Two teenage boys hurt in Birmingham city shooting

Summary: Two teenage boys have been hurt in a shooting in Birmingham.

A 15-year-old was shot in the back and a 14-year-old was hit in the arm in the incident in Handsworth on Friday night. The older boy is in a serious but stable condition in hospital, while the younger boy was not thought to be seriously injured. The gunshots are believed to have been fired from a car which left the scene in Victoria Road at about 20:15 GMT, West Midlands Police said. Det Sgt Matt Marston said: "We are still piecing together the circumstances around what happened, but we will not tolerate anyone being shot, especially not teenagers." The force's chief constable referred to the victims as "children" on Twitter. The road has been cordoned off for a police investigation.

बर्मिंघम में गोलीबारी में दो किशोर लड़के घायल हो गए हैं।


UK's Syria debate: Key quotes and clips

Summary: MPs have voted to authorise air strikes against so-called Islamic State in Syria, following a ten-hour debate in the House of Commons. Here are some of the key contributions, plus a couple from the House of Lords, which also held a debate.

Prime Minister David Cameron "This is not about whether we want to fight terrorism, it's about how best we do that. The question is this: do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat and do we go after these terrorists in their heartlands, from where they are plotting to kill British people. Or do we sit back and wait for them to attack us." Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn "For all members to take a decision that will put British servicemen and women in harm's way and almost inevitably lead to the deaths of innocents is a heavy responsibility. It must be treated with the utmost seriousness and respect given to those who make a different judgment about the right course of action to take." Shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn "We must now confront this evil. It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria. And that is why I ask my colleagues to vote for this motion tonight." Conservative MP Sir Alan Duncan Sir Alan told the House if it chose to "remain on the sidelines" it would signal to the world that the UK had chosen to "withdraw". He said MPs should not be in the business of "national resignation". Angus Robertson, the SNP's Westminster leader "I appeal to colleagues on all sides to make sure that we do not ignore the lessons of Afghanistan, ignore the lessons of Iraq, ignore the lessons of Libya. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past, let's not give the green light to military action without a comprehensive and credible plan to win the peace." Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP and Father of the House "There's absolutely no evidence of any kind that bombing Daesh, or bombing Raqqa, will result in an upsurge of other people in the region to get rid of them." Liam Fox, Conservative MP and former defence secretary Margaret Beckett, Labour MP and former foreign secretary "Some say simply innocent people are more likely to be killed. Military action does create casualties, however much we try to minimise them. "So should we on those grounds abandon action in Iraq, even though undertaken at the request of Iraq's government and it does seem to be making a difference? "Should we take no further action against Daesh, who are themselves killing innocent people and striving to kill more every day of the week? Or should we simply leave it to others?" Crispin Blunt, Conservative MP and chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee "Whilst the defeat of ISIL and its ideology will be the work of many decades, the retaking of this territory is an urgent and immediate requirement." Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi Julian Lewis, Conservative MP and chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee "I shall vote against air strikes in the absence of credible ground forces, as ineffective and potentially dangerous, just as I voted against the proposal to bomb Assad in 2013. "Indeed, the fact that the British government wanted to bomb first one side and then the other in the same civil war, in such a short space of time, illustrates to my mind a vacuum at the heart of our strategy." Green Party MP Caroline Lucas Alan Johnson, Labour MP and former home secretary Labour MP Yvette Cooper The former shadow home secretary said she did not think coalition air strikes on so-called Islamic State in Syria should stop. "And if they're not to stop and France asks for our help, I don't think we can say no," she added. Nigel Dodds, the DUP's Westminster leader Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron "If we were just being asked to bomb Syria I'd be voting no, I'd be out there demonstrating in between the speeches, I'd be signing up to those emails from the Stop the War Coalition. "But this is not just a case of bombing, this is standing with the United Nations and the international community to do what is right by people who are the most beleaguered of all." Conservative MP David Davis Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams SNP foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond Conservative MP Caroline Spelman Labour MP Dan Jarvis The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby "Our bombing action plays into the expectation of Isil and other jihadist groups in the region, springing from their apocalyptic theology. "The totality of our actions must subvert that false narrative because by itself it will not work." William Hague, former Conservative foreign secretary Labour MP Alison McGovern SNP MP Philippa Whitford Labour MP Shabana Mahmood Labour MP David Lammy

संसद सदस्यों ने हाउस ऑफ कॉमन्स में दस घंटे की बहस के बाद सीरिया में तथाकथित इस्लामिक स्टेट के खिलाफ हवाई हमलों को अधिकृत करने के लिए मतदान किया है। यहाँ कुछ प्रमुख योगदान हैं, साथ ही हाउस ऑफ लॉर्ड्स के एक जोड़े, जिन्होंने एक बहस भी आयोजित की।


Singapore country profile

Summary: Singapore is a wealthy city state in south-east Asia. Once a British colonial trading post, today it is a thriving global financial hub and described as one of Asia's economic "tigers". It is also renowned for its conservatism and strict local laws and the country prides itself on its stability and security.

Chinese account for more than 75% of Singapore's multi-racial population, with Malays and Indians making up much of the remainder. Densely-populated, most of its people live in public-housing tower blocks. Its trade-driven economy is heavily supported by foreign workers. In 2013, the government forecast that by 2030, immigrants will makeup more than 50% of the population. The People's Action Party has dominated politics since the country declared independence from Malaysia in 1965. Issues such as the rising cost of living, immigration and income inequality are major challenges facing the government. KEY FACTS Republic of Singapore Capital: Singapore Population 5.3 million Area 660 sq km (255 sq miles) Major languages English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil Major religions Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism Life expectancy 79 years (men), 84 years (women) Currency Singapore dollar LEADERS President: Halimah Yacob Halimah Yacob was sworn in as Singapore's first female president in 2017. As a member of the Muslim Malay minority, she is also the country's first Malay leader in 47 years. She became the sole contender when the two other prospective candidates failed to meet eligibility requirements. It's the first time the presidency has been reserved for a particular ethnic group, as authorities seek to foster harmony in a multicultural society dominated by ethnic Chinese. She was the Speaker of parliament before taking up the largely ceremonial post of president. Presidential candidates run as individuals because Singapore's head of state is supposed to be non-partisan. Prime minister: Lee Hsien Loong The eldest son of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Hsien Loong has been in office since August 2004. A former army officer and Cambridge-educated mathematician, he followed his father into politics in 1984 at the age of 32. As prime minister, Mr Lee has launched policies to build a competitive economy, introducing new programmes to upgrade the education system, investing in research and development and transforming the city-state. Mr Lee has been involved in a very public feud with his siblings over their father's will. MEDIA As the media hub for south-east Asia, Singapore is a strategic centre for the region's English-speaking audience. Its tightly-controlled media environment means self-censorship among journalists is common. There are also curbs on online content. TIMELINE Some key dates in Singapore's history: 1819 - Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles establishes Singapore as a trading post for the British East India Company. 1942 - Singapore falls to Japan during Second World War. The island is renamed Syonan-to or "Light of the South Island" in Japanese. 1945-46 - Japanese forces surrender. Singapore becomes a British colony. 1959 - Singapore holds first general election. 1963 - Singapore joins the Federation of Malaya, Sabah (North Borneo) and Sarawak in the Federation of Malaysia. 1965 - Declares independence from the Federation of Malaysia. 1990 - Singapore's founding father Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew stands down after 31 years. 1993 - Singapore holds its first presidential election.

सिंगापुर दक्षिण-पूर्व एशिया में एक समृद्ध शहर राज्य है। कभी यह एक ब्रिटिश औपनिवेशिक व्यापारिक केंद्र था, आज यह एक संपन्न वैश्विक वित्तीय केंद्र है और एशिया के आर्थिक "बाघों" में से एक के रूप में वर्णित है। यह अपनी रूढ़िवादिता और सख्त स्थानीय कानूनों के लिए भी प्रसिद्ध है और देश अपनी स्थिरता और सुरक्षा पर गर्व करता है।


Lincoln man held over terror offences released

Summary: A 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of right-wing terror offences has been released under investigation.

East Midlands counter-terrorism officers detained the man, from Lincoln, in Leicester on Tuesday. Ch Supt Jon McAdam said: "The alleged offences relate to the encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of a terrorist publication." Lincolnshire Police said the man had been released under investigation on Thursday. Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook on Twitter, and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.

दक्षिणपंथी आतंकी अपराधों के संदेह में गिरफ्तार एक 19 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को जांच के तहत रिहा कर दिया गया है।


Gay rights 50 years on: 10 ways in which the UK has changed

Summary: It's 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexual sex in England and Wales. How did the law change society?

