Tug of war over post-Brexit internal market

Summary: Plans for a British internal market, post-Brexit, are causing a lot of constitutional friction, and there's not much time to resolve disputes about the way it's being set up. Much is being made of the 'power grab' or 'power surge' of which powers go where after leaving Europe's single market, but the way the market works could be as important. Any internal market requires a way of resolving disputes. The plans lack any, which suggests it'll be for Westminster to decide.

Douglas FraserBusiness/economy editor, Scotland Boris Johnson made his name as a journalist in Brussels attacking, ridiculing, exaggerating and fabricating stories about the European Commission's efforts to create a single market. With more than a hint of karma, he's now in a rush to construct one in Britain, giving one month of consultation ahead of legislation. The Europeans have been piecing theirs together for more than 30 years. Why the rush? The need for replacements for Europe's internal market rules was clear as soon as the Brexit result came in, more than four years ago. Business needs clarity if it is to operate across boundaries within the UK, and it would like minimum divergence. This applies to people as well, and their ability to take their qualifications with them to get jobs in other parts of the UK. Perhaps a single UK market was being taken for granted. Whitehall's white paper waxes lyrical about it built up over centuries, painting word pictures of Welsh hill farmers walking their sheep to English markets. Yet 47 years inside Europe have set ever more complex and multi-layered rules, and outside Europe, the absence of those rules leaves a large hole. So with an end to transition in less than six months, it's time to catch up. Quickly. Different viewpoints One element that has changed a lot since joining Europe in 1973 is the divergence of devolved powers across the UK. Whitehall would need only light touch rules if everything in the kingdom were united, happy, glorious and harmonious. But it's not. And this issue exposes the asymmetry of dominant England, without its own government, and smaller partners which have those government powers, and a different political dynamic. Scotland is the most unsettled partner, but there are clearly tensions elsewhere. Northern Ireland is a special case. With trade into the republic and Europe guaranteed, it's also supposed to be in the UK single market. How does that work? The white paper doesn't say. That's a puzzle that defeated Theresa May, and it's yet to be solved. The other driving factor is the push to get trade deals outside Europe. HM Government is in talks with the USA and Japan, as well as the EU. And I'm told they're asking: if we do a deal with you, can we be sure to get access to all the UK market? The obvious problem area is in food standards, which is not unusual in trade talks, but in this case, specifically the demand from American trade negotiators for Britain to adopt American standards, including growth hormones in beef, the famously chlorine-washed chicken and so on. If Downing Street were to agree such a trade deal, what if Holyrood says "no, we won't allow those goods into the Scottish market". The SNP says this single market plan is to prepare for capitulation to American demands. It likes the way Europe set rules, and for the most part, it liked the rules on food standards and the environment, even though that meant constraints and obligations on Holyrood. It doesn't like that primary role shifting to Westminster, either because of the rules it suspects are on the way, or for the way the rules will be made. The UK government expressly rules out allowing these controversial farming methods, and its white paper details ways in which Britain has higher standards than it needed to have within the EU (something that journalist Boris Johnson apparently failed to notice). (By the way, one part of this playing field that's not level is that America does not have a fully integrated single market. A British firm wanting to sell beer or insurance into the USA will find 50 different markets for each.) Much has been made of a long list of Brussels powers being distributed to devolved administrations. It's either a "power surge", says Whitehall, or a "power grab", according to St Andrews House. Apart from that, two contentious factors stand out in the white paper. Mutual recognition: meaning, for instance, that Scotland can set its own standards for food, but it will have to accept that food produced to other (perhaps lower) standards in other parts of the UK can be sold in Scotland. That could lead to a lowering of food standards. The upside is that it guarantees that Scottish produced food can be sold throughout the UK, as it can throughout the European Union until the end of the year. The other is state aid. Brussels has set and policed rules on how much a government can support a firm or an industry, before it becomes a subsidy that undermines fair competition. Scotland and Wales want to set their own rules for that. This week's white paper says it'll be reserved to Westminster. And that's where the white paper has its most glaring omission: how to resolve disputes. In any market, that has to be clear. In Europe, it's the European Court of Justice. In America, litigation is a sort of national sport - part of the pursuit of happiness. In trade agreements, there has to be a way of resolving disputes. But in this white paper, there's discussion of some monitoring committee, which looks like it would be accountable to Westminster. The only clarity is that there won't be a way of resolving disputes that overrides Parliament, the way the ECJ has done. And without a court or arbitration panel, we can assume that disputes will be resolved on Westminster's terms.

ब्रेक्सिट के बाद एक ब्रिटिश आंतरिक बाजार के लिए योजनाएं बहुत अधिक संवैधानिक टकराव का कारण बन रही हैं, और इसे स्थापित करने के तरीके के बारे में विवादों को हल करने के लिए बहुत समय नहीं है। 'शक्ति हड़पने' या 'शक्ति वृद्धि' के बारे में बहुत कुछ किया जा रहा है जिसमें यूरोप के एकल बाजार को छोड़ने के बाद शक्तियां कहाँ जाती हैं, लेकिन जिस तरह से बाजार काम करता है वह उतना ही महत्वपूर्ण हो सकता है। किसी भी आंतरिक बाजार को विवादों को हल करने के तरीके की आवश्यकता होती है। योजनाओं में कोई कमी नहीं है, जिससे पता चलता है कि यह वेस्टमिंस्टर को तय करना होगा।


What are non-disclosure agreements?

Summary: Topshop boss Sir Philip Green has dropped his legal action against the Daily Telegraph, which prevented it publishing allegations of racist behaviour and sexual harassment. He had argued that former staff were breaking the law by breaching non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) they had signed. So how do these work?

By Justin ParkinsonBBC News What are NDAs? Sometimes known as "gagging orders" or "hush agreements". In employment law, they're parts of contracts, or sometimes standalone contracts, between employees and companies. They typically prevent staff and ex-staff making information public. In legal practice they are often described as "confidentiality clauses", but are better known to the public as NDAs. They can apply to commercially sensitive details such as inventions and ideas, or anything likely to damage an organisation's reputation. NDAs have also been used to prevent employees discussing allegations of misbehaviour in the workplace in the media after a settlement has been agreed. They're signed when employees and organisations resolve a dispute - such as a claim of wrongful dismissal - without going through a full tribunal hearing. But they can be signed earlier, such as when staff are taken on. What do they cover? NDAs don't stop people reporting alleged illegal acts. If a manager or colleague faced allegations of attempted rape or fraud, for instance, reporting these to the police would not be prevented. But allegations of a boss making sexual comments or bullying staff could be covered. However, bullying may be illegal if it relates to "a protected characteristic", such as age, disability, race, religion or sexual orientation, says Marc Jones, a partner at IBB Solicitors. The length of time for which an NDA applies varies. How many are there? In the US, it's thought that a third of workers have signed NDAs but, according to Mr Jones, it's "impossible to say" how widespread they are in the UK. Julie Morris, a senior employment partner at Slater and Gordon Lawyers, says that, in her experience, "almost all settlement agreements" contain NDAs preventing employees "speaking about various matters, including allegations about harassment or discrimination". How are they enforced? If someone breaches an NDA, they break a contract, leaving them open to being sued. But if a company thinks the NDA is going to be breached, it can apply for an injunction, as Sir Philip did to prevent his name being circulated by the Daily Telegraph in connection with allegations of racial and sexual harassment. If someone breaches an injunction, this is a criminal offence, and can lead to a fine or jail for those found guilty. Can injunctions be overcome? Yes. Parliamentary privilege - guaranteeing free speech for parliamentarians - allows MPs and peers to mention them in the House of Commons or House of Lords. Last October, former Labour cabinet minister Lord Hain used this to name Sir Philip as the businessman accused by the Daily Telegraph of sexual and racial harassment, after the newspaper was prevented by the injunction from doing this. Sir Philip says he's "not guilty of unlawful sexual or racist behaviour" and he has been the subject of "vicious" and "untrue" personal attacks in the media.

टॉपशॉप के मालिक सर फिलिप ग्रीन ने डेली टेलीग्राफ के खिलाफ अपनी कानूनी कार्रवाई को वापस ले लिया है, जिसने इसे नस्लवादी व्यवहार और यौन उत्पीड़न के आरोपों को प्रकाशित करने से रोक दिया था। उन्होंने तर्क दिया था कि पूर्व कर्मचारी अपने द्वारा हस्ताक्षरित गैर-प्रकटीकरण समझौतों (एनडीए) का उल्लंघन करके कानून तोड़ रहे थे। तो ये कैसे काम करते हैं?


Paolo Nutini heads up Little Noise church gigs series

Summary: Paolo Nutini is amongst the acts confirmed to perform at this year's Little Noise Sessions at London's Union Chapel.

The series of intimate gigs taking place between 15-20 November, curated by Radio 1's Jo Whiley, will also feature Tom Jones and Hurts. Newer artists set to appear include Birmingham singer Clare Maguire, solo artist Rumer and south London performer Joe Kiwanuka. The run of shows, which celebrate their fifth anniversary this year, are in aid of learning disabilities charity Mencap. In the past the session have featured artists including Oasis' Noel Gallagher, Kasabian and Bono and The Edge from U2. More artists are expected to be confirmed shortly.

पाओलो नुतिनी लंदन के यूनियन चैपल में इस साल के लिटिल नॉइज़ सत्रों में प्रदर्शन करने के लिए पुष्टि किए गए कृत्यों में से एक है।


Kashmir conflict: Tension on the India Pakistan border

Summary: Kashmir's Line of Control is the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the contested region, where tensions have been high since a recent militant attack. The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil joined the Pakistani military to see the damage for herself.

