Libya conflict: Russia and Turkey risk Syria repeat

Summary: Libya looks to be at the end of one bleak chapter, but there is no guarantee that the next will be any better for a country that has been torn to pieces by civil war and foreign intervention since Col Muammar Gaddafi met his grisly death in 2011.

By Jeremy BowenMiddle East editor Since last year Gen Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of eastern Libya, has been trying to capture the capital, Tripoli, in the far west of the vast country. Intervention by Turkey in support of the Tripoli government, recognised by the United Nations, looks to be decisive. Gen Haftar's men, along with a force of several thousand Russian mercenaries, are in retreat. But that does not mean that Libyan civilians can expect the peace they crave. Once again they are the biggest losers. Their country, richly endowed with oil and gas, should be able to guarantee them rights of which they can only dream: education; healthcare and a decent standard of living. They don't have any of them, or safety. Libyans who have not lost their homes have been locking down to prevent the spread of Covid-19, hoping they do not also become the target of artillery, drones or warplanes. The war has destroyed most of Libya's clinics and hospitals. Around 200,000 civilians in western Libya have already been displaced from their homes, according to Hanan Saleh of Human Rights Watch. Libya's future once looked bright In a recent webinar organised by the think-tank, Chatham House, Ms Saleh said that "you have to look at Libya currently as an accountability-free zone and it has been that way unfortunately since 2011". All parties in the war have been reckless in their treatment of civilians, though Gen Haftar's side, she said, has committed more documented abuses that could potentially be crimes of war. It is hard to believe now, but after Col Gaddafi was overthrown it looked for a while as if Libya might have a decent future. Back in 2011 I walked with the British ambassador through the ruins of his embassy in Tripoli; it had been attacked and torched by a mob after Nato started bombing the Gaddafi regime's forces. Next to the charred frame of what had been a 1920s billiard table, we talked about the pride that Libyans had in their revolution, their luck in not being cursed with significant sectarian differences like Syria or Iraq, and about the treasure house of oil and gas under the vast Libyan desert. Perhaps even tourism would be possible. Libya has 2,000 kilometres of Mediterranean beaches, and Roman archaeological sites that are the equal of anything in Italy. But Libya was broken, and in almost a decade since that conversation it has continued to fragment. You may be interested in: The militias that took on the Gaddafi regime never disbanded, and came to like their power. Once the colonel, his sons and the family's cronies were gone, no kind of functioning state was left. The men who acquired the important job titles found that if there were any levers of government to pull, they came away in their hands. Libyans who saw themselves as revolutionaries were in no mood to ask for much help from the powerful countries which had provided weapons and most importantly an air force to help them win. In turn, the outsiders were relieved to be able to turn away, declaring the job was well done. Removing Gaddafi was one thing. Helping to build a country was something very different. It did not take long for the remains of Libya to fall into even smaller pieces. The bigger towns became city-states. The militias had their own agendas and would not lay down their weapons. A series of diplomats, mostly under the auspices of the United Nations tried, unsuccessfully, to promote dialogue and reconciliation. Foreign powers seek Libya prize By 2014 Gen Haftar had emerged as a power in the broken land, expelling radical Islamists from Benghazi, Libya's second city and the capital of Eastern Libya. Gen Haftar was well known in Libya, as a general who had fallen out with Gaddafi. In exile he had spent years plotting Gaddafi's downfall from a new base in Langley, Virginia - the American town that is also the headquarters of the CIA. Libya, in reality already in pieces, eventually found itself with two rival governments. Gen Haftar controlled the east from Benghazi, and set about unifying the country by marching west to attack Tripoli, the capital, aiming to unseat the internationally recognised Government of National Accord led by Fayez al Sarraj. Who controls Libya? Supporting Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj (l) Supporting Gen Khalifa Haftar (r) It was certain that foreign powers would get involved in the civil war. Libya is a desirable prize. It has the biggest reserves of oil and gas in Africa, with a population of less than seven million. Strategically, it is opposite Europe and its hydrocarbons can be exported direct to markets in the west through the Mediterranean. Rival producers in the Gulf need to ship their exports through potentially dangerous sea lanes. Gen Haftar's most important backers are Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Turkey is the key ally of the Sarraj government in Tripoli. The US has sent a variety of signals out about Libya under President Donald Trump, offering encouragement at different times to Mr Sarraj and Gen Haftar, and bombing jihadist extremists when they can find them. Now their biggest concern is that Russia's President Putin might be establishing himself in Libya in the same way that he has dug into Syria. Libya's war has developed disturbing similarities with Syria's. The arbiters of the fate and future of both are the same foreigners. The proxy wars in Libya have become, in many ways, a continuation of the proxy wars in Syria. Both sides have flown in Syrian militias to apply the skills they have gained in almost a decade of war in their homeland. It is possible that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russia's President Vladimir Putin have applied in Libya a version of the deals they have made in Syria. The Russian mercenaries who have fought with Gen Haftar are from an organisation known as the Wagner Group, run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of President Putin. The Wagner fighters have also been used in Syria. It is significant that the Russian pullback from Tripoli has not been harassed by Turkey's highly efficient military drones. The Russians have also moved advanced warplanes into Libya. The next big battle President Putin and President Erdogan could have agreed to end Gen Haftar's offensive against Tripoli so they can split the spoils between them, according to Wolfram Lacher, a German academic who has just published a book about the fragmentation of Libya. In the Chatham House webinar he said: "We are talking about two foreign powers trying to carve up spheres of influence in Libya and their ambition may well be for this arrangement to be long term." He doubted whether the other powers involved in Libya, and the Libyans themselves, would quietly accept the arrangement. The next big battle could be for Tarhuna, a town that lies around 90km (55 miles) south-east of the capital. It is Gen Haftar's western stronghold, controlled by a militia known as al-Qaniyat, mainly made up of men previously loyal to the Gaddafi regime. Troops loyal to the Tripoli government, former opponents of Gaddafi, are advancing on Tarhuna. The fight against the old regime is still a factor in Libya's never-ending war.

लीबिया एक निराशाजनक अध्याय के अंत में प्रतीत होता है, लेकिन इस बात की कोई गारंटी नहीं है कि अगला एक ऐसे देश के लिए बेहतर होगा जो 2011 में कर्नल मुअम्मर गद्दाफी की भयानक मृत्यु के बाद से गृह युद्ध और विदेशी हस्तक्षेप से टुकड़े-टुकड़े हो गया है।


Monica Lewinsky and Stormy Daniels: Political scandals across two eras

Summary: In the 1990s, an affair between US President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky caused a global furore and an impeachment.