By Rachel Schraer & Joey D'UrsoBBC News 1. Social approval of same-sex relationships has risen rapidly The proportion of the British public who say they approve of same-sex partnerships has soared over the past 30 years. Since 1983 the British Social Attitudes survey has asked people whether they think sexual relationships between two adults of the same sex are "always wrong, mostly wrong, sometimes wrong, rarely wrong or not wrong at all". The group of people answering that they thought same-sex partnerships were "not wrong at all" has almost quadrupled from 17% when the survey started in 1983, to 64% in 2016. Approval fell in the 1980s when the Aids crisis and the introduction of section 28 - a law prohibiting the promotion or teaching of homosexuality in schools - could have swayed public opinion according to NatCen, the think tank which runs the survey. But a steady and rapid rise from the early 1990s reflects a wider trend of social liberalisation, something also seen in changing attitudes to pre-marital sex. Approval of pre-marital sex grew initially among the young - as they got older they retained that belief, and soon both old and young were more liberal on the issue. For same-sex relationships the shift in attitude has been quicker - not only did young people with liberal views get older, but older people changed their minds, too. This might in part be because changes in the law, such as the legalisation of civil partnerships and then gay marriage, have a powerful influence on people's views, a NatCen spokesman suggests. 2. 1967 was not the end of the story While the 1967 act was a milestone in equality, it was far from the end of the story - and it chiefly benefited men who had sex with men. There have been a number of other key dates on the journey towards sexual and gender equality, not just for gay men but for the rest of the LGBT community. For example, gay sex remained illegal in Scotland and Northern Ireland until 1982 while transgender people weren't protected in equality legislation until 2010. 50 years of legislation 1967 - Sex between two men over 21 and "in private" is decriminalised 1980 - Decriminalisation in Scotland 1982 - Decriminalisation in Northern Ireland 1994 - The age of consent for two male partners is lowered to 18 2000 - The ban on gay and bisexual people serving in the armed forces is lifted; the age of consent is equalised for same- and opposite-sex partners at 16 2002 - Same-sex couples are given equal rights when it comes to adoption 2003 - Gross indecency is removed as an offence 2004 - A law allowing civil partnerships is passed 2007 - Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is banned 2010 - Gender reassignment is added as a protected characteristic in equality legislation 2014 - Gay marriage becomes legal in England, Wales and Scotland 3. Criminalisation of gay people continued into this century In 1967, homosexuality was only partially decriminalised. Those keen to criminalise any public displays of consensual homosexual activity still had tools to do so through the offence of "gross indecency", which had a broad interpretation. Prosecutions for relationships between two consenting men over the age of 16 continued until 2000 when the age of consent was equalised. In the years following the 1967 law change, even public displays of affection could be criminalised as "procuring" or "soliciting". Gross indecency covered activities ranging from having sex in public, to sexual activity in private involving more than two men. Hotels were counted as public and so men could be prosecuted for meeting there while others were convicted as recently as 1998 for having group sex in private. After the 1967 Act, activities that had not been decriminalised were prosecuted far more strictly than before, according to human-rights barrister Alex Bailin QC. This led to a steep rise in offences of gross indecency. After a decline there was another spike in the 1980s amid a moral panic over the Aids epidemic. Sexual activity in a public toilet remains a specific offence to this day - for opposite-sex couples as well. Prosecutions were far more common until the 1990s but have tailed off since, partly because of social attitudes to gay relationships, says Kate Goold, a solicitor at Bindmans. 4. Government has attempted to redress this legacy Given this legacy of criminalisation, the government introduced a scheme in October 2012 allowing those prosecuted under defunct gay-sex-related laws, to have their convictions removed from police and court records. The Home Office estimates that there were about 50,000 such offences recorded on the system from the 1950s until 2000. But of these 50,000, only an estimated 16,000 are for people who are still living and so able to apply. Not all of the 16,000 offences are eligible to be "disregarded". They include some where the activity was non-consensual, with a person under 16 years of age, or involving other activity which would still be a crime today - for example having sex in a public toilet. Between October 2012 and April 2016, only 242 people applied for a disregard and only 83 were granted, according to a written answer in parliament. The law changed further in 2016. Family members can now apply for posthumous pardons. 5. Recording of homophobic hate crimes has risen A steep rise in homophobic hate crimes has been recorded over the past five years, but this is thought to be in large part down to an increase in people reporting incidents rather than a genuine rise in crime. The National Police Chiefs Council's lead on homophobic crimes, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, says: "Traditionally, homophobic hate crime has been significantly under-reported and we do not believe that current statistics accurately reflect actual levels of abuse. "However, higher reporting rates indicate that the LGBT community feels increasingly confident to come forward and report incidents." The Home Office's report on the latest figures says that "these could be genuine increases in hate crimes or increases in the numbers of victims coming forward to report a hate crime". 6. Young people are more likely to identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual Public opinion has shifted hugely on same-sex relationships over the past decade. It's striking that people aged 16-24 are more than five times more likely than those aged over 65 to identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The Office for National Statistics keeps records of people who identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual - 1.7% of the adult population (2% of men and 1.5% of women). This is likely to underestimate the real numbers as the survey doesn't capture sexual attraction or behaviour. In 2005 the government tried to estimate the size of the lesbian, gay and bisexual population and came up with a larger number - 5-7% of the population. 7. Gay people say they feel less happy than their straight peers People who identify as gay, lesbian and bisexual report lower levels of well-being than heterosexuals in the UK. The ONS looks at happiness, life satisfaction, and the extent to which people feel their life is worthwhile. For all three of those categories, gay, lesbian and bisexual people report much lower levels. Data is also collected on anxiety, which has the biggest sexuality gap. Gay and lesbian people report higher levels of anxiety than straight people, but bisexual people are even more likely to suffer from the condition. Young lesbian, gay and bisexual people are also more likely to suffer from suicidal thoughts than their straight friends, according to a 2014 survey by LGBT support charity Metro. The results also suggested higher rates of self-harm. 8. Same-sex couples have gained equal marriage rights Civil partnerships were legalised in 2004 throughout the United Kingdom, with the first ceremonies taking place at the end of the following year. Nearly 140,000 people entered into civil partnerships between 2005 and 2015, the last year for which figures are available. Across the UK, gay and lesbian couples were granted many of the same rights as married heterosexuals, albeit with a few differences around issues like private-sector pensions. It meant that couples could no longer be kept out of hospital rooms when their partner was sick, they would no longer lose their home or business because of tax laws, and they had parental rights over children. Same-sex marriage was legalised a decade later, with the first ceremonies taking place in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014. It is still banned in Northern Ireland. According to official estimates about 60,000 people were in same-sex marriages in 2016. 9. Gay marriage is now legal in 22 countries England, Scotland and Wales were far from the first places to legalise same-sex marriage. The Netherlands changed the law first in 2001. Gay marriage is now legal in 22 countries worldwide, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). That's just 11% of UN member states. Definitions can sometimes be tricky though - the UK is included despite Northern Ireland's ban. Brazil and Mexico are also on ILGA's list because "through one legal route or another, it appears to be possible to marry in most jurisdictions". Germany is not included - MPs gave their approval to same-sex marriage earlier this year but the law does not come into force until October. Countries where gay marriage is legal 2001 Netherlands 2003 Belgium 2005 Canada, Spain 2006 South Africa 2009 Norway, Sweden 2010 Iceland, Portugal, Argentina 2012 Denmark 2013 Uruguay, New Zealand, France, Brazil 2014 UK (excluding Northern Ireland) 2015 Luxembourg, Ireland, Mexico, USA 2016 Colombia 2017 Finland A further 28 countries guarantee some civil-partnership recognition according to ILGA. 10. Being gay is still criminalised in many parts of the world Britain is marking 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality but same-sex relations are still illegal across vast swathes of the world. There are 72 countries which explicitly outlaw homosexuality, according to ILGA, but there are several others with some form of legal restriction. For example, Russia is included even though same-sex relationships were formally legalised in 1993. This is because "a variety of repressive legal provisions" have come into force over the past decade, according to ILGA. In eight countries same-sex relationships sometimes carry the death penalty - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and parts of Iraq and Syria held by so-called Islamic State. The number of states that criminalise same-sex relations is decreasing annually, though, with Belize and the Seychelles repealing such laws last year.

इंग्लैंड और वेल्स में समलैंगिक यौन संबंध के आंशिक अपराधीकरण को 50 साल हो चुके हैं। इस कानून ने समाज को कैसे बदल दिया?


Red river near Arctic nickel plant examined by inspectors

Summary: Russian environmental inspectors are trying to establish why a river near the Norilsk Nickel industrial complex in the Arctic has turned blood-red.

Dramatic pictures of the discoloured Daldykan river have been posted widely on Russian media. The government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta says a leaking slurry pipeline carrying waste copper-nickel concentrate could be to blame. Norilsk Nickel is the world's largest nickel and palladium producer. Its vast furnaces were built on the Taimyr Peninsula, in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, in the Soviet era. The mining group has a production facility called Nadezhda by the Daldykan river. But company officials said they were not aware of any river pollution from the plant. Billionaire oligarch Vladimir Potanin is president of Norilsk Nickel.

रूसी पर्यावरण निरीक्षक यह स्थापित करने की कोशिश कर रहे हैं कि आर्कटिक में नोरिल्स्क निकेल औद्योगिक परिसर के पास एक नदी रक्त-लाल क्यों हो गई है।


Dr Catherine Calderwood named new chief medical officer

Summary: A new chief medical officer for Scotland has been appointed.

Dr Catherine Calderwood, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, takes over the position from Sir Harry Burns, who stepped down last year. Dr Calderwood recently held the role of acting deputy chief medical officer in the Scottish government. She has a special interest in maternal medicine, obstetric scanning and high-risk pregnancy. She has also held various high-profile national roles, including that of national clinical director for maternity and women's health in NHS England. As chief medical officer, she will be the top adviser to ministers on a wide range of issues surrounding the health of the country. 'Substantial challenge' Health Secretary Shona Robison said: "Catherine's appointment will build on her already substantial achievements and reputation in Scotland and the UK. I very much look forward to working with her." Dr Calderwood, a graduate of Cambridge and Glasgow universities, will formally take up the post shortly. "The role provides huge opportunities to drive forward and improve the health of our nation," she said. "We have a health service to be proud of and the professionalism and standard of medical practice is second to none. "Driving forward further improvements and ensuring we have a health service fit to meet the challenges of the future is a substantial challenge - but something both myself, and I am sure the whole of our health service, is more than ready for."

