US school's prom dress guidelines lambasted for body-shaming, and Ed Sheeran signs a school apology letter

Summary: A Catholic high school's restrictive guide to prom dresses has drawn body-shaming accusations and a call for an alternative student-run prom, Ed Sheeran signs a student's apology letter to her teachers, and a study looks at the link between attraction and food choices.

By Lamia EstatieBBC News A girl's (extensive) guide to prom A Catholic high school in Illinois, USA, has been criticised for its lengthy prom dress code handbook - a whopping 21 slides. The guidelines, which deem some dresses to be acceptable on certain body types but not others has prompted a call for a student-run prom. Some have also accused the school of body-shaming its students - having a critical or negative attitude toward certain body sizes or weights. While the gentlemen's dress code is covered in just two slides, there are 15 slides in the guide for the ladies. The policy provides illustrations on acceptable and non-acceptable dresses including on two-pieces, necklines, back, cut-outs and mesh. In the images, necklines showing cleavage or dresses with high slits or very low backs are deemed non-acceptable. Boylan Catholic High School's prom is due to be held in May. A Twitter account calling for an alternative student run prom said: "We all know these rules are stiff, this will be a reserved venue costing $25 a person." Students from other schools are also challenging their prom dress codes. A student in California tweeted: "I really really wanna go to Edisons prom but the dress code is beyond STUPID." Another added that she would be annoyed if her school were to enforce a dress code. You might also be interested in: Is your workplace dress code sexist? Help me out - body image Top tips to help your child improve their body image In response to the Boylan guide, a former pupil said: "So glad to see you made national news for body shaming your young girls. Will you also be banning their sports uniforms for being too revealing? Not a proud day to be an alumni." A senior and former cheerleader at the school added: "Glad we are becoming national news! Maybe it's time to change the rules @boylan???" "Thank you to the woman who thinks Boylan girls come off of stripper poles," another girl continued. Reflecting on her own experiences of finding a prom dress, Jane Horvat tweeted a note which read: "As a tall, curvy muscular woman with an athletic build, finding clothes that fit let alone flatter my frame has always been challenging. There have been many shopping trips that have ended in tears and me body shaming myself when I look in the dressing room mirror. "The restrictions that Boylan has now placed on the women attending prom...do not keep in mind the fact that choosing attire can be a stressful and unhealthy time for a woman because she is overly conscious of what she perceives to be wrong with her body." Jane continued: "To all the girls attending Boylan's prom this year, no matter what dress you end up wearing, I want you to know that you and your body are unique and beautiful." According to The Rockford Register Star, Boylan President Amy Ott said the purpose of the guidelines is to "help not hurt" the girls. She said: "We think it's important as a Catholic institution to help our students see that they can be elegant and modest and beautiful at the same time." Ed Sheeran's school apology letter Need a letter signed for missing out on school? Ed Sheeran is your man. A New York student can testify to it. Suzy, 15, posted a video on Twitter showing her taking a picture with the music star and then asking him for his signature. But the request wasn't for your typical autograph. Following the musician's private show at Webster Hall in NYC, Suzy waited outside the venue for Ed to come out. They took pictures and then she asked him: "Wait, can you sign this please? It's an apology letter to my teachers." You might also be interested in: How Ed Sheeran owned the charts Ed Sheeran racks up massive UK album sales - but can he beat Adele? The letter reads: "Dear Suzy's teachers, "I sincerely apologise for causing Suzy to miss school, come in to school late, for disrupting class with her talk about me and for causing her to miss some of your classes for the past several years. "Please excuse Suzy from any classes or classwork she missed because I'm actually more important. "Regards, Ed Sheeran "P.S. I will definitely do it again and I am not sorry whatsoever." Suzy told us that she hasn't yet had the chance to show her teacher the letter. We'll accept your apology, Ed. Of men and food Would you pick a salad over a kebab? If you're a woman, you're more likely to make healthy food choices while eating with a good-looking man, a new study says. The research, published by Tobias Otterbring, reveals that this doesn't apply after exposure to appealing same-sex individuals. One Twitter user weighed in on the study: "Clearly I have never seen a good-looking man :)" The research also determined that men will eat just about anything, regardless of their attraction to the woman they're eating with. But they will dish out on expensive food if out with an attractive lady. Another user joked "My missus has the solid, trencherwoman appetite of a bear emerging from a cave in Spring, so there may be some truth to this." By the UGC and Social News team

प्रोम ड्रेस के लिए एक कैथोलिक हाई स्कूल के प्रतिबंधात्मक गाइड ने शरीर को शर्मिंदा करने के आरोप लगाए हैं और एक वैकल्पिक छात्र-संचालित प्रोम के लिए कॉल किया है, एड शीरन अपने शिक्षकों को एक छात्र के माफी पत्र पर हस्ताक्षर करता है, और एक अध्ययन आकर्षण और भोजन विकल्पों के बीच के संबंध को देखता है।


Cancer: Not only a rich-world disease

Summary: Cancer treatment in the developing world tends to be primitive or non-existent, and the disease is often regarded as a death sentence. It's not a priority for aid donors - there is a mistaken tendency to see it as a disease of the rich. But this is now beginning to change.

By Joanne SilbernerPRI's The World Dr Jackson Orem is on the front line of the change. He directs the Uganda Cancer Institute - the only dedicated cancer treatment facility in a country of 33 million people. He's a busy man, but he makes time to see patients like Musa Settimba. Settimba is in for a check-up. He has something called Gist, a type of gastrointestinal cancer that is often fatal, even in the West. Orem has arranged for Settimba to get a very effective and costly new cancer drug free of charge, courtesy of the manufacturer. There's paperwork involved, and drugs for only a few cancers are available this way. It's a godsend for Settimba, who has been doing very well. "You are getting one of the best treatments for this disease," a smiling Orem tells his patient. Unfortunately, Settimba is the rare exception. The survival rate for patients who make it to the Uganda Cancer Institute is astonishingly low. It treats about 22,000 patients a year, and of those, 20,000 die within a year. Orem says most Ugandans don't have a real concept of cancer as a set of diseases that can be diagnosed and treated. In some tribal languages, there is no word for it. "They don't have early diagnosis. They don't actually even know that they have cancer," he says. And most don't see the value of seeking care. "Once you are diagnosed with cancer, they think that it's already a death sentence." They're partly right. Most people don't see a doctor until the very last stages of cancer. At that point, no hospital anywhere could do much for them. Orem studied oncology in the US and returned to Uganda to head the government-owned cancer institute in 2004. For several years, he was the only oncologist in the country. Orem doesn't complain about the hard work, but some things make him cringe. One of them is a comment he's heard expressed by people from developed countries - that cancer doesn't hit poor people. "People think that malaria kills [and] other diseases are killing people from a low socio-economic status. But cancer is the same," he says. "The truth of the matter is that cancer is a disease of the African person just like any other person elsewhere in the world." The misconception affects funding. "When you ask for funding for cancer, nobody is going to give [it to] you," Orem says. "But if you ask for funding for these other diseases, they say, 'All right, your priority is correct, we are going to give you some funds.'" There is also a perception that cancer is too expensive to treat, and treatment is too hi-tech to be done in poor countries. Orem says that's not necessarily true - surgery and chemotherapy, for example, don't require million-dollar machines. The result is that the amount of money available for cancer care in the developing world is only a fraction of the sums spent on HIV, TB and malaria. "I think donors have been asleep," says Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet. "It's an appalling example of neglect." He blames donors who regard cancers caused by tobacco or obesity as the patient's fault, and not worthy of aid. At the same time, he acknowledges that HIV, TB and malaria have created an overwhelming burden. "It's been hard to see anything through that fog of death," he says. But as the HIV, TB and malaria numbers come down, things may change. "The clearing of the mist as a result of those successes has left [the cancer epidemic] in view," Horton says. Last year, the UN urged that more be done to detect and treat cancer in the developing world. George and Laura Bush recently toured Africa to bring attention to breast and cervical cancer. Orem, meanwhile, takes heart from changes in Uganda, where the government is putting up a modern 200-bed cancer hospital on a hill above the dilapidated one-storey tin-roofed buildings of the cancer institute. He also has the help, now, of five Ugandan cancer specialists trained at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. "People are much more receptive to our messages than before," he says. "It looks like we are beginning to make an inroad." In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, one NGO has found a different way to make an inroad in the treatment of cancer - through primary care. Zanmi Lasante, together with Boston-based Partners in Health, focuses on breast and cervical cancers - the most common cancers among Haitian women - at a clinic in the little town of Cange. It has treatment rooms, chemotherapy and an operating theatre. Dr Ruth Damuse says the biggest problem with breast cancer is that, just as in Uganda, women come in late, long after they've noticed the initial lump. About half the women with breast cancer die, she estimates, and many sufferers don't come in at all. The clinic does what it can, and where it can't do much, it offers palliative care. Earlier this year, on International Women's Day, Damuse went to a rally to preach early diagnosis. She took the podium and asked the crowd a question: "Which cancer most affects women?" The crowd murmured. No-one knew. "We're going to talk about breast cancer," she continued. She showed pictures of breast cancer patients with tumours breaking out of their chests. She told the women how to check themselves for suspicious lumps and explained how treatment makes a difference. The women near me said it was all new to them. Treatment is also a challenge. There are no oncologists at the clinic, so the staff make a weekly phone call to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Before the call, they send patients' medical histories, lab results and what X-rays are available to Larry Shulman, head of the institute. He reviews the records, then gets on the phone. In Haiti, a primary care physician, oncology nurse and several others gather around a speakerphone in a simple stucco house near the hospital. During one recent call, seven patients were up for discussion. One woman had had a breast removed last autumn, but the cancer returned. Shulman suggested a different kind of chemotherapy. Another young woman had had a breast lump removed. In developed countries, women who get lumpectomies generally get weeks of daily radiation treatments as well. But the Haitian clinic doesn't have any way to administer radiation. So Shulman suggested a full breast removal. "She needs to go back and have a mastectomy," Shulman said over the phone. "Then she needs five years of tamoxifen." Tamoxifen pills cost just pennies a day, affordable even in Haiti. Cancer surgery, chemotherapy and after-care can be costly, however. Partners in Health and Zanmi Lasante provide this free of charge and rely on donors to cover costs. Sara Stulac, the head of Partners in Health's cancer programme, admits that her team is taking on a big challenge. "I think some people would say we shouldn't [tackle cancer], but the fact is people are suffering and dying," she says. "We can't save all of them, and we can't save the same group of patients with the same group of diagnoses that we can in the US. But there is so much suffering that we can avoid, and there are so many cancers that we can treat." Stulac points to another disease as evidence. People used to say that Aids drugs were too costly and too difficult to deliver in developing countries, yet millions of people with HIV in places such as Uganda and Haiti are now being saved. Stulac says there's no reason that can't happen with cancer. This series of reports is by PRI's The World with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook

विकासशील देशों में कैंसर का इलाज आदिम या अस्तित्वहीन होता है, और इस बीमारी को अक्सर मौत की सजा माना जाता है। यह सहायता दाताओं के लिए प्राथमिकता नहीं है-इसे अमीरों की बीमारी के रूप में देखने की गलत प्रवृत्ति है। लेकिन अब यह बदलने लगा है।


Man v Horse: Hundreds gather in Llanwrtyd, Powys for event

Summary: Hundreds of people have gathered in a Powys town to cheer on competitors in a 21-mile race that saw 650 runners pitted against 60 horses and riders.

Horse Rheidol Petra, ridden by Iola Evans, won the Llanwrtyd Wells event on Saturday in two hours and 30 minutes. The first runner, Owen Beilby, finished the course 20 minutes later. In 37 years of the Whole Earth Man V Horse race, only two runners have ever emerged victorious - Huw Lobb in 2004 and Florian Holginger in 2007. The idea for the annual race was born from a bet in the back room of the Neaudd Arms in 1980 after an argument over whether a man could ever beat a horse in a long-distance race. The pub is still the starting point for the race.

21 मील की दौड़ में प्रतियोगियों को खुश करने के लिए सैकड़ों लोग एक पॉव्स शहर में एकत्र हुए हैं, जिसमें 60 घोड़ों और सवारों के खिलाफ 650 धावकों को देखा गया।


Dyfed-Powys CCTV should stop after failing to deter crime, review finds

Summary: CCTV monitoring in the Dyfed-Powys police area should stop after a review found the cameras do not deter crime, a police and crime commissioner says.

The report concluded that police should instead support the use of unmonitored cameras and more mobile CCTV systems. It also found the removal of cameras in the area did not result in significant rises in crime. The review comes as many local councils are reducing CCTV funding due to financial pressures. The inquiry was carried out on behalf of Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Commissioner Christopher Salmon, who now recommends: The recommendations will be discussed with the chief constable and council leaders before changes are made.

एक पुलिस और अपराध आयुक्त का कहना है कि समीक्षा में पाया गया कि कैमरे अपराध को नहीं रोकते हैं, जिसके बाद डेफेड-पॉव्स पुलिस क्षेत्र में सीसीटीवी निगरानी बंद कर दी जानी चाहिए।


The recurring Facebook privacy hoax

Summary: Since the start of the year there's been a resurgence of posting of copyright/privacy notices on Facebook. They're based on a two-year-old hoax. Why do they keep coming back, asks Gareth Rubin.

Magazine MonitorA collection of cultural artefacts "In response to the new Facebook guidelines, I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc (as a result of the Berner Convention)." Have you seen this status - or a variant - posted to your friends' Facebook profile recently? If so they have fallen for a hoax that has been doing the rounds since 2012 and will not die, no matter how many times it is debunked. The message suggests that Facebook is planning to grab and sell users' photos and videos. In response, thousands of the social media giant's members have reposted the above status, or a variation. But it is nonsense. Facebook does not own copyright to user's content, it only has to right to distribute it - which is the whole point of the site. And there is no such thing as the Berner Convention - there is a Berne Convention and it protects copyright. Some of the posts instead mention the Rome Convention. Facebook's spokesman, Andrew Noyes, has said that under the initial terms and conditions, the company has the right to share and distribute your content. But if you want, you can alter this in your privacy settings. "We wanted to take a moment to remind you of the facts - when you post things like photos to Facebook, we do not own them." "You should take no notice of these posts, they do absolutely nothing," says Marie Brewis, managing editor of PC Advisor. "It doesn't matter what you put on your profile, you have already signed up to Facebook's terms and if Facebook was going to change its terms and conditions it would tell people." But people do keep taking notice. "It's one of the things about social media - people see all their friends talking about something and think it must be true," says Brewis. "And everyone wants to be the one who is in the know and to share something before anyone else. "People think Facebook and Google are sucking up all their personal details so even people who don't have anything to hide get quite worried. And these terms and conditions can be quite hard to get your head around. Most people don't read the terms in the first place when they sign up so there could be anything in there, we just tick a box that says 'OK'." You cannot retroactively cancel the permission you have granted Facebook when you first signed up. The only way to prevent the company sharing and distributing your content is to entirely deactivate your account. Dr Maria Michalis of the University of Westminster Centre for Social Media Research says: "It is one of the things about social media - if you see a friend has posted something you tend to believe it. So stories go viral and they cannot be stopped. That's why we will keep seeing this hoax for years." In response to the privacy postings, many people on Twitter and Facebook itself have commented that the best thing about this notice is that it tells them which of their friends are gullible enough to fall for a hoax that is years old. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox

साल की शुरुआत से फेसबुक पर कॉपीराइट/गोपनीयता नोटिस पोस्ट करने का एक पुनरुत्थान हुआ है। वे दो साल पुरानी अफवाह पर आधारित हैं। वे वापस क्यों आते रहते हैं, गैरेथ रुबिन पूछते हैं।


Runnymede council: Magna Carta centre 'to boost economy'

Summary: A planned visitor centre on the site where the Magna Carta was sealed in Surrey will boost tourism and the local economy, Runnymede council has said.

Runnymede's corporate management committee has agreed to progress the project subject to final terms being agreed with Surrey County Council. Last month, the county council pledged £5m towards the visitor centre. Councillor Patrick Roberts, Runnymede council leader, said it was a "great opportunity". "It will be a great opportunity for us to work in partnership on what will be a fantastic legacy to mark the landmark date of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta," he said. The 800th anniversary celebrations will take place in 2015.

रन्नीमेड परिषद ने कहा है कि उस स्थान पर एक नियोजित आगंतुक केंद्र जहां सरे में मैग्ना कार्टा को सील कर दिया गया था, पर्यटन और स्थानीय अर्थव्यवस्था को बढ़ावा देगा।


Dressing the Indian woman through history

Summary: This week in India a man slapped actress Gauhar Khan on a TV set for wearing a "short dress" and news emerged of outrage in a Mumbai law college at a strict dress code imposed on students. Fashion historian Toolika Gupta looks at ideas of decorum in fashion across India through the ages.

Every country has its own erogenous zones. What many Indians today believe are home-grown ideas of decorum and modesty are in fact British imports - bequeathed to us by the Raj. The earliest representations of women show them with minimal clothing. In sculptures from the Maury and Sunga periods (about 300 BC) - men and women wore rectangular pieces of fabric, on the lower part of the body and one on the upper part. Little else. Images from the Gupta period - about the 7th or 8th Century - show stitched upper garments along with a breast band, as well as a lower garment. Modesty has had different definitions over time and in different regions and communities. It was not always about covering your face and body and in many respects India's hot climate led the way. People just did what was convenient. But the regional variations are interesting. In southern India, even in colonial times, some women did not cover the upper part of their body. And throughout India's history of contact with different cultures - with Greek, Roman, Arab and Chinese influences coming in - fashions and ideas began to change. In the 15th Century we see Muslim and Hindu women wearing different outfits and the influence of the Mughal empire was decisive - they ruled most of India and Pakistan in the 16th and 17th Centuries. I have not seen written codes about how to dress, but Muslim women normally covered themselves and wore divided garments. These outfits gave birth to garments like the salwar kameez - virtually seen as a national dress in India today. In Bengal, in the Victorian era, some women did not wear blouses under their saris - they went bare-breasted. This did not suit Victorian society, which had its own ideas of propriety, and blouses increasingly became the norm. It was Jnanadanandini Debi, the wife of Satyendranath Tagore - brother of the famous Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore - who popularised the blouses, jackets and chemises and the modern style of the sari today after she was reportedly refused entry to clubs under the Raj for wearing the sari fabric over her bare breasts. Tagore is believed to have actively encouraged his wife to adopt Western ideas. The terms "blouse" and "petticoat" - both English - made the leap into Indian vocabulary in the Victorian era. Shirts also came to be worn under the sari as part of high fashion and these rather British innovations are considered traditional garments. Even though it can be revealing, as the crop top leaves the midriff bare, the sari blouse has long been deemed decorous and associated with tradition. In India it was important for a woman to cover her body with a draped fabric here no matter what is underneath. The British influence only became stronger over time. We see different kinds of blouses coming in with sleeve structures, and various necklines. In India, unlike in Britain, there are no written codes of conduct or sumptuary laws about what should be worn. What was considered suitable was spread through word of mouth. So today's guardians of the hemline - who no doubt believe they are safeguarding women by prescribing what women should wear - are following in the footsteps of older political overlords. Indian women now are much freer to do what they want, at least in the cities, yet we see dress codes being set and women condemned for what they wear. Some people even make an association between clothing and rape. These people don't understand that ideas of decency are constantly changing and rape is not a consequence of what women wear but of how certain men think. Our dress is our identity. But what we think of as traditional Indian modesty, can turn out not be not very Indian at all. Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

भारत में इस सप्ताह एक व्यक्ति ने अभिनेत्री गौहर खान को "छोटी पोशाक" पहनने के लिए एक टीवी सेट पर थप्पड़ मारा और मुंबई के एक लॉ कॉलेज में छात्रों पर लगाए गए सख्त ड्रेस कोड पर आक्रोश की खबर सामने आई। फैशन इतिहासकार टूलिका गुप्ता सदियों से पूरे भारत में फैशन में शिष्टाचार के विचारों को देखती हैं।


Gateshead man charged over death of man outside Powerhouse club

Summary: A man has appeared in court over the death of another man who was found unconscious behind a nightclub.

