाली नए मुख्यालय में काम शुरू करती है, तो वह टेम्स नदी के दृश्य की प्रशंसा करने के लिए कुछ समय लेना पसंद कर सकती है। लेकिन केवल एक पल। सुश्री डिक के पास इससे अधिक के लिए समय नहीं होगा।


Damon Albarn on life, elephants and his love of gospel music

Summary: Damon Albarn never intended to make a solo album.

By Mark SavageBBC News entertainment reporter He was perfectly happy with Blur and Gorillaz, or composing operas based on the Chinese pentatonic scale, until XL Records boss Richard Russell intervened. "He turned round and said, 'I would like to produce you,'" says Albarn, recalling a conversation that took place after the pair co-produced Bobby Womack's 2012 comeback The Bravest Man in the Universe. "It was a slightly strange thing to say, considering that our relationship was based on us both being producers together. So there was a moment of, 'Really? Well, blimey. That means I've got to…' "But I didn't really know what that was going to entail or involve, you know?" To begin with, Albarn handed over more than 60 songs to Russell - demos and musical fragments he had collected over the years. "But the funny thing is, we hardly used any of them," he says. Instead, the singer jumped on the Central Line, went back to his childhood home in Leytonstone, east London, and hit on a rich seam of inspiration. If you watched BBC Two's Culture Show in February, you may have seen Albarn visiting those same old haunts, going misty-eyed over sweet shops, dustbins and church halls. He also stopped by Hollow Ponds at the top of the Lea Valley, where, as a child, he swam in the open air during the 1976 heatwave. The scene turned into a song, also called Hollow Ponds. It samples the Central Line and contains snapshots of that "eight year old in swimming trunks" through his school days to pop stardom and adulthood. It also set the tone for the album, Everyday Robots, a wistful series of reflections from a family man in his 40s. But whatever you do, do not call it nostalgic. "I don't know if it was nostalgia," Albarn protests. "It was a journey I chose to re-trace, really, and see if I could learn something about myself. "I found that, not surprisingly, there was an awful lot of stuff. "The tricky thing was distilling enough of it into song, as opposed to autobiography - which is a very different way of doing the same thing." "I thought of it as, how do you take big events and put them into verse?" The result is his most intimate and revealing album to date. Low-key and textured, it is peppered with domestic detail and a recurring theme of alienation. "I had a dream you were leaving," he sings repeatedly on The Selfish Giant, a sad but familiar story of partners who have lost their spark. "It's hard to be a lover when the TV's on and there's nothing in your eyes." By his own admission, the latter lyric was especially hard to record. "It's quite a strong line," he says. "At the very moment when I was getting ready to do my thing as a singer, I was like, 'Oh, I'm not sure about that.'" Yet every time he threatened to put up his defences, Russell would coax him into opening up. "There were moments where I'd go, 'I think that's a bit too close to the knuckle', and that's when Richard would step in and say, 'No, that's a really good line, you've got to keep that.'" 'A gentle form of sedation' It makes you wonder what discussions they had over You and Me, a song that briefly touches on Albarn's Britpop-era heroin addiction. "Tinfoil and a lighter," he sings. "Five days on, two days off." The lyrics prompted a media storm after Albarn, speaking to Q Magazine, described heroin as "incredibly productive for me". The singer has since stressed that addiction was "brutal experience" and "nothing that I would recommend". Clean now for more than a decade, the narcotic that concerns him most on Everyday Robots is technology. The title track documents commuters "stricken in a state of sleep" by their phones, while Lonely Press Play frets that the infinite distractions in the palms of our hands allow us to suppress our emotions. "It's a form of gentle sedation," Albarn says. "I've always opted to have a very old-fashioned phone. There's no internet on my phone. You can't put lots of smiley faces on my phone. It's a very boring, monochrome Nokia. "But I do have an iPad, which is a very different beast entirely," says the singer - who composed parts of the last Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, using the tablet device. "I love it because I can be creative with it," he says. "That's the key." "When we're doing something creative, technology seems benign. But when we're doing nothing with it - and it seems to be doing a lot more with us - that's when it starts to become terrifying." Appropriately, electronics are kept to a minimum on Everyday Robots. The record is largely piano-led, pushing Albarn's voice to the foreground, and coloured with ambient sounds, trickling beats and exotic string arrangements. The only time the record sheds its air of melancholy is on the jaunty Mr Tembo, written for an orphaned elephant Albarn met in Mkomazi, Tanzania. (The elephant responded by defecating, he says.) It is the only song to survive from the original 60 demos he gave to Richard Russell, with an ebullient melody brought to life by The Pentecostal City Mission Church Choir, from Albarn's childhood church in Leytonstone. "I love gospel music," the singer says. "I've loved it all my life. Whether it was listening to my parents' Mahalia Jackson albums or standing outside the London City Mission Church on a Sunday. "I love all forms of religious music. It's the music I choose to listen to if I'm listening privately to music. Anything from Georgian orthodox choir music to Moroccan Sufi trance music to South Korean shamanistic music. "You name it - if it is fit for the purpose of a spiritual connection, I love it." Spirituality is exactly what Albarn hopes to achieve with Everyday Robots. His desire is that listeners will feel a personal connection to the lyrics, in a way they never could with the "Oi!" of Parklife. "That's what can happen if you do something that is completely of yourself," he reckons. "People find things in that because, at the end of the day, our experiences aren't really that different, are they?" Everyday Robots is out now on Parlophone/XL Records.

