url
stringlengths 29
145
| text
stringlengths 77
128k
|
|---|---|
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6234919.stm | One of Britain's most experienced and successful businessmen was given one hospital, no money and six months to cut waiting lists at a NHS Trust in Yorkshire. In BBC Two's Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS?, he gives his diagnosis.
Rotherham General is a good hospital and had received the highest rating possible in its annual review.
But the chief executive Brian James had great ambitions for the hospital.
His vision was to provide hospital services with no waiting times.
He had starting implementing his plans and waiting lists had started coming down.
But he asked for Sir Gerry Robinson's help to see if he could speed up the process.
After a six-month stint, Sir Gerry feels he was given a unique insight into the turbulent world of the NHS.
Sir Gerry, who has headed a string of leading UK companies, said of the challenge: "I feel it was one of the most difficult things I have ever taken on."
Among his many previous jobs he has been chairman of Granada as well as chairman of BSkyB plc, ITN, Allied Domecq plc, and the Arts Council (England).
One of the main things that struck Sir Gerry was how within the NHS there was no management in the normal sense.
"The consultants were a law unto themselves."
Sir Gerry found this most clearly in the child health department.
The general manager had been trying to get waiting times down but was having difficulties engaging the consultants in her plans.
After a lot of frustration and many meetings, the consultants agreed to see extra patients, bringing waiting times down from eight weeks to two.
Sir Gerry was stunned at just how simple the answer to the problem was, but equally, just how difficult it had been to make happen.
"What you really see here is the power the consultants wield in the NHS.
"If the consultants don't want to do it, then it won't happen, as simple as that.
"In what other organisation would that be allowed to happen?"
From this, and many other examples, Sir Gerry concluded that in the NHS there was a feeling that "management is some way-up-in-the-clouds kind of issue whereas in truth management is about getting Mary and George to do something differently."
When Sir Gerry met Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt to discuss his experiences she agreed management was not just about big strategic plans.
She said: "The single most important thing that a leader or a manager can do is be out there on the shop floor at the coalface with the staff with the patients, I think that's absolutely critical.
"And I've no doubt at all the best managers are the people who are doing that."
But to get the highest quality managers it needs, Sir Gerry believes the NHS must pay the going rate - far more than it does now but easily achievable within a budget of almost £100bn.
So after six months in the NHS what was Sir Gerry's final verdict?
"I met some amazing people, people who wanted to make things happen.
"If there is a lesson we must learn from this experience, it is that we must stop thinking about the NHS as some kind of unmanageable monster and get back to realising it's an extremely precious thing that just needs managing in a day-to-day way.
"And that that can actually be done."
Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? is on BBC Two at 2100GMT on Mon 8, Tue 9 and Wed 10 January. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34505114 | Nearly one in four jobs outside of London pay less than the living wage - the pay level suggested for an adequate standard of living.
Some 23% of jobs outside London paid less than the living wage in 2014, compared with 19% in London, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The living wage in April 2014 was £8.80 an hour in London and £7.65 an hour outside London.
This wage is set by the Living Wage Foundation and Mayor of London.
The living wage rates have since been increased to £7.85 an hour outside London and £9.15 in London, and are expected to be uprated next month.
The ONS figures show that the proportion of jobs paying below the living wage has grown.
In 2014, young adults were most likely to be paid less than the living wage. Some 58% of jobs carried out by 18 to 24-year-olds outside of London and 48% of jobs in this age group in London were paid less than the living wage.
In accommodation and food services in 2014, an estimated 65% of jobs paid less than the living wage in London and 70% in the rest of the UK.
Northern Ireland had 29% of jobs paying below the living wage, the highest in the country. At the other end of the scale, 19% of jobs in the South East of England, London and Scotland paid below the living wage.
A spokesman for the Living Wage Foundation said: "Despite significant progress in many sectors, more jobs than ever are below the voluntary living wage rates that we recommend.
"These figures demonstrate that while the economy may be recovering as a whole, there is a real problem with ensuring everyone benefits, and low pay in still prevalent in Britain today."
The living wage is a voluntary code - different from the national minimum wage, which stands at £6.70 an hour, and the new National Living Wage announced by the government of £7.20 an hour which will come into force for over 25-year-olds in April.
There are more than 1,800 accredited living wage employers in the UK, with 200 having agreed to pay at this level in recent months. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8398879.stm | A 1788 bottle of Cognac has fetched the top price at an auction of wine from a Paris restaurant that boasts one of the world's most famous cellars.
A French entrepreneur bought the bottle from the Tour D'Argent restaurant for 25,000 euros (£22,650), with the proceeds to go to charity.
Some 18,000 bottles were sold for more than 1.5m euros at the auction - well above the expected takings of 1m euros.
The restaurant says it hopes to renew the cellar's contents after the sale.
Andre Terrail, who runs the restaurant - the third generation of his family to do so - said he hoped to add new wines from different parts of France, including the Loire Valley, to the cellar.
"The past two days were very moving to me," he said in a statement at the end of the auction.
"Every bottle sold in this sale will have to find the right moment and the right atmosphere to be appreciated to the fullest," he said.
"Buyers acquired not only excellent wines, but also a large part of our history and soul."
Wines from around France fetched well above their asking price.
Two other bottles of the 1788 Cognac - from one year before the French Revolution - went for 21,066 euros and 18,588 euros.
The restaurant, which was founded in 1582 and is on the left bank of the Seine, was popular with French royalty before it was stormed in the French Revolution.
More recently it has attracted politicians and actors, though it has lost two of its three Michelin stars.
It is famed for its signature dish of duck served in its own blood and for its views of Notre Dame cathedral.
Its wine list is 400 pages long, with no fewer than 15,000 choices, and it still has at least 420,000 bottles left following the auction. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4419955.stm | The government has promised a review of teaching reading in England's primary schools, particularly looking at a method called "synthetic phonics". But what exactly is it?
Most schools in England already use a version of phonics - where children are taught the sounds of letters to make up words.
But teachers use that approach with a combination of others, such as encouraging children to work out what a word might be from the context such as the pictures on a page or the use of repetition of particular words.
In the past children might have been taught to learn whole words first, probably using flash-cards, and then they were given books which had the words they had learnt in them.
With phonics generally, children learn to read using the sounds of letters rather than the names. So a letter 'D' is said 'duh' not 'dee'.
So far so good. But there are two main types of phonics - analytic and synthetic.
In analytic phonics, children are taught whole words and later analyse their constituent parts, such as c-at or str-eet.
In synthetic phonics, the key is to teach them sounds of letters and letter combinations first, then combine those to form words: c-a-t or s-t-r-ee-t.
Primary school teacher and literacy expert Kate Ruttle believes both methods are being used in schools, alongside several other approaches to reading, and the debate is an academic one.
"Most parents will find their teachers are using a version of phonics already," she said.
"Most teachers do both synthetic and analytic phonics and 90% of teachers probably don't know the difference between the two. It's something the academic world argues about.
"Teachers will vary their methods depending on the needs of their class."
Ms Ruttle is an editor of the Oxford Reading Tree - a reading scheme used in many English primary schools.
She does not believe in promoting just one approach to reading - and says the existing national literacy strategy is not opposed to phonics, it is just not prescriptive.
With synthetic phonics, children learn 44 sounds of letters or groups of letters before being allowed to look at books which have those sounds in them.
Under the national literacy strategy, primary school children need to spend an hour a day on literacy. Teachers are encouraged to use phonics alongside other methods.
In Clackmannanshire, Scotland, 300 children were taught to read using the synthetic phonics method and were found to be well ahead of children taught in other ways.
At Menstrie Primary School, children were given intensive instruction in synthetic phonics for 16 weeks as soon as they started school.
By the age of 11, they were more than three years ahead of their peers in reading age.
Head teacher Veronica O'Grady believes this method is better than what was being done 10 years ago.
"Teaching synthetic phonics gives children strategies for reading and writing that they wouldn't have had at the early stages using other methods."
She added: "They have no fear of attempting to read new words or write a simple sentence.
"These early gains seem to last - even at the top of the school boys are reading and writing as well and as enthusiastically as girls."
Opinion is divided on whether children should learn to read using only synthetic phonics.
Dr Dominic Wyse, a lecturer in primary and early years learning at Cambridge University, believes children also benefit from having words put into context, so that they can fully understand what they are being taught.
He told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four he was concerned about some approaches to synthetic phonics, where he claimed children were being denied books.
Dr Wyse rejected suggestions that phonics had been abandoned entirely by many schools in favour of other methods.
"To claim that phonics has been neglected is always exaggerated. My evidence is that over time no more than 4% of schools nationally have neglected phonics teaching perhaps for some other method, such as whole language teaching.
"There are trends of course in theory and so on, but basically phonics has been a part of our reading curriculum for a very long time".
Are children's reading skills good enough? |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-35325168 | The father of a suspected burglar left in a coma after being tackled by a homeowner has failed in a legal challenge.
Denby Collins, 38, was tackled and restrained when he entered a house in Gillingham, Kent in December 2013.
His father challenged a law introduced in April 2013 giving householders the right to use "disproportionate force" against intruders.
The High Court has ruled the law is not incompatible with human rights laws.
Mr Collins was arrested as a suspected burglar by officers called to a house in Lower Rainham Road, Gillingham on 15 December 2013.
He was being restrained by at least one resident of the house when police arrived and was handcuffed at the scene.
Officers realised he was unresponsive and took him Medway Maritime Hospital from where he was transferred to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney.
He remains in a coma today.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission investigated the case but found there was no indication that any officer breached the standards of professional behaviour.
An officer believed to have handcuffed Mr Collins resigned from Kent Police in June 2014.
The so-called "householder defence" was introduced by a former Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, to toughen up self defence laws "for those who defend themselves and their loved ones".
Mr Grayling wanted to demonstrate to the public that "the law is on their side".
Lawyers for Peter Collins argued that the law on self-defence in householder cases was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Two High Court judges rejected the challenge but said the law did not "give householders carte blanche in the degree of force they use against intruders in self-defence".
Sir Brian Leveson said: "A jury must ultimately determine whether the householder's action was reasonable in the circumstances as he believed them to be.
The case arose after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided in September 2014 not to prosecute the homeowner in the Collins case - referred to as "B" for legal reasons.
In a statement the family said they were disappointed with the court's ruling and were considering an appeal. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47926716 | Mira Markovic, the widow of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, has died in Russia at the age of 76.
Her death was confirmed to the BBC by a close family friend, Milutin Mrkonjic.
Known as the "Lady Macbeth of the Balkans", Ms Markovic was a significant political figure during the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
She was one of her husband's most trusted and influential advisers before he was arrested in 2001 but fled to Russia two years later.
Mr Milosevic died in 2006 while being held at the UN war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands. He had been charged with genocide and other war crimes for his key role in the 1990s wars that tore the Balkans apart.
They were married for four decades and were almost inseparable until Milosevic's extradition.
While Ms Markovic owed her political influence to being his closest confidante, she also had her own political party, the neo-communist Yugoslav United Left (JUL).
Prior to meeting her husband, Ms Markovic had a tormented childhood. Her mother was a Partisan fighter who was captured by the Nazis in 1942.
Under torture, she apparently gave away secrets. One account suggests that after her release, her own father - Ms Markovic's grandfather - ordered the execution of his daughter for treachery.
In 2003, Ms Markovic fled Serbia, where she was charged with abuse of power and was suspected of cigarette smuggling and political assassination.
Markovic and Milosevic met as childhood sweethearts in Milosevic's hometown Pozarevac and married in 1965. Those who knew them often said the couple was brought together sharing tragic family histories - Milosevic's parents both committed suicide, while Markovic's mother was estranged from her husband due to political differences during the World War II.
They had two children - daughter Marija and son Marko, who has lived in Russia with Markovic. Daughter Marija Milosevic was estranged from the family after her father's death in 2006 and has been living in neighbouring Montenegro.
Serbian opposition parties called her "Red Witch" due to her political stance. She fled for Russia after Serbian justice began investigating a corruption case, as well as murders of journalists and political opponents.
Milosevic's brother Borislav, once ambassador to Moscow, reportedly organised the move, as well as asylum for her and her son Marko. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1922991.stm | Music retailer HMV is to float on the London Stock Exchange by June, parent company EMI has confirmed.
Speculation on the future of HMV has been rife for months, since EMI launched a radical reorganisation in the face of sagging results.
The flotation will leave EMI as a "major" but minority shareholder in HMV Media, which also owns the leading bookshop chain Waterstones in addition to its international network of 515 record stores.
The share sale will be the first significant flotation of a British consumer business since the stock market debut of mobile phone giant Orange last year.
HMV's chief executive Alan Giles is aiming for an aggressive expansion of outlets in both the UK and Japan.
The sale should help boost finances at EMI, which last month axed 1,800 jobs as part of a plan to cut annual costs by close to �100m.
EMI, hit by a decline in music sales during the global economic slowdown last year, made a �2m loss for the March to September period last year, down from a �59m profit 12 months earlier.
The sales downturn came amid mounting investor concern over the company's ability to service its debts.
Last year, EMI tried to merge first with Warner Music and then with German media giant Bertelsmann, but both proposed tie-ups fell through.
Mr Giles, said the flotation was "an important milestone" and said it would reward employees by by giving them an oppotunity to buy shares.
Shares will be sold to institutional investors in the UK and internationally, as well as private UK investors and company staff.
Analysts expect the flotation to raise up to �600m, and praised the timing.
"The IPO market is starting to recover, and consumer spending hasn't slowed down yet," explained one fund manager.
Most of the money raised will be used to reduce debt, with the remainder used to grow the chain and revamp the Waterstones outlets. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-39451320 | Australian authorities fear people may have drowned as a flood emergency grips two states in the wake of Cyclone Debbie.
Tens of thousands of residents have evacuated homes in northern New South Wales (NSW) and southern Queensland.
The storm has moved out to sea after hitting northern Queensland as a category four cyclone on Tuesday.
However, floodwaters continue to rise after some areas had about three times their monthly rainfall on Thursday.
"There could be people overnight that perished in that flood, we don't know at this stage," said Mark Morrow, from the New South Wales State Emergency Service.
"There could be some very distressing news."
Many pleas for help had gone unanswered because it was too dangerous, he said.
The worst-hit areas included Lismore and Tweed Heads in NSW, and the Gold Coast and Beaudesert in Queensland.
"Now is the time to leave. Do not delay. Evacuation orders are mandatory," New South Wales State Emergency Service said on Twitter on Thursday.
Authorities said flooding in some towns had not yet reached its peak.
The cyclone caused major damage to buildings, roads and crops when arrived on Tuesday carrying winds of up to 260 km/h (160 mph).
Tourism operators across Queensland reported cancelled bookings and anticipated long-term disruption to their trade.
Thousands of insurance claims have already been filed, but the state's insurers said it was too early to accurately assess the cost of the damage.
The cyclone is also likely to have damaged the Great Barrier Reef, marine experts warned. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1755865.stm | A third of patients whose hospital discharge is delayed take up a hospital bed unnecessarily for more than 28 days, figures show.
The phenomenon of bed blocking occurs when a patient who is well enough to leave hospital is kept in because there are no suitable facilities available to treat them in the community.
This increases pressure on waiting lists as beds are not freed up for new patients.
Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for older people, has published data which underlines just what a significant problem it has become for the NHS.
Mr Burstow's figures show that many people are kept in hospital for more than a month until suitable facilities can be found for them elsewhere.
Mr Burstow said: "Any delay in discharging a person from hospital is unacceptable.
"It's a scandal that as many as one in three are left waiting in a hospital environment once their recovery is complete.
"The present situation simply exposes them to fresh infections and yet further delays.
"This is not bed blocking, it is bed locking, and the knock-on effects of this gridlock have dire implications for the ability of the health service to cope with demand for beds."
Mr Burstow said government policies had exacerbated the situation by driving care homes out of business.
Owners say the fees that they are paid by local authorities to care for people do not adequately cover their costs.
"The naive and short-sighted nature of those decisions have now resulted in a cobbled system where hospital facilities, provided for acute needs, are being blocked by fully recovered people who have nowhere else to go," said Mr Burstow.
Ministers announced in October that local councils were to be given more cash to help reduce the number of elderly patients taking up hospital beds unnecessarily.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We agree that it is unacceptable that some people need to wait an excessively long time for discharge from hospital.
"The �90.5m received by councils in November 2001 to tackle delayed discharges means that the length of time people have waited for discharge has dropped - this is good news for patients and their families.
"Councils will also receive a further �200m in April to further tackle delayed discharges during the next financial year.
"The actual number of delayed discharges has also fallen by 10% since September 2001.
"In some cases, where people have very complex needs it can take a significant amount of time to put together a package of care (for example equipment may need to be installed in a person's home) which means a person can safely return home.
"In other cases where an elderly person wishes to choose a care home (where they will live for the rest of their life) it may take time to offer them a choice and for them to make a difficult decision at a stressful time for them and their family." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-12083207 | Retailers in Wales say they hope the impending VAT rise will bring bargain hunters into stores to snap up "big ticket" items.
The post-Christmas sales season began saw queues from 0230 GMT in Wrexham and about 150,000 visitors to St David's shopping centre in Cardiff.
Value Added Tax (VAT) will go up from 17.5% to 20% on 4 January, adding some £10 to items already priced at £500.
Retailers hope for strong sales after bad weather before Christmas.
Retailers said they hoped the extra VAT would prompt those who were planning to buy larger items to make the purchase in the next few days.
David Hughes-Lewis, chairman of Cardiff Retail Partnership, who runs an independent jewellery store, said: "Anyone thinking of buying an expensive piece of merchandise should try and buy it this week.
"I'm hoping that anyone shopping for a big ticket item will buy in the next few days."
Steven Madeley, director of the St David's shopping centre in Cardiff, said: "If people weren't thinking about the VAT rise before Christmas, they definitely are now and we are seeing more high value items being bought before the rise comes into effect."
The centre said 150,000 people passed through its doors when sales began on Boxing Day, making it as busy as one of its busier weekdays before Christmas.
Retailers reported sales had picked up directly before Christmas after bad weather had previously deterred some shoppers.
Cath Letton, marketing manager at the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet at Bridgend, said takings in the week before Christmas were 3% up on last year and footfall was up 4% on last year, with nearly 79,000 visitors.
Both Ms Letton and Mr Madeley said they expected trading to be busy on Tuesday, the second Christmas bank holiday.
McArthurGlen is opening until 2000 GMT, two hours later than its usual bank holiday opening time.
Sales that began on Boxing Day had to be held within Sunday trading hours, limiting stores to opening for no more than six hours.
Some 500 people queued from 0230 GMT on Bank Holiday Monday outside the Next store at Eagles Meadow shopping centre, Wrexham. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-12070583 | Eleven people have been arrested in a series of raids in Bournemouth and Poole aimed at disrupting drug dealing.
Officers arrested two men, aged 18 and 20, at a house in Kings Road, Charminster, on suspicion of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.
A vehicle outside the property led police to a house in Shelbourne where a large quantity of suspected Class A drugs were found.
Another six men and three women were held during the operation on Wednesday.
Eight of the 11 have been released on bail while the other two remain in custody.
The other arrests saw a 25-year-old woman from Sturminster Newton held on suspicion of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.
A 41-year-old Poole man held on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs, burglary and going equipped to commit a crime.
Officers also stopped a vehicle being driven through Broadstone and arrested its occupants - a 40-year-old woman from Poole, a 49-year-old man from Poole and a 49-year-old man from London - all on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs.
A warrant executed at a flat in York Road, Broadstone, led to the arrests of a 32-year-old man from Liverpool and a 33-year-old woman from Poole and a 44-year-old Poole man.
The three were held on suspicion of drugs offences.
A 28-year-old man from Bournemouth was also arrested on suspicion of drugs offences following a raid at a flat in Prince of Wales Road in Westbourne. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47255674 | Plans to expand a whisky firm with a new distillery and visitor centre have been given the go ahead.
Penderyn Whisky is to redevelop a disused building at the historic Hafod Morfa Copperworks site in Swansea.
The Aberdare-based whisky firm hopes construction will begin at end of this year with the facility opened by 2022.
The Lottery Heritage Fund awarded £3.75m towards regenerating the 19th Century Powerhouse building into the visitor centre and distillery.
The old copperworks site stretches over 12 acres on the west bank of the River Tawe and is linked to the city centre by the new Morfa Distributor Road.
Other major plans for Swansea include a new 3,500 seater arena as part of a city centre revamp, and a cable car on Kilvey Hill. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180432.stm | The death bed statement by Alexander Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the poison he believes took his life. But will we ever know with certainty who was responsible?
As the speculation about what poisoned Mr Litvinenko comes to an end with the announcement that radioactive substance polonium-210 was probably to blame, the question of who was responsible persists.
The former spy's two meetings in central London on 1 November, in Piccadilly and Mayfair, may hold the key to the identity of his killer.
Friends of the 43-year-old have blamed the Russian security service (FSB), as Mr Litvinenko accused it of many abuses, including the bombing of several apartment blocks in Russia in 1999, which killed 300 people.
Others had linked his sickness directly to another focus of his criticisms, former KGB agent Putin.
Any involvement has been dismissed by the Kremlin as "nonsense", a sentiment echoed by Russia's foreign intelligence service.
The matter is now in the hands of Scotland Yard, which is investigating the case as an "unexplained death".
Security analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who met Mr Litvinenko several times, said the media focus on the Kremlin was "lazy" and bore the hallmarks of a John Le Carre novel.
"We have to put this in a historical context," he said.
"Litvinenko's last job within the FSB was heading up the anti-corruption unit and he discovered a lot of corruption there and made a lot of enemies within the KGB."
When Yeltsin broke the KGB into different agencies such as the FSB and the SVR, the majority of its members stayed on but some went into the Duma and a third group went into legitimate business, he said.
But a "murky bunch" went into what was known as the Russian mafia.
"My own belief, and this is speculation, is that it's not inconceivable that Anna Politkovskaya in her search for murderers within the Russian bank system discovered the contract killings were these former KGB people.
"She was killed and if Litvinenko indeed was privy to her investigations then it could well be that they will emerge as his killers."
Although the sophisticated nature of the poison suggested it could have come from the state, there was no motive, he said.
"There was no benefit to Putin or Russian intelligence services to have a highly publicised operation like this."
And despite the continued claims linking Putin, diplomatic relationships between the UK and Russia were unlikely to be affected, he said.
Alex Pravda, an expert in Russia foreign policy and a member of international analysis organisation Chatham House, believes it is too early to say who was responsible.
"There's a lack of clarity in all this. It's a matter of speculation and I think we have to wait until there's better evidence," he said.
And the lack of coordination between Russian government and other agencies made it difficult to point the finger with any certainty, he said.
What has characterised the Litvinenko case from the start has been the way one explanation has been quickly replaced by another.
It was thallium. No, it was radioactive thallium. No, it was a cocktail of drugs. No, it was a mystery object. Now polonium-210 has been identifed.
Considering it took such a long time to find out what poisoned him, the matter of who was behind it may never be resolved. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-42122526 | Rent arrears caused by delays in tenants receiving universal credit could hamper housing associations' building plans, it has been claimed.
Coastal Housing Group said about 131 of its Swansea tenants claim universal credit, with 120 in arrears of £80,372.
It said large-scale rent arrears could affect investment in future building plans. But Community Housing Cymru said new affordable home numbers had risen.
A DWP spokesman said it had already "made improvements to advances".
The roll out of universal credit in Wales continues, with claimants in Swansea the latest to switch over on 13 December.
A Coastal Housing Group spokesman said eventually more than half of its tenants are likely to be in receipt of universal credit.
"Ultimately if the trend where those in receipt of universal credit have arrears four times higher than the average were to continue, this would create large-scale rent arrears," the spokesman said.
"We believe with extra work to support our tenants we can help more of them to pay their rent to partially mitigate this impact, however this and other aspects of the universal credit system will result in increasing our administration costs.