Graham Thurston, 54, was discovered in the early hours of 6 August lying behind Powerhouse nightclub in Westmoreland Road in Newcastle. Mr Thurston, of Chirton West View in North Shields, died later in hospital. Scott Thompson, 33, of Medway Crescent in Gateshead, appeared at South East Northumberland Magistrates Court charged with manslaughter. No pleas were entered and he was remanded in custody to appear at Newcastle Crown Court on 6 September.

नाइट क्लब के पीछे बेहोश पाए गए एक अन्य व्यक्ति की मौत के मामले में एक व्यक्ति अदालत में पेश हुआ है।


Alan Turing: The codebreaker who saved 'millions of lives'

Summary: Alan Turing - the Bletchley Park codebreaker - would have been 100 years old on 23 June had he lived to the present day. To mark the occasion the BBC commissioned a week-long series of articles to explore his many achievements. This second essay examines the impact the British mathematician had on the outcome of World War II.

Prof Jack CopelandUniversity of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Germany's Army, Air Force and Navy transmitted many thousands of coded messages each day during World War II. These ranged from top-level signals, such as detailed situation reports prepared by generals at the battle fronts, and orders signed by Hitler himself, down to the important minutiae of war like weather reports and inventories of the contents of supply ships. Thanks to Turing and his fellow codebreakers, much of this information ended up in allied hands - sometimes within an hour or two of it being transmitted. The faster the messages could be broken, the fresher the intelligence that they contained, and on at least one occasion an intercepted Enigma message's English translation was being read at the British Admiralty less than 15 minutes after the Germans had transmitted it. On the first day of war, at the beginning of September 1939, Turing took up residence at Bletchley Park, the ugly Victorian Buckinghamshire mansion that served as the wartime HQ of Britain's top codebreakers. There he was a key player in the battle to decrypt the coded messages generated by Enigma, the German military's typewriter-like cipher machine. Bletchley's bombes Turing pitted machine against machine. The prototype model of his anti-Enigma "bombe", named simply Victory, was installed in the spring of 1940. His bombes turned Bletchley Park into a codebreaking factory. As early as 1943 Turing's machines were cracking a staggering total of 84,000 Enigma messages each month - two messages every minute. Turing personally broke the form of Enigma that was used by the U-boats preying on the North Atlantic merchant convoys. It was a crucial contribution. The convoys set out from North America loaded with vast cargoes of essential supplies for Britain, but the U-boats' torpedoes were sinking so many of the ships that Churchill's analysts said Britain would soon be starving. "The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril," Churchill said later. Just in time, Turing and his group succeeded in cracking the U-boats' communications to their controllers in Europe. With the U-boats revealing their positions, the convoys could dodge them in the vast Atlantic waste. The Turingery Turing also searched for a way to break into the torrent of messages suddenly emanating from a new, and much more sophisticated, German cipher machine. The British codenamed the new machine Tunny. The Tunny teleprinter communications network, a harbinger of today's mobile phone networks, spanned Europe and North Africa, connecting Hitler and the Army High Command in Berlin to the front-line generals. Turing's breakthrough in 1942 yielded the first systematic method for cracking Tunny messages. His method was known at Bletchley Park simply as Turingery, and the broken Tunny messages gave detailed knowledge of German strategy - information that changed the course of the war. "Turingery was our one and only weapon against Tunny during 1942-3", explains ninety-one year old Captain Jerry Roberts, once section leader in the main Tunny-breaking unit known as the Testery. "We were using Turingery to read what Hitler and his generals were saying to each other over breakfast, so to speak." Turingery was the seed for the sophisticated Tunny-cracking algorithms that were incorporated in Tommy Flowers' Colossus, the first large-scale electronic computer. With the installation of the Colossi - there were ten by the end of the war - Bletchley Park became the world's first electronic computing facility. Turing's work on Tunny was the third of the three strokes of genius that he contributed to the attack on Germany's codes, along with designing the bombe and unravelling U-boat Enigma. Ending the war Turing stands alongside Churchill, Eisenhower, and a short glory-list of other wartime principals as a leading figure in the Allied victory over Hitler. There should be a statue of him in London among Britain's other leading war heroes. Some historians estimate that Bletchley Park's massive codebreaking operation, especially the breaking of U-boat Enigma, shortened the war in Europe by as many as two to four years. If Turing and his group had not weakened the U-boats' hold on the North Atlantic, the 1944 Allied invasion of Europe - the D-Day landings - could have been delayed, perhaps by about a year or even longer, since the North Atlantic was the route that ammunition, fuel, food and troops had to travel in order to reach Britain from America. Harry Hinsley, a member of the small, tight-knit team that battled against Naval Enigma, and who later became the official historian of British intelligence, underlined the significance of the U-boat defeat. Any delay in the timing of the invasion, even a delay of less than a year, would have put Hitler in a stronger position to withstand the Allied assault, Hinsley points out. The fortification of the French coastline would have been even more formidable, huge Panzer Armies would have been moved into place ready to push the invaders back into the sea - or, if that failed, then to prevent them from crossing the Rhine into Germany - and large numbers of rocket-propelled V2 missiles would have been raining down on southern England, wreaking havoc at the ports and airfields tasked to support the invading troops. Saved lives In the actual course of events, it took the Allied armies a year to fight their way from the French coast to Berlin; but in a scenario in which the invasion was delayed, giving Hitler more time to prepare his defences, the struggle to reach Berlin might have taken twice as long. At a conservative estimate, each year of the fighting in Europe brought on average about seven million deaths, so the significance of Turing's contribution can be roughly quantified in terms of the number of additional lives that might have been lost if he had not achieved what he did. If U-boat Enigma had not been broken, and the war had continued for another two to three years, a further 14 to 21 million people might have been killed. Of course, even in a counterfactual scenario in which Turing was not able to break U-boat Enigma, the war might still have ended in 1945 because of some other occurrence, also contrary-to-fact, such as the dropping of a nuclear weapon on Berlin. Nevertheless, these colossal numbers of lives do convey a sense of the magnitude of Turing's contribution. Jack Copeland is professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has also built the Turing Archive for the History of Computing, an extensive online resource.

एलन ट्यूरिंग-ब्लेचली पार्क कोडब्रेकर-23 जून को 100 वर्ष के हो जाते यदि वे आज तक जीवित रहते। इस अवसर को चिह्नित करने के लिए बीबीसी ने उनकी कई उपलब्धियों का पता लगाने के लिए लेखों की एक सप्ताह की श्रृंखला शुरू की। यह दूसरा निबंध द्वितीय विश्व युद्ध के परिणाम पर ब्रिटिश गणितशास्त्री के प्रभाव की जांच करता है।


May urges change, but what kind?

Summary: If you don't listen, you lose.

Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter Theresa May tonight has given short shrift to the liberal consensus - the world view that has more or less dominated western politics for decades - accusing those politicians, including by implication many of her former colleagues, of being the "enemy" of true liberalism if they are deaf to the concerns of many ordinary voters. She has argued strongly before, at the Conservative Party conference and on the steps of Number 10, that too many people have been ignored by 21st Century politics - with fears about security or immigration dismissed too easily by the Westminster village. But with the election of Donald Trump as well as the UK's decision to quit the EU, the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic has now lost, and been surprised to lose. That gives her argument new force, and a new edge. Big questions And although she has little in common with Mr Trump, and one can imagine her private view of some of his more extreme comments being abhorrence, her arguments on how globalisation has left many voters behind has echoes of the president-elect. Mrs May's image before taking Number 10 was of the ultimate safe pair of hands. In her speech she did defend free trade and liberalism, if it works for all. Yet since taking office she has attempted to show in fact how much she wants to change, how different she is to David Cameron, how dissatisfied she is with the status quo. In her speech she took that even further, with an attack on the political establishment she herself has been a part of for years. And it's always worth remembering that in the EU referendum she was on the losing side. But while making that challenge, and posing those big questions, tonight and frankly any other night, Mrs May is yet to provide many answers. We are so far learning more about what she does not want to be or to represent. It's easy for any politician to say "change is in the air" - harder to answer what that will really mean for all of us.

अगर आप नहीं सुनेंगे तो आप हार जाएंगे।


League of Gentlemen reunion: 'I can't believe we're back here doing this'

Summary: "Welcome to Royston Vasey. You'll never leave." That sign greeted visitors to The League of Gentlemen's fictional home town. And it's proving true for the cult sketch show's creators, who have been drawn back there for three Christmas specials after more than a decade away.