डेमन अल्बर्न का कभी भी एकल एल्बम बनाने का इरादा नहीं था।


Q&A: What is the US debt ceiling?

Summary: The debt ceiling is a cap on the total amount the US government can borrow, set by US lawmakers.

By Ben MorrisBusiness Reporter The current debt limit of $16.699 trillion was reached in May. Since then the US Treasury has been using what are called extraordinary measures to keep paying the bills.

ऋण सीमा अमेरिकी सरकार द्वारा उधार ली जा सकने वाली कुल राशि की एक सीमा है, जो अमेरिकी सांसदों द्वारा निर्धारित की गई है।


Cabinet approves £33m councIl cuts in Derbyshire

Summary: Derbyshire County Council's cabinet has approved £33m of cuts to next year's budget.

If agreed by the rest of the council next week, the changes would see large savings in youth services and care for the elderly, and shorter library hours. The cabinet has also agreed to change adult care eligibility and to introduce charging for some services. Carers angry at the plans protested outside County Hall in Matlock, saying the most vulnerable would lose out. The budget will be considered at a full council meeting on 2 February.

डर्बीशायर काउंटी काउंसिल के मंत्रिमंडल ने अगले साल के बजट में 33 मिलियन पाउंड की कटौती को मंजूरी दी है।


Profile: Herve Gourdel

Summary: French tourist Herve Gourdel, who has been beheaded by Algerian militant group Jund al-Khilafa following his abduction in the north-east Kabylie region, was a 55-year-old qualified mountain guide.

He was once quoted as saying he had two passions in life: travel and photography. "I was born in Nice in 1959 and soon discovered the mountain in Mercantour (in the French Alps) with my father and walked the first peaks. So I've had one desire: to return as often as possible," he told France's Le Monde newspaper. He said he was simply lucky that his qualifications allowed him to "earn a living away from the offices", climbing and skiing. For years he had trained mountain guides in Morocco, Nepal and Jordan and other places - depending where his clients wanted him to go. He had also visited Algeria several times, according to his friends. But they say Mr Gourdel had always tried to combine his love for mountains with photography. "He is mad about mountains and never travels without his camera," Mr Gourdel's friend Elisabeth was quoted as saying by the Aujourd'hui en France daily. "He is a very nice man, who loves nature and is passionate about his work," Manea, one of Mr Gourdel's photoshoot models, told the newspaper. "He is adorable, a bit hyperactive. He is the first amateur photographer who enabled me to launch myself as an amateur model," she added. His friends say he went to Algeria for a hiking holiday and also to explore a new climbing route. Mr Gourdel was married and had two grown-up children, French media say.

फ्रांसीसी पर्यटक हर्वे गौरडेल, जिनका उत्तर-पूर्वी कबीली क्षेत्र में अपहरण के बाद अल्जीरियाई आतंकवादी समूह जुंद अल-खिलाफा द्वारा सिर कलम कर दिया गया था, एक 55 वर्षीय योग्य पर्वत गाइड थे।


Mark Duggan death: Timeline of events

Summary: Mark Duggan's family win the right to appeal against an inquest's finding that he was lawfully killed by police. Find out about the aftermath of his death in Tottenham. Here is a timeline of the events that followed Mr Duggan's death.