"Coastal Housing Group has a strong financial position in comparison to the housing association sector in Wales. Consequently we attract funding from banks and capital markets on competitive terms, enabling an ambitious building development programme.
"However the long-term picture suggests that if rent arrears increase across the sector, as well as reducing incoming income, this could damage funders views of the sector, restricting our ability to access funding or causing the cost of funds to increase.
"This will reduce the number of new homes we and other housing associations are able to build in the future."
Yet Aaron Hill, of Community Housing Cymru, which represents housing associations, said: "Where Universal Credit has been rolled out, we have seen rental arrears treble on previous rates.
"This is having a severe impact on tenants and will ultimately impact upon resources within Welsh housing associations.
"Our 2017 socio-economic impact report demonstrates that regeneration services, including the provision of skills development and digital inclusion support, have already taken a financial hit due to welfare reform."
But he said the number of new affordable homes had steadily increased annually, and it was working with the Welsh Government to deliver its target of 20,000 affordable homes by 2021.
In Flintshire, 260 tenants receiving the new benefit have rent arrears worth £354,000.
Although it is not known how many have fallen behind because of delayed payments, the council's welfare reform team said people waiting for their first payment had been forced to borrow to pay their rent, bills and buy food.
A DWP spokesman said: "Already, we've made improvements to advances and will be reducing the time people wait for their first payment.
"On top of this, people moving onto universal credit who already get help with their housing costs will get an additional payment of two weeks housing benefit to help them stay on top of their rent payments." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10904691 | The annual World Sauna Championships in Finland have ended in tragedy with the death of one of the finalists.
Russian Vladimir Ladyzhensky and his Finnish rival, Timo Kaukonen, collapsed after suffering severe burns. Mr Ladyzhensky later died in hospital.
The event requires participants to withstand 110C (230F) for as long as possible. The men managed six minutes before judges noticed something amiss.
Its chief organiser said all the rules of the event had been followed.
"All the rules were followed and there were enough first aid personnel. All the competitors needed to sign in to the competition with a doctor's certificate," Ossi Arvela told reporters in Heinola, where it was held.
Half a litre of water was added to the stove inside the sauna every 30 seconds, and the last person remaining was the winner. There was no prize other than "some small things", he told the Associated Press.
"I know this is very hard to understand to people outside Finland who are not familiar with the sauna habit," he said. "It is not so unusual to have 110 degrees in a sauna. A lot of competitors before have sat in higher temperatures than that."
Mr Kaukonen, the defending world champion, had refused to leave the sauna during the final despite appearing sick, Mr Arvela said. He is now said to be in a stable condition in hospital.
Mr Arvela said police were already investigating Mr Ladyzhensky's death, which he said had left the organisers grief-stricken.
The event, which had over 130 participants from 15 countries, had been held since 1999. The organisers said it would never be held again. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32826643 | It has been widely said, not least by ministers, that inequality reduced under the last government.
The official stats back that up - and the causes were largely a surge in benefit payments to those who lost jobs or whose income collapsed in the Great Recession, and the introduction of a new top rate of tax.
That 50% new top rate was announced by Labour in 2010, however, and reduced to 45% by George Osborne as Chancellor. So to be clear, the reduction in inequality wasn't a great cause championed by the coalition of Tories and LibDems and pursued with vigour by the adoption of novel policies.
What is more, a new study by the OECD, shows this narrowing of inequality was relatively short lived.
It says that in the UK, as measured by the so-called Gini coefficient and by the ratio of incomes of the top 10% of earners to the bottom 10%, inequality lessened between 2007 and 2011 and then increased again by 2013 (though not back to where it was in 2007).
Analysts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies predict that, as a result of expected benefit cuts and reforms by the current government, the income gap between rich and poor will widen further in the coming few years.
What may matter as much as the trend is that the UK is shown to be a significantly less equal place than the average of rich developed countries.
So the average Gini score for 34 countries in its survey is .315, whereas the coefficient for the UK is a higher and less equal .351.
There aren't many rich countries with higher Gini scores than the UK. The US is the most important, with a .401 rating.
Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and France all have much lower Gini scores. Even countries we think of as being similar to us in culture and economic approach, such as Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, have markedly narrower gaps between rich and poor than we do.
So the UK is among the less equal of the world's developed countries.
The 90/10 ratio, the multiple of earnings of the top 10% of earners versus the bottom 10%, tells a similar story - it is 10.5 for the UK, but just 6.6 for more egalitarian Germany.
That said, the ratio between top and bottom 10% is a staggering 18.8 for the US, or almost twice the OECD average of 9.6.
All that said, there is no need to flagellate ourselves that widening inequality here bucked the global trend.
Inequality may be more pronounced in the UK than elsewhere, but that gap between rich and poor has been widening almost everywhere.
As the OECD's report "In it together, why less inequality benefits all", says, an average 90/10 ratio of 7:1 for rich nations in the 1980s became 8:1 in the 90s to 9.6 today.
And what it argues - many will say persuasively - is that talking about worsening inequality is not to engage in the politics of envy, but to discuss economic failure or a big missed opportunity.
It says that the argument against inequality is about a good deal more than than the social and political costs, the damage to social cohesion. It purports to demonstrate that economic growth diminishes as the gap between rich and poor widens - so everyone suffers from worsening inequality.
The main theory it puts forward for why inequality and growth are negatively correlated is that poorer people invest less in their own education and self improvement - which is why its main anti-inequality prescriptions are government investment in skills and education, and a focus on a promoting better quality jobs.
Strikingly it isn't saying that the best way to greater equality and faster growth is to soak the rich. Instead it wants activism focused on raising the living standards of the poorest, especially the poorest 40%.
It calculates, therefore, that if living standards in the UK for poorer people were raised to the relative levels of France - that if so-called "bottom inequality" was reduced by half of a standard deviation (to use the jargon) - annual growth in national income or GDP would rise by 0.3% every year for 25 years.
That's not to be sniffed at. It would represent increasing our current growth rate by around 13%.
However, you may have noticed - in the perhaps unfortunate choice by the OECD of France as the comparator with the UK - that it is easier said than done to promote growth by reducing inequality.
Because it won't have escaped your notice that more equal France has been a slower growing economy than the UK's for some years (just as unequal America has been much faster growing than more egalitarian Japan).
Some would argue that the UK's putative economic success is due in part to a more deregulated economy, smaller welfare state and lower tax burden than in France - but those putative British virtues arguably tend to create the conditions for a widening in the gap between rich and poor.
Or to put it another way, there is a tightrope to walk here: inequality may be bad for growth and general prosperity, but the wrong kind of equality-promoting policies can also be toxic for growth and incomes. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-42859677 | A local authority has been criticised for fitting bars to town centre public benches to stop homeless people sleeping on them.
More than 2,000 people commented on a photo of a bench in Bournemouth which was posted online on Saturday.
Some Facebook users accused the council of being "inhumane", "disgusting" and "disgraceful".
Bournemouth Borough Council said it had received "numerous complaints" about benches being used by rough sleepers.
The picture was posted by Bournemouth artist Stuart Semple, who called the benches a "design crime".
He said seating had been "retrofitted" with bars in the town centre.
"What it says in essence is we don't want homeless people. That's horrendous, they have every right to be there," he said.
The council said it had made changes to "one or two benches in very specific locations in the town centre several months ago" following complaints from traders and the public.
"The complaints related to a number of the benches being unavailable to members of the public throughout the day due to people lying on them during the daytime," a statement said.
"As a council, we need to maintain a careful balance between our responsibility to the wider public to ensure that amenities are available to them, and our duty of care to vulnerable members of our community, including people rough sleeping."
It added that the council delivered a wide range of services, including 150 hostel beds, for homeless people.
In June 2016, the authority said it had bought one-way train tickets for rough sleepers to move them out the area, as part of a new £200,000 strategy using "assertive techniques and procedures".
In 2015, the council played music from Alvin and the Chipmunks and bagpipes to deter rough sleepers at Bournemouth coach station. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8536194.stm | The number of immigrants entering the UK from Central and Eastern Europe has continued to fall, according to the latest figures.
Provisional numbers from the Office for National Statistics suggest the number of people from these countries fell by a third in the year to June 2009.
There were 68,000 new arrivals from the new European Union states, compared with 100,000 in the year to June 2008.
Overall, the figures show more people entering the UK annually than leaving.
Officials said that just over half a million people came to the UK in the year to June 2009 - and about 370,000 left, meaning a net increase of the population of about 147,000.
The statistics also show that the number of asylum seekers has fallen significantly for the second quarter.
In the three months until the end of 2009, there were 4,765 asylum applications, down 30% on the same period of 2008.
The number of unauthorised migrants who were either deported or voluntarily left the UK in 2009 was 64,750 - about 3,000 less than in the previous year.
Other figures show that the number of people seeking British citizenship rose by almost a third in the last quarter of 2009, reaching 51,315.
Almost 45,000 people who had applied were granted a British passport over the same three months - and 204,000 people became citizens over the course of the year.
The government uses a variety of statistics to monitor immigration rates, including the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) which counts economic migrants from eight central and eastern European members of the EU.
There were 28,495 WRS applications in the last quarter of the year - down slightly on the previous year - and almost half the rate in the last three months of 2007.
The number of approved workers from Poland fell to 12,125, down from 16,970 in the previous year - but that was offset by a rise in applications from Latvian and Lithuanian workers.
Separate figures for the number of National Insurance numbers - meaning people who are probably employed and paying tax - show there were 186,000 issued for central and Eastern European workers in the year to June 2009.
I don't dislike [foreign workers]... they're a good bunch of lads but I still think they are taking Englishmen's jobs.
Are jobless Brits scared by hard work?
That was 36% down than the previous year. The Office for National Statistics said the number of National Insurance numbers issued to these EU workers has continued to fall since then.
Immigration minister Phil Woolas said the figures meant Britain was no longer a "soft touch".
"We're getting on top of things," he said. "The border control at Calais is the strongest it's ever been. We've got new legal strategies in place to separate economic migration from asylum - which means we're seeing a substantial fall.
But Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "We see that everything else is going up.
"Most dramatically student numbers up by 30%, the number of work visas issued is up as well, and the number of people who've come here in the last few years who are settling here are up as well.
"So what we're seeing - and these are the last set of immigration figures we get before a general election - is that throughout the period of this Labour government immigration has, broadly speaking, been out of control."
Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats said: "Public confidence and trust in the migration system has been shattered by decades of mismanagement.
"People overstaying on short-term visas are probably the biggest source of illegal immigration and we still cannot say whether they are leaving when they are meant to do so."
However, the Cross-Party Group on Balance Migration, led by MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, said that focusing on modest falls in migrant workers masked the bigger picture.
"The Government's Points-Based System has had little effect, despite their repeated claims to the contrary," they said.
"Employment-related visas fell by only 20,000 last year, despite the recession.
"The reality is that based on these figures, we are still firmly on course for a population of 70 million in 20 years or so. Seventy percent of this increase of nearly 10 million will be due to immigration."
What jobs are EU migrants doing?
What impact have migrants had? |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/7399951.stm | Bristol-based scientists have won a £1m grant to find out if a robot can safely work with people in a confined space, such as a kitchen.
The project - Co-operative Human Robot Interaction Systems (Chris) - is being run at the Bristol Robotics Lab (BRL).
It will look specifically at scenarios such as a robot performing a task alongside a human.
The aim is to ensure the robot knows how interpret facial expression, body position, gestures and tone of voice.
"The project will look at the problems of a human and a robot working together in the same space, for example in a kitchen where the service robot is performing a task such as stirring soup, while you add cream," said Professor Chris Melhuish of (BRL).
"Not only does the robot need to know what the goal is (making the soup) but he also needs to know how hard to stir the soup, what it means when you hold up your hand to say enough, to interpret the look of pain on your face if you accidentally get splashed with hot soup, and to stop stirring when told."
Robots currently working in manufacturing are kept behind barriers for safety reasons - a measure that is not practical in the kitchen.
Professor Melhuish said: "If we can provide the 'thinking' necessary for safe robot human co-operation in the same physical space we will be a step closer to having service robots in society."
The project is a collaboration between robotic engineers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists from The University of the West of England and Bristol University. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5317624.stm | A "virtually untreatable" form of TB has emerged, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Extreme drug resistant TB (XDR TB) has been seen worldwide, including in the US, Eastern Europe and Africa, although Western Europe has had no cases.
Dr Paul Nunn, from the WHO, said a failure to correctly implement treatment strategies was to blame.
TB experts have convened in Johannesburg, South Africa, to discuss how to address the problem.
TB presently causes about 1.7 million deaths a year worldwide, but researchers are worried about the emergence of strains that are resistant to drugs.
Drug resistance is caused by poor TB control, through taking the wrong types of drugs for the incorrect duration.
Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR TB), which describes strains of TB that are resistant to at least two of the main first-line TB drugs, is already a growing concern.
Globally, the WHO estimates there are about 425,000 cases of MDR TB a year, mostly occurring in the former Soviet Union, China and India.
Treatment requires the use of second-line drugs, which are more toxic, take longer to work and costly.
But now, according to researchers, an even more deadly form of the bacteria has emerged.
XDR TB is defined as strains that are not only resistant to the front-line drugs, but also three or more of the six classes of second-line drugs.
This, according to Dr Paul Nunn, coordinator of the WHO team at the Stop TB department, makes it virtually untreatable.
A recent survey of 18,000 TB samples by the US-based Centers for Disease Control and the WHO between November 2004 and November 2005 found 20% of them were multi-drug resistant and a further 2% were extreme drug resistant.
Further detailed analysis of several countries found the prevalence was even higher.
In the US, 4% of all MDR TB cases met the criteria for XDR TB; in South Korea, the figure was 15%.
In Latvia, and according to Dr Nunn other areas of the Baltics and the former Soviet Union, 19% of all multi-drug resistant cases were extreme drug resistant too.
Dr Nunn said XDR TB was present across several strains, but added it was not yet clear how transmissible it was or whether it was limited to isolated pockets.
But he warned HIV positive people were at particular risk.
He highlighted a study recently presented at the International Meeting for Aids, held in Toronto.
In Kwazulu-Natal, in South Africa, 53 patients were found with XDR TB. Of these, 52 died within 25 days, and 44 of the 53 had been tested for HIV and were all found to be HIV positive.
He said XDR TB could have a bigger impact on developing nations, including Africa, because of the prevalence of HIV.
Dr Dunn said: "This is very worrying, especially when mixed with HIV.
"We need to make sure we do the basics properly, in other words, ensuring, and where necessary, supervising that the patient takes every pill for the course of the treatment.
"If you do that, then the rate of development of resistance drops dramatically, even in the context of HIV."
He added that it was key that new drugs were developed in future. He said work was underway looking at new drugs, including research into TB vaccines.
The meeting in South Africa will discuss the recent findings and how to curb the growing problem.
Paul Sommerfeld of TB Alert, said: "XDR TB is very serious - we are potentially getting close to a bacteria that we have no tools, no weapons against.
"What this means for the people in southern Africa, who are now becoming susceptible to this where it is appearing, is a likely death sentence.
"For the world as a whole it is potentially extremely worrying that this kind of resistance is appearing. This is something that I am sure the WHO will be taking very seriously." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-41678797 | Smacking children is to be banned in Scotland, the Scottish government has confirmed.
The move would make the country the first part of the UK to outlaw the physical punishment of children.
Ministers had previously said they did not support parents using physical chastisement, but had "no plans" to bring forward legislation of their own.
But the government has now confirmed it will ensure a bill lodged by Green MSP John Finnie will become law.
And it is understood that ministers will work with Mr Finnie to implement the bill in practice.
His proposals, which were out for consultation over the summer, would give children the same legal protection as adults.
At present, parents in Scotland can claim a defence of "justifiable assault" when punishing their child - although the use of an "implement" in any punishment is banned, as is shaking or striking a child on the head.
There are no bans on smacking in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, where parents are currently allowed to use "reasonable chastisement".
However, they can face criminal charges if they hit a child so hard that it leaves a mark, or causes bruising, swelling, cuts, grazes or scratches, and the Welsh government is to consult on an outright ban.
Mr Finnie, a former policeman, tabled a members' bill at Holyrood calling for the "justifiable assault" defence to be scrapped and for children to be given "equal protection from assault".
The Green MSP said Scotland "cannot be thought of as the best place in the world for children to grow up while our law gives children less protection from assault than anybody else in society".
Banning smacking has been backed by the UN, academics and charities, and a former Scottish children's commissioner, Tam Baillie, while the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and Scottish Borders Council have supported Mr Finnie's bill.
Childrens' charity NSPCC Scotland said the move was a "welcome step on the road towards fairness and equality for children", saying a change in the law would be "a common sense move".
However, some have spoken out in defence of the practice, with Reverend David Robertson from the Free Church of Scotland telling the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that a ban would "criminalise good parents just for tapping their child on the hand".
In her programme for government speech in September, Ms Sturgeon said that "while it is not our proposal and indeed it may be an issue on which parties will give their members a free vote, the Scottish government will not oppose John Finnie's proposals".
The programme for government document itself appeared to go further, stating that "we will support John Finnie's legislative proposals to remove the existing defence for parents and outlaw all forms of physical punishment".
And the Scottish government has now confirmed that it would make sure the bill made it onto the statute books.
A spokeswoman said: "Mr Finnie's proposals are not a Scottish government bill, however we will ensure the proposals become law.
"We believe physical punishment can have negative effects on children which can last long after the physical pain has died away. We support positive parenting through, for example, funding for family support services."
The Scottish Greens welcomed the government's backing, as well as that of Scottish Labour, who have called a ban "the right thing to do".
Mr Finnie said the backing of ministers was "especially welcome", adding that the bill would "send a clear message to all of us about how we treat each other, and underpin Scotland's efforts to reduce violence".
He added: "The physical punishment of children is already illegal in 52 countries and my proposal will give children in Scotland the necessary protections to flourish in a healthy environment and encourage the building of stronger relationships between children, their parents and others who care for them." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4345827.stm | US police are struggling to establish a motive for a shooting spree at an evangelical church service that killed eight people, including the gunman.
Terry Ratzmann, 44, shot dead seven churchgoers in Brookfield, Wisconsin, before turning the gun on himself.
No suicide note was found during a search of his property, according to police chief Daniel Tushaus.
Neighbours meanwhile have described Ratzmann as a quiet, devout man with a passion for trout and tropical plants.
He regularly attended services at the Living Church of God, an evangelical group that met at Brookfield's Sheraton hotel to mark the Sabbath on Saturdays.
Four died at the scene of the shooting on Saturday and three others died later of their injuries, police said. They ranged in age from teenagers to over-60s.
"At this point, we're unable to determine if he had specific targets or he just shot at random," police captain Phil Horter said.
Ratzman fired 22 shots into the church, reloading once, before shooting himself, police said.
A neighbour was quoted as saying: "He was the quietest guy in the world, the nicest."
The group is an evangelical church that observes the Sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday.
Two boys aged 15 and 17, a 72-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman died at the hotel. Three men ranging in age from 44 to 58 died later at a hospital.
Four others - two men, a 20 year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl - remained in a serious condition in hospital.
Brookfield is a western suburb of the city of Milwaukee.
The Living Church of God says it operates in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
It has scores of ordained ministers and more than 200 congregations, it says. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-30697553 | An anonymous artist has been leaving delicate paper sculptures made from old books at locations in Edinburgh and around Scotland for more than three years.
The identity of the woman has remained secret despite the international attention that the book sculptures have received.
BBC Scotland's arts correspondent Pauline McLean conducted an interview with her - via email to maintain her anonymity.
Question: Why did you start making the sculptures?
Answer: The first book sculpture, a little tree for The Scottish Poetry Library, was made primarily as a response to library closures and cutbacks.
But it was also as a bit of fun for the library staff who, throughout Scotland, the UK and much further afield, provide a service in straitened times - above and beyond.
It was a poor attempt to illustrate the notion that a book is more than just a book - and a library is a special kind of building.
It's no secret that I would like everyone to have access to books, art, artefacts and the buildings that house them. Not just those with the money for a ticket.
I think it's true that the immediate way we can and do now access information has altered things.
But it remains important to have expert help, to see things for real, to have buildings set aside that inspire and make expectations of us and that anyone can enter.
Question: You placed the sculptures in specific locations - and some of them weren't discovered immediately - was that part of the plan? Did you worry when a work wasn't found immediately?
Answer: I didn't have a plan when I left the pieces. I chose places I love. I made works that I thought suited them, added tags with what I suppose is my mission statement: "In support of libraries, books, words and ideas" and placed them in situ.
That to me was the end. What happens next always was, and is, down to others.
That some were found immediately, others a while later, that they may never be found, or be immediately binned, has never been a problem to me.
It was something I wanted to do, a shout-out I wanted to make. The book sculptures were there I suppose to make you read the tag.
Image caption The words read: "Nothing beats a nice cup of tea (or coffee) and a really good BOOK"
Answer: Why would you focus on one ordinary individual? Libraries, galleries, museums etc are a better focus and a lot less ordinary.
Question: Has it been hard to keep your identity secret?
Answer: No, it's not been hard to keep the secret. Those that know me are like-minded.
Image caption This Tam O' Shanter-inspired sculpture was left in the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.
Question: You gave some clues "a woman, who had been a girl, whose life would have been less rich had she been unable to wander freely into libraries, art galleries and museums" - do you think your work has raised awareness of the need to support these institutions?
Answer: I like to think the sculptures have served their purpose in some small way but I do worry that they overly draw attention to themselves as objects.
My intention was never that they be viewed as artworks or even that they would last.
They are, after all, made from clapped-out old books. The end for me though was in leaving them.
Once a gift is given it is in the hands of another.
Image caption This work was inspired by Compton Mackenzie's Whisky Galore.
Question: You agreed to a commission from the Scottish Book Trust in 2012 - why? Has anyone else tried to commission work?
Answer: The Scottish Book Trust asked, their idea was good. It was the first Book Week Scotland.
I did offer to waive my fee but they insisted on paying, which was lovely of them.
I did wrestle with it though and in the end used the fee for the five they commissioned to buy me time to make the 30 book-birds which I left the next year at Edinburgh Book festival.
Question: Is your most recent sculpture - Butterflies - your last?
Answer: What makes you think "Butterflies' is my most recent sculpture?
The Butterflies sculpture was designed as a fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer and sold in August at auction.
It was bought by the Mackenzie family, owners of Hi-Fi Corner and the Movie Rooms.
Colin Mackenzie told BBC Scotland the "intricacy and the detail of the work is enormous".
He said: "It has inspired me and I'm sure it has inspired lots of others as well."
Mr Mackenzie has decided to tour the sculpture.
He said: "I don't see the point of buying something so interesting and just keeping it in a glass case in the house. So I thought it would be really interesting to take it round the country."
"Most of these sculptures can be seen in Edinburgh and I think it is better that we get it away."
The butterflies sculpture is currently on display in the reception area of the BBC Scotland headquarters at Pacific Quay in Glasgow, where it will remain until mid-February.
It will then tour around the country, visiting Stromness library on Orkney, Aberdeen library and Abbotsford in the Borders.
Mr McKenzie said he was open to offer to other venues for the tour.
More details are available on the Facebook page. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47365273 | An American oil worker who was kidnapped by Houthi rebels in 2017 in Yemen has been released, US President Donald Trump has announced.
Danny Burch "has been recovered and reunited" with his family, Mr Trump said on Twitter, thanking the United Arab Emirates for its assistance.
Mr Burch works for the Yemeni Safer oil company. He was abducted after taking his children to school.
Since 2015, Yemen has been locked in a brutal civil war.
His Yemeni wife said he was seized in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September 2017 after dropping his children off at an event.
"They did it in broad daylight in front of everyone," Nadia Forsa told the New York Times at the time.
His brother told KLTV-News shortly after the kidnapping that Mr Burch had moved to Yemen in 2003 to work in the oil industry.