By Ian YoungsArts & entertainment reporter Mark Gatiss has a grey dressing gown over a bare chest, and is wearing a long ginger wig. Reece Shearsmith is next to him in blue and white striped pyjamas. It's daytime and the League of Gentlemen co-stars are in a meeting room in central Manchester. But they are dressed like this because they've just come from Royston Vasey. Or, rather, they've just come from another part of the building, where the show's sets have been recreated for three new episodes - 15 years after the last series ended. Their co-star Steve Pemberton is in the meeting room doing press interviews too, as is League of Gentlemen co-creator and co-writer Jeremy Dyson. Gatiss, Shearsmith and Pemberton are taking a break from filming a scene as the Dentons, the strange, strict family who are obsessed with toads and bathroom habits. Gatiss, who is also known for writing and acting in Doctor Who and Sherlock, and for roles in Game of Thrones and Gunpowder, says they had no trouble slipping back into the characters that made them famous. "I thought it would take us a couple of days just to get back into the swing of it, and it didn't," he says. The first new scene they shot was as Legz Akimbo, the cringeworthy school drama troupe, using real pupils as extras. "We had a group of 60 kids who didn't know the characters, obviously, because they were all 15-year-olds," Pemberton says. "And we bounded out. Mark started doing a rap all about stranger danger with his baseball cap on, and I was standing in the wings watching him. "I just had this big smile on my face thinking, I can't believe we're back here doing this." During three award-winning TV series, a film and a stage show, the twilight zone of Royston Vasey was home to a collection of sinister, twisted and wickedly funny characters, including: The co-stars have reunited for the 20th anniversary of two things - winning the Perrier, the top comedy award at the Edinburgh Fringe, and their first national exposure with a series on BBC Radio 4. The League of Gentlemen were last seen on tour in 2005, after which they decided to take time off. But the quartet didn't fall out and often worked together on other projects. "There was never any unpleasantness or any acrimony," Dyson says. After enjoying successful post-League careers, they wanted to see what had become of Royston Vasey. "The lovely thing is it's born of wanting to do it not having to do it," Gatiss says of the comeback. "We're not wanting to feel like a '90s band going back on the road, like Bros or something. "We've had a really good laugh. You have to be relaxed to feel funny - to feel that you can just do what you like." Fans will have high expectations, but Shearsmith says the scripts "sort of poured out of us" and they avoided getting "trapped in the headlights of the enormity of what it could be". Which is just as well, given that Shane Allen, the BBC's controller of comedy commissioning, has added to the pressure by describing them as "the most original, distinct and influential writer-performers since Monty Python". Pemberton says: "There's always pressure going back to something. "I remember reading an article with John Cleese where he said the longer ago something was, people remember the best bits and they edit out all the boring bits of Monty Python or Fawlty Towers, so in peoples' heads it becomes a highlights show." So fans will be expecting the specials to live up to what's in their heads. "All the episodes of The League of Gentlemen had great moments, and what we've tried to do in these specials is give as many characters those special great moments over three episodes as possible," Pemberton adds. The specials will pick up with the Dentons and the other characters 15 years on. "Part of the main story arc is about Royston Vasey now and how it's even further in decline than it was before," Shearsmith says. Gatiss bats away a suggestion that the comeback was inspired by Brexit. In October 2016, he told BBC 6 Music he had an idea for a Brexit theme because Britain had "become a local country for local people". At the TV studio, he simply says: "The people of Royston Vasey are so strange, many of them can't vote, can't eat, can't see. "I wouldn't like to presume the politics of Royston Vasey. It's a weird bunch of strange people roped together for a concept." In the three new episodes, local residents will rise up to battle "administrative annihilation" after boundary changes threaten to wipe the town off the map. In showing us how the town and its inhabitants have changed, the specials could also tell us something about how public tastes and humour have altered in the last 15 years. Some of the old characters feel like they would sit uneasily in a modern show. For instance, the deep-voiced, high-heeled taxi driver Barbara, who jokes about having what we now call gender affirmation surgery. 'We stand by all those characters' "Certain things that we would make jokes about are now more difficult areas, and we've tackled that head on," Pemberton says. But he adds: "Even the original series, there's nothing in there now where we go: 'God I wish we'd never done that' or 'that makes me a bit uncomfortable'. "I think we can stand by all those characters because they're rounded characters." In the age of social media, the reaction to Papa Lazarou - played by Shearsmith with a blacked-up face - could perhaps be more swift and vocal than anything they dealt with first time around. Pemberton pre-empts any outrage by insisting the character "was clearly not a thing about race - it never was". Social media age "Someone could create a whole campaign taking that out of context," he says. "This is something that we'll have to deal with because now we're doing the shows in the Twitter age and we never were at the time. "We're confident in our characters and we feel they're rounded characters and we're not trying to upset anyone." After these three specials, The League of Gentlemen's four members will escape Royston Vasey again - for a while at least. But, as they talk about their affection for their characters and each other, it sounds like they'll never truly leave. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

"रॉयस्टन वेसी में आपका स्वागत है। आप कभी नहीं छोड़ेंगे।" यह चिन्ह द लीग ऑफ जेंटलमेन के काल्पनिक गृह नगर में आगंतुकों का स्वागत करता है। और यह कल्ट स्केच शो के रचनाकारों के लिए सच साबित हो रहा है, जिन्हें एक दशक से अधिक समय के बाद तीन क्रिसमस विशेष कार्यक्रमों के लिए वापस खींचा गया है।


Should you rent your Christmas tree?

Summary: Most of the estimated six million Christmas trees bought in the UK this year will be thrown out as waste just weeks later. Hiring one instead is growing in popularity - but does it really make environmental sense, asks Jasmine Coleman.

For millions of homes around the country, finding one that is the perfect height and shape and then taking it home for decorating is a time-honoured tradition. But there is also that nagging sense of guilt. Is it really OK to buy what was once a living, breathing tree and then just chuck it away? Craig Tennock of Cotswold Fir, which has been offering tree rental as well as selling cut trees for six years, says he has seen the market for rented trees grow about 30% year on year. The trees are grown in special pots that can be dug up and replanted year after year. Renters pay a deposit and have to follow instructions to keep their tree in good condition. They must be kept away from heat sources, watered daily, and kept indoors for a limited amount of time. About 30% of Tennock's customers currently choose to rent as an alternative to the annual Christmas carnage, he says. "There's the environmental ethos - but it's also a way of giving people what they want." So is this really the most environmentally friendly way of sourcing a Christmas tree? It's not that cut trees can't be produced sustainably, experts say. Growing trees is almost always a good thing for the environment. They absorb carbon dioxide and provide habitats for wildlife. "It important to remember that the trees are a crop," says horticultural journalist Naomi Slade. "Harvesting them is not the same as cutting down established native woodland." But the trees tend to be grown as a monoculture and sprayed with pesticides, limiting biodiversity. Transporting and disposing of the cut trees is what has the greatest impact on the environment. The Carbon Trust says a 2m-tall cut Christmas tree that ends up in landfill has a carbon footprint of 16kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent). One that is recycled produces about 3.5kg CO2e. Meanwhile, a 2m-tall artificial tree has a carbon footprint of about 40kg CO2e. Artificial trees are mostly imported from China and cannot be recycled. You would need to reuse it for 10 Christmases to keep its environmental impact on a par with that of having a normal tree that is recycled. Many councils will pick up real trees as green waste and send them for incineration or for shredding to make compost. Despite this, the government estimates that the nation's dumped Christmas trees still generate 160,000 tonnes of waste every year. "The waste element becomes very significant - avoiding landfill is very important," says Paul Swift of the Carbon Trust. Renting a tree allows consumers to virtually cancel out this problem, he says. It's not just the reduced environmental impact that appeals to customers, Tennock says. Renting a living tree allows them to choose the traditional Norway spruce, which has otherwise developed a bad reputation for dropping needles. Some customers even choose to have the same tree every year, says Tennock. "They need to be treated like a house plant," says garden expert Naomi Slade. Digging up and replanting can damage the tree, she adds, so producers have an incentive to treat them carefully. Growing a tree in the garden would be the greenest option of all, as it would cut all transport emissions. But not everyone has the time, skills or space to do so. Even Tennock admits that rental trees are unlikely to replace the cut trees in the future. "There is some drudgery with a rental tree in terms of looking after it," he says. "People often just want a cut Christmas tree, and away they go." The price of renting a tree varies, with a 4ft (1.2m) tree starting at about £25 plus deposit. And access to ecologically friendly options can also pose problems - especially in cities where transporting the tree can be a problem. "My problem this year, is that I had quite a few requests from people wanting to rent a tree, and was unable to match them up to services, unless they lived in particular areas of the country," says ethical living writer Lucy Siegle. But in principle it's a good idea, she believes. "Nobody needs to own a tree. Nobody really wants to own a tree." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.

जैस्मीन कोलमैन पूछती है कि इस साल यू. के. में खरीदे गए अनुमानित 60 लाख क्रिसमस ट्री में से अधिकांश को कुछ ही हफ्तों बाद बर्बाद कर दिया जाएगा। इसके बजाय एक को किराए पर लेना लोकप्रियता में बढ़ रहा है-लेकिन क्या यह वास्तव में पर्यावरणीय समझ में आता है।


Viewpoint: Britain must pay reparations to India

Summary: At the end of May, the Oxford Union held a debate on the motion "This house believes Britain owes reparations to her former colonies". Speakers included former Conservative MP Sir Richard Ottaway, Indian politician and writer Shashi Tharoor and British historian John Mackenzie. Shashi Tharoor's argument in support of the motion , went viral in India after he tweeted it out from his personal account. The argument has found favour among Indians, where the subject of colonial exploitation remains a sore topic. Here he gives a summary of his views:

Indian economy At the beginning of the 18th Century, India's share of the world economy was 23%, as large as all of Europe put together. By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to less than 4%. The reason was simple: India was governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain's rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. By the end of the 19th Century, India was Britain's biggest cash-cow, the world's biggest purchaser of British exports and the source of highly paid employment for British civil servants - all at India's own expense. We literally paid for our own oppression. De-industrialisation of India Britain's Industrial Revolution was built on the de-industrialisation of India - the destruction of Indian textiles and their replacement by manufacturing in England, using Indian raw material and exporting the finished products back to India and the rest of the world. The handloom weavers of Bengal had produced and exported some of the world's most desirable fabrics, especially cheap but fine muslins, some light as "woven air". Britain's response was to cut off the thumbs of Bengali weavers, break their looms and impose duties and tariffs on Indian cloth, while flooding India and the world with cheaper fabric from the new satanic steam mills of Britain. Weavers became beggars, manufacturing collapsed; the population of Dhaka, which was once the great centre of muslin production, fell by 90%. So instead of a great exporter of finished products, India became an importer of British ones, while its share of world exports fell from 27% to 2%. 'Clive of India' Colonialists like Robert Clive bought their "rotten boroughs" in England with the proceeds of their loot in India (loot, by the way, was a Hindi word they took into their dictionaries as well as their habits), while publicly marvelling at their own self-restraint in not stealing even more than they did. And the British had the gall to call him "Clive of India", as if he belonged to the country, when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him. Bengal famine As Britain ruthlessly exploited India, between 15 and 29 million Indians died tragically unnecessary deaths from starvation. The last large-scale famine to take place in India was under British rule; none has taken place since, since free democracies don't let their people starve to death. Some four million Bengalis died in the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 after Winston Churchill deliberately ordered the diversion of food from starving Indian civilians to well-supplied British soldiers and European stockpiles. "The starvation of anyway underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks," he argued. When officers of conscience pointed out in a telegram to the prime minister the scale of the tragedy caused by his decisions, Mr Churchill's only response was to ask peevishly "Why hasn't Gandhi died yet?" Myth of 'enlightened despotism' British imperialism had long justified itself with the pretence that it was enlightened despotism, conducted for the benefit of the governed. Mr Churchill's inhumane conduct in 1943 gave the lie to this myth. But it had been battered for two centuries already: British imperialism had triumphed not just by conquest and deception on a grand scale, but by blowing rebels to bits from the mouths of cannons, massacring unarmed protesters at Jallianwala Bagh and upholding iniquity through institutionalised racism. No Indian in the colonial era was ever allowed to feel British; he was always a subject, never a citizen. Indian railways The construction of the Indian Railways is often pointed to as a benefit of British rule, ignoring the obvious fact that many countries have built railways without having to be colonised to do so. Nor were the railways laid to serve the Indian public. They were intended to help the British get around, and above all to carry Indian raw materials to the ports to be shipped to Britain. The movement of people was incidental except when it served colonial interests; no effort was made to ensure that supply matched demand for mass transport. In fact the Indian Railways were a big British colonial scam. British shareholders made absurd amounts of money by investing in the railways, where the government guaranteed extravagant returns on capital, paid for by Indian taxes. Thanks to British rapacity, a mile of Indian railways cost double that of a mile in Canada and Australia. It was a splendid racket for the British, who made all the profits, controlled the technology and supplied all the equipment, which meant once again that the benefits went out of India. It was a scheme described at the time as "private enterprise at public risk". Private British enterprise, public Indian risk. British aid In recent years, even as the reparations debate has been growing louder, British politicians have in fact been wondering whether countries like India should even receive basic economic aid at the expense of the British taxpayer. To begin with, the aid received is 0.4%, which is less than half of 1% of India's GDP. British aid, which is far from the amounts a reparation debate would throw up, is only a fraction of India's fertiliser subsidy to farmers, which may be an appropriate metaphor for this argument. Britons may see our love of cricket or the English language, or even parliamentary democracy, conjuring up memories of the Raj as in television series like Indian Summers, with Simla, and garden parties, and gentile Indians. For many Indians, however, it is a history of loot, massacres, bloodshed, of the banishing of the last Mughal emperor on a bullock cart to Burma. Indian soldiers in world wars India contributed more soldiers to British forces fighting the First World War than Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa combined. Despite suffering recession, poverty and an influenza epidemic, India's contributions in cash and materiel amount to £8bn ($12bn) in today's money. Two and a half million Indians also fought for British forces in the Second World War, by the end of which £1.25bn of Britain's total £3bn war debt was owed to India, which was merely the tip of the iceberg that was colonial exploitation. It still hasn't been paid. 'Return the Koh-i-Noor diamond' What's important is not the quantum of reparations that Britain should pay, but the principle of atonement. Two hundred years of injustice cannot be compensated for with any specific amount. I, for one, would be happy to accept a symbolic pound a year for the next two hundred years, as a token of apology. And maybe Britain could kindly return the Koh-i-Noor diamond to the country it was taken from!

मई के अंत में, ऑक्सफोर्ड यूनियन ने इस प्रस्ताव पर बहस की "इस सदन का मानना है कि ब्रिटेन अपने पूर्व उपनिवेशों के लिए मुआवजे का हकदार है।" वक्ताओं में पूर्व रूढ़िवादी सांसद सर रिचर्ड ओट्टवे, भारतीय राजनेता और लेखक शशि थरूर और ब्रिटिश इतिहासकार जॉन मैकेंजी शामिल थे। प्रस्ताव के समर्थन में शशि थरूर का तर्क, भारत में वायरल हो गया जब उन्होंने इसे अपने व्यक्तिगत खाते से ट्वीट किया। तर्क को भारतीयों के बीच समर्थन मिला है, जहां औपनिवेशिक शोषण का विषय एक दुखद विषय बना हुआ है। यहाँ वे अपने विचारों का सारांश देते हैंः


Greater Manchester firefighter job losses approved

Summary: Plans to cut about 250 firefighters in Greater Manchester have been approved despite the chairman of the region's fire authority warning it would "put people at risk".

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service will lose staff to save £14.7m over four years due to government cuts. Firefighters protested outside the meeting at the fire service's headquarters in Swinton earlier. Chairman David Acton said the service was being "stretched to the limit". The decision means there will be fewer fire engines made available when demand is low, and a new 12-hour shift system will be introduced. Mr Acton also admitted the move would lead to an increase in response times.

ग्रेटर मैनचेस्टर में लगभग 250 अग्निशामकों की कटौती की योजना को मंजूरी दी गई है, जबकि क्षेत्र के अग्निशमन प्राधिकरण के अध्यक्ष ने चेतावनी दी है कि यह "लोगों को खतरे में डाल देगा"।


Man charged over Morden betting shop death

Summary: A 21-year-old man has been charged with murdering a father of two at a betting shop in south London.

Andrew Iacovou, 55, was found dead at a branch of Ladbrokes in Aberconway Road, Morden, where he worked, at 10:30 BST on Saturday 25 May. A post-mortem examination showed he died from blunt trauma to the head. Shafique Ahmad Aarij has been charged with murder and will appear before Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court on Saturday.

दक्षिण लंदन में एक सट्टेबाजी की दुकान पर एक 21 वर्षीय व्यक्ति पर दो बच्चों के पिता की हत्या का आरोप लगाया गया है।


Worcester 'acid attack': Five men are charged

Summary: Five men have been charged with conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm following a suspected acid attack on a three-year-old boy.

Three men from London, aged 22, 25 and 26, and two from Wolverhampton, aged 39 and 41, are due in court later. The boy suffered serious burns to his face and an arm at the Home Bargains store in Worcester on Saturday. West Mercia Police said it would not be releasing the identities of the men who have been charged. They are due to appear at Kidderminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday. The suspected attack occurred in the Tallow Hill area of Worcester at about 14:15 BST on Saturday. The child was treated at the scene by paramedics and taken to hospital for treatment. He was discharged the following day but the long-term implications of his injuries are not yet known.

तीन साल के लड़के पर संदिग्ध तेजाब हमले के बाद पांच लोगों पर गंभीर शारीरिक नुकसान पहुंचाने की साजिश रचने का आरोप लगाया गया है।


How to build a bigger, better corkscrew

Summary: There are many man-made objects in the world in need of improvement. And there are a small number that, through use and experience, have become stripped to their essence and as a result are hard to improve upon. Or so you might think.

By Mark WardTechnology correspondent, BBC News One such object is the traditional corkscrew. At its most primitive it displays an almost iron-age simplicity. It is a helix of metal anchored in a rounded wooden handle. To grasp it is to discover how to use it. And it is elegant in pursuit of that singular purpose. And yet, and yet, for some that simplicity is a spur. A goad to explore just what the corkscrew would be if it were first conceived in an age that venerated machines or their makers. For mechanical sculptor Rob Higgs similar thoughts started a journey that ended at the other end of the spectrum from the simple, streamlined object we all have lurking in our kitchen drawers. Mr Higgs' corkscrew is not slim, it cannot be held in the hand and the only similarity it shares with its namesake is that it does remove corks from bottles. It weighs more than three-quarters of a tonne, is a convoluted hedge of 382 moving parts including gears, pulleys, levers, springs and probably flanges that is 1.6m (5ft 3in) tall at its highest point, is cast from brass and is a glorious sight to behold when set in ponderous, whirring, clanking motion. Not bad for someone who, he claims, became a mechanical sculptor pretty much by accident. "I've no formal training," he told the BBC. Mr Higgs is now settled in Newquay, Cornwall, living in a 1930s boat that he rebuilt himself. Making those living quarters was his first big project but, he admits, his dad's family were engineers and his youth was spent in and around people who liked to create, hack and tinker, and were good at it. Mr Higgs had no desire to follow the formal route to being an engineer because it would mean he ended up in an office, sitting at a computer and he would never get his hands on the finished thing. And things are what he loves. Living in Cornwall and putting his houseboat to rights led Mr Higgs to discover and get to know others who did similar work. That contact got him tinkering and continuing to create once the houseboat was done. Now the boat is his home and the yard his studio, filled with all the bits, bobs, iron, brass, bric-a-brac and spare parts that he uses in his work. "Other people said there was quite a lot of work doing it though I was just making stuff for a laugh," he said. "They said I could sell it through the Eden Project and because there was a route it became my career." The rise and rise of steampunk - the retro-futuristic style - and its love for copper, brass, gears and automata has helped his prospects as have movies such as Hugo. The result is that for the last few years he has not had to sell his creations in shops at tourist attractions but has instead worked almost entirely to commission. He has produced props for theatre productions and films, or sculptures for display in museums, visitor centres and other buildings. His latest work in progress is a submarine, complete with half-tonne propeller, that will take centre stage in a children's playground. He treats every creation as a challenge, daring himself to go far beyond any simple assumption about how a device, such as a corkscrew or nutcracker, is expected to work. "It's the unknown element and excitement of it," he said, "going outside the comfort zone on each job teaches me a specialist skill." He's as rigorous as any formal engineer in that he draws up designs for each work but, he said, the finished device can look very different to the initial conception. He also makes each one out of scrap and junk, many of which are parts or pieces of other junked mechanical objects. That's important, he said, because it makes something of what is discarded. Often key components are tools that are no longer used as tools but Mr Higgs can find a way to put them to use again. Also, he thinks, his creations have become more valued, and valuable, as society has less and less to do with the mundanely mechanical. Just think of the last time you had to wind a handle to get something done. "As the skills become less and less of something that you can see everyday, it becomes a speciality," he said. And he's in no doubt that he is a bit special. "I feel like I'm lucky every day," he said. "I have to pinch myself that I can get paid regularly to do this."