By Vicky BakerBBC News Could the Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump scandal have a similar impact? President Donald Trump has denied the alleged 2006 affair, but, just like the Clinton case, the crux of the case hinges less on sex, more on lies. So what are the similarities and differences? How would the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal have played out in 2018? Here is our closer look… The Clinton/Lewinsky affair: a recap "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" - President Clinton's emphatic, finger-wagging statement in 1998 has gone down as one of US politics' most memorable quotes. Not only was it an odd turn of phrase, it was also untrue. It was later proven that the president did have "relations" with Monica Lewinsky, an intern in her early 20s. Ms Lewinsky's friend and co-worker Linda Tripp had been secretly recording conversations where she confessed details. When Ms Lewinsky was summoned to provide a written statement for a sexual harassment case brought against the president by civil servant Paula Jones (which was later dismissed), she denied they had a sexual relationship. President Clinton also denied the affair under oath. This is what led to charges of perjury. The Trump/Stormy case: a recap Porn star Stormy Daniels says she had consensual sex with Donald Trump in 2006, long before his presidential bid, when he was starring in reality TV show The Apprentice. She says it happened once, in a hotel room during a golf tournament, but they kept in touch. Mr Trump denies the affair, which is alleged to have taken place when his wife, Melania, was pregnant with their son. At the start of this year, reports emerged that Ms Daniels had been paid $130,000 (£96,000) by Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen in a hush agreement, just before the 2016 election. Since then, Mr Trump and his legal team have made apparently contradictory statements about the payment, raising questions about how much the president knew about it. Ms Daniels has filed a lawsuit against the president to dissolve the agreement, alleging that it was invalid because Mr Trump did not sign it. She is also suing the president over a "defamatory" tweet. Meanwhile, Mr Trump's lawyers are seeking $20m in damages from her, arguing she broke the non-disclosure deal. Now we have the basics, let's compare and contrast the arguments … "Trump wasn't even president when he had the affair!" True. But the payment was made during his presidential campaign - which is what the legal case hinges on. If the money came from campaign funding, it would be a violation of federal law. "A president's sex life is not our business" True, you can't be impeached for cheating on your spouse. However, in the Clinton case, people argued that if the president was willing to lie about this under oath he could also lie about other things. In the Trump case, critics have raised similar concerns about trust, and said that paying hush money indicates he could be susceptible to blackmail - including from foreign adversaries. "Trump is scandal-proof!" To this day, many consider Clinton's affair as the most memorable part of his presidency. However, there is so much going on in the Trump presidency that Stormy Daniels has become a subplot. Will he survive this too? It is still too early to say how this particular twist will end. Monica: Then and now Monica Lewinsky has called herself "possibly the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the internet". The story had been broken by the Drudge Report website, at a time when pretty much no one got their news online. Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff, then of Newsweek magazine, had the story first but his editors held the story, allowing him to be scooped. Mr Isikoff remembers that Newsweek then scrambled to put it on their nascent website. "It was the first story on the site," he said, adding that they then faxed it to people, unsure if anyone would find it. However, the attention that followed was "mind-blowing", as US journalist Jessica Bennett wrote in a recent re-evaluation of the scandal in Time magazine. "The Wall Street Journal referred to Lewinsky - in print - as a 'little tart'." Aside from the humiliation of having her sex life and appearance dissected across the world, Monica Lewinsky had also faced up to 27 years in jail for submitting a false statement. Her mother was also threatened with prison time if she did not share details of conversations with her daughter. For more than a decade afterwards, Monica Lewinsky kept out of the public eye. Then, in 2014, she wrote a 5,000-word essay in Vanity Fair entitled "Shame and survival". She said she had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, had struggled with suicidal thoughts during the court proceedings, and had trouble getting jobs because of her notoriety in the years afterwards. "Unlike the other parties involved, I was so young that I had no established identity to which I could return," she concluded. "I didn't 'let this define' me - I simply hadn't had the life experience to establish my own identity in 1998. If you haven't figured out who you are, it's hard not to accept the horrible image of you created by others." Today, Monica Lewinsky has found her voice: she is a regular Twitter user and an anti-bullying campaigner who does not shy away from mentioning her past. She recently took a US magazine to task for recalling her invitation to an event after Bill Clinton confirmed his attendance. She is also being seen as a role model by some millennials, who weren't reading the news in 1990s and are coming to the story through a new lens. "When I learned more about the scandal in my teen years, she became a figure I really empathised with," Eve Peyser, a 24-year-old New York journalist, told the BBC. "I think my generation's feminists generally think of Monica Lewinsky as a victim of high stakes workplace sexual misconduct." "A storm's a-coming" As a veteran of the adult film industry, 39-year-old Stormy Daniels has long dealt with nasty slurs, seemingly building a thick skin. When she gets misogynistic flak about the Trump case online, she tackles it head on via her social media account, often taking her critics down with a defiant mix of smut and humour. (Comedian Rosanne Barr recently deleted a derogatory tweet after Ms Daniels snapped back.) Ms Daniels - whose real name is Stephanie Clifford - has embarked on a nationwide Make America Horny Again strip club tour and recently appeared on comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live. Playing herself, she jokingly addressing the president: "I know you don't believe in climate change but a storm's a-coming baby." Her critics - Trump's supporters - accuse her of trying to boost her career; she argues that she already had a very successful career. A lot of Americans are left unsure how to take her. When CNN interviewed a group of female Trump supporters, they largely disbelieved her and said her porn-star status gave her less credibility, although one also said, "I feel sorry for her. My heart goes out to her." Academic Hinda Mandell - the author of Sex Scandals, Gender and Power in Contemporary American Politics - said Stormy Daniels is re-writing the standard scandal script. "She is not ashamed and there is a power in that," Ms Mandell told the BBC. "She comes across as owning the incident and wants to voice her own story." What difference has #MeToo made? The #MeToo social media campaign, which sprung up after the raft of Hollywood allegations, has made the general public more aware of issues surrounding consent and power. Neither Monica Lewinsky nor Stormy Daniels ever said their affairs were non-consensual. However both men have been accused of sexual harassment by various other women - which they have always denied. Stormy Daniels has made it clear that her story is not a #MeToo story. She claims that would make her a victim, whereas she was fully aware of what she was doing. However, Canadian news magazine Maclean's suggested she has still played a role, albeit unconsciously. "#MeToo was never just about sexual assault - it was also about the worthiness of women as credible narrators," it said recently. Until recently Monica Lewinsky's voice had barely been heard. "It's so disappointing that prominent feminists at the time failed to understand how sexist and demeaning politicians and the media were to Monica Lewinsky," said Eve Peyser, of how she felt growing up and learning about the Clinton scandal. She mentions writer Gloria Steinem, who downplayed harassment allegations against Bill Clinton in a controversial New York Times piece. The newspaper has since removed the article from its online archive and last year Ms Steinem told the Guardian she would not write the same thing today. "We have to believe women," she said in November 2017, at the height of the Harvey Weinstein furore. Playwright Kevin Armento recently wrote a play, Devil With A Blue Dress, about the Clinton scandal, imagining conversations between the women involved. How does he think the case would have played out in 2018? "It seems likely that both Ms Lewinsky's youth and the power dynamics at play would be part of the conversation," he told the BBC. "In the age of #metoo, would she defend him so ardently? Would she be better equipped to see the power imbalance in their relationship, before she got so far down the rabbit hole?" He also wondered if Hillary Clinton's response would be different today. "It's hard to imagine her leaving Bill ... Would she push Bill to resign? To offer more sincere contrition? I don't know. But it would have to be different in some respects." How did Clinton survive, and will Trump? Bill Clinton was never deposed. The House Republicans impeached him, but he was later acquitted in the Senate and remained in power until 2001. However, one crucial thing did change with the Paula Jones case. It prompted a court to rule that US presidents no longer have immunity from civil law litigation for acts alleged to have taken place before they took office. So, could the Stormy scandal still be Donald Trump's downfall? "Cohen [the lawyer] could be," said Michael Isikoff. "Was this pay-off unique, or were there other arrangements that we don't know about? Those are the big questions that hang over it." However, he said that if the Democrats regain control of Congress, they will be reluctant to make an impeachment case over Stormy Daniels given the degree to which they fought back against the Clintons. "They would have to eat all their words," said Mr Isikoff. These are the typical dynamics of a political sex scandal, according to Hinda Mandell. "It is like unpeeling an onion. Something titillating and salacious can have serious political and legal consequences." "People typically grasp what is easy to digest about a sex scandal," she added, "and then they split along partisan lines. They align themselves based on their political beliefs." Meanwhile, she said she is waiting to see what might happen if a female politician gets caught in major US sex scandal. "It's never happened before, and I wonder: will everything change when it does?"

1990 के दशक में, अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति बिल क्लिंटन और व्हाइट हाउस की प्रशिक्षु मोनिका लेविंस्की के बीच एक संबंध ने वैश्विक आक्रोश और महाभियोग का कारण बना।


Majorca: Sexual assault of British girl, 15, in hotel sauna investigated

Summary: Police are investigating the alleged sexual assault of a 15-year-old British girl in a hotel sauna in Majorca.

The incident took place on the Spanish island on Monday and the girl was taken to hospital, the Majorca Civil Guard said. The nationality of the attacker is unknown, the police force said. Local media said the girl was on holiday with her family in a coastal area of Llucmajor in southern Majorca at the time of the assault. The newspaper Diario de Mallorca said the girl was alone in the sauna when she was attacked.

पुलिस मलोर्का में एक होटल सौना में एक 15 वर्षीय ब्रिटिश लड़की के कथित यौन उत्पीड़न की जांच कर रही है।


Hull crash: Pedestrian dies in two-car collision

Summary: A pedestrian has died in a crash involving two cars on a busy road in Hull.

Emergency services were called to the collision on the westbound carriageway of the A63 Clive Sullivan Way shortly before 22:15 BST on Saturday. The man was taken to hospital, where he later died. Humberside Police said the man's family was being supported by specially trained officers. The force is appealing for witnesses. Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

हल में एक व्यस्त सड़क पर दो कारों की टक्कर में एक पैदल यात्री की मौत हो गई है।


Ballot initiatives: Liberalism up, Democrats down

Summary: Call it the Great Conundrum of Tuesday's election returns.

By Anthony ZurcherEditor, Echo Chambers While voters were sending Democratic candidates packing in key races across the country, they were also approving numerous ballot measures closely tied to liberal causes. In Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, for instance, Democratic Senate candidates were soundly defeated while minimum-wage hikes - a major Democratic talking point this year - passed. Alaska also backed a measure, but its Senate race is still in doubt. Washington voters approved mandatory background checks on firearm sales at gun shows and re-elected a Republican controlled state Senate. Colorado and North Dakota rejected a measure that would grant foetuses legal "personhood", which likely would have curtailed some abortion rights and contraceptive methods. Massachusetts passed a paid sick leave programme while also electing a Republican governor. Californians approved sentence reductions for non-violent criminals as the state's Democratic legislative majorities were trimmed. And Alaska, Oregon and Washington, DC backed legalisation of marijuana possession. (A majority of Florida voters also supported legalising marijuana for medical uses, but it failed to garner the 60% approval necessary for passage.) A California county and a town in Texas banned the shale oil removal process called fracking. The results can't all be claimed as wins for a liberal-leaning agenda - another California county rejected a fracking ban, Tennessee passed an anti-abortion constitutional amendment and Georgia capped income taxes. Enough went the Democrats' way, however, for some on the left to celebrate - and agonise over the perceived irony of the results. "Tonight's winners: Higher minimum wage, legal weed, gun control, access to abortion, reduced sentences. And the party who opposes all of it," tweets Seattle-based internet entrepreneur Ben Huh. "Even as the Democratic Party got an old-fashioned whuppin'," writes Bloomberg View's Francis Barry, "traditional Democratic issues had an awfully good night." Before liberals start touting their silver lining playbook, however, there's still the grim fact that Democrats ran on these issues - and lost in droves. According to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, the problem is that while voters are in favour of things like raising the minimum wage, they doubted Democrats ability to competently manage the nation's economy. "These voters want to hear a more comprehensive message about how Democrats would move the economy forward," he writes. And according to the Democratic pollsters Sargent spoke with, President Barack Obama's handling of issues like the Islamic State, Ebola and border security repeatedly called his competence into question. These doubts didn't just pop up with this summer's controversies, however. As the New Republic's John B Judis points out, the grievous blow to Mr Obama's credibility - and, by extension, to that of his fellow Democrats - occurred last fall, with the botched rollout of the federal healthcare website. "That was Obama's Katrina, and it turned out to be the Democrats' as well," he writes. "Of course, the administration subsequently repaired the program, but the political damage was lasting. It occurred at just that time when the issues of the coming election were being defined." So while ballot measures across the country seem to indicate that Democratic issues can still be winners, the Democratic Party brand is damaged - and Mr Obama may not have the time, and ability, to fully repair it. It's a formidable task that will fall on the shoulders of the party's next presidential nominee.