"His wife's there, he's got three children there, and I think even if he gets released, he'll stay," said Ronald Burch, adding that he had not spoken to his brother in 15 years and that he knew about the danger of kidnapping in the region.
"He knows as well as we do that that's the price of where he's at," he told the east Texas news station.
Reuters news agency reported in late January that he was taken to Oman aboard a flight along with other senior members of the Houthi leadership.
The Iran-backed Houthis have been fighting the US-supported government in the south of the country since 2015.
The US government has warned against traveling to Yemen because of "the high security threat level posed by ongoing conflict and terrorist activities" as well as the threat of kidnappings.
In September 2018, Human Rights Watch reported that Houthi militants had seriously abused detainees, including allegedly beating them with iron rods, shackling them to walls, and caning their feet. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/674973.stm | "People are now turning to supermarkets for fashion"
"They're going about it the right way"
Marks & Spencer says it is dropping its famous St Michael logo.
The struggling UK retail group says it will transform the logo into a consumer quality guarantee as part of a major overhaul of its image.
We are not losing St Michael - it is becoming our equivalent of the Woolmark or Kitemark.
The label brand will become the Marks & Spencer name as part of a new look to be unveiled next month.
M&S has undertaken an in-store transformation ranging from new shop fronts and staff uniforms to carrier bags and clothing lines, which is to be completed by the autumn.
As part of the reorganisation, the St Michael logo will be removed from the main label on products from sausages to socks and incorporated into the new quality guarantee to be found elsewhere on the packaging.
The 'St Michael Promise' will appear as a circular design on food and clothing packaging with wording inside the circle giving an explanation of the guarantee and a customer-service hotline number.
A spokesman said: "Our customers were not clear on what was the main brand - Marks & Spencer or St Michael.
"We are very clear that the main brand is Marks & Spencer and that is what people identify with.
"But we are not losing St Michael - it is becoming our equivalent of the Woolmark or Kitemark. It will act as the guarantee of the quality of our products and the intrinsic values of the company."
The St Michael brand was invented in the 1920s when Simon Marks, the son of M&S co-founder Michael Marks, put it forward as a way of paying lasting tribute to his father.
Mr Marks started the company with partner Thomas Spencer at a Leeds market stall in 1884 before expanding into a huge clothing and grocery chain with stores across Britain and mainland Europe.
By 1928, St Michael had been registered as a trademark and rapidly became synonymous with the M&S name, appearing on clothing labels and food packaging alongside Marks & Spencer or alone.
But the plunge in profits for the previously unshakeable bastion of the British high street, sparked by a disastrous sales performance in the last half of 1998, has led to a radical rethink of strategy.
The announcement in January that Belgian Luc Vandevelde, 48, was to take over as chairman followed the early retirement last summer of the previous company chief, Sir Richard Greenbury.
He joins chief executive Peter Salsbury at the helm.
Mr Vandevelde, who headed French retail group Promodes, said at the time: "Most leading brands go through tough periods at some stage, but if they have fundamental strengths, they can come back with renewed force."
Bosses are hoping to regain the initiative with the in-store make-over and a series of new product lines in food and clothing, due to be formally unveiled to the media next month. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7474561.stm | Former South African leader Nelson Mandela has added his voice to the growing international condemnation of the political violence in Zimbabwe.
In his first public comments about the crisis, he noted "the tragic failure of leadership" of President Robert Mugabe.
Southern African leaders earlier called for Friday's run-off presidential vote to be postponed because conditions did not permit a free and fair election.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has urged foreign help to end the crisis.
"We watch with sadness the continuing tragedy in Darfur. Nearer to home we have seen the outbreak of violence against fellow Africans in our own country and the tragic failure of leadership in our neighbouring Zimbabwe."
Mr Mandela had held his silence until now, says the BBC's diplomatic correspondent James Robbins, to avoid undermining South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki's efforts as chief mediator on Zimbabwe.
Mr Mbeki's policy of "quiet diplomacy" has been criticised for its failure to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe.
Nelson Mandela spoke few words but they will carry immense weight simply because of who he is, says our correspondent.
Can Sadc solve Zimbabwe's crisis?
Earlier on Wednesday, southern African leaders holding an emergency summit in Swaziland called for the run-off vote to be postponed.
The governments of Swaziland, Tanzania and Angola said conditions would not permit a free and fair election.
The three countries from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) are responsible for overseeing peace and security in the region.
The leaders said they were concerned and disappointed by Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal on Sunday from the vote.
But they said that holding the election under the present circumstances might undermine the credibility and legitimacy of its outcome.
They also said the people of Zimbabwe deserved a "cooling-off period".
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), says some 86 of its supporters have been killed and 200,000 forced from their homes by militias loyal to the ruling Zanu-PF party. The government blames the MDC for the violence.
Mr Tsvangirai said he withdrew from the election over fears for the lives of his supporters.
The government and Zimbabwe's election authority insist Friday's vote will go ahead because Mr Tsvangirai's withdrawal came too late to prevent his name appearing on the ballot paper and was therefore invalid.
Mr Mugabe officially came second to Mr Tsvangirai in the first round in March.
The governing Zanu-PF party, led by Mr Mugabe, also lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since independence in 1980.
The crisis has drawn growing international condemnation of Mr Mugabe and his government.
Britain has said it will withdraw an honorary knighthood granted to President Robert Mugabe.
Mr Mugabe is the first foreigner to be stripped of the award since Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, the day before his execution.
US President George W Bush said Friday's vote appeared "to be a sham" because the opposition had not been able to campaign without fear of intimidation.
The US has said it will not recognise the results of the vote.
Mr Tsvangirai has appealed for the African Union and Zimbabwe's neighbouring states to intervene to resolve the situation.
"I am asking the AU [African Union] and Sadc to lead an expanded initiative supported by the UN to manage what I will call a transitional process," he said at a news conference in Harare.
Dismissing Friday's planned election as pointless, he said Zimbabwe should work out a political settlement based on genuine and honest dialogue.
Mr Mugabe has said his government was open to negotiations with "anyone" but only after the elections. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/c-d/82100.stm | Technically neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords has power to pass legislation without the approval of the monarch.
However, this royal seal of approval, the Royal Assent, cannot in practice be withheld and there are now no circumstances in which the monarch could prevent an act being passed.
Similarly the prime minister must seek the monarch's permission to form a government and to dissolve a Parliament.
This would normally be granted as a matter of formality but some constitutional writers have speculated on circumstances in which the monarch could, perhaps, reasonably refuse to comply, especially with the latter request.
The monarch - or a representative - is only personally present in Parliament for the annual state opening at which the Queen's (or King's) Speech sets out the government's aims and objectives for legislation in the coming session. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40117069 | Politics is awash with terms and phrases that are beloved of commentators and politicians alike. Here is a guide to some of the key terms.
A vote cast by someone who cannot reach a polling station. Can be postal or by proxy (see below).
A person who represents candidates in their dealings with the electoral authorities and runs their campaigns.
Sealed box with a slit in the lid, into which voters place their ballot papers.
Paper containing a list of all candidates standing in a constituency. Voters mark their choice with a cross.
A vehicle used by a party to transport its leader or other senior figures around the country to rallies or to meet the people.
The government's tax and spending plans, outlined once a year by the chancellor of the exchequer.
An election held between general elections, usually because the sitting MP has died or resigned.
The group of senior ministers at the head of the government.
Someone putting themselves up for election. Once Parliament has been dissolved, there are no MPs, only candidates.
During a campaign, active supporters of a party ask voters who they will vote for and try to drum up support for their own candidates.
When two or more parties govern together, when neither has an overall majority. After the 2010 election, the Conservatives and Lib Dems formed a coalition, which lasted for five years.
A smaller party supports a larger party in key Commons votes - specifically confidence votes and finance/supply bills - to keep it in power.
The geographical unit which elects a single MP. There are 650 in the UK.
A sum of £500 paid by candidates or their parties to be allowed to stand. It is returned if the candidate wins 5% or more of the votes cast.
The delegation of powers to other parliamentary bodies within the UK, specifically the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies.
The act of ending a Parliament.
The argument that only MPs representing English constituencies should decide on laws which only effect England - normally in areas which are devolved to administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, such as health, education and transport.
Candidates are only allowed to spend a limited amount of money on their individual campaign. Accounts must be submitted after the poll proving they did not exceed this limit.
A list of all those in a constituency entitled to vote. Also known as electoral roll.
A poll carried out by researchers asking people how they have voted just after they have left the polling station on election day.
Term used to describe the UK's parliamentary election system. It means a candidate only needs to win the most votes in their constituency to win the seat.
The right to vote. Now available to those over 18 and on the electoral register.
Election at which all seats in the House of Commons are contested.
If after an election no party has an overall majority, then parliament is said to be "hung". The main parties will then try to form a coalition with one or more of the minor parties.
The name given to an election which one party wins by a very large margin. Famous landslides in UK elections include Labour's victory in 1945, the Conservative win in 1983 and the election which brought Tony Blair to power in 1997.
A public declaration of a party's ideas and policies, usually printed during the campaign. Once in power, a government is often judged by how many of its manifesto promises it manages to deliver.
Seats where the gap between the two or more leading parties is relatively small. Often regarded as less than a 10% margin or requiring a swing (see below) of 5% or less, though very dependent on prevailing political conditions.
A government formed by a party which does not have an absolute majority in the House of Commons. Harold Wilson led a Labour minority government between February and October 1974.
Strictly this includes members of the House of Lords, but in practice means only members of the House of Commons. When an election is called Parliament is dissolved and there are no more MPs until it assembles again.
A candidate must be nominated on these documents by 10 voters living in the constituency.
The official residence in Downing Street of the British prime minister since the 18th Century. Number 10 and Downing Street both serve as terms to describe the prime minister and his or her inner circle, as in "Number 10 has said that".
A survey asking people's opinion on one or more issues. In an election campaign, the key question is usually about which party people will vote for.
The largest party not in government is known as the official opposition. It receives extra parliamentary funding in recognition of its status.
Broadcasts made by the parties and transmitted on TV or radio. By agreement with the broadcasters, each party is allowed a certain number according to its election strength and number of candidates fielded.
The offence of impersonating someone else in order to use their vote.
Another term for vote or election. Also used as an abbreviation of opinion poll (see above).
The person in the polling station who checks the electoral register to verify that the voter is eligible to cast their vote and at that particular polling station.
Place where people go to cast their votes.
People unable to get to a polling station are allowed to vote by post if they apply in advance.
Systems of voting which aim to give parties the representation in a parliament justified by their level of support among the electorate. PR is not used in Westminster elections.
The act of ending a session of Parliament. Performed when an election is called.
The person responsible for ensuring the conduct of the ballot in polling stations. They have to ensure that ballot boxes are kept secure and are responsible for transferring them safely to the count.
People unable to get to a polling station are allowed to appoint someone to vote on their behalf if they apply in advance. They are also allowed a postal vote.
The study of voting and voting patterns.
The government's legislative programme for the coming session of Parliament. Delivered by the Queen, but written by the government.
If a result is close, any candidate may ask for a recount. The process can be repeated several times if necessary until the candidates are satisfied. The returning officer has the final say on whether a recount takes place.
A binding vote of the whole country on a single issue.
The official in charge of elections in each of the constituencies.
A constituency in which the holding party has a big lead to defend. Often regarded as being a margin of 15-20% or more.
Famously used by former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major in 1992 to address crowds of voters as he travelled around the country.
Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, a general election is supposed to take place every five years. Theresa May had said she wanted to wait until 2020 for the next scheduled election but changed her mind and called an early - or snap - election, in a move that took everyone by surprise.
An MP elected by other members of the Commons to chair debates and deal with the running of the Commons. By tradition, an MP who is Speaker is not opposed by any of the main parties at elections.
The attempt to place a favourable interpretation on an event so that people or the media will interpret it in that way. Those performing this act are known as spin doctors.
Ballot papers which have been filled in incorrectly. The returning officer has the final say over whether any paper not marked with a single cross is valid.
The transfer of votes from one party to another. The actual transfer is complicated, so usually taken to mean between the top two parties in any seat or area.
This is when people vote not for the party they really support, but for another party in order to keep out a more disliked rival.
In theory, any seat that a party contests and held by a rival is one of its targets. In practice, a target seat is one that a party believes it can win and puts a lot of effort into doing so.
Representatives of parties who wait outside polling stations and ask people for their number on the electoral roll. This is to help the parties ensure all their supporters have voted. Tellers have no official status and no-one is obliged to give them any information.
The number or percentage of people eligible to vote in a constituency who actually "turn out" to the polling station to do so (or send in their postal vote).
When a minority government negotiates support for its policies by seeking the backing of other parties, who would vote for it in the House of Commons.
Shorthand term coined to describe a question posed by Tam Dalyell, once Labour MP for West Lothian. Mr Dalyell asks how it is right that post-devolution, Scottish MPs can vote at Westminster on matters solely to do with England, while English MPs do not have the same influence on equivalent issues in Scotland, as they have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
A term used to describe the hothouse of politics centred on the Palace of Westminster and its surroundings (see Whitehall).
A street in central London which is home to several government ministries. Synonymous with the workings of government.
Once Parliament has been dissolved, a writ of election is issued for each constituency formally announcing the poll. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3773615.stm | A Briton who unsuccessfully attempted a suicide bombing in Israel may have been heading for Iraq, a court has heard.
The defence for Omar Sharif's wife told the Old Bailey documents discovered at the couple's home "suggest strongly" Sharif's final destination was Iraq.
The 27-year old was found dead in the sea after his bomb failed to detonate by a busy bar, however, a bomb worn by his colleague exploded, killing three.
Prosecutors say his family failed to disclose information about terrorism.
Omar Sharif's wife Tahira Tabassum, sister Parveen Sharif and brother Zahid Sharif all deny failing to disclose information about terrorism.
The defence acting for Sharif's wife, Tahira Tabassum, told the Old Bailey her husband's stay in Israel may have been unintended on Thursday.
"[Material found at his home] suggests strongly that he was not necessarily thinking of going to Israel, but another way of getting into Iraq," Michael Mansfield QC said.
Mr Mansfield added that books and writings in Sharif's house not taken away by police for analysis - including the Muslim Directory - suggested he had had other plans.
A section suggested "an entirely different objective that Omar had, which would not necessarily have involved suicide bombing - where the destination he had in mind was not necessarily Israel at all, but Iraq," Mr Mansfield said.
Sharif, from Derby, set off to bomb Mike's Place, a popular European-style seafront bar in Tel Aviv, with an associate, Asif Hanif, on 29 April 2003.
Two men and a woman were killed and more than 50 people were injured after Hanif successfully detonated his device.
But Sharif's bomb failed to explode and he escaped. His body was found floating in the sea 12 days later. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6959180.stm | The French magazine Paris Match touched up a photograph of President Nicolas Sarkozy on his US holiday, making his figure more svelte.
Leading news weekly L'Express printed before and after shots, showing a distinct tightening of the area it called poignees d'amour (love handles).
L'Express quotes Paris Match as saying the president's seating position made the bulge look more prominent.
Paris Match said it had tried adjusting the lighting on the picture.
"The correction was exaggerated during the printing process," the magazine told L'Express.
In the photograph the president is shown, bare to the waist, canoeing with his son.
L'Express said Paris Match had "removed with the wave of a magic wand the love handles that were slightly weighing down the figure of Nicolas Sarkozy".
When contacted by the BBC, Paris Match declined to make any further comment.
Correspondents say the French president's US visit this month did much to improve US-French relations but was not without incident.
Mr Sarkozy scolded two US photographers trying to take shots of him on Lake Winnipesaukee during his stay at a luxury villa in New Hampshire.
French media pressure on the financial details of his US holiday also forced him to reveal he had stayed as the guest of two wealthy families. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-47617188/cookstown-hotel-deaths-my-daughter-saw-fight-for-life | Mary Coyle says her daughter phoned her from the Greenvale Hotel to say "a boy has died".
She said her daughter saw CPR being performed on one of the three victims.
Lauren Bullock, 17, Connor Currie, 16, and Morgan Barnard, 17, died after reports of a crush outside the Greenvale Hotel on Sunday night.
The hotel in Cookstown, County Tyrone, was hosting a St Patrick's Day party. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12619957 | After the beating and assaults dished out to foreign journalists on Sunday, Beijing's security authorities summoned at least a dozen of us to meetings with the police today.
Last weekend staff from 16 international news organisations said attempts were made to physically intimidate them, harass them or interfere with their work. Some were detained and had film and pictures confiscated.
We were all out on the streets because, for the second week running, an anonymous call had been made on the internet for "Jasmine Revolution" protests in China like those that have erupted in the Middle East.
We wanted to do our job as reporters and see what would happen. Now it seems the police are pressing ahead with an effort to suppress reporting this coming weekend too.
What's odd about this is that the calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China haven't led to any discernible protest of any size. But, even after the non-events of the past two weeks, the police are extremely anxious, and foreign journalists appear to be one of the government's prime concerns.
The meetings with police were held in the offices of the Border Entry and Exit Administration. To the uninitiated that means the office, run by the police, which is responsible for approving visas for foreign journalists to work in China.
Afterwards some journalists have reported being told they may have problems with their visa renewals if they try to cover the calls for a new protest this coming Sunday. The police didn't say that to us. But at the BBC we did receive a call two days ago, from a staff member at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which she said "it would be better not to report" this Sunday.
Today the police set up a video camera and filmed as they reminded us that we need to follow China's reporting rules.
We were also told that we need special, advance permission to film interviews in several public places in Beijing, including Wangfujing, mentioned in the unsigned internet messages as the site for the Jasmine protests.
Wangfujing is one of Beijing's busiest shopping streets, and there has been no problem filming there before now.
Late last year the BBC's Political Editor, Nick Robinson, came to Beijing covering the visit by Britain's prime minister.
The BBC team filmed an interview with the Chinese artist and prominent government critic, Ai Weiwei, on Wangfujing. It attracted a fair sized crowd. But no-one complained. No-one detained Nick Robinson. No-one assaulted him.
The reason permissions are now needed, we were told, was to ensure pedestrians can flow freely. That's the same reason given by China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on Tuesday. I wasn't at her briefing but the statement was, apparently, met with incredulous laughter from some of the journalists present.
None of this however is a laughing matter. One journalist, from Bloomberg News, was lucky he wasn't seriously injured on Sunday. He was set upon by men with sticks, beaten and kicked in the face.
The assault lasted more than 10 minutes and he was dragged into a building so the thugs could continue to assault him out of view. The American ambassador to Beijing has officially complained.
The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu's briefing on Tuesday lasted 90 minutes. She did not, as far as I am aware, condemn the attacks on journalists even once, despite having many opportunities to do so.
Instead she seemed to suggest the reporters themselves were responsible, asking: "Why do some journalists always run into trouble? I find it strange. The journalists should really respect the laws and regulations."
What I can say from our own experience is that we were absolutely respecting every regulation we were aware of and following the police advice, just as we would filming in the UK or anywhere else.
We stopped when they asked us, showed them our documents, and waited for permission to proceed.
Then we were set upon, dragged, grabbed by the hair, thrown into a police van, the door slammed on my leg several times by plainclothes security men wearing earpieces. All the time dozens of uniformed police looked on and did nothing to intervene.
China's anxieties about a revolution like that in the Middle East may be unfounded, but they are real.
The problem is they are leading to a dangerous focus on foreign journalists, which some thugs in the security forces are taking as a green light to get violent with us, and it could lead to someone getting very seriously injured indeed.
But there is a wider story here too. The space that has opened up in recent years in China for discussion, limited dissent and relatively free reporting seems to be shrinking.
In the past couple of weeks, human rights monitoring groups say 100 Chinese citizens have been arrested, questioned, harassed or detained. Among them are people suspected of playing a part in the calls for protests, or seen as threats to the political power of the Chinese Communist Party.
Some have simply disappeared and their fate is unknown, a few appear to be facing serious charges of state subversion for posting internet messages about the protests.
When China was granted the right to stage the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 it was seen as an important step confirming China's opening to the world.
Allowing foreign journalists to operate as in any open society, without restrictions, was part of the deal. The gains from that Olympic opening look like they are slowly being eroded. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7247031.stm | French bank Natixis has announced a 1.2bn-euro ($1.75bn; £898m) write-down of exposure to bad US mortgage debt.
Shares in the bank, which is the latest to indicate its losses stemming from exposure to the US sub-prime mortgage market, fell 14% on the news.
European banks have now revealed sub-prime losses of more than $36bn, with Swiss lender UBS the worst hit.
Natixis, France's fourth largest bank, said its 2007 profits would now total 1.2bn euros - half its previous target.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs welcomed Natixis' disclosure as a step forward for the company.
Sub-prime mortgages are home loans given to people with poor credit ratings, or those on low incomes.
The industry is in crisis in the US following record loan defaults and home repossessions last year in the face of higher mortgage payments.
The losses spread from US banks to lenders around the world, as some of the sub-prime debt was resold as part of wider debt offerings. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7201345.stm | The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to examine the rules governing websites that compare insurance products.
At issue is whether the act of ranking insurance products online by price constitutes giving financial advice.
Some comparison websites are allowed by the financial watchdog to arrange insurance, but not to give advice.
The move comes after the British Insurance Brokers' Association (Biba) asked the FSA to tighten such rules.
Traditional insurance brokers must meet strict regulations to give advice.
But Biba argued the current rules covering so-called "electronic introduction" were designed before the development of comparison websites, and therefore did not provide appropriate protection for consumers.
According to research commissioned by Biba, many price comparison websites use assumptions when generating quotes, something a third of consumers did not realise.
It warned this could lead consumers to buy unsuitable products.
After interviewing a small sample of consumers, it said more than half of those questioned who had used price comparison websites felt the differences between insurance policies were not adequately explained.
Only 6% felt sufficient policy details were given.
"There are still too many people logging on and making a decision solely based on the price of a policy, rather than the protections it offers them and potentially buying an inappropriate policy," said Biba chief executive Eric Galbraith.
"The current FSA rules were written prior to the growth in aggregator sites.
"I believe the regulator should now look again at developing more appropriate regulations, to ensure that consumers are being afforded suitable protections," he added.
A spokesman for the FSA said it had looked at the question of comparison websites in the past.
"We considered the issues raised by Biba in 2005, and decided at that time that no action was needed."
"However, in light of the new research, we will undertake a further review of the issues.
"After that has been done we will consider whether we should take any regulatory action," he added.
The insurance comparison site Confused.com welcomed Biba's call for greater scrutiny.
The firm said it had already voluntarily invited the FSA to regulate its activities, but wanted to see a complete overhaul of the rules covering the sector.
"We support Biba's views that the FSA rules are not appropriate," said managing director Debra Williams.
"It is imperative that customers are provided with a fair and transparent service.
"Unlike other comparison sites, Confused.com diffuses some of the opaqueness by providing quotes, not estimates and, whenever possible, like-for-like comparisons," she added.
But rival comparison site Gocompare.com rejected Biba's complaints.
"Had Biba's comments come two years ago, I might have agreed with them," said managing director Hayley Parsons.
"However, the new players in the comparison market have led the way in terms of providing far more product information to help consumers make the most informed choice."
Richard Mason, director of comparison site Moneysupermarket.com, which is already fully authorised by the FSA, said he would welcome new guidance from the regulator, but accused Biba of exaggerating the scale of the problem.
"It's the death-rattle of a dying sector," he said.
"Romantically, we like to think of a broker as an expert sitting in a dusty office and meticulously considering the entire range of insurance products on the market, but that's not the case.
"The reality is that price comparison sites do a better job, offering access to a much wider range of providers, including companies that don't sell through brokers, and letting consumers examine the detailed DNA of products before they buy," he added.
The inquiry will cover general insurance policies, including car and home insurance.