स्कॉटलैंड के लिए एक नया मुख्य चिकित्सा अधिकारी नियुक्त किया गया है।


Man charged with kidnap and assault in Gloucestershire

Summary: A man has been charged with two counts of kidnap and four counts of assault against women in Gloucestershire.

Police said the alleged offences happened between July and October and included an incident in which a woman was allegedly hit with a hammer. The force said the man, from Gloucester, had also been charged with two counts of attempted kidnap and possession of an offensive weapon. He was remanded in custody to appear at Gloucester Crown Court on 7 November.

ग्लूस्टरशायर में एक व्यक्ति पर अपहरण के दो मामले और महिलाओं के खिलाफ हमले के चार मामले दर्ज किए गए हैं।


BP and Russian oligarchs play chicken

Summary: There are two characteristics of BP's Russian joint venture: it has generated many billions of dollars of dividends for the company; and it has been a total nightmare to manage, largely because of years of appalling relations between BP and its billionaire oligarch partners.

Robert PestonEconomics editor A new governance low has been hit with the resignation of one of the oligarchs, Mikhail Fridman, as chief executive of the joint venture. What is going on and why? Well BP believes that at least two of the oligarchs, Victor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik, would like out - or at least they would like to convert their holding in the joint venture into cash and BP shares. This is consistent with the statement by Alfa-Access-Renova, the oligarchs' consortium, that they have "lost faith in BP as a partner". BP's belief is that the oligarchs regret the way they frustrated last year's attempt by the British oil giant to form a joint venture with the Russian state-owned energy colossus, Rosneft, which could have involved Rosneft buying out the oligarchs. So BP sees Mr Fridman's resignation as part of a new campaign to put pressure on BP to organise a whole or partial buyout of their holding in TNK-BP. The problem for BP is that it fears it could end up losing all of this stunningly valuable asset if it were to take its stake above 50% - because of a Russian prohibition on foreign businesses acquiring majority control of strategic assets. BP does not wish to lift its stake above 50%, for fear of damaging those all-important relations with Putin's Kremlin. And right now BP believes it is on pretty good terms with the Russian government. There is an impasse, which means that TNK-BP will probably function on autopilot for a while, managed by five senior executives but without direction from its own board. In those circumstances, dividends won't be paid to either BP or the oligarchs. Colossal amounts of cash running to billions of dollars will build up in the coffers of the joint-venture, until either the oligarchs or BP become antsy about having rights to all that lovely money but not being able to touch it. In this corporate soap opera, the end is only predictable by those with a talent for outlandish fiction. I will let you know when I've constructed a denouement so absurd as to possibly be true.

बी. पी. के रूसी संयुक्त उद्यम की दो विशेषताएँ हैंः इसने कंपनी के लिए कई अरबों डॉलर का लाभांश उत्पन्न किया है और बी. पी. और उसके अरबपति कुलीन भागीदारों के बीच वर्षों के भयावह संबंधों के कारण इसे प्रबंधित करना एक पूर्ण दुःस्वप्न रहा है।


Tributes to girl, 15, who died in New Forest tree crash

Summary: A 15-year-old girl who died when a car she was travelling in struck a tree in the New Forest has been described by her family as generous and intelligent.

Rebecca Marchant from Leatherhead, Surrey, was killed in the crash in Hordle on Wednesday evening. In a tribute, her family said she was a "truly loved daughter, sister, granddaughter and good friend to all". The teenager was a front passenger in a convertible Mercedes which crashed in Hordle Lane at about 20:45 GMT. An eight-year-old and 10-year-old were taken to Southampton General Hospital. The tribute said: "Her kind, bubbly, thoughtful generous and intelligent personality along with her constant happy smiling face will be sorely missed by everyone who knew and came into contact with her." The 34-year-old driver, from Hordle, has been charged with causing death by careless driving while over the drink-drive limit. Related Internet Links Hampshire Constabulary

न्यू फॉरेस्ट में एक कार के पेड़ से टकराने से एक 15 वर्षीय लड़की की मौत हो गई, जिसे उसके परिवार ने उदार और बुद्धिमान बताया है।


Hungary plunges into EU hot water in steering role

Summary: Hungary's turn at the helm of the EU has been accompanied by a chorus of concern about a media law brought in by the centre-right government. The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Budapest examines how Hungary is likely to influence the EU's agenda this year.

"Maybe we should start to think about developing Hungarian soft power," George Schopflin, a Euro MP for the Fidesz party told a conference on Hungary's image in the world. The country can start showing off some lesser-known treasures - for example its army of excellent, relatively cheap dentists, or its abundant thermal waters. At the Szechenyi Thermal Baths in the Budapest City Park there is a lot of soft power on display. Men and women in all shapes and sizes lounge in azure outdoor pools, kept at a steady 38C by springs from deep under the city. Some play chess - a favourite pastime here - shoulder-deep in the waters. The air temperature is -2C, but the rosy-bodied adults and children do not seem to notice, as they stroll through steam clouds over heated cobblestones, past elegant Hapsburg yellow buildings. The manager of the baths, Ferenc Kiss, is looking forward to the Hungarian presidency of the EU. "We're counting on many more visitors, from all over Europe this year," he says. New EU priorities Hungary has taken over the presidency with an ambitious domestic agenda of its own. There are plans to finalise the Danube Strategy - to develop the economic and ecological potential of Europe's most important waterway. In April, a new all-EU strategy to better integrate the Roma (Gypsies) will be unveiled, drawing on positive examples from many countries, led by Budapest. Hungary has also promised to help its neighbour Croatia close the last chapters of its EU membership procedure by the end of June. But there will also be areas of conflict as European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso visits Hungary on Friday. Some he will bring with him, like the battles within the eurozone, to which Hungary does not yet belong - others are home-produced. The Fidesz party came to power last June with a massive two-thirds of the seats in the Hungarian parliament. That gives them the right to change the ground rules of the Hungarian state, including the constitution, drawn up during the peaceful transition from a single to a multi-party state. The government argues that Hungarian democracy has been disfigured and often paralysed by the party-political battles of the past 20 years. In the past seven months Fidesz has pushed through law after law, eroding many political checks and balances. "A reform programme has to be implemented fast, effectively within the first 12 to 15 months of a government coming into power. After that it becomes increasingly difficult to launch serious reform," said George Schopflin. Consolidating power The government has lost no time. The wings of the constitutional court - until now one of the most powerful in Europe - have been clipped. Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom has been replaced by a Fidesz loyalist, Pal Schmitt. The penal code has been tightened to increase sanctions against repeat offenders. And a partly private pension fund with three million contributors has been tipped into the state coffers. In its defence, the government argues that a strong but fair state is necessary, and that everything must be done to stimulate growth - including the creation of 100,000 jobs a year. At present Hungary has the lowest rate of employment in the EU - under 55% of the working-age population. That means that 1.9 million taxpayers (plus 800,000 in the state sector) are struggling to fund a country of 10 million people. Taxes on personal income and businesses are being cut, and swingeing taxes imposed on banks and large, mostly foreign-owned corporations to fund this. On 1 January a new media law came into force in Hungary, which has been attacked by leading newspapers and media and human rights watchdogs across Europe. "When some people use excessive language, they should also look into their own media laws and legislation, and they will find a striking similarity between the provisions they now violently criticise and those which exist in fact in their own country,'' said Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi. Criticism has also been fierce at home. A requirement in the new law not to "hurt public morality" is one of many "vague provisions" attacked by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU). "The only certain point is that it creates room for discretionary, arbitrary decisions by the media authority, and consequently it increases its authority to restrict free speech," the HCLU wrote. The new media authority and media council replaced five previous bodies, which were often paralysed by party disputes. Now Fidesz stands accused of using its parliamentary majority to appoint loyalists to both edit and regulate public service media, and to threaten commercial media with fines. Risk of self-censorship Staff at the national radio, two state television channels, and the state news agency MTI have been unsettled by plans to roll them into one massive newsroom, and by the possible loss of jobs. "There is a danger or growing danger of self-censorship among certain colleagues, because they feel their job is less secure than it was. And that's why they might want to comfort those in power," says Gyula Csak, the news director of Hungarian Radio. "From now on," quipped one comedian in the New Year's Eve radio cabaret, "all jokes will be centralised - there'll be a list of 40 jokes approved by the National Joke Authority, and we'll just have to choose between them!" The first act of the new Media Authority was to launch an investigation into the commercial Tilos (meaning "forbidden") Radio, for broadcasting two songs, in English, last September by American gangster-rap artist Ice-T, judged to be obscene and to endanger minors. Few young people "understand hardly comprehensible lyrics", Tilos Radio replied in a letter, "written in slang, full of words and expressions missing from their curriculum, after one hearing, in a musical environment". In the outdoor pool at the Szechenyi Baths, the chess tournament is heating up. A man with a handsome beard waves away the television cameras. His opponent - who appears to be winning - insists the cameraman may film as much as he wishes. This was ever a divided nation.

यूरोपीय संघ के शीर्ष पर हंगरी की बारी के साथ केंद्र-दक्षिणपंथी सरकार द्वारा लाए गए एक मीडिया कानून के बारे में चिंता का एक कोरस है। बुडापेस्ट में बीबीसी के निक थोर्प ने जांच की कि हंगरी इस साल यूरोपीय संघ के एजेंडे को कैसे प्रभावित कर सकता है।


Where the Brexiteers went: Johnson, Davis and Fox mapped

Summary: They're known as the Three Brexiteers - the ministers who all campaigned to leave the EU and are now shaping the UK's foreign relations for years to come. Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox have been racking up the air miles to put the UK's case...