इसे मंगलवार के चुनावी नतीजों की बड़ी पहेली कहें।


Fire in abandoned house in Jersey suspicious: Police

Summary: Jersey Police say they are treating a fire at an abandoned house on St Clement's coast road as suspicious.

The force said it was looking for witnesses after a fire destroyed the roof and upper floors of the property on Tuesday. Fire officers could not get into the building and are yet to conduct a full investigation because of the damage. Police said nobody had been in the house when the fire had started and nobody had been hurt.

जर्सी पुलिस का कहना है कि वे सेंट क्लेमेंट्स तट मार्ग पर एक परित्यक्त घर में लगी आग को संदिग्ध मान रहे हैं।


The race to make the world's most powerful computer ever

Summary: Quantum computers have long been touted as incredibly powerful machines that will be able to solve hugely complex computational problems much faster than any computer we have available today. But no-one can agree on the best way to make them. Who will win the race?

By Mary-Ann RussonTechnology of Business reporter Superfast quantum computers could speed up the discovery of new medicines, crack the most complex cryptographic security systems, design new materials, model climate change, and supercharge artificial intelligence, computer scientists say. But there's currently no consensus on the best way to make them or how to make them available to the mass market. Physicists, engineers and computer scientists around the world are trying to develop four very different types of quantum computers, based around light particles, trapped ions, superconducting qubits, or nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamonds. Companies like IBM, Google, Rigetti, Intel and Microsoft are currently leading the quantum charge. Each method has its pros and cons, but the overarching challenge is the fragile nature of quantum itself. What is quantum computing? Instead of using ones and noughts called bits, representing on or off, in long sequences as in classical computing a quantum bit - or qubit - uses the near magical properties of sub-atomic particles. Electrons or photons, for example, can be in two states at the same time - a phenomenon called superposition. As a result, a qubit-based computer can do far more calculations much faster than a conventional computer. "If you had a two-qubit computer and you add two qubits, it becomes a four-qubit computer. But you're not doubling the computer power, you're increasing it exponentially," explains Martin Giles, San Francisco bureau chief of the MIT Technology Review. Computer scientists sometimes describe this quantum computing effect as like being able to go down each path of a very complex maze at the same time. Qubits can also influence each other even when they're not physically connected, a process called "entanglement". In computing terms, this gives them the ability to make logical leaps conventional computers never could. The search for stability But qubits are highly unstable and prone to interference or "noise" from other sources of energy, leading to errors in calculations. So the race is one to find a way to stabilise them for mass-production. Computing giant IBM firmly believes that "transmon superconducting qubits" hold the most promise for quantum computing, and they have three prototype quantum processors that the public can access in the cloud. "So far, over 94,000 people have accessed IBM quantum computers in the cloud. They've run over five million experiments and written 110 papers," says Dr Robert Sutor, vice president for quantum computing strategy and ecosystem at IBM Research. "People are learning and experimenting... we hope in three to five years to be able to point at one specific example, and say that quantum significantly improves on anything classical computers can do." But IBM's method required the quantum computer to be stored within a large fridge, where the qubits are stored at temperatures close to absolute zero to ensure that they remain in their useful states. This means it would be extremely hard to miniaturise, and thus very expensive. "It seems likely that superconducting qubits will be among the first technologies to enable useful quantum computation," says Joseph Fitzsimons, a principal investigator at the National University of Singapore's Centre of Quantum Technologies. "However, my impression is that they are analogous to vacuum tubes in early computers, rather than transistors which came along later. "We may yet see another technology emerge which becomes the ultimate winner." Microsoft and academics at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen are working on what they believe will be much more stable qubits based on so-called Majorana particles. While other teams are working on trapping qubits in silicon - the material traditional computer chips have been made from. And computer scientists at Oxford University are looking at ways to link smaller qubit computers rather than creating bigger computers with lots of qubits. There are many ways to skin Schrodinger's Cat it seems. Classical potential? While we wait for quantum computers, what's the future for conventional, or classical, computing? In July, Ewin Tang, an 18-year-old graduate in computer science and mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, made waves in the international computing world by developing a classical computer algorithm that can solve a problem almost as fast as a quantum computer. The problem involved developing a recommendation engine that suggests products to users based on data about their preferences. And the EU recently announced it is working on the next generation of computers - exascale - which would enable a billion billion calculations per second. "Exascale means 10 to the power of 18 operations per second," explains says Prof Scott Aaronson, a theoretical computer scientist at UT Austin who mentored Mr Tang. "10 to the power of 18 is big, but quantum systems, which will be capable of 10 to the power of 1,000 operations per second, is much, much bigger." And the problem for classical computing is that we are reaching the limits of how many transistors we can fit onto a chip - Apple's A11 squeezes in an astonishing 4.3 billion, for example. Moore's Law - that every two years, microprocessors will get twice as fast, use half as much energy, and take up half as much space - is finally breaking down. Quantum leap Even if a stable, mass-produced quantum computer always remains elusive, the research is already yielding interesting results. "If we hadn't invested in quantum computing, the quantum algorithm that inspired Mr Tang wouldn't have existed," says Prof Robert Young, a Royal Society research fellow and director of the University of Lancaster's Quantum Technology Centre. More Technology of Business Already, he says that quantum research has yielded a new way to cool devices to low temperatures; light-based chip enhancements that have improved the fibre optic broadband experience; and the invention of lab-on-a-chip technologies to speed up the diagnosis of illnesses. "The real benefit of going to the Moon wasn't going to the Moon, it was the peripheral technologies that were developed on the way," says Prof Young - GPS satellite navigation and ball point pens that write upside down, to name but two.

क्वांटम कंप्यूटरों को लंबे समय से अविश्वसनीय रूप से शक्तिशाली मशीनों के रूप में जाना जाता रहा है जो आज हमारे पास उपलब्ध किसी भी कंप्यूटर की तुलना में बहुत अधिक जटिल कम्प्यूटेशनल समस्याओं को बहुत तेजी से हल करने में सक्षम होंगे। लेकिन कोई भी उन्हें बनाने के सर्वोत्तम तरीके पर सहमत नहीं हो सकता है। दौड़ कौन जीतेगा?


'I found out I was HIV-positive at 12 years old'

Summary: Aloma Watson-Ratcliffe was 12 years old when she found out she had contracted HIV from her mum. Now 20, she describes what it was like to deal with the condition as a child and how she learned to cope with the fear and stigma.