Following its investigation, the FSA could take a range of actions including issuing revised guidance, enhanced supervision, or making changes to regulation. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-41044171/when-is-a-size-8-not-a-size-8 | When is a size 8 not a size 8? Jump to media player Model Megan Taylor checks which trousers will do up.
The clothing range for diabetic women Jump to media player Natalie Balmain has type 1 diabetes and says the clothes she has designed will help women manage the condition.
When is a size 8 not a size 8?
Size 8 fit model Megan Taylor investigates. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47882901 | Advance sales of Avengers: Endgame movie tickets in Singapore caused cinema websites to crash on Wednesday.
Singaporean Marvel fans took to social media to complain after being unable to purchase cinema tickets.
Shaw Cinema introduced an online queue management system that saw over 72,000 people waiting for hours for their turn to select tickets.
Some people took advantage of the situation to resell the tickets online.
Golden Village and Cathay Cinemas both experienced problems with their online payment systems.
The cinemas told Channel News Asia that their websites were unable to handle the sheer numbers of fans trying to buy tickets online.
Cinemagoer Devaash Mahantheran said he had to wait for five hours in the Shaw Cinema online queue, before the system crashed and pushed him to the back of the queue.
Vincent Wong was similarly unhappy: "No matter which browser and which platform I use, I keep getting an error message and unable to complete my transaction. Take a look at how many seats are on hold with no way to advance to [the] payment stage, and nobody responds on the customer service line."
People could still go to the cinemas in person to purchase tickets, and on Singaporean online marketplace mobile app Carousell, there were hundreds of listings reselling pairs of Avengers: Endgame movie tickets at various prices.
Tickets are being resold from $20 Singapore dollars (£11) all the way up to $600 Singapore dollars (£340).
Marvel fan Jolyn Ng told the BBC that she had anticipated that the pre-sale queues would be really bad.
She was so worried that she would not be able to get tickets during the pre-sale on Wednesday that she had asked her employer for leave on 24 April - the film's Singapore release date - so that she could find a way to grab tickets.
"I had all the cinema websites open in tabs on my computer overnight, and at 09:30am, I was placed 993rd in the Shaw online queue," she told the BBC.
"But luckily I woke up at 3am due to being on edge, and I was able to buy the tickets from EagleWings Cinematics, a new independent cinema that opened last year."
The queuing system used by Shaw is designed to prevent people from crashing websites.
It is more commonly seen on websites that see huge spikes in traffic, such as the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play, or the Glastonbury Festival ticket website.
Shaw Cinemas apologised to fans who were left disappointed.
"It was more than twice the traffic compared to our last encounter of a similar nature, and thus the system moved rather slowly and stalled at times," a spokesperson told Channel News Asia.
Singapore has a population of 5.8 million people, and one of the highest per capita cinema attendances in the world.
There are 257 cinema screens in the country, and 19 million movie tickets are sold annually, according to the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA).
Latest data from the government agency shows that Marvel's The Avengers is the all-time highest grossing movie in Singapore, earning $12.9m Singapore dollars (£7.3m) at the box office in 2017. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/196210.stm | Lew Adams - the outgoing leader of train drivers' union Aslef - has landed a job with Virgin Trains.
Mr Adams, 58, failed to be re-elected as general secretary in May this year.
The move to Virgin Trains - owned by tycoon Richard Branson - will anger his opponents, but Mr Adams said he is unworried.
His new job training drivers is within the only industry he knows, and will help maintain safety standards, he said.
Only a month ago Virgin named one of their trains after Mr Adams - The Black Prince. It was a name given to him by a national newspaper during a train strike.
John Monks, general secretary of the TUC, said he was "entirely comfortable" with Mr Adams jumping ship to a privatised rail company.
BBC Industry Correspondent Stephen Evans said: "He now has to work with Richard Branson and it is hard to imagine two more different men.
"The only thing they have in common is railways and a reputation for straight dealing."
Bryan Barrett: "interests of the railways at heart'"
Virgin's managing director Bryan Barrett said Mr Adams would not be a poacher-turned-gamekeeper. "Everyone has the best interests of the railways at heart.
"That is what Lew has always done and will continue to do for this industry."
Mr Adams started working on the railways on his 15th birthday, rising after driving steam trains to lead Aslef, one of the strongest unions in the UK.
He led the union through a period of huge change in the industry, when the national rail network passed into private ownership.
"Throughout the whole of the privatisation process nobody at train driver grade was made compulsorily redundant," said Mr Adams.
"At the end of the day there was one - it was me."
The BBC's Stephen Evans: Lew Adams, former union leader "fits into Virgin's plan"
He made a reputation as a left winger, but lost re-election as general secretary, losing to a man further to the left.
Dave Rix, a union official from Leeds and a member of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, won the leadership ballot by more than 4,558 votes to 3,357.
Mr Adams will hand over the position of general secretary of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen in January 1999, when Mr Rix will commence a four-year term of office.
Virgin Trains has been under fire recently because of delays to the trains it runs on the West Coast mainline.
Cabinet ministers were among passengers whose arrival in Blackpool for the Labour Party conference in September was delayed by problems on the route.
Transport Secretary John Prescott said the line had become worse since Virgin took it over.
But Mr Branson rejected the accusation, saying he intended the line to be the best in Europe, if not the world, in three-and-a-half years' time, at the end of the current franchise. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8400711.stm | Four diaries written by Cecil Sharp, England's most prolific folk music and dance collector, are being published online 150 years after his birth.
Malcolm Taylor, the Library Director of English Folk Dance and Song Society, explains how Sharp amassed a total of 4,977 tunes in England and North America.
All black and white images courtesy of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (Cecil Sharp Collection).
Slideshow production by Tom Beal and Paul Kerley. Publication date 12 December 2009. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3057423.stm | President George W. Bush has praised Ugandan attempts to tackle the Aids virus during his four-hour visit there.
Speaking before departing for Nigeria, the fifth and final nation on his tour of the continent, he also underlined his government's commitment to the battle against Aids in Africa saying: "When history called, we responded".
Uganda is the only African country which has successfully managed to reverse the tide of Aids infections and Mr Bush sees it as a model for his own $15bn Aids initiative on the continent.
During a meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the US leader said: "You have shown the world what is possible in terms of reducing infection rates".
Mr Bush also visited an Aids support organisation and met Aids sufferers who were to ask him about better access to life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.
Most of the Ugandans who need the drugs cannot afford to pay for them - even with the new generic drugs available on the market.
Uganda has successfully fought Aids with an aggressive public information campaign after the epidemic slashed life expectancy from 48 years to 38 during the 1990s.
In the early 1990s, the rate of HIV infection in some urban areas was as high as 30%, but today just 6% of the total population now carries the virus.
Mr Bush again repeated in Uganda his pledge to spend $15bn on fighting Aids across Africa over the next five years.
But back in Washington, a House of Representatives subcommittee in charge of foreign aid has allocated just $2bn to fight global Aids in the coming fiscal year instead of the expected $3bn.
Jim Kolbe, chairman of the subcommittee, predicted Congress would still live up to its promise to spend $15bn over five years.
But he said that spending $3bn in the first year, as Mr Bush had originally proposed, was unrealistic when the programme was just getting off the ground.
Officials in the US legislature point out that the $15bn figure given by Mr Bush was meant to be a ceiling or a guideline - and did not necessarily represent the total amount of allotted funds.
The trip is giving President Bush a close-up view of some of the continent's protracted crises, and he has been dogged by the question of whether to send US peacekeepers to Liberia.
On Wednesday, Mr Bush suggested that US assistance to Liberia might consist mostly of advisers and trainers to avoid stretching American forces too thinly around the globe.
He said US money had helped pay for the training of seven battalions of African peacekeepers.
He said it was a "sensible policy" to help the Africans help themselves "so that we never do get overextended".
He said Nigeria was preparing to send two battalions of troops to Liberia within the next two weeks.
Mr Abubakar said that other issues to be discussed when Mr Bush arrives in Nigeria later on Friday would be oil and co-operation on economic and military matters.
"Uganda's openness about Aids is unprecedented in Africa" |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7946371.stm | The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Dius) is pressing for a £1bn cash boost to scientific research.
Dius is in discussions with the Treasury to agree the funds before next month as part of a stimulus package.
Ministers say the UK should follow the recent US example of increasing science funding significantly.
The approach is intended to keep academic talent in the UK while putting money quickly into the ailing economy.
President Obama recently boosted US science spending by more than $21bn (£15bn) as part of his economic stimulus package.
Westminster ministers with responsibility for science are telling the Treasury that the UK should follow suit.
Unless it does, they argue, the downturn will destroy scientific skills that draw high-tech companies to the UK.
The BBC has learned that funding bodies have been asked for a "shopping list" of ideas that would strengthen British science and boost the economy quickly.
Proposals are likely to include additional funding for high-quality research, new laboratories, more young scientists and ideas that would be of use to industry - such as studies into clean energy technologies.
Dius ministers are concerned that if the UK doesn't keep up, researchers will go to the US or to Asian countries - where research funding is also being dramatically increased.
Ministers and scientific funding bodies are unable to comment while negotiations are ongoing with the Treasury.
Nick Dusic of the Campaign for Science and Engineering told BBC News that "President Obama has led the way by making investment in science and engineering central to US's economic recovery and future prosperity.
"If there is going to be an economic stimulus package in the spring budget, science and engineering needs to be a central part of it."
Privately, many research leaders are determined to ensure highly trained scientists and engineers don't get lost during the downturn.
They are telling ministers and officials at Dius that additional spending on research grants or post-doctoral fellowships could help ensure that the UK retains talent for when the economy picks up.
They are also arguing that money spent on upgrading laboratories, as President Obama has done, would pump money into the economy quickly while also supporting researchers.
The president's instruction is that the money has to be spent quickly, but wisely.
Much of it has been allocated to basic research funding, although a significant proportion is for updating laboratories and scientific equipment.
"Investing in science and engineering would help address the government's ambition to rebalance the economy," Mr Dusic said.
"The government could complement boosting the supply of scientists with priming demand for it by facilitating investment in infrastructure projects and venture capital."
Dius is also considering proposals to create two funds to encourage venture capitalists to invest in small high-tech companies by matching their investment with public funding. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8150616.stm | Lithuania's parliament has backed a bill that censors certain information, including on homosexuality, from reaching minors.
MPs overturned a presidential veto of the child-protection law, which critics say could institutionalise homophobia.
The legislation would ban the public dissemination of information considered harmful to minors.
This covers material on homosexuality, bisexuality and polygamy, as well as depictions of violence and death.
Eighty-seven of the 141 MPs supported the bill, while only six were against.
Correspondents say homosexuality is frowned upon by many in Lithuania, where the majority of the 3.3 million population is Catholic.
The authorities have in the past prevented gay rights activists from holding public gatherings, or struggled to protect them from attack.
Last month, MPs approved the "law on the protection of minors against the detrimental effect of public information", but outgoing President Valdas Adamkus refused to sign it before he left office.
His successor, Dalia Grybauskaite, is not able to re-impose the veto on the legislation and is required to sign it within three days, after which it will take effect.
The head of the Lithuanian Gay League (LGL), Vladimir Simonko, said parliament had "demonstrated its will to institutionalise homophobia".
The human rights group, Amnesty International, meanwhile warned that the law could be used to prohibit any legitimate discussion of homosexuality, impede the work of human rights defenders and further the stigmatisation of and prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Lithuania.
"This law is a clear infringement of freedom of expression and non-discrimination rights and should be repealed immediately," said Amnesty International UK's LGBT Campaigner Kim Manning-Cooper.
The legislation also bans material that "encourages gambling, encourages and suggests participation in the games of chance and lotteries", "promotes bad eating, sanitary and physical passivity habits", or gives credence to paranormal phenomena and hypnosis.
The text does not define "public information" in detail, although it makes references to TV programmes, films, computer games and advertising as well as online and print media accessible by children.
Petras Grazulis, a right-wing MP who co-sponsored the bill and is also seeking an outright ban of homosexuality in Lithuania, insisted it was a necessary measure to defend traditional family values.
"We have finally taken a step which will help Lithuania raise healthy and mentally sound generations unaffected by the rotten culture that is now overwhelming them," he said. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6546925.stm | US troops will now serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the usual 12-month tours under new defence department rules.
The move is designed to help the US military supply enough troops for ongoing operations.
Soldiers will be allowed a minimum of 12 months at home bases upon return.
The extended tours apply to troops currently in Iraq and those about to be deployed, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said.
The BBC's Adam Brookes, in Washington, says the announcement is further evidence that the US military is having to change the way it does business in order to meet its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Mr Gates' primary concern, however, is to ensure that in the long term, these strains do not "break" the US army, our correspondent says.
By guaranteeing 12-month periods of rest and re-training between tours in Iraq, and by increasing the size of the US army and marines, it seems Mr Gates hopes to avoid much more serious problems a few years down the line, our correspondent adds.
There are currently 145,000 US troops in Iraq. Reinforcements are needed to help the so-called "surge" against the insurgency that continues to deal heavy blows to Iraqi civilians and coalition forces.
"I think that what this recognises, though, is that our forces are stretched," Mr Gates said.
"There is no question about that... What we are trying to do here is to provide some long-term predictability for the soldiers and their families".
US Marines - part of the US Navy - are not subject to the extended tours and will serve a seven-month tour overseas and six months at home, in rotation. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve will continue to serve 12-month tours.
The Pentagon has been struggling to meet its own guidelines regarding the time troops get to spend at home.
Mr Gates said the new policy would remain in place until the defence department was confident enough to drop it back to 12-month tours, with 12 months at home and ultimately "to the rotation goal for army active duty forces of 12 months deployed and 24 months at home".
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Joseph Biden said the decision was "an urgent warning that the administration's Iraq policy cannot be sustained without doing terrible long-term damage to our military".
The senator warned that the military could be forced to fully mobilise the National Guard and Reserve - perpetuating "a backdoor draft".
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has also confirmed that it is looking to appoint a senior official to oversee war and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Washington Post claims three senior generals have already refused to take the job that is being described as "war tsar".
Such a post is a new approach to managing Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, a deputy National Security advisor oversees military policy in both conflicts, but does not directly report to the president.
The BBC's Daniel Lak, in Washington, says President Bush is known to feel civilian and military bureaucracies are not co-ordinating their efforts. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/6597973.stm | A boat owner in Kent has defended some up-close footage of "Dave the dolphin" which has been posted on video sharing website YouTube.
The dolphin can be seen swimming around several boats and gets so close to one that an oar nearly touches him.
Marine vet Iain Cope said the footage of Folkestone's coastal tourist attraction was a cause for concern.
But Richard Tozer, whose rowing boat was used for the filming, said: "He was just coming close to the boat."
Mr Tozer insisted he would never have done anything to harm the dolphin.
He said: "We were just out having a nice day in the sunshine with my children, and seeing a dolphin there is a wonderful thing to see."
But Mr Cope said: "I think unfortunately for quite a few people it is a thrill to go out there.
"The main concern is that the interaction and the humanisation of Dave will eventually possibly lead to his death."
Swimmers, kayakers and other watercraft users have been told to keep their distance from the dolphin, which has been a regular sight off the Kent coast since last April.
The Kent Police Marine Unit has said anyone getting too close to Dave could be at risk of prosecution. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32100071 | A light bulb made with graphene - said by its UK developers to be the first commercially viable consumer product using the super-strong carbon - is to go on sale later this year.
The dimmable bulb contains a filament-shaped LED coated in graphene. It was designed at Manchester University, where the material was discovered.
It is said to cut energy use by 10% and last longer owing to its conductivity.
The National Graphene Institute at the university was opened this month.
The light bulb was developed by a Canadian-financed company called Graphene Lighting - one of whose directors is Prof Colin Bailey, deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Manchester.
It is expected to be priced lower than some LED bulbs, which can cost about £15 each.
Based on traditional light bulb design, the use of graphene allows it to conduct electricity and heat more effectively.
Prof Bailey told the BBC: "The graphene light bulb will use less energy. We expect it to last longer. The manufacturing costs are lower and it uses more and more sustainable components."
The discovery of graphene in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two Russian-born scientists at the University of Manchester, earned the pair the Nobel Prize for Physics and knighthoods.
A micro-thin layer of graphene is stronger than steel and it has been dubbed a "wonder material" because of its potential uses.
The government has invested £38m in the National Graphene Institute via the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, with an additional £23m provided by the European Regional Development Fund.
Chancellor George Osborne, who opened the site on 20 March, has said he hopes the UK can see off competition from China and South Korea to become a centre of excellence in graphene technology.
More than 35 companies worldwide have already partnered with the university to develop projects.
The race is now on to develop other practical and commercial uses, including lighter but more robust car and aircraft frames and false teeth. The material has already been incorporated into products including tennis rackets and skis. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/354716.stm | Three dissidents expelled from India's Congress Party for suggesting that the foreign origin of its leader, Sonia Gandhi, made her an unsuitable candidate for prime minister, have launched their own party.
A spokesman for the new Nationalist Congress Party said it would contest the forthcoming general election and hold its first national convention on 10 June.
The party president - a former defence minister from Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar - said that in politicial terms, it would be equi-distant from Congress and the Hindu-nationalist BJP, and would seek alliances with other parties.
Mr Pawar and the other two dissidents, Purno Sangma and Tariq Anwar, were expelled from Congress after prompting Mrs Gandhi's resignation by saying that her foreign birth should bar her from becoming prime minister.
She is Italian by birth and inherited the mantle of India's foremost political dynasty because she is the widow of the assassinated former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
A week after resigning, Sonia Gandhi resumed her post as party president. Senior Congress leaders had been to her home to beg her to reconsider.
Her decision was greeted with jubilation by her supporters. Many believe that, without her leadership, Congress would struggle to make any headway in elections due in September.
But there has been an early sign of support for the rebels. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the annual conference of the ruling Telegu Desam party formally backed their call for key posts of state to be restricted to Indian-born citizens. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/6241815.stm | BBC NEWS | Programmes | Panorama | Should I fight back?
Jeremy Vine: You see something happening in the street. Do you step in?
Tony McNulty: I think the general line must be to get in touch with the authorities straight and make sure that if things are as bad as you paint the police will be there as quickly as they can.
Jeremy: You see a young man looking aggressive, shouting at an old woman, what do you do? You retreat and ring the police?
Tony McNulty: I think you should in the first instance. It may well be the simply shouting at them, blowing your horn or whatever else deters them and they go away.
Jeremy: He's now hitting her and the police haven't come, what do you do then?
Tony McNulty: Get back to the police, try some distractive activities whatever else.
Jeremy: What jump up and down?
Tony McNulty: But I would say you know sometimes that that may well work.
A Home Office minister has suggested people "distract" potential criminals while waiting for police to intervene.
Asked by Jeremy Vine what people should do when confronted by anti-social behaviour, Tony McNulty MP agreed that jumping up and down could help.
Mr McNulty says people waiting for help can "get back to the police, try some distractive activities."
Panorama investigates whether people should fight back and what they can do if the police are not present.
It questions the confusing advice about the best way to react after reading a leaked Home Office initiative with the slogan "Don't moan, take action it's your street too".
The film which will be shown on Monday also finds out why former special forces soldiers have been hired by a housing association in Carlisle to combat anti-social behaviour.
The soldiers use their training to get close to anti-social incidents which they film with covert cameras.
The filming can potentially be used in police investigations as evidence.
Tim Young of The Surveillance Group said of his team: "They're just as likely to get injured on the streets of a major UK conurbation as they were in Afghanistan or Iraq.
"The difference is this time it's a 14 year old who may be carrying a knife.
"In some of the country's major conurbations the lack of respect for the police, the lack of respect for the general public, seems to be reaching epidemic proportions, and it is very frightening."
If you want to comment on this story you can call the Anita Anand Show on BBC Radio Five Live after 2200 on Monday 5 February on 0500 909 693.
The security group is employed by councils all over the UK and sometimes even by the police who haven't got time to stake out estates like his ex soldiers.
The film also highlights the story of Paul Catlow who confronted a youth about verbally abusing his mother.
Mr Catlow claims the youth volunteered to apologise and went with him.
But Mr Catlow ended up being charged with kidnap and spending a week in prison when the teenager claimed he had been forced into the van.
The case collapsed at court.
Should I Fight Back will be broadcast on Monday 5 February at 2030 on BBC One and live on this site where it will then be available to watch on demand. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38786660 | A US judge has issued a temporary halt to the deportation of visa holders or refugees stranded at airports after President Donald Trump issued an order barring entry to them for 90 days.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a case in response to the order issued on Friday.
The White House said 109 people were detained, and around two dozen travellers are still being held.
Thousands of people gathered at US airports to protest against the move.
Mr Trump's executive order halted the entire US refugee programme and also instituted a 90-day travel ban for nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Those who were already mid-flight were detained on arrival - even if they held valid US visas or other immigration permits.
Defending his move, Mr Trump early on Sunday tweeted: "Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW." He told reporters on Saturday that the executive order was "working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over".
His Chief of Staff Reince Priebus denied that the introduction of the ban had been chaotic. He said that, of the 325,000 people entering the US on Saturday, 109 were detained.
"Most of those people were moved out," he told NBC's Meet the Press programme. "We've got a couple of dozen more than remain and I would suspect that as long as they're not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today."
The ruling from federal Judge Ann Donnelly, in New York, prevented the removal from the US of people with approved refugee applications, valid visas, and "other individuals... legally authorised to enter the United States".
The emergency ruling also said there was a risk of "substantial and irreparable injury" to those affected.
Her ruling is not on the constitutionality of Mr Trump's executive order.
The department of homeland security said it would continue to enforce the measures.
Ali worked for three years as an interpreter for the US Army and gained admittance to the US through a Special Immigrant Visa, reserved for Iraqi and Afghan nationals who face threats of violence for working for Americans during the conflicts there.
He now has a green card, and returned to Iraq for his father's funeral, only to be delayed for hours for questioning at Dulles.
"We are not terrorists. We are not bad people," said Ali. "It's so hard. I hope they will change their minds on this position."
The court case was brought early on Saturday on behalf of two Iraqi men detained at JFK Airport in New York. One worked for the US military in Iraq, while the other is married to a former US military contract employee.
Both have now been released. Another court hearing is set for February.
Lee Gelernt, deputy legal director of the Immigrants Rights Project, who argued the case in court said that some people had been threatened with being "put back on a plane" later on Saturday.
Mr Gelernt also said the judge had ordered the government to provide a list of names of those detained under the order.
Media captionPresident Trump: "It's not a Muslim ban, but we're totally prepared"
Criticism of Mr Trump's decision has been growing louder outside the US.
Iran and Iraq are threatening a reciprocal ban on US citizens entering the country.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said "even the necessary, determined fight against terrorism does not justify placing people of a certain origin or belief under general suspicion".
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that his government remained committed to welcoming "those fleeing persecution, terror and war".
A spokesperson for UK PM Theresa May said she "did not agree" with the restrictions, and French independent presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron tweeted: "I stand with the people fleeing war and persecution". |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/boxing/9425735.stm | Lucian Bute stopped Northern Ireland's Brian Magee in the 10th round to retain his IBF super-middleweight title.
Bute, 31, had already knocked down his rival in the sixth and seventh rounds and he finished the fight with an uppercut to Magee's chin in Montreal.
It was only the second time Magee had failed to go the distance.
Bute's victory in the battle of the southpaws secured a seventh successful defence of the belt he won in 2007 and improved his record to 28-0.
After a fairly even first five rounds, Bute raised his game and put Magee down with a quick left to the stomach.
The 35-year-old recovered well but was felled again in similar fashion in the following round and from then on it was only a matter of time before the knockout punch arrived.
It came with a blow to the head in the 10th, sending Magee to his knees again and forcing Chicago referee Pete Podgorski to intervene.
Bute's win set up a likely meeting later this year with Denmark's Mikkel Kessler, who was at ringside. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4122131.stm | As Lord Leverhulme, the founder of consumer goods giant Unilever, once famously said: "I know that half of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half it is."