Thursday 4 August 2011 Mark Duggan, 29, is shot dead by police in Ferry Lane, Tottenham, at 18:15 BST. The death happens during an operation where specialist firearm officers and officers from Operation Trident, the unit which deals with gun crime in the African and Caribbean communities, are attempting to carry out an arrest. Mr Duggan is a passenger in a minicab. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announces it will investigate the incident and later says it believes two shots were fired by police. It also confirms that an illegal firearm was recovered from the scene. Friday 5 August 2011 The IPCC appeals for witnesses to the shooting. Saturday 6 August 2011 About 300 people gather outside Tottenham police station after marching from the Broadwater Farm estate. They say they want "justice" for Mr Duggan and his family. Witnesses report that the protest begins peacefully. The violence begins as bottles are thrown at two patrol cars which are then set alight. Unconfirmed reports say the incident was sparked by a confrontation between a teenage protester and a police officer. Riot officers and police on horseback are deployed to disperse the crowds but come under attack from bottles, fireworks and other missiles. Sunday 7 August 2011 The violence continues. Petrol bombs are thrown at police and buildings, while shops are set alight. The London Fire Brigade says it has dealt with 49 fires in the Tottenham area by 04:30 BST and received more than 250 emergency calls from the public. Police announce the launch of Operation Withern to investigate the riots. Mr Duggan's family say they do not condone the rioting in Tottenham. IPCC commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne says she is sorry if any members of Mr Duggan's family feel that they are not supported. She announces that she has set up a community reference group to make sure she is sensitive and responsive to the family. Monday 8 August 2011 Claudia Webbe, who chairs Operation Trident's independent advisory group, questions why Mr Duggan's family had not been contacted sooner by the IPCC. Rioting and looting continues for the third night in London affecting Croydon, Clapham, Hackney, Camden, Lewisham, Peckham, Newham, East Ham, Enfield, Woolwich, Ealing and Colliers Wood. During the evening the riots claim two lives. Trevor Ellis, 26, of Brixton Hill, south London, is found with bullet wounds in a car in Croydon, while Richard Bowes, 68, is critically injured when he tries to put out a fire during riots in London. He later dies from his injuries. Unrest spreads to other English cities, with Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol also experiencing violence. Tuesday 9 August 2011 The IPCC reveals that there is no evidence Mr Duggan opened fire at police before being shot dead by a firearms officer. The police watchdog says ballistic tests showed "no evidence that the handgun found at the scene was fired". MPs are recalled from their summer holidays in the wake of continued disorder across London and other English cities. Wednesday 10 August 2011 Haroon Jahan, 21, Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31, are killed when a car hits them in Winson Green, Birmingham. Witnesses say the men were in a group protecting their community after riot police were called into the city. Thursday 11 August 2011 The police watchdog appeals for witnesses to the fatal shooting of Mr Duggan. Former Met deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick says the force could have stopped further rioting if it had responded properly to initial disturbances in Tottenham. Friday 12 August 2011 The IPCC admits it may have misled journalists into believing Mr Duggan fired at officers before he was killed. Wednesday 24 August 2011 Ken Hinds, a local gang mediator and family friend of Mr Duggan's girlfriend Simone Wilson, reveals he warned police explicitly about the risk of rioting at a meeting with them at lunchtime on Saturday, 6 August. Thursday 8 September 2011 Mr Duggan's family say they have "no faith" in the IPCC investigation into his death. His brother, Shaun Hall, adds: "I'm not confident at all. If the initial stages of this incident are anything to go by, I've got no trust in them whatsoever." Friday 9 September 2011 A private funeral for Mr Duggan is held with a reception at the Broadwater Farm Community Centre. 5 October 2011 Mr Duggan's family say they will give the IPCC a chance to get the inquiry into his death "right". 25 October 2011 Mr Duggan was not "bad enough or mad enough" to draw a gun on police officers, a friend says. Stafford Scott was among the activists who took part in the original march. 18 November 2011 The IPCC says it is to probe whether a gun recovered from the scene was used in a crime a week earlier. Kevin Hutchinson-Foster, 29, is charged with possession of a firearm after allegedly assaulting a man in a hair salon in Hackney on 29 July. 19 December 2011 The policing operation to tackle the summer riots across England was flawed, a report from MPs concludes. The perception that in some areas police had lost control of the streets was the most important reason disorder spread, they say. 29 February 2012 The IPCC upholds a complaint by Mr Duggan's family that they were not told he had been shot dead by officers. Scotland Yard said it had apologised in September to Mr Duggan's parents for not telling them directly about his death. 