By Gavin StampPolitical reporter, BBC News The foreign secretary has been setting a furious pace in terms of globe-trotting, seemingly spending as much time abroad as he has at home - even during the general election campaign. Of course, he has the edge on his cabinet colleagues as it is his job to be the UK's chief ambassador. His remit includes the full gamut of diplomacy and maintaining inter-state political relations, not just preparing the ground for Brexit and beyond. His travels have taken him to Australasia, East Asia, West Africa and the Balkans among other parts of the world. He pulled rank by being the first British minister to travel to Washington after Donald Trump's election as president. Notable omissions on his itinerary so far include Russia and China. Mr Johnson was due to visit Moscow in April but this was called off amid tensions over Syria. Like his boss, Prime Minister Theresa May, the offer of a visit to Beijing has yet to come but this is expected later this year. The list would be even longer but we've not included EU and Nato foreign ministers' meetings in Brussels and the Iraq and Syria conferences in Paris, and Shimon Peres' funeral in Israel The international trade secretary is the man with the task of banging the drum for British business overseas, with at least one eye on negotiating free trade deals after the UK leaves the EU. While not quite keeping up with Mr Johnson, he has covered plenty of ground himself. As an unabashed Atlanticist who is very much at home over the pond, it was no great surprise that his first destination was the US and that he has also found time in his diary to visit Canada. Other important strategic destinations include the Gulf - he has been on three separate occasions - and India - which in many respects is the biggest but most challenging prize for the UK in the post-Brexit trade scramble. His visits to Europe have been notably and understandably less frequent, with Germany being his destination of choice. The Brexit secretary has been limited in the amount of time he can spend overseas and also where he can go, as his focus is squarely on the negotiations with the EU. He has had to devote much of his time to setting up his department from scratch, fighting Article 50 court cases, piloting legislation through the Commons and preparing for Brexit negotiations. While the EU has specifically ruled out the UK pursuing bilateral talks with individual European countries, Mr Davis has still been out and about, taking his message to European capitals and seeking to deepen understanding of the UK's intentions and positions. He has just about covered most of Scandinavia - but more important, strategically, were his early visits to the Republic of Ireland and Spain - two countries for whom Brexit will have major practical repercussions. He has yet to make it to Paris but has spent plenty of time opposite his French negotiating counterpart Michel Barnier in Brussels.

उन्हें थ्री ब्रेक्सिटर्स के रूप में जाना जाता है-वे मंत्री जिन्होंने सभी यूरोपीय संघ छोड़ने के लिए अभियान चलाया और अब आने वाले वर्षों से ब्रिटेन के विदेश संबंधों को आकार दे रहे हैं। बोरिस जॉनसन, डेविड डेविस और लियाम फॉक्स ब्रिटेन के मामले को रखने के लिए हवाई मील की दूरी तय कर रहे हैं...


Breonna Taylor: Timeline of black deaths caused by police

Summary: A US grand jury has charged a police officer over the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor earlier this year during a drug raid at her home. Here's a timeline of major incidents involving the deaths of black Americans since 2014.

17 July 2014: Eric Garner Eric Garner died after he was wrestled to the ground by a New York police officer on suspicion of illegally selling cigarettes. While in a choke hold, Mr Garner uttered the words "I can't breathe" 11 times. The incident - filmed by a bystander - led to protests across the country. The police officer involved was later fired, but was never prosecuted. It came a year after the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in response to the acquittal of the man who killed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida. 9 August 2014: Michael Brown Michael Brown, 18, was killed by a police officer, in Ferguson, Missouri, who was responding to reports that Brown - who was not armed - had stolen a box of cigars. The exact circumstances of the encounter are disputed, but Brown was shot six times, according to autopsy reports. The officer involved later resigned from the force, but was not prosecuted. The incident led to multiple waves of protests and civil unrest in Ferguson, boosting the Black Lives Matter movement further. 22 November 2014: Tamir Rice Tamir Rice, a boy of 12, was shot dead in Cleveland, Ohio by a police officer after reports of a male who was "probably a juvenile" pointing a gun that was "probably fake" at passers by. Police claimed that they told Rice to drop the weapon - but instead of dropping it he pointed it at police. The police confirmed that the gun was a toy after Rice had been shot dead. There were no prosecutions after this case. The police officer involved was sacked three years later for lying on his job application form. 4 April 2015: Walter Scott Walter Scott was shot in the back five times by a white police officer, who was later fired and eventually sentenced to 20 years in prison. Mr Scott had been pulled over for having a defective light on his car in North Charleston, South Carolina, and ran away from the police officer after a brief scuffle. The killing sparked protests in North Charleston, with chants of "No justice, no peace". 5 July 2016: Alton Sterling Alton Sterling's death led to days of protests in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mr Sterling was killed after police responded to reports of a disturbance outside a shop. The incident was caught on mobile phone footage and spread online. The two officers involved did not face criminal charges, but one was dismissed and the other suspended from the police. 6 July 2016: Philando Castile Philando Castile was killed while out driving with his girlfriend in St Paul, Minnesota. Timeline of US police killings He was pulled over by the police during a routine check, and told them he was licensed to carry a weapon, and had one in his possession. He was shot as he was reaching for his licence, according to his girlfriend. She live-streamed the encounter on Facebook. The officer involved was cleared of murder charges. 18 March 2018: Stephon Clark Stephon Clark died after being shot at least seven times in Sacramento, California, by police who were investigating a break-in. The district attorney said that the police had not committed a crime, as the officers said they feared for their lives believing Mr Clark was armed. Only a mobile phone was found at the scene. The release of a police video of the incident sparked major protests in the city. 13 March 2020: Breonna Taylor Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician was shot eight times when officers raided her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. The police were executing a search warrant as part of a drugs raid, but no drugs were found. Louisville police said they returned fire after one officer was shot and wounded in the incident. Of the three offices who discharged their weapons, one has been dismissed from the force and the other two put on administrative duties. The family filed a lawsuit which says that Ms Taylor's partner - who was with her at the time - fired in self-defence because the police did not identify themselves, and he thought the apartment was being burgled. In September, the family reached a settlement of $12m (£9.3m) with the Louisville city authorities, which also includes a series of police reforms. On 23 September a US grand jury indicted one police officer over the fatal shooting. 25 May 2020: George Floyd George Floyd died after being arrested in Minneapolis, and held down by police officers, one of whom had his knee on Mr Floyd's neck. He pleaded that he couldn't breathe. Protests broke out in cities across the US, and there were demonstrations in other parts of the world. One officer has been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, and three others will face charges of aiding and abetting murder.

एक अमेरिकी ग्रैंड जूरी ने इस साल की शुरुआत में अपने घर पर नशीली दवाओं के छापे के दौरान ब्रियोना टेलर की घातक गोलीबारी के लिए एक पुलिस अधिकारी पर आरोप लगाया है। यहाँ 2014 से अश्वेत अमेरिकियों की मौतों से जुड़ी प्रमुख घटनाओं की समयरेखा दी गई है।


The women who have embraced their grey roots

Summary: With hairdressers closed for much of lockdown, silver streaks started to appear in women's hair far more often. While most rushed for a cut and colour as soon as salon doors opened, others embraced the change and are planning to make it permanent.

By Emma Clifford BellBBC Scotland The Nine Before lockdown Ellen MacLauchlan had her grey roots touched up every two to three weeks. She says she saw her stylist more often than some of her friends and "everything revolved around a hairdressers' appointment". "If someone asked me if I wanted to go on a night out or if I was going to book a holiday, I would be working out if it fell within a two-week period of getting my hair done." But two months into lockdown Ellen had a "wee lightbulb moment" and realised she suited her natural colour. "As soon as I made the decision, I just knew there was no going back," she says. "I actually quite liked the grey coming in. I was getting problems with my scalp and the chemicals probably weren't the best to be putting on my hair so often." The 47-year-old housing officer, from Gartcosh in North Lanarkshire, is now planning to treat herself with the money she will save. "It probably works out around £70 a month," she says. "I'm going to get myself a good cut and some new clothes to match my new look." "I'm loving it. I think I quite rock it. I feel good. I feel 'me' actually." Allison Gardner knows that image is everything on the red carpet and the chief executive of Glasgow Film Theatre can't wait to show off her new hair. "I think women probably are judged on their age more than men. We do all get older and no-one is 21 forever," she says. "I'm going to embrace my age. It's going to be grey and fabulous for me going forward." The 57-year-old cinema boss worked throughout lockdown, barely noticing the change in her appearance. "I had bigger things to worry about," she says. "But when it got longer, I threatened to get my children to shave my head in frustration. I'm glad I decided to sit it out." Allison would encourage other women to give it a go. "I would say grey is the new blonde," she says. "It's so on trend. The most important thing about it is how you feel, not what your friends and family think." "This is nature's way of giving me highlights" There is nothing Sue Thompson enjoys more than the open road and the wind in her hair. The 56-year-old motorcyclist lives near Thurso, the most northerly town in mainland Scotland. She says people are surprised when she takes off her helmet. "First of all, people assume you're a man," she says. "When I shake my hair out, it's like 'oh, it's a post-middle-aged woman who has just got off that bike' and I love that." After a botched attempt to dye her roots at home, she decided to embrace the change. "I bought a colour that was meant to be opal blonde but it was actually farmyard brown. It was horrible," she says. "I think this is nature's way of giving me highlights without all that bleach so I thought I should really just embrace it." Although her daughters have been supportive, Sue says not everyone in the family is convinced. "My husband's less happy but then he's mostly white himself now and it looks great on him," she says. "I don't see why it should be any different for me. "Soon I will be mostly grey, and that's the way I'll leave it. I'd say just be happy with how you look." As a university academic, Kathryn Waite is usually most comfortable with her head in a book but she has found a new confidence since she stopped colouring her hair. "I feel it's very authentic," she says. "I've really started to grow into my hairstyle and I feel quite proud of myself for doing that." The keen walker, from Edinburgh, started to notice her grey roots in April but couldn't get her hands on the products she needed. "I would have bought a dye if I could but they were as hard to come by as toilet roll at that time. There just wasn't any to be had," she says. Curiosity got the better of Kathryn, who is in her late 50s, and she decided to let her natural colour grow in. She thinks the trend will take off. "It's really fashionable - young people are choosing grey hair," she says. "When I go for a walk, I meet eyes with other women and see that they're doing it too. "Historically, for women in the workplace with grey hair, it was probably considered that you weren't coming across as well groomed as you could be. But I think people are much more accepting of it now."