I got HIV from my mum Molly - I was diagnosed at three years old. We don't know for sure how I got it but I had a natural birth which was un-traumatic, and because of this, it is highly unlikely transmission happened until breast feeding. Mum knew she was HIV-positive and had done for quite a few years. She got it from an abusive partner in her 20s. She wasn't dying, she was healthy, and that was what she wanted for me. Breastfeeding is a really bonding thing - it's a choice every mother has to make for themselves and I respect my mum's choice. She had been advised by doctors not to breastfeed at all and had been told that I should take medication, but both of my parents decided it would be really bad for me to start taking the [antiretroviral] drugs as an infant. They decided it was better that I build up my natural immunity and... kids were having bad side effects. Friends of mine who were given [the drugs] all have messed up systems and different allergies or medical conditions. I have a very strong immune system so I think it was a really responsible choice [not to be given them]. We had moved from London to Melbourne when I was very young. My mum went through various stages of being ill - she would get better for a time and then it would spiral. She died in October 2001 and six months later, when I was three, we moved to Totnes in Devon and I was diagnosed as HIV-positive. I had regular blood tests in London to monitor the progress of the virus every three months. The [doctors] would explain the results [using] animations, but they didn't give it a name. I knew there was something different about me. I had the same childhood illnesses as anyone else but I would get bruises - not painful, just starkly visible - and they would take a while to go away. I was 12 when the doctor told me I was HIV-positive. I remember being really scared and feeling like I was going to die. You hear about HIV and Aids in the playground; the dirty jokes, about Aids coming from monkeys. I already had this idea in my head that it was kind of a death sentence. Children and HIV Source: National Surveillance of HIV in Pregnancy and Childhood/Public Health England/Avert I tried to keep it together and act really mature but my feelings around it were of fear and I didn't know anyone who had HIV. I was alone and that was quite a weight. It was a horrible secret that I didn't understand. It made me a very closed child, with a lot of social issues. Some parents found out through teachers, or other parents. They would approach my dad kind of in hysterics and ask, "why are you just letting her run around and drink the same water as us?" If I tell a friend, one of their first questions is, "Is it safe to to drink the same water?" It's not transmitted by saliva but for some reason that's a myth that's really hard to get rid of. Teachers would come up to me out of the blue and be all pitying - they would ask me, "how are you getting on with our medication?" And I was like, "It's none of your business". At 15 I saw a therapist/counsellor for other reasons and I told her and started to cope with it. Then [the following year] my step-mum heard about the Children's HIV Association (Chiva) camp on the radio. It's for 100 young people who have HIV and for five days you get to learn [about the disease] and sex education and do fun things. I was terrified to go. I didn't know it was going to be this life-changing thing but it really was. It was the first time in my life that we were able to say "HIV" all the time. The volunteers would constantly say it, we all had it and it was not scary. We could talk about medication and side effects; we could talk about jokes that we had heard in the playground and we could laugh about them. It was an incredibly important [experience] because the rest of the world doesn't feel safe - in the playground you don't feel safe; in relationships you don't feel safe until you've told them and you work out their reaction. Some people don't feel safe in their families because [of the] stigma about it. So being safe and happy is unusual and important. Children and antiretroviral drugs Aloma was given HIV medication at the age of 11, the year before she was told she had HIV. The NHS says treatment can be started at any point following diagnosis, "depending on your circumstances and in consultation with your HIV doctor". Amanda Williams, consultant paediatrician and chairwoman of Chiva, said: "There's been a changing picture in research around HIV and a huge change in the drugs available and evidence about the best time to treat children. "Because of trials we know the side effects and the benefits of drugs more clearly now than 20 years ago when parents then would have been less sure about the side effects than they are now. Some people's belief systems are very strong and it's very difficult for those families to accept medication. "It's always been the case that any child who shows symptoms and whose immune system has been dropping would have been treated. But there have always been differences where families are not keen on medication because of their beliefs about health and the stigma." I take one tablet a day. It keeps [the virus] dormant in my body. It's in my blood but it's not able to mutate. Some people get depression, throw up all the time or they can't eat, it can be a real struggle. For me I haven't had bad side effects, so I will continue to take it. HIV does not mean that you're a dangerous person - that's why I created a performance about it, which I recently staged at the School of Art in Plymouth, where I have been a student. When I finished, there was a really long silence then everyone was clapping and people were crying. We had this really big group hug. You might also be interested in The secret in my blood The mothers who share breast milk online HIV- What’s with the stigma I think there's been an improvement in attitude but there is still a lack of education in schools about HIV. It's not really covered in sex education, it's only covered as a sexually transmitted disease, which is not how I got it. It's always challenging telling partners, often the conversation is around passing it on and safety. Most of my previous partners have not had a problem with my status once it's been discussed in depth. Even though I am public about my status, when I care about how someone could react it doesn't matter how much practice I get because it will still be emotional. I'm seeing someone at the moment and they are perfectly fine with it, so long as we can be honest and they can ask me about any fears or questions, it works. As told to Jonathan Morris The following organisations can provide help and support for people with HIV.

अलोमा वाटसन-रैटक्लिफ 12 साल की थी जब उसे पता चला कि वह अपनी माँ से एच. आई. वी. से संक्रमित हो गई है। अब 20 साल की हो चुकी है, वह बताती है कि एक बच्चे के रूप में इस स्थिति से निपटना कैसा था और उसने डर और कलंक से निपटना कैसे सीखा।


Protest held at UKIP shop opening in Penarth

Summary: Protesters have gathered at the opening of a new UKIP campaign shop in the Vale of Glamorgan.

More than 20 people rallied outside the store on Glebe Street in Penarth on Saturday afternoon. UKIP said it opened the shop in preparation for next year's general election. The party said the Cardiff South and Penarth constituency, which has been held by Labour for decades, was one of its target seats.

ग्लैमरगन की घाटी में एक नई यू. के. आई. पी. अभियान दुकान के उद्घाटन पर प्रदर्शनकारी एकत्र हुए हैं।


Bend me, shape me: Flexible phones 'out by 2013'

Summary: Imagine treating your phone like a piece of paper.

By Katia MoskvitchTechnology reporter, BBC News Roll it up. Drop it. Squish it in your backpack. Step on it - without any damage. Researchers are working on just such handsets - razor-thin, paper-like and bendable. There have already been prototypes, attracting crowds at gadget shows. But rumours abound that next year will see the launch of the first bendy phone. Numerous companies are working on the technology - LG, Philips, Sharp, Sony and Nokia among them - although reports suggest that South Korean phone manufacturer Samsung will be the first to deliver. Samsung favours smartphones with so-called flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) technology, and is confident that they will be "very popular among consumers worldwide". Their screens will be "foldable, rollable, wearable and more, [and] will allow for a high degree of durability through their use of a plastic substrate that is thinner, lighter and more flexible than… conventional LCD technology," says a Samsung spokesperson. Paperless world There are other technologies that could make your smartphone bendy. After all, the concept - creating flexible electronics and assembling them on equally flexible plastic - has been touted since the 1960s, when the first flexible solar cell arrays appeared. In 2005, Philips demonstrated the first prototype of a rollable display. And it may not have been obvious, but a couple of years later, flexible technology hit the mainstream. Amazon's first Kindle e-reader used a plastic non-rigid screen - known as an optical frontplane - to display its images. The only problem was that the components beneath it required the device to be stiff. Like many of the e-book readers that followed, it used e-ink - an innovation developed by a US company of the same name. The screens are black and white, and work by reflecting natural light instead of glowing themselves, mimicking the way text looks in paper books. "There are about 30 million flexible e-ink displays in the field today - the oldest working ones are from 2006," says Sri Peruvemba of E-Ink. "They [are] well-suited for simple phones, memory and battery indicators, smart credit cards, wristwatches, and signs." But why are most e-ink displays hidden behind a rigid glass screen and not made bendy? One reason is cost, says Abhigyan Sengupta, an analyst with consultancy firm MarketsAndMarkets, which recently published a global study on flexible displays. To have a fully flexible finished product, both parts of the display have to be flexible - the optical frontplane and the backplane, where transistors are - as well as the device's battery, the outer shell, the touchscreen and other components. Although Mr Peruvemba says his firm has started manufacturing displays with flexible backplanes in-house, its many partners are also busy researching ways to make electronic paper as flexible as the real thing. Among them is South Korean firm LG Displays, which has just begun mass-producing fully flexible e-ink screens. "They could prove a terrific benefit for handsets, where damage from drops is common," says an LG spokeswoman. "Their light weight and thinness should provide huge potential to the future of handset design development." Another company working with E-Ink is UK firm Plastic Logic. It uses the US firm's optical frontplane but adds on its own backplane made out of non-rigid plastics, and then sells the part to device-makers. Last May, Plastic Logic demonstrated a paper-like flexible screen capable of playing video in colour, which is achieved by placing a filter on top of the original black-and-white display. But the colours are not as bright as on other types of screens, and the company's research manager Michael Banach acknowledges the technology at the moment is most likely to be used as a back-up screen which kicks in when batteries run low, rather than the main display. 'Wonder material' So other researchers are taking a different approach. Clad in blue lab overalls, Prof Andrea Ferrari from Cambridge University works on future bendy displays using graphene. The material was first produced in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two Russian-born scientists at the University of Manchester. Graphene is a sheet of carbon just one atom thick - yet it is stronger than diamond, transparent, lightweight, has great conducting properties - and is flexible. Researchers believe that graphene may in future replace silicon and revolutionise electronics as we know it. "We are working on flexible, bendable and transparent displays and surfaces that could in future be part of flexible phones, tablets, TVs and solar cells," says Prof Ferrari, who is working with Finnish phonemaker Nokia. "Samsung is really quite advanced in this field, but we here in Cambridge have done some great work on Nokia's prototypes as well." He says that graphene will complement and highly enhance the performance of OLED-type flexible phones, because in theory, even a handset's flexible battery can be made out of this material. Whatever the technology, it seems certain that very soon our phones will be not just smart, but bendy too.

अपने फ़ोन को कागज़ के टुकड़े की तरह इस्तेमाल करने की कल्पना करें।


Hande Kader: Outcry in Turkey over transgender woman's murder

Summary: The murder of Hande Kader, a transgender woman, has caused an outcry in Turkey's biggest city Istanbul. Turkey remains conservative on LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) issues, but on Sunday activists will stage a rare protest in Istanbul, writes Rengin Arslan of BBC Turkish.