27 March 2012 A lack of support and opportunity for young people contributed to the outbreak of riots in England last summer, an independent report says. The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel, set up last year, highlights "500,000 forgotten families". 29 March 2012 The Met supports calls for changes to the law to allow more details to be revealed in cases where the police have shot people. Mr Duggan's aunt Carole said she wanted an inquest to be held as she "preferred to know the truth - whether it is good or bad". 26 April 2012 The BBC obtains footage of the aftermath of the police shooting. It was taken by someone who says they witnessed the shooting and shows attempts to save Mr Duggan's life. 4 August 2012 Mr Duggan's mother Pam says the year since her son's death had "been terrible - we still have no answers about why my son died". She said: "The police haven't told me anything. They apologised for not coming to tell me, not for what they did." 6 August 2012 Prison sentences totalling more than 1,800 years have been handed out to rioters following the disorder which began exactly a year ago. 18 September 2012 - 17 October 2012 The trial of Hutchinson-Foster, accused of giving Mr Duggan the gun, is held at Snaresbrook Crown Court. The court hears he gave Mr Duggan the gun 15 minutes before he was shot. Mr Duggan "pulled a gun from his waistband", the court hears, and Mr Duggan and Hutchinson-Foster were in contact via mobile phone calls and text messages minutes before he was shot. The police officer who shot Mr Duggan, V53, says he is "absolutely 100%" sure he was holding a gun. After a month-long trial, the jury is unable to reach a verdict. 28 January 2013 A date for the public inquest is set for September. The pre-inquest hearing is told a judge will act as coroner because sensitive material is involved in the case. 31 January 2013 A jury in a retrial finds Hutchinson-Foster guilty of supplying the gun - a BBM Bruni Model 92 handgun - to Mr Duggan. 26 February 2013 Thirty-year-old Hutchinson-Foster is jailed for 11 years. Judge David Radford says Hutchinson-Foster had "plainly known" the gun would be used for criminal purposes by Mr Duggan or somebody else. 18 June 2013 Mr Duggan's family have an application for a judicial review into police protocol rejected. They wanted procedures, designed to protect officers collaborating on incident reports, looked at but the High Court ruled it was not appropriate for the court to prescribe such rules. 16 September 2013 - 11 December 2013 The inquest into Mr Duggan's death begins. Jurors are told they must decide on whether he was lawfully killed. Over the next few months, the jury hears Mr Duggan was "among Europe's most violent criminals". However, his mother says her son "may not have been an angel" but he should not have been shot dead by police. A firearms commander says it is "absolutely outrageous" to suggest he planted a gun found nearby while the police officer who fired the shots says he saw him holding the handgun and believed he was going to shoot. Speaking via videolink from prison, Hutchinson-Foster tells the inquest he will appeal against his conviction once the inquest is completed. The court is also told Mr Duggan may have "flicked the gun" over the fence while a witness says they saw an officer run "from the scene with an object" and a different witness says Mr Duggan "was surrendering" and holding a phone when he was shot. 11 December 2013 - 7 January 2014 On 11 December 2013, the jury retires to consider its verdict, being told it must reach a unanimous conclusion. On 18 December, the jury is by told by the judge that a majority conclusion will now be acceptable. Judge Keith Cutler says the law "allows me to accept a majority decision on any of the determinations or the conclusion of which at least eight out of the 10 of you are agreed". 8 January 2014 The inquest jury concludes by a majority of 8 to 2 that Mr Duggan was lawfully killed by police., prompting angry reaction from his family's supporters outside the court. The panel of seven women and three men was asked to answer five questions: 14 October 2014 The verdict of lawful killing is upheld by three High Court judges following an appeal by Mr Duggan's mother, Pamela Duggan. Sir Brian Leveson, president of the Queen's Bench Division, who heard the case with Mr Justice Burnett and Judge Peter Thornton QC, said the court "recognised the tragedy" of the loss of Mr Duggan's life - but ruled that none of the grounds of challenge had been established. 27 October 2015 Mark Duggan's family win the right to launch a judicial review into the inquest's finding that he was lawfully killed, after challenging the 2014 High Court ruling. Lord Justice Sales allowed their application for permission to appeal, but warned the family against thinking his decision meant they would succeed. But he added that "the shooting dead of a suspect by police is always a matter for careful scrutiny".