दुनिया में ऐसी कई मानव निर्मित वस्तुएं हैं जिनमें सुधार की आवश्यकता है। और कुछ ऐसी भी हैं जो उपयोग और अनुभव के माध्यम से अपने सार से वंचित हो गई हैं और इसके परिणामस्वरूप सुधार करना मुश्किल है। या तो आप सोच सकते हैं।


Nottingham teachers call off strike over change to term dates

Summary: A series of strikes by teachers in Nottingham have been cancelled after the city council agreed to conciliation over a disputed term changes.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) had planned two more strike days on Wednesday and Thursday. The two sides will meet at the conciliation service Acas to discuss the proposed move to five terms. Teachers have already staged three one-day strikes in protest at the introduction of the changes . An NUT spokesman said there would not be any strikes during the exam period but reserved the right to take action later if the talks failed. Nottingham City Council said the change would boost attainment, but some teachers viewed the change as disruptive. The NUT said there was no evidence it would help pupils and claimed it could cause problems with county schools being on a different system.

नगर परिषद द्वारा एक विवादित कार्यकाल परिवर्तन पर सुलह करने पर सहमत होने के बाद नॉटिंघम में शिक्षकों द्वारा की गई हड़तालों की एक श्रृंखला को रद्द कर दिया गया है।


Increase in drink-driving arrests in Northamptonshire

Summary: Police in Northamptonshire arrested 81 people for drink driving during June, a higher percentage of those tested compared with last year.

The force stopped 758 drivers for breath tests in a campaign to coincide with the World Cup. The 81 arrests equated to 11% of those tested. In June 2009, almost twice as many people - 1,448 - were tested, with the resulting 106 arrests representing 7%. Police said the increase was due to the campaign being "intelligence led". Officers acted on information rather than stopping drivers at random.

नॉर्थम्पटनशायर में पुलिस ने जून के दौरान शराब पीकर गाड़ी चलाने के लिए 81 लोगों को गिरफ्तार किया, जो पिछले साल की तुलना में परीक्षण किए गए लोगों का अधिक प्रतिशत है।


Australia drug runner crashes meth van into police car

Summary: A suspected drug carrier has been arrested after crashing a van packed with A$200m (£112m; $140m) of methamphetamine into a patrol car parked outside a police station in Sydney, Australia.

The 28-year-old driver hit the police car at speed, crushing its bonnet, on Monday before racing off. Police caught him an hour later in Eastwood, a suburb in the city's north. A search of the van uncovered 273kg of meth. Authorities said no-one was injured in the crash, but the police car had "sustained significant damage". Crystal meth, which is known locally as ice, has been described as the most common and damaging illegal drug in Australia. The price of crystal meth in Australia is among the highest in the world, driving the country's organised crime gangs to trade increasingly in the drug. The man, who has not been named, faced court on Tuesday charged with drug supply and negligent driving offences.

ऑस्ट्रेलिया के सिडनी में एक पुलिस स्टेशन के बाहर खड़ी एक गश्ती कार में 200 मिलियन ऑस्ट्रेलियाई डॉलर (112 मिलियन पाउंड; 140 मिलियन डॉलर) के मेथामफेटामाइन से भरी एक वैन को टक्कर मारने के बाद एक संदिग्ध ड्रग वाहक को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


Who is the real Philip Hammond?

Summary: Chancellor Philip Hammond has delivered his Autumn Statement, setting out his economic vision. But what do we know about him as a man? BBC Newsnight's political editor has been speaking to some of his closest friends and colleagues.

Nicholas WattNewsnight political editor For years Philip Hammond has been dubbed the ultimate boring accountant whose idea of fun is to spend his holidays poring over spreadsheets. Well, he is certainly not an accountant. And there is mixed evidence on the boring front. Hammond does - according to his former ministerial colleague Sir Peter Luff - infuriate his wife Susan by taking spreadsheets to the beach. But friends dating back to Hammond's days at Shenfield High School in the 1970s recall a long-haired teenager who, with a twinkle in the eye, drove fellow sixth-formers to the pub for lunch. Nina Stratford, one of his pub lunch partners, told us something about Hammond that has probably never been said publicly before about a chancellor of the exchequer. "I remember going round to his house once. We got hold of half a bottle of sherry and proceeded to drink it, and very randomly we ended up having a bit of a cheeky snog," she says. "Who'd have thought that Philip Hammond was such a good kisser?" It was the era of 1970s Glam Rock and Hammond launched a highly successful career as an entrepreneur by running discos. After Oxford he made a mint in residential and commercial building in the 1980s and 1990s. The Hammond fortune, which gave him the keys to a smart Jaguar car, allowed him to fulfil the Michael Heseltine criterion to ensure success in politics. He entered Parliament at the relatively late age of 41 in 1997 as a millionaire, ensuring he would not be beholden to anyone. And now, two decades later, Philip Hammond has achieved his dream job in circumstances he could never have imagined. He has taken charge of the UK economy at what he regards as a potentially perilous moment after the Brexit referendum. In a series of interviews with friends from his school days in Essex and from his earliest in politics a quarter of a century ago I have been introduced to the two sides of Philip Hammond. First there is an unsurprising figure: "Spreadsheet Phil" who devoured the Daily Telegraph at school and whose hour may now have come at this tricky moment for the public finances. And then there is Phil, the resourceful entrepreneur and confident charmer who served Bacardi to his mates in his Shenfield bedroom which was out of bounds to his parents. The chancellor will need to draw on both these sides of his personality as he embarks on two historic challenges which may dwarf even those faced by his two immediate predecessors who lived through the global financial crash and its aftermath. In the first place, Hammond believes he needs to prepare the economy for what he fears could be a bumpy ride once the Brexit negotiations are formally launched in the spring. And then there is the other challenge he is pursuing on his own terms - ensuring that Britain achieves a soft landing as it leaves the EU. Former school friends painted a picture of a highly intelligent teenager who had the confidence to challenge, in a friendly way, his left-wing history teacher. Fellow-pupil Richard Madeley, the television presenter, recalls: "He would always finish his work in class ahead of everybody else. He was very very bright. "And then he put his big boots on the desk and start reading the Telegraph and swapping political dialogue with our history teacher who was a Guardian reader. "And usually towards the end of the class they would swap papers and then they would sort of score jolly points off each other making political points." Wind forward three decades and Philip Hammond now finds himself one of the central figures as a new political order takes shape after the Brexit vote. Passing acquaintances when at Oxford, Hammond and Theresa May enjoy a constructive, though not especially close, working relationship. But there is irritation in the Treasury at briefings that he is resistant to her mission to champion the so-called JAMs, people who are Just About Managing. He sees the need to target help on people struggling, but says that his main priority is to stabilise the economy after the Brexit vote. This will mean abandoning George Osborne's plan to achieve an overall budget surplus by 2020. The chancellor's old political friend, former transport minister Stephen Hammond, says his namesake wants to make clear he is not going soft on the deficit. He said: "Intellectually the framework remains the same - that we intend to achieve a fiscal surplus within the life of the next parliament." Stephen Hammond also gave me an insight into Hammond's thinking on the EU. The chancellor is so concerned about business uncertainty he believes the UK should negotiate a transitional deal with the EU to cover future trading relations at the same time as the Brexit talks. Theresa May appeared to float this idea on Tuesday, only for her aides to back away. Stephen Hammond told me: "Leaving in two years' time without a deal would be catastrophic for this country. "And I think it is clear that one of the things Philip is increasingly coming to realise is that we may need to put in place transitional arrangements so that negotiations don't have to stop in two years' time - it may well be in our national interest to continue those negotiations for some time to get the best deal for Britain." In private, friends told me, Mr Hammond is unimpressed by what he regards as the excessively optimistic claims of the Brexiteers Boris Johnson and Liam Fox. But he is re-establishing an alliance with the third Brexiteer, his one time boss David Davis. Friends say Mr Hammond regards the Brexit secretary as a grown-up who is immersing himself in the gritty detail of his job. Britain is having its first proper introduction to the two Philip Hammonds. Spreadsheet Philip may be the man for the moment as the public finances enter a bumpy phase. But Phil, the confident charmer, will need all his political wiles to survive the choppy Brexit waters ahead. Nicholas Watt is political editor for BBC Newsnight. You can watch his report here

चांसलर फिलिप हैमंड ने अपनी आर्थिक दृष्टि को निर्धारित करते हुए अपना शरद ऋतु वक्तव्य दिया है। लेकिन हम एक आदमी के रूप में उनके बारे में क्या जानते हैं? बीबीसी न्यूज़नाइट का राजनीतिक संपादक अपने कुछ करीबी दोस्तों और सहयोगियों से बात कर रहा है।


TV recycling in Guernsey trebles

Summary: The amount of recyclable material recovered from scrapped television sets in Guernsey has trebled since April.