"Hande was one of the nicest people in the world. She was very calm normally but also hyperactive. She always went to the LGBTI marches. She pursued a cause that she felt right until the end." Davut Dengiler describes his 23-year-old flatmate, Hande Kader, whose body was found in a forest in Istanbul last week. Ms Kader, a sex worker, was last seen entering a client's car one night. Mr Dengiler had hoped she was still alive but he found her body in Istanbul's morgue for unidentified persons. "I was about to leave the morgue. I felt a sense of lightness for not having found her there. At the last minute, a doctor there said, 'There's also a burned body - look at that as well.' I did. I told them identifying features. They then looked at the computer, at the report. The doctor put his hand on my back and gave his condolences. I lost myself," he said. He explained Ms Kader's reaction to the deaths of other trans people: "She would go crazy when trans individuals were killed. She'd be so sad... She had been stabbed and beaten before. This didn't happen only to Hande. It happens to all of them." LGBTI activists protest against violence towards trans people, but the rest of Turkish society rarely reacts. Under the state of emergency, declared after the failed coup attempt of 15 July, restrictions on demonstrations are in place. But for the first time, famous figures in Turkey have joined the calls to raise awareness of Ms Kader's murder and to take part in a demonstration scheduled for Sunday evening in Istanbul. According to data from the rights group Transgender Europe, Turkey has the highest number of trans murders in Europe. But "there is no safe country for trans people" as the group's 2016 report observes. Ms Kader tried to call attention to trans murders in Turkey and the lack of justice. She was usually in the front at demonstrations. But it is perhaps the images of Hande Kader that have been shared innumerable times on social media that best explain the trans woman who is still waiting to be buried due to the processes of identification, post mortem, and DNA testing. In 2015, police had banned the annual LGBTI Pride march in Taksim Square in Istanbul. They tried to disperse the crowds, using water cannon, rubber bullets and pepper spray. But Ms Kader stood stubbornly against the police. She reproached journalists: "You take pictures but you do not publish them. No-one is hearing our voices." Hande Kader's voice was silenced finally by murder, in a way no one would want to imagine: she was burned. She earned a living through sex work, always putting her safety at risk. Like other trans individuals forced into prostitution, she worked on the street. She sought a way out but could not find it. "She did not like this work," her close friend Funda said, adding, "but who would like it, anyway?" Violent ends The trans individuals I spoke to nearly all have stories about how they "escaped death." Kemal Ordek is one of them. Ordek, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns "they/their", says they were "lucky" to survive an attack at home. "There are very few trans individuals who die of natural causes - nearly none," Ordek says. "When you are pushed to sex work, it's not possible for people to reach old age. They are killed. I don't know how I survived. That's the sad part." Ordek, a sociology graduate, earns a living mainly through sex work and is also the president of Red Umbrella, an association that defends the rights of trans sex workers. "We are viewed not as people who can integrate into society but as the dirt of society. What grabs our attention most when we are walking on the street are the looks that see us as sexual objects," Ordek says. 'Turning point?' "When I first became an activist, I would not be able to sleep thinking about the kind of news I'd get in the middle of the night," Ordek says. "Even now, my phone is at the highest ringtone when I sleep at night. I wait for news: someone will be stabbed, someone beaten and I'll get called and I'll have to go there immediately. This is a never-ending mourning and state of trauma." The identity reassignment process for trans individuals in Turkey is long and painful. Many don't dare to start on it. Because of this, trans women can't change the [gendered] colour of their IDs and can't work in brothels where they might have more security. Sinem Hun, a lawyer who works closely on trans identity reassignment cases, says the state "wants to see" that both trans men and trans women have undergone surgery to their genitalia to establish that the gender reassignment process has taken place physically. At the same time, she says, sterilisation is mandatory. "There are trans individuals who cannot change their identity for five or six years," says Ms Hun. Very few doctors are qualified to carry out these operations, a difficult and expensive process in Turkey. Transgender surgery and sterilisation in Europe Source: Transgender Europe's Trans Rights Europe Index The struggle to stay alive in Turkey where trans individuals are pushed to the margins or cities, as well as the struggle to prove their existence, comes to life in a sentence that is repeated, emphasised, written at every demonstration: "Don't be silent, shout, trans exist." For trans individuals, the struggles for social acceptance and to stay alive are one. Legal processes and democratic wins may determine when they will be equal citizens in Turkey and other countries, but trans, LGBTI individuals and their allies hope that Hande Kader will be a turning point in the response to trans murders.

एक ट्रांसजेंडर महिला, हांडे कादर की हत्या ने तुर्की के सबसे बड़े शहर इस्तांबुल में आक्रोश पैदा कर दिया है। तुर्की एलजीबीटीआई (समलैंगिक, समलैंगिक, उभयलिंगी, ट्रांसजेंडर और अंतरलिंगी) मुद्दों पर रूढ़िवादी बना हुआ है, लेकिन रविवार को कार्यकर्ता इस्तांबुल में एक दुर्लभ विरोध प्रदर्शन करेंगे, बीबीसी तुर्की के रेंगिन अर्सलान लिखते हैं।


Wakefield murder victim named as Aleksander Pawlak

Summary: A 30-year-old man believed to have been murdered in the street has been named by police.

Aleksander Pawlak was found seriously injured in Pinderfields Road, Wakefield, shortly after midnight on 9 September. He was pronounced dead when emergency services arrived, West Yorkshire Police said. Three men arrested in connection with his death have been released pending further inquires. The force has renewed an appeal for witnesses. Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

पुलिस ने एक 30 वर्षीय व्यक्ति का नाम लिया है, जिसके बारे में माना जा रहा है कि उसकी सड़क पर हत्या कर दी गई है।


Covid: Had the jab and feeling bad? Why does it happen?

Summary: For most it's just a sore arm - for others it can wipe you out - but why does the Covid vaccine act this way? BBC Wales journalist George Herd has a special interest as he lives with an immune system health condition.

By George HerdBBC News More than 35 million people in the UK have now had at least their first Covid jab - including more than 62% of the population in Wales. A study of 600,000 people across the UK found the most common side effect of the jab was pain where the needle went in. But one in four experienced other symptoms - fever, headaches and nausea - that last about a day. The question I wanted to ask was: Were those who had less of a reaction still protected? And what about those - like me - who have a condition that affects how their immune system works? I lost my spleen following an accident as a young teen. A fist-sized organ that hides just under the left ribs, it has an important role to play in the immune system. It's part of our arsenal in fighting infection. Of course, I'm living proof that you can survive without one. I have an active and full life, often to be found on the hills above my home in north Wales - where I have even taken part in the gruelling Snowdonia marathon. However, I am at risk of potentially overwhelming infections, and have repeat vaccinations against certain illnesses, in particular pneumonia. I also tend to get prescribed antibiotics on a much more regular basis than most. But I've been lucky - and only once ended up on a hospital drip due to an infection. I had my first Covid jab back in February - now I've had my second and am fully vaccinated. I fell squarely in the no-reaction camp to the vaccinations. Sore arm, yes - but little else to note. Was that, however, because my immune systems are damaged? What about those who have to take drugs to suppress their immune system, such as organ transplant patients, or those undergoing treatment for cancer? Is the Covid jab working for them? An emphatic "yes" says expert immunologist Veenu Manoharan. "I get emails from people who have compromised immune systems, maybe because they are taking drugs for chronic diseases, asking me the same thing," said the Cardiff Metropolitan University lecturer. "But the studies state that even though the first dose maybe does not give them enough antibodies, the second dose will. It will give them immunity. "It is not the case that those people on immunosuppressants are without hope. The second dose really does help improve their level of antibodies." Good news then for those who have been facing that worry - including myself. But what about those who showed no or little reaction to the jab? Does this mean it hasn't worked as well as those laid up in bed for a day or two afterwards? Not at all, insists Dr Manoharan. And that's because of what vaccines are and how they work. All the Covid vaccines being used in the UK - Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna - work to stimulate a response from the immune system, triggering it to make antibodies. These antibodies then identify specific germs or viruses, and act as a signal for the rest of the immune system to take out the unwanted invaders. "Sometimes our immune response is exaggerated, especially when you are having a vaccine," explained Dr Manoharan. The "exaggerated" responses are those fevers and chills or fatigue, as your body is tricked into believing it is under attack and needs to respond. But whether you experience an exaggerated response or not will depend on many factors - including your own genetic make-up and medical history. Your sex also has a role to play. Women are more likely to trigger a stronger immune response, because the hormone oestrogen is known to enhance the immune system. Similarly, higher levels of the hormone testosterone in men have the opposite effect on the immune system - it suppresses the inflammatory response of the reaction. Age also plays its part. As you get older, your immune system becomes less active. So those who got the jabs first - the oldest in our society - would be expected to have less of a reaction and that's exactly what happened. Similarly, the younger you are, the more likely your immune system will react more energetically to the vaccine. One review of vaccination research suggested other factors can play a role in the reaction. Behaviour such as smoking, alcohol consumption, body weight and exercise levels - even the time of day you get a jab - could influence how the vaccine works. But Dr Manoharan's view is that none of this matters. "If you don't have an exaggerated reaction, it does not mean your immune system isn't working. "If you think about it, every day we are exposed to a variety of microbes and pollutants. Our immune systems are constantly detecting those. "But we don't feel ill. Our immune system is protecting us every single minute of the day - we just don't notice it." So whether you felt unwell after your Covid jab - or nothing at all - the science is telling us we should get a good level of protection.

अधिकांश लोगों के लिए यह सिर्फ एक भुजा का दर्द है-दूसरों के लिए यह आपको मिटा सकता है-लेकिन कोविड वैक्सीन इस तरह से क्यों काम करती है? बीबीसी वेल्स के पत्रकार जॉर्ज हर्ड को एक विशेष रुचि है क्योंकि वह एक प्रतिरक्षा प्रणाली स्वास्थ्य स्थिति के साथ रहते हैं।


'R. Kelly insisted I have a sex trainer'

Summary: For two years, Asante McGee was a girlfriend of the now-disgraced R&B superstar, R. Kelly, but in the summer of 2016 she went to live in his house in Georgia. There were other women there, she discovered - and very strict rules.