मार्क दुग्गन के परिवार ने जाँच के निष्कर्ष के खिलाफ अपील करने का अधिकार जीता कि उसे पुलिस द्वारा कानूनी रूप से मार दिया गया था। टोटेनहम में उसकी मृत्यु के बाद के बारे में पता करें। यहाँ श्री दुग्गन की मृत्यु के बाद की घटनाओं की एक समयरेखा है।


Who really backed down over Brexit vote?

Summary: Who blinked? Maybe both sides did, a bit.

Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter Lots will be said and written in the next 24 hours about who really backed down after another day of shenanigans in Parliament - whips cornering potential rebels, even today, the grim sight of a Labour MP being forced to come to vote while visibly ill in a wheelchair and on morphine, the Tories so nervous about the vote that they suspended the normal rules that allow for ill MPs to stay out of the Chamber. As Westminster games go, it is getting pretty extreme. But ultimately, your view on whether the compromise had a winner, may depend on the side you are on. Both sides of course will claim they were the victor, the haggling over a deal took so long because both sides wanted to save face. The cabinet minister Liam Fox has just told us that nothing has really changed, it was just "procedural" and the fundamentals were exactly the same. In contrast, one of the organisers of the rebel group, Stephen Hammond, tweeted that the government has now conceded that Parliament would have a "real say with no constraints", if the final Brexit deal is rejected. The two sides will, guess what, continue to argue it for weeks to come, and every insult, every rankle, every cross word on this episode, being remembered in the difficult months to come. Here are two things however that are hard to dispute. The government was worried enough about losing today to budge, even if they only gave an inch. It might be a concession that only really parliamentary lawyers understand, but the PM had to move, again, despite not wanting to. And despite the fact that she did compromise even in a meaningless way (yes I can't believe that I did just write that sentence, but it is relevant), the vote was still relatively close, certainly not comfortable enough for the government to relax any time soon. What's also the case is that the Tory rebels, or potential rebels more like, weren't willing to take dramatic action in enough number to humiliate the PM. The vote result suggests that they have the hypothetical numbers, but their critics, and their internal opponents in the Tory party would question if they really have the guts. The former boss of the Treasury, Nick McPherson, no fan of Brexit it's important to say, has just acidly written online: "Axiom of the last 30 years. Europhile Tories always compromise to preserve party unity, Their opponents don't. #thatswhywearewhereweare" But the last 24 hours has also been frustrating for Brexiteers. Many of them believe that Theresa May didn't have to push it this far, that she could have faced down the potential rebels without having to give any ground. There are many behind the scenes urging Number 10 to take a firmer line, to dare them to vote against her. Not the Parliamentary arithmetic, but the Tories' own arithmetic, makes them believe that she'd be easily able to do so, to end it once and for all and make plain that Brexiteers are the dominant force. But to face down the rebels who want to maintain closer ties to the EU or the Brexiteers would require the prime minister to risk something that she wants to avoid - to make the splits in Tory party more exposed, to make one side of the party the overt winner. For many months she has survived by tacking first an inch one way, and then the other. Today's events with a non-compromise-compromise suggest she is simply not ready to abandon that approach. But with so many more difficult decisions to come in the next few months, on both sides, Tories are more and more frustrated that she refuses to choose. One observes that Number 10 might believe the "lesson of Maastricht", is to try everything to keep the Tory party together, but the truth they suggest is that the real lesson of Maastricht is that any war is only over when one side is the clear victor. The trouble is, another source suggested, she never wants to say no to anyone, but when it comes to doing this deal, she simply can't say yes to everyone.

कौन पलक झपकाया? शायद दोनों पक्षों ने किया, थोड़ा सा।


Poland's Andrzej Duda rides wave of 'sacred tradition'

Summary: Polish President Andrzej Duda is a loyal ally of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) and his re-election means the party's socially conservative programme can continue unhindered for another three years. It was a narrow victory, but the high turnout means President Duda won a clear mandate, the BBC's Adam Easton reports from Warsaw.