The total recovered went up from four and three quarter tons in April to 15 tons in September. Tina Norman Ross, the recycling officer, said the figures were simply astonishing. She said as the digital switchover, on 17 November, approached it seemed many islanders were choosing to recycle their old television sets. The changeover means viewers will need either a digital ready TV or to attach a set top box to their old set.

ग्वेर्नसे में स्क्रैप किए गए टेलीविजन सेटों से बरामद पुनर्चक्रण योग्य सामग्री की मात्रा अप्रैल के बाद से तिगुनी हो गई है।


Conjoined twins: 'We always knew we were different'

Summary: In December 2001, a perilous operation took place in Birmingham to separate three-month-old conjoined twins, Sanchia and Eman Mowatt. They started life in the full focus of the world's media, such was the rarity of their predicament. What are the 19-year-old sisters who defied the medical odds doing today?

By Rebecca WoodsBBC News There was, medics said, a "slight judder" felt in the operating theatre, and a cheer erupted in the room. At the end of the painstaking 16-hour procedure, the two little girls were separated. They had spent their first three months attached at the spine. It was a remarkable day at Birmingham Children's Hospital - the first time such an operation had been carried out in the UK, and only the third time in the world. It was also extremely high risk - the survival rate for separated conjoined twins is between 5 and 25%. Even if they had come through the surgery, one or both of the girls could have been paralysed as neurosurgeons meticulously separated their spines. But, joyously, the operation was a complete success. Sanchia and Eman's elated and relieved parents Emma and David could finally hold one daughter each. The world's media captured the family's first individual cuddles. Sanchia and Eman are now at university, along with their younger sister Damaris who was born just 11 months after the twins and has been alongside them during their extraordinary - and yet determinedly ordinary - lives. "People don't really talk about their conjoined stories, but it's just what we're used to," says Eman, reflecting on their entry into the world. Doctors predicted the sisters could lead normal lives if they were successfully separated. Both have spina bifida but, with one weak leg each, it was not known how this would affect their development. "They didn't know if we were going to walk," says Sanchia. "When we did, people said it was a miracle." It was Sanchia who first defied expectations, toddling off at the age of two, with Eman following about five weeks later. Before long, they were running around the family home in the Birmingham suburb of Great Barr. Early life was a mix of primary school, return trips to hospital and the odd TV appearance to discuss their progress. "We knew at a young age we were different - hospital appointments, operations, and we couldn't do everything our friends were doing," recalls Eman, although she says their young classmates were "very accepting" of their situation, and they enjoy friendships that have remained to this day. They say their weaker leg means a five-minute walk can take them 20, and they have the use of a wheelchair and a crutch. "We embraced our disability at a young age," says Sanchia. "We didn't let anyone tell us we couldn't do something." She cites an example from her earliest days at school. "I remember being four years old and feeling different," she says. "We were playing tig and tag and a boy said to me 'you can't do this because of your leg'. "[I thought] 'yes, I have a disability but it's not for someone to tell you what you can and can't do'. I did run that day, and I wasn't the best but I did it. "When someone says something like that to you, it gives you the drive to think 'yes I can!''" 'The two came together and fused as one' The operation Sanchia and Eman needed to divide their spinal cords, which were fused at the base, had never been carried out in the UK. Medics led by neurosurgeon Tony Hockley apportioned the spinal cord and separated some major organs, including their bladders. Describing the procedure afterwards, Mr Hockley told The Guardian: "The two came together and fused as one. There was also a degree of rotation. We had to make our cut so that each baby girl got her spinal cord back, and make a tube to cover it. "The technique of cutting is conventional but it is knowing where to cut. We had nerve stimulators to help." After the separation of the spine, paediatric surgeon Peter Gornall and one of the world's leading experts on conjoined twins, Lewis Spitz from Great Ormond Street, carried out the careful splitting of some of the girls' organs, which were whole but were stuck together. In their teens, the twins were more guarded about their history, but intrigue often got the better of their classmates. "People were very curious - they'd ask us, is it true? But we wanted to keep that private," says Sanchia. "They googled us. I thought people would stop talking - it's just a craze - but they didn't." The widely respected neurosurgeon who separated the twins, Tony Hockley, became a close family friend. He remembered every birthday, and was a regular visitor to the Mowatts' home. He died suddenly in 2009, aged 65, and last year the twins attended a memorial event, to the delight of his family and colleagues. The connection with Birmingham Children's Hospital endured as Sanchia and Eman approached adulthood. So much so, they both completed work experience there, meeting some of the medics who were in the operating room with them some 16 years earlier. It was really cool," says Sanchia. "We saw the anaesthetist who did the gas for us, and also medical students who were there when we were born. "It was such an interesting and rewarding experience. We don't take it for granted." Their high school experience was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, with their school forced to close in March. "It was ripped away from us," says Sanchia. "We are still trying to get over that." Undeterred, the twins and their sister Damaris - who were in the same school year - held a virtual prom with close friends via Zoom. They even made flyers and tickets. "It was an amazing day," says Eman. "That's the way we closed off our school years, dancing around the living room." The event was a highlight of lockdown. "April was bleak," recalls Eman, adding that they lost a close relative to Covid-19. "It was intense. But quarantine has told us to appreciate each other - it's brought out the best in us." The pandemic has brought the three sisters even closer, if that was possible. The twins are full of praise for Damaris. "She is our driving force," says Sanchia, explaining that their sister has supported them countless times after operations, or when they are having a difficult day. "We lean on each other, but Damaris is the glue," adds Eman. "She's always been there for us." Conjoined twins All three are now at university. Sanchia is studying cyber security, Eman politics and international relations, and Damaris is doing childhood, youth and educational studies. Sanchia is also learning how to code as part of a drive to get more black women into the industry. "Tech needs a lot more black people," she says. "I'm a Caribbean girl - you don't see many [in this job]. I want to make a difference and show myself that I can." Meanwhile, Eman has dreams of going into politics, citing US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an inspiration. "The new form of politician is going to be different - we live in an evolving world," she says. The twins recognise their good fortune to have survived their precarious first few weeks of life, but see themselves simply as regular young women - with big ambitions, and a world that revolves around family, friends and faith. "You have to be grateful with your life," says Eman. "We've read about other twins [who have died]," adds Sanchia. "It's so sad. That could have been us."

दिसंबर 2001 में, बर्मिंघम में तीन महीने के जुड़वा बच्चों, सांचिया और इमान मोवाट को अलग करने के लिए एक खतरनाक ऑपरेशन किया गया। उन्होंने दुनिया के मीडिया के पूरे ध्यान में जीवन की शुरुआत की, उनकी दुर्दशा इतनी दुर्लभ थी। वे 19 वर्षीय बहनें कौन हैं जिन्होंने आज चिकित्सा बाधाओं को दरकिनार किया?


Sound of 2018: Khalid comes fourth (after he got trapped on a theme park ride)

Summary: US R&B sensation Khalid has taken fourth place in BBC Music's Sound of 2018 list, which tips acts for success in the next 12 months. He tells the BBC about his rise to fame, and recalls a disastrous trip to the theme park.