Whenever I was in my room alone, that was when I would call home to speak to my children, as when I was with Robert, he didn't want us to have our phones and have contact with the outside world. When I met Robert, or rather R. Kelly, it wasn't like meeting Prince Charming who swept me off my feet. He didn't wine and dine me, he was just a warm and funny guy. We did normal stuff; he took me shopping and we enjoyed having dinners together. But there was a moment during a text exchange in 2014 when I think I should have known things weren't what they seemed. It was really early on in our relationship and I texted him, addressing him as Rob and he said: "No, can you just call me Daddy." There was no discussion - he just told me his demand. When I look back at that moment, reading the text message in my car, I should have questioned it. I should have seen his behaviour in that moment as a red flag. I was first introduced to R. Kelly in September 2013 by a member of his entourage, when he was performing in a club in Atlanta to promote his next tour. However, we had a proper introduction in January 2014. A member of his entourage invited me to hang out with R. Kelly and some of his friends. We went to the mall and we laughed and talked. We just hung out like two old friends. Before I left, he gave me his number and we immediately started texting each other. We texted for weeks and one day he invited me to his concert in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was being held on February 13. After watching him perform on stage, he invited me back to his hotel room and we had our first sexual encounter. After Valentine's Day, we kept in contact through text messages and he began inviting me to different concerts across America, and when he visited Atlanta, where I lived, I would stay with him from time to time. While we were in a relationship together, he made it clear that I wasn't the only woman he was seeing. The fact that he told me he was dating and sleeping with other women, it made me feel like he was doing his best to be honest with me, so I accepted that and decided to stay in the relationship. For the first two years of our relationship, everything was great. I would fly out and see him perform, and we would spend time together - and it worked for both of us. On the Easter weekend of March 2016, he flew me out to Chicago, but I didn't hear from him for two days and then when I finally heard from him, he had someone come and pick me up to take me to the studio where he was recording. However, I ended up being locked in a van from 11 o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night. When I was let out of the van, by members of his entourage and nephew, I found R. Kelly partying in the studio as if nothing had happened. He acted completely normal, but months later, I found out that locking me in a van was a test. He was testing my boundaries and playing mind games. Then in May 2016, I flew to watch him perform in Dallas. After the concert, one of his assistants said you need to hurry up and get your clothes from the hotel. I got my clothes and got into the van which was supposed to take me to Oklahoma, so I could catch a flight home to Atlanta, but the bus never stopped. We ended up in a huge house in John's Creek, Georgia. When I got off the bus and walked into the house, Robert said: "Welcome home, baby." He gave me a tour of the house, showed me my room. So I thought I'd stay for the summer because my kids were staying with family for the holidays, which happens every year. So with my kids not going back to school until the end of August, I thought, "OK, I can stay and spend some time with him for a few extra weeks." It was never a permanent arrangement in my mind. As soon as I moved in, he started inflicting both emotional and sexual abuse. No, he didn't force me to have sex with him, but he intimidated me to commit sexual acts and have threesomes with other women when I made it clear that I wasn't comfortable. If I said I didn't want to do something he would shout at me and call me "stupid". He would tell me that the other girls who were also visiting or living in the house at the time with us had no problem with his sexual requests, so what was my problem? I felt degraded by his actions and his desires. R. Kelly on BBC Three Viewers in the UK can watch Ben Zand's BBC Three documentaries on the iPlayer: R. Kelly: Sex, Girls and Videotapes (March 2018) R. Kelly: The Sex Scandal Continues (May 2018) Viewers in other countries can watch parts of the first documentary and the full version of the second on YouTube: The Dark World of R. Kelly? The Truth about R. Kelly & Aaliyah R. Kelly's Former Girlfriend Speaks Out Sex, Girls & STDs: The R. Kelly Sex Scandal What caused even more tension between us was his trainer. Her role? Her role was to train me and the other girls how to sexually please and satisfy Robert. According to both Robert and her, they had been sexually involved together for 16 years, since she was 14 years old. As she had been with him for so long, it was like she was the head girl in school and she used her position to verbally abuse me. I remember one day she and I got into an argument and Robert said I had "black woman syndrome". He said that I didn't like being told what to do by a younger black woman and that he wasn't going to let me, a black woman, tell him what to do. There is a misconception that R. Kelly just preys on younger girls. That isn't true. Yes, he targets young girls more so, because they are more vulnerable, easier to manipulate and more likely to be star struck. I was 35 when I met R. Kelly and he knew I had experienced abuse in a previous relationship. He had me exactly where he wanted me, because he made me trust him. He made me believe he would never hurt me by getting me to open up about my history of abuse. The hurt and pain didn't stop with sexual intimidation and emotional abuse. He was controlling. Once, he grabbed my arm for wearing the wrong shirt. He had rules that I and the other girls who lived with him or had a sexual relationship with him had to follow. One day, we were supposed to be going out and I was wearing a top with spaghetti straps and shorts. As soon as he saw me, he grabbed me and told me to change. I went upstairs and changed and instead of going out with the other girls, he made me come to the studio with him. When we got to the studio, he told me that my outfit intimidated the other girls in the house. He said that I needed to dress like the other girls, who were wearing tracksuits - but it was over 100F (38C) outside. When I said this, he didn't care. He controlled every aspect of my life, while I lived with him. Myself and two other girls who were living with him while I was there could only eat when he said we could eat. Sometimes you could go a whole day without eating because he would simply forget to feed you or he didn't want to eat. I remember buying a bag of snacks when we went out and hiding them in my room, so I always had food. He even controlled when we could use the toilet or come out of our rooms. We would have to text or call and ask for permission to use the bathroom and if he didn't respond, you were allowed to come out of your room and stomp on the floor until he heard you. The abuse and control was pushing me to my edge, but it wasn't just that. I would have to watch young girls, some as young as 18 years old, perform lewd sex acts on him and I just couldn't take it any more. I started plotting my escape. I called a friend who worked in the area and asked if she would pick me up. Later that day, my friend called me but because of the security and gates she wasn't able to drive up to the house. I knew I had to take my chance, so I packed my suitcase and decided to just walk out. Robert was outside talking to his staff and he looked shocked, he even chuckled: "So you are leaving?" I just said: "Yes, I'm leaving." I carried on walking towards my friend's car and didn't look back. I stayed with R. Kelly for three weeks in total. The week after I left he called me and said that I needed to apologise for walking out and that I had to come back home. I didn't. A lot of the other women who have suffered abuse from R. Kelly have come together and keep each other lifted. I don't have any regrets telling my story and coming forward, not just because of whom my abuser was, but because saying out loud what I went through will help other women in similar situations tell their stories and for others to believe them. As told to Tobi Oredein. Follow Tobi on Twitter @IamTobiOredein Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

दो साल तक, असांते मैकगी अब बदनाम आर एंड बी सुपरस्टार, आर. केली की प्रेमिका थी, लेकिन 2016 की गर्मियों में वह जॉर्जिया में उनके घर में रहने चली गई। वहाँ अन्य महिलाएं थीं, उन्होंने पाया-और बहुत सख्त नियम।


Rhyl man arrested for allegedly killing seagull with walking stick

Summary: A man has been arrested for allegedly killing a seagull with a walking stick.

Eyewitnesses saw the bird being attacked just after midday on Thursday on Market Street in Rhyl, Denbighshire, police have said. A 67-year-old man has been arrested and taken into custody by North Wales Police. He is being questioned in relation to the Wildlife and Countryside Act, which protects seagulls.

सीगल को छड़ी से मारने के आरोप में एक व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Inquiry over death at Harmondsworth immigration centre

Summary: An inquiry is under way into the death of a detainee at the Harmondsworth immigration centre in west London, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) said.

It is believed the male, who has not been named, collapsed on Tuesday after being restrained at the centre near Heathrow Airport. The investigation would be conducted by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman. The centre is run by a private firm, the GEO Group UK Ltd, which has so far not responded. The detention facility in West Drayton holds 615 men who are awaiting removal or deportation from the UK. A UKBA spokesman said: "This death is being investigated so it would be inappropriate to comment at this stage."

यूके बॉर्डर एजेंसी (यूकेबीए) ने कहा कि पश्चिम लंदन के हार्मंड्सवर्थ आव्रजन केंद्र में एक बंदी की मौत की जांच चल रही है।


Kosovo organ trafficking: Where is the proof?

Summary: A report accusing Kosovo's political leaders of organ-trafficking has sent shockwaves around Europe and, as the BBC's Central Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe explains, pressure is growing on the author to back up his allegations.