PiS policies, strongly influenced by Catholic traditions, are very controversial both inside Poland and in the EU. President Duda supports the government's legislative changes to take greater control over independent institutions, most prominently the public media and judiciary. But in 2017 the European Commission took the unusual step of launching a rule-of-law case against Poland, accusing PiS of undermining basic EU values - a procedure that could lead to Poland's EU voting rights being suspended. Poland is the largest net recipient of EU budget funds, and some in the EU favour tying those payments to Polish compliance with EU principles, as enshrined in the treaties. Under the current government the justice minister is also prosecutor general, giving him extraordinary power over the conduct of prosecutions. The president has the power of veto over legislation - and victory for Mr Duda's rival, liberal centrist Rafal Trzaskowski, would have jeopardised PiS ambitions. 'Our inviolable tradition' Mr Duda, 48, said he would continue strengthening the Polish state, "built on our inviolable tradition, which is sacred to all of us and in which we have been brought up for generations". He once described the EU as "an imaginary community from which we don't gain much". He is a lawyer by training, and won a surprising victory in 2015, after PiS had lost a string of elections under all-powerful party leader and candidate, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Mr Duda was close to Mr Kaczynski's twin brother and former president Lech, who died in 2010 when the presidential jet crashed in Smolensk, Russia. After PiS first came to power in 2005, Mr Duda served as an aide to Lech Kaczynski. Later he was elected to the Polish parliament and the European Parliament. He is a socially conservative Roman Catholic, who supports the government's popular and generous welfare scheme. It is symbolised by the 500+ programme, under which families receive 500 zloty (£100; €110; $125) per month for each child until the age of 18. Many Polish families have been lifted out of poverty as a result of the government's policies, and, for the first time since the end of communism in 1989, feel there is a party that cares about their needs. This is especially true in villages and small towns, where PiS has its bedrock of support. On the other hand, he has vowed to protect Polish families from what he calls an imported "LGBT ideology" that he says is aggressively trying to sexualise Polish children. He came under fire during the election, including for a speech in which he said LGBT rights were an "ideology" more destructive than communism. In practice, sex education classes in Polish state schools do not exist. Instead students have more wide-ranging "family life education" classes, which may include sex education, often led by priests or nuns. Mr Duda favours making Poland's anti-abortion law even tougher. It is already among the most restrictive in Europe. Power over media Poland's public broadcaster, Polish TV, is funded by the taxpayer and is bound by its charter to present balanced coverage of political events. Instead, in the run-up to the vote, its main evening news bulletin praised the government and Mr Duda daily and attacked Mr Trzaskowski, accusing him of being in cahoots with Jewish and LGBT interest groups. Our correspondent says PiS may want to use Mr Duda's victory to pursue greater political control of local government and the private media. But passing legislation to limit foreign ownership of critical private media is difficult under EU rules. Mr Duda, born in 1972, grew up in a family of professors in the southern city of Krakow. His wife Agata is a German language teacher and they have an adult daughter, AFP news agency reports.

पोलैंड के राष्ट्रपति आंद्रेज डूडा सत्तारूढ़ राष्ट्रवादी लॉ एंड जस्टिस पार्टी (पी. आई. एस.) के एक वफादार सहयोगी हैं और उनके फिर से चुनाव का मतलब है कि पार्टी का सामाजिक रूप से रूढ़िवादी कार्यक्रम अगले तीन वर्षों तक निर्बाध रूप से जारी रह सकता है। यह एक संकीर्ण जीत थी, लेकिन उच्च मतदान का मतलब है कि राष्ट्रपति डूडा ने एक स्पष्ट जनादेश जीता, बीबीसी के एडम ईस्टन ने वारसॉ से रिपोर्ट किया।


Rockfield Studios: Where Ozzy, Oasis, Queen and Coldplay took off

Summary: "Musical Hogwarts" is how Chris Martin describes it. To Liam Gallagher it's the "Big Brother House with tunes", but for Ozzy Osbourne it's the birthplace of heavy metal.