By Mark SavageBBC Music reporter He may only be 19, but Khalid is already a star in the US where his debut album, American Teen, has sold over a million copies. Written while he was at high school, the record's themes of belonging, love and loneliness have spoken directly to a generation. "The success was very rapid," he says. "It's crazy." Born Khalid Amhearst Robinson in Georgia, the singer was raised in a military family and lived in Germany and upstate New York before settling in Texas. He didn't complete his first song until 2015, and more than a year after he tweeted "I want to go to the Grammys one day". That song, called Saved, eventually made it onto his debut album - alongside hit singles like Location and Young Dumb & Broke. His lyrics talk about teenagers who still live at home, with no money or cars, and who want to experience love without the trappings of commitment ("I'm not one for relationships / It's over-rated," he sings on Therapy). Fulfilling his Twitter prophecy, the record has earned him three Grammy nominations - with a further two nods for the suicide prevention song 1-800-273-8255, which he recorded with Logic and Alessia Cara. "I can't wait to go and bring my mom and have a good time," he laughs. What was life like as a military kid? Did you move around a lot? Definitely - but moving around shaped the individual that I became. I feel like, mentally, I wouldn't be as strong as I am right now. It definitely toughened my skin. Your mum was a singer, too, is that right? Yes - she actually sang in the army. She's retired now, but she still sings. To be honest, she sings way better than I do! Have you ever thought of getting her on backing vocals? I think about it all the time - but I also think about the fact that I don't want to get embarrassed by my mom on a record. And some of the things you sing about aren't suitable for parents… Exactly! I don't know how the song would go - but I just know my mom has an amazing and beautiful voice. When you were younger you thought you'd sing opera or Broadway. What drew you to that music? The form of expression. Just how a three-minute song can make you feel so many different things. I remember the first time I was ever part of a musical [Khalid played Cornelius in a school production of Hello Dolly] seeing the reactions from the crowd, and seeing how sad they got, but then how happy they got - that's something I wanted to be a part of. But I was a little bit too nervous to write music myself. What was holding you back? I feel like the amount of vulnerability that I had to put myself through when I wrote my first song. I wasn't ready to be so emotional out loud, because I felt like nobody cared, or nobody wanted to listen. But at the end of the day, I took a step back and I'm like, "OK, well how much do I care about myself and my own mental health?" and that's when I wrote my first song. That's interesting - because you've been called a spokesperson for your generation, but I get the impression you write the songs for yourself, first and foremost. Oh, definitely. It was for myself first. What I didn't realise at the time, is there are so many teenagers going through the same type of situations as I was going through. We're all finding out so much about ourselves, we're growing up. For people who haven't heard you yet, how would you describe the sound? Mellow. Chill. Not too much, not too little. Kind of soulful, very moody. Emotional but still kind of gets you up off of your feet! Is there one lyric people quote back to you more often than any other? Ooooh…. One lyric? Honestly, if I could summarise my teenage life, I couldn't put it in one lyric but I could put it on a song - Young Dumb & Broke. That song has done so much for you. Did you know this time last year it was going to become so big? I had faith - because, after I recorded that song, I got back to my apartment and I danced in the mirror for 10 minutes. Non-stop. You sing a lot about wanting love, but not commitment. How common is that attitude in the people around you? I feel like I'm just so young. Way too young to be committed to anything. My personality is like, I'm so spontaneous. I'm that friend who will call you last minute and be like, 'Hey, let's drive to Disneyland right now!' And they'll be like, 'Disneyland is two hours away' and I'm like, 'I know! Let's just do it!' What's your favourite ride at Disneyland? Honestly, I just went to Universal Studios in LA and my favourite ride had to be the Harry Potter ride. But the thing is, it got stuck mid-way through! We were just hanging in mid-air for, like, eight minutes. Is this because you're secretly a Slytherin? Right! There must be some mojo involving me that made that ride stop! It could have been worse. Some people get stuck upside down for hours. That could never be me. I would cry. Your biggest single in the UK so far is Silence. What's the story behind that song? When I teamed up with [dance producer] Marshmello, I knew I wanted to be vulnerable - and so, when I wrote this song, it was very personal and it was very deep and I was very upset. But the moment the song came out, I went to Australia and I saw fans screaming every single word, every night. To have that in a whole different continent? It was awesome. One of my favourites is Saved - That lyric about keeping an ex's number in case they call and say they made a mistake. Have you ever done that? I keep all of my exes' numbers saved, just in case they feel like they need to talk to me, or I need to talk to them - because they all started as friends first. Even if we're not as close as we were after the end of the relationship, I have so much love for all of them. At the same time, you must have had old acquiantances crawling out of the woodwork since you've become famous. All the time. All the time. And I'm a person who stands my ground. I let them know. I had a lot of great friends and then I had a lot of friends who couldn't deal with the things I was going through. They didn't want to deal through all that, but then they wanted to celebrate me when I became successful, and I don't feel like that's fair. Your goal was to get to the Grammys. Does it seem real that you're not only going but you're nominated five times? It's insane. I just can't believe it. It happened way faster than I thought it would. I remember talking to people and I'd be like, "maybe I'll get nominated for something in 2019" but it was way faster! It was something I couldn't have prepared for but I'm just so blessed. Which of those awards do you want to win the most? Best new artist. Hands down. You've got some tough competition there - SZA, Julia Michaels, Lil Uzi Vert, Alessia Cara. It's amazing competition because they are extraordinary artists, every one. It's crazy because a lot of them inspired me - so to be up against my inspirations is slightly overwhelming, but it's definitely exciting. The interesting thing about that category is none of the nominees are white men. What does that say about music in 2018? Music is in such an interesting place right now. You can look like anything. You can be anybody and you can still be super-successful because the listeners are looking for relationships. They're looking for people they can look up to. The fact that I am nominated, I'm 19 years old, I'm this boy from El Paso Texas, and so many people across the world sing my songs? It's crazy on its own. And what about the Sound of 2018? Were you aware of the list or that it's such a big thing in the UK? Oh yeah! One of my good friends Billie Eilish is on the longlist as well. I love her so much. Her star is going to shine so bright. I love the cover you did of her song idontwannabeyouanymore Oh, that's my favourite song. What's your plan for 2018? I hear you're heading into the studio straight after this interview… Is there new music on the way? Ooh, yes. I've been in the studio a lot and there are a lot of collaborations to look forward to. I mean, I'm excited to work on my own but the collabs... I've been listening to them on repeat. They're awesome. What's your advice to anyone else who wants to get into music? Persistence is key. Don't listen to negativity. There's so much hate in the world because people are envious, so focus on yourself. Don't give up. And always be you. That's my advice. Peace out. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.

अमेरिकी आर एंड बी सनसनी खालिद ने बी. बी. सी. म्यूजिक की साउंड ऑफ 2018 की सूची में चौथा स्थान हासिल किया है, जो अगले 12 महीनों में सफलता के लिए काम करता है। वह बी. बी. सी. को अपनी प्रसिद्धि में वृद्धि के बारे में बताता है, और थीम पार्क की एक विनाशकारी यात्रा को याद करता है।


Man, 59, taken to hospital after Briton Ferry crash

Summary: A 59-year-old man has been taken to hospital after the car he was in crashed with a van.

The blue Suzuki Splash and a black Ford Transit Connect were in collision on the A474 road through Briton Ferry in Neath Port Talbot on Thursday. The man in the Suzuki was taken to Morriston Hospital in Swansea after the incident at 09:00 GMT on Neath Road but has "non-life-threatening injuries". Police are appealing for witnesses or dashcam footage from other motorists. Officers from South Wales Police also say they would like to speak to anyone who may have seen the Ford Transit being driven prior to the collision.

कार के वैन से टकराने के बाद एक 59 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को अस्पताल ले जाया गया है।


Battle lines drawn over new airport for Nantes

Summary: In the fields and woods of southern Brittany, protesters are waging a protracted, dirty and occasionally violent campaign to halt France's latest "grand projet" - a new airport for the west of the country.

By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris For months activists have been living rough in cabins and treehouses in the countryside 10 miles (16km) north of Nantes, occupying part of the area designated for the Aeroport du Grand Ouest, in the commune of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. A combination of political greens and reds, they say the airport is costly, unnecessary and will do serious damage to the environment. Far better, they argue, to keep the fields for their original purpose: grazing cows. But the Socialist government, backed by the Socialist region and the Socialist-run city of Nantes, is determined to press on. In recent weeks things have come to a head. With the legal process finally exhausted, police have used force to clear out protesters so that the initial phase of work can begin. On 17 November, a mass demonstration at Notre-Dames-des-Landes by some 20,000 opponents of the airport provided cover for activists to reoccupy the site and start rebuilding their huts. But now, riot police have moved back in, and there were clashes over this past weekend. Tear gas and rubber bullets were fired and several police officers and protesters were injured. 'Ayraultport' With the story getting front-page treatment in the press, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault is under pressure to explain how - at a time of growing environmental concerns and dwindling financial resources - building a 550m euro (£445m) airport in a city that already has one is the right course of action. As a former mayor of Nantes, Mr Ayrault is one of the airport's most vociferous supporters. Protesters have dubbed it the "Ayraultport" in his honour. But he presides over a coalition government whose other main participant - the Green Party - opposes the scheme. To defuse the tension, Mr Ayrault announced over the weekend a moratorium on work at the site. A "dialogue commission" is to be created so that opponents can once again express their concerns. But the government remains adamant: the airport will go ahead. A farming village of 200 inhabitants, Notre-Dame-des-Landes was selected as a possible site for an airport as long ago as the 1970s. Back then, the idea was for a new international hub that would draw traffic away from the two Paris airports. The supersonic airliner, Concorde, would have used it. But over the years the project changed in focus. When it was finally given the go-ahead in 2008, the aim was to provide a new communications centre for France's fastest-growing region. "The population of western France is getting bigger and bigger, with people moving in for jobs or for the sun. These people need direct routes by air to cities in other parts of Europe," says Nicolas Notebaert, chairman of the contractor, Vinci Airports. Nantes has an existing airport - Nantes-Atlantique - but according to Mr Notebaert, it will soon be unable to cope with the projected growth in traffic. "What the people of the Nantes region need is a lot of small planes heading to a lot of different destinations. That means many more plane positions and more terminals than the current airport can handle," he says. Mr Notebaert's figures are hotly disputed by opponents of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, who argue that with proper investment the existing airport could be sufficiently enlarged. Opponents also question other arguments put forward by Vinci and the government: for example that the current airport presents a noise and safety hazard for the people of Nantes, because most aircraft that land there have to overfly the city. "In 25 years as a local elected official, I never once had a complaint about noise," says Francoise Verchere of the Left Party. As for the claim that the new airport will bring jobs and growth, campaigners say that after the construction phase the impact will be minimal - with many jobs simply being transferred from the existing airport. Vanity project Rather, argues Genevieve Lebouteur of the local Green Party, proponents are acting for the worst of motives: "What we think is that the airport is a vanity project for politicians like Jean-Marc Ayrault, who want to end their careers with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at some major regional installation." "That and the fact that once a project like this starts rolling, no-one has the guts to stop it." According to Mr Notebaert, Vinci's plans for the new airport will make it one of the "greenest" in the world - with energy per passenger one third of the level at the existing airport. But environmentalists say the whole notion of a "green" airport is laughable. They say that its construction will endanger rare animals like the crested newt, which lives in the wetlands designated to be drained and concreted over. And they believe the "growth-at-all-costs" vision of the world is outmoded and dangerous. "I don't want Nantes to be some European megalopolis. I just want Nantes to stay as it is," said Natalie, a young demonstrator at the site. With the airport protests becoming of national interest, Green Party leaders are going through contortions to justify staying part of the coalition. Jean-Vincent Place, who heads the Greens in the Senate, points out that in their pre-election agreement with the Socialists, the airport issue was left to one side. "But it has been very difficult these last few weeks, especially seeing the military-style use of force being taken against the campaigners," he says. For the constructors Vinci, Mr Notebaert says democracy is at stake. "The police are not using excessive force. They are simply acting to ensure that the law is respected, and that work can commence." "Our agents on the ground are the ones who are afraid - of the protesters," he says. "Nothing has been done secretly. At every election locally, regionally and nationally, the plan was on the table. The voters chose parties who supported the airport. So it must go ahead."

दक्षिणी ब्रिटनी के खेतों और जंगलों में, प्रदर्शनकारी फ्रांस के नवीनतम "ग्रैंड प्रोजेक्ट"-देश के पश्चिम के लिए एक नए हवाई अड्डे को रोकने के लिए एक लंबा, गंदा और कभी-कभी हिंसक अभियान चला रहे हैं।