The lush green mountains through which the Line Of Control (LOC) runs can be misleading. They might look tranquil and scenic on the surface but they are dotted with army checkpoints, both on the Pakistani and Indian sides of the de facto border. The LOC is one of the most heavily militarised frontiers in the world - and it's also one of the most restricted areas. Journalists aren't allowed anywhere near the area without military supervision. We were taken by the Pakistani army to two of the areas India claims to have hit in a surgical strike earlier this week: Baghsar and Tatta Pani. The Pakistani army dismissed Indian claims of a surgical strike shortly after India announced it. They said it was an "illusion" India is trying to feed its media - and they flew local and foreign media to frontline to reiterate that point. "We brought you here to so you can see for yourself," said Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa, the Pakistani army spokesman. The army played down the scale of the attack, but not the Indian aggression. They showed us exactly where, across the Line of Control, the cross-border firing came from, all while maintaining that they were responding to unprovoked violations of the LOC. "Ever since the LOC become a reality and ever since the ceasefire agreement there have been cross-fire violations," Lt General Bajwa said. But he was adamant that Indian soldiers did not cross the border to attack Pakistani positions. Reports of an Indian soldier who inadvertently crossed over to Pakistan were a different matter. "Inadvertent crossing is routine. We have a procedure. We verify their identification and send them back. We need time in order to ascertain this," he added - and said that there are low-level talks with the Indian side about this. The recent clashes sparked fears of escalation between India and Pakistan, especially with reports of a military build-up and village evacuation on the Indian side. But Lt General Bajwa said Pakistan is "in no mood to initiate" any attacks, especially with a campaign against Taliban militants still ongoing in the tribal areas on the western border. "It'll be very unfortunate if we pull out troops from there and bring them on the eastern border," he said. "But if anything is initiated from their side it will get a very comprehensive response." As we were getting ready to be taken to the second location, one of the senior officers accompanying us said that had there been a "surgical strike" - as India claims - there would have been many more dead bodies and a lot more damage. The area seemed intact, but if there were more dead bodies we would have no way of knowing. We only saw what we were shown. At Tatta Pani, a beautiful and scenic area where a river bed separates residents from Indian military positions in the hills, I met Barakat Ali Khan, a shop owner who has lived in the village all his life. He saw the military personnel around us and put on a brave face. Still, he couldn't deny the effect these flare-ups have had on him and his family. Mr Khan lives right across the Line of Control. He can't see the Indian army positions but he knows they are there. "Our lives and businesses are always disrupted by the Indian shelling but we're not scared," he said. "We'll never leave this place." The Pakistani army wants to send a message of calm and resolve, but as with every stand-off in Kashmir, the fear of escalation always lies between the two nuclear-armed states.

कश्मीर की नियंत्रण रेखा विवादित क्षेत्र में भारत और पाकिस्तान के बीच वास्तविक सीमा है, जहां हाल ही में हुए आतंकवादी हमले के बाद से तनाव बढ़ गया है। बीबीसी की शैमा खलील खुद को हुए नुकसान को देखने के लिए पाकिस्तानी सेना में शामिल हुईं।


Liverpool World Museum offers insects and worms to eat

Summary: Visitors to a Liverpool museum are being offered bugs and worms to eat as part of a programme to mark the International Year of Forests.

Beetles, grasshoppers, worms and larvae are being laid out on plates at the World Museum on William Brown Street for people to taste. A museum spokesman said the dead creatures are sterile and seasoned to make them more appetising. Tasting sessions are being offered from 13:00 to 16:00 BST. The museum hopes the snacks will stimulate a debate over the nutritional value of insects.

लिवरपूल संग्रहालय के आगंतुकों को अंतर्राष्ट्रीय वन वर्ष को चिह्नित करने के लिए एक कार्यक्रम के हिस्से के रूप में कीड़े और कीड़े खाने की पेशकश की जा रही है।


Hedd Wyn: The shepherd poet of Passchendaele

Summary: The Somme, Amiens, Mametz Wood - names synonymous with the tragic loss of World War One. Another is Passchendaele - the Third Battle of Ypres - with nearly half-a-million men on both sides killed in three months of fighting. On the first day - 31 July, 1917 - the Welsh poet Hedd Wyn fell in those Belgium fields. "Chaired bard dead?" screamed the headline - "National Sensation".

By George HerdBBC News "It is rumoured in bardic secret circles that the chairing today is likely to be a startling and very sad ceremony." It is 6 September, 1917, and the message is being telegraphed to the Cambria Daily Leader newspaper, from Birkenhead on Merseyside. It is the venue for the National Eisteddfod, and the day of the most prestigious ceremony - the chairing of the winning poet. A few hours later, the nom-de-plume of the winner rang out: "Fleur de lis." There was no answer. Ellis Humphrey Evans - Hedd Wyn - had fallen on the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele. Seven months earlier, the 30-year-old Gwynedd farmer had been conscripted at Blaenau Ffestiniog. According to his nephew, Gerald Williams, the poet had no wish to fight - but had little choice. "When the second child on a farm came to the age of 18, the eldest son had to go - had to go, they had no choice," said Mr Williams. "Ellis had to go to war." He was sent to the Litherland Camp near Liverpool for training - coincidentally, it is claimed, at the same time as another World War One great poet - Siegfried Sassoon. In March and then in July, he returned to the family farm - Yr Ysgwrn - to help with ploughing duties, and then hay-making. His nephew said the poet overstayed his leave in June, and was arrested for being absent without leave, before being shipped out to France with 15th Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He joined his battalion at Nord-Pas-de-Calais at the beginning of July, where he finished and posted his poetic masterpiece, Yr Arwr - The Hero, to the Eisteddfod. Just two weeks later, at dawn on 31 July, he went over the top. "I've heard many say that they were with Hedd Wyn and this and that - well I was with him - as a boy from Llanuwchllyn and him from Trawsfynydd," recalled Simon Jones, a veteran of the battle, who both trained and fought with the poet. In an interview in 1975 for St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff, the old soldier described what happened. "I saw him fall and I can say it was a nosecap shell in his stomach that killed him. You could tell that," he said. "You couldn't stay with him - you had to keep going, you see? "He was going in front of me, and I saw him fall on his knees and grab two fistfuls of dirt. Well, there was nothing but dirt there, you see - the place was all churned up." Was there anything he could have done to help the fallen poet? "Nothing at all. No. There were stretcher-bearers coming up behind us, you see," he stated. "You'd be breaking the rules if you went to help someone who was injured when you were in an attack. Your business was to keep going. "To be honest, you had no time to sympathise because you didn't know whether you'd be in the same situation as him in a couple of yards." The fatally wounded poet was taken to a nearby first-aid station and asked a doctor: "Do you think I will live?" He died at about 11:00 - one of 25,000 British casualties in the first day of the battle to take Pilckem Ridge, according to War Cabinet papers. By November, when the offensive was over, estimates put British dead or wounded at up to 275,000 - with another 200,000 or more on the German side. At the National Eisteddfod, the man responsible for leading the war effort, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, was sitting with the crowd for the chairing ceremony. "In dead silence, it was announced that the successful poet was 'Hedd Wyn' - the shepherd-poet from Trawsfynydd... lay in a quiet grave," reported The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard. "No words can adequately describe the wave of emotion that swept over the vast audience when the chair was draped with the symbols of mourning, and when Madame Laura Evans Williams was called on to sing the chairing song, there was hardly a dry eye in the place." The Black Chair - Y Gadair Ddu - was taken by train to Trawsfynydd where the "sad spectacle was witnessed... when the bardic chair won by the soldier bard, Pte Ellis Evans, at Birkenhead, was brought home". "A crowd assembled at the station and formed in procession which, headed by several bards, proceeded to the village hall, where a memorial meeting was held," the local newspaper reported. Perhaps it is ironic. The chair itself was made by a man fleeing the conflict in Belgium, refugee, Eugeen Vanfleteren. And there, Hedd Wyn - or Blessed Peace, as the name translates - is where the poet fell. The chair now resides at the farm where he lived, a newly-refurbished museum and visitor centre to remember both the poet and the sacrifice of his community during the Great War. "Hedd Wyn - he symbolises the rest of the boys that were lost," said his nephew, who still lives on the farm grounds. "All the cream of the young men had been killed - a whole generation wiped out - for what? "I don't know - it doesn't make sense whatsoever. I don't understand war at all."

सोम्मे, एमीन्स, मामेट्ज़ वुड-नाम प्रथम विश्व युद्ध के दुखद नुकसान के पर्याय हैं। दूसरा पासचेंडेले है-यीप्रेस की तीसरी लड़ाई-जिसमें तीन महीने की लड़ाई में दोनों पक्षों के लगभग आधे मिलियन लोग मारे गए। पहले दिन-31 जुलाई, 1917-वेल्श कवि हेड विन बेल्जियम के उन खेतों में गिर गए। "चेयर्ड बार्ड डेड?" शीर्षक चिल्लाया-"नेशनल सेंसेशन"।


Men arrested on suspicion of murder released over Reading death

Summary: Three men arrested on suspicion of murder after the discovery of a man's body in a house have been released under investigation.

The victim, in his 50s, was found at a house in Reading on Thursday. A post-mortem examination on Friday was inconclusive, Thames Valley Police said. The force is continuing to treat the death as unexplained. Ch Insp Dave Turton said: "Further forensic work is needed to further ascertain how this man died."

एक घर में एक व्यक्ति का शव मिलने के बाद हत्या के संदेह में गिरफ्तार किए गए तीन लोगों को जांच के तहत रिहा कर दिया गया है।


Philando Castile death: 'I lost my best friend in a police shooting'

Summary: After a police officer shot and killed Greg Crockett's best friend, he left Minnesota for good. Then in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, he decided he couldn't stay away. How everything and nothing changed after the death of Philando Castile.