लॉकडाउन के दौरान हेयरड्रेसरों के बंद रहने से महिलाओं के बालों में चांदी की धारियाँ अधिक बार दिखाई देने लगीं। जबकि अधिकांश सैलून के दरवाजे खुलते ही कट और रंग के लिए दौड़ पड़े, अन्य लोगों ने इस बदलाव को अपनाया और इसे स्थायी बनाने की योजना बना रहे हैं।


Meet the 'bots' that edit Wikipedia

Summary: Wikipedia is written and maintained by tens of thousands of volunteers across the world. Those, in turn, are assisted by hundreds of "bots" - autonomous computer programmes that keep the encyclopaedia running.

By Daniel NasawBBC News Magazine, Washington "Penis is the male sex organ," the Wikipedia page in question read. While that statement is undeniably true and thus may merit inclusion in Wikipedia, it belongs nowhere in the site's article on national supreme courts and their legal roles. When an anonymous Wikipedia reader in South Carolina offered that contribution to the globally popular online encyclopaedia last week, it took just seconds for the blemish to be discovered and deleted. The vandalism was caught not by a reader, but by a simple artificial intelligence programme called a bot - short for robot. Virtually invisible ClueBot NG, as the bot is known, resides on a computer from which it sallies forth into the vast encyclopaedia to detect and clean up vandalism almost as soon as it occurs. It is one of several hundred bots patrolling Wikipedia at any given time. Its role in repairing the Supreme Court article illustrates how bots have quietly become an indispensable - if virtually invisible - part of the Wikipedia project. "Wikipedia would be a shambles without bots," a Wikipedia administrator known on the site as Hersfold writes in an email. English Wikipedia alone surpassed four million articles this month. It contains an estimated 2.5 billion words, equivalent to millions of pages, and it is 50 times larger than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia is maintained across all languages by tens of thousands of editors - about 77,000 of whom make more than five edits a month. But the project is so vast, and its maintenance so labour-intensive that it defies the capability of its human administrators and editors to keep it in order. Zapping wiki-vandals That is where the bots come in. "We had a joke that one day all the bots should go on strike just to make everyone appreciate how much work they do," says Chris Grant, a 19-year-old student in Perth, Australia who is on the Wikipedia committee that supervises the bots. "The site would demand much more work from all of us and the editor burnout rate would be much higher." The bots perform a wide range of editorial and administrative tasks that are tedious, repetitive and time-consuming but vital. They delete vandalism and foul language, organise and catalogue entries, and handle the reams of behind-the-scenes work that keep the encyclopaedia running smoothly and efficiently and keep its appearance neat and uniform in style. In brick-and-mortar library terms, bots are akin to the students who shelve books, move stacks from one range to another, affix bar codes to book spines and perform other grunt tasks that allow the trained librarians to concentrate on acquisitions and policy. Can bots write? "Wikipedia has just grown so much that I don't know how well people would handle it if all the bots went away," says Brad Jorsch, a computer programmer in North Carolina who runs a bot that tracks the tags reminding editors to add citations to articles. Bots have been around almost as long as Wikipedia itself. The site was founded in 2001, and the next year, one called rambot created about 30,000 articles - at a rate of thousands per day - on individual towns in the US. The bot pulled data directly out of US Census tables. The articles read as if they had been written by a robot. They were short and formulaic and contained little more than strings of demographic statistics. But once they had been created, human editors took over and filled out the entries with historical details, local governance information, and tourist attractions. In 2008, another bot created thousands of tiny articles about asteroids, pulling a few items of data for each one from an online Nasa database. Today, the Wikipedia community remains divided on the value of bot-written entries. Some administrators say a stub of an article listing only a few points of data is of little value; others say any new content is good. Rogue bot fears The upshot of the disagreement is bots are no longer permitted to write whole articles. But their ability to perform rote maintenance frees up human editors to do research and write entries and check one another's work to ensure accuracy. "I don't think people realise how much maintenance and meta work goes on in Wikipedia," says Grant. Some administrators fear a renegade bot will one day inflict catastrophic damage on the encyclopaedia. Think Skynet in the Terminator films. Those fears are unfounded, says Grant. For one, a bot is not like an automobile - if a part fails while in operation it will shut down rather than careen into something. "You'd have to have someone actually have someone programme the bot to go crazy and delete everything," Grant says. Bots with the rights to delete pages, block editors and take other drastic actions could only be run by editors already entrusted with administrative privileges, Grant says. The bots do make mistakes, however, if they encounter a new circumstance their programming cannot account for. ClueBot NG, the anti-vandalism bot, has a small rate of false positives - edits it mistakes for vandalism, but which are in fact legitimate. Since Wikipedia closely tracks edits, however, mistakes can be repaired almost as quickly as they happened, administrators say. Human writers need not fear they will one day be replaced by bots, the bot masters say. "It takes human judgement to write an article or proof an article or even clean up grammar and spelling," says Jorsch.

विकिपीडिया को दुनिया भर में दसियों हज़ार स्वयंसेवकों द्वारा लिखा और बनाए रखा जाता है। उन्हें, बदले में, सैकड़ों "बॉट्स"-स्वायत्त कंप्यूटर प्रोग्रामों द्वारा सहायता प्रदान की जाती है जो विश्वकोश को चालू रखते हैं।


My nightmare on the pill

Summary: Millions of women rely on the contraceptive pill and many are happy with it - but some find it has a devastating effect on their mental health. Here Vicky Spratt, deputy editor of The Debrief, describes years of depression, anxiety and panic as she tried one version of the pill after another.

I sat in the GP's office with my mum and told her that I'd been having my period for three weeks. She told me that the contraceptive pill might help. She warned that it wouldn't protect me from sexually transmitted infections and told me that if I had unprotected sex I could get cervical cancer, so I'd best use it wisely. She had to say that, though I was 14 and sex was very much not on the agenda. My prescription was printed in reception. And then, a three-month supply of the combined pill was mine. Picking up the green foil-covered packets full of tiny yellow pills felt like a rite of passage - I was a woman now. In the plastic pockets was the sugar-coated distillation of feminism, of women's liberation, of medical innovation. This is where it all began, 14 years ago. I then played what I call pill roulette for more than a decade, trying different brands with varying degrees of success and disaster. It was around this time that I also developed anxiety, depression and serious mood swings which, on and off, have affected me throughout my adult life. Relationships have ended and I had to take a year out from university - I thought that was just "who I was", a person ill-equipped for life, lacking self-confidence and unhappy. It wouldn't be until my early 20s, after graduating from university - when my mental health problems and behaviour could no longer be dismissed as those of a "moody teenager" - that I would seriously question whether it was linked to my use of the pill. Pill varieties One day in the early hours, sitting at my laptop, unable to sleep because of a panic attack which had lasted overnight, I began to Google. I had started taking a new pill, a progestogen-only pill (POP) which had been prescribed because I was suffering from migraines, and the combined pill is not safe for people who suffer from migraines with aura. I tapped the name of the pill + depression/anxiety into the search engine and the internet did the rest. There it was: forum threads and blog posts from people who were experiencing the same symptoms as me. At this point I had already seen my GP several times, following the sudden onset of debilitating panic attacks, which I had never experienced before. At no point had my contraceptive pill come up in conversation, despite the fact that the attacks had started when I switched to the new contraceptive. Instead, I was prescribed a high dose of beta blockers, used to treat anxiety, and it was recommended that I should undergo cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). I lived like this for somewhere between six and eight months - I can't tell you exactly because that year of my life is a blur, recorded by my mind in fast-forward because of the constant sense of urgency and impending doom that coursed through my veins. Find out more The Debrief carried out an investigation, surveying 1,022 readers, aged 18-30 The Debrief's investigation in full I wish, wholeheartedly, that I could look back on this and laugh. That's how all good stories end, isn't it? But there was then, and is now, nothing funny about what I went through. It was terrifying. I was scared. I didn't recognise myself, I didn't like myself and I couldn't live my life. I didn't know what to do, who to turn to or whether it would ever end. I was not only anxious but lethargic, I felt completely useless. I blamed myself. At the time, convinced that I had lost my mind and feeling as though I was having an out-of-body experience, I explained to my GP that "I felt like someone else", as though my brain "had gone off and gone mouldy". "Do you think this could have anything to do with my new pill?" I asked. I remember the look on her face, an attempt to look blank which barely concealed a desire to tell me I was ridiculous. I explained to her that I had felt awful on every single one of the six or seven pills I'd taken up until that point, with the exception of one high-oestrogen combined pill which made me feel like superwoman for a year, before it was taken away from me (partly because of the migraines and partly because of an increased risk of thrombosis with continued use). She told me, categorically, that my new pill was not the problem. But, disobeying both her and my therapist, I stopped taking the progestogen-only pill. I can only describe what happened next as the gradual and creeping return of my sense of self. After three or four weeks I also stopped taking the beta blockers. To this day, I still carry them with me. They're in every handbag I own, a safety net should I fall off the enormous cliff of my own mind again. In three-and-a-half years I have never had to take them. My problems didn't disappear overnight, of course, but I did stop having panic attacks. I haven't had one since. I feel low from time to time, anxious and stressed but it's nowhere near on the same scale as what I experienced while taking the progestogen-only pill. I felt joy again, my libido returned and I stopped feeling terrified of absolutely everything and everyone. A year after the panic attacks subsided I sat on a faraway beach, after taking a solo long-haul flight halfway round the world. This would have been unthinkable the previous year. As I sat there, underneath a tropical electrical storm, I cried with relief. Relief that I was myself again, relief that I had control of my own mind once more and relief that I hadn't been wrong, that I knew myself better than doctors had made me feel I did. Now 28, I no longer use hormonal contraception and with the exception of mild mood swings in the 48 hours before my period I am, touch wood, free of anxiety, depression and panic attacks. In the years that have passed since I lost myself on the progestogen-only pill and found myself again on a South Asian beach, this issue has been gradually receiving more and more attention. Holly Grigg Spall's book, Sweetening The Pill, published in 2013, put the effects of hormonal contraception on women's mental health firmly on the agenda. Since then a study, overseen by Prof Ojvind Lidegaard at the University of Copenhagen, found that women taking the pill - either the combined pill or the progestogen-only pill - were more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than those not on hormonal contraception. The difference was particularly noticeable for young women aged between 15 and 19 on the combined pill. Lidegaard was able to conduct this research because he had access to medical records for more than a million Danish women aged 15-34. Following the publication of Prof Lidegaard's study I sent a freedom of information request to the NHS, in my capacity as a journalist at The Debrief. I knew, from the number of our readers who write to us on a near-daily basis about this issue, that significant numbers of women were suffering. I asked the NHS whether they knew how many women were taking antidepressants or beta blockers concurrently. They told me that their systems do not yet allow them to collect this data. The pill and depression Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, says: "There is an established link between hormones and mood, both positive and negative, but for the vast majority of women, the benefits of reliable contraception and regulation of their menstrual cycle outweigh any side effects, and many women report that taking hormones actually boosts their mood. "If a woman believes her contraception might be adversely affecting her mood, she should discuss it with a healthcare professional at her next routine appointment." See also: How risky is the contraceptive pill? Depression is listed as a known but rare side effect of the hormonal contraceptive pill, it's there in the small but hefty leaflet you get in the packet. The NHS website lists "mood swings" and "mood changes" but not explicitly depression, anxiety or panic attacks. We shouldn't throw our pill packets away but neither should we accept negative side effects which impinge on our day-to-day lives. We can't make informed choices without information. We need better research into how hormonal contraception can affect women's mental health, better ways of monitoring reactions in patients, more awareness and support for those who do experience serious side effects. No woman should feel dismissed or ignored. Vicky Spratt is deputy editor of The Debrief, a website for women in their 20s. Its investigation, Mad About The Pill, launched on Wednesday. Listen to the discussion on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.