By May this year, Dick Marty's investigation into alleged organ trafficking and other crimes in Kosovo and Albania was getting nowhere, according to well-placed sources in Kosovo, Serbia, and Strasbourg. The Swiss politician, working for rights group the Council of Europe, had made several trips through the region, but had been frustrated at every turn. Constant leaks from the War Crimes Prosecutor's office in Belgrade damaged Serbia's own investigations into the allegations, leading some senior figures in Belgrade to despair of ever finding the truth. The Albanian authorities consistently refused to co-operate with Serbian requests to investigate alleged mass grave sites in Albania. War-crimes investigators from Eulex (European Union Law and Justice Mission in Kosovo) told Mr Marty that the organ allegations were a gruesome "fairytale". They said the claims were distracting attention from the real task of finding some 1,861 people still registered as missing from the conflict in the region - two-thirds of them Kosovar Albanians. 'Dozens of sources' Mr Marty went from door to door, in a convoy of highly visible vehicles. His report was due to be published as early as June, but its prospects seemed as dark as the sunglasses of his bodyguards. Observers expected a political statement urging all governments to do more and predicted little actual progress. Then something happened. Mr Marty appears to have discovered enough evidence to delay publication until the Swiss senator felt he had gathered enough to proceed. Paragraph 23 of Mr Marty's draft report, published this week, states: "We have obtained testimonial and documentary accounts from several dozen primary sources, notably including: combatants and affiliates of various armed factions that participated in the hostilities in Kosovo; [and] direct victims of violent crimes committed in Kosovo and the surrounding territories." Paragraph 44 notes: "According to our insider sources the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] fought just as hard, and devoted arguably more of its resources and political capital, to maintain its advantage over its ethnic Albanian rival factions as it did to carry out co-ordinated military actions against the Serbs." EU link So who talked to Mr Marty? It is common knowledge among investigative reporters in Serbia that the leads ran out there long ago, and in Kosovo itself a mixture of clan loyalty and intimidation makes investigation very difficult. Many pages in the draft report are devoted to an analysis of KLA operations inside Albania. It seems only logical to conclude that Mr Marty's new sources should be found in Albania, probably in intelligence services which once co-operated closely with the KLA. This would also make sense from a geo-political perspective. As a member of Nato, Albania has had to break down some of the barriers between its own intelligence services, and those of other member countries. As it edges towards eventual European Union membership, it is also urgently seeking allies in Europe. There are new details in the report of alleged organ-trafficking, this time focused less on the infamous "yellow house" in the village of Rripe in central Albania, which was the subject of an international war-crimes investigation in 2004, but on another facility in Fushe Kruje, just north of Tirana. Conspiracy theories Kidneys were allegedly extracted from captives immediately after they were killed there. The report also suggests links to a much more recent case of organ trafficking in Pristina, the trial of which has just begun. In Pristina, the authorities continue to deny, both in public and private, that there is any evidence whatsoever behind the Council of Europe's allegations. Mr Marty is identified as a man who has always opposed Kosovan independence, and is now collaborating with Serbia in a conspiracy to discourage any more countries from recognising Kosovo. Only 72 of the 192 members of the UN have so far done so. The first task of the new government elected last Sunday will be to begin the much delayed discussions with Serbia on normalising relations, and officials in Pristina fear the ground is being prepared to make them more pliable. A string of other "coincidences" are being put forward in the Kosovan capital, to explain the exact timing of Mr Marty's report. One idea doing the rounds in Pristina, is that if the government remains in firm denial, it has no choice but to sue Mr Marty for slander. The European Union officials in both Brussels and Pristina have challenged the author of the report to come up with his evidence. "The ball is in Mr Marty's court now," said one Pristina source.

कोसोवो के राजनीतिक नेताओं पर अंग-तस्करी का आरोप लगाने वाली एक रिपोर्ट ने पूरे यूरोप में सनसनी फैला दी है और जैसा कि बीबीसी के मध्य यूरोप के संवाददाता निक थोर्प बताते हैं, लेखक पर अपने आरोपों का समर्थन करने का दबाव बढ़ रहा है।


'I woke up and didn't recognise my wife'

Summary: Adam and Raquel Gonzales had been together for five years when he woke up one morning with no idea who she was - he had lost all memory of marrying her. But Raquel was determined to win him over again.

By Sowda AliBBC World Service One early morning in September 2016 Raquel walked into the living room in her pyjamas to find her husband looking at her with a puzzled expression. He spoke to her as if she were a stranger, without a trace of affection. He seemed to have no idea who she was. "I asked him: 'Do you know where you are? Do you know what year this is? Do you know what my name is?' And he said 'No' to all these things," Raquel says. "I could tell that the more I asked, the more upset he was becoming." Raquel reassured him that this was their home, she was his wife and they had three children together. Adam started to cry. "I need you to get me my ID, where is my phone and my ID?" he said. Raquel told Adam to get dressed and that she was going to take him to hospital immediately. She was worried that something might have gone dangerously wrong with the blood vessels in his brain. When Adam opened his cupboard, he asked: "Where are my suits?" Raquel explained that he didn't have any suits, that he was a personal trainer. Adam got dressed and reluctantly followed this woman who he did not know to the hospital. They clung to each other. Raquel was being gentle with Adam - she knew that his memory had failed once before, after a woman tried to kill him. In 2011, at the age of 35, Adam had been a branch manager for telecoms giant AT&T and a devoted church leader in Lubbock, Texas. After the break-up of his first marriage, he started a new relationship but it ended in disaster. His new girlfriend hit him on the back of the head with a metal object and, once he fell, hung him from the garage rafters - leaving him for dead. His heart stopped three times on the way to hospital, but he was resuscitated by paramedics each time. Adam ended up in a coma for four months. "When I woke up I didn't know who I was - I didn't know that I had been married and divorced and had two children," says Adam. He spent a year in hospital, learning how to walk and talk again. But the memories of his past life didn't return. Months went by before Adam was reintroduced to his son and daughter. He found it very challenging to look at them for the first time. "How could a father, a dad, forget his biological children?" he says. When he finally came home, the house was full of photographs he could not connect with and awards he had no memory of winning. His past was no longer there. "I was trying to understand who this man Adam was. Can I live up to this person?" He couldn't go back to his old job and feared he wouldn't be able to afford his previous lifestyle. "I don't even remember what I went to school [university] for," he says. "It's evident that I was there, but how I got there, how I sustained it, was unimaginable." He decided to leave the town he was in and start again. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona to work as a cable technician. It was there that he began online dating and in 2012 he began messaging Raquel, a 30-year-old marketing manager with a young daughter. They agreed to meet in a small hipster bar and grill in downtown Phoenix. Raquel sat at the first booth waiting for him to come in, but 30 minutes later he still hadn't shown up. Eventually he called her - from the wrong restaurant. "He was so apologetic and humble and I thought: 'OK everybody makes mistakes,'" says Raquel. Besides, she liked his Texan accent. Adam finally walked in, wearing a leather jacket and jeans. "He wasn't trying but somehow he looked so cool, he was so handsome," says Raquel. "I couldn't keep my eyes off her - she had these beautiful dimples and she had this really sweet smile," says Adam. They clicked and began to see each other more. After a few months of dating, they moved in together with their children, and in July 2015 they married in a little chapel outside Phoenix. But all memory of Adam and Raquel's four years together had been wiped out that morning in September 2016. While Adam was in hospital undergoing tests, he called the one person he knew he could trust - his mother. She reassured him that he had been in love with and married to Raquel. "She loves you. You have my blessing," his mum told him. "So I began to put a little more trust into her and started asking questions here and there," Adam says. "There was some excitement about it and there was a little bit of mystery about who this really nice woman is, and was." They started dating and getting to know each other again in hospital, meeting in secluded corners and chatting over grilled-cheese sandwiches at the cafeteria. "We'd get stir-crazy at night and end up walking downstairs in search for midnight snacks in the vending machines," Raquel says. "She would show me pictures on her cell phone on what back in the day I would have called MySpace but it was Facebook - so that was interesting," Adam says. "Silly things would happen - like he said, 'Do you have our marriage certificate?' and of course I did," says Raquel. She was still in the process of changing her name to Adam's so she had it in her handbag. She grabbed it and he laughed. "I think he began to see glimpses of the woman he married for better or for worse," she says. But it was not all positive. At one point Adam decided it would be better if they split up, and even told her: "I am not attracted to you, and you do not turn me on at all." When she heard that, Raquel prayed. "It's hard to love someone when they have no idea who you are and they cannot love you," she says. Find out more But she pulled out all the stops. When he came home from hospital Raquel wooed him by learning how to cook - he had done most of the cooking. He saw how Raquel was as a good mother and wife and how well their children got on. And she took comfort from the fact that Adam's underlying character had not changed. "In the hospital, Adam would turn to me saying: 'If you're my wife, I think we can kiss,'" she says. "This is still the husband I married - he is always trying to get a free kiss. Adam's always been a flirt and continues to be a flirt. "Those were little rays of hope saying: 'This is still the man that you married - he just can't remember what year,'" she says. The children also found ways of coping with the sudden change in their life. Abby was 12, Lulu was 15 and Elijah was 17 when Adam's second memory loss occurred in 2016. "They watched out for each other and I think they were more attentive and they clung together," says Raquel. "Sometimes you don't like your sister when you are a teenager but, boy, when something is happening you cling to your sister, you cling to your blood," she says. The girls tried to help their father's recovery by showing him gym routines he had taught them. "Look dad, this is what we did! You taught us all these exercises," they told Adam. "I guess I spent quality time with each of them in the gym," he says. Then suddenly, one day in December 2016 - three months after his attack of amnesia - Adam woke up and spoke to Raquel with that familiar loving tone in his voice. He apologised for something that had happened three years earlier, when they were still dating. Raquel looked at Adam and asked if he knew who she was. He said: "How could I ever forget you? You are my Raquel." "Oh honey, there is so much I have to tell you about," she said. But it was a work day and Raquel was the only breadwinner at this point, so had to leave. She asked Adam to take their daughters to school. Adam went to see if his daughter was ready. She was much older than he remembered, and of course he had no idea what school she went to. After the girls had directed him to their respective schools, Adam asked Lulu to put their home address into the GPS so he wouldn't get lost. Memory loss after a brain injury Adam has now recovered many memories but three years are still missing, including some important milestones, such as his wedding to Raquel. He has also forgotten taking the family on a cherished holiday to Disneyland in 2013. "I had always wanted to go to Disneyland but I was so busy working," he says. "All that has never come back to me." Raquel carefully documents the family's milestones, in the hope this will strengthen Adam's memory. She says she would happily repeat everything the couple has been through - but no-one knows whether that is likely or not. The doctors gave Adam every test they could - MRIs, CAT scans, echocardiograms - but they could not figure out what caused this second memory loss. The couple are now looking to the future. One of their children has left for college, and they're planning to renew their vows next year. Adam has returned to working with the church and has become a pastor. "I really learned how to truly surrender to God and have faith and believe that you can overcome the hardest of struggles," he says. "There is a new level of sweetness in our marriage that I don't think was there before," Raquel says. "Our marriage had to withstand the rain and the storm of change and overcome all that - what better way to test a relationship than making it all collapse? "My whole life completely changed and it was a beautiful disaster." Listen to Adam and Raquel Gonzales speak to Outlook on the BBC World Service Photographs courtesy of the Gonzales family Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

एडम और राक्वेल गोंजालेस पांच साल से साथ थे जब एक सुबह वह बिना किसी जानकारी के उठे कि वह कौन थी-उसने उससे शादी करने की सारी याद खो दी थी। लेकिन राक्वेल उसे फिर से जीतने के लिए दृढ़ था।


Irish mother and baby homes: Timeline of controversy

Summary: The findings of a major investigation into how women and children were treated in Irish mother and baby homes are due to be published.