By Jessica LussenhopBBC News, Minneapolis Greg Crockett was sitting in the passenger seat of his grandfather's van when he saw that - in the midst of rapidly escalating protests over the death of an unarmed black man named George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer - an auto parts store near his old neighbourhood was on fire. Although he moved away from Minnesota almost two years ago, Crockett told his grandfather he needed to go. In response, his grandfather, a retired Marine, quoted Che Guevara. "The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall." As Crockett's flight descended over the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport, an older white woman peered out the window, wondering if she'd be able to see the fires from the plane. That night, from nearly the moment his feet hit the pavement, Crockett - a thin, acerbic 37-year-old who works at the Phoenix international airport - witnessed a rolling carnival of chaos. For over two hours, until his phone died, he captured scene after scene of casual destruction, at turns horrifying and darkly comedic. A boy who looked no older than 15 or 16 lobbed a Molotov cocktail into a grocery store, only to have the lit rag fall out and singe his legs. A group of 30 people worked furiously to break open a drive-through ATM, until an older man sauntered up at a theatrically slow pace with an enormous sledgehammer over one shoulder. A young woman wilted in the street. Her friends tried to carry her into a car that offered a ride to the hospital, but then drove off at the last second without them. There was not a police officer in sight. The red and blue lights of squad cars glinted blocks away. "It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood," Crockett sang through his medical mask. He ducked through a looted bank, a liquor store, a probation office, and a Mexican restaurant, where he found five masked men making themselves burritos, like college kids at the end of long night of partying. He helped himself to some beers, knocked over a beverage dispenser that stained his jeans. Occasionally he took a swig from a fifth of Courvoisier that a looter handed him on the street. "We out here, Minnesota. The revolution is starting right here," he said into the camera. "We shoulda did this four years ago when they killed Philando. We shoulda been out here." In 2016, back when Crockett still lived in Minnesota, a police officer named Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed Crockett's best friend, Philando Castile. When Crockett met Castile, he was a quiet, braces-wearing video game fanatic. The teeth braces came off but by all accounts little else about Castile changed. He became a well-regarded employee of St Paul Public School's food services division, known to students as "Mr Phil". To friends, he was "Chedda" because he always had a job and always made money. Yanez pulled Castile over in a neighbourhood roughly 15 minutes away from the street where George Floyd would die in 2020. After Castile informed Yanez he had a firearm, for which he was properly licensed, Yanez seemingly panicked, firing into the car and hitting Castile seven times. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, turned on her Facebook Live seconds later, and captured her dying boyfriend's final moments while her four-year-old daughter watched from the backseat. What happened next has become a routine in the US. The broadcast went viral. Castile's name became a hashtag. Protesters hit the streets all over the country. Crockett and the rest of the pallbearers donned white suits that matched the one Castile wore inside his casket at a funeral that was carried on national television and attended by the governor of Minnesota. Crockett remembers wanting to be angry, to be angry the way George Floyd protesters are angry now. But Castile's mother, whom Crockett calls his "auntie", told them to be peaceful. To let the criminal justice system do its work. "She asked us to be cool," said Crockett. "We held it in. We held in our anger. We held in our emotions. We asked politely." Manslaughter charges were brought against the officer, in which the prosecutor called Castile "compliant" and "respectful". But less than a year after the killing, a jury acquitted Yanez. The day of the acquittal was at the forefront of Crockett's mind as he moved down Lake Street, past decapitated coin-operated parking metres and storefronts curtained with flames. If there had been an uprising in Minneapolis after #PhilandoCastile, would there have been a #GeorgeFloyd? "RIP George - none of us knew you," Crockett said into the camera. "We shoulda did this four years ago. You shouldn't even be dead. "They won't stop killing us. We want you to stop killing us." Two days later, Crockett sat in a friend's backyard smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. Brian McIntosh, the home's owner, wheeled an old, black office chair to the door of the garage and pointed at it. This is where Castile sat, he said, two weeks before he died. They'd played a game of chess. "Minding his own business," McIntosh said. Response to Crockett's Facebook Live was mixed. Some cheered him on. Some scolded him for being a part of a night that left an iconic corridor of South Minneapolis gutted by fire, water damage and looting. Challenged about his behaviour, Crockett was unfazed. "A lot of people are really quiet folks. Everything that happens to them, they hold it in [until] they get drunk. That's when they let it out," he said. "This is the result. This is what y'all get. You can't keep pushing a person and thinking they're gonna keep letting you push them. No, one day they're going to push back. Now we pushing back. Now we're drunk." A string of bad luck convinced Crockett to leave Minnesota two years ago. He got mugged at gunpoint. He got fired. He lost his apartment. His car got towed with all his belongings. Not long after that, he got on a flight to Arizona and vowed not to come back. The Midwest, Crockett said, is not the same place that his great-grandfather moved to in 1947, in the second wave of the Great Migration. Their family left West Helena, Arkansas, to escape Jim Crow laws, to seek better jobs, a better education for their children, to achieve homeownership. The same type of reasons that the Castile family came to Minnesota from Missouri. The same reasons George Floyd moved up from Houston, Texas. But the Midwest changed. The factories shut and the schools got more segregated and the quality of life gap between black and white Midwesterners got wider and wider. Crockett's parents fled Gary, Indiana, a troubled town that cratered when the steel industry left. They bounced around from Indiana to Wisconsin to Minnesota. He attended nine elementary schools and four middle schools before they settled in St Paul. Castile wasn't even the first person Crockett knew who was killed by police - his uncle Darryl Burns was killed by an Indianapolis police officer in 1992 at a traffic stop. Crockett was 10. He has flashes of it in his memory. The phone call his mother took in the kitchen. A trip to Indianapolis to find out what happened. His uncle's Monte Carlo strafed with bullet holes. At this point, Crockett's views have grown bleak. He no longer believes that a life sentence for his friend's killer would have prevented another death like George Floyd's. He's no longer sure he believes that peaceful integration is even possible. He feels that black people in America are essentially stateless. "People talk about, 'We gonna fight back.' We can't fight back when we're on enemy land," he said. Talking about it is overwhelming. "I'm tired," he said, his eyes welling up. "I'm so [expletive] tired." After Philando died, Crockett said all he did was work. He made good money but stopped paying his credit card bills. He coped by drinking. He moved through life as if in a metaphorical "blackout". But now, for the first time in four years, at the intersection of Lake Street and Chicago with flames leaping from the buildings on all sides, Crockett felt something different. Something he knows others will find offensive. "I feel great," he said. "I feel alive." With his airport job on an indefinite hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, Crockett is buying up super-cheap plane tickets. From Minneapolis he flies to Nashville, Tennessee. From there he'll go to Atlanta, Georgia. Then it's on to Cleveland, Ohio, and the nation's capitol, Washington, DC. "I'm gonna talk everywhere I go," he said. "I'm going to represent Philando everywhere I go." He said he wants to see the revolution first-hand. "All it takes is one little spark to light everything the [expletive] up and that's what happened. Minneapolis - this little bitty ass place," he said. "It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful."

एक पुलिस अधिकारी द्वारा ग्रेग क्रॉकेट के सबसे अच्छे दोस्त की गोली मारकर हत्या करने के बाद, उसने मिनेसोटा को अच्छे के लिए छोड़ दिया। फिर जॉर्ज फ्लॉयड की हत्या के बाद, उसने फैसला किया कि वह दूर नहीं रह सकता। कैसे फिलांडो कैस्टिले की मृत्यु के बाद सब कुछ और कुछ नहीं बदला।


Will North Korea compete in Winter Olympics?

Summary: North and South Korea both seem keen for the North to take part in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in the South. But there are still hurdles to overcome before North Korean skaters can take to the ice in Pyeongchang, writes North Korean leadership specialist Michael Madden.