लाखों महिलाएँ गर्भनिरोधक गोली पर भरोसा करती हैं और कई लोग इससे खुश हैं-लेकिन कुछ लोगों को लगता है कि इसका उनके मानसिक स्वास्थ्य पर विनाशकारी प्रभाव पड़ता है। यहाँ द डेब्रीफ के उप संपादक विक्की स्प्रैट वर्षों के अवसाद, चिंता और घबराहट का वर्णन करते हैं जब उन्होंने गोली के एक के बाद एक संस्करण को आजमाया।


BBC Sound of 2013: Angel Haze

Summary: New York-based rapper Angel Haze has come third on the BBC's Sound of 2013 new music list. The list, compiled using tips from more than 210 tastemakers, aims to highlight some of the most exciting emerging artists. We are revealing one artist from the top five in reverse order every day until Friday, when the winner will be announced.

By Greg CochraneBBC Newsbeat music reporter Angel Haze remembers the date 8 September 2011. That day, a shy, Detroit-raised, schoolgirl switched from being Raykeea Wilson and became straight-talking rapper Angel Haze. "I was like, 'I have to do something. I don't want the mediocre life.' For me, it was a life or death situation," she says matter-of-factly. "I can choose to be happy, or choose to be miserable every day - waiting until I die." In the 15 months since, the 21-year-old has risen to become one of the most talked about new talents in hip-hop. But Haze's route to the cusp of stardom has not been all that typical. It has been reported that her strict upbringing meant she was not allowed to listen to music, she has been written about as a "childhood cult survivor" and, by her own admission, she endured a troubled youth. "I grew up in a really strict church," she begins. "It was considered a sin to listen to music. I was totally aware of it. I wanted to be into it, but I wasn't allowed to. "And I was actually in a cult," she explains. "I don't like to describe it that way too much because the word 'cult' just sounds crazy. It was that, but... it was cool. It really altered the way I think and perceive things." At the age of 16 came a life-shaping decision: Haze's mother gave her permission to listen to music - and it changed everything. "I went crazy," she laughs. "I was like a kid in a candy store. I felt free, and immersed in music." Not knowing where to start, she began by researching tracks she had heard in films. As her passion grew, she took to listening to as much music as possible - everything from Paramore to Eminem, New Radicals to nu metal, European classical musical to US rock. At the same time, she revisited the poetry she had been writing as a teenager. With an abundance of freshly discovered musical influences, her personal style rapidly developed. Working under the name Angel Haze, she released a pair of mixtapes online in 2011 - Reservation and Classick. Her suave beats, punchy delivery and spectacular vocabulary - which she puts down to copying out the entire dictionary, twice, when she was grounded one summer - immediately caught the attention of journalists and industry bigwigs. But it was one track in particular, the powerfully raw Cleaning Out My Closet, that stopped listeners in their tracks. Rapping over an Eminem sample, Haze talks graphically about her experiences of sexual abuse as a child and a series of rapes beginning when she was seven years old. "When I wrote it I cried like a baby in the studio," she recalls. "When you open up and give so much of yourself to the world, to the public, it feels like it's almost your dying day. "I just let go in the studio and wrote. And when it came out, people were like, 'Oh my god you helped me, you told my story.' It was so worth it. At that moment I didn't care about anything else. It helped at least one person. It's like 'wow - that's a magnificent feeling.'" She pauses: "I don't regret it. Had none of that stuff ever happened, I wouldn't be the artist I am today." Indeed, it shocked many that a newcomer could arrive with such a brutally honest musical statement. But Haze says she does not want to be defined by the troubles of her past. Other tracks showcase her ability to be cynical, playful and funny. She also enjoys surprising people with her varied music influences. "It's because I'm a rapper - we're all expected to like a certain genre of music," she reasons. "I don't even really like rap music. I listen to Flyleaf, I listen to Gotye, I listen to some French composers. I don't limit myself to one kind of music because, if I did, I would just make that kind of music." Given the choice, she would rather be a rock star than a rap star. "It's so liberating - rock stars get to be, do, say whatever they want," she says. "It shouldn't matter where I'm from, it shouldn't matter how many times I've been shot. No one puts that stigma on anyone in rock music." Positive message Do not be surprised then, if all goes to plan, that in between her dazzling rhymes, you'll see Haze strapping on an electric guitar on stage before too long. "I love rock women," she enthuses, naming Hayley Williams from Paramore, Avril Lavigne and Tegan & Sara as some of her favourites. "They rule and no-one can tell them anything." On her forthcoming album - she was recently signed up by Island Records - Haze hopes to work with an eclectic range of collaborators including Jason Mraz, Frank Ocean and The Weeknd. Producer Paul Epworth, best known for his work with Adele, is also involved, and she has already released a track with London dance act Rudimental. Some of Haze's life experiences may be unsettling, but ultimately, she says her message is positive. "I want people to know that anything is possible," she says resolutely. "That you can come from anywhere in the world, come from the dirtiest of places and go beyond that. There's nothing that you can't accomplish. Nothing can stop you."

न्यूयॉर्क स्थित रैपर एंजेल हेज़ बी. बी. सी. की 2013 की ध्वनि की नई संगीत सूची में तीसरे स्थान पर आ गए हैं। 210 से अधिक स्वाद निर्माताओं की युक्तियों का उपयोग करके संकलित सूची का उद्देश्य कुछ सबसे रोमांचक उभरते कलाकारों को उजागर करना है। हम शुक्रवार तक हर दिन शीर्ष पांच में से एक कलाकार को विपरीत क्रम में प्रकट कर रहे हैं, जब विजेता की घोषणा की जाएगी।


Man suffers burns after 'noxious' substance thrown in Market Drayton.

Summary: A man has suffered burns around his eyes after a 'noxious' substance was thrown in his face.

The victim, thought to be in his 30s, was taken to hospital for treatment following the incident in Market Drayton, Shropshire, on Friday afternoon. Police did not confirm what the substance was but described it as 'noxious'. A man, also in his 30s, has been arrested in connection with the matter. The Fire Service attended the scene and described it as a chemical attack. Police said they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident which took place in Shropshire Street.

एक व्यक्ति के चेहरे पर 'हानिकारक' पदार्थ फेंके जाने के बाद उसकी आँखों के चारों ओर जलन हुई है।


Jakarta, the fastest-sinking city in the world

Summary: The Indonesian capital of Jakarta is home to 10 million people but it is also one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world. If this goes unchecked, parts of the megacity could be entirely submerged by 20 5 0, say researchers. Is it too late?