Yet if one of today's small businesses wants to best boost their advertising or wider marketing efforts, what would be their best course of action?
growing company that sells packages of instrumentation for chemical analysis.
Up to now we have focused our promotional efforts on specific product offerings, and have paid no serious attention to promoting the company as a brand in its own right.
I now have a strong feeling that we can gain a lot by paying attention to this and I want to make a good job of it.
How do we start the ball rolling?
Congratulations on your achievements so far.
First of all, make sure that promoting your brand is actually going to give you the results you hope for.
While there are a lot of benefits to having a recognised brand that gives people the confidence to try a new product, it is also dependant on people recognising a link between the products.
For example, BMW invests a lot of money communicating that their cars are designed with the driver in mind, so that every time they bring out a new car we expect it to be packed with engineering and technology that will make it a great drive.
On the other hand, Procter & Gamble doesn't promote the brand because the products are very, very different and it would probably be counter-productive to say to consumers "Drink Sunny Delight, the new drink from the people who brought you Head and Shoulders".
Saying that, if the service you offer is more important than your products, then no matter how diverse the products are, you can set up an umbrella brand in the same way the supermarkets have, and establish that you are the place to come to for reliability, service, variety, price or whatever it is you want to be known for.
A brand in simple terms is an identity and in creating a brand you want to establish and then reinforce that identity.
Where it starts to get complicated is that your identity is not just your logo or brand name, it is every aspect of your company.
So, depending on what you want to be known for, it should be reinforced by the behaviour of your staff, the procedures you have in place, the way you treat your employees, they way your phone is answered etc., everything.
Because whatever contact a person has with a brand, that will be included in their overall judgement of the brand.
To ask Simon Edwards a question about how best to market your small business use the email form below.
Alternatively you can email another member of our small business and entrepreneurship panel of experts by clicking on one of the links on the right. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-47274538/poppy-farms-how-the-global-opioid-crisis-is-biting-australia | How US opioid crisis is biting Australia Jump to media player About half the world's legal poppy straw comes from Tasmania, but demand for it is weakening.
Are we missing the real opioid drug crisis? Jump to media player While the US suffers an overdose epidemic, most of the world misses out on painkillers.
Stalling a plane to fight drug addiction Jump to media player A moment of fear in the air is part of a rehab programme in Australia.
How Vancouver is saving addicts' lives Jump to media player The city is fighting back by providing injection sites, antidotes and even heroin on prescription.
US opioid crisis 'ruining my marriage' Jump to media player A US emergency responder dealing with opioid victims tells us how the stress is ruining his marriage.
America's opioid epidemic Jump to media player The city where firefighters battle overdoses more than flames.
About half the world's legal poppy straw is harvested in Australia’s smallest state, Tasmania.
Poppies form the base for common medicines such as codeine and morphine, making them big business globally.
But efforts to curb the US opioid crisis are eroding that demand – threatening the livelihoods of Tasmanian farmers.
Go to next video: Are we missing the real opioid drug crisis? |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-47936762 | A mother has said she and her children had a "lucky escape" after a neighbouring house was destroyed in a suspected arson attack in Newtownabbey, County Antrim.
The fire in Birchmount, in the Mossley area, on Saturday spread to the woman's house.
"If it had happened at night time, I wouldn't have been able to get all my kids out in time," the woman said.
The fire also damaged an electricity substation.
She told BBC News NI: "My neighbour came, banging on the window, shouting 'get out, get out - the house is on fire'.
"We just managed to get out as the flames were coming up the side of the house."
Northern Ireland Electricity said 50 customers were left without power in the area after the blaze spread to the substation.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) reported the fire to the PSNI at about 14:00 BST on Saturday.
NIFRS believes that a recycling bin to the rear of the houses was set alight before spreading to two oil tanks and the homes.
Two vehicles parked outside were also extensively damaged. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3126781.stm | An ancient type of Indian instrument, first mentioned in a musical treatise 2,000 years ago, has undergone a revival in the country thanks to the efforts of one talented Madras family.
The chitravina, a delicate instrument also referred to as Gotuvadyam and known for its smooth singing voice and capacity for infinite shades of tone, fell almost entirely into obscurity by the early 1900s as more modern instruments became popular.
But that changed hugely when it attracted the attention of virtuoso Narayana Iyengar, who redeveloped the instrument in a number of ways - not least by trebling the number of strings.
"The way that my grandfather developed it, he really took it to tremendous levels of virtuosity," N Ravikiran, Iyengar's grandson and one of the most famous chitravina players in India, told BBC World Service's The World Today programme.
"[He] proved that tremendous speeds could be played and with a lot of grip and firmness."
While its more common cousin, the vina, has frets like a guitar, the chitravina - which has a flat top and is set on two chambers - sits on the floor and the player gets the notes by moving a sliding object up and down the strings.
After Ravikiran's grandfather reworked the design, his son - Ravikiran's father - helped to maintain his legacy.
But it was with Ravikiran than interest really picked up, not least because of his own huge talents.
At the age of two he stunned senior classical musicians when he identified over 325 melodic scales and 175 rhythm combinations.
"In the last few years we have had lots of disciples come and learn the instrument," Ravikiran said.
Ravikiran has now taken the instrument his grandfather reworked to new levels, performing worldwide and working on fusion events with other musicians such as Taj Mahal, Glen Valez and Martin Simpson.
In turn, this has seen the instrument's influence on other world music restored, Ravikiran argued.
"I think one of the greatest impacts in recent times has been its influence on the Hawaiian guitar and the origin of the slide guitar in the West," he stated.
"I read in the Guitar Player magazine in the USA that there was this Indian sailor boy who was supposed to have run away some time in the early 1900s or late 1800s with the chitravina, then known as "gotuvadyam", and introduced it in the West."
Ravikiran's instrument itself is one of the finest examples - made of jackfruit with inlaid ivory and, at the end of the fingerboard, a fearsome-looking creature called a Yari is carved into the wood.
"It has a tremendous amount of scope to produce both vocal-style music as well as its own instrumental beauty," Ravikiran said.
"And its tone is unique, and this kind of string arrangement makes it a very pleasant timbre.
"That's one of the reasons I love the chitravina."
"In fact in the last few years we have had lots of disciples come and learn the instrument" |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4730407.stm | Michael Jackson's latest greatest hits album has sold just 8,000 copies in the US in its first week of release, reaching number 128 in the chart.
The Essential Michael Jackson is the star's first release since he was cleared of child abuse a month ago.
Jackson's two-disc set went straight to number two in the UK - but he failed to match that success in his home country.
The number one US album, multi-artist compilation CD Now 19, sold 436,000 copies in its first week.
Jackson faces a struggle to repair his image and repay debts that prosecutors in his trial claimed amounted to $300m (£170m).
British public relations supremo Max Clifford has revealed he turned down a request to represent the singer after his trial.
"He came to me a month ago and I turned him down," Mr Clifford said.
"It would be the hardest job in PR after Saddam Hussein and I would be astounded if he could turn things around.
"People were extremely offended by even some of the things he admitted in court.
"The final judgement is with the record buying public and they have made their verdict clear."
Jackson has sold more than 135 million albums during his career, including 60 million copies of Thriller.
His last original album, Invincible, sold two million copies when it came out in 2001.
The Essential Michael Jackson is the latest in a string of greatest hits packages that has also included HIStory, Number Ones and The Ultimate Collection. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-29348832/a-liberian-nigerian-student-on-his-experiences-of-ebola | WHO meeting to discuss Ebola therapy Jump to media player The World Health Organisation (WHO) is meeting in Geneva to discuss experimental therapies to combat the Ebola outbreak.
Ebola 'attacking way of life' Jump to media player Lewis Brown, Liberian minister of information, discusses the prevention techniques being used in Liberia to prevent the spread of Ebola.
Ebola outbreak 'presents challenges' Jump to media player Dr Stephan Monroe from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the latest Ebola outbreak was unusual.
'I survived Ebola outbreak' Jump to media player Saa Sabas, 41, caught Ebola from a relative but recovered.
Nigeria takes Ebola precautions Jump to media player Nigerian authorities have taken a range of measures after a man died of the Ebola virus in Lagos.
Ebola 'catastrophic' for Liberia Jump to media player The Ebola crisis in west Africa is "catastrophic" the president of Liberia has told the BBC.
The United Nations says Ebola infections will treble to 20,000 by November if more is not done.
US based Centre for Disease Control say that in the worst case scenario, infections in Liberia and Sierra Leone could reach 1.4 million by January.
More than 2,800 people have died so far - making this the largest ever Ebola outbreak.
So how is the disease affecting family life?
Abba Abashi a Liberian-Nigerian student in the Kenyan capital Nairobi has been speaking with the BBC about his efforts to maintain contact with family members in Liberia. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38761549 | Dutch Justice Minister Ard van der Steur has resigned in a row over a 2001 compensation payment to a convicted drug trafficker.
His departure is regarded as a blow to the government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
His centre-right Liberal Party (VVD) is trailing in opinion polls ahead of a general election in March.
Mr van de Steur is the third member of Mr Rutte's government to resign over the scandal.
Former Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten and his junior minister, Fred Teeven, resigned in 2015 after misleading parliament over the 2001 deal.
The affair revolves around a deal prosecutors reached with a drug trafficker, Cees Helman, worth €2m (£1.7m; $2.1m).
Mr van de Steur has been criticised for his role in answers provided to parliament over the issue.
He has denied advising certain information be withheld.
PM Rutte has also come under fire from opposition politicians.
The Freedom Party, led by anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders, is leading public opinion polls. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-42819544/oscars-2018-mandera-bus-attack-film-watu-wote-nominated | Film about Kenyan attack up for Oscar Jump to media player Watu Wote is nominated for best short live action film at the Oscars.
Five ways women made a mark in Oscar nominations Jump to media player Greta Gerwig is only the fifth woman to be nominated for best director in Oscar history.
Oscar nominations co-host gets names wrong Jump to media player Comedian Tiffany Haddish gave viewers a giggle with her multiple mispronunciations and jokes.
The deaf six-year-old hoping for an Oscar Jump to media player Profoundly deaf six-year-old Maisie Sly is the star of The Silent Child, a short film which might be nominated for an Oscar.
Streep, Hanks and Spielberg on 'President Oprah' Jump to media player Three Hollywood stars weigh in on the Oprah for President debate.
A film about a bus attack in Kenya, in which Muslim passengers protected Christians, has been nominated for an Academy Award.
Watu Wote/All Of Us received a nomination in the best short live action film category.
Images courtesy of the Hamburg Media School. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-29629779 | How can we make the internet greener? How can physics contribute to national security?
These are just two of the questions being answered at Glasgow University's James Watt Nanofabrication Centre.
Here they measure their achievements in nanometres - billionths of a metre.
Now its director, Prof Douglas Paul, has been awarded the prestigious President's Medal by the Institute of Physics.
It's been given to just a handful of scientists, among them the inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and the physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox.
The denizens of the nanofabrication centre work in a generously-proportioned clean room.
Heavily-filtered air and special clothing come as standard. When you're dealing in nanometres, a speck of dust can seem the size of a boulder.
It can give the work here something of a science fiction flavour.
But Prof Paul says nanotechnology is part of everyday life.
"Most of the transistors that are actually now inside your mobile phone have dimensions that are 22 to 28 nanometres in size," he says.
"And in fact the smallest dimensions might be as small as one or two nanometres.
"So actually everybody is carrying nanotechnology around with them."
The centre is working on the next generation of nanotechnology - theoretical, applied and commercial - with the emphasis on improving everyday life.
The clean room occupies the space once occupied by the laboratory of the pioneering physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin.
In the 1850s he was among the first the publish a paper on the thermo-electric effect - the relationship between electricity and heat.
Today, Douglas Paul's research is building on that to try to create more efficient cars.
"Of the 100% of fuel you put in a car, 75% of that is wasted as heat," he says.
"Forty per cent of that waste heat goes down the exhaust pipe, and we want to take some of that waste heat, put thermo-electrics around the exhaust pipe, turn it into electricity, reduce the fuel consumption and reduce the CO2 emission from cars, buses and all the other vehicles that are around."
The professor is also taking part in European research aimed at making the internet greener by creating more efficient semiconductors.
He says something as simple as using a search engine can use a surprising amount of energy.
"If you sit down and calculate it and look at how the information bounces around the internet, it may actually be up to about half the energy in boiling a kettle to make a cup of tea," he explains.
As we talk in his office, it's difficult not to let the eye stray to the large grey safe against one wall. This is the outward sign of his work advising the UK government on national security.
He can't talk about specific threats, but he explains that physics has implications for things like airport security.
And not just in the areas you might expect, like counter-terrorism.
He adds: "How can you actually try and find out if somebody is carrying Ebola if they walk through Heathrow or Glasgow airport and try and isolate them before they transmit that to many people?
"A lot of this requires scientists to understand what are the threats, how to detect many of these threats, and then explain to the politicians what are the potential ways we can find solutions and try and keep people in the UK safe."
From a nanometric scale to the biggest issues of the day, it's physics that has many unexpected applications. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35977227 | A new type of phishing email that includes the recipient's home address has been received by thousands of people, the BBC has learned.
Members of the BBC Radio 4's You and Yours team were among those who received the scam emails, claiming they owed hundreds of pounds to UK firms.
The firms involved have been inundated with phone calls from worried members of the public.
One security expert warned clicking on the link would install malware.
You and Yours reporter Shari Vahl was one of the first on the team to receive an email.
"The email has good spelling and grammar and my exact home address...when I say exact I mean, not the way my address is written by those autofill sections on web pages, but the way I write my address.
"My tummy did a bit of a somersault when I read that, because I wondered who on earth I could owe £800 to and what was about to land on my doormat."
She quickly realised it was a scam and did not click on the link.
"Then, a couple of minutes later, You and Yours producer Jon Douglas piped up as he'd received one and then another colleague said he'd received one too, but to his home email address," she added.
The You and Yours team decided to contact the companies that were listed in the emails as being owed money.
A spokesman for British Millerain Co Ltd, a waxed cotton fabric manufacturer, told the programme that the firm "had more than 150 calls from people who don't owe us money".
And a spokeswoman for Manchester shelving firm Greenoaks said: "My colleague took a call from an elderly gentleman and he was very distressed because his wife had had one of these emails."
Dr Steven Murdoch, principal research fellow at the department of computer science at University College London, told You and Yours: "Most likely it was a retailer or other internet site that had been hacked into and the database stolen, it then could have been sold or passed through several different people and then eventually it got to the person who sent out these emails."
He said that the email bore the hallmark of previous phishing attempts from gangs in Eastern Europe and Russia.
He said that clicking on the link would install malware such as Cryptolocker, which is a form of ransomware that will encrypt files on Windows-based computers and then demand a fee to unlock them.
Media captionTechnology explained: what is ransomware?
Anyone receiving such an email is advised to delete it and report it to the national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre Action Fraud. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/essex/3491669.stm | Former hostage Terry Waite is returning to Lebanon for the first time since being released in 1992 after five years in captivity.
The former special envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who lives in Hartest, near Bury St Edmunds, is travelling to Beirut for the YMCA.
During his visit he will meet young people who benefit from the Y-Care International programme.
He will collect material for the organisation's 20th anniversary events.
Mr Waite's ordeal began in 1987 when he was seized as he attempted to negotiate the release of hostages on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He spent most of his years in captivity in darkness chained to a wall in solitary confinement.
On Monday Mr Waite told the BBC he was not sure how he would feel returning to Lebanon.
"I won't know my reaction until that plane has touched down, until I am back on Lebanese soil," he said.
"It will be interesting - Lebanon has changed dramatically since I was there. I have memories of a city in ruins, I gather it has been rebuilt."
Asked how he would feel about meeting the people who held him hostage, Mr Waite replied that he thought it was "highly unlikely".
"I understand the Americans put a reward on their heads of $1m, and I don't think they will come out and see me while it's there.
"But I wouldn't mind meeting them. It would be very interesting to see where they are some years later." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36369236 | The more we find out about Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour the more mysterious he becomes.
US and Afghan officials say Mansour was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
But a passport found at the scene belonged to one Wali Mohammad, the pseudonym he supposedly used in Pakistan.
Every clue about his life and death seems to lead up a blind alley.
Dawn newspaper provided a timeline of Wali Mohammad's travels.
According to Dawn, he travelled to Dubai 19 times since 2006. Geo TV gave a lower figure.
Some time ago Mansour set up businesses in Dubai, Afghan media reported, presumably with money made from the illegal drug trade when the Taliban were in power.
Intriguingly, there were reportedly also at least two visits to Iran this year, on both occasions made via a border crossing in Balochistan.
The drone struck on Saturday on the return leg of the latest trip.
Reports of Mansour's travels to Iran have raised eyebrows in many quarters, given that Iranians, who are mostly Shia Muslims, are considered infidels by the Sunni Taliban. Iran denies Mansour ever travelled to the country.
There has been speculation the Iranians wanted to back Taliban efforts to keep the more hard-line Islamic State out of Afghanistan.
Others suspect that attempts to establish a Taliban-Iran connection may be to do with rising tensions between the Pakistani military and Iran.
Much of Dawn's timeline of Mansour's - or Mohammad's - travels appears to have been gleaned from the passport that survived the deadly missile strike which turned his car into a lump of twisted metal.
Strangely, the passport, and his Pakistani computerised ID, survived in impeccable condition - supposedly thrown clear somehow in the blast.
There were no reports of anything else surviving in this fashion.
Pictures of the passport and the ID were later circulated on social media and suggested that the dead man US President Barack Obama identified as Mullah Akhtar Mansour, an Afghan national, had actually been Pakistani national Wali Mohammad, a resident of Balochistan.
The pictures of the passport and the Pakistani ID were first circulated on the WhatsApp account of a law enforcement agency based in Balochistan.
This raised suspicions that it may be an attempt by the Pakistani security establishment to sow confusion.
Many noted that both documents bore no marks of the deadly attack.
Some even pointed out that these documents appeared to have been placed on a table to be photographed, which was unlikely given the claim that the pictures were taken at the site of the attack.
The two documents provide permanent and current addresses of the holder.
A search of a computerised database showed him to be a voter in the Qilla Abdullah area but a Geo TV reporter could find no one who knew him or the more than half a dozen children he had registered as his family.
There was more evidence of the mystery man's presence in Karachi, even though the address he provided to the national data registration authority (Nadra) was incomplete.
A BBC reporter in Karachi who went to the apartment met a man who said he was renting it and living there.
He said he had never met the owner, and paid his monthly rent to a local estate agent.
Other reporters who spoke to neighbours said that the owner used to come to the apartment building more frequently until 2010.
After that his visits became fewer. They said he looked and dressed like an Afghan, and often came in an SUV, accompanied by a security detail of armed men who looked like Afghans.
Many observers are of the view that, given the verification procedures of Nadra, a national ID with faulty or fake addresses could only be issued with official collusion.
When asked if Nadra was conducting an investigation to verify the identity of Wali Mohammad, a Nadra official advised the BBC to "contact the interior ministry, because it is a sensitive matter".
There is further confusion on whether the body is still in the hospital.
The drone strike is said to have happened at around 3pm local time on Saturday. That evening, two dead bodies from the scene were deposited at a government hospital in Quetta.
One body, that of a man named Azam who was believed to be the driver of the car, was immediately claimed by his relatives. The other lay there unclaimed.
On Sunday evening, a hospital official told reporters in Quetta that someone who introduced himself as Mohammad Rafiq had rung up to say he was Wali Mohammad's nephew and would like to claim his body. But later he failed to show up at the hospital.
On Monday evening, the home minister of Balochistan province told the BBC the body was still at the hospital.
But on Tuesday morning a BBC reporter in Quetta was shown hospital records according to which the dead body of Wali Mohammad had been handed over to Mr Rafiq on Sunday.
The reporter was also shown a handwritten receipt signed by Mr Rafiq.
Below his signature, Mr Rafiq also provided his cell phone number, which is eight digits - one digit too long for Pakistan.
Calls made using various combinations of the number have been fruitless so far. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3488484.stm | Nearly 200 US punk bands have lined up to try to get fans to boost the vote against President Bush through the Punk Voter coalition.
Punk Voter's roots go back to 2000 when NOFX bassist Fat Mike suffered insomnia after Bush beat Al Gore in the election by 537 votes in Florida.
"I've sold 50,000 records in Florida," he said. "If 500 fans had voted it could have been a different election."
NOFX have attacked Bush on albums such as 2003's The War on Errorism.
The Punk Voter coalition says it can harness votes from punk rock fans with a combination of politically charged lyrics and reminders about civic duty in wartime.
Justin Sane, guitarist and singer with Anti-Flag, said: "If you don't find yourself in the voting booth you may find yourself in combat boots in the desert."
The coalition is also inviting liberal groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America to their concerts.
A website has been launched offering election news and commentaries from former Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra, Jay Bentley from Bad Religion and Jim Lindberg from Pennywise.
This spring, Fat Mike - whose real name is Mike Burkett - plans to release a Punk Voter compilation album of songs from 27 bands and will support it with a tour of colleges.
But recent history has suggests celebrity-driven voter registration campaigns do not make much difference in the US.
Despite MTV's Rock the Vote campaign in 2000, and other initiatives, only 29% of the 8.4 million US people aged 18 to 24 voted in the presidential election.
Turnout has been in decline since 43% of young people voted in 1972. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34122208 | The US Olympic Committee (USOC) has named Los Angeles as the US bid for hosting the 2024 games.
"This is a quest Los Angeles was made for," said LA mayor Eric Garcetti. "This city is the world's greatest stage."
The bid sets out $6bn (£3.8bn) in proposed public and private spending.
Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984, and if chosen would join London as another three-time-host city. It replaces Boston, which dropped out.
Los Angeles City council voted 15-0 to allow Mr Garcetti to negotiate with the US Olympic Committee, effectively giving the city's Olympic ambitions its blessing.
Boston had pulled out as the US candidate in July, after concerns that local funds would be used to pay for budget overruns.
Image caption LA Mayor Eric Garcetti (centre) said the games would be "spectacular"
Mr Garcetti said LA would stage games both "spectacular" and "profitable."
Much of the infrastructure needed for the games already exists in LA, but council members had to be reassured that the Games would not subject LA residents to unchecked spending or debt.
Many conversations about the potential games' cost to LA are to come later, council members said.
The host city will be chosen in 2017. Other cities being considered include Rome, Paris, Hamburg and Budapest.
Atlanta held the last Summer Games in the US, in 1996. Salt Lake City, Utah, hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-47318810/brixton-vegan-shop-cheese-labelling-is-misleading | Vegan cheese not cheese says cheese body Jump to media player A vegan cheesemonger in Brixton has been told to stop calling its produce “cheese”.
Should dogs go vegan? Jump to media player There are increasing numbers of vegan food products for pets on the market.
Being vegan when you're on a budget Jump to media player Not just for Veganuary - this student couple talk about shopping, cooking and eating on a budget.
'Killing vegans' editor meets vegan Jump to media player What happens when the editor who joked about killing vegans meets the journalist who got him fired?
A vegan cheesemonger in Brixton has been told to stop calling its produce “cheese”.
Dairy UK says that using the word "cheese" for anything other than real dairy products is misleading.
It says plant-based alternatives do not have the same nutritional contents. The shop owners say they are clearly labelling their food.
Go to next video: Should dogs go vegan? |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38837704 | Building a third runway at Heathrow will allow more connecting flights with other UK airports, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has said.
He told the Commons that six regional airports could be added to the Heathrow hub network, bringing the total to 14.
The new airports are thought to be Belfast, Liverpool, Newquay, Prestwick Humberside, and Durham Tees Valley.
His comments came as he launched a public consultation on a new runway, unlikely to be operational until 2025.
Last October, after years of delay, the government said that building a third runway at Heathrow was its preferred option for expanding airport capacity.