Next week, one day after Kim Jong-un's birthday, there is a very good chance that representatives of North and South Korea's unification departments will meet in the truce village in Panmunjom. Their aim will be to discuss whether the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the official name of North Korea, sends a delegation to the 2018 Winter Olympics, taking place in February in Pyeongchang, South Korea. While their attendance wouldn't resolve the long-standing crisis on the Korean peninsula it would, as both sides have said, be a gesture of peace. But before we start waiting for North Korean athletes (two figure skaters, so far) and its VIP delegation (which might include Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister and close aide of the North Korean leader) to appear in Pyeongchang, and before they even meet on 9 January, the two Koreas will need to participate in a series of careful interactions, and there's much that could yet go wrong. How did the proposed meeting come about? The fact that South Korean President Moon Jae-in even proposed the meeting, in response to remarks Kim Jong-un made during his New Year's Day address, has sent some analysts into making overwrought and heavy handed pronouncements. They're talking about appeasement of the North, of Pyongyang using its potential participation in the Olympics as a way to extract concessions on issues of geostrategic concern, and to give voice to a "sky is falling" perspective that Pyongyang is attempting to drive a wedge in the South Korean-US alliance. But it's important to note that Mr Moon's proposal and Mr Kim's remarks about the Olympics were the result of two secret meetings between South and North Korean sports officials, which took place in China in late December. The two Koreas agreed to participate in sports exchanges during 2018. From the North Korean side, a vice minister of athletics was sent to interact with his South Korean counterparts, who may or may not have been acting on President Moon's instructions. Seoul and Pyongyang appeared to have leveraged this secret contact and a general agreement about sports exchanges to a potential meeting on 9 January. Based on this, and both leaders' statements, it's clear there's a high degree of enthusiasm for making this happen, and both sides are proceeding cautiously. So what happens next? The first step will be to have telephone conversations to plan the delegation and agenda for next week's meeting. One hang up on this was that the North has not been answering the inter-Korea hotline when the South has dialled. But Kim Jong-un has now ordered the reopening the North's part of the line, and the two sides have had their first direct communication in two years. During the next few days, representatives of the two Koreas will discuss the agenda and attendees of the potential meeting to discuss the Olympics. Even if that goes well, two things could yet prevent that 9 January meeting from taking place. First, a DPRK representative might attempt to introduce other items that are not on the agreed agenda, slowing down the process. Secondly, if an agenda is agreed, the meeting might be thrown out because of protocol disputes. In the past, there was disagreement between the two Koreas over the appropriate ranks of counterpart officials leading to a break off in contact. The protocol issue might sound like a petty dispute to outside observers. However, from the perspective of the North Koreans, they will want interlocutors who have the authority to make a binding decision, pending President Moon's approval, about the North's participation. From the perspective of the South Koreans, they want DPRK counterparts who have some decision-making autonomy, and if the North makes a tentative agreement, can get the message directly to Kim Jong-un and be able to reliably advocate for it in Pyongyang's political culture (senior North Korean officials, it should be noted, have different perspectives on policy issues and debate them out amongst themselves). What else could go wrong? If there is no upstaging the agenda nor an argument about the officials participating, and the Koreas do meet, the next potential trap is that they may not be able to come to an agreement. The North might attempt to extract some type of concession from South Korea, either a request for assistance or removing sanctions. The South, for its part, might place restrictions on the number of cheerleaders who can attend the games, or refuse to allow additional North Korean athletes to participate. So far, the DPRK only has two athletes who qualify for the Olympics, but President Moon has some flexibility on letting in more athletes. What's Kim Jong-un's motive? Some outside analysts think that Pyongyang is using its potential participation in the Winter Olympics as a back door to undermine the international community's sanctions and diplomatic efforts intended to stop the DPRK from testing its ballistic missiles and expanding its inventory of nuclear weapons. This is myopic and misleading. This was, arguably, a tactic employed under late DPRK leader Kim Jong-il, but Kim Jong-un is a different leader than his father. While Kim Jong-un will certainly order continued drills of its ballistic missiles, he also wishes to see a reduction in tensions between the two Koreas and avoid any unnecessary panic about the next North Korean nuclear crisis. Pyongyang policymakers also labour under no illusions that President Moon can prevent upcoming South Korea-US military exercises. They might ask the South to cancel the exercises, but also understand the reality that these events are planned long in advance and that Seoul does have some input as to what pieces of military equipment end up being deployed. There is also no reason to think that once the DPRK does conduct a missile drill or even tests a nuclear device (these things, given the advanced state of the North's weapons of mass destruction programme, are a matter of when and not if) that the South Korean government won't upbraid the DPRK or even advocate for additional sanctions at the UN Security Council. But if the North does participate in the Olympics and manages to keep its lines of communication open this reduces the likelihood of miscalculation (on both sides) which could escalate into a military conflict. What about Moon Jae-in? President Moon Jae-in has inaccurately been labelled desperate or naive. He has much more experience dealing with North Korea than his armchair critics. President Moon's proposal for North Korean participation in the Winter Olympics is an incremental step that might eventually lead to further, more substantive interactions between the North and South. For Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, and to those who follow the peninsula closely, DPRK participation will be an excellent public relations opportunity, and also cause a temporary pressure drop in neighbourhood geopolitical tensions. The 2016 selfie of North Korean and South Korean gymnasts was a viral moment that showed that athletes can put aside the political differences and provocative activities of their respective governments and compete in an atmosphere of respect and love of sport. To those critiquing President Moon's proposal, one needs ask: do we want the Koreans competing in sports and talking to one another, or do we want them threatening to kill each other? Michael Madden is Visiting Scholar of the US Korea Institute at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University and Director of NK Leadership Watch, an affiliate of 38 North. Additional reporting by Sierra Madden, analyst on the North Korean Cabinet and Government for NK Leadership Watch.

उत्तर और दक्षिण कोरिया दोनों चाहते हैं कि उत्तर कोरिया दक्षिण में 2018 के शीतकालीन ओलंपिक खेलों में भाग ले। लेकिन उत्तर कोरियाई स्केटरों को प्योंगचांग में बर्फ पर ले जाने से पहले अभी भी बाधाओं को दूर करना है, उत्तर कोरियाई नेतृत्व विशेषज्ञ माइकल मैडेन लिखते हैं।


India Andhra Pradesh: What happened to the newest state capital?

Summary: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a new capital in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in 2015. But three years later nothing has been built in Amaravati, which was touted as a city that could "make India proud", reports Sriram Karri.

The state was forced to look for a new capital after it was split in two to create India's 29th state, Telangana. The current capital Hyderabad went to the new state, although both states were to share it for 10 years. The plans for Amaravati were ambitious to say the least. The city was to be developed over 7,500 sq km (2,895 sq miles) over the next 10 years, and it was envisaged it would be 10 times bigger than Singapore. The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, N Chandrababu Naidu, who was widely held to be responsible for converting Hyderabad from a sleepy historic town into a global software destination during his previous term as chief minister between 1995 to 2004, was brimming with confidence. He had proposed a scheme where farmers voluntarily surrendered their land in exchange for developed land in the city. But today, nothing has been built on the vast amount of land procured from farmers. Even roads and basic infrastructure like drainage and power lines are yet to be put in place. Barring an interim government complex with a Legislative Assembly and a Secretariat, there is nothing. The big reason has been Mr Naidu's personal obsession with grandiose designs and obsessions for historic legacy. First, the government chose Maa Ki, an architects' firm from Japan, to create designs. After a year of changes and upgrades, their designs were rejected; and the project was handed to London-based Foster + Partners, early last year. Thy are known for designs and projects globally, especially prestigious structures like the London headquarters of Swiss Re and the German parliament, but the chief minister remained unimpressed with their models for the Government Administrative Complex. With not even a design for the first of the buildings in three years, Mr Naidu approached filmmaker Rajamouli, whose mythological epic, Bahubali, set in a fantastical city, was a huge hit. He was roped in to go to London and advise the architects on finer design elements. The movie director confessed to his own inability to play a role in designing a city but Mr Naidu's critics say he ploughed on regardless. Olympic venue? Having allied with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mr Naidu had hoped Mr Modi would fund the Amaravati project besides giving Andhra Pradesh a special category status so that tax concessions would have investors rushing to the state. A few months ago, Mr Naidu withdrew support for the Modi-led government and changed his political position overnight to oppose the BJP at next year's elections. Mr Naidu then approached the World Bank for a loan of 38 billion rupees ($535m; £411m) and India's building authorities for another 75 billion rupees. All borrowing failed to match the huge capital costs needed to even start building the city of his dreams. Meanwhile, the government of India capped its funding for Amaravati at 15 billion rupees, barely adequate for building the governor's house, high court and legislative assembly besides a few other administrative offices. Given the state's poor financial condition, Mr Naidu had no option but to find creative ways to raise funds. One such experiment was a crowd-sourcing effort to raise emotional equity around the city. Dubbed "My Brick, My Amaravati", the government asked people worldwide to buy e-bricks at 10 rupees. After several campaigns to promote it, all it had was about 227,000 donors buying 5,708,905 e-bricks. In a first of its kind, the cash-starved state government issued high interest-assured long-term Amaravati bonds on the Bombay Stock Exchange and raised 20 billion rupees. At a grand function, where the bonds were oversubscribed 1.53 times, Mr Naidu announced he planned to raise an additional 100 billion rupees soon. So buoyed up was Mr Naidu by the response by institutional investors to his bonds, that he outlined a grand vision. "I want to host the Olympics at Amaravati in the near future," he said. 'Flood risk' But the first master plan created for Amaravati by a Singaporean firm had described the location to build the capital as "low to medium flood prone" and suggested a water network mitigation within the proposed city. India's environment body, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), had also accused the state government of not considering "ecological and environmental aspects of the project". But it eventually gave a conditional nod to the proposed development. "Amaravati is an environmentally unsustainable project and a flood risk," says Prof Ramachandraiah Chigurupati of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies. "In a zone characterised as low-lying plains with fertile agricultural land, floods will be a feature. The state has been hit by several cyclones over the years. "In times of global warming, which leads to intense bursts of heavy rains, an entire city could be inundated within hours, leading to massive destruction as witnessed in the recent cyclones in Kerala." Sriram Karri is author of the bestselling, MAN Asian Literary Prize longlisted novel, Autobiography of a mad nation, whose next book will be One Farmer Less.

भारत के प्रधान मंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी ने 2015 में दक्षिणी राज्य आंध्र प्रदेश में एक नई राजधानी की आधारशिला रखी। लेकिन तीन साल बाद अमरावती में कुछ भी नहीं बनाया गया, जिसे एक ऐसे शहर के रूप में जाना जाता था जो भारत को गौरवान्वित कर सकता था।


Twycross Zoo: Cash machine stolen as vehicle driven into entrance

Summary: A cash machine has been stolen after a vehicle was driven into the entrance of a zoo, police have said.

Leicestershire Police said the raid at Twycross Zoo, in Leicestershire, took place at about 05:35 BST on Tuesday after alarms were activated. Officers said no other items were believed to have been stolen, and no harm is thought to have been caused to any animals. The BBC has contacted the zoo for comment. Follow BBC East Midlands on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk.

पुलिस ने कहा है कि चिड़ियाघर के प्रवेश द्वार पर एक वाहन के घुसने के बाद एक नकदी मशीन चोरी हो गई है।


Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas in 'amicable split'

Summary: Prince Harry and his girlfriend Cressida Bonas have split up.

BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt tweeted that the break-up was "said to be 'amicable' and they remain 'the best of friends'". He said the prince was "keen, according to those who know him, to make it clear the relationship didn't end because he found Cressida 'too needy'." Their attendance at their first official engagement together in March had prompted engagement speculation. The pair sat together and embraced in the stands at Wembley Arena at a We Day UK charity event. Speculation had since mounted that the fourth-in-line to the throne would pop the question with his 30th birthday looming. News of the split came as Clarence House announced Prince Harry would embark on a three-day official visit to Estonia and Italy next month. The trip, from 16 to 19 May, will see the prince meet a range of servicemen from World War Two veterans to serving military personnel. 'Unwanted attention' Prince Harry and Miss Bonas, 25, were reportedly introduced by Princess Eugenie in the summer of 2012. It was not long after their meeting that photographs of a naked Prince Harry partying with a group of girls in a Las Vegas hotel room were front-page news across the world. The couple then endured a five-month separation when the prince was deployed to fly Apache helicopters with the British army in Afghanistan. Their relationship resumed when he returned and the pair were often photographed together attending various events, like the Glastonbury music festival and a society wedding. According to the Daily Telegraph, it was unwanted media attention and engagement speculation that led to the pair's split, while the Press Association reported the couple decided to go their separate ways to allow Miss Bonas to focus on her career. She completed a year-long contemporary dance course at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire in Greenwich, south London, last year, before securing a marketing job in the city's West End. Miss Bonas is the daughter of Old Harrovian businessman Jeffrey Bonas and Sixties "It girl" Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon, who once posed semi naked, streaked in engine oil, for a coffee table book called Birds of Britain in homage to her racing driver grandfather Francis, the 5th Earl Howe. News of the split coincided with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's third wedding anniversary. Prince William and Kate famously broke up for several months four years before they married in 2011. On Tuesday, Prince Harry visited Tedworth House in Tidworth, Wiltshire, where he met 25 athletes hoping to take part in the Paralympics-style Invictus Games. The sporting championship for injured members of the armed forces, which the prince launched in March, will see servicemen and women take part in sports like wheelchair basketball, indoor rowing and sitting volleyball. Harry's visit to Tedworth House marked the beginning of a selection process for the event. The prince has further commitments over the coming months. On top of visiting Estonia and Italy, he will travel to Brazil and Chile in June on a trip expected to coincide with the World Cup. The prince's most serious previous girlfriend was Zimbabwe-born Chelsy Davy. They had an on-off relationship while Harry was training in the Army and overseas, and while Chelsy was at university in her home country.

प्रिंस हैरी और उनकी प्रेमिका क्रेसिडा बोनास अलग हो गए हैं।


The battle to strip Franco family of dictator's summer palace

Summary: The provincial authority of A Coruña, in north-western Spain, has launched a legal battle to expropriate a mansion used by 20th Century dictator Francisco Franco as a summer residence, arguing that the former Generalissimo's heirs have no right to enjoy the ownership of "plunder".

By James BadcockMadrid The discovery last month that Franco's grandchildren had put the sturdy Pazo de Meirás palace up for sale was the last straw for politicians who want to see the fortified building and grounds open to the public. "It's a scandal that this property continues to be controlled by the dictator's family," says Néstor Rego, one of around 25 activists from the Galicia region who invaded the property for a few hours in protest last year. Now the leaders of the provincial authority of A Coruña, to which the village of Meirás belongs, have announced a legal and political offensive aimed at stripping the Franco family of the dictator's mock-medieval pile. "There are legal ways to recover the Pazo de Meirás for the public realm," said Goretti Sanmartín, deputy president of the A Coruña authority, as she presented a report drawn up by historical and legal experts on the mansion's status. She appealed for "a consensus between all political forces and all levels of government". The report probes the circumstances of the donation of the property to the then leader of rebellious Nationalist forces during Spain's 1936-39 civil war, and presents what it says is evidence that the dictator fraudulently took legal ownership of the palace via a "simulated" purchase contract after the conflict ended. Donation under duress? According to the Franco regime's official account, the donation of the Pazo de Meirás for the leader's use was a sacrifice born of the Galician people's loyalty to the fascist general, who was born nearby in the port town of Ferrol. Local historians, however, say the leaders of A Coruña's council and business community essentially obliged local people to hand over a portion of their income and wealth to purchase the property, expand its grounds and furnish the palace to the standards of the country's military leader. "There was nothing voluntary about the donations," says Carlos Babío, co-author of a historical study of the building entitled Meirás, Un Pazo, Un Caudillo, Un Espolio (Meirás, a palace, a warlord, a plunder). "Money was taken from workers' wages, and we're talking about practically the entire population of A Coruña in 1938." According to Xabier Ferreira, a law lecturer from the University of Santiago de Compostela who helped to draw up the report for A Coruña's provincial authority, Franco realised that the donation had been made to the "head of state" and not him personally. Francisco Franco (1892-1975) In 1941 the property was signed over to Spain's dictator and his wife, Carmen Polo, for 85,000 pesetas, although no money was exchanged before the notary public who oversaw the transaction. "The Pazo de Meirás should have become [a] national heritage [building at the time], and that is what leads us to the conclusion that the deal in 1941 was aimed at avoiding this," said Mr Ferreira. 'Spoils of war' Mr Babío, along with his fellow historian, Manuel Pérez, found out that some 60 small landholders around Meirás, including his own grandmother, saw their lands expropriated as the dictator's estate grew in size, while stone was brought in from other "looted" buildings to embellish the palace. The Pazo's grounds were expanded from 5.7 acres to the "extraordinary" 16-acre property currently being advertised by real estate company Mikeli under a price tag of €8m (£7m). "The Pazo of 1975 [the year Franco died] has nothing to do with the Pazo of 1938," says Mr Babío. "It has hosted 30 cabinet meetings, other public events and the extensions and improvements were all paid for by the state - yet it's impossible to put a figure on how much was spent. "It starts out as being part of the spoils of war, then becomes a summer residence for 36 years." Summers at the palace included visits by Spain's future king, Juan Carlos, and his young family, including current monarch Felipe VI, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Franco's daughter Carmen Franco Polo continued to use the Pazo as a summer retreat, but her death in December appears to have triggered the decision to sell the residence by her seven children. The BBC asked the Franco family to comment for this article, but the request was declined. Franco Foundation Controversy has dogged the Franco family's use of the Pazo since Galicia's regional government decided in 2008 to declare the property "heritage of cultural interest", a move that meant its doors must be opened to the public at least four days a month. The family's compliance with this rule was fitful and some local politicians such as Mr Rego, a member of the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG), were outraged when it emerged that the Francisco Franco Foundation had taken over the organisation of these public visits, using them as an opportunity to defend Franco's political legacy as a nation builder. "It's unthinkable that there could exist in Germany a Hitler foundation or an Italian Benito Mussolini foundation glorifying the lives of these dictators," says Mr Rego, adding that the heirs' decision to sell up is just "one more affront". "I think it will be very difficult for them to sell the Pazo. Any potential owner has to know that it is in dispute, and the fact that they are trying suggests to me that they realise how awkward an inheritance it is."

उत्तर-पश्चिमी स्पेन में ए कोरुना के प्रांतीय प्राधिकरण ने 20वीं शताब्दी के तानाशाह फ्रांसिस्को फ्रैंको द्वारा ग्रीष्मकालीन निवास के रूप में उपयोग की जाने वाली एक हवेली को जब्त करने के लिए एक कानूनी लड़ाई शुरू की है, यह तर्क देते हुए कि पूर्व जनरलिसिमो के उत्तराधिकारियों को "लूट" के स्वामित्व का आनंद लेने का कोई अधिकार नहीं है।


Arrest made over death of man in Aberdeen

Summary: A 26-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the death of another man who was found seriously injured at a house in Aberdeen.

Police were called to a property in the city's Jasmine Terrace at about 10:00. The injured man was taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary but later died. Police Scotland said the incident "appeared to be isolated" and there was no wider threat to the local community. Officers appealed for anyone with information to get in touch. Det Insp Gary Winter, from the major investigation team, said: "Inquiries are at an early stage and there will be a significant police presence and activity in the area whilst we carry out our investigation into this incident." Related Internet Links Contact Police Scotland - Police Scotland

एबरडीन में एक घर में गंभीर रूप से घायल एक अन्य व्यक्ति की मौत के मामले में एक 26 वर्षीय व्यक्ति को गिरफ्तार किया गया है।


'Alarming' extinction threat to Europe's trees

Summary: The conker tree has been put on the official extinction list.

By Helen Briggs@hbriggs Ravaged by moths and disease, the horse chestnut is now classified as vulnerable to extinction. The tree is among more than 400 native European tree species assessed for their risk of extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). About half face disappearing from the natural landscape. Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List unit, described the findings as "alarming". "Trees are essential for life on Earth, and European trees in all their diversity are a source of food and shelter for countless animal species such as birds and squirrels, and play a key economic role," he said. The conservation status of most animals in Europe has already been assessed for the inventory of endangered species known as the Red List. Experts are now turning their attention to plants, with an assessment of all 454 tree species native to the continent. The report found: Species highlighted include the horse chestnut, which is declining across Europe, and most of almost 200 trees in the family that includes the rowan and mountain ash. The report identified a wide range of threats, including pests and diseases, competition from invasive plants, deforestation, unsustainable logging, changes in land use and forest fires. Dr Steven Bachman, conservation scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who was not part of the report, said trees played a critical role in sustaining and enhancing our lives. "This report fills an important knowledge gap on the threat status of European trees, but the results reveal a disturbingly high level of extinction risk that requires urgent and effective conservation action at all levels." A second report found almost half of all Europe's shrub species are threatened with extinction, due to the loss and destruction of Europe's wild areas, as well as agriculture, invasive species and climate change. Luc Bas, director of IUCN's European regional office, said human activities were causing tree population declines across Europe. "This report has shown how dire the situation is for many overlooked, undervalued species that form the backbone of Europe's ecosystems and contribute to a healthy planet." Recommendations included further research into the impact of climate change. Mike Seddon, chief executive of Forestry England said the "climate crisis" was a real threat to woodlands, including the nation's forest they manage, increasing the risk from pests and diseases. "Our efforts to have resilient forests include planting a greater variety of trees, including native species, only grown in the UK," he said. Follow Helen on Twitter.

कांकर के पेड़ को आधिकारिक विलुप्त होने की सूची में डाल दिया गया है।


Babar Ahmad: trial concluded after eight years

Summary: A jury at Southwark Crown Court has found four Metropolitan police officers not guilty of assaulting a terrorism suspect. But it has taken almost eight years for the story to be fully told in the British courts.