By Peter ShuttleworthBBC Wales News It's where Oasis created their masterpieces, where Bohemian Rhapsody came to life and where Coldplay's journey into the musical stratosphere took off. A long way from the bright lights, the ramshackle old farm "in the middle of nowhere" near the Welsh-English border has become known for its decades of stellar output. And some of the world's greatest rocks stars have now paid homage to Rockfield Studios with the story of its legacy having been made into a feature film to be premiered on the BBC on Saturday night. Blink and you'll miss Rockfield as you travel north out of Monmouth on the B4233 in south Wales. The cattle and pig farm on the Monnow Valley floor has for years been the place where careers are defined and where rock royalty hang out. It is to recording studios what Glastonbury is to music festivals - run by farmers, on a working farm and fiercely independent. But it all started with a snub. Brothers Kingsley and Charles Ward had hoped to record at EMI in London in the 1960s but were turned down by legendary producer and "fifth Beatle" George Martin. So they decided to buy the gear and set up for themselves - and Rockfield Studios was born. Almost 60 years later, they are able to boast that almost everyone across the globe will know a song recorded in their old barn or pig shed. And it was in these most tranquil and sedate of settings that the loudest of music was born - and with it, two heavy metal godfathers. How Ozzy became the Prince of Darkness The first was the late, legendary Lemmy, a former roadie for Jimi Hendrix who turned up at Rockfield in 1972 to record his first material as the newest member of Hawkwind, kickstarting a career which led to him founding Motorhead and immortality with their metal anthem Ace of Spades. The other is the now the head of one of TV's most famous families and lives among Hollywood A-listers in opulent Beverly Hills - but Ozzy Osbourne traces his fame and fortune back to the little homestead. Rock music's Prince of Darkness was one of the first to use Rockfield's newly-built Coach House Studio in 1970 as his new band Black Sabbath fine-tuned their breakthrough hit Paranoid. "We were very loud and Rockfield allowed us the freedom," Osbourne recalls. "Because no-one would allow us to play as loud as that. The roof tiles were rattling. "We didn't think, 'let's invent heavy metal', it just happened. "Rockfield will always be a part of me. I can go and live in Beverly Hills but for some reason I end up back in Rockfield. It's just magic." Paranoid by Black Sabbath was put together and rehearsed at Rockfield in 1970 and went on to be considered one of the greatest heavy metal songs of all time. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? It was in Rockfield's old horse tack room where the final piece of a six-minute rock operetta was lovingly mastered by Queen in the summer of 1975. When the studio's co-owner Kingsley Ward walked in on Freddie Mercury playing on the dusty old piano in the corner of the food store, little did he know he was getting an exclusive preview into what would eventually become one of the most acclaimed songs of all time. "I went in and Freddie was sat in the corner - he was probably doing the finishing touches to Bohemian Rhapsody. Then it was called Freddie's Thing," says Kingsley. The release of Bohemian Rhapsody was a defining moment for band and studio. The track is Rockfield's most famous export and the song that made Queen a household name across the world, recorded at the studio during a six-week stint in 1975. It's just Bowie hanging out with Iggy Later, the great David Bowie ended his 1970s decade of dominance - including anthems such as Heroes, Changes and Starman - by eating cheese in Monmouth with a friend famous for his Lust for Life. Simple Minds frontman Jim Kerr takes up the story. "We were recording in the Coach House Studio and we were curious to know who was in the main studio," he says. "We could not believe it was none other than Iggy Pop. Not only was that mind-blowing but Bowie turned up and he looked as you'd always imagined David Bowie looking. "It was so Rockfield - he had this huge bit of cheese in his hand and a can of Heineken." Although Simple Minds wrote their breakthrough hit Promised You A Miracle in Monmouth, they actually recorded it at new record label Virgin's own residential studio. That became the pattern - labels began to use their own studios and Rockfield, an independent beacon for so long, was on the rocks. "There was loads of studios and only a certain amount of work to go around - then dreaded dance music turned up and it wasn't what we did," says Kingsley. Computers replaced recording studios and technology took over. From the endless bookings of the 70s, Kingsley Ward's wife Ann took several book-keeping jobs to keep Rockfield alive during the late 80s. "Then in 1989 and 1990, there was a massive recession and the music industry suddenly caved in completely," says Kingsley in the film Rockfield: The Studio On The Farm. Then came their second coming - literally so - as one infamous band saved Rockfield with an album by that name. A Rockfield resurrection The Stone Roses' self-titled first album had been a massive success, with the band laying down Waterfall and I Am The Resurrection at Rockfield after their Battery Sessions in London had proved a slog. And when they decided to return to Rockfield to record the follow-up, it was a pivotal moment in the studios' survival. Producer John Leckie, who first recommended Rockfield