Mr Grayling told the Commons that a third runway would generate tens of thousands of jobs, and be a major boost to the economy as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.
"By backing the north-west runway at Heathrow airport and publishing our proposals, we are sending a clear signal that when we leave the EU, we are open for business," Mr Grayling said.
With the government about to set out its strategy for withdrawal from the EU in a White Paper, Mr Grayling said that a third runway at Heathrow would enhance the UK's global links.
"Leaving the EU is a new chapter for Britain and provides us with a great opportunity to forge a new role in the world. We are determined to seize that opportunity and having the right infrastructure in place will allow us to build a more global Britain," he told MPs.
Media captionChris Grayling tells Radio 4 Today a new Heathrow runway will create "essential economic links"
Alongside his announcement of a "draft policy statement" on Heathrow expansion, Mr Grayling also issued a consultation document on improving Britain's air space infrastructure and investing in new technology.
He said it made sense to carry out the two consultations together, which will run until 25 May, with the final decisions going before Parliament late this year or early 2018.
The consultations on Heathrow and air traffic facilities will involve events across the country "because the whole country will benefit," Mr Grayling said. He is due in Glasgow later to expand on how travellers and freight users outside the south east England will benefit.
The cost of a third runway is estimated to be £22bn, and is forecast to generate about 70,000 jobs. An additional 260,000 take-offs or landings would be permitted each year from the expanded airport, on top of the current cap of 480,000.
The consultation will consider such things as pollution, additional rail and road infrastructure such a roads, and the impact on surrounding towns and villages.
But there is expected to be continued significant opposition to the third runway proposal.
Earlier, Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park and North Kingston, Sarah Olney, accused the government of being "so desperate" to reassure businesses about its Brexit plans that it is "willing to steamroller over those communities opposed to Heathrow expansion".
And John Stewart, chairman of anti-Heathrow expansion group Hacan, said it was important that the government assessed the consultation "in an even-handed way" and rejected the plan if the expected impact on issues such as noise was found to be "too great".
The biggest long-term environmental challenge for aviation is climate change.
The government says a rise in aviation carbon emissions alone is no reason to reject expansion - unless that increase is so great it risks breaching the government's overall carbon targets.
But the government's official advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, previously warned that's exactly what's likely to happen.
They say growth in aviation emissions will mean ministers have to squeeze even deeper emissions cuts from other sectors of the economy.
They are already struggling to meet carbon targets in heating and transport and the committee says it has "very limited confidence" that sectors like steel-making and heavy industry can cut emissions even more to accommodate people flying. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11731754 | The scale of the delay and cost overrun blighting Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope has been laid bare by a panel called in to review the project.
The group believes the final budget for Hubble's successor is likely to climb to at least $6.5bn, for a launch that is possible in September 2015.
But even this assessment is optimistic, say the panel members.
The head of the US space agency has accepted that "cost performance and coordination have been lacking".
Charles Bolden has ordered a reorganisation of the project and has changed the management at its top.
Estimates for JWST's total cost to build, launch and operate have steadily increased over the years from $3.5bn to $5bn.
Along with the cost growth, the schedule has also eroded.
The most recent projected launch of 2014 has looked under pressure for some time.
The independent panel chaired by John Casani of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, believes it to be unrealistic.
The group was convened to examine the root causes of JWST's problems.
It found the original budget for the project to be insufficient and poorly phased, and blamed the management for failing to pick up and deal with the issue.
"This is a very large complex project and to estimate something with any real degree of precision that's never been done before is a tough job," John Casani told reporters.
"But the bottom line is that there was never enough money in the budget to execute the work that was required."
The panel did however commend the technical success of the project. Mr Casani said the technology on JWST was in "very good shape".
The telescope was always regarded as major undertaking. Its primary mirror is 6.5m (21ft) across - close to three times wider than Hubble's.
The huge reflector will sit behind an even more expansive sun shield, the area of a tennis court.
This structure will protect the observatory from radiation from the Sun and the Earth.
Whereas Hubble sees the Universe mostly in visible light, JWST will observe the cosmos at longer wavelengths, in the infrared. It will see deeper into space and further back in time, to the very first population of stars.
When it is finally built, it will be launched on Europe's Ariane 5 rocket and sent to an observing position 1.5 million km from Earth. It is expected to have a 10-year lifespan.
Its distance from Earth means the telescope cannot be serviced by astronauts, as was the case with Hubble.
Casani's panel has several concerns going forward and says the project is vulnerable to further delay .
It says a total life-cycle cost of $6.5bn and a launch in September 2015 may still be possible, but only if the budget for the project is increased by about $200m in each of the financial years 2011 and 2012.
"If those amounts are not available then of course the $6.5bn number is going to move out and the launch date might move out too," Mr Casani said.
Chris Scolese, an associate administrator at Nasa headquarters, said the agency was looking at how it could find the necessary money. Efficiencies were being sought, he explained, and he also warned that funding for other science activities across Nasa could be affected as senior managers tried to close the budget gap.
"We'll look at what we can do," he explained. "[Fiscal Year 2011] is upon us and we have to work with the administration and Congress to understand what flexibilities we have.
"I think it's fair say I doubt that we're going to find $200m. But you have to give us some time to go off and work that before we can really answer that question."
The places Nasa will not go looking for the needed funds are its international partners on the project, Europe and Canada.
Their contributions are fixed through in-kind provision, such as instrumentation and the launch rocket.
"The problems we are dealing with are wholly US; they have to do with how much we pay our suppliers for the components here [in America]," Mr Scolese told BBC News.
"We can't go off and look to the European Space Agency to solve those problems. We appreciate their understanding as we work through this and we will make the mission as successful as we all believe it can be."
The James Webb Space Telescope is named after the former administrator of Nasa who led the agency in the run up to the Apollo landings. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_2/1834051.stm | Huddersfield's on-loan striker Leon Knight cast a shadow over the opening of Blackpool's two new stands by scoring a last-minute winner for the Terriers at Bloomfield Road.
The diminutive Chelsea marksman gained revenge for his side's defeat in the LDV Vans Trophy northern final last week as he hit both goals to cement Town's play-off credentials.
Blackpool shaded a scrappy first half with recent signing Richard Walker twice going close within a minute.
The former Aston Villa striker hit the post with a low drive and seconds later forced a fine reflex save from goalkeeper Martyn Margetson.
The Seasiders made the breakthrough two minutes into the second half when veteran Ian Marshall cheekily flicked home Scott Taylor's cross at the near post.
But Huddersfield crept back into the game and Knight headed a 69th-minute equaliser from a floating cross by defender Ade Moses.
Lou Macari sent on substitute Delroy Facey to try and turn the tide Huddersfield's way.
However, Blackpool looked more likely to score and John Murphy should have done better after 87 minutes following good work by substitute Martin Bullock.
However, it was Knight who stole three points in stoppage time with his last-gasp strike.
Blackpool: Barnes, O'Kane, Reid, Marshall, Jaszczun, Wellens, Collins, Hills, John Murphy, Walker, Taylor. Subs: Pullen, Simpson, Fenton, Bullock, Clarke.
Huddersfield: Margetson, Jenkins, Clarke, Gray, Moses, Thorrington, Heary, Schofield, Holland, Wijnhard, Knight. Subs: Phillip Senior, Irons, Mattis, Facey, Hay.
Referee: A Bates (Stoke on Trent). |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/623572.stm | Thousands of football fans were left disappointed when bad weather forced the cancellation of a crucial Scottish Cup tie.
Winds gusting at up to 60mph ripped a piece of guttering off the Lisbon Lions stand at Parkhead.
Officials decided to postpone the Tennents Scottish Cup third round match between Celtic and Inverness Caledonian Thistle - just 30 minutes before kick-off.
An estimated 5,000 Caley Thistle fans, who had already made the treck south, were disappointed at the late call-off.
The match between Arbroath and Motherwell at Gayfield Park, in Arbroath, was also under threat, although officials decided to go ahead with the tie.
Experts were called in to assess the problem but decided that the damage could not be repaired in time to allow the match to go ahead even with a delayed kick-off.
The matter is a huge embarrassment to the club, who were due to officially rename the stand at a ceremony on Tuesday.
"This is hugely disappointing," admitted Celtic spokesman Peter McLean.
"I would like to apologise to all the fans who had come to the ground but there was little alternative.
"We will not take chances with public safety and hopefully the problems will be sorted very quickly."
The stand is to be renamed the Lisbon Lions stand in memory of the club's 'team of the millennium'.
The club boasts that the stadium, which has a capacity of 60,506, is one of the best in Britain.
The third round match will now take place on Tuesday, 8 February. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36925580 | Reality Check: How much would Hinkley C cost bill payers?
The claim: The cost of Hinkley Point C to bill payers has risen from £6bn to about £30bn.
Reality Check verdict: The projected additional cost of guaranteeing the amount paid for electricity from Hinkley C has risen considerably because the government forecast for the wholesale price of electricity has fallen.
The French state-owned power company EDF has agreed to shoulder the estimated £18bn cost of building Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station in the UK for a generation.
The Chinese government will pay about a third with EDF paying the rest.
In return, the UK government has guaranteed EDF a fixed price for the electricity it produces for 35 years.
That fixed price, or strike price, is £92.50 per megawatt hour. One megawatt hour is enough electricity to run about 18,000 40in televisions for an hour.
In the UK, electricity is generated then sold to suppliers at a wholesale price. That electricity is then supplied to UK households and they pay for it through their electricity bills.
Energy companies charge us more than the wholesale price to cover their costs, various government charges, and make a profit.
The wholesale price moves up and down but the government has promised EDF it will get paid £92.50 per megawatt hour of electricity from Hinkley Point no matter what the wholesale price is. It will be £89.50 if another planned station, Sizewell C, comes online.
If the agreed strike price is above the wholesale price then consumers will have to pay higher bills to fund it.
The estimated extra amount they will pay has risen for one simple reason - the government's forecast for the wholesale energy price in the future has fallen. The lower the wholesale price, the bigger the chunk UK households have to pay to make sure EDF gets paid £92.50 per megawatt hour.
Oil and gas prices have fallen sharply since 2014 and the government has cut its wholesale price estimates as a result. Between 2012, when the strike price was agreed with EDF, and last year, wholesale price forecasts have been cut by more than a fifth.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said: "We estimate that the value of future top-up payments under the proposed HPC CfD have increased from £6.1bn in October 2013, when the strike price was agreed, to £29.7bn in March 2016."
The strike price of £92.50 is in 2012 pounds, so will be considerably higher by 2025. Already, if you adjusted for CPI inflation, the figure would be about £97.
Another figure that is given in 2012 pounds is the government's estimate that the cost of Hinkley C will add £10 per year to each household's bill. In current pounds that's about £10.50.
It's a figure that Andrea Leadsom gave to a parliamentary committee in May.
The government worked it out by predicting what the difference between the strike price and the wholesale price of electricity would be in 2025.
That difference was then multiplied by the amount of energy expected to be provided by the new plant and divided by the number of households.
The government predicts that in a central scenario, the wholesale price of electricity will rise from £48 per megawatt hour this year to £67 in 2025, all in 2015 prices. So the predicted difference between the strike price and the wholesale price is about £28 in 2015 prices.
Hinkley is supposed to produce 3,200MW - if you multiply by 8,760 you get the number of megawatt hours per year, which is about 28 million. Multiply that by the £28 difference between strike price and wholesale price and divide by the ONS projection of households in 2025 (30 million) and you get £26 per household per year.
So where does the £10 per household actually come from? The government has so far declined to explain how this differs from its own calculation.
Last year, the government department responsible predicted that the project would add between £4bn and £19bn to household bills over the lifetime of the station (find the estimate by following the link in this parliamentary answer). If you take a central figure of £11.5bn, divide it by the projected 35-year lifetime and divide by the number of households, then you do indeed get to about £10 per household.
But the National Audit Office says that figure for project cost has risen to £29.7bn, and if you calculate that per household per year then you get to £25 per household per year.
It would make sense that if the overall cost has risen then the cost per household would also have gone up.
Many thanks to Simon Evans from Carbon Brief who got in touch to try to help us get closer to the government's figure.
He points out that power stations rarely run at full capacity - 90% would be a reasonable estimate over the course of a year, taking it from 28 million megawatt hours per year to about 25 million.
In addition, only about one-third of UK electricity is used by households, although some energy-intensive industries such as steelmaking will be exempted from paying the extra amount for their electricity.
Clearly, some of the extra electricity costs to businesses will be passed on to households through higher prices.
Simon Evans reckons the extra cost per household will be between £9 and £18 per year in 2012 pounds, depending on what the wholesale energy price ends up being, which puts the government's estimate at the low end.
Gracie: Is China the hitch? |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/e/exeter_city/9366400.stm | Exeter City have made their first foray into the January transfer window, signing Reading goalkeeper Ben Hamer on a three-month loan deal.
The 23-year-old joined Reading in 2005, but has only played four times for the club, having had several spells on loan at both Crawley and Brentford.
Hamer made 75 league appearances for Brentford during four separate loan periods at Griffin Park.
The keeper played in Brentford's 4-2 win over City last October. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39994886 | Labour says it will bring forward its pledge to scrap tuition fees to include students starting university in England this autumn if it wins the election.
The party also says students part-way through their courses would not have to pay for the remaining years.
It said the cost was factored into the £9.5bn annual bill for scrapping fees.
The Tories said more poorer students than ever were going to university, and the Lib Dems said better-off students would gain most from ending fees.
The announcement comes as the deadline for people to register to vote approaches - they have until 23:59 BST on Monday to sign up.
Labour announced it would abolish university tuition fees - which are due to rise to £9,250 a year in the autumn - in its manifesto last week.
It is now offering more detail on the policy, which applies to students resident in England studying for their first degree at an English university, in an appeal aimed at people eligible to vote for the first time on 8 June.
Labour's shadow education secretary Angela Rayner told BBC Breakfast that people coming out of university now face debts of up to £44,000 - a "gut-wrenching" sum which "hangs over them" for years to come.
She said that by getting the top earners to pay "just a little bit more", Labour can "stop our young people from going through that hell of having that much debt".
Put to her on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that axing frees would benefit the wealthiest graduates - who currently repay the most in tuition fees - Ms Rayner said: "You've got young people, regardless of their wealth, that are leaving university after working hard, they've finally got their degrees, they're going into their job for the first time, junior doctors etcetera, and they're saddled with debt for years and years.
"Whether they pay back that debt or not, if you've ever had a huge amount of debt hanging over your head you know how that feels."
Labour said legislation would be in place for students starting university in the autumn of 2018 - but that a Labour government would immediately write off the first year of fees for those starting a year earlier.
Labour, which has also promised the return of maintenance grants to cover living costs, said it would protect people who had already graduated from inflation-busting interest rises in future years.
It said the £9.5bn annual cost of abolishing tuition fees would be paid for by increasing corporation tax, and income tax for people earning over £80,000.
Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said scrapping fees was the "wrong choice" at the moment and he did not know how Labour would pay for it.
The Lib Dems made a manifesto commitment before the 2010 election not to raise fees but abandoned that in coalition government with the Conservatives, a U-turn for which they were strongly criticised and which was partly blamed for their dramatic loss of support in the 2015 election.
How do tuition fees work?
Universities in England can charge up to £9,250 a year for undergraduate courses from this autumn. The tuition fees will then increase every year with inflation. Students can borrow loans to cover tuition fees, which are paid directly to the university.
They can also take out loans for living costs - with the amount that can be borrowed decided by means testing. Parents are expected to cover any costs above this maintenance loan. Interest on loans, which is rising to 6.1% this year, is charged from as soon as students begin their courses.
But the loans are not paid back until after graduation and when former students earn more than £21,000. The rate you pay back is 9% of your income over the £21,000 threshold. If you do not finish repaying within 30 years, the rest of the loan will normally be written off.
The average amount owed by university graduates in England averaged £44,000 last year, figures from charity the Sutton Trust suggested. Total outstanding student debt in England was at £76bn.
There are lower levels of fees in Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland there are no tuition fees for Scottish students. There have been rows in Scotland, however, about the gap in access to university between rich and poor students.
Mr Clegg told BBC Radio 4's Today that under the repayment system put in place by his party, no graduates paid fees up front and Labour's changes would see people "who have never been lucky enough to go to university" subsidising those who do.
"Let's be very clear what this is for - it is to relieve graduates in the future of the need to make any contribution to their university education while, and here is the odd choice, not reversing a lot of the very punitive and aggressive benefit cuts which will affect some of the poorest in the country," he said.
"If the choice is between the poorest and some of the richest graduates of the future, I would choose helping the poorest."
Education is a devolved matter, with only Scotland charging no tuition fees for Scottish students, although research suggests Scotland also has a bigger access gap between rich and poor students than the rest of the UK.
Responding to Labour's tuition fees pledge, the Conservatives said: "Only by getting Brexit right will we be able to help young people get on in life and make the most of their talents." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-12028024 | A Conservative MP is to end the "open secret" of his sexuality by attending the launch of a support group for gay politicians, says his agent.
Ribble Valley MP and Deputy Commons Speaker Nigel Evans, 53, has won praise from gay MPs from other parties for his decision to back the group ParliOut.
Swansea-born, he stood twice in Welsh seats before landing the Lancashire constituency he has held since 1992.
Rhondda MP Chris Bryant, who is also gay, welcomed the decision.
Mr Bryant, who sits on the board of ParliOut, tweeted: "Glad to see Nigel Evans is 'coming out'. An open secret in Parliament for years".
Gay rights charity Stonewall, which helped set up ParliOut, has welcomed Mr Evans' decision.
Mr Evans's agent said the MP had given an interview to a Sunday newspaper to explain why he was being open about his personal life.
It means the number of openly gay MPs in the Commons is 22, with more than half Tories.
Mr Evans grew up in Swansea, graduating in politics from the city's University College and joined the Conservatives when he was 17.
A member of the former West Glamorgan County Council from 1985-1991, he unsuccessfully stood for Parliament in Swansea West in 1987, Pontypridd in 1989 and Ribble Valley in 1991. He won Ribble Valley in the general election the following year. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47749025 | "She is so desperate to end it all, she currently has a toothbrush inside her."
Jane Haines is talking about her daughter, Ayla, who has been in secure units for people with learning difficulties for seven years.
A government programme to move people out of these units after an abuse scandal is a failure, campaigners say.
The government said in 2015 it was committed to reducing inpatient numbers in England by at least 35%, although it has only relocated 20% so far.
That means 2,000 patients remain in them and the government has extended the original March 2019 deadline to 2020.
Jane's daughter was admitted to an Assessment and Treatment Unit (ATU) at 19, after struggling with anorexia and other mental health issues.
These secure units treat vulnerable young people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves.
Patients are supposed to be admitted for nine to 18 months, but the average stay is more than five years.
Ayla has spent the past seven years as an inpatient and is currently living in Northamptonshire, more than 200 miles away from her home in Carmarthen.
Jane tells the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme it has led to desperate behaviour, including swallowing a toothbrush, which is still in her body 10 months later.
"She's got a huge bald patch on her head where her hair will never grow back, from all the head banging she's done," she says. "One of the doctors said possibly she's caused more brain damage.
"We are powerless and have to sit back and watch her suffer," says Ayla's grandmother Judy Haines. "It's torture for her and for us."
Jane says she is not critical of the place where Ayla is being treated, rather the system.
The ATU where she is staying said it was unable to provide comment on an individual case. But it said it, "works with every individual to design a package of care around them, to keep them safe and help them progress back to the community".
ATUs came under scrutiny in 2011 after the BBC's Panorama exposed horrific abuse of patients at Winterbourne View.
The government promised to end their use for those capable of living in the community with proper support through a programme called Transforming Care - which cost £10m.
Dan Scorer, head of policy at Mencap, said: "People are spending many, many years in there, they shouldn't be. Awful things are happening to people in there and they shouldn't be.
"And in the same way asylums were closed, these places need to be closed and people need to be supported in the community."
NHS figures show an increase in staff resorting to medication, seclusion and even restraint when dealing with patients. Of the 2,500 incidents reported in December last year alone, 800 were against children under the age of 18.
Linda and Chris Hutchings' 27-year-old daughter lives in a secure unit in the East Midlands. She was sectioned, aged 14, after battling with an eating disorder and depression.
Her mum, Linda, says: "I wake up in the middle of the night and I am crying because I am so sad.
"In one of the hospitals [not the one she is currently in] she was locked in one room for nine weeks, and it was so awful for her because there was nothing apart from a telly on a high bracket on the wall."
Chris says: "Can you even envisage another situation where a human being is locked up on the presumption of guilt? On what they might do to themselves or others? You lose that basic right to be free."
Birmingham City Council, which is responsible for their daughter's care, also said it could not comment on individual cases, adding, "there are always safeguarding measures in place when somebody's liberty is limited due to illness or disability".
Experts say the average placement cost of keeping one person in an ATU is more than £3,000 per week.
Labour's shadow care minister, Barbara Keeley, said the government was allowing private companies to make millions, because the ATUs cost five times the amount of a community placement.
"They are like the Bedlam institutions in Victorian times," she said. "This is a hidden horror. There have been 40 deaths in these units in 2015, nine of those were people under 35."
She said the government should make a new pledge to close them down.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "We are determined to reduce the number of people on the autism spectrum with learning disabilities in mental health hospitals, and significant investment in community support has already led to a 20% reduction.
"The NHS is committed to reducing inpatient numbers by 35% by 2020."
But with the right support, some parents say that the government's transformation care programme can work.
Fauzia Hussain, who has Tourette's and autism, spent 22 months in a secure unit. Her family says that she was prescribed high doses of medication, including anti-psychotic drugs and kept mostly in segregation.
Since she has left, her life has since been transformed.
"It was a hopeless place. I'm a child psychiatrist and I couldn't access the right support," her aunt Shahana says.
"I'm aware of so many families who haven't been quite so lucky. I live in fear that Fauzia might end up back in a place like that." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4579718.stm | Smart lampposts that could provide high-speed internet access are set to go on trial in Scotland.
The idea will be piloted later this month in Dundee but could spread further afield.
Backers of the project plan to install six of the solar-powered, internet-capable lights on a rooftop at the University of Abertay.
Later in the year they plan to install up to 4,000 more in a student village to be built for the university.
The idea will combine lampposts with solar energy and wi-fi wireless internet access.
The lamppost will use light-emitting diode (LED) technology to provide bright light using low power derived from solar cells, which use daylight to recharge even in overcast weather.
As the Dundee scheme will be on university property the council is not involved.
However, the company running the scheme, Compliance Technology (CTL), said interest had already been shown by three other councils in Scotland; Orkney, Perth and Kinross, and Dumfries and Galloway.
The firm, whose Scottish arm is based in Kirkcaldy, has European distribution rights for the Singapore-based "StarSight" technology.
The firm argued the idea will have massive potential for local authorities, which could could turn their lighting systems into revenue earners.
Calum McRae, of CTL, said: "With only a fraction of the installation and running costs of conventional street lights, councils could use smart lampposts to provide street light while selling internet access to local residents, or even providing it free in areas of need.
"The new photovoltaic technology which will be showcased in Dundee will mean that no local community needs to be without reliable, economic street lighting, with the added benefit of wi-fi technology outside their front doors."
Mary Cowie, director of the University of Abertay Centre for the Environment (ACE), said: "The pilot scheme will involve not only ACE but students from the University of Abertay who will be able to play a hands-on role in shaping the technology of tomorrow."
The centre will be involved in testing the technology and assessing its social, environmental and economic impact.
Green MSP Robin Harper said: "This is a truly exciting and innovative project with huge possibilities in sustainability terms, and in reducing environmental impact." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38570338 | Actor Tom Hiddleston has apologised for his much-criticised acceptance speech at the Golden Globe awards, admitting it was "inelegantly expressed".
"I was very nervous and my words just came out wrong," he wrote on Facebook.
The Night Manager star drew censure on social media for a speech in which he referred to aid workers in South Sudan "binge-watching" the programme.