Shortly after 0500 GMT on a December morning in 2003, Babar Ahmad and his wife were asleep in their home in Tooting, south London. They did not know that more than a dozen police officers were about to burst in. And, until March of this year, they did not know that their home had already been bugged by MI5. The recording from that bug was played during the trial of the four officers from that arrest team who, almost eight years on, have been found not guilty of assaulting Mr Ahmad during the dawn raid. Roderick James-Bowen, Mark Jones, Nigel Cowley and John Donoghue, then all constables in the Met's Territorial Support Group (TSG), had been told by senior officers to arrest Mr Ahmad. He was believed to be the leader of an al-Qaeda-linked cell that acted as a conduit to terrorism overseas, providing recruits and logistical support. And so, in the early hours of that morning, the officers were told to prepare to confront a highly-trained terrorist: someone with a shrapnel wound from fighting overseas - and someone similar to Kamel Bourgass, the man all police officers knew had recently killed a detective in Manchester. Babar Ahmad, a martial arts enthusiast, was thought to be trained in armed and unarmed combat. 'Deck and dominate' Pc James-Bowen was the first of the four officers to reach the bedroom and told the jury he assessed that Mr Ahmad was in a fighting stance, looking for a weapon. The police strategy was simple - to "deck and dominate" the suspect by bringing him down if needs be, handcuffing him and making sure he could not escape or injure officers. But there was no common ground between the four officers and Babar Ahmad over what happened next. According to Mr Ahmad's account, he put his hands up, but was subjected to a prolonged series of assaults which included kicks, punches, stamps on his feet and injuries caused by officers twisting handcuffs. The officers said, however, that he resisted arrest, fighting with all his strength against them. In short, his injuries were caused by not going quietly. One of the most sensitive allegations made by Mr Ahmad is that the officers mocked his religion. After he was released without charge, he claimed that he had been taken downstairs to the room he used for prayers. He alleged that officers made him kneel and one said: "Where is your God now?" At the time, that single remark had huge implications for relations between the Metropolitan Police and Muslim communities. Pressure groups repeated the comment time and again at public meetings, presenting the police as waging a war on Muslims. Not the final chapter In three days of evidence, Mr Ahmad insisted that he would never forget the jibe. Crucially, although the MI5 bug captured screams, shouts and even the tinkle of a broken window upstairs, those words could not be heard in the recording played to the jury. But what the jury did not know, because of rules designed to ensure a fair and unprejudiced trial, is that Babar Ahmad has already sued for assault - and the Metropolitan Police's Commissioner has admitted liability, paying him £60,000 in damages. He took that action after the Crown Prosecution Service had initially concluded that the officers should not be tried. The Met's pay-out prompted the CPS to review the case and to charge the officers after all. Babar Ahmad's father, Ashfaq, said his son would be disappointed with the verdict. "But he will have the satisfaction that he had the chance to go in front of the world, and the media, the jury and the court to say 'this is what happened to me, and I am honest and I am telling the truth'," he told the BBC. But the acquittal of the four officers at Southwark Crown Court is not the final chapter. It paves the way for the Metropolitan Police Authority to publish an investigation into the Babar Ahmad affair. Retired judge Sir Geoffrey Grigson was brought in to oversee the Metropolitan Police's own investigation into what happened in December 2003.

साउथवार्क क्राउन कोर्ट में एक जूरी ने चार मेट्रोपॉलिटन पुलिस अधिकारियों को एक आतंकवादी संदिग्ध पर हमला करने का दोषी नहीं पाया है। लेकिन कहानी को पूरी तरह से ब्रिटिश अदालतों में बताए जाने में लगभग आठ साल लग गए हैं।


Man rescued from St Martin's Point in Guernsey

Summary: Emergency services in Guernsey have rescued a man during a major operation on the island's south coast.

The cliff rescue team, the coastguard, police and an ambulance were sent to St Martin's Point after reports the man had got into difficulty. The inshore lifeboat was also put on standby when the alarm was raised at 1740 GMT on Monday. The rescue operation was completed by 2000 GMT. The man was not thought to be seriously injured. The ambulance service said Monday was a busy day. It responded to a total of 14 emergencies in a 12-hour period, in addition to staff having to carry out 26 non-emergency transfers of patients.

ग्वेर्नसे में आपातकालीन सेवाओं ने द्वीप के दक्षिणी तट पर एक बड़े अभियान के दौरान एक व्यक्ति को बचाया है।


Why houses in Bermuda have white stepped roofs

Summary: The North Atlantic island of Bermuda has no fresh-water springs, rivers or lakes. So how did humans ever settle there? The secret is in the design of their houses, and particularly the white stepped roof which is still in use 400 years after it was first introduced.

By Harry LowBBC News A British visitor to Bermuda will feel instantly at home, even if the weather is far warmer and sunnier than anything imaginable on the British Isles. Many of the island's 60,000 residents live in limestone cottages painted in pastel colours of a design familiar from British towns or villages. But white roofs? With steps? Where did they come from? It turns out they are designed this way to harvest rain. The steps slow down heavy rainfall helping the gutters to collect the water and store it in a tank under the house. Thanks partly to an annual rainfall that far exceeds that of England and Wales, and is spread fairly evenly throughout the year, the tanks are regularly topped up. Each home is self-sufficient. There is no mains water - and no water rates. This system was forced on the early settlers, because of the lack of easily available fresh water - there are no permanent streams and the lakes are brackish. Later it became enforced in house-building regulations - for each square foot of roof space, all houses must have eight gallons of tank space. The design of the roof has multiple benefits. Made of limestone it is heavy and not easily shifted by hurricanes and in the past it was covered in a lime mortar, which had anti-bacterial properties. Now the mortar has been replaced by paint. It's still white, because this reflects ultra-violet light from the sun, which also helps to purify the water. And the system has a less visible benefit too - self-sufficiency encourages islanders to conserve water. "We all grew up managing our own water system in our own home and that drives you to have a sensitivity that you wouldn't if it simply comes out of a pipe," says Alan Rance, Chief Executive Officer of Bermuda Waterworks. My Perfect Country In a world where a lot is going wrong there is also a lot going right. So what if you could build a country with policies that actually worked, by homing in ideas around the world that have been truly successful? Stuart Hayward, an environmental expert, says he was brought up by his parents to understand that people who didn't conserve water might go thirsty. "You had a cup of water and that's what you used to brush your teeth. You rationed your cup of water so that with the last bit of it you did your final rinse," he explains. "You didn't use a lot of detergents so that by the time you'd finished washing dishes, there wasn't any foam left over. That water could be used for the garden." As the island has become more densely populated, though, the ratio of roof area to inhabitants has diminished. "When you can't spread out, you start building up but think of a house where the roof area and the tank area is designed to satisfy a single family - if you build up and put in another family, you double the consumption," says Hayward. And then of course there are tourists, who expect unlimited water from their hotel and are usually supplied with it. This water has to come from somewhere. Luckily, Bermuda has long had access to limited supplies of water from underground "lenses" - layers of fresh ground water that lie on top of heavier salty water. But increasingly the island relies on desalination plants. There are now six of them across Bermuda, generating a combined 13,500 cubic metres per day. "There is always this tension between the lavish lifestyle that tourists led versus a Spartan consumption that our parents were pushing," says Hayward. "When people came here, we wanted them to have a good time so that they would spend a lot of money. Their water consumption was two-thirds, twice as much as ours." One of the ways they spend money is playing golf - there are more golf courses per capita in Bermuda than anywhere else - but greens need water to stay green. Sometimes desalinated water is used for showers and laundry, and the waste water is collected, treated, and used for irrigation. What do outside experts make of the Bermudian roof? Roger Calow, head of the water policy programme at the Overseas Development Institute, a UK independent think tank on international development, describes it as "fantastic". "In terms of its advantages, it's low-cost, has been developed over several hundred years so it's been crafted and tailored to local circumstances. It fits the climate, it works." Henrietta Moore, from the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London, also gives it the thumbs up. "What's good about it is individual responsibility plus collective oversight plus a dependence on social and cultural values," she says. "In the UK, we brush our teeth by letting the tap run and the idea that you actually don't do that and use a cup of water would be a good way for us to go." So why don't other countries learn from Bermuda's example? It's not going to work in countries that have low rainfall or long dry seasons. But not far away in the Caribbean there are islands that rely almost entirely on desalination. For these, and perhaps some other countries in tropical or temperate zones, it may be a way of saving money and energy. And one universal philosophy other countries could take from Bermuda - regardless of their climate - is the value placed on water itself. Listen to My Perfect Country on the BBC World Service Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter

बरमूडा के उत्तरी अटलांटिक द्वीप में ताजे पानी के झरने, नदियाँ या झीलें नहीं हैं। तो फिर मनुष्य वहाँ कैसे बस गए? रहस्य उनके घरों के डिजाइन में है, और विशेष रूप से सफेद सीढ़ीदार छत जो पहली बार पेश किए जाने के 400 साल बाद भी उपयोग में है।


Iraq's Sinjar Yazidis: Bringing IS slavers to justice

Summary: Two years ago this week, an atrocity helped launch the international campaign to turn back the advance of so-called Islamic State (IS). Thousands of terrified villagers fled for their lives near Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, as heavily armed IS fighters attacked their ancestral homeland.