to the Roses, said their new American record company "were quite prepared to throw lots of money - millions of pounds - at the band to do whatever they wanted." That was music to Rockfield's ears, as times were tough when the Roses arrived in 1992 to plan their Second Coming. Its lead single Love Spreads was recorded at Rockfield sometime between 1992 and 1994 and was the band's first new material released for more than two-and-a-half years. It was their highest place record in the UK chart, reaching No 2 in November 1994. "They booked in officially for a couple of weeks," Lisa Ward, Kingsley's daughter and now office manager, explains in the film. "But they stayed. It was 13 months in the end. That saved us. The Stone Roses saved Rockfield." Little did Rockfield know at the time that their next musical legacy was staying over the other side of the valley, recording at a studio that was once part of the Rockfield estate. What's the story? Manchester Britpop heroes Oasis were trying - and failing - to master their debut album Definitely Maybe there. During their sojourn, frontman Liam Gallagher pinched the owners' combine harvester and crossed the fields to spy on the Roses at Rockfield. Oasis eventually finished their first album in Cornwall, but returned to Monmouth to record what would become some of their most celebrated anthems at Rockfield. Don't Look Back In Anger was recorded by Oasis at Rockfield in 1995 and went to No 1 in February 1996, becoming one of their most famous songs. The second Oasis album - (What's The Story) Morning Glory - transformed the band and the Gallagher brothers Noel and Liam into global rock sensations as Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger and Champagne Supernova became pub singalongs. "There was a little bit of a debate about who was going to sing Wonderwall," recalls Rockfield's studio engineer Nick Brine. "Noel was going to sing Wonderwall, then Liam was going to sing Wonderwall. "Then Noel said, 'ok I'll sing Don't Look Back in Anger', then Liam wanted to sing Don't Look Back in Anger. So there was a debate on who was going to sing what." Ultimately, Don't Look Back In Anger turned into songwriter Noel Gallagher's first single as lead vocalist, while Liam sang Wonderwall. "Everyone wanted to make the songs the best they could," Liam tells the Rockfield film. "If that bred a bit of competition then so be it." While residential studios such as Rockfield - one of the first - allowed bands to immerse themselves in their creativity, living together at such close quarters 24/7 could spark tension. Liam Gallagher recalls a row with his brother at Rockfield which ended in damage being caused with "cricket bats and air rifles, the lot". But when tempers cooled, the band got down to business and finished the album which helped define Britpop - a musical movement for which Rockfield would become the engine room. "Both studios were both booked up nine months in advance, back to back," recalls Lisa Ward. "The 1990s was a great time for British guitar bands." Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Ash, Black Grape and the Boo Radleys all recorded number one albums there. Kingsley Ward says: "One time in 1997, out of the top ten albums, Rockfield had seven." And the next Monmouth megahit was written in the stars - and inspired by an old copy of the Yellow Pages. The stars shine for Coldplay Much was expected of the up-and-coming band Coldplay at the turn of the millennium but they were under pressure to turn that expectation into something more tangible. Frontman Chris Martin knew Rockfield was a "a make-or-break session" as the former cleaners had "one shot" at the big time in one of their first recording sessions. Luckily for them, the sky was clear for at least part of their sessions recording debut album Parachutes - as immortality and their crowd classic Yellow was created. "We were recording Shiver and went outside for a breather and it was so beautiful," says Martin. "All four of us were outside and Ken Nelson, our producer, said 'look up there, lads' - and he literally said 'look at the stars', which is the first line of that song. "It was mind-blowing because we'd been in London for five years so we haven't seen anything beyond smog for a while, so that line was in my head. "I went back in and sat behind the mixing desk and I played the chord. I got the title from the Yellow Pages which was at about a 45 degree angle. "The chorus came in the bathroom of the living room area. And that gave us our lives for the last 16 years. From humble beginnings." Rockfield: The Studio on the Farm will be broadcast on BBC Two Wales and BBC Four at 21:15 BST on Saturday and on BBC iPlayer

"म्यूजिकल हॉगवर्ट्स" का वर्णन क्रिस मार्टिन ने किया है। लियाम गैलेगर के लिए यह "धुनों वाला बिग ब्रदर हाउस" है, लेकिन ओज़ी ऑस्बॉर्न के लिए यह भारी धातु का जन्मस्थान है।


New music celebrates 150th anniversary of Patagonia colony

Summary: New music to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Welsh colony in Patagonia in South America will have its world premiere in Denbighshire.

Former royal harpist Catrin Finch will also perform at the concert at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod on 8 July. The new work has been written by Hector MacDonald, a fourth generation Welshman from Chubut Province in Patagonia. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales will perform the piece.

दक्षिण अमेरिका के पेटागोनिया में वेल्श कॉलोनी की 150वीं वर्षगांठ मनाने के लिए नए संगीत का विश्व प्रीमियर डेनबिघशायर में होगा।