The British actor said that his "only intention" had been "to salute [their] incredible bravery and courage."
"I apologise that my nerves got the better of me," his post continued.
Hiddleston won his first Golden Globe on Sunday - for best performance by an actor in a mini-series or TV movie - for his role in the BBC's adaptation of John le Carre's novel about a hotel manager involved in arms smuggling.
After thanking his co-stars and the show's director, he told "a quick story" about a recent visit to "the youngest country in the world".
"One night... a group of doctors and nurses wanted to say hello... because they had binge-watched The Night Manager," he continued.
"The idea that we could provide some relief and entertainment for the people who... are fixing the world in the places it is broken made me immensely proud."
West Wing star Joshua Malina was among those to take issue with the speech, which drew a mixed response from the Golden Globes audience.
"Thank you to Tom Hiddleston and all actors who dare to perform in projects that are shown in some of the most dangerous parts of the world," he tweeted.
"That was a long story Tom Hiddleston told to pay himself a compliment," wrote the writer and producer Gary Janetti.
Other commentators drew attention to the neutral expressions of actors Naomie Harris and Christian Slater during Hiddleston's address.
Yet his words drew a warmer response from the World Food Programme, who said it felt "honoured" to have been given a mention.
Hiddleston's award was one of three Golden Globes won by The Night Manager, which also picked up supporting actor prizes for Olivia Colman and Hugh Laurie.
Colman, who was not at the Los Angeles ceremony, said she was "gutted" she had not been present to accept "such an enormous honour". |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/4773700.stm | Two superb goals from Pedro Mendes, the second in injury time, gave Pompey their first league win of the year.
After a scrappy first half the hosts went in front when Mendes thumped a 25-yard drive past David James.
Pompey were good value for their lead but lost it when Richard Dunne headed Joey Barton's corner past Dean Kiely.
The hosts piled forward and found a dramatic winner when Mendes hammered virtually the last kick of the match into the net from more than 25 yards.
Portsmouth went into the match without a win in eight games and their lack of confidence was self-evident in an opening 15 minutes dominated by City.
The hosts eventually found their rhythm with Andres D'Alessandro knitting things together in midfield but Gary O'Neil was unable to capitalise on their first real opening.
Lomana LuaLua's near-post cross picked out O'Neil but the captain couldn't direct his stooping header on target.
City responded with a near miss from Barton.
The midfielder, back from suspension, was given time and space to shoot from 20 yards but screwed his shot wide.
The temperature rose markedly midway through the half when Jordan appeared to go in with his studs up on Mendes.
The Pompey midfielder was clearly hurt but referee Mark Halsey, who sent off Arjen Robben for a two-footed lunge last week, ruled both players challenged fairly for the ball.
The incident stirred up the hosts who enjoyed their best spell of the half, with Dunne and Jordan intervening to cut out crosses from D'Alessandro and Brian Priske respectively.
But when Portsmouth's best chance came, six minutes before the interval, Benjani Mwaruwari was unable to take it.
The Zimbabwean, without a goal since his £4.1m January move from Auxerre, pounced on a weak punch from James but slashed wildly over the bar.
Pompey were clearly encouraged by their first-half display and began the second period in positive fashion.
James clawed away a LuaLua cross and watched Benjani's shot sail wide but could do nothing about Mendes' spectacular strike.
City could only half clear D'Alessandro's corner and when the ball dropped to Mendes 25 yards out the Portuguese drove into the bottom corner past a stationary James.
But Pompey had not kept a clean sheet since December and their failure to find a two-goal cushion eventually cost them.
Barton's corner was headed into the danger zone by Micah Richards and helped on by Samaras for Dunne to nod home from close range.
The goal stung Portsmouth back into action and LuaLua and Todorov both went close before Mendes again struck.
He collected the ball 30-yards out and crashed a swerving drive into the top corner in the third minute of injury-time to give Pompey hope in their fight against the drop.
"If we didn't win today we were dead and buried. It has given the players a lift and the fans a lift.
"It's going to be hard but you can only keep going and what today's result has done is keep us in there.
"It was no more than Pedro Mendes deserved because he was fantastic today.
"He hits balls like that in training. He's been doing it all week and we said 'save one for Saturday Pedro', well he saved two!"
"We lacked a cutting edge up front and it cost us.
"We could have been a lot more cute. The game finished up end to end because both teams wanted the three points but we should have changed our formation a bit.
"The goals we conceded I don't think my defenders could do anything about it. The lad finished well although we might have challenged better outside the area."
Portsmouth: Kiely, Priske, Primus, O'Brien, Taylor, O'Neil, Pedro Mendes, Davis (Routledge 88), D'Alessandro, LuaLua, Mwaruwari (Todorov 63).
Subs Not Used: Ashdown, Karadas, Koroman.
Goals: Pedro Mendes 60, 90.
Man City: James, Jihai, Dunne, Richards, Jordan (Ireland 75), Sinclair (Croft 45), Reyna (Wright-Phillips 69), Barton, Musampa, Vassell, Samaras.
Subs Not Used: Weaver, Thatcher. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19479365 | Researchers have shown off a "magic carpet" that can detect falls and may even predict mobility problems.
Beneath the carpet is a mesh of optical fibres that detect and plot movement as pressure bends them, changing the light detected at the carpet's edges.
These deflected light patterns help electronics "learn" walking patterns and detect if they are deteriorating, for instance in the elderly.
The carpet was demonstrated at the Photon12 conference in Durham, UK.
The optical fibre network at the heart of the effort makes use of the same types of fibres that transmit data to homes and across oceans, in which light bounces along the fibres' length.
To make them sensitive to the deflection caused by pressure, the researchers carved grooves in the fibres along their length so that the bouncing of the light was less efficient at the point where pressure was applied.
Detectors at the carpet's edge convert the light into electrical signals which are then analysed by a computer. That analysis borrows heavily from technology developed at the university for use with medical scanners.
The developers of the network, based at the University of Manchester in the UK, see its primary use in care homes or hospital wards, to raise an immediate alarm in the case of a fall.
The fibres can be easily retro-fitted beneath existing carpet, and future applications could stretch to private homes as well.
The researchers' aim is to address the significant number of falls experienced by the elderly; it is a leading cause of mortality among over-70s and falls cost the NHS millions each day.
They believe their system can be used to build up a profile of movement patterns for given individuals, so that any deterioration in mobility can be monitored and possibly used as an early warning system for falls.
"Falls are a really important problem for our ageing society," said Chris Todd, professor of of primary care and community health at the university's department of nursing.
"More than a third of older people fall each year, and in nursing and residential homes it is much more common than that.
"So being able to identify changes in people's walking patterns and gait in the natural environment, such as in a corridor in a nursing home, could really help us identity problems earlier on." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7066886.stm | US forces have handed control of the mainly Shia province of Karbala in central Iraq to local authorities in a tightly-guarded ceremony.
Karbala is the eighth of 18 provinces to be transferred to local control since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The handover took place as at least 27 people died in a suicide bomb attack on a police headquarters in Baquba.
Brig Gen Jeffrey Dorko was also wounded in Iraq on Monday - the highest-ranking US soldier to be hurt in the Iraq war.
Gen Dorko, commanding general of the Gulf Region Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers, was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in northern Baghdad, the US military said.
His wounds were not life threatening and he was in stable condition.
Speaking at the handover ceremony in a sports stadium in the city of Karbala, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said the country had been slow to rebuild its security forces.
"Allow me to say that we are late, very late, to reconstruct, to rebuild our forces for reasons that I do not want to mention here," he said.
But he said this year would be the year of Iraqi security while next year the focus would turn more towards reconstruction.
The BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says that despite the handover the situation in Karbala is far from perfect, with more than 50 people killed in August in clashes between Shia militias and the police.
At least 20 people were hurt in the Baquba attack. Most victims were police recruits.
Correspondents say the attack bears the hallmarks of the al-Qaeda in Iraq militants, who often target recruits.
Police said the bomber had arrived at the scene on a bicycle dressed in civilian clothes concealing a suicide belt.
The police headquarters is in a residential area, and it is thought he was able to get through checkpoints because he had been able to pass for a local resident on his way home.
He blew himself up as recruits waited to begin the day's training session.
A witness told Reuters news agency he saw a cyclist slip through a gap in the compound's concrete fence shortly before the explosion.
"I saw many bodies covered in blood . Some were dying, some had arms and legs blown off," said shopkeeper Ali Shahine.
A doctor at the local hospital told the Associated Press news agency that most victims were struck by iron balls packed with explosives to achieve maximum casualties.
Seven of the wounded were in critical condition and unlikely to survive, he added.
Baquba is the capital of Diyala province, where some local tribes have recently joined US and Iraqi forces to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.
On Sunday, 11 tribal leaders from Diyala province were kidnapped while returning from Baghdad.
Baquba's chief of police was killed in a suicide attack last month in a mosque compound during reconciliation talks between Sunni and Shia groups.
But our correspondent says levels of violence have generally been falling since a US troop surge began in February. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-11772262 | More than 100 homes have been evacuated after floods and gale-force winds caused disruption across Cornwall.
People were trapped in their cars and homes by the rising floodwaters, which reached up to 6ft (2m) deep in places.
St Blazey, St Austell, Mevagissey and Lostwithiel were the worst hit areas. The Environment Agency warned further floods were possible overnight.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the government would do all it could to help those affected.
Police said there had been no reports of serious injuries.
The Environment Agency said heavy localised showers were forecast which would bring a risk of further flooding.
There is a flood warning in place on the River Fowey in Cornwall and flood watches on four other rivers in the county.
A spokesman said: "We are monitoring the situation closely.
"Our teams are on the ground clearing debris from rivers and grates, checking flood defences and assisting emergency services."
An old bridge in Lostwithiel remains closed to both traffic and pedestrians as engineers prepare to examine it for damage caused by debris.
They fear a high tide at 0300 GMT on Thursday could cause more debris to be swept into the bridge.
Barry Green, 46, the owner of a bakery in the town, said the flooding had "pretty much destroyed" his shop.
He was working when water spilled into the premises early in the morning.
"It all kicked off at about 5.15am when I heard a bubbling outside in the drains," he said.
"I was up at 3am and everything was fine. I had to quickly get the stock high up off the floor and call the flood lines to let them know we had a problem.
"Within three or four minutes it was knee high.
"One minute it was just lapping at the front door with no problem and I was just lifting a few boxes then I opened the front door and it just came pouring through. The speed of it was very, very surprising."
One woman in Lostwithiel said her car was swept 80ft to 100ft (25m to 30m) away from her home and was left wedged in a pile of rubble down the road.
Another Lostwithiel resident, Derek Baynton, told BBC News: "When I looked out of my window an hour ago I feared a Boscastle-type situation.
"The worst of the rain is over, but the water's still flowing down Quay Street in both directions."
Cornwall-based international aid charity ShelterBox sent blankets to the emergency shelter in Polkyth, the first time it has delivered aid in the county.
Tony Lay, from ShelterBox, said: "Flooding is flooding and it happens all around the world.
"For affected families it is the same, whether you are in Cornwall or in Africa.
"You lose all your personal belongings and it is shocking."
Cornwall Council Leader Alec Robertson said he had spoken to the prime minister on the telephone earlier who had expressed his sympathy and offered government help.
All the county's main trunk roads and travel routes have been affected by the bad weather.
The A30 was closed across Bodmin Moor after a lorry shed its load but has now reopened.
The A38 at Glynn Valley has reopened after being closed in both directions for several hours.
Rail services have also been disrupted.
The mainline track between Penzance and London Paddington was closed for several hours.
The Newquay to Par branch line remains closed due to a storage tanker which has washed down on to the railway track and subsidence under the lines.
Schools around the county did not open.
The Eden Project, which was hit by 3ft (1m) of floodwater in places, said it was expecting to be closed for at least a week.
Chief Executive Tim Smit said: "The heavens opened and, in a period of about 40 minutes, there was a deluge.
"We need to dry everything, we'll need to probably get rid of a lot of stuff and the clean up is going to be horrendous." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4358981.stm | NHS services are insufficient on their own to discourage people from smoking, a study says.
The British Medical Journal research instead calls for stricter measures, including a complete smoking ban and targets to narrow inequality gaps.
Using Northumberland and Tyne and Wear data, the study said NHS services on their own were not enough to meet national smoking reduction targets.
But the government said it was using other measures to help people quit.
Ministers have set a target of reducing smoking prevalence from 26% to 21% by 2010.
The study predicted the NHS smoking services would contribute less than 1% towards this as they had only helped to cut smoking by 0.1% to 0.3% in 2003-4 in the area surveyed.
There are 170 individual stop smoking services across the country offering one-on-one counselling and group therapy.
The clinics also offer nicotine replacement therapy to try to help people give up.
Report author Dr Eugene Milne, deputy medical director at Northumberland Tyne and Wear Strategic Health Authority, said smoking cessation clinics were "not enough on their own".
He favours individual cities, such as Liverpool, introducing complete smoking bans.
The government proposed a smoking ban in its Public Health White Paper last year but exempted pubs which do not serve food.
Dr Milne also said he was disappointed the national target failed to encourage a narrowing of the gap between poor and rich areas.
In the north east, a third of men and a quarter of women smoke - above the national average.
"Against this background, it is disturbing that the smoking prevalence targets do not propose a narrowing of the inequalities gap," he said.
Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, said smoking cessation clinics were a "step in the right direction" but not all people wanted to use such services.
Amanda Sandford, research manager at anti-smoking campaign group Ash, said: "We need a comprehensive ban on smoking in all workplaces and not the half-hearted policy that is currently being proposed."
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: "The ineffectiveness of current smoking cessation services is a serious concern for the nation's public health and means poor value for taxpayer's money."
A Department of Health spokeswoman said there were one million fewer smokers than six years ago and the government was on track to meet the 2010 target.
She added measures had or were going to be introduced to limit smoking by other means, including a smoking ban, restrictions on advertising and health warnings on cigarette packs.
And on health inequalities, she said more money was being given to primary care trusts, which are currently drawing up plans to improve public health in the most disadvantaged areas. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47760355 | The Rolling Stones have postponed their tour of the US and Canada because Mick Jagger has fallen ill.
In a statement, the band said that doctors had advised Jagger not to tour because he needs to receive medical treatment.
The 17-concert tour was due to kick off in Miami on 20 April, before travelling across North America until a finale in Oro-Medonte, Canada on 29 June.
Jagger, 75, apologised directly to fans on Instagram and Twitter.
"I really hate letting you down like this," he wrote. "I'm devastated for having to postpone the tour but I will be working very hard to be back on stage as soon as I can."
In a statement to Rolling Stone magazine, the band's publicist said Jagger was "expected to make a complete recovery, so that he can get back on stage as soon as possible".
They did not give any details about his illness.
The band's No Filter world tour officially started in September 2017 with a concert in Hamburg, Germany.
They then toured venues across Europe and the UK through the rest of 2017 and 2018, before announcing the US and Canada leg in November 2018.
Tour promoters AEG Presents/Concerts West are telling fans to hold on to their tickets, as they will still be valid at the rescheduled concerts.
The long-awaited report clears President Trump of collusion but his opponents keep the heat up. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-leeds-47324539 | A designer clothes store in Leeds was targeted in a ram raid last night.
Two cars arrived outside the Hugo Boss store on Vicar Lane at about 20:00.
The suspects used bolt cutters to cut the locks, then a black Nissan Navara was driven into the glass.
After filling builder's bags with clothing the suspects fled the scene in the Nissan with a registration plate of X55KUN and a silver Ford Fiesta with a registration plate of YH07EBU.
Officers are keen to hear from any witnesses or anyone with footage of the incident.
Headingley hosts its first Super League action of 2019 with tonight's West Yorkshire derby between Leeds Rhinos and Wakefield Trinity.
It'll be the first Super League game played in front of the fully-opened South Stand, with 1,000 fans also in part of the rebuilt North Stand.
Rhinos head coach David Furner says the redeveloped stadium will add to the occasion.
"Just playing for the crowd here has always been quite special for me as a player, but as a coach seeing the player run out in a packed stadium will be great," he says.
This is the final weekend to see the knife angel sculpture in Queens Gardens.
The sculpture is made from more than 100,000 knives donated to the Ironworks, collected through police force surrender campaigns across the country.
It stands at 27 ft tall and is a symbol against violence and aggression, and a memorial to those who have lost their lives to knife crime.
PC Christian Sewell said: "While the sculpture has been in Hull, we rolled out our school programme as part of the #NoMoreKnives campaign to educate children of the dangers of knife crime.
"The more young people that are aware of the dangers the more we can prevent young people losing their lives in knife crime."
The piece will be moved from the city on 4 March.
Police have closed York Road going outbound due to a serious accident.
The incident is nearby Seacroft Hospital.
South Yorkshire Police made a Class A find today - with the help of a four-legged friend.
Sheffield has been awarded £715,000 to create a new training hub to help tackle a skills shortage in the construction industry.
The cash has come from the Department for Education's Construction Skills Fund and is aiming to train up to 650 people.
It is due to be open fully on Friday 29 March.
Police are investigating a security alert in Hull that resulted in two schools being evacuated this morning.
Officers are looking into the origin of a phone call relating to Sirius Academy West and Ganton School.
Humberside Police searched both buildings and their grounds but say they haven't found anything suspicious.
A man and a bus were involved in a serious collision on Burley Road this afternoon.
The incident happened about 13:50.
A man was taken to hospital, where he is conscious and breathing.
Emergency services are at the scene and have cordoned off the road near Burley Bottom Park.
Thieves have stolen tandem bikes from a charity in West Yorkshire which helps blind and disabled people get access to the countryside.
The Open Country charity, which has a site in Wakefield, was targeted by thieves who stole four of its eight bikes on Tuesday night.
The thieves "used effort" to get into the Thornes Park base and steal the blue Orbit Routier or Velocity bikes, which all had serial numbers.
The charity's organisers fear the bikes may be offered for sale online.
All the bikes are less than 14 months old and the charity said one of the bikes had only been picked up two weeks ago.
Ella Dixon, who runs the Wakefield project, said the bikes were used to help people who may be blind, while others have physical or mental disabilities meaning they can't ride a bike alone.
The Harrogate-based charity runs five tandem clubs across Yorkshire and said that in 2018 all their rides together totalled over 24,500 miles.
An injured grey seal left stranded on the top of a 10ft high World War Two pillbox on a beach has been rescued by the RSPCA in East Yorkshire.
The incident at Fraisthorpe was called in by a concerned passerby, who reported that the seal was unable to get down on his own and had been stuck there for over 24 hours.
The RSPCA was approached for help by Scarborough Sea Life Centre on Tuesday.
Animal Collection Officer Leanne Honess-Heather Hone said: "The poor seal was clearly distressed and we could see he had injured his eye.
"Luckily we managed to get him down safely and he was soon on his way to Scarborough Sea Life Centre.
"The seal's eye had sustained some trauma and was slightly infected, so he received some veterinary treatment."
The seal was released back into the wild on Wednesday.
An historic East Yorkshire mill is to be given a new lease of life after it was awarded a £724,000 lottery grant.
Hessle Whiting Mill, tucked behind the Humber Bridge, will be reopened with new displays looking into its history.
There will also be improved access created to the Humber Bridge Country Park.
The council will cover the remainder of the £968,869 scheme.
Councillor Stephen Parnaby said: "The project will unlock the tourism potential of this beautiful nature reserve by investing in the country park's heritage assets."
The work will begin in summer, with completion expected in the autumn.
Have you seen Caroline Hartshorn? Concerns are growing for her welfare after she was reported missing in Rotherham.
The 45-year-old is believed to have left her home on Mulberry Road at about 21:30 last night.
She doesn't own a mobile phone or form of transport, according to police.
Officers are urging anyone with information about her whereabouts to get in touch.
A teenage boy has been arrested in connection with the death of a man in Bradford last week.
Officers were called to Jinnah Court near the city centre just after 03:50 on Saturday following reports a man was lying injured in the road.
Paul Ackroyd, 37, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested on Wednesday and remains in police custody.
Three people arrested earlier on suspicion of murder have since been released on bail for enquiries to continue, police say.
A fourth person arrested has been released without charge, the force adds.
Jack Laugher, from North Yorkshire, and Dan Goodfellow have taken the men's synchronised 3m springboard bronze in Japan at the first World Series event of the year.
Laugher, from Ripon, has teamed up with Goodfellow after his usual partner, Chris Mears, made the decision to take a year out.
They were second going into the final round, but Mexico's Jahir Ocampo and Rommel Pacheco won silver as China's Xie Siyi and Cao Yuan claimed the gold. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10340759 | A Berkshire motorist interested in green issues has said his trial of a new electric car was "a success".
Peter McManners, from Pangbourne, has been driving the Oxford-built Mini E car to test the electric car's suitability to everyday motoring.
He was one of 20 drivers in the trial, run by a consortium led by the car's manufacturer BMW.
Mr McManners said: "I've enjoyed having it but we've had to fit around its limitations, like its lack of range."
The left-hand drive, two-seater prototype is like a conventional Mini car, but its rear seats have been removed to make room for lithium-ion batteries.
Mr McMannners said he found the lack of rear seats a problem, as he has children.
The car can be charged by a 32-amp charger at a cost of around £1.50, and can run for approximately 100 miles (161km).
The trial was only open to motorists in a specific geographical area between Andover, West London and Oxford. It cost £330 a month to lease the car.
Project leader Suzanne Gray from BMW said: "We're learning not just about electric vehicles but about product development, developing and managing the electricity grid and a charging infrastructure for vehicles."
Data collected from the trial will be analysed by Oxford Brookes University's Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre.
The electric-powered Mini car is likely to go into general production in 2013.
What is it like to live with an electric car? |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13465656 | More than 850 people have been injured in a train crash during Thursday's evening rush hour in the South African township of Soweto in Johannesburg, the train operator Metrorail has said.
A commuter train hit a stationary one from behind, the force of which threw some passengers through windows.
Three of the casualties were in a critical condition, officials said.
Correspondents say most of the injured were treated at the scene, in one of the biggest rail incidents for years.
According to the authorities, 25 of the injured are still in hospital.
South Africa's Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred at 1750 local time (1550 GMT).
Local television news pictures showed casualties being treated at the scene by medics - some of them tended to by torchlight.
Metrorail, which is responsible for running the trains and is heading the salvage operation, told the BBC that 857 people had been injured in the accident.
Medical rescue official Jeff Wicks told the Sapa news agency there had been "chaos" at the scene.
"We had people who were sprayed 200m around the trains... on arrival, paramedics found passengers from both trains lying on the track," he said.
According to Pretoria News, people lay groaning in the dark, with some waiting more than an hour before being transported to hospital.
Synock Matobako, a spokesman for the emergency services, said they had had to request more ambulances because of the number of casualties.
"This is the biggest incident in recent years, even though no-one has died. People sustained serious multiple injuries."
Evason Mogomotsi told the BBC he was dozing on the train and woke up when it crashed.
"After the crash, people started screaming and many were trying to get out of the train," he said.
"There was also a rumour that the other train had caught on fire so people were trying to escape.
"Some people were even trying to stand on the people who had fallen in order to get out of the train."
Another passenger, Gladwell Ntusi, said some people jumped out of the windows.
"It was horrible, I saw people with broken legs, others had cracked their temples. It was not a nice scene," he told reporters.
The Metrorail train had been travelling between Mzimhlophe and Phomolong in Soweto.
More than two million passengers travel daily on South Africa's commuter trains. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1855336.stm | The trial of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic has been postponed after a fire broke out in a kitchen at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The building was evacuated after smoke started billowing from a cafeteria on the second floor, just 20 minutes before Mr Milosevic's trial was due to resume.
Tribunal spokesman Jim Landale said the proceedings against the former Yugoslav leader would be postponed until Wednesday.
Mr Milosevic has been taken back to the tribunal's detention centre in Scheveningen, according to one of his lawyers.