By Frank GardnerBBC security correspondent The victims were Yazidis, an ancient community considered heretical or even sub-human by IS jihadists. Hundreds fled up the mountainside where many died in the scorching heat. Most of the men of fighting age who were captured were summarily slaughtered. For the women and girls rounded up by IS, a living hell awaited. For Bill Wiley, the chief investigator at the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, it is clear that IS had sex slavery in mind. He says: "The evidence is overwhelming that Islamic State forces went into Iraq in mid-2014 with a plan to enslave Yazidis, those that they did not murder, and to traffic these women and girls into sexual slavery." Slave-owners identified Funded by the Canadian and German governments, a team of experienced war crimes investigators has so far identified 49 slave-owners and a further 34 men holding senior positions in the IS infrastructure. It is these "policy-makers" the team are focusing on, as they hold them responsible for a systematic enslavement that saw women forcibly trafficked across northern Iraq and Syria. A quietly spoken Canadian, Mr Wiley has worked in war zones from the Balkans to the Congo. Yet he told me that nothing had prepared him and his researchers for the calculated cruelty meted out to Yazidi women and children. "We're talking hundreds and hundreds of women who have been seized by Daesh," he said, using another name for IS. "And indeed we're not just talking about women, we're talking about girls of 10, 12, 14 years old, who now for a period of two years have been held in custody by individual slave owners. They're raped again and again and again." 'I want two slaves' Last year a video appeared, filmed by IS members themselves, showing their fighters excitedly discussing the "Souq Al-Sabaya" - the female slave market. "Where is my Yazidi girl?" demands one of them. "I want two," says another. "If she has blue eyes I'll pay more," says a third. One of the men tries to justify their intentions by proclaiming that the slave market or auction has "been ordained". The investigators have compiled a flow chart showing the organised passage of IS slaves, from where they were caught near Mount Sinjar, to Tal Afar or Badush Prison in northern Iraq, then on to Mosul where they are categorised into those prepared to convert to Islam and those who refuse. Even conversion, say the investigators, has not spared many of them from sex slavery. From there, according to the flow chart, the women and girls as young as nine are transferred to a market at Raqqa Farm where they are '"valued". Some are traded for as little as £10 ($13), others fetch as much as £5,000 ($6,680) and some are simply "gifted" to IS fighters without the means to buy them. Two years on from their initial capture, hundreds are still believed to be enslaved. 'Not soldiers of Mohammed' Mr Wiley wants those responsible to face trial, not as terrorists, but as common criminals. "We need to show that these men are criminals," he says. "They're not soldiers of the caliphate or soldiers of Mohammed. They are not fighting for Islam, they're criminals. And we need to disassociate them in Western, but more importantly in Arab minds, from mainstream Islam". But it is one thing to gather evidence for a prosecution case, it is quite another to bring that suspect out of a warzone and into an internationally recognised court of law. The investigators are hoping such a court will eventually be established in Irbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, but they acknowledge this could still take some time. So I put it to the man who heads their Daesh Criminal Investigations Unit (DCIU), who asked to be identified simply as "Jim" - was there not a risk that all their hard work would eventually be in vain? "It is often the case that justice comes after the cessation of hostilities," he replied. "What would be worse is if we didn't do this job and we came to a situation at the end of the conflict that these individuals were able to walk freely in Syria and Iraq and across the globe, because no-one had had the time and the foresight and the hope in justice to engage in this process now." Time is probably not on the side of the alleged offenders. Some, like a man identified as Abu Alaa Al-Afri, a former school teacher who went on to become "the Emir of Sinjar", are believed to have been killed in the ongoing fighting in Iraq. Others, such as Hajji Bakr - not to be confused with the top IS commander killed in Syria in January 2014 - are still believed to be alive and at large. Some may look to escape the region, possibly to Europe. But others may well now find themselves on a wanted list as coalition special forces increasingly mount raids into IS territory. Bringing those responsible for war crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia took many years. Bill Wiley and his team are hoping their efforts will considerably shorten that time when it comes to the crime of sexual enslavement in northern Iraq.

इस सप्ताह दो साल पहले, एक अत्याचार ने तथाकथित इस्लामिक स्टेट (आईएस) की प्रगति को वापस करने के लिए अंतर्राष्ट्रीय अभियान शुरू करने में मदद की। उत्तरी इराक में सिंजर पर्वत के पास हजारों भयभीत ग्रामीण अपनी जान बचाने के लिए भाग गए, क्योंकि भारी हथियारों से लैस आईएस लड़ाकों ने उनकी पैतृक मातृभूमि पर हमला किया था।


Coronavirus: How libraries provided a lifeline in lockdown

Summary: When libraries went into lockdown, the buildings and books were off-limits but their kindness, connection and sense of community continued. BBC News went to Ipswich Library to hear how people have been finding solace in more than just the pages of a favourite book.

By Laura Devlin and Laurence CawleyBBC News As the coronavirus pandemic gathered pace, book lovers were just as quick to act. Books, they knew, would offer them calm in the unchartered storm that was to come. Libraries found their shelves being cleared as novels, children's picture stories and recipes were borrowed in their thousands. But not everyone needs a library just for its literature. Doris Bugg, 102, takes great pleasure in audiobooks borrowed from Ipswich Library but needed what libraries also offer - a connection to others, a conversation. It was care and concern for people like Mrs Bugg that led librarians to call her for a regular chat. When Mrs Bugg reminisced over the phone about a novel her father read to her, they bought a copy and recorded themselves reading it, especially for her. "I was absolutely amazed at the kindness of them," she said. Mrs Bugg's story is just one of many that have been shared about Suffolk Libraries during lockdown. Its staff have now made 7,200 calls to vulnerable customers, with more than 700 receiving regular contact in Ipswich alone. "A lot of libraries have visitors that they know come in the library for a chat," said Margot Lafrance, the assistant manager at Ipswich. "Some were completely alone and living in flats, and hadn't been able to go outside for a month, and it was those we tried to reach out to on a regular basis. "It's not always about any specific thing, it's just to hear how they're doing. "So many said it was the first time they had experienced a crisis where people couldn't come together. "Every other horrible thing that anyone had ever been through, they could come together with family and the community and support each other. "Sometimes you make a call and they sound so happy, they're so excited to get a chat." Most branches of Suffolk Libraries have now reopened and people are keen to replace the books they read many weeks ago. Lindsay Spring, who would usually visit the library each week, found it "frustrating" not being able to carry that on during lockdown. "I've re-read everything on my bookshelf for the umpteenth time, and I've downloaded books but I find it a strain on the eyes," she said. Strict hygiene and social distancing rules mean customers cannot walk in and browse but librarians can do it for them. Jemima Smith, protected by a face mask and gloves, is surrounded by books being placed in bundles ready for collection. Rather like a supermarket worker searching the shelves for a customer delivery, she is finding books, DVDs and CDs requested by customers online. "We're selecting about 10 books for each customer," said Ms Smith. "They give us a selection of books or authors, or what they want to read. "Some just say 'intelligent books', some have said 'male authors only' or 'new books only', because they're worried about the virus." Customers book a slot for their collection and meet a librarian in the foyer, where a table is laden with hand sanitiser and cleaning spray. Anything that has been borrowed and returned heads off to the quarantine zone. Just as charity shops cannot sift through donations for 72 hours - to reduce the contaminant risk - libraries store returned books on tables for three days, their pages fanned out to allow as much airflow as possible. Ipswich Library manager Charmain Osborne and her staff at the Northgate Street branch have had to adapt, both during lockdown and in returning to the library building. "It was completely different way of working for us - we are very customer-focused, but we are very flexible, so we just looked very quickly at how we cold put that online," she said. Craft activities, quizzes and nursery rhyme sing-a-longs were recorded by staff at home, and newspaper articles and an 'On This Day' history series were shared online. You may also like: But librarians were also concerned that as books went into hibernation, so too did face-to-face contact with people who would not be glued to YouTube or Facebook. Soon after lockdown, staff were given online training from Suffolk Mind to ensure they looked after their mental health, and began checking in over the phone with the most vulnerable. The benefits were obvious. It was a librarian who phoned a woman back to ensure she had been in touch with a doctor about the pain in her leg and foot, and it was librarian who was among the first to chat to an elderly woman after she had had a fall. Staff were rewarded, too - a recently widowed librarian found comfort in speaking to other women living alone. Rachel Huddle, in lockdown in her one-bedroom flat, said it helped her cope with what she missed most about her job. "It was not being able to see anyone, to talk to anyone," she said. "The calls have been a godsend for me." She helped many people, including a shielding customer who could got not get online to request priority food deliveries. "If someone said to me five years ago that that making welfare calls would be one of the best things about my job, I'd laugh. "But it is the kind of thing I do the job for, whether it's on the phone or here, it's helping people," she added. At Gainsborough library, in the east of the town, staff have dropped off weekly food parcels to 22 homes and delivered sanitary products, which are usually available for free from libraries. A mum was "brought to tears" by the kindness, said Sarah Woolven of the library friends group. It has begun an appeal to keep the deliveries going. Suffolk Libraries thrived in lockdown, and followed the national trend with a surge in e-book borrowing while its doors were closed. Its YouTube channel received many more views, its staff became a dab hand at editing videos at home, and hundreds of people found friendship and kindness over the phone. But as another pile of freshly-selected books is placed in the foyer, among the 10,000 borrowed already this week, there is real joy at its return. Picking up his bundle of historical fiction, Jeffrey Weir is thrilled with his new reads. What was it like for him, the library being closed for 18 weeks? "Terrible, terrible," he replies, emphatically. "I like to talk to people." Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk

जब पुस्तकालयों को बंद कर दिया गया, तो इमारतें और किताबें सीमा से बाहर थीं, लेकिन उनकी दयालुता, संबंध और समुदाय की भावना जारी रही। बीबीसी न्यूज़ ने इप्सविच पुस्तकालय में यह सुनने के लिए गया कि कैसे लोगों को केवल एक पसंदीदा पुस्तक के पृष्ठों से अधिक में सांत्वना मिल रही है।


Will Opec extend output cuts in bid to push up oil prices?

Summary: Crude oil is too cheap for the taste of many producers.