The investigation began in 2015 after claims emerged that hundreds of babies were buried in a mass, unmarked grave near a home in Tuam, County Galway. The "Tuam babies" controversy, as it became known, sparked international shock and outrage. It prompted the Irish government to set up a wide-ranging investigation into the operation of mother and baby homes, in a bid to shed light on the lives and deaths of thousands of former residents. The institutions mainly housed women who became pregnant outside marriage, which was widely viewed as shameful and socially unacceptable throughout most of the 20th Century in Ireland. Ahead of the final report, BBC News NI looks back at the timeline of the Tuam babies scandal. 1925 A former workhouse in Tuam, County Galway, which housed destitute adults and children since the famine era, is converted into a mother and baby home. It is owned by Galway County Council, but is run by an order of Catholic nuns - the Bon Secours Sisters. For the next 36 years, it houses unmarried mothers and their children during a period when women were ostracised by Irish society and often by their own families if they became pregnant outside marriage. It was just one of several similar institutions in which about 35,000 single mothers gave birth. Conditions in Tuam were particularly difficult and research would later show that on average, a child from the home died every two weeks between 1925 and 1961. 1961 Having fallen into a dilapidated state, the Tuam mother and baby home is shut and its remaining residents are transferred to similar homes around the country. 1972 Following demolition of the Tuam home, construction work begins to create a new council-owned housing estate in the area. 1975 Two young boys discover skeletal remains in a concrete structure while playing near the site of the former home. Locals assume it is a famine-era grave and a priest is called to bless the site before the structure is re-sealed. Following the incident, residents treat the site as an old burial ground, eventually erecting a memorial garden with a Catholic shrine. 2012 After years of research into the history of the Tuam mother and baby home, amateur historian Catherine Corless publishes an article entitled "The Home" in a local history journal. She details the poor living conditions inside the institution and states that a "staggering number of children lost their lives in the home" between 1925 and 1961, mainly due to various diseases. Ms Corless acknowledges the deaths took place during a period when Ireland had a "very high infant mortality rate" but she questions why there are no records of where the Tuam babies were buried. September 2013 Ms Corless completes a personal mission to collate the death certificates of 798 children who died at the Tuam home. In all but two cases, she cannot trace their burial records. February 2014 The Connacht Tribune publishes an interview with Ms Corless about her campaign for a permanent memorial for the Tuam babies, including a plaque displaying all 796 infants' names. May 2014 The Irish Mail on Sunday publishes a story claiming there are fears up to 800 babies were secretly buried in a "mass grave" at the home in Tuam. This time the story gains international attention. June 2014 Following weeks of speculation over the fate of the Tuam babies, the Irish government orders a nationwide commission of investigation into Ireland's mother and baby homes. Announcing the move, the then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny says babies born to unmarried parents were treated as "an inferior sub-species" for decades in the Republic of Ireland. January 2015 Under its terms of reference, the commission is tasked with investigating practices in Irish mother and baby homes over a 76-year period, from the foundation of the state in 1922 through to 1998. The panel is asked to examine the living conditions in the homes as well as mortality rates; general causes of death among residents, burial arrangements and participation in vaccine trials. They were also tasked with investigating adoption processes in the homes, including whether or not birth mothers were able to give "full, free and informed" consent for their children to be adopted. October 2016 The commission of investigation begins test excavations at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam. 4 March 2017 The commission confirms that "significant quantities of human remains" have been found during excavations at the site in Tuam and says its is "shocked" by the discovery. Tests on a small number of remains establish that they were children ranging in age from premature babies to three-year-old toddlers, all of whom died while the mother and baby home was in operation. The remains were found in a large underground "structure" which was divided into 20 chambers. The commission says the structure "appears to be related" to the treatment or storage of sewage or waste water but adds it has not yet established if it was ever used for that purpose. 7 March 2017 Taoiseach Enda Kenny describes the burial site as a "chamber of horrors". He says he will await further work from the commission, coroner, and Gardaí (police) before deciding how to proceed. February 2018 The commission appeals to the public for information about the burials of a "large number of children who died while resident" in Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. April 2018 Catherine Corless is among those honoured at Ireland's People of the Year Awards - just one of several high-profile honours she receives for her work to uncover the truth about the Tuam burials. October 2018 Minister for Children Katherine Zappone announces plans for a forensic excavation of the Tuam site, saying the remains of each child will be exhumed, identified and given a "respectful" reburial. March 2019 The commission outlines its conclusions on burial arrangements at the homes in its fifth interim report. Its report states that a total of 802 children died inside the Tuam home during its 36 years in operation. In addition, 12 mothers died while resident at the home, the majority from childbirth complications. The commission says the human remains it found in 2016/2017 "are not in a sewage tank, but in a second structure with 20 chambers which was built within the decommissioned large sewage tank". The report says the precise purpose of the chamber structure has still not been established, but it is "likely to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water". The commission dates this second structure to about 1937 and says: "It seems clear that many of the children who died in the Tuam Home are buried in the chambers described." It also dismisses theories that the structure may have been purpose-built burial chamber or crypt, saying it "did not provide for the dignified interment of human remains". The report adds it has not been possible to establish who physically buried the infants but it "seems likely that the burials were conducted on the instructions" of the Bon Secours Sisters. The nuns' representative had already told the inquiry that the order was "shocked and devastated" by the revelations and apologised "unreservedly" for the failure to provide proper burials. Separately, the fifth report states that more than 900 children died while resident at Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork, but it is still not known where the vast majority are buried. Despite "very extensive inquiries and searches", the commission says it has established the burial place of only 64 of these children. October 2020 Former residents raise concerns over a new law which they fear could block access to much of the information collected by the commission. Their campaign warns that many documents could be sealed in national archives for 30 years. However, the government insists that "urgent legislation" is required to protect the information from having to be destroyed or redacted when the commission is legally dissolved after its final report. Minister for Children Roderic O'Gorman explains that the commission has developed databases which could assist family tracing services, but because they contain sensitive personal information, the commission felt obliged to redact "identifying" details from its databases before transfer. The minister says the new legislation allows a copy of the databases to be given to the child and family agency Tusla to assist family tracing, while the "main archive" can be deposited in line with the 2004 legislation under which the commission was set up. The bill is fast-tracked through the Dáil (Irish parliament), infuriating former residents. 25 October 2020 Irish President Michael D Higgins signs the bill on mother and baby home records into law. He notes that the bill raised important concerns "which must be addressed" but he concludes that it does not require referral to the Supreme Court for judgement on its constitutionality. However, a statement from the president's office says his decision to sign this legislation "leaves it open to any citizen to challenge the provisions of the bill in the future". 10 January 2021 Details of the inquiry's final report is leaked to a newspaper days before publication, angering campaigners and government ministers. 12 January 2021 The publication of the final report of the inquiry into mother and baby homes is described as a "landmark moment for the Irish state". The government says it will issue an apology over the "appalling level of infant mortality" identified in the report. The inquiry concludes that about 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation - about 15% of all the children who lived in the homes. The commission makes 53 recommendations, including compensation and memorialisation. An umbrella group representing survivors of Mother and Baby Homes say they have "mixed feelings about the long overdue report". The Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors says: "This report is fundamentally incomplete as it ignores the larger issue of the forced separation of single mothers and their babies since the foundation of the state as a matter of state policy." 13 January 2021 In response to the final report, the Sisters of Bon Secours offer their "profound apologies" to all the women and children who lived at the Tuam home, their families and to the people of Ireland. The order admitted its nuns "did not live up to our Christianity when running the home". "We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry," the sisters added. Their spokesman confirmed that the order will take part in a redress scheme. Later the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Mícheál Martin issues a formal apology to former residents of mother and baby homes on behalf of the state. In a statement to the Dáil (Irish parliament), he says a "profound generational wrong" had been visited on women and children who were sent to the institutions. "We had a completely warped attitude to sexuality and intimacy, and young mothers and their sons and daughters were forced to pay a terrible price for that dysfunction," the taoiseach said.

आयरिश मातृ और शिशु गृहों में महिलाओं और बच्चों के साथ कैसे व्यवहार किया गया, इसकी एक बड़ी जांच के निष्कर्ष प्रकाशित होने वाले हैं।