By Mayuri Mei Lin & Rafki HidayatBBC Indonesian It sits on swampy land, the Java Sea lapping against it, and 13 rivers running through it. So it shouldn't be a surprise that flooding is frequent in Jakarta and, according to experts, it is getting worse. But it's not just about freak floods, this massive city is literally disappearing into the ground. "The potential for Jakarta to be submerged isn't a laughing matter," says Heri Andreas, who has studied Jakarta's land subsidence for the past 20 years at the Bandung Institute of Technology. "If we look at our models, by 2050 about 95% of North Jakarta will be submerged." It's already happening - North Jakarta has sunk 2.5m in 10 years and is continuing to sink by as much as 25cm a year in some parts, which is more than double the global average for coastal megacities. Jakarta is sinking by an average of 1-15cm a year and almost half the city now sits below sea level. The impact is immediately apparent in North Jakarta. In the district of Muara Baru, an entire office building lies abandoned. It once housed a fishing company but the first-floor veranda is the only functional part left. The submerged ground floor is full of stagnant floodwater. The land around it is higher so the water has nowhere to go. Buildings that are so deeply sunk are rarely abandoned like this, because most of the time the owners will try to fix, rebuild and find short-term remedies for the issue. But what they can't do is stop the soil sucking this part of the city down. An open air fish market is just a five-minute drive away. "The walkways are like waves, curving up and down, people can trip and fall," says Ridwan, a Muara Baru resident who often visits the fish market. As the water levels underground are being depleted, the very ground market-goers walk on is sinking and shifting, creating an uneven and unstable surface. "Year after year, the ground has just kept sinking," he said, just one of many inhabitants of this quarter alarmed at what is happening to the neighbourhood. North Jakarta has historically been a port city and even today it houses one of Indonesia's busiest sea ports, Tanjung Priok. Its strategic location where the Ciliwung river flows into the Java Sea was one of the reasons why Dutch colonists chose to make it their bustling hub in the 17th Century. Today 1.8 million people live in the municipality, a curious mixture of fading port businesses, poor coastal communities and a substantial population of wealthy Chinese Indonesians. Jakarta's land subsidence through the years Fortuna Sophia lives in a luxurious villa with a sea view. The sinking of her home is not immediately visible but she says cracks appear in the walls and pillars every six months. "We just have to keep fixing it," she says, standing beside her swimming pool with her private dock just a few metres away. "The maintenance men say the cracks are caused by the shifting of the ground." She's lived here for four years but it has already flooded several times: "The seawater flows in and covers the swimming pool entirely. We have to move all our furniture up to the first floor." The heroes and politics of Jakarta's floods 'Fossil' groundwater's modern secret But the impact on the small homes right by the sea is magnified. Residents who once had a sea view now see only a dull grey dyke, built and rebuilt in a valiant attempt to keep seawater out. "Every year the tide gets about 5cm higher," Mahardi, a fisherman, said. None of this has deterred the property developers. More and more luxury apartments dot the North Jakarta skyline regardless of the risks. The head of the advisory council for Indonesia's Association of Housing Development, Eddy Ganefo, says he has urged the government to halt further development here. But, he says, "so long as we can sell apartments, development will continue". The rest of Jakarta is also sinking, albeit at a slower rate. In West Jakarta, the ground is sinking by as much as 15cm annually, by 10cm annually in the east, 2cm in Central Jakarta and just 1cm in South Jakarta. Coastal cities across the world are affected because of rising sea levels caused by climate change. Increased sea levels occur because of thermal expansion - the water expanding because of extra heat - and the melting of polar ice. The speed at which Jakarta is sinking is alarming experts. It may seem surprising but there are few complaints from Jakartans because for residents here the subsidence is just one among a myriad of infrastructure challenges they have to deal with daily. And that is part of the story of why this is happening. The dramatic rate at which Jakarta is sinking is partly down to the excessive extraction of groundwater for use as drinking water, for bathing and other everyday purposes by city dwellers. Piped water isn't reliable or available in most areas so people have no choice but to resort to pumping water from the aquifers deep underground. But when groundwater is pumped out, the land above it sinks as if it is sitting on a deflating balloon - and this leads to land subsidence. The situation is exacerbated by lax regulation allowing just about anyone, from individual homeowners to massive shopping mall operators, to carry out their own groundwater extractions. "Everyone has a right, from residents to industries, to use groundwater so long as this is regulated," says Heri Andreas. The problem is that they take more than what is allowed. People say they have no choice when the authorities are unable to meet their water needs and experts confirm that water management authorities can only meet 40% of Jakarta's demand for water. A landlord in central Jakarta, known only as Hendri, runs a dormitory-like block called a kos-kosan and has been pumping his own groundwater for 10 years to supply tenants. He is one of many on his street who do this. "It's better to use our own groundwater rather than relying on the authorities. A kos-kosan like this needs a lot of water." The local government has only recently admitted it has a problem with illegal groundwater extraction. In May, the Jakarta city authority inspected 80 buildings in Central Jakarta's Jalan Thamrin, a road lined with skyscrapers, shopping malls and hotels. It found that 56 buildings had their own groundwater pump and 33 were extracting water illegally. Jakarta's Governor Anies Baswedan says everyone should have a licence, which will enable the authorities to measure how much groundwater is being extracted. Those without a licence will have their building-worthiness certificate revoked, as would other businesses in the same building. Authorities are also hoping that the Great Garuda, a 32km outer sea wall being built across Jakarta Bay along with 17 artificial islands, will help rescue the sinking city - at a cost of about $40bn. It's being supported by the Dutch and South Korean governments and creates an artificial lagoon in which water levels can be lowered to allow the city's rivers to drain. It will help with the flooding which is an issue when the rains come. But three Dutch non-profit groups released a report in 2017 which cast doubt on whether the sea wall and artificial islands could solve Jakarta's subsidence problem. Jan Jaap Brinkman, a hydrologist with the Dutch water research institute Deltares, argues it can only ever be an interim measure. He says it will only buy Jakarta an extra 20-30 years to stop the long-term subsidence. "There is only one solution and everybody knows the solution," he says. That would be to halt all groundwater extraction and solely rely on other sources of water, such as rain or river water or piped water from man-made reservoirs. He says Jakarta must do this by 2050 to avoid major subsidence. It is not a message that is being taken to heart yet and Jakarta's Governor Anies Baswedan thinks a less drastic measure will do. He says people should be able to extract groundwater legally as long as they replace it using something called the biopori method. This involves digging a hole, 10cm in diameter and 100cm deep, into the ground to allow water to be reabsorbed into the soil. Critics say this scheme would only replace water at a superficial level, whereas in Jakarta water is often pumped out from several hundred metres below ground level. There is technology to replace groundwater deep at its source but it's extremely expensive. Tokyo used this method, known as artificial recharge, when it faced severe land subsidence 50 years ago. The government also restricted groundwater extraction and businesses were required to use reclaimed water. Land subsidence subsequently halted. But Jakarta needs alternative water sources for that to work. Heri Andreas, from Bandung Institute of Technology, says it could take up to 10 years to clean up the rivers, dams and lakes to allow water to be piped anywhere or used as a replacement for the aquifers deep underground. Jakarta's residents adopt a somewhat fatalistic attitude to their future in this sinking city. "Living here is a risk," says Sophia Fortuna in her home. "The people here have all accepted that risk." Additional reporting by Tom de Souza. Interactive elements Arvin Surpriyadi, Davies Surya, and Leben Asa.

इंडोनेशिया की राजधानी जकार्ता में एक करोड़ लोग रहते हैं, लेकिन यह दुनिया के सबसे तेजी से डूबने वाले शहरों में से एक है। अगर यह अनियंत्रित हो जाता है, तो मेगासिटी के कुछ हिस्से पूरी तरह से डूब सकते हैं, शोधकर्ताओं का कहना है। क्या बहुत देर हो चुकी है?


Giant swastika unearthed under Germany sports field

Summary: A large concrete swastika has been unearthed during excavations for new changing rooms in a sports club in the German city of Hamburg.

The swastika, measuring four by four metres (13ft by 13ft), was buried 40cm underground in the Billstedt district. The city's officials ordered the structure to be removed immediately but it was too heavy to be lifted by an excavator. It will now be destroyed into smaller pieces by jackhammer. Members of the Billstedt-Horn sports club said the structure was the foundation for a large Nazi-era monument that once stood at the site and was demolished decades ago.

जर्मनी के हैम्बर्ग शहर में एक स्पोर्ट्स क्लब में नए कपड़े बदलने वाले कमरों की खुदाई के दौरान एक बड़ी कंक्रीट की स्वस्तिक का पता चला है।


Nottingham teenager pleads not guilty to murder

Summary: A teenager has denied the murder of a man who was found stabbed in a city centre.

Lee Cooper, 28, was attacked in Union Road, Nottingham, at about 19:40 BST on 14 September. Ethan Austin, 19, of Mayo Road in the city, appeared via video link at Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. He was remanded into custody and is due back in court in January. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

एक किशोर ने एक व्यक्ति की हत्या से इनकार किया है जिसे शहर के केंद्र में चाकू मारा गया था।


Anger over UK ship's damage to pristine reef

Summary: Two weeks ago, a British-owned cruise ship accidentally ran aground in one of Indonesia's most pristine coral reefs, causing extensive damage. For local people, who rely on dive tourism, it is a sad and worrying time.