By Andrew WalkerBBC World Service economics correspondent Energy ministers from Opec, the oil exporters' group, are meeting at their headquarters in Vienna to do something about it. They will be joined by delegates from some oil suppliers outside the group. On the agenda: whether to extend the oil production curbs agreed last year that are due to expire next month. There is widespread support in the group for taking this step, and members could also discuss reducing the ceiling on oil output even further. The formal meeting happens on Thursday but key bilateral talks will take place in Vienna hotels ahead of the official gathering. Key deal Two key players have already agreed that they want to extend the existing limit until March next year: Opec's biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, the biggest exporter outside the organisation. The problem for Opec and other oil exporters started almost three years ago, when the price of oil began to slide. North Sea Brent crude oil, which is widely used as a price benchmark, hit a high of around $115 (£88) a barrel in June 2014 but by the end of the year it was half that amount. While Opec members may not sell Brent crude, the prices they get for their oil do move in parallel to this benchmark. And it got worse still from OPEC's perspective; in January 2016 the price of Brent fell below $28 a barrel. Since then it has rebounded, but has not got much beyond the mid-$50s per barrel. That partial recovery has taken some of the strain off Opec members' finances. Many have also responded with cuts to government spending. But they could really do with a stronger price recovery. What and who is Opec? To take one example; last year Saudi Arabia had a deficit in the government's finances equivalent to 17% of national income. This year the IMF projects it will be 10%. It's a substantial improvement but still far too high for the long term. Surpluses generated in times of higher prices in the past mean the Saudis do not, however, have an imminent problem of unmanageable government debt. What Opec and a group of other oil exporting countries including Russia have already done is cut back production in an effort to boost prices. They agreed that last December. The reduction was almost 1.8 million barrels per day - equivalent to about 2% of global oil production. Widespread compliance Often in the past Opec countries have agreed to cut production but failed to comply with their own commitments. The temptation is for individual countries to cheat and sell more while hoping that others will cut production and push prices higher for all. This time, however, Opec discipline has been remarkably strong. The International Energy Agency (IEA) a rich countries' watchdog, estimates compliance with the restraints is at more than 95%. That said, the agreement has not been very effective. Today the price is actually a few dollars less than it was on the day the deal was done. Without the cuts, though oil might have been even cheaper. OPEC members do have a relatively new problem: the American shale oil industry. It has grown from very little 10 years ago, to become a major player. In fact it made an important contribution to the abundant supplies of crude oil that were behind the price fall that began in 2014. In 2005, US crude oil production covered a third of the country's needs, now the figure is more than 60%. In the early stages of the price fall Saudi Arabia appeared to be willing to live with the decline in the hope that it would put pressure on US shale producers and force many out of business. It was uncomfortable for America's oil industry but it proved to be more resilient than the Saudis probably expected, and their producers were very effective at reducing costs. Total US oil production did decline in 2016, but it is rebounding this year. Stock levels Opec's production cuts have made space for other producers in non-member countries and the recovery in prices from their lows of early 2016 has eased the financial pressure. One manifestation of the abundant supply is the fact that stocks of crude oil held by refineries and governments are well above normal levels; a new historical high in the rich countries in March, according to the IEA. The objective shared by Opec and Russia is to get stocks down to the average level of the last five years. The signs are that Opec members are mostly well disposed to continuing the cuts beyond next month's planned expiry. There may well be some debate about how long to extend them, and there have been reports that some would like to make the cuts deeper. Outside Opec, Russia is in agreement but Kazakhstan wants to increase production, while others have been holding discussions with Opec countries. Assuming they do take extend the production limits, what will be the impact on oil prices? They may stay towards the upper end of the recent range - but it will take a while for those stocks of crude oil to come down to levels that could support a stronger rally. Opec's likely action could certainly ensure that prices don't take a renewed dive but the prospect of a powerful surge in prices is not strong. US sell-off There is a new complication for the producers' calculations. President Trump's budget plan includes a proposal to sell half the oil in the US government's emergency reserves, the strategic petroleum reserve, starting from the next financial year. It is just a proposal at this stage but it has still been enough to move international oil prices down. Yet in the longer term, the weakness of oil prices does perhaps contain the seeds of its own reversal. The low prices have undermined investment in new production capacity in the last two years, which in turn means that there could be a supply crunch. The IEA has warned this could come sometime after 2020. In the even longer term, the big question for Opec is whether a shift away from oil-based transport fuels - in favour of electrically-powered vehicles, for example - will cast a shadow over the viability of their natural resources.

कच्चा तेल कई उत्पादकों के स्वाद के लिए बहुत सस्ता है।


New permit for Sellafield as discharge levels drop

Summary: Sellafield will see a reduction in radioactive discharges in the coming years, meaning a new licence is needed for the Cumbria site.

The nuclear reprocessing plant releases liquids and gases into the environment which are regulated by the Environment Agency. As reprocessing is winding down, the company has applied for a new permit reflecting the lower discharge levels. The plant will also shift its focus from reprocessing to decommissioning. Large parts of the Sellafield plant were built to reprocess used fuel so that some elements could be reused. But the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, known as THORP, stopped operating in November 2018. Another plant, called Magnox, is expected to be wound up by the end of 2020. A public consultation on the new permit is under way, and people have until 1 December to put forward their views.

सेलाफील्ड आने वाले वर्षों में रेडियोधर्मी निर्वहन में कमी देखेगा, जिसका अर्थ है कि कंब्रिया साइट के लिए एक नए लाइसेंस की आवश्यकता है।


Drugs, money and wildlife in Myanmar's most secret state

Summary: The remote Wa region of Shan state in Myanmar's east is a place few outsiders have seen. The people who live in this unofficial, effectively autonomous state within Myanmar used to be called the Wild Wa, and as the BBC's Jonah Fisher found, drugs, money and the wildlife trade are flourishing.

Wa state is one of the most secretive places on earth. Search for it on Google Maps and you won't find it. Ask for a visa and you'll be denied. "We thought everyone who wanted to visit were spies," one Wa official said. But times in Myanmar, and in Wa state, are changing. So for reasons that are still not entirely clear, the BBC was among a small group of international and local journalists invited for a first ever guided tour. Our entry was via a border post not far from Myanmar's north-eastern border with China. Having been thoroughly checked out by Burmese soldiers, we cross no-man's land and are warmly embraced by our minders from the local TV station, Wa TV. "Welcome to Wa state," they beam at us as we are ushered into the back of waiting pickups. It is like a long awaited first date, and given the history of the Wa people we are just a little bit nervous. Back in British colonial times they were known as the "Wild Wa", famous for fighting ferociously and chopping the heads of their enemies off, before displaying them on poles. Awkward jokes about head-hunting out of the way, we travel south into rebel territory. Wa state is about the size of Wales, with a population of about half-a-million. It is really a state within a state, hugging the Chinese border. Its autonomous status dates back to a peace deal Wa rebels struck with central government in 1989. In return for stopping fighting, the rebels were given land to manage as they wished. So the Wa grew the most lucrative crop they could get their hands on - poppies. Over the next decade, Wa state and the Golden Triangle cemented its reputation as one of the world's leading producers of opium and heroin. The point of our carefully organised trip appears, at least in part, to show that the Wa have kicked their drug habit. So in our first few days we're taken to see some of the crops that have replaced the poppies. Tea, coffee and rubber. In Mong Mao, Wa's second town, a Taiwanese businessman comes to speak to us at the immaculately manicured oolong tea plantation he owns. He tells us that in common with almost everything that is made in Wa state, all his tea is sold to China. In fact, Wa state feels more like China than Myanmar. The money used is the Chinese yuan, the main language Mandarin, and infrastructure, like electricity and mobile phone networks, comes over the border from Chinese companies. "I don't know what we get from being part of Myanmar", Construction Minister Yeng Gar tells us with a loud laugh. "But we don't want independence, we do want to be part of Myanmar." It is a strategy that's worked well. The Wa have spent the last two decades astutely playing their two large neighbours off against each other. A well equipped rebel army keeps the Burmese military at arm's length, while close business ties with China have allowed the Wa to build infrastructure and prosper. We are shown roads and schools that would be the envy of other, more "loyal" Burmese states. But drugs are still a major issue. From what we can see, large-scale opium production has ceased, but the drug habit may have simply gone indoors. United Nations and US State Department reports accuse the Wa of becoming major manufacturers of methamphetamine pills, known locally as "yaba". Disappointingly, meth factories don't feature on our itinerary. But we do persuade our minders to let us speak to Justice Secretary Li San Lu. He is surprisingly candid, telling us that meth production is a huge problem, with two tonnes of pills having been seized this year alone. The blame, he says, lies with outsiders. "We locals don't know how to make yaba," he says somewhat implausibly. "The ingredients are all being brought in from China, India and Thailand and then manufactured here. We're the victims." Before we could press him any further our minders stepped in and informed us that our reporting was over for the day. That night, feeling mutinous, we skipped the karaoke, side-stepped the minders and headed out for an unguided look around Panghsan, the state capital. It was soon clear that the Wa's taste for the illicit isn't limited to drugs. On almost every street was a shop selling the parts of endangered animals. Tiger teeth and skulls, elephant tusks and pangolin skins were all openly on sale. The women behind the counter tell us that most of their customers are Chinese and that delivery across the border can easily be arranged. Myanmar's most famous wildlife market, Mong La, is just 100km (62 miles) away, but what is striking about Panghsan is how organised and high-end it is. These shops are not market stalls, but supermarkets of endangered animals' parts. A previously undocumented gateway into the lucrative Chinese market. We film the shops discreetly with our mobile phones before showing the footage to Nick Cox from the World Wildlife Fund when we return to Yangon. "It shows that there are more markets than we were previously aware of," he says. "To see a market with such high-end stores selling highly finished products of critically endangered species show this problem isn't going anywhere. "There is still a massive demand and people have a lot of money to spend on these products." The Wa, for their part, do not see stopping the trade in animal parts as their problem. "We don't have those sort of animals here, we cut down all our jungle for rubber plantations," Foreign Minister Zhao Guo An says. "This is just free trade." And that, to a certain extent sums up the Wa. Detached from both national and international laws, they do exactly as they please. And they do not want to change. Efforts to pull them into plans for a new more federal Myanmar have to date been a complete failure. Having been forced by the Chinese to attend talks, the Wa delegation walked out in a huff on day one, when they were given the wrong accreditation badges. The message was clear. The Wa are happy with the status quo and the freedom that comes with it.

म्यांमार के पूर्व में शान राज्य का दूरस्थ वा क्षेत्र एक ऐसी जगह है जिसे कुछ बाहरी लोगों ने देखा है। म्यांमार के भीतर इस अनौपचारिक, प्रभावी रूप से स्वायत्त राज्य में रहने वाले लोगों को वाइल्ड वा कहा जाता था, और जैसा कि बीबीसी के जोनाह फिशर ने पाया, ड्रग्स, पैसा और वन्यजीव व्यापार फल-फूल रहे हैं।