Correspondents say that although firefighters have managed to extinguish the blaze, the building remains engulfed by thick smoke.
It is unclear whether any other hearings will take place today, although officials said they hoped some could resume in the afternoon.
Mr Milosevic has been on trial at The Hague for the past three weeks, accused of 66 counts of war crimes during the conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.
The trial is seen as the most important of its kind since 22 Nazis went on trial after World War II.
Despite the fact that Mr Milosevic says he does not accept the legitimacy of the court, he has so far appeared well prepared for his appearances, and has managed some skilful cross-examinations of witnesses. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-47643386 | A driver who took a selfie after causing a crash that left a woman seriously injured has been jailed for two years.
Connor Young, 21, crashed his car into Barry and Jennifer Fleming's Audi TT near Falkirk.
Young photographed himself in the driver's seat of his vehicle following the collision.
He was previously found guilty by a jury of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
Sheriff Simon Collins said it was "doubtful at best" that the Flemings would ever fully recover, and Mrs Fleming's injuries were "life changing".
Mrs Fleming, 48, who now uses a wheelchair, sustained multiple injuries, including a compound fracture of the right ankle, and may still face an operation to amputate her right leg.
Her husband Barry, 40, sustained a fractured sternum, collapsed lung, and injuries to his knee and shoulder.
A trial at Stirling Sheriff Court was told the incident took place on the single-carriageway A803 close to the Falkirk Wheel in June 2017 as the couple headed back to Glasgow after a summer evening's drive.
The jury was told Young, of Bonnybridge, Stirlingshire, swung out to overtake near a bridge, crossing double-white lines.
Mr Fleming said Young's car had appeared in front of him on the wrong side of the road.
Mr Fleming said he managed to get out, and pulled his wife's door open.
Mr Fleming said he looked over to where Young was sitting in his Renault Clio, holding his phone in front of his face.
Sheriff Collins said: "It is surprising, perhaps extremely fortunate, that no-one was killed." |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-43181269 | Wales rugby legend Shane Williams will appear in court next month after being charged with affray.
Wales' all-time leading try-scorer is one of six men facing the charge, relating to an alleged incident in Cardiff city centre.
South Wales Police said: "Six men have been charged with affray following an incident on Great Western Lane, Cardiff, on 2 December 2017."
The men will appear at Cardiff Magistrates' Court on 9 March.
South Wales Police said the other men who have been charged were aged 26, 32, 37, 42 and 53.
Former wing Mr Williams, 40, who also went on three tours with the British and Irish Lions, now works as a TV pundit. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47266604 | The Munich Security Conference is celebrating its 55th birthday. Long a fixture on the security conference circuit, it takes place in the rather dated grandeur of the Bayerischer Hof Hotel. While Russian and Chinese spokesmen attend, it is essentially a forum for Europeans and Americans to renew their security vows.
In the press centre along with the cold drinks, newspapers, worthy reports and so on, there are some small boxes containing a jigsaw puzzle.
A rather dull picture of the conference hall is broken up into 55 pieces for 55 years for anyone who wishes some distraction from the speeches.
The puzzle is perhaps an unintended metaphor for the state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).
It is beset by problems; something which the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on probably her last visit here while in office, made abundantly clear.
Can Nato survive President Donald Trump?
With a deadline fast approaching for the US Department of Commerce to submit a report on proposed tariffs against imported cars, Mrs Merkel said such a prospect was frightening. She called for proper talks on the matter.
The US report is being drafted in the light of legislation that allows for the provision of tariffs against goods that might be a threat to US national security.
The German chancellor was blunt. She noted, for example, that BMW's largest plant was actually in the US state of South Carolina, from where many of the vehicles were exported to China.
Is this really a threat to US security, she asked, rhetorically adding: "It's a bit of a shock to us!"
But the tariff battle is just one of a raft of issues here in Munich that are causing tensions between the Trump administration and its European allies.
Mrs Merkel questioned if now was the right time to be thinking about pulling troops out of Syria as President Trump proposes to do once the battle against the Islamic State group is won.
She disagreed with the Trump administration's efforts to pull the plug on the nuclear agreement with Iran, asking whether this really was the best way to deal with its negative behaviour in the region.
And she expressed disappointment about the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. She accepted that after "years of violations" by the Russians there was probably no alternative.
But many here feel that this is a treaty with huge significance for the Europeans, who have really had no say about its demise.
Next up was US Vice-President Mike Pence, who attempted to build a convincing case for President Trump as the leader who was galvanising the western alliance to face new challenges.
For a time he seemed to be presenting the "glass half-full" case; praising, for example, increased defence spending among many European Nato countries. But inevitably he returned to the issues that divide many European capitals from Washington.
Just as in his recent Warsaw speech, he condemned the EU once again for seeking, in his view, to undermine sanctions against Iran. He urged the Europeans to walk away from the nuclear agreement with Tehran.
He criticised those Europeans who are still going ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia that bypasses Ukraine. Implicitly, his sights were on Germany.
How different then when the veteran Democratic politician and former Vice-President Joe Biden came to the podium.
He was introduced by an almost gushing Nicholas Burns - the former senior US diplomat (and no supporter of Mr Trump) - who mused (to rapturous applause) on how nice it would be if the US had a leader who, "rather than embracing Kim Jong-un or Victor Orban would have embraced our true friend Angela Merkel".
Listening to Mr Biden's speech, I searched for hints as to whether he would make a run for the White House. He was certainly a candidate for many people in the room.
In a blunt reference to President Trump, he said: "Leadership in the absence of people who are with you is not leadership." He spoke of a "struggle for America's soul".
The majority of Americans wanted the US to take an active role in world affairs, he insisted. "This too shall pass," he asserted, "We will be back."
Was that the hint? Mr Biden is not going to announce his presidential bid in Munich, but if the applause was anything to go by, he would clearly be the Europeans' favourite over Mr Trump.
But the fact is that the current president is in office for two and possibly six more years.
He has altered the landscape of the trans-Atlantic relationship at a time when the institutions of the liberal international order (of which Nato and the EU are key building blocks) are facing new challenges both from within and from outside.
There are, if you like, two Americas here in Munich represented by the current and former vice-presidents. The Europeans are nostalgic for one and remain deeply uncomfortable with the other.
US defence review: Is Trump risking a new arms race?
Can Trump's Syria policy end the 'Forever Wars'?
Why is Germany beefing up its military? |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2415169.stm | Residents are warning of possible vigilante attacks against students living in the West End area of Lincoln.
Locals say there is a growing sense of frustration in the community about the student population, which many residents blame for a rise in litter and noise.
It is also claimed that a number of landlords have been undermining the area's sense of community by renting properties exclusively to students.
But a spokesman for the University has condemned suggestions of vigilantism, calling them irresponsible.
Trudie Farrely, chair of the West End Residents' Association, said: "These people are getting angry and are talking about vigilantes.
"Now we don't want that, do we? We don't want people to get hurt.
"There is nothing worse, if you are tired, you don't get your sleep and you're not earning your money."
But Jed Ashbury, a spokesman from the University of Lincoln, said students were being used as a scapegoat.
"I certainly think that would be a bad idea, it should be discouraged.
"I don't know of any problems in the West End, of tensions between students and locals.
"I live in the West End and I have never come across these problems."
The West End Association is calling for student housing to be capped and the university to join forces with the city council to construct student housing. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8616845.stm | The controller of Radio 4 and Radio 7, Mark Damazer, is to leave the BBC to become head of St Peter's College at Oxford University.
He said he will have had the post for six years and there was no other big broadcasting job that appealed to him.
He joined the BBC World Service in 1981 as a current affairs producer before going on to become deputy director of news in 2001, then controller in 2004.
Mr Damazer is due to take up his new post in October.
Radio 4 was named UK station of the year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2008.
Mr Damazer studied at Cambridge where he attained a double-starred first in history. He was also awarded the Harkness Fellowship at Harvard University. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8010352.stm | Euro MPs have voted overwhelmingly to cut the cost of texting and using the internet on mobiles abroad.
The cap for a "roaming" text will fall to 11 euro cents (10p; 14 US cents), from about 29 cents on average today.
The EU-wide caps, excluding VAT, will take effect in July. They cover text messages and data roaming services, such as checking e-mails while abroad.
The current price cap of 46 euro cents per minute for an outgoing voice call will also fall to 43 cents in July.
The legislation was passed by 646 votes in favour and 22 against. It has already been approved by EU telecoms ministers.
It is aimed at preventing "bill shock" - the nasty surprise many holidaymakers get when they return home and see how much they were charged for using their mobile phone abroad.
The BBC's Dominic Hughes in Strasbourg says one customer was hit with a bill of more than 46,000 euros (£41,000; $60,000) for downloading a single episode of a television show.
The cap on voice calls received abroad will fall from 22 cents today to 19 cents in July and 11 cents by July 2011.
In the first phase of the EU's mobile roaming legislation, the cost of voice calls was cut from 1 July 2007. The average cost of a roaming call before then was 1.15 euros per minute.
At the time phone companies were told that legislation on texting and downloading data would follow unless they lowered costs voluntarily.
Yet there were some warnings on Wednesday that mobile phone firms might compensate by increasing their profits from domestic users - who are likely to be less well-off.
"The danger is this could turn into a vote where the mobile firms are encouraged to steal from the poor in order to subsidise the rich," Conservative MEP Syed Kamall told the BBC.
The idea is not to fix an EU-wide price, but to set a cap below which telecoms firms can compete by offering lower prices while still earning a reasonable return.
The cost of data roaming services is also coming down. These include downloading and sending e-mails abroad from mobile phones.
The maximum from 1 July is set at 1 euro per megabyte, compared with an average of 1.68 euros today. It will fall to 50 euro cents by July 2011.
The price caps are for the rates that the foreign "host" operator charges the customer's home operator.
The initial proposals to cap data roaming charges were made by EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding.
Last November the package of measures won the backing of EU telecoms ministers.
According to Commissioner Reding, traffic jumped 30-35% on voice calls after the EU cut the roaming charges by 50-60%.
"We want finally to get rid of the punishment on your telephone bill when you are crossing a border," she told the BBC's Chris Mason.
"You should be welcome when you cross a border and communicate freely without feeling the surcharge on your bill, and that is why the decision of today for the European citizens is a very important one."
She said the cost of sending text messages would drop by 60%. "So I believe most of the young people will be happy, because when they are going outside their country of origin they are the big text message users."
GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, criticised the MEPs' vote on Wednesday.
"Price regulation is the most intrusive form of market intervention and we regret that EU legislators have decided to extend the duration and scope of the Roaming Regulation, even as they recognise that price regulation of roaming services should be 'exceptional and temporary'," a GSMA statement said.
"We believe that detailed price regulation of the roaming market is not the way forward," said Martin Whitehead, director of GSMA Europe. "Competition has driven down the prices of mobile services by 34.5% over the last five years in Europe." |
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-38237596/yemen-s-starving-children | Yemen in grip of cholera outbreak Jump to media player The UN says it is seriously concerned about a "significant outbreak" of cholera in war-torn Yemen.
More than 7,000 people have been killed in Yemen's war and three million people have been forced to flee their homes.
The UN estimates 14 million are at risk of hunger with half of those on the brink of famine.
Fergal Keane's report contains distressing images. |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/december/15/default.stm | The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, resigns after an email implicates him in using his position to grant favours to his ex-lover.
The British and Irish prime ministers John Major and Albert Reynolds sign the historic Joint Declaration for Peace on the steps of Downing street.
Scenes of jubilation as the gates isolating the people of Gibraltar from Spain are to opened for the first time in 13 years.
Former 800m Commonwealth gold-medallist Diane Modahl is found guilty of taking a banned drug - but is cleared a year later on appeal.
Drivers must adhere to reduced speed limits from midnight tonight as the government tries to save fuel.
British stars of the big screen take part in a fund-raising football match for the family of America actor Bonar Colleano, killed in a car crash earlier this year. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-33794411 | A giant offshore wind farm that could provide power for up to two million homes has been given the go-ahead by the government.
Dogger Bank Teesside A and B would feature 400 turbines, with power cables coming onshore near Redcar to connect with the National Grid at Lackonby.
Developers, the Forewind consortium, said it could create almost 5,000 jobs during construction.
Once fully operational, it would power up to two million homes.
Forewind is made up of four international energy companies - RWE, SSE, Statkraft and Statoil - which joined forces to bid successfully to develop the Dogger Bank zone.
Together, they will form one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world.
General manager Tarald Gjerde said it would create "significant economic benefits".
The National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations said Dogger Bank was an important site for fishing.
Dale Rodmell, assistant chief executive, said: "Our main concern is ensuring as far as possible that fisheries can co-exist with wind farm sites."
Forewind said environmental assessments had been carried out and measures would be taken to mitigate any impact. |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-47700504/breast-ironing-i-remember-screaming-a-lot | 'FGM and male circumcision aren't the same' Jump to media player Nimco Ali wants to educate people about the risks and the violent reality of FGM, which she survived.
'FGM conviction will act as deterrent' Jump to media player Campaigner Aneeta Prem speaks about the first female genital mutilation (FGM) conviction.
Comfort never understood why she underwent the agonising pain of breast ironing as a child, she says, at the hands of her sister.
The traditional practice, which seeks to delay girls' development, has been declared a form of child abuse in the UK.
The ruling comes after evidence it is being practiced in this country by some members of African communities.
Comfort, who is originally from Nigeria but now lives in Essex, tells her story to help other girls.
Came Women and Girls Development Organisation offers more information on breast ironing. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-12082945 | Extra bin collection points have opened in Wirral because of the continuing icy conditions.
The council opened six sites last week following the suspension of bin collection services.
The sites were in Heswall, New Ferry, Brombourgh, Leasowe Common, West Kirby and Pensby.
Another four at Birkenhead, Greasby, Woodchurch and Liscard have now been added to that list. The sites will be open until Wednesday.
Householders can drop off waste from all types of bins.
Councillor Lesley Rennie, cabinet member for streetscene and transport services at Wirral Council, said: "We are doing everything we can to collect and dispose of people's rubbish but the extreme weather conditions are not letting up and we need people to work with us to get this sorted." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6295395.stm | For the first time, a drumlin - a mound of sediment and rock - has been observed mid-formation.
The streamlined, elongated hills form underneath ice-sheets as they scrape up material as they move.
While many relic drumlins are well known features in once ice-covered areas, this is the first time an active one has been observed.
It was found under the ice in Antarctica, a team reported in the journal Geology.
The scientists believe it will help shed light on ice-sheet behaviour.
The Rutford Ice Stream, a 2km (1.2 mile) thick, fast flowing ice stream, which drains part of the West Antarctic ice sheet into the sea, creating huge floating ice shelves, was the location of the discovery.
The team surveyed the area three times over a period of 13 years, between 1991 and 2004.
"We went from this feature not being there, to suddenly, bam, this big mound had risen from the sea-bed. This was a really big surprise," explained Professor Tavi Murray, a glaciologist from Swansea University and one of the authors on the study.
"People think of glaciated landscapes as representing thousands or tens of thousands of years of time; then suddenly here we have this thing that is the size of a large warehouse popping up in this very short period."
The drumlin, which is still growing, now measures about 10m (33ft) high, 100m (330ft) wide and 1km (0.6 miles) long, and is growing 10 times faster than had been expected.
The speed of its growth has altered the scientists' perceptions of past drumlin formation.
"There are a quite a lot of these features around the world; you may have seen them in the Pennines or in the Yorkshire Dales. These were deposited during the last ice age and are relics in our landscape.
"But instead of representing what the ice was doing over a really long time-scale formation, they are really brief snap-shots of what has happened in the past.
"The bed underneath these ice streams must be changing really rapidly, much more rapidly than we thought before."
The drumlin could also help glaciologists to understand how fast flowing ice streams respond to a changing climate and changes in sea level.
"The ice streams in Antarctica control how much ice is stored in the ice sheet," explained Professor Murray.
"If you can change the speed at which the ice is moving through them, then, basically, you have more or less ice kept in Antarctica - they are the volume regulators.
"The results show us that the bed of a fast flowing ice stream can change rapidly.
"So the response of the whole ice sheet to changes of sea level or climate could be faster, because the beds of these ice stream can be changed much faster than we have previously thought possible." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7992783.stm | The officer captured on video apparently pushing a man during the G20 protests in London has been suspended, police have said.
Ian Tomlinson, 47, died from a heart attack minutes after the incident on 1 April, near the Bank of England.
The Metropolitan Police suspended the officer after the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) called for that action to be taken.
The IPCC has launched a criminal investigation into the death.
It has yet to interview the officer involved but said it intends to "as soon as possible".
Additional footage broadcast by Channel 4 News appeared to show an officer hitting Mr Tomlinson with a baton.
IPCC chairman Nick Hardwick has rejected suggestions that the police were not co-operating with the investigation.
He told Channel 4 News: "The police, both forces, have given us the information that they have available when we asked them for that. It's not true that they haven't co-operated with us."
Mr Hardwick said the City of London police were used to gather evidence and added that involving them in the investigation was the right thing to do.
He said: "This is now a criminal investigation for which someone may face very serious charges.
"The decision we took meant that we are now in the best possible position to bring that prosecution successfully if we need to do that."
An earlier statement from the IPCC said: "The IPCC called for the officer to be suspended. The MPS has now informed us that the officer has been suspended with immediate effect."
"Although decisions about suspension are a matter for the Chief Officer of the police, when there is an IPCC investigation, the police are obliged to consult with us over the suspension of officers.
"In this case, we have expressed the view that the officer in question should be suspended from duty, in the public interest."
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "In order to maintain public trust in the police handling of public order events, a Metropolitan Police territorial support group police constable has been suspended, effective immediately, in relation to the IPCC investigation into the death of Ian Tomlinson.
"Although the Metropolitan Police consulted with the IPCC, the decision was taken independently by the Metropolitan Police having considered all the circumstances."
Meanwhile, protester Safiullah Ghauri, 24, has told the BBC that he saw Mr Tomlinson lying on the ground in Threadneedle Street moments after he had collapsed.
He said: "I appealed to everyone to call the police paramedics... When they came some of the protesters tried to stop the ambulance coming through.
"They stood in front of it and I pushed one or two of them away and shouted at them to try to clear a way through.
"Some of the protesters were getting out of hand."
He said he thought some of the protesters' mistrust of the emergency services was a result of police behaviour during the demonstrations.
Mr Ghauri, from Hayes in Middlesex, said he left a message for the IPCC but heard nothing back.
The IPCC began an independent criminal probe on Wednesday after the first video footage of Mr Tomlinson being shoved to the ground emerged.
It has ordered a second post-mortem examination as part of the inquiry.
On Thursday the Met acknowledged Mr Tomlinson came "into contact with police" before he died.
Initially the force said it was unaware he had sustained the alleged assault and said its officers' first contact with him was when they gave him medical aid before he died.
But it denied trying to "cover up" the incident.
Some activists who participated in the demonstrations during the G20 meeting are expected to march from Bethnal Green police station on Saturday to the spot where Mr Tomlinson collapsed. |
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11979386 | Sajeed (not his real name), a development worker in Kandahar city, describes the challenges of daily life in the Taliban stronghold. The Taliban limit their operations in the winter and some aid activities resume - along with the hope that the new year will bring a new beginning.
"After a long time people in Kandahar city are feeling relatively safe. There haven't been any major security incidents. You can see more people busy with various social activities. I know people who left for Kabul a while ago fleeing an anticipated military offensive - they've returned to their homes.
The areas in the city known to have a permanent presence of insurgents seem to be clear of them now - only rarely are they seen patrolling them.
This is not because they've been defeated by the coalition forces. Insurgents usually withdraw during the cold season and limit their operations while of course constantly looking out for any opportunities to create instability.
In the meantime, development activities have almost restarted. Donor agencies were waiting for the US to announce the deadline for withdrawal of troops. Now that they know that's going to be in 2014, they are more confident about running long-term projects.
But people here believe that this is not a real deadline. They don't expect the US to withdraw its forces so quickly. They believe that US forces will be here for some time to come, just like in Iraq and other places.
And our government is not in a position to take over control of the country. The insurgents have strong positions and the government is not strong enough to deal with them.
People in Kandahar were not optimistic that the recent parliamentary election would bring any real change.
Yet the results still managed to shock: the preliminary result and the final one were totally different.
Just an example - in the preliminary results Hashmath Karzai, a cousin of President Karzai, had 37,000 votes with the expectation to reach 45,000 after counting all votes.
There is a general feeling of disillusion among Pashtuns. They feel that they have been abandoned by the government. They are not interested in joining the insurgency at the moment because they are tired of the militants' bare offensives leaving Pashtuns as the main victims.
The government and international aid agencies argue that because of the bad security in the areas with Pashtun population, they can't do the work required. But Pashtuns believe they are the victims of ethnic discrimination. That's why fewer and fewer Pashto people are interested in the government.
Last week there was a peace conference in Kandahar city led by [former president] Rabbani. Most participants were high-ranking government officials. We haven't seen anyone who represents the common people. Not a single common person had the chance to have their voice heard.
Those who were giving speeches were sending out their messages for militants to join the government without giving them any reasons why they should do so, without making a real effort to convince them.
There was high security and the most embarrassing thing was that the majority of the people didn't even know why the roads were blocked by the army. Why did these high-level representatives come all the way to Kandahar if local people were only going to see them through TV channels from Kabul?
The result of this peace conference is not going to be peace. It ended without a footprint. Wouldn't it have been better, instead of condemning the insurgents, to listen to them for once? Make them feel that their voice is heard? It was a golden opportunity to invite them to the peace conference or invite them to at least send their messages.
It's been a year of bloodshed in Kandahar. People suffered bombardment, road-side bombs, suicide attacks. Development activities are not even worth mentioning - aid workers are always under threat and have to keep a low profile around here.
There are no security problems in northern Afghanistan, so people there can worry about food, electricity and jobs. In the south, our main problem is security.
So people here hope to receive more attention from the government, they hope to be given new development opportunities in the new year. This hope is the only thing they have left." |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8547621.stm | Some 90% of farms redistributed to South Africa's black population from white farmers are not productive, the government has said.
Land reform minister Gugile Nkwinti warned the land might be repossessed if the farms continued to fail.
Almost 60,000 sq km (23,000 sq miles) have been redistributed under policies aimed at benefiting black people who were left impoverished by apartheid.
The land was bought from white farmers who sold up voluntarily.
The BBC's Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says some black farmers are likely to argue that they have been struggling to get the resources and skills to develop their land.
And repossessing the land would provide a whole new problem for the government, our correspondent says, as any move to return the land to its former white owners is bound to be controversial.
The government had set a target of 2014 to redistribute one-third of white-owned land back to the black majority.
But Mr Nkwinti acknowledged that the deadline would not be kept.
He said the focus would now shift to helping the black farmers make their land productive.
"The farms - which were active accruing revenue for the state - were handed over to people, and more than 90% of those are not functional," he said.
"They are not productive, and therefore the state loses the revenue. We cannot afford to go on like that... No country can afford that."
At the end of apartheid in 1994 almost 90% of land was owned by the white community, which made up less than 10% of the population.
Land reform is a sensitive issue in South Africa and has been brought into sharp focus by the decline of agriculture in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where many white commercial farmers have been violently evicted.
Rainbow nation - dream or reality? |
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-39398163 | A man and a woman have been arrested following two bank robberies, a shop raid and a car-jacking.
The pair, both from Telford, were arrested on suspicion of robbery and both have now been bailed until April while investigations continue.
Lloyds Bank, in High Street, Madeley, was targeted on Monday; Barclays Bank, in Shifnal, was raided on Friday, along with One Stop, in Market Drayton.
A woman had her car taken from her in Tudor Way, Shifnal.
A 34-year-old man was held on suspicion of robbery in connection with the Lloyds Bank attack and a 33-year-old woman arrested on suspicion of robbery in connection with all three incidents. |