By Christine FranciskaBBC Indonesian Service "I was born here, I was in tears when I saw this damage," said Ruben Sauyai. "The damage is huge and acute. It could take 10 to 100 years to repair it." A professional diving instructor, Mr Sauyai, 30, runs a home stay and dive centre on Raja Ampat, a remote and idyllic island chain in the west of Indonesia's Papua province. "Some people work as fishermen or farmers, but mostly we work in the tourism sector," said Mr Sauyai, who started up his dive centre six years ago. Tens of thousands of people have been to visit the underwater beauty of the area in recent years. But on 4 March, the 4,290-tonne Caledonian Sky, owned by British company Noble Caledonia, was completing a bird-watching tourism trip on Waigeo Island when it veered slightly off course. It ran aground during low tide, smashing through the coral reefs. An early official evaluation last week said the incident had damaged approximately 1,600 sq m of coral in one of the world's most beautiful reefs. Videos recorded by various divers show that the reefs had been eroded by the hull, leaving large bleached scratches. It was an "unfortunate" incident, said Noble Caledonia, adding that they were "firmly committed to protection of the environment" and fully backed an investigation. Ricardo Tapilatu, head of the Research Center for Pacific Marine Resources at the University of Papua is part of the official evaluation team. He said the ship had been caught in low tide despite being equipped with GPS and radar instruments. "A tugboat from Sorong city was deployed to help refloat the cruise ship, which is something that shouldn't have happened because it damaged the reef even more," Mr Tapilatu told environmental news site Mongabay. "They should have waited for high tide" to refloat the vessel. You may also like: Great Barrier Reef suffered worst bleaching on record in 2016, report finds Amazon Reef: First images of new coral system Coral reefs: The ocean's larder He believes that given the area's reputation - and the fact that it's a national park - the company should pay $1.28m-$1.92m in compensation. The incident has not only angered local people but also social media users in Indonesia. "This is unacceptable! Do they know how long it takes for corals to form? Have you seen the damage?" said one Facebook user, Feby Riani. "This is Raja Ampat... one of the world's most beautiful coral reefs!" An online petition has been launched demanding that Noble Caledonia doesn't just give financial compensation but is also present to repair the destruction. The ship has since been refloated and the company said that based on the inspection "the hull was undamaged and remained intact". The ship itself "did not take on water, nor was any pollution reported as a result of the grounding", said the company. But Laura Resti, from Raja Ampat's homestay association, said they were really saddened. "Coral reefs are the main thing that attracts many tourists here. It is counterproductive for our tourism prospects." Mr Sauyai said he has avoided taking tourists to that particular spot since the incident because most of the natural life there had "gone". "We have tried to conserve those coral reefs for a long time, and just within few hours they were gone. "I am so sad and feel ashamed to take tourists there."

दो हफ्ते पहले, एक ब्रिटिश स्वामित्व वाला क्रूज जहाज गलती से इंडोनेशिया की सबसे प्राचीन प्रवाल भित्तियों में से एक में गिर गया, जिससे व्यापक नुकसान हुआ। स्थानीय लोगों के लिए, जो गोताखोर पर्यटन पर भरोसा करते हैं, यह एक दुखद और चिंताजनक समय है।


A140 Little Stonham crash: Emergency services at scene

Summary: Emergency services are at the scene of a serious crash between a lorry and a van in Suffolk.

Five ambulances, police, firefighters and an air ambulance were called to the A140 at Little Stonham, near Stowmarket, just after 15:20 GMT. The road has since been closed in both directions at the junction with the A1120. Suffolk Police described the crash as "serious" and said the main road was likely to be closed for some time. The extent of injuries of those involved is not known.

सफोक में एक लॉरी और एक वैन के बीच गंभीर दुर्घटना के स्थल पर आपातकालीन सेवाएँ हैं।


Welsh secondary schools ranked by score

Summary: This table, produced by BBC Wales, ranks all secondary schools in Wales by the total score they were given by the Welsh government.

It's an assessment of a school's performance in the academic year 2010-11, where the lowest scores represent the best performance. The scores were derived by assessing school performance within four categories including GCSE results and attendance. Within each category, a school's score is modified to take into account the percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals. Most of the categories also take into account progress over time, to reward schools that are making improvements in performance. The scores are used by the Welsh government to rank the schools into five bands. The best possible score was 11 and the worst possible score was 44.

बीबीसी वेल्स द्वारा तैयार की गई इस तालिका में वेल्स के सभी माध्यमिक विद्यालयों को वेल्श सरकार द्वारा दिए गए कुल अंकों के आधार पर स्थान दिया गया है।


Chinese plan two solar farms in Cornwall

Summary: Cornwall is to be home to the UK's first Chinese-owned solar farms, the BBC has learned.

Nanjing-based company China Sunergy has bought two areas with solar farm planning permission - in Higher Tregarn at Mawnan Smith, near Falmouth; and at Tregavethan, near Truro. China Sunergy plans to build the five megawatt farms and have them working by April 2013 to secure subsidies. Five megawatts can provide enough power to supply about 1,000 homes. Cornwall already has about 12 solar farms. Permission has been granted for more than 20 more.

बीबीसी को पता चला है कि कॉर्नवाल ब्रिटेन के पहले चीनी स्वामित्व वाले सौर खेतों का घर होगा।


Sculpture of Ben Nevis drive unveiled in Fort William

Summary: A new sculpture has been installed in Fort William to recall the driving of a Ford Model T up and down Ben Nevis.

Henry Alexander Jr, the son of an Edinburgh car dealer, completed the challenge in 1911. Model T owners along with local history enthusiasts were the driving forces behind the creation of the new sculpture. It was unveiled in Fort William's Square in a ceremony on Saturday that featured a parade of original Model Ts. Powderhall Bronze, a foundry in Edinburgh, made the sculpture of the car with Alexander Jr behind the wheel. The making of the three-tonne public art was been overseen by Mark Stoddart, a designer and artist based in Ladybank, Ayrshire.

बेन नेविस के ऊपर और नीचे एक फोर्ड मॉडल टी के संचालन को याद करने के लिए फोर्ट विलियम में एक नई मूर्ति स्थापित की गई है।


Italian election dominated by immigration debate

Summary: Standing opposite an arch commemorating Italy's liberation from fascism at the end of the World War Two, a group of men dressed in black are huddled beneath a gazebo. They're supporters of Casa Pound - a fringe political party that claims to be inspired by the poet Ezra Pound.

By Ritula ShahBBC World Tonight, Milan Massimo Trefiletti proudly proclaims himself and his party as fascists. The irony of standing opposite a monument to their defeat doesn't escape him. Mr Trefiletti says 25 April 1945 isn't a day of national pride but of loss. As for the future, he wants Italy to turn its back on the EU, close its borders and deport all the immigrants. Casa Pound is supported by a tiny minority of Italians but its nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric is being echoed by other parties in the run-up to the country's general election on 4 March. About 600,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean and landed on Italian shores in the past four years. Now, Italian politicians of all stripes are competing to show they will be tough on these new and increasingly unwelcome arrivals. If the polls are to be believed - and they are being treated with caution, as Italy's election is being held under a new voting system - the centre-right coalition, led by Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, is in the lead. Mr Berlusconi has described the illegal migrants living in Italy as a "social time-bomb ready to explode", and has pledged mass deportations. League, formerly known as the Northern League, is the other main member of that coalition. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, is a friend of France's far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen and an admirer of Russia's President Vladimir Putin. His slogan is "Italians first". In the party's sprawling regional headquarters in Milan, I meet Paolo Grimoldi, a League deputy who is running for another term in parliament. In his smoke-filled office, he tells me Italy should be able to choose who can come and live here. "It's better to take immigrants from Ukraine... they are Christians, or from Belarus, they are not Muslims and they cannot be terrorists. I want to have the right to make choices. I think in this moment, we don't need immigrants." Mr Grimoldi supports the efforts of French and Austrian police to send back to Italy illegal migrants who try to cross the border. "Our government chose to take illegal immigrants - this is the reason why France is checking on the border... if you take an airplane from London to Moscow or Ankara they will ask to see your documents... I think it should be normal." About 20 minutes away, on the other side of Milan, a group of teenage boys plays table tennis. They are migrants, many of whom arrived in Italy as unaccompanied minors. They wait for an English lesson to start at a centre run by Save the Children. Jawad is 17. His family is in Morocco. He chews gum and giggles nervously as he explains how he came to Italy alone. He wants a better life and isn't deterred by the idea of a hostile Italian public. "I know that some people here are xenophobic... Some believe that diversity is good for Italy but others see us as a threat. I cannot change the way people think." And judging by the stance of the main political parties, the election rivals believe most Italians see the migrants as a threat. Polls suggest the anti-establishment Five Star Movement may be the single most popular party among voters. It is Eurosceptic and it, too, takes a hard line on the migrant issue and puts the blame on the EU. Manlio Di Stefano, a party deputy, says: "[Those] who come here, need to be integrated in a real way. We are taking money just to be the open port of the European Union, that's not fair." The number of people arriving on Italian shores has dropped dramatically - in part due to an EU policy, led by Italy, of helping the Libyan authorities to intercept migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean and return them to detention centres in Libya. The policy has been criticised by the UN as inhumane. This has happened under the current government, led by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD). But Lia Quartapelle, a deputy for the PD, says it is the best solution. "Asking the Libyan authorities to take care of their borders is THE way to tackle illegal flows and to stop the smugglers," she says. She argues that aid workers and international reporters have only been able to investigate the conditions because of the agreement. But as the incumbent, the challenge for the PD is to counter or match the tough anti-immigrant rhetoric of the parties on the right. The outcome of the election is unpredictable. But it is certain that politics in Italy, as in much of the EU, is being reshaped by migration.

द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के अंत में फासीवाद से इटली की मुक्ति की याद में एक मेहराब के सामने खड़े, काले कपड़े पहने पुरुषों का एक समूह एक गज़ेबो के नीचे जमा है। वे कासा पाउंड के समर्थक हैं-एक सीमांत राजनीतिक दल जो कवि एजरा पाउंड से प्रेरित होने का